LKH Lashouts

Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, we can't have Anita entering her THIRTIES... and... AGING.

Have we ever seen a pic of LKH younger?

I have this funny little fantasy about the Anitaverse gang in forty-five years, with Anita in the bedroom and the guys sitting out in the living room playing cards or something:

Nathaniel will be lost under a giant mass of hair, and the overwhelming smell of spoiled vanilla.
Micah will be wrinkly with long hair and a walker, with a special support down under for the Wonderwang. Asher and JC will be cuddling shamelessly, looking about the same as they do now. And there'll be a bunch of other weres and vampires lying around the place, looking bored.
Then Anita yells from the next room: "Oooooohhhhhh, I can feel my beast rising and spilling out..."
JC: Sacre bleu, what does that old bag want now?
Jason: Oh, don't tell me she needs a good shag again. Ever since they forced her to retire she's just lying in there and calling us in twice the amount she used to. And after forty-five years of the ardeur, it's not much fun anymore, even if you don't consider that she looks like your grandma.
Anita: Come on, while I'll still wet and tight!
JC: Which was what, forty years ago?
Damien: I think it's your turn, JC.
JC: Oh no it isn't, I've been keeping track and it's Micah's turn to go in. Come on, Mr. Only-You-Can-Love-My-Peenie.
Micah: But I've only got two more bottles of Viagra left!
JC: So swallow the first bottle, and go f*** ma petite.
Micah: Fine, but I'm going to make sure that when it's your turn, she wears Nathaniel's bondage thong. *hobbles out*
Asher (to JC): How much longer til she dies, and we can go to bed together?
JC: Another 408 novels.

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sharkbytes.livejournal.com

As far as I know, the series never makes mention of the decade (I could be wrong, I'd have to check) but it really does scream of the 1980s, especially with regard to fashion. I'm not even being critical--some of those outfits just don't exist anymore, lol. You'd have to find someone who saved all of their old clothes, or see if a thrift/vintage shop had anything.

It would be one thing if Anita and the gang didn't give a rat's ass about clothing, but Jean-Claude is supposedly a clothes-horse, and by extension, Anita pays attention now to outfits and such. She describes the outfits as though they're so ~*impressive*~ and I can't help but cringe and laugh at the same time.

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Yeah, a lot of them either don't resemble reality (the diamond-piped corset dress) or come across as these wildly dated things.

Another argument for the heroine staying in jeans and T-shirts -- they are always the same.

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Re: technophobia, you don't really need to understand them -- or even like them -- to mention an ipod or a cell. Neither one is terribly complex. Even an offhand mention like "Some guy driving with his cell phone glued to his ear..."

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vmisery.livejournal.com

My theory about the time-slowed-to-a-crawl thing is that she's been watching too much 24.

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Miss Laurell has that feel of v. backwater Missouri to her -- I know Kansas City and St. Louis all huge and mind-boggling, but when Laurell says "St. Louis Suburb" I can't help but be like "ah, you mean something like Ava. You probably just got electricity last year." It might actually still be the eighties in her area -- Missouri time is funny like that. D:

It was very cosmopolitan to her when the Jeep that the Creepy Businessman loaned her had a car-phone in Bloody Bones, which predates most cell phones smaller than a shoe box.

(Although ... I think if I were writing a novel, I'd stay away from references to trendy technology like ipods and pdas and whatnot, unless the use of them is relevant to the story. Dolph whipping out his Razr to make a call to HQ? Sure, that's believable. But unless you're talking one of the strippers slipping some ear buds on after they get off work, there's no useful point in making the reference. Besides, if she got her hand on the ipod, god knows she'd have to inform you as to everyone's playlists, and as interesting as that would be, I don't want to spend half the book wading through a track listing of what they "tell" her they listen to.)

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cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com

Compared to time in the Merry Gentry series, Anita Blake's days are flying past.

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kyalesyin.livejournal.com

ftw

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unrund.livejournal.com

I am wavering between being grossed out at the mental image and being completly horrified because the paart with the 408 'novels' is a distinct possibility.

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:) i'll take your word on the. St. Louis suburb thing.

I remember seeing some car phones in Remington Steele DVDs, and my mom said they were cutting edge tech at the time.

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My parents live in that area of Missouri. It's ... kind of scary, for lack of a better word. D:

At the time being the operative phrase. I don't think her world's technology has progressed much since then. You'd think, at least, Burt would demand she have a cell (oh god, does she even still work there? It's been so long since I've read some of the newer books), or that somehow JC or RPIT or someone would drive her to get one. It beats a beeper, hands down. D:

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ladymuttly1.livejournal.com

In fairness to LKH mentioning specific technology dates a book (erm-well so does her clothing choice) In five years it's more than likely that an IPOD will be dated.

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nightangel486.livejournal.com

I'd always assumed the books took place around the time they first came out--early 90's, which still had a lot of influence leftover from the 80s in terms of clothes and whatnot. How is Anita contacting people in The Harlequin, payphones? Does no one have a cellphone? I mean I can buy something like that in the Dresden Files, where Harry seriously cannot have or be around technology, but there is no explanation for this in the Anitaverse except for that it's still stuck in the early to mid 90s.

How much time passed in the first couple books? Months? Maybe a year or so? Anita started out at around 24 from what I recall, and she's what, like 27 or something now? So yeah...still mid-nineties. I think that the slow timeline, coupled with LKH's technophobia and other numerous issues, is keeping the series from progressing in any sense. Time is crawling forward in these books at a snail's pace, because Anita's pushing thirty and LKH wants to stave that off as long as possible. And it's certainly not progressing in terms of character development and the like.

or maybe it's some brilliant merketing scheme. The less time that gets covered in each book, the more books she will have to write to get anywhere in the story, and the more money she'll make.

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LKH has said that the plot is in the sex, so that's why we're treated to so many chapters of mind-numbling boring porn and wangst, because IT'S IMPORTANT!!!1!

If we got rid of all that and had a heroine that would actually go out and like, do her job, rather than every male in existence, then I'm sure the books would go a lot quicker simply because we'd be focusing more on actual ways to solve crime/defeat the bad guys.

But no, we can't have that.

As for the 80s, I'm pretty sure that's just LKH's perceptions of the world and how she thinks it ought to be. Maybe it's from her glory days of strutting her stuff, I don't know -- but there was a blog a few months ago when she was watching TV and had to ask Jon, "is that what girls these days are wearing?" because she couldn't wrap her mind around the skimpy fashions of today.

I don't mind the lack of technology thing so much, A) because this is sorta meant to be noir-ish and B) because technology changes so damned quickly, it's hard to keep up with the trends.

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Anita's "fashion sense, or lack thereof...

I hereby state that if I am EVER caught wearing something any of those characters, or LKH herself would wear, and I am NOT at a flashback costume party...

SOMEONE better be ready to take me OUT. I mean the full treatment. A stake through the heart, a bullet to the brain, whatever it is, just be sure I am dead and can be preserved from EVER making such a mistake again.

Good god... doesn't anyone tell this woman that tight miniskirts went out years ago? Well, unless you're a streetwalker... Oh wait... it's Anita... that explains it!

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Well, I don't know about diamonds, simply because of the horrific expense, but a corset dress is a mainstay of Goth fashion even now. Is LKH shooting for Goth fashion and missing badly maybe?

It's better that she misses. Goth fashions are gorgeous... but they don't fit ANY of her characters, places or events. That and well, AB would probably just complain about how her fat ass doesn't look good being so highly accentuated by a REAL corset. *snicker*

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Hey now! I grew up about halfway between KC and St Louis. There is plenty of running water, electricity and so on. Just because we lived in the middle of a bunch of farms doesn't mean we were hicks!

Now, as for the St. Louis outliers, I can't say. I know enough about St Louis to never leave the interstate when I pass through there and never ever stop in East St Louis. I do recall that when driving across MO, you cross farm land, more farm land, empty spaces, and then BOOM! There's a city! Go through the city, cross the river, go through the war-zone looking area, and back to farm land. Maybe the St. Louis outliers are backwards!

Just don't go including the western side of the state in that "Missouri time" concept. ;)

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Do her job? You mean, like, go and raise the dead?

It's been a while since she has. I betcha LKH forgot she said that if AB didn't raise the dead enough that they started just popping up and following her. I wanna see the parade of road kill follow her to the big final fight! *rofl*

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I'd pay to see that kind of fight. But seriously, Anita hasn't worked for going on a year now, ever since the Penis turned up. I don't count the novella dedicated to him, because I'm still in WTFistan about why the hell it happened in the first place. I mean, the feds couldn't find any local talent? Surely there are animators in Philly?

Swanning around and talking to the cops every now and then isn't a way to earn a consultancy fee, either. I'm waiting for her landlord to take her to court or evict her for being unable to pay. Likewise, I have yet to see Micah lift a finger to work. Maybe he doesn't have the blood circulation for that sort of thing. But we know Nate strips. So maybe he's the breadwinner here. Which really makes the whole Stepford Paradise thing even more screwy than it already is.

Anita's pretty much the poster gal for what I think is wrong with feminsm today.

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Ah, no offense meant! (I was wondering if this was going to happen. XDDD)

I spent about a week at my parents' place. It had all the proper amenities, even if the house was fuck all old (almost as old as the house my apartment is a part of, and better taken care of T_T), and it wasn't like the area was stone age or anything. By scary, I meant the mentality of the townsfolk. We were riding around with her real estate woman, who spent several hours joyously explaining in great detail how the town had managed to close down a pizzeria for the simple crime of the owner's daughter being a lesbian (the girl didn't even live in the town), and how they'd run a doctor out of town for also being a lesbian. I listened to stories of men running down hippies who dared enter the territory, so they could beat the living shit out of them, and all sorts of craziness. Me? I kept my live-and-let-live, left-leaning mouth the hell shut and tried not to make too many angry noises, but I'd never, ever choose to live there, even if the housing prices are so unbelievably low. They'd stone me the moment I opened my mouth, and probably my mother too for allowing such bad blood into the world. D: I know that not everyone down there is that crazy, but it really left a horrible impression on me.

Me, on the other hand -- I live in Montana and spent half my life on an Indian reservation, so I know what it's like to be stereotyped and looked down on for where I came from. On the other hand, I still get away with telling people that I live in a two-story tipi and that my brother was buried in the garden after cholera wiped out our old town sometimes, and I find that incredibly funny. I'm so not kidding.

Now, none of this really has anything to do with LKH herself, though it might explain some of her values if she was raised locally. My original point was somewhere along the lines of LKH's penchant for exaggeration, and how what she considers a suburb of St. Louis could easily be something fifty miles away in that kind of area.

Again, no offense intended; I hope I made myself a bit more clear. :3

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Too true. :3 I'd not ruled that out, though whether that was an intended thing or not is left to debate. XD

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I think Mr. Peen's novellaugh involved raising a zombie (wasn't that her premise for going out of town anyway?). I'm pretty sure of it, actually, though I only read it once.

I'm still wondering exactly what happened to it between the time she passed out and sweaty porn, though.

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door.livejournal.com

OMG, RPIT! How sad is it that (like Laurell), I had forgotten all about RPIT! I miss non-porn Anita so, so much.

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Oh yeah, it was all about raising a zombie -- for the feds, because of the crisis with Larry and Tammy. And even then, there was a bunch of wank around, "how do you raise a zombie?" with a court proceding that somehow took place in the pitch black, and then there was more magikal, "omg, Micah and I are so perfeck and destined to be together!" crap, and in the end, the whole thing hardly mattered.

But I'm choosing to ignore this, because the entire premise of the reason for going out of town can be easily shot down by use of simple logic. Then again, LKH seems to go out of her way to meticulously justify everything Anita does, rather than have anything happen spontaneously or, heaven forbid, because it's actually fun. So her weekend with Micah has to be for "work" (and all the vampire laws that Anita has to live by because she's JC's human servant instantly no longer apply, there's extra laws in place to allow our heroine to transport a gun on a plane, etc), and he has to save her life by getting her the swish hotel room rather than the two of them taking a dirty weekend. *facepalm*

I'm sorry for ranting at you, but I'm pretty sure that insane troll logic makes more sense than anything that LKH can put to print.

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AND HOW.

I got bored and started re-reading the series from the beginning, and was just struck by the fact that no matter how bad the prose was, the stories were actually interesting and really fun to read. D:

Maybe someday she'll come around. I'm not going to hold my breath, though. D:

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*grin* No personal offense taken, but it gets old, hearing about how "backwards" people are if they don't live in a major city. I lived in KY for about 13 yrs at one point. It was annoying to have people ask if we have shoes and how on earth I had gotten power to run a computer, much less learned to use one. *eye roll*

We were riding around with her real estate woman, who spent several hours joyously explaining in great detail how the town had managed to close down a pizzeria for the simple crime of the owner's daughter being a lesbian (the girl didn't even live in the town), and how they'd run a doctor out of town for also being a lesbian.

Ahh, the old-line religious fundies. Yeah, there are an amazing number of those where I live now. Houston, which IIRC, is the 3rd largest city in the nation, and loaded to the freaking gills with fundies. I have no issue myself with religious beliefs and tend to think that they're more beneficial than harmful for most people... until it reaches the radical extremes that the fundie camps get to.

I'm surprised LKH can even remain in the St Louis area if she's writing this stuff so openly! MO is, if nothing else, a fairly religiously steeped area.

The town I grew up in even still manages to remain all-white. The level of racism there is probably the only backwards trait they still have. The others were ripped away when the Junior High History teacher's daughter went to college and came home gay and tattooed. Horrors! *roflmao* If the town had only known that we kids knew that when she was dating the head cheerleader for 4 yrs!

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If only we could "vote her out of the sisterhood" yeah? Some "female things" need not be recognized as women, IMO... AB is one, LKH is included as the creator/psychologically projecting idiot.

As for Micah, he works! He does the non-paying job of running the local were-support (whatever she's calling it now). Oh, and there's just tooo much for him to do, so he has help! *eye roll*

Nathan... well... I'm crossing my fingers for SOMEONE to take him from Anita and show him what a real Domme is like and what REAL love is. He's nothing more than a beaten child who is holding to the patterns he was forced to.

OOH! Maybe his therapist will run away with him! *snicker*

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:) The corset dress I don't have a problem with, but the woefully inaccurate descriptions of it I do. She apparently takes her cues on how modern corsets feel from old period dramas.

I agree, the actual Goth fashions are incredibly gorgeous. But they would fit her characters like a three-fingered glove.

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I'm surprised LKH can even remain in the St Louis area if she's writing this stuff so openly! MO is, if nothing else, a fairly religiously steeped area.

:) The wealthy get away with anything, but now she's complained that they waaahh waahhh wahhhh don't pay enough attention to her.

The town I grew up in even still manages to remain all-white.

I feel thy pain. Or is it thine pain? Anyway, I used to live in a very rural area with lots of cows, farms and people Britney Spears would feel at home with -- I felt like I'd been time-travelled back to the Dark Ages with my modem and plumbing. They got all weirded out when an Indian engineer moved into my old house.

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Yeah, I think she's twenty-seven approximately, since she keeps mentioning the age gap between her and her lates pedolove. So it should be maybe 1994, 95?

She should just do what some manga writers do, and ignore the disparity of age and time passing -- what's one more plot hole? Or since Anita's magic pron powers can do anything else, why not stop aging?

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Ooooh, I'm so impressed by Micah's job, which is so all-consuming he has to spend all his time at home or following Anita around. Almost as harrowing as Jon's job, it seems.

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Didn't she spend, like, a DAY at the office, most of which consisted of chest-beating in front of her oh-so-icky-male boss and having sex with Nathaniel?

I'm assuming that JC is quietly putting money in her bank account for constant shags, power siphoning and the occasional threesome he gets with other men. He wouldn't do it openly, of course -- that might imply she's a whore, and we can't have that.

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