I'm actually not sure that someone's going to die. But overall, I'd put money on someone really getting hurt physically/mentally/spiritually over this. I guess that's kind of stating the obvious. I'm not certain how quickly his newly awakened friends are going to catch on to the "life and death wordplay when dealing with Others" thing. I mean they know the power that words hold, but do they really know? And can any of them actually fight? I'm real excited for this showdown.

Also, I don't trust Wildbow to keep any character alive and well. I'm specifically remembering back to Worm and the S9 arc when Brian got really screwed up. The way that he faded into obscurity as a result of the psychological toll that had on him was odd to see in a story. I'm used to characters getting killed off, but previously strong characters losing their nerve and fading out was kind of new to me.

 

Is it just me or have the recent chapters been shorter than usual?

From the Oaths I'm going to guess that at least some of his friends are going to survive. Doesn't make much sense to spend that much time covering the dangers if they aren't going to be important later on.

I have a feeling the bolded part is going to be important. Laird makes the minuted before pass in a second, or something?

 

I stopped reading somewhere around 2.05 and just picked it back up. Currently I'm somewhere near 4.5, and all that I have to say is that Wildbow's dialogue has really degraded since Worm. Conversations in Pact feel wooden, structured, and completely unrealistic.

The world is mildly interesting, but honestly it's not well-realized enough to outweigh the fact that the characters feel boring to me an their interactions don't read well.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from Wildbow after Worm, but I'm just not really connecting with Pact for one reason or another. I'll keep reading up till the latest update, but if something doesn't catch my interest by then I'll likely move on.

 

The fact that conversations feel a bit wooden is partly a side-effect of the fact that everyone is watching what they say very carefully because they can't lie or use sarcasm or exaggerate etc etc.

Also, shit's about to go down. This is going to be fun.

 

I was scared along with Blake that Conquest was going to choose Ty or Alexis there. I suppose their violent, untimely yet inevitable deaths have been put off for now.

Yeahhh, Conquest's team seem really stacked. I mean, The Eye? C'mon now, that guy has been portrayed as the juggernaut of the local scene. I'm sure he has some weakness, but I'm not seeing how Blake/Rose would be able to survive first contact with the guy long enough to figure it out.

Also, the whole "Conquest as the Status quo figure head" thing adds another layer of complexity to Isadora's character. It's like there's been a vein of duplicity in her interactions with Blake thus far, or at least he's just been reading her motives incorrectly. She has some self interest in stopping Blake, aside from it just being "in her nature" as a Sphinx.

I hope Rose is getting some really good stuff from the library. They're going to need it.

 

I'm getting more and more sure that Rose and Blake won't be together for long and it will be because Rose doesn't feel like Blake respects her and her opinions since she's just a vestige.

Liked the conquest as a figurehead idea, its going to complicate a lot of things but for some weird reason I feel more confident in Blake than ever or maybe its the underdog triumphs tope that I'm used to.

 

Odds on the Eye getting fed to the Nothingness demon?

 

I think I would prefer the odds of that getting tried and backfiring spectacularly.

 

One of these is possible. The other is the worst case scenario. I'll let you guess which one Wildbow will go for.

 

It's gonna be the one where Blake wins, cuz he totally does that.

/sarcasm, in case that wasn't clear enough.

 

I don't particularly want to read a story where Blake is tortured to death and Rose is a slave destroying the world for an insane personification of Conquest. So... I hope Blake wins.

 

Another update. I hate Rose more and more every time I read. I hope she dies shortly.

 

Well, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have any pride in being more of a Thorburn if I were her. Seems to me that their most obvious trait is being a bigger prick than anyone else in the area.

 

To be fair, I'd probably still be bitter about the whole "your life never really happened, youre just a Vestige of this other guy" thing. I can see how it'd be frustrating from her point of view. I guess it'd be like your spouse selling the house and adopting 3 kids without consulting you? Not a great analogy, but yeah.

9/10 Times that Rose appears though, she's annoying. While it's obviously intentional, I'm starting to hate her.


Glad Maggie is going to be back on the scene.

BlakexRose has long since been replaced by BlakexMaggie as my OTP...

 

I really hope Rose does it even if Blake doesn't like it especially because Blake doesn't approve, I think its high time he understood just how much he's been fucking her up.

Still don't like Tiffany. It seems wildbow is going with the obvious romance setup, sleep on shoulder, ride bike together, alone in a building, its annoying.

 

Didn't the romance with the Grue start pretty much the same way, except for the more efficient way of thinking Taylor showed.

Now that I said that I can't help but think how Taylor would've acted were she in Blake's place.

 

I wonder how this will affect things later on, officially joining the ranks of the entropy bringing diabolists? How are others going to view him if he can't make the claim of only using his craft to bind bad things? Are his friends going to be pissed? I guess this is basically what all of the anti-diabolists people feared: Blake getting himself into some crap and summoning demons to help him out.

 

Yeah. It'll be interesting to see his response. Right now I could see Blake considering the summoning, but not following through. He doesn't have all of his cards in play yet. Maggie has yet to show up, and I feel like that Knights would get involved if he starts to make enough head way.

That or we'll get one of those classic Wildbow "protagonist doing something cool off screen which will save their ass later" moments.

 

To be honest, I want them to summon a demon. The only way Blake is able to defend himself from all the people trying to stop him from summoning a demon or make him summon a demon, is by summoning a demon. They need firepower or they are dead. If not from fighting conquest, then from fighting the Behaims and Duchamps. And there has to be some way to summon, bind and use demons without obtaining karmic debt, because Grandma Thorburn definitely used demons, but also was super focused on lessening the debt.

I'm sorry. I don't understand. Can you explain?

 

There were several instances throughout Worm where the protagonist (Taylor) whipped out something that she had prepared before/during a fight to pull out a victory. It was usually something to do with spider thread, prepared while we weren't "looking".