JayDee

I think a pretty big factor is if it is the final battle of the story or some earlier encounter. No matter what kind of energy-balance system you put in place you typically end in the situation that the participants of the final battle have enough power available to make it more interesting than they-traded-six-blows-before-fight-ended-because-characters-energy-was-up. There is a reason people watch play-throughs of games but is not interested read a transcript of the button mashing during the fight.
I think the big takeaway you should take from my review is that the later part of the story when the others arrive and they are not just slugging attacks at each other. In fact I would be ready to argue that the peril when she starts to put herself at risk would not have worked from narrative perspective if we had not been shown their previous fight.
I totally agree that you did very fine.
Not familiar with that story or the author. So much to read and review...
A very classic villain if you ask me, but you have also done marvels at explaining so much of what happened in Whore of Heaven. JayDees story has a heavy focus on style and less about explaining the plot but you are really great at finding the motivations for why Eparlegna does so much weird shit.
It is really obvious you have spent quite a lot of time working on the concepts of this scene. The effort clearly pays off.
I look forward to it.

Alright, I have a review for another story to write today, but I must leave soon, and I’m not entirely sure what the internet situation will be like.  The review I can do on my phone, though it’ll take quite a while, but this will be easier to do here now, so with that in mind, reviewing another story being a thing done later today or tonight, for now let me finally  address @Thundercloud’s review for the final chapter of The Woman in the Statue.
About the action scene, believe it or not, I kind of figured that would be what happened, at least to some extent.  If I do any future stories with Luzurial, I can go into more detail with how her powers work and hopefully establish more of an idea of just how much energy any given attack consumes, but with this setup (the fact that she’s in a weakened state for most of the story and can barely use any of her powers), the only one we knew about was divine fire, which uses 100% of Luzurial’s power, and then it very sklowly comes back.  Aside from that, I couldn’t think of a good way to establish how the system worked without slowing down the action.  I’m not saying there wasn’t a good way, mind you; I just didn’t think of it.
I also knew right off the bat that I needed to keep this phase of the fighting shorter than the others...because it’s just fighting.  It’s one of the things you get away with far more easily on film than you do in prose.  In a movie or other visual medium, Eparlegna and Luzurial duking it out at full power is something I could show on screen in ten or fifteen seconds, but those seconds take a lot of descriptive text (the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very true when you’re trying to describe something visually), and the longer that text went on the more it would start to drag.  To that end, I did my best to cut it down, just having a few flashy attacks from Eparlegna (the tentacles and the red lightning) and then move into the character-based part of the fight with Luzurial’s interaction with the mortals, as you noted.
Thank you!  Milyn is sort of from someone else’s story (I’ve updated the Author’s Note to point that out, because I stupidly forgot about it at the time of posting ).  TimeWise has shown up on this thread before for reviews, and the whole reason for that was my asking if I could create my own version of the character.  Since Conversion, her story of origin, is a fantasy story set in a completely different world, so I had to find a real-world religion she would fit into.  I looked at her name, and one source indicated that it might be based on the Slavic element milu, meaning “gracious” or “dear”, and built on that, thinking she might be Eastern Orthodox, and finally went with Serbian Orthodox and settled on Belgrade as the city where she was born.  Her personality in her original story fit perfectly with what I wanted to do here, as she has a low opinion of herself but is clearly a rather unreliable narrator due to low self-esteem, and that fit with the idea that people have caught on that champions exist, but still haven’t quite figured out who they are.
Thank you!  JayDee had made a point during Whore of Heaven that God had fully trusted humanity to deal with Eparlegna on their own.  Now, due to the focus on Luzurial as a character and her recovery from her trauma, I couldn’t not have her do that, but I really wanted to show that after 75 years of prep, humans are dangerous now, even to Eparlegna.  It’s also a bit of character illustration for Eparlegna.  He’s very calm and composed when things are going his way, as they are during WoH, but when things don’t go his way, he’s a very sore loser, and he will destroy the game before he will accept losing it.
That scene was one I wrote even before I had finished the rest of the story, so JayDee had an advance preview.  At the time I was just calling it “The Punishment of Eparlegna”, after the interlude in The Slumber Party of Evil Doom.  I’ve always loved scenes where we get introduced to a really serious villain, and they’re more calm and quiet and all the more menacing for it.
Thank you for following me all the way to the end here.  I do indeed have more stories planned, and I hope you’ll enjoy them as well!

Authors: Sparrow and InBrightestDay
Title: Mortuus Orbis
Summary: No one knows how it happens. Plucked seemingly at random from their everyday lives, they are drawn to another place, a world where dark clouds blanket the sky above a bustling metropolis gone eerily quiet. From different worlds and different times, hero and villain alike are drawn inexplicably to this dead world. Here they must band together, try to learn how they came here and find out if there’s a way home. There are more immediate concerns, though. It will take all of their skills to survive, and even that might not be enough.
Because the city may be dead, but it is not empty.
Feedback: Reviews and constructive criticism very much appreciated!
Fandom: Misc Video Games/RPGs > Crossovers
Warnings: Angst, Bigotry, BMod, Hum, MCD, M/F, MiCD, Minor2, Preg, Racist, Rape, Tent, UST, Violence, Xeno
Solo or chaptered story: Chaptered
URL: http://games.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600091389
Review Reply thread: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/69143-mortuus-orbis-discussion-thread/
This is a collaborative project that Sparrow and I have been working on for quite a while now (going back to well before I finished WitS), and I’m happy to see it finally posted here.  I’d say it’s mostly horror, though there’s definitely some character drama as well, and more action scenes happen as the story progresses.

“How’s Abdul?”
“He went after you and he’s in pieces.”
“Ah, my wounds don’t look that bad do they? Luzurial healed me?”
“No, he walked into the Lego Trap. He’s literally in pieces.”
Makes a lot of sense! I do wonder if Kizzy after spending time amongst mortals would be less fast to sacrifice them. I mean,  except Drew.
Working with the mortals there was great, I think everyone’ll like the champion and there’s always a nice action moment when the tank kicks in!
We had a discussion about this as I recall.
You: Just remembered this. What’s that about?
Me: *Looking baffled and slightly scared, poking Whore of Heaven with a stick* I… don’t know.
The possibilities are endless!
Lupa: “Who the fuck brought a one-legged man to an ass kicking contest?”
*Sees Luzurial glare*
Lupa: “...is what I heard those cabrons over there say.”
Kevin: “I’m going put my foot right up your ass! And leave it there, to give my sump a break!”
Definitely think you made the right choice. Hell, you could probably even fit in some stories during the year where she has caused to do her job around Kevin. Especially if he found himself in suipernatural hijinks – gonna be some Eparegna fans out looking for revenge etc etc!
Whoohoo!

If you want straight evil look no further than Javelina. One of a hiker’s worst nightmares because they’re mean af social and they have no problems ganging up on and killing anything dumb enough to be alone.
 

carnivorous humanoid frogs

Dat mass tho

From JayDee on November 19, 2020
 
Bound by Choice – first chapter with a title!
Well. Well. That sort of activity certainly seems dangerous. And I don’t mean the groaning like a zombie during a zombie outbreak. Imagine if it snapped, or misfired! The Jedi council had a similar problem I understand. Pretty funny for him to be found like that, though, and my guess is he is perfectly aware Harry saw him and had the reaction he did. Hot, that. You guessed right Argus also has a charm that makes the user tingle whenever someone walks in on them. So he is very aware that Harry being the only other person in the store
We both know pervy wizards and witches likely have all manner of carnal spells to make their wands do things.
Also I really liked the Patronus getting involved in getting attention. That was straight up hilarious! If Patronuses take the form of animals its not really a stretch to suggest that they also have personalities. They also have mass at-least as long as they are conjured.
And we learn a bit more about what big V’s got on Harry… Bit of a rough choice there, but things being as they are in the universe it’s probably the best he could get. Take the mark or your friend gets Kissed is a remarkable yet deeply coercive method but it is effective at recruitment. You’d have to be a monster to callously watch your friend suffer a fate much worse than death. Voldy knows Harry isn’t so he chose the angle that had the best chance at success. He needed Harry’s endorsement so the coup could have that legitimacy.
Subtly went right out the window when the world started ending.
Wizardkind already knew they were outnumbered by muggles. The most astute are rightly worried about what happens when the last muggle stronghold falls to the unrelenting onslaught of these dead. When there are no more muggles for the horde to search out. Alone against an unknown enemy.
The implication that these dead have a rudimentary magic of their own is a terrifying concept.

The Dad has a secret evil side of his soul that emerged and killed the Mom
After ignoring warnings from the Prophet Gloria “The Rythm” got her.
“Your Mom died young” is actually code for “Your mom ran away with a woman who didn’t treat her like shit.”
“Son… it was the shits. Just up and crapped herself to death one day. We had to move the farm house a mile after filling in the privy didn’t clear the air, but it wasn’t enough. The miasma is still spreading. The country becomes uninhabitable. A rag tag group of heroes tried to fight it but ended up gagging and fleeing.”
The Mom accidentally choked to death on horse semen trying to win a drunken bet
“Fucking. Elves.”
“Fucking elves.”
“Fucking Elvis. Fat boy just crushed her to death. Nobody knows where he came from. Talked of a weird world where he was King.”
“Son… it was your father who was dying, but I wanted you to have a strong male influence so I took a potion to make me a man. Mistakes were made. Anyway, it’s wearing off...”
ATM did it. She caught an infection through a mouth ulcer.
The village constables caught her wearing a fursuit and hanged her. The headpiece popped right off, so they had to string her up again.
tl;dr No, no ideas at all.

The Dad has a secret evil side of his soul that emerged and killed the Mom
After ignoring warnings from the Prophet Gloria “The Rythm” got her.
“Your Mom died young” is actually code for “Your mom ran away with a woman who didn’t treat her like shit.”
“Son… it was the shits. Just up and crapped herself to death one day. We had to move the farm house a mile after filling in the privy didn’t clear the air, but it wasn’t enough. The miasma is still spreading. The country becomes uninhabitable. A rag tag group of heroes tried to fight it but ended up gagging and fleeing.”
The Mom accidentally choked to death on horse semen trying to win a drunken bet
“Fucking. Elves.”
“Fucking elves.”
“Fucking Elvis. Fat boy just crushed her to death. Nobody knows where he came from. Talked of a weird world where he was King.”
“Son… it was your father who was dying, but I wanted you to have a strong male influence so I took a potion to make me a man. Mistakes were made. Anyway, it’s wearing off...”
ATM did it. She caught an infection through a mouth ulcer.
The village constables caught her wearing a fursuit and hanged her. The headpiece popped right off, so they had to string her up again.
tl;dr No, no ideas at all.

The death was caused by somebody that the boy admire.

Don’t worry. It did not sound like any bemoaning, but just served as good place for me to place the “your story is good enough to get more reviews” comment.
I don’t go around tallying reviews for authors that I enjoy reading...but I have been waiting for you checking chapter 13 of G.S.P.  for quite a few months now.

If we are speaking about other stuff I have written I would be interested to know what you think about The Tale About the Laughter of Azbezil (revised). Perhaps not a perfect fit for you since there are some non consensual scenes but the bad-stuff-happening-to-people count is way lower than for the G.S.P. story and the overall story is quite InBrighteestDay compatbile.
I admit that I have read that I each chapter more than once...

Oh no that’s not what I meant!  I appreciate that you think i deserve more reviews, but that was more of a “satisfied completion of task” thing than a “bemoaning too few reviews” thing.  I know I’ve got reviews coming from at least one more person (maybe two), and after that it’ll be about sticking around, posting more stories and hoping people click on my “Stories Written” section
Possibly.  We might be tied.  WitS has twelve chapters and you’ve reviewed all of them, while G.S.P. has thirteen chapters and I’ve reviewed twelve of them, though I will get that last one read (to avoid spoilers, I’ll just say I’m more than 1/3 but less than halfway through).  Admittedly, if you’re tallying reviews for every story each of us has written, this gets more complicated...wait, why are we doing this as a competition?   At any rate, I will get there.
But first, time to respond to more reviews for the WitS finale!   This one comes to us from @JayDee!
It’s less than that, i guarantee it.  I’m certain several hundred of those are me going in to have a chapter open as a reference when posting the next one (so I get everything formatted the same, make sure the disclaimer’s in the right place, etc.), checking to make sure the Author’s Note is right or just re-reading chapters to see if they’ve gotten worse since the last time I looked.
Still, 2,800 or so ain’t bad.
I’ll take your word for it.
That’s yet another example of me catching something during the writing process.  Originally, they were going to realize that Kevin was unguarded up there, and then just go up and get him, but then I realized that while there weren’t any traps on those floors, none of the PPD folks could know that, so it was much safer for them to stay where they were and for Kevin to be brought down after the battle was over.
The property damage was sort of the inevitable follow-up to what was established way back in Whore of Heaven, where the reason the host can’t intervene because of the casualties that would result from a full-scale engagement.  So I figured the armies of Heaven and Hell fighting all-out would pretty much destroy the Earth, similar to a nuclear war.  So what’s the smaller version of that look like?  I couldn’t allow it to go on too long (for reasons I’ll get to in the response to Thundercloud’s review), but I had to show at how much damage just one angel and demon were doing by themselves.
I spent a while trying to come up with solid comebacks from Luzurial, but then in the end I realized it might be better if she didn’t even give it a response, and the more I thought about that, the more I liked it.
The idea of the humans seeing her helping them, and them stepping up to help her, was all meant to build to the final moment, the “nuclear option” as you called it.  See, this all goes back to something you said at one point when discussing the character and what happened 75 years prior.  As you’ve explained, Kizzy would never have been trapped (well, not as completely as Luzurial), as she would have nuked the area and sacrificed Eparlegna’s prisoners for the greater good.  it was only their bodies that would have been destroyed, after all  But Luzurial, as you said, was just too nice.  I spent quite a while thinking about that, wondering if there was a way for her to outgrow this weakness.  Unfortunately, every time I came back to the same idea: that Luzurial would have to allow someone to die.
And then it occurred to me that maybe this could be about realizing that some weaknesses shouldn’t be outgrown.  Yes, the level of care Luzurial has for the mortals can be a weakness, but maybe it’s also a strength, and that was what I tried to show at the end, the moment of realization and acceptance that allows her all the way back to full power, where she can use Divine Fire.  I picked moments where her treatment of humans was paid back, essentially, and in this chapter I showed how a mortal champion (Sister Milyn) and then National guard forces all rallied around her, epitomized by their brief bit of fighting together (Luzurial puts up a barrier to protect them, and then the moment she drops it everyone opens fire).
 
Thank you so much!  I loved your description of her glowing eyes in WoH (“the suddenly glowing maelstrom of her eyes”), and I wanted something that was at least a little like that, so the idea of the core of a star came up, and that was about the best I could do.
So, fun fact, the line Lucifer has there  is taken from something Loki says in The Avengers, where he orders the people of Stuttgart to kneel.  They hesitate, and he kind of loses it a bit: “I said...KNEEEL!!!”  His loss of control there is, I think, indicative of his status as the bad guy of the story, but ultimately not the overarching villain, as even back then, Thanos was being hinted at as the man behind Loki.  Here, Lucifer is in his element and remains in control, and we get just a hint of his shifting emotions with the weird effect on his voice.
I mean, I might have come up with a gag for Kevin and his handily expendable leg…  And yeah, I loved the kissing too, as well as the way she’s basically excited for Kevin to see her wings for the first time.
Luzurial’s explanation of why she wants to continue her relationship with Kevin are a continuation of the beat from Part Ten, and sort of my thoughts on action heroes and heroines and their significant others.  It does seem to be important to the drama that the love interest not be completely removed from the central conflict of the story, but at the same time I feel like it really ought to be ok for a combat-capable character to have a non-combatant love interest.  It makes writing the story a bit trickier, but I do think it should be seen as something permissible.
So, JayDee knows this, but for those who don’t, there were two endings for this story.  The first one, which I thought of as the Patience ending, was where Luzurial could come back to see Kevin again, but only to spend a little time with him, and to let him know that he would have to wait; to live a good life and do the work he needed to do here, and then, when the time finally came, she would be waiting for him at the gate.  I love stories about people who are willing to wait a lifetime for each other, but it was definitely a bittersweet ending.
The second ending, which I called the Sunrise ending, was the one you see here, where Luzurial is granted the right to visit Earth every year and spend a day with Kevin.  This was less bittersweet, and it also left the door open for possible future stories, where Luzurial is visiting Kevin, something preternatural happens and she gets drawn into it.  JayDee and I were talking via email, and they said something about kind of not wanting to see Luzurial and Kevin broken up, and that, along with the possibility of future stories, was what nudged me toward settling on the Sunrise ending.
 
I don’t know exactly how much free time I’ll have to write everything, but I will absolutely continue writing, and thank you again for everything.

That sounded very depressing...I hope you will get more reviews after all your hard work.
There is a reason the final battle of stories usually include quite much fighting.
As for the matter of action...I actually think you peaked there in chapter 10. The Woman in Statue is bound to end with an epic duel given the groundwork of JayDee, but the real action IMHO happens on the way up in the actual “dungeon”.
I think you did a good job with this. Her reflection there increase the tension of the final battle.
It is very much the best line. The others are not even close...”My name is” for instance suffers from interference with far too many songs and movies.
I have done my review for the final chapter so now you know the answer. I look forward at hearing your thoughts about my stuff...I think I am ahead of you in the number of reviews by quite a few now.

Whore of Heaven
Thank you for the  review! It’s always great to get some feedback on old stories. I’m glad you liked the writing style! I totally get where you’re coming from with that line. It’s,uh,
Her awesome breasts were revealed in their entirety for the first time, perfect unblemished mounds of flesh, tipped with dark brown areola and large nipples.
it’s more than a litty cringry really. But it is possibly one of the lines that persuaded @InBrightestDay that this was their type of character, so I’ll just take a minute to promote their just-finished follow up story The Woman in the Statue that not only goes into great, better-written detail about what happens next to Luzurial after this story, but also takes a brave brief stab at explaining the somewhat skimpy outfit. The meta-reason for the outfit is that the original person who requested I write an angel story, provided a picture with a similar outfit for what they’d liked to see and I never really stopped to think, “Well, this ain’t so pure...”
Thank you again! I hope parts 2 and 3 are not disappointing.
 

Skipping a little in the order, as JayDee’s reviews are huge and I have a limited amount of time here so I’ll get to theirs after work, we have the final review from Symbalistic.
Thank you so much!  That was the main thing I worried about, and hearing that you enjoyed it is a huge relief.
There was definitely some anime influence here, and that moment you actually mentioned definitely brought to mind a certain piece of anime music you’ve no doubt heard.  The actual moment with Luzurial remembering things, regaining the last of her self-confidence and releasing a massive attack would be from 2:05-2:55 or so.
Yes, “You Say Run” really does go with everything.
Thanks for coming on this trip with me, and I’m glad I could give you a fun read.

It’s been a long road...gettin’ from there to here…
The Woman in the Statue is finally complete and posted in its entirety, so let’s get to the reviews for Part Twelve.  First up is one from @InvidiaRed.
It would be nice to be published some day.  For now, thank you so much for the compliment!
 
Yeah, we took different approaches to portraying Lucifer in these stories.  Yours was intended, from my read, to be somewhat comedic, and generally not as smart as he thought he was.  I went with “intimidating”, or at least sought to.  Setting him in contrast to Eparlegna, Lucifer was meant not to be in any way a better person, but rather the more dangerously intelligent villain, and one who has, by now, become deeply irritated by this particular demon’s antics.
I went back and forth a bit about what kind of angel Lucifer had been before the Fall.  The book of Ezekiel describes what might be Lucifer’s fall, and uses the word cherub, and since I was rolling with the imagery used in the Bible being literal instead of symbolic (technically the images of angels we have show up in visions, which tend to be laden with symbolism, so there aren’t any “this is what an angel looks like” literal descriptions in the Bible; just descriptions of how people react to an angel in its natural form), the cherub imagery is pretty insane (four wings, four different heads, skin like metal and eyes all over the place), and a demonic creature based on a cherub would have looked really horrifying.  However, other sources seem to have Lucifer as either an archangel (what you went with, I believe) or a seraph, and the seraph sounded really striking as well.  The tie-breaker came from Islam, wherein as far as I can tell Iblis is a fallen jinn, which in the Quran are elemental fire creatures, hence the portrayal of Lucifer here as a fallen seraph.
As for the quote, yeah, never piss off your boss when your boss is the scariest thing in a place full of scary things.

Yeah, this is sort of the result of the world building I did to explain why angels think they have to be celibate.  Going all the way back to Part Three, where I brought in the hierarchy and explained that only the Seraphim speak directly to the Creator, so if a mistake happens (and no one thinks to ask for clarification), it can potentially stick...for like billions of years.
Thank you for the review, and thank you for following me all the way to the end here!

Ok, one last review for WitS Part Eleven, this time from @Thundercloud.
So, remember how I said I’d explain why I took JayDee’s recommendation to break things up when I got to Thundercloud’s review?  Well…
That right there is pretty much it.  There is so much action in this finale that I was afraid that people would get numb to it if they read it all at once.  Thus, I broke off the archangel vs. dragon proper section and put that in the final chapter along with the denouement, while the “on foot” combat took place here.
There is an element of this that’s going to come up in the finale when you get to it.  It was already there, but I actually added some of what you said here to the final chapter.  I didn’t add an entire scene or anything, but there’s a little bit during the fight where Luzurial reflects on what, in hindsight, would have made things easier, but she didn’t do that, and you are precisely right about ultimately what’s going on.
This is just who she is.
Yep!  I rewrote that moment a little and, unfortunately, accidentally left a piece of the first version in there.  Thank you for pointing that out, and it has been fixed.
I’ve mentioned this in some of the other review responses, but “You dropped something” is one of three lines in this finale that I absolutely loved, the others being “My name is Luzurial” and “Enjoy Hell.”
“You dropped something” in particular is probably the first one I came up with, and I liked setting it up as just a cruel taunt from Eparlegna that Luzurial then gets to throw back at him.
Luzurial’s recovery, as I outlined it when writing this, essentially comes in three steps.  Step one is the moment where she completely throws off the “My name is Whore” thing from WoH and reclaims her sword, and step two is what you just pointed out, where she gets her wings back.  She’s most of the way there, but there's a little tiny bit left to go, which happens in the next chapter.  You are correct, though, in that this is what puts her most of the way there.
Thank you again for the review, and I hope you enjoy the last chapter!

Part Twelve of Twelve is up.

Generally positive! Healing! Fingers crossed it all works out.

There’s going to be a lot of damage to repair, but I think Biden is the guy to do it, especially if the Senate remains in Republican control. He’ll be better at reaching across the aisle than Trump ever was.

As a foreigner I think it will be nice to get read about something different in the news papers….the last week has really been an orgy of reporting of not yet final results from the US election.

From another perspective I think it is great that US will finally try to become a new player in carbon free energy. The lasts years has IMHO given China far too much room to continue to gain geopolitical power from their clean energy investments. Europe and US need to get their act together and make sure that China does not control all the essential technology that will used for the next hundred years.

My initial reaction is relief. Pure, utter relief. 
I’m not sure how long it will take to rebuild the trust we once had globally, or to even heal the breaches in our own country, but we have made a beginning.

Democracy in action is quite the sight. Don’t often get turnouts like that!