In re: Skysaber's "My Gilded Life"

[Foxboy]

Fic here.
As previously recommended elsewhere in these forums, Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead's response to a challenge to Carrot-style SI into Gilderoy Lockhart.
Ow. My brain.
Seriously. Sadly, I'm discovering this work to be of the "trainwreck" variety. One doesn't want to look but, conversely, cannot look away.
There are a LOT of holes here, and a great deal of internal inconsistency. That said, if you take it as a crackfic, it's tolerable.
I "love" his use of dodgy, ethically-suspect magic while proselytyzing his particular branch of Christianity and claiming moral superiority. And yet, one of his first acts is to murder the Dursleys. Let's forget the fact that he calls Hermione Granger by name without ever being properly introduced or even having a reason for the person he's inserted into to know the First-year Gryffindor without raising suspicion. Harry's a given for just about everyone in the setting he's in.
And he CAN'T seem to resist turning every work into a mega-crossover. I've seen him set up an Addams Family cross and even set up a throwaway reference through Nicholas Flamel to the Smurfs. He also lays claim to a media empire based on "manga" based on his other fics and a remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark, since apparently the Potterverse is bereft of imaginative pop culture or decent special effects tech in the Muggle world.
And he essentially neuters Voldemort within weeks of arrival, and sets up for a big fight against Dark Lord Dumbledore.
Other opinions?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[The Hunterminator]

I didn't even finish the first chapter and I usually don't mind SI fics.

[Bob Schroeck]

It was okay for the first few chapters, but it's spiraled out of control. I agree with describing it as a "train wreck" -- I'm likely the keep reading not because I'm enjoying it, but more to see where it ends up and how. Since so many of his later fics just die in midstream, I'm expecting the same fate for this one. I'm just wondering how many innocent bystanders it'll run over on the way there.
And someone really needs to tell him that
1. "Parselmouth" is the gift of being able to speak with snakes.
2. "Parcelmouth" is the gift of being able to speak with UPS shipments.
and
3. There is no incident of Harry ever encountering a UPS truck anywhere in canon.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

[Kokuten]

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3. There is no incident of Harry ever encountering a UPS truck anywhere in canon.

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*rimshot*Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[deadpan29]

Like a lot of his other work, it works when he manages to dance on the edge of insanity in an entertaining manner. It breaks down when he loses his balance and the zanyness and power-ups ratchet up too fast. Then there are the parts where we get a glimse of the mind behind the story and that mind comes across as genuninely disturbed, not just playing at it.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[jpub]

As usual, Skysaber's work went from entertaining to ridiculous to assinine.
Although, what do you expect? Look at his ffn profile.
Edit: Insulting adjectives removed. Skysaber *really* disappoints me, at times.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[drakensis]

Oddly enough, I'm the guy who came up with the challenge, although he received it secondhand, so to speak, through a mutual acquaintance.
When Jared's good, he's very very good. And when he's bad I just can't look away...
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Happerry]

The tea as an contaminant part ruined it for me, that was were the smugness got more annoying then the story was good.Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
No one with a choice would ever want to learn Anything Goes. Tai Chi was for exercise. Anything Goes was for slaughtering inconvenient gods.

[robkelk]

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3. There is no incident of Harry ever encountering a UPS truck anywhere in canon.

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Can't help but riff off of this comment...
Deliveries in the Wizarding World are usually made by owls...
Harry's gotten around London at least once by hitching a lift on the Knight Bus...
Conflate those, and we get someone who makes deliveries because he can't sleep nights - a Knight Owl.
Maybe he speaks parcelmouth, but only when the sun's down.

(Sorry, I'll go find something more productive to do before this turns into a Piers Anthony crossover...)
-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Kokuten]

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(Sorry, I'll go find something more productive to do before this turns into a Piers Anthony crossover...)

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Oh, is it "Harry Potter and the forced preteen sexual experience" again?
-WG, disgruntled.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[K sai]

"..Oh, is it "Harry Potter and the forced preteen sexual experience" again?..."

Amen to that.
I stopped reading him 15 years ago because each successive book just got sicker and sicker.
TAROT, anyone?
RY

[Kheram Coldstar]

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"..Oh, is it "Harry Potter and the forced preteen sexual experience" again?..."

Amen to that.
I stopped reading him 15 years ago because each successive book just got sicker and sicker.
TAROT, anyone?
RY

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Actually, thats right about the time that he switched publishers and got neutered. In Xanth, sex went from being sex to being "the adult conspiracy"

Kheram

[robkelk]

He only got neutered in Xanth. There were some other books of his - my memory has blessedly blanked the titles of them - where things were decidedly creepier than in his earlier works.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ordnance11]

It was enjoyable at first, but when he starts mixing in things fast and furious..eh.
There were some good ideas he didn't quite expand on, like his SI's growing friendship with McDougal. Pity that.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

As for Piers Anthony, Firefly was where I drew the line. (When the forced preteen sexual experience is forced by the preteen, at five, it becomes the kind of book that should not casually be put down, but rather thrown with great force. Preferably at the author.)
Skysaber... my line was drawn a lot earlier.
--Sam
"If that's art, then art is dirty and weird!"

[Bob Schroeck]

(Why not spin off the Piers Anthony discussion to its own thread? Just so we don't lose focus here.)
I was going through an archive of saved fics and I came across Jared's "Shampoo's Revenge" -- now there's a fic that started great and then went wildly off the rails. Nice simple concept, good implementation, really good plot developing that had me very interested in seeing where it went... and then a sudden left turn into a subplot about how Mrs. Tendo is still alive, divorced from Soun, is married to Dr. Tofu, and just about every minor character from the show is actually her child. I'll admit I liked the idea behind that subplot -- that in being so caught up in her schemes and scams, Nabiki actually missed some fairly important (and obvious!) things in her life -- but dammit, that should have been a separate fic on its own. Instead, Jared let it take over "Shampoo's Revenge" and scuttle the main plot. Argh.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

[Kokuten]

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scuttle the main plot. Argh.

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Yarr, that there scurvy devil couldn' navigate a fanfic to save his peg!
Pirates of Fanfic.Net: Curse of the Piss Poor PlotWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Shepherd]

My problem with Shampoo's Revenge is that Jared apparently forgot to include the scene where Shampoo obviously snuck into Akane's room and used her memory altering shampoo to erase half of Akane's I.Q. After all, while Akane's initial reaction to Ranma's altered behavior is reasonable for what we know of the character, her continued behavior utterly ignores every canon precedent.
The direction that Shampoo's Revenge went after the first few chapters reminds me of why I no longer read stories by certain authors. I haven't read anything by AnimeAddiction in years because of an author rant/manifesto that he had on his site. In it he rationalized his treatment of the Akane Tendo character as being perfectly justifiable revenge for the many horrific things that she'd done to Ranma IN OTHER PEOPLE'S FANFICTION!!! That's right, he admitted to mauling her character in every single one of his stories in response to other fanfiction author depictions of her; going so far as to single out Jared's work as proof that the Akane Tendo character deserved whatever was done to her in his stories.
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

[Ayiekie]

I cannot stand reading anything by any author who obviously hates a character. That includes characters I hate, and yes, includes some of my own early fiction.
You should love every single character you're writing. Including the ones who disliked in the series. ESPECIALLY the ones you disliked in the series. Otherwise, what the hell are they doing in your story? If you don't like them, neither will anyone else. If noone else does, why are they taking up space?
Some of my best moments in writing came from getting into the heads of people I used to dislike and finding something to love about them.
Aside from all that, the anti/pro-Akane hysteria (and to a lesser extent that surrounding other characters) simply baffles the hell out of me. It's a weirdly pervasive thing that seemed to pop out of nowhere sometime after I'd been following fanfiction. Maybe it started with The Bitter End, which is a pity, since I liked that story.

[jpub]

I find it interesting that the same pro/anti character hysteria you saw for Ranma 1/2 is,for the most part, exempt from other popular fandoms *execpt* for Buffy (usually relating to Spike and Angel) and Harry Potter (oh, choose the victim, really).
--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[deadpan29]

I'd have to say hysterical character-love/hate has taken root in the Naruto fandom as well.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Foxboy]

In re: Ayiekie's point:
I used to hate Rei in Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I found something endearing about her during my early phases of Dummy Plug. If I wasn't so sure that he'd ignore it, I'd offer Skysaber the challenge to "write a character you hate in a fic that is at least true to canon (as it actually is) and not your perceptions based on others' fics."
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Epsilon]

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I find it interesting that the same pro/anti character hysteria you saw for Ranma 1/2 is,for the most part, exempt from other popular fandoms

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I find it pretty much universal. I think its just a natural action of fandom to hate large parts of what they enjoy.
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Epsilon

[Necratoid]

The thing I find most in common between loathed charicters is that they are usually in a romantic subplot that the loather is on the opposite side of. While not universal, a large portion of these do follow this patern. For instance those who hate Akane usually have a much, much better mate for Ranma. For instance Shampoo, though a large portion of these use the reason that R&A is 'overdone'... while Shampoo&Ranma as a couple is new and fresh as an idea even after over a decade.
With 'Mirror's Multiplied' being the Grand King of these 'Anyone, but Akane' stories. In it it he flat out states that Akane is the one female in the universe that is bad for Ranma... in no timeline, under no conditions, in no possible rational thought process can Akane be remotely sane or desirable... and any other female and/or every other female at once is more desirable than the unspeakable, horrible of corrupt, vile evil that is any and all possible versions of Akane. After this rant he dissappeared for months or years... though if it was a reaction to bad reviews or that he wanted to leave with his opus as an ending I'm not sure.... with the amount of hate, time and effort he puts into Akane bashing I've always wondered if he was only trying make Akane so undesirable that he was the only one in the multiverse she could end up with. Creepy, but it kind of fits in a twisted way.
All in all I think his problem as a writer is that he hit a platoe years ago, in his writing skills, that can only actually be surpassed by getting over himself. I subspect that unless he is actually traumatised by something that he will end up in a loop. 1) Write up a good plot and function for a few chapters, 2) get distracted by subplots and abruptly add in so many charicters that the increasingly convoluted plots rupture under the sheer mass of charicters involved in the story, 3) get bad reviews which drive him away from writing for a while as he goes off to sulk. 4) Randomly wander back into the fanfiction scene and repeat steps 1-4.

[Morganite]

[Side note: Did some posts in this thread go away? I could have sworn I saw 2 pages in this thread before, but as I'm writing this there's only one.]
Hmmmm.
I'm generally a fan of Skysaber's work, just because he seems to be one of a very limited number of SI authors who are willing to just *have fun* with things.
This one... the first chapter, at least, is not quite up to the standard. (I'm not sure it'd really be considered Carrot-style, since Lockhart's *personality* isn't really there.)
Him knowing Hermione's name doesn't seem that off, because it could be explained simply - someone pointed her out. Murdering the Dursleys... probably more than they've earned. Certainly more than for Dudley, who seemed to show some signs of actual rationality in book 7.
The main problem though is it's just too much stuff being done in too short a period of time. It might be in-character for him to do that. And given the level of advance information he has (since the rule seems to be "Anything shown in the books -will- happen unless something is done to change it"), being able to pull it off might be reasonable. But in terms of telling a story, it's just too rushed.
(Also, I don't quite follow why he's so horrified about what Hermione did to her parents in book 7. After all, the plan was always to *undo* it once it was safe...)
The part that really freaks me out is the wholesale memory-editing. Using the memories that Lockhart had stolen is one thing - he had no way to undo it, better to have *some* good come out of the whole thing. But rewriting people's history is another thing, even with their permission. And I find the logic supporting that whole thing more dubious than even that behind killing the Dursleys.
...And here's the part where I have to go to bed. Though I still have more things to say. Tomorrow, I might actually say them. '.'
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)