HunterOpera

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Leo said: I recognise that reference... Steph was referenced in the first trailer when we see a strung up body Lara recognises in a cave at the start of the game, but they cut it out for the release. Ironically, for this story Lara actually saved Steph's life by refusing to let her come along. I wonder when Sam/Himiko will reappear... and if it'll somehow change Duchess' situation. Yep, that is the Steph you're looking for. Or at. Reading about? Whichever. I tend to watch and read a lot of media, so connections are made and discarded elements that I think could be interesting often get bandied about in these little experiments. Steph seemed like she could be fun - I wanted someone Lara would have known, but not someone that was currently in any of her social circles. And given the themes this story has taken on, misplaced rage and revenge seemed like a good thing to tackle and Steph seemed like a good person by which to introduce a new element. What I'm wondering about is if anyone will get the real identities of the other ponies in the upcoming race - which, thanks to MorbodFantasy, has added another three chapters or so. They're mostly done, just in need of edits, so they'll be up soon. Sam/Himiko will follow shortly, and is going to change the nature of this story entirely. Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," FuckUSay said: Stephs in trouble. No foolin.' Where do you think it's going and what do you think it'll look like?

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," MF said: Chapter 13 was fantastic. Obviously Lara's not going to be serving out the full 10 years but so far she's spent upwards of 2 years in Parmistan. A good span of time for near permanent mental trauma. I really dug the day to day details, as usual, and how little she reacted to James, showing just how broken she was. Of particular interest is how the youngsters of Parmistan treat the "animals", how openly hedonistic they are. A suggested edit would be regarding the details of the new plug in her front. I'm reading the plugs themselves are shaped like Bacchus and Poena, but wasn't entirely clear if the vaginal Bacchus plug also had hair on it, if it was separate from the pony tail plug, or how it's being held in (mechanical or by muscles alone). It would be particularly interesting if Lara came into contact with other "service animals". I recall James seeing one during his initial visits to Parmistan, bu thusfar Lara hasn't had any interactions with ones such as herself, although I assumed that was because she was still in training. She should race another such as herself, and if she loses (whether fairly or due to deliberate handicap), it might make for good detail. Thanks, man. I figure Lara's mental fortitude would be tougher than most people's, but, yeah, two years of this sort of treatment is bound to leave a mark. I've got a way for Samus to deal with this kind of thing, but Lara? Especially post-reboot, sympathetic Lara? I don't see her coping well with this, not without some sort of exceptional outside help. Her therapist is not going to be enough, I think, but there are alternatives. All told, I think Lara's going to be stuck in Parmistan for three or four years, and then another six months or so outside Parmistan... but we'll get to that. I'm also glad the small details are working; I'm trying to make the Parmistani people seem like a real nation with their own history and culture without distracting from the meat of the story. I'm glad the snippets are working out; the experiment here is really one of depth and perspective. The major deities of the Parmistani people are Neptune and Bacchus - Neptune was about as bad a rapist as Jupiter, and Bacchus was the god of drunken hedonism, so between the two of them you get a people that are very comfortable with sexuality, but have taken that comfort to a place that isn't especially healthy. You're right about the plugs and the new harness - there's a chance for play there I missed entirely, and I'll have to do something about that in the next chapter. That should be fun. Thank you; I think I might work on that detail right now - it'll add a lot to what happens next. Oddly enough, the next chapter will see Lara interact with service animals, and she'll be racing them in the chapter after that. I'm traveling a bit next week, so I should be able to finish this off while I'm gone, and then put out the next part of Bergman.

Quick aside to Boobswriter - I was wrong, I totally have been reading your fic and was sorta waiting for you to start a conversation on the forums. Gimme a couple minutes to get caught up and I'll hit you with a more detailed reply.

Weird on the way that reviews are failing you; it's yet another reason I'm glad the forums are here, and they're a better place for discourse anyway. I haven't been reading your fic, but that is going to change as soon as I'm done here. As far as setting an account goes, well, wound recommend. 10/10. I've gotten a lot of useful intel out of reviews like yours, and the chance to talk a little shop is always welcome. I've found the mods here are incredibly helpful, so if you're having an issue try contacting one of them. As to the story, I'm a big believer in the idea of the psychology of a story being just as (if not more) important than the physical acts therein. Different people react differently to different stimulus; it's the why of what they feel that defines that action and the character. It's one of the things I really dig into with Bergman, and one of my struggles with Masque'd Hawk. It's the impact of experience, I think, so I'm trying to highlight that in Zamir's simple dialogue, and I'm glad that working out. And, yeah, Zamir was a bit of a thing. There was a lot of thought put into Zamir and Parmistan. I study some lingual theory and a lot of history and culture, and the challenge of seeing everything through Zamir's eyes was one of the reasons I wanted to do this. The idea of Lara as a pony girl was always as enticing one - her grace and athleticism, I think, work well for that kink - but I needed a means of conveying that transformation that made sense within context to a story. In that regard, both the Fatman Chronicles and Lara Croft in Hard Labor were invaluable. Working within the cliches and tropes of a story matter to me, especially within my own work. I want this stuff to read like something that could happen in the world I'm basing these fics in, but that also means playing with the cliches and tropes of the stories I'm overlaying onto the pre-existing world. Sirgeof is a reference to a site run by a guy who calls himself Sir Jeff, and he has a massive collection of pony girl fic. I read some of that, distilled the things that worked for me, in them, and have tried to be as true to those stories as I have been to the Tomb Raider universe. Part of that is dressage, training, and breaking, so a lot of what Lara has been forced into comes from stories told there. The psychological stuff is, however, all me. I'm an insomniac and I read a lot on a variety of subjects, and the idea of breaking a mind is something I looked into a while back. There's a host of writing on the subject and it all makes for fascinating (if terrifying) reading. The trick is always in applying techniques that would work on the mind of the person involved; what works for Lara, for example, might not work on Samus, Hermione, Kate, Sakura, or Juri. Then, that needs to be further distilled into things that can be sexy as a fantasy. The real truth is that anyone can be broken in the right circumstances, and playing it for sex instead of horror takes a lot of thought and planning. Lara would destroy Drasha in any circumstance except the one she's in. Hell, without the intervention of James, I don't think the Parmistani people would have caught Lara at all. I've got a similar idea to the one you discuss that's coming in chapter fifteen - there had to be a reason for James to want Croft Manor, right? - but it's not the same. Again, I was aiming for a much darker ending than the one this story has started moving in, and I'm not sure what that says about me as a person or a writer. I hope this story lives up to your expectations - it's certainly been playing with mine! As far as Parmistan goes - I'm a big believer that setting can be a character. I needed somewhere remote and nearly inaccessible for this story to work, a place where civilization had gone weird that was still somehow politically important enough for Britain to not just declare war on them for kidnapping a citizen (and a royal, no less). The Parmistan of this story is very much the Parmistan of a movie called Gymkata, which is, well, it's not a very good movie. The Parmistan there has the perfect staging ground for satellite surveillance of either the Soviets or NATO, and both sides are interested in courting them, but in order to get the Emperor to listen to them they need to play a game that is a sort of lethal race. I took the framework of that Parmistan and extrapolated on it: why is there a place called the Village of the Damned? How could I tie that in with Tomb Raider? How would Parmistan have evolved after joining NATO and becoming a staging ground for an advanced communications relay? Tomb Raider is full of cursed relics, and Parmistan would have been around the places that Alexander conquered. The Romans might have followed, so it seemed simple enough to have Caligula set up a summer house there and his special brand of perversion seep into the earth, cursing that place, and for the bastard children of Caligula to see it as their duty to protect the place. Caligula was big into pony girls, so that worked, too. After that it was just a matter of figuring out which gods would be worshiped and how they would be worshiped, and taking modern communications technology to an illogical extreme. As an aside, I love both versions of the Wicker Man, but for wildly different reasons. And Nic Cage is amazing.

Context. Context is everything; it can change the meaning of intent or action from positive to negative or vice versa. That said, the way you're planning to read this is entirely fair. We're looking at seventeen total chapters now, by the by - I had to work the Sam stuff in, and that means that this is going to go longer than expected and require a few more quirks to make it work, but it's all stuff I can work in going forward. I'll be curious to see what you make of the end.

I did, but it looks like the organization is in tatters - similar to where the Solarii were at the end of the first game. There's not as much tying them to Lara at this point, so i'm willing to let them lie. There is, however, still a connection between Lara and the Solarii, though there's inches and degrees. You'll see what I mean tomorrow, I think. No worries, but thanks for the clarity. I heard 2019 somewhere. Can't remember where, though.

I'll check that out tonight. Have you seen Princess Knight Lilia or Space Warrior Iris? I'm rather fond of both of those, where the protagonist seems thoroughly broken and then manages to win. It's definitely where Bergman is going. Stories need an arc. There's an old thing about most stories following a yes-no-yes or a no-yes-no pattern, where the protagonist goes from being in either a good place or a bad place, facing something that changes his or her circumstances, and then somehow ending up in an exaggerated reflection of where they began. So, someone starts off fine but something happens and strips them of that fine, but they persevere and end up better than they were for the challenges they face. Most bad end stories start bad and get worse; they break the formula, and we end up waiting for something else to happen. The stories I'm working on should fit that yes-no-yes arc, at least for the heroines involved. Samus is free and relaxing, then has everything taken from her, and through her perseverance ends up freeing herself and saving the galaxy (spoilers~!). That works. Lara is on a dig looking for some lost treasure, gets caught and tried as a criminal, and then doesn't escape... that doesn't. The completion of the story is her freedom, or should be. This started as a dark end fic. It isn't anymore. The trick is going to be figuring out where to install my out.

I'm thinking this would take place after Rise of the Tomb Raider - Lara's seen some stuff and dealt with Trinity and Ana, so they're about as much a factor here as the Solarii. Maybe even less. Regardless, James doesn't know anything about either group, and neither would Zamir. Turns out that this lack of knowledge is going to cost them. As far as Caligula goes, yeah, dude was into the incest pretty hard, but he was also into anything that happened to be around pretty hard. I figure the Emperors of Parmistan are a bastard line, the result of a child that Caligula himself never knew existed, or a bunch of people that claimed the name without actually having the blood.

Regarding Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Burnsidhe said: I dislike "bad end" and "revenge rape" stories. This is turning into one of the worse examples of both. The villain of the story is apparently flawless, his plans work perfectly, and he suffers no setbacks. He needs a setback. Estates have existing trustees. English law does not recognize legal documents signed under duress. All existing trustee has to do to overturn power of attorney is prove Lara is being held in degrading conditions. Videos leak. Pictures get taken. Traditionally, so do I. It's one of the reasons I was having trouble with Masque'd Hawk; the idea that this sort of revenge is somehow right is so inherently flawed that it's difficult to know where to pick apart the logic. There's the old thing about digging two graves when you head out to take revenge, one for your target and one for yourself... and you've pointed out several of the flaws in James' plan. He's locally ingratiated himself into Parmistani power structures, but he's a short-sighted idiot who's hanging himself using a very long leash, and I didn't realize exactly how this was going to end until earlier in the week. I could still bad end it, but that's not where this story is heading anymore. Would have been back in the original timeline, I think, but there's people that care about Lara in the survivor timeline and that makes all the difference. It also gives me a chance to play with some of the characters that Rise of the Tomb Raider didn't bother with, or only talked about in passing.

Interestingly, as I was working on the next bit the story took an unexpected turn, something that might lead to a much lighter ending. It's going to need an outside bit of backstory, though, to make it work - so I think I'm going to take a page from you and do a new story that acts as a prelude to this one. This story has been drawing from the original timeline as a basis, but taking more from the survivor timeline at the start. The original timeline saw Lara as a loner and borderline psychopath with very few friends or allies, someone who very much did everything on her own. Without help in this circumstance, she would be doomed... but if we're talking about the survivor timeline, she has friends, people that care about her, a life outside of adventuring. She's not alone, and people do come to her rescue more often than not. She's got a way out, in other words. The interesting bit will be in seeing how that plays out.

Jimmy is an awful human being who is having a refined temper tantrum, and is taking advantage of everyone to get what he wants. He's a sinkhole of selfishness with decent manners and fashion sense. Lara, I think, had an inkling of this and would have put it together before too long if she hadn't taken to adventuring. She's intelligent; he's clever, but his cleverness might be his undoing.

Thanks for reading up until now. It was a cold chapter, but a needed part of breaking Lara down and stripping her of everything. The problem is that it lends itself to a way out, one where justice might actually be done. Real justice, not the kind the Parmistani people are selling and James is buying into. It might even see James pay the price for being such a terrible person. This was meant to be a darkfic, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel and the story seems to be pushing in that direction and I'm kinda curious to see where it takes me. On that note, if you're looking for a happy(er) ending, check out Hermione Granger and the Bastet Collar. The Bergman Affair is going to end well, with everyone getting exactly what they deserve. But, in terms of depressing? Do not, under any circumstance, read Masque'd Hawk. There's no way that will end well, but I do want to wrap that one up sooner rather than later.

James and Lara are going to reunite in the next chapter, and I don't think it's going to go the way anyone expects it to. I want to blindside people - not with a shocking swerve, but with something that is both clever and horrible. He'll have his go at her, so to speak, later, but for now... well, logic. Terrible, terrible, logic. And I look forward to seeing what you've got cooking with FMC. I'm particularly enamored with what you did with the Philosopher's Stone and Joan of Arc. Mythic underlays are pretty core to the Tomb Raider universe, and the idea that this shadowy group has been manipulating things all along is sort of great, and gives Lara an eventual target.

I plotted this out before sitting down to write and figured that was how long it was going to take to tell this story. I do promise not to repeat myself; the things that happen are based on a slow destruction of character within the confines of this story, so there's a descent that needs to happen over time. The stuff that happens in the next chapter, for example, could not happen without the things that happened to Lara in this one. The stuff that happened in this chapter would make no sense without the chapter before it; I know it may look like Lara is at her lowest, but I assure you this is not the case. Some of what's coming has been directly referenced by MordbidFantasy; again, without Fatman Chronicles, I don't think I ever would have started writing Bergman, never mind Reins. Does that make sense?

Regarding Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," AryaStarkNaked said Oh god yes, keep this coming. Her breaking is perfect! It's coming. Next chapter should be up this week, and I should have this story wrapped by mid-April, at which point I'll turn back to Bergman and Masque. Glad you're enjoying it - does anything stick out as being particularly good or bad?

The condensation is based on the voice of the narrator - instead of the limited omniscient third-person that you and I are normally so fond of, I'm aiming for the first person report of a Parmistani native. It limits the way information is provided, because I like to imagine him writing this out, culling what details he remembers and talking about what stuck out in his mind as things happened. Zamir is a strange guy - a devoted family man and quite religious, but the culture in which he's grown has shaped a certain worldview upon him. He has certain expectations and makes assumptions based on his experiences, and I hope that slightly alien perspective is coming through in the way he voices things. There's a clumsiness to his thinking and word choice, I think, but what I wonder is if any of this stuff is really working? I was aiming to keep the chapters within the 1500-word range, but Zamir demands that things be phrased a certain way, and that typically adds a few thousand words as he notes details or uses certain phrases. It's interesting filtering the information I want to convey through his mind, and we'll see how that works going forward. And, well... Lara's not getting out of this. Her bungled escape attempt is going to make things a lot worse for her, and then... better is the wrong word, but more comfortable, eventually. Five chapters remain in this story, so you'll see what I mean soon.

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Anon said: might work out? you already told us. it will. Dramatic license. I'm a bit of a ham and was aiming for a sort of same bat time, same bat channel sort of feel. I'm also aiming to keep these chapters short, a task I think I'm failing at. The idea with this story is to do something akin to the old serials that inspired Indiana Jones (and thus Tomb Raider). We'll see if I can fix that on the next chapter, but it's doubtful. Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," MF said: Really digging this. Looks like you got the domination/indoctrination out of the way in a jiffy. Looking forward to main plot and how you resolve all this. Cheers! Thanks, man. I don't think Lara is broken quite yet - as James has noted, she is a hell of a fighter, and as you've noted time and again, she's a survivor. She's not going down this easy, though she's in a hell of a circumstance. Dominated? Yes. Has the indoctrination taken? Well, that remains to be seen. Hell, it'll be seen in the next chapter, which should go up Monday or Tuesday. My question is - is this stuff working? Is the implication of culture and psychology getting through? Does Parmistan feel like a real place, with history and laws and context? Does Lara's history work with it, and does James' sinister plotting shine through the vile but still naive Zamir? Does any of this make sense enough to feel real within context to itself?

Sorry about that.

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Giuseki said: HunterOpera's trademark menace buds in the Tomb Raider setting. The thrill of malice in molding humans from heroines is offered to the reader. Ruination and reconstitution are the delicacies presented, accepted by this reader with delight. Glad to see him return. "Trademark menace." I like that. A lot. Thank you. I think you'll dig the most recent chapter, which deals with a lot more menace and will lead directly to the ruination and reconstitution that is coming, and once it starts it should become unrelenting. I'm aiming for equal parts dread, suspense, and sadism here, with villains that circumstance makes terrifying. Let me know if the stuff I'm trying actually works; I'm curious to know how this reads. Glad you're enjoying it so far. More to come.

... and I messed up. Hard Labour was written by Marcus... my bad. Sorry about that. Finding Nimrod's stuff is always ridiculous; I've got three Catwoman stories, a Batgirl story that is a continuation of his first Catwoman story, and a Vampirella. I know there's a Red Sonja, and I'm pretty sure there's an Emma Frost and Storm story somewhere out there... do you know if he ever wrote anything else? Next part of Reins should be up today or tonight. The next two chapters deal with her trial and conviction, and serve as more build for everything that comes after. I feel like I should laugh maniacally at that, so consider this that laugh. Bwahahaha.

Bergman is still on schedule for April - I'm re-reading it and getting back into the flow of that story, and writing this one as a warm up. This one is much shorter, topping out at fifteen chapters, with none of the chapters being that much longer than what we've seen so far. Samus is still my primary target, and I'm hoping to wrap Bergman up by June. We'll see if I can manage it, but I'm free contract-wise until at least mid-May.

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Fan said: The suspense is killing me. I need to see what happens next. I love stories about strong women who get broken down. When it comes to stories about breaking someone down, so do I. There's something about taking something or someone possessed of inherent dignity and then destroying it; attacking the very things that make them who they are. It's a villainous act, fun in play and terrible in reality, but this is safely within the bounds of fantasy. That said, it's one of the things I loved about the works of, say, MorbidFantasy, EvilCareBear, Aksika, ComicCaptor, John Adams, Azazel, Dirk, Blair Brek, and others. As for suspense, I'm a firm believer in the idea of building to a crescendo. The Usual Suspects, for example, worked as a movie because the whole thing built to a moment, and the suspense of that work was enough to make that one reveal impactful enough to change every movie that came after it. For serious: how many movies have copied the style of that story without really getting the substance? A story needs to grow, and I'm as much a fan of plot as porn, so I'm glad that's working and glad you're digging it. I can only hope the reveal lives up to the build. Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Anon said: Ahh yes, a tale to reasure all fuckless wonders they are not alone in their hatred of all those mean women who find them tactless and creepy. ASSHOLES CAN WIN!!! YEAH MOM'S BASEMENT DWELING ME! Not sure if trolling or serious. Assholes can win, and do. It's not a good thing, though, but given the kinks of this story the bad guys have to be, well, bad guys. They are terrible people, and James is a horrible person. In this story he's going to win, and that's not okay even in the context of this story. There's a tragedy to what's happening here, which I think is part of the process and part of the fantasy. Enjoy it for what it is, I guess.

"Demented" is a good description, I think. That story is going to much further than mine did, and in a very different direction - I'm taking the base set-up, but with a different set of reasons and a very different outcome. I think the last anon thought I was going to end up with a thoroughly destroyed Lara, aged into nothingness, but I've got a very different goal in mind. We'll see if I can make it work. The country of Parmistan comes directly from a terrible martial arts film from the eighties. I needed a place that was remote, insane, and still politically significant in some way, and this one fit the bill. I'm expanding the mythology and customs based on what was there, and then tying that together with Roman mythology because I needed something worth stealing while also lending itself to the sort of thing Lara would go after, but we'll get a little more into that next chapter.

Fair enough. I'm not going as far as my source material with this one - or even Bergman, really - but everyone's got their limits. Have a good one.

Whose? I mean, you can't fault Lara's or Samus' mothers on account of death. Melissa's surrogate mother is terrifying in her own right, and gave birth to a monster. We know nothing about Madeline's mother, or most fictional characters, for that matter. Or their fathers, come to think of it. The real-life person I'm basing the Earl of Faringdon on had terrible parents, but the real life guy actually turned out alright. I'm aiming for more of a douche-bro by way of Ted Cruz vibe, because he is a villain. I suppose he'd veer more towards the 'mommy was bad' thing, but his damage is as much nurture as nature. And I'm a big believer in nature playing as much a part as nurture in forming a psyche. Are you familiar with Erickson? Anyways, I need more data. Whose mother? Why are you talking about?