|
The best parts of pact, IMHO, were trying to figure how poo poo works in the mansion and trying to figure out how to scratch out a bit of power from an extreme disadvantage. Hopefully the nonstop life-or-death battles will stop and let the story take a breather. His friends are barely even characters, most of their development was pretty much skipped. I liked Fell as a character, but now he's dead. Which leaves like.. 3 actually developed characters other than Blake. Rose, Maggie, and Evan. He needs to flesh out his friends and make them feel like actually part of the cast if he plans to keep them around, I think.
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 08:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:36 |
|
|
Wolpertinger posted:The best parts of pact, IMHO, were trying to figure how poo poo works in the mansion and trying to figure out how to scratch out a bit of power from an extreme disadvantage. Hopefully the nonstop life-or-death battles will stop and let the story take a breather. His friends are barely even characters, most of their development was pretty much skipped. I liked Fell as a character, but now he's dead. Which leaves like.. 3 actually developed characters other than Blake. Rose, Maggie, and Evan. He needs to flesh out his friends and make them feel like actually part of the cast if he plans to keep them around, I think. Evan is the best part of pact. I really liked the hyena scene. Blake gets a little help, we get info on how some things work (runes on shotguns!), he goes out and you get a bunch of world flavor and how stuff works with the ghosts and fae, you get Evan who is awesome and then you get Blake scrambling but with a clear plan that works. It's a neat little package where he's struggling but you get to see a lot more of his personality. Re: conquest going after rose, I thought that he did that because Blake said he couldn't just surrender himself. Rose has to surrender too because blake has the body (and legal [vested with a possibility of reverter] title to the house, I might add) and she has the Thorburn hero secret sauce. So if conquest wants to beat the Thorburn heir he has to beat both of them. Conquest doesn't buy it 100% but rose is weak and he does want the Thorburn heir and he is, you know, the physical embodiment of conquest so if he can conquer someone weak he does have some interest in doing that. Then he gets tricked. one of the things that I don't love about pact is the karma. Wildbow is pretty good at writing gritty don't gently caress with me (unreasonably) badass characters but Blake has the whole universe against him so rather than just getting hosed by circumstance and overcoming it he's got an even higher bar to overcome. And everything is still always terrible for him. It's one of the things I liked about fell. Dude is badass and hosed but all his choices are just his own and a reflection of that. It's not like when he tries to shoot someone the gun jams all the time. But with Blake you end up with this weird thing where he can't be killed off because he's the main character but things have to be terrible because he also has the universe against him so he's just always slogging through miles and miles of sewers. I liked the way karma worked for the behaims more, where haha you lost Blake gets to leave the station no matter what you do. And then that was it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 13:19
|
|
|
I feel like for Wildbow, Blake's karma is just an in-universe rationalization for doing what he would do anyway: line up a series of frying pans for Blake to fall into. I feel like Wildbow might have bought his own gimmick a bit too well though, where he feels like he needs to keep Blake in a frying pan in order to justify an in-world mechanic originally set up as an excuse.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 17:02
|
|
|
Are there any recommendations for other web serials? I've read Worm, and am reading Pact. I absolutely loved Fine Structures, despite its unevenness. I'm reading Ra, but so far it isn't really grabbing me. Any other recommendations? I've glanced around here and there, but everything else I've happened on seems like hot garbage.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 18:03
|
|
|
I have to say, if the next chapter is another dumb interlude instead of finally resolving/concluding this conquest arc I'm going to be pretty irritated. Interminable is the nicest word I'd use to describe the current state of Pact. edit: I think Wildbow needs to watch Aliens so he gets some idea of how to prolong tension without it becoming repetitive or stale. Velius fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jun 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 20:46
|
|
|
Whew. I discovered Worm a while ago, but it's only been in the past month that I've had the opportunity to chew through it, and I just finished today. Gonna start on Pact soon, but I think I need a day or two for my emotions to recover.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 20:53
|
|
|
Rose Spirit posted:Whew. I discovered Worm a while ago, but it's only been in the past month that I've had the opportunity to chew through it, and I just finished today.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 02:03
|
|
|
Dreqqus posted:Are there any recommendations for other web serials? I've read Worm, and am reading Pact. I absolutely loved Fine Structures, despite its unevenness. I'm reading Ra, but so far it isn't really grabbing me. Any other recommendations? I've glanced around here and there, but everything else I've happened on seems like hot garbage. Hitherby Dragons is on hiatus but long and quite great.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 02:19
|
|
|
builds character posted:Evan is the best part of pact. After reading today's chapter, I agree completely.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 06:11
|
|
|
Well poo poo. That was a really good chapter.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 06:16
|
|
|
Back to Worm since I'm still hype about it; was I the only one that couldn't unsee Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Simurgh as these guys? Behemoth especially. I know there are actual descriptions for the Worm characters but the two trios are just so similar in general...
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
Blake should have just totally  ed his way through that. Yeah I killed him, are you saying I shouldn't have?Wasn't expecting Paige to show up this early though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 20:30
|
|
|
Yeah, to hell with Laird. That guy made Blake's life a living hell for no reason at all and was fully intending on having him killed. It's ironic that all this poo poo that happened was because Blake was forced into it to protect himself, not because his family past forced him to be evil.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 02:15
|
|
|
I gave up on reading Worm after chapter 29.4 because I already knew the gist of what was going to happen, and didn't really like the idea. I skipped to the epilogues and now I'm here. Worm is great, but I think it lost something important when Taylor switched to being a hero. The time skip hurt things and Taylor's prior relationships got cut off, to be replaced by a vague summary of some other relationships that could have been interesting but weren't given any time to develop anywhere near as well as they had with the Undersiders, which is a massive problem for me, since that's mostly the reason I was reading this in the first place. Really good, recommending it to friends, wish things had gone in a different direction. Now I just have to figure out what the gently caress to do with all this free time I'm no longer devoting to chewing through Worm.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
Ragnar34 posted:I gave up on reading Worm after chapter 29.4 because I already knew the gist of what was going to happen, and didn't really like the idea.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 03:15
|
|
|
Well I don't know, maybe I'll come back at some point. Still though, I mean, epic struggle, fate of worlds in balance, ultimate sacrifice what the gently caress ever. "Taylor loses all friends ever" still sounds like a poo poo time to me. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 03:55
|
|
|
The last Act is one of my favorites. It's got some of the most powerful bits in it, if you weren't already spoiled by the epilogue (which wasn't that good in comparison).
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 04:13
|
|
|
Yeah, Worm goes absolutely apeshit in the last arc. If you quit reading at 29.4 you missed some of the most bugfuck crazy moments in the entire work. Edit: Fellwenner posted:Yeah, to hell with Laird. That guy made Blake's life a living hell for no reason at all and was fully intending on having him killed. It's ironic that all this poo poo that happened was because Blake was forced into it to protect himself, not because his family forced him to be evil. I've said before that karma is an incredibly convenient narrative device for Wildbow to have. It can very easily be argued that Blake's having to defend himself from all of that is because of his family's karma, not in spite of it. Grundulum fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jun 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 04:25
|
|
|
I know. I still dislike the concept of karma affecting free will like that.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 05:14
|
|
|
How long did most people take to read Worm? I'm enjoying Pact and I've heard fantastic things about Worm, but the word count is quite daunting.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 09:53
|
|
|
Depends on how much free time you have. At the very minimum, and this includes dropping some stuff you'd usually do, it'll be a couple of weeks.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 11:18
|
|
|
If you read one chapter per day, assuming missed days and occasional binges cancel out, you'll finish in about nine months. It's very easy to read more than that, but it's a reasonable upper bound. I used to go through a chapter or two on the walk to work, the same on the walk home. You get through it quickly that way.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 11:23
|
|
|
Worm didn't take me no nine months. More like two or three months, and I stopped for the better part of a month. Wait. When the hell did I find the time to read so much? This isn't the reason I did so badly this semester, is it? Oh god 
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 12:44
|
|
|
It took me only a week to read Worm, but that was because I basically spent 8 hours a day only reading Worm. So however you slice it, it will take at least 50 hours to read Worm, more depending on reading speed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 12:51
|
|
|
Captain_Person posted:How long did most people take to read Worm? I'm enjoying Pact and I've heard fantastic things about Worm, but the word count is quite daunting. According to the counter on the Kindle, it took me about 50 hours to read Worm.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 16:02
|
|
|
I read it on and off for a few months myself before catching up shortly before the end.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 16:23
|
|
|
At this point I almost recommend new readers wait for the edited version to come out in eventually. What was the timeline on that again?
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 18:04
|
|
|
I just finished Damages 2.3 of Pact, and it feels like Wildbow is still trying to write Taylor in Blake. He is super focused on small details of how people act and react, and is more focused on the offensive and putting his enemies, who are of course all more powerful than he is, off balance. Problem is, I don't like Blake nearly as much as I liked Taylor. At this point I wish Rose were the main character, for a not-so-surprising reason.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 18:50
|
|
|
Rose Spirit posted:I just finished Damages 2.3 of Pact, and it feels like Wildbow is still trying to write Taylor in Blake. He is super focused on small details of how people act and react, and is more focused on the offensive and putting his enemies, who are of course all more powerful than he is, off balance. From where we are now: Blake gets better, Rose gets worse, and the enemies being put off only get more powerful. Take that how you will.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 22:11
|
|
|
Pavlov posted:From where we are now: Blake gets better, Rose gets worse, and the enemies being put off only get more powerful. Take that how you will. If there's one good thing that came out of the forums downtime it gave me a bit more free time to catch up with Pact.  The Taylor allusions keep jumping out at me, though I guess that could just be the fact that you can't really have a horror/thriller without some threat of danger. The kind of danger that both protagonists get put in, however, seem to have a lot of recurring elements: protag is perpetually scared and underpowered compared to their enemies, which are basically everyone else, and everything is constantly out to get them but they manage to pull through somehow with very quick thinking. I will admit that Pact is better about the ratio of action:non-action scenes, though. I still kinda feel for Rose, though. She's doing what she can to make herself relevant while she's just a vestige, and also to give her something to go on if/when Blake bites it, which from her perspective could be any possible time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2014 02:38
|
|
|
Rose Spirit posted:The Taylor allusions keep jumping out at me, though I guess that could just be the fact that you can't really have a horror/thriller without some threat of danger. The kind of danger that both protagonists get put in, however, seem to have a lot of recurring elements: protag is perpetually scared and underpowered compared to their enemies, which are basically everyone else, and everything is constantly out to get them but they manage to pull through somehow with very quick thinking. I will admit that Pact is better about the ratio of action:non-action scenes, though. I disagree about allusions to Taylor in particular. The things you described are features of plotting, not features of character. The similarities between Pact and Worm have more to do with Wildbow's manner of writing conflict than his manner of writing protagonists. The thread consensus seems to lean towards Worm having a better action ratio actually, which I more or less agree with. Pact hasn't had enough slow moments in my opinion, and I think the lack of chapters from the perspective of other characters hurts it some too. (I'm still waiting for that Rose chapter.)
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2014 19:13
|
|
|
Pavlov posted:...I think the lack of chapters from the perspective of other characters hurts it some too. (I'm still waiting for that Rose chapter.) Don't worry, when Wildbow offs Blake, they'll all be Rose chapters! 
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 16:11
|
|
|
I would honestly not be surprised if that happened. Or if their positions were reversed somehow.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 16:20
|
|
|
Well, life inside a mirror would certainly keep people from touching him.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 16:37
|
|
|
Hasn't the phrasing from Isadora consistently been "not long for this (emphasis mine) world"?
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 17:21
|
|
|
Grundulum posted:Hasn't the phrasing from Isadora consistently been "not long for this (emphasis mine) world"? Blake's the one who assumed she meant he would die, IIRC.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 20:33
|
|
|
Best line from tonight's Pact entry: “Maybe you didn’t, because you’re not even half as excited as I am about the idea! Imagine me doing everything I’ve been doing already, except I’m on fire.” Evan remains my favorite character by far. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2014 05:20
|
|
|
OmniBeer posted:Evan remains my favorite character by far. There isn't even any contest. Evan is simply the best character in this story.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2014 09:24
|
|
|
Finally got around to reading Pact! Leaving it for a bit worked out quite well, once the ball got rolling it's been a fun read. Though I admit it does feel a bit... rushed at times. Some of the crisis flow pretty naturally, but then we get Conquest wanting to unleash demons on the world five minutes after meeting Blake which just seemed to be an excuse to get Blake into even more trouble. We seem to have wandered far afield of the original plot, bar the Laird Family tagging along and I'm worried I'll have forgotten most of the intrigue before we get back to Grannies house. Still enjoying it, because as said Evan is the best.
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2014 15:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:36 |
|
|
I think what we are seeing is story creep. Pretty sure Wildbow said at some point that Pact was only supposed to be 18 months of story, but given how many plot hooks have been laid, resolving them seems like it will take much longer than a year. I do think we'll get resolution on all of these things, though. Wildbow is good about that as far as I can recall.
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2014 17:15
|
|