BULLET, CHAPTER 18

[a_sporking_rat]

While he was...ill, shall we say...a small patch of Jabez's lovely gray fur turned a sort of ugly beige-brown that honestly reminds me old menstrual blood. I suppose it was from stress, can that happen? I'm hoping it'll go away or grow back in its proper color, I really don't like this stain on my beautiful chinchilla brindle baby!

I've decided that at some point I need to take Lucille, the Villain Sue Big Bad from my own series-in-the-works and not only put her younger self into the Anita Blake world for a fanfic, but also make her into a super Mary Sue hybrid just like Anita so as to combat the DoomCrotch. A 'logical' (by the standards of the series) way to pull it off has been brewing in my mind, and I think I've got it now. Just as Anita starts off simply as an animator, maybe Lucy likewise starts off just as a witch. Then for whatever reason she's chosen by MOAD, who gives her a beast. Except instead of it being A RAINBOW OF TIGERS she becomes a huge were-smiledon too like the MOAD does. One with clouded leopard type patterns in cream and gold. It's perfect Mary Sue--big, powerful, pretty, and the absolute only one. And somehow it makes her queen of all werecats. And the MOAD also gives her powers from Beast, Fear, and Rage vamps, but not Lust ones because it's been stated she 'doesn't understand' the ardeur and Anita has used it against her so much, and not the psychic because the Traveller was most effective at shaking her possession. Maybe she does get powers from Earthmover though (I think 'that's too much!' and then remember THAT'S THE POINT and it can help combat the elemental earth powers of the golden tigers that Anita can supposedly awaken). Anyway, she's now the MOAD's personal weapon to go up against the DoomCrotch--a creature as overpowered, canon-breaking, cruel, beautiful, and sociopathic as Anita herself.

It feels so cringe-worthy and silly even to type about in fun/as parody that I keep going in my head "This is terrible! You know this is terrible!" and I keep having to remind myself THAT'S THE POINT again.

Oh, and just by coincidence, Lucy's existence is everything that Anita will loathe. She's a lesbian, a gorgeous lipstick one at that, so she's conventionally feminine AND powerful and capable in practice (not just theory like a lot of the eeevil monster ladies are, like Belle Morte thus far) so Anita can't sneer at her for being girly and weak and weak because she's girly. And as for being a lesbian, she's NOT into Anita. But she will still take Anita's men. Not for sexual purposes, no, but they obviously make good slaves. Well, the strong ones, anyway. The useless ones like Nathaniel will be killed or kept around to take out her sadistic urges on. Best of all, Lucille is tall and blonde...and Anita can't comfort herself by calling her a "boy with breasts" or talking about how her men like "real women with curves" because Lucille actually has Anita's brand of an impossible figure--pinup type hourglass with a big bust, hips/ass, tiny waist, and Linda Hamilton muscle under all that pretty soft top-layer of flesh. And since she's 5'10, the average American male height, she's even got room for long legs that Anita doesn't. MUAHAHAHA!

I think I'll call it SUE VS SUE. In the unlikely event I actually sit down and write any of it, would you lot mind terribly if I posted it here? I think it would be a great improvement over....

BULLET, CHAPTER 18

Anita is having a dream, and she knows she's not alone in it. She's walking through a strange building, turning on lights, but they go out again behind her, and in the last room when she goes in "there was a moment of brightness and then darkness came." I hate symbolic dreams. And I'm someone who generally enjoys symbolism. She wakes up, and the amulet around her neck is glowing, so she knows that the MOAD "had hunted me in my dreams" but then says that MOAD can really do fuck all at this point besides just scare her.

Then Anita realizes that "there was a weight across my shoulders and something across my lower legs and I was staring into Wicked's face from inches away." A nude blonde woman is face down on top of Wicked. Anita can tell that she's still in the Circus living room, and she can see more bodies, including a female vampire (no name given) that works at Danse Macabre who, according to Anita (how does she knows this?) had earlier been in the "coffin room" getting ready to go to sleep for the day "which meant that the ardeur had spread outside the room. Shit." Yeah, shit, you're responsible for the rape of this woman by making her driven to have sex when she didn't want to. Which, by the way, does not get acknowledged at all, of course.

Anita is "almost afraid" to get up and find out whose arm is across her shoulders and legs because she can feel that both are male. And then she feels that the lower one is definitely male (hint: a penis is alluded to without ever being called a penis!) and her reaction is "Crap." Would you rather you raped/were raped by a woman? Seriously, she's freaked specifically BECAUSE they're male and I can't figure it out. Maybe she thinks if they're men she's had sex but not if they're women.

She bucks up though and has a look at who is on her. "People look different out of their clothes, especially facedown on carpet. Short, dark hair, curly, broad shoulders, darker complected, tall...It was the pile of ripped clothes on the other side of me with the pale trench coat on top that let me know it was Jesse the werelion." Wait, so you notice all those physical traits about him, but the only way you can recognize who he is is by his clothes? Also, it should be "short dark curly hair" not "short, dark hair, curly" because it makes it seem like Jesse is short and curly, not his hair. Comma abuse causes confusion! "I had no memory of how he got out of his clothes." So it's just like the weretiger orgy in Skin Trade then. Yawn.

Asher and Meng Die are lying together and Anita says that if they had sex then "all bets were off. It hadn't been about who you were attracted to last night, apparently." Since when did the ardeur care about who you were attracted to? Well, I mean, since when was it acknowledged. It's been obvious since day one that the ardeur only ever affects men that Anita is attracted to. And hey, Anita, maybe Asher and Meng Die have been into each other all along, you wouldn't know! You said yourself you've neglected him, and you never bother to check what Meng Die's up to I'm sure. Anita is also near Lisandro, and she remembers him doing her from behind but that someone else gave him the scratch marks that he has. This causes her to be relieved because "he wasn't one of the guards that willingly fed me. Something about a wife." Willingly. She just used the word willingly. So she KNOWS that this was unwilling, yet her only concern is that he won't tell his wife it was Anita who clawed him up. She also refers to herself as being Lisandro's "boss". Ugggh. Also, this makes Lisandro the only other Hispanic and rat besides Rafael that Anita has banged. Congrats, Lisandro? And by congrats I mean I am so, so sorry.

Anita wonders if they'll wake up if she tries to crawl out from under them. "Wereanimals are like people; they just wake up." Anita, in a world with sentient non-humans like your own, the word "people" does not always mean "human". You could say "wereanimals are like humans" but saying "wereanimals are like people" implies that they are in fact NOT people, which is deeply fucked up. hell, you've chewed people out for it. And wait a second, aren't they even still human too? Just with a disease? ARE THEY HUMAN OR NOT, PLEASE DECIDE. EITHER THEY'RE JUST HUMANS WITH A DISEASE, OR THEY ARE POST-HUMAN/NOT HUMAN ANYMORE (though they can still be people), OKAY? Sorry, this just bugs me how it goes back and forth.

JC is sitting naked in one of the chairs and tells her that if she wants to move, then he doesn't think they'll wake up. She thinks that his hair looks like "there were something in it that...I didn't want to think of it." ANITA, I DOUBT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME HE'S HAD JIZZ IN HIS HAIR. AND DON'T TELL ME YOU NEVER HAVE EITHER!

Anita's neck hurts and she realizes she has a bite mark there, specifically a vampire one. She then realizes that she has a lot of them and "some of them weren't in typical places for a vampire to take blood. What the fuck was that about?" Anita, with as much as you bite and claw guys during sex, has it never occurred to you that other people, including vampires, might do the same? She spends a paragraph describing where all the bites are, which are of course all in sexy places, and concludes that she should be dead via bleeding. We should be so lucky. Again, I must point out to Anita that she's assuming that these vampires bit her with the intent of sucking blood to feed, rather than just biting during sex as a sex thing like she herself does and not doing any more than that.

JC helps her to her feet and they up and kiss and he says he's sorry (sorry that she was raped again, I guess? yeah, that helps a lot bro, thanks) and Anita asks how she can be alive after so many vampire bites. Instead of saying what I did, though, JC tells her that the aredeur somehow kept her alive, as well as the wereanimals who also have loads of bites (nevermind that wereanimals are crazy Wolverine-style healers, I guess) because "the ardeur is about life." It's about sex and lust. Sex can lead to procreation which can lead to birth, yes, but sex in itself isn't inherently about life, especially not when used by vampires to prey on others, as the ardeur is. He says that his "last solid thought" before he turned the killing urge into the ardeur was "that we would not feed on death; we fed on life, on love" Anita already said that this ardeur didn't even give a shit about physical attraction let alone feelings for one another, Lisandro was forced to break vows to his wife (anyone thinking of Joseph here?) that he previously respected, HOW THE FUCK WAS LOVE INVOLVED? "I would not have my people serve the dark. We would serve the light."

YOU. ARE. VAMPIRES! AAAAH THIS DRIVES ME SO NUTS

Like, firstly, vampires are not ~light means good~ creatures in this series. JC most certainly is not. He may be less super-duper-sadistic than most, but that doesn't make him good. I'm going to choose to believe he's manipulating Anita with this crap. Also, again my complaints about how "light as good, dark as bad" is NOT how monsters in this series should see things, especially for vampires for whom the reverse is true, since they DIE in the light while dark gives them life. I'll just use that as support for my manipulation theory and say that JC is deliberately choosing to speak of light as good and dark as bad because he knows that's the cultural construction that humans follow and thus that Anita will respond to it. Also, he specifies that he thought all this in French. Because I guess it's unusual for people to think in their native language.

Anita asks if it's night again, and he says no. She asks what time is it then, since he's awake. He says that they've all been passed out from the ardeur but that he doesn't think that he died at dawn. Anita says that "Sometimes you don't die at dawn when you and I are touching" ANITA: SO SEXY AND SPECIAL SHE KEEPS VAMPIRES ALIVE PAST DAYBREAK! "but we weren't, were we?" and he says that "there was a great deal of power to feed on."

Anita looks around and points a few people to us, like Micah, and has a moment where at first she mistakes Claudia for a guy. Claudia's head, by the way, is on Micah's chest. Maybe that's why she doesn't appear after this book, eh?

Richard comes to, and from his face Anita can tell that he's realized what's happened. He has Gretchen (remember her?) and he also has some dried blood places like Anita does from bite marks. "He, like me, should have been dead from blood loss." One, just how much blood is there? I don't get the impression there's a lot, yet she's saying they should be dead from it. Two, he's a therian, remember? Uber healing?

Richard says that he doesn't remember anything after the death-craving became the ardeur, and Anita and JC say they don't either. A memory comes back to Anita of Richard and JC making out while Richard tears off JC's shirt, then JC doing Anita from behind while Anita goes down on Noel while the blond lion smooches him. Anita asks "What was that?" and JC says "Memory." ANITA, HOW DUMB ARE YOU?

Richard is upset because he's remembered the make-out too and thinks he and JC had sex. Anita worries that this will "ruin all the positive work he'd done" and tells him that she doesn't think that he and JC had sex. JC tells him that they didn't. But JC, didn't you just say you yourself don't remember? Richard says he saw it in the memory, but JC says "You saw a kiss and a little petting, but it was Gretchen who touched you and pulled you away." Really, Richard, it was a nasty GIRL who raped you, not me! Even though you say you remember it and I say I don't remember a thing...

And then we get this very intriguing little tidbit:

Richard: "I woke up with her in my lap. She loves you in a stalker, obsessed sort of way." Which is bad when a girl does it, but the way JC behaved to Anita in the beginning of the series--making advances on her that she rebuffed every time yet never taking that as a hint to stop, sending her gifts she said she didn't want, inviting her places she refused to go, threatening to kill Richard if she didn't date him, all when she made it clear she wasn't interested--is totally okay, as evident by the fact he's been reward by being with her now and Anita refers to it now as having just been a game. "Shouldn't the depth of her love for you keep you safe from the ardeur I thought love kept you safe." When did THIS information come about? First a kiss of true love waking people up in Skin Trade, now this? This shit is getting too cheesey.
Jean-Claude: "She was likely pulling you away from me" which is not at all like what Anita does with her rules about who can't screw who *eyeroll* "but once she touched you the ardeur spread to her, and she likes men well enough" the skank! "that she did not have enough defenses to leave you for me. She does not love me; she is obsessed with me. Obsession is not love, Richard; it is a type of posessing. Love is not about owning someone, but about loving them." DOES ANITA GET THE MESSAGE HERE? SHE ACTUALLY DOES!
Anita: "If love makes us proof against it, then..." OH MY GOD SHE HAS A BRAIN CELL!
Jean-Claude: "Then does it mean that none of us love each other?" YES "No, ma petite. Thus was not ardeur for feeding, but the feeding taking the place of the slaughter that the Lover of Death wanted us to perform." It was explicitly stated that everyone needed to feed and you just changed what they would feed on. It was indeed ardeur for feeding.

Seriously, this conversation makes me wonder if maybe LKH isn't trolling us all along. JC just gave her the most bullshit of excuses ever, and I firmly believe even more now that he is indeed just using Anita and keeps her where he wants her by telling her what she really wants to here--oh no, ma petite, of course you love all these men and we all love you and so everything that happens is okay, really!

Richard shudders as he says that he got JC's memories of Morte D'Amour. Anita says all she got was that he feeds on death, and asks if Richard got a memory of Jean-Claude's that she didn't. Richard tells Jean-Claude that "Every time I think I've been abused, then I get another memory from your past and I realize that it could've been worse."

AND THEN I LOSE MY SHIT

THIS MAKES ME SO MAD

SOOOO MAD

Okay, trying not to go off capslock deep-end here, but...I hate, hate, HATE the idea that there is some hierarchy of abuse and trauma, that you're only allowed to be traumatized so much by something, etc. Richard was abused. He was physically and sexually abused in terrible ways. Just because it COULD have been worse does not mean that he should not consider himself to have been abused, should not see his abuse as exactly that. And speaking of the 'could have been worse' part, that bugs me too. Again, when it comes to trauma and abuse, there should not be hierarchies that victims are forced to class themselves on. I say this as someone who has felt GUILTY for my own abuse-related trauma because I didn't feel like ENOUGH had been done to me for me to justify how I felt about it, to justify me even using the word "abuse" for it. He hadn't raped me, he never broke any bones, etc. It happened when I was a kid but it took me until college to actually be able to fucking call it abuse, and I waffled on it for a few more years to boot. And that was because of bullshit ideas like this about who was hurt more, who was hurt longer, and who therefore is allowed to have what feelings about it to what degree. FUCK. THAT. NOISE.

And if this was a series where I could trust that this was just Richard's perspective, that he's going through the same thing I was with believing I was overreacting beyond what I should be 'allowed' based on what I did and didn't tic off on the abuse types checklist, then I might be fucking thrilled at a chance to see it addressed and broken down. But it won't be. No, this is just here to make Jean-Claude more of a fucking woobie. Because being a whipping boy, Belle Morte's pet, and whored out by Nikolaos for political gain (she gave him to Narcissus at one point, right?) somehow wasn't enough, LKH has to pile on more bullshit because no amount of abuse, especially sexual, is ever enough for this woman when it comes to the harem. I wonder if she realizes that her guys, for all the tragedy she dumps on them, have no personality, no pathos, etc., and instead of realizing that maybe just dumping more trauma on them will not automatically give them those things, she decides that, nope, needs more for-the-moment angst, that'll make character development magically happen! HINT: IT DOESN'T.

Anita is confused by the implications here because "The Lover of Death doesn't feed on sex." Anita. Anita Anita Anita, I don't know where to begin. You do not need to FEED on sex in order to still WANT to have it, and you also don't need to want to have it in order to rape someone. Has she seriously gotten to the point where she can't imagine sex happening unless ardeur is the cause?

"He almost always had control of his expression. He'd once told me that after a few hundred years of your facial expressions being used against you by bigger, badder vampires, you learned to hide your emotions" That took him a few hundred years? I'm pretty sure that mere mortals in abusive situations learn the same thing a whole lot faster.

JC reminds her of Yvette, Morte D'Amours minion, and they say out loud to each other stuff they both already know in order to inform/remind the readers about how she was a sadist that got her kicks by rotting on others during sex and wanted to do it to Jason because of how much it scared him due to his previous experiences with rotters Pallas and Bettina and how JC protected him. JC tells her that "When I went back to belle to save Asher's life, she ceased to protect me from anything for a time" and gave him to Morte D'Amour, who "doesn't truly like sex, but he is still functional, and he does enjoy fear."

So we get our first person ever in this series who is possibly asexual, or at the least is not interested in sex (I know some asexuals do like sex, but I don't expect LKH to know that), and they're a sicko sadist who gets off on raping people. Great. Just great.

Well, not our very first character exactly. I know Valentina had the same thing, but I didn't count her as asexual/disinterested the way I would an adult (or someone with an adult body) because she's physically a kid and is stated to have never developed sexual urges because of this, so she's only "disinterested" in the way that most kids are. She also has the same "pain as substitute for sex" deal though, and now with Morte D'Amour loving fear in the same way, it makes me wonder if the idea of not having a sex drive is just so unfathomable to LKH that she has to make up people still having it in SOME form, just with desire for something else, specifically something cruel and terrible and deviant, filling the void. Which is also pretty insulting to asexuals and/or people not terribly interested in sex at all.

There is, of course, a group hug, which is as far as any attempts at healing or getting past this will go for Jean-Claude, short of maybe being packed off to off-screen therapy. Because issues like this aren't meant to be explored or worked out or anything, just made up on the spot for some quick pity and then never mentioned again! Huh, wow, reminds me of what some people used to pull during roleplay with their characters, actually. And then Anita decides she's not bothered by whatever is drying in JC's hair because "nothing we'd done was as terrible as what he'd been through." Wow.

Richard says while they hug that "I'm not happy about what just happened and it reminds me why I stay the hell away from you" wow, Richard is the smartest sweetie in the series!" "but nothing we've ever done, including today, is as terrible as the glimpses I get of your past." Richard, do you know what Anita did to Nicky? DO YOU?

Richard or Anita (not clear): "Aren't most of your worst stories things the council did to you?"
JC: "Most."
Richard: "And now they're going to try to take us over." No, MOAD is.
JC: "It would seem so."
Richard: "No. Whatever it takes, no." Didn't the Council still have authority in America anyway? And it's not like the New World vampires we've so far met are particularly better in any way.

JC says Richard doesn't know what will be needed to fight them, and Richard just says that "You may be a manipulative bastard sometimes" you mean all the time "but you're our manipulative bastard." Actually, no. JC would LIKE for you to think that, especially Anita, but I remain firm in that he is in fact only his own manipulative bastard.

Richard: "Morte D'Amour is evil, Jean-Claude." A Council vampire is evil? You don't say! "I felt him in my head, I felt what he wanted us to do to Noel" wasn't it actually what MOAD wanted you to do, since she's possessing him? "and once we'd kill Noel it wouldn't have stopped with him. He'd have made us kill each other and fed on every death." But that can't happen because it might actually be scary.
JC: "That was his plan."
Richard: "Sex is not worse than that." Rape. You mean rape. What happened was mass rape. I'm not saying rape is worse than that, or that they're in the wrong if that was their only choice to avoid it (though LKH is in the wrong as a writer for making such a stupid, fucked-up, eye-rollingly predictable solution like that be the best/only solution) but at least call it what it actually is. No one would disagree about it if it were sex, but with rape, yeah, that's a decision that might actually need some goddamn justifying...which, ironically, seems to be what LKH is trying to do with this conversation---justify what just happened to the readers. And doing a piss-poor job of it.

Anita asks what can be done to keep the Council away. JC says he thinks they can keep them away from their lot here in St. Louis "but I am worried for our poor country. There are weaker Masters of the City, ma petite. I am wondering how they fared this night." Well, I'm glad that someone thought of what I pointed out about 'why does the MOAD only seem to be attacking them, why doesn't she go get easier meat' because Anita sure didn't: "You mean when he couldn't roll us, he hunted for other prey?" THAT'S WHAT HE JUST SAID, ANITA. And it's not exactly a hard notion to consider! JC says that Morte D'Amour "has children of his own line in charge of cities here, not many, but a few, and more in Europe." Richard asks if JC wants to protect the entire USA from the Vampire Council, and JC says yes.

"Richard and I exchanged a look, and then we looked back at Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude with all his fancy fetish yummy clothes, standing there nude and covered in more body fluids than a CSI episode."

There is nothing I need say about this line that it doesn't say on its own.

Anita says it should seem crazy to think they can keep "the most powerful vampires in Europe out of the entire United States metaphysically" I kind of want to know what the vampires in India and Africa and Asia and Oceania are up to "but we'd already chased out three of them, plus the remnant of the Darkness." No. No you did not. Belle broke free on her own, then overwhelmed Padma with the ardeur. Morte D'Amour left on his own when you wouldn't feed him his preferred snack. Neither of that constitutes chasing them out. Also it's halfway through the damn book and only NOW the decision of "MOAD is gonna try and get America through the Council, let's stop her" is being made? This is what happens when filler filler filler clothes sex sex sex filler clothes sex sex makes up the majority of a book.

Anita says she's in and Richard asks what they do. JC says that "I believe we have freed Belle of the Mother's influence for now" ohhhhh, so earlier it was that she "got free somehow" and now it's that you guys freed her? BALONEY, JC. "so all that is left to them is death, terror, and violence. We will lose if we try to meet them on with their own strengths and Anita asks if he means that "we make love, not war?" and he nods.

OH FUCK NO, I KNOW WHERE THIS IS GONNA LEAD

Anita says she'd rather just kill them (suuuure you would *eyeroll*) but that doing that means MOAD will just jump to a different body. JC says they can keep her out of the US if other MotCs are willing to help. Anita asks why wouldn't they be willing, and JC says that they won't like his plan because "it would require that they give up much of their autonomy and run America more as Europe is run." Richard asks what that would help, and Anita says he probably doesn't mean just political autonomy. JC says Anita is right, that they would also have to give "us" some of their power. Remember what I said about JC being his own manipulative bastard? Prime example right here. He's using this disaster to advance himself and put him at the top of the heap IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY and convincing these saps to help him do it under the belief it's the only way to defeat the MOAD. Damn, JC, you're kinda awesome right now.

Richard says JC is "talking about setting up a Council here in America with you as the head" and JC nods. Yup, I called it!

Anita reminds them that the Council tried to kill them in the past because they thought JC & Co were doing just that, and JC counters that right now they're trying to kill them anyway because "if we cannot be conquered, then they must destroy us" and Anita says it will be a race then, the Council trying to kill them, them trying to get enough power to make Jean-Claude the VAMPIRE KING OF AMERICA! Anita also says that the other MotCs aren't going to want to give their power up to JC and that they probably won't believe him when he tells them why they 'have' to, which JC agrees with. Richard says some will fight, which JC also says indeed will happen. Anita asks "Are we about to start a vampire civil war here?"

NAH, THAT WOULD BE TOO COOL

"Non, ma petite, between us and our allies they will not be able to mount such a strong defense, nor will they band together. Most will live, or die, in their own territories."

Poo, I was right.

He also says, when asked, that he will indeed force them against their will to give up power if need be, though of course only "to keep Morte d'Amour and the Mother of All Darkness from raping this country, oh yes." Of course, Jean-Claude, of course.

And then this conversation. Oh my gosh, this conversation.

Richard: "This will make you the bad guy."
Jean-Claude: "I am aware of that."
Richard: "Are you planning on us metaphysically raping the reluctant masters?"
Jean-Claude: "If necessary."
Richard: "Isn't that exactly what we're fighting to keep the Council from doing?"
Jean-Claude: "Yes, but we are not doing it for evil purposes."
Richard: "So they just have to trust that we mean well."
Jean-Claude: "No, they just have to do what I tell them to do."
Anita: "If you do evil for a good reason, it doesn't become good."
Jean-Claude: "Do you want Marmee Noir to posses other masters in this country?"
Anita: "You know I don't."
Jean-Claude: "Then one man's evil becomes another's necessity, ma petite. We must be as ruthless as you have ever been, and as persuasive as ever I have been."
Richard: "What am I supposed to be?"
Jean-Claude: "Be honest with yourself and with us; help us not become the monsters that the other American masters will fear we have already become."

Oh my gosh. I have ridiculous love for Jean-Claude right now. Because this is really taking us back to the original world of how vampire wars and politics operated in the Anitaverse---not a matter of good guys and bad guys, but bad guys and worse guys. And JC is obviously presenting himself as the lesser evil here with what he wants to do, but is he? What's worse, being forcibly taken over and ruled by the MOAD, a pure instinct way beyond mortal mentality with no designs whatsoever beyond her power and survival, or by Jean-Claude, a Machiavellian chessmaster with designs galore who takes advantage of the worst things possible--MOAD trying to takeover, Anita existing at all--and turns them into things that put him at the top of the heap without his fighting for it in terms of sheer muscle/power, which he would lose in?

And it's all, to a degree, maybe not 100% but still mostly, being acknowledged for what it is. It's blatantly said outright by both Richard and Anita that this is evil shit no matter what the motivation for it. They agree to it, by the way, but they both still realize it for what it is. It may well be necessary, but they don't say that makes it good, moral, right, etc. I love it. I love it so much. They're about to do something terrible to stop something terrible AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT'S TERRIBLE and I think my best most favorite part is how Jean-Claude asks Richard to be the moral compass...meaning that if things do go too far (or they realize that this is really all for JC's own gain as much as anything) then he can just blame Richard, who I'm sure he's aware is the in-universe punching bag as it is, for not keeping him in line. IT'S SO PERFECT.

About the only thing I have maybe some kind of problem with is that Richard and Anita immediately agree after that last sentence. Given that they're both supposed to be the moral human hero ones (even if only Richard actually is to any degree) then I would think they'd at least TRY to find another option (like, hey, what about what Bibi suggested?) or something, but I can't be too bothered by it firstly because the plot has been delayed enough already, and secondly because they do understand what a big shit-flipping deal it is that the MOAD might take over America and thus don't want to waste any time looking for alternatives that might not even be there. I also really, really like that the answer to the MOAD is not one that is going to be morally pure, that is grey area at best, because the way to win a battle that big should not be one that costs the heroes nothing, inwardly or outwardly. Speaking of outwardly, I hope that there are big losses in terms of deaths and permanent injury for LOTS of important characters, both for realism and so that the political gain of becoming Rules of Vampire America will seem like a hollow victory to probably everyone but Jean-Claude.

And then I remember what series I'm reading and that one good moment does not bode improvement for the whole book. Sigh.

Comments

[duamuteffe.livejournal.com]

"Jean-Claude with all his fancy fetish yummy clothes, standing there nude and covered in more body fluids than a CSI episode."


Wait, wait, wait - how can he be wearing fetish clothes *and* be nude? In the same sentence, even. Is this her way of trying to explain crotchless pants or something?

I get the idea that LKH has absolutely no idea that some of us do not, in fact, think it would be any fun at all to wake up after a blackout orgy. :/ I have nothing against orgies, as long as they involve willing participants.


I think you should definitely post your story if you get around to writing it.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

I think maybe she means "he's nude right now but he has a lot of fetish clothes" That's the best I can figure out.

I get the idea that LKH has absolutely no idea that some of us do not, in fact, think it would be any fun at all to wake up after a blackout orgy

Ditto *shudder*

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

One moment . . . one brief, shining moment . . . that was known as Camelot--er, Jean-Claude.

Sadly I am now almost to Ch. 40 and this has not come up again :'C

That's one of the most galling things about this series, isn't it? The fact that there's glimmers of good stuff here

That's what gets to me about the AB series more than anything else. It's why I'm so obsessed with it to the point of running this LJ, really. The fact that it could be so gooood and it really is an awesome world (even if some elements aren't well-thought-out) and gdsgsgksk THE POTENTIAL! It's what makes it stand out from other bad fiction. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's sure FRUSTRATING!

And hahah, I just hope I can make it suitably hilarious. I've never quite gotten the hang of writing Lucille because, unlike other characters, I wasn't able to practice her in roleplays, since she's only a good character when she gets to be the Big Bad. When she's just another character in the game, she's...well, come on, she's the prettiest, the most badass, has the strongest magic, was a variant of the secretly-an-heiress plot, etc. But as a villain, she's supposed to be Better Than You to everyone because we're SUPPOSED to wonder how the heroes are supposed to have a prayer against her.

....I typed 'prayer against Anita' at first hahaha wtf.

[nanoquill.livejournal.com]

Advice: Don't write a parody/spitefic because you think you should. Write it because you enjoy writing it, or don't write. /preaching

I have an urge to make little straw-doll representatives of Anita and burn them. Possibly while cackling evilly.

Seriously, this is disgusting. I swear that Anita didn't used to be thick as a Discworld troll in the Sahara, and she also used to have morality - as in, that she applied to herself. Now, it's all, 'Everything that I do is good! And necessary! And good! And not evil at all! If anyone else does it, it's evil, but I'm doing it, so it's good!'

All of the rape made me think about it generally to escape the horror, and I came to this decision: Anita might be a rapist's worst nightmare. Rape is about control, after all. So they pick this woman who thinks she's so tough, who has all this weaponry and never uses any of it so they can feel that they're even more impressive due to subduing her - and then they find that she's enjoying it, which she shouldn't be, and she isn't feeling ashamed of it or disgusted with herself or losing her self-esteem, which is what they want, and then they find that they're bound to her as her slave and losing more of their free will by the moment... ...And now we know what the deal was with Micah.

I am becoming more disturbed chapter by chapter when I consider how the series as a whole will/would end. Anita as the unwitting figurehead for a regime that has total power over everything, whille JC deals with all the 'boring' (read: important) things? Everyone agreeing that things are so much better now like the submissive little mind-wiped drones they'll become? A horrifying dystopia that LKH will genuinely believe is a utopia?

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

All of the rape made me think about it generally to escape the horror, and I came to this decision: Anita might be a rapist's worst nightmare...And now we know what the deal was with Micah.

That would be so fucking amazing.

Oh, I want to do the parody, I just have crap work ethic is all.

[mocha-latta.livejournal.com]

Anita might be a rapist's worst nightmare....
I'm not comfortable with this, because I think that it sort of implies that rape's only rape when the rapist is fully conscious that what s/he's doing is wrong. Plenty of rapists would love a person to react the way Anita does because it only reenforces their idea of sexual prowess. "She said she didn't want it, but the bitch was begging for it by the end and came all over the place." Sorry to get all serious here :/
But in the context of that version of rape, Anita's mindwipe is sort of a terrifying, ironic punishment.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Anita already said that this ardeur didn't even give a shit about physical attraction let alone feelings for one another, Lisandro was forced to break vows to his wife (anyone thinking of Joseph here?) that he previously respected, HOW THE FUCK WAS LOVE INVOLVED?/

LKH is a grown woman. Surely she must know that love doesn’t always come with sex? Especially when sex occurs against your will?

/Anita worries that this will "ruin all the positive work he'd done"/

WHAT “positive work?” You mean groveling to you and apologizing for being right? And you’re saying that he’s now in danger of losing your good graces because he worried that he may have accidentally slept with Jean-Claude? Because, you know, he’s not gay? Shut up, Anita.

/Obsession is not love, Richard; it is a type of posessing. Love is not about owning someone, but about loving them." DOES ANITA GET THE MESSAGE HERE?/

So…why did you stalk Anita and threaten to kill Richard if she didn’t date you, Jean-Claude? That doesn’t sound like love to me either. Yet how sad is it that you’re the one to explain to Anita the difference between obsession and love. Which LKH clearly does not understand, since all of Anita’s relationships consist of obsession and yet we’re supposed to believe that Anita loves her trophy boyfriends.

/when it comes to trauma and abuse, there should not be hierarchies that victims are forced to class themselves on./

I agree. Trauma is not a system in which each level has a “one size fits all” effect. For example, some serial killers who had abusive childhoods also had siblings, who didn’t grow up to kill people. And many criminal psychologists have debated over why that is and if that proves anything about the whole nature vs. nurture argument. But maybe it’s a combination of both. Obviously, the entire family was affected by the abuse; it’s just that the individuals themselves responded differently. I remember a scene from one of Agatha Christie’s books where Miss Marple explained that people react differently to different things, and that what may seem not so bad to one person may seem unbearable to another (this was to explain the motivation of the killer). So, it’s incredibly insulting as well as ignorant to suggest that abuse is some sort of Oppression Olympics where an individual who suffered abuse that was “lesser” than another’s has no right to say anything ever.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

The lack of awareness on all of this is so horrifying that I I truly hope LKH is really just trolling us all.

[uf-addict.livejournal.com]

I imagined that JC was sitting there awake the entire time. He never passed out because he fed well on all that power. He made sure to share enough so that no one died or bled out and then had a seat while he figured out what to say to Anita. By the time Anita starting waking up he knew what words to use to keep his ma petite in line.

This entire time he took the reluctant but burgeoning animator and slowly, carefully shaped her into the perfect tool. He broke through her barriers and made her cross many of her own moral lines. He became her lover, her master, her guide and her pimp. And he did it in the most brilliant way possible: he convinced her it was her own choice.

How I wish this was the real JC.

And that Requiem's statement was a prophetic glimpse into the future when he told her:

"I have lived with others more powerful than I in Belle Morte's line for centuries, Anita. I, more than most, know just how much you must fight every night of your existence not to be consumed by their power." He paused and then whispered so that it filled the darkened car, "If you are not careful, their beauty will become both heaven and hell, you will betray every oath, abandon every loyalty, give up your heart, your mind, your body, and your immortal soul to have them near you but one more night. Then one cold night, a hundred years after the passion is spent, and nothing but ashes remain, you look up and see someone gazing at you, and you know that look, you've seen it before. A hundred years later and someone gazes upon you as if you were heaven itself, but you know in your heart of hearts that it's not heaven you're offering them, it's hell."

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I love this JC theory so much. And yes, Req called it!

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

Lucille had me drooling. And I kind of started thinking of Rachel Evan Wood for some reason? As my head-canon for her. Maybe because Wood did such a good job playing sexy sadism in True Blood, I don't know. Yes, that's probably why. Mm...

But do post that up here! Yessss, preciousss.

The only way to improve Lucille is to have her own harem of women-for-sex/lovers/girlfriends/what-have-you be women of all body types. Just for the "WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY" from Anita who likes her men to be cardboard cut-out.

1. Maybe she's afraid that one of the men who she raped will be Haven? It's possible. Or something. I DON'T KNOW. Or maybe she raped the newly-living-again Noel? Is that possible? Would the ardeur kick-start his 'nads into working again? Poor kid.

2. Well, shit. So not only does this remove any self-will, the ardeur, but you can't even be faithful to your loved ones? Can you IMAGINE poor Lisandro having to go home to his wife? And explaining not only that he was forced to fuck Anita, but someone else gave him the scratches? Like. The instant, INSTANT, I saw Anita reaching out with power and feeding her shit into something, it would go down like this for me and whoever was important to me:

Me: Run
Friend/Lover/Whatever: What?
Me: *grabs them* RUN
F/L/W: WHAT WHY WHERE ARE WE GOI---
Me: DO YOU WANT TO FUCK EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM? NO? THEN LET'S GO BEFORE WE GET MINDRAPED AND DON'T HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE

Bam, problem solved. These poor, poor tigers/wolves/rats/hyenas/lions. Poor, poor boys/girls.


3. Oh, fuck you, JC, for apologizing. Why are you even doing that? Is it even "rape" now? Anita knew full-well what happens when she uses a shit-ton of power without access to something she can feed on. She didn't prepare a meal in advance for her "beast", or anything else to replenish her power-stores. This isn't the first fucking time that the ardeur lashes out and has a merry time collecting innocent victims for a good ol' orgy (honestly, LKH should've gone for something more based on the Greeks with Dionysis and his maenads with the whole sex and lust thing instead of the ardeur). The victims here are all the innocent bystanders who AREN'T aware of what happens to the depleted Doomcrotch, not the Doomcrotch. Fuck Anita. The only apology I'm accepting from JC is if he's apologizing for not FORCING Anita's ass to learn how to control the ardeur. Because fuck what she wants.

4. Is Anita thinking that these bitemark places are all directly over major arteries? Because, uh, LKH/Anita, dear, those are generally fairly deep under the skin. And not in sexy places--except the femoral artery and the carotid artery, and that's still a stretch. I don't see a bunch of sex-hungry vampires going for those major hot-spots because they'd really prefer their lovers--oh, I don't know, ALIVE? Not to mention at least two of the vampires are directly connected life-wise to Anita and Micah, so if they die, she dies. Pretty stupid if you ask me. Granted, when someone says "bites in sexy places" I don't really thing just the neck. There's the that whole muscle along the neck and shoulder, there's the breasts (granted I wouldn't really want puncture-wound bites, but if you're so lost in ardeur you have no control, well...), the entire inner thighs, the hips, ears. PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT EROGENOUS ZONES. Ugh.

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

5. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. THEY WOULD NEVER DO A VAMPIRE CIVIL WAR. THEY WOULD BE SO CONFUSED. EVERYONE WOULD WANT TO BE WEARING REDCOATS. SHUT UP I KNOW THAT'S THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR BUT IT STILL STANDS OKAY. THEY'D NEVER GET PAST THE "BUT THIS IS MORE OF A CHAMPAGNE RED AND THAT'S GARNET! I WANTED TO BE GARNET! FINE BUT ONLY IF I GET TO BE BURGUNDY! HEY, BUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH SCARLET? OR CRIMSON? RUBY? VERMILION? SHUT UP YOU FROG, WE CAN'T BE VERMILION! CORAL IS VERY EN VOGUE WITH THE HUMANS, WHAT ABOUT THIS? OR..." And if on the off chance they DID get past the color choosing for the sides and made the uniforms, or whatever, they'd never get any fighting done because "I DO SAY, GOOD CHAP, CAN YOU TELL WHAT SHADE OF RED HE'S WEARING?"

6. J-Jean-Claude? Be still my poor heart *clutches pearls and swoons* Where have you been all this time? You're so... scandalously delightful. Is this the JC that Asher fell in love with? No wonder. I can see it now. PLEASE NEVER LEAVE US AGAIN. PLEASE NEVER BECOME A WOOBIE FOR THE DOOM-CROTCH AGAIN. ... It makes me so sad that this plea is hopeless.

7. I hope lots of people are severely injured. Maybe horrendously and permanently scarred like Asher. Specifically Micah.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

I AM TAKING THAT HAREM IDEA UNDER CONSIDERATION! And hitting up a friend of mine for ladies I can borrow from her cast for it muahaha!

3. Yeah, I too am actually unsure if it was really all that unwilling on Anita's part as well.

4. Yeah, by sexy places I meant on her inner-thigh (which i typed as 'inner-tight' first pffhaha) and such...I don't remember whether her ~mounds of creamy goodness~ were marred or not though.

5. LOLLLL

6. OH MY GOD WASN'T IT WONDERFUL? ISN'T HE GREAT? I was practically dancing around the room at thisbit!

7. All up and down his perfect horse-size penis, yes, that would be good.

[mocha-latta.livejournal.com]

"Shouldn't the depth of her love for you keep you safe from the ardeur I thought love kept you safe."
Ohi Dresden Files canon! Let's get you out of here before you get hurt.

"Every time I think I've been abused, then I get another memory from your past and I realize that it could've been worse."
You know, this is a tactic that most abusers use; it's a false comparison. Gaslighting's a hell of a thing.

I put in my vote for the story. I know I'll get a kick out of it, and if anyone complains you can write a Dear negative Reader post to them. That is, if you weren't as classy as you are.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

you can write a Dear negative Reader post
That is next on the parody list!

And now I almost wonder if JC wasn't somehow faking those memories he sent for that exact purpose...

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

Anita says that "Sometimes you don't die at dawn when you and I are touching" ANITA: SO SEXY AND SPECIAL SHE KEEPS VAMPIRES ALIVE PAST DAYBREAK!

I wonder if someone mentioned Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books to LKH at some point because that really sounds like Alexia's ability to nullify vampire and therian powers can let them do such things like not change during the full moon and be out and about in broad daylight as long as there's skin to skin contact.

...Crap. Now I want Lord Akeldama to sashay in, manipulate everyone with his fabulousness and charm and take over in a cloud of lace handkerchiefs, expensive perfume, and glitter. All the while tut-tutting about how dreary the surroundings are. And how unfashionable the clothes. And how indiscreet the security arrangements are. AND HE WOULD CHANGE HIS TERMS OF ENDEARMENT AROUND AS OFTEN AS HE CHANGES HIS SOCKS.

Double crap. I really want that fic now.


Has she seriously gotten to the point where she can't imagine sex happening unless ardeur is the cause?

Yes. Because in LKH's mind Good Girls(tm) do not have sex because they want to or enjoy it and the ardont is the ultimate free pass for Anita to remain a Good Girl(tm) in her head and still have sex with all the long haired supernatural guys ever.


Given that they're both supposed to be the moral human hero ones (even if only Richard actually is to any degree) then I would think they'd at least TRY to find another option (like, hey, what about what Bibi suggested?) or something, but I can't be too bothered by it firstly because the plot has been delayed enough already, and secondly because they do understand what a big shit-flipping deal it is that the MOAD might take over America and thus don't want to waste any time looking for alternatives that might not even be there.

BECAUSE GOD FORBID THAT THEY DO SOMETHING THAT A WOMAN OTHER THAN ANITA SUGGESTS. I'm still not entirely convinced that MoaD taking over isn't better than JC with Anita as his attack dog.


Speaking of outwardly, I hope that there are big losses in terms of deaths and permanent injury for LOTS of important characters, both for realism and so that the political gain of becoming Rules of Vampire America will seem like a hollow victory to probably everyone but Jean-Claude.

And then I remember what series I'm reading and that one good moment does not bode improvement for the whole book. Sigh.

This. All of it. :(

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely convinced that MoaD taking over isn't better than JC with Anita as his attack dog.

Yeah, it's been stated that the MOAD now is really just concerned with her own dominance and survival, like an animal, even if in the past she had a human mind, goals, agendas, etc (such as puppeteering the Council).

JC? Has all kinds of agendas, and he'll use a mass rapist to achieve them.

[okami-no-yume.livejournal.com]

"I would not have my people serve the dark. We would serve the light."

BAHAHAHAHAHA Oh my God. This line. This line.

I just....I can't. I can't.

When I saw it, I thought of the motto for the order in Assassin's Creed. "We work in the darkness to serve the light." Now I'm picturing an awesome, efficient order of assassins in the Anitaverse, and one of them plotting to take her out so that her spell can be broken over her poor man harem. (As for assassins, the Harlequin don't fucking count, LKH!)

[the-mome-wrath.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there that organization of assassins or something that Edward used to work for before he went freelance? They were mentioned once in OB I think.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

The thing I'm getting from this chapter, aside from abject horror that it's no big deal that everyone just raped everyone whatever memory loss because JC has obviously had it worse than everyone else pfffffffft, is that it's only bad when other people do it. It's rape when MOAD/Morte d'Amour try to take over. It's necessary when JC does it. We have to cheer one to victory because no they totally mean well by doing horrible things.

I'm a fan of good people doing terrible things, but these...aren't good people. At least, Anita certainly isn't and JC is morally ambiguous at best. But I can't get past how it's like "yeah I have some reservations but let's do this thing anyway!" when they're setting out to do exactly what MOAD/Council would do anyway. I'm sure MOAD/Council can perfectly rationalise their actions too, but somehow they're evil and need to be stopped. But Anita & Co never face any consequences for doing the same things, never get criticised for it, and somehow wind up gaining more people going "no you're right, this is SO MUCH BETTER than the exact same thing but with people that aren't you."

And how do other readers actually support these actions and the decisions our heroine makes as totally okay/right. I just...this sporking is making me glad that I skipped Bullet because I would have burst a blood vessel or gone on a killing spree by now. HOW IS THIS REMOTELY OKAY, LKH. HOW.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I know, as happy as I was about OMG THIS TERRIBLE THING WAS ACKNOWLEDGED AS TERRIBLE it was still pretty clear that the reader was probably supposed to go with "well yeah it's terrible but it's okay, Anita is the one doing it! for good!" with only lip service given to 'an evil thing done for good is still evil' before agreeing to it without anything more than a moment's reservation. I'm still thrilled about the idea itself though, it's the best damn thing to come up in this novel yet.

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

Maybe the MOAD has super-secretly possessed Jean-Claude? AHA!

"he wasn't one of the guards that willingly fed me. Something about a wife." - And this right here is everything I hate about Anita in a nutshell. He doesn't feed her willingly, but he does feed her, so Anita straight up admits to abuse there. And the "something about a wife" line...Ugh. "Oh, what's his deal? He's married? FFS, what's with all this fucking marriage everywhere? Well, screw his wife. I need feeding. He won't feed me willingly, you say? Well, screw him. He's just my employee, after all."

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Ugh, yup.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

While he was...ill, shall we say...a small patch of Jabez's lovely gray fur turned a sort of ugly beige-brown that honestly reminds me old menstrual blood. I suppose it was from stress, can that happen?

I think something like that happened to a friend of mine's rat. But hers was a hand-me-down rat that was old, ill, and in danger of being fed to a snake or smushed because its original owner didn't want to deal with the rat's cyst/tumor/abscess-thingy. I don't remember if the hair grew back in the original color but I lean towards no. Of course, the rat only lived for a few months so who knows what a longer time span might produce?

the MOAD "had hunted me in my dreams"

So I've seen this in other series where X hunts Y in their dreams but in those other series, this was actually an excellent, tension-filled thing... possibly because it wasn't about the electrical circuitry in a house? There was, like, running and terror and whatnot.

including a female vampire (no name given) that works at Danse Macabre who, according to Anita (how does she knows this?) had earlier been in the "coffin room" getting ready to go to sleep for the day

Anita knows this because LKH knows this and the barbies characters do what LKH/Anita says that they're doing. *nods* But it's really piss-poor construction for her to just magically know this... and so many other things... especially since Anita is a dumbass and completely incapable of observing another's patterns.

Yeah, shit, you're responsible for the rape of this woman by making her driven to have sex when she didn't want to.

Anita's responsible for EVERYONE'S rape since NONE OF IT WOULD'VE HAPPENED IF SHE COULD'VE BEEN BOTHERED TO GET ANY OF HER SHIT UNDER CONTROL!! *flails with rage* No matter what Anita/LKH says, GINORMOUS MASSIVE RAPE PARTIES ARE NOT INEVITABLE OR ACCEPTABLE!!

And then she feels that the lower one is definitely male (hint: a penis is alluded to without ever being called a penis!) --> I HATE this pretension of coyness. Also, what is WITH people in this series grinding their dicks on Anita's shins/calves? Like, it's happened at least once a book since the were-leopards got introduced. That's one thing that you can say about JC. He's never humped Anita's shins or calves. The man's got standards.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Anita knows this because LKH knows this and the barbies characters do what LKH/Anita says that they're doing

Ah, yes, of course.

Anita's responsible for EVERYONE'S rape since NONE OF IT WOULD'VE HAPPENED IF SHE COULD'VE BEEN BOTHERED TO GET ANY OF HER SHIT UNDER CONTROL!

PRETTY MUCH. No one in the book has yet to bring this up at all of course.

Like, it's happened at least once a book since the were-leopards got introduced
She really seems to think all animals act like domestic dogs, right down to the leg-humping

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Maybe she thinks if they're men she's had sex but not if they're women.

This isn't an opinion that I personally share, but I don't think that she does think of sex between women as 'real sex' because vaginal penetration with a (real) dick isn't possible. In Cerulean Sins (Maybe? Whatever one comes after NiC.) Asher thinks he's had sex with Anita and JC and calls them his lovers. Anita contradicts him and tells him (and everyone in the room which means most of JC's upper-level minions and Belle's representatives) that it wasn't real sex because he didn't get his dick into her. Asher is (rightfully, in my opinion) humiliated and enraged by Anita's quibbling. JC treats it as a 'charming' quirk... and gets the representative to agree that grinding on someone until you/they orgasm is totally sex. Anita concedes that it might be 'European' sex... whatever the hell that is.

Interestingly, I discovered that a LOT of current/semi-former fans seem to share this bias. In that Buffy/AB crossover fic that I mentioned a few posts back (the one I wrote where AB = baby!Glory), I decided that Asher's penis was horribly scarred and as such was deformed, rendering him incapable of penis-in-vagina sex. (I hadn't read that whole Anita/JC/Asher scene, okay? I got disgusted and quit before the giant, sobbing epiphany that Asher's penis was perfectly, wonderfully smooth thanks to the efforts of a plastic surgeon and the removal of his foreskin. This is something that readers were quick to explain to me. It did nothing to change my story because I AM that jerk who likes to hear predictions but refuses to change their plot/story/prose to please readers... unless a reader asks about X and I realize that X is a plot hole.) But the long and short of it was, I got private messages from several people who were surprised/dismayed that Buffy and Asher weren't having 'real sex' because Buffy had been so satisfied with the sex that she *was* having. (It took her awhile to get Asher out of his trousers. Before that, they had a lot of half-dressed sex in which there was a lot of grinding/rubbing. Buffy wasn't entirely unaware of Asher's issues and Asher could tell himself that she had no idea what wasn't happening in his pants.) And several wink-wink-nudge-nudges that Buffy could fix *all* of Asher if she'd just get over her "unreasonable" fear of being bitten. (I figured that with that girl's history at the point where I spun off of canon, vampire bites were out.)

So it's not really an entirely outlandish/unique opinion. It's just an offensive opinion.

And hey, Anita, maybe Asher and Meng Die have been into each other all along, you wouldn't know! You said yourself you've neglected him, and you never bother to check what Meng Die's up to I'm sure.

Actually, I think Meng Die tried to disembowl Asher once. She didn't succeeded but I'm fairly certain that she messed up his face & chest at least temporarily. (Anita did not find the damage to Asher's face/chest sexy so Asher got no cuddles or care or consolation sex. I think he got yelled at for being late to something of Anita's because he was busy trying not to be murdered.) I remember it because it seemed to be threaded in around the London bits.... and I read the London bits.

Anyway, Meng Die had a lover (Requim) and a favorite snack-pack (Some hot werewolf who wouldn't bang Anita). And Anita found it sooooo completely selfish and unreasonable of Meng Die to have two men all to herself. Anita took Meng Die's lover and snack-pack away, possibly against the latter's will. I'm unclear on that part. Anyway, Meng Die decides that she's just going to have to kill some of Anita's harem. It'll punish Anita and, if she managed to kill enough of them before JC caught up to her, force JC to import some new men that don't belong to Anita.

Sadly, Asher intervened in Meng Die's quest. He subdued her rather than trying to murder her back (presumably because she was JC's get) and locked her in a coffin... and JC let her out.

Yeah, he's cool with Anita banging everything that moves, JC is.

But they could've made up since then, I suppose. Although Meng Die seemed to have an aversion to having Anita's sloppy seconds... so it could go either way, I suppose.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

....the "no penis penetration = no sex" thing...wow, just wow. I knew of this opinion, of course, but I didn't know it was in the AB series. I guess I can't be too surprised, given everything is ultimately about peens and them going into Anita's vagina. The "European" sex...now that one is new, and I have a hunch it's one of those bizarre LKH-isms that only she believes.

Also, hey, link me the Anita-is-Glory fic? I'd love to read it.

And Anita found it sooooo completely selfish and unreasonable of Meng Die to have two men all to herself.
LAUGHING SO HARD

yeah, they made up OVER HATRED OF ANITA'S HYPOCRISY

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

"he wasn't one of the guards that willingly fed me. Something about a wife."

The opposite of willing is UNwilling... which is rape... so Anita's relieved that he was gang-raped and those other gang-rapists were the ones who marked him up?

She also refers to herself as being Lisandro's "boss". Ugggh.

Yeah, people get fired and go to PRISON for shit like that.

"Wereanimals are like people; they just wake up."

This is so ridiculously stupid and obvious and a waste of space. Aside from the vampires, who DOESN'T wake up when they wantto or due to outside stimuli? Additionally, for all your NOZ THEY'RE PEOPLE TO MEEEEE they aren't any more people to you than JC or Asher are. (And JC himself called Anita on that in one of the earliest books. He says something to the effect that while she prides herself on her open-mindedness, Anita actually thinks less of him than his more honest detractors. Anita protests and then realizes that he's right about her. She thinks of him as a thing. JC certainly knew what he was picking up.)

JC is sitting naked in one of the chairs

Interestingly, he's the only person NOT in the gang-rape pile. And it's canon that he has near flawless self-control. So an argument can be made that HE wasn't involved at all... except for the making out with Richard, the feeding on the chaos, and the NOT STOPPING IT. Honestly, I'm not sure if his disassociation from the ginormous gang-rape makes him more than or equally culpable to Anita since they both deliberate in their actions but only one of them is honest with himself.

Anita, with as much as you bite and claw guys during sex, has it never occurred to you that other people, including vampires, might do the same? OF COURSE NOT! SHE'S THE SPECULFUL ONE, DAMMIT!

We should be so lucky. Again, I must point out to Anita that she's assuming that these vampires bit her with the intent of sucking blood to feed, rather than just biting during sex as a sex thing like she herself does and not doing any more than that.

Anita's an idiot, especially since ASHER TELLS HER that vampires bite during sex. They enjoy that and using their secret vampire powers during sex. (And then he gives JC hell for letting Anita make him act like a pseudo-human and completely miserable. JC doesn't refute these accusations or say that Anita makes him happy even some of the time.)

JC helps her to her feet and they up and kiss and he says he's sorry

I HOPE HE APOLOGIZES TO EVERYONE ELSE IN THAT ROOM TOO. IT WON'T MAKE IT BETTER BUT IT WILL AT LEAST ACKNOWLEDGE THE SITUATION FOR WHAT IT IS.

Anita asks how she can be alive after so many vampire bites. Instead of saying what I did, though, JC tells her that the aredeur somehow kept her alive, as well as the wereanimals who also have loads of bites

Listen, Asher's already explained it to her at least once or twice. Clearly that didn't make an impression on her. JC has no choice but to go to his fallback position, which is codenamed: YOU ARE A THE SPECULEST SNOWFLAKE EVER, ANITA. It's part of his Anita-management strategy.

"the ardeur is about life."

I thought Belle used it to murder, torture, and manipulate people? Or is that head-canon?

"that we would not feed on death; we fed on life, on love" ... "I would not have my people serve the dark. We would serve the light." <--Well JC has always known what Anita needed to hear to be pushed in the 'right' direction. I maintain that, if she REALLY hadn't wanted him to be an obsessive, stalkerly, dub-con-having asshat, she would've called the police on him or gotten a restraining order than gone out with him. Or, y'know, just murdered him the way she's ALWAYS murdered people who make her uncomfortable or get in her way. But there's really no way that JC thinks the light is a good thing. LKH's probably forgotten it but it's canon in teh early books that JC is afraid of the dawn.

Lisandro was forced to break vows to his wife (anyone thinking of Joseph here?) that he previously respected I AM!

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

The opposite of willing is UNwilling... which is rape...
So either Anita/LKH knows this and just doesn't care...or LKH genuinely does not get this concept. I'm not sure which is scarier.

Interestingly, he's the only person NOT in the gang-rape pile. And it's canon that he has near flawless self-control...
Ooh....

ASHER TELLS HER that vampires bite during sex.
*facepalm* Oh Anita. Oh LKH. GET BETTER STICKY NOTES!

JC has no choice but to go to his fallback position, which is codenamed: YOU ARE A THE SPECULEST SNOWFLAKE EVER, ANITA. It's part of his Anita-management strategy.
That is honestly exactly what he does, yes

I HOPE HE APOLOGIZES TO EVERYONE ELSE IN THAT ROOM TOO
Nah, they're not important to his little schemes to the degree Anita is, who cares about them!

I thought Belle used it to murder, torture, and manipulate people? Or is that head-canon?
I'm not 100% sure but I think it is indeed canon.

I maintain that, if she REALLY hadn't wanted him to be an obsessive, stalkerly, dub-con-having asshat, she would've called the police on him or gotten a restraining order than gone out with him. Or, y'know, just murdered him the way she's ALWAYS murdered people who make her uncomfortable or get in her way.

It made me uncomfortable to agree with this initially, because it seems like one of those "it's the woman's fault for not protecting herself!" versus the man's fault for being an ass, but then I remembered this isn't real life, this was something written by an author, specifically one with some very screwed up views on such things, and that actually does make sense.

[glimmerfox.livejournal.com]

I hate hate HATE the whole "you werent abused enough" talk. I never post here but i lurk constantly, so i hope you guys dont mind me sharing. I was raped a few years ago and was told thing very similar to that due to the fact that the rape itself only lasted about one to two minutes at the most. I had several people say thing along the lines that it wasnt "real rape" since it was over such a small time. When i tell them that half the time was anal rape, some of then change their tune, some dont. Alot of them said that i only screamed rape when he tried anal on me. I still have lots of psychological scars and issues to work with and i thank my lucky stars that it wasnt worse, but it in no way negates my abuse.

[mocha-latta.livejournal.com]

"Alot of them said that i only screamed rape when he tried anal on me"
So you "only screamed rape" when he did something sexual without your permission? That's wonderful logic, there.
I hope I'm not crossing any boundaries here by saying the above. It's just... god, those people are so STUPID.
I'm so thankful that you shared this, though. Because it's not something shameful for the victim to talk about, and you just helped prove that.
I think I'm coming across patronizing here, but as a victim myself I'm just glad that you're willing to share.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

He may be less super-duper-sadistic than most, but that doesn't make him good. --> This is a moral concept that seems to elude most UF writers. I really don't know why...

Also, he specifies that he thought all this in French. Because I guess it's unusual for people to think in their native language. --> It's for Anita's benefit. She's an idiot and needs to be entertained at all moments, especially when JC is gauging where to go next with his little speech. Fortunately, she's easily entertained.

he doesn't think that he died at dawn. Anita says that "Sometimes you don't die at dawn when you and I are touching" ANITA: SO SEXY AND SPECIAL SHE KEEPS VAMPIRES ALIVE PAST DAYBREAK! RET-CON! RET-CON ALERT!

I vaguely remember something on Lashouts about Damien getting to stay awake during the daylight and not become a crispy critter in direct sunlight after Anita forms her triumverate with him and Nathaniel. And JC was SUPER jealous, which I remember because I thought it was a surprisingly nice and consistent piece of characterization. Alas, it seems to have been dropped.

Claudia for a guy. --> Poor Claudia. I feel like this is a swipe at her and her general attractiveness.

JC doing Anita from behind while Anita goes down on Noel --> Normally, I try not to read too much into this series' sexual positions because nothing means anything or reveals anything but EVERYONE seems to be doing Anita from behind. I feel like that doesn't say a lot about them wanting to do HER. I suppose this negates my previous thing about JC sitting out the rape-fest... unless it's a false memory! YES!

Richard is upset because he's remembered the make-out too and thinks he and JC had sex.... [Anita] tells him that she doesn't think that he and JC had sex. JC tells him that they didn't. But JC, didn't you just say you yourself don't remember?

I actually think it's a continuity issue but, pretending for a moment that it was on purpose... Clearly JC is lying and he DOES remember what happened but it's apparently more politic to pretend otherwise. Maybe it'll make him less culpable in Anita's eyes? Or less conniving. Either way, the only person that he definitely sexed up was the one person that he knew to be generally receptive to his advances.

Richard says he saw it in the memory, but JC says "You saw a kiss and a little petting, but it was Gretchen who touched you and pulled you away." Really, Richard, it was a nasty GIRL who raped you, not me! Even though you say you remember it and I say I don't remember a thing...

I'm actually willing to believe JC on this one, since he's previously gone to a lot of trouble not to go near much less strain Richard's sexual limits. This does not, however, mean that Richard didn't have sex with another man and blur/blend the two memories together. (In the hands of a really good writer, that could actually make for some delicious inner-triumverate tension.)

As for Gretchen... I don't think that she's actually this nasty girl who gets in the way of m/m sexy rape times, even if that's the authorial intent/narrative. Admittedly, it's been most of the series since we last saw her but I remember that she only acted in what she perceived to be JC's best interests. It's not her fault that she couldn't see his endgame with Anita, especially since her initial assessment of Anita seems to have proven more or less accurate. If Gretchen was aware that JC was being careful of Richard, she would've bitten the bullet and helped JC out even if it meant getting caught in his stupid sex-magic. Because any way you cut it, it's in JC's best interests to be on good terms with the third leg of his triumverate.

...Plus, as I mentioned above with regards to the f/f rape issue, there's that offensive belief that it doesn't count as raping someone if your dick doesn't penetrate them. I LITERALLY once heard a girl tell a boy that "you can't rape a willie." This is obviously untrue, of course, but it seems to be the general tenor of this series.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Poor Claudia. I feel like this is a swipe at her and her general attractiveness.
Pretty sure it was too, yup.

Gretchen ftw, yo! Go hang with Melanie, girl, she'll understand you.

"you can't rape a willie."
....ugh. Disgusted but also not surprised by that either.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

"Obsession is not love, Richard; it is a type of possessing." --> Well, at least JC knows that the way he 'courted' Anita was neither romantic nor the foundation for an actual relationship. I like a man who's honest with himself (if no one else)... and then goes about getting what he wants via the methods best suited to his purposes.

Anita: "If love makes us proof against it, then..." She has a glimmer of realization, finds it too horrible to contemplate, and then happily grabs onto JC's line of bullshit with both hands, her eyes wide shut.

Richard tells Jean-Claude that "Every time I think I've been abused, then I get another memory from your past and I realize that it could've been worse."

I get that this is supposed to be some sort of Put It Into Perspective moment but, well, this isn't like telling someone in a full body cast telling someone with a sprained ankle to stop bitching. And, while I actually HAVE heard this line of "reasoning" used between abuse victims in real life, the people using it were children and teenagers. They were all young, immature, and savagely unhappy. They all needed therapy and some kindness, although in a couple of cases they honestly wouldn't have known what to do with it.

After a certain point, though, people are supposed to develop both empathy and a modicum of common sense. That's about the time that they're supposed to realize it's ALL bad and it's ALL sad and NONE of it should've happened to anyone. Weirdly, though, I've seen this "logic" show up twice recently in mainstream media so it seems to be on the collective unconscious' mind.

But, all of that aside, it's pretty much par for the course for someone to mention JC's past abuse. People have been dredging that up for him since about book 4. Honestly, I'm super impressed with JC for politely discussing it with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants to bring it up, especially since most of them are his past or present abusers. Plus, until recently, everyone and their cousin called him 'catamite' which was both an incorrect use of the word and supposed to be a 'classier' way of calling him a 'whore', I think.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Well, at least JC knows that the way he 'courted' Anita was neither romantic nor the foundation for an actual relationship. I like a man who's honest with himself (if no one else)... and then goes about getting what he wants via the methods best suited to his purposes.

He really is a great character if LKH would quit trying to pass him off as something he's not (good guy, good leader, good lover, etc.)

They were all young, immature, and savagely unhappy.
So like how Anita acts she is. Though she doesn't so much need therapy as being shut away from society at this point, for OUR own good.

Plus, until recently, everyone and their cousin called him 'catamite' which was both an incorrect use of the word and supposed to be a 'classier' way of calling him a 'whore', I think.

Really? Wow. I don't remember that, but I read the pre-SK-till-NiC books in high school and I didn't know what that word meant so I definitely would have forgotten it.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Because being a whipping boy, Belle Morte's pet, and whored out by Nikolaos for political gain (she gave him to Narcissus at one point, right?) somehow wasn't enough,

Oh no, no, no, that's only the tip of the iceberg. There was also his soliloquy about the pedophilia between adults and children in engagements/marriages from the Middle Ages during Bloody Bones. (Which, really, was more of a case of LKH NOT DOING THE DAMN RESEARCH but in a continuity sense, I've decided to place under JC pasting his own experiences on to everyone else and presenting them as a general fact.) In The Killing Dance, The Traveler and his human servant talk about how much they enjoyed having sex when the Traveler was wearing JC's body and make ominous references to how he was passed around the Council during that hundred years he served Belle in exchange for Asher's healthcare. (Asher has this whole rant about how JC turned him away from his bed for being ugly and JC says that Asher's anger and grief was like a wall between them but a BETTER explanation would've been that during that period of his life JC just wasn't up to having sex with anyone during his downtime. But, of course, LKH seems to have trouble imagining someone with no sex drive, much less someone whose sex drive has dried up.) There are some ominous references about how when he was first turned, the master who owned his maker tormented JC, took advantage of his condition, and made him do 'unspeakable' things to get fed.

I'm sure there were other things that I don't remember or that were in books that I didn't read but the point is, JC is Really Fucked Up. If a scene needs to be padded or LKH has no idea how to get from A to B, you can bet that JC's abuse is going to be the bridge.

In the hands of a better author, it would make sense that JC's grown up to become a diabolical chessmaster who has molded Anita into the monstrous thing that she's become because he'll do ANYTHING, BE anything, ENDURE anything to get to the top of the heap. (Where, presumably, people can't hurt him any more. And it'd be a lovely bit of irony if it still hurt him in some way.) And he's clear-eyed enough to acknowledge that he lacks the physical/magical power necessary to stay at the top of a relatively small heap like St. Louis, much less conquer a bigger one like the entire U.S. or the Vampire Council.

There is, of course, a group hug, which is as far as any attempts at healing or getting past this will go for Jean-Claude, short of maybe being packed off to off-screen therapy. <-- This is more emotional support and consideration than most characters get in this series.

And then Anita decides she's not bothered by whatever is drying in JC's hair because "nothing we'd done was as terrible as what he'd been through." Yes, it's not at all a flawed comparison to weigh drying spunk against horrific physical, emotional, mental, and magical abuse. (I use magical here to cover all the weird stuff... like body-theft and rotting during sex.)

Richard, do you know what Anita did to Nicky? DO YOU? <-- I don't think that he does. He's not around very much. He probably thinks that Nicky is Nathaniel Version 2.0 by choice. He's remarkably blind when he can't stand seeing the things around him.

Didn't the Council still have authority in America anyway? And it's not like the New World vampires we've so far met are particularly better in any way.

You know that, I know that, JC knows that... Richard, who has probably had very little to do with non-JC affiliated and non-Council emissary vamps, probably doesn't know that. And, for the most part, he stays clear of JC's vamp politics. This is another case where someone is trusting JC when they REALLY shouldn't and JC takes full advantage of their trust and ignorance. JC would be a BRILLIANT character if LKH didn't hamstring and de-ball him every other page. (And yet, he keeps valiantly growing it all back...)

He'd have made us kill each other and fed on every death. <-- I'd read that book.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

...yeah, that all brings me back to my point about how LKH piles tragedy and sexual abuse on her characters to the point where it's actually comical in its absurdity than anything else, especially since it just tends to be brought up for brief drama and then ignored until needed again. Or if a group hug is required.

Good point, Richard at least can plead ignorance. Not so much Anita.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Richard asks if JC wants to protect the entire USA from the Vampire Council, and JC says yes. <----- Protect it, rule it with an iron fist, is there really any difference? (Possibly not to a man who was born in the middle ages and raised by the nobility, actually. I'm not saying that all of the nobility was like that... but not all of them were nice guys, either.)

Jean-Claude with all his fancy fetish yummy clothes, standing there nude and covered in more body fluids than a CSI episode. <--- This sentence confuses me and makes my head hurt. Also, if by 'fancy fetish gear' you mean 'tacky as hell fetish gear' then I am one step closer to decoding the meaning behind this inscrutable transmission.

"but we'd already chased out three of them, plus the remnant of the Darkness." No. No you did not.

Listen, the other thing is both more accurate and truthful, however, it doesn't sound very badass does it to say that the Council members got bored and/or hungry and left to find their own eats, now does it? JC, who is aware of this, puts a more Anita-positive spin on things.

"we make love, not war?" and he nods.

for whatever reason, this line reminds me of Cartman from South Park's deep, irrational loathing for hippies. Perhaps it's simply because I would love to hear his thoughts on this battle plan?

Richard says JC is "talking about setting up a Council here in America with you as the head" and JC nods.

Three hilarious points.

1 - In Burnt Offerings, the Council accuses JC of this. He denies it by saying that he is too young, too weak, and too cowardly. It seems that they know him better than Anita thought that they did.
2 - I LOVE the way that JC frames this as "I'm just doing this to help EVERYONE! Because I CARE! Now, where'd I put my crown? What? This old thing? I've had it for centuries. I definitely didn't commission anyone to make it for me last month." Ahhhhh, JC, if only you'd found your way into a better series.
3 - JC's argument about the abridgement of autonomy to 'save everyone' and that he's doing evil for good purposes actually bears a rough resemblance to similar speeches that were made in real life. Richard and Anita, although not there for the speeches, should be at least semi-cognoscente of this. They aren't, of course. So, of course, they TRUST JC and throw themselves headlong into this stupid plan rather than even considering other options, including Bibi's idea. The road to hell really IS paved with good intentions... and I bet JC knows that for a fact.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Protect it, rule it with an iron fist, is there really any difference? (Possibly not to a man who was born in the middle ages and raised by the nobility, actually.

Pretty good point there! Anita talks about JC having adapted so well to the modern era, but when she says that she actually only brings up technology, and learning to use new toys is a far cry from readjusting deeply-ingrained societal attitudes.

Perhaps it's simply because I would love to hear his thoughts on this battle plan?
HAHAHA YES. YES, ME TOO!

On #3, it would be so terrific if this spiraled out of control and bit them on the ass. Though of course I doubt that will happen...

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Okay, trying not to go off capslock deep-end here, but...I hate, hate, HATE the idea that there is some hierarchy of abuse and trauma, that you're only allowed to be traumatized so much by something, etc.

Gah, yes. Tell me about it. I've got a laundry list of traumas going all the way back to childhood, and all sorts of dysfunctions resulting from them. But no, those are just "hurt feelings" and not worth discussing, because I was never (seriously) physically hurt, and I should be ashamed, ashamed of even thinking they're worth dwelling on when others have it so much worse. So not only am I damaged, I need to feel guilty about being damaged, too.

So yeah, fuck that shit.