INDEXING: REFLECTIONS episode #2, "Broken Glass."

[seanan_mcguire]

The second episode of Indexing: Reflections is available now! This is your talkpost and discussion zone. There will be spoilers in the comments here. As always on talkposts, I have partial comment amnesty, and will not be responding to everything.

"Broken Glass" was originally blocked as the first episode of the season, before I realized that things would flow better if it came after the episode with internal affairs. It also sets up one of the big themes for this season: the idea that when the stories can't get you in their "pure" forms, there's always a chance that they'll take a step back and try another, equally deadly, way.

Fairy tales are flexible.

Game on!

Comments

[alex bacon (from livejournal.com)]

I can't wait! Is it lunchtime yet?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[alex bacon (from livejournal.com)]

It was worth the wait. A Lunchtime with enough time to read this episode was a few days late but it was so worth it! I am so excited to find out where this story is going!

Thanks again, Seanan for the amazing stories you give us.

[palsycorn.livejournal.com]

I don't see it yet....I haven't gotten an email notification or anything.

[ebartley.livejournal.com]

I don't see it either, but I double-checked in the Amazon description and there's an episode due today. Sigh ... they don't actually promise released at midnight, but I wanted it as my morning commute.

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

The e-mail notification seems to be the most reliable way to find out if it's up yet, as opposed to the website.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have no control over when Amazon pushes the release. I only have the date. :(

[corucia.livejournal.com]

Not showing up yet for me either, so I guess it won't be my lunchtime read...

We've just started reading the first Indexing aloud as our bedtime story with the Offspring (as Alia prefers to be known). A big hit so far! Unfortunately I expect the Indexing: Reflections won't be complete before we've finished the first one.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have no control over when Amazon pushes the release. I only have the date. :(

[lostwind.livejournal.com]

I reached out to the Amazon support team; they are aware the second chapter didn't push, and are trying to fix it.

[evaleastaristev.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting us know! Now to wait very impatiently for it to drop.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

thanks - I was concerned as I didn't get an e-mail and it's not synching.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have no control over when Amazon pushes the release. I only have the date. :(

Episode 2 is LIVE

[ebartley.livejournal.com]

My phone binged, which turned out to be the announcement email arriving. Kindle Cloud Reader confirms.

RE: Episode 2 is LIVE

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[anne_d]

I read it. Wow. This is going to be intense.

Someone who can change her own narrative from one story to another, that's truly frightening. That prison, though, that's evil all on its own.

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

Seconded. It kinda reminded me a bit of the Azkaban chapters in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality in that both are incredibly harsh.

I am intrigued at this plot idea, especially in regards to Sloane. I suspect this book will be more hers than Henry's.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Childe Prison was constructed to stop stories from happening.

That doesn't keep it from being a story on its own.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

I love that it's named Childe Prison.

[pamela adams (from livejournal.com)]

Oooooh.

[bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com]

Wow, and I mean, wow! Very good call on the order; if this chapter had come first and we'd then gotten the HR review it would have seemed awkward. As it is, the first chapter immediately struck me as the calm before the storm. There was tension, like we get here in Florida when they tell us a tropical wave is coming out of Africa, but at least we know we'll have weeks to watch it develop and see where it goes. Not so for our merry band of government employees; they just went from a tropical depression to a Category 3 with the snap of a finger, and the winds are still building.

I am really liking the way Demi is developing, and the way Henry is reaching out to her. I think Demi has grasped that, while this isn't the life she envisioned, and there's a lot about it that totally sucks, it's still not the end of the world, because she and the team stop that from happening on a regular basis. Sure, not many will ever know she's helped save the world, repeatedly, but she will. Now she just has to grasp the penultimate unspoken truth of being a hero -- it's okay to be scared. After all, if you aren't afraid you can't be brave, and when you're on the Index if you aren't scared, you're an idiot or you're insane.

In a word, I loved this chapter. It has me feeling like I do when I take a walk along our seawall in the backyard in the evening. You see a few weeks ago I was doing that and an alligator burst out of a hole that the rain had washed out under the wall. It was only about a four footer, and I had clearly frightened it as much as it did me, but it was only three feet away from me and it looked a lot bigger at the time, and to my panicked mammalian brain it didn't seem to be the least bit afraid, just really angry. Now, when I walk back there, my eyes keep looking for the places that might be hiding a nasty surprise, and that's the feeling this chapter leaves me with.

I mean, geez, Seanan, thank you so much for dredging those feelings up! (giggle)

The only downside, again, is I have to wait two weeks for the next chapter. But hey, there's a silver lining this time ... T-minus seven days and counting for A Red-Rose Chain!

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

I've been rereading The Winter Long in preparation. Can't wait!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it!

[evaleastaristev.livejournal.com]

Wait, I know Birdie fucked with the stories, but they can CHANGE THEMSELVES? AFTER ACTIVATION?

Officially terrified.

And that prison HAS to go. That is just not nice, even if they've been placed in the "bad guy" role.

[bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that the story changed itself, Elise made it change.

We already have precedent for this. Gerry changed his story, escaped it in fact, and in so doing, he changed Henry's as well. Of course that was rather minor compared to this, as Henry is still a Snow White.

And yes, the prison is a horrible place. Unfortunately fairy tale characters aren't protected by the Constitution. They aren't even protected by copyright law.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Not that mundane prisons are actually doing better on this front. Honestly, the veil on this social commentary is (rightly) thin as cobweb. The entire structure of prisons, at least in the US, exists to make people as depressed and miserable as possible, and it's brutally indiscriminate about it.

I am making a small internal bet on which chapter we get to find out what Elise was muttering. I'm going with 60% "next chapter" because it's a short game data point that leads to the long game.

If it's not revealed next chapter, I'm betting we don't find out until at least Chapter 8 because it's crucial to the long game.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Elise changed her own story, which she had been trying to do all along.

[ebartley.livejournal.com]

Makes me think some of Sloane's eagerness to just kill the afflicted stems from spending time in the deeper levels of Childe prison (being a villain, and all.) Imprison briefly while investigating or attempting to rehabilitate, sure, but a clean execution is preferable to being in the conditions Demi described for the rest of your life. Heck, a messy execution is better than being tied up and half-muted and unable to feed yourself for the rest of your life.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Sloane is more practical than most people think.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

Sloane is probably my favorite character. If it weren't 2 weeks before Dragon Con, I'd be tempted to cosplay her Princess Outfit with the Stompy Boots. Next year!

[bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com]

I also feel -- and that's all this is, my personal feelings on the character -- that she cares a lot more than most people, even herself, thinks. I see a lot of genuine compassion peeking out between all that attitude. She actually reminds me a lot of someone I knew a long time ago. Vicky had the same foul-mouthed, in your face demeanor and 'fuck you, world!' attitude. Half the time I was absolutely convinced she was going to get me killed, or perhaps kill me herself, and the rest ... the rest of the time I absolutely knew she would have my back, no matter what, and I 'pittied the fool' that tried to mess with me when she was around.

In my book, Sloane=Awesome!