Author Review
Well well well, here we are again... Posting another leegiiiit Author Review... Sigh...
Let me start off with the most obvious thing, to me at least. The beginning of the book. Most of you would consider the Mc to be the problem but, I personally think he was fine. Exactly what I was aiming for actually, a stupid kid way in over his head who thought he was smarter than he actually is.
No, my issue is that I wrote out the plot for it and didn't properly consider the universe I was working within. I'ma say it here, Familiar of Zero lacks any good 'backround characters' or 'backround lore' away from Halkeginia, from what I know at least. The thing ended up being Games of Thronesy politics with no fleshed out characters since I was intending on killing them off almost instantly, I'll be the first person to admit, I'm no G.R.R Martin when it comes to that stuff.
Anyway, I sinned with filler once more, I believe I could have written this story in around half the time it actually took me... I keep forgetting the fact that I'm not simply writing for my own enjoyment but an audience too, I don't wanna be the 'Naruto-Filler' guy I swear...
Moving on from the badly done Familiar of Zero arc. I feel like I did Skyrim 'alright', sure there were some issues here and there but that's par with the course. Please, do not ask me about the NSFW stuff because I don't wanna hear it. I don't think I'm any good at it and I don't have the time, patience, or horny-ness to work on it.
I liked the cross world stuff, Highschool of the Dead, but it's kinda hard to write when your protagonist could literally solve the apocalypse by himself... Plus, coming from a magic world into a mundane one and you've got a recipe for cringe, in my opinion at least. I'd love to write a full zombie fic like the walking dead, but survival and zombies are only interesting for so long, eventually it just devolves into humans vs humans + zombies sometimes... Boring.
Writing Warcraft was fun, I chose the destruction of Argus primarily because it's an isolated event and I know fuck all about the clusterfuck lore that is World of Warcraft... I mean, I get why there's Loremasters for Tolkien's work, but I shouldn't have to have eight chins, several types of diabetes and four pairs of spectacles to know why the fuck Sylvanas can beat the literal freaking Lichking... Is it just me or does that make no sense at all!?
Anyway... If it wasn't obvious at this point, I thought and still think it's hilarious that almost every world Mc visits ends up in some sort of apocalypse. Familiar of Zero, Highschool of the Dead, Argus in Warcraft, Attack on Titans. Some folks were complaining about it but there is technically a lore reason for it... Mc carries around a book with the Dead God in it, therefore Death follows him.
The Daedric Prince champions arc was fun, though I think I could have written their personalities a little better. Differentiated them more, but all in all it was fine... Aside from the somewhat Deus Ex Mehrunes Razor death of Mc... Yeah, I admit I coulda done that a little better, but it's too late for regrets now...
Konosuba arc was fine to me, though I could have given its characters the proper love they deserved. The fact Darkness only had a couple lines will permanently haunt me, Aqua can drown her self though, and Kazuma got what he fuckin' deserved!
The Alduin 'world and friends unite' arc was a let down, and it was all due to my mishandling of Surtr(the dragonborn). I intend him to be an aspiring hero, to fufilled hero, to fallen hero haunted by the thousands of dragon souls affected his soul... But in the end all he turned out to be was a raging cluster-cunt.
Tbh, I don't think I'm good enough to write a character like Surtr well, as some of you stated, every scene with him was like poking your head into a hall of feminist scream singers.
The arc was also pulled down by the fact that so many... Many characters were involved. Like, half of Skyrim's named npcs were there, all of mc's friends FROM MULTIPLE WORLDS were there, I felt like I was writing out wedding invitations for my family of six hundred. Almost every one was unique, useful, and deserved atleast a short showing.
The Naruto arc, not my best work, but I wanted a Sharingan damnit! Plus, fixing Sasuke/Itachi was satisfying, along with freaking out Jiraiya.
Attack on Titan arc, abit filler I admit but when I remembered Ymir's fate I decided to fix that too. I refuse to accept that anyone disliked her. Fight me.
The last arc was just me trying to find a way to wrap everything up with a nice bow, obviously I failed since the end was very dissapointing, but then again, I had no idea how to end this. Still have no idea.
As for the System, it was 'meh', the mc didn't fully use every ability he had at his disposal, mostly because there were simply too many of them. It's like getting back into a maxed out character in an MMO who has twelve ability bars, too many options.
I personally liked how things with the Dead God progressed, it made sense and worked(in my eyes).
Onto the characters themselves... I should have used Louise Valliere differently from what I did, she had far more depth that my shallow interpretation allowed, though, I imagine the Familiar of Zero arc would've been far longer if I'd concentrated on that.
Tiffania was also less personable than I'd have liked. I wrote her properly, a naive girl who was tortured to death and saved by her 'knight in shining armour', she fell into Michael's path of destruction despite her innate kindness and basically became a wet noodle when anything concerning him was brought up.
I think more scenes on her without Michael's presence muddying it up would've made her far more likable and less invisible.
Saeko was fine, a restrained sadist who was finally unleashed in the apocalypse and given the chance to truly spread her 'wings', as it were. The path of the Ansei suited her.
Charlotte was a controversial character, but I think her actions mostly made sense considering everything. A filial daughter literally selling her soul to save her mother, some of you thought it was incredibly stupid, and I agree, but that doesn't make it any less believable or logical story-wise.
As for Michael? I don't know if it's just my innate attitude of things bleeding into my writing, but most of my mcs tend to blend into one another. While yeah, Michael's way crazier than my other stories, it still leaves me unsatisfied now that I'm stepping back and taking a look at it.
My goal for future fics are similar but not identical to my last Author Review, to drastically reduce filler, make my characters my in-depth, and create a wide berth of characters(Particularly mcs) that could be differentiated from one another.
Some other things to note, in regards to review bombers, my feelings remain the same. I don't care about them since in my view spammed five-star reviews are just as bad as spam one-star reviews. Neither provides any substance and I ignore them completely in favour of actual criticisms levied at me.
I refuse to remove either positive ones or negative since it strikes me as incredibly biased and dishonest. I can't be bothered with the effort of removing every single spam review so let it go, as Elsa says.
Well, I think that's the end of my thoughts, forgive my rambling but I feel as though the negative aspects of this book are around the same as my last(Steel Waste), I'm abit put out that I haven't shown overly much progress since then.
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Anyway, onto what I'm doing after this. I've got one book ongoing Harry Potter and the Tragic Path, which I implore you to check out if you haven't yet, I think it's some of my best stuff tbh.
HPTP : https://www.webnovel.com/book/harry-potter-and-the-tragic-path_19734319605086005
As always, I held a vote for my Patreons to decide what my next fic would be and they picked Cyberpunk 2077. It was actually a tie between that and a DC/Teen Titans/Devil May Cry fic but Cyberpunk was chosen to go first. Check that out if you like my work, even those of you who haven't tried Cyberpunk, I'm trying to make it understandable for even the lamest of layman's.
Cyberpunk's Singular Peculiarity : https://www.webnovel.com/book/cyberpunk's-singular-peculiarity_24454941605533905
Modern History is still on Hiatus, I have no idea when I'll get back to it but here it is if anyone wants to read it :
MH https://www.webnovel.com/book/modern-history_16738054905046405
Join my discord : https://discord.gg/mG4vG5SUbF
If I missed anything or you have any thoughts comment and let me know. While I might not be able to respond to every comment on every chapter of my books, I'll be checking on this semi-regularly. Got a critique or wanna lob insults my way, go ahead, wanna ask me what colour underwear is-, stop asking.