Chapter 10
To start, it was fun to imagine Darkstar beating up the skin demons, even if she had a much more violent approach and actually enjoyed it a bit too much.
I imagined that scene as a bit comedic, with Tom trying to have a phone conversation in the foreground while skin demons go flying by in the background.
Then again, I'm a big fan of "nice people" cutting loose once in a while to show that they can be hardcore. (Superman: Doomsday was the perfect example, IMO. :))
Agreed. Also his fight with Darkseid in JLU.
I'm glad Boner was competent for once and notified Tom when the elevator had been called.
We hadn't seen Boner for a few chapters, so I wanted to put him back in the reader's mind before his moment comes at the end of chapter 11.
Too bad the surprise attack didn't work out so well; and I had a lot of hope for Janna when she suddenly turned on Tom, but it makes perfect sense that she wouldn't be able to use the wand well at first no matter how much she'd studied. (It would have been a bit like finding an alien spaceship and just knowing how to fly it somehow.)
That was just as much a consequence of the wand being a little wonky.
Calling in the liberated Princesses was a great touch and made for a perfectly wild scene.
Thanks!
Finally, the key to Star's freedom was brilliant, and the way she discovered it had some nice feeling to it too. Nothing like a little self-discovery and growth to move the plot along. That it happens to be perfectly in-character for her is the cream cheese icing on this wonderful carrot cake of a story.
I have come to believe that hating someone -- like loving someone -- changes you. It's easy to be dragged down into the other person's negativity. For Star, that's the antithesis of who she is, and so hating Darkstar was slowly destroying her own personality. Remembering and embracing the positive person that she is gave her back her strength.
Then it was a nice to end on a "good news" cliffhanger, even if there was still a lot of stuff to deal with.
I can't end them all with deadly peril. I try, but I can't.
Chapter 11
There was some terrific action, all described beautifully yet succinct enough that reading it didn't take longer than the movements themselves.
I tend to favor keeping the action moving forward over heavy descriptive detail, which is sometimes a weakness in my writing but which works well for fight scenes.
Jackie's break to get the wand back to Star was great. Throwing in some exposition was great too, especially the bit about Tom's self-awareness. The swordfight was terrifically exciting and flowed perfectly. Ending with Star's reaffirmation of her lesson was a sweet little touch, though I also loved that Ruby got her revenge by lopping off Tom's other testi… er, horn.
I never intended for Tom's horns to be a testicle metaphor -- just a symbol of his excessive pride and self-absorption.
Giving Boner a better name was very sweet of Star too. (I love that skeleton. )
Thanks for the idea! And I love Boner, too.
The subtlety with which Jackie's aloofness came into the picture worked nicely with the timeline. Not too sudden and not overplayed, and it was nice that Marco was his sensitive self enough to at least detect a hint of it when Jackie and Oskar left his house. When Jackie called Marco and Star to come over I knew that it was bittersweet o'clock. Marco's initial confusion about why she got out the pink-heart potion made perfect sense yet made for a nice little bombshell to end on.
Thanks! My original plan was to end the chapter with Star’s defeat (and sparing) of Tom, but you know me: I can't resist a cliffhanger.
Some people would say that it's possible to be soul mates even without romantic attraction, but even then it would get in the way of any romantic relationships anyway. My only hope is that Jackie isn't basing her decision entirely on what Tom told them about the Blood Moon.
We will get into all of that in the next (and final) chapter.
It's a great sign of your superior storytelling that throughout these chapters I didn't miss the erotic stuff one lick.
Thanks! It misses you, though, so it'll be back in chapter 12.
Thanks again for more doses of pure awesomeness.
Thanks again for another satisfying review! Or rather, for two of them.
#melius tarde, quam nunquam
Gratias.