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In Flight ch. 38 is up.

That's two fanfics that managed to bore me out of my mind.

In actually interesting news, there was an Overlady update roughly a day ago. Through the SB lag bars the way, ATM, of course.
 
I am glad IF updated, but I am pissed he way the author keeps using cliffhangers. Its annoying. End a chapter with some closure for once!
 
We're lucky to get closure when the story ends with Gabriel, unfortunately.

Still, the writing is epic.
 
The more In Flight drags on, the less I find myself willing to read it. It's kind of like From Fake Dreams - it had an interesting idea, but any merit that idea had has since been lost in the execution. At this point, the story just keeps dragging on and on with no clear end in sight, and while Gabriel Blessing's writing is certainly above average, it is hardly amazing, and it's not enough for me to actually bother to read new chapters at this point. I read his other stuff because they had direction. At this point, it seems like In Flight is just wandering around aimlessly without any clear destination.
 
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I was expecting and HOPING that Takumi would say "and that idiot wanted me to pass on this message, I have no idea what he means... but... why not show off why you earned that sealing designation." in that meaning... also IF is kind of disappointing at this point.
 
Ch. 39 is up.

Lot of tension, but nothing of note.
 
I usually save new In Flight chapters for when I'm in bed and can't get to sleep.
Works like a charm.
 
Chapter 40.

After the disappointment of the precedent chapter, this one is better.

I am not sure how much better, but better alright.
 
That chapter to me, made the fic unreadable.

I see no way this work can be salvaged.
 
Biigoh said:
That writer's note... so much hate
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Oddly he called tokiomi's move of selling sakura to zouken "well played" despite the fact that zouken violated their agreement and sakura never learning magecraft.
 
Carrnage said:
Oddly he called tokiomi's move of selling sakura to zouken "well played" despite the fact that zouken violated their agreement and sakura never learning magecraft.
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He said Tokiomi would call it "well played", and Tokiomi never learnt the consequences of his actions.
 
Pipeman said:
But he still used those consequences to justify his view of Tokiomi's character.
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*shrug* Or the point is not the exact consequences, but that Tokiomi would be able to make horrific decisions ?
 
The problem is that Tokiomi knew jack and squat of what Zouken wanted. In fact, HAD he known what GB states he knew, he wouldn't do it because it was EXACTLY what happened to Sakura that he was trying to prevent.
 
Jiven said:
*shrug* Or the point is not the exact consequences, but that Tokiomi would be able to make horrific decisions ?
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Well, maybe, but he's still misrepresenting the situation.
Tokiomi basically wanted both of his daughters to grow up to be sociopaths willing to kill each other over a magical ritual, because he thought that would be great for them.
That's plenty of reason to despise him, but by misrepresenting Tokiomi's motivation, as was done here, key aspects of his character are ignored.

He thinks being a magus is the best thing that a person can expect from life and, while he might even have considered the horrifying things Sakura went through worth it for her to become the Matou heir (which we can't say for sure because Kariya sucks at explaining things), to him being the Matou heir includes being ultimately happier than in any other path he could have chosen for Sakura, because he could not imagine that Sakura wanted anything other from life than being a magus and any claims otherwise don't matter because they could only come from non-magi, who obviously can't begin to understand why being a magus is so much preferable to not being one.
He expected that ultimately even Sakura would agree that this was a good decision.

Had he known that Sakura didn't actually become the Matou heir but was instead turned into a tool for Zouken, he would never have agreed.
 
Well, that chapter finally managed to shatter whatever interest I had left in it. I'll be sure to post quite the scathing comment on his forums tonight, but detailed and long enough that it can,t be called flaming.
 
Am I the only one who likes the story so far and looks forward towards further chapters?
 
I enjoy it quite a bit. Though that may be because I don't read the author's notes.
 
I dropped In Flight a few chapters ago, when it became rather clear that the author didn't really have any clear direction for the story as a whole. I think I've mentioned it before, but at the beginning, it seemed like In Flight was going somewhere, and that gabriel blessing had some clear idea of how he wanted to end the story.

His shorter works don't really suffer from this problem, but it seems that he's simply not as skilled at writing longer stories. Looking at the evidence, Hill of Swords had a relatively abrupt (and rather unsatisfying) ending, whereas his shorter stories (like the two Bakemonogatari crosses) fit together much better as a whole. In Flight is a much longer work than Hill of Swords, and it seems that the flaws that were inherent in HoS have been amplified. That's not to say that it doesn't have its merits, but, at this point, the few redeeming qualities that it does have are, by and large, outweighed by the negative aspects.

If I had to compare it to something, I'd probably say that gabriel blessing's works are kind of like mixed drinks. Think about something like a vodka and cranberry or a screwdriver. If you forget to mix it properly, then, the first half or so is fairly pleasant, and then when you get to the bottom, it gradually gets worse and worse until finally you're basically just drinking vodka with a little bit of sugar mixed in.
 
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Based on his writer note, it's possible that the next chapter is the "end"
 
The main problem I have with it is how much it murders the characters' actual characterization and Nasuverse physics, but let's be honest.
It's a crossover and Nasuverse physics are a mess.
Both of those I am willing to ignore because, as long as I detach myself from canon first, it's actually readable, if you have some time to waste.
What really annoys me, though, is how self-satisfied some of the ANs sound, especially about exactly those things.
And then, of course, there's all the stuff that can be only described as filler.
 
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