[Report This]Date: August 31 2023 4:11 AM Title: Chapter 2 - Invitations and Questionnaires
Fawkes, Iscariot, and Brutus, huh? I haven't seen a firm that loyal since Benedict Arnold opened his own firm in London.
This chapter let us jump right in and dive pretty deep into these four characters. They already feel pretty familiar to me, even though we just got a quick snapshot of each of them. This was an excellent job of establishing not only said characters but the relationships between them very quickly.
Richard comes off as a pretty good guy here, and he immediately drew sympathy from me for being accused of causing emotional distress just for rapping in the workplace (especially when you find out that the girls who came after him for it were listening to exactly what he was rapping). It makes sense that he's lost his mojo, and the way he goes so far out of his way to avoid even the appearance of using his height or position as Ronnie's boss to make her feel uncomfortable, even though he's clearly struggling to not pursue her, is pretty admirable.
Of course, it was pretty obvious even before we got to see things from Ronnie's POV that she was into Mr. Feel. Still, to learn just how into him she is was enlightening. And the revelation that she wants to move past being his personal assistant and be his partner made her taking on so much responsibility when she sent Richard home make so much more sense. From his POV, I thought she was just a super competent assistant who was going above and beyond because she had a thing for him. But now it's clear that she's preparing to step up.
I think their situation is an ideal one for what's coming, and their part of the chapter made me really eager to see what the Fab Four product line can do for them and those pesky inhibitions of Richard's.
Kim and Jen were also really intriguing to read. I was left wondering why Jen is looking elsewhere for love when she's clearly into Kim, but I feel like that thought implanted was by design. Maybe they just like being friends with benefits?
I do really like the classic pairing, though. Jen is a more carefree, what's-the-worst-that can-happen type who loves what she does for a living, while Kim is more of the no-nonsense, trying-to-be-an-adult type who has outgrown her streaming career and is looking for a way out. Still, we see Jen bring out the softer side in Kim, both through their interactions and even through the latter anticipating Jen's arrival with a prepared bowl of pasta. And Jen being comfortable enough to take Kim's ribbing about her fetish in stride shows just how strong the bond between the two really is.
One piece of constructive criticism, Veronica Vale sounds awfully similar to Victoria Vane. When I first read that name, I found myself wondering why Missy's sister was trying to partner up with Richard, as they previous chapter made it sound as though she was already a big deal in the business world and didn't see the value of investing in the sex industry. Then when I saw Veronica was Richard's personal assistant, I actually thought you had mistakenly put Missy's sister's name instead of Ronnie's. It wasn't until you noted that Veronica goes by Ronnie that I realized that her actual name just sounds and looks really similar to Victoria's.
So, for me at least, it threw me off to have two new characters introduced in straight chapters with names that are really similar (they both have the same amount of letters, alliteration with the letter V and even their last names are just one letter off).
Other than that, I actually did like that Ronnie's narrative started with her proper name and left us a few breadcrumbs to piece together before outright telling us it was her. It's just that the proper name made me mistake her for another character entirely for a minute.
Oh, and I love Ronnie as a nickname for Veronica. Is that common? This is the first I've heard it.
And overall, this chapter did a really good job of building anticipation for the investor presentation. I know dedicating chapters to setting things up isn't necessarily for everyone, but I love this kind of thing when it's done well, which it was here. I think the payoff will definitely be worth the wait.
Author's Response:
Thanks for the kind words, and the sound advice!
I'm glad to hear there's sympathy for Richard; I was a little worried about how he would be received. I'm looking forward to putting Ronnie in a playroom with him, and letting our little lady go to town. I don't want to touch on Jen and Kim's relationship too much outside of the story, I'm just pleased to hear the response was positive, and you're asking the questions I expected and hoped for.
I'll admit, I'm experimenting with a couple things as I write this story, and the similarity between the names of Veronica Vale, potential future protagonist, and Victoria Vane, possible nascent supervillain, was 100% intentional.
Characters with such similar names, both visually and phonetically, has long been a pet peeve of mine. Writing a story where the main or major characters have names like Sarah, Sasha, and Sarisha, is implicitly asking the reader to expend extra effort to keep track of who's who (and that goes double when you branch out to similar fantasy names). Adding that burden is something I never want to do. However, I wanted to challenge myself with this story, and "two characters with near-identical names" was one of the challenges I drew out of a hat. Now I just have to make it work. I'm hoping Ronnie's nickname and strong personality, and Victoria's self-descriptive name and pointed introduction in the next chapter will together be sufficient to keep the characters distinct with minimal strain as we move forward. *Fingers crossed for luck*