The Deathless Merchant of London / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page The Deathless Merchant of London.

Author Post

Ralliston 23 Oct 2022 18:03

Oh, your time is comin' fast
And the Ferryman only deals in cash
Oh, your time is comin' fast
And the Ferryman only deals in, the Ferryman only deals in cash

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Eat the rich.

Apparently, this is the 100th F120A page posted on EN, which is… well, it's kind of insane? I don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did. Couldn't have done it without any if you wonderful readers and commenters. Here's to another 100.

Another thanks is owed to the wonderful Jasiu06 | Uncle Nicolini | Guezma | Fishish for giving this a look before I posted.

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~ for more articles by me, visit my authorpage! ~

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Last edited on 19 Oct 2023 18:23 by Ralliston Show more

Guezma 23 Oct 2022 18:10

Hope to see a girlboss losing one of those days

(account deleted) 24 Oct 2022 18:22

Since this is apparently the 100th entry in a series, I can't comment on it in the context of the canon. However, the story works fine as a standalone Dark story in most respects (even if there's specific nuances of character interactions that I'm missing).

Still, neither part really worked for me. The SH portion was alright in terms of plotting out Dark (even if "he's a rich wizard" was a bit of a let-down), but I really didn't care for the meat of the article. The issue was that 1) the footnotes were too-frequent snark for my taste 2) the prose itself felt off. With regards to 2, I am aware that there are plenty of articles (like The Conspiracy of Sigma 3) that are nakedly partisan and rather goofy. Even with those articles, though, there's a way that they're written that feels consistent with other SH articles. Lines like "Though undoubtedly Homo sapiens, calling him human would be an insult to the millions of years of evolution that made us" don't fit that mold for me.

I get that this is also a plan to murder someone (I thought this was a cool touch, btw), so academic tone wasn't at the forefront of the in-universe author's mind. However, it also seems like it's trying to keep a semi-academic tone while also ranting at the same time, which doesn't work. If it had gone full-bore ranting or stayed restrained and academic while also plotting to assassinate someone, that would have worked. Instead, it ends up as a compromise that doesn't work in either direction.

The tale portion was fine, but there was wonky phrasing throughout that pulled me out of the story (e.g. "the burning sensation birth itself down his empty lungs")

I really liked the idea of the SH documentation being used for more than just cataloguing. Unfortunately, it still doesn't work for me. Have to give this a -1.

Ralliston 24 Oct 2022 18:41

Absolutely fair! I understand your concerns and appreciate you voicing them quite a lot. I feel like it ultimately comes down to personal preference (interpretation?) wherein I see SH as half-competent rambly types that really want to be taken seriously but at the end of the day are the anomalous equivalent of teenagers getting interested in politics, and most of their points are attempted to be written in genuine, clinical tone but ultimately get buried beneath emotions and rambling. But I see why that wouldn't work for anyone — especially with how you explained it.

As for the tale part itself — I've written most of it in an ADHD-induced fever of a writing session, so I figured some awkward phrasings would have slipped even through critique, hah. Went through it one more time and cleaned some of them up; hopefully, it's a little better this time.

Thanks a ton for taking the time to put down your thoughts in the comments. Like I said, genuinely appreciate it a lot.

onionpuppy 17 Nov 2022 14:58

Really liked the Serpent's Hand part of the article, the way they came up with their plan (including the one's they didn't use) and the characterization of the group were both interesting. I did think some of the footnotes felt a little annoying as well (the one about why Robert Darke changed his name was funny though), but I like your explanation for why that was even though I personally don't have the same interpretation, and it didn't kill my enjoyment or anything.

With the follow-up though, I think the idea of the narrative itself is interesting, but that it would have benefited from improved pacing. Or, now that I think about it, maybe just another pass of editing in general. Like, towards the beginning, he goes from being shocked that Iris Dark is there, like just present in the area standing in front of him, to commenting on her grip being around his throat, with no transition in between. There's also some awkward phrasing and sentences that could have been trimmed down. Genuinely I like the sort of plot of the story, and I like the tone (and the setting of the yacht during a storm, it might be a little cliche but I think it works), but I think the way it was written could have been executed better.