KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER THREE
Dec. 9th, 2013 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratKISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER THREE
Perry is taken away by an ambulance, and as for the other officer that went missing, they found him dead with a bunch of vamp bites on him. "They'd take bite impressions of the surviving vampires, and if their bite marks matched the wounds it was an automatic death sentence" which will be done at the morgue with the vampires 'dead' for the day and chained down. Anita "wondered if they understood that they were good as dead; I doubted it, or they wouldn't have given up. They'd have fought, right? I mean, if you're dying anyway, wouldn't you go out fighting?" Some people wouldn't. It really depends on the person. Normally I'd make fun of Anita not being able to see things from the perspective of others or imagine how they could do anything she wouldn't, but for some reason this 'works' for her, in my opinion, and isn't to an irritating/unrealistic degree. Either way though, she's wrong on one big thing: They're not as good as dead. She said they'd be killed *if* their bite marks matched those on the bodies. That might not be the case. Maybe the ones who bit up the dead officer are the ones Anita already killed.
Once more police get there, Anita goes to a spare room and...changes into her vampire hunting gear. Even though the vampires are already caught and imprisoned. Uhhh...? She then gives us a very long, very convoluted explanation as to why she is doing this, and honestly it's really hard for me to decipher, but this is what I got...she has to change in order to keep the Preternatural Endangerment Act in effect. Even though I don't see why it needs to be in effect still because they've been caught and apprehended and no one is in danger? Anyway, the reason for this is because another preternatural branch marshal was put on trial for murder because he invoked the act but then didn't put on his full gear when he had the chance, and the lawyers argued that this proved he didn't really believe that the situation had merited a warrant of execution. This takes her around two pages to tell us because she spends a lot of time derailing about how the people who make laws are poopheads that don't know anything about the real world and their stupid laws that are supposed to help people just get them killed instead.
Okay, but...anyone who was with you could point out that you didn't change when you invoked the PEA, you're only changed now that the action is all over and the vampires are behind bars, so that same argument could still be used against you? I give up on this making sense. Oh, and speaking of how she didn't change...she now tells us that because of this "I always had a change of clothes with me--pants, T-shirt, jogging shoes, underwear, and bra" plus coveralls. SO HOW COME YOU DIDN'T GET INTO THOSE BEFORE YOU LEFT?! And no, I do not buy the "no time" argument, it would take less than five minutes to shimmy out of her original outfit and into the change, and five fucking minutes is well worth avoiding all the things that could go wrong due to being a in a miniskirt and stiletto heels. Not to mention, as she points out, getting put on trial! She also puts on a protective vest and spends more than half a page listing and describing all the various weapons she's strapping on to herself too....now that, may I remind you, THE VAMPIRES ARE CAPTURED. She even "warned our prisoners that I was going to change into my full vampire hunting gear" Oh my god, I cannot even imagine the wtf expressions the vampires must have exchanged in their prison cell when she said this to them. She then complains about stupid laws and the stupid people who make them a little more.
She tells us about the reinforced transport van used to transport preternatural criminals that was used to bring them here, but how they (there are fifteen) are still in regular cuffs and shackles like the ones Barney busted through easily. She mentions that taking the heads and hearts of the vampires she killed while the others watch is probably a bad idea and might make them decide to freak out and fight "so I was waiting." Brilliant observation, Anita, very sensitive and sensible of you. I can see why you're employed on a job like this. Most people would never consider that doing such a thing with an audience might be a faux pas in any way! And then we are introduced to a Lieutenant Billings who is taller than me but "so was everyone else in the room, except for some of the vampires" and by the way she is now in combat/hiking boots that she all along "with my vampire kit in the car." After mentioning her shoes, she gets back to Billings who "seemed to think his being six feet and built like a hard, muscular square would impress me, because he was looming over me, snarling in my face" about how he wants her to do her job. She points at the dead bodies and says she did do her job. He says she only did part of it.
Anita then goes into a long paragraph that takes up more than half the page about how he's looming and how most people would be intimated but she isn't because she's cool and tough and used to therians and vamps snarling at her and humans aren't ever as scary and "there was a part of me that was attracted to the anger" OH SHIT "the way a wine enthusiast could be attracted to a fine bottle of wine. I could taste his rage on the roof of my mouth" Oh, she means attracted like that. Whew. Then again since sex is always food with her, we could still be in a danger zone. She then tells us about how she feed on anger and how "it was a type of energy vampirism, but the laws hadn't caught up to it yet, so it wouldn't have been illegal to drink down all that rage, but if any of the supernormal cops in the room had sensed what I was doing, it might have raised questions." Yeah, and remember that's how Domino became your bonded slave? You ate his anger? Remember? Of course, Billings doesn't seem to be a hot supernatural, so he'd probably be safe even if you did. So "I behaved myself, but my own fascination with his anger helped me keep my own temper, and not mind his so much." This makes me imagine her staring at him in a very very creepy way, like a cat at a mouse or me at a pastry.
Anita speaks back to Billings...well, first she says she talks back to him, but before she tells us what it is she says, she talks for AN ENTIRE PAGE about how her tone is calm because she doesn't want to feed his rage or be tempted to feed on it, how both the officers that were dead had been his men, how he's raving at her to push back the grief, how people will do stuff like that keep grief at bay because once you really feel it it won't leave until it's run its course, that grief has five stages and the first is denial (WOW, NEVER HEARD THAT BEFORE!), grief sucks, Billings needs to yell at someone and it's nothing personal so she won't take it personal and how she's had so many people scream at her unjustly over the loss of their loved ones and how people want revenge and sometimes that helps and sometimes it doesn't AND THEN FUCKING FINALLY SHE TELLS US JUST WHAT IT WAS SHE SAID SO CALMLY: "I'll finish the job, Billings, but we need to clear out the prisoners first." Billings said he'd heard she gone soft and it must be true. Anita raises an eyebrow at him.
Zerbrowski steps in then, because I think he knows that Anita can yammer internally all she wants about how mature and understanding she is, she's going to get into a pissing match the second anyone questions her hard manly badass killer-ness. Zerbrowski says Anita killed all three of the vampires that were shot. Billings repeats he wants Anita to do her job. Zerbrowski says she will as soon as they clear out the crowd. Billings points at the chained vampires and says that he *wants* them to stay and see what happens to the others so they know what's going to happen to them because "no goddammned bloodsuckers can kill cops in St.Louis and not die for it!" and that he wants Anita to "show these motherfuckers what they have to look forward to!" and is yelling so much he gets spit on Zerbrowski's face.
Zerbrowski tells Billings to go for a walk with him. Billings instead goes towards the vampires. The vampires "reacted like humans, recoiling, showing fear. God, they were all so recently dead that it was like watching human faces." Okay, this jogs my memory...in the early books, like really early, I do recall Anita saying vampire faces and stuff were different from humans. I don't remember specifically how, like maybe they were stiffer and less expressive and Uncanny Valley or something like that? But honestly, pretty much ever since Anita got involved with Jean-Claude, we haven't seen that mentioned, nor have vampire reactions to things been markedly un-human in most ways. Anyway, one of the guards steps in front of him, but Billings pushes him out of the way and grabs one of the vampires, a teen boy, Anita and Zerbrowski yell at him, he's about to hit the kid, Anita grabs his arm and stops him and ends up holding on to his arm and dangling off it "the way small children swing on their father's arms" because she's so itty bitty.
Billings grabs her hair and she starts to eat his anger "through the bulk of his body, so big and solid beside my so much smaller one." I don't know if this is suggestive or just more I'M-SO-TINY crap. "I drank down his anger as he breathed heavy and loud...and as I swallowed the thick, red fire of his rage, I smelled his skin so close" Yeeeeah, this is definitely suggestive. Also she can taste fear under the rage as being the root of the anger. This was the case with Reba the weretiger too, I'm starting to think it's meant to show that the person is bad or weak or in the wrong. And then we get this beauty: "Billings was like a piece of cupcake with dark bittersweet chocolate icing that could be licked away, to the warm moist cake, and the hot, liquid center where the sweetest, thickest chocolate lay waiting like some hidden treasure that would make the anger even tastier. All I had to do was bite through that sweet, slightly salty skin of his wrist that was just above my mouth." Anita, I guarantee you will not get chocolate if you bite him.
Billings lets go of her hair, lowers her to the ground, sets her gently on the floor, his eyes wide and his face confused. He asks here where they are. Anita is "still holding his arm, though now it was more like holding hands" oh really now. Anita tells him they're at the old brewery, and she wonders what else he's forgotten and why, saying this has never happened before to anyone whose anger she ate. "He wrapped his big hand around one of my small ones" and asks why the people nearby are shackled. Anita realizes he doesn't even remember they're vampires, and asks what the last thing he remembers is. His facial expressions show he is having a very hard time with this. Zerbrowski tells him again it's time to go for a walk. Billings nods but doesn't get up. Zerbrowski pulls on his arm, and "Billings moved, but he also kept my hand in his" and asks if Anita can go with them. OH SHIT SHE'S BRAIN-ENSLAVED ANOTHER ONE! I hope she loses her badge and gets tossed in jail for this, I really do. Zerbrowski gives her a look that asks what she did, Anita shrugs and knows that he knows from this that she doesn't know. Billings doesn't want to let go of her hand, but Zerbrowski pulls him away and leads him out of the room, mouthing to Anita that they'll talk later. Good, gooood.
The vampire Billings was about to punch thanks Anita. Anita tells us what he looks like: Blue-grey-leaning-to-grey eyes, short blond hair that's a little shaggy in an odd cut (which she implies is UNUSUAL for teens, lol!) and said shagginess makes Anita think he's trying to make it longer, jean jacket, rock band T-shirt, jeans, jogging shoes, has a hungry-looking thin face because he hasn't fed tonight, skin hasn't lost the human tan he died with. So, the whiteness of AB vampires doesn't come from pallor mortis, then, tans and such actually fade...? She concludes from this he didn't bite the cop (uh, vamps can bite a person without feeding on them?) Anita can feel hunger from the other vampires too, and sees that they are also all recently-dead ones. She then tells us that "Fresh-risen vampires could look like everything from corpse-like to nearly human. The more powerful the vampire that brought you over, the more human you could look, depending on the bloodline your master descended from. Whoever had brought these guys over was powerful, very powerful." I don't know if this countradicts previous canon or not.
She blames their hunger as being why she fed on Billings, that she'd picked up on it without realizing it. Pff, sure, Anita. She also claims this couldn't happen "unless someone connected to Jean-Claude had made them. Was their master being of Jean-Claude's bloodline enough, or had one of our people fully blood-oathed to us done this horrible thing?" And she says it is indeed horrible because six of the vampires are teens or tweens, not even done with puberty, and "the grown-ups weren't much better." Weren't much better? How so? "Some of the women looked like they should be baking cookies for scout meetings and packing for family vacations" and "some of the people were a little out of shape or overweight." So...basically what she's saying is they look like normal people, not conventionally-attractive super-fit supermodels in their 20s-30s. Wow, how horrific. Truly, an atrocity has been committed in bringing such unsightly creatures over! Also, I know that we've only ever seen strikingly attractive vampires (besides Willie and Dead Dave) onscreen, but it's just hilarious to me that she's actually admitting they are the norm to the point where normal-looking vampires are a SHOCK to her. I know that it's the norm for beautiful people to be chosen for Belle Morte's line (even though they're the line who needs good looks least, since they have lust powers anyway) but did the vampires turned by other lines for presumably-functional reasons all just happen to be hotties-by-21st-century standards by coincidence?
Anita then tells us there is a myth that becoming a vampire makes you thin. Yes, I agree, of course this would be a myth, vampire bodies can't ch---"Some low-level vampires stayed the same size they were at death, frozen in whatever shape they'd been forever" Some? Low-level? Do you mean..."Some lines of vampires could change their body after death." Okay, uh...biological manipulation I guess I could see from rotting lines, but I bet this is a Belle Morte power, which would at least explain what I said about them being hotties by modern-day standards despite being turned for their beauty centuries ago. "I'd seen them put on more muscle at the gym." Okay, now it's just dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. And I am pretty sure she made this up just to justify Byron. For those who don't know, Byron is a vampire she banged in a previous book. He was turned at fifteen, but managed to bulk up enough after death to look eighteen. Funny, how they can gain muscle, but she doesn't mention that they might gain, say, fat from drinking blood with too much cholesterol in it.
Now,I don't mind the idea of changing the 'rules' for vampires in your series so long as there's a good purpose to it. After all, vampires have been being changed from story to story, author to author, ever since the first vampire novel and probably since before. I am okay with almost any change as long as you can justify it. There are some changes I like more than others, but there are very few I see as innately 'wrong' and something that vampires 'don't' do or are or say. Take, say, sparkling. I could be okay with the Twilight sparkling, even if it's not a choice I'd make for my own vamps, if it had a purpose. For instance, maybe it's an exoskeleton they evolved to protect themselves from the sun, or it's a side-effect from a glamor they use to lure humans in/hypnotize them/etc. But as far as I know (I have not read the Twilight series) it's just...there. It serves no purpose. It just makes Edward pretty. From what I hear, Meyer had a dream that inspired the series, the vampire in the dream was sparkling, and she decided therefore the vampire in her books must sparkle and no in-universe explanation was needed. Nope, in-universe explanations are always needed for things like that, regardless why you personally want it in there. If it gets explained later that vampires can pump up their muscles because that's what's most conducive to their survival, that it's not just aesthetic but actually lets them be physically stronger even than other vampires and thus give them an edge in fights, something like that, then I can accept it, but if it's just "oh, yeah, vampires can get muscular cuz it's hot and/or can make it seem less creepy when my Mary Sue bangs perma-teens" then this is fucking stupid and sucks.
Anita wonders if these people were turned forcibly, and decides that if they were forced then it is a horrible crime and "I'd cheerfully kill the vampire that made them." The idea that their turnings were not by choice seems to have only entered her mind because none of them are hotties. Because why would anyone want to live forever if they weren't attractive, right? After deciding this "my metaphysics got out of the way of my cop brain and I realized I was being stupid, distracted by the metaphysics" Wait, what? What metaphysics are involved in thinking 'ew, fatties, why would they want to live forever being ugly fatty old people?' I guess she means sensing their hunger? Anita hollers to the other cops that the vampires haven't fed tonight. One cop gives her a cynical look and so Anita immediately notes to us that he's about forty pounds overweight. He says they have to have fed, given what they did to Mulligan, the dead chewed-up cop. Smith says that if Anita says they haven't fed, then she's right. Anita tells Urlrich, our meanie fat cop for this book, that if these ones didn't feed on Mulligan, then the ones who did are still out there. Firstly, may I say again that she's again forgetting they could have just bitten him without feeding. Secondly, any discussion on it is gonna be pointless anyway because those bite impressions are being checked, remember?
A younger cop (she calls him a uniform, just as she did Urlrich, this is getting really annoying) says he doesn't understand. She tells us he has short brown hair, brown eyes, and a "slim, runner's build" from which she concludes he is "the brawn for the brains of his partner" How does she even know Urlrich is his partner? How does slim equal brawny? Admittedly I guess he must not have much brains not to understand what she just said, but that's not his fault, all cops around Anita instantly become blithering morons. Urlrich, however, understands according to Anita, undoes the snap on his gun and puts his hand on it, and asks "The body was still warm; are they still here, Ms. Vampire Expert?" and Anita says she doesn't know because "with this many vampires, my spider-sense is on overload" LOOK AT MAH NERD-CRED GUYS "and they have to have a vampire master powerful enough to possibly hide them" and then thinks to herself said Master is "powerful enough to hide this much activity from Jean-Claude, the Master of St. Louis" and it amuses me that even in her thoughts she calls him by his full title. Also it's almost cute how she thinks just because she didn't know about this means that JC didn't, hahaha.
Anita then tells us that "you gained a lot of power over a piece of real estate as master, and over the vampires into, so at this point the rogue would have to be either fucking powerful, or so good at hiding in plain sight that it was a type of power." Anita, just because YOU can't go anywhere without getting all the attention ever focused on you doesn't mean it's a super-power to be able to avoid it. Also, at this point in any other novel I might think 'oh, it's gonna end up that they were never hiding at all, JC is in on this, it's kinda obvious' but since this is an AB novel that's not gonna be the case...not because LKH would find it obvious but because she's not clever enough to even think of that anymore for her once-Machiavellian asshole of a Master vampire, or any kind of twist at all. Smith then asks if it's a trap, Anita say she doesn't know but that these vamps were left behind to take the blame for the crime and Master vamps "don't waste this much manpower without a good reason." Well, these are all, as Anita pointed out, recent converts, so they're all doubtlessly weaklings and thus a lot more expendable than they'd be otherwise. I'd like to know WHY they were willing to kill cops over that girl still, by the way.
Smith says "maybe they thought we'd believe it and they'd be in the clear" and Anita says that'd only work if they'd killed all the vamps on sight, Urlrich says Anita has a reputation for that, and Anita wonders if that was indeed the plan and if so "my reputation was even worst than I thought. I wasn't sure whether I was sad or happy about it. You're only as tough as your threat is good; apparently my threat totally rocked." If you're using terms like 'totally rocked' I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're happy. Zerbrowski returns and says they need to talk about Billings, Anita says later. NO, THAT SHOULD NOT WAIT. Someone (it's not clear who) asks if this is "like the serial killer who left his wee little vamps to take the blame for his kills, a few years ago?" I expect this refers to Vittorio. Let me remind you how Anita shot one of these wee little vamps in the face, despite her pleas she was mind-controlled by Vittorio. When Anita later encountered his Therian Servant, who killed cops she had sworn to take vengeance for, and found that he had also been mind-controlled, she let him go after sex with him. When she encountered Vittorio himself, whom she had stated repeatedly was dangerous and a killer and needed to be destroyed, she felt bad for him since he was impotent and "wanted to hold him and make it better" and rubbed her naked tits on him until he came with absolutely no plans to defeat him (which happened by a tigris ex machina). No, I will NEVER let go of this.
Anita says "Maybe, but the laws were different back then; SWAT and I had the green light and had no legal option but to use it. We have options now." Urlrich says to tell that to Mulligan's wife. I would like to add to tell that to the aforementioned vampire she shot in the face even though she, in addition to being mind-controlled by Vittorio, also was hinted to not even be his lackey, just the condo-owner where the people she-posessed-by-Vittorio killed lived. Anita says if they did kill the officers, she'll "happily" kill them, but she'd like to be sure first. The "happily" part is really fucked up. A state-sanctioned executioner is not a person who you want to take happiness in their job. Not feeling bad about it is one thing, taking joy in it is another. She uses the phrase "bullet between the eyes" and Urlrich's young skinny partner says you don't shoot them between the eyes, and Anita tells him "yeah, you do, and one in the heart and then you take the heart and decapitate them." The young cop, Stevens, is shocked by this because IT'S NOT COMMON KNOWLEDGE HOW TO KILL VAMPS EVEN THOUGH YOU FACE THEM IN THE FIELD LIKE TODAY, APPARENTLY, AND HUMANITY HASN'T BEEN COMBATTING THEM THROUGHOUT ALL OF HISTORY AND THEREFORE HAD AMPLE TIME TO LEARN THEIR WEAKNESSES AND THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO KILL THEM. God, the worldbuilding fail never stops hurting.
Oh, and Anita can't leave it at that. She has to be sure he knows how dark and edgy her job is, because she asks him how he'd like to shoot them in the head "while they were looking at you" and he has a "soft, growing horror in his eyes" as he says that "they look like my grandparents, and kids" and Anita says he's right, that "everyone looked like either a kid, or a grandparent, or a soccer mom." NOOO NOT SOCCER MOMS! She says she's never seen vampires that looked so ordinary, and that "even in the Church of Eternal Life" oh, those plebes who accept even non-hotties, ick "you didn't have this many older people and children." yeah, because turning kids is illegal, but what's wrong with a 40+ person? "No one wanted to be trapped forever in a child's body, or an elderly one." You know, some people are afraid enough of death that I think they'd take being old geezers forever if it meant escaping it. Heck, I think "rich sickly old guy on quest for immortality" has been a plot point in a fair few horror movies and books I've seen/read. And considering that becoming a vampire makes you super-strong, super-fast, super-healing, grants immunity to disease, etc., then potentially you might end up only 'old' on the outside and would otherwise be a spring chicken again save for your appearance. So, yeah, sounds like a sweet deal. Of course, leave it to Anita/LKH not to be able to get past the "but you wouldn't be sexy!" bit. Not to mention she seems to count "elderly" as just not being in your thirties anymore. My dad is in his fifties and fit as hell.
Anita whispers to Zerbrowski what she just told us: She's never seen this many elderly and/or kid vamps in one place ever. He asks what that indicates, she says she doesn't know, Urlrich says that "For a vampire expert, you don't know a hell of a lot" LOLOLOL!
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Date: 2013-12-09 07:01 pm (UTC)Anita's itty-bittiness is just so, so stupid. Also an obvious example of yet another of LKH's kinks. Women are teeny weeny like little children! Men are big and huge and strong and can crush us and throw us around, for they are so huge and adult and we are so small and toddler-like! Meyer does this too, having Edward carry Bella around like a toddler though that would be physically impossible, no matter how strong he is. It's gross. Hell, Lynn Johnston also did it. I think these authors get their ideas of sexual dimorphism in humans from watching too many gorilla documentaries. Though even gorilla males are usually only about a foot taller than the females.
Her obsession with weight is deeply unhealthy, and it explains why she has to be badgered into eating even when other people's lives depend on it. Eating is bad and sinful, exactly like sex, and a woman who does it is bad, but it's okay because she's forced to because otherwise other people will die. And it's okay because she remains an itty bitty toddler-sized woman who doesn't take up too much space and is the ultimate beauty, she stays skinny unlike all those other whores who eat food because they like it.
Of course, leave it to Anita/LKH not to be able to get past the "but you wouldn't be sexy!" bit.
Well, if you're not "sexy" in the most superficial way imaginable, you will not be loved. Because people only want to have sex with other people if they meet Anita's standards for appearance, and the only way anyone will love you is if they have sex with you. Love = "purty, me wants." Also, if anyone thinks that sex is not the only truly important thing in life, they are lying to themselves. And no one will want to have sex with you unless you are the prettiest person they are able to get to have sex with them. So in Anitaland, not being sexy = not having love and not getting the only important thing in the world. Eternity without that would be pretty bad.
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Date: 2013-12-09 07:17 pm (UTC)I think size disparity between couples can be really cute myself but it's not realistic at all on the scales that LKH frames it as. And unrealistic would be okay if this were just a piece of fiction based on that kink but it's not, so yeah, totally stupid. And yeah, you're right, eating is totally approached like sex in this series, and that's even more disturbing to me than the sex because you don't need sex to LIVE.
Love = "purty, me wants."... So in Anitaland, not being sexy = not having love and not getting the only important thing in the world. Eternity without that would be pretty bad.
Ugh, this is disturbing (but correct) in so many ways, least of all because WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE PARENTS AND CHILDREN?
no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-10 04:54 am (UTC)I would not put it past LKH to have Merry be "forced" into a sexual relationship with her children. She'd be far from the first SF author to excuse, or even embrace, incest.
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Date: 2013-12-10 05:05 am (UTC)Both Cel and Andais eyeing Merry was treated as evil and perverse, so there may be hope.
I'll go astray from my usual 'she's totally lost it' line, however, and hope she'll realize that Merry/her kids would result in even devoted troos throwing their books at the wall. And I'd like to think that even LKH has limits.
I mean, she's a despicable person, but mainly when she, or a fictional avatar, can whine about intolerance and being part of an oppreeeeeessed group. 'People who screw their kids' is not a group where her avatar can pull that stunt and expect to get any sympathy points.
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Date: 2013-12-10 05:13 am (UTC)I think it depends on if LKH knows about all the incest male authors have written approvingly, or at least slobberingly while pretending to disapprove. I simply don't think she has any kind of moral compass regarding her fantasy worlds at this point. If it's "edgy", she wants in on it.
I hope the fairy kids are just shipped off to live with relatives, though, and never show up in the books. It would be terribly storytelling, but preferable to anything I can imagine LKH doing with them.
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Date: 2013-12-10 08:33 am (UTC)I think it depends on if LKH knows about all the incest male authors have written approvingly, or at least slobberingly while pretending to disapprove. I simply don't think she has any kind of moral compass regarding her fantasy worlds at this point. If it's "edgy", she wants in on it.
Eh... she still has some neuroses that are uniquely her own. I got the impression that she genuinely freaked when a commenter in the Reddit AMA asked why Anita didn't raise her mother to have a chat. Which you'd think WOULD be an "edgy" thing to do, but she basically said that she wasn't even going there because Anita's loss of her mother was based on her loss of her own mother.
Her fetishes are based on dominance. Sex is only another form of dominance in the Anitaverse. By freaking out the ~prudes~, to her mind, she's probably exerting power over them... but incest? The appearance of it, maybe (see Cynric), but I'll bet for now that she wouldn't touch the real thing. Since everything in her fantasies is self-referential, she'd end up bumping up against her own familial relations in one way or another, and I don't think she'll cross that in her own mind. ...though, frankly, I could be wrong. I would have never guessed anything like Shutdown would emerge into being, either.
I hope the fairy kids are just shipped off to live with relatives, though, and never show up in the books. It would be terribly storytelling, but preferable to anything I can imagine LKH doing with them.
YES I THINK THIS IS THE BEST ROUTE. Seriously.
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Date: 2013-12-10 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-10 07:49 pm (UTC)Okay, I will switch my bet to 'IF there is parent/child incest, I will bet on Essus getting revived, metaphysically or physically, and Merry screwing him to resolve her issues'. Ugh. And now I need to immerse my brain in bleach.
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Date: 2013-12-10 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 09:28 pm (UTC)1.) Of course Perry has to be injured, if not killed, for following the rules (which he was hired to enforce), trying not to kill people, and daring to disagree with the Great and Powerful
Oz.That'll teach him. (No, really, see if it doesn't.) Still, I have to wonder if it isn't less his "evil Grandma" making him nervous around Anita and more his own abilities/Vadun practices letting him know that the soul in that (tiny, Lovecraftian) body is pure evil.2.) The fact that those shot people have fangs in no way makes them not-children. They might still be fifteen and vampires. So no, Smith wasn't wrong to freak out and call her a monster. (But I doubt he'll live to see the end of the novel.) And I think very, very poorly of Zerbrowski for being okay with her shooting teenagers, human or vampire. But, even if he had all the prejudices of his 'verse, he should've freaked out about the time he realized that she was perfectly cool with plugging actual, human tweens and teenagers.
3.) All that blather about psychics on the force and psychic testing is retconning and reconning Tammy Reynolds since that was the reason that she was originally put in RPIT. All cops having psychic guts is new and Zebrowski being anything over a magical dud is new but I don't think the testing or the experimenting with pairing magical/non-magical partners is new. I think that's an old plot point that she recycled not only from herself but from her earlier work in this same series. And not in the awesome literary way.
4.) They're not as good as dead. She said they'd be killed *if* their bite marks matched those on the bodies.
I strongly suspect that depends on who does the measuring. Anita, for instance, would probably eyeball it and say "Close enough." Then murder them. Larry, however, would probably get out the damn tape measure and do it right. (Come to think of it, he hasn't been in any of the more recent books. Maybe he's working to distance himself from Anita? Or his wife is acting like an anti-Anita talisman with all her nasty special-ness and girl cooties.)
5.) she has to change in order to keep the Preternatural Endangerment Act in effect.
This is nonsense and the worst kind of non-logic. LKH just threw that in there because she didn't want to go back and take out the part where Anita takes off her pantyhose in front of Zerbrowski.
6.) taking the heads and hearts of the vampires she killed
I had a moment where I wasn't sure why we were killing the obviously defeated teenage vamps instead of taking them to the hospital for trauma care and blood transfusions. Then I remembered what book this is.
7.) he was looming over me, snarling in my face" about how he wants her to do her job.
This is not an unreasonable request. His interpersonal skills could use some work but, since it's utterly bizarre for most humans to act like that, I have to assume that Billings knows who he's dealing with and behaving accordingly.
8.) I could taste his rage on the roof of my mouth
Proof that Anita is inhuman! There are no taste buds on the roof of your mouth. True facts.
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Date: 2013-12-09 09:46 pm (UTC)2) Yup, true! And Zerbrwoski gets even worse in this book as far as treatment of vampires go
3) WELL TAMMY IS AN ICKY GIRL SO SHE DOESN'T COUNT
4) Larry shows up soon to advocate for some basic humanity and common sense and is therefore villified
7) "She only responds to this kind of thing, just act like a werewolf and she'll listen!"
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Date: 2013-12-09 09:59 pm (UTC)2.) Which is weird since he was always pretty okay to them in general. I think the meanest thing that he ever did to a vamp prior to now was call JC "Count Chocula" or something to that effect.
4.) Poor Larry.
7.) I could totally see that happening!
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Date: 2013-12-09 09:29 pm (UTC)I'm not sure why not since the laws have caught up to witches and several of them have shown similar abilities in previous books - all of which where thoroughly judged by Ms Thang. The two that immediately jump to mind are the guy in New Mexico and the witches who changed shape (and gutted Zerbrowski. He hasn't been the same since. I think he might be dead and this is his zombie, animated by Anita and shambling around, doing Anita's bidding/dirty work/covering for her and traumatizing his widow & kids because Anita doesn't care about soft stuff like that. At least he's trying to provide for his never-quite-bereaved family.)
10.) Anita blathers for a page about her tone
She's being deliberately irritating, she's in the wrong, and she knows it. Now come the childish, long-winded justification, like we'll forget that she was a jerk if she just keeps blabbing long enough. (Although I can't help but imagine the hand signals going about the room as the officers explain to each other in sign language why the hell she's frozen and staring at poor Billings with wide, empty eyes. That soft comment had nothing to do with staking three of the prisoners and everything to do with the fact that she's obviously lost it.
11.) Zerbrowski steps in then, because
he's a good zombie servant. Also, he's probably sick to death of hearing Anita yammer at length about her amazingness, her kindness, her maturity, and her smokin' hot bod. He's just trying to move things along. (That's also how he just happens to always know what Anita wants/is going to do without exchanging words with her.)
12.) I do recall Anita saying vampire faces and stuff were different from humans. I don't remember specifically how
New vamps still have human reactions and facial expressions. Also, they show their fangs a lot because they haven't learned the trick of hiding them yet. Older ones like JC and Co. are great at hiding their fangs... and everything else. They look like walking, talking mannikins unless they're making an effort. Interestingly, this complaint about JC's facial expressions both arrives and disappears in the same book - specifically, the one that Asher shows up in. (Hilariously, it shows up in the scene where JC and Asher are having thier Major Emotional Baggage Exchange In A Parking Lot/Jeep. So it might've just been JC having emotions that Anita can't interpret.) Prior to that, older vamps had facial expressions like everyone else and, like some people, some of them were better at masking their emotions than others. (I am looking at you, Nikky and JC.) After Blue Moon, JC hides nothing, ever. It saddens me. And no, JC never acted particularly inhuman in front of Anita. It was disappointing.
13.) Billings pushes him out of the way and grabs one of the vampires, a teen boy
So it's wrong for Billings to be violent with the teenagers but it's cool for Anita to shoot them full of holes, stake them, and lop off their heads? Especially, as pointed out above, she wasn't certain that they were vampires, human servants, or even more than unfortunate victims in the wrong place at the wrong time when she started shooting at them.
They're all disgraces... except Perry and maybe Smith and Tammy Reynolds-Kirkland.
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Date: 2013-12-09 09:48 pm (UTC)13) Yup, that's how it works!
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Date: 2013-12-09 10:01 pm (UTC)13.) Well, okay then. So long as we're all clear around here.
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Date: 2013-12-09 11:20 pm (UTC)And as for hiding things from her, a true showman never lets the sucker know she's been suckered, now does be?
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Date: 2013-12-10 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 09:29 pm (UTC)It's probably meant to show that but I think fear/terror is a totally valid reaction to someone feeding on you at the drop of a hat, without your permission, and in front of a roomful of witnesses who are going to say and do nothing to help you. Like Reba, this scene is very rape-tastic to my mind, especially since there is literally no way that this man can resist Anita, despite the size differences. (In fact, the size differences and the sudden, irrational violence towards the vamps might be emphasized because it's either a kink to subdue big, violent men or to make him seem Super Menacing since she got flak over Reba who was neither enormous or "menacing".
15.) Billings... his eyes wide and his face confused.
He's brain-raped. There's nothing left. If he was hot by Anita's standards, he'd be joining whoever the hell sleeps on Anita's floor. But he's not hot so Anita's not going to admit to what she's done, much less take responsibility for her actions... as much as she ever does, at any rate. As it is, Zerbrowski's going to have to put him with all the other rolled people... or kill him and get rid of the body, I suppose.
At any rate, this should make Anita's true nature obvious to everyone else. It's too bad that Perry the Stickler for Law/Rules wasn't there to see it, because I don't think there's much that Zerbrowshi the zombie can go against his necromancer-master's orders/wishes.
16.) Truly, an atrocity has been committed in bringing such unsightly creatures over!
And that's the true reason that none of these vamps are going to make it out of the morgue. (And, hey, all this blather about them being hungry means that you were probably right and the holey vamps were the full, murderous ones.)
17.) Smith says that if Anita says they haven't fed, then she's right.
Wasn't he just calling her a monster for killing vamp-teens? (Then Anita touched him and... he changed his mind... oh. So here's another one for Zerbrowski to get rid of. *sigh* RPIT probably has an appalling turnover rate.)
18.) any discussion on it is gonna be pointless anyway
No way! If this pointless discussion of vamp bites and who drained Mulligan (and that just begs to be mocked) isn't had, Anita can't swing her weight around and be hateful.
19.) I'd like to know WHY they were willing to kill cops over that girl still, by the way.
You're asking questions about a being that is bot female and not Anita. Your curiousity is doomed to go forever unanswered by my reckoning.
20.) You're only as tough as your threat is good
No, no, no. This is like saying "Your bite is only as good as your bark", which is utter nonsense. Only completely ineffectual people believe this.
21.) Zerbrowski returns and says they need to talk about Billings, Anita says later.
Under my Zerbrowski = a zombie theory, he can't argue this any more than Damian can. I hope they have a secret support group.
22.) "like the serial killer who left his wee little vamps to take the blame for his kills, a few years ago?"
DANGER! DANGER, DEAR READER! There has been a personality breach in this book. There has been a timeline breach in this book! And the Logic-sensor has preemptively self-destructed.
23.) I kind of like Urlrich. He seems to be fighting through the Sue Haze. I like the super determined.
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Date: 2013-12-09 09:51 pm (UTC)16) They actually don't even make it TO the morgue before she kills them
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Date: 2013-12-09 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-10 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 11:39 pm (UTC)I used to believe that LKH completely forgets what she writes in previous books, hence the constant and mind-numbing repetition. But now I think that she can't even remember what she writes in a previous chapter...hell, she probably forgets a paragraph as soon as she starts the next. Writing for her is like this constant stream of shit just spewing from her fingertips with no actual thought process or reason behind it all. She just vomits it all out across the screen without actually writing any of it. We could sit a monkey in front of a computer and it would type out the same, random gibberish that LKH keeps churning out. Her writing has become so disjointed and nonsensical that it is just mindless gibberish at this point and in all honesty a monkey would probably do a better job of it.
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Date: 2013-12-09 11:53 pm (UTC)I get that impression in that book especially
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Date: 2013-12-13 03:09 am (UTC)Umm, why didn’t you do this before you captured the vampires?
/my own fascination with his anger helped me keep my own temper/
So…anger management therapy for Anita involves other people getting mad at her? What?
/he's raving at her to push back the grief/
Or maybe he’s raving at you because you’re an incompetent and bloodthirsty idiot who childishly whines about laws.
/Anita and Zerbrowski yell at him, he's about to hit the kid/
So, Billings grabbing a vampire kid’s arm is bad, but Anita ruthlessly killing a vampire kid without knowing for sure if he’s a vampire or a human is okay?
/So...basically what she's saying is they look like normal people, not conventionally-attractive super-fit supermodels in their 20s-30s. Wow, how horrific./
It reminds me of a line in City of Bones by Cassandra Clare where the heroine actually thinks that the reason why there are no ugly or average-looking vampires around is because ugly people don’t want to live forever.
/He was turned at fifteen, but managed to bulk up enough after death to look eighteen./
Ah, so she’s using Stephenie Meyer’s logic now. “It’s not pedophilia if he looks eighteen!”
/she felt bad for him since he was impotent/
Wait, what? 0_0
That’s really what happened? Anita let a serial killer go because she felt bad that he couldn’t have sex with anyone (or rather, couldn’t have sex with her)?
You know the Draco in Leather Pants trope and how people accuse certain fangirls of having that attitude? Anita is the quintessential example of the person who follows that trope. I mean, dear Lord, I’ve seen whitewashing justifications for Disney villains that were less trivial and ridiculous than that.
Sharing some thoughts a little late. :)
Date: 2015-10-04 10:55 pm (UTC)Also... while it's one of the least of the billion things that annoy the crap out of me about Anita and LKH, her CONSTANT focus on how itty-bitty she is (especially since 5'3" is average) is definitely on the list. Listen, Anita/LKH... I'm five foot nothing. I am shorter than average and shorter than most of my friends. (But not all of them. One of my friends is 4'10" - and SHE isn't obsessed with her height (or lack thereof) either!) And guess what? NEITHER OF US WASTE HOURS EACH DAY ON A MENTAL MONOLOGUE ABOUT IT! I keep a couple step stools handy and carry on with life. I live in this body, so don't particularly think of it as tall or short, it's just me. I think most everyone feels that way. Sometimes, I'll see a pic with friends someone tags me in on facebook and think "Holy crap, I'm a midget!" but then it just kinda fades from my awareness again. But then, I don't think ANYONE is as self-obsessed, self-congratulating and self-serving as Anita.
Whew! Okay, I'm done now. *goes back to happily lurking and reading*