Dreaming of the Garden Discussion Thread

[inxsi]

Wait!
It's over?????

Yes, it is over. Sorry if it is abrupt.

[inxsi]

It's the part where Caitlyn is revealed to be not only an intruder in the dream, but some eldritch monstrosity that has a keen interest in Beryl. Since she does not remember the Leviathan dream sequence, this should make even less sense to her. Yet first, you make such a mysterious character, and then, what role does she play, except for an involuntary SM session? The hostage situation was indeed resolved too quickly. Most importantly, it did not add something of equal importance to the story, at least relative to its apparent significance. This gap between a grand build-up and, let's say, under-usage of this character was rather odd.

Caitlyn did have some other roles to play driving the plot (though maybe I did not do a good job of conveying this and maybe the ending makes it moot):

SpoilerShow

Alex's affair with her, and his guilt over it, was the cause of his poor performance for the past month (and was why no one stuck with his plan during the exercise).

She was responsible for all of the deaths that Desiree investigated, killed Claude which put Beryl in Desiree's sights to be investigated, and trained Beryl to use her limited telepathy in a way that the Loroi did not consider practical.

I also thought I had foreshadowed developments better than I guess I did?

SpoilerShow

Back when Caitlyn was introduced, her noticing "vanilla cologne" on Alex was the first sign, though it was not necessarily meant to be picked up on by readers.

Beryl opening up to a random stranger in the locker room and taking her instructions to admit that she needs to see a doctor for what Beryl believed was a minor injury was supposed to be a sign that something was not right. Maybe that did not get attributed to Caitlyn, but I would have thought the later scene where Caitlyn trains Beryl in self-defense and the subsequent fight with Fireblade (and the revelations about that) would have been noticed.

In my mind, by the time Caitlyn was abducting Beryl, the main revelation was more that Caitlyn is now in "love" with Beryl instead of Alex and less that she has these abilities, but I suppose I misjudged.

I'm not pressuring you or anything, it's your writing, after all.

No worries - just trying to set expectations on anything I have planned. I am not sure yet when Caitlyn would next be involved in a story directly, just based on what she would logically do in the situation she is in.

[Cthulhu]

Caitlyn did have some other roles to play driving the plot (though maybe I did not do a good job of conveying this and maybe the ending makes it moot):

SpoilerShow

Alex's affair with her, and his guilt over it, was the cause of his poor performance for the past month (and was why no one stuck with his plan during the exercise).

She was responsible for all of the deaths that Desiree investigated, killed Claude which put Beryl in Desiree's sights to be investigated, and trained Beryl to use her limited telepathy in a way that the Loroi did not consider practical.

The deaths did not require her to be a monster, and the affair even less so. This reveal caused her importance to be elevated by an order of magnitude, but the impact upon the plot lagged behind. The abrupt ending simply magnified the confusion.
Frankly, I've seen such sudden and rushed conclusions mostly where "executive meddling" forced the author to end the project prematurely.

I also thought I had foreshadowed developments better than I guess I did?

SpoilerShow

Back when Caitlyn was introduced, her noticing "vanilla cologne" on Alex was the first sign, though it was not necessarily meant to be picked up on by readers.

Beryl opening up to a random stranger in the locker room and taking her instructions to admit that she needs to see a doctor for what Beryl believed was a minor injury was supposed to be a sign that something was not right. Maybe that did not get attributed to Caitlyn, but I would have thought the later scene where Caitlyn trains Beryl in self-defense and the subsequent fight with Fireblade (and the revelations about that) would have been noticed.

In my mind, by the time Caitlyn was abducting Beryl, the main revelation was more that Caitlyn is now in "love" with Beryl instead of Alex and less that she has these abilities, but I suppose I misjudged.

The foreshadowing was not really a problem, but the part about the practice and the fight with Fireblade are indeed not clear enough. I thought that this lotai that she demonstrated there was caused by her link with Alex.

No worries - just trying to set expectations on anything I have planned. I am not sure yet when Caitlyn would next be involved in a story directly, just based on what she would logically do in the situation she is in.

Well, you don't need to feature Caitlyn herself, but how about that creature itself, maybe even in a new form? I doubt that it will abandon Beryl any time soon.