[royaltea’s back with more terrible writing! (critiques please :”D)]

hello! i’m royaltea and while i actually do have a semi-coherent story that i should be working on, i’ve instead been dabbling in something i’ve affectionately dubbed “not-canon shenanigans” (NCS). a more accurate name would technically be “i’ve started to hate my own storyline so now i’m procrastinating doing actual writing by writing unfinished plots that take place in the same universe but have no plans to actually be incorporated”. fun times!

(please ignore the title. i always name my google docs in a really weird way.)

anyhow, that’s the link! a fair warning: it’s 11k words, and while i strongly think you should read the entire thing to get the full effect, i understand that you probably don’t want to read 11k words, so feel free to read part of it. i’m looking for feedback on things like character believability/relatibility (or at the very least, does my character sound like someone you would root for), story/prose flow (does everything sound like it belongs there? how smoothly do the events pass?), and anything else that you think needs to be fixed! i actually think i’m good on things with grammar, but of course if there’s grammar mistakes, please tell me.

many thanks if you can help!

[hello is it okay if I comment?]
The first thing I'd say is that
boy
I haven't been so viscerally horrified by writing since I read a compilation of horror stories back in fourth grade. Not horrified as in "this is so bad" but horrified as in "the tone and events in this story are so creepy and unsettling I feel it in my toes and I immediately want to question my existence and all the interactions I've had in the past 24 hours"
I've said it before (I think??? this was all a while ago) and I'll say it again: You have a way with creating mood and tension and tone in your writing that I've rarely seen outside of select published literature. The way you subtly lay out your descriptions and have such a strong voice for your narrator and you add such unique details that I can't help but love every minute of it!
I have to admit that sometimes Angela delved so deep into self-reflection that I didn't have the best idea of what she was actually doing or what exactly was going on (especially near the end of the text, somewhere around where she has that moment of who am I and what's going on). I would also ask how much Octavia knew about what was going on and why she was being so deliberately vague with Angela even though Angela was apparently not possessed. Plot-wise, I do wonder as to why the Aslans would leave two girls unsupervised in their house and not go looking for them, like at all, but at the same time I'm so far beyond questioning them because they're so creepy and unsettling
All in all it was an excellent piece of writing which will keep me up at night, that's for sure. All the stuff I said is just my own personal opinions and impressions, I don't think you objectively have any major issues in your writing, or things that stood out to me as obvious red flags
[I'm so sorry by the way] [I read royaltea in the title and was like sign me up! but now I'm having second thoughts because it doesn't really feel like anything I said would be especially helpful to you?? Anyway] [feel free not to respond to me, I'm just over here in my corner waving the royaltea appreciation banner because I love your writing so much]

YOOOOOO IT’S YOU

• wanna know a fun fact? adrien’s last name isn’t even canonly aslan, and i actually don’t plan to make his last name aslan. i’m using aslan as a placeholder last name only due to the fact that i can’t to refer to adrien’s parents continually as “adrien’s mother” and “adrien’s father” because that would be so awkward.
• adrien aslan sounds ugly anyway lmao
• really? that’s great to hear! i was really trying to hit the “i’m not out-of-my-mind terrified but this is still mildly unsettling” kind of feel, and i’m so glad that i did it because i SUCK at writing things prominent and/or subtle in emotion
• you have literally no idea how amazed i am that somebody found mood and tension in my writing because that’s what i suck at. so much.
• yaaaAAYYYYY, glad to hear that the entire thing wasn’t super description-y, because i tend to overdescribe things and/or describe things that don’t really matter that much.
• thank you for those two pointers! i don’t think i’ll be changing angela’s monologue lengths in this particular excerpt (i’m too lazy to rewrite, although today i did go back and fix some minor mistakes), but it’s definitely something for me to be cautious about in the future, because definitely i have a monologue issue.
• honestly? i really cannot even explain myself why octavia loves being vague. i think the best way i could keep it is that she’s paranoid that BC is omnipresent or something, and octavia might’ve just been paranoid/cautious in a way, even if angela was clearly not possessed, because she literally just enjoys keeping to herself, no matter how impractical it may be.
• YEAH I REALIZED THE WHOLE “ANG & OCT RUNNING OFF AND LEAVING A NOTE TO SEEM UNSUSPICIOUS” IS IN FACT, VERY SUSPICIOUS. i forgot that mrs. aslan would’ve presumed them to exit through the front/main door, and since they clearly didn’t exit through the front door, then mrs. aslan could’ve (accurately) guessed that they were both still in the house. i think i might go back again and add something about them “leaving” through the back door or something? i’m not sure
• the zodiac crew has been changed in different (although probably pretty small) ways since august to now, and you can probably tell that from the sheer amount of ways my detail stockpile google doc has grown and become messier. this excerpt really has no footing in the canon timeline or universe but it’s nice to be able to write some of the characters to try and connect with them, and i’d really like to thank you again for straight up writing me essays since may. you’ve given me a lot of motivation to stick with angela and the others and continue to flesh them out!
• if you have no idea what the detail stockpile google doc thing is, it’s that really messy google doc i linked to you near the end of our really long conversation on the other thread. seriously open it up and don’t bother reading anything, just scroll through and look at the horrific amount of lists there are. everything is spiraling out of control lmao
• in conclusion: thank you, and it’s great to talk to you again!
• also this is a horrifically formatted response, i know i keep randomly jumping from one topic to the other but it’s because i’m tired and don’t feel like making things sound good :”D

YOOOOOO IT’S YOU

IT'S ME

wanna know a fun fact? adrien’s last name isn’t even canonly aslan, and i actually don’t plan to make his last name aslan. i’m using aslan as a placeholder last name only due to the fact that i can’t to refer to adrien’s parents continually as “adrien’s mother” and “adrien’s father” because that would be so awkward.
adrien aslan sounds ugly anyway lmao

I figured (or, well, hoped)
because if it was Adrien Aslan then it wouldn't be AM
and then it wouldn't be AM and PM

the zodiac crew has been changed in different (although probably pretty small) ways since august to now, and you can probably tell that from the sheer amount of ways my detail stockpile google doc has grown and become messier. this excerpt really has no footing in the canon timeline or universe but it’s nice to be able to write some of the characters to try and connect with them, and i’d really like to thank you again for straight up writing me essays since may. you’ve given me a lot of motivation to stick with angela and the others and continue to flesh them out!

Thank YOU for writing me essays since May! I honestly think you entertained/gave me thought fodder a lot more than I helped you
I'm glad though! It's really great to see that you're still developing things and working them out!

if you have no idea what the detail stockpile google doc thing is, it’s that really messy google doc i linked to you near the end of our really long conversation on the other thread. seriously open it up and don’t bother reading anything, just scroll through and look at the horrific amount of lists there are. everything is spiraling out of control lmao

Will do!
EDIT: I JUST READ THE LEMON SCENE
AND I LAUGHED FOR A GOOD TEN MINUTES
OUT LOUD
(wow okay I don't mean lemon as in fanfic code I mean lemon as in the when-life-gives-you-lemons-you-chomp-them-like-an-apple-because-you're-too-awkward-to-stop scene
Anyway)
I'm dead you've successfully killed me and ascended to comedy platinum level

in conclusion: thank you, and it’s great to talk to you again!

Ditto!
(by the way - I've been thinking that maybe you'd be more comfortable talking about this in a less public space? that's totally fine with me too if you prefer) (whatever floats your boat) (I mean you don't have to at all) (either way I'm glad you're still writing! I wondered sometimes)

• i can’t believe that you remembered the AM and PM thing?? on the old thread, that was literally one of the first things i told you, so i expected that you’d have long forgotten about it by now. pretty cool that you actually remembered lmaooo
• a lot of the zodiac crew are starting to get actual, full names (e.g. mina delmer, cecilia gustice, octavia mordax, juniper epona wang) and currently i’ve been trying to find adrien a last name, but you will not believe how difficult it is to find sun, lion, or cat related things that start with m. i considered making his last name an anagram of meowing or mewling (for obvious reasons - cats) but i can’t seem to really think of any good-sounding anagrams? (and to be honest, his last name being an anagram of the noise cats make is kinda lame anyhow)
• the names of the characters are genuinely the bane of my existence. edith’s full name is edith marceline perendale, but several times i considered changing her middle name to adair or her last name to merino, and then that just didn’t sound right, so i left it as is (reasons - adair means spear and spear is the symbol of aries’ ruling planet, mars, and merino is from the the sheep breed of the same name, because aries is a sheep).
• also i kid you not i was considering making adrien’s first name kelvin instead.
• “royaltea that’s a temperature unit. you might as well name him celsius”
• literally the entire point of naming him kelvin was because of the whole temperature unit thing, because he’s like, the sun, and you know, heat….temperature…..
• i’m really stretching here but you get the memo
• i gave up on kelvin because i couldn’t let go of the AM/PM thing
• also, kelvin is a very strange name anyhow. it sounds like kevin (which, no offense to any kevins out there, is a somewhat boring name), and i don’t think adrien would appreciate being named after a temperature unit thing. imagine if your name was fahrenheit or celsius or something
• i went through a minor phase where i wanted to get science-y, so i considered omitting juniper’s middle name — epona — and then have her have a hyphenated last name like angela. i wanted her hyphenated last name to be volt-wang, volt as in (again) the measurement of electric potential, because (juniper is sagittarius) sagittarius’ ruling planet is jupiter, roman counterpart to zeus, and you know. zeus wields a lightning bolt and lightning is a form of electricity so
• also. i tried to shove “ampere” (another electricity unit thing) into edith’s name at one point because electric sheep.
• phoebe’s cat’s name had been changed from eclipse to nox already, but i considered changing it again to kugelblitz, because kugelblitz is a black hole and phoebe’s cat is a black cat
• anyways. that was my sad attempt to be cool. as you can see, nothing has been changed. either i just couldn’t get used to their new names, or i didn’t like the meaning anymore
• MOVING ON
• nah man, thank YOU. i’ve never talked with anybody this in-detail about my story before, and naturally i’m a talkative sort of person, so it feels great to just start info-dumping and have people actually be interested :”D
• phoebe has made a lot of mistakes. a lot.
• also, i don’t mind what platform we talk on! public or private works with me. i’m assuming that you saw my topic in the site support board where i wanted to delete our old chat thread, but that was nothing against you. i sort of just went through a weird phase where i was like “I DID SO MUCH RESEARCH FOR ALL THESE SMALL DETAILS I DON’T WANR ANYONE TO STEAL THEM DMEKSKEKWKWJWJWWKW,AM” but now i’m not so worried anymore. i’m sure that nobody will want to name their characters after SI units lmao

currently i’ve been trying to find adrien a last name, but you will not believe how difficult it is to find sun, lion, or cat related things that start with m. i considered making his last name an anagram of meowing or mewling (for obvious reasons - cats) but i can’t seem to really think of any good-sounding anagrams? (and to be honest, his last name being an anagram of the noise cats make is kinda lame anyhow)

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head would be a name derived from "menagerie" (as in the places where lions are kept) but that's like the opposite of subtle and I'm not sure how well that would sound with his first name

also, i don’t mind what platform we talk on! public or private works with me. i’m assuming that you saw my topic in the site support board where i wanted to delete our old chat thread, but that was nothing against you. i sort of just went through a weird phase where i was like “I DID SO MUCH RESEARCH FOR ALL THESE SMALL DETAILS I DON’T WANR ANYONE TO STEAL THEM DMEKSKEKWKWJWJWWKW,AM” but now i’m not so worried anymore. i’m sure that nobody will want to name their characters after SI units lmao

Fair enough! I read the thread and had a moment of contemplation about how little I am concerned with privacy (I wasn't really sharing anything at that point)
But then I recently went on a writing website related rampage (I wanted a software/site I could use to create multiple parallel timelines for one of my plots) and realised that I am, in fact, very much concerned with privacy
Did you know that privacy is considered a premium feature on a lot of writing sites?? Bc I didn't and that was lowkey horrifying
Yeah I'm broke/unable to spend a decent chunk of money on what I consider a lil hobby but does that mean I want to share my plot with the entire internet?? no
So in conclusion notebook.ai is the best for letting me be a mess for free
(wow that was very off topic)
(so yeah I'm also open to whatever platform, if you want to keep ranting about your story!)

• i might be able to make a cool sounding/looking anagram out of menagerie. we’ll see!
• yyyeeeaaaAAAHHH, not a lot of writing websites have privacy functions — either you’re totally cut off from talking w/ anybody or the website is transparent. of course i don’t totally know the validity behind my words because notebook.ai is essentially the first platform i’ve shared my story on, but i’d assume that probably how most writing websites go
• this is a disappointingly short reply, but i have no idea what to say. if you want, i can talk about some really small additions i’ve made to my story, or you can read some parts of my detail stockpile and just give me any ideas, questions, feedback, or general comments! it’s your choice :”D

Whatever's most helpful to you, I guess? I'll definitely read through the stockpile but do tell me if there's anything you want me to comment on. I 100% don't know what I'm doing but I do hope I can be helpful to you somehow

"I'll definitely read through the stockpile" she said
ten days ago
and proceeded to neglect reading through the stockpile
(so yeah, sorry about that! I wish I could say I was super busy Adulting (tm) but that'd be a lie) (I just forgot) (sorry)

ASSFGFHJL LEAVE IT TO ME TO FORGOT THAT AN ENTIRE WEBSITE EXISTS
man, i’m really sorry for this 9 day late reply. i straight-up forgot about notebook.ai. but, anyhow, i’m just gonna say that if you’re not interested in the stockpile, then literally don’t read it. it’s really just awful and nonsensical rambling from yours truly, and i’m sure whatever you’re doing in life is tenfold more important. again, my apologies! :”D