While I really REALLY wish I could reread this, not having read it in a long time, I'm happy for you. I'll try to get a copy of it when I'm able.

If possible, could you please mention the status of the fic in the description? ...um... i mean ... mark it as removed?..if it is not too much of a bother...

Well...crap. Congratulations on signing with an agent, and please let me know when this gets published. I'm a huge fan of John Dies at the End, and I'd be more than happy to read anything it inspired.

I was directed here and sad that. I couldn't 't read it.

This song is dedicated to Sam and sung by Eric.

"You'll be in my Butt"

Come stop your crying

It will be alright

Just take my buttcheeks

and spread them far

(o3o)

I will protect you

From all around you

I will be here

don't you cry

(O3O)

For one so high

you seem so strong

My anus will hold you

keep you safe and warm

This hole between us

can't be torn

I will be here

don't you cry

(O3O)

'cause you'll be in my butt

yes, you'll be in my butt

from this day on

now and forever more

(O3O)

you'll be in my butt

no matter what they say

you'll be here in my butt, always

(O3O)

why can't they understand the way anal feels?

they just don't trust what they can't explain

I know we're different but deep inside my butt

we're not that different at all

(O3O)

Don't listen to them

'cause what do they know (what do they know)?

we need each other

to have, to hold

they'll see in time

I know

(O3O)

when anal calls you

you must be tight (you gotta be tight)

I may not be in you

But you've got to hold on

They'll see in time

I know

We'll show them together

(o3O)

'cause you'll be in my butt

yes, you'll be in my butt

You'll be in there from this day on,

Now and forever more

(o3O)

Oh, you'll be in my butt (you'll be here in my butt)

No matter what they say (You'll be in me)

You'll be here in my butt (you'll be there) always

Always

You'll be in me

You'll be in my butt always

always and always

I'll look over my shoulder

just looking over my shoulder

and you'll be there

in my butt.

{3

Best of lucks!

I'm so happy for you! I just know that your novel will be a success.

First off, I like Gabriel. Cause I'm kind of a control freak too. Yeah, I don't play well with others, just like him, and I like to be in the know and control every detail if I could. So whether you meant for Gab to be a likeable character or not, there you have it: my reaction.

That's some fancy resolution you got there. It's a little iffy for me, cause I think if Max is the super angel that he's supposed to be, shouldn't he be able to sense like, the aura of the living or whatever? I could accept the angel juice if Max were just a mortal, but I would assume that it isn't just a matter of physical life signs for him if he can read minds and all. Unless Eric was like, brain dead? Sorry, I'm being nitpicky, aren't I?

I remember what I said about Eric not seeming to care enough about anyone in his life, and here it's mitigated by his thoughts about his mother and Ash. Ok, I take it back: he does care about some people. But he never showed it to them, so it's just like he doesn't, the same way he reasons that if only four people know he isn't dead, then he may as well be.

One last thing: it's acceptable to marry one's first cousin in some cultures, as long as the cousin doesn't share the same surname - children take the husband's surname in these cultures. So in this case, if Jackie Lynch married a Brown, Stacy would be Stacy Brown and Eric can have relations with her. But any other cousin, let's say the daughter of an uncle, who's named, let's say, Jenny Lynch - she'd be off limits.

Finally, Eric, dear, get your perspectives right. You're worrying over backwash when you drank angel juice?

Poor thoroughly tortured Eric. My brain is confused over whether to feel sorry for the indignity he's being subjected to (I hate dreams of being naked in public) or laugh at the way he's describing it. The best part was the bit about the parentheses. Fourth wall stuff? Undoubtedly. Hilarious? Definitely. Should you change it? Absolutely not.

[No more need to bargain with my life in order to save someone else’s. There’s no one else to save. Only me.] Oh, that line sent a stab of the feels through me, so that was kinda a roller-coaster experience, from LOL happy to OMG-poor-sweetie sad. However, the freaking out after that came across as rather abrupt, because nothing in his previous narrative had suggested that he was slowly losing it. I think that's some kind of effect in general - making the narration funny just somehow makes me feel as a reader that the narrator is happy too, or at least optimistically trying to make the best of things, so when Eric goes to pieces suddenly, I just went kind of, Huh? Where'd that come from?

I feel like cheering Gabriel on, even though that would ruin any chance of this story having a happy ending. I dunno, rather than watch (or read) Eric suffer any more and having my liking for him turn into pity again when he gets too pathetic, I'd rather he get his escape. In fact, that's even better for him, cause if Gab kills him he doesn't go to hell since it isn't suicide. He gets heaven instead - but that might not be a good thing either cause Gab can presumably still get him once he gets there. Incidentally, are prophets not immortal?

I can understand why so many of his own kind dislike (or hate) Max if that's how he always behaves. I'd love to know why he's that way. Is he the driven do-gooder who doesn't care about walking all over others in the name of a greater cause? Has he stopped having emotions and cares only about doing his job? Does he has a tortured past of his own? That makes me suspect you might be giving us an insight into how he actually is in some of your other work.

Gabriel sounds interesting, but not particularly hot. Typical of Eric to find him attractive. At least in this aspect of physical attractiveness, you stick to the conventional - I get the feeling none of your angels would be out of place at a models' convention. On the same subject of appearances, why is Eric so upset over having the marks left behind? They'd just appear to be tattoos, and aren't tats supposed to be sexy and manly and all that? I thought with his 'look on the bright side' philosophy he'd be thinking of how the marks could score him some rocker goth chicks.

On Eric's parting gift, haha, funny, but isn't he worried they'll blow up too, cause, like, whatever he touches during a time freeze blows up, right?

Ok, my question was answered: it appears Max is like a super-charged angel or something. No wonder they didn't want to mess with him. But then Eric steps up. Way to go! I like you again, Eric, lots and lots. Yes, I'm fickle and shallow and unfairly stereotypical in expecting heroics from leading men... and oh, did I mention, fickle? I have a thing for self-sacrificing heroes, heh.

At the moment, I'm feeling very unfriendly towards Max for beating up the people I like. I'd somehow gotten the impression that he's decent if not a nice guy, from Alex's account of him in the earlier part of AtGK. Now I'm almost convinced that I'm wrong. That's what's unique about your world - you twist conventions into pretzels. So readers expecting to find certain characters likeable or unlikeable based on their nature alone are constantly being surprised. This confounding of expectations puts another perspective on reading and needs a whole new reading strategy. I think the best approach would be to treat the terms 'angel', 'devil', 'prophet' etc like names of alien species, and learn about each one from scratch.

Incidentally, did Max swipe Despair's god-slaying weapon?

Yeah, the calvary, right in the nick of time, classic Western style! It was fun, albeit a little surprising - I'd been expecting you to drag out the torture a little longer in the name of suspense.

Zed's demise was consistently with your descriptive style, very visual, very vivid, and the overkill was actually very satisfying. I loved the joke about hiding mace in bras and having a literal mace in one's back. Very cool, Despair, but isn't it a bit of a liability in battle? I mean, yes, angels and devils and demons heal instantly but I'm sure that takes energy or power or something, so won't she want to conserve her energy if there were a real fight rather than go waste it on showy blood and stuff? Oh well, it's a God-slaying weapon so that means unlimited power I suppose.

Why were Kris and Despair so anxious not to run into Max? Surely the two of them plus a God-slaying weapon are more than enough to deal with him? Finally, it seems Eric suddenly has TWO women interested in him now. How'd that happen? It must be the maternal instinct. Poor widdle Ewic was all banged up and needs a cuddle wuddle... :D

I find Zed surprisingly likeable. I say 'Surprisingly' because he's supposed to be the villain of the piece so I was expecting you to continue the theme you've started in all Eric's previous encounters with him and paint him as something dark and horrible. But he's actually rather articulate. I have a soft spot for well-spoken guys.

Oh hey, if he's been torturing Eric since he was 13, then the lion was Zed too, wasn't it? But then why the various references to 'he's coming' in earlier chapters if Zed has been with Eric for all those years? Anyway Zed sure has great control over his hunger to have waited for so long to eat Eric. What triggered it?

You know what, I agree with Zed. Humanity is a mess. And knowledge is indeed power. Zed is very open about his motives and relatively much simpler in his values - knowledge trumps everything. That's an interesting contrast to Eric's lack of a stand and sometimes shaky value system. So I can't decide now if I want Eric to survive (who am I kidding, of course he does! :P) more than I want the bad guy to come out on top for once. Like he says, [There are many creatures much worse than me, yes, many creatures] especially in your version of the supernatural world where nothing is black and white. And Eric isn't doing a whole lot to make me wanna root for him, sorry.

Oh I forgot to ask, where did Stacy go in the bedtime scene? I kinda missed her input on that - would she have egged Eric on with Ash, or decided to molest Ash in her sleep?

Is TATE the voice in Eric's head then? Tate is a demon, right? Meaning apart from the Homunculus there's another demon who wants to take Eric over? It must be so nice to be so wanted. Incidentally, But Tate seems to be a servant of Zed's here, so this hypothesis doesn't stand up. I don't quite understand why the Homunculus didn't just eat Eric right away that night after he'd eaten those three (if he really ate them). Of course if it did there'd not be much of a plot left, but I was wondering, did I miss an important explanation somewhere in an earlier chapter regarding that?

I sympathise with Eric at the end when he just gives up. I'm not surprised at the surrender, because he's been through a lot and he never seemed to have the strength of character to hold up well under pressure. Also, I don't think that he cares enough about anybody for that caring to make him want to fight, or for the strength of that care to sustain his fight. In other words, Eric truly seems not to have any reason to care any more what happens to him. If I were him, I'd think death is a good end to all the stuff I've had to endure.

Is Stacy visible to nobody else but Eric? Cause Mina kind of ignored her, whereas she made nice with Ash. Makes sense if ordinary people can't see Stacy, but shouldn't Mina as an angel be able to see Stacy? Oh, wait [From the way Kristoph’s eyes trail over to her, for a moment I wonder if he can see her. ] confirms that she can't - or hear her for that matter. I wonder why you made things this way. Generally I'm still trying like anything to figure out Stacy's role in this story. And not doing very well at it.

Yay! As soon as I read Kristoph is a Grim Reaper, I was so happy for Stacy. She's gonna have a happy ending now... Ok so now I'm working out the significance of Kris being a Grim Reaper, cause my current hypothesis is that Stacy is in the story to have an excuse to introduce Kris' status as a GR, and if he's a GR that must be significant to the plot in some way. I think I'm very likely on a wild goose chase, but I'll no doubt find out soon if that's correct. Anyway, Kris' humour is well, funny, but not really my thing - I've never really liked dirty jokes, including those based on sexual innuendo. Yes, it can be considered prudish and all that, but hey, that's just how I am.

Your take on prophets is definitely different from the conventional. I've always perceived them as messengers with no supernatural abilities of their own except what the deity concerned grants them temporarily ie miracles and all that. But here you have them as living weapons. That puts kind of an anime spin on things, because there're quite a few series with the plot of 'character X has a special power that everyone wants because they could rule the world with it, and his/her friends have to protect him/her and keep the world safe' I think that entrenches Eric even more firmly in a dependent 'victim' role.