InBrightestDay

AFF: Where even the pages of the theological philosophy textbooks are stuck together.
Rumor has it at least one of them can be distracted with new episodes of Star Trek.

It was definitely something of a back and forth, as the joke “reenactment” suggested.  There’s a bit of exposition in Part Four about how two members of the “cult” are working on controlling information, and that would have been a good place to talk about Caulfield’s “vacation.”  However, if people are going to notice anyway, I figure it’s best to explain it somewhat earlier.
Sorry, I may have given you the wrong impression there (and also messed up what book these guys come from).  I wasn’t trying to say that the archangels in question were noncanonical, but rather that their mention in the Book of Enoch was.  You are absolutely correct in saying that Michael and Gabriel are mentioned in the Bible.  As for the seven archangels, I just discovered that those are from the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, which is presumably what you were referencing (“I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand in the glorious presence of the Lord, ready to serve Him.” Tobit 12:15), with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael specifically being named.  Pseudo-Dionysius, this time in the Corpus Areopagiticum, names all seven (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Camael, Jophiel and Zadkiel).
My confusion came from the fact that I’m a Protestant (Lutheran, specifically), so I haven’t actually read Tobit.  It’s deuterocanonical, which means it’s canon for Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, but not for the Protestant denominations; it’s literally not in our bibles.
As I said, none of the angelic hierarchies are considered hard canon (I certainly never heard about it in church).  It’s mostly just a neat idea from medieval Christianity that works for this story (I’ll explain when we get to Part Seven), so I put it in.
Well, yes and no.  Michael commands a force of angels, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in command of everyone.
“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.  And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.  And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” Revelation 12:7-9 (English Standard Version)
So Michael commands a force of angels, but not necessarily all of them.
In addition, this is an aspect of the story that diverges from its biblical roots.  Whore of Heaven mentions that Luzurial is the strongest of the host, except for angels who serve as direct vessels for the Creator’s power.  Presumably Michael (and perhaps the other six archangels from Tobit) are vessels, far stronger than any other archangel and thus outside the normal ranking system.

It is Uriel that is not part of archangels in Catholics and the Ortodox tradition. The others are the three named archangels out of seven that is supposed to exist. I have heard Michael and Gabriel mentioned in protestant services even if most books that mentions these are not considered good for canon use.
The reason I mentioned Masekat Atzilut is the angels you list as most alien is the upper level of angels in that source. The nine level of christian angels I think is most associated with Dante Alighieri today. All power to you if you want to use that in your story.
Personally I would not call the angelic hierarchy to be very Christian...more like medieval beliefs than anything anyone consider today. Micheal that command the forces of heaven on the hand is something that is directly mentioned in the book of Revalation. Does not make sense if he a low level angel..
Go with what feels best for you to make a great story. One plot device you could keep in store is that Luzurial can maybe not shapeshift after loosing her wings. Actually using medieval style Seraphs in you story sound like a headache…imagine how unstoppable they will be...

“When I put my band together can I get a picture of you for the logo and later an album cover? Also, is rude to do this while picturing you?” Kate makes the sign of the horns and headbangs.
Edit:
I meant to say! You don’t need to wait to be asked, you can use these forum threads to lay out any background info you want, some authors have done it and then put a link to the thread with extra info. It’s just story extracts that are limited to something like 10 lines. So, like, if you wanted to explain stuff like the thought you put into character names or whatever you can throw it all in here. S’up to you really.

Well, you’ve done well with the PTSD stuff, at least from my experiences with it. 
And heh, that’ll happen. The update to dialogue does make sense in the context, and it makes a lot more sense knowing it’s not supposed to last for even an overly long time, though I would have accepted a “You’ll find out next chapter”.

Good to hear that the chapter two already have improved descriptions. Honestly I was thinking on later chapters when I made my comment about better descriptions, I mostly recall the actual boss-fights so to say and not the smaller critters at the start of the story. Btw I plan to follow your suggestions and add a description for the prologue monster also, but I need to be in the proper mood first so it will most likely take a while.
*smiles* Yes it does indeed luck like she has terrible luck. It is not until the third chapter that both the reader and Jennifer start to get answers why Jennifer again and again ends in these kind of situations...of course the answer also open lots of more questions.
Thank you so much. I hope you will enjoy it.

There are two potential reasons they don’t ask about events during the Rupture.  The first is that Kevin knows that something bad happened to Luzurial that day, and as he mentioned in the first chapter, he’s never going to push her to explain it.  He figures she’ll tell him when she’s ready.  The other reason, though, you caught onto in the review.
 
Thank you!
I did not think of that, but that is a seriously cool idea!
 
It's actually really cool that you brought this up, and I'm glad to have this discussion thread, since there was no way I was going to be able to discuss this in an Author's Note.
So, there are actually several different angelic hierarchies, none of which is terribly canon (the biblical sources are mostly silent on this stuff).  The four archangels you mentioned (Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael) show up in multiple sources, but are mentioned together in that specific context in the Book of Enoch, which is considered canonical by Beta Israel/Ethiopian Jewish people, as well as the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, but is considered noncanonical by other Jewish and Christian groups.
There are five different potential Jewish angelic hierarchies, including the version you mentioned from the Maseket Atzilut, all of which contain ten ranks of angels.  When I had Luzurial say "ten if you count the Ophanim," that was indeed meant as an allusion to the difference between various angelic hierarchies, not only in Judaism but in Christianity as well.
The version of the Celestial Hierarchy I used, however, is the Christian angelic hierarchy, which is based primarily on Pseudo-Dionysius (On the Celestial Hierarchy) and Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica), who drew on passages from the New Testament (Galatians 3:26-28, Matthew 22:24-33, Ephesians 1:21-23 and Colossians 1:16).
Yes, there was in fact a guy called Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.  His real name is unknown, but he wrote using "Dionysius" as a pseudonym, hence the "Pseudo" attached to his name.
Anyway, the Christian angelic hierarchy features nine ranks of angels, organized into three "spheres".  Angels of the First Sphere are the direct attendants of God, while angels of the Second Sphere serve as "governors of creation" (keeping the universe running), and angels of the Third Sphere concern themselves with the affairs of mortals, acting as guides, protectors and messengers.
The First Sphere consists of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, while the Second contains the Dominions, Virtues and Powers, and the Third consists of Principalities, Archangels and Angels.
I mentioned the Hierarchy more as a military chain of command than anything else because the role of the Second Sphere pretty much has to be different in a modern, scientific cosmology.  The Powers, for instance, don't need to keep planets and moons moving around when things like angular momentum and gravity keep everything in place.
The idea that Luzurial does not receive orders directly from God is going to become rather important in Part Seven, as is her appearance/anatomy.  While I figure she would normally use some minor level of shapeshifting (back when she had wings, she probably made them invisible when she visited Earth), anatomically speaking she's very human, as opposed to something like a seraph, which has six wings and is MADE OF FIRE.  Sorry, but it was necessary to write that in all caps because it is freaking METAL.
Actually, this makes me wonder about the Slumber-verse and what Kate's reaction must have been when she found out what Kizzy really looks like.

Yeah, I definitely get it now.  Good news is that Chapter 6 is up next.
Meanwhile the only way I knew of the term was from Warhammer 40,000, where there’s a monster called a Carnifex.  Of course, that didn’t tell me what the term meant.
 

I probably would have just made some sort of giant crab monster.  That wouldn’t have made any sense in this story, but I wouldn’t have let that stop me!

This and some of Part Seven anyway.  As for Luzurial and PTSD, her mind, while very close to a human one, is quite resilient (it’s the only way she came out of that statue sane), so I didn’t agonize over doing an exact portrayal of PTSD, but I did do some research.  Specifically, I found out that there are four symptom groups for PTSD: intrusive thoughts, avoidance, negative thoughts and feelings, and reactive symptoms (often called “arousal symptoms”, but here that might be misread).
I decided that Luzurial wouldn’t have the “avoidance” symptoms (where the affected person avoids areas, objects and other things that remind them of the traumatic event), but that she would manifest intrusive memories (the flashbacks), negative thoughts and feelings (such as an overwhelming sense of shame) and to a very slight level the reactive symptoms.  Those include having trouble sleeping, which we see on her first night after being freed, but seems to be remedied to a large extent by Kevin sleeping in the room with her.
Thanks!  Like I said in the author’s note, it’s the first tentacle scene I’ve ever written, so I was nervous about how it was going to go over.
And now, a dramatic reenactment.
Sunday night, at a bedroom desk somewhere in the United States
Me 1: Okay, we’ve polished the Q&A session and the tentacle scene.  Is there anything else we need to do so we can post this thing tomorrow morning?
Me 2: Well, we did notice that in the rough draft there’s no explanation for why IA doesn’t come looking for Caulfield before the shit really hits the fan.  I mean, she’s going to be missed.
Me 1: Yeah, we’re going to have to mention that a false paper trail has been created, but where do we put that exposition?
Me 2: Well, there’s that line in Part Four about information control; that seems like a natural place for it to go.
Me 1: But if we do that, there’s going to be a week where people are going to start to wonder about it.
Me 2: We could put the exposition in Part Three and have Hobbs say it, but if we do that, then we’ll have to mess with the dialogue a bit more.
Me 1: So you’re suggesting we be lazy?
Me 2: Trust me, we can wait until Part Four.  No one is going to…
Me 2: ...notice.
Me 1:
Me 2: Well...now we know, and knowing is half the battle!  G.I.-
Me 1: NO!
Sooo I went back and added in the following little explainer in Part Three instead of waiting for Part Four (with credit to you in the Author’s Note):
 
 

Thank you!   The second chapter is always going to be short, but I’m glad to see I was able to address some of your other concerns.

Funny you should lead with a Hamlet reference, since Eparlegna’s apparently rather fond of those when eating people.

Actually, I think I’m doing alright with regards to reviews so far.  I have three chapters up and 9 reviews, so if my luck holds I might have 27 reviews by the time I’m done, only a third of which will be from you.
Thank you!   And don’t worry about making me feel bad.  You wrote what you called a “sexualized horror” story, so aside from the niche audience who would have been enjoying Luzurial’s pain, it was probably supposed to be upsetting.  And hey, you’ve enjoyed this story so far, and as I’ve said elsewhere, I wouldn’t have asked to write this if I hadn’t felt so amazingly bad for her.
Judging by other reviews, it’s a symphony with a few sections playing off key, but nonetheless I appreciate the compliment!
I feel like he can’t really do anything about it.  If fictional characters could protest their fates, you’d probably have more to worry about from Luzurial, Lily Flynn, Wonder Woman, Jill Valentine, Private Vasquez, Cassie Cage, Kylie, Pan…
You’d have one or two men, and then a long line of badass women waiting to kick your ass.
And no, I didn’t actually read any of those, but the summaries and titles are generally enough for me to figure out what’s going to happen.
Heh.  Also: Ew.

I’ll send you a PM with the changes I made.  It won’t fix all of the things you didn’t like, but it should address at least some of them.
That energy is what she calls her inner light.  It’s tied to (or is) her willpower and it allows her to do stuff like create creatures from human virtues, blast enemies and burn things.  I figure it affects her physical toughness as well, but that the toughness of her skin and muscles is not something she has to concentrate on; it just happens automatically.  The other things, like burning things or crafting the virtue creatures, are conscious actions that she has to think about.
Well, consistency is something I try for when I can, since this is intended as a sequel.  I’d like it to fit with what’s in Whore of Heaven as well as possible.  There are some changes, of course, but I try to keep things the same.
I understand completely.  Trust me though, even if she had been completely immune to the Gungnir, she’s not immune to the stuff Eparlegna does, and as of the end of Part Three, he’ll be back.  She is most definitely in danger.
The reason I didn’t want to use the word demon was because there are actual demons in the setting (and as I just mentioned, one of them is our villain), and I didn’t want to use the same word for the enhanced humans.

Part Three is up!

Well, the English name Shannon is apparently derived from the River Shannon, the longest river in Ireland, so MacSomething-or-other does seem like a good idea.  As far as I can tell, MacDuff is derived from Scottish Gaelic, though I can’t be sure of this.
Kate is an English name, so Wilde does fit (as well as kind of feeling like a werewolf joke).
Lupa Lopez is also kind of funny, since (again, from what I can tell) Lopez means “son of Lope” and Lope is apparently a Spanish form of Lupus, the feminine form of which would be...Lupa.
Kizzy’s is brilliant, though, since it translates literally from the French as “given by God.”
So yeah, I’d say you don’t suck at names.
I really like that, because it’s either a Star Trek reference, or it’s her doing a terrible job at blending in with mortals.

No problem at all. I am perfectly fine with writing the review again with adjustment for the changes you did. After all it is you who took the effort to rewrite the chapter based on my input.
I think there is a fine line between magical shield that is drained of power and willpower that deteriorate. There is also the interesting bit in the beginning of JayDees story when she spend effort to aid people who are tormented by the black force but afterward worry that this effort might left her weakened. For me this suggests that Luzurial in Whore of Heaven is spending some kind of magical/holy force to do supernatural stuff like resisting damage.

Honestly I don’t think getting these things consistent between your stories matter very much to your story but from an author perspective I think that making the character too impervious to harm can make it harder to create situations when the reader worry about the character.
It is your story so no problem if you think this should be general knowledge. I was not expecting Kevin to be interested in weapons, but if it is general knowledge then that thought is not as relevant.
Quite many settings invent a setting-specific word for these kind of things to not get too much baggage from other stories. If you like the name then continue to use it.

On the other hand...why do they write holy inscriptions on the weapon and expect them to work if they don’t think they are dealing with enemies of their faith? I think if mysterious being  appeared on our earth and we discovered holy symbols hurt them we would pretty soon talk about them as demons or devils.

Made 2500 words of progress on a prequel chapter for “The Slumber Party of Evil Doom.” Decided I should give the characters surnames for while they’re at school. Came up with Shannon MacDuff, Kate Wilde, Lupa Lopez and Kizzy Dieudonné.
Look, some of us are shit at names ok? I had Kizzy’s first hello include the phrase “Fellow Humans,” and keep giggling at it. Dunno if it works though. Oh well, hopefully I can get it finished and posted, because it has been quite fun to write.

I admit I do want to stick with that.  Daimonopoiosis would be more accurate (and a cool use of Greek), but it’s a syllable longer than apotheosis, which makes it a bit more awkward to say, and like I said before, it just doesn’t sound as cool.
 That’s actually a really interesting idea.  I don’t want to use “Damned”, because that would apply to basically any soul condemned to Hell, instead of just the empowered humans.  “Fallen” sounds a bit too much like a description of an actual demon (since they’re fallen angels), but there is something appealing about “Descended.”  I think it’s going to be either apotheosis or descended.

I admit I do want to stick with that.  Daimonopoiosis would be more accurate (and a cool use of Greek), but it’s a syllable longer than apotheosis, which makes it a bit more awkward to say, and like I said before, it just doesn’t sound as cool.
 That’s actually a really interesting idea.  I don’t want to use “Damned”, because that would apply to basically any soul condemned to Hell, instead of just the empowered humans.  “Fallen” sounds a bit too much like a description of an actual demon (since they’re fallen angels), but there is something appealing about “Descended.”  I think it’s going to be either apotheosis or descended.

My two cents would be to stick with apotheosis – I hope you do!.
It’s got the benefit that a highly technical term being used wrongly by the general population after a major event (or due to some TV show. Fuckin’ data used as singular instead of datum.) is incredibly human and happens all the time to the point that outside of their original technical usage the general meaning of the word evolves.
Sure, some theologians probably complained about the mis-use while a corrupted Shondra-alike was fisting them, but everyone else would have gone with it. There’s no doubt going to be slang terms too, because these fuckers would be showing up in the fictional media of the day way more than in the real world!
“That bitch Murial Jenkins has become one of those Hellspunks.” “No, Mom, we call them  ‘Hell’s Punks.’ “ “Well I bet it wasn’t a taste of blood she had.”

*Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga Flashbacks* Demi-Fiend oh god...
Well why don’t you use Fall/ Decension or even Damned to describe them?  Apotheosis Or Ascendance is a state of becoming more.
Wouldn't it make more sense for the augmented human to have Fallen? Sure said human is more powerful but in doing so said human is much less than what they were. They are Damned. (Made more poignant if they willfully chose power over any chance of salvation.)

Actually, considering a statement made in Part Three about how nobody’s putting any money on enchanted bullets actually killing an extradimensional creature, it really doesn’t make sense that they’re trying to kill her.  I tweaked Chloe’s dialogue somewhat to make it clear that they’re merely attempting to disable her.  Hopefully you’re okay with me making that change; I don’t want you to feel like I’m invalidating your reviews.
Oh, she definitely takes a lot of injury, to say the least, during the torture scene, but everything that hurts her is magical/demonic in nature.  Her wings are cut off with her own sword, which Eparlegna then turns into a whip to shred her back with.
This implied to me that she was highly resistant to damage from mundane weapons.  In addition, the chains driven through her palms seemed able to do that because of Eparlegna having pulled/cut two of his own claws off and attached them.
In other places, her physical toughness is highlighted, for instance with the stone tentacles in Part One.
 
And in Part Three.
Given all of this, I figured it wasn’t so much a conscious magical shield-raising as it was the innate resilience of her angelic flesh, and the equal toughness of demonic flesh or some form of magic (like the power of Luzurial’s own weapon) was required to overcome it.
However, you did remind me of something.  Luzurial’s power appears tied to her will, which is the whole point of torturing and humiliating her in the original story (aside from the fact that Eparlegna just enjoys it): she becomes physically weaker as her mental and emotional state worsens.  I followed through on that for Part One of my story (she’s in a very bad state when Kevin finds her, which is why the surgeons are able to suture her wound, as her state allows a metal needle to be pushed through her otherwise way-too-tough skin, and why she regenerates more slowly).  I had kind of used that in this part.  She’s feeling better (she’s had a good night’s sleep and is receiving emotional support), so she’s tougher now and should be healing faster, though she’s not at full strength yet, which is the reason the bullet stings a little and the anti-tank round bruises her, but I think I’ll go back and add a little more damage.  Maybe the Gungnir round will fracture her collarbone in addition to the bruise.
This takes place in 2082, so some technology is different, and the new tech is in popular culture courtesy of in-universe movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc.  Coilguns/gauss rifles are not terribly well-known now (aside from science nerds), but I thought in 63 years they may be more well-known as the technology becomes more widespread.
I don’t really want to use the word “demon” for anything that isn’t really a demon (especially since, as the summary indicated, we’re going to have an actual demon in the story soon).  I’d like to keep the term something that indicates that these are enhanced humans; people who have been changed into something more.  Do you think “augment” would work?  I know that’s a verb, but it’s also used as a noun in Star Trek to describe genetically augmented humans (like Khan).
Of course, if I use that, I start to feel like I’m ripping off Trek.
“Demi-fiend” also might work.
Actually, one last option could use the same wordplay as apotheosis.  Check this out: the word apotheosis comes from the Greek “apo” (from) and “theos” (god), which became “apotheoun” (to make a god of) and then apotheosis.  Well, “demon” comes from the Greek “daimon” and the Greek way of saying “demonize” would be “daimonopoioun” (similar to apotheoun), so maybe the demonic equivalent would be something like “daimonopoiosis”.
Granted, this doesn’t sound as cool as apotheosis...

There is an obvious connection between the pen name and character, but unfortunately it is not more exciting than me needing a pen name when I started writing and the superheros code name fit my personality quite well so I just decided to use that.
The comment about the appearance of the monster is very on spot. It is intended to be armored being where you cannot tell what is inside the armor but I never really provided any visuals in the prologue. The  monsters that appear later in the story have better descriptions, but the one in the prologue could use some improvement.

As for the scene when Thundercloud is sent flying you are not the first one to react in exactly this way. The superhero that is so invulnerable that he lets himself be distracted by thoughts of sex while he is looking for super powered alien is meant to be funny and I think I succeeded. Upcoming chapters will give more details about the super heroes, but first they need to catch up with Jennifer that need to figure out who she is before she consider becoming a super heroine.

Actually I think there is plenty of reason for the readers to worry that somebody will get hurt even if they expect Luzurial to be immune to their weapons. The reason much of that worry was lessened for me was the scene with PDD that told about the upcoming attack that lets you know they will comes with guns blazing and is aiming to kill Luzurial. Having her dead at in this point of reason does not make sense so I cannot help discount the possibility they will kill her.

Possibly I might have been more on the edge if the PPD intended to injure her and capture her. PPD agents talking about the risk that the entity might be using mind control on innocent bystanders to make them act as human shields and they must be ready for making the hard choices would also work wonder to make the reader more nervous about the PPD making a mistake even if they are unable to hurt Luzurial. Another possibility would have been to have kept it hidden from the readers that the attackers are PPD and letthe readers imagination run wild.

It could also be worth to mention that as I recall Whore of Heaven Luzurial takes quite many injuries as she is tortured and I had no expectation of her being immune to the Gungnir. What if Luzirial does not have active invulnerability but need to raise her magical defenses to hold off the attack. A scene where she senses something is wrong, tries to raise her magic protection but the Gungnir is so powerful that she is sent tumbling despite her magic protection would IMHO work great.
The players doesn’t know PPD are not the antagonists when reading this and that it all was a misunderstanding sound like a good chapter climax.
I think the rub is that I don’t understand why Keving would now this. Not aa big problem but something
I would probably have gone with “demon of Class A” is or something similar. Apothesis sounds very holy to me.

Ya know if there’s stuff that really irks you, you can always go back in and edit it! Let Chloe flash that badge, fiddle any comments around sniping distance etc. It’s all allowed This ain’t literotica, just open up that control panel, click edit and away ya go. Maybe stick a note at the end saying you’ve edited it following a review with thanks etc.
A lot of the time stuff like that only occurs to me when someone else points it out too, which is why I rarely had any concrit reading the parts through or said “Hey, what about...” (though gotta say, since I missed mentioning it in the review, slipping in dilkash as a term of enderment in part 2 will definitely make less ‘where’d that come from?’ than there was when it first got used chapters later!)
Those officers fallen in the line of duty had names, Sir. Officer Shondra Jackson. Officer Molly MacPherson. #bluelivesmatter
(Wait… they did what? To an archangel? The MBP tag was needed? Murdered a fellow officer too? Didn’t put their share in the department donut fund? Get someone to chip those names off the memorial, Bob.)