Shadowed By Wings: Parts Two and Three

[pangolin20]

theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-09-28 10:56:00

MOOD: awake
MUSIC: Wolfmother - Victorious

Shadowed By Wings Sporking: Parts Two and Three

Part Two: Dragon Highschool – Now With Extra Jocks!

Zarq has a nice long sleep, then wakes up and thinks some more about her motivations. Apparently she hopes to become a dragonmaster, and use that position to change society for the better. Somehow. Just why she’s prepared to try that on is left to the reader’s imagination, considering she has no supporters, no ability, and no brains. Nor am I all that clear on why she wants to do it in the first place. Sure the Temple ruined her life, but quite frankly I’d expect her to be far more interested in getting the fuck out of there and doing something to improve her lot in life the way Waivia did. In fact if Waivia was the protagonist she could be using her new station among the nobility to change things, Cersei Lannister style. I don’t know; I just can’t make myself even care about any of this to begin with. I’m not invested in the setting or any of the characters. The setting is occasionally interesting, but the characters are all unlikeable and boring, and every time we get a character who’s moderately interesting, such as Beauty, the author swiftly gets rid of them.

Then Zarq stops thinking about her motivations and starts fantasising about venom instead, and we get some very much unwanted “erotic” recollections about scales on her thighs, etc. I think this trilogy may very well be the cure for having a sex drive.

After a few pages of this she goes out into the yard and finds she’s been supplied with materials to build a toilet for herself. She thinks about how the dragonmaster obviously believes she’s too pathetic to know how to build anything, and congratulates herself on actually being perfectly capable of it.

Might I add, she’s still not wearing anything other than Kratt’s cape. Maybe the author just forgot about it. Either way I’m picturing her walking around mostly naked, which is really not a mental image I wanted.

Apparently she learned about lumber and such while she was a the convent. (None of that was mentioned up until now, by the way. How very convenient). The head apprentice, whose name is Egg for some damn reason, tries to bully her into mucking out the dragons instead. She refuses, then scares him off by telling him she’s the Skykeeper’s Daughter and has special powers.

We still have no idea what the Skykeeper’s Daughter actually is, by the way. Or what she’s supposed to do, or what the prophecy is about.

So this scene just comes off as an asspull.

At least Zarq is finally standing up for herself, I suppose.

She spends the day building her toilet, and yep – she’s still wearing nothing but Kratt’s cape. It doesn’t even cross her mind to find some clothes. Eventually the Skykeeper shows up and tries to control her again. Zarq throws rocks at it and yells at it to fuck off.

End chapter.

In the next chapter the other apprentices continue to bully Zarq for being an icky girl. She wishes Dono would show some friendship toward her since they used to know each other, but he’s not interested. At dinner time the boys eat all the “gruel” (yes of course they’re having gruel), leaving none for her, so she loses her temper and slaughters a “renimgar” right in front of them so she can eat it. I have no freaking idea what a renimgar is, and neither does Google; the only results I got were references to this trilogy.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to tell us what your made-up animal actually is and what it looks like, Ms Cross.

Egg tries to stop her, but Dono speaks up, saying they should let her go ahead. In fact from now on she can cook for everyone! They argue (the only argument against Dono’s idea is that she might decide to poison them). And now all of a sudden they’re talking like educated nobles. Dono puts it to a vote and loses – Zarq will only have to cook tomorrow’s dinner to teach her a lesson.

While she’s working on that with the regular cook, a pigeon shows up, explodes, and turns into the ghost of her mother (no I’m not kidding about any of that). Mommy Dearest is now human and looks all beautiful and angelic, with “ebony hair” that flows like wings. I’m picturing something out of an anime. She gives Zarq a nice loving hug and again begs her to find Waivia, insisting that she’s still alive and needs help. When emotional blackmail doesn’t work she turns into the Skykeeper and starts shrieking in rage. Zarq keeps insisting that Waivia is dead and she can totally fix things so girls aren’t sold as sex slaves any more (somehow). The Skykeeper yells that she only cares about Waivia.

And she’s the only one.

Finally the Skykeeper flies off, and Zarq swears the cook to secrecy before telling him to run off and find comfort from one of the other apprentices we know nothing about, because apparently she’s figured out they’re a couple. Which is so very relevant, I’m sure.

Once he’s run off Zarq vows that she totally will become a dragonmaster somehow, just to show up Mumsy and prove she’s totally as special and wonderful as Waivia.

We’ve still seen precisely zero evidence that Waivia is smart or talented, by the way. During the short time we spent with her she did nothing more clever than trade on her looks. Even a dimbulb like Zarq probably wouldn’t have much trouble outsmarting that annoying bimbo.

End chapter.

I’m so bored.

Part Three: The Plot Sickens

Zarq keeps building her private toilet, and Dono is still a bullying prick. The dragonmaster nags her into doing some more venom, while being a dick to her yet again (I can’t believe I kind of liked him in the last book). He tells her there’s been an uprising in a neighbouring clutch, and the Ranreeb (wait, what’s a Ranreeb again? I don’t know! It’s never been explained!) has flown out to deal with it. Zarq has to fight in the arena this year, even if she’s inadequately trained.

She’s still wearing nothing but Kratt’s cape.

Once the latrine is finished, she goes to the “gymnasium” – yes the author actually calls it that – for training. The guys are all there wrestling with each other. They’re practising some sort of martial art the author made up, and Zarq reflects that she’d “expected something more refined”.

What the fuck do you even know about martial arts, Zarq? Did they randomly teach you about that at the convent too but you didn’t get around to telling us? Have you been watching kung fu movies? Either way, shut up. Sheesh, she finally grows a spine and this just results in her becoming rude, surly and arrogant. I’m really not sure if that’s an improvement.

Oh, and apparently they’re also practising “calisthenics”.

*facepalm*

Calisthenics were invented in Ancient Greece, Ms Cross. This is not Greece, Ancient or otherwise. What’s next – a nice relaxing session of Tai Chi? Given this author’s track record I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Anyway, so it turns out the apprentices are expected to fight each other as well as goad the dragon so he can get it up.

Why?

How on earth does this benefit anyone? Shouldn’t they be learning how to work as a team? No wonder the death rate is so high.

Oh, but it gets better. In between doing way too fancy flips and whatnot, they then have to simulate rubbing the dragon’s nutsack using a dummy of same. I shit you not. Am I really supposed to be taking this book seriously?

We also learn that bull dragons do indeed have forked penises – I remember someone asking about that back before I started sporking the first book. Question answered, Anon.

Zarq then feeds us a page or two of exposition in which she explains how the whole thing works. Apparently it’s a very popular public event; the audience makes bets on how many apprentices will die, how long it’ll be before the bull gets it up, etcetera. According to Zarq, only half of the apprentices who enter the arena ever come out again.

Finally Zarq joins in with the training, and we get a lot of blah-blah about how it works from Egg, the head apprentice guy (who is still talking like some sort of Cockney for no reason). Everyone has to wear a special cape which can be used as a weapon or as camoflague. Egg makes it sound like when the apprentices fight each other it’s pretty much a “kill or be killed” kind of deal.

Again, what the hell for? This is supposed to be an animal husbandry thing, not a gladitorial game. What’s the point?

The apprentices team up – Zarq winds up with a freakin’ ten year old – and Egg flat-out tells them that if they don’t actively try to injure each other they’ll be whipped.

Again – why?

The always virtuous Zarq refuses to hit the kid and declares that she won’t commit murder in the arena just so save her own hide. This show of nobility is nice and all, but it comes completely out of nowhere and just comes off as out of character. We then get a Game of Thrones style scene where the other apprentices beat the snot out of her while she refuses to fight back. Finally Dono shows up saying he’ll spar with her next. Zarq doesn’t want to because she still wants to be friends with him the way they were as kids.

You mean back when he assaulted her and racially insulted her mother while lusting after her sister, and later on when he vowed revenge on her?

I’m really not kidding; not once in the entire first book were they ever depicted as friends. So this just comes off as an irritating retcon thrown in for the sake of drama. They fight anyway, Zarq still refuses to hit back, and Dono sets out to humiliate her in the hopes that she’ll give up and leave. Finally he tells her she’s hopeless and should just go home. This causes Zarq to wangst about how she doesn’t have a home to go back to. She also tells a bald-faced lie to the reader when she talks about her alleged friend KZ, and claims that KZ “deserted” her.

No, Zarq. KZ did nothing of the sort. You went out one night and never came back, her home was burned down thanks to your stupidity, and she was forced to leave to find a new place to live. And you never once tried to look for her. You deserted her, you selfish little shit, so don’t even think about trying to make us feel sorry for you with that bullshit.

Either way Dono’s ploy doesn’t work and he finally loses patience and pushes her over in the dirt.

We’re now on page 78. And quite honestly, I think this is all stuff that should have happened in book one. At least then we’d have had some semblance of a plot.

That evening Zarq finds out someone has destroyed her new toilet. Oe noes! She has a very melodramatic reaction to this, yelling “By the power of Holy Re, I demand that you declare yourself!” Wait, why is she making big melodramatic proclaimations all of a sudden? She’s never talked like this before. A green and white comet randomly appears in the sky, I’m not sure why (hey, I’m a poet but I don’t know it!). Dono shows up, and she accuses him of having done it. The dragonmaster butts in, making the same accusation, and Dono confesses and is immediately sentenced to twenty lashes. The dragonmaster makes him take his clothes off and the guy gets whipped so severely he finally collapses in a bloody heap. Hah, the prick had it coming.

Afterwards the dragonmaster threatens to whip anyone else who gets in the way of Zarq’s training, and storms off.

Everyone else settles down to enjoy a little gambling while dinner is cooked. Some other guys who are there start doing some sort of prayer ritual called “komikonpu walan kolriks”, and Zarq tells us the chants are “threnodic” and therefore suit her mood.

I see Ms Cross has been borrowing Paolini’s thesaurus. I can just picture the two of them teaming up to molest the poor thing within in inch of its life, sweaty fingers caressing the unwilling pages while the thesaurus trembles in fear, knowing the horrors to come but knowing too that there is no way to resist, no escape…

Wow, I just wrote thesaurus rape porn. Lovely.

The molestation continues relentlessly, as the word “prognostication” shows up later on the page. That poor, poor thesaurus.

Zarq goes to bed, only to be woken up by Dono, who says the two of them have been ordered to rebuild the latrine instead of sleeping. Zarq whines that it’s dark, and Dono says to suck it up. He then demands to know why she’s even doing this (she’s doing it because the author says so. Next question). Zarq whines about how Kratt murdered her parents, and gets no sympathy. She adds that Waivia was sold off as a sex slave, and that upsets him a little, but he sneers that becoming an apprentice is no easier (then why were you so keen so sign up for it, you selfish prick?). Zarq claims that she’s going to change things, and he laughs in her face, pointing out that she’s a) A woman, and b) Pathetic, useless, and basically incapable of doing anything.

I can’t make myself agree with a), but I definitely agree with him on b).

As if wanting to prove him right, Zarq then snatches up the Idiot Ball and openly goes off to the dragon stalls to get herself some hawt dragon sexxors right in front of Dono. SERIOUSLY. You know, the same thing which gets people beheaded? The same thing the nuns back at the convent were terrified about being busted for? That thing?

Either way it doesn’t work. The dragon, not being a sad old wreck, lashes her across the throat with her tongue and Zarq instantly goes into anaphylactic shock. Oh no, why didn’t anyone get around to inventing epipens?? Dono takes off his underpants (really) and tries to keep her alive, yelling at her not to die or he’ll be in big trouble.

Predictably Zarq passes out, then comes too feeling like crap but also enjoying the venom trip. Apparently it gives her “a familiar illusion of puissance”. (I’m crying for that thesaurus now). Dono is also high since he absorbed some venom through his skin, and the two of them share a moment. Dono waxes lyrical about how he’s seen far more horrifying suffering than Zarq ever could, so apparently we’re having an angst-off now. Could True Love be just around the corner?

Oh wait, what we actually get is horniness. Dono starts checking her out, then openly masturbates. Apparently his spooge smells like “a bitter salt smell redolent of ocean weeds”.

In other words it smells like seaweed. Which Zarq has never smelled in her entire life being as she’s never been to the seaside.

For everyone here who has actually… you know, encountered man batter in real life, which I haven’t, it doesn’t actually smell like that does it? I’m willing to lay money that the answer is no, unless the man who supplied it is seriously ill.

Anyway, so Dono says he’ll just build the damn latrine himself and carries Zarq back to her hammock. She’s naked (again), and we get all sorts of descriptions of the feel of his “callused hands” against her buttocks and how lean and coiled with power he is, and how he’s all hard and muscular, etc. Is this really the time or place for that?

Either way Zarq gets turned on and starts sucking on one of his nipples. Dono puts up a token show of resistance, but clearly enjoys it, and the two of them almost have sex, but he backs off because in her current state it would probably kill her. (But what a way to go, right, guys? Nudge nudge wink wink, etcetera).

Finally Dono tells her to just leave, or she’ll die one way or another, end chapter. Ooh, it’s getting hot in here, so take off all your- oh, wait, she’s already naked. Never mind.

11 comments

snarkbotanya
September 28 2017, 14:36:49
The fact that this bullshit got published makes my head hurt.

I see Ms Cross has been borrowing Paolini’s thesaurus. I can just picture the two of them teaming up to molest the poor thing within in inch of its life, sweaty fingers caressing the unwilling pages while the thesaurus trembles in fear, knowing the horrors to come but knowing too that there is no way to resist, no escape…

I suppose it's a bit of unintentional meta-humor on Janine Cross's part. Everyone in the story gets raped, so why not rape the thesaurus too?


pipedreamno20
September 28 2017, 14:44:40
Any semen I have encountered in my life definitely did not smell like salt and/or seaweed; if indeed it smelled at all (without having to deliberately take a big whiff up close or something!).

Musky? Yes. Strong? At times. But not at all like the odd way it's described here.


theepistler
September 28 2017, 18:09:07
Hah, I knew it.


Anonymous
September 28 2017, 19:20:53
Why did Dono take his pants off?


theepistler
September 28 2017, 19:31:14
Oh drat, I just realised I forgot to explain that part - he does it so he can use them to try and wipe the venom off Zarq's neck. Apparently nothing else was available.


minionnumber2
September 28 2017, 22:20:22
The female dragon is my new favorite character in this story. Say no to bestiality.


theepistler
September 28 2017, 22:27:39 Edited: September 28 2017, 22:28:04
I gotta say it was pretty satisfying to see Zarq pay for being an arrogant little nitwit.


atoraruka
September 29 2017, 01:16:03
On the one hand, I'm happy to see you finally tackling this monster.
On the other hand, I think that the main reason for that is that I forgot how disgusting and disturbing those books were.

You deserve a trophy just for this


vorpal_tongue
September 29 2017, 02:04:40
While she’s working on that with the regular cook, a pigeon shows up, explodes, and turns into the ghost of her mother (no I’m not kidding about any of that).

Horseshit. I've seen pigeons, and they don't explode and turn into ghostly mothers.

Wow, I just wrote thesaurus rape porn. Lovely.

Clearly reading these books are rubbing off on you.

Dono takes off his underpants (really) and tries to keep her alive, yelling at her not to die or he’ll be in big trouble.

With everything that's happened so far, I wouldn't be surprised that happened for the sheer hell of it.


Honestly, so far I've only seen three things: Sexual encounters, unexplained shit, and a bunch of stuff that doesn't make all that much sense. AGAIN.

Hell, I want to "throw rocks at it and yell at it to fuck off".


Anonymous
September 30 2017, 01:35:06
...it doesn’t actually smell like that does it? I’m willing to lay money that the answer is no, unless the man who supplied it is seriously ill.

Nah, a guy can be totally normal and have bitter, salty cum. The flavor and smell usually change with whatever he's eaten lately. A guy who's had pineapple for breakfast will taste sweeter than if he's had two cups of coffee instead.


theepistler
September 30 2017, 10:01:41
I wonder what on earth Dono has been eating if his spooge smells like that? :-/