Author’s Note – Season 3 Arc 4 – Separation

Author’s Note – Season 3 Arc 4 – Separation

I feel like I have a lot of things to address this time around, but no idea if that will actually pan out in a lengthy author’s note... We’ll see.

First things first, for those of you unaware, I write this way ahead of the official release. As a rule of thumb, I am 25 chapters ahead of the CHYOA release and 20 of the 10$+ Patrons. It is the 18th of June as I am writing this, chapter 4 of the arc has just released, titled Apologies, it is a day of thunderstorms and humidity here in northern Germany. My sleep schedule is utterly fucked, my mood is quite good and my food is standing next to me. Life is not the greatest, but I would say in the upper quarter of what I want from it.

Dunno why I went that wide on the description. Point being, I am generally 5 weeks ahead of you in terms of written chapters.

The first thing I want to address is the end of the last arc. Not to re-open any of the discussions, I am sick of those, but to express my general thanks towards those of you who didn’t decide to go rabid on me and more to those who defended me. I am not a particularly emotional person, although my tendency to rant can give the opposite impression, but that was nice to see. Never been on the receiving end of such a concentrated push before. Although there was a similarly “unpopular” decision in Drip-Fed once, that story has less readers.

As of the time of writing this, I don’t know for sure if there was actual damage to my popularity. I usually write down the amount of likes and views my chapters get after seven days. Well, a week hasn’t passed since the first chapter of Arc 4 has been released, so I don’t have the complete image yet. I won’t have it until the arc is at least halfway out, I reckon.

Initial readings seem good though. Around 80 likes and 1200 views is what I estimate to be my “average” and the initial chapters are well in that ballpark. Data therefore indicates that everything is fine? Really hard to gauge these things, especially for long-term impact.

It’s not a doomsday event though, so I am okay as far as that is concerned. I can work out small dips here and there. Didn’t expect this to be one, but I don’t know everything.

I’ll close the chapter, therefore, on a largely positive note. Things are moving forward, my Patreon is doing okay, and most of my readers stuck with me. Let’s move onto things actually related to this arc, shall we?

Anyway, so the middle is a bit below the curve. Only thing I really want to get into that happened during it was the three-part sex scene, which is something I aim NOT to repeat. Not only does my main proofreader () not like my overly long lewds, having it concentrated like that leads to me counterweighting by skipping a long time until the next one happens. As evident by that triad of scenes being the only proper lewds in this Arc.

Oh, that and the Tamara situation, but that’s mostly set-up for part of next Arc and things beyond that.

What this Arc also has is a name with multiple meanings again! Been a while since I got to do that one, so lemme explain! Separation relates to: John’s separated eyesight (both in the blindness and individual lenses thing), Eliza and Thana, John’s plan to separate Seminaris from Sigmund, Sigmund’s flesh from his bones and John’s group scattering for different missions. Quite the list, ain’t it?

Unsurprisingly, the next arc will deal with all of those different things coming to their conclusions. Unlike this one, I expect next arc to be immense. Lots of smaller stories that need to be told over quite a stretch of time. You will get a taste of one of the missions in the next couple of days as I, again, attach the Side Story of this Arc to the end. We’ll follow what Aclysia is up to.

There will also be a bunch of things at the side that I desperately want or need to get to. John has quite a few things on his hands. Getting back into grindable shape, diplomacy, the war with the Lake Alliance, finding Nia again, Siena’s Tier 4 Evolution, keeping his allies safe, all the while expanding Fusion’s territory and own power.

And despite all of this, the next Arc has a bit of a silly name, one that I expect to tip many of you off where it’s eventually headed (geographically speaking).

This was Season 3 Arc 4 ‘Separation’, I hope to see all of you again for Arc 5 ‘Flow Riding’. The branch will be back on the third of August for high-tier Patrons, the sixth for normal Patrons and the tenth for everyone else.

If you have the time, please give me feedback via the following form, improvement is vital!