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Some places kept the old stuff going all through – there’s one place been doing a creepy-as-fuck hobby horse thing for centuries – but half the time you find yourself in some tiny village where they’re talking about the ancient tradition only to follow with “...and some pissartist hippies started it again in ‘78, and we kept it going because it’s an excuse to dress up and get shitfaced.” It definitely worked. As in “Punch the air, holy fuck, that’s great!” worked.

Yay – thank you so much @JayDee – this has really made my day I’m glad it came across as authentic. I really don’t have much confidence in my original work, because to me it seems to lack some kind of sparkle. I’m slowly coming around to the thought that the sparkle I’m missing is the conscious echo of canon that’s involved in fanfic, and I should get over it. Reviews like this really help. I’m really happy the punchline works too. It’s going back a bit, but while writing I was putting the clues in, and thinking: am I being too obvious here? Not sure about the rest of the country, but there are well dressings at places like Hope and Eyam, and I don’t think they ever really stopped, just that people lost interest until relatively recently. It does seem to have been co-opted by Christianity, though, which has probably helped keep it alive to be fair. Thanks for telling me about the typo too – I’m off to fix it now!

“it’s a pleasure to have you here as the new Professor. I’m sure you aren’t taking seriously that silly hoax rumor that the ApTheo post is cursed and nobody ever lasts more than a year without quitting or getting corrupted or being brutally murdered by a demon.” “Ahh, don’t ye worry none. It’ll be grand I’m sure.” And folks, when InBrightestDay found that old forgotten 2010 post on the forum I did feel bad about it! Eh, you’d have dodged the it being a guy saving her, but that review I sent you from one of my stories when we were discussing this whole true love/post rape thing, where a reader was justifiably irritated about me using a rescue-from-threat-of-rape trope to bring the characters closer together was on an FF story so it doesn’t make a lot of difference as far as that goes. When badly written the whole concept can be a real bane of Hurt/Comfort fics, but I personally think you’ve handled it as well as you could do – but again, I’m probably biased. For anyone curious, this is what I said in the email, and I stand by it! Well, sit by it. Well, lean against the wall by it. Fuckin’ pedants.

It was toward the end. I really don’t like doing rape stuff; I’m more into the “give your partner as many orgasms as you can and then cuddle until you fall asleep” kind of sex. However, in the case of Eparlegna, this is just kind of what the character does, and I figured he’d use the opportunity both to hurt Luzurial some more (because it’s fun) and to hurt Kevin by making him watch (because he annoyed Eparlegna). Yeah, it’s tricky finding the right balance. On the one hand, I’m an extremely visual person, so I tend to really paint a picture of the monster. On the other hand, as you said, describing the monster means stalling the action for a bit. Thank you! I rather enjoyed writing the Wrath creature chase; I almost felt like I was writing a Jurassic Park scene or something. Oh, and I didn’t mention this before, but the hissing shriek the Wrath construct makes is actually a videogame sound. If you’ve ever played Gears of War, it’s that noise Berserkers make when they charge you. Well...yes and no. You might want to get a drink or something, as this may take a while. So this is an issue I walked into with eyes open. I've known about it for quite a while now. Heck, JayDee even made a joke about it in the very first post of their Originals review reply thread. Granted, my actual degree is in Biology (and I wasn’t asking whether they were “against God” but rather whether Whore of Heaven was intended as an anti-religion piece; I didn’t want to write anything that would contradict the original story’s themes/message), but the point remains. I never intended for Luzurial to come across as a weak character, merely vulnerable in a specific area. She's a combat veteran with superhuman strength and durability, as well as the experience of a military career that stretches back fourteen billion years. However, she is vulnerable specifically when it comes to the issue of sexuality. In Whore of Heaven, it's established that angels are required to be celibate (or at least they think they're required to be celibate), so while she clearly knows what sex is, Luzurial has a degree of naivete on the subject that I always found deeply sympathetic. Over the course of the story, she is attacked and shamed repeatedly, specifically using sex (and her body's involuntary reactions to it) as a weapon against her. By the time we meet her in The Woman in the Statue, she's also spent 75 years inside of the coating, during which time, when she can form coherent thoughts through her pain, all she's really been able to think about is everything she did wrong, second guessing every single decision she made that led her to where she is now. Given all of this, by the time she's freed, Luzurial's self-esteem is pretty badly damaged. I have no doubt she could heal on her own, but it always helps to have a support system. Kevin, in spite of his one actiony moment here in Part Six, is not really capable of helping in battle, so the only thing he can offer her is to be that support system. This is particularly important concerning what I mentioned back when I was responding to your review of Part Four, namely, that Luzurial has elements of her experience that she considers her Dark Secret. In this case, the Dark Secret is the multiple orgasms she experienced during the sexual assault back in Whore of Heaven. Now, she hasn't actually done anything wrong (arousal and orgasm are involuntary physical reactions), but due to the perceived ban on angels ever knowing physical pleasure, she considers this a sort of shame. Some of my research also indicated that sometimes rape survivors feel ashamed, especially if they cooperated with the rapist in any way, which Luzurial eventually did. Taking all of this into consideration, I felt like on this one issue, it would help to have someone else, someone she trusts by now, actually able to tell her that she is not at fault for this, because I'm not sure it's something she would realize on her own for quite a long time. Of course, the fact remains that ultimately Kevin is a male character helping a female character feel better, and that was never far from my mind. As JayDee can attest, I was quite nervous when I sent them the draft for Part Seven, specifically over this issue. In Part Seven, I tried (though I won't guarantee that I succeeded) to mitigate it by giving Luzurial intiative. When Luzurial tells Kevin about what was done to her 75 years earlier, it's when she decides to. When their relationship turns physical (I figure everyone knew that was going to happen), it's her idea. In hindsight, I suppose I could have dodged this bullet rather neatly by making Kevin into Kelly and having this be an F/F story instead of an M/F story, but ultimately het stuff is just what I write (maybe just because it's my own sexual orientation), and I only just thought of this option now, after having posted two thirds of the story. So, like I said, yes and no. Yes, this is a story about a female character who's been hurt, and a male character who wants to help her heal, and since it is to some extent a romance love is part of that. However, I am endeavoring not to make the female character look weak (she's definitely not had the last of her badass action hero moments, and in Part Nine Kevin even gets to be kind of a Damsel in Distress). Everyone is vulnerable from time to time (I'm very much counting myself here) and I don't think it says anything bad about you if you lean on someone else, or as Kevin puts it in Part Seven "Just because you're a total badass doesn't mean you're not allowed to cry." Hopefully that made some level of sense. I know it was kind of rambly.

Re: “Little Rose” From FlutteringWings on February 26, 2019 After reading your last comment, I predicted you'd like this chapter. I'm glad. You're very welcome. More fun to come!