Wow! One, I’m going to have to find this movie. I love this kind of stuff, so it looks like it would be up my alley. As for the story itself, I just loved it. On the one hand, it has a lot of remnants of creation myths and myths of the fall of humanity weaved in. On the other, it’s being in the head of non-living creatures and trying to think like them. It’s a rather interesting perspective. The role reversal element is a little more subtle in this one than it was in other stories in the challenge, but I think subtlety was the key here in this story. Everything, from start to finish, built the story and the world from the ground up. At first, readers aren’t entirely sure what’s going on, especially if they’re fandom-blind like myself, but the more you read, the more you follow. It’s like a mystery, gathering little clues here and there to put it all together. Really well done!

Best,
Zad

Hi, Ark,

Congratulations on completing your story for the WA Role Reversal Challenge. Sorry it’s taken me a while to get to it but life’s been quite busy recently.

The story was very well written and gave me a good picture of the devastated world in which the various incarnations of the beast and the stitchworks lived and fought. I was completely fandom blind but your story sucked me into the situation and I kept reading to find out what would happen, to see if the stitchworks would be able to escape and possibly found some type of new order.

When I got to 9’s critical point in the story, I guessed but really wasn’t sure if that was the role reversal required by the challenge, but the Beast’s violation of the Mother’s directive that followed was clearer to confirm it. Still, I didn’t know the difference that you’d noted in your summary and author’s note from the original movie so I made a quick stop at Wikipedia to read the synopsis of the original movie. I suspect that I’d like your version and the hope that if offers better but may have to find the original sometime soon to give it a chance.

Great job and thanks for sharing!

This was a fascinating read. Having the first part of the story be from the perspective of the machine was unique, and I really liked how you painted the scenery with your word choice. Your opening in particular is very vivid and strong.

It’s a little tricky to figure out what’s going on, since the perspective is from a machine that gets destroyed and then is rebuilt (and I suspect I’d have an easier time if I had seen the movie), but I like how the description of the machine changes each time it is remade. From cat-beast to winged-beast to bug-legged sewing beast, the transformation is intriguing to watch.

I like your take on the reversal theme and how you layered it with the theme of transformation, with the machine going from searching to leading in the end, and Nine betraying his friends, and also being a part of the transformation. Nicely done.

You conjure up wonderful images. I’m totally fandom blind but I followed who and what was happening. In this brutal cruel world that’s been created it’s the soul that holds life together.

Hi. Here from the Role Reversal Challenge.

Your beginning is very engaging, especially for a scene so low on dialogue. (Which makes sense, considering your writing from the perspective of a machine who doesn't have anyone to converse with.)But it's very easy to hear the "voice" of this machine, who doesn't understand his purpose now that the "Enemy (which I assume is actually humanity)" is gone, but was programmed for a purpose so it really NEEDS a purpose. I find myself feeling sorry for the machine.
And then the stitch dolls are found, which seem almost human, which might be the enemy, or part of the enemy...

It took me a while to understand about "Nine," especially considering HE speaks. At first I thought he was a remnant human, then another machine. But it seems he/it is actually a little of both, as Nine is a machine with part of the Scientist's (who also created the original machine called Mother?) soul inside. Your voice for a character who is both part machine and part human is very good as well.

Your Role Reversal could be several things all at once. (Or are MEANT to be several things all related to each other?) The Scientist originally created Mother (also known as the Machine?) but now wants it destroyed.
The stitch dolls were created to destroy the Machine, but now have too much self - preservation and don't want to be destroyed themselves.
The Speaking Beast (which has been reprogramed from the "Cat Beast, the Winged Beast, and the "serpent Beast?") was supposed to do the Will of the Mother, but doesn't like "problems outside the parameters." So it comes up with a new plan.
Nine was supposed to help feed the stitch dolls to the Mother, but agrees to heal the Mother instead.

It's complicated, but very clever. Good luck.

Hiya, I'm over from the WA Role-Reversal challenge and I'm fandom-blind for this film, although this fic's sort of left me wanting to watch it. Sadly it's not on UK Netflix at the moment, which is a pity as the way you've described the visuals is fascinating.

The story itself is accessible and clear. Despite being fandom-blind I never had any trouble understanding what was going on. I do have one suggestion about way the denouement is handled, of which more later, but aside from that, there isn't anything more I can think of to suggest.

[The Cat Beast haunts a wilderness of rust and crumbling stone. Metal claws scrape lightly across the dirt while its bare skull swivels this way and that, allowing its single eye to scan the world in a wash of red light. All spikes and no stomach, it hunts not to feed itself, but for Mother.]

This opening paragraph is *gorgeous*. But more than that, it plunges me straight into the world, setting up a post-apocalyptic wasteland, populated by monstrous robots. And then there's the hook of who or what Mother is. It's perfect.

[The stitchwork dolls are new. Like, but not like. Are they Enemy? Or are they lost children of Mother? At first the Cat Beast stalks them, watching. One in particular catches its attention, scurrying out into the open more often than the others. It wonders if the tiny creature's mission is congruent to its own, a matter of poking and prodding into hidden nooks, flushing out the forgotten mysteries of their world.]

And more questions. I really love this set-up and the promise held by the story that's developing, although I suspect some of it may be canon. Regardless, you've done a beautiful job of presenting it as a story and one that's accessible for the fandom-blind. It's a fascinating world, I want to know more, but I don't ever struggle to follow what's going on.

[Mother has granted the Beast a serpentine form, but a serpent with six insect-quick limbs to seize and sew and cut. The husk of a dead stitchwork is fixed on the Beast's tail, a lure and a weapon.
This time, when the Sewing Beast slithers into the lair of the stitchworks, it is able to capture their attention with the husk. False eyes flash blue and white, over-riding the base code of the stitchwork dolls with a forced update, immobilizing them temporarily.]

lovelovelove this. Again, I suspect some of the visuals here are from canon, but I adore that description of the Serpentine Beast, and the use of a forced update to shut the stitchworks down.

[The plan is simple. The Scientist has already given the Machine his intellect. Now it needs his soul. Foreseeing resistance from the monster that his creation has become, the Scientist placed his soul into smaller, more robust "stitchpunk" forms in order to deliver the missing essence to the Machine.]
["No." Nine staggers back in horror as comprehension sets in. They were created to die? To be sacrifices to... to that vile creature?]

I'd suggest shifting some parts of the denouement round a bit. You've started with a clear explanation of the purpose of the stitchwork creatures (the first paragraph I quoted above), and I think it would be stronger to have that explanation come later, probably right before the paragraph showing Nine's reaction. It feels a little odd to me that he takes so long to react.

[And it will. If the stitchpunks hide, if they are clever, the Machine will think they are dead. It's how it was before, and it's how it can be again. Nine sees in the others' eyes that they aren't willing to sacrifice themselves for a hope they don't even believe in. They can't believe in it, because they are incomplete. They are only fragments of a soul. Nine inherited the only part of the Scientist able to make that leap of faith.]

I love this.

["I'm sorry," says Nine. And then he betrays them. This is no shelter he has led them to, but a trap. A cage, revealed now that he pulls on the lever to snap the walls shut around them.]

And this, for what a heartbreaking sacrifice for him to make, and for what it says about faith.

This is a wonderful entry to the challenge, and I wish you the best of luck with it.