FLIRT, CH. 4, PART 3
Jan. 20th, 2013 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratIt used to be that baby Sam acted JUST LIKE BLATZ but she's developing her own personality now...and most of the new bits are more like Scurvy. She's like a hybrid of them, probably because Scurves was the only other rat she interacted with besides Blatz.
Ratsputin is healing up well, and what concerns me right now isn't his health, but that he acts as if he's not as used to being handled as my rats. He reacts a lot more warily to hands, and has even tried to nip me a few times. This makes me worry my sister isn't given her rats the attention they need, and is just counting on them automatically being the super-friendly docile ones mine have always been...but I handle mine really regularly. That's WHY they're so chill. Rats are wonderful pets, much like dogs in their temperament, but you do need to put effort in, just like with any animal. Not everyone can be an automatic wonder-rat like Scurvy. I asked her though, and she says he's always been like this, and that's why it took her awhile to realize he was getting bitten so much--he wouldn't let her handle him and inspect him for injuries. He's getting better though, I think :)
He also seems to be biased against other rats, probably because of his experience with Sid. I didn't expect him to like Justin and Jenner at all, since they're other adult males, but when I hold the girls up outside his cage, he has the same aggressive reaction to them that he has to the boys. I'm hoping he can learn to get over that so he can play with them in the future, as rat-on-rat interaction is something most rats need or at least benefit from.
On Friday, he ripped my bookmark out of Bullet and started destroying it. Clearly hating LKH is a species-wide trait with these guys. "Now she'll never find her place in that wretched book again! So she can't read it!"
Speaking of rats, I realized that they're the exact kind of werecritter would TOTALLY have the "puppy piles" that the leopards and wolves are always getting into in the Anitaverse. Rats are group animals, and they sleep/nest in piles on each other, all curled next to each other, etc., and they crawl all over one another like it’s no big thing, and groom each other as bonding and sometimes also in shows of dominance (you can tell it’s a dominance thing rather than an affectionate thing when they go overboard and “barber” another rat…meaning take the hair off his head and make him bald. I’m serious). But rats, because they are not majestic and sexy, do not get much attention in this series at all, and I am pretty sure Anita will never be in a vermin pile. Just fine by me, I don’t want her near my favorite animals. Also, unlike leopards and tigers, rats do really live in groups/colonies in the wild (fun fact: a group of rats is called a mischief!) with a hierarchy of dominance and a top rat that gets the privilege of living closest to the food source during times when food is scarce.
A commenter here (sorry, I forget who!) suggested MOAD made Vittorio and his Father of the Day thing in an attempt to give herself an equal and opposite (kinda a Neo-Pagan God and Goddess deal, I guess?). I have decided they are right...and that the reason she stripped him of his powers and left him to walk the world as an ordinary vampire is because HE FAILED MISERABLY AT IT. "Oh good grief you are failing. Just...not even worth destroying. And you suck as a lover. Ok, your powers and godhood privileges are revoked, mister, now gtfo my castle and my sight. I will run this show on my own from now on like I did from the start dammit." Because seriously, he was not worthy.
But even he was a better villain than the stupid schmucks in...
FLIRT, CH. 4, PART 3 Final part, whoo!
Anita and her lioness "lashed out at both of them" and "the visual was of claws slicing at them. They both reacted as if the pretend claws had weight to them." So firstly, she's provoking these men again, these men with GUNS who have threatened to use them on the innocent people all around them. Secondly...inner beasts can do that? On one hand, it's kind of cool. On the other hand, it seems like it might end up being a way to get out of writing action scenes, like all the metaphysical wing-wang-slinging that went on between Anita and Bibi in Skin Trade. Jacob says for Nicky to let Anita go before she causes a scene, Nicky says she started it, Anita says that's bullshit. Wow, all the tension just went RIGHT out of this scene because the two of them sound like pouty siblings, not a hired gun who has a lion inside him and the always-knows-what-do-do-in-a-crisis badass we're supposed to believe Anita to be.
But Nicky lets Anita go and the guys give her some space, and we get a paragraph from Anita about how she can feel their beasts watching her. The next paragraph involves her lioness telling her in "emotions translated into words" to "make them fight amongst themselves, save the cubs." Cubs seems to mean Micah, Jason, and Nathaniel. Because a lioness would totally see a trio of adult animals of other species as her cubs. I thought it was established that each of Anita's inner beast is matched up to those of one or more guys of the same beast--her leopard to that of Micah and so on. So why is her lioness suddenly giving a shit about them? Because Anita herself does? So does her wolf also care about the non-wolves, her tigers about the non-tigers, etc.? This is just out of nowhere and does not add up with how her beasts have seemed to work in the past. Also, I don't actually know what lionesses do when a new male has taken over the spot of the old one in the pride and does the usual kill-the-cubs thing (if they defend them or just let it happen?) which seems to be the situation she's referencing (I guess?) but whatever they do, I am 100% sure they don't try to play the males off each other, since the dudes in that scenario are already intending to beat/kill the other, unlike this situation in which they are working together. If a pair of strange lions did just come into a pride and try to kill the cubs, without taking on the male lion and therefore earning that right...I reckon the pride as a whole would just shred them. Why would her lioness, if she really is just an animal, think of something like this?
Anita thinks to herself that "the idea was good; we had enough power to make them fight among themselves" What does manipulating them into fighting have to do with the metaphysical power of you and your beast? Do you mean like influencing their minds because you can call lions? But that's not your lioness's power, that's a vampire aspect, so what "we" is there? And then Anita thinks she won't do it yet, because first she needed to cooperate long enough to get them to call the sniper off Micah. She tells her lioness "patience" and the lioness, as a stealth predator, understands this concept. So Anita and them go out the doors, Anita stops, Nicky tells her to keep going, Anita points out that one of them should probably lead because she doesn't know where their care is. They look at each other and it's clear "they hadn't thought of it" and Anita hopes that this has "shaken them." Yeah, I'm sure their confidence is totally undermined by this. If it is, they're less emotionally mature than the average preteen. Also, making them look like complete dopes doesn't make this seem like a tense, dangerous scene at all, which means Anita won't look like much of a badass hero for getting out of their clutches or beating them somehow. It will make her look like even less of one if she can't and has to, oh, say, rely on some conveniently-nearby werebeasties to rip them to pieces after she gets them off like with Vittorio.
Anita says "I'm cooperating; how about calling your sniper off now?"
SUBTLE
They say that they will once they've searched her for weapons and are in the car. Dude, seriously? Having a sniper on Micah is HUGE leverage, you should not be giving it up until she's done whatever it is your employer wanted her to do and the evidence is fully disposed of. Anita thinks about how she wants to scream at them to call of the sniper but that they are still "recovering from the metaphysical surprise my lioness had thrown at them" and how they're getting their plan back together and she wonders if she wants them "back in control". When did you ever get them OUT of control, Anita? Yes, you psychic-scratched them like a cornered animal, but they always had the guns, they always had the advantage, they always had the leverage. This means they have been in control the whole time. You are not a Chessmaster, Anita, please do not suddenly try to act as if you are.
They got to a big SUV with a rental sticker in the window for them to frisk her. But before they do, we get this looong inner monologue about how "hope is a wonderful thing but" it can get used against you and then suddenly stuff about how serial killers will try to get you into their car with a knife/gun but don't ever get in. Uh, okay. But these guys aren't serial killers, and you are getting in with them, so I don't see the relevance. And then she talks again about how she has "that bastard hope" in her while cynical half of her brain is snickering at her and how by complying with what they want like this she is "acting like a civilian, and though I'd never worn a uniform of any kind, civilian was not what I was." Because civilians are clueless compliant wibbling little helpless sheep that always give in and do as they're told in dangerous situations, whereas cops and soldiers never ever cooperate with the enemy in any way or work any kind of strategies that don't involve just overtly alpha-maling all over the place until they get there way. Sure, Anita.
Then friggin' finally the actual pat-down starts, Anita has knives and two guns and Jacob asks if that's what she's carries daily (no, she went light today, dude) and Anita says not usually but she's expecting a call about an out-of-state vampire execution. Um, why would you wear extra weapons for a PHONE CALL? I realize she's probably wearing them for this execution she might be getting a call on, but...would she really not have time to put them on between the call and getting to the execution site? I would say it's a flimsy, ill-thought-out excuse for a reason for her to have two guns on her, but since when has Anita ever needed a reason for being over-weaponized at any given non-sexing second?
Jacob asks "When and from whom?" and Anita wonders "what kind of bad guy uses whom?" to herself and tells him she doesn't know for sure. Uh, since when does your moral/legal/ethical alliance dictate how you speak? And she's one to talk, what kind of adult uses the term 'bad guy'? Nicky observes that her shoulder rig is a custom job, Anita says she had to get it custom-fitted for her narrow shoulders, and he says her shoulders "aren't narrow, you're just small." Uh, small people generally have narrower shoulders? Unless they mean 'narrow in relation to the rest of the body' I guess, versus 'narrow in relation to that of the general populace' but the latter is what would make you need a custom fit...aw fuck it, Anita is petite, we have to know that, and Nicky of course is sure to specifically say that it is a "compliment" when Anita gets pissy about it. Her and her Napoleon complex, I fucking swear. He also puts his face against her hair from behind when he says it. Blargh. And then he starts rubbing his cheek on her hair "like he was scent-marking me" and Anita thinks how he probably means it to be "irritating, or maybe even threatening" but that she doesn't take it that way even though "some women would have". Yeah, Anita isn't a stupid priss like other women! Nope, while all us ninnies might actually be AFRAID of a strange man with a gun who is not only threatening us but then begins touching us in such a manner, our so-much-cooler heroine Anita feels "the power flared between us like hot wind" when "his body touched mine." Hot wind? You mean like a fart? Well, I guess that's how a guy must scent-mark stuff if he's not in animal form and thus doesn't have the proper glands for it...
And then he "sort of collapsed around me, hugging me to him with my own gun in his hand. Everywhere we touched the power grew, as if we'd burn if we touched too long. But fire wasn't the analogy, because it didn't hurt. It felt good."
That must be one hell of a fart. But seriously though I do NOT like where this is going.
Anita tells him to stop it, he just does it more and harder and puts his lips to her cheek and says that "It feels good; I can smell that you think so, too." Is that comma supposed to be here? Grammar was never my strong suit, despite being an English major, but I don't think it's supposed to be there. Also this reminds me a whole lot of a typical "heroine wants the bad guy who is bent on ravishing her but is too much of a lady to admit it but he can tell so it's okay when he does it to her" harlequin romance novel scene. Which is not unusual in the AB series at all ever since the ardeur, sadly, but this is probably because of the ~the beasts~ I guess. Which are the new excuse for sex and Anita even liking men sexually at all, it seems, as with Skin Trades where she collects/enslaves three new guys because her stupid tigers wanted them.
She tells him to get off her and then realizes getting angry isn't a good idea "because my beasts all reacted to anger" and she feels the others moving around in her but then "the lioness shoved them back" and she does that same thing her tigers did in Skin Trade with the drawing the air in her mouth so that the scent goes over her Jacobson's Organ, which metaphysical cats totally have, I'm sure. "She could literally taste his power on the air." Despite it being used in a technically correct way here, I think that "taste" is going to become one of my new Most Hated AB Words. She talks about how he's pinning her but she could still get to her knives...which matters why? Micah, sniper, cooperating, remember? And then Jacob grabs her and "more power flared" so that "the three of us were suddenly bathed in the power as if we'd all three fallen into a warm bath all at once". Yeeeah, not liking the implications of that simile AT ALL. And then they're "drowning in the power" and "my necromancy folded away" which leaves her "bare to the power, to the pull of them." Oh no, please do NOT let this mean they're going to have sex in the parking lot.
Jacob's power smashes into Anita and this "scattered the power, stripped the energy, and shut down both of them" but he can't shut down Anita's beast and she snarls at him and the snarl comes out Anita's mouth. I bet LKH thinks that looks/sounds really cool, even though Anita herself said earlier it's a sign that she lacks control of her beasts...but then, LKH wants Anita to lack control, I suppose, because how can she have excuses to get up to absurd sexual shenanigans if she ever actually gets any say in how her beasts act? Which is probably why she STILL doesn't have any improvement on said control, even a little, despite the fact she surely has no shortage of potential teachers given that she has access to all the wereanimal groups that she has a common beast with, and is in fact mated up with their most powerful in-control alpha members. And she doesn't seem to have any hobbies and no longer needs to work out because she now has super-strength and super-speed from her therianthropy zoo, so she must have time for it after work. I think she just doesn't want the control because then she'd lose her excuse, as I said, just like how she didn't do a damn thing in Skin Trade to prevent the ardeur from needing to be fed on new men at inconvenient times.
Jacob takes Anita's knives, throws them on the ground, and tears Nicky off her. Nicky takes Anita's guns and also throws them down, and then the two werelion dudes face each other. Anita tells us that "they'd missed the big knife that sat under my hair and down my spine." Remember that from Skin Trade? They patted her down, how the hell could they MISS that? You know, making the "bad guys" hugely incompetent doesn't actually make your heroine look like she herself is competent. Besting bad guys who are easily thwarted is not something a reader can enjoy or respect; besting bad guys who are a sincere, intelligent threat who don't leave such holes open is. But she's too busy trying to control her lioness to go for her weapon or mess with the fight because the lioness "though they were strong, and liked it, and wanted to make them fight over us and save our family." She likes that they are strong but also wants them to destroy each other? Nah, I think your beasts are all like you, Anita, they're misogynistic boy-crazy self-obsessed snobs who want all the males competing for them and stroking their ego. Actually, comes to think of it, the personalities of beasts being just an extension of the human's ID is a pretty cool idea, and it makes more sense to me than them just having this random insta-personality all on their own.
Anita tries to explain the whole sniper thing to her lioness, but it's too complex for her since she's just an animal, so Anita just leans against the truck and works on keeping control and gets the lioness to understand the idea of conserving her energy for later, which is "a very real concept for a predator" which is true. As someone who roleplays original characters in this universe, the idea of the therian ones trying to get their inner beasts to behave by using concepts that their respective animal would value and understand is actually really fascinating, and I wish we saw this more often because it's a cool idea.
Jacob says "We are not going to fight over her, Nicky. Remember who you are. Remember what you are." Yes, thank you Jacob, I think I like you the most so far in this book. God, Anita can't even get kidnapped without guys wanting her. Whoever hired these two mooks should have just gotten some ladies to do it instead. Preferably some asexual lesbian blondes on the older side, I feel like that would hit enough 'ew' buttons for Anita and her beasties to all keep away from influencing them in any way.
Nicky points out that Jason's eyes have changed from human to lion, and Anita realizes that Nicky's have too and that this means they had both almost shifted even though "lycanthropes as powerful as they were didn't lose control in a public parking lot; they just didn't." Oh silly Anita, everyone loses control when it comes to sexy little you! And, uh, isn't it an established fact that Anita is a really powerful panwere but also doesn't have much control? I'm pretty sure that's said word-for-word in Skin Trade, at least in regard to her weretiger side...er, sides.
And then Jacob says to Anita that she's in heat.
Wut.
No, seriously, wuuuut?
Anita says she doesn't know what he means by that, Jacob says she does. I know what he means, but it's STUPID. I'm pretty sure we've seen ZERO in the series thus far about wereanimals experiencing heat and rut like actual animals do, despite so much being based on sex, or is there werewolf stuff I'm forgetting from the earlier books? Whatever, it's dumb. He picks up her guns, tells her to hand over her arm sheaths, and that if she's done what the client asks she'll get it all back at the end of the night. Anita tells us that she "honestly didn't know what it meant for a werelion to be in heat" (OH WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS YOU NINNY) but she just does what he says and tells him to call the sniper off. Shockingly, Jacob does indeed get on the phone says to "Stand down for now" and "just observe" instead. Well, at least he's not actually calling the guy off, I guess. Because doing that, just because she tells you to, before she even is in the car, would be so damn dumb and ridiculous.
Jacob then says that "I know you don't have complete control when you're in heat" (when does she EVER have control?) but that if she does "that again in an enclosed space" then he and Nicky might not make their deadlines which means he might not make the right calls at the right time and then her boyfriends might die. Anita must suddenly get what "in heat" suggests because she then says that the reason they'd miss those deadlines is that they'd be having sex. Jacob says yes so "keep a lid on it" and she says she'll do her best. Yeah, I bet.
Nicky tells Anita to look at him, Jacob tells him not to push this, and Nicky says "Lions are weird about weaknesses; I just want her to see. Maybe if her beast knows, she won't want me anymore and the power won't turn into a fight between us."
SO WE'RE TRYING TO KIDNAP AND CONTROL THIS HUGELY POWERFUL SUPERNATURAL HUMAN
AND WE'RE THREATENING HER LOVED ONES WITH DEATH
AND SHE'S A REALLY TRIGGER-HAPPY TYPE
SO I'LL SHOW HER MY WEAKNESSES! THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!
Then again, I guess ensuring you get said weaknesses exploited and your ass beat is worth not ending up as a new victim of Anita's vagina. Jacob must agree, since he then says it's a good idea.
Remember how Nicky's "skater boy" hair covers one eye? He lifts it away to show "his right eye was missing. Burn scars traced over the empty socket, caressed the edge of his cheek, and covered where his right eyebrows should have been."
But...she made reference to "his eyes" and "his baby blues" earlier? In the plural?
"I looked because he seemed to want me to. I didn't look away because I was sharing my bed with a vampire that made Nicky's scar look like child's play, though the whole eye destroyed was worse. Asher had all the parts he was supposed to have; just some of them were nestled in burn scars."
So...his scar isn't as bad as Asher's but it's also worse? What? And of course Anita is edgy and tough enough to LOOK AT A FACIAL SCAR, WHOA. We find out just how special when Nicky, noticing this, says that "Most women, especially women, look disgusted or scared. You don't look either." to which Anita replies that "If you know everyone in my bed, then you know scars aren't a deal-breaker for me." Uhhhh, can we not talk about what is and isn't a turn-off about Nicky for Anita? Earlier she was saying sullen was a turn-off for her, now she's saying scars aren't, she is sure thinking a lot about what about this guy she likes and doesn't like sexually.
Nicky says that he supposes she's seen worse then, and Anita gives him this sweet little speech about how "the scar is just another part of you" and starts showing him all her own scars and saying how she got them (just like she did with the SWAT guys in Skin Trade) and then says that she has a few more "but we'd have to be better friends for me to show you those." Ooh baby, because that's exactly what you want him to be thinking about, given the whole reason he just showed you his eye was so there wouldn't be supernatural sex going on. I guess Nicky notices this too because he says that "Most werelion females don't want a one-eyed mate" and instead of saying uh who said anything about mates Anita just encourages this idea more by saying that she figures he compensates and he says it's a problem in a fight because he's got a blind side and Anita says "I fight my own battles most of the time" and Nicky says that's why she doesn't have a mate which is why her lioness is in heat. Oh wow, list time!
1) So again, we get how much better Anita is than all other women, who are shallow, not only for looking at his scar and not being disgusted but also for considering him to be still sexually desirable and talking as if she's considering him for a mate (with no implication that she's not sincere and is just leading him on to manipulate him), even though she said herself in this book that she doesn't want any more men or animals to call and if she does fuck him then her boyfriends might die.
2) She is also particularly better than other female werelions, much like how she is better than female weretigers for not being a pureblood-bigot when it comes to fucking pretty mixed-line men. Because it's so virtuous to not share a prejudice that YOU WEREN'T EVER RAISED WITH BUT THEY WERE.
3) Am I getting the implication here that female werelions don't typically fight their own battles and thus need fully healthy, able-bodied male mates to do it for them? Are you fucking SERIOUS? LKH, do you know ANYTHING about lionesses? Look, from what I know of lions, and correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge the male lion is NOT the boss. He is not in charge just because they are all fucking him. He is the breeding factory, and he also does other jobs like watching cubs while the ladies hunt. Lionesses take down the prey, and they also patrol pride behavior. They can boot the male, or any other lion, out if they want. So they're definitely not weak and can definitely fight their own damn battles. I bet Nicky probably got booted out of his Pride for saying stupid sexist stuff like this and that's why he's running Anita-errands with Jacob instead, much like how rogue male lions in the wild who have also been booted out of their Prides will sometimes team up.
4) If a spiritual, totally non-physical animal can somehow be enough like a real animal go into a condition that is defined by physiological changes and has very real animal-type thoughts, shouldn't it also be enough like a real animal that it will also go along with the system of real lions where all the lionesses share one male lion? Just a thought. Bet you THAT part doesn't come up though!
Anita thinks about how the local lions never told her about heat, but then admits she wouldn't have believed them if they did because she'd think it was just Haven trying to get into her pants. Oh, and by the way, even her heat is special according to Jacob--"It's not just heat, it's a fucking powerful heat. No female has ever made me lose it like that." Oh brother. Anita then concludes that they must be unmated males, says this, and then quotes Pride & Prejudice to them "It's said a man of certain age and property is in want of a wife" and miraculously Jacob understands what she means! It means that "my hair is starting to gray and I've never taken a real mate. I've never committed to a territory and my pride is all males, except for one, and she's not into guys, so it's not a trouble" to which Nicky adds that "We travel too much for women and kids."
...oh. my. GOD.
1) An all-male Pride? Seriously? Now, it's always been my headcanon that werelion prides are NOT all-female-except-one-male like in the wild, because these are not animals, but the reverse is just as ridiculous, if not more so.
2) Oh, and they're all male because women just can't keep up with them. Because lionesses are totally frail flowers, right? But as I just said, they're not animals, so maybe it's not that their beasts can't keep up, it's that their human sides can't...so it's that WOMEN are all frail little flowers. Because sexism fail is better than zoology fail...no, wait, it's worse.
3) Well, there's ONE woman. But she doesn't like men, and since asexuals don't exist in the Anitaverse, she must be a lesbian. Because being a gay women means basically being a man, I guess. Kind of like how the one female in the werewolf Pack who had the strength and power and drive to compete with males for leadership status also just happened to be the lesbian one. STRONG WOMAN OTHER THAN ANITA? MUST BE AN ICKY DYKE! They're like men, but in a gross way, not a sexy way like Anita, eww! Or they can be like Jade in Kiss the Dead, who is a poor traumatized little delicate doll who is afraid of men because of abuse. See, she's not a gross butch, she's a victimized femme instead! LKH totally understands diversity! She knows not all lesbians are manly--there are pretty ones too, they're the ones who were probably straight to start with but are now terrified of guys and so go for manly women like Anita instead! Gosh, she's so inclusive and enlightened and stereotype-bucking THAT I COULD JUST PUKE!
4) If all these heat'n'mating stuff is such trouble, how do ANY Prides get along if they're not segregated by gender and sexual orientation like this one is? And why is this heat'n'mating stuff such trouble anyway? Do regular lions have this problem? I don't know, but I have a hunch that they don't. I mean, I'm sure they do go into estrous, that's why the cub-killing thing with the males, to put them back into heat to reproduce and replace the lost cubs with his offspring, but I mean this whole 'female in heat causes general mayhem and loads of fighting' crap.
Jacob then tells Anita to get in the car, that they've got a job to do, and to "remember what I said about controlling your side of the problem. Nothing we could do would be worth the lives of your lovers." Anita agrees, notes to us she still has that big knife on her back, and gets in the passenger seat of the SUV. Nicky tells her that he wishes she wasn't the job, she says she wishes that too. Anita asks Jacob if the plan is still the same, he says nothing has changed. Duh, why would it? Anita, believe it or not, wanting to fuck someone doesn't change someone's plans entirely for most people, just you. Anita then asks "So you'll still kill the people I love if I don't raise the dead for your client?" UH THAT'S WHAT HE JUST TOLD YOU and he says yes again. God I hate, just hate, the way she does dialogue like this, where everything has to be gone over and defined for the reader repeatedly. It's not only mind-numbing, it feels almost like an insult that LKH seems to think we need everything spelled out slowly at least twice. Anita says that they're clear then and Jacob says that he knows she'll kill us if she can do it without getting any of her men killed, and that he and Nicky will kill her if forced to.
Nicky asks Anita why she isn't afraid. Anita says being scared wouldn't help. Because it's not like fear is a survival instinct or anything. Nicky says that "People are brave, but you can always smell the fear, taste their heart speed up. But you aren't. You really aren't any of that." I really hate how everyone, including villains, have to go out of their way to be in awe of what a badass and one-of-a-kind Anita is. It's just so transparent on LKH's part, and, as I just said, I'm not really impressed that she's doesn't have the sense to be scared. There's a difference between panicky and scared; shouldn't she at least be scared for Micah? Also, taste their heart speed up? Wouldn't they hear that instead?
Anita explains that getting scared would make it harder for her to control her beasts, and that she can't afford to lose control now with them here.
Nicky: "So because you have to be in control, you will be, just like that."
Anita: "Just like that."
EVERY TIME ANITA SUPPOSEDLY CANNOT KEEP CONTROL OF THE BEASTS OR THE ARDEUR OR HER OWN STUPID MOUTH, I AM GOING TO POINT AT THIS SCENE.
Anita tries to remember the route they're driving so she can lead the police back after this is all over. It makes me wonder just how much experience these guys have with this kind of thing since they didn't account for that and blindfold her. Jacob for some reason tells her that "If I'd known what you were we might not have taken the job" and Anita is like that doesn't help now and he's like nope we took the money so we have to deliver and Anita does on this HUGE monologue:
"Then it doesn't matter to me if you feel guilty or not, Jacob. In fact, I think it's worse that you're going to maybe kill the people I love, the people that make up my pride, and maybe kill me, and you'll regret it, but you'll do it anyway. That's not honor, Jacob, that's your conscience letting you know that you're doing the wrong thing."
Anita, what the poop are you on about? He did not once say anything about honor, regret, or feeling guilty. He just said that if he'd known what you are (probably meaning an unmated werelioness) then he might not have taken this job, and given the context and what's happened so far he probably means because of the danger that your stupid heat might screw everything up, along with him and Nicky. Perfectly pragmatic reasons that have nothing to do with what you're talking about, whatever the fuck you're even saying. Jacob corrects her more nicely than I would have:
"It's not my conscience, Anita, it's my libido, my beast, and it doesn't have a conscience."
We get one long paragraph from Anita that kind of jumps from one point to another so I can't really sum it all up. It starts with her saying that Jacob is right but that "wereanimals aren't just animals. There is a person in there and there is a conscience" and how the critters don't usually care about the conscience and could make you do awful things but Nicky and Jacob's consciences are "on the same side" as their beasts...so, wait, their beasts want to fuck Anita, and their consciences are okay with that? Conscience is a moral thing so I don't know where theirs would stand on screwing her, but I know that logically they both think it's a bad idea. Maybe she means both their beasts and their consciences are okay with killing? Yeah, I guess that must be what she means.
And then she says that gives her hope and we get some bashing of the concept of hope again and how it can get you killed and then we get this shining gem of stupidity:
"But my lioness and their lions lusted after each other, sort of. Lust I trusted. Hope will lie to you, but lust is what it is; it never lies."
Okay, so? That doesn't make lust better than hope. In fact, in this scenario, lust is a bad thing, because it might make you and them have sex and get the people you love killed. What benefit can lust bring her here? Oh, good, she tells us:
"Lust might be a weapon I could use to divide them."
Sigh. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I don't want to read about more guys squabbling over who gets Anita, and I definitely don't want more sex. The old Anita would have made this an action scene with actual fighting.
On the other hand, manipulation makes a lot more sense here than physical asswhipping, and Anita is smarter for going that route. It also shows some evolution that she realizes this, when the old one would probably never have considered it or seen it as beneath her.
I also don't feel comfortable deriding the idea of using lust against them in and of itself. Firstly, you do what you can in a situation like this. Secondly, while the 'woman uses sexuality as a weapon' schitck has been used in some pretty terrible ways historically in media--the idea that female sexuality is dangerous, the idea that women don't actually have any desire and only pretend they do for ulterior motives, that any woman being sexy is evil, and so on--but that doesn't mean that it's inherently sexist. The idea of a woman using sexuality and manipulation can be done in a good way, even a feminist way. I haven't seen The Avengers myself (I don't watch movies of comic books I don't read, it's just A Thing with me) but I hear that this was pulled off MAGNIFICENTLY with Black Widow.
No, my problem is that I am definitely 100% sure that LKH will not pull it off magnificently. In fact, I'm 100% sure that she'll do the exact opposite.
Ratsputin is healing up well, and what concerns me right now isn't his health, but that he acts as if he's not as used to being handled as my rats. He reacts a lot more warily to hands, and has even tried to nip me a few times. This makes me worry my sister isn't given her rats the attention they need, and is just counting on them automatically being the super-friendly docile ones mine have always been...but I handle mine really regularly. That's WHY they're so chill. Rats are wonderful pets, much like dogs in their temperament, but you do need to put effort in, just like with any animal. Not everyone can be an automatic wonder-rat like Scurvy. I asked her though, and she says he's always been like this, and that's why it took her awhile to realize he was getting bitten so much--he wouldn't let her handle him and inspect him for injuries. He's getting better though, I think :)
He also seems to be biased against other rats, probably because of his experience with Sid. I didn't expect him to like Justin and Jenner at all, since they're other adult males, but when I hold the girls up outside his cage, he has the same aggressive reaction to them that he has to the boys. I'm hoping he can learn to get over that so he can play with them in the future, as rat-on-rat interaction is something most rats need or at least benefit from.
On Friday, he ripped my bookmark out of Bullet and started destroying it. Clearly hating LKH is a species-wide trait with these guys. "Now she'll never find her place in that wretched book again! So she can't read it!"
Speaking of rats, I realized that they're the exact kind of werecritter would TOTALLY have the "puppy piles" that the leopards and wolves are always getting into in the Anitaverse. Rats are group animals, and they sleep/nest in piles on each other, all curled next to each other, etc., and they crawl all over one another like it’s no big thing, and groom each other as bonding and sometimes also in shows of dominance (you can tell it’s a dominance thing rather than an affectionate thing when they go overboard and “barber” another rat…meaning take the hair off his head and make him bald. I’m serious). But rats, because they are not majestic and sexy, do not get much attention in this series at all, and I am pretty sure Anita will never be in a vermin pile. Just fine by me, I don’t want her near my favorite animals. Also, unlike leopards and tigers, rats do really live in groups/colonies in the wild (fun fact: a group of rats is called a mischief!) with a hierarchy of dominance and a top rat that gets the privilege of living closest to the food source during times when food is scarce.
A commenter here (sorry, I forget who!) suggested MOAD made Vittorio and his Father of the Day thing in an attempt to give herself an equal and opposite (kinda a Neo-Pagan God and Goddess deal, I guess?). I have decided they are right...and that the reason she stripped him of his powers and left him to walk the world as an ordinary vampire is because HE FAILED MISERABLY AT IT. "Oh good grief you are failing. Just...not even worth destroying. And you suck as a lover. Ok, your powers and godhood privileges are revoked, mister, now gtfo my castle and my sight. I will run this show on my own from now on like I did from the start dammit." Because seriously, he was not worthy.
But even he was a better villain than the stupid schmucks in...
FLIRT, CH. 4, PART 3 Final part, whoo!
Anita and her lioness "lashed out at both of them" and "the visual was of claws slicing at them. They both reacted as if the pretend claws had weight to them." So firstly, she's provoking these men again, these men with GUNS who have threatened to use them on the innocent people all around them. Secondly...inner beasts can do that? On one hand, it's kind of cool. On the other hand, it seems like it might end up being a way to get out of writing action scenes, like all the metaphysical wing-wang-slinging that went on between Anita and Bibi in Skin Trade. Jacob says for Nicky to let Anita go before she causes a scene, Nicky says she started it, Anita says that's bullshit. Wow, all the tension just went RIGHT out of this scene because the two of them sound like pouty siblings, not a hired gun who has a lion inside him and the always-knows-what-do-do-in-a-crisis badass we're supposed to believe Anita to be.
But Nicky lets Anita go and the guys give her some space, and we get a paragraph from Anita about how she can feel their beasts watching her. The next paragraph involves her lioness telling her in "emotions translated into words" to "make them fight amongst themselves, save the cubs." Cubs seems to mean Micah, Jason, and Nathaniel. Because a lioness would totally see a trio of adult animals of other species as her cubs. I thought it was established that each of Anita's inner beast is matched up to those of one or more guys of the same beast--her leopard to that of Micah and so on. So why is her lioness suddenly giving a shit about them? Because Anita herself does? So does her wolf also care about the non-wolves, her tigers about the non-tigers, etc.? This is just out of nowhere and does not add up with how her beasts have seemed to work in the past. Also, I don't actually know what lionesses do when a new male has taken over the spot of the old one in the pride and does the usual kill-the-cubs thing (if they defend them or just let it happen?) which seems to be the situation she's referencing (I guess?) but whatever they do, I am 100% sure they don't try to play the males off each other, since the dudes in that scenario are already intending to beat/kill the other, unlike this situation in which they are working together. If a pair of strange lions did just come into a pride and try to kill the cubs, without taking on the male lion and therefore earning that right...I reckon the pride as a whole would just shred them. Why would her lioness, if she really is just an animal, think of something like this?
Anita thinks to herself that "the idea was good; we had enough power to make them fight among themselves" What does manipulating them into fighting have to do with the metaphysical power of you and your beast? Do you mean like influencing their minds because you can call lions? But that's not your lioness's power, that's a vampire aspect, so what "we" is there? And then Anita thinks she won't do it yet, because first she needed to cooperate long enough to get them to call the sniper off Micah. She tells her lioness "patience" and the lioness, as a stealth predator, understands this concept. So Anita and them go out the doors, Anita stops, Nicky tells her to keep going, Anita points out that one of them should probably lead because she doesn't know where their care is. They look at each other and it's clear "they hadn't thought of it" and Anita hopes that this has "shaken them." Yeah, I'm sure their confidence is totally undermined by this. If it is, they're less emotionally mature than the average preteen. Also, making them look like complete dopes doesn't make this seem like a tense, dangerous scene at all, which means Anita won't look like much of a badass hero for getting out of their clutches or beating them somehow. It will make her look like even less of one if she can't and has to, oh, say, rely on some conveniently-nearby werebeasties to rip them to pieces after she gets them off like with Vittorio.
Anita says "I'm cooperating; how about calling your sniper off now?"
SUBTLE
They say that they will once they've searched her for weapons and are in the car. Dude, seriously? Having a sniper on Micah is HUGE leverage, you should not be giving it up until she's done whatever it is your employer wanted her to do and the evidence is fully disposed of. Anita thinks about how she wants to scream at them to call of the sniper but that they are still "recovering from the metaphysical surprise my lioness had thrown at them" and how they're getting their plan back together and she wonders if she wants them "back in control". When did you ever get them OUT of control, Anita? Yes, you psychic-scratched them like a cornered animal, but they always had the guns, they always had the advantage, they always had the leverage. This means they have been in control the whole time. You are not a Chessmaster, Anita, please do not suddenly try to act as if you are.
They got to a big SUV with a rental sticker in the window for them to frisk her. But before they do, we get this looong inner monologue about how "hope is a wonderful thing but" it can get used against you and then suddenly stuff about how serial killers will try to get you into their car with a knife/gun but don't ever get in. Uh, okay. But these guys aren't serial killers, and you are getting in with them, so I don't see the relevance. And then she talks again about how she has "that bastard hope" in her while cynical half of her brain is snickering at her and how by complying with what they want like this she is "acting like a civilian, and though I'd never worn a uniform of any kind, civilian was not what I was." Because civilians are clueless compliant wibbling little helpless sheep that always give in and do as they're told in dangerous situations, whereas cops and soldiers never ever cooperate with the enemy in any way or work any kind of strategies that don't involve just overtly alpha-maling all over the place until they get there way. Sure, Anita.
Then friggin' finally the actual pat-down starts, Anita has knives and two guns and Jacob asks if that's what she's carries daily (no, she went light today, dude) and Anita says not usually but she's expecting a call about an out-of-state vampire execution. Um, why would you wear extra weapons for a PHONE CALL? I realize she's probably wearing them for this execution she might be getting a call on, but...would she really not have time to put them on between the call and getting to the execution site? I would say it's a flimsy, ill-thought-out excuse for a reason for her to have two guns on her, but since when has Anita ever needed a reason for being over-weaponized at any given non-sexing second?
Jacob asks "When and from whom?" and Anita wonders "what kind of bad guy uses whom?" to herself and tells him she doesn't know for sure. Uh, since when does your moral/legal/ethical alliance dictate how you speak? And she's one to talk, what kind of adult uses the term 'bad guy'? Nicky observes that her shoulder rig is a custom job, Anita says she had to get it custom-fitted for her narrow shoulders, and he says her shoulders "aren't narrow, you're just small." Uh, small people generally have narrower shoulders? Unless they mean 'narrow in relation to the rest of the body' I guess, versus 'narrow in relation to that of the general populace' but the latter is what would make you need a custom fit...aw fuck it, Anita is petite, we have to know that, and Nicky of course is sure to specifically say that it is a "compliment" when Anita gets pissy about it. Her and her Napoleon complex, I fucking swear. He also puts his face against her hair from behind when he says it. Blargh. And then he starts rubbing his cheek on her hair "like he was scent-marking me" and Anita thinks how he probably means it to be "irritating, or maybe even threatening" but that she doesn't take it that way even though "some women would have". Yeah, Anita isn't a stupid priss like other women! Nope, while all us ninnies might actually be AFRAID of a strange man with a gun who is not only threatening us but then begins touching us in such a manner, our so-much-cooler heroine Anita feels "the power flared between us like hot wind" when "his body touched mine." Hot wind? You mean like a fart? Well, I guess that's how a guy must scent-mark stuff if he's not in animal form and thus doesn't have the proper glands for it...
And then he "sort of collapsed around me, hugging me to him with my own gun in his hand. Everywhere we touched the power grew, as if we'd burn if we touched too long. But fire wasn't the analogy, because it didn't hurt. It felt good."
That must be one hell of a fart. But seriously though I do NOT like where this is going.
Anita tells him to stop it, he just does it more and harder and puts his lips to her cheek and says that "It feels good; I can smell that you think so, too." Is that comma supposed to be here? Grammar was never my strong suit, despite being an English major, but I don't think it's supposed to be there. Also this reminds me a whole lot of a typical "heroine wants the bad guy who is bent on ravishing her but is too much of a lady to admit it but he can tell so it's okay when he does it to her" harlequin romance novel scene. Which is not unusual in the AB series at all ever since the ardeur, sadly, but this is probably because of the ~the beasts~ I guess. Which are the new excuse for sex and Anita even liking men sexually at all, it seems, as with Skin Trades where she collects/enslaves three new guys because her stupid tigers wanted them.
She tells him to get off her and then realizes getting angry isn't a good idea "because my beasts all reacted to anger" and she feels the others moving around in her but then "the lioness shoved them back" and she does that same thing her tigers did in Skin Trade with the drawing the air in her mouth so that the scent goes over her Jacobson's Organ, which metaphysical cats totally have, I'm sure. "She could literally taste his power on the air." Despite it being used in a technically correct way here, I think that "taste" is going to become one of my new Most Hated AB Words. She talks about how he's pinning her but she could still get to her knives...which matters why? Micah, sniper, cooperating, remember? And then Jacob grabs her and "more power flared" so that "the three of us were suddenly bathed in the power as if we'd all three fallen into a warm bath all at once". Yeeeah, not liking the implications of that simile AT ALL. And then they're "drowning in the power" and "my necromancy folded away" which leaves her "bare to the power, to the pull of them." Oh no, please do NOT let this mean they're going to have sex in the parking lot.
Jacob's power smashes into Anita and this "scattered the power, stripped the energy, and shut down both of them" but he can't shut down Anita's beast and she snarls at him and the snarl comes out Anita's mouth. I bet LKH thinks that looks/sounds really cool, even though Anita herself said earlier it's a sign that she lacks control of her beasts...but then, LKH wants Anita to lack control, I suppose, because how can she have excuses to get up to absurd sexual shenanigans if she ever actually gets any say in how her beasts act? Which is probably why she STILL doesn't have any improvement on said control, even a little, despite the fact she surely has no shortage of potential teachers given that she has access to all the wereanimal groups that she has a common beast with, and is in fact mated up with their most powerful in-control alpha members. And she doesn't seem to have any hobbies and no longer needs to work out because she now has super-strength and super-speed from her therianthropy zoo, so she must have time for it after work. I think she just doesn't want the control because then she'd lose her excuse, as I said, just like how she didn't do a damn thing in Skin Trade to prevent the ardeur from needing to be fed on new men at inconvenient times.
Jacob takes Anita's knives, throws them on the ground, and tears Nicky off her. Nicky takes Anita's guns and also throws them down, and then the two werelion dudes face each other. Anita tells us that "they'd missed the big knife that sat under my hair and down my spine." Remember that from Skin Trade? They patted her down, how the hell could they MISS that? You know, making the "bad guys" hugely incompetent doesn't actually make your heroine look like she herself is competent. Besting bad guys who are easily thwarted is not something a reader can enjoy or respect; besting bad guys who are a sincere, intelligent threat who don't leave such holes open is. But she's too busy trying to control her lioness to go for her weapon or mess with the fight because the lioness "though they were strong, and liked it, and wanted to make them fight over us and save our family." She likes that they are strong but also wants them to destroy each other? Nah, I think your beasts are all like you, Anita, they're misogynistic boy-crazy self-obsessed snobs who want all the males competing for them and stroking their ego. Actually, comes to think of it, the personalities of beasts being just an extension of the human's ID is a pretty cool idea, and it makes more sense to me than them just having this random insta-personality all on their own.
Anita tries to explain the whole sniper thing to her lioness, but it's too complex for her since she's just an animal, so Anita just leans against the truck and works on keeping control and gets the lioness to understand the idea of conserving her energy for later, which is "a very real concept for a predator" which is true. As someone who roleplays original characters in this universe, the idea of the therian ones trying to get their inner beasts to behave by using concepts that their respective animal would value and understand is actually really fascinating, and I wish we saw this more often because it's a cool idea.
Jacob says "We are not going to fight over her, Nicky. Remember who you are. Remember what you are." Yes, thank you Jacob, I think I like you the most so far in this book. God, Anita can't even get kidnapped without guys wanting her. Whoever hired these two mooks should have just gotten some ladies to do it instead. Preferably some asexual lesbian blondes on the older side, I feel like that would hit enough 'ew' buttons for Anita and her beasties to all keep away from influencing them in any way.
Nicky points out that Jason's eyes have changed from human to lion, and Anita realizes that Nicky's have too and that this means they had both almost shifted even though "lycanthropes as powerful as they were didn't lose control in a public parking lot; they just didn't." Oh silly Anita, everyone loses control when it comes to sexy little you! And, uh, isn't it an established fact that Anita is a really powerful panwere but also doesn't have much control? I'm pretty sure that's said word-for-word in Skin Trade, at least in regard to her weretiger side...er, sides.
And then Jacob says to Anita that she's in heat.
Wut.
No, seriously, wuuuut?
Anita says she doesn't know what he means by that, Jacob says she does. I know what he means, but it's STUPID. I'm pretty sure we've seen ZERO in the series thus far about wereanimals experiencing heat and rut like actual animals do, despite so much being based on sex, or is there werewolf stuff I'm forgetting from the earlier books? Whatever, it's dumb. He picks up her guns, tells her to hand over her arm sheaths, and that if she's done what the client asks she'll get it all back at the end of the night. Anita tells us that she "honestly didn't know what it meant for a werelion to be in heat" (OH WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS YOU NINNY) but she just does what he says and tells him to call the sniper off. Shockingly, Jacob does indeed get on the phone says to "Stand down for now" and "just observe" instead. Well, at least he's not actually calling the guy off, I guess. Because doing that, just because she tells you to, before she even is in the car, would be so damn dumb and ridiculous.
Jacob then says that "I know you don't have complete control when you're in heat" (when does she EVER have control?) but that if she does "that again in an enclosed space" then he and Nicky might not make their deadlines which means he might not make the right calls at the right time and then her boyfriends might die. Anita must suddenly get what "in heat" suggests because she then says that the reason they'd miss those deadlines is that they'd be having sex. Jacob says yes so "keep a lid on it" and she says she'll do her best. Yeah, I bet.
Nicky tells Anita to look at him, Jacob tells him not to push this, and Nicky says "Lions are weird about weaknesses; I just want her to see. Maybe if her beast knows, she won't want me anymore and the power won't turn into a fight between us."
SO WE'RE TRYING TO KIDNAP AND CONTROL THIS HUGELY POWERFUL SUPERNATURAL HUMAN
AND WE'RE THREATENING HER LOVED ONES WITH DEATH
AND SHE'S A REALLY TRIGGER-HAPPY TYPE
SO I'LL SHOW HER MY WEAKNESSES! THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!
Then again, I guess ensuring you get said weaknesses exploited and your ass beat is worth not ending up as a new victim of Anita's vagina. Jacob must agree, since he then says it's a good idea.
Remember how Nicky's "skater boy" hair covers one eye? He lifts it away to show "his right eye was missing. Burn scars traced over the empty socket, caressed the edge of his cheek, and covered where his right eyebrows should have been."
But...she made reference to "his eyes" and "his baby blues" earlier? In the plural?
"I looked because he seemed to want me to. I didn't look away because I was sharing my bed with a vampire that made Nicky's scar look like child's play, though the whole eye destroyed was worse. Asher had all the parts he was supposed to have; just some of them were nestled in burn scars."
So...his scar isn't as bad as Asher's but it's also worse? What? And of course Anita is edgy and tough enough to LOOK AT A FACIAL SCAR, WHOA. We find out just how special when Nicky, noticing this, says that "Most women, especially women, look disgusted or scared. You don't look either." to which Anita replies that "If you know everyone in my bed, then you know scars aren't a deal-breaker for me." Uhhhh, can we not talk about what is and isn't a turn-off about Nicky for Anita? Earlier she was saying sullen was a turn-off for her, now she's saying scars aren't, she is sure thinking a lot about what about this guy she likes and doesn't like sexually.
Nicky says that he supposes she's seen worse then, and Anita gives him this sweet little speech about how "the scar is just another part of you" and starts showing him all her own scars and saying how she got them (just like she did with the SWAT guys in Skin Trade) and then says that she has a few more "but we'd have to be better friends for me to show you those." Ooh baby, because that's exactly what you want him to be thinking about, given the whole reason he just showed you his eye was so there wouldn't be supernatural sex going on. I guess Nicky notices this too because he says that "Most werelion females don't want a one-eyed mate" and instead of saying uh who said anything about mates Anita just encourages this idea more by saying that she figures he compensates and he says it's a problem in a fight because he's got a blind side and Anita says "I fight my own battles most of the time" and Nicky says that's why she doesn't have a mate which is why her lioness is in heat. Oh wow, list time!
1) So again, we get how much better Anita is than all other women, who are shallow, not only for looking at his scar and not being disgusted but also for considering him to be still sexually desirable and talking as if she's considering him for a mate (with no implication that she's not sincere and is just leading him on to manipulate him), even though she said herself in this book that she doesn't want any more men or animals to call and if she does fuck him then her boyfriends might die.
2) She is also particularly better than other female werelions, much like how she is better than female weretigers for not being a pureblood-bigot when it comes to fucking pretty mixed-line men. Because it's so virtuous to not share a prejudice that YOU WEREN'T EVER RAISED WITH BUT THEY WERE.
3) Am I getting the implication here that female werelions don't typically fight their own battles and thus need fully healthy, able-bodied male mates to do it for them? Are you fucking SERIOUS? LKH, do you know ANYTHING about lionesses? Look, from what I know of lions, and correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge the male lion is NOT the boss. He is not in charge just because they are all fucking him. He is the breeding factory, and he also does other jobs like watching cubs while the ladies hunt. Lionesses take down the prey, and they also patrol pride behavior. They can boot the male, or any other lion, out if they want. So they're definitely not weak and can definitely fight their own damn battles. I bet Nicky probably got booted out of his Pride for saying stupid sexist stuff like this and that's why he's running Anita-errands with Jacob instead, much like how rogue male lions in the wild who have also been booted out of their Prides will sometimes team up.
4) If a spiritual, totally non-physical animal can somehow be enough like a real animal go into a condition that is defined by physiological changes and has very real animal-type thoughts, shouldn't it also be enough like a real animal that it will also go along with the system of real lions where all the lionesses share one male lion? Just a thought. Bet you THAT part doesn't come up though!
Anita thinks about how the local lions never told her about heat, but then admits she wouldn't have believed them if they did because she'd think it was just Haven trying to get into her pants. Oh, and by the way, even her heat is special according to Jacob--"It's not just heat, it's a fucking powerful heat. No female has ever made me lose it like that." Oh brother. Anita then concludes that they must be unmated males, says this, and then quotes Pride & Prejudice to them "It's said a man of certain age and property is in want of a wife" and miraculously Jacob understands what she means! It means that "my hair is starting to gray and I've never taken a real mate. I've never committed to a territory and my pride is all males, except for one, and she's not into guys, so it's not a trouble" to which Nicky adds that "We travel too much for women and kids."
...oh. my. GOD.
1) An all-male Pride? Seriously? Now, it's always been my headcanon that werelion prides are NOT all-female-except-one-male like in the wild, because these are not animals, but the reverse is just as ridiculous, if not more so.
2) Oh, and they're all male because women just can't keep up with them. Because lionesses are totally frail flowers, right? But as I just said, they're not animals, so maybe it's not that their beasts can't keep up, it's that their human sides can't...so it's that WOMEN are all frail little flowers. Because sexism fail is better than zoology fail...no, wait, it's worse.
3) Well, there's ONE woman. But she doesn't like men, and since asexuals don't exist in the Anitaverse, she must be a lesbian. Because being a gay women means basically being a man, I guess. Kind of like how the one female in the werewolf Pack who had the strength and power and drive to compete with males for leadership status also just happened to be the lesbian one. STRONG WOMAN OTHER THAN ANITA? MUST BE AN ICKY DYKE! They're like men, but in a gross way, not a sexy way like Anita, eww! Or they can be like Jade in Kiss the Dead, who is a poor traumatized little delicate doll who is afraid of men because of abuse. See, she's not a gross butch, she's a victimized femme instead! LKH totally understands diversity! She knows not all lesbians are manly--there are pretty ones too, they're the ones who were probably straight to start with but are now terrified of guys and so go for manly women like Anita instead! Gosh, she's so inclusive and enlightened and stereotype-bucking THAT I COULD JUST PUKE!
4) If all these heat'n'mating stuff is such trouble, how do ANY Prides get along if they're not segregated by gender and sexual orientation like this one is? And why is this heat'n'mating stuff such trouble anyway? Do regular lions have this problem? I don't know, but I have a hunch that they don't. I mean, I'm sure they do go into estrous, that's why the cub-killing thing with the males, to put them back into heat to reproduce and replace the lost cubs with his offspring, but I mean this whole 'female in heat causes general mayhem and loads of fighting' crap.
Jacob then tells Anita to get in the car, that they've got a job to do, and to "remember what I said about controlling your side of the problem. Nothing we could do would be worth the lives of your lovers." Anita agrees, notes to us she still has that big knife on her back, and gets in the passenger seat of the SUV. Nicky tells her that he wishes she wasn't the job, she says she wishes that too. Anita asks Jacob if the plan is still the same, he says nothing has changed. Duh, why would it? Anita, believe it or not, wanting to fuck someone doesn't change someone's plans entirely for most people, just you. Anita then asks "So you'll still kill the people I love if I don't raise the dead for your client?" UH THAT'S WHAT HE JUST TOLD YOU and he says yes again. God I hate, just hate, the way she does dialogue like this, where everything has to be gone over and defined for the reader repeatedly. It's not only mind-numbing, it feels almost like an insult that LKH seems to think we need everything spelled out slowly at least twice. Anita says that they're clear then and Jacob says that he knows she'll kill us if she can do it without getting any of her men killed, and that he and Nicky will kill her if forced to.
Nicky asks Anita why she isn't afraid. Anita says being scared wouldn't help. Because it's not like fear is a survival instinct or anything. Nicky says that "People are brave, but you can always smell the fear, taste their heart speed up. But you aren't. You really aren't any of that." I really hate how everyone, including villains, have to go out of their way to be in awe of what a badass and one-of-a-kind Anita is. It's just so transparent on LKH's part, and, as I just said, I'm not really impressed that she's doesn't have the sense to be scared. There's a difference between panicky and scared; shouldn't she at least be scared for Micah? Also, taste their heart speed up? Wouldn't they hear that instead?
Anita explains that getting scared would make it harder for her to control her beasts, and that she can't afford to lose control now with them here.
Nicky: "So because you have to be in control, you will be, just like that."
Anita: "Just like that."
EVERY TIME ANITA SUPPOSEDLY CANNOT KEEP CONTROL OF THE BEASTS OR THE ARDEUR OR HER OWN STUPID MOUTH, I AM GOING TO POINT AT THIS SCENE.
Anita tries to remember the route they're driving so she can lead the police back after this is all over. It makes me wonder just how much experience these guys have with this kind of thing since they didn't account for that and blindfold her. Jacob for some reason tells her that "If I'd known what you were we might not have taken the job" and Anita is like that doesn't help now and he's like nope we took the money so we have to deliver and Anita does on this HUGE monologue:
"Then it doesn't matter to me if you feel guilty or not, Jacob. In fact, I think it's worse that you're going to maybe kill the people I love, the people that make up my pride, and maybe kill me, and you'll regret it, but you'll do it anyway. That's not honor, Jacob, that's your conscience letting you know that you're doing the wrong thing."
Anita, what the poop are you on about? He did not once say anything about honor, regret, or feeling guilty. He just said that if he'd known what you are (probably meaning an unmated werelioness) then he might not have taken this job, and given the context and what's happened so far he probably means because of the danger that your stupid heat might screw everything up, along with him and Nicky. Perfectly pragmatic reasons that have nothing to do with what you're talking about, whatever the fuck you're even saying. Jacob corrects her more nicely than I would have:
"It's not my conscience, Anita, it's my libido, my beast, and it doesn't have a conscience."
We get one long paragraph from Anita that kind of jumps from one point to another so I can't really sum it all up. It starts with her saying that Jacob is right but that "wereanimals aren't just animals. There is a person in there and there is a conscience" and how the critters don't usually care about the conscience and could make you do awful things but Nicky and Jacob's consciences are "on the same side" as their beasts...so, wait, their beasts want to fuck Anita, and their consciences are okay with that? Conscience is a moral thing so I don't know where theirs would stand on screwing her, but I know that logically they both think it's a bad idea. Maybe she means both their beasts and their consciences are okay with killing? Yeah, I guess that must be what she means.
And then she says that gives her hope and we get some bashing of the concept of hope again and how it can get you killed and then we get this shining gem of stupidity:
"But my lioness and their lions lusted after each other, sort of. Lust I trusted. Hope will lie to you, but lust is what it is; it never lies."
Okay, so? That doesn't make lust better than hope. In fact, in this scenario, lust is a bad thing, because it might make you and them have sex and get the people you love killed. What benefit can lust bring her here? Oh, good, she tells us:
"Lust might be a weapon I could use to divide them."
Sigh. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I don't want to read about more guys squabbling over who gets Anita, and I definitely don't want more sex. The old Anita would have made this an action scene with actual fighting.
On the other hand, manipulation makes a lot more sense here than physical asswhipping, and Anita is smarter for going that route. It also shows some evolution that she realizes this, when the old one would probably never have considered it or seen it as beneath her.
I also don't feel comfortable deriding the idea of using lust against them in and of itself. Firstly, you do what you can in a situation like this. Secondly, while the 'woman uses sexuality as a weapon' schitck has been used in some pretty terrible ways historically in media--the idea that female sexuality is dangerous, the idea that women don't actually have any desire and only pretend they do for ulterior motives, that any woman being sexy is evil, and so on--but that doesn't mean that it's inherently sexist. The idea of a woman using sexuality and manipulation can be done in a good way, even a feminist way. I haven't seen The Avengers myself (I don't watch movies of comic books I don't read, it's just A Thing with me) but I hear that this was pulled off MAGNIFICENTLY with Black Widow.
No, my problem is that I am definitely 100% sure that LKH will not pull it off magnificently. In fact, I'm 100% sure that she'll do the exact opposite.
