Lliira (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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lkh_lashouts2013-09-18 07:51 pm
lliira) wrote in lkh_lashouts2013-09-18 07:51 pm
Entry tags:
Dancing
It's worse than we predicted. I did a really loose sporking of it here while reading it, as that was the only way I could get through it. It is deadly dull.
There are many pages of suburban children learning ballet steps. There is no crimesolving, no action, and no sex, though there are many pages about Nathaniel being a stripper and some Unfortunate Implications regarding the kid Matthew. All the characters but Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel are human, and they could be replaced with full humans with no effect on the plot, such as it isn't. I do not know who LKH wrote this book for. Perhaps she is trying to alienate the last of her fans.
(I hope it's okay to post this here.)
There are many pages of suburban children learning ballet steps. There is no crimesolving, no action, and no sex, though there are many pages about Nathaniel being a stripper and some Unfortunate Implications regarding the kid Matthew. All the characters but Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel are human, and they could be replaced with full humans with no effect on the plot, such as it isn't. I do not know who LKH wrote this book for. Perhaps she is trying to alienate the last of her fans.
(I hope it's okay to post this here.)
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* readies self*
THOUGHTS AS I GO:
1) It’s a good idea not to invite people you know will have conflict, but I’m guessing that Katie’s organization of the guest list was phrased as if Anita was the one and only concern
2) NOTHING SHE WRITES WITH MATTHEW EVER STOPS BEING CREEPY
3) This “wives” thing is even stupider than the “so which is the man” crap people think about gay couples. Mayo goes in stuff like…egg salad, tuna salad, etc. Not salads as in lettuce-based salads.
4)I’ve noticed that she tells us about both their eyes immediately whenever they appear in the books, even when it’s already been mentioned previously in that very book
6) Yeah, HLA would roll off the tongue much better, that’s actually pretty important for an organization
7) ….yes, they are vaguely alike because they are all houses?
8) COPS ARE SEXIST BECAUSE OF WEIRD SHIT IN THEIR JOBS WHAT THE HELL EVEN HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE also I feel like “cops are sexist!” might be an excuse for Anita to be sexist, since she makes a big point since getting a badge about what a cop she is
9) Yeah, no, she’s not conservative, progressive, liberal, or anything. Totalitarian, maybe. And she never came off to me in earlier books as having any of those leanings either, just being an asshole by the standards of either side depending who was talking to her. Not much has changed in that regard.
10) Monica is a fucking attorney. She is damn well competent, she‘s just BUSY but that‘s not something Anita would understand since she‘s only called in on special supernatural cases and her schedule at her animating job is canonically cushy as hell (she gets three afternoons off a week and seems to only work nights if there‘s an actual raising to do). Monica also got Matthew through his baby years just fine, since this tagalong shit didn’t start until he was five. The only thing that leads me to question her parenting is that she’s letting this lot have anything to do with him, but given that JC probably gives her financial support (he stated that she and Matthew would “want for nothing” after Robert, the father of Matthew and member of JC’s Kiss, died) I think there might be something skeezy going on with JC setting this up somehow for some shadowy purpose. Monica may well not have been asked and thinks Matthew is safely at daycare right now, and if she ever objects, well, JC never said he wouldn’t mind-roll her!
11) wut
13) EW NO
14) Srsly I am so tired of how dainty and delicate and shit Anita claims she is while also claiming to have uber-curves, uber-tits, and Linda Hamilton muscle tone. ONE OR THE OTHER, GODDAMMIT!
16) If Anita is worried about love lasting for even twenty years, then BONDING HER LIFE FORCE PERMANENTLY TO MAN AFTER MAN might not be the smartest fucking thing to keep doing, or to have done at all
17) WTF ON ALL COUNTS
18) There are even men here who complain about how women have gotten so independent and shit that it’s soooo hard for men because they don’t know how to do their own laundry or make their own meals and don’t have a lady around to do it all for them…yeah, the idea of just LEARNING TO BE A FUNCTIONAL ADULT missed these guys. Matthew should learn self-sufficiency, sure, but not to “help his girlfriend” (implying he thinks girls do the bulk of the cooking) but to help HIMSELF
19) …does Zerbrowski even have a first name?
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10) I don't get why LKH didn't kill off Monica so that Anita et al could fully adopt Matthew. Because for all the say Monica seems to have in her son's life, she may as well be dead when it comes to him.
19) Not in this novella, he doesn't. (I think I spelled his name wrong throughout too, oops.)
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15: Lots of women around here have long (shoulderblades or longer) hair. When I go out grocery shopping or whatever, I'd say thirty to forty percent. See above regarding regionalism. (Most of the rest have shoulder-length or so--ubershort boyish cuts are rare.)
Summarized, ye gods that sounds stultifying.
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26) Yup, they are the grossest PDA triad, we learned that in Flirt when they were feeling her up while waiting for food in a restaurant
27) She really, really is
28) TONSILS? OH GROSS
29) You know, kids kissing and stuff is pretty normal, but when it goes to that level, most schools start checking for signs of sexual abuse.
31) I think “womanly” if it’s about Anita’s curves. And yes, I’ve noticed this too.
32) Anita really fails at Oppression Olympics. And yes, she is just…the worst, as you said.
33) I DON’T KNOW WHICH IS WORSE, INFANTILIZING NATHANIEL OR CONSIDERING MATTHEW “OUR LITTLE BOY” AUGH
36) Yeah, saying that very sentence takes only twenty five words.
38) LKH THOUGHT STEPFORD WIVES WAS A DOCUMENTARY, CLEARLY. And yeah, I’m not straight, and if I were at a neighborhood or family BBQ, I could not bring my significant other at all. Her pretending she has it so hard because she can’t do gross PDA (a social rule which applies to EVERYONE) is indeed raising my hackles. And yeah, given her attitudes, I think it’s less ignorance and more that she thinks her/Anita’s problems just matter the most, especially given her “It’s funny, with everyone arguing about gay marriage, how Jon and I can’t marry all the people we date either” comment on being poly on Reddit. I saw red there, I really did.
40) Yeah, her need to hold hands at all times is weird and worrying in an adult, supposedly-functional, supposedly-sane woman.
41 & 42) Everyone always wants Anita’s toys, Anita always gets steamed at them for it. LKH seems to have a weird combination of being really possessive but also really wanting people to be jealous of what she/Anita has. Also, I love how either Anita herself or her men are always EVERYONE’S cup of tea so long as they swing that way (or sometimes even if they normally don’t!). I think LKH fails to grasp that not everyone has the same type, especially if that type is “pretty delicate-yet-muscled with Technicolor-eyes and ankle-length hair”
44) Cardinal is a redhead but Anita talks about how it’s not REALLY red like Damian and so not as pretty, just a strawberry blonde really…I think maybe Raina was redheaded, and Reba was but that’s because she’s a red tiger so she has to be.
46) I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BEGIN HERE
47) Yeah, that’s not weird. Especially not for Anita. I can see how it might be for Nathaniel, but given that his entire past and character is all about being sexually exploited and available for anyone, I feel like he’s not going to get all unnerved by being in a room with someone who just saw his dong is all. Especially since “nudity isn’t sexual to therians, they go around nude all the time when they can!” and all.
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28) I KNOW. Of all the stuff in the book, this is what I'm having the hardest time getting over. It's something someone making fun of people would say. "Can you clean each other's tonsils when there aren't a dozen children around?" Something like that. But no, it's Anita thinking about her hot men kissing.
38) Yeah, I'm straight and infuriated by this, I can only imagine how horrible it must be for anyone who isn't. For LKH to write this on the back of what real people actually have to go through -- ARGH. Plus this occurred to me as I was going to sleep last night: people often act like, if someone has a sexuality other than heterosexual, that sexuality is their entire life. Asking most gay couples not to make out over the potato salad is insulting, but sadly there are people who think it's necessary. It's not something most straight couples would be asked because most people just assume straight couples wouldn't act like that. But Nathaniel and Micah WOULD act like that, and Anita is upset that they are not allowed to here. I think it shows how LKH fetishizes homosexuality.
47) And it's phrased like the reason Anita is freaked out is that someone else saw Nathaniel naked. Not that they paid him for it or anything else that might be a bit unusual: that they saw him naked, period. The conversation honestly sounds like Nathaniel trying to soothe the rabid beast that is Anita by agreeing with her.
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LJ won't let me edit for some reason here so adding this for clarification...they definitely get the man/woman binary (my nephew has an unfortunately very solid grasp on "this is for girls, that's for boys" already) but what I mean is they don't get the idea of being "the man" or "the woman" in a relationship outside of a person actually *being* that gender (again, just in my experience). And I've never heard any kid ever refer to people as being a prince or princess in a relationship. Most kids see princess only in terms of being literally a princess, they don't get being the figurative/symbolic princess, Prince Charming, etc., like Anita uses the terms. Again though, I'm no child expert and don't even like kids, but I feel like this is just really 'off' somehow
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51)….quite taken with him. Yeaaaah this is weird.
59) My laugh here is a bitter, bitter one
60) AND WHEN SHE’S NOT RAPING SOMEONE ELSE, SHE’S BEING RAPED AND/OR HAVING SEX THAT SHE HAS TO HAVE FOR SOME CONTRIVED REASON, NOT SEX SHE WANTS TO HAVE, SHE HAS NEVER EVEN HAD A TOTALLY CONSENSUAL SEX-FOR-ITS-OWN-SAKE SCENE TO MY MEMORY
63) Dude. We have a long way to come still with sexism, but the idea that “girls can protect themselves” is something that is actually pretty widely accepted. Women and girls are, in my experience, actually more likely to be encouraged to protect themselves by taking self-defense classes, and there are a lot of those classes specifically geared for women and girls. Of course, that ties in to the sexist idea that men can’t stop themselves from raping women and therefore it is the woman’s job to fight back, not the man’s job not to rape, but that’s another thing entirely. I really can’t think of anyplace in this country outside maybe a cult compound where that remark would get this kind of reaction.
67) VENGEFUL WERESWAN. YES.
70) I do not fucking understand how this moral fits with the story at all
I ALSO DO NOT GET HOW YOU SURVIVED THIS!
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59) My husband told me last night of someone on a Harry Potter internet group who was honestly surprised that anyone could think being gay was not-bad. So I was too broad (or hopeful about humanity, idk.) But this guy is a cop in a good-sized city. There is no way he would be this gobsmacked by the news that there are people who think being gay is not-bad. Plus we were told the guest list was hand-picked not to have a problem with Anita and her dudes, so this makes even less sense.
63) And the "girls can protect themselves" thing can quickly become victim-blaming. "Girls can protect themselves, so why didn't you escape from your rapist?" Ignoring the fact that men are usually stronger than women, that we're not all martial arts experts, that most victims know their rapists and most people have a gut instinct against severely hurting someone they know, and so many other things.
I like to think the girl and her mom are blinking slowly at Anita because Anita's little lecture there was totally beside the point, and they're being polite rather than telling her to stuff it. Yes, girls "can" protect themselves, but it is at the very least nice to have someone else come to your aid when you're being attacked, no matter your gender. And maybe it was necessary in this situation, which Anita did not even see first-hand. This boy was able to kick a 12-year old girl in the face, after all. He does not sound like someone a typical small child would be able to protect herself from alone. Anita's acting like the girl shouldn't have accepted Matthew's help or shouldn't be thanking him now or something.
67) Elise sounds like such a good name for a wereswan to me. She can be a dancer with her own troupe for which she choreographs as well as dances. She stirred the shit hoping that guy would beat up Nathaniel, thereby taking out one of Anita's allies.
70) Me either. If Micah and Nathaniel danced together and/or the girls learned they could dance with each other and didn't need boys for it, that would have something to do with the rest of the story. But no. The dancing is 100% heteronormative -- which makes it totally unlike whenever I've seen non-professionals dance, including the family ballroom type stuff they're doing here. Anita never leads while dancing, either, and is so passive during it that Micah is just moving her around. Which is not how it works. I find leading far easier than following because in leading you only have to think about what you're doing and want done; in following, you have to worry not only about your own movements, but also read the motions of the person leading in order to do what they want and not fall over.
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3) What the hell sort of salads is LKH used to? To me, a salad is just a bunch of chopped-up raw vegetables in a bowl. Sometimes, some foodstuffs fit for human consumption are mixed in with the chopped-up raw vegetables, thus making it possible to eat without wishing for a quick, merciful death, but that's about it. Mayo? Wouldn't mayo ruin the whole point of salads? If you're going to eat something fat and unhealthy, you might as well go ahead and eat something that tastes good at the same time...
*is not a fan of salad, if you hadn't noticed* :P
7) That's the thing with Anita, isn't it? Even when she has the same opinion as you, she has it in such a snotty, petty way that you want to disagree on principle. And since Anita only ever thinks the exact opposite of whomever she wants to spite at the moment, it's almost inevitable that you'll be put in that position about half the time.
9) Yeah. Having any kind of ideology means having an outside standard of behaviour that you can do well or poorly by, and that other people can likewise do well or poorly by. Anita's only rule is that anything that makes her feel good is right, and anything that makes her feel good is wrong.
15) I suspect it's Author Appeal. LKH likes really long hair, so everyone has it. Which... in the name of fairness, isn't really all that inexcusable, as far as authorial sins go.
18) Pah! A REAL MAN does not allow his stomach to be held hostage to a woman's goodwill! He cooks for himself as part of his MANLY INDEPENDENCE!
Seriously, my mother taught me to cook well before I moved out, and even aside from that there was home ec in school. LKH thinks she's so progressive for doing things that might have been forward-thinking before I was even born.
20) I'm right there with you. What's so hard about soup? You just sort of chop up whatever you've got lying around, put it in a pot of water and boil it for like half an hour. It might not be delicious, but it's guaranteed to be edible, and with a minimum of fuss.
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15) Yeah, the long hair thing would be okay... but she takes it to ridiculous extremes, like Nathaniel's Cousin It hair. Plus she often uses it as a mark of goodness. Katie is actually a woman in an Anita Blake book who is portrayed mostly positively, but the fact that her looks are 100% author appeal destroys most of that for me. Plus LKH invariably portrays tall or tallish women with high cheekbones as evil, and since I am a tallish woman with high cheekbones, I don't feel like allowing LKH any little quirks about appearance whatsoever. Since I'm evil and all.
18) My dad is not exactly a great cook, but his mom made sure he knew the basics. (And it was only his mom, as she was a single mother after kicking her abusive alcoholic husband out of the house.) I can't remember it being seen as unusual among any of my parents' friends for the father to do the cooking at least sometimes. Not being able to heat up a bowl of soup would be unusual. This is among Baby Boomers who are older than LKH.
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Yeah, that happens a lot with Anita (like the mother and daughter ogling at her "Girls can protect themselves too" comment in this same story). She reminds me of one of those Rebellious Princesses in fantasy novels and films who will have all these feminist notions that are specifically tailored to be stuff that modern audiences will utterly accept and endorse--women should be allowed to read, women shouldn't have to be in arranged marriages to old guys, that sort of thing*---but never do anything that might be too radical for said modern audience, such as argue in favor of abortion or be an out lesbian. And they usually also seem to have just gotten these notions out of thin air despite all societal conditioning to the contrary, and sneer a lot at all other women for being to weak and stupid and proper to have had a similar epiphany that all they know in their culture is wrong. All of this bugs me for many reasons and I'm straight-out tired of this sort of heroine, but at least what she's doing and saying is still usually *actually* shocking for her time period; Anita doesn't even have that going, despite what she thinks.
* Admittedly, there are the ones who go off into battle, but I don't think most audiences draw corollary between pseudo-medieval war princesses and the modern question of allowing women in the military to serve in active combat
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36) Anita sucks at explaining stuff. Side characters in these books suck at understanding. Be happy that you didn't have to read through the full half hour of incoherent explanations and moronic missings of the point. -_-
39) You know, I'm forced to be just a little bit sympathetic here. I kind of get it. I tend to be pretty physically expressive with people I know well, because I'm not very good at finding the right words and touching - hugging, patting shoulders - feels like it gets the point across the best. ("I'm here." "I love you." "I sympathise.") Talking is scary, but just being close to someone is easy and comforting.
It's often that way with Anita. Sometimes she feels like some sort of grotesque caricature of me. I would go so far as to say that a lot of my personal issues are at least slightly coloured by my fear of becoming Anita - which means that LKH has certainly had an impact on my life, if not in any way she intended to. :/
47) Anita's boundaries are... weird. She has made such a big thing of many of her boytoys being strippers - in fact, she seems to have an odd fascination with strippers in general. But if one of them once got a tiny bit more naked than he does all the time, that's a big deal that she has to angst about? Gaaaah. I just don't get it.
50) The characters of crap authors often seem to be one short step away from killing someone. It's nice and dramatic and doesn't force you to actually engage with more subtle emotions and their expressions, I suppose.
58) I don't know, she certainly has a ton of rape around, so I'm pretty sure women get harmed on occasion. She is just far less interested in that, because women's pain isn't sexy.
68) I can't say I've seen that one. But it can't be worse than Threshold... which I would rather watch than have to read this stuff first-hand, I admit.
70) Everyone who might possibly make Anita feel inferior must be PUNISHED!
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36) I am definitely glad of that. Though Anita expecting people to read her mind and being pissy with them when they don't is not much better. At least it's shorter, though.
39) The thing about Anita is that she cannot do anything at all without constant touching from her men. It gets taken to ludicrous extremes (she needs them to literally hold her up in Danse Macabre, she had to be sandwiched between Wicked and Truth to do necromancy in Affiliction, etc.), all the while she pretends SHE is the one protecting THEM and is such a badass. There is nothing at all wrong with being a tactile person, but I don't think that's what's going on with Anita. I think she's just a totally dependent hypocrite. Even in this book, she does not choose with whom to dance or how; Nathaniel literally hands her off to Micah when he decides to, then Micah does all the work while dancing, which means I don't know why they didn't end up in a heap on the floor.
50) And we're not supposed to see this as a bad thing. It sort of frightens me, tbh.
58) Tons of rape, yes, but LKH loves to pretend women and girls lie about being raped all the time. Also, she loves to have Anita raped without calling it rape. Anita's "metaphysically" raped at least two women that I can remember as well, but it's presented as if they had it coming and it wasn't really rape anyway because women ick.
68) Threshold is actually funny once you get past raging at how it misrepresents science, imo. SALAMANDER SEX. Shades of Gray is a clip show from TNG that focuses on Riker lying in sickbay remembering stuff from the first 2 seasons. It is just plain dull, with no redeeming values at all. Like this book :D
70) Being lectured at by Anita Blake is definitely a cruel and unusual punishment.
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*forehead is bruised*
THUNK-THUNK-THUNK
*now at the drooling idiot stage*
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2.) UGH! NO! NO! NO!
...And, as a more rational aside, both his mother and his peers will have a great deal to say about the hair length thing, none of it good.
3.) ...Those are nasty, nasty salads. And LKH doesn't seem to have much understanding of how wives' clubs work.
4.) He's been letting himself go...
5.) ...maybe she thinks St. Louis is in the northernmost reaches of the country?
6.) I agree that that's the worst acronym ever. SPEW was better. At least you'd remember what it was and be able to pronounce it.
7.) I think she missed the part where, in most fairly modern communities, they try to make the houses look like they could belong to the same collection. (I'm more ambivalent on the topic of suburbs.)
8.) I agree with RF that it's most likely LKH trying to make Anita's whacked out (and damn near overwhelming) prejudices okay and 'normal'.
9.) Not even in the early books was she conservative. Mostly she was really fucking unpleasant, even cruel, with regards to her personal interactions with a side of 'I'm looking down on you'.
10.) I find this weird since LKH was presumably a single mom between her divorce and her second marriage. Also, Monica always struck me as being highly competent and time-oriented. That nathaniel thinks he can just TAKE a woman's child because he wants to and thinks it will be good for them has a common name in our society - kidnapping at worst and interfering at best. The kid should be in preschool or, failing that, a sitter's, with his mom, or even with his mom in her law office if it's a holiday weekend (and she has to work).
11.) It's part of the problem with being magically roofied and lobotomized.
13.) ...I don't think Monica would allow this, mostly because of who and what Nathaniel is. (And I'm not referring to his job here.) If nothing else, she'd cut out their interactions and expose her son to other, better adjusted people.
17.) If Anita and JC can't keep a stable A to B to A relationship going between them, adding extra sexual partners and 'liberties' for Anita while JC must remain sexually exclusive with Anita or allow her to control his expressions of sexuality, doesn't seem like it would 'stabilize' or 'fix' the relationship. If anything, it should break it beyond repair. Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, the therapists in AB-world are criminals, monstrous, and incompetent. Weirdly, while I love the idea of JC using one to alter Anita's personality, I can't really get behind it since Anita's been, well, Anita since the first book. She just had the good sense to try to pretend to be someone else in the early days.
18.) NO! ALL THE NO TO THE CHILD GROOMING! RESTRAINING ORDERS AND COMPLAINTS TO CHILD SERVICES ALL AROUND!
19.) I wonder if LKH doesn't know that most of the best chefs in the world are men. And that, no matter how nice they can be socially, they're super aggressive go-getters - they want those Michelin stars, dammit!
20.) A really good soup is tricky, though. I'm inclined to give Nathaniel some leeway here.
21.) ...why is there soup near the grill? That is not what you grill... Hmmm... later points seem to indicate that this is some sort of cooking class or home ec. If so, Campbell's soup is automatically out as a cooking option. And yeah, no one's going to be expelled from a class for *accidentally* starting a fire. There will probably be shouting and some very hard questions/looks though.
25.) This is LKH shoveling her hobbyhorse into this kid-character's mouth. Kids don't ask questions like that. The boy is the prince, the girl in the princess, and they don't really care who saves whom so long as the hero is relatable and the action is suitably awesome. (And there's at least a chance of someone dying horribly.)
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17) Yep. LKH seems to think poly relationships are easier than monogamous ones.
20) Maybe I find them so easy because of my slow cooker.
21) The soup thing happened while Zerbrowski and Katie were at college. He set fire to... I don't know what. I guess the kitchen in the dorm.
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29.) This is a children's services moment. The state will be called, government minions will be dispatched to assess the situation, and people will be noticed/reprimanded/put on file, at the very least.
30.) The relationships in the books are skin-crawlingly awful. Frankly, Katie would've been better off without Anita there. It's a pity that Anita didn't leave.
32.) Anita is undoubtedly awful but, in any 'verse where she and her cohorts fall from power, I want Anita to live a long, long time. Mostly, because I think that would be unbearable for her. And, given the way that the Ab-verse is set up, I can't imagine that her victims or their surviving relatives wouldn't want revenge. Given her personality, being at their mercy would be even worse for Anita.
33.) *mouth vomit* Say that to child protective services. I dare you,
34.) She's done it before too.
35.) The police women have been banned because one of them had a semi-thing with Nathaniel (that Anita had to keep reassuring herself meant NOTHING to him, because he was 'hers' even if she wouldn't bang him) and that same police woman had the gall of accusing Anita of only wanting Nathaniel because he was with her, of being abusive and manipulative, and of being an asshole. (And yeah, I totally think that the police person's gender should be secondary. 'Female cop' implies that the girliness comes first and the professional protect and serve bit comes second - like there's a difference in the quality of work done by a 'cop' and a 'female cop'. 'Police man' and 'police woman', however, gives the impression that they're both police people first and their gender is just a modifier.
....Ignore my deranged language rant, if you'd like. It's a thing?)
36.) I'm sure that all of these married people have had babysitters before. (Just not ones as criminally inclined and generally awful as Anita.)
38.) I have difficulty imagining a world where the police men aren't the ones with all the really probing questions. The ladies probably don't know about Anita's proclivities but they should have very strong suspicions about the frequency with which people are raped, magically lobotomized, and murdered around Anita since she never hides it and the entire underworld seems to know. And frankly, I'm not sure why anyone would care about a frankly unpleasant stranger's living arrangements. Also, no one's going to redefine commonly used societal words to soothe the ego of one deranged (and constantly, unreasonably angry) woman.
41.) How come the women have to go inside? Weren't all the wives banished to the kitchen at the beginning of the barbeque for not having penises? And how does Anita know that they're going in specifically to flirt with Nathaniel? Maybe they just have to pee or get more soda or whatever. Either way, they can't please Anita. She hates them for having tits and wanting to be outside with the Manly Menz, whom they can't possibly understaaaaand like Anita does, despite having married those men. She hates them for going inside where they might stand too close to Nathaniel and steal him from her. (Although, frankly, if I had a boyfriend who was that damn inconsistent, I'd've said that they were welcome to keep him and may he make you just as happy as he's made me.)
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43.) How did Anita get into the kitchen? Didn't it's mere existence repel her? And wasn't she looking forward to inflicting herself on the Manly Menz? And where's Micah? What if some married she-ho or, worse, an uggo is even now stealing him out from under her?
44.) This is complete bullshit about the men versus women on sexual aggression. I mean, you said that. But, still. I call bullshit.
46.) ...Why would one of these women be having a private party, much less a fully naked one? They don't seem to be in the socioeconomic class where that'd be a viable thing... unless Nathaniel is the nasty, skeezy sort of stripper, I suppose.
Also, at this point, most of St. Louis has seen Nathaniel naked, bitten him, fucked him, or all of the above. That was also probably true BEFORE they got together, since he's also a porn star (of movies of dubious value.) If Anita can't accept and be cool that everyone and their cousin not only knows what her guy looks like naked but also probably faps to it, she really shouldn't be dating him. Because, dude, he's apparently not looking to change his lifestyle and those videos are out there.
49.) Why are these married people running around and having sex with other people? Are they in an open marriage? And, if so, why would the husband get all upset? If not, why would Elise threaten her relationship by making that up? It's probably true, the husband knows it's true, and Nathaniel said that bit about Anita to subtly threaten the guy and his wife with Anita's (irrational) murderous vengeance.
51.) No 10-yr- old will be taken with a 'baby.' Additionally, no 10-yr-old is going to require stripper moves from a potential dance partner. They will want, at most, genuine interest in dancing with them. And fun. This is gross, more in line with that grooming bit from earlier.
53.) ...since when has Nathaniel been allowed outside of the kitchen? Shouldn't he be tidying up like a good little wife? And why the hell would a bunch of kids be standing around, waiting for him to direct them, especially since Nathaniel apparently has trouble intimidating creamed corn? Groups of kids are usually pretty good about entertaining themselves. Or, as parents, the Zerbrowskis could/should have activities planned for them.
55.) I admit, I know almost nothing about police ranks or organizations, but I think if you take the detective exam, you're a detective. So, theoretically, he could go work in either department? And, since most supernatural things in this 'verse seem to end in murders, it might actually be very similar, duties wise.
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But no no, a huge crowd of "other" people, ones that aren't "our kind," make Anita nervous.
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58.) Why are there children going over the table? As an adult, especially THAT child's adult, Anita or her boi-toys should've defused the situation LONG before it got to that point.
59.) In terms of his job, which is in a moderately large urban area, and the fact that these are apparently all co-workers, I'm flummoxed that the dad would admit to such a thing. Or that the kids are apparently not going to be soundly disciplined all around BY THEIR PARENTS not the resident rapist/murderer for behaving badly in public, regardless of what opinions the man and his wife may have/share behind closed doors.
(Although, frankly, Anita and co. were setting poor Matthew up for teasing from the other kids. I don't mean in a gender/sexuality way - although that's on the table now since he apparently behaves in inappropriately sexualized ways, thanks to his exposure to Anita and Co. - but just in terms of peer presentment. Matthew presumably isn't obviously from a foreign country or another culture. He should share a lot of the same cultural markers/behaviors as most of the other kids at this party. but, thanks to Nathaniel and Anita's grooming, he doesn't. He comes off as weird and damaged and he's going to need a lot of support, at school, at home, and from a therapist - to get past this awful grooming thing.)
61.) This is ridiculous. Any twelve-year-old can take any pair of four-year-olds, period. Also, all kids are conditioned by this point in their lives to accept another kid's apologies, especially if that kid is younger than you or obviously means it. They will grit it out that your apology is accepted, even if they'd obviously rather not, if an adult is Looking At Them. This 'no forgiveness' thing doesn't happen until they're in middle or high school and it's usually with peers.
63.) The little girl probably already knows that since she's presumably been allowed near a playground at some point in her life. Her mother is wondering what to do with the sanctimonious asshat who's hijacked the kids.
65.) SHE IS SUCKING ALL THE FUN OUT OF FIREFLIES!!
66.) Yes, ballet is something that you TOTALLY want to teach someone away from mats and professionals and near the pointest table corner or the most breakable vase possible. Really. (And geez, that sounds horrifically boring to read. My condolences.)
67.) YES TO ELISE!
70.) I admit, I know very little about organized dancing but I'm positive that it's considered a partnered event/sport because they have to work together and anticipate each other and generally not be self-absorbed jerks to make it work. If anything, leading and following seems like an exercise between equals - and there's certainly none of that equality stuff in AB books.
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61) The boy is supposed to be big, but Anita thinks he's about Matthew's age. I wonder if LKH momentarily thought Matthew was 10.
70) Personally, I find following harder than leading. You definitely cannot act like a blowup doll to be pushed around. Anita dances like she fucks.
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I can't believe LKH forgot to give him a first name. That is so laughably predictable.
My nephew had the most gorgeous adorable curly blond locks until he was about 3-4 years old. I mean he looked like a little cherub and we all loved him and squeezed him and petted him, he was so darn cute. But he suddenly one day started getting mad at his hair because it was in his eyes. He hated it and wanted it all cut off or he would throw fits and pull on it. Ever since he had a buzz cut. It wasn't because he noticed other men with short hair because at that age kids don't really pay a whole lot of attention to appearances unless really unusual. Grandpa has longish curly locks and that kid followed him around everywhere wanting to do everything he did. He just wanted that hair out of his face! So like many other things, I don't buy that 4 year old Matthew wants to grow his hair out. He had to have been coached into the idea.
I hate this skewed wife and husband crap!!!
My ex that I was with for many years loves to cook. He is excellent at it and can make the most amazing multi-course meals. He collects kitchen wear and cookbooks. He loves having dinner parties and is very social. He also likes to shop. And I mean really shop - he is a browser. He is also a peacock that likes to wear nice clothes. He even likes helping other people shop. He is also a talker. Thinks you should talk about everything and that its careless not to talk about your relationship now and then. But he also just likes to talk in general and OMG can that man talk. He cried when he was listening to one of Pavarotti's last concerts. He cries when small animals die in movies. He enjoys cuddling and kissing kittens.
I on the other hand am asocial. I prefer to sit in a corner with a good book than have a bunch of people over making a mess in my house. I do not like to cook as I suck at it. I have a few dishes I can manage but rarely do it because it is hard boring work. And I despise shopping. You ever see those guys sitting in the mall looking tired and forlorn while waiting for their SO to finish shopping? That was me while he could spend hours browsing. And I prefer jeans and t-shirts. I find it difficult to talk and actually learned to express myself from him forcing me to talk. But yes, I did cry with him and also kissed the kittens.
So does that make him the girlfriend and me the boyfriend? Did anyone make remarks about him being the wife? No! Never. It wasn't even a subject for discussion.
Honestly, I don't get that Anita is the husband or what she even means by that??????
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I have no idea. There's no explanation for it given in the text. I guess because she thinks she's a manly woman and Nathaniel's a womanly man... or something. It's not like she supports everyone financially, and Nathaniel works outside the home too, so even in LKH's ridiculous binary system it doesn't work.
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This just reminds me of LKH's blog, where she boasted how she could cook a turkey for a whole family but couldn't even cook soup from a can. Soup from scratch is so easy.
'29) Matthew's been imitating what he sees at home in preschool. So he is in preschool after all. This means that he has been trying to stick his tongue down the throats of other preschoolers on a regular basis, until "we" (I don't know who, but not Monica, I'm sure) explained to him that that was only for grownups'
This really pissed me off. My mother is a headmistress, and she's had children display this sort of behaviour. It is one of the big, flashing neon signs for sexual abuse (and obviously, I'm not going to go into any further detail). It can be innocent curiosity, but there is no way any teaching professional would not involve social services on witnessing behaviour like this.
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2) Yes. Yes, you are.
4) Boings back and forth according to LKH's current tastes.
6) The new sound effect for vomiting at the newest Blake weirdness is not *BLECH*, but *CBUBHLC*.
8) Weird shit makes one sexist?! I - what - how?!
10) Being La Doomcrotch, Anita is perfectly qualified to take care of a child. ...Somehow.
11) What, is this synchronized seatbelting?!
13) D:
17) "smart friends who intervened when I fell back into old destructive habits." i.e. pod people who tell Anita what she wants to hear.
18) *shudder* at the implications...
21) Whuh? How?
22) Everyone in the Anitaverse is a pair of hair and eyes, with indistinct 'pretty' features if they're good and rougher features if they're eeevil. Katie just has normal facial-recognition skills for the 'verse.
27) *HEADDESK*
29) D:
32b) *applause*
33)
34) Business as usual, then.
36) HOW?
38) Anita: *whinewhinewangst*
39) Just so long as no one gets too chatty during the orgyrapes.
40) IT'S BEEN A PLOT POINT IN THE PAST. We're SERIOUSLY supposed to believe that she's never realized this before?!
41) Because women are all jealous haters. Or something.
46) Ugh. Just ugh. LKH has a real noncon and/or narrowly-averted-noncon fetish, doesn't she?
47) She starts talking about how she understands colons far better than any mere doctor ever will.
51) ...Maybe they mean it in the Adorable Animal Companion way?
52) At this point I'm wondering whether even SHE'S in her target audience.
54) *morosely* Don't. She'd just brag about how that made her that much better at flaccid blowjobs.
58) Unless she can brag about saving the poor abused woman from the mean ol' man (who was not a bishie).
59) Well, in Anitaverse, anyone in Anita's mind knows gay men not being bisexual is bad. So it makes sense, in a way.
61) Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!
63) Girl and Mother: Thank... you... CAPTAIN OBVIOUS...
64) Oh, sweet gad. Why is EVERYTHING about how helpless women are?!
65) Hitler liked dogs. Apparently those are a bit too sentient for Anita.
66) *morosely* Yes. I was one of them. Apparently I needed to aim lower.
70) If only she applied that to her relationship with her editor.
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So she's trying to produce a book that will sell, has to do it without her go-to page filler, and so stuffed the book with pages and pages of the ballet thing and Nathaniel to just get the book out while trying to think of a way to put plot in the next book and work her way out of the rat's nest of sexsexsex she's built for Anita.