Blackwood Farm, Ch 37
Oct. 16th, 2017 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratLiterally nothing happened in this chapter either. I would say at least Petronia was in it, but that's ruined by the fact she's now fawning over Quinn like everyone else. Because even the bad guy has to be in love with him and think he's great.
CHAPTER 37
Quinn asks Petronia if he needs her permission (though Quinn is using male pronouns in his narration right now) but she says she has great plans for him and to come up so she can put them into execution.
That should be his sign to get back in the goddamn boat. Instead he comes up the stairs, and sees that "he was more definitely a she this evening". What this means is that she's wearing lipstick, kohl, a red velvet tunic shirt with long sleeves and matching pants, and a belt of cameos around her "small waist" each of which is two inches in size. I describe this because I like Petronia and I like how she dresses; if she was someone else I probably wouldn't have given a shit. She's barefoot, and her toenails are painted gold, as are her fingernails.
Quinn tells her she's beautiful, she invites him to look around his fine house, addressing him as "Little Gentleman" because everyone has to call Quinn little something except Mona. Quinn actually comments on this, asking why everyone refers to him as little, Petronia says it's because he's very tall but his face is very innocent. She said that she had a "theory" about him which has proven correct, that he's "learnt more" and grown to a great height and both these developments are splendid.
She shows him all the improvements to the Hermitage. There are gilded rafters, y'all.
GILDED. RAFTERS.
Quinn finds it all beautiful and yet somehow grotesque and impure. I'd say it's because it's gaudy and overdone, but he thinks it's because it's "out of keeping with the night noises of the swamp". He wonders if "had my adolescent madness done this or her total insanity?
He notices a golden cup with jewels on her desk and thinks it looks like the ciborium used at Mass. Being a mind-reader, she notices this thought and confirms it is indeed, that she bought it from a thief. She offers him wine and calls him King Tarquinn. I expected him to be embarrassed she somehow knows Mona's pet name for him and/or alarmed she might have hacked his email, but instead he's like "Ah, you know the derivation of my name" as in King Tarquin of Rome.
Petronia says she's thought of Quinn often these last few years, and praises him for the renovations she's made, saying how his workmen even come to clean it during the day. Quinn says yes, he asked them to, they must think him quite mad. Petronia says that's the common price of all wild eccentricity and that a small eccentricity isn't worth a damn. No longer she got along with Aunt Queen! She explains she doesn't know why she craves this "remote paradise" but she does, and she slips away from "other palaces where I'm too uncomfortably known" and comes here.
Petronia is yet another character I'd rather be reading about instead of Quinn. Or maybe not, since Rice would doubtlessly make her boring and unbearable too. And I would hate that.
Quinn notices a fur nearby, and asks if it's for cold nights. Petronia says it's for when she goes flying, that it gets terribly cold up in the clouds. Quinn does not believe her but plays along.
He thinks about how beautiful she is, how prominent her breasts are beneath her red tunic, and a lot about her bare feet, which he can't stop himself from looking at. She's got a gold ring on her left big toe and "there seemed something deliciously evil about singling out that toe for adornment."
Uh, okay then.
"My three and one-half years of Catholic abstinence weighed heavily upon me suddenly"
Catholic abstinence? I mean, Quinn is Catholic, but I don't believe the reason he wasn't having sex in Europe has anything to do with that, I reckon it's because he's in love with Mona. I mean, he had zero Catholic issues with having sex with Rebecca and Goblin (okay, Goblin was rape, but like, in Quinn's head it seems to have been just sex) Maybe ghosts don't count according to the catechism?
"Especially since there seemed something 'makeable' about her, maybe the fact that she seemed genuinely wild."
I don't know what "makeable" means but I bet it's creepy in this context.
"I also found it beguiling that she was shorter than me now"
...you know, I have height preferences too (I like tall women) so maybe this is hypocritical of me, but this comes off as creepy to me too. I realize MOST men who like women prefer them shorter. But...it being Quinn just makes it weird.
He thinks back to when she was the "six foot devil" who attacked him (she's still six feet, Quinn, and you only have a few inches on her now) until Goblin threw glass at her. Petronia picks up on this thought and says she notices that the "demon" is not with Quinn and asks if Quinn expects him to return and proffer his affections like a loyal dog, or "do you think he's gone forever?"
Quinn says it puzzles him why she uses such a sweet tone to say such a hostile thing. Given that Quinn grew up around a Real Southern Lady, I'd think he'd be used to EXACTLY that.
She says she didn't mean to, and that she finds Quinn quite "sanguine". Quinn doesn't know what this word means, which rather shocks me. But he tells her that the three and a half years have "mellowed me somewhat" and that he never expected her to invite him in, that he thought she would be "jealous" of her "nighttime hours" and turn him away.
She asks why he thinks that would be, and passes him a refilled cup. He notices the ring on her finger, and she says she carved it in the likeness of the god Mars; "I was consecrated to him once, but as a jest. I've been the victim of so many jests."
Quinn looks at the wine and says he can't imagine why, then asks if he is to drink alone. She says "for the moment" and that he'll make her unhappy if she doesn't. Quinn, you idiot. Oh, I'm sorry, Quinn you perfect polite aristocrat, because according to him "my breeding was such" that he cannot refuse.
Petronia notes "You really mean what you say, don't you? You don't see why people laugh at me. Or ever have, do you?"
I feel like this is grammatically incorrect somehow, it reads weird.
Anyway, Quinn says no, and Petronia explains that people laugh at her because of her being "both man and woman. But you see nothing to jest at, do you?"
Quinn says no, he thinks she's magnificent. And she is, but can I remind you all of the chapter where he's introduced to her and learns she's intersex and genderqueer, and how disgusting he was? He didn't find it humorous, granted, but he was still being absolutely revolting, not the beacon of innocent tolerance I think Rice is trying to make out now. Of course, to Rice, maybe simply not laughing at someone who doesn't fit the gender binary is the absolute height of progression...even if you're still presenting them as both monstrous and fetishized.
Quinn then comments on how strong the wine is, and asks if it's wine at all, then if he may sit down, since the floor is moving.
Is anyone surprised by this?
Hilariously, Quinn still hasn't caught on.
She pulls him up a chair and says that his workmen may think him mad but his taste is excellent "have no doubt" to which he replies he doesn't have any doubts. She urges him to drink more, saying it is a "special brew" that she blended herself.
At last showing some modicum of sense, Quinn says he can't, and thinks about her big eyes and how "powerful" and "enormous" they are. Petronia says she doesn't know what to do with him now that he's been so polite, that he was once an "annoying enemy" but "now I want you to love me."
Great. Just great.
"Perhaps once all's said and done, you will."
HOO BOY, THIS AIN'T GONNA BE GOOD
Quinn replies maybe, but that there are many "species of love" and that he is "religious still, and something tells me you live freely."
Firstly, I can't see what one thing has to do with the other in this sentence. Secondly, maybe this is out of place for an atheist to say, but it seems to me if you see a lack of faith as being "free" then maybe faith isn't for you. I'd like to think that if I were still Catholic, my religion would be a celebration for me, not a burden. Then again, there's a reason the phrase "Catholic guilt" exists so maybe this is just realistic.
Petronia says of course he's Catholic, that nothing less than "the Grand Church" would be worthy of him and "Mrs. McQueen." She says she saw him at Mass in Naples, where his family had booked a private tour of the San Gennaro catacombs. Quinn, his head now swimming, says he could swear he saw her in Naples too, and asks if she is his enemy. She says no, that if she could she would "deliver you from old age and death, from aches and pains, from the blandishments of ghosts, from the torment of your familiar Goblin. I'd deliver you from heat and cold and from the arid dullness of the noonday sun. I'd deliver you into the placid light of the moon and into the domain of the Milky Way forever."
Quinn says he cannot make sense of her "strange words" and says he saw her on a balcony in a nightmare. Petronia asks softly and sweetly "You call a fragment of my soul a nightmare? Oh, but who would want a fragment of another person's soul. You think you want Mona Mayfair's soul. You don't know what it would mean to see her now."
Quinn demands that Petronia not "play with" Mona's name. He suddenly feels that everything is "wrong". One such wrong thing is "The wine was not wine" Fucking duh Quinn. Another wrong this is "Petronia herself was too large and grand for a woman." OH FUCK YOU, QUINN. JUST...FUCK YOU!
Petronia purrs that when she's finished with him, he won't want Mona anymore, and he won't know any more of her soul either because she's going to lock it with a golden key and it will be silence between them. I think I remember something in "Blood & Gold" about how if a vampire makes another vampire, they can't read each other's minds, so that's probably what she's talking about.
Quinn tries to get up but he can't. He says he has to leave, and that if Petronia has "a modicum of honor" she will help him. She replies that she doesn't and that "we'll part soon enough in my time, though not in yours" and that she bequeaths both the Hermitage and the tomb here to him and "you may crave this dark, lively swamp as I so often craved it." She says she thinks she's been waiting for him these 3 1/2 years, "knowing I would relinquish everything to you" but what "why it is that this must be done, I can't answer"
Quinn asks what must be done, that he doesn't understand. She says "it's as though the evil builds up" and then "must be siphoned off into a new one, and I give birth as I never could in life." She gives him "the most transcendent smile" and he says he feels that she is a giant cat, he the luckless prey she has randomly selected. She counters that her selection is not random, but a choice made "carefully" on circumstance, merit, and loneliness. What merit Quinn has is beyond me.
"You are much loved. You have been long awaited."
I know she's technically had three years to dwell on this, and may have in fact been aware of Quinn since his birth, but it still feels random and baseless to me.
Quinn, meanwhile, feels he's about to pass out from drunkenness. No, stupid, you are drugged, you have very obviously been drugged. And she makes him drink more and it spills and he rambles about oh no not on the marble it looks too much like blood there (FORESHADOWING! DUN DUN DUN!)
He's fallen and can't stand. She kneels in front of him, and tells him she has cruelty in her so not to expect anything else, and that the only gifts he will have are those she chooses to give her "and I'll make no mewling bastards such as others make, fodder for the old ones, but I'll leave you strong when I leave you, and with all the gifts you need."
For those that need reminding, the "gifts" are how the vampires refer to the specific talents that some posses, such as the Mind Gift (telepathy), Cloud Gift (flight), and Fire Gift (pyrokinesis).
Quinn can no longer speak. He then sees Goblin behind her "indistinct, all force, not illusion" They fight briefly and he dissipates. She picks up Quinn, wraps him in the big mink fur, tells Goblin to "Say farwell to your lover!"
She and Quinn fly away into the cold night, and before he loses consciousness, she whispers to him: "Pay heed to these cold beacons, for in all your long life, you may never find warmer friends than these!"
And the chapter ends.
I can't feel sorry for Quinn or even fear for what will happen to him. Firstly, he's simply too unlikable for me. Secondly, he very literally walked into this. He decided, for no reason, to fucking go to Petronia's house alone at night, having agreed previously not to do this and knowing how strong she is and that she's a mind-reader and a murderer, and knowing his only defense is Goblin who HE DOES NOT HAVE RIGHT NOW. And then he fucking drinks the the wine that SHE HERSELF IS NOT DRINKING and says is a SPECIAL BLEND SHE BREWED HERSELF without hesitation or even thinking at any point "oh hey it might be drugged/poisoned" like I'm sorry I cannot feel sympathy for such an overwhelmingly STUPID protagonist, especially when they don't have any redeeming features whatsoever. Especially since he has no REASON for being here or doing this. Seriously, check the last chapter, he just RANDOMLY DECIDES he has to go out to the Hermitage. So he got himself into this predicament entirely of his own volition, for no reason, is too stupid to see it, and too shitty for me to care.
Petronia, if I were you, I'd be reconsidering my choice in new vampires to make.
CHAPTER 37
Quinn asks Petronia if he needs her permission (though Quinn is using male pronouns in his narration right now) but she says she has great plans for him and to come up so she can put them into execution.
That should be his sign to get back in the goddamn boat. Instead he comes up the stairs, and sees that "he was more definitely a she this evening". What this means is that she's wearing lipstick, kohl, a red velvet tunic shirt with long sleeves and matching pants, and a belt of cameos around her "small waist" each of which is two inches in size. I describe this because I like Petronia and I like how she dresses; if she was someone else I probably wouldn't have given a shit. She's barefoot, and her toenails are painted gold, as are her fingernails.
Quinn tells her she's beautiful, she invites him to look around his fine house, addressing him as "Little Gentleman" because everyone has to call Quinn little something except Mona. Quinn actually comments on this, asking why everyone refers to him as little, Petronia says it's because he's very tall but his face is very innocent. She said that she had a "theory" about him which has proven correct, that he's "learnt more" and grown to a great height and both these developments are splendid.
She shows him all the improvements to the Hermitage. There are gilded rafters, y'all.
GILDED. RAFTERS.
Quinn finds it all beautiful and yet somehow grotesque and impure. I'd say it's because it's gaudy and overdone, but he thinks it's because it's "out of keeping with the night noises of the swamp". He wonders if "had my adolescent madness done this or her total insanity?
He notices a golden cup with jewels on her desk and thinks it looks like the ciborium used at Mass. Being a mind-reader, she notices this thought and confirms it is indeed, that she bought it from a thief. She offers him wine and calls him King Tarquinn. I expected him to be embarrassed she somehow knows Mona's pet name for him and/or alarmed she might have hacked his email, but instead he's like "Ah, you know the derivation of my name" as in King Tarquin of Rome.
Petronia says she's thought of Quinn often these last few years, and praises him for the renovations she's made, saying how his workmen even come to clean it during the day. Quinn says yes, he asked them to, they must think him quite mad. Petronia says that's the common price of all wild eccentricity and that a small eccentricity isn't worth a damn. No longer she got along with Aunt Queen! She explains she doesn't know why she craves this "remote paradise" but she does, and she slips away from "other palaces where I'm too uncomfortably known" and comes here.
Petronia is yet another character I'd rather be reading about instead of Quinn. Or maybe not, since Rice would doubtlessly make her boring and unbearable too. And I would hate that.
Quinn notices a fur nearby, and asks if it's for cold nights. Petronia says it's for when she goes flying, that it gets terribly cold up in the clouds. Quinn does not believe her but plays along.
He thinks about how beautiful she is, how prominent her breasts are beneath her red tunic, and a lot about her bare feet, which he can't stop himself from looking at. She's got a gold ring on her left big toe and "there seemed something deliciously evil about singling out that toe for adornment."
Uh, okay then.
"My three and one-half years of Catholic abstinence weighed heavily upon me suddenly"
Catholic abstinence? I mean, Quinn is Catholic, but I don't believe the reason he wasn't having sex in Europe has anything to do with that, I reckon it's because he's in love with Mona. I mean, he had zero Catholic issues with having sex with Rebecca and Goblin (okay, Goblin was rape, but like, in Quinn's head it seems to have been just sex) Maybe ghosts don't count according to the catechism?
"Especially since there seemed something 'makeable' about her, maybe the fact that she seemed genuinely wild."
I don't know what "makeable" means but I bet it's creepy in this context.
"I also found it beguiling that she was shorter than me now"
...you know, I have height preferences too (I like tall women) so maybe this is hypocritical of me, but this comes off as creepy to me too. I realize MOST men who like women prefer them shorter. But...it being Quinn just makes it weird.
He thinks back to when she was the "six foot devil" who attacked him (she's still six feet, Quinn, and you only have a few inches on her now) until Goblin threw glass at her. Petronia picks up on this thought and says she notices that the "demon" is not with Quinn and asks if Quinn expects him to return and proffer his affections like a loyal dog, or "do you think he's gone forever?"
Quinn says it puzzles him why she uses such a sweet tone to say such a hostile thing. Given that Quinn grew up around a Real Southern Lady, I'd think he'd be used to EXACTLY that.
She says she didn't mean to, and that she finds Quinn quite "sanguine". Quinn doesn't know what this word means, which rather shocks me. But he tells her that the three and a half years have "mellowed me somewhat" and that he never expected her to invite him in, that he thought she would be "jealous" of her "nighttime hours" and turn him away.
She asks why he thinks that would be, and passes him a refilled cup. He notices the ring on her finger, and she says she carved it in the likeness of the god Mars; "I was consecrated to him once, but as a jest. I've been the victim of so many jests."
Quinn looks at the wine and says he can't imagine why, then asks if he is to drink alone. She says "for the moment" and that he'll make her unhappy if she doesn't. Quinn, you idiot. Oh, I'm sorry, Quinn you perfect polite aristocrat, because according to him "my breeding was such" that he cannot refuse.
Petronia notes "You really mean what you say, don't you? You don't see why people laugh at me. Or ever have, do you?"
I feel like this is grammatically incorrect somehow, it reads weird.
Anyway, Quinn says no, and Petronia explains that people laugh at her because of her being "both man and woman. But you see nothing to jest at, do you?"
Quinn says no, he thinks she's magnificent. And she is, but can I remind you all of the chapter where he's introduced to her and learns she's intersex and genderqueer, and how disgusting he was? He didn't find it humorous, granted, but he was still being absolutely revolting, not the beacon of innocent tolerance I think Rice is trying to make out now. Of course, to Rice, maybe simply not laughing at someone who doesn't fit the gender binary is the absolute height of progression...even if you're still presenting them as both monstrous and fetishized.
Quinn then comments on how strong the wine is, and asks if it's wine at all, then if he may sit down, since the floor is moving.
Is anyone surprised by this?
Hilariously, Quinn still hasn't caught on.
She pulls him up a chair and says that his workmen may think him mad but his taste is excellent "have no doubt" to which he replies he doesn't have any doubts. She urges him to drink more, saying it is a "special brew" that she blended herself.
At last showing some modicum of sense, Quinn says he can't, and thinks about her big eyes and how "powerful" and "enormous" they are. Petronia says she doesn't know what to do with him now that he's been so polite, that he was once an "annoying enemy" but "now I want you to love me."
Great. Just great.
"Perhaps once all's said and done, you will."
HOO BOY, THIS AIN'T GONNA BE GOOD
Quinn replies maybe, but that there are many "species of love" and that he is "religious still, and something tells me you live freely."
Firstly, I can't see what one thing has to do with the other in this sentence. Secondly, maybe this is out of place for an atheist to say, but it seems to me if you see a lack of faith as being "free" then maybe faith isn't for you. I'd like to think that if I were still Catholic, my religion would be a celebration for me, not a burden. Then again, there's a reason the phrase "Catholic guilt" exists so maybe this is just realistic.
Petronia says of course he's Catholic, that nothing less than "the Grand Church" would be worthy of him and "Mrs. McQueen." She says she saw him at Mass in Naples, where his family had booked a private tour of the San Gennaro catacombs. Quinn, his head now swimming, says he could swear he saw her in Naples too, and asks if she is his enemy. She says no, that if she could she would "deliver you from old age and death, from aches and pains, from the blandishments of ghosts, from the torment of your familiar Goblin. I'd deliver you from heat and cold and from the arid dullness of the noonday sun. I'd deliver you into the placid light of the moon and into the domain of the Milky Way forever."
Quinn says he cannot make sense of her "strange words" and says he saw her on a balcony in a nightmare. Petronia asks softly and sweetly "You call a fragment of my soul a nightmare? Oh, but who would want a fragment of another person's soul. You think you want Mona Mayfair's soul. You don't know what it would mean to see her now."
Quinn demands that Petronia not "play with" Mona's name. He suddenly feels that everything is "wrong". One such wrong thing is "The wine was not wine" Fucking duh Quinn. Another wrong this is "Petronia herself was too large and grand for a woman." OH FUCK YOU, QUINN. JUST...FUCK YOU!
Petronia purrs that when she's finished with him, he won't want Mona anymore, and he won't know any more of her soul either because she's going to lock it with a golden key and it will be silence between them. I think I remember something in "Blood & Gold" about how if a vampire makes another vampire, they can't read each other's minds, so that's probably what she's talking about.
Quinn tries to get up but he can't. He says he has to leave, and that if Petronia has "a modicum of honor" she will help him. She replies that she doesn't and that "we'll part soon enough in my time, though not in yours" and that she bequeaths both the Hermitage and the tomb here to him and "you may crave this dark, lively swamp as I so often craved it." She says she thinks she's been waiting for him these 3 1/2 years, "knowing I would relinquish everything to you" but what "why it is that this must be done, I can't answer"
Quinn asks what must be done, that he doesn't understand. She says "it's as though the evil builds up" and then "must be siphoned off into a new one, and I give birth as I never could in life." She gives him "the most transcendent smile" and he says he feels that she is a giant cat, he the luckless prey she has randomly selected. She counters that her selection is not random, but a choice made "carefully" on circumstance, merit, and loneliness. What merit Quinn has is beyond me.
"You are much loved. You have been long awaited."
I know she's technically had three years to dwell on this, and may have in fact been aware of Quinn since his birth, but it still feels random and baseless to me.
Quinn, meanwhile, feels he's about to pass out from drunkenness. No, stupid, you are drugged, you have very obviously been drugged. And she makes him drink more and it spills and he rambles about oh no not on the marble it looks too much like blood there (FORESHADOWING! DUN DUN DUN!)
He's fallen and can't stand. She kneels in front of him, and tells him she has cruelty in her so not to expect anything else, and that the only gifts he will have are those she chooses to give her "and I'll make no mewling bastards such as others make, fodder for the old ones, but I'll leave you strong when I leave you, and with all the gifts you need."
For those that need reminding, the "gifts" are how the vampires refer to the specific talents that some posses, such as the Mind Gift (telepathy), Cloud Gift (flight), and Fire Gift (pyrokinesis).
Quinn can no longer speak. He then sees Goblin behind her "indistinct, all force, not illusion" They fight briefly and he dissipates. She picks up Quinn, wraps him in the big mink fur, tells Goblin to "Say farwell to your lover!"
She and Quinn fly away into the cold night, and before he loses consciousness, she whispers to him: "Pay heed to these cold beacons, for in all your long life, you may never find warmer friends than these!"
And the chapter ends.
I can't feel sorry for Quinn or even fear for what will happen to him. Firstly, he's simply too unlikable for me. Secondly, he very literally walked into this. He decided, for no reason, to fucking go to Petronia's house alone at night, having agreed previously not to do this and knowing how strong she is and that she's a mind-reader and a murderer, and knowing his only defense is Goblin who HE DOES NOT HAVE RIGHT NOW. And then he fucking drinks the the wine that SHE HERSELF IS NOT DRINKING and says is a SPECIAL BLEND SHE BREWED HERSELF without hesitation or even thinking at any point "oh hey it might be drugged/poisoned" like I'm sorry I cannot feel sympathy for such an overwhelmingly STUPID protagonist, especially when they don't have any redeeming features whatsoever. Especially since he has no REASON for being here or doing this. Seriously, check the last chapter, he just RANDOMLY DECIDES he has to go out to the Hermitage. So he got himself into this predicament entirely of his own volition, for no reason, is too stupid to see it, and too shitty for me to care.
Petronia, if I were you, I'd be reconsidering my choice in new vampires to make.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-16 07:13 pm (UTC)It's very Church Lady, really. They take a creature that should be vicious and terrifying, and make it static and pure -- and entirely removed from the world. Which is the only way anything could possibly be pure. I find it incredibly unappealing.
I think that's the same reason Rice made Quinn a phenomenal idiot. It's supposed to show he's unworldly and innocent, which is ludicrous considering his past actions, but we're supposed to like that. A lot of women do for some reason, or fanfic wouldn't be crawling with woobies. Personally it makes me want to kick him in the head.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-17 01:13 am (UTC)Also, same.