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  #25  
Old February 28th, 2021, 12:26 PM
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TGRF TGRF is offline
He should definitely get that. (#4)
 
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

Chapter Fifteen is now live! Plots are revealed as we build to the climax in chapter sixteen!

~TGRF.
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  #26  
Old March 1st, 2021, 01:13 PM
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He should definitely get that. (#4)
 
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

Chapter Sixteen is now live! The tale comes a conclusion.

I'd be grateful if, once you've finished reading, you could give me your thoughts on the fiction as a whole. What did you like or dislike? Were there any strengths/weaknesses you noted? Particularly for this fiction, how were the twists? Could you see them coming? Was there not enough set up, meaning they seemed to come out of the blue? Or were they surprising yet logical? Your comments and criticisms make my writing better.

Thanks for reading!

~TGRF.
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  #27  
Old March 4th, 2021, 10:49 PM
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

Okay finally caught up & finished.

As usual your writing skills stand out to me: things like "the words tumbled out of her mouth" are so visual and strike me as things I myself would never come up with as a writer. I also appreciated the magic system you created for its simplicity--it was mostly in the background but referenced just often enough so that I never forgot it existed. And it was a nice tie-in to the Kyrie Auras in the game.

I also thought the POV thing really got smoother as it went and over time I started to enjoy the Runa chapters even more than the Utgar ones. I also liked the character of Kirav and it was nice that a character as minor as him got to be the one to beat the boss at the end

As far as twists go none were story-recontextualizing level, but I enjoyed the revelation with Taelord finally revealing everything that was going on to explain the mystery. That part was like The Departed

There were a few things that bothered me: The fact that we never really see Runa interact with Ahnvad considering what he did to her. She really freaked out over the other guy who tortured her but every time Ahnvad shows up she's just already unconscious. Obviously they can't interact that much because she'd just melt his face but I'd have liked to have at least seen some POV from her regarding him at some point in the climax.

And then there was Taelord enacting his plan once Runa tells him where the Wellspring is at, when to me it seemed that she was just saying whatever she could to keep him alive. She had no way of knowing what she said was true, and I assume most people would rule out her home's water because there was no indication that Utgar was a Valkyrie at that time. I guess it's part placebo? The rules of the wellspring waters weren't particularly clear to me. How did Ahnvad seal it; how can he seal it when he doesn't really know where it is? How does he know that Utgar's powers would kill everyone in the cave? Has he seen a Lyr Valkyrie before?

And then like the first story this feels like the end of the first Act of a much larger story. Utgar is a villain: I wanna see how he becomes the chiefest of the evil Valkyrie in Heroscape. Tell me the story you tease ...Ok, those expectations are my own fault, but seeing these characters as heroes while the story is ongoing does make the reader occasionally reflect on Heroscape canon and go "I wonder how we get from here to there..."

Anyway it was an improvement over the first story by no small amount, and I was glad to have something Heroscape to read again. Maybe one day I'll actually write something Thank you for sharing.

~TAF, 7/10

TAF was the Storyteller...
in THE ENEMY'S LAST RETREAT

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  #28  
Old March 5th, 2021, 02:43 PM
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TGRF TGRF is offline
He should definitely get that. (#4)
 
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

Thanks for the feedback!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAverageFan View Post
As usual your writing skills stand out to me: things like "the words tumbled out of her mouth" are so visual and strike me as things I myself would never come up with as a writer.
These just come naturally; they are likely an effect from having read so much. Read what you want to write, and you'll pick things up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TAF
There were a few things that bothered me: The fact that we never really see Runa interact with Ahnvad considering what he did to her. She really freaked out over the other guy who tortured her but every time Ahnvad shows up she's just already unconscious. Obviously they can't interact that much because she'd just melt his face but I'd have liked to have at least seen some POV from her regarding him at some point in the climax.
Now that I think on it, this makes perfect sense. If you have characters which interact, you should definitely show their reactions to that interaction, especially if they are PoV characters. I'll add that to my list of things to watch out for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TAF
And then there was Taelord enacting his plan once Runa tells him where the Wellspring is at, when to me it seemed that she was just saying whatever she could to keep him alive. She had no way of knowing what she said was true, and I assume most people would rule out her home's water because there was no indication that Utgar was a Valkyrie at that time. I guess it's part placebo?
That's one of those effects of the twists; I was trying to keep it hidden until the last possible moment, so the way it was revealed does make room for that reaction on Taelord's (and the reader's) part.

One of my fears when coming up with these twists is that I won't anticipate every way they could be seen or interpreted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TAF
The rules of the wellspring waters weren't particularly clear to me. How did Ahnvad seal it; how can he seal it when he doesn't really know where it is? How does he know that Utgar's powers would kill everyone in the cave? Has he seen a Lyr Valkyrie before?
Well it wasn't shown in the fiction (again, next story), but my idea of Ahnvad is that he has been obsessed with Wellsprings for years, and he's studied everything he can about them in his frenzied search to find one. A side effect of all that study is that he knows a lot about them, how to control them, and how the magic they grant works.

While developing, I realized that Ahnvad letting Runa go (even if she was powerless) was dead stupid. She could find the Wellspring and drink it before he got there. So I needed a way to ensure that couldn't happen. So the idea is that Ahnvad found an archkyrie spell which can connect to a Wellspring through the Valkyrie who has drunk of it, and by using that spell, he was able to lock it down. As he said in the climax, this spell dies with him. This is also how he knows Utgar would kill everyone in the cave; he's studied Valkyrie.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TAF
And then like the first story this feels like the end of the first Act of a much larger story. Utgar is a villain: I wanna see how he becomes the chiefest of the evil Valkyrie in Heroscape. Tell me the story you tease ...Ok, those expectations are my own fault, but seeing these characters as heroes while the story is ongoing does make the reader occasionally reflect on Heroscape canon and go "I wonder how we get from here to there..."
Well, knowing you would be wondering that as you read, I put in things which were meant to indicate exactly how Utgar turns. Utgar has his primary character arc, but there's a whole second arc going on under the surface, meant to show how he's changing into the Valkyrie he will ultimately become. I won't explain more, just on the off chance that I write a sequel, but it's there. Watch the fighting scenes. That's where it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TAF
Anyway it was an improvement over the first story by no small amount, and I was glad to have something Heroscape to read again. Maybe one day I'll actually write something Thank you for sharing.

~TAF, 7/10
So this was an improvement, but you gave it a 7 when you gave the original an 8? Say what?

~TGRF.
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  #29  
Old March 5th, 2021, 05:37 PM
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

I remember an earlier mention of Valkyrie sealing their wellsprings in the story, but I guess I didn't know that the villain was especially well-read about them. If that was established at some point I must've missed it. The cruelty of his character was more well-established to me than the obsessiveness of it.

I also detected some of the seeds of where Utgar would eventually end up: becoming more distant from his daughter, committing more to war, having none of the hesitations about being a Valkyrie that Runa did... But while I recognize those seeds I still want to see them sprout. If you choose to continue this story then I certainly won't complain.

Quote:
So this was an improvement, but you gave it a 7 when you gave the original an 8? Say what?
Accountability, argh! I must've been drunk. Or I was easier to please back then. Or maybe my ratings are ultimately meaningless as they're based on however I feel at the time. Usually right after I finish the story. All I know is I definitely liked this one better. So I'll switch those scores. Or drop the first Utgar to a 6. Whichever.

~TAF

TAF was the Storyteller...
in THE ENEMY'S LAST RETREAT

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  #30  
Old March 6th, 2021, 12:10 AM
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TGRF TGRF is offline
He should definitely get that. (#4)
 
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAverageFan View Post
Quote:
So this was an improvement, but you gave it a 7 when you gave the original an 8? Say what?
Accountability, argh! I must've been drunk. Or I was easier to please back then. Or maybe my ratings are ultimately meaningless as they're based on however I feel at the time. Usually right after I finish the story. All I know is I definitely liked this one better. So I'll switch those scores. Or drop the first Utgar to a 6. Whichever.

~TAF
I'll definitely take the first option if you're giving me a choice.

As far as sequels go, I'd say it's within the realm of possibility. I have three possible stories in consideration right now, and one of them is a sequel to this, so... we'll see. No guarantees either way.

~TGRF.
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  #31  
Old September 26th, 2023, 05:07 PM
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

For once I kept my word and did in fact reread this story. It's a fairly quick read after all and has a super-fast pace. Even most of the sentences are super short and to-the-point

I mostly stand by my original rating. Missing the Runa PoV toward the end makes it feel like you missed a chapter where all the events occurred: with the attack, her encounter with Ahnvad, and Vraen's death all oddly happening offscreen (did he even die or will he show up in the new one?? ). Also why was there a scene where Utgar fought three soldiers and then immediately following a scene where he fights five soldiers? Just combine them into one

Anyway, I am all caught up on the finer details and am looking forward to the sequel. If I miss anything then you can safely accuse of not having paid attention

~TAF

TAF was the Storyteller...
in THE ENEMY'S LAST RETREAT

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  #32  
Old September 26th, 2023, 07:37 PM
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TGRF TGRF is offline
He should definitely get that. (#4)
 
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Re: Valkyrie - A HeroScape Fan Fiction

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAverageFan View Post
Also why was there a scene where Utgar fought three soldiers and then immediately following a scene where he fights five soldiers? Just combine them into one
Without going back and looking at the development, I'm about 90% sure that has something to do with Utgar's butchered character arc. He had a character arc, but it somehow didn't come across when I outlined the story, so I tried to shoehorn in some scenes to work on it, particularly in the section where he's going after Runa. I'm fairly certain that the reason there are two different scenes is that they build on each other in terms of Utgar's character... or at least they were supposed to.

As for the missed chapter feeling, I remember disliking that as well. There was a reason for it - something to do with not being able to show it because it would undermine the twist of Taelord's revelations I believe. I can't remember specifics beyond that though, unfortunately.

I'm up to proofreading the final few chapters for DoD. Just the Author's Note and Introduction to write after that... you should see it in around two days.

~TGRF.
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