All Comments on 'The Rivals Ch. 03: The Demon Hunt'

Nicely done

The fact the shadow guards captured her was something you used effectively to create suspense, which is certainly something I approve of. I must say the caterpillar that was lodged in her forehead was a bit of a quandary, as I didn't know if it was supposed to control her mind.. all those Shadowguards said it would remind her of the task. I believe just focusing on that one item is really what causes me most of the issue to start with. The very purpose that it's labeled for is something it doesn't do: in fact we don't see anything that it does except try to get out of her when it's stimulated. If somehow it would have sickened her, made her stop what she was doing, made her act differently or controls her actions, then I would kind of see why it was there. I mean, it supposes an ominous intent, and it assumes that there's going to be some type of control over her mind; however, it's just kind of there and it becomes more of a comical episode that really interferes with the action that's supposed to be going on between them. I don't really even know to be fair, if it really ends up as comical as you might think, because once her sense is more or less returned to her, she finally takes and realizes ooh it's there! I believe he tries to preserve it, but he neither learns nothing about it, and she can't tell him anything about what happened while it was in her skull, except that it just kind of moved around and felt uncomfortable. It felt like it was a very wasted device; if you take something like the Ceti eels in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, they did have a specific purpose and that was to control or force the host to do certain things, although the host could refuse but then it would experience excruciating pain and possibly death. However, when they were not being suggested upon, they were basically inert and just kind of there, because they had themselves wrapped around the brain stem. So you see what I mean? It's that missing element of danger possibly to her, and possibly to him that makes it such a wasted thing. The other thing is how they end up battling the same type of demon, which for some reason in my mind I was feeling like was going to be a more dangerous one, and frankly the titillation factor seems so incredibly awkward. I mean I understand part of it is a little bit of comeuppance for the male lead but the problem is it's not something that achieved its desired end, which I assume was supposed to be partly comical and partly dangerous, although once more the narrative didn't seem to convey that sense and I was left scratching my head within the story asking what happened?

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You described their escape plausibly; you accounted for the intervening time in a expected manner; you definitely succeed at detailing many of the emotions the feelings the thoughts.. but somehow the caterpillar and the ending battle with the demon just seem so anti-climactic that it seemed slightly awkward and somehow unsatisfying. For those reasons the best I feel like I can rate this is a 4.

If there wasn’t more to this series, the ending of this story would be a downer.