Ah man this story is way overdue.

I loved it. The only thing stopping me from saying it should be a movie is that I'm not that confident in my critiquing skills, but at the very least it could be an hour long television special of some kind.

Notes:

I love the chambermaid book ends, how she went from wanting to grow up to dreading taking care of the estate.

Chapter 1:
Dinner scene with Kinnor was glanced over, but that's a strength, considering how heady Leah was at the time.
The idea of a door almost being horizontal was enough to clue me in that Leah was about to be sucked into something abnormal, and I loved it.
When 'the spider woven with flames' was mentioned, I thought woven was a metaphor and not actual wires. Maybe 'hot wires weaved into a spider' might work better.
When Kiki says she's 'the Witch of Applehirst,' it might be good to describe how you would want an actress playing her to say that part. It sounds mostly just 'telling' as straight up text.
I also love how Leah is intelligent but impulsive, like any teenager.

Chapter 2:
'Crouch' was used twice in one sentence.
I can relate with Leah being frustrated with fun work.
I like how Leah's an unreliable narrator without being too blunt about it and now I'm wondering if the Woman paints her face to avoid being read.
The 'Morose Painter' line took me a couple of skims to get but it was a very vivid description of her house.
Transition from Kiki to Woman needs a slight readjusting. Maybe start with description then dialogue, instead of the reverse?
I feel like the 'feeling the key' part could've used more in depth detail.
I love how both the manor storyline, the Kiki storyline and the eureka moment with her key all flowed nicely together but distinctively. Was this critiqued before?
Wasn't 100% clear that Kiki just wanted the bangle at first.

Chapter 3:
Guests was used twice in one sentence.
I loved the dream. 'Nuff said.
The climax was awesome, but weren't they at the docks? Where did the ceiling beam come from and what was Kiki's ultimate plan with the barrel and the hooded stranger?

Overall, I give this story a B+ minimum. Keep working on this and it could be some S Rank shit. Awesome job Super

Been a while. Going to start with chapter 27.

You used incident twice in the opening, and you mispelled close as 'lose' in one part, and the part where Terry questions whether he wanted to look for excitment or not felt too on the nose. Best turn that feeling into more of an undercurrent in how he's feeling.

Aside from that I love how the first half establishes the forward motion of this second arc, and I'm already beginning to like Torrent. I picture him as an energetic L, while River is Mika and Douglas is… Douglas.

I'll get to latest two chapters when I can.

I know jack shit about innotations so I won't bother even worrying about that.

It should be 'weren't gunshot sounds.'

Aside from that you give yourself too little credit. You're doing perfectly fine in English. Was this more or less for the anniversary for what happened in Beijing (although it was a few months back.)

If it's of any assistance I'd be more than happy to correct grammar and sentence structure and stuff, even if I can't help translate.

Hey I know this is a short story and all (and the contest was long past), but this story barely felt like a tragedy and more like 'a list of things I liked to do before my parents died.'

….

I'm afraid I'm less concerned about being 'sensitive' in my critiques than I used to be (though everything I say is for the benefit of the author no matter how it sounds), so fair warning about what's under the tabs.

[hide]

Not sure I would've put it like that a few years back but I digress: barely anything happens. I hate to say it this story goes down less like a small but tasty snack and more like tofu. Yeah it has some sustenance but all I'm seeing is 'this is how I got my name, my parents and I were very happy, I liked the ocean before jellyfish killed my parents, now the ocean makes me sad.'

I feel nothing for these characters. Neither of the parents nor the main character. The story plays out more like an obituary than an experience. You spent too much time establishing the character and the setting in a kind of format that can't afford a lot of that. For improvements think about traits and setting that would clue in the reader without being so exposition heavy. Have this be a first person account of that fateful day, only instead of writing in her diary the story opens with those underwater photos that were mentioned to show how experienced and in love with the ocean she is. Heck you can have her briefly relive the sand castle part when she sees a photo of that very day. Then you can have her explore by herself or something during the four hours her parents are supposed to be gone, maybe going to an aquarium and seeing jellyfish as foreshadowing. Then the tension can start when she gets back to the hotel 6 hours later and her parents have not returned. Let me (and the other readers) experience the tension of a loved one never coming home, never seeing the body for him/herself, that sinking feeling when you get the news. Right now the parents are like Bambi's mom, except even the audience got to experience Bambi's time with her before she got shot.

Another reason why I feel nothing for the parents is because you focused so much on the tragedy that instead of feeling like two human beings lost their lives in the ocean it felt more like two facsimile human beings were destroyed just to try and get an emotion. If you've ever played Heavy Rain the parents in this story feel like the Jason in that one.

That said there were parts I did like. I thought that being born in the ocean, the meaning of her name and the description of some of the places she's visited were really vivid (again her photos can cover it) and if nothing else the ocean gives a pretty good theme and atmosphere to this story.

Oh and you've really improved your writing and structure skills as a whole from the last time I've read so you are improving. Like you went from square two to like square seven since I've seen you last.[/hide]

Anyway, I wish you luck with future drafts. And for what it's worth I've written first drafts shittier than this, so I am talking from some experience here.

Critique first:
"Main girl even though she saw someone wearing a sheathed kitchen-knife as if it was a weapon" You need to rewrite that sentence.

"“Well. Great. I guess that's all we would have ever had to talk about, so with that gone I'd say we can just call it quits on ever needing to talk to each other again. Thanks. I think I hear the opening… thing… starting. Good-bye.” Main girl turned away from Marcus and gave Miriam a small, stiff bow before brushing past both of them and heading for the school building." Break this (and the first couple of paragraphs of the professor's lecture) with descriptions.

For whatever reason the talk between Lode and the teacher feels a little 'he said and then he said'.

There seems to be two POVs when Fray talks to the judge. Might want to reword some of that part.

A general rule of thumb (at least with my writing group) is that even if you can't start the main plot in the first two chapters, you should add some conflict or hook to lead into rising action. Think of Harry Potter accidentally releasing the snake and all the mail coming in as a precursor to Hagrid's appearance.

Positives:
I generally don't like swords and school settings but starting off with the reveal that the sister is attending a school that sentenced her sister to death, the quirky students, the judge and the teacher talking about how the school is about power AND respect for life (and how seriously those two are taken) and the different types of swords that could speak about each character really makes me want to read more.

I hope to read more of your stories in the future. :)

PS

! Does that non-existant cyanide pill play a part later in the story? It would be prudent to save the execution scene for that reveal, even if it's only for dramatic irony. If not, you might want to take that part out, since the humor broke the seriousness of the scene for me.

I'm also sad I can't really give you that much feedback, cause you deserve more :(

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

Actually can we get English translations in the future?

For something with no backspacing this was pretty good. You definitely have an outline and cast all set up and ready to go, although it feels like the story is taking a tad too long to really get the 'adventure' going. Also for some reason I had to re read the lecture to catch the part that excited Olive (who makes me think of an R Rated Vicky from Fairly Odd Parents).

I would love to see future chapters and a rewrite on this. The part that explained 'The Book of the Stars' universe felt too much like a glossary shoved into the middle of the text though. Might want to bring up each part whenever it's actually significant or not bring it up at all.

I would have commented earlier but I just finished processing the story.
This needs to be drawn and voice acted.

Have almost nothing to say about this chapter overall except a couple of things:
1. Your flow, characterization and comedy are getting better.
2. That part where he faces the camera…. yeah how long did he do that? I imagine it was long enough for people to wonder what the hell he was doing. If it was for a sec or (better) just not do it at all that would feel more natural.