Oops, that was vilely. =(
Flashbacks change the meaning of what is happening, and of Eric.
In general, it is predictable, but very beautiful  ^_^ 
Very cool entry ^_^
I even wept a little. 

Very cool fight, and great ending. Bravo! 

 wow! proves that with vampires age isn't everything! Great work Alter Native!

i love Nora's armour it looks amazing! did you make it yourself?

2 hours ago, Crw said:

Oops, that was vilely. =(
Flashbacks change the meaning of what is happening, and of Eric.
In general, it is predictable, but very beautiful  ^_^ 
Very cool entry ^_^
I even wept a little. 

Thank you!

1 hour ago, The Gauntman said:

Very cool fight, and great ending. Bravo! 

Glad you liked it.

12 minutes ago, xGHoSTx said:

 wow! proves that with vampires age isn't everything! Great work Alter Native!

i love Nora's armour it looks amazing! did you make it yourself?

Thanks, I can't take credit for the armor, I mostly edited and combined existing armors a bit. The main part is from the K9 armor set that I modified a bit. The cloak is a retextured firekeeper cloak from Dark Souls 3. The gloves are from the deadric reaper armor (I guess).

Very interesting chapter and pretty sad ending for Eric. 

Aria: My oh my this was... crazy. Love is a crazy thing and will make people (in this case a Vampire) do crazy things. Note to self, if Noras offers a me a hug. I'll pass.

Great work, the fight was superior to mine by a longshot.

2 hours ago, Agent Tex said:

Aria: My oh my this was... crazy. Love is a crazy thing and will make people (in this case a Vampire) do crazy things. Note to self, if Noras offers a me a hug. I'll pass.

 

Great work, the fight was superior to mine by a longshot.

Shea: I don't know about passing up a hug with Nora, I think it'd be worth it. 

But really though, nice chapter, I wish I could coordinate decent fight scenes. I can do it for stage but in Skyrim it seems so much more difficult.

 It's ok that you chose this ending instead of the other one I like it too

Tsk tsk tsk Eric, falling for the oldest trick in the book. A truly tragic end for such a brilliant character. I'm sad to see him go. Great job though, Alter! The fight scene was choreographed really well and you had a lot of really exciting shots! Great work!

Another great entry. The fight lacks a bit in clarity sometimes, the reader doesn't always knows for sure if the characters have been hit or if they're just carried by their impulse. However, graphics are still as magnificent as always, and the story itself, quite dramatic. Good job !

Malicia : « So now you've got a big castle where you can be very sad instead of the gentle Eric, uh ? I'm sure you'll get very happy now, yes. No doubt. »

14 hours ago, Resdayn said:

Very interesting chapter and pretty sad ending for Eric. 

Thanks.

14 hours ago, Agent Tex said:

Aria: My oh my this was... crazy. Love is a crazy thing and will make people (in this case a Vampire) do crazy things. Note to self, if Noras offers a me a hug. I'll pass.

 

Great work, the fight was superior to mine by a longshot.

Thank you, it wasn't even her how offered the hug, I wanted Nora to be completely passive in the end, she kind of accepted/realized her defeat until she took advantage of the massive opportunity that arose. 

12 hours ago, BoLtStEr2002 said:

Shea: I don't know about passing up a hug with Nora, I think it'd be worth it. 

 

But really though, nice chapter, I wish I could coordinate decent fight scenes. I can do it for stage but in Skyrim it seems so much more difficult.

Thank you! I've relatively little experience with fighting scenes sine this happens happen somewhat rarely on my blog. I personally get the best results when using the vanilla fighting animations an no poser animations. You can slow down time with the sucsm command freeze the NPC in a good looking position and place your character accordingly afterwards.

8 hours ago, Jayomms said:

 It's ok that you chose this ending instead of the other one I like it too

Thank you Jayomms.

7 hours ago, Collygon said:

Tsk tsk tsk Eric, falling for the oldest trick in the book. A truly tragic end for such a brilliant character. I'm sad to see him go. Great job though, Alter! The fight scene was choreographed really well and you had a lot of really exciting shots! Great work!

He just completely misjudged the situation and the unscrupulousness of Nora's character. Thanks for the complement, from the master of custom animations and exiting fighting scenes.

2 hours ago, Tirloque said:

Another great entry. The fight lacks a bit in clarity sometimes, the reader doesn't always knows for sure if the characters have been hit or if they're just carried by their impulse. However, graphics are still as magnificent as always, and the story itself, quite dramatic. Good job !

 

 

Malicia : « So now you've got a big castle where you can be very sad instead of the gentle Eric, uh ? I'm sure you'll get very happy now, yes. No doubt. »

Thanks, I know what you mean. The fighting in the church was a bit messy especially with suddenly blood appearing on Nora's face, without making clear whether she was hit or whether this is a result of her blood magic (which it is). That's a fair criticism, I kinda openly run into this.

@Malicia, you'd be surprised, some people are willing to do whatever it takes to reach their goals, even if they hurt themselves. 

The action shots depicting them dodging, feinting, or hopping about are understandably a bit harder to follow (in the dimly lit environments), but I adore the ones where their swords clash and there are fancy special effects.

I do wonder now at the end about the justification for Eric's death, but alas his love and trust for Nora lead to his end. Wonder what's next for this chapter, this seems like a conclusive point for it

I can't but help that your story emasculates the male counterpart.

All is wonderful, that is granted.

But the end of the male vampire... no, sorry, I can't help it. The story was good enough to built up excitement very well, only to end in this lofty end.

I think, all in all, you hurt yourself by that. Not saying: he deserved more. I don't care for him. But you reduced Nora to a telenovela vampire.

Why use all your marvellous skills on an ending so flimsy.

That really bugs me. I know that you don't need that kind of feedback now, and I certainly hope I do not sound to whiny with this. I honestly think your Nora deserves more depth - now, she earned it. You made her important enough to earn it.

Well, no matter. Even Dexter had episodes you couldn't watch twice.

2 hours ago, Swiftstep said:

Well, no matter. Even Dexter had episodes you couldn't watch twice.

Woav, you're going a bit hard on Alter Native, don't you think ? You said yourself that the graphical aspect was marvelous, the fight itself changes of scenes and twists quite a few times, there are stakes, expressions and poses are excellent. He deserves credit for it IMO, and that fight is re-readable no problem (I just did, btw).

Now, I agree that Eric's end is somehow disappointing. He was a really interesting character, distinctly different than the other vampires. Only achingly naive towards women I guess ?

2 hours ago, Swiftstep said:

I can't but help that your story emasculates the male counterpart.

Malicia : « I agree : cutting off someone's pee-pee is very meany, yes !  »

Jokes aside, I (I mean me, Tirloque) agree on the image. But the heroin being female, that was bound to happen, wasn't it ?

On 17.5.2018 at 3:40 PM, Rattlesnark said:

The action shots depicting them dodging, feinting, or hopping about are understandably a bit harder to follow (in the dimly lit environments), but I adore the ones where their swords clash and there are fancy special effects.

I do wonder now at the end about the justification for Eric's death, but alas his love and trust for Nora lead to his end. Wonder what's next for this chapter, this seems like a conclusive point for it

Thanks, I put some work into sparks. I general action scenes are somewhat hard to do in my style unless you are willing to shoot and post lots of images. A more traditional comic style is a lot better for these kind of scenes.

You're right, in some way this section divides chapter 5 in two parts. 

21 hours ago, Swiftstep said:

I can't but help that your story emasculates the male counterpart.

All is wonderful, that is granted.

But the end of the male vampire... no, sorry, I can't help it. The story was good enough to built up excitement very well, only to end in this lofty end.

I think, all in all, you hurt yourself by that. Not saying: he deserved more. I don't care for him. But you reduced Nora to a telenovela vampire.

Why use all your marvellous skills on an ending so flimsy.

That really bugs me. I know that you don't need that kind of feedback now, and I certainly hope I do not sound to whiny with this. I honestly think your Nora deserves more depth - now, she earned it. You made her important enough to earn it.

Well, no matter. Even Dexter had episodes you couldn't watch twice.

You're not coming off as whiny, I really appreciate these more honest and critical comments, ok the telenovela vampire hurt a bit :). 

I'm not sure if you mean specifically Eric with "male counterpart", or refer to my other male characters as well (such as Vasil or Ahtar). 

Eric certainly doesn't fit the typically male muscles instead of brains character, I am not a fan of this gender stereotypical thinking/characters anyway. The palette of male characters on Loverslab barley exceeds the rapist that takes advantage of the virgin heroin.

That said, Eric is certainly not a weak character. Ignoring the fact that he's an old vampire, he takes responsibility for people around him (humans of solitude), he is willing to take himself back for the benefit of others, he is loyal, believes in the good of others and trusts people. Besides all of that he defeats her in open honest fight.

Whether you see this as a weak male or not is up to you, but in the end Nora taking advantage how his character traits is what gets him killed, not that Eric is a weak character (imo).

One of the problems with strong characters it is really hard to show them as strong characters, without having another character appear weak, as seen in Chapter 5 Section 3 with Eric and Nora. Vice versa in Chapter 4 Section 8 with Ahtar and Nora there were voices that wondered whether Nora is shown too weak / submissive towards Ahtar.

I personally really like the ending. Of course in some way it was predictable that she is going to kill him and maybe some of the dialogues are a bit cheesy in the end, but I still really really like the ending scene. In fact it is one of my personal favorite scenes of my blog/story. To be it was about the recklessness of Nora and the willingness to pay whatever price necessary even if this means killing a very old friend / mentor. To be this is more than just a random stab in the back.

Not everyone likes everything, and has to like everything. There'll be other entries in the future and you'll soon learn about different character traits of Nora.

20 hours ago, Tirloque said:

Woav, you're going a bit hard on Alter Native, don't you think ? You said yourself that the graphical aspect was marvelous, the fight itself changes of scenes and twists quite a few times, there are stakes, expressions and poses are excellent. He deserves credit for it IMO, and that fight is re-readable no problem (I just did, btw).

 

Now, I agree that Eric's end is somehow disappointing. He was a really interesting character, distinctly different than the other vampires. Only achingly naive towards women I guess ?

Malicia : « I agree : cutting off someone's pee-pee is very meany, yes !  »

 

Jokes aside, I (I mean me, Tirloque) agree on the image. But the heroin being female, that was bound to happen, wasn't it ?

Mostly what I wrote before. His death was planned from the beginning. As said in the main entry, I did the flashback after I created this entry so he was already dead. The only other solution would have been that Nora doesn't kill him and the two somehow work against the Queen and for example pretend Erics death.

As said before his general traits that make him "the good" / nontypical vampire get him killed, not necessarily a naivety towards women... maybe towards (selfish (vampire)) people in general. 

Not sure if I made my message clear enough. Your focus is on female characters - that is cool, no problemo. Male are not in focus, so naturally, the have less facettes. No problemo, as I said. And the point about Eric wasn't that he is physically or mentally weak - but it was soap to expect Nora to be something else than she is. If he was 6 feet deep in love with her, and they had a long, lasting romantic history - okay, different.

That's the point. It was too a easy a plot twist... it was too strong to be expected. No surprise. I know that it is damn hard to create such tension, and keep it. But if you want Nora to be a character with more than feeding ectassy (bluntly spoken), she needs to grow with the experiences she makes.

Maybe that is better a key phrase. She killed him in cold blood, using his blind love. Now you have only two choices for her: did she feel anything, did she feel remorse (positive effect), or did she feel nothing at all (negative effect). I don't know. Exactly that is what I cannot find in your story.  The impact of this event. It is not round. It's like you swallow a big ball of rice (with a certain expectation), and yet you feel nothing, because key ingredients / spices are missing.

I can fully understand that you are proud of this episode - you should be. You earned it.

And, lastly, I know very well that people seem to mollycuddle on every occasion, but I find that to be not helpful. Maybe that's because many consider us transalpine barbarians to be unable to be anything but blunt, but I see your effort as creational process. And to keep a process progressing, you need constructive critic in a far bigger dose thant compliments.

But hey, it's your blog

2 hours ago, Alter Native said:

Mostly what I wrote before. His death was planned from the beginning. As said in the main entry, I did the flashback after I created this entry so he was already dead. The only other solution would have been that Nora doesn't kill him and the two somehow work against the Queen and for example pretend Erics death.

As said before his general traits that make him "the good" / nontypical vampire get him killed, not necessarily a naivety towards women... maybe towards (selfish (vampire)) people in general.

From a scenario point of view, having Nora and Eric banding together would have been a great twist leading to even more interesting conflicts in the future (even internal ones). Faking his death would also be unexpected ; but somehow would be harder to bring considering Eric's personality.

Basically I think it's important to keep a few surprises from the reader : in a good story, there are always hints which prepare the future events, and then make them more consistent. But sometimes getting an opposite from what a reader has been prepared to expect makes for a good twist. Even if that opposite event lasts only a few moments before in the end getting to the same result.

Here Nora killing Eric was expected. However, Eric having the upper hand on the fight wasn't. The impression that this made didn't lasted long however.

1 hour ago, Swiftstep said:

Maybe that is better a key phrase. She killed him in cold blood, using his blind love. Now you have only two choices for her: did she feel anything, did she feel remorse (positive effect), or did she feel nothing at all (negative effect). I don't know. Exactly that is what I cannot find in your story.  The impact of this event. It is not round.

You've read too fast then. You can distinctly see the black, ash like tears she sheds after killing him. It's the same ones that we've seen on Eric after his wife's death, an on Nora when she was tortured by the dawnguard. It's without a doubt painful for her.

Which is criticized in Malicia's comment. Comments which aren't always completely off, despite their ever childish presentation. 

1 hour ago, Swiftstep said:

And, lastly, I know very well that people seem to mollycuddle on every occasion, but I find that to be not helpful.

Sorry about Malicia themed jokes ; I tend to overuse her and understand that kind of humor isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea.

However, about criticism,  I have another way of seeing things : I always try to see the good and bad things when making an appreciation.

That way reminds both the author and the critic that there is still work being accomplished. Work that despite being done in a non commercial way, has the value of the effort put into it in my eyes. It's an important aspect of the « free » domains of the web : you do a mod, write a story, create at freeware or maintain a site for free ; so in exchange in my eyes, some acknowledgement is only fair.

So when making criticism, I'm almost always underlining a positive aspect before (or after) writing a critic on the "lacking/lesser" sides. Call it « mollycuddling », that's a question of style. But you'll remark that my critic, despite being formulated in a less offensive way, is probably no lesser on the technical aspect. Telling to a storyteller that his story isn't clearly narrated/illustrated is no minor matter. And as storytellers, it being with subtitled or comics, improving our technique is most of the time something important to us.

Usually you're one of the earnests to acknowledge work, and to do fair criticism. Even for simple mindless sex screenshooting which in my eyes has very little work/value. But there, since a few entries, you're clearly disliking the Eric script part to the point of losing your usual composure and acuteness (cf. quoted missed details above). And though your point is pertinent IMO, i didn't approve the way in which it was made. Which is why, I felt this debate could gain from having a third, neutral point of view involved.

Sorry if I intruded both your and Alter native's discussion, regardless of disagreements ; I mean no disrespect for both of you.

14 hours ago, Swiftstep said:

If he was 6 feet deep in love with her, and they had a long, lasting romantic history - okay, different.

 

That's the point. It was too a easy a plot twist... it was too strong to be expected. No surprise. I know that it is damn hard to create such tension, and keep it. But if you want Nora to be a character with more than feeding ectassy (bluntly spoken), she needs to grow with the experiences she makes.

 

Maybe that is better a key phrase. She killed him in cold blood, using his blind love. Now you have only two choices for her: did she feel anything, did she feel remorse (positive effect), or did she feel nothing at all (negative effect). I don't know. Exactly that is what I cannot find in your story.  The impact of this event. It is not round. It's like you swallow a big ball of rice (with a certain expectation), and yet you feel nothing, because key ingredients / spices are missing.

As said before I appreciate these open discussions. As Tirloque pointed out, in the end you see her face without tears and shortly after you see the exact same image, but this time with tears. Maybe these dark streams running down from her eyes are not recognizable enough to be tears. There was a discussion during chapter 3 where this was discussed as well. I've found a better solution since then, with better blood tears, that you'll see in chapter 6.

Besides that, you see her genteelly holding him the moment he dies and she's supposed to make a sad face. There might be issues with the presentation of my content (and maybe with the story as well) and communicating these little details. Also posting a bunch of images leads to the reader just scrolling through them without looking closer at them. 

Me knowing all the details certainly make me perceive the screenshots differently.

It's somewhat hard to transport really strong emotions with just screenshots only. If this was a movie, you had music to work with, moving images and sobbing sounds or the like of the character.

13 hours ago, Tirloque said:

From a scenario point of view, having Nora and Eric banding together would have been a great twist leading to even more interesting conflicts in the future (even internal ones). Faking his death would also be unexpected ; but somehow would be harder to bring considering Eric's personality.

 

Basically I think it's important to keep a few surprises from the reader : in a good story, there are always hints which prepare the future events, and then make them more consistent. But sometimes getting an opposite from what a reader has been prepared to expect makes for a good twist. Even if that opposite event lasts only a few moments before in the end getting to the same result.

 

Here Nora killing Eric was expected. However, Eric having the upper hand on the fight wasn't. The impression that this made didn't lasted long however.

You've read too fast then. You can distinctly see the black, ash like tears she sheds after killing him. It's the same ones that we've seen on Eric after his wife's death, an on Nora when she was tortured by the dawnguard. It's without a doubt painful for her.

 

Sorry about Malicia themed jokes ; I tend to overuse her and understand that kind of humor isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea.

 

Sorry if I intruded both your and Alter native's discussion, regardless of disagreements ; I mean no disrespect for both of you.

 

The fake death scenario would probably more conflict with Nora's personality, as she is the one risking things for the live of Eric, which is out of character. Also she decided/accepted to kill Eric, so there is no reason why she suddenly wouldn't do that.

Don't worry about your comment, your opinion and feedback is always appreciated.

And of course no problem with your Malicia jokes either, they give your posts a very unique note. As you've seen by now I personally don't like writing these character lines outside my story posts, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading them

That was an awsome chapter. 

I really loved the fight scenes.

16 hours ago, bodabira 01 said:

That was an awsome chapter. 

I really loved the fight scenes.

Thanks, glad you liked it