Alide and Dahlia Read Dark Lord by Unknown7 part 2: The Reckoning

I suppose we should address some of the points made in the response, before we get started..."

"Why? Most of those points were being made by Fred Smith who is an idiot and all of them clearly have no meta perspective on their own story. Obviously Farsel couldn't care less how her **** scene was written, but whether or not she's a real person is irrelevant. The important part is Unknown7 wrote that scene, presumably with the intention of titillating and entertaining those who would read it. Which it fails to do,"

"Absolutely. In fact I feel like I should elaborate on the point made regarding lack of detail and a lack of seriousness in regards to writing a **** scene. Again there is... technically, like in terms of the actual act of writing the scene, nothing wrong with writing a **** scene as humorous..."

"Jesus christ..."

"Again I mean in a purely objective sense ignoring morality, but from the basic sense of being entertaining the way the **** scenes are handled in this fail. Let's look at why someone would want to read a story that contains **** in it. They either are reading it because they are turned on for some reason by the concept of ****, at least in a fantastical sense, or because they are interesting in the concept around the ****... ie it's a story about the victim or the perpetrator and intends to delve into the thought processes and aftermath. There might be other reasons, but I can't really think of any that involve the existence of the **** itself. **** fantasies for instance don't really require the avenged act to be a ****."

"Mhmm..."

"So... If Unknown7 was going for the second one it fails, because we don't really get any real look into either Farsel's emotional reaction to the **** aside from a very generic it made her cry and then super angry. I mean we haven't read more and there's somewhat of an implicit promise that it's going to get better, but at least as far as we have read, Farsel's reaction to being **** is about the same reaction she'd have if Fred had instead ruined her favourite dress. It's basically just petty anger. She hates this guy, but her hatred doesn't have any kind of deep seated reasoning behind it and I'm not even saying that's wrong... One could argue that maybe she just wasn't actually that affected by it, maybe as a Dark Elf her mental state is difficult to damage, who knows who cares, the point is it's not really interesting and so it fails if it's supposed to be any kind of character study. Same for if Fred is meant to be the target of such a study since his reason for **** her is pretty much entirely inconsequential. There is an attractive girl in front of him and he's a bad person,"

"Actually yeah I'd like to interrupt to point out, him believing he is in a dream does not really excuse any of his actions, not that I accuse the story of saying it does, I just want to make the point. Being in a dream is being in a state of no consequences. That Fred's immediate thought went to **** the woman, really does just mean that that is likely what he would do in a situation where he thought he could get away with it without consequences, which makes him a bad person. Now I do want to point out, this does not mean I'm saying you're a **** if you've ever had a dream where you **** someone, but if you're in a lucid dream and **** people is your go to action, you're probably subconsciously a ****, you should probably seek help,"

"In a quote... 'Absolute power reveals'. Being in a dream is a form of having absolute power and what you do in that state is a reflection of what you would do if you had such power in real life and in the case of Fred what he'd do with absolute power is... **** women who wrong him, fuck a dragon who thinks of itself as his daughter and decide to become a dark lord,"

"Yeah... Actually that's another po-"

"You can make your point in a second, but we actually got off topic of the point I was originally making. So, assumedly the intent was the first, to arouse those who are aroused by **** fantasies and ****. Now, what is it that draws people to these, well I don't want to generalize, but in most cases if they fantasize about being the perpetrator then it's a power dynamic thing. They like the idea of being able to so utterly subjugate another and **** their will upon them. If they identify with the victim then it's that feeling of losing control, of being subjugated by another. So, one or both of those things need to be present for a **** scene to be hot to the kinds of people who like these scenarios. Neither of these are present. We don't get any victim angle cause we have no idea about the emotional or mental state of Farsel and we don't get the perpetrator angle because while Fred is obviously in control, we're not given any description of Farsel resisting or being dominated in any real way. The lack of any description or emotion to the scene robs us of that... Also, Farsel... That's a reason why you should probably care about how descriptive your **** scene is, cause with no description it makes you seem like a wimp who just accepted it and didn't even try to put up a token resistance. In other words, proper description and emotion could make you a tragic heroine or anti-heroine in your case, who despite her strength, power and status was defeated and abused by some idiot brute, it makes you more dynamic and interesting and gives the reader possibly even a reason to root for you, even if technically you're an antagonist in terms of this story, it also makes Fred seem even more evil which gives us a segue to what I know my sister was going to say,"

"Ooh you do know me... Yeah my other point was, Fred should be more evil! Like he thinks this is all a dream and he's decided to be evil. To live out all his darkest fantasies and I mean... he **** a woman and obviously that's evil, but again the story doesn't even frame it like it's an evil act, it frames it like, hey she tried to kill him and it's all a dream so it doesn't matter, the most actually cruel or callous thing he's done so far is using her to check for traps, there should be more of that. Make him actually cool evil, he can still be a dork and an idiot, but at least let him actually be nasty. Right now he's just kind of a jerk who also rapes people occasionally and randomly murders people... Also I'm still not over him having Daenerys **** the mercenaries. That's random, he has no reason for it and it's literally against his benefit. He basically already had an army working for him and decided to just kill all of them on a whim? Why, he literally gets nothing out of it and only makes his life harder, it's stupid, but it's not even a normal, he's an idiot making a stupid decision type of stupid, it's this makes no sense for the character to do stupid,"

"Also, there are dragons in the Tower... they tend to have pretty heavily armored scales and would probably easily tear through an army of armed soldiers, but see that makes sense, because of the aforementioned armor and the fact they're fairly large powerful creatures... Daenerys is seemingly vaguely human sized and has two very obvious and massive weakpoints, one of which is her chest, a spot any trained soldier would be aiming for anyway. So, we have this newborn dragon and fine she's not newborn, but she is still a dragon who has no experience fighting, but she manages to take out a trained group of mercenaries while outnumbered presumably by a pretty big margin, I don't care how strong she is, at least one of them probably would have managed to stab her in her obvious and probably even distractingly obvious breasts and if not killed her at least severely injured her. You can't have it that she's some newborn creature who doesn't have any real world experience and that she's also an unstoppable killing machine capable of taking out a squad of trained and armed soldiers with her bare hands... It's stupid, and I mean it's not like you couldn't have her win the fight and beat them all, but at least explain more specifically how, maybe she can in fact cover up her weakpoints in battle with scales or something, or she just has some innate combat sense that helps her be on par with trained soldiers... literally anything other than... Yeah this girl is a dragon, she's basically just a normal girl, except she has some scales that don't cover her most vital areas and she probably has super strength."

"Also... While not outright stated and due to the nature of this meta review thing it will probably never be outright stated it was at least implied that the incel vibes we got were not from the writer, but from the character who gave an extremely lukewarm defence of himself in the review,"

"Like seriously... he does know that Incel wasn't a term created by feminists right, it's a name that a group of people with a very outspoken belief system gave themselves... Also literally people like Elliot Rodger exist and killed people so... yeah sure... just a bogeyman..."

"Also if Incels and Nice Guys don't exist, what the fuck does that make Dreg?"

"As for women just not bothering to look past flaws to see a persons good qualities, I mean yeah bad people exist in all genders, but the idea that that's a truism of all women is extremely stupid and wrong,"

"There was mention that Fred might have some further issues that we'll learn about, so we'll wait to render further judgment I guess, but I'm not holding out hope that it's actually going to amount to anything,"

"Also... I could bring up actual statistics, but no... False **** allegations are not a widespread thing,"

"As for us... We're immortal beings who were created for no reason other than to serve the chosen as they ascend the tower, your analogy is kind of terrible and reeks of projecting itself... Working in a tower as a job is... similar to living in our mother's basement? Sure? Also resorting to ****, might be an accurate jibe, if we had any confirmation that we even do actually do so... or that we're even actually related, so basically at the end there I'm pretty sure Fred was just mad and fired whatever shot he could... Unfortunately much like I imagine is the case with his penis, all he can fire is blanks,"

"I think that's all we needed to say... I mean we're not here to defend Hard Candy from the worst misreading of a story, and misunderstanding of all the core themes, in history... That's not our job, but I will just say... Lindsey was more interesting, more sympathetic and actually a better made character when she was literally the villain in hard candy than when she's the 'hero' in Unknown7's story,"

"I guess we should actually get to reading now?"

"I guess..."

"Also we read the lore and cast of characters page after our review last time cause we realized we missed it and... there literally only two characters who are stated good alignment and one neutral. Every single other character is evil. Except I guess Taria who's alignment is listed as Anti-hero which... That's not an alignment Unknown7... Have some fucking consistency. Anyway point is... so we have a story where we are becoming a dark lord, except literally everyone else is evil anyway, so what's the fucking point? God I hate this story... I understand why TheLeherengin didn't want to read it... It has such promise from a purely premise based standpoint, but it does nothing with it. You can't actually be evil, because you're just doing evil to other evil people which at least so far in the story is basically treated as justified... This story is just straight up a lie,"

"Okay... Can we start reading now?"

"Oh well I mean we should state that we were going to continue down the **** Sara path, but it was removed... admittedly partially on TheLeherengin's recommendation, so I guess we'll just be going down the other path instead..."

"Are we actually reading now?"

"Oh one more thing! If it's too difficult to write TheLeherengin, you have magnanimously been given permission to call her Engin like Gambio does..."

"Okay fuck you starting now before we go off on more tangent bullshit!"

READING IN PROGRESS (BGM)

"Okay I will say immediately... Lying to Daenerys to have her kill Sara's cows is pretty evil, though I dunno it still feels... Hollow..."

"The all just a dream thing irks me a bit the more we get into it as well... He believes he's in a dream, but doesn't question the logic of the dream at all, like... Why would he still be self-conscious of taking his shirt off if it's just a dream?"

"You know... TheLeherengin is a big fan of a book series called The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever... It actually has a few similarities with this story... The main character is teleported to another world and due to reasons, one of the first things he does is **** a woman, he also believes the world he finds himself to be in to be false, though I don't think he specifically calls it a dream at any point, but well... Literally every aspect of the similarities between the two stories is handled way better in Thomas Covenant... Thomas is at first pretty unlikeable, almost irredeemably so, but the story does sort of redeem him, mostly by actually having his actions have consequences... Also with one major writing issue, that mercifully Unknown7 does not have the writing is just way better,"

"I mean one could argue that comparing the two is unfair... Thomas Covenant is quite clearly a serious story that takes itself seriously, Dark Lord is a comedy-"

"No it isn't, comedies are funny..."

"... You know what I mean,"

"Yeah, except... That's kind of the problem. It tries to be funny, but it's not written in a funny way, it's weirdly standing between the lines... It's a story about a loathesome character doing loathesome things and we're supposed to find it comedic, but the problem is we don't like this guy, it's not funny watching good things happen to this asshole. Comedic sociopath characters like say... Jack Sparrow work because they don't get what they want, we find them funny, because they're evil or jackass antics only serve to hurt themselves or other people who deserve it... This story, we're rooting for the sociopath and he just gets everything he wants, there's nothing funny about it, it's just depressing and lame... I don't want to see Fred win, I want to see him get his head caved in with a tire iron,"

"Moving on... Once again why is he trying to justify himself in a dream about **** Farsel? It's a "dream" remember?"

"The whipping scene would be fine... It's a vaguely sexual act in a sex story, the fact it's unnecessary doesn't matter, except again it's lame, not sexy and goes nowhere, unless we count Fred telling Daenerys he'd whip her too as going somewhere..."

"Also... So... Let's talk about Farsel again since she's back... What exactly is her plan? I assume that since apparently dragons are basically invincible, despite obvious weakpoints, to anything other than another dragon, what exactly is her plan? Her fire can't hurt it, her mercenaries aren't going to be able to do anything and it can clearly break out of her chains, so what is her plan in attacking again?"

"Also... apparently hitting people in the nuts even works against trained mercenaries who are presumably wearing at least some kind of armor or do the mercenaries not wear any armor? I mean Farsel is some kind of mage so her not wearing armor makes sense, but why do none of these mercenaries have protected crotches?"

"Oh also a sort of random point, but... I get the feeling... Unknown7 thinks being hit in the cunt hurts the same as being hit in the balls, which isn't true... Which of course she'd know being a girl and all. I mean getting hit in the clit isn't going to feel good, but it's not debilitating usually... Honestly, depending on sensitivity, hitting a woman in the breast is likely to be more effective..."

"Okay... So... Farsel's plan is to try and kill Fred... Which I approve of, but her reasoning is that she might be able to take control of Daenerys after he's dead... which... what is she basing this idea on? The far more likely option is that Daenerys would just fucking **** her out of rage if she managed to kill Fred... This is stupid... Farsel is stupid and yet somehow she's still the smartest character in this so far..."

"and predictably she's taken out like a complete wimp... She gets taken out by being soaked with water... Which makes her fire magic not work... I'm sure that makes sense, I mean we don't know how the magic in this world works so maybe she needs to be able to create a spark or something like Roy Mustang..."

"You know... I almost... almost got excited for a moment. Sara whips Farsel and Farsel actually has a legit reaction and... then she just just licks Daenerys to completion in like 1 and a half sentences with no more prodding..."

"Also so yeah Arizelle is just a shitty place... Everyone is evil, everything sucks why are we supposed to give a shit about becoming a dark lord here... Every fucking nation is already ruled by a dark lord in essence..."

"Also apparently Farsel is pregnant, since she apparently lactates, either that or Sara is just very very awkwardly groping her for no reason,"

"Also... Fred doesn't understand the definition of cuckoldry either... Which is strange since he seems like the kind of person to use the word cuck very often..."

"Yeah... Unless Daenerys and Sara are married or sexual partners, you aren't cucking her by having her watch you fuck Sara... Since the three of you seem to be in a mutual three way relationship, it's exhibitionism at best..."

"'Fred gave Farsel more anal' is a sentence that on it's own sums up everything wrong with these fucking sex scenes if you can even call it that... it's on par with 'and then we did ****' for sentences that tell you the person who wrote them has no experience at all with the subject matter..."

"Okay guess that is the end of book one... Also a naked woman is going to attract attention so they're going to dress Daenerys, but in the same chapter they specifically tell Farsel to go naked, because I guess she's not a naked woman? If the argument is that it's fine because she's a ****, well they said earlier that Daenerys would also be considered a ****, so... that doesn't make any sense..."

"Also are we given any reason why Farsel and Sara haven't talked about how Daenerys definitely killed the cows? Cause kind of feels like there'd be a lot of opportunities for Farsel to tell her that and she most definitely knows they lied about it by now, so what's motivating her to not tell Sara? I mean sure Sara probably wouldn't believe it, but I still wanna know why Farsel wouldn't even try?"

"Also neither of us have read whore of the dragon, but I'd be surprised if it turns out that this is actually 'parody' by any real meaning of the word. This is probably more parody in the sense that Meet The Spartans was 'parody' of 300"

"I didn't want Farsel to be a major threat compared to later villains who will also be mostly incompetent and die immediately because Fred basically has cheat codes and this story is terrible and doesn't know anything about suspense..."

"Also... Once again... For a character who's supposed to be evil, he's more of just a jack ass... He went to save a village and the only compensation he asked for was sex from a random woman which he did not in fact get because he let his underling tell him what to do..."

"Okay so... the evil people have been met now and somehow... they know about "Darth Vader" and that he has Farsel and a peasant with him, but no one told Sorvile that the dragon is a woman?"

"At least capturing the dragon and breeding with it to get a new dragon who would be controllable is a better plan, still stupid though given that apparently dragon's are unbeatable without a dragon of your own, which they don't have,"

"Ooh ooh also obligatory, I kill my own men to show how evil I am! Even though that's extremely stupid and anyone who haphazardly kills their servants like that would pretty quickly lose any power they actually have..."

"We haven't been commenting on spelling mistakes, because frankly neither of us actually care... There are a lot of them, but they're mostly not too egregious and as long as it's legible, I don't really hold it against the story, however this one I couldn't resist... 'Unfortunately Daenerys was fast enough to catch animals with her bare claws.' this isn't really a spelling mistake, but it's a mistake and one that literally changes the entire meaning of the sentence to it's opposite... I love it,"

"Oh good we met Alice and once again despite being extremely stupid and doing things that should logically turn out badly for him, things turn out fine for Fred... That guard should have just stabbed him in the back the moment he poked his stupid fucking head into the carriage,"

"Didn't the idiot brigade keep calling you Alice in their response?"

"Yes... I assume it was a coincidence, they did imply it was a simple autocorrect and I have no reason to believe it was an intentional allusion to this character,"

"Fred... is pointing out that the obviously magical tree is trying to **** them into the forest and the guard responds, 'who are you to give orders," which... Fred hadn't given any orders... he'd just pointed out the fucking obvious... and yet instead of stating as much, Fred reacts like this is a reasonable response and responds with a threat to... get them to follow the orders he didn't give..."

"A forest... is dark... in the daytime... and this is illogical to Fred, but justified by the dream... Not by the fact that's a real thing that just normally happens, because the forest canopy blocks out sunlight... I mean I guess it's unlikely Fred ever left his room before now, so maybe he just doesn't know how forests work..."

"Okay... Classic suspense scenario... The characters are wandering through a dark forest and one by one characters are getting picked off, you slowly build up to the realization that people are missing and there's some kind of unknown threat... or you state in one line people are disappearing and then have a character verbalize that people are disappearing and then just order the deus ex machina to deal with whatever the threat is... fuck this story sucks..."

"It actively got worse in the next part... We have a situation... The characters have been unknowingly breathing in poison gas and they're all going to die unless they find a way to stop- and Fred just punches the woman causing it in the cunt until she stops the spell and then rapes her... and Alice runs off and gets captured for no reason..."

"Also... I hadn't really noticed it until now, but literally none of the characters are ever really described. Like we have no idea what most of these characters look like, at best in some cases we have a hair colour or something, but that's about it. Daenerys kind of gets a description, but even then it's basic as fuck... So, we don't even know if the women being **** are actually hot in any meaningful way... Fred says their hot, but we don't know what he considers attractive, they could all be extremely overweight and covered in sores and boils,"

"Also... The character responsible for the poison is just named offhand in the narration as soon as she appears... It's... really halfassed and lazy..."

"She's also dead by the end of the chapter she was introduced in so why even bother naming her?"

"Also can we talk about the hilarious fact that the villainous group is made up of a matriarchal society, a man hating all female race, a race of undead beings under the control of an effeminate male and orcs... It's just... so on the nose alongside all the weird misogyny in this story... It almost feels like intentional parody... Like someone wrote what they imagine Carl Benjamin would write if he wrote a fantasy novel... Or MyFaRog I guess..."

"Yeah once we meet the Amazonians it gets even more obvious... They don't actually care about helping women they just hate men and their 'leader' is a fat ugly inbred woman... If these aren't the most clear cut straw feminists I've ever seen it's only because they don't all have dyed hair..."

"And we have another reference to a brutal **** that makes the victim character cry, but is still given no real weight..."

"Also... Now even in story the cunt punches don't actually have any debilitating effect. Sara calls Fred overweight, gets punched in the cunt and then is literally just continuing to talk normally to respond to Fred's next line..."

"So, is Daenerys an unstoppable killing machine or not? Cause they act like she is, but apparently they don't have enough power to conquer places like a proper Dark Lord yet... So, what? Unspecified numbers of trained mercenaries, dark elf soldiers, or Amazonian soldiers, that's fine, but the moment that unspecified number of soldiers is an army protecting a place, that's too much I guess?"

"You might be being a bit too pedantic here..."

"Maybe, but fuck I hate this..."

"And the farm girl apparently thinks whipping horses is all it takes to drive a carriage... Man her farm must have been working great... "

"We should probably stop soon and take another break, this is just so awful we're having trouble giving it any sort of nuanced critique, so we're going to take some time to recharge and return refreshed to continue to review this properly,"