Thinky Thoughts Re: Blood Noir & The Future

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

You've all likely seen the Blood Noir Chpt 1 notice/post. Some of you have read it. I personally couldn't finish past the first two and a half paragraphs.

But one of the comments in that entry (sorry, can't remember whose and it's now hugely long) made note of the fact that LKH writes a few paragraphs of the next book in a series, right after she's finished the latest. It's so as not to have her start out with an empty page - she says.

Personally I'd think jotting down some ideas for plot would be more helpful, but that's just me.

Anyway, the commenter mentioned that this first chapter then, the very first paragraphs, have been around since before the last Anita Blake book got published/came out. That these first paragraphs are theoretically LKH on a roll, in the voice of the main character.

But then I remembered that didn't Blood Noir start off as some kind of plot bunny in the middle of her writing a Merry Gentry book? Can someone confirm that for me? Because I'm struck thinking how, in the middle of writing about Merry (and Kitto - that's the Goblin Kid, right?) LKH was seized with the urge to write about Nate's jailbait ass.

I also seem to remember LKH's surprise at having an errant plot bunny and more surprise that said bunny was coming across as a book that would somehow be focused on Jason. So again, I'm struck with how in the middle of writing a Merry Book, LKH found herself jonesing for some sweet sweet Jason ass cheeks for fondalating.

Jason/Nathan sandwich with Anita filling.

eta (3/6/08): (Sentence shifting by modly request. Also, LJ is no sending me comments via email. S'good thing I checked the page)


I've said before that my personal theory on The Anita Blake Series & The Merry Gentry Series is that LKH is using creative writing to journal out personal issues.

It's something I've done, making characters deal with things I'm dealing with but in a more creative fashion. My landlord's an asswipe? The character has to deal with a slum lord troll landlord with a bias against humans - or something similar. Family member being difficult? Character's family member's a cat sacrificing evil hater.

These, however, are my personal writings that don't get shared except with maybe a few friends. I know that I'm dealing with issues and working through personal ethical and psychological questions.

But it's already been discussed that LKH can't seem to see the personal infusing her writing, so let's not rehash.

If Blood Noir started off in the middle of a Merry Gentry book, then what was it that LKH couldn't work through with a fairy harem, that she could work through with Anita's boys?

Or was it that she needed boys. Nate's 'just past jailbait' and Jason's isn't so much older.

ASIDE:

If there's a reason for LKH to be focusing on age and sex and sexuality - what probable reason could she have for not starting up a third line with a third avatar? A younger Avatar right from the start?

We make a lot of jokes that she can't see she's essentially writing the same story over and over again, with a few different flavour choices. But could we be wrong?

Because really, what is stopping her from writing a seventeen or eighteen year old, old soul, who battles with/for Angels against/beside Demons?

What's stopping her from writing a twenty-something year old witch, who gets courted by a bevy of male elemental spirits, eventually evolving into a harem from which she draws her power and spells to fight the forces of evil?

Can she not get the go ahead for a new line/series? I don't know enough about the publishing world at the moment to tell.

She's savvy enough to realize she needs to keep putting her name out there. So it's possible she thinks that three would be too much and it'd be dangerous to let either Merry or Anita pause just for some new character, because she's known for those two women.

END ASIDE:

Here's my scary question. The last Anita Blake book involved Peter. This book with Jason, seems like it will involve parental approval / acceptance, and Jason and Anita, a lot of sex and some new Happy Meals With Legs.

Therefore how old/young are the new harem members likely to be? And is it possible the troos are being prepared/indoctrinated for the harem to include Peter?

---

(03/07/08) ETA Thread Links:
Richard: His Futile Fight For Sanity
I Am Woman: Lyrics By Anita & Merry

Comments

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

Anita's relationships with Nathaniel and Peter absolutely terrify me. Especially after the great lengths LKH went to with the whole "Underage merboys? NO WAI!" scenario.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

There's totally going to be a straight shota orgy with Anita, Peter, Nate, and the Mer Boys. Just you wait. Anita will be a giant hole indoctrinating 3 of them. And Nate'll be finally tied up, but made to watch.

*pets*

I only say this now, for you to harden your mental walls.

[missamii.livejournal.com]

I think you may be on to something here. Jason and Nathaniel have always been on the young side, but now it seems more of an issue than ever before. I think you are right. She is using them both, plus that poetry-spouting dumbass vampire that is supposed to have the body of a fifteen year old and her flirtation with idea of under-aged sex with the mermaid kid, to normalize what amounts to child molestation.

If I had to guess what the sudden emphasis on really, really young boys means... well, its been stated multiple times that Laurell is a square with the same 1950's mindset that she berates against the world for having. Don Quixote tilting at windmills and all. And she's also getting pretty long in the tooth. She's probably anxious as hell about her looks going. It's probably the same logic that causes middle aged men to chase younger women, their youth somehow giving you a mark of distinction.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I've seen people talking all over about Sara Jane from Dr. Who fandom and President Laura on Battlestar Galatica about MILF's.

And they're both dark haired older woman, so one would think seeing them on television would settle some insecure nerves. Laura even had her a pretty adoring young thing in Billy.

Things is, I guess, both the characters and the actresses aren't trying to hold on to a period of their lives that has long since passed. They're comfortable with their bodies and their wrinkles and their wonderful laugh-lines and that innate confidence is sexy and it shows.

If LKH could get that, Anita might grow up a bit and maybe even start thinking instead of waiting for a power to pull itself out of her crotch and smack the bad guys.

Or maybe I'm dreaming.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Just to split hairs, the poetry-spouting dumbass vampire is a different one from the fifteen-year-old one. :) I can see how they would get mixed up, though, since the fifteen-year-old has a poet's name.

And yeah, I get the feeling that menopause is weighing heavily on her at the moment. She's been basically using her younger hubby and her Sue to keep time at bay, but you can only do that in people's minds.

You may well be right that there's a correlation between her own age and the decreasing ages of the men she fancies, and her obsession with pointing it out. Or she just had a fetish all along, and this sudden cause for insecurity has triggered it in greater volume.

Ironically, as with guys with trophy wives, having fictional boyfriends who are just post-"jailbait" are only going to make you look older.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

The future Peter corruption seems inevitable, and I definitely think it's about the need to feed Laurita's pedophilia fetish.

I'm guessing jon and his nate/kitto avatars aren't doing it for her anymore, since he's getting close to 35, which seems to be the upper limit agewise when it comes to keeping her attention. I think she hates that he doesn't look like jailbait anymore.

I also think that when the lion king told her she was guilty of being a slaver, and she defensively lashed out, with her sick mind making the leap to her supposedly not wanting to corrupt the young it was very telling.

Anita always says she'll never do something right before she does it: betray Richard/Gary, s&m, 3-ways, have sex with Nate/Jon
She obsesses, and finds a way to turn her fantasy into Anita's reality
Laurell lives out the fantasy in her real life

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty dangerous precedent. I mean, it's one thing if you happen to like shota. I know I'm guilty of forgiving damn near any drawing if it involves big eyes and bunny ears. Cause dude! It's a boy! With bunny ears! And a fluffy tail!

Ahem.

But fiction isn't reality. Art isn't reality. And the progression you're talking about where the line gets crossed between a fictional avatar to the reality author is SCA.RY.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

I will lose any shred of respect for LKH that remains (I do still have some respect, if for the early books and some of her characters back then than anything else) if she indoctrinates Peter into her harem.

Here is a boy who was very young when he was first introduced, and was sexually abused at that time, and obviously has some problems from it. Especially if he's training under Edward. We've seen Anita do some sick things, but that just take the cake. I don't know why it squicks me out, since there are a few books out there where an older character knew the love interest as a child. Austen's Emma for one, but then again, the Peter situation smacks of pedophilia and is just so completely WRONG in my brain that it just makes me want to scream.

No, LKH. Quit while you're so far behind.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Personally, the minute I found out Anita slept with Nate, LKH had entered the land of pedophilia for me and well, I no longer feel guilty about the things I think about her, or her works.

Nathan needed support, comfort and stability. He needed safety.

LKH/Anita won my undying love when I first read her putting Nate with his back against the wall and refraining from doing anything even remotely sexual with him. She set a boundary and my respect was huge.

She now regularly steps over that boundary to fondle a no longer quite jail bait ass.

Having sex with an emotionally stunted, previously sexually abused individual who is dependent on you for protection and a place in society / their community - it doesn't matter if they were 17 or 7.

She's already an abuser to me. Heck, she's an abuser who likes to publicly show off her underage, emotionally manipulated conquest.

[librarista.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a character having known their love interest as a child but it can so easily be creepy and wrong. Anything that LKH writes is creepy and wrong. I'm prepared to run screaming from her books soon.

Until the first chapter of Blood Noir (that I couldn't even get through), I didn't think I'd drop the series. Figured I'd stuck through the worst. But it really seems like it's going to get bad in ways that are not entertaining and it's going to happen soon.

[assplund.livejournal.com]

I do still have some respect, if for the early books and some of her characters back then than anything else.

If anything, that gives me less respect for her, because she created some well-crafted, entertaining stories and interesting, fairly complex characters, and then she shat all over them.

Oh god, what a lovely mental image I just created for myself.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Out of random curiosity, how old (physically) are most of her harem members? Richard seems to be the only one who gives the impression of being thirty-plus.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

See, here's where I think LKH has given herself an escape clause in a few cases. Nate and Peter, obviously, still under 21, but Byron can look as mid-pubescent as she likes because he's really hundreds of years old, and Kitto can look like a fracking twelve-year-old if she likes because of the double-whammy of "immortal" and "non-human".

Anne Rice may be batshit, but at least Lestat and Louis never had a threesome with Claudia.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

A word on your aside, I'm not sure if LKH is capable of coming up with something so creative. Granted, I haven't read Nightseer or even picked up Strange Candy yet, but going by the AB:VH and MG series, LKH writes from the POV of the characters she most identifies with, and cannot seem to get out of that mindset. Because Merry and Anita are her "windows" to those worlds she's created.

And that right there makes me want to stab something, as the universe is not exactly a small place, and there aren't exactly a finite number of people/creatures in it and all of them have their own stories, feelings, theories, mental defects etc. and they're all being utterly ignored because apparently everything happening to Anita/Merry is the most important and interesting thing ever to exist or something.

Personally, I just cannot comprehend such a thing. I love skipping around POV far too much to get the reactions out of characters, and I could never settle on just one narrator. I tried that, it didn't work due to Plot. But this is just me.

I would just write the whole thing off as "each to their own" if LKH shook it up a bit and did a book from different characters' POVs (how many people here would love a JC novel? Huh? Or if 'the Jason novel' was written from Jason's perspective?) because that'd be different and interesting and if Anne Rice can do it, anyone can!

But no, it seems that only Merry and Anita are the only ones who can truly allow LKH the THX 5.1 experience of their worlds. A third avatar might create too much writerly wangst for the self-proclaimed workaholic, not to mention it'd confuse the rest of us because I don't think we'd be able to tell the difference between any of the characters and the author any more than we can now.

But enough of my rambling, I need sugar to get me through the rest of the day. *Quests for sugars*

[eldestmuse.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Nightseer, quite a bit actually. More so in some ways than the early AB stuff because worldbuilding is more up my alley in some ways than hardboiled urban fic. Strange Candy was kind of bleh. I own Nightseer, read through Strange Candy at the bookstore.

[ayako.livejournal.com]

It just feels so uncomfortable to read how Anita act as Nathaniel's lover AND some kind of mommy/daddy figure. I don't care if he is over the legal age because it's just a number. If Anita sees him as a childlike character then she IS screwing a minor.

Lord, I don't even want to think about Peter.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

Personally for me I don't see Nathaniel's character anymore. When he was actually acting messed up in the head from his atrocious life, Anita's mommy/lover complex was more of a creepy idea.

I just really don't see that in him anymore. Now he's just little Mr. Berty Homemaker who likes music magazines, baking, and has a little leatherworking skill. He's all growed up now. Tra la la. Bad times gone away like an afterthought. He's a Stepford Wife.

It's like the whole Micah "rape" in NiC to me. By all accounts this SHOULD be all fucked up and wrong, but it's not because it's not written that way. So it doesn't bother me, it just doesn't interest me because it's just plain awful and unrealistic writing.

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

Oh Great. I really hope you're wrong about Peter but I have this terrible feeling that you've nailed what's going to happen. I'll bet that Anita gets sex with Peter due to a)immediate need for magical healing or b)immediate need for save the world power up. If Edward lets that happen he's even more character assassinated than he was in this latest book.

I could stomach Nathaniel, really I could, but then Anita had to turn him into a really squicky child-wife hybrid.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

I saw the conversation in TH when Edward asked Anita not to reject Peter because it would humiliate him, and described him as essentially incapable of having sex with girls his own age because of his supposedly uncontrollable "roughness" due to his past abuse as nothing but permission for her to take advantage of him in a future book.

And it will all be presented as a noble sacrifice on her part.
Wouldn't it be terrible for her to allow him to inflict his (doubtless) monster-peen on anything but the cast-iron DoomCrotch?

[judaistic.livejournal.com]

Maybe LKH Naruto fetish has gone wickity-whack. First the pretty, pretty, femme vampires, then vampire ninjas, now shota...I really would look down on her if she adds Peter to Anita's boytoy list.

[ayako.livejournal.com]

OMFG LULZ LKH is a Narutard?

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Aw yay, that was me! Honestly, she goes on and on and on about how VITAL it is for her to start the next book with the voice fresh in her head, because otherwise she's sitting down to a blank screen. But the last 4-5 "first chapters" have been horrendous!

-Blood Noir: We've all seen it, and most of the community could barely stand to read it.
-The Harlequin: First page was decent since Anita was at work, but it turned into Malcolm acting as "the voice of the haters" by literally calling her a whore and getting chastised.
-Danse Macabre: I don't need to remind anyone of that miserable mess with Ronnie at the kitchen table.
-Incubus Dreams: The Larry and Tammy wedding LULZTRAVAGANZA.

Eh, I forget CS and NIC now lol, but you get my point. Maybe she should just, I don't know, stop writing the first chapter in advance? Because all of the evidence points to it being a bad freaking idea. And half the time it makes no sense with the rest of the novel.

[easol.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, CS opened with yet another display of how Anita has the biggest balls in the world, and being snotty with a potential client who is cold and lethal and blah blah blah she's so much tougher than he is nwah nwah nwah.

I guess it was too early to be howling at the haterz.

Oh, that wedding. Ugh. That was terrible -- as if the wedding weren't grotesquely kitschy in and of itself, we have Anita strutting around emphasizing that she ain't one of the girls and that she has a bigger dick than any of the men. And of course, emphasizing that NORMAL women lust after her boytoy but are unworthy due to their vanilla prudiness.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

I have a theory that the mytersterious beast Anita holds inside of her that no one recognizes will turn out to be a nasty old snaggletooth Cougar. Anita is totally destined to be a Cougar Queen. ;)

[kerame.livejournal.com]

That would be a great question for one of her Q&As.

I wonder if she'd even get it, or pretend not to. Either way the response would be hilarious.

[reticentric.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if Peter sex is the next thing to come. Considering how far Anita has fallen (and LKH's lust for the young looking boys) it just seems next on the list. As someone mentioned in another comment here she's basically already set up the scene with him being abused and only able to have rough sex. A normal person would suggest counseling or whatever, but Anita will jump into bed with him because she thinks it's the best way to solve his issues. Plus he's all young and well that's her dish of choice.

Thinking on the Sue stuff mentioned here, I'm wondering if LKH will ever grown tired of it? I mean when you're younger and you write about someone who can do it all/know it all/fix it all; it's fun because you're like fourteen and feeling like you have no excitement. But once you get older and start understanding the world better, having one central character who is the best at everything grows old and stale. Why have any other characters at all if that one is the most amazing?

Explains why LKH has 99 useless characters though.

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

Anita was created roughly sometime in the late 80s-early 90s. Laurell wrote about her for ten years before adding her second Sue line. And before Anita or Merry she wrote Nightseer, a one-shot Sue. This means she's essentially written self-inserts for at least twenty years.

So to answer your question, no, I don't think she will ever grow tired of it.

[easol.livejournal.com]

You know, considering the appearance/prominence of Micah and Nate were connected with the arrival/remarriage of Jonboi and the divorce of Gary, I cannot help but wonder what the appearance of Peter heralds.

[wellowned.livejournal.com]

the paperboy on the street no longer wearing geeky polos and hoodies? or maybe the guy who mows her lawn just filled out from his last year in high school.

[wellowned.livejournal.com]

is it just me, or do all her characters have the same 'voice' so to speak? i mean, even though they've grown up in different places and whatnot, everyone who sleeps with anita sounds like anita. minus jc, since he's so totally french he only slips in 'ma petite' every other sentence.


she should really avoid writing anything else until she re-reads all her old books, takes notes, and promises herself that she will not allow anita to become the ALL-POWERFUL ANITA, CROTCH OF DOOM AND KEEPER OF MEN EVERYWHERE, where she's so powerful, she could defeat MoaD as well as everyone else, whilst having sex with 4 men and a coupla beasts in the middle of the floor.
that may also have been the rambliest sentence ever. but it sure as hell beats 2 pages of nothing but dialogue that gets absolutely nowhere. no one would pick up BN and really want to read it based on that first chapter.

This comment contains a startling realization

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I don't know. If I was a middle aged troo, eying the pool boy and thinking about that kid who cuts my lawn during the summer and how NO ONE should have a back of the car, fumbled, too fast experience and looky I just bought the joy to sex last month....

I mean, it's not like she's advocating gay sex (OMG!) or interracial sex (OH NOES! Negroes!) or anything kinky like that! / end sarcasm.

Just a little Cougaring, that's all. Some Hareming. Women being right all the time.

Oh Crap. I just realized Anita is The Nice Guy (http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/niceguys.shtml) (tm)

I wonder if that also makes LKH a Nice Guy in a petite woman's body, with prison daddy kink fetish and the target demographic for those spam mails about personal enlargment: "Make her scream tonight! Do her like she's always wanted! Don't be ashamed, you can grow!"

[bubblefaerie.livejournal.com]

Whenever I read about Nathaniel and the fact that he may be over 18 actually but on the inside is still a kid, it makes me think of this guy I know. He's 30+ and was dating a girl that was 18. And maybe if the girl hadn't still been in high school, it wouldn't have been so bad. But it was so creepy because she was still doing kid things. He was actually going to take the girl to prom. I get that same feeling reading LKH's books. Even though it's not illegal, it's so wrong.
And I forgot about Byron being stuck at 15. That's just gross. No matter how long he'd been around, he'd still look like a kid. I guess that just shows where LKH's interests lie.

[pith]

Modly: Can you please use paragraphs in the post area above the cut? I realise that's largely personal preference, but the way you have it now takes up a lot of space and is hard to read.

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

You know it could be that LKH is making a point about Belle's line that they are all sexual abusers and perhaps she will have a story where Anita in her all mighty great poobahness will defeat the ardeur perhaps by killing or having sex with Belle to free the line. Then, Anita will realize what a slut/abuser she's been.

Plus, knowing the hormones in the late 30's (which I am in myself), I can see why she'd write about sexual fantasies in her writing. Who hasn't looked at a younger guy (not boy though to be honest) and said, I'd do him? And if he's legal and you're both single what's wrong with it? Look at Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, they seem happy together.