Shadow of a God-King

Wow. Just wow.

This is easily one of the most incredible stories I've ever read on the site, and I couldn't put that into words no matter how hard I tried. I did notice a couple of SPAG errors, so I will put those here so I do not forget.

'Role your eyes' instead of 'roll your eyes' on the Celebration age, and one towards the end which was missing a period before a paragraph break - I should've taken note of the page.
Other than that, I would say it was confusing as most of the story was in 2nd person, but occasionally it switched to third.

Those are my very minor nitpicks for the story, however, and I believe eventually this will make it onto the Top Games list. 8/8.

When does personal sacrifice become madness?

Fluxion’s contest entry, “Shadow of the God King” poses a really interesting and thought provoking question that forms the crux of his 120k magnum opus.

Essentially, the story is set in a strange planet with a culture that’s essentially Ancient Egypt, but with magic and strange weather conditions thrown in.

The prompt that Fluxion picked essentially called for just writing a story set in a planet with a harsh environment. But Fluxion managed to take the underlying premise and really run with it, exploring how the harsh conditions of the planet gave rise to the complex and multifaceted governmental system that was exactly like the Egyptian monarchy led by Pharaoh's back on Earth.

Fluxion did a really good job with the setting. He put a lot of thought into designing the world so that it felt like a real place. Everything, from the sand worms feeling vibrations in the ground, using hunting tactics designed to prey on their victims’ need for water, and jumping out at travellers in surprise, to the 2 suns(Khephri and Artemes) rotating and revolving around each other, contributes to making the place feel somewhat like Earth but very alien. Even the multi-headed elephants contribute to this effect.

What I like about how Fluxion handled it is that he didn’t make the weather the main focus. When receiving a prompt like this, it’s all too easy to succumb to the desire of writing overt and very detailed descriptions of strange weather dynamics, simply to show off the writer’s creativity in depicting strange weather phenomena. But Fluxion doesn’t take this low-hanging fruit. Rather, he writers in layers. The strange setting is there, but not there. And that’s the point. When writing these kinds of stories, you want to make it feel almost like an afterthought, something that’s so natural to these characters that it’s there but it doesn’t feel like it’s the main focus.

Moving on to the story itself.

The story was one of the most interesting and captivating stories I’ve read in a while. Basically, a resistance group, tired of the Pharoah’s tyrannical rule over the populace, recruits a young girl to join the harem of the Pharaoh's son, Amun-Ka, a remorseless sociopath who feeds off of his wives’ pain and degradation. She has to go undercover and basically live this lifestyle while trying to recruit key intelligence that can aid the Resistance’s efforts to undermine the Empire.

I really loved how the story took its time with the premise, making an effort to show us who Azalea was before all this, and the trepidation she felt upon joining Amun-Ka’s service. It’s clear she’s no battle hardened spy, and the character felt quite grounded and realistic. This wasn’t some badass who dealt with every problem with ease, this was a real human being put in a really tough situation. I like her character, she’s a talented and kind-hearted person who genuinely cares for people but is forced into a situation where she has to do immoral things at times. The story manages to show her inner turmoil and moral dilemmas quite brilliantly.

The story operates as a Gauntlet style CYOA, with a long story marked by regular choices in between. However, most of the choices don’t largely change the story, but Fluxion made sure that they were important choices that affected what kind of person the character chose to be.

At a certain point in the narrative, the character reaches a crossroads. This is when Azalea has to choose between going back to the Pyramid or going home. I felt that this was a really key point in her journey, and the story did a great job giving that choice the narrative weight it deserved.

I loved the thoughtfulness and pacing of this story. This isn’t a story where at every turn, you make life altering decisions. This story is a slow burn that takes its time to set up all the players and the larger world around. The story does a remarkable job on multiple fronts and the scenes change genre in interesting and novel ways. At one point, we have a spy movie. The next, a legal drama. You never quite know what to expect with Fluxion, and he uses that element of unpredictability and skill handling multiple genres that he perfected in his previous stories here quite well.

I love his writing. At this point, if you were to go back and compare all of my previous reviews of Fluxion’s stories, you’d probably think I was a broken record. But it’s true. Fluxion has a meditative, contemplative style during the slow and sad moments, and a descriptive and cinematic style during the rest of the story that really aids in immersion. He’s not the type of writer to go “this happened, and then this happened, and then we went home. LOL.” Instead, reading his stories is like descending down a spiral staircase where when you look down, the only thing you see is a yawning pit below, and you don’t know what’s going to happen next but the feeling of suspense and tension hangs in the air, almost like it could be cut with a knife. From the moment Azalea is deployed, you never quite know what Amun-Ka will do.

Which brings me to my next point, the villains. The Pharaoh, and his son Amun-Ka are some of the finest villains I’ve seen. I love the contrast between them, the all powerful Pharaoh who puts on a kind face for his subjects, but in reality, is an unstable madman obsessed with power and legacy. The backstory where we find out the Pharaoh killed his other son and chose Amun-Ka as his heir simply because Amun ka was a pliable sexual deviant who was content to stay under his father’s thumb as long as he does whatever fucked up shit he wants was folded neatly into the story. There was no info dump, rather the character finds this information out while looking in a book for intel.

Of course, the Pharaoh also has a flaw. His arrogance. He fully believes in the myth that he is a God King to the point where he tells ridiculous propaganda that he is the reason Artemes, one of the suns in the sky, stays where it is. I loved that detail, I love how you portrayed him simultaneously to be a powerful necromancer with the power to shoot lightning out of his hands, while being an insecure man obsessed with his own deity that he misses things happening right in front of him. He doesn’t know, or maybe he doesn’t care about his son’s proclivities as long as his son shuts up and does what he’s told.

But he doesn’t. Amun-ka almost seems like an Ancient Egyption version of Amon Goeth lol. He’s sadistic, insane, controlling, a real sociopath. Fluxion did a really good job writing these visceral and painful scenes of sexual violence that made this work quite painful to read. He not only shows the violence for the sake of the violence, but he shows the emotional toil it has on Azalea and the other brides, and he does this writing quite skillfully.

Fluxion handles trauma in an incredibly fine and nuanced way. He shows Azalea managing to push past her trauma for the greater good, while still acknowledging that trauma isn’t something that goes away, but rather something that you grow around, becoming larger in spite of the pain. The nightmares, the scars, everything was written in such a detailed way that shows the dehumanizing effect of slavery and sexual coercion.

In addition to that, we also see the women’s pain at not having their sons with them. We see first hand how class division dehumanizes people. The wives are playthings for Amun. And just like all vicious cycles of violence, the wives perprate the same treatment on the slaves. They have to carry the women up 12 ladder steps to climb on elephants, yet they need to scramble down and get them glasses of wine, at the peril of their lives.

Fluxion incorporates some really intelligent commentary on the dehumanizing effect class division has on people. When you only see people based on how much money or social prestige they have, talented and dynamic people like Azalea become nothing more than property of spoiled entitled brats like Amun-Ka, nothing more than “Amun-Ka’s wife”.

Another great thing this story did was write a theme of bodily autonomy and make it the central focus of the story. A large scale conflict between government and resistance groups can be reduced to an individual struggle that parallels this larger struggle: Azalea maintaining her independence and strength despite all of Amun’s torture, simply by enduring. So when Amun weaponizes her art against her, basically forcing her to do the one thing in the world she loves, paint, while he hits her and rapes her, that almost breaks her. That could break anyone. Instead, she turns it inward and uses the pain as more fuel to gain revenge on Amun-Ka.

One last point. I loved the legal chess game, the way the prosecutor and defense would lay out strategies, predicting and anticipating what the other would do, then reacting. A lot of time was spent on the legal chess game, but I think it paid off. At the same time, the pacing largely slowed during the legal scenes. I feel like to improve that part, Fluxion, you could cut down on some of the extraneous information, streamline the scene and the information you want the audience to get while showing off the amazingly clever legal tactics/ploys both sides would play.

In conclusion, this was a remarkable and fantastic grimdark fantasy tale that was also quite thoughtful and poignant. Fluxion does an admirable job portraying Azalea’s toils and travails as she fights for her country’s independence and for justice. I love how pure and idealistic she is, at no point does she ever forget why she came here. Everything, from the way the merchant talks about Jack Quickfingers, to how the slaves had to climb up and down the elephants just to give the women wine, reminds her of the extreme class division in a monarchy and how it rots society.

Besides the main character, this story boasts a rich and diverse cast of really interesting side characters. Seriously, I could write a fan-fic about any of these characters, thats how good they are! Contrary to being throw away archetypes, good for a one line gag or quippy remark, these characters feel like 3 dimensional, fully fleshed out, real people. I loved how Azalea got to know her sister wives, and bond with them, while at the same time we saw that not every person was good. Merta for instance was quite a complex gray character. The audience could never really figure out if she was a bad influence on Sati, controlling her and gaslighting her, taking advantage of the emotional wounds/physical wounds created by Amun-Ka to worm herself in, or if she was genuinely in love with her. I also thought it was interesting how Fluxion portrayed LGBTQ+ relationships, I liked how he included them naturally, not making it seem like a big deal. He didn’t do forced inclusivity for diversity points, but rather created a natural and diverse, multifaceted alien society, and we really feel that.

The question, "When does personal sacrifice become madness?" is referenced to over and over, to the point where it's the central ethos of the work. Azalea is asked to do far more and give far more of the most intimate and personal parts of her mind and body. So this isn't just a throwaway one liner or a cool line in the beginning, it's a question that Azalea probably grapples with everyday; is the risk really worth it. But then she remembers just how fucked the system is, and decides to make the sacrifice regardless of what happens to her. That is true heroism.

I liked how in this story, there are no clear good guys or bad guys. Or at least, completely pure good guys. Obviously, the Pharaoh and his son are bad guys, but the Resistance isn't exactly squeaky clean either. We see how they manipulated Azalea, made it so she never had a real choice in the matter. She was funneled along this path, and led to believe that she chose it on her own, when reality, everything from her blue eyes to her artistic talent was leveraged by resistance spies to get marriage finders to choose her. I love how Flux shows the sense of betrayal she feels at this point; lack of choice is a really important them in this story, and it's overt in the scenes where Amun-Ka handcuffs his brides and whips them while having sex in a degrading BDSM relationship, but this is mirrored in a more subtle way with how the Resistance treats spies like Azalea and even Jack, to an extent. So it was nice when Azalea turns the tables and manipulates Hapu.

Which brings me to my next point. This is a very intelligent story. Characters don't just overthrow large power structures in one day. The plans are really intelligent and thoughtful, and it make sense every step of the way. It was an intellectual treat to see Fluxion write these complex stratagems and maneuvers that the Resistance would deploy, accurately depicting the focus and tactical ability of a large scale organization with a single goal in mind.

Above all else, the story is just good. I feel like it was immersive, and really compelling. The character beats, the narrative arcs, the writing, everything came together like instruments playing a concerto in the Philharmonic orchestra. While the pacing does slow a little towards the end, in the beginning, middle, and most of the end it’s so captivating.

Another drawback is the occasional spelling error here or there. And one of the 2 paths, the "you choose to go home after escaping", is noticeably shorter and more underdeveloped than the "go back to the pyramid" path, but that's ok. Both are still awesome.

This is a well-designed, high effort story that I would give an easy 8/8 too. I am so proud of Fluxion for achieving his potential, he’s always been capable of writing a story like this. He combined his fantastic, out of the box original ideas, with a really emotional and human theme of wanting bodily autonomy and fighting against those who oppress you and see your pain as a form of amusement and sexual gratification, to create a truly special work. This story made me feel like I read a bona-fide epic, and I am really rooting for you to win the contest.