a_sporking_rat | KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER FOUR

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KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER FOUR

Sid has had this squishy bump on his back forever that I thought was a lipoma (benign tumor made of fatty tissue) but today I had to drain of this horrible substance inside it that was basically brown mush with white bits. I have no idea what the hell it is except it smelled like rot. Dad thinks it's an infected cyst where a bunch of blood got trapped, dried up into this solid-ish mush and mixed with white blood cell pus. Seems likely enough. I cleaned it afterward with hydrogen peroxide and triple antibiotic cream, and will be checking it again today, because it's surely started filling back up already. Sam's lump has grown back bigger than other, and she's got a softer one under her opposite arm too. Rats have really active cell growth, so they're always incubating something it seems. Of course, it also means they're really great at healing wounds and such! They're like Wolverine or real-live therians!

KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER FOUR

"It wasn't just the vampires that watched me as I moved around the room armed to the teeth." Yes, yes, everyone must give Anita all the attention possible...it's clearly because they think she looks like an idiot though because "Someone muttered, "Who does she think she is, Rambo?" which Anita chalks up to "I was a girl and I had the best deadly toys in the room. Gun envy is an ugly thing." I don't think I need to point anything out here, it stands on its own. In answer to the Rambo comment, the blond boy vampire Anita saved from getting punched last chapter says that, no, Anita is the Executioner. Stevens says that "They're all Executioners" Now, normally everyone has heard far and wide of Anita, so the only reason Stevens here would be presented as ignorant of her badass nickname is so...you guessed, it, yup, so that it can be explained to him by everyone else just how badass she is and how it got her that nickname!

Blond Vamp explains that Anita is one of the few vampire hunters that the vampire community has given nicknames/titles to, and of course "she was the Executioner, years before the rest." ANITA: BEST *AND* FIRST AT EVERYTHING! "We only give names to the ones that we fear. She is the Executioner, and along with three others she makes up the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Anita points out that none of the horseman are called that, and he says "You are the only one with two earned names." OH, OF FUCKING COURSE SHE IS. OF COURSE. Anita, ever modest, says "Let me guess, I'm Death" even though I think we all know that THAT NAME HAS LONG BEEN TAKEN and so does she. Blond Vamp says nope, she's War. Anita asks why, he says "Because you've killed more of us than Death."

...but...that doesn't make sense. Whether you die of war, famine, or pestilence, you are still dying, you are still ultimately taken by Death, so Death should be the name for the one that kills the most, not War. OH WAIT, SENSE IN AN AB NOVEL? SILLY ME! PERISH THE THOUGHT!

Anita then figures to herself that Death is probably Edward. You're a fuckin' genius, Anita. Another vampire asks why Anita hasn't killed them yet. Anita tells us this vampire "looked more like someone's youngish grandma than a vampire" lest we forget being a vampire and being out of your thirties are somehow mutually exclusive...Anita, surely you couldn't forget Seraphina, given how she fucked with you and your mommy issues so bad? Anita says she hasn't killed them because she didn't have to (I bet it's more because cops who might actually *care* about the law are watching) and the blond boy vamp says the other officers want her to and Anita says they haven't fed so they didn't kill the officers (I believe I've mentioned last spork why this is not necessarily the case) and Blond says that since they watched it done they're therefore as guilty as the perpetrators under the law. Anita asks if he *wants* her to shoot him, he nods, Anita asks why, he shrugs and drops his gaze but "the grandma" says Anita and her master are both evil. Well, I agree! Poor boy is probably expecting to be raped and enslaved and would prefer death.

Anita retorts that she's not the one who killed a man that was trying to stop a teen girl from being turned against her will. Granny Vamp looks hesitant for a moment, then says the girl wanted to be turned. Anita says that the girl changed her mind. How does she know that? Because the woman hesitated? Of course, Anita is right, because Granny argues that "There was no going back" and Anita says that's what date rapists say, the Granny Vamp looks shocked and is offended Anita would "compare us to that" and Anita says that "Forcing someone to be a vampire against their will is rape and murder all rolled into one" and I don't really know how I feel about that. Blond Vamp says Anita really believes that, Anita says yes, and he says "And yet, you cohabitate with the master vampire of this city." My first instinct would be to say that I don't see why those things cancel each other out, since being a vampire doesn't mean JC turns anyone against their will. It's like if she just said date rape was wrong and someone was like but you live with a man, it doesn't make sense. But then I thought, wait, maybe is he implying/saying JC has forcibly turned people? Given how he manipulated Anita into the vampire marks, it would not surprise me. Anita, however, just says he must be older than he looks to be using words like "cohabitate" and he asks if she can't tell his age, she says he's "Twenty years dead, that's why the eighties haircut." Yeah, people were totally saying "cohabitate" to everybody in the 80s, and no one ever uses the term now *sarcasm*

Now that hair has been brought up, the kid has a chance to tell her that "I don't have enough power to grow my hair long after death like the vampires closest to you. Your master steals energy from me, from all of us, and uses it to heal his people, and grow his long, black curls out for you." Okay, see, LKH, if you want this bunch to be angry rebels who are making scathing remarks about JC using his abilities for frivolity at the expense of others...you probably shouldn't have him include the "heal his people" bit, because that's not what this character would probably say or be thinking about. It comes off as the author just wanting everyone to note how great the good guys are even while talking smack about them...which is exactly what it most likely is, unless he's a particularly fair-minded "well, he does some good stuff too I guess" sort of milquetoast even-headed rebel, which could be interesting. But if he's supposed to be a total anti-JC zealot making an impassioned accusation, it really doesn't work. We'll have to see.

Anita thinks how she knew that "Jean-Claude took power from his followers, and gave power to them, but I hadn't thought how that exchange of power might affect the other side of the equation." Anita has had HOW many years now of living at the Circus and having a hand in vampire politics? And she never considered this or learned of it? If it were anyone else, I'd think JC must have been deliberately hiding the issue from her, but Anita is the sort I think anything could get by as long as it doesn't have long hair and a giant schlong. Especially since this is something that only affects the little people of the vampire community, not her top-tier boyfriends like Jean-Claude and Asher. "Did Jean-Claude steal power from them just to grow his hair long for me, when they could have used it to heal their wounds, grow their own hair?" It is so, so hilarious to me how she puts growing hair out on the same level as HEALING WOUNDS THAT WILL OTHERWISE POSSIBLY LAST AN ETERNITY.

Blond Vamp guesses that Anita didn't know, but Granny Vamp angrily proclaims that Anita does know, and "under the anger was a thread of fear like a hint of spice in a piece of cake." Yeah, having fear under anger is officially one of the ways to discredit and villainize someone in AB-world. Anita looks at her, and the woman becomes more afraid, and Anita wonders why. Uh, duh, they obviously know what you're capable of, hence why the boy was eager to take death before you could do worse to him. Zerbrowski returns and tells Anita that the bus is here to move the prisoners. Anita nods and thinks that she has made a "rookie mistake. I'd let the bad guys talk me into doubting people I trusted." You know, this could be a good line to show how blind Anita's faith in the very-undeserving Jean-Claude had become, setting this up as the novel that will reveal that he's just been using and manipulating her all along like in the beginning. Oh, if only! "They say if you listen to the devil he won't lie, but he won't exactly tell the truth either." I guess she missed the bit where one of the devil's many titles is THE FATHER OF LIES?! She decides to ask JC just in case when she gets home. Wow, that is just precious.

Anita tells the prisoners that if they try to escape, they'll be shot. Blond vamp says that's cuz of the PEA, aka "lethal force against vampires without a warrant is permitted to save human lives" aka LKH's apparent obsession for this book. Anita says yes, plus the fact that they're still technically suspect in the deaths of the two officers and "vampires suspected of murder can be killed if they try to escape" and Blond says "If we were people, it wouldn't work like that" and she says it might with two cops dead and he says not legally. I just think it's sad that he apparently doesn't think of himself and his fellows as people. As with previous novels, LKH has clearly not thought about the fact that "people" and "human" mean different things in a world that has therians, vampires, fairies, and merfolk, and the result of this lack of thought has made for a lot of Unfortunate Implications, as well as counting as a World-Building Fail in my opinion.

Anita "helped him to his feet hard enough that he stumbled and I had to catch him." That sounds less like helping and more like tossing him around to be a bully because you can. He whispers to her that "You're as strong as we are, and I felt you feed on the other officer. You're not human either." Well, I think he should blow the whistle on her! She shoves him, and because he's wearing shackles he nearly falls and she "had to catch him again. No one else in the room could have moved fast enough to catch him with barely a pause between the push, the start of the fall, and the catch--no human in the room." Unless you pushed him like five feet or more away, I don't see why not. Blond Vamp is like lol see and Anita "got him shuffling along with the others" and thinks that his remarks got on her nerves because "I believed what he just said" and that "I was one of the monsters" but instead of citing, say, her panwere status or vampire abilities as reason for why she's a monster, she brings up her ability to raise the dead.

Um, what?

She just said only a chapter or so ago that her necromancy was a psychic ability. She didn't think that "supernormal" Smith was a monster, so why is she? And even if necromancy is viewed by Anita and/or people in general as somehow different/worse than other psychic abilities (which I could see, since making dead bodies get up and walk around is a lot darker and ickier than just moving objects with your mind or having premonitions) and does classify her as "one of the monsters" along with therians and vampires...so what? She's clearly viewing it as a bad thing, but she's said repeatedly that she sees the monsters as people like anyone else, some of her best friends are vampires, etc., so why should it bother her to be in the same category as they are? It's true that shame and guilt are not always things that make sense, but this is too nonsensical. Either she sees monsters as people like everyone else, or it's something to feel shame and grossness and angst for. You can't have it both ways. About the closest you could get is to have it be like, say, someone who is in the closet because they have just the right amount of internalized homophobia where they're consciously (though perhaps not subconsciously) okay with OTHER people being gay but god forbid they be like that themselves, ew! Of course, that would mean that Anita isn't as accepting of the monsters as she consciously thinks and proclaims that she is, so that won't be the case, I'm sure. It's just another case of Anita having her Mary Sue angst cake and eating it too, no matter how little sense it makes or what implications it has.

I mean, she's right that she's a monster, just not the kind she's referring to or that's being discussed here. Which goes back to the point I've made repeatedly in the past: IN A WORLD LIKE THIS, THE WORD "MONSTER" CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT BE USED TO DESIGNATE BOTH "NON-HUMAN PEOPLE" AND "ABHORRENT MORALITY/ACTIONS"

A girl stumbles in her shackles, Anita grabs her to steady her, the girl freaks out when she sees it's Anita, and Anita holds on to her for just an extra moment because "I could taste her fear the way I could taste it on a shapeshifter or a human. Anything that's afraid of you is food." That is so dumb. Remember how she saw Julia as food because she was afraid? What tiger sees another tiger as food? Anita lets go of the girl and she falls the floor. The other vampires try to help her but can't because of their own cuffs and shackles, so Zerbrowski does. Man, this is all just sad. "The vampires watched me and even behind the sullenness, the anger, there was fear." Yeah, yeah, people being afraid makes them bad or deserving of abuse and violence or whatever the argument is here, we get it. "What do the monsters fear? Other monsters, of course." Yeah, there's nothing else vampires would fear...silver, holy objects, sunlight, the fact they can be executed for the most minor of infractions and it doesn't actually take another monster to do that. Not to mention I bet many keep personal fears such as loneliness and rejection, as well as phobias like being afraid of dogs and bugs even though as vampires they're not in danger from maulings or poison anymore (since, well, phobias are be definition irrational)

Right on cue, Granny Vamp calls Anita a monster, Anita retorts that "That's Marshal Monster to you, Grandma" and Zerbrowski asks why he doesn't have cool nicknames and Anita tells him no one is afraid of him. Zerbrowski jokes how he can't compete wit how badass she is, Anita says that's what his wife says, Smith ooohs according, Zerbrowski grins that "I don't have a problem with you being the better man, Anita; I never have." UGH GONNA PUKE. "If I hadn't been armed to the teeth, surrounded by murderous vampires" yes, we've seen how ~murderous~ they are oh wait they're utterly not "in view of way too many other cops, I'd have hugged Zerbrowski." BEING CALLED A ~MAN~ MEANS THAT MUCH TO HER. She thanks him and "tried to show him in my eyes how much it had meant to me, that guy moment where you can't actually say how many emotions you've got running through your brain" and Zerbrowksi gives her a "gentle" and "tender" smile "and that was it. He understood that I'd understood that he understood. It took us one sentence, two looks, and a nod--with another woman it would have been at least five minutes of out-loud talking. Lucky for me I spoke fluent guy."

OH I GIVE THE FUCK UP WITH THIS SHIT

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'What has JC ever done for us?'
........... 'The aqueduct?'

Lucky for me I spoke fluent guy.

I SECOND YOUR CRY TO GIVE THE FUCK UP WITH THIS SHIT

I don't understand how it is I can communicate at all with men on a regular basis, like at the animal shelter! Do you think they're all bi-lingual and are speaking woman for me?

I don't know. Surely, you are lessened as a man if you have even the barest touch of a woman who is not manly tuff tuff. Your situation is incomprehensible to the gender standards of our lord and saviour, Anita Blake.

Except... Nathaniel.

I think it's that women are incredibly stupid, and men of all types can descend to understanding us, or at least pretending to. Woman is a language anyone can understand, being created and maintained by subhuman things with tiny barely-working brains. One must be an actual human being to understand the Language of Man (all hail the phallus), though.

Nah, I think Anita's bitched about Not Getting Women before. If men do things that most would consider feminine, it's still 'oddly masculine' (see Jean-Claude). If any woman other than Anita does something masculine, they're either sycophants (Claudia) or Trying Too Hard To Be Men (most professional women in Anita's eyes). Only Anita can simultaneously be the Guys' Guy And Yet A Girl, or...something.

Growing long hair = healing wounds. So cutting hair = causing wounds. Head hair, that is. The rest of the body must be thoroughly waxed.

That this is not even the slightest bit of exaggeration leaves me flummoxed. How can one even make fun of this stuff? IT SAYS RIGHT THERE ON THE PAGE THAT HAVING SHORT HAIR IS THE SAME AS BEING PHYSICALLY WOUNDED.

To be totally fair, my own vamps (as I currently have them figured---it's a WIP) have a similar healing gig where their body always returns as soon as it can to the way they died, which includes hair always growing back a la Anne Rice...of course, this includes hair on legs, underarms, etc., not just head-hair on dudes. Of course, from LKH's POV, I'm sure that short hair on a man is the same as a grievous physical injury.

Didn't Anita make a huge WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF scene when Richard cut his hair in an earlier book? I think she literally regards haircuts as self-harm.

Well there was that one time that Richard cut his hair short and Anita equated it to a suicide attempt.

Do you remember which book this was in? I want to read the scene -- I have a feeling it's even worse than I'm imagining.

Pretty sure it's Cerluean Sins? IIRC it's painted as a suicide attempt, but not a "serious" one more like a cry for help because Richard was in the depths of depression over him and Anita breaking up/the ardeur etc. But who cares about Richard's mental health when his lovely hair has been hacked off.

On man! I'd forgotten about that! And I think it was book-wise right after the book where Anita magic roofies him and then wonders why he runs out of her house. I remember wondering if it just might mean that he wanted a change or to cast off the old or trying to move forward or whatever. So I'm seconding the Cerulean Sins suspicion.

Yeah, NiC is where Anita and Richard broke up after she fed on him and he stormed out because HE IS NOBODY'S FOOD. And Incubus Dreams has Richard attempting to deal with Anita's newfound sex-fu only to walk in on her having sex with Nathaniel in leopard-man form, which effectively puts the kibosh on things even more.

I'm pretty sure there was a big stand-off between Belle Morte's vampires and JC's and Richard still managed to haul his ass down to the Circus of the Damned to put on a big show and he was there in a red t-shirt and Anita was still mourning the loss of his hair. I think this was right before the freaky cat-vampire guardians of MOAD showed up and Belle-via-possession was kicking her feet with glee over LOOK AT WHAT I DID ISN'T IT AWESOME!? (It was not awesome.) I'm surprised I remember this much because really, the only things that particularly stuck with me about CS were Asher's OOC "your sweet ass" comments and how a terrorist plot was thwarted by boobs.

....I didn't make it to the terrorist plot in CS. And I either forgot or completely skipped Incubus Dreams. But yeah, that butt thing was strange but, honestly, that entire scene was horrible.

You're a more determined reader than I am!

Pretty sure the only reason why I remember it is because I read half the book twice -- my original copy of the book was missing a whole segment of pages (like 30+ pages) and I went out and got a softcover to read while waiting for the publisher to send a replacement. I was still in the "no, NiC was totally a fluke and it's bound to get better?!" stage of denial. And then ID happened which destroyed all my faith in this series and LKH as a writer. (That said, I found ID weirdly enjoyable just for how incredibly bad it is? Once you get past the first couple of chapters, it's just a rolling mess of WTFery.)

Geez, how'd you even notice that you were missing pages? Yeah, I remember that phase. It ended and I gave up during CS. But hmmmm, maybe if I could think of it as a D-rated movie sort of thing...

Nah. I'm just not that patient. ^_^

a terrorist plot was thwarted by boobs

... well then. I think I have to read this thing.

They're not even Anita's boobs! Shocking, I know!

"No one else in the room could have moved fast enough to catch him with barely a pause between the push, the start of the fall, and the catch--no human in the room."

Obviously LKH never played "Saved-your-life" at the pool.

HAHAHA!

"with another woman it would have been at least five minutes of out-loud talking."

Believe it or not Anita, most women can express their feelings in a heartfelt look or a few short words just as easily as guys can. Its only when they encounter someone as dense as you that it takes so long because it takes numerous repetitions and clarifications for you to grasp even the simplest of concepts. Zerbrowski is just clearly so used to this that he's going to just smile and nod to save himself the headache.

The idea that women are 'chatty' and 'talkative' while men are stoic and disprove of communication is a massive issue in modern feminism - not only is it obviously not true, there have been a lot of psychological and sociological studies into how men see it as being acceptable to talk over women and interrupt them because they don't see what they're saying as being important.

LKH, stop the internalised misogyny!

"Who does she think she is, Rambo?"
I would like to put in that, while they clearly think Anita's an idiot and I concur, part of what makes Rambo so terrifying is that he doesn't need to be armed to the teeth. He's brilliant at what he does, not violent until he's pushed into a corner, and he can do what he does just as effectively (if not moreso) bare-handed (or with your weapon). It's a fallacious comparison to put Anita against Rambo, even in jest, because Rambo is awesome!

Stevens says that "They're all Executioners"
Actually, now that Stevens mentions it, the job title is "Vampire Executioner". Technically, Larry, Laila, Edward, and even poor, lambasted Bernardo are all "the executioner." So there's a case to be made that the capitalization is all in Anita's head... and JC had the good sense to tell everyone to play along with it. Edward might be the only titled executioner in the series.

it can be explained to him by everyone else just how badass she is and how it got her that nickname!
Yeah, this is gonna work. Mhmm. I can feel the Stuff Happens meter and the This Is Not All "Fluff" and Drivel needle twitching...

"she was the Executioner, years before the rest."
LOL, no, especially since Manny was explicitly stated as having been an "vampire executioner" not a "vampire hunter". But it sounds like someone else made my original point to LKH.

"Because you've killed more of us than Death."
a.) I doubt that, especially given the fact that Edward both works regularly and enjoys his job and Anita spends most of her time on her back.
b.) Ignore the illogic! Otherwise, how will Anita be the bestest and most spechulfulest of them all?
c.) I think she's actually disappointed that Edward gets to keep his moniker... and the vamp noticed and then lied through his teeth.

Anita, surely you couldn't forget Seraphina, given how she fucked with you and your mommy issues so bad?
Yes, yes she has because Seraphina was old and thus an uggo who got old, uggo cooties on JC hot, "young" body. And Anita prefers to forget that JC has loved, banged, or been victimized by anyone else.

Blond says that since they watched it done they're therefore as guilty as the perpetrators under the law
This is not necessarily true.

Poor boy is probably expecting to be raped and enslaved and would prefer death.
Dude, people talk. And other people listen.

"Forcing someone to be a vampire against their will is rape and murder all rolled into one"
Murder, I can see. Rape? I think that says more about Anita and her perspective than anyone else.

maybe is he implying/saying JC has forcibly turned people?
I could not even begin to parse that statement so kudos to you for figuring out how date rape/murder tied into living with a vamp.

Anita, however, just says he must be older than he looks to be using words like "cohabitate"
Considering the words I knew in middle school - cohabitate among them - Anita needs to buy a word of the day calendar.

she says he's "Twenty years dead, that's why the eighties haircut."
This is a blatant Buffy-ism. No, seriously, it's from the half of the first episode that I liked (before Buffy met Angel) when Buffy's supposed to use her Slayer-ly-ness to identify vamps but instead uses the vamps' terrible fashion choices to finger them in a crowd. But that aside, everyone in AB looks like they've stepped out of the 80s or a low budget porno, so he should fit right in... and possible be incredibly fashionable.

Plus Edward kills who he wants when he wants and Anita at least sometimes waits for those pesky "warrants"!

Rape? I think that says more about Anita and her perspective than anyone else.
EVERYTHING EVER IS SEXUAL

It's a fallacious comparison to put Anita against Rambo, even in jest, because Rambo is awesome!

Meh, I think Rambo is completely ridiculous. (Not necessarily in the first movie, but in subsequent ones.) I'd use the "Rambo" comparison as a slam -- and I think LKH read the criticism of someone who did. Though Anita's worse than Rambo, because he at least carries a number of weapons that it is physically possible to carry, whereas Anita does not. Anyway, that "gun envy" comment was directed at any LKH's critics who have said that the amount and kind of weaponry Anita carries is both stupid and impossible. She'd like to believe we're all just jealous.

There's more than one Rambo movie? Lies!

But yes, if there were other movies, it could be construed as a slam.

It's interesting that someone who purports not to understand the Internetz seems to respond to her critics so often in her prose.

I don't have enough power to grow my hair long after death
Interesting that that's what he wants the power for and not for, say, flying away or the strength to tear Anita's head off. I'd like to think that he's appealing to Anita's interests here but I'm pretty sure that's just authorial bias shining through.

I hadn't thought how that exchange of power might affect the other side of the equation.
Really? Not even after seeing Jc suck the life out of Gretchen, of having him point-blank admit it to you that he took her power to have enough power to feed his baby vamps because Anita'd shut herself off and sent the power triangle of hate wonky. JC (probably) keeps Anita out of a lot of things but he never even tried to hide this, especially since Anita does the same damn thing to Damien and Nathaniel, except he does it intentionally and she does it because she's both abysmally stupid and careless.

Blond Vamp guesses that Anita didn't know,
because he is either overly charitable or still trying to talk his way out of trouble. Either way, Granny Vamp is entirely correct: Anita knows, except for when she'd like to pretend that she doesn't.

to show how blind Anita's faith in the very-undeserving Jean-Claude had become
Hey! He's totally deserving! He's worked hard to make her totally dependent on him! She's stupid but she's also violent, prejudiced, short-tempered, selfish, and homicidal. Tell me training someone like that wouldn't be hard work!

Blond vamp says that's cuz of the PEA
You know, few people know the exact name of various laws, much less the sometimes arbitrary names for them. So this strikes me as actually be dialogue that's worse than usual.

I just think it's sad that he apparently doesn't think of himself and his fellows as people
Or maybe he's just accepted that no one else in this world - expect perhaps Detective Perry - does.

Either she sees monsters as people like everyone else, or it's something to feel shame and grossness and angst for.
Weirdly, JC calls her out on this when they first started dating, back when he seemed split between being a villainous mustache-twirler and trying to have a real relationship with her. Except, he called her out on it with regards to how she treated him. She said that she saw him as a person like everyone else, but she was ashamed to be seen with him or linked to him, suffered angst at the idea of actually liking him, and was generally grossed out with her and himself because she found him hot. He was her dirty secret and he wasn't pleased about it. (Nor was he willing to take it, much to Anita's fury.)

So, yeah, it's been a thing since near the beginning. But LKH has never bothered to unpack it and consider the ramifications of it. She just borrowed it from Anita's original issues with JC and pasted it onto Anita. I suspect that she thinks no one else remembers the earlier books.

But I disagree with you regarding the use of "monster" in worlds like this one (is supposed to be.) I strongly suspect that it could be used like it is in the books, except that character certainly wouldn't (and shouldn't) be portrayed as a shining beacon of non-prejudiced light. (but no one would call the Fae monsters, for obvious reasons.)

Fear =//= Food
Seriously. It's a self-preservation instinct and, considering how far it's gotten our species, she shouldn't knock it.

Zerbrowski grins that "I don't have a problem with you being the better man, Anita; I never have."
Hey, it's a zombie servant's duty to fluff his master's ego. Zerbrowski is just doing his undead duties!

He understood that I'd understood that he understood.
He's a zombie servant attuned to her thoughts/needs! Of course he knows what's going on (or not going on) up there!

with another woman it would have been at least five minutes of out-loud talking.
Because Anita's thick, not because there's anything wrong with the other woman.

Lucky for me I spoke fluent guy.
First off, COMMA! As in, there should be one. Secondly, it's called English. Everyone in this country knows at least a few words of it.

She's stupid but she's also violent, prejudiced, short-tempered, selfish, and homicidal. Tell me training someone like that wouldn't be hard work!
HAHAHA!

/...but...that doesn't make sense. Whether you die of war, famine, or pestilence, you are still dying, you are still ultimately taken by Death, so Death should be the name for the one that kills the most, not War. OH WAIT, SENSE IN AN AB NOVEL? SILLY ME! PERISH THE THOUGHT!/
Later retconned in Affliction as meaning that Death kills people up close and personal, whereas War slaughters indiscriminately. Which does say something about Anita's murderous reputation.

/"Did Jean-Claude steal power from them just to grow his hair long for me, when they could have used it to heal their wounds, grow their own hair?" It is so, so hilarious to me how she puts growing hair out on the same level as HEALING WOUNDS THAT WILL OTHERWISE POSSIBLY LAST AN ETERNITY./
I honestly have to wonder if she originally put "Did Jean-Claude steal power from them just to grow his hair long for me, when they could have used it to grow their own hair?" as that sentence, then realized it needed SLIGHTLY more gravitas in order to be taken seriously.

/ I just think it's sad that he apparently doesn't think of himself and his fellows as people./
They aren't, in this world. He's just unusually aware of the meta aspects of the universe.

/ BEING CALLED A ~MAN~ MEANS THAT MUCH TO HER./
This is like an exaggerated trans!fic on AO3, only with teary emotional moments replaced by rank misogyny, sociopathy, and stupidity. And tweeness. Can't forget the tweeness.

Later retconned in Affliction as meaning that Death kills people up close and personal, whereas War slaughters indiscriminately.

Buuuuutttt... famine and pestilence slaughter even more indiscriminately. War is the most ordered killing, among the three. LKH is nonsensical.

And tweeness. Can't forget the tweeness.

Sometimes I think that the tweeness is the worst, for me personally anyway. Blood and rape and slaughter and mind control and I love you bestest and hand-holding and FUCKING "SWEETIES" HULK SMASH NOW.

Apparently Famine is Bernardo, because he looks good enough to eat.

LKH's vore fetish is showing.

The tweeness is worst for the writing. I could almost appreciate Anitaverse as a study in sociopathy and narcissism if not for the AWFUL writing. And the pet phrases are tolerable compared to all the damnable smug cutesyness.

WAIT WHAT NO REALLY?

I fought to keep my face blank as Edward drawled in his best Ted voice, ‘If you know I'm one of the Four Horsemen, then you know that Anita has two earned names among the vampires.'

She looked sullen. ‘Yeah, I know she has two pet names.'

‘I don't,' Jonas said. ‘Enlighten me.'

We both looked at Hatfield. She glared at both of us, then finally back at Jonas. ‘Forrester is Death and Blake is War.'

‘Who are the other two Horsemen?'

‘Otto Jeffries is Pestilence, and Bernardo Spotted-Horse is Hunger.'

‘I've met Spotted-Horse and I know Jeffries by reputation; they're both ex-military, and so are you, right, Forrester?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Then why is Blake "War"? She's never been military.'

‘She has a higher kill count than I do,' Edward said, ‘and the vampires see Death as a one-on-one killer, whereas War kills a lot all at one time.'

‘You asked the vampires,' Jonas said.

‘I did.'

‘But why not Jeffries, or Spotted-Horse?'

‘You've met Bernardo, right?' I asked.

‘I've met him, too,' Hatfield said. ‘He didn't seem that scary.'

‘He's Hunger,' Edward said.

‘I don't get it,' Hatfield said.

‘The vampires said Bernardo looks good enough to eat, but no one's ever tasted him, so he leaves them hungry.'

She frowned.

Jonas seemed to think about it, and then he grinned wide and happy. He laughed. ‘He's tasty like food, I get it.'

‘Dangerous food,' Edward said. ‘He has the fifth highest kill count of any marshal.'

(Note: I have a legitimate iBooks copy. However, I don't have my iPad right now, so here's a link (http://www.rulit.net/books/affliction-read-296852-80.html) to where I got this so you can check out some of the Affliction text yourself. Needs to be read to be believed!)

Bwahaha! I want to be mad at her for treating the one significant, recurring Native character that way, but that's so stupid I can't even feel anything except the urge to laugh and the urge to facepalm. That's just pathetic.

OH MY GOD

OH MY GOD

Oh yeah - she tries to make it less of a slam, but still...It's just as ludicrous as everything else she writes.

/I was a girl/

Uh, no, it’s because you’re a trigger-happy lunatic who’s so obsessed with weapons that you bring them to a children’s dance recital.

/Anita says that's what date rapists say/

SAYS THE RAPIST.

/"Forcing someone to be a vampire against their will is rape and murder all rolled into one"/

But forcing someone to be a member of your harem, including underage boys, is just fine!

/It is so, so hilarious to me how she puts growing hair out on the same level as HEALING WOUNDS/

And it also illustrates how petty she is. She apparently made such a fuss about Jean-Claude’s hair that he used their power to grow his hair just to please Anita instead of doing something more useful like healing wounds.

/"I don't have a problem with you being the better man, Anita; I never have."/

Nobody would say that. Unless Zerbrowski is fully aware of how desperately Anita wants to be a member of the boys’ club and is just indulging her.

/that guy moment where you can't actually say how many emotions you've got running through your brain/

Because men never express their emotions EVER. Especially not in countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, etc. where men being physically and emotionally demonstrative is normal. Also, all women blab out their emotions. It’s why we have such terms like “ice queen” because it’s impossible for a woman to be stoic.

/It took us one sentence, two looks, and a nod--with another woman it would have been at least five minutes of out-loud talking./

Because, again, women are all chatterboxes who can’t stop talking. Unlike Miss Perfect Anita here, who never shuts up about her guns, her “toughness,” other women, her boyfriends’ looks, etc.

/I spoke fluent guy/

Anita, get over yourself. That is one of the stupidest things you have ever said. “Fluent guy?” Wow, I’m amazed that colleges and high schools don't have courses on how to speak Man. Because men are a different race and a different species who speak a language that is entirely alien to the female mind, don’t you know?

What's funny about the "man language" is this: more commonly, women are affected by emotions and men go for logic (of course, this varies widely and men also have emotions while women obviously have logic). What I find funny is Anita, who is not a very logical person at all speaks "fluent man."

About the thing on your rat, don't worry. My dog got one after she had her rabies update. The vet drained it and it looked like blackish, clumpy sand came out. Smelled horrible. I forgot what he said it was, but it never came back even though he said it might. Just make sure you've got it all and cleaned it completely out. (She hated it.)

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KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER FOUR

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