BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Jul. 9th, 2013 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratLet me tell you a story of Boo. Boo, short for Bubonic, was one half of a pair of my first rats, the other one being Fidget. Fidget was a pretty normal rat, though he had quirks and stories of his own which I shall also some day share, but Boo...Boo was something else.
To start with, Boo was BIG. I don't mean fat, i mean he was just plain HUGE, and all of it was muscle. When my dad and I first saw him in the pet store, he was sitting on his tail, so Dad couldn't see it was a naked rat tail, and Dad said, "Look, they sell skunks here!" He wasn't joking. He really thought Boo (a black and white rat, obviously, though he wasn't at all skunky-patterned) was a skunk because he was just that big! "No Dad," I said, "That's a rat, and that's the rat I want!" Dad said that I could have a rat, but I could not have THAT rat. But the next time I went to the store, I not only got that rat, I got his buddy too!
That's a story in itself, actually. See, I didn't know it at the time, but Dad was actually even more against letting me have rats than Mom was. Mom is still...not very thrilled about them...but Dad loves them now! Back then, though, he was ignorant of their wondrous ways, so in the pet store, when I told Mom we needed to get two or the one we got would be depressed, and she agreed that "If we have to have a rat, I don't want a depressed rat" my father reacted by shouting "WHAT THE HELL, MAUREEN, ARE YOU ON CRACK?!" in the middle of a pet store full of kids. It was terrific. And so we walked out of there with two rats, one of which being the one my dad said I couldn't have (FYI: I am my Daddy's princess, I won't lie. There's pretty much only *two* things I was never able to get out of him, and that's a horse and junk food. He's a health food nut, see. Other than that, though? Yeah, I get anything. It's awesome.)
Boo liked Fidget, and he liked people. Anything else had to WATCH THE FUCK OUT though. Especially dogs. He *hated* dogs. He would chase our dog Jessie (she was 70lbs, not a small dog at all!) and if he caught her, he would bite up her face, her ears, her nose, her paws...he did not like her. At first we thought he just had an issue with Jessie only, but then middle school had pet day and I brought them....Boo went after A LITTLE OF PUPPIES. And someone also though he *was* a puppy (I told you, he was big---I also had someone once look at a photo of him and ask "What's wrong with your cat's tail?") Meanwhile, Fidget was hardly well-behaved himself. He went up a teacher's pant leg and got into that same teacher's desk where he peed all over his papers. Needless to say I never brought them back into that building ever again. In fact, I can't totally remember, but I think I may have killed Pet Day permanently at that school, or at least as long as I was in attendance. I know I don't remember there ever being another, at least.
Now that the groundwork of just what badassery and 'tude this rat was packing has been laid down, I shall regale you with Boo's ultimate assault on our dog!
We were watching a movie. The Day After Tomorrow, to be specific. Boo was hiding in the couch cushions. Jessie came in, and decided she would try to be cute and act like a much smaller dog than she actually is and jump up on the couch. I waited for Boo to fly out and attack her. Oddly, he didn't. What he did was creepy slowly out of the cushions and sneak towards her. She did not spot him. When he reached her, he did not bite her, which puzzled me further. Instead, he went underneath her. Then, with a howl of pain, Jessie made an EPIC LEAP off the couch, and Boo was hanging by his teeth on her belly! She ran from the room, taking Bubonic with her.
Since then, Jessie was afraid of all rodents all her life.
BUBONIC THE RAT: More badass than Anita Blake could ever hope to be!
BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
"The slip hadn't worked with the dress, so I wore it with just the nice black bra and panties under it." GEE, HOW ABOUT THAT. This is so transparently (no pun intended) contrived. I just cannot begin to express my hatred for "heroine gets to be sexiest girl at the party but oh it wasn't her intent!" I really can't. Close to half a page is devoted to her shoes (for someone who claims not to care about or like fancy lady clothes, Anita sure makes sure to think about them in detail) and honestly I wasn't able to make out anything except that they're close-toed black-and-silver three-inchers. SEE HOW DID THAT IN JUST SEVEN WORDS, LKH? And she has on thigh-highs too. The next paragraph is about how Cardinal did her makeup and how "the lipstick was a red so deep and rich that it was going to be distracting just to watch me talk. Of course, my breasts might distract any heterosexual man in the room from ever seeing my face. There was way too much yummy mounded goodness going on in front of me" Isn't this the woman who mopes about what a Plain Jane she is for being brunette? She's honestly pretty enamored with herself. Like, that's fine and all, I'm totally for ladies appreciating their own beauty rather than dismissing it, just Anita's pretensions of modesty when she's got this kind of inner monologue going about her own looks is pretty ridiculous, especially when you consider we're supposed to buy her as sincere in her Ugly Duckling Syndrome and not just being manipulative for compliments.
The dress being see-through makes all her vampire bites "very visible" and again I have to ask, what bites? I think she's referring to the ones from the orgy...oh wait there have been three orgies so far, I mean specifically the second orgy, the one after healing Noel. But that doesn't make sense for her bites or for Micah's. Micah is a wereanimal, and a powerful one at that, his should be healed by now, and as for Anita, she took all that healing energy from Jamil and Shang-Da, it should have patched her up too while she was using to to fix Nathaniel, Claudia, etc. Plus being a Human Servant and a panwere means she has enhanced healing too, last time I checked. She also mentions that her ass is bare because she's wearing a black lace thong. Okay, let's be frank here, even if they don't have a nudity taboo wereanimals still exist within human culture, which is pretty slut-shamey, and thus have probably picked up our own biases and judgements when it comes to what a woman wears---what exact image and idea do you think this outfit is going to give the visiting weretigers? Because I don't think it's the kind that they want for their new Master of Tigers. Meng Die is right, Anita needs to sell a look alright, but I don't think this look is it. I definitely don't agree with the sentiment that a woman can't be smart, strong, and capable while in a tiny see-through shadow of a dress, it doesn't automatically cancel out her brains and guts, but that's sadly NOT how most people think, and right now it would be a lot wiser to just play to their preconceptions instead of trying to prove them wrong, seeing as how urgent it is to get the tigers to trust you and fast. Some kind of classy sensible suit or at least something really regal-looking would almost surely be a better bet for getting the respect of (or at least avoiding pre-judgement by) the weretigers. Think of it as dressing for a job interview. Except for the part where you bone the interviewer into submission and take over the company, I mean.
Her weapons are divided among Wicked, Truth, and Nicky, who are to rotate around her and JC. Since JC "might have to pull out some serious vampire powers to help me tame the tigers" she's also not wearing her cross, but she does have on the anti-MOAD charm. So, the tigers just can't discuss and come to their own decision about whether they're okay with you becoming their Master as a species, they've got to be "tamed" like animals. That word showed up with Auggie at the beginning of this book, and it's been reoccurring like a bad case of herpes chapter by chapter ever since. Was it used like this in previous books? I don't recall it being so abused and over-used in Skin Trade or Flirt. I think she might have just thought of it and is like a kid who can't put down a new toy.
"The gold tigers and Jake himself" I don't understand the need for the 'himself' there "were going to stay out of sight until we'd done the tigers." I'd make a joke about the word choice, but I think she really does mean 'done' them like that "because we were pretty sure there'd be spies among them" and since, she explains, even the Harlequin never see the other Harlequin unmasked, at least not all of the others, no one Harlequin knows what all the others look like so that they can be "effective even to each other."
They are in "the big dining room" and Anita gives us a pretty interesting background for it, that it was originally a speakeasy during Prohibition and it's a "huge natural cavern with gas lamps in the walls" but then goes overboard talking about the candles on the table and how everything is cast in light and shadow. I am simultaneously amused and baffled about how "it was a cocktail party, with everyone standing around sipping drinks, eating hors d'oevres, and chatting." OKAY, CLEARLY *THIS* IS WHY TIGERS ARE SO RARE, THEY'RE IDIOTS WHO ALL DIED OUT BECAUSE THEIR RESPONSE TO A THREAT IS TO HAVE A MIXER. MOAD is on the move, we've got to band together with this necromancer to save ourselves and the world from her? Let's do drinks and tapas! This is just so suicidally stupid I can't even process it. Like, stupid to the point of bizarre. Also, when the hell was there time to call up a caterer for the hors d'oevres? Anita claims that she hates the "small talk" of parties and that she's terrible at it anyway (she's so blunt and real and serious and non-frivolous, guys!) which I find hard to believe---after all, this woman goes on for pages about outfits and spent the beginning of Skin Trade espousing what was basically catty insult gossip about others even as there was A HEAD IN A BOX ON HER DESK, she should be the queen of frivolous obnoxious mean-girl gossip.
She claims that JC, Micah, Nathaniel, Asher, and Jason are all really good at it though so she just lets them do it, but that Damian is almost as bad as she is so he keeps Cardinal on his arm for the same reason...cuz it couldn't be that he enjoys her company or anything, no, he just needs her for her yapper. God, Anita. Anyway, she and JC meet Victor, the white tiger prince from Skin Trade, son of Bibiana and Max the Master of Las Vegas. We are reminded he is "tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome" with short white hair in a really stylish cut, an expensive tailored suit, and rich deep blue eyes. She takes a very long paragraph to tell us all this. I did it in about twenty words and I'm betting you got the same picture in your head for it. She notes that she likes Victor's eyes and that "my white tiger liked everything about him." He takes her offered hand and this causes his power to "breathed along my skin in a warm wash" that makes it hard for to breath in a moment and Victori starts breathing "in a shaky line" and "it took a visible effort for him to stop touching me." Now you see where I got the idea for that with poor Armel in the SUE VS SUE mixer scene. Seriously, this happens so often to her I think she should really just invest in a pair of elegant black opera gloves.
Victor compliments her for how "captivating" she is, Anita's white tiger wants to touch him, she steps forward without realizing it, and, to my huge amusement, Victor backs up a step. EW DON'T GET CLOSE ANITA YOU HAVE COOTIES. At that moment a woman comes over and asks Victor if he isn't going to introduce her. She leans against Victor in "a possessive way that some girlfriends have." Unlike Anita, who just binds their minds and lives to her. So much easier than keeping an eye on them, just make it so you control their free will and they'll literally die with you! Not like those possessive leaning girls! "My white tiger didn't like it" Oh, it's not Anita who's jealous, it's her tiger! Really! "and I had a moment to fight the instinct to mark him as sort of territory." In my head that means she had to fight not to pee on him. Plus since when are tigers possessive about sex partners? They're not mated pairs like wolves, as far as I know the male tiger just leaves after they fuck, no marking him involved. "I'd met him twice, and slept with him twice, and had sex only one of those times. I had no right to mark him as mine" So you say you have no right to do something after listing what sounds suspiciously like 'justifications' for doing just that. Also, she may say she knows she has no right to do so, but that's still pretty much what LKH has her do, just wait "but wasn't I supposed to do exactly that?" No. "Shit, I didn't know." THE ANSWER IS NO, YOU ARE NOT, NOT BY HUMAN OR TIGER STANDARDS.
Ugh, I've seen this attitude before with real people (well, one real person) sadly enough. It's where they're not just possessive of their own partner(s), they're actively jealous over and feel competitive with the partners of people they just happen to know and/or find attractive, even if they never intend to actually get involved with the person they're jealous over. They just can't stand the thought of someone ELSE getting them. That's what's going on here. Anita's fucked Victor, being he's handsome and in an important position as the white tiger prince, but he's not a regular sweetie since he has short hair and a spine. She probably hasn't thought of him since Skin Trade. Yet let another woman get within sight of him and suddenly she sees him as HERS HERS HERS. Seriously, that's what she just said---territory, remember? He's not a partner, but he's still definitely something she owns in her mind. Come to think of it, she seems to be that way towards the wives and girlfriends of men she's not even attracted to; the aforementioned insults and hostility towards the wives of Manny and Larry that she brought up in Skin Trade, remember? I wonder, is she pissed at them for 'taking' men that she happens to know, or is that just her usual in-general misogyny? And god how horrible is it that this is even a question I have reason to ask? Because I just really wouldn't be surprised if on some level she sees herself as the only woman any man she knows should look at, even if he's not a guy she's into at all, and that LKH shares her opinion but knows she can't directly put that in the book.
We then get a paragraph and a half about what this lady looks like. She has "long pale curls, mostly white, but with edges of pale golden brown here and there" Oooh, she's pretty! Her and Envy need to pose together, like, constantly! "I knew that meant her white tiger would have stripes the color of her darker curls." Not gonna lie, that's pretty neat. I wonder why the other white tigers, like Crispin, don't have black streaks in their hair though, then? Maybe some do and some don't. Ha, what if that's all Domino's black curls really were and he was totally lying about being a hybrid in order to get Anita's sympathy! "She had the same lush curves as Bibiana, but on a body that was nearly a foot taller." So again, like Envy, and like my Lucille too. These babes totally need to hang out and do posters together. She has "large, uptilted eyes" that are "a blue so pale they were gray" So, uh, you mean she has gray eyes, maybe pale bue-grey? "with a line of black around the iris" How would you even tell that, since the iris itself is black too? And she has on silver stilettos and a silver dress too, if you care, since LKH obviously thinks we do. (Okay, I admit, I kind of do...I told you, I have a weakness for clothes porn, and also for descriptions of unusual-looking supernatural sorts, especially the pretty ladies...though I still agree she could sure as hell stand to do them a lot more economically).
Victor says "Julia, this is Anita Blake, Jean-Claude's lady" and Julia holds on a hand that is "perfectly manicured" with French-tip nails. Naturally this causes Anita to note to the reader how Cardinal declared Anita's own nails "hopeless" but of course "I didn't really care about nails." Right, Anita, you're such a Not Girly Girl, you totally don't care about nails, that's why you noticed what kind that Julia has and then compared your own to them, which got its own paragraph. Anita actually is the stereotypical shallow girl who notices and judges the nails, makeup, clothes, etc. of other girls all the time, she just judges hers as better than theirs because hers are worse versus better because they're actually better.
When Julia takes Anita's hand, she "sent a flash of power into me" that causes Anita's white tiger to rise and "spill around me like some white phantom." Julia tries to take her hand back, but Anita holds on to it (dude, wtf?!) and "my tiger spilled over and through her" stop that, you creep! "I tasted her tiger" Uninvited! "saw it in its pale stripes, and knew she was no queen." She never said she was! She just shook your hand and there was power, just like with Victor! You didn't do this to him! Leave her alone! This is clearly upsetting Julia, quite possibly even hurting her, because "she tried to slap me, like a girl, but my other arm was there blocking hers." Firstly, she IS a girl, it's not an insult dammit. Secondly, plenty of men slap. Thirdly, she is a fucking weretiger with super-strength, a slap could probably take your head off. Fourthly, you should be glad a slap is ALL she's doing, given that she is a fucking weretiger and showing more restraint than you have in your whole life!
Julia tells her to let go and she sounds afraid. Anita thinks that "Fear meant food. Fear meant weak." No, fear doesn't mean weak. No, not even to an animal like a tiger. It's a natural response that helps animals survive, including tigers, who, by the way, do NOT see other tigers as food. I wish I could twist this so that it was basically Anita's tiger just being pissy that another tiger is anywhere near it, since that actually makes sense for a real tiger, but there's just no way I can, given these lines about fear and food and how she didn't react to the other tigers like this, not even fellow female Envy (since Envy was a good little girl who didn't challenge Anita in any way and just existed to get Anita's rocks off in her own live-action porno). Anita says that "I started to let go, honest" but I don't believe her. Jean-Claude, however, tells her that "She began this, ma petite. You must finish it. She challenged you. Answer it." Victor, whom Anita of course is sure to note has moved so that he isn't touching icky-poo Julia, adds that "You must answer her challenge, Anita. Either you are queen, or you are not."
WHAT CHALLENGE? Anita shook Victor's hand and she felt his power like this too, remember? Yes, it says that Julia "sent" her power into Anita while I guess Victor's just did that naturally, but there's nothing mentioned about how Anita knows that Julia deliberately sent said power. Not to mention that I think the challenge has obviously been dropped by Julia, given that she's struggling to get away from Anita, aka retreat. Honestly, that's actually how most animal battles, no matter what the species, go in the wild--it's all show, and real fighting is a point that is rarely reached before one party backs down, as Julia seems to be. I think that JC is just egging Anita on with made-up bullshit that she 'has' to do this because *he* wants to make an example of Julia to the tigers of what Anita can do if they resist him. As for why Victor would contribute...well, Julia seems to be Victor's girlfriend, and we know that Bibiana wants Victor to be with Anita, maybe he was told by his mother to pit the two women against each other and if Julia can hold out for however long (since of course she can't BEAT Anita) then Bibi will let her keep dating him?
Leaving poor Julia, of course, to get bullied and then assaulted in front of a whole room of people, including her own clan, who do nothing to help her.
Anita decides that "we were supposed to play to win" and so she responds with "Make me" when Julia tells her again to let go. She tells us that "even though human words were coming out of my mouth, the attitude wasn't human" IT'S NOT ANIMAL EITHER YOU BULLY "Julia was about to learn she'd made a mistake." Yeah, never get close to any guy Anita has so much as looked at UNLESS you're only offering to perform sexually with him for HER viewing pleasure. Victor and JC back away, and the other white tigers gather in a circle around them to watch. This is bad for Julia because "the white tigers were what I wanted, needed" right now, since she's fighting one. How that makes sense, I'm not quite clear.
Julia tries to use her supernatural strength "to pull me off my feet, but my sport of choice was judo, and that was all about leverage and balance" so when Julia pulls, Anita just goes with it "so that I was suddenly up against her, her hand still in mine, and my leg went behind hers at the same time that I pushed on her with my other hand, and down she went. She didn't know how to fall" SHE'S A WERECAT "so she hit hard." Anita gets on top of her, straddles her waist, and says that even though can't hold Julia down with "strength alone, but there are other ways to make someone stay on a floor." I DO NOT LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS.
Anita leans her face over Julia's and Julia screams as Anita and her white tiger "thrust that white, hot energy into Julia. We plunged it between those beautiful eyes and we brought her tiger" THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THIS THAT IS NOT LIKE A RAPE. SERIOUSLY OH GOD WHY LKH WTF. It is made even worse by the fact that now as Julia, now forced into hybrid form, "she lay under me, still in the silver dress" she looks up at Anita, Anita puts her forehead to hers, still holding her hands, Anita rubs her cheek against hers, and then Julia "rubbed back and that deep thundering purr began." Someone really needs to tell LKH what a calendar won't: BIG CATS DON'T PURR! Okay, well, they sort of do...
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-57371214-10391705/do-big-cats-purr/
So basically this was a stereotypical rape. I say 'stereotypical' because there are many ways that rape happens, but this is way that I think is the most common in peoples' minds: A masculine entity (Anita is constantly emphasized as masculine, especially when contrasted against feminine women like Julia) who hates women/femininity, and so when a woman or feminine person does something she doesn't like, she attacks her, first just physically and then sexually (the plunging and thrusting of power, the straddling, the 'bringing' of her beast possibly like forcing an orgasm) too, not because she sexually desires Julia at all but in order to dominate her, to take her control (bringing her beast) away, to put her in her place. And even squickier, there's the rapist fantasy (that is, the fantasy that kind of rapist would probably have) of Julia adoring her afterwards now that she's learned to bow and behave. AM I READING WERECATS OF GOR?!
And just when you think that this couldn't get any worse, remember all the white weretigers who were watching this? They're not outraged in the slightest. No, they "crowded around us and rubbed their human faces against me and Julia." Presumably they do this while kneeling, because Anita specifies that Victor doesn't kneel when he does it but instead "picked me up in his arms while the white tigers rolled around his legs." While in human form. That must look so incredibly stupid, especially given they're dressed for a cocktail party. Anita can somehow see his beast, which is a stripeless white tiger (those actually do exist, they're called snow tigers) and it "rolled through me" and her beast goes to meet it and oh isn't that special her white tiger is a snow tiger too GEE HOW ABOUT THAT and "it was as if he and I were the center of some warm, wonderful fire, and every tiger at our feet was fuel for it." So basically they have to sacrifice themselves in order for you to consume them with their own prince? Actually, that's probably exactly what's happening. It certainly was the case with poor Julia. He puts his arms around her, she gushes about how strong he is and how their energy gets "thicker, richer, deeper, more, until his mouth touched mine and then we thrust our power into each other" and their beasts "intermingled and became one" and then "I could feel every tiger around us, and it was all fuel, all energy, all mine."
So basically because Victor dared have a girlfriend after having had sex with Anita one damn time, Anita rapes the girlfriend in a public spectacle until the girl loves her, then has sex with Victor in public too (which means in front of Julia) and gains control over an entire people through it.
LKH is a sick lady.
To start with, Boo was BIG. I don't mean fat, i mean he was just plain HUGE, and all of it was muscle. When my dad and I first saw him in the pet store, he was sitting on his tail, so Dad couldn't see it was a naked rat tail, and Dad said, "Look, they sell skunks here!" He wasn't joking. He really thought Boo (a black and white rat, obviously, though he wasn't at all skunky-patterned) was a skunk because he was just that big! "No Dad," I said, "That's a rat, and that's the rat I want!" Dad said that I could have a rat, but I could not have THAT rat. But the next time I went to the store, I not only got that rat, I got his buddy too!
That's a story in itself, actually. See, I didn't know it at the time, but Dad was actually even more against letting me have rats than Mom was. Mom is still...not very thrilled about them...but Dad loves them now! Back then, though, he was ignorant of their wondrous ways, so in the pet store, when I told Mom we needed to get two or the one we got would be depressed, and she agreed that "If we have to have a rat, I don't want a depressed rat" my father reacted by shouting "WHAT THE HELL, MAUREEN, ARE YOU ON CRACK?!" in the middle of a pet store full of kids. It was terrific. And so we walked out of there with two rats, one of which being the one my dad said I couldn't have (FYI: I am my Daddy's princess, I won't lie. There's pretty much only *two* things I was never able to get out of him, and that's a horse and junk food. He's a health food nut, see. Other than that, though? Yeah, I get anything. It's awesome.)
Boo liked Fidget, and he liked people. Anything else had to WATCH THE FUCK OUT though. Especially dogs. He *hated* dogs. He would chase our dog Jessie (she was 70lbs, not a small dog at all!) and if he caught her, he would bite up her face, her ears, her nose, her paws...he did not like her. At first we thought he just had an issue with Jessie only, but then middle school had pet day and I brought them....Boo went after A LITTLE OF PUPPIES. And someone also though he *was* a puppy (I told you, he was big---I also had someone once look at a photo of him and ask "What's wrong with your cat's tail?") Meanwhile, Fidget was hardly well-behaved himself. He went up a teacher's pant leg and got into that same teacher's desk where he peed all over his papers. Needless to say I never brought them back into that building ever again. In fact, I can't totally remember, but I think I may have killed Pet Day permanently at that school, or at least as long as I was in attendance. I know I don't remember there ever being another, at least.
Now that the groundwork of just what badassery and 'tude this rat was packing has been laid down, I shall regale you with Boo's ultimate assault on our dog!
We were watching a movie. The Day After Tomorrow, to be specific. Boo was hiding in the couch cushions. Jessie came in, and decided she would try to be cute and act like a much smaller dog than she actually is and jump up on the couch. I waited for Boo to fly out and attack her. Oddly, he didn't. What he did was creepy slowly out of the cushions and sneak towards her. She did not spot him. When he reached her, he did not bite her, which puzzled me further. Instead, he went underneath her. Then, with a howl of pain, Jessie made an EPIC LEAP off the couch, and Boo was hanging by his teeth on her belly! She ran from the room, taking Bubonic with her.
Since then, Jessie was afraid of all rodents all her life.
BUBONIC THE RAT: More badass than Anita Blake could ever hope to be!
BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
"The slip hadn't worked with the dress, so I wore it with just the nice black bra and panties under it." GEE, HOW ABOUT THAT. This is so transparently (no pun intended) contrived. I just cannot begin to express my hatred for "heroine gets to be sexiest girl at the party but oh it wasn't her intent!" I really can't. Close to half a page is devoted to her shoes (for someone who claims not to care about or like fancy lady clothes, Anita sure makes sure to think about them in detail) and honestly I wasn't able to make out anything except that they're close-toed black-and-silver three-inchers. SEE HOW DID THAT IN JUST SEVEN WORDS, LKH? And she has on thigh-highs too. The next paragraph is about how Cardinal did her makeup and how "the lipstick was a red so deep and rich that it was going to be distracting just to watch me talk. Of course, my breasts might distract any heterosexual man in the room from ever seeing my face. There was way too much yummy mounded goodness going on in front of me" Isn't this the woman who mopes about what a Plain Jane she is for being brunette? She's honestly pretty enamored with herself. Like, that's fine and all, I'm totally for ladies appreciating their own beauty rather than dismissing it, just Anita's pretensions of modesty when she's got this kind of inner monologue going about her own looks is pretty ridiculous, especially when you consider we're supposed to buy her as sincere in her Ugly Duckling Syndrome and not just being manipulative for compliments.
The dress being see-through makes all her vampire bites "very visible" and again I have to ask, what bites? I think she's referring to the ones from the orgy...oh wait there have been three orgies so far, I mean specifically the second orgy, the one after healing Noel. But that doesn't make sense for her bites or for Micah's. Micah is a wereanimal, and a powerful one at that, his should be healed by now, and as for Anita, she took all that healing energy from Jamil and Shang-Da, it should have patched her up too while she was using to to fix Nathaniel, Claudia, etc. Plus being a Human Servant and a panwere means she has enhanced healing too, last time I checked. She also mentions that her ass is bare because she's wearing a black lace thong. Okay, let's be frank here, even if they don't have a nudity taboo wereanimals still exist within human culture, which is pretty slut-shamey, and thus have probably picked up our own biases and judgements when it comes to what a woman wears---what exact image and idea do you think this outfit is going to give the visiting weretigers? Because I don't think it's the kind that they want for their new Master of Tigers. Meng Die is right, Anita needs to sell a look alright, but I don't think this look is it. I definitely don't agree with the sentiment that a woman can't be smart, strong, and capable while in a tiny see-through shadow of a dress, it doesn't automatically cancel out her brains and guts, but that's sadly NOT how most people think, and right now it would be a lot wiser to just play to their preconceptions instead of trying to prove them wrong, seeing as how urgent it is to get the tigers to trust you and fast. Some kind of classy sensible suit or at least something really regal-looking would almost surely be a better bet for getting the respect of (or at least avoiding pre-judgement by) the weretigers. Think of it as dressing for a job interview. Except for the part where you bone the interviewer into submission and take over the company, I mean.
Her weapons are divided among Wicked, Truth, and Nicky, who are to rotate around her and JC. Since JC "might have to pull out some serious vampire powers to help me tame the tigers" she's also not wearing her cross, but she does have on the anti-MOAD charm. So, the tigers just can't discuss and come to their own decision about whether they're okay with you becoming their Master as a species, they've got to be "tamed" like animals. That word showed up with Auggie at the beginning of this book, and it's been reoccurring like a bad case of herpes chapter by chapter ever since. Was it used like this in previous books? I don't recall it being so abused and over-used in Skin Trade or Flirt. I think she might have just thought of it and is like a kid who can't put down a new toy.
"The gold tigers and Jake himself" I don't understand the need for the 'himself' there "were going to stay out of sight until we'd done the tigers." I'd make a joke about the word choice, but I think she really does mean 'done' them like that "because we were pretty sure there'd be spies among them" and since, she explains, even the Harlequin never see the other Harlequin unmasked, at least not all of the others, no one Harlequin knows what all the others look like so that they can be "effective even to each other."
They are in "the big dining room" and Anita gives us a pretty interesting background for it, that it was originally a speakeasy during Prohibition and it's a "huge natural cavern with gas lamps in the walls" but then goes overboard talking about the candles on the table and how everything is cast in light and shadow. I am simultaneously amused and baffled about how "it was a cocktail party, with everyone standing around sipping drinks, eating hors d'oevres, and chatting." OKAY, CLEARLY *THIS* IS WHY TIGERS ARE SO RARE, THEY'RE IDIOTS WHO ALL DIED OUT BECAUSE THEIR RESPONSE TO A THREAT IS TO HAVE A MIXER. MOAD is on the move, we've got to band together with this necromancer to save ourselves and the world from her? Let's do drinks and tapas! This is just so suicidally stupid I can't even process it. Like, stupid to the point of bizarre. Also, when the hell was there time to call up a caterer for the hors d'oevres? Anita claims that she hates the "small talk" of parties and that she's terrible at it anyway (she's so blunt and real and serious and non-frivolous, guys!) which I find hard to believe---after all, this woman goes on for pages about outfits and spent the beginning of Skin Trade espousing what was basically catty insult gossip about others even as there was A HEAD IN A BOX ON HER DESK, she should be the queen of frivolous obnoxious mean-girl gossip.
She claims that JC, Micah, Nathaniel, Asher, and Jason are all really good at it though so she just lets them do it, but that Damian is almost as bad as she is so he keeps Cardinal on his arm for the same reason...cuz it couldn't be that he enjoys her company or anything, no, he just needs her for her yapper. God, Anita. Anyway, she and JC meet Victor, the white tiger prince from Skin Trade, son of Bibiana and Max the Master of Las Vegas. We are reminded he is "tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome" with short white hair in a really stylish cut, an expensive tailored suit, and rich deep blue eyes. She takes a very long paragraph to tell us all this. I did it in about twenty words and I'm betting you got the same picture in your head for it. She notes that she likes Victor's eyes and that "my white tiger liked everything about him." He takes her offered hand and this causes his power to "breathed along my skin in a warm wash" that makes it hard for to breath in a moment and Victori starts breathing "in a shaky line" and "it took a visible effort for him to stop touching me." Now you see where I got the idea for that with poor Armel in the SUE VS SUE mixer scene. Seriously, this happens so often to her I think she should really just invest in a pair of elegant black opera gloves.
Victor compliments her for how "captivating" she is, Anita's white tiger wants to touch him, she steps forward without realizing it, and, to my huge amusement, Victor backs up a step. EW DON'T GET CLOSE ANITA YOU HAVE COOTIES. At that moment a woman comes over and asks Victor if he isn't going to introduce her. She leans against Victor in "a possessive way that some girlfriends have." Unlike Anita, who just binds their minds and lives to her. So much easier than keeping an eye on them, just make it so you control their free will and they'll literally die with you! Not like those possessive leaning girls! "My white tiger didn't like it" Oh, it's not Anita who's jealous, it's her tiger! Really! "and I had a moment to fight the instinct to mark him as sort of territory." In my head that means she had to fight not to pee on him. Plus since when are tigers possessive about sex partners? They're not mated pairs like wolves, as far as I know the male tiger just leaves after they fuck, no marking him involved. "I'd met him twice, and slept with him twice, and had sex only one of those times. I had no right to mark him as mine" So you say you have no right to do something after listing what sounds suspiciously like 'justifications' for doing just that. Also, she may say she knows she has no right to do so, but that's still pretty much what LKH has her do, just wait "but wasn't I supposed to do exactly that?" No. "Shit, I didn't know." THE ANSWER IS NO, YOU ARE NOT, NOT BY HUMAN OR TIGER STANDARDS.
Ugh, I've seen this attitude before with real people (well, one real person) sadly enough. It's where they're not just possessive of their own partner(s), they're actively jealous over and feel competitive with the partners of people they just happen to know and/or find attractive, even if they never intend to actually get involved with the person they're jealous over. They just can't stand the thought of someone ELSE getting them. That's what's going on here. Anita's fucked Victor, being he's handsome and in an important position as the white tiger prince, but he's not a regular sweetie since he has short hair and a spine. She probably hasn't thought of him since Skin Trade. Yet let another woman get within sight of him and suddenly she sees him as HERS HERS HERS. Seriously, that's what she just said---territory, remember? He's not a partner, but he's still definitely something she owns in her mind. Come to think of it, she seems to be that way towards the wives and girlfriends of men she's not even attracted to; the aforementioned insults and hostility towards the wives of Manny and Larry that she brought up in Skin Trade, remember? I wonder, is she pissed at them for 'taking' men that she happens to know, or is that just her usual in-general misogyny? And god how horrible is it that this is even a question I have reason to ask? Because I just really wouldn't be surprised if on some level she sees herself as the only woman any man she knows should look at, even if he's not a guy she's into at all, and that LKH shares her opinion but knows she can't directly put that in the book.
We then get a paragraph and a half about what this lady looks like. She has "long pale curls, mostly white, but with edges of pale golden brown here and there" Oooh, she's pretty! Her and Envy need to pose together, like, constantly! "I knew that meant her white tiger would have stripes the color of her darker curls." Not gonna lie, that's pretty neat. I wonder why the other white tigers, like Crispin, don't have black streaks in their hair though, then? Maybe some do and some don't. Ha, what if that's all Domino's black curls really were and he was totally lying about being a hybrid in order to get Anita's sympathy! "She had the same lush curves as Bibiana, but on a body that was nearly a foot taller." So again, like Envy, and like my Lucille too. These babes totally need to hang out and do posters together. She has "large, uptilted eyes" that are "a blue so pale they were gray" So, uh, you mean she has gray eyes, maybe pale bue-grey? "with a line of black around the iris" How would you even tell that, since the iris itself is black too? And she has on silver stilettos and a silver dress too, if you care, since LKH obviously thinks we do. (Okay, I admit, I kind of do...I told you, I have a weakness for clothes porn, and also for descriptions of unusual-looking supernatural sorts, especially the pretty ladies...though I still agree she could sure as hell stand to do them a lot more economically).
Victor says "Julia, this is Anita Blake, Jean-Claude's lady" and Julia holds on a hand that is "perfectly manicured" with French-tip nails. Naturally this causes Anita to note to the reader how Cardinal declared Anita's own nails "hopeless" but of course "I didn't really care about nails." Right, Anita, you're such a Not Girly Girl, you totally don't care about nails, that's why you noticed what kind that Julia has and then compared your own to them, which got its own paragraph. Anita actually is the stereotypical shallow girl who notices and judges the nails, makeup, clothes, etc. of other girls all the time, she just judges hers as better than theirs because hers are worse versus better because they're actually better.
When Julia takes Anita's hand, she "sent a flash of power into me" that causes Anita's white tiger to rise and "spill around me like some white phantom." Julia tries to take her hand back, but Anita holds on to it (dude, wtf?!) and "my tiger spilled over and through her" stop that, you creep! "I tasted her tiger" Uninvited! "saw it in its pale stripes, and knew she was no queen." She never said she was! She just shook your hand and there was power, just like with Victor! You didn't do this to him! Leave her alone! This is clearly upsetting Julia, quite possibly even hurting her, because "she tried to slap me, like a girl, but my other arm was there blocking hers." Firstly, she IS a girl, it's not an insult dammit. Secondly, plenty of men slap. Thirdly, she is a fucking weretiger with super-strength, a slap could probably take your head off. Fourthly, you should be glad a slap is ALL she's doing, given that she is a fucking weretiger and showing more restraint than you have in your whole life!
Julia tells her to let go and she sounds afraid. Anita thinks that "Fear meant food. Fear meant weak." No, fear doesn't mean weak. No, not even to an animal like a tiger. It's a natural response that helps animals survive, including tigers, who, by the way, do NOT see other tigers as food. I wish I could twist this so that it was basically Anita's tiger just being pissy that another tiger is anywhere near it, since that actually makes sense for a real tiger, but there's just no way I can, given these lines about fear and food and how she didn't react to the other tigers like this, not even fellow female Envy (since Envy was a good little girl who didn't challenge Anita in any way and just existed to get Anita's rocks off in her own live-action porno). Anita says that "I started to let go, honest" but I don't believe her. Jean-Claude, however, tells her that "She began this, ma petite. You must finish it. She challenged you. Answer it." Victor, whom Anita of course is sure to note has moved so that he isn't touching icky-poo Julia, adds that "You must answer her challenge, Anita. Either you are queen, or you are not."
WHAT CHALLENGE? Anita shook Victor's hand and she felt his power like this too, remember? Yes, it says that Julia "sent" her power into Anita while I guess Victor's just did that naturally, but there's nothing mentioned about how Anita knows that Julia deliberately sent said power. Not to mention that I think the challenge has obviously been dropped by Julia, given that she's struggling to get away from Anita, aka retreat. Honestly, that's actually how most animal battles, no matter what the species, go in the wild--it's all show, and real fighting is a point that is rarely reached before one party backs down, as Julia seems to be. I think that JC is just egging Anita on with made-up bullshit that she 'has' to do this because *he* wants to make an example of Julia to the tigers of what Anita can do if they resist him. As for why Victor would contribute...well, Julia seems to be Victor's girlfriend, and we know that Bibiana wants Victor to be with Anita, maybe he was told by his mother to pit the two women against each other and if Julia can hold out for however long (since of course she can't BEAT Anita) then Bibi will let her keep dating him?
Leaving poor Julia, of course, to get bullied and then assaulted in front of a whole room of people, including her own clan, who do nothing to help her.
Anita decides that "we were supposed to play to win" and so she responds with "Make me" when Julia tells her again to let go. She tells us that "even though human words were coming out of my mouth, the attitude wasn't human" IT'S NOT ANIMAL EITHER YOU BULLY "Julia was about to learn she'd made a mistake." Yeah, never get close to any guy Anita has so much as looked at UNLESS you're only offering to perform sexually with him for HER viewing pleasure. Victor and JC back away, and the other white tigers gather in a circle around them to watch. This is bad for Julia because "the white tigers were what I wanted, needed" right now, since she's fighting one. How that makes sense, I'm not quite clear.
Julia tries to use her supernatural strength "to pull me off my feet, but my sport of choice was judo, and that was all about leverage and balance" so when Julia pulls, Anita just goes with it "so that I was suddenly up against her, her hand still in mine, and my leg went behind hers at the same time that I pushed on her with my other hand, and down she went. She didn't know how to fall" SHE'S A WERECAT "so she hit hard." Anita gets on top of her, straddles her waist, and says that even though can't hold Julia down with "strength alone, but there are other ways to make someone stay on a floor." I DO NOT LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS.
Anita leans her face over Julia's and Julia screams as Anita and her white tiger "thrust that white, hot energy into Julia. We plunged it between those beautiful eyes and we brought her tiger" THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THIS THAT IS NOT LIKE A RAPE. SERIOUSLY OH GOD WHY LKH WTF. It is made even worse by the fact that now as Julia, now forced into hybrid form, "she lay under me, still in the silver dress" she looks up at Anita, Anita puts her forehead to hers, still holding her hands, Anita rubs her cheek against hers, and then Julia "rubbed back and that deep thundering purr began." Someone really needs to tell LKH what a calendar won't: BIG CATS DON'T PURR! Okay, well, they sort of do...
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-57371214-10391705/do-big-cats-purr/
So basically this was a stereotypical rape. I say 'stereotypical' because there are many ways that rape happens, but this is way that I think is the most common in peoples' minds: A masculine entity (Anita is constantly emphasized as masculine, especially when contrasted against feminine women like Julia) who hates women/femininity, and so when a woman or feminine person does something she doesn't like, she attacks her, first just physically and then sexually (the plunging and thrusting of power, the straddling, the 'bringing' of her beast possibly like forcing an orgasm) too, not because she sexually desires Julia at all but in order to dominate her, to take her control (bringing her beast) away, to put her in her place. And even squickier, there's the rapist fantasy (that is, the fantasy that kind of rapist would probably have) of Julia adoring her afterwards now that she's learned to bow and behave. AM I READING WERECATS OF GOR?!
And just when you think that this couldn't get any worse, remember all the white weretigers who were watching this? They're not outraged in the slightest. No, they "crowded around us and rubbed their human faces against me and Julia." Presumably they do this while kneeling, because Anita specifies that Victor doesn't kneel when he does it but instead "picked me up in his arms while the white tigers rolled around his legs." While in human form. That must look so incredibly stupid, especially given they're dressed for a cocktail party. Anita can somehow see his beast, which is a stripeless white tiger (those actually do exist, they're called snow tigers) and it "rolled through me" and her beast goes to meet it and oh isn't that special her white tiger is a snow tiger too GEE HOW ABOUT THAT and "it was as if he and I were the center of some warm, wonderful fire, and every tiger at our feet was fuel for it." So basically they have to sacrifice themselves in order for you to consume them with their own prince? Actually, that's probably exactly what's happening. It certainly was the case with poor Julia. He puts his arms around her, she gushes about how strong he is and how their energy gets "thicker, richer, deeper, more, until his mouth touched mine and then we thrust our power into each other" and their beasts "intermingled and became one" and then "I could feel every tiger around us, and it was all fuel, all energy, all mine."
So basically because Victor dared have a girlfriend after having had sex with Anita one damn time, Anita rapes the girlfriend in a public spectacle until the girl loves her, then has sex with Victor in public too (which means in front of Julia) and gains control over an entire people through it.
LKH is a sick lady.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-09 09:58 pm (UTC)YOU WILL BE MY HERO
honestly, sarcasm was one of the easiest things for me to learn (just me there)
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Date: 2013-07-09 11:53 pm (UTC)The saga of LKH the Speshul Snowflake continues...
And look at the phrasing of those tweets. It's not that's she is claiming to be an Aspie, it's that she has to deal with family members who have it and was raised by one, making her the fucking Aspie Whisperer or something. I'm sure she considers herself to be an expert on Aspergers, after spending five minutes on Wikipedia and watching that one Law and Order CI episode....