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Jacob Harrison’s version of Parallel Hero

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Bastethotep:

--- Quote ---Michael Ferrari
--- End quote ---
Wasn't the Prime Minister's name Michael Romano in chapter 8?
Also, I see what you did there.


--- Quote ---“They will not think that the antichrist is the antichrist, because they will think that someone else is. The Prime Minister Michael Ferrari is a secret agent of the old gods, will soon seize power in the west. He will restore Roman paganism. He is the Nero that Saint Martin of Tours prophesied about and who Hercules mentioned.

The Antichrist who will first seize power in the east will offer the panacea to Emperor Michael’s followers to get them to defect to his side. Michael will therefore perish at the hands of the Antichrist, and so the Christians who were deceived that Michael was the Antichrist will think that the actual Antichrist is a man of God.

The last obstacle to Christians being deceived is the papacy. After you kill Pope Peter III, the cardinals will elect a new pope. Then as prophesied by Saint Hildegard, a cardinal allied with the Antichrist will kill the pope. When the other cardinals elect the next pope, he will proclaim himself to be antipope and 2/3 of Christians will be deceived that he is the true pope.
--- End quote ---
That's rather convoluted.


--- Quote ---The Antichrist will claim that Jesus is not the son of God but he is. The antipope will also declare that.
--- End quote ---
Do you mean that the antipope will declare that the Antichrist is the son of God, or that the antipope will declare himself son of God?
Also, no one (or at least no significant amount of people) would believe him. Would it not make more sense to pretend that the Antichrist is, in fact, Jesus?


--- Quote ---Saints Jacob Harrison I and Pomme
--- End quote ---
Wait, when did Pomme become a saint? How did she earn sainthood? The only things she has done in this story is being Jacob Harrison's wife for nine months, giving birth to Jacob Harrison Jr and dying immediately afterwards!


--- Quote ---“After King Arthur was wounded in his battle with Mordred and was taken here, the ladies gave him a medicine which prolonged his life. It is in his body. The medicine’s healing power will increase significantly and grant immortality if you sacrifice him with the spear Yggdrasoil, and mix his blood with a sample of the corpse.”

So Jacob III, Anne, and Tamerin helped dig up King Arthur’s grave. They then lied that there is an important divine message to the Pope in Glastonbury. As Jacob III and Anne were previously devout Christians, the 100 year old Pope believed that lie and so went to Glastonbury.

There Tamerin allowed Jacob III to use Yggdrasoil to kill the Pope. And so, they created the panacea.
--- End quote ---
The wording here is rather confusing.

To be continued...

Bastethotep:

--- Quote ---After Pope Peter III was slain, Pope Peter IV was elected and he was killed by Cardinal Ahmet Osman, a former Turkish soldier who formed an alliance with the Antichrist. When Pope Peter V was elected by the Cardinals, Ahmet lied that he was previously elected and that Peter V was the antipope. Antipope Ahmed went under the name Pope Moses. 2/3 of Christians accepted him as the Pope.
--- End quote ---
1. Jacob Harrison I-III, Popes Peter II-V... are you allergic to having some variety between names?
2. Is it Ahmet or Ahmad? Turkish uses the Latin alphabet, so you cannot even use "different transcriptions" as an excuse. (The Turkish version would be Ahmet, by the way)
3. What, yet another Turkish villain?


--- Quote ---The new Nero, Michael Ferrari perished at the hands of the antichrist and Jupiter and his relatives allied with him were killed by the old gods allied with Lucifer.

The Antichrist claimed to be the Messiah and Son of God. As foretold in prophecy, he tortured Christians with such an extremity of barbarity, with all the old and newly invented instruments of pain, as to exceed all past persecutors of the Church combined as an attempt to force them to renounce Christ. But the Christians refused to give up their faith.

During the 3 1/2 years of his reign, God sent Henoch and Elias down from heaven to help the Christians and to expose the Antichrist’s deception.

Meanwhile, Jacob Harrison III and Lilith fell in love. Saints Jacob Harrison I and Pomme continued to pray for the repentance of Jacob III and Anne.

The Antichrist eventually had Henoch and Elias put to death. However 3 1/2 days later, they risen from the dead and there was an earthquake that partially destroyed Jerusalem. They ascended into heaven. This converted many.
--- End quote ---
The Apocalype is mighty dull.


--- Quote ---Tamerin looked into the eyes of the Pope and realized the Pope looked more honest. Jacob III and Anne suddenly thought that this is their chance of repentance that their father and grandparents hoped for.
--- End quote ---
Deus ex machina redemption. Yay.


--- Quote ---They turned against Lilith. A large inky mass of darkness exploded out from underneath her and she coldly pronounced,

“You traitors will face my power!”

Like in the battle with Pales, Jacob III used Arondight to cause the black mist to rush right back at her. She dropped dead.

The black mass absorbed by Jacob  III, Anne, and Tamerin caused them to collapse. Before they died, Pope Peter V forgave them of their sins. They went to purgatory to do penance. This event caused many to convert.
--- End quote ---
That was anticlimatic.


--- Quote ---The Antichrist said that he will ascend to heaven to bring down Henoch and Elias. And so he did. And as told in prophecy, he got struck down by the Archangel Michael. Lucifer was defeated soon after.

This caused many to come to their senses. There was a period where humans were given a last chance to do penance. In this period came the 7 bowls of God’s wrath. Finally Christ returned again and judged every human. The righteous entered paradise and the wicked were damned to an eternity in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.
--- End quote ---
This is even more dull than the rest of the chapter. Which really is a disservice to the Revelation of John and its epic and evocative imagery.

Bastethotep:
To be nice, I will admit that your writing has improved from your first stories.

However, that is a pretty low bar to clear.

Story Telling:
Your storytelling abilities are profoundly lacking. You seem to have no grasp on tension or narrative flow - it is nothing but a lifeless series of events without depth. World-changing events, such as two World Wars and the events of the End Time are rushed over in one threadbare paragraph or two. The exposition is hamfistedly shoehorned into the dialogue.

Characterisation:
Characterisation is extremely weak, especially in the human characters. Any form of character "development" takes the form of a sudden and radical change, at times due to stimuli that seem altogether insufficient for such a response. Furthermore, the characters are very lacking in depth, and indeed do not seem to have barely any personality or motivation of their own, being exchangeable and obviously just doing what the plot demands. Even the motive rants of Hercules and Lillith feel tacked-on to serve as strawmen, whereas their actual motivation seems to be "being Evil". There is very little nuance, and what little nuance there is appears to be entirely unintentional, caused by your own rather skewed perception of right and wrong.

I also note that there are... issues in your treatment of women in your story.
Pomme neither says nor does anything outside of her function as your wife or Jacob Jr's mother. Indeed, the only thing of any significance she does is giving birth to Jacob Harrison Jr., who is in himself a fairly minor and indirectly significant character, although even he still manages to have more impact despite less screen time. In the last few mentions, she does not even appear to be an individual anymore, but a dual entity consisting of her and her husband.
Anne is an even more superfluous character. She takes no action of her own, and her very few lines could just as well be given to Jacob. She is presented as a nun and faith healer, but these are informed attributes - at no point does she demonstrate any special connection to God or heal anyone.
Worst of all is Jacob Jr.'s wife/Anne and Jacob III's mother, who does not even get a name, let alone an actual appearence.

Your author avatar is a blatant Mary Sue. If your intention with killing yourself off early was an attempt to hide this self-aggrandisement, it backfired, as you had yourself declared a Saint and greatly influenced event even in and indeed beyond dead. The fact that both the heir to the throne and the protagonist are your off-spring bearing your name does not help against this perception, either.

Style:
Your style is extremely bland and boring. Beige prose is rampant, and everyone speaks in the same unrealistic voice.

Plagiarism:
Every good thing that could be considered positive is not your own, but the chapters you have copied nearly in their entirity with nary a change safe for replacing the protagonist's name and decapitalising "Old Gods" (on that, see my commentary in chapter 5) from Niam. And the few times you actually changed a few things, your beige prose and corny dialogue becomes all the more apparent in contrast to Niam's writing.

Conclusion:
I think the revelation that the Pope was Jacob's executioner could be interesting if handled by a more capable writer. In particular, this could be a good opportunity to flesh out Anne. Maybe, have her, as a nun, stay more loyal and defensive, if not necessarily towards Aksakallı - although she might argue that he is a changed man now -, then towards God and the Church, in conflict to a Jacob III instantly consumed with rage and desire for vengeance. But by all means, this does not mean she could not ultimately be turned around as well; indeed, for her who had sworn her life to the Church, this crisis of faith would be even more profound than for Jacob.

But, to be brutally honest: You are entirely untalented in every aspect of writing and probably should just give up for good.

Bastethotep:
Oh, look what I've found!



--- Quote from: Jacob Harrison Today at 8:38 AM ---Since you broke your promise, I had to sockpuppet and post the story. I am really angry that you didn’t keep your promise! How can I trust you?

I told you that if you post my story, you will get to choose our honeymoon. Well since you broke your promise, I will now be the one who will choose!
--- End quote ---

(archived)

Sigmaleph:

--- Quote from: davedan on July 14, 2019, 10:02:38 pm ---Why do you hate fun Sigma?

--- End quote ---

Oh, the usual reasons, soul shrivelled to a husk because it's held apart from the divine light and now I despise joy.

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