The Problem of Unicorn Epicycles

[Aleh]

Beware of Cloud pretty clearly started with the intention to be a simple single divergence, but as it's been written the decision has been made to explore background details that weren't relevant to Beware of Chicken and write his own answers, which has left the setting distinct in some ways from how Casualfarmer described them. As long as that's acknowledged and the characters and setting are still recognisable, which I personally find to be the case (you are, of course, entirely within your rights to disagree) I don't think it's a problem.

These differences can build up to the point that that this is no longer the case, and I can think of a few examples of this happening and generating distinct properties - even published ones (the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMasters Bujold had their seeds in a Star Trek fanfic, for example). There's a degree of spectrum to this.

I think the issue with this particular story is more that it's chasing two rabbits, in the sense of the old saying. It's simultaneously trying to be a Beware of Chicken fic while also trying to be its own thing entirely. If this was a simple genre/tonal shift as the result of a different course of actions, that'd be one thing... but it goes beyond that.

The characters we see don't "feel" the same. The changes to the overall setting make it "feel" like a different place. The changes to the Cloudy Sword and its rot make it "feel" like a different sect. The changes to Shen Yu and Shen Bu make the former "feel" like a different character entirely. The... well, as I put it:

Su Ge steps in to help Jin, leading to him not staying in the CSS. But then we find out that the situation in the CSS isn't what it was in canon. But then you change the background with Shen Yu and Shen Bu, as well as the overall political situation of the Empire. But then you change the cultivation system itself in ways that contradict canon. So Jin doesn't leave a different sect and situation from canon, leading to him facing problems whose existence contradicts canon, and facing heaven via a different system from the one he abandoned in canon.

It's not just that differences exist. It's that they push the story more towards being its own "thing."

And, on the flip side, the author's explicit reason for making all of those changes is the idea that the canon setting of Beware of Chicken doesn't really support the sort of story he wants to tell. My issues with this reasoning aside, if that's the case... why bother sticking to the setting at all?

Beware of Cloud isn't a bad story, per se. Hell, I'm still reading it despite some rather dramatic issues with how the author is handling certain things (like Chinese manners; see the first paragraph of Chapter 13, which describes a real issue -- one that I initially pointed out -- being handled completely inappropriately, or at least incompetently, on the Shrouded Mountain's part).

I just don't think that it's really a Beware of Chicken thing anymore. It feels like a story about different characters reacting to a different set of circumstances in a different setting, not like a Beware of Chicken fic.

Some fics whose timelines cross like this instead of diverging are really good, or at least a lot of fun - but you have to manage your expectations going into them. They're back in the open cesspool of 90% crap, rather than dipping from a bucket you've already flocculated and filtered to the 10% at least not inherently awful. I haven't gotten around to looking at Beware of Cloud yet to judge for myself.

One of the examples that kept coming to mind when I was formulating my phrasing of the dilemma was a number of HP fics, and specifically Skysaber's. He just... keeps changing things, usually at the last minute, to keep his balls in the air and keep things escalating. That's where the "ass-pulls" line came in.

On a more meta perspective, think of the development of HP fanon, where entire departments and belief systems are put in to "salvage" aspects of canon from the impacts of other things that fanon has added. Manipulative!Dumbledore's Rube Goldberg plot failures come to mind regarding the impact of that.