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Divided (Updated 08/09/23)
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Comments
The ending is not cool at all, instead. Suddenly experiencing the same symptoms as when he was deadly ill before being turned, that's not cool at all...
I keep my finger crossed though, there are so many magic folks around him that someone will find a solution... Right?
I usually have a response, but this time my lips are sealed ; )
I love the vibrant colors of the countryside as Oskar is experiencing sunlight.
The friendship between Oskar and Dinah is heartwarming. It feels like they both found someone they can be themselves with.
The relationship between Oskar and Alistair is also very interesting. You can tell they've been through a lot together in the past.
I'm having much the same reaction as @HermioneSims too. Oskar seems to be settling into being human again, and all is well... until... the return of his old symptoms does not bode well.
Ah, maybe it's just him still getting used to his humanity! It might just be Oskar's paranoia of that whole thing happening all those years ago, you never know! He may be wrong. After all, he seems mostly okay so far...
Apart from that, Róisín POV is always very interesting. Too bad she has so many worries already as a little child, but at least Eli seemed to have managed to cheer her up quite well with the toy horse, and even more so with the full-sized one! I'm a bit worried about what could happen during the next full Moon after that last scene, though...
Seeing Julian again was quite a surprise too, I have to admit that I took a while to recognize him without the Jacobian clothes on! And it also looks like Clem is very honest with him now, I had the impression that it was good for her to have someone to vent out a bit.
At the end of the chapter I really have the feeling that some big event (or even more than one) is about to happen, and knowing how the story was before I'm both eager to read it and worried for the characters
I will say that my plan for next chapter, while not action-packed in any way, will definitely be a ' : O ' one. I hope anyway!
Yeah, there is still one thing that hangs in the air with Julian and Clem that I have to find out whether to even make it happen or not concerning a concern of his for Clem... Oskar is not feeling his best right now so he's resting, but he's mostly tired and achy as opposed to feeling sick in any way. It may be a good outcome! Reynold didn't attack Clem, so he probably knows his daughter just as well as a wolf. The trouble is her full moon tantrums might get in the way XD Yeah the longer hairstyle on Julian takes a lot to get used to, and him not being constantly in his robes XD
I will also do a Father's Day special closer to the time (mid-June).
Honestly, for me it was a good way for revising the flag's colours, I'm not familiar with them all (and also quite bad at memorizing sequences of colours, letters, numbers... ). And, of course, it's also always interesting to have some extra details about the characters!
In particular...
It feels like there are so many ominous things in the air right now. Rosin is getting old enough to recognize that bad things are happening, and that adults aren't always being honest, but not quite old enough to completely understand what is going on. It's a rough age to be at. Eli seems like he cares about her a lot, though. She's cute with how excited she is about the horses (the toy one and the real one).
I was pleased to see Julian at the Peteran feast, even though it might have been unexpected to some to see him there. He's changing "sides" (so much that it got him kicked out of his old church) and I am really interested to see where he ends up. I liked the conversation between him and Clem. It's good that they can talk so openly.
I feel bad for Eli, trying to take on all the work (and dealing with impatient customers), and very worried for Oskar. I'm afraid his health must be getting very bad.
I like your Pride portraits and character bios. Those pictures of Kat and Ellie are my favorites. They look so in love in those dancing poses!
Clementia hasn't had much of a chance to determine her own path yet, she's just been reacting to what's happened to her so far. But clearly she's a very strong, capable and caring person and is still very young.
Hopefully she will have that chance in the future!
Glacier:
So am I, but I'm not sure entirely yet since I actually forgot he's meant to be in his late seventies, even if he doesn't look it. But what better (or worse) than an old man who's good with a sword and has nothing to lose? Yeah, there's no shortage of surrogate fathers in this story but one that isn't really touched on as such is the way Julian tried to 'raise' Clem. Whether or not it became that way solely because of his position within the church, or in part because of losing his own daughter, I'm actually not entirely sure.
CLIENTS ARE THE WORST! I know this from the small bits of art commission work I've done in the past and for Eli and Oskar it's twelve hundred times worse than people sending me poor reference images and not reading my terms of service...
Mightysprite:
I feel bad for poor Daniel, pushed into such a tight spot. Heartbreaking to see him falling apart. But at least his father knows the truth now, so he's not alone.
The place where Oskar and Alistair sparred and talked is really cool looking!
Oskar visits Owen to get medical advice. Interesting that Owen is finding nothing obvious that's wrong. Limitations of the medicine of the day, or something even more hidden than that I wonder?
Oh, and...
The comment about "young people reading books all day" made me laugh.
Sorry I forgot to reply to the other bit! that comic is hilarious, and also the exact reason why I included it in the story because at every point at history there's been some form of 'young people bad' and 'media bad'. Every enjoyable thing has apparently been the killer of conversation and of minds. XD
That was partially just an excuse for a cool swordfight. XD Yeah, at first Gideon was going to hit the roof, but then I rewrote it because he can't be mad at Daniel considering Dan hasn't killed anyone and he's killed plenty of witches in his time as a witchfinder. Plus he did it by choice. Yup, he didn't really want to, but he remembered that Eli mentioned his father potentially curing the illness, plus the only other ones previously who are the closest things to a medical profession are Henry, who's a dead herbalist, and Kat, who's a herbalist who'd have little knowledge on this matter.
It's due to limitations of the day, which I partially got around for this scene by having the Annorin family use alchemy and to some extent, magic, in helping aid science in some ways, and part of why they are somewhat advanced and so highly respected (at one point) and though this hasn't been mentioned yet it's also a point of why Annorin hides some of his findings, because he doesn't want to admit to magic. In the end of the chapter, he does discover that what from what he can actually analyse of it, it seems the blood sample is abnormal, and does match with what's written in Owen's notes that he copied from his father....so not good news, perhaps.
Do not be alarmed because its only been three days since the last one. It's a short chapter, and I released it already as a short chapter because I want to keep it topically separate from what's coming up next. As usual, take your time and there's no need to rush < 3
Owen is becoming a more and more interesting character. He feels like someone truly driven to help people with his medicine, unlike his father. I love the blue lighting in those shots where he is really losing it. The images there are reminiscent of the "obsessed mad-scientist" trying to defy death completely. And his pain when he's thinking about what he has to tell Oskar is so evident in the last screenshot of his section. I like him.
Oskar's emotions through his section of the chapter are so vivid and heartbreaking. Hope, losing hope, anger, sadness...
I think the exchange between them toward the end is really interesting. Oskar just wants to live, and doesn't want false hope, while Owen wants to salvage as much knowledge as he can from Oskar's condition in order to potentially save others even if he can't save Oskar. I like how you put that aspect of their different points of view in there and how it makes Oskar angry, even though Owen is trying to help him. Feels very real.
That scene and his paragraph was inspired by a post on Tumblr which spoke about how we all think death was just 'meh' in the past because it was so much more common, when you can tell by all the things people did for the dead and to honour them that that's far from the truth. It's even worse with Oskar, because his father is the reason that this is happening, so he feels a sort of secondhand guilt.
I'm really glad Oskar's emotions come through well here because I'm trying to make this feel real and powerful, without going over-the-top about it, and without it turning it into a yet another soppy story about someone with a terminal illness solely to make people feel better about themselves and about life. I do really like this interaction as well because Owen is trying to think of the bigger picture, whereas this experience has just narrowed Oskar's view of the bigger picture because what's the point of thinking about the bigger picture when you have no idea how much time you have left (from his perspective)?
AS A NOTE TO READERS: This might be another busy week for updates, possibly. I will try and do the Father's Day Special this week since it's this week, but my main chapter might take a while this time around...so we'll see!
Anyway, I wasn't expecting Dan to tell everything to his father, but (for now) to me sounds like the right thing to do in that situation. If in the previous part of the story everything pointed at something very bad happening to Annorin, but in this case Lord Volpe sounds like a good candidate. (Unrelated comment, but to me the surname "Volpe" always reminds of a quite wit person, because the word in my language means "fox" and foxes are quite wit animals in general. I'm not really sure Lord Volpe can be an example of a particularly wit person, anyway.
I found the fight scene very cool as well, beautiful settings and pictures!
And the fight/conversation with Alistair also convinced Oskar to seek a doctor, this is interesting. I didn't expect him to choose Owen, but it makes quite a lot of sense actually, he's one of the closest characters to the modern approach to medicine (which, hopefully, also means more reliable).
In the latest chapter instead Owen's contrast with his father is extremely evident, on the one hand seeing him lose control and throwing around electricity looks quite scary (mostly for the "losing control" part), but the fact that the target was annoying Annorin explains everything. His choice to keep helping Oskar is quite admirable as well, his attitude is really different from his father's.
Yup, he didn't particularly want to go to Owen, but the only trouble is it's either him or Kat, and Kat probably has no knowledge of terminal illness. On top of that, Eli mentioned to Oskar about his father apparently making a prototype cure for his illness many years ago, and then gatekept it from everyone essentially. Which is the other reason that Oskar decides to just give in and go to Owen Annorin. YES the fight scene was fun to do! I figured if anyone could convince Oskar somehow it'd be Alistair.
Oh yeah, Owen is the last character anyone would expect to go feral and it happened anyway. That bit was fun to write. I think after all Samuel has done to him, Eli, Oskar, and the entirety of Henford, I think deep down Owen doesn't really care what happens to Samuel or what Samuel thinks anymore.
Due to the chapter itself requiring a lot, the next actual chapter will probably be a while before I finish it.
In your story there are a lot of different father figures, a few quite awful ones and many others showing that there are many positive ways to cover the role. The variety of situations depicted is probably what impressed me the most, the description of families is one of those aspects in which I find it very easy to fall into a few established stereotypes instead.