- Location
- Eldorado, Il
Love the user names.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
That's what makes a person a scientist. You don't need to go to school or something for it. Just put on a lab coat and voila!
You are now a scientist.
- Location
- That place where I live?
It's not about the body itself in my opinion, but more about having a definite location where Dragon's personhood is undeniably located
Lightwavers
Purple Noodle
- Pronouns
- they/them
Mate, you don't have a definite location where personhood is undeniably located. The brain contains most of the structures of you considered identity, yeah, but it's divided up into many sections, some of which can be significantly damaged or destroyed without significantly affecting your identity. On top of that, there's a 'second brain' making up much of the digestive system which makes up a whole lot of the lower level feelings and intuitions that trickle up to and end up being the deciding factors of higher level processes. This stuff is more complicated than it seems.
Throwing in my 2 cents: everyone and then some has already brought up my issues with the chapter, while reading it the only thing really bothering me was the question in the back of my mind of "did March survive?" Reading the explanations, I probably would have had less issues if the lack of clear thinking/running off instincts was clearer but I understand why time constraints mean gotta prioritise. And with the spoiler, I have no significant issues with March's fate.
With that out of the way, I would like to say that this is one of my favorite fics of all time. I love the descriptions when using or gaining new powers, and I love how nearly everything is relevant/significant. No matter how minor a power seems, 9 times out of 10 it actually makes a difference, only exceptions being like the 100 cost woodworking station power for obvious reasons. Even seemingly minor powers can be impactful with how they build off other powers, even if they aren't revolutionary. Everything is respected, nothing is useless, and all the various universes tech is put on a relatively even playing field (relative to their prices).
All in all, I really liked this chapter. Favorite part overall was the start with Chen, seeing his reactions to Apeiron's bs-ness was nice and also seeing Apeiron wholeheartedly succeed at saving someone was great. Two favorite specific lines/phrases though was his Aura awakening phrase and the "Before my body is dry." Those two moments gave me chills, and made that song be playing in my head for the Lung brawl, which was really fitting. Lung fight may have dragged on a little bit, but very minor. Way better pacing than the storage unit fight, despite being of similar/larger scale/length.
Last thing: while definitely more practical, instead of am FTL ram when it began being described I thought it was gonna be an FTL jump the would drag Lung along, basically dragging him out to the edge/out of the solar system rather than just killing him, at which point his powers would fade (out of range) and then he would die. Like I said, less practical, but I thought it would be kinda a clever way to take him out.
With that out of the way, I would like to say that this is one of my favorite fics of all time. I love the descriptions when using or gaining new powers, and I love how nearly everything is relevant/significant. No matter how minor a power seems, 9 times out of 10 it actually makes a difference, only exceptions being like the 100 cost woodworking station power for obvious reasons. Even seemingly minor powers can be impactful with how they build off other powers, even if they aren't revolutionary. Everything is respected, nothing is useless, and all the various universes tech is put on a relatively even playing field (relative to their prices).
All in all, I really liked this chapter. Favorite part overall was the start with Chen, seeing his reactions to Apeiron's bs-ness was nice and also seeing Apeiron wholeheartedly succeed at saving someone was great. Two favorite specific lines/phrases though was his Aura awakening phrase and the "Before my body is dry." Those two moments gave me chills, and made that song be playing in my head for the Lung brawl, which was really fitting. Lung fight may have dragged on a little bit, but very minor. Way better pacing than the storage unit fight, despite being of similar/larger scale/length.
Last thing: while definitely more practical, instead of am FTL ram when it began being described I thought it was gonna be an FTL jump the would drag Lung along, basically dragging him out to the edge/out of the solar system rather than just killing him, at which point his powers would fade (out of range) and then he would die. Like I said, less practical, but I thought it would be kinda a clever way to take him out.
AntaeusTheGiant
Child of Gaea
- Location
- Lawrence, KS
Welp, time to imagine scenarios where that would be absolutely vital...
Looking at perks still to come, though, there are some in the resources column I'm a bit doubtful about...
- Location
- That place where I live?
Yes that is true, but there are only so many places my personhood is located as opposed to the potentially distributed consciousness of a software AI spread across a series of server-farms and the internet. The question is, if Dragon is on a server is that server Dragon, on the other hand positronic brains and cybertronium are intended to BE the consciousness they house. It is a simple matter of removing ambiguity, consider Penny from RWBY she had aura but it didn't cover her body. In series aura flares when taking damage and has a visible shatter effect when taking catastrophic levels of damage but Penny's never did.
- Location
- United Kingdom
See, this is exactly the issue I was discussing with you before Sterlyn. You seem to think that any hint of criticism of the story amounts to an attack, and that even constructive criticism must be vigorously defended against and denounced as wrong-think (in Discord of course, where the person you're denouncing cannot defend themselves or even usually become aware of it). It is incredibly annoying.
Lord is writing a great story so far, but even great stories can be offered constructive criticism. The author is under no obligation to accept those criticisms, or agree with their points, or indeed even read them. I agree that there is an amplification effect from the structure of a forum, which is a problem, but the vast majority of those who expressed disappointment in the chapter (including me) weren't lying about their feelings (why would they?), and also expressed how much they liked the story in general. They pretty much have to have been fans considering that we're 700k words in, anyone who wasn't would already have dropped the story. Especially if Lord is attempting to improve his writing however, simply ignoring that at least some portion of his fans felt the last chapter broke their SOD is probably a bad idea, at the least he could assess where he might have done better in conveying his intent.
Lord can ignore those criticisms, or reject them as not being aware of the true scope of his narrative plans, or simply reject them out of hand. He is under no obligation to do anything with repects to the story, and we have nor right to demand anything, nor should we. But posting to forums such as this invites comment, and it cannot be expected that all of those comments will swallow any and all criticisms they might have and simply become a long list of people nodding their head and going "Good chapter *thumbs up*. Gib moar please.". Indeed, the fact that people have posted criticisms rather than simply dropping the story without comment indicates they have not abandoned the story, but still care enough to want it to continue, they merely hope it could be (in their opinion) better.
To finish then; I look forward to reading the next chapter. I do not renounce my criticisms of the previous one.
I mean, things like that would have been great earlier on. Now its just like eh. No real skills attached so no way to build off of other stuff. That the strongest part of the Forge after all, how everything stacks.
Hmmmm, so I've been thinking about the huge amount of user rage and whatnot going on and I think it might have a bit more to do with Lord's expectation management.
Just to be clear, I am actually happy with how things played out but I feel that reader expectations, including my own, were a big part in the complaints that people are leveling.
I feel like many people were fed up with March and the ABB at this point and given this was supposed to be the climax of the arc they expected the ABB group to be either wiped out or at least a non-issue going forward. For the large part that is true. Bakuda has super cancer, Oni-Lee is really fucked up and Lung is strait up dead.
As for March's fate? I feel like it should have been something we saw on screen. The whole part with her going in and slashing up Aperion's face was great for the moment but I feel like it would have made sense for her to taunt Aperion by walking over to the crashed Motoroid and talking about what was actually powering it. And then stabbed it with Sting right in front of him as his passenger gibbers in terror... only to get both gibbed and zombified by the resulting explosion. That gives Aperion the perfect come back moment. Or maybe just Joe's clone poping up a snipper position and taking one or two of them out from beyond long range with the rifle that can shoot through pretty much anything.
As for March's fate? I feel like it should have been something we saw on screen. The whole part with her going in and slashing up Aperion's face was great for the moment but I feel like it would have made sense for her to taunt Aperion by walking over to the crashed Motoroid and talking about what was actually powering it. And then stabbed it with Sting right in front of him as his passenger gibbers in terror... only to get both gibbed and zombified by the resulting explosion. That gives Aperion the perfect come back moment. Or maybe just Joe's clone poping up a snipper position and taking one or two of them out from beyond long range with the rifle that can shoot through pretty much anything.
Just to be clear, I am actually happy with how things played out but I feel that reader expectations, including my own, were a big part in the complaints that people are leveling.
Last edited:
- Location
- Up on a Hill
I haven't bothered to check the perks to see if anything like this is there, but I could imagine some form of magic working best through a wooden medium.
AntaeusTheGiant
Child of Gaea
- Location
- Lawrence, KS
- Pronouns
- Dude, bro, etc...
I don't think there's anything wrong with me discussing stuff on Discord, I don't feel like flooding the threads with back and forths and probably only ending up with a headache to show for it.
Yeah, I think we're looking at this from very different opposite sides. But I think I'm in the right here. I don't really mind some criticism, as long as it's actually criticism. I do however, get annoyed at stuff that is either objectively wrong, or just when someone is lacing their (potentially valid) criticism with toxicity. It's especially annoying when people will repeat the same criticism multiple times without the awareness to look at other posts and realize that any problems they have have already been discussed before.
Also fundamentally yes, criticism is important, but that does not make criticism immune to criticism (ironically enough). So again, I think I'm in the right in this case. I'm not sure if we can come to an understanding. You seem to be pro-criticism while I'm the more pro anti criticism.
Last edited:
Subrosian_Smithy
endless
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
The scientific method is when you decide what things are and aren't scientific. The more things you call unscientific, the better a scientist you are!
MangoFlan
Cold... I feel cold...
I have a silly thought Joe is somehow form-locked in his zoanthrope form and needed to meet his therapist.
Also, am I the only one who has some trouble with Jozef. Normally, I would read that as Yo-zef or Ho-sef, but his nickname is Joe, and therefore implies that it's pronounced Joe-zef.
I want to read Jozef as Yo-Zef as well, but I think it might be Joseph as spelled by someone who wanted their kid to be unique. I grew up with a couple of kids in my school who had wonky spellings, but I know it became a bigger thing in the early 2000's. The name Joe could also be from linguistic drift like how Rick turned into Dick or how Will turned into Bill. Everyone called 'Yo' Joe and it just stuck.
Kemayo
A Certain Cheerful Tone Of Voice
- Location
- Missouri
One of the more common failure modes for serial fiction is vocal minorities turning up and the author feeling they need to chase their feedback, even away from what the author actually likes to write -- which is presumably what brought the audience in the first place. The difficult-to-remember-in-the-moment thing is that it's generally a very small percentage of the readership that'll ever comment, so doing something that makes a vocal bunch go away is probably not going to hurt your story too much.
Anyway, you're doing great overall. Keep writing how you want to, I've been enjoying it.
I have credibility here: I was one of the first to respond to the last chapter, and my response was entirely focused on looking forward to the next chapter.
- Pronouns
- Him/Dude/That/Guy
Last edited:
- Location
- Dallas, TX
I have really been enjoying the entire story—including the somewhat maligned last chapter.
If people don't like what you're writing, they should ask for their money back. Oh wait! They're getting the story for free! Not only they getting the story for free, you are putting a tremendous amount of work into it and delivering lengthy chapters on a weekly basis.
Please write the story that you want to write; you were doing a great job at it. Don't let a small but vocal minority of people posting here make you question your work. I've seen writers here literally driven away from their own story by unreasonable and even sometimes hostile commenters. Even worse, I've seen writers go back and do extensive changes in order to please commenters, only to then lose interest the story. And who can blame them? Writing is very hard work. It's even harder if you're doing it for free for an audience but it seems impossible to please.
Thank you for the story!
If people don't like what you're writing, they should ask for their money back. Oh wait! They're getting the story for free! Not only they getting the story for free, you are putting a tremendous amount of work into it and delivering lengthy chapters on a weekly basis.
Please write the story that you want to write; you were doing a great job at it. Don't let a small but vocal minority of people posting here make you question your work. I've seen writers here literally driven away from their own story by unreasonable and even sometimes hostile commenters. Even worse, I've seen writers go back and do extensive changes in order to please commenters, only to then lose interest the story. And who can blame them? Writing is very hard work. It's even harder if you're doing it for free for an audience but it seems impossible to please.
Thank you for the story!
Last edited:
- Location
- California
I'm not very eloquent but I do want to say I love this story because of how human it feels. Joe as a person is seen throughout his entire and day and see so much of his character in day to day we can see how he would be the kind of guy to throw himself whole heartily into the super hero thing. When presented with stuff his efforts to rise to meet it bring even bigger conflict like it did to Taylor which is on brand for worm. Joe makes a good undertopdog because we see how much work and effort each invention was to him which makes the journey fun. I've never seen a tinker based story that was so dedicated to the crafting for the majority and it's from a fic that has million tech trees. I mean some fics with just one tech focus eventually just start skipping it. Honestly your writting made me change my mind on worm fics. They've honestly felt like carnival rides into a crapsack world that gets trashed or saved by OC's and AUs. But you made the city of brockton feel like a loved place and a home that Joe cares deeply about for the ppl who live there. The action is super over the top which is something I can appreciate since I'm a huge weeb.
Also wanna make a single call out. It would be a great moment if Joe's wakes up worried about March since he figured she lived and they just go, " No you killed her. No amount of thinker ability saves you from surviving several G forces" And Joe sits in his hospital chair like... wut now?
But I do understand that would undermine a lot of plot threads
Also wanna make a single call out. It would be a great moment if Joe's wakes up worried about March since he figured she lived and they just go, " No you killed her. No amount of thinker ability saves you from surviving several G forces" And Joe sits in his hospital chair like... wut now?
But I do understand that would undermine a lot of plot threads
- Location
- Elsewhere
So an interesting idea that came to me, but would people believe that the communications issues are a result of Bakuda? After all, the main effect was making Dragon's mech misss the shots at Lung, and it fits with the ABB's own actions as well.
- Location
- spain
I mean, duh!!! This story is so great? Why would you need to recover? It's not like the last chapter was bad at all.
Okay, I feel I should say something since I have been one of the people who rant-complained about March probably surviving. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the episode? Allow me to explain.
Joe is human. A human whose flaws are very clear to us, if not since the very start, at least since a significant amount of chapters ago. Of course he isn't going to leave Lung alone! Even if he wasn't the immediate threat, he's the one in front of an agonizing, momentarily irrational Joe! That isn't bad writing! The opposite, really.
Do people rant about March? Sure. She's a psycho, and an insane one, at that. She's also a Thinker, which I just don't like unless they're allies, and even then (smug gits). It would've been incredibly satisfying to see her dead. But so what? This story is the product of an amazing mind's wholehearted dedication, and it just wouldn't be the same if some randos ranting on the internet told you what to do with it.
Honestly? I like the story just as it is. I actually really enjoyed the ABB arc, and hell, even if you decided to dedicate the next chapters to finishing them off (not that Joe'd need to, they seem pretty screwed already) I'd love it. Just like I love every chapter. I'm not here for death, destruction and Kaijuu battles! (As Epic as those are) I'm here for Joe and his shanenigans, Garment and her fashion, Survey, Fleet, Tetra! I'm here for the amazing world you built, and the wonderful characters that inhabit it. So hell, even if you do end up screwing up! So what? Joe'll still be Joe. This story will still be amazing. And we'll continue loving this story, because you deserve all the love and support we can give you.
- Pronouns
- Mini Maji
Considering the amount of people shouting "critisisim" at Lord its understandable that he might need to take a break from writing, just to let the heat die down and to recharge his reserves.
- Location
- Philippines
Where did this even come from? Joe's Passenger has shown no signs of ever being anything other than being on Joe's side. Is it true that Joe's Passenger is biased in regards with his information? No doubt about it, we have plenty of WoG on it. Has it been shown to be in some degree amoral? Definitely, hence why Joe was so horrified at how blase it was to Aisha's past while also playing favorites when it came to the Undersiders. And can it be difficult to understand? Of course, regardless of what Lisa might think, Joe's Passenger has always been very hard to understand.
But time and time again, Joe's Passenger has always been on Joe's side. When it came to emotional responses, when Joe asked for it to pull back on the favoritism after the Aegislash incident, ever since then it had been muting down the effect unless Joe asked for it. Whenever Joe is in trouble, Joe's Passenger is the first to help Joe out. And most of all, despite what some might think, Joe's Passenger never intentionally sabotaged him. Unintentionally sometimes, true considering the list above especially in regards with the Undersiders, but Joe's Passenger never tried to stop Joe from making friends and allies and from trusting his secrets (even Forge related ones) with his support network.
All in all, while Joe's Passenger may be flawed, it has always been Joe's ally. There's no doubt about that.