for Escape from Mouse-zandaran10/2/2020 c6 
54Igenlode Wordsmith
Ooops: a half-finished review got left over from before lockdown :-(
"Perhaps his dishonest act had invited a curse upon him, since now he could barely turn around without finding gems of all kinds" - oh, I like this idea; he jumps to the conclusion that this influx of unexplained and probably ill-gotten jewels is some kind of supernatural punishment on him for not having handed in dead Erik's hoard when he originally found it...
"The stones were of such high quality that surely they came from some special place, and their owner must require some special favor from him" - although... that's a good idea too. Maybe someone at court is trying to bribe him discreetly.
"Nadir planted the diamond in a mynah's nest" - now that's a very ingenious solution! (Echoes of the Jackdaw of Rheims.)
Although surely the Shah can't believe the the bird carried out the original theft inside the palace, only that it acquired the stone after the thief had discarded it in panic...
"a skittering sound, following by familiar, heart-rending sobs" - to be honest, I'm surprising that Nadir's reaction is pity rather than 'oh no, not again', if Erik has turned up bemoaning his miserable lot often enough for the symptoms to be that familiar ;-p
"Erik realized he was smearing tears, phlegm, and blood against Nadir's shirt" - blood? I thought Nadir had just spent a long time bandaging him up? And what about the blue silk coat - is he still wearing it (doesn't it get in the way of the bandaging, and wouldn't it become as filthy as the handkerchief?)
"I see you're quite wealthy for a Daroga" - given the number of stones Erik has been giving him, that should surely be no surprise?
"Since these beautiful things were rightfully his, he had no qualms about taking them and keeping them" - so he's now stealing back from the Daroga again ;-D
"Each of these 'gifts' is a death sentence" - nice line.
Nadir smile sadly - typo: smiled
"If he wanted to hurt you, he would have done something worse! You would be injured, or even trapped in a pit!" - that's remarkably specific (it's even something Erik-the-rat might be able to arrange, come to think of it). You'd think Nadir would immediately get suspicious at this odd answer ;-p
"Erik huffed and puffed and spun his tail madly, resembling a walrus with his long, smooth body" - I don't think you can imply that whipping his tail around made him resemble a walrus, since that tail is a major element of difference between them. And walruses aren't long and smooth - they're wrinkled and covered with sparse hair (maybe you were thinking of a seal?)
Of course, Erik is probably wrinkled rather than long and smooth himself.
"Heaving a sigh, he reached to pick the unhappy little creature" - typo: pick up
"Erik attempted to dart away, but the added weight in his pocket held him down" - even for an animal the size of a rat, I can't see "one of the smaller gems" being heavy enough to make any discernible difference! They're traditionally measured in carats, which are only a fraction of a single gram - unless it's in a gold setting, which will make it far heavier?
"One more heist; the greatest heist of his life. He would find a treasure so magnificent that not even the self-righteous old Daroga could refuse" - oh dear, Erik hasn't got the message at all, has he? :-(
"tied to the rat's belly with dirty, used bandages" - so that's the use Erik found for them!
"Do you know how much trouble I went through to get this? Take it!"/ In truth, it had not been much trouble at all - now that feels very Erik, both the contemptuous skill and the dramatisation :-D And I like the way that he admires himself wearing the emerald elegantly at his waist just like the Shah (even if not with a golden belt).
"he quietly plowed through the wooden bottom of a display case" - gnawed through, presumably? (You might 'plough through' a snowdrift.)
"The next moment, he fell to his knees, cradling Erik and sobbing" - I have to say that feels completely over the top to me as a response (particularly given that the first meeting referred to consisted of Erik climbing him simply because he happened to be there, rather than any conscious rescue on Nadir's part; "the man had proved to be a satisfactory beast of burden").
Tears to the eyes as his heart is touched, maybe; crumpling up and sobbing, surely not...
"Do you doubt my abilities?"/"No, I know you can do it" - Nadir has clearly worked out how to get round the predictable 'why should I?' response!
Erik shows ingenuity in not (by and large) returning things to their original positions, but instead leaving them in places where they might just conceivably have been lost. Presumably any kudos the Daroga might conceivably have gained, had he instead claimed to have 'discovered' the thief's hoard and returned the jewels himself, would have been outweighed by the pressure to track down who precisely had been responsible for leaving this supposed cache in the first place, which he is obviously not in any position to do - so, ironically, while he *has* in fact been responsible for curtailing the spate of thefts and restoring the stolen goods, he will never be able to reap the reward for successfully doing his job ;-)
54Igenlode WordsmithOoops: a half-finished review got left over from before lockdown :-(
"Perhaps his dishonest act had invited a curse upon him, since now he could barely turn around without finding gems of all kinds" - oh, I like this idea; he jumps to the conclusion that this influx of unexplained and probably ill-gotten jewels is some kind of supernatural punishment on him for not having handed in dead Erik's hoard when he originally found it...
"The stones were of such high quality that surely they came from some special place, and their owner must require some special favor from him" - although... that's a good idea too. Maybe someone at court is trying to bribe him discreetly.
"Nadir planted the diamond in a mynah's nest" - now that's a very ingenious solution! (Echoes of the Jackdaw of Rheims.)
Although surely the Shah can't believe the the bird carried out the original theft inside the palace, only that it acquired the stone after the thief had discarded it in panic...
"a skittering sound, following by familiar, heart-rending sobs" - to be honest, I'm surprising that Nadir's reaction is pity rather than 'oh no, not again', if Erik has turned up bemoaning his miserable lot often enough for the symptoms to be that familiar ;-p
"Erik realized he was smearing tears, phlegm, and blood against Nadir's shirt" - blood? I thought Nadir had just spent a long time bandaging him up? And what about the blue silk coat - is he still wearing it (doesn't it get in the way of the bandaging, and wouldn't it become as filthy as the handkerchief?)
"I see you're quite wealthy for a Daroga" - given the number of stones Erik has been giving him, that should surely be no surprise?
"Since these beautiful things were rightfully his, he had no qualms about taking them and keeping them" - so he's now stealing back from the Daroga again ;-D
"Each of these 'gifts' is a death sentence" - nice line.
Nadir smile sadly - typo: smiled
"If he wanted to hurt you, he would have done something worse! You would be injured, or even trapped in a pit!" - that's remarkably specific (it's even something Erik-the-rat might be able to arrange, come to think of it). You'd think Nadir would immediately get suspicious at this odd answer ;-p
"Erik huffed and puffed and spun his tail madly, resembling a walrus with his long, smooth body" - I don't think you can imply that whipping his tail around made him resemble a walrus, since that tail is a major element of difference between them. And walruses aren't long and smooth - they're wrinkled and covered with sparse hair (maybe you were thinking of a seal?)
Of course, Erik is probably wrinkled rather than long and smooth himself.
"Heaving a sigh, he reached to pick the unhappy little creature" - typo: pick up
"Erik attempted to dart away, but the added weight in his pocket held him down" - even for an animal the size of a rat, I can't see "one of the smaller gems" being heavy enough to make any discernible difference! They're traditionally measured in carats, which are only a fraction of a single gram - unless it's in a gold setting, which will make it far heavier?
"One more heist; the greatest heist of his life. He would find a treasure so magnificent that not even the self-righteous old Daroga could refuse" - oh dear, Erik hasn't got the message at all, has he? :-(
"tied to the rat's belly with dirty, used bandages" - so that's the use Erik found for them!
"Do you know how much trouble I went through to get this? Take it!"/ In truth, it had not been much trouble at all - now that feels very Erik, both the contemptuous skill and the dramatisation :-D And I like the way that he admires himself wearing the emerald elegantly at his waist just like the Shah (even if not with a golden belt).
"he quietly plowed through the wooden bottom of a display case" - gnawed through, presumably? (You might 'plough through' a snowdrift.)
"The next moment, he fell to his knees, cradling Erik and sobbing" - I have to say that feels completely over the top to me as a response (particularly given that the first meeting referred to consisted of Erik climbing him simply because he happened to be there, rather than any conscious rescue on Nadir's part; "the man had proved to be a satisfactory beast of burden").
Tears to the eyes as his heart is touched, maybe; crumpling up and sobbing, surely not...
"Do you doubt my abilities?"/"No, I know you can do it" - Nadir has clearly worked out how to get round the predictable 'why should I?' response!
Erik shows ingenuity in not (by and large) returning things to their original positions, but instead leaving them in places where they might just conceivably have been lost. Presumably any kudos the Daroga might conceivably have gained, had he instead claimed to have 'discovered' the thief's hoard and returned the jewels himself, would have been outweighed by the pressure to track down who precisely had been responsible for leaving this supposed cache in the first place, which he is obviously not in any position to do - so, ironically, while he *has* in fact been responsible for curtailing the spate of thefts and restoring the stolen goods, he will never be able to reap the reward for successfully doing his job ;-)
4/7/2020 c5 Igenlode Wordsmith
"it had traded out a coat of rags for a courtier's rich coat and robes" - evidently this is where the Opera Rat acquired his incongruous taste for human clothing!
"Or, by the one and only God, Glorified and Sublime be He, I will find another way to save you from Erik's fate" - I don't know if it was intentional, but the implications of that sound distinctly ominous... would the Daroga rather see Erik dead than corrupted?
"He had done horrible things to survive, and he would continue to do horrible things" - I'm reminded of "Ratatouille", where Remy starts suffering devastating pangs of conscience over the idea that everything he eats is stolen from humans, while completely ignoring the fact that as a rat he has no means of baking his own bread, grinding his own corn, etc ;-p
It's interesting that Erik's performance never reveals to the audience at any point its most astonishing feature - the fact that the 'manikin' is in fact nothing more than a performing rat. I wonder if the Shah is planning to unveil that particular surprise at a later event, to be regarded by Erik as a horrible betrayal of confidence...
"In truth, he preferred another reward over food, one that he made sure to acquire for himself over the course of the banquet" - I have a suspicion he has been 'acquiring' gemstones again.
"He spoke of how his two senior wives would watch on, fascinated" - yes, I wondered about the mention of 'wives' in the plural earlier. Susan Kay-based fic tends to be all Spielberg father-and-son stuff.
Although that then implies that Nadir managed to lose *three* wives, possibly as a result of whatever it was that Erik did... :-(
"even the Shah's own prized Daria-i-Noor pink diamond had been stolen away, pried from its seat in the Shah's cap" - ah yes, Erik has definitely been up to his tricks.
"The Sultan's prize diamond, a treasure that men had fought and died for, now rested in Nadir's hand" - oops. I suspect that this, like the emerald from the cat's collar, is Erik's idea of doing his friend a favour (or finding a worthier home for the jewel). But it's likely to backfire very badly.
"to repay the only man who had ever shown him any companionship" - I thought so :-(
"The six rats here would be a rat pack" - I didn't understand the intended significance of this at all. Is 'being a rat pack' a good or a bad thing?
"The well trained rat maidens stood up on their hind legs and performed a graceful dance" -so Erik isn't the only trained performing rat in the palace. That makes sense.
And I can see the Shah wanting to breed one lot to the other, and it fits in with Erik's existing fur complex. I did like the bit where Erik decides censoriously that if they were expected to perform together he will have to retrain them himself, "if they were even salvageable", which felt very much in character.
But it came across to me as an uncomfortably forced parallel to Kay's concubine episode, and I've spent several days trying to put my finger on why. Talking about love and marriage feels imported into the situation, as does the idea of shame and protection - given Erik's previous daydreams, I can see him being overwhelmed by the prospect of simply being part of a pile of furry bodies, and I can see the females being put off by his clothes and his ugliness. But the Sultana's involvement jars in this context (the 'surprise' can only be the Shah's idea and not hers - cats don't give rats as presents - and one has to wonder how happy the Shah is going to be about having his dancing rat troupe eaten, as well as his breeding scheme frustrated). And the idea that suddenly they are in danger doesn't fit - nobody attempts to *force* animals to mate, or punish them for not doing so, because for obvious reasons it doesn't encourage the desired outcome; they're more likely to keep presenting the prospective partners to each other in the hopes that they'll co-operate once they get the idea.
"to have them come to him with terror and not love" - was it *love* he wanted when he fantasised about the Sultana's belly fur? I can understand that he doesn't relish having his loathsomeness to his own kind rubbed in his face, but why would he expect romance? (I like the 'turning his back and burrowing into the lining' as a gesture of rejection, though.)
And then the females are suddenly clawing, biting and tearing at him in order to stage a 'betrayal' scene - that seems to have come completely out of nowhere, even in terms of 'playful nudges'. I can see them climbing over him in a rat-pile in their attempts to 'snuggle' and unintentionally scratching him painfully, but launching into some kind of play-fight with someone they're terrified of (and even in Erik's drama-queen perceptions, 'they tore at him' sounds pretty unprovoked) just seemed contrived to produce the desired reaction. (And "pained moans" isn't what you'd get when they're being hunted and eaten alive - it really would be piercing squeaks and squeals at that point. A "pained expression" is a response to hearing a bad joke, not one of physical agony.)
On the other hand, the Sultana's dialogue at the end of the scene is, as usual, perfect.
"Still, it was a very entertaining show," she mused, "a very tasty one as well."
"You're a poor, miserable creature when you're sad. I can't have any fun with you at all."
Typos:
"Impossible. He could not have that great." (have been?)
However, keen beauty-lover he was, (that/as he was)
should belong someone who could actually appreciate their meaning (belong to)
N.B. the dialogue is still malformatted, e.g.
"You will not embrace me." He stated
(should be "You will not embrace me," he stated)
"it had traded out a coat of rags for a courtier's rich coat and robes" - evidently this is where the Opera Rat acquired his incongruous taste for human clothing!
"Or, by the one and only God, Glorified and Sublime be He, I will find another way to save you from Erik's fate" - I don't know if it was intentional, but the implications of that sound distinctly ominous... would the Daroga rather see Erik dead than corrupted?
"He had done horrible things to survive, and he would continue to do horrible things" - I'm reminded of "Ratatouille", where Remy starts suffering devastating pangs of conscience over the idea that everything he eats is stolen from humans, while completely ignoring the fact that as a rat he has no means of baking his own bread, grinding his own corn, etc ;-p
It's interesting that Erik's performance never reveals to the audience at any point its most astonishing feature - the fact that the 'manikin' is in fact nothing more than a performing rat. I wonder if the Shah is planning to unveil that particular surprise at a later event, to be regarded by Erik as a horrible betrayal of confidence...
"In truth, he preferred another reward over food, one that he made sure to acquire for himself over the course of the banquet" - I have a suspicion he has been 'acquiring' gemstones again.
"He spoke of how his two senior wives would watch on, fascinated" - yes, I wondered about the mention of 'wives' in the plural earlier. Susan Kay-based fic tends to be all Spielberg father-and-son stuff.
Although that then implies that Nadir managed to lose *three* wives, possibly as a result of whatever it was that Erik did... :-(
"even the Shah's own prized Daria-i-Noor pink diamond had been stolen away, pried from its seat in the Shah's cap" - ah yes, Erik has definitely been up to his tricks.
"The Sultan's prize diamond, a treasure that men had fought and died for, now rested in Nadir's hand" - oops. I suspect that this, like the emerald from the cat's collar, is Erik's idea of doing his friend a favour (or finding a worthier home for the jewel). But it's likely to backfire very badly.
"to repay the only man who had ever shown him any companionship" - I thought so :-(
"The six rats here would be a rat pack" - I didn't understand the intended significance of this at all. Is 'being a rat pack' a good or a bad thing?
"The well trained rat maidens stood up on their hind legs and performed a graceful dance" -so Erik isn't the only trained performing rat in the palace. That makes sense.
And I can see the Shah wanting to breed one lot to the other, and it fits in with Erik's existing fur complex. I did like the bit where Erik decides censoriously that if they were expected to perform together he will have to retrain them himself, "if they were even salvageable", which felt very much in character.
But it came across to me as an uncomfortably forced parallel to Kay's concubine episode, and I've spent several days trying to put my finger on why. Talking about love and marriage feels imported into the situation, as does the idea of shame and protection - given Erik's previous daydreams, I can see him being overwhelmed by the prospect of simply being part of a pile of furry bodies, and I can see the females being put off by his clothes and his ugliness. But the Sultana's involvement jars in this context (the 'surprise' can only be the Shah's idea and not hers - cats don't give rats as presents - and one has to wonder how happy the Shah is going to be about having his dancing rat troupe eaten, as well as his breeding scheme frustrated). And the idea that suddenly they are in danger doesn't fit - nobody attempts to *force* animals to mate, or punish them for not doing so, because for obvious reasons it doesn't encourage the desired outcome; they're more likely to keep presenting the prospective partners to each other in the hopes that they'll co-operate once they get the idea.
"to have them come to him with terror and not love" - was it *love* he wanted when he fantasised about the Sultana's belly fur? I can understand that he doesn't relish having his loathsomeness to his own kind rubbed in his face, but why would he expect romance? (I like the 'turning his back and burrowing into the lining' as a gesture of rejection, though.)
And then the females are suddenly clawing, biting and tearing at him in order to stage a 'betrayal' scene - that seems to have come completely out of nowhere, even in terms of 'playful nudges'. I can see them climbing over him in a rat-pile in their attempts to 'snuggle' and unintentionally scratching him painfully, but launching into some kind of play-fight with someone they're terrified of (and even in Erik's drama-queen perceptions, 'they tore at him' sounds pretty unprovoked) just seemed contrived to produce the desired reaction. (And "pained moans" isn't what you'd get when they're being hunted and eaten alive - it really would be piercing squeaks and squeals at that point. A "pained expression" is a response to hearing a bad joke, not one of physical agony.)
On the other hand, the Sultana's dialogue at the end of the scene is, as usual, perfect.
"Still, it was a very entertaining show," she mused, "a very tasty one as well."
"You're a poor, miserable creature when you're sad. I can't have any fun with you at all."
Typos:
"Impossible. He could not have that great." (have been?)
However, keen beauty-lover he was, (that/as he was)
should belong someone who could actually appreciate their meaning (belong to)
N.B. the dialogue is still malformatted, e.g.
"You will not embrace me." He stated
(should be "You will not embrace me," he stated)
4/2/2020 c5 31Not A Ghost3
Sorry, I'm trying to catch up on stories and I need to go back and review all the chapters but the detail you put in this is great! And I love little rat Erik! And the scene with the rat maiden "cries" but I love that the Sultana is a cat, so perfect!
31Not A Ghost3Sorry, I'm trying to catch up on stories and I need to go back and review all the chapters but the detail you put in this is great! And I love little rat Erik! And the scene with the rat maiden "cries" but I love that the Sultana is a cat, so perfect!
3/31/2020 c4 54Igenlode Wordsmith
Erik fantasising about burying himself in cats' fur is an intriguingly perverse element. Given his own baldness, one can see the attraction, but there are also unsettling undertones of a serial killer's obsession, and the whole inter-species wrongness. A brilliant touch.
"but image of the soft fur on Sultana's belly remained behind his eyelids" - missing 'the' (or possibly missing 's'! Images?)
I like the way the Sultana prides herself on her power over the omnipotent Shah - being a 'royal' cat has slightly different connotations here!
"she sliced the threads holding an emerald in place with her thin, sharp claws" - that wouldn't actually work :-(
Cats' claws (and rats', and all others that I can think of) are designed to impale and cling on; they're hooks rather than blades, and only sharp at the point. So it would be like trying to cut a thread using a needle.
She could probably prise a jewel out of its setting using a claw-tip...
A lovely sadistic little speech from the Sultana ("The next time you're let out of that cage, or when I'm let in") as she savours the idea of Erik from tip to tail (though as a male rat, it would be far from a 'tiny' little bottom; they're excessively over-endowed at the rear end! But Erik's deformities may well include that department :-p)
And an interesting take on an 'unmasking' scene, with Erik, very much in control, using his ugliness as a weapon.
Rat droppings are... actually quite large, hard and dry (the size and shape of an antibiotic capsule about half an inch long - known colloquially to pet owners as 'raisins' for a good reason!) So if Erik upsets his litter tray, he's going to look more as if he's covered in jelly beans than little black specks, and to be honest, they're just going to fall off again as soon as he moves.
Realistically, it would work a lot better if he managed to get the contents of his *food dish* smeared over his clothing, which is going to be smaller-scale and a lot more encrusted, messy and hard to remove.
I like the way that Erik jumps to the conclusion that if the human is going to bathe it must be "to wash away the stain of being associated with Erik", rather than in order to get him clean! And his idea that maybe soap bubbles can serve as a substitute for fur, and that they make him "soft and round" - all the things he isn't in life.
I know I talked about rats grinding their teeth in pleasure, but telling the reader that Erik "bruxed in joy" doesn't really fit :-(
It's a modern medicalised term that would be alien to the characters, and jars in the way that sticking medical terms into sex scenes tends to do - and probably doesn't mean anything to most readers anyway. I'd just say "he chattered his teeth softly in joy" or something like that.
Likewise, saying that the soap is "known in the West as violet-scented Windsor soap" jolts me out of the story at that point, because it's a weird and artificial thing for Nadir to be thinking when there's no-one 'in the West' in the vicinity, or indeed in the story. I'd just say that it is "a fine violet-scented soap"
Some typos:
At first, Erik froze in placed
"Aren't you going to undress."
the oily film spreading from fragrant lump
He was grateful that Nadir carried away from the bath
Wrapping himself in a soft towel is a safe and workable solution to Erik's perverse fur-cravings ;-D
Trust Erik to find the most uncomfortable way possible of making sure the emerald finds its way to its new owner ;-p
I wonder at what point the Shah is going to notice that 'his' new prize has a habit of going missing from its cage overnight...
If Erik spent the night asleep in a dry towel, I don't see how he can possibly be wet and squelchy the following morning - I mean, humans are hairless, and we don't stay puckered and squishy for hours after we've dried out. Having no fur ought to make him dry off faster, not much slower.
His *coat*, on the other hand, might still be damp and unpleasantly clinging, since he wasn't wearing it overnight to dry it with his own body heat...
I'm amused that Erik recognises the Shah in this scene only as "the silly little mustached man in a suit with too many buttons", but it seems a bit inconsistent with earlier scenes where he (and the Sultana) know him by title and status :-(
So Erik now has the reputation of being a djinn in disguise instead of merely a rat!
And I like the way that this instantly boosts the rat-keepers' status; they are no longer dealing with an unclean animal, but servitors to a potentially supernatural being, which makes them far more important at court ;-)
54Igenlode WordsmithErik fantasising about burying himself in cats' fur is an intriguingly perverse element. Given his own baldness, one can see the attraction, but there are also unsettling undertones of a serial killer's obsession, and the whole inter-species wrongness. A brilliant touch.
"but image of the soft fur on Sultana's belly remained behind his eyelids" - missing 'the' (or possibly missing 's'! Images?)
I like the way the Sultana prides herself on her power over the omnipotent Shah - being a 'royal' cat has slightly different connotations here!
"she sliced the threads holding an emerald in place with her thin, sharp claws" - that wouldn't actually work :-(
Cats' claws (and rats', and all others that I can think of) are designed to impale and cling on; they're hooks rather than blades, and only sharp at the point. So it would be like trying to cut a thread using a needle.
She could probably prise a jewel out of its setting using a claw-tip...
A lovely sadistic little speech from the Sultana ("The next time you're let out of that cage, or when I'm let in") as she savours the idea of Erik from tip to tail (though as a male rat, it would be far from a 'tiny' little bottom; they're excessively over-endowed at the rear end! But Erik's deformities may well include that department :-p)
And an interesting take on an 'unmasking' scene, with Erik, very much in control, using his ugliness as a weapon.
Rat droppings are... actually quite large, hard and dry (the size and shape of an antibiotic capsule about half an inch long - known colloquially to pet owners as 'raisins' for a good reason!) So if Erik upsets his litter tray, he's going to look more as if he's covered in jelly beans than little black specks, and to be honest, they're just going to fall off again as soon as he moves.
Realistically, it would work a lot better if he managed to get the contents of his *food dish* smeared over his clothing, which is going to be smaller-scale and a lot more encrusted, messy and hard to remove.
I like the way that Erik jumps to the conclusion that if the human is going to bathe it must be "to wash away the stain of being associated with Erik", rather than in order to get him clean! And his idea that maybe soap bubbles can serve as a substitute for fur, and that they make him "soft and round" - all the things he isn't in life.
I know I talked about rats grinding their teeth in pleasure, but telling the reader that Erik "bruxed in joy" doesn't really fit :-(
It's a modern medicalised term that would be alien to the characters, and jars in the way that sticking medical terms into sex scenes tends to do - and probably doesn't mean anything to most readers anyway. I'd just say "he chattered his teeth softly in joy" or something like that.
Likewise, saying that the soap is "known in the West as violet-scented Windsor soap" jolts me out of the story at that point, because it's a weird and artificial thing for Nadir to be thinking when there's no-one 'in the West' in the vicinity, or indeed in the story. I'd just say that it is "a fine violet-scented soap"
Some typos:
At first, Erik froze in placed
"Aren't you going to undress."
the oily film spreading from fragrant lump
He was grateful that Nadir carried away from the bath
Wrapping himself in a soft towel is a safe and workable solution to Erik's perverse fur-cravings ;-D
Trust Erik to find the most uncomfortable way possible of making sure the emerald finds its way to its new owner ;-p
I wonder at what point the Shah is going to notice that 'his' new prize has a habit of going missing from its cage overnight...
If Erik spent the night asleep in a dry towel, I don't see how he can possibly be wet and squelchy the following morning - I mean, humans are hairless, and we don't stay puckered and squishy for hours after we've dried out. Having no fur ought to make him dry off faster, not much slower.
His *coat*, on the other hand, might still be damp and unpleasantly clinging, since he wasn't wearing it overnight to dry it with his own body heat...
I'm amused that Erik recognises the Shah in this scene only as "the silly little mustached man in a suit with too many buttons", but it seems a bit inconsistent with earlier scenes where he (and the Sultana) know him by title and status :-(
So Erik now has the reputation of being a djinn in disguise instead of merely a rat!
And I like the way that this instantly boosts the rat-keepers' status; they are no longer dealing with an unclean animal, but servitors to a potentially supernatural being, which makes them far more important at court ;-)
3/24/2020 c3 Igenlode Wordsmith
I love the various titles the Daroga applies to the Shah in this chapter: "Pivot of the Universe", "Shadow of God", "Refuge of Islam". I don't know if they're really Persian honorifics, but they remind me of the sort of phrases C S Lewis came up with for his Calormene aristocracy (based on the 1001 Nights, of course).
"With this final warning still hanging in the air, the Shah changes his topic" - another tense typo
We have an interesting ambiguity here as to what exactly happened over Erik's death: is the "old man who was already nearing half a hundred" the Shah or Nadir himself, and in the latter case, in what sense did Erik die (I'm assuming on the Shah's orders, or his comments here lose much of their edge) to save Nadir? I'm anticipating that we're going to find out...
"My palace would not be truly unique if he is allowed to roam free" - coming after "Such a shame about his death", this confused me for a bit (did Erik really die after all?)
Needs to be some kind of past tense/conditional, I assume: "would not be truly unique if he had been allowed" or "would not have been truly unique if he were to have been allowed", or one of the many possible similar verb expressions, as opposed to the inappropriately present tense :-(
I really liked the following paragraph - the structure and phrasing (there are two parallel sets of three statements, the first in short sentences and the second long, both building towards a climax/conclusion), and the sentiments as well. Anger; resentment; disillusionment... yet all framed convincingly within the context of a society that Nadir not only accepts but takes for granted, rather than, say, a 21st century fanfiction author coming in and preaching equality politics. He doesn't always *like* his world, but he resents it within its own terms.
"destroyed their collars"... hmm, Erik obtained a pink pearl from the other cat collar (though I'm not sure what happened to it afterwards!) Is he deliberately going round harvesting jewels from the Shah's favourites?
"dashed at the newcomer, waving its paws" - is it not using its paws to dash at the newcomer *with*? Again, the story seems to be thinking bipedally for an animal that isn't.
I liked the way that the Shah is simply amused by the spectacle when watching his cats destroy each other, rather than their ostensible target - it may please him to dress them up in jewelled collars and treat them as favourites, but he is basically just cruel and bored, and doesn't care who suffers as long as someone does.
Having the Sultana as a spoilt pet (and dealing with Erik on a literal cat-and-mouse level) works *much* better than having her, say, as a reincarnated human... the story works best when it's finding parallels between animal behaviour and the plot.
"Erik reached into his mouth and drew out a saliva-covered sapphire" - ah, so that's presumably where his pink pearl went earlier.
Rats don't cheep (it makes him sound like a baby bird). In fact, they're not all that vocal - they don't squeak to each other to converse, when they squeak it's because of pain or fear. (When they're happy, they grind their teeth in the same manner as a cat purring; strange but true, but not something one can really put in an anthropomorphic story!)
"To think the rat was in your pocket all along, Daroga!" The Shah exclaimed, laughing - I really like your Shah (though the dialogue tag still shouldn't be capitalised, here or elsewhere...) He's got a wonderfully subtle line of menace, so that it's never quite certain how much he knows or has deduced, and whether or not a given remark is an hidden threat or as innocent as it might conceivably sound.
"Erik the rat would never reach Nadir's age. He would grow old and gray after a mere decade" - a bit sooner than that :-( My rats died of old age before they were three; their hearts beat too fast and their metabolisms are too rapid for them to survive long.
Something as complicated and abstract as "Do you not know Erik is a corpse, and corpses cannot age?" really doesn't seem like the sort of conversation that can be conveyed by simply watching a rat's movements. I feel that these talks between Nadir and rat-Erik work better where Nadir is monologuing about a friend he used to know to an animal he assumes can't understand, rather than attempting to replicate snarky Susan-Kay type repartee between the two, which strains credibility to its limits...
"No need to worry about him. He's the Shah's new favorite." Nadir explained cheerfully, well aware of the absurdity of the situation - I like this line (and the fact that in a sense, it's true; the Shah may want him as bait to tease the cats with, but he does want him).
"The teacup was almost as large as he was, and he drank the tea by holding onto the rim with his hands and bending down" - now that I can definitely visualise a rat doing, and in fact I've seen it (not with my tea!) :-D
"But his time in they royal court crushed him", "then waited for Erik's to finish his" - typos
Darius furiously scrubbed the teacups - in order to stop them being unclean, presumably...
I can believe in a rat that steals pens (and I like the description of his bustling around the room retrieving them). But I'm a speed reader myself, and I can't believe in any mechanism by which a rat can conceivably read an entire book in minutes - what is he doing, turning pages like a windmill?
Kay's Reza leaves me cold, I'm afraid, but there's a lovely scene at the end here between Erik and Sultana; cat versus rat works very well for this relationship.
(Though if Erik hates being in a cage, why does he bother to come back after successfully escaping? Status? Attention? Protection from cats?)
I love the various titles the Daroga applies to the Shah in this chapter: "Pivot of the Universe", "Shadow of God", "Refuge of Islam". I don't know if they're really Persian honorifics, but they remind me of the sort of phrases C S Lewis came up with for his Calormene aristocracy (based on the 1001 Nights, of course).
"With this final warning still hanging in the air, the Shah changes his topic" - another tense typo
We have an interesting ambiguity here as to what exactly happened over Erik's death: is the "old man who was already nearing half a hundred" the Shah or Nadir himself, and in the latter case, in what sense did Erik die (I'm assuming on the Shah's orders, or his comments here lose much of their edge) to save Nadir? I'm anticipating that we're going to find out...
"My palace would not be truly unique if he is allowed to roam free" - coming after "Such a shame about his death", this confused me for a bit (did Erik really die after all?)
Needs to be some kind of past tense/conditional, I assume: "would not be truly unique if he had been allowed" or "would not have been truly unique if he were to have been allowed", or one of the many possible similar verb expressions, as opposed to the inappropriately present tense :-(
I really liked the following paragraph - the structure and phrasing (there are two parallel sets of three statements, the first in short sentences and the second long, both building towards a climax/conclusion), and the sentiments as well. Anger; resentment; disillusionment... yet all framed convincingly within the context of a society that Nadir not only accepts but takes for granted, rather than, say, a 21st century fanfiction author coming in and preaching equality politics. He doesn't always *like* his world, but he resents it within its own terms.
"destroyed their collars"... hmm, Erik obtained a pink pearl from the other cat collar (though I'm not sure what happened to it afterwards!) Is he deliberately going round harvesting jewels from the Shah's favourites?
"dashed at the newcomer, waving its paws" - is it not using its paws to dash at the newcomer *with*? Again, the story seems to be thinking bipedally for an animal that isn't.
I liked the way that the Shah is simply amused by the spectacle when watching his cats destroy each other, rather than their ostensible target - it may please him to dress them up in jewelled collars and treat them as favourites, but he is basically just cruel and bored, and doesn't care who suffers as long as someone does.
Having the Sultana as a spoilt pet (and dealing with Erik on a literal cat-and-mouse level) works *much* better than having her, say, as a reincarnated human... the story works best when it's finding parallels between animal behaviour and the plot.
"Erik reached into his mouth and drew out a saliva-covered sapphire" - ah, so that's presumably where his pink pearl went earlier.
Rats don't cheep (it makes him sound like a baby bird). In fact, they're not all that vocal - they don't squeak to each other to converse, when they squeak it's because of pain or fear. (When they're happy, they grind their teeth in the same manner as a cat purring; strange but true, but not something one can really put in an anthropomorphic story!)
"To think the rat was in your pocket all along, Daroga!" The Shah exclaimed, laughing - I really like your Shah (though the dialogue tag still shouldn't be capitalised, here or elsewhere...) He's got a wonderfully subtle line of menace, so that it's never quite certain how much he knows or has deduced, and whether or not a given remark is an hidden threat or as innocent as it might conceivably sound.
"Erik the rat would never reach Nadir's age. He would grow old and gray after a mere decade" - a bit sooner than that :-( My rats died of old age before they were three; their hearts beat too fast and their metabolisms are too rapid for them to survive long.
Something as complicated and abstract as "Do you not know Erik is a corpse, and corpses cannot age?" really doesn't seem like the sort of conversation that can be conveyed by simply watching a rat's movements. I feel that these talks between Nadir and rat-Erik work better where Nadir is monologuing about a friend he used to know to an animal he assumes can't understand, rather than attempting to replicate snarky Susan-Kay type repartee between the two, which strains credibility to its limits...
"No need to worry about him. He's the Shah's new favorite." Nadir explained cheerfully, well aware of the absurdity of the situation - I like this line (and the fact that in a sense, it's true; the Shah may want him as bait to tease the cats with, but he does want him).
"The teacup was almost as large as he was, and he drank the tea by holding onto the rim with his hands and bending down" - now that I can definitely visualise a rat doing, and in fact I've seen it (not with my tea!) :-D
"But his time in they royal court crushed him", "then waited for Erik's to finish his" - typos
Darius furiously scrubbed the teacups - in order to stop them being unclean, presumably...
I can believe in a rat that steals pens (and I like the description of his bustling around the room retrieving them). But I'm a speed reader myself, and I can't believe in any mechanism by which a rat can conceivably read an entire book in minutes - what is he doing, turning pages like a windmill?
Kay's Reza leaves me cold, I'm afraid, but there's a lovely scene at the end here between Erik and Sultana; cat versus rat works very well for this relationship.
(Though if Erik hates being in a cage, why does he bother to come back after successfully escaping? Status? Attention? Protection from cats?)
3/23/2020 c4 SkillWithTheQuill
Sorry for not reviewing every chapter, but this is such a cute AU! I love rat Erik hahaha, and "mouse-zandaran" is genius!
Sorry for not reviewing every chapter, but this is such a cute AU! I love rat Erik hahaha, and "mouse-zandaran" is genius!
3/23/2020 c2 Igenlode Wordsmith
I like the idea of the palace full of royal cats - I don't know if it's authentic to the Shah's Court, but it feels like a plausibly Eastern aesthetic, and presents Erik with an intrinsically hostile world to cope with. And I like the line "The haughty feline was a better courtier than he", which gives a vivid impression of both the Daroga and the cat! And "its martial instincts had yet to be dulled by a life of luxury".
"Dancing atop the cat's palm" is weird, though, assuming that what you're trying to describe is the process of being battered backwards and forwards by blows from the cat's paws; not only do cats not have palms, it sounds more like the proverbial angels dancing on a pin :-(
I'm a bit confused as to how the "mass of colours" manages to fly off into the distance while "the ball of rags" stays put, apparently undiminished; Erik evidently arranged a decoy of some kind, but I can't think how or from where.
I like the way that Nadir isn't instantly sympathetic to the poor little rat: it's realistic that he's quite happy to walk off and let the cat get on with cleansing the palace of vermin, and then his instinctive reaction to finding the creature clinging to him is to want to destroy it. And it's a good rationale that the reason he *doesn't* do so because he assumes that its odd costume makes it someone's pet.
"the death of the court magician and architect" - now, this is an interesting twist. Apparently this is an AU where Erik fails to escape the Shah's sentence of death, which is entirely plausible but not (for obvious reasons) an outcome I've seen treated in fan-fiction.
"and flailed when the Shah pulled them away They grew to be so disruptive" - typo (missing punctuation)
Dialogue punctuation: you don't write
"I'm Erik." He said.
You write
"I'm Erik," he said."
It's one sentence, not two ("he said" isn't even a valid sentence on its own; you have to specify *what* he said) and is capitalised and punctuated as such.
You've got round the problem later on by not using any dialogue verbs at all but writing genuine separate sentences like
"I'm afraid I've made it rather attached to me." He did not care to explain any further
-which is perfectly valid formatting!
But the dialogue verb formatting issue is a problem I see in a lot of fan-fiction, and it's worth looking up the conventions for writing dialogue on the Web.
"Now rid of the unclean creature, Nadir repeated his cleansing ritual" - oops, I hadn't thought of that particular problem. Not really very good timing for Erik to pick ;-D
"poor, unhappy, *hairless* Erik" - a nice twist!
"Erik was meant to suffer. Erik was already dead and he only lacked the silence of the grave" - all this woe-is-me begging for sympathy doesn't really work for me, I'm afraid, as what we've actually seen of Erik's rat-life has been a succession of self-satisfied tricks and gratification at the expense of beings he sees as rather stupid. Admittedly I have much the same problem with the canonical Phantom, who complains about how everyone has always hated him but whose history is, on the face of it, one of wealth and success at everything he has attempted, but this passage struck me as being very clearly the author speaking to the Phantom-fans, and not the rat. It doesn't feel like a rat train of thought.
Mouse-Christine can't read and can't understand human thoughts or speech, but rat-Erik can not only understand humans but can apparently do the Daroga's job for him. It all seems a bit too good to be true; the trouble is, I suspect, that I'm not actually nearly so devoted to Erik as most people in this fandom and don't take his intrinsic lovability and automatic genius at everything for granted.
A couple of typos: "quickly scrawls a note on the paper's margins" (a slip into the present tense) and "now that the it had food"
I like the contrast of incomprehension between "The rat must have gotten lost searching for the kitchen" and "Did the old fool think that if he had wanted food, he could not have made his way to the kitchen" - it's all too easy when the characters magically understand one another ;-)
"Kindness and courtesy were things he heard of, but would never receive" - that's not because he is a cursed creature, but because he is a *rat* ;-p
"while he hated when people gawked at him, he hated when people cast him aside and pretended he did not exist even more" - now that sounds like a credible Erik-train of thought!
It seems far too convenient that Nadir just happens to remember that his watch needs winding a literal minute after Erik has stolen it, when it hasn't even been mentioned until then. Wouldn't it make more sense for Erik to do something (like clinking the chain) that accidentally draws attention to his activities, or for Nadir to become gradually conscious of its missing weight, rather than for him suddenly to decide to wind it at that precise moment?
"Why do you keep on doing this?" - is the suggestion that Nadir's friend Erik used to amuse himself by stealing the watch? That would be an interesting parallel, if true (and it's something I can imagine him doing, to demonstrate the skill of his fingers...)
Again, all the wailing, sobbing and snotty nose don't actually feel very rat-like. I know furby23 manages to have Christine weeping into her paws, but somehow the character doesn't come across as being so very human about it :-(
I like the way that Erik's immediate decision is to "reward [Nadir's] kindness" by finding something to steal for him!
I like the idea of the palace full of royal cats - I don't know if it's authentic to the Shah's Court, but it feels like a plausibly Eastern aesthetic, and presents Erik with an intrinsically hostile world to cope with. And I like the line "The haughty feline was a better courtier than he", which gives a vivid impression of both the Daroga and the cat! And "its martial instincts had yet to be dulled by a life of luxury".
"Dancing atop the cat's palm" is weird, though, assuming that what you're trying to describe is the process of being battered backwards and forwards by blows from the cat's paws; not only do cats not have palms, it sounds more like the proverbial angels dancing on a pin :-(
I'm a bit confused as to how the "mass of colours" manages to fly off into the distance while "the ball of rags" stays put, apparently undiminished; Erik evidently arranged a decoy of some kind, but I can't think how or from where.
I like the way that Nadir isn't instantly sympathetic to the poor little rat: it's realistic that he's quite happy to walk off and let the cat get on with cleansing the palace of vermin, and then his instinctive reaction to finding the creature clinging to him is to want to destroy it. And it's a good rationale that the reason he *doesn't* do so because he assumes that its odd costume makes it someone's pet.
"the death of the court magician and architect" - now, this is an interesting twist. Apparently this is an AU where Erik fails to escape the Shah's sentence of death, which is entirely plausible but not (for obvious reasons) an outcome I've seen treated in fan-fiction.
"and flailed when the Shah pulled them away They grew to be so disruptive" - typo (missing punctuation)
Dialogue punctuation: you don't write
"I'm Erik." He said.
You write
"I'm Erik," he said."
It's one sentence, not two ("he said" isn't even a valid sentence on its own; you have to specify *what* he said) and is capitalised and punctuated as such.
You've got round the problem later on by not using any dialogue verbs at all but writing genuine separate sentences like
"I'm afraid I've made it rather attached to me." He did not care to explain any further
-which is perfectly valid formatting!
But the dialogue verb formatting issue is a problem I see in a lot of fan-fiction, and it's worth looking up the conventions for writing dialogue on the Web.
"Now rid of the unclean creature, Nadir repeated his cleansing ritual" - oops, I hadn't thought of that particular problem. Not really very good timing for Erik to pick ;-D
"poor, unhappy, *hairless* Erik" - a nice twist!
"Erik was meant to suffer. Erik was already dead and he only lacked the silence of the grave" - all this woe-is-me begging for sympathy doesn't really work for me, I'm afraid, as what we've actually seen of Erik's rat-life has been a succession of self-satisfied tricks and gratification at the expense of beings he sees as rather stupid. Admittedly I have much the same problem with the canonical Phantom, who complains about how everyone has always hated him but whose history is, on the face of it, one of wealth and success at everything he has attempted, but this passage struck me as being very clearly the author speaking to the Phantom-fans, and not the rat. It doesn't feel like a rat train of thought.
Mouse-Christine can't read and can't understand human thoughts or speech, but rat-Erik can not only understand humans but can apparently do the Daroga's job for him. It all seems a bit too good to be true; the trouble is, I suspect, that I'm not actually nearly so devoted to Erik as most people in this fandom and don't take his intrinsic lovability and automatic genius at everything for granted.
A couple of typos: "quickly scrawls a note on the paper's margins" (a slip into the present tense) and "now that the it had food"
I like the contrast of incomprehension between "The rat must have gotten lost searching for the kitchen" and "Did the old fool think that if he had wanted food, he could not have made his way to the kitchen" - it's all too easy when the characters magically understand one another ;-)
"Kindness and courtesy were things he heard of, but would never receive" - that's not because he is a cursed creature, but because he is a *rat* ;-p
"while he hated when people gawked at him, he hated when people cast him aside and pretended he did not exist even more" - now that sounds like a credible Erik-train of thought!
It seems far too convenient that Nadir just happens to remember that his watch needs winding a literal minute after Erik has stolen it, when it hasn't even been mentioned until then. Wouldn't it make more sense for Erik to do something (like clinking the chain) that accidentally draws attention to his activities, or for Nadir to become gradually conscious of its missing weight, rather than for him suddenly to decide to wind it at that precise moment?
"Why do you keep on doing this?" - is the suggestion that Nadir's friend Erik used to amuse himself by stealing the watch? That would be an interesting parallel, if true (and it's something I can imagine him doing, to demonstrate the skill of his fingers...)
Again, all the wailing, sobbing and snotty nose don't actually feel very rat-like. I know furby23 manages to have Christine weeping into her paws, but somehow the character doesn't come across as being so very human about it :-(
I like the way that Erik's immediate decision is to "reward [Nadir's] kindness" by finding something to steal for him!
3/23/2020 c1 Igenlode Wordsmith
I think my favourite thing about this story is the title - "Mouse-zandaran".
(Even if, well, strictly speaking it's about a rat...)
I have to admit that I was a bit put off by the opening chapter, where it's immediately obvious that this is a Susan-Kay-based fic (I'm not keen on the way that Kay's non-canon version has been adopted as the one true story of Erik's past by a process of Chinese Whispers across the fandom) and where we're told that Erik is another reincarnation - he gets to be a rat *and* a human genius, which feels to me as a reader like having your cake and eating it.
And he isn't very rat-like; what was so enchanting to me about furby23's AU is that she clearly knows her rats and mice, and little traits of real animals keep cropping up, very recognisable to anyone who's ever had a beloved pet of their own. This rat is supposedly a ventriloquist who builds traps, weaves cloth and practices playing instruments many times bigger than himself; the Opera Rat tries to hide in an old doll's head and performs music by scampering over the keyboard, and it's the humans who construct the traps in his world.
Also, the relationship between Little Erik and Big Erik isn't at all obvious here, since they both appear to be in Persia at the same time in this chapter, and Little Erik's presence there seems a bit arbitrary...
I think my favourite thing about this story is the title - "Mouse-zandaran".
(Even if, well, strictly speaking it's about a rat...)
I have to admit that I was a bit put off by the opening chapter, where it's immediately obvious that this is a Susan-Kay-based fic (I'm not keen on the way that Kay's non-canon version has been adopted as the one true story of Erik's past by a process of Chinese Whispers across the fandom) and where we're told that Erik is another reincarnation - he gets to be a rat *and* a human genius, which feels to me as a reader like having your cake and eating it.
And he isn't very rat-like; what was so enchanting to me about furby23's AU is that she clearly knows her rats and mice, and little traits of real animals keep cropping up, very recognisable to anyone who's ever had a beloved pet of their own. This rat is supposedly a ventriloquist who builds traps, weaves cloth and practices playing instruments many times bigger than himself; the Opera Rat tries to hide in an old doll's head and performs music by scampering over the keyboard, and it's the humans who construct the traps in his world.
Also, the relationship between Little Erik and Big Erik isn't at all obvious here, since they both appear to be in Persia at the same time in this chapter, and Little Erik's presence there seems a bit arbitrary...