InBrightestDay

I eventually realized I was just going to have to feel my way through the scene, experimenting a bit and trying different lines to see what worked best. It’s not as comfortable as when a scene just comes together in my mind, but sometimes it’s necessary. Absolutely. Shannon almost feels like an angel with a very active libido. I’m guessing that libido was part of the problem, though, given that nobody had started asking questions about the whole celibacy thing yet. Well, there’s something to be said for not trying to write something you’re unfamiliar with. With stuff like BDSM, after all, there’s always the risk of writing it wrong and making people who are actually into it roll their eyes. Speaking of which, while your American slang is usually spot-on, I did notice this: Admittedly, you could have been referring to a stick with fire on the end of it, but if you mean the electric variety, over here we call those flashlights. An odd term, I’ll admit, but I think it has something to do with their early use by the military for Morse code. I’m genuinely curious. When you came up with Sarsa’s name, was that where it came from? I’m an oddity in that regard, I know. Had I just discovered your work now, I probably would have just scanned down to Twinpregnation, thought of you as the guy who wrote the sibling romance story and never gone anywhere near Whore of Heaven. But it was ten years ago, so… On an amusing side note, I just polished up the “confession” scene and added a bit where Kevin and Luzurial just hold each other for a little while after she stops crying. I’m going to say that didn’t have anything to do with what I was reading, but by the time these reviews are done, there’s a chance I’ll have to go back and delete a bunch of superfluous hugs from my story. Luzurial: Not that this isn’t nice, but why do you keep doing it? Kevin: I don’t know; I just keep getting this feeling that you really need a hug. Actually I had this rather interesting thought, which I’m going to use if you don’t mind, that some sections of Hell may have been built up to emulate the paradise the demons were cast from, like on some level they miss home and are trying to create something kind of like it. No problem! It was a lot of fun to read!

Ironically, it's the reverse. I have a connecting scene to write before we go into the barrier, where Kevin, Abdul and Calista all basically say “we’re main characters too, and we can’t just stay here while you do all the cool stuff!” Or it might be more about how Kevin would be worried sick if he waited outside, etc. It’s definitely one of those things, though. Well, for whatever reason, I’m having trouble making the words flow, so I must sit and stare intimidatingly at my laptop until words appear on the screen. Oh, it won’t take months. Given that both our stories happen or start on January 1, there is no way I’m not posting Part One before the end of this month. That actually raises a rather interesting question about the definition of the word “pure” in these circumstances. One stereotypically assumes it refers to either celibacy or abstinence from drinking or something like that, but another way to look at it is in terms of a sense of focus. After all, the definition of “pure” often has to do with something not being mixed with anything else, so this may instead refer to dedication to cause or to the degree to which her protective responsibility/compassion drives her character. Not that Shannon would read it that way, of course. “Listen to me, Shannon. Innocent lives are at stake if I don’t make it to Comic Con.” Well, there’s a crossover. Also, the image of Kizzy and Lupa walking through the con, with a hand coming out of nowhere to grope Lupa and her nonchalantly breaking it without slowing down is hilarious.

I haven’t noticed any contradictions yet. I mean, we really didn’t get much of a sense of her in TSPoED before the action started (which was by design, given the way that first chapter was structured), so it was only later on, specifically here, that we as an audience could start getting a sense of what her disguise personality really is. The detachment thing really makes sense, again factoring in her lines in TSPoED, and she does seem very businesslike. This chapter also explains what you mentioned earlier (off the forum), about her being willing to make harsh sacrifices for the greater good. She’s a rather interesting character; in a way, it’s appropriate she’s into Star Trek, because she sometimes feels like an alien character, which makes sense. Angels aren’t aliens in the extraterrestrial sense, but they very much are in the nonhuman sense. You are most welcome! I’ve read one particularly good second person story before (it was a Resident Evil Ada-centric story over on fanfiction.net), but the second person PoV didn’t feel integral to the fic; it would have worked just as well in first or third person. This is the first story I’ve read where the second person PoV is so thoroughly taken advantage of for both comedy and storytelling in general. It may take me a couple of days to get to Fucking Halloween Party, just so you know. I’m trying to make more headway on my story.

Oh, don’t take that as me getting genuinely upset. I mean, Burroughs was born in 1875 and Tarzan of the Apes, the first book, was published in 1912 (though the two dozen sequels continued being published into the 1940s), so of course it gets racist from time to time. I always just saw that as a thing I was going to run into reading really old books, but I completely get why it’s a deal breaker for a ton of other people. I just made that little outburst as a joke about the second person format. On an amusing tangent, while Burroughs could be very backwards in his books, he occasionally ended up rather forward-thinking as well. In the novel Pellucidar (the second book in said series, oddly enough), the main character and his love interest are backed up against a sheer cliff face, and he thinks he’s going to have to coach the delicate woman into climbing down...and then turns around to find her already having climbed halfway to the bottom. The main character, and thus Burroughs, then takes a moment to speculate that perhaps the reason women of the 1915 surface world aren’t like that is not an inherent limitation of being female, but is instead because of cultural conditioning. It’s not like the whole book is like that or anything, but that was an idea weirdly ahead of its time. Too late! I finished it last night. You’ll get a review at some point, but for the moment, just know that it made me laugh quite a few times.

That’s exactly it. I didn’t want to get in trouble if AFF had a policy of not posting reviews by chapter once the story was completed. Okay, I was drinking something when I read this, so it’s a good thing I’m on my phone at the moment and didn’t get soda on a keyboard while laughing.

Wait, what? Hey, I’d read it. Given the second part and the people skills problem, maybe she was supposed to learn about friendship. I’m now picturing Kizzy writing a “Dear Creator” letter after every one of these adventures a la “Dear Princess Celestia...” Of course, with Shannon as a friend, those letters are going to get hilariously NSFW very quickly. It does sound more like the idea of punishment via reincarnation (as you said, though, reincarnation traditionally allows the possibility of redemption in your new life). I suppose I wasn’t looking at it that way partly because of my own religious background, and partly due to the fact that the story elements place it pretty squarely in Judeo-Christian territory. Still, you’re not the first person to combine elements from those religions with Buddhist or Hindu concepts. Bernice is probably fine, all told. She was shot in the head, which is a pretty instantaneous form of death (and she seemed not to have noticed what was happening to her body just beforehand), and given that she died assaulting a demon in an attempt to help an archangel, I don’t think there’s much doubt where she ended up. Honestly, the most unpleasant thing to happen to her after that was likely spending the next three quarters of a century to 100 trillion years becoming increasingly alarmed at not seeing the angel she was trying to help. So what you’re saying is that this is a...*dons sunglasses* ...loose canon. I apologize for nothing.

Thanks for the warm welcome! For the purposes of future reviews, back on fanfiction.net I tended to leave one review per chapter (not duplicates, mind you, just leaving a review of each chapter as I went). Is that okay here, or would you prefer that for completed fics I just leave one review for the whole thing? I ask because some of the stuff I plan on reviewing is multiple chapters long. I ran into the same thing with my sibling romance story over on Literotica. The version you reviewed was actually an improved version, as a lot of the stuff about the siblings’ backstory was added while rewriting it. Even now, I’m still seeing things with that story I want to change.