BULLET, CH. 29
May. 14th, 2013 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratThank you all for the well-wishes! Jabez has made it through another night and I am very hopeful at this point concerning his survival. He's still not 100% back to normal yet, but he's improving! I wish I could say the same for...
BULLET, CH. 29
JC is leaning over Anita and asks what she's done. I'd like to say she probably distracted Richard from the snipers by being in his head. He looks into her eyes, knows immediately what's happened, and shuts the link between her and Richard down. "He left Richard bleeding and alone." Anita gasps in protests that they'll kill Richard and grabs at JC's doubtlessly ridiculous shirt, and JC says that "If he dies, I can keep us from dying with him, but if I open the link between us all to feed him enough energy to heal in time, if it does not work, one or both of us will die with him." Anita begs him to let her try and says he can pull her back again if it doesn't work.
Ooh, I like this. Because this is a really tough spot, one where I'm on the side of BOTH characters! Jean-Claude, sensible and cutting losses. Anita, ready to risk everything for someone she loves (if, you know, she actually loved him, but...).
JC points out that they don't have the energy to help Richard heal anyway, and that giving Richard energy from her other triumvirate could kill Nathaniel and Damian. Ooh, I like this even more! Someone close to Anita may very well die! And even if she does find out a way to get the energy, will she be in time? And at what cost?
And then I remember what novel I'm reading and who it's by.
Then Shang-Da comes up and, "kneeling all that long, dangerous body down next to us", tells them that he and Jamil are sworn to protect their Ulfric with their lives, and that they will give those to save him. Jamil agrees. Then Anita says "This isn't time for sex."
HAHAHAHA SHE'S JOKING RIGHT? RIGHT? ANITA NOT HAVING TIME FOR SEX, LOL, THAT'S A GOOD ONE!
Nope. A commenter told me that at some point in this book, there would be a time when sex would be required and the only men around would be these two, and warned me that something awful would happen in order for Anita to get out of having sex with (gasp) a couple of non-white guys who, unlike Rafale, aren't even therian kings!
Jamil reminds her of what she did to Chimera and the power it gave her, and tells her to do that. Anita thinks about how she sure wishes she had time "to look into his handsome face, admire the cornrowed hair and all that he offered" yeah right. If LKH sincerely thought Jamil and Shang-Da were hot, Anita would have gotten in their pants long ago. Also, for those who don't recall what it was she did to Chimera, she literally sucked the life out of him and left his corpse a mummy. That's what she's preparing to do to these two men in order to save the life of someone, and she's thinking about how attractive they are? That doesn't make a lot of sense. That should be the LAST thing on her mind. She says there's no time to "worry over morals" but maybe there would be if you hadn't been thinking about that instead!
She touches Jamil and describes the process as being the reverse of when she puts energy into zombies to raise them. The word "spilled" is used. Jamil says it hurts, and his skin begins to wrinkle but he lets her keep going. His skin collapses around his bones as she takes life from him and "fed on the very essence of what made his body and move and function" and she realizes she'd been "afraid to remember how good it felt. Afraid that if I remembered, I'd crave it." Oh look, yet another one of these. By 'these' I mean lines like her being afraid of her beasts killing people or afraid of the temptation to command an army of the dead, etc. All these things that the reader is supposed to think Anita is in danger of, but that she will never truly struggle against or even have a chance of succumbing to. Also, one would be enough to use effectively, thank you, not that Hamilton does.
The power from Jamil goes into Anita and then into JC. The word "spilled" makes a second appearance. JC re-opens the link and Anita feels herself as Richard "back in the truck with my upper body not working" and hearing men, at least two, coming. JC helps her feed the power into Richard. Richard coughs blood and so does Anita "spilling it around Jamil's withered skin" just to add insult to injury and make this the third use of spill in the chapter so far and the second on this page alone. Richard is now able to get out of the truck and start crawling away, able to use both arms now. "I realized I was afraid to take all I could from Jamil." Wait, you mean you weren't before? "I knew how to put it back, theoretically, but I'd never done it." Well, yeah, that's understandable, this isn't the sort of thing you practice on people. Even doing it on the chickens you use for sacrifice seems pretty cruel.
Shang-Da touches Anita now and she does the same to him, and then Richard is able to get on his feet. "If he could get far enough away he could shapeshift and heal the rest of the damage" but there are going to be "moments during the shift where he would be helpless, and we couldn't afford that." Well, it's that or wandering around wounded and human in the woods with armed hunters coming after him, Anita. You've done all you can do.
While I think it's pretty disgusting on LKH's part that she'd rather the literal life-essence of two men of color be drained from them versus them having sex with her Mary Sue, which you KNOW would have been the case if they'd been a pair of white dudes, I think that Anita herself has actually behaved pretty well in this chapter so far. She wanted to save Richard, but she didn't drag anyone else into it and risk their lives without their agreement, as would have been the case with Nathaniel and Damian if she'd used the energy of their triumvirate (of course, that also means LKH gets to avoid risking the lives of the sweeties vs Jamil and Shang-Da). Instead, Jamil and Shang-Da volunteered themselves for this, and specifically told her to do specifically this to save Richard. It was fully with their consent and knowledge of what that entailed, which makes all the difference than if she'd just done her usual shit of reaching out and taking the energy of anyone she wants to. It also means that Jamil and Shang-Da got to be heroes, which is especially surprising given that neither of them likes Anita at all, and people who dislike Anita are usually not portrayed nicely at all in this series.
But then Anita turns around and makes me facepalm all over again in this next bit, totally negating everything good I just said about her with her SHEER STUPIDITY.
"The power needed to go somewhere, and I found Nathaniel still in his bed, still cuddled with Stephen, and I poured the energy into him." YOU COULDN'T AT LEAST FUCKING TRY TO PUT IT BACK INTO JAMIL AND SHANG-DA?
YOU COULDN'T FUCKING TRY?
IF YOU CAN PUT IT INTO NATHANIEL AND RICHARD, YOU CAN PUT IT INTO THE TWO GUYS YOU TOOK IT FROM, HOW IS IT ANY DIFFERENT?
GJKJSERKKGKKSGKKRGKJRJGJ
She then proceeds to use it to heal not only Nathaniel but also Rosamond, Kelly, and Claudia, causing them all to shift, and only THEN does she go and put it into Richard some more, enough for him to shift.
What. The. Fuck. All of those others were going to heal just fine on their own, all they needed was a little time. Richard likely could have shifted on his own, but if you really wanted to ensure his survival, then yeah, giving him a little extra boost to shift super-fast was a good idea. But then in that case she should have done Richard FIRST because you don't want the sacrifice of Jamil and Shang-Da to end up being for nothing, and then give it back to Jamil and Shang-Da, and then if there was anything left let the others have it. Seriously, what the fuck. This is ALL about Richard's survival. That's what Jamil and Shang-Da gave you their energy for. They did NOT give up their life force for you to speed up the already-stable healing process for your non-lethally-injured bed toy and lackeys!
THEY. ARE. DYING. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? DOES THAT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU? ARE THEIR LIVES REALLY WORTH GETTING PO' WIDDLE NATHANIEL ALL PATCHED UP A FEW HOURS EARLY?
AND IF NOT THEIR LIVES, WHAT ABOUT RICHARD'S? WHAT IF YOU HAD NO ENERGY LEFT TO SPEED UP HIS SHIFT BECAUSE YOU GAVE IT TO YOUR LAP DOGS FIRST? HE COULD WIND UP DEAD ALONG WITH HIS HATI AND SKOLL!
YOU THOUGHTLESS SELFISH STUPID ARGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!
And then JC holds her and starts rocking her and calling her "ma petite" as if she didn't make the most evil move I've fucking seen from her so far in this book while Jamil and Shang-Da are "like mummies, shriveled and dead, corpses dessicated in some dry desert, but they weren't dead. Jamil was making a high keening noise."
Even if it turns out she has enough energy to put this right, it is still fucking sick that she didn't fix them FIRST instead of the others, since what if she didn't have enough leftover for them, huh? Apparently these two are only worth saving with the dregs of her energy if everyone else, including two lionesses who literally just got here and that she barely knows, have had all their minor (comparatively) boos-boos and scratches fixed up. Shows where Shang-Da and Jamil fall on the priority totem pole, doesn't it? I'd also like to point out that they've been effectively FORCED to sacrifice their life force (since they only consented to it for Richard, not the others) for a bunch of white people that didn't even need it because Anita decided so. Connotations, LKH, this has them, and bad ones.
Nicky is shocked that they aren't dead, and is pressing himself against the wall away from Anita "as if he weren't sure he wanted to be near me right that moment." Well, yeah, touching you just sucked the life out of two guys! "Maybe there were things terrible enough that even my hold on him couldn't make him see it as all right." But everything else he'll keep kissing your ass on like everyone does.
Anita goes towards Jamil. JC says that even though "you gained a great deal of power, but we cannot afford to lose more vitality, or you will kill one of us." See? She fucking WASTED the energy by putting it into all these people who didn't need it, now Jamil and Shang-Da are screwed! Anita tells JC that there's power in raising the dead (but they're not dead, stupid!) tells us how she got this power from the vampire Obsidian Butterfly, who was pretty badass by the way. She leans over Jamil and even though "his eyes were dried and blind" he still "screamed, high and buzzy" probably because "he smelled that it was me, and he was scared of me now."
Anita prays that she "could give this back and gain energy through it." Again, I don't see how it is that giving it back to Jamil and Shang-Da is harder than just giving it to random people. Maybe if she explained it, but as it is it just makes no sense and is pissing me off. She touches Jamil, calls on her necromancy, and his skin starts "filling back out, blooming into the strong, muscled, handsome man I'd known." But not handsome enough for your author to ever allow you to bone despite the fact this kind of situation is the exactly the sort that would spark an orgy with you and any white supernatural dudes. As soon as Jamil can move, he scrambles away from her and "held his hands out in front of him as if to ward me off." Hold out a picture of a naked blonde skinny woman, Jamil! I bet it'll be like a cross to a vampire!
"I should have felt bad that he was that afraid of me, but the energy felt too good to be bad." What you should feel bad for is not giving their energy back ASAP after helping Richard and squandering it on people who didn't need the help. She then revives Shang-Da as well, who looks at her in panic and says "Your eyes, they're black and full of stars."
BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT ANITA'S EYES ONCE PER BOOK, I FUCKING SWEAR
"They weren't my eyes. They were Obsidian Butterfly's eyes." Don't all vampire eyes look like that when they use their powers? "All power comes with a price." She doesn't need to drink blood or anything in the next few chapters (I read ahead) so it turns out that she means the price is that her eyes look like this for awhile. Yeah, what a great sacrifice that is *eye roll*. "I turned to Jean-Claude and found his eyes filled with a night sky that had spilled over South America" nooo, not the spill! "when the conquistadors had conquered the New World." How does that look any different from any other night? I don't mind purple prose, sometimes it's even a better choice than precise prose, but only when it makes sense and is used effectively. She can feel Richard's wolf and knows his eyes are "night-sky black" too. This might actually be cool if the eyes fucking MEANT anything but it's seriously just a temporary cosmetic thing. So they all get fucking black eyes for awhile because Anita used OB's power, whoop dee do, it's not a fucking cost, it's not dark, it doesn't need this much dramatic air attached to it.
And then Damian comes in and his eyes are as well...and, more interestingly, he's "wiping the blood of a fresh feeding from his mouth." Good, I hope he ate Nathaniel and he and Anita are both about to die from it.
BULLET, CH. 29
JC is leaning over Anita and asks what she's done. I'd like to say she probably distracted Richard from the snipers by being in his head. He looks into her eyes, knows immediately what's happened, and shuts the link between her and Richard down. "He left Richard bleeding and alone." Anita gasps in protests that they'll kill Richard and grabs at JC's doubtlessly ridiculous shirt, and JC says that "If he dies, I can keep us from dying with him, but if I open the link between us all to feed him enough energy to heal in time, if it does not work, one or both of us will die with him." Anita begs him to let her try and says he can pull her back again if it doesn't work.
Ooh, I like this. Because this is a really tough spot, one where I'm on the side of BOTH characters! Jean-Claude, sensible and cutting losses. Anita, ready to risk everything for someone she loves (if, you know, she actually loved him, but...).
JC points out that they don't have the energy to help Richard heal anyway, and that giving Richard energy from her other triumvirate could kill Nathaniel and Damian. Ooh, I like this even more! Someone close to Anita may very well die! And even if she does find out a way to get the energy, will she be in time? And at what cost?
And then I remember what novel I'm reading and who it's by.
Then Shang-Da comes up and, "kneeling all that long, dangerous body down next to us", tells them that he and Jamil are sworn to protect their Ulfric with their lives, and that they will give those to save him. Jamil agrees. Then Anita says "This isn't time for sex."
HAHAHAHA SHE'S JOKING RIGHT? RIGHT? ANITA NOT HAVING TIME FOR SEX, LOL, THAT'S A GOOD ONE!
Nope. A commenter told me that at some point in this book, there would be a time when sex would be required and the only men around would be these two, and warned me that something awful would happen in order for Anita to get out of having sex with (gasp) a couple of non-white guys who, unlike Rafale, aren't even therian kings!
Jamil reminds her of what she did to Chimera and the power it gave her, and tells her to do that. Anita thinks about how she sure wishes she had time "to look into his handsome face, admire the cornrowed hair and all that he offered" yeah right. If LKH sincerely thought Jamil and Shang-Da were hot, Anita would have gotten in their pants long ago. Also, for those who don't recall what it was she did to Chimera, she literally sucked the life out of him and left his corpse a mummy. That's what she's preparing to do to these two men in order to save the life of someone, and she's thinking about how attractive they are? That doesn't make a lot of sense. That should be the LAST thing on her mind. She says there's no time to "worry over morals" but maybe there would be if you hadn't been thinking about that instead!
She touches Jamil and describes the process as being the reverse of when she puts energy into zombies to raise them. The word "spilled" is used. Jamil says it hurts, and his skin begins to wrinkle but he lets her keep going. His skin collapses around his bones as she takes life from him and "fed on the very essence of what made his body and move and function" and she realizes she'd been "afraid to remember how good it felt. Afraid that if I remembered, I'd crave it." Oh look, yet another one of these. By 'these' I mean lines like her being afraid of her beasts killing people or afraid of the temptation to command an army of the dead, etc. All these things that the reader is supposed to think Anita is in danger of, but that she will never truly struggle against or even have a chance of succumbing to. Also, one would be enough to use effectively, thank you, not that Hamilton does.
The power from Jamil goes into Anita and then into JC. The word "spilled" makes a second appearance. JC re-opens the link and Anita feels herself as Richard "back in the truck with my upper body not working" and hearing men, at least two, coming. JC helps her feed the power into Richard. Richard coughs blood and so does Anita "spilling it around Jamil's withered skin" just to add insult to injury and make this the third use of spill in the chapter so far and the second on this page alone. Richard is now able to get out of the truck and start crawling away, able to use both arms now. "I realized I was afraid to take all I could from Jamil." Wait, you mean you weren't before? "I knew how to put it back, theoretically, but I'd never done it." Well, yeah, that's understandable, this isn't the sort of thing you practice on people. Even doing it on the chickens you use for sacrifice seems pretty cruel.
Shang-Da touches Anita now and she does the same to him, and then Richard is able to get on his feet. "If he could get far enough away he could shapeshift and heal the rest of the damage" but there are going to be "moments during the shift where he would be helpless, and we couldn't afford that." Well, it's that or wandering around wounded and human in the woods with armed hunters coming after him, Anita. You've done all you can do.
While I think it's pretty disgusting on LKH's part that she'd rather the literal life-essence of two men of color be drained from them versus them having sex with her Mary Sue, which you KNOW would have been the case if they'd been a pair of white dudes, I think that Anita herself has actually behaved pretty well in this chapter so far. She wanted to save Richard, but she didn't drag anyone else into it and risk their lives without their agreement, as would have been the case with Nathaniel and Damian if she'd used the energy of their triumvirate (of course, that also means LKH gets to avoid risking the lives of the sweeties vs Jamil and Shang-Da). Instead, Jamil and Shang-Da volunteered themselves for this, and specifically told her to do specifically this to save Richard. It was fully with their consent and knowledge of what that entailed, which makes all the difference than if she'd just done her usual shit of reaching out and taking the energy of anyone she wants to. It also means that Jamil and Shang-Da got to be heroes, which is especially surprising given that neither of them likes Anita at all, and people who dislike Anita are usually not portrayed nicely at all in this series.
But then Anita turns around and makes me facepalm all over again in this next bit, totally negating everything good I just said about her with her SHEER STUPIDITY.
"The power needed to go somewhere, and I found Nathaniel still in his bed, still cuddled with Stephen, and I poured the energy into him." YOU COULDN'T AT LEAST FUCKING TRY TO PUT IT BACK INTO JAMIL AND SHANG-DA?
YOU COULDN'T FUCKING TRY?
IF YOU CAN PUT IT INTO NATHANIEL AND RICHARD, YOU CAN PUT IT INTO THE TWO GUYS YOU TOOK IT FROM, HOW IS IT ANY DIFFERENT?
GJKJSERKKGKKSGKKRGKJRJGJ
She then proceeds to use it to heal not only Nathaniel but also Rosamond, Kelly, and Claudia, causing them all to shift, and only THEN does she go and put it into Richard some more, enough for him to shift.
What. The. Fuck. All of those others were going to heal just fine on their own, all they needed was a little time. Richard likely could have shifted on his own, but if you really wanted to ensure his survival, then yeah, giving him a little extra boost to shift super-fast was a good idea. But then in that case she should have done Richard FIRST because you don't want the sacrifice of Jamil and Shang-Da to end up being for nothing, and then give it back to Jamil and Shang-Da, and then if there was anything left let the others have it. Seriously, what the fuck. This is ALL about Richard's survival. That's what Jamil and Shang-Da gave you their energy for. They did NOT give up their life force for you to speed up the already-stable healing process for your non-lethally-injured bed toy and lackeys!
THEY. ARE. DYING. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? DOES THAT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU? ARE THEIR LIVES REALLY WORTH GETTING PO' WIDDLE NATHANIEL ALL PATCHED UP A FEW HOURS EARLY?
AND IF NOT THEIR LIVES, WHAT ABOUT RICHARD'S? WHAT IF YOU HAD NO ENERGY LEFT TO SPEED UP HIS SHIFT BECAUSE YOU GAVE IT TO YOUR LAP DOGS FIRST? HE COULD WIND UP DEAD ALONG WITH HIS HATI AND SKOLL!
YOU THOUGHTLESS SELFISH STUPID ARGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!
And then JC holds her and starts rocking her and calling her "ma petite" as if she didn't make the most evil move I've fucking seen from her so far in this book while Jamil and Shang-Da are "like mummies, shriveled and dead, corpses dessicated in some dry desert, but they weren't dead. Jamil was making a high keening noise."
Even if it turns out she has enough energy to put this right, it is still fucking sick that she didn't fix them FIRST instead of the others, since what if she didn't have enough leftover for them, huh? Apparently these two are only worth saving with the dregs of her energy if everyone else, including two lionesses who literally just got here and that she barely knows, have had all their minor (comparatively) boos-boos and scratches fixed up. Shows where Shang-Da and Jamil fall on the priority totem pole, doesn't it? I'd also like to point out that they've been effectively FORCED to sacrifice their life force (since they only consented to it for Richard, not the others) for a bunch of white people that didn't even need it because Anita decided so. Connotations, LKH, this has them, and bad ones.
Nicky is shocked that they aren't dead, and is pressing himself against the wall away from Anita "as if he weren't sure he wanted to be near me right that moment." Well, yeah, touching you just sucked the life out of two guys! "Maybe there were things terrible enough that even my hold on him couldn't make him see it as all right." But everything else he'll keep kissing your ass on like everyone does.
Anita goes towards Jamil. JC says that even though "you gained a great deal of power, but we cannot afford to lose more vitality, or you will kill one of us." See? She fucking WASTED the energy by putting it into all these people who didn't need it, now Jamil and Shang-Da are screwed! Anita tells JC that there's power in raising the dead (but they're not dead, stupid!) tells us how she got this power from the vampire Obsidian Butterfly, who was pretty badass by the way. She leans over Jamil and even though "his eyes were dried and blind" he still "screamed, high and buzzy" probably because "he smelled that it was me, and he was scared of me now."
Anita prays that she "could give this back and gain energy through it." Again, I don't see how it is that giving it back to Jamil and Shang-Da is harder than just giving it to random people. Maybe if she explained it, but as it is it just makes no sense and is pissing me off. She touches Jamil, calls on her necromancy, and his skin starts "filling back out, blooming into the strong, muscled, handsome man I'd known." But not handsome enough for your author to ever allow you to bone despite the fact this kind of situation is the exactly the sort that would spark an orgy with you and any white supernatural dudes. As soon as Jamil can move, he scrambles away from her and "held his hands out in front of him as if to ward me off." Hold out a picture of a naked blonde skinny woman, Jamil! I bet it'll be like a cross to a vampire!
"I should have felt bad that he was that afraid of me, but the energy felt too good to be bad." What you should feel bad for is not giving their energy back ASAP after helping Richard and squandering it on people who didn't need the help. She then revives Shang-Da as well, who looks at her in panic and says "Your eyes, they're black and full of stars."
BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT ANITA'S EYES ONCE PER BOOK, I FUCKING SWEAR
"They weren't my eyes. They were Obsidian Butterfly's eyes." Don't all vampire eyes look like that when they use their powers? "All power comes with a price." She doesn't need to drink blood or anything in the next few chapters (I read ahead) so it turns out that she means the price is that her eyes look like this for awhile. Yeah, what a great sacrifice that is *eye roll*. "I turned to Jean-Claude and found his eyes filled with a night sky that had spilled over South America" nooo, not the spill! "when the conquistadors had conquered the New World." How does that look any different from any other night? I don't mind purple prose, sometimes it's even a better choice than precise prose, but only when it makes sense and is used effectively. She can feel Richard's wolf and knows his eyes are "night-sky black" too. This might actually be cool if the eyes fucking MEANT anything but it's seriously just a temporary cosmetic thing. So they all get fucking black eyes for awhile because Anita used OB's power, whoop dee do, it's not a fucking cost, it's not dark, it doesn't need this much dramatic air attached to it.
And then Damian comes in and his eyes are as well...and, more interestingly, he's "wiping the blood of a fresh feeding from his mouth." Good, I hope he ate Nathaniel and he and Anita are both about to die from it.
