October small story poll and some info. (Patreon)

Okay, so while this is two days later than I would normally want to post it, this is obviously the small story poll for October.

For those of you who are new here, welcome! I will explain how the votes work here: for every dollar you donate, you receive 4 votes in EACH of the polls for that month. That means you get 4 votes in each of those polls, not 4 to be used across them. That is, 4 votes for the short story, and 4 votes for the SW crossover, and then 4 votes for the final poll, which will be discussed below. So on top of getting access to my patron only content (mmm, yummy content) you get a far larger voice in what stories are updated every month.

However, as all my long term patrons who have read my previous posts should know, there were issues with RL getting in the way of my plans this month. I had hoped to get three small stories out, along with Making Waves and the winner of the SW poll. That didn't happen because I only had the last week off rather than the last two. That in turn forced me to rush the stories I did get out, and the quality of the stories suffered accordingly.

Stallion has been updated with the Michael approved version BTW, but there was no way I could get him Magic or FILFy in time. Another reader has offered to do small mistake corrections to FILFy, but that is only one portion of a solution to this issue that I wish to make certain doesn't happen again. I want to share the results of my febrile mind, but I also want those chapters to be well written and with as little mistakes as I can contrive. That means that I need to cut down on the time spent actually writing them, and up the amount of time spent editing.

What does that mean for these polls? I think I need to invoke a length override sort of rule. If, after I look at the outlines for the winners and decide, hmm… that's over 90,000 words and I have Making Waves too… and I can't do that and have time to actually read over the chapters in their entirety - Grammarly is okay, but slooooow - then I will, when I post the winners, also say that, and warn that I will then fell obliged to substitute.

For example, the Magic of the Force chapter - yes, I really did write that in five days, minus RL time, and time to go over Michael's edits of Stallion and go back and remove some egregious mistakes from FILFy. I could have substituted Semblance in for that, and I would have if not for the fact Magic is an SW story, and made my Sunday deadline for Semblance, when I couldn't for magic. I'm somewhat happy with the chapter even so, it was naïve of me to think I could use a single chapter to cover the next eight months of story time before the start of the Clone Wars, but it wasn't as well written as it could have been.

So this month if I decide that yes, I can get an ATP month out this month - Mordreek and I have talked once more and RL is still using him as a whipping post but I can redo the outline and may be able to do this - then I will substitute in the third place winner instead of say FILFy, which seems to be the story I have the hardest time making small chapters for😂

The other result of this past months debacle has to do with Semblance too. Because I got all your hopes up that I might be able to get out the next chapter, my votes from last month, the 600 votes I'd built up to try to get Stallion updated that I didn't need to use, will instead be halved, and 300 votes will be placed on Semblance this month. Hopefully that will be enough to get it some long overdue love. The rest will be used at my discretion, so if one I can't get ATP out, and no other HP story wins the polls I can then make certain that at least one HP story gets updated. If it's not needed, then I may think about doubling down on Semblance because of the reasons discussed here already.

I asked you all last month about the idea of having a separate poll for stories that I feel I could finish in a reasonable amount of time (less than a year in terms of updates). I have decided to run with that idea, and you will find it in a separate post. As before with the Update please poll, this will be a separate poll, ergo you can vote in it as well as the other polls, but then it and this one will be amalgamated into one poll, with the winners being the first two, or as explained above, the first three, choices.

The choices for the small story poll are:

Stallion of the Line- Ranma/One Piece Crossover: the aftermath of the Knockup streams displeases the marines, but they can't do anything about it, forcing them to join forces with the pirates or be set adrift. A attacking barbarian gets schooled while Ranma and Robin flirt, much to the amusement and anger of Hina and Nami respectively who spot them. The crew explores, meet new people, Ranma's eyes turn into sparkles, Sanji actually gets somewhere with his flirting, as Nami accidently has an adventure on her own while Ranma explains yet again to people that 'pirate' means your rules do not apply, even your common sense.

FIlFy Teacher- Highschool DxD/Harry Potter crossover: Rias, Harry and co go hunting, meeting a possible new friend in the doing, while a certain foolish fool causes trouble at home. Defensive spells are put in place, Harry gives Akeno some of what she wants, before Rias and he exchange some very important words, albiet somewhat more spontaneously than either had thought to as the family draws closer. A meeting in formal clothes in Kyoto is followed by a significant moment between Harry and Rias, while Riser moves up his plans to have Rias for himself, all unknowing of what hell awaits him.

Fate Touched in Middle Earth - Harry Potter/Tolkien wolves get burned, Orcs get killed as Gandalf proves that you could also spell his name like AWESOME as Harry becomes luggage. Later, after Bilbo proves he has grown quite a bit and that his sitting is quite sharp, Harry wakes up and meets their host, who is even taller than Hagrid and just as hairy. Wizards argue, say farewell, and the party heads into a forest that could well be the original Forbidden Forest, while the wise worry.