Thread: Passing Strange

She's standing in front of the full-length mirror with her back to me, exactly like Neener was when I saw her. She's dabbing at her face with one hand and in the other she holds a small jar or paint pot of some kind. Her movements are a bit frantic, like she's working off some serious anger or frustration. Dabbing, dabbing..

I've never been this close to her. In the mirror I can see her eyes, though they're not directed toward me - they're focused on her own reflection. And they're as beautiful as Neener's. Huge - and green.

But I can't quite understand what I'm seeing.

Why does her entire face look white?

She sets the jar down on the dresser and opens another one beside it - there are several there. She wipes her white-smeared fingers off on a cloth and dips into the new jar, comes out crimson. Her fingers come up to her face - cover her mouth and smear roughly across as if she's wiping something off her face. Or onto it...

It's makeup! Not normal cosmetic makeup, but thick face paint like clowns wear. Like greasepaint. What the hell is she doing... has she lost her mind?

She isn't being careful or methodical at all - her hand seems to be trembling and she swipes it almost viciously across her face, leaving a ragged red smear over her mouth and covering much of her lower face. Then with a quick dab she places a red dot on the end of her nose. Like a clown. Or like war paint perhaps.

Actually what I'm reminded of is Serafiend's bloodied face after she half devoured the harpies.

She sets down this jar next to the first, wipes her hands off again, and suddenly she grasps the front of her dress and rips open the entire bodice. Now she has my full attention.

Both hands dig deeply into the first paint pot - the white one - and emerge with big gobs of paint that she slaps against her naked flesh and smears down her torso.

No - I've got to get my racing thoughts under control - can't let myself be entranced again. And I'm staring. I shake my head briefly and suddenly there's swift movement beside me. Something pinkish-white leaping toward me from a high shelf - I flinch away and try to bring up the sword, but the suddenness of the attack shocks me into clumsiness - my hand strikes dully against the doorframe and I drop the katana.

Dammit!!! If I had kept my wits about me..

It's a small white rat or large mouse, flying at me with all its little pink talons extended to shred my face.

It lands on my shoulder and I knock it off with a convulsive swipe. But in the instant it takes to do that Saffron launches herself at me, both hands spread in a gesture all too similar to that of her little pet, and made even more so by the white greasepaint covering them. Her hands rake clawlike at my face and she shrieks savagely as she bears me backwards off-balance with surprising strength and ferocity.

I manage to twist sideways in an attempt to throw her off but it only results in both of us tumbling onto the red velvet divan. Yes - the same one. The one where Neener seduced me and defeated me. The irony is not lost. This is playing out like a grotesque parody of that earlier encounter.

I'm holding Saffron's wrists, trying to keep her from raking my eyes out, but suddenly she stops struggling - relaxes and sits back.

And smiles.

Oh this is not good..

Suddenly she rises with impossible fluidity.

"You're the one who was trying so hard to see my legs.. "

Damn - she remembers! That was way back at the sausage feast when I had first seen her play her Discordion. DeMonica had laughed at me for it. But I wasn't the only one... I swear all the men present were looking - something about the mystery of the long dress with multiple layers and the way she was dancing - spinning and spinning..

She laughs - it's as if she can read my mind. Maybe she can - I get the feeling most of these women I've been encountering here can.

The front of her skirt comes up suddenly as if thrown by something inside. And this time it's not other layers of satin I see underneath - all the layers are thrown up at once.

Revealing a nightmare.

A cluster of spider legs with a grinning leering spider head right in the middle. Not black like her minions, or black and grey striped like the warriors she spawned this morning, but a pale beige so pale it's almost white.

She's still smiling - with her human head - a rather insane smile - the kind of smile I imagine Lizzy Borden might have smiled as she chopped her parents to bits. The pair of foremost legs are holding the skirts up and the rest are moving restlessly - keeping up an impatient but uncannily graceful dance like the legs of impossibly slender ballerinas - always en pointe.

She drifts forward as if on oiled bearings - leans down and places her hands on my face - smearing it with the white greasepaint while at the same time holding my face caressingly as if for a kiss. Then she flows right up onto me, all her spider legs churning fluidly in the shadowed recesses of her skirts and the grotesque little spider head snapping its wickedly hooked mandibles repeatedly.

Frozen in terror I cross my hands convulsively over my crotch. At the same moment I feel her human lips press against my cheek and the spider's sharp jaws pierce again and again into the flesh of my hands. Venom! Poison.. burning numbness spreading like icewater through my hands and up my arms..

Without thinking I head-butt her hard right in the face, knocking her off me. She tumbles back onto the bed, but never takes her eyes off me and never stops smiling that crazy smile - even though there's a trickle of blood running from her mouth now.

The gypsy dress is thrown up over her torso to completely reveal the mass of writhing spider legs - I can even see where they join the human torso, and it's not a crude acid-melted seam like where the minions are conjoined spider to human - she seems to have grown organically this way. Or perhaps transformed herself magically. I wonder for a moment which one is really in charge - woman or spider.

But there's little time for idle conjecture as she heaves herself up again and comes at me in a rush. I leap up from the divan and stumble into the living room where I immediately trip over the katana - I suppose I'm lucky I didn't cut a foot off. The way things are going it wouldn't surprise me a bit.

I grab at the katana as I lurch clumsily back to my feet, pick it up - but my hands are already too numb to handle it. They might as well be boxing gloves at this point. Before I can even fumble the sword into a defensive position she's attacking again.

That's when DeMonica kicks down the apartment door and bursts in with both swords at the ready to rescue me yet again.

She shoots me a quick look of exasperation as she advances on Saffron, who now crouches uncertainly - dress still thrown up around her waist and held aloft by the 2 foremost legs and little gargoylish spider head hissing and snapping agitatedly at both me and DeMonica.

The katana falls numbly from my hands, which I notice compulsively return to covering my crotch. It feels very vulnerable right now. I know I haven't mentioned it for some time because it was becoming repetitive, but yes, I'm still flying at full mast and suffering excruciating agony from it. And my treatment at Neener's hands - er make that feet - didn't help matters any. And yes - it was just as bad the entire time I was a kitten.

It's unfair that I'm in this state and surrounded by so many sexy females. It makes me too vulnerable - easy prey. Is this some kind of cruel joke? Or a crazy nightmare...

Wait - how could I not have made the connection before??!

Of course! Lucidity - if we're able to achieve lucidity now (which obviously Puffin and O are!) - then this is all a dream!!

I'm not sure what that means though - I mean, I suppose when I wake up it will be like none of it mattered, but right now I still feel the intensive need to protect myself. Thinking back, I've never had much luck with lucidity myself, and I doubt I'll be able to change that just now. But I should definitely look into it once things calm down a bit.

As for right now, things are decidedly not calm. Well, ok, DeMonica is proving me wrong - she just quite sedately pokes her rapier right through Saffron's chest. Wow - really? That was so simple! And unlike Neener, Saffron is bleeding. Rather profusely, all down her white-painted torso and flooding over the hissing spider head like a syrupy red waterfall.

Saffron's human head begins to lose the crazy smile that's been plastered in place all this time. It's a bit hard to tell because of the shapeless smear of red paint over her mouth, but I can see the tension seep from her face and the gleam fade from her amazing green eyes. She looks down, swallows once, lifts an arm and gently holds the sword blade as if it's the arm of a lover, and then begins to slump forward slowly.

The spider head goes into an insane fit of spastic side-to-side motions - I can't tell if it feels the pain through some shared nervous system or if it's just desperately trying to escape a similar fate. But then the tangle of stalklike legs trembles and collapses and saffron thumps to the floor as if kneeling - strangely held upright still by DeMonica's embedded sword. Perhaps her last thought is a final prayer to Discord.

I lift a foot and start stomping as hard as I can on that vile little spider head. I don't know exactly how many times, but somewhere I lose count and get lost in a sort of groaning scream of released terror and anger and revulsion all rolled up in one. I go a little crazy for a few seconds there and don't come out of it until DeMonica is pulling me away from the morbid sight. The only thing I remember clearly is the sickening way the head felt as it burst like a small pumpkin under my foot. God, that feeling will haunt me - that and the horrible way Saffron' face just went slack as the life seeped from her. I shudder briefly and uncontrollably once, and then DeMonica is pulling me out through the smashed door.

She had wiped off her sword on one of Saffron's sofa cushions and sheathed it while I was out of it - I sort of remember that like it was a dream - heh, a dream within a dream. In the corridor we step around ScurvySeaMutt's body. The poor guy - he saved my life and lost his in the process. I need to bury him properly when this is over and make him a fitting tombstone.

Suddenly there's a quiet *pop* and he's human - human and shirtless and sitting on the floor. There's no blood - it all disappeared when he changed.

"Saltyseedog!" I shout, stunned at his instantaneous resurrection. He seems none the worse for wear - just slightly dazed. DeMonica helps him to his feet (I would have, but my hands feel just like two balloons.. ) and he gives us an enigmatic look.

"People are a fucking crock of shit." he says and walks off. Yep - same old Salty!

DeMonica and I blink at each other for a moment and start to smile - then the same thought strikes us both in the same instant. We both spin and look back at the shattered remains of Saffron's door - er, make that Sassafrax's door... damn! The fact that I remember her now means she just changed too!! Saffron would come just before Scurvy alphabetically.

We run back into the apartment - but she's gone. No blood, no splattered white ichor where I smashed the grotesque little nightmare head (though thankfully those substances are also gone from my shoes and pants now). DeMonica bolts toward the one door that remains unsmashed and smashes it down. Must be the bathroom. I follow to find an open window with a curtain billowing out into the howling wind and roiling darkness of the tornado field where the din and clash of battle resound. I peer outside and look both ways, but she's nowhere to be seen.

25

Nina

Nina: Wait - so Sassafrax has a heart and I don't? AND she got cool spider legs? Not fair.

Nina strides with that amazingly smooth graceful walk (which is the result of charm school training, and not due to any arachnid limbs) across the Royal Bedchambers and up to the little dresser next to the closet from whence King Diddy had emerged back in chapter 9 (or whatever it was - too lazy to check right now). Incidentally the red velvet curtain had been carefully rehung.

She gazes for a moment at her reflection in the ornate mirror, picks up a cut crystal bottle of perfume with a little squeeze-bulb sprayer and mists herself briefly with it. It's been a hellacious day and a queen can't afford to give off any odors that remind her subjects she has armpits just like they do.

A tiny movement behind her catches her eye in the mirror - but what was it? By the time she looked it had stopped and now all is still. There's a sudden snapping sound as of a very strong rubber band and all in an instant the perfume bottle shatters into fragments in an explosion of perfume vapors. She drops the remains in a moment of shock as her mouth falls open and she begins to feel the perfume soaking through her dress - most of it had dropped right onto her.

Now the red velvet curtain is yanked down off its rod and falls into a pile just as it had been yesterday after her cowardly husband's escape.

That was it! The curtain - that's what had moved. It was closed at first, and it opened just slightly just before the bottle exploded.

And standing there revealed in the closet is Omnis Dei - the God King once again, not the poor emasculated whelp she had so carefully made of him over the last few years. He stands tall and proud again like he did when she first met him. That potent masculinity is what she had found so attractive about him - and once she had taken him in marriage and shown him who was boss in the bedroom she had felt the need to gradually destroy it. The memory brings a twisted smile.

He steps out - unhurried - at his leisure. Holding a wrist rocket type slingshot. Damn, he's really got it all back now! No cowering, no looking down. Of course she had allowed him to retain a certain air of majesty in public - it wouldn't do for the king to look weak - it would reflect poorly on her. But in private she had cowed him completely. It was a shame she had also lost all respect for him at the same time. But that's the game. There are winners and there are losers.


"I always hated that perfume." He says, taking another step toward her.

Her smile grows, twists into a wicked grin.

"I know. Why do you think I always wore it?"

He shakes his head. Damn, he actually seems to feel pity for her. The bastard... who the fuck does he think he is? She is not to be pitied. And he's actually pulling it off - doing it with authority. The way he used to. The first faint stirrings of desire begin in her loins. Fuck that - she refuses to acknowledge it. He's still her bitch dammit.

He coughs and waves a hand in front of his face - damn, this shit really does reek when there's a half a quart of it spilled all at once! It's hard to fucking breathe! That's the only reason her breath had caught in her throat..

He steps right up next to her - damn he has the aura again! But he can't see the goosebumps he's raising - they're hidden under the dress. She continues to glare levelly at him.

He opens the bottom drawer. Fuck - HER dresser! He hasn't had this kind of nerve for years!! She can't repress a nervous swallow. His hand digs through her silken underthings - comes out with a small leather sack.

"I knew this is where you kept them. I knew! And you had me so fucking cowed I didn't dare do a damn thing about it. Fuck it pisses me off!" He opens the sack and pulls out the crumpled cellophane-wrapped pack of cigarillos that he used to love to smoke - that she had taken away from him. That had been the second stage of his degradation. The first took place in her bed.

He pulls the pack of matches from inside the cellophane, yanks one off and strikes it, shakes out a cigarillo and puffs it alight against his stubbly jaw. His eyes are slitted - dangerous. Fuck - this is more masculine than she's ever seen him before! Suddenly she can't deny the yearning anymore..

And he steps back and flicks the still-lit match into the pool of perfume at her feet.

She goes up instantly like dry tinder that's been soaked in lighter fluid. Essentially that's what she is.

She runs to the shallow pool in the center of the vast bedchamber - flames roaring as her speed feeds them with fresh oxygen, and she flings herself in a smooth swan dive into it - graceful right to the bitter end. It's entirely too late when she realizes he's already drained the water. The hose is still laying in the pool, one end draped out the french doors into the courtyard outside. He must have arrived some time ago and begun to siphon it out.

Fuck!

Her flaming body collapses against the beautifully tiled floor of the pool, with all the decorative images of gods and goddesses and satyrs and nymphs cavorting. And she screams long and agonizingly as she becomes a charred corpse.

Omnis Dei just stands and watches, puffing clouds of acrid smoke all the while and smiling pleasantly.

26

Climax

"Yeah, it was a totally epic battle." I say. "DeMonica told me about it - tornadoes everywhere, lightning and thunder, Puffin smashing the shit out of them with that hammer, and O blasting them with energy beams and slicing them to bits with his sword. And Omnis played his accordion and pacified the creatures, made them all calm and shit, and they were able to demolish them all. Wish I could have seen it!"

Zha_Zha smiles dazzlingly at me. Damn I've missed her energy and warmth! A smile from her is like bathing in sunshine.

DeMonica had delivered me over to her for treatment while she joined in the mopping-up operation - there are still a few straggling minions and warriors lurking here and there in secret nooks and crannies.

"You poor thing!"

She steps up and takes both of my hands in hers, examines them. They're a mix of purple black and blue with a few other colors stirred in, all swollen and shit. It's a shame my hands are so numb I can't feel hers.

"Here - you sit down, and I'll fix you right up!" She says, easing me down onto the couch. She turns and walks into the bathroom - it's quite a treat to watch her walk away. A sigh rises unbidden from my chest.

She returns in a moment with three or four tubes of antibiotic ointment.

"DeMonica told me about your little problem... the OTHER one - not your hands. She said it almost broke her heart when everybody got healed except for you. This stuff will take the sting out and let the healing begin!"

I lift my hands and look at them doubtfully.

"Yeah, that's a problem, I know. You can't do it." Her smile grows even warmer - I didn't think it was possible.

"You just relax and let Zha-Zha take care of things for a while - you've been through enough. And you can tell me all about it. But first let's get you all fixed up."

She looks briefly at her own hands, shakes her head sadly. "I work hard in the kitchen, cooking and scrubbing all day. My hands are callused and hard. What you need is some nice soft skin to soothe away the hurt while applying the ointment."

Now the smile becomes a bit saucy. "Have you ever played horsie?"

She turns around to reveal her back to me, criss-crossed with the lacings of her corset.

"Undo me


DeeryTheDeer: Alright I can't take it anymore. Stop stop stop. That's enough of this crap.

What the fuck! Why you blockin' me??!!

DeeryTheDeer: Blocking what? Dude come on - it's only a story! You DO understand that, right? A big fucking fantasy for you - with all the girls you like from DV changed into whatever form you want...

Come on, let me finish! It's almost done now - just a little bit more..

DeeryTheDeer: Oh please! Let me finish! Just a little bit more! Haha! Sounds like I caught you just in time!


No, it's not gonna be like that - there's nothing explicit - it's all very tastefully done. I was about to tactfully cut away from this scene, maybe out into the corridor where we hear a long loud series of groans and cries that could be either pain or pleasure - maybe a bit of both... and then the trial scene. I want to end with a trial like at the end of Alice in Wonderland..

DeeryTheDeer: This is your trial jack!

No - a trial for Neener and Saffron..

DeeryTheDeer: It's YOUR trial motherfucker - Nina and Sassafrax didn't do a damn thing wrong! YOU'RE the author here - you made them do everything they did. Does Sassafrax even KNOW you're writing about her?

Aw come on - you're spoiling all the fun!! Get out of my story!

DeeryTheDeer: Nope. I'm not one of your characters. You don't control me. I'll type whatever the hell I damn well please in here! See if you can stop me!! And if you try to delete a single word of it I'll PM Nina.

!@%#$^$#!%@!!!! Fuck.

DeeryTheDeer: Male chauvinist asshole.

Waitwat? Why?! Is it so wrong that men have sexual fantasies? You know what - fuck this. It's my story dammit. I'm gonna write it my way.

I've never felt better in my life. My hands are still swollen and bruised horribly, but they're numb and don't actually hurt - and for the first time since this story started my groin is not hurting - in fact quite the opposite. A pleasant tingling is washing over my entire body from that area.

Zhaylin is in the kitchen clattering some dishes around - fixing a nice meal for my recovery. I've found Alien on the plasma screen and there's an ice cold beer making a wet ring on the table next to me.

The door opens quietly and DeeryTheDeer walks in wearing nothing but a smile...

It is done. My labors are completed. Now I sleep.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

It is done. My labors are completed. Now I sleep.

And a well-deserved rest it is. Remarkable work, man. Enjoyed every moment of it. :bravo:

I DEMAND A MOVIE.

^ Haha - me too!! Directed by Peter Jackson maybe? With effects by WETA. Yeah.. I can see it now... (cue imaginary movie montage).

But hey - amazing news!! I downloaded some freeware that does a page count, and I now have this to say:



(Irony alert - I wrote about half of this during November.. )



Yep. It's official! Anything between 50,000 and 110,000 words is considered a novel. Most publishers apparently want something around 70,000 words for an author's first novel. And P S clocks in at a whopping 71,255. After final editing I imagine it will grow somewhat.

*whew*

I'll probably take a little break before tackling the editing. Though there are a couple of brief insert scenes and partial scenes I'd like to scribble up real soon. Some stuff I forgot to add in.

I'd also like to reminisce here on what the experience of writing my first novel was like - it was different from anything else I've done. I've finished a few short stories before - mostly crappy ones around high school age that I wouldn't care for anybody to see. Never even thought about writing a novel (actually I still haven't - if I ever thought about it that way it would have been too daunting). I can break it down into 3 distinct stages -

Beginning - Inspiration. Excitement. Wide open possibilities spreading into all possible directions. It could turn into anything from this point. Motivation is high.

Middle - Still inspired. Still exciting, though not exhilarating like in the beginning. All those possibilities have been narrowed down to just a few. Tapering to somewhat of a trudge toward the end of this period.

End - Running on sheer endurance now. And if you're lucky support and gentle nudging from friends online. No more possibilities left - you've now narrowed it down to exactly the story it is. Still occasional moments of inspiration popping up now and then. Moments of excitement when you're able to write big payoff scenes that you set up earlier, or when something unexpected occurs. A mounting sense of relief as you feel the end of the monumental task approaching.

At least that was my experience here - it might be different depending on the project (and the writer).

It's also really true what people sy about an artistic project being like a baby you conceive, give birth to and raise and then turn it free to go its own way in the world. I've known this for a long time, but it was more true here than with anything I've done before, probably because this is the biggest project I've completed.

So many ideas going into it - some of them got discarded, some changed, some I simply forgot about or screwed up in some way. I was going to have DeMonica be a warrior-poet and quote some of Dianeva's beautifully morbid poetry, but it never happened. I was also going to have Omnis keep misusing words to comical effect - nope. I just never found the right place to do either. It probably would have complicated things - not only by making the story a bit longer and possibly slowing down the flow of the plot, but because it would add another facet to their characters that I would then have to develop and explore further. A few things just spontaneously happened mainly because of accidents of wording as I wrote, and slightly altered the course of the story. So that in the end it didn't come out to be exactly the story I envisioned. It's like a child who becomes rebellious and refuses to do some of what you want, but grows into a wonderful person anyway that you can be proud of.

Wow ok, I need to stop now. I'm getting a bit carried away. Next thing you knwo Ill be throwing it a graduation party and buying it a car..

The main thrust of the story really grew from the following posts:

From Seroquel's Marry, have sex with, and kill someone from DV thread:

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Marry: Stormcrow
Sex: Xei
Kill: Raspberry (she gets too much love)

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Don't kill Raspberry until everybody who wants to has had a go at her. There's quite a line. Plus - are you sure you want to kill Seroquel's wife?

As for me -

Marry - Zhaylin to save her from her fucked up life

Sex - Zhaylin so she doesn't kill me

Kill - myself because Zhaylin's life is too fucked up

From Ninja's Do, date, marry thread:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Do: Dianeva. I want to be looking into those blue eyes when I bust. Oh yeah, I said it.

Date: Nina and hope I get lucky

Marry: Zhaylin for reasons already stated on another thread (and just because she's a real sweetheart)

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

hahah- don't rush me. I'm still thinkin'

Darkmatters You're getting real high on my list however with all your flattery

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

Okay, okay lol

Do: Ninja
Date: Raspberry
Marry: Darkmatters

Now I wish I had saved those posts and referred to them more carefully - I should have used a few more wishes, like for instance HeavySleeper wanted to Kill Seroquel. Would have made a good scene. I might even write it in when I do the edit. I did kind of abandon Sleeper there, sleeping in the field, didn't I? I was going to have him rise up because he couldn't sleep with all the tornadic activity and come sweeping in and help kill off spiderthings so he can get his treasure.

Could have had DeMonica kill Raspberry. I sort of forgot about her character too as soon as she lost her Victoria's Secret wings. I need to look at those threads some more - I'll bet I can find a few more goodies to include.

But basically I structured the main body of the story around the fact that I said I wanted to do Dianeva but she never mentioned me - ergo my character is in lust which she doesn't return, though she does like him (you know - the old "as a friend" routine blah). And since I wooed Zhaylin and won her heart - I said I'd marry her and after some coaxing she agreed to marry me as well - well, that part pretty well wrote itself. I was going to include Stormcrow - in fact he was going to be the original Scarecrow character - and that's what sparked the whole idea of us being like the Wizard of Oz crew - but he stopped posting and apparently left the board. So by default Xei became the scarecrow, and it worked because his profile pic kind of makes him LOOK like one lol!

Damn this post took forever to make!!!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I did kind of abandon Sleeper there, sleeping in the field, didn't I?

Damn right you did, bitch! How anyone can forget a giant sleeping dragon is beyond me. I kid though, I enjoyed the ending.

Even though I wasn't there to see it.

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

Damn right you did, bitch! How anyone can forget a giant sleeping dragon is beyond me. I kid though, I enjoyed the ending.

Well, it IS easier to forget a dragon when it's sleeping..

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

Even though I wasn't there to see it.

This is the funny part - NOBODY was really there to see the end. The climactic battle anyway. Lol - I bypassed it entirely and just had my character describe it to Zha_Zha as almost an afterthought!! Even though the chapter is called Climax. Which means the real climax is..

Ahem. Ok, this is where the story really unravels. I wanted it to be like the way some dreams start to fall apart as you're waking up - you know how you can be having a clear, vivid, awesome dream and as you start to wake up things get all weird - like characters become cartoonish or the environment fades out or something. I also wanted it to be like the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the story unravels in the same way... suddenly there are modern Bobbies intruding in what's supposed to be a medieval story, camera crews and directors and extras are seen standing around, the movie production is shut down as everyone gets arrested...

And at this point the story becomes a dialogue between me and Deery, each supporting opposing views of its ethics. Neither view is completely right or wrong, they're just two different viewpoints. Lol also, hurriedly slapping a "The End" tag on was my (authorial) character's way of rather childishly trying to get the last word in before she responds. I get the feeling the dialogue itself went on, with my character plugging his ears and saying "Lalalalala... " While she continued to harangue him, and he imagining her into increasingly undignified scenarios.

I do regret that I never actually wrote out the final battle, and I think I'll do it and insert it. Or maybe I'll write it and see if it works... I do like the boldness of skipping right over it as the story structure itself is revealed to be nothing more than a fantasy that's unraveling now.. Heh, maybe I'll write it up as a "deleted scene".

I also have an idea for a subplot that I might try to add in, though that could be too much. It would however solve the problem of forgetting about Raspberry's character after she became human.

The rest of the story is great! I'm sorry about not reading the last 8 or so story postings until now due to procrastination. I tried to read them a few times while drunk, but that didn't really work out. I really liked it and I'll have to read it again someday, after you've gotten all of the edits in. Some scenes near the end were hilarious, especially the ones with Deery. I liked the way Nina died, I don't know what it was about it, it just seemed perfect. And it was nice to see your character finally get his relief. Something weird is that I didn't realise until she transformed back that Saffron Axe was Sassafrax. It seems obvious now, I don't know why it never occurred to me before.

It's strange how those two date threads influenced the story so much. I was so close to mentioning tommo in it, honestly, and decided not to only because he hadn't mentioned me in his post and I didn't want to look pathetic . Maybe he would have ended up being more than a spider minion who died right away. Then I was thinking of posting in the do/date/marry thread but decided not to because of other awkwardness-related issues.

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Like who was the woman in the beginning, and what did she want you not to forget? But all in all it was a great story. I sincerely thank you for making me such a big part of it. I was happy even to be included in the short disembodied dialog near the beginning and thought my part was over, so the fact that I was one of the main characters just felt fucking amazing, so thanks.

Anybody else keep checking their Subscribed Threads, hoping to see this thread come up with more story??

(@ Dianeva)
Wow, thank you! What an awesome post!

Lol I'd just like to point out - my character was ABOUT to get his relief, when suddenly Deery intruded from outside the story world and ended things abruptly. Then the last scene I wrote - after her little harangue - was my narrator/author character's final, desperate last-ditch effort to once again gain control over his story, which she had usurped. It was implied in that final scene that he had got his relief/healing, but somehow I see that last scene as something that didn't so much actually happen as more like a hurried and forced fantasy that the author/narrator character tacked on.

In one sense the whole story was like a dream that was breaking up at the end like dreams do when you're waking up (I think I said that already) and so that last scene was like when you've woken and want desperately to go back in and finish the dream, so you lay there halfway between waking and sleeping and sort of fantasize/daydream the ending you want. That's why the last scene was markedly different from the rest in that my character had (supposedly already) gotten his sexual healing and is about to get some more action - from the very character who he's unable to control and who keeps intruding at the most inopportune moments. It's his attempt to take the power back and turn the tables on her, and if you notice it's a very chauvinistic scene... in the afterglow I'm lounging in front of the TV with a beer, a woman is in the kitchen cooking for me, and I'm about to get laid again (would that even be possible so soon?). So the whole scene is sort of his way of saying "Oh yeah? Oh yeah.... well, well then I'll just do THIS! HAH! I WIN!" And then abruptly slapping a The End tag on before Deery can respond. I'm not sure any of this really came across at all clearly.

The woman at the beginning - Reality Babe, was Reality Girl, Mayflow's alter-ego. I was going to have her appear just before the end again to bracket the entire story between her appearances, but somehow I had lost all respect for Mayflow by then (and banned her in several incarnations).

Lol I know, I feel bad about poor Tommo! But then it's funnier to do the outrageous and unexpected than to be nice. But then, at some point he must have made a *pop* sound and sprung back to life good as new, just like everybody else. I wanted to have a scene where this happens on the filed of battle - littered with mangled corpses of spider-things that start going off like popcorn and walking away a bit dazed but none the worse for wear. Heh - I had a bit of a start though when I realized Nina's death scene happened AFTER she had popped back to her real self - so does that mean she died for reals? But THEN I realized that, since the whole reveal at the end is the fact that the entire story is really just a story being written on a message board (if that makes any sense) then nobody died at all.

I think the funniest thing about it all is that I labored the point (in comments) that I needed to make my character find a backbone and have his character arc - find the power to stand up to these evil seductresses, and it seems like it's happening (in the scene where he slapped you around), but then in the end he's still a weak kitten before Sassafrax and fails completely to stand up to her, requiring you to once again steadfastly come to the rescue. So yeah - for much of the story your character was mean to mine in certain ways, but she always came through when it counted and she was the real hero of the piece.

This is a trip - never having written such a long or involved story before I never realized that they can be analyzed like a dream. Hmm - not too sure I really want to think too deeply about what it all means..

Originally Posted by Oneironaut Zero

Anybody else keep checking their Subscribed Threads, hoping to see this thread come up with more story??

Haha!! I do!!

Seriously, in a way I really miss this world, and wish I could go on writing it forever. But in another sense I'm glad to be done with it. It seriously jump-started my stalled creativity and toward the beginning it made me feel literally better than I have for a long time (since I learned my mom was dying a few years ago). I feel like it's brought me back to life creatively.

And now I'm working on my film. I plan to attack it with the same 'get something done every day' attitude that allowed me to WRITE A FUCKING NOVEL!!!!

But who knows - maybe a se(ro)quel one day. Passing Strange Revisited.. ?

Well, even if none follows, this one was great as it is. And I agree with Dianeva; I thought Neener's death was great. I love how cool and collected King Diddy was when he setting her ablaze - after being so frail and questionable, throughout the story. And there is just something about diving into an empty pool to try and douse yourself, that is just plain hilarious.

Oops - things I didn't respond to:

Originally Posted by Dianeva

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Like who was the woman in the beginning, and what did she want you not to forget? But all in all it was a great story. I sincerely thank you for making me such a big part of it. I was happy even to be included in the short disembodied dialog near the beginning and thought my part was over, so the fact that I was one of the main characters just felt fucking amazing, so thanks.

What Reality Babe wanted me to remember is exactly what had happened in the Coal Cellar with me and my sister when we were little kids, which turned out to be finding the dead kitten and burying it under a pile of coal so nobody would ever find it. And of course that memory allowed Omnis to figure out where his Anima/soul was hidden.

Even before you ended up becoming a main character you would have played some part in the ending like Deery did. Originally I was going to have a trial scene at the end which was supposed to be for Nina and Sassafrax, but you and Deery were going to put me as an author on trial instead, as prosecutors. But I like the more compact ending with a very impromptu and informal 'trial' better (the trial just being Deery bitching me out basically).

I don't think there will be a sequel - I was considering maybe a very short story that would be very different in tone, or possibly just more like an afterword like a "Where are they now" sort of thing. One of the main reasons I'd want to do it is to include a Drunken DeMonica scene... Lol that would quite honestly be the most intense part of the whole story! I might have to work a scene like that into the re-edit.

Damn. This is amazing.

God, I love this story. Your writing reminds me somewhat of a friend of mine's writing. It's descriptive, yet not overly so. It says what needs to be said by the most vivid means necessary.

Keep it up!

Thank you!

I used to spend a lot more time on descriptions, but I notice now I tend to keep them to one sentence only for the most part. I'm rather surprised at my newfound ability to compress description and yet keep it pretty strong I think, and not interrupt the action.