BULLET, CHAPTER 35
Jun. 1st, 2013 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratCheck out this great article by our very own commenter tungstenmonk at her blog! I for one really enjoyed it and agree with all the points!
http://scrivveting.blogspot.com/2013/05/eight-things-i-want-to-see-in-urban.html
AND LOOK AT THESE CUTE THINGS!
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/51858666602/kaley-met-a-lady-in-the-pet-store-today-who-was
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/51823604928/tinypawpets-who-disturbs-my-slumber
http://malformalady.tumblr.com/post/51856608889/pink-fairy-armadillo-chlamyphorus-truncatus
http://malformalady.tumblr.com/post/51837053465/teddy-bear-takes-on-mother-role-after-foal-is
http://malformalady.tumblr.com/post/51751312374/a-fluffy-cow-named-texas-tornado-owned-with
This chapter features Richard in wolf form just sitting around, and it reminds me, when was the last time we saw the therians shifted and doing something? Why have therians if you show them almost exclusively in their human form, and their animal form only shows up to behave like a pet? It's obnoxious and boring. Okay, I guess there was the tigers tearing Vittorio apart at the very end in Skin Trade but that was like one sentence. Come on now. Spoiler, there is no shifting in this book either besides Richard here and Anita forcing some poor lady into hybrid form, neither of which is the shifter doing anything, so yeah, one sentence between three books of A THERIAN SHIFTED *AND* DOING SOMETHING is not enough.
Speaking of therians, we hear of a swanmane named Bianca in this chapter. I ship Bianca and Perdita. I have no clue why. Perdita is, to my knowledge, never described/never appears onscreen (nor is Bianca), but I picture her as having light-medium brown skin, sea green eyes, and black hair. For those wondering just who Perdita is:
http://anitablake.wikia.com/wiki/Perdita
So...I ship the girlfriend of Jason's girlfriend with Jason's ex.
Also, I ship Rafaela and Devin (my Anitaverse-genderswap versions of Rafael and Donovan) too, yet not Donovan and Rafael. Probably because the only time I ship at all, it's usually f/f, as you can likely tell. Oddly, in my head, Devin and Bianca look the same; a slender white girl with blue eyes and white hair (that is actually feathers) cut in a pixie bob.
BULLET, CHAPTER 35
At this point, I am damn ready to meet the weretigers, both the ones that flew in from Vegas and the ones Jake brought. The former because we've been waiting so long for them, the latter because I'm so curious about what they're like--people who have been bred like animals, hidden away, raised by vampires/the Harlequin, quite possibly kept in isolation from the entire world. Not that I expect LKH will touch on any of this, but still.
Instead, we get another chapter of nothing. Really stupid pointless annoying nothing with no weretigers at all. The weretigers are, according to Anita, all waiting in the living room while she's in Jean-Claude's bedroom with her harem as they discuss how to pick the next man to join them in Anita's screwing schedule. Well, Crispin and Domino aren't. I guess their opinion doesn't matter. Richard is there though, but he's in wolf form so he can't talk, which I have a feeling Anita enjoys. She's petting him like a dog while she drinks coffee, which, if I were him, I'd find pretty demeaning, especially coming from her, given that she already treats him like a dog figuratively. She says that his "pulse and beat of him seemed closer to his skin that it would in a dog" though, whatever that even means. She also says that Richard's wolf form is "somewhere between a mastiff and a Great Dane in bulk and height" and that most werewolves are that size. I distinctly recall werewolves being specified as the size of ponies in earlier books, so I want to say that she's forgetting her own canon again, but I think some breeds of pony can be around that size? Not sure.
She thinks about how it should be comforting to pet him like petting a dog is but that it's not because wolf!Richard is so very clearly aware and sentient. Gee, what a fucking shock, something with a human mind acts like he has one! Maybe you should treat him like one! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there aren't some couples where I could see it totally being okay with one petting the other in wolf form, and I've got a werewolf character who is hugely cool with anyone and everyone, including people who know what he is, treating him like a big puppy (since...that's what he is mentally, it's complicated and tragic), but with Anita and Richard specifically, it reeeeally rubs me the wrong way for a lot of reasons.
Micah says her name, she snaps out of her long paragraph about what wofl!Richard looks like and how he isn't a dog, and Micah says that her skin is cold, and asks if something happened with Jake. She says no, "not with Jake" and Micah and Richard look at her and she mentions the obvious fact that "neither set of eyes was human" lest we forget ZOMG ANIMAL EYES! JC asks Nicky if Anita did more with the police than talk on the phone, Nicky can't answer, Micah demands him to, Nicky says he can't unless Anita tells him (UGH THIS IS SO CREEPY AND GROSS), JC asks Anita if she forbid Nicky to tell them, Micah asks her the same thing, she shakes her head, JC asks Nicky if she's lying, he says yes, she glares at him and claims that "I didn't tell you not to tell them." YOU LIAR. Nicky calls her on it that "You told me not to mention the police work to anyone, that it was an ongoing investigation and that I couldn't share the information with anyone." Go Nicky! He can still bite back!
Anita's response is priceless: : "I didn't mean...it is...I mean." She says that she "couldn't seem to organize my thoughts" but I think she just knows she has egg on her face and wasn't expecting Nicky to be the one that put it there.
Micah tells Anita to tell Nicky he can tell them...because Anita being upset is more important than keeping legally confidential police matters confidential. Anita gives the okay, so Damian and Nicky tell everyone in the room about the crime scene video. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Micah holds her hand tighter, Richard lays her head in his lap, and his eyes have "too much" in them that remind her that "dogs weren't comforting just because of the fur and the cuteness, but because there was no demand to them. The eyes in Richard's wolf face demanded too much." Unlike you, of course! *gag* Seriously, if that's such a problem for Anita, why doesn't she just get a dog? No, wait, Anita forgets to shower and feed herself, a dog would die in her hands. Instead, she has pets that take care of her, not vice versa!
JC is shocked that she wasn't going to give herself some time between bedding the weretigers and "these horrible events" because now not only does Anita's comfort trump legal protocols, it trumps world-saving too! Remember, the reason that those horrible events happened was because of MOAD, and, stupid as it is, defeating the MOAD will be done by sexxing up weretigers, so getting on that is really the best of way of dealing with/preventing any more horrible things from happening. Taking a break to cry about it just gives more time for more killings. If you must make Anita's sex an urgent world-saving thing, at least treat it as such! Because when it's treated as secondary to Anita's personal traumas, that just makes it seem like everyone is really stupid with really skewed priorities.
Anita is of course the selfless voice of reason and points out that they've got to do this ASAP and have no more time to waste. She is also randomly angry at all of them. "Nathaniel stood up, holding his hands out empty as if to prove he was unarmed." I'd make a joke about how unnecessary this is because of course he doesn't have a gun, but I think Anita has shot people for less, so I reckon this is what everybody does around her when they move in any way. What he's wearing and how he's wearing his hair is described, and he tells her that she needs to work out to calm down. She yells that it's not going to fix it, he tells her that it will help, and that they can't put her in a room with new wereanimals while she's this pissed.
"He moved cautiously, the way you do with jumpers on ledges and wild animals when you don't have a gun." This makes me think that when she does have a gun, Anita just shoots them no matter what the hell they're doing. Hey, they'll heal! "Was I that horrible?" YES. YES AND MORE. "Had I taught him to be that afraid of me? The answer, obviously, was yes." Anita starts to cry with this realization, and I could nearly cry too, because holy crap, she's being self-aware! Which means awareness on LKH's part of how horrible she is indeed! Oh my god, is this real? Can this really be happening? And will it last? The cynical, LKH-experienced me knows that this will probably just be forgotten, LKH is just trying to give the haters a 'see? Anita feels guilt and knows she's done bad things!' moment to shut us up, that Anita will find out she was totally mistaken in how she was reading Nathaniel, etc., but for right now I would like to just drift off into some fantasies about actual character development happening and Anita trying to undo some of the atrocities she's committed as they finally sink in one after the other, starting here. Shh, let me dream.
Nathaniel takes her hand, starts leading her toward the door, says he's going to take her to work out and that "you guys choose which of the tigers you like best, but I think Micah should choose." So, Anita's not even going to get to pick which guy she fucks? I mean, don't get me wrong, the concept of her choosing a dude in this situation is wrong in so many ways, and in a NORMAL poly scenario I think it is indeed protocol for everyone to be okay with who is coming into the group so the harem should have some say in this, but taking Anita's own choice out of it entirely isn't okay either. I think LKH just didn't want to have to write her heroine being the one to select who she wanted from the pimped-out weretigers like, as she said, choosing from a litter of kittens, because she actually recognizes that's morally objectionable enough to have Anita give lip service to being against it...but, as we can see, is still going to reap the benefits from it.
Asher asks why Nathaniel thinks Micah should choose, "because he's your lover, or because he's your Nimir-Raj?" Nathaniel says neither, but that even though JC likes powerful people he also likes "difficult people" with "heavy issues" and they don't need another one, that Damian "just wants another girl so badly" that he'll pick the only female weretiger and we can't have THAT, that Asher wants another man-loving man "but a man who likes mostly men won't move Anita" well unless she gets to watch, Nicky's opinion is just Anita's opinion so I guess he won't even have one if Anita isn't the one picking, that Richard and Anita "don't seem to like the same people, or don't want to admit that they do" hinting Richard is a big closet case I guess, and that he himself would just pick the most dominant person, and as for Anita..."Anita's last two choices have both been sociopaths, or close to him" which Anita admits she can't argue with.
Okay, Nathaniel does think a little more than I'd previously given him credit for, clearly. But who are these two sociopaths? Obviously there's Nicky, but who was her choice before him? Domino and Cynric were the last two guys she made into Animals to Call for herself, but neither of them were by choice, and there's not been mention of either of them being sociopaths...and, given the way that LKH loves to sling the term around, you know we'd hear about it if they were. My best guess is that he means either Augustine or Haven. I don't know if either of them were by her choice (or whatever the 'logic' of this series considers to be real choice/consent) but Augustine has stated he has no conscious and Haven...yeah. Speaking of the latter, between him and Nicky both openly saying they're sociopathic, I have to wonder, does LKH think that everyone who is a sociopath totally knows that they are? Because they almost all seem quite aware of that 'fact' about themselves.
Now that he's given reasons why everyone else is the wrong person to make a choice, Nathaniel says why Micah is the right one: because he's perfect! Er, I mean, because he is "the only one of us who seems to pick well, and with less agenda." Yeah, you're not screwing and enslaving this new tiger to defeat the MOAD or anything, no, no agenda at all here! "He's never brought anyone into our pard who crazy or bad, or difficult." Keeping the insane and evil out of your Pard I can understand. I don't really LIKE the keep-out-the-insane bit, given that I'm mentally ill myself and I can't imagine how much extra difficulty that must make for dealing with therianthropy, but I can understand that Micah doesn't want to take the risk of a mentally ill therian being associated with his Pard, because if they do do something, then it leads back to him and his people. I get that. It screws that poor person over by leaving them without resources or support for their condition when they probably need it even more than most, but I can see enough cold rationality behind it that I understand. But difficult? Just plain difficult people aren't even allowed into the Pard? I hate to sound like Anita here, but what does that mean exactly? Because the way I'm interpreting it, it sounds like if you're not this 100% pleasant person who never makes waves and gets along with everybody, then you're not allowed into the clubhouse. And that's going to exclude a LOT of people just in general, but when you add how hard it is to deal with therianthropy into the mix, the emotional stress and the urges of the beast and all that, and I have to ask exactly who the fuck is NOT going to be 'difficult' in that scenario? NOT TO MENTION ANITA IS THE PARD QUEEN AND SHE IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PERSON IN THIS SERIES
So congrats, Micah, the way you apparently run your Pard has probably resulted in a lot of rogue wereleopards out there with no one to teach them how to deal with their condition, including the ones who need that help the most, and has also probably left your Pard made up of people who aren't so much 'not difficult' as they are total weenies that roll over for everyone...wait, that actually is the makeup of the Pard, isn't it? The most prominent members are Nathaniel, Vivian, and Gregory, all of whom are timid, victimized people that crawl to Anita for protection. I now firmly believe that Micah has deliberately assembled the Pard this way for just that purpose aka keeping the leopards in line with what Anita likes best (and who will be least likely to challenge him)
Nathaniel goes on a little more about how perfect Micah is and how he'll make the perfect choice and seriously says that "Anita doesn't need to be there" and that "I give my vote and Anita's vote to Micah, if she agrees." Anita agrees that she trusts Micah (of course she does, he's perfect!) and so therefore Nicky gives his vote to Micah too and adds his bit about how perfect Micah is and how "he doesn't let his issues get in his way like the rest of us."
I'd like to mention that LKH tends to dedicate every one of her books now to Jon with a little spiel about how much he adores her and doesn't mind her issues and even loves her for them, etc. Just pointing that out. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just I wish she'd keep them on that dedication page in the front and not let it, pardon the term, spill all over the story like it is here. YES, I GET IT, EVERYONE IN THE RELATIONSHIP HAS ISSUES (BECAUSE YOU DO) EXCEPT FOR SUPER PERFECT MICAH (BECAUSE I DON'T THINK JON PROBABLY GETS ANY ROOM TO HAVE THEM, JUST A HUNCH).
And so Mr. Perfect Micah will take over the hard decisions for Anita so she doesn't need to worry her pretty little head about it, just like how he runs the leopards pretty much solo while she just sleeps with them. Ugh.
JC mentions that Jason has given his vote to him "because he cares about nothing today as much as JJ and her new attraction with the swanmane."
What?
Anita realizes that she'd "forgotten about Jason and his sweetie in all this" and, um, considering that 'all this' included Morte D'Amour flooding everyone with killing urges and Jason was, if I recall, alone in a room with JJ at the time that happened...yeah, that might have been something you should have checked on, Anita. But apparently Jean-Claude's ardeur reached them in time to prevent Jason making a snack out of his girlfriend...and in time for JJ to instead jump the bones of a female swanmane named Bianca. Who I guess must have been randomly in the room instead of Jason, maybe? I don't know how else that would even happen, unless the two of them were drawn to the orgy instead of just staying put and screwing each other.
But more than that, JJ and Bianca are now “besotted with each other from the ardeur” even though no one else has been mentioned as suffering the same effects. Even though JC says that “I believe it will pass in time” I think this is LKH’s way of breaking up JJ and Jason in a way she reckons the haters can’t criticize her for as misogynistic and/or blonde-hating. The fact that these women were forced by an outside magic to have sex with each other, making it nonconsensual for both of them, and that now their own minds and emotions have been taken over by this force in addition to their bodies, is not addressed in any way as being horrific. No, the real tragedy is that “for now Jason is not entirely welcome in his own bed” because, Nathaniel informs us, “if it had been any of the swamanes besides Bianca, they’d have shared Jason just fine” All of the swans, both sexes, are bisexual? “but Bianca was treated badly by the old swan king. It’s left her afraid to have sex with a man.”
WHAT. THE. FUCK. How do you seriously invoke the whole “lesbians are just straight women who had bad experiences with guys!” trope in this day and age without the slightest hint of irony, sarcasm, or the person who invoked it being called ignorant? I’m not saying that it could never ever happen, but that trope has been used and abused way too much for it to ever be okay again for a long, long time. Namely until people stop seriously believing that it’s the explanation for lesbians in general. Granted, he doesn’t say that Bianca was straight to begin with and was turned gay. Maybe, just maybe, Bianca is a bisexual woman who is currently choosing to take only female partners because of said bad experiences, but even that kind of pisses me off considering that this is also the novel that will introduce Jade, who is just like Bianca in that abuse from her male Master has left her only able to/desiring sex with women. It’s the LKH misogyny two for one special--you can have women abused by men AND give them a reason to keep their paws off Anita’s harem! Since, after all, there’s no way that any woman could just plain not be interested in ‘em, right? It must be TRAUMA! Only possible explanation!
Anita says that “I didn’t mean to fuck up Jason’s chance at happiness” and while I’m sure that wasn’t her plan at the time, I bet she’s not actually sorry that this is a side-effect of it. Nathaniel hugs her and assures her she didn’t do anything wrong, and Asher praises her for how she saved all their lives and how it’s all MOAD’s fault. Anita refuses to hear any of this reason (Anita will only ever feel bad for things not supposed to be her fault, so we can feel bad for her and she can be entitled to reassurance from her men) and buries her face in Nathaniel’s hair (even though it was mentioned as being in a tight braid?) and says she’ll try to believe that and asks Nathaniel to take her away. He does, and Micah calls after her that he loves her. Gag. So JJ and Bianca are being raped on a level that goes beyond the physical and straight into their emotions and free will, Jason may lose someone he loves to said really awful event and have to watch her knowing that this is not her choice and how horrifying it is, and the person who gets all the sympathy is ANITA.
She feels her anger going numb and decides she wants to be sweating "before the numbness changed into something more painful." She and Nathaniel go out the door, Nicky following, and see Fredo and Bram there. She asks how Claudia is, they gush about how they felt her energy and how "you healed her, all of us". Nathaniel says that they're gonna go work out, one of them asks if Anita is going to work on her knife fighting again. Anita says yes, but then Nathaniel says only after she's "run and hit the heavy bag." Since when does Nathaniel make decisions for Anita? Did I miss something? I thought he was just 'working on not being submissive to everyone in every way' and just sort of stuck in development purgatory there since. Not that I'm complaining, I guess, as long as this is consistent with his development thus far and not just suddenly there when it's convenient.
Fredo or Bram (it has thus far not been clear at all which of them is saying what when) say that after that she'll be too tired to fight well, Anita agrees, Nathaniel says that "And if you fight before the run and the bag work, what will happen to the practice fight?" and Anita admits "I'll turn it into a real fight."
Seriously? That's what she does if she's not worn out before a practice spar? How did she ever learn ANY martial arts or practice at all if that's what she does? I don't know anything about any sort of fighting, granted, but that doesn't really seem to me how it would be done? Like, it sounds like she'd seriously try to hurt her partner instead of just pinning them or whatever.
Nathaniel says that she will "Sweat first, fight later, then" and Anita agrees. Fredo expresses surprise that she's not arguing. Wow, even wererat flunkies know she's a constantly disagreeable-for-spite person. She says not today, and he says that now he's glad she didn't fight first with him, she asks why, he says "Because if you don't want to argue, the anger will have to go somewhere, and I'd really prefer it not to be carved into my skin." Holy shit, she really DOES try to hurt the person she's sparring with if she goes in while pissed off! Dude! That can NOT be right! Anita asks if Fredo really thinks she's gotten good enough to win a knife-fight with him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but have we ever even met Fredo before, let alone seen him as a really good knife-fighter and regular sparring partner of Anita? I hate how these new characters just have instant relationships shoehorned in between books. We don't actually get to know them ourselves at all. Of course, like all AB characters, there really isn't much to know about Fredo beyond that he kisses Anita's ass: "No, but I won't want to hurt you, and if you don't have the same restraint with me, you are good enough to cut me."
The fact that her not having this restraint is a real a possibility is so disturbing. She asks if she should thank him for the compliment or be pissed that he thinks she'd be that nuts. Nicky says she should take the compliment because "I've never heard Fredo admit that anyone else could hurt him with a blade." Yup, Fredo is there to make Anita look more perfect. This would be more effective if Fredo was a character to regularly be awesome with blades, but instead we just have to assume that he is and that therefore Anita is too. It's a very weak, juvenile technique that leaves little impact on readers and is very much in the 'tell' category rather than the 'show', and the 'show' is where physical skills need to be.
So she tells him thanks, and he tells her she has "a real talent for blade work" and she says that she likes edged weapons. He says that most people are afraid of them. I don't know if this is true? Afraid to use them, I mean, of course people are afraid to be hurt with them. And if people are afraid to use them, is it significantly more people than who are afraid to use, say, guns or martial arts? I just don't understand this and I think it's just there to make Anita seem more special that other people. Considering that Anita's response is that "I'm not most people" I think that's a good bet. Nicky adds that "And that is the fucking truth." For some reason Anita considers getting mad at him for that, but then considers "if it was true, why should it make me mad?"
Especially since it also seems to be a compliment in that context? Especially coming from Nicky, who probably CAN'T insult you? But anyway, in that case, Anita, I've got a LOT of very true things to say to you, and according to you, you can't get mad, right?
Of course, considering that she apparently cuts people she's not even mad at, I'm not sure I'd want to do it while standing too close.
http://scrivveting.blogspot.com/2013/05/eight-things-i-want-to-see-in-urban.html
AND LOOK AT THESE CUTE THINGS!
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/51858666602/kaley-met-a-lady-in-the-pet-store-today-who-was
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/51823604928/tinypawpets-who-disturbs-my-slumber
http://malformalady.tumblr.com/post/51856608889/pink-fairy-armadillo-chlamyphorus-truncatus
http://malformalady.tumblr.com/post/51837053465/teddy-bear-takes-on-mother-role-after-foal-is
http://malformalady.tumblr.com/post/51751312374/a-fluffy-cow-named-texas-tornado-owned-with
This chapter features Richard in wolf form just sitting around, and it reminds me, when was the last time we saw the therians shifted and doing something? Why have therians if you show them almost exclusively in their human form, and their animal form only shows up to behave like a pet? It's obnoxious and boring. Okay, I guess there was the tigers tearing Vittorio apart at the very end in Skin Trade but that was like one sentence. Come on now. Spoiler, there is no shifting in this book either besides Richard here and Anita forcing some poor lady into hybrid form, neither of which is the shifter doing anything, so yeah, one sentence between three books of A THERIAN SHIFTED *AND* DOING SOMETHING is not enough.
Speaking of therians, we hear of a swanmane named Bianca in this chapter. I ship Bianca and Perdita. I have no clue why. Perdita is, to my knowledge, never described/never appears onscreen (nor is Bianca), but I picture her as having light-medium brown skin, sea green eyes, and black hair. For those wondering just who Perdita is:
http://anitablake.wikia.com/wiki/Perdita
So...I ship the girlfriend of Jason's girlfriend with Jason's ex.
Also, I ship Rafaela and Devin (my Anitaverse-genderswap versions of Rafael and Donovan) too, yet not Donovan and Rafael. Probably because the only time I ship at all, it's usually f/f, as you can likely tell. Oddly, in my head, Devin and Bianca look the same; a slender white girl with blue eyes and white hair (that is actually feathers) cut in a pixie bob.
BULLET, CHAPTER 35
At this point, I am damn ready to meet the weretigers, both the ones that flew in from Vegas and the ones Jake brought. The former because we've been waiting so long for them, the latter because I'm so curious about what they're like--people who have been bred like animals, hidden away, raised by vampires/the Harlequin, quite possibly kept in isolation from the entire world. Not that I expect LKH will touch on any of this, but still.
Instead, we get another chapter of nothing. Really stupid pointless annoying nothing with no weretigers at all. The weretigers are, according to Anita, all waiting in the living room while she's in Jean-Claude's bedroom with her harem as they discuss how to pick the next man to join them in Anita's screwing schedule. Well, Crispin and Domino aren't. I guess their opinion doesn't matter. Richard is there though, but he's in wolf form so he can't talk, which I have a feeling Anita enjoys. She's petting him like a dog while she drinks coffee, which, if I were him, I'd find pretty demeaning, especially coming from her, given that she already treats him like a dog figuratively. She says that his "pulse and beat of him seemed closer to his skin that it would in a dog" though, whatever that even means. She also says that Richard's wolf form is "somewhere between a mastiff and a Great Dane in bulk and height" and that most werewolves are that size. I distinctly recall werewolves being specified as the size of ponies in earlier books, so I want to say that she's forgetting her own canon again, but I think some breeds of pony can be around that size? Not sure.
She thinks about how it should be comforting to pet him like petting a dog is but that it's not because wolf!Richard is so very clearly aware and sentient. Gee, what a fucking shock, something with a human mind acts like he has one! Maybe you should treat him like one! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there aren't some couples where I could see it totally being okay with one petting the other in wolf form, and I've got a werewolf character who is hugely cool with anyone and everyone, including people who know what he is, treating him like a big puppy (since...that's what he is mentally, it's complicated and tragic), but with Anita and Richard specifically, it reeeeally rubs me the wrong way for a lot of reasons.
Micah says her name, she snaps out of her long paragraph about what wofl!Richard looks like and how he isn't a dog, and Micah says that her skin is cold, and asks if something happened with Jake. She says no, "not with Jake" and Micah and Richard look at her and she mentions the obvious fact that "neither set of eyes was human" lest we forget ZOMG ANIMAL EYES! JC asks Nicky if Anita did more with the police than talk on the phone, Nicky can't answer, Micah demands him to, Nicky says he can't unless Anita tells him (UGH THIS IS SO CREEPY AND GROSS), JC asks Anita if she forbid Nicky to tell them, Micah asks her the same thing, she shakes her head, JC asks Nicky if she's lying, he says yes, she glares at him and claims that "I didn't tell you not to tell them." YOU LIAR. Nicky calls her on it that "You told me not to mention the police work to anyone, that it was an ongoing investigation and that I couldn't share the information with anyone." Go Nicky! He can still bite back!
Anita's response is priceless: : "I didn't mean...it is...I mean." She says that she "couldn't seem to organize my thoughts" but I think she just knows she has egg on her face and wasn't expecting Nicky to be the one that put it there.
Micah tells Anita to tell Nicky he can tell them...because Anita being upset is more important than keeping legally confidential police matters confidential. Anita gives the okay, so Damian and Nicky tell everyone in the room about the crime scene video. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Micah holds her hand tighter, Richard lays her head in his lap, and his eyes have "too much" in them that remind her that "dogs weren't comforting just because of the fur and the cuteness, but because there was no demand to them. The eyes in Richard's wolf face demanded too much." Unlike you, of course! *gag* Seriously, if that's such a problem for Anita, why doesn't she just get a dog? No, wait, Anita forgets to shower and feed herself, a dog would die in her hands. Instead, she has pets that take care of her, not vice versa!
JC is shocked that she wasn't going to give herself some time between bedding the weretigers and "these horrible events" because now not only does Anita's comfort trump legal protocols, it trumps world-saving too! Remember, the reason that those horrible events happened was because of MOAD, and, stupid as it is, defeating the MOAD will be done by sexxing up weretigers, so getting on that is really the best of way of dealing with/preventing any more horrible things from happening. Taking a break to cry about it just gives more time for more killings. If you must make Anita's sex an urgent world-saving thing, at least treat it as such! Because when it's treated as secondary to Anita's personal traumas, that just makes it seem like everyone is really stupid with really skewed priorities.
Anita is of course the selfless voice of reason and points out that they've got to do this ASAP and have no more time to waste. She is also randomly angry at all of them. "Nathaniel stood up, holding his hands out empty as if to prove he was unarmed." I'd make a joke about how unnecessary this is because of course he doesn't have a gun, but I think Anita has shot people for less, so I reckon this is what everybody does around her when they move in any way. What he's wearing and how he's wearing his hair is described, and he tells her that she needs to work out to calm down. She yells that it's not going to fix it, he tells her that it will help, and that they can't put her in a room with new wereanimals while she's this pissed.
"He moved cautiously, the way you do with jumpers on ledges and wild animals when you don't have a gun." This makes me think that when she does have a gun, Anita just shoots them no matter what the hell they're doing. Hey, they'll heal! "Was I that horrible?" YES. YES AND MORE. "Had I taught him to be that afraid of me? The answer, obviously, was yes." Anita starts to cry with this realization, and I could nearly cry too, because holy crap, she's being self-aware! Which means awareness on LKH's part of how horrible she is indeed! Oh my god, is this real? Can this really be happening? And will it last? The cynical, LKH-experienced me knows that this will probably just be forgotten, LKH is just trying to give the haters a 'see? Anita feels guilt and knows she's done bad things!' moment to shut us up, that Anita will find out she was totally mistaken in how she was reading Nathaniel, etc., but for right now I would like to just drift off into some fantasies about actual character development happening and Anita trying to undo some of the atrocities she's committed as they finally sink in one after the other, starting here. Shh, let me dream.
Nathaniel takes her hand, starts leading her toward the door, says he's going to take her to work out and that "you guys choose which of the tigers you like best, but I think Micah should choose." So, Anita's not even going to get to pick which guy she fucks? I mean, don't get me wrong, the concept of her choosing a dude in this situation is wrong in so many ways, and in a NORMAL poly scenario I think it is indeed protocol for everyone to be okay with who is coming into the group so the harem should have some say in this, but taking Anita's own choice out of it entirely isn't okay either. I think LKH just didn't want to have to write her heroine being the one to select who she wanted from the pimped-out weretigers like, as she said, choosing from a litter of kittens, because she actually recognizes that's morally objectionable enough to have Anita give lip service to being against it...but, as we can see, is still going to reap the benefits from it.
Asher asks why Nathaniel thinks Micah should choose, "because he's your lover, or because he's your Nimir-Raj?" Nathaniel says neither, but that even though JC likes powerful people he also likes "difficult people" with "heavy issues" and they don't need another one, that Damian "just wants another girl so badly" that he'll pick the only female weretiger and we can't have THAT, that Asher wants another man-loving man "but a man who likes mostly men won't move Anita" well unless she gets to watch, Nicky's opinion is just Anita's opinion so I guess he won't even have one if Anita isn't the one picking, that Richard and Anita "don't seem to like the same people, or don't want to admit that they do" hinting Richard is a big closet case I guess, and that he himself would just pick the most dominant person, and as for Anita..."Anita's last two choices have both been sociopaths, or close to him" which Anita admits she can't argue with.
Okay, Nathaniel does think a little more than I'd previously given him credit for, clearly. But who are these two sociopaths? Obviously there's Nicky, but who was her choice before him? Domino and Cynric were the last two guys she made into Animals to Call for herself, but neither of them were by choice, and there's not been mention of either of them being sociopaths...and, given the way that LKH loves to sling the term around, you know we'd hear about it if they were. My best guess is that he means either Augustine or Haven. I don't know if either of them were by her choice (or whatever the 'logic' of this series considers to be real choice/consent) but Augustine has stated he has no conscious and Haven...yeah. Speaking of the latter, between him and Nicky both openly saying they're sociopathic, I have to wonder, does LKH think that everyone who is a sociopath totally knows that they are? Because they almost all seem quite aware of that 'fact' about themselves.
Now that he's given reasons why everyone else is the wrong person to make a choice, Nathaniel says why Micah is the right one: because he's perfect! Er, I mean, because he is "the only one of us who seems to pick well, and with less agenda." Yeah, you're not screwing and enslaving this new tiger to defeat the MOAD or anything, no, no agenda at all here! "He's never brought anyone into our pard who crazy or bad, or difficult." Keeping the insane and evil out of your Pard I can understand. I don't really LIKE the keep-out-the-insane bit, given that I'm mentally ill myself and I can't imagine how much extra difficulty that must make for dealing with therianthropy, but I can understand that Micah doesn't want to take the risk of a mentally ill therian being associated with his Pard, because if they do do something, then it leads back to him and his people. I get that. It screws that poor person over by leaving them without resources or support for their condition when they probably need it even more than most, but I can see enough cold rationality behind it that I understand. But difficult? Just plain difficult people aren't even allowed into the Pard? I hate to sound like Anita here, but what does that mean exactly? Because the way I'm interpreting it, it sounds like if you're not this 100% pleasant person who never makes waves and gets along with everybody, then you're not allowed into the clubhouse. And that's going to exclude a LOT of people just in general, but when you add how hard it is to deal with therianthropy into the mix, the emotional stress and the urges of the beast and all that, and I have to ask exactly who the fuck is NOT going to be 'difficult' in that scenario? NOT TO MENTION ANITA IS THE PARD QUEEN AND SHE IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PERSON IN THIS SERIES
So congrats, Micah, the way you apparently run your Pard has probably resulted in a lot of rogue wereleopards out there with no one to teach them how to deal with their condition, including the ones who need that help the most, and has also probably left your Pard made up of people who aren't so much 'not difficult' as they are total weenies that roll over for everyone...wait, that actually is the makeup of the Pard, isn't it? The most prominent members are Nathaniel, Vivian, and Gregory, all of whom are timid, victimized people that crawl to Anita for protection. I now firmly believe that Micah has deliberately assembled the Pard this way for just that purpose aka keeping the leopards in line with what Anita likes best (and who will be least likely to challenge him)
Nathaniel goes on a little more about how perfect Micah is and how he'll make the perfect choice and seriously says that "Anita doesn't need to be there" and that "I give my vote and Anita's vote to Micah, if she agrees." Anita agrees that she trusts Micah (of course she does, he's perfect!) and so therefore Nicky gives his vote to Micah too and adds his bit about how perfect Micah is and how "he doesn't let his issues get in his way like the rest of us."
I'd like to mention that LKH tends to dedicate every one of her books now to Jon with a little spiel about how much he adores her and doesn't mind her issues and even loves her for them, etc. Just pointing that out. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just I wish she'd keep them on that dedication page in the front and not let it, pardon the term, spill all over the story like it is here. YES, I GET IT, EVERYONE IN THE RELATIONSHIP HAS ISSUES (BECAUSE YOU DO) EXCEPT FOR SUPER PERFECT MICAH (BECAUSE I DON'T THINK JON PROBABLY GETS ANY ROOM TO HAVE THEM, JUST A HUNCH).
And so Mr. Perfect Micah will take over the hard decisions for Anita so she doesn't need to worry her pretty little head about it, just like how he runs the leopards pretty much solo while she just sleeps with them. Ugh.
JC mentions that Jason has given his vote to him "because he cares about nothing today as much as JJ and her new attraction with the swanmane."
What?
Anita realizes that she'd "forgotten about Jason and his sweetie in all this" and, um, considering that 'all this' included Morte D'Amour flooding everyone with killing urges and Jason was, if I recall, alone in a room with JJ at the time that happened...yeah, that might have been something you should have checked on, Anita. But apparently Jean-Claude's ardeur reached them in time to prevent Jason making a snack out of his girlfriend...and in time for JJ to instead jump the bones of a female swanmane named Bianca. Who I guess must have been randomly in the room instead of Jason, maybe? I don't know how else that would even happen, unless the two of them were drawn to the orgy instead of just staying put and screwing each other.
But more than that, JJ and Bianca are now “besotted with each other from the ardeur” even though no one else has been mentioned as suffering the same effects. Even though JC says that “I believe it will pass in time” I think this is LKH’s way of breaking up JJ and Jason in a way she reckons the haters can’t criticize her for as misogynistic and/or blonde-hating. The fact that these women were forced by an outside magic to have sex with each other, making it nonconsensual for both of them, and that now their own minds and emotions have been taken over by this force in addition to their bodies, is not addressed in any way as being horrific. No, the real tragedy is that “for now Jason is not entirely welcome in his own bed” because, Nathaniel informs us, “if it had been any of the swamanes besides Bianca, they’d have shared Jason just fine” All of the swans, both sexes, are bisexual? “but Bianca was treated badly by the old swan king. It’s left her afraid to have sex with a man.”
WHAT. THE. FUCK. How do you seriously invoke the whole “lesbians are just straight women who had bad experiences with guys!” trope in this day and age without the slightest hint of irony, sarcasm, or the person who invoked it being called ignorant? I’m not saying that it could never ever happen, but that trope has been used and abused way too much for it to ever be okay again for a long, long time. Namely until people stop seriously believing that it’s the explanation for lesbians in general. Granted, he doesn’t say that Bianca was straight to begin with and was turned gay. Maybe, just maybe, Bianca is a bisexual woman who is currently choosing to take only female partners because of said bad experiences, but even that kind of pisses me off considering that this is also the novel that will introduce Jade, who is just like Bianca in that abuse from her male Master has left her only able to/desiring sex with women. It’s the LKH misogyny two for one special--you can have women abused by men AND give them a reason to keep their paws off Anita’s harem! Since, after all, there’s no way that any woman could just plain not be interested in ‘em, right? It must be TRAUMA! Only possible explanation!
Anita says that “I didn’t mean to fuck up Jason’s chance at happiness” and while I’m sure that wasn’t her plan at the time, I bet she’s not actually sorry that this is a side-effect of it. Nathaniel hugs her and assures her she didn’t do anything wrong, and Asher praises her for how she saved all their lives and how it’s all MOAD’s fault. Anita refuses to hear any of this reason (Anita will only ever feel bad for things not supposed to be her fault, so we can feel bad for her and she can be entitled to reassurance from her men) and buries her face in Nathaniel’s hair (even though it was mentioned as being in a tight braid?) and says she’ll try to believe that and asks Nathaniel to take her away. He does, and Micah calls after her that he loves her. Gag. So JJ and Bianca are being raped on a level that goes beyond the physical and straight into their emotions and free will, Jason may lose someone he loves to said really awful event and have to watch her knowing that this is not her choice and how horrifying it is, and the person who gets all the sympathy is ANITA.
She feels her anger going numb and decides she wants to be sweating "before the numbness changed into something more painful." She and Nathaniel go out the door, Nicky following, and see Fredo and Bram there. She asks how Claudia is, they gush about how they felt her energy and how "you healed her, all of us". Nathaniel says that they're gonna go work out, one of them asks if Anita is going to work on her knife fighting again. Anita says yes, but then Nathaniel says only after she's "run and hit the heavy bag." Since when does Nathaniel make decisions for Anita? Did I miss something? I thought he was just 'working on not being submissive to everyone in every way' and just sort of stuck in development purgatory there since. Not that I'm complaining, I guess, as long as this is consistent with his development thus far and not just suddenly there when it's convenient.
Fredo or Bram (it has thus far not been clear at all which of them is saying what when) say that after that she'll be too tired to fight well, Anita agrees, Nathaniel says that "And if you fight before the run and the bag work, what will happen to the practice fight?" and Anita admits "I'll turn it into a real fight."
Seriously? That's what she does if she's not worn out before a practice spar? How did she ever learn ANY martial arts or practice at all if that's what she does? I don't know anything about any sort of fighting, granted, but that doesn't really seem to me how it would be done? Like, it sounds like she'd seriously try to hurt her partner instead of just pinning them or whatever.
Nathaniel says that she will "Sweat first, fight later, then" and Anita agrees. Fredo expresses surprise that she's not arguing. Wow, even wererat flunkies know she's a constantly disagreeable-for-spite person. She says not today, and he says that now he's glad she didn't fight first with him, she asks why, he says "Because if you don't want to argue, the anger will have to go somewhere, and I'd really prefer it not to be carved into my skin." Holy shit, she really DOES try to hurt the person she's sparring with if she goes in while pissed off! Dude! That can NOT be right! Anita asks if Fredo really thinks she's gotten good enough to win a knife-fight with him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but have we ever even met Fredo before, let alone seen him as a really good knife-fighter and regular sparring partner of Anita? I hate how these new characters just have instant relationships shoehorned in between books. We don't actually get to know them ourselves at all. Of course, like all AB characters, there really isn't much to know about Fredo beyond that he kisses Anita's ass: "No, but I won't want to hurt you, and if you don't have the same restraint with me, you are good enough to cut me."
The fact that her not having this restraint is a real a possibility is so disturbing. She asks if she should thank him for the compliment or be pissed that he thinks she'd be that nuts. Nicky says she should take the compliment because "I've never heard Fredo admit that anyone else could hurt him with a blade." Yup, Fredo is there to make Anita look more perfect. This would be more effective if Fredo was a character to regularly be awesome with blades, but instead we just have to assume that he is and that therefore Anita is too. It's a very weak, juvenile technique that leaves little impact on readers and is very much in the 'tell' category rather than the 'show', and the 'show' is where physical skills need to be.
So she tells him thanks, and he tells her she has "a real talent for blade work" and she says that she likes edged weapons. He says that most people are afraid of them. I don't know if this is true? Afraid to use them, I mean, of course people are afraid to be hurt with them. And if people are afraid to use them, is it significantly more people than who are afraid to use, say, guns or martial arts? I just don't understand this and I think it's just there to make Anita seem more special that other people. Considering that Anita's response is that "I'm not most people" I think that's a good bet. Nicky adds that "And that is the fucking truth." For some reason Anita considers getting mad at him for that, but then considers "if it was true, why should it make me mad?"
Especially since it also seems to be a compliment in that context? Especially coming from Nicky, who probably CAN'T insult you? But anyway, in that case, Anita, I've got a LOT of very true things to say to you, and according to you, you can't get mad, right?
Of course, considering that she apparently cuts people she's not even mad at, I'm not sure I'd want to do it while standing too close.
