Ben 10 True Omniverse Message Reaction

by Iscuseri

I should've done this months ago, but it's my fault for forgetting. This is my earnest reaction to Power Master's Ben 10 True Omniverse Message, which announced the series' (now temporary) cancellation. The 2nd chapter covers additional topics that I couldn't in the 1st one, and a 4th one is about Power Master un-cancelling True Omniverse. Rated T for some coarse language

4. Chapter 4: Update Log

Update Log

2/1/2024 Update

Uh, so apparently, my reaction message is now the only known evidence of Power Master temporarily cancelling True Omniverse Season 4 because he took down his cancellation message. I don't know if it was today or even sometime earlier this week, but eh, semantics. I'm unsure of the exact cause of why he took it down, even though I have a good guess that it was due to some drama on his DeviantArt account. Personally, the last time I went on his DA account was to read chapter 18 all the way back on January 9, so I legitimately don't know what could've happened over there nor why he removed his cancellation message. My best guess is that something bad must've happened between January 9th and today for him to take it down, that's the extent of my knowledge on the situation.

That is all.

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1/9/2024 Update

I've been informed that Power Master has uncanceled True Omniverse. However, the most recent chapter, 18, is on his DeviantArt and not FFNet. Apparently, it was posted on the 7th. Honestly, good on him for realizing that he overreacted to one critical review, but my points about his overall poor actions like lying about important information just to scapegoat his critic and his overall hypocrisy still stand. I can respect him for bouncing back even though it took him 3 ½ months to do so. I truly do mean it because he did decide write his story for himself and his fans. He should've just done that in the first place, but better late than never.

Furthermore, based on what I've seen of it, he actually is making some adjustments to the story's overall flow and addressing some of the criticisms Emerald had, even though most of Emerald's criticisms were deliberately ignored, such as touching up his grammar or making the fight scenes less of a drag. A better example is him deliberately ignoring Emerald's advice to stop writing his fanfic like a TV show when stuff that works in a visual medium (TV show) doesn't work all that well in a text medium (the fanfic) because he included a song number and multiple numbered lists in chapter 18. It's just lazy writing to convey plot info in numbered lists because it should be conveyed in a more natural, less abrupt manner such as dialogue or even describing the plot info in the narration itself. Like, imagine you're reading a story and then wham-o, you come across a numbered list or a bullet point list of plot points that just feels unnatural and disrupts the flow of the story. I think the only time I've seen bullet points or numbered lists work in any form of literature, including fanfiction, is if characters are reading a list or making one. For songs in fanfic, it's usually not a good idea to include them unless it's a songfic—which True Omniverse Season 4 is not—and the song just ended up screwing up the chapter's already slow pacing. Even then, songfics are often criticized for being lazy and uninspired due to just copy-pasting song lyrics for most of the fic, so a fanfic that isn't a songfic having a musical number is even more awkward and more tonally inconsistent. I'd criticize chapter 18 more because there's a lot of things wrong with that chapter, including Liege Maximo (one of the Thirteen original Primes for those who aren't aware of the deeper Transformers lore) being written like a flanderized version of Discord and Bill Cipher combined and Ben continuing to be mean to anyone who isn't his girlfriend (Julie), but I've already skewered Power Master's questionable writing choices when I reacted to his cancellation message along with "chapters" 2 and 3.

Also, the heroes are still idiots who have the collective IQ of pond scum and the plot still hinges on all of them except for Rook and Bluestreak being like legitimately braindead, so like I said, he cherry-picked which of Emerald's criticisms he accepted. Baby steps, I guess? At least he listened to some of their criticisms, and that was the best-case scenario considering that his response to a critical review was to throw a bitchfit over it and whine about it on a cancellation message. True Omniverse could've stayed canceled forever if he didn't have the realization that people are gonna give you critical reviews once you put your story out on the Internet, and that you have to learn how to have thick skin about them. On the other hand, DeviantArt allows users to delete reviews from other logged-in users unlike FFNet, so I'm aware that Power Master most likely wants control over what comments people see by being able to delete any negative reviews his story gets. Finally, Power Master has confirmed that True Omniverse Season 4 will be re-posted on FFNet once he finishes the remaining 8 chapters of it over on DeviantArt, so looks like FFNet users who don't want to venture into the hellscape known as DA will have to wait like 2-3 years for that considering that he posts chapters every 3-4 months now (3-4 chapter average per year).

I'm not removing this reaction because it still has relevance, but at least Power Master is writing for his own happiness again! Second and lastly, this update his here because I respect his fans enough that they deserve to know that he uncanceled his story, regardless of my own disdain for Power Master and his stories.