Touring and problems

[naeko.livejournal.com]

There are two things I've been wondering about.

Do you think that Hamilton's limited touring for the last few books is due to her, or due to her popularity? It seems like she only does five or less signings. I know she hates flying, but has her touring schedule always been so limited? Is this typical of other authors? I wonder if she's telling her manager/agent, "I won't do an extensive tour; I'm too important and my muse needs me at home!" or do you think her manager just can't get her any more tour locations and dates?


The other thing, is what logic flaws always bugged you in the books? (Well, I guess we don't have to limit her lunacy to the books, though that was what I was originally pondering.) I don't mean things like, "Well, all that sex would DEFINITELY lead to chafing." I mean more like when we cock our heads and make the puppy Baroo? sound when she talks about how super high heels are best for a messed up ankle.

My two biggest headdesk moments (from before I stopped reading at CS) were Anita claiming that tight shirts can replace a bra and that Richard had to "bend nearly double" to kiss her. I nearly concussed myself when, in one of the later books, Anita doesn't have access to a bra (I can't even remember why, at this point) so she puts on a super tight shirt and claims that's all you need with boobs as big as hers. SO not true.

As to Richard, he's supposed to be- what?- 6'3? 6'4? And Anita is, depending on her mood, or the tide or something, 5'2/5'3/5'4. In high school, I was the same height difference from my boyfriend as Anita was from Richard and we never had any issues kissing. Boyfriend never strained his neck, and we never had to call in a chiropractor to adjust his spine. This whole "bend nearly double" nonsense always made me facepalm myself a nice, red welt.

Soooo, thinking back on the books, what little errors did Anita make that made you, even as a fan, cock your head in confusion?

Comments

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

I'm 5' and I had a boyfriend who was 6'2". We didn't have problems kissing (we even DANCED once, omg! though I was wearing four inch heels at that point). I mean, it was kind of comical, the height difference, but it wasn't THAT comical.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

No, tight shirts wouldn't work. Nope.

My husband's a foot taller than I am, and we manage just fine.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Depends on the author and the company when they book tours. But if stores don't want to host a writer then it is hard to book them in places other than big chain stores. It has been a while since she has been at one of the big name indy stores besides Powells.

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

A tight shirt with a built-in shelf bra will *help*...but even that is no substitute for a real and actual underwire bra holding up the girls!

[archanglrobriel.livejournal.com]

The one that I remember most was in a shower scene where someone who was described as wildly over-endowed used soap as lube. UM. Now, admittedly, I'm a gay guy, but even I've heard that soap + vajayjay = painful, not erotic am I right? I recall really wincing at that one.
There's a couple of her more recent gay sex scene issues that have caused me to go "um...ow." Even for boys who like pain, there are certain activities when pursued in the way she describes...yeah, that's not gonna be erotic. That's gonna be "donkey kick off the bed" worthy. Even if you -are- a vampire; spit /= enough lubricant.

[nightmer.livejournal.com]

I'm actually going to defend the practices in both those scenes. A friend *cough* told me those can work totally fine and painlessly.

[starrysnafu.livejournal.com]

You know, I can kinda see what she might with the tight shirt. From what I've experienced, there's some shirts that are fitted to where if they're tight enough across your chest they kinda keep your boobs from falling down xP it's mostly shirts with those unstretchy, inflexible tight waists (hate 'em). If they fit normal-to-tight at your waist then they create the kinda catching-effect up top. Maybe it takes a certain kind of boob? Even similar size ones can differ in squishiness or shape, and that's not even taking into account bust-to-waist ratio, which I think is probably the main factor in it >w< wow, this comment made me feel like a creep lol. even so, while the tight-shirt trick might work (awkwardly) for someone who is mostly non-active there's no way in hell it would hold up with all the jumping and rolling around Anita gets up to. LKH probably never tried murdering vamps & having shapeshifter gang bangs while using her tight-shirt replacement :3

The fact that anyone wants to have sex with Anita never fails to make me Baroo? :/

[nightmer.livejournal.com]

Despite the many, many such errors none are popping into my head right now. But what's with Anita's uncanny ability to tell everyone's height to the inch at a glance? LKH's lack of understanding of the physics of long hair annoys me too.

[chubling.livejournal.com]

I donno. I had someone talk me into it once and I didn't really like it. It wasn't like, "OMG OW!" but it kinda stung. Maybe it depends on the type of soap?

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

Long hair pulled back tight into a braid does not look like short hair. Especially when said braid reaches your ankles, Nathaniel.

[pandaemonaeum.livejournal.com]

I stopped reading at CS, but here is some of the earlier stuff that bugs me.

Any feminine clothing is automatically uncomfortable, or too long, despite the fact that 5'3 isn't actually that short. So Anita buys super-short skirts, and ALWAYS wears stockings with them. Why would you do that? Oh, and when she wears a skirt she always flashes her underwear at the room, I don't see how a person can manage that.

Matching the swooshes on her sportswear, and wearing sportswear EVERYWHERE. Urgh.

For 4 books or so, there didn't seem to be a man who didn't tower over Anita. 5'3 isn't actually that short.

The whole "If you don't date me I will kill the guy you're dating" schtick with JC. I would have staked him whilst he slept, marks or no marks.

The fact that despite her being a bit careless about killing vampires when they're technically citizens, and her consultant status with the police, the police always seemed to accept her as 'one of them', even though she swans in and out of crime scenes, patronises them, and behaves in a really inappropriate way. The book where she heads a SWAT team into a building where a newly-risen vampire has gone rogue made me cock my head in total confusion.

The fact that the city doesn't appear to have a crime or forensics lab, and instead invites Anita to stick her hands in corpses.

Her psychopathic jealousy of any woman who is taller, paler or blonder than her. Given that hair dye and make-up are available in the time period and world in which the books are set, why doesn't she just change her appearance to match what she thinks she should look like? And how has she gotten to that age, relatively attractive (scars or no scars) and not really dated?

In the later books, Animators Inc. is expanding, it's no longer a one-necromancer show, and she STILL thinks she can be a bitch to her boss, her co-workers, and her clients.

Finally, mommy issues. Why hasn't she seen a professional about them?

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

Oh, and when she wears a skirt she always flashes her underwear at the room, I don't see how a person can manage that.

I think she does a bend and snap.

[bad-habit.livejournal.com]

Okay, that made me laugh. Thanks! :D

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head...

There are no laws. I mean, there are in theory but they're never enforced by anyone. The police *know* Anita's a serial killer outside of work and they... look the other way. If life worked like this, we'd all be armed to the teeth since we'd all have to protect ourselves. Also, there'd be a higher crime rate.

Have those people not heard of warrants? Why does no one look for dead bodies buried in JC's basement?

Why, exactly, do citizens have to be executed instead of put into cross-wrapped coffins when they're bad? Same question with weres and witches, different potential punishments.

Why don't the police hire a consultant with fewer anti-man issues?

The police *know* that she keeps secrets from them & *know* that she leaks info to potential suspects - why do they still pay her?

The infamous tight shirt from above. (Seriously. I have huge traffic-slowing boobs. They require *actual* support or there is eye-popping and stuttering from the male half of the population.)

She's the only girl in the universe. Seriously.

Everyone is *short*. Without poor nutrition being a factor, I'm not sure why there are so many men that're less than 5'6".

Everyone with fangs is French. Occasionally they're French by way of London.

No one ever just has fun or hobbies or does things for the hell of them.

Anita's complete, close-minded, condescending bitchiness regarding *everyone else's* kinks. Nathanial's extracurricular interests are *not* a mental disorder.

There's a scene where Anita and JC whip Nathanial on stage in a fairly mainstream strip club. (I don't remember if he gets off on it or not.) As far as I know, it *wasn't* a particularly fetish-y place before that. Why did no one complain or leave 'cause that wasn't what they paid admission to see?

Not wanting to have sex with members of your own gender does *not* make you a homophobe or a h8ter. It makes you straight.

Her various 'sweeties' have needs - needs that Anita refuses to meet, try to meet, or let them go somewhere else to have them met. Why haven't they dumped her? (And that's without mentioning the fact that she's got more 'sweeties' than a soccer team has members.)

There's no music or art or science or magical system.

All vamps work for JC or in 'his' area. Why aren't there vampires in anything other than the...er... entertainment industry?

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

The hair. LKH has apparently never even seen people with very long hair, let alone have any idea of what's involved.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

THIS!

Also, it seems oddly appropriate to see Jessica Rabbit's icon in regard to feminineness - or the bashing thereof by her antithesis.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

soap as a lubricant? *shudder*

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

"You can't rape the willing"

Like, no shot asshole

[nialla]

I have to wonder if the publishers don't want to deal with the Diva on Tour. It's costly and people will buy the train wrecks book anyway, if only to see how wrecked it is, so I don't think an author tour would be all that beneficial.

There's been some hints that while the books are selling OK, she's not meeting contract obligations with books turned in late. Publishers get kind pissy over that, especially when it happens repeatedly. That might be another reason they don't want to pony up the dough for a tour.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

This so much. I have hair to the middle of my back, and some days, the only thing stopping me taking a knife to it is the fact that my killer curls would turn into killer frizz. The length weighs them into manageability, but floor length hair?

Come on.

And on a guy...

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

My hair actually is down to my hips. Things that have happened to me that never seem to happen to any of the guys in the books:

* Struggling to get out of bed, because my hair is pinned under my elbow
* Getting it caught in a door
* Having to change my shirt because my wet hair has soaked the back of the one I'm wearing
* Split ends (seriously, how do these guys not have split ends?!)
* Finding hair in my food -- while it's still attached to my head
* Killing the vacuum cleaner when shed hair gets wound around the brush roll
* Horrible, horrible knots that take forever to get out and have actually broken the teeth off a comb. (It was an older comb, but still).

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

At my wedding, 4'10" me and my 6'0" groom danced easily with me in two-inch heels. Our kissing photos did show me straining my neck a little, but no big deal.
When we kiss standing, I stand on my tiptoes and he barely bends his upper torso. When we have sex in missionary, I just pull my legs up really high. We can't do it standing up unless I wrap my limbs around him and he holds me. No big deal. Anita whines too much about being short. I'd give anything to be even 5'0".

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, no kidding! I hate when people who are even 5'4" complain about being short. Those four inches count for a LOT. Just being 5' I can't find jeans or pants short enough, I can't imagine if I was 4'10". I already have to hem the crap out of everything.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

When I had hair to my hips, my favorite was getting it caught in the car window when I rolled it up while driving on the interstate. Ouchies. The hair in food thing is awful.

I used to suck on the ends of my hair when I was a young kid, and I'd get long hairs wrapped around my uvula. It. Hurt.

Also, maybe this was just my school, but when I'd wear my hair loose people took it as an invitation to play with and touch my hair. People I didn't even KNOW. Considering I don't like to be touched, it really bugged me.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I just buy capri pants; it's easier. My inseam is between 24 and 25 inches, and many capri jeans and slacks have those inseams!

I just wish designers would remember those of us with very petite, slender, hourglass figures. Or at least women with lordosis (swayback). I hate the gap in the back of the pants waist.