Apr 17, 2025
To:Orionless
Yeah man, I did change stuff as we were commenting/after we finished commenting. Things you say don't just fly over my head. Many of the things I explain in the comments generally end up helping me go back and change things. It was a valid concern that I wasn't expecting. 
Some things were cut, some were added. I think the chapter is intended to emit a feeling of "silent dread" that Victor does not fully express. I also removed all italics to make that more clear: he's not screaming or verbally frantic. He's just horrified, even with his unique logic. What he sees is so horrifying ("the god wants them dead") that it mentally stops him from transcending humanity. And in the end, the horror/guilt is enough to make him fold at the very end. Once again, it's not that he changes as a character: he's just finding himself in a bad situation, where his logic isn't enough to make him carry out his original plans.
It's a weird chapter, for sure. If you know "I Have No Mouth, and I must Scream", the short story is also written quite dreadfully despite not having the protagonist outwardly tweaking after all the hellish things he goes through. And even in the end, when the "big reveal" happens in that story, it's written very quietly (yet it sticks to you for a long, long time. I think that story is AMAZING).
Of course, this chapter isn't on that level, and it was never supposed to be. This chapter's main intent was to inform the reader like "yeah, well, whatever you were expecting from this story... let me correct you."
This chapter is far, FAR from the original vision of this scene I had a few weeks back LOL
