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Tollymain posted:Well, Blake is currently trying to unseat an Incarnation while fending off both an alliance of local cabals and several generations worth of literal bad karma and still having the barest clue what he's doing. I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem tepid or boring to me It's not boring, but I can't say it feels awesome yet. I mean, it's a different genre and obviously Superheroes crank up the action, but Pact so far has gotten two "oh poo poo" moments from me, while Worm I get like three each chapter. Again, Pact is cool, the problem is mine and the fact that I can't separate it from Worm yet. I guess I just needed more Worm...
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Apr 10, 2014 09:32
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By this time in Worm, Taylor and the gang had barely got things started, so I'd say the pace is about right.
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Apr 10, 2014 09:56
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Worm its a different story if it's a tragedy but that doesn't make it any less hopeful for folks generally. The idea that a person could choose to do good in the face of the world being such a jerk to her is, I think, a nice, warm fuzzy idea even if it's also a sad one. That would, I think, fit with the story. That said, it wasn't the story and instead it's a story about doing good even though the world is a jerk and hey maybe it's not a fairy tale ending but it's still a happy ending. Pact from 2.6 with the lawyer: 1. "Do you know where you want to be for the rest of your life? The kind of place you would make your home? The kind of place that is as comfortable with you as you are with it? Find a Demesnes. Fight for it, and if you’ve picked the right place, that fight won’t be so hard. 2. Do you know the company you’re willing to keep? You need to know who you are to know who or what you might spend the rest of your life with. Do you have interests? A passion? Find an Other in keeping with those ideas, and make them your Familiar. 3. “Then it’s a question of direction, of focus, figuring out how you’ll address the situation you’re in, how you address any situation. A cup, a container, to store power?” “A weapon, to fight back?” “A defensive object? A symbolic one? A personal one?” Kid ninja seems to be where he's going with familiar. I have no idea on demesnes because it seems to be all about his friends and not a space. It's tough for the story to center on the house if that's not where his demesnes is but I could see it ending up in Toronto and Podunk being just the first step on the way to [big bad thing we're not even aware is bad - it's god isn't it? Blake is going to kill god.]. For implement, he seems most comfortable with tools so maybe a hammer? Also, if you've re-read the grandma diaries interlude, anyone else think that the bad other her boarding school pals unleashed is the thing (75 years later) that Blake has to go after in the warehouse? Edit: it's convenient if this is a lie. “I can’t lie, Blake Thorburn,” Ms. Lewis told me. The words were uncomfortable, heavy, and they took the wind out of me. Is there anywhere else that indicates that others can't lie? I thought that was only practitioners? builds character fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Apr 10, 2014 |
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Apr 10, 2014 14:03
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These are all spoilered Pact speculation. Didn't know whether to keep them spoiled, so I'm erring on the safe side.builds character posted:
That seems like kind of an unfortunate choice, after the Black Lambs Blood update.
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Apr 10, 2014 17:49
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So is Pact starting to pick up then? I stopped reading when he left for Toronto. It just felt like the entire plot was him stumbling into some bullshit magic rule that neither he nor the audience had any way of predicting, over and over again. Has he gained some measure of control over his environment yet? Or is it still this but with wizards?
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Apr 10, 2014 20:02
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Cryophage posted:It just felt like the entire plot was him stumbling into some bullshit magic rule that neither he nor the audience had any way of predicting, over and over again. Clearly you're not a grad student. What Blake is experiencing has pretty much been my life in grad school, but with slightly less mortal danger to me or my eternal soul.
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Apr 10, 2014 20:14
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RE: Blake's choice of tool. As long as Rose is in the picture, I'm expecting him to end up with a mirror.
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Apr 10, 2014 20:23
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Boy do I wish Rose would stay out of the picture for a good while longer. Blake is so much more interesting alone don't you think?
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Apr 10, 2014 21:24
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I think our Leviathan moment for Pact will be when one of the really hosed up demons that have been hinted on gets released. I mean up until now all the demons we have seen have been really low tier ones.Affi posted:Boy do I wish Rose would stay out of the picture for a good while longer. Blake is so much more interesting alone don't you think? I have to agree these past updates have done a lot for me regarding Blake’s character.
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Apr 10, 2014 22:53
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The problem for me is that it's doing that thing where the hero is constantly getting poo poo on, and when he/her gain an advantage it's small or lost right away. Boy, does that get tiring after the 56th time it happens. It'd be like if Harry Dresden did not get to use the super powers of being (Changes Spoilers)the winter knight, even after going though hell before and after getting them. It's much more interesting when power and suffering are balanced.
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Apr 11, 2014 02:06
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But... Blake is still just starting out man. For how long he's been up to this, he is blazing ahead of the curve. He's dealt with at most a Dresden novel's-worth of poo poo? If you compare his progress to Dresden from one book to the next, he's grown more.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:52
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Yeah, butCryophage posted:It just felt like the entire plot was him stumbling into some bullshit magic rule that neither he nor the audience had any way of predicting, over and over again. It feels like we're missing a few arcs of character and setting building before what's happening now. Atlhough I honestly think that the main factor in this is Rose, since she brings the exposition and rules-lawyering but does nothing interesting (besides be the current lady-in-peril) while taking a lot of Blake's protagonism. Now, we also get Evan as another character to take the focus away from Blake. The undersiders always felt like secondary characters to Skitter, but right now Blake's character and role is constantly overshadowed by Rose. Hopefuly we'll hit that Leviathan-moment soon. I'm guessing we'll start to see some paralel realities, and the Others really need a lot more protagonism besides "horrible monster".
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Apr 11, 2014 08:05
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Reminder: Leviathan was arc 8 of Worm, if I recall correctly. We are just into arc 5 of Pact, though the updates are much longer than they were in Worm at this point. Personally, I'm expecting big things from the end of this arc.
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Apr 11, 2014 14:00
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Personally I think Pact is a LOT better then Worm was at this point. Which bodes well. Re-read Worm too, the ending does seem a bit disconnected from the rest of the series, though it is still immensely entertaining. I can't write to get my hands on the re-write/published version once it comes out, hope it will come out as one giant e-book - I'd be willing to pay a lot for that.
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Apr 11, 2014 15:20
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I would just like to say that the eternally making GBS threads ghost was a nice touch.
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Apr 11, 2014 15:26
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Virigoth posted:I would just like to say that the eternally making GBS threads ghost was a nice touch. I would never in a billion years want him to catch up to me and for me to die making GBS threads myself inside-out.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:26
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TheRagamuffin posted:These are all spoilered Pact speculation. Didn't know whether to keep them spoiled, so I'm erring on the safe side. Hah! That was metaphorical. i like a hammer more than a mirror for him because it's supposed to be something he's comfortable with but I'm not sure the hammer is best just because he always talks about being handy and it'd be a useful thing symbolically because it's made for patching things up/building and can be used for smashing poo poo in a pinch but we've seen him use a lot of non-hammer tools. Just never a hammer. Cryophage posted:So is Pact starting to pick up then? I stopped reading when he left for Toronto. I'm re-reading and on another look it's all quite consistent and there are neat throwbacks and internal references and the rules actually seem pretty clear. I do agree that karma sucks but if you re-read the section before leaving Toronto he's actually doing pretty well considering what he has and what he's up against. Karma only really screws with him a couple of times and it's pretty minor. SystemLogoff posted:The problem for me is that it's doing that thing where the hero is constantly getting poo poo on, and when he/her gain an advantage it's small or lost right away. Boy, does that get tiring after the 56th time it happens. this looks a lot different to me the second time around. I don't know why that is other than I was wrong before and you are wrong now. Obviously.  Grandma starts out with the compliment that he reminds her of her pops. Then Molly dies and he makes it to the house instead of freezing to death even though he gets attacked by weird forhghbeoldd when he's just a regular dude. Then laird tricks him and rose fast talks him home. He awakens, threatens everyone, hits back at laird once, beats a duelist faerie in a duel, gets access to a demon that put the stars in the sky, makes sort of friends with goblin queen and nature girl, infiltrates and disrupts the behavior-Duchamp ritual and gets strike 2 vs laird while destroying a bunch of super valuable stuff in his escape. He's also a natural at glamour. He's getting kicked a lot but based on where he started he's actually doing really well even without going up against terrible karma. And the little ghost ninja is still awesome.
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Apr 12, 2014 02:35
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Latest Pact is up. I said earlier that I think Rose has the potential to be a better diabolist than Blake, but that was more a comment on Blake basically refusing to walk down that road. He has a steel in him that will stop him from taking the easy path that was mentioned in Black Lamb's Blood. Anyone else basically thinking Blake is one of those rare geniuses mentioned earlier? The Sorcerer of the North End might be similar. His grandmother, to keep in mind, was simply considered very capable. He seems good at intuiting things considering how very little he knows. eta: Also... uhhhh... I think Duncan literally paid with a portion of his life, his time living, with that. We see Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis there it seems. I might be misinterpreting that though, but with three women of very different ages holding some string, that's what comes to mind. SerSpook fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 05:52
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Well he's a member of the local art community, and magic in Pact literally runs on bullshit and symbolism. When they were talking about Laird's watch in the first arc he said as much.quote:“It’s symbolic,” I said. I watched Laird order his coffee. “Abstract. I can work with that. I’ve spent enough time around artists, I think I can do rear end-pull interpretations.”
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Apr 12, 2014 06:05
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Who was it who said it seems like all Blake's successes get immediately reset? I didn't believe you at first but holy poo poo that last update was almost prophetic.
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Apr 12, 2014 06:51
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This was a frustrating chapter to read, and it was a great chapter because of it. We got to see Blake use what little power he's gained so far to secure a legitimate, crushing victory, despite all of the preparations arrayed against him. He proved that all of his victories up until now haven't been luck, but skill, and that he can go toe-to-toe with another practitioner in a fair fight and win. And then Officer Belhaim demonstrates that it never really was a fair fight to begin with and resets everything, and now we go back to Blake the scrappy, half-dead underdog barely scraping success out of failure. This chapter sold me on the series.
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Apr 12, 2014 08:46
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So, is he a fugitive now?
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Apr 12, 2014 11:19
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I fuckin' fist pumped when Rose came back. Chapter owns Also, Weaver Dice  I'm guessing that's the game Taylor played with the schoolkids before the fight with Behemoth.
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Apr 12, 2014 11:45
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Fellwenner posted:So, is he a fugitive now? I hope not. He may just want to mess with Duncan and/or sabotage the ritual. Having a spell with that power blow up in Duncan's face with so many witnesses would be pretty awesome.
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Apr 12, 2014 12:43
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That was a great chapter. It felt a lot less like being crapped on for wining. Which is silly considering the groundhog day loop.]
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Apr 12, 2014 23:19
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Question about Pact: are there rules about exposing non-practitioners to magic? 'Cause Duncan's little stunt seems to have potentially exposed a shitton of people to a very obvious ritual, unless I misread the chapter. Aside from the whole "day resets so they don't remember" thing. Such a cop-out.
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Apr 13, 2014 01:34
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I was actually kinda pissed at the ending there but really I cant be unhappy at writing that is engaging enough to warrant that sort of response.
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Apr 13, 2014 02:35
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I just got around to catching up to The Solstice War. I think it's a pretty good read, I suggest you check it out if you like non-"standard fantasy", military history, and/or queer lit.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:57
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Tollymain posted:I just got around to catching up to The Solstice War. I think it's a pretty good read, I suggest you check it out if you like non-"standard fantasy", military history, and/or queer lit. So I like the first two things you compared it to, but have never heard of "queer lit." What exactly is that?
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Apr 13, 2014 07:04
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Grouchy Fish posted:So I like the first two things you compared it to, but have never heard of "queer lit." What exactly is that? It has a gay character.
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Apr 13, 2014 08:04
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Queer literature. It has a trans character and at least five nonheterosexual ones.
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Apr 13, 2014 08:05
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Tollymain posted:Queer literature. It has a trans character and at least five nonheterosexual ones. So Pact is queer lit?
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Apr 13, 2014 09:21
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Nah, it's a story about a white straight cis male protagonist dealing with magic shite, there's no exploration of queerness/queer issues going on the story(which is the real qualifier for "is it queer lit?" in my opinion). Also to be clear this doesn't make Pact a better or worse story for it in my opinion. Fake Edit: to be clear, I wasn't counting the characters as like, story cred or anything, just correcting the poster above me like a goony goon goonlord 
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Apr 13, 2014 10:17
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Grundulum posted:Question about Pact: are there rules about exposing non-practitioners to magic? 'Cause Duncan's little stunt seems to have potentially exposed a shitton of people to a very obvious ritual, unless I misread the chapter. Aside from the whole "day resets so they don't remember" thing. Such a cop-out. Yes. If they are exposed to the reality of the world and something happens to them you are explicitly on the hook. Presumably if they freak out and start burning witches your karma suffers then too.
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Apr 13, 2014 12:00
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DarkCrawler posted:Personally I think Pact is a LOT better then Worm was at this point. Which bodes well. Worm started to lose me when we got the Passenger Interludes and all the head bending weirdness it entailed. It started the move away from a heavy focus on Characters to an ongoing 'Big fight with people we don't care about' and an ending arc that just got outright silly and almost unreadable to boot. Worm always had a huge cast but the ending is where we finally got introduced to characters that seem completely throw away and don't feel as fleshed out as the ones from the rest of Worm did. I mean the ending is literally Taylor losing her ability to understand language in a story that had dialogue as one of its biggest strength. The Epilogue is great though. I should really start reading Pact. I really don't care for Urban Fantasy but I do love me some Cliffhangers and Wildbow is never short on those.
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Apr 14, 2014 11:05
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Fans posted:Worm started to lose me when we got the Passenger Interludes and all the head bending weirdness it entailed. It started the move away from a heavy focus on Characters to an ongoing 'Big fight with people we don't care about' and an ending arc that just got outright silly and almost unreadable to boot. I have to agree with you on that. Superhero stuff works way better at the street level, and escalation past that ends up reducing the tension rather than increasing it.
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Apr 14, 2014 14:58
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As intermissions the endbringer fights were very cool. I would have preferred them to focus on the characters more too. Alexandria dying was the hightpoint of the series IMO Though the final climax was.. Pretty awesome too.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:51
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Re-reading Worm, I just laughed as I realised that their first view of Coil's base is the archetypal "Villain's Warehouse" [ Worm 7.1] "The interior of the sub-basement had none of the smell of the previous chambers, and consisted of two tiers with walls of poured concrete. The upper level we stood on was an arrangement of metal walkways that extended around the room’s perimeter. Crates and boxes filled the level below, and I could see fifteen or so of Coil’s people down there, sitting on crates or leaning against them, talking among themselves." It's just a big, empty warehouse, filled with packed crates, the odd henchman sitting on a crate polishing his gun or chatting to another henchman. I missed it completely the first time.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:53
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Nettle Soup posted:Re-reading Worm, I just laughed as I realised that their first view of Coil's base is the archetypal "Villain's Warehouse" It's not quite an underground volcano-lair, but it was all that was on the market at the time.
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Apr 15, 2014 00:11
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So if this counts as the third time he's going against Laird/the Benhaim family, and this is the third skirmish in the third battle, I wonder if winning the third round of this will multiply the significance of it all yet again? Kind of wonder if Blake is about to get a refill to his tank, magically speaking, by emerging victorious in this contest. Or something else that will help him against the demon.
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Apr 15, 2014 08:07
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