BULLET, CHAPTER 48

[a_sporking_rat]

MAGIC RATS: Last night I took Sid out of his cage. When I went to return him, Sam was in his cage instead! But her cage door was closed! I had no idea how she did that, until I found out that she and Blatz had chewed a hole in the plastic part of their cage. I patched it up, but I thought I had a magic Houdini rat there for about an hour!

FAN THEORY 1: So remember how I said either JC is not a sourdre de sang or else he's keeping his bloodline powers damn well hidden from Anita, given we've seen neither hide nor hair of them? Subtle_shades said she had a crack theory that his bloodline power was stealing the powers of other vampires and I was like WAIT THAT'S NOT CRACKY AT ALL, THAT MAKES SENSE! We know Anita got the ardeur by being the Human Servant of JC, right? (Not something that usually happens with Human Servants, or ever before her because she's special, but most due to her being a necromancer is the in-universe theory as to how/why, I believe) And we learned in this book that she's basically like Rogue of the X-Men to vampires, permanently stealing any vamp power used against her, hence why she can call beasts like Padma, eat fear and anger like the Moroven and the Dragon, and do the life-draining thing like Obsidian Butterfly. Maybe that's not her power. Maybe stealing powers is JC's bloodline ability, and the reason she has it is the same reason she has the ardeur, through a tie to him. Makes sense, right? It's my headcanon too now! Might even show SvS if I can manage to cram another thing into that hydra-like fic.

FAN THEORY 2: Commenter writtenelision and I were talking last night (she's one of the fabulous roleplay buddies from back in the day before I was ever a-sporking-rat!) about just how much things SUCK for therians under vampires.
And being a vampire...not something that happens accidentally in this universe, but therianthropy? Just get scratched and bam, suddenly you're thrown into this world where you're at the bottom of a horrible hierarchy not only of your own species but bloodsuckers to boot.

And just think! If a vampire who can call a certain animal has a Therian Servant of that animal type, they can make said servant infect dozens of people, resulting in a lot of very new (meaning very weak) wereanimals of said animal, who will be easy for the vampire to control for their own purposes. I don't think there are any canon examples of this, but I bet you it has happened before. Therians actually have even MORE reason to hate vampires than baseline humans do, honestly!

Speaking of therian exploitation by vampires, both Maximillian Bellici (Master of Las Vegas and Samuel (Master of Cape Cod) have taken a wife of their species of animals to call (tiger, mermaid) who they also made their Therian Servant (well, Bibi is, not sure about Thea) which thus has DUBIOUS CONSENT ALL OVER IT since that entails taking a portion of their free will, and they have used that woman's position of power among her people (Chang, siren) to TAKE THAT PEOPLE OVER. Does this read as suspcious as hell to anyone else, even though nothing bad is even suggested as going on from Anita's POV? Shit, dude, even Ruthven at least used his own power to take over the English swans instead of binding a swan queen to him or something.

We know that a vamp can make someone their Servant by force. And the completed process robs them of a portion of their free will, as I mentioned. And do you think Bibi would just hand her people over to a vamp? COME ON. I can't believe I didn't see this before, it makes even more sense than my "Bibi sacrificed herself by becoming wife and Servant of Max to save her people during some calamity in the past" theory (and could coincide with it)


BULLET, CHAPTER 48

This is the last chapter of Bullet, in which Anita sums everything up. Topaz went back to his master, though he's not referred to as Topaz but as "the Harlequin's gold tiger" because his own name doesn't matter, just who owns him. "Jake and Jade stayed with us. Jake joined us in the gym like all the good guards" you have bad guards? "Jade joined us in the gym, too, but she's not a guard. She can fight, and she's fearsomely good, but the centuries of abuse have left her with a victim's mentality, and that doesn't make a good guard. Maybe I can introduce her to Richard's therapist?"

1) Is it just me or does this wording make it sound like Anita's main concern over Jade's mental health is that it prevents her from being an effective guard?
2) I appreciate that LKH recognizes the mental impact that abuse, especially long-term abuse, has, and that people can be a fearsome fighters and still suffer trauma. However, rather than letting this happen organically and on-screen, she just TELLS us about it in a few epilogue sentences. Not good character development.
3) If it turns out she's specifically good at Asian martial arts, I'm going to be pissed. (Not that no Asian character can ever be good at Asian martial arts, just that Jade is already nothing BUT a stereotype--a lesbian due to abuse, a submissive yet sexualized China Doll--so adding one more just makes her worse)
4) Look, I don't mean to sound like I think Jade's case is unfixable but SHE WENT THROUGH CENTURIES OF ABUSE IN A VERY NON-HUMAN CULTURE THAT THIS SHRINK LIKELY HAS NO CONTEXT FOR UNLESS SHE HERSELF IS AN OLD VAMPIRE. Packing everyone off to offscreen therapy does and cannot realistically fix everything! Least of all to such a simple and complete degree as Anita seems to think! There probably is a growing field for cases like Jade (people who have gone through things relating specifically to their lives as preternaturals) but that must be a specialized as fuck field. Maybe Richard's shrink is one, but this is never mentioned.

"Cynric, who wants to be called Cyn, pronounced Sin, stayed in St. Louis." I just can't even with this one. "He's the only blue tiger we have and we need him close to us." Which LKH came up with in order to justify there being a teenager in your harem. "I'm still note sure how I feel about it, but unless I want to divide the female blue tiger from her master, who she also loves, Cyn is the only one we have to bind to us." I hope that female blue is his mother and she comes to kick your ass. "He's hitting the gym" Is this going to be like how she fucked the perma-fifteen vampire Byron but that's not weird because oh he works out so much his muscles make him look eighteen? "and we're looking at enrolling him in his last year of high school." So he's not just a teenager, he's a HIGH-SCHOOLER, not like a 19 year old or something, oh god. "When I realized he was a junior I was totally creeped" AS YOU SHOULD BE "but he's legal" Him being LEGAL to have sex with doesn't make it morally okay for you to do so.

Like, just starting with the non-supernatural stuff, him being a teenager means his brain is not fully developed yet. That's a scientific fact. That's WHY there's an age of consent law, and why it's set where it is. That's why teenagers often seem so irrational and illogical and do stupid shit all the time. That's why, in combination with many other factors such as the meds I was on at the time, my lifelong depression was at its peak in my teens. Now of course, you don't just hit your 18th birthday and bam, your brain instantly transitions to fully adult. In fact, if I have things straight, development actually continues into your twenties. Anita, being in her late twenties at this point I believe, is (or least should be) a full adult. Cynric is not. If he and kids his age chose to have sex, that would be one thing. But someone Anita's age having sex with him is an unequal balance. Could it work and be non-exploitative? Maybe. Could he have a relationship with her that was not her taking advantage of him? Maybe. I really don't know enough about this kind of thing to say so either way. Though I would suggest thinking about it with the genders reversed for a moment.

But all those "maybes" go out the window anyway when you factor in all the supernatural stuff and it becomes very clear that she totally IS taking advantage of him. How so? Oh, let me count the ways...
1) She was his first sexual experience and it was via supernatural rape by the MOAD. They should both be kept away from each other except perhaps for meeting for the purpose of therapy, mutual healing, forgiveness, recognition of the other as having been a fellow victim and not the true aggressor, etc. Forming a relationship? Hell no. Maybe if they were older, but he is a kid and this was his first time and there are just so many reasons why that is a big NO.
2) She is his Queen. That's been made pretty clear that she supernaturally rules him, body and mind, via her stupid tiger powers. That alone makes his consent questionable; is he agreeing because he wants to, or because he feels he has to? And again, this just gets worse when you factor in his impressionable age...
3)...and the fact that he has no clan. Stupid as it is, color is clearly important as hell to these weretigers and they feel extreme loneliness without others of their color around. Combine that with his youth and this being his first time and her not only being another tiger of his color (the only one he's ever met, in fact) but his queen, and, yeah, it's hard to say his consent isn't at the least questionable and/or this situation at least a little skeevy.
4) It's essential for Anita to have a blue tiger or else. So this teenage boy is faced with the fact that if he chooses NOT to have sex with and become the animal to call (aka slave) of this woman, that might mean the end of his species at the hands of the MOAD. Even if all the rest of the points I made didn't stand, I think that alone means this isn't a situation where his consent is not being coerced/influenced.
5) He's living under her roof. I've personally known of more than one instance where a girl living somewhere only got to stay if she gave up sex to the homeowner. Of course, with Anita's track record, not fucking her might not only get Cynric kicked out, but killed.

Also, let us all take a moment to appreciate the fact that LKH set up a situation where Anita *has* to have a teenage boy to bone and own or else the bad guy will wipe out all the weretigers. She wanted it that much that she went that far to justify it in-universe. That is some grade-A creepy there, folks.

"I'm still working on my issues with it all." The issues being, of course, that she has issues and needs to be okay with this, not THIS IS REALLY HONKING WRONG!

"They found the Master of Atlanta by using the cadaver dogs like I'd suggested." Yes, yes, Anita's wisdom saves the day, whoopee. "They fried him with an exterminator team" And of course we don't get to see it. No, that would have been too COOL AND EXCITING AND POSSIBLY PLOT RELEVANT! "The few vampires that survived his death are in need of a new Master of the City. Jean-Claude and I are debating on who to send." Why the hell do you two get to decide that? "Meng Die wants it to be her." Ahhh, and so we find a way to get another woman off the screen. "She's friendlier to me since we helped her up her power level. What she actually said was, "When you dance with the devil, it might as well be a devil who can give you your own corner of hell to rule." Uh, yeah, I'm sure that sounded real cool in your head, LKH.

"Richard has continued to be okay." You mean totally subservient to your every depraved whim? "I learned that the three men who tried to kill him were dead. I'd assumed the guards that we sent to rescue him had killed them, but they'd only helped dispose of the bodies." Yeeeah, do the police you work with know about that, Miss Federal Marshal? "Richard as his wolf had hunted them through the woods and killed them." AND WE MISSED THIS? ARE YOU SHITTING ME? I can understand us not getting to see the Atlanta thing, disappointing as it is, but Anita can see telepathically through Richard's eyes, dammit, we could have watched the whole hunt, complete with the creepy feelings of total helplessness that one would have SEEING THROUGH THE EYES OF THE KILLER AND BEING ABLE TO DO NOTHING. "Jean-Claude and I held him one night while he cried about that." Oh for fuck's sake again with this?! "He didn't cry about killing them so much as about how much he enjoyed killing them. In our ways, all three of us worry that we will be the monster." You and JC are already monsters. So is Richard if he actually hunted them down versus killing in self-defense. He just still has the humanity to know what he is and feel bad about it. JC probably knows what he is, but I doubt he feels bad. You have no idea and feel zip.

"It turned out that the effects of the ardeur and some of the odd pairings wore off. We offered every woman not on birth control a morning-after pill." Sorry about the mass rape we forced on you, here, have a free contraceptive, now everything is alright! "I was thankful once again that I was on the pill. Condoms for me were an extra protection--not my only one." I really do not think the pill is a good match for Anita. You have to take it every day, and my brand recommends at around the same time. Not only can missing more than a day put you at risk for pregnancy, it'll fuck up your period cycle, at least it does for me. But anyway, look at Anita's lifestyle. She is regularly up all night, blacked out and/or possessed for over 24 hours at a time, taken hostage, etc. Something like a patch, injecting, Nuva-Ring, etc would be a much better fit for her. "JJ is back in New York, but she's also back to being love only with Jason." OKAY, I AM ACTUALLY REALLY SURPRISED BY THIS, WAS NOT EXPECTING IT. "Bianca, the swanmane" whom we never see onscreen and have no reason to care about "is a little unhappy about that, but it's not the ardeur that makes her miss JJ. She just liked JJ, and who could blame her?"

How does Anita know this? Has she talked to Bianca? Has she ever even met her? Who the fuck IS she? LKH, we have to actually meet and know these people to really be interested at all in their love triangles. It's nice you're not leaving it hanging, but it's still incomplete.

"Jake helped us hunt Padma, Master of Beasts. It wasn't that hard to break the Mother's hold on him. Jake thinks it worked so well because my power is similiar to his. I'm not so sure. It was too easy, as the old saying goes."

WHAT? AND THIS HAPPENS OFFSCREEN? Okay, as cool as the thing in Atlanta was, Anita can't be everywhere, and I understand that, and it would have been dumb for her to go to Atlanta, much like her going to Vegas in Skin Trade was. But if we're told that action like that is happening elsewhere, we need equal action going on where the POV character is too. AND THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT! I don't even care if it was easy, at least it would be something that HAPPENED! The only fight in this whole damn book was when Haven got shot! That's fucking it! No, I do not count writhing around on a bed and driving them off psychically by touching your boyfriends to be fighting, nor do I count assaulting people weaker than you for no reason beyond they dared to be a female to be fighting. Seriously though, just think, we could easily have taken out the Valentina chapter, the gym chapters, all those other really irrelevant lengthy parts (and no, I don't mean the harem's penises...though those too) and put in tracking down and exorcising Padma.

"The Dragon and the Traveller are sending people of their line to St. Louis" Oooh, I'm curious about the oh-so-rare Traveller vamps "so if the Mother does try to take them over we can have a leg up on breaking them free." I don't understand why having vampires of their lines would help with that? They can't find Morte D'Amour, but he took over another one of his line in Europe like he did with Clayton and nearly seventy people were killed before the army stopped them. BADASS! ROTTING VAMPIRES VERSUS THE ARMY! "Countries where vampires are still illegal don't have legal vampire executioners. They usually call in what amounts to the National Guard." I'd sure as hell rather be reading about them for damn sure.

"Some tigers of every color stayed with us. We have enough blood donors that most of our vampires can feed on shapeshifters. We're the only vampire kiss in the country that can boast such rich food for all our bloodsuckers." Which means that Bibiana must not allow Max's vampires to munch on her kitties. I like this implication.

They are still staying underground as much as they can until they can find the Lover of Death, and she's rearranged her schedule so that she has three afternoons a week free of clients. That's like half the week, wtf? She uses these afternoons to train with the guards, and Nathaniel has coffee ready for her when she comes home from work. One afternoon when she comes in and Matthew is in the kitchen eating a PB&J. THE FUCK IS THAT KID DOING HERE?! Anita makes sure he can't see her gun under her jacket, while Matthew "puckered up for a kiss and I gave him one. He got lipstick and I got grape jelly." This coming just a few pages after the mention of Cynric makes it so disturbing. She starts to kiss Nathaniel, then remembers Matthew's "All the big boys kiss you, 'Nita" and stops, but then Nathaniel, puzzled, kisses her instead and she kisses him back and talks about how good the smell of his skin makes her feel.

They sit down at the table with Matthew and Nathaniel explains Monica is going to be gone overnight so Matthew is staying. WHY THE FUCK COULD SHE NOT HIRE AN OVERNIGHT BABYSITTER? THIS IS NOT A SAFE PLACE AT THE BEST OF TIMES, BUT IN THE LAST FEW NIGHTS THERE HAS BEEN A MURDER, A PSYCHIC INVASION OF EVIL VAMPIRES, AND THREE FORCED ORGIES. Seriously, we know from Valentina and Bartolome that the ardeur can overtake child vampires, it can most likely take human children too! Good god, if he had been staying over just a few nights prior...seriously, I feel like something is very wrong that Monica is letting him stay here. By which I mean Monica is obviously a smart woman and, even if she DIDN'T know about all that, I doubt she'd let him stay here if she had any other choice. Something is fishy and I don't like it.

And then all the guards "spilled into the kitchen" because it's shift change and they're all "armed to the teeth and not hiding it" so Anita takes off her jacket. Matthew behaves "like it was all normal" and the guards greet him casually as well, suggesting they know him too and it's not unusual for him to be here. I am so worried for this child. Lisandro ruffles his hair, and there is mention that he "had two little ones of his own." YEAH, AND 'SOMETHING ABOUT A WIFE' TOO, ANITA, REMEMBER?

Matthew asks Dev/Meph (referred to as Devil, ugh) if he can come watch them practice. Dev says sure and then "leaned over and kissed me hi. So did Nicky. All the big boys kiss 'Nita." THE SMUG IN THAT LAST LINE. THE SMUG. They start to go to the gym "surrounded by muscular and dangerous men" and Matthew grabs her hand and Nathaniels', and asks what they're reading tonight. When Goodnight Moon is offered, he disdains it as a book for little kid, so Nathaniel offers Peter Pan and Matthew approves. Anita reminds us how Peter Pan is the first book that "Micah, Nathaniel, and I ever read to each other." I can see why---the females besides the heroine are all depicted as jealous hostile hussies (Tinkerbell and the mermaids), and if I recall right (it's been a while since I've read it) part of the point of Peter's eternal innocence was that he was basically a little sociopath who didn't comprehend the death or loss of others, and also was kind of sexist to boot? Not to mention that the whole "always a young boy" deal is just CREEPY in relation to Nathaniel.

Anita thinks that she isn't 100% comfy with everything Matthew sees and learns here, but his mother is so it's okay. Yeah, I don't buy that, as I said. No, what bothers Anita is that having Matthew around has made Nathaniel start hinting that "maybe we could have a rug rat of our own." NO. That is supposed to be one word, btw. ALSO, NO! "Me, a mom? So not happening." NO, IT'S NOT. Also ugh you are not a Valley Girl ugh ugh. "But if he keeps hinting about kids, he may talk me into that puppy he's been wanting." ALSO NO. NONE OF YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF AN ANIMAL. AND THE ONES THAT CAN ARE NOT NICE PEOPLE. "I can see us with a puppy, but a baby? Not only no, but hell no." The only reason I actually believe this won't go the same way as her promise not to sleep with Nathaniel is that Anita would be the one stuck getting fat and inconvenienced for nine months...though then again, LKH may bullshit a way around that.

"I'm a U.S. Marsha, a legal vampire executioner, and I raise the dead for a living." Pretty much none of which entered into this novel at all besides the phone call and tape from Atlanta. "None of those jobs would work with a baby" yes good, some sense "and not even the thought of having Nathaniel's lavendar eyes staring up at me from some curly-haired moppet is going to change that. Besides, brown beats light-colored eyes genetically. I'd be more likely be staring into a pair of my own dark brown, and I can see that every time I look in a mirror." Um, Anita, you know people have babies for something other than them being pretty, right? "I'm not fond enough of my own eyes to want to see them in someone else's face."

...and that is the last line of the book. What. The. Fuck? Was that supposed to be, some kind of tragic self-esteem thing? Dramatic? It just sounds STUPID. She points out a perfectly good reason she shouldn't have a baby, but then follows it up by a totally bizarre shallow kind-of-disturbing reason. I mean, I'm all for women not having babies for any reason they don't want to, including so-called 'shallow' ones like ruining one's figure and such, because dammit that is HER body...but in this case, it's not about her body, it's about that of the baby and how it potentially wouldn't come out pretty enough to her liking. That's pretty creepy and makes me wonder just how she'd treat a kid based on its looks alone.

Remember that fan-made baby I have that resulted from her one time with Rafael? That poor kid has brown eyes. LOOKS LIKE HE'S GONNA HAVE EVEN MORE ISSUES THAT I THOUGHT.

Comments

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Yup, I shall spork Hit List!

What really bites me about it is there *is* cool stuff that happened, as evident by the epilogue, but it's not what LKH writes about. I wish she wouldn't throw these offhand "oh and we exorcised Padma" bits in at the end at all if she's not going to actually have them happen on-screen; it changes it from just being a Twinkie to being a Twinkie with a picture of a beautiful gourmet dessert next to it that you'll never actually get.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

That's an insult to Twinkies. They at least usually taste good. They aren't creamy, like the creamy goodness of Anita's breasts, yet somehow soft and smooth on your tongue, yellow like the yellow of sunflowers and sunlight if sunlight could be concentrated in a baked treat, like daises and marigolds, yet tasty like a tasty thing, as soft as Ardeur Power #382 eating someone's rage -

Anyway, insult to Twinkies.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

This is the last chapter of Bullet, in which Anita sums everything up.

Huh? But nothing happened! Okay, stuff happened I guess -- Anita raped people and Haven killed Noel (big whoop) and Anita shot Haven and there was weretiger stuff. But none of it mattered. What the heck was the plot? What about Asher? What's happening to the werelions now? Why all this stuff about the tigers in this book anyway? How can a book be so overstuffed and yet not have any plot?

Him being LEGAL to have sex with doesn't make it morally okay for you to do so.

It is according to LKH! When confronted about Cynric during the Reddit thing, she said that Anita wouldn't commit statutory rape cuz it's illegal, and she completely missed the point that people were bothered by the morality, not the legality. Anita harps on legality a lot. It's legal for her to kill people so she does, it's okay because she doesn't get caught, etc. Lawful evil all the way.

"I'm not fond enough of my own eyes to want to see them in someone else's face."

...they wouldn't be your eyes, Anita. They would be the baby's. And oh god appearance is the only thing that matters to her so much that that's the most important reason she doesn't want a baby what the fuck.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

And oh god appearance is the only thing that matters to her so much that that's the most important reason she doesn't want a baby what the fuck.

It just figures that even when Anita makes a decision I can sympathise with, she makes it for the dumbest possible reason!

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

Age of consent in Missouri is 17. (I just checked). Cyn, entering into his final year of high school, has only just passed the age where Anita could be prosecuted for stat rape. It makes me really uncomfortable. Especially at the thought of Anita being his pseudo-mother. It seems that the maternal issues just keep on coming!

Why doesn't Anita get a coil? It's a good means of birth control, and she'd never have to worry about it. Seeing as she never seems to have any sort of schedule or organisation in her life (BLASPHEMY FOR THOSE WHO THINK WEEK PLANNERS ARE SUPER NEAT) she must constantly be forgetting to take it.

The book ends on a real damp squib of an ending.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

...I was sixteen when I started my senior year of high school. I turned seventeen later that year. I mention this because different states have different starting ages, kids sometimes skip grades for a variety of reasons, and it's possible to graduate high school in fewer than four years.

So Cyn might be under the age of consent. And, even if he is of legal age in Missouri, I think I looked it up for Lashouts once that both Nevada and Missouri have exceptions to their age of consent laws, particularly for adults who take advantage of their power/authority within the teen's life to get sex out of that teen. So, while statutory rape may be off the table, there are other equally unforgiving laws on the table to prosecute Anita with - especially since she's his pseudo-mom.

....And JC will get to see if he can run his empire from prison.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Especially at the thought of Anita being his pseudo-mother. It seems that the maternal issues just keep on coming!
And his LEGAL pseudo-mom, no less. No matter what ages, a legal guardian having sex with their charge has dub-con all over it, and I'm pretty sure there are laws against it.

It gets even creepier when she starts going to his PTA meetings and having sex with him after. Really.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? That's it? But, but, but... there was no story! The last two had a story! I mean, they were stupid stories, but they were stories all the same, with beginnings and ends (they did not really have middles so much as they had Anita wandering around doing stupid shit, but still, they had beginnings and ends). What was this one about? What was the conflict? What did we just read?

... aw shit, this means that the rape-fest at the end was technically the climax, wasn't it? Was that pretty much it? Was it all building up to putting Anita in a position where she is capable of and (in her own twisted little mind) justified in psychic-raping everyone who argues with her into submission?

And if it seems like I'm ending every sentence with a question mark, it's because that's how I feel right now! D<

You and JC are already monsters. So is Richard if he actually hunted them down versus killing in self-defense. He just still has the humanity to know what he is and feel bad about it. JC probably knows what he is, but I doubt he feels bad. You have no idea and feel zip.

That's a pretty accurate assessment of those three, I think, yeah.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

It's like there was a story, but it was happening in another book, and this book is an addendum that was written to show what the characters who weren't in that book were up to offscreen while all the action in that first book was going on.

aw shit, this means that the rape-fest at the end was technically the climax, wasn't it? Was that pretty much it? Was it all building up to putting Anita in a position where she is capable of and (in her own twisted little mind) justified in psychic-raping everyone who argues with her into submission?
Alas, yes.

[mocha-latta.livejournal.com]

Thanks for biting the Bullet for us and reading it so we don't have too
(BOOM, I've been sitting on that for WEEKS)

Incest isn't legal, Anita. Do incest laws apply to adoptive guardians? The ought to.

"When you dance with the devil, it might as well be a devil who can give you your own corner of hell to rule."
All I read was 'clunk'. It's almost adorable.

UGGGG. Why of all things did we have to get a rehash of 'everyone, even 8 year olds, totally want Anita" Stop that.

"But if he keeps hinting about kids, he may talk me into that puppy he's been wanting."
NO. STOP TALKING LIKE YOU'RE HIS MOTHER. PLEASE.

""I'm a U.S. Marsha, a legal vampire executioner, and I raise the dead for a living."
The only raising of the dead that happened this novel was with J.C.

The book ended as it was: a pointless non sequitur.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for biting the Bullet for us and reading it so we don't have too
PFFFFHAHAHAHAH!

Why of all things did we have to get a rehash of 'everyone, even 8 year olds, totally want Anita" Stop that.
It really, really drives me nuts. It's not enough she has literally about a dozen boyfriends, she still needs more admiration, even from KIDS?

Incest isn't legal, Anita. Do incest laws apply to adoptive guardians? The ought to.
They really should. A lot of people think the issue with incest is the potential for genetic fuckup with the offspring, but that's honestly the LEAST of reasons why it's wrong and harmful. A parent or legal guardian is in a position of power, authority, and trust in relation to their child/charge, and have a fuck ton of psychological leverage over them. It makes the issue way different (and way worse) than if Anita were just some random cougar with no relation to Cynric.

The only raising of the dead that happened this novel was with J.C.
Ba-dum-tssh!

[watersheerie.livejournal.com]

I was thankful once again that I was on the pill. Condoms for me were an extra protection--not my only one.

Would the pill even work for Anita? Not only would Anita never ever remember to take one, but she's also this super speshul snowflake who's body is so different that it screws up pregnancy tests and has doctors kissing her ass for a chance to examine her. Why would a hormonal pill, designed for normal human bodies, work on Anita? It really makes no sense. Particularly given how fast shifter metabolisms are, LKH even noted that normal medicine and psychiatric drugs didn't work as well on weres. Anita is practically a were, the pill should be useless.

WHY THE FUCK COULD SHE NOT HIRE AN OVERNIGHT BABYSITTER? THIS IS NOT A SAFE PLACE AT THE BEST OF TIMES, BUT IN THE LAST FEW NIGHTS THERE HAS BEEN A MURDER, A PSYCHIC INVASION OF EVIL VAMPIRES, AND THREE FORCED ORGIES.

OMG, can you imagine the arduer hitting while Matthew is there? I don't understand why LKH does this shit, its so creepy.

ALSO NO. NONE OF YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF AN ANIMAL. AND THE ONES THAT CAN ARE NOT NICE PEOPLE.

Anita could not take care of a dog, that dog would be dead within a week. And knowing LKH, if she ever gave Anita a dog it'd be some super special breed that normal people don't have, and a lot of those 'unique' breeds are also dogs you don't want to give to dog-noobs. Dogs require a lot of care, time and energy. Anita only has time for herself and only cares about herself, that dog would be dead.

Side note: I've been watching a reality show about animal-horders, and you see these people with crazy amounts of animals all packed into tiny homes. And these people always insist that they are the only ones who can take care of these animals, they are the only ones who love them and will keep them alive. Usually these people are also very afraid of loved ones leaving them, they have serious abandonment issues and so turn to hoarding animals as a way to ensure that no one they love will ever leave.

Sound familiar? Anita is literally hording animal-men, the similarities are so close it's eerie.

Besides, brown beats light-colored eyes genetically. I'd be more likely be staring into a pair of my own dark brown, and I can see that every time I look in a mirror.

Holy shit, she admits it. Yet she still acts like having black hair and brown eyes turns her into some super rare genetic freak. In the very first chapter you commented on that Anita, you made it sound like your very common hair color of black was something rare and freakish and that blonds rule the world. It's like LKH can't even remember what she writes a few sentences ago, no wonder she keeps asking fans for help on information from past books. She can't remember it.

That's pretty creepy and makes me wonder just how she'd treat a kid based on its looks alone.

It's very Bella-like (Bella and Anita are practically the same now). Bella really only wanted her demonspawn baby because she thought it would look perfect and exactly like Edward. And of course the baby did come out perfectly beautiful and everyone loves it. I did read this awesome spitefic where the demonspawn was hideous and disfigured, very good fic which perfectly detailed all the things wrong with Resneezeme.

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

I think I read that spitefic, or a similar one. It came out looking like a baby version of Nosferatu.

[wanderingworlds.livejournal.com]

1. I would actually be really hesitant to have her go anywhere near a therapist that was a vampire, let alone one that's nearly as old as her previous Master. The potential triggers in that are enough to squick me out and raise so many alarm. The best we could hope for is Yiyu *stubbornly refuses to call her Jade* seeing a therian therapist that specializes in ex-Servants (which would be such a small and specialized field, because I'm pretty sure the only one who goes around breaking those bonds is Anita at this point). The next best thing would be perhaps having her talk to some of the therians (rats and hyenas only) that work in the Circus and aren't slaves to the Doomcrotch, and hope that friendships with them help her heal over time. BUT THAT'S TOO LONG AND ICKY AND WOULD REQUIRE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. UGH.

2. ... How would a 15-year-old vampire working out matter? Vampires can't change their physical appearance that way. THEY DON'T CHANGE. THE ONLY WAY TO DO THAT IS LIKE WITH ASHER AND THE SCARRING. WHAT THE FUCK. THIS MAKES NO SEEEEEENSE AKSDJF;LAKSDJFDSK;LAFJ *blue screen noise*

3. Fun fact, the brain doesn't fully develop until about age 25. :D

4. Could Anita, as Doomcrotch, have a relationship with Cynric that was nonexploitive? No. Could Anita from the first few novels do it? No. She would've balked at the idea of having sex with anyone that wasn't close to her age, or in a relationship with her. So yeah. No, Anita could never do something non-squicky with a teenager. I'm not sure anyone can. Now, I'm not saying that a large age difference can't work out later on, like if someone in their 20s is with someone in their 30s, or so on. But teens to twenties is a huge difference in experience, development, etc. No.

5. Oh, wow. I forgot about the whole conflict in Atlanta. Whoops. And it was such an important part of the plot, too! >.>

6. ... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WAIT WHAT?! ANITA USES THE PILL AND CONDOMS? WHEN HAVE CONDOMS EVER BEEN MENTIONED IN THE HISTORY OF ALL THESE SEX SCENES? WHEN? AND SHE NEVER MENTIONS TAKING A PILL. OR ANYTHING ABOUT REFILLING PRESCRIPTIONS OR WHAT-HAVE-YOU. I'm just going to pretend that MOAD killed her baby-maker out of revenge. Or someone did when they possessed her. Or all the times her animals "tried to claw their way out" was them shredding her ovaries. She can't have babies. BECAUSE I REFUSE TO BELIEVE SHE IS REPOPULATING ANY OF THE TIGER CLANS. EVER.

7. I'm shocked JJ got to go back to Jason, too. Holy shit.

8. FUCK YOU ANITA. JUST BECAUSE BROWN TRUMPS MARY-SUE COLORED EYES LIKE FUCKING LAVENDER. FUCK. YOU. Not like I have brown eyes and wish they were another color sometimes, nope. No new parent in their right mind looks into the eyes of their child and is like "Ugh, this eye color is SOOOOO ugly. Why couldn't it have been _____?" Jesus Christ.

9. That's... the end? WHERE WAS THE CONFLICT? WHERE WAS THE EPIC BATTLE SCENES? WHERE WAS EVERYTHING THAT SHOULD BE IN ONE OF THESE? THERE WAS EVEN CLIMAX except for during the sex scenes AND I'M NOT AT ALL SATISFIED. I feel like I just got denied an orgasm. GIVE ME MY LITERARY ORGASM, LKH.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

1) ew actually spend TIME on developing characters and helping them grow? Who does that?

2) I really, really don't know either. It's been shown that vampire hair and nails and such can grow as a result of excess power they get from their Kiss or other sources (which suggests they can't just store it, it has to come out some way/do something immediately, which I find intriguing) but this kid actually beefed up by working out...we've never seen anything like it before or since in the Anitaverse, which really makes me think LKH just randomly bent the rules of her universe to justify Anita having sex with a man who was forever trapped in the body of a fifteen year old boy and not having that seem a little squicky on Anita's part.

3) Ah, cool! I knew it was something like that.

4) Yeah, exactly. A five-year age difference is a much bigger difference when it's between say, a twenty year old and a fifteen year old than a thirty five year old and a forty year old.

5) There was a plot?

6) HEADCANON ACCEPTED lol shredded ovaries

7) I guess as long as JJ stays far away in New York and Jason stays right here boning Anita, they'll be allowed

8) Fer reals, she really freaks me out there.

9) I WILL NEVER STOP FEELING CHEATED

[nic echo (from livejournal.com)]

"The Dragon and the Traveller are sending people of their line to St. Louis" Oooh, I'm curious about the oh-so-rare Traveller vamps
Don't get your hopes up. It never happens.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

ALAS D8

"don't get your hopes up" should be the tagline for this series

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

I had a magic Houdini rat there for about an hour!
You totally have a magic Houdini rat! (Also, LOL to your Sam deciding to climb into Sid's cage and pretend like nothing was amiss.)

FAN THEORY 1 MWAHAHAHAHA! That is all.

FAN THEORY 2 Right? Throughout the entire series Richard is portrayed as having this irrational hatred for being a werewolf but, if you stop and think about it from his perspective, it's not irrational at all! Getting infected, without even having a risky lifestyle choice to blame, must've been horrible for him, especially since he literally had no one from his previous life to support him. (His family didn't even find out that he was a werewolf before Blue Moon. By then, most of the initial emotion/shock/trauma had probably worn off.)

have used that woman's position of power among her people (Chang, siren) to TAKE THAT PEOPLE OVER.
Yeah, but the difference there is that Bibi likes her people. Thea probably hates her own people and with fairly good reason. According to LKH's (forgotten) canon, the mermaids deliberately exterminated the sirens in their ranks for abusing their powers. Thea's the last because she must have run like hell and hidden for a few centuries. Those abuses were nothing compared to what Anita's doing now so I suppose our best hope for active Anita resistance in canon at this point is a lamia/mermaid alliance. A sort of "you do mine and I'll do yours" thing a la strangers on a train.

This is the last chapter of Bullet
No! *is shocked* But nothing happened! And not like in fanfic where it's a slice of life fic and nothing happens but it's totally satisfying. It was bad then awful then so terrible that I couldn't look. There was nothing remotely resembling a coherent narrative in that steaming mess. And, reading ahead, I see that LKH has shoved all the good stuff and the actual narrative that she should've been writing into however many pages this epilogue is.

you have bad guards?
Yes. Those are the ones who won't hang out with Anita and pretend to like her, screw the consequences. They're probably quite professional and good at their jobs, though.

but the centuries of abuse have left her with a victim's mentality, and that doesn't make a good guard.
Okay, judging by the spork and the comments, I got something entirely nasty out of this. Like, I got the vibe that Anita's only interest in Anita's mental health was Jade's ability to be useful to Anita but the phrasing implied to me a sort of judgy-ness of Jade. Like, because she was kidnapped and made into a Therian Servant by some vampire and then abused for a thousand years, she has a victim's mentality. Because she ha a victim's mentality, Jade isn't a good guard. Therefore, because she was abused, Jade is not a good guard.

Which is just a world of no.

This is like that thing where Anita can't understand that X wants to have sex with Y but not with her. Jade was vulnerable to her master but, absent Anita's power over her, she might not have been vulnerable to Anita or anyone else. Jade did a damn good job of resisting Anita until Anita snapped her support line and overwhelmed her. Jade didn't fall into another abusive relationship after getting free of her last one. Her next one magically roofied her, rearranged her brain to suit itself to a degree that not even her previous master had managed despite the Master/Servant bond, and carried her off.

And then it smugly holds Jade's past abuse against her.

(And, for what it's worth, I second the motion for a vampiric shrink for Jade rather than just relying on non-con sex love and friendship to fix her. She needs a shit ton more help than that. And, frankly, saying that Jade shouldn't have a super old vampiric shrink who will understand the world that she was born into, her worldview, and her experiences better than any mortal would in a world where vamps are common and just another part of society is like saying that a woman who has been abused by a man can't have a male shrink in our world b/c trauma. It doesn't track.)

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

The "victim's mentality" phrase is regularly deployed against people, usually women, who are actually victims in order to tell them it was probably their own fault it happened and they need to get over it and stop "whining", even if the victimization is still ongoing. I have never heard it used in any other way. Considering Anita/LKH thinks that people with lots of might are good and people without lots of might are bad, I don't see how she could have possibly meant it in any other way.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Meng Die's friendlier to me since we helped her up her power level.
When did that happen? And what is this, a disturbing pornographic video game? And that line about devils is clunky and makes no sense, especially when you consider what the point of ruling in hell is.

Condoms for me were an extra protection--not my only one.
This feels like a slap against those stupid, short-sighted non-birth-control-taking women. You know, the ones who didn't expect to be violated and plan ahead.

and put in tracking down and exorcising Padma.
Why do they even want to exorcise Padma? He's a rape-tastic, torture-rific asshat. Also, he could conceivably be a rival for the MoT-thing. Anita could rape and steal his human and tiger servants - or not, since I remember those guys as having spines, private agendas, and imperfect yet masculine features. Either way, she'd probably smugly enjoy breaking their bonds to Padma before they killed him.

"so if the Mother does try to take them over we can have a leg up on breaking them free."
Yawn. Again, steal their magic and then kill them. This really shouldn't be so difficult for Anita to figure out. She likes randomly murdering people... but maybe these guys aren't weak enough for her tastes? Either way, if JC wants a new and different council, quietly getting rid of the old one seems like a good first step. Although it'd probably be really difficult to get Anita to keep her mouth shut after the deed was done. She'd blab it about in an effort to look tough, so maybe JC should wait on killing the old council until he can afford to kill Anita too.

and nearly seventy people were killed before the army stopped them.
Oh the one hand, the army! Yay! On the other hand, only seventy? And where in Europe was this? It's a large place. Also, I'm beginning to suspect that sheer ineffectual-ness, blatant stupidity, and brutal in-fighting are the only things keeping the vamps and therians from ruling the world. Maybe that's why the humans feel safe ignoring them? They know that nothing's going to come of those two groups, despite all their magical and special-ful gifts.

rich food source
This whole smug bit about having the best blood buffet in town cinches the St. Louis leaders as being the worst therian leaders EVER, except maybe Rafael since we never hear about anyone munching on were-rats.

He got lipstick and I got grape jelly.
This viscerally disgusted me, probably because it rings my CHILD BEING GROOMED FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION! WHERE ARE CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES? WHAT IS THEIR NUMBER? bells. Anita's probably supposed to be a favorite adopted aunt rather than as a sexual predator grooming a 4 or 5-yr-old. And yet, I still see it as the latter.

And that business about shift change for the armed guards at the compound/Anita's house, only reinforces the deranged sexual cult aspects of this set-up. I hope Monica has told her son to stay away from the Kool-Aid and candy.

And, even aside from the child grooming (which I will be getting back to later and at length), Anita has several lobotomized "pets" including Nicky sleeping on the floor around her bed, a violent and erratic lifestyle, and dozens of naked dudes letting it all hang out. Plus, Anita is sexually abusing her ward. Monica and Anita are both going to have a tough time explaining to child protective services how THIS is a suitable environment for either Matthew or Cynric.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Lisandro... "had two little ones of his own."
She raped him and possibly broke up his marriage. Lisandro, like a lot of people in this series, can't possibly be hanging out with Anita for the fun of it. I wonder if Anita is aware on any level that JC is (probably) paying her 'guard friends' to 'hang out' with her. If JC ever stopped paying/blackmailing her way through the world, Anita would have a terribly rude awakening.

Matthew grabs her hand and Nathaniels', and asks what they're reading tonight.
THE GROOMING! AGAIN WITH THE CHILD-GROOMING!

Anita does this with her favorite lovers - Nathaniel and Micah - and noticeably refuses to do it with JC or any of the others to my knowledge. The fact that Peter Pan was the first book that she, Micah, & Nathaniel read together after they solidified their creepy-as-fuck relationship rings those child-grooming warning bells. The story itself is innocuous but the meaning imbued in the book by Anita and Co makes it FAR less so in the context of this narrative. (And I wish they'd leave Peter Pan out of this because I LOVED that story as a kid.) Matthew is LITERALLY filling the role of a Preferred Harem Member - he gets mouth-to-mouth kisses from her, he gets to read the "special" book with her and her harem-whips, and he's probably sleeping in her bed when he visits since I've yet to hear of Anita's place possessing a guest room (even though it logically should. Maybe it's filled with accumulated pets who aren't worthy enough to sleep on the floor of her bedroom? Oh geez! IS THAT WHERE CYNRIC IS SLEEPING?!) Worse, his age allows him to demonstrate the behaviors and thought-processes that Anita finds particularly appealing and indeed lobotomizes her men to achieve.

And, I admit, I haven't read her other series but isn't there a childlike, uh, thing named Kitto that is about Matthew's physical age? And doesn't he behave like a young child?

*shudders*

The only thing part of the Anita--Preferred Harem Member dynamic that Matthew isn't fulfilling is the sexual component, thank goodness. (At least, I certainly hope that isn't happening!) He is, however, getting exposed to enough of an "education" that I'm sure he's telling SUPER interesting stories at preschool and drawing SUPER graphic pictures, both of which will require the teacher to contact the proper authorities.

Peter Pan

As I remember it, Peter can certainly feel and understand pain, death and loss. The problem is that to remain an eternal child, Peter has to forget things that would rob him of that eternal innocence. Thus, things he's learned, hurts he's suffered, victories he's won, and friends he's lost must all be forgotten. Every triumph and every hurt is his first. It is literally impossible for Peter to grow or change over the long term for the better or the worse.

After Tink dies, Peter certainly grieves and mourns her loss but eventually he forgets that he ever knew her because she's been gone from his day-to-day life for too long. He even forgets his part in the events of the story and it all becomes a wonderful tale that people tell him from time to time about adventurous-people-that-aren't-him.

As a kid, I thought the mermaids wanted to drown Wendy because that's what mermaids did.

And no, I don't think Peter Pan was particularly sexist for the time period in which it was written.

Besides, brown beats light-colored eyes genetically.
Didn't Anita used to angst about how her half-siblings were blond-haired and blue-eyed? Those are both recessive traits inherited from both parents which means that not so deep down, Anita carries the genes for both traits. Her child COULD be blond/brunette with lavender or blue eyes rather than brown. The child wouldn't necessarily look anything like Anita. (AND WOE BETIDE THAT CHILD FOR BEING BLONDER AND LIGHTER-EYED AND PRETTIER THAN HER!)

Also, that last line was stupid, pointless, and had nothing to do with the "story."



All in all, you're a rat-terific trooper for having made it through this book. Even sporked, there were chapters that were just too horrifying to look upon. You are amazing!

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I'll defer to you on Peter Pan, since I haven't read it since I was a child myself. I wonder though if I wasn't inspired by the "forget constantly in order to stay mentally a child" thing because my vampire Delilah has the same deal going on.

I'm just going to block out everything you're saying about Matthew though because oh dear lord no DDDD8

And thank you! Hit List is coming up next!

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

Wait, this is it? I had to go back and check I hadn't missed a bunch of updates from you. What a meandering mess of a book! I'd be so fucking embarrassed if this had my name attached to it. This plotless bunch of piss is what I wrote when I first started writing. You know, when I was, like, ten.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I bet what you wrote when you were 10 was far better. Being plotless is the least of this book's sins, imo.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Aaaah, yes, the final chapter. :D I always dislike this part of the book, so I've been looking forward to your mocking this one.

1. "1) Is it just me or does this wording make it sound like Anita's main concern over Jade's mental health is that it prevents her from being an effective guard?"
Y' have to ask if Anita cares about anything more than how able people are to serve HER?
2. "3) If it turns out she's specifically good at Asian martial arts, I'm going to be pissed. (Not that no Asian character can ever be good at Asian martial arts, just that Jade is already nothing BUT a stereotype--a lesbian due to abuse, a submissive yet sexualized China Doll--so adding one more just makes her worse)"
...
...
...
Incidentally, do you want me to link that, ahem, online version I found? Obviously I object to piracy, but I have a bought-and-paid for copy of my own, and I figure it would help you to get a head start on the Kiss the Dead material. I don't know if that would be relevant to your Hit List spork, but perhaps it would let you know what plot points are going to be dead-ends?
“Devil is a lot stronger, he’s got more muscle around his neck, so the blow wouldn’t have hurt him as much, and he’s a more powerful wereanimal. That helps protect you, too.”

I looked at Claudia. “How strong is Sin compared to the rest?”

She shrugged. “He’s clan tiger, so that’s a step up in metaphysics, but I’d say he’s one of the least powerful of your tigers. The only one weaker is Jade, and I think her problem is she’s afraid of the power.”

I thought about the only woman tied to me metaphysically. She was tinier than me, fit under my arm like I did with most of my men. She was all pale skin, and long black hair, with those big brown eyes that uptilted in her face. She always made me think of words like delicate, dainty, and not a lot of women made me think that.

“She was her vampire master’s punching bag for centuries; it makes her think like a victim.”

“She’s got these wicked skills when she practices by herself,” Nicky said, “but when we try to put her in the sparring ring, she freezes.”

“He made her into his victim,” I said.

“But she’s got these ninja skills, and I’m not making a racist remark on that; all the Harlequin are beyond special-forces good at some things. They’re like movie ninjas, almost magical.”

“Her master trained her up like the rest of the Harlequin, but he abused her so badly that she had the skills but never got to use them,” Claudia said. “As if he crippled her at the same time he trained her.”

“Accurate, I think.”

[Elsewhere in the book...]

Damian let me see the second woman in front of him. She was tiny, shorter than me by inches, short enough that she fit under my arm, when I put my arm across her delicate shoulders. Her shining black hair fell like patent-leather water straight and perfect to her waist. Her uptilted eyes looked brown, but I’d spent enough time looking into them to know they were actually an orange so dark they looked brown. In the right light they were the color of fire when it burns deep into the wood and you think the flame is out, but if you don’t douse it with water, it’ll flare up and burn the house down. Her Chinese name translated to Black Jade; to me she was just Jade, my Jade. She was my black tiger to call, and the first woman to change me from heterosexual to heteroflexible.

Jade looked frantic, and jerked away from Damian’s hand. She started running down the hallway. Damian looked up, as most of us did when we were “seeing” each other in our minds. “Someone told her you were hurt.”

“Shit,” I said, out loud.

“What’s wrong?” God asked.

“Someone told Jade I was hurt. She’ll have to see for herself that I’m healed.”

“Can’t you just tell her mind-to-mind?” God asked.

“She’s too scared, and panicking. It makes her head-blind.”

“No offense,” God said, “but for a ninja assassin super-spy she spooks easy.”

Domino said, “You try being abused by a master vampire for centuries and see how you do.” His beasts flared enough to raise heat around him like a breath of summer in the cave-cool corridor.

“Hey, no offense,” God said.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

“None taken,” I said, and touched Domino’s arm. I was trying to calm him before Jade got here. He was very protective of her. Touching him made the heat of his beasts try to jump to me and call my matching tiger colors, but I understood how to soothe the energy now. Not shut it down, not trap the beasts, but soothe them like you’d pet and cuddle a big kitty. Of course these kitties would have happily torn my body apart so they could be on the outside with their own real fleshy bodies if it had been possible. We’d finally figured out it was Jean-Claude’s vampire marks that kept me from being able to shapeshift for real. Modern lycanthropy wasn’t contagious to vampires, and I was just too close to being a vampire thanks to his marks, and my own necromancy. Ancient-strain lycanthropy had been contagious to the undead.

“Ease down,” I said to Domino.

Jade had paid Domino the highest compliment she had for men; she let him join us in bed. Nathaniel was tolerated in the bed, and Crispin, a white tiger and stripper at Guilty Pleasures, but she seldom slept with me because I kept insisting on all these men being there. Her abuser had been male and it had given her a bad opinion of them; the only thing she disliked more was male vampires. Damian had won her over with tales of his own abuse at the hands of She who made him. His vampire mistress made Jade’s master look sane. She’d had to accept that women could abuse, too. Jean-Claude and Asher had enough stories of Belle Morte, and then there’d been the Mother of All Darkness, and Nikolaos the first Master of the City of St. Louis had been one crazy bitch. Crazy didn’t discriminate on the basis of gender.

Jean-Claude had won her over by being himself. It had been interesting watching him work to gain her trust. He’d always told me the only woman who ever frustrated his plans was me; watching him charm Jade had made me believe that statement.

Jade came into sight running so fast she was a blur of black and white. I handed the weapons I’d been holding to Domino and then braced. She was small enough and I was strong enough, but running at that speed it was a lot of momentum to stop.

She slowed down enough for me to see the long hair sweeping out behind her, the pale face, eyes frantic, and then she leapt on me like a monkey. Jean-Claude put a hand on my back to help steady me as all that speed and energy leapt into my arms, and stopped. She wrapped her legs around my waist, arms around my neck, and buried her face into my hair and the side of my neck. I put my hands the only place I could to hold her, which was underneath her slender ass. It was the same way Nicky had carried me into the showers. That thought made my stomach clench tight.

She mumbled into my neck, but she was mumbling Chinese. Even after a year, the nuances of the language when muttered into my hair, or neck, escaped me.

I was already making soothing noises to her, but I transferred one hand up to stroke the incredible silkiness of her hair, while the other arm held her weight.

“Jade, sweetie, I can’t understand you when you’re this upset. Slow down and English, please, dearest, English.”

She raised her face up enough to look at me. Her eye makeup was smeared around her eyes, which probably meant I was wearing it on my neck and the blue silk of the shirt.

Her voice came out in a breathy whisper. “They said you were hurt.”

“I’m all better; all healed.”

She studied my face, serious as a child, as if she thought I might be lying. I’d tried doing that, but found truth worked better than comforting lies. She was way more girly than I would ever be, but liked truth the way that I did, and once lied to, she never forgot. Again, like me.

“Promise,” she whispered.

I nodded as solemn as she was. “Promise.”

She smiled and her whole face changed from serious beauty to a shining happiness. She glowed, and when someone looks at you like that, what can you do? I kissed her, and she hugged me, wrapping her arms around my neck again, and wriggling happily. I was suddenly glad the shirt hung to my knees; her enthusiastic cuddling had made more than one short skirt ride up and give way too much of a girl-on-girl show for the guards.

[mocha-latta.livejournal.com]

I...
I can't. No. Shut it down.
This makes physically ill.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

3. *applauds the Cynric-analysis*
4. "AND WE MISSED THIS? ARE YOU SHITTING ME?"
*sigh* We should be glad we got any events at all, the way LKH's skipping forward. Have you noticed that books often have a year between them and cover about three days in-universe nowadays?
5. "all those other really irrelevant lengthy parts (and no, I don't mean the harem's penises...though those too)"
*spittake*
6. "Seriously though, just think, we could easily have taken out the Valentina chapter, the gym chapters, all those other really irrelevant lengthy parts (and no, I don't mean the harem's penises...though those too) and put in tracking down and exorcising Padma."
She wouldn't know how to write it.
No, seriously. I don't think she knows how to write it.
7. "They can't find Morte D'Amour, but he took over another one of his line in Europe like he did with Clayton and nearly seventy people were killed before the army stopped them."
I mean, see? If Anita was there, three EEEVIL SEXISTRACISTHOMOPHOBICPOLYPHOBIC cops would have gotten eaten, and then Anita would have looked into the soulful eyes of some soldier with therian ancestry (yes, that makes no sense, but that's NEVER stopped Hamilton) and fuck him back into his silver tiger color, killing MDA in the process. And seventy pages would have been taken up by wangst-sex-wangst.
8. D: D: D: D: D: at the Matthew part
9. "The only reason I actually believe this won't go the same way as her promise not to sleep with Nathaniel is that Anita would be the one stuck getting fat and inconvenienced for nine months...though then again, LKH may bullshit a way around that."
I'll bet that she will eventually metaphysically form a metaphysical baby that becomes real metaphysically and looks like all the major harem members by having color-changing hair and eyes every time it bites someone/transforms into a therian form/etc. Naturally, it would be male, because Anita can't have any female competition.
Snarkers will then spend the next five books fearing that she's going to metaphysically age him up and screw him.
10. "...and that is the last line of the book. What. The. Fuck? Was that supposed to be, some kind of tragic self-esteem thing? Dramatic? "
You know, Hamilton sometimes brags about finishing a book somewhere around 2 A.M.

I suspect that this was one of 'em, and that she is not one of the people who writes better after midnight.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

SWEET JESUS THOSE JADE EXCERPTS

I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN

ALL THE THINGS WRONG THERE

I have my own as-yet-unread copy of Kiss the Dead on my Kindle though, thanks! Another commenter kindly gifted it =D I'd normally feel bad about the piracy too, but...I just fucking can't stand the idea of giving LKH money for this kind of content.

3) Yeah, his age is what is most focused on, but compared to all the other issues, it's actually the least horrible just alone on its own (not that there still aren't issues there what the with difference in brain development) but when you get all the other stuff (Anita being his guardian AND his Queen, the fact that if he's not bound to her and thus sacrifices his free will and gives her sex then MOAD will take over, etc.) just makes it even worse in terms of dub-con.

6) You know, that might be why she just...puts it out of the way like this, I wonder.

7) I 100% believe this

9) I also worry about this.

10) WELL THAT EXPLAINS A LOT

[patina.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about Peter Pan. There's a quote from the book, something like "...as long as children are carefree, innocent, and heartless." That sums Peter up very well.

The two parts that stand out the most to me here:
1. Anita doesn't force people she's raped to become pregnant. My hero! Bleeechhh.

2. And she doesn't have children because brown eyes are just so terrible.

3. Edit: Oh yeah, and the kiss with jelly. Considering peanut butter and jelly is such a stereotypical little-kid food...ew. It's one thing she's dating a high school student, but then add in all the power she has over him, and then underscore it with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ew.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Also, let us all take a moment to appreciate the fact that LKH set up a situation where Anita *has* to have a teenage boy to bone and own or else the bad guy will wipe out all the weretigers. She wanted it that much that she went that far to justify it in-universe. That is some grade-A creepy there, folks./

What’s worse is that the amount of hoops that LKH goes through to justify this suggests that deep down she knows that this is messed-up. And yet she writes it anyway. She just *has* to have her heroine pursue a relationship with a teenage boy. Why? Because it’s “forbidden?” Because she finds it “kinky?” Because she thinks that having younger men will make her heroine appear more youthful? Because she thinks that it will augment her heroine’s sexual attractiveness (look, she’s so hot that even teenagers want her!)?

Also, I agree with everything you said about why the relationship between Cynric and Anita is so morally questionable and disturbing on so many fronts.

/nor do I count assaulting people weaker than you for no reason beyond they dared to be a female to be fighting./

Why, of course we needed to see Anita assault other women instead of seeing the action scenes that actually served the plot and sounded cool! How else would we know that Anita is the sexiest woman ever and that no woman could dare to compete with her and that anybody who does will be rightfully put in her place? It’s much more important for the protagonist to boost her ego and trample over all of her “haters” than attend to the needs of the plot and story.
The disturbing implications with Matthew remind me of this true-crime episode I saw where a woman specifically befriended another woman so that she could groom and molest the woman’s underage son. Just – ugh.

/All the big boys kiss 'Nita." THE SMUG IN THAT LAST LINE. THE SMUG./

Ugh. Yes, *all* of the big boys kiss Anita, you nasty shrews out there, so don’t even think of encroaching on her territory and daring to think that you could ever have relationships with men as hot as hers! Know your place, you uppity women! *sarcasm* Go drop yourself off a cliff, Anita.

/Um, Anita, you know people have babies for something other than them being pretty, right?/

Oh, no, it’s Bella from Breaking Dawn! D:

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

What’s worse is that the amount of hoops that LKH goes through to justify this suggests that deep down she knows that this is messed-up.

Seriously. And by jumping through all those hoops that *make* it so she and Cynric *have* to be together, she actually made it all the more creepy because of the consent issues I listed.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Peter Pan is the first book that "Micah, Nathaniel, and I ever read to each other."

What? No. I'm pretty sure it was Charlotte's Web back in Incubus Dreams. And while it's not actually mentioned if it's read with Micah, he was definitely on the scene by then so it's not unreasonable to think that all three of them sat around reading the book.

But that's it? That's the end? I feel like I missed something between the last two chapters but searched back and nope. I'm confused and disappointed and angry this isn't some cracked out assassin-palooza Smokin' Aces style with hired guns converging on St Louis and having shenanigans as they all try to get the bounty on Anita. Shit would get blown up a lot. Jeremy Piven can do magic tricks and yell about how someone jizzed on his calfskin suede jacket. You don't even need context for that last part.

"I'm not fond enough of my own eyes to want to see them in someone else's face."

WOW. That's...wow. I get that a lot of people may hate themselves for various reasons, but this actually seems like the most honest thing that Anita's ever said about her own appearance. Especially after that one blog where LKH admitted she always wanted to be the tall, blonde beautiful people (http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/2012/08/im-back/). In the case of Anita it's both the epitome of her "Fuck you, I'm an anteater! Anita Blake!" and "that one time someone told me I was ugly scarred me for life and clearly my trauma is worse than yours and I have no idea how so many beautiful people can stand to look a troll like myself!" mentality -- she hates herself but she hates the idea of someone being a better version of her. Somewhere, Belle Morte's kicking her Louboutins and laughing her ass off.

I kinda can't wait for you to get to Hit List so we can compare notes on that.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

It's kind of hilarious if she really did get the first book wrong, considering how much her ~imaginary friends!~ mean to her.

Regarding that blog..."tall leggy girls were stallions" UM. DOES SHE KNOW STALLIONS ARE THE MALES? Actually she might.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

AGREED ON ALL COUNTS!

Seriously, matriarchies really need some exploring beyond "evil man-hating feminazis make everything terrible!" and "all women are inherently virtuous and perfect and in touch with the Goddess, so they make everything good!" which are the only two that seem to exist with any frequency in fiction

[ariskari.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? That's it? What was the plot? Haven got shot and then...was it really just a lead up to a party?

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Well...yes, it seems.

Baffling, I know.