The biggest problem I think a lot of people, especially power gamers and power porn and power munchkin fans have with this story comes down to a pretty simple fact.
Joe is a fucked up person with ZERO confidence in himself.
His biggest issue is that he has such a lack of confidence in himself that even after all this bullshit he cannot see he is a Triumvirate Tier cape who is going to save the world from the Endbringers. He so specifically ISN'T a power gaming munchkin that people EXPECTING him to be one like all other SI CYOA JUMPER fiction it is actually JARRING to them.
His inner monologue reflects this.
He is, quite simply, the strongest cape in the world right now. And he is only going to get stronger. Does it mean certain things aren't going to still be a threat to him? No.
But his inner monologue and whole problem is that he is a very fucked up guy who has so little confidence in himself that he undersells everything he does and oversells everything his enemies do in his inner monologues...
...which I am content with.
Because its so different then most of the other stuff I've read. If I wanted to read a power gamer munchkining power porn story... well those are a dime a dozen.
This story is special like that. Also reflecting the original story's Unreliable Narration in a lot of ways.
We'll see from the interlude next chapter just how the world views what Joe just did.
I twisted in midair, letting the stream flow past me. Then I reached out and grabbed it. Burning air flowed under my hands without shifting my grip. I used the stream for leverage, swung my body around, and bounded up the line of fire directly towards Lung's flying form.
Lord didn't say March is out of the story. Technically alive sounds to me a lot more like she's getting a huge brute upgrade but comes with horrific mutatational consequences for her... but don't actually make her less an issue for anyone already tired of her shit and instead just gives her powerup to justify keeping her around as a bigger bad.
As far as the plot is concerned, "March is technically alive but in no condition to do anything" amounts to "March is alive", because it implies the same thing: namely, in some future story, the threat is going to come back. It's possible that the character March is gone and that the threat will come back indirectly (choose your own: Noelle clone, Bonesaw construct, etc.), but the effect on the story is pretty much the same as March being normally-alive.
Furthermore, even if March is disabled for now, Joe doesn't know that. As far as he knows, he just decided to kill Lung, and let March go despite all the buildup to killing her, and there's no corpse. Joe therefore should be acting as though he made a really bad mistake by letting March go and that March could come back at any moment.
He is going to teach the world why Rule One is so dangerous.
* Rule One is "Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man". (Due to the Disc's narrative causality such a person is almost always a highly-trained martial artist.
Or, in this case... has Aura, a Tang Suit that can stop bullets, and a sword/gun/rifle that can cut through anything/shoot through a lot.
Given the scale of the reaction to this chapter I wanted to try to address things before I began any of my usual spelling and grammar corrections and management of the thread.
Firstly, I want to thank everyone for supporting this story. Given how strong the reaction has been to the last chapter I can tell how much this story meant to people. I know disappointment like that doesn't happen unless someone is very invested.
I could begin by addressing specific points of the chapter, but I actually wanted to start with a general statement. I take full responsibility for the narrative decisions in this story. Some authors regard their works like the watchmaker analogy, that the world and characters exist largely independently of the author input. Plots happen because that's what certain characters would do in certain situations, rather than because the author wanted it to happen. It's the kind of mentality that lets you defend plot points by saying they were just the consequence of logical progression of the forces of your story, rather than a deliberate choice. It lets you avoid responsibility for the elements of your story.
In a way, Worm is especially bad about that, because it has plot device characters built into it. Contessa, March, and the Simurgh can be used to have contrivances while also pretending it's a natural interaction of characters. Really it just shifts the annoyance of the audience from the author to the characters.
Basically, I'm saying that things are happening because I'm choosing to write them that way, not because it's a perfect logical path for the characters. If the actions in the story come across as out of place then that's on me. I failed to set up, explain, or moderate an element of the story, and it broke people's suspension of disbelief.
So I could get into the exact technique Oni Lee was using to teleport, or the distinction between reaction speed and movement speed under life fibers, or how the aftermath of the attack affected Joe's mind and ability to function, but addressing those points here wouldn't fix the fact that I wasn't able to bring them across in the story.
This particular story is both easy and very challenging to write. The point mechanics makes it easy to keep writing and maintain a good speed, but managing pacing, story structure, or plot points is very difficult. I have probably thrown out a dozen fics worth of ideas because the story or Joe's powers moved in a way where they no longer fit. I am trying to maintain a consistent narrative with a short timeframe and advancing powers. Additionally, the serialized format of the story and the fact that chapters are weeks apart in real time while they take place within the span of hours in-story probably makes these problems worse.
Really, I never expected this story to become popular. I'm not trying to humblebrag, I just never figured I would get as devoted an audience with a concept like this. I'm very grateful to my reader base and am trying to maintain the quality of the writing, but I am a bit concerned that some of these issues may be fundamental problems with the structure of how the story is written. That it has gotten big enough that the cracks in the foundation are starting to show.
To try to address some of the concerns I wanted to clarify the status of things post-chapter, as well as provide some spoilers for the upcoming chapter. I do think leaving the addendum off was a mistake, particularly with how the chapter ended without it. It just reached the point where there was too much I wanted to include and didn't have the time or space for this week. I hope at least removing the uncertainty will help with the situation.
Lung:
Lung is gone. He has vanished and is not coming back. There is no real clarity on what happened to him, and the fact that his death cannot be confirmed is somewhat problematic. On the question of if he is really dead, the only way Lung could have survived is with specific PtV interference and the use of Doormaker. If that happened he's in a Cauldron box labeled 'break in case of Scion'. Either way, not part of the story any more.
Bakuda:
As stated, Bakuda has cancer. The exact nature isn't clear, but it's bad and going to get worse fast. It won't be long before the symptoms start stacking up, and there isn't a convenient cure that she can rig. Even if she could manage it she lost her main lab, and most of the ABB assets that weren't exposed in Monday's attack have been revealed by the second duplicate. She will probably have to go to Uber and Leet for support.
Oni Lee:
Joe's attack caused serious trauma, enough for significant blood loss from the initial strike. Lee is running on robot mode, so he has fallen back to a specific clinic he was instructed to use in the case of major injury and is currently in critical condition. Even if he gets healing tech he will be out of commission for a while.
March:
March went through the equivalent of a car accident. She is not currently dead, but has numerous horrible injuries that will shortly be fatal. Even immediate medical treatment would be hard pressed to save her after a hit like that. (Though I said I wouldn't defend the parts of the chapter that I failed to write clearly, March got hit by the equivalent of a backhand compared to the full body punch Lung received. That was why she wasn't immediately pasted)
The ABB:
For anyone who was worried that things were going back to the status quo, 'the ABB' is basically finished as an organization. They just lost the last of their holdings, their capes are dead or injured, and all of their members can be tracked thanks to Bakuda's bombs. Bakuda might be able to conceal the signal of a small team of troops, but the 'city wide conscripted army' is a dead concept. It does mean that the PRT will be responsible for collecting the conscripts and gang members and dealing with the bombs in their heads. Lung being gone without formerly being proven dead will put the organization in a weird limbo, but their days as a city power are over.
The next chapter will be an interlude from Victoria's perspective. It will get into her reaction to the events in the city, the situation with Amy, the hero side of the response to the attack, general reactions to the broadcasts involving Apeiron and the ABB, reactions to the public spectacle of the Lung fight, and the aftermath.
The interlude was going to be a short look at the hero's response to the situation, but too many things came together, so I decided it would be stronger as its own chapter. As I have said earlier, I believe that may have contributed to souring a number of people's reactions to this chapter.
For those who really need to know, here is what will happen with March next chapter. I acknowledge that this will probably leave some people frustrated and could cause them to abandon the story. To them I would like to say: Thank you for staying with it this long. I greatly appreciate your support and patronage for my first published story and am sorry to lose you as a reader.
March was critically injured by Apeiron, but was still conscious. She had severe damage to her right hand (what remained of it, anyway), as well as a shattered arm, broken ribs, broken legs, and damage to her organs. She was barely able to move, but with attention elsewhere she was able to crawl to the downed motoroid, which crashed nearby. With work she extracted the call gem from the magitek core and, in an act of desperation, used her striker power on it. This was a very bad thing and caused a great number of problems, but one of the effects it triggered allowed March to persist in a state that could be technically defined as 'alive'.
For the sake of readers who would prefer to avoid information on upcoming chapters I would like to ask everyone to use spoilers for any commentary on these details until they are revealed in the story.
First of all thank you for this amazing story and thank you for offering your perspective, it is really great to see how you a approach storytelling, so many authors hide behind in-story rationalizations for their own decisions.
I've been loving this story so far and was one of the people frustrated by this chapter so I would like to offer my perspective: a lot of people talked about March's unclear fate but I think that's something of an easy issue to point at rather than the core problem I had with the chapter, which I see as the lack of payoff for a lot of build up. Joe spent a lot of time tinkering with the Celestial Forge (hundreds of thousands of words worth of it), but in the end all of that was irrelevant because March and Oni Lee just did exactly what they had been doing so far but somehow did it harder: very quickly all of Joe's prep was rendered useless and he won (as we expected he would ) by the Life Fiber working mostly without his input, a power he received mid fight and a mech he received chapters ago and never did anything with, so it feels like everything that happened in previous chapters was useless, had he not done any of that the outcome would be the same (at least for this specific fight).
So I think the main frustration is that we readers feel cheated out of all our investment with what happened in previous chapters. It is similar with what happened in S8 of Game of Thrones, where all the character journeys of previous seasons were rendered moot*. We readers feel like we were stupid for caring about what happened before when it ends up not mattering.
Still, I would like to say you are an amazing author and as far as fanfic writing goes yours is top notch, as others said before the characterization and the interactions between the cast in this story are really great. The one issue I personally have with your writing is that it is a bit verbose: you use a lot of words to say very little at times and some editing and trimming would help a lot with the pacing of the story and making things drag less (here, unfortunately, I think you are right and the format is working against you, I don't think it is humanly possible to write tens of thousand of words a week and also edit it at the same time).
*Specific examples for GoT below, if someone somehow still didn't watch S8 but intends to.
-Arya killed the Night King despite being barely related to the White Walkers plotline
-Bran became king despite being completely unrelated with the King's Landing plot
-Jaime just dumped all his character development in the trash to go back to Cersei
The biggest problem I think a lot of people, especially power gamers and power porn and power munchkin fans have with this story comes down to a pretty simple fact.
Joe is a fucked up person with ZERO confidence in himself.
His biggest issue is that he has such a lack of confidence in himself that even after all this bullshit he cannot see he is a Triumvirate Tier cape who is going to save the world from the Endbringers. He so specifically ISN'T a power gaming munchkin that people EXPECTING him to be one like all other SI CYOA JUMPER fiction it is actually JARRING to them.
His inner monologue reflects this.
He is, quite simply, the strongest cape in the world right now. And he is only going to get stronger. Does it mean certain things aren't going to still be a threat to him? No.
But his inner monologue and whole problem is that he is a very fucked up guy who has so little confidence in himself that he undersells everything he does and oversells everything his enemies do in his inner monologues...
...which I am content with.
Because its so different then most of the other stuff I've read. If I wanted to read a power gamer munchkining power porn story... well those are a dime a dozen.
This story is special like that. Also reflecting the original story's Unreliable Narration in a lot of ways.
We'll see from the interlude next chapter just how the world views what Joe just did.
Thank you for putting into words what truly makes this story so special, to me. And to @LordRoustabout , thank you for writing this story. It has made my life better in more ways than you can imagine.
Honestly, all this talk about March and Thinkers; I'm still just waiting for Blank to come in at the most ironic time the rolls do like to troll, after all.
Don't feel the need to justify yourself, Lord, this story is amazing and both the quality and the quantity of your writing is awesome - definitely keep it up!
Lord didn't say March is out of the story. Technically alive sounds to me a lot more like she's getting a huge brute upgrade but comes with horrific mutatational consequences for her... but don't actually make her less an issue for anyone already tired of her shit and instead just gives her powerup to justify keeping her around as a bigger bad.
This may be true, but as soon as she pops her head up again, Joe's going to zoom in on her like a human homing missile while his perks play theme music for him.
I definitely feel like the addendum will clarify things to a satisfactory level but I totally believed that this was then end of the ABB as a force in Brockton. March and Lung having ambiguous fates is basically par for the course in superhero fiction. That they have been removed from the board for our immediate proposes is more than good enough for me. Oni lee and Bakuda are getting theirs Leet is mostly nerfed at this point as well with March only technically alive and off the board.
I cannot wait to see the chapter long addendum to really get the whole breadth of responses to what was a massive showing of personal power. Joe mostly on his own took out an entire army of gang bangers with tinker tech weapons spread across a city and he did it before the PRT could even mount a response. Everyone watching this unfold has to completely reassess his threat level and that was before he called a giant robot out of the sky or showed the ability to face down lung without his armor or weapons. That fight was being live streamed for a significant portion so every one saw him take a level of badass and kick people around. He had to show a level of force an entire order of magnitude greater than he has before and some people are going to react very poorly to that not to mention the Simurg or the S9. the merchants and the E88 are gonna capitalize on the ABB being dismantled. As epic as the fight was the fallout will be even more so.
Definitely. Parts of his actions this chapter seemed tailor-made to cater toward the stream, especially all the anime parts. I think I'm more excited for the next update than I was for this one.
This may be true, but as soon as she pops her head up again, Joe's going to zoom in on her like a human homing missile while his perks play theme music for him.
Definitely. Parts of his actions this chapter seemed tailor-made to cater toward the stream, especially all the anime parts. I think I'm more excited for the next update than I was for this one.
More style perks fuckery making coincidence look like deliberate action. Couple that with the very serious misconceptions the PRT already has and his massive ramp in apparent power with a hefty dash of ongoing gang war and you have a recipe for chaotic and unthinking response
I just want to remind you that if it ever becomes too stressful that you can just say 'Author Fiat', and ignore anyone who argues. Reader feedback can sometimes go sour and I don't want you feeling like you have to bear the weight of every opinion of every reader. I'm mentioning this because some really good writers (like Cliff999) ended up having issues with some of their readers and had to drop some of their best stories.
Don't feel the need to justify yourself, Lord, this story is amazing and both the quality and the quantity of your writing is awesome - definitely keep it up!
This may be true, but as soon as she pops her head up again, Joe's going to zoom in on her like a human homing missile while his perks play theme music for him.
Not only Joe, March have revealed she was the mastermind behind the ABB and an extremely dangerous opponent. Much more dangerous than what Thinker assessment would say, which mean Apeiron was right about her ("she's scrambling Thinker powers"). That screams "Kill Order" to me.
And that's not even going into the damage she did with sting-ing the call bead. If she comes back, she is a dead woman.
Anyone with even an ink of knowledge about Apeiron was already thinking of him as a Chaos Tinker level: yes. He was also already theorised to be a case 53 that healed himself, due to his full body concealment and ability to somewhat heal Weld. And with the damage he did in his first encounter with the ABB, he was already in the "please call the Triumvirate" (PRT) / "point him toward your enemies" (Villains) basket.
At that point, did his threat level really changed ?
(Of course all those theories are wrong, but they are reasonable explanations in universe for his power set)
The biggest problem I think a lot of people, especially power gamers and power porn and power munchkin fans have with this story comes down to a pretty simple fact.
Joe is a fucked up person with ZERO confidence in himself.
His biggest issue is that he has such a lack of confidence in himself that even after all this bullshit he cannot see he is a Triumvirate Tier cape who is going to save the world from the Endbringers. He so specifically ISN'T a power gaming munchkin that people EXPECTING him to be one like all other SI CYOA JUMPER fiction it is actually JARRING to them.
His inner monologue reflects this.
He is, quite simply, the strongest cape in the world right now. And he is only going to get stronger. Does it mean certain things aren't going to still be a threat to him? No.
But his inner monologue and whole problem is that he is a very fucked up guy who has so little confidence in himself that he undersells everything he does and oversells everything his enemies do in his inner monologues...
...which I am content with.
Because its so different then most of the other stuff I've read. If I wanted to read a power gamer munchkining power porn story... well those are a dime a dozen.
This story is special like that. Also reflecting the original story's Unreliable Narration in a lot of ways.
We'll see from the interlude next chapter just how the world views what Joe just did.
Yeah the Mc is my favorite part of the story if nothing else than he is one of the most accurate portrayals of depression and anxiety I've seen in fiction like I've had those thoughts and feelings and seeing people react to the Mc is really telling.
It doesn't matter your family life your wealth or what you look like on the outside just because you should be happy and confident with those mental problems it doesn't matter I wouldn't wish it on the worst people in the world. It sucks to be constantly tortured by your own brain.
So I love this story because of the action and tech talk that's all super cool but I really really appreciate this story because of its Mc
Oh my god, tell me about it. And let's not forget the Demons. Joe rolls a perk that gives him demon ritual knowledge and refuses to ever use it, so the Forge just up and decides to automatically give him a positive working relationship with the forces of Hell. Demons are gonna be fucking inviting Joe to parties now, going off that perk text, and who knows what that bit about Joe rendering them obscure services means. Will Joe be compelled to fulfill the occasional demonic demand now, or is the text of the perk implying that what he does already is now somehow serving the nebulous and obscure goals of Hell?
This is gonna be fucking hilarious. From our perspective. Joe may feel tempted to cry.
Anyone with even an ink of knowledge about Apeiron was already thinking of him as a Chaos Tinker level: yes. He was also already theorised to be a case 53 that healed himself, due to his full body concealment and ability to somewhat heal Weld. And with the damage he did in his first encounter with the ABB, he was already in the "please call the Triumvirate" (PRT) / "point him toward your enemies" (Villains) basket.
At that point, did his threat level really changed ?
(Of course all those theories are wrong, but it's a reasonable explanation in universe)
There is a difference between a single entity having a high threat level and being able to manage a large scale battle over the kind of distances we are talking about. Even with his "robots" helping him in the past he hadn't shown the ability to handle the sheer scale of battle that this was. You now need to account for the fact that he can effectively fight an entire army on his own. This pushes him past the "handle with caution" level and into the "nilbog just owns that town" level of consideration. Given his already antagonistic relationship with local PRT.
the rolls do like to troll, after all.
