InBrightestDay

I really hope someone takes this challenge (not sure if I could actually do it justice), because I’m a big fan of older sister/younger brother stories and also like mother/son ones. Again, I would write this, but I don’t really know if I could do the sex well enough.

I was thinking more along the lines of re-writing the section so he doesn’t use his actual name until he already has his captives in the car. That could also work.

And @Thundercloud reviews Part Eight! So you and JayDee both had that thought independently. Because of this, I have officially mentioned it inthe Author’s Note, and it may become canon as of the end of Part Nine. Thank you. As you said, the idea was that humanity has been gaming out how we might respond in the event of another attack like this, but I really wanted Luzurial to be valuable for more than just combat, specifically as a source of information here. As for keeping the students outside until they’re dragged in, it’s almost funny how long I spent trying different dialogue exchanges, trying to figure out how Kevin, Abdul and Calista were going to be let into the Rupture zone, before realizing that the reason none of the dialogue exchanges worked for me was because the whole idea didn’t work; the National Guard would have to be freaking insane, not to mention that the students barely survived the Applied Theology building, so Luzurial wouldn’t be keen on bringing them into something even worse. I really like that idea! We know the hybrids are stronger than normal humans, but there’s no reason to assume they wouldn’t have other abilities, perhaps granted by Eparlegna for specific purposes, and this would allow me to explain how he worked his way past a lot of the soldiers without resorting to a communication SNAFU. Thank you again! I really enjoyed writing that. In the street scene, yeah, the incarnate sins are just monsters being fought by the military, but I do like to take the opportunity to remind readers that these things are literally condensed evil, and that should mean that a lot of them are downright terrifying. Thanks for the review!

Speaking of angel names, the Principality Tegwen. Google reveals that Tegwen is a name based in… I see why you were thinking of her having a Welsh accent. And the tall angel, Temira...Temira is apparently a Hebrew name that literally means “tall.” This works for the angel, obviously, but I really wonder who gives a human child a name like this. I mean, how do you know if your kid’s going to be tall enough for that to make sense?

And @Sinfulwolf returns for Parts Seven and Eight. First off, thank you for the review! It was actually important for me to show how the National Guard is handling things this time around, in large part as a contrast to the first time. I don’t think JayDee ever described what happened after the military went into the First Rupture, but I kind of imagined that when they suddenly found themselves facing real monsters under glowing, bruise-colored clouds, there might have been an understandable level of panic. 75 years later, they know that real monsters are a legitimate possibility, and have been trained, to some extent anyway, for this eventuality. And thank you regarding the Crawler. When I was writing Part Five, I considered having something Sloth-based in the App Theo building, but at the time I figured that since Sloth is basically laziness, it would likely be some kind of hilariously slow-moving blob thing and Luzurial wouldn’t even have to kill it; she and the humans could just break into a light jog and it would never catch them. However, as the chapters went on, I had this idea for a creature that would essentially paralyze its prey, and went from there. Aside from the obvious slug design, the slicing bone plates that serve as the Crawler’s jaws are kind of Dunkleosteus-inspired. I’m glad the emotion came through, especially since this is basically the sex scene I’ve been building toward since Part One. As for why Kevin lasted so long, there are actually two possibilities. The first, and admittedly the one I had in my head, was that it’s partly due to the “boost” Luzurial gave him, which affected endurance in addition to strength, and partly due to whatever weird effect sex has on angels in this setting. I don’t fully understand it myself, but it seemed in Whore of Heaven that sex exhausted Luzurial in a way that combat never really would. It may also have to do with the idea that she is far more sensitive to sexual stimulation than a human would be (another thing I pulled from WoH, where she feels intense pleasure the first time she’s touched sexually, when by rights she should be afraid rather than aroused given the situation). Of course, there is another explanation, which JayDee proposed when I sent them the rough draft, namely that since we get “what happened last night” from Kevin’s PoV, we don’t know what Luzurial was actually thinking. Kevin mentions that he’s glad they stopped when they did because it was actually starting to hurt for him, so it’s entirely possible that Luzurial, either through facial expressions and body language or through telepathy, realized that she was starting to hurt Kevin a little bit, and called an end to the night’s activities, claiming she was too tired in order to keep Kevin from feeling like he’d failed her somehow. While I am the author, I’m not going to say that second explanation isn’t true, because frankly it makes a lot of sense. A big part of that is thanks to you and your feedback. I knew I was going to end up dealing with the cliche as soon as I started writing the story, but your criticism did cause me to spend even more time trying to mitigate it than I likely would have otherwise. Yeah, when I was writing it, I struggled at first with how Kevin, Abdul and Calista would end up inside the Rupture. I mean, they’re part of the main cast, so it didn’t feel right to just have them drop out of the story, but it kept coming back to “why would anyone let them go in there?” Eventually, I realized that there just wasn’t any scenario under which a bunch of soldiers and an archangel, all of whom have as their job “don’t let civilians/mortals get hurt”, would just allow three civilians into the combat zone. There was originally going to be a part of the dialogue exchange between Luzurial and Kevin where she just asked him point-blank if he had the training, experience or raw physical ability necessary to keep up with the soldiers, and he had to admit he didn’t. I never ended up writing that, and I’ll admit I’m not sure why. I guess I never consciously thought it out, but on some subconscious level felt that it wasn’t really necessary. Speaking of conscious thoughts versus subconscious ones… You know, one of the things I appreciate about getting feedback is it prompts me to think about character motivation in more detail than I do while writing, which can provide ideas I can use going forward. So, on Kevin’s motivation... I think there are three related but distinct mental concepts at play here. The first isn’t really based on sex or gender, but rather is the simple idea that when you love someone, you don’t want to see anything bad happen to them. Kevin knows terrible stuff has happened to Luzurial; she’s told him about it, so he hates contemplating it happening all over again, and he thinks that maybe if she had someone else with her, it might not happen. He’s not even entirely wrong. As Eparlegna pointed out to Luzurial during Whore of Heaven, if she hadn’t come to Earth alone, another angel could have released her from the holy circle or just killed him outright, since he only had one trap set, but because no one else was there to help, well… What Kevin isn’t thinking about is that Luzurial isn’t alone this time. She has Chloe and her team, along with literally an entire battalion of soldiers with her. However, this comes down to the second idea at play. Simply put, I think on some level Kevin still feels guilty over what happened to Luzurial in Room 502. He knows she allowed herself to be violated for the second time in order to protect him, and he knows that wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t go into the room. Luzurial brushed it off at the time (partly because she knows what it’s like to accidentally make a situation worse and partly because he cleaned up his own mess), but I think to an extent Kevin wants to redeem himself. Finally, there’s the idea you touched on. You said you figured Kevin thinks Luzurial is a soft woman he must protect as a man, and that he just doesn’t admit it. I think it’s not that he doesn’t admit it; I honestly think he doesn’t realize it. Consciously, Kevin is very much aware of how much stronger and more durable than him Luzurial is (given his repeated references to the car-catching thing, he obviously finds her superpowers attractive). However, there is an aspect of how boys are raised, at least in my country, that I think affects how he acts. Specifically, when you’re a man, there’s this idea that gets planted during childhood and reinforced throughout your life (again, this may just be an American thing), that if you don’t try to help a woman, then you’re being a jerk. If you see a woman lifting something heavy and you don’t try to help lift it, you’re a jerk. If a woman is in a dangerous situation (a combat situation, let’s say) and you don’t try to help her, you’re a jerk (the word “coward” may also be thrown around). The problem is that, since this is subconscious, you’ll act on the idea even when a conscious examination of the situation would tell you that she doesn’t need your help. Even if the woman lifting the heavy object is considerably stronger than you are, you’re still going to try and help her, not because you think she’s weak, but because you’re not thinking about it at all. Even if the woman in the dangerous situation is a female soldier or police officer, you’re still going to feel compelled to help because again, you’re not thinking she’s incompetent, you’re just not thinking. I think this applies, at least somewhat, to why Kevin wants to go into the Second Rupture with Luzurial. He doesn’t think she’s weaker than he is, in fact he consciously knows it’s totally the opposite, but the subconscious drive is very strong. I should note that there’s one situation where this doesn’t apply in the story, which is the moment when Kevin decides he’s definitely going into the App Theo building with Luzurial. There, it’s not a subconscious drive, but a conscious decision brought on by the fact that he just watched her have a PTSD flashback outside. Given that, he decides that maybe she could use some help. even if the help just consists of knowing that she has someone by her side. This could actually be kind of useful for the finale, since Kevin will have some time during his Dude in Distress moment to think about things, and he might find himself ruminating on this very subject. Finally, Chloe did send the list of names to her superior, but my original idea was that when the barrier went up, there was a bit of a communication error, and while there was inter-service cooperation between the PPD and the National Guard (what with Chloe and company being assigned to go in with the battalion and to liaise with Col. Castellano), in the confusion the list of names never made it from SAC Macmillan to the National Guard. Is that stupid? Well...very possibly. Sorry about that. As for the SUV being shot at, I seriously almost wrote that, but I wasn’t sure whether or not that would be more or less realistic than them not shooting at it. I kinda flipped the coin there and, well, it didn’t turn out so well for me. Sorry again. Thank you. It will be a while before we see Part Nine, since I’m still writing that one (all of the other chapters were already completed, and I just edited or re-wrote parts of them). Hopefully it will be decent overall when I finally submit it!

Next up, one from @InvidiaRed Thank you! I actually revised that somewhat between the first draft and the one I uploaded. I think in the original it was just “but she would not give up,” but I really felt like it could be phrased better, and I’m glad it worked out! I wrote that bit where Luzurial throws the machete into the Crawler, and almost immediately thought “Cue ‘Is She with You?’” Couple that with the fact that Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is my superhero crush and I had to make that joke.

Part Eight is now up, and we have two reviews already! First up, @JayDee Thank you! It’s kind of strange for me too, getting this close to the end. Although, while I won’t spoil anything, should the ending go over well enough, there may be what I’m calling the Holiday Special. Presented, one assumes, by Rankin/Bass; the sex is going to look really awkward in that limited stop motion of theirs. I think it’s just one of those moments, sort of like “There’s an angel eating pizza on our sofa,” where the characters get to acknowledge how amazingly weird their circumstances are. As did Abdul, obviously (“That joke was gold and you know it!”), though I really liked writing Kevin’s immediate reaction: “We can’t be friends anymore, Abdul.” A similar gag might (emphasis on might) appear elsewhere in the story’s universe. “Ambruratem...is that Egyptian?” “No.” Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this in the Author’s Note, but for anyone reading this now, Private Flynn may or may not be (but probably is) related to the Flynns of Twinpregnation and Mike Rapes a Dyke. Interestingly, digging back through the reviews on Twinpregnation, I discovered that The K-Team originally made an appearance, which would put all of those stories in that universe. Granted, that was an earlier draft, so I don’t need to feel like I screwed up, or at least that’s the story I’m going with! In a deleted scene (as in “I got partway through and then deleted it”) Private Flynn was almost going to be captured by a sin creature I was calling the Shrieker, a roughly avian horror with a sonic attack. This was to end up with Luzurial fending off a biting attack by grabbing its jaws and holding them open, and then Gibbs was going to pull a Gungnir headshot while she was holding it. However, I cut that scene short because… ...That was the important part. I realized that detailing the battle was just distracting from what I feel is the core of the scene, which is the decision Luzurial makes here. I wanted that line, specifically the “trust us” bit, to be emotional, because that’s not just Chloe asking Luzurial to trust her team and the battalion they’re with, it’s Chloe asking the archangel to trust humanity. The following moment where Luzurial elects not to craft the virtue creatures is where she chooses to do exactly that. Well, in-universe, it’s literal: the task that was entrusted to her by God, the duty that defines her, is the protection of Earth and its people. Out-of-universe, if you want to go down this rabbit hole...Luzurial exists because someone wanted to see a beautiful angel get raped and tortured by a demon. She’s here because I felt absolutely terrible for her, but the reason I felt absolutely terrible for her is because of what you just said. I felt awful for Luzurial because I do admire her character, her compassion, her courage, all of it, and because it felt so profoundly unjust for her to spend the next 120 trillion to 30 tredecillion years alone and in agony because of a well-meaning mistake. That wasn’t what she deserved. What she deserved was to be standing right where she is, between the mortals she cares for and the evil that threatens them. Apologies to those who really liked the original ending of Whore of Heaven, by the way; this is just my opinion. Thanks. I was always going to have an LAPD PoV character there, but then it occurred to me that instead of spending time creating someone new, I could just bring back one of the detectives from Part One. I can’t remember if that was an intentional reversal of what happened to Bernice, but if it is, then it worked better than I had anticipated. Bernice dies when she’s shot in the head by one of the hybrids because she’s trying to help Luzurial (given what happens to the other prisoners, though, not helping Luzurial wouldn’t have saved her). Lilia kills a hybrid by shooting her through the head, in large part because Luzurial helps her. It’s almost like, in some small way, the archangel gets to pay Bernice back for her efforts all those years ago. Not that I did that on purpose, mind you, but sometimes you have to take a moment to appreciate when things just fall into place like that. They’re flattering lies, though. Well, for the moment, anyway. You never know, though...

Part Eight has been posted!

Eh, it’s nothin’ much. The Romans crucified this Jewish carpenter a few thousand years ago, and since there was this thing getting said about him being “King of the Jews” they stuck a crown of thorns on him. Executing that guy...might have backfired a little. In all seriousness, while the crown of thorns isn’t as famous as the cross, for Christians it’s heavily tied to the crucifixion/passion story, so it’s very much linked to the idea of suffering for the sake of others. Here the symbolism is inverted, with others suffering for the King, hence my cringey reaction. True enough. Something I forgot to mention in the review itself is that I like how the religion was corrupted here, since it went from worship of the deity to something more of a cult of personality, with people worshiping the King instead of the goddess he was supposed to be an intermediary for. There really needs to be a facepalm emoji here, but this will have to suffice: I really should have figured out that the drought might have just been a coincidence. Oh well, this is why the forum exists, so I can ask the authors about this stuff! One last thing I forgot to say in the review: I like that you had a snake deity that was benevolent. Snakes, like bugs, often get a bad rap and appear frequently as bad guys in fantasy settings (the Yuan-ti from Dungeons & Dragons, the snake god Yig from the Cthulhu Mythos, etc.), but I’ve always thought they were really cool animals. While they do make for cool villains, it’s nice to see them as good guys here.

I’d imagine that in her true form she probably doesn’t have primary sex characteristics, so asexual would be my description. Awkward moment. Still, we know from You! that her personality isn’t changed so much as to be unrecognizable, so it’s character development rather than derailment, thankfully. I’m afraid to ask, but a part of me really wants to. True, but the first step to becoming a better person is realizing you have a problem, and this is probably as direct a way of showing him that as possible. I don’t think it’s pretentious at all. This is the place where you can fully explain, as you said, your thoughts on the story and the ideas behind it, and I’m always glad to hear them.

Oh, it went quite well, alright. I am very interested and yet legitimately have no idea what happened here. Don’t worry about it. Like I said, her perspective on the rebels might have gone out of whack for a moment due to the HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT HAPPENED that they just saw outside. Absolutely. This really drew me in, and I’ve added your story to my “currently reading” list on my archive profile, so hopefully anyone who goes through said profile will be encouraged to check it out. Even if they don’t, I’ll keep coming back.

@pippychick returns to review Part Six! Thank you! The torture and mocking line about her going back to Heaven was indeed meant to call back to WoH (even to a specific line of Eparlegna’s), as were the students set up like an audience. When the barrier draws back in WoH, there’s a line about how some of the corpses are posed in grotesque parodies of life, which is what I was going for with the lecture hall. Is it possible to catch diabetes from sheer cuteness? Because if it is, then baby sloth compilations on Youtube have to be the leading cause. Having said that, the Wrath creature was definitely meant to be as physically intimidating as possible. I think the image I initially had was of a skinless, eyeless polar bear, but then I saw this picture that managed to make Megatherium look unintentionally terrifying, and I realized that if you took the long, curving claws that sloths have and attached them to something really aggressive, they’re suddenly not so cute anymore… I’m also really glad you liked the way it’s defeated. I couldn’t think of anything as clever as the way Abdul and Calista blow up the Charnel Spider, but thought that since anger is often self-defeating, maybe there was a way for the monster to kill itself, and that even if Kevin was absolutely terrified, he could still have enough presence of mind to make the knock-out-the-pillars plan work. What’s upsetting her isn’t really what happened in the lecture hall; it’s what happened 75 years earlier. She knows she let Eparlegna rape her again to save Kevin from being skinned alive, but a combination of the experience and the fact that Kevin saw it means that she feels that he now knows what she “did” back in Whore of Heaven, and this has to do with her sense of self-worth and the damage inflicted to it by the torture and rapes she suffered back then. You noted that she feels more human during the car scene. To some extent, I tend to write her more human from time to time because of the moments in WoH that I really liked, where we learned that Luzurial is actually very relatable in spite of being an archangel (very human, in other words) I try to balance that with her immortality and superhuman nature, but sometimes I lean too far one way or the other. Partly, though, I think her coming across as more human here is because of the emotionally vulnerable state she’s in at this moment. If I may quote an earlier post of mine in this thread, Luzurial is... So her sexual experience is a spot in which she is emotionally vulnerable, and I think she reads as more human in this scene because of that vulnerability. Once again, thank you so much for the review!

I suppose that’s good advice for aspiring supervillains. I was specifically referring to something near the end of Part Six, though: And now, for the last of the reviews I received yesterday, this one from @Thundercloud First, I’m really happy you liked the chapter! Second, I’m a chronically socially awkward guy, so I actually had no idea what the hair flipping thing meant until just now. Assuming angelic body language is the same as human body language (and there’s a sentence that isn’t written often), then that is a nice little bonus feature! Yeah, that’s about it. He’s not entirely wrong, and it did net him ten extra followers. He does also have a bit more of a plan than he did last time, but as you indicated, he has a bad habit of underestimating humanity and, as I said in my response to InvidiaRed’s review, the power granted by his new body might be causing him to do a little less planning than he did back in Whore of Heaven. As it is, the plan is for something in between. There is going to be a final fight between Luzurial and Eparlegna, as I couldn’t very well have her stay away from the situation (it’s just not who she is as a character), but she’s not going to try to solve the problem on her own; human forces are absolutely going to be involved. This will become clearer in Part Eight. Thank you! This was basically the sex scene I’ve been building up to since Part One, and I really wanted it to be both erotic and emotional, hence why I keep referring to it as a love scene. I’ve started thinking JayDee, pippychick and I are all in a sort of support group for writers with low self-confidence, because I say the same thing to either of them when they express doubt in their own abilities. We have one more chapter before the finale, but I hope it’s good when it gets here, and thank you for the support!

Up next, @InvidiaRed reviews Part Seven! Thank you! I definitely wanted the love scene between Luzurial and Kevin to be part of her healing process, and one of the biggest parts of that, for me anyway, was that first line you mentioned. She and Kevin could just kiss for a while and then go to sleep. Kevin’s a teenage boy, so he’ll be somewhat disappointed, but he also feels very strongly for her (there’s a word for that, but he’s afraid to use it), so he’d definitely be willing to do it. However, as Luzurial realizes, avoiding things that remind her of her rape will mean that Eparlegna has effectively taken sex away from her forever, and the only memories she will have of those acts and sensations will be those of pain and shame. So she decides right there that she will not allow that to happen, and that she wants to have, as you said, a positive experience, to feel sexual pleasure as it was meant to be: not used as a setup for hurting her or a way of shaming her, but given as a gift, for no other reason than that the giver wants her to have it. Yeah, I like that line too, especially since Eparlegna basically has nuked cities in the past. There’s actually a scene near the end of Part Nine where that very thing gets discussed. Yeah, he’s basically acting the same here (assuming I’ve done this right) as he did in Whore of Heaven. In WoH, everything worked out in his favor, but there he had planned things out meticulously beforehand, in part I imagine because he knew he was relatively weak, and any fight between him and an angel would have lasted about five seconds. Here, though, he has a new, more powerful body, and I think the power has made him somewhat more careless. He can torch an army, so he’s less dedicated to planning things out. In a way, becoming stronger has made him weaker. An archangel fights a firebreathing dragon. If I manage to write Part Nine well (fingers crossed), that will be just as awesome as it sounds.

And now for the reviews! First, @pippychick reviews Part Five. InvidiaRed called it a “sudden Prince Albert,” which I thought was pretty funny. It wasn’t really meant to symbolize anything, it was just the first monster present, and I kind of wanted to set up the joke with Calista (“There’s no way I’m coming out of this vent! That’s exactly what the penis worm wants!”). Basically, Luzurial is hoping to shoo the mortals out gently so they don’t get hurt during the confrontation with Eparlegna, so she’s hoping both of them will go get Calista. However, Kevin is, as Abdul says, pretty much glued to her at this point, so he’s not leaving her. That means that either everyone has to go in to face Eparlegna together and then get Calista, everyone has to go get Calista first and then face Eparlegna, or Abdul has to go get Calista. The first option doesn’t work because I think everyone, Luzurial included, knows that they can’t kill Eparlegna at this point, only force him to use enough power for survivors to escape, so they likely would have been running away from said confrontation and might not have been able to retrieve Calista afterward. The second option would technically work, but delaying long enough to go grab Calista would mean leaving the students in Room 502 to Eparlegna for a few more minutes, and when Luzurial and Kevin do arrive, Hana Moon is about ten seconds from getting raped by a demon. Thanks! I rather liked that line too. I mean, during his rampage before being sealed, I’m sure he raped mothers in front of their children, wives in front of their husbands...at some point, he’d pretty much have to find people begging him to stop either amusing or annoying, and since he’s a sadist I went with “amusing.” Oh, neither would I! I probably would have gotten to “throw the acid at it”, and then run. Yeah...remember how you said in your review of Part Four that people you care about can be used against you? Thanks for reviewing!

So I started work at 6:00 AM yesterday, and given that I’m not generally a morning person, when I lay down on my bed to watch some TV last night, I straight up passed out, which meant I never got around to replying to some things on this thread. No problem, I thought. After all, I just have to respond to one of JayDee’s posts and a review from pippychick. Then, while I was at work today, ALL OF THE REVIEWS HAPPENED. So let’s get to these things! First... Little did we know I was secretly writing a Hellstar Remina crossover. So his name translates to “liver wood.” If I didn’t know it was “angel rape” backwards, I’d swear you were going for a shoutout to The Screwtape Letters. Okay, so I realize now that “Derry” is probably short for Londonderry, but for a minute I thought that meant Father Donal had dealt with Pennywise the Clown. I hadn’t thought of that, but it does totally work! Yeah, that was the idea. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant a kiss on the mouth.

In fairness to said instructors, wars are such complex things that you could probably spend an entire semester just discussing one of them, and usually a class has to cover centuries worth of history, so I can see why they tend to simplify things. I imagine, then, that there will be a moment where the characters will have to...#M-420blazeit. I regret nothing! Oh, that happens to all of us. I go through my own story from time to time looking for typos, and I found two of them in my latest chapter just today.

If this was just the first, I am so looking forward to the other ones. I get why you added the Violence tag, though, since that energy blade does some nasty things to human bodies. Okay, that image is hilarious, and yeah, there’s something funny about comparing anything to a pony and then trying to insist that it’s scary, given the inherent cuteness associated with ponies. It’s like describing a giant bug as “a spider the size of a Pomeranian!” If you’re not going for a joke, you should probably just say “dog.” Absolutely, especially in a universe where magic isn’t acknowledged yet. I’m not too familiar with the New Mutants so I’ll have to take your word for it on that one, but it is pretty cool that you gave a shoutout to a lesser known Marvel superhero. Like I said, he doesn’t come across as a villain. In fact, his reaction when he thinks Jennifer is hiding something indicates that Mindeye really does care for the well being of the team. As you said, he’s just kind of shady, kind of like Eagle in that earlier chapter. And yeah, mind control is something that always makes me a little uncomfortable when it’s used in the context of sex and relationships. If I may digress a bit, that was why I liked the main character of The Master Program so much: he actually doesn’t want to abuse the power he’s been granted. I think I like this version better. If she’d just carved McFenna up, she might have ended up in some serious trouble, and I’d imagine she doesn’t want to cause yet another headache for her superiors (especially after the fight in the store). Oh definitely. Of course, I can see why Jennifer waits. It’s cold, as you said, but if her plan is going to work, then McFenna has to be caught in the act in an undeniable way, so she kind of had to let him get started before alerting the other doctors.

Okay, before anything else, I want to try something here, something that will come in very handy when it comes to the Author’s Note for Part Nine: putting most of the AN in a post here and linking to it from the story. Extended Author’s Note (Part Seven): This chapter was late because it went through significant rewrites. The confession scene especially was changed. The original version was more about Luzurial’s general angst and had her far sadder, while the new version focuses on her misguided shame over sex and she’s somewhat angrier at herself. Both end the same way, though, with the discussion of the celibacy decree. You see, back in Whore of Heaven, JayDee had Eparlegna wonder why God would give angels sex organs and then demand that they be celibate. I initially thought it was an anti-religion thing about God being cruel and hypocritical, but when JayDee pointed out that maybe I shouldn’t be taking the rape demon’s word at face value (in hindsight probably something I should have realized…) I then couldn’t stop wondering why. Assuming, as I do, that God isn’t cruel, then I thought that maybe angels (and thus demons) just thought they had to be celibate, because somebody made a mistake. This was why I introduced the Celestial Hierarchy all the way back in Part Three: if God gives decrees to all angels directly, then there can be no mistake, but if there’s a chain of command, then a message might get altered over the many times it changes hands. So JayDee asked why angels have sex organs, and my answer was “so they can have sex.” Speaking of which, I realized that in the original version of the love scene Kevin didn’t have any misgivings about making love to an angel, which felt wrong to me. I remembered that bit from Part Six about how he sometimes feels his attraction to her is almost an insult, and brought that in, with him thinking that he would somehow be degrading something wondrous and beautiful. I thought he might be able to overcome those worries by asking for her permission to cross several “thresholds”, which is where the “May I” bit came from. That and I think there’s something kind of romantic about him asking if he can kiss her. Earlier in the chapter, I mentioned the funniest thing Luzurial had ever heard a leader yell during a battle. Well, the Battle of Dorylaeum took place on July 1, 1097 AD, during the First Crusade. Crusading forces led by Bohemond of Taranto were pinned down by the Seljuk Turks until the forces of several other crusaders were able to pull off flanking attacks to relieve them. After seven straight hours of being pelted with arrows, Bohemond ordered his men to abandon the shield wall they had made, remount their horses and charge the Turkish line. And in this desperate hour, his inspiring “Once more unto the breach, dear friends” line was “Hodie omnes divites si Deo placet effecti eritis!” which translates from the Latin as “Today, if God’s willing, WE’LL ALL BE RICH!” No, seriously, that’s what he said. I don’t imagine God approved of the Crusades, and I imagine Luzurial wouldn’t have either, and was likely feeling rather somber as she watched the battle unfold. However, given that she had fought in scores, maybe hundreds, of battles with nothing less than the fate of creation itself on the line, hearing a battlecry so absurdly materialistic would likely have seemed hilarious. Finally, I had planned for the final confrontation with Eparlegna to take place atop a very tall building, but didn’t have any specifics on what that building would be. Then I had this weird but (to me) kind of amusing idea for a cameo in Part Nine by the Villain Protagonist of another JayDee story (Mike Rapes a Dyke), and asked if I could include it, which led to the VD building.

Oh, I’ll get to it for sure! First, though, I wanted to check out Closing Time, so you’ll get a review on that before I get to Blood and Lace.

You could always do what I did for The Woman in the Statue during our emails and mention jokes you thought of but didn’t use. I’m going to circle back to that in a minute. I know what that feels like. You may recall that WitS was originally only going to be four chapters long. Four very large chapters but still. And now we come back to what I was talking about before. See, reading this didn’t hurt me the way Whore of Heaven or the Lailah corruption scene and its aftermath did, so I’m not writing an SAO. If that Shannon fic ever gets written, it’s going to be by you (I know your response is likely to be something like “then it's not getting written,” but never say never...). No, what I meant by the feels was something completely different. I know WitS is canon, but since you’re the original author, I have a tendency to think of your stories as the “real” stories, or perhaps the “main” stories, the way that Earth-616 is Marvel’s main universe. When the Duchess was, ahem, enjoying thinking about Luzurial’s effectively eternal suffering, it made me kind of sad, but it also gave me this sort of bittersweet hope, only reinforced by Shannon doing a small amount of time as a statue, that there would be some acknowledgment of what Luzurial was going through, some expression of empathy or sympathy for her, in the main stories. I became sad again as it became clearer that wasn’t going to happen; that the only one sparing her a thought would be the Duchess relishing her pain. Again, this is not me pushing. I’m not saying you need to or should include this. You have a plan for how this story is going to go, and I’d feel guiltier than you would believe if I screwed it up, especially since the list of “people who feel really bad for Luzurial” is...a rather short one. I’m just trying to explain myself. I mean, I figured that out a while back. I tend to assume that if I don’t hear back from someone within two weeks, I’m just not going to hear back from them. When I said “on hold indefinitely” I didn’t mean “any minute now...”, but rather “I’m probably not writing this story.” I’m fairly certain the first one’s closest. He left a farewell message on his Literotica profile, and said that while he enjoyed writing for the site, his life was drawn to other things now so he didn’t have time to write for it anymore. The problem with trying to get help in modifying the story is that I would have to pretty thoroughly spoil the villain’s plan to explain where the similarities to TGND begin and end. I could explain it to you via PM or email, but again, that would only be if you didn’t mind spoiling a significant part of the potential story. Finally, I noticed this: Well, shit. I am now legally obligated to do this. *theme music begins* In 2011, a group of four girls was targeted by an undead serial killer and a hillbilly rapist. These girls promptly escaped with extreme prejudice. Today, still wanted by the forces of evil, they survive as a tight-knit group of friends. If you have a problem. If no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire...The K-Team. Starring Kizzy “I love it when a plan comes together” Dieudonné Shannon “(will sit on your) Face” MacDuff Kate “Howlin’ Mad” Wilde Lupa “my Boot troubles your Ass” Lopez

And now the first for Part Seven from @JayDee. I actually wanted to have the same “is that Spanish?” running gag that I have with Luzurial’s name, because while “Luzurial” actually contains a Spanish word, “Eparlegna” sounds like a Spanish word that doesn’t exist. For those who don’t recall, or haven’t read the first story, there was this bit after Luzurial landed in the blood-spattered streets of LA that she took to the air again and the blood and filth just kind of fell off of her. I wasn’t sure whether this was an automatic thing or if she had to concentrate on it, but that was her at 100%, which she is not at now, so whether or not it was automatic, now she has to concentrate. I thought her willing the water to just fall off of her was a nice way to reference that, and also to prompt a discussion of how angelic powers work. Thank you. I knew the timeline was going to end up compressed because Eparlegna doesn’t seem like the kind of villain likely to delay his attempt at taking over the world, but I wanted as much time as possible for Kevin and Luzurial to interact back at the motel, so I had to create some sort of delay. I figured that the same way we have designated shelters for hurricanes and other disasters, there might be designated shelters for the eventuality of another Rupture scenario, and damaging their protective magic could explain the delay before the really crazy stuff happens. Sometimes I just have visual images pop into my head and I don’t entirely know where they come from. In this case, the whole scene just started with this image of Luzurial sitting alone by the pool watching the stars, and the scene grew from that. It is a powerful idea, that this is as much of creation as you can see from Earth. Thank you! In the first draft, that was Luzurial being painted by refracted light, but then I realized I was short on Luzurial PoVs for this chapter, and given what happens in the chapter I really needed more from her perspective. I did like the description, though, so I just had her see Kevin that way instead of him seeing her that way. I realized I hadn’t had anything on Cassie and why she was part of the “cult,” which is why I added this scene. I thought about the circumstances under which one might do something really terrible, and retaliating against a bully seemed like a pretty good option. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen, but then when I read about Flauros, and his ability to kill the summoner’s enemies with fire, I had a pretty horrific idea of what I could do. I mean he was also just taking the opportunity to terrorize and slaughter, but I wanted him to be doing a little more than that. He plans in the short term compared to Lucifer, but “short term” does not mean “only thinks five minutes ahead.” I kept wanting to mention this earlier in the story, but I didn’t really get around to it until now, but the idea is that after the confrontation with Chloe in Part Two, word slowly made its way to large religious organizations, and priests, rabbis and imams were all ready to make a pilgrimage to talk to a real angel. Then a demon attacked, and things changed a bit. I actually seized on something from near the end of Whore of Heaven and intend to make use of it. Yeah, I miss that line too. I honestly miss that entire moment when she broke down sobbing and then felt better afterward. Aside from just being the Hurt/Comfortiest thing ever, it also went well with the whole idea of her purging toxic memories, and that letting them out resulted in her sobbing fit, but that after it was over she felt a lot better. However, I really wanted to focus more on her sense of shame, and I did end up with a few new lines I really thought were pretty emotional on that count, specifically the “I said” quoting bit and the “Not if I were human!” That’s one of the things I like about fanfiction: sometimes you get to answer questions the original author never intended you to answer, and you can turn the answer into a story element! I wanted to, but the Author’s Note was at something like 575 words, and I thought there was a hard 600 word limit. And now, of course, the love scene I’ve been building up to since Part One… So this is something that occurred to me at the last minute, but I really wanted in there. While it does highlight the difference between Luzurial’s first sexual experience and her second one, that was just a nice little bonus effect. The reason I wrote it was actually because I wanted to acknowledge the nerves Kevin would have over making love to an angel. Even in a world where angels (of some types, anyway) look like people with wings, that’s not what they are. They’re not just inhuman, they’re more than human, immortal, powerful, wise and kind, living embodiments of divine Good (this is probably part of why I get so depressed whenever something terrible happens to one). Because of that, I couldn’t help but feel that there would be a deep reluctance to touch one sexually, as if to express physical affection for them would be to sully them. I kind of expressed this in the car scene at the end of Part Six, where it’s revealed that Kevin sometimes feels bad about his romantic feelings for Luzurial because he is, well, “only human.” One way I could see to get past this would be to explicitly ask permission for a more intimate form of contact. That was the origin of the “May I?” concept. I was being very deliberate in my word choice when I said he wanted Luzurial’s blessing to cross each threshold. And, honestly, I just thought it was kind of romantic too. That’s another one of those fanfic moments. I realized that at no point in Whore of Heaven does Eparlegna, Shondra or Molly force a kiss on Luzurial, and I thought I could use this, that this might be something she especially enjoys; a gesture of pure affection without any negative connotation. I knew she was going to need to give him the strength boost somehow, and I think originally it was just going to be through a touch (she was going to put her hand on his chest or something like that), but I wanted something that would be both sexy and soothing, and a kiss seemed like it fit the bill, especially since we’d just established how much they both enjoy kissing. I actually briefly entertained thoughts of having them get caught inside of it and have to spend Part Eight evading or fighting sin creatures until Luzurial and company got there, but I realized I liked the idea of them meeting outside the barrier and going in together, so I went with that instead.

Part Seven of WitS is up, so it’s time to respond to some more reviews! First, one from the inimitable @pippychick. It’s kind of a chain reaction, really. Kevin and Abdul are going in to help Calista, and Luzurial can’t very well let the mortals handle this alone, and she can’t just tell them to wait outside because Kevin is not letting her go in there by herself. So they end up stuck together. As for people you care about being used against you, wait for it… Yeah, Stern was dispatched pretty quickly to get to the car thing, which was the image I had in my head for the scene. Sinfulwolf also brought up that the action scene there could stand to be longer, and maybe at some point I’ll extend it somewhat. Thank you! I was going for kind of an eerie feel with the burning city and the dragon flying just out of sight behind the buildings. I don’t know why, but the lack of sound always seemed kind of creepy to me as well. Good luck with rationing! I’m really happy that you’re enjoying the story, though. And thank you for reviewing!

It definitely adds to it. Kris is nervous as she reaches the door, and when you combine that with the gear, and occasional reminders of it… ...the effect is to suggest that perhaps Kris is worried not just about changes to her home, but about changes to herself, fearing perhaps that she may have become someone different, and that it might affect how Sam feels for her, which makes the bath scene a wonderful form of reassurance.

Shannon’s still an angel where it counts, so I suppose it would technically qualify as an SAO. Okay, That’s hilarious. I don’t think you always undercut your drama with comedy. Recall that you shared part of The Fall of Chastia with me, and that was a really emotional piece, so don’t assume I’d write it better than you would. Even if I would somehow write it better than you would, there’s something about reading someone else’s work that just doesn’t come from reading your own. Wait, we’re just leaving Shannon in there? I mean, since this is a prequel to other stories with these characters we know she gets out, but that might be a tale worth telling down the road. That would also be really emotional. Again, I’m sorry if it came across like I was trying to push you into writing anything in your next chapter; I’m really not trying to. This is your story and you should write what you want to. The fact that Luzurial’s suffering became as much of a plot point in this story as it is just gave me the feels again, that’s all. That’s actually a really good point I hadn’t thought of. Well, if Kingmaker711 ever contacts me there freaking will be. I had a villain and evil plan ready to go, but it incorporated a plot element from The Girl Next Door, so I don’t feel comfortable writing it without permission. Since he’s incommunicado, that plan’s on hold indefinitely. On the other hand, if any idea pops into your head down the road, run with it! Roger that. Thanks for announcing that to avoid confusion.