Link to the Story

Public.

Two abstain votes? That's kind of wierd. O_o

I like Lia and I like this story. A had a little "A-ha!" moment when I read the title after reading the story again. Excellent piece.

Yea.

I'm still a little hesitant about this story for some reason, though I'm having trouble placing my finger on just why. I like Lia's characterization and her magic use here, I think it's just that the latter half of the story lacks fat somehow. It just feels rather slight. Most notably I think the same things that bugged me in the thread are bugging me now: you introduce the ghost train and her unique magic form but you don't really do much with them. It feels like a double barrelled chekov's gun that never quite goes off.

I'm not sure what I'll be voting yet. I don't know that I want to vote NAI without a clearer sense of what's not working... that seems like an unfair burden.

Typo:

Should be "to get at".

Typo:

Should be "used the rest".

Wow, that was fantastic in my opinion. I love how every character you use relies on the idea of "actions speak louder than words". While I can understand Keeper's confusion over not using the ghost train as more than a tool, I could almost say the same about the saloon in the early portion -- you don't use it at much more than staging ground and plot device. I, however, am perfectly okay with this since we're essentially dealing with a character piece from Lia's perspective. There are a lot of small things that just don't get fully utilized because they aren't necessary to the story at hand, namely, Lia's experience on Jakkard.

As far as using and subverting standard Western tropes, I love the way you did it as much as everyone else. I think you can figure out which way I'm voting

Oh, and thanks for making me have to re-organize half my Archive map with one fell swoop

Heh... yeah, it's only kind of a coincidence that Lia's materials bridge the two major clusters. I wouldn't have forced it, but I was thinking it when I was outlining Louder Than Words here.

I was mostly just commenting that you connected both left-sides of the major clusters, leaving me needing to re-arrange one cluster to connect them correctly.

Also, we're talking about using trigger warnings in Archived works in Ruwin's new Fisco story (Cold Shoulder), and this story may well be one to get a warning since it mentions rape, so I'd like to hear your opinions on it if you'd come on down.

I'm in for the hat, if nothing else!

I can now confirm that the second Abstain vote would not count toward the final result.

Yeah sorry about that. I misclicked.

No need to apologize. That's why the Archivist account was given the ability to see what users voted. Even if you hadn't abstained (which, thank you for being considerate that way), we could have still tallied the vote correctly. Welcome, as well; I take your appearance here as indication that our works interest you.

Ack, I forgot to actually vote on this. I kind of share Keeper's feelings about the second third of the story feeling a little indistinct. But, at the end of the day, I like Lia's use here, there are several nice moments, I don't think there's anything wrong with the piece, so I'm going to give it a thumbs-up.