a-sporking-rat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
a_sporking_rat) wrote2013-06-21 10:56 am
a_sporking_rat) wrote2013-06-21 10:56 am
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BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY ONE
This is probably going to be my last spork until next weekend. My family and I are going for a week-long vacation to the beach! We don't leave until Monday, but I've got a party to go to on Saturday and will be with my gaming group on Sunday, and in between that I'll be trying to pack up and get all the rat cages clean. I'll still probably post something or other (I found an old ficlet about Anthony Blake, for instance) but reading and sporking any more of this dreck is NOT my idea of a fun vacation.
You'll probably need a vacation too after...
BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY ONE
"I realized that without the ardeur I didn't want to have sex in the bare living room" because while "I'd gotten better at being nude in front of people, but it didn't do anything for me" though your author does like to have you conveniently flash thong or be in a shirt you didn't realize was quite so low-cut and so on "I was never going to be an exhibitionist like some of my boyfriends were" Which does seem to get you off, on the other hand "but since Micah wasn't an exhibitionist, and Asher had issues because of his scars, going to bedroom worked for all of us." Way to make those issues sound like a plus or at least something you don't care the least bit about. Sorry, she just throws it in there so casually it really does sound like that. As for Meph, he was "fine" when Anita assures him they're still going to screw, just in the bedroom instead.
Richard and JC are too far along with Envy to go anywhere, however, she's way too close to coming and "if I'd been the woman in the middle and they'd tried to make me stop, I'd have been pissed." ANITA AT LAST SHOWS EMPATHY, AND FOR ANOTHER WOMAN AT THAT. Anita pauses and wonders if she should explain to JC and Richard where she's going. Hahahaha, are you SERIOUS? Anita, you just said that this is no time to interrupt, and I think that even if their telepathic bonds stopped working with you for whatever reason, they could still find you if they needed to just by common sense of where you would be right now. However, she proceeds to spend about a paragraph thinking about this and how Miss Manners doesn't cover it, managing to throw in another assurance to the reader that she's not jealous of Envy while also insulting all three of them immediately after that in a really backhanded way by saying that unlike them she'd "rather not get all naked in front of anyone who might happen to walk through the door." Sure you're not jealous, Anita, that's why the random judgement and cattiness!
She says that, obviously, she's never watched "my men" with another woman, and spends a page telling the reader all about what Richard and JC are doing with Envy. About the only interesting bit for me is that it's implied Envy is quite pale ("the summer brown of him [Richard] looking even darker against all that pale skin" though that could be JC) rather than a golden color like the men. Anita also charitably adds that Envy is "a better height for them both" since she's as tall as JC in her heels, unlike Anita's cute petite tiny self, and even looks "graceful in the curves of her body between them" and then Envy comes (I think?) and Anita looks at JC's eyes, which we are reminded are dark blue, and they "bled to midnight fire". Then she waves at him and goes on her way to the bedroom with Meph, Asher, and Micah. Dino stays behind, but Nicky and Wicked follow. Anita expects them to just stand guard outside the bedroom door, but then they follow her and her now-partners into the bedroom. She tells them that "If I'd wanted an audience I'd have stayed outside."
Wicked responds that even though Meph "looks tame" he is still "an unknown weretiger who's been trained in combat" and so they're not going to let her be alone with him for the first time...what, are Micah and Asher that useless? It is a good point though; wouldn't it be AWESOME if Meph had just been faking compliance in order to get her off her guard and murder her in bed? Anita asks if "What, I'm like royalty" in this series, yes, unfortunately "I have to have witnesses to the bedding process?" Uh, that's not the reason he gave AT ALL, Anita, how did you even get that idea? But Wicked rolls with it and tells her that there weren't witnesses back in whenever (time period and culture aren't specified, it's just "they") just to confirm that sex actually happened but sometimes also so "one half of the new royal couple couldn't accidentally injure or kill the other. Not everyone was happy about their arranged marriage." Okay, firstly, he said accidentally injure or kill their partner, so what would their happiness have to do with that? That last line makes it sound like it would be a deliberate thing. Secondly, if it's a royal couple, I really doubt that would go on because it would plunge their respective kingdoms into war. If they wanted to off each other, they'd either do it subtly (poison, for instance) or Henry VIII style maybe. Thirdly, I'm no history expert, I could be wrong, but this doesn't sound like any common practice in European history (the only kind I think LKH is even vaguely aware of, if any) that ever actually happened, and more like something I think she made up in her head as fact after having been told it happened for one specific couple or something.
Anita says she doesn't know what to say that (how about "citation?") and he says just to know Nicky and he will be by the door keeping everyone safe and Nicky throws in that "We would suck as bodyguards if you got hurt because we were too pussy to watch" and for whatever reason this makes Anita frown at him and he says to feel free to ask him to join in if she wants and so she frowns harder at him "but he knew I didn't mean it, not really, because his grin got wider. If he'd really thought I was mad at him he'd have reacted to it, because he had to. He was designed to make me happier, not unhappy." No, he was not designed for that. He was not made for that. He was altered to be that way by you. Of course, if you mean that LKH made him for you, well, then, yes. She decides that having guards is reasonable because Meph is supernatural, plus outweighs her by a lot (again, aren't Micah and Asher good for anything? I know they're not the most physical guys but between them and Anita I would think Meph wouldn't win) but that it has nonetheless killed the mood a little for her. Micah must sense this, because he swoops in to hug her, kiss her, and tell her that she's thinking too hard. She tries to frown at him too but can't, hugs him back, and then they wrap themselves around each other "leaving Mephistopheles standing by himself" and Anita tries to figure out "why I was suddenly so tense." I guess the fact that successfully bonding this weretiger to you is crucial to defeating the MOAD isn't enough to make one tense?
She then spends a nice fat thick paragraph that lasts more than a third of the page thinking about how it hadn't bothered her to see JC and Richard with another woman and that "what bothered me was that it hadn't bothered me, and I felt vaguely like it should have". Should you be bothered by finally allowing your lovers the same things you demand of them? You're just finally doing what you should have from the start, the only negative feeling you should have of it is shame that you didn't do it from the start. And then she thinks about how pretty Envy looked between them and how she'd have liked it best if they were doing another guy instead but that this hadn't been "unappealing" either. So, basically, seeing another girl getting fucked didn't completely gross her out (I'm not sure if she's saying she was turned on by it or if she's just neutral on it) and that makes her wonder if she is "having a homophobic moment" by worrying about it. WATCHING HETEROSEXUAL SEX AND NOT HATING IT = HOMOPHOBIA! Yeah, that makes loads of sense. I'm sure loads of lesbians out there buy straight porn for that exact reason. Anita, make no mistake, you are homophobic, but this is NOT one of those times. "Or did I just think that I should have been jealous, and was surprised that I wasn't?"
We're all surprised. No, really, even I am. But I have a theory on why this is happening, and why it's really not progress at all so much as it is another response to The Haters. Thus far, Envy has no personality at all besides being a little nervous about this whole scenario, which doesn't say much about her at all because most people would be. Next thing you know, she's getting banged while Anita gets off on it. She's not listed on the Wikis as recurring in the next two books. So assuming that she doesn't suddenly get a personality, motives, etc. by the end of this book, her entire existence and purpose in the story is to be a sex object for men to fuck and Anita to be aroused by said fucking. That's really not a step up from all women being useless and/or bitches and Anita hating them, but I have a hunch she is, like Kelly and Rosamond, meant to be a response to accusations of Anita's misogyny. All that LKH succeeded at, however, is being sexist in a different way instead. I'd give her credit for trying if her I thought her motive was to sincerely change how she writes about women because she's realized it's fucked up, but, again, I don't, I think she's just trying to invalidate the claims of her detractors.
Anita whispers to Micah the bit about how she thinks she's bothered because she's not bothered. He says that, having been with her two years, he can now "actually understand that." He must be pretty dense to need two years with someone to get what they mean by that. It honestly doesn't seem that odd or contradictory to me. Well, I mean, in this case what it's about (letting her guys do what she does) is stupid, as I pointed out, but the idea in general is not a hard one to grasp. She frowns at him, he says exactly what has already been made clear and what she's said like twice already: "Anita, you've never seen any of us with another woman. You think you should be jealous, but you weren't." And Anita tells him what she already told us: that she'd rather have seen one of her guys in the middle (which, she adds, bothers her...wait, what, didn't she get ok with liking m/m back in DM?) but that Envy was pretty. LKH, if the characters are going to say the same things to each other that have already been said internally on the previous page, why have them being said internally at all?
And then they have some more awkward, un-arousing, very boring back and forth on if Anita is bothered by liking that she saw another woman like that or if she's bothered that she's not bothered....some comedian (Carlos Mencia, I think) did some joke about how we're all a little gay because when straight guys watch porn they like the dude to have a big dick. Anita seems to believe this seriously, just gender-reversed: that she must be a little gay because she liked watching straight porn where the woman was hot. In which case I'd like to point her to all the straight people (not just men!) who enjoy m/f (or m/f/m, or whatever combo) porn where everyone hot and can appreciate someone of their sex is attractive without having a crisis of sexuality over it. Honestly, I don't know about men, I think it's more taboo for them, but in my experience, most straight girls think and say that other girls are pretty or even sexy, hot, etc all the damn time. It's seriously no big deal. Most likely she liked it because, like I think (not sure, correct me if I'm wrong) most people do when watching that type of porn, she projected herself on to the person of her own sex that was getting fucked by hot guys, which she herself would like. That's probably WHY she liked that Envy was pretty---it's not arousing to think of yourself having sex as an ugly person.
Not only is none of this particularly hard to figure out and really not interesting to read about as a personal crisis at all, this is really not the time for it either, and so it is broken up by...Nathaniel? Yeah, Nathaniel is suddenly randomly there again. I mean, he came in to the room with Micah and Anita to meet the weretigers, but he just disappeared from the text after sitting down at JC's feet and now suddenly he's here with no mention of having followed them to the bedroom. He tells Anita "No. We are not going to do this tonight." Anita asks what, he takes her in his arms and tells her he loves her. Uh, okay? She says she loves him too, he says she's trying to talk herself out of having sex. She says she's not, but admits to the reader that he's right.
And now we get into some really uncomfy pressuring of Anita to have sex. I realize this is just more of LKH's typical "she doesn't WANT to have sex, so she's not a slut!" song and dance, but it's still really creepy in-universe. It also shows how Micah and Nathaniel are not only enablers that tolerate her behavior, they actively encourage her to exploit and abuse other people for their own gain (Micah adding to the empire he shares with her and JC, Nathaniel getting off on her hurting more people and getting an ever-more-powerful mistress).
Nathaniel says she is too, Anita tells the reader how she wishes he wasn't smiling because "I didn't like the feeling that they were both more reasonable than I was. I didn't like being treated like the difficult one." In any other scenario I'd say she was, but this is a hugely uncomfy situation given the entire background of the tigers, regardless of how urgent it is to screw them. I do wish she wouldn't stall so much, given what is indeed at stake, but I don't think she's at all unreasonable for having misgivings about it...of course, her misgivings seem more to be that she's a good girl and can't have sex with a strange guy, not the truly fucked up situation it is "Of course, if the shoe fits...but this particular size-seven stiletto pinched." Is the fact it's a size-seven stiletto meant to be a joke, or is it what she's wearing or...?
Anita admits she is, he asks her not to, she hugs him and says that "something hit an issue" and again, I really wish this was about THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING BIT and not 'omg what if I'm kinda bi' or 'oh geez I don't wanna have sex with this guy I barely know'. Not that the latter is ordinarily valid, it's just...it's a really selfish and absurd one to focus on given the human trafficking vs stopping the MOAD thing.
He kisses her and strokes her hair and says he knows but that they need to bring Meph over. She asks "What do you mean, bring him over?" JAKE EXPLAINED TO YOU ABOUT HOW YOU NEED TO MAKE HIM YOUR TIGER TO CALL, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK 'BRING HIM OVER' MEANS? Nathaniel says "Make him yours, ours" because yeah, Nathaniel is definitely focused on that bit because I reckon it appeals to him sexually. Anita the cruel mistress of his fantasies with yet another man to abuse so he can watch and think about when it's his turn next. Or to distract her from him because Anita is just another job he's working to get room and board from her and he's not into her at all, whichever interpretation you prefer. Anita narrows her eyes and Nathaniel reminds her that it's important, and she asks why.
SHE. ASKS. WHY.
YOU KNOW WHAT, SCREW IT, I DON'T HAVE ANY SYMPATHY FOR SOMEONE THIS STUPID
SHE HAS THE MEMORY OF A GOLDFISH
HOW DID SHE EVER COMPLETE HER DEGREE EXAM SERIOUSLY
Oh wait apparently she wants to know why having sex with him to make him hers is important because Nathaniel explains that sex was how the binding process for he and Damian was completed "maybe because sex is how you feed your vampire. To make him yours, you need to feed on him." This is more contrived than the ending to a Victorian novel. Anita starts to protest but then Micah comes up behind her and "insinuated his body against the back of mine" Can the word 'insinuated' also mean that? I'm not sure. Online dictionary says no. Anyway, he wraps his arms around her and Nathaniel so Anita gets sandwiched between the two guys. This happens a lot, I'm starting to think it's a thing of LKH's. He tells her that "We need to make certain that any new wereanimals or vampires, especially powerful ones, are ours, Anita."
Ours. Not our allies, not on our side, just ours. Owned. From the inside out, controlled by their very minds and beasts. And not just the tigers, no, but anyone new to the group. This is NOT how good guys run things, kids, ever.
Anita asks if he thinks Haven wouldn't have "gotten out of control" if she'd fucked him sooner. They both hug her tighter (I guess Meph is, I dunno, tapping his foot or talking to Nicky or something) and Micah says he doesn't know but "sex is the glue that binds Jean-Claude's line of vampires together. We need to play to our strengths, sweetheart. We don't have time to pretend we aren't what we are." This all may be so in-universe, yes, but it doesn't make it any less ridiculous and problematic on LKH's part for making it so. She takes a few deep breaths and Micah says that if she says she doesn't want to have sex, they won't. She says that he knows it would be a lie if she did. Micah repeats that if says she doesn't find the weretiger attractive then she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to, that if she doesn't want him then this stops here.
Ah. Very manipulative of you there, Micah. See, he's not so much saying "You don't have to have sex if you don't want to" as he's saying "You don't have to have sex if you don't find him sexually attractive" and there's a big difference there. You can find someone attractive and still not want to have sex with them. And you can want to have sex with someone but still choose not to for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they're attractive to you or not. But that's not how he's framing it. It's worded as if the only reason she'd have to refuse sex is not thinking Meph is hot, and thus probably meant to make Anita think that this is indeed the only good reason not to do it so she'll back down, since Micah obviously knows that she thinks Meph is hot since he hand-picked him for her tastes. How does LKH not realize she's writing this creepy coercive manipulative not-okay shit? Because considering how perfect and good Micah is supposed to be, I'm guessing it's not supposed to be JC-levels of just that. He then adds that "want him or don't want him, but if you want him, let yourself want him" reinforcing the idea that her only option for NOT having sex now is if she doesn't think Meph is hot.
Anita "swallowed, and it almost hurt" and then turns to look at Meph, resulting 2/3 of the page being taken up by what he looks like and how hot he is. It includes mention of how his hair "wasn't just blond but had streaks of cream and almost white in it so the yellow was more subdued. Both Pride's and Envy's yellow had been brighter" but that Meph "could have passed for human easily with a different name." Because humans never dye their hair bright blond, ever. Dead giveaway as a supernatural! "The name sounded like something you'd pick as a teenager when you went through the wearing-black-and-writing-death-poetry stage. It didn't match someone who looked so college-normal." What college did you go to, LKH? Because in my experience, college kids actually tend to look a little wilder and more offbeat than teens because they're finally away from parents and able to do things to their appearance that Mom and Dad wouldn't approve of. Also, this shows that LKH knows how ridiculous his name is. Maybe she thinks it's okay if she acknowledges how ridiculous it is, but, no, it isn't. It doesn't get any less ridiculous when lampshaded, rather like how The Nostalgia Critic says that acknowledging something isn't funny doesn't suddenly make it funny.
And then she spends an entire extra paragraph about his eyes and how not only are they blue and gold but they specifically have the blue around the pupil and the "ring of pale, pale golden brown along the outer edge" and how the "biggest difference" from him and a normal human is the "pale gold color" of his skin, though she considers "it could just be a pale summer tan." So...if his golden skin just looks like a bit of a tan, how does it not look human? Humans get tans, you know. And humans can have golden tan skin naturally too, though it does (gasp!) sometimes involve not being ~whitebread~ oh nooooes. Unless you mean he's literally metallic gold, but she clearly doesn't because that's not how a light tan looks. She also thinks about how he is "one of those tall men who seem big" and that if he started hitting weights he "had the potential to be a really big guy" though of course that won't happen because we all remember how grossed out Anita was by Max's big muscular 'bully' body in Skin Trade...though of course she still 'had' to make out with him in front of his wife because Vittorio said so. Just to put that Bibiana in her place, y'know?
She must have been standing there for quite a while running all this through her head, because Meph actually comments on it, and it's hilarious to me: "You look like you're making a list." Anita, snapped out of it, has to blink and ask "I'm sorry, what?" SO SHE REALLY DOES JUST STAND THERE STARING SILENTLY IN REAL-TIME AS SHE LISTS ALL THESE DETAILS TO US. I ALWAYS JOKED ABOUT THAT BUT APPARENTLY I WAS ACTUALLY RIGHT! Oh wow, all those endless down-to-the-eyelashes descriptions she's given are now 100x more hilarious as I imagine her just freezing for about five minutes every time she does them. "Is she okay...? Is she having a seizure, maybe?" "What? Oh, no, that's just Anita, she's fine. Turn around so she can count exactly how many inches your hair falls in the back."
Meph says that "You're looking at me, but you're not seeing me." This is exactly right. She's compiling a list of component parts in her head, it's not like she's seeing another human being there at all. Anita admits that "that was actually a smart thing to say" and "made me think better of him" because "a pretty package" alone has "never moved me much". LOL BIGGEST LIE EVER. What about Sebastian, who you never turned in to the cops for doing what Vittorio made him while you were ready to go on and let poor plain slightly plump Henry be executed when you knew he too had been mind-controlled? Or how about Nathaniel, who, though certainly sly, you only ever talk about in terms of his looks or what a sub he is. OR HAVEN. FREAKING. HAVEN. Anita apologizes to Meph and tells him he is good-looking but that they've just met and she doesn't usually fuck anyone "that quick without metaphysical interference." I am so tired of the word metaphysical in places where it really just means magical. According to wiki, the word can be used to refer to the supernatural in addition to the standard definition (which is some super complex philosophical scientific thing I don't pretend to understand) but at some points it does the reverse of what I think LKH wants it to (sounding scientific/more real than the word 'magic') and just sounds like a big word being slung around by someone trying to sound smart when they have no clue about the definition.
Meph tells her that if she needs to use the ardeur he's okay with that. Hoooly shit I think we have our first consent to the ardeur EVER, ladies and gents and other genders! Of course, despite this oddity, Meph will still clearly fit in to the harem because he adds "Whatever you need, Anita. Whatever you want, just tell me." Even Anita can spot this is a little odd given his earlier attitude, so she asks Micah "What did you do?" AND THEN THINGS GET REALLY CHILLING. Micah replies that "I just wanted someone easy to deal with, someone who wants to fit in, who wants to be here." Anita asks if he was thinking that when they put that energy into Meph (remember, the ribbon of energy they tied on to a bow around his tiger?....I can't believe I just typed that line) and Micah says yes. MICAH FUCKING WILLED MEPH'S PERSONALITY AWAY AND REPLACED IT WITH A COMPLIANT, SUBSERVIENT, ANITA-PLEASER LIKE THE REST OF THEM. HE GAVE HIM A MAGICAL LOBOTOMY. I mean, everyone gets one eventually in this series but I never get used to how horrible it is. Which I guess is good otherwise I'd stop having motivation to SPORK ABOUT HOW FUCKED UP AND WRONG THIS IS AND HOW DOES LKH NOT SEE THAT WHEN SHE SERIOUSLY WROTE IT AS BLATANTLY AS CAN BE. I can only conclude she gets off on the idea of her author avatar not only having a harem of previously-willful men that were mentally broken to bow to her, but to also have former victims recruit and help break new ones. This really is like a cult. AND THESE ARE THE HEROES.
Note that Anita does not saying anything to this at all. She doesn't even THINK anything. No dissent or even consideration whatsoever.
Meph reminds her that she said the other tigers "are looking for someone who smells like home. But the gold tigers aren't looking for a home." He puts his hands on her face and she asks what he's looking for. He says a master. SHE ASKS WHAT THAT MEANS. You know what, maybe Anita has had a lobotomy too. He says that "Pride and some of the others said we should be our own master" FUCK YEAH! "that we're stronger than most vampires in power, and maybe we are" WERETIGER REVOLUTION! "But I don't want to be stronger than you. I don't want to fight you." WELL OF COURSE NOT, AFTER WHAT MICAH DID "It feels like I've been waiting my whole life to belong." Anita asks belong to what, he says to you and kisses her and it tastes like honey.
TELL ME, MEPH, DID YOU FEEL THAT WAY *BEFORE* THAT RIBBON ATE YOUR MIND?
yeah this whole chapters is sickening, nothing funny I can say. I'll definitely need this week to recover.
You'll probably need a vacation too after...
BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY ONE
"I realized that without the ardeur I didn't want to have sex in the bare living room" because while "I'd gotten better at being nude in front of people, but it didn't do anything for me" though your author does like to have you conveniently flash thong or be in a shirt you didn't realize was quite so low-cut and so on "I was never going to be an exhibitionist like some of my boyfriends were" Which does seem to get you off, on the other hand "but since Micah wasn't an exhibitionist, and Asher had issues because of his scars, going to bedroom worked for all of us." Way to make those issues sound like a plus or at least something you don't care the least bit about. Sorry, she just throws it in there so casually it really does sound like that. As for Meph, he was "fine" when Anita assures him they're still going to screw, just in the bedroom instead.
Richard and JC are too far along with Envy to go anywhere, however, she's way too close to coming and "if I'd been the woman in the middle and they'd tried to make me stop, I'd have been pissed." ANITA AT LAST SHOWS EMPATHY, AND FOR ANOTHER WOMAN AT THAT. Anita pauses and wonders if she should explain to JC and Richard where she's going. Hahahaha, are you SERIOUS? Anita, you just said that this is no time to interrupt, and I think that even if their telepathic bonds stopped working with you for whatever reason, they could still find you if they needed to just by common sense of where you would be right now. However, she proceeds to spend about a paragraph thinking about this and how Miss Manners doesn't cover it, managing to throw in another assurance to the reader that she's not jealous of Envy while also insulting all three of them immediately after that in a really backhanded way by saying that unlike them she'd "rather not get all naked in front of anyone who might happen to walk through the door." Sure you're not jealous, Anita, that's why the random judgement and cattiness!
She says that, obviously, she's never watched "my men" with another woman, and spends a page telling the reader all about what Richard and JC are doing with Envy. About the only interesting bit for me is that it's implied Envy is quite pale ("the summer brown of him [Richard] looking even darker against all that pale skin" though that could be JC) rather than a golden color like the men. Anita also charitably adds that Envy is "a better height for them both" since she's as tall as JC in her heels, unlike Anita's cute petite tiny self, and even looks "graceful in the curves of her body between them" and then Envy comes (I think?) and Anita looks at JC's eyes, which we are reminded are dark blue, and they "bled to midnight fire". Then she waves at him and goes on her way to the bedroom with Meph, Asher, and Micah. Dino stays behind, but Nicky and Wicked follow. Anita expects them to just stand guard outside the bedroom door, but then they follow her and her now-partners into the bedroom. She tells them that "If I'd wanted an audience I'd have stayed outside."
Wicked responds that even though Meph "looks tame" he is still "an unknown weretiger who's been trained in combat" and so they're not going to let her be alone with him for the first time...what, are Micah and Asher that useless? It is a good point though; wouldn't it be AWESOME if Meph had just been faking compliance in order to get her off her guard and murder her in bed? Anita asks if "What, I'm like royalty" in this series, yes, unfortunately "I have to have witnesses to the bedding process?" Uh, that's not the reason he gave AT ALL, Anita, how did you even get that idea? But Wicked rolls with it and tells her that there weren't witnesses back in whenever (time period and culture aren't specified, it's just "they") just to confirm that sex actually happened but sometimes also so "one half of the new royal couple couldn't accidentally injure or kill the other. Not everyone was happy about their arranged marriage." Okay, firstly, he said accidentally injure or kill their partner, so what would their happiness have to do with that? That last line makes it sound like it would be a deliberate thing. Secondly, if it's a royal couple, I really doubt that would go on because it would plunge their respective kingdoms into war. If they wanted to off each other, they'd either do it subtly (poison, for instance) or Henry VIII style maybe. Thirdly, I'm no history expert, I could be wrong, but this doesn't sound like any common practice in European history (the only kind I think LKH is even vaguely aware of, if any) that ever actually happened, and more like something I think she made up in her head as fact after having been told it happened for one specific couple or something.
Anita says she doesn't know what to say that (how about "citation?") and he says just to know Nicky and he will be by the door keeping everyone safe and Nicky throws in that "We would suck as bodyguards if you got hurt because we were too pussy to watch" and for whatever reason this makes Anita frown at him and he says to feel free to ask him to join in if she wants and so she frowns harder at him "but he knew I didn't mean it, not really, because his grin got wider. If he'd really thought I was mad at him he'd have reacted to it, because he had to. He was designed to make me happier, not unhappy." No, he was not designed for that. He was not made for that. He was altered to be that way by you. Of course, if you mean that LKH made him for you, well, then, yes. She decides that having guards is reasonable because Meph is supernatural, plus outweighs her by a lot (again, aren't Micah and Asher good for anything? I know they're not the most physical guys but between them and Anita I would think Meph wouldn't win) but that it has nonetheless killed the mood a little for her. Micah must sense this, because he swoops in to hug her, kiss her, and tell her that she's thinking too hard. She tries to frown at him too but can't, hugs him back, and then they wrap themselves around each other "leaving Mephistopheles standing by himself" and Anita tries to figure out "why I was suddenly so tense." I guess the fact that successfully bonding this weretiger to you is crucial to defeating the MOAD isn't enough to make one tense?
She then spends a nice fat thick paragraph that lasts more than a third of the page thinking about how it hadn't bothered her to see JC and Richard with another woman and that "what bothered me was that it hadn't bothered me, and I felt vaguely like it should have". Should you be bothered by finally allowing your lovers the same things you demand of them? You're just finally doing what you should have from the start, the only negative feeling you should have of it is shame that you didn't do it from the start. And then she thinks about how pretty Envy looked between them and how she'd have liked it best if they were doing another guy instead but that this hadn't been "unappealing" either. So, basically, seeing another girl getting fucked didn't completely gross her out (I'm not sure if she's saying she was turned on by it or if she's just neutral on it) and that makes her wonder if she is "having a homophobic moment" by worrying about it. WATCHING HETEROSEXUAL SEX AND NOT HATING IT = HOMOPHOBIA! Yeah, that makes loads of sense. I'm sure loads of lesbians out there buy straight porn for that exact reason. Anita, make no mistake, you are homophobic, but this is NOT one of those times. "Or did I just think that I should have been jealous, and was surprised that I wasn't?"
We're all surprised. No, really, even I am. But I have a theory on why this is happening, and why it's really not progress at all so much as it is another response to The Haters. Thus far, Envy has no personality at all besides being a little nervous about this whole scenario, which doesn't say much about her at all because most people would be. Next thing you know, she's getting banged while Anita gets off on it. She's not listed on the Wikis as recurring in the next two books. So assuming that she doesn't suddenly get a personality, motives, etc. by the end of this book, her entire existence and purpose in the story is to be a sex object for men to fuck and Anita to be aroused by said fucking. That's really not a step up from all women being useless and/or bitches and Anita hating them, but I have a hunch she is, like Kelly and Rosamond, meant to be a response to accusations of Anita's misogyny. All that LKH succeeded at, however, is being sexist in a different way instead. I'd give her credit for trying if her I thought her motive was to sincerely change how she writes about women because she's realized it's fucked up, but, again, I don't, I think she's just trying to invalidate the claims of her detractors.
Anita whispers to Micah the bit about how she thinks she's bothered because she's not bothered. He says that, having been with her two years, he can now "actually understand that." He must be pretty dense to need two years with someone to get what they mean by that. It honestly doesn't seem that odd or contradictory to me. Well, I mean, in this case what it's about (letting her guys do what she does) is stupid, as I pointed out, but the idea in general is not a hard one to grasp. She frowns at him, he says exactly what has already been made clear and what she's said like twice already: "Anita, you've never seen any of us with another woman. You think you should be jealous, but you weren't." And Anita tells him what she already told us: that she'd rather have seen one of her guys in the middle (which, she adds, bothers her...wait, what, didn't she get ok with liking m/m back in DM?) but that Envy was pretty. LKH, if the characters are going to say the same things to each other that have already been said internally on the previous page, why have them being said internally at all?
And then they have some more awkward, un-arousing, very boring back and forth on if Anita is bothered by liking that she saw another woman like that or if she's bothered that she's not bothered....some comedian (Carlos Mencia, I think) did some joke about how we're all a little gay because when straight guys watch porn they like the dude to have a big dick. Anita seems to believe this seriously, just gender-reversed: that she must be a little gay because she liked watching straight porn where the woman was hot. In which case I'd like to point her to all the straight people (not just men!) who enjoy m/f (or m/f/m, or whatever combo) porn where everyone hot and can appreciate someone of their sex is attractive without having a crisis of sexuality over it. Honestly, I don't know about men, I think it's more taboo for them, but in my experience, most straight girls think and say that other girls are pretty or even sexy, hot, etc all the damn time. It's seriously no big deal. Most likely she liked it because, like I think (not sure, correct me if I'm wrong) most people do when watching that type of porn, she projected herself on to the person of her own sex that was getting fucked by hot guys, which she herself would like. That's probably WHY she liked that Envy was pretty---it's not arousing to think of yourself having sex as an ugly person.
Not only is none of this particularly hard to figure out and really not interesting to read about as a personal crisis at all, this is really not the time for it either, and so it is broken up by...Nathaniel? Yeah, Nathaniel is suddenly randomly there again. I mean, he came in to the room with Micah and Anita to meet the weretigers, but he just disappeared from the text after sitting down at JC's feet and now suddenly he's here with no mention of having followed them to the bedroom. He tells Anita "No. We are not going to do this tonight." Anita asks what, he takes her in his arms and tells her he loves her. Uh, okay? She says she loves him too, he says she's trying to talk herself out of having sex. She says she's not, but admits to the reader that he's right.
And now we get into some really uncomfy pressuring of Anita to have sex. I realize this is just more of LKH's typical "she doesn't WANT to have sex, so she's not a slut!" song and dance, but it's still really creepy in-universe. It also shows how Micah and Nathaniel are not only enablers that tolerate her behavior, they actively encourage her to exploit and abuse other people for their own gain (Micah adding to the empire he shares with her and JC, Nathaniel getting off on her hurting more people and getting an ever-more-powerful mistress).
Nathaniel says she is too, Anita tells the reader how she wishes he wasn't smiling because "I didn't like the feeling that they were both more reasonable than I was. I didn't like being treated like the difficult one." In any other scenario I'd say she was, but this is a hugely uncomfy situation given the entire background of the tigers, regardless of how urgent it is to screw them. I do wish she wouldn't stall so much, given what is indeed at stake, but I don't think she's at all unreasonable for having misgivings about it...of course, her misgivings seem more to be that she's a good girl and can't have sex with a strange guy, not the truly fucked up situation it is "Of course, if the shoe fits...but this particular size-seven stiletto pinched." Is the fact it's a size-seven stiletto meant to be a joke, or is it what she's wearing or...?
Anita admits she is, he asks her not to, she hugs him and says that "something hit an issue" and again, I really wish this was about THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING BIT and not 'omg what if I'm kinda bi' or 'oh geez I don't wanna have sex with this guy I barely know'. Not that the latter is ordinarily valid, it's just...it's a really selfish and absurd one to focus on given the human trafficking vs stopping the MOAD thing.
He kisses her and strokes her hair and says he knows but that they need to bring Meph over. She asks "What do you mean, bring him over?" JAKE EXPLAINED TO YOU ABOUT HOW YOU NEED TO MAKE HIM YOUR TIGER TO CALL, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK 'BRING HIM OVER' MEANS? Nathaniel says "Make him yours, ours" because yeah, Nathaniel is definitely focused on that bit because I reckon it appeals to him sexually. Anita the cruel mistress of his fantasies with yet another man to abuse so he can watch and think about when it's his turn next. Or to distract her from him because Anita is just another job he's working to get room and board from her and he's not into her at all, whichever interpretation you prefer. Anita narrows her eyes and Nathaniel reminds her that it's important, and she asks why.
SHE. ASKS. WHY.
YOU KNOW WHAT, SCREW IT, I DON'T HAVE ANY SYMPATHY FOR SOMEONE THIS STUPID
SHE HAS THE MEMORY OF A GOLDFISH
HOW DID SHE EVER COMPLETE HER DEGREE EXAM SERIOUSLY
Oh wait apparently she wants to know why having sex with him to make him hers is important because Nathaniel explains that sex was how the binding process for he and Damian was completed "maybe because sex is how you feed your vampire. To make him yours, you need to feed on him." This is more contrived than the ending to a Victorian novel. Anita starts to protest but then Micah comes up behind her and "insinuated his body against the back of mine" Can the word 'insinuated' also mean that? I'm not sure. Online dictionary says no. Anyway, he wraps his arms around her and Nathaniel so Anita gets sandwiched between the two guys. This happens a lot, I'm starting to think it's a thing of LKH's. He tells her that "We need to make certain that any new wereanimals or vampires, especially powerful ones, are ours, Anita."
Ours. Not our allies, not on our side, just ours. Owned. From the inside out, controlled by their very minds and beasts. And not just the tigers, no, but anyone new to the group. This is NOT how good guys run things, kids, ever.
Anita asks if he thinks Haven wouldn't have "gotten out of control" if she'd fucked him sooner. They both hug her tighter (I guess Meph is, I dunno, tapping his foot or talking to Nicky or something) and Micah says he doesn't know but "sex is the glue that binds Jean-Claude's line of vampires together. We need to play to our strengths, sweetheart. We don't have time to pretend we aren't what we are." This all may be so in-universe, yes, but it doesn't make it any less ridiculous and problematic on LKH's part for making it so. She takes a few deep breaths and Micah says that if she says she doesn't want to have sex, they won't. She says that he knows it would be a lie if she did. Micah repeats that if says she doesn't find the weretiger attractive then she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to, that if she doesn't want him then this stops here.
Ah. Very manipulative of you there, Micah. See, he's not so much saying "You don't have to have sex if you don't want to" as he's saying "You don't have to have sex if you don't find him sexually attractive" and there's a big difference there. You can find someone attractive and still not want to have sex with them. And you can want to have sex with someone but still choose not to for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they're attractive to you or not. But that's not how he's framing it. It's worded as if the only reason she'd have to refuse sex is not thinking Meph is hot, and thus probably meant to make Anita think that this is indeed the only good reason not to do it so she'll back down, since Micah obviously knows that she thinks Meph is hot since he hand-picked him for her tastes. How does LKH not realize she's writing this creepy coercive manipulative not-okay shit? Because considering how perfect and good Micah is supposed to be, I'm guessing it's not supposed to be JC-levels of just that. He then adds that "want him or don't want him, but if you want him, let yourself want him" reinforcing the idea that her only option for NOT having sex now is if she doesn't think Meph is hot.
Anita "swallowed, and it almost hurt" and then turns to look at Meph, resulting 2/3 of the page being taken up by what he looks like and how hot he is. It includes mention of how his hair "wasn't just blond but had streaks of cream and almost white in it so the yellow was more subdued. Both Pride's and Envy's yellow had been brighter" but that Meph "could have passed for human easily with a different name." Because humans never dye their hair bright blond, ever. Dead giveaway as a supernatural! "The name sounded like something you'd pick as a teenager when you went through the wearing-black-and-writing-death-poetry stage. It didn't match someone who looked so college-normal." What college did you go to, LKH? Because in my experience, college kids actually tend to look a little wilder and more offbeat than teens because they're finally away from parents and able to do things to their appearance that Mom and Dad wouldn't approve of. Also, this shows that LKH knows how ridiculous his name is. Maybe she thinks it's okay if she acknowledges how ridiculous it is, but, no, it isn't. It doesn't get any less ridiculous when lampshaded, rather like how The Nostalgia Critic says that acknowledging something isn't funny doesn't suddenly make it funny.
And then she spends an entire extra paragraph about his eyes and how not only are they blue and gold but they specifically have the blue around the pupil and the "ring of pale, pale golden brown along the outer edge" and how the "biggest difference" from him and a normal human is the "pale gold color" of his skin, though she considers "it could just be a pale summer tan." So...if his golden skin just looks like a bit of a tan, how does it not look human? Humans get tans, you know. And humans can have golden tan skin naturally too, though it does (gasp!) sometimes involve not being ~whitebread~ oh nooooes. Unless you mean he's literally metallic gold, but she clearly doesn't because that's not how a light tan looks. She also thinks about how he is "one of those tall men who seem big" and that if he started hitting weights he "had the potential to be a really big guy" though of course that won't happen because we all remember how grossed out Anita was by Max's big muscular 'bully' body in Skin Trade...though of course she still 'had' to make out with him in front of his wife because Vittorio said so. Just to put that Bibiana in her place, y'know?
She must have been standing there for quite a while running all this through her head, because Meph actually comments on it, and it's hilarious to me: "You look like you're making a list." Anita, snapped out of it, has to blink and ask "I'm sorry, what?" SO SHE REALLY DOES JUST STAND THERE STARING SILENTLY IN REAL-TIME AS SHE LISTS ALL THESE DETAILS TO US. I ALWAYS JOKED ABOUT THAT BUT APPARENTLY I WAS ACTUALLY RIGHT! Oh wow, all those endless down-to-the-eyelashes descriptions she's given are now 100x more hilarious as I imagine her just freezing for about five minutes every time she does them. "Is she okay...? Is she having a seizure, maybe?" "What? Oh, no, that's just Anita, she's fine. Turn around so she can count exactly how many inches your hair falls in the back."
Meph says that "You're looking at me, but you're not seeing me." This is exactly right. She's compiling a list of component parts in her head, it's not like she's seeing another human being there at all. Anita admits that "that was actually a smart thing to say" and "made me think better of him" because "a pretty package" alone has "never moved me much". LOL BIGGEST LIE EVER. What about Sebastian, who you never turned in to the cops for doing what Vittorio made him while you were ready to go on and let poor plain slightly plump Henry be executed when you knew he too had been mind-controlled? Or how about Nathaniel, who, though certainly sly, you only ever talk about in terms of his looks or what a sub he is. OR HAVEN. FREAKING. HAVEN. Anita apologizes to Meph and tells him he is good-looking but that they've just met and she doesn't usually fuck anyone "that quick without metaphysical interference." I am so tired of the word metaphysical in places where it really just means magical. According to wiki, the word can be used to refer to the supernatural in addition to the standard definition (which is some super complex philosophical scientific thing I don't pretend to understand) but at some points it does the reverse of what I think LKH wants it to (sounding scientific/more real than the word 'magic') and just sounds like a big word being slung around by someone trying to sound smart when they have no clue about the definition.
Meph tells her that if she needs to use the ardeur he's okay with that. Hoooly shit I think we have our first consent to the ardeur EVER, ladies and gents and other genders! Of course, despite this oddity, Meph will still clearly fit in to the harem because he adds "Whatever you need, Anita. Whatever you want, just tell me." Even Anita can spot this is a little odd given his earlier attitude, so she asks Micah "What did you do?" AND THEN THINGS GET REALLY CHILLING. Micah replies that "I just wanted someone easy to deal with, someone who wants to fit in, who wants to be here." Anita asks if he was thinking that when they put that energy into Meph (remember, the ribbon of energy they tied on to a bow around his tiger?....I can't believe I just typed that line) and Micah says yes. MICAH FUCKING WILLED MEPH'S PERSONALITY AWAY AND REPLACED IT WITH A COMPLIANT, SUBSERVIENT, ANITA-PLEASER LIKE THE REST OF THEM. HE GAVE HIM A MAGICAL LOBOTOMY. I mean, everyone gets one eventually in this series but I never get used to how horrible it is. Which I guess is good otherwise I'd stop having motivation to SPORK ABOUT HOW FUCKED UP AND WRONG THIS IS AND HOW DOES LKH NOT SEE THAT WHEN SHE SERIOUSLY WROTE IT AS BLATANTLY AS CAN BE. I can only conclude she gets off on the idea of her author avatar not only having a harem of previously-willful men that were mentally broken to bow to her, but to also have former victims recruit and help break new ones. This really is like a cult. AND THESE ARE THE HEROES.
Note that Anita does not saying anything to this at all. She doesn't even THINK anything. No dissent or even consideration whatsoever.
Meph reminds her that she said the other tigers "are looking for someone who smells like home. But the gold tigers aren't looking for a home." He puts his hands on her face and she asks what he's looking for. He says a master. SHE ASKS WHAT THAT MEANS. You know what, maybe Anita has had a lobotomy too. He says that "Pride and some of the others said we should be our own master" FUCK YEAH! "that we're stronger than most vampires in power, and maybe we are" WERETIGER REVOLUTION! "But I don't want to be stronger than you. I don't want to fight you." WELL OF COURSE NOT, AFTER WHAT MICAH DID "It feels like I've been waiting my whole life to belong." Anita asks belong to what, he says to you and kisses her and it tastes like honey.
TELL ME, MEPH, DID YOU FEEL THAT WAY *BEFORE* THAT RIBBON ATE YOUR MIND?
yeah this whole chapters is sickening, nothing funny I can say. I'll definitely need this week to recover.