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My Hero Automata Poll Conclusion
🕑 Added 2025-02-11 02:40:37 +0000 UTCAlright everyone, the Important Poll for My Hero Automata finished yesterday. So, this is just a (not so) brief note to go over the results. Said results were:
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Option 3 - Engineering a Better Future - 61%
Option 1 - Join the Guild System -36%
Option 2 - Become Pro Heroes - 3%
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Okay, first...let me admit you lot threw me for a massive loop on this one. Option 3 was literally a last-minute addition. Something I thought of and added as I was typing up the poll. I realized when I was doing so that there was a major aspect/option/element of the story-until-now that I wasn't covering with Options 1 & 2. So I stopped mid-typing-it-up to consider that fact and ultimately added Option 3 as a possibility.
Frankly, I actually expected Option 3 to bomb.
I mean, I obviously enjoy geeking out over possible future tech and interesting ideas. That's a theme for pretty much all of my stories. From Harry making magi-tech in Pandora's Box, to Mei going nuts with Star Wars tech levels in Displaced Hero. I find the thought exercises involved in extrapolating that sort of thing fun! But I'm not at all used to the idea that other people find it fun to read :-p. I'm constantly forcing myself to hold back on that sort of thing, since it creates a lot of wall-of-text exposition that causes most people to go glassy-eyed.
Imagine my surprise when so many people jumped on Option 3!
Mind you, it's far from an unpleasant surprise. Heck, my very first serious attempt at publishing something was a novel length 'memoir' of a sci-fi engineer recounting some of his adventures. (The Chronicles of Henry Harper for those interested. I've gotten a lot better since then, but it still holds up reasonably well, I think). Suffice it to say, I'm entirely fine (even a bit gleeful) at the idea of launching into an exploration of Izumi and Momo running off to make all the cool things. It just wasn't at all what I expected ;-). I figured, with all the more direct setup leading to the Guild System, that people would be wanting to see that. Shows what I know!
Well, anyway, you guys know the winner. To be honest, it was pretty obvious which option was going to win a couple of days ago, so I've already laid down about 80% of the update. It's going to be a bit of a transition update as I pivot them from the path they were on to this new direction, but it's coming along well. It'll have some downtime 'fun' between the trio to break up the various conversations and such that need to happen. Some to shift their direction, some to put into place the ability for them to still interact with the other two paths (I did pretty much promise there would be some crossover between options).
I expect I'll finish it either tonight or tomorrow, then take another day to edit it. So it may be out as early as the 13th. Normally, I'd hold it until the 15th even if it finished earlier. But, well...February is short. Mid-month would actually be the 14th anyway. I suppose since one entire chapter is a date, it's sort of appropriate to release it before Singles Awareness Day ;-)...
Comments
Novus Peregrine
Fair. And I'm starting to get the idea I'm not the only one that enjoys the tech exploration :-p. Though I'll keep trying to balance it so it doesn't turn into wall-of-text exposition. Even I get glassy eyed when I read fics that do that...
Dominique Brassel
Well well I saw that option 3 and needed to pick it because it's what I love about AU stuff(aside from the tech wank which there can never be enough of) seeing how the mc influences the world how they can make it better/different and how the world reacts to that
Novus Peregrine
I suppose I can't refute that :-p. It's just slightly surreal, since usually people get bored and wander off when I start sci-fi or magic thought experiments ;-).
TheZombieDoc
I mean. It makes sense. Your writing style reflects what you like to write, and we, as your patrons, like that writing enough to throw money at you to get more of it. Personally, I like world-building. It makes the world feel more alive, and it makes the character interactions feel more important.
Novus Peregrine
I enjoy showing those little details and reactions a lot as well ;-). They are a fantastic device for showing the domino effect that changes cause as the butterflies create hurricanes. As well as showing a gradual slip from canon, instead of a violent Mary Sue/OP protagonist just taking a hammer to the original story. As for the expectations...both My Hero Automata and Nier are action-oriented stories. So my assumption from the start was that the fans that trickled in from both would want action :-p. Apparently, I wasn't entirely right on the subject. Usually, people react negatively to a full-blown genre shift away from the original essence of the source material. Hence me being so caught off guard that something of the sort is what the majority wanted. Few fans of Warhammer 40k are looking for a story where a humanoid team of My Little Ponies crashed through the Warp and takes on the entire Grimdark Reality with FRIENDSHIP! Including song and dance routines like the Stormtrooper Shuffle by Servitors and Machine Spirits developing Friendship Beams to convert enemy factions. ... ... ... Okay, actually, I'd read the heck out of that as a pure Crack! fic. But the point stands that it's typically not what most people looking for 40K fanfiction are probably looking for. They might get Ambushed by it when they were trying to be emo and it latched on and wouldn't stop tickling their funny bone. But they probably weren't LOOKING for it...
Mr Fox
Honestly my favorite parts of your stories is when we get to see the microcosms of the protagonists grsnd plan. Like in displaced hero recently when we got to see the jedis view of tythe and the "citadel" from mass effect type space station they had built as well as the culture and planet they had built up. Or pandoras box seeing the random purebloods reaction to muggle movies. Those kinds of events are always fun. Also I always thought that the new guild system was going to be written from more of a helicopter viewpoint anyways. Essentially us just getting to see how other people make and run guilds in general. Meanwhile izumi and momo build the technology and infrastructure necessary for the system to function. It wasnt till that last chapter that i realised you had planned on them leading a guild.
