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Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:14 pm
by Sunshine Temple
FTP is a bit wonky.

So chapter will be in message for the time being.

Nevermind. Stendec came in and fixed my issue right away.

So the chapter can be read here.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:00 pm
by Sunshine Temple
And chapter 12 has been posted!

Here

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 6:18 pm
by Cheb
Tried several times to read this. Failed.
Tried analyzing, why.
First, i am not familiar with Dresden Files. But! That never stopped me before. I discovered several anime series by reading a crossover of Ranma or another familiar series with unfamiliar one. Including such franchises as Sailor Moon and Mass Effect, for starters.
Does not work this time around.
I think, you deviated so far from the starting series it doesn't feel like Ranma anymore nor Sailor Moon. Plus you pulling the Loads and Loads of Characters trope. It worked while chapters were following one after another (although my cognition was strained severely with too many characters) but the loss of momentum is a killer. While adding *more* characters with this crossover simply sank the boat. I suppose it's the same as me stopping following Halkeginia Online and, later, Psi Effect: Rise of the Party Boat even despite me liking these megafics a lot. I pledge brain overload.

Case in point: I discovered your Selling the Fantasy, liked it a lot and am now reading Ch.2 (stalled because I got a bit scatter-brained lately).

P.S. Note that I tried several times reading Tolstoy's War and Peace, and every time I got stuck at the first third of Volume 2 and dropped it.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 7:59 pm
by Sunshine Temple
[I'm sorry to hear that.
[.Shame that this is what broke the camel's back.

[Given I've been posting chapters for Blood Debts at about once a month.
[Which is a much faster sustained rate of posting than anything else I've done
[So in terms of literal momentum this is as good as it's going to get.

[In terms of narrative momentum. I tried to make this as a fixed story with a beginning to end.
[And given this is the first story I managed to write, and got it to /end/ in 16 chapters
[that' better than others.


[As for more characters. Yeah I can see that as an issue, given this story has a huge cast.
[But... for this specific story... there's /four/ new characters.
[One is the narrator of this story and the other is the villain.
[Heck, my thinking was that since a new character was narrating it from first person, that would lower the cast size.
[Given he's only interacting with a fraction of the story's cast and only three people from his stories.

[Ah well.
[Thanks for the comments. Sorry you couldn't get into the story.
[Glad you like Selling the Fantasy.
[Haven't been working on that as much lately, but the story is plotted out, and going to be like 7 chapters.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:21 pm
by Cheb
To be honest, it's mostly me being not familiar with Dresden Files. If I knew that franchise...
Pity because I believe this fic must be better.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:03 pm
by Sunshine Temple
Shame. I did try to make it readable to someone who hadn't read Dresden Files.
One of my prereaders hasn't read those books and I use him as a gauge.

And I figured by having the Return setting and only handful of characters from the Dresden Files would also have helped.
Maybe it did help, but not enough.

Dang. Unfortunate that.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:11 pm
by Cheb
On the other hand this may be as simple as me overstretching myself a tiny bit. Let's see:
1. Work
2. Still working on my game engine. Even worse, refactoring lots of it.
3. My project of creating an armored super-laptop out of desktop parts.
4. Writing my fic
5. Translating my fic to English (increasing the total amount work on the fic to about 170%)
Ugh :oops:
And then, because of lots of work in the summer I stopped following everything I read so I now have to re-read The Return before I can even try reading Blood Debts, simply because I forgot who is who :oops:

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 6:23 am
by Dumbledork
Well, I don't know anything about Dresden Files, but this story is easy to follow. We learn what we need to understand the context, especially Harry's relation to the Fay. Although there are some characters that are mentioned, but not really developed, it doesn't really matter as long as they don't appear in the story. For example Harry's brother. We don't learn much about him, but we don't really need to since he is not relevant to the story... for now at least.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:36 pm
by Sunshine Temple
Dumbledork
Well, I don't know anything about Dresden Files, but this story is easy to follow. We learn what we need to understand the context, especially Harry's relation to the Fay. Although there are some characters that are mentioned, but not really developed, it doesn't really matter as long as they don't appear in the story. For example Harry's brother. We don't learn much about him, but we don't really need to since he is not relevant to the story... for now at least.

[Cool!
[Glad to hear that it worked, even without knowing the Dresden Files
[yeah Harry's relation to the fae was a huge thing

[heh, you may find more in the epilogue about Harry's brother ;p
[Thanks!

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:01 pm
by Spica75
Sunshine wrote:Shame. I did try to make it readable to someone who hadn't read Dresden Files.
One of my prereaders hasn't read those books and I use him as a gauge.

And I figured by having the Return setting and only handful of characters from the Dresden Files would also have helped.
Maybe it did help, but not enough.

Dang. Unfortunate that.


Dresden files is problematic for crossovers. I've noted that myself, i generally don't have any trouble reading crossovers that i have no clue about the source material(it's a good way to find new source material to read or watch), except for a rare few ones, DF is one of them. Characters and world tends to feel flat and kliché until you've already read quite a lot from it(source OR fanfics), but as it's offputting, you tend to drop them alot more quickly.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 9:48 pm
by Sunshine Temple
Spica75
Dresden files is problematic for crossovers. I've noted that myself, i generally don't have any trouble reading crossovers that i have no clue about the source material(it's a good way to find new source material to read or watch), except for a rare few ones, DF is one of them. Characters and world tends to feel flat and kliché until you've already read quite a lot from it(source OR fanfics), but as it's offputting, you tend to drop them alot more quickly.

[Ahhh.
[Interesting.
[I can comprehend that perspective on them.

[I did try to have, in this example, things be a bit more dynamic given the elements from the DF verse were limited
[and focused on Harry and his relation with the Fae

[Still very interesting point

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:40 am
by Spica75
[I did try to have, in this example, things be a bit more dynamic given the elements from the DF verse were limited
[and focused on Harry and his relation with the Fae


Haven't had the opportunity to try reading this story so i don't know how well you managed, so it's "in general" rather than specific to your story.

Still very interesting point


Mmm, i didn't notice it myself until i had a few thousand fanfics read, but a time came where i realised i had to go back and try reading a number of fics again, because they were crossovers with that kind of "hard to get into" sources, so i was uncertain if i had dropped them because they WERE bad or because the wrong crossover made them feel bad.

Re: Blood Debts Ch11 (R.5 / SM / DF) (and Ch12!)

PostPosted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 9:14 pm
by Sunshine Temple
Ahhh, gotcha with the in general.

Though that in general was why I avoided having this set in the Dresden Files world.

That way someone unfamiliar would only have a couple Dresden characters.

And from the other side, someone unfamiliar with the Return would be able to follow Harry as things were explained to him.