Everybody knows the feeling of making plans for some time in the future and then being full of regret when it came to actually fulfilling said plans.
That was how I felt when some of the demons grabbed me for a party and forced me to celebrate.
I told them the previous night that we could celebrate the next day, and they were intent on holding me to my word after we finished work for the day. Two demons, both short with red bodies and small wings to keep them hovering in the air, were apparently already intoxicated by something as they grabbed onto my arms and dragged me toward the center of the camp where some extra space was cleared out.
Upon reaching the center, Thad saw them dragging me along and waved his arms at them to scare them off.
“Thanks,” I told Thad, probably sounding pretty out of it at that point. The pain I felt in my head spread throughout most of my body. No matter how hot it was during the day, considering we were in a volcanic region with a lake of lava next to us, I still got the chills every now and then and couldn’t stop my hands and legs from shaking. Though, I did my best to hide it and was fairly sure that I managed to go through the day without anybody noticing.
Or if they did notice, they kept quiet.
“Don’t be afraid to shout at them,” Thad told me. “Imps. Mischievous little fiends. They love nothing more than to cause trouble and pull others into their schemes. Good news is that they only wanted to pull you over to the festival here.”
“Festival?” I asked. “I thought we were just having a little celebration?”
“Hah! What, you expect us to drink some booze and talk around a fire or something? Please, we’re demons! If we’re going to celebrate, we’re going to have a damned good time doing it!”
I had to admit… I wasn’t good with parties. Or festivals. Or any other sort of large celebration with lots of noise and people, honestly.
I might have been raised by one of the manliest Americans to ever exist and did my best to learn how to be confident, but I always envisioned myself living in the middle of nowhere off the grid with nothing but a solid internet connection to keep me happy. Well, with a wife and maybe a kid or two. But that was it. I was never interested in things like parties or festivals. Or carnivals. The only good thing about carnivals was all the deep-fried food.
There was nothing more American than deep-frying everything we could get our hands on. Well, other than freedom and guns.
Even deep-fried guns were a thing.
As for the festival itself, it was pretty simple which made sense since they had to work with what few materials we had around the place. Some extra torches were set up, there was a large fire at the center with some demons linking arms and dancing around it, and a trio of women were singing to a small audience. The kind of song they were singing was… nice. It actually made me think of an acapella version of my favorite song from Earth. “Zombie” by The Cranberries.
It sounded like the meaning of the song was somewhat similar, too. Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to avoid war, I doubted that I’d be able to.
At least lives weren’t truly at stake even if the people fighting in the battles were real.
“Like it?” Thad asked, giving my back a pat. “Haven’t heard that song in a long while. The girls asked Enna earlier if they could sing it tonight. She looked pretty nervous about giving them permission, but she said you wouldn’t say no.”
“What’s the problem with it?”
“It’s a song of rebellion. They’re singing about some kids who thought it’d be a good idea to try and inspire others to rise up against Lucifer.”
I was too tired to correct him on it being Lucy.
“The kids started a pretty big movement. Made it big on the news and everything. Rallied everybody sympathetic to their cause up and marched on Lucifer’s tower. They only planned on protesting, but peace broke down quickly. It became an all-out brawl between the protestors and the city’s guards. By the time it was over, most of the protestors were dead and the kids were spared… only so that they could be publicly executed by Lucifer himself after making some grand speech about how all those lives would have been spared if they wouldn’t have fallen victim to some kids’ unrealistic ideals. Found out some years later that the whole thing was a trap from the beginning. He purposely let them and their ideas get popular, and even ordered the media to help them out. The plan was to get all the most devoted to their ideas—the biggest dreamers, to gather in one place and then wipe them out. It was orchestrated to crush hope. Remove the most dangerous elements to his society and crush the dreams of anybody else thinking about following in their footsteps live on TV.”
“What happened when people found out?”
“Nothing. They knew there was nothing they could do. What could they do? The closest thing to change within centuries was controlled from the start and used against those who believed in it. Deep down, I think everybody suspected that of being the case even before the prince leaked it. Nobody was surprised when it went from being a theory to confirmed. All it did was make them feel even more hopeless.”
“Given that they were rising up against somebody who is basically a god from what I know, I’m impressed they tried at all.”
“Nobody likes to be ruled by a king who sees himself as better than everybody else. Even kings with the powers of gods can’t dominate the desire for freedom.”
“That’s the most American thing I’ve heard any of you say. I like it.”
“Hah! I’m glad.”
The trio of singers finished their song and moved onto the next. The next song sounded much happier and more upbeat.
“Any meaning behind this one?” I asked.
“Nah. This is just some popular song that was big on the radio a few years ago,” Thad explained.
“Never would have thought that I’d hear demons talk about songs that are popular on the radio in Hell.”
“Where do you think you humans got it from?”
“You telling me that our ideas of pop culture come from Hell?”
“Members of the divine planes aren’t supposed to visit unclaimed worlds… but some folk sneak in every now and then to have some fun. I think one of them even became a pretty popular singer a few years back on your world. Made it on the news in Hell when she got found out.”
There was something incredibly fitting about knowing our pop culture was influenced by literal demons from Hell.
Ace_Arriande So, I got a review on RR praising the story but criticizing the characters (mainly the women for being unrealistic), and it made me think of something and I decided to ramble about it. I'll go ahead and copy-paste that here in a spoiler in case anybody is curious about reading my random rambling!
SpoilerThanks to QueenInRags for the new review! Honestly, even though it did kind of insult my characters, the review made me laugh, and it's still a positive one, so I'm still thankful for it xD. Plus it's not like I can't see where you're coming from in regard to characters. Reality is often stranger than fiction, so experiences and characters that are realistic based off my real experiences are often going to be seen as unrealistic in fiction.
Also, time for me to ramble about something that it made me think of. I'll put that in a spoiler box though just because it's really not important at all and is more like random, related thoughs. It's not meant to be a defense of myself and my writing or anything, by the way. Just random thoughts I've had months before that I thought I would share here again since I've been reminded of them! The tl;dr of it though is basically: fiction has to be more realistic than reality for most people.
SpoilerSo, when I first started posting this story to Patreon, I actually had some readers point out that the romance felt a bit rushed and unrealistic which is something that they never picked up from my other stories, and that surprised me. After a bit of introspection and self-analysis and all that stuff, I realized that I probably have romantic experiences that most people would consider unrealistic or rushed.
1. I've never dated a girl who I have known for more than 48 hours before dating her. Every single girl I've dated, including in my long-term relationships, has been met and asked out within 48 hours. Usually within the first 8 or so hours. I just never saw the point in waiting longer. I immediately know if I like somebody and don't want to waste time. I've never met a girl who I wasn't romantically interested in, gotten to know her better, and then started to like her. All of my romantic interest has always been there from first sight more or less. And I don't mean ask out as in "hey wanna go on a date?" I mean, "Hey, be my girlfriend."
2. I only date girls with my same sense of humor and goals. That means, within a week, we're usually discussing and half-joking around about having kids, moving in, getting married, and all that stuff. Also fetishes. I'm usually treating my girlfriends like a pet and calling her good girl and stuff within hours of actually dating, if not calling her that before we even start. I'm a pretty good judge of character, too. I have never once called a girl that who wasn't very receptive to it. Thankfully. It would have been real awkward if I did call somebody that who didn't like it.
3. I'm actually spending most of this weekend preparing the apartment because my girlfriend, who I've only been dating for almost 2 months, is moving in with me in a week. We've also basically already made plans to get married once the relationship is a year old, plan on eventually having kids, etc. On that note, I'm actually moving even slower than my mum moved with her relationships. She married my dad after only dating for 4 months! I also grew up near a very heavily Jewish community and knew a lot of people in it. Trust me, those guys move even faster in relationships than I do. They're all getting married within months and then staying together for decades afterward.
Anyways, all of this is to basically say that, by my honest, genuine standards, every single one of the relationships I've written in my stories moves excruciatingly slow compared to my real life experiences with every relationship I've been in. So, it's always kind of funny to me when I get people who say that they're unrealistic or too fast. Because, if anything, they're too slow to me. I've also known many girls who act like so stereotypically anime that I 100% know for a fact nobody would believe them as a character if I wrote them into one of my stories.
But I do understand that I'm outside of the norm and that a lot of people would call my experiences crazy and too rushed, probably. Different strokes for different folk and all. I can also personally vouch for knowing girls who have personalities similar to every female (and male) character I've ever written, but it's not like I can easily prove that or anything.
Anyways part two! Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend myself or debunk the review or anything. I 100% understand why somebody who hasn't had the same experiences as me would feel that way about my characters. Reality is often stranger than fiction, after all. People have higher standards for realism in fiction than they do in reality. Just because something is realistic to me in reality doesn't mean that it's going to pass as realistic in a fictional story. Fiction isn't reality, it's what people think is reality. Fictional stories have to make more sense than the real world does. It's very silly when you think about it. For example, even though we all saw the 2016 election happen, people would still accuse a story of being unrealistic if you wrote that into it.
Anyways, part three, I just find it amusing on a personal level how my experiences give me the exact opposite opinion and felt like rambling about it because I just woke up and thought it would be fun to write about, but it's probably just TMI. I actually had this entire rambling on my Discord server months ago, but I thought I would have it again here because why not? I hope you enjoyed my random rambling. Feel free to share any experiences you might have had in real life that, if you were to write it into a story, people would call it out for being unrealistic!
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Everybody knows the feeling of making plans for some time in the future and then being full of regret when it came to actually fulfilling said plans.
That was how I felt when some of the demons grabbed me for a party and forced me to celebrate.
I told them the previous night that we could celebrate the next day, and they were intent on holding me to my word after we finished work for the day. Two demons, both short with red bodies and small wings to keep them hovering in the air, were apparently already intoxicated by something as they grabbed onto my arms and dragged me toward the center of the camp where some extra space was cleared out.
Upon reaching the center, Thad saw them dragging me along and waved his arms at them to scare them off.
“Thanks,” I told Thad, probably sounding pretty out of it at that point. The pain I felt in my head spread throughout most of my body. No matter how hot it was during the day, considering we were in a volcanic region with a lake of lava next to us, I still got the chills every now and then and couldn’t stop my hands and legs from shaking. Though, I did my best to hide it and was fairly sure that I managed to go through the day without anybody noticing.
Or if they did notice, they kept quiet.
“Don’t be afraid to shout at them,” Thad told me. “Imps. Mischievous little fiends. They love nothing more than to cause trouble and pull others into their schemes. Good news is that they only wanted to pull you over to the festival here.”
“Festival?” I asked. “I thought we were just having a little celebration?”
“Hah! What, you expect us to drink some booze and talk around a fire or something? Please, we’re demons! If we’re going to celebrate, we’re going to have a damned good time doing it!”
I had to admit… I wasn’t good with parties. Or festivals. Or any other sort of large celebration with lots of noise and people, honestly.
I might have been raised by one of the manliest Americans to ever exist and did my best to learn how to be confident, but I always envisioned myself living in the middle of nowhere off the grid with nothing but a solid internet connection to keep me happy. Well, with a wife and maybe a kid or two. But that was it. I was never interested in things like parties or festivals. Or carnivals. The only good thing about carnivals was all the deep-fried food.
There was nothing more American than deep-frying everything we could get our hands on. Well, other than freedom and guns.
Even deep-fried guns were a thing.
As for the festival itself, it was pretty simple which made sense since they had to work with what few materials we had around the place. Some extra torches were set up, there was a large fire at the center with some demons linking arms and dancing around it, and a trio of women were singing to a small audience. The kind of song they were singing was… nice. It actually made me think of an acapella version of my favorite song from Earth. “Zombie” by The Cranberries.
It sounded like the meaning of the song was somewhat similar, too. Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to avoid war, I doubted that I’d be able to.
At least lives weren’t truly at stake even if the people fighting in the battles were real.
“Like it?” Thad asked, giving my back a pat. “Haven’t heard that song in a long while. The girls asked Enna earlier if they could sing it tonight. She looked pretty nervous about giving them permission, but she said you wouldn’t say no.”
“What’s the problem with it?”
“It’s a song of rebellion. They’re singing about some kids who thought it’d be a good idea to try and inspire others to rise up against Lucifer.”
I was too tired to correct him on it being Lucy.
“The kids started a pretty big movement. Made it big on the news and everything. Rallied everybody sympathetic to their cause up and marched on Lucifer’s tower. They only planned on protesting, but peace broke down quickly. It became an all-out brawl between the protestors and the city’s guards. By the time it was over, most of the protestors were dead and the kids were spared… only so that they could be publicly executed by Lucifer himself after making some grand speech about how all those lives would have been spared if they wouldn’t have fallen victim to some kids’ unrealistic ideals. Found out some years later that the whole thing was a trap from the beginning. He purposely let them and their ideas get popular, and even ordered the media to help them out. The plan was to get all the most devoted to their ideas—the biggest dreamers, to gather in one place and then wipe them out. It was orchestrated to crush hope. Remove the most dangerous elements to his society and crush the dreams of anybody else thinking about following in their footsteps live on TV.”
“What happened when people found out?”
“Nothing. They knew there was nothing they could do. What could they do? The closest thing to change within centuries was controlled from the start and used against those who believed in it. Deep down, I think everybody suspected that of being the case even before the prince leaked it. Nobody was surprised when it went from being a theory to confirmed. All it did was make them feel even more hopeless.”
“Given that they were rising up against somebody who is basically a god from what I know, I’m impressed they tried at all.”
“Nobody likes to be ruled by a king who sees himself as better than everybody else. Even kings with the powers of gods can’t dominate the desire for freedom.”
“That’s the most American thing I’ve heard any of you say. I like it.”
“Hah! I’m glad.”
The trio of singers finished their song and moved onto the next. The next song sounded much happier and more upbeat.
“Any meaning behind this one?” I asked.
“Nah. This is just some popular song that was big on the radio a few years ago,” Thad explained.
“Never would have thought that I’d hear demons talk about songs that are popular on the radio in Hell.”
“Where do you think you humans got it from?”
“You telling me that our ideas of pop culture come from Hell?”
“Members of the divine planes aren’t supposed to visit unclaimed worlds… but some folk sneak in every now and then to have some fun. I think one of them even became a pretty popular singer a few years back on your world. Made it on the news in Hell when she got found out.”
There was something incredibly fitting about knowing our pop culture was influenced by literal demons from Hell.
Ace_Arriande So, I got a review on RR praising the story but criticizing the characters (mainly the women for being unrealistic), and it made me think of something and I decided to ramble about it. I'll go ahead and copy-paste that here in a spoiler in case anybody is curious about reading my random rambling!
SpoilerThanks to QueenInRags for the new review! Honestly, even though it did kind of insult my characters, the review made me laugh, and it's still a positive one, so I'm still thankful for it xD. Plus it's not like I can't see where you're coming from in regard to characters. Reality is often stranger than fiction, so experiences and characters that are realistic based off my real experiences are often going to be seen as unrealistic in fiction.
Also, time for me to ramble about something that it made me think of. I'll put that in a spoiler box though just because it's really not important at all and is more like random, related thoughs. It's not meant to be a defense of myself and my writing or anything, by the way. Just random thoughts I've had months before that I thought I would share here again since I've been reminded of them! The tl;dr of it though is basically: fiction has to be more realistic than reality for most people.
SpoilerSo, when I first started posting this story to Patreon, I actually had some readers point out that the romance felt a bit rushed and unrealistic which is something that they never picked up from my other stories, and that surprised me. After a bit of introspection and self-analysis and all that stuff, I realized that I probably have romantic experiences that most people would consider unrealistic or rushed.
1. I've never dated a girl who I have known for more than 48 hours before dating her. Every single girl I've dated, including in my long-term relationships, has been met and asked out within 48 hours. Usually within the first 8 or so hours. I just never saw the point in waiting longer. I immediately know if I like somebody and don't want to waste time. I've never met a girl who I wasn't romantically interested in, gotten to know her better, and then started to like her. All of my romantic interest has always been there from first sight more or less. And I don't mean ask out as in "hey wanna go on a date?" I mean, "Hey, be my girlfriend."
2. I only date girls with my same sense of humor and goals. That means, within a week, we're usually discussing and half-joking around about having kids, moving in, getting married, and all that stuff. Also fetishes. I'm usually treating my girlfriends like a pet and calling her good girl and stuff within hours of actually dating, if not calling her that before we even start. I'm a pretty good judge of character, too. I have never once called a girl that who wasn't very receptive to it. Thankfully. It would have been real awkward if I did call somebody that who didn't like it.
3. I'm actually spending most of this weekend preparing the apartment because my girlfriend, who I've only been dating for almost 2 months, is moving in with me in a week. We've also basically already made plans to get married once the relationship is a year old, plan on eventually having kids, etc. On that note, I'm actually moving even slower than my mum moved with her relationships. She married my dad after only dating for 4 months! I also grew up near a very heavily Jewish community and knew a lot of people in it. Trust me, those guys move even faster in relationships than I do. They're all getting married within months and then staying together for decades afterward.
Anyways, all of this is to basically say that, by my honest, genuine standards, every single one of the relationships I've written in my stories moves excruciatingly slow compared to my real life experiences with every relationship I've been in. So, it's always kind of funny to me when I get people who say that they're unrealistic or too fast. Because, if anything, they're too slow to me. I've also known many girls who act like so stereotypically anime that I 100% know for a fact nobody would believe them as a character if I wrote them into one of my stories.
But I do understand that I'm outside of the norm and that a lot of people would call my experiences crazy and too rushed, probably. Different strokes for different folk and all. I can also personally vouch for knowing girls who have personalities similar to every female (and male) character I've ever written, but it's not like I can easily prove that or anything.
Anyways part two! Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend myself or debunk the review or anything. I 100% understand why somebody who hasn't had the same experiences as me would feel that way about my characters. Reality is often stranger than fiction, after all. People have higher standards for realism in fiction than they do in reality. Just because something is realistic to me in reality doesn't mean that it's going to pass as realistic in a fictional story. Fiction isn't reality, it's what people think is reality. Fictional stories have to make more sense than the real world does. It's very silly when you think about it. For example, even though we all saw the 2016 election happen, people would still accuse a story of being unrealistic if you wrote that into it.
Anyways, part three, I just find it amusing on a personal level how my experiences give me the exact opposite opinion and felt like rambling about it because I just woke up and thought it would be fun to write about, but it's probably just TMI. I actually had this entire rambling on my Discord server months ago, but I thought I would have it again here because why not? I hope you enjoyed my random rambling. Feel free to share any experiences you might have had in real life that, if you were to write it into a story, people would call it out for being unrealistic!
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