Shift Comments Thread

[Andromeda]

Chapter 334 is now up and ready for reading. The continuation of the Miyako and Kaede fight pushes things into high gear now. Since both were using physical means of fighting I wanted to do what I could to show off the power being tossed around. Miyako and Kaede are both fairly unrefined fighters with their powers. Miyako is more refined due to years of fighting, but not refined with power control. So there is a lot of destruction and devastation due to that.

While to the reader it should have been obvious, I make it finally clear where Kaede's power is coming from, her hair. Which is another one of my efforts to make for some unique types of powers. She still has a lot of the same sorts of things you'd expect, but the way she gets them gives her some variety. However, due to how the switch has to happen, it does not make her as ideal as others in the middle of the fight. Which is why her changes always happen during downtime when she is out of sight. It does give some dramatic flair added to the sudden dropping of a new power.

Miyako started the fight injured to some degree. She had already been fighting a bunch of fodder and still recovering from her last fight, which was not really more than 12 hours prior. It was a really short time. So she is going in more like a classic Shounen type of hero, which is something done intentionally. Yuki is the one that subverts that, but I allow it for the others since they actually are Shounen types, Yuk isn't. Plus, the tone in this arc is a lot different. So people will be a lot more messed up and broken at the end, the fights will be reflecting that.

Enjoy!

[Andromeda]

Finally back, lots of things happened and I ended up not doing much of anything. Notably, the expansion for FFXIV came out that sucked away literal days from pretty much everything. Finally starting to come down off of that, though not completely, and start working again. It's not easy when the game is so good and addicting, but I did need to get back on my writing schedule.

So without delay, chapter 335 is now available. The increasingly longer fight with Miyako and Kaede has extended from what I thought would be a short fight to now a full blown fight. It all serves things well since both characters are important to the future plots I have planned. I just had very little clue about how the fight was going to play out from the start. Having only rough ideas didn't help, which is part of what's made writing these more difficult. And one of the things I attribute to why it has taken me so long to getting back on them, other matters certainly did not help though.

I did fortunately have things figured out once I started working on the fight. So that helped, but it was just a matter of feeling out the pacing. This chapter focused on one of the more important parts to Kaede's power though. There is a side effect to her powers, one that she can't control. The beast mode that activated at the end was a mark of that. There is going to be more with it later as I do more with her character and she understands what her powers truly are.

Enjoy!

[Andromeda]

You know the drill by this point for anyone following, when I got on a long gap of failing to keep up with my schedule I always correct that schedule, eventually. Usually, by dropping all the chapters at once, this is one of those times. So chapter 336 is available for your reading pleasure! This concludes the epic fight between Miyako and Kaede. The rest of the aftermath of the fight will be picked back up after all the fights are over and they're dealing with the fall out.

Something more important to remember here, is that the people fighting are trying to protect their town and the people that they care about. So while the fighting is happening in the city, it is being done in parts that were already abandoned. As shown by this fight, there are still areas that are lived in and Miyako most of all wanted to avoid harming innocents or getting them involved. The Takako Faction naturally has no worries about this. Miyako is older than the rest and can think about more than just her fight, something that Yuki and his friends sort of forgot about in the chaos if their fighting during Atlantis. Consequences come from such fighting and though they managed to escape it thanks to Yuki playing some big cards, it is not always going to be the case. The systems are different, not to mention any sort of destruction that they cause will be answered by with the UN making moves. I introduced the UN for a specific reason and they'll be a constant threat and worry for any sort of action that they make, not that in this case they are thinking about those consequences.

This is actually one of the longest chapters that I wrote for Shift so far. It surpassed my personal limits that I put on chapter length. So I'm a little bothered that it went over, but I just rolled with it. This was the end of the fight, there was no point to dragging it out any more. And it was a good end to the fight. One thing I wanted to be sure with Miyako was a big finish of will power, something very classic of Shounen Jump type fights. Even though she was always on the losing end through the whole fight she never really seemed like that with the way she carried herself. And broken and beaten, she could not fold. Which is something very true to her character and a highlight to the sort of person that was. She never lost herself, she was always believing in herself and had confidence even though she knew she was out matched and it was a bad fight. But she carried herself through it. She is a really enjoyable character.

Enjoy!

[Andromeda]

Chapter 337 is now up! With Haruo, Seiji and Miyako's fights out of the way, back to one of the bigger ones of the arc. The fight between siblings, sort of, it's complicated. Yumi's a complicated character now, something that wasn't really the case in the first arc. But this fight is actually more about Yori than it is about Yumi. It is from his point of view, especially since he's on the side considered good while Yumi or the person inside her is on the bad guy's side. So this is a fight for Yori, someone that's been a bit of a joke up to this point.

I say joke and I mean it in different ways. I had him kidnapped because he made the most sense and I wasn't going to capture a girl, it's over done. So having the guy captured and needing rescuing was important. Which started off his own arc as a result. He was the only one in the group that really did not want to go with them. He did not belong and he was even convinced he did not have any powers, or at least anything useful for fighting. Him being captured started to show him that he could not just be running and hiding from everything and that he could not convince the same of Yumi.

This fight is a the natural continuation of that, since he never really got to do much with the last time around. The last time he fought, he was enraged over being separated from Yumi and wanting to get back to her and then not wanting to fight because he had talked his opponent down. It still ended in a fight, but he lost and he did not really learn much from it other than the reinforcement that he really did not belong in their world. Unfortunately, due to Yumi, he found himself stuck in the world that he did not belong.

So this fight picks back up with him needing to confront those matters, among some other matters that he did not know that he had. Even though this will be a fight, this is going to be a character fight, much like some of my other fights have been. The character will come out of the fight with something that changes them. Yori's a complicated character like his sister, but it is started to unravel now that complexity. The important thing to remember about Yori is that he's not brave or strong, he's weak and a coward. He wants to do things, but finds that once he is in the situation he doesn't know what he should do. He's full of a lot of self doubt and more convinced that he should not be fighting, which comes from his time in Atlantis. As it said before, the Atlantis arc affected everyone in different ways. And for Yori, it just gave him more reason that he never should have been there. And he is continued to be dragged along by other people, mostly his sister and his brotherly obligation.

Enjoy!

[Andromeda]

The last chapter in my big update, chapter 338 is now available as well. Continuing Yori's fight with the woman inside Yumi, I start getting into a few details about what happened with Yori in the month that they were touring. As it should not really be much of a surprise, he trained with Athene to try to improve himself.

While it'll come out in later chapters, he trained not because he accepted that he wanted to fight, but that he accepted he had power to protect Yumi that he wanted to understand. It was something that he really did not understand or control during his fight with Athene. He was learning about it during the fight and he did not want that if it came down to another fight. So he's more experienced with this power this time around, but he is still lacking the resolve and confidence. Something that comes out in his wish-washy attitude. He collapses really easy when things get dangerous. He convinces himself that this is not what he is supposed to do and dumps blame of everything on Yuki.

He will be an annoying character, that much I foresee. Because he had power, but folds really fast under real pressure. The only thing that keeps him going is the singular motivation of protecting his sister. But this fight is calling that into question and what his true motives actually are. So as the fight drags on he is going to be forced to keep looking at himself and how he sees himself fitting into the new world.

Enjoy!

[Andromeda]

Back on a better schedule, chapter 339 is now up. Continuing with the fight, Yori continues to need encouragement to stay in the fight. It is the sort of person he is as I described before. But, he is no more into things so there is not much pushing he needs. He's got his confidence now.

However, I drop some very interesting pieces of information in his flashback. They are pieces for a bigger puzzle and mystery, but they are seeds, ones that you wouldn't really expect to see in the middle of a fight here. But given the nature of Yori, it makes more sense. He thinks about things more than the others. So he considers the plans and situation moving in place around them. And this is a big one for the overall story.

But now that Yori is also more into the fight than before. I'll be able to focus on that fighting and showing off the things that he can do. He still have some things left to do and powers to show off. So the fight will continue, but it is different sort of fight. The beginning hinted at it, but the way it'll end and the things happening will make it all clear. It's all set up for the next arc.

Enjoy!