All Comments on 'Henry Versus The Horror'

Should be told this story! Kudos

A simple, straightforward story of good/evil and finding the strength to overcome. Nicely done.

This is an erotica website, not a bedtime story website.

This site has an entire range of genres, and if all you are looking for is stroke stories then you need to learn to scan the story before reading it. On a more to the point observation I think that the author has managed to point out how even loving parents can make the mistake of discounting a child's fears. Sometimes an adult needs to really listen to a child's voicing of a problem rather than automatically assuming that there is no basis for the problem. I read just the other day about a boy who complained to his parents that someone was looking in window at night. Like the parents in this story they told him repeatedly it was all in his imagination. After several days and the boy becoming frantic they finally decided to set up a cell phone with a app that let the phone act like a motion detector. Sure enough it alerted them to someone in their yard near the boy's window. They called the police who apprehended a fifteen year old boy who was known to the police. This illustrates just how important it is to actually listen and do what's necessary to safeguard a child whether from a physical threat or a psychological one. Ignoring a child's fears is in my opinion child abuse. Mental scars can be every bit as damaging as physical ones, sometimes even more so. I am a sci-fi fan, and one of my favorite stories was about a boy who had night terrors, his grandfather took him out and had him shoot his .45 then gave it to him (unloaded of course) to keep under his pillow. End of the night terrors. The grandfather listened, then did an effective intervention. It was a part of the story, but it was also a very sound psychological treatment for a very real problem in the child's life. Everyone needs help at some point in life, listening and giving support and help dealing with problems before they become major issues is better than having someone having to get therapy years later.

Fantastic, man. Just fantastic.

Novel and original story, absolutely ruined by your lack (or deliberate ignorance of) basic English grammar rules. The word "it's" is a contraction meaning "IT IS"! The word "its" is a possessive pronoun explaining that the previous subject noun in the sentence (or prior sentence) owns, controls, possesses, or belongs to the word or phrase following. Example: "The dog had sharp teeth in its mouth." What this means is that the dog (subject noun) owned/possessed the teeth in that dog's mouth.

While the anti-grammar NAZIs will castigate me for this comment, all that really means is that they are semi-literate buffoons who don't know how to spell. For someone who graduated from High School and College before the latter cohort of Generation X and the Millennials relied on their cell phones for spelling and think "great" and "your" are texted 'gr8t" and "ur", for those of us who CAN spell complete Englis sentences, the misspelling is very aggravating. As an example of how irritating it is, I have excerpted portions of your stort where you made the mistakes and reproduced the text below with its glaring errors. (And you anti-grammarians out there, who say, "just read over it and ignore it"; well when you know the correct word and you see it so badly misused, the error jumps out from the page. Imagine reading one of the porn stories here about a big NKL Offensive Guard with a 12 inch "coke" that was hard as a rock, and in every single instance where the word "cock" was meant, the author typed, "coke". Example: he was busy stroking his coke, which was 8 inches when flacid, but which swelled up to 12 inches of rampant coke, which she gobbled into her mouth. 'God, I love big, big coke', she said. 'I can't wait for this coke to fill up my Volvo!'" (Sorry, I just tossed in the use of an automobile's name for this female's pudenda --see! Words mean something! What was supposed to be an erotic story of a soon to be penile-vaginal connection, becomes a story of a guy putting a soft drink into some women's car!)

Here is the re-worked story:

Page 2.

WakingDown and the Horror

It rumbled from inside the closet. IT IS voice was low and gurgling, like IT IS laugh.

. . .

. . . Henry saw more of the Horror. It was a tangled mass of the stuff in his closet. The doors pushed wide after a final shove, and it [to be consistent, this "it" should be capitalized] was exposed completely. IT IS face was wide, mostly mouth. Teeth made of the ends of wire clothes hangers, narrow metal hooks that pointed into IT IS gaping maw; a jaw shaped from his old blanket; eyes that were bunches of marbles clumped together to make insect-like compound eyes; long, lanky arms made of clothes with too many joints; the spikes along IT IS spine made from the pegs of his old tent; It was a horror indeed.

. . .

The thing gurgled obscenely, IT IS insane mouth widening in a grin. It squatted low, IT IS malleable form letting It reshape itself mostly however It wanted to . . .

. . .

I'm done running. I'm done calling for mom. It's you or me. . . .(Bravo!!!! All correct!!)

. . .

The beast turned IT IS head to face him slowly, IT IS grin now gone.

. . .

It struck from the shadows under the bed lightning fast, IT IS pencil claws seeking the . . .

. . .

Henry had hopped over to the other side of the bed, and as the beast popped It IS head out there, It was met with the minijet powered hammer crashing into IT IS jaw with a crackling pop. . .

. . .

Henry wondered what the creature would look like as It lost IT IS parts. . .

...

decide who to go after. Both had their shields held up and their hammers ready. The Horror made IT IS decision and darted at Henry, a gurgling roar in IT IS throat. . . .

. . .

. . . but was toppled by the force of the creature slamming into it. IT IS clawed hands came around on either side of the shield, reaching for Henry. He brought the hammer around in a short swing, trying to keep It from raking him with IT IS nasty claws. . . .

. . .

The Horror howled and scrabbled to IT IS twisted feet. . .

. . .

. . . The blow slammed into the Horror's shoulder, crushing It to IT IS knees again. It lashed out with IT IS other arm, smashing into Henry's shield and pushing him aside. . .

. . .

IT IS claw was shattered by Captain Rogor's Gavel before it could come down, however. . .

. . .

The Gavel slammed into IT IS stomach, cutting the howl short in a gurgling gasp. . .

. . .

. . . pinning his Gavel to his chest, as IT IS remaining claw raked his back. . . .

. . .

The beast was rocked from IT IS grasp on the Captain and released him . . .

. . .

. . . IT IS body slumped to the floor, falling into a heap of junk as it did. . . .

. . .

That is how I read the story, and every time I came to, "it's", I thought/read, "it is", and then had to stop the story to figure out what the hell the author meant. Then when I realized that he meant the possesive, not the contraction, I could move on, to the next show-stopper, i.e, "it's", incorrectly again. By the fifth or sixth time, it was a show-slower down, not a complete stopper, but it ruined the story for me.

This is wakingDown. I am not adverse to constructive criticism. Whatever you may think to the contrary with this comment, that really is the case. Comments like these do not feel like they qualify as 'constructive' or 'criticism' to me.

Some blank commenter leaves a rant because they can't (oh look; a contraction) decode the puzzle as to why/how capitalization (and yeah, I missed a couple capitals. It happens) was used in a stylized manner to distinguish a monster as being referred to as 'It' as a *PROPER NOUN* to accentuate its inhuman, singular, and nature and inorganic composition. Fine. No sweat off my sack. I'm game.

If you don't like that approach in terms of style, then you don't like it in terms of style. That's perfectly fine. That's a totally subjective, opinion-based matter and I'm not about to cry foul over a matter of taste. I'm sure there are plenty of styles that I detest that others find to be absolutely lovely. That's just human nature, and it's something that should be *embraced* in my opinion. Differing flavors make for a varied and exciting meal, after all.

But that simple subjective discussion isn't what we have here, is it? Nope. Not this one. What we have here is some random-ass chode who won't even stand up and put their name to their 'critique' (ha) when trying to rip into something that clearly went sailing far and wide, missing their noggin by a not inconsiderable distance. We have a rant trying to make this a statement that the stylization used is objectively wrong, and the only point forwarded to support this is "I can't read a word without thinking of the exact definition and/or usage of that word that I was raised with and taught to associate with that word, no matter what, forever and ever, a-fuckin'-men." I would ask you if the concept of slang is a foreign one due to this crippling literary affliction, but as forms of slang and hyperbolic phrasing are used in the rambling nonsense of the comment (things like cock, Nazi, and show-stopper), I can't really lay the fault there.

It isn't even a case of the capitalization concept flying over your head either as you noted a place where I missed one, forcing you to bust out your Captain Midnight Magic Decoder Ring to figure out what I was saying. So you clearly knew that I was using 'It' as a proper noun, yet you still demand that it be used as a simple pronoun, because that's all your mind can handle in terms of assigning meaning to it.

How the hell do you think slang ever came to be in the first place? Where do you think words and phrases like bucks and dough and bread and scratch and what the fuck ever came from to mean money? Or critters or creepy-crawlies or pest or cootie for bug? Wheelgun, barrel-shooter, six-gun, six-shooter, shooting-iron for a revolver? The list goes on damn near as long as the list of *words* in our language, as almost all of it is substitutable in one form or another, in some sort of manner. We have a very versatile, malleable, dynamic, fluid language that has evolved to function in nearly a modular manner when needed or desired to express the things we try to express with it. All you have to do is consider the context that those expressions are framed in, and it's typically pretty clear what the modulated words are meant to convey. When you get into that rigid 'nope, only one meaning ever' mentality then you might as well throw out most of the current language being used, and sequester yourself away in a shack up in the hills, since you'll be pretty lonely what with the inability to communicate with the rest of the world and all.

As to using 'It' in a modified manner specifically? How about you look to my source if inspiration for that particular style choice: Stephen King's 'It' and his use of the word in the same manner as I've used it in this story. Are you going to write a letter babbling about 'anti-grammar NAZIs' (sic) as well, since I did the same thing that he did? Will you fill that letter with grammar and spelling errors as well? Things like fragmented sentences, incomplete thoughts making for broken paragraphs, unclosed parentheses, and such?

People in glass houses shouldn't huck calcified chunks of dipshittery around willy-nilly. I guess that would be the long and short of that final point.

In summary: The word 'It' is capitalized for a reason, which you already admitted to knowing in your post. You went off like a defective bottle-rocket anyways.

I don't know why, and the only reason I can posit is that you saw something that caught in your head for a moment, and instead of going 'oh, shit, okay I get it' and reading the story the way a normal person would, you went the other way. You happy-assholed on over to the comments, plopped on down anonymously, and sharted out a turd-string about just *how hard* you are capable of forcing yourself to be stupid for the sake of a flawed argument. If that isn't it, then I'm sorry. I'm just not as capable at screaming down the parts of my brain that deal with logic as you are.

Now then. If you'd like to sit down and have a nice, civil, respectful discussion about this, I'm totally cool with that and would be more than happy to take part. So long as we could meet at the common ground of understanding that style is subjective, and use it as a jumping off point, then I would be completely open to this. If you wish, however, to remain insistent that the only linguistic permutations to be considered canon (or whatever it is that got you so hung up about 'words have meaning' in your post) are the ones that you were taught or that you personally approve of, then I would say why waste time? Coming at this from two positions such as these, so clearly opposed on such a basic level, would be a nightmare of a debate. Not impossible, but so contentious to one another that we may as well just spend an afternoon only yelling 'Nuh-uh!' and 'Yuh-huh!' at each other.

So that's it. That's what I've got for this for now. I saw this when I turned on the computer this morning, and I felt moved to address it. I apologize if I covered any given point multiple times, but I haven't slept in two days and I am very tired. Think about the points I raised, as I've thought about the ones you threw up. Let's see where we stand. If you ever come back here and read this, that is. If not, then let it stand as a billboard for others to read and say 'the fuck is this guy's deal? I thought he had a bucket of meds he took. Did he forget them?'

No, I didn't forget. I just don't really sleep anymore, and it makes me a little wonkier than normal.

This story was just plain silly. Third graders don’t frequent this site. Or at least, they shouldn’t.

Just get over it. Be graceful when you've made a mistake. It's useless to do a flame war in the comments, most people don't even come back to see what you said in response to their comments. I don't.

Its an interesting story. So it's not perfect for this site, but it is a little gem. Clean it up and submit it to The "New Yorker" or Playboy.

Just don't bother to rant to someone who won't ever see it. It makes you look ... Less.