Talk:Debt/@comment-26054278-20150720172430

First and foremost, I love how vague the title is. I’m not judging pastas based on titles, but I’m glad this title doesn’t give much away about the pasta.

I have my problems with the ending that I’ll discuss in a moment, but I am glad that both the boy’s dog and his father were established early on in the pasta. It is that sort of foreshadowing that makes the twist/end of the story appear much more thought-out.

The creativity displayed here managed to be fairly decent. Yes, I’ve heard of demons or the Devil forcing a debt on someone, but the way the ritual occurred with the flashback was definitely a peculiar idea. The old man seemed to have his own, weird character that made that segment rather interesting.

I think that this pasta could have used a bit more build-up and other sentences just because the pacing felt a little rushed at times, but as is, the plot still moved along pretty alright.

I just think that this story could have been improved substantially if these characters were developed more and established better.

The child who is the main character does indeed have a character, but I don’t know much about his interests. For example, I know he has a dog, but there is never really a moment where this child shows his care for him. Maybe if the characters and the dog around the child were emphasized as important, special, and nice in the eyes of the boy, when something happened to them, the impact would have been much greater.

That is my main problem with the ending. The mother’s character wasn’t even brought up in the story, so when they take the boy’s mother, there is no impact because we never know the emotional connection these characters had or anything about her. I kind of just shrugged when that happened.

I thought the dad was actually rather interesting, as he seemed like an unlikable person who might be taken away first and then the mother and dog as finishing the payment, but he didn’t really go anywhere except go outside for the ending, which, to be honest, the child could have done instead.

However, the idea of this all happening is still rather creepy (particularly how the entity is a bit mysterious, and that picture, while not exactly scary, is interesting). It just would have been creepier and more emotional if we cared about the person this demon took away.

Still, I happened to enjoy this pasta. Work on the characters, as well as slight tweaks to the pace and a bit more originality, would go a long way into making this truly fantastic. 75/100.