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Season 3 Arc 9 Author’s Note
🕑 Added 2023-05-09 06:01:22 +0000 UTCY’ello,
This is, I deem, the best place to end the current arc. As announced, it was a rather meandering one and I didn’t even get to everything I wanted and I actually picked up a few things I didn’t originally expect. There is a joy in this. I’ll continue about that in a second.
As per usual, I would kindly request that you head over to either my Patreon or my SubscribeStar page and pay me a little bit if you can spare it. We are approaching 4 million words on this story, and if you’ve stuck around this long, I would humbly ask for a contribution. I vow to keep the content flowing at its current quality.
At the time of most people reading this, there will also have been a new development regarding this story. I will have started posting it over on ScribbleHub. Now, fundamentally stories spreading to different sites isn’t something worth advertising, I’ll continue posting it here, but I should inform you about the fact that I will have rewritten the first 326 chapters.
I will have done so with the specific goal of cleaning out the way I used to do dialogue (if you remember, I did have multiple speakers in a paragraph for that stretch), clean up some initial awfulness, get the writing closer to my modern standard, close a few plot holes that I stumble upon (there’s a few minor ones), flesh out early character interactions… all of that.
So, if you ever feel like giving the early story a reread, I recommend doing it there. It will not be required, the story beats will all remain the same. I am remastering what is there, not touching anything too deep under the surface, for I cannot predict the kind of plot holes any deeper venture may open. What regrets I have about how I went about a few things will sadly have to remain.
As for that stretch of chapters on CHYOA, they will remain untouched. For one, because I cannot be bothered to edit all of the fixed stuff in, in all due honesty. Secondly though, because I do believe in the value of time capsules and perhaps the original version will be deemed to be an unpolished diamond while the new version will be deemed a polished turd. I hope not, but who knows?
With all of that out of the way, let’s talk about this arc.
To say first things first: I did not actually plan to end this arc on the proposal. I didn’t plan to have the proposal at all this arc. I don’t know what the alternative end of this arc would have been. Probably Max’ wedding? To have the last arc end with Max’ proposal and this one with John’s, I believe, is nice.
And now let’s go through this chronologically.
This arc started with me wanting to write lewds. A lot of lewds. An apparently bothersome amount of lewds. The Lewd Wall, as someone in the Discord server named it. A name that stuck, for it was the barrier of entry to this arc.
Now, in my defence, writing the final fight of the Iron Domain was spiritually taxing. I loathe fighting scenes in text. I don’t find them interesting to read. I find them somewhat interesting to write, but only from a technical perspective. I know they’re necessary and I’m not forcing myself to do it. Before anyone gets worried I was getting burned out at the time: I know how to measure myself. I believe my release schedule is proof in and of itself.
What goes up must come down, as they say, and I am still an erotic author, so I just rebounded. Doesn’t help that Claire gave me a few new things to play with and that I discovered the joy of consensual mind control.
So yeah, I acknowledge the Lewd Wall’s existence and I’ll try not to repeat it in this density.
Another thing to acknowledge is harem bloat.
Now the harem in this story has been and will be enormous. I try to be disciplined about these things and not add girls just for their looks and I believe I have succeeded. However, a thing I am not disciplined on is timing. This is deliberate, as I prefer the somewhat more natural flow of many things occurring together coincidentally to formulaic, predictable story beats. Everything that has advantages also has disadvantages. I believe my choice to keep things on the messy side, when it comes to events overlapping, makes for more interesting scenarios and I do ever so love readers getting antsy about everything because anything COULD spiral into an entirely new mess.
However, sometimes this kind of planning leads to the harem not expanding for 552 chapters (the time between Beatrice’s creation and Lee joining the harem, during which, to the best of my recollection, no one else joined) only for there to be a sudden explosion in new additions. The early part of this arc required additional character work for Lorelei (who had the groundworks, but was interrupted in her screen time by the Iron Domain), Nightingale (same, but even less), Claire, Delicia and then Hailey. 5 new haremettes, swelling the numbers from 16 to 21.
That is not to mention the difficulty of introducing a new girl to a harem that gets bigger with each addition. Because I have opted for the “internally stable, inter-loving harem” route, it is naturally understood that the readers would like a base idea of the relationships the haremettes have with each other. This is of course an exponential problem. It is solved partly by cliques. Naturally, a group that large will have sub-groups that are more commonly found together. Still, Undine should have an understood relationship with Metra, even if the two do rarely hang out without someone else involved.
Just to give it a quick calculation. Simple for combinations of 1 girl with 1 other girl, no one else involved, there are 210 different possible combinations of that scenario. At 16 girls, it was at 120. Both are large numbers, both are basically impossible to cover, but one is obviously way larger than the other.
The solution to this is obviously to just present select ones, preferably ones that haven’t been seen before, at choice times, interspersed over the run of the story. You do not need to have a pulse on all 210 possible combinations, as long as you occasionally see usual and unusual ones and see that inter-harem relationships continue to be fine.
The best example of this this arc was probably when John was pretending to be asleep while Momo, Metra, and Sylph were talking. These three don’t share a clique, they don’t share a hobby, they’re not similar in character or temperament, but they were able to hold a cordial conversation, even a loving one, for a full chapter.
Reception of that chapter was really good, so expect more in its style in the future.
Anyway, I got away from the topic at hand. The harem bloat was real and it required and requires an extensive period of integration. These five need to be shown interacting with each other, the previous haremettes, and what they are doing with their daily lives. I have done much of this already. I will continue to do so in the future. I will not forget the old haremettes over this. There are priorities.
I believe I stated this previously in an author’s note, but I do have a ranking for haremettes when it comes to allocating their screen time. There is no specific numerical value to this, but you may think about it like a tier list. There are haremettes who are of pronounced importance to the tone of the story overall, pulling it along almost as much as John is, and those that are very clearly along for John’s ride.
Eliana, for example, is very high on that tier list. The journey of Eliza and Thana parallel to John’s is not only very important to reflecting what kind of place the Abyss and the world is, but it also continuously tests John as a character. Rave is obviously high on the tier list too. Even if she doesn’t have many plot threads going on at the moment, she’s a force of personality in John’s life that asserts herself. Aclysia acts as the stand-in for familiars at large. Momo is the reminder of his administrative duty and peacetime. Metra is the reminder of his warrior side and the value of clear hierarchy. Scarlett is obviously the economy and ruthlessness.
At the bottom of the totem pole, we have waifus who don’t have a lot of agency or whose character is “solved”. The proverbial bedrock of the harem is Gnome. Gnome doesn’t change much. She’s gotten more confident over the years, but this doesn’t manifest much in her behaviour overall. Gnome is still the shy, adorable little thing she was back then. She doesn’t nudge John in any particular direction. She doesn’t need to either. Some people in life are valued because they are utterly predictable and reliable. Gnome will never be far, she’s an elemental. She’ll never be a source of any trouble, because she’s not a troublemaker. There’s nothing to be feared from her past. She has no rivals and very few issues in her assigned task.
This makes Gnome less interesting in terms of screen time and so she gets less.
This is a balancing act, of course. Less screen time should not mean obscurity and being reliable does not mean that she shouldn’t ever do anything unexpected. Gnome was the one who spoke the final words when it came to the Court Dust. This is because, when the chips are down, Gnome will assert herself. When she couldn’t reach Tier 5, Gnome cried. This is because Gnome may be a “solved” character, in that she does not change much or at all, but she’s still a character. She’s still herself and she’ll act as herself.
And she can be understood to act as herself, even if she’s not seen in 40 chapters, because there’s less going on with her. It’s the same logic that made comic books great. You did not need to read every issue of Batman to understand why he was behaving as he did because changes to Batman are rare and so you could step in at any moment. Even if parts of the story were odd, the character is understood, like a familiar glove.
And when you add too much new stuff to the wardrobe at once, you may experience an intolerable amount of chafing. Particularly from shoes.
This ranking fluctuates immensely. There’s times where even Eliana should take a backseat to everyone else, just like there’s times where Gnome should be the most important character. Where I am getting is that I understand that the sudden harem bloat threw things immensely off balance and I will rectify by killing all of them.
Just kidding, I’ll just not add any girls for a while. If all goes according to plan, we should have a break of similar length as we had between Bae and Lee as we do between Hailey and the next girl. Which, I guess, many of you will assume to be Layla, but I am not confirming or denying that here.
With these broad topics out of the way, let’s have a quick chronological overview of the major story events of this arc.
We had the first stretch that was very much focused on showing Claire the world in its basics and on courting Nightingale. Not my best work in either category. Claire did get the download of everything from Aclysia, which was logically coherent but not particularly satisfying. I prefer logic to compromising for emotions, so this is what it is. The Nightingale official addition could just have been paced better, although I do think it ultimately turned out alright.
Also Nathalia got her makeover here, which I will use to mention that my tastes in women have definitely adjusted over the years. I have a way larger appreciation for big tits than I used to have. Just felt right to have the change here and it felt like something she’d do. Like most things this arc, I just wondered what the character would be up to while things are calm.
Amidst these events we also had the Gala Date. Just another peak into Lydia’s life and Abyssal Germany’s politics – which I use as a stand-in to show the general divide of Europe and John’s America. They do things differently, but in the end people on both sides are just flawed individuals and the Horned Rat is everywhere.
After that we had the Fusion Festival. This one was important particularly for the arrival of Romulus and the statement that Fusion would join the Divided Gates on his invitation. Obviously that plot thread still has to come to its conclusion. There was also some politicking and John showing his increased confidence on the ‘global’ stage by openly resisting Romulus’ authority. All in all just a solid stretch.
And during, or before all of that, we have John realizing an approaching burnout.
The chapter was written following an impulse. It was not actually planned for John to desperately need a vacation. I originally thought he would just take one because he could. The words here had more control over me than I them. The character manifested an aspect and I let it flow onto the page.
John had been living with constant burdens for one and a half years at that point and the three months previous to that day had been doubly stressful. Although it is glossed over at the start of the Iron Domain arc, I will remind you that John spent the better part of two months driving up and down most of the middle USA and personally creating ledgers of the inhabitants. That wasn’t interesting work but it sure was constant one.
The reckoning for all of that had to come eventually.
So he went on vacation to Oklahoma. Hailey introducing herself there was planned. It was a very… interesting planning process. Hailey is a fusion of two ideas I had been playing around with for years. One is to introduce a fellow mundane into the Abyss. I did not do this initially because I thought it wouldn’t be too interesting to retrace John’s own introduction. I was wrong on that. The second idea was a country girl mechanic. It’s just one of my favourite archetypes. An archetype alone is not good enough to introduce a character though.
However, by the nudging of a lot of people, and constant resurfacing of the idea, Hailey was eventually created. I believe her introduction was the best one of the harems of this arc. This, for one, because she brought a unique dynamic to the table. Abyssals joining the harem is a pretty common thing by now, even if they are from other worlds.
For Hailey, there were a lot of factors in play. For one, she did have a conservative upbringing, so she was naturally more sceptical of the idea than others. However, John, at this point in the story, has completely shaped up to be exactly the kind of man that is worth foregoing monogamy for and it’s a very obvious thing. On John’s side, there was also the duality of issues at hand of wanting her to be his but also wanting her to make the choice well-informed. It made for an entertaining little dance that accompanied the vacation alongside all the fluff and character building. It was nice downtime. It was also nice to describe the haremettes without their godlike strength for a bit.
Dunno if that’s just me, but Eliana struggling to pick up a sack of cement and needing John to help her is really, really cute.
Hot spring trip, dealing with a young hurricane dragon… another instance of me planning something and John smashing it. Here’s the thing, I wanted this to be a challenge, but it’s really difficult to present John and harem with challenges that don’t break the understanding of the world. He’s so powerful, surrounded by equally (or more) powerful women, there’s very few forces that can still stand up to him. To just spawn in a monster that could in the middle of Oklahoma would be rather forced.
So it was an easy affair instead. It is what it is.
From there, we have Sylph becoming a bunny girl. The harem officially stops sleeping outside itself, which was a minor bummer for me but it just made sense.
Hailey gets introduced to Fusion politics – that was fun because Hailey is a thoroughly normal person when it comes to politics. Or maybe “simple person” fits better. She has no great theorems, no specific ideology, she’s just a very straightforward person that loathes the Feds.
Then we have the return of Fluffy Monday. I did not plan to ever do another one of these, but then I changed my mind. Not much to say about it though, as the goal was just to provide cute scenes.
Then there’s the Gorgon chapter.
It is a singular chapter. It did not feel right to draw that affair out in any capacity. The Mother of Water got to explain her side of it all. Whether that justifies or excuses her, I will leave to your personal opinion. I just wanted to show that she is not some irredeemable cleaning obsessed matriarch. She’s an embodiment of the sea and that comes with issues. Many issues.
Then we have a return to grinding. Not much to say about the way the Music Library ended up. It was a combination of it getting outlevelled and me not being that interested in the gimmick the more I thought about it. I believe the narrative Raids are a little more interesting, so Astria is what we have this time around. I’m happier with that one, particularly because it also presents another opportunity to have John take a challenge mode, if he so chooses.
Finally, we have the Proposal. It was a rather short series of chapters. I could have done more with the parents, but I was getting impatient alongside John and probably everyone who read it. The proposal was long overdue and, even if I had planned it even further back, I am happy with this. It may have been humble, it may even have been mundane, but it was heartfelt and it was all that mattered.
And that wraps up the chronological breakdown.
This leaves me with one more minor thing to talk about.
As I have noticed, since I gave the Side Story for the random citizens of Fusion during the festival, there’s great interest in alternative POVs. This is not really surprising, alternative POVs are something that made the Side Stories a thing in the first place. I have, for the most part, avoided POV switches because I believe this is John’s story and so it should stick to his perspective wherever possible. I have broken this basically only during fighting sequences where it would either be clumping everyone up into one giant fight that is incomprehensible or only having John’s fight described and summarizing everyone else’s. Obviously not satisfying.
I have decided, after a couple of polls testing public interest, to loosen these constraints a little bit. You can expect to see more POV changes, like the Layla and the Rave chapter, in the upcoming arc. Not enough to take over and rarely without specific reason. I would just like to write a chapter like the Momo, Metra, and Sylph one truly without John involved. Emphasize how ludicrous the power of the protagonists is at this point. Convey the viewpoints of the villain without John’s lens. All of that.
You’ll find, in the typical google questionnaire that I attach to this, a couple of questions related to this. I will decide on the frequency and scope of such POV chapters with that intel in mind. If they prove unpopular after the next arc, you can show that as well.
As for the next arc, there’s much to expect. Another grind session looms, and in it the many fights that Astria still has to offer. The Divided Gates beckon, a finale to a Quest over a thousand chapters active and with it the showing of the last few key players on the global stage that have not yet been seen. Will it be an amicable meeting or will violence decide who takes the seat? After that, a friend exchanges his vows. A marriage is no small matter, particularly that of royalty. Throughout it all, a certain stalker may show up. To not expand the harem does not mean I will not lay the groundwork for the next one. An angel may be seen once again. Lucifrena too has been skirting around the edges of the story. Will she finally manifest in full?
And are the greatest threats in the time of the Generation of Monsters born within it?
The answer to some of these questions will be revealed in the next arc of the Funatic branch of the Gamer, CHYOA edition. Arc 9, Maid in Heaven, ends and makes room for Arc 10 – Of Metal, Sands, and Rings.
I’ll see you all in two weeks.
Comments
Funatic
Had to pick the day of the week that lined up with the proper chapter number - I have don that for the last couple arcs
Hey Fun everything okay? Cause two weeks was three days ago. You usually pretty good about scheduling.
Larry
Thanks and hope you top the lists scribblehub
