Right, so for those of you who have finished this series, thank you so much for following and favoriting. The follows and favorites help a lot to encourage writing more of these and I cannot thank you all enough. I appreciate the reviews and the encouragement from you guys. However, the reviews that I got were not as in-depth or thoughtful as I thought. So I'm just going to put in my own thoughts of the entire series as a whole here.
So Define Hero is a ridiculously clichéd title of a fanfiction of the whole Teen Titans. The fic starts off with an audio log by none other than Princess Koriand'r AKA Starfire who got stranded on Earth thanks to her broken spaceship. She meets up with Damian Wayne AKA Robin who after a brief awkward moment of being kissed by an alien out of nowhere, provides her with shelter and protection after quite a reasonable dialogue.
However, there's an even bigger conflict on hand. Her planet was invaded by Kryptonians lead by General Zod, and maybe so Planet Earth. Can Robin assemble the Teen Titans group on time and fight General Zod once and for all?
This is actually my second attempt on making a Teen Titans fanfiction. The first one being Out of the Box which unfortunately was canned in the last few chapters in the same fashion as Young Justice (thankfully having nothing to do with selling toys and instead having to do with running out of ideas). Despite what a lot of peoples say about the fic, I personally didn't like it but it has quite the charm including great character chemistry, lots of buildup, and... tons of sex jokes.
Huh. I didn't even realize that I make that much.
One reviewer said that it's different from your typical YJ fic which is nice. And then one say that it was slightly confusing which is actually understandable because I actually put in some research on real life possibilities of intergalactic space travels, FTL fuels, time travel paradoxes, multiverse theories, and apply it for that fanfic.
Yeah, Doctor, it's timey whimey wibbly-wobbly stuff. I get it.
To be honest, doing this research thing was pretty amazing. I get to know a lot of very interesting things and I can at least apply some degree of realness that would make a nearby physician go "Ah, I get what he's saying!" There's a scene in which the group talks to Ted Kord AKA Blue Beetle 2nd of how time travel and universe travel works. I actually love how that scene was executed. I mean it has tons of explaining, but goddamn it was interesting to read.
Oh I'm talking about OOTB now. Let's talk about Define Hero in my own perspective. So what do I as the author think about Define Hero?
Is it good?
Eh... no.
Is it better than OOTB?
In some ways, yeah.
After re-reading it again, did I regret writing it or did I actually enjoy it?
Surprisingly, I enjoyed re-reading it again, and I didn't regret writing it a single bit.
I was planning this to be the first season of an epic series, but it's a rather confusing start. I didn't plan it out as well as I thought it would be and things that pop up in my head just got dumped into Microsoft Word (by the way, as a quick typer, 2013/2016 Word can go screw itself).
The lack of action in this entire fic is probably what's going to kill my dreams of being a writer in DC or CN. The Titans fighting the actual aliens only happen in the end of the fic and even then, only three of them actually fight the said aliens. I have incredibly underpowered the Kryptonians in this fic and they die about as easy as squatting a mosquito. And then pretty much how the second half of the fic was spent on STAR Labs researching alien stuff and recruiting the Titans. Yeah, that's amazing.
See, the recent screw ups of CN executives and the absence of good TT story that is accessible to mainstream audiences is what drives this entire fic. I thought YJ (even in S01) had too many action and too less time to get to know the characters. It's understandable considering the humongous cast. How about this brilliant idea? What if we take out some of the characters instead of piling them all up together in a huge mess, save them to be introduced for later seasons and focus on just the characters that need the focus? You get to work on more seasons and you get to work on more money!
Oh yeah right. CN wants to sell toys instead of telling good stories. Yeah, I get it now. Where's my huge middle finger when I need it?
And this is where this fic comes in. No, I'm not selling toys. I'm just trying to write in a good story. This entire fic is character-driven which is why the entire plot itself is a bit messed up. I love myself some good storytelling and while the structure and the plot is pretty jumbled and mess, I find myself really enjoying the characters. The writing that I put in them is quite delicious enough to read through.
In this fic, I deliberately wrote Damian Wayne to be not as a bratty kid as he was before especially since he's 17 and he has matured. He now acts more like Classic TT Robin and Captain America, which is pretty cool. Starfire is still cute and kawaii but a hell of a lot more violent because of the war. The rest of the characters have absolutely wonderful interactions with each other that it almost makes me forget about the plot structure.
Despite me not liking this fic as much, I actually learn something. If you make the characters so likeable, dynamic, and combine it with colorful and interesting dialogues, then you won't care about plot structure. It's a slice of life thing. They usually have the worst plot structure ever, but the characters are so likeable and kind-hearted that you usually don't care. It's the magic of fiction right besides action that peoples underappreciate, which is why I strengthen them for this fic.
Oh and by the way, I know that some peoples might ask 'Where is Superman? Where is Clark Kent? This is General Zod! He's a Superman enemy!'. Since this takes place in an entirely new universe (in the spirit of the classic TT animated), I think references to Superman or Batman would be the last thing I'm worried about. Besides, Bruce is dead on this fic because I don't want him to be in this. I find the Bat Family a lot more interesting.
Superman? Well... I'm going to let you figure it out yourself.
And speaking of Man of Steel, that freaking climax battle was pretty brutal. Starfire just literally grabbed someone's head and blow it up. I lampshade it a couple of times with other characters, but I hand-waved it as well. It's pretty brutal and I think it's rather inappropriate for the T fan fiction rating, but I love it. It's when Titans can finally get mature to whatever stance they are and to enhance themselves to grow from their heroic status into something deeper than that. At least they try to seek diplomacy.
So in conclusion, despite me not finding the overall series to be that good, I liked it. It's not a really bad start for a sequel and I cannot wait to write off a sequel for this epic. However, that will be another time for another month... or maybe another year... or maybe never. We never know.
I'd give it 3/5. I liked it quite a bit and I'm glad that a lot of peoples are too. It's not the best of my work, but I'm certain that I can write better in the future.
So thanks for reading this bonus behind-the-scenes chapter of some sort. If you really love this fic and you wanted to see more of these kinds of stories, in additional to following and favoriting this fic, you can follow and favorite me personally as the author right down below. Thanks for reading and have a good time! :)