Adressing Concerns Over 276(Spoilers up to 276)

Hey Guys, I took a day to think over what you guys mentioned in chapter 276 since the feedback was much more negative than normal. That isn't a slight against you guys or anything; I want your sentiments and ideas. In general, I think that a lot of you guys may have jumped to narrative assumptions about what was going to happen. On the other hand, many of you pointed out very valid points about the Phil POV section. I'll be splitting my overview up between three different general responses because of that.

1. The Phil arc is predictable, and we don't want him to become a big side character.

| My response | So first off, I only intended for Phil to be a showcase of how Elysium ran their camps. He wasn't supposed to become a major character, and his POV was made to show the inner processes of how Elysium works. That was it. Now while writing the chapter, I did make try and make it exciting, but I can see that you guys aren't interested with exploring those options, and it's making you guys dread reading his POV. That won't be a problem because of the following point.

2. The Phil POV showcases a few plotholes.

| My response | Yes it does. In fact, this went entirely over my head, and in all honesty, this is likely the most plotholes I've ever introduced all at once. I aim to fix them. This kind of mishap was inevitable. I've been writing for years, so big mistakes are bound to happen. I'll be elaborating on a few of these points you guys brought up(Thanks for doing so).

a. Phil saw the streams, he knows their on Earth, and he'll tell Elysium. At the very least, someone might tell Elysium, and that means that they will learn where the guild is.

Yeah, this completely true, and I'll likely be scrapping this entire plotline because of this point. I never intended for this to be a huge section of the story or anything, so for me, this is no big deal. If anything, I should've been more restrained with the streaming portion of this. I'll likely be setting up parameters to expressly state what the joining process involves, and also how their avoiding people from discovering their base's actual location while advertising their guild.

What I'm thinking at the moment is explaining exactly how someone joins a guild, what options there are for advertisement, and how the guild's location could remain secure. Explaining all that should patch these issues up nicely while world-building a bit. Thank you guys for bringing that up because I missed it

b. Why isn't Daniel helping more people?

This is less a plothole and more a point of clarification. This is the series of events that I based the progression of the story around - first, Daniel escaped Bloodhollow and was trying to survive. Second, Yawm arrived, and he had to handle the guy or else he'd die. Third, he wanted to establish contact on Giess to get rid of his and his ally's unknown statuses. Fourth, by the time he finished all that, he was wrapped up in this war. Fifth, now he's trying to make sure the rebels don't blow Earth up, and that's why he isn't helping as much.

This might not be enough for you guys, and that's fair. I know Daniel is not a saint by any means, and he makes sure that he and his loved ones are secure first and foremost. That being said, I've tried to address this with the golem creation while trying to explore Daniel's character. This might not be enough, but know I'm thinking of ways to make this happen. After all, Daniel's good will has expanded since he's moved up a tier in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 

I know some people mentioned Daniel letting lots of people die on Earth while he went to Giess. This is true. That being said, remember that Althea was blown up by an assassin hunting them. That is what made Daniel's trip to Giess so immediate. That was the justification. Whether that's enough, I'll up for you guys to decide.

Either way, I'm letting you all know I am thinking about this quite a bit. I will be brainstorming a solution to address your concerns. I'll also be aiming to do in an interesting way that shows more about the characters, worldbuilding, and the plot as well. It might take a few days/weeks to get it all right though, so I would truly appreciate even more patience from you guys. And as always, feedback so I can make my story as excellent as I can.

c. This plotline seems like it's going to be pinning humanity against Daniel's guild.

I actually never intended on doing this, and I'm not a fan of arbitrary, informational conflicts like that. I prefer concrete, genuine differences that lead to real clashes instead. You guys have good imaginations though, and this would've definitely have been a possibility going forward if I'd decided on it.

3. Hey, don't bail on your vision just because you got some negative feedback! That's, er, disingenuous!

| My Response | As mentioned before, I only wanted to showcase how an Elysian camp works from a personal, detailed perspective. I also wanted to humanize the rebels some since you guys have seen the worst parts of them, but not their best aspects. By demonstrating the kind of worlds that Elysium is fighting for, I aimed to give a compelling counter example of their altruistism to humanize them.

This Phil plotline simply isn't going to work for this because of the plotholes mentioned earlier. This is by no means the end of the world, and I can fix this. If any of you guys is willing to mention the chapters where streaming was mentioned, then that would hasten how quickly this could be done for me. I rarely ask for help like this, but this kind of glaring issue needs to be addressed before moving forward. 

There are plenty of ways to do this in a different way as well. The team being sent down to infiltrate the Elysian camp could show how the camp operates. I could also explore other characters you guys would be more interested in, like Other Hod, Amara, Isa, etc. I mean, there's plenty of ways to make this fun, interesting, and cool. I'm not limited here, and the sky's the limit.

That's about all I have for my thoughts. Let me know what you all think.

I'm not the kind of author that ignore's his audience and keeps going forward. I'm willing to take a few steps back for the long term success of my stories. This is one of those moments. Thank you all for helping me do this and for being so engaged with the narrative.

I'll be active in this comment section for sure, and sorry if I came across as defensive in the previous post. I took a day just to make sure I was calm and level headed. It's easy to take slights at my story as personal, as any author can atest to. I know that will hold me back, however, so I'm here to listen.

 I'll let you guys know when I have this fixed, and I'll get back to posting after the monthly video summary where I'll let you guys know what my solution is.