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NecroMonster posted:Padraic may have, by sheer loving co-incidence, saved Blake with his identity fuckery. “And he’d be over nine thousand,” she said. Johannes’ smile suggested he browsed the internet. That was telling. God that was great
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Jul 24, 2014 17:39
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| # ? May 14, 2024 11:34 |
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I was losing interest after Blake's conquest arc got a bit over the top (too much too fast), but Mags' arc won me back over. Curious to see if we go to Rose next.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:44
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Does anyone else feel like Wildbow does slow bits much better than action bits? The Conquest arc dragged on because it was just conflict after conflict (same as the Slaughterhouse 9 arc did with Worm), in my opinion. However, the chapters with mostly talking (like the most recent Girl in the Checkered Scarf section) seem much more interesting and entertaining to read.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:53
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Grundulum posted:Does anyone else feel like Wildbow does slow bits much better than action bits? The Conquest arc dragged on because it was just conflict after conflict (same as the Slaughterhouse 9 arc did with Worm), in my opinion. However, the chapters with mostly talking (like the most recent Girl in the Checkered Scarf section) seem much more interesting and entertaining to read. I generally agree. The S9 arc was my least favorite in Worm, in fact. While he's capable of writing good action scenes, I don't think action chapters are something he's great with. He should do more of a slow roll with the chapters, writing them with lots of world-building and exposition, and then drop in a good helpings of action scenes to demonstrate the caracters' growth and test relationships without setting out to do an "action chapter" or "action arc."
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Jul 24, 2014 21:34
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Then again, how would he get better at writting long action sequences without... writting more long action sequences? I mean the dude is an update machine. He probably uses all of his free time writting the chapters, so it's not like he gets many other chances to improve his writting.
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Jul 25, 2014 13:56
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Then again, how would he get better at writting long action sequences without... writting more long action sequences? I suppose that's true. And the whole reason he's doing this is to get better, so, gently caress it; write more action, Wildbow! Rock them skill-ups.
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Jul 25, 2014 14:34
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I don't dislike his action sequences, I dislike the long action sequences. They just need to get broken up somehow. One arc is totally fine, but when it stretches to two or three it gets to be a bit much.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:21
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Fellwenner posted:I don't dislike his action sequences, I dislike the long action sequences. They just need to get broken up somehow. One arc is totally fine, but when it stretches to two or three it gets to be a bit much. Absolutely. His need to constantly cliffhanger every chapter means that we tend to have ridiculously drawn out, uninterrupted action, skipping all downtime. It is, so far, dramatically more pronounced in Pact than in Worm, and I find it to be a serious impediment to my enjoying the series.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:48
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New chapter's up. This direction is wonderful. A chance to see the awesome internal elements of the world, plus we get to keep Blake, even if he's in the shittiest position possible
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Jul 26, 2014 05:31
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Hedningen posted:New chapter's up. This direction is wonderful. A chance to see the awesome internal elements of the world, plus we get to keep Blake, even if he's in the shittiest position possible And this chapter does nothing to help me like Rose, in fact, just the opposite.
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Jul 26, 2014 05:41
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She appears to have been planning all along for something of this sort to happen.
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Jul 26, 2014 07:02
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Some interesting speculation, courtesy of the comments: (1) Wildbow is drawing heavily on the Monomyth/Hero's Journey for this work; (2) Blake = Johannes, (3) Wildbow is using Odin as an archetype for Blake's new persona, so watch out for any tricksters in the story. Finally, this arc has the potential to be amazing.
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Jul 26, 2014 10:01
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Surviving homelessness and falling through the cracks of society is probably the best practice run you can get for surviving falling the through cracks of reality itself. I wonder how Green Eyes will wind up being significant to the story? I imagine Blake naming them will have some serious ramifications one way or another down the line. Tollymain fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 15:20
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Green eyes is probably the missing girlfriend of one of the knights.
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Jul 26, 2014 17:39
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But seriously that one chapter propelled this from "ok but not amazing" right to "god drat".
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Jul 26, 2014 18:16
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Grundulum posted:Some interesting speculation, courtesy of the comments: (1) Wildbow is drawing heavily on the Monomyth/Hero's Journey for this work; (2) Blake = Johannes, (3) Wildbow is using Odin as an archetype for Blake's new persona, so watch out for any tricksters in the story. For #2 do you mean that directly? If so that would imply some form of time travel or something wonky like that. The rest of that is interesting and now after reading this I hope Blake is able to have a reckoning with Rose for her basically betraying him the whole time. Of course Grandma Rose might have set it all up this way so maybe it is more her fault than Rose's fault but still.
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Jul 26, 2014 18:35
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Rose may very well be a reflection of Grandma Rose created through Barbatorum's powers in the first place. The real interesting thing here is that Blake didn't exactly die AND Rose has lost her memories of him which are both very much to Blakes advantage. "Realty" may actually have Blake's back here, despite being a diabolist.
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Jul 26, 2014 20:05
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Pavlov posted:At this point I'm almost expecting Rose to end up as an antagonist. Called it. Gosh this chapter was fantastic. It's funny that we finally get a good slow chapter for Blake at the point where he has literally hit cosmic rock bottom. I don't even mind that it's a pretty blatant Monomyth "Death and Rebirth" arc, it's just so well done. I was pretty sure Rose was planning to gently caress over Blake somehow ever since she got all huffy about having to promise to help him. I didn't suspect her botched awakening was part of it though. Its also curious that she knows how to channel into the sewers of the universe. I wonder where she picked that up. Pavlov fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 20:19
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Literally every drat thing she's ever told Blake is suspect even including who she actually is. But probably even better than this, is Blake sensed that she wasn't trustworthy from pretty much the get go. Dude's senses are just sharp as gently caress.
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Jul 26, 2014 20:35
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Pavlov posted:Its also curious that she knows how to channel into the sewers of the universe. I wonder where she picked that up. Isn't that just Blake still seeing Rose through reflective surfaces? The "We're in!" referred to getting through the time-barrier around the house, if that's what you mean.
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Jul 26, 2014 20:58
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Yeah, Blake, because he is still alive, seems to have retained or gotten that connection to Rose as part of the switch.
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Jul 26, 2014 21:02
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Ah, ok, I didn't pick that up. I had thought they were using some kind of ritual to try and find the "Blake" that Mags had told them about.
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Jul 26, 2014 21:12
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I think that, because Blake didn't actually die, he retained his connection to Rose or whatever it was that allowed the two of them to communicate. It's still too early to tell if this is two way, or if Ur's connection cutting managed to destroy the "real" world half of whatever the gently caress this ability is exactly. All we really know is that Rose is a big fat liar, Blake is still "alive" and Mags retained her connection to him.
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Jul 26, 2014 21:22
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I think I like the theory that Rose didn't gently caress Blake over (aside from by existing). Her first instincts may have been to, due to the nature of her false past and him being a Thorburn, but him turning out not to be a typical example of the relatives she knew got her to take another path. Her awakening failed to work because she was in a mirror, nothing more. Now, not remembering Blake or her former imprisonment or anything they did together correctly, she's assuming whatever screwed up her awakening was an intentional action by her.
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Jul 27, 2014 02:01
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I've never really gotten the impression that Rose is a backstabber, just that she's not on the same page as Blake. Maybe I'm just gullible, but I really do feel like Rose tried her best with Blake and that she really did forget about him thanks to the abstract demon.
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Jul 27, 2014 03:05
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It's kind of important that the whole time Blake was "alive" Rose pretended as if her awakening was at least partially successful because she definitely led Blake on about her ability to lie the WHOLE time.
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Jul 27, 2014 03:26
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Tollymain posted:I think I like the theory that Rose didn't gently caress Blake over (aside from by existing). Her first instincts may have been to, due to the nature of her false past and him being a Thorburn, but him turning out not to be a typical example of the relatives she knew got her to take another path. Her awakening failed to work because she was in a mirror, nothing more. That's not what I'm getting from that part at all: More that she doesn't know why she did it wrong, but she knows she did on purpose.
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Jul 27, 2014 03:51
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Or she's lying and knows exactly why she did it wrong.
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Jul 27, 2014 04:10
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man why do people hate rose so much i really don't get it 
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Jul 27, 2014 04:13
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Blake doesn't like her, she's been openly antagonistic towards him in the past, and is devoid of any real personality beyond her antagonistic stance towards Blake. To polish this all off she's been lying to and manipulating Blake for most of the story.
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Jul 27, 2014 04:26
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Blake's relationship with her is complicated. She's sort of family, and possibly was created from him in some way. Her existence is definitely tied to his. They didn't get along, but that's less "OMG she's a bitch" and more their relationship being inherently imbalanced and their personalities/approaches being fairly disparate. Rose is a person (probably; let's just use Occam's Razor) who was dealing with her entire existence possibly being a lie. She is a Thorburn, and the entirety of her formative years were spent in an incredibly toxic environment where manipulation and antagonism were the norm. Despite this, she apparently cared enough about Blake to leave herself a message urging her not to manipulate his friends. Her personality is not as developed as Blake's, but we've still learned a lot of things about her. She is precise and careful, she's suspicious (some might say paranoid) after being surrounded by enemies all her life. She's desperate, or was; she was quite possibly just not real while she was in the mirror, and her fate was tied to somebody whose methodology was almost diametrically opposed to her. This overrode her cautiousness, as seen with her decision to use summons as her hands in the real world despite the risks. She's ambitious; she'd have to be, in order to start plotting against Conquest himself. Blake and Rose have both lied and manipulated each other through this story, but less out of sheer antagonism and more out of a sense of "necessary evil". They see the world differently, and often feel that the obvious solution to an immediate problem would be unacceptable to the other. Rather than argue about it, they simply attempted to make the other go along with it blindly until there was no choice. tl;dr this story is complicated and you strike me as reading the story about as deeply as the commentators on wildbow's blog who say "ROSE YOU BITCH" every chapter
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Jul 27, 2014 07:09
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This is the most positive reading you can put on Rose in my opinion. I'm not saying you're wrong necessarily but the way I read a couple of those parts was different. It felt like Rose was always 100% looking out for herself rather than for the both of them which, as you said, is due to her upbringing and understandable. Understandable does not equate to likable. Yes she and Blake disagree on how to operate but at the end of the day he was typically the one in physical danger/pain so he got to make the calls in those situations. Further I doubt Rose would have survived the situation the way Blake did, she would have involved demons (she was clearly willing to summon them) or the lawyers. Rose would have become/will become an actual diabolist probably which is pretty much stated in the story to be evil unless you try to follow Blake's path and Rose doesn't seem like the type. I think Rose wanted and worked for this outcome. If she really did screw up her awakening on purpose then I say actively working towards but if that is just her now Blakeless memories making her think that then worked for isn't the right term but she definitely didn't do as much as she probably could have. The note was about more than just not manipulating his friends and she calls herself a bitch for having written it. Once again understandable but not likable.
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Jul 27, 2014 13:21
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Lyon posted:For #2 do you mean that directly? If so that would imply some form of time travel or something wonky like that. For what it's worth, the person suggesting it (and those discussing it) were absolutely fine with a literal interpretation of #2 and all that would entail. On the whole Rose front, I think it's interesting that we have two (very!) different opinions. I wonder if each reader's opinion says something about him or her. We sure don't seem to have enough textual information yet to decide for certain. Personally, I now agree with those who were saying that Rose will wind up being a bad guy. I don't think she betrayed Blake, though. I think she's just making the best of the situation in which she finds herself. She's real but has no memories of being a vestige, courtesy of reality settling into the lowest-distortion state once Ur got Blake. Her Awakening book is going to contain the correct text this time around, since she's on this side of the mirror. I'm disinclined to attribute the use of holly instead of iron to Rose herself; I think it's more likely that Grandma Thorburn had Barbatorem alter more of the mirror world than Blake's gender. I think that she's not as willful as Blake is, so she's more likely to find herself in debt to demons/lawyers (but I repeat myself  ) and headed down the dark path. I don't see her as Blake's nemesis, but rather as his foil -- "there but for the Grace go I" sort of thing.
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Jul 28, 2014 07:53
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On a completely different subject, has anybody else read Hero Historia? It seems interesting, but I haven't formed anything more of an opinion on it yet. Whatever else its flaws, it appears to update quickly.
Tollymain fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 20:27
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So can writers of web serials post here, too? Or is this strictly readers-only?
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Jul 28, 2014 21:05
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go ahead and say stuff, just expect goons to be goony
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Jul 28, 2014 21:19
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Ahahahah so completely hosed he can't even make a deal with the loving devil. Not that they would even if he wasn't so hosed, they got Rose, they got what they want and need.
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Jul 29, 2014 05:34
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drat. I'll admit, Pact was kind of a slow burn getting there, but it's really starting to deliver.
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Jul 29, 2014 06:56
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I can't find it anymore but doesn't Johannes have a disfigurement similar to the injuries Blake just received to his one leg and one arm? I never would have thought of the connection but someone posted about Blake being Johannes. It would be interesting if this place worked as some sort of reverse time loop as opposed to speeding up time like most faerie/other realms do. Edit: The last comment (for now) at the bottom of the chapter has some interesting points about Blake possibly being inside of Ur along with all the other beings It has eaten and Ur's offspring that were mentioned in that one Histories chapter are the beings that have turned into monsters by eating other inhabitants of Ur. Lyon fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jul 29, 2014 |
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Jul 29, 2014 08:54
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Nah, remember there are those kids who came from some kind of hurricane disaster (maybe their families were killed and whoops through the cracks you go?)
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Jul 29, 2014 09:29
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