YMMV / Pact

• Base-Breaking Character: Rose. Opinions are sharply divided on her character and actions, and she is viewed as The Scrappy at worst and the Only Sane Man at best. It doesn't help that being trapped in a mirror only makes her lash out, she's been tainted by Conquest, or the fact that she's taken Blake's place in the real world.
• Complete Monster: The Hyena is a monstrous goblin that has left a trail of destruction in its wake since before the New World was settled. So vicious and sadistic that it is likened to a demon, the Hyena's signature is to maul its victims but only half-devour them, leaving hundreds of Others and the ghosts of its human victims in mutilated states that cause them to lash out in pain at anyone and everything around them. Taking its ruined slaves with it wherever it decides to hunt, the Hyena's latest haunt in Toronto leads to it chasing Evan Matthieu until the boy dies of exposure, with the goblin taking glee in forever continuing the torment with his ghost.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Evan. Sympathetic origins, pluck and tenacity above the call of duty, intelligent for an 8-year-old ghost, moral compunctions - and funny to boot.
  • Fell also seems to be shaping up as this.
  • Faysal too. So far the only angel in the series is more fair than most of the people. Even the fact that he's an equal participant in Johannes' horrific demesne scheme and sells information on Blake to anyone who pays is counterbalanced by his politeness, reasonableness, and willingness to talk things over with Blake. Of course, after sending everyone to Limbo that changes.
  • Green Eyes is a rather appealing character since, despite her lackluster appearance, she's been loyal to Blake and sympathetic...even though she has a differing opinion on what constitutes food.
  • Peter, too, partially due to being able to leverage his history as a con-artist into serving as a Badass Normal, partially because of his Deadpan Snarker sense of humor, and partially because of his willingness to try and deliver Shut Up, Hannibal! speeches in defense of humanity to dangerous antagonists like Barbatorem.
• Fan Nickname:
  • When Rose basically forces the Abstract Demon to give her name or be weakened, she "eats" most of the name so that Rose and Blake cannot hear it but she still fulfills the requirement. The only syllable we know is "Urr", leading to the nicknames "Ursula" and "ErasUrr" due its memory erasing powers.
  • The elder Rose has become known as "Darth Granny" for setting up two heirs to die during the course of her Thanatos Gambit.
  • Leonard is known as LIAB, short for "Leonard In A Bottle"
  • When Evan became a familiar to Blake, he got a bird form. Cue the fans dubbing him "Evan the Boy Wonder."
  • When Blake (apparently) gets eaten by Ursula and retroactively erased from existence he gains the nickname Whatshisface.
  • After Maggie loses her name to Padraic, she's referred to as Scarf Girl.
• Iron Woobie: The Sheperd's section of Histories at the end of Arc 7 implies this, noting that if the power of a scream was determined by the anguish behind it, his would be heard around the world.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The serial starts off just as dark as Worm was at its worst and just gets worse from there:
  • Part of this is that there are many fewer sympathetic characters total. Worm made most of the heroes and Undersiders reasonably sympathetic early on; but Pact takes a long time just to introduce Blake's friends, and when they do their role remains fairly minor overall. The only unquestionably sympathetic main character for much of the early story is Evan, who takes a fairly long time to appear.
  • Another part of this is the pacing of the story: Blake gets hurt... and hurt... and hurt... and hurt... and never has any time for meaningful rest and recuperation. Bad things just keep happening to him, constantly, with almost no downtime. Wildbow did take this criticism to heart, and in subsequent stories has made sure to include periods of lighter content and opportunities for characters to rest up a bit.

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