Posted by Ty975 4 years ago Report

I’m gonna strangely miss waking up to a new chapter of this each morning. Taking the usual vore focus and shaping it around such a deep, thoughtful exploration of romance and the type of intimacy I think you know we all gravitate towards I this community was so gracefully handled, I don’t know how other stories are gonna hold a candle now that the new standard has been set. Not like I thought she’d ever actually get him down physically, but the way you managed to have her absolutely consume him with their love was probably the best way this could’ve ended. Thanks for your work l, mate. I’ll be eagerly looking forward to your next project

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Thank you! I think I will take a bit of a break before any other large projects, but of course as soon as there is free space in the brain, ideas always begin to swirl.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Lovely bookends!

I loved how lovingly accurate your rendition of the common discombobulated hubbub at a con, and how Claire's new perspective, from her new vantage point, highlights the atmosphere of artistic energy and acceptance there! Stepping into the realm of less-fiction for this story has allowed it a much more grounded, solid quality, and it has allowed you to channel your pertinent life experiences (and the insights on those!) more directly, to a great benefit to the audience, as well as possibly yourself.

I'd imagined the wrap up would take a bit longer, but that's my attachment to the story playing up (and also my anxiety and shame at not having turned in my typo hunt results yet), rather than a real indictment of the ending being hurried. It's all aptly bittersweet -- more sweet for the protagonists, a bit bitter for the reader who's in for a bit of a withdrawal; doubly apt for the final chapter to take place at a convention -- an event with long-standing reputation for inducing similar symptoms of separation ennui.

But back to the sweet aspect of it, seeing Claire so happily intertwined with Adam, both in the description of their house renovations, and their careers merging into one another (as they should, being so very complementary!) was a gallon of pure dopamine delivered right where it was expected; her being proven right in her leap of faith, and him having reciprocated the same leap, is powerfully pleasant, but it wouldn't have been half as potent without the intricate setting up over the course of the rest of the novel, so the whole big creature we've been watching in its development gets to finally flourish its gorgeous plumage one last time before taking flight. Glorious!

Thank you for giving Alison and Kim their due recompense as Claire's faithful wingwomen who would now have to take different flight paths!

The exchange on the public interest in little people, for the variety of definitions thereof, was a lovely little gem, with Adam gracefully accepting a mighty counterargument to his point, and his agent dying inside a little later!

The teaser about Adam and Claire's (and Faye's!) new cinematic project was nice personal flourish on your part! I'm sure the future projects will find a way to incorporate vampire and driders into the budding ClaireAdam Cinematic Universe, as well!

Congratulations on not only getting another large project under your belt, or on meeting the goals of your customized challenge, but also on forging such a spectacular framing to your take on an important subject! This has been one of your all-time bests, and more modern-feeling than even some of the futuristic sci-fi stories you've done!

Kudos to the first comment to this chapter for managing to capture my impressions so much more concisely and clearly, too!

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Adam actually developed out of the story they're planning to shoot as a film, in which he plays a down-list celebrity who gets pulled into Harry Potter-meets-the-Matrix-style adventure of which he is the cheeky sidekick, rather than the star.

Like so many of my failed side projects, I have to find some way to reference them as though they were completed, popular works. It soothes the soul.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Juicy, juicy trivia! Much obliged!

The rest of us get the same urge, but instead of (your definition of) "failed", it's "unstarted"!

There are all those undoubtedly brilliant "Republics Of" and "The Many Deaths Of" and "The Final Nights Of" slumbering away in the Time Tombs of your galleries, and anyone who's not plumbed those shadowy hallways wouldn't be able to tell your unfinished works from the merely well-hidden if they heard it described to them.

A better version of me would have scoured those vaults of forgotten unforgettables long ago, but lately I can only read fresh out of the oven works that allow me to commune with their creator -- that's *advanced* sense of consumer entitlement.

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

You are welcome to read them or not as you prefer! They are there for enjoyment, so if you enjoy recent things more, that's okay!

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Honestly, I had become enamored with your works in the time when both my tastes in literature, and my interest in the technical side of it, were significantly less mature, and the works I had built my impressions of you on were mostly the commissions for Miranda Arqayla's person, meaning straightforward indulgent furry fare (with your characteristic cleverness and artistry of writing serving as a signature special seasoning back then), and I was overlooking anything outside of that thematic bracket.

Presently, I've developed the appreciation for a more nuanced writing and character psychology needed to engage with your oldies, and the focus to take on the works that weren't bribing me with gratification, but at the same time my motivation threshold has grown very high, so only the coincidence of my affection for your past masterpieces, the new project being released (which would benefit from feedback more than the older works), and the aforementioned near-certain promise of engaging discussion (ensured by your professionalism and general civility). And even though I have increased my activity online and have been talking to people online more in general, providing my stalkery feedback accompaniment for your latest works was the same kind of creative life highlight for me as writing them must have been for you, proportionally.

I'd love to absorb everything else you've written more that I ever did (especially the short-ish "In Real Life", which seems like a thematic forerunner to "Online, I Am Like You" and this recent book), but it would require the same kind of morale muster as for any other involved reading sessions, but lacking the urgency of the real-time uploading, and feeling like I would be asking you recall the contents and the thought processes behind those projects out of turn, feeling mortifyingly guilty if you respond to my comments, and feeling like reviewing headstones at a cemetery if you don't.

(The way I'm justifying this over-sharing to myself is it might be helpful as a partial psychological portrait of your audience, not that you couldn't guess as much without that.)

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

One warning about In Real Life - I think you're right in placing it as a thematic forerunner, but it's also a bit... darker, I suppose. That might be a strange thing to write about a vore themed story. In my opinion many of the things I've written were considerably darker. But I think that it is thrust into a semi-reality perhaps made it it more uncomfortable for some readers.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Warned and ready, and a little bit intrigued, thank you!

While I leave no trace of my crimes, I've invented some shamefully disturbing scenarios of my own -- we will see if I'm as jaded and unflappable as I fancy myself being after I've read that story.

The conventional desire to make one's writing more lifelike can backfire horribly with darker themes; vore genre is basically stacks upon stacks of creative obfuscation on top of a rotten foundation, and there's no deconstructing it without eventually dropping into a dank basement full of black mold; you can set out writing a clever, crisply modernized take on the familiar lighthearted kinky sex setting, and realize at the last chapter that you've spent weeks enthusiastically coming up with convincing justifications for abuse and suicide, and the characters caught up in all that are no longer colorful, quirky tokens, but likable, relateable personalities - the kind whose fates can deeply move, and whose actions can inspire.

Posted by Sauvegarde 3 years ago Report

Thank for the ride :)

Posted by 4ofSwords 3 years ago Report

My pleasure! What did you think, overall. Did it hold your interest to the end, or was it more a matter of commitment to finishing what was started?

Posted by Sauvegarde 3 years ago Report

It's rather slow in the begining but it has enough nuggets of clever ideas to have me stay. That and self-aware characters.

The drama with Adam's family first, and the hot-dog incident later had me seriously hooked.

Despite these, I would say the story lacks tension. Adam's maid catching Ogress!Claire "cooking" Adam and freaking out, for example.

It would have helped put emphasis on the surreal side of the scene through the (relatively) innocent eyes of a passerby (that is, until you learn she has her own kinks, and comes back disguised as a police officer to "arrest" Claire-- Anyway.)

I mean, all your efforts to bring fantasy kicking and screaming into mundane life are kind of irrelevant if all involved parties take it for granted.

Posted by 4ofSwords 3 years ago Report

Totally makes sense. I appreciate it - thank you!