#pactblr

Finally we get some more practitioners! I like how readily they accepted it. Other stories would take a full chapter for Blake to convince people to hear him out about magic being real, here it's a couple paragraphs.

I like Ty, I think he's got the closest attitude to mine if I learned about stuff like this

Oh he's going to involve them with the lord immediately? Oh that's bad

Gotta watch out for those angels with plans.

Conquest is weak you say... Almost as if the ultimate fate of every conqueror is to be conquered in turn. It's an intrinsic part of his conceptual existence to eventually fall to someone greater, just as his nature necessitates that he can never accept that his strength is fading.

I do wonder if this is going to become a situation where Blake has to avoid fighting Conquest because defeating him makes you the next Conquest. It would be appropriate.

Sure, you bind a ghost and no one calls you a necromancer. You disguise yourself with faerie ink all day long and no one calls you a glamourer. But you bind oooooone imp...

I like Fell. Also hey now we have more context for Maggie's backstory.

Wildbow starts more from the Mundane and gradually cranks up the Tentacle Knob as chapters settle and the plot thickens.

Hungry has the Tentacle Knob turned up pretty darn high right off the bat but dials it back through the characters' development.

Wildbow deals very heavily in how ostensibly ordinary and even tedious personalities and circumstances have a deeply eldritch undercurrent when penetrated as threats.

Hungry deals very heavily in how ostensibly bizarre and even grotesque specific personalities and circumstances have a deeply sincere undercurrent when received as people.

Pact starts with a young man enduring the perpetual drama of his family, the constant acrimony that he wants to get away from at any cost. Katalepsis starts with a young woman who sees monsters every waking moment and a god for the lion's share of non-waking moments. Blake's situation isn't universal but pretty common in dramatic fiction. Heather's situation is more commonly framed from a purely antagonistic or even facetious narrative-point.

I'm speaking broadly, of course. Both are fantastic angles in their own right and all-around are why I love reading Weird literature.

How should the two approaches be reconciled?

Laws of any kind fall under the domain of Conquest? I'm so here for it I love to see even more Wildbow anarchist propaganda

Oh this is cool I wonder which of Blake's previous friends is going to be revealed as/become a practitioner

Lol wtf "Blaaaaaake you have to help me socialize my loser gf. By sex with both of us. Please Blake it's the only way...."

Conquest time... I'd make the joke but I haven't watched invincible.

Well this guy sucks as expected

Breaking: New Arrival In Town Immediately Tanks Chances Of Survival Via Sphinx Microagressions

Ah it's the Dionysius guy. So far this is just Conflicts of Interest: The Web Serial

Oh I see this is the demon binding arc ok yeah. Zero percent chance that Conquest lets Rose go afterwards btw he didn't say anything about removing that shackle.

This arc was so good I was too locked in to comment chapter by chapter

Wonderfully creepy detail that glamours can have lingering effects on the user. And that they can cause a runaway feedback loop: you believe the glamour which makes it stronger which makes you believe it more.

Wildbow protagonists loooove a good excuse to go be kind of horrible to people for a while.

It was really cool having a glimpse into how the Duchamps and Behaims go about their business behind closed doors. And how they keep their family segregated between practitioners and laypeople. Also, the Duchamps' way of life seems absolutely hellish. Arranged familiars, arranged marriages, children used as bargaining chips who then grow up to perpetuate the cycle on their own children in turn.