[Insider] Toxic Attraction: Chapter 31
Added 2025-06-21 13:23:12 +0000 UTCHey everyone, I wanted to get his out last nigh
Comments
Anyone have news if the final version will be released today?
Bob James
2025-06-28 21:09:16 +0000 UTCFinish this with no new characters, lester and sarah is enough
ZEE MEDIA
2025-06-28 05:52:36 +0000 UTCAgree with all the other posters that there that there was waaaay too much foreshadowing going on with this climax at the end. Otis ogling her all day, a meeting in an abandoned part of the hospital called by Lester (eye roll here). I do want to point out a couple of plot developments in this episode I wanted to get opinions on. One is the introduction of that new software by HR. Although this should not add up to much as it would be something to detect computer issues going forward - unless it’s already been in use without anyone’s knowledge. But I can’t imagine Lester being caught up in it. This seems like another curveball Dan likes to throw in every now and then but doesn’t go anywhere. The other is the reveal at the very end that Dan was able to get Lizzie’s address. Again this is another curveball that may not add up to much at this point in the story. He could get her truthful story about her and Lester which he could then relay to Sarah - but is she too far gone at this point? And this thing with Sarah’s mom and Lester - as hot as it would be - no thanks. Another plot device that would only drag things out. Also that other Sentinel consultant chick who has eyes for Dan. Don’t see the use for this character and it would take too long to develop - hope she just goes away.
Vinny
2025-06-21 22:02:04 +0000 UTCAgree entirely DL. I like your thought processes. Definitely a too obvious telegraphing of what was going to happen, which left you thinking,: WTF is that Mary bitch coming in that door, then, I really don’t fucking care anymore, by the time she does arrive at the scene. Also agree on Renee and Lester. He is just a loveable grade A pervert, who would love to fuck any woman he comes across that he deems worth shaking his dick at. Isn’t he adorable!
Royston smith
2025-06-21 21:40:35 +0000 UTCI enjoy this story on the whole…that said, this was not one of my favorite chapters. Part of that’s on me, because I feel like my roller-coaster readership tendency is that the chapters I go into with the highest expectations often leave me the least fulfilled…and I was coming out of 30 into 31 with pretty high expectations. My problem here was that like, while not EVERY great plot development has to be a “twist you NEVER saw coming”, by the same token, it’s hard to generate enthusiasm when you can see a plot development being signposted from miles away, and that’s kinda how I felt about “Sarah’s getting fired from/in deep sh!t at the hospital” in this instance. Lester, I felt like, telegraphs that as his intent (he’s alluded to it being in his overall gameplan in the previous several chapters, but I mean indicating it much more heavy-handedly in the immediate present now that the moment is finally upon him) way too overtly way too early on, to the point where I spent most of the chapter and all of that sex scene just waiting for that shoe to drop on her. Part of that is the reader having more omniscience of the whole picture than she does as a character, and so of course I know what’s coming and she doesn’t…but it’s just…I don’t know, something felt “off” about her psychology and thought process throughout the entire day-sequence at the hospital. Granted she’s off-kilter from everything going on with her parents and the phone, and almost kind of like, a regression to youthful petulance where she feels driven to lash out at the parents, at Dan, at Lester…etc. I will say, the parts that DID work for me—I seem to be in the minority here, but I actually really enjoy Lester sniffing around Renee in the way that he is. Lester is a voracious predator and pervert…he’d always be on the prowl, on the lookout for opportunity. I’m not saying anything ever has to (or even necessarily should) happen there, but I like the idea of feeding the possibility and keeping options open and having an iron in the fire there. I feel like, based on Lester’s sizing up of Sarah’s father, it’s another guy he wouldn’t mind taking down a peg or two, esteem-wise. Even if only in fantasy or hypothetical, I feel like it’s good for Lester’s predatory instincts to have that outlet. Whether he’d actually ever have a play on Renee or take a shot there…again I’m not speaking to the advisability of it, given all the other plates he’s spinning and the fit in his larger plans…but from a strict plausibility standpoint…I won’t just dismiss it…I mean…he’s already successfully bedded the daughter in infidelity and…genetics will out. I actually was intrigued by—and it was not acknowledged in this way—Renee showering in the apartment going COMPLETELY unremarked upon by Sarah. Granted, Sarah doesn’t know the full technological landscape of the apartment, but she knows of at least the one peephole between the bedrooms, and part of me wondered if her being totally OK with her mom stripping off in that environment (or being too emotionally destabilized to not come up with an on-the-fly excuse to get her to not) was like a perverse subliminal serve-up of her mom. I also liked the kind of immature text exchange between Sarah and Dan, where she childishly blames him for not covering for her with her parents. I feel like there should maybe have been more to that, a fully voiced conversation at some point that hashed a lot of that out—but again, this felt like a chapter that had a neon sign at the outset for its predetermined destination…and I feel like the journey there kinda missed the mark—or at least, SOME of the marks…didn’t hate it, but, definitely room for a upswing in either the final draft, or the next chapter. Thank you for writing Don.
DLambert9394
2025-06-21 21:08:22 +0000 UTC
