Vote Thread for Ack's Omake Corner

I'll have Another Way up in a few days, but right now, have a chapter of How Taylor Hebert Agreed to be a Slut. It's SFW ... kinda.

 

[X] Meet the Heberts - 6
[X] Wyvern - 5
[X] NSW - 4
[X] War Games - 3
[X] Confrontation II - 2
[X] Alea Iacta Est - 1

 

[X] Recoil - 6

 

Part Four of How Taylor Hebert Agreed to be a Slut (a Worm/Slut Life crossover) is up. NSFW

Still working on Another Way.

 

[X] Wyvern - 6
[X] I, Panacea - 5
[X] Alea Iacta Est - 4
[X] All Alone - 3
[X] Trump Card - 2
[X] One More Trigger - 1

[] It Gets Worse
[] Price of Blood

 

Just posted the second (and last) part of Greg Veder, Conquering Hero. NSFW

Still working on Another Way, I promise!

 

[X] Trump Card - 6
[X] Recoil - 5
[X] Wyvern - 4
[X] War Games - 3
[X] Hostage Situation - 2
[X] I, Panacea - 1

 

Okay, Another Way is up.

Working on It Gets Worse now.

 

[X] Meet the Heberts - 6
[X] NSW - 5
[X] Hostage Situation - 4
[X] Trump Card - 3
[X] I, Panacea - 2
[X] War Games - 1

 

So you're working on another way for things to get worse, got it.

 

Have a chapter of How Taylor Hebert Agreed to be a Slut while you're waiting.
(NSFW)

 

[X] Recoil - 6
[X] War Games - 5
[X] One More Trigger - 4
[X] Alea Iacta Est - 3
[X] Confrontation II - 2 (traded)

Will trade for Recoil and War Games.

 

Okay, a couple days late but here's the latest It Gets Worse.

Gonna go work on One More Trigger now ...

 

[X] Trump Card - 6
[X] I, Panacea - 5
[X] Wyvern - 4
[X] War Games - 3
[X] Hostage Situation - 2
[X] Recoil - 1

 

[X] Recoil - 6
[X] I, Panacea - 5
[X] Hostage Situation - 4
[X] Confrontation II - 3
[X] Trump Card - 2
[X] Wyvern - 1

 

It's a little out of the usual order, but the muse was strong, so I belted out another chapter of It Gets Worse. Enjoy.

 

Thanks for the great stories Ack - I've really liked all I've read so far, but I think Trump Card is my favorite so far.
[X] Trump Card - 6
[X] Wyvern - 5
[X] I, Panacea - 4
[X] One More Trigger - 3

 

Announcement:
The story One More Trigger will be wrapping up with its final chapter to be posted sometime in the next week or so (my schedule gets really hectic for a bit, so I can't match times with my beta for a while).

In the meantime, feel free to adjust any votes you have made toward it into another story, because it is coming to an end.

Sorry about how abrupt this is, but I've come to the conclusion that any more chapters will simply be repeating a conga line of villains to be beaten. Besides, I have other stories to write.

So, to repeat: One More Trigger is ending. Any votes you have made toward it will be lost. You have maybe a week to reallocate said votes.

Thank you.

Changed my mind. Carry on.

 

That is... extremely, extremely sad.

(If mostly because the only ending that quick I can see at this point is "the S9 succeed at killing the hero team, um, forgot what it was named again, the one with Taylor in it, and this is the end because the nice characters are dead".)

 

It could simple be an "And the adventure continues..." ending. An open ending, basically.

 

That would require fully resolving the S9 fight plotline, which might not be possible in under a chapter.

(Also, "conga line of villains to be beaten" is part of what I like Ack's stories for. But that's just my personal opinion.)
(...Actually, come to think of it, isn't that pretty much what It Gets Worse is about? Maybe Ack just mixed up the two stories? It definitely would make sense, as of the current setup, for that story to get wrapped up with one chapter.)

 

That's... extremely distressing. One More Trigger is my second favourite of your active fics, and it really doesn't feel like it's within one chapter of a proper resolution. I can understand wanting to tie it off before it wears out its welcome - while I'd be perfectly happy with watching Team Actually Competent crush villain after villain under the iron fist of Actual Training, I know not everyone would be - but please, give yourself the time and space to do a proper job of it!

 

Uh ... you have read the latest OMT chapter, yes?

 

...Not since it came out, no.

 

Same. I read all the new chapters when they come out, by which point I usually need to re-familiarize myself with the ongoing plot by reading the previous few chapters.

And the last scenes I do recall from the plot were the S9 messing up the hero team's counter-plans by taking Greg hostage, and Bonesaw escaping from said hero team's poisons because she was that ludicrously prepared.

And, of course, the only way I can imagine the plot finishing in one chapter (or even one and a half chapters) from that is by (the remnants of) the S9 actually subverting the rest of whatever countermeasures the heroes still had, and/or unleashing an incurable plague (or something similar) in the process. Nice convenient wrapped-up bad end.
(Well that or an outright deus ex machina - Eidolon might work, I guess - which might not be quite as sad but would be a ridiculous cop-out and a major anticlimax for the otherwise excellent story.)

That said, of course it's perfectly possible that all of that happened three or four chapters ago and the whole thing had already been long since resolved as of wherever they actually are in the story.

 

That's the chapter before the last one.

 

Oh, the Return of the Slaughterhouse Nine arc could be closed off in a chapter, sure. It was basically resolved and only needed an aftermath anyway. But the fic as a whole... well, it just doesn't seem like it's done. The S9 didn't feel like a concluding arc, but a middle one. It's a great fic, and it deserves a final arc that was written as a finale; ending it now would make it feel like a TV show that got cancelled abruptly at the end of a season, after they'd finished the current plot but without time to tie everything together into a satisfying narrative conclusion.

 

What would you consider to be a satisfying narrative conclusion?

 

Um. One last arc, comparable in length to the previous ones, but written with the express purpose of being a climax to the entire story, rather than just resolving it's own arc-bound conflicts. Callbacks to earlier arcs, in particular Chekhov's guns going off. Resolve outstanding character arcs, potentially including resolutions being ones that break the status quo ('I'm resigning to be with my family', 'I've learned to stand on my own now, so I'm moving away', that type of stuff). Your initial post on the indicates you don't have a pre-plotted overarching storyline the way you did for, say, Security!, but you've proven the ability to adapt anyway to the point where no one would no you didn't have it all planned out from the get-go. And that is, essentially, what I'm asking you to do: give us something that makes the reader go 'This. This is what the whole story was working up to. This is where the story has been going, all along. I am sorry that it is done, but I can see that it is done.'.

I might be able to supply a bit more detail in what I'd like to see - particular questions unanswered, arcs unfinished - but first I'd have to reread the story to date with that specifically in mind and take notes. Do you want me to do that? If you're willing to do a proper job of giving the story a satisfying conclusion, I'm certainly willing to put in the effort to help; it's been a couple years, but I've done editing and assistant writing for fics before. But even then, I can only point out what I feel needs to be resolved and, if you wish, critique whatever plans you come up with. I can't tell you how to make a satisfying capstone to the story; there's a reason you're an accomplished author and I am not.

 

Welp, I've actually started on a new arc, which will require its own internal resolution as well as larger ones.

Any lists of what people see as things needing resolution would be nice

EDIT: The ending of this fic was prematurely announced, folks. There will be more to come.