Maidens of the Fall, Arc 4, Autolysis, Chapter 8
Chapter hops and skips and jumps and leaps, for else it will be late, late late! Down the rabbit hole it plunges, timepiece in hand, tumbling for the strangeness below.
https://hungryshedgerow.net/maidens-of-the-fall-autolysis-4-8/
Password is: onion
An epub of the chapter is also attached, as always!
Woohoo! The final chapter of the arc, dear readers! Actually really final this time. And what a strange chapter it has been; not only have the characters surprised me (which happens often enough that it's simply part of my process now) but the form of the chapter is ... experimental. Not the most experimental I've ever written, not compared to some of the stuff I've done before, over in Necroepilogos, but certainly a departure from the norm. I hope it works! I guess we'll see!
(To those who read via the epub version, I also want to apologise: no matter how many times I've tried, the epub just refuses to accept the formatting of this chapter properly. It's still readable, but lines which should be indented refuse to indent properly, no matter what I do. Again, I apologise for the imperfect experience there.)
As for Octavia, it's off to arc 5 in the next chapter, an arc she may not enjoy as much as she has enjoyed this one. And this arc included a heart attack, so! Ehehehe.
I hope you all enjoy the chapter! Now, meanwhile, on the moon ...
Comments (18)
I want to take some time to praise you on the red line this arc of Octavia feeling like a corpse after the Willow reveal and essentially rebuilding her own personhood. It's really resonated with me and I've honestly rarely felt this seen before. There was a time when something happened to me and I genuinely felt that I was a walking corpse, a shell with nothing left inside of me, just puppeteered by the expectations of others that I have to stay alive and Octavia's inner thoughts brought me back to that time and make me think of how far I've come since then. I don't know what you've overcome in your life to be able write all these incredibly relatable characters an stories, but I just wanna send my thanks and love out and tell you, even though you probably hear this often, that your works have a big, positive impact on many of your readers.
You are so very welcome; if I've managed to capture something real with this theme, something that resonates strong with any readers, with makes them feel seen, or captures something they've really experienced, and managed to make that cathartic in any way, then I'm very very happy about that indeed. I do draw on real life for much of what I write, sometimes myself filtered through fiction, sometimes other experiences too. And I'm very happy this has meant so much to you. Thank you! I'll keep doing my best! Knowing that my storytelling has this kind of positive effect on anybody out there, that's what keeps me writing, every day.
Chekhovs gun literally sitting on the table. I suspect the whiplash of going from one of the most explicit non-explicit things I have ever read to what I suspect will be out and out horror will be… intense.
At least Octavia isn't totally unarmed! (Pun intended.) And yes, I am very much a fan of this kind of intentional tonal whiplash for specific effects. That is ... if Octavia really is in danger right away. Perhaps she will simply wait for the others to return. Maybe.
OMN, Octavia! Has it even been a whole day since you denied being a lesbian?
A couple of days, I think! A small crack in the dam and the whole structure has come crashing down in short order.
So we have Scarlet warning Octavia, that Willow is going to make a move soon and very conveniently all the other girls get distracted by a nightmare... Hmm. I guess Nerys is still there, but the sentences before Scarlet's final messages really make me think "sometimes foreshadowing is relatively obvious".
Ohoho! Yes, if Willow can reach Plato Base, now is a very good moment to do so. But ... does this mean Dreamers can induce Nightmares on purpose? We don't know much about Nightmares yet, but I suspect we're about to learn. And yes, at least Octavia isn't completely alone. Nerys and Tissy are still home. And several hundred zoogs.
Bright is going to kill her, not even unjustified anymore since Octavia made a promise and broke it immediately.
Yeeeeeeeah. She made that promise and didn't even last a week. She broke it without hesitation. Or, well, she kept slipping down further and further into a situation in which she had already lost control.
I was reading this during my lunch break, fighting for my dear life to keep a neutral face. To not let my coworkers see me blush, giggle, and squirm. To not let them gleam some guilty hint at the sort of 'content' I was shamefully consuming, like a child hiding away a stolen cookie under the table... "Woof. woof!" I NEARLY CHOKED ON MY DAMN, FRIED CHICKEN!
"Woof woof!" Perhaps one of the most dangerous lines I've ever written, indeed! Really glad you enjoyed this so much! I cannot imagine people reading this out in public, gosh. It's ... well, it's not exactly explicit, but I think it's somehow more than explicit, if that makes sense.
oh my gods this is going to get SO messy and it's going to be BEAUTIFUL im so excited!!!!
Hehehehe! Thank you so much! Really glad you enjoyed this beautiful mess! Octavia has no idea what she's started.
That chapter was… evocative. Definitely a nice ending for the arc. Nice parallels too. Arcs starts with Octavia horny for Scarlet, and ends with Scarlet being a horny masochist for Octavia. Scarlet really had a sexy costume just laying around huh. My belief that Scarlet has searched compromising photos of herself on magibooru is pretty firm now. Loved the dialogue and it seems that Octavia is almost at the epiphany she needs for her transformation. She is the barely contained rage of the oppressed and broken, desperate for something, anything to lash out against. She is the righteous fury to Scarlet’s perfect facade.
Thank you!!! I'm very glad you enjoyed the chapter! Oh yeah, the whole arc is structured around that set of parallels. Interesting to see a reader pointing that out! Scarlet seems to have her own very specific set of sexual 'issues', indeed. Seems like she had that outfit ready to go, though perhaps she's not had a reason to wear it before now. Octavia is certainly easing closer to the truth of her transformation. But she needs a catalyst to push her over the edge ...
They are both so horny^^ didn't expect them to progress to sexting during their first chat^^
Hahaha! I don't think either of them expected this either! Two very repressed women, crashing into each other like a high-speed accident.