Collide Gamer

It.

Is.

Done!

Jesus fucking Christ on his throne in heaven, guarded by Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, someone shoot me in the head, this took way too fucking long.

This Arc in its entire 630k word length took me 10 months to write and it’s finally done. It is finally fucking done. I won’t even pretend that I can go through all of the things that happened in it in here, that would just add another 5000 words to that length. Instead, I will make this one of the shortest Author’s Notes I have ever left and just tell you a short tale. After simply listing all that happened in this arc, sorted chronologically:

• Catgirl Interview

• Small Lake Pact tournament and integration

• Amacat negotiations and integration

• Scarlett’s fake public persona

• The Catch-Up buff, beating the first Raid

• John’s birthday, with Nathalia showing her face

• Item upgrades

• Breakthroughs on the Thana integration

• Gaia revealing the “truth” about the world

• Momo calling

• The Hudson Brawl and subsequent peace deal

• The Guys’ night out

• The Fusion Federation system

• Visiting John’s parents in DC

• The Birthday Season

• The Augusta sub-arc

• Goblin Interview

• The dismissing and resummoning of the elemental girls

• The Florida Tournament

• Nia coming back

Altogether taking, in story, from the 28th of June to the 9th of September.

This was supposed to be one of the shortest arcs, which just goes to show that you should never ask me for an estimate of how long something is supposed to take. The estimation was born from me, mentally, focusing on the Florida end part of things. The Small Lake Pact and Amacat affairs were supposed to be relatively cut and dry and quick. The birthday(s) I didn’t account for, that’s just how the dates lined up.

So many details that opened themselves up for exploration at certain times, so many little side plots to finish or elaborate on. So much goddamn stuff.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I was torturing myself writing it. The few regular slumps that everyone has aside, I am very happy with how this arc turned out. That the Lucifrena fight was better in my mind than it panned out on the page would be my most pronounced regret. I also didn’t know what to do with Marie. She was supposed to be a side character, then John decided to be a big old flirt about it, making her a potential haremette, and now I am most likely to make her a side character after all. You will see my final decision depending on how things pan out on the page in the next arc.

Because of the sheer length of this one, being LONGER THAN THE ENTIRETY OF SEASON 2, I hereby declare that I will be taking a TWO WEEK break. This is normally reserved for in-between seasons, but I want to unwind my fingers a bit. I am not burned out on this story, don’t worry, my supernatural ability to avert writer’s block continues to serve me.

It’s just that I wrote 6 BOOKS in this series, in effective word count, in the past 10 months and I want a well-deserved break.

If you want to support my efforts, go to my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Funatic). If you want to thank DraMr for continuing to make this readable, go to his Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/DraMr).

All my thanks also go out to my current proofreaders and those that already support me.

Here is a Velka picture.

This was Season 3 Arc 5 “Flow Riding”. Next Arc will likely have a bunch of side plots and character development that need some attention as well before we get to the part that gives it its name. Namely, I want to wrap up the aforementioned Marie situation and give some more attention to Nia, as well as concentrate on Sylph a little bit. Both of them deserve it and I think Sylph could really use some extra depth to her.

I hope to see you all for that and the things that will happen thereafter in Season 3 Arc 6 of the Funatic branch of the Gamer, CHYOA edition, called “Stargazer”.

If you want to give me some feedback, here is the usual survey you can quickly drop your opinions in: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfW2EUTmKmp_xW8RwCXwqWOHTr72UgZZxlLLqmgp4x6ILcVCw/viewform?usp=sf_link