It's finally over, and from the bottom of my heart, I hope you found it enjoyable. I'll list my inspirations in a moment, but for those wondering, yes, one of the final lines was basically stolen from a quote by Dr. Jordan Peterson. I don't know what he'd think about being listed as an inspiration for an anime fanfiction, but here we are. If you want words to actually pass on to your kids, I'd definitely recommend him over me. Anyways, on to the fun stuff.
I started this project with the goal of getting better at writing, so any and all criticism is appreciated. I definitely noticed some stuff that I'd fix if I were to write another one of these, but I think this one's good enough for now. Oh, and if it needed clarification, I changed Chloe's interests a bit(if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it) so she'd be a better fit for the story.
After reading all the official LNs, I started reading fanfics to try and get a satisfactory ending to the story without needing to wait, but I didn't find too much in the way of that(I might've just not known where to look, to be fair) and just went on to read a few random ones. One of those random ones was the impetus for this story.
In that work, the author would routinely spend multiple paragraphs describing the floorboards before every scene actually started, and that really bothered me. Probably something trivial along the lines of respecting the reader's time. When I noticed this I thought to myself, "Alright, this can't be too hard, I'll just make one that's efficient!"
…I won't say I completely failed, but seeing as I was aiming for a total of 100 pages and ended up around triple that, I can't exactly say I succeeded.
I chose to make an OC for this project as a shameless self insert(I know), but I wanted to experiment with modes of being in the form of a story, and it was a great way to explore ideas for the future. Another reason to not write a straight up conclusion to Danmachi like I was initially searching for was that I didn't think I would be able to do the characters justice(especially given we STILL don't have some of the most important backstories). Overall, I'm happy with the story I told, but next time I'd make sure to keep it brief and focused.
Rest in peace to the characters I'd forgotten about over the course of the story. Amelia, who I'd planned on using for interludes before I became conscious of the story being way too long. Van, who I honestly didn't really have many plans for. Takémikazuchi, whose familia was just really convenient for the timeline I wanted. Lastly, the characters I'd forgotten about so completely that I can't name them here.
Rest in peace to the forgotten skills and abilities I didn't bother with, chief among them Bell's charm buff. Bell is sure to get many more abilities over the course of the actual story, so I figured I'd end up missing some anyways.
Now, some very brief thoughts on the story. Part 1 seemed far more efficient than Part 2, probably due to part 2 staying on the rails of the main story and having to thrust an OC into them. Part 2 also lost a little emotional investment, as the OC's main goal wasn't as deeply emotional as revenge. The final Corrupted Spirit and the OEBD arcs were basically freestyled, as I wanted to finish this story up before things got too hectic in my own life. My personal favorite fights of Part 1 were the wyvern and the Bloodstained Troll. For Part 2 they were Toothless, Ottarl, and the Bull Spirit.
The images you see throughout this book were edited by me, but almost all of them started out as art for either the LNs or Memoria Freeze, so I won't take too much credit for them.
Now for my inspirations. The Tales of Berk stuff is from one of my childhood favorite movies, How to Train Your Dragon, and I had a lot of fun writing those parts. The spirit backstories and Lily's character are based on the game Ender Lilies: Quietus of The Knights, which has an incredible atmosphere that I tried to lean into when writing those parts. Of course, my main character's teleportation ability was based on Naruto, and so was the 'downforce technique', at least loosely. The last inspiration is one you've probably already heard of, and it's this refreshing little series about picking up girls in a dungeon. I'll surely think of more that I wanted to add after I post this, but for now, thanks so much for reading!