“A short, sharp cry in the night made Jake Rivers look up from the
book he was reading. To be honest, he was glad for the distraction.
He was on the verge of throwing the book against the wall of his dorm
room in disgust. Since it was a hard copy, a thick trade paperback he
had bought in the university bookstore for an outrageous price, and
not something he was reading on his phone or tablet, he could have
done that without breaking anything. Although the book was heavy
enough it might have dented the Sheetrock.”
So the first
paragraph of the book is blatant padding, that’s always a good
sign.
He goes over to his
window and gives us a mental map of the campus.
“Another cry.
Definitely female.”
Not sure why that
needed its own sentence fragment, but ok.
“It didn’t take
him long to get down the stairs. A group of students was sitting in
the lobby talking about something—he heard the words
“microaggression” and “privilege” and “cisnormative”—but
Jake didn’t even glance at them as he went by, and none of them
called out to him.”
I want you to try and construct a sentence or a
conversation using all three of those words correctly in a brief
enough period of time for somebody to overhear all of them as they
walk past.
He comes across a
man holding a woman’s arm and yelling at her while she tells him to
let her go and that it’s over.
“Jake was still
moving toward them, but he stopped as he heard what the woman said. A
grimace tugged at his mouth. Lovers’ quarrel. None of his business.
That was an old-fashioned attitude, and he knew it. But almost
everything about him was old-fashioned, including his dislike of a
woman being mistreated.”
Well which is it?
Are you old-fashioned in the sense that it’s none of your business
that a woman is being mistreated or in the sense that you have to
step in when a woman is being mistreated? I thought part of the
reason people idolize being old-fashioned is because of how
uncomplicated it is? This shouldn’t even be a conundrum because
nobody gave a shit when women were beaten back in the 50’s, so the
correct old-fashioned thing to do would be to lecture her on
listening to her man and doing what he says. How exactly being
“old-fashioned” ever got tied into protecting women from abuse, I will never understand.
“Of course, if he
did step in to help her, more than likely she would stick up for her
boyfriend and turn on him instead, accusing him of perpetuating the
patriarchy and the myth of women needing to be rescued. He already
got enough of that crap every day.”
That sounds like an
incredibly unlikely outcome in any realistic scenario since this guy
is physically accosting her, but I’m also certain that Jake Rivers
has read ahead and is 100% correct that this is going to happen.
After all, this is Trigger Warning, a world of oversensitive libcucks
who behave exactly like the strawmen Johnstone has constructed
regardless of how much it goes against the behavior of any human
being on earth.
“Then the son of a
bitch had to go and slap her. Jake heard the crack of open hand on
flesh and stopped in his tracks. He swung around, took several more
steps until he could see the two of them fairly well in some stray
beams of light filtering through the trees from the library. Couldn’t
make out too many details because the light wasn’t that good. But
she was petite and blond while the guy was good-sized, with dark hair
and a short beard.”
Wow, it’s like I’m
really there. “Good-sized,” what a wonderful descriptor.
“Something was odd
about the shape of his head, and after a second, Jake got it. The
guy’s hair was long enough that he’d pulled it up into a bun on
the top of his head.”
I love that Jake
sees a guy with a man bun and his immediate thought is “Wow, that
guy’s skull is fucked up.”
“Jake ran his left
hand over his own buzz cut. He’d had fairly long hair once, half a
dozen years earlier, but he had never worn it in a bun. And if he
ever grew it back out, he still wouldn’t.”
Is now really the
time to think about how much you hate man buns? Right here in the
middle of this confrontation?
Jake tells him to
let her go, the guy tells Jake to back off and mind his own business,
then we get to this odd comment directed at Jake:
““Are you one of
the football players?” Kelton College had a football team, but it
hadn’t won a game in three years. “You’re big enough, but
Olmsted’s not the athletic dorm—””
The narrator wants
us to know that Jake is a big manly man who’s nothing like these
soy boys, I guess.
““I’m not a
football player, and you need to let go of the lady.”
“You don’t have
to call me a lady,” Annie said. Just as Jake had expected, she
sounded halfway offended.
“I’m trying to
help you—”
“That’s no
excuse for perpetuating stereotypes and spreading toxic
masculinity.””
I was right, Jake
did read ahead! This is totally the way people talk, especially when
they’re being assaulted.
“Jake couldn’t
hold back a sigh. Even scared and in trouble, Annie couldn’t stop
herself from parroting some of the garbage that had been forced into
her head. Not for the first time in the past half-dozen years since
he’d enlisted, Jake found himself wondering if the people he fought
to defend really deserved it. He’d always concluded that they did,
but sometimes it wasn’t easy to convince himself.”
Obviously Jake
didn’t defend any of us, he just helped invade other countries for
oil, but in his mind, he did defend this country. From his
perspective, he’s basically saying “This woman is annoying to me.
I should’ve let America be destroyed by terrorists.”
Anyway, this guy,
Craig, decides to go on the offensive.
““I’m not
scared of you!” Craig shouted. “I don’t care how big you are! I
know Krav Maga!” He had just started some sort of fancy martial
arts move when Jake hit him with a left hook to the belly.”
Do you know what
fucking Krav Maga is?? This is one of the most deadly military
martial arts in the world. I have to assume Johnstone thinks Krav
Maga is like yoga or something and just picked it because it has a
foreign name.
So Jake beats the
shit out of Craig, and then Annie gets pissed off at Jake for
it.
“She came at him,
hissing and spitting.”
Picture this
happening and try not to laugh.
“He should have
stayed with that weighty tome about how capitalism was the worst
economic system and America was the most evil country in the world.”
I went to the wrong
college, I wish my classes were as badass as this.
““You . . . you
fascist !” she screamed. “You oppressor!”
“Hell, lady,”
Jake said, knowing the word would get under her skin again, “how’d
you know I used to be in the army?””
“Jake
heard a sudden rush of footsteps behind him and turned to see several
black-clad figures charging him. He couldn’t make out their faces,
and when they yelled, “Fascist! Fascist!” and the words were
muffled, he knew why. They were wearing hoods over their heads. Then
they were on him, swinging bicycle chains with locks on them, metal
pipes, and other objects turned into clubs, and this peaceful night
on the small, elite college campus turned into a fight for his life.”
Whoa,
where the fuck did these guys come from? Is he getting
attacked by fucking antifa ninjas?? Were they summoned when the word "fascist" was uttered?? Are we going to have antifa
Shredder in this book?? I have to admit, this has successfully hooked
me for the next chapter.
