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what it really comes down to is connections != memories. plenty of people remember that blake exists, just nobody for whom that memory would be significant  on the topic of other serials, i've been reading through the archives of Starwalker. it seems like a decent serial, if you don't mind your sci-fi soft enough to cut with a butterknife. joking aside, i've enjoyed what i've read so far.
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Aug 19, 2014 08:32
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It'll be cool as hell when Mags makes a move to reclaim herself. Can't wait. Probably at the end of this war which will take forever, though.
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Aug 19, 2014 09:07
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"I delivered the pizza." loving gold. When I tried to start reading Pact, it was when Wildbow was still experimenting with the various stories. I found the first couple chapters of Pact so boring that I put it down and promptly forgot which story it was. When the next work was officially selected, I went to the Pactwebserial site and started reading what I thought was the first chapter. It's what came up first, after all. But it wasn't the first chapter. It was the pizza delivery. It was so good that I was hooked, and when I realized it was the most recent chapter instead of the first, I went back and read to how the story got there. I was amazed that it was the same story. I'd recommend that if any of you want to get someone into Pact, have them start with 1.6 or whatever the pizza delivery chapter was. It's really not necessary to read the ones before it until after the end of the arc.
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Aug 19, 2014 15:53
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I wonder if Pact is going to get as crazy as Worm towards the end.
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Aug 20, 2014 00:37
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wonder if Pact is going to get as crazy as Worm towards the end. Part of me really hopes so.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:21
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I hope that we don't really expand beyond Jacob's Bell/Toronto. I don't really need to see about practitioners in the US or wherever. I'd rather keep it tightly plotted and not try and have the scope expand too far.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:25
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wonder if Pact is going to get as crazy as Worm towards the end. I hope not, I didn't think the end of Worm was nearly as good as the middle.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:22
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packsmack posted:I hope that we don't really expand beyond Jacob's Bell/Toronto. I don't really need to see about practitioners in the US or wherever. I'd rather keep it tightly plotted and not try and have the scope expand too far. See, my guess is it's going to skip over that level entirely. We've got a decent amount of foreshadowing about giant terrifying demon lords, multiple realities, humanity's place in the universe, whatever the hell the lawyers want, and some other big stuff going on. I have a feeling at some point it might just make a big leap up to "fate of the human race" type stakes.
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Aug 20, 2014 06:16
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Pavlov posted:See, my guess is it's going to skip over that level entirely. We've got a decent amount of foreshadowing about giant terrifying demon lords, multiple realities, humanity's place in the universe, whatever the hell the lawyers want, and some other big stuff going on. I have a feeling at some point it might just make a big leap up to "fate of the human race" type stakes. I really hope it doesn't go this way. It's great to know that "scary stuff is out there" but I think the Pact story leads to following the Jacob's Bell / Toronto smaller scale world out to completion and nothing more. If the universe gets to big I feel it will take away from story that has been setup thus far. I always took it that Pact wasn't meant to be an epic like worm but more of a realistic novel size book when completed.
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Aug 20, 2014 13:35
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Virigoth posted:I really hope it doesn't go this way. It's great to know that "scary stuff is out there" but I think the Pact story leads to following the Jacob's Bell / Toronto smaller scale world out to completion and nothing more. If the universe gets to big I feel it will take away from story that has been setup thus far. I always took it that Pact wasn't meant to be an epic like worm but more of a realistic novel size book when completed. Thats the thing. I don't really expect the scope of pact to expand, though I guess it could. I just expect the stakes to. My original theory, before Blake found out he was a visage, was that he would eventually get sick of practitioners ruling the world from the background and try to inform the whole human world. The thing keeping people from doing that normally is the bad karma they could accrue from the people they're now responsible for. Blake was already damned in the afterlife so that wouldn't be an issue. With the way the story's gone, thats seeming a lot less likely now. I could still imagine the same kind of endgame though. For the 'awaken the world' theory, Blake wouldn't really have needed to expand into the world at large, he'd just have to do something locally that sets of a big chain of events. My guess is its going to be something similar, maybe related to the origins of Hillsglade House, or what the Lawyers are doing, or the foreshadowed seal on demonologists from Black Lamb's Blood. There's really a lot of dangling plot threads and potential foreshadowing in Pact so far, and I feel like the ending is going to be quite a bit bigger than just who ends up king in Jacob's Bell.
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Aug 20, 2014 15:37
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Virigoth posted:I always took it that Pact wasn't meant to be an epic like worm but more of a realistic novel size book when completed. Originally, sure. Now?  Pavlov posted:I feel like the ending is going to be quite a bit bigger than just who ends up king in Jacob's Bell. We still have the "Lord of Toronto" thing that looks like it should be even more important than Jacob's Bell. Bigger city, issue was raised first, still hasn't been dealt with completely, etc.
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Aug 20, 2014 17:38
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Apparently there's a fan-made Worm audiobook project. Site admits it's not affiliated with Wildbow in any way and has no rights to the material.
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Aug 20, 2014 18:38
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Man, this keeps getting better. I've read the last couple of updates at midnight and usually regret it the next day because I want to read it again. Without speed reading because I want to go to sleep. I hope Blake ends up helping out Johannes. I think even if Rose makes a turn for the better she still shouldn't be in charge of anything large scale.
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Aug 21, 2014 07:13
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I really like Fayswal, and I'm dying to know more about Johannes after Mags's meeting with him. Looks like we might get some exposition!
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Aug 21, 2014 16:43
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Also it looks like the Drunk hasn't actually arrived in Jacob's Bell yet since when he entered Johannes's realm they detected that Blake had passed through about a day ago. So Blake is safe until at least after his meeting with Johannes.
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Aug 21, 2014 16:54
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Or Johannes messed with him time wise. Geez, entering Johannes realm really is extremely risky when you consider how powerful he really is within it.
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Aug 21, 2014 17:35
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Here's something I'm confused about : Blake keeps saying that he's on Rose's side, but why is he still on her side? I know he cares about his friends, but if so he should be trying as hard has he can to get them away from her, not trying to keep her propped up. There were a lot of things he could have said when he first came back to the house to try and convince his friends to leave, but he held back for some reason. Hell, teaming up with Johannes would probably be in his best interest, in that he could offer his services in return for assurance that his friends could get out of this unharmed.
Pavlov fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 01:47
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I suspect that part of his creation was absolute loyalty to his family or at least Rose. Otherwise he would be way too unpredictable.
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Aug 22, 2014 06:19
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Hawkgirl posted:I suspect that part of his creation was absolute loyalty to his family or at least Rose. Otherwise he would be way too unpredictable. Oh, that's actually a really good point. There's no way Grandma Rose wouldn't put in a failsafe. I guess the question is, with Blake slowly loosing himself to other spirits, will the love of his friends or the failsafe go first? Pavlov fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 14:38
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Hawkgirl posted:I suspect that part of his creation was absolute loyalty to his family or at least Rose. Otherwise he would be way too unpredictable. That's exactly what I assumed was happening; I think he's just unaware of it. Now that he's more mutable, though, he can snip that bit out when he's made aware of it. All he needs is someone to point it out to him. Someone whom he can't simply dismiss out-of-hand as trying to sabotage him. Like Mags, for example.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:19
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I liked how Maggie was referred to as "Maggie" from Blake's point of view up until the point where he called her "Mags", at which point that last connection to her original name got lost and she was referred to as "Mags" at every point in the text thereafter. Way to go, Blake!
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Aug 22, 2014 17:13
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Ok, so this is the second ghost that has suddenly become sentient around Blake, something that isn't really supposed to happen to ghosts normally. I'm getting the feeling that Blake himself might have a hand in it. Nearly every Other we've met besides him so far has had some kind of weird way of influencing the world. Blake's clearly an Other now, but we haven't seen much in the way of what his powers are, besides being in a mirror and having a really nasty knife. It was when Blake mentioned that Molly was becoming two "three-dimensional" that it clicked. Blake was a two-dimensional thing turned three-dimensional, and he's causing other two-dimensional things to gain autonomy by proximity, he just doesn't realize it yet.
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Aug 23, 2014 06:09
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Her familiar? Oh dear that is not ending well.
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Aug 23, 2014 11:13
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Bah, you guys are such pessimists. I'm sure it'll be fine.
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Aug 23, 2014 11:59
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Fellwenner posted:Bah, you guys are such pessimists. I'm sure it'll be fine. What's a bit of blood, fire and death among friends? Do we know if JC is Rose's familiar yet?
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Aug 23, 2014 21:46
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Pavlov posted:Blake's clearly an Other now, but we haven't seen much in the way of what his powers are, besides being in a mirror and having a really nasty knife. poo poo poo poo poo poo... you don't think Blake might be in some way a part of the Barber? That can't be.
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Aug 24, 2014 02:49
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nah, just reflecting his origins
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Aug 24, 2014 03:05
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I had been hoping for Mags to take Blake as a familiar. 
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Aug 24, 2014 04:34
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Jade Mage posted:I had been hoping for Mags to take Blake as a familiar. Yeah, I think that's the reason for her apology at the end.
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Aug 24, 2014 15:53
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Rose Spirit posted:Yeah, I think that's the reason for her apology at the end. I thought it was because she had no intention on 'stopping' (binding or removal) Molly, despite hinting that was totally what she was gonna do.
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Aug 24, 2014 20:07
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I need to stop reading these updates at night. They're never relaxing, and completely fail as a bedtime story to help me go to sleep. Normally, they just leave me reeling and craving to know what happens next. Case in point: given that Blake seems to be completely infallible, it looks like Sandra really is headed to deal with Mags's new familiar. Meaning Blake really does need to be in two places at once to save everyone he wants to. Unless he gets some help from Ben and Gloria, that is. We're getting a Thursday update this week, right? Not sure how I'll make it till Satyrday.
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Aug 26, 2014 05:34
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Grundulum posted:We're getting a Thursday update this week, right? Not sure how I'll make it till Satyrday. Unfortunately not. The thing I love about Wildbow is that I never have any idea what's going to happen from update to update. I'm the type that tries to guess the plot beats when watching a movie.
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Aug 26, 2014 09:00
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Grundulum posted:Case in point: given that Blake seems to be completely infallible, it looks like Sandra really is headed to deal with Mags's new familiar. Meaning Blake really does need to be in two places at once to save everyone he wants to. Unless he gets some help from Ben and Gloria, that is. He's a man made out of light who lives in mirrors. I don't really think time and distance are quite the constraints Blake seems to believe they are. Anyway, it's more important that he Helps Mags, because he both owes her, and she is far less capable of taking care of herself than Roses group. But Rose does still deserve a heads up if Blake can even get one to her.
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Aug 26, 2014 18:57
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Goddamn Wildbow and his cliffhangers.
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Aug 30, 2014 05:55
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Elyv posted:Goddamn Wildbow and his cliffhangers. That's one of the things I kinda like about the format, there will always be something interesting happening, whereas books have their ups and downs at infrequent intervals.
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Aug 30, 2014 09:35
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I like learning more about the internal magic workings, in this case of diabolists and priests. The mindset is a good explanation of why diabolists are so reviled; not only dealing with demons but they probably have a pretty high likelihood of cracking and giving in. Ironically especially with that many people being wary of them.
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Aug 30, 2014 09:54
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I like the proposal from the comments section about this situation: given the chapter title, and that the library door was conveniently unlocked, and that back in 10.1 one of Blake's friends said they had a plan to protect themselves, it's a trap.
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Aug 30, 2014 17:02
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Well that it certainly was  So, any wild guesses what it is about Blake's nature that they're hiding from him?
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Sep 2, 2014 07:48
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Well, something much more than a simple vestige or bogeyman that's for sure. My theory thus far was that he was a vestige cut off of one of the sacrificial relatives, but if he's something to be feared in this manner then he's either been tainted by something a la Rose and Conquest or he wasn't cut off of a relative but was something else entirely made to fit the role of Rose's other. I can't decide what. I'm almost inclined to re-read everything now just for a fresh take on things.
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Sep 2, 2014 09:17
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Tollymain posted:Well that it certainly was Blake was carved by the Barber; he's demonspawn. This isn't really a wild guess, its all but confirmed in the 6.x histories chapter at the bottom.
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Sep 2, 2014 10:03
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