KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER 37
Mar. 12th, 2014 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratI got a new hamster! He's a Siberian dwarf, and he's been at the shelter for more than four months, poor little guy. A little girl that goes with her mom to the shelter calls him Piggy, but he doesn't actually have a real name. I was gonna go with Piggy too, but Dad thinks that's mean, so we're trying to think of something else.
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER 37
In which we get absolutely no mention of anything going on with Nicky, but we do get some really gross shit about abusive relationships and their victims, laced with racism and sexism.
"Since we weren't a hundred percent certain what had happened in the shower, the guards insisted on turning into a crowd." Pretending that she doesn't love having an entourage over every little thing, Anita claims to them that their muscle and weapons wouldn't be much help against the ardeur, but Claudia sticks the more-guards plan because "All she had to throw at the problem was more muscle" and "there was no arguing when she looked like that, so I didn't try. I didn't want to use up energy fighting with Claudia. I was saying it up to fight with Asher, and maybe Jean-Claude." So, firstly, Claudia is here stated to be like Anita in that she has no idea how to solve a problem except with violence, but it's portrayed as if she's stupid and pigheaded whereas the same is not portrayed with Anita piling on her weapons for no reason. Secondly, gotta love how Anita is actively *planning* to have a fight with Asher and JC.
Remember last chapter when she wonders if Asher was wearing the top to JC's pajama bottoms? He is, she borrows it, she's notices it is indeed a match, and is bothered by it. She also doesn't seem to recall wondering about it earlier. She then spends half a paragraph describing how it looks and feels and how big it is on itty bitty her, comparing wearing it to "a little girl borrowing my father's shirt" which, since it's Anita, has creepy vibes to it for me. She then takes a nice long paragraph to describe how and where she is wearing all her weapons on herself, and is "happy that my main gear bags were already in the bedroom." Again, all she's about to do is have a discussion with her boyfriend and recent ex, the former of which will die if she does and thus has incentive to protect her if the latter of which really was homicidal (which, really, he doesn't seem to be), and as for using the weapons on JC himself, well, if he dies so does she, so seriously what the fuck is she planning on here? They have so many guards it's hard to walk without bumping into them, and when they get to JC's door Anita tells them to stay outside. Godofredo (mercifully referred to by his full name for once) says that Claudia told them at least two of them have to have their eyes on Anita at all times. Anita asks why, Godofredo says "because Asher attacked you earlier tonight and put Sin in the hospital, and now Nicky is hurt. Claudia doesn't want any more problems tonight."
Anita says that Asher isn't going to hurt her again (then why the absurd amount of weaponry?) and that even if Claudia herself had been there during the thing with Nicky there's nothing she could have done except "made her and me uncomfortable with her watching me fuck Nicky." At this, "God's eyes widened a bit." I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO NOT READ THIS AS *THE* GOD. "He was never quite comfortable when I talked like a guy about sex." TALKED LIKE A GUY ABOUT SEX. HOW...HOW IS THIS THAT? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? He says he's sorry but his orders are clear, she says she's sorry but none of them are coming inside. He starts to protest, she holds up a hand, I am heavily bored, Anita says that she and JC outrank Claudia "so I'm going to throw down a presidential veto. I don't want or need an audience." Please, Anita always wants an audience for everything. Godofredo says that Asher gets out of hand because she isn't hard enough on him, she says that's true but it's in the past (yeah, like five minutes ago in the past), and that "Asher doesn't get any more free passes just because I love him...just because Jean-Claude loves him and keeps projecting that on to me." OH MY GOSH
OH MY GOSH
DID SHE JUST SAY
OH MY GOSH SHE DID
JC JUST PROJECTS HIS LOVE FOR ASHER ON TO HER
BECAUSE OF HER BOND TO HIM AS A HUMAN SERVANT, SHE FEELS WHAT HE DOES
ANITA QUITE POSSIBLY DOESN'T LOVE ASHER AND NEVER DID AND IS ADMITTING THAT
Of course, only now that he's become the new chew toy a la Richard.
Godo says he doesn't believe her, but JC, Asher by his side, backs her up and says that "There will be no more free passes for mon chardonneret" and Godo says that JC using his pet name for Asher "doesn't exactly make us believe you." Domino adds that Nicky made him promise to stay with Anita. Anita, missing the point, says she's not the one that almost died. Domino shrugs and runs his hands through his hair (again mentioned as being black and white curls, in case we forgot) which Anita says is a nervous gesture for him. She then describes specifically how much black vs white is in his hair right now, how it shows he's half black tiger and half white, how she has another mixed tiger named Ethan whose hair also reflects all his lines, how Domino's hair being mostly black right now means he was recently in his black tiger form while Ethan's hair stays as-is regardless of what color tiger he'd shifted into last. We then get told about Domino's "orange fire-colored eyes" and how they can't "pass for human" and how he was born with them because that's a mark of pureblood clan heritage for weretigers versus a punishment like with Micah. You know, we've never seen Domino in tiger form, white or black, and considering that we know from Julia and Victor that white tigers sometimes have hair the reflects their black stripes as well (Victor has solid white hair and is a solid white tiger with no stripes, Julia has pale brown streaks in her hair that Anita says mean her white tiger form has pale brown stripes), one of my friends thinks that Domino is not mixed at all, he's just a white tiger with heavy black striping and is totally playing Anita for sympathy. I agree with this. She also showed me a picture of a real white tiger with really heavy/close striping, and I wish I could find it again, it was neat.
Since Anita's inner descriptions take place in real time, I guess Domino figured Anita needs now to be reminded of what they were talking about, since he repeats what he said about Nicky making him promise not to leave Anita alone with Asher. Anita laughs "but it wasn't a good laugh" and says she can't blame him. She then looks at JC, and he says "I believe it will be your secrets, not ours, that you may not want Domino to hear" and Anita says she doesn't even know what that means, JC says it means "let your tiger join us and if you wish him not to hear things, it is your task to make him leave." Anita asks Domino what he'll do if she goes into JC's room without him. MAYBE GO NUTS, WHICH I AM ABOUT TO DO WITH THIS BORING POINTLESS STALLING SHIT. Domino shakes his head and asks if she saw what Nicky did to Ares, she says she did, he gives her an "eloquent" look with his "fire-colored eyes" and says he values her safety but doesn't want to have a real fight with Nicky. So basically even Anita's Therian Servants know she can't actually control even her Bride, the one person she's supposed to have absolute control over, and since it's her own desires that do said controlling, THAT MEANS SHE JUST DOESN'T CARE. And after saying this, "he smiled and shook his head". Accepting his fate, I guess.
Anita asks if this means he's coming in whether she wants him to or not, Domino reminds her what Asher did and asks why her bodyguards should trust him alone with anyone, and honestly with all the shit she's done to her own people I feel the same should be asked about Anita. Anita, however, thinks he sounds reasonable and asks Asher if he's going to behave. Asher says nothing he can say will comfort the guards and he doesn't blame them because "I have been beyond childish." Once again, I am pretty sure Asher is just suddenly meant to be bearing all of Anita's flaws. Anita says that Asher is "always so contrite afterward, but it never lasts" and that when "something pisses you off again, and it's like you forget." Asher nods and says that's fair and that he's truly sorry and Anita is right and, the most hilarious one to me considering who he is talking to, "Apologies that do not lead to better actions are empty things." Even more hilariously, Anita responds "Amen to that." I bet it is so hard for Asher and JC and all the guards to not just crack up.
Asher bows his head "all that golden hair spilling" and Anita thinks how "normally it made me sad that he felt he had to hide the scars that much" Um, he's not trying to hide them, he's bowing his head in apology and he has a LOT of hair "but tonight it reminded me of Nicky and the way his hair hid his own scars, and it just made me angry at him." This makes me want a vampire who has scars and hides them with his hair but it's his back hair instead. Anita agrees that Domino can come in, and tells Godofredo to tell Claudia that he did as he was told. Godofredo says Claudia wanted two guards with Anita, Anita says "Don't push it" and thinks how there must have been "something in my voice, or in my face, because he literally backed off, hands held sort of out" Because you are a volatile psycho control-freak and everyone is rightly scared that you'll hurt them over the smallest thing, Anita, that's what I think that "something" is. He says "Fine, as long as you take Domino with you, Claudia won't bitch-slap you" and Anita says Claudia is more likely to knock him on his ass instead of bitch-slap, and he says that too...god, conversation is so awkward with her.
Then Anita feels "the equivalent of a knock" on her psychic shields, and she can tell it's Damian so she drops said shields and can see him in her mind. She describes him to us and how he's six feet and has the whitest skin she's ever seen and his hair is the reddest red of fresh blood and eyes as green as grass and more about his super pale paleness and super red as red redness and she can feel that he is holding a hand so "a thought let me see the woman who was almost as tall as he was at his side." It's Cardinal...er, Cardinale. With a new random 'e' at the end of her name that I'm just not going to acknowledge in this spork because I think it's stupid, okay? And her hair is curly whereas his is straight and more orangey red but they are "both natural redheads, both tall, both slender, though he'd died with muscle over his frame, and she was just model-thin, but they were physically very well matched, like a team of beautiful horses chosen because they looked good together." WOW. JUST WOW. JUST GONNA LEAVE THAT HERE ON ITS OWN.
The info-dumping doesn't stop there. "Damian was manager at Jean-Claude's dance club, Danse Macabre" And Jason is manager at GP now too, right? I'm not saying they couldn't have great business skills but I feel like LKH decided 'oh, they can be the managers' because they're Anita's boyfriends more than anything else "and Cardinale was one of the dancers." BECAUSE NO ONE SUPERNATURAL IS NOT A STRIPPER. "She partnered him for some demonstrations of old dances that had existed when he was alive, but centuries before she was born." Partnered? Old dances? OH, SO SHE'S NOT A STRIPPER. That's right, Danse Macabre is, duh, a dance club as in actual dance. So we know Cardi is centuries younger than Damian, then. "She was also one of the taxi dancers, where you paid for the privilege of dancing with a vampire for a song. People loved dancing with the shapeshifters and vampires at Danse Macabre." Probably because they're all insanely hot people than because they're vampires and shapeshifters. In a world where vampires and shapeshifters are reporters, plumbers, and even junior high school biology teachers, I can't see people falling all over themselves at the idea of dancing with someone just based on that. And if they did, it's pretty gross and fetishistic (which is something that real-life minorities do face, but I don't think LKH is portraying it that way). Hell, most vampires and shapeshifters are supposedly average-looking people, like Irving the balding werewolf and the rebel vampires we met just this book, it's just Anita inexplicably seems to only meet the incredibly beautiful ones, good or evil, because I guess you just can't MATTER as a character if you aren't a very specific type of super-babe.
"The club even had a dance master who would work with new customers to teach them the ancient line dances. I'd seen the entire club floor thick with people: human, vampire, shapeshifter, all in neat rows with a hand held here and there, moving to a dance that no one had seen in centuries. It was just plain cool." It does sound cool, but that doesn't sound like a dance club. Now, I have never been to a club in my life except this very nice little gay bar in the my college town where they gave me a cupcake because it was the owners anniversary, but as far as I know, most dance clubs are more about, well, dance club music--techno and hip hop and such. And no one is required or instructed to dance a certain way. I could definitely see "learn ancient dances from people who were there!" being something that some people were interested in, but it'd be a more niche thing than the entire nightclub crowd would be into. It seems like something that you'd more hold a class for on Wednesdays before the place opened officially for the night, not the main attraction, but the way she says a dance master specifically helps the new customers makes it sound like ancient dances are all this place does, and I don't think that's going to get them the business they need. On another note, she says that no one has seen these dances done in centuries, but that's absurd considering that the people who originally knew and practiced these dances have been here all along. They didn't just pop up out of their graves for the first time overnight, and things like dance are probably one of the few cultural practices that a vampire could keep from their original time without it being detrimental to them the same way that keeping up, say, the business practices of their original time would be.
I'm not saying there couldn't be vampires doing this, just, it wouldn't be the first ever time like Anita is saying. And you know what'd be REALLY cool? The vampires who remember stuff like this telling it to historians! Oh yeah, and I'd just like to remind everyone, LKH said there was a difference between shapeshifters and "lycanthropes" way back in The Lunatic Cafe and has clearly either forgotten it since, or only shapeshifters and no "lycanthropes" are employed at DM.
"Damian let me see the second woman in front of him." It's Yiyu, and we hear all about how she looks before Anita actually tells us her name. First, she's tiny! So tiny! The only woman tinier than Anita! And delicate! And her hair is like "patent-leather water" meaning it's black and shiny...which Anita also says, so I see no need for the absurd description to say the same thing. And then the eyes, oh god the eyes. "Her uptilted eyes looked brown, but I'd spent enough time looking into them" time that, unlike with JC, we'll never actually see onscreen "to know they were actually an orange so dark they looked brown. In the right light they were the color of fire when it burns deep into the wood and you think the flame is out, but if you don't douse it with water, it'll flare up and burn the house down." FACE TO KEYBOARD. I HAVE NO WORDS. "Her Chinese name translated to Black Jade; to me she was just Jade, my Jade." Okay, her so-called Chinese name is JUST HER NAME. You don't say "my American name is Anita" do you? No, because that implies you have another name. Yiyu does not have a name besides Yiyu, unless you count the fact that Anita decided without asking her (and I know she didn't, it was in Bullet when they first met) to just call her by what her name translates too, or half of it. And it's not only pretty disrespectful to give someone a nickname upon meeting them that they didn't ask for, but this also implies that Anita just doesn't care for calling her by her ~Chinese name~ and wants something easier and so figures that the English translation will be basically the same thing...which is why "defender" is a commonly accepted nickname for Alex, "beloved" for David, and "wonderful" for Miranda, right? Wait, no? Okay, then if you don't tend to call everyone by the meaning of their name, don't do it to the Chinese girl UNLESS SHE ASKS YOU TO/TELLS YOU IT'S FINE. "She was my black tiger to call, and the first woman to change me from heterosexual to heteroflexible." *FACEDESK AGAIN*
Yiyu looks frantic and starts running down the hall, Damian tells Anita that "Someone told her you were hurt." Anita swears out loud in the physical word, God asks what's wrong (THIS WILL NEVER STOP BEING FUNNY TO ME) and Anita tells him, adding that "She'll have to see for herself that I'm healed." Godo asks if she can't just tell her mentally, Anita says that panicking like this makes Yiyu "head-blind". Um, since when has that sort of thing interfered with telepathy before? Because I don't think it has. Godo says that "for a ninja assassin super-spy she spooks easy" and Domino gets all pissed and says "You try being abused by a master vampire for centuries and see how you do"and his beast flares around him "enough to raise heat around him like a breath of summer in the cave-cool corridor." So we are reminded here of two things we ALREADY knew about Yiyu: She's a super-ninja and she's poor timid abuse victim. Hopefully when she actually appears on-screen, she'll show she actually has more personality traits beyond that, right? HAHAHA YEAH RIGHT, JUST KIDDING.
Anita tells us that Domino is very protective of Yiyu (I guess because he helped Anita rape her) and she touches his arm to calm him own, which "made the heat of his beasts" Plural? Does Domino have multiple inner beasts too then, to match his two forms? "try to jump to me and call my matching tiger colors" but now Anita knows how to "soothe them like you'd pet and cuddle a big kitty." EVERYONE WRONG ABOUT ANITAVERSE SHIFTERS IN A NUTSHELL, HERE. Though she does add that her own inner kitties "would have happily torn my body apart so they could be on the outside with their own real fleshy bodies if it had been possible." Except it's not possible. Some series have the werewolf or whatever ripping his own human skin off, like Hemlock Grove, but that's not how it works in AB canon, so all her inner tigers would do is kill her, and thus kill themselves too. And she claims that her inner beasts can understand things like guns and contact lenses through her, so clearly they're just as stupid as she is if they don't understand this too. She then tells us how it's JC's marks that keep her from shifting because "modern lycanthropy wasn't contagious to vampires, and I was just too close to being a vampire thanks to his mark, and my own necromancy. Ancient-strain lycanthropy had been contagious to the undead." Hence how some of MOAD's servants are hybrids like herself...this is tolerable explanation, but I would think that just being a Human Servant period, without being a necromancer or anything else special like that, would be enough to be immune to catching therianthropy. It's a disease in this 'verse, as we're so often reminded, and Human Servants have super-healing that makes them immune to disease. Of course, if LKH went that route, Anita wouldn't get to have the inner beasts and be a special non-shifting panwere at all, so I guess we can't have that.
After two paragraphs of this inner monologue, she tells Domino to "easy down" and then starts info-dumping again to the reader about how "Jade had paid Domino the highest compliment she had for men; she let him join us in bed." I'd like to think this is just Yiyu, but honestly in LKH's book that probably is the highest compliment you can have for anyone. "Nathaniel was tolerated in bed, and Crispin, a white tiger and stripper at Guilty Pleasures, but she seldom slept with me because I kept insisting on all these men being there." At first I was going to say that I don't think Anita should have to change her sleeping arrangements just for one person but that the phrasing still made her sound like a shit, but then I remembered, Anita is "poly" now, right? Isn't a big part of poly making sure that everyone is comfortable and included and working stuff like this out, not just booting the person with the issue? Also, hey, wonder if she'll 'have' to shoot Yiyu at some point because, like Haven, she couldn't share? Oh no wait, Yiyu is a woman, this is how Anita *wants* it! God forbid another girl be in bed with her boys, even *her* girl!
"Her abuser had been male and it had given her a bad opinion of them; the only thing she disliked more was male vampires." Well, to be fair, have we met any significant male vampire character who isn't a shithead? "Damian had won her over with tales of his own abuse" Oh right, Damian "at the hands of She who made him." The capitalized She makes me think he's talking about the H.R. Haggard novel "His vampire mistress made Jade's master look sane." Oh, so abusers are insane. Keep in mind that we've never been given any indication that either the Moroven or Yiyu's former master were mentally ill, but, oh, they were abusers, so they must have been crazy! Evil = crazy! Wow, that's offensive both to actually mentally-ill people like myself AND it lets abusers off the hook by implying they just can't help it because they're nuts! Nevermind that actually it's the mentally ill who are at *greater* risk for being abused by neurotypical people "She'd had to accept that women could abuse, too." That...is really not the way to go about making someone trust men. That'll just make her distrust women too and then she won't trust anyone except I guess the odd non-binary person. Seriously, what kind of logic is this? "You think men are bad? Well, guess what, some women are bad too! There, now don't you think men are good?" It's like if someone was terrified of dogs, and you decided to make them terrified of cats in hopes that this would cure their dog-phobia and NO NOW THEY'RE JUST AFRAID OF BOTH BECAUSE ONE DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO THE OTHER LIKE THAT. I wish I could say that LKH is alone in this terrible sense of anti-logic, but she's not. I hear it all the time in the form of "You're a lesbian? What made you hate men?" as if the only way one could be a cat-lover is if one had a terrible experience with dogs. People are weird, yo.
And JC and Asher also told her about Belle Morte, "and then there'd been the Mother of All Darkness" Um, she wasn't abusive. She was just theoretically evil. Theoretically, I must say; in practice all she really seemed to want was a body. "and Nikolaos the first Master of the City of St. Louis had been one crazy bitch." NO, I DO NOT RECALL THAT SHE WAS. SHE WAS EVIL AND HORRID AND CRUEL, BUT PERFECTLY SANE AS FAR AS I COULD TELL. PLEASE STOP WITH YOUR DISGUSTING ABLEIST BULLSHIT NOW. "Crazy didn't discriminate on the basis of gender." I SAID STOP THAT. "Jean-Claude had won her over by being himself." Um, what? Jean-Claude has from day one been a sleazy, rapey, manipulative asshole with no respect for boundaries or for what Anita wanted. I don't see how that would 'win over' Yiyu unless it's that thing where abuse victims end up being snared by new abusers, like what happened with her and Anita, because they've already been mentally conditioned by the previous abuser to accept it. "It had been interesting watching him work to gain her trust." Firstly, Anita should not have allowed him near Yiyu for one second, but then, Anita should never have been with him in the first place. Secondly, of course we don't get to see any of this interaction or development on-screen, ugh. "He'd always told me the only woman who ever frustrated his plans was me; watching him charm Jade had made me believe that statement." OH GOD, ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? Anita's whole "the only woman he could never get easy" cliche is SO FUCKING IMPORTANT that you have to use a man-fearing abuse victim to make a point of it and make it allll about how HARD-TO-GET ANITA IS TEEHEE?
EXCUSE ME WHILE I VOMIT
Yiyu comes into physical sight, Anita hands her weapons to Domino, Yiyu jumps on to Anita and JC has to steady Anita. "She wrapped her legs around my waist, arms around my neck, and buried her face into my hair and side of my neck. I put my hands the only place I could to hold her, which was underneath her slender ass." Pro-tip, if her rear isn't in a sexual context, then 'ass' is not the best word for it, especially not with adjectives describing it. "It was the same way Nicky had carried me into the showers. The thought made my stomach clench tight." That makes it sound like the idea is making her sick to me. Also, is it a common symptom of long-term abuse to freak out over a loved one being minorly injured in some way? I don't really see the connection, unless one of the ways she was specifically abused was her former Master hurting her other loved ones, but then again I really do NOT know much about domestic violence in this regard. Yiyu mumbles in "Chinese" to Anita, who "even after a year" does not understand the "nuances" of the language. Firstly, Chinese is not a language. There are many languages spoken in China, none of which are called Chinese. The most common are Mandarin and Cantonese, but there are plenty of others, such as Wu. After a year, you should know that. Secondly, you shouldn't expect to understand "nuances" of a language after a year, though. If she spoke it continuously around you then you might pick certain things up, but even if she was teaching it to you, a first-year student is a long way from knowing the "nuances" of a language, as "nuance" means the really subtle stuff.
Anita is "making soothing noises to her" while stroking her hair with one hand and holding her with the other, and tells her "Jade, sweetie, I can't understand you when you're this upset. Slow down and English, please, dearest, English." I laugh so much at the idea that poor Yiyu is anywhere close to the 'dearest' rank on the harem hierarchy. Yiyu looks up at Anita, and Anita's only thought at seeing her smeared eye makeup, presumably from tears, is that Yiyu probably got it on the pajama top that Anita is wearing. Yup, she's her dearest alright, Anita sooo clearly cares about how upset she is. Yiyu says in a "breathy whisper" that "They said you were hurt." Good Yiyu, focused entirely on Anita and making a scene about her! Everything is about Anita! This is what a tolerable woman looks like, folks, that or someone portrayed as sexless muscle like Claudia who also makes everything about Anita (the only reason Claudia was allowed to be found draped over Micah in the Bullet orgy scene and live afterwards ). Anita tells her she's healed, and Yiyu "studied my face, serious as a child, as if she thought I might be lying." Oh yay, child comparisons. We haven't had any infantilization of women in a while yet, we were due for some. Anita especially likes to do this with female victims of abuse, I notice, she did it with both Cherry and Vivian. "She was way more girly than I would ever be, but liked truth the way I did, and once lied to, she never forgot. Again, like me." OH BULLSHIT, ANITA, YOU CAN'T TOLERATE THE TRUTH. Also, what is so "girly" about Yiyu? We don't know because we really don't know shit about her. We know she likes shopping according to Anita, but shopping for what? Cuz my dad likes to shop for bike parts, is that 'girly'? Oh wait, she's a poor broken Asian China Doll with a "victim mentality" what could be more ~feminine~ than that? FEMALE QUALITIES, RIGHT THERE. Ick ick ick.
Yiyu asks her to promise, Anita does, "she smiled and her whole face changed from serious beauty to a shining happiness" Something about this 180 always reads as childish/child-like to me, like Yiyu is really simple somehow like a kid is but I can't put my finger on what. They kiss and Anita tells us that more than once the way Yiyu does "wriggling happily" and "enthusiastic cuddling" has made their skirts ride up before "and give way to much of a girl-on-girl show for the guards." Which I'm sure Anita soooo doesn't like, because we all know how much she can't stand men ogling how sexy she is, right? Which is why she's so sure to mention it here to make sure we know about it even though it's not happening in this scene because the pajama shirt goes down to Anita's knees. JC asks if Anita and "the lovely Jade" are coming inside and is holding the door open. Anita reacts to this with "I sighed, but Jean-Claude was right. Jade would never let me just put her down and tell her to go play elsewhere." Play elsewhere. Again, infantilization.
Then Anita starts rambling to us about how "I had been the one who rescued her from centuries of abuse, by simply being better at metaphysics than her abuser had been" and conveniently leaves out how she raped Yiyu and enslaved her to herself instead of actually setting her free in any way. We're told that her Master is still out there alive even though "you weren't supposed to be able to cut the bonds between master and animal to call without killing the old master." No? But you only did it once before you did it to Yiyu, with Sebastian/Hong, who was Vittorio's Therian Servant, and not only did it not kill Vittorio, but the idea that it should have is never mentioned. Plus only the MOAD ever had this ability, so the idea of what you are and aren't supposed to be able to do with it is really kind of an unknown quantity since you aren't the MOAD and she's not exactly a 'normal' case to get your basis from. "Jade believed that if I died her old master would take her over again. I wasn't just her rescuer, I was her continued salvation." That sounds more like something to hold over her head, the idea that 'well I might own you but I'm keeping someone even worse away so do as I say and have my best interests at the front of your head or else'. It also continues the pattern of none of Anita's lovers being with her because they really love her so much as they NEED her for their own well-being. But then Anita claims that what made the un-bonding process work was "Jade's willingness. She had wanted freedom, and when I offered it, she'd thrown her free will into mine." That doesn't sound like freedom. That sounds like you offering freedom and then just taking her free will instead. Also, this is a retcon, Yiyu was ambiguous to unwilling when Anita took her, and actually cried out to her old Master for HELP during it
http://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/31783.html#cutid1
"It's so much easier to rescue prisoners if they want to come with you. I'd offered love and safety, he'd offered hate and fear; who wouldn't choose love?" besides the obvious fact that Anita gives neither love nor real safety (no one is safe from she herself), this honestly feels like a slam on domestic abuse victims who don't immediately agree to come with some well-meaning rescuer, like it's just absurd that they don't "choose love" and it is giving me so many ragey feelings that I just can't even begin to put them into words, ugh.
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER 37
In which we get absolutely no mention of anything going on with Nicky, but we do get some really gross shit about abusive relationships and their victims, laced with racism and sexism.
"Since we weren't a hundred percent certain what had happened in the shower, the guards insisted on turning into a crowd." Pretending that she doesn't love having an entourage over every little thing, Anita claims to them that their muscle and weapons wouldn't be much help against the ardeur, but Claudia sticks the more-guards plan because "All she had to throw at the problem was more muscle" and "there was no arguing when she looked like that, so I didn't try. I didn't want to use up energy fighting with Claudia. I was saying it up to fight with Asher, and maybe Jean-Claude." So, firstly, Claudia is here stated to be like Anita in that she has no idea how to solve a problem except with violence, but it's portrayed as if she's stupid and pigheaded whereas the same is not portrayed with Anita piling on her weapons for no reason. Secondly, gotta love how Anita is actively *planning* to have a fight with Asher and JC.
Remember last chapter when she wonders if Asher was wearing the top to JC's pajama bottoms? He is, she borrows it, she's notices it is indeed a match, and is bothered by it. She also doesn't seem to recall wondering about it earlier. She then spends half a paragraph describing how it looks and feels and how big it is on itty bitty her, comparing wearing it to "a little girl borrowing my father's shirt" which, since it's Anita, has creepy vibes to it for me. She then takes a nice long paragraph to describe how and where she is wearing all her weapons on herself, and is "happy that my main gear bags were already in the bedroom." Again, all she's about to do is have a discussion with her boyfriend and recent ex, the former of which will die if she does and thus has incentive to protect her if the latter of which really was homicidal (which, really, he doesn't seem to be), and as for using the weapons on JC himself, well, if he dies so does she, so seriously what the fuck is she planning on here? They have so many guards it's hard to walk without bumping into them, and when they get to JC's door Anita tells them to stay outside. Godofredo (mercifully referred to by his full name for once) says that Claudia told them at least two of them have to have their eyes on Anita at all times. Anita asks why, Godofredo says "because Asher attacked you earlier tonight and put Sin in the hospital, and now Nicky is hurt. Claudia doesn't want any more problems tonight."
Anita says that Asher isn't going to hurt her again (then why the absurd amount of weaponry?) and that even if Claudia herself had been there during the thing with Nicky there's nothing she could have done except "made her and me uncomfortable with her watching me fuck Nicky." At this, "God's eyes widened a bit." I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO NOT READ THIS AS *THE* GOD. "He was never quite comfortable when I talked like a guy about sex." TALKED LIKE A GUY ABOUT SEX. HOW...HOW IS THIS THAT? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? He says he's sorry but his orders are clear, she says she's sorry but none of them are coming inside. He starts to protest, she holds up a hand, I am heavily bored, Anita says that she and JC outrank Claudia "so I'm going to throw down a presidential veto. I don't want or need an audience." Please, Anita always wants an audience for everything. Godofredo says that Asher gets out of hand because she isn't hard enough on him, she says that's true but it's in the past (yeah, like five minutes ago in the past), and that "Asher doesn't get any more free passes just because I love him...just because Jean-Claude loves him and keeps projecting that on to me." OH MY GOSH
OH MY GOSH
DID SHE JUST SAY
OH MY GOSH SHE DID
JC JUST PROJECTS HIS LOVE FOR ASHER ON TO HER
BECAUSE OF HER BOND TO HIM AS A HUMAN SERVANT, SHE FEELS WHAT HE DOES
ANITA QUITE POSSIBLY DOESN'T LOVE ASHER AND NEVER DID AND IS ADMITTING THAT
Of course, only now that he's become the new chew toy a la Richard.
Godo says he doesn't believe her, but JC, Asher by his side, backs her up and says that "There will be no more free passes for mon chardonneret" and Godo says that JC using his pet name for Asher "doesn't exactly make us believe you." Domino adds that Nicky made him promise to stay with Anita. Anita, missing the point, says she's not the one that almost died. Domino shrugs and runs his hands through his hair (again mentioned as being black and white curls, in case we forgot) which Anita says is a nervous gesture for him. She then describes specifically how much black vs white is in his hair right now, how it shows he's half black tiger and half white, how she has another mixed tiger named Ethan whose hair also reflects all his lines, how Domino's hair being mostly black right now means he was recently in his black tiger form while Ethan's hair stays as-is regardless of what color tiger he'd shifted into last. We then get told about Domino's "orange fire-colored eyes" and how they can't "pass for human" and how he was born with them because that's a mark of pureblood clan heritage for weretigers versus a punishment like with Micah. You know, we've never seen Domino in tiger form, white or black, and considering that we know from Julia and Victor that white tigers sometimes have hair the reflects their black stripes as well (Victor has solid white hair and is a solid white tiger with no stripes, Julia has pale brown streaks in her hair that Anita says mean her white tiger form has pale brown stripes), one of my friends thinks that Domino is not mixed at all, he's just a white tiger with heavy black striping and is totally playing Anita for sympathy. I agree with this. She also showed me a picture of a real white tiger with really heavy/close striping, and I wish I could find it again, it was neat.
Since Anita's inner descriptions take place in real time, I guess Domino figured Anita needs now to be reminded of what they were talking about, since he repeats what he said about Nicky making him promise not to leave Anita alone with Asher. Anita laughs "but it wasn't a good laugh" and says she can't blame him. She then looks at JC, and he says "I believe it will be your secrets, not ours, that you may not want Domino to hear" and Anita says she doesn't even know what that means, JC says it means "let your tiger join us and if you wish him not to hear things, it is your task to make him leave." Anita asks Domino what he'll do if she goes into JC's room without him. MAYBE GO NUTS, WHICH I AM ABOUT TO DO WITH THIS BORING POINTLESS STALLING SHIT. Domino shakes his head and asks if she saw what Nicky did to Ares, she says she did, he gives her an "eloquent" look with his "fire-colored eyes" and says he values her safety but doesn't want to have a real fight with Nicky. So basically even Anita's Therian Servants know she can't actually control even her Bride, the one person she's supposed to have absolute control over, and since it's her own desires that do said controlling, THAT MEANS SHE JUST DOESN'T CARE. And after saying this, "he smiled and shook his head". Accepting his fate, I guess.
Anita asks if this means he's coming in whether she wants him to or not, Domino reminds her what Asher did and asks why her bodyguards should trust him alone with anyone, and honestly with all the shit she's done to her own people I feel the same should be asked about Anita. Anita, however, thinks he sounds reasonable and asks Asher if he's going to behave. Asher says nothing he can say will comfort the guards and he doesn't blame them because "I have been beyond childish." Once again, I am pretty sure Asher is just suddenly meant to be bearing all of Anita's flaws. Anita says that Asher is "always so contrite afterward, but it never lasts" and that when "something pisses you off again, and it's like you forget." Asher nods and says that's fair and that he's truly sorry and Anita is right and, the most hilarious one to me considering who he is talking to, "Apologies that do not lead to better actions are empty things." Even more hilariously, Anita responds "Amen to that." I bet it is so hard for Asher and JC and all the guards to not just crack up.
Asher bows his head "all that golden hair spilling" and Anita thinks how "normally it made me sad that he felt he had to hide the scars that much" Um, he's not trying to hide them, he's bowing his head in apology and he has a LOT of hair "but tonight it reminded me of Nicky and the way his hair hid his own scars, and it just made me angry at him." This makes me want a vampire who has scars and hides them with his hair but it's his back hair instead. Anita agrees that Domino can come in, and tells Godofredo to tell Claudia that he did as he was told. Godofredo says Claudia wanted two guards with Anita, Anita says "Don't push it" and thinks how there must have been "something in my voice, or in my face, because he literally backed off, hands held sort of out" Because you are a volatile psycho control-freak and everyone is rightly scared that you'll hurt them over the smallest thing, Anita, that's what I think that "something" is. He says "Fine, as long as you take Domino with you, Claudia won't bitch-slap you" and Anita says Claudia is more likely to knock him on his ass instead of bitch-slap, and he says that too...god, conversation is so awkward with her.
Then Anita feels "the equivalent of a knock" on her psychic shields, and she can tell it's Damian so she drops said shields and can see him in her mind. She describes him to us and how he's six feet and has the whitest skin she's ever seen and his hair is the reddest red of fresh blood and eyes as green as grass and more about his super pale paleness and super red as red redness and she can feel that he is holding a hand so "a thought let me see the woman who was almost as tall as he was at his side." It's Cardinal...er, Cardinale. With a new random 'e' at the end of her name that I'm just not going to acknowledge in this spork because I think it's stupid, okay? And her hair is curly whereas his is straight and more orangey red but they are "both natural redheads, both tall, both slender, though he'd died with muscle over his frame, and she was just model-thin, but they were physically very well matched, like a team of beautiful horses chosen because they looked good together." WOW. JUST WOW. JUST GONNA LEAVE THAT HERE ON ITS OWN.
The info-dumping doesn't stop there. "Damian was manager at Jean-Claude's dance club, Danse Macabre" And Jason is manager at GP now too, right? I'm not saying they couldn't have great business skills but I feel like LKH decided 'oh, they can be the managers' because they're Anita's boyfriends more than anything else "and Cardinale was one of the dancers." BECAUSE NO ONE SUPERNATURAL IS NOT A STRIPPER. "She partnered him for some demonstrations of old dances that had existed when he was alive, but centuries before she was born." Partnered? Old dances? OH, SO SHE'S NOT A STRIPPER. That's right, Danse Macabre is, duh, a dance club as in actual dance. So we know Cardi is centuries younger than Damian, then. "She was also one of the taxi dancers, where you paid for the privilege of dancing with a vampire for a song. People loved dancing with the shapeshifters and vampires at Danse Macabre." Probably because they're all insanely hot people than because they're vampires and shapeshifters. In a world where vampires and shapeshifters are reporters, plumbers, and even junior high school biology teachers, I can't see people falling all over themselves at the idea of dancing with someone just based on that. And if they did, it's pretty gross and fetishistic (which is something that real-life minorities do face, but I don't think LKH is portraying it that way). Hell, most vampires and shapeshifters are supposedly average-looking people, like Irving the balding werewolf and the rebel vampires we met just this book, it's just Anita inexplicably seems to only meet the incredibly beautiful ones, good or evil, because I guess you just can't MATTER as a character if you aren't a very specific type of super-babe.
"The club even had a dance master who would work with new customers to teach them the ancient line dances. I'd seen the entire club floor thick with people: human, vampire, shapeshifter, all in neat rows with a hand held here and there, moving to a dance that no one had seen in centuries. It was just plain cool." It does sound cool, but that doesn't sound like a dance club. Now, I have never been to a club in my life except this very nice little gay bar in the my college town where they gave me a cupcake because it was the owners anniversary, but as far as I know, most dance clubs are more about, well, dance club music--techno and hip hop and such. And no one is required or instructed to dance a certain way. I could definitely see "learn ancient dances from people who were there!" being something that some people were interested in, but it'd be a more niche thing than the entire nightclub crowd would be into. It seems like something that you'd more hold a class for on Wednesdays before the place opened officially for the night, not the main attraction, but the way she says a dance master specifically helps the new customers makes it sound like ancient dances are all this place does, and I don't think that's going to get them the business they need. On another note, she says that no one has seen these dances done in centuries, but that's absurd considering that the people who originally knew and practiced these dances have been here all along. They didn't just pop up out of their graves for the first time overnight, and things like dance are probably one of the few cultural practices that a vampire could keep from their original time without it being detrimental to them the same way that keeping up, say, the business practices of their original time would be.
I'm not saying there couldn't be vampires doing this, just, it wouldn't be the first ever time like Anita is saying. And you know what'd be REALLY cool? The vampires who remember stuff like this telling it to historians! Oh yeah, and I'd just like to remind everyone, LKH said there was a difference between shapeshifters and "lycanthropes" way back in The Lunatic Cafe and has clearly either forgotten it since, or only shapeshifters and no "lycanthropes" are employed at DM.
"Damian let me see the second woman in front of him." It's Yiyu, and we hear all about how she looks before Anita actually tells us her name. First, she's tiny! So tiny! The only woman tinier than Anita! And delicate! And her hair is like "patent-leather water" meaning it's black and shiny...which Anita also says, so I see no need for the absurd description to say the same thing. And then the eyes, oh god the eyes. "Her uptilted eyes looked brown, but I'd spent enough time looking into them" time that, unlike with JC, we'll never actually see onscreen "to know they were actually an orange so dark they looked brown. In the right light they were the color of fire when it burns deep into the wood and you think the flame is out, but if you don't douse it with water, it'll flare up and burn the house down." FACE TO KEYBOARD. I HAVE NO WORDS. "Her Chinese name translated to Black Jade; to me she was just Jade, my Jade." Okay, her so-called Chinese name is JUST HER NAME. You don't say "my American name is Anita" do you? No, because that implies you have another name. Yiyu does not have a name besides Yiyu, unless you count the fact that Anita decided without asking her (and I know she didn't, it was in Bullet when they first met) to just call her by what her name translates too, or half of it. And it's not only pretty disrespectful to give someone a nickname upon meeting them that they didn't ask for, but this also implies that Anita just doesn't care for calling her by her ~Chinese name~ and wants something easier and so figures that the English translation will be basically the same thing...which is why "defender" is a commonly accepted nickname for Alex, "beloved" for David, and "wonderful" for Miranda, right? Wait, no? Okay, then if you don't tend to call everyone by the meaning of their name, don't do it to the Chinese girl UNLESS SHE ASKS YOU TO/TELLS YOU IT'S FINE. "She was my black tiger to call, and the first woman to change me from heterosexual to heteroflexible." *FACEDESK AGAIN*
Yiyu looks frantic and starts running down the hall, Damian tells Anita that "Someone told her you were hurt." Anita swears out loud in the physical word, God asks what's wrong (THIS WILL NEVER STOP BEING FUNNY TO ME) and Anita tells him, adding that "She'll have to see for herself that I'm healed." Godo asks if she can't just tell her mentally, Anita says that panicking like this makes Yiyu "head-blind". Um, since when has that sort of thing interfered with telepathy before? Because I don't think it has. Godo says that "for a ninja assassin super-spy she spooks easy" and Domino gets all pissed and says "You try being abused by a master vampire for centuries and see how you do"and his beast flares around him "enough to raise heat around him like a breath of summer in the cave-cool corridor." So we are reminded here of two things we ALREADY knew about Yiyu: She's a super-ninja and she's poor timid abuse victim. Hopefully when she actually appears on-screen, she'll show she actually has more personality traits beyond that, right? HAHAHA YEAH RIGHT, JUST KIDDING.
Anita tells us that Domino is very protective of Yiyu (I guess because he helped Anita rape her) and she touches his arm to calm him own, which "made the heat of his beasts" Plural? Does Domino have multiple inner beasts too then, to match his two forms? "try to jump to me and call my matching tiger colors" but now Anita knows how to "soothe them like you'd pet and cuddle a big kitty." EVERYONE WRONG ABOUT ANITAVERSE SHIFTERS IN A NUTSHELL, HERE. Though she does add that her own inner kitties "would have happily torn my body apart so they could be on the outside with their own real fleshy bodies if it had been possible." Except it's not possible. Some series have the werewolf or whatever ripping his own human skin off, like Hemlock Grove, but that's not how it works in AB canon, so all her inner tigers would do is kill her, and thus kill themselves too. And she claims that her inner beasts can understand things like guns and contact lenses through her, so clearly they're just as stupid as she is if they don't understand this too. She then tells us how it's JC's marks that keep her from shifting because "modern lycanthropy wasn't contagious to vampires, and I was just too close to being a vampire thanks to his mark, and my own necromancy. Ancient-strain lycanthropy had been contagious to the undead." Hence how some of MOAD's servants are hybrids like herself...this is tolerable explanation, but I would think that just being a Human Servant period, without being a necromancer or anything else special like that, would be enough to be immune to catching therianthropy. It's a disease in this 'verse, as we're so often reminded, and Human Servants have super-healing that makes them immune to disease. Of course, if LKH went that route, Anita wouldn't get to have the inner beasts and be a special non-shifting panwere at all, so I guess we can't have that.
After two paragraphs of this inner monologue, she tells Domino to "easy down" and then starts info-dumping again to the reader about how "Jade had paid Domino the highest compliment she had for men; she let him join us in bed." I'd like to think this is just Yiyu, but honestly in LKH's book that probably is the highest compliment you can have for anyone. "Nathaniel was tolerated in bed, and Crispin, a white tiger and stripper at Guilty Pleasures, but she seldom slept with me because I kept insisting on all these men being there." At first I was going to say that I don't think Anita should have to change her sleeping arrangements just for one person but that the phrasing still made her sound like a shit, but then I remembered, Anita is "poly" now, right? Isn't a big part of poly making sure that everyone is comfortable and included and working stuff like this out, not just booting the person with the issue? Also, hey, wonder if she'll 'have' to shoot Yiyu at some point because, like Haven, she couldn't share? Oh no wait, Yiyu is a woman, this is how Anita *wants* it! God forbid another girl be in bed with her boys, even *her* girl!
"Her abuser had been male and it had given her a bad opinion of them; the only thing she disliked more was male vampires." Well, to be fair, have we met any significant male vampire character who isn't a shithead? "Damian had won her over with tales of his own abuse" Oh right, Damian "at the hands of She who made him." The capitalized She makes me think he's talking about the H.R. Haggard novel "His vampire mistress made Jade's master look sane." Oh, so abusers are insane. Keep in mind that we've never been given any indication that either the Moroven or Yiyu's former master were mentally ill, but, oh, they were abusers, so they must have been crazy! Evil = crazy! Wow, that's offensive both to actually mentally-ill people like myself AND it lets abusers off the hook by implying they just can't help it because they're nuts! Nevermind that actually it's the mentally ill who are at *greater* risk for being abused by neurotypical people "She'd had to accept that women could abuse, too." That...is really not the way to go about making someone trust men. That'll just make her distrust women too and then she won't trust anyone except I guess the odd non-binary person. Seriously, what kind of logic is this? "You think men are bad? Well, guess what, some women are bad too! There, now don't you think men are good?" It's like if someone was terrified of dogs, and you decided to make them terrified of cats in hopes that this would cure their dog-phobia and NO NOW THEY'RE JUST AFRAID OF BOTH BECAUSE ONE DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO THE OTHER LIKE THAT. I wish I could say that LKH is alone in this terrible sense of anti-logic, but she's not. I hear it all the time in the form of "You're a lesbian? What made you hate men?" as if the only way one could be a cat-lover is if one had a terrible experience with dogs. People are weird, yo.
And JC and Asher also told her about Belle Morte, "and then there'd been the Mother of All Darkness" Um, she wasn't abusive. She was just theoretically evil. Theoretically, I must say; in practice all she really seemed to want was a body. "and Nikolaos the first Master of the City of St. Louis had been one crazy bitch." NO, I DO NOT RECALL THAT SHE WAS. SHE WAS EVIL AND HORRID AND CRUEL, BUT PERFECTLY SANE AS FAR AS I COULD TELL. PLEASE STOP WITH YOUR DISGUSTING ABLEIST BULLSHIT NOW. "Crazy didn't discriminate on the basis of gender." I SAID STOP THAT. "Jean-Claude had won her over by being himself." Um, what? Jean-Claude has from day one been a sleazy, rapey, manipulative asshole with no respect for boundaries or for what Anita wanted. I don't see how that would 'win over' Yiyu unless it's that thing where abuse victims end up being snared by new abusers, like what happened with her and Anita, because they've already been mentally conditioned by the previous abuser to accept it. "It had been interesting watching him work to gain her trust." Firstly, Anita should not have allowed him near Yiyu for one second, but then, Anita should never have been with him in the first place. Secondly, of course we don't get to see any of this interaction or development on-screen, ugh. "He'd always told me the only woman who ever frustrated his plans was me; watching him charm Jade had made me believe that statement." OH GOD, ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? Anita's whole "the only woman he could never get easy" cliche is SO FUCKING IMPORTANT that you have to use a man-fearing abuse victim to make a point of it and make it allll about how HARD-TO-GET ANITA IS TEEHEE?
EXCUSE ME WHILE I VOMIT
Yiyu comes into physical sight, Anita hands her weapons to Domino, Yiyu jumps on to Anita and JC has to steady Anita. "She wrapped her legs around my waist, arms around my neck, and buried her face into my hair and side of my neck. I put my hands the only place I could to hold her, which was underneath her slender ass." Pro-tip, if her rear isn't in a sexual context, then 'ass' is not the best word for it, especially not with adjectives describing it. "It was the same way Nicky had carried me into the showers. The thought made my stomach clench tight." That makes it sound like the idea is making her sick to me. Also, is it a common symptom of long-term abuse to freak out over a loved one being minorly injured in some way? I don't really see the connection, unless one of the ways she was specifically abused was her former Master hurting her other loved ones, but then again I really do NOT know much about domestic violence in this regard. Yiyu mumbles in "Chinese" to Anita, who "even after a year" does not understand the "nuances" of the language. Firstly, Chinese is not a language. There are many languages spoken in China, none of which are called Chinese. The most common are Mandarin and Cantonese, but there are plenty of others, such as Wu. After a year, you should know that. Secondly, you shouldn't expect to understand "nuances" of a language after a year, though. If she spoke it continuously around you then you might pick certain things up, but even if she was teaching it to you, a first-year student is a long way from knowing the "nuances" of a language, as "nuance" means the really subtle stuff.
Anita is "making soothing noises to her" while stroking her hair with one hand and holding her with the other, and tells her "Jade, sweetie, I can't understand you when you're this upset. Slow down and English, please, dearest, English." I laugh so much at the idea that poor Yiyu is anywhere close to the 'dearest' rank on the harem hierarchy. Yiyu looks up at Anita, and Anita's only thought at seeing her smeared eye makeup, presumably from tears, is that Yiyu probably got it on the pajama top that Anita is wearing. Yup, she's her dearest alright, Anita sooo clearly cares about how upset she is. Yiyu says in a "breathy whisper" that "They said you were hurt." Good Yiyu, focused entirely on Anita and making a scene about her! Everything is about Anita! This is what a tolerable woman looks like, folks, that or someone portrayed as sexless muscle like Claudia who also makes everything about Anita (the only reason Claudia was allowed to be found draped over Micah in the Bullet orgy scene and live afterwards ). Anita tells her she's healed, and Yiyu "studied my face, serious as a child, as if she thought I might be lying." Oh yay, child comparisons. We haven't had any infantilization of women in a while yet, we were due for some. Anita especially likes to do this with female victims of abuse, I notice, she did it with both Cherry and Vivian. "She was way more girly than I would ever be, but liked truth the way I did, and once lied to, she never forgot. Again, like me." OH BULLSHIT, ANITA, YOU CAN'T TOLERATE THE TRUTH. Also, what is so "girly" about Yiyu? We don't know because we really don't know shit about her. We know she likes shopping according to Anita, but shopping for what? Cuz my dad likes to shop for bike parts, is that 'girly'? Oh wait, she's a poor broken Asian China Doll with a "victim mentality" what could be more ~feminine~ than that? FEMALE QUALITIES, RIGHT THERE. Ick ick ick.
Yiyu asks her to promise, Anita does, "she smiled and her whole face changed from serious beauty to a shining happiness" Something about this 180 always reads as childish/child-like to me, like Yiyu is really simple somehow like a kid is but I can't put my finger on what. They kiss and Anita tells us that more than once the way Yiyu does "wriggling happily" and "enthusiastic cuddling" has made their skirts ride up before "and give way to much of a girl-on-girl show for the guards." Which I'm sure Anita soooo doesn't like, because we all know how much she can't stand men ogling how sexy she is, right? Which is why she's so sure to mention it here to make sure we know about it even though it's not happening in this scene because the pajama shirt goes down to Anita's knees. JC asks if Anita and "the lovely Jade" are coming inside and is holding the door open. Anita reacts to this with "I sighed, but Jean-Claude was right. Jade would never let me just put her down and tell her to go play elsewhere." Play elsewhere. Again, infantilization.
Then Anita starts rambling to us about how "I had been the one who rescued her from centuries of abuse, by simply being better at metaphysics than her abuser had been" and conveniently leaves out how she raped Yiyu and enslaved her to herself instead of actually setting her free in any way. We're told that her Master is still out there alive even though "you weren't supposed to be able to cut the bonds between master and animal to call without killing the old master." No? But you only did it once before you did it to Yiyu, with Sebastian/Hong, who was Vittorio's Therian Servant, and not only did it not kill Vittorio, but the idea that it should have is never mentioned. Plus only the MOAD ever had this ability, so the idea of what you are and aren't supposed to be able to do with it is really kind of an unknown quantity since you aren't the MOAD and she's not exactly a 'normal' case to get your basis from. "Jade believed that if I died her old master would take her over again. I wasn't just her rescuer, I was her continued salvation." That sounds more like something to hold over her head, the idea that 'well I might own you but I'm keeping someone even worse away so do as I say and have my best interests at the front of your head or else'. It also continues the pattern of none of Anita's lovers being with her because they really love her so much as they NEED her for their own well-being. But then Anita claims that what made the un-bonding process work was "Jade's willingness. She had wanted freedom, and when I offered it, she'd thrown her free will into mine." That doesn't sound like freedom. That sounds like you offering freedom and then just taking her free will instead. Also, this is a retcon, Yiyu was ambiguous to unwilling when Anita took her, and actually cried out to her old Master for HELP during it
http://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/31783.html#cutid1
"It's so much easier to rescue prisoners if they want to come with you. I'd offered love and safety, he'd offered hate and fear; who wouldn't choose love?" besides the obvious fact that Anita gives neither love nor real safety (no one is safe from she herself), this honestly feels like a slam on domestic abuse victims who don't immediately agree to come with some well-meaning rescuer, like it's just absurd that they don't "choose love" and it is giving me so many ragey feelings that I just can't even begin to put them into words, ugh.
