The Chemist Spork: Chapter 16
Dec. 1st, 2020 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhyson posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
antishurtugal_rebornChapter 16
Fifty wakes up. Again. Meyer must have studied up on Paolini, because I'm pretty sure half of the chapter breaks so far involve altered consciousness. I get it. It feels natural. It also feels really lame and predictable after the third time.
She obsesses over Dopey and pieces of his face, textures of his hands, and his breathing. And I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very romantic to me. I did say I wanted details. This just wasn't what I had in mind.
Yet again, Meyer mentions how tired Fifty is before she goes to bed. That's the most often characteristic she's given. Tired.
“What if the crazy swell of emotion that had felt so natural prescribed and irresistible forced last night had evaporated stopped being relevant to the plot?” If that's the case, then some real action might finally happen.
“That might be easier than if the feeling continued.” The Feeling. THE Feeling!! The eloquent prose pierces my heart and I weep in devastation. Fast food menu elicit more emotion from me.
“Ugh, Kevin. She could just imagine his reaction to recent developments.” Totally justified.
She's expecting Kevin to call either today or tomorrow. Then she's going to send an email to the bad guys. Then the “rats” A.K.A. bad guys are going to “scurry.” Then Kevin is going to kill anyone who scurries. While he's doing that, she's going to kill the scurrying bad guys who are after her. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. What if someone accidentally broke the copy machine and scurried to get help to hide the evidence? How do they know what scurrying looks like? Why would all the bad guys simultaneously scurry? I keep using that word because I have no idea what Meyer is trying to describe.
I keep hearing, 'write what you know.' This has caused anxiety, until I realized I can only write what I know and can't write what I don't know. Anything I don't know won't be written. Meyer doesn't know. Meyer doesn't know what a bad guy running around to do stuff looks like, so it's not in there. Unfortunately, it is another obvious gap in knowledge. That part does concern me. What if I leave an obvious gap? However, reading this book, ignorance is bliss, apparently.
She looks in the mirror. The cut “showed some promise of changing the shape of her mouth permanently.” Kevin punches her in the face hard enough to leave a scar and she's almost happy that her face is now going to look different. Most of her super secret spy stuff is either insane and more likely to kill her than anybody else, or is related to appearance.
She goes downstairs and Daniel is trying to turn on the tv. The book was written in 2016. Both characters should be old enough to figure out these gosh, darn, new-fangled television sets by now. But no, Daniel can't figure out the input options. It's like rocket science, apparently. ..... Hm..... He's 28, according to his file. He should have grown up with multiple inputs. My brothers could Jerry-rig the Xbox to plug into our ten year old VCR, to plug into our 20+ year old tv. He should be able to figure out how to change inputs.
“His Danielness stopped her where she stood,” Worst. Romance. Ever. Meyer, you are literally getting paid to use your words. Is Danielness really the best adjective you have? Heck, don't you have a university education in literature?
“He sighed. 'I thought you wake up in an analytical survival-oriented mood.” Two chapters ago, Daniel got confused and thought that instead of trying to escape government murder agents by running for their lives and hiding off the grid, they were actually on a vacation and they needed groceries. Fifty told him the government murder agents were probably going to find them now. It's chapter 16 and they've done nothing about it yet.
She wonders if trying to murder the government murder people is a good idea and considers being a doctor for the mob again. She even.... considers being a waitress and not buying drugs. Like opioids.
And another reason why Daniel should be stabbed multiple times with a rusty fork:
“Your brother will call soon.”
He made a face. “Wow. I hadn't thought about that.”
Daniel thought his only surviving blood relative he ever mentioned was dead. Now he's back from the dead and he's a CIA agent. Daniel's response: 'Meh. He can take care of himself.”
Fifty mentions the plan to leave Daniel behind with the dogs. And Daniel is more horrified at the thought of being unable to supervise her. “How will I stand it? Waiting here, not knowing? Alex, I'm serious!” Deal with it, princess. Also, he knew that psychotic drug addict for all of four days or something like that. Suddenly, she's more important than his not-dead brother.
Daniel's face gets plastered on the news. The news people are “a handsomely aging anchorman and a much younger, perky blond anchorwoman.” Oh, look. Even Meyer's sexism is cliched and unimaginative.
Daniel's colour heightens when asked where he went yesterday. YESTERDAY. Two chapters ago was yesterday. DX Ugh. NOTHING has happened and two chapters ago was yesterday. And since when is colour something that heightens?
Did you know that old people watch more news than young people? This fact is brought to you by Meyer. Fifty also has to explain to him that he's good looking and a friendly “young girl [old enough to be employed]” is obviously going to be attractive. He is far to ignorant for this modesty or whatever to be attractive. You could beat him with a baseball bat and then he'd go get an umbrella thinking there was a hailstorm.
Fifty deigns to tell NPC #42 that by the way, government murder agents might have seen Daniel and are currently hunting them down. He was stoic, just like she expected. His operating system only runs one program, apparently.
Fifty thinks about sending him to fetch some guns, like the sawed-off shotgun, and ammo. Afterall, did you know that a sniper rifle wasn't as helpful in close quarters as a shotgun? Now you know! Isn't Fifty Shades of Sherlock smart? She narrated that to us all by herself.
Also, CIA agents never have to deal with poisonous gas. That's why Cranky doesn't store gas masks. Not because he's an idiot, too.
But alas, “it might already be too late for preparations.” So the plan is to... sit there. Because going to get guns will lead the bad guys to the guns and the government doesn't already have rocket launchers.
..... Why doesn't Cranky have guns inside the house?
Because then Fifty couldn't literally spend an entire day worrying about bad guys she promises us really are coming.
She does have “Her most essential defences” ... in ziplock bags. Um... yeah... It helps to have weapons in ziplock bags because it makes running away eaiser. I thought the whole point of having weapons was so you don't have to run away and putting them in ziplock bags defeated the whole purpose, but what do I know? I didn't study super secret spy shit like Meyer did.
Fifty longs for Cranky to call again. Third time is the charm. Also, Cranky is out spying on people and other exciting shit, but we're still stuck with these losers.
Despite being convinced that government murder agents are closing in on them this very second, Fifty and Dopey have time to flirt. They touched hands. Guys, this is serious. They touched hands. AND Dopey kissed her on the head once. This might be the romance of the year. “It surprised her how unaware Daniel seemed to be of [NPC #42's] presence.” The NPC doesn't have boobs. Since when has Daniel cared about people who don't have boobs?
NPC #42 wasn't programmed to go get guns without extra input, so he just walks the dogs all day.
“He curled around her on the sofa so naturally that it didn't feel out of the ordinary at all [as they watched the news].” Truly, the bards will sing songs of this remarkable tale of love, sacrifice, and courage. Surely, nobody has watched the news with more bravery than these two. Did I mention Cranky was offscreen doing exciting stuff?
Blah, blah, blah. Neither one could sleep. “Let's not sleep together.” Daniel gets embarrassed because he made a pee-pee joke. Fifty narrates, in a roundabout way, she wants to have sex, but decides it's a bad time, seeing as she might have to run for her life at anytime.
One of the reviewers said that “Meyer knows how to stick close to the arc of Alex's redemption, tracking her emotions as she tentatively learns to trust again.”
Sticking close to the arc means exciting shit happens off screen. Fifty has no emotions. None. She makes Eragon look like a soft-hearted sap who wears his heart on his sleeve. Even though he's more likely to wear other people's hearts on his sleeve. The 'tentative' part just means she nags and nags the reader about what a bad idea it is and how she never does this.
The redemptive journey: “It didn't make sense --- she was out of her secured room and farther from her other weapons --- but, paradoxically, she felt safer.”
There it is. There's the journey. Now she can magically go to sleep without wearing a gas mask even though she's been wearing one every night for 2 years.
Dopey calls her terrifyingly lethal. He now can cuddle with his teddy bear so he goes to sleep. Fifty grabs his hair as a security blankie and goes to sleep.
So many chapters that end with her going to sleep. -_-
This isn't a relationship between two equals. Even taking out the criminal shit that she did to him earlier, she's too emotionally unavailable. He doesn't have a purpose in life except to cook for her and say nice lies about her. Neither one is a whole person in of themselves. Two halves to make a whole only works in math and geometry.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-01 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-01 07:25 am (UTC)It's fine.
Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:35 am (UTC)Shia creeped toward the couch, where her unsuspecting prey sat. The young Ra'zac usually wouldn't risk drawing attention to herself in an unfamiliar place, but these two humans were exceptionally annoying. On top of that, the male was a wimp, and the female whined a lot and looked like she was planning to stab and eat everybody. Shia would be doing all humans a service here. The female's mate tried to snuggle against the female, but their stiffness seemed like he was trying to cuddle a board. The male didn't seem deadly, she could handle him easily. The female needed to go first. Shia stepped forward and slashed her claws, tearing the female's throat open. The female tried to say a few words in her language, but was unable to do more than gurgle. Shia took pity on the creature and snapped her neck. The male screamed and ran, but Shia overtook him before he did anything else. She dragged the bodies onto the couch and ate her lunch while looking at the picture box those humans were so obsessed with. It was one of the oddest meals she'd ever had.
Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:37 am (UTC)I don't like these characters that much, as you can see.
Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:38 am (UTC)Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:42 am (UTC)Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:52 am (UTC)I just don't understand why the editors didn't try to save Meyer from herself...
Probably they didn't bother because they knew that any book of hers would sell with her fans.
If the bad guys she worked for brought Daniel in, and then she realized he was innocent, so then she helped him escape, bam, I wouldn't hate her so much.
Exactly. However, I think Meyer did the often seen pitfall of making a female character an asshole and hyper-masculine so they won't be "weak" or feminine. It's what happens when people mistake the definition of "strong female character". It's also a lazy shortcut.
Furthermore, Fifty (like your name for her, BTW) would actually be compelling if she was intentionally written like a psycho, or shown to be an unreliable narrator.
Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 08:05 am (UTC)She did avoid the pitfall of a rude main character as a 'strong' female. She even tried to write in feelings, but that turned into torturing Dopey to shut him up and bizarre moments like almost getting him a blanket
And thank you. :) I entertain myself, if no one else, but if other people are entertained, too, that's good. And you're right. This story would be brilliant in the hands of a talented writer who knew their main character was insane.
Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 08:41 am (UTC)I liked the sporks.
Well-written sociopaths are always popular, but hypocritical characters are not. The feelings moments come off like Fifty knows she's horrible and justifies all this to herself through these moments.
I made Shia sort of a psychopath up there. However, she killed them for a good cause.
Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:37 am (UTC)Re: Fifty and Daniel get Slashed
Date: 2020-12-01 07:49 am (UTC)Shia noticed it had a bit of an odd buzz...
no subject
Date: 2020-12-01 11:33 am (UTC)Profound 👏👏