InvidiaRed

43454

43430!

43418

43401 Harken! For procession without end!

43380

43371

43345! Behold the odd!

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43279!

43245! Ah! Five

From GeorgeGlass on January 05, 2024 "Jotunheimr Christmas" by InvidiaRed I will say that I did not find this an easy story to follow. But I liked the bits about Aten (whose sleazeball tendencies reminded me of his IRL proponent Akhenaten, King Tut's dad) and the idea of the World Serpent being a protector of humanity. To stare into the depths and inspire a chained god just by living. Prophecies are potent but not invincible

43183! Alas, Alas the center can’t fold what a world!

43173

Can’t wait to read it lol finally got back to my trust old laptop

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43131!

43097!

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43069!

From InBrightestDay on December 09, 2023 Slither And we're all caught up! Not a ton to say about this chapter. We finally get to spend some time with Melinoe, and the inside of her head sounds like a difficult place to be. It was mentioned that she was bipolar before, but here it seems she has some other disorders, at least from the way she's incapable of focusing on things. She is both of olympus and the underworld the restless, riteless dead are all beholden to her. We have a lot of new characters introduced in this chapter, and I just kind of let it wash over me. I figure if they're important, they'll pop back up. Glykon's girlfriend was kind of amusing, and I laughed at his horror at having to pay Logan back...with interest. The chapter ends with Apophis being released, and there is a reference to primordial serpent venom and Fenrir sort of recognizing it, which...does that indicate Apophis is an incarnation of Duncan? If so, him and Angrboda being active at the same time would indicate that I was wrong about only one incarnation being active at once. No you are quite right, Angrboda, Cethlann and the Greek Tragedy betrayed Duncan in the deepest way possible. Mother and Crone and Lastly Maiden did something unforgivable in their ritual. They woke a being who was forbidden not understanding or caring that Apophis had already been momentarily roused, And now… He’s truly and fully awake. They don’t understand what they’ve done and they don’t care…. They think they can control it. How so very… foolish. Our chapter ends with...well, good news: angels aren't extinct. Bad news: they're pointing weapons at Logan. Maybe we'll see how that shakes out next time.

From InBrightestDay on December 08, 2023 The Offering Sorrow four-parter Or... SHIT JUST GOT REAL! Ok, well...uh...so this is really where the conflict kicks into high gear, with most of it focusing on the villains' plans. There's not really a single villain group here, but apparently three of them, with Angrboda and Ahriman separate from Aten who, of necessity, is himself separate from Odin and whoever else is trying to attack humanity. I'm still not really sure what Angrboda's game plan is,(Victory at all costs) though obviously it involves revenge against Asgard, since she was hoping humanity would launch a nuclear strike against the Aesir. I see we did also get a mention of the Fomorians looking for the crown, so it was nice to know that plot thread is still running. The Ahriman/Lucifer scene is probably the most developed smut scene you've ever written, and props! I'm obviously not of the necessary orientation to say whether or not it was hot, but it was pretty detailed, and also captures the nightmarish feel I think you were going for (being pumped full of live ants and hornets is a terrifying thought). Amusingly, this does continue Lucifer's string of failures in this story. To quote Captain Malcolm Reynolds: "Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." Angrboda and Ahriman were both discussing how the global pantheon seemed to have betrayed humanity, but it did really feel more like a guess, and maybe everyone shouldn't start running with it as- It was at the time a guess, but evil bastards tend to have a sense of timing. They could sense it. Humanity's cries rang out as Valkyries descended upon the city and began to slaughter. Nevermind! That's definitely a thing that's happening! Odin remarks about how some of the gods, himself included, seem to have lost track of humanity, which makes me wonder: do some gods observe humanity and others don't? Yep, While most gods turned inwards to their realms. Some resolutely did not, Those that did not saw first hand humanity develop nations, They were the first to leave behind the god’s tribalism and enter into the era of like interests. Might be from completely different pantheons, But their goals aligns/ are similar/ the same. And really should the head of the god tribe truly be the one calling all the shots? Also I was pleasantly surprised that one of the things Lucifer mentioned in Southern Wind is actually being followed up on: Zahak(He’ll be back) has become a running character! Speaking of which, that brings us to Glykon, who reappears in this unnamed city where the valkyries are attacking. I was a bit surprised to see him wearing a sockpuppet, as opposed to the handpuppets, but his encouragement of Zahak to turn into a big three-headed dragon was cool, and then... Gungnir groaned, and its metal protested. Odin focused on the origin of the sound. Enfolding his spear in its coils was a serpent as it grunted and groaned as its coiled body constricted. Odin wasn't worried his spear would not be done in by-. With a thunderous crescendo. Gungnir shattered into fragments,gaslines erupted,vehicles exploded and the ground crumbled from the destruction of the divine artifice. ...Apparently he only wears that sock puppet when he's KICKING ASS! Holy shit, Glykon, who knew? I mean, it was kind of foreshadowed by that impressive invocation, but hot DAMN! Man, when Glykon rolls into a scene now, he's going to slither in in slow motion with "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" playing in the background. Ok, gotta calm down. So the final chapter involves calming down, and we have the first proper dialogue scene with Jophiel, whom Glykon sees as a woman. I actually had a little headcanon regarding her and the way different characters see her, which is that Jophiel looks a little different to each person. Basically the archangel of beauty looks like "the most beautiful thing you've ever seen", which varies due to beauty being subjective. So Glykon sees her as a definite woman, while Logan, a gay man, sees a woman who is nonetheless more masculine, closer to his ideal and thus more androgynous, and Lucifer, who it seems is a closeted bisexual,Omnisexual refers to Jophiel with nonbinary they/them pronouns. I have no idea if that's true, but it fits so far. You are right on the money. In this, she shares this trait with gods of beauty. Believe it or not, I had wanted to write a short little story with Jophiel in this universe, but gave up on it because I didn't want to contradict plot developments in your story. It seems we hit some of the same characterization, with her being sort of a sad character as a result of being one of the few survivors of genocide. Well, because of that I was none too happy with the way Glykon kept coming at her. I mean, yeah, the angels hurt your grandfather, but then he rendered them almost extinct, which is also a pretty permanent harm, so maybe let it go. Of course that meant I was very pleased when it turned out Glykon wasn't being a dick, it was just Lucrezia messing with his mind. You more than have my blessing on it i’d like to read it. She rightly sees Duncan as some Turbo-Stalin figure on steroids. Angels hide in fear of him cause they know Michael went into that temple. What he did to Gabriel later was designed specifically to break their morale. In an instinctive its my species or yours and I’m unapolgetically choosing mine. He’s made that decision before. Last major revelation of the chapter was that...well, the Mother of Carthage was still around, but more importantly, that Duncan is YHVH's father and therefore Jesus's grandfather. I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about this, but it does serve to give more of our characters a personal connection to Duncan, as both Jesus and Glykon are his grandchildren. They’re mostly decimated, in a tragic level he’s just like her. Like a grandparent being among the survivors of a purge and finding out only a few of his children live… and only two grandchildren left, that’s not even going into seeing his last priest die. And the resolute worst part of all… It was his child that was responsible. Its a dark road Duncan’s been on for a very… long time. But its torment unending to be on the cusp of escaping that dark road only for the lights that guided you be snuffed out before you could escape. Inertia dragging you back and all your progress undone. Duncan is not well but you get to see a glimpse of Duncan at his worst. Speaking of which, Duncan is still absent. I'm guessing that only one version of him can be "alive" at any given time, so he's out of commission as long as Angrboda is active. We'll see where this goes in the future, as I have one more chapter to read! Remember how I said everyone else was in that category of acceptable losses?

From InBrightestDay on December 04, 2023 Southern Wind This is where I stopped reading last time, so from here on out everything is uncharted territory. The first chapter is interesting, showing what I believe is another version of Duncan (he has Duncan's sunny personality, at least, albeit with the added air of a jilted boyfriend, amusingly). If I recall correctly, when he and Logan were discussing Glykon, he stated that he got involved in the angelic war when Glykon was active in Rome, which would have been during the 2nd century, so presumably that's when this takes place. I do question why Logan is experiencing these memories, though. I think a better question is how long has Duncan been at war. War does funny things to people and Duncan been at it for a long while. I do like that we also get to see a bit of grieving from Logan. Duncan comes back from death, but he does technically still die, so his loved ones have to experience that. The fact that Hel and Glykon are sticking around for him is nice. To be perfectly fair had either of them gotten involved it would have been much, much worse for everyone involved. Fen doesn’t play fair and it would have went full FUBAR. Glykon is at best a teenager and probably will be for thousands of years. Hel missed Duncan by hours. Guilt, because she really does need to talk to him, Fenrir as family was responsible and being of the underworld there is… community, camaraderie. Responsibility and Accountability are part of daily life in the underworld. She could leave but she may not realise it yet, the bonds between parent and child are not so easily dissolved. I'm a bit confused as to how the "year that never was" works. A lot of the way the characters talk about it feels like the year was somehow erased, but on the other hand Jormungandr mentions a conversation he had during the year, so is it more that Logan, Hel and Glykon were all outside of time for a year? That would explain the mail, at least. Indeed, he was so gargantuan, so large that the tidal forces of frazzling fate couldn’t just deposit him on the shores of the new year with everyone else. He like Duncan were essentially left behind and had no other option but to live through that year hoping they’d catch up to everyone else. For Duncan, just imagine coming back… and there’s no one else, A few sparse few separated by distance just an entire year of oubliette isolation and loneliness. And a hope that you might see your family and other people again. An empty world and you have no idea if anyone is ever coming back. For everyone else. They just appeared and woke up none the wiser, suddenly. Nature hadn’t even realized everybody was gone much less came back. Also, Jormungandr said he was, as the media would put it, "a big deal". He will henceforth have the voice of Ron Burgundy in my head. Able to put trains, airplanes and travel all to shame, there’s nowhere on earth his coils can’t reach. Can’t really argue with an impossibly large snake snapping up all the cargo and single-handedly making cargo ships and the like obsolete. Results matter and practically near instantaneous travel anywhere in the world. Trillions in mere hours. There does seem to be a math error when Pazuzu is talking. He says Duncan will next be available in three to five centuries, and then says the next availability will be in year 5025, which would be three millennia, not three centuries (three centuries would put it around 2325). Indeed, but do you really expect a demonic god to be truthful? He’s eager and willing to fight tooth and nail in court for as long as it needs to go. Be it 2325, or for Asgard in general 5025. Doesn’t need to sleep and can spend all the time making life a living hell through the legal system. For as long as he desires just to reschedule because he hates you. Glykon has been pretty much entirely a joke character so far, so seeing him pull off an insane magical feat is pretty cool, and adds some extra weight to the character. Joke characters are known to be lethal. At the end of chapter 2, however, is the point where we have to discuss why I stopped reading last time. Now, thus far, I've been keeping track of plot threads, but it was at the end of the Southern Wind three-parter that I started to wonder if any of those plot threads were supposed to be important. So at the end of Chapter 2, Lucifer shows up to drop two or three more plot threads, bringing us up to seven or eight total. There's also whatever's going on with invoking a dead god like Glykon did, which could bring us up to nine plot threads. Something about how three of those hooks were thrown out at once gave me the impression that they didn't really matter, even though Lucifer is panicking like they do. Then in Chapter 3 a lot of things happen very fast and feel rather...random. Missiles are hitting the house, then Jophiel brings Logan out of the garage, knocked unconscious offscreen (by a missile strike? unknown), then Lilith drops through the ceiling, pulls out an assault rifle, and is then shoved aside by another new character, who wants Logan. Jophiel then draws her/their sword and challenges those who want Logan to bring it, which means she/they went from being terrified of being seen to prepared to square off with what I think (based on your description and Google) is Lamashtu, an elder deity, which means Jophiel underwent significant character development offscreen in the garage. No word on whether Lilith and Lamashtu are working together or competing, or if any of this is related to the missile strike or if that's as completely random as it seems. Instead of an action scene it feels more like a weird fever dream. Jophiel is already terrified of Duncan but letting him find out Logan died? She knows Logan is probably one of if not the most VIP at the moment. I will definitely expanded on this but the best way to characterize it is. For her Logan is Apotropaic. Much like a child’s night light keeps the darkness at bay. ...And I think "weird fever dream" is actually the intent, but I only caught this on my third readthrough of the of the chapter. And it was all because some fuck decided they wanted to ruin it for everyone else and tried to impose his will on fate. I didn't notice this the first two times I read the chapter because around this time Lucifer's freaking out about dropping his phone and the screen cracking, so what he says feels generally unimportant so I wasn't paying much attention. I think the complete insanity of that sequence is an effect of unauthorized fate-weaving, so the stuff that happens is meant to be chaos rather than an organically developed action scene. My one recommendation, should this happen again in the future, is that this be made a bit clearer. Someone like Logan usually serves as our "grounded" character, so he can ask the question the audience would, so like, using characters from this scene… Yep, the disorder as creation unravels into chaos. I absolutely do want to show who and when. Its not just isolated either this fever dreamesque was global. Logan: "What is going on?" Jormungandr: "Someone has interfered with fate." Logan: "What happens when someone interferes with fate?" Jormungandr: "Chaos." Just an example, but it could be something like that. Correct, I will be explaining that, Logan and Glykon get to really talk and he’s gonna have to come to terms with being willfully blind. His outlook is far more human being statebound his potential was never trained as he went the solider route and that going to bite him for sure. I am writing it Glykon can see Duncan’s scars and the wound that never heals. From his POV its obvious to Logan he’s never seen the truth. That bandaid is coming right off. Now, I'm guessing a lot of what Lucifer just brought up as huge stuff will be handled offscreen between chapters, but I have been wrong before, and this story could also be coming up on its actual main plot, which maybe a bunch of those threads are tied to, so I will continue reading and find out.