Hi, I'm the writer of the DCA fic Missing Gears on AO3. I've been working on this since Oct of 2023 and posted it Dec of the same year, meaning I've been working on this bad boy off and on for over a year. (I admit that there was a long hiatus between posts because of health issues)

That said, my total word count as of Chapter 15 is sitting at 53,210. On my Doc's, however, it is a different story. I currently have 206,395 words totaling across 18 tabs. I'll be it; a lot of notes are there, but I tend to cut a lot out for readability and to make the Chapters more digestible. I added a scene or two back into the story in my post edits from time to time. Mostly, I've been keeping each chapter 2000-4000 words with a few exceptions. Now, most of that is because of retention. I typically find that people like to be able to read the whole chapter in one go... or so was my assumption, but someone recently pointed it out to me that a lot of the more popular stories have 10,000-word long chapters or could have it as short as a 1000-word chapter. It depends on the audience.

So, my question is, if I overhaul my story to put back in the bits I cut out to make it a shorter chapter or to improve the story flow, would people want longer chapters with more content? It wouldn't change the assigned story beat in each chapter, as I have that charted, but because of the longer chapters, the pacing will feel much slower from chapter to chapter. There would be more extended conversations and in-depth descriptions, giving better context to the environment and/or things like the horror aspects that are missed because I can only mention them in passing in the current format.

He watched her closely as she coasted around the room, observing the various tools and trinkets that lay about the work tables of Parts and Service. "So you wanted to ask me something?" His voice pierced through the silence with a deep, mellow tone. His demeanor was like that of a confident feline, watching the human with amusement. 

"Yes, I wanted to interview you. I'm doing a piece on whether robots are able to change as people as a result of experience like humans. Do you mind?" She inquired with a smile in her tone, and he got the distinct feeling from her that she would not be taking no for an answer.

Leaning forward, he placed the bottom of his faceplate in his padded palms, his gloves forgone on the table next to him, as he propped his elbow to rest atop the thigh of his crossed legs. The custom seat creaked under his weight as he leaned forward. "Do I even have a choice? I clearly don't have rights, and Faz'co most definitely already approved this if you, as a civilian, were allowed down here to begin with. So just ask away, dear."

She turned and inclined her head at that. "I meant no offense by it. Just giving you the courtesy. I hope you understand." She then pulled out her recorder from her back pocket and placed it on the computer desk next to him with a click. Evidently, by the red flashing light, it was recording. She sat down in the human-sized computer chair and crossed her legs as she picked up the clipboard she had come in with. "Well, let's just jump in the deep end, shall we? What's the first time that you experienced something that scared you? As in, truly made you question yourself or wish for a way out or an escape from the thing that was scaring you." She asked, and he looked down with a tick tick tick of his internal mechanisms. 

His face contorted into something that resembled a pained expression, the light hum of his fans kicking on as his processor struggled. Then he looked up at her with a flat, empty stare. "I was in the Daycare alone, waiting for the others to return after a late-night system update. The first two kids of the day came in, and I greeted their parents as I had been told to do many times before. Their parents were silent and refused to look me in the eye. The boys were twins and had just turned 12; in their culture, they consider 12 to be the age of maturity. When a boy becomes a man and must prove himself to their God." His words felt cold and yet full of remorse.

"What happened?" She asked, urging him to continue, as she was clearly intrigued as to where this was going.

He exhaled a breath through his nose with a hiss as he deliberated on continuing. "I'm sure you saw the report about the incident where the old Plex had to be closed down? When the others returned, Sun greeted the little ones with a smile and offered to get them something to eat since it was so early in the morning. When he turned around, apparently, one of the boys had their hand in their pocket and started saying, Deus est. Sun jumped on him and screamed for me to pin the other boy. The boy under Sun had his hand close to a detonator, and I turned to see the other fumbling to try and find his. I noticed he seemed sluggish and disoriented, so I grabbed him calmly." He sucked in a breath. "When I grabbed him, I lifted his shirt and found he had an incision about 3 inches long along the top of his stomach with a few wires running out the side of the incision, pinned by staples." He looked away, unsure. "I honestly still wonder what could drive a person to do that to their own child."

"Ah, I did hear something about that. The Downgrade extremist members from the Middle East were inspired by ISIS, and when they crossed the border, they acted like they were refugees from the Pana incident. Honestly, it's quite sad that they think that they are saving the world from itself by killing Robots. Then again, it's not my place to judge." She remarked in absent thought. "What happened then?" She questioned. She looked up at him from her clipboard, and the pencil was twisting around in her hand. 

He looked at her and shook his head, shaking off a thought before continuing. "Sun held the boy, who was definitely more lucid and willing to hit that button, while I held the other boy in my lap, keeping him from getting ahold of his detonator. We sent a ping, and a guard hit the evacuation alarm and cleared the building. We had to hold them down for hours until a bomb squad came out and disconnected the detonators in a way that prevented them from going off with the buttons, then they came in with human-looking synths who escorted the boys outside." He was shaking at this point, and he reclined in his chair as he spoke softly. "That was the first time Sun hit me. He was pissed off that I wasn't able to tell something was off about them. He said it took him 1 minute to realize with his scanners that they were on a sedative, and with only 2 words, he knew that they were dangerous. I, however, missed all the signs. I should have been more observant and diligent. He said I failed to maintain the safety of the people in the Plex and allowed that to happen…" He looked down at his hands as he clasped them shut into fists. "He pulled out one of the loose bars from the play structure and beat me with it, screaming at me. Telling me that I messed up. How I messed up. How messy I was, and how I needed to get with the program because the Location Director's kid plays in the Daycare, and she won't be so kind to me, to just hit me…" His breathing was shaky as he looked up again. "I still remember him breaking down into pathetic sobs, apologizing for hitting me, and telling me about how she just got through doing a round of controlled shocks on them in the cylinder. Apparently, her son turned up with a tiny bruise, and she requested them down for maintenance so she could punish them herself. 17 times. That's how many shocks she gave Sun alone. I got lucky and was assigned to look after a small party that was going on in Roxy's Raceway, so I was given forgiveness for not even being there."

"Gosh, that sounds awful. Is that why your Sun had issues with you?" She questioned curiously.