AFF's Tales from the Shoutbox Review Thread 2015

[Desiderius Price]

Thanks to all who reviewed. (including CL, BW, JayDee, DA/Lizzie/Magus)

- DP

[DirtyAngel]

Didn't mean to get you snivly!! Meant to get you scared!! Vampires! Evil! Sorry!

Sad scared girl. felt sad for her

[Joe Long]

I will get caught up on my reading, promise

[PervertedPages]

Sad scared girl. felt sad for her

Yeah, but every vampire needs to feed, we are all cattle to our food chain higher ups.

[DirtyAngel]

Yeah, but every vampire needs to feed, we are all cattle to our food chain higher ups.

Yeah, but every vampire needs to feed, we are all cattle to our food chain higher ups.

Crying again mean ole vampire

[GeorgeGlass]

Becky's Grave — JoeLong

I tried, I really did, but I always have a lot of trouble coming into a story in the middle. I had no mental image of the characters or understanding of their references to previous events, because all of that was done in another story or stories that I haven't read. Sorry.

Girl Who Wears Glasses — Magusfang

Nice. Interesting plot, good slow reveal on Victor, sympathetic main character, and utterly hate-able villain. Also, I liked the vivid descriptions of the characters (and especially their Halloween costumes; I even wondered for a bit whether Gayle's costume might be magical). I noticed some language issues, mainly missing or misused punctuation, and there are a couple of places where the perspective shift seems abrupt (particularly the one that happens mid-paragraph). But none of that was enough to discourage me from reading on. Good job.

CL Mustafic

Snap by George Glass,
This was probably the most chilling piece in the collection. It was very well done and the thought of a demon or whatever it was possessing men and making them kill their families is just a horrible. Well done.

Thank you! "Chilling" was definitely what I was going for.

SNAP: So made me cry when I thought about the kids...you meanie. Very scary and I loved the hints you gave without actually giving it all away, great job, was so mad at whatever it was at the end!

Dang it, I wasn't trying to make you cry; I was trying to make you wet yourself in terror. Guess you can't win 'em all.

Seriously, thank you. Glad you liked it.

[DirtyAngel]

don't feel bad George, everything makes me cry lately

[Joe Long]

Becky's Grave — JoeLong

I tried, I really did, but I always have a lot of trouble coming into a story in the middle. I had no mental image of the characters or understanding of their references to previous events, because all of that was done in another story or stories that I haven't read. Sorry.

I was aware of that handicap while I was writing and tried to drop in mentions of relationships and physical descriptions, where I normally wouldn't have because it's been established, without hitting you over the head with it.

What you should be able to get from only what's told in the Halloween chapter:

Joe has a cousin Dave, and he's dating Dave's younger sister Hannah (which would make her also Joe's cousin). Dave's girlfriend is Susie. Dave and Hannah have a sort of bratty little sister Donna, jealous of how Hannah gets to be involved with the 'grownup' stuff. Susie is the only one of the five who's age is not mentioned by the end of the chapter.

The last time Dave went to a party down the street was before he met Susie and he hooked up and went all the way with Ellen. At some point after that, Hannah told Joe he could show his erection to Ellen, which Susie now refers to as the 'dick measuring contest' - but that history, and how Ellen acts now, makes things uncomfortable and is enough to be a cause for them to want to skip out of the part early.

The mention of P.J.'s past skinny-dipping suggestion establishes that he's prone to make those kind of 'hey guys, let's do this!' statements.

Everything else is original to this chapter.

[Joe Long]

Speaking of physical descriptions, and in a case of life imitating art (NOT the other way around)

The actress I had pictured for Susie was Debbie Ryan, and in the story Susie's a 17 year old high school senior.

Last night we took the grandkids to an event at a local church where they passed out candy from cars in their parking lot. About 10 feet behind us was a rather attractive teenage girl, medium height, a little heavy in the thighs and butt, long blond hair - and the only costume she was wearing a a pair of black cat ears strapped over her head.

[Tahn]

From the Ashes by Tahn
This was another story with a good bit of emotional impact. I don’t mind admitting I hear tears in my eyes at a couple points. The idea around the ending was pretty cool, it certainly got around the lack of touching otherwise.

Death has an Ugly Face by Tahn's 2nd story. The fiend!
It also works read in the voice of Bonny from Family Guy. Not the first character to face death with a knob in the hand. See, this is how you do 2nd person seriously and give it good atmosphere. ‘nother campfire classic in the making!

Hehe, fiend indeed I was stressing so hard over getting FtA done that it was a huge relief when it was finished. Afterwards I sat down and let my fingers type whatever they wanted to as a reward for getting me through the other one. I seem to have made a couple of people cry with FtA, my bad guys, but it's a huge compliment to me I actually kinda creeped myself out a bit when I read DhaUF in Vincent Price's voice. I love the way that man spoke.

Ok, somehow I got tasked with writing our combined reviews so this is from me, Magusfang, and of course ThinLizzie:

From the ashes: Already told Tahn what I thought and Tahn, it made me cry all over again. Beautiful story, It's Lizzie's favorite by the way, she a big ole romantic!

Death has an ugly Face: Great little vignette but the Vincent Price thing put the song Thriller in my head...so thanks for that

Thank you all for the great stories, we really enjoyed them and some were even safe to read to the kids...so not your's George, or your's CL, didn't even read the title to them

Hehe Thanks you guys I'm sorry I made you cry, but in this case, I'll take it as a compliment. Did you do the Vincent Price laughter after the story like in Thriller? It kept running through my head when I would get to the end, but I didn't know how to put it in the story besides (insert evil laughter here) and that just wouldn't have worked out too well.

There's another story that got posted after my review...

All Hallow's Eve - ThinLizzie

Great job on bringing poetry to Halloween. The story you painted was great, and it left me a bit sad at the ending, cuz the magic of the holiday has indeed died a bit.

[Tahn]

Right Like Rain - Kokoa_b

Jeezus Ko! Kill off the whole planet why dont'cha? Big meanie, killing everyone like that. Jeeze.

[GeorgeGlass]

CL.Mustafic — The Glory Hole to Hell

Atmospheric and well told. The various classic elements (the ghost story, the abandoned house, the doomed lovers) all make the story that much easier to visualize. As others have said, the title is awesome—and, better still, not just a hollow promise. A part of me wonders, though, whether this story is a sort of test to see whether readers will cheer the punishment of the three oil-rig workers for their bigotry while simultaneously embracing the stereotype of southerners as bigoted rednecks.

JayDee — Fucking Halloween Party

Nicely done. Not many typos, despite your comment; I only noticed a few minor errors (eg, “too as well,” one place where you wrote “Todd” but seemed to be referring to Steve). I liked the main character, and it didn’t pose any problem for me that I wasn’t already familiar with her background; it seemed like all the important bits could be inferred from the brief comments about her relationship with Kizzy. The twist near the end was great, in that it took me by surprise but still made sense. And I liked Shannon’s powers: The idea of the succubus being able to read a man’s memories via his semen was perfect. Plus, her being a succubus puts a new twist (new AFAIK, anyway) on the “demon seeking redemption” concept, in that she has a rather different set of powers to try to use for good instead of evil.

[JayDee]

Hey, George! Thank you for the review and thank you especially for the typos part! (Todd kissed her? eesh! How did I miss that?!?) I'll compile a little list and then ask Chrissy to re-post the updated version when I'm sure I've got them all (I'll re-read it myself in another couple weeks and notice more!) I'm really happy that I had enough in there of the background for it to make sense, too!

She's actually reading his memories from his orgasm - which was how she got Astrid's too - the semen was just for life energy, absorbing a little more power. I can probably clarify that too Yeah, definately a different set of powers - though I'm sure a, say, Spawn story where he'd had to fuck his way to redemption would have gone down well.

--

I see there's another couple stories to review too, so I'll get onto them before long, tomorrow maybe

[JayDee]

Right Like Rain by KoKoa_B

Wow, that was pretty brutal. Very much a Halloween horror story. Tthe foreshadowing about the rain was good, and how it just went from everything feeling OK to an overwhelming attack. The dangers for heroes with families, I guess. Very thematically apt, anyway!

[JayDee]

TrickyTreats by Dirty Angel

The meta stuff was pretty amusing at the start, especially the stuff around Magus the Omniscient. Incidently, the line “Ok, which one of you psycho’s put teeth on my giant girl wiener?” is definately not a question I ever expected to read on AFF! What with the Aliens reference as well, I have a mental image like H R Giger doing a safe sex advert. Liked the three headed cat, too. The ending did seem sudden, but, hell, that got lampshaded too so I guess it works!

Sequel to feature foeofthelance then? foe'll be getting y'all to restart the big forum orgy at this rate...

[magusfang]

TrickyTreats by Dirty Angel

The meta stuff was pretty amusing at the start, especially the stuff around Magus the Omniscient. Incidently, the line “Ok, which one of you psycho’s put teeth on my giant girl wiener?” is definately not a question I ever expected to read on AFF! What with the Aliens reference as well, I have a mental image like H R Giger doing a safe sex advert. Liked the three headed cat, too. The ending did seem sudden, but, hell, that got lampshaded too so I guess it works!

Sequel to feature foeofthelance then? foe'll be getting y'all to restart the big forum orgy at this rate...

What's funny about Magus the Omniscient?

get it?

[JayDee]

Well for all I know it's a playful reference to you having hidden cameras installed everywhere.

[DirtyAngel]

Well for all I know it's a playful reference to you having hidden cameras installed everywhere.

[JayDee]

If you do a sequel, make it a porno - "Yay! It's Magus the Tumescent!"

[DirtyAngel]

If you do a sequel, make it a porno - "Yay! It's Magus the Tumescent!"

. oh I am so using that! Maybe get him a t-shirt Edited November 2, 2015 by DirtyAngel

[Tahn]

Tricky Treats - DirtyAngel

Hahaha, Oh jeeze, I'm dying. That was freaking funny. I love how you put the stuff about Marvin in there. I hope Ko reads this story, hahaha.

[BronxWench]

It occurs to me people won't get my reviews, so...

Right Like Rain

Holy... what an ending! I was not expecting that at all, but that was entirely appropriate for a Halloween story. But ouch, the kids...

Awesome story, KoKoa! ::applauds::

and

Tricky Treats

Oh, dear sweet hairy trolls on pogo sticks, that was AMAZING! I was laughing throughout the entire story, and I'm in love with the banter. The fourth wall is rubble, the characters are out of control, and that was just brilliant parody. Honestly, I am SO glad you're writing, DA! This is awesome stuff right here! Love you!

[DirtyAngel]

Thanks BW, I was worried cause I broke pretty much every rule writing it, but it was fun

[BronxWench]

Thanks BW, I was worried cause I broke pretty much every rule writing it, but it was fun

Sometimes the best thing to do is break all the rules. Not only is it fun, but it can work so well!

[GeorgeGlass]

From the Ashes -- Tahn

This is solid work. It's hard to capture a whole lifetime in a short story, so I'm impressed that you managed it without the story either seeming rushed or becoming bloated. Nice descriptive details; the fire scene in particular really sticks in my mind because you included details that others might not think of (eg, flames dripping from the crosstimbers, the way the stairs smoke before they catch fire). Also, [spoilerS] I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and yours was tearfully happy. Thanks for a good read.

Nightmare’s Dream -- Perverted Pages

Makes the interesting point that a modern vampire might be very much like a serial killer. This one chooses victims of a specific type, and he has a prepared location to which he takes them, a ritualistic way of killing them, and a preferred means of disposing of the bodies. The story has some language issues, mainly run-on sentences and a few confusing constructions (eg, “She heard her name whispered and gasped”). But I liked the bit at the end about the good old days, which gives the reader a valuable bit of perspective on how different a modern vampire’s circumstances would be.