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One I've seen pointed out is that Blake tells Evan that he'd dealt with a lot of ghosts and goblins back when he first proposed making him a familiar. No power hit, so it wasn't a lie, but he's really dealt with two ghosts at that point and only a couple of goblins. This is after he's walked through the Hyena's former territory some, which would presumably have a lot of ghosts and goblins willing to do him a favor since he just freed them from eternal torment. If I had to guess, that is where his allies for this came from.
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Apr 23, 2014 12:10
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Considering how very little allies and people willing to work with him there are, losing some allies hurts really bad. The more I think about this the more horrible it becomes. What if Blake lost a friend? And what if he made a promise to one of his allies, and now doesn't remember it? Does the demon also destroy that?
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Apr 23, 2014 13:21
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Wolpertinger posted:Nah the wreath was mentioned briefly midway with Blake contemplating how useless it was as it got completely ignored as the demon rolled over and crushed it in the scuffle seems like the plants need to be alive. So some sort of ring of potted plants you carry around yourself like a ridiculous one man band might work. Edit: e-z mode: plant kudzu all around the building Or just burn the motherfucker down with something that doesn't make dark smoke like magnesium
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Apr 23, 2014 13:50
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I wonder if the apparent ability of one of the Knights to lie and give Blake an alibi ties into the eraser demon. Perhaps someone accompanied him to clean up after the hyena/bind a goblin or two (hyenas victims/followers?) so they weren't lying and Blake simply no longer remembers. Creepy.
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Apr 23, 2014 14:05
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Saros posted:I wonder if the apparent ability of one of the Knights to lie and give Blake an alibi ties into the eraser demon. Perhaps someone accompanied him to clean up after the hyena/bind a goblin or two (hyenas victims/followers?) so they weren't lying and Blake simply no longer remembers. Yeah that actually makes sense, good catch. Also answers that question. Poor Knights, though.
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Apr 23, 2014 15:03
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A Histories update, concerning Conquest and Fell's family. I wonder who came up with the bit at the very end. It seems like a pretty lovely plan, and one that doesn't especially need the Knights. No matter who wins in the Pauz-Hyena-Conquest brawl, somebody (of course it'll be Blake) has to deal with the winner anyway, and they may well be empowered by the victory. Unless what Rose meant by "lock the door" is something like "use Ur's power to make everybody forget how to get in or out of Conquest's demesnes". Maybe Rose is lying or the others told her a fake plan because they expected Conquest to do this. Also, they did try the neon magic circle idea 
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Apr 26, 2014 11:28
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Fetucine posted:A Histories update, concerning Conquest and Fell's family. fell's grandma is a Duchamp? And conquest didn't tell fell to not let Blake know that rose is spilling the beans so maybe he'll be forewarned.
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Apr 26, 2014 15:52
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builds character posted:fell's grandma is a Duchamp? His mother, I think. Though Duchamps are only supposed to have daughters. Maybe she magically distanced herself from her family, she apparently doesn't like them that much.
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Apr 26, 2014 17:00
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Happy Yeti posted:His mother, I think. Though Duchamps are only supposed to have daughters. Maybe she magically distanced herself from her family, she apparently doesn't like them that much. good point, I think I misread at first and thought that it was his brother's wife which would make the niece thing make sense (although how that'd work with the duchamps wanting to raise her vs conquest owning the whole bloodline...). Anyway, clearly there's more than one family of enchanters out there and I was wrong.  What's the trick to get out of conquest's grasp? Just work him down by dying over and over and taking his power with you until eventually someone gets free?
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Apr 26, 2014 18:26
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builds character posted:What's the trick to get out of conquest's grasp? Just work him down by dying over and over and taking his power with you until eventually someone gets free? That seems to be the plan; wait for Conquest to overcommit power to a plan, then get yourself killed so that the power is wasted.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:18
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Wait, if Fell's mother is a Duchamp, doesn't having sons mean the "line is broken"? What does that even entail anyway? PS: I feel like the spoiler policy in this thread is kind of self defeating when 90% of the responses end up in spoilers.
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Apr 26, 2014 20:09
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Pavlov posted:PS: I feel like the spoiler policy in this thread is kind of self defeating when 90% of the responses end up in spoilers. For real. 
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Apr 26, 2014 20:23
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If it was just a Pact thread then we could not use spoiler tags at all, just tell people not to read up unless they've read the latest update. Maybe. I'm a little worried about our heroes, guys. 
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Apr 26, 2014 20:51
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I don't mind the spoiler-tags, I don't want to spoil Worm or Pact for people! Pact is finally starting to make me go "oh poo poo!" but it's still not Worm, re-reading it, even a second time it's grabbing me...
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Apr 26, 2014 21:54
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I don't know, I couldn't stop reading Worm, but until the last arc, I was never really afraid for Taylor. These last few arcs of Pact, pretty much since Blake moved back to Toronto, I'm actually afraid for Blake while I read the update (even though I know he's not really going to die, being the main character).
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Apr 26, 2014 22:06
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Pact is really good horror, but not as horrible as goons writing an entire exchange of posts in spoiler tags
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Apr 26, 2014 23:16
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On the topic of other serial novels worth reading, Ra updated! I have to say, even though I've been enjoying the story as a whole, I haven't been feeling these last few chapters. Maybe it's because we've been stuck in backstory exposition for four chapters now, but the plot has been moving forward at an absolutely glacial pace that hasn't been helped at all by the fact that chapters come out about once a month. It reads just fine when read in one sitting, but we've gotten like one or two "real" plot developments over the course of the past three months. The protagonists have been caught in this super-interesting scheme that is finally coming to a head, but hang on let's go take a break and have a history lesson for a few hours. This has happened a few times before, both in Ra and Fine Structure Constant (Sam's previous large work): the author really wanted to show off some awesome part of his setting and devoted a big chunk of time to doing so. It works great in novels, because the readers who care can study every word while readers who don't can just skim it until they hit the next chunk of plot, but I think it's a style of storytelling that really doesn't carry that well to a web serial, especially one that updates so slowly. Luckily, it looks like poo poo is about to legitimately go down, so I'm probably going to forget about all of these complaints whenever the next chapter finally hits.
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Apr 26, 2014 23:30
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Fetucine posted:Also, they did try the neon magic circle idea Where are you getting this bit from? I must have missed it.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:30
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thespaceinvader posted:Where are you getting this bit from? I must have missed it. Fell sees Blake entering the factory with 3 maimed goblins from the Hyena's territory in tow, toting a bundle of halogen lights and cables. My guess is that the abstract demon disabled the lights by destroying the cable.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:45
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I don't mind it as much but I'm a huge  and if the setting is legitimately interesting yeah sure I'll read several dozen pages 
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Apr 27, 2014 00:48
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TheRagamuffin posted:Fell sees Blake entering the factory with 3 maimed goblins from the Hyena's territory in tow, toting a bundle of halogen lights and cables. My guess is that the abstract demon disabled the lights by destroying the cable. About that: I wonder if the reason why Fell remembers this is because he had no real connection with the goblins? Does the abstract demon sever connections with its bite with the memories only being a side-effect? I still feel really bad about the Knights, they got hosed up. I mean, in that line of work you might be prepared for bad poo poo to happen to you, even death, but they couldn't possibly have been prepared for what the demon did to them.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:54
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Pavlov posted:Wait, if Fell's mother is a Duchamp, doesn't having sons mean the "line is broken"? What does that even entail anyway? I thought the Duchamps did have boys, they aren't just faced with much expectations. I think the "line" was just something specific to Sandra? Or that maybe the firstborn is always a girl. In their deal with the Drunk the aunt mentioned that any girls are theirs and that the Drunk can raise one of their children to his faith, which implies (moreso since they can't lie) that sometimes boys are born.
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Apr 28, 2014 08:10
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DarkCrawler posted:I thought the Duchamps did have boys, they aren't just faced with much expectations. I think the "line" was just something specific to Sandra? Or that maybe the firstborn is always a girl. In their deal with the Drunk the aunt mentioned that any girls are theirs and that the Drunk can raise one of their children to his faith, which implies (moreso since they can't lie) that sometimes boys are born.
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Apr 28, 2014 08:17
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DarkCrawler posted:I thought the Duchamps did have boys, they aren't just faced with much expectations. I think the "line" was just something specific to Sandra? Or that maybe the firstborn is always a girl. In their deal with the Drunk the aunt mentioned that any girls are theirs and that the Drunk can raise one of their children to his faith, which implies (moreso since they can't lie) that sometimes boys are born. That was just a way she could make that promise, have it not be a lie, and still trick him. "Yeah sure, any boy is yours, totally" kinda loses the point when your family has ways to asure that every child is a girl. But he doesn't need to know that! My guess would be that Sandra and the Drunk did have a male child and that broke the spell that caused the Duchamps to only birth girls. Also, does anyone else feel unimpressed by the allie's reveal? oh turns out they were just random goblins, nothing interesting whatsoever! feels like he could've done something much cooler with that. Also, I'll bet that Blake is going to "die" sometime soon. edit: I like spoiler tags 
Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 08:50
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No, it's pretty clear that Sandra aborted her pregnancy. That's where the connection between her and the Drunk broke, the moment that she realized his god had circumvented her family's magic and he realized she would abort it rather than betray her family. Fake edit: I'm going to stop using spoiler tags in this thread entirely, this is just getting annoying.
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Apr 28, 2014 09:23
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Tollymain posted:No, it's pretty clear that Sandra aborted her pregnancy. That's where the connection between her and the Drunk broke, the moment that she realized his god had circumvented her family's magic and he realized she would abort it rather than betray her family. I didn't see anything in the story that implied she had an abortion? When she calls the unnamed man I think the connection that broke is between her and the unnamed man. Jeremy definitely tries to have Blake destroyed at the next council meeting so he is definitely helping out his wife's cause (well the Duchamp and Behaim cause). I haven't read all the following chapters yet but I did just reread her chapter and the working definitely breaks if a male child is born.
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Apr 28, 2014 13:53
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Lyon posted:I didn't see anything in the story that implied she had an abortion? When she calls the unnamed man I think the connection that broke is between her and the unnamed man. Jeremy definitely tries to have Blake destroyed at the next council meeting so he is definitely helping out his wife's cause (well the Duchamp and Behaim cause). She said her family wouldn't let her keep the kid and she and the drunk are broken up and he doesn't have a kid and the duchamps are still having girls (little girls younger than twelveish at the meeting).
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Apr 28, 2014 13:59
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builds character posted:She said her family wouldn't let her keep the kid and she and the drunk are broken up and he doesn't have a kid and the duchamps are still having girls (little girls younger than twelveish at the meeting). Oh I just reread again and I get it now, I was being dumb. You are correct. Honestly I had kind of forgotten who Sandra Duchamp was from the earlier chapters so didn't realize they were the same person and thought this was just a random Duchamp giving us a look into Toronto/Jeremy. Lyon fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 14:21
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Also, does anyone else feel unimpressed by the allie's reveal? oh turns out they were just random goblins, nothing interesting whatsoever! feels like he could've done something much cooler... Not sure I really believe this, but it could have been a feint. As people discussed earlier, since Fell remembers the goblins it may be that the goblins didn't have enough of a connection to Fell to be forgotten. But there could have been a stronger ally that did interact with Fell enough to be erased. Blake is so sure that he lost exactly 3 allies, but how the gently caress does he know. Also since the demon can eat objects, I kind of wonder if Blake already had an implement and it got eaten.
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Apr 28, 2014 16:13
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Hawkgirl posted:Not sure I really believe this, but it could have been a feint. As people discussed earlier, since Fell remembers the goblins it may be that the goblins didn't have enough of a connection to Fell to be forgotten. But there could have been a stronger ally that did interact with Fell enough to be erased. Blake is so sure that he lost exactly 3 allies, but how the gently caress does he know. We don't actually know if Fell remembers the goblins after they were eaten though. I think that bit was just there to show us who the allies were (though I think it would have been better if we never learned). My bet is that Fell doesn't remember the goblins any more than anyone else after the fact.
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Apr 28, 2014 16:53
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Well, if that's the case, I think it probably was the worst reveal, much rather have that doubt forever in my mind, but I guess it isn't a big deal one way or the other. The lamps though, that's hilarious. I imagine the goblins like the pata-pon creatures, carrying lamps and cables.
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Apr 28, 2014 18:26
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Hawkgirl posted:Also since the demon can eat objects, I kind of wonder if Blake already had an implement and it got eaten. An implement seems like it becomes such an inextricable part of your person that having it eaten would probably have torn a big, possibly permanent hole in his magic and leave him a cripple.
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Apr 29, 2014 04:51
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Welp new chapter Pact spoilers: gently caress the masquerade it seems.
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Apr 29, 2014 05:28
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Well, we've been talking about how he doesn't have allies, which wasn't quite true. He had allies, just none who knew enough to be of any help. Looks like that's about to change 
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Apr 29, 2014 05:47
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Tollymain posted:Well, we've been talking about how he doesn't have allies, which wasn't quite true. He had allies, just none who knew enough to be of any help. Looks like that's about to change I was so absolutely pumped when I read those last few lines. This is gonna get gooooooood.
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Apr 29, 2014 06:06
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OmniBeer posted:I was so absolutely pumped when I read those last few lines. Great a unstable artist types being taught about magic... this won't lead to trouble.
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Apr 29, 2014 06:12
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Lyon posted:Great a unstable artist types being taught about magic... this won't lead to trouble. Heh, that gives me a thought.. With all the stress that Blake put on these people being his family when talking to Evan, I want him to teach them, grow them around him as a support structure (like the other magical families we've encountered so far), and then roll back into Jacob's Bell and loving break faces.
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Apr 29, 2014 06:20
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That was a pretty great ending, but I felt like a good chunk of the middle wasn't that necessary. Not that I dislike it really. But compared to the previous few chapters, it didn't have as much "oh gently caress" going on. Then again, too much poo poo happening was Worm's biggest problem in my opinion. I really hope we are witnessing the beginning of the Pact-verse Undersiders.
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Apr 29, 2014 07:45
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SerSpook posted:Then again, too much poo poo happening was Worm's biggest problem in my opinion.
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Apr 29, 2014 14:31
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I think that's partly a serial fiction thing, too; if you read a serial one installment at a time as it's first coming out, the wait between installment to some extent serves a similar purpose to where in a regular novel you might have a low-tension chapter to take the edge off.
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Apr 29, 2014 15:03
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