#paleblr

[victoriadallonfan]

Got some free time, AMA about Wildbow webserials

[soylad]

I love Pale

[pedropascsl]

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

[estavionpira]

Wildbow serial settings

Worm:

Pact:

Twig:

Ward:

Pale:

Claw:

Seek:

[lucybaird]

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]

Really a lot to love about Pale, but going to highlight some stuff for Pride:

One of the three protagonists is lesbian, and another is aromantic heterosexual, and a good chunk of the story is about those two coming to terms with their identity and making a life for themself.

There's a supporting cast that contains many queer characters who are all fascinating and endearing.

There's generally a lot of queerplatonic relationships and it's incredibly sweet.

Exploration and expression of the Self are actually pretty important ideas in the magic system and the story.

Rebelling against corrupt systems, creating safe spaces, educating people, and advocating for and protecting the marginalized are central to the story.

There is an evil patriarchy that is chock full of homoeroticism and I know the Tumblr-folk will like that.

[notalittleatall]

Zeds so funny. For some reason when reading through the first time I envisioned him as a cowboy with a southern accent. But upon further analysis I’ve realised that he actually dresses like a 50s greaser because in his own stated opinion there is no situation where a leather jacket doesn’t look cool. Very fortunately for him he found a girlfriend somehow who also agrees that leather jackets are cool in all situations so love wins i guess. Biggest dork in Canada meets a girl who thinks everything he does is cool and awesome. Plus 80s technomancy is just genuinely very cool. Its fine when Ray does it but he was just a regular technomancer in the 80s who didn’t move with the times. Zed made a conscious decision to be retro in the year of our lord 2021. The scene where he rocks up to kennet in his car with the spirits howling in his radio is still stuck in my head. Perfect entry for this guy. Honestly that scene made me get why he sticks with the retro aesthetic because goddamn does it work. Still an utter travesty of a man though.

[ariapmdeol]

kennet trio tests... ill figure out how i want them to look eventually,, these probably will change a lot

[ganurath]

...Are there any Wildbow serials where "yeet the baby" isn't applicable wisdom?

[tomatosauce5]

Just conducted an internal investigation and as it turns out my favorite genre of media is "young witches learning about magic". Something about young girls drawing runes, flying brooms and casting spells just makes writers, artists and animators go all out every single time.

[victoriadallonfan]

Which WB characters would fall for a crypto-scam?

[joanna-lannister]

Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.

[pedropascsl]

THE OBSESSED ARTIST

“The trope of the obsessed artist refers to a character that strives to perfect their chosen craft and better themselves at it by any means necessary, which can lead to their own self-destruction in their pursuit of perfection”

[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!

[unmotivated-cosmere-nerd]

After reading some posts (spesifically on the nature of magic by @felonytaxevasion and creature design by @lakesbian) and some other urban fantasy novels I have a bunch of ideas floating around about Pact and Pale that I want to explore via writing something

The core three ideas are:

The Magics meaning within the world

The History of the practice

And the people who wield the practice.

I should start out by saying I disagree with @felonytaxevasion's take that the magic is a metaphor about Family specifically and think its more about the systems we build as a society, although the "traditional family" is definitely one of them.

Although to a certain point I don't even think its a metaphor, the practice as it exists , is literally a man made system build by one guy 3000 years ago in a small corner of the world that has expanded and dominated the rest of the world forcing its rules onto everyone because no one can agree on a better solution. The Practitioner must literally agree to a social contract where they define themselves to the rest of the world that causes the speech and actions to be policed by the world around them.

Which is something I love about the Practice, its not a genetic magic system, but one anyone can sign up for. Aside from the unappealing eugenics of genetic magic systems, where some people are born "better", it also speaks a lot about generational determinism the idea that the next generation will naturally be better and more enlightened and that diversity is a new thing. In contrast in Pact and Pale the Practice has a weight of history behind it (hence the name), its grown from a stopgap measure to an oppressive beast that learns from previous generations and grows to encompass and control everything, much like practitioners themselves, and will continue to do so as long as its members are complacent. The practice will only change if it is actively fought, deliberately fixed and made to accept the Other (the diverse/minority group in this metaphor).

But these ideas are more than just metaphors. This is something I really like in Pale with Zed. Now I am cis, so obviously take this with a grain of salt, but the way the practice responds to a trans person, demanding he conform to the identity presented in his awakening and engaging with the struggle of being trans in a system that wasn't built to accept you, seems like a more sincere engagement with the trans experience than a magic a potion that changes your sex to match your gender, although from what @felonytaxevasion said it might also come down to weather or not you want escapism in your story or not.

But this gets into another part I want to talk about witch is the people of the practice. Being a practitioner, means willing participating in a system of exploitation and abuse, a system you strengthen just by signing up. Its not something you are, its something you do. I want to compare two other books to Pact and Pale to explore some ideas.

The first is "magic for liars" in it mages are something you are born as and when asked why mages didn't stop Hitler they say mage law and never bring it up again. In comparison in Pact and Pale practitioners fought in WW2 with Jude's great grandfather and Aimon Behaim getting injured fighting enemy practitioners. More than that practitioners have philosophy, from whole books on the philosophy of a discipline like Diabolism to the textbooks in Pale that (purposefully) read like they were written by someone who believes in the white mans burden. There s the weight of an ugly history to the Practice that makes it feel more real than other books.

I'm not sure what the thrust of this is but I really like Pact and Pale's magic systems and I love practioners in a strange way, there existence is like heartwarming but bad, a tragedy, but one of the status quo not disaster and i find that really compelling.