KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER 44
Mar. 31st, 2014 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_rat- Sam's thing looks awful, but she continues to behave normally and displays no signs of pain. Blatz continues to fuss over her even more.
- Some hamsters will hold their food in their cheek pouches until it starts to rot, which can make the hamster sick. In order to prevent this, the owner should manually empty the cheek pouch (despite the hamster's inevitable protests) if they suspect this behavior (a good way to test is to scruff the hamster and smell its breath---rotting food has a bad smell, as you might expect) I've noticed this behavior in a lot of dwarf hamsters in particular. Boz is one of them, and he is even angrier now that I am regularly stealing the food from his mouth literally.
-You know what I just realized? A well-written Anita (like the version I posted to Lashouts once) could be so adorkable. Saying things like "nifty" and outdated 90s slang like "soooo" plus her 'fashion' sense and her idea of what's cool (black and/or bad renfair shit) and no idea that she's just an easily-impressed fangirl that sounds ridiculous whenever she attempts hip jargon. Seriously, she'd be such an unaware dork, it'd be cute. And she'd have no idea why everyone else wasn't in awe/lust/etc with people dressing in Gothic fetishwear while her jaw drops at it. Remember, this is the woman who, in OB, thought Edward would scare the tourist by wearing A BLACK T-SHIRT OMG BLACK SO DARK AND EDGY!
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER 44
"When taking bodyguards to a police station, you have to make sure that none of them have outstanding warrants. The wererats especially recruited from some rough places." Again, it's really gross to me that this also just happens to be the group that is almost entirely made up of Hispanic men. And then right after this sentence she starts describing what Bram looks like and how he caught therianthropy and momentarily confuses me into thinking Bram is a wererat until she mentions he's a wereleopard. Note to writers, if you do this, it will confuse readers in the same way it just did me. It's like if she said "Mastiffs aren't barkers. My Pongo likes to go with me on jogs" and Pongo is a Pug, but of course the way she's phrased it you're going to think Pongo is a Mastiff until she says otherwise, see what I mean? "I purposefully didn't bring anyone that I was dating. I didn't want any more problems with the women at work, or the men for that matter" and how her "multiple gorgeous boyfriends" piss off the women by making them jealous and the men by making them insecure. No, Anita, I think everyone is pissed because you're dragging an entourage of bodyguards into the police station, and you're just projecting your own fantasies on to why this would bug them. And after she says this she says that "So Godofredo's tall, dark, and very solid muscle stayed in the car with Bram. I took Claudia and Pride in with me." This implies she is dating Godofredo and Bram, which she's not. Again, to use my dog example, it's as if she said "I wouldn't bring a nervous dog to this place with me, so Mimi and Mouser stay in the car" when Mimi and Mouser aren't even dogs, they're cats. This is plain bad writing in the most basic of ways, and definitely proves that even if she might technically have an editor in her employ, they sure as hell aren't allowed to actually do their job and fix anything.
She says she brought Claudia "partially to amuse myself. I loved watching the male cops react to such a large, beautiful, and physically imposing woman." Because Anita thinks she's one of the guys, she figures that all guys must therefore think like her, meaning being totally judgmental and freaked out by the presence of another woman, and since she's said that male cops are even more 'guy' than regular guys, then I'm sure in her mind that translates to the idea that they must just have a fit over Claudia existing. Which is completely stupid. Claudia might be rather startling to anyone at first glance just because of her height and build, but I think any issue a cop of any gender might take with her here is, again, because a bodyguard is tailing another cop through the station. Also, Anita paints her immaturity of 'teehee I wanna watch the men freak out at Claudia', especially in a situation like the one at hand, as being a good healthy thing: "I was starting to own the things that made me happy, not because it made sense, or was horribly important, but it was just a happy." That's great, but this is not an appropriate time or place for this particular thing that makes you happy. Lots of things make me happy I wouldn't do on the job or during A CRISIS INVOLVING BOMBS! Also, "it was just a happy"? Some A+ writing there, LKH *eyeroll*
"Claudia had thrown a black windbreaker over her arsenal" So she's bringing WEAPONS into a police station too? Yeah, I'm sure any problems the cops will have is because she's a hot Amazon, sure. "I loved that she was another woman" SEE ANITA ISN'T A MISOGYNIST YOU HATERS SEE "and she looked as dangerous as she was; I was always too small to scare people just by showing up." Except for all those multiple times vampires have freaked out by you showing up because of your reputation. "Pride stood beside her like a gold shadow to her dark beauty." I like Pride, I loved how he didn't take Anita's shit in Bullet, but I'm tremendously worried that he's going to be ruined, since that happens to any character who is any good that shows up too much. Anita goes on and on about how he looks, including how she had asked him once what he put on his driver's license for his eyes since they are "a pale gold that wasn't quite brown and wasn't dark enough to be wolf or lion amber" and Pride says he puts brown "but it was a lie, just like Nathaniel was forced to put blue on his license, because lavender wasn't an option." Oh the poor baby! "Standard answers rarely covered the men in my life, or even the ones who worked for me." As with the bit about how Micah usually tucks in his shirts, this is one of those things that would be nice for a reader to learn in passing, but only if the bulk of the book was full of a fleshed-out plot, sub-plots, characters, etc. Instead, this comes off as just inane ramblings about pointless, irrelevant details no one is going to care about while meanwhile the plot is just being delayed more and more. Like...an extra icing rose at the edge of your cake is a nice little bonus, but if you were promised a cake and all you got was that little rose instead, you'd understandably be pretty pissed about the absence of the cake and not even appreciate the rose itself. That's what this is here. There are a lot of roses, and no cake. This is probably not that great a metaphor if you're like me and love icing so much you could eat a whole can straight of it at once, but you see what I mean, right?
She talks more about how good-looking Pride is, and how he is "good enough armed and unarmed that Claudia didn't have a problem with him being her backup. She had no higher praise." Because it's not like we can ever SHOW the relationships between characters, right? Just info-dump it all instead! Nevermind that it's so much more forgettable and less 'real' to the mind of the reader that way. "But honestly, Pride's two greatest assets for today was that he wasn't my lover, or anyone else's permanent sweetie, and he was gorgeous.I was hoping I could sort of wave him in the direction of Detective Arnet, Millie, and all the women at work, and distract them from my actual boyfriends.” I love how she seriously just said that ALL THE WOMEN THERE are after her sweeties, hahahah. Hey, Anita, maybe that wouldn’t be an issue if you didn’t take said sweeties to the station all the damn time, which I’m getting the feeling she does. I was also going to note that Anita clearly doesn’t actually think she needs bodyguards, given the reasons she cited for bringing these two along, but then I remembered that she protested taking them in the first place so that actually adds up. “Maybe I could even take some of the pressure off Brice, though honestly my main interest was me.” Well, at least she admits it this time. “Brice was new, and one of the loves of his life hadn’t been threatened by Arnet. She was beginning to spook me, and I wasn’t easy to spook.” Actually, Anita comes off as one of the most damned paranoid people I’ve ever read about.
Anita then tells us that Pride isn’t good at light flirting, just seduction and dating…how she found that out, I don’t want to know. However, she says he was still the best pick for this because “the other gold tigers that I wasn’t sleeping with had other issues; one was a hothead, another was a serious historian and scholar and loved his books more than anything, and the last one was scouting out another vampire kiss where were tigers were the main animal to call of the Master of the City, so Pride was it.” I wonder, why does she think she could/should only bring golden weretigers to the station? Also, who is the weretiger that’s scouting out another Kiss? Given that we’re shortly told who the first two are (Thorn and Wrath) I guess that leaves Envy, but somehow I get the feeling it’s not or she’d have mentioned her by name? Also I could swear that there were five golden tigers that were brought to St. Louis in Bullet, not just four, so maybe this one is the unnamed fifth. Pride and Dev mentioned they had a cousin named Martino, so perhaps this is him, though it wasn’t stated if he was one of the ones brought to St. Louis or not. Also, ordinarily I would go off on a rant about “why the hell would a therian want to go to a city where they’re guranteed to be controlled by the Mo.Ct” but in the case of the golden tigers, who were raised as basically pets by the Harlequin vampires, I think it makes sense they’d seek out what they know aka being owned by vampires. Good on them, I say, for not wanting that vampire to be JC. Also, the “main animal to call” of the MotC? Can they call more than one, then? Are they a Padma-line? Like maybe the tiger was the first animal they were able to call, and then they developed their bloodline powers later, so the tiger is still the type they control best or something? I WOULD HONESTLY LIKE TO KNOW THESE THINGS PLZ.
Pride, meanwhile, continues to place me by saying he doesn't like that Anita dragged him along to be "the sacrificial lamb for the female wolves at work" and also adds that Thorn flirts better. Anita says Thorn has a temper and she doesn't want him anywhere near her job. Oh Anita, that's so precious, you fuck your own job up just fine. We've never met Thorn, but I automatically like him because he cheesed Micah off by "treating me like I was short" according to our 'favorite' Nimir-Raj. I actually doubt Thorn so much has an attitude problem so much as he just doesn't like Anita and her lot. Heck, maybe he even pretends to have one on purpose just so they'll stay away from him and leave him out of their beds and shit like this. Pride says that "Wrath has a very even disposition" OHOHOHO OHHH THE IRONY srsly I bet LKH just thought she was being sooo clever here. Anita counters that Wrath is "so deep into his role as a historian for the Harlequin that he doesn't remember he's a man, let alone that he likes girls." Maybe he doesn't like girls? Maybe he's gay or asexual? I actually hope that he's straight though, just so we can have one character who is explicitly sexually disinterested in Anita for reasons that have nothing to do with their sexual orientation. Although I wouldn't say no to ONE FRIGGIN' ASEXUAL PERSON in this whole hyper-sexualized lot, especially since he's clearly not a sadist who gets off on pain and fear instead like sexually-undeveloped Valentina or asexual Morte D'Amour.
Claudia says she thinks he likes his books better than he does any woman, Anita and Pride nod, Anita asks if Claudia tried to date Wrath, Claudia blushes, Anita is like omg you did, and Pride stumbles and asks why Wrath and Anita thinks that omg Pride must have "at least thought about it; thought about her as a woman." Because a man is incapable of seeing a woman as being a woman unless it's in a romantic/sexual context? That's really insulting to both men AND women, but what do you expect from Anita? Also, to be fair, the phrase is a really common one, not something LKH herself came up with, though it does make my eyes roll for this reason no matter WHO uses it. Claudia says that Wrath can handle himself in an emergency even though he's not a guard, and that "I don't want to date a potential victim, but I don't another bodyguard or mercenary. They get competitive." Potential victim? What the fuck? Anita asks if Claudia means they get competitive with her, and Claudia says yes, which would have been followed by "duh" if I were her. Pride says he likes a woman who can keep up with him, Claudia looks at him, “I watched her look at him”, and says that she “had him pegged for a competitive bastard”. Man, Claudia pegging, that would be hot. I also think that she would make a really cute couple with Wrath just based on her being this big warrior chick and him apparently being all bookish and absorbed in history. Pride says he likes to be the best but doesn’t have to win, she says she’ll keep that in mind and “sounded thoughtful” which gives Anita "the very alien urge to match-make. I didn’t do that, ever, but suddenly it seemed like such fun.” No, no, Anita, please don’t, you will wreck it, it will be terrible, please don’t. “If Claudia hadn’t hinted that she had a steady lover, I’d have pushed it” Well, maybe Claudia is a poly like you? It’s a good idea to know for sure whether she is or not before doing anything though, so Anita makes a wise choice. I have a hunch though that now that Anita is poly, all the ‘good’ characters will be as well. Then Pride and Claudia both reach for the door at the same time and glare at each other. Does that EVER happen in real life? With people out of elementary school, I mean? Claudia goes “See” and so Pride gives a small bow and steps back with his face having an expression of “that arrogant, almost angry beauty that he wore as his blank cop face.” Firstly, beauty is not an expression. Secondly, looking arrogant and angry is not a good blank-face. Thirdly, it is also not a good face if you’re trying to actually step aside for Claudia instead of mocking her. Anita thinks that Claudia is “looking at him as if she’d never quite seen him before. In the midst of catching bad guys maybe we could have a little romance, and for once, it would be mine.” (Note: This does not happen. This is the last we see of this "little romance" and LKH's horrid attempt to write it)
And the chapter ends there. Yup, an entire chapter of them walking to the door of the police station. I have mixed feelings on it, to be honest. Yeah, it’s ridiculous that they had an entire five pages devoted to this conversation, and it just held up the long-awaited action even more, but I do sincerely appreciate that characters who are not Anita’s lovers are getting some screen time, and may even be allowed to have a relationship with each other than doesn’t involve Anita in any way (which is also why I hope Anita does not involve herself and make it all about her match-making them). I like them having onscreen development and conversations, rather than just being informed about it through Anita later, and Pride and Claudia are both characters I genuinely like. And given how Claudia has only ever shown up before to serve as a Girl Friday to Anita, her getting individual development and relationships and desires and just plain having a life shown outside of what Anita wants, especially onscreen, is a major big deal, a big step in a better direction, and I’m really glad that LKH took that step and included this, and I really hope it continues and comes to something. The problem is just the placement; the plot has been stalled enough, the reader does NOT want any more interpersonal drama at this point, especially since you just know we’re gonna have to slog through a mess of all the cops being ~insecure and jealous~ over these two when Anita gets there to boot. Basically, LKH made a good move here, just at a bad time for it in the story. But I still appreciate the effort, poorly written as the interaction was, and would like to give her props for that. As much as I enjoy her train-wrecks, I do genuinely want to see her improve too, and I enjoy it when she does, or at least seems to try.
- Some hamsters will hold their food in their cheek pouches until it starts to rot, which can make the hamster sick. In order to prevent this, the owner should manually empty the cheek pouch (despite the hamster's inevitable protests) if they suspect this behavior (a good way to test is to scruff the hamster and smell its breath---rotting food has a bad smell, as you might expect) I've noticed this behavior in a lot of dwarf hamsters in particular. Boz is one of them, and he is even angrier now that I am regularly stealing the food from his mouth literally.
-You know what I just realized? A well-written Anita (like the version I posted to Lashouts once) could be so adorkable. Saying things like "nifty" and outdated 90s slang like "soooo" plus her 'fashion' sense and her idea of what's cool (black and/or bad renfair shit) and no idea that she's just an easily-impressed fangirl that sounds ridiculous whenever she attempts hip jargon. Seriously, she'd be such an unaware dork, it'd be cute. And she'd have no idea why everyone else wasn't in awe/lust/etc with people dressing in Gothic fetishwear while her jaw drops at it. Remember, this is the woman who, in OB, thought Edward would scare the tourist by wearing A BLACK T-SHIRT OMG BLACK SO DARK AND EDGY!
KISS THE DEAD, CHAPTER 44
"When taking bodyguards to a police station, you have to make sure that none of them have outstanding warrants. The wererats especially recruited from some rough places." Again, it's really gross to me that this also just happens to be the group that is almost entirely made up of Hispanic men. And then right after this sentence she starts describing what Bram looks like and how he caught therianthropy and momentarily confuses me into thinking Bram is a wererat until she mentions he's a wereleopard. Note to writers, if you do this, it will confuse readers in the same way it just did me. It's like if she said "Mastiffs aren't barkers. My Pongo likes to go with me on jogs" and Pongo is a Pug, but of course the way she's phrased it you're going to think Pongo is a Mastiff until she says otherwise, see what I mean? "I purposefully didn't bring anyone that I was dating. I didn't want any more problems with the women at work, or the men for that matter" and how her "multiple gorgeous boyfriends" piss off the women by making them jealous and the men by making them insecure. No, Anita, I think everyone is pissed because you're dragging an entourage of bodyguards into the police station, and you're just projecting your own fantasies on to why this would bug them. And after she says this she says that "So Godofredo's tall, dark, and very solid muscle stayed in the car with Bram. I took Claudia and Pride in with me." This implies she is dating Godofredo and Bram, which she's not. Again, to use my dog example, it's as if she said "I wouldn't bring a nervous dog to this place with me, so Mimi and Mouser stay in the car" when Mimi and Mouser aren't even dogs, they're cats. This is plain bad writing in the most basic of ways, and definitely proves that even if she might technically have an editor in her employ, they sure as hell aren't allowed to actually do their job and fix anything.
She says she brought Claudia "partially to amuse myself. I loved watching the male cops react to such a large, beautiful, and physically imposing woman." Because Anita thinks she's one of the guys, she figures that all guys must therefore think like her, meaning being totally judgmental and freaked out by the presence of another woman, and since she's said that male cops are even more 'guy' than regular guys, then I'm sure in her mind that translates to the idea that they must just have a fit over Claudia existing. Which is completely stupid. Claudia might be rather startling to anyone at first glance just because of her height and build, but I think any issue a cop of any gender might take with her here is, again, because a bodyguard is tailing another cop through the station. Also, Anita paints her immaturity of 'teehee I wanna watch the men freak out at Claudia', especially in a situation like the one at hand, as being a good healthy thing: "I was starting to own the things that made me happy, not because it made sense, or was horribly important, but it was just a happy." That's great, but this is not an appropriate time or place for this particular thing that makes you happy. Lots of things make me happy I wouldn't do on the job or during A CRISIS INVOLVING BOMBS! Also, "it was just a happy"? Some A+ writing there, LKH *eyeroll*
"Claudia had thrown a black windbreaker over her arsenal" So she's bringing WEAPONS into a police station too? Yeah, I'm sure any problems the cops will have is because she's a hot Amazon, sure. "I loved that she was another woman" SEE ANITA ISN'T A MISOGYNIST YOU HATERS SEE "and she looked as dangerous as she was; I was always too small to scare people just by showing up." Except for all those multiple times vampires have freaked out by you showing up because of your reputation. "Pride stood beside her like a gold shadow to her dark beauty." I like Pride, I loved how he didn't take Anita's shit in Bullet, but I'm tremendously worried that he's going to be ruined, since that happens to any character who is any good that shows up too much. Anita goes on and on about how he looks, including how she had asked him once what he put on his driver's license for his eyes since they are "a pale gold that wasn't quite brown and wasn't dark enough to be wolf or lion amber" and Pride says he puts brown "but it was a lie, just like Nathaniel was forced to put blue on his license, because lavender wasn't an option." Oh the poor baby! "Standard answers rarely covered the men in my life, or even the ones who worked for me." As with the bit about how Micah usually tucks in his shirts, this is one of those things that would be nice for a reader to learn in passing, but only if the bulk of the book was full of a fleshed-out plot, sub-plots, characters, etc. Instead, this comes off as just inane ramblings about pointless, irrelevant details no one is going to care about while meanwhile the plot is just being delayed more and more. Like...an extra icing rose at the edge of your cake is a nice little bonus, but if you were promised a cake and all you got was that little rose instead, you'd understandably be pretty pissed about the absence of the cake and not even appreciate the rose itself. That's what this is here. There are a lot of roses, and no cake. This is probably not that great a metaphor if you're like me and love icing so much you could eat a whole can straight of it at once, but you see what I mean, right?
She talks more about how good-looking Pride is, and how he is "good enough armed and unarmed that Claudia didn't have a problem with him being her backup. She had no higher praise." Because it's not like we can ever SHOW the relationships between characters, right? Just info-dump it all instead! Nevermind that it's so much more forgettable and less 'real' to the mind of the reader that way. "But honestly, Pride's two greatest assets for today was that he wasn't my lover, or anyone else's permanent sweetie, and he was gorgeous.I was hoping I could sort of wave him in the direction of Detective Arnet, Millie, and all the women at work, and distract them from my actual boyfriends.” I love how she seriously just said that ALL THE WOMEN THERE are after her sweeties, hahahah. Hey, Anita, maybe that wouldn’t be an issue if you didn’t take said sweeties to the station all the damn time, which I’m getting the feeling she does. I was also going to note that Anita clearly doesn’t actually think she needs bodyguards, given the reasons she cited for bringing these two along, but then I remembered that she protested taking them in the first place so that actually adds up. “Maybe I could even take some of the pressure off Brice, though honestly my main interest was me.” Well, at least she admits it this time. “Brice was new, and one of the loves of his life hadn’t been threatened by Arnet. She was beginning to spook me, and I wasn’t easy to spook.” Actually, Anita comes off as one of the most damned paranoid people I’ve ever read about.
Anita then tells us that Pride isn’t good at light flirting, just seduction and dating…how she found that out, I don’t want to know. However, she says he was still the best pick for this because “the other gold tigers that I wasn’t sleeping with had other issues; one was a hothead, another was a serious historian and scholar and loved his books more than anything, and the last one was scouting out another vampire kiss where were tigers were the main animal to call of the Master of the City, so Pride was it.” I wonder, why does she think she could/should only bring golden weretigers to the station? Also, who is the weretiger that’s scouting out another Kiss? Given that we’re shortly told who the first two are (Thorn and Wrath) I guess that leaves Envy, but somehow I get the feeling it’s not or she’d have mentioned her by name? Also I could swear that there were five golden tigers that were brought to St. Louis in Bullet, not just four, so maybe this one is the unnamed fifth. Pride and Dev mentioned they had a cousin named Martino, so perhaps this is him, though it wasn’t stated if he was one of the ones brought to St. Louis or not. Also, ordinarily I would go off on a rant about “why the hell would a therian want to go to a city where they’re guranteed to be controlled by the Mo.Ct” but in the case of the golden tigers, who were raised as basically pets by the Harlequin vampires, I think it makes sense they’d seek out what they know aka being owned by vampires. Good on them, I say, for not wanting that vampire to be JC. Also, the “main animal to call” of the MotC? Can they call more than one, then? Are they a Padma-line? Like maybe the tiger was the first animal they were able to call, and then they developed their bloodline powers later, so the tiger is still the type they control best or something? I WOULD HONESTLY LIKE TO KNOW THESE THINGS PLZ.
Pride, meanwhile, continues to place me by saying he doesn't like that Anita dragged him along to be "the sacrificial lamb for the female wolves at work" and also adds that Thorn flirts better. Anita says Thorn has a temper and she doesn't want him anywhere near her job. Oh Anita, that's so precious, you fuck your own job up just fine. We've never met Thorn, but I automatically like him because he cheesed Micah off by "treating me like I was short" according to our 'favorite' Nimir-Raj. I actually doubt Thorn so much has an attitude problem so much as he just doesn't like Anita and her lot. Heck, maybe he even pretends to have one on purpose just so they'll stay away from him and leave him out of their beds and shit like this. Pride says that "Wrath has a very even disposition" OHOHOHO OHHH THE IRONY srsly I bet LKH just thought she was being sooo clever here. Anita counters that Wrath is "so deep into his role as a historian for the Harlequin that he doesn't remember he's a man, let alone that he likes girls." Maybe he doesn't like girls? Maybe he's gay or asexual? I actually hope that he's straight though, just so we can have one character who is explicitly sexually disinterested in Anita for reasons that have nothing to do with their sexual orientation. Although I wouldn't say no to ONE FRIGGIN' ASEXUAL PERSON in this whole hyper-sexualized lot, especially since he's clearly not a sadist who gets off on pain and fear instead like sexually-undeveloped Valentina or asexual Morte D'Amour.
Claudia says she thinks he likes his books better than he does any woman, Anita and Pride nod, Anita asks if Claudia tried to date Wrath, Claudia blushes, Anita is like omg you did, and Pride stumbles and asks why Wrath and Anita thinks that omg Pride must have "at least thought about it; thought about her as a woman." Because a man is incapable of seeing a woman as being a woman unless it's in a romantic/sexual context? That's really insulting to both men AND women, but what do you expect from Anita? Also, to be fair, the phrase is a really common one, not something LKH herself came up with, though it does make my eyes roll for this reason no matter WHO uses it. Claudia says that Wrath can handle himself in an emergency even though he's not a guard, and that "I don't want to date a potential victim, but I don't another bodyguard or mercenary. They get competitive." Potential victim? What the fuck? Anita asks if Claudia means they get competitive with her, and Claudia says yes, which would have been followed by "duh" if I were her. Pride says he likes a woman who can keep up with him, Claudia looks at him, “I watched her look at him”, and says that she “had him pegged for a competitive bastard”. Man, Claudia pegging, that would be hot. I also think that she would make a really cute couple with Wrath just based on her being this big warrior chick and him apparently being all bookish and absorbed in history. Pride says he likes to be the best but doesn’t have to win, she says she’ll keep that in mind and “sounded thoughtful” which gives Anita "the very alien urge to match-make. I didn’t do that, ever, but suddenly it seemed like such fun.” No, no, Anita, please don’t, you will wreck it, it will be terrible, please don’t. “If Claudia hadn’t hinted that she had a steady lover, I’d have pushed it” Well, maybe Claudia is a poly like you? It’s a good idea to know for sure whether she is or not before doing anything though, so Anita makes a wise choice. I have a hunch though that now that Anita is poly, all the ‘good’ characters will be as well. Then Pride and Claudia both reach for the door at the same time and glare at each other. Does that EVER happen in real life? With people out of elementary school, I mean? Claudia goes “See” and so Pride gives a small bow and steps back with his face having an expression of “that arrogant, almost angry beauty that he wore as his blank cop face.” Firstly, beauty is not an expression. Secondly, looking arrogant and angry is not a good blank-face. Thirdly, it is also not a good face if you’re trying to actually step aside for Claudia instead of mocking her. Anita thinks that Claudia is “looking at him as if she’d never quite seen him before. In the midst of catching bad guys maybe we could have a little romance, and for once, it would be mine.” (Note: This does not happen. This is the last we see of this "little romance" and LKH's horrid attempt to write it)
And the chapter ends there. Yup, an entire chapter of them walking to the door of the police station. I have mixed feelings on it, to be honest. Yeah, it’s ridiculous that they had an entire five pages devoted to this conversation, and it just held up the long-awaited action even more, but I do sincerely appreciate that characters who are not Anita’s lovers are getting some screen time, and may even be allowed to have a relationship with each other than doesn’t involve Anita in any way (which is also why I hope Anita does not involve herself and make it all about her match-making them). I like them having onscreen development and conversations, rather than just being informed about it through Anita later, and Pride and Claudia are both characters I genuinely like. And given how Claudia has only ever shown up before to serve as a Girl Friday to Anita, her getting individual development and relationships and desires and just plain having a life shown outside of what Anita wants, especially onscreen, is a major big deal, a big step in a better direction, and I’m really glad that LKH took that step and included this, and I really hope it continues and comes to something. The problem is just the placement; the plot has been stalled enough, the reader does NOT want any more interpersonal drama at this point, especially since you just know we’re gonna have to slog through a mess of all the cops being ~insecure and jealous~ over these two when Anita gets there to boot. Basically, LKH made a good move here, just at a bad time for it in the story. But I still appreciate the effort, poorly written as the interaction was, and would like to give her props for that. As much as I enjoy her train-wrecks, I do genuinely want to see her improve too, and I enjoy it when she does, or at least seems to try.
