A Message For all Noble Jurists and Lunar Ninthers · 3:18am Jul 3rd, 2016
Greetings.
Shortskirtsandexplosions here.
As you all well know, your friendly neighborhood Imploding Colon doesn't talk very much. I'm not sure if it's just because he's shy or he can't communicate in words that don't include onomatopoeia, but blogging just isn't his thang.
To that end, he's given me permission to write this blargh for him. I mean, he could have chosen this guy, but... well... y'know... white Nephites can't jump.
Still don't believe I'm shortskirtsandexplosions? The humble photographer friend of Imploding Colon? Well, here. Get a load of this:
See? Who else would have had the guts to link that?
Anyways, I'll make this short.
Austraeoh's hit a snag. This is something Imploding Colon isn't very proud of. The reason for this snag--at least theoretically--has been a very gratuitous attempt to meet a 200 chapter limit that had been self-imposed back in the primordial days of 2012. You see, a certain word defecator once assumed that 200 chapters was the *maximum* allowance of fimfic installments for a single fic. This was not the case, and yet--upon later discovering that he could write more than 200 chapters per "book"--IC still chose to stick to the format because he had already framed the sequels of Austraeoh to the perceived framework. This worked for a long while... until Imploding Colon's stories--like all forms of mythology--grew tumorously complicated and dense. Suddenly, reaching 200 chapters was no longer a stress-free thing. Granted, it never was, but with the stakes of the narrative growing ever higher, it mean that individual installments were requiring 10x the wordage and concentration to accomplish.
This eventually came to a head at the end of Ynanhluutr, which IC has been known to describe as "miserably miserable." He hoped to avoid this in Book Eight. Whether it was bad timing, bad juju, impotence, or something else... history was not only repeated--but magnified in stupidity. Utaan chapters ended up back-heavy, and they were taking their toll on IC's sanity. So... he decided to let them take their toll on his timeclock instead. Sacrificing upload schedule for the sake of better chapters is a noble idea... but is it a noble execution?
Evidently, not so. For the first time in ages, IC could no longer brag about "writing a daily fic for multiple years." Austraeoh crawled to a stand-still, and the train almost seemed to have lost its steam.
That's when I, SS&E, came in to provide an... intervention of sorts. I approached the marsupial alumni about the possibility of foregoing the "200 chapter book limit" in exchange for consistent (but smaller) uploads instead. The crowd predominantly agreed.
For those who didn't like the idea of ditching the squeaky clean 200 chapter limit, the only explanation of IC's I can give is that the nature of fiction--like the nature of all things--is subject to change in accordance with the needs and resources of the time. Turns out IC has plenty of ideas to dish out... but the preexisting format just isn't supporting the degree to which he is humanly capable of sanely producing them.
Thus, here and now, IC has agreed to do away with the 200 chapter limit. Because he believes (as I happen to believe, not that anybody cares; I'm SS&E, princess fetishist extraordinaire)that the Noble Jurists and Lunar Ninthers who frequent his fics deserve consistence over continentally-huge chapters. And with them being more easily digestible, that means he can regularly defecate them into the horse stream of our collective digital subconscious. Now how's that for spaghetti?
So, there you have it. Utaan's words-per-chapter statistics are gonna have a Quasimodo shaped hump towards the back end of its narrative... a decent sacrifice for moving the avalanche forward. It's going to be more than 200 chapters. How long exactly? I'm sure IC will plan to provide a sort of "warning" for those who read towards the end of the narrative, but that will be up to him to formulate. I'm just a messenger.
So let us all look back at this period of time in 2016 as the "time when IC took a little miniature vacation," and now we can carry on into a future of east horsing, sound effects, and pretentious brow-beating of fictitious religious cultures. I mean... what's up with that nonsense? Tch... glad I don't read this garbage.
Thanks for your time.
-SS&E
/me removes his hat and bows gracefully.
Juan: "Hey Carlito. What do you think of that 200 chapter limit per novel?"
Carlito:"200 chapters? What I think is that 200 chapters limit is for pooh-sees, man! I'd rather die than read a book that's got, like, less than 250 chapters, man!"
Carlito looks over his shoulder at suspicious movement in the sky. "Did I say 250? Well screw that, man! I meant like 300 chapters, minimum! Yeah! I'd rather a grand piano falls on...
CRASH, tinkle, tinkle.
Probably the best move IC could make is removing a pointless, arbitrary limit to his own story, so yes, I'm fully supportive of this decision.
mm, good for you. keeping your own sanity is much prefereable to, y'know, not having your sanity.
It's a holiday miracle
Hell, it almost makes narrative sense.
SS&E, tell IC when you see him that I'd much rather have high-quality, bite-size updates that exceed the arbitrary 200-chapter mark than novel-length updates squeezing 23,000 words into one page for the sake of #tradition. I'm a speed-reader myself, but it's your story and I'd much rather have you--er, I mean IC--do what's best for IC. Thanks for keeping us Lunar Jurists (Noble Ninth-ers?) in the loop!
designboom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/thumbsAmmo03.jpg
The obsessive-compulsive in me can't help but shift uncomfortably in its seat at having the consistency broken, but... y'know, if it works it works. That and not having 10k+ word atom bombs of text dropped on me will make it easier to read, scheduling-wise.
Necessary evil is necessary.
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About 260k Japanese will dislike this comment....you have my approval.
Also, I want him to make a chapter that has 1, 799 words in it and a missing word at the end just to screw with OCD.
At the very least, I'm glad to hear that the chapter limit origin came from a nonsensical and meaningless misconception rather than having some symbolic deeper meaning. Not gonna lie, I'll miss the 200 chapters per book thing, but you do you, man. And let IC do IC.
Let the horse words recommence.
I wish it didn't have to come to this, but it's definitely the best choice to make given the circumstances. Good on you, ):(.
The show must go on, yeah? 200 need not be an aysmptote.
Better boomer spit happy much happy short spit, yes yes yes?
I knew something odd was going on when the days between chapters started to exceed two. Usually, I expect a couple of those. Shit happens. Now that my suspicions are confirmed, I'm happy to see it's already been resolved!
But I've really fallen behind on . . . honestly just about everything My Little Pony, but I've tried to keep up on this if I don't even keep up with the show. I'm a dedicated man.
This now means I won't read a 12,000 word chapter, which usually takes my slow ass an hour or more to read because I like to vocalize the characters, which leads me to an awesome tangent.
An audio book of Austraeoh and on? Is that a thing? And why is it not a thing if it isn't? I like to have fun when I read sometimes, but I honestly think that it'd be one hell of an undertaking, but the end result would most likely be highly satisfying.
But anyway, I'm glad to see that this series is evolving with time as the story evolves as well. I can't wait to see what's in store!
. . . Once I catch up.
This reminds me, this particular series is coming up soon for reading. I wonder how long it will take.
Even JK Rowling couldn't stop later books getting larger than earlier ones. Why should IC have to stick to limits?
Let me hear you say yeah!
I was a fan of the 200 chapter limit as it let you have an idea as to how close to the end of each story we were. There was a certain excitement, hype, and suspense as we knowingly reached the end of the next installment of the series. However, I also recognize that having that limit imposes a lot of stress and difficulty in wrapping everything up within that limit.
Thus, while I liked the old format, the new format works too - now we can get daily updates again (yay!
) and perhaps even more content of Austraeoh Dash as IC can fully wrap up the goals he has set out for each book and expand on the story elements he brings forth.
I'm already looking forward to seeing how this change will effect Utaan and the future books.
Apt that Utaan would ultimately represent a pursuit into the unknown both in terms of character progression and story format. Definitely the right time for it.
I like the idea of Dash crossing to the dark side of the world with all the chaos, being why the chapters are becoming inconsistent. Yup, that's my head canon and I can now sleep at night.
4064984 Yes yes yes.
All I can think of is that with the 200 limit removed, and with shorter chapters in general, anyone who has been tracking the stats to predict the series' word count had just thrown all their calculations in the bin and started weeping uncontrollably
I'm all for it! In weird and ironic way this is kind of fitting.
While sanity is overrated, so are long chapters. I remember I had to stop several times while reading that chapter of Background Pony (you guys must know which one). A lot of short chapters are welcome. May this story be as long as Appledashery if it needs to be before we reach the dark side.
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I wept for a year because of this.