InBrightestDay

Well, alrighty then! Japanese is an interesting language, specifically in its written form. Different characters (kanji) can be pronounced the same, due to the limited number of sounds the human vocal apparatus can make, but mean very different things. The word “jorōgumo” is thus written in two different ways. The first way, 女郎蜘蛛, translates as “whore spider”. Given that they are succubus-like spider monsters, it’s accurate enough, but a bit on the nose if you ask me. The second way, 絡新婦, translates as something like “binding bride.” In fact, the second way of writing it is actually where I got the name for the character. Yua is a Japanese feminine name that comes from 結 (yu) meaning “to tie/bind” and 愛 (a) meaning “love/affection”. Her last name, Hayashi, is written as 林 and means “forest”. I’ve thought about it, but have yet to employ the fire-breathing spiders in any of the stories; maybe later in something with more action. Basically, all of those spiders that congregate in her vicinity, drawn to her natural magic? Those aren’t just for show; she can control them, and in The Spider House I have a particularly nasty scene where she uses them Willard style. While it’s true that I did write a lot (though not all) of what happens inside the house from scratch, that was only because that was where JayDee’s excerpt ended. I mentioned this in the author’s note, but JayDee sent me this as a snippet with the K-Team, but they weren’t sure it fit those characters. I suggested that maybe that was because the K-Team usually deals with explicitly magical stuff, so bad people weren’t really up their alley. I then had the thought of using Cody and Yua, re-wrote the snippet to use that and sent it back to JayDee, who really liked it. In the piece they sent me, “teats” was Shannon, and when Ricky does the pizza box thing, it was Kate at the door and Kizzy who told her to bring their visitors in. After that, Kate took Ricky and Chad down to the basement (where she would go full wolf and eat them) while Kizzy and (I think) Shannon were going to keep Todd company in the living room and make sure he wasn’t hurt. JayDee’s excerpt also had a bit where Kate was eager to go down to the basement with the two guys, and they figured she had some home invasion fantasies that were way off. It felt like a natural fit for Yua as well, so I was absolutely going to keep that. I had to invent the new stuff with Yua in her true form snagging Chad and hauling him up into the web. However, this is where we come back to JayDee, because... When I did the re-write, it ended on more of a horror note, with Yua looming threateningly over Todd, giving him that creepy smile and saying “Run home, little boy,” and him bolting out into the woods in terror. I confessed, however, that I did feel kind of bad for him, since I wasn’t sure if he could find his way to someone who would help him. JayDee then wrote that entire epilogue, inventing Auntie Pearl in the process, who turned out to be a super fun character who could definitely have her own story.

I did indeed get one. I’m sorry you didn’t; I had hoped that co-authors would get notifications too.

I think the reason @JayDee was talking about Parlor Games is that they co-wrote it, as opposed to Social Distancing, which was all me. Of course, now that that’s happened, JayDee, whose review response thread do you want this to be on?

Or he takes a disliking to her diet. Then again, given his job, he might not object to that. That could be pretty funny. An interesting thought; makes me wonder exactly what the connection is. And now we have a second review, courtesy of @JayDee. Thank you! This sort of emerged from something in After Party, where Cody feels safer as soon as he enters Yua’s area of the forest. I liked the idea that since jorōgumo are nature spirits of a sort, that the animals might be able to sense her innate magic and react to that. The spiders react by converging on the area, and the bear reacts to Yua the same way a coyote would react to the bear, backing down from a more dangerous predator. Brushing the leaf out of Cody’s hair was actually a late addition. I realized that while we’d seen Yua in her true form in Parlor Games, we’d never really seen her interact with Cody in that form, so I wanted to do a little of the affectionate stuff she does in her human or in-between forms here in her giant spider form. I think it’s kind of messing Cody up for a few reasons. Part of it is that it’s recently become emblematic of her being, in his mind, overprotective, but the other part is that Yua refers to Cody as her pet human as part of the roleplay they engage in during their bondage games. There’s an emotional association there, to being powerless in an arousing way, and it’s kind of messing with his head to have this getting tied to being powerless in a frustrating way. Still, he doesn’t mean to hurt Yua any more than she means to hurt him. *Listens* You know, you probably could play that pretty well on the shamisen… The two instruments I mentioned Yua being highly skilled with are generally associated with this particular type of yōkai. The biwa is what jorōgumo are described as playing in the stories I could find, but for whatever reason, they’re frequently depicted in art with a shamisen. I went with the shamisen here first because the biwa will be featured in The Spider House, and second as a reference to Kubo and the Two Strings. For those who haven’t seen the movie, the main character, Kubo, plays a shamisen (it’s how he works his magic), and the end credits feature a cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” that features shamisen as well as some other Japanese instruments. As I said in the author’s note, I don’t know if this is canonical, but I did nonetheless want it to be canon compliant, so I wrote it taking into account the conversation Yua and Cody had at the end of After Party, so she still gets jealous, but there isn’t a risk of her eating other women anymore. Well, not as much of one, anyway. So for those who don’t know, while I didn’t do this intentionally, I did realize while coming up with the story of The Spider House that it rather resembled the story of Let the Right One In (or the American remake Let Me In), albeit TSH is a shorter, simpler story. I decided to reference that with the reading scene, and I liked the idea of what Cody is trying to get across to Yua there; how he sees the story. LtROI is both a horror story and a love story, but Cody is focused on the fact that it’s about a boy who falls in love with a monster, and the monster loves him back.

Social Distancing is a story written for @kagome26isawsome’s prompt concerning COVID-19. Basically, she proposed that some of us write stories about how our characters would be dealing with the pandemic. Since Elis and Lady Aldreda live in a medieval fantasy world and The Woman in the Statue is set in the future, that left Yua and Cody. Since jorōgumo like Yua can’t get sick (at least in my version of things; it’s possible yōkai may fall ill in myths I haven’t read), the only one at risk would be her human mate, Cody. Now, at first, I was going to make this a fun/hot story where Yua shows the boy exactly how much fun it can be to be trapped inside the house with a woman who’s got seduction down to an art and has 683 years of experience...but then things changed. I can’t explain exactly why, but it started getting more serious, focusing on what it means to be an immortal in a relationship with a human. And thus we come to our first review from @InvidiaRed! Yeah, the idea was that she isn’t smotheringly possessive all the time, but that the disease has made her even more protective of Cody than she normally is. I do enjoy writing Yua because of the inhuman aspect of the character. Luzurial is inhuman, but only in the technical sense, since her morality is essentially the same as ours. Yua is a giant spider that can look like a beautiful woman when she wants to, and as such her perspective is very different. I swear I wasn’t stealing your dialogue from the future! No, in all seriousness, the characters are different (a jorōgumo and a death god) but they share in that same bittersweet experience of loving someone you know you’ll outlive. That line of dialogue in particular is one I’ll be using in The Spider House, which is to be the formal introduction of Yua and Cody and how they became a couple. It’s what I’ll be working on after I finish the last chapter of WitS. Thank you!

Alright @InvidiaRed, @JayDee and @kagome26isawsome, I’ve finally posted my story! It took way longer than a 2,700 word story should have (sorry about that) but it is up. Social Distancing

You kidding me? It’s always an honor to work in this shared universe (the Angelverse?) with you! I also figured that the events of MRaD came just before WoH, given that the fics were posted so close together. It was what inspired me to include Michael in WitS to begin with, actually. It didn’t. As the National Guard (including the LTV Private Flynn was in) advanced into the area within Eparlegna’s barrier, they were swarmed by id constructs. They dropped several waves with automatic fire, and were holding well, but that was when the Screamer attacked. An avian horror forged of Wrath, the Screamer resembled a giant vulture, its black wings spreading twelve meters across, hooked thumb talons sprouting from feathered flesh, its beaked jaws bristling with tooth-like projections of sharp bone. Its name came from the weapon it employed as it attacked, swooping low over the soldiers and releasing a piercing , deafening shriek, a focused beam of sound that shattered glass, rattled the metal frames of the vehicles and stunned humans in its path, leaving them easy prey for other monsters. After its second pass, the Screamer landed in the middle of the National Guard formation, knocking stunned soldiers away with the hammer blows of its beating wings. Moving on its feet and wings like a bat, it moved to the LTV and tore the driver’s side door off, dragging the screaming redhead out. The Wrath construct made to seize her in its beak, to rend her flesh and scatter blood and viscera across the battlefield, its snakelike neck drawing back and striking, jaws spread wide...only for the Archangel Luzurial to step in front of it and catch its jaws, holding them open as it tried to bite. Private Flynn scrambled back, and the beast tried to scream, but Luzurial slammed its head into the asphalt, blunting the sonic attack. One of its wings reached for her, the thumb talon meant to slash at her, but she kicked it aside. Still, she could not reach the machete she carried and slay the beast, forced as she was to hold its head with both hands. Of course, she didn’t have to. About ten meters away, Colin Gibbs had managed to rest his Gungnir on some wreckage while the rest of Chloe’s team fought off other id constructs. Luzurial held the Screamer in place, and he fired a single shot, the hypersonic projectile piercing one of the monster’s eyes and erupting from the other side of its head in a gory explosion. Or, you know, something like that. I didn’t just make that up, by the way. What you just saw was a deleted scene from The Woman in the Statue, which would have followed the bit where battle is joined. I cut it because I realized that the important part of that scene was Luzurial’s big decision to trust humanity and not try to generate any incarnate virtues. It would have been more detailed had I actually written it into the story, but I figured I’d explain it here anyway. Moving on! Okay, so… You just almost made me spit my drink all over my computer while laughing. I may have to include this in New Year’s Visitation now. No problem. I always like seeing your work.

I promise to have all of your stories reviewed by the end of the day! Mine is fighting me. I wanted to make a funny/sexy story where Cody learns that being trapped in the house with Yua for months might not be so bad, but then the idea turned a little more melancholy and leaned more toward Yua’s fear about being an immortal creature in a relationship with a human who’s vulnerable to disease. I think sexy might be off the table (sex scenes take a long time for me to write anyway, and you guys are getting these out fast), but maybe I can make it sweet instead.

I am absurdly jealous of how fast @InvidiaRed can write. It’s going to take me longer before Social Distancing, my Yua/Cody story, is going up. In the meantime, for those who don’t want to dig through his profile to find it, Invidia’s story is here.

I did get a hint of that, but wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into it. Ah, sorry for the mistake there. If I’d played Dark Souls, it probably would have been a lot more obvious. So does that mean there’s a spider girl in there that everyone feels really sad for? I may not have played the game, but the Fair Lady (and the way players feel for her) is something I’ve definitely heard about. I mean, maybe a little, especially since he was reacting to...you know...grass. Anyway, we’ll find out more about him next time, I presume!

And we have a new review for WitS Chapter 9 from @Sinfulwolf! Thank you! What you just described was very much what I was aiming for, wanting to keep the emotional core of the story intact, but still keep the pace up so that it felt like we were moving into the finale. As for the bit of Whore of Heaven I expanded upon...well, you’ll see next chapter. Working on the conclusion (like, I was writing it, paused to reply to this, and will now go back to writing it), so hopefully the tale remains enjoyable!

Thank you guys so much! I do always try to think about why things happen in a story and use that going forward, and I think Thundercloud has a good point about JayDee’s sheer style.

Well, you can tell I’ve been away fro a while when I forget to check the email address I set up to use with this site, and as such miss a review notification! Many thanks to @Thundercloud for sending me a PM to let me know about this. Anyway, on to his review! Thanks! We are indeed in the endgame now, which is why things are more action-focused, but I did try to balance it a little and have some level of conversation going on, like with Luzurial and the agents in the stairwell. I was, however, very intent on making sure everyone gets something to do. I should have made this clearer, but the LTV is actually somewhat armored, with ballistic material for the windshield and light armor on the outer surface. It’s just that the Gungnir was designed to pierce armor, hence the hypersonic round made of a dense material (tungsten carbide). You are right, however, in that they could have shot out the tires to slow the vehicle down or something like that, but I guess the allure of the giant gun made them focus on using that. The tower is surrounded by flat ground, you’re not wrong about that. However, Gibbs is sticking up out of a hatch in the LTV’s roof, so he’s up higher than the cultist shooting at him from the ground. His Gungnir round thus comes in at a downward angle. Yeah, that was one of my favorite lines to write. We’ve seen Luzurial be cool and we’ve seen her be sympathetic, but angels in the sacred texts are usually described as being terrifying, and I wanted a moment where she gets to be that way. I was thinking of reaction lines after that, and when one of them was something like “Oh my God” or “Jesus Christ” that was when the response popped into my head, and I loved it so much there was no way it wasn’t going in there. Burning a hole through the cultist also led into the discussion of divine fire itself… Credit must be given to JD here. That line about Luzurial’s eyes glowing, but then her regaining control of herself, made me so curious about just how powerful she is that it led to this idea. I’m also glad that you liked the moment between the caged women and her. It is a bit of symmetry, how she couldn’t do anything to help the women 75 years earlier, but now she can, and I liked writing their reactions as well, all sort of forgetting everything for a moment and clustering around the angel. Freyde’s reaction in particular, when Luzurial reassured her in Yiddish, was sort of a microcosm of what all of them are feeling. Well thank you for suggesting that power! I remember when you first brought the idea up, I was like “Oh, man, this is a cool idea, but it seems so weird just to use it as a one-off,” and then I realized “Well, then I’ll just have it pop up again!” Thank you! I wanted Calista to have something to do here instead of just being a hostage, and then when I was coming up with the trap I had this image pop into my head from my childhood. See, I grew up on Don Bluth movies, one of which was The Land Before Time. In that film, in the scene where the T. rex first appears, there’s a part where Littlefoot and Cera hide from it in a thicket of...some plant with thorns, and believe it or not, I had that image, of the tunnel of thorns, in my head while writing Calista’s crawl to disable the trap, except that in this case the thorns are growing in toward you. Thanks! Hopefully it ends up being a fun read!

And now we have what is becoming a tradition: a jumbo-sized review from @JayDee! Sorry about that, but thanks! I had a lot of fun writing Gibbs, and I honestly didn’t really enjoy killing him off, but as for why, well, you said it perfectly yourself right here: Pretty much. Humanity is fighting a demon, and in Whore of Heaven you made it very clear how smart and powerful this demon is and how outmatched the people going up against him are. I know this is 75 years later, and that I had a bunch of casualties in Chapter 8, but nonetheless I felt like it would make Eparlegna look nonthreatening if none of the PPD agents were killed. Granted, I have failed to make him as threatening and clever as you did in Whore of Heaven, and that’s on me. I wish I knew how to fix it, but I do have limits as a writer, and I seem to have hit them. Still… Hopefully I can at least deliver on that! Jumping back top some earlier things… I did rather enjoy writing a lot of that section, including the jokes (the angel sitting in the back thing is a favorite of mine) and the Gungnir shootout. I wanted to give every character at least one cool thing to do in this story, so Gibbs has that bit where he shoots the hybrid through his own gun, Abdul torches the Charnel Spider with an oxymethane explosion, Kevin shoots Eparlegna in the balls, and while Calista sort of assisted with Kevin’s moment, she gets a bigger one here, crawling through the fractal impalement trap to disable it. Chloe, Leary and Cole will all have moments in the final chapter (Chloe has one I’m particularly fond of) and of course Luzurial has multiple moments throughout the story. The fight with Tank Top is something that was kind of tough for me to write, because as you said, he really doesn’t stand a chance. Even in her weakened state, Luzurial is stronger than he is, she can read his mind and while he may have a decade or so of training, she has eons of it. The only way I could really think to have him hurt her was to have an environmental hazard throw her off slightly. Still, it accomplished the main goal of the segment, which was to show her searing light attack and introduce the concept of divine fire, that Luzurial at full strength can release enough energy in a single attack to make a hydrogen bomb look small. I’m not loading Chekhov’s gun or anything… Yeah, that was what I was talking about earlier. I know I’m not as good with the planning as you were in the first story. That’s one of those times where things just kind of work out by accident. I had an idea of how tall the building was (300 meters), and I figured out how tall each story would be (4 meters) and just divided. The fact that it came together like that was just one of those neat little bits of happenstance. This is sort of meant to build on the stargazing scene from Chapter 7, where she and Kevin are talking and it comes up that she can’t unmake her mistakes, but she can learn from them. Here, she’s doing her best to ensure that she’s fully regained her energy after burning a hole through Tank Top down in the lobby, as she can’t afford to be at anything less than her best when she runs into Eparlegna on the top floor. The bit with the women she hoped she could save is just another of my attempts to take the character you wrote in WoH and try to build on her using the experience she went through. And the person who wrote the original story isn’t such a prick. Why, they let me write this thing! I wanted to get at least a little of the horror stuff you did in Whore of Heaven into my story, and the tortured heads of those who defied him spiked around his throne was my attempt at that. It’s not as scary as I wanted it to be. Maybe in the future, after I finish the story, I can enhance the description somewhat. The pillars are an in-universe callback to WoH. Eparlegna is trying to weaken and/or kill the mortals coming up to him, but he wants Luzurial to reach him, and as such he’s deliberately made things a little familiar for her, to bring back memories of old times. You were employing very economical storytelling, and as such you kept things to really three PoVs: the narration, Eparlegna and Luzurial, with very minor bits from Shondra, Molly and Bernice. You could have created a minor character to represent the caged women, but unlike those other three, she wouldn’t have had anything to do, so her presence would have felt superfluous. I had the advantage of a pre-established character who was going to do something in the scene, and since she was going to be sitting in the pen for a bit before the PPD agents and Luzurial showed up, it made sense for her to interact with the other women. This is one of those moments I wish I had a good way to translate things reliably. See, Freyde (from the Yiddish freid, meaning “joy”) was somewhat nervous, so Luzurial says “Fear not, daughter of Abraham. All will be well,” in Yiddish, the idea being that, as an angel, Luzurial speaks all languages. Thing is, I don’t know anyone who speaks Yiddish, so I didn’t really have a way to translate that. Google translate is good for one or two words, but for entire sentences you want a human being. I was still pretty proud of the way Freyde and the other holy women react after that, the tears and the mix of nervousness, awe and humility at being in the presence of someone like Luzurial. That was exactly the idea. Thermite burns really hot, so much so that people handling it on TV always have reflective suits to protect them when they’re anywhere near the stuff. This close to it, the radiant heat is enough to burn the skin right off parts of Calista’s body, hence why Luzurial has to rush over and heal her before she can freak out looking at her arms and hands. I’m actually not sure Luzurial even could have left her until after the fight, given how bad the burns were. Thank you! I was trying to figure out what “the traps of Hell” you mentioned in Whore of Heaven would look like, and I hit upon the idea of a basic spike trap, but I wanted to make it somewhat more magical, and that was when the idea of spikes sprouting out of other spikes until there was no open air left came up. It did seem like something that would be designed in Hell, something that could, perhaps, be more efficient in how quickly it kills, but is designed to make those caught in it suffer more. Thank you for yet another awesome review! I hope I don’t let you down.

Yeah, she’s a rather complicated character. Dealing with both the amnesia element and the demon sharing her body is a heck of a challenge for a writer. For what it’s worth, I think you’ve done a fantastic job with her. Well it freaking worked! And wipe that evil smile off your face! I knew about the extensive testing, but I did not know about the name. That is a very weird thing to learn, and it does make me wonder what the inventor’s thought process was. Would the heroes actually wait that long to tell her? I mean, I know she’s an enemy and all, but I feel like someone would say something after like a month. It was really cool! It has some great descriptions (the house exploding into splinters is a visual image right out of an action movie, and the dome of black energy the Obliterator releases is a creepy yet cool image), and that quick thinking Jennifer and the demon do to save their lives there is really neat. I see where you’re coming from. It’s basically the same reason I broke WitS Chapter 9 into two parts, because what I have as Chapter 9 now is over 11,000 words. There is definitely something to be said for not making a chapter too long. Obviously this is up to you as the author, but I think keeping Chapters 9 and 10 in the story works. In my opinion, reading G.S.P. is less like reading a novel and more like reading a comic book series, with each chapter as an issue of the comic. Therefore, we have story arcs, but plots can come and go every few issues. The through-line for the story is the cast of characters we’re following, watching the G.S.P. grow together as a team and so on. So taking an issue or two to develop Avalanche works, in my opinion, given this story structure. Again, this is ultimately up to what you think is best as the author. I’m just giving my opinion. Wow. Well, thank you! I did love the scene, and I agree with what you said there, that if he just quit being a superhero, he would still be a superpowered rapist loose on the streets. I think having them deal with him in a more definite fashion was a good move to make. Anyway, it’s on to the finale now (for both our stories, amusingly), and I seriously doubt I’ll be disappointed. You’ve shown a real talent in handling the superhero action scenes!

Another review of WitS Part Nine, this time from @InvidiaRed Thanks! Luzurial has spent most of the story interacting with Kevin, Abdul and Calista, and I wanted to have some interaction between her and the agents, and this little beat in the stairwell served both to do that and give us a brief check up on how Luzurial is feeling. Thank you! I was trying to think of magical traps that weren’t just “zaps you when you walk into it” type things, and I came up with two, one of which will come up in Part Ten, and the other of which was the fractal impalement trap. The name comes from the fact that the secondary set of spikes emerge from the primary spikes at right angles, and then the tertiary spikes emerge from those at right angles, and the quaternaries from those and so on and so forth, a fractal pattern in other words. Well, he’s doing a modified version of something he did in Whore of Heaven, not precisely harvesting faith, but sort of related. You’ll see what he’s going for in the final chapter. Hey, the cultist hit the LTV, and Gibbs hit the cultist, so while there were some misses, some shots were on target. For the curious, as InvidiaRed has noticed, the Gungnir asynchronous coilgun is named after the spear wielded by Odin in Norse mythology. Thanks again for the review!

It’s been far too long, but ladies and gentlemen, The Woman in the Statue is officially back! Expect the tenth and final part in a couple more weeks, but for now, let’s get to the first review of Part Nine, from first time commenter but apparently long time reader Symbalistic. Thank you so very much for the review! It’s wonderful to know that you’ve been enjoying the story. That means a lot to me as a writer, especially when it comes to a personal project like this one. Hopefully the finale will be fun for you to read as well.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I FINALLY UPDATED!!! *Ahem* I mean, Part Nine is up. Due to length, the story has unfortunately ended up with ten parts, so we have one more to go after this.

Okay, listen, I read, and this precisely how I’ve defined this in the past, enough of this story to know what happens, and then avoided being really depressed by not thinking about it. The combination of the chapter and talking about this is keeping the story in my head, and if we talk about this any more, I am going to be very tempted to go over to the Depravity Repository, copy Metroid: Last Mission, paste it into a PM and send it to you, so that that way it can live in your head too. And yes, of course it’s a Metroid story. Deschrimung wouldn’t be a Predator worth his salt if he didn’t get himself a Samus trophy. I’m sorry; that was kind of mean. My feelings are a little off-kilter at the moment. Moving on... I actually wondered that myself. Her description is striking enough that I figured she had to be from somewhere, but I couldn’t place her. Yeah, in any of the following stories he’d sneak up on her and stab her through the face with his wristblades. I mean, it’s really similar, just more mean-spirited. Sorry for talking about that again, speaking of which... Honestly, that criticism wasn’t fair. At a guess it was probably bleedover from the other story. I was probably wanting Lara to put up a better fight because of my feelings about Samus. Don’t tempt me! Actually, if I did this, she would probably be tall to pass for a man, with relatively small breasts (again, easier to pass as a man), and I’d probably follow the Anne Bonny example and have her have joined the crew after falling for the captain of the ship, with him getting killed by either a xenomorph or a Predator partway through the story, forcing her to try and rally the crew… Shit, I might write this. I’ll just add it to WitS, The Spider House, Sigrid and Reynard’s story, Aldreda and Elis’s story, New Year’s Visitation, The Arena… This might not happen for a while. Game mechanics! Actually kind of makes sense. I wonder how many pulse rifle rounds you have to fire into a Predator in the AvP games to kill it.

Oh my God that’s amazing! I’d already read the chapter in question (the Lara Croft one) by the time I said that, so there wasn’t really any way to avoid it, but I appreciate the thought. As for the copying thing, I don’t mean you were plagiarized, merely that a commissioned Deathstalker fic (a tie-in to the Gogedheh series, referenced several times in My Enemy’s Enemy) very much seems to have taken inspiration from that chapter, with several plot elements being reused and certain imagery as well. The ending bit with Gogedheh, while not written precisely the same way, is nonetheless so similar to a bit with the Predator in that story that it was the exact moment I decided these two were linked. Yeah, that’s...that’s the guy from the story I’m talking about. Yeah, he counts her in the other stories, so I did too. Yeah, that was a fun thought. Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll find a way to one-up her! Yeah, I actually saw that a while back. That’s a nice piece of work.

The first movie is, in my opinion, honestly a decent entry. It’s not R-rated like both franchises and a lot of the characters are kind of bland (excepting Sanaa Lathan as protagonist Alexa Woods and Lance Henriksen as Charles Bishop Weyland), but it’s nonetheless got some pretty fun action scenes, well done creature effects and the third act is awesome. Yes, Celtic employs plasma bagpipes that play Amazing Grace as they fire, and wields a telescoping shillelagh in close combat! No, in all seriousness the three Yautja were given nicknames in the script, some of which made sense by the final film (Scar is the only one to kill a xenomorph and ritually scar himself with the mark of his clan, thus earning “blooded” status; Chopper has two long arm blades instead of the usual dual wristblades, so he can...you know...chop people up) but Celtic’s name seems to have been a reference to something that didn’t transition from script to finished film. Maybe he was supposed to have Celtic-style weaving line patterns on his bio-helmet or armor or something, but the final design didn’t end up with those. As for Gogedheh getting kicked in the crotch, kicks and blows to the crotch actually are a recurring element in the Deathstalker stories, having happened five times that I can recall, though only once to Gogedheh. Something actually did, but it’s difficult to explain. See, it wasn’t actually anything you wrote (let’s just say you might have been copied, sort of). When the review of the chapter in question goes up I will either be comically mock-indignant with you or genuinely depressed, it’s hard to call. You did actually call Alex a fallen angel, amusingly enough. Oh God I didn’t realize it was a PUN! I mean, it’s from the creator of Dreneparssa and Eparlegna, so I probably should have guessed. Funnily enough, though, “Rehtegog” sounds like a pretty good demon name for one of your stories. That carried over into Multiverse Trophies, where he does seem to be fending off guilt (or at least that’s how I read it). As you say, as the requests went on any semblance of guilt vanished (once the character goes as far as he did in that second story, there’s really no coming back). That’s weird biped tortoise, thank you very much! It’s just so specific. “Fourteen inches and vibrating, got it. We got those modeled on humans and, for the kinkier, horses.” “No! Like, neither of those will work! They need to be donkeys!” “We don’t have those… If you want donkeys specifically, I’m going to have to go to the farm and take measurements and photos and the farmer’s going to think I’m really weird...” “This is totally important!” “I mean okay...” I kind of want to put Jane Maybelline into a fic now, but I don’t know if I have a place for her. Yeah...uh...weirdos. By the way, Uma Thurman is apparently seven inches taller than me. Not that I find that attractive or anything! It does indeed! It was natural enough that I didn’t even notice it at first, not until I started to make the “your princess is in another castle” joke. Maybe it was because the guy on the Pringles can looks vaguely like Mario? I mean, not exactly, but...he’s got a mustache. He’s killed three of those now, by the way, and his apprentice is killing her way up to a fourth. Don’t know what “are we learning yet” meant, but yeah, she did, and that is the best she has ever done against a Predator. Fun fact, there are literally no stories I can find on the internet where Samus fights a Predator other than the ones by Deathstalker, so that only ends one way...so far (I may have unintentionally caused a thing to happen; fingers freaking crossed that it doesn’t go horribly). Oh, and… You’re welcome!