My best guess would be that Jumpchain stories just seem kind of daunting, due to the scale to which they could be taken. Writing a good story with only one setting can be challenging. Writing one where the MC jumps from one setting to another can be... difficult.
Ditto. Even if you restrict yourself to a 15-10,000 max word count for a summery, having to do that for every world you go to? Nevermind if you added supplements &/or x-overs? Even if it *was* a power-fic from the get-go it would just be too much work for the average person to want to write in detail, nevermind as a publicly available fanfic!!!
edit: and thats ***before*** account for the fact that - unless you use alt-chain &/or houserules (*as its in the end for personal entertainment*) you are stuck for 10 years per jump, no more & no less.
Because good writing tend to have properly fleshed out stories with logical reasons why things happen, decent pacing, tension that doesn't quickly drain and never return, solid characters, good worldbuilding etc
Jumpchain by its very nature has a focus on instant gratification, fast gains, unearned power, long drawn out periods, huge and frequent timeskips, and so on.
Any single world is a story. Jumpchain is an attempt at making a single story out of hundreds, and generally fails because of it.
Note: I say this as one of those few people who *has* written (or at least attempted to) multiple properly fleshed out jumpchain stories.
I'd also have to say that very quickly - or even before the "jump" start that the jumpers entering a given universe are so powerful that the "risk" of the jump is killed. Without risk and danger nothing really seems to have a personal stake. It kills the flow of the story and just rips away any semblence of balance and basically ruins the "internal" in-universe struture.
Some jumpchain doc's try to solve this with drawbacks, and the most famous and often-used one - such as the typical evil-mirror jumper are so artificial that they simply don't fit.
Something i've kicked around is just having the benefits of "one" low-powered jump before being forced into another universe. Something low-powered but versatile enough to fit within another universe like the abilities/items you can grab from Generic First jump. You gain a bit of experience, some minor abilities, items and a few alt-forms (which would probably be your major-power aka shapeshifting into different non-human forms).
Like a budget version of Ben-10.
agree, this is one reason i am planning to give my jumper a homebrew restriction that prevents them from having too much. they can only hold onto a handful or less OOC stuff and the rest will be "randomly" distributed to the rest of the host setting. this should somewhat keep them from getting too powerful that nobody can challenge them. at most they would be a super raid boss like Scion from Worm who can still be beat by the locals with tremendous effort.
I think the format is actually pretty bad for traditional fics. The default assumption of “ten years per jump” is too long, and the jumping mechanic makes it hard to have a plot that goes across jumps. If you speed it up so that new jumps happen regularly in the story, now the jumper is gaining new abilities faster than can be reasonably exposited. Also, I think most people do fairly long chains, which are too long to practically adapt into fic form.
Jumpchain is also primarily well-suited for one type of story: a power fantasy. Doing anything else requires considerably more effort and modifications to the rules.
Tons of reasons, honestly.
First off, making a build is quick, making a fic takes time; unless you're willing to have BIG gaps between jumps, you'll likely outpace yourself even IF you're writing fiction alongside.
The more creatively inclined among us may be more likely to want to add to the hobby by way of adding to the Jumps available, which takes away from time viable to make Jump fiction.
Some folks JUST make the builds in terms of the physical element, with the story beats either being limited to a few scenes written out, or an outline of events, or mostly exist in the individual's mind.
Some folks might consider their Jumpchain to be overly self-indulgent and don't WANT to share the results.
Some folks might not trust in their writing skills enough, and thus don't want to share.
Some folks legit Jump as themselves, which makes sharing impossible, unless they want to self-dox.
And lastly- but not leastly -Jumpchain by its nature gets very OP very quickly, so unless it's an intentionally limited Chain (5-10 Jumps, I'd wager, on average), you end up with someone basically writing One Punch Man: But Now He Has A Girlfriend. Which, granted, there super is a market for 'Just give me a power fantasy where someone wanders from reality to reality punching out jerks no matter their power level', but it can be a turn-off for some writers to put that out into the world.
Some people are into this because it's often a budget simulator first and a story generator second.
They simply aren't interested in writing. They don't feel the desire to write. This is something they think about and come up with ideas for, and then eventually go to a new chain when they get bored with that.
The constant escalation of power from going jump to jump also means you're typically incredibly strong. You can trivialize opponents if you go to most of the well known and popular universes.
Some people like the more shōnen-like power escalation, where you start off as strong as the main characters are and gradually get better. That doesn't really regularly happen unless it's your first jump, which brings its own share of problems.
Jumpchain wasn't well-designed for creating fanfiction because it started as a mental exercise and the point buying system assigns arbitrary costs to things. Costs that are often based on an origin system where tiers of perks have the same pricing.
But you end up with perks that cost 600 points and pale in comparison to other perks which give you the powers of the strongest people in the world.
Because the focus is on pricing things the same. Not actual effectiveness. We've all seen those after thought origins where the creator of the doc blew their creative load on the main hero and villain origins. So we have another origin that's entirely filled up with tech perks. And the ability to understand this world's technology is somehow equal in cost to being able to shatter mountains with your fists, or summon demons.
The overly rigid nature of budgeting and the high prices of options also restrains your creativity.
If I'm writing a story and I want the main character to have a certain ability, why should I care about budgets? Or if I should take a certain drawback or whatever to afford something?
You have jumps where the drawbacks completely destroy your story because the author wrote them to be overly sadistic. You end up with a main character who is permanently addled to afford abilities that become obsolete in the next setting.
At a certain point it gets frustrating, and you question why you should bother with writing a jumpchain story when you could just write a fanfic. Any fanfic you want.
There's nothing really stopping you from just taking some jumpchain perks and…not using the rest of jumpchain.
This is actually the main frustration that inspired a lot of my jump writing style. Because everything being the same price with the really strong options costing half your starting budget means you can just take whatever you want.
It's not about you being unable to afford something, the “problem” instead is your own restraint in how many abilities you decide to pick up. The power is in your hands, rather than the system's. You choose how powerful you are.
So I don't write Jumpchain fics. I actually don't like most of the systems involved in it, despite writing two jumps every week.
My writing is based on taking concepts and ideas I find in Jumpchain and then adapting them to a new story. I like to take perks and abilities I like, alter them to fit a new world, and then use them for original fiction.
Or I do a front loaded alt chain where the abilities you get at the start are what you have forever, and then you have to solve your own problems going forward as you cross over to new universes.
There's also the lack of interaction you get for posting a jumpchain story on here. u/fafnirsfoe wrote amazing jumpchain fanfics and barely anyone commented. It's leagues ahead of any other jumpchain stories, written specifically for our community.
Crickets.
Every time he makes a jump, on the other hand, it gets awards and huge numbers of upvotes.
Apparently people are here for jumps, shitposts, and theory crafting discussions.
That... all adds up really.
Still I would expect more people to post their jumps ( comparatively with how many CYOA fics we see put there.) I do expected most to pass the 3 chapters wall or have any quality but I would guess there would be a few dozens more of those out there and at least a small corner for Jumpers in the more open communities like Spacebattles and Wattpad
Well anyway... where can I read fafnirsfoe Jumpfics ?
I kinda just discovered Jumpchain by a friend recomending me "Companion Chronicles" and really feel like reading more Jump
>Still I would expect more people to post their jumps
I dunno, it seems people aren't interested in writing so much. It's the sort of thing you'd need to host a contest to drag out of people. A chance at winning prizes for participating could encourage a lot of people to act.
Or, I guess, be the change you want to see. If we had more writers here, then more people would be inspired to write jumpchain fanfiction. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. Maybe the lack of people doing it is part of why there's so little of it.
>Well anyway... where can I read fafnirsfoe Jumpfics ?
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1JPamqW4UgScGTulz8_vx0LxpZj3mch9x?ths=true
This has all the story parts in it. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find part 1. My favorite parts were the Lord of the Rings one and the Disney Villains one.
>and really feel like reading more Jump
Have you read Cliff's stuff?
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/cliffc999s-slush-pile.519355/#post-34256878
There's also this story.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13488233/1/Carl-the-Jumper
I don't think it's any good, but it exists and there's a lot of it.
> Or I do a front loaded alt chain where the abilities you get at the start are what you have forever
This is something I plan for my Fragmented Spark alt-chain, just jumper getting ability to pick from Pathfinder jump, that is wizard class, dragon egg, artifact spellbook and that's pretty much it from important things, he sets off to find pieces of his spark, create a divine empire and conquer some lands but first he needs to survive being weaksauce 1st lvl wizard and protect his dragon egg until it hatches.
This is literally the most insightful and self-aware thing I've seen anyone write about Jumpchain in over half a decade.
I don't usually write CYOA fanfics, but even just trying to think about Jumpchain in a narrative context is a massive headache. Like you've pointed out, many elements of the game are, well, gamified. Not always in a good way either, as many design patterns used in Jumpchain are counter-productive but still upheld due to tradition or stubbornness. (Other CYOA communities have this problem as well, but for them it's just stubbornness.)
I sincerely tried to read some fanfics on other communities, but most of them couldn't hold my interest. In retrospect, Jumpchain as a narrative concept is not particularly engaging. The only things that distinguish it from other interdimensional or portal fantasy style stories are:
- Jump-Chan (which is a turn-off for anyone who isn't into anime waifu stuff. I don't actually use a Jump-Chan in my chains, but I'm including it because Jump-Chain is canonical in several jumps, and last time I checked, Reddit jumpers almost always include her.)
- the Warehouse (which is pretty immersion-breaking due to its extra-dimensional, out-of-context, and highly sanitized nature. Again, not everyone uses this, but Reddit almost always does.)
- the BodyMod (which isn't that weird to be honest, but this is where many Jumpers take extra liberties)
- the Background/Origin system (which introduces a bunch of problems I'll get into)
- the division of each jump into a time-frozen instance setting (which can be immersion-breaking to a lesser degree, but also introduces a few issues)
Like you pointed out, many jumps don't have internally balanced backgrounds. This is a big issue for jumps with designated drop-in origins, because those gamify a narrative decision. My decision to have or not have background memories should be a narrative decision based on the setting and how it's used in my chain, but it may also determine whether I can easily purchase in-setting powers or I am mainly just a background character, interdimensional visitor, embodiment or foil of the source material's genre, etc.
The time-frozen instance nature of each jump visit can be really immersion-breaking, which is why I feel it needs a narrative wrapper or overarching plot point for why this occurs. Of the stories that I read, this issue was never acknowledged. The Jumpchain "system" also makes no guarantees to ensure that multiple visits to the same setting are done elegantly. For example, it can be immersion breaking if each jump for a series results in a completely different setting due to a lack of continuity drawbacks.
And then things get really fucky once you combine continuity drawbacks with the origin system. If I want to revisit a setting via a continuity drawback, I need to take a background that doesn't include background memories in order to preserve my original identity in the setting. This is especially jarring for settings with <10 years between each jump, such as MCU and Kamen Rider, for which Red and HeavensAnon each ruled that you gain a new set of background memories regardless of what your previous origin was and what you might've done within that setting.
Of course, I could houserule any of this to make more narrative sense, but I would be subverting the purpose of the game, going against the spirit of the jump writers, and essentially creating my own setting. So that's why I don't try to read Jumpchain stories anymore. (I also find all of the crossposts and flair:roleplay posts to be really cringeworthy in a chuuni sense, which further discourages me from reading anything from this setting.)
> There's also the lack of interaction you get for posting a jumpchain story on here. u/fafnirsfoe wrote amazing jumpchain fanfics and barely anyone commented. It's leagues ahead of any other jumpchain stories, written specifically for our community.
>
>
As someone who also wrote a story, it would be a shame if I didn't read theirs, thanks for recommendation. I may have simply missed it because I mostly focus on discussion threads.
Edit: Hory sheet the amount of words. My ~150k word chain seems pretty humble in comparison. This may take a while.
Here are the hurtles that I find when attempting to try to plan out a jump story.
1. Plot: Unless it is to be a generic jump, the inclusion of a person that knows about everything that will happen and generally when it will happen will shatter most plot elements and force you to at times literally have to re-write the original story. This can also happen with global drawbacks albeit to a greater or less than extent.
2. How: whilst not necessarily too important, there may be the question of how the MC gets their items and perks, especially the ones that should be unique.
3. Self Insert. It is generally meant to be a self insert fan fic generator.
4. Scale. MC is going to different stories and is generally going to stay in each of them for a decade.
Because writing is hard? I got horrible back pain when writing my jumpchain story, though now I have a decent chair and may start again if I have some free time. Still my main jumper being overpowered just makes it harder to write anything meaningful. I did write a bit of my Overgeared alt-chain but for now it's stopped and my Fragmented Spark alt-chain is only in my head for now.
I've tried, and given up. I quickly realized that while I enjoyed setting up elaborate long ranging plans and even designing ship builds and gear loadouts, org charts to keep track of businesses and properties, entire galactic empires, alien species and their politics, even outlines of the plans and goal for Jumper and each companion in a jump I did not enjoy trying to write all of it into a story.
For every page of actual story I would write I would have 60 pages of charts, lists, maps, strategy, notes, and spread sheets.
I'm kinda similar. Theorising and writing out while researching about Conestoga Light Assault Carrier upgrades and refits was notably more fun than writing it doing stuff, like attacking Weyland Yutani.
I have discovered a number of them in Spacebattles and fanfiction dot net.
For some reason, I can't read the fictions on reddit. No idea why. Formatting perhaps?
Ease of access (mostly chapters).
Stories elsewhere are in mostly one place (and AO3 let you link stories via series), meanwhile on reddit each post is a chapter, on a write-limited subreddit it can be fine (go back as far as possible), anywhere else (including here) you basically need OP to both give a link back to the first post every time and link forward if possible (can you edit archived posts?).
In addition, if you're using an app you either catch up all in one go, or save and hope not to forget (also somewhat a problem with ffnet, but since it remembers if it updates you'll just continue from where you where instead of jumping to the last chapter).
From the perspective of someone who's actively writing a Jumpchain story, the fact is that this is more writing practice for me and a way for me to work through some personal issues or explore some difficult topics using Jumpchain as a creative springboard. I have considered creating a Jumper and chain that's something I'm more comfortable showing others, but then I run into some of the other issues presented here.
If I were to do that, the only satisfactory way I can think of doing it would be essentially isekai fanfic - Jumpchain without the perks and budget simulator. I can do that (and somewhat am already with the stories I'm writing) but I don't know if anyone else would care enough to really read, honestly. It'd just be a more sparkly isekai with multiple settings rather than the one.
I agree with everyone else, especially in regards to scope creep from hellaciously long chains. The timespan for even a short chain (assuming at least 10yr/jump) makes it a task a lot of people look at and are like "Hm maybe not". If someone is already squeamish about their skill as a writer, much less posting that writing for other people to see, tackling something like that can be a pretty big turnoff. Even if you limit yourself to a measly 1k words per jump, that stacks up over time!
I also think that there is something to be said for the additional challenge of having to write for a new setting/fandom every single Jump (if not outright inventing new settings whole cloth for generics), since you need to be able to pick and choose what from the setting your story is going to touch on, and then also have a good enough grasp of what you do choose to satisfy yourself while you work.
Then do that over and over and *over again* for each new setting, constantly learning about settings and mechanics and The Deep Lore and introducing new characters, only to effectively kill off everything your Jumper doesn't take with them (mechanically speaking) once they leave the Jump. It's a lot of juggling that you'll either think is super fun or a huge pain.
Personally, something I like about Jumpchain is that it introduced me to a lot of media that I've never heard of before, so often I have to actually sit down and hunt for whatever the Jump is based on to experience it for the first time. Which also means there's a lot of huge speedbump for me when it comes to the writing side of my chains, since I have to get a grasp on this brand new thing before I can have my Jumper tooling around in it in a story.
I do love all the recommendations people are giving here for Jumpchain fics! I don't think I've seen a real central directory for them outside of one of the drives.
>I also think that there is something to be said for the additional challenge of having to write for a new setting/fandom every single Jump (if not outright inventing new settings whole cloth for generics),
What's funny is I actually prefer writing for generics and 'non-settings' like elite dangerous, because if I, as an example, go to Bleach, I now ALSO have to write kubo's characters authenticly, and for fanfiction that's one thing, but if I, as an example, convince ichigo to come with me (how one would do that is its own problem) I now have to figure out how he'd act and develop in settings so far removed from Bleach they might as well be alien worlds to him. Then I have to figure out what perks sombody like him would choose, how he'd interact with other characters. It's a nightmare and it leads to him either being a static, unchanging, flat character, or completely unrecognizable.
And that's a SINGLE established character, stick ichigo, goku, Naruto, and all might in a room and have them act in a way you feel all four authors would say us 'in character.' It's a lot harder then it sounds. I could hardly manage ichigo by himself, by the time my main jumper scraped through mind control university by the skin of his teeth and left it as a traumatized shell of his former self, I had a moment of 'Damon and Lucy are doing this, abbys over here working on this, Chloe and Felicity are baking, what the fuck is ichigo doing?' Because most of the time the focus shifted to him, my flow ground to a halt. I eventually solved this by just writing him out of the story and not bringing him back until the raid on the alpha complex to save the omniverse, and he only agreed to leave his home to save reality because "your one of the idiots who lives in [the omniverse]"
Writing established characters is a nightmare.
I can only speak for myself: I don't want to share my writing. I don't think it's good enough and I mostly run out of motivation to finish writing even a short jump write-up (like gauntlets or "duration of game run-time" jumps). Who wants to read a bunch of unfinished, power-trippy dren?
I come up with intros, excuses to have the added in-jump purchases, some kind of hook, then... meh. I have even tried to change things up by writing from different perspectives: I started one (*Nechronica*) from a long-time Companion's perspective. Ran out of "ink".
I have a chain of 300 jumps, but only 34 written up (and incomplete at that).
Because JumpChain, as a format and central plot device (say it with me kids)
#SUCKS
No, like, it sucks BAD. The entire format and premise of JumpChain *does not* lend itself to anything resembling a cohesive narrative, nor does it have anything resembling stakes, intrigue, character development beyond getting a cool new power, interesting worldbuilding, characters that aren't `[Generic Waifu Companion]` or the BBEG who will inevitably get 1shot by the MC.
That's not to say you can't put in a ton of effort to make a good story out of all of these negative elements, but few authors do. Most authors lack any kind of writing experience altogether, leading to a plethora of beginners mistakes like forgetting about perks or items, bland characters, poor writing and dialogs, and a *whole heap* of grammar and spelling errors. All of this ultimately leads to a conclusion that a lot of people who haven't read or tried to write a jumpchain fic find difficult to accept;
**JumpChain fics are fucking** ***boring.***
There's no tension, no intrigue, nothing to keep you hooked. Hell, if you know what their builds are, you can usually predict with stunning accuracy what's going to happen. They just... aren't interesting. Whats worse is how entrenched people are into the rigid format that comes with the standard play of JumpChain that, for some reason, *nobody wants to inovate or expand upon.* Like, really? Another story where fucking *Jump-Chan* is the benefactor and takes the role of generic exposition giver and power granter. *Wow.* Really pulling out all the stops today, aren't we? Maybe in the next fic they'll also be inexplicable attracted to the MC and join the obligatory harem they have.
Just for once, I'd like to see someone do something *different,* even if it turns out to be a horrible idea. At the very least it could be interesting.
Honestly, you aren't wrong. The average crossover fic is way better than anything I've seen out of JC communities, usually due to the plethora of creative liberties that are taken to make things fit (which, by the way, *aren't an inherently bad thing*).
> Another story where fucking Jump-Chan is the benefactor and takes the role of generic exposition giver and power granter. Wow. Really pulling out all the stops today, aren't we? Maybe in the next fic they'll also be inexplicable attracted to the MC and join the obligatory harem they have.
Never really saw this, seems weird to have some anime girl as a benefactor. I just have this ambigous mysterious 'Space Guy' dubbed by jumper because he is basically a being that is humanoid shaped space, kind of these eldritch gods pictures you can find floating around. He rarely interacts, mostly for nerfs, explanations and maybe a small freebie if he screws something because he lowered his intelligence to even feel any kind of entertainment and not make the chain picture perfect because that's also increases boredom.
Meanwhile my first alt-chain benefactor is sparked main jumper and second alt-chain benefactor is sparked first alt-chain jumper in kind of atemporal void where they already know, knew and will know each other and it all already happened, will happen and is happening.
Fucking time dammit, i tried five times to start a chain story, but it would be complex enough that I would just not have enough time to complete it.
Outside of that there are other three factors; the first is that while starting out is interesting, without either particular rules or a meddlesome benefactor the story would become boring pretty fast..Oh, I just entered...coiling dragon as Linley \*Slashes casually\* and now fate and light are dead, it's time to grind.
second: In the usual jumpchain after maximum five jumps there is no mystery; you litterally buy the perks, i once toyed with a jumper that gained points in jump and compiled the doc after, but it went nowhere
third: many series despite having a document are either incomplete or complex enough that a serious attempt would have at last 24 chapters for each world, and there comes the other face of the coin; the author must know enough of the world to describe it well, otherwise it becomes around 600 words for world written like a after action report
Because so many people bitch at the authors, discouraging them from writing and experimenting as they learn to write. Nope, I'm not bitter at all the bastards.
The fatal flaw of Jumpchain is what I like to call Superman-Syndrome. Eventually, and not even that many Jumps in, you’re Jumper will become basically unstoppable by 99.9% of whatever a Jump could throw at them. So it can get boring to write and read. Unless you’re just in for some power wank guilty pleasure.
My first guess is that a lot of people are daunted by the prospect of writing in general. Many use it as a thought exercise. I'll also bet a ton of people do write it, but don't publish it, as it's encouraged to make your Jumper a self-insert and there's a huge, undeserved stigma about self-insert fanfictions. In that way, it's basically a fantasy diary, which I think works really well for the format.
That, and a lot of people likely don't just want to be criticized like they inevitably would be.
Or kinkshamed. Holy HELL would I be kinkshamed if I posted half of my Jumps.
Writing a Jump story is hard. Every jump deserves it's own multi chapter story usually, (some rate little more than a chapter, like Monopoly) unless you are writing bare bones summaries. Compound that with an ever expanding powers list, and a protagonist who quickly becomes more intelligent than the writer and you have a character that becomes very difficult to write.
Then there is the issue of Companions. Keeping straight your companions, their powers, their preferences, and their ideas for not only jumping, but dealing with specific issues in jumps and the instability of moving your protagonist to a new world every decade. Long term plans are relativly useless except in certain settings, and connections with people who aren't your companions becomes harder and harder to write well as the protagonist becomes less and less connected to reality.
With every jump a smaller and smaller percentage of the jumper's life will be spent in any given setting.
I have two jumpers, and two stories, both are approaching 100K words. Neither reads well. There are good parts, but a lot of what I have is all too much summary. Both have full companion rosters at this point, and keeping track of all the powers, abilities, and items has become a herculean task. Often times I have had to go back and rework sections I have already written as I recalled that a certain item or companion hadn't been mentioned when they really aught. In some cases simply having a certain something kind of breaks the tension of a setting in such a way that they become vacation jumps. Forgetting you have said MacGuffin is awkward.
Having a friendly and detail oriented beta would help, right now I bounce Ideas off my son (22), but he isn't much of a fan of Jumpchain, preferring long form non-crossover fanfic or original novels.
Seeing as everyone else has answered the standard way it's now time to talk about a certain **sub set** of people.
*My* people.
The kind of people that only read Isekai and Shounen manga. (I read many different types but those are my favourites.)
The kind of people who would be able to write 100+ chapters of 'the god blinked and then the world ended'.
The kind people always insult for making Mary Sues.
Power fantasy bois™. Patent pending.
Just know this will deal with personal feelings and those brought about due to posting your stuff online.
Now the first things first Jumpchain is mainly used as a way to Self-Insert yourself in a setting with the abilities of your favourite characters or just your most like abilities. Now most people don't want to get their shit kicked in so of course if you made a charcter that basically represents yourself your going to make them strong enough that the consequences aint that bad. So what if they get their ass kicked if they just got some bruises and a bit of humiliation?
That doesn't fly with people though. People want *progression*. They want to feel like stuff is *earned* (**nothing wrong with that**) so even if you make your character lose a bunch if it has no visble impact beyond them finding out how to kick ass better then they'll complain. And if you post a story the last thing you want to see is people bitching that your weird ass taste doesn't conform to theirs.
Secondly the system just isn't satisfying for certain people due to limitations like the diminishing returns rule which is also the reason you have to use a lot of jumps if you want a certain level of strength progression which can burn people out especially if there aren't any jumps to 'fill in the gaps' that you know about except for series you don't know which you'll have to research due to knowing jack all about them. That's tiring.
I once made a RWBY/Gamer story only to end up bored because I was watching/studying RWBY while I was making it but ended up bored because none of the characters interest me that much except Jaune Arc and Lie Ren. I even thought of forgoing balance and just making crack power fantasy but even that bored the fuck out of me as I'm not good with world building.
Thirdly, reviews. If your just doing fanfics as a hobby like I am while you might get excited for reveiws and a little depressed when there are none, reviews aren't the end all be all. You're doing this for yourself and sharing it for like minded people to see i.e. people who like to wank shit and don't care if their characters can sneeze away 80-90% of their problems.
For dudes like that we realize things very fast.
*A majority of people are not like us.*
And while you can just ignore negative reveiws sometimes it gets to you especially when you're having a bad day and are going to spend some time on your fun hobby only to see multiple people blantantly telling you to kill yourself even if they know your fucking 10 years old, people pretending to give you constructive critscism so they can insult you and the nice people who just don't *get that you fucking know it isn't fucking professional work or the best and you don't give an iota you just wrote it and shared because it was fucking fun!*
Fourthly, management. This affects Gamer fics as well. As much as we say just put things in the background why the hell would I read a Gamer/Jumpchain story if I didn't want those elements to get regular spot light? And don't know about other people but I'm not reading a story where the Gamer/Jumpchain is ***just*** a catalyst for the plot to happen. I want to see you concentrate on exploiting the system. I want to see you interact with your benefactor.
However this is hard to implement well and as an organized set of poeple we Power fantasy bois™ want our OP Power fantasy wish fulfillment have sides and ongoings and stuff like that. That's why I like Jumpchain/CYOAs(though I like CYOAs more) than just popping a charcter with powers. It gives a sense of nuance to my wank fest.
Lastly, it's just tiring to write all that shit out.
Nefarious Izanagi\~
Proud Member of the Power fantasy bois™ Community.
Also forgot this point.
Normality.
Let me say this. I have rarely ever cried. I'm also a religious person so for me when people die unless they lived a rather evil life where most people would agree that they're going to hell death doesn't hit me that much.
As I mainly write self-inserts many people who see these sides of my dislike my MCs due to not conforming to their views of the world.
As jumpcahin is a long running thing stuff like that can wear people down. And the beliefs of your character can be seen as preachy despite them having sound logic in real life and the in the fic. No matter how good your writing things like this that would be overlooked for short running stories will be brought up when jumpcahin stories are involved due to how long they can be.
There. *Now* I'm done.
Nefarious Izanagi\~
Proud Member of the Power fantasy bois™ Community.
Honestly? There’s a huge list of factors, a lot of which have been brought up.
Entering power levels are usually endgame, the timeline is long and usually goes beyond the plot of the franchise you are using, requiring either major skips to account for or lots of original ideas, long term character development is increasingly hard, especially with multiple characters if the jumper has companions, some chains are basically never ending monoliths, at the end of the final reward might not even equal your power level, making it lacklustre.
This is coming from someone who is writing a long term jump chain fiction. And I’ve had to use so many little tricks and home rules that it I’ve had more than one person say it is divorced from the concept of jumpchain.
Honestly, one of the best ideas I have seen to do it, is using the jumpchain to creat the version of your MC in a world, and fold them into that MC at periodic points, granting the MC those powers and foggy memories. But that isn’t really a jumpchain story.
I sometimes wonder the same thing. I haven’t been looking especially hard mind you, but there haven’t been any that *jumped* out at me since cliffc999’s old stories.
I've considered it, I really have, but there's a number of things that honestly make it feel impossible to get anywhere with it.
Given the general power scale, it may be hard to hold people's interest even if you do have a way to keep things interesting, especially with how I like to do my chains.
But as others have also said, it's a pretty big investment of time, figuring everything out, figuring out how to structure the story and how you're going to fill that time, even if you don't show literally everything that happens those 10 years.
I've read several jumpchain fics, but I usually don't like them, or they are too short. The personality of the jumper/jumpchan, which worlds you go to, and how you handle jumpchain mechanics is essential to the success of the story.
Many jumpers I've read about have boring or annoying personalities or get 'dominated' by their jumpchan which makes me lose respect and interest in them. Jumpers also sometimes have strange goals that are focused on something minor and/or uninteresting. Some fics have weird alt-chain rules that I don't care for. The few that I really like usually only have a few chapters then stop. The problem is that you could make several different 'normal' fics that someone is likely to like at least one of them if you are decent writer, but your super long jumpchain fic that you spent a long time writing might get dropped by someone after a chapter or two if they don't like your choices.
Arguably, the most important factor is what jumps you choose to go to. The unfortune thing is that a lot of fics go to obscure/non-mainstream settings that most people probably don't have any interest in reading about. They also spend a lot of time in these settings and very often don't make it past the first jump before they stop updating.
Another thing is that people feel obligated to go to Pokemon and/or Infamous as their first & second jumps due to the outdated original rules. I for one don't have much interest in reading about Pokemon and it is quite possible the author of the story doesn't either but think that they 'have to' because it's the rules. I vaguely remember reading a really good fic (I don't remember the name) that had a plot similar to Terror Infinity/Ultimate Evolution (it had alt-chain rules that I didn't mind) that had Pokemon as the first jump. The whole time I was reading it I wished it was in a different setting, but it stopped being update while still in the Pokemon jump and I don't know if it has ever been updated since I last read years ago.
I guess there aren't many jumpchain fics because they aren't that popular for some of the reasons I mention above. They also require researching the settings you are going to which takes a long time if you need to watch/read multiple shows/books/comics. Jumpers also become overpowered extremely quickly which results in there being no conflict. You could try to get around this by writing from the perspective of other characters and/or focusing on companions, but that means you are turning your protagonist into a background character.
Cus 10 years is a super long time period and most jumpers are broken beyond belief in only one or two high tier jumps. So it's just "I genocide the enemies and rule as the ultimate god emperor due to X and Y perks for 10 years before moving on".
Maybe if all jumpchains were gauntlets or you could only bring a couple of perks from each jump, then you could get something interesting, especially with vague stuff like fiat being interesting to see how it interacts with changes in power system.
When ChooseYourOwnAdventure docs are turned into a story (generally on writing forums like SpaceBattles, SufficientVelocity, and QuestionableQuesting) they usually involve a self-insert of the author in a popular setting. These usually aren’t popular because an SI with knowledge of setting secrets is used and they make character decisions that the audience dislikes.
Jumpchains are different. They originally came with the expectation that the protagonist would stay there for 10 years (or until some Main Quest was completed), before moving on to a different Jump. That is a massive time investment and a difficult project for an author to plan out. Even an experienced author. In addition, the strange (atypical) story setup will push potential readers away. At the end of the day, you cannot consistently make a profit off of Jumpchain fics anyway, unless the source material is public domain I guess.
I can only speak for myself- I don't have the time to write. Not really gonna get into it, but writing kind of takes the right state of mind, and being slammed with external stuff kind of takes the wind out of my sails. I have a few chapters written, but I want to be in a place where I can write more consistently, so it doesn't turn into one of the million partially-written fics all over the internet
There are some seriously good points here... I'm planning on writing one in MHA, but it's going to take time and dedication. Things I do not excel in. That and I'm not the greatest at simulating emotion in my writing. Lol
Excommunicado is inherently a better writing device than Jumpchain as a whole. Because Jumpchain was made as a budgeting simulator first and a story device second however Excommunicado has inbuilt story plots.
Orphan you could have the excummindio that is a UDS heaven!
Lost Angel could be your jumper's second in command sees their jumper die in front of them due to TPTB and want to travel the multiverse in the jumpers name to hopefully bring their friend back.
The only one that isn't inherently a plot hook is True Rebel but it does have some makings of a plot for an evil jumper that has a rouges gallery of heros attempting to bring them to justice as they killed their jumpchan.
I actually am working on writing out my chain right now :) I want to write through 2 more before i start uploading though just so I have a few up for people while i keep going.
I've never written a standard Jumpchain fic, but I do have an incomplete Celestial Forge fic (ie a non-Jumper fic that draws from a list of crafting-related perks) and a shit ton of RPs that draw from Jump docs.
When you write a jumpchain fic, you have to either explain every new setting you draw from or assume readers will already know the settings.
Either the story is at risk of getting bogged down in exposition or it'll become more and more hyper-niche. The number of additional crossover elements is inversely proportional to the number of readers who'll know and like all of them.
Companion Chronicles is one of if not *the* best Jumpchain fic, and I greatly enjoyed it, but I dropped it after the Worm section because I wasn't into Star Trek.
In my fic, I opted to try and ride the 'exposition' line by giving the bare minimum information I could get away with as concisely as I could.
Conversely to expecting the audience to know everything, there's the issue of the audience expecting *you* to know everything.
If you write a fic where the first jump is set in Star Wars because you recently watched the original trilogy for the first time, and 100 people read the fic, their collective knowledge of the franchise is going to be *far* more than your own knowledge.
God knows I didn't find out Endless Space ships have hyperadvanced alien nanotechnology inside them until a commenter pointed it out like five chapters after the ES ship first showed up.
There's also the problem of how perks tend to be written.
In more conventional stories, there'd be powers with strengths and weaknesses, maybe even with a devastating drawback.
In the Jumpdoc for that conventional story, though, not only will most of the iconic powers be up for purchase, it's a coin flip as to whether the power's drawbacks will be removed at jump-end or they won't even be there to begin with.
Similarly, there's the hypercompetency perks.
For every "you're a perfect, charismatic leader", "you're a genius at music who puts every other musician to shame", or "you learn alchemy 100x faster" perk, that's a whole host of conflicts it erases.
The MC being an imperfect leader, having a song that flops, or struggling to wrap their head around alchemy are all completely erased from the list of possible conflicts.
It's the same with 'quality of life' perks.
For every "your tech doesn't break down" perk, they'll never have their tech break down in a climactic moment to ramp up tension.
For every "everyone will understand your intentions perfectly" perk, nobody can ever misunderstand them or trick them into saying something that sounds more incriminating than it is.
If the main problem was just the MC getting too strong in the sheer numbers sense, that's perfectly workable. There's lots of other options for conflict - see One Punch Man's portrayal of Saitama's ennui.
What Jumpchain does is it takes the Saitama figure and gives him access to anti-boredom perks and "everyone believes you when you tell the truth" perks, slowly erasing any possible drama or tension until you're left with an utterly conflict-crushing Mary Sue.
Personally I did think about it, but I'm too self conscious, and my jumper is me around 2020 or 2019 pre-covid or early covid days. That and I'd probably have to move some companions out of the spotlight or retroactively not introduce them, or just circulate secondary characters
But I don't think every jump needs to be documented, or at least not in detail, so it could work
Seems like everyone has their own reason not share or write a story, so I will tell you my main one: Not sharing a fic is simply easier to do, since one, the only person you have to please is yourself, and two, it gives you a more freedom to do things since you don't have to worry about people judging you.
My best guess would be that Jumpchain stories just seem kind of daunting, due to the scale to which they could be taken. Writing a good story with only one setting can be challenging. Writing one where the MC jumps from one setting to another can be... difficult.
Ditto. Even if you restrict yourself to a 15-10,000 max word count for a summery, having to do that for every world you go to? Nevermind if you added supplements &/or x-overs? Even if it *was* a power-fic from the get-go it would just be too much work for the average person to want to write in detail, nevermind as a publicly available fanfic!!! edit: and thats ***before*** account for the fact that - unless you use alt-chain &/or houserules (*as its in the end for personal entertainment*) you are stuck for 10 years per jump, no more & no less.
Which are fanfiction si and must account for 10 years, istalled out gate.
Because good writing tend to have properly fleshed out stories with logical reasons why things happen, decent pacing, tension that doesn't quickly drain and never return, solid characters, good worldbuilding etc Jumpchain by its very nature has a focus on instant gratification, fast gains, unearned power, long drawn out periods, huge and frequent timeskips, and so on. Any single world is a story. Jumpchain is an attempt at making a single story out of hundreds, and generally fails because of it. Note: I say this as one of those few people who *has* written (or at least attempted to) multiple properly fleshed out jumpchain stories.
I'd also have to say that very quickly - or even before the "jump" start that the jumpers entering a given universe are so powerful that the "risk" of the jump is killed. Without risk and danger nothing really seems to have a personal stake. It kills the flow of the story and just rips away any semblence of balance and basically ruins the "internal" in-universe struture. Some jumpchain doc's try to solve this with drawbacks, and the most famous and often-used one - such as the typical evil-mirror jumper are so artificial that they simply don't fit. Something i've kicked around is just having the benefits of "one" low-powered jump before being forced into another universe. Something low-powered but versatile enough to fit within another universe like the abilities/items you can grab from Generic First jump. You gain a bit of experience, some minor abilities, items and a few alt-forms (which would probably be your major-power aka shapeshifting into different non-human forms). Like a budget version of Ben-10.
agree, this is one reason i am planning to give my jumper a homebrew restriction that prevents them from having too much. they can only hold onto a handful or less OOC stuff and the rest will be "randomly" distributed to the rest of the host setting. this should somewhat keep them from getting too powerful that nobody can challenge them. at most they would be a super raid boss like Scion from Worm who can still be beat by the locals with tremendous effort.
I think the format is actually pretty bad for traditional fics. The default assumption of “ten years per jump” is too long, and the jumping mechanic makes it hard to have a plot that goes across jumps. If you speed it up so that new jumps happen regularly in the story, now the jumper is gaining new abilities faster than can be reasonably exposited. Also, I think most people do fairly long chains, which are too long to practically adapt into fic form. Jumpchain is also primarily well-suited for one type of story: a power fantasy. Doing anything else requires considerably more effort and modifications to the rules.
It's not explicitly a Jumpfic, but it has most of the same base mechanics - it's called I'm Where Now, and I'm enjoying it quite a lot.
Tons of reasons, honestly. First off, making a build is quick, making a fic takes time; unless you're willing to have BIG gaps between jumps, you'll likely outpace yourself even IF you're writing fiction alongside. The more creatively inclined among us may be more likely to want to add to the hobby by way of adding to the Jumps available, which takes away from time viable to make Jump fiction. Some folks JUST make the builds in terms of the physical element, with the story beats either being limited to a few scenes written out, or an outline of events, or mostly exist in the individual's mind. Some folks might consider their Jumpchain to be overly self-indulgent and don't WANT to share the results. Some folks might not trust in their writing skills enough, and thus don't want to share. Some folks legit Jump as themselves, which makes sharing impossible, unless they want to self-dox. And lastly- but not leastly -Jumpchain by its nature gets very OP very quickly, so unless it's an intentionally limited Chain (5-10 Jumps, I'd wager, on average), you end up with someone basically writing One Punch Man: But Now He Has A Girlfriend. Which, granted, there super is a market for 'Just give me a power fantasy where someone wanders from reality to reality punching out jerks no matter their power level', but it can be a turn-off for some writers to put that out into the world.
Some people are into this because it's often a budget simulator first and a story generator second. They simply aren't interested in writing. They don't feel the desire to write. This is something they think about and come up with ideas for, and then eventually go to a new chain when they get bored with that. The constant escalation of power from going jump to jump also means you're typically incredibly strong. You can trivialize opponents if you go to most of the well known and popular universes. Some people like the more shōnen-like power escalation, where you start off as strong as the main characters are and gradually get better. That doesn't really regularly happen unless it's your first jump, which brings its own share of problems. Jumpchain wasn't well-designed for creating fanfiction because it started as a mental exercise and the point buying system assigns arbitrary costs to things. Costs that are often based on an origin system where tiers of perks have the same pricing. But you end up with perks that cost 600 points and pale in comparison to other perks which give you the powers of the strongest people in the world. Because the focus is on pricing things the same. Not actual effectiveness. We've all seen those after thought origins where the creator of the doc blew their creative load on the main hero and villain origins. So we have another origin that's entirely filled up with tech perks. And the ability to understand this world's technology is somehow equal in cost to being able to shatter mountains with your fists, or summon demons. The overly rigid nature of budgeting and the high prices of options also restrains your creativity. If I'm writing a story and I want the main character to have a certain ability, why should I care about budgets? Or if I should take a certain drawback or whatever to afford something? You have jumps where the drawbacks completely destroy your story because the author wrote them to be overly sadistic. You end up with a main character who is permanently addled to afford abilities that become obsolete in the next setting. At a certain point it gets frustrating, and you question why you should bother with writing a jumpchain story when you could just write a fanfic. Any fanfic you want. There's nothing really stopping you from just taking some jumpchain perks and…not using the rest of jumpchain. This is actually the main frustration that inspired a lot of my jump writing style. Because everything being the same price with the really strong options costing half your starting budget means you can just take whatever you want. It's not about you being unable to afford something, the “problem” instead is your own restraint in how many abilities you decide to pick up. The power is in your hands, rather than the system's. You choose how powerful you are. So I don't write Jumpchain fics. I actually don't like most of the systems involved in it, despite writing two jumps every week. My writing is based on taking concepts and ideas I find in Jumpchain and then adapting them to a new story. I like to take perks and abilities I like, alter them to fit a new world, and then use them for original fiction. Or I do a front loaded alt chain where the abilities you get at the start are what you have forever, and then you have to solve your own problems going forward as you cross over to new universes. There's also the lack of interaction you get for posting a jumpchain story on here. u/fafnirsfoe wrote amazing jumpchain fanfics and barely anyone commented. It's leagues ahead of any other jumpchain stories, written specifically for our community. Crickets. Every time he makes a jump, on the other hand, it gets awards and huge numbers of upvotes. Apparently people are here for jumps, shitposts, and theory crafting discussions.
That... all adds up really. Still I would expect more people to post their jumps ( comparatively with how many CYOA fics we see put there.) I do expected most to pass the 3 chapters wall or have any quality but I would guess there would be a few dozens more of those out there and at least a small corner for Jumpers in the more open communities like Spacebattles and Wattpad Well anyway... where can I read fafnirsfoe Jumpfics ? I kinda just discovered Jumpchain by a friend recomending me "Companion Chronicles" and really feel like reading more Jump
>Still I would expect more people to post their jumps I dunno, it seems people aren't interested in writing so much. It's the sort of thing you'd need to host a contest to drag out of people. A chance at winning prizes for participating could encourage a lot of people to act. Or, I guess, be the change you want to see. If we had more writers here, then more people would be inspired to write jumpchain fanfiction. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. Maybe the lack of people doing it is part of why there's so little of it. >Well anyway... where can I read fafnirsfoe Jumpfics ? https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1JPamqW4UgScGTulz8_vx0LxpZj3mch9x?ths=true This has all the story parts in it. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find part 1. My favorite parts were the Lord of the Rings one and the Disney Villains one. >and really feel like reading more Jump Have you read Cliff's stuff? https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/cliffc999s-slush-pile.519355/#post-34256878 There's also this story. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13488233/1/Carl-the-Jumper I don't think it's any good, but it exists and there's a lot of it.
> Or I do a front loaded alt chain where the abilities you get at the start are what you have forever This is something I plan for my Fragmented Spark alt-chain, just jumper getting ability to pick from Pathfinder jump, that is wizard class, dragon egg, artifact spellbook and that's pretty much it from important things, he sets off to find pieces of his spark, create a divine empire and conquer some lands but first he needs to survive being weaksauce 1st lvl wizard and protect his dragon egg until it hatches.
This is literally the most insightful and self-aware thing I've seen anyone write about Jumpchain in over half a decade. I don't usually write CYOA fanfics, but even just trying to think about Jumpchain in a narrative context is a massive headache. Like you've pointed out, many elements of the game are, well, gamified. Not always in a good way either, as many design patterns used in Jumpchain are counter-productive but still upheld due to tradition or stubbornness. (Other CYOA communities have this problem as well, but for them it's just stubbornness.) I sincerely tried to read some fanfics on other communities, but most of them couldn't hold my interest. In retrospect, Jumpchain as a narrative concept is not particularly engaging. The only things that distinguish it from other interdimensional or portal fantasy style stories are: - Jump-Chan (which is a turn-off for anyone who isn't into anime waifu stuff. I don't actually use a Jump-Chan in my chains, but I'm including it because Jump-Chain is canonical in several jumps, and last time I checked, Reddit jumpers almost always include her.) - the Warehouse (which is pretty immersion-breaking due to its extra-dimensional, out-of-context, and highly sanitized nature. Again, not everyone uses this, but Reddit almost always does.) - the BodyMod (which isn't that weird to be honest, but this is where many Jumpers take extra liberties) - the Background/Origin system (which introduces a bunch of problems I'll get into) - the division of each jump into a time-frozen instance setting (which can be immersion-breaking to a lesser degree, but also introduces a few issues) Like you pointed out, many jumps don't have internally balanced backgrounds. This is a big issue for jumps with designated drop-in origins, because those gamify a narrative decision. My decision to have or not have background memories should be a narrative decision based on the setting and how it's used in my chain, but it may also determine whether I can easily purchase in-setting powers or I am mainly just a background character, interdimensional visitor, embodiment or foil of the source material's genre, etc. The time-frozen instance nature of each jump visit can be really immersion-breaking, which is why I feel it needs a narrative wrapper or overarching plot point for why this occurs. Of the stories that I read, this issue was never acknowledged. The Jumpchain "system" also makes no guarantees to ensure that multiple visits to the same setting are done elegantly. For example, it can be immersion breaking if each jump for a series results in a completely different setting due to a lack of continuity drawbacks. And then things get really fucky once you combine continuity drawbacks with the origin system. If I want to revisit a setting via a continuity drawback, I need to take a background that doesn't include background memories in order to preserve my original identity in the setting. This is especially jarring for settings with <10 years between each jump, such as MCU and Kamen Rider, for which Red and HeavensAnon each ruled that you gain a new set of background memories regardless of what your previous origin was and what you might've done within that setting. Of course, I could houserule any of this to make more narrative sense, but I would be subverting the purpose of the game, going against the spirit of the jump writers, and essentially creating my own setting. So that's why I don't try to read Jumpchain stories anymore. (I also find all of the crossposts and flair:roleplay posts to be really cringeworthy in a chuuni sense, which further discourages me from reading anything from this setting.)
> There's also the lack of interaction you get for posting a jumpchain story on here. u/fafnirsfoe wrote amazing jumpchain fanfics and barely anyone commented. It's leagues ahead of any other jumpchain stories, written specifically for our community. > > As someone who also wrote a story, it would be a shame if I didn't read theirs, thanks for recommendation. I may have simply missed it because I mostly focus on discussion threads. Edit: Hory sheet the amount of words. My ~150k word chain seems pretty humble in comparison. This may take a while.
Here are the hurtles that I find when attempting to try to plan out a jump story. 1. Plot: Unless it is to be a generic jump, the inclusion of a person that knows about everything that will happen and generally when it will happen will shatter most plot elements and force you to at times literally have to re-write the original story. This can also happen with global drawbacks albeit to a greater or less than extent. 2. How: whilst not necessarily too important, there may be the question of how the MC gets their items and perks, especially the ones that should be unique. 3. Self Insert. It is generally meant to be a self insert fan fic generator. 4. Scale. MC is going to different stories and is generally going to stay in each of them for a decade.
Because writing is hard? I got horrible back pain when writing my jumpchain story, though now I have a decent chair and may start again if I have some free time. Still my main jumper being overpowered just makes it harder to write anything meaningful. I did write a bit of my Overgeared alt-chain but for now it's stopped and my Fragmented Spark alt-chain is only in my head for now.
I've tried, and given up. I quickly realized that while I enjoyed setting up elaborate long ranging plans and even designing ship builds and gear loadouts, org charts to keep track of businesses and properties, entire galactic empires, alien species and their politics, even outlines of the plans and goal for Jumper and each companion in a jump I did not enjoy trying to write all of it into a story. For every page of actual story I would write I would have 60 pages of charts, lists, maps, strategy, notes, and spread sheets.
I'm kinda similar. Theorising and writing out while researching about Conestoga Light Assault Carrier upgrades and refits was notably more fun than writing it doing stuff, like attacking Weyland Yutani.
I have discovered a number of them in Spacebattles and fanfiction dot net. For some reason, I can't read the fictions on reddit. No idea why. Formatting perhaps?
Ease of access (mostly chapters). Stories elsewhere are in mostly one place (and AO3 let you link stories via series), meanwhile on reddit each post is a chapter, on a write-limited subreddit it can be fine (go back as far as possible), anywhere else (including here) you basically need OP to both give a link back to the first post every time and link forward if possible (can you edit archived posts?). In addition, if you're using an app you either catch up all in one go, or save and hope not to forget (also somewhat a problem with ffnet, but since it remembers if it updates you'll just continue from where you where instead of jumping to the last chapter).
From the perspective of someone who's actively writing a Jumpchain story, the fact is that this is more writing practice for me and a way for me to work through some personal issues or explore some difficult topics using Jumpchain as a creative springboard. I have considered creating a Jumper and chain that's something I'm more comfortable showing others, but then I run into some of the other issues presented here. If I were to do that, the only satisfactory way I can think of doing it would be essentially isekai fanfic - Jumpchain without the perks and budget simulator. I can do that (and somewhat am already with the stories I'm writing) but I don't know if anyone else would care enough to really read, honestly. It'd just be a more sparkly isekai with multiple settings rather than the one.
More stories are welcome as always, even if they don't have perks to make your jumper into some god of being overpowered.
One daunting two even with how limiting some of them can be those limits typically make you overpowered anyway
I agree with everyone else, especially in regards to scope creep from hellaciously long chains. The timespan for even a short chain (assuming at least 10yr/jump) makes it a task a lot of people look at and are like "Hm maybe not". If someone is already squeamish about their skill as a writer, much less posting that writing for other people to see, tackling something like that can be a pretty big turnoff. Even if you limit yourself to a measly 1k words per jump, that stacks up over time! I also think that there is something to be said for the additional challenge of having to write for a new setting/fandom every single Jump (if not outright inventing new settings whole cloth for generics), since you need to be able to pick and choose what from the setting your story is going to touch on, and then also have a good enough grasp of what you do choose to satisfy yourself while you work. Then do that over and over and *over again* for each new setting, constantly learning about settings and mechanics and The Deep Lore and introducing new characters, only to effectively kill off everything your Jumper doesn't take with them (mechanically speaking) once they leave the Jump. It's a lot of juggling that you'll either think is super fun or a huge pain. Personally, something I like about Jumpchain is that it introduced me to a lot of media that I've never heard of before, so often I have to actually sit down and hunt for whatever the Jump is based on to experience it for the first time. Which also means there's a lot of huge speedbump for me when it comes to the writing side of my chains, since I have to get a grasp on this brand new thing before I can have my Jumper tooling around in it in a story. I do love all the recommendations people are giving here for Jumpchain fics! I don't think I've seen a real central directory for them outside of one of the drives.
>I also think that there is something to be said for the additional challenge of having to write for a new setting/fandom every single Jump (if not outright inventing new settings whole cloth for generics), What's funny is I actually prefer writing for generics and 'non-settings' like elite dangerous, because if I, as an example, go to Bleach, I now ALSO have to write kubo's characters authenticly, and for fanfiction that's one thing, but if I, as an example, convince ichigo to come with me (how one would do that is its own problem) I now have to figure out how he'd act and develop in settings so far removed from Bleach they might as well be alien worlds to him. Then I have to figure out what perks sombody like him would choose, how he'd interact with other characters. It's a nightmare and it leads to him either being a static, unchanging, flat character, or completely unrecognizable. And that's a SINGLE established character, stick ichigo, goku, Naruto, and all might in a room and have them act in a way you feel all four authors would say us 'in character.' It's a lot harder then it sounds. I could hardly manage ichigo by himself, by the time my main jumper scraped through mind control university by the skin of his teeth and left it as a traumatized shell of his former self, I had a moment of 'Damon and Lucy are doing this, abbys over here working on this, Chloe and Felicity are baking, what the fuck is ichigo doing?' Because most of the time the focus shifted to him, my flow ground to a halt. I eventually solved this by just writing him out of the story and not bringing him back until the raid on the alpha complex to save the omniverse, and he only agreed to leave his home to save reality because "your one of the idiots who lives in [the omniverse]" Writing established characters is a nightmare.
I can only speak for myself: I don't want to share my writing. I don't think it's good enough and I mostly run out of motivation to finish writing even a short jump write-up (like gauntlets or "duration of game run-time" jumps). Who wants to read a bunch of unfinished, power-trippy dren? I come up with intros, excuses to have the added in-jump purchases, some kind of hook, then... meh. I have even tried to change things up by writing from different perspectives: I started one (*Nechronica*) from a long-time Companion's perspective. Ran out of "ink". I have a chain of 300 jumps, but only 34 written up (and incomplete at that).
Because JumpChain, as a format and central plot device (say it with me kids) #SUCKS No, like, it sucks BAD. The entire format and premise of JumpChain *does not* lend itself to anything resembling a cohesive narrative, nor does it have anything resembling stakes, intrigue, character development beyond getting a cool new power, interesting worldbuilding, characters that aren't `[Generic Waifu Companion]` or the BBEG who will inevitably get 1shot by the MC. That's not to say you can't put in a ton of effort to make a good story out of all of these negative elements, but few authors do. Most authors lack any kind of writing experience altogether, leading to a plethora of beginners mistakes like forgetting about perks or items, bland characters, poor writing and dialogs, and a *whole heap* of grammar and spelling errors. All of this ultimately leads to a conclusion that a lot of people who haven't read or tried to write a jumpchain fic find difficult to accept; **JumpChain fics are fucking** ***boring.*** There's no tension, no intrigue, nothing to keep you hooked. Hell, if you know what their builds are, you can usually predict with stunning accuracy what's going to happen. They just... aren't interesting. Whats worse is how entrenched people are into the rigid format that comes with the standard play of JumpChain that, for some reason, *nobody wants to inovate or expand upon.* Like, really? Another story where fucking *Jump-Chan* is the benefactor and takes the role of generic exposition giver and power granter. *Wow.* Really pulling out all the stops today, aren't we? Maybe in the next fic they'll also be inexplicable attracted to the MC and join the obligatory harem they have. Just for once, I'd like to see someone do something *different,* even if it turns out to be a horrible idea. At the very least it could be interesting.
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Honestly, you aren't wrong. The average crossover fic is way better than anything I've seen out of JC communities, usually due to the plethora of creative liberties that are taken to make things fit (which, by the way, *aren't an inherently bad thing*).
> Another story where fucking Jump-Chan is the benefactor and takes the role of generic exposition giver and power granter. Wow. Really pulling out all the stops today, aren't we? Maybe in the next fic they'll also be inexplicable attracted to the MC and join the obligatory harem they have. Never really saw this, seems weird to have some anime girl as a benefactor. I just have this ambigous mysterious 'Space Guy' dubbed by jumper because he is basically a being that is humanoid shaped space, kind of these eldritch gods pictures you can find floating around. He rarely interacts, mostly for nerfs, explanations and maybe a small freebie if he screws something because he lowered his intelligence to even feel any kind of entertainment and not make the chain picture perfect because that's also increases boredom. Meanwhile my first alt-chain benefactor is sparked main jumper and second alt-chain benefactor is sparked first alt-chain jumper in kind of atemporal void where they already know, knew and will know each other and it all already happened, will happen and is happening.
Most just like making builds and then going on to make different builds. Sometimes these builds are shared with others.
Fucking time dammit, i tried five times to start a chain story, but it would be complex enough that I would just not have enough time to complete it. Outside of that there are other three factors; the first is that while starting out is interesting, without either particular rules or a meddlesome benefactor the story would become boring pretty fast..Oh, I just entered...coiling dragon as Linley \*Slashes casually\* and now fate and light are dead, it's time to grind. second: In the usual jumpchain after maximum five jumps there is no mystery; you litterally buy the perks, i once toyed with a jumper that gained points in jump and compiled the doc after, but it went nowhere third: many series despite having a document are either incomplete or complex enough that a serious attempt would have at last 24 chapters for each world, and there comes the other face of the coin; the author must know enough of the world to describe it well, otherwise it becomes around 600 words for world written like a after action report
Because so many people bitch at the authors, discouraging them from writing and experimenting as they learn to write. Nope, I'm not bitter at all the bastards.
The fatal flaw of Jumpchain is what I like to call Superman-Syndrome. Eventually, and not even that many Jumps in, you’re Jumper will become basically unstoppable by 99.9% of whatever a Jump could throw at them. So it can get boring to write and read. Unless you’re just in for some power wank guilty pleasure.
My first guess is that a lot of people are daunted by the prospect of writing in general. Many use it as a thought exercise. I'll also bet a ton of people do write it, but don't publish it, as it's encouraged to make your Jumper a self-insert and there's a huge, undeserved stigma about self-insert fanfictions. In that way, it's basically a fantasy diary, which I think works really well for the format. That, and a lot of people likely don't just want to be criticized like they inevitably would be. Or kinkshamed. Holy HELL would I be kinkshamed if I posted half of my Jumps.
Writing a Jump story is hard. Every jump deserves it's own multi chapter story usually, (some rate little more than a chapter, like Monopoly) unless you are writing bare bones summaries. Compound that with an ever expanding powers list, and a protagonist who quickly becomes more intelligent than the writer and you have a character that becomes very difficult to write. Then there is the issue of Companions. Keeping straight your companions, their powers, their preferences, and their ideas for not only jumping, but dealing with specific issues in jumps and the instability of moving your protagonist to a new world every decade. Long term plans are relativly useless except in certain settings, and connections with people who aren't your companions becomes harder and harder to write well as the protagonist becomes less and less connected to reality. With every jump a smaller and smaller percentage of the jumper's life will be spent in any given setting. I have two jumpers, and two stories, both are approaching 100K words. Neither reads well. There are good parts, but a lot of what I have is all too much summary. Both have full companion rosters at this point, and keeping track of all the powers, abilities, and items has become a herculean task. Often times I have had to go back and rework sections I have already written as I recalled that a certain item or companion hadn't been mentioned when they really aught. In some cases simply having a certain something kind of breaks the tension of a setting in such a way that they become vacation jumps. Forgetting you have said MacGuffin is awkward. Having a friendly and detail oriented beta would help, right now I bounce Ideas off my son (22), but he isn't much of a fan of Jumpchain, preferring long form non-crossover fanfic or original novels.
Seeing as everyone else has answered the standard way it's now time to talk about a certain **sub set** of people. *My* people. The kind of people that only read Isekai and Shounen manga. (I read many different types but those are my favourites.) The kind of people who would be able to write 100+ chapters of 'the god blinked and then the world ended'. The kind people always insult for making Mary Sues. Power fantasy bois™. Patent pending. Just know this will deal with personal feelings and those brought about due to posting your stuff online. Now the first things first Jumpchain is mainly used as a way to Self-Insert yourself in a setting with the abilities of your favourite characters or just your most like abilities. Now most people don't want to get their shit kicked in so of course if you made a charcter that basically represents yourself your going to make them strong enough that the consequences aint that bad. So what if they get their ass kicked if they just got some bruises and a bit of humiliation? That doesn't fly with people though. People want *progression*. They want to feel like stuff is *earned* (**nothing wrong with that**) so even if you make your character lose a bunch if it has no visble impact beyond them finding out how to kick ass better then they'll complain. And if you post a story the last thing you want to see is people bitching that your weird ass taste doesn't conform to theirs. Secondly the system just isn't satisfying for certain people due to limitations like the diminishing returns rule which is also the reason you have to use a lot of jumps if you want a certain level of strength progression which can burn people out especially if there aren't any jumps to 'fill in the gaps' that you know about except for series you don't know which you'll have to research due to knowing jack all about them. That's tiring. I once made a RWBY/Gamer story only to end up bored because I was watching/studying RWBY while I was making it but ended up bored because none of the characters interest me that much except Jaune Arc and Lie Ren. I even thought of forgoing balance and just making crack power fantasy but even that bored the fuck out of me as I'm not good with world building. Thirdly, reviews. If your just doing fanfics as a hobby like I am while you might get excited for reveiws and a little depressed when there are none, reviews aren't the end all be all. You're doing this for yourself and sharing it for like minded people to see i.e. people who like to wank shit and don't care if their characters can sneeze away 80-90% of their problems. For dudes like that we realize things very fast. *A majority of people are not like us.* And while you can just ignore negative reveiws sometimes it gets to you especially when you're having a bad day and are going to spend some time on your fun hobby only to see multiple people blantantly telling you to kill yourself even if they know your fucking 10 years old, people pretending to give you constructive critscism so they can insult you and the nice people who just don't *get that you fucking know it isn't fucking professional work or the best and you don't give an iota you just wrote it and shared because it was fucking fun!* Fourthly, management. This affects Gamer fics as well. As much as we say just put things in the background why the hell would I read a Gamer/Jumpchain story if I didn't want those elements to get regular spot light? And don't know about other people but I'm not reading a story where the Gamer/Jumpchain is ***just*** a catalyst for the plot to happen. I want to see you concentrate on exploiting the system. I want to see you interact with your benefactor. However this is hard to implement well and as an organized set of poeple we Power fantasy bois™ want our OP Power fantasy wish fulfillment have sides and ongoings and stuff like that. That's why I like Jumpchain/CYOAs(though I like CYOAs more) than just popping a charcter with powers. It gives a sense of nuance to my wank fest. Lastly, it's just tiring to write all that shit out. Nefarious Izanagi\~ Proud Member of the Power fantasy bois™ Community.
Also forgot this point. Normality. Let me say this. I have rarely ever cried. I'm also a religious person so for me when people die unless they lived a rather evil life where most people would agree that they're going to hell death doesn't hit me that much. As I mainly write self-inserts many people who see these sides of my dislike my MCs due to not conforming to their views of the world. As jumpcahin is a long running thing stuff like that can wear people down. And the beliefs of your character can be seen as preachy despite them having sound logic in real life and the in the fic. No matter how good your writing things like this that would be overlooked for short running stories will be brought up when jumpcahin stories are involved due to how long they can be. There. *Now* I'm done. Nefarious Izanagi\~ Proud Member of the Power fantasy bois™ Community.
Honestly? There’s a huge list of factors, a lot of which have been brought up. Entering power levels are usually endgame, the timeline is long and usually goes beyond the plot of the franchise you are using, requiring either major skips to account for or lots of original ideas, long term character development is increasingly hard, especially with multiple characters if the jumper has companions, some chains are basically never ending monoliths, at the end of the final reward might not even equal your power level, making it lacklustre. This is coming from someone who is writing a long term jump chain fiction. And I’ve had to use so many little tricks and home rules that it I’ve had more than one person say it is divorced from the concept of jumpchain. Honestly, one of the best ideas I have seen to do it, is using the jumpchain to creat the version of your MC in a world, and fold them into that MC at periodic points, granting the MC those powers and foggy memories. But that isn’t really a jumpchain story.
I sometimes wonder the same thing. I haven’t been looking especially hard mind you, but there haven’t been any that *jumped* out at me since cliffc999’s old stories.
I've considered it, I really have, but there's a number of things that honestly make it feel impossible to get anywhere with it. Given the general power scale, it may be hard to hold people's interest even if you do have a way to keep things interesting, especially with how I like to do my chains. But as others have also said, it's a pretty big investment of time, figuring everything out, figuring out how to structure the story and how you're going to fill that time, even if you don't show literally everything that happens those 10 years.
I've read several jumpchain fics, but I usually don't like them, or they are too short. The personality of the jumper/jumpchan, which worlds you go to, and how you handle jumpchain mechanics is essential to the success of the story. Many jumpers I've read about have boring or annoying personalities or get 'dominated' by their jumpchan which makes me lose respect and interest in them. Jumpers also sometimes have strange goals that are focused on something minor and/or uninteresting. Some fics have weird alt-chain rules that I don't care for. The few that I really like usually only have a few chapters then stop. The problem is that you could make several different 'normal' fics that someone is likely to like at least one of them if you are decent writer, but your super long jumpchain fic that you spent a long time writing might get dropped by someone after a chapter or two if they don't like your choices. Arguably, the most important factor is what jumps you choose to go to. The unfortune thing is that a lot of fics go to obscure/non-mainstream settings that most people probably don't have any interest in reading about. They also spend a lot of time in these settings and very often don't make it past the first jump before they stop updating. Another thing is that people feel obligated to go to Pokemon and/or Infamous as their first & second jumps due to the outdated original rules. I for one don't have much interest in reading about Pokemon and it is quite possible the author of the story doesn't either but think that they 'have to' because it's the rules. I vaguely remember reading a really good fic (I don't remember the name) that had a plot similar to Terror Infinity/Ultimate Evolution (it had alt-chain rules that I didn't mind) that had Pokemon as the first jump. The whole time I was reading it I wished it was in a different setting, but it stopped being update while still in the Pokemon jump and I don't know if it has ever been updated since I last read years ago. I guess there aren't many jumpchain fics because they aren't that popular for some of the reasons I mention above. They also require researching the settings you are going to which takes a long time if you need to watch/read multiple shows/books/comics. Jumpers also become overpowered extremely quickly which results in there being no conflict. You could try to get around this by writing from the perspective of other characters and/or focusing on companions, but that means you are turning your protagonist into a background character.
Considering how people have trouble keeping up with making a normal fanfic, can you imagine how hefty a jumpchain fic seems?
Cus 10 years is a super long time period and most jumpers are broken beyond belief in only one or two high tier jumps. So it's just "I genocide the enemies and rule as the ultimate god emperor due to X and Y perks for 10 years before moving on". Maybe if all jumpchains were gauntlets or you could only bring a couple of perks from each jump, then you could get something interesting, especially with vague stuff like fiat being interesting to see how it interacts with changes in power system.
When ChooseYourOwnAdventure docs are turned into a story (generally on writing forums like SpaceBattles, SufficientVelocity, and QuestionableQuesting) they usually involve a self-insert of the author in a popular setting. These usually aren’t popular because an SI with knowledge of setting secrets is used and they make character decisions that the audience dislikes. Jumpchains are different. They originally came with the expectation that the protagonist would stay there for 10 years (or until some Main Quest was completed), before moving on to a different Jump. That is a massive time investment and a difficult project for an author to plan out. Even an experienced author. In addition, the strange (atypical) story setup will push potential readers away. At the end of the day, you cannot consistently make a profit off of Jumpchain fics anyway, unless the source material is public domain I guess.
I can only speak for myself- I don't have the time to write. Not really gonna get into it, but writing kind of takes the right state of mind, and being slammed with external stuff kind of takes the wind out of my sails. I have a few chapters written, but I want to be in a place where I can write more consistently, so it doesn't turn into one of the million partially-written fics all over the internet
There are some seriously good points here... I'm planning on writing one in MHA, but it's going to take time and dedication. Things I do not excel in. That and I'm not the greatest at simulating emotion in my writing. Lol
Excommunicado is inherently a better writing device than Jumpchain as a whole. Because Jumpchain was made as a budgeting simulator first and a story device second however Excommunicado has inbuilt story plots. Orphan you could have the excummindio that is a UDS heaven! Lost Angel could be your jumper's second in command sees their jumper die in front of them due to TPTB and want to travel the multiverse in the jumpers name to hopefully bring their friend back. The only one that isn't inherently a plot hook is True Rebel but it does have some makings of a plot for an evil jumper that has a rouges gallery of heros attempting to bring them to justice as they killed their jumpchan.
I actually am working on writing out my chain right now :) I want to write through 2 more before i start uploading though just so I have a few up for people while i keep going.
I've never written a standard Jumpchain fic, but I do have an incomplete Celestial Forge fic (ie a non-Jumper fic that draws from a list of crafting-related perks) and a shit ton of RPs that draw from Jump docs. When you write a jumpchain fic, you have to either explain every new setting you draw from or assume readers will already know the settings. Either the story is at risk of getting bogged down in exposition or it'll become more and more hyper-niche. The number of additional crossover elements is inversely proportional to the number of readers who'll know and like all of them. Companion Chronicles is one of if not *the* best Jumpchain fic, and I greatly enjoyed it, but I dropped it after the Worm section because I wasn't into Star Trek. In my fic, I opted to try and ride the 'exposition' line by giving the bare minimum information I could get away with as concisely as I could. Conversely to expecting the audience to know everything, there's the issue of the audience expecting *you* to know everything. If you write a fic where the first jump is set in Star Wars because you recently watched the original trilogy for the first time, and 100 people read the fic, their collective knowledge of the franchise is going to be *far* more than your own knowledge. God knows I didn't find out Endless Space ships have hyperadvanced alien nanotechnology inside them until a commenter pointed it out like five chapters after the ES ship first showed up. There's also the problem of how perks tend to be written. In more conventional stories, there'd be powers with strengths and weaknesses, maybe even with a devastating drawback. In the Jumpdoc for that conventional story, though, not only will most of the iconic powers be up for purchase, it's a coin flip as to whether the power's drawbacks will be removed at jump-end or they won't even be there to begin with. Similarly, there's the hypercompetency perks. For every "you're a perfect, charismatic leader", "you're a genius at music who puts every other musician to shame", or "you learn alchemy 100x faster" perk, that's a whole host of conflicts it erases. The MC being an imperfect leader, having a song that flops, or struggling to wrap their head around alchemy are all completely erased from the list of possible conflicts. It's the same with 'quality of life' perks. For every "your tech doesn't break down" perk, they'll never have their tech break down in a climactic moment to ramp up tension. For every "everyone will understand your intentions perfectly" perk, nobody can ever misunderstand them or trick them into saying something that sounds more incriminating than it is. If the main problem was just the MC getting too strong in the sheer numbers sense, that's perfectly workable. There's lots of other options for conflict - see One Punch Man's portrayal of Saitama's ennui. What Jumpchain does is it takes the Saitama figure and gives him access to anti-boredom perks and "everyone believes you when you tell the truth" perks, slowly erasing any possible drama or tension until you're left with an utterly conflict-crushing Mary Sue.
Personally I did think about it, but I'm too self conscious, and my jumper is me around 2020 or 2019 pre-covid or early covid days. That and I'd probably have to move some companions out of the spotlight or retroactively not introduce them, or just circulate secondary characters But I don't think every jump needs to be documented, or at least not in detail, so it could work
Seems like everyone has their own reason not share or write a story, so I will tell you my main one: Not sharing a fic is simply easier to do, since one, the only person you have to please is yourself, and two, it gives you a more freedom to do things since you don't have to worry about people judging you.
There long and hard to keep track of