- Location
- SoCal
This was another one of those moments that makes me want to wring her neck. Saving things until the last possible moment and presenting them fait accompli is another way of trying to take away people's free will "for their own good".
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
- Location
- Philippines
Well given him having an afterlife area he only needs to do a heroic action to get people to worship him as a hero.
This will cause them to enter his workshop upon death and while he tries to bring them back to life they can hear the power metal solo
Give me one example of a poster criticizing purely CF mechanics in response to a recent chapter, and not just wanting for Lord to skip all narratives except for the ones poster interested in, and be damned all who interested in what will be skipped.
CF mechanic actually doesn't make that much of a difference on how Lord writes, evident by word count being lavish to say the least, even in interludes where CF is disabled. There are criticisms of narrative getting stopped to "look at a shiny new perk", but those criticisms come from assumption that the only thing that counts as narrative is dealing with the next big thing (ABB, Coil, S9, Endbringer, ect.), while completely disregarding the fact that perks are not deviation from narrative, but part of it, one that both integral to the premise of the story, and one that a lot of people, about who criticism like that forget, exited about perks rolls, description and usage, because that is the narrative they're looking forward.
You're right that BCF is not a thing with tight narrative progression. But you forget that this story has more than one narrative. The reason that BCF's "main" narrative of Joe dealing with the plights of the world moves so slowly, is becouse it also tells a narrative of Undersides being in the shitty place, of Brocton Bay trying to recover from disaster, of Taylor dealing with her issues, of New Wave imploding, of Capes learning about Shardspace and what awaits them after death, of Uppercrust's healing, and hundreds more. And each one has some people interested in. So while frustration of story's focus shifting from narrative one interested to other that one considers boring is understandable (I've been waiting for Kamuification for MONTHS!), it's not reasonable to just demand for Lord to skip all "boring" parts so that one can see just what they want, becouse other people also read this work, and they have different interests.
BCF is a slow, unfocused mess, that has waaay too much on its plate. It has a lot of undeniable flaws, it's reasonably infamous. But most people who stuck with it for this long might have developed Stockholm syndrome and love it the way it is, to the point that if Lord suddenly change the pace of the story and starts to skip parts of the story just to defeat 9 faster or something, there will be an uproar. BCF is slow, but it is slow for a reason, and people love it the way people love their pet snails (Speaking of which, Super Sea Snails were forgotten about). There is no other fic that explores everything it can so thoughtfully.
But yeah, disclaimer for new readers would be a good idea. BCF is a very niche thing that I most definitely would not recommend to just anyone. A lot of people would not like it for a good reason, so disclaimer could help them save time.
The List (google sheet, html view)
The other thing about this that's somewhat frustrating is that it seems self defeating on more than one level.
I get that this fic is supposed to be a love letter to the celestial forge doc, but the balance of things doesn't show that very well.
Things do happen, but so much time is spent in stasis and on setting things up to continue without knocking down the pins the story has set up that none of the effort to play up the perks actually pays off until well after the tension has wound down.
Without more space to do things to show off in, particularly in a way that feels meaningful to the audience through the context established by the characters, it stops actually fulfilling its nominal purpose.
It's like trying to show off your sweet Olympic level swimming ability in a kiddie pool.
Edit: autocorrect error
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- Pronouns
- He
Well, there were some new info, mostly why the Teeth are there and that the E88 will attack the Teeth during the event.
Also, it's been a day in universe. For us and for Joe, this is a very long time, but for the other characters, not a lot happen in a single day.
I don't think the story is enslaved by the Forge or by the technobabble.
I think Joe is a very introspective guy, which means he circle a lot in his own thought. In a way, Joe is a bad protagonist. This is amplified by Lord writting style that tend to explore as much as he can instead of going straight to the point.
Honestly the slow pacing is a fair criticism of the story, but Lord won't change the way the story work even if (in his own words) "the pacing have reached near legendary status", because he already tried (and nearly burn out).
Since this subject have been talked to death already, and Lord won't change, could we please drop it ?
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The story is a very broad tapestry made of many interweaving threads, and I like seeing how they intermingle and affect each other. While it is slow, that's fine with me.
It's a filler episode that could've been summed up in two paragraphs during a workshop update or something.
I'm not thrilled when we get updates about characters I don't care about but I understand that a lot of people do. Often times we get some plot relevant info, or at least some great comedy, like in the Brian interlude. But this time we got nothing but a rehash, and that's genuinely frustrating to me.
ExploerTM
Ruin has found you at last!
- Location
- Russia, Perm
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
With all discussions about pacing resurfacing once more, I feel like I need to put here this disclaimer:
All problems about pacing you talk about are already known and acknowledged. This is not some new writer not knowing what they are doing, Everything Going According To Plan™. This fic is what it is, its already set in stone. You under false assumption that there's some sort of bargain with the author. There's none, either you like what you read and you hang around or you dont like what you read and you leave. There's no third option. All complains will be acknowledged and promptly ignored solely because it was already said countless times over the past years. Your "criticism" is meaningless, because you are NOT adding anything new.
In the end of the day, complaining that BCF is too slow is like complaining that Kill Them All is too bloody, Taylor Varga too slice of life and Hope Through Overwhelming Firepower is too OP.
All problems about pacing you talk about are already known and acknowledged. This is not some new writer not knowing what they are doing, Everything Going According To Plan™. This fic is what it is, its already set in stone. You under false assumption that there's some sort of bargain with the author. There's none, either you like what you read and you hang around or you dont like what you read and you leave. There's no third option. All complains will be acknowledged and promptly ignored solely because it was already said countless times over the past years. Your "criticism" is meaningless, because you are NOT adding anything new.
In the end of the day, complaining that BCF is too slow is like complaining that Kill Them All is too bloody, Taylor Varga too slice of life and Hope Through Overwhelming Firepower is too OP.
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Wait, Sabaton was a possible choice of setting in celestial forge? Aren't they just a band? How does that work?
Is Sabaton a game or tv series or something?
ExploerTM
Ruin has found you at last!
- Location
- Russia, Perm
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
*blinks* and that qualifies them to be a jumpchain setting?
- Location
- Earth
Anything qualifies as one if you are willing to write the jumpchain
Fans of Sabaton tend to be VERY enthusiastic.
ExploerTM
Ruin has found you at last!
- Location
- Russia, Perm
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
If I have to guess, this Jump would send you straight into the trenches of either WW1 or WW2
AntaeusTheGiant
Child of Gaea
- Location
- Lawrence, KS
- Location
- NA
Joe's still being silly I see. "lets not look into the Villain that my thinker power tells me is such bad news they could cause an apocalypse." all because a child said "I got this. Trust me bro."
I honestly can't wait to see the Coil situation blow up in his face because of it. It'll be doubly amusing if it ends up worse then the S9 because he refused to look into Coil.
I honestly can't wait to see the Coil situation blow up in his face because of it. It'll be doubly amusing if it ends up worse then the S9 because he refused to look into Coil.
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Oh man, good thing 🐱🐈 Battle Cat is handling event security.
He will seriously mess up anyone who dares to intrude on Garment's big day.
Possible humor if Garment and the civilian attendees are oblivious to the cape fights happening behind the scenes, enjoying the event and not realizing how close they came to disaster.
I think Butcher + Echidna is worse then S9, and all components already in town and not monitored by CF.
If you read, it's later specified by Tattletale it will happen DURING the event, (because heroes will be distracted), but not AT the event.
Nobody is going to test Apeiron that way with a spectacular disregard for civilians and public morale after he said 'keep them out of it for a little while or I'll have to step in'.
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- Location
- Germany
I'm not sure that would fit. The Ungodly Hour was Apeiron being hit hard, only to get up and kick ass anyways. The "fight" with the S9 is supposed to be an utterly one-sided curmstomp battle where the very legacy of that group is supposed to be destroyed entirely, to prevent any imitators.
So sadly it just doesn't fit.