Forged By Fire Sporking Part Thirteen (The End)

[pangolin20]

theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-12-02 14:53:00

MOOD: cranky

Forged By Fire Sporking: The End

Part Thirteen: This Is The End, Beautiful Friend

The author seems to have realised that she forgot to establish a loving relationship between Zarq and Waivia in the first book (or indeed, any relationship at all), so the next chapter opens with a flashback to Zarq’s childhood, in which her little family went down to “the Grieving River”, which has never been mentioned before and of course will never be mentioned again. Everyone is happy and smiling. Smile, smile, smile – okay, I get it, they’re supposed to be having a nice time. The kids play in the water, Zarq gets scared for no reason, and afterwards Waivia hugs her in front of a fire to warm her up. The chapter, which was literally less than two pages long, ends with some canned thoughts about Family Love and how awesome big sisters are.

Look, we all know Waivia is going to eat it before the end of the book. Stop trying to milk it for extra drama by shoehorning this useless chapter in.

In the next chapter, for the umpteenth time Zarq has to be coerced into doing something as she’s force-marched to the front lines with her arms tied behind her back. She has to leave the oh-so-very important kiddies behind, boohoo, and Savga isn’t happy about it. Piss off, kid.

Zarq gets a front-row view of the assembled soldiers. Apparently they have “chain mail gauntlets” now. For the last time, will you please pick a country and time period and stick with it?

Oh, and they also have “maces”.

And an “air squadron”, naturally.

Said air squadron attacks the enemy, only to be shot down with “crossbows”, because apparently they have those. It’s described with zero emotion. Zarq, typically, remains as detached as Eragon.

Blah blah, more emotionless fighting, more dragons die. Zarq is only bothered by all the racket. Eventually she starts yelling at Malaban to untie her, which he does. Some of Kratt’s dragons drop – really? – people with parachutes.

Fucking parachutes.

Again, I swear I’m not making any of this up.

Zarq guesses that one of the parachuters is Waivia, and sure enough a moment later the haunt shows up and starts wrecking shit but good.

I hope I’m not accidentally giving anyone the impression any of this is exciting to read.

Zarq grabs a sword and starts fighting Gen, yelling about how they have to take Waivia out of there rather than kill her (um… how?). She actually defeats him despite never having handled a sword in her life, but I’m willing to cut the author a little slack here (pun intended) because Gen is in a bad way and missing half his vision. The slack I gave the author is immediately revoked when Zarq magically knows his injuries are the result of torture. I guess she’s just psychic or something. It would explain a lot.

(And okay I was wrong – she actually does use a sword in this book. It’s just really really stupid and comes out of nowhere).

A moment later she hears a kid screaming and intuits that Savga is In Trouble! OH NO! She starts having inexplicable visions of Savga’s brother screaming on an altar, and Savga being held by a Djimbi. She intuits that they’re in the temple and need help, oh no I’m so worried about them, etc.

Hey, remember when Harry Potter had a weird inexplicable vision of Sirius Black in trouble and rushed off to save him? That ended well for all concerned, didn’t it?

Wait, no it didn’t.

Because it was a trap.

Zarq being Zarq, she doesn’t stop to consider where the vision might have come from and rushes off. Because once again, it’s All About The Kiddies. The totally irrelevant kiddies we don’t give a fuck about. Gen has picked up on something too and goes with her, and so does Malaban. On the way they’re attacked by enemy soldiers, and- oh for the love of GODS.

So. They’re attacked by soldiers. And Zarq, the woman who has never handled a sword in her life, can suddenly handle a blade like Errol Fucking Flynn. As in she knows how to parry and everything. She explains to the reader that previously she did this with a “wooden club”, but it’s, like, totally the same thing.

Must… not…stick book in... food processor…

The soldier nearly kills her anyway, but just then Malaban steps in right out of nowhere and kills the guy, saving Zarq but taking a fatal blow himself. Wow, it’s just as well Zarq is a Master Swordsman or that might have happened to her too.

She and Gen run back to the temple, and it’s just like something out of a modern-day war movie with bombs randomly dropping out of the sky. The descriptions of people running in terror from the explosions amid dust and smoke brought back memories of all-too recent world events, which immediately depressed the shit out of me.

Either way Zarq reaches the temple, and there she finds Savga being held hostage by none other than Waivia and Kratt.

Wow, who would have guessed it? It was a trap.

Savga’s baby brother is there too, being tied to the altar, but nobody cares about him. I certainly don’t, which is why I never bothered to tell you what his name is and have mostly just been ignoring him. He’s really just that irrelevant.

Waivia’s face has apparently been replaced by “a mask carved from polished brown stone”, and her eyes are “cold carnelian”. I gotta say this description really isn’t doing anything for me.

Oh, but it gets better. With Kratt and Waivia is none other than the dragonmaster. And nope, author still ain’t given him a name other than “Dragonmaster Re”. He’s all deformed and evil and shit now.

Hey, remember all those authors and reviewers who praised this series for being so fresh and original? Yeah, about that. Because here in this one scene we have:

• 1) Rival siblings fated to be on opposite sides of a war
• 2) Evil Torturing Aristocrat
• 3) “Adorable” child hostages
• 4) Evil insane deformed guy who’s basically unkillable despite not actually being immortal and is Ugly
• 5) Evil Femme Fatale
• 6) A line from the Evil Femme Fatale about how her evil power/minion is “destroying your soldiers even as we speak”, followed by another line (this one aimed at Gen) about how she’s “impressed” that he survived the torture chamber (seriously; Waivia actually says both these things, and we’re supposed to take it seriously).

Wait a minute.

Wait just a damn minute.

This is the same fucking climactic scene we got in Inheritance! Plucky rebels up against impossible odds, child hostages, evil smooth-talking tyrant… it’s the same fucking scene! Not to mention that they start by trying to talk each other to death.

As a side-note, if your climactic confrontation between the Hero and the Big Bad is mostly talking, odds are this is because the Big Bad's personality and motivations have not been properly established beforehand. Hence why the author is obliged to jam what should have been entire books worth of development into a single scene. It's the number one cause of Villain Monologuing, and can swiftly turn even the coolest villain from threatening to annoying. It's also a sign of sloppy writing because it almost always, always ruins the suspense and makes what should be an exciting climax needlessly long, drawn-out and boring, which is exactly what happens here.

Sadly, this scene will not end with a random big explosion.

…or will it?

Anyway, to cut a very lame story short Waivia has promised the dragonmaster “vengeance”. Specifically against Tansan, who’s basically done nothing to him. Frankly, buddy, I’ve heard way better excuses to keep cheating death. Ser Beric Dondarrian you ain’t.

Tansan conveniently shows up anyway, demanding that they “release my baby”. Cut – CUT! That line read was terrible – put some passion into it, woman! Go on, get back to your mark – we’re gonna shoot this scene again until you get it right.

Kratt demands that Zarq come with him, presumably so he can have her publicly executed, and Zarq trots out the tired old cliché of “it’s me he wants!” and follows it up with the other tired old “but only if you let the baby go!” cliché (no word on Savga, who seems to have disappeared, hopefully forever). Revoltingly, as the baby cries, this causes Waivia to start dripping milk. Is that normal? I don’t know; I’ve never lactated. Either way I really didn’t need to hear that.

Kratt, seeing she’s having second thoughts, instantly reminds me of Game of Thrones when he addresses Waivia as “sweetling” and tells her the baby’s not going anywhere. Waivia is displeased, and Zarq intuits that she doesn’t actually love the guy; she just married him for her own ends. Finally Waivia says they don’t need the baby, and Zarq tells Gen to take him and Savga and go. Waivia then uses magic for no very good reason, apparently just to cut the ropes, and picks the kid up. What, was a simple knife not fancy enough for you? She hands him over to Gen, and the dragonmaster suddenly slips out from behind Tansan and holds her at dagger point.

Right the fuck out of nowhere, the dragonmaster declares that Savga is the real Skykeeper’s daughter, and slits Tansan’s throat. She starts bleeding out, but her blood bursts into flame [?!], and the dragonmaster starts screaming about how Waivia and Kratt are going to die and the Djimbi will triumph, etc. Chew the scenery a little harder, why don't you?

Kratt realises he’s been double-crossed, and Waivia starts trying to use Djimbi magic on Tansan as she turns into a “vortex of flame”. Gen grabs the kids and makes a run for it, and the transforming Skykeeper sets the dragonmaster on fire for his trouble. Zarq suddenly remembers the oath of vengeance she forgot all about after the first book, grabs a sword, and goes after Kratt. They start stalking each other around the temple while the Tansan fire-vortex thingy rages and Waivia keeps her from transforming fully with magic.

Kratt and Zarq swordfight, and we’re asked to buy it that she’s somehow qualified to duel with a professional swordsman with years of experience in the field despite – I repeat – never having used a sword before in her life.

*sigh*

Okay. It’s just a few pages until the end. I can handle it. Let’s just keep going, okay?

Zarq keeps attacking Kratt, while melodramatically yelling “for my father! For my brother! For my mother!” You mean, the father you’ve never thought about, the brother you completely forgot, and the mother you just wanted to fuck off?

Thank all that’s holy the duel only lasts one paragraph before Kratt knocks her over. Typical cardboard cutout villain that he is, he stands over her smiling “cruelly” rather than just finishing her off and putting her out of our misery. In fact he does this long enough for Zarq to see Gen put Savga down for some reason. She picks up her brother, then runs off. Apparently Kratt is still standing there gloating like a moron, which is how countless villains before him met their untimely demises, and of course he’ll be no exception.

Gen takes advantage of the stupidity to grab Tansan’s spear and hurl it at Waivia, boosting it with Djimbi magic the way he did with the sword he threw earlier on. It hits Waivia so hard it lifts her off her feet and impales her on a handy statue. Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.

The Skykeeper is set free and begins to complete its transformation. Zarq pointlessly runs to her sister, but she’s already dead. Ding dong the witch is dead. Which old witch? The bitchy witch!

Kratt comes up behind her and is about to kill her, but just then the haunt, aka the fake Skykeeper, shows up. The entire temple explodes violently, and Zarq throws herself flat. When she gets up the entire temple is gone, along with Waivia, Kratt, and Gen. Damn, Gen got it? He was practically the only likeable character in this entire godsforsaken trilogy! Kiss my ass, author!

The haunt is also gone, and Zarq realises that – sob! – her mother protected her in the end.

She climbs out of the crater where the temple used to be, and sees the Real Skykeeper flying around. Unlike the creepy rotting haunt, it’s a Phoenix style of thing with flaming feathers. The regal impression is somewhat dampened when we learn that it has a “smoking beak made of gold and serrated knives”. This led to me picturing a giant bird with steak knives for teeth smoking a cigar, which probably isn’t what the author was going for.

Savga shows up right out of nowhere, and Zarq asks her if the Skykeeper can be ridden. Why the fuck is this her first thought on seeing the thing? It’s literally her world’s equivalent to an angel, and she wants to ride the thing around like a fucking show pony?? Presumptuous much?

Savga says yes, “if I ask her”, then speaks to the thing using “dragonsong”. WHAT. When did she learn how to do that?! What the fuck is even going on here?!

The Skykeeper flies down to them, and apparently she has eyes made out of lava. Right, whatever. Oh, and she has a tail like a peacock and it’s all colourful, etc. Zarq notes that she’s dripping lava and is liable to burn the place down, and Savga says no, she’s crying. So Zarq tells her to tell Giant Bird Mum a bunch of stuff about how she’ll grow up and have a happy life and how she has to let her kid go and how she loves her, and so on.

This does the trick, and the Skykeeper offers them a leg up. For some unfathomable reason Zarq still wants to get on her back, and they all climb aboard. Magic vines appear out of nowhere and hold them in place, and – oh for fuck’s sake – as they wrap around Zarq’s thighs she finds them “velveteen and warm” and “uncomfortably sensual”. She reflects that “Those slinky vines were an extension of the Skykeeper, and the Skykeeper had once been Tansan, a woman I’d lusted for. Her firm, intimate touch brought a flush to my cheeks”.

For heaven’s sake, Zarq, keep a damn lid on it, will you?

The vines keep going until they’ve covered Zarq all the way to the neck, adding a nice little layer of implied bondage play, and Savga, who apparently has absolutely no problem with this state of affairs, declares “you’re going to love this!” Like they’re at a fucking fun park. Shut up, Savga.

And the final chapter of the final book ends with this:

I tensed myself for the ascent, and then I and my two children rode a Guardian of the Celestial Realm to freedom and victory.

The end.

Seriously, that’s the climax. You don’t even get to see the Skykeeper lay the smackdown on the Bad Guys.

What we get instead is an epilogue in which Zarq narrates how she and Savga “routed Kratt’s infantry” with the Skykeeper, and the rest of them surrendered the moment they saw the thing. Then the Skykeeper drops Zarq and the kids off at the rebel stronghold before vanishing without a trace. Zarq lectures the reader about how the country was not in fact radically changed for the better after that day because “People’s beliefs and wants vary for a myriad of reasons: upbringing, status, health, perceived need.” And so on and so forth. This is actually entirely true, and it’s a nice bit of realism that after the victory everything doesn’t become sunshine and rainbows and whiskers on kittens. I only wish it could have been gotten across in some way other than dry exposition. I guess I should just be grateful that unlike Paolini, Cross doesn’t drag this out over 100 tedious pages.

Zarq adds that “Life is Change. Growth is optional”. Or, as a highschool classmate wrote in the back of my diary “your [sic] only young once but you can always be immature!”. I’d just like to know which motivational poster the author got that line from, because it’s hardly an original thought, and nor did she bother to re-word it in the slightest to at least provide a veneer of originality.

Anyway, two weeks after the victory the Ashgon runs away and a bunch of “landed gentry” go back to their original homelands. I still don’t know who or what the Ashgon is. I checked Google, but all I found was a dragon creature from a Pokemon ripoff called Micromon.

Zarq exposits that over the next eight years civil war kept threatening to break out, but she herself now keeps apart, living on a merchant ship and making a living as a sailor. (The fuck does she know about sailing?). Apparently she raised Savga and her brother and Savga is now a “wilful young woman”. But she left her and her brother behind in Xxamer Zu, which now has a new name and is an estate governed by Djimbi and free of any Temple influence. Hey, just as Zarq always wanted on the odd occasion she actually had character motivation! Pity we didn’t actually get to see it.

Zarq decided to leave because she couldn’t handle the venom addiction and didn’t want to wind up like Jotan Bri, who was a useful ally until she went crazy and committed suicide. As for Zarq, she eventually “eradicated” the enchantment her mother placed on her (um, how? She doesn’t know how to use magic!), and now has her proper Djimbi colouring. And presumably now has to buy tampons once a month, lucky her.

As for the bulls the rebels bred, they were confiscated, but the one Tansan “hatched” in secret was kept and now the commoner rebels are making more and giving them to their allies who are open to “radical” ideas such as teaching commoners to read and not cutting dragons’ wings off.

Zarq then goes on to wonder about whether dragons are divine – are the Djimbi right, or is Science Guy right? She concludes that they’re both right, because “divinity rests within all living things. Life is sacred, and we are alive. Ergo, we are all sacred”. And every sperm is sacred too, except they come from horrible dirty filthy stupid men, so maybe not.

The haunt is still trapped inside Zarq, but she’s not really a bother any more; she just makes Zarq dream about her memories sometimes, but that’s okay because her constant abuse apparently “moulded with her power and art the soft and yielding heart of a child, a child who became a woman who shook an entire nation.” Oh fuck off with your child abuse apologetics.

And stop pretending you’re Amazing and Special and Important, because I’m still not buying it. “Shook an entire nation” my arse. All Zarq did was lie around whining while other people did all the work. Do they get any fucking credit? Of course not. It was all Zarq, Zarq, Zarq.

Zarq philosophises a bit more about how hopefully she and her mother’s ghost will one day heal their mother/daughter bond, the end.

Finally.

It’s over.

I’m free.

1800 odd pages of bestiality, bad sex, bad science, Deus ex Machina, bad characterisation, bad description… bad everything, and it’s finally over.

So, what have we learned from this experience, boys and girls? Well, I’ll tell you what I learned. Which is that the odd bit of realism and sporadic good writing isn’t enough to redeem a book in which 95% of the plot takes place away from the main character, and especially so when the main character is an arrogant little twat with the IQ of a bowl of custard and all the drive and resourcefulness of a mouldy old towel.

On top of that, there’s the fact that pretty much every single plot point revolves around dragon-on-human sex in some way shape or form. I suspect the author probably thought she was being daring and shattering taboos and defying the status quo and such, and all the people crying “ew, that’s disgusting!” are just a bunch of prudes who don’t get it. And it’s true, there have been works of art condemned as “obscene” by people who just plain missed the point. It happened to countless movies, books and paintings which were later recognised as masterpieces. Just one example would be Leaves of Grass, the classic poem by Walt Whitman, which was banned for being too “sensual” and containing references to “homosexual acts”. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was also banned many times and is still being banned today for its “pornographic” portrayal of adultery.

The difference is that these works, while controversial, had something profound to say, and they were banned because the status quo was simply not prepared to confront the uncomfortable truths they explored.

The Dragon Temple Saga, on the other hand, doesn’t expose any uncomfortable truths, or explore anything that hasn’t been discussed a hundred times before in much better works of fiction. The discussion of female sexuality as something profound and separate from any need for a male partner was done to death in the freaking 1970s when Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch. The “daring” depictions of lesbian sexuality were old hat in the 90s. Difficult mother/daughter relationships have existed for as long as there have been mothers and daughters, i.e. just about forever.

Strip all the “controversial” trappings away, and all you’ve got left is a paint-by-numbers fantasy story about a plucky commoner with an utterly generic Tragic Backstory™ who defies the establishment to become a warrior and lead a brave revolution. Except with all the potential fun and excitement surgically removed and replaced with endless tedious chapters of quite frankly unimaginative pain and suffering. The author clearly did her damnedest to use every form of misery and general nastiness to hide the fact that virtually nothing happened for the entire trilogy and that most of it was supremely unoriginal, but it could only last so long before the truth came out: The Empress was well and truly naked, and underneath the hype the Dragon Temple Saga was just another dime a dozen pulp fantasy trilogy. When you know that it’s small wonder it sank as quickly as it did once the initial hype had worn off. Much as people like us realised that underneath the “child prodigy” bullshit, Paolini’s offering was nothing but a shoddily written pile of plagiarism and unsubtle self-glorification.

The real takeaway lesson here, I’d say, is “the greater the hype, the smaller the talent”. It’s true that Touched by Venom didn’t get that much in the way of marketing hype, but I confess: I’ve built it up by writing this spork, and elevated it to a status far above what it truly deserves. I’m good at making things entertaining, because that’s what I do. It’s my profession. I even managed to make this pile of horse shit fun to read about, at least going on the comments.

Trust me – it’s not entertaining. If you think, based on my commentary, that you might get a few laughs out of this – think again. I’ve made that mistake before. If you want my advice, forget about Touched by Venom and its sequels, and find something better to do with your lives. Plant a tree. Find the courage to ask your crush out on a date. Better still, buy some flowers for your mother and tell her how much you love her. If your mother is a bitch, give them to the one who stuck by you when she didn’t, because there’s sure to be someone. If your mother has passed on, take the time to visit her final resting place and remember her with love.

But whatever you do, don’t read the Dragon Temple Saga. I suffered through that so you don’t have to.

You’re welcome.

42 comments

snarkbotanya
December 2 2017, 17:17:41
Well... that was an anticlimax, not to mention a fucking cockblock. It's not set up at all, resolved through some serious out-of-the-blue bullshit, and the story freaking ends instead of getting into the actual revolution, but at least the villains didn't just go the fuck home at the end. From what you described, I'd say it's worse than Inheritance (because there was even more bullshit), but better than Breaking Dawn (because at least there was an actual onscreen battle).

I suppose I'll just comfort myself by remembering that I fucking called it about Savga being the real Skykeeper's Daughter.


theepistler
December 2 2017, 18:59:20 Edited: December 2 2017, 18:59:49
Yes, that's seriously it. A token battle, most of which we didn't get to see, followed by a ludicrous Deus Ex Machina, The End.

The problem is that it's never explained why Savga is the real Chosen One, or how the dragonmaster figured it out. It's just randomly... there. Why exactly is this stupid annoying kid so special? Or Tansan either? *throws up hands*


thegharialguy
December 2 2017, 20:22:37
It also makes it seem like murdering Tansan and releasing the Skykeeper would have been the best result for everyone from the start. And while it is pretty realistic for things not to turn out honkydory after a victory, that's in our world where we lack super magical peacock-angle-dragons. Does the epilogue mention what happens to the Skykeeper? Because what should happen is that Zarq and Savga should rule the bloody world with their uncontested super weapon.

theepistler
December 2 2017, 20:28:32
And both Tansan and Savga weren't even introduced until the final book! Shouldn't they have been established major characters right from the beginning of the trilogy? (Not that I want to spend any more time reading about Savga. Urgh).

Nope, the epilogue doesn't mention the Skykeeper. It just conveniently disappears right after kicking the butts of Kratt's army (literally - the text says it vanished), never to be seen again. But you'd really think word would get around.


thegharialguy
December 2 2017, 21:05:16
Ah well, if it magically vanishes that's a bit more forgivable. Who am I to question the whims of the almighty tentacle-peacock? Still, absolutely flimsy storytelling.


theepistler
December 2 2017, 22:37:01
Yeah, why did it do that anyway? Shouldn't it have stuck around until they'd fixed everything? I think we can safely say that's what Tansan would have wanted to do. Stupid ineffectual Deus Ex Machina Bird.


thegharialguy
December 2 2017, 20:17:23
You know what's really ironic? In not giving the Drgaonmaster a name, he was made the most memorable character for me aside from Zarq (or maybe Dono). Because with all the Krates and Gens and Tansans, Dragonmaster actually stood out and wasn't easily confused with anyone else. Even though, from the looks of it, his characterization flipflopped wildly all over the place.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 16:41:56
Yeah, the dragonmaster was definitely one of the few memorable characters in the trilogy. Too bad the author ruined him in the end by making him go Generic Crazy for some poorly defined reason.

Fun fact - when I first read the trilogy I actually got him and Gen mixed up and thought they were the same character. That is, I remembered scenes with Gen but mentally replaced him with the Dragonmaster for some reason. It wasn't until this time around that I finally got it straightened out in my head. Not a good sign.


vorpal_tongue
December 2 2017, 20:30:00
Is ...Is that it? Just... "Ih'm gonna kill ya!" then boom? Then epilogue?

Can someone at least make a pic of the Skykeeper so we can have something to laugh at?


snarkbotanya
December 2 2017, 21:55:24
Workin' on it... and I'm using Epi's vision of the thing as a guideline, so that should be fun.


theepistler
December 2 2017, 22:38:35
All right! Fortunately I pretty well covered what the book says it looks like so you're not missing anything.


cmdrnemo
December 3 2017, 03:24:17
Hooray it's over! That was a valiant effort and well done. especially considering this book was simply not the right sort of thing for a good sporking. The format works better with things on that edge of so bad it's good. I suppose it also works with things that are nearly good, or things that are very good. This book came across as so bad it's terrible. By the end there it was pretty obvious you were having a hard time with the same flaws repeated over and over for 1800 pages. It is a wonder how some people manage to cram nearly 200 pages of content into 1800 pages then wish they'd only had room for more. Still it is over as Pheonixperson was apparently too much for the anachronistic world of Zarq and the aircow bomber squadron.

A shame really, a book that intentionally used magitech to create weird anachronisms so the final battle would have that WW2 era combat feel could be fun. Trouble is, you couldn't fill it with torture porn, wangst, or melodrama, that stuff sets exactly the wrong mood for fun.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 10:32:30 Edited: December 3 2017, 10:33:26
Yeah, I definitely wound up repeating myself a fair bit. This is what happens when an author doesn't learn from her mistakes and therefore keeps making them over and over again. Paolini did the same with the plagiarism, horrible monstrous "heroes" and the padding. Everyone and their dog complained about it, but he didn't listen.

Like him, Ms Cross has problems knowing what should be included and what should be cut. And like him she crammed ridiculous amounts of exposition and rushed character development into a tiny handful of chapters because she'd been too busy wasting time with padding and irrelevancies to have done this earlier. It's almost comical picturing the author at the keyboard going "oh shit, I'm running out of pages and I haven't given the villains any motivation or screentime! PANIC!". And then slapping on an emergency patch job at the last minute to try and salvage the situation. Unfortunately she had set herself up for failure on that front since the beginning of the first book, by unwisely skipping over any character development for Waivia and not establishing an actual relationship between her and Zarq and their mother. Since this development was either missing or "told", Waivia just comes across as completely irrelevant and all three characters are boring and unlikeable. Stuffing in a few platitudes and convenient flashbacks right at the end was a truly pitiful attempt at fixing this long after it was too late to make any difference.


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 09:59:58 Edited: December 3 2017, 10:06:55
BEHOLD THE SKYKEEPER SKYDERPER!


theepistler
December 3 2017, 10:22:14
BAHAHAHAH! Classic.


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 10:31:46 Edited: December 3 2017, 10:35:42
The Dragon Temple bonus pack for Cards Against Alagaësia just got so many new cards.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 10:35:55
Well at least something useful came out of this mess. :-p


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 10:45:38
"____ made Waivia start lactating" is now a black card. You're welcome.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 10:50:02
EEEEWWWWWW!


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 10:52:27 Edited: December 3 2017, 10:54:00
*evil grin*

There's even a vanilla card that would be an autowin on that one: "Doing the right stuff to her nipples."

I also made a couple snowclones, including one of that fucking ridiculous cockblock of a final sentence.

You should come cards with us again sometime. We have missed you.

theepistler
December 3 2017, 12:46:50
Are there any member-themed cards? If not, I nominate "Torytlltales karate-kicked____" and "The Epistler snarked at____"


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 14:58:00
There are a few cards based on something you said (e.g. "Hey, wasn't there supposed to be ____ in this trilogy?" and "____ is a stupid name. From now on, I'm calling them ____ and the author can suck it."), but none that explicitly mention a comm member by name (yet).


theepistler
December 3 2017, 15:53:48
Woohoo, I'm famous! And witty! :-p


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 19:12:02
So, this just happened, and I thought you'd appreciate it...

(Game's still going as of typing this, btw.)

theepistler
December 3 2017, 19:14:31
HAHAHAHAH! (No, really, I'm honestly cracking up laughing).
I really need to join in on the next game. XD


snarkbotanya (from 65.101.151.70)
December 3 2017, 19:15:46 Edited: December 3 2017, 19:19:27
Come play with us...

https://pyx-2.pretendyoure.xyz/zy/game.jsp#game=4
Password: smoking beak

(The winner of that round, by the way, was "an absolute cockblock of an ending.")


theepistler
December 3 2017, 19:24:51
DAMN - I'd like to but I'm juggling about six different things right now. D:


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 19:37:15
Aww...

Drop by the Discord when you have time, OK? We miss you.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 19:43:13
Awww! <3

bewdtamer19
December 3 2017, 19:41:26
Is it okay I join? Though I pretty new to this kind of game.


snarkbotanya
December 3 2017, 19:54:11
Sure! Just be prepared for a lot of very crass humor.


torylltales
December 3 2017, 10:18:21 Edited: December 3 2017, 10:18:40


theepistler
December 3 2017, 10:22:49
And thank goodness for that; I'd very much had enough of this nonsense!

theepistler
December 3 2017, 16:44:38
So what did everyone think about my closing thoughts? I was hoping to start a bit of a conversation there, actually.

In the meantime I've got a new trilogy lined up for the sporking, this one much less obscure and far more popular. It was also written by a woman, and when I read it years ago I found it incredibly frustrating because the characters were universally obnoxious, the worldbuilding was batshit insane, and it had one of THE biggest Mary Sues I've ever encountered in my life.

bewdtamer19
December 3 2017, 18:08:57
Well, I pretty much agree with what you said about controversy. I don't mind reading or watching something that deals with a sensitive subject, so long as the writers know what they're doing. Doing controversy for the sake of controversy or for shock value, however, is the quickest way to kill my interest. Like that torture scene from GTA 5. Just... ugh.

What's the name of this trilogy that you're going to be sporking, and what's it about?


theepistler
December 3 2017, 19:33:15
Doing controversy for the sake of controversy or for shock value, however, is the quickest way to kill my interest.

Exactly. I have a strong constitution. I am not easily put off by unpleasant content. I've never been squeamish about the nastier realities of life, and if a book has rape and torture in it that doesn't make me stop reading as a matter of course. The reason why it disgusted me here is because it added nothing to the story. It was, as you say, gratuitous. The dragon sex and rape and... the other rape was clearly just there for pointless shock value, and I wasn't buying it. I mean really - how did getting raped in prison change Zarq as a person? It didn't. In fact it was so pointless I completely missed it the first time I read that book.

Shit like this needs to be treated seriously in fiction. It should not be there just to provide cheap titillation and angst-fodder. Rape and torture are real things that happen to real people, and putting them in your moronic fantasy novel and then pretending they have zero lasting consequences is reprehensible. That's why I'm so pissed at the author, and I absolutely should be.

What's the name of this trilogy that you're going to be sporking, and what's it about?

I'm keeping that to myself for the time being, in case the sporking doesn't work out. ;-)


bewdtamer19
December 3 2017, 19:37:44
I'm keeping that to myself for the time being, in case the sporking doesn't work out. ;-)

Hopefully, the book will be less batcrap crazy. I think I had enough of diving into loony people's head.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 19:44:34
Honestly, it's a bit of a toss-up. But this is a different kind of batshit crazy, I promise. ;-)


bewdtamer19
December 3 2017, 19:49:53
Ugh, again? I wonder why nearly all authors I heard of are the ones who are a bit wacko.


theepistler
December 3 2017, 19:51:20
That's probably why you've heard of them. Crazy catches peoples' attention.


cmdrnemo
December 4 2017, 05:32:57
I want to disagree with you about the hype to quality ratio. I want to, but I'm not going to. Things tend to get a lot of hype for a reason. Sometimes that reason is pure edginess. As we saw here with controversy for the sake of drawing attention. And sure sometimes there's a certain amount of over hyped. Because if something gets talked up enough there is just no way for it to ever meet the expectations. Surely I had a point somewhere... Oh yes, things that are hyped up as good can be pretty good.

Sometimes things are created with the express purpose of creating a controversy. They tend to have nothing else to them. More rarely things are made to make a point. These can cause controversy in their wake and are often good enough.

theepistlera
December 4 2017, 16:41:05
Well, I meant broadly speaking. I should probably have said "the more overhyped it is, the more it probably sucks".