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Pound the Table | An X-Men Self-Insert

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Dmol8 said:
Writers that are willing to simply ignore the nuances of characters and use them simply as props to die or vessels for their OCs also in my experience have a pet peeve to pick with other characters in a setting demonizing them.
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Yeah, and once we're done complaining about Gwen Stacy who has never appeared, had a single line of dialogue or any sign she was going to be a part of this story, lets talk about Aunt May, and then the other solid % points of the worlds population that got killed by Galactus.
All of whom are also used as props and callously killed and we are equally angry about.
 
October Daye said:
As you can see, there are plans. All of these things carry consequences; you just can't necessarily see them yet, and may not see them for quite some time. But trust me when I say that I can see them, I have planned for them, and a lot of these "oh, that was resolved really easily" have a purpose.
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So in short it is not a skill issue:)V) but you going all Mad Writer. You are just willing to accept some awkwardness right now in favour of making stuff we will read in like 2027 hit really hard. I can respect that.
 
October Daye said:
So. Overall very good criticism. And there is a particular response to… pretty much all of it, that I hope won't be overly unsatisfying to you.

The past few arcs, and one more arc beyond that, are all very much the "setup" phase. If you want a payoff later, you have to set it up now. And several things that have happened are all planned to tie back into larger issues further down the line. This is planned to the point that the very first arc, the Pyro trial, is the first domino in what Noa will eventually call "the road to hell, paved with my best intentions".

But you can't get there without setup. A LOT of setup. And more importantly, you can't get a fall like that without first having a climb.

What this means is that on a narrative scale, the path they follow must largely be an uphill trajectory. Setbacks exists, obviously. Bumps in the road MUST exist, without that there is no conflict, and you just run into something as boring as "how I became the supreme overlord of the planet in these twelve easy steps".

But these last few arcs have largely been, I'll admit, my way of solving problems now so they don't have to become issues later.

Setup task 1: Noa needs to be able to get words into the right ears at the right times. The two ways to do this are clout and money. Which goes back to the purpose of the Jacques Canter trial — got her a moderate in with JJJ to expand upon later, and essentially solved the finances issue for the rest of the story.

Setup task 2: Noa needs to be someone whose opinion is relatively trusted by enough people in the superhero community that she's not dismissed out of hand. Here, we solve that with three people: Quicksilver, Professor X, and Spider-Man. (Not Dr. Strange, he's got his own shit to handle)

The hard part was getting Spidey, and necessitated working backwards from the situation I wanted to eventually arrive at a set of circumstances that could get me there. This task also continues into the current arc.

Setup task 3: Noa must be placed into a precarious position balancing Charles and Erik, and while neither can hold sway, the balance must rip towards Erik. Obviously, Erik is unofficially her godfather. But at the moment, Noa is slightly dependent on Charles for her mental well being.

Now, obviously there's a lot more setup involved than just this. And I can't exactly show you all of it — that ruins the point of writing the story!

But.

Just as a show of faith in response to your criticism, and to hopefully alleviate at least a couple of your concerns, please see the the tentative arc titles, which should all hint at what's happening there.
Arc 4: Assembling Avengers (the current arc) (1990)

Arc 5: The Exoneration of St. John Allerdyce (1990-91)

Arc 6: Seeing Green (1991-92)

Arc 7: Calling Card (1992)

Arc 8: God Loves, Man Kills (1993)

Arc 9: Born Again (1994)

Arc 10: Itching for a Cure (1994-5)

Arc 11: Good Intentions (1996)

Arc 12: Yom HaShoah (1996-7)

Arc 13: The Way to Hell (1997-8)

As you can see, there is a pretty definitive plan in place. The problem is that to get there, I need to have a lot of moving parts in the right positions. The events of arc 1 allow arc 5 to happen, which leads into arc 6, which itself follows into arc 9, and the events of all of these together allow arc 10 to happen. Arc 10 is the impetus for arc 11, which is when the prologue took place. But Arc 10 and beyond can only have the impact they do because Arc 8 happens, and Arc 8 can't properly occur without Arcs 4, 5, and 7 allowing for it.

As you can see, there are plans. All of these things carry consequences; you just can't necessarily see them yet, and may not see them for quite some time. But trust me when I say that I can see them, I have planned for them, and a lot of these "oh, that was resolved really easily" have a purpose.

After all, the hard times seem far harsher when you have the good old days to look back on. But on a similar note, the good old days give you the hope needed to get through the darker hours.
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I am very, very scared of the last two arcs names. Something tells me that השואה in the title isn't about remembering it.
 
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I feel like I must be missing some context. Did Gwen Stacy, like... APPEAR in this fic? I guess she might have showed up during the Osborne lawsuit arc and I just forgot about it because it was so minor...

I don't... Like, I don't even understand the fundamental, underlying logic of complaining about her death here. Fridging characters sucks, but Gwen wasn't a character here. It'd be like complaining about the fact that, I don't know, fuckin Beta Ray Bill is dead in this continuity. I genuinely do not understand why this is even a conversation.

Like, I'm not jumping for joy that she's dead or in awe of the brilliance of using her death to further Peter's character. I do think it's clever to throw Peter at the younger X-Men, but as to the fact that Gwen Stacy died to make that happen? Not only do I not care, I don't even understand what caring is supposed to look like. She's not a character. She is Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. I'd just as soon complain that you haven't explained what MODOK is up to.

Oh, and a quick edit as another writer who's dealt with this same sort of crap before:
Dmol8 said:
This is pure evil.
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A big part of me wants to go off right now, but you're not worth gumming up this thread. So I will say only this. There are things that could be written into a story that might make me call the author evil. But even if Gwen Stacy had been a major character in this fic, this would not be one of them, chief. I'd recommend you have some perspective, but I'd much rather you just leave mine.
 
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Lithos Maitreya said:
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I feel like I must be missing some context. Did Gwen Stacy, like... APPEAR in this fic? I guess she might have showed up during the Osborne lawsuit arc and I just forgot about it because it was so minor...

I don't... Like, I don't even understand the fundamental, underlying logic of complaining about her death here. Fridging characters sucks, but Gwen wasn't a character here. It'd be like complaining about the fact that, I don't know, fuckin Beta Ray Bill is dead in this continuity. I genuinely do not understand why this is even a conversation.

Like, I'm not jumping for joy that she's dead or in awe of the brilliance of using her death to further Peter's character. I do think it's clever to throw Peter at the younger X-Men, but as to the fact that Gwen Stacy died to make that happen? Not only do I not care, I don't even understand what caring is supposed to look like. She's not a character. She is Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. I'd just as soon complain that you haven't explained what MODOK is up to.
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It feels like maybe only one or two people actually cared and everyone else just jumped on the topic to kill time until the next update.

One thing I noticed about SV is they will complain and argue about the weirdest and most random stuff between updates just to try and fill the void only to completely drop it and never bring it up again once the next update hits. I usually take this as a sign that it's ok to ignore chat for awhile as all worthwhile decision has dried up and now they're just grabbing random things to talk about and bump the thread higher on the board to try and keep interest going between updates.
 
Dark as Silver said:
Yeah, and once we're done complaining about Gwen Stacy who has never appeared, had a single line of dialogue or any sign she was going to be a part of this story, lets talk about Aunt May, and then the other solid % points of the worlds population that got killed by Galactus.
All of whom are also used as props and callously killed and we are equally angry about.
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Actually Gwen Stacy did have sings that she was going to be a part of the story:

October Daye said:
"I'm home!" we heard from our place in the dining room.

"We're in the dining room!" Ben yelled back. I nearly raised an eyebrow at the subtlety of his hint. Surely a teen wouldn't catch the difference between – wait, I realized. Peter Parker was no ordinary teen. He was a mild precognitive. Was this Ben's way of testing me? Seeing if Peter's Spider-Sense pegged me as a threat? Did this mean Ben Parker was in the know?

… was I reading too far into this?

"Hey, so uh, before I forget!" The two of us heard Peter's shoes come off and backpack hit the floor, even as he continued to talk. "I'm meeting up with Gwen after school tomorrow to get some studying done for the history final on Friday, and we're gonna get dinner after," Peter continued, his speech punctuated by the sound of him unzipping a backpack and pulling out what sounded to me like binders. That, and some kind of wrapper, though I couldn't be sure what from. "So uh, yeah I've got plans for dinner tomorrow," he said, his voice getting closer as he walked through the hall and to the dining room, "and you can just—"
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That was Chapter Seventeen and she died in the current Chapter which is Twenty-Three. It's why her death works. If Gwen had never been mentioned this would be a much worse story, but it is that attention to small details that come back in later chapters that is one of the things makes this story pack the punch it does.

@October Daye is an excellent storyteller and she makes the level of skill needed to pepper such small details that will become relevant down the line look easy even though that is one of the hardest things to pull off in writing. The Lord of the Rings doesn't pull that off and instead relies on characters narrating to other characters what had happened and why it mattered in the moment it matters when it becomes relevant with a few exceptions like Anduril.

So the fact that I failed:

October Daye said:
… sooo in that case, go pull up a word document, Google doc, notepad document, or even a spiral notebook, and… write your own.

It would be a more valuable use of your time than spending several hundred words essentially saying "eh, I could do better", and doing so in a way that's clearly meant to tear someone down.
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in communicating my criticism to the OP just makes me sad. If you took from my post that I was tearing you down @October Daye then that is my bad and I'm sorry for making you feel like that.
 
Dmol8 said:
Actually Gwen Stacy did have sings that she was going to be a part of the story:



That was Chapter Seventeen and she died in the current Chapter which is Twenty-Three. It's why her death works. If Gwen had never been mentioned this would be a much worse story, but it is that attention to small details that come back in later chapters that is one of the things makes this story pack the punch it does.

@October Daye is an excellent storyteller and she makes the level of skill needed to pepper such small details that will become relevant down the line look easy even though that is one of the hardest things to pull off in writing. The Lord of the Rings doesn't pull that off and instead relies on characters narrating to other characters what had happened and why it mattered in the moment it matters when it becomes relevant with a few exceptions like Anduril.

So the fact that I failed:



in communicating my criticism to the OP just makes me sad. If you took from my post that I was tearing you down @October Daye then that is my bad and I'm sorry for making you feel like that.
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However I also seemed to have failed to convey the point of my critique to you
Dmol8 said:
This is a problem in real life because people thinking of someone as "boring" or "pathetic" or "irredeemable" is the cause of so much misery and death while also causing people who identify with such characters to feel like they live in a society hostile to them.
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Do you know how many Marvel characters there are?
October choosing specifically which ones are going to be written is just pragmatism, attempting to give them all relevant story time would just be a confusing mess.
You have already implicitly understood this, I assume, because you aren't critising that Aunt May died, or that literally hundreds of thousands died in the last chapter.
It seems like your issue is not that this has happened, but that you have specifically decided that the reason this decision happened was for morally incorrect reasons and this is an indication of the way October behaves from day to day IRL.
And from that you've concluded that this demonstrates that October has bulldozed over Gwen Stacy's most character defining feature of... not being killed by the Green Goblin? And from that you're anticipating that Hank is going to be subject to a similar character assaination to set up the intended plot?

If your critique was "I wish Gwen Stacy hadn't died because, the more girlfriends we have between that storyline where Peter sells his marriage to resurrect Aunt May the better." we would not be treating your argument the same way. Even "I actually like Gwen so I wish she'd shown up more" or "I think you could have done this without fridging her" would have been fine.
But instead you're invoking moral terms and your logic is so full of leaps of logic and your own assumptions that I've reread your post multiple times and I'm still not sure I grasp your argument.
 
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Lithos Maitreya said:
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I feel like I must be missing some context. Did Gwen Stacy, like... APPEAR in this fic? I guess she might have showed up during the Osborne lawsuit arc and I just forgot about it because it was so minor...

…

A big part of me wants to go off right now, but you're not worth gumming up this thread. So I will say only this. There are things that could be written into a story that might make me call the author evil. But even if Gwen Stacy had been a major character in this fic, this would not be one of them, chief. I'd recommend you have some perspective, but I'd much rather you just leave mine.
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Seconding everything here. What in the world is this thread's problem? If you don't like the story, stop reading.

I, for one, really enjoy this story! October Daye is a great writer and I'm having a lot of fun!
 
Aule said:
I am very, very scared of the last two arcs names. Something tells me that השואה in the title isn't about remembering it.
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Can you please explain? I know a bit about the Jewish religion, but not a whole hell of a lot, and while I could google it the internet is full of misinformation, triply so when things like religion/mythology get involved, and would rather educate myself accurately.
 
nameless980 said:
Can you please explain? I know a bit about the Jewish religion, but not a whole hell of a lot, and while I could google it the internet is full of misinformation, triply so when things like religion/mythology get involved, and would rather educate myself accurately.
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Yom HaShoah is the Holocaust Day of Remembrance. The Hebrew up there spells out Shoah, which is the name we've given the Holocaust.
 
To shift things back to Galactus for a moment, I'm no longer sure why Galactus is considered such a gigantic threat anymore when Marvel has a hero who is a perfect Outside-Context-Problem for him.

Ghost Rider.

the "Penance Stare" should *wreck* Galactus -- he's destroyed trillions of lives. As a Holy/Unholy power it should be at least in the neighborhood of the Power Cosmic I think one Fantastic Four cartoon used this and I'm surprised it hasn't been latched onto by Marvel in general. Marvel has enough Heroes who know each other to bring in someone a villain just doesn't have the tools to deal with. Seen in this fic already by Osborne vs Magneto.
 
nameless980 said:
Can you please explain? I know a bit about the Jewish religion, but not a whole hell of a lot, and while I could google it the internet is full of misinformation, triply so when things like religion/mythology get involved, and would rather educate myself accurately.
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שואה (Shoah, Ha is just definite article like "the") means "catastrophe" or "disaster" in Hebrew... and more commonly it means "Holocaust", it being the disaster.

Yom HaShoah, literally "day of the Holocaust", is the shortening of the name of "Holocaust remembrance day".
 
ScrewySqrl said:
To shift things back to Galactus for a moment, I'm no longer sure why Galactus is considered such a gigantic threat anymore when Marvel has a hero who is a perfect Outside-Context-Problem for him.

Ghost Rider.

the "Penance Stare" should *wreck* Galactus -- he's destroyed trillions of lives. As a Holy/Unholy power it should be at least in the neighborhood of the Power Cosmic I think one Fantastic Four cartoon used this and I'm surprised it hasn't been latched onto by Marvel in general. Marvel has enough Heroes who know each other to bring in someone a villain just doesn't have the tools to deal with. Seen in this fic already by Osborne vs Magneto.
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Depending on the continuity, Galactus exists as a necessary balancing force between Eternity and Death, and as the "lock" to seal away Abraxus.

Therefore, he could already be fully aware of all of the lives he has ended. But, the alternative is for all lives to end. Kill a trillion, to save several googolplex.

In which case, the Penance Stare wouldn't do anything that he isn't already feeling. And saving planets from Galactus starts to become the equivalent of helping your friend to hide their bite-wound in a zombie outbreak…
 
Or you can just convince Galactus to eat some other world which is not inhabited by sentient life at the moment yet still is sufficiently nutritional. Like, for example, a planet overgrown with nut bearing trees.

And yes, it's something that actually happened in canon.
 
Aule said:
Or you can just convince Galactus to eat some other world which is not inhabited by sentient life at the moment yet still is sufficiently nutritional. Like, for example, a planet overgrown with nut bearing trees.

And yes, it's something that actually happened in canon.
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well, yeah, but then that's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. She has enough talk-no-jitsu to put both Hibiki Tachibana and Naruto to shame.

Remember, Deadpool considers her a Cosmic-level threat.
 
Dark as Silver said:
the other solid % points of the worlds population that got killed by Galactus.
All of whom are also used as props and callously killed and we are equally angry about.
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I think this was meant to be a joke, but yeah that does bother me. More than Gwen Stacy does. It makes me really uncomfortable when a whole lot of bystanders are killed off just to make a villain more threatening.
 
Warclam said:
I think this was meant to be a joke, but yeah that does bother me. More than Gwen Stacy does. It makes me really uncomfortable when a whole lot of bystanders are killed off just to make a villain more threatening.
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Why though? It's literally a cosmic threat, the kill count is a natural consequence of it showing up. The story may or may not choose to focus on it, but it would still be there.
 
Warclam said:
I think this was meant to be a joke, but yeah that does bother me. More than Gwen Stacy does. It makes me really uncomfortable when a whole lot of bystanders are killed off just to make a villain more threatening.
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Galactus the world eater?
I don't think he needed to be made more threatening, this was a case of a somewhat darker Marvel universe due to reality ensuing a more down to earth perspective and the genre shift from super hero antics to super hero clean up. Honestly, I don't think we know this didn't happen in the canon marvel timeline, just that they didn't spend any time on it.
 
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