JayDee Posted February 15, 2019 Report Posted February 15, 2019 Oh yeah, totally, write the ending you want to write – this is the kind of story where bad guys do win often. If the ghost doesn’t get beat he doesn’t get beat. I was just throwing out my thought. And Jonathan does seem like less of an asshole in that whole light – he’s doing some messed up stuff, but convinced it’s what she wants, so well, fair enough. He’s still losing points in the ‘decent person’ stake for cheating on his actual girlfriend, and not really thinking things through, but less of an asshole all the same. Quote
Thundercloud Posted February 22, 2019 Author Report Posted February 22, 2019 Quote With the Mirror Came.. From JayDee on February 20, 2019 Chapter 6 review – contains spoilers! I thought it was quite funny at the start when her father’s discussing heading off to visit Carol and John’s really enthusiastic about it, and that line about his gaze speaking volumes. It’s the mental image of John, oblivious to Ronja’s real feelings and so his being really keen that made me smile. Plus, him getting his foot up for a rub with her father right there was hot. That whole “secret touching while someone else is there oblivious” is a theme I enjoy the heck out of. I also like that kind of secret touching scenes. In this particular case I decided to run with the idea even if the foot part felt kind of silly since I wanted to show John how immature he is. He is taking a big risk for very little reward just because he cannot control his urges. Quote I thought it was a cool how Mikaela got Maria to agree to the threesome without coercion at all. One of the few times one of Ronja’s tormentors made things easier for her –she doesn’t need to lure or persuade her girlfriend into a bad situation if her girlfriend’s already keen and eager! And then it turned out Mikaela was still true to form and basically did it with hoping to blackmail Maria too. That’s a bad teacher! The bondage sex was hot tho’ with the spanking and the licking especially working great. Can’t blame Maria for not realising that Ronja was in greater discomfort than her repeated Pig cries suggested, given her lack of experience at that kind of thing. Was Mikaela aware, given her greater experience, that it was going a bit too far for Ronja’s comfort and just ignoring it? Given her blackmail tendencies she does seem like she wouldn’t care overmuch about Ronja’s comfort. Great scene though! Mikaela in an earlier discussion with Ronja revealed that she intended to end the black mailing since she thought Ronja was would soon stop care about any nudes spread around. Ronja take this as a threesome is safe without considering the danger Maria is placed in...it will be fun when she realize her mistake. As for what Mikaela understand about Ronja there I have not really decided. Maybe she could take the view that Ronja must be masochistic because she obviously push herself on even when she seems to be really suffering, Maybe I should let Mikaela reveal that observation during the a talk with Maria…I need to give it a thought. Quote Jonathan actually comes across a bit better here now I’m thinking of him assuming all the time that Ronja is only doing what she wants to with him, and that she’s giving him a bunch of the ideas – There’s two examples where he seems shocked about not thinking things through – with not allowing her to say no, and what happens after he gets her to act like a dog in front of Roy. I am actually in middle of deciding if shall continue with the theme about Jonathan abusing her or if I shall focus on other things. Jonathan messing around has been great fun, but I have been using Jonathan rather heavily for some chapters so perhaps now could be a time for him to restrain himself after realizing how he has messed up. Quote That was another hot scene- Mark, completely blind, has a woman offer herself to him and manages to surprise her with the size of his tool – and it’s sort of sweet how he’s ok with it – I wondered if it was because Roy didn’t show any problems with her, so if Roy trusts her she’s ok? Pretty much that he trusts Roy...on the other hand there is also the question of how many woman he knows that Roy would trust. Eventually he will of course realize that it was Ronja that offered herself to him... Quote Ending is kind of bleak – is it bad that I feel worse about her flunking her exam? I guess when chapter 7 comes out we’ll see more! So, glad to have read all 6 chapters – for this one the threesome with Maria and Mikaela was the hottest scene for sure. Interesting observation about the tone of the ending. This is basically the first chapter when I did not align the ending with a sex scene and it might be true that this combined with the Ronja’s thoughts drag the mood down. Possibly this might explain why this chapter has been kind of slow to attract attention. As for the upcoming chapter 7 you must not expect it to appear in the near future. With the Mirror Came.. is the one of my stories that take most time to write and each chapter takes months. Unless I find something more interesting to write in the meantime then chapter 7 will take quite many months. Probably it will be me collecting ideas slowly until I must start writing. A fun fact by the way is that I recently read an article in the paper about people living in the building of the asylum from the first chapter. The planned reconstruction of the building has thus during my work on the story actually been finished and people live there now. The train tunnel from a later chapter is also opened by now. If I get around of them doing more urban exploring I need to decide about taking them to exciting sites that exist today or if I should research places that existed five years ago when the story begun. JayDee 1 Quote
JayDee Posted February 23, 2019 Report Posted February 23, 2019 (edited) As long as the people living there now haven’t found a haunted mirror… I can absolutely see why it takes a long time with 12000 word chapters, that stuff represents hours and hours of your work – with all your planning and editing and research taking up more on top! Still, it’s great fun writing. Edited February 23, 2019 by JayDee Quote
Thundercloud Posted February 23, 2019 Author Report Posted February 23, 2019 2 hours ago, JayDee said: As long as the people living there now haven’t found a haunted mirror… I can absolutely see why it takes a long time with 12000 word chapters, that stuff represents hours and hours of your work – with all your planning and editing and research taking up more on top! Still, it’s great fun writing. Obviously any chapter with more than 12000 words is lots of work...but the troublee is also getting the characters right. I seldom write fanfiction since I hate when characters go out of character. In some senses With the Mirror Came.. gives me the same feeling. When I discover I have written a bad line for one of main characters it feels kind of betrayal and my flow is disturbed. JayDee 1 Quote
Thundercloud Posted February 23, 2019 Author Report Posted February 23, 2019 Quote G.S.P. (Revised) From InBrightestDay on February 22, 2019 Well, we certainly learn a lot in this chapter. Apparently there was at least one demon-summoning individual in New York, and I'd imagine there are more. I should probably not answer how many demon summoning individuals there are in the story. By the way...it would be nice if you consider to start some of your reviews with the spoiler tag. I don’t mind it very much, but for a new reader wondering if they should read the story and checking the reviews they might want a warning that the review reveal a large plot point. I do the same mistake myself quite often, hopefully it is for minor things but in this case I think the spoiler tag is called for. Quote Second, Jennifer is officially a member of the superhero team! Also, I love this joke: "Seem like we have an agent that is going back to desktop work and someone who needs to retake the test," Hockfield said. "Technically Wilkins is already doing desktop work," Hawk commented. Agent Anderson gave him a hard stare and he went quiet. Get it? 'Cause he's having sex on a desk and...I'll shut up now. Seriously, though, that made me laugh. I don’t recall if I thought about the double joke when I wrote it, but I certainly get it now. The whole exchange is meant to be funny so good that you laughed. Quote Also... "It means that the G.S.P. are in truth battling demons, but they don't believe in magic and have thus assumed the monsters must be coming from outer space," Jennifer explained. CALLED IT! Actually, that's a pretty good twist, and I only figured it out last chapter. It's the reverse of Clarke's First Law. In this case, any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from (alien) technology. Actually I think you mean Clark’s Third law and not his First law. The first law is the one about the scientist if I recall correctly. If think the twist is possible to guess at the start of the story when we learn that the aliens dissolve into nothing when defeated, but it is kind of subtle in the middle of the action. Quote I only noticed one problem: I think at one point you used the wrong word. Jumping to reach the lower branches she pulled herself upwards to escape the barricade of stones coming from the whirling towers of earth. A barricade is a barrier, often improvised. If you meant "a bunch of stones being thrown at her at once", the word for that is probably barrage. Both words originate from French, though. Great catch. I will fix it. Thanks for the assistance. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
InBrightestDay Posted February 23, 2019 Report Posted February 23, 2019 13 hours ago, Thundercloud said: By the way...it would be nice if you consider to start some of your reviews with the spoiler tag. I don’t mind it very much, but for a new reader wondering if they should read the story and checking the reviews they might want a warning that the review reveal a large plot point. I’m so sorry; I wasn’t even thinking about that! From now on, I’ll try to do a spoiler-free review and then a disclaimer before the more detailed review starts. again, my apologies. Quote Actually I think you mean Clark’s Third law and not his First law. The first law is the one about the scientist if I recall correctly. You’re right. What happened was that I Googled Clarke’s First Law, and the very first thing that came up read: Quote Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. So for some reason, Google threw the Third Law in front of the First Law, confusing me. Quote
Thundercloud Posted February 24, 2019 Author Report Posted February 24, 2019 23 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: I’m so sorry; I wasn’t even thinking about that! From now on, I’ll try to do a spoiler-free review and then a disclaimer before the more detailed review starts. again, my apologies. No problem. If you want the fix the issue you can copy the text, remove the review and then repost with the spoiler tag in the right place. I did earlier with one of my reviews of your work when the interface misbehaved and posted my not really finished line about secondrate buffy villains. I just removed and reposted with the more proper explanation of my thought but JayDee did ninja me and saw the review before I removed it. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
InBrightestDay Posted February 24, 2019 Report Posted February 24, 2019 29 minutes ago, Thundercloud said: No problem. If you want the fix the issue you can copy the text, remove the review and then repost with the spoiler tag in the right place. Will do. Do you want me to do this with all four reviews or just the one for Chapter 4? Quote
Thundercloud Posted February 26, 2019 Author Report Posted February 26, 2019 On 2/24/2019 at 11:22 PM, InBrightestDay said: Will do. Do you want me to do this with all four reviews or just the one for Chapter 4? The chapter 3 review could IMHO also use a spoiler tag if you have the energy for it since it reveals the story is about demons. Quote
InBrightestDay Posted February 26, 2019 Report Posted February 26, 2019 12 minutes ago, Thundercloud said: The chapter 3 review could IMHO also use a spoiler tag if you have the energy for it since it reveals the story is about demons. Got it. It’ll be fixed by tonight. Quote
Thundercloud Posted March 12, 2019 Author Report Posted March 12, 2019 (edited) Quote GSP (revised) From InBrightestDay on March 11, 2019 Chapter 5 While this is primarily a chapter where we learn about characters, we do get a pretty cool action scene with Jennifer, and finally resolve something from Chapter 1. I like both the action and the character revelations, although some of what we learn is disquieting. Good that you liked the action. The Violence tag for the story is very much for the occasions when Jennifer lets her wild side loose and this is the first major one. Quote SPOILERS BELOW So, on the one hand, you actually answered a question I'd had since very early on in the story. Fang had been mentioned as a werewolf, but she was always in wolf form, and I wondered about the nature of her powers. I like that we get both an explanation of the cover story and of the way it actually works. Her humanoid form isn't really my cup of tea, but I can see how others would find her sexy. Actually I at one point considered to avoid using the word werewolf at all before be reveal in this chapter...but it felt kind of silly with referring to a talking wolf and just using wolf didn’t fit either. A bit like authors try to explain that a werewolf is very dangerous and large by comparing it to a pony and I cannot help giggling each time since I think of a pony dressed in a werewolf costume. Eventually I decided that it seemed plausible that Fang would insist of using her real race name and modern people would still assume she was scientific experiment rather than the true deal. Naming her as werewolf is also a hint towards people that are Wolfsbane fans that the story eventually will feature such elements. Of course if you ask me Fang do have interesting powers and does pack a much more powerful super hero punch than the marvel hero that I found interesting but irritatingly weak. Quote The stuff with Mindeye, though...I mean, I suppose he hasn't done anything outright villainous yet, but altering Firefly's mind is a pretty serious thing to do, especially since he didn't ask for her consent first. I can see how he might have thought it was a good idea (making her job having sex with the team members easier and more enjoyable), but it's just creepy and, as we saw, it has some very serious ramifications during her superhero work.On the other hand, I did find it really funny how he uses his mental powers to make his sex partners think his penis is bigger. You make some pretty good comments about serious implications of using psionics on other people. This is a theme that I can promise will be dealt with more detail in upcoming chapters. Mindeye is kind of shady but also built a reputation as super hero after going after the really bad psionics that are out there. There are few characters in the story that will not eventually have face the consequences of their actions. Quote Also...at long last we finally get to see Jennifer take down Dr. McFenna! He didn't do himself any favors there either, what with the mob stuff. A minor enemy, but very well deserved ending. The first version of the text actually had Jennifer making here first idea about mutilation of private parts real...but then I decided that it was better to show off Jennifer’s coldness as she plan her revenge. All I can say is poor girl... Edited March 15, 2019 by Thundercloud spelling errors InBrightestDay 1 Quote
InBrightestDay Posted March 14, 2019 Report Posted March 14, 2019 On 3/12/2019 at 6:51 PM, Thundercloud said: Good that you liked the action. The Violence tag for the story is very much for the occasions when Jennifer lets her wild side loose and this is the first major one. 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. Quote Actually I at one point considered to avoid using the word werewolf at all before be reveal in this chapter...but it felt kind of silly with referring to a talking wolf and just using wolf didn’t fit either. A bit like authors try to explain that a werewolf is very dangerous and large by comparing it to a pony and I cannot help giggling each time since I think of a pony dressed in a werewolf costume. 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.” Quote Eventually I decided that it seemed plausible that Fang would insist of using her real race name and modern people would still assume she was scientific experiment rather than the true deal. Absolutely, especially in a universe where magic isn’t acknowledged yet. Quote Naming her as werewolf is also a hint towards people that are Wolfsbane fans that the story eventually will feature such elements. Of course if you ask me Fang do have interesting powers and does pack a much meaning super hero punch than the marvel hero that I found interesting but irritatingly weak. 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. Quote You make some pretty good comments about serious implications of using psionics on other people. This is a theme that I can promise will be dealt with more detail in upcoming chapters. Mindeye is kind of shady but also built a reputation as super hero after going after the really bad psionics that are out there. There are few characters inthe story that will not eventually have facethe consequences of their actions. 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. Quote The first version of the text actually had Jennifer making here first idea about mutilation of private parts real...but then I decided that it was better to show off Jennifer’s coldness as she plan her revenge. 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). Quote All I can say is poor girl… 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. Quote
Thundercloud Posted March 15, 2019 Author Report Posted March 15, 2019 On 3/14/2019 at 1:59 AM, InBrightestDay said: 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.” Laurell K Hamilton is an author of published books that actually uses the pony comparison for a werewolf character in her Anita Blake series. The first time as I recall it was a major fight and a pony sized werewolf make an appearance to change the tide of the battle. It took minutes before I could assemble myself enough to continue to read. Quote 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. Yep, that is very much one of the major strenghts of The Master Program. On the other hand I can reveal there is a future G.S.P. chapter that reveal a bit about how Mindeye got his powers and it might give some context about why it is not as simple as it was for David in the other story. Quote 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. Maybe...on the other hand Jennifer surely have the abilities need to stop actual penetration if she really had wanted to do it. Just summoning the energy blade to scare him would probably done the trick... Quote
Thundercloud Posted April 7, 2019 Author Report Posted April 7, 2019 Quote Tales of Deception - An Anor Dan Masin story From JayDee on April 07, 2019 I haven’t read the story this is based on, but it’s a PWP so that’s probably not too important – the note at the start did a good job of setting the scene anyway! I am trying for a review that is spoiler fre/only vaguely spoilerish e and only references things mentioned in the summary/story codes/note at the start! The original story is actually very far from being a PWP, but sadly not finished since Mmmmm stopped writing before he was done. For instance the assault on the elven city that some of the bad guys are talking about in my story is actually a very important plot point in the main story. Anyway I spent a few years trying to nag the author to return to the story, but it seemed he suffered from a lack of trust in his own writing abilities after stumbling into a writers block. A real shame I was really looking forward to read about Lish to returning to the underdark while looking for a counter to Anor Dan Masin. Quote So, first things first, as PWP Rape Fantasy goes this is really great stuff. Very enjoyable descriptions of what’s happening, after the initial slightly creepy build up. I really liked the usage of the demon’s tail both for breath play and later on with the not-actually-damaging spikes. The half-in/half-out of the circle scene and the what the guys do afterwards was really fuckin’ hot. Thank you so much, this is one of the demon rape scenes I have written that I am most satisfied with. The use of the tail in you story with a very damaging spikes was actually one of the reasons I decided to dust off Tales of Deception and post it on AFF. I am not a fan of the damaging spikes and decided that needed to reread my story to clear my head of the imaginary from your story… Quote There were some funny bits too – the demon’s reaction when it’s first summoned, and also Kerry’s reaction when Mala suggests using her instead. There’s almost a running joke over the threats to Mala, although he clearly doesn’t see the funny side. Yes poor Mala...how that character would end was one of the things that was given by the original authors story but you never got know the character so I had to work backwards to figure out what kind of character it was. Quote Right near the end, with the wedding ring, and what it implies, that’s just a fantastic idea and amazing imagery all together. I originally planned to write a sequel based around the wedding ring...but the intention was to write it after ADM was finished. Sadly I never got around to ask for permission to use the borrowed character in a sequel before the author dropped out of writing. Quote Very glad I read this! Good to hear. I had a hunch that you would find it interesting. If nothing else it is often interesting to compare notes about how to do demon rapes interesting. JayDee 1 Quote
JayDee Posted April 8, 2019 Report Posted April 8, 2019 17 hours ago, Thundercloud said: The use of the tail in you story with a very damaging spikes was actually one of the reasons I decided to dust off Tales of Deception and post it on AFF. I am not a fan of the damaging spikes and decided that needed to reread my story to clear my head of the imaginary from your story… Heh, sorry about that. I swear I’ve used non-damaging tails at some point though I can’t recall exactly when. I think my Harry Potter/Nightmare on Elm Street crossover maybe… Still, I’d say you found a good way to wash away the taste! Quote Good to hear. I had a hunch that you would find it interesting. If nothing else it is often interesting to compare notes about how to do demon rapes interesting. Yeah, it was great!. I don’t always notice new stories popping up – the last one I reviewed before this was deleted the next day, but I’m sure it wasn’t my review as it was really positive. The demon’s own initially relucatance and needing to be persuaded into it kind’ve makes it a victim too. If it hadn’t been summoned, and bound, it wouldn’t have got involved. That was something else I’ve been thinking about was pretty interesting. Quote
Thundercloud Posted May 25, 2019 Author Report Posted May 25, 2019 Quote GSP (revised) From InBrightestDay on May 23, 2019 Chapter 6 While we do learn a bit more about our main character here, for me this was primarily a very emotional chapter, with a heavy focus on sadness, both in team members and in the case they're tasked with solving. It subverts the way superhero stories stereotypically go, and in a very tragic way. There is still some good action, though, in addition to a few funny moments, and it's nice to see some of the tension between Mindeye and Jennifer easing. The chapter is very much meant to be emotional and to raise the stakes for the hero team. There is an obvious tension from the superheroes not making any progress with finding the source of the attacks on the city and only stopping attacks already in process, but it gets more interesting when this chapter add the plot element that there are groups that want to shut down the operation for other reasons. Quote SPOILERS BELOW So we've now met some of Jennifer's family, which is going to present an interesting conflict for Eagle. On the one hand, learning that she has living family members would be wonderful for her...but Eagle just banged her little sister, so there's an incentive for him to keep it a secret. Yes, there is much more to happen around the dilemma Eagle has ended in. Actually the situation is also a bit more complicated than what it first looks like. The sister talks about their mother not being convinced to avoid saying what she really thinks herself. As for it to be wonderful to meet the family there is intended to be parallel here with the scene at the end of the chapter. Interacting with people that you don’t remember yourself might not be the best thing that can happen. Quote The main thing I came away from this chapter with, though, was sadness. First because of Firefly's emotional state. You touched on something in your writing that's very meta and makes for some interesting storytelling, namely that a lot of people in the comic book fandom will talk about how hot superhero characters are, and when you combine that with the standard gossip about celebrities, you'd likely get what you show here: an ever-present media frenzy over how sexy Firefly is, speculation about how many people she's slept with, etc. It ends up quite sad because she really just wants someone who loves her for her, but all she can do on the team is have purely physical, emotion-free sex. That is very much the intention with the Firefly character, no matter how good she is as superhero she can never escape the gossip since she is too sexy to be taken seriously by the media. Same goes for the opposing superhero team plot...would media really stay on the superheroes side if there is a possible story about the underdog that is not state funded. Quote The second thing, and holy crap did you get me with this, is the "rescue" of Carol Winthers. I suppose it's not a complete failure, since other slaves are rescued, but the girl they were looking for isn't just comatose when they find her, her mind has been completely destroyed. Even with that little hope spot where Mindeye says they're just going to transplant a few parts of Jennifer's mind into Carol's, and he insists that she's still mostly Carol, it's quickly made clear that's not true. Carol Winthers' body is still alive, but she was effectively murdered. Mindeye and Jennifer just made a copy of Jennifer, stuffed her into Carol's body and told her she has to pretend to be someone she's not so that Congressman Winthers doesn't ever realize that his daughter is dead. That is...absolutely heartbreaking on multiple levels. It's also a pretty brutal subversion of the superhero genre in general, since it's rare for the heroes to fail so completely in what they were trying to accomplish. Good that it gave the intended reaction, but I want to point out that Mindeye is also not totally wrong about there being large parts of Carol there. The upcoming story will reveal that there are serious differences between the characters even while Carol might have inherited some skills from Jennifer they are not the same. Quote Speaking of Jennifer, she did a lot better at pretending to be a sex slave than I ever would have, because I would have made it as far as this: "Looking good. Slave, turn around and expose your pussy for whipping," All aboard the NOPE Train! Seriously, for me, that would have been where the energy blades came out, because I am not allowing anyone to hit me in the junk. Jennifer would have agreed totally about that. It is a play with identities here where the cover persona does things Jennifer herself would not do herself if she was in charge of action. Quote There were a few funny bits in this chapter too, though. My personal favorite comes from the way you continue to handle the logical results of Thundercloud's super-durability. In the first chapter you had that bit where he's so tough he gets hurled through the air by the monster, and his only response is basically "Sorry, guys; I'll be more careful next time!" In this chapter, when Jennifer sets off the beacon, he doesn't bust open the door or anything, oh no. He plows in through the wall, splinters flying everywhere. Furthermore, you mention bits of broken trees flying off of him, so he crashed through a forest, or at least a few trees outside the house, and then crashed through the wall. Thundercloud is so tough he just doesn't bother avoiding obstacles anymore. He is literally doing a jump from the air plane in motion and using its momentum to smash into the house. Hitting a few threes on the way inside is just a plus side to avoid that he smash the house too much. The actual action he does here is kind of rash actually since his entry could literally murder just about anyone in the house except Jennifer. He is too worried about his love interest to follow superhero protocol. I suppose there off screen is a scene where the management have quite a lot to say to Thundercloud about this. I don’t actually recall exactly why I skipped this scene, but it not quite obvious how such a scene would end. Quote It was also pretty funny hearing Jennifer's internal conversations with the demon huntress while she's on her date with Thundercloud, and how blunt the demon is ("Why talk? Why not just fuck and see how it goes?"). As for the action, I really enjoyed Jennifer's fight with the spider demon. I liked both the creature design and the way Jennifer had to cut away its defenses, crippling it by removing multiple legs before she went in for the kill. Nice you liked it. Myself I really like the different perspectives as the other superheroes take time disposing the mindless smaller demons while Blade’s demon think the leader of the demons is just critter she can execute. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
Thundercloud Posted June 12, 2019 Author Report Posted June 12, 2019 Quote GSP (revised) From InBrightestDay on June 08, 2019 Chapter 7 There's an element of this chapter that I'm going to have to reserve judgment on, but the rest of it was quite enjoyable. It's interesting to see Mindeye and Blade working together as much as they are, given their initial antagonism, and the action here is really cool. I also liked the portrayal of Hyper's speed: fast, but not Flash-style speed where she's superluminal or anything. The inspiration of Hyper is actually a little known character named Super Sabre from the Marvel comics. He could create sonic booms by running quickly but not Flash-style insane power feats that basically means only speedsters can compete. Quote SPOILERS BELOW Fang's little detective spree at the start was fun. It's cool to see her using not only her wolf senses, but her humanoid form for the "mission" as well, including the way she evades Hyper at the end by scaling the wall. They really need to put a silent mode on those GSP communicators, though; those things go off at the worst times. I so very much agree about the need of putting a silencer on the communicator...the reason they neglected this is probably that the super hero group was thought to be fighting aliens and the government really never thought about them going sneaky stuff. Quote We're learning more about the Knighthood in this chapter, and it's...complicated. On the one hand, during Fang and Cyclone's conversation, both of them make good points, but on the other hand, the stuff the Knighthood members talk about after Fang escapes (the payments and "the plan") not to mention Cyclone's hypocrisy ("Damn you if you hurt Hyper!" he says after Hyper provoked the attack by punching Fang several dozen times) indicate that these guys may be a bit more sinister than they appear. Very accurate analysis. Quote Also, given that this is a superhero story with a lot of sex in it, I like that you applied the powers to the sex scenes, specifically with Hyper using her super speed as she does here. Thank you...I have been considering using Hyper in a follow up story since she is fun to use in sex scenes. Quote The fight with the robots was seriously cool. It really feels like something you could see in a comic book, and I like the way you have Blade and Mindeye working out how to use their powers together. It is also kind of funny how Jennifer keeps getting told to stay back and then keeps saving the day. Sooner or later the others are going to have to figure out that she's a really useful team member. It is a matter of time. One reason it goes slowly is that most of the team have still not understood how powerful healing Blade really have. After this chapter everyone expect Eagle and Mindeye is really aware of it. Quote I'm not going to say how I feel about the Mernosh story just yet, as I don't know if we're done with it or if it's going to come back up. I will say this, though: "Afraid to admit you have been unfaithful to me?" Mernosh asked without ever raising her voice. Uh-oh! Uh...okay, Carl, this is your wife, so try not to hurt her feelings by saying anything too crass. This is a delicate situation that must be handled with sensitivity and, above all, tact. "Well, we have been fucking some to reduce the tension so to say," Thundercloud replied. Smooth, Carl. Very smooth. In all seriousness, though, that line was pretty funny. It meant to be kind of ambient. Neither Thundercloud or Mernosh comes out looking good from it. It will be interesting to hear what you think when the wider context of what happened to Mernosh is revealed in a later chapter. Quote One last thing: throughout the chapter, Fang refers to her group as a "flock." I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not. Wolves travel in packs; a flock is generally a group of birds or sheep (at least when they're being cared for by a shepherd). Like I said, I'm not sure this is a mistake; Werewolves may use different terminology from wolves. I just figured I'd mention it. That is mistake on my part, thanks for bringing it to my attention. The idea for fang to use a weird word falls flat on that I am quite certain she also talks about leader of pack. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
InBrightestDay Posted June 14, 2019 Report Posted June 14, 2019 On 6/12/2019 at 9:32 AM, Thundercloud said: The inspiration of Hyper is actually a little known character named Super Sabre from the Marvel comics. He could create sonic booms by running quickly but not Flash-style insane power feats that basically means only speedsters can compete. I like how you give these shoutouts to lesser known superheroes in the story, like the Wolfsbane references with Fang and now Hyper referencing Super Sabre. I don’t pick up on all of them, of course, but it’s neat for people who are really into the more obscure Marvel characters. Quote I so very much agree about the need of putting a silencer on the communicator...the reason they neglected this is probably that the super hero group was thought to be fighting aliens and the government really never thought about them going sneaky stuff. That’s a good point. I’d kind of forgot about it, but you did mention back in the first chapter that the GSP was formed to combat the monsters, so yeah, stealth wasn’t as important when designing the equipment. Quote Thank you...I have been considering using Hyper in a follow up story since she is fun to use in sex scenes. Even for an F/F scene, I’d imagine she could basically turn her hands into living vibrators. Quote It meant to be kind of ambient. Neither Thundercloud or Mernosh comes out looking good from it. It will be interesting to hear what you think when the wider context of what happened to Mernosh is revealed in a later chapter. It definitely has me feeling a lot of things (I was kind of horrified by what I thought had happened), but like I said, I don’t want to respond yet, since this might not be what I think it is. On to the next chapter! Quote
Thundercloud Posted June 15, 2019 Author Report Posted June 15, 2019 (edited) On 6/14/2019 at 10:49 PM, InBrightestDay said: I like how you give these shoutouts to lesser known superheroes in the story, like the Wolfsbane references with Fang and now Hyper referencing Super Sabre. I don’t pick up on all of them, of course, but it’s neat for people who are really into the more obscure Marvel characters. The Super Sabre reference is actually quite obscure. I reada comic arc as teenager when the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants manage to secure position as a government sponsored “superhero” team named Freedom Force. This group of “reformed” villains does some minor good deeds here and there, but mostly they serve as enemy team for X-men and the Avengers when the plot need an extra fight. Super Sabre is a mercenary that joins the team to escape prison. Over time lots of villains and minor super heroes serve in the Freedom Force, but eventually the government scrap the initiative and replace it with X-Factor. When I needed powers for a opposing team for the G.S.P. story Super Sabre came to mind. As for inspiration for the others the character I can mention a few. Mesh draws inspiration from Bureau 13...a very horrible computer game...but I liked the battle suit that the heroes fail to make use of in any sensible fashion. I think there is roleplaying game that is the source material of the world setting, but my irritation about the stupid game killed my interest. Entrope’s power draws inspiration from the X-men hero Bishop mixed with the villain Sebastian Shaw. Bio is basically inspired by the Marvel character Madame Hydra even though the Marvel character has no real powers but uses technology to do stuff. Cyclone’s flight was inspired by X-men character Banshee...but I later realized that there of course is a Marvel villain named Cyclone with the same powers as my character. As for Firefly the inspiration is Marvels Firestar...except I learned about the character in animated series where her power was very nerfed down and not over the top flexible like in the comics. I have later learnt that Firefly actually in the comic use the alias Firefly for a timeperiod. :-) Thundercloud is kind of based on Captain Brittain in Excalibur (that super hero really have very different power depending on comic) with the removal of the flight power and different vulnerabilities. Quote That’s a good point. I’d kind of forgot about it, but you did mention back in the first chapter that the GSP was formed to combat the monsters, so yeah, stealth wasn’t as important when designing the equipment. It might be good to have the heroes highlight this point at some point in the story. I will see if I can find some scene where it does not intrude on the actual action. Quote Even for an F/F scene, I’d imagine she could basically turn her hands into living vibrators. Very true. :-) Quote It definitely has me feeling a lot of things (I was kind of horrified by what I thought had happened), but like I said, I don’t want to respond yet, since this might not be what I think it is. On to the next chapter! Yep..quite horror materialto that scene. Thundercloud is not as his best there...but basically back in the days he offered to skip his by then very successful superhero career and the comforts of civilization to be with her. She rejected him since she wanted more to become a super hero more than to be with him...in fact she preferred to be a young superhero even if that meant Thundercloud would be old or dead when they learned to control her powers. Given this background and she suddenly being a villain for no obvious reason when she returns...not the best day for Thundercloud. Edited June 25, 2019 by Thundercloud InBrightestDay 1 Quote
Thundercloud Posted June 25, 2019 Author Report Posted June 25, 2019 (edited) Quote G.S.P. (Revised) From InBrightestDay on June 23, 2019 Chapter 8 Well, this was intense. Most of the chapter is a seriously nerve-wracking sequence which ends with a pretty cool fight scene. The sexual content is also pretty hot, which impressed me because it's a type of sexual content I'm usually not into. There are some worrying things going on, but they may be temporary. I look in the other directions for a few days...aka working overtime on my real job...and bam...there is suddenly two new reviews posted since I visited AFF last time! I really appreciate these very well written reviews that you provide for every chapter. It is good that my earlier guess that you would enjoy the story seemed well founded. You are approaching what I consider to be the better parts of the story. Quote Spoilers Below I feel that it bears repeating: THIS WAS INTENSE! Something you've done in this story that I really like is to introduce a rogues' gallery for the GSP. We have the Brotherhood, Professor Enigma, etc. What I like about this is that since we often appear to have dealt with these enemies in a single chapter, it's a legitimate surprise when one of them pops up again, like the Brotherhood did in this chapter. Thank you, the bad guys that return is very much a deliberate act made possible since I planned it in advance. Quote That entire base invasion is what I'm talking about when I say intense. You did a great job of really making me wonder how they were going to get out of this. I also appreciated that Mindeye gets to be the one to get everyone out of trouble...especially since his messing around with the receptionist's head is what got them into trouble. I would argue that it also is a team effort even if Mindeye is the one that makes the sacrifice that allow them to turn the battle. Blade getting Fang to finally start to come over her gun shyness so she can participate in battle also plays a pretty big part. Fighting a furious werewolf that is immune to psionic powers is narrow rooms...not the favorite things to do if you are psionic that used to disable attackers with your telepathy. Quote The action scene that follows with the demons was fun, and I like seeing the heroes use their powers in nonstandard ways, like Firefly using her energy beams to keep Thundercloud warm so his powers continue to function. The super hero team is meant to have super powers that fits together for the battle task. The Firefly and Thundercloud combo is one of many reasons the government decided to recruit them to the team. Quote Of course, on the subject of Firefly...life really does beat up on this poor woman, doesn't it? No one takes her seriously as a hero, she gets violated by a criminal (enabled by what we now know are her submissive tendencies) and now she's been made the Team Slave. Fortunately, the Team Slave thing appears to be a temporary measure until they figure out if Mindeye can fix her. Yep, Firefly is really on the suffering end. It will eventually get better. Quote We also get hints here that there is more of Carol Winthers left than she initially assumed, which is nice. She also has a sub now, a character from way back in Chapter 2. Their scene together was actually what I was talking about when I said there was stuff in this chapter that I'm not usually into but found kind of hot anyway. I'm not generally an S&M fan, since I don't have any masochistic tendencies (not that it's gross or anything; it just doesn't do anything for me), but that's the amazing thing about the effect of the written word. By getting across how much Eve's actually enjoying this, the scene is actually pretty enjoyable to read. Great that you liked it. I can completely understand where you are coming from with bit about enjoying it. A bit like lots of real world asian porn that I cannot stand since they far too often show girls that is not enjoying the sex for most of the sex scene and is forced to stuff they don’t like. I understand most porn participants does it for the money and just act but if there is not passion but sex without passion is just dumb violence to my ears. Quote Actually, speaking of things related to Carol's side of the story, we find out that not only has Eagle had sex with Jennifer's sister, Jennifer has had sex with Jennifer's sister. Oops. I am actually quite pleased for the dialogue in that original sexscene. Linda recognize her sister but cannot understand how she can have turned into a sexual bombshell and this give Patric the time window needed to order Jennifer to have sex with her and Linda does not get enough time to say enough for Jennifer to realize what she is doing. When Linda talks with Eagle about Jennifer being Blade in a later chapter she talks about her mother dismissing the idea that Jennifer is Blade, but Linda actually avoids revealing she knows the truth since that would require her to reveal her embarrassing encounter with her sister. . Quote And finally we get to see Jennifer become team leader! Well, field leader anyway, but it still counts! I do have a bit of a question concerning the test she took. I understand what tactics means, but what is "aptitude" in this context? Does that refer to her personality, like how aggressive she is? The aptitude part of the test is meant to allow the government to filter out candidates that have a personality that does not work in a team and does not have right kind of hero quality. Exactly what the agents are measuring is not something I spent much time to define...but heroes like the marvel hero Captain America would max out on the aptitude test. Fang and Jennifer run into trouble here because it is impossible to create a test without including bias from the culture ofthe person creating the test and Fang and Jennifer are not really sharing the same kind of culture as ordinary people due to their special background. Their aggressiveness is of course part of this but only a part of it. Edited June 25, 2019 by Thundercloud InBrightestDay 1 Quote
Thundercloud Posted June 25, 2019 Author Report Posted June 25, 2019 Quote G.S.P. (revised) From InBrightestDay on June 25, 2019 Chapter 9 We learn quite a bit in this chapter, with some old characters returning and, potentially, a powerful new superhero emerging. The big thing for me was an extremely dramatic revelation about one of the characters, and I love the way you wrote it. Great that you enjoyed the chapter and thank you for the review. Quote SPOILERS BELOW First off, we have a bit of world building, which I honestly hadn't thought about. The word "demon" has been applied to numerous beings throughout human history, from the fallen angels of Judaism and Christianity to yokai from Japanese mythology and plenty of others, so it never occurred to me to think about the forces of Heaven in the context of this story. If they are behind this, it seems a bit odd, since Blade is actively suppressing demonic incursions on Earth, which you'd think would be something angels would be happy about. Still, these beings work differently in different fictional settings, so maybe not. I thought this was a good point of include the world building aspect of why the forces of Heaven are not around so to say. There is really lots of talk about demons in the story and barely a mentioning of angels and this might come across as weird to some readers. Having the demon revealing her ignorance give an explanation why Jennifer has not really thought about the theological implications of the demon attacks. Quote In other news, Patric from Chapter 4 is back. I'm curious to see where this goes, and if his magic skills have improved after his first disastrous summoning attempt. Patric improving...*chuckles*...but people can be dangerous in different ways. Quote Linda's mental powers manifesting was a cool scene, especially starting with her just having headaches, then suggesting it was something Patric did, then finding out it was her telepathy beginning to appear. Mindeye's phone call helping her was a nice way to have those characters interact, though it did kind of make me grin, because considering that he's helping her over the phone, it almost sounded like Mindeye was psionic tech support ("Have you tried turning your brain off and then back on again?"). LOL, yep that is pretty much how the scene reads. If I get around to write a future story about this setting I should have Mindeye really have psionic tech support as occupation. If you really consider what happened in the previous encounter between Linda and Eagle where she overload the G.S.P. protective gear and compel him to have sex I think the news that she have mental powers is possible to anticipate, but I also suspect I make it kind of hard to spot since I work hard in the previous chapters to make Linda seem like a very minor character. Quote Later on, of course, Linda does make a mistake and it seems she may have broken Mindeye's powers. Her awkward response about his mental shields... "Oh, they are like totally gone. Your mind is completely unshielded,"I alsop ...was pretty funny, though it is a serious matter, and a reminder that a teenager with her level of power can accidentally do some very real damage (what she does to the nurse and her accidental self-brainwashing being other examples of how dangerous that could be). Of course, he did use her for sex, so some level of karmic retribution was warranted. Very karmic indeed. Quote And we learn that Carol actually has quite a few fully developed, very clear memories; they're just locked away in a sort of maze. Speaking of which... There's a technique (I don't know if there's a name for this), where an author can invoke profound dread, sadness or another serious emotional response with a single line, either of dialogue or exposition. It's one of my favorite things about reading, when a single piece of information is delivered that changes everything in a very major way. "Mom is gone, I can't be her," You know that prickly feeling when the hairs on your neck and arms all stand up? Yeah, that one line absolutely did that, because it changed the context of so many things. It was the coolest thing as a reader, watching puzzle pieces I didn't even realize you were adding all suddenly lock into place. Congressman Winthers hiring a PI to keep track of his daughter, not wanting her to leave home, the cuts on her wrists, her poor performance in school, all of it takes on a completely new meaning now. It's outright chilling, and the best kind of plot twist: the kind I didn't see coming, but that makes perfect sense in hindsight. You have literally have made my day perfect. When you asked me by PM if the story was safe to read considering you liked the story hook but was a bit worried about the story codes I had to think hard exactly about this scene that is very very far from feel good. Not that I can promise the rest of the story is a pure safe read, but this was the actual scene that I was not sure how you would view. Good that it got exactly the right response. About the maze thing...the maze is not locking her memories away but is actually the psionic defense Mindeye put there to protect what he had done to her mind. Psionics cannot have slaves that knows all their secrets and is an open book to other psionics. The solution is to put traps there that will be dangerous for eavesdroppers. These are in the setting called logical mazes and trick the intruder to become lost inside the maze. The only reason Linda manage to get free from the trap is her great mental strength. The reason why Carol does not have access to her memories is more basic suppressed memories due to trauma like it work in the real world. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
InBrightestDay Posted June 27, 2019 Report Posted June 27, 2019 On 6/25/2019 at 5:32 PM, Thundercloud said: I look in the other directions for a few days...aka working overtime on my real job...and bam...there is suddenly two new reviews posted since I visited AFF last time! Sorry about that! I meant to read the next chapter more slowly, but then I found myself on break at work with nothing else to do and figured “Why not read some more?” and I ended up finishing the chapter in a day or two. Quote I would argue that it also is a team effort even if Mindeye is the one that makes the sacrifice that allow them to turn the battle. Blade getting Fang to finally start to come over her gun shyness so she can participate in battle also plays a pretty big part. Oh absolutely. I didn’t mean to suggest it wasn’t a team effort, just that Mindeye got the ball rolling. Quote Fighting a furious werewolf that is immune to psionic powers is narrow rooms...not the favorite things to do if you are psionic that used to disable attackers with your telepathy. I loved Fang’s dialogue after she pushes through her fear (paraphrased): “I forgot how easy humans are to kill; these guys are so dead!” Quote I am actually quite pleased for the dialogue in that original sexscene. Linda recognize her sister but cannot understand how she can have turned into a sexual bombshell and this give Patric the time window needed to order Jennifer to have sex with her and Linda does not get enough time to say enough for Jennifer to realize what she is doing. When Linda talks with Eagle about Jennifer being Blade in a later chapter she talks about her mother dismissing the idea that Jennifer is Blade, but Linda actually avoids revealing she knows the truth since that would require her to reveal her embarrassing encounter with her sister. Yeah, you did a great job having dialogue that makes sense in hindsight and yet doesn’t give anything away the first time you read it. Speaking of which, I noticed one of your earlier review replies (on Chapter 6)… Quote Interacting with people that you don’t remember yourself might not be the best thing that can happen. I see what you did there. Quote Patric improving...*chuckles*...but people can be dangerous in different ways. Very true. A less-than-brilliant kid playing with powers beyond his comprehension can be just as dangerous as a supervillain. Quote If you really consider what happened in the previous encounter between Linda and Eagle where she overload the G.S.P. protective gear and compel him to have sex I think the news that she have mental powers is possible to anticipate, but I also suspect I make it kind of hard to spot since I work hard in the previous chapters to make Linda seem like a very minor character. This fits with the “puzzle pieces I didn’t even realize you were adding” idea I mentioned with Carol. All of the clues make sense in hindsight, but at the time they don’t seem like anything important, since there are alternative explanations for all of them. Eagle having sex with Linda? We saw in earlier chapters that he’s kind of unscrupulous when it comes to sex, so it would make sense that he’d sleep with an adoring fan. Linda’s shocked reaction to seeing Jennifer in the park? Well, she is being approached by a naked woman, so shock is an understandable reaction. And yeah, the stuff with Carol is an example of this done fantastically. Congressman Winthers hiring a PI to track her and being angry when he doesn’t know where she is? Well, she was kidnapped recently, so any dad would be a little overprotective. Her poor performance in school? Guess she was a lazy student who relied on her father’s money and influence. The cuts on her wrists? She must have been very hurt by the death of her mother and acted out through self-harm. It’s only after the reveal of what her father was doing to her, possibly for years, that everything looks different. He’s not an overprotective dad, he’s an abuser who doesn’t want his victim to get out from under his thumb (or perhaps doesn’t want her telling anyone else about what’s happened to her). Performing badly in school is a classic symptom of an abused child. The cuts on her wrist could be self-harm relating to her abuse or she might have even attempted suicide because of her trauma. That’s why I called it a great twist, because all the foreshadowing you set up had obvious alternate explanations. The twist wasn’t obvious, and yet once revealed it made perfect sense. Speaking of Carol’s horrible family life… Quote When you asked me by PM if the story was safe to read considering you liked the story hook but was a bit worried about the story codes I had to think hard exactly about this scene that is very very far from feel good. Not that I can promise the rest of the story is a pure safe read, but this was the actual scene that I was not sure how you would view. Good that it got exactly the right response. If this helps, I can handle a lot of horrible stuff happening to characters, provided said characters can recover. Carol went through something awful, but she has at least one friend now, as well as a contact in a superhero team, so even after those bad memories resurface, there’s hope for her life to improve. Firefly is currently in a bad place (yes, her masochistic tendencies are real, but the psionic effects have removed her ability to say no, and even masochists do want to say no from time to time), but this is a world with powerful psionics, including Linda, who can repair damage like that, so there is hope for her condition to be fixed. That’s really the key for me enjoying this story. Quote About the maze thing...the maze is not locking her memories away but is actually the psionic defense Mindeye put there to protect what he had done to her mind. Psionics cannot have slaves that knows all their secrets and is an open book to other psionics. The solution is to put traps there that will be dangerous for eavesdroppers. These are in the setting called logical mazes and trick the intruder to become lost inside the maze. Ah, okay. I had thought the maze was a metaphor for the damage that one psionic inflicted while trying to brainwash her, but Mindeye and Jennifer did kind of break the law when they did what they did with Carol, so it does make sense for Mindeye to attempt to keep anyone else from digging around in her brain. Quote
Thundercloud Posted June 27, 2019 Author Report Posted June 27, 2019 19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: Sorry about that! I meant to read the next chapter more slowly, but then I found myself on break at work with nothing else to do and figured “Why not read some more?” and I ended up finishing the chapter in a day or two. I can live with any reading speed you prefer. It was just funny that I decided I had to much work time and should skip checking AFF for few days since it is long since I had a review and suddenly there are two full length reviews that I missed. Not answering reviews in a timely fashion feels so very rude... 19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: I loved Fang’s dialogue after she pushes through her fear (paraphrased): “I forgot how easy humans are to kill; these guys are so dead!” You might be interested to know that there is one of later chapters that investigate Fang more in detail and gives more context to her fear. 19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: Yeah, you did a great job having dialogue that makes sense in hindsight and yet doesn’t give anything away the first time you read it. Speaking of which, I noticed one of your earlier review replies (on Chapter 6)… Quote Interacting with people that you don’t remember yourself might not be the best thing that can happen. I see what you did there. I had lots of fun writing that reply...in truth it takes significant time to write good replies without spoiling too much of the future plot. 19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: This fits with the “puzzle pieces I didn’t even realize you were adding” idea I mentioned with Carol. All of the clues make sense in hindsight, but at the time they don’t seem like anything important, since there are alternative explanations for all of them. Eagle having sex with Linda? We saw in earlier chapters that he’s kind of unscrupulous when it comes to sex, so it would make sense that he’d sleep with an adoring fan. Linda’s shocked reaction to seeing Jennifer in the park? Well, she is being approached by a naked woman, so shock is an understandable reaction. And yeah, the stuff with Carol is an example of this done fantastically. Congressman Winthers hiring a PI to track her and being angry when he doesn’t know where she is? Well, she was kidnapped recently, so any dad would be a little overprotective. Her poor performance in school? Guess she was a lazy student who relied on her father’s money and influence. The cuts on her wrists? She must have been very hurt by the death of her mother and acted out through self-harm. It’s only after the reveal of what her father was doing to her, possibly for years, that everything looks different. He’s not an overprotective dad, he’s an abuser who doesn’t want his victim to get out from under his thumb (or perhaps doesn’t want her telling anyone else about what’s happened to her). Performing badly in school is a classic symptom of an abused child. The cuts on her wrist could be self-harm relating to her abuse or she might have even attempted suicide because of her trauma. That’s why I called it a great twist, because all the foreshadowing you set up had obvious alternate explanations. The twist wasn’t obvious, and yet once revealed it made perfect sense. Very good analysis. 19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: Speaking of Carol’s horrible family life… If this helps, I can handle a lot of horrible stuff happening to characters, provided said characters can recover. Carol went through something awful, but she has at least one friend now, as well as a contact in a superhero team, so even after those bad memories resurface, there’s hope for her life to improve. Firefly is currently in a bad place (yes, her masochistic tendencies are real, but the psionic effects have removed her ability to say no, and even masochists do want to say no from time to time), but this is a world with powerful psionics, including Linda, who can repair damage like that, so there is hope for her condition to be fixed. That’s really the key for me enjoying this story. Good to know. Speaking of my other stories….I think you really want to stay clear of the ADM story and Carmen Elisa Need to Die that have characters that suffers a lot with very little hope afterwards...on the other hand With the Mirror Came.. might actually be a better fit for you than I thought earlier. It is the kind of story where the bad guy with high probability will win at the end, but on the other hand the bad guy is not after death and destruction. The lead character is over the story subjected to a lot of stuff...but she is also part of one of the best love couples I ever has written so there is clearly hope in the story. Actually I also have some new stuff in pipeline that I think you might find interesting. Just need to manage to finish the damn editing...not having a beta makes things take so horrible much time. 19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said: Ah, okay. I had thought the maze was a metaphor for the damage that one psionic inflicted while trying to brainwash her, but Mindeye and Jennifer did kind of break the law when they did what they did with Carol, so it does make sense for Mindeye to attempt to keep anyone else from digging around in her brain. I understand the confusion. I spent like a ton of time to figure out the rules for the psionic system and how it interact with people in the setting but at the end trying to explain that to the reader would kind of ruin the flow of the story so most of it never made it into print. Some kind of explanation about maze trap sound merited...I add it to list of things to look at when I have time to give the story a makeover. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
Thundercloud Posted August 9, 2019 Author Report Posted August 9, 2019 Quote GSP (Revised) From InBrightestDay on August 04, 2019 Chapter 10 It took me a long time to review this chapter because I had a rather mixed emotional reaction to it. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, but given the topics explored here, I actually wanted to read the next chapter before I reviewed this one. That helped with one of my concerns, but the other stuff is still there. Like I said, I'm not saying the chapter is badly written, merely that I'm not sure how I feel about it. I can totally understand your concerns. Quote SPOILERS BELOW All of what made me uncomfortable here has to do with Mind StuffTM. The smallest aspect of this is the magical bracelet which alters the wearer's body (presumably facial features as well, since Lynn's dad didn't recognize his own daughter), and also completely destroys their original personality. I mean, Lynn was presumably in on the plan to do that to Linda, so she had it coming, but...damn. I totally agree that magic item is downright nasty and very much out scale with what Lynn could reasonably be handling. Basically it is artifact level power item that is granted in an exchange that does seem to scale reasonably from what the heroes know. It could also be worth to mentioning that if we look behind the scenes of things the cursed bracelet cannot actually touch soul of the victim so it is not entirely true that it destroy the original person totally. For the rest of the lifetime of the victim they will be passive watchers of what their body experience but eventually they will get free when the body dies. Quote More prominent in the chapter, however, is Linda's continued use of her mind-altering powers, oftentimes purely for convenience. Near the opening of the chapter she casually knocks out her mom to avoid an awkward conversation(!), and then her only reaction to learning that her mother was unconscious way longer than she should have been was an equally casual "oops,"(!!), and then later casually changes her mother's mind about talking to her(!!!). It's honestly kind of alarming watching a teenager throw around this kind of power in a typically teenage way. The chapter also highlights something I'm going to call the Diclonius Problem, which is that when you have psychic powers, and don't have to apply much mental effort to do something with them, the difference between thinking about doing something and actually doing it can be dangerously small. Obviously, that comes up in this chapter when Linda thinks about brainwashing Patrick, only to realize that she just did it, and then later when she thinks about how she wishes Eagle didn't have to deal with his painful memories and, in thinking about it, deletes said memories. I'm not saying this was a mistake in the writing, and it's clear from Linda's thoughts that she's aware of the problem. It's just kind of unnerving to watch it happen. The difficulties of suddenly becoming basically all powerful is very much the theme I was out to cover with this character so I am actually quite satisfied with you finding it unnerving. Quote Speaking of Eagle's lost memories, it's played up as a happy moment in the chapter, but when I read this: "You might have changed me, but I do love you truly," Eagle said. I couldn't help but be reminded of Chapter 6, and this: it feels real to us after all even though it is something Steve made." That's a disquieting similarity. Very true. Quote Continuing on the front of Mind StuffTM, I noticed that while Jennifer, Mindeye and Linda all talk about removing the brainwashing on Eagle, none of them ever mention Firefly. It's what made me read ahead to the next chapter before writing this review. Anyway, given what I think I learned in the next chapter (nothing is stated outright), I'm not too worried about it now. They not mentioning Firefly is a neglect from my writing skills. The characters are assuming is that if they can find the means to deal with the tricky case of Eagle then Firefly will be trivial to fix since the brotherhood did not use so much “violence” for her brainwashing so her is a simple case. It seems I failed to actually make the characters spell this out. I will work this into the dialogue at some suiting point. Quote Finally, of course, we come back to the other perennially sad character in this story, Carol Winthers, or Jennifer 2.0, as she insists she is in this chapter. This is an emotionally complex issue for me. In spite of the traumatic nature of the memory we saw last chapter, I was happy to see that at least some of Carol's memories are intact, meaning that she wasn't erased from existence, and I thought that over time, some of her memories might come back, helping her to genuinely be something closer to herself than just Jennifer 2.0. In this chapter, however, she insists that she is definitely not Carol, to the point of being totally fine with a father/daughter sexual relationship, since he only sexually molested Carol, not Jennifer 2.0. I wouldn't wish PTSD on anyone, but it was still sad to be brought back to my original assumption from Chapter 6 (that there is no Carol at this point). Her refusing to acknowledge her Carol parts is very much meant as a mechanics to cope with the trauma and you would be wise to not trust the characters point of view totally in this. If I ever get round to write a G.S.P. sequel I should really make sure to add a scene where Carol is shown to have truly recovered. Quote On the other hand... "Maybe I talked myself into having sex to punish myself. Old habits from my earlier self resurfacing, but I attributed them to Jennifer to avoid responsibility." ...there is that line. Maybe Carol's memories are buried deep in the subconscious, but elements of her personality survive? Like I said, it's a very emotionally complex issue for me when reading. In a way, it actually ties together with what Linda accidentally did to Eagle. His memories were erased rather than suppressed, but the same issue is at play: our painful experiences still help to make us who we are, and while it may seem like an obvious good to be rid of them, things may not be so cut and dry. Without spoiling too much I can also mention that there is plot reveal in final chapter that might put a different viewpoint on the Carol and Jennifer relation. Quote Having said all of that, I want to make sure you know that there was plenty of stuff I liked in this chapter as well. First off, Linda can explode people with her mind. That's kind of awesome, and it took quite a bit of effort so it doesn't seem like she'll do that by accident. Mindeye's new power is pretty cool too, with the "question and answer" idea being a neat spin on telepathy. I very much enjoyed coming up with Mindeye’s new power...not very useful for a super hero but great fun if are a secret agent. Quote Another little touch I liked was when Jennifer asks the demon about changing her appearance, and you correctly pointed out that biological changes wouldn't immediately affect the hair, since it's not made of living cells. It's the kind of thing a lot of superhero stories (even the comics) don't think about. Yes, I am not alone! I find so very frustrating when super hero stories does not understand this. Quote I also really like Linda's superhero name. I'm not sure if you've ever read/watched One Punch Man, but it's a superhero action comedy, and among the heroes are two telekinetic sisters, Tornado (Tatsumaki in the original Japanese) and Blizzard (Fubuki). It may be a complete coincidence, but Avalanche (which I think would translate as Nadare) feels like she would fit right in, especially given the costume you ended up giving her, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I have seen One Punch Man and enjoyed it lots...but my story is actually older than the 2015 anime so I got there first. On the other hand I really understand your reference. Quote Finally... "Relax, I am just adjusting to having a cock. It is a very peculiar feeling," That made me laugh. So yeah, this was a super emotional chapter, and I wasn't always happy reading it, but make no mistake, I still think it was quite well done. Like I said, I read the next chapter as well, so you'll get a review on that within a day or two (I'm trying to work steadily on my own story). Great that you are working on your own story...I am very much looking forward to it. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
Thundercloud Posted August 9, 2019 Author Report Posted August 9, 2019 Quote G.S.P (Revised) From InBrightestDay on August 08, 2019 Chapter 11 Man, we're getting into the final stretch of the story here! Anyway, this chapter has a good mix of action, sexual content and worldbuilding, and indirectly answers a question I'd had from the previous chapter, all while hinting at things to come. Yep, we are moving towards the end game now where the big bad is actually to make his/her first appearance in the story. Quote SPOILERS BELOW Well, we all knew the confrontation between the GSP and the Knighthood had to happen sooner or later, and here's where it finally goes down...sort of. It's not a full team vs. team battle, but we end up with overt violence nonetheless. I have to admit, I had initially forgotten about Bio being connected with assassinations in Italy, so I thought Cyclone had just told her to seduce Jennifer so that she would miss the debate, which was an idea that honestly really amused me. Of course, the way it did go was pretty tense,and Jennifer's really lucky that the poison spread so slowly, allowing her to amputate the limb, as opposed to what would have happened if it had circulated through her entire body before taking effect. Then we really would have had to depend on Mindeye's plan. In real life body circulate poison in the blood steam very quickly. The reason it goes slower here is basically that the demon is spending lots of energy on making sure the poison stays contained until they have figured something out. Could perhaps be cool to mention that in some way, will need to give it a thought. Quote I mentioned last time that Avalanche's name and massive telekinetic ability reminded me of the psychic sisters from One Punch Man, and here she actually gets a maid costume that would be right at home in an anime! It made me smile. Her fight with the Knighthood does raise a concern about future fights. She's so powerful I worry about her making the rest of the team redundant. Here she takes out the entire knighthood without breaking a sweat, and it seems that anything she can't knock unconscious or brainwash with her mind-altering powers, she can smash with her telekinesis. She could potentially replace the entire rest of the GSP. Having said that, you've done a great job with the action scenes thus far, so I figure you've got something up your sleeve. It has mentioned earlier in the story that the demons are immune to psionics (or rather their defensive levels are so high that even Avalanche is out of luck)...kind of a large limitation to how much use Avalanche can be. That is pretty much why Cyclone never bothered to recruit a Psionic to his team and why his team is so helpless in this encounter. Btw...if we are speaking about overpowered characters I think it is very possible to issue a complaint towards Fang... Quote So the reason I read ahead to this chapter was because, in the last one, there was much talk about Linda being able to remove Eagle's brainwashing...and I don't think Firefly was ever mentioned. I realize that Eagle was a problem in terms of his brainwashing causing him to be less functional as a team member, but that raised the deeply alarming idea that the GSP was only concerned about the brainwashing from a utilitarian perspective, rather than from a moral one, and were thus content to keep Firefly the team slave since it didn't impede her functionality, which feels very un-super hero-ish (I mean, you'd assume they'd be concerned with right and wrong). I was seriously tempted to bring that up last review, but I figured I really ought to read ahead in case it was dealt with here. Well, at no point in this chapter is it ever actually said that Linda helped Firefly, but since she never thinks about her masters in the Brotherhood or her masters in the GSP, I'm assuming she's better now. Her standing up to Megaburst was a good scene (though I can easily see knowledge of her masochistic tendencies being used against her later), and her statement near the end, about how she might want to be Mindeye's sub, but didn't want to be trampled on, really got to me, because yes. She might be a masochist, but Firefly is a superhero, and she deserves respect. Like mentioned in my previous review response it is a neglect from my side that I don’t mention Linda having fixed Firefly. Quote Moving on, while there's a good deal of sexual stuff in this chapter, my personal favorite bit is the scene between Jennifer and Thundercloud, partly because it just feels like the way an actual couple would behave, and partly because it worked in another joke about Thundercloud's super strength and the consequences of it, namely him "making" an opening in his costume. I can't help but think about whoever does maintenance on the GSP's costumes wondering about the crotch damage in Thundercloud's suit later on. Yep...that hole in the suit will surely raise some eyebrows. Quote Finally, we get a really nice amount of worldbuilding with Fang, really expanding the lore about werewolves in this setting. I especially like the concept of the forerunners, sort of like shamans, but with the added facet of being keepers of memory for entire packs. It's a really fascinating idea. Thank you for writing these wonderful reviews with so many good comments. I have toyed with reusing the werewolf mythology in some future story but never really found a suiting catch to tie it all together. So many story ideas and so little time. InBrightestDay 1 Quote
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