Part 13: The Concept of Pants

 

Aurora Dawn:

Aurora wishes she could look forward to growing and living slowly like everyone else, but she knows that can never happen, for reasons that are unclear. Harlow tells the twins to stay with their father and Uncle Roswell, and wanders off. The twins think they’re going to be bored, but apparently they couldn’t have been more wrong. Great. This was a helpful chapter.

Media:

Darian is circling, laughing like a “Hannibal Lecter wannabe”. Which is odd, because I don’t recall Lecter spending a lot of time laughing.

“What’s your deal, creep?” I pulled out my Glock from my right holster and my Dessert Eagle from the left (loc. 3834).

I realize Microsoft Word doesn’t put a squiggly line beneath it because they’re the same words, but that is why proofreading is so important. It’s the difference between a reader visualizing a badass gun leveled at Darian’s face and Darian being offered a delicious pastry stuffed with eagle meat.

Darian pulls the book off his back.

I shot Glock without thinking (loc. 3842).

THE Glock. Glock is not an autonomous agent. It is presenting previous information about this character’s woefully inaccurate yet surprisingly delicious final courses.

 He yelled aloud. “Draco fllsh!” (loc. 3842)

A Slytherin was flushing the toilet?…oh wait, let’s check the dictionary in the back. Okay, it actually means “Black blood.” I still don’t know what that means.

Harlow:

The days are blending together, and they’re all black, which makes me wonder how you know they are days. Harlow is wearing “strange things”:

Pants. That was one weird concept (loc. 3847).

Really? You’d think she would just wonder why she was asked to wear them, as a woman. Or, if pants are unknown in these parts, what are the men wearing?

They were nice, but I didn’t wear the face mask all the time like the twins did when they fought (loc. 3448).

Wait. The twins are fighting now? They’re four years old! Or the equivalent of.

Harlow thinks about how they can’t win because the demons just “keep coming”.

The medical Elf told me that it was the end of the first Cycle in Xanthippe (loc. 3856).

I don’t know what that means.

Harlow really wants to find Darian. So she “leaves” whatever reality she was in and meets up with the twins and Jafar. They were afraid she would get hurt and hug her in relief. Jafar explains that it’s been “Epochs” [days] since they saw here, which reminds me of how fucking annoying this calendar system is. Jafar says a medic will be over soon, which makes Harlow curious.

“It was a Goblin. He hit you with a cast iron pan. Your nose is broken . . . badly.” (loc. 3872)

How does he know what Harlow was doing in an alternate universe? More importantly, wouldn’t Harlow noticing if a goblin broke her nose with a cast iron pan? That’s a really difficult thing to miss. It’s right in your face, so to speak.

Harlow puts on a mask. There are typos. She walks outside. Kore runs up with a message from Xanthippe.

He handed me a sheet of paper. We couldn’t talk though. It was too dangerous. All those around me were locked into their own affairs, but there was no saying that one might not lash out and kill either of us at any second. I read the letter with haste (loc. 3885).

Why can’t they talk? Why is it too dangerous? Why are all around them locked into their own affairs and how could they kill them and how does Harlow know this? Is it really too much to ask that you explain how characters randomly know things?

Luman Venir, the moon mostly unseen by the naked eye, which had apparently turned red when the Avery-Oliver possessed Darian, was the hidden gate. Maybe it did help, but I had a message from the Fates too. They told me what to do and that gate was not relevant. My own babies, I hardly knew them. I had spent these last three cycles of their lives out here in war except only that little bit when I had been knocked out. There was so much chaos around me that no one even noticed me. So I ran through them all, slashing and killing every demon I passed by. They screeched or howled or moaned. Whatever sound, it was sweet and I felt crazed with their death. Then it occurred to me. This is what I was meant for (loc. 3894).

Okay, I think I’m starting to put this together. Apparently the war started, even though the book didn’t actually say the war started, or how it’s going, or really provide any information about the war. You’d think the narration would say something like “They had been fighting without rest for the past three days” or maybe Harlow would think to herself “Fighting for three days is really exhausting” or something like that so the reader knows what’s going on, but no, instead we get Harlow thinking about how strange the concept of FUCKING PANTS are.

For that matter, I’d really like to know how the war is going, who is winning, stuff like that, but that’s all happening off-screen so we can learn more about the fundamental nature of a pair of trousers.

Also Harlow is still a fucking badass with an edged weapon and is murdering demons left and right because reasons.

Jafar:

It was nearly halfway though Xanthippe. (loc, 3903)

That’s not a typo on my part. This isn’t dialogue. Something is nearly halfway though, and Xanthippe’s name is in there as well.

Jafar is sick of sitting around while a war goes on, so over his children’s protests he grabs a sword and shield and heads outside into the “fowle” [sic] air.

Judah:

The twins discuss the fact that Jafar is going to die, and seem remarkably at ease with this knowledge. To be fair, they show signs of clairvoyance so maybe they know deep down inside he’s not a very nice person. Eventually, they decide that the answer must be the “third Fate” which may or may not be Love.

Xanthippe: (See Gooshinrye to English dictionary in the back) (loc. 3922)

Yes, part of the chapter title is telling the reader to look in the English dictionary in the back. Why it doesn’t just translate it here or throw in a fucking footnote, I don’t know. I suspect Breeanna may actively hate her readers and want them to suffer.

Anyway, the Elves are assaulting the Hell Gates. There are more typos. Xanthippe gathers some of the best young soldiers together for a motivational speech.

“Weil azzah halztl rach. Vuuce ne ammna vu.”

These fighters were tired and on the verge of giving up. “Mec shuo bu narr a tamme nowe hevel.” (loc. 3929)

Translated, it reads:

“Please everyone stay calm. We are [unknown, probably “doing”] good.”

“That is [???] all and you know it.”

I have one request. Okay, two requests. Okay, three requests.

First, if you are going to put sections in your book in made-up languages, please put the translation there on the same page.

Second, if you are going to make the reader go to the effort of manually translating it, don’t. But if you have to, please include all of the words in the dictionary in the back.

Third, please make the relevant speech worth the effort of translating.

Xanthippe continues:

“Mame tamme nar eva hallien pac. Pac ha lurre Harlow. Tammeur Runlum.” (loc. 3932)

“But you all have been chosen. Chosen to protect Harlow. Your Queen.”

The Elves get excited and charge off, presumably to be hacked to pieces by demons.

Jafar:

He runs around looking for Harlow, thinking about he was so attracted to her from the start.

But everything about her was sensual now. I just wanted to feel her lips again (loc. 3944).

So…he’s still attracted to her, since he only thinks of her in terms of her beauty.

My sword did little nothing (loc. 3945).

I swear, the typos and omitted words are getting steadily more frequent the further I go into this book. It’s like she hired someone to proofread the first half of the book, they did a poor job, and so she just opted not to proofread the second half.

Anyway, Jafar sees a guy about to cast an evil black magic spell on Harlow so he drops his weapons and throws himself between Harlow and the spell, hoping that this will redeem “only some” of what he’d done to her, which, to be fair, that’s about the first thing he has done that would partially redeem himself.

Only some, for now I was dead (loc. 3950).

I’d celebrate, but I doubt he’s going to stay dead any longer than Roswell did.

Drinks: 49

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  5 Responses to “Part 13: The Concept of Pants”

  1. I…I am so confused. 🙁

  2. I have no fucking clue what’s going on anymore.

  3. Most of the entertainment I could potentially derive from this sporking has been thrown out the window because of the incredibly contorted plot. I don’t even know who half the characters are, or why they’re significant, or what the point of everything is. It’s a mess.

  4. I’m…Sorry?

  5. What the actual fuck. Now it’s some sort of shounen manga comedy trying to be serious? What? I think I blocked the previous parts of the sporking out of my memory, because I don’t remember an Alucard clone in there. Why guns?! Why pan!? WHYYYYYYY?!