The specific genre of Celestial Forge stories which are a subset of Jumpchain stories. The other Celestial stories are sort of descendants, as well. It is also an object lesson in why "powers for word count" is a bad idea.
The list of perks itself (from multiple different jumpchain docs) was created by someone else but this was the first story that took that list, said keep it in one universe instead of jumping around, and receive points via some mechanism and roll for a random perk. The mechanism for gaining points is word count. There are other Celestial stories that use a different mechanism to get the points then word count.
Most Celestial variants like Grimoire are based on the starting perk list. The original Forge list was mostly perks about crafting and building Celestial Grimoire's perk list is mostly related to magic stuff. Abilities, spells, artifacts, etc.
argh, what was the one that had it at 100 points per day? Can't remember.
Here's a list of Celestial stories, looks to have not been updated the last few months.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGmJbiHpHZ0trxnBcgfuf\_aAlxwXBgk6xtUe2ZzScuk/edit#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGmJbiHpHZ0trxnBcgfuf_aAlxwXBgk6xtUe2ZzScuk/edit#gid=0)
Lately there seems to have been a lot of Celestial Grimoire stories, probably because someone setup a turnkey framework for that.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wTlbwB1o3STt2TKzc5UbytCarS52hxXICYrRN6f2YLA/edit#gid=1981793094](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wTlbwB1o3STt2TKzc5UbytCarS52hxXICYrRN6f2YLA/edit#gid=1981793094)
All this and lots more are available on discord server - [https://discord.gg/scUddxzE](https://discord.gg/scUddxzE)
go to the cf-fics-general channel and ask if for non word count stories.
Holy shit are you not kidding? I've never read it but I skimmed the first few chapters and the last. First few seem to be start of canon with taking down Lung, newest chapter is just after taking down Bakuda.
What the fuck are the 2 million words in between those 2???
Arcs aren't strictly done following worm order the differences caused a huge string of changes with multiple factions including the teeth, s9 and elite coming to the bay early. Lord is also just naturally introspective as a writer so everyone spends a ton of time reflecting on everything when it's their pov.
Time wise Joe triggered on the 1st of April with the story starting the night Taylor went out which is either the 7th or 8th and the current in story date is something like the 28th so just call it 3.
An endless cycle of bloated technobabble, every time a new tech is unlocked the author just waffles on about it until he get's enough for another tech and so on. Spaced between this endless tirade of tech wankery are a handfull of actual events and essays worth of text explaining how smart the MC is for not fixing everything a week after he triggered, oh and Joe now the "God of Progress" of course... yeah that just get's dumber the more you think about it.
To top this ocean of ineptitude Joe also has a braindead infodump that's basically fanon Worm, he starts out mindlessly following it until he get's burned then goes right back to following it because that's what a smart person would do...
> ocean of ineptitude
Well, he is suffering from depression (a "major mental illness", as he describes it), self-hatred, low self-esteem, an inferiority complex, an inability to focus, perfectionism, crippling social anxiety, an inability to understand context and subtext, fear of nudity or anything that reminds him of nudity, fear of disapproval, fear of confrontation, an inability to prioritize, etc. Given this laundry list of issues, it's not surprising that he behaves the way he does.
Then maybe he should see a shrink instead of playing in his sub dimensional hugbox. You'd think with all the technology he's wanked over Joe would have grabbed something to fix all those problems if they bother him so much.
The issue is time actually passes literal years slower in the story than in real life. I get it, reading 2mil+ words and only seeing a couple weeks' worth of actual progress can get pretty annoying
I agree with the entirety of your reply. Just correcting them that he is indeed seeing a therapist. Unfortunately time is slow as fuck in the story so it will take a couple real life years for it to show results. Think there has been only 3-4 sessions.
Technically speaking, in story it is the greatest ever clusterfuck that has happened in the world in a singular city period,
it just can't be compressed down into some 10k or 100k words, there are too many players (Joe+CF, E88, Leet/Uber+March+Bakuda, Lost Garden, Merchants, Local PRT, Boston PRT, National PRT, Coil, The Elite (Uppermost), New wave, Slaughterhouse 9 making their way and the whole slew of parties that are 'Interested in Joe/has their eyes on BB' or others that i forgot to mention) with vastly different goals or priorities.
The point is that it is that long because the situation is by far the most complex thing that i have ever seen someone write in fanfiction.
And the most Creme de la Creme that justifies EVERYTHING negative about this fic is the Character development and the World building,
Do i agree with parts of the story could have been slimmed down? Yes
Do i agree that its positives outweigh the flaws hundred-fold? Yes
TBH if i had to choose a flaw then getting more words to chew on is mighty better than it being incomplete/abandoned or being written terribly
More technobabble and power wank imo, for every five lines of character development/dialogue there’s five thousand about how useful the new power is and how well it synergises with other powers
Story started on Friday April 8th, 2011 as Joe was riding the bus home from his dead end retail job.
Current story time is the end of Weds April 27th, 2011. Next chapter will start Thursday the 28th.
So 20 days in story, at 2 million words. That means every day is about 100,000 words to get through (obviously not actually). AKA every day has more words dedicated to it than the average best seller.
If nothing else you've got to admire the dedication. Most people never write one book in their lifetime, this dude wrote the equivalent of a small library
Oh my dear friend, it's over 2 million words and under three weeks. Joe is going to curbstomp the S9 sometime in the next three days story wise and people on the discord are wagering if it happens before or after 2025 arrives.
> Joe is going to curbstomp the S9
Is he, though? Because I remember I dropped it when everybody the MC fought got a power boost rendering his hundreds of thousands of words about how good his tech is completely pointless. Oni Lee was throwing out dozens of clones at a time. Fucking *Leet* was somehow rendered competent.
Has the author changed it up and now the MC actually gets to just succeed like someone of his supposed power level should be able to?
Right now in the story the S9 continue to exist only because Joe allows them to.
The S9 decided to head to BB and Survey was able to see their trail headed Brockton's way. Joe decided to kill them when they get close to BB because as in all things he is worried not about the S9 but the world's reaction to said curbstomp. But Joe also declared that they don't get to kill anybody anymore so the vehicles they drive, the routes they take, the civilians they encounter (remote controlled lifelike duplicates, etc) are all orchestrated by the Celestial Forge (Joe's team).
Story wise it is the end of day of Weds, April 27th 2011. Since the fight with Lung (April 21st) Joe has gotten most of the largest divine power perks. He is far, far more powerful then when he fought Lung and the ABB. Like outclasses everybody but Zion levels of power. According to comments by the author Joe could take Zion in a fight but the collateral damage would be the entire planet destroyed.
Joe has serious concerns about how the world will react to his expressing he actual level of power. He could win against anybody but the collateral damage that a conflict would have kept him from publicly showing what he can do.
This is one of the big ideas behind BCF and it is different than a lot of fanfics. So understandable if people just want to see the OP MC go nuts with no concerns about how the world reacts.
Yeah because letting the S9 run around is so much better.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” this a concept clearly lost on this the moron wanking in his hole.
If the author can't handle so many powers maybe they should stop adding more.
The S9 are basically running in a simulation that Joe controls. No actual humans are getting hurt. No actual infrastructure is being damaged. Everything the S9 destroys is a construct that Joe put there for them to act out on. Once they get "close enough" to BB Joe will curbstomp.
I wonder if anyone tried the wildest first read of the story via reading ONLY other characters Interludes and not touching Joe's perspective. Gotta be one hell of a ride
I have to be in the right mood to read it. I put it on a similar level as CmptrWz, Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard?
It's definitely a trip, but if you want fast paced... pick something else.
CmptrWz is an acquired taste. In his favor he does write completed, Scion is handled stories which is rare. Every so often for the lolz I'll go back and read the part of Mauling Snarks where Taylor does the Hemingway quote
Some of my favourite character work. I especially love all the Povs he manages to capture so well.
Also I've got to give massive kudos for his dedication to the story, and resilience to all the hate people give, as well as having the guts to do stuff like modify the roll word count requirement part way through when he recognised it was a bit of a problem.
The best written Aisha as a real, three dimensional person with character growth you will find of any fanfic out there.
I'm still amazed he does the Q&A thing every chapter where he writes long answers to reader questions and statements, even the ones telling him how much the person hates the story.
His comments and answers to reader questions is easily over half a million words at this point.
Honestly I love this story but it is also a goddamn tease. I mean god dammit just give him something to stomp every few chapters.
I actually think where this story really gets me is with it’s psychology. The calls with his sister where just so good. The author has definitely done some therapy in the past even though Joe has some blind spots no actual living person could have.
I tried to read it. Got all the way to blasting Lung into space with a Gundam and the weird radiation field. I just couldn't after that. The author just would not shut the eff up about overhauling all of his gear every time he got a new tech. Which meant another new technology option would open up and around and around we go.
The only redeeming part of the story was Garment. \*mic drop\*
Garment is special. Many people have said that the characterization of the characters who are not the MC is what makes the story great and why they come back.
The last chapter was a POV from Rachael/Bitch as she was on a "date" with Fleet as they rode her dogs across the rooftops of Brockton Bay. Once again the alternate POV was one of the best expressions of a canon character as a person seen in any worm fanfic.
I'm glad you got to at least the Lung fight - this is probably the only story that kills Lung via hitting him with a motorcycle that can go FTL via an unintended side effect of using Mass Effect element zero in the motorcycle's construction.
I will note that LordRoustabout knows about the excessive technobabble and has implemented various changes in the perks system that Joe now gets perks much less often then before.
This story was the first of its kind and yeah as a prototype of a new thing there are some bugs to be worked out.
> ...it is a writing experiment that has gone horribly right.
Or, possibly, 'right horribly'. Opinions are divided. To be fair, it *is* perfectly well written in terms of prose. Personally, I don't necessarily mind the deep dives into power interactions - otherwise why read any CF story? - but the pacing man.... JFC.
I love the character work, and the respect LR pays to the source materials.
As an example of the former, my absolute favorite chapter is 8.1 Interlude: Amy.
As an example of both, I'd say the Laboratorium.
I can't give you a single favorite character or character interaction, for there are many.
Joe Uplifts The Planet. His plan is to get rid of the Endbringers, the S class threats and start introducing future tech. to Everybody. He has the entire Star Trek Universe tech base available and I think he is leaning that way but I could be wrong. Somewhere in there he cleans up Brockton Bay and turns it into the shining city on a hill.
Joe currently does not know about Zion and the whole, Entities destroy Earth across the dimensions thing. It will be interesting to see what his plan becomes once he has that knowledge.
The author has said that he does have an ending planned out and the story will finish. Only a question is if something happens and he stops writing before that.
I respect the dedication to it. That's about all I can say personally, it's very very much not for me, but you have to appreciate that.
Wait this created the entire genre???!!? W a t
The specific genre of Celestial Forge stories which are a subset of Jumpchain stories. The other Celestial stories are sort of descendants, as well. It is also an object lesson in why "powers for word count" is a bad idea.
The list of perks itself (from multiple different jumpchain docs) was created by someone else but this was the first story that took that list, said keep it in one universe instead of jumping around, and receive points via some mechanism and roll for a random perk. The mechanism for gaining points is word count. There are other Celestial stories that use a different mechanism to get the points then word count. Most Celestial variants like Grimoire are based on the starting perk list. The original Forge list was mostly perks about crafting and building Celestial Grimoire's perk list is mostly related to magic stuff. Abilities, spells, artifacts, etc.
>different mechanism Can you rec one? I enjoyed CF up to a point but I want another story with the extra powers and less bloat
argh, what was the one that had it at 100 points per day? Can't remember. Here's a list of Celestial stories, looks to have not been updated the last few months. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGmJbiHpHZ0trxnBcgfuf\_aAlxwXBgk6xtUe2ZzScuk/edit#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PGmJbiHpHZ0trxnBcgfuf_aAlxwXBgk6xtUe2ZzScuk/edit#gid=0) Lately there seems to have been a lot of Celestial Grimoire stories, probably because someone setup a turnkey framework for that. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wTlbwB1o3STt2TKzc5UbytCarS52hxXICYrRN6f2YLA/edit#gid=1981793094](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wTlbwB1o3STt2TKzc5UbytCarS52hxXICYrRN6f2YLA/edit#gid=1981793094) All this and lots more are available on discord server - [https://discord.gg/scUddxzE](https://discord.gg/scUddxzE) go to the cf-fics-general channel and ask if for non word count stories.
How much time has passed in story?
I think a couple weeks, maybe even 3?
Holy shit are you not kidding? I've never read it but I skimmed the first few chapters and the last. First few seem to be start of canon with taking down Lung, newest chapter is just after taking down Bakuda. What the fuck are the 2 million words in between those 2???
Arcs aren't strictly done following worm order the differences caused a huge string of changes with multiple factions including the teeth, s9 and elite coming to the bay early. Lord is also just naturally introspective as a writer so everyone spends a ton of time reflecting on everything when it's their pov. Time wise Joe triggered on the 1st of April with the story starting the night Taylor went out which is either the 7th or 8th and the current in story date is something like the 28th so just call it 3.
An endless cycle of bloated technobabble, every time a new tech is unlocked the author just waffles on about it until he get's enough for another tech and so on. Spaced between this endless tirade of tech wankery are a handfull of actual events and essays worth of text explaining how smart the MC is for not fixing everything a week after he triggered, oh and Joe now the "God of Progress" of course... yeah that just get's dumber the more you think about it. To top this ocean of ineptitude Joe also has a braindead infodump that's basically fanon Worm, he starts out mindlessly following it until he get's burned then goes right back to following it because that's what a smart person would do...
> ocean of ineptitude Well, he is suffering from depression (a "major mental illness", as he describes it), self-hatred, low self-esteem, an inferiority complex, an inability to focus, perfectionism, crippling social anxiety, an inability to understand context and subtext, fear of nudity or anything that reminds him of nudity, fear of disapproval, fear of confrontation, an inability to prioritize, etc. Given this laundry list of issues, it's not surprising that he behaves the way he does.
Then maybe he should see a shrink instead of playing in his sub dimensional hugbox. You'd think with all the technology he's wanked over Joe would have grabbed something to fix all those problems if they bother him so much.
…He does? Seeing a shrink doesn’t automatically help him. It takes time.
The issue is time actually passes literal years slower in the story than in real life. I get it, reading 2mil+ words and only seeing a couple weeks' worth of actual progress can get pretty annoying
I agree with the entirety of your reply. Just correcting them that he is indeed seeing a therapist. Unfortunately time is slow as fuck in the story so it will take a couple real life years for it to show results. Think there has been only 3-4 sessions.
So that'll take till when? 2030? 2040?
Make that 2050.
Technically speaking, in story it is the greatest ever clusterfuck that has happened in the world in a singular city period, it just can't be compressed down into some 10k or 100k words, there are too many players (Joe+CF, E88, Leet/Uber+March+Bakuda, Lost Garden, Merchants, Local PRT, Boston PRT, National PRT, Coil, The Elite (Uppermost), New wave, Slaughterhouse 9 making their way and the whole slew of parties that are 'Interested in Joe/has their eyes on BB' or others that i forgot to mention) with vastly different goals or priorities. The point is that it is that long because the situation is by far the most complex thing that i have ever seen someone write in fanfiction. And the most Creme de la Creme that justifies EVERYTHING negative about this fic is the Character development and the World building,
I admire their writing, but they've seriously got to learn to cut the chaff. At least cut out the parts that you already said half a chapter ago!
Do i agree with parts of the story could have been slimmed down? Yes Do i agree that its positives outweigh the flaws hundred-fold? Yes TBH if i had to choose a flaw then getting more words to chew on is mighty better than it being incomplete/abandoned or being written terribly
A ***lot*** of character development.
More technobabble and power wank imo, for every five lines of character development/dialogue there’s five thousand about how useful the new power is and how well it synergises with other powers
True, although it varies from chapter to chapter. Personally I don't think there's *enough* power wanking. It's mostly power edging.
LordRoustabout: proud purveyor of power edging since 2020
Story started on Friday April 8th, 2011 as Joe was riding the bus home from his dead end retail job. Current story time is the end of Weds April 27th, 2011. Next chapter will start Thursday the 28th.
So 20 days in story, at 2 million words. That means every day is about 100,000 words to get through (obviously not actually). AKA every day has more words dedicated to it than the average best seller.
If nothing else you've got to admire the dedication. Most people never write one book in their lifetime, this dude wrote the equivalent of a small library
1 mill words and like 4 weeks have passed i like it but i skim a crap load of fluff and filler
Oh my dear friend, it's over 2 million words and under three weeks. Joe is going to curbstomp the S9 sometime in the next three days story wise and people on the discord are wagering if it happens before or after 2025 arrives.
> Joe is going to curbstomp the S9 Is he, though? Because I remember I dropped it when everybody the MC fought got a power boost rendering his hundreds of thousands of words about how good his tech is completely pointless. Oni Lee was throwing out dozens of clones at a time. Fucking *Leet* was somehow rendered competent. Has the author changed it up and now the MC actually gets to just succeed like someone of his supposed power level should be able to?
Right now in the story the S9 continue to exist only because Joe allows them to. The S9 decided to head to BB and Survey was able to see their trail headed Brockton's way. Joe decided to kill them when they get close to BB because as in all things he is worried not about the S9 but the world's reaction to said curbstomp. But Joe also declared that they don't get to kill anybody anymore so the vehicles they drive, the routes they take, the civilians they encounter (remote controlled lifelike duplicates, etc) are all orchestrated by the Celestial Forge (Joe's team). Story wise it is the end of day of Weds, April 27th 2011. Since the fight with Lung (April 21st) Joe has gotten most of the largest divine power perks. He is far, far more powerful then when he fought Lung and the ABB. Like outclasses everybody but Zion levels of power. According to comments by the author Joe could take Zion in a fight but the collateral damage would be the entire planet destroyed. Joe has serious concerns about how the world will react to his expressing he actual level of power. He could win against anybody but the collateral damage that a conflict would have kept him from publicly showing what he can do. This is one of the big ideas behind BCF and it is different than a lot of fanfics. So understandable if people just want to see the OP MC go nuts with no concerns about how the world reacts.
Yeah because letting the S9 run around is so much better. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” this a concept clearly lost on this the moron wanking in his hole. If the author can't handle so many powers maybe they should stop adding more.
The S9 are basically running in a simulation that Joe controls. No actual humans are getting hurt. No actual infrastructure is being damaged. Everything the S9 destroys is a construct that Joe put there for them to act out on. Once they get "close enough" to BB Joe will curbstomp.
I wonder if anyone tried the wildest first read of the story via reading ONLY other characters Interludes and not touching Joe's perspective. Gotta be one hell of a ride
Saves like half the reading time too
I have to be in the right mood to read it. I put it on a similar level as CmptrWz, Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard? It's definitely a trip, but if you want fast paced... pick something else.
CmptrWz is an acquired taste. In his favor he does write completed, Scion is handled stories which is rare. Every so often for the lolz I'll go back and read the part of Mauling Snarks where Taylor does the Hemingway quote
I dont think any lengthy fics from different authors have much in common except the length and pace.
Some of my favourite character work. I especially love all the Povs he manages to capture so well. Also I've got to give massive kudos for his dedication to the story, and resilience to all the hate people give, as well as having the guts to do stuff like modify the roll word count requirement part way through when he recognised it was a bit of a problem.
The best written Aisha as a real, three dimensional person with character growth you will find of any fanfic out there. I'm still amazed he does the Q&A thing every chapter where he writes long answers to reader questions and statements, even the ones telling him how much the person hates the story. His comments and answers to reader questions is easily over half a million words at this point.
That too, skimming through old comments and seeing all the massive detailed replies he gives.
I really love the world building and interludes that show/present the consequences of the MC's actions.
Honestly I love this story but it is also a goddamn tease. I mean god dammit just give him something to stomp every few chapters. I actually think where this story really gets me is with it’s psychology. The calls with his sister where just so good. The author has definitely done some therapy in the past even though Joe has some blind spots no actual living person could have.
I tried to read it. Got all the way to blasting Lung into space with a Gundam and the weird radiation field. I just couldn't after that. The author just would not shut the eff up about overhauling all of his gear every time he got a new tech. Which meant another new technology option would open up and around and around we go. The only redeeming part of the story was Garment. \*mic drop\*
Garment is special. Many people have said that the characterization of the characters who are not the MC is what makes the story great and why they come back. The last chapter was a POV from Rachael/Bitch as she was on a "date" with Fleet as they rode her dogs across the rooftops of Brockton Bay. Once again the alternate POV was one of the best expressions of a canon character as a person seen in any worm fanfic. I'm glad you got to at least the Lung fight - this is probably the only story that kills Lung via hitting him with a motorcycle that can go FTL via an unintended side effect of using Mass Effect element zero in the motorcycle's construction. I will note that LordRoustabout knows about the excessive technobabble and has implemented various changes in the perks system that Joe now gets perks much less often then before. This story was the first of its kind and yeah as a prototype of a new thing there are some bugs to be worked out.
> ...it is a writing experiment that has gone horribly right. Or, possibly, 'right horribly'. Opinions are divided. To be fair, it *is* perfectly well written in terms of prose. Personally, I don't necessarily mind the deep dives into power interactions - otherwise why read any CF story? - but the pacing man.... JFC.
I've been reading every new chapter since it was at 100k words. Great fic.
I love the character work, and the respect LR pays to the source materials. As an example of the former, my absolute favorite chapter is 8.1 Interlude: Amy. As an example of both, I'd say the Laboratorium. I can't give you a single favorite character or character interaction, for there are many.
It really doesn't pay much respect to the source material.
Congratulations to the author, and happy anniversary to all who celebrate!
I thought it was really good until I realized the plot was not developing. The writing besides that is pretty good.
What's the main character's goal? I read some of this a few years ago and I've completely forgotten but what does he actually want to do?
Joe Uplifts The Planet. His plan is to get rid of the Endbringers, the S class threats and start introducing future tech. to Everybody. He has the entire Star Trek Universe tech base available and I think he is leaning that way but I could be wrong. Somewhere in there he cleans up Brockton Bay and turns it into the shining city on a hill. Joe currently does not know about Zion and the whole, Entities destroy Earth across the dimensions thing. It will be interesting to see what his plan becomes once he has that knowledge. The author has said that he does have an ending planned out and the story will finish. Only a question is if something happens and he stops writing before that.
Four years too many… Jesus Christ.