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a_sporking_rat) wrote2013-07-16 11:39 am
a_sporking_rat) wrote2013-07-16 11:39 am
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BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN, PART TWO
Some headcanons of mine posted at Lashouts!
http://lkh-lashouts.livejournal.com/591793.html#comments
For those of you out there who, like me, are aspiring writers of books that contain vampires! I found these very useful and I hope you will too!
http://springhole.net/writing/plotholes-in-vampire-fiction.htm
http://springhole.net/writing/write-believable-masquerades.htm
And now, some FUN FACTS!
- Herring anuses are specially formed to squeak at a higher frequency than other fish farts. They just fart along as they all swim through the ocean, so that if one herring gets lost, he follows the sounds of his farting school and doesn't follow some other fishes's farts instead because of their very specific-sounding herring farts. THE OCEAN IS FULL OF FARTS, YOU GUYS. FULL OF FARTS. FARTS. FULL OF 'EM.
- The Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard in Colbert County, Alabama, is dedicated for the burial of coon dogs
- The niece of the great Mongol leader, Kubla Khan, Princess Khutulun was described by Marco Polo as the greatest warrior in Khan’s army. She told her uncle she would marry any man who could wrestle her and win. If they lost they had to give her 100 horses....She died unmarried with 10,000 horses. THIS IS WHO I WANT TO BE!
- Despite its name, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) species often produces individuals with abnormal colourings, including albinos and melanists as well as grey, platinum, amber, and the "samson" mutation (a woolly pelt which lacks guard hairs, with a brown and gray color that reminds me of agouti rats)
- Variants of the Cinderella story occur worldwide, not only throughout Europe but also in many countries of East Asia, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The first known recorded "Cinderella" story was written by the ancient Greek historian Strabo in the 1st century BC, concerning a Greco-Egyptian girl named Rhodopis who lived who lived in the Greek colony of Naucratis in Ancient Egypt. It seems to have been based on a tale about a girl of the same name from Thrace that was written by Herodotus about five centuries earlier, but with magical elements added such as the god Horus, paving the way for the addition of the fairy godmother in the modern Western versions.
- Humans are deuterostomes, which means that when they develop in the womb the anus forms before any other opening. Which basically means at one point you were nothing but an asshole.
Just like the main character in...
BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN, PART TWO
Anita tells Reba to let Lacey go., and her voice echoes dramatically and something about red mist being solid. Reba says that "She's mine!" and Anita says "No, she's not!" and basically it's like two kids playing tug of war over a toy except this is a human being, one who is currently wounded and bleeding. Anita moves towards them "faster than I should have been able to move." Since Anita can, as we saw with Meph, apparently move as fast as a therian, she must be fucking teleporting at this point. "It was as if I were there beside them before I'd had time to think." Yeah, basically one step from teleportation, called it. Reba tries to slash Anita while at the same time moving Lacey "back with her" (did Lacey get away from her?) and "that one slash let me know that she didn't know how to fight with a knife."
OH COME ON YOU CAN'T EVEN FUCKING GIVE HER THAT, LKH? In addition to your misogyny and lack of logic showing (why would she bring something she couldn't effectively use? and why wouldn't she learn to use it to substitute for claws?), let me assure you that it also doesn't make Anita look at all tough or cool to go up against an opponent who not only lacks any advantage at all but whom you have in fact gone out of your way to make sure is as little a threat as possible. She is just so fucking determined that no woman ever gets any real power that she's actually willing to rob ANITA of the glory and cool points she'd get from taking out a really powerful opponent...or maybe she thinks it is cool to beat up those weaker than you, I'd not be too surprised by that.
Anita smiles, Reba says she'll cut her, Anita says she won't and moves towards her and even though Reba has therian speed "so did I, and I had the training." Anita knocks her to the floor and pins her knife arm behind her back. Lacey runs to the other tigers. Anita tells her to drop the knife or she'll break her arm. Reba doesn't drop it, so Anita starts to hurt her, so she cries out and drops it. Anita kicks it out of reach, Truth picks it up, Anita tells the readers it must be "so hard to bodyguard someone when they have to do their own fighting." GOD, THE SMUG, IT BURNS!
Anita tells her that "It's against every rule for you to use a knife to discipline your people." Wait, that's a rule? When did THAT come up? "If you aren't queen enough to shapeshift and do it right" like you do, Anita? OH WAIT YOU DON'T "then you aren't allowed to be queen at all." She never said she was queen. She said she was the dominant red, and this may fucking shock you, Anita, but in the animal kingdom dominance is NOT always determined by who has the most physical power, which you seem to be judging it on here. Since real tigers don't live in groups, there's no model to go off of how weretiger groups should determine dominance, and thus how they do it is really anyone's guess, especially since their culture is canonically very mysterious and isolationist. But since determining dominance in ways other than just 'who is the biggest/best fighter' is more common among the more intelligent mammals, which weretigers certainly are since they're human and have human intellect, I'd hazard a guess that that is indeed more likely to be how they do it. Reba can be a dominant red in this group just fine, queen or not, able to hybrid-shift or not. And frankly, you instructing someone else on how to rule their people is just SICKENING.
Reba responds with "Look who's talking, human!" and I love her EVEN MORE. Unsurprisingly, Anita ignores the existence of this remark and asks the other reds how bad Lacey is hurt. One of the men says that the blade was silver, and Anita promises Reba that if Lacey is scarred for life, Reba will be too. Yes, mark up the daughter of the Red Clan's Chang, who already distrusts you according to Reba, that is a GREAT idea, especially since you're trying to ally with all the tigers right now. JC, why are you letting this happen? You know better, I know you do. Reba clearly knows Anita is just dumb enough to do this, though, because her eyes widen and she stops struggling. Right after she stops struggling, Anita HURTS HER ARM MORE AS IF SHE IS GOING TO BREAK IT ANYWAY. "I couldn't grow claws and discipline her like a real queen" So by your own logic you aren't queen at all either "but I could do something that most dominants couldn't." Oh sweet Jesus I am afraid now. "It was a rarer gift" of course "and depending on how you did it, it hurt more." OH GOD. "I'd been gentle with the white tiger, Julia. I wouldn't be gentle with this one."
The energy of Anita's red tiger calls to that of Reba's tiger, and Anita commands for her to "Change for me." Reba says she won't, that Anita can't make her, and that "You are the survivor of an attack. You are not a pureblood." REBA, MARRY ME! Anita tries to eat Reba's anger, but finds that, of course, there's not actually much of it at all, that "it was a thin disguise for her fear" because she is a wimpy Other Woman. "She was so afraid, afraid of me, afraid of how weak she was" I really, really loathe you and your rampant Sueism so much, Anita. Also, as others pointed out last chapter, it actually probably took Reba a lot of courage to stand up to you considering your differing power levels, and to continue defying you even now through her fear. Reba has REAL courage.
Reba tells Anita to let go. Anita lets go of the joint lock, but not her arm, and next thing you know "I was straddling her waist, pinning both her arms to the floor." OH SHIT IT'S JUST LIKE WITH JULIA. Reba shows fear and anger in both her eyes and energy, understandably so, but she continues to be a badass and taunts Anita "Are you going to fuck me, too? Is that all you know how to do here in St. Louis?"
REBA IS PERFECT. REBA IS BEST CHARACTER. REBA NEEDS HER OWN DAMN SERIES.
Anita laughs and her eyes change to "not tiger, but vampire. My eyes if I'd been one for real."Anita feels Reba's fear overtake her anger as she pins Reba's arm down under one knee. Anita points out that Reba has the strength to fight her "but for all she tried to do she could have been human; hell most people would have fought, but she didn't."
Okay, we all know how rapey this scene is and what Anita is going to do with her; same thing as with Julia. So the fact she's making the point about Reba not fighting back is really disturbing. A lot of rape victims do not fight back, even when they physically could have. There are multiple reasons for this. Firstly, people freeze up when they are afraid. I know I can think back to a scary situation or two where I did, even though there were a lot of things I could have done that I only thought of after the danger was past. Everyone fucking says they'd do this or that or what have you if such and such happens to them, not just rape but any kind of disaster, but being in it is entirely different. Secondly, in rape specifically, many victims do not fight back because they are afraid of what their rapist will do to them for it. Reba may have super-strength, but so does Anita. Anita has demonstrated she can use hers combined very effectively with fighting training. She has also shown herself to have big-time metaphysical powers over other weretigers with the white tiger thing, and has threatened already to cut Reba up. Reba has every reason to believe that Anita can and will do her grievous bodily harm in addition to raping her if she fights back. And I sincerely believe that Anita knows this; she's already said Reba is afraid of her. She's just throwing in this "oh, well, she could fight back but she didn't!" shit for the same reason real-life rapists do: to claim that the victim wanted or deserved it.
Maybe we're supposed to find this just because of what Reba did to Lacey. Firstly, nothing justifies rape. Secondly, Anita is supposed to be the one in the right in this scenario. You are not in the right if you rape people. No, not even bad guys. Punitive rape is not okay no matter who it is against. Thirdly, who here thinks Anita is actually doing this for Lacey? Because I don't. Fourthly, while what Reba did to Lacey was horrid, yes, was it really that unique and 'wrong' in the context of therian culture? Because I think by now it's a well-established fact that therian leaders do awful things to their own people all the damn time and that's just how it is. It's sure as hell not right, but one has to wonder why only Reba here is getting penalized for it when Anita didn't do shit about how Haven was running the Pride for over a year. In fact, Anita's issue, according to her own words, is not that she cut Lacey but that she did it with a knife rather than claws. So she's not actually punishing her for what she did, just how she did it. I smell LOOKING FOR AN EXCUSE all over this.
Anita puts her hand on the back of Reba's neck and talks about how her skin is warm and her hair is silky and gives me the heebie-jeebies. Reba asks what she's doing, Anita says "Making my point" and THEN SHE FORCES A KISS ON HER. "She froze against me, as if she didn't know what to do." Which, as I've said, is a typical response of sexual assault victims. "I let my tiger spill into my mouth, and into hers." And now she's putting something into Reba against her will. "Not because I was about to change, or in danger, but because I needed her never to fight me again." So basically this is being done because Anita doesn't like a woman showing any will against her. I really cannot think of a more cliche rapist mentality.
This, by the way, is even though I got an Anthony Blake/Genderswap Anitaverse all laid out, I realize I can't write any serious fic of it. I'd just basically be rewriting all of all this grossness. I suppose there might be the benefit of 'maybe people will actually see how awful it is with the more familiar scenario of a man being the perpetrator' but I think my audience would only be people who already knew how awful it was regardless. I'd still like to use him for parody fics and stuff, because he's like an R-rated Gaston or something, but you just can't make THIS shit funny.
Anita tries to think, but her red tiger wants to kill Reba, and she has the "very practical thought that if we did this were would be no more arguing." Then she sees JC standing next to her and "knew it wasn't my thought" but admits she agrees with it, though she also says it is a "problem" that she agrees with it, which she says makes it hard for her to fight. I'm pretty sure JC would not send such an asinine thought into your head, Anita. Remember, daughter of the Chang here? Whose tigers you want on your side? Don't try and blame this idea on JC, he is way too fucking sensible for that.
Anita "had a moment of choice" and then she kisses Reba again and this time "it wasn't just the red tiger that spilled through me, it was all the other colors, only gold held back, but the other spilled into my mouth and across my lips and into her." No gold for you! "The energies tore her apart" and then there is "a wave of clear, warm fluid and blood" that "exploded across me". OH MY GOD DID SHE LITERALLY TEAR HER APART WITH THAT? No wait she must still be alive because "the violence of it tore screams from her, her body bucking under mine" yeah make this more rapey why don't you "until a tiger lay underneath me, shivering as if everything hurt." You know, you could make the argument here of Anita LITERALLY dehumanizing Julia and Reba into, respectively, hybrid and animal forms as a symbol for the figurative dehumanizing of how she's magically raping them. I almost wonder if that isn't LKH's subconscious intent. The tiger, which has fur "so dark a red it was almost as black as her stripes" looks at Anita with eyes that are "full of pain, and very afraid." Fucking happy now, Anita?
Anita gets up from her victim. She's a bit shaky so JC takes her hand to steady her. His eyes are "as blue and blind with power as mine were brown and black with it". She's also covered in blood and that weird clear shifter gunk fluid. She says that "The dress is ruined." WELL, SORR-REE. He assures her they'll buy another, then leads her over to stand in front of Topaz. Wow, I had forgotten about him. He's kneeling between the guards, and is clearly afraid of Anita. She asks if she needs to make her point again. He asks what I am--what point is that? She says the point is "That the tigers are ours." YOU ARE A SUPER VILLAIN. SERIOUSLY IF I HAD NEVER READ THIS SERIES AND THEN READ THIS CHAPTER ALONE I'D THINK THIS WAS TOLD FROM THE POV OF THE BAD GUY. "That we can be Master of Tigers. That's what you and the rest of your people came to St. Louis to find out, isn't it?"
He says she read that from Jade's mind, JC says yup, Topaz says his master knows what he knows and that they just need gold to complete the tigers. "That was our cue, or rather Devil's and Envy's." Devil. Ugh. "We were keeping the other golden tigers hidden, but the two that were ours" Wait, Envy just had sex, that's all, when did she get metaphysically bonded like Meph? "would get trotted out." Trotted out. Like show animals. This never stops being so gross to me, ugh. Anita thinks of Dev, JC thinks of Envy, Micah leads Dev by the hand to Anita while Richard leads Envy to JC and "handed her" to him. You know, like an object or small pet. Topaz stares at them and says, "The young ones we cared for were massacred. Those of us who were hiding them never told the others, so that if one was destroyed the others would be safe. My master and I didn't know if you would have more of my kind here."
Anita tells him that she knows Jade is envious that from what she's seen he and his master seem to love one another, and assures him that "I wouldn't break a love that's survived thousands of years. That's got to be rare even among vampires." This statement is really interesting to me, because she's assuring him she won't break his Master/Servant bond as she did with Vittorio/Sebastian and Abusive Vampire/Jade. Yet she doesn't call it that. She calls it love. Now, Topaz and his master may well love one another, but Anita has no power to break that, and if it is so enduring then it probably wouldn't matter to them if she did break their magical bond. But she's referring to their magical bond as being the same as love, as being one in the same, when, as is obvious with Jade and Sebastian, with Padma and Gideon and Carswell, it's not. However, look who this is coming from; all of Anita's harem, save for the late Haven, are bound to her with metaphysical ties. They can't ever just decide to walk away from her, she owns them psychically and their very lives are tied to hers. Some more than others, but still. And to her, we've seen that's what 'love' is. So it's not too surprising she'd conflate a co-dependent metaphysical bond to being one and the same with the love the two people who are bonded happen to share.
Topaz tells her that he didn't want to give up his bond to his Master, but also that he didn't know if golden tigers would be found in time to help Anita. Wait, is he implying that he was not only sent here to see if she could be Master of Tigers, but to also sacrifice himself to her as her Golden Tiger to Call if there were no others who could do the job? OH TOPAZ YOU POOR BABY. Jean-Claude butts in to say they could part him from his master. UM, HE KNOWS THIS, JC, HE JUST SAW IT WITH JADE. HE AND ANITA JUST ESTABLISHED THAT NEITHER SHE NOR HE WANTS THAT THOUGH, AND IT'S ALSO NOT NECESSARY, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL HERE YOU CREEPER? Topaz calmly responds to JC that if they want to do that, he doubts he and his master could stop it. This prompts Anita to ask "You really did come here to sacrifice yourself for the common good, didn't you?" Haha, even Anita knows becoming her harem slave is a sacrifice and not a privilege!
Topaz goes on a paragraph-long thing about how the golden tigers have learned from their mistakes and hidden for centuries, so that now, though they're thought to be the extinct ones, they in fact outnumber the black and blue clans. He tells JEAN-CLAUDE that they want and need him to be Master of Tigers (I thought it was Anita who was supposed to be MoT? Or her and JC together? it's been slightly unclear...) because "if we do this we break with the Darkness that made us, and if she ever gains power again she will make us long for true death long before she gives it to us." If you had actually learned from the mistakes of your history, then you would have learned from Vittorio NOT TO HAVE A MASTER OF TIGERS, ESPECIALLY NOT ONE LIKE ANITA AND/OR JEAN-CLAUDE. Supernaturals across the board are just not too bright, are they?
Anita asks why they would risk the MOAD's wrath to join Anita & Co, he says that the MOAD knows what they did now, which is, as JC helpfully tells the reader, "that it was her own beloved Harlequin who put her into that long-ago sleep." Topaz nods, and Anita says "So the white tiger's myth is true" and I REKINDLE ALL MY RAGE FROM WHEN BIBIANA WAS TELLING HER THINGS THAT MAKE PERFECT SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS SERIES AND ANITA WAS POOPOOING IT AS METAPHOR AND FAIRY TALES. Topaz is like yes it is and Anita raises her eyebrows. Just...stop being a stupid asshole about this at least, Anita. You don't look logical and rational and skeptical, you look like a moron. Like if Harry Potter didn't believe in magic. Topaz tells her that they'd heard of how she broke master/servant bonds "with the lion and the Master of Chicago" wait Haven was Auggie's Servant? "and the two Vegas tigers from their queen and master." Crispin and Domino weren't bonded to Max like that, though. He was their master in the same way as Nikolaos to the wererats, maybe, but not like the Master/Servant bonds. ALSO: This is another example of why the roleplay term Therian Servant is better than just having "animal to call" referring to both the animal/therian species one calls and the specific member of that therian species that is bonded like a Human Servant to one.
Anyway. He says that they knew there was a chance she'd take at least one of the them, him or Jade, from their masters, and reminds us that one of the MOAD's own abilities was "to break all bonds and bind only to her." Anita notes that Jade didn't know this whole plan, and Topaz says "No, because then her master would have known, and we considered him corrupt." Why trust him with this then? Oh, because, as Anita points out "Without Jade's energy to raise his level, you can kill him" and Topaz admits that yes, they were banking on Anita stealing Jade from him and making him weak enough to kill because they don't trust him. Wow, this is the most impressive/clever thing the Harlequin has ever done that I know of.
Of course, then they have to go and ruin this ruthlessness by having it be so that it was also done not just because of practical reasons but because they wanted poor little Jade free from the big meanie so she wouldn't die with him since she's suffered enough. JC says that Jade thought they did not see her suffering...which contradicts what we know, since Anita got from Jade's mind that she hated Topaz and his master for watching her suffer and doing nothing and she sent everything she learned from Jade to JC, so JC should know full well that Jade knew Topaz and his master were aware of her abuse. I'd like to think he's pulling some kind of manipulation here but I think LKH just made a continuity error within the space of a few chapters, which has sadly happened all too many times before.
He says that not only can Anita & Co free Jade, they can "free us all" and Anita "gave him the look that deserved" because she is an asshole before saying "We're good, but we aren't the immortal Darkness." He says she doesn't have to be, all she has to do is be able to cut master/servant ties...yeah, I don't buy that being all it takes. JC asks Topaz what he wants of them, Topaz responds by asking if they're really going to spare him and his master from having theirs cut despite the power JC and Anita could gain from it. It never stops making me do a double take on just how strangely conversations work in this universe. Anita tells Topaz they have enough power, he says they have a lot but more would be better, Micah says they'll find more, Topaz gushes about how they're sparing him and his master for loooooove. Anita looks at all her men and asks "What else is there?"
GAG ME WITH A SPORK
Topaz smiles up at them and his face is "shining with love close to adoration" but Anita tells us she's pretty sure it's because he's thinking of his master, not them. You know, probably. Topaz says that's what they were hoping to hear, Anita asks "So, you gambled centuries of happiness, your free will, and your very existence, on love?" SO SHE'S WELL AWARE SHE'S TAKING PEOPLE'S FREE WILL LEFT AND RIGHT HERE. He shrugs and asks if there's anything else worth gambling everything for and she tells him there isn't while "standing there holding everyone's hands" and "I believed that." OKAY BUT WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?!
This book is 96% over...chances of anything cool happening in the remaining pages seem very, very slim.
http://lkh-lashouts.livejournal.com/591793.html#comments
For those of you out there who, like me, are aspiring writers of books that contain vampires! I found these very useful and I hope you will too!
http://springhole.net/writing/plotholes-in-vampire-fiction.htm
http://springhole.net/writing/write-believable-masquerades.htm
And now, some FUN FACTS!
- Herring anuses are specially formed to squeak at a higher frequency than other fish farts. They just fart along as they all swim through the ocean, so that if one herring gets lost, he follows the sounds of his farting school and doesn't follow some other fishes's farts instead because of their very specific-sounding herring farts. THE OCEAN IS FULL OF FARTS, YOU GUYS. FULL OF FARTS. FARTS. FULL OF 'EM.
- The Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard in Colbert County, Alabama, is dedicated for the burial of coon dogs
- The niece of the great Mongol leader, Kubla Khan, Princess Khutulun was described by Marco Polo as the greatest warrior in Khan’s army. She told her uncle she would marry any man who could wrestle her and win. If they lost they had to give her 100 horses....She died unmarried with 10,000 horses. THIS IS WHO I WANT TO BE!
- Despite its name, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) species often produces individuals with abnormal colourings, including albinos and melanists as well as grey, platinum, amber, and the "samson" mutation (a woolly pelt which lacks guard hairs, with a brown and gray color that reminds me of agouti rats)
- Variants of the Cinderella story occur worldwide, not only throughout Europe but also in many countries of East Asia, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The first known recorded "Cinderella" story was written by the ancient Greek historian Strabo in the 1st century BC, concerning a Greco-Egyptian girl named Rhodopis who lived who lived in the Greek colony of Naucratis in Ancient Egypt. It seems to have been based on a tale about a girl of the same name from Thrace that was written by Herodotus about five centuries earlier, but with magical elements added such as the god Horus, paving the way for the addition of the fairy godmother in the modern Western versions.
- Humans are deuterostomes, which means that when they develop in the womb the anus forms before any other opening. Which basically means at one point you were nothing but an asshole.
Just like the main character in...
BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN, PART TWO
Anita tells Reba to let Lacey go., and her voice echoes dramatically and something about red mist being solid. Reba says that "She's mine!" and Anita says "No, she's not!" and basically it's like two kids playing tug of war over a toy except this is a human being, one who is currently wounded and bleeding. Anita moves towards them "faster than I should have been able to move." Since Anita can, as we saw with Meph, apparently move as fast as a therian, she must be fucking teleporting at this point. "It was as if I were there beside them before I'd had time to think." Yeah, basically one step from teleportation, called it. Reba tries to slash Anita while at the same time moving Lacey "back with her" (did Lacey get away from her?) and "that one slash let me know that she didn't know how to fight with a knife."
OH COME ON YOU CAN'T EVEN FUCKING GIVE HER THAT, LKH? In addition to your misogyny and lack of logic showing (why would she bring something she couldn't effectively use? and why wouldn't she learn to use it to substitute for claws?), let me assure you that it also doesn't make Anita look at all tough or cool to go up against an opponent who not only lacks any advantage at all but whom you have in fact gone out of your way to make sure is as little a threat as possible. She is just so fucking determined that no woman ever gets any real power that she's actually willing to rob ANITA of the glory and cool points she'd get from taking out a really powerful opponent...or maybe she thinks it is cool to beat up those weaker than you, I'd not be too surprised by that.
Anita smiles, Reba says she'll cut her, Anita says she won't and moves towards her and even though Reba has therian speed "so did I, and I had the training." Anita knocks her to the floor and pins her knife arm behind her back. Lacey runs to the other tigers. Anita tells her to drop the knife or she'll break her arm. Reba doesn't drop it, so Anita starts to hurt her, so she cries out and drops it. Anita kicks it out of reach, Truth picks it up, Anita tells the readers it must be "so hard to bodyguard someone when they have to do their own fighting." GOD, THE SMUG, IT BURNS!
Anita tells her that "It's against every rule for you to use a knife to discipline your people." Wait, that's a rule? When did THAT come up? "If you aren't queen enough to shapeshift and do it right" like you do, Anita? OH WAIT YOU DON'T "then you aren't allowed to be queen at all." She never said she was queen. She said she was the dominant red, and this may fucking shock you, Anita, but in the animal kingdom dominance is NOT always determined by who has the most physical power, which you seem to be judging it on here. Since real tigers don't live in groups, there's no model to go off of how weretiger groups should determine dominance, and thus how they do it is really anyone's guess, especially since their culture is canonically very mysterious and isolationist. But since determining dominance in ways other than just 'who is the biggest/best fighter' is more common among the more intelligent mammals, which weretigers certainly are since they're human and have human intellect, I'd hazard a guess that that is indeed more likely to be how they do it. Reba can be a dominant red in this group just fine, queen or not, able to hybrid-shift or not. And frankly, you instructing someone else on how to rule their people is just SICKENING.
Reba responds with "Look who's talking, human!" and I love her EVEN MORE. Unsurprisingly, Anita ignores the existence of this remark and asks the other reds how bad Lacey is hurt. One of the men says that the blade was silver, and Anita promises Reba that if Lacey is scarred for life, Reba will be too. Yes, mark up the daughter of the Red Clan's Chang, who already distrusts you according to Reba, that is a GREAT idea, especially since you're trying to ally with all the tigers right now. JC, why are you letting this happen? You know better, I know you do. Reba clearly knows Anita is just dumb enough to do this, though, because her eyes widen and she stops struggling. Right after she stops struggling, Anita HURTS HER ARM MORE AS IF SHE IS GOING TO BREAK IT ANYWAY. "I couldn't grow claws and discipline her like a real queen" So by your own logic you aren't queen at all either "but I could do something that most dominants couldn't." Oh sweet Jesus I am afraid now. "It was a rarer gift" of course "and depending on how you did it, it hurt more." OH GOD. "I'd been gentle with the white tiger, Julia. I wouldn't be gentle with this one."
The energy of Anita's red tiger calls to that of Reba's tiger, and Anita commands for her to "Change for me." Reba says she won't, that Anita can't make her, and that "You are the survivor of an attack. You are not a pureblood." REBA, MARRY ME! Anita tries to eat Reba's anger, but finds that, of course, there's not actually much of it at all, that "it was a thin disguise for her fear" because she is a wimpy Other Woman. "She was so afraid, afraid of me, afraid of how weak she was" I really, really loathe you and your rampant Sueism so much, Anita. Also, as others pointed out last chapter, it actually probably took Reba a lot of courage to stand up to you considering your differing power levels, and to continue defying you even now through her fear. Reba has REAL courage.
Reba tells Anita to let go. Anita lets go of the joint lock, but not her arm, and next thing you know "I was straddling her waist, pinning both her arms to the floor." OH SHIT IT'S JUST LIKE WITH JULIA. Reba shows fear and anger in both her eyes and energy, understandably so, but she continues to be a badass and taunts Anita "Are you going to fuck me, too? Is that all you know how to do here in St. Louis?"
REBA IS PERFECT. REBA IS BEST CHARACTER. REBA NEEDS HER OWN DAMN SERIES.
Anita laughs and her eyes change to "not tiger, but vampire. My eyes if I'd been one for real."Anita feels Reba's fear overtake her anger as she pins Reba's arm down under one knee. Anita points out that Reba has the strength to fight her "but for all she tried to do she could have been human; hell most people would have fought, but she didn't."
Okay, we all know how rapey this scene is and what Anita is going to do with her; same thing as with Julia. So the fact she's making the point about Reba not fighting back is really disturbing. A lot of rape victims do not fight back, even when they physically could have. There are multiple reasons for this. Firstly, people freeze up when they are afraid. I know I can think back to a scary situation or two where I did, even though there were a lot of things I could have done that I only thought of after the danger was past. Everyone fucking says they'd do this or that or what have you if such and such happens to them, not just rape but any kind of disaster, but being in it is entirely different. Secondly, in rape specifically, many victims do not fight back because they are afraid of what their rapist will do to them for it. Reba may have super-strength, but so does Anita. Anita has demonstrated she can use hers combined very effectively with fighting training. She has also shown herself to have big-time metaphysical powers over other weretigers with the white tiger thing, and has threatened already to cut Reba up. Reba has every reason to believe that Anita can and will do her grievous bodily harm in addition to raping her if she fights back. And I sincerely believe that Anita knows this; she's already said Reba is afraid of her. She's just throwing in this "oh, well, she could fight back but she didn't!" shit for the same reason real-life rapists do: to claim that the victim wanted or deserved it.
Maybe we're supposed to find this just because of what Reba did to Lacey. Firstly, nothing justifies rape. Secondly, Anita is supposed to be the one in the right in this scenario. You are not in the right if you rape people. No, not even bad guys. Punitive rape is not okay no matter who it is against. Thirdly, who here thinks Anita is actually doing this for Lacey? Because I don't. Fourthly, while what Reba did to Lacey was horrid, yes, was it really that unique and 'wrong' in the context of therian culture? Because I think by now it's a well-established fact that therian leaders do awful things to their own people all the damn time and that's just how it is. It's sure as hell not right, but one has to wonder why only Reba here is getting penalized for it when Anita didn't do shit about how Haven was running the Pride for over a year. In fact, Anita's issue, according to her own words, is not that she cut Lacey but that she did it with a knife rather than claws. So she's not actually punishing her for what she did, just how she did it. I smell LOOKING FOR AN EXCUSE all over this.
Anita puts her hand on the back of Reba's neck and talks about how her skin is warm and her hair is silky and gives me the heebie-jeebies. Reba asks what she's doing, Anita says "Making my point" and THEN SHE FORCES A KISS ON HER. "She froze against me, as if she didn't know what to do." Which, as I've said, is a typical response of sexual assault victims. "I let my tiger spill into my mouth, and into hers." And now she's putting something into Reba against her will. "Not because I was about to change, or in danger, but because I needed her never to fight me again." So basically this is being done because Anita doesn't like a woman showing any will against her. I really cannot think of a more cliche rapist mentality.
This, by the way, is even though I got an Anthony Blake/Genderswap Anitaverse all laid out, I realize I can't write any serious fic of it. I'd just basically be rewriting all of all this grossness. I suppose there might be the benefit of 'maybe people will actually see how awful it is with the more familiar scenario of a man being the perpetrator' but I think my audience would only be people who already knew how awful it was regardless. I'd still like to use him for parody fics and stuff, because he's like an R-rated Gaston or something, but you just can't make THIS shit funny.
Anita tries to think, but her red tiger wants to kill Reba, and she has the "very practical thought that if we did this were would be no more arguing." Then she sees JC standing next to her and "knew it wasn't my thought" but admits she agrees with it, though she also says it is a "problem" that she agrees with it, which she says makes it hard for her to fight. I'm pretty sure JC would not send such an asinine thought into your head, Anita. Remember, daughter of the Chang here? Whose tigers you want on your side? Don't try and blame this idea on JC, he is way too fucking sensible for that.
Anita "had a moment of choice" and then she kisses Reba again and this time "it wasn't just the red tiger that spilled through me, it was all the other colors, only gold held back, but the other spilled into my mouth and across my lips and into her." No gold for you! "The energies tore her apart" and then there is "a wave of clear, warm fluid and blood" that "exploded across me". OH MY GOD DID SHE LITERALLY TEAR HER APART WITH THAT? No wait she must still be alive because "the violence of it tore screams from her, her body bucking under mine" yeah make this more rapey why don't you "until a tiger lay underneath me, shivering as if everything hurt." You know, you could make the argument here of Anita LITERALLY dehumanizing Julia and Reba into, respectively, hybrid and animal forms as a symbol for the figurative dehumanizing of how she's magically raping them. I almost wonder if that isn't LKH's subconscious intent. The tiger, which has fur "so dark a red it was almost as black as her stripes" looks at Anita with eyes that are "full of pain, and very afraid." Fucking happy now, Anita?
Anita gets up from her victim. She's a bit shaky so JC takes her hand to steady her. His eyes are "as blue and blind with power as mine were brown and black with it". She's also covered in blood and that weird clear shifter gunk fluid. She says that "The dress is ruined." WELL, SORR-REE. He assures her they'll buy another, then leads her over to stand in front of Topaz. Wow, I had forgotten about him. He's kneeling between the guards, and is clearly afraid of Anita. She asks if she needs to make her point again. He asks what I am--what point is that? She says the point is "That the tigers are ours." YOU ARE A SUPER VILLAIN. SERIOUSLY IF I HAD NEVER READ THIS SERIES AND THEN READ THIS CHAPTER ALONE I'D THINK THIS WAS TOLD FROM THE POV OF THE BAD GUY. "That we can be Master of Tigers. That's what you and the rest of your people came to St. Louis to find out, isn't it?"
He says she read that from Jade's mind, JC says yup, Topaz says his master knows what he knows and that they just need gold to complete the tigers. "That was our cue, or rather Devil's and Envy's." Devil. Ugh. "We were keeping the other golden tigers hidden, but the two that were ours" Wait, Envy just had sex, that's all, when did she get metaphysically bonded like Meph? "would get trotted out." Trotted out. Like show animals. This never stops being so gross to me, ugh. Anita thinks of Dev, JC thinks of Envy, Micah leads Dev by the hand to Anita while Richard leads Envy to JC and "handed her" to him. You know, like an object or small pet. Topaz stares at them and says, "The young ones we cared for were massacred. Those of us who were hiding them never told the others, so that if one was destroyed the others would be safe. My master and I didn't know if you would have more of my kind here."
Anita tells him that she knows Jade is envious that from what she's seen he and his master seem to love one another, and assures him that "I wouldn't break a love that's survived thousands of years. That's got to be rare even among vampires." This statement is really interesting to me, because she's assuring him she won't break his Master/Servant bond as she did with Vittorio/Sebastian and Abusive Vampire/Jade. Yet she doesn't call it that. She calls it love. Now, Topaz and his master may well love one another, but Anita has no power to break that, and if it is so enduring then it probably wouldn't matter to them if she did break their magical bond. But she's referring to their magical bond as being the same as love, as being one in the same, when, as is obvious with Jade and Sebastian, with Padma and Gideon and Carswell, it's not. However, look who this is coming from; all of Anita's harem, save for the late Haven, are bound to her with metaphysical ties. They can't ever just decide to walk away from her, she owns them psychically and their very lives are tied to hers. Some more than others, but still. And to her, we've seen that's what 'love' is. So it's not too surprising she'd conflate a co-dependent metaphysical bond to being one and the same with the love the two people who are bonded happen to share.
Topaz tells her that he didn't want to give up his bond to his Master, but also that he didn't know if golden tigers would be found in time to help Anita. Wait, is he implying that he was not only sent here to see if she could be Master of Tigers, but to also sacrifice himself to her as her Golden Tiger to Call if there were no others who could do the job? OH TOPAZ YOU POOR BABY. Jean-Claude butts in to say they could part him from his master. UM, HE KNOWS THIS, JC, HE JUST SAW IT WITH JADE. HE AND ANITA JUST ESTABLISHED THAT NEITHER SHE NOR HE WANTS THAT THOUGH, AND IT'S ALSO NOT NECESSARY, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL HERE YOU CREEPER? Topaz calmly responds to JC that if they want to do that, he doubts he and his master could stop it. This prompts Anita to ask "You really did come here to sacrifice yourself for the common good, didn't you?" Haha, even Anita knows becoming her harem slave is a sacrifice and not a privilege!
Topaz goes on a paragraph-long thing about how the golden tigers have learned from their mistakes and hidden for centuries, so that now, though they're thought to be the extinct ones, they in fact outnumber the black and blue clans. He tells JEAN-CLAUDE that they want and need him to be Master of Tigers (I thought it was Anita who was supposed to be MoT? Or her and JC together? it's been slightly unclear...) because "if we do this we break with the Darkness that made us, and if she ever gains power again she will make us long for true death long before she gives it to us." If you had actually learned from the mistakes of your history, then you would have learned from Vittorio NOT TO HAVE A MASTER OF TIGERS, ESPECIALLY NOT ONE LIKE ANITA AND/OR JEAN-CLAUDE. Supernaturals across the board are just not too bright, are they?
Anita asks why they would risk the MOAD's wrath to join Anita & Co, he says that the MOAD knows what they did now, which is, as JC helpfully tells the reader, "that it was her own beloved Harlequin who put her into that long-ago sleep." Topaz nods, and Anita says "So the white tiger's myth is true" and I REKINDLE ALL MY RAGE FROM WHEN BIBIANA WAS TELLING HER THINGS THAT MAKE PERFECT SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS SERIES AND ANITA WAS POOPOOING IT AS METAPHOR AND FAIRY TALES. Topaz is like yes it is and Anita raises her eyebrows. Just...stop being a stupid asshole about this at least, Anita. You don't look logical and rational and skeptical, you look like a moron. Like if Harry Potter didn't believe in magic. Topaz tells her that they'd heard of how she broke master/servant bonds "with the lion and the Master of Chicago" wait Haven was Auggie's Servant? "and the two Vegas tigers from their queen and master." Crispin and Domino weren't bonded to Max like that, though. He was their master in the same way as Nikolaos to the wererats, maybe, but not like the Master/Servant bonds. ALSO: This is another example of why the roleplay term Therian Servant is better than just having "animal to call" referring to both the animal/therian species one calls and the specific member of that therian species that is bonded like a Human Servant to one.
Anyway. He says that they knew there was a chance she'd take at least one of the them, him or Jade, from their masters, and reminds us that one of the MOAD's own abilities was "to break all bonds and bind only to her." Anita notes that Jade didn't know this whole plan, and Topaz says "No, because then her master would have known, and we considered him corrupt." Why trust him with this then? Oh, because, as Anita points out "Without Jade's energy to raise his level, you can kill him" and Topaz admits that yes, they were banking on Anita stealing Jade from him and making him weak enough to kill because they don't trust him. Wow, this is the most impressive/clever thing the Harlequin has ever done that I know of.
Of course, then they have to go and ruin this ruthlessness by having it be so that it was also done not just because of practical reasons but because they wanted poor little Jade free from the big meanie so she wouldn't die with him since she's suffered enough. JC says that Jade thought they did not see her suffering...which contradicts what we know, since Anita got from Jade's mind that she hated Topaz and his master for watching her suffer and doing nothing and she sent everything she learned from Jade to JC, so JC should know full well that Jade knew Topaz and his master were aware of her abuse. I'd like to think he's pulling some kind of manipulation here but I think LKH just made a continuity error within the space of a few chapters, which has sadly happened all too many times before.
He says that not only can Anita & Co free Jade, they can "free us all" and Anita "gave him the look that deserved" because she is an asshole before saying "We're good, but we aren't the immortal Darkness." He says she doesn't have to be, all she has to do is be able to cut master/servant ties...yeah, I don't buy that being all it takes. JC asks Topaz what he wants of them, Topaz responds by asking if they're really going to spare him and his master from having theirs cut despite the power JC and Anita could gain from it. It never stops making me do a double take on just how strangely conversations work in this universe. Anita tells Topaz they have enough power, he says they have a lot but more would be better, Micah says they'll find more, Topaz gushes about how they're sparing him and his master for loooooove. Anita looks at all her men and asks "What else is there?"
GAG ME WITH A SPORK
Topaz smiles up at them and his face is "shining with love close to adoration" but Anita tells us she's pretty sure it's because he's thinking of his master, not them. You know, probably. Topaz says that's what they were hoping to hear, Anita asks "So, you gambled centuries of happiness, your free will, and your very existence, on love?" SO SHE'S WELL AWARE SHE'S TAKING PEOPLE'S FREE WILL LEFT AND RIGHT HERE. He shrugs and asks if there's anything else worth gambling everything for and she tells him there isn't while "standing there holding everyone's hands" and "I believed that." OKAY BUT WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?!
This book is 96% over...chances of anything cool happening in the remaining pages seem very, very slim.
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