We’re still with Blair and Roswell.
After the fragrant shower of liquid sunshine we decided to rest where we were until the next morning (loc. 1889).
It’s fucking rain.
Blair wakes up first and watches Master Roswell sleep, the rise and fall of his bare bronze chest, “his ebony mane slithering over his rippling pectorals” (loc. 1891). She smells him, and he smells like burning lavender and cedar wood. Okay, Breeanna, I have a bone to pick with you. Why does this peasant girl know what burning lavender smells like? And why does a sweaty, rain-soaked werewolf smell like burning lavender?
Blair thinks about how much she wants to kiss him, but feels guilty because of Darian. She thinks about how she only thinks of Darian as a brother now. Eventually she lays her head on Roswell’s chest, which has changed from bronze to copper, and falls asleep. She’s abruptly awoke when Roswell jerks away and her head falls into his lap. She sits up, red-faced. Heyyoooo!
Blair asks if she can go hunting for food and Roswell agrees. We smash cut forward to them arriving in Dibujar, and finding a medicine man since Blair broke her arm while hunting. And I have to admit…that’s actually pretty funny. We learn through flashback that Blair was hunting a buffalo, and trips over a sycamore tree root and falls over a small cliff. Sycamores tend to grow near water, not on cliffs. But, ok.
Now we’re in the POV of Master Smith, the guy woman Roswell came for. Roswell rolls in and asks for some weapons. Smith says something terrible will happen soon. Roswell explains he can’t go back to his clan because they’ve kicked him out due to Blair. Blah blah, they talk about what happens, Smith offers to make Blair full body armor, Roswell declines, eventually Smith says she’ll make Blair weapons.
Over to Darian, who is hallucinating something fierce about hating rain and needing to get to the city of Trabajadora.
Our love, Pretty little love Harly, We’s gonna build you a castle, a Kingdome to rule, because we’s love you Harly. Pretty baby Harly (loc. 1976).
Like I said: hallucinating.
Back to Blair. Roswell comes and picks her up…literally…and carries her through the town. Blair is surprised to hear that Master Smith is a woman.
Over to “Son Elder” which is a bit of an oxymoron. Apparently he’s of the Wulver Clan. He’s fighting the Gorgons, which are exactly what you’d expect, and tearing heads off and shit is getting real. Son Elder thinks about the prophets who spoke of the end of times, Roswell leaving (turns out Roswell is his brother), and keeps killing Gorgons. Then he hears a scream, and runs, and finds his beloved wife Lilly dead on the ground. The Gorgon who killed her is already gone.
No sooner did I feel a pair of vicious fangs in my neck, but I did not falter, nor did I fight back. I willingly allowed the gruesome Gorgon to devour me (loc. 2010).
I’m not a psychologist (although I do play one on TV) but you’d think that someone, after seeing his wife be brutally killed, would go all William Wallace on the people who killed her rather than just giving her up and letting himself be killed, but whatever.
Over to the POV of the All-Knowing. Blair is excited and bouncing around. Roswell tells her to calm down because if she isn’t disciplined in front of Master Smith she won’t make Blair the weapons and they need weapons capable of killing demons.
They get to Smith’s…smithy…and Smith takes some measurements and eventually starts debating the best type of weapon. She thinks about a Falcata (from the Iberian peninsula) or a Khopesh (from Egypt). Roswell suggest a Basket Hilted Claymore (from Scotland) which Smith dismisses because claymores are big very fucking heavy swords and not the type of weapon you’d give to a teenage girl, which makes Roswell an idiot. And yes, all those names of weapons are capitalized for no real reason. Eventually Smith settles on a Kris (from Indonesia) which looks a bit like this.
Blair agrees. Smith then asks Roswell what type of weapon he wants. Roswell wants a Katana, a Karambit, and two Kujangs. I don’t know why he has a fetish for weapons that begin with the letter K, but honestly, this setting-jumping is starting to really grate on me. Look: I’m fine if you want to pull from mythology, and if you want to bounce around a bit stealing things from different cultures. Sure, I’m not a fan, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. What I want is some goddamn consistently. Where, precisely, is this place set in time? Why does a random werewolf have an encyclopedia-like knowledge of obscure bits of weaponry from a dozen different cultures set over several thousand years of Earth history that begin with the letter K, most of which were long since abandoned for not being terribly practical at killing other people?
Smith says the weapons will be done tomorrow, which sounds awfully fast, but maybe she has magic. She asks Blair what her full name is. Blair says Harlow Grimm.
Over to the POV of Master Smith. Yes, she’s using magic and stuff. She makes swords. Then she finishes the swords. The next day she gives them to Blair and Roswell, along with some leather shoes, and tries to give Blair some clothes as well, but Blair refuses. I am not sure why, considering she was more than happy to accept the free dress she’s wearing, and free weapons, and free shoes…
We jump over to The All Knowing, who decides to summarize some stuff for us:
Time passed for our characters, nearly five Apogees since the story began, as Harlow and Roswell traveled falling deeper and deeper into a fit of romance that neither could explain or acknowledge (loc. 2096).
Darian is also getting in increasingly deeper shit, and evil is coming and getting into the world.
Back to Blair, her legs and ankles are swelling and she’s throwing up and HOLY SHIT everything comes together and she realizes that when Jafar raped her, she got pregnant.
Oh such a woe that I feel now more than ever. Why is it I deserve such a cruel fate such as this? I felt disgusted with myself and the thing that now fed off my life force; growing from the nutrition of my body. Yet somehow calm and somewhat satisfied with the knowledge. I felt an instinctual maternal love for this child (loc. 2108).
That’s it. Five sentences to go from horror and disgust at carrying a child from rape for maternal instinct to kick in and Blair to successfully rationalize it away.
Roswell comes in and holds her and she cries into his chest for a while. Roswell tells her not to worry, that he’ll take care of them both. After a bit Blair decides to leave the tent to get some air. And…there’s a picture!
Now in the All Knowing.
Harlow made pass across the frozen ground (loc. 2133).
That doesn’t make any fucking sense.
The ground is frozen and it hurts her feet but she doesn’t notice, until eventually she hears a rattle at her feet. It’s a Rattle snake. Actually, it’s one word: rattlesnake. Blair scoops it up, holding it’s mouth closed. When did she become a snake handler? Also, snakes are cold-blooded; you will not find them out slithering at night over frozen ground.
Blair coos at the snake and talks about how they’re both outcasts. Hey! That snake might have a loving family! She hears Roswell shouting in the background as he tries to find her. She lets go of the mouth and immediately the snake starts attacking her face, as she lets it. Roswell shows up right as Blair lets the snake go and starts shaking from the poison. He asks her why.
“I . . . I could n . . . nev . . . ver bare a child by that sick twisted man.” (loc. 2146)
Surprise! From horror and disgust to maternal instinct and then right back to abortion by rattlesnake. I swear Blair is bipolar.
Over to Roswell’s POV. Blair is screaming in agony and flailing about and suddenly….he feels a demonic presence. Then she dies. Roswell angsts, but then Blair begins to…change.
I peered into her eyes as they blackened. In her gaping mouth I could see as her jagged teeth shone like polished daggers. Her nails came to a sharp point as well, now digging deep into my flesh. Her beautiful copper hair turned black, each strand darkening from the scalp down as if black tar ran through it (loc. 2158)
What.
The pinholes from the snake’s fangs closed, healing rapidly (loc. 2161).
…Wolverine?
Her ears. Then I knew. Her ears protruded from her now charcoal hair. One word circulated in my mind as the blood flowed from my arm down hers, her wails quieting.
Elf. (loc 2163)
What the fucking actual fuck.
Over to Harlow. She is filled with a new liveliness. She feels different. She asks Roswell, who stutters for a bit, then says that evidently she’s turned into an Elf. Which is only really possible if she’s half Elfish. Which seems unlikely, considering that we, through Jafar’s eyes, have already met HarBlair’s parents, and you’d think that if they had razor-sharp teeth and nails and giant pointy ears that he might have noticed. Or, you know, Blair might have noticed.
Blair asks Roswell how that could have happened and Roswell, like any good werewolf, knows the answer, because Master Smith gave him a book on human genetics years ago. In fact…get this!…he still carries the book around with him. Roswell whips it out with a flourish and explains how Elfish genes are basically a disease and the parents can only pass it on to a child of the same gender, which seems unlikely based on my admittedly limited understanding of genes, but then again, Elves and werewolves don’t exist, so what the fuck do I know?
Anyway, Roswell explains that her “Elfishism” was triggered by her near death experience, sort’ve like a survival mechanism, which doesn’t really make sense when you logically think about it, except Magic. Not to mention that there really hasn’t been any hints about Blair’s parentage up to this point so this whole thing reeks of Deus Ex Machina. (Incidentally, I did suspect Darian of having some odd parentage since the text specifically points out he was left on his adopted parents’ doorstep. Although…wait a second…what if Darian and Blair are actually siblings and they were BOTH adopted? Which would explain why Blair keeps thinking about loving him as a brother, not a lover?)
At any rate, it’s slightly better than having Blair turned into an Elf by a couple of naked tattooed Elven lesbian tarts dancing around to conjure up a mystical dragon-beast to turn her into a half-human-half-elf hybrid with a smooth hairless groin and ninja-like reflexes, but not much better. I’m sick of humans turning into Elves and leveling up.
We jump ahead into Roswell’s POV. Blair is still pregnant so her abortion scheme didn’t work. She yells for him and he comes running. She’s been yelling for him a lot recently. He opens the tent and stares at her hair.
“What do you think?” she touched the ends, brushing it back with her hand. “Is it sexy?” (loc. 2223)
Bow chicka bow wow!
Roswell says she looks beautiful. Blair thinks about how he’s a man, and gorgeous. Suddenly Roswell freezes, transforms into a wolf, and leaps out of the tent. Over the next few pages we rapidly flip back and forth between POVs which yes, it’s really fucking annoying. Roswell fights a feline demon. It’s kicking his ass. Then it bites his neck. He howls. Blair screams. Vision fades. Harlow – wait, why is she Harlow again instead of Blair – can only watch with tears streaming down her face, never mind that it’s been established that she has mad ninja skills and was recently given a sword WITH THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF FIGHTING DEMONS AND IS A FUCKING ELF NOW. Then we skip back to Roswell’s POV…oh yeah, now Blair has leapt into action:
I heard Harlow screaming again. I cracked my open to see her beating the creature with my katana, impaling its heart (loc. 2248)
Okay. First of all, yes, the word “eyes” is missing. Second of all, you don’t “beat” things with a fucking katana, it’s not a truncheon. Third of all…I’ve ranted about this before…Breeanna, things happen more or less logically. Cause and effect. Action…reaction. You can’t have someone doing something on one page and then something else entirely on the next without something to have bridged that gap. Why would Harlow stand there self-narrating “all I could do is watch with tears streaming down my face” when she can do significantly MORE than that and then proceeds to DO more than that a moment later? It doesn’t make sense.
Now, you could argue – and in fact, the intention of this scene might even be – that Harlow stands there weeping, rooted in shock, and then suddenly, spurred by Roswell’s impending death, she gets her shit together, leaps into action, and goes on Kill Bill on the demon with Roswell’s katana…but that’s not the way this scene comes across. More importantly, if that is what the intention is, show us that. That is an interesting scene. Characters being motivated and taking action is interesting. Those are the type of scenes people want to read about. Don’t skip over your most interesting, full of character development sequences. That is bad writing.
Anyway. Roswell lies there, gushing blood. Blair is apparently Harlow now. Roswell asks her to tell him that she loves him. She does.
Then I realized something. I think I did love Roswell, and my life that has been torn apart will no longer have meaning (loc. 2263).
Saw that coming.
Then Roswell dies.
Did not see that coming.
I kinda like this development. No more kinky master/servant werewolf shit. Just a random, brutal death. I do reserve the right to rescind my appreciation of this development if Roswell comes back to life, or if he just died so Harlow could get back together with one of the other men lusting after her.
Drinks: 71
Lone Wolf on 13 January 2014, 01:45 said:
Roswell will come back, so don’t worry.
Where, precisely, is this place set in time?
Mythical pre-history of the Earth. Apparently, they used all kinds of cold weapons during pre-history.
Rorschach on 13 January 2014, 01:51 said:
Goddamnit.
Breeanna on 13 January 2014, 02:18 said:
Burning Lavender and cedar: That’s just my favorite smell!
He’s actually possessed, not hallucinating. ;D
I, in fact specified the snake to be a copper head because it was more deadly.
:)
“ Apparently, they used all kinds of cold weapons during pre-history.” Wait I don’t understand the question…. :/
Yea sorry bout the whole something back thing….and also…Uh…Just for the record, when I wrote this story from the ages of 13 to 16, I did not consider the term Master to be anything kinky. It was literally a martial arts type master. Like….you know…Mr. Miyagi…
Also, I disagree with the title…just on the grounds that it was Harlow giving up and trying to kill herself, not the baby exactly.
Lone Wolf on 13 January 2014, 03:51 said:
I don’t think that Master is particularly kinky, it was just a snarky potshot.
And it’s not a question, really. More of a comment.
Breeanna on 13 January 2014, 04:49 said:
@lonewolf
Oh, It was really late reading it and m brain kind of Explosion Onomatopoeia
It’s not so much pre history is a version of our world that is slightly different.
The Smith of Lie on 13 January 2014, 06:06 said:
The reservations I have are somewhat late, considering it’s part 7 of the spork already, but only now jumped onto this particular wagon.
Naming scheme. The weird time measure units were beaten do death, but the character names keep bugging me. We go from middle eastern Jafar to Harlow Grimm, who sounds like she’d be more at home in pirate novel (of the cheesy kind), from her to werewolf whose parents obviously were UFO nuts. And let’s not forget the guest starring King Abbadon, who ditched his father’s Club of Evil to star in the At First Glance. Ok, ok, I know the name has biblical roots, just teasing about the Maradonia.
There’s no problem with fantasy worlds, with fantastic naming schemes. Thing is, they should be internally consistant. Here we have names from all over the history and world in a mix that makes little sense. Even that could have been salvaged if the names were introduced as typical to some cultures withing the settings – as evidenced by real world, different cultures have wildy different naming conventions. It just needs to be tied with the appropriate cultures within narrative.
And the Elf thing? I guess it was (not very subtly) foreshadowed that Harlow’s parents not being her parents with the wall jumping, guards killing lady part. It still came out of the left that she is and elf of all things. Question here – were elves established at any point before as the parf of this world? Spork never mentions them, which may not held true in the book.
I must admit, that I like the idea of elves being some kind of mutants, has potential to explore. But this brings me to another point. Genetics in quasi medieval world. I know of one book that had characters discussing genetics in this type of setting, that did it well. The Witcher novels. There it were mages who were experimenting with bloodlines and hereditary traits for centuries, who knew about genetics (and one witcher who hanged around those mages long around to learn about the stuff). Random smith, randomly handing the book about genetics to her werewolf boy-toy is… well, random.
Based on the context I gathere from the sporking, I don’t see the need to bring genetics into this at all. The general observation about how Elfishness sprads can be made without going into that.
swenson on 13 January 2014, 10:09 said:
She could be from a place where lavender naturally grows?
runs to Wikipedia
“native to the western Mediterranean, primarily the Pyrenees and other mountains in northern Spain”. Um. I guess her homeland could have a similar climate?
That could be the point, couldn’t it? That he was so horrified he just gave up all hope?
Max of 4 – 5 pounds is not all that heavy. Just want to throw that out there.
Asahel on 13 January 2014, 12:52 said:
So, did it rattle or not? Because copperheads don’t rattle. And, he’s right, no snake of any kind goes out slithering over frozen ground.
Also, for the record, the term is “bear a child” not “bare a child” (unless you’re talking about stripping a kid, and, if you are, I don’t want to hear about it).
The Smith of Lie on 13 January 2014, 18:11 said:
I’ll add three more cents (that no one cares about), but the weapons thing kept bugging me through the day.
First, even Master Smith won’t create (and so I understood from the way Rorshach sporked) so many weapons overnight. Quick research show it took days or weeks to create one Katana, since it was pretty labor intensive process. And here we have whole random collection to be made.
Secondly, the weapon designs did not come into being randomly. Different preferences were created through geographical, cultural and tactical differences. Roman Gladius was short with a poin, since it was meant to be used in close quarters, with large shield in an off-hand as a thursting weapon. It was a soldier weapon – used in ranks and a sceondary weapon after using up pilums to soften enemy. Sabre was one handed blade, in its many different forms, suited to use from horse back, with a slashing motions – its curve and relatively dull point made it poor stabbing weapon, but perfect to ride by some poor schmuck and part him from his head.
In fantasy it is important to have weapons at least superficially have cultural background in the world. One example I love (I pretty much love all the books by Brandon Sanderson anyway) is ‘‘Mistborn’‘ trilogy. Due to existance of people possesing power to manipulate metal, whole tactical doctrine rose around fighting them. And so a duelling cane is very popular weapon in Mistborn universe – as it can’t be manipulated. Furthermore, since some of powers include pushing metal objects, sometimes with large force, the use of coins as projectiles came into being – copper coins are plentiful, easy to carry about inconspciously and make great projectile when you can do like poor man’s Magneto. To counter that, units specialized in fighting powered individuals, are equipped with large wooden shields. To go even deeper – main characters use weapons made of glass. In our world it is silly idea, metal is so much better at the job. But since we established that having metal on your person is vulnerability…
And that’s how you take cool but impractical idea and make it work.
Another example I love is in Glen Cook’s ‘‘Black Company’‘. At one point of a war, when faced with “anti-magic field”, forces using magic flying carpets extensively come up with simple countermeasure – carpets build on a glider frame. They go in with high velocity, drop some projectiles and glide out. Simple. Efficent. Logical.
Finally, though this may be lack of infor due to spork and not the fault of the book, I’d love to know why characters pick such weapons and not some other? Again I will go back to one of books I like and again it will be The Witcher. At one point heroin is choosing a sword for herself. She isn’t ordering one, but the scene is similar. And it goes at lenght about why certain blade suits her while other she wants nothing to do with. Here, I guess, we have this with Claymore being glossed over in favor of kris. So, why kris? Argument was that she is willowy wisp of a girl. Ok. Is there something that makes Kris better suited for her than any other type of dagger? Some kind of special fighting style she was supposed to learn? Why not kukri for example? Or just generic short blade?
And to finish my overlong and unwelcome rant – I am not trying to be mean (too much). I kind of admire You Bree, for going ahead with writing. I am posing the questions that I’d (hopefully) ask myself if I had the balls (and whatever the opposite of laziness is) to write something and came to scenes like those we were presented in today’s spork.
Breeanna on 13 January 2014, 18:14 said:
@Asahel
I can’t remember the exact text but I think I was expressing that the leaves on the ground were rustling…and I don’t know, I grew up in PA and I see snakes during the winter when it’s cold enough to be freezing.
@the smith on lie
I have reworked that whole “genetics” thing to be more observational….I might go on to change the entire situation.That’s far down the line for me at the moment since I’m actually pulling the story apart and extending it into two novels….
yeah…
Breeanna on 13 January 2014, 18:21 said:
@smith on the lie
I have to say, and I hate using my age as a reason, but I was about 14 when I made a lot of these decisions and I was just raiding sword websites to find cool looking ones.
And Thats something else I’m going to do a lot of changing of when I get to it.
Tim on 13 January 2014, 18:43 said:
Katanas were also something of a compromise; available Japanese iron was absolute shit, and if you don’t pre-treat, fold and temper it very carefully you’ll get something that won’t hold an edge at all. Even so, katanas are fairly brittle swords (they’re basically three-foot razor blades) which require extensive care and can only really be used for cutting (as opposed to most swords which can cut, stab and slash).
Making a katana from scratch and traditionally would actually take months or even years because the billets of iron were buried in bogs to leech out impurities prior to forging.
The thing is if you have high-quality iron available you won’t need to make katanas. Renaissance blades made in Europe were every bit as good for actual fighting as anything Japanese smiths could do, and they were also cheaper. And without the need to mysticise the One Way You Know Of Making Swords That Works With Your Shit Iron, nobody would have any reason to actually want one.
BlackStar on 13 January 2014, 19:49 said:
My mind immediately leapt to the conclusion that someone had uh urinated on them. That’s got to be the worst purple prose description of rain I’ve ever read.
Tim on 13 January 2014, 21:38 said:
I think if your liquid sunshine is fragrant you need to see a doctor. Possibly also a priest.
Asahel on 14 January 2014, 00:40 said:
The air can be cold and the snake can still survive. If the ground is frozen, as the story says, any snake out on it is not going to be long for the world.
They hibernate in winter.
Breeanna on 14 January 2014, 03:12 said:
@Asahel.
Oh…
@Tim
The whole point of it taking a day is played into the fact that she literally has the ability to create and form swords from…nothing…It’s…magic…The back story of it is more complicated and isn’t really touched upon in full until the prequel(which I did write last year)
Basically, Master Smith is a Dwarf and her husband was a sword smith. In the realm I have made the assertion that Dwarfs have contact with Hephaestus, the god of the forge. When Elves attacked them, they killed Pallas’s (master smith) husband and threw her into her husbands forge, Hephaestus protected her and gave her some of his powers. Fun fact she can also burn people from the inside out.
The Smith of Lie on 14 January 2014, 05:10 said:
And so the master swordsmith is practically this guy then?
Well, that is pretty much what I suspected. In a way that Roman emperors had a slave to remind them they are mortals, treat my rants as reminders of what readers can get hung up on.
@ Tim about katanas. I ommited that part, although I was aware of it, for a reason that katana in popular culture is not the same as real katana. They are just better. West of Japan also had its metallurgy superstars – damascus steel and toledan steel, which were quite legendary at the time. I guess just not as cool as katanas.
Breeanna on 14 January 2014, 05:14 said:
@smith of lie
Oh yes, I appreciate your rants really. I feel like I have to tell people, Just because I argue something, doesn’t even really mean I disagree. If that makes sense. It’s bad. Gets me in trouble.
Tim on 15 January 2014, 15:54 said:
Ehhhh, I really don’t see why someone with such powers would make katanas, then, since the design is effectively Chinese swordmaking technique re-tailored specifically for working with pisspoor iron.
The Smith of Lie on 15 January 2014, 17:43 said:
Because katanas are cool. People tend to ignore all those pesky facts that you mentioned before. All they know (like I had for years) is that katanas are those awesome swords, created with some very advanced metallurgical techniques. In my case, the Highlander was to blame.
WulfRitter on 16 January 2014, 00:27 said:
OK, I have just wandered in to take a look around after a bit of a sabbatical, and I have to ask: What. The. Hell. OK, that wasn’t really asked. Is this a real book? Or is it another Maradonia-esque escapade?
And seriously? Abortion by rattlesnake? As though it is just Tuesday? Yep, I can’t bear my baby spawned by a heinous act, better get bitten by a rattlesnake. Oh, hey! That sorta hurts. Whelp, solved the baby problem. On with life.
Also, if this Blair chica is trying to demonstrate mad rattlesnake handling skillz, a handler does not hold the mouth closed (at least not typically). That is an absurd way to try and pick up a snake and a great way to get bitten before she even puts the creature near her face.
But I digress.
Breeanna on 16 January 2014, 02:02 said:
@tim
I have to say, I looked into sword types in order to put a picture to the sword.
Also *Japanese
@Lie on the Smith
Katana’s are cool. I was very involved in Japanese Culture for a while(I’m majoring history)
@WulfRitter
Actually, if you’re ever going to handle a snake, the way you keep it from biting you(be it a wild snake) is to hold it’s mouth shut. I learned that on the history Channel!
Tim on 16 January 2014, 06:06 said:
Naw, Japanese swordmaking is based on Chinese techniques. Specifically, it’s generally thought to have been established by Chinese and Korean smiths who moved to Japan. The katana is a specific development of those techniques designed to make not-shit swords out of native iron.
Breeanna on 16 January 2014, 06:14 said:
Well it’s debatable that all things originate from other places. Japan adopted their methods of smithing methods as they came out of the bronze age, yes, but the Katana was a blade which itself originated in Japan. That’s what I was trying to say. And like Smith on the Lie said, they’re pretty cool anyway. :)
Tim on 16 January 2014, 06:38 said:
Well sure, but the Chinese were the ones who developed the folding and differential hardening techniques that were actually used to make them.
Like I said, the katana is basically an adaptation of those techniques to take account of using much poorer base materials. If you’re a smith who can make arbitrarily good metals with magic, really your swords would only barely conform to existing types since presumably you could skip the entire forging process and the limitations it places on the smith, and make your blades out of tool steel.
I’ve always found the katana is the Desert Eagle of swords; it’s kind of neat looking, but not enormously practical and horribly overused in places where it has no reason to even exist.
Also, I’d have to question how the heroes would even be aware of all these types of sword. Most people would only know the names of a handful of swords they were actually likely to encounter, it does seem extremely odd for everyone to suddenly turn into a worldwide weapons expert. It might work if the smith is just creating weapons as they’re described and naming where they actually come from, I suppose, but like this it’s rather like seeing a modern mercenary unit going into an arms dealer and specifically ordering a PSG-1, six specific AK clones and a Brown Bess flintlock musket.
WulfRitter on 16 January 2014, 15:53 said:
@Breeanna
But the snake is not picked up by grabbing the mouth. Everybody I have seen handle a rattlesnake in person has immobilized the head but has not grabbed it so that they are holding the jaws closed. I prefer to do my rattlesnake handling with a pole, myself.
Breeanna on 16 January 2014, 18:52 said:
@tim
The way that it would make sense(and this is more thoroughly touched upon in my rewrite which encompasses two entire books, not one single rushed one) is that Master Smith is of time traveling company, allowing her to have a knowledge of untimely weapons. Since Roswell has corresponded with master smith before, he has browsed the books and such. Harlow had no idea for that reason.
@WulfRitter
Harlow’s not exactly a snake handler, though.
WulfRitter on 16 January 2014, 19:21 said:
@Breeanna
I guess that is sort of the point: the character picks the dangerous, difficult way to pick up a snake and acts calm as Sunday morning. It should not have been that simple, then again it’s supposedly colder as frozen poo out there, so I guess she could be able to pick that snake up with her teeth and dance a two-step with how lethargic (or dead) that snake ought to be.
Then again, herpetological problems are the least of the book’s problems.
Breeanna on 16 January 2014, 19:43 said:
Well yeah, That’s what I’m trying to fix.
WulfRitter on 16 January 2014, 19:44 said:
@Breeanna
It just occurred to me that you’re the author, am I right? I wasn’t following the comments and did not realize. I apologize if I have been a jerk. When I read the first spork, something led me to believe the author was not gracious regarding criticism, so I came in with snark-guns blazing. I have to say that so far (from what I have seen) it has been you who has been gracious and I who have been a jerk.
Breeanna on 16 January 2014, 20:15 said:
@WulfRitter
Oh it’s fine, I figured that you didn’t realize since you said you just hopped on. Yes yes, I have some reputation, I know. I hope I can squalsh the assumption that I’m not willing to get better. I wanted to be part of this spork specifically to improve. And it’s fine. You’re just saying what you think which is sometimes good for me to hear.
And as I have said before, I might defend myself about things, but don’t take it as me being difficult or unwilling to change, because theres a good chance I’m changing it anyway, sometimes I just like to see if my thought logic can hold up of if the idea was just 500% WRONG! But yeah. Hi.
WulfRitter on 17 January 2014, 02:27 said:
@Breeanna
Well, I give you props for getting on here and wanting to use this spork as a means to better your writing. In my opinion, that takes some guts.
Breeanna on 17 January 2014, 15:28 said:
@wolfritter I’ve had much worse! At least I can get an explanation here.
The Smith of Lie on 17 January 2014, 17:29 said:
@Breeanna
Since my question got kinda ignored before (it was masked inside a rant :P) – were the Elves established as a race before Harlow’s transformation? In spork it is abrupt introduction to the species, but sporks are just sporks, so I am curious about this.
Breeanna on 17 January 2014, 20:42 said:
Not originally, but I have rewritten some stronger hints mainly by nani (her mother) they are a major factor later as a significant portion of the end takes place in their kingdom. Sorry yeah I meant to address it before and forgot
TMary on 2 April 2016, 22:07 said:
So, first off, Rorshach, your sporks, man, they’re hilarious. “Darian is still chilling with Treebeard and the lonely witch, which is a great name for a band.” XD I love reading these. I’m currently skipping between Gold of Ophir and this one. On the downside, their addictive qualities mean I can’t seem to get anything done. Blargh.
Anyhoo, the reason I stopped lurking to say something is because (she will probably never see this, but) Breeanna commented that she said the snake biting Harlow/Blair was a copperhead, because they are more deadly, and while that may be so, I would just like to add that copperheads, when attacking, give a warning bite first, meaning they either don’t inject any venom or else it’s not enough venom to actually kill you. All verified cases of copperhead deaths have been someone who was bitten multiple times, because the second time around they go in for the kill. A rattlesnake, on the other hand, bites to kill first (though apparently all venomous snakes are capable of giving a “dry bite”, if they want). Actually, you may want to keep it a rattlesnake, because while copperheads will just sit there and stare at you unless you kick them or step on them (or get in their face, like my dog did, or pick them up ;)), rattlers have bad tempers and will attack basically if you move. Then Harlow doesn’t even have to pick it up! (Since it’s pretty hard to just grab a snake, and a venomous one would probably bite as you were reaching for it.)
Didn’t want to suddenly jump on you, it’s just that after my dog was bitten (it was years ago and she’s fine now, in case you were worried, lol), I read up on copperheads, and it turns out that they’re actually much preferable to rattlesnakes, if you have to pick between living in the same area as one of the two. They’re quite pretty, really, and I bear them no ill will. In fact, I try to educate folks about them :)