as_sporkive | StarMan Sporking: Part Seventeen (Reply)

epistler posting in antishurtugal_reborn Nov. 7th, 2018 08:51 pm

StarMan Sporking: Part Seventeen

And we're finally into the home stretch!
Prepare for Azhure's Sueness to reach even greater heights, along with the disgusting sexism. You have been warned.

Hey, remember RavenCrest and the other Icarii who insisted on staying at Talon Spike? Because the author finally did. I guess it’s time to get the Big Tragic Scene I was predicting many long, boring chapters ago. RavenCrest is with his wife BrightFeather, and we’re reminded that as they’re not an incestuous couple this means they’ve never had a “passionate marriage”. Instead they only “respect and honour each other”, which is just terrible. Yeah, I can definitely tell this author was single. My parents have been married for decades, and they’re not “passionate”; they’re comfortable in each others’ company and share mutual respect, which is why they're still together. “Passion” is just another word for “lust”, and passion doesn’t last. It’s not supposed to. That’s why actual long-term relationships are based on rather more important things than constantly wanting Teh Secks. Relationships based on nothing but Hawt Sexxors rarely last more than a year. Ever wonder why celebrity marriages are so notoriously short? Because there’s a reason for that. And these guys supposedly live for centuries.

Teal Deer: this author has no fucking idea how relationships work. Hell, these two characters in their "passion-free" marriage are seen here acting like… uh, an actual happy married couple with no sign of abuse. Fail.

The two of them talk about their kid FreeFall. Absolutely no mention of their other kid they were last seen with, who has apparently fallen into a plot hole never to be seen again.

Then the gryphons show up, and as usual we get detached third-person omniscient description of what happens next. No, no, don’t show this from the POV of an actual character in peril or anything silly like that. Just blandly exposit that lots of faceless NPCs die.

And then RavenCrest and BrightFeather die in a couple of paragraphs. Oh no. How terrible.

We then learn that Gorge has fucked up, because not only are most of the Icarii evacuated, but – again, right out of nowhere – Talon Spike has random enchantments on it so that as the gryphons go further in, they can’t hear Gorge’s thoughts any more. Who put those enchantments there, and what the hell for?

The gryphons end up trapped down there, chasing after shadows. Oops. And now they’ll be conveniently kept busy long enough for Azhure Sue to rejoin Axis Sue to kill the lot of them via yet another Sue Ex Machina.(And how).

The next chapter is with AzhureSue leaving Sigholt, and she’s taking the Sue Baby with her. Rivkah tries to stop her because, y’know, warfield, and Azhure spits back that, well, he wasn’t safe in Sigholt, was he? Shut up, Azhure. Rivkah starts boo-hooing because she wants Azhure to be there for the birth of her own son. Why? Because. Why does anyone even like this self-righteous asshole?

After some more melodrama about the war, Azhure takes off with her special Sue accessories. As before she travels at supernatural speeds for reasons of plot convenience, and along the way the Sue Baby just magically gets over his trauma by, uh… sleeping a lot. Hell, Azhure even mentally cheers that when Axis sees the kid again he’ll “never know the depth of hurt and pain [Sue Baby] had suffered”.

Ms Douglass, as someone with personal experience with PTSD and friends who have been through the same: Fuck. You. It's two fucking years since it happened and I'm still seeing a goddamn therapist! I can't "sleep it all away" because of the fucking nightmares and panic attacks! And now you're telling me I should be able to just Get Over It?

I repeat: FUCK. YOU. Your book was already pissing me off for being so horribly written with such hateful characters, not to mention all the rape apologist bullshit, but now you’ve officially insulted me on a personal level. Oh, I can’t just magically get over being traumatised? Obviously, I’m just not Speshul enough. ಠ_ಠ

The next chapter cuts to Axis. It’s been nine days since he heard about the Sue Baby kidnapping, and now spring has officially sprung (it’s also very much just sprung in my part of the world, which is why I have hayfever right now). He and Belial share some painfully unfunny “witty” banter, which the author actually has the gall to refer to as “repartee”. I’ll repartee you, you astoundingly insensitive bag of barf.

Apparently the skraelings have left Gherkintown and are now lurking elsewhere. Then SpikeFeather shows up, and we get an infodumped piece of Telling about how he’s grown older and more experienced and you can totally see it in his eyes. He reports that the skraelings are hanging out in a mountain pass and there’s no sign of Evil Timmy or any gryphons.

At this point, in a moment of stunning convenience, Azhure shows up. You know, again. How many times has this happened now? I’ve lost count.

The two of them have a cutesy reunion, and Azhure tells him how she rescued the Sue Baby, which Axis finds hil-arious because lol at Gorge being embarrassed. Then Azhure tells him that Faraday is resting in the Sacred Grove because “she has been through great travail for your sake”. Which… Axis ignores. No really, it says so. “Axis ignored that”. And then he changes the subject. Charming.

Now Azhure tells him about what DragonStar did, and predictably, Axis flies into a rage and hisses that “I will kill him!”

You know, the baby.

Azhure says that she was “so angry” she turned the kid into a regular lame old hoomin. She expresses no pity toward the kid whatsoever, instead expressing pity toward RiverStar who can’t understand why she can’t “penetrate the fog of his mind”. Ugh.

Oh, but it gets better. Not only is Axis not upset about this state of affairs, but he outright thinks that if he was in Azhure’s place “DragonStar might easily be dead by now”. And to cap it off that he adds that they’ll have to keep an eye on the kid because “I still do not trust him”.

Axis, he’s a regular Joe now and you’re a GOD. He can’t do shit to you.

And after that it’s dropped entirely.

These two are supposed to be great and noble heroes who everyone loves, by the way. I felt I should take a moment to remind you about that. Because what the actual fuck.

Hell, apparently just to prove my point when Azhure finds out the gryphons have gone to Talon Spike, rather than express concern for RavenCrest and the others she just airily says she’ll have to “content myself with sticking Skraelings for now”. Because, y’know, killing is fun!

Ugh. Just ugh.

Cut to Evil Timmy, currently hiding out in a cave and chewing his thumbnail. He has a telepathetic conversation with Gorge, who’s in a foul mood because he can’t contact his gryphons. That is until about two seconds later, when they finally emerge from Talon Spike. Gorge sends them to the pass and tells them they have “Manlings a-plenty mass for the feast”. I see Gorge’s mode of speech has also completely changed. You know, again. Since when was “manlings” a word anyone used in this series?

Lest we forget how much Douglass loved ripping off LoTR...

It just gets funnier when Gorge then goes on to do an impression of the Wicked Witch of the West, as he tells his “beauties” to fly. I’ll get you, Axis, and your little Sue too!

* * *

The next chapter is called “Dreamers in the Snow”, which would make a nice title for an album of easy listening music. We open with Margarita and Belial getting ready for the battle, which will hopefully be the last one, because I’m sick to death of slogging through this author’s idea of “exciting” pitched combat. The two of them exchange some lines about how they’re feeling nervous, and Axis shows up unannounced and calls Belial a philosopher again. It’s still not amusing.

Naturally we now get a loving description of what the asshole looks like, which contains zero new details. Golden tunic with the sun symbol, fancy red cloak, perfect blond Sue hair. Oh, and he’s still carrying Jorge’s sword. Honestly, I’d forgotten all about that little plot cul-de-sac. Belial asks him why the fuck he’s not wearing any armour, and Axis explains that he’s too much of a Sue to need it any more. Well that’s the gist of it anyway.

Now Azhure shows up holding the Sue Baby, and explains that she and Axis have come up with a new strategy at the last second. Naturally Belial is pissed. Because really, going behind your senior commanders’ backs and not even bothering to inform them about the changes of plan you’re arbitrarily making is astoundingly irresponsible. Not to mention just plain rude.

By the way, the Sue Baby is now 100% back to normal, just to rub it in that trauma is something you can magically “get over”. ಠ_ಠ

Belial wonders why Axis is so cheerful, noting that normally before battles Axis is snappish because “it was his way of releasing tension”. Oh, I so see what you did there, author. Axis isn’t a rude asshole, he just gets like that when he’s feeling tense! Which is all the time, apparently. If that’s the case, Axis needs some anti anxiety medication like, yesterday.

Demi Moore and SpikeFeather join them, and Axis explains that they’ve planned a “rout” and that Azhure is going to just win everything for them. You know, again. Azhure addresses everyone as “gentlemen”, and says that today they’re going to wipe out the skraelings and the gryphons forever, and it’ll be “simple”. SpikeFeather gets irritated, as you would expect, and apparently he has snapping turtle eyes too. He points out that no-one knows where the damn gryphons are, and Axis breaks the bad news that they’ve just come from Talon Spike.

SpikeFeather screams a bit and then makes a dramatic proclamation about how he and the Strike Force are going to kill the shit out of the enemy by way of revenge. Azhure manages to be both arrogant and patronising, as she hands him her quiver of arrows. SpikeFeather does an As You Know Bob as he recaps how she won the Wolven off him and made him fletch some arrows with his own wing feathers. Azhure tells him to hand every Icarii an arrow, and when SpikeFeather says there aren’t enough she says there will be exactly enough because reasons, plus one left over for her. You know, just like with Jesus and the loaves and fishes. Unfortunate Implications ahoy… ಠ_ಠ

Axis starts demanding breakfast, and then hands the Sue Baby to Margarita and tells the – y’know, experienced professional career soldier – that he has to “play nursemaid” and carry the kid with him into battle.

At the front.

a) Way to patronise one of your most important allies

b) Way to be an astoundingly irresponsible parent. You know, again.

Belial demands again to know what the hell is going on, and Axis blithely says and he and Azhure are “teasing you”. Go fuck yourself, Axis. They finally all sit down and he tells them what’s going on, which we don’t get to see. Henceforth of course, the plan will succeed. Who wants to bet it’s going to be even dumber than all the other ridiculous shit these two have pulled so far?

Let’s find out.

My prediction: headdesking.

Cut to everyone riding into the pass, and the Sue Baby is “excited at being allowed to ride into battle”. Yes, I’m sure this is an entirely appropriate thing to get excited about. God this kid is a little shit.

Evil Timmy sees them coming and laughs at how stupid and “prideful” Axis is. Indeed, he’s leading his entire force from the front and no-one’s wearing any armour or anything. What Timmy should be right now is incredibly suspicious. Sure, Axis is a dumbass and a bad leader, but he’s not that stupid. This whole setup has “trap” written all over it.

Gorge telepathetically (yes that typo is still intentional) tells Evil Timmy to finish the job because he’s sick of the “games” Axis and Azhure play. They keep breaking out the Monopoly set on you, huh? My sympathies.

Evil Timmy watches Axis split his forces into two groups, and now all the Icarii are holding an arrow each. Timmy sees the Sue Baby and immediately assumes that Axis has lost his marbles. Not that he had any to begin with. Azhure comes forward by herself, so of course Timmy takes the opportunity to think about how – say it with me, folks – “beautiful” she is. That’s still completely irrelevant to the story, author.

Azhure uses her random powers to make all the gryphons fall “into her dream”, which makes them all fall asleep. The one with Evil Timmy twitches and moans “as if on heat”, which makes no sense because these things reproduce asexually and all of them are female. They don’t have a mating season. Come on, man.

Now Azhure starts calling for her “Lover” and saying “join with me”. Er. Back at the Ice Fortress Gorge sees all his gryphon youngsters writhing around in their sleep and is all like “lolwut”.

Cut back to Azhure, still calling for her “Lover” and offering him/her/it “fulfillment”, which for some reason causes the gryphons to start “undulating” toward her. Wait, is she using some sort of sexual magnetism spell on them? A bunch of animals? The fuck?

Azhure starts petting the things like they’re a bunch of kitties and then…

And then something happens that actually cause me to say “what the FUCK?” out loud at the screen. People, you’re just going to have to see this for yourselves, because there are no words.

“There was only the Lover, and she stood there before each of them, and each of them felt her fingers stroke their heads and their bodies and each of them sighed and moaned and rolled over so that the Lover could rub her hand along their bellies… oh! Ah, yes! There! And there!”

Am I mistaken? Am I wrong? Am I misreading this? Or is the author implying exactly what I think she’s implying?

Is Azhure giving a bunch of gryphons hand-jobs, or have I gone insane?

I just… there are no words.

Azhure keeps the whole lot of them in sexual thrall – oh god I just threw up in my mouth again – and the Icarii come forward with their arrows. Whereupon Azhure whispers “Lover, the moment of final fulfillment is upon you” and stabs the nearest gryphon in the stomach. The gryphon reacts to this by “screaming for more, more, more!”, so Azhure goes right on stabbing.

Uh, author? Arrows have barbs. They don’t work like daggers. You can’t just pull one out of a wound like that. It’d get stuck. Also, everything else that’s wrong with this scene.

For some damn reason the deaths of the gryphons causes all the babies back at the Ice Fortress to disintegrate, because apparently the deaths of their mothers… causes them to die too? I don’t get it. This makes the opposite of sense.

So there you have it. The oh so deadly gryphon army just orgasmed itself to death by way of a completely random magical spell thingy Queen Sue pulled right out of her oh so sexy butt. Not only was the whole thing disturbing as hell, but it happened with zero effort and zero sacrifice on the part of the… ahahahah, “heroes”.

Oh, and yes – Azhure, the Strong Female Character™ just won the day not by fighting or using her wits, but by being sexy and alluring. Again. But, y’know, this is totally a feminist book, you guys. *cough*

Gorge screams at Evil Timmy to put a stop to this, so Timmy sends out the skraelings. The skraelings march toward the “manlings” (there’s that stupid word again), and all of a sudden a bunch of ice spears shoot out of the ground. It’s just a delusion spell being cast by Axis (so why didn’t you think of that before, dummy?), but it scares them off. Because as you’ll recall, the skraelings aren’t very bright. Well, no-one’s very bright – let’s face it.

Gorge collapses in a tizzy at the sight of all his dead grypon babies, which can’t be resurrected again because there’s no flesh left, and bursts into tears over the loss of his “children”. Honestly, this guy is such a huge pansy that watching Axis stab his ass to death later on is going to be more sad and embarrassing than satisfying. Gorge isn’t a scary arch-baddie – he’s a buttmonkey.

Meanwhile the skraelings start advancing on the alleged good guys again, and Azhure says the name of the last special magical tree she helped plant. It’s Mirbolt, in case you care. And if you do care, I weep for you.

She asked Mirbolt-tree for help. And yes, she has just officially usurped Faraday’s role in the story as well. We’ve all seen the Mary Sue’s creepy ability to warp reality however she pleases, and here’s a primo example. Faraday? Who’s Faraday?

Azhure lets Mirbolt see through her eyes, and the skraelings think she’s just sitting there waiting to die and gleefully close in. Oh yeah, she only wiped out 7000 gryphons single-handedly – I’m sure you can take her. Idiots.

Azhure keeps blathering on at Mirbolt, and gives her a lecture into the bargain, telling her not to lose her temper and to ask the Earth Tree for help “for me and our shared love for Faraday, and blah blah blah melodrama blah”. Oh I’m sorry, the rest of it just kind of blurred together. How does she have time for all this dialogue when there’s an army coming at her? Are they moving in super slo-mo or something? Finally the Earth Tree speaks up and offers Azhure some brightsteel for her sword. Oh wait, wrong giant magical talking Deus Ex Machina tree.

This one says she’ll help in return for Azhure killing Artor. Then she changes her tune – literally. The entire forest starts singing a different Pointlessly Capitalised Song from before. You know, like a giant choir. With leaves. Said song is full of anger and vengeance and so on and so forth. The skraelings panic and try to run away, but some of them fall in the river and die, or are “dashed to death against the rocky walls of the pass”. Hold the phone – I thought these guys could only be killed by a hit to the eyeballs. Since when did being crushed against a cliff-face do anything? Continuity!

The magical song thingy wipes out the entire skraeling army, including all the SkraeBolds and the horsepillars. And that’s it.

Gorge’s entire army has just been destroyed. By, uh, singing trees. Even Axis, watching from the sidelines like the irrelevant character he’s become, can’t believe this shit. He all but thinks that he spent two entire books and almost 80% of a third one fighting these things when they just going to get wiped out that easily. With no involvement from him or any of his men. Evil Timmy can’t believe it either. He cuts and runs, and Azhure spots him. But Axis tells her not to kill the guy but let him run back to Gorge, because Axis reserves the right to kill him.

Yeah, that’s not going to backfire on you at all, King Jackass. It’s only going to, oh I don’t know, directly lead to the death of Faraday. (Oh yeah, spoilers by the way). Evil Timmy is basically the Grima Wormtongue of this trilogy. Except without the relevance to the plot. Or the characterisation.

Evil Timmy duly escapes like a big old coward, and eventually bumps into WolfStar. Wolfy assures him that he can still save the day as long as he gets to Faraday, so the two of them head off back to Gorge’s pad to regroup.

Cut to the supposed heroes celebrating with booze. Naturally they’re all toasting Azhure because she’s so great, so on and so forth ad nauseum. Azhure does at least have the decency to point out that Faraday deserves some goddamn credit, and then says that Axis still has to fight Gorge because this is “a duel between brothers”. Yeah, and one of them keeps using his girlfriend as a second. Axis sullenly declares that that’s how it’s always been, and dramatically throws away the last of his drink. Because apparently the theme of this trilogy is brother vs brother or some crap like that. I disagree – the theme of this trilogy is that some people are inherently superior to others and therefore deserve all the praise, adulation and power anyone can possibly get, no matter how much of an irredeemable asshole they are. And it’s disgusting.

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