InBrightestDay's (Originals) Review Reply & Discussion Thread

[InBrightestDay]

For the moment, this is just for The Woman in the Statue, but I figured I’d use this thread for my other stories as well, once I actually start posting them.

Edit (2021): I figured it might help people who stumble upon this if I linked to my stories, since I have several originals now.

The Woman in the Statue My flagship story, effectively, and my most popular so far.  Kevin frees a mysterious woman from her magical prison.

Yua & Cody

After Party – Yua and Cody have their own private Halloween celebration

Parlor Games (co-written with JayDee) – some unpleasant men break into the wrong house.

Social Distancing – Yua and Cody cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aldreda & Elis

Moonlit Snow – Paladin Aldreda and her squire Elis escort a caravan, and grow just a little bit closer along the way.

Edited October 8, 2021 by InBrightestDay

[BronxWench]

Having had the extreme pleasure of reading the first chapter of The Woman in the Statue, I’m really, REALLY looking forward to more stories from you!

[InBrightestDay]

 This is happening way faster than I’d anticipated.  That’s not a bad thing, though!

Let’s kick this off with what I think is chronologically the first review.
 

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BronxWench

Wow!  Just... wow!

Well, this is either going to be a very happy review or a very unhappy one.

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This is absolutely gripping from the first word to the last line of the chapter. I am in awe of your ability to create entirely real characters, people who react and speak as naturally as anyone I'd meet on the street. There's a subtle tension running just under the surface, and I found myself groaning in disappointment when the chapter ended. I wanted more!

Happy it is!  Thank you so much for the kind words.  Since this is my first story here on AFF, and given what it’s a sequel to, I was pretty nervous as to how it would be received.  Granted, upset reviews may come later, when Luzurial’s PTSD flashbacks start and the disturbing imagery really kicks in, but this was a really nice first review to get!

More is definitely on the way.  Out of the story’s nine chapters, I’ll have eight of them done by the end of tonight.  I’m planning to update this once per week, so hopefully Part Two will be up next Monday!

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As brilliant as JayDee's original story is, this is as seductive and intriguing a sequel as could be hoped for.

Be careful saying that on the first chapter.  Things may get less intriguing for you as we go along, but I do hope you’ll continue to enjoy it.

4 hours ago, BronxWench said:

I’m really, REALLY looking forward to more stories from you!

I don’t have anything else planned at the moment that’s going to be as long as The Woman in the Statue, and not all of them will be to your tastes, but I have two other stories that I want to have on this site.

Little Brother’s Lesson is already up on Literotica, but I figure I’ll post it here too.  It’s a brother/sister incest story (like I said, not for everyone), which will eventually have two sequels: Our Secret and Ever After, to complete the story.

The Spider House may be more up your alley.  It’s about a teen named Cody who starts falling for his neighbor Yua, who lives in the neighborhood haunted house and may or may not be human…  If I can have that one ready for one of the AFF Halloween parties, it may be my contribution.

At any rate, thank you again for your kind review!

Edited January 22, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[BronxWench]

I have a fairly high threshold for most content, to be honest. My absolute walk-into-the-walls firm limits don’t include incest, but I’m not always comfortable with Minor1 content, and I flee from scat and watersports. 

But I have a feeling what you have planned for Luzurial isn’t going to send me screaming into the night, and I’m going to be very happy when I get back from a rare and much-needed vacation to have a chapter of The Woman in the Statue waiting for me to enjoy. The Spider House does sound right up my alley, and depending on the ages for the characters in Little Brother’s Lesson, I might just dive into that as well. You’re an extraordinary writer, and I’ll push my own limits when I enjoy someone’s work as much as I’ve enjoyed your first chapter here on AFF.

[InBrightestDay]

30 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

But I have a feeling what you have planned for Luzurial isn’t going to send me screaming into the night

I mean, if you read Whore of Heaven, it never gets any worse than that.  The flashbacks are to the events of that story, after all.  I was thinking more of another reviewer, whom I’ll get to shortly, potentially getting upset.

As for Little Brother’s Lesson, Ryan is 18 and his big sister Cindy is 23, so no Minor1 or Minor2.  Like I said, it was posted first on Literotica, where all the characters have to be at least 18.

Edited January 22, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[BronxWench]

Brilliant! You have a fanwench, then!

[InBrightestDay]

Next up, without a doubt the longest review.

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JayDee

With the line “And frankly, life was full of upsetting things, who decided to carve something that made everyone who saw it sad and/or horrified?”  It’s a very good point. Frankly I blame whichever sick fuck came up with the idea in the first place.

Shh!  Don’t be mean to the guy who came up with it!  He might be reading this.

About Kevin’s actions in general, the funny thing is that while he’s not a self-insert in the traditional sense, a lot of what he says and does comes from me going “Well, what would I do if presented with this situation?”  So, for instance, what does he do after he finds out the mystery woman is recovering upstairs?  Well...I guess I’d go out and buy her some flowers and try to introduce myself, so that’s what he does.

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I think you did a really good job of showing her traumatic reaction to everything. Especially the bit where she gives her name as whore is very emotional. Made me sad reading it.

She’s holding up amazingly well, considering what she’s been through.  Most humans would probably be a lot worse off than she is, but something I realized while reading your story is that she’s very, very tough, both physically and emotionally, so while she’s hurt and upset, she’s still holding herself together.  However, after what she went through, both before and after being put into the statue, any semblance of pride has completely inverted, and now she has some self esteem issues, which is why she couldn’t bring herself to give Kevin her real name at first; she doesn’t feel worthy of using it with him.  Ultimately, though…

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Sweet of him to hold her hand while she slept her first pain free sleep in a long time.

Final part of that section when she lets him know her real name. Awww!

That moment is, to me, an example both of Kevin’s empathy and of Luzurial allowing herself to be vulnerable.  He doesn’t really know who this woman is or what she’s been through, but he knows he can’t let her cry herself to sleep or face nightmares when she does drift off, and holding her hand is really all he knows how to do for her, based on his own experiences as a younger kid.  For Luzurial’s part, she’s been a support system for others in the past, and in your story she tried to stamp down her own emotional vulnerability in an attempt to help other people.  Her taking Kevin’s hand and telling him her real name is her accepting that whether she thinks she deserves it or not, she wants someone to reassure her and tell her that things will get better, and maybe that’s okay.

And on a meta level, I just wanted to see Luzurial experience a level of peace after all her suffering, so it was a personal moment for me.  Granted, I suppose this entire story is a personal moment for me, but still, the H/C bits are particularly so.

Actually, I kind of feel like we inadvertently worked together to co-write a giant Hurt/Comfort fic.  You did a bang-up job on the hurt, so I only needed to go for the comfort.

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I’m looking forward to part two of nine (Kizzy’s looking forward to part Seven of Nine. F’ing trekkie.)

Off topic, but that is actually one of my favorite Trek characters.  They may only have hired Jeri Ryan for hotness, but at some point it obviously dawned upon the studio that she could ACT, and Seven ended up with a lot of great moments throughout the show (in my opinion, anyway).

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Kevin’s such a stand up guy. Sure he keeps noticing that the woman is hot, but he’s not doing what he’s doing to get her to fancy him, he’s doing it because she’s hugely traumatised and has nowhere else to go. He doesn’t want her suffering more.

That was something I always wanted in the story.  Kevin is, after all, an eighteen year old boy, with all the associated hormones, and Luzurial is, following on from your story, this kind of intense, preternatural beauty, deeply sensual without actually trying to be, so it’s natural for him to feel attracted to her, but I didn’t want him to come across like a creeper, so he accepts that yes, he thinks she’s hot, but then refocuses on trying to help her, because it’s just the right thing to do.  Kevin’s not an action hero (in spite of a scene or two in later chapters), but what he does have is a good heart.

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When I wrote a story over a decade ago and uploaded it to the internet I had certain expectations. That some readers would enjoy the sex and the violence, and that others would be angry and many, many more would not care. I never expected to get an email asking about writing a sequel and as the years went by after that email I certainly never really expected to hear anything about it. My original story would remain a stain on the internet and perhaps be used as an ironic punishment “how to” guide when I inevitably went to Hell. Then I received an email with a chunk of this part and Bam! Hooked in!

This has been kind of an incredible thing for me too.  I never expected that the answer to “Can I write a happy ending to your rapefic?” would be “Go for it, and show it to me when you’re done,” and that even after it took me so long to write it, that I’d finally be able to show it to you and have you actually like it!

Sometimes the internet is an amazing place.

Edited January 22, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[InBrightestDay]

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SCORPIO71425

I like it so far. Reads like one of those 'normal person meets supernatural creature and they move in together' animes.

Thanks!  Amusingly enough, I’ve learned just about enough Japanese to give it an anime title: Watashi no Atarashi Rumumeito wa Tenshi Desu

My Japanese grammar might not be perfect, but I think it’s pretty close.

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I'll take your word about the original story, not my cup of tea

Amusingly, it’s not really my cup of tea either, which is why this story exists in the first place.  Ten years ago, I read something by JayDee, a fanfic I’ve long since forgotten.  All I remember is that I realized it was going to be a Snuff fic and I backed out, but I also realized that I liked JayDee’s writing style, so I decided to look for a story where the female lead didn’t die.  I found Whore of Heaven, saw that it wasn’t Snuff, and figured that this meant that our female lead would suffer, but would ultimately be okay.  I grew up on Don Bluth movies, so I can take a lot of emotional torque and Nightmare Fuel as long as it ends well, so in I went, reassuring myself that Luzurial would be okay.

She...uh...she wasn’t okay.

So, feeling really, really, really sad for her, I ended up emailing JayDee and asking if I could write a follow-up where things got better for her.  He said go for it, and while it took me ten years, I finally got around to writing it, and here we are.

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as soon as you described her hip dislocation, plus the wound in her abdomen, i figured out exactly what happened to her. So good descriptions that allow the reader to make the connections without being super obvious about it.

I appreciate that you’re giving me that much credit, but don’t give me too much, because while the hip dislocation is never explicitly explained, by about Part Six, we do find out what caused that belly wound.

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Looking forward to the next chapter.

Thank you!  Keep an eye on the chapter tags.  As we get to later chapters (starting in about Part Three), we do start getting flashbacks to the events of the previous story, so things may start getting kind of unpleasant.  I assure you, though, that while I’m no Don Bluth, there is a happy ending beyond the scary and upsetting stuff.

Edited January 25, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[JayDee]

1 hour ago, InBrightestDay said:

Next up, without a doubt the longest review.

I keep reviews this length up, I’ll be writing more in them than I did in Whore of Heaven.

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And on a meta level, I just wanted to see Luzurial experience a level of peace after all her suffering, so it was a personal moment for me.  Granted, I suppose this entire story is a personal moment for me, but still, the H/C bits are particularly so.

Actually, I kind of feel like we inadvertently worked together to co-write a giant Hurt/Comfort fic.  You did a bang-up job on the hurt, so I only needed to go for the comfort.

The comforting works really well too. I mean, that little hand squeeze back… d’aww.

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Off topic, but that is actually one of my favorite Trek characters.  They may only have hired Jeri Ryan for hotness, but at some point it obviously dawned upon the studio that she could ACT, and Seven ended up with a lot of great moments throughout the show (in my opinion, anyway).

That episode where she has to act like the Doctor, (because in story his program was inside her implants I think it was) she nailed his mannerisms and expressions. That was some fantastic acting there.

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That was something I always wanted in the story.  Kevin is, after all, an eighteen year old boy, with all the associated hormones, and Luzurial is, following on from your story, this kind of intense, preternatural beauty, deeply sensual without actually trying to be, so it’s natural for him to feel attracted to her, but I didn’t want him to come across like a creeper, so he accepts that yes, he thinks she’s hot, but then refocuses on trying to help her, because it’s just the right thing to do.  Kevin’s not an action hero (in spite of a scene or two in later chapters), but what he does have is a good heart. 

And if I was writing the story somebody would pull it out and show it to him. Bwa ha ha ha! etc No, I kid, I kid. Maybe.

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This has been kind of an incredible thing for me too.  I never expected that the answer to “Can I write a happy ending to your rapefic?” would be “Go for it, and show it to me when you’re done,” and that even after it took me so long to write it, that I’d finally be able to show it to you and have you actually like it!

Sometimes the internet is an amazing place.

I’ve always said yes when anyone’s asked. How could I not like it? The quality of the writing is amazing! The story is great, simply brilliant. I was really happy to see you get a couple of other reviews straight off the bat too. Hopefully there will be many more to come if folks give it a chance.

I bet they’ll love the heck out of that incest fic too (and the Spider one!)

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Amusingly, it’s not really my cup of tea either, which is why this story exists in the first place.  Ten years ago, I read something by JayDee, a fanfic I’ve long since forgotten.  All I remember is that I realized it was going to be a Snuff fic and I backed out, but I also realized that I liked JayDee’s writing style, so I decided to look for a story where the female lead didn’t die.  I found Whore of Heaven, saw that it wasn’t Snuff, and figured that this meant that our female lead would suffer, but would ultimately be okay.  I grew up on Don Bluth movies, so I can take a lot of emotional torque and Nightmare Fuel as long as it ends well, so in I went, reassuring myself that Luzurial would be okay.

She...uh...she wasn’t okay.

So, feeling really, really, really sad for her, I ended up emailing JayDee and asking if I could write a follow-up where things got better for her.  He said go for it, and while it took me ten years, I finally got around to writing it, and here we are.

I kind of want to write a story called Something and make it a total WAFF piece and then people can say “I read something by JayDee and it was so waffy.”

I’m taking a compliment here - thanks for liking my writing style!

It’s so fucking great you got around to this, can’s stress that enough! I love it!

[BronxWench]

4 hours ago, JayDee said:

I kind of want to write a story called Something and make it a total WAFF piece and then people can say “I read something by JayDee and it was so waffy.”

I did it for the Holiday collection this year. If I did it, anyone can… 

[InBrightestDay]

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Thundercloud

I really like the flow when reading the beginning of this story. Getting world building in place without doing info dumping takes a lot of effort, but I think you succeeded quite well. I hope the rest of the story will keep the flow, but add more erotic parts.

Thanks for the review!  I’m glad the story is moving at a good pace for you so far, and hopefully I can keep it up.  Exposition is a difficult thing, and I tried to find places where characters could naturally end up bringing it up.  Chloe’s nervousness at possibly being in trouble with IA, which often prompts people to go motormouth, was one way to do that, and I tried to manage some similar situations in other chapters.

As for the erotic elements, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there’s not a lot of sex in this story.  There’s a slowly developing bond between Kevin and Luzurial, which does eventually pay off, but given what she’s been through, I felt like having anything happen early on would come across like him taking advantage of her.  There is also a scene in Part Three involving a minor character (notice the “Tent” tag on this story), but I’m not sure how well I managed to write it.

Again, thank you so much for your support thus far, and in spite of how light on sex the story generally is, I hope you continue to enjoy it!

[Thundercloud]

9 hours ago, InBrightestDay said:

As for the erotic elements, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there’s not a lot of sex in this story.  There’s a slowly developing bond between Kevin and Luzurial, which does eventually pay off, but given what she’s been through, I felt like having anything happen early on would come across like him taking advantage of her.  There is also a scene in Part Three involving a minor character (notice the “Tent” tag on this story), but I’m not sure how well I managed to write it.

Don’t worry about it. I was not expecting lots of sex and in many aspects the best erotic scenes are the ones when the story makes the sex count so to say.

[InBrightestDay]

Well, Part Two is up, and we have new reviews!
 

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JayDee

One tiny typo in the credit at the start “are own by JayDee”.

Fixed!  I swear, that’s what I get for posting the chapter as soon as I rolled out of bed.

To respond to something you said elsewhere, you needn’t worry; your “spoiler” reviews are not too spoilery.  If they were spoiling future chapters, then we’d have to talk.

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Calista’s a cool character too – that whole applied theology thing just makes sense in a post WoH world, and the way she explains some of the ‘what happened next’ fits in really well without seeming an exposition dump.

The funny thing is that she was originally supposed to be an English major, and then I realized that I had to introduce this whole new theology/magic hybrid discipline, and it would make things a lot easier to just have her majoring in that.  It also gave her a reason to get involved in the stuff that happens later on.

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The way you handle the humanity’s champion being responsible for the original defeat of Eparlegna, following the lines at the end of Whore of Heaven, I just love that multi-faith solution.

Well, you said a human champion bested him and his followers, but you never said the champion couldn’t have help!

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Also, she high fives an angel which is fun.

Yeah, I kind of chuckled at the idea of her doing that, since for the moment everyone is still treating Luzurial as just another person.  Had she been introduced to her as the Archangel Luzurial, Calista never would have done anything like that.

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Abdul’s guess that Luzurial is a decade or so over proves a little out – that dialogue with the 14... billion exchange is funny, but also kind of cool.

The fourteen billion exchange was one of my favorite things to write, especially Kevin’s “Billion?  Like...with a B?”  And yeah, I thought it was kind of cool to play up just how old an angel would be in a universe that is as old as science tells us this one is.

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Chloe’s so bad ass – as soon as she can she takes another shot right at Luzurial mid-sentence.

In these early chapters, I tried to write Chloe as someone who is both highly skilled and a little nervous, though the longer the story goes on the more she adjusts to the insanity going on here.  Her shooting Luzurial mid-sentence, in particular, is a mix of trying to save the world...and nerves.  This extradimensional being, which she still thinks may be dangerous, just started moving toward her, after all.  I also kind of chuckled when I wrote Luzurial’s reaction.  If a .49 caliber hypersonic round didn’t do more than bruise her, then a 9mm handgun round isn’t going to do anything.  The “Ow” is more out of a slight annoyance than any actual pain.

Edited January 29, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[InBrightestDay]

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InvidiaRed

Simply beautiful.

Its not very often when you are confronted with someone older than time and the current universe. Trapped in a statue for 75 years.

Thank you!  The age thing is partly my own religious beliefs and partly due to the mixture used in the story mine is a sequel to.  In JayDee’s story, there are references to the past that imply a literal reading of Genesis (the Tower of Babel is mentioned, as is the Flood), but there are also references to a scientific cosmology (the heat death of the universe is implied), so I tried to keep that up.  This lead to me using the scientific age of the universe (13.8 billion years) and then accounting for the fact that Luzurial (and therefore the rest of the angelic host) is stated to be older than spacetime, so I gave her an extra 200 million years, though as she says, it was difficult to count years back then.

Thanks again for the review!

[JayDee]

10 hours ago, InBrightestDay said:

Well, Part Two is up, and we have new reviews!
 

Fixed!  I swear, that’s what I get for posting the chapter as soon as I rolled out of bed.

To respond to something you said elsewhere, you needn’t worry; your “spoiler” reviews are not too spoilery.  If they were spoiling future chapters, then we’d have to talk.

Don’t worry I won’t talk about the karaoke night where Luzurial stuns everyone with a pitch perfect rendition of Iron Maiden’s Hallowed be thy name. Or the issues when the IRS turn up to discuss 75 years of back taxes owed for “Being one of those busking statue guys.” Or when Kevin asks her why she keeps killing birds and shouting about “75 years of goddamn crap, you feathery bastards!” Or anything about a dimension hopping succubus.

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The funny thing is that she was originally supposed to be an English major, and then I realized that I had to introduce this whole new theology/magic hybrid discipline, and it would make things a lot easier to just have her majoring in that.  It also gave her a reason to get involved in the stuff that happens later on.

Yeah I can see that the English Major version would possibly have proven less useful. If we assume that ‘evil born of Hell itself, and it's coming back’ from the summary comes back, being able to dash in and correct grammatical errors or quote a bit of Maya Angelou would perhaps prove less helpful than the whole applied theology gig. Especially as said evil might be quite happy about caged birds being unable to sing and cheerfully ready to give an example.

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Well, you said a human champion bested him and his followers, but you never said the champion couldn’t have help!

And to be fair, NPC path finding and combat has come on a bit since those- wait, nevermind, you didn’t take the computer game route. And absolutely, champions are often known for their band of true companions anyway. No doubt a big guy did some kind of heroic sacrifice just beforehand, and the champions’s old mentor probably died too, still kvetching about the mess the bad guy made.

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Yeah, I kind of chuckled at the idea of her doing that, since for the moment everyone is still treating Luzurial as just another person.  Had she been introduced to her as the Archangel Luzurial, Calista never would have done anything like that.

“It wasn’t the high five that got you sent to Hell. It was the ‘Down low… too slow!’ you followed it up with.”

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In these early chapters, I tried to write Chloe as someone who is both highly skilled and a little nervous, though the longer the story goes on the more she adjusts to the insanity going on here.  Her shooting Luzurial mid-sentence, in particular, is a mix of trying to save the world...and nerves.  This extradimensional being, which she still thinks may be dangerous, just started moving toward her, after all.  I also kind of chuckled when I wrote Luzurial’s reaction.  If a .49 caliber hypersonic round didn’t do more than bruise her, then a 9mm handgun round isn’t going to do anything.  The “Ow” is more out of a slight annoyance than any actual pain.

Another good thing that Calista was there to point out Luzurial couldn’t be a demon, because you’d be getting really bowel looseningly nervous if it was a demon, you know the aftermath of Whore of Heven, and both weapons hadn’t worked. Luckily no urgent extra request for brown uniform pants needed.

Edited January 29, 2019 by JayDee

[InBrightestDay]

8 hours ago, JayDee said:

Don’t worry I won’t talk about the karaoke night where Luzurial stuns everyone with a pitch perfect rendition of Iron Maiden’s Hallowed be thy name. Or the issues when the IRS turn up to discuss 75 years of back taxes owed for “Being one of those busking statue guys.” Or when Kevin asks her why she keeps killing birds and shouting about “75 years of goddamn crap, you feathery bastards!” Or anything about a dimension hopping succubus.

 Darn it, JayDee!  Now I’m going to have to completely rewrite Part Three!

[InBrightestDay]

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Sinfulwolf

A nice, almost beautiful, continuation of JayDee's story. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes. You took the reigns and ran real good with them, and I really like how the world's been sculpted as a result of what happened in the first tale. There's quite a bit of small little things that make it believable.

Thank you so much!  I basically wrote this as a form of therapy, so hearing that other people are enjoying it is always wonderful.

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Some small things that irked me, was more the militaristic side of things. Folks going in guns blazing and all that, just seems a bit tropey,

If by tropey you mean cliched, well, I have been known to write like that from time to time, and I’m sorry about that.

In-universe, the reason for the “shoot first” approach is down to two things.

First, Chloe’s team is basically the PPD’s version of a SWAT team, so she assumes that if Hobbs gave her the assignment, then violence is called for.

Second, in this universe, the last time an extradimensional creature showed up, it had preternatural powers and killed millions of people, so some of the guns blazing approach is due to fear of a repeat performance.

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and I thought for sure the PPD was going to be this stories villains for a bit.

Well, yes and no.  On the one hand, Chloe & Co. are genuinely good people, and what happened in this chapter was down to a misunderstanding.  On the other hand, the PPD is a law enforcement organization, and no law enforcement organization is free of corruption, especially when you’re dealing with something like demons…

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The other one was the 200 metre shot. With that mammoth gun. That's... really close. Remember that the longest sniper shot is at 3.5 km now, and 200 m is just so... easy to hit targets at. Don't know why there'd be any questioning of it. But that's pretty nitpicky.

You ready to hear a true but really dumb story?  I did research on what a long rifle shot would be, and originally that distance was way more than 200 meters, but then I realized that since all parties involved are on campus when this goes down, Gibbs probably wouldn’t be too far from his target, otherwise buildings and trees are going to get in the way.

Now this is where any reasonable author would cut the line entirely, but I, not thinking this through, just altered the range value and left it like that.

So yeah…

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Overall, very well written, nice cast of characters, and I'm interested in seeing where this goes in the future.

I’m updating weekly, so Part Three will be up on February 4.  You’re likely to run into more tropey stuff down the line, I’m afraid, but I do hope that the story continues to be enjoyable for you in spite of that!

Edited February 3, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[Sinfulwolf]

Heh, tropes are there cause they work right? Sometimes dancing along trope lines works, because not using them just doesn’t make sense. And I get the form of therapy, I often write to vent and get all the shit out onto the page. Certainly helps.

When it comes to the assault team, don’t worry, I full well knew they were the Tactical Unit for the PPD from the introduction in the office. I am, fairly familiar with how organizations like this operate. Which is why I initially raised an eyebrow to the charging in method. But, it makes sense in this case, considering precedent. 

Guess I’m just tired of having these groups always painted as the villain as a whole. It seems, cheap.

As to the range thing. Heh, fair nuff. 

Looking forward to Part 3. I do believe, from what I’ve seen, that I will enjoy what continues to come out.

[InBrightestDay]

11 hours ago, Sinfulwolf said:

And I get the form of therapy, I often write to vent and get all the shit out onto the page. Certainly helps.

 That’s actually not quite what I meant.  I think you might have read my Whore of Heaven reviews, and if you remember my Part Three review, then you’ll recall that when I read the story ten years ago, I got rather emotional and sad and felt incredibly bad for Luzurial.  I emailed JayDee and asked, basically, if I could write her a happy ending.

 I was aware that asking to do a happy ending to a dark torture/rape story would likely prompt some eye rolling, but I felt like it would make me feel a little better if there was some timeline, some completely non-canon chain of events where things got better for her.  That’s more what I meant by therapy.

Now I was not expecting that when I finally got around to writing the story and sent the first four or five chapters to JayDee, that the response would be “This is canon now, by the way.”

12 hours ago, Sinfulwolf said:

Guess I’m just tired of having these groups always painted as the villain as a whole. It seems, cheap.

I absolutely understand (the Evil Government Agency is kind of annoying to me as well) and the majority of the PPD are good people.

By the way, my phone’s autocomplete now recognizes Luzurial’s name.  I didn’t think I was typing that many posts on my phone, but apparently...

[JayDee]

15 minutes ago, InBrightestDay said:

Now I was not expecting that when I finally got around to writing the story and sent the first four or five chapters to JayDee, that the response would be “This is canon now, by the way.”

It’s a waaaaay better follow on than the heat death of the universe ending, so why not? Was pretty much my point of view. Gave me a chance to do some minor polishing on WoH anyway as well as the extended ending.

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You ready to hear a true but really dumb story?  I did research on what a long rifle shot would be, and originally that distance was way more than 200 meters, but then I realized that since all parties involved are on campus when this goes down, Gibbs probably wouldn’t be too far from his target, otherwise buildings and trees are going to get in the way.

Now this is where any reasonable author would cut the line entirely, but I, not thinking this through, just altered the range value and left it like that.

I don’t know shit about sniper ranges, and have a bit of blind spot with distances anyway, so I never even noticed anything was off while reading through!

[Sinfulwolf]

3 hours ago, InBrightestDay said:

 That’s actually not quite what I meant.  I think you might have read my Whore of Heaven reviews, and if you remember my Part Three review, then you’ll recall that when I read the story ten years ago, I got rather emotional and sad and felt incredibly bad for Luzurial.  I emailed JayDee and asked, basically, if I could write her a happy ending.

 I was aware that asking to do a happy ending to a dark torture/rape story would likely prompt some eye rolling, but I felt like it would make me feel a little better if there was some timeline, some completely non-canon chain of events where things got better for her.  That’s more what I meant by therapy.

Now I was not expecting that when I finally got around to writing the story and sent the first four or five chapters to JayDee, that the response would be “This is canon now, by the way.”

I absolutely understand (the Evil Government Agency is kind of annoying to me as well) and the majority of the PPD are good people.

By the way, my phone’s autocomplete now recognizes Luzurial’s name.  I didn’t think I was typing that many posts on my phone, but apparently...

Ahhh, fair enough. That makes sense too. Well, I’m glad to see a happier ending coming out of it, even if they journey won’t be easy (I don’t think it should be either, considering).

[InBrightestDay]

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Thundercloud

The good thing after reading chapter 2 is that I still love your remake on the WoH story and is looking forward to what kind of story you want to tell.

Sweet!  Glad this chapter didn’t drive you off in spite of its flaws.

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With that covered I must say that I found the second chapter weak on plot. The major event of the chapter is the confrontation with the PPD, but the way you set things up it you put their most heavy weapon in play as first thing and reveal her to be immune to their weapon and this kind of removes the tension from the scene IMHO.

That’s a fair criticism.  Originally, this was part of a larger segment, along with what is now Part Three.  As a result of breaking it off into its own section, this is now the shortest chapter in the story in terms of word count, and is only two scenes long.  I think where tension is concerned, the idea was that this might be tense for people who hadn’t read Whore of Heaven.  If you don’t know what Luzurial is, then even knowing about her regeneration from the hospital scene, you might expect the Gungnir to really hurt her (and it would have, had the bullets been inscribed properly), and her only getting bruised would be kind of a surprise.

The PPD aren’t really the antagonists of the story, and this was more of a misunderstanding and a way to show Chloe’s team in action.  Having said that, I’m sorry this wasn’t as fulfilling as it should have been.  The good news is that Part Three will be up on Monday and you’ll be able to see what this was originally attached to.

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I am also slightly annoyed by Kevin suddenly knowing that she has been hit with an anti tank weapon. Without spotting the sniper he can possibly tell what kind of weapon she was attacked with? How does they know this is the real PPD

Chloe’s dialogue mentioned a gauss rifle (“That gauss rifle cut an apotheosis in half two weeks ago, Gibbs!”), and I figured Kevin knows what that weapon is, but it was definitely somewhat unfair of me to assume that from that, Kevin would have been able to deduce that it was an anti-armor gauss rifle.  Sorry about that.

As for knowing that it’s the real PPD, that’s ultimately more of a matter of trust than of actually knowing.  Of course, they would have known if I had remembered to have Chloe flash a badge.

Something tells me that emoticon is going to see a lot more use as people point out mistakes I really should have noticed...

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On a minor notice I thought the word apotheosis means a character or something that is made divine. Seems very strange that they would use this about something they think is a demon. Maybe the English meaning of the word is different, but that use of the word jumped out at me.

Apotheosis means exactly what you described; they’re just not using it to refer to Luzurial.  From back in Part One:

Hobbs: “and then, of course, there was that hybrid thing two weeks ago.”

Chloe: “We call it an apotheosis, actually.  Serial killer made a pact with a demon, or an extradimensional hostile if you want to be more technical, resulting in enhanced strength and durability.”

So an apotheosis is a human granted preternatural powers by a demon (those two cops in Whore of Heaven, for instance).  Granted, they’re infernal powers rather than truly divine powers, but the term was as close as I could get.  No one is calling Luzurial an apotheosis, but rather Chloe is saying that if the Gungnir killed an apotheosis, it really should have done something more to her.

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Most important thing, despite the things mentioned in this review I still think this story is very wellwritten compared to most things out there.

Again, thank you for the review, and for sticking with the story.  Hopefully the next chapter will be less annoying.

Edited February 2, 2019 by InBrightestDay

[JayDee]

3 hours ago, InBrightestDay said:

 

As for knowing that it’s the real PPD, that’s ultimately more of a matter of trust than of actually knowing.  Of course, they would have known if I had remembered to have Chloe flash a badge.

Something tells me that emoticon is going to see a lot more use as people point out mistakes I really should have noticed...

Ya know if there’s stuff that really irks you, you can always go back in and edit it! Let Chloe flash that badge, fiddle any comments around sniping distance etc. It’s all allowed This ain’t literotica, just open up that control panel, click edit and away ya go. Maybe stick a note at the end saying you’ve edited it following a review with thanks etc.

A lot of the time stuff like that only occurs to me when someone else points it out too, which is why I rarely had any concrit reading the parts through or said “Hey, what about...” (though gotta say, since I missed mentioning it in the review, slipping in dilkash as a term of enderment in part 2 will definitely make less ‘where’d that come from?’ than there was when it first got used chapters later!)

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(those two cops in Whore of Heaven, for instance). 

Those officers fallen in the line of duty had names, Sir. Officer Shondra Jackson. Officer Molly MacPherson. #bluelivesmatter

(Wait… they did what? To an archangel? The MBP tag was needed? Murdered a fellow officer too? Didn’t put their share in the department donut fund? Get someone to chip those names off the memorial, Bob.)

 

Edited February 2, 2019 by JayDee

[Thundercloud]

19 hours ago, InBrightestDay said:

That’s a fair criticism.  Originally, this was part of a larger segment, along with what is now Part Three.  As a result of breaking it off into its own section, this is now the shortest chapter in the story in terms of word count, and is only two scenes long.  I think where tension is concerned, the idea was that this might be tense for people who hadn’t read Whore of Heaven.  If you don’t know what Luzurial is, then even knowing about her regeneration from the hospital scene, you might expect the Gungnir to really hurt her (and it would have, had the bullets been inscribed properly), and her only getting bruised would be kind of a surprise.

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

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

It could also be worth to mention that as I recall Whore of Heaven Luzurial takes quite many injuries as she is tortured and I had no expectation of her being immune to the Gungnir. What if Luzirial does not have active invulnerability but need to raise her magical defenses to hold off the attack. A scene where she senses something is wrong, tries to raise her magic protection but the Gungnir is so powerful that she is sent tumbling despite her magic protection would IMHO work great.

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The PPD aren’t really the antagonists of the story, and this was more of a misunderstanding and a way to show Chloe’s team in action.  Having said that, I’m sorry this wasn’t as fulfilling as it should have been.  The good news is that Part Three will be up on Monday and you’ll be able to see what this was originally attached to.

The players doesn’t know PPD are not the antagonists when reading this and that it all was a misunderstanding sound like a good chapter climax.

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Chloe’s dialogue mentioned a gauss rifle (“That gauss rifle cut an apotheosis in half two weeks ago, Gibbs!”), and I figured Kevin knows what that weapon is, but it was definitely somewhat unfair of me to assume that from that, Kevin would have been able to deduce that it was an anti-armor gauss rifle.  Sorry about that.

I think the rub is that I don’t understand why Keving would now this. Not aa big problem but something

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Apotheosis means exactly what you described; they’re just not using it to refer to Luzurial.  From back in Part One:

Hobbs: “and then, of course, there was that hybrid thing two weeks ago.”

Chloe: “We call it an apotheosis, actually.  Serial killer made a pact with a demon, or an extradimensional hostile if you want to be more technical, resulting in enhanced strength and durability.”

So an apotheosis is a human granted preternatural powers by a demon (those two cops in Whore of Heaven, for instance).  Granted, they’re infernal powers rather than truly divine powers, but the term was as close as I could get.  No one is calling Luzurial an apotheosis, but rather Chloe is saying that if the Gungnir killed an apotheosis, it really should have done something more to her.

I would probably have gone with “demon of Class A” is or something similar. Apothesis sounds very holy to me.

[InBrightestDay]

3 hours ago, Thundercloud said:

Possibly I might have been more on the edge if the PPD intended to injure her and capture her.

Actually, considering a statement made in Part Three about how nobody’s putting any money on enchanted bullets actually killing an extradimensional creature, it really doesn’t make sense that they’re trying to kill her.  I tweaked Chloe’s dialogue somewhat to make it clear that they’re merely attempting to disable her.  Hopefully you’re okay with me making that change; I don’t want you to feel like I’m invalidating your reviews.

3 hours ago, Thundercloud said:

It could also be worth to mention that as I recall Whore of Heaven Luzurial takes quite many injuries as she is tortured and I had no expectation of her being immune to the Gungnir. What if Luzirial does not have active invulnerability but need to raise her magical defenses to hold off the attack.

Oh, she definitely takes a lot of injury, to say the least, during the torture scene, but everything that hurts her is magical/demonic in nature.  Her wings are cut off with her own sword, which Eparlegna then turns into a whip to shred her back with.

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because it was formed from Luzurial’s own weapon each blow caused tremendous damage and terrible pain to her.

This implied to me that she was highly resistant to damage from mundane weapons.  In addition, the chains driven through her palms seemed able to do that because of Eparlegna having pulled/cut two of his own claws off and attached them.

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Eparlegna’s claws gave them the power they needed, and they pressed through inhuman skin and bone with painful ease.

In other places, her physical toughness is highlighted, for instance with the stone tentacles in Part One.
 

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The stone grip would have pulped human limbs.

…

Only the divinely created angelic flesh kept Luzurial’s limbs from so much as dislocating, though the strain was intense.

And in Part Three.

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Eparlegna waved his arm, and the tentacles retracted, leaving Luzurial bound only by the magic circle.  Her wrists were unmarked despite being so tightly gripped, for the Archangel’s physical durability was far above any human’s.

Given all of this, I figured it wasn’t so much a conscious magical shield-raising as it was the innate resilience of her angelic flesh, and the equal toughness of demonic flesh or some form of magic (like the power of Luzurial’s own weapon) was required to overcome it.

However, you did remind me of something.  Luzurial’s power appears tied to her will, which is the whole point of torturing and humiliating her in the original story (aside from the fact that Eparlegna just enjoys it): she becomes physically weaker as her mental and emotional state worsens.  I followed through on that for Part One of my story (she’s in a very bad state when Kevin finds her, which is why the surgeons are able to suture her wound, as her state allows a metal needle to be pushed through her otherwise way-too-tough skin, and why she regenerates more slowly).  I had kind of used that in this part.  She’s feeling better (she’s had a good night’s sleep and is receiving emotional support), so she’s tougher now and should be healing faster, though she’s not at full strength yet, which is the reason the bullet stings a little and the anti-tank round bruises her, but I think I’ll go back and add a little more damage.  Maybe the Gungnir round will fracture her collarbone in addition to the bruise.

3 hours ago, Thundercloud said:

I think the rub is that I don’t understand why Keving would now this.

This takes place in 2082, so some technology is different, and the new tech is in popular culture courtesy of in-universe movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc.  Coilguns/gauss rifles are not terribly well-known now (aside from science nerds), but I thought in 63 years they may be more well-known as the technology becomes more widespread.

3 hours ago, Thundercloud said:

I would probably have gone with “demon of Class A” is or something similar. Apothesis sounds very holy to me.

I don’t really want to use the word “demon” for anything that isn’t really a demon (especially since, as the summary indicated, we’re going to have an actual demon in the story soon).  I’d like to keep the term something that indicates that these are enhanced humans; people who have been changed into something more.  Do you think “augment” would work?  I know that’s a verb, but it’s also used as a noun in Star Trek to describe genetically augmented humans (like Khan).

Of course, if I use that, I start to feel like I’m ripping off Trek.

“Demi-fiend” also might work.

Actually, one last option could use the same wordplay as apotheosis.  Check this out: the word apotheosis comes from the Greek “apo” (from) and “theos” (god), which became “apotheoun” (to make a god of) and then apotheosis.  Well, “demon” comes from the Greek “daimon” and the Greek way of saying “demonize” would be “daimonopoioun” (similar to apotheoun), so maybe the demonic equivalent would be something like “daimonopoiosis”.

Granted, this doesn’t sound as cool as apotheosis...

Edited February 3, 2019 by InBrightestDay