Messages

46

General Discussion / Re: Questions thread

« on: October 02, 2014, 05:20:04 AM »

Ah, OK.

Yeah, in this case, yes, she was involved. As for making up...I'd say, about 6-7? I mean, for what I had in mind, they'd still be in the middle of the war, but still could have their little moment and work from there.

47

General Discussion / Re: Questions thread

« on: October 02, 2014, 05:07:09 AM »

OK, back to this topic, to be honest, I had something like Fate in mind, where Shinji's, well, dead. As for reconciliation...well, I guess there'd be a bit of that? They'd still be in the middle of the war, I suppose...

And, in what would it depend on how she'd been rescued? I'd assume part of that is referring to Rider?

48

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: October 02, 2014, 05:00:32 AM »

Lantz, I'd recommend cooling down.

You asked for advice, we gave you advice within our capabilities. You want it, you take it, you don't, that's fine. But, if you want to take the risk, you have to take it with everything involved. Including people not liking or caring about your fic.

And that's all I'm going to say for now. Since this isn't going anywhere, I recommend all of us just drop this discussion now. It probably won't end up healthy for those involved.

49

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: October 02, 2014, 04:39:03 AM »

I think the problem here is that you're mistaking "setting up a mystery" with "failure to establish a setting". The latter is the problem.
You can set up a mystery, or something suspenseful, that is discovered as the story goes on. However, before you do that, you have to establish the setting, so that we can understand what's going on.

This goes double for a fanfic, since you're working with an established setting, and the audience will be expecting that. And before you say "Oh, but then every story can only be a repeat Grail War" or something; that's not true. At all. So as long as you properly establish that the story is in the Nasuverse, you can have a magus from the Association fighting vampires on the other side of the world for all I care.

Let's just look at the first chapter as an example. Remember, first chapters are supposed to hook readers, catch their attention, even for a bit.
You start OK-ish, with some familiar names and setting up a mystery for the plot later. However, we have no idea what's going on. Normally, you set up the setting, so that we can have some basic understanding, then set up a mystery upon that setting.

Though, no bigie. You can still set up a mystery without us knowing what is going on about it IF we can have something understandable as a crutch. Say, introduce a mystery with Unknown Villain X in a flashback, but then continue to a scene with Shirou in the present. We know Shirou, and even if we go AU, this moment establishes the setting and helps us understand it, even if the previous scene made no sense to us.

And here comes the problem; the very next scene makes no sense to us. We don't know what the hell is going on, a lot of the characters we don't even know who they are, or what relationship they have; we have nothing. Nothing to cling to for understanding. This is the main problem we have here: you've failed to establish the setting. We have no idea what's going on, and we don't even have something to act as an anchor, so we lose interest and don't care about it.

It's not that what happens is absurd; it's that we have no connection to what's happening. If in the previous example I had Shirou suddenly pretending he's a superhero, silly costume and all, at the very least, if I work properly in his characterization, we have a connection to the setting there, even if it's absurd. But we don't have that here. And because of that, the hook fails.

And this isn't even taking into account the amount of SoD breaking.

That's the issue we have here. You can have your mystery if you want, but you need to set up the setting properly so that we actually care about that mystery. You can't expect us to wait 40 chapters just for that; nobody's gonna wait that long. People tend to at most give a story three to five chapters before dropping it. Some even less.

Without establishing setting, we will keep questioning everything we see, because it isn't familiar to us. It looks nonsensical, arbitrary. For example, several dead characters are now alive, and Servants now have physical bodies. Why? Is it part of the mystery? If so, why aren't we focusing on that? It's related to what we know, and it's obviously different from the established canon. So, of course, we're gonna want answers about that. But, nope; let's have space wrestling matches; that's obviously more important to establish than the differences in this setting from what we know.

So, no; don't confuse adding mystery and suspense with establishing your setting.

Also, by the way, don't use the multiverse thing as an excuse. Yes, the Nasuverse follows the idea of a multi-verse. But the Nasuverse already has some rules set in stone, which will never change no matter which universe it is. Because they are all the same universe; a different universe will not differ in how it works, it'll differ in how things happen.

Characters taking different choices, being born with different abilities, unto different families, different times and action...all of those factors can change, but they all still respect the universal laws set there. Magic will still be the same in one universe or the other, even if in one universe Shirou uses swords, and in another he uses lances. And every change has causes and effects, which HAVE to be taken into account.

50

General Discussion / Re: Questions thread

« on: October 02, 2014, 02:56:33 AM »

Umm...honestly, hadn't considered him. I'd like to know how it'd go for either scenario.

51

General Discussion / Re: Questions thread

« on: October 02, 2014, 02:39:07 AM »

And what if Zouken were out of the equation (as if she were already rescued from him or such)? Would that change anything?

52

General Discussion / Re: Questions thread

« on: October 02, 2014, 02:23:29 AM »

Erm, I have a small question that's been nagging me for a while: if Rin died at some point during the Grail War (say, due to Kotomine stabbing), how would that affect, say, Sakura? How would she react to it? How about Shirou?

Just wondering about characterization, that's all.

53

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: October 02, 2014, 02:03:25 AM »

To give an example:
Let's say I want to write a story. I decide to write a light-hearted, fluff fic; the premise being Kerry, Iri, Shirou and Illya spending some fun happy times watching the cherry blossoms bloom. Maybe include some in-jokes based on the source material, perhaps a few cameos by other characters here and there.

Is it breaking canon? Yes, of course it is. Does it matter? Well, if the story is good enough...no. Not really. Do I need to explain why Kerry and Iri are alive, and are having happy times despite what happens in the source material...no, not really.

Because that is not fundamental to what the fic is. It's just a small fluff story. So as long as I state it's a what-if/AU story, and make my best effort to write everything properly, people are very likely to overlook the fact that some of the characters in it are supposed to be dead, or that the situation in itself is not possible in the actual source material. I could include a small aside hand-waving it or something, but it doesn't need the explanation. People already enjoy the story enough to give it a pass.

Your story, on the other hand...needs the explanation.

Because due to what your story is, and how it's supposed to go, it needs an actual explanation to why it happens. It follows an established setting, so it needs to be explained within the setting, and the explanation needs to make sense so as to not break SoD. Otherwise, you have a plothole or an asspull.

Even if the setting is explicitly AU, you'd still need the explanation, because it's fundamental to the working of your story (and if it isn't, why break so much just to have them revived in the first place?).

54

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: October 02, 2014, 01:48:45 AM »

@Kaiza

I'd love to believe you but there's no way to reboot this story with a positive result except to obey canon because the fan base has a toxic view of my ocs. No matter what I do they won't except it.

@CL

in canon she dies, thanks to the new canon there's no way to save her.

as for Kiritsugu and Iri the method used falls flat in the new canon.

the cast shrinks, the story becomes impossible to be interesting or exceed three chapters.

You want Illya to live properly rather than limited homunculus life? Fine by me. You want Kerry and Iri to come back to life? Alright, try it, even if that's stretching it.

One condition though: You have to give a very good reason for it; a believably explanation that fits with the setting and doesn't break our SoD. The more you break, the more you need to explain to make it work, and the more effort you need to put into the writing so that people can give it a pass. Doubly so when such things are fundamental to the story.

If people hated the story so far, it's because you're doing one or both of those two things wrong.

Lantz, you'd have a lot less problems if you used the setting and stuff to your advantage; seeing them as tools instead of just as arbitrary limitations.

55

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: October 02, 2014, 01:17:08 AM »

On that last bit, it depends. Suspension of disbelief is a thing for a reason.

There are some breaks from canon that most people can forgive because otherwise they'd be too constrictive (like the "Shirou can only summon Arturia" thing), but for the most part, it depends on how much from canon you break, and for what purpose.

It also depends on how good the story is; the better the story, the more likely people are to overlook certain breaks for the sake of a good story. The opposite is also true; in a bad story, ALL of the problems and breaks are magnified and become glaring, and not even adhering to canon to a T can help there.

56

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: September 28, 2014, 11:39:16 PM »

Well, technically there is:

*dramatization*
"Oh, what CAN you do with those pathetic powers of yours? Nothing! Hahahaha!"
*uses powers creatively, and since Gil underestimated them, gets caught off-guard*
"Oh noes, it cannot be! Ahhhhhhhh!"
*end dramatization*

Sure, if you bullshitted your way to victory, of course people will complain. Write it correctly and believably, and people won't complain as much. There's a difference between smart writing and ass pulls.
But, well, your choice.

57

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: September 28, 2014, 11:26:35 PM »

So, in your AU, Gil is unbeatable because he can't be tricked into losing...despite the fact that canon shows he can, regardless of his power. Lantz, in this case, I think you are giving yourself the limitations on what you can do with Gil, not canon.

58

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: September 28, 2014, 11:16:21 PM »

How do you "outsmart" Gil, though? He seemingly has the ability to just look at someone and work out what they're thinking....

Also, the problem with Gil is that it's difficult to fail at first and succeed later, unless you have something up your sleeve that he's not aware of. Once you've fought him once, he's less likely to underestimate you the next time.

Gil will almost always underestimate you. If you bring out something he doesn't expect, you'll catch him off-guard. And because of his ego, you have a lot of room to work with. Sure, Shirou may not have been trying to outsmart him with UBW, but Gil certainly underestimated the "mongrel", and thus got himself into a corner.

And, well, Gil's supposed to be "endboss" material. You usually don't need more than two confrontations with him to set the point (Too OP, can't beat; suddenly EUREKA moment; rematch using that knowledge and hero wins)

Outsmarting him is flopping out of the fight. Narratively it only works once anyway. In the original he had ways to beat him that weren't repetitive tricks and, again, one of the major reasons Gilgamesh is even in the story is now impossible to carry forward. So there's literally no point to Gilgamesh being present in the reboot.

Um, just pointing out, but even Gil has a limit, and if you constantly beat him, he *will* eventually get desperate enough to pull out a perfect counter. And, if that fails, he will probably rather Ea you rather than having to deal with you anymore. Sure, that may have had to do with his role as stealth teacher as you mentioned, but I'm sure the characters would find Gil's behavior odd, given his attitude I mentioned above.

59

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: September 28, 2014, 10:54:31 PM »

Erm, lantz? Instead of either of those two...why not have Satoshi outsmart Gil and/or creatively use the limited resources he'd have to beat him?

Again, use his ego and underestimating attitude to your advantage. Nasu did that.

Sure, Satoshi may fail at first (even heroes can fail at first before succeeding), but then he can learn something new from that experience and use that knowledge to win later.

60

Lantz's fics / Re: character Q and A

« on: September 28, 2014, 10:31:29 PM »

Actually he was, those explanations invalidate Avalon, Excalibur, the actually ability for ubw to be a trump card (it's not anymore when you do the math) and even Gilgamesh's fortitude. He went from being powerful but beatable to unkillable because there's no longer a way to take advantage of his ego.

I think you're misunderstanding something a bit here. Those explanations don't really change much. We already knew Gil was powerful enough to steamroll the competition and win the Grail War by himself. Problem is, if Gil doesn't think you're worthy of his awesomeness, he's not going to fight you at full power. At all. The only exception was in UBW, when Shirou got the upper hand, and Gil was pretty much in a losing situation. And by the time he decided to pull Ea, it was too late.

The only time we see him going all out was against Iskander in Zero. Yes, Gil is pretty much unstoppable if we take everything he has into account. But his ego means that he will almost never fight at full power, so all those skills are a moot point unless he deems his opponent worthy.

Which, given what you've mentioned about Gil and Toshi's relationship, is pretty much guaranteed not too happen.

He has items that are the same as Avalon and Excalibur, not copies or originals but items that produce the same effects as powerfully if not more so, having an unlimited number of swords is UBW's one advantage over the gate but that doesn't matter because if Gilgamesh is disarmed the weapons just return to the gate instantly so it can't beat Gilgamesh even conceptually anymore.and apparent CCC added some new crap about his endurance and crap so he's even tougher. And new super phantasms as well. So nothing works anymore. Look I know the ignorant people who never paid attention missed this but in the original version Satoshi had a hell of a time winning a fight. A rebooted Satoshi cannot win and even if Archer, Shirou or Saber could still win it's pointless. That means anytime Gilgamesh is a threat Satoshi will have to be saved by someone, last I checked heroes who are saved by their parents aren't good protagonists even slightly.

Again, only uses stuff if he deems it worthy. To the point where he only fired four weapons at Caster's giant monster, after Tokiomi begged him to do so. And then refused to get the weapons back because they had been "soiled" by being used on the creature.

And UBW, in theory, doesn't get the weapons back, but produces them fast enough that he can outgun GoB. Again, that's how Shirou beats Gil in UBW.

And again, his endurance and powers are not new. We already now he's THE strongest Servant. His ego still remains as his fatal flaw.

It's true that completely invincible villains are boring. Which is why good OP villains tend to have glaring flaws which can be exploited by the heroes to outsmart them. Gil's is his ego. Learn to use that well, and you can make interesting Gil fights.