KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER EIGHT
Dec. 23rd, 2013 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_rat-I finished reading Ch. 45 of KtD: Confirms vampires who have faith can indeed power holy objects, including against other vampires! I know a lot of us were wondering about that (I sure was!) so now we know!
- Dad and I decided that Boo would totally fight Dracula. Because Dracula abducts babies to feed to the lady vampires in the book. BOO ISN'T HAVING THAT COMPETITION! We also made up that he gets in a fight with Lestat and just eats him and shits him out over and over (since he heals/doesn't die) and Akasha decides to hook up with Boo instead of Lestat cuz Boo is clearly stronger.
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER EIGHT
We are informed that Micah's ringtone is Stray Cat Strut by Stray Cats, that Nathaniel picked it because he gave everyone their personal ringtones, and Anita doesn't think it's perfect for Micah but hasn't found anything that fits better yet. She tells us that his business answer is always "Micah Callahan here" but that's not the answer he gives to her because, duh, she isn't business, he just says her name with relief and then sounds businesslike ("businessier" you know, Buffy-speak really only works with dialogue) as he tells her he didn't expect a call from her this early what with the crime scene and all. Said relief and swift "recovery" from it makes Anita "start with an apology that no amount of criticism, or whining, could have gotten from me." Something about this makes me want to roll my eyes and snark but I'm not sure what. She says she's sorry she didn't call earlier but she knew they'd want to know she wasn't one of the dead officers. And then she regrets using the word dead but then she doesn't.
Anita then tells us what he looks like, starting with his "chartreuse eyes, green and gold, depending on the light. Leopard eyes, because a very bad man had forced him to stay in animal form until he couldn't come all the way back to human" But not long enough to actually deform him in an unattractive way, just give him super-pretty eyes that are obviously Anita's favorite part of him, even more so than his monstrously massive wang, because she always mentions them first in any book where she's describing him. He has deep brown curls, and is "my size, the shortest man in my life, with the delicate frame to go with it, but he'd muscle over that fragile-seeming body, and like me he made the most of what he had." Come to think of it, Nathaniel too used to be emphasized as having a very fragile-looking body but has bulked up some in recent books. I wonder, did LKH's preferences just change regarding what body type she likes best for men, or is this, as some commenters have suggested, just another way of Anita compensating for her own lack of being an actual big strong man, much like her many big guns? Beefing up Anita would be ~icky~! because eeeew muscular women, so she just beefs up her boys instead! Practically the same thing since they're just extensions of her, really, not people.
Micah says that Nathaniel would have told him if Anita were hurt and there is a "slight tremor" in his voice. Anita explains to us that he and Nathaniel had moved in with her had the same time and they have been "a happy little threesome" for two years since. I immediately find myself wishing that these two were her only romantic relationships. They're the most focused on already besides Jean-Claude and, since his unfortunate introduction, Nicky, and if you took out all the icksome messed-up stuff about them and the series were actually well-written, I think I'd like them together, at least as much as I'm likely to like anything romantic at all, especially something that isn't ladies-only. AB was actually my introduction to the very idea of a triad, in the form of JC/Asher/Julianna, not just a girl with two boyfriends or a guy with a girlfriend and boyfriend, but three of them all with each other. It really, really interested me, charmed me even, and I was excited when it looked like Anita might enter in to something like that with JC and Richard or JC and Asher...not excited sexually, no, but excited as in I was just excited to be reading something NEW in regards to romance, since everything I'd read till then had just featured straight monogamous couples. AB was also, alas, my first introduction to anything with LGBT characters present besides the Sailor Moon manga.
Anyway, she then tells us how Micah is her Nimir-Raj/Leopard King and she is a Nimir-Ra/Leopard Queen whereas Nathaniel is her Therian Servant as if she were a vampire, and while Micah and her have "an amazing metaphysical connection" (making up for any actual chemistry or development of their relationship) but that with Nathaniel it's so strong and intense that "if I died, there was a very real chance that he'd die with me" but not so much the other way around since Human and Therian Servants (and, she is sure to note, "in my case a Vampire Servant" to remind us she's special) are "meant to feed the Master vampire energy, strength, which meant the vampire would feed on the servant's energy first to stay alive longer" and she cites how she wasn't hurt much when Nathaniel almost died from a gunshot wound in Bullet (uh, it was a shoulder shot, how would he almost die from that? I guess blood loss?) but that if she dies then "Micah would almost surely lose us both. I hadn't thought up until this moment how that must make him feel. I was a coldhearted idiot."
YEAH, YOU REALLY SURE AS HELL ARE. Heck, even keeping this job, which frequently puts you in potential line of fire, shows that you really don't care about the fact you'd take a string of people with you should you die, or are too dumb to have even considered it, to say nothing of those little hunting trip plans you made with Edward in Hit List. At least this answers, I guess, why she'd need to call at all to tell them she's okay when, tied to her as they are, you'd think they'd all know.
Anita says she's so sorry. Micah asks for what, since shockingly Mr. Perfect is unable to just read her mind in this instance, she just shakes her head and decides that he already knows it (even though he sounds "genuinely puzzled") and because "that I'd only just now figured it out would probably not earn me any couple brownie points." It's okay Anita, I think he already knows you're as stupid as you are selfish. She says to nevermind and that she just wanted to be sure he'd tell everyone she's okay. Still sounding slightly puzzled, Micah agrees then, asks if she could spare a few minutes to talk to Cynric. Oh shit I wish I drank booze so I could take a few shots to get ready for this. Anita asks why him in particular Micah says he saw the report on the news with her standing surrounded by bodies, and that he is "scared for you and Nathaniel." Huh. The part that interests me here is Nathaniel. Why is Cynric scared for him? Why does he care about him? Are they friends? What about her other men? What kind of relations does he have with them, them with each other, etc.?
Anita tells us that "Nathaniel and Cynric were close, maybe because they were closer in age. Cyn had figured out the issue with Nathaniel before I had; I felt slow." THE ISSUE BEING THAT IF YOU GET SHOT/HURT/DEAD/ETC HE'LL PROBABLY DIE. WHICH YOU HAVE KNOWN SINCE HIS BECOMING YOUR THERIAN SERVANT, BUT SOMEHOW NEVER PUT TOGETHER WITH THE FACT YOU HAVE A JOB THAT FREQUENTLY PUTS YOUR LIFE IN DANGER. THAT GOES BEYOND SLOW. Not to mention she still doesn't seem to have put this equation together yet for anyone BUT Nathaniel; there's no mention of her other Therian Servants, including Cynric himself, and how the same would happen to them. Anita swears, Micah agrees with the swear, Anita says to put him on but she can't talk long because they need her to talk with the still-alive vampires, Micah says he just needs to hear her voice, she sighs and says sure, and "was dreading the next few minutes for so many reasons." As am I, Anita, as am I. "Cynric had been with us almost a year now." Without ever being onscreen, for which I am grateful "He'd turned eighteen" this makes NOTHING less creepy "old enough to die for his country, but I still wasn't sure he was old enough to be my lover." Then if you're not sure, don't do it. I mean, there are lots of reasons you shouldn't do it anyway, but this is just yet another, and since Anita is a selfish fuck maybe it's the only one she'll respond to since it involves *her* supposed discomfort. Also, the phrase about how he's old enough to die for his country is really not the phrase someone would use if they thought he wasn't old enough for something else, since that's something that's usually only ever brought up to argue that a person is old enough that they should have the right to do something---if they're old enough to die for their country then they're old enough to drink, for instance, is a common argument. She's basically saying "Oh sure I think maybe he isn't old enough to be my lover, but here's a little argument about how he totally is."
"Of all the men in my life, Cynric bothered me the most." So don't be with him. No one is making you. There's no metaphysical requirements. This is really, really simple. She then tells us about how he's her blue tiger Therian Servant/blue tiger to call, and that she has so many weretigers who are also her Therian Servants that it's possible she could drain their energy enough not to hurt Nathaniel "if I could pick and choose whose energy I took." WOW. DID SHE JUST SAY...WOW. "The fact that I'd trade Cynric's life for Nathaniel's given a choice, didn't make me feel any better about Cynric being my lover." So why is he your lover? There is no requirement that a Therian Servant has to be lovers with their vampire Master. We've seen plenty of pairs are implied or stated to be having sex, such as Yasmeen/Marguerite and Musette/Angelito, but we've also seen a lot where it's not implied at all and in fact seems downright unlikely, such as Nikolaos/Burchard and Padma/Gideon/Carswell. So the way Anita keeps complaining as if she *has* to be sexually involved with Cynric just makes no sense and is really irritating.
Anita then tells us how Cynric is one of the people that have to call and text her while she's working because he can't contact her telepathically like Jean-Claude and some others, and some can just "feel me, sense me, we could share sensations and emotions". I kinda wonder what determines who has what degree of connection? Cynric gets on the phone and says he's sorry about the news freaking him out. "His voice sounded even younger than usual, not a kid's voice but a man's either." I'M NOT A GIRL, NOT YET A WOMAN! And of course we are informed of how he looks in purplelicious detail: 5'9 and still growing, deep cobalt blue hair that looks black in low light, and "his eyes were two colors, the way some cats' eyes could be, with a paler ring of blue and a darker inner ring that was almost as dark a blue as Jean-Claude's midnight blue." And then she tells us about how the pureblood tigers are born with tiger eyes and it's a mark of their purity but "there were occasional throwbacks to human eyes among them, but that usually meant they were survivors of an attack and had started life as human" Firstly, you were talking about pureblood tigers, not the survivor ones, and secondly I don't think you know what the word 'throwback' means. "or sometimes it was just a sign of how even the pure tiger clans occasionally married and bred with a human being. They liked to deny it, but when you're lonely enough you take what you can find." Firstly, I don't think they deny it, we were told in Skin Trade how they intermarry with the locals wherever they settle so they look, pigmentation aside, like the majority people of whatever country they're in, hence why the American weretigers all look like white people despite the fact they came from China. Secondly, I guess Domino and Ethan weren't all that tragically lonely then, since they refused to get with survivors or fellow mixed-lines!
And then she tells us how Cynric is the last blue weretiger male and the white tigers of Vegas found him in an orphanage...it's lucky she didn't say *where* the orphanage was, because if it was in America, I would have gone off on a rant about how there are barely any orphanages left in the USA and we mostly now run on the foster care system instead. This has become QUITE the pet peeve of mine after years of roleplaying and seeing modern American kid characters galore who came poorly-researched orphanages, usually of the Oliver Twist type. Anita "fought the urge to squirm uncomfortably" and then tells Cynric that the news doesn't usually get crime scene footage "this fresh" and he says two officers were reported dead and she says he knew she wasn't dead and he says he knows he would have felt the energy drain if she had but she shields so well that sometimes he can't sense her at all and it scares him. She tells us she didn't know that, and she said she's sorry it bothers him but "I can't let you guys know about investigations." He says he knows but it scared him, and cusses in the process, and Anita thinks how "he hadn't cussed when first came to us, but he'd picked it up from me--or maybe trying to "date" me would drive any man to curse?" I swear a lot just READING about it!
Anita says she's really sorry for that but she has to go question the surviving vampires. Cynric says he knows she has to work and solve the crime (what, you mean the crime SHE set off that ended with the slaughter of citizens in custody?) and Anita says yes and he asks when she'll be home and she says it's such a mess she doesn't know and he tells her to be careful "and again his voice sounded young, fragile" ICK ICK ICK and she says she'll be careful as she can be and he says he knows she has to do her job and "he sounded defensive" and she says "I've got to go, Cynric" and he says she knows that's not what he likes to be called and so she calls him "Sin" instead and repeats that she has to go. She tells us how she hates that he likes to be called that and how "we'd tried spelling in Cyn, but no one could spell it" IT IS THREE LETTERS "that the only teenager in my bed" THANK GOD FOR THAT "preferred to be called "Sin" was just rubbing salt in my already wounded sense of self." AKA daring to remind you that you are actually doing something BAD AND WRONG by doing him! Listen to this rubbing, Anita! Listen to it!
Cynric says he'll see her when she gets home, she says it may be after dawn, he says to just wake him up, and "I had to count to ten to keep from snapping at him" WHAT WHY "but it was my discomfort that wanted to snap, not really him." Okay, badly phrased, but I get what she means and that makes sense. You know what doesn't make sense? Why she doesn't see the solution I keep harping on: Don't sleep with him. Keep him in St. Louis if you must because he's your Therian Servant and it's safer for him to have him near, but you don't need to fuck him! She tells us how he's too young to be able to deal with "me being shot at yet" and how even "some men decades older than Sin couldn't deal with my job." Yeah, Anita, it's not just him having to deal with dating/fucking a cop, it's the fact that HE IS YOUR THERIAN SERVANT, BLUE TIGER TO CALL, THAT MEANS IF YOU GET HURT HE WILL TOO! OF COURSE HE'S SCARED! She seems to have put these pieces together when it comes to Nathaniel, but not, bizarrely, all her other Therian Servants plus Damian. How weird is that? Well, I guess no less weird than that she didn't even realize it for Nathaniel until THIS FREAKING CHAPTER...
Anita says she'd rather let him sleep, he says to wake him and his voice "sounds older" and has "demand in those two words". Okay, so now all I can think of is the lyrics from Little Girls by Oingo Boingo about how They don't ask me questions! They don't want to scold me! They don't look for answers! They just want to hold me! Ugh though, no wonder Anita can't have a functional relationship with people her own age, because she nearly has a "knee-jerk reaction to that" but then decides that "I was the grown-up; I'd behave like it." THIS PHRASE IS ALL THE CREEPY WHEN YOU CONSIDERING SHE'S FUCKING HIM. Cynric says she's mad and sounds sullen, she says she doesn't want to fight but she has to go, he says he loves her. She says she loves him to but tells us she's not sure if it's true. "In fact, I knew it wasn't. I cared for him, but I didn't love him the way I loved Jean-Claude, or Micah, or Nathaniel, or..." Yeah, I love those other guys, but I'm not gonna bother naming 'em! Also, wow, the first case of Anita admitting she's NOT in love with a guy she's boffing...and yet I can't help but wonder if it's only because it's meant to make her look better? Like "Okay, she's fucking a teen because she has to (for no specified reason) but she's not in love with him, she knows it's wrong see!"
"But I said the words, because because when someone says they love you, you're supposed to say it back. Or maybe I was just too cowardly" so she says she loves him. She is cowardly as fuck, in my opinion, not for this but for her utter inability to take responsibility for anything she does, and how she seems to have just passively lied down for "well I have to fuck Cynric regularly because...uh, reasons...no matter how icked-out I feel, oh well, I shall sit here and angst while not ever even looking for any solutions for an entire year". Micah takes the phone on Cynric's end and tells Anita he'll take care of things. Anita swears about how she has to have "her head in the game here" and asks if Cynric is all right. Micah says to "solve the crime, catch the bad guys, do your job; Nathaniel and I will take care of Sin." She already caught the bad guys at the brewery who were trying to forcibly turn that girl; the only 'bad guy' left is her. And then THIS disgusting spectacle of a conversation happens:
Anita: I love you
Micah: I know, and I love you more.
Anita: I love you most.
Nathaniel: I love you mostest.
MOSTEST.
I LOVE YOU MOSTEST.
OH GOD I AM GOING TO PUKE ALL OVER EVERYTHING UGH UGH UGH IS THIS WOMAN SERIOUSLY ALMOST 30?!
And then she "got off the phone in tears. I loved Nathaniel and Micah, so much. There was no guilt there. We made each other happy." Yeah, Nathaniel was made clear as someone with severely impaired ability to consent and who should not be in a relationship until after years of therapy, and Micah fucking raped Anita, but they make each other happy! Still probably the most functional relationship she's got, though, sadly, if only because they mutually abuse each other rather than it being one-way like her other relationships sans JC. Hence why I'd pick them as Anita's only boyfriends, because they seem to be the ones LKH likes to write most anyway. She thinks about how "Cynric should have been with someone who loved him the way I loved them. The way I loved Jean-Claude. Hell, the way I loved Asher, or Nicky, or even Jason." yes, do tell us more about how you love Asher even though it was only recently you started *letting* him have sex with his lover of centuries before you came along. Or how you can claim to love Nicky when you don't even know him, just this souless doll with no personality you created out of his shell after you ate his real self. Also, dollars to donuts if Cynric does get a girlfriend around his own age, she'll be portrayed as vapid, obnoxious, super stereotypically teenaged, and jealous of Anita. She'll also probably "dress like a hooker" like Anita complained about kids doing in Skin Trade, making herself sound a lot more like a grandma than I think LKH intended.
"He shouldn't have to compromise for a relationship that got him great sex" THANK YOU FOR INFORMING US THE SEX WITH HIM IS GREAT, ANITA, TOTALLY NEEDED THAT IN MY MIND "and even love of a kind." Like the love someone has for a dog...no, that's not accurate, people do genuinely love their pets, I should know. This is more like...the love someone has for a good dildo. "I didn't think I'd ever be in love with Cynric." and how he deserves someone who is and doesn't everyone and she wasn't sure she can give that too him and then it makes her have "unshed tears" that he hard to hear them say "our cute little trio" of I love you more/most/etc. Yeah, that was probably painful for him, Anita, I'm sure, but not in the way I think you're thinking. And she thinks how she has crime to solve and rogue vamps to find and she can't afford to be distracted by a teenager who loves her more than she does him. I notice she doesn't even seem to give a thought about how the fact Cynric "loves" her was induced by his being bound to her as her Therian Servant (something that doesn't usually happen with Human/Therian Servants, but we all know by now that Anita Is Special, right?) and thus it's not even real at all and isn't that pretty disturbing? But that's not flattering to her (just convenient because it means, as with Meph and Domino and Ethan and the others, that she doesn't ever need to actually work at building a relationship) and might actually suggest that *gasp* him being in love with Anita is a bad thing, so it never comes up or crosses her mind.
Nope, "the thought that cut me deepest" and makes her wipe away tears is "He loved me, was in love with me, and I didn't feel the same. If he hadn't been metaphysically bound to me, I could have broken up with him, sent him home, but once some preternatural bonds happen, they can't be undone. We were trapped, Cynric and I, and there was no way to undo it." and the chapter ends.
Let me list all the reasons that this is TOTAL BULLSHIT:
1) As I said, there is no indication ever given in canon that Therian Servants *have* to have sex with their Vampire Masters for *any* reason. They can if they want, and some do, and the Master could probably force them, but it is not required that the Master and Therian Servant have sex because of the bond.
2) There has never been any other reason given as to why Anita *has* to have sex with Cynric.
3) And why did he even fall in love with her when she made him her Therian Servant? That's never explained either, but it was stated in Skin trade and Bullet that Cynric fell in love for that reason. Yes, the Master takes a portion of their Servant's free will, but that's not the same as the Servant falling in love with them. We've never seen this with any other Master/Servant pair. We've seen pairs that are in love (Marguerite/Yasmeen, Sabin/Cassandra/Dominic), but it's never indicated that they're in love as a result of the bonding process like Cynric and some of the others in the harem. So Anita Is Just Special...for absolutely no reason. God, LKH, couldn't you even shove in some bullshit about Anita's ardeur being about love and that's why, or something? Maybe say she got that power from Augustine, who *could* make people fall in love with him? SHITTY JUSTIFICATION IS SOMETIMES BETTER THAN NONE! Sometimes.
4) No way to break the bond....even though it's established in Skin Trade that Anita has the power to break Master/Servant bonds, and also did so in Bullet. Couldn't she at least TRY with Cynric, Nicky, etc.? Try and fail if you really want her to keep her sex slaves for whatever icky reasons you have, but having her know she *can* break these bonds but never even thinking to try with her own bonded Servants while complaining about it...she looks terminally stupid, among other things. Or just lying.
- Dad and I decided that Boo would totally fight Dracula. Because Dracula abducts babies to feed to the lady vampires in the book. BOO ISN'T HAVING THAT COMPETITION! We also made up that he gets in a fight with Lestat and just eats him and shits him out over and over (since he heals/doesn't die) and Akasha decides to hook up with Boo instead of Lestat cuz Boo is clearly stronger.
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER EIGHT
We are informed that Micah's ringtone is Stray Cat Strut by Stray Cats, that Nathaniel picked it because he gave everyone their personal ringtones, and Anita doesn't think it's perfect for Micah but hasn't found anything that fits better yet. She tells us that his business answer is always "Micah Callahan here" but that's not the answer he gives to her because, duh, she isn't business, he just says her name with relief and then sounds businesslike ("businessier" you know, Buffy-speak really only works with dialogue) as he tells her he didn't expect a call from her this early what with the crime scene and all. Said relief and swift "recovery" from it makes Anita "start with an apology that no amount of criticism, or whining, could have gotten from me." Something about this makes me want to roll my eyes and snark but I'm not sure what. She says she's sorry she didn't call earlier but she knew they'd want to know she wasn't one of the dead officers. And then she regrets using the word dead but then she doesn't.
Anita then tells us what he looks like, starting with his "chartreuse eyes, green and gold, depending on the light. Leopard eyes, because a very bad man had forced him to stay in animal form until he couldn't come all the way back to human" But not long enough to actually deform him in an unattractive way, just give him super-pretty eyes that are obviously Anita's favorite part of him, even more so than his monstrously massive wang, because she always mentions them first in any book where she's describing him. He has deep brown curls, and is "my size, the shortest man in my life, with the delicate frame to go with it, but he'd muscle over that fragile-seeming body, and like me he made the most of what he had." Come to think of it, Nathaniel too used to be emphasized as having a very fragile-looking body but has bulked up some in recent books. I wonder, did LKH's preferences just change regarding what body type she likes best for men, or is this, as some commenters have suggested, just another way of Anita compensating for her own lack of being an actual big strong man, much like her many big guns? Beefing up Anita would be ~icky~! because eeeew muscular women, so she just beefs up her boys instead! Practically the same thing since they're just extensions of her, really, not people.
Micah says that Nathaniel would have told him if Anita were hurt and there is a "slight tremor" in his voice. Anita explains to us that he and Nathaniel had moved in with her had the same time and they have been "a happy little threesome" for two years since. I immediately find myself wishing that these two were her only romantic relationships. They're the most focused on already besides Jean-Claude and, since his unfortunate introduction, Nicky, and if you took out all the icksome messed-up stuff about them and the series were actually well-written, I think I'd like them together, at least as much as I'm likely to like anything romantic at all, especially something that isn't ladies-only. AB was actually my introduction to the very idea of a triad, in the form of JC/Asher/Julianna, not just a girl with two boyfriends or a guy with a girlfriend and boyfriend, but three of them all with each other. It really, really interested me, charmed me even, and I was excited when it looked like Anita might enter in to something like that with JC and Richard or JC and Asher...not excited sexually, no, but excited as in I was just excited to be reading something NEW in regards to romance, since everything I'd read till then had just featured straight monogamous couples. AB was also, alas, my first introduction to anything with LGBT characters present besides the Sailor Moon manga.
Anyway, she then tells us how Micah is her Nimir-Raj/Leopard King and she is a Nimir-Ra/Leopard Queen whereas Nathaniel is her Therian Servant as if she were a vampire, and while Micah and her have "an amazing metaphysical connection" (making up for any actual chemistry or development of their relationship) but that with Nathaniel it's so strong and intense that "if I died, there was a very real chance that he'd die with me" but not so much the other way around since Human and Therian Servants (and, she is sure to note, "in my case a Vampire Servant" to remind us she's special) are "meant to feed the Master vampire energy, strength, which meant the vampire would feed on the servant's energy first to stay alive longer" and she cites how she wasn't hurt much when Nathaniel almost died from a gunshot wound in Bullet (uh, it was a shoulder shot, how would he almost die from that? I guess blood loss?) but that if she dies then "Micah would almost surely lose us both. I hadn't thought up until this moment how that must make him feel. I was a coldhearted idiot."
YEAH, YOU REALLY SURE AS HELL ARE. Heck, even keeping this job, which frequently puts you in potential line of fire, shows that you really don't care about the fact you'd take a string of people with you should you die, or are too dumb to have even considered it, to say nothing of those little hunting trip plans you made with Edward in Hit List. At least this answers, I guess, why she'd need to call at all to tell them she's okay when, tied to her as they are, you'd think they'd all know.
Anita says she's so sorry. Micah asks for what, since shockingly Mr. Perfect is unable to just read her mind in this instance, she just shakes her head and decides that he already knows it (even though he sounds "genuinely puzzled") and because "that I'd only just now figured it out would probably not earn me any couple brownie points." It's okay Anita, I think he already knows you're as stupid as you are selfish. She says to nevermind and that she just wanted to be sure he'd tell everyone she's okay. Still sounding slightly puzzled, Micah agrees then, asks if she could spare a few minutes to talk to Cynric. Oh shit I wish I drank booze so I could take a few shots to get ready for this. Anita asks why him in particular Micah says he saw the report on the news with her standing surrounded by bodies, and that he is "scared for you and Nathaniel." Huh. The part that interests me here is Nathaniel. Why is Cynric scared for him? Why does he care about him? Are they friends? What about her other men? What kind of relations does he have with them, them with each other, etc.?
Anita tells us that "Nathaniel and Cynric were close, maybe because they were closer in age. Cyn had figured out the issue with Nathaniel before I had; I felt slow." THE ISSUE BEING THAT IF YOU GET SHOT/HURT/DEAD/ETC HE'LL PROBABLY DIE. WHICH YOU HAVE KNOWN SINCE HIS BECOMING YOUR THERIAN SERVANT, BUT SOMEHOW NEVER PUT TOGETHER WITH THE FACT YOU HAVE A JOB THAT FREQUENTLY PUTS YOUR LIFE IN DANGER. THAT GOES BEYOND SLOW. Not to mention she still doesn't seem to have put this equation together yet for anyone BUT Nathaniel; there's no mention of her other Therian Servants, including Cynric himself, and how the same would happen to them. Anita swears, Micah agrees with the swear, Anita says to put him on but she can't talk long because they need her to talk with the still-alive vampires, Micah says he just needs to hear her voice, she sighs and says sure, and "was dreading the next few minutes for so many reasons." As am I, Anita, as am I. "Cynric had been with us almost a year now." Without ever being onscreen, for which I am grateful "He'd turned eighteen" this makes NOTHING less creepy "old enough to die for his country, but I still wasn't sure he was old enough to be my lover." Then if you're not sure, don't do it. I mean, there are lots of reasons you shouldn't do it anyway, but this is just yet another, and since Anita is a selfish fuck maybe it's the only one she'll respond to since it involves *her* supposed discomfort. Also, the phrase about how he's old enough to die for his country is really not the phrase someone would use if they thought he wasn't old enough for something else, since that's something that's usually only ever brought up to argue that a person is old enough that they should have the right to do something---if they're old enough to die for their country then they're old enough to drink, for instance, is a common argument. She's basically saying "Oh sure I think maybe he isn't old enough to be my lover, but here's a little argument about how he totally is."
"Of all the men in my life, Cynric bothered me the most." So don't be with him. No one is making you. There's no metaphysical requirements. This is really, really simple. She then tells us about how he's her blue tiger Therian Servant/blue tiger to call, and that she has so many weretigers who are also her Therian Servants that it's possible she could drain their energy enough not to hurt Nathaniel "if I could pick and choose whose energy I took." WOW. DID SHE JUST SAY...WOW. "The fact that I'd trade Cynric's life for Nathaniel's given a choice, didn't make me feel any better about Cynric being my lover." So why is he your lover? There is no requirement that a Therian Servant has to be lovers with their vampire Master. We've seen plenty of pairs are implied or stated to be having sex, such as Yasmeen/Marguerite and Musette/Angelito, but we've also seen a lot where it's not implied at all and in fact seems downright unlikely, such as Nikolaos/Burchard and Padma/Gideon/Carswell. So the way Anita keeps complaining as if she *has* to be sexually involved with Cynric just makes no sense and is really irritating.
Anita then tells us how Cynric is one of the people that have to call and text her while she's working because he can't contact her telepathically like Jean-Claude and some others, and some can just "feel me, sense me, we could share sensations and emotions". I kinda wonder what determines who has what degree of connection? Cynric gets on the phone and says he's sorry about the news freaking him out. "His voice sounded even younger than usual, not a kid's voice but a man's either." I'M NOT A GIRL, NOT YET A WOMAN! And of course we are informed of how he looks in purplelicious detail: 5'9 and still growing, deep cobalt blue hair that looks black in low light, and "his eyes were two colors, the way some cats' eyes could be, with a paler ring of blue and a darker inner ring that was almost as dark a blue as Jean-Claude's midnight blue." And then she tells us about how the pureblood tigers are born with tiger eyes and it's a mark of their purity but "there were occasional throwbacks to human eyes among them, but that usually meant they were survivors of an attack and had started life as human" Firstly, you were talking about pureblood tigers, not the survivor ones, and secondly I don't think you know what the word 'throwback' means. "or sometimes it was just a sign of how even the pure tiger clans occasionally married and bred with a human being. They liked to deny it, but when you're lonely enough you take what you can find." Firstly, I don't think they deny it, we were told in Skin Trade how they intermarry with the locals wherever they settle so they look, pigmentation aside, like the majority people of whatever country they're in, hence why the American weretigers all look like white people despite the fact they came from China. Secondly, I guess Domino and Ethan weren't all that tragically lonely then, since they refused to get with survivors or fellow mixed-lines!
And then she tells us how Cynric is the last blue weretiger male and the white tigers of Vegas found him in an orphanage...it's lucky she didn't say *where* the orphanage was, because if it was in America, I would have gone off on a rant about how there are barely any orphanages left in the USA and we mostly now run on the foster care system instead. This has become QUITE the pet peeve of mine after years of roleplaying and seeing modern American kid characters galore who came poorly-researched orphanages, usually of the Oliver Twist type. Anita "fought the urge to squirm uncomfortably" and then tells Cynric that the news doesn't usually get crime scene footage "this fresh" and he says two officers were reported dead and she says he knew she wasn't dead and he says he knows he would have felt the energy drain if she had but she shields so well that sometimes he can't sense her at all and it scares him. She tells us she didn't know that, and she said she's sorry it bothers him but "I can't let you guys know about investigations." He says he knows but it scared him, and cusses in the process, and Anita thinks how "he hadn't cussed when first came to us, but he'd picked it up from me--or maybe trying to "date" me would drive any man to curse?" I swear a lot just READING about it!
Anita says she's really sorry for that but she has to go question the surviving vampires. Cynric says he knows she has to work and solve the crime (what, you mean the crime SHE set off that ended with the slaughter of citizens in custody?) and Anita says yes and he asks when she'll be home and she says it's such a mess she doesn't know and he tells her to be careful "and again his voice sounded young, fragile" ICK ICK ICK and she says she'll be careful as she can be and he says he knows she has to do her job and "he sounded defensive" and she says "I've got to go, Cynric" and he says she knows that's not what he likes to be called and so she calls him "Sin" instead and repeats that she has to go. She tells us how she hates that he likes to be called that and how "we'd tried spelling in Cyn, but no one could spell it" IT IS THREE LETTERS "that the only teenager in my bed" THANK GOD FOR THAT "preferred to be called "Sin" was just rubbing salt in my already wounded sense of self." AKA daring to remind you that you are actually doing something BAD AND WRONG by doing him! Listen to this rubbing, Anita! Listen to it!
Cynric says he'll see her when she gets home, she says it may be after dawn, he says to just wake him up, and "I had to count to ten to keep from snapping at him" WHAT WHY "but it was my discomfort that wanted to snap, not really him." Okay, badly phrased, but I get what she means and that makes sense. You know what doesn't make sense? Why she doesn't see the solution I keep harping on: Don't sleep with him. Keep him in St. Louis if you must because he's your Therian Servant and it's safer for him to have him near, but you don't need to fuck him! She tells us how he's too young to be able to deal with "me being shot at yet" and how even "some men decades older than Sin couldn't deal with my job." Yeah, Anita, it's not just him having to deal with dating/fucking a cop, it's the fact that HE IS YOUR THERIAN SERVANT, BLUE TIGER TO CALL, THAT MEANS IF YOU GET HURT HE WILL TOO! OF COURSE HE'S SCARED! She seems to have put these pieces together when it comes to Nathaniel, but not, bizarrely, all her other Therian Servants plus Damian. How weird is that? Well, I guess no less weird than that she didn't even realize it for Nathaniel until THIS FREAKING CHAPTER...
Anita says she'd rather let him sleep, he says to wake him and his voice "sounds older" and has "demand in those two words". Okay, so now all I can think of is the lyrics from Little Girls by Oingo Boingo about how They don't ask me questions! They don't want to scold me! They don't look for answers! They just want to hold me! Ugh though, no wonder Anita can't have a functional relationship with people her own age, because she nearly has a "knee-jerk reaction to that" but then decides that "I was the grown-up; I'd behave like it." THIS PHRASE IS ALL THE CREEPY WHEN YOU CONSIDERING SHE'S FUCKING HIM. Cynric says she's mad and sounds sullen, she says she doesn't want to fight but she has to go, he says he loves her. She says she loves him to but tells us she's not sure if it's true. "In fact, I knew it wasn't. I cared for him, but I didn't love him the way I loved Jean-Claude, or Micah, or Nathaniel, or..." Yeah, I love those other guys, but I'm not gonna bother naming 'em! Also, wow, the first case of Anita admitting she's NOT in love with a guy she's boffing...and yet I can't help but wonder if it's only because it's meant to make her look better? Like "Okay, she's fucking a teen because she has to (for no specified reason) but she's not in love with him, she knows it's wrong see!"
"But I said the words, because because when someone says they love you, you're supposed to say it back. Or maybe I was just too cowardly" so she says she loves him. She is cowardly as fuck, in my opinion, not for this but for her utter inability to take responsibility for anything she does, and how she seems to have just passively lied down for "well I have to fuck Cynric regularly because...uh, reasons...no matter how icked-out I feel, oh well, I shall sit here and angst while not ever even looking for any solutions for an entire year". Micah takes the phone on Cynric's end and tells Anita he'll take care of things. Anita swears about how she has to have "her head in the game here" and asks if Cynric is all right. Micah says to "solve the crime, catch the bad guys, do your job; Nathaniel and I will take care of Sin." She already caught the bad guys at the brewery who were trying to forcibly turn that girl; the only 'bad guy' left is her. And then THIS disgusting spectacle of a conversation happens:
Anita: I love you
Micah: I know, and I love you more.
Anita: I love you most.
Nathaniel: I love you mostest.
MOSTEST.
I LOVE YOU MOSTEST.
OH GOD I AM GOING TO PUKE ALL OVER EVERYTHING UGH UGH UGH IS THIS WOMAN SERIOUSLY ALMOST 30?!
And then she "got off the phone in tears. I loved Nathaniel and Micah, so much. There was no guilt there. We made each other happy." Yeah, Nathaniel was made clear as someone with severely impaired ability to consent and who should not be in a relationship until after years of therapy, and Micah fucking raped Anita, but they make each other happy! Still probably the most functional relationship she's got, though, sadly, if only because they mutually abuse each other rather than it being one-way like her other relationships sans JC. Hence why I'd pick them as Anita's only boyfriends, because they seem to be the ones LKH likes to write most anyway. She thinks about how "Cynric should have been with someone who loved him the way I loved them. The way I loved Jean-Claude. Hell, the way I loved Asher, or Nicky, or even Jason." yes, do tell us more about how you love Asher even though it was only recently you started *letting* him have sex with his lover of centuries before you came along. Or how you can claim to love Nicky when you don't even know him, just this souless doll with no personality you created out of his shell after you ate his real self. Also, dollars to donuts if Cynric does get a girlfriend around his own age, she'll be portrayed as vapid, obnoxious, super stereotypically teenaged, and jealous of Anita. She'll also probably "dress like a hooker" like Anita complained about kids doing in Skin Trade, making herself sound a lot more like a grandma than I think LKH intended.
"He shouldn't have to compromise for a relationship that got him great sex" THANK YOU FOR INFORMING US THE SEX WITH HIM IS GREAT, ANITA, TOTALLY NEEDED THAT IN MY MIND "and even love of a kind." Like the love someone has for a dog...no, that's not accurate, people do genuinely love their pets, I should know. This is more like...the love someone has for a good dildo. "I didn't think I'd ever be in love with Cynric." and how he deserves someone who is and doesn't everyone and she wasn't sure she can give that too him and then it makes her have "unshed tears" that he hard to hear them say "our cute little trio" of I love you more/most/etc. Yeah, that was probably painful for him, Anita, I'm sure, but not in the way I think you're thinking. And she thinks how she has crime to solve and rogue vamps to find and she can't afford to be distracted by a teenager who loves her more than she does him. I notice she doesn't even seem to give a thought about how the fact Cynric "loves" her was induced by his being bound to her as her Therian Servant (something that doesn't usually happen with Human/Therian Servants, but we all know by now that Anita Is Special, right?) and thus it's not even real at all and isn't that pretty disturbing? But that's not flattering to her (just convenient because it means, as with Meph and Domino and Ethan and the others, that she doesn't ever need to actually work at building a relationship) and might actually suggest that *gasp* him being in love with Anita is a bad thing, so it never comes up or crosses her mind.
Nope, "the thought that cut me deepest" and makes her wipe away tears is "He loved me, was in love with me, and I didn't feel the same. If he hadn't been metaphysically bound to me, I could have broken up with him, sent him home, but once some preternatural bonds happen, they can't be undone. We were trapped, Cynric and I, and there was no way to undo it." and the chapter ends.
Let me list all the reasons that this is TOTAL BULLSHIT:
1) As I said, there is no indication ever given in canon that Therian Servants *have* to have sex with their Vampire Masters for *any* reason. They can if they want, and some do, and the Master could probably force them, but it is not required that the Master and Therian Servant have sex because of the bond.
2) There has never been any other reason given as to why Anita *has* to have sex with Cynric.
3) And why did he even fall in love with her when she made him her Therian Servant? That's never explained either, but it was stated in Skin trade and Bullet that Cynric fell in love for that reason. Yes, the Master takes a portion of their Servant's free will, but that's not the same as the Servant falling in love with them. We've never seen this with any other Master/Servant pair. We've seen pairs that are in love (Marguerite/Yasmeen, Sabin/Cassandra/Dominic), but it's never indicated that they're in love as a result of the bonding process like Cynric and some of the others in the harem. So Anita Is Just Special...for absolutely no reason. God, LKH, couldn't you even shove in some bullshit about Anita's ardeur being about love and that's why, or something? Maybe say she got that power from Augustine, who *could* make people fall in love with him? SHITTY JUSTIFICATION IS SOMETIMES BETTER THAN NONE! Sometimes.
4) No way to break the bond....even though it's established in Skin Trade that Anita has the power to break Master/Servant bonds, and also did so in Bullet. Couldn't she at least TRY with Cynric, Nicky, etc.? Try and fail if you really want her to keep her sex slaves for whatever icky reasons you have, but having her know she *can* break these bonds but never even thinking to try with her own bonded Servants while complaining about it...she looks terminally stupid, among other things. Or just lying.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 09:27 pm (UTC)"Black and orange stray cat sitting on a fence
Ain't got enough to pay the rent.
I'm flat broke, but I don't care.
I strut right by with my tail in the air."
First off, leopards aren't black and ORANGE. Secondly, Micah has an all black leopard form. As for being broke, okay, he doesn't really have a job job. I mean, he runs the Furry Co, but there was never any indication that paid. However, we do find out in Affliction that Micah has been forcing people into the group by shagging and killing them. Why not make money that way as well. Still, even if he's not getting funds, he is hardly broke! Anita takes care of him! He gets to live in a nice house and owns custom made suits! That is hardly broke! As for the last line in this verse, when the fuck does Micah ever strut? Again, we learn he is being abusive so it is very possible that he has a different side to him when Anita is not around, but Anita doesn't know that, and she is the one saying this song is perfect for him!
"Stray cat strut, I'm a ladies' cat,
A feline Casanova, hey man, thats where its at
Get a shoe thrown at me from a mean old man
Get my dinner from a garbage can."
Excuse me while I clutch my sides in laughter. Micah! A ladies' man! Hahahahahahaha!A Casanova! Okay, even if women found him attractive as much as Anita seems to think, there is a difference between being seen as attractive to women and being a ladies' man. The rest of the verse I already complained about so no need to go over that again.
"I don't bother chasing mice around
I slink down the alley looking for a fight
Howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night
Singin' the blues while the lady cats cry,
"Wild stray cat, you're a real gone guy."
I wish I could be as carefree and wild,
but I got cat class and I got cat style."
Again, Micah is not portrayed as the type to go looking for a fight (until Affliction, but again, Anita doesn't know about that yet). Howling and singin... yeah, because Micah is soooooo (TM Anita Blake) vocal, and can't you just picture him being all soulful with something like the blues? As for wishing he was as carefree and wild, I could see that, but not because he was class and style, more because he is too much of a pansy.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:58 pm (UTC)I find it funny that Nate, supposedly one of the younger members of the group, picks a lot of old songs (mostly 80s stuff). Nothing wrong with the oldies and nothing wrong with young people liking oldies, but it just kinda hammers the point home that Nate only likes what Anita likes, and Anita's likes what LKH likes. The characters have all become extensions of LKH and I'm betting that every song Nate picks for his 'oh so cutesy ringtones' are just songs that LKH really likes and probably uses as ringtones too.
And really...if we wanted to pick a Micah ringtone, I think the choice is obvious:
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 09:45 pm (UTC)I also love how Anita says Cynric is the only blue tiger MALE left. First, she just needs these animals to help control her beasts, which a female could do just as easily (well, not in the ABverse since we know that all girls are weak and pathetic). Of course, there is usually kissing involved and the need to touch one another, and we can't have icky girl on girl sex(uality). Plus, as you pointed out, Anita doesn't HAVE to have sex with them! She doesn't need all these certain types of animals of food; she needs the specific type to control her own! Add on to the fact that she now has Ethan (you know, that red, white, blue, and now gold tiger she boinked in Hit List?). No, he's not a purebred blue tiger, but guess what? He still has blue in him! Besides, Domino is black and white and is able to calm both her white and black tigers, which means Ethan could be used as her blue, but if she did that, she couldn't have the "I am having sex with a teenager" wangst.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 09:49 pm (UTC)Imo, LKH is setting up for Cynric to either take Nathaniel's place when Nathaniel is killed off for no longer looking 16, or to be drained to death to save Nathaniel, at which point Nathaniel will magically look and act younger again because he has Cynric's life force or whatever.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 09:55 pm (UTC)A “very bad man?” Is she speaking to a child? Because that’s what it sounds like.
/this makes NOTHING less creepy/
Especially since it’s only NOW that he turns eighteen. She didn’t even wait until then to have a relationship with him. Which, if this book were taking place in reality, would get her slammed for statutory rape already.
/So don't be with him. No one is making you. There's no metaphysical requirements. This is really, really simple./
But he’s so HOT! He’s so young and sexy and Anita simply can’t resist him because he’s so attractive and he wants to have sex with her anyway, he’s so eager to please her – wait, what do you mean that this makes Anita sound like the female equivalent of Humbert Humbert? No, Anita’s not a dirty old man! She’s a sexy woman in her late twenties with a curvy waist and big bust whom all the men want and all the women envy! That makes it TOTALLY different.
/the way Anita keeps complaining as if she *has* to be sexually involved with Cynric just makes no sense/
And comes across as “the lady doth protest too much.” Or LKH trying to have her cake and eat it too: paying lip service to the twisted nature of Anita’s relationship with Cynric while having Anita pursue a relationship with him anyway. I mean, after all, isn’t this the same way that Anita tries to justify the ardeur? Oh, she didn’t really want to have sex with that hot guy, but she "had" to because the ardeur said so. She simply "had" to have sex with Joseph, a married man, or her loved ones would be doomed, which is why it’s perfectly acceptable for her to order a hit on him and his family for turning her down. Monica spoke the truth when she said, “Funny how it’s never your fault, Anita.”
/just rubbing salt in my already wounded sense of self."/
“Wounded sense of self?” Oh, is that what they call self-pitying-but-doing-nothing-to-stop-doing-what’s-wrong nowadays? Is that the new code word for how pedophiles and ephebophiles rationalize their behavior?
/"I was the grown-up; I'd behave like it." THIS PHRASE IS ALL THE CREEPY WHEN YOU CONSIDERING SHE'S FUCKING HIM/
This is another reason why a lot of people view May-December relationships between teenagers (even of-age teenagers) and older adults as creepy. Because, yes, there are adult May-December relationships with a huge age gap where both people behave as if there isn’t because they’re adults and have around the same level of maturity or interests. But a relationship where one of the partners attends the other’s PTA meeting and reminds herself that she, and only she, is the grown-up in this relationship? Umm, no.
/She says she loves him to but tells us she's not sure if it's true/
So, she lied to him. What a surprise.
/she's fucking a teen because she has to (for no specified reason) but she's not in love with him, she knows it's wrong see!"/
Uh, no, that just makes it worse. Because a lot of people who defend extreme May-December relationships like this often use the excuse that “the heart wants who it wants” and sometimes people just fall in love with a certain person, and the older person really does love the younger person, etc. Basically, love is what’s used to justify the relationship. Anita has just admitted that she doesn’t love Cynric. Therefore, any possible justification for her relationship with him has now been rendered null and void. She doesn’t love him, so why is she boinking a teenager? How does that make her any different from any other ephebophile?
/Micah: I know, and I love you more./
Oh, no, it’s Anakin and Padmé’s “I’m so in love with you” dialogue from “Revenge of the Sith!” D:
/"He shouldn't have to compromise for a relationship that got him great sex"/
And there LKH commits a Freudian slip. In the midst of all of this phony breast-beating about how Cynric deserves someone else, Anita naturally has to mention that she gives him great sex, which completely deflates her pretense at guilt. See, naysayers, there is a benefit for Cynric in this relationship! He gets great sex! That’s totally worth Anita exploiting him and sleeping with him for his body. That totally makes this relationship legitimate and right.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:06 pm (UTC)Not defending the relationship, but it has been legal. When Anita first shagged him, Cynric was 16. They were in Las Vegas. The age of consent is 16. They sent Cynric over to St. Louis when he was 17. That is Missouri's age of consent so yeah, Anita has been legal in THAT sense. This doesn't excuse all the other factors that are wrong in this relationship though.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 01:14 am (UTC)But I am aware that my interest in legality and accountability within fiction makes me an odd duck, particularly in the current superhero mania.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:56 pm (UTC)Cyric could consent to have sex with a thirty-eight year old divorcee that he randomly met in the grocery. He can't, however, consent to have sex with JC or Anita because they're his "guardians". (It's the same with teachers, coaches, foster parents, whatever.) Simply put, they're in positions of authority over him. And that's without even touching the other stuff in the standard inter-state custody agreement or the particulars of either state's laws.
And no, there's no excuse for LKH to have made this mistake since all of the pertinent laws and clauses are online, neatly marked and easily found on the states' websites, and really close textually to the age of consent thing. It took me about ten minutes to research.
(And all of that is without considering the in-universe stuff about magical coercion and rolling people and whatever else.)
no subject
Date: 2013-12-23 10:46 pm (UTC)Yuup. Justification, justification, empty justification. And at least with Humbert Humbert, there was the fun/challenge for the reader of seeing through his bullshit, despite its poetical beauty, and remembering that THIS IS A CHILD HE IS TALKING ABOUT and that all his claims of Lo being a huge whore who is asking for it are firstly right out the rape apologist handbook, secondly probably just his own delusions, and thirdly what aren't delusions are actually pretty innocent average teen-girl behaviors OR the behavioral results of his abusing her. Because Nabokov was a fucking MASTER of the unreliable narrator, as shown in this and in other novels as well, whereas LKH is not only not half the writer he was, she also seems to have no idea that her narrator is completely revolting. I will forever hold Humbert Humbert up as suceeding where Anita fails in making a brilliant read with a protagonist who is a truly awful person. SORRY FOR THE RANT I JUST REALLY LOVE NABOKOV AND LOLITA IS MY FAVE
Monica spoke the truth when she said, “Funny how it’s never your fault, Anita.”
AMEN
Uh, no, that just makes it worse. Because a lot of people who defend extreme May-December relationships like this often use the excuse that “the heart wants who it wants” and sometimes people just fall in love with a certain person, and the older person really does love the younger person,
Oh yeah, I know that's how it is normally. But the way Anita phrased it, and in the context, it really did sound like her saying "well if I'm not in love with him it's okay" bizarre as that is. I don't understand either, but that's what I got from her tone.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 09:01 pm (UTC)That advanced a grade?!
no subject
Date: 2013-12-25 01:05 am (UTC)