- Location
- The City of Tears, Hallownest
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Romulus is the mythical founder of rome, his time as a king (if that even exists, given that he's not real) would be much less important than the fact that he "started" the whole thing.
Hereafter [Worm x Fate/Grand Order]
- Thread starter James D. Fawkes
- Start date
- Crossover
tgojeff
(Verified Pinwheel)
- Location
- Los Angeles
I know this is nitpicking, and take this with as many grains of salt as you like, but technically Julius Caesar could be multiple people.
Julius is a family name, Augustus and Nero also could be called Julius Caesar.
Who you are referring to is Gias Julius Caesar, first Roman imperial leader after the Triumvirate.
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
Yes that's true, which is the only reason he has the Imperial Privilege skill, but the common man would neither know or care about Romulus. The UE was legitimate in their eyes because Caligula is there and though he can barely communicate he could indicate that the people he leads with are legitimate Roman rulers. Romulus being present and known makes little sense, because it's strategically unsound to let people learn more about you than is needed and because they're already legitimate in the eyes of the people, no need to publicly add Romulus' backing.
I mean it takes years to deal with mental trauma properly, and Taylor very much isn't the type of person to talk to others about her trauma you know. She's probably very much in the state of mind that "The world is burning, most of humanity is dead and my choices of who to open up about my trauma are some ancient dead heroes, some teenage twins, Da Vinci whose busy, and Romani who is basically a walking corpse held together by paperwork and stress".
There's no real reason why she would go out of her way to tell the twins, Mash, or the servants all about why she can control billions of bugs and even if they asked her she still probably wouldn't tell them much. She only told Shakespeare because it benefitted her and gave her a weapon that could actually hurt magical shit. Now I feel things are gonna change when Olga, someone she would considers a friend, appears but until then Taylor probably ain't opening the can of worms that is her trauma.
Also remember this is Fawkes' story and I wouldn't be telling him the way he has to deal with Taylor's trauma right now this instance and not have OC servants when (and let's be honest here) FGO has some real dumb writing in certain parts and with certain servants (like fucking Agartha). The thought that servants and events would stay completely the same in this very clearly au of the game, is also weird and unrealistic. Fawkes as the author clearly seems to have planned this stuff out so I think it's more of a wait and see situation when it comes towards how he gets Taylor to deal with her trauma.
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James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
I think you underestimate the mythologizing that Romulus received. Granted, I'm not an expert on Roman culture and what the "average" Roman citizen would have known, but given what an outsized role gods and worship had on Greco-Roman cultures in particular and this guy was their "Divine Ancestor," I'd honestly find it less believable if he was a virtual unknown to everyone who didn't have a noble's pedigree.
Insofar as Taylor opening up goes: we're not there. Taylor's not there. She's still in mission mode, and she needs to be pushed out of it. There will be things that happen or circumstances that prevent her from doing anything but sitting around and waiting, such as in Okeanos and London, and she will have moments throughout, but America will be the big breaking point.
That feels really late, I know. We're already something like 240K (just in the thread! When you count the future chapters already written, it's closer to 290K) into this story, and it feels a little daunting, sometimes, imagining carrying a cohesive, singular narrative across so many words and such an expansive storyline. But we're still only about a third of the way — maybe closer to halfway — through what is technically the second major Singularity of seven. We're not even close to deep enough into the narrative for the twins and Taylor to truly, deeply bond.
Some of that is definitely Taylor's fault. It's sprinkled in the rest chapters between Singularities, but she's trying too hard to be a leader, and maybe her definition of what one really looks like is a bit skewed.
It's entirely possible that I'll fail in the end. Like I said, this project wound up bigger and more daunting than I expected when I started out, and carrying a consistent thread of character growth throughout is a tall order. I don't have the luxury Rowling did of letting the character grow up by having each segment of the larger narrative take place over the course of a whole year. If I move too slow in the early parts, then the conclusion will feel rushed. If I move too fast period, then her transformation and self-actualization will fall flat and be unbelievable.
It might be a little too "real" to admit it, but I do worry about that. That's why I try to find little moments for Taylor to just...relax a little. It can be hard to find good moments for that and still make them convincing, but I do try.
Apropos the chariots: Yeah, I can understand that concern. But they don't remove the travel times entirely. For example, even moving at top speed, the road from Thiers to Rome is about 1300 kilometers. That's two-and-a-half hours of standing in a chariot moving at speeds that will kill you if you fall out. Even Taylor isn't intense enough to try that.
Admittedly, I didn't focus enough on that in this chapter, so it came off like the group went from the coast of Brittany to Theirs in one go. No, it isn't because I didn't plot out the trip itself beforehand because I didn't have a convenient enough map of Roman roads at the time, why would you ever think that?
I'd say Taylor and Mash respect each other, but that they weren't strictly close enough to be "friends." At least, not while they were still with Team A. And when it comes to what she told Shakespeare, whoever said that she gave him anything more than the finer details of what he needed to know to buff that knife? If he got any part of her life story that she didn't carefully curate, it wasn't something she told him intentionally.
tl;dr: Even though I've written close to 300,000 words for this story, we're still fairly close to the beginning, and Taylor is a prickly porcupine. Opening up for her isn't gonna be fast or easy.
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
True and I can see how that came across now, that's my own personal mental health issue; but as for reasons why it'd be brought up and confronted, it's vital information about their capabilities that the rest of the team needs to know.
Yeah Taylor might not want to bring it up but the others should have brought it up by now and not taken her deflection without an argument at the very least, which would be perfect character development opportunity that should be shown.
Mash and the Servants would know that what Taylor does with bugs isn't Magecraft. The Twins would want to know more about their awesome badass Senpai, and Romani and Da Vinci aren't stupid. Busy, stressed and overworked to hell and back, but not stupid enough to permit Taylor to lead when she won't be honest about her powers. They are desperate enough to allow her to lead until Marie gets back and demands Taylor thoroughly explain to the others about her origins and that is certainly reasonable, but that conversation/argument should have been shown in story by now. As it's a perfect opportunity to showcase character growth as I said above.
Fair enough. And yeah it's still early days in the story but I could see this becoming an issue later on and despite my pushy attitude and manner I bring up my concerns because I sincerely want you to succeed at this. This story has the potential to be amazing and if I can help bring that potential to fruition by pointing out mistakes I know other writers have done I feel I should. If I overstep that let me know, as I said above and before I have my own mental health issues.
- Location
- Leeds
Wait, you are we both talking about Miss 'I co-opted a Wards branch to wage an aggressive war against gangs in order to recruit their members with minimal criminal records' Hebert here?
And in that time she never really connected with the team as individuals?
I can only imagine her expectations are completely normal.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wait, you are we both talking about Miss 'I co-opted a Wards branch to wage an aggressive war against gangs in order to recruit their members with minimal criminal records' Hebert here?
And in that time she never really connected with the team as individuals?
I can only imagine her expectations are completely normal.
You have to have admit she has a talent in making people work together.
I'd like to read a frank conversation about Taylor's past, eventually. But honestly, not asking how some things work I think makes sense because Chaldea is a product of magus culture, and magus don't like being asked in detail how their stuff works. Team A's is full of shady people
, at least one of them isn't even human
Honestly, the scope of the story is so big that I can see many times where serious discussions can happen, but maybe Taylor needs some downtime with a lower stake adventure, because I can't see her relaxing as long as all of humanity is in peril or she has to wait training focusing for the next big thing.
Or the twins cultivate their talent in bonding people and bond with her. That could work, yeah.
Axel
Tenno Wax
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- He
...................
-.-
I would hope so, it is her entire shtick
I would agree that the talk isn't as strongly needed as implied by some people. Chaldea is made up for magi for the field teams and various other positions magi are secretive and that will echo through the organisation in such topics. Additionally does she really need to go into it? It sounds like people think its needed and are expecting her to do a full power point presentation about parahuman powers, how they work, the limits and so on but that kind've isn't needed.
However, magi culture aside the hows and whys of it working are a lot less important than what it does which they already can see and know. It's also a bit ridiculous when you look at it because she also has the puppetry and runes by this logic she should be telling how and why they work too along with say Emiya revealing ubw and walking them through the projection steps and so on.
The twins also have very little knowledge about all of this stuff like its worth pointing out that in this chapter they learned about beserkers. I feel that that's a bigger issue because one of them for example could have summoned one and basic servant knowledge would be very beneficial but they have very limited time and need to work on physical stuff too.
However, magi culture aside the hows and whys of it working are a lot less important than what it does which they already can see and know. It's also a bit ridiculous when you look at it because she also has the puppetry and runes by this logic she should be telling how and why they work too along with say Emiya revealing ubw and walking them through the projection steps and so on.
The twins also have very little knowledge about all of this stuff like its worth pointing out that in this chapter they learned about beserkers. I feel that that's a bigger issue because one of them for example could have summoned one and basic servant knowledge would be very beneficial but they have very limited time and need to work on physical stuff too.
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floppy_seal99
D-O-G-A-R-S DOGARS!
- Location
- snooping as usual
Taylor wouldn't summon Mata Hari, because pretty girls who are good at sneaky shit and deception make her skin crawl on a fundamental level. High school bullying prease undastand. Sarah was just the exception.
- Location
- Leeds
Given we know from Sherlock and so on that fictional heroes can be summoned. Which actor would be summoned if she summoned James Bond, or would he be some amalgamation of all of them?
I think you're right. Give it a bit and Taylor will be talking to Spartacus like old chums.
She understood the Fairy Queen, and several other difficult to comprehend for multiple reasons other Parahumans. Hell, she understood Lung fairly well back on her first night when he didn't even have a human's jaw shape any more. And think of the time she talked Dragon-bot into not being able to move because it might kill her impossible to detect Stranger teammate to escape from being in its literal grip.
Taylor should be able to (in time) understand anyone who can speak English (all servants) who isn't a literal mute or purposely incomprehensible. She was already getting there with that short two minute conversation with Berserker.
- Location
- Void
I don't think Servants, as a whole and not counting individuals, naturally have such an intuitive sense of magical energy and capacity to differentiate between phenomena such as Taylor's Powers, Magecraft, or Psychic Channels. As it stands what Taylor does currently and 'why' isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. As you have to consider that Chaldea is an Organization filled with Mages; it makes more sense for them to not ask. As to know about Magecraft you come to know it's Mystery and by extension weaken that Magecraft.
And I can't imagine that any Mage joining up with Chaldea, be it political or otherwise, would be accepting of their family secrets being out in the open for high-command. So they should know what they can do but not how they do it in the first place. The only reason why there's any concern at all from Romani and Da Vinci regarding Taylor is the possibility that the data-volume she's connected to could cause issues with Rayshifting.
So there's actually little reason and precedent for Taylor to come clean about her Power, nor it's nature, to Romani and Da Vinci. If anything I'd be more concerned that any Magi on Staff, or whatever Records the Clock Tower will get after the Grand Order, would be offended and bothered by such a thing occurring.
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Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
Amalgam, because the character was is an amalgam of the MI agents that Ian Flemming knew during WWII and the post war period
Edit: That said, i think it would lean heavily to Sean Connery simply because he's considered the "Best Bond"
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
Yes and no, the Servants in general wouldn't know. But some would. Mash would know because of what she is, a test tube baby made to house a Servant, or to put it in more normal terms a made to order generator/battery. Mash knows what the cost for her gaining that capability is, which is that she's got a very short life, but Taylor is a standard human, a 1st generation Magus. Her ability to generate Prana is an order of magnitude worse than Mash's, yet she's capable of supporting two high tier Servants in combat and using billions or trillions of pseudo-familiars at an individual level at the same time? Thats more than a bit hinky, yes she's getting a bit of help from Chaldea's power generation but not enough to power that.
Emiya would know for similar reasons, his being a modern Magus means he's more than familiar with what a pretty standard human, or even a genius Magus, is capable of. Da Vinci certainly knows something is wrong, she wouldn't be who she is otherwise.
To put it in more in-universe terms, Taylor is performing Rin level feats but she shouldn't be able to do so since she's more on Shirou's level in terms of Prana generation. Which should be leading certain people to being very worried that shes pulling that capability from somewhere dangerous like say her future potential or her soul. Her ability to lead hasn't been questioned in particular just yet, but it really should have been.
After all the others can't know for certain that she's not going to just drop dead during or after a particularly hard fight because they aren't monitoring her health in a certain way. That's why I've been bringing up the importance of her getting questioned.
Taylor doesn't have to, and probably wouldn't because of who she is, answer in full, but those sorts of questions are things that people should be asking of the team leader, because it's kind of important. But we haven't seen such a conversation take place and it really, really, should have already, by all logical reasoning.
As for knowing why it works, well they don't need to ask that. They just need to know her capabilities, which is not the same thing as explaining the intricate nature of her supposed Mystery, but that conversation hasn't occurred on screen yet really. Yes Chaldea is an organization filled with various mages, but they're also a chartered organization by the fucking UN, and they're facing an Omni-ELO crisis. Yes it grants Taylor a bit of breathing room to not explain in full, but even a short brief explanation of her capabilities and what it costs her to perform is not at all unreasonable.
As for Arash and the other three Servants, they probably know something is off, but can't pinpoint it like Mash, Emiya, or Da Vinci. And no Shakespeare wouldn't really know, he's a pretty shitty Caster in terms of actual thaumaturgic knowledge. He can fake it, but he's no Medea or Paraclesus.
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- Location
- Earth: Universe Meta - 1
You have to love Taylor's casual, internal monolog about having Madness enhancement C. The amount of damage that Berserker Kephri would cause is crazy.
Also, speaking of Servants, could you imagine Taylor summoning Alexandria, or even better Dragon. I mean, she's already gone to the whole associated with Dragon's theme. Summoning Dragon fits that.
Also, it would both provide more relax time since Dragon could do quite a bit to fix Chaldea. Even better, it would just cause so many questions. Like, Taylor can summon a true AI as a Servant. Even stranger, said AI knows her!
Also, speaking of Servants, could you imagine Taylor summoning Alexandria, or even better Dragon. I mean, she's already gone to the whole associated with Dragon's theme. Summoning Dragon fits that.
Also, it would both provide more relax time since Dragon could do quite a bit to fix Chaldea. Even better, it would just cause so many questions. Like, Taylor can summon a true AI as a Servant. Even stranger, said AI knows her!
I'm going to be honest here but everything here is what I personally remember when I read his other story (An Essence of Silver and Steal) from like very near the beginning. Years have passed so I'm probably not remember everything right but this is what I remember from when I started following the thread and checking it every week or two for the new chapters to come out. And it was going great but then it started going weird. Certain choices, actions, and plot points started to not make sense. And a lot of readers, I was one of them, was bringing them up. It wasn't all readers but it was enough.
Instead of listening to any of us, he kept going and saying that he had a plan. We repeatedly told him that we would help, that making some changes here or there would make more sense from what we understood. But he was adamant that he knew what he was doing and pretty much ignored us.
Heck, I even repeatedly told him that (since he made clear that he would love to do original fiction and publishing) that at that time, if any reader asked me about him as an author, I would explain James D. Fawkes is a great author able to make short stories. But he fails at making long term stories. If he's got a long term plot that needs to be present in the story, he will make the characters in the story do stupid or unbelievable things just to force his long term plot to occur.
He finally reveals the long term plot in that other story, and he fails. He failed hard and miserably, and if I remember right, he acknowledges that he didn't make the plan work. And all the readers who was giving warnings for months, asking why is this character doing something so stupid, why is this other character doing something that doesn't make sense, all of them pointing out these issues; they were angry. We asked and wanted to help for months. Multiple chapters after various readers started pointing out issues and concerns, James finally admitted he made a mistake and couldn't make the plan work.
Sadly, real life became involved and I pretty much stopped checking SV and SB for years. So, again, all of this is just my memories. Maybe I'm remembering right, maybe I'm remembering wrong, but this is what I remember. So I will tell you, if you expect any type of long term story planning to work out; then don't because he is going to fail hard and he will constantly tell everyone he knows what he is doing up until he fails and he is forced to acknowledge that he failed.
However, it has been many years since his other story. In fact, he even stated that he is worried about how he is going to deal/work with Taylor's issue about living life in this story. This is a big improvement compared to his other story. So maybe he will actually start listening to people if we bring up issues within the story. Maybe he won't but the fact he admits it is an improvement. I don't know what happened in the other story because it is so hard to re-read that story.
I was one of the people where, even when the long term plan/plot was unknown to the readers, I was stating it doesn't make sense. And when the plot point was revealed? I could instantly see where James basically shoe-horned in and forced characters to act a certain way, for the sole purpose of making sure his plot point would work. So re-reading that story is so very hard for me, even though I dearly want to finish the rest of the story. Because every time, I think back to how gutted I felt that James (who said he had a plan and to trust him) was forced to admit that he failed his plan and that he was unwilling to accept any help several months before the reveal.
Of course, all of this doesn't count how he has a Patreon and locks everything behind that, which I'm opposed to for fanfiction. But hey, at least he eventually releases it, so he isn't completely profiteering off of fanwork. But that is just me and my person opinion about it. The only reason I bring it up is because he would have chapters already written and only available in the patreon and only after time passes will he release a chapter out publicly for others. Which I personally don't find agreeable at all with fanfiction but that is just my opinion.
But yeah, I personally felt that he didn't want to fix his previous chapters because he was already working on future chapters for his patreon. And that was why he was resistant about fixing anything. Because then he'd be forced to fix multiple chapters when he needs to fix the chapter released publicly. But that is just my own personal opinion about things.
So, any long term story telling plan? Expect James to force/shoehorn in characters into acting a specific way just to make sure his long term plot will work. And if anyone ever brings it up, he is going to say he has a plan and to trust him. And he will only admit he failed in the plan once he reveals his plot point and realizes that he failed. And he won't admit on any specific details about how failed, just that he did fail. But at least he did improve because he has admitted that he isn't sure that he can do Taylor's living life issue justice. So he has improved that way, at least.
Up until that point, at least his stories are well written (as in his technical writing skills) and the plots are very interesting, too. There is a reason why I enjoy reading his stuff. I'm just hoping, with how FGO has these past events, that he keeps focusing on these short stories. Because I'm very wary about his ability to write long term stories and plots. But we'll see.
- Location
- SoCal
This reminds of little kids after bathing when they run off giggling like mad.
- Location
- Void
Ehh, I'm pretty sure that's Chaldea's generators for the most part. As there hasn't been any issues stated in-game, nor seemingly in any adapted media like the movies, that showcase difficulties in providing mana to their Servants barring Solomon. Granted in this situation there are three Masters each pulling on Chaldea's supply, but even then Servants do have choice in how much magical energy they actively take in to themselves.
As Iskandar, in Fate zero, was able to summon his Noble Phantasm, stay manifested continually for long periods for leisure, and engage in some combat before Waver had any notable issues. Not to forget that there's more free floating magical energy around for Servants and Masters to make use of in the past.
So I don't see any issue on the front of magical energy for the Servants, given even the Guda's were able to have contracts with a multitude more Familiar-Servants. The mass usage of bugs on the other hand I'd find it much easier in-character for an outside Caster, or Magus, to conclude that Taylor's power is Psychic, if not a Magecraft Ritual, before saying Aliens are involved.
As for mana issues there...I'd imagine that the Lifeforce from each Insect on-mass could recoup costs. As they are still living beings and they stockpile magical energy within their flesh innately; meaning they'd have an innate supply for Taylor to use.
The only odd thing is the coordination but no one knows how precise that can actually be on a micro-level. The recent Crab feat would be something that the entire group has seen on a macro-scale, but it took a dedicated effort on Taylor's part, in their Pov, to precision them just right. The closest comparison could be to an Atlas Alchemist, Memory Partition and Thought Acceleration, in terms of functionality power-wise. So they might (wrongly) conclude that she's related to Atlas, and the Data-Volume makes sense (in-character) to be something cooked up by that group. As they do have multiple superweapons laying about, and they have been proven to be replicable.
But I do think you are making a mountain out of a molehill, blowing things out of proportion, in terms of importance and concern. As right now they have no need to question Taylor's capacity to lead, and pulling her out from that position could make things worse currently. Given they would not only lose another Master on the field, they would also be led by inexperienced twins being pulled along by their Servants. There hasn't been any sort of incident to even justify questioning Taylor's judgement yet either...
Beyond that, Shirou's, in F/SN, issue was less his Magic Circuits and more the fact that they haven't been trained at all. As they are like muscles in that they do have a maximum tolerance and load they can be prepared for before breaking. So I'd say Taylor is better off then Shirou considering that she has had more training and preparation then him. Just as is the case for EMYIA as he is right now as a Servant, where's he had years to find his natural limit for his Circuits.
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Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
Not exactly the same thing. First Waver is not a first generation Magus, he's a third generation if I remember correctly so he's a bit more equipped to handle the load of a full Servant in combat. He also used all his Command Seals during the last fight, and still lost if I remember correctly.
Second Ritsuka in Canon is never contracted to more than a handful of Servants full time in combat. Canonically they use 4-6 Servant Shades of the various Servants they are contracted to that reside in Chaldea, not Shadow Servants as those are not capable of performing at peak strength or have use of active Noble Phantasms, to fight. Those Shades are only there for the fight itself and they never last longer than that and its handled mainly by Chaldea's generators. The only reason they can do this is because they are Mash's Master and they are using her shield's function as "a place where Heroes gather".
Taylor has none of those advantages, so she's almost fully reliant on only her own Prana generation to supply Arash, and Siegfried during Combat. From what's been shown in story we've seen the draw on her Prana is pretty fucking high, though it's gotten a bit better now that Chaldea can pick up a bit of the slack. But she would've been supplying more than half herself at least during Orleans given that Chaldea had one single Holy Grail at that point.
So it will get better slowly, but let's say that Chaldea can act as the supply for powering the Servants so long as they aren't fighting any Servants at the moment. But at these early stages it's odd that she could perform to the amount she showed at the climax of Orleans. People, and by people I mainly mean Romani, Da Vinci, Mash and Emiya, should be wondering how the fuck that happened, what it cost Taylor, and if the cost is going to lead to her suddenly dying.
Yes @James D. Fawkes could hand wave it away, but that'd be extremely disappointing, not to mention a loss of good character development opportunities.
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... I mean, has Taylor been using an odd amount of magical power? I know that your insisting she is, but is there any indication in story that this is the case? Moreover, is there any sign that it's her connection to QA that's supposedly giving her extra magic? Nevermind the fact that in Fuyuki she had difficulty fueling even Cu Caster's NP once, which really makes me believe that it's Chaldea's magical generators.
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
No, she hasn't but then the others don't know that now do they? They are completely unaware that her ability with bugs is not Magecraft, but they should be thinking it is. So here's this random 1st gen Magus able to coordinate trillions of bugs down to the individual simultaneously, which Emiya and Arash have definitely seen because of their Clairvoyance, as have Romani and Da Vinci because of the fact that their sensors have picked it up, and she can can supply two top tier Servants with enough Prana to fight in some extremely high stakes battles at the same time.
Things don't add up, "where is she getting the Prana for that much expenditure during a battle?", "why isnt she dropping over dead when Siegfried uses his Noble Phantasm?", these are the thoughts that should be in people's minds. It's as simple as that, she is performing in their minds an A-Rank Mystery while supplying two extremely powerful Servants, one of whom even uses their Noble Phantasm and it's not a weak one either, but she's not dropping dead when by all accounts to their minds she should be. They should be freaking out wondering if she's going to keel over any second, because to them she's doing the impossible, and has been since the start of Orleans.
These aren't concerns that can just be ignored, they literally have to be addressed because the entire fucking history of mankind is at stake. You don't fuck around in those situations. It can be a "look this isn't me using Magecraft it's something else" sort of conversation, but it kind of needs to happen don't you think? Even if she just says "Please trust me, at least until Marie is back then I'll explain" thats acceptable. But we haven't even had something like that.
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Karyis
procrastinating as we speak
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's not exactly what I remember happening.
Note that I don't want to get swept up into an argument about this. I'm probably just going to write this one post on it and consider myself done. But I really think you're misremembering a lot of what happened around that time.
James was consistently harassed about his narrative choices, even before the reveal. People were saying shit that had to get the mods involved by chapter 3.1. Including, and I quote:
Comparing an author who's narrative choices you happen to disagree with to somebody known for injecting sociopathic levels of violence into his works and then justifying it both in and out of universe as being the perfectly good and moral thing to do is completely out of line. And leading up to the part of the story you were talking about, I recall James saying that the harassment was so bad he was having trouble getting himself to write the story. He ended up having to take a lengthy hiatus for his own mental health because people shit on him so much.
Also, you said yourself you didn't continue on past that point. That part of the story was really only the middle, you know? You should probably go back and finish Essence before making comments like that, because I feel like James was able to stick the landing in the end.
And on that note, I'm probably going to head to bed. If anyone replies, I'll try to look at it whenever I wake up. No promises I'll reply, though--as I said, I don't want to get into an argument about this if at all possible.