Revising chapter 470

Sooooo it seems I might have gone a bit to fast with my desire to reach the next part of the story. Chapter 470, the one from yesterday is getting a bit more push back than normal, with the general tendency seeming to be that people don't like how fast things went and how passive Irwin was in the entire ordeal.

I had a chat with one of you guys on discord yesterday before bedtime and that helped me understand a few of the issues better. So, I'll be revising this chapter today. The path the main story flow needs to proceed along to fit with the planning can be accomplished in a few ways, and the one I chose now is not necessarily the only one.

That all said, let me explain quickly what the idea was of the chapter.

We all know by now that the time dilation is disturbed - though unlike you, I knew this when Irwin came there the first time. It's why the 'mysterious' portals appeared back then.

Now, one of the reasons he was there is to get time to learn how to make Card Seeds. So far he has learned a bit, but he needs more time. There are two other reasons he is there, one is the Ancestral Copperion, which he didn't know before, and a third reason which I'll keep under wraps because you don't know it yet.

So, I had intially not planned such a long arc there, but things flowed as they did (as they often do) and here we are. The problem is, as I kept writing this arc, the itch to continue kept growing stronger and after my 'little headache issue' last week I decided it was now the perfect time to speed things up a bit.

The general idea was, due to the time-skip Irwin experiences, he is no longer in control of the Smiths Guild on Scour. My mental reasoning was, most people didn't know him, those that did -in the cardschool- are either dead or in the Smiths Guild. His return (From scour perspective half a year earlier) causes another wave of death due to other Burrows to overflow. The Elders that know him from before know he is mostly a nice guy, and the implied idea was (which I likely should have shown) is that they gambled on the fact that he wouldn't act out. Now, I can fully see that might have been easy for me inside my head to see, but hard without writing it out.

As a side note: For those wondering, Irwin only cleared the burrows below the new Smiths Guild and killed the big baddy below the Oxarite Capital. The others still exist.

So, then why the Portal Guild? Well, that was always the idea, though perhaps I should have gone about it another way. I was going to use other perspectives, bigger timeskips, and us seeing things from Irwin's pov as he increases his cardseed skills and rapidly creates new organization.

That's all nice, but now what?

Well, as some of you who have been here longer know, this is not the first time this has happened but actually the second time. Last time (a bit over a year ago) I took a day to redo the problem chapter, though in that case I just needed to add about a chapters worth of content to make everything flow better. In this case I'm going to have to figure out a few more steps.

I'm currently thinking of doing the following (Thanks to potofjam for the chat yesterday)
- I'll show the scene were Rinbus returns and tells Irwin a few things that I probably should have told you in hindsight. (how the oxarite empire is doing, and some details about his 'missed deal' with Preg)
- I'll show the scene were Flowrishin talks with the Elders, to show the way their decision is made, including how she handles that
- I'll have a longer 'chat' between Irwin, Ambraz, and Flowrishin to better show why Irwin decides its in his own best interest to leave.

Let me know if there's something else.

Also, one thing, I understand there's some people who feel Irwin should be more 'forcefull' in getting people to do what he want, for the greater good. I can understand why, but I think I've shown how Irwin currently is in the story. He is a good guy, very protective, and when it comes to smithing he is pretty far at the curve. Does that mean he never explodes? Sure he does. But I don't feel he would do so in this situation. Now, you can have a discussion about if that is the right thing to do - which I fully agree might be debatable, but he is growing into something, at least that's the idea, and I don't feel its going to be a morally gray hero. (At least not from his own pov)

So, TLDR: I wanted to speed up, I moved too fast, and I’ll be reworking the chapter to add context and depth without derailing the story’s direction. It means probably no chapter today because it will take me time to rework things. Thanks for being honest with your feedback!

OH, a final thing : To those who worry this is me changing the main story flow. No worries. The main story flow has to many bits and bobs depending on it, I can't make any sweeping changes without cutting out the floor as it where. It's mostly implementation, not structure ;).