After Party – InBrightestDay
Some spoilers here probably.
I’d seen an early draft of the first part of this a while back when InBrightestDay had the idea, and it was really cool to see it expanded out into a full story for Halloween. I don’t know why you were concerned about the theme or the tone! Takes place on Halloween? Check. Has a really creepy opening? Check Extremely supernatural character with inhuman eyes to further creep out readers? Also check! It’s also really well written like all the stuff you do, and tells an interesting little story of their evening with a few hints of things in the past – where Cody used to live, for example – that definitely whets the appetite for when you do a full multi-part story with the characters.
I think this is the first ever sex scene I’ve read between a spider-woman and, well, anything. It’s certainly a bit of a different fetish! The webbing bondage worked really well too. I especially enjoyed the way Cody was purposely trying to be firm near the start to distract Yua, and how she went along with the game. I do get that it is somewhat less creepy when the monster and the mate are clearly caring deeply for each other, but for folks who don’t like spiders much I’m sure that creep factor sticks throughout.
Other little things I liked
-The explanation of Yua’s diet over the previous couple years, which does show that she might seriously go after the girl if she was hungry and felt she had a good reason. How ‘bout those unlucky armed robbers, huh? I guess in this case it would be ‘web doctrine’ instead of ‘castle doctrine’
-The line about how Yua sends Cody off with a soft kiss and a gentle ruffling of his hair when he’s engaging with regular folks, which feels both sweet but also feels like it emphasises the sheer age difference between them. Yua actually joining him at the party makes me wonder how other party goers would react – but then I figured the folks who know him have probably seen them together in town at some point or other and just assume she’s a bit introverted.
-The introducing descriptions of the house where Cody seeing spider webs tells him he’s nearly back, and then the really evocative description of the place with the web about.
--Generally the revelation that the scene is a kind of game they’ve been playing and are getting into, (learning their BDSM games together but making sure there’s safety – the extra support webbing against strain, the safe word etc - but that Cody really likes his normal ‘human’ snuggles in bed -but asking to spend the night in the web was all warm fuzzies too.
-That Shannon seemed like a fun gal. Talking and flirting with Cody but totally accepting he was with someone!
Great little story.
The Halloween Pilot – PlagueClover
Warnings: M/M, Bondage, Rape, Violence, MiCD
Oh, yeah, that’s the good stuff!
This was dark, and it was gory, and I don’t know what the fuck they did to Elijah but I’m guessing it is that which earned the MiCD tag… and I loved it! As soon as there was the reveal of what Rowan was I laughed a little (I’m no stranger to the sex dwarf subgenre…) and his annoyance at being called a midget was both very real and funny.
Kinda had to imagine a Serbian Guy Fieri as the mayor of Fucktown.
Oh! The way that the crowd of club goers couldn’t get a grip on Rowan was also a really neat touch and I loved the ending too.
Death Always Wins by TCR
This was an awesome fic. I mean I loved all the chars but that dude in the suit was the awesomest. This was gorey and mischevous and all kinds of halloweeny fun. Well done.
What Nightmares May Come
Well, holy crap!
I love how much you built up the atmosphere here, and the imagery used for Amicia climbing the mountain of corpses was honestly kind of stomach-turning, especially, the way you describe the noises of her boots on the dead flesh and bones.
I also really want to point out this line:
Years of sorrow and hardship that had shaped the girl that fled into the woman that returned.
I know it's a small thing in the grand scope of the story, but I really like how that's written.
It took me a while to figure out what's actually happening here. At first I kind of thought this was a nightmare sequence (particularly given the title), but it seems more like this is a place where, for whatever reason, the realms of the living and the dead sort of overlap, and given what Amicia says about eventually joining her sister, maybe this is a sort of purgatory.
That entire sequence with Chloe, actually...I mean, with how Amicia has to convince her to move on to the afterlife, that was really sad and I honestly teared up a little reading it.
Immunda
Okay, time to be really pedantic: horseflies don't have mandibles (well, to be even more pedantic, they do, but the mandibles are part of the proboscis)
Moving on...
Well, it was inevitable, I suppose, that at least one of these stories was going to upset me, and this one did!
I think you did a really good job describing how the horror of the place works, how the citizens are all terrified pretty much all the time and it drives them into a sort of feral madness. The un-birthing scene at the end is pretty damn upsetting to read, and it was kind of stomach-churning imagining what is going to happen to Trias afterward and how gory that's going to get.
Guess it's a common idea to have a female paladin or cleric of some good deity or something like that be defeated and raped by dark forces, and this certainly plays out that basic plot well. It's also always just...really upsetting for me to read, I suppose.
Sorry I keep using that word.
Death Always Wins! – TCR
I really liked the descriptions of the different gods/entities. The ones I knew and the ones I didn’t. The split/plural form of Hades/Pluto seemed a really inventive take on it – and I enjoyed that wife sharing crack. Hel’s description too was just awesome, really evoking the old myth version, and the way she killed here is pretty hot. Uh… that’s the degenerate monster part of me speaking.
Mictlantecuhtli was one of the ones I didn’t know, but his whole attitude was really appealing. It was actually a shame Anubis wasn’t there – would have been fun to see your take on the dude in this setting.
The violence was well described – bloody and violent! Fun, fun fun.
Great story to start the year’s entries with!
Death Always Wins
This was a fun little idea! I love seeing all these deities from different mythologies interacting. It's cool how all the souls they're using as chips are tied to their respective cultures (Agamemnon and Paris for Pluto/Hades, Hitler's as close to a Norse bad guy as Hel can get, and Cortes is...well, let's just say him being reaped by an Aztec death god is pretty amusing).
It's also kind of an interesting idea that the Greek and Roman gods all have like Dissociative Identity Disorder now, as I'm assuming that what applies to Pluto/Hades would also apply to Jupiter/Zeus, Venus/Aphrodite, Mercury/Hermes, etc.
And of course, the action scene. I was really puzzled at first, since that little bit of domestic terrorism felt kind of random, but then you clarified that the death gods had their game here because this was going to happen: dinner and a show. Also, this is purely personal, but I love scenes where somebody picks on a defenseless victim only to discover that their target is not defenseless at all.
Final note, it was pretty funny to see Mictlantecuhtli (I can see why you shortened that to "Mic") go completely over the top on his kill, dancing around and demanding more blood. From what I know, the Aztecs did have a habit of getting a little...enthusiastic about stuff like that.
Death gods hanging out is something wonderful hahah. It's good to finally see more Hel.
The Halloween Pilot
Well this took a turn! I love stories about fey, especially ones like the Samodiva/Samovila that are somewhat less famous.
“The Dark Side of Fucktown.”
The kid grinned. “That’s so fucking stupid.”
I mean, he's not wrong...
Actually that title got funnier and funnier to me the more times I read it. I also love Rowan's whole reaction to Elijah's hipster look. This is a pretty short story, so the little bits of characterization before the creepy stuff happens were important and very well executed, in my opinion.
Another thing that struck me was the ambiguity of what was going on inside the club. On the one hand, the people tied to the crosses are potentially just in for some harmless BDSM, but on the other hand, with the presence of the fey... It really adds to the horror element, since I couldn't help wondering if the whole thing is an orgy in the creature's honor, in which case all those people are probably fine, or if it's some kind of elaborate human sacrifice.
Finally, the description of the Samovila was really cool. I like that you incorporated a lot of the mythological traits like the creature's association with fire, as well as making the feathered outfit Samodivas/Samovilas usually wear into a whole bird theme. From what I've read, they're usually depicted as female, though since this is an M/M story it would probably have been weird to see a female creature in the middle of a gay sex club, so I think the androgynous look was a good choice.
Overall, a short but quite effective horror piece!