Snark/Review of Jason

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I couldn't resist snarking the new novella, and brought it over here to share. (It's also posted on my own LJ.)

Summary:
There is a lot that is not in this one.
Characters who do NOT appear: Richard, Micah, Cynric, Jean-Claude, Dev, Nicky.
However, there is also no real plot.  As usual, it's all about Anita.

She has, however, made Cynric 19 (so now he's legal) but he's still a senior in high school.

Enjoy!

PS: Mods, I didn't tag because I couldn't remember if you wanted us to or if you would.  My apologies if I made the wrong choice!
LKH is in italics. I am in normal.

So, in some respects, this one is an improvement.  It’s honest about just being a sex-fest without pretending to have a bigger plot, unless you count “working issues” as plot.  (Hint: I don’t.) Plus, this one still suffers from unfortunate word choices which make “sexy scenes” not sexy.
Rather than snarking the plot as a whole (even when one exists), I like to just snark the unfortunate passages.
I have not edited LKH, all errors appear in the Kindle edition.

We were all polyamorous, which means to love more, so everyone knew what and who everyone else was doing, but that didn’t mean there weren’t moments when too much sharing was, well, too much.

• No, these characters aren’t based on LKH/LKH’s life at all… She's recently come out as being poly, possibly due to the fact that her child is now an adult.  However, she likes to present herself as the end-all be-all expert on...well, everything really.  But right now, especially the polyamorous angle, which unlike the poly people I know in real life seems to be all about the wild kinky sex they have in groups and how everyone is mean to them for being so awesome.

Sex with him was great, but we’d both done a lot of emotional damage to each other over the years, and . . . the needs he’d met in my life were now met by other people, who liked, or loved, each other and got along a hell of a lot better with the other men. Richard was trying, but in some ways he’d worked out his shit too late to truly be a part of our happy little poly group. He sort of floated on the edges of my life, and I on his.

• Good news: Richard is not in this book.


• Bad news: Character assassination in his absence is still on the menu, along with requisite “Poor Richard” conversation about how much he is missing out on because he can’t “work his shit out”.


• Also, in light of the Richard = Gary theory, I find this part very interesting, and wonder if it’s related to the fact that their daughter is now a legal, college-attending, living away from home adult.  Also, do I detect some wisftulness in that tone? (For those unfamiliar with LKH, Gary is her ex-husband who many believe played a role in the development of the series.)

“Do you really like sex as rough as he does?”
I shrugged. “Yes, sometimes, not every night, but yeah.”
She shivered. “Fine, Anita, you want to be direct, I can be direct. I had to tell him to stop, or ease up, constantly last night. He’d been great, the sex would be wonderful, he’d bring me to orgasm and then he’d start being too rough again, as if once he made me come he thought it earned him the right to be too rough and hurt me.”
“Most women can take rougher intercourse after enough foreplay,” Jason said. “He wasn’t trying to be mean, just thought he’d done enough prep work to have sex the way he wanted to have it, and you’d enjoy it, too.”
“Well, I didn’t, and I had to keep telling him to stop. I finally told him to get off me, that was it.”
“Do you mean for last night, or do you mean done as in done forever?” I asked.
She looked at me, and her eyes darkened the way that human eyes do when they start to get angry. “Forever. The sex is amazing if he can control himself, but he’s so big that if he just starts pounding it hurts, and it drowns out all the orgasms, or even stops me from orgasming, because it hurts too much.”

• Is Richard the only character who’s not constantly talking and negotiating during sex?  Jason’s whole line (especially since Jason is generally not-negative about Richard) is just ridiculous.  However, good for Envy actually standing up for herself.


• If you’re consistently too rough with your partner, you’re not a good partner (especially as this sounds like a continuing thing).


• “Prep work” is one of her overused and unsexy phrases.  Every time I see it, I picture knives and onions and maybe some raw chicken, not sexy times.  I picture Nate in his apron with some lavendar dishwashing gloves (yes, I have a pair in that shade) and his apron and pearls. It also makes me feel like she considers foreplay just one of those things you have to do and get it over, instead of enjoyable for its own sake.

“Tigers like water, a lot,” I said, and sipped at my coffee.
“I’m not overly fond of it,” Envy said, “but that may be because you can never take a shower without a man thinking you want sex.” 

• If you can’t get in the shower without a man trying to have sex with you, you need a new place to live.


• I’m picturing a shower alarm that goes off, so everyone knows there’s a shower with an available woman.

“The new oven preheated just like it was supposed to,” Nathaniel said, either because it was what interested him or to prove he wasn’t poking this particular badger with a stick.

• This is probably the one funny Nate line in the whole book.

“So,” Jason said, “he’s used to winning.”
She looked at all of us, frowning. “I don’t understand what that has to do with him and Nathaniel not getting along.”
“I won,” Nathaniel said.
“Won what?”
“Anita, being permanently in her life, being her main squeeze, her person, hers, and she’s mine. Micah and I have what Richard wants.”
“You mean Anita.”
He shrugged, and half-nodded. “Anita, and a life that works, and makes us all happy.”
“He’s sleeping with Anita, and he could still have a life with someone else.”
“He could, but no one is Anita.”
That made me uncomfortable, and I fought not to squirm. “It’s not like that.”

• Considering who Richard and Nate/Micah are based on, chalk up another obligatory swipe at the ex-husband, and the implication that he’s still unhappy because he can’t have Anita.


• “No one is Anita.”  Let’s all drink to that.  (“No one else is Anita” would be more correct, however.)


• Good news: Micah is not in the book.  In the words of LKH/Anita: “Yay, so very yay!”  No kitty-cat eyes, no two-liter members, and significantly less implication that Micah is actually a character anyone should actually care about.

“But Micah is Nimir-Raj, leopard king, and the head of the Coalition, so he’s becoming like the leader for all the animal groups in town, and even across the country. Why does Richard have an issue with him?”

• Why can’t this plot just go where all the other plots have gone to DIE?

“Because Micah is five-three and Richard is six-one,” Jason said.
“What?” Envy asked.
“You know how most women walk into a room and assess the beauty in the room to see where they rate, and who might give them a run for their money?” Jason asked.
“Sure,” Envy said.
“A lot of men do the same thing, but they’re not looking at who’s better-looking, they’re assessing threats, physical potential.”

• What women do this BS?  Do all the fights take place in a club…oh wait, never mind.  Sorry, forgot what series this is!


• Bigger men underrating smaller people’s capabilities in a fight is something that happens, but not as much as she thinks it is.

Envy gave him wide eyes.

• This phrase.  Kill it with fire.  The whole "X gave wide eyes" or "gave blank face" constructions need to Go Away.

“No, Micah kills for the same reason I do in a fight, because we’re too small not to. If we weren’t willing to be more ruthless than a bigger opponent, then we’d both have died years ago.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” I said.

• Again, something to be said for a smaller fighter needing to be quicker (not necessarily more ruthless) than a bigger fighter, but not to the extent that she takes it to.

“Anita and Micah are almost equally ruthless,” Nathaniel said. “You’re saying they both kill more easily than Richard.”

• What about either of these two in recent books makes you think they’re ruthless? Micah is either fighting or screwing his way to leadership, and Anita can't make a personal decision without constant agony and analysis.

“Maybe part of what I love is their ruthlessness.”
“That’s just fucked up,” she said.
“Insulting us is not going to win you points,” I said.
“Sorry, but I just don’t understand. How do you really feel about loving people because they’re ruthless?”
“Safer,” Nathaniel said.

• Envy is all about telling it like it is.  Their dynamic is severely fucked up.  Too bad she’s stuck ushering in “As you know, Bob” dialogue.

I squeezed his hand and we exchanged one of those loving looks. The fact that we did it while talking about the fact that we were willing to kill to defend the people we loved was just part of our special little snowflake of a love.

• It’s special alright.  It’s about as special as waking your partner up when you get out of bed in the middle of the night so they won’t worry.

We’d put a big sign over our territory saying, Nothing here is worth dying over, but if you insist, we will fucking kill you.

• You can’t avoid conflict for a whole series, and that is one of the major issues for what this series has devolved into.

A near-constant push to have more of me, more time, more love, more sex, and there just wasn’t any more of me to give to anyone. The sex was great, but I couldn’t be the emotional caretaker of this many people, which was why I’d encouraged some of them to find other partners to date-date. Domino hadn’t dated anyone else yet.

• But I thought polyamory was the best way ever… Also, how sad is it that she puts a higher value on sex than on other things that actually make relationships work?

“Now that the gang’s all here, why are we here? Jason mentioned something about the rough sex being part of the reason for this informal meeting. Can you elaborate on that, Jason?”
“Let’s go with Domino and Envy’s agenda item first,” he said, and gave a half smile with it.
“There’s an agenda with line items?” I said.
He laughed. “You should see your face, so woebegone.”
“I hate meetings.” I brought both my hands up to raise my coffee to my mouth. I didn’t want to touch anyone right that minute. I felt like they were ganging up on me, managing me, and I didn’t like it. Nathaniel put his hand on my thigh underneath the table, rubbing gently on it through the silk of my robe. I fought the urge to push his hand away. I wanted him to touch me, but I didn’t like realizing that everyone at this table knew the topic of conversation except me.

• Here’s one of the other big issues.  As much as Anita complains about “being managed”, she refuses to be an adult and manage herself.  I’m going to guess that this is related to LKH’s dislike of being “managed” which I would argue could be avoided by doing what she’s supposed to.  Since she won’t deal with anything without being forced to, management is necessary.


• She’s right to be annoyed about Nate, since he is easily the most manipulative character in the book.


• That being said, this was actually funny for a minute.

“I do straight vanilla intercourse sometimes,” I said. He hugged me one-armed and said, “No, you don’t; you think you do, but even your vanilla is more like fudge ripple.”

• No one is as dark and edgy as Anita!

“Jade and I both believe that if we find other people, you’ll see it as delegating us to them. You won’t feel you have to date us, because we’ll be dating other people. We’ve seen you do it with others, Crispin included.”
I thought about that for a moment. Was that true? Was my encouraging them to find other lovers a way of getting them out of my bed, if not my life?
“I hadn’t realized I was doing that, but no one person, not even me, can truly date this many people. I can fuck, but I can’t do the emotional stuff, the cute stuff, the things that really make it a relationship; there just isn’t enough of me to go around like that. I’m feeling pressured by everyone to take care of them, and I’ve reached a limit. I can’t take care of this many people as intimately as most of you want me to, I just don’t know how to do that. I asked Jean-Claude and even he didn’t know how to have real relationships with this many people, and he’s been a ladies’ man, and a gentlemen’s man, for centuries.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it from that perspective. I don’t think . . . no, I know I couldn’t date this many people, but they’re all metaphysically tied to you and Jean-Claude and Micah, and there’s no untying those bindings except by death,” Envy said.

• In light of this, I wonder if there are some polyamorous relationship growing pains going on in LKH-land.


• Also, despite the fact that the book is called JASON, one of the main running plots is how Anita’s just at her limit for dealing with people.

“I love that you’re willing to relocate for your girlfriend,” Envy said. “Most men expect the woman to do the career compromising.”

• LKH, the 1980s are calling…on their rotary phone.  (Yes, there’s still expectations in some quarters that women will make compromises, but for characters who are younger than me, it’s a little jarring.)

“J.J. is talking to the dance company she’s in about Jason maybe trying out for them,” Nathaniel said.
I looked from one to the other. “Wow, Jason, just wow, that’s awesome; would you be the first lycanthrope allowed in an all-human dance company?” He nodded.
“That would really help lycanthropes be more accepted,” Envy said.

• This is ridiculous.  There’s a pretty big difference between a trained ballet dancer and an exotic dancer with some dance classes.  (Not to knock the skills needed as an exotic dancer, but not on the same level.)  This is, however, the same woman who thinks ballerinas need male partners to be real dancers.

“First, we all think if you maybe had more experience with women, or could talk to someone about having female lovers, you might be able to help Jade feel more a part of things.”

• Again, this plot is supposed to be about Jason, but as usual it’s all about Anita.

“Add Nicky and Nathaniel co-topping me and it’s rougher,” I said. Jason laughed. “I want to introduce J.J. to rougher sex, not scare her to death.”

• Pretty much.  There's references to edge-play, which I don't think we've seen in the books, and I don't think the breath-play will come back after the reaction a lot of readers had to it.  (For those who missed it, it included the immortal line from Nicky: "Make her face change colors" because they're choking her.)

We looked like we were going to a Goth nightclub, or to be extras in some futuristic but unrealistic movie where all the dangerous people wore black and looked cool. I would have protested, but honestly most of our dressy-casual clothes were black with a little red, purple, and blue mixed in here and there.

• If you’ve seen any pictures of LKH and her husband dressed up, you’re laughing hysterically over this too.  The thing is that this is presented as a matter of fact statement and not as a joke.

We pressed cheeks together more than kissed, because though she was wearing her usual neutral lip gloss, I was wearing my usual deep red lipstick and I’d learned that it overwhelmed or looked odd intermingled with other women’s lipsticks.

• Apparently in this reality they haven’t discovered color-stay lipstick?  Maybe the person who invented it was killed in a lyncanthrope attack?  Seriously, this is a running theme that I just don’t get, and I WEAR lipstick and kiss men.  Yet I’ve never gotten it all over anyone else.  These passages make me miss the old Anita, who wore jeans and polos and Nikes.

It felt a little like we were talking around the elephant in the living room. I wanted to point at it and say, “Look, look, an elephant!” I both wanted to talk about the sex and the issues surrounding it, and desperately wanted to ignore it. I think everyone else was actually just talking like friends. I always wanted to either sort of pretend sex and kink issues didn’t exist, or take them so head-on that it was jarring to everyone else involved. I seemed to have only two speeds on problems that hit me emotionally, either putting my fingers in my ears and going la-la-la, or picking up an axe and attacking the issue. It wasn’t actually a comforting approach for me or the people I loved, but it was what I had for coping mechanisms. I hoped someday to have more middle ground, but right now, I didn’t. I was horribly torn between wanting to never bring up the subject of why we were all dressed up to greet J.J. at the airport, and wanting to yell, Is anyone else nervous, or is it just me?

• I feel like this is one of the truest things that she has ever written.

I was so far in the guy camp on my approach to most things that I often came off as harsh even for a man. I didn’t mean to, but it happened a lot. I wasn’t trying for harsh, I just wanted to say something, or do something, and I wanted to act, not wait until I had to react.

• Example 5000 of how Anita is more special/better than everyone else.

Even if by pushing I made the situation worse. It was almost a compulsion that made me want resolution to all uncertainty even if the resolution was negative, rather than wait patiently for a more positive outcome.

• If I was a “guy”, I’d be insulted by this whole thing.

“I think if Richard had been having rough with you, he’d have behaved himself with Envy.”
I shrugged. “He didn’t have time to see Envy, date the new mundane chick, and fit BDSM booty calls into his schedule. He has a full-time job and a lot of family obligations with his parents and siblings in town.”

• Example 5000 of how f-ed up their group dynamics are.

We’re built so differently that it’d be ridiculous to compare us, like making a Clydesdale and a Thoroughbred racehorse race each other. They’re both horses, but that’s about it.”
He laughed, hugged me, and kissed my cheek. “That is the healthiest analogy I’ve ever heard from any girl. You really don’t compare yourself to other people?”
“Not to women who are too different from my body type, no.”

• Give me a break.  Anita is CONSTANTLY comparing herself favorably to everyone, and going on about it to no end.  But Anita isn’t like those other silly girls, she is special.  How many diatribes against tall blond and slender has this series featured?  Plus, Anita never has to compare herself to anyone because her hangers-on will do it for her.  However, Anita has clearly forgotten her judgment fest against Richard's would-be fiancee in Shutdown.

“Too much talking, not enough sex,” Jason said, from where he was propped beside J.J.
From behind me Nathaniel said, “Agreed.”
“How do we stop all the talking and get to the sex?” Jason asked.

• Note to LKH: Your readers are wondering this too. Not that the sex is any better, but talking it to death does not help.

I had trouble relaxing with another woman in the bed doing certain things, because Domino had discovered I was slower achieving orgasm through oral, especially the second or third time, where most women climaxed faster the more foreplay their partner did. It was also partly a very old hang-up from my ex-fiancé in college, who had made me feel badly that I took so long to come like this, though I’d learned that it was his lack of skill, not my body, that had been at fault.

• Again, Anita is more special than anyone else in the world.  New bit of blame-someone-else backstory, I believe.

Then Jason settled himself between my legs and began to lick, suck, and kiss his way over and around me.

• Dear LKH: Why, if you’re so edgy, can you not use better description during sex?  It’s okay to use grown up words like “cock”, “clitoris” and the like. especially in a scene like this.  She’s not shy about using “fuck”, but then we go into constant references to “bodies” and “he was ready for me” and it just doesn’t work.

He’d bite, and I’d make a pain noise, not a happy noise, and he’d back off and go back to licking and sucking; then he’d bite on the sides of me, and if that brought happy noises, he’d try biting, semi-gently, over the sweet spot in the center.

• I’m going to assume that she’s referring to Jason biting her on the clit. NONONONONO not sexy.  Teeth might be okay in some other places, but NOT during oral sex on the female (at least, not me).

When my breathing quickened from it, spine arching a little, he bit harder. I cried out from it, and he took more of me into his mouth and shook like a dog with a toy.

• Shook like a dog with a toy.  Shook like a dog with a toy.  NONONONONONONO NOT sexy.

I screamed my orgasm for him, hands scrambling for something to hold on to, as he worried at me with teeth and mouth, until I waved him off. We had hand signals because sometimes the orgasms left us all wordless while we shook and quivered with the aftermath of it.

• “Worried at me.”  “Worried at me.”  Again, NONONONONONO.  This is just some super unsexy language for a sex scene.


• Also, if you have hand signals (and shirts – don’t forget the red shirts for ardeur food in earlier books) – you are spending way too much time on sex.  Maybe because I’m not into BDSM, but LKH makes Anita’s entire life revolve around sex, and that just doesn’t work for me.

I spilled my mouth over him, sucking him until I could press my lips tight against the front of his body.

• If you read LKH, you knew “spilled” would be in there eventually.  Also, in this one, she’s got her mouth on Jason’s pelvis, which doesn’t sound all that sexy.  I’m picturing a remora.

He was only partially erect, so it was easier to force my mouth over him and hold all of him in my mouth. I played gently with his balls with one hand and kept the other on his waist/butt area, both to touch him and as a sort of balance point.

• You knew this one was coming too – because it happens in pretty much every book, because she has a serious oral fixation.

We had a moment of eye contact, and the look was enough to let me know that J.J. didn’t have my fascination for oral sex, at least not fellatio. It was one of my very favoritest things, but then J.J. had been a lesbian most of her life, so she probably rocked me out of the park on cunnilingus.

• Pretty sure that this should not be news.

Nathaniel took the condoms from me and handed one to Jason. He unwrapped it, tossed the wrapper off the bed, and began sliding it on. Just watching him putting it on tightened things low in my body and made me fight not to offer him my ass like I was in heat. If it had just been the three of us, I probably would have, but with J.J. watching it felt a little slutty, or animalistic; either way, not in front of company.

• If you have the bingo card, check off “tightened things low in my body”.  Also, there’s been how much sex with an audience, and now she feels this?  Plus, news flash: people like that position because it IS animalistic.  It's called doggy-style for a reason.


• I will award a point for safe sex description.

Nathaniel held me in the warmth of his arms and the solidness of his body as he said, “Jason is my best friend, Anita is the woman I love most in the world, Micah is the man, Jean-Claude is our master and him taking blood as foreplay with all of us in the bed is amazing, Asher is my dominant for bondage and sometimes for rough sex, Cynric is the little brother I never had, Nicky is brother and friend and I’m learning to really enjoy co-topping Anita with him, Dev is completely comfortable with his bisexuality, and that’s nice just to have someone else who feels the same way, and I’ll leave out everyone who doesn’t have some sexual connotation for me, but there are friends and family who I’ll never get naked with that are important to me and help make my life work.”

• I get the “family of choice” idea (and practice it to some extent) but I just wouldn’t use “brother” or “sister” to describe someone I have sex with.  It jars me out of the story.


• Nate has issues.  Issues, subscriptions, racks at the library, and the archives are available on line.  He is not the person who should be giving advice on healthy relationships, ever.  I get that it probably fits with the truly fucked-up back story that LKH has given him, but what’s worse is that she makes him the “emotions” go-to guy.


• Enough with the commas, for the love of God.  Ten commas. Holy run-on sentence!  There are no spaces above because it is ALL one sentence.

I fought the urge not to squirm, because I had issues with Cynric. Sin was what he wanted to be called, not Rick. He was nineteen now and a senior, but I still had trouble with the age difference between him and me. I would miss him if he left my life, but he still hit all sorts of issues for me.

• Good news: Cynric is not in this book.  Also, despite the fact that Anita is still 30, Cynric is somehow now 19 (and legal, for all the haters).

I gave my best blank cop face and let Nathaniel talk.

• Yet another overused phrase for the bingo card.

We were shoveling J.J.’s issues right now, not mine.

• Only it’s always Anita’s issues…plus I don’t think JJ really HAS issues.  She doesn’t want to have rough/BDSM sex with Jason, and she’s okay with him going elsewhere.  Neither of them wants to be monogamous – so this is pretty much a non-issue, right?  Other than this whole fixation that she has with everyone who is meeting someone's sexual needs being in a relationship.

“Maybe if Cynric and I had been raised together from childhood it would be different, but he was seventeen when we met, and he’s a younger brother for me, but I’ve never thought of him as anything but an adult, younger than me, but still a person and not a kid.” She nodded. “That makes sense, I guess, so he’s family of choice, not of blood?”

• Even with these characters, this doesn’t make sense.  Most people, when using the terms brother/sister are going to assume that there is NOT a sexual relationship.  Brothers-in-arms and such.


• Also, JJ has sadly become the Exposition Girl.

Knowing something about Jason’s number of lovers, I was impressed, and a little . . . well, it’s not everyone who hits triple digits for lovers. Once I would have been judgmental; now I was puzzled. Even with everyone I’d had in my life I was still under thirty lovers. I just couldn’t imagine liking that many people that much.

• How does anyone have time to get to triple digits?  Especially since Jason and JJ appear to have actual lives.


• Brownie point for admitting that she was super-judgmental about this earlier in the series.


• I’m not going back through the books to check the number on Anita.

“No, honestly, because I see having someone use a strap-on as a dominant bondage thing, more than sex, and I don’t bottom to women.” That last was said in a tone that was very final. It was one of the few things I was sure of.
“I don’t do a lot of bondage, but I don’t see strap-ons as bondage.”
“Po-tay-toe, po-tah-to,” I said.
She nodded. “One person’s sex is another person’s kink, I get that.”
“Also, Jade is so submissive that even if I had found a woman I was willing to let top me, it would never be her.”

• BDSM lecture time, because LKH is an expert authority on the subject.

“So I’m not just being all stupid straight girl?”
Nathaniel hugged me. “I told you that you weren’t.”
“But you love me, and you’re not a girl.”
J.J. smiled. “No, you’re not being all stupid straight girl. You’re actually being very responsible and trying your best, which is a hell of a lot more than most lovers do.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I would be honored to try to help you do oral sex with Jade, but how different are you and Jade on oral sex?”

• Once again, it’s all about Anita and how awesome she is…but she doesn’t realize it!  So everyone has to tell her, repeatedly.  And she gets the stamp of approval from the bisexual girl, so extra points.

“I enjoyed most of what she did more than you did. I still miss Gabriel and her sometimes.”

• And this is proof of why Nate should not give ANYONE emotional advice.  (Let’s just say it involved snuff films with were-creatures who couldn’t be killed…)

I’d learned that when you’re king you can’t always go slaying the dragons, because if the king dies the kingdom needs a new king, and the next one may be a real bastard. I risked myself enough as a U.S. Marshal; I wasn’t allowed vendettas.

• When is she ever really at risk?


• Also, so now Anita is the king?  Has anyone told Jean-Claude this?

We kissed and it was a mingling of identical scarlet lipstick. She’d started wearing my shade of red, because if she wore something else it ruined both our lipsticks, or made colors that looked good on neither of us. I realized that she got more kisses now that our lipsticks matched; good thing the color looked good on both of us.

• Again with the lipstick.  How exactly is she kissing?  Is she reapplying in between kisses?

Nathaniel watched us kiss, his lips touched with red just down the center. He’d coined it the go-faster stripe, and wore it proudly.

• Yet another overused phrase for the bingo card.  Plus, “go-faster stripe” is just stupid.  I seriously want to toss whatever I'm reading when that one comes up.  Luckily my Kindle has a padded case.

Funny, I hadn’t thought he had that typical male fantasy of two women and him; just goes to prove that bisexual doesn’t mean not guy, just a different kind of guy.

• Stereotypes ahoy!

There was something incredibly satisfying seeing him stretched beautiful and nude with the tracks of our lip prints decorating all that bare skin. His groin was untouched, but we’d both planted kisses all around it on his thighs and hips, until he’d whimpered. His body was more than ready to be touched, straight, hard, and eager.

• Actually, I’m starting to think maybe she has a lipstick fetish after reading this. (Nothing wrong with that, but she should acknowledge it rather than acting like we all get lipstick all over the place.)


• This is one of those places where I can figure out what she’s referring to, but use of a word indicating male sexual anatomy would fit well here.

I’d learned to kiss without ending up looking like a clown from kissing the men; now it was just a slightly more delicate dance with two women, two lipsticked mouths. Jade and I were learning. Of course, tonight if we didn’t smear our lipsticks all to hell, we’d be doing it wrong.

• Or maybe just not wear lipstick.  It’s pretty popular to go without.

Maybe my biggest trouble with Jade wasn’t that she was female, but that she was so uncertain, so that I always had to persuade, do all the planning, and just court her in a way that the men normally courted me.

• Once again, it’s all about Anita and how she’s not like those other women…

Yay, so yay!

• Another phrase that should be killed with fire

What do you do in the middle of making out with one woman, when you realize your other lover may not be the girl of your dreams? You reach for her, because you can’t bear to see that careful sadness on her face, so I did.

• This whole seesaw between “I can’t take care of everyone’s needs” and “I can’t let anyone down” also gets old.

But what works in fantasy doesn’t always work in reality; if you add too many people it can go from erotic and exciting to a game of Jenga.

• I laughed about this, but also the fact that she thinks the stuff in her books WORKS.

Adding the boys, even if both women would have agreed, might have been too much, like Internet porn: sex that no one really enjoys, but it looks impressive, and gives you bragging rights of I’m kinkier than thou.

• See above.  And we all know that Anita is never concerned with bragging rights… right?  Oh, wait…

I cried out for her, and finally said, “Safeword, safeword, stop, stop!”

• Given the track record with LKH and editing, I can’t decide if this is 1) a mistake (i.e., she was supposed to come up with something reasonable, like Nate’s safeword – see also the Merry book where the note “Insert here” was left instead of an inscription on something) or 2) if that’s the word she chose (which, considering she has used “stop” or NOT had a safeword, is possible), or 3) if it’s supposed to be that she’s so out of it she forgot the safeword.

I got up so I could go and comfort the other woman in the bed, but honestly, I didn’t want to. It wasn’t that I was unsympathetic. It was that I’d been sympathetic for months and months.

• Yes, we all know how concerned Anita is with the emotional well-being of others.  Where is all this ruthlessness we keep hearing about?

She wouldn’t go to therapy unless I went with her, and I’d told her, no, therapy was an inner journey and had to be walked alone, and besides, you weren’t honest if other people were in the room.

• LKH: Please, for the love of God, quit shilling for “therapy”.


• Also, you keep using this word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

I’d finally found a therapist who specialized in domestic abuse survivors, and I’d gone with her, but she had made it all about how we weren’t getting along, so it turned into couples counseling. I’d tried to bring up the abuse she’d suffered from her ex-master, and all Jade had wanted to talk about was how to make her and me a better, more workable couple. I finally told the counselor that since I was already engaged to three men, I didn’t really see how a girlfriend who didn’t like men that much was going to fit into my life. It’s not often you see a really good psychiatrist stumped, but she didn’t have a comeback for that.

• Oooh, look how uncooperative Jade is.  It’s like she’s turning into a female Richard or something…

Jade wasn’t ready to deal with her past. She was so broken, but that wasn’t the problem; Nathaniel had been broken when I met him. The difference was that Nathaniel had been willing to work his shit, to try to get better, but Jade wouldn’t help herself get better. She just wanted to cling to me, and to Domino to a much lesser extent, and be afraid. If I’d been in love with her I’d have been more patient, but I so wasn’t in love with her, as I crawled over the bed to dry her tears. I fought to keep my feelings off my face.

• Please shoot me now.  Once again, Nathaniel is NOT the example of a healthy person or relationship.  He's manipulative to the extreme.


• Also, everytime Anita refers to “working issues”, what she really means is “don’t cause me any problems”.

Her blond hair fell like yellow water around her shoulders.

• Falling yellow water really doesn’t bring up all that great an image, LKH.  Just saying…

Nathaniel’s arms and legs were straining in the ropes, his eyes fluttering shut, and I realized for the first time that having a silk-clad woman writhing on his groin while another woman ate her out might actually bring him.

• Bring him WHERE?  Quit being so “special snowflake” and write “come”.  "He came."  I'm going to come"


• It strikes me that LKH often chooses passive language to describe sex, and it’s annoying.  It goes right along with stuff like "his body was ready" or "he was ready".  She takes all this pride in the edgy sexy stuff (that women can't write, or so she claims she was told) but then she pulls this stuff.

People joke about women tasting like fish, but Jade always tasted more like meat, red meat. I’d asked Nathaniel and he’d confirmed that I did, too, but he’d also said that some women did taste like fish. If you were willing to ask the questions you could learn all sorts of things.

• Does anyone really think women taste like fish?  I’ve heard cleanliness issues may lead to smelling like fish (and if we’re going to talk about sex and cleanliness issues, Anita lives in a big old glass house).  I’m also having a hard time finding a man who thinks we taste like a steak.  Unless maybe this is supposed to be a poorly described were thing?

I sealed my mouth over her, drawing more and more of that small, happy bit of her body into my mouth, so that I was sucking it a lot like I’d suck a man, but totally different, it was just the only analogy I had.

• Words are her business, folks.  Just remember that.

She was well and truly gone to her happy place. Yay, fucking, yay!

• Please quit with the “yay” thing.  Kill it with fire.

NATHANIEL WAS ONE of those men who was longer when he was at his most excited. He could gain two inches in length between “normal” erection and this, but he was also vibratingly hard, like wrapping my hand around rock wrapped in warm, velvet skin.

• Because, of course, Anita’s boy-toys can’t be like normal guys.  I’m also not buying this whole “get even longer” thing.

He looked back at Nathaniel.
They had a long look between them, and it was Nathaniel who said, “We’re best friends, and you can’t be best friends if you’re fucking each other. It messes up the friendship.”
“Some couples are best friends,” she said.
“No,” Nathaniel said, “once you love each other like that, you can’t be true best friends.”
“Best friends are who you bitch to about your lovers,” Jason said. “Can’t do that if your best friend is your lover. It gets in the way.”

• This actually makes sense in Anita-land.  I don't agree with it, but it makes sense.

“But you are great at deep-throating,” J.J. said.
“That’s different from mouth-fucking,” I said.
She looked puzzled.
“You really haven’t been with that many men, have you?”
“Not in a decade, and honestly, high school boys just didn’t interest me that much, except for Jason.”
“I’m not saying no to vigorous oral sex from Jason, but unless I’m in the right mood, mouth-fucking is sort of an endurance sport, and it might distract me enough that I will take a long time to go from oral myself.”

• All about Anita. Also, "to go" is right up there with characters being brought - it's stupid.  If you don't want to use "come" (I personally prefer it over "cum", mostly because that looks like Letters from Penthouse), how about some other choices: get off? climax? have an orgasm?

“No hinting, honeybunch,” Jason said, “we have to be very clear on this. Are you saying that Nathaniel could have actual sex with you?”
She nodded.
“Gotta say it out loud, J.J., no misunderstandings.”
“If everyone is okay with it, I’d like to try”—she blushed harder, and then went pale—“having intercourse with Nathaniel.”
Jason grinned. “I’m okay with it.”
“Really?” she asked, looking up at him.
He nodded. “Really.”
“So we’re going to daisy-chain us all,” I said.
“Maybe, or maybe we’ll just break into couples again,” J.J. said. “But you with Nathaniel and me with Jason,” I said.

• Jason doesn’t strike me as a honeybunch and sweetums kind of guy, really.


• More negotiating during sex.  What was she saying about erotic Jenga earlier?  I get that in the BDSM "scene" there is some etiquette on the subject, but for me it just doesn't work.  Although at least characters are consenting to sexual stuff, as opposed to other books in this series.

“God, you’re beautiful,” she said, and I realized she wasn’t looking at my face, or breasts, and I didn’t think anyone had ever complimented that part of me in quite that way. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I settled for, “Thank you.”

• That’s because the only comment that the men make about Anita in that area is how “wet and tight” she is.  (This could also be due to the fact that the sex scenes are VERY male-oriented.) That's not an uncommon compliment.

Jason pulled himself out of my mouth, and then he went, hot and liquid across my breasts.

• He came.  He came, hot and liquid, across your breasts.  This honestly sounds like some other bodily fluid was involved.  See my diatribe above.

She nodded. “We give the advice we need to hear sometimes; I heard it.”

• If Anita is giving you advice, run.  Just run.

“I have some of the same issues you have with personal boundaries, so I’d say let’s see if we can incorporate her into our sex life more as a group, and if that will satisfy her need for a relationship with you, then great, but if she keeps pushing you to go out to movies and plays with just her, then say no. You barely have time to actually date Micah, me, and Jean-Claude.”
“You’re usually the more the merrier,” I said.
“Only with people who work their issues. It would be great to find a woman to add to us. It would make most of the other men incredibly happy, but Jade isn’t the woman to help make us all happier.”

• There Nate goes, trying to keep Anita in his control.  I agree that she doesn’t have time, but let’s face it – does Anita really work emotional issues with those three either?  No, “I love you mostest” does not count.  (Funny note: AC tried to give me “moistest”, probably because this is about Anita.)

“She wants too much of you, Anita. You’re already committed to too many people you love, and who fit into our lives better, and who make things better. We don’t need someone who drags us down and just sucks energy. We need people who help lift everyone up and raise the energy level. Jade doesn’t help enough, and she needs too much emotional hand holding without giving enough in return.”
I cuddled Nathaniel’s arms around me tighter.

• Love how Nate is stressing “we”, not “you” or “Anita”.

“So I get to stop dating Jade, or having sex with her?”
“Did you hear what you said, just now?” J.J. asked. I looked at her.
“I said I was breaking up with Jade.”
“No, you said you ‘get to’ break up with her. That implies you don’t really want to have sex with her, let alone date her.”

• Let’s all make Anita feel better about something she should have done some time ago, really.

So, it wasn't all bad.
No ardeur.
No Richard.
No Micah.
No Cynric.
No Jean-Claude.
No references to "creamy goodness" or other references to Anita's impossible anatomy (muscular but dainty, not weigh very much but have a EEE rack).
No super-detailed descriptions of BAD clothing.
No pissing contests with law enforcement types.
No pretense at plot.

But it still wasn't good.

Comments

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

"My lover constantly ignores my dislike for rough sex, which I find distasteful and painful, even going so far as to forcibly hurt me after orgasm as if he thinks he has a right to override my requests and feelings."

"Oh you should just learn to be more laid back and ready for it like MOST women."

"You know how most women assess who is the most beautiful in the room?" No, LKH, I don't. Maybe I'm really a man.

"we all think if you maybe had more experience with women, or could talk to someone about having female lovers, you might be able to help Jade feel more a part of things." YOU SHOULD have sex with women because WE the polylovers say so. We don't actually care if you're into it or not. Like the rough sex JJ or Envy or whoever it is was complaining about, it's something you SHOULD learn to like otherwise you're hurting everybody else. Your own desires do not enter into this.

God, this is all so rapey.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Also written in a way I can barely get my head around. A professional writer of erotica, sorry paranormal fiction, has her first-person narrator use phrases like "yay" and "most favouritest"? I MEAN WHAT?

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

HOW DARE THAT ROTTEN JADE ACTUALLY WANT TO WORK ON HER RELATIONSHIP. CLEARLY THIS IS A SIGN SHE AND ANITA WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE.

Also, Anita breaks up with the sole female harem member. Why am I not surprised?

(I know there's so much more to comment upon, but that just jumps out at me. No matter how ~accepting~ Anita claims to be, she's homophobic as hell. I'm only surprised it took her this long.)

EDIT:
"Jade doesn’t help enough, and she needs too much emotional hand holding without giving enough in return.”"
AHAHAHA RIGHT. And it's not like Anita took an ENTIRE HAREM of yes-men to help her work out her issues, in return for... tightwettightness, shooting people, and bitching at them.

"The difference was that Nathaniel had been willing to work his shit, to try to get better, but Jade wouldn’t help herself get better. She just wanted to cling to me, and to Domino to a much lesser extent, and be afraid."
Nathaniel was NOT willing to ~work his shit~. He still hasn't. The difference is that Anita likes penises and not vulvas, and she judges worth entirely by fucks. If you don't give her fucks, she doesn't give any fucks for you.

It just pisses me off that Anita's so damn homophobic. She cockblocks and bashes men who prefer men to women, and she gets clearly grossed out by a woman who *gasp* dares to prefer women to men. Moreover, one who even has Anita's precious ~sexual trauma~ excuse to justify her orientation... because you need justification to not worship the Almighty Dick in Anitaverse. (Except if you're male, where you may edgily like yaoi kisses and off-camera buggery, but you must always love the Doomcrotch most of all.)

@#$%.

[graesea.livejournal.com]

If Nathaniel "worked his shit" (what a respectful term for someone's painfully trainwrecked life...not!) he would have to confront Anita's abuse. And that's not going to happen.

[graesea.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the snark, but Hamilton is such a gawd awful writer I had to stop reading. Life is too short and there are too many good, skillful authors to read.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Re: tagging - there is no wrong choice here! I believe tags are open for all members to add to posts, so just go for it.

Meanwhile, the faces I'm making while reading these excerpts. Last time I checked, "groin" and "genitals" were not interchangeable words and I'm starting to really hate LKH doing just that. And omg HDU Yiyu want to talk about the relationship that she's in or try to spend some time with Anita, clearly she's going about this all wrong and Anita has NO TIME FOR THIS BUSINESS when she could be having sex with men. It's like Yiyu has wants and needs but who cares because they keep interfering with Anita's life. And Nathaniel being a creepy enabler/manipulator just makes my skin crawl.

Also LKH needs to step off the food descriptions. Not just to spare us the whole agonising fudge ripple mangled metaphors, but because I'm stuck here thinking more about what kind of hinky seafood she's had or if maybe someone needs to go to a doctor...? I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be fixating on that sort of thing. Though I will give this as a step up from Anita's vagina being described as tasting like "like meat and that fresh taste, almost like rain."

[dwg.livejournal.com]

THIS. ALL OF THIS. Plus a side of misogyny because we know what Anita thinks of other women in general.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I have a lot more to say than this but I just woke up, so...

ANITA UNIRONICALLY CALLS HER LOVE WITH HER GUYS A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE OMFG

" “He didn’t have time to see Envy, date the new mundane chick, and fit BDSM booty calls into his schedule" New mundane chick. Nice. And "mundanes" is not a term for non-magical humans in the ABverse so no she's really just calling her that

"“Jason is my best friend, Anita is the woman I love most in the world, Micah is the man, Jean-Claude is our master and him taking blood as foreplay with all of us in the bed is amazing, Asher is my dominant for bondage and sometimes for rough sex, Cynric is the little brother I never had, Nicky is brother and friend and I’m learning to really enjoy co-topping Anita with him, Dev is completely comfortable with his bisexuality, and that’s nice just to have someone else who feels the same way, and I’ll leave out everyone who doesn’t have some sexual connotation for me, but there are friends and family who I’ll never get naked with that are important to me and help make my life work.” I AM MAINLY LEAVING THEM OUT BECAUSE LKH NEVER MADE THEM UP BECAUSE FUCK ANYONE UR NOT ACTUALLY FUCKING

Funny, I hadn’t thought he had that typical male fantasy of two women and him; just goes to prove that bisexual doesn’t mean not guy, just a different kind of guy.<--i dont even

Jade wasn’t ready to deal with her past. She was so broken, but that wasn’t the problem; Nathaniel had been broken when I met him. The difference was that Nathaniel had been willing to work his shit, to try to get better, but Jade wouldn’t help herself get better. She just wanted to cling to me, and to Domino to a much lesser extent, and be afraid. If I’d been in love with her I’d have been more patient, but I so wasn’t in love with her, as I crawled over the bed to dry her tears. I fought to keep my feelings off my face. <---WOW, I JUST...WOW. Also, what, so I have to in love with someone to care they've been hurt and understand that getting the strength to even START trying to work through it can take YEARS? And that's for real-world abuse, not shit that lasted CENTURIES

She was well and truly gone to her happy place. Yay, fucking, yay! <--VERY EROTIC LANGUAGE seriously you can't arouse any reader like that, I'm pretty sure

BTW ANITA IS BETTER THAN ALL OTHER WOMEN IN EVERY WAY

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I think maybe the reason she thinks women do that is because it's what SHE does. LKH, I mean, not Anita. (haha, as if there's a difference)

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

"Jade doesn’t help enough, and she needs too much emotional hand holding without giving enough in return.”" <---VERSUS ANITA WHO NEEDS ACTUAL HAND-HOLDING. REPEATEDLY. I can't count the times the guys hold her hand not in a normal couples way but like you would a small child. Not to mention them all holding her and kissing her in a public restaurant while she cried about her grandma telling her she wasn't pretty. Anita is the one who does this, not Jade. And we've SEEN Anita do this, we have never ever seen Jade do this...or do much of anything because she's never on-screen.

I think Jade's getting booted not so much out of homophobia (though Anita is HELLA homophobic, make no mistake, I'm not arguing that) so much as LKH doesn't find it sexy to write about two women. She may have a woman or two in her life/bed now IRL and maybe she thought that meant she liked women IN GENERAL enough to enjoy writing girl-on-girl the way she clearly enjoys writing Anita with guys (badly though she does it) but she found it did nothing for her on paper. And since all of Anita's relationships are based on sex and nothing else, out Jade goes!

What I'm seeing more of is misogyny and double-standards. If Jade had been a guy, her neediness and trauma would have been seen as bonus points, and Anita would have LOVED her dependency.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Oh right---no, a normal healthy vagina should not smell or taste like fish, that's the result of illness such as bacterial vaginosis or an alkaline imbalance. As for meat...idk, I've never heard of that? Aside from the fish thing, I've never heard of vaginas actually tasting like anything specific, just general terms like sweet or somewhat metallic or even nothing much at all, like when you lick your own skin. It varies from cunt to cunt but what the owner is eating can have an impact; if you eat a lot of fruit, especially pineapple, your pussy starts tasting sweeter. More meat in your diet, not so much.

But we all knew LKH knew nothing about vaginas, given how she writes Anita's.

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

*gives up trying to read even the summary when eyes start bleeding*

And btw, when the hell did Jason join the biggest dick in the world contest?

[cryptaknight.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure out what most of this has to do with Jason. His name is the title of the book, but it seems like it's interminable relationship talk and Anita's adventures in girl on girl action, with a little Nathaniel thrown in for good measure.

Also, Anita talks like a 13 year old girl. It throws me out of the story every time she spouts a 'yay' or 'favoritest' or talks like a lolcat. It just doesn't jibe with her bad ass, vampire killing, US Marshal depiction. Avoiding words for genitals is part of this. To me, even phrasing things like 'ate her out' instead of describing the act sounds too crude for the way she writes. She really needs a course on how to write actual erotica.

So much talk. I'd be thoroughly turned off if someone I was about to sleep with had to nail everything out prior to getting down. LKH needs to work on 'show, don't tell'. I think some of it is LKH thinking her readers are stupid, and cannot visualize a scene unless she spells out exactly who's going to be doing what to whom and what that signifies in their relationship, etc. This applies to all the lipstick logistics as well.

I miss jeans-and-Nikes!Anita too.

[zombiegoat.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Maybe her inner goddess stepped out for green tea and was unavailable for comment?

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I'd like to hope that's the case rather than LKH starting to tire of Genevieve and longing to boot her out of her own harem. Because no matter how hard she protests, LKH puts her own life or fantasy versions of it into each and every book.

And yes. She just doesn't find needy WOMEN sexy, only needy men.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I know that when I am having sexy thoughts while reading a story, someone going "yay fucking yay" at a crucial juncture is totally going to cause me to go, spill, etc. NOT.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Which makes you wonder how much love Genevieve's gets from her girlfriend.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

It honestly reads like something from the Pit of Voles, written by a highschooler. "Anita had changed a lot over the sumer. Instead of her former Nikes and jeans she was now wearing black 7 inch spike heel boots with platforms, black leather skintite pants with flames on them, a shirt like Jean-Claude's but more tight fitting and over the top, a black leather corset with studes. In her hair she had a purple streek and she wore red lipstock. 'wow' said Micah the new wereleopard at school. 'Who is that, she is HOTTT!'"

[jamoche]

If it were written like that it would actually tip into "so bad it's good" territory :)

[duamuteffe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the snark bullet on this one! It was just so pointless; no plot, no real character development, just endless talking and boring sex.
I was weirded out by her insistence on using the term "boys" - not guys, not men, but boys. Repeatedly.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and another thing---making Cynric legal actually doesn't get rid of any of the issues with him. She may be absolved legally, but that doesn't make their entire relationship and what it's founded on any less fucked up. And it doesn't change the fact that even if he's not a minor anymore, he was when they first started.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

I can't count the times the guys hold her hand not in a normal couples way but like you would a small child.
Yeah, Shutdown was an entire ONESHOT'S worth of that. Which is why it's so absurd that poor Jade, who has literally been ABUSED FOR CENTURIES, is getting less comfort over that than Anita does over her grandmother telling her that she wasn't pretty.

I really feel sorry for Jade.

What I'm seeing more of is misogyny and double-standards. If Jade had been a guy, her neediness and trauma would have been seen as bonus points, and Anita would have LOVED her dependency.
EXACTLY. :X

I think Jade's getting booted not so much out of homophobia (though Anita is HELLA homophobic, make no mistake, I'm not arguing that) so much as LKH doesn't find it sexy to write about two women. She may have a woman or two in her life/bed now IRL and maybe she thought that meant she liked women IN GENERAL enough to enjoy writing girl-on-girl the way she clearly enjoys writing Anita with guys (badly though she does it) but she found it did nothing for her on paper. And since all of Anita's relationships are based on sex and nothing else, out Jade goes!
Huh. Good point. It is pretty strange that she can't think of ANY OTHER analogy for going down on a woman than "It's like sucking off a guy, only different!". Even her f/f porn is male-centric. :X

Lending credence to that:
Maybe my biggest trouble with Jade wasn’t that she was female, but that she was so uncertain, so that I always had to persuade, do all the planning, and just court her in a way that the men normally courted me.

A thing here that strikes me about Anita: she really likes the ABSTRACT fantasy about being Just Like A Guy, but in practice... she seems to really despise any part of it aside from being an abusive, aggressive @#$%. She doesn't enjoy dominance in the long term, she doesn't enjoy power for its own sake*, and she doesn't enjoy courting anyone. Her ACTUAL desire seems to be to submit, to not be responsible for anything, and to have powerful men take care of her and her every need.

*(I'm serious. She enjoys showing off power, she enjoys abusing people, and she enjoys being flattered. But she has no positive reaction to just HAVING the power and being able to do things with it. If anything, it seems to gross her out and make her complain unless she can use it to make someone hurt, and even then the rush dies down immediately afterwards. And "hurt" isn't even the right word - pain doesn't excite her, HARMING someone and traumatizing them excites her.)

If I had to peg Anita as ANYTHING, despite what she says about being ~dominant~ and ~never really bottoming even when she bottoms~, she's a deeply, deeply self-hating submissive with extreme emotional underdevelopment and an abuse fetish. It's actually self-sabotaging that she uses "submissiveness" and "dominance" as an excuse for her abusive behavior - as "dominant" = "superior" and "submissive" = "inferior" in her framework, she can't POSSIBLY admit that submission makes her happy as anything other than an extremely situational fetish.

I really think the character would be a lot more well-balanced if she dropped her fantasy fetish view of the world, admitted that submission to certain people =/= MUST SUBMIT TO EVERYONE EVER, and decided to be strong-willed and hard-charging AND ALSO let herself unwind under the dominance of people of her choosing. But no - in order for her to admit to it AT ALL, it has to be ringed around with excuses, ornate dressing-up about Inherently Blah-Blah-Blah, and everything possible to prevent her from saying 'I like this, and it does not make me less of a person and unworthy of respect'.

Goodness knows she does enough that makes her unworthy of respect, but that seems to escape her narcissistic headspace...

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

I kind of wonder if Jade was her fantasy and JJ's going to become a Genevieve clone. It seems Anita really doesn't like taking care of someone, despite what she said, and it now shows.

Hell, even when she "takes care of" traumatized guys, we get a lot of gender essentialism and he ends up taking care of her/dominating her anyway. Just look at Nathaniel the Creep. But with her gender essentialism, she finally got to try out Being The Guy... and found it wasn't at all to her liking. Jade didn't dominate her, have that dark look in her eye that all men have when they stub their toe (or whatnot), or coddle HER emotional issues. Jade just wanted to be taken care of and work on their relationship. A nice, needy-for-damned-good-reasons woman. But a woman.

Anita didn't like that AT ALL.

---

EDIT: *But a woman - AND not an Anitaverse Male, who would plow Anita with a massive dong, accept every conversation about his issues turning into an exposition of her wangst, and be one of her many caretakers.

“No, honestly, because I see having someone use a strap-on as a dominant bondage thing, more than sex, and I don’t bottom to women.” That last was said in a tone that was very final. It was one of the few things I was sure of.
Also, WHAT THE FUCK? How is a strap-on a "dominant bondage thing"? O_o Where's the bondage, even?!

...So Anita views dongs as "dominant bondage"? I mean, it's kind of implied. The character's head gets weirder and weirder the more she talks about her views...

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

I'd be thoroughly turned off if someone I was about to sleep with had to nail everything out prior to getting down.
I think it could be hot, but... it would have to be better-written. And there's no enthusiasm here. They discuss their activities like they're discussing income-tax returns. :X

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

Also, do I detect some wisftulness in that tone? (For those unfamiliar with LKH, Gary is her ex-husband who many believe played a role in the development of the series.)

I read it more as LKH still being bitter about her ex, and wanting him to be super jealous of her new life. I also note the implication that everything wrong with their relationship was *his* fault.

Envy is all about telling it like it is. Their dynamic is severely fucked up.

Yeah, but you just know that was intended to come off as her just not understaaaanding how great and awesome and better-than-everyone-else's relationship their's is.

Again, this plot is supposed to be about Jason, but as usual it’s all about Anita.

Of course it is. Everything in these books is about Anita.

I fought the urge not to squirm, because I had issues with Cynric. Sin was what he wanted to be called, not Rick.

I have two issues with this:

1) I refuse to accept that name not being pronounced with a hard-K sound. It's the name of the second king of Wessex, and literally means "kin-ruler" in Old English.

2) A character wanting to be called "Sin" sounds so very juvenile to me. As in "My name is Harry, but everyone calls me 'Vampire'," only without the possibility of it being a parody. Not that it's keeping me from laughing anyway.

Also, despite the fact that Anita is still 30, Cynric is somehow now 19

Of course she is. Because Anita, being LKH's self-insert, can never be allowed to age beyond a certain point, because then she'd have to deal with certain real world problems that come with getting older. And just like a certain other author of a popular book series with an obvious self-insert as the main character, LKH is likely terrified of getting old, and therefore no longer being sexy. Hence her insistence on people still finding her incredibly attractive.

re: the non-sexy terminology: I've said it before, and I'll say it again - despite all her "edginess" and claims to the contrary, LKH is a huge prude.

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

And with all the stuff he's gone through, it's going to take a lifetime of therapy.