InBrightestDay

It’s been a long road...gettin’ from there to here… The Woman in the Statue is finally complete and posted in its entirety, so let’s get to the reviews for Part Twelve. First up is one from @InvidiaRed. It would be nice to be published some day. For now, thank you so much for the compliment! Yeah, we took different approaches to portraying Lucifer in these stories. Yours was intended, from my read, to be somewhat comedic, and generally not as smart as he thought he was. I went with “intimidating”, or at least sought to. Setting him in contrast to Eparlegna, Lucifer was meant not to be in any way a better person, but rather the more dangerously intelligent villain, and one who has, by now, become deeply irritated by this particular demon’s antics. I went back and forth a bit about what kind of angel Lucifer had been before the Fall. The book of Ezekiel describes what might be Lucifer’s fall, and uses the word cherub, and since I was rolling with the imagery used in the Bible being literal instead of symbolic (technically the images of angels we have show up in visions, which tend to be laden with symbolism, so there aren’t any “this is what an angel looks like” literal descriptions in the Bible; just descriptions of how people react to an angel in its natural form), the cherub imagery is pretty insane (four wings, four different heads, skin like metal and eyes all over the place), and a demonic creature based on a cherub would have looked really horrifying. However, other sources seem to have Lucifer as either an archangel (what you went with, I believe) or a seraph, and the seraph sounded really striking as well. The tie-breaker came from Islam, wherein as far as I can tell Iblis is a fallen jinn, which in the Quran are elemental fire creatures, hence the portrayal of Lucifer here as a fallen seraph. As for the quote, yeah, never piss off your boss when your boss is the scariest thing in a place full of scary things. Yeah, this is sort of the result of the world building I did to explain why angels think they have to be celibate. Going all the way back to Part Three, where I brought in the hierarchy and explained that only the Seraphim speak directly to the Creator, so if a mistake happens (and no one thinks to ask for clarification), it can potentially stick...for like billions of years. Thank you for the review, and thank you for following me all the way to the end here!

Ok, one last review for WitS Part Eleven, this time from @Thundercloud. So, remember how I said I’d explain why I took JayDee’s recommendation to break things up when I got to Thundercloud’s review? Well… That right there is pretty much it. There is so much action in this finale that I was afraid that people would get numb to it if they read it all at once. Thus, I broke off the archangel vs. dragon proper section and put that in the final chapter along with the denouement, while the “on foot” combat took place here. There is an element of this that’s going to come up in the finale when you get to it. It was already there, but I actually added some of what you said here to the final chapter. I didn’t add an entire scene or anything, but there’s a little bit during the fight where Luzurial reflects on what, in hindsight, would have made things easier, but she didn’t do that, and you are precisely right about ultimately what’s going on. This is just who she is. Yep! I rewrote that moment a little and, unfortunately, accidentally left a piece of the first version in there. Thank you for pointing that out, and it has been fixed. I’ve mentioned this in some of the other review responses, but “You dropped something” is one of three lines in this finale that I absolutely loved, the others being “My name is Luzurial” and “Enjoy Hell.” “You dropped something” in particular is probably the first one I came up with, and I liked setting it up as just a cruel taunt from Eparlegna that Luzurial then gets to throw back at him. Luzurial’s recovery, as I outlined it when writing this, essentially comes in three steps. Step one is the moment where she completely throws off the “My name is Whore” thing from WoH and reclaims her sword, and step two is what you just pointed out, where she gets her wings back. She’s most of the way there, but there's a little tiny bit left to go, which happens in the next chapter. You are correct, though, in that this is what puts her most of the way there. Thank you again for the review, and I hope you enjoy the last chapter!

Bear in mind that when I said “commonly depicted as female” I’m referring to art you’ll find if you Google “her”. Officially, basically every angel other than Lailah is officially depicted as male (and certainly every canonical angel), thus in the Wikipedia article on Jophiel, he’s referred to as he/him, and is depicted as male in the stained glass window used for illustration. As I said, I suspect that portrayal as female is due to the name, and as I include both male and female angels in the WitS-verse, Jophiel seemed a natural way to include at least one woman in the Seven Archangels. Since “she” is non-canonical anyway (not mentioned in the Bible), and I don’t think angels are actually male or female to begin with (though they can take male or female forms when they choose to look like humans), I didn’t think it would be a problem. That and that illustration of the armored, red-headed archangel was so striking that I so wanted to have that as a character. Not sure when she’ll come up, but if I do future stories in the universe, there is a chance… What I’m getting at is that WitS Jophiel is female, but you can use either male or female should you choose to employ the character. Here is the Wikipedia article I mentioned above. As for Duncan himself, that’s really interesting. The idea of scars being sort of metaphysical and passing back through different incarnations, almost like they’re four-dimensional or something, is fascinating. Obviously not fun for him, but fascinating.

Part Twelve of Twelve is up.

I had wanted to respond to this a while back, but for some reason just didn’t. Let me remedy that now. I realize this might have been a purely hypothetical thing, but if you ever did want to have Duncan meet a friendly angel, I’d suggest the Archangel Jophiel, actually. Similar to Luzurial (down to wielding a flaming sword), but with the benefit of not having been made up by JayDee or me, and of having an actual Hebrew name! Jophiel’s name, יוֹפִיאֵל, translates as “divine beauty”, and as such the angel is commonly depicted as female. She’s listed by Pseudo-Dionysius as one of the seven archangels (along with Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Camael and Zadkiel), but I suspect she would have counseled against attempted deicide because Jophiel is the archangel of wisdom, understanding and judgment. She hasn’t shown up yet, but in the WitS universe, Jophiel is one of the seven vessels (the seven archangels), and her appearance is based on this stunning piece of art by Lorenz Basuki. I don’t know that it’s a specific archangel, but the first time I saw it, someone was using it for Jophiel, and the image stuck. Uh...I realize that sounded like I was pitching the character. Sorry if it sounded like I was pushing. Duncan’s got other things to do for the moment! He’s gotta talk to a spider. On the subject of Duncan himself, you mention that an angel, or archangel anyway, could see the damage done to him. Can others? Is it visible to his husband, for instance?

Finally before I go to bed, a short but sweet one by Symbalistic. Thank you so much for the review! This was one of the moments in the story that I’d been building up to for a long time, and it was a very emotional one for me too. I’m really glad it’s been going over so well with readers!

Next up is our jumbo-sized review from @JayDee! So, first, for those who may be a little puzzled by some of what’s in this review, like this: I sent JayDee a copy of the finale when it was just one chapter, so this is partly their reaction to both parts. I actually took their recommendation to break things up, for a reason I’ll get to when I reach Thundercloud’s review. Thanks! I had him transform more fully later in the fight, so I put in that little piece earlier, indicating a sort of partial transformation, a sort of visual representation for the thin veil of humanity that he wears, and how the veneer tends to crack and reveal the monster he really is. So, that’s partly your standard motive explanation by Hobbs, but it’s also written the way it is partly to ensure that anyone who is into snuff/guro/rape understands that I’m not saying they’re serial killers or anything, hence distinguishing between those who remember that this stuff is fantasy and those who actually do it. Yeah, the one thing I was never 100% able to get around was the fact that the connection between an apotheosis and Eparlegna allows the apotheosis some of his power, and that extends to his telepathy in WoH, as the two corrupted cops can sense Luzurial’s emotions. What I tried to imply was that Hobbs is a little distracted by his fantasy, and as a result he’s not using the telepathy to see exactly what Chloe’s thinking and doing. I mean, she’s just crawling aimlessly, a base animal response to pain and fear...right? The stuff for the violence here is, as I said in the author’s note, something I went back and forth on somewhat. It is toned down from its original form, but as this is a sequel to Whore of Heaven, some level of cringe-inducing brutality from the villains seemed appropriate. As for some specific moves...while I did come up with Hobbs punching Chloe so hard she vomits, the hip-breaking crotch punch was stolen from Deathstalker, though it was done by one of your characters. He’s had Gogedheh do that...I think twice (once with a knee to the crotch and once with a punch to the crotch), hitting a woman hard enough to shatter her pelvis. It was such a display of brutal masculine dominance (the rapist reminding a “strong, independent woman” exactly how weak she really is), that it really felt appropriate for these guys, who act and think pretty much the same way. Ooooof course, I kind of hate the stories I was drawing inspiration from (not the author’s fault! Just a fetish that upsets me), and as such this one is all leading up to my favorite Chloe moment of the entire story. And that’s why I left those explosives in the ceiling last chapter! When I was designing Hell magic traps, I knew at some point I wanted a cultist to get pushed or dropped into one, and when I was thinking through the Chloe vs. Hobbs fight, I started chuckling, because I suddenly knew how to do that exact thing. The capstone of the whole thing was “Any last words?” a reversal I love seeing in fiction, as it’s a great setup for a badass one-liner when the hero (or heroine, in this case) does something clever. The flashback was actually kind of a late addition, but because this chapter is the part most closely tied to WoH, I decided to bring back Luzurial’s PTSD and have her experience a flashback to WoH during the fight, with the whip strikes as the trigger. What Luzurial does to bring herself out of it, dragging her hands along the granite, is actually based on an technique called “grounding”, which is a way to cope with flashbacks. The idea is to use sensory stimulation to remind you of where and when you really are, with Luzurial using touch in this case. I remember when you and I were talking at one point about how Luzurial gets her sword back, and you jokingly mentioned one of the students lifting it off him while it was a pen. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I just remember thinking “No, it’s going to be so much more metal than that. She is going to catch that thing with her bare fucking hand and refuse to let go.” Also, fun fact: I often have music on while I write. I’ve never played League of Legends, but a friend of mine does, and courtesy of him, I’ve been introduced to a number of videos related to the game. I had this one playing in the background while writing that scene, with Senna’s theme kicking in at the moment Luzurial catches the whip. Luzurial’s “Because...you dropped something,” was the first of the three badass lines I mentioned that I came up with for the chapter. I wrote in Eparlegna destroying the machete specifically to set up Luzurial’s line after he drops her sword. As for the next bit with the explanation of the chains, in previous review responses I’ve mentioned that Cole had a moment that was unfortunately lost. This was where it was going to go, and Luzurial wouldn’t have caught what was going on with the chains (well, she would have, but off-page), but we would have cut downstairs where Callista, looking outside and up, would realize the pattern of the chains and recognize the design as a magnifying glyph, realizing that the entire building was a weapon. I’ll talk more about that in the response to Thundercloud’s review. I remember we brainstormed this via PM a year ago or something, talking about Luzurial’s motivation for the moment she gets her wings back, and how it had to be something bigger than just Kevin. I don’t think either one of us came up with what’s here in its entirety, but the idea ended up being a larger scale application of the thing Eparlegna does at the end of WoH, weaponized as the life force siphon. I knew there had to be a physical piece that was used to trigger the device, and then when you wrote Jude’s Tale, it took shape in the form of the Void Blade. Shared universes can be serious fun. As for the moment Luzurial gets her wings back, I had an outline of this finale, with each segment or moment listed off, and this one was literally just titled “Sometimes the Answer Is Yes”. I knew this was coming quite a ways back (not quite from the start, but some time after I wrote Part 3), and so took the “sometimes the answer is no” thing Luzurial says in Part 3 and repeated it one more time in Part 8, so that when it showed up for a third time here, I could reverse it. I kind of love that bit too. Just one more thing. Thank you again! So this is a follow-up on a suggestion that Thundercloud made back in his review of Part 6, saying that Eparlegna could threaten to use a body born of Luzurial’s womb to impregnate her again. It was originally going to be a full-on rant, but when I was writing on it, I actually wondered why Luzurial was letting him talk. I mean...no. Fuck this guy and fuck his villain speech. As always, thank you for the review, and I’ll see you again for the last chapter!

Ok! We have four reviews for The Woman in the Statue to reply to before I put the final chapter up on Monday. Since one of those is freaking huge, I’ll do three of them tonight, including the giant one. First up, one by @InvidiaRed. I hope you enjoy the scene in the next chapter. Eparlegna should really be careful about shit-talking Lucifer… I had three lines in this chapter all competing for the title of my favorite badass line, and you mentioned all of them! I legitimately can’t tell which of them is my favorite, I was...extremely happy when I came up with Chloe’s (and it is one of my favorite badass moments for her) but man, both of Luzurial’s are really dear to me, due to their significance. This is a moment I’ve had in my head for so long, and it felt so good to finally write it down. All of your takes are valid interpretations, but I think I came the closest to having 5 in mind when I was writing it. A sort of “I’ve always been proud of you.” moment. It was a pretty emotional thing to write. Thank you for the review!

Alright, going to be replying to a few things tonight, so let’s start here! While it does take place on Christmas, I wasn’t sure if I should put Meaningful Gifts into the anthology, since I know everyone kind of reads everyone’s stuff, and I didn’t want to force anyone to read a sibling incest story if they didn’t want to. You’ve been at this a while, so I interpreted your entry here as an indicator that either people here aren’t that bothered by that sort of thing, or that I shouldn’t worry so much about what I enter into the party. Either way, thank you! Not quoting the other line, but I have to say that the phrase “wild gorilla sex” is hilarious. I understand, and hope I didn’t come across as overly critical. I know how it feels to have something fall through or just not be ready in time (it’s why Fury of the Storm will be next Halloween for me!). And vampire! Not sure if I’ll ever get around to that, but it would be cool to do it eventually. For those who don’t know, Alfred Hitchcock once explained the nature of suspense like this: if you have a scene of two people talking in a room, and then a bomb goes off, that’s surprising, but not suspenseful. If you show the audience the bomb under the table, and then have the scene of two people talking, all while the clock ticks toward the eventual explosion, now you have suspense. The same basic idea applies, I think, to the twist here. If the audience doesn’t figure it out, then you have a surprise at the end. If they do figure it out, then you get a rather suspenseful sequence, and in this case you know the metaphorical bomb will go off, but you don’t know precisely when.

Ooh! Ooh! I can be useful! You actually can do that. If you go to the archives, and sign in, then go to “My Control Panel” and to “Originals Story Manager”. On the story manager page, it should have “Stories Written” at the top, but then if you scroll down (you have a ton of stories, so it may take a while for you), you should then come to “Stories Co-Written” and finally “Story Contributions”. That last one is where you can edit the chapters you’ve added to anthologies like this one. I’ve used it to edit Moonlit Snow after spotting a typo.

Part Eleven is up! One more week and this thing will be done.

Second is a review by Symbalistic! Thank you so much! Honestly it was quite an effort to finally get the thing done. I knew what I wanted to happen, but as I got closer and closer to the end, I kept getting more and more nervous about disappointing everyone, as the ending is a place where a story can easily faceplant (and I won’t name any stories here, but I’ve seen it happen multiple times). That made it harder for me to just sit down and write, a far cry from how easy and exciting it was when I started the story, but at long last I got it done! As for being able to “see” things, I think that comes from the fact that I’m naturally a very visual person, so when I do descriptions sight is usually the first sense I think about. I’m glad to hear it works for you. Thank you so much for reading this far, and I hope you enjoy the ending!

Alright, so I was holding off on these until I got the final chapter (which then became final chapters) done, but there are two more reviews for WitS Chapter 10! First up is @Thundercloud! That really is why I kept pulling these things apart. There were a lot of elements set up earlier in the story, and they all had to be paid off. Also, in general, I just want to say dang it, Thundercloud! You come up with all these cool suggestions, and by the time I read them I was too deep into writing the finale to use them! I know this obviously isn’t your fault but curse you! CURSE YOOOU!!! *Ahem* Of course, there is one thing I can address… Oh, the matter prism is definitely coming into play, just not the way it looked like it was. I’ll let you find out about that in Chapter 11… I’m really glad that went over as well as it did. I was, as you might have noticed in the Author’s Note, rather worried about that. It helps that by way of Pandemic Head, JayDee actually provided even more reasons for him to get pushed through a window. I think this might also offer some long-delayed justice for the ending of Mike Rapes a Dyke, as there you mentioned… Well, Lily didn’t get revenge personally, but as JayDee said of Mike at the end of MRaD: “Eventually his luck ran out, but that’s another story.” Turns out that’s the story of the day he antagonized the wrong rape survivor.

To jump in a bit here for @Thundercloud, Tricked references about five other stories. The most obvious part is that it follows up on Death Always Wins, but there’s also Invidia’s holiday story from last year, Powdered Sugar (where Duncan was introduced), Temporary (where he went to Italy to reap souls from those killed by the pandemic), The Woman in the Statue (Van Dijk is mentioned, though this is obviously an alternate continuity, given that angels aren’t crazed zealots on the verge of extinction there, and that I have a scene with Lucifer coming up and he’s...rather different than he is here), and since Duncan has been asked by some of the kami (guardian spirits from Japan) to track down an errant spider yōkai, one Yua Hayashi, that would be a reference to either After Party, Parlor Games or both. Hel’s mother, “Ma”, is a reference to Angrboða, a jötunn from Norse mythology. After...uh...mating with Loki, the Prose Edda states that she gave birth to three monsters: Fenrir (hence all the wolves), the Midgard Serpent and Hel.

JAAAYDEEEEE!!! *sigh* You know I’m going to have to try and work that into the PRD story, right? Abdul will probably start the joke about stockings full of- Cole: “Don’t do it, man! Just don’t do it.” And for the second review, from @InvidiaRed Thank you! So this is what I was talking about in my reply to JayDee’s review. Something I’ve noticed about Eparlegna’s dialogue is that it’s a mix of more archaic, almost formal speech, like what one would expect out of an angel or demon, and modern vernacular. The pattern was established by one of his first lines in Whore of Heaven, actually, when Luzurial orders him to leave Earth. It established that, for all that he views humanity as inferior and will torture and kill them just to amuse himself, Eparlegna nonetheless likes elements of our culture and uses them to spice up his vocabulary. It made perfect sense to me that he’d quote a good Darth Vader line. Of course, as you said, the fact that he’s doing that doesn’t actually reflect terribly well on him. You know, for all that it directly provokes him into killing her, I can’t help but feel that a not-insignificant part of why he kills her is that Cassie just struck a nerve, similar to Kevin’s Sick BurnTM in the lecture hall. And yeah, finally having someone outright say “You’re going to lose” is always kind of awesome. Thank you so much! As I mentioned in the author’s note, I was concerned that, while I found “archangel pushes serial rapist out of a building” to be amusing, it might feel a bit...off. I tried to compensate for that by trying to show Luzurial’s thought process leading up to it, and how disgusted and utterly incensed she is by this guy, and just how vile all of his rapes and abuse are, even when measured against the horror outside. JayDee actually really helped here by writing Pandemic Head. Having Michael still doing horrific things, like keeping his cousin’s severed head alive and prisoner indicates that he’s still a threat, and that it’s likely that his “at least one rape a year” pattern has likely slowed with old age, but probably hasn’t stopped. Much like JayDee’s reaction, it seems. Evidently what she does here is coming across as some level of righteous fury, an evil man coming up against something far more dangerous than he could imagine. Thank you so much for the review, and I’ll see you again soon!

Surely you can’t be serious. Alright, well, two reviews for The Woman in the Statue Chapter 10! First one comes from the always awesome @JayDee! Thank you! What you mentioned there is, in fact, one reason this finale got so much longer. Originally, we’d get to the bottom of the tower where the Gungnir shootout took place, and then we would cut to Luzurial arriving at the top floor. And then I was like “in how many D&D games do you just skip all the way to the top of the bad guy’s tower? No no, that is not how this is done! As such, the heroes working their way up the tower became a story element all its own. Has Karen Van Dijk appeared in any of the stories? I can’t remember. I don’t know if I’d planned how Cassie was going to die all the way back when she first appeared in Chapter 3, but by the time we hit Chapter 4, I knew it was going to be that her doubts just pushed Eparlegna a little too far. In anticipation of that, I kept bringing up that she’s the one with the most misgivings. Not that she has moral objections to what they’re doing, just that she doesn’t trust that Eparlegna is as in control as he thinks he is. In that sense, she’s both right and wrong. He is underestimating the heroes, but he also does have a plan. I’ll get into this in InvidiaRed’s review response, but the Darth Vader line is definitely a result of trying to keep him in line with your portrayal. When I was coming up with traps, I had the idea for the fractal impalement trap, which was the sort of visceral horror, but I wanted something else too, something a little more magical and out there, and the matter prism seemed like a good idea. Leary catching the use of the wrong term for Chloe was part of my drive to give every character something cool to do. Unfortunately I ended up cutting Cole’s moment, as it was tied to a plot point that I realized was redundant, but hopefully I can give him one in a future story. I had way more fun with that little scene than I thought I was going to. I had planned for it to be a simple shootout, but then I realized they would need cover as they entered the room, and realized that even in her weakened strength, Luzurial can just rip the door out of the wall. Abdul’s “There’s something you don’t see every day.” definitely made me chuckle a little. I’m glad you liked the line I gave Eparlegna. It can be a challenge to write his dialogue, so it’s always a relief when I hear that I got it right. Kevin’s line is just me realizing that he has to say something after watching a woman burn alive from the inside out, and in this case he may be so stunned that he doesn’t consider whether or not it would be wise to say anything, and just vocalizes the first thing to come to his mind, which is something vaguely snarky. Oh, that needle’s coming back next chapter, believe you me. I appreciate the support for Luzurial’s actions there. As I said, I threw the idea out there because I found it funny, I remember you liked it, and then I got worried about whether or not it was a good idea in the first place. Thank you again! Thank you for that as well! The theology of WitS has always been sort of based on The Last Battle. Essentially, you don’t have to be religious to do good things, and it’s how you live your life and how you affect other people that matters. I don’t know that MRaD has the worst title of any of your...stories...well, ok, I can’t come up with a challenger at the moment, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one! The stuff Cadence did is probably why Luzurial left her there under the bed. She’ll be fine, as fine as a head in a box can be, anyway, and after all the stuff she’s done or tried to do, making her wait longer is perhaps a light sentence. Heh. That is indeed true concerning her superiors. The “slight delay” idea is one that also made me grin, just thinking that she would know exactly how long it would take, and encouraging him, like “You’ve got less than ten seconds to live. Maaaybe think about some of the stuff you’ve done. Regretting any of that yet?” Thank you for the review, and I’ll see you again...ok, fair warning, the final chapter may come out Tuesday instead of Monday. At any rate, see you later!

I’m aware that I have received two absolutely wonderful reviews for the latest chapter of WitS, and have yet to respond to them. I am currently working on the final chapter, which is why I haven’t responded. I promise that within the next day or two I will respond to both JayDee and InvidiaRed. Many thanks to both of you!

Part Ten is up!

I...might have one ready by the end of the month, but given WitS, I seriously doubt it. I will, however, review all of your submissions!

So, now for my reply! Revealing my own literary ignorance, I’ve never actually read Of Mice and Men. I do really need to get around to that at some point. My personal recommendation would be for After Party to come first. I think the tension in the first part of After Party at least partly comes from not knowing who or what Yua is, and the spoiler might lessen that early fear. Parlor Games, I think, works perfectly after being spoiled, just in a different way. Knowing who Cody and Yua are, in my opinion, makes for a kind of anticipation when the brothers show up at the house, with the audience knowing fully just how screwed these people are, and it might even make some lines (Yua’s “I wasn’t expecting to have a meal delivered”) considerably funnier. That was all @JayDee. I mentioned I felt kind of bad for Todd after Yua sent him running, and JayDee came up with this epilogue showing how Cody helps him get to safety. Completely agreed on Auntie Pearl, who’s a wonderfully colorful character. They’ve probably done some stuff on the couch before, so it would have been possible for Chad and Ricky to look in the window and find them making out or engaged in foreplay (I figure they’d probably move to the bed, or Yua would haul him up into the web, before things went too far). As for teaming up with JayDee to do something erotic, I did have an idea recently. Not sure if I should do it, but it would be set after WitS (I know; I’ll be working on that tonight ), as well as its immediate sequel New Year’s Visitation, and it would involve revisiting an old joke JayDee and I shared one time, only maybe a little bit more serious this time around… At any rate, thank you so much for the review!

The problem is that none of my other characters can really do this prompt. Lady Aldreda and her squire Elis exist in a medieval fantasy setting, and The Woman in the Statue is set in 2082, so that’s not really an option either. I suppose I could do a Cindy and Ryan semi-romantic smut story where Ryan helps Cindy relax after a very stressful day at the hospital, but you know, that might gross some people out, given their relationship. Edit: What I meant by that was that Cindy is Ryan’s big sister. They’re that...special kind of brother and sister.