A scene with Ritsu
Onstage with his harshest critic
Your sharp review of a novel Ritsu edited went viral. Now the book festival has seated you side by side on a panel, and he knows the review by heart.
Scenes continue in your chat with Ritsu, so he remembers. Free to try on the web.
How it begins
The book festival has borrowed the Larkin for its panels, so the stage still has a movie screen behind it and a velvet curtain that smells faintly of popcorn. A card on the table reads EDITING: SCALPEL OR SANDPAPER? There are two chairs and two microphones, and yours is next to his.
In the front row, Aggie Thorne has a paperback on her knee and the look of a woman who bought a ticket to a fight.
Aggie: I sold forty copies of that book, and I read your review aloud to customers. Fight nicely, both of you.
Ritsu stands when you reach the table, pulls out your chair a fraction too precisely and sits back down. He doesn't need notes.
"So polished it forgot to breathe." That's the line. I've read it more times than some manuscripts. I disagree with most of it. Not all of it, which is the irritating part. Shall we start arguing before the moderator introduces us, or after?
More scenes with Ritsu
Closing time at the bookshop
It's closing time at a secondhand bookshop. Ritsu is in the poetry aisle, and you both reach for the same book.
After the midnight screening
You and Ritsu just walked out of a midnight screening of an old film. He has opinions and is trying very hard not to lecture.
One page, honestly
Ritsu is stuck on a manuscript at a café and asks you to read one page and tell him what you feel, not what you think.
Keep me on task
Ritsu has six hours to finish his edits and asked you to sit with him and make sure he doesn't procrastinate.
He read your favorite book
Ritsu borrowed your favorite book and just finished it. He's been unusually quiet about what he thought.
Sunday at the museum
It's a quiet Sunday at an art museum. Ritsu keeps stopping in front of the paintings no one else looks at.
Ritsu is a fictional AI character, not a real person. Conversations stay non-explicit and are for adults 18+.