This is stunning! It’s so powerful to offer compassion when you have an opportunity for much deserved vengeance. Or maybe justice. But who decides what qualifies as either? Ugh, this tugged at my heart and made me so proud lol beautiful.
Thank you so much, Bea! I think that compassion is our default (just look at how little kids act) but that gets covered up in all the detritus of just existing. Justice and vengeance are hard to tell apart a lot of the time, I think. Especially if we can’t remove whatever our filter/bias might be to see things a bit more clearly. Thank you for reading!!
Yep! It felt like a fitting place to put that 😀 I also wanted to echo other myths about ancient races that went “into the sea” or “into the west”. There are some derivations of Irish myth that mention both the Fomorians and the Fir Bolg being driven into the sea (likely off the mainland to live in the islands, but I love the ambiguity of just going into the sea, lol).
I liked the flesh balls and the god getting sucked back into the stone at the end—all the supernatural descriptions were really nice and nasty. Oscar is a good kiddo
He is! There were a lot of themes like bad shit happening to good people that I wanted to explore in this that I couldn’t while keeping it relatively short. Might be something with expanding on as a novella.
You captured that uneasy feeling where the god can be a bit of a trickster, maybe good but maybe also bad. I wasn't sure what to expect. The balls of flesh were really cool. I really liked how Oscar and the god got along in the beginning, with questions and trust that would be typical for a kid. Now I'll be thinking about how the god did help Oscar in the end and if that was intentional (for the god) or not.
Yes!! I was really trying to lean into the ambiguity of it all. I’d originally seen the god as pretty benign, but that kind of evolved as the story did. Pretty happy with how it ultimately turned out. Thanks so much for reading!
This is stunning! It’s so powerful to offer compassion when you have an opportunity for much deserved vengeance. Or maybe justice. But who decides what qualifies as either? Ugh, this tugged at my heart and made me so proud lol beautiful.
Thank you so much, Bea! I think that compassion is our default (just look at how little kids act) but that gets covered up in all the detritus of just existing. Justice and vengeance are hard to tell apart a lot of the time, I think. Especially if we can’t remove whatever our filter/bias might be to see things a bit more clearly. Thank you for reading!!
Spectacular ✨ this was excellent, start to finish
Yay! I’m glad you enjoyed it :) I’ve really been having a lot of fun writing folk horror lately.
Absolute folk-horror catnip.
So good, forgotten gods and all!
The standing stone + blood-awakening is an insta-grab, and the escalation is nasty.
Well done.
Thanks, Mac, I really appreciate it!
Hey was that a reference to my sea dragons? 😳 Great story here, who would’ve thought you could reverse a summoning. Must remember that…
Yep! It felt like a fitting place to put that 😀 I also wanted to echo other myths about ancient races that went “into the sea” or “into the west”. There are some derivations of Irish myth that mention both the Fomorians and the Fir Bolg being driven into the sea (likely off the mainland to live in the islands, but I love the ambiguity of just going into the sea, lol).
Ooh, I did not know that about the Irish myths! And also, super cool that you referenced them, even if I I’m the only one to spot it!
I liked the flesh balls and the god getting sucked back into the stone at the end—all the supernatural descriptions were really nice and nasty. Oscar is a good kiddo
He is! There were a lot of themes like bad shit happening to good people that I wanted to explore in this that I couldn’t while keeping it relatively short. Might be something with expanding on as a novella.
Nice!
You captured that uneasy feeling where the god can be a bit of a trickster, maybe good but maybe also bad. I wasn't sure what to expect. The balls of flesh were really cool. I really liked how Oscar and the god got along in the beginning, with questions and trust that would be typical for a kid. Now I'll be thinking about how the god did help Oscar in the end and if that was intentional (for the god) or not.
Yes!! I was really trying to lean into the ambiguity of it all. I’d originally seen the god as pretty benign, but that kind of evolved as the story did. Pretty happy with how it ultimately turned out. Thanks so much for reading!