I really really want to love this to bits crying my eyes out most beautiful story ever created, but sadly I only think it’s really good. Like we have all the conversations, those are wonderful, very poetic things all these guys are saying. After Project: Lazarus, I especially think it’s really cool of this story to just take the consequences of that ending, and to spin a whole other story around it that’s so much more emotionally intelligent. I do really like this, it’s very good, I’ve given it a 9/10, I swear I’m not having lingering effects of dislike from the project stories (also known as PTSD, Project Twilight Stress Disorder).
Right, now I’ll attempt at trying to understand why this doesn’t click for me entirely. Please bear with me lol.
I think this story goes too fast. It confused me quite a lot of times, how quickly we go from Evelyn meets princess to Evelyn is besties with princess. I had a difficult time noticing and placing the timeskips. I could just about follow the love stories emotionally, but the whole political situation wasn’t super clear in my mind. Especially the parts about the Doctor’s involvement. I don’t mean to say that there’s a lack of care from Sutton, but the way there’s skipped over a lot of what often is called ‘filler’ feels a little bit easy to me. Because I personally feel that I’m in need of that ‘filler’ to connect to everything better in the long run, to be able to get a better understanding of all the going’s on. It’s super fun this way, to snap snap get all the emotional moments and payoffs that I want to hear, and the minutes genuinely fly by so quickly, but none of those moments hit as much as, the end of DWatP for example.
Because the other thing, because that’s what sort of happens to a degree because of that, is that the story often has to be quite in your face about a lot of stuff. It’s that thing, as an example for people who’ve read my review of DWatP, where in that story, half of the things said are about things the characters don’t say. That sort of thing. Everything in this story is a bit obvious and literal. And I really don’t mean that as a ‘Oh look at me I’m so clever I require intelligent subtextual thematic reasoning in stories blah blah’ because that’s rubbish. But every story has something, several somethings, that give you a certain ‘feeling’. The vibes. And for me in this specific instance, the lack of something beyond what the writer is signaling to the more conscious part of my brain, I think, makes that I ‘feel’ a disconnect, because this story really ‘feels’ like it should be able to bring those things over, because the stuff that’s ‘so literal and obvious’ is extremely stellar. I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle, basically.
To be fair, it’s a bit in the nature of the story where they’re opening up about how they feel, so maybe I’m just being grumpy. Maybe it’s all so in the forefront with nothing beneath it because that’s the whole point. That it’s healthy to open up completely, make yourself clear, make whoever’s listening understand completely. You’ll be much happier that way. Maybe it’s that. But then I still didn’t mesh with it entirely on this listen.
Anyways sorry it’s still a masterpiece tbh don’t listen to me