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My Scrabble app does not recognize “jahoobs” as a word. Those 88 points were rightfully mine.

Jude's Tale gets a review! And I have time to respond before going away for the weekend That sounds so much like the setup for a short porn video (or just a really terrible pickup line) that I grin just thinking about it. “Terrible synth music starts playing in the park.” Firstly thanks for the review! Secondly, terrible pick up line is what I was going for. This is like a pair of totally inexperienced introverts, managing to spend time with each other officially for study but also due to each having deeply held desire for the other suddenly finding their desires overwhelming, and nerding it up a little. Like the awkward kissing! Plus, being around a revved up Shannon can make most people act like they’re in bad porn. Nacre was coming up and I chose cutlery to get it in there – a hamper picnic also seemed a good way to get ‘em to Shannon’s statue. I didn’t know about the reputation as an aphrodisiac! Unintentionally makes it kind of even more appropriate, so that’s cool. Besides being classy I was thinking about Persephone having to stay in the underworld, while the donuts may have been sourced over at the Ironic Punishment Division but, yes, likely Jude’s choice if they’re in there. Just throwing references at the wall and seeing what I could get away with. Thanks! “Just throwing references at the wall and seeing what I can get away with.” :p Tegwen wanted to ensure Shannon had a suitable punishment, as inspired by Kizurial’s decision, but she’s as naive about sexuality as Luzurial was so it ended up harsher than intended. She presumably expected Shannon to meekly stand inside and consider her sins for eternity. Although unpleasant it hasn’t got so bad I thought it needed the Tort tag – if you think it could use one, let me know! The orgasm denial element is also a call back to what Shannon put Chummy through in Corrupt the Midwife Holy shit. This statue thing... First I thought it lasted for 100 trillion years, then I realized that because of how long red dwarfs live it would actually be 120 trillion years. Then you clarified that the statue lasts until the nucleons decay, which means it lasts for anywhere from 2 trillion trillion trillion years to 30 million trillion trillion trillion years (depending on proton half-life), and here we learn that after just one or two billion years the torture of the experience is enough to shatter even an immortal mind. If I may almost-quote something I had a character think in my own story, how is it that every time we learn more about this situation, it somehow becomes impossibly worse? *Taps self on chest* Monster. The Duchess could be wrong, although she believes she is right. I think Luzurial and even Shannon could both retain their minds throughout the whole of existence if left inside. Eparlegna might even intend that with the original design, because retaining rational awareness and those periods of lucidity, would likely make the suffering even worse. Something I've picked up on, at least from my own reading experience, is that the best way to really hurt me as a reader is to say or do something unbelievably cruel and then be as flippant about it as possible, minimizing its importance. Given the Duchess's expertise with torture, I honestly can't tell if she's genuinely just being casual about it or if those words were carefully chosen to hurt Shannon as much as possible. The whole story from the Duchess’ perspective has been about scoring as much emotional damage to Shannon as possible, because Shannon walked out on her. So her involvement started with manipulating Jude to try and kill Shannon’s friend (with added big picture bonus of trying to take out a frickin’ seraph). The Duchess’ motivation is a big part of the reason I thought it was appropriate to end the story with Shannon after all rather than leave that part of the story unshown. The last time she punished Shannon directly was in the decades after the Chummy debacle. That was physical punishment and it didn’t go so well, since Shannon throroughly enjoyed all the filthy sexual things the Duchess’s mind could come up with, though the Duchess just heard all the hollerin’ and thought things were going to plan. Thinking about Luzurial’s utterly unconsensual violations and tortures is considerably more painful to Shannon. The Duchess has realised this and is taking full advantage to twist the knife. Making a point of talking about Kizurial’s command in front of Shannon’s statue is another part of that. Her final throw of the dice is trying to kill the friendship and leave Shannon without someone watching out for her on Earth against other angels. It’s still ultimately Jude’s Tale because he goes from being the Duchess’ pawn to being in a position to influence her back, (my favorite bit is her appalled reaction to finding he intends to help her find redemption) and if I didn’t get to explore his past and his change from good guy to dipshit, at least it was a tale of his present and possible future. Dying, and getting inside Kizurial (stop snickering, Shannon), definitely put Jude in a mindset to change away from being a nasty bigot, and get back to the kind of guy he used to be, much less of an asshole than in parts 1 – 3. Shannon’s “Fuck you,” is a way of saying that his regretful words alone aren’t much to her, but maybe after those lifetimes in Hell if he’s keeping at it she’d speak more kindly to him – plus she’s pretty fucking miserable at that point. Hopefully I’ll get to write a oneshot follow up at some point to resolve the issues between Shannon and Kizzy (and with some apologies from Kizzy to a certain other archangel, oh and a tentacle monster. Heh, calling back to taking a story title taken from a song I could call it “All Apologies.” Thanks for reviewing all of the parts of the story, I appreciate the heck out of it. I genuinely hope it hasn’t been too tedious to push through, but I had fun with it! I’m off in a bit and won’t be back on AFF until Sunday after that, but I’ll be happy to reply further then – I hope everyone has a good weekend!