#paleblr

[victoriadallonfan]

@cpericardium

WB Web Serial Most Likely to Get You Kicked Out of a Social Gathering By Talking About One Scene Out Loud:

1.) Twig - "Yeah, no, I don't really have words to explain Petey. I'm sorry I made you read that to prove it actually happened."

2.) Ward - "I mean, yes, that is a scene where Victoria is aborting a 4lb throat fetus. What? No! I'm sorry that your baby shower happens to be on the chapter I'm rereading but it's not my fault that the audiobook is so damn loud. I lost my airpods goddamnit!"

3.) Pale - "Yes, he grabs people by the nipples- Stop, it's not porn its not porn its- What? Is he described as hot? Breastbiter the Chonk? I mean... NO it's not porn! It's- Look, he's not the only character focused on nips okay! Milky God Tits are important in context- You're not even letting me finish my sentence. I'll leave this drive-through when you let me finish my sentence!"

4.) Seek - "Yes, the sex wall is plot relevant, but its about their culture and- oh come on I just left the other drive through motherfucker!"

5.) Worm - "Oh is me playing the audio description of Blasto having mechanical spines jammed down his esophagus disturbing to you? You left me here to babysit while Yo Gabba Gabba was on loop. We are both monsters."

6.) Pact - "So like, I know aquariums don't typically do Q and A's, but... okay, so this mermaid mentions wanting to fuck this tree-man. And it's implied that he still has a meat dick - long story - but I'm just wondering like... Well, cause she has serrated teeth like a barracuda of course."

7.) Claw - "What do you mean you're upset about me talking about Mia's ass and muscles?! I'm trying to paint a picture of the characters, and you get mad if I'm talking about this or about how important Carson having a flaccid cock is!"

Been awhile since I’ve done this:

AMA on Worm, Ward, Twig, Pact, Pale, Claw, and Seek

[tomatosauce5]

What exactly happened in arc 17 of Pale again? I made this timeline as a community resource to help wrangle this enormous book.

Full and I mean full spoilers for Pale below!

Imgur link for higher quality image. Google docs link to Phaerlax' Pale amalgam sheet, which this document was based on. I'm not sure if people on Tumblr are even aware of this incredible resource since it was mostly a Reddit/Discord thing. It has chapter synopses, a fanart index and character lists!

[soylad]

I was thinking about this masterfully executed maneuver so I had to go search it up

[saintsisko]

Just serving on the same starship as him made me feel... safe, for some reason.

[estavionpira]

Wildbow serial settings

Worm:

Pact:

Twig:

Ward:

Pale:

Claw:

Seek:

[popeccody]

Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls, until...

Barbie (2023) dir. Greta Gerwig

[sid-abernathy]

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) dir. gary trousdale + kirk wise

[cpericardium]

Compilation of Megafire's Wildbow Essays (Imported)

I haven't read all of them myself, but the few I did were always worthwhile and interesting, so I thought I'd index them here for anyone who hasn't heard of them or checked them out. As I recall, these were written by Megafire as the chapters were coming out.

CHARACTERIZATION OF CAROL IN WARD

REDDIT INDEX

Chapter 3.6 

The Warden's HQ, or, Playing With Time

Chapter 4.6 

Natalie, or, Working Through Proxies

Chapter 5.9 

Power Dynamics, or, Why Carol Love(s/d) Mark

Chapter 6.3 

Trust, Safety and Control, or, General Opinion

Chapter 7.4 

A Glimmer of Hope, or, Victoria and Carol have an Actual Conversation!?

Chapter 8.2 

Meeting the Parents, or, Never mind, Carol is Back to Being Carol

Chapter 8.9 

Baby Steps, or, Carol Manages to Respect Boundaries for Once

Chapter 9.12-9.13 

Bonus Damsel Interlude, or, This Will Pay Off Later, I Promise

Chapter 10.1 

The Diner, or, I Yell a Lot

Chapter 10.y 

Bonus Chris Interlude, or, This Has Nothing to Do With Carol, I Just Really Like This One

Chapter 12.1 

Ruminating on New Wave, or, Why Mark Loves Carol

Chapter 12.2 

Carol vs Damsel, or, I Told You It'd Pay Off

Chapter 12.f 

Ryan and Cradle, or, What It Means to be Good, and, Competing Access Needs, or, Why the Dream Room is the Worst

Chapter 12.9 

The Bubble, or, Making You Feel Even Worse About Carol Getting Hurt

Chapter 14.5 

The Greenhouse, or, Carol Brought Low

Chapter 14.6 (Sort of) 

Drawing Similarities, or, What's Left for Carol

Chapter 14.7 

Chris' Crossroads, or, Screw It, I Guess I'm Talking About Chris Too Now

Chapters 14.9 + 14.10 

Her Mother's Daughter, or, What Amy Learned From Carol

Chapter 14.12 

Piecing Together Chris, or, What Do Monsters Mean?

Chapter 15.7 

Slaves to Fate, or, Predictions and Responsibility

Also Chapter 15.7 

Ultimate Agency, or, Who Is Contessa?

Chapter 16.4 

Mockeries and Funhouse Mirrors, or, Paths Not Taken

Chapter 16.y 

Attempted Therapy, or, Amy Is Not Doing Well

Chapter 17.1 

Family Issues, or, Confrontations Vis-a-Vis Parentage

Chapter 19.1 

The Curious Case of Sarah Pelham, or, A Basic Overview of the Shit That Happened to Sarah

Chapter 19.9-19.10 

The Talk, or, How To Screw Up Your Kids In One Easy Conversation

Chapter 20.e6 

Carol: Final, or, What Has Carol Learned? (Hint: Not Much)

---

PALE ANALYSIS

REDDIT INDEX

Verona and her Dad, a Transactional analysis

Why Verona's Dad is a Literal Manchild - mostly about Out on a Limb 3.1, but with references to 3.4

Adults, Parents and Children

Lucy is Verona's Only Good Parental Figure (and That's Kind Of Sad) - Leaving a Mark 4.2

Pale: Justice

The Cast Of Law And Order: Kennet - Cutting Class 6.z

Practitioner Supremacy

Boy There Are Some Real World Parallels Here - Gone Ahead 7.1

Practitioner Parenting

Regular Old Bad Parenting - Vanishing Points 8.4

Abuse

Brett is an Absolute Bastard - Shaking Hands 9.9

Avery's Games and Gimmicks

Breaking Patterns Is Hard - Dash to Pieces 11.10

Transgressive Acts

Why the Mussers are like the Spartans - Break 5

Practitioners and Others, a Binary

The Binary is a Lie! - Gone and Done It 17.x

Judging the Judiciary

What About the Judges? - Crossed With Silver 19.z

Hostile Environment

Power Plays for the Future - In Absentia 21.12

[eddathegreat]

I love that when Lucy went to university she showed up at her new room with a guitar and a large dog, immediately announcing to all present that they will never be getting a good night's sleep.

[lunar1an]

despite the fact that raymond pale is my sworn enemy on principle i do think there's something compelling to the idea of like. a man slowly becoming Other and losing all of his connections to humanity and reality in an effort to retain control over and keep his centralized projects going.

he started out with an idea to use technology to help out practitioners. he works on it. he hits the jackpot. he's running a knowledge base with the goal of giving practitioners more options, education, and trying to connect people and make things less insular. except now he has eyes on him. people who want assurances and who want to clamp down on this new technology and control it, and control him by extension, except he's stretched so thin between all these people that controlling him just means not letting him do anything at all.

he gets more power and fame. he has the world at his fingertips but grows more distant from his family. hector refused his miracle cure because raymond wasn't emotionally and physically there for him while he was dying, but that feels like a culmination of every other time raymond chose his projects over the people around him. his near-death experience was getting his life almost taken over by a digital Other, and having to burn bridges and connections to stop it.

he makes two other projects. one that actually helps people and one that's practitioner amazon. practitioner amazon takes off, becoming just as much of a burden as the atheneum. the black box stays regional and neglected, inaccessible to most people because of its UI.

he tries to retain connections to his apprentices. most of them dislike him, and don't want to take over the work he's doing. the one that sticks around, zed, is the one he doesn't want to subject to his work.

he keeps a position at school and fits teaching into his schedule because he enjoys it, and wants to keep doing good and continuing his original goal of helping practitioners and spreading knowledge. the school is rotten to the core on account of everything its staff enables. he enables it too.

he watches as his friends become monsters, and the one that was already a monster detaches herself from politics entirely. he can't act against them. is that because of his neutral position, or because he doesn't want to burn those last bridges, and still wants to hold onto people who remember the good old days?

he doesn't interfere or push back against them. four of them destroy themselves anyway (including charles). the school collapses, and it's unlikely it will ever be rebuilt. he gave up sleep. his life is monitoring security threats and holding onto control of his projects. he says that he's almost like an Incarnation of Technology and that feels true in a multitude of ways.

i wonder if eventually, a few decades later, after practitioner families inevitably find loopholes or subtle methods to take considerable control of his projects from him, he'll just be left hanging onto the last vestiges or primary functions of those systems as like. the ultimate Administrator or something. unable to act, unable to do anything but maintain his steadily declining projects. insert angel comparison here.

[f1rewalk3r]

the cool thing about pale is that no one has read it so i can say things like “fugly bob is a canonical character in Pale and is a deus ex machina to save one of the main characters from actual real protagonist death” and no one knows that i’m actually telling the truth and not shitposting

[victoriadallonfan]

Donate to my KoFi for commissions!

[goldenmotive]

My Pale hot take is that Lucy should've done more fucked up and evil curses.

Early Lucy had this creative and spiteful side of her character that I found pretty compelling. It falls off pretty fast, and I get why, but I'm wistful for a version of Pale where the trio gets to be messy.

[soylad]

I love Pale

[notalittleatall]

When i read pact by far my favourite parts were blacks lambs blood and that one chapter from the implementum textbook. This means when i finally read pale i was fucking ecstatic. I don’t even know if pale is good i just know that i was 100% the target audience for it. Likewise i don’t think pact is bad necessarily but i am absolutely mentally incapable of getting any enjoyment out of reading it because of the way it’s written. A tragedy but at least i get to read pale

[estavionpira]

Oh you like WORM huh? Maybe stop trying to WORM your way into my DMs!

You like PACT? Has it left an imPACT on your social life? Get outta here!

You like TWIG? Have you TWIGged onto the fact that she's not into ya, pal?

You like WARD? Only thing that's doing is WARDing off human companionship!

You like PALE? Your dating market PALEs in comparison to... everyone else's!

You like CLAW? Stop trying to CLAW your way into her heart buddy, it's not gonna happen!

You like SEEK? SEEK bitches!