InBrightestDay

Any problems of confusion definitely lie with the poorly written story rather than the reader, especially when the reader is pretty much an expert at close reading and proofing and the like
I mean, 66% of all reviews point out some level of confusion!
A brother and a sister help each other find completely non-related people to love? :p
Way I hear it, series 8 made half the internet not want to watch the show again. I still haven’t seen any of it sadly. Am glad you enjoyed it tho, thanks!
Yeah, he’d wait for her… but he wouldn’t become undead for her. What a beta male cuck! 
I’m sure his boss will relent eventually. He’s not known for his pride and stubbornness, right?
I don’t think you can upset most of the people here. Well, unless you suggest Naruto’s wife might stay faithful to him, or that Dumbledore isn’t utterly evil. But it’s cool, I hope I didn’t upset you too much with it! You can always explain in private message if you did want to unload.

I kind of go back and forth about whether or not to ever write a scene with someone under 16.  Course, I’ve yet to write anything with a character under 18, so…
Actually, “a character under 18” might happen next year.  I know what my entries for the next two parties are going to be.  In an inversion of the pattern from this year (where the Halloween story had sex in it and the holiday story didn’t), next Halloween will be Fury of the Storm, another yōkai story with a blizzard theme and no sex, while the holiday story doesn’t yet have a title, but it will be me, um, revisiting my roots in terms of adult fiction, with a hopefully-sweet Christmas story about sibling love, which means exactly what you think it means.  The younger brother might be 16 in that one, though I haven’t decided yet.
Of course, with Aldreda and Elis, it really was mostly that I had plans for the characters and thus wanted to wait until their main story was going.
And now, on to your reply for the review of Memories.
I really enjoyed it.  I love stories like that, where the whole thing looks different on a second read.  Well, usually.  Every Daenerys scene in Game of Thrones looks different now, but in a way that makes me not want to watch the show again.
It seems very in character for her, not pushing the guy, but still offering it.  His response is also kind of why I love stories like this.  “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes” is an idea I’ve always found very romantic, and knowing the personality of this vampire, I love thinking about her very tsundere-ish response to it.
Oh, I totally got that.
No, he’d be under punishment by the time of that story.  Shit-talked his boss a bit too much.
Well, as George Lucas once said, “They’re cliches because they work!”  I started explaining why this makes me feel the way it does, but I got rather nervous about upsetting people, so I’ll just say that overly sentimental or not, it really, really affects me.
I’ll get to your review of Moonlit Snow soon!

No, It does make sense.
Cockroaches offend the whole swarm principal in our brain. When you see an adult cockroach it means there are more nearby the you don't see.  And that uncertainty opens straight to fear of the unknown. 

From InBrightestDay on January 01, 2020
 
Powdered Sugar
This was fun!  It actually kind of reminds me of tcr's Halloween story, in that this is a world where characters from every religion/mythology interact.  I liked how you just called Logan a giant in the beginning, and combined with the "Semper Fi" shirt I just assumed he was a Marine who was tall.  It was only later, when Odin showed up as Santa and Logan bolted, that I realized that "giant" meant Jotun.
Speaking of Odin, I'm seriously impressed that Duncan could just shoo him out of the house like that.  Kind of makes me wonder who or what Duncan is.
That actually brings me to the only part of the story I didn't understand.  Duncan explains he doesn't like Christmas, and then this exchange happens about colonization, killing messengers, Duncan not liking Jesus but thinking that he's a being of hope, unlike his father (Duncan's father or God?), and it all really felt like there was a huge backstory here that I wasn't aware of.  Does this take place in one of your other story universes?
Sorry if that sounded harshly critical.  Overall, this was still quite a fun little read!
 
It is vaguely related. This particular setting is an Urban Fantasy one and TCR’s impressed me enough to give it a nod or two.
You caught me. I tried intentionally to make Logan a regular man but I couldn’t help myself. I slid that in once and tried to make it so it seemed Logan was afraid of Namtar. Aka the envoy of Ereshkigal. Aka Death/ Fate.  But nope. He’s a jotun and it’s well known that Aesir and them don’t get along.
Duncan is a tutelary deity and at one point his name was Ninazu. The once patron god of Eshnunna before Tishpak became its patron deity and his worship forgotten. It’s one of the nods to the Halloween story of tcr’s and why one of the reasons he knows about what went down besides being a god of the underworld. Ningishzida is sometimes his son. Which is why he knows Zida is a terrible liar. It also the reason why he can shoo Odin out of his home. He’s got a lot of other deities beat in terms of seniority. And quite understandably he’s seen some shit and had to live through it.
As the lord who stretches the measuring line over the fields.  He’s been around since before agriculture became a thing. Old enough to be forgotten but too stubborn to just give up and stay in the underworld. Empires have came and went. His prime was before the codes of hammurabi were written after all. 
In summation, Yes it does in UF1-X2
 

The old lady is a vampire. She’s old and tired in spirit, and doesn’t want to keep living mortal lives where friends/lovers grow old an die around her. She married a mortal guy when she was still in her 20s or so but is now 87 and still looking 18ish, while he grew old and died the year before. Still an old lady if she’s 87 tho’ The angel who shows up later used to be a demon for a while and got to be an angel again thanks to some incident in the past, and probably also years of trying to do the right thing by people. Some demons never really had the heart for it.
I was trying to hide the fact that the old lady was a vampire as a bit of a reveal later on, but obviously ballsed it up some and ended up with this confusing mess that would have been swiftly banned from any holiday jam with even the most minimal of quality standards! Still, it filled another weekly prompt challenge so what the heck. Some of my contributions there are even more dire.

Ah, so it seems my problem was that I couldn’t tell that you were talking about two different characters. Maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

So it appears that my undead-ar is really poor: I misidentified @InBrightestDay’s Lady Aldreda as a vampire and failed to understand that @JayDee’s MC was one. I think the “once-fallen angel” thing confused me because I’ve been watching too much High School DxD.

If there’s something to catch, InBrightestDay is the one to catch it! I wasn’t even familiar with the original song/film(?) although I’ve seen enough Rudolph references over the years and no doubt derivative stories to have the basics. Gotta say it sounds like a pretty cool, well thought out reference!
but… but… it still has a big ol’ anthro deer! He was a buck and he was there to fuck! (uh… sorry Kiddo)! Just because some shortstack got stuck in someone was upset? Bah, furry drama llamas…
There was an old old oglaf strip with the “Invincible Shield Maiden” where every strike someone gave her appeared on them, with the punchline being that a guy fucked her and felt his own cock inside him, “so good!” Reading your elf-kabob description reminded me of that and made me thinkof the elf magic being abused in a similar way. Rudy goes balls deep and suddenly he’s up to the nuts in his own reindeer guts – not in the Weird Al sense.
...yeah I’m also kinda weird.

...she does have some very lightlike sculpture in her garden.
“...shall I have a welcoming hatefuck? No, dash it all, it’s Christmas!” Hey, it was cool the way they all gelled. Uh, I mean, as a team.
I kinda had you down as the writer who could write anything, in any topic – I mean, you even nailed the Vanilla theme – so shows I was making an unfounded assumption. It’s quality MM stuff anyway, well, Bi!
Ahh man, you shouldn’t feel any need to self censor just because of my own thoughts on what I read and what I don’t. If you were really keen for me to read it, you could have sent me a “TV edit” version (“is he… is he finding a stranger in the alps?”) with the sex scene/romantic lines removed and I could have reviewed that for you. Whatever you’re into, you’re not hurting folks just writing stories after all. Although since you’ve got those plans for ‘em I guess it all works out anyway waiting ‘til he’s 20. I’m kinda skipping the rest of the review/review reply as I haven’t read the story yet (beyond the brief extracts in email!) but I am hoping to get it read tomorrow now I am no longer hosting visitors! I am looking forward to it – new Year’s Eve treat since I am to tight to pay to go out on NYE anymore!

You’re not wrong!
What’s going on is that, while the definition of albinism in mammals is pretty firm (it gets murky in other animals because melanin isn’t their only pigment) there are multiple kinds of albinism, medically speaking, differentiated by the genetic mutations that cause them.  Oculocutaneous albinism is the most common kind and there are different types of that based on what genes are mutated.  As for the red eyes, recall that I said Lady Aldreda has oculocutaneous albinism type 2.  What you’re thinking of is type 1.
OCA2 is caused by a mutation of the OCA2 gene (named after the thing the mutation causes!) on Chromosome 15, a gene that codes for melanocyte-specific transporter protein.  I could explain the biochemistry a bit more, but what it amounts to is a drastically decreased production of melanin, but the body does still make some, and melanin gives the iris its color.  Large amounts of melanin result in brown eyes, while very small amounts, like in OCA2, result in icy blue eyes.  OCA2 is the most common form of albinism, occurring in either 1in 20,000 or 1 in 15,000 births (sources vary slightly)
OCA1, on the other hand, is far rarer (1 in 40,000 births), but is probably the most iconic form of albinism, caused by a mutation of the TYR (tyrosinase) gene on Chromosome 11.  People with OCA1 don’t make any melanin, not even in their eyes.  As a result, the iris is transparent, and you can see the red blood in the retina through the iris, hence the red color.  I actually wanted Lady Aldreda to have OCA1 in my initial planning stage, as I thought the red eyes would look cool, factor into the negative reactions to her and contribute to her exotic beauty (there probably would have been a bit during Elis’s description of Aldreda talking about her striking ruby-colored eyes) but I ran into a problem.
You see, melanin doesn’t just color your iris or help keep your skin from being hurt by the sun.  It’s actually important in the development of multiple parts of the eye, including the iris, retina, optic nerve and eye muscles, so a total lack of the chemical has adverse effects on vision.  People with OCA2 may sometimes suffer from problems with bright lights, but people with OCA1 have it far worse.  You’ve heard of 20/20 vision?  Well, people with OCA1 can have 20/200 or even 20/400 vision.  They’re not blind, but it’s a pretty severe impairment.  This wouldn’t necessarily hinder Lady Aldreda’s melee capability (she could compensate for decreased vision with her other senses), but I also wanted her to be good with her crossbow, and she needs sight for that.
Thank you again for the compliment, and I’m sorry for the biology lesson I just gave you above.
Well, given that this is sort of a retelling of the story, when you mentioned the Great Fog of ‘64, I figured it might be a reference and did some research.  By the time you mentioned ‘39, I knew what that was about.

Oops!  Had that backwards...

Thank you for the review! I appreciate it entirely! That was absolutely what I was going for – introducing her as the old lady she is in spirit, and then revealing a little more until it is obvious she’s a vampire. Given the short word count I totally get how it can be a little rushed and confusing tho. I figure it would have been a bit of an internal conflict for her because while there’s a few things she likes about being a vampire on the whole she’d rather not have had to become one, and wouldn’t want to force it on someone else – and she’d probably have not really pushed it either. Made all the negatives clear, but also that giving him the option to avoid aging, and death from old age. If he knew the angels, knew for certain there was a good chance of avoiding Hell, I figure he decided he’d rather live and then wait for her, however long it took. She wasn’t just deciding “Ah, I can’t live without this man.” it was more, she’d existing for a life, she’d had a good one with someone she loved, and friends, and the rest, and having to keep going through losing people except for maybe a couple other immortals just didn’t appeal at all. So, yeah, he chose to live and then to die.
Probably safe to say one of them isn’t that well dressed fellow who made such a splash in California. I have a pretty good idea who one of the other two was (...inky fingers), and a fairly solid idea on the third. Probably depends on how good Jude was at his job.
I’m really happy you got that out of it! I definitely tried to go for something that could work for readers who don’t know my characters at all, since I figured there’d be more of ‘em than usual, so going in without names and with some wider/more general tropes like a tired old non-evil vampire, depression at Christmas, and so on. Didn’t quite land, but what the heck! It’s Christmas and it was short!
The ol’ happy reununion with deceased loved ones in paradise trope – overly sentimental for centuries!  Glad I touched ya tho’ Not like that.
Thank you again for the review! I look forward to reading and reviewing yours tomorrow as I gotta go have an exhausted sleep soon (and I hope that amusing exchange from the extract made it in!)

You’re not wrong!
What’s going on is that, while the definition of albinism in mammals is pretty firm (it gets murky in other animals because melanin isn’t their only pigment) there are multiple kinds of albinism, medically speaking, differentiated by the genetic mutations that cause them.  Oculocutaneous albinism is the most common kind and there are different types of that based on what genes are mutated.  As for the red eyes, recall that I said Lady Aldreda has oculocutaneous albinism type 2.  What you’re thinking of is type 1.
OCA2 is caused by a mutation of the OCA2 gene (named after the thing the mutation causes!) on Chromosome 15, a gene that codes for melanocyte-specific transporter protein.  I could explain the biochemistry a bit more, but what it amounts to is a drastically decreased production of melanin, but the body does still make some, and melanin gives the iris its color.  Large amounts of melanin result in brown eyes, while very small amounts, like in OCA2, result in icy blue eyes.  OCA2 is the most common form of albinism, occurring in either 1in 20,000 or 1 in 15,000 births (sources vary slightly)
OCA1, on the other hand, is far rarer (1 in 40,000 births), but is probably the most iconic form of albinism, caused by a mutation of the TYR (tyrosinase) gene on Chromosome 11.  People with OCA1 don’t make any melanin, not even in their eyes.  As a result, the iris is transparent, and you can see the red blood in the retina through the iris, hence the red color.  I actually wanted Lady Aldreda to have OCA1 in my initial planning stage, as I thought the red eyes would look cool, factor into the negative reactions to her and contribute to her exotic beauty (there probably would have been a bit during Elis’s description of Aldreda talking about her striking ruby-colored eyes) but I ran into a problem.
You see, melanin doesn’t just color your iris or help keep your skin from being hurt by the sun.  It’s actually important in the development of multiple parts of the eye, including the iris, retina, optic nerve and eye muscles, so a total lack of the chemical has adverse effects on vision.  People with OCA2 may sometimes suffer from problems with bright lights, but people with OCA1 have it far worse.  You’ve heard of 20/20 vision?  Well, people with OCA1 can have 20/200 or even 20/400 vision.  They’re not blind, but it’s a pretty severe impairment.  This wouldn’t necessarily hinder Lady Aldreda’s melee capability (she could compensate for decreased vision with her other senses), but I also wanted her to be good with her crossbow, and she needs sight for that.
Thank you again for the compliment, and I’m sorry for the biology lesson I just gave you above.
Well, given that this is sort of a retelling of the story, when you mentioned the Great Fog of ‘64, I figured it might be a reference and did some research.  By the time you mentioned ‘39, I knew what that was about.

Oops!  Had that backwards...

On an amusing note, @GeorgeGlass reviewed Moonlit Snow at almost the same moment I reviewed The Ninth Reindeer!
 
Thank you so much!  I did a lot of research for this, and by extension for the other stories that will feature Aldreda and Elis, and most of it centered on medieval and early Renaissance weapons, armor and combat, so learning about stuff like the different types of swords and armor and so forth.  The sword training was based on stuff I learned there, including both Aldreda’s “hand behind your back” thing…

...and her advice about using shorter movements and not going for the big wide swing because it shows the enemy what you’re doing.  the videos I watched referred to this as “telegraphing”, but since the telegraph obviously doesn’t exist in the setting, I had to explain it some other way.  Finally, I also learned about both some swordplay (the bit where Aldreda alternates left-right-left-right-stab is an actual technique, meant to do just what it does in story: lock the enemy into a repetitive set of movements and leave him unprepared for when you change things up) and about how different weapons interact with different kinds of armor, such as how her plate armor would render Lady Aldreda pretty much immune to swords or axes, but weapons like maces and certain polearms could still really hurt her.
Yeah, that was a joke that only emerged during research, with a number of medieval combat videos talking about it.  Apparently it pops up in an old German treatise on sword fighting (starting with “to end thine opponent rightly...”), and since it, as you said, unbalances your sword and makes it more difficult to fight with, and since the pommel itself is unlikely to hurt someone wearing armor, pretty much everyone is certain it’s a joke.  One video I watched suggested that this might have been, for all intents and purposes, trolling, an instructor giving his students a ridiculous idea because it would be freaking hilarious to see them try to do it during sparring.
As you suspected, its inclusion here is Lady Aldreda playing a bit with Elis when he tries to rush his training, only for him to take it seriously and actually make it work!
Thanks!  I mention it during the overview of the dinner she goes to, but Lady Aldreda gets varying reactions to her condition, with one reaction being to make open, insulting jokes about her being a corpse or some sort of undead, and I imagine for that she tends to get bitingly sarcastic in her responses.
That was definitely a challenge.  Unlike After Party, which used the “like reality unless otherwise noted” idea, this took place in its own world.  I could get away with certain things being similar to reality (a feudal system like medieval England, and hints of countries analogous to East Asia), but I had to craft a unique religion, and it was hard to figure out how much of that to explain.
I should probably clarify that Lady Aldreda isn’t a vampire.  That was just a mean-spirited jab Hopkin threw at her.  I was trying to generate some level of mystery for the audience about what exactly her deal is, and I figured some people might assume she really is a vampire.  I explained it to an extent during the dinner overview, stating that she was “born without color” and that her condition is rare, one out of tens of thousands of births.  She’s not a vampire; she’s albino.
The scientific term for this is “oculocutaneous albinism type 2.”  OCA2 occurs in roughly 1 in 20,000 births, and the lack of pigmentation results in Aldreda’s distinct look as well as her problems.  Her lack of melanin means that she sunburns at the drop of a hat, which is why she doesn’t really go outside during the day and covers her skin when she does.  This also leads to her visual problem.  Albino people often suffer from photophobia (sensitivity to bright lights) due to a phenomenon called ocular straylight, wherein light scatters inside the eyeball; it’s the biological equivalent of a lens flare in a camera (which even happens the same way, with light scattering inside the camera).  Because of this, she operates better in softer light, like moonlight or starlight, and between the photophobia and the ease with which she sunburns, she does most of her work at night, and as a result has developed very good night vision.
Thank you so much!  Pretty much the entire story was written to lead up to that scene.  I meant it to be sweet and romantic, and I’m really happy it seems to be working for people.
Thank you for the review!

It may has to do with two things, the first being, as you suggested, the acting ability of your average porn star, but it may also have to do with the writing philosophy behind porn.  I tend to think of porn as being like fast food: the goal is to get the product (the sex scene, in this case) to the customer as quickly as possible, and as such the story and character beats are reduced to the bare minimum to get to “the good stuff.”
This is why I prefer written erotica: while there’s overlap, at its best erotica is less like fast food and more like a sit-down restaurant.  You wait for the sex scene, but you spend time with characters you like and get buildup (appetizers, if you will), so that when your main course finally arrives, it’s more rewarding.
Yeah, it can come across like Stockholm Syndrome if it’s done wrong.  In fanfiction it can also bother me depending on what character it’s applied to, but that would turn into a rant if I discussed it, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Thank you for joining the party!

@Thundercloud gives Moonlit Snow its first review!
I did briefly consider having Aldreda and Elis have sex, or at least share a kiss, but there were two reasons I didn’t do that.  The first is that I wanted JayDee to be able to read this, and they don’t read anything with a character below sixteen, so Elis is just one year too young.  Of course, I could have just made Elis sixteen, but that brings me to the second reason: as you guessed, I have plans for these two.
Thank you!  It’s a very G-rated romantic moment, but I felt like it could still be very sweet given what it means for the two of them.  I’m very glad it worked!
Also very glad that worked!  I was trying to write Elis as believably feeling like a fifteen year old, not quite a little kid anymore, but not really a man yet either.
Hold that thought…
So I didn’t know about Lucky Luke, but I did figure something like this might happen.  “Dalton” is from the Old English meaning “valley town” (a valley being called a dale, and thus “dale town”), but plenty of English names were derived from the place the person lived in, so I figured it might sound like somebody.  Sorry about that.
Thank you, and now we bring back that thought you were holding above.  Much like After Party was an introduction for Yua and Cody as a couple, who will later have their own story, Moonlit Snow is one for Aldreda and Elis.  There will be three more stories set in this world, one starring a human named Reynard and a giantess named Sigrid, and the other two starring Aldreda and Elis.  The first one will take place when Elis is twelve and he first meets Lady Aldreda and, as you might expect, won’t feature any sex due to his age.  The second, longer one will happen when Aldreda and Elis have to stop a huge supernatural threat.  That one will take place when Elis is twenty and Aldreda 32, and that’s when the sexual relationship will happen.  Since Moonlit Snow is in between these stories, I figured I could show them inching toward that eventual relationship, growing just that little bit closer to one another.
Thanks for the review!

You’re not wrong!
What’s going on is that, while the definition of albinism in mammals is pretty firm (it gets murky in other animals because melanin isn’t their only pigment) there are multiple kinds of albinism, medically speaking, differentiated by the genetic mutations that cause them.  Oculocutaneous albinism is the most common kind and there are different types of that based on what genes are mutated.  As for the red eyes, recall that I said Lady Aldreda has oculocutaneous albinism type 2.  What you’re thinking of is type 1.
OCA2 is caused by a mutation of the OCA2 gene (named after the thing the mutation causes!) on Chromosome 15, a gene that codes for melanocyte-specific transporter protein.  I could explain the biochemistry a bit more, but what it amounts to is a drastically decreased production of melanin, but the body does still make some, and melanin gives the iris its color.  Large amounts of melanin result in brown eyes, while very small amounts, like in OCA2, result in icy blue eyes.  OCA2 is the most common form of albinism, occurring in either 1in 20,000 or 1 in 15,000 births (sources vary slightly)
OCA1, on the other hand, is far rarer (1 in 40,000 births), but is probably the most iconic form of albinism, caused by a mutation of the TYR (tyrosinase) gene on Chromosome 11.  People with OCA1 don’t make any melanin, not even in their eyes.  As a result, the iris is transparent, and you can see the red blood in the retina through the iris, hence the red color.  I actually wanted Lady Aldreda to have OCA1 in my initial planning stage, as I thought the red eyes would look cool, factor into the negative reactions to her and contribute to her exotic beauty (there probably would have been a bit during Elis’s description of Aldreda talking about her striking ruby-colored eyes) but I ran into a problem.
You see, melanin doesn’t just color your iris or help keep your skin from being hurt by the sun.  It’s actually important in the development of multiple parts of the eye, including the iris, retina, optic nerve and eye muscles, so a total lack of the chemical has adverse effects on vision.  People with OCA2 may sometimes suffer from problems with bright lights, but people with OCA1 have it far worse.  You’ve heard of 20/20 vision?  Well, people with OCA1 can have 20/200 or even 20/400 vision.  They’re not blind, but it’s a pretty severe impairment.  This wouldn’t necessarily hinder Lady Aldreda’s melee capability (she could compensate for decreased vision with her other senses), but I also wanted her to be good with her crossbow, and she needs sight for that.
Thank you again for the compliment, and I’m sorry for the biology lesson I just gave you above.
Well, given that this is sort of a retelling of the story, when you mentioned the Great Fog of ‘64, I figured it might be a reference and did some research.  By the time you mentioned ‘39, I knew what that was about.

Oops!  Had that backwards...

Ah, okay. I had the idea that albinos have pink eyes, but apparently there isn’t a single, agreed-upon definition of “albino.”
In any case, hats off again for a story that is both mentally and emotionally engaging.

So, it seems @InBrightestDay and I have passed like ships in the night. My turn to blow the foghorn. 
From InBrightestDay on December 27, 2019
This was one of those stories that starts out as a simple idea – in this case, “reindeer orgy” – and then just gets away from you and becomes a whole thing. Much of the world-building is a result of that.
Whoops, you’re quite right. Apparently, the main function of their UV vision is to avoid being crippled by snow-blindness.
Wow, you’re the first person to catch that.
Could be, yes.
C’mon, how could I not reference that?
I posted this story on Inkbunny, too, and of course the main complaint there was about the sex scene with the elf.
Actually, it takes hours for the reindeer and days for Santa, because the reindeer aren’t aware of it when Santa stops time. 
You got me there; I didn’t think that one all the way through. I just thought of the “Nothing tastes like reindeer” line, then remembered a Swedish friend talking about eating reindeer, and I just stuck that line in there.
Thanks for the review!

On an amusing note, @GeorgeGlass reviewed Moonlit Snow at almost the same moment I reviewed The Ninth Reindeer!
 
Thank you so much!  I did a lot of research for this, and by extension for the other stories that will feature Aldreda and Elis, and most of it centered on medieval and early Renaissance weapons, armor and combat, so learning about stuff like the different types of swords and armor and so forth.  The sword training was based on stuff I learned there, including both Aldreda’s “hand behind your back” thing…

...and her advice about using shorter movements and not going for the big wide swing because it shows the enemy what you’re doing.  the videos I watched referred to this as “telegraphing”, but since the telegraph obviously doesn’t exist in the setting, I had to explain it some other way.  Finally, I also learned about both some swordplay (the bit where Aldreda alternates left-right-left-right-stab is an actual technique, meant to do just what it does in story: lock the enemy into a repetitive set of movements and leave him unprepared for when you change things up) and about how different weapons interact with different kinds of armor, such as how her plate armor would render Lady Aldreda pretty much immune to swords or axes, but weapons like maces and certain polearms could still really hurt her.
Yeah, that was a joke that only emerged during research, with a number of medieval combat videos talking about it.  Apparently it pops up in an old German treatise on sword fighting (starting with “to end thine opponent rightly...”), and since it, as you said, unbalances your sword and makes it more difficult to fight with, and since the pommel itself is unlikely to hurt someone wearing armor, pretty much everyone is certain it’s a joke.  One video I watched suggested that this might have been, for all intents and purposes, trolling, an instructor giving his students a ridiculous idea because it would be freaking hilarious to see them try to do it during sparring.
As you suspected, its inclusion here is Lady Aldreda playing a bit with Elis when he tries to rush his training, only for him to take it seriously and actually make it work!
Thanks!  I mention it during the overview of the dinner she goes to, but Lady Aldreda gets varying reactions to her condition, with one reaction being to make open, insulting jokes about her being a corpse or some sort of undead, and I imagine for that she tends to get bitingly sarcastic in her responses.
That was definitely a challenge.  Unlike After Party, which used the “like reality unless otherwise noted” idea, this took place in its own world.  I could get away with certain things being similar to reality (a feudal system like medieval England, and hints of countries analogous to East Asia), but I had to craft a unique religion, and it was hard to figure out how much of that to explain.
I should probably clarify that Lady Aldreda isn’t a vampire.  That was just a mean-spirited jab Hopkin threw at her.  I was trying to generate some level of mystery for the audience about what exactly her deal is, and I figured some people might assume she really is a vampire.  I explained it to an extent during the dinner overview, stating that she was “born without color” and that her condition is rare, one out of tens of thousands of births.  She’s not a vampire; she’s albino.
The scientific term for this is “oculocutaneous albinism type 2.”  OCA2 occurs in roughly 1 in 20,000 births, and the lack of pigmentation results in Aldreda’s distinct look as well as her problems.  Her lack of melanin means that she sunburns at the drop of a hat, which is why she doesn’t really go outside during the day and covers her skin when she does.  This also leads to her visual problem.  Albino people often suffer from photophobia (sensitivity to bright lights) due to a phenomenon called ocular straylight, wherein light scatters inside the eyeball; it’s the biological equivalent of a lens flare in a camera (which even happens the same way, with light scattering inside the camera).  Because of this, she operates better in softer light, like moonlight or starlight, and between the photophobia and the ease with which she sunburns, she does most of her work at night, and as a result has developed very good night vision.
Thank you so much!  Pretty much the entire story was written to lead up to that scene.  I meant it to be sweet and romantic, and I’m really happy it seems to be working for people.
Thank you for the review!

I agree that the dialogue here is unpleasant...but it drives me nuts with all the porn with gullible people that trusts their black mailer just because he says so and then stop acting like it is black mailing the moment they have sex. Maybe that is just lack of acting ability of your average porn actor…
I can very much understand where you are coming from. I think it depends very much on how you do the details if the scene works or not.
Good that you liked the concept and the sex.

Posted!

Posted!

I’m going to be the last one to post; I’m really sorry about this!  I’m really hoping to have it up before Christmas, and rest assured, you will all get reviews from me!

I’m going to be the last one to post; I’m really sorry about this!  I’m really hoping to have it up before Christmas, and rest assured, you will all get reviews from me!

I added a summary for my story so there is something to copy to the first page. Thus TCR did not forget to copy any summary for my contribution since I did not think about writing such until I saw TCRs story.