HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Oct. 4th, 2013 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratThis chapter is basically ALL THE REASONS I HATE OLAF AND HIS PLOT to the max
Firstly, it's just another case of how all men love Anita, no matter who they are, no matter how little sense it makes. Remember how Byron the gay vampire boned her? Or how about Valentine, the vampire pedophile from the first book? In the prequel comic when he's about to kill her, he tells her that "From behind, I can pretend you're a boy" meaning that he's going to get off sexually on this the way he does when he kills little boys...even though curvy hips, big booty, teeny waist, and long hair are NOT exactly common features of young boys from behind. But everyone has to want Anita, even the dudes who like men or kids or killing women who look just like her!
Secondly it's so obvious how hard LKH is trying to sell this as dark and edgy and tense when really she just wants a serial killer to be into her heroine because that's so coool you guys. And believe me, there are people out there who think serial killers are sexy. You know how you hear about them getting love letters in prison from women? I've seen the modern equivalent of that. There are teenagers on DA and tumblr who seriously had the hots for and/or sympathized with the guy who did the Joker shootings. It makes me cringe to think a woman her age would have such a view, it's bad enough with young girls, but we all know she's basically got the attitude of a very immature teen about most things. This not a tense 'I will have to kill this man someday' thing like she claims it is. It's the "I can woobify/fix him!" fantasy, and Anita will never fucking have to kill him because LKH enjoys this so much.
Thirdly, there's the really gross usage of Anita's Not Like Other Girls syndrome. It is repeated throughout this chapter how Anita is Not Like Other Girls to Olaf. Given that in every other instance of this throughout the series, said Other Girls are being lambasted for not being as good as Anita, this gives this chapter a really fucked-up victim-blaming tone that to me seems to imply that, well, if only more women were like Anita maybe they wouldn't be dead!
Fourthly, this attempting-rehabilitation bullshit. I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea that people like him could ever be changed, who knows, I sure don't, but that is a job for professionals, not a bunch of...well, enablers really. Jeebus, I never thought of it, but they are all total enablers for Olaf here. And worse, the way it's done. It's put all on Anita's shoulders, like it's her responsibility to change Olaf instead of him being accountable for changing his own damn behavior, like she has to act like she likes him or UNDO ALL THE PROGRESS, and do things she doesn't want to do with this creepy guy she finds repulsive and put herself very much in danger, all for the sake of...what? The mission? They don't fucking need him. That's what's being sold but I do not buy it. His future victims? They'll only be safe when he's behind bars, and this 'progress' goes in baby steps with looong intervals in-between him seeing Anita, and honestly it's basically said outright that he only behaves this well with Anita and not any other women, so it's clearly not for them. It's for LKH's need for Anita to be the receiver of gross unwanted sexual attention because for whatever fucking reason she likes that a whole lot.
A woman's life is being put on the line, against her will, for the potential moral betterment of a man. That would be terrible no matter what the genders, but the idea of sacrificing women so that men can be better people is in particular one that has a long nasty history of baggage in literature and other media. And that could be pretty cool to play around with, to subvert and deconstruct, but LKH is playing it straight here, and it makes me fucking sick. And what if he does change, what then? He just gets to walk free and never face justice for the women he's killed? Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised.
HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
They go to "an old Victorian house that had been divided into apartments" one of which Bernardo leads her to. It is empty except for Edward and Olaf. She spends half the page describing Olaf, who, if you forgot, is nearly seven feet tall and bald. And white but she doesn't mention that since she only brings up race for non-white people, because I guess it just doesn't need to be said when someone is white like a normal person, right? (SARCASM). She wonders if he shaves his head to be bald "since had had to shave twice a day to stay clean-shaven" on his face. How does she know that? Or is that how it is with all cis dudes? "I never asked him. It never seemed important once he looked at me." I can't say it's ever seemed important to me ever about anyone. "Two things startled me when he turned around" and these things are that he has a white T-shirt under his black leather jacket and she's only ever seen him in all-black (what is it with these people? that is not an inconspicuous look, especially in a group!) and "he had a narrow black Vandyke beard and mustache." Shit, that's what Requiem AND Jon her husband Jon have!
"The color matched the eyebrows that arched thick and graceful over his deep-set eyes." DO NOT CARE "He was too tall, but I could admit that he was attractive" OH FFS "until you got to the eyes" How can eyes, barring diseased ones, be unattractive? "The truth of what he was always stared back from those eyes" And magically everyone but Anita misses it! "I knew that other women seemed not to see it" So, what, men do and just don't say anything? "but he never hid his eyes from me." Because you're so goddamn special, I know. "I think he, like Edward, enjoyed that I was the one person he didn't have to hide the truth from." I AM GETTING SO ANGRY HERE. "I knew who and what he was, and hadn't run screaming." ARE YOU BRAGGING ABOUT THIS? THIS TONE SAYS BRAGGING. ANITA, THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT, IT JUST MEANS YOU'RE STUPID! "I might be the only woman he'd ever met more than once who knew the truth" GOD THIS IS THE MOST OFFENSIVE BRAND OF SMUG FROM HER YET "Maybe that was part of his attraction to me." Or maybe that's what he wants you to think because you fit his victim profile and he knows from Edward telling you about JC that you can be played like Baby's First Fiddle if your vanity is catered to by having a dangerous man be attracted to you like no other woman before, and he's just waiting for his chance to get you away from Edward...who is only interested in protecting you because he has dibs on killing you when you reach max power.
"So is this the good Olaf, via South Park, or the evil Olaf as in the old Star Trek?"
....whaaat? What the fuck is she talking about? Obviously she's making references to these series, but I don't know what episodes, and I also don't see how the fuck it makes sense since last I checked there was no good Olaf at all. This is just so...awkward and weird and random and I don't know if it's meant to be hip and witty and LKH showing her supposed nerd-cred or what but my only reaction is an eternal WTF every time I see this line.
Olaf smiles, it doesn't reach his eyes, which are black btw, and...and...."The well-trimmed facial hair framed his lips nicely." HOW DO YOU LOOK AT A MAN LIKE THIS, CLAIM YOU KNOW WHO AND WHAT HE IS, AND *THAT* IS WHAT COMES TO YOUR MIND?! Either Anita is in-denial about what he is (as in, she may know it intellectually but hasn't truly accepted it) or she's just that much of a monster herself. I'm betting on both. She also likens it to the one that Requiem has, and tells us how he is "now second banana to the Master, or rather, Mistress, of Philadelphia, and her main squeeze." Main squeeze, ugh. Also, since when was being a Master of a city a gendered title for men-only? I don't recall anyone ever calling Nikolaos or Seraphina by "Mistress of the City" instead.
Smile Doesn't Reach Eyes: 1
Olaf asks if she likes it and Anita says it's "real progress" for him to ask the opinion of a woman, and that "he'd been one of the most misogynistic men I'd ever met a few years ago." Did you look in the mirror? Also, guess what, while he's making little bits of supposed progress with you, what do you think he's been doing to other women those past few years? Anita says she does like it, and tells us she really does actually. Great, super, I'm somewhere in between apathy and utter contempt/disgust. He smiles and moves towards her "in a graceful lope" and he's graceful and she wonders if he ever took dance training but won't ask because "I doubted that would fit his ideal of macho." I think it must be Anita's ideal of macho for herself too, since she's the ~man~ and doesn't dance while her 'wives' are all strippers who can also apparently do regular dance like pros too without much training at all. Olaf goes halfway to her, stops, Anita realizes she should come to him because he "saw it as weakness to come to me" and it's "again a lot of progress" that he went this far. She starts going to him, wonders what she'll do when she gets there, offers him her hand even though she remembers that went badly last time when he'd grabbed her arm instead and reminded her about the time they killed a vampire together.
She mentions that "it had been a bad vampire, and we had needed to take it's heart and head." What she doesn't mention is that this 'bad vampire' was down and being tortured by Anita & Co for info. She was terrified and screaming and had begged Anita not to give her to Olaf to kill, suggesting she was fine with getting executed so long as it wasn't by him. Anita promised she wouldn't hand her over to Olaf if she gave the info up. She gave said info up, Anita handed her over to Olaf to dismember alive anyway. Richard was the only one who had a problem with this and was treated like the big stupid bad guy for it. Now, I didn't read this book, I'm just remembering the sporking of it, so maybe I got it wrong, but that's what I recall.
He takes her hand, which she mentions is much smaller than his because aw she's so tiny, and "pulled me into one of those guy hugs" which she then spend a whole paragraph describing just what a guy-hug is and how short she is next to him cuz he's so tall and she's so short and "I had enough guy friends that I'd automatically put my arm around him for the hug, like body memory." HAHAHA NO. I don't care how accustomed she is to "guy-hugs" no one would automatically fucking hug back a guy they know is a serial killer, rapist, and wants them as his partner or target. If anything, she should automatically recoil, since she claims to be scared of him and all. I hate, hate, HATE contrived 'oopsy!' shit like this so, so much. Also, Anita doesn't have guy friends. Pretty much all the men she knows personally are people she's fucked. Not that you can't fuck your friends or that there's anything wrong with fucking your friends, but you know what I'm saying, right? She is incapable of having a relationship where sex is not involved somewhere.
There is basically an entire page talking about the hug, with the hilarious description "a quick, manly, I'm-not-gay hug turned into more." YEAH, WHEN I SEE A MAN HUG ANITA, I SURE THINK HE'S NOT GAY I GUESS? I realize what LKH meant, just that doesn't work when one of the participants is female, no matter how internally butch. She's "waiting for him to do something creepy, and then I realized he was holding me. He was just holding me." IF THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE SWEET I WILL CHOKE SOMETHING. Anita nonetheless (and I don't blame her) touches the butt of a gun in a shoulder holster (hers, I think) and his grip tightens and she tells "how terribly strong" he is and "he could hurt me"...yeah, uh, doesn't Anita have shifter-level strength and she just fed? I'm pretty sure he couldn't hurt her but she could rip him apart barehanded. Oh, wait, no, right now she's the pretty delicate captive with the big strong bad man fetish that LKH clearly has despite railing against any women who dare ever be in the same situations, like her scathing tone when Bibiana was tied up by Vittorio.
Anita "snuggled against him" on her left side "making that little wriggling motion that girls and some smaller men make" in order to distract him from the fact she's drawing her gun. Girls and some smaller men...I'm not even gonna start there. Olaf, however, spots it. "You just drew your gun." Anita says yes and pushes it against his side. Olaf kisses her on the top of her head. She doesn't know what to do. "I've held many women in my arms, but you're the first who's managed to draw a weapon." RRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!! "They didn't understand what you were." I HATE THIS SO MUCH I CAN'T EVEN ARTICULATE IT LIKE USUAL. Olaf tells her they understood in the end, Anita says but not until it was too late YES THAT IS THE POINT STUPID HE JUST SAID THAT and she presses her gun in harder and I wish she'd just shoot and spare me any more of this UTTERLY SICKENING BULLSHIT.
Edward says Anita will shoot if Olaf gives her a reason, Olaf says he knows, Edward says to let her go then, Olaf says "It is the possibility of danger that makes us both enjoy her, in our own ways" and Edward says they don't think of her in the same way (sure they do: both see her as a future target! oh wait that would be if LKH were a competent writer with interesting plots and could stand men not fawning over her Mary Sue!) and Edward is using "the tone when he killed" and PLEASE EDWARD PLEASE TAKE THEM BOTH. OR EVEN JUST ONE. I DON'T CARE WHICH. Anita wants to tell Olaf to let her go but she thinks even with her shifter-speed she might be fast enough to get enough distance so that he can't take her gun because they're so close and then she'd have to shoot him to keep him from taking it...yeah I don't know how that makes sense either, I'm sorry, I tried to understand why that means she can't tell him to let go, I really did, but I don't get it. The phrasing was hard enough just to decipher.
"It seemed almost stupid to be thinking of that while he was still hugging me so normally, or as normally as I'd ever seen him interact with me." NO. NO, ANITA, IT IS NOT STUPID. PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT START LAMBASTING YOURSELF FOR PERFECTLY RATIONAL REACTIONS TO OLAF LIKE YOU DID IN SKIN TRADE. YOUR VICTIM-BLAMING OF YOURSELF THERE MADE ME FEEL WAY MORE SORRY FOR YOU THAN I EVER WANT TO AGAIN PLEASE DON'T DO IT. She tells him she's stepping back now, and he lets her go, though she keeps her gun "still pointed at his center mass" but then "he tried to disarm me and if I'd been human-slow, he'd have done it. He was that fast, that good." Yeah, I still don't buy that Edward can't find someone just as good who isn't the same kind of liability this bozo is. She evades him and hits his wrist with the butt of her gun. She could also have dislocated his knee, she says, but "I didn't want him crippled for the hunt."
He goes for her again, she ends up with "the gun pointed at his heart, and one of the sheath knives pressed to his groin." Edward shouts enough, Anita says she'll behave if he does, Olaf says she's faster than he remembers, Anita says that's what the weretiger spy says, Edward says he told Olaf she was faster, Olaf says he needed to see for himself, I monumentally do not care about extended gushing over Anita's super-powers. Anita tells Olaf that if he keeps testing her limits one of them will get hurt. He says he'll step back if she lowers her weapons, she says she'll lower them if he steps back, Olaf makes the obvious observation that "We are at an impasse then". Edward says he's going to step between them and then they will both step back, and he does so, and they do so. Anita looks at Olaf's face and he looks excited. She decides that "calling him a sick fuck seemed counterproductive to us working together, so I just thought it really hard". This line reminds me way too much of an office sexual harassment scenario :/
Edward says "we're going to meet Anita's backup and go hunt bad guys, not each other." Olaf says he'll need a side trip to go to the ER because Anita broke his wrist, though not too badly. Edward asks if Olaf will be able to use a gun, Olaf answers "It's why we all practice left-handed, isn't it?" which you'd think would mean a yes but Anita says that means no...um, Anita, the question wasn't 'can you use a gun with that hand' it was just 'can you use a gun' and he basically implied he can, just with the other hand instead. Edward asks if she meant to break his wrist, she says no, Edward talks about how much faster she is and how she's stronger now than she realizes too and she'll have to watch it from now on how hard she hits people and Anita thinks that he is "so not happy with me. I couldn't blame him. I'd just crippled one of his backup, and one of our most dangerous marshals." Yes, dangerous. As in a liability that can't be trusted. She then thinks about how "I lived with, trained with, sparred with, hunted, and killed shapeshifters and vampires" and can't remember the last time she worked out with a human. Anita, this might be a hint to get a life outside the Circus.
Bad Guys: 1
Sooo: 1
Bernardo says he'll take Olaf to the hospital and asks what to put on the paperwork, Olaf says a lover's quarrel, Anita says over her dead body, Olaf says eventually, Anita tells him not to be a sick fuck, Olaf says "I know what I am, Anita. It's you who keeps fighting the truth." Oh, he knows about all the sick shit she does to her 'sweeties' and others? Anita asks what truth that is, Edward says don't do this, presumably because giving Anita a wake-up call as to what a monster she is might make her turn herself around and stop her ascent to being a God-tier level of prey for him to have fun hinting. Olaf tells her that "You hunt and kill just like I do, like we all do. There is no one in this room who is not a murderer." Yeah, so? Ever hear that it takes one to know one? Anita says "Tell me something I don't know" and Olaf looks surprised, then asks what makes Anita different from him. My answer would be that her rape victims aren't also her murder victims, but she says the difference is that he enjoys killing and she doesn't....despite the fact she likes to wax on about how she's ~an assassin and executioner~ who doesn't save lives but takes them, oooh. And Olaf says if that's the only difference between them then they should date.
Anita tells Bernardo to get him out of here, Bernardo looks at Edward, Edward nods and says to call him from the hospital about how bad the break is. Olaf tells Anita he owes her for this, she asks if that's a threat, Edward says of course it is, tells Olaf to GTFO and Anita to stop talking to him. The entire tone is of a parent separating squabbling children. They obey Edward, and Anita wonders "how long could I work with Olaf and not talk to him, and what would he see as payback for the wrist? Had I finally made him stop thinking of me as his girlfriend and just as a victim" no, that will never happen because LKH is writing this and she sees 'victim' as a dirty word that her perfect Mary Sue could never be to anyone "or had some weird rivalry set in?" Which you will doubtlessly best Olaf at at every turn and make him crush on you more for it. And then she talks about multiple choice tests and how they should have one right answer but some people are like rigged tests that all have wrong ones...LKH, please learn how to do a decent simile/metaphor for once, I beg you.
She repeats how she or Olaf will die, and how the Harlequin are trying to kidnap her and how MOAD wants to take over her body and now this and is genre-blind enough to question if things can get any worse, though she then catches herself and states they can always get worse and decides "it wasn't a half-bad day" because none of those things have happened yet AND she and Olaf haven't had sex and this waste of a chapter mercifully ends. We are now 65% through this book.
Olaf just...irritates me so much, you guys. Not so much him, to be honest, but how LKH handles him. It's so, so annoying.
There are ways that Olaf could be a very interesting, compelling character without changing the fact he's a rapist and serial killer; that's not my issue with him. Serial killers can be great characters, just look at Hannibal Lector. His scenes with Anita could be genuinely edge-of-your-seat tense. And having a human monster in there with all the literal ones is a good reminder, I think, that just because there are very bad vamps and therians in this world doesn't mean that all the evil in the human race lies only with them. But LKH does not pull it off well at all.
Firstly, I'm not at all convinced as to why they need him, as I've made clear, so it's failed on the logic part. Secondly, there's the multiple levels of misogyny fail going on. Thirdly, I don't feel Anita is ever truly in danger because of the immunity that LKH has given her in general from anything truly bad ever happening to her. Fourthly, while I would honestly prefer him NOT to be crushing on Anita at all, let alone in a way that makes him want to be 'normal' with her, I think that, if it were handled better AND not in a story where every man of any importance has the hots for her, it could objectively be pretty good/interesting. Fifth, he's just...boring? I don't find Olaf interesting or compelling or someone I want to know/read more about like with Hannibal. He's just flat, and his handling by LKH is gross. He's not sympathetic or complex that we've seen at all, and he's not entertaining like, say, Freddy Kruger, and (in the context of this series) he's really not even this shocking, and he's got pretty much zip in the personality department besides wanting Anita, being creepy, and random sexist comments. Granted, in the Anitaverse that's a whole lot of depth *eye-roll* But as it is, the way he's written and handled, I just want this guy off the screen, preferably in handcuffs or bloody pieces.
TALLIES FOR THIS CHAPTER
Bad Guys: 1
Sooo: 1
There's also a "smile doesn't reach eyes" for Bernardo last chapter and one for Olaf this chapter. For the record, I don't think that's a bad phrase in itself, just she overuses it.
TOTAL NOVEL TALLIES THUS FAR
Bad Guys: 10
Can't Say Penis: 18
Curves: 3
Dead Mother:1
Flavor: 2
Guy/Girl Stuff: 19
Manita: 7
Mood Ring Eyes: 3
Needless Re-clarification: 22
Non-Answer Answers: 2
Pretty To Think So: 2
Racial Angst: 1
Short: 12
Skinny Women Suck: 3
Smells Like Home: 3
Smile Doesn't Reach Eyes: 3
Sooo: 8
Spill: 4
Sweeties: 3
Things Low In My Body: 2
Wet and Tight: 1
What Does That Mean: 13
Whitebread: 2
Firstly, it's just another case of how all men love Anita, no matter who they are, no matter how little sense it makes. Remember how Byron the gay vampire boned her? Or how about Valentine, the vampire pedophile from the first book? In the prequel comic when he's about to kill her, he tells her that "From behind, I can pretend you're a boy" meaning that he's going to get off sexually on this the way he does when he kills little boys...even though curvy hips, big booty, teeny waist, and long hair are NOT exactly common features of young boys from behind. But everyone has to want Anita, even the dudes who like men or kids or killing women who look just like her!
Secondly it's so obvious how hard LKH is trying to sell this as dark and edgy and tense when really she just wants a serial killer to be into her heroine because that's so coool you guys. And believe me, there are people out there who think serial killers are sexy. You know how you hear about them getting love letters in prison from women? I've seen the modern equivalent of that. There are teenagers on DA and tumblr who seriously had the hots for and/or sympathized with the guy who did the Joker shootings. It makes me cringe to think a woman her age would have such a view, it's bad enough with young girls, but we all know she's basically got the attitude of a very immature teen about most things. This not a tense 'I will have to kill this man someday' thing like she claims it is. It's the "I can woobify/fix him!" fantasy, and Anita will never fucking have to kill him because LKH enjoys this so much.
Thirdly, there's the really gross usage of Anita's Not Like Other Girls syndrome. It is repeated throughout this chapter how Anita is Not Like Other Girls to Olaf. Given that in every other instance of this throughout the series, said Other Girls are being lambasted for not being as good as Anita, this gives this chapter a really fucked-up victim-blaming tone that to me seems to imply that, well, if only more women were like Anita maybe they wouldn't be dead!
Fourthly, this attempting-rehabilitation bullshit. I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea that people like him could ever be changed, who knows, I sure don't, but that is a job for professionals, not a bunch of...well, enablers really. Jeebus, I never thought of it, but they are all total enablers for Olaf here. And worse, the way it's done. It's put all on Anita's shoulders, like it's her responsibility to change Olaf instead of him being accountable for changing his own damn behavior, like she has to act like she likes him or UNDO ALL THE PROGRESS, and do things she doesn't want to do with this creepy guy she finds repulsive and put herself very much in danger, all for the sake of...what? The mission? They don't fucking need him. That's what's being sold but I do not buy it. His future victims? They'll only be safe when he's behind bars, and this 'progress' goes in baby steps with looong intervals in-between him seeing Anita, and honestly it's basically said outright that he only behaves this well with Anita and not any other women, so it's clearly not for them. It's for LKH's need for Anita to be the receiver of gross unwanted sexual attention because for whatever fucking reason she likes that a whole lot.
A woman's life is being put on the line, against her will, for the potential moral betterment of a man. That would be terrible no matter what the genders, but the idea of sacrificing women so that men can be better people is in particular one that has a long nasty history of baggage in literature and other media. And that could be pretty cool to play around with, to subvert and deconstruct, but LKH is playing it straight here, and it makes me fucking sick. And what if he does change, what then? He just gets to walk free and never face justice for the women he's killed? Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised.
HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
They go to "an old Victorian house that had been divided into apartments" one of which Bernardo leads her to. It is empty except for Edward and Olaf. She spends half the page describing Olaf, who, if you forgot, is nearly seven feet tall and bald. And white but she doesn't mention that since she only brings up race for non-white people, because I guess it just doesn't need to be said when someone is white like a normal person, right? (SARCASM). She wonders if he shaves his head to be bald "since had had to shave twice a day to stay clean-shaven" on his face. How does she know that? Or is that how it is with all cis dudes? "I never asked him. It never seemed important once he looked at me." I can't say it's ever seemed important to me ever about anyone. "Two things startled me when he turned around" and these things are that he has a white T-shirt under his black leather jacket and she's only ever seen him in all-black (what is it with these people? that is not an inconspicuous look, especially in a group!) and "he had a narrow black Vandyke beard and mustache." Shit, that's what Requiem AND Jon her husband Jon have!
"The color matched the eyebrows that arched thick and graceful over his deep-set eyes." DO NOT CARE "He was too tall, but I could admit that he was attractive" OH FFS "until you got to the eyes" How can eyes, barring diseased ones, be unattractive? "The truth of what he was always stared back from those eyes" And magically everyone but Anita misses it! "I knew that other women seemed not to see it" So, what, men do and just don't say anything? "but he never hid his eyes from me." Because you're so goddamn special, I know. "I think he, like Edward, enjoyed that I was the one person he didn't have to hide the truth from." I AM GETTING SO ANGRY HERE. "I knew who and what he was, and hadn't run screaming." ARE YOU BRAGGING ABOUT THIS? THIS TONE SAYS BRAGGING. ANITA, THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT, IT JUST MEANS YOU'RE STUPID! "I might be the only woman he'd ever met more than once who knew the truth" GOD THIS IS THE MOST OFFENSIVE BRAND OF SMUG FROM HER YET "Maybe that was part of his attraction to me." Or maybe that's what he wants you to think because you fit his victim profile and he knows from Edward telling you about JC that you can be played like Baby's First Fiddle if your vanity is catered to by having a dangerous man be attracted to you like no other woman before, and he's just waiting for his chance to get you away from Edward...who is only interested in protecting you because he has dibs on killing you when you reach max power.
"So is this the good Olaf, via South Park, or the evil Olaf as in the old Star Trek?"
....whaaat? What the fuck is she talking about? Obviously she's making references to these series, but I don't know what episodes, and I also don't see how the fuck it makes sense since last I checked there was no good Olaf at all. This is just so...awkward and weird and random and I don't know if it's meant to be hip and witty and LKH showing her supposed nerd-cred or what but my only reaction is an eternal WTF every time I see this line.
Olaf smiles, it doesn't reach his eyes, which are black btw, and...and...."The well-trimmed facial hair framed his lips nicely." HOW DO YOU LOOK AT A MAN LIKE THIS, CLAIM YOU KNOW WHO AND WHAT HE IS, AND *THAT* IS WHAT COMES TO YOUR MIND?! Either Anita is in-denial about what he is (as in, she may know it intellectually but hasn't truly accepted it) or she's just that much of a monster herself. I'm betting on both. She also likens it to the one that Requiem has, and tells us how he is "now second banana to the Master, or rather, Mistress, of Philadelphia, and her main squeeze." Main squeeze, ugh. Also, since when was being a Master of a city a gendered title for men-only? I don't recall anyone ever calling Nikolaos or Seraphina by "Mistress of the City" instead.
Smile Doesn't Reach Eyes: 1
Olaf asks if she likes it and Anita says it's "real progress" for him to ask the opinion of a woman, and that "he'd been one of the most misogynistic men I'd ever met a few years ago." Did you look in the mirror? Also, guess what, while he's making little bits of supposed progress with you, what do you think he's been doing to other women those past few years? Anita says she does like it, and tells us she really does actually. Great, super, I'm somewhere in between apathy and utter contempt/disgust. He smiles and moves towards her "in a graceful lope" and he's graceful and she wonders if he ever took dance training but won't ask because "I doubted that would fit his ideal of macho." I think it must be Anita's ideal of macho for herself too, since she's the ~man~ and doesn't dance while her 'wives' are all strippers who can also apparently do regular dance like pros too without much training at all. Olaf goes halfway to her, stops, Anita realizes she should come to him because he "saw it as weakness to come to me" and it's "again a lot of progress" that he went this far. She starts going to him, wonders what she'll do when she gets there, offers him her hand even though she remembers that went badly last time when he'd grabbed her arm instead and reminded her about the time they killed a vampire together.
She mentions that "it had been a bad vampire, and we had needed to take it's heart and head." What she doesn't mention is that this 'bad vampire' was down and being tortured by Anita & Co for info. She was terrified and screaming and had begged Anita not to give her to Olaf to kill, suggesting she was fine with getting executed so long as it wasn't by him. Anita promised she wouldn't hand her over to Olaf if she gave the info up. She gave said info up, Anita handed her over to Olaf to dismember alive anyway. Richard was the only one who had a problem with this and was treated like the big stupid bad guy for it. Now, I didn't read this book, I'm just remembering the sporking of it, so maybe I got it wrong, but that's what I recall.
He takes her hand, which she mentions is much smaller than his because aw she's so tiny, and "pulled me into one of those guy hugs" which she then spend a whole paragraph describing just what a guy-hug is and how short she is next to him cuz he's so tall and she's so short and "I had enough guy friends that I'd automatically put my arm around him for the hug, like body memory." HAHAHA NO. I don't care how accustomed she is to "guy-hugs" no one would automatically fucking hug back a guy they know is a serial killer, rapist, and wants them as his partner or target. If anything, she should automatically recoil, since she claims to be scared of him and all. I hate, hate, HATE contrived 'oopsy!' shit like this so, so much. Also, Anita doesn't have guy friends. Pretty much all the men she knows personally are people she's fucked. Not that you can't fuck your friends or that there's anything wrong with fucking your friends, but you know what I'm saying, right? She is incapable of having a relationship where sex is not involved somewhere.
There is basically an entire page talking about the hug, with the hilarious description "a quick, manly, I'm-not-gay hug turned into more." YEAH, WHEN I SEE A MAN HUG ANITA, I SURE THINK HE'S NOT GAY I GUESS? I realize what LKH meant, just that doesn't work when one of the participants is female, no matter how internally butch. She's "waiting for him to do something creepy, and then I realized he was holding me. He was just holding me." IF THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE SWEET I WILL CHOKE SOMETHING. Anita nonetheless (and I don't blame her) touches the butt of a gun in a shoulder holster (hers, I think) and his grip tightens and she tells "how terribly strong" he is and "he could hurt me"...yeah, uh, doesn't Anita have shifter-level strength and she just fed? I'm pretty sure he couldn't hurt her but she could rip him apart barehanded. Oh, wait, no, right now she's the pretty delicate captive with the big strong bad man fetish that LKH clearly has despite railing against any women who dare ever be in the same situations, like her scathing tone when Bibiana was tied up by Vittorio.
Anita "snuggled against him" on her left side "making that little wriggling motion that girls and some smaller men make" in order to distract him from the fact she's drawing her gun. Girls and some smaller men...I'm not even gonna start there. Olaf, however, spots it. "You just drew your gun." Anita says yes and pushes it against his side. Olaf kisses her on the top of her head. She doesn't know what to do. "I've held many women in my arms, but you're the first who's managed to draw a weapon." RRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!! "They didn't understand what you were." I HATE THIS SO MUCH I CAN'T EVEN ARTICULATE IT LIKE USUAL. Olaf tells her they understood in the end, Anita says but not until it was too late YES THAT IS THE POINT STUPID HE JUST SAID THAT and she presses her gun in harder and I wish she'd just shoot and spare me any more of this UTTERLY SICKENING BULLSHIT.
Edward says Anita will shoot if Olaf gives her a reason, Olaf says he knows, Edward says to let her go then, Olaf says "It is the possibility of danger that makes us both enjoy her, in our own ways" and Edward says they don't think of her in the same way (sure they do: both see her as a future target! oh wait that would be if LKH were a competent writer with interesting plots and could stand men not fawning over her Mary Sue!) and Edward is using "the tone when he killed" and PLEASE EDWARD PLEASE TAKE THEM BOTH. OR EVEN JUST ONE. I DON'T CARE WHICH. Anita wants to tell Olaf to let her go but she thinks even with her shifter-speed she might be fast enough to get enough distance so that he can't take her gun because they're so close and then she'd have to shoot him to keep him from taking it...yeah I don't know how that makes sense either, I'm sorry, I tried to understand why that means she can't tell him to let go, I really did, but I don't get it. The phrasing was hard enough just to decipher.
"It seemed almost stupid to be thinking of that while he was still hugging me so normally, or as normally as I'd ever seen him interact with me." NO. NO, ANITA, IT IS NOT STUPID. PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT START LAMBASTING YOURSELF FOR PERFECTLY RATIONAL REACTIONS TO OLAF LIKE YOU DID IN SKIN TRADE. YOUR VICTIM-BLAMING OF YOURSELF THERE MADE ME FEEL WAY MORE SORRY FOR YOU THAN I EVER WANT TO AGAIN PLEASE DON'T DO IT. She tells him she's stepping back now, and he lets her go, though she keeps her gun "still pointed at his center mass" but then "he tried to disarm me and if I'd been human-slow, he'd have done it. He was that fast, that good." Yeah, I still don't buy that Edward can't find someone just as good who isn't the same kind of liability this bozo is. She evades him and hits his wrist with the butt of her gun. She could also have dislocated his knee, she says, but "I didn't want him crippled for the hunt."
He goes for her again, she ends up with "the gun pointed at his heart, and one of the sheath knives pressed to his groin." Edward shouts enough, Anita says she'll behave if he does, Olaf says she's faster than he remembers, Anita says that's what the weretiger spy says, Edward says he told Olaf she was faster, Olaf says he needed to see for himself, I monumentally do not care about extended gushing over Anita's super-powers. Anita tells Olaf that if he keeps testing her limits one of them will get hurt. He says he'll step back if she lowers her weapons, she says she'll lower them if he steps back, Olaf makes the obvious observation that "We are at an impasse then". Edward says he's going to step between them and then they will both step back, and he does so, and they do so. Anita looks at Olaf's face and he looks excited. She decides that "calling him a sick fuck seemed counterproductive to us working together, so I just thought it really hard". This line reminds me way too much of an office sexual harassment scenario :/
Edward says "we're going to meet Anita's backup and go hunt bad guys, not each other." Olaf says he'll need a side trip to go to the ER because Anita broke his wrist, though not too badly. Edward asks if Olaf will be able to use a gun, Olaf answers "It's why we all practice left-handed, isn't it?" which you'd think would mean a yes but Anita says that means no...um, Anita, the question wasn't 'can you use a gun with that hand' it was just 'can you use a gun' and he basically implied he can, just with the other hand instead. Edward asks if she meant to break his wrist, she says no, Edward talks about how much faster she is and how she's stronger now than she realizes too and she'll have to watch it from now on how hard she hits people and Anita thinks that he is "so not happy with me. I couldn't blame him. I'd just crippled one of his backup, and one of our most dangerous marshals." Yes, dangerous. As in a liability that can't be trusted. She then thinks about how "I lived with, trained with, sparred with, hunted, and killed shapeshifters and vampires" and can't remember the last time she worked out with a human. Anita, this might be a hint to get a life outside the Circus.
Bad Guys: 1
Sooo: 1
Bernardo says he'll take Olaf to the hospital and asks what to put on the paperwork, Olaf says a lover's quarrel, Anita says over her dead body, Olaf says eventually, Anita tells him not to be a sick fuck, Olaf says "I know what I am, Anita. It's you who keeps fighting the truth." Oh, he knows about all the sick shit she does to her 'sweeties' and others? Anita asks what truth that is, Edward says don't do this, presumably because giving Anita a wake-up call as to what a monster she is might make her turn herself around and stop her ascent to being a God-tier level of prey for him to have fun hinting. Olaf tells her that "You hunt and kill just like I do, like we all do. There is no one in this room who is not a murderer." Yeah, so? Ever hear that it takes one to know one? Anita says "Tell me something I don't know" and Olaf looks surprised, then asks what makes Anita different from him. My answer would be that her rape victims aren't also her murder victims, but she says the difference is that he enjoys killing and she doesn't....despite the fact she likes to wax on about how she's ~an assassin and executioner~ who doesn't save lives but takes them, oooh. And Olaf says if that's the only difference between them then they should date.
Anita tells Bernardo to get him out of here, Bernardo looks at Edward, Edward nods and says to call him from the hospital about how bad the break is. Olaf tells Anita he owes her for this, she asks if that's a threat, Edward says of course it is, tells Olaf to GTFO and Anita to stop talking to him. The entire tone is of a parent separating squabbling children. They obey Edward, and Anita wonders "how long could I work with Olaf and not talk to him, and what would he see as payback for the wrist? Had I finally made him stop thinking of me as his girlfriend and just as a victim" no, that will never happen because LKH is writing this and she sees 'victim' as a dirty word that her perfect Mary Sue could never be to anyone "or had some weird rivalry set in?" Which you will doubtlessly best Olaf at at every turn and make him crush on you more for it. And then she talks about multiple choice tests and how they should have one right answer but some people are like rigged tests that all have wrong ones...LKH, please learn how to do a decent simile/metaphor for once, I beg you.
She repeats how she or Olaf will die, and how the Harlequin are trying to kidnap her and how MOAD wants to take over her body and now this and is genre-blind enough to question if things can get any worse, though she then catches herself and states they can always get worse and decides "it wasn't a half-bad day" because none of those things have happened yet AND she and Olaf haven't had sex and this waste of a chapter mercifully ends. We are now 65% through this book.
Olaf just...irritates me so much, you guys. Not so much him, to be honest, but how LKH handles him. It's so, so annoying.
There are ways that Olaf could be a very interesting, compelling character without changing the fact he's a rapist and serial killer; that's not my issue with him. Serial killers can be great characters, just look at Hannibal Lector. His scenes with Anita could be genuinely edge-of-your-seat tense. And having a human monster in there with all the literal ones is a good reminder, I think, that just because there are very bad vamps and therians in this world doesn't mean that all the evil in the human race lies only with them. But LKH does not pull it off well at all.
Firstly, I'm not at all convinced as to why they need him, as I've made clear, so it's failed on the logic part. Secondly, there's the multiple levels of misogyny fail going on. Thirdly, I don't feel Anita is ever truly in danger because of the immunity that LKH has given her in general from anything truly bad ever happening to her. Fourthly, while I would honestly prefer him NOT to be crushing on Anita at all, let alone in a way that makes him want to be 'normal' with her, I think that, if it were handled better AND not in a story where every man of any importance has the hots for her, it could objectively be pretty good/interesting. Fifth, he's just...boring? I don't find Olaf interesting or compelling or someone I want to know/read more about like with Hannibal. He's just flat, and his handling by LKH is gross. He's not sympathetic or complex that we've seen at all, and he's not entertaining like, say, Freddy Kruger, and (in the context of this series) he's really not even this shocking, and he's got pretty much zip in the personality department besides wanting Anita, being creepy, and random sexist comments. Granted, in the Anitaverse that's a whole lot of depth *eye-roll* But as it is, the way he's written and handled, I just want this guy off the screen, preferably in handcuffs or bloody pieces.
TALLIES FOR THIS CHAPTER
Bad Guys: 1
Sooo: 1
There's also a "smile doesn't reach eyes" for Bernardo last chapter and one for Olaf this chapter. For the record, I don't think that's a bad phrase in itself, just she overuses it.
TOTAL NOVEL TALLIES THUS FAR
Bad Guys: 10
Can't Say Penis: 18
Curves: 3
Dead Mother:1
Flavor: 2
Guy/Girl Stuff: 19
Manita: 7
Mood Ring Eyes: 3
Needless Re-clarification: 22
Non-Answer Answers: 2
Pretty To Think So: 2
Racial Angst: 1
Short: 12
Skinny Women Suck: 3
Smells Like Home: 3
Smile Doesn't Reach Eyes: 3
Sooo: 8
Spill: 4
Sweeties: 3
Things Low In My Body: 2
Wet and Tight: 1
What Does That Mean: 13
Whitebread: 2
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 07:48 pm (UTC)Detty's pretty and pink and would be terrified if she thought all men liked her.
Maureen, who's gorgeous and rich and amazing and would sooner shoot Olaf than try to 'rehabilitate' him.
Jane... who's Jane.
Victoria, who's a girly-girl through and through (and a brunet) and would cheerfully inform Anita that the girl's club is better off without her.
And of course, Odile. Who isn't like Other Girls. Because she's fucking insane.
So. Yeah. LKH, you need to take some writing classes.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 09:55 pm (UTC)Or a kumquat
I would rather read about a kumquat than this
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 12:16 am (UTC)Max there as moral support for Detty, because heaven knows Detty needs it with that fashion staring her in the face. Emily there for the same reason.
Jane being torn between amused and offended the entire time...
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 10:46 pm (UTC)3) BUT ZOMG HE'S A SUPER SEKRI GOVERNMENT AGENT THAT MEANS NO RULES!
4) DO IT
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 11:47 pm (UTC)Clearly LKH has never seen The Dirty Dozen.
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Date: 2013-10-04 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 12:39 am (UTC)What's with Anita thinking about asking men about their hair all the time? Could she possibly be any more shallow and strange?
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 02:20 am (UTC)....whaaat? What the fuck is she talking about? Obviously she's making references to these series, but I don't know what episodes, and I also don't see how the fuck it makes sense since last I checked there was no good Olaf at all. This is just so...awkward and weird and random and I don't know if it's meant to be hip and witty and LKH showing her supposed nerd-cred or what but my only reaction is an eternal WTF every time I see this line.
It ass-backwards. In Star Trek the Original Series (TOS) there was an episode where Kirk, Uhura, and Bones switched places with their 'evil' clones from a parallel universe. This mirror universe was often referred to as the 'Dark' version of the Trek universe, (they later expand upon it in Deep Space 9). In this Dark Universe, Mirror-Spock had a beard...a very obvious fake beard which became something of a joke as it filtered through pop culture. When people started making jokes about evil clones, they would bring up the bearded Spock as in 'evil clones always wear a beard.'
South Park later did an episode that played on this. Stan, Kyle, Cartmen and Kenny encounter their doppelgangers from a parallel universe, and the 'evil' clones all have beards. Except in this mirror universe, Mirror-Cartmen is actually a 'good' clone (still has the beard). The joke is that Cartman from regular South Park is so evil that his 'evil' clone is actually good.
But yeah, not sure what LKH is going with this quote, as the South Park episode is just parodying what happened in the TOS mirror universe episode. Referencing both is a bit redundant. It also fails as Mirror-Spock was actually a good guy, in relation to everyone else in his universe.
I doubt LKH watches South Park as they've been known to mock goths and vampire romances/erotica from time to time. And considering how butthurt she got when another writer made an off-hand comment about disliking vampire erotica, I'm guessing that she would lose her shit over those SP episodes. LKH has no sense of humor and lacks the ability to laugh at herself or take anything about her and her work lightly.
I also doubt she watches Trek, not enough sex for her. Like I said, a lot of TOS is deeply ingrained into pop culture. You don't have to even know the name Star Trek to know of the 'evil bearded clone' trope. Name dropping something like this does not impress me.
The thing of it is, Jim Butcher does Trek/Star Wars/nerd references and they work. He is an actual nerd and knows his shit. LKH is just name-dropping to show how 'hip' and cool she is. She's probably referencing Trek because of those Nu-Trek movies, hoping to show those young-uns that she still knows whats going on. That's why she dresses like a 14 yr old who shops exclusively at Hot Topic, she's desperate to prove that she is still cool and young, even as she ages day by day, decaying and fading away while the rest of the youth ignore her in favor of Twilight. It really must piss her off that today's 'gothic' youth are more into Twilight and have never even heard the name 'Laurell K Hamilton.'
Sorry for the rant, as a hard-core Trekkie, it really pisses me off to see something like this. I wonder if she even realizes how badass Uhura was in the Mirror universe episode.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 02:32 am (UTC)Hey, don't feel bad for the rant at all! I agree with you. This line, and ones like it, just sound so heavy-handed and unnatural and desperately squeezed in that I'd be surprised if she were doing it for any reason BUT trying to sound nerd-chic. Especially since she got it backwards!
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 02:22 am (UTC)Of course. According to Anita, only women are stupid enough to feel sorry for manipulative liars and be taken in by then. It’s the old story: if a man betrays a woman, she’s stupid for believing him. If a woman betrays a man, she’s the devil incarnate for betraying him. In other words, women are dumb for liking bad boys, but men are fine for liking bad girls. You see this when many critics claim that the only reason that a villain could be popular is because he has shallow fangirls who think he’s hot instead of A) men and women liking the villain for his effectiveness or B) fanboys excusing the villain because he’s “hardcore” or “tough.”
/THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT, IT JUST MEANS YOU'RE STUPID!/
Umm, Anita, running away from a murderous psychopath is what most people would consider the normal reaction to facing one. It’s one thing to bravely confront him like you’re in a horror or action movie, it’s another to sit down and ogle him.
/"They didn't understand what you were."/
Why do I get the feeling that if Anita were dropped into the Hannibal universe, she’d be forever sniping at Clarice Starling for “stealing” her man and ranting about how Clarice is so stupid for being freaked-out by Hannibal instead of swooning over him?