I checked chapter 9 of the story and found it to be a very worthwhile read. Your slumber-verse world is very much a case when the sum is greater than the individual parts. The interaction between the characters does not bring and great revalations about the characters but rounds them out nicely.
I am not really into Scooby Doo so I didn't understand the quote until I came to the end. On thee other hand I very much enjoyed the exchange about Shannon's car and what Lupa plands to do when she learns the details.
Speaking about the prompts it is obvious english is a language with lots of word...the prompts often leave me looking for a wordlist. In this case it was wattle that I am quite sure I never have scene before in an actual text. I tried to use wikipedia to find the swedish equivalent of the word and ends of on a wikipedia page for the same thing but realize I am equal stranger to one of the Swedish words for wattle. :-) At least I knew one of words...but thank your for pushing the boundaries of my word knowledge.
The ending of the chapter about a certain phrase connected to the image with flaming sword had my litterally break down in laugther just like characters. A great way to end the chapter.
This was really nice! We don't really see things from Kate's PoV much, so getting this whole chapter was great.
Of course...
Lupa held up open palms, "Can we not do the fucking vampire vs werewolf thing? I don't have Beckinsale's body for the catsuits and I don't want to get split like a wishbone if you're stronger than me… I'm so glad Shannon didn't hear me say that."
Lupa's vampire humor remains on point.
I actually forgot that Kate was supposed to be tall. It's kind of funny, especially with the joke about how nobody's clothes fit her. Even so, the fact that everyone else pitched in to assemble an outfit for her does reinforce the friendship these girls share.
"I was never a little girl. I have some childhood memories but they aren't mine, and Katie didn't go to church."
Wolfwere status confirmed!
Also, my favorite joke in literally the entire story...
"Hi, Shannon! I smelled your car with my wolf nose. That back seat has seen a lot of action huh?"
Lupa shuddered, "…have to burn these fucking clothes."
There is nothing I can add to that.
The Brian Blessed reference was both funny and touched on something I've thought about before as part of how Lupa would explain angels. Specifically, she could explain them as some sort of advanced extradimensional alien, so the hawkmen reference felt appropriate. Brian Blessed has to be the opposite of Kizzy in terms of personality, though.
Checked the new chapters 7 and 8 and I think the merge of the stories was a good idea. Having the events of Blood in the Hay together with the rest of the slumber party story gives a much easier reading order.
Chapter 7 gives more chance to get sense of the characters. One thing that left me curious was what kind of clothes Lupa is really wearing. Shannon reflects on this, but we are not given any details so I cannot keep wondering how she gets away with clothes totally covering her. I suppose it is not Buffy style blankets...
The exchange between Lupa and Shannon about her heavenily weapon was really good. The outcome was kind of given directly when we learn that Shannon had problem forming her weapon, but it was still a very good read. Lupas complaint afterward was pretty golden.
I checked chapter 8 and you obviously have to work hard to keep the NoSex tag in place considering what Shannon was planing to do off screen. I agree about keeping the tag in place since so many chapters without anything sexual happening would risk making the readers disappointed. On the other hand it would be nice if we get a PWP spinoff when we learn what Shannon did to the two sherifs.
I considered to make it a joint review with the review of chapter 7, but there is actually some real plot development her despite the flash fic format. This made me decide that it deserverd a review of its own. I like how you work hard to make Lupa have distinctive voice with her own language thrown into the dialouge.
The events happnening when they entered the barn was interesting. I am kind of surprised that Kizzy has not gotten involved in such bad stuff earlier. I have assumed she has been growing up as Kizzy, but maybe she did not have much field work before this?
As you mentioned, I saw a rough version of this, but there's some new stuff here I really like (and of course I liked the stuff I saw back in the rough version as well).
First, Shannon's declaration of what's going to happen is pretty hilarious, and Lupa's reaction only enhances it. The clothes-shifting visual is cool too, and feels like the kind of thing a succubus would naturally have access to. I do have to ask, though, given my limited grasp of Spanish:
“¡A la verga!” Lupa swore, “Your clothes!”
What does that mean?
Something you added for this final version that I liked was Shannon warning Kizzy not to touch anything. It's both a nice gesture as a friend and a way of foreshadowing what happens when she does use her powers in the barn.
The concept of the seraph reacting badly to all the death and pain in the barn is a great idea, and one that feels very natural, given how much of an alien being she really is. Her upset makes sense too, since she just went from "I understand suffering on an abstract level," past "I understand on a deeper level" to "I just experienced it."
Of course...
“She’s gotta know some suffering! She was an evangelical black Trekkie in a really fuckin’ white high school,” Lupa shot back.
That's still funny. It also reveals a nice aspect of Shannon's character, how even without their knowledge, she's been looking out for her friends.
Finally, I do have a question about this:
The Sheriff's truck was there, but she couldn’t see either officer. After a moment she heard a groan from inside the farmhouse. Not one of pain.
So, did Shannon run those two guys over to the farmhouse and have the quickest threesome in the world or something?
Chapters 5 & 6
Well, I see that by merging the stories you lost the reviews for Blood on the Hay as a separate story. So...I copy-pasted this!
Normally I plan to review multichapter stories one chapter at a time, but this was very short, so I figured I'd just do the one.
I enjoyed the slow build. At first, you can almost buy that Jeb is a normal guy who's just concerned about the girl he found in his barn, but we quickly realize that's not the case. The fun of that entire first chapter, really, is waiting for the inevitable to happen: how long will it take before Jeb discovers he's the prey and not the predator? I also like the hypocrisy a lot of people like this have. "Hey! I might have kidnapped, raped and possibly murdered people...but I'm not gay!"
The second chapter doesn't have much happening, but it's a nice little bit of world building, quickly establishing the situation the town is in as well as the characters of Mack and Sheriff Hanson. I also like the implication that the girls have become sort of a super team, given the implication that they worked together to find gather all the evidence the cops discovered at Jeb's house.
This isn't really part of the story, but for a moment when you were talking about the girls, I actually thought Lupa was the one who'd said a very loud grace ("Okay, fine, Kizzy, if it's what you want I'll say the most CHRISTIAN GRACE EVER."). Of course, then I realized that the vampire is obviously the one covering all her skin, so...whoops!
Chapter 7
I saw part of this in a rough form, but the expanded version is even better!
The interaction between Shannon and Lupa is great, in both the dramatic and comedic senses. Lupa's more than a little upset and Shannon just wants to cheer her up, and when standard comfort doesn't work, she tries another way! Shannon being Shannon, I'm not entirely sure whether she was aiming to make Lupa laugh or acctually trying to seduce her. Then again, maybe it was a win-win situation: if one of them doesn't work, the other one will!
Then the story about Heaven is absolutely hilarious, both because of this:
“Ok. Imagining it. Piles of harps. Some bad hombre like Hartman asking how high you shit.”
That made me grin, partly from the Hartman thing, but mostly just from the fact that of course Lupa would imagine harps playing in Heaven. I'm not entirely sure where the association between harps and angels came from, but it always amuses me.
“looking into those big brown eyes of hers was so… sexy. And she had a body like...”
Shannon’s hand gestures left neither listener in any doubt as to what she thought the Archangel was like.
I keep imagining her drawing an hourglass in the air or something.
I looked into Luzurial's eyes and felt the energy flow and my weapon formed. About 9 inches long, fairly thick, rounded tip, surface like soft leather, flaming gently ... Anyway, after a brief pause Luzurial explained I had created a club, a sap, used to render an opponent unconscious with less damage than a sword.
Okay, I got a good chuckle out of this, for two reasons. First, Shannon is apparently a fan of Saints Row. Second, it makes me wonder what Luzurial was thinking in that pause. Was that her sexual naivete, assuming that what Shannon had formed was a sap, or did she realize what Shannon had made and claimed it was a sap so as not to embarrass her in front of her fellow angels?
"Yes, that's a sap. Male angels, do not correct me on this."
I like the ambiguity of it.
I wasn't expecting to see this get another chapter, but I'm glad it did; the fourth chapter here adds a nice sense of resolution to the friends, and even answers a question I had but never asked about the first chapter.
That question, naturally, being whether Kizzy actually had parents, or if that was just an elaborate illusion for the benefit of the others. Speaking of her foster parents...
"Shondra isn't your Mom? Aw, she was pretty cool when she wasn't testifying at me. Used to talk about what a badass she was down in LA, before she met Jackie and found God.
Okay, assuming that's not a coincidence, then this universe's Shondra unknown-last-name, nee Jackson, is unknowingly caring for an angel, the very same angel that gave the order for the angel that the other Shondra...man, this is weird.
Actually, there's an extra layer of humor here, because Trekkie Kizurial is basically living with a Mirror Universe version of Shondra, and in classic Trek fashion, Mirror Shondra seems like she was some kind of super cop in LA before finding religion. Either that, or she was on the path to being more like Shondra Prime before she found religion.
Also, this is completely random, but I love the fact that Kizzy's family has a pet iguana.
"Friends don't send friends to Hell!"
That may be the only joke in this chapter, but I laughed really hard.
Something else I liked was the exploration of the character motivations, especially for Lupa, with the motive she told herself she had, along with the self-destructive motive she actually had.
Shannon gets to do some deep thinking as well.
I fell long before I had the chance to serve as they do in the mortal realm. I heard my old patrol partner became the Angel of Conception. I wonder if I’d have worked with her in some way? Could there have been something in my nature of aid to mortal reproduction? I’ll never know.”
On the one hand, this did kind of make me laugh a little (Lailah, the Angel of Conception, and Chastia, the Angel of What Comes Before Conception), but it is also kind of a somber moment, with Shannon wondering about the life she could have had.
Finally, the use of the Wrath of Khan quote is brilliant. It's somewhat funny, but it also shows the relationship between the two characters. Shannon knows Kizzy well enough to make a Trek reference, but beyond that, she knows her well enough to know that that particular reference will likely get through to her, to communicate to her perfectly what Shannon is trying to say.
This story is with the fourth chapter really two different stories mixed into one. Actual slumber party is one story while what happens to a certain character in chapter 3 after he leaves the others might follow directly in time but would be considered a spin off it was a movie. It also seems it also been kind of retconned since it fits rather well the other stories JayDee has rewritten recently and also gives one of the better explanations of the parallell worlds so far. I have been really confused by the continuity for some some time and after reading this it made much more sense.
The good news is that chapter 4 actually return to the actual slumber party and gives a more reasonable closure to the story than chapter 2 gave. This story is pretty much the thing that connect many of JayDees greatest stories plot wise and is in my opinion a good read even though there is no sex in this background story.
As a final comment...great way to use the quote from Spock. It made me smile.