A couple of years ago, under a different pseudonym, I attempted to create an "Alternate Felarya" known as Ayralef. It was, for lack of a gentler description, a miserable failure.
The answer as to why it failed is as obvious to me now as it was a mystery to me then. I was far too ambitious with the project. I went overboard right from the start, diving into the narrative with no introduction or preamble, opening up a group page straight away and expecting people to just jump right in, while doing little to nothing to flesh out the background of Ayralef, focusing only on the present.
This time I am being far more judicious. My goal is to introduce Ayralef from a single narrative that will provide a solid foundation from which the world can grow. At the moment this narrative is currently in progress, but I need people to see it in order for it to be a success this time.
So here I am, a humble author, asking for critiques on my new story. My deviantart page is http://jakethecardsculptor.deviantart.com/. The first few chapters of "Enter Ayralef" are already posted. Here is a short summary of the story:
Over a decade ago, a girl named Lea came to the world called Felarya through a wayward dimensional portal. She was a refugee from a brutal planet; a slave. But in a twist of fate, Lea was freed from her slavery by a man-eating giant predator named Crisis. Instead of becoming just another meal, however, Lea instead made friends with Crisis. Since then, Lea has lived with Crisis, and made other friends amongst the predators of Felarya. It is not a perfect life, but it is a happy one.
But Felarya is dimensionally unstable! Lea has forgotten this fact in the ten years that she has spent living with her friends inside the Giant Tree. She is about to get a reminder.
While bathing at the foot of the Giant Tree, Lea finds herself once again thrust into a new world against her will. Only this time, she finds herself in Ayralef, a faint mirror's reflection of the world she has just left. In Ayralef, the forest is gone, replaced by human civilization. The Giants of the world, no longer predators of, but friends to, humanity. The only constant between the two worlds is the Giant Tree rising up like a great green monolith. Now, Lea must find a way to get back to Felarya. Back to the friends and the faces she knows. And she must move quickly, for a great evil stirs in the heart of Ayralef, it knows Lea doesn't belong, and it is coming to get her!
With permission from Karbo, I have taken one of his characters, Lea, and thrust her into Ayralef. Why? Well, it is through Lea's eyes that Ayralef will unfold. And sometimes, the best way to explore a new world is through the eyes of an outsider. In the great tradition of Alice in Wonderland Lea is about to tumble down the proverbial "rabbit hole."
Mind you, I'm not here fishing for compliments. I am advertising because I need people to take a look at this and tell me what they really think. I want to know if I am simply wasting my time, or if this is something that people could get into. Because I want "Ayralef" to work. I want it to become an entity unto itself. So comments are greatly appreciated. Suggestions are welcomed.
And ultimately, I hope to someday see Ayralef come alive with more than just my ideas. I hope to see other people get involved and expand the world as Felarya has been expanded. Maybe I'm still being too ambitious in hoping for all that, but nothing is ever gained by not trying.
Again, the link is http://jakethecardsculptor.deviantart.com/. I thank everyone for their time.
master-of-the-G-way likes this post
French snack Moderator
Posts : 1192 Join date : 2009-04-05 Location : in Milly's stomach. Care to join me?
Subject: Re: Ayralef Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:46 am
For what my view may be worth, I would like to warmly endorse this project and story. I've been reading Ayralef with genuine interest, pleased whenever a new chapter pops up. It's creative, coherent, engaging, and the pace this time is just right.
I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and I think many of you will too.
Ilceren Moderator
Posts : 677 Join date : 2012-05-10 Age : 34 Location : Spain
Subject: Re: Ayralef Sat Jul 13, 2013 5:58 pm
I shall take a look, then. The intro seems quite interesting, and the way you reflect on your errors speaks in your favour. French snack is a trusty reference too, if he says it's good, I think I'll enjoy it too. I will tell you my impressions once I've read a bit.
Jakethecardsculptor Tasty morsel
Posts : 6 Join date : 2013-06-18
Subject: Re: Ayralef Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:35 am
Shamelessly bumping my own story with a superfluous update: Chapter VII is now up.
Telemachus Helpless prey
Posts : 23 Join date : 2012-07-01
Subject: Re: Ayralef Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:13 am
Hello, Jakethecardsculptor (after my very long absence...). I would like to say that yesterday I read your brilliant tale "Enter Ayralef"; and I loved it so much that I read all the chapters in one breath: from the first to the thirtieth, as well as Evernight Fallout I, II and III, and Final Act. Apart from the fact it's an exciting, engaging story (so much so I couldn't stop reading until the last line of its last chapter!), I think your idea about an "alternative version" of Felarya in a mirror-universe (remembering, for example, the Mirror-Universe of Star Trek, in a LTA), where exists the multirracial Ur-Sagol Empire, and the former giant predators are now (mostly) friends and allies to Humanity, is extremely fascinating and intellectually provocative, which deserves very serious attention. I'm very interested in develop this idea along with you and who else would can be interested in that. In Ayralef, especially in Ur-Sagol (au contraire de Felarya), if you is human, neko elve or tinnie, you not run the riski of be swallowed by a predator bigger than you, and the former "monsters" (in their majority) are your friends or at least allies; yeah, it isn't a perfect life, but it's a happier than Felarya. I think this opposition and complementarity between both the worlds, Ayralef and Felarya, can and should be further explored in more detail by new stories. Certainly it would be very interesting to be developed in parallel. And I have some ideas and suggestions. (By the way, I read also How They Met I and II, Snow Bird I and II, and the first chapter of City of Domes - Before the Dawn.)
(I didn't get to post my reviews in Deviant Art, so I'm posting here in this forum.) You now, I never liked Lea, I considered she was a self-centered and dehumanized creature, besides being a minor character (although The "Darkness of Felarya" shows she on a relatively more favorable aspect in her interact with Gray). It's serious, I was biased against Lea because her bias against the human race! However, reading "Enter Ayralef", my opinion about she began to change... as well as her own opinion about the humans changed too, very very slow, through her familiarity with the citizens (humans and inhumans of Angkora; curiously, the multirracial Sagolian society, its ideals of coexistence and iguality for all races, remember the Federation of Star Trek!), although who really protrude, excel, in your story is her Ayralefian alter ego, the "mirror-character" Lea Landau, the true heroin in your story. Sincerelly, I loved Lea Landau. She showed to Felaryan Lea ("Lara") how different her own life could have been, taught her out of her shell (remembering Tasha Yar in Star Trek - The Next Generation), as well as the Ayralefian Crisis taught her to trust on the peoples that lived that new world, which she defended with her own life. Lea Landau taught an altruism to her double, the Felaryan Lea, a higher altruism that wasn't limited to a few friends. And the end was as creative as bittersweet (using a "trick" of quantum teleportation to replicate Lea). In sum, "Enter Ayralef" shows the slowly progressive Felaryan Lea's rehumanization and growing, having as background the convulsed parallel universe of Ayralef, "mirror Felarya". I hope you will write new stories focused on the new life of "Lea (Lara) Landau" and her new friends (and "her husband" Corbin) in Ayralef. And if you want collaboration for ideas and suggestions about its background, I will be willing to collaborate (A librarian Subeta? A military instructor Kai? Kortiki would be a cosmopolitan city in the Fairy Kingdom? Tomthumbs and neeras would have civil rights in the Sagolian society, "hand in hand" with humans, elves and nekos? Etc etc).
ravaging vixen Moderator
Posts : 504 Join date : 2010-02-07 Age : 33 Location : Rocky mountains
Subject: Re: Ayralef Mon Dec 08, 2014 10:49 am
(Edit: Merged your two post together, please remember not to double post)