The Diva Ate Her
Dec. 29th, 2012 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratAs requested by a commenter and friend in my last update, here are my...
THOUGHTS ON 'THE DIVA ATE HER'
* The grammar, writing style, and dialogue were all crap, and it clearly had never seen the eyes of an editor. That said, I couldn't care less, because it's a self-published 99-cent gossip novel I got from Amazon not because I thought it would be good writing, but because I thought it would be delicious juicy petty gossip, which it was, and I loved it for that. Admittedly, this is a bit hypocritical of me, since I think even fanfic authors should have proper spelling, grammar, etc., and a beta is often a good idea, but with fanfic, the story is sort of the point...not the juicy gossip, as with this. So yeah, that didn't bother me. YMMV though.
* It was interesting how a few times Melody/Anne Onymous/Darla used LKH-isms. Mainly it was just "I would so x" and "he will so Y' and such, but there was also at least one use of the word 'flavor' in the LKH way that I caught. It wasn't rampant though, so I figure it's just something she picked up from LKH and hasn't quite shaken yet. Which means that LKH actually talks the way she writes Anita's narration, or at least uses the same very weird verbal tics. I'm not surprised by that, but it does make me think she would be SO ANNOYING TO TALK TO, at least for me (because those tics drive me up the wall---though they might not in real-life conversation as much as they do in print)
* I actually believe most of the really outrageously weird, gross, and just plain wtf-stuff, like the bondage photos of her husband and the idea that gay men owe her. Why? Because, in my experience, stuff like that is the stuff people don't make up because they KNOW it's unbelievable. People who make up lies usually try to make the lie make sense, not be so outrageous that it couldn't be true, etc. The whole truth is stranger than fiction thing, basically. Also, given how even gay men have to have sex with Anita at least once, I can totally see LKH having that attitude.
* I don't believe that 'Tina' seriously propositioned Miriam/LKH. Because when Miriam retold the encounter to Melody/Darla, she says that Tina gave a sinister laugh. No one does that when they are actually serious about trying to seduce you. It seems pretty clear to me that this was a joke that went totally over both Miriam/LKH *and* Darla/Melody's heads. For LKH, I'm betting it's because she's so egocentric that OF COURSE she thinks this lady wants to sleep with her for real. For Darla, I dunno, maybe she thinks lesbians are all about seducing straight ladies, complete with evil laughter.
* I'd heard that the book involved Miriam having sex with Kelly. I don't know if I'm relieved or disappointed that it turned out she was just making out with her. Sure, there was petting involved, but still, it's a big leap from that to sex. Darla/Melody never finds out exactly why they were doing that, if they were seriously involved, but here's my theory: I agree that Miriam/LKH probably did go through a midlife crisis (and may still be going through one now) based on her blogs and how the books suddenly got SO EDGY OMFG. We also know that LKH seems to think being bisexual is really edgy, like a weird kink or something. So my bet is that she just wanted to try a girl-on-girl make-out for the sheer sake of trying to make herself edgier to her own mind, and Kelly agreed. That's really not unusual for straight girls, since there's a lot less taboo and you-are-totally-gay-if-you-do-this stigma when it comes to experimenting for them than there is for guys. Stereotypically it's usually younger girls, like high school and college, but I can see it for LKH for the reasons I already said. I think that's also why Anita acquires a female harem member by Kiss the Dead...one that she only kisses and somehow manages to bring to orgasm during an orgy with guys (though the guys ONLY touch Anita, not the other girl, of course!) despite not touching her or having sex with her at all. All the edginess of bisexuality with none of the icky actual ladysex!
* Okay, I'm an asshole, but I laughed at the part where Miriam pointed out how Howard had gained 40 pounds since getting married. Not because 'lol fat people are funny' but because I guess I've always had it in my mind that he was the young trophy husband sort---president of her fan club, younger than she was, long auburn hair like Nathaniel, etc., so I've just got this petty little snicker now about her nubile boytoy ain't quite so bishi anymore. Maybe that's why she added Cynric *shudder*
* I doubt Darla is quite as innocent as she makes herself out. Not because I have anything against her or because I know anything about her (I really don't) but just because that's the nature of how people retell things that happen in their lives. Hell, I'm like that too. That said, I have no doubt that LKH pretty much was that awful. I say that not because I hate her writing, but because of the impression I get from her via blogs and interviews. She really does seem like a self-absorbed, poor-me diva to me, and she seemed so even before I read this novel.
* There's a bit where Melody notes how all Miriam does is sleep, eat, and write, and how everyone else takes care of everything else and takes care of her. Considering that, as commenters here have noted, Anita seems to be the same way, I wonder if LKH is aware of this? Is this how she consciously wants things to be? But then she keeps presenting Anita as this Strong Independent Lady despite the fact she can't seem to really do anything now on her own?
I can admit that I understand this. I really would love it if absolutely everything was taken care of for me forever and I didn't have to do a thing. That would be awesome. But since that's not feasible, I have an equal fantasy of overcoming my disability and mental illness completely and being a super 100% independent need-no-help-ever adult. I can see both of these fantasies coming together in Anita--she's presented as this strong capable woman, and originally she did hold a job, make her money, support herself solo, pay rent and bills, and had really no dependent ties on anyone. Now she still presents herself as that same self-sufficient person, but in reality everything is taken care of for her, including money and where she lives. Hell, the only reason I can think of why she still even bothers working as an animator is because she likes the illusion of being a career woman and how she gets to be rude to clients and not get in trouble for it (you'll see what I mean in the first chapter of Flirt) and I guess LKH also just never considered she might quit now that all her financial issues are non-issues thanks to JC's apparently endless cash flow.
So yeah. I understand both fantasies. But those are not fantasies you should be putting into a character at the same time, especially the one about needing to be taken care of (at least not when that character is a protagonist and the star of an action series). Much like how I would totally love it if hot strong supernatural butch women fell at my feet all the time, but I'm not going to ever write a series where that happens to the heroine-who-looks-like-a-hot-me unless it's explicitly SUPPOSED to be an erotic escapist Mary Sue harlequin novel (and there's nothing wrong with those. It's just AB:VH wasn't supposed to be one).
* Tina and Kelly are of course Chica and Pili, I know that, but...does anyone know what Chica and Pili's real names are? I think Carrie and Pilar, but I'm not sure. This novel has kind of made me curious about them. I mean, Darla was LKH's friend before she became a diva, but these two knew her afterwards and it's hard for me to imagine they genuinely like her and like working for her...are they just riding this for the money, and was that their plan from the start maybe? Darla seems to think so, and I honestly don't think it's that bad a bet.
* Oh man, I am now more convinced than ever about Glen(Charles) being Haven and LKH getting back at him via Anita killing him. But more than that, I also think Charles may be the guy that Joseph, the poor dude Haven replaced as Rex, as well. After all, the whole issue with Joseph was his wife, remember? Just like with Charles. I think that LKH may have written Haven as replacing Joseph as a way of representing her fantasy of Charles (a stone-cold killer with the hots for Anita/LKH) booting the real one (a family man who just happened to have a military background but was NOT psycho amoral murderer and thus Not Cool) aside, and then when the real one continued to exist as he really was (and not like her advances on him) even the fantasy (Haven) had to bite the bullet.
* I wish there had been more on what, if anything, "Melody" thinks of the new direction that the "Linda" series took. She seems to be supportive of 'Anita is a sociopathic murderer' aspect, but not so much that some of the recent stuff "bordered on kiddie porn." That's not something I expected even her to admit.
* I don't really believe that LKH was that openly pissed about seeing Darla's name on a T-shirt. Just a feeling, I couldn't tell you why.
* Remember the part where "Somewhere, somehow, someone had gotten Miriam and Howard's home address and phone number and put it up. Not only that, but it was accompanied by a tirade about how Miriam was totally destroying the Linda series and needed to be stopped: now. No matter what it took or how it was accomplished. There were suggestions included which ranged from simply writing or calling Miriam at all hours of the day and night to harass her to full out physical attacks on her home and family until she started doing what the posters wanted." ?
That's not what happened. According to a couple of lashers, it actually went down like this:
"Jon stupidly posted their home address and phone number on his personal website. No one did any digging, he put it out in public on his own. One of the members of a message board that was largely about criticizing modern ABVH found the information and started a thread about how staggeringly stupid Jon was for doing so. There was never a threat made to Hamilton, instead the discussion was about how putting that kind of information on the web was stupid. It got worse when someone posted an example of how stupid it was by using Mapquest to make a map to her house after about 10 seconds of work...Hamilton and her people predictably went nuts, they claim they called the cops and the FBI but no one at the board was ever contacted by authorities. The message board's host provider was actually sent a warning and decided to investigate. Their investigations found nothing violated the law or their EULA, no threats had been made, and the board was left alone and remained active until the day the host provider went out of business and everything they hosted was closed down several years later. The board admins voluntarily removed the offended thread, despite not having done anything wrong, and changed the rules of the site to make it a parody board to head off any issue in future. "
Also, LKH's home address and telephone number are out there for anyone to find on YellowPages so yeah, she may be paranoid but she's not too bright when it comes to actually doing anything about it.
* I think that Darla's idea for an online character book/ABverse encyclopedia was a TERRIFIC one. Getting the source material straight from the creator versus from fan sites would be wonderful (though fan sites are useful in that the ones I use do specify and point contradictions, inconsistencies, etc., which is helpful in itself, and I don't think LKH's would) and it being specifically online, versus a published book, would be good in that it could be edited every time something new was added to the world. After all, it would kind of suck, in my opinion, to pay good money for that book only to have the info within it be made incomplete after the next AB book came out.
* According to this book, "Miriam" started showing up to events, cons, signings, etc. dressed in lingerie, and once gave everyone a good look up her skirt when she wasn't wearing any panties, and as a result got the nicknames of Creepy Crotch and The Horde among fans. Is there any truth to this? I know she did some stupid stuff with a leafblower, but I'd heard nothing about strutting around in underwear (or lack thereof) before, and I feel like I would have by now if it were true. I think maybe Darla is just being judgmental about the fashion aspect of LKH's mid-life crisis. Sure, she makes a token 'oh, are these clothes slutty? I totally didn't notice, I am very enlightened and feminist and think a grown person can wear what they want!' remark during the part where "Miriam" is having "Melody" order all this scanty two-sizes-too-small Gothy clubwear for her...while also making loads of remarks about how short the skirts are, how low the jeans, etc.
* She didn't seem too bitter for most of it but GODDAMN she got into it at the end! It makes me doubt she feels as bad for "Miriam" as she claims. But I didn't buy this book in hopes that ANYONE was gonna take the moral high ground!
Overall, it's not 'good' book in the usual sense. But it is, as one lasher said, scandalously delicious, even if you don't believe a word of it. If you like stuff along the lines of The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries and wanted to know more about the person behind the AB books and just how messed up they would have to be to write them and really don't mind reading blog-post quality stuff, this is for you. If scandal holds no delight for you and you're only interested in how bad the books themselves are and not at all in who writes them, it's not. I, for one, enjoyed it, because I am a petty asshole like that and, as someone who doesn't keep up at all with celebrities, I don't usually stumble on any gossip that I give a damn about. It's also interesting to find out just how much in LKH's life lines up with Anita's; that is, more so than we already knew.
THOUGHTS ON 'THE DIVA ATE HER'
* The grammar, writing style, and dialogue were all crap, and it clearly had never seen the eyes of an editor. That said, I couldn't care less, because it's a self-published 99-cent gossip novel I got from Amazon not because I thought it would be good writing, but because I thought it would be delicious juicy petty gossip, which it was, and I loved it for that. Admittedly, this is a bit hypocritical of me, since I think even fanfic authors should have proper spelling, grammar, etc., and a beta is often a good idea, but with fanfic, the story is sort of the point...not the juicy gossip, as with this. So yeah, that didn't bother me. YMMV though.
* It was interesting how a few times Melody/Anne Onymous/Darla used LKH-isms. Mainly it was just "I would so x" and "he will so Y' and such, but there was also at least one use of the word 'flavor' in the LKH way that I caught. It wasn't rampant though, so I figure it's just something she picked up from LKH and hasn't quite shaken yet. Which means that LKH actually talks the way she writes Anita's narration, or at least uses the same very weird verbal tics. I'm not surprised by that, but it does make me think she would be SO ANNOYING TO TALK TO, at least for me (because those tics drive me up the wall---though they might not in real-life conversation as much as they do in print)
* I actually believe most of the really outrageously weird, gross, and just plain wtf-stuff, like the bondage photos of her husband and the idea that gay men owe her. Why? Because, in my experience, stuff like that is the stuff people don't make up because they KNOW it's unbelievable. People who make up lies usually try to make the lie make sense, not be so outrageous that it couldn't be true, etc. The whole truth is stranger than fiction thing, basically. Also, given how even gay men have to have sex with Anita at least once, I can totally see LKH having that attitude.
* I don't believe that 'Tina' seriously propositioned Miriam/LKH. Because when Miriam retold the encounter to Melody/Darla, she says that Tina gave a sinister laugh. No one does that when they are actually serious about trying to seduce you. It seems pretty clear to me that this was a joke that went totally over both Miriam/LKH *and* Darla/Melody's heads. For LKH, I'm betting it's because she's so egocentric that OF COURSE she thinks this lady wants to sleep with her for real. For Darla, I dunno, maybe she thinks lesbians are all about seducing straight ladies, complete with evil laughter.
* I'd heard that the book involved Miriam having sex with Kelly. I don't know if I'm relieved or disappointed that it turned out she was just making out with her. Sure, there was petting involved, but still, it's a big leap from that to sex. Darla/Melody never finds out exactly why they were doing that, if they were seriously involved, but here's my theory: I agree that Miriam/LKH probably did go through a midlife crisis (and may still be going through one now) based on her blogs and how the books suddenly got SO EDGY OMFG. We also know that LKH seems to think being bisexual is really edgy, like a weird kink or something. So my bet is that she just wanted to try a girl-on-girl make-out for the sheer sake of trying to make herself edgier to her own mind, and Kelly agreed. That's really not unusual for straight girls, since there's a lot less taboo and you-are-totally-gay-if-you-do-this stigma when it comes to experimenting for them than there is for guys. Stereotypically it's usually younger girls, like high school and college, but I can see it for LKH for the reasons I already said. I think that's also why Anita acquires a female harem member by Kiss the Dead...one that she only kisses and somehow manages to bring to orgasm during an orgy with guys (though the guys ONLY touch Anita, not the other girl, of course!) despite not touching her or having sex with her at all. All the edginess of bisexuality with none of the icky actual ladysex!
* Okay, I'm an asshole, but I laughed at the part where Miriam pointed out how Howard had gained 40 pounds since getting married. Not because 'lol fat people are funny' but because I guess I've always had it in my mind that he was the young trophy husband sort---president of her fan club, younger than she was, long auburn hair like Nathaniel, etc., so I've just got this petty little snicker now about her nubile boytoy ain't quite so bishi anymore. Maybe that's why she added Cynric *shudder*
* I doubt Darla is quite as innocent as she makes herself out. Not because I have anything against her or because I know anything about her (I really don't) but just because that's the nature of how people retell things that happen in their lives. Hell, I'm like that too. That said, I have no doubt that LKH pretty much was that awful. I say that not because I hate her writing, but because of the impression I get from her via blogs and interviews. She really does seem like a self-absorbed, poor-me diva to me, and she seemed so even before I read this novel.
* There's a bit where Melody notes how all Miriam does is sleep, eat, and write, and how everyone else takes care of everything else and takes care of her. Considering that, as commenters here have noted, Anita seems to be the same way, I wonder if LKH is aware of this? Is this how she consciously wants things to be? But then she keeps presenting Anita as this Strong Independent Lady despite the fact she can't seem to really do anything now on her own?
I can admit that I understand this. I really would love it if absolutely everything was taken care of for me forever and I didn't have to do a thing. That would be awesome. But since that's not feasible, I have an equal fantasy of overcoming my disability and mental illness completely and being a super 100% independent need-no-help-ever adult. I can see both of these fantasies coming together in Anita--she's presented as this strong capable woman, and originally she did hold a job, make her money, support herself solo, pay rent and bills, and had really no dependent ties on anyone. Now she still presents herself as that same self-sufficient person, but in reality everything is taken care of for her, including money and where she lives. Hell, the only reason I can think of why she still even bothers working as an animator is because she likes the illusion of being a career woman and how she gets to be rude to clients and not get in trouble for it (you'll see what I mean in the first chapter of Flirt) and I guess LKH also just never considered she might quit now that all her financial issues are non-issues thanks to JC's apparently endless cash flow.
So yeah. I understand both fantasies. But those are not fantasies you should be putting into a character at the same time, especially the one about needing to be taken care of (at least not when that character is a protagonist and the star of an action series). Much like how I would totally love it if hot strong supernatural butch women fell at my feet all the time, but I'm not going to ever write a series where that happens to the heroine-who-looks-like-a-hot-me unless it's explicitly SUPPOSED to be an erotic escapist Mary Sue harlequin novel (and there's nothing wrong with those. It's just AB:VH wasn't supposed to be one).
* Tina and Kelly are of course Chica and Pili, I know that, but...does anyone know what Chica and Pili's real names are? I think Carrie and Pilar, but I'm not sure. This novel has kind of made me curious about them. I mean, Darla was LKH's friend before she became a diva, but these two knew her afterwards and it's hard for me to imagine they genuinely like her and like working for her...are they just riding this for the money, and was that their plan from the start maybe? Darla seems to think so, and I honestly don't think it's that bad a bet.
* Oh man, I am now more convinced than ever about Glen(Charles) being Haven and LKH getting back at him via Anita killing him. But more than that, I also think Charles may be the guy that Joseph, the poor dude Haven replaced as Rex, as well. After all, the whole issue with Joseph was his wife, remember? Just like with Charles. I think that LKH may have written Haven as replacing Joseph as a way of representing her fantasy of Charles (a stone-cold killer with the hots for Anita/LKH) booting the real one (a family man who just happened to have a military background but was NOT psycho amoral murderer and thus Not Cool) aside, and then when the real one continued to exist as he really was (and not like her advances on him) even the fantasy (Haven) had to bite the bullet.
* I wish there had been more on what, if anything, "Melody" thinks of the new direction that the "Linda" series took. She seems to be supportive of 'Anita is a sociopathic murderer' aspect, but not so much that some of the recent stuff "bordered on kiddie porn." That's not something I expected even her to admit.
* I don't really believe that LKH was that openly pissed about seeing Darla's name on a T-shirt. Just a feeling, I couldn't tell you why.
* Remember the part where "Somewhere, somehow, someone had gotten Miriam and Howard's home address and phone number and put it up. Not only that, but it was accompanied by a tirade about how Miriam was totally destroying the Linda series and needed to be stopped: now. No matter what it took or how it was accomplished. There were suggestions included which ranged from simply writing or calling Miriam at all hours of the day and night to harass her to full out physical attacks on her home and family until she started doing what the posters wanted." ?
That's not what happened. According to a couple of lashers, it actually went down like this:
"Jon stupidly posted their home address and phone number on his personal website. No one did any digging, he put it out in public on his own. One of the members of a message board that was largely about criticizing modern ABVH found the information and started a thread about how staggeringly stupid Jon was for doing so. There was never a threat made to Hamilton, instead the discussion was about how putting that kind of information on the web was stupid. It got worse when someone posted an example of how stupid it was by using Mapquest to make a map to her house after about 10 seconds of work...Hamilton and her people predictably went nuts, they claim they called the cops and the FBI but no one at the board was ever contacted by authorities. The message board's host provider was actually sent a warning and decided to investigate. Their investigations found nothing violated the law or their EULA, no threats had been made, and the board was left alone and remained active until the day the host provider went out of business and everything they hosted was closed down several years later. The board admins voluntarily removed the offended thread, despite not having done anything wrong, and changed the rules of the site to make it a parody board to head off any issue in future. "
Also, LKH's home address and telephone number are out there for anyone to find on YellowPages so yeah, she may be paranoid but she's not too bright when it comes to actually doing anything about it.
* I think that Darla's idea for an online character book/ABverse encyclopedia was a TERRIFIC one. Getting the source material straight from the creator versus from fan sites would be wonderful (though fan sites are useful in that the ones I use do specify and point contradictions, inconsistencies, etc., which is helpful in itself, and I don't think LKH's would) and it being specifically online, versus a published book, would be good in that it could be edited every time something new was added to the world. After all, it would kind of suck, in my opinion, to pay good money for that book only to have the info within it be made incomplete after the next AB book came out.
* According to this book, "Miriam" started showing up to events, cons, signings, etc. dressed in lingerie, and once gave everyone a good look up her skirt when she wasn't wearing any panties, and as a result got the nicknames of Creepy Crotch and The Horde among fans. Is there any truth to this? I know she did some stupid stuff with a leafblower, but I'd heard nothing about strutting around in underwear (or lack thereof) before, and I feel like I would have by now if it were true. I think maybe Darla is just being judgmental about the fashion aspect of LKH's mid-life crisis. Sure, she makes a token 'oh, are these clothes slutty? I totally didn't notice, I am very enlightened and feminist and think a grown person can wear what they want!' remark during the part where "Miriam" is having "Melody" order all this scanty two-sizes-too-small Gothy clubwear for her...while also making loads of remarks about how short the skirts are, how low the jeans, etc.
* She didn't seem too bitter for most of it but GODDAMN she got into it at the end! It makes me doubt she feels as bad for "Miriam" as she claims. But I didn't buy this book in hopes that ANYONE was gonna take the moral high ground!
Overall, it's not 'good' book in the usual sense. But it is, as one lasher said, scandalously delicious, even if you don't believe a word of it. If you like stuff along the lines of The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries and wanted to know more about the person behind the AB books and just how messed up they would have to be to write them and really don't mind reading blog-post quality stuff, this is for you. If scandal holds no delight for you and you're only interested in how bad the books themselves are and not at all in who writes them, it's not. I, for one, enjoyed it, because I am a petty asshole like that and, as someone who doesn't keep up at all with celebrities, I don't usually stumble on any gossip that I give a damn about. It's also interesting to find out just how much in LKH's life lines up with Anita's; that is, more so than we already knew.
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Date: 2012-12-29 07:41 pm (UTC)Yeah, agreed. The whole "gay men owe me" sounds a lot like something a person who fancied herself a freethinker would come up with and which would make sense in her head (maybe as something that was kind of a joke but not really?). You see it online all the time - people saying things like, "you know, when you think about it [bizarre statement] because [convoluted chain of logical reasoning based on decidedly shaky premises]."
Though I don't really trust Darla to be a reliable witness any more than I trust LKH to hold sensible opinions - as you point out, there is at least one point where her memory of an event is very unlike what actually happened.
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Date: 2012-12-29 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 10:26 pm (UTC)I balanced my budget and paid off some hospital bills the other day, and I was grinning like a fool the whole time
You should! That's totally something to be proud of, I'd be thrilled if I was at that point. Congrats! And thank you for the sympathizing, I hesitated a little before deciding to be open about that bit regarding myself, but I got the feel that the 'audience' here is the type not to be judgey or anything.
I'm not much more in the loop than you are on those two; all I know is that Chica and Pili work for LKH now, and are a lesbian couple. LKH refers to Chica as her sister on her blog, but she's not, either by biology or by adoption. I know that a 'chosen family' can be a really real and really important thing for some people, especially those whose families were really not that great, but somehow it hits the teeniest bit of a peeve for me with LKH. I don't know if it's because it seems like it's confusing for her fans to put that on her blog, or how it often seems like she goes out of her way to mention it (instead of "Chica did this" it's always "Chica, my sister, did this", kind of like her "Jon, my husband Jon" quirk) or because I feel like it's kind of strange to brand your staff as your family members when it is literally their JOB to be taking care of you and doing what you say, they're not doing it because they love you as a sister. Yeah, that last one is it, I think. Chica and Pili are also nicknames, not their real names. I do kind of wonder why Chica is her 'sister' but Pili isn't...I guess if Pili was LKH's sister too, that would therefore make her Chica's sister and we can't have any incestuous lesbians up in here? XD
I can definitely buy that she experimented with other women as part of a midlife crisis or attempt at being hardcore, though. It's more of a high school or college girl thing, but . . . okay, trying very hard not to be catty here. Oy.
Yup yup yup. And I don't think it at all clashes with her brand of misogyny and homophobia/heterosexism either, because she's treating sexuality like a cheap fad and using other human beings like accessories to make herself cool, ala 'I Kissed A Girl' by Katy Perry. And yes, I do indeed understand the Battle Against Cattiness when it comes to this, blaurgh.
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Date: 2012-12-29 11:11 pm (UTC)hahha, no, it was plenty encouraging, thank you <3
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Date: 2012-12-30 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 11:32 pm (UTC)As I said Carrie was LKH's assistant which pretty much required her to be at Chez Hamilton 24/7 to lave Hamilton's fevered brow. Pili ended up hanging around the house in order to actually see her partner once in a while. She also ended up being the cook. Within about two years Carrie and Pili were no longer a couple. Pili started living with LKH and Jonboi and LKH started referring to Pili as "my sister Chica". I know for a time Chica was attending cooking school, but she seems to be in a new relationship now and it seems like cooking school has gone to the wayside.
As far as Carrie goes, she no longer works for Hamilton. After the break up, we heard less and less about Carrie. (Previously LKH used to send gushing little tweets to her "dear Meerkat" a couple of times/day). About six months ago LKH announced that her ex-brother in law (at least that's who I think Shawn Hosappel is) is now her personal assistant. I know Carrie has some other job, at museum or something like that.
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Date: 2012-12-29 11:58 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2012-12-30 05:29 am (UTC)THIS IS TRUE. I've listened to enough podcasts to never unhear LKH's voice when I'm reading now. But she has the same weird pauses and breaks out a "soooo not [whatever]" like a Valley Girl, before breaking off mid-sentence to go on some tangent about how she really knows something, like how morgues in real life are not the same as TV morgues. She's got a modicum of charisma that doesn't translate to text, alas. If you can find a vid of her doing a reading, everything makes a bizarre amount of sense.
I know there's a podcast where she goes off on this rant about Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula movie because DRACULA IS NOT A ROMANCE, THEY CHANGED STUFF and she DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WOULD CHANGE STUFF IN AN ADAPTION, WHY NOT LITERALLY TRANSLATE THE TEXT! which...ngl this explains everything about the comics and why she poo-poo'd the telemovies both times.
Darla claimed only two incidents in this book are real, but I agree with you but for a slightly different reason: I don't think Darla's capable of making up stuff out of nowhere. Given how thinly-veiled the name changes were, I just think some events were slightly exaggerated (like the thing with the dude faceplanting in Melody's boobs - because otherwise that was a mostly true story) or maybe combined with other events.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:04 am (UTC)Huh, I thought she must have liked Coppola's Dracula, based on this!
http://satireknight.wikispaces.com/Dracula+-+The+Ballet
I'm afraid I do have to agree with her about not liking the particular changes made for it, but yeah, literally translating the text for a visual medium? Bad idea, and does indeed explain everything about the comics.
...whoa, that's a frighteningly good point. And kind of sad.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:53 am (UTC)I'd dread to think of what she'd think of The Vampire Lestat stage show, because that....that was special.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 11:12 am (UTC)Hosts: So, what actress would you want to play Anita?
LKH: Me.
And I agree that by sensual she probably meant her specific standard of prettiness, which is not, if I recall, how Dracula was described as looking at all, Ms Stay True To The Text. And guess what? Still way more sensuality and charisma to him in that one book than ALL of her prettyboytoys in all of her books combined. At first I thought it was odd she'd be all IT'S NOT A LOVE STORY but then MALE LEAD NOT HOT ENOUGH but then, you can be a sensual character and not a good, romantic, love interest character (like, case in point, the book Dracula.)
I feel like she made a deliberately big production of that to show how she KNOWS VAMPIRES and ISN'T A ROMANCE WRITER EW GIRLY.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 06:15 pm (UTC)My best guess for that is that her (now teenage, correct?) daughter has started bringing boyfriends home to meet the parents. That can be very threatening to people who need constant reassurance about their attractiveness and who put a premium on youth and beauty.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:41 pm (UTC)