#don't even talk to me about King of Scars jumping the shark

[starlitangels]

Hi. I have a useless and possibly worthless opinion

All the stories Erik is telling really only work in this format

Like, if these stories were all running concurrently as several book series all in the same universe, they'd be expensive a lot to try to keep track of

But imagine this: we get the stories of, say, Vincent, Sam, David, Asher, and Milo first in a book saga. We kinda understand how magic works, but it's hugely centered on vampires and shifters.

Also, for the sake of understanding, the listener characters are either not present or are real characters with names in their own right

Then we get the D.A.M.N. Fam storyline and we get to learn more about how magic works for Physically Intrinsic Magical Cores rather than the Physically Extrinsic Cores that vampires and shifters have. We learn more about empowered culture as a whole (especially with bridging) and get our introduction to d(a)emons for real, rather than offhanded comments from the characters we'd already had

Let's also say Guy is a short spin-off standalone book. Geordi is too. Ollie is only a side-character in the Ivan chapters of the D.A.M.N. Fam storyline. Aaron is mentioned, but never really seen

Then we get The Balance and Sovereign State and Carpe Deus. And Aaron gets a proper introduction as Elliott's older brother

Look me in the face and tell me that you wouldn't think at least one of these stories jumps the shark

Look at me and say, that after what would probably be years of Redactedverse books establishing the rules of the universe, that you would feasibly believe that it'd be possible for there to be another plane of existence (Death), or that it'd be possible for there to be people stuck in the Meridian

Without believing that he was running out of ideas and jumping the shark in order for the stakes to be higher than ever and the stories to be bigger than ever like when TV shows do that from season to season

They'd have to be running concurrently. So a set of TV shows like when Arrow and The Flash were running at the same time might work

But I honestly think for everything to stay believable, they have to be happening at the same time in shorter, episode format so that the rules of the universe feel flexible enough to allow for the whacky stories like The Balance and Sovereign State

Because if I was reading this as a book series and understood that the Meridian was just a magic quilt between Aria and Earth/Terra/Elegy and I read Sovereign State, I'd be like, "That doesn't work with established lore! Author, sir, I love the snarky demon main character but what are you doing?!"

But in this format, I was totally willing to accept it because it's all going on concurrently.