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Must confess… this post in @Praetor ‘s topic irked me, but it didn’t feel right replying in a thread (where, no offense, not reading the relevant story). The sense of self-entitlement here reeks, IMO, threatening a hostile takeover of a story because the author might be having a life outside of writing.

Alright! The last review from @GeorgeGlass I won’t go into this too deeply, as a future story may have a scene addressing the topic again, but this is definitely an overriding philosophy on display here: science and philosophy (religion included) are two ways of looking at the world, and if both religion and science are equally valid, as is the case in this story, then at the points where the two touch, they should overlap without conflicting. I personally like the effect when you combine the two. This comes up in Chapter 3 with Luzurial’s happiest memory being 13.6 billion years ago, fusion igniting inside the first star, when Luzurial explains that lower-ranking angels look like the mortals of whatever planet they’re assigned to and so on. It’s something I really enjoyed doing with the story. I had so much fun with that. Credit must also be given to @JayDee, because way back in the day, I was actually just going to have Luzurial get a new sword when she regained her wings. However, during conversation with JayDee, they mentioned that the sword is actually a part of Luzurial, like a shard of her soul, so at that point she had to get it back, and the idea of using the flaming whip like that was way too good to pass up! I thought about that, and I admit this has to do with the mental image that resulted. Holy water is water that’s been blessed by a priest, and when I considered it being standard use against beings like this, I had the image of a bunch of priests on like an assembly line, blessing holy water in huge quantities...and I started chuckling at the image. So yeah, holy water is made in relatively small quantities, but it’s for a very personal reason. So...I am very sorry about that. I wish there were some manner of explanation I could give you, but the simple fact was that I didn’t think of it. I can’t begin to explain why I never thought to have her say it in the denouement. Doesn’t make me look particularly intelligent, does it? Again, I’m sorry. Thank you again! The Hell scene wasn’t something I’d planned from the beginning but evolved out of the storytelling. It all started with that bit in Chapter 4 where I was sort of summing Eparlegna’s character up through dialogue, and then later with his dialogue with Kevin in Chapter 6 he kept insulting Lucifer and I started to have thoughts... Thank you for the reviews, and I’m really happy you enjoyed it.

Ok, so I was away from home for a while, but we have some more reviews for WitS from @GeorgeGlass! This is definitely an area where the compressed timeframe of the story affected how fast it moved. This whole thing takes place over about a week, and I had a hard time believing Eparlegna would wait too long to make his move. Given that, I definitely ended up having Luzurial come to her decision faster than if the story had taken place over, say, a month. I was definitely aware of what you’re talking about, which was why I stretched the timeline out by one more day, so that Luzurial had around an entire day to think about what she was going to do, rather than, say, a few hours. Thank you! That kind of came from JayDee. In Whore of Heaven, the barrier is described as looking vaguely like smoke, so I figured there might be a sense of that as it expanded, and with the agents driving away from it I was kind of reminded of the pyroclastic flow scene from Dante’s Peak. Correct. I didn’t think I’d be able to create a Sloth monster that was actually threatening, but figured out I could make it work if it sapped the energy from people around it. The Gluttony creature you only hear about, from the elevator shaft, actually has a little bit of extra story behind it. I remember talking in the review thread for one of @InvidiaRed’s stories about insect mouthparts and the proboscis, and posting by way of example a wheelbug up close to show it. Invidia was like “Well THAT’s terrifying.” I couldn’t resist having a creature design with a similar organ and have someone else take Invidia’s “Well SCREW that!” attitude toward it. Thank you again! I was rather fond of that one. *shakes fist at the sky* JAAAAAYDEEEEEE!