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What did you think of Septem as a whole? (Patreon)

Published:
2022-10-12 15:59:01
Imported:
2023-10

Content

Now that the main story of Septem is over, let's take another temperature check. After voting, if there was anything in particular you had a strong opinion on, please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Comments

Marc Beans

Overall it was entertaining but suffered from a lack of interaction with the inhabitants. One could easily get the impression there was no one but Nero and Waver there despite the time spent briefly with the army.

Marc Beans

Most of that was caused by the length of their lone journey. And Rome felt a fair bit empty.

Green0Photon

I've never gotten around to reading FGO proper, and no other FGO fanfic I've read has gotten this far. But I greatly enjoy how we have a wider cast of masters with very good dynamics, and a fewer number of servants letting each one have character development like FSN. Too many servants with too little character development is what makes FGO fics feel way too goddamn arbitrary.

cystrom

Honestly, I really liked it!

Mana Rope

Its was a great ride! Yes, I agree with the comments about Rome feeling empty but thats a FGO problem no yours exclusive. Could you have changed it? I trust you could but it would involve creating more characters, doing more reaserch on Romen customs, increasing word length, more things to keep track of... which would probably mean more update time, work, etc.

Mana Rope

Basically its was great and as everything it could be better but perfection is the enemy of a great work

Cardie

I enjoyed Septem but I think it's lacking divergence from canon FGO. This story so far could also work perfectly as a freely interpreted novelization of FGO + OC. Maybe this is the case since Taylor is, due to character development happening before the start of the story, very OOC in comparison to canon Taylor. I dont think there is any scene so far where Taylor could not have been substituted for one of the other veteran magi team A was composed of. Maybe you could involve Taylor a bit more? Also a bit more character development in general would be nice.

Gornyetch

I thought it was pretty enjoyable overall. I liked the character interactions, as well as seeing Taylor's thought processes coming to reasonable conclusions given what she knows (e.g., that since Emiya loves Saber that must be a residual memory from his Alter self). I thought Nero's promise to remember her friends as a Heroic Spirit was touching and a nice set-up for any future interactions they have (e.g., if she gets summoned for events, or just her scene in the Time Temple). I feel the OC servants have been hit or miss. I liked Aife but also felt that the focus on Boudica and Spartacus fighting Marcus didn't seem to matter that much in the end compared to the wall falling off-screen (maybe a longer flashback on that happening would've been a better use of time?). One thing I personally would have wanted to see more is a few Beast hints, since they were interacting with Nero and Taylor already has an instinctive negative reaction to Fou. Though I can understand that might have bogged down the story too much and also the Beast Nero lore is fairly unclear at this moment. Maybe something for an interlude if you decide to do those?

SilverShadows

To me Septem has a fundamental issue that can't really be fixed without completely abandoning a key aspect of the singularity, and that's the whole "two empires" thing. It's just a whole lot of baggage that's not really able to be used effectively within the framing of part one. It's just not something that can be resolved by fighting a handful of guys over the course of a week. Personally, to give an example, I'd go with something like the United Empire just took over Rome outright before you showed up and the Singularity would be about helping Nero reclaim her Rome as a rebel. Would be a better explanation for why Boudicca, Spartacus, and Jing Ke are her allies too. Rather than because "eh, my grudge doesn't matter because it's Nero" it'd be because Nero herself would be a rebel in that moment like they were. Would also make the Caligula thing a little more poignant since he basically came back from the dead and stole the Rome she inherited from him in the first place. But at that point you've abandoned like 80% of canon Septem. Edit: For the record, now that I'm not trying to type this on my phone during a break at work, this is all in reference to canon Septem. I voted for "better than canon but could still have improved". Unlike the canon version, I can meaningfully remember actual events in the Hereafter version of Septem without checking. I just feel the Two Empires thing was a fundamentally bad choice for Septem from the start since it involves a scale FGO was just not prepared to handle at the time, and as a result leads to a lot of bloat that could've been cut or reworked entirely. And while it was handled better in Hereafter, it still kinda was dead weight more than anything. As an example, Nero having an army basically didn't even come up after her introduction, presumably because as a writer you had no use for her having one, which is pretty much the point I'm making about the two empires.

James_D_Fawkes
>>93451516

The plan was originally to do more with the army, but I second-guessed myself into putting it aside because I was worried too much about the reception to more OCs. This is a problem I think canon has a lot, too. They even show you how nameless and faceless NPCs are by not even drawing their eyes.

James_D_Fawkes
>>93455582

Trying to keep Taylor essentially Taylor has been a bit difficult, I will admit. This is supposed to be a Post-GM Taylor, but the only info we have on Post-GM Taylor is a single chapter of her getting closure with her not-Mom in an alternate timeline, and Hereafter Taylor didn't even get that. Straddling the line of a Taylor who has been through all of this and is trying to do better but doesn't know how has been one of the biggest challenges of the story. I don't think subbing in one of the other Team A members would work anywhere near the same way, though. Beryl is the only one who is quite as pragmatic as Taylor tends to be, and all of the others have some shade of personality flaw that would sabotage them at some point or another. But yes. More character development for Taylor especially, and for the team in general. Things have been moving slowly on that front precisely because this story is so damn *long*. Good grief, we're not even technically halfway through it yet.

James_D_Fawkes
>>93466496

The army was a thing that mostly happened off-screen, yeah. They were one of the things that it turned out I just didn't have enough room for, and some of those things were a casualty of serialization. You have to move at a fairly fast pace to do a chapter a week, and while that doesn't always curb some of the creativity, there are times and places where it has pigeonholed me into a specific direction. Some of those things were also things I didn't come up with — or suggestions I didn't hear and warm up to — until after we were already several chapters into Septem itself, and by that point, it was too late to change course. I think I mentioned once that someone had the idea of Nero being an imposter and the United Empire was heroically trying to restore the real Rome? Yeah, something like that might have made a more interesting twist on the story, but it came way too late to work it in. I'm going to try and be a little braver about changing stuff up as we go into later Singularities. I already have a decent idea of exactly how off the rails the American one will be, and there will be some incredible surprises in Babylonia. Now that I'm more confident in how readers will receive OCs, OC Servants particularly, I have a little more breathing room to work on that. Reception of Brutus especially was very positive, and it means that I can be less nervous about putting some of them in, as long as I don't go overboard.

James_D_Fawkes
>>93465719

I've said before, if not on here then on SV, that the Boudica interlude probably should've been a Scaeva interlude. The reason it wasn't (at the time) was because: one, I wanted to get a bit of a better handle on Boudica; two, I prefer to avoid showing the antagonists' POVs so that their plans aren't revealed too early. As much as I enjoy anime and manga, the tendency of those media to show the audience what the villains are up to is something I dislike. Imagine how much more impactful it would have been, for example, if Grimmjow just showed up out of nowhere, instead of Kubo going out of his way to show him and his group arriving in Karakura. Imagine if we never got that scene where he calls Ulquiorra a coward for not finishing Ichigo off, how much more surprising it would have been when he appears and takes Rukia out with one blow. Limited omniscience isn't a bad thing, from a storytelling perspective, but it removes some of the punch you get from things actually taking you by surprise. When you're familiar enough with fiction to start making fairly accurate guesses about where a story is going to go, surprise can be one of the best feelings you can get out of a story. Having said that, though, yes, looking back, Scaeva might have been a more compelling POV to do that interlude from. Connla engaging Tiberius, I hope, felt like it had more weight. On the issue of the Beast thing, that's... I don't want to shut it down outright, because it might have been possible to do, I'm just not super into FGO Arcade stuff. I haven't been keeping a close eye on Queen Draco and all of that.

Marc Beans
>>93451516

It’s not the army specifically, that was just an example of how despite the bevy of people, mooks AND Heroic Spirits, and time spent in Rome twice, it felt very empty.

Marc Beans
>>93455582

Speaking of which, it felt like Worm was a lot heavier in the themes and atmosphere than the ideal and character driven story of FGO. Most of the enemies were difficult to empathize with, and so many had no lines or disappeared quickly. Which is partly tied to the feeling of emptiness. I loved the fight scenes though. They were superb.

Marc Beans

The twins' development, though seemingly slight, was also clear compared to their time in Orleans, which was nice. Watching them develop into the Masters of Chaldea that were humanity’s original heroes in FGO, seeing it happen, is fun and satisfying on a professional manner. In some ways they were even more significant in securing the aid of the natives than Taylor.

Gifted-Monster

What I liked was the interpretation of the characters and their motivations. In the game, they're all very two dimensional. Pun intended. But this shows their motivations better, their personalities better. It's like the difference between a movie and a book. A movie shows you the basics but the book really shows the character.

James_D_Fawkes
>>93634658

Early FGO was riddled with this problem, and even later FGO just kinda leaves up the MC's personality mostly to the reader. I hate the "everyman" trope personally, but since the intent was to put the reader directly into the story as much as possible, I can understand why it was used.

Gifted-Monster
>>93634658

Oh for sure. I mean, a lot of other gacha games do the whole bond mechanic so much better