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Flipside Discussion / Re: Intermission 30: Special Voting Thread!

« on: February 23, 2015, 11:32:44 pm »

We're in the tail of the buildup to the climax of the current arc (of which the Colosseum is but a sub-arc) and that strikes me as a very poor choice for the location of a cliffhanger.

Actually, it's a pretty good place.  A poor choice for a cliffhanger would be when a storyline has wrapped up.  Anyplace that "leaves you hanging" is by definition a good place for a cliffhanger.  Not that I mind if people would rather see Bernadette's story continue.

It is by definition a cliffhanger, but I've never been a fan of "lurch" cliffhangers. The literal cliff hanger? Those are fine because something just happened and you're anxious to see the outcome. Generally after wrapping something up, like a chase sequence or otherwise attention grabbing.
What happened here is like the getaway vehicle being spotted by the cops and freezing on the foot an inch from the gas pedal.

What I'm getting at is that it's less of an enjoyable cliff to be hanging from. Right after the bargaining would have been great, right after the fight probably will be as well. When we've wrapped up something but still have unresolved story threads to leave us wondering what will happen in the next arc that deals with these characters.

I'm interested in what is going to happen next to Maytag because we stopped at a lull in the "action" where the next actions are both obvious in direction and mysterious in scope and execution. Here it's more "there's going to be a fight". While that is fun to watch, it just strikes me as a sub-optimal place to put a cliff to be hanging from when A) The previous plot line was a bit over-extended seeming and B) there were "better" places to stop the story.

Obviously it's a matter of personal opinion, I'm just trying to help you understand why I have the opinion I do :-)

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Flipside Discussion / Re: The Criticism Thread

« on: February 20, 2015, 08:25:55 pm »

I dunno, I spent nearly the entire time in the Colosseum saying "wow Bern is useless", "when did Bern pick up the idiot ball", "oh come on the obvious choice is a... why is this still being discussed 15 pages later?" and more. There's a time for suspense, but what we got wasn't suspense, it was indecision. This entire arc has been "wait for someone to make a decision for Bern while we sit here watching paint dry". That's not compelling to read, it feels like the actual meat of the story could have fit inside half as many pages, maybe less. I normally enjoy your stories Brian, but this last arc has just been slow, dragging on interminably, and unsuspensefuly slogging along.

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Flipside Discussion / Re: Intermission 30: Special Voting Thread!

« on: February 20, 2015, 08:10:34 pm »

2. Bernadette (Colosseum Storyarc)

We're in the tail of the buildup to the climax of the current arc (of which the Colosseum is but a sub-arc) and that strikes me as a very poor choice for the location of a cliffhanger.

Maytag would be my second vote, Crest has never really interested me, and Suspira hasn't really been interesting since she killed the conclave. Plus I like worldbuilding :-p