Touched by Venom Parts Four and Five

[pangolin20]

theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-05-08 20:03:00

Touched By Venom: Parts Four and Five

Part Four: Everyone Is Awful

Zarq and her mother go to visit Waivia in her new, uh, home. The clan which bought her was one of those who got a big fat payout from the government, so everybody is lounging around, hungover and nomming on pastries. As you would expect, all of them are smug jerks. They’re also ugly, because of course they are.

We then get another long infodump in which Zarq’s mum explains how women are usually traded between clans. The practise even has a fakey made-up name which translates to “Garden Rotation”. No, really. I can’t believe I’m supposed to take that seriously. It sounds like something off an episode of Gardening Australia, or maybe a history textbook about feudal age cropping techniques. We also learn that Waivia is a huge Mary Sue who was a super precocious kid and is, like, incredibly incredibly smart as well as a total babe.

Naturally this is a bad thing because nobody likes a really smart girl with a bodacious bod. I mean, ewww! Who on earth would want to date that?

By the way, no evidence will ever be shown that Waivia is actually smart. We’re just told she is.

We also learn now why Zarq’s mother gave her such a ridiculous name: she did it on purpose so Zarq will also be treated like an outsider, so her sister won’t have to suffer alone.

Did I mention that Mama Zarq is, to put it mildly, a complete bitch?

I mean at this point I don’t even care that she’s due to get her face kicked in by a bunch of drunken assholes. In fact I kind of wish someone would give her selfish arse a good beating.

But of course, she’s just Such a Strong Female Character™ that I’m supposed to relate to her and stuff.

The book finally gets back on track after a couple of pages of this, and they find Waivia locked up in the clan’s Love Shack (to hell with calling them “mating shacks” – it’s a stupid name). Waivia has clearly had the shit beaten out of her and has most definitely been raped. It’s not specifically stated, but it really doesn’t have to be. And that’s Rape Number One in the bag, ladies and gentlemen. I’d suggest a drinking game where you do a shot every time someone gets raped, but beyond a certain point drinking stops being fun and just makes you pass out on the floor, and this book is an unpleasant enough experience as it is.

Waivia’s ill-treatment has at least taken her down a few pegs, and she believes her mother was complicit in selling her into a life which is just slightly more horrible than the one she used to have. Mumsy tries to explain that this isn’t the case, but Waivia just tells her to fuck off. At this point some spell or other is briefly broken, and Zarq sees that Waivia is in fact a Djimbi like her mother, with the same racial characteristics.The implication being that she’s always looked like that but some sort of magic either she or her mother used (it’s not made clear) created an illusion so everyone would think she was like everyone else. DUN DUN DUUUN!

Mum runs off in a tizzy, leaving Zarq behind, and a big deal is made out of how she’s all broken hearted and stuff. But as both she and Waivia are unlikeable characters and their relationship with each other has never been properly established (you never once see them act as if they actually love each other), my sympathy levels stand at zero.

In the next chapter the pottery clan signs up to work as labour picking some sort of nut in the jungle for the nobility, because they’re literally dying of starvation by now.

I hope nobody wants any pottery made for a while.

I’m also wondering just how this system is supposed to work. Is it really such a good idea to let an entire clan which provides an important resource starve to death over something as trivial as a dumbass kid clearing his throat? What do the nobles think is going to happen? Nobody else makes pottery or knows how. If the potters all die or have to take different jobs, where is everyone going to get their pots now? Skilled labourers don’t grow on freaking trees.

I’m beginning to suspect this part of the country is being run by complete morons. I mean, come on – there is a BIG difference between being evil and oppressive and being just plain stupid.

Anyway, we haven’t had anything incredibly distasteful happen for at least two pages, so let’s fix that right away. Zarq’s injury which she got from the venom whip has now become infected. She becomes delirious as a result, and a couple of people over at the plantation decide the wound must be cleaned out. Zarq goes nuts with delerium, so one of them sits on her face.

With no pants on.

And we then find out that the “woman” who does so is in fact a male eunuch. With his empty ballsack and tiny penis now sitting on a nine-year-old girl’s chin. And yes, we get a very precise description of all that, including what the penis smells like.

And this was necessary to include because…?

Anyway, so they clean up the wound and stuff it with maggots, and Zarq eventually gets better. She then has an encounter with one of the Dragon Temple’s acolytes, who has come to perform some ritual or other, and we get a description of how incredibly handsome he is. (Apparently he has skin “like aged ivory”. In other words… yellow?). Zarq immediately wishes she had “breasts and hips”, and when the guy approaches her she tells him he’s beautiful. The guy then proceeds to touch her on the leg in a most definitely sexual manner, and Zarq thrills that she’s managed to get him in her “thrall”, in other words that she’s worked her seductive charm on him. The guy finally leaves, and Zarq narrates about how she’ll never forget him and how she feels like a woman for the first time.

Um.

SHE’S FUCKING NINE YEARS OLD! NINE! I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT A NINE YEAR OLD TRYING TO SEDUCE A GROWN FUCKING MAN! WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY DO YOU KEEP PUTTING YOUR NINE YEAR OLD PROTAGONIST IN THESE DISGUSTING SEXUAL SITUATIONS?

What. The. HELL. First she’s thinking about her older sister’s hot bod and using terms like “swollen vulva”, then she listens to her parents screwing without a care in the world, then she plays with a sex toy, then she checks out her mother’s boobs, and then she gets fucking teabagged by a eunuch without any underpants on! And a couple of pages later she’s looking at her mother’s pubic region and describing it for our reading pleasure!

I don’t know if I should be calling Zarq sick in the head, or the author. This is what happens when the author fails to combine the narration with the character’s point of view, as opposed to her own point of view. When you are describing something through a character’s eyes, it needs to be coloured by that character. It’s not the same thing as third person omniscient at all. And the character would be inclined to pay attention to certain things as opposed to others, and have… I don’t know, emotional reactions to what they see, perhaps?

Pray tell – how many nine year old girls would be paying close attention to the erogenous zones of their immediate family members if they weren’t seriously fucked up victims of long term sexual abuse? Kids that age don’t notice that stuff. They’re kids. They have little to no awareness of what sex is, and they generally find it either funny, or icky.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that if you want to sexualise your characters, please don’t do it through the eyes of a little girl. Reading your book should not make me feel like a fucking pedophile.

Meanwhile Zarq’s mother has come up with a plan to steal “chits” (basically this book’s equivalent of money) by cheating on the numbers of nuts they’re picking. She hopes to get enough chits to buy Waivia back. Charming person that she is, she shows far more interest in this than in her younger daughter’s health. In fact she doesn’t even mention it other than to snarl at the kid to get better NOW so she can help with the picking. Zarq basically means nothing to her other than to be her willing lackey, working herself to death immediately after recovering from a life-threatening illness.

Fuck this woman. She’s a horrible, horrible, awful person and I wish she’d just get on and die already so I don’t have to keep watching her abuse her own daughter like this.

Part Five: Yes, Just Keep Piling On the Emotional Abuse

Zarq’s mother continues to be a complete tool in the next chapter, in which she urges the kid to work her backside off in the fields, then secretly steals most of the chits she earns and hides them. Everyone makes fun of Zarq for apparently being a lousy nut picker, and she has to play along with it. Mommie Dearest keeps her in line with the calculated use of emotional abuse and passive-aggressive manipulation, by showering her with affection only when Zarq gives up the goods.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Using kind and loving behaviour as a reward doled out for serving your interests while treating the other person with total indifference the rest of the time is textbook abusive behaviour. I want to call CPS on this woman.

Mummy uses some sort of magic to keep everyone safe and healthy, which makes her very ill, and she acts more and more like a raving loon. When it’s announced that they’ve paid off their debt and can soon go home, she starts yelling about how they should keep on with the nut picking, but is immediately overruled. She then faints dramatically.

Mummy is now unable to work any more, so Zarq keeps on with it herself and keeps bringing her the chits, and we see more evidence of emotional abuse as Zarq tells us she’s doing it because she desperately wants to win her mother’s affection and get her to pay attention to her again. Instead she’s met with constant sighs and disappointment. Zarq works herself into a state of complete exhaustion and starts getting sick again, so Mummy uses magical mind control on her to force her to keep going when her concerned uncle tells her to get some rest. The uncle becomes suspicious and accuses Mummy of using magic on her kid, then rips her clothes off to reveal the hidden bundle of chits, and yes we get another mention of her lady bits because that’s so very relevant.

The uncle then orders Zarq’s dad to take the chits off her since she won’t hand them back voluntarily, and man this guy is completely whipped; he doesn’t even have the spine to argue with his wife when she’s just flagrantly broken the rules. He eventually caves in and forcibly takes the chits off her, then hands them to Uncle Asshole (douchebaggery must run in the family).

Zarq, of course, blames herself for the whole incident and thinks about how she doesn’t deserve her mother’s affection now. Again, classic signs of child abuse. On the last day of picking – I can’t believe I’m actually typing this – she accidently pees on a certain plant, which immediately splits and curls up in an attractive way. Zarq decides to make it into a bracelet, and collects a bunch more of them to wear.

Everyone is very taken with it, and she goes to show her mother, fawning over her about how they can make more of them and glaze them like pottery to make beautiful necklaces and such. Mummy is overjoyed and starts hugging her and calling her wonderful and so on.

Why? Because she’s already decided to start making Piss Jewellery to sell, so she can get her horrible bitchy daughter back. Because, as usual, Zarq can go fuck herself.

The abuse plods on into the next chapter, where Mummy Darling has now started making the jewellery back at home, and forces Zarq to provide the piss she needs, yelling at her when she’s unable to urinate, which makes the kid cry. Zarq finally begs her to make it stop, and points out that all her mother ever talks about is Waivia and pleads with her “don’t hate me”. For being unable to piss.

Mum’s reaction to this is to fly into a rage, shouting about how unfair the whole thing is, and might I add that she’s unloading on a fucking nine year old. She then decides to bring the rest of the clan women into it, which she does, and now all of them are secretly providing the piss, and this is a Big Deal because female urine is considered unclean (as is every fluid filthy dirty women produce. They’re not even allowed to lie on the “dragon blessed” ground, lest they contaminate it).

The Piss Jewellery comes out great and they make a fortune off it. Even the nobles start buying it once it becomes fashionable. Now they have enough chits to buy Waivia back, Mummy Darling has another go at persuading Uncle Asshole – now the head of the clan – to go ahead and do that, pretty please, because women aren’t allowed to own chits. Nuncle says no, Daddy remains utterly ineffectual.

Note that Daddy, who happens to be a, y’know, man – doesn’t do anything to help out here. He could take the damn chits and buy his eldest daughter back himself.

But he doesn’t, because he’s easily the most useless character in the entire book. He literally does nothing and barely even gets any lines. And apparently he doesn’t give a fig about his own daughter being sold into sexual slavery, so pardon me if I chalk him up as an asshole while we’re at it.

Instead Mummy fancies herself up and goes to see if she can get Waivia back herself by trading some of the Piss Jewellery. For no particular reason, she takes Zarq with her. Having put on a ridiculous show of acting like some sort of noblewoman, it looks as if her ruse will succeed, but no dice – Waivia has left for parts unknown.

I must say I’m very fond of self-rescuing women. In fact we later learn that Waivia did the sensible thing and went off to make a better life for herself, no thanks to you, Mummy, or you, Zarq the Eternally Kicked Spaniel.

Mummy and Zarq return home, only to find that they’ve been caught… somehow. It’s not really made clear. Zarq’s completely innocent dad gets his arse kicked into next week, and Mummy is essentially locked up until she gives birth to the baby she’s carrying.

The baby turns out to be a son, so Uncle Asshole gives him to the temple as an act of penitence before confessing everything in the hopes that only Zarq’s parents will be punished for the whole Piss Jewellery thing.

We now finally return to the prologue, as some pissed off drunken nobles show up for revenge, led by the eeeevil Kratt (remember him? I sure don’t). Zarq’s mother gets the tar beaten out of her, and her father is tied up and gruesomely disembowelled by a dragon. For some reason the author finally wimps out and hides behind bizarre metaphors instead of just describing the gore in a straightforward manner. One guy who gets trampled by the dragon, for example, is described as “burst(ing) into a flock of crimson birds”. Whut.

Either way, RIP Zarq’s Dad. You won’t be missed in the slightest. The dragon then proceeds to trash the joint and kill a bunch of other people before they dart the thing and drag it away.

Well, halfway through the book and we finally get to the inevitable moment where the protagonist’s whole world is brutally destroyed by The Bad Guys. So now it’s time for the real adventure to start, right? Now Zarq will vow revenge and head out into the big wide world to show us many interesting things and introduce us to a new cast of exciting characters, and hopefully there will be a montage or some other transition where she grows up so we’re not saddled with a useless nine year old protagonist any more, right?

Ahahahah, no. Nothing enjoyable to read will ever happen in this book. That would be “unrealistic”. Realistic stories must be slow-paced, ugly and dreary without exception, because nothing nice or fun ever happens in the real world. *nodnod*

Also Zarq’s mother is still alive, though at least she got her face kicked in but good. It’s about damn time.


paulp1993
May 8 2017, 20:24:14
This book could theoretically be used to argue either that there is a God (because this book is hell), or that there isn't any (he would have stopped it).

theepistler
May 8 2017, 20:28:45
I'd be more inclined to say it's definite proof that Satan exists. And that he works in publishing.

torylltales
May 8 2017, 22:21:26
It's an exploration of man's inhumanity to man.

theepistler
May 8 2017, 22:26:54
Well, I guess it's time to start that second career as a serial killer.

*wanders off to find a nice set of scalpels and some knockout drugs*



Anonymous
May 9 2017, 03:21:15
Wait this was legitimately published? It wasn't a vanity work?...Well that's...inspiring to say the least. If she could do it anybody can.

vaskrslacigla
May 9 2017, 18:15:50
Lol true


theepistler
May 9 2017, 18:19:50
Yup. It was published by Roc Fantasy. They didn't edit it very well though; I've found at least two typos so far.


vorpal_tongue
May 9 2017, 01:49:08
On the last day of picking – I can’t believe I’m actually typing this – (I can) she accidently pees on a certain plant, which immediately splits and curls up in an attractive way. Zarq decides to make it into a bracelet, and collects a bunch more of them to wear.

Let me get this straight, she pisses on a plant, it reacts funny, turns... "pretty", she decides to not only wear it as a bracelet, but proceed to piss on more plants to wear them?

She pisses on a bunch of plants, and wears them like jewellery?

I can get behind a few things, from an in-universe perspective. I can get behind the eating of dragon eggs. I can get behind the... overt sexualisation of a nine-year-old's view of her mother (this is a "different universe", so I don't have to project any 'preconceptions onto it), I can even get behind the rampant abuse. All of this to a degree, at least.

But this thing with the plants? I have an issue with that. It's unhygienic.


theepistler
May 9 2017, 07:15:46
I know, right? Who acts like this???


zorbulon
May 9 2017, 08:52:41
Clearly all the child abuse has stunted her mental capabilities to that of a three-year-old.


vorpal_tongue
May 9 2017, 14:34:00
Clearly all the child abuse has stunted her mental capabilities to that of a three-year-old.

Now let's imagine her speaking as such.

"Moomy! Moomy! I pee-peed on some grass! Come look!"

"By the Holy Venom Cock! This is beautiful! ...I can sell this. Darling, go pee on some more plants, I'm going to grab some beer. There's a good girl."

"Yay!"


theepistler
May 9 2017, 17:42:59
Depressingly, toward the end of this part of the book you see Zarq sitting and rocking back and forth as a sign of distress, which is exactly what real abused children do.

Naturally this will not cause her any long-term emotional problems whatsoever, because the author wants to have her cake and eat it too. Portraying horrific abuse and trauma is okay, but acknowledging that it almost always causes incredibly crippling mental issues later in life would be too inconvenient to the plot. Your character can't do Protagonist Stuff if they're paralysed by anxiety and depression, so never mind about all that! Real heroes just shrug it off like it never happened. Hey, what d'you mean that's really offensive and demeaning to real life victims of abuse? >:(


vaskrslacigla
May 9 2017, 18:27:15
Person who wrote this is mentally ill. Imagine waking up and thinking about writing piss jewelry into your book. Or anything else that was incuded.
I can't.
I would be ashamed if I wrote something like this and showed it to somebody. I would probably lose all friends I have lol


theepistler
May 9 2017, 18:31:10
I don't know WTH she was thinking with this. I guess she was just trying to be edgy again. Just like in the next chapter, which has kitten murder in it! (No I'm not joking. Author literally kills off a small fluffy kitten).


vaskrslacigla
May 9 2017, 22:13:03
That's DIsGuSTENGG!


vorpal_tongue
May 10 2017, 01:02:36
I can't wait to see this. :)


theepistler
May 10 2017, 01:41:52
I take it you're not a big fan of cats?


vorpal_tongue
May 10 2017, 02:55:58
Nah, I just want to see something suffer.
... I'm probably a misanthrope, as I'd rather see the girl suffer more than the cat. Or anyone, really.

minionnumber2
May 10 2017, 09:26:27
I'd be willing to give it a pass if it wasn't in this book since there are some seriously gross food traditions out there and I'd never wear any make up if I knew what all they put in the stuff. In this context, it's just another layer of dumb grim derp.


vaskrslacigla
May 9 2017, 02:34:47
...

star_dragon5
May 9 2017, 02:45:21
Gross.


Anonymous
May 9 2017, 02:57:23
You know, if the book did what you suggested at the en, it might hace worked.
If the descriptions weren't so explicit...
If the characters útil now hadn't been useless at best and assholes at worst...
If everythigh wasn't so gory and unpleasant...
If this was one quarter of fifth of the book instead of halfway through...

Yeah, nevermind


vaskrslacigla
May 10 2017, 07:45:34
Uuuhhh....I don't know..I yet have to figure out what plot is supposed to be (other than dragon porn, THAT IS NOT A STORY).


torylltales
May 9 2017, 23:38:03 Edited: May 9 2017, 23:42:12
nope.






vaskrslacigla
May 10 2017, 07:19:58


vaskrslacigla
May 10 2017, 07:40:21
I'm going totally off topic now..
Did you watch Eurovision!? I just did! Montenegro didn't qualify!!! Everything that is fun never gets anywhere..such a shame.
I noticed songs also can be cliche (wont name which songs, but i'm sure you can figure it out). I am happy my favourites did well, but a lot of other finalists were (to me) just boring, derivative, meh and ya know...cliche.