Let's Read Pact

[pita]

So Pact has finished, and I've got time. I started reading it when it first started and stopped sometime in arc 4. I remember the bare bones of what I've read, so I'll start with what I remember and what I expect, then what I think of what I've read in the reread. There will be unmarked Worm spoilers, but I ask to mark Pact spoilers that are after where I am

What I remember: Blake's grandmother dies and her inheritance goes to a cousin of his. She dies, the inheritance moves to him. His reflection is also replaced with a female self. He goes home, where it's explained that the female self is actually him created as a female so that he can inherit the house and its magic. Things get complicated, he gets screwed over, and ends up running away to Toronto. In Toronto he becomes a slave of one of the Four Horsemen. There's also a girl with goblins, one of whom is called (Male Genitalia)swizzle.

What I expect, after Worm: Our hero will find himself doing things that aren't great and justifying them in order to continue progressing. He'll be imaginative with few resources, stretching Sanderson's Law to the max. Shenanigans will ensue. The world will hang in the balance. Clever surprises and foreshadowing abound. And Conquest seems to me like he'll end up being somewhat Coil-esque. Impossible to defeat villain beaten somewhere in the midpoint and causing mayhem on an earth shattering level, where the second half of the story will involve fixing these repercussions.

What I've read:
So, basically, Blake is chased by freaky bird mask wearing things that I did not remember, with a mildly clever plan to kill him, that doesn't work. I really liked the first chapter. I remember it from my first read; It captures a lot of personality very well, giving everyone a little room and making things work very well. The Thorburns also mimic the bullies in Worm; I haven't personally seen things this extreme, but I've seen things close enough that it feels extreme but not unrealistic. There is a definite atmosphere to the writing, but Blake needs to have some more revealed. He has a lot of traits, and a lot of backstory implying further traits, but nothing meshes quite yet. I can't judge the story on that basis, though, as it is the beginning. We're also introduced to Laird Behaim, who appears friendly but I vaguely remember him as being the biggest sack of excrement since Joffrey met Ramsay. He invites Blake to a coffee, and the chapter ends.

Things I remember that will happen: Behaim will be a turd and trick Blake somehow. Don't remember quite how. The nuclear weapon analogy he uses is a demon trapped inside the Thorburn house. Called Barbatorem. Which is an awesome name.

Things I expect/Predictions:
1. There are two selves, so there will definitely be a battle of which one of them will be in the real world. I suspect that by the end of Pact Blake will either be completely replaced by Rose or possessed by her. This may or may not be temporary.
2. Judging from Worm, I'd say the first arc contains the final villain of the piece in some side remark. This strengthens Theory #1.
3. Behaim is probably just an introductory villain. He'll be difficult enough until Blake amasses enough power, and then quickly flicked away. This will probably be sometime after the midpoint, though, as I do remember Conquest enslaving Blake after Blake runs away. In any case he has an incredibly douchey name. Laird Behaim is maybe the only worse sounding name than Chad. If there's a Chad in the story I'm going to be convinced he's the villain.

[Forum Explorer]

So Pact has finished, and I've got time. I started reading it when it first started and stopped sometime in arc 4. I remember the bare bones of what I've read, so I'll start with what I remember and what I expect, then what I think of what I've read in the reread. There will be unmarked Worm spoilers, but I ask to mark Pact spoilers that are after where I am

What I remember: Blake's grandmother dies and her inheritance goes to a cousin of his. She dies, the inheritance moves to him. His reflection is also replaced with a female self. He goes home, where it's explained that the female self is actually him created as a female so that he can inherit the house and its magic. Things get complicated, he gets screwed over, and ends up running away to Toronto. In Toronto he becomes a slave of one of the Four Horsemen. There's also a girl with goblins, one of whom is called (Male Genitalia)swizzle.

What I expect, after Worm: Our hero will find himself doing things that aren't great and justifying them in order to continue progressing. He'll be imaginative with few resources, stretching Sanderson's Law to the max. Shenanigans will ensue. The world will hang in the balance. Clever surprises and foreshadowing abound. And Conquest seems to me like he'll end up being somewhat Coil-esque. Impossible to defeat villain beaten somewhere in the midpoint and causing mayhem on an earth shattering level, where the second half of the story will involve fixing these repercussions.

What I've read:
So, basically, Blake is chased by freaky bird mask wearing things that I did not remember, with a mildly clever plan to kill him, that doesn't work. I really liked the first chapter. I remember it from my first read; It captures a lot of personality very well, giving everyone a little room and making things work very well. The Thorburns also mimic the bullies in Worm; I haven't personally seen things this extreme, but I've seen things close enough that it feels extreme but not unrealistic. There is a definite atmosphere to the writing, but Blake needs to have some more revealed. He has a lot of traits, and a lot of backstory implying further traits, but nothing meshes quite yet. I can't judge the story on that basis, though, as it is the beginning. We're also introduced to Laird Behaim, who appears friendly but I vaguely remember him as being the biggest sack of excrement since Joffrey met Ramsay. He invites Blake to a coffee, and the chapter ends.

Things I remember that will happen: Behaim will be a turd and trick Blake somehow. Don't remember quite how. The nuclear weapon analogy he uses is a demon trapped inside the Thorburn house. Called Barbatorem. Which is an awesome name.

Things I expect/Predictions:
1. There are two selves, so there will definitely be a battle of which one of them will be in the real world. I suspect that by the end of Pact Blake will either be completely replaced by Rose or possessed by her. This may or may not be temporary.
2. Judging from Worm, I'd say the first arc contains the final villain of the piece in some side remark. This strengthens Theory #1.
3. Behaim is probably just an introductory villain. He'll be difficult enough until Blake amasses enough power, and then quickly flicked away. This will probably be sometime after the midpoint, though, as I do remember Conquest enslaving Blake after Blake runs away. In any case he has an incredibly douchey name. Laird Behaim is maybe the only worse sounding name than Chad. If there's a Chad in the story I'm going to be convinced he's the villain.

Well this should be interesting. Got some cool theories going on already, but what are you're rules on spoilers for the story?

[pita]

Worm spoilers go unmarked, I'll state with each update post up to where I am and I'd like everything beyond that tagged. So for now everything past 1.5 should be tagged.

[IthilanorStPete]

This is interesting; I'm curious how the story as a whole will seem when you can read it all in one go.

[Maethirion]

I'll definitely be following this. I lost track of Pact at about the same point that you did, so I might give it another go, and try following along. Should be fun!

[pita]

I've read up to and including 2.3, and I'm taking a short break to post, so here goes. I'm not summing up what I've read, just my impressions and predictions.
First off, the binding of June is something I vaguely remembered, and I remember liking the notion of an ice axe (It's actually a hatchet) in a modern tale. It's still awesome. However, something suggests to me that if you want to reduce the karmic debt you have, a good way to not do it is enslave ghosts to weapons instead of freeing them from their pain. Alternatively I would think maybe that could be a thing for Blake. Ghost Liberator. There was a TV show about that once. Wentworth Miller guest starred in it. Unrelated aside aside, it could be a way for him to release karmic debt.
I didn't remember the bit about vestiges. So Rose brings me back to the ancient debate about AIs: Does she actually feel anything, in story? Can Blake just treat her like a human being, or is she nonexistent? Raising some interesting questions, and I feel like it calls my earlier prediction that she'll take over him in doubt. Maybe she will and maybe she won't. I'm leaning towards "won't" now but I don't quite know.
We got introduced to Johannes who I didn't really remember other than the name. And interesting detail that stuck out: Rose Senior specifically warns against getting a dog as a familiar. Our first bit of information about Johannes? He has a dog as a familiar, and he's ridiculously strong. So either Rose Senior is wrong (It's a pretty Sandersonian twist to have the character giving information be misguided/wrong/lying, and Wildbow is very Sandersonian in writing philosophy), or there is some weakness to Johannes that we don't know. Either he started by getting a bad familiar and had to make up for it, or needs a dog for his abilities to work. Either way a very intriguing character. His relationship with Maggie (Who seems to be quite on the other end of the power scale) is also intriguing.
I really like replacing the interludes with bits of diary. Aimon Behaim (Behaim is mildly douchey, but it really needs Laird to superdouchify it) and Rose Senior - I hope we get more information about that, especially how it ended. The structure of that chapter was also awesome. It was a really good chapter. I remember that the author kind of veers away from it which is a real pity.
We meet the lawyers, or at least one of them. Since I haven't read much of them now, I have only a small bit of information to go on. The really startling bit is that they can enter the house, but are summoned by calling their names. We don't know the rules (or at least I don't) on the second one, so it makes me wonder: What are they? Do lawyers transcend practitioner rules? What rules apply to them? Is it dangerous to call them? Obviously there is a delay between calling them and them coming, but it isn't enough of a delay for them to take much time travelling. Either they come from Jacob's Bell and got there by mundane means, or their magical means take time, or they enjoy mind copulationery. I know that if people randomly summoned me by name I'd be deliberately late, but on the other hand I'm not a paranormal lawyer.
BIZARRO PREDICTION TIME:
- Johannes will become an ally, then an enemy in a stunning betrayal that we don't expect! Blake may end up taking his domain because of a loophole in however it is he got it.
- Maggie will become an ally. Also, Maggie Holt books were mentioned in Worm as crappy YA fiction. Amusingly enough at the time when I read the line in Worm I was convinced it was referencing a real book I had read. Either a glitch in the matrix or me spacing out.
- The order of succession will become important. Maybe Paige will start murdering cousins or something to get the house. I don't think it was mentioned for no reason. Also because I like the image of the nice, broken down girl we saw in the beginning murdering a 2 year old and a 12 year old. Alternately it could be a good way to continue the story if Blake is killed off. Kill Blake, continue from Paige's POV as she watches her cousins slowly killed off, and figures out what's happening and begins to fight the other families from the shadows.
- Did Rose Senior create Rose after the showdown in the first chapter or before? I get the feeling there was a lot of foreshadowing in that chapter. I think it's after; She realized she had a good chance of getting Blake to fight off her enemies, more than the generally weak family she had. She probably also disqualified Paige because of what he said: She needs someone nasty to beat the Behaims. But I can't help but wonder: She knows the Behaims intend to kill off people until they have a tractable Thorburn. Why keep them in that order? Is Paige the most tractable, more so than a two year old, and she wants to spite them? I'm just throwing predictions at the wall and hoping something sticks in my mind. Because after typing it out, I'm convinced she created Rose after the showdown with Blake and did want him to inherit. Did she deliberately set up Molly to fail? Was it so Blake would take things more seriously? Or did she actually place her hopes with Molly and left Blake as a just in case? Then Rose is unnecessary extra work she could've done to help Molly. There is also significance in Rose's name; I don't think it was just an attempt to curry favor. Rose could be a clone of Rose Senior with some memories superimposed, which explains the distant relationships with Blake's favorite cousins. I get the feeling if I continue thinking about this I'll find conclusive proof that Rose is a Wookie so I'm done here
Some negative thoughts about the story:
I may be doing myself a disservice by reading it like a book. The biggest flaw in Wildbow's writing is his pacing. Worm suffered many times from Darkness Overdose, where we were hit over and over on the head by terrible things happening with breakneck action pace and no respite. It worked when read serialized because you had downtime between chapters. But one chapter after another after another is a difficult thing to do, and it may lessen my enjoyment of it.
Another problem is this: Wildbow writes like a girl. A lot of people didn't believe Worm was written by a man, and I understand why. His main men characters don't read like men. The absolute worst case of this was Grue, who would talk about his feelings and life in a way that no alpha-male type ever would. I realize this sounds ridiculously sexist, but men and women generally have different ways of expressing themselves, with outliers on both sides expressing themselves differently. It's understandable for a few men to talk like that in the story, but most don't, and after Worm, reading a male main character like that feels odd. It feels very much like a woman's perspective writing men, which is bizarre coming from a male writer. This must be what women feel like when reading Robert Jordan, though less insulting. Just mildly perplexing. Like looking through a mirror that reflects most, but not all of the details. Oddly enough most cases of women writing men work amazingly well. Fitz (Of Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy) was very much a man, even if not a manly manly man. Gillian Flynn and JK Rowling are two other names who can write men pretty well and pop to my mind, to the degree where if Flynn were to reveal herself as a man I would believe it (seriously, read Gone Girl). It's a minor complaint, but a very rare one, so it's bizarre.

EDIT - I'm debating reading Twig. Should I post Twig reactions as well?

[Dragonus45]

EDIT - I'm debating reading Twig. Should I post Twig reactions as well?

Well there is only one chapter up so I would say you should get in on the ground floor now.

As for the rest of what you said, I agree that Blake comes across as a little strange for a guy but once you get farther in that might make more sense. Grue I feel had the excuse of being in the throws of some intense PTSD so I felt like his perspective on things made sense. Although now that you mention it I'm noticing it in a lot of the other intermission chapters that a man was the view point it.

Side not, Flynn is one of my favorite authors ever since I read Sharp Objects and I agree she manages to get into the heads of both sexes very well.

[pita]

As for the rest of what you said, I agree that Blake comes across as a little strange for a guy but once you get farther in that might make more sense. Grue I feel had the excuse of being in the throws of some intense PTSD so I felt like his perspective on things made sense. Although now that you mention it I'm noticing it in a lot of the other intermission chapters that a man was the view point it.

Blake has severe trauma from what is obviously some bad things that happened while he was homeless. I don't mean that, though it is interesting. For what it's worth he's not that bad.

Grue, more specifically, is worse in the chapters before Arc 15. When Taylor admits to him that she likes him is the absolute worst offender, but pretty much any time he gets at least a paragraph to talk he's pretty bad.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm afraid that if I speak I'll just be laughing maniacally. :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin:

[pita]

I read a bit more about Pact and will have full reactions tonight but I'll say that I read the first chapter of Twig and I'm so happy Wildbow is back to biopunk YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA THIS IS SO AWESOME.

[Dragonus45]

The idea interests me enough.

[pita]

I'm afraid that if I speak I'll just be laughing maniacally. :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin:
It's responses like these that make me happy I'm doing this.
I've read up to the interlude after 2.6
Basically, the lawyers are practitioners who had terrible karmic debt, and traded it away in return for assisting the world in its demise. Seems like a way out for those people who would naturally accumulate karmic debt, but oh well. It raises the question of why Rose Senior wouldn't join them if she was a terrible person (which it still appears that she was) but I dunno and can't speculate.
Apparently I didn't remember the succession well as the one after Blake is a married woman with children. I'm still confused as to why Blake has Rose if he has such a weak chance of surviving. Then again, Rose Senior probably just threw heirs at the wall to see what sticks. I'm hoping for a worthwhile explanation but I fear I'll only get it at the end...
In good news, Blake defeated a faerie and received a Lock of Hair! That obv means him and the faerie have twoo wuv. Either that or he'll be able to use it for some form of faerie power. Here's to flying Blake! Honestly I'm being facetious here because I remember the use he puts it to; transforming into a little boy to mess with the Behaims.
I also remembered that Maggie killed Molly. Meh. Kind of annoyed at myself for remembering this. I also remember that her father made her promise not to curse which is why she says things like "Golly".
So Blake is given a choice between implement, familiar, and demesne and the only one he doesn't reject outright is implement. I think the best idea for an implement for Blake will be his motorcycle keys. They're important to him, they can be kept, they have an intended use of turning things on, a theoretical use of opening things, and a cultural relevance. Seems to be a pretty good implement. I'm also thinking something regarding his tattoos would work well. A tattooing needle or whatever. I dunno, I have no experience with tattoos I don't actually know what you use. Broken pen and needle?
The story about the woman and her boyfriend-familiar is creepy as hell. One thing Wildbow knows well is the line between creepy and ridiculous and how to stay on the right side of it. So, yeah, awesome.

EDIT- I forgot to mention a Harry Potter joke in the chapter. British practitioners like wands!

SECOND EDIT- I'm going to be spending a lot of the next few days in airports. As I do have Pact on my Kindle (I transferred it myself with a lot of hard work and not looking at what I was copying and pasting into a Word document that then went through Calibre) I'll be able to read it on the planes but won't be able to update.

[Landis963]

EDIT- I forgot to mention a Harry Potter joke in the chapter. British practitioners like wands!

You forgot the Magical girl joke in that same chapter. Japanese practitioners like scepters!

[Forum Explorer]

It just gets better and better.

[pita]

Got quite a bit of reading done. Don't know how long I'll spend writing this post I'll keep it short anyhoo
We've reached the spot where I'm completely in the dark.
First off, I was wrong about the lawyers. Rose was calling them
Secondly my Grue writing problem extends to Joel.
Now. Blake is getting ready to beat Conquest. The Rocky music is blaring, he's been punching meat all day, all he has to do is beat a superpowered darkness demon and then beat a horseman of the apocalypse and an imp.
And people thought Taylor got ridiculous.
I'll be honest here... This isn't very tense. Part of it is that there was a serious Wildbow overload (Blake has been in constant danger without a break since chapter two and it just can't keep up), and part of it is that he keeps saying "Okay, I've reached my limit" and then going further. It feels like there's no backlash to his self destructiveness. This would actually be a good time to kill him off and have a new POV.
On the other hand, reintroducing Paige was something awesome that Worm lacked. Paige was the person telling him "You were never that important". Paige is saying what everyone should have told Taylor: Stop thinking you're hot poop and get back to Earth where the rest of us are. Having a main character shown how flawed his view of the world is hard to do, but when done it will always improve a story. See: Anything by Sanderson. Paige broke Blake a little, improving both characters at once. Making her a little more villainous than the story seems, and him more of a tragic figure.
It seems he got himself a familiar and not an implement. I was wrong about that one. Somewhat a bizarre familiar (And does anyone else thing it's disturbing to bond with a 10 year old boy for life?). Seems useful, though underwhelming considering what we've heard about familiars. At least it's not a dog because a dog is apparently a bad idea though every practitioner seems to have one. Or at least there was one more in an interlude.
The Sandra interlude made a relatively unknown villain into a cool character.
The Behaim family continue their descent into pure douchitude. It seems like their constant refrain is "I wouldn't be evil but you're dangerous so I will mess my life up in order to continue messing with you." They're the masters of "I'm not touching you so don't touch me hahahahahah"
They even continue having douchey names. Dunc Behaim is a man truly deserving of a thwacking.
I still can't reconcile Rose Senior's method of choosing children. I just don't understand it at all.... I can't even explain exactly what weirds me out about it. Why is Paige so last? What don't we know about her? I MUST KNOW
A showdown between Blake and Rose goes from "Impossible" to "Inevitable" and back with every chapter that passes. Blake almost completely absorbed her! Then he let her free! Then he got a familiar without her approval! Then she decided to veto every way of dealing with Darkness Demon! What's next in the lives of these two wacky adventurers!?!?
Pauz being pronounced Pooze really bothers me. It's a funny way for the author to acknowledge it, though, noting the weakness of the medium while working around it.
I missed Blake's knowing what the lawyers would ask for next time. Where is it written? He thinks back on it but doesn't state what it is exactly.
EDIT- I a letter and then spoiler tags didn't work

[Iruka]

Is still going on?
I also dropped out of Pact at some point but want to finish it and some company along the way would be nice.

[Dragonus45]

I think this may have died, but I promise you that if you stick with it Pact is worth reading and finishing on its own.