April2023 Feedback Response (Patreon)

Hey all. So… my ATP muses crashed right into the sheer amount of chaos that I had Super Giant spread in China. I also realized that, as arrogant as he is, Thanos would still respond to the portals shutting down… So one scene I needed to write (did), and one scene that just… is all over the place. I have like, small instances, bits of action as Phoenix closes in on SG, but when I try to create the background, the local characters she interacts with the confrontation, and everything after, it just feels disjointed or just horribly written.

Thus I have made the decision to put out the chapter in May instead of at the end of April. That will hopefully let me have enough time to both finish Making Waves(which is about 4/5ths done, I need to finish the Wendy scenes and another scene with Ranma and company) and will let me end the last arc of ATP in one more chapter. After that will be the epilogue and that’s… it. Wooo… I thought this fic would be unending when I first leaped into it, but I am getting Marvel burnout and frankly, after dealing with Thanos, the only way I could come up with an opponent for Harry is to have Doom do a full heel turn and that’s just not going to happen. That, or bringing in the Celestials, which I have hinted at, but don’t reallllly want to do.

Anyway, that means that there will be no HP fic this month. Because I this, I decided to take a break from Making Waves today to write up a full response to the latest round of questions and write up two story outlines for HP. Hope you all enjoy them. I will post them elsewhere, obviously.

First, the poll question:

Once Horse and ATP are both done, I will finally bite the bullet and separate the two fandoms into their own fanfic.net/A03 poll. I haven’t been as good about A03 as I should have been, but if someone could tell me how to add more colors to the fonts and pictures to the chapters, I would be much better about updating stuff over there.

To remind you all: ATP will be finished in two chapters. At which point, since people mentioned it, I will state now that Death’s Avenger will return to the poll here on Patreon… replacing Bhaalson Remodel. I want to keep each poll to four choices, the rotation and the ½ carry-over concept. So far it’s worked… okay. But more choices will muddy the waters, especially one that had such a massive following as DA.

So instead, once ATP ends, I will move Bhaalson Remodel over to the HP-only poll. It is only one chapter away from being fully caught up there, so it is easy enough to switch it.

Thus the choices for the HP-only poll will be threefold here for a time: Bhaalson Remodel, Fate Touched, and Magic of the Force. But you will note I said ‘for a time’.

The patron only poll will look like this:

Making Waves

King of Champions

Climbing Together

Death’s Avenger

Of them, Making Waves is obviously EASILY the closest to being finished in around five chapters. The others are all newish. But there will be four choices here for a time (note that once more), and hopefully the ½ carryover rule will stop DA from dominating… too often LOL. Once Making Waves is done, I will bring in Journey Gone Astray – my DC/Ranma crossover.

For my Ranma fans, remember that Horse for the Force will also be finished in two, maaaaybe three chapters. At which point, I will hold a number’s only poll to see which Ranma fic will replace it… and will bring back FILFy Teacher for the HP-only poll, bringing the choices there up to four. I said I would bring it back once two fics were done, so I will make good my word.

Another fic that I will add into the patron only poll is Heroes of the High Seas. Again, I said I would bring it back once two fics were finished off, so there you are. It will however only be there provisionally. If it loses even with the ½ carryover rule in place four months in a row… well. At that point I think it might be time to give up the ghost. Damn it. I really would love to play around with the My Hero Academia characters, but if the fic can’t bring in a following even if I announce it over on AO3…

Horse will be replaced in the Ranma-only poll by… well, here we are spoiled for choice folks, as I will use this opportunity to bring back at least two of the below fics:

Gods and Devils and Wild Horses oh My – Ranma/Highschool DxD crossover with a Ranma/Saeko/Rias romance. Put on hold for doing poorly in the polls for a long while.

The Effect of a Horse and a Dragon – Ranma/Mass Effect crossover, Romance largely undecided beyond Ranma/Tali and Herb/Liara. Put on hold due to my ME muse dying out and my sci-fi muse being well fed by Horse.

Semblance of Hope – Ranma/RWBY crossover with a Pyrrha/Ranma romance. The storybook example of a fic that did so poorly in the polls it pulled my muses down with it. I’d like to finish it just for completions sake, but otherwise it’s meh to me.

Sword, Bow and Horse – Ranma/Lord Marksman and Vanadis crossover with two harems going on for both Ranma (Lim/Sofy/Valentina) and Tigre (Regin/Elen/possibly Mila). Dropped due to other fics taking priority and reaching the end of the first arc. But the romance hasn’t gone very far, and there is a lot more to this world to explore.

And my choice: the Homage fic, Wonder About Zero: formerly an Anime Addventure thread putting a Ranma with Wonder Man’s power in the Familiar of Zero world, which I took, expanded and continued for a time back when Real Life was much kinder than it has been in a long while, with a Ranma/Henrietta romance. I really enjoyed this fic when I was writing it, since it let me world build and I think the romance was reeaaaallly good. I’d really like to continue it since I can toss canon out the window, and it must be emphasized I love the pairing. Like Ranma/Shaak only more primal and cute at the same time.

So there would be Stallion of the Line and two of the above in the Ranma only poll. And if my Ranma fans are feeling short-changed, consider this folks: one fewer in the rotation means they will all be updated more often.

With this, the poll question is DONE. It is not going to be brought up again until two more fics are finished, and even then, only to decide what will replace them. I know this will come as a great relief to Novus, Hiryo and others LOL.

The romance question was just to see if anyone had any thoughts negative or otherwise about how I do things. The general gist was knowing who is getting together is good, and medium to long burn so long as there is actually movement and no ‘will they, won’t they’. Which is interesting, and useful going forward. I have always used the tags to tell you who is in the relationship, but seeing this means I will need to keep in mind the fact romance needs to evolve in a set time frame rather than being put on hold. That’s useful especially for Bhaalson and Journey.

Similarly, fantasy took precedent over sci-fi, but not by much. Interesting, and I think I have decided not to follow up on the Ranma back in time concept or some of the other ideas I had there. The interest just wasn’t enough, although it did impact my decision to bring back the Vanadis and FoZ crossovers.

At this point, I will repeat that I never intended to go back and try to rewrite Making Waves with the question about it, I just wanted to see if I was being too critical. Here the reviews were very mixed, but I think in writing up my HP/Fairy Tail outline I took those points onboard. We will see in your responses to it, I think.

As for the MW questions, number 2 is a null question. I had posted my questions thread before I reached the point in the fic where I mentioned that Laxus was named Makarov’s successor. I want to thank Justlovereadin’ and Hiryo for pointing out this mistake.

The Erza question… you will just have to wait and see.

The question about the Sabertooth guild was my fault as well. I should have asked about the characters by name, specifically Sting and Rouge, instead of the guild. As I didn’t, and no one seemed all that interested in them or the guild, I will mention the two of them and the rest, but only as an aside. They will not become even B Tier characters like Laxus or Gildarts.

Bhaalson Remodel Questions :

1) Response to the first question here was universal. Everyone liked the idea of using the Gamer’s abilities to break restrictions. So that is going to be a thing going forward, although each such break will come at a cost. I gave an example of one such in an answer to Delphinious, and will repeat it here as an example of what I mean: A Leadership skill known as share ‘Share Burdens’ would allow him to share his ability to wear plate armor with a thief (Imoen) but in doing so he would lose half of his armor’s defense while also depriving her of her thief skills. In terms of skill slots, the example given was to choose a combat preference, which would be a Tactical Passive, where Harry would be able to choose several party members to ‘specialize’ and place more skill points into the weapons for that preference, at the expense of being given a penalty for any other – like Long range versus short range, or Defensive versus Offensive.

2) And now onto the interesting one, the question about whether Harry should pursue smithing or something similar. Here, a lot of people didn’t have a preference, but several people, like Novus, pointed out that Fleur and Hermione are already set to break the world in terms of their rune-knowledge and crafting. I will follow up one some ideas, such as using blood to enchant things. This will not be an easy process, and will, as with other things, also come with a drawback. As an example, he could enchant a weapon to be deadly to a certain type of enemy, but accidentally enchant it so it would also gleam like gold every time it’s used. Or Banish Fear, but also cast a spell so the user laughs constantly as he or she uses the weapon.

But MagisterdeVita brought up a suggestion, one I hadn’t considered in relation to this fic despite thinking about it for a few others I’ve brainstormed over time with Beleriond via messages. Potions. OOOH boy. This is PERFECT for this fic and I could not believe I had not thought of it. I mean, this Harry has already pushed his cooking skills, and it is a major part of his character in this fic, as is the fact he’s already learned about gathering ingredients in the wild and preparing them and so forth. This can sooo easily segue into potion making. And Potions are powerful in Baldur’s Gate.

Consider: healing potions of varied strength. Invisibility potions. Exploding potions. Potions of intelligence, Potions of Giant Strength. Look at this list! https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Potions. With those kinds of potions, not only will I be able to speed up the main plot and the side plots, but fights which should be impossible given the greater lore of Faerun and Forgotten Realms will no longer seem so… weird to win (I’m looking at you, dragons). To say nothing to how potions mix with Imoen’s trap skills.

And there is even the murky type, an in-built concept from the games which can show there are downsides to trying to learn about potions. Great stuff. And combined with his Gathering and Cooking skills, Harry could not only learn potions. He could take the step from that to learning true alchemy. Not just the whole iron to gold, but the high-end potions from HP land, and maybe making potions that permanently add strength, constitution and so forth to the drinker. I have never gotten into the potions concept, and I am really looking forward to doing so here.

3) Tying into the first question, the concept about enchanted items, upgrading items and so forth. The answer here was also a resounding yes, although I am still struggling with how to introduce the concept. I was warned by two of you that I shouldn’t let quests devolve into fetch/retrieve type quests, and I won’t. But the precise medium of upgrading the idea is up in the air. But Toraneko Mai, Zolkrath, and Paultagoras mentioned that whatever he does in terms of enchanting should be tied into which God Harry pledges himself to. I have an… idea there, and I will share it with a few of those among you who have mentioned that Baldur’s Gate to see if it’s viable. If it is, it could be kind of amusing. If not, well I can always fall back on the use of random smiths for a few of the upgradable weapons/items. We’ll see.

Thank you all once again for giving me your thoughts and opinions, and I hope you continue to enjoy my stories going forward.