Blogflog - Dead Ice: Richard

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Dead Ice: Richard
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

Here’s the second in the blog series leading up to the June 9, 2015 release of Dead Ice. Since we started with Jean-Claude, it had to be Richard next.



Richard by Brett Booth

Question: Is the character of Richard Zeeman based on your ex-husband?

Answer: No.

Secrets to Share: This was a rumor that I never saw coming, because it was just so not reality. My ex-husband’s sister thought it was the funniest thing ever that people thought her big brother was the basis for Richard. I think that Richard’s skin tone might be the same as my ex, but there the resemblance ends. Personality wise, Richard is actually closer to me when I was just out of college with my BS in Biology. But he, like all my characters that truly come to life on the page, has grown and changed in ways I never saw coming and certainly didn’t plan. He’s become his own man, for better or worse.

Question: Are Richard and Anita ever going to marry?

Answer: Highly doubtful, I’d just say no, but I’ve been wrong so much about my own character’s personal lives that I’m hedging my bet.

Secrets to Share: In fact, I think one of the reasons Anita and Richard didn’t end up together was that I created him to be the perfect husband for her, or thought I did. The more I tried to push the two of them together, the more they fought it, but my original plan was for them to marry and live happily ever after. So much for me being the omnipotent Deity of my fictional universe. When Richard was created I could never have dreamed where Anita’s life would go, or my own for that matter. Fiction doesn’t mirror fact, but we’ve both done our own version of going from the conservative “good girl” to the much happier people we are today. As for you small, but vocal minority that are still urging me to kill off Jean-Claude and Micah, so that Anita can ride off into the sunset with Richard – no. Not only no, but absolutely, positively, not happening. Move on, nothing to see here.

Question: Will Richard ever find another person to be his one and only love?

Answer: I don’t know for certain, he’s surprised me too much over the years for me to say yes, or no.

Secrets to Share: I hope he does, and I have a few potential women in mind, for him it will have to a woman if it’s a new character. I think if any man could float his boat enough to have a full-fledged relationship with them then Jean-Claude would be that man. Richard is having a bondage and submission relationship with Asher but no sex. It meets a lot of bondage needs for both of them, but I don’t think either of them would want to actually date each other. What works great in the dungeon doesn’t always work outside of it. I still have hopes that Richard, Jean-Claude, and Anita might be a fully functioning menage a trois, but I think too much has happened for it to be what it might once have been, more’s the pity. I keep hoping that special female werewolf will come along for him but he keeps wanting to date women that have no preternatural ties which doesn’t really work for the Ulfric, wolf king, of St. Louis. He also keeps dating women who like pretty standard vanilla sex and that really isn’t what Richard likes. I’ve even written a short story, “Shutdown,” where he tries to have his vanilla cake but keep his bondage cupcakes. I’ve had talks with people I was dating about polyamory and bondage, and I know people that seem to be successfully married to vanilla and, with full knowledge and permission of their spouse, they get their bondage needs met elsewhere; but it is not an easy talk to have and it takes a very special person to be okay with it. I’m not sure Richard is ever going to find someone that special, but I hope so, because I’d really like him to be happy and content with his life and himself.

Sneak Peek from Dead Ice:

Richard drew Jean-Claude in tighter against him and moved his other hand so that it was free, leaving room to wonder what he’d do if Asher tried to touch Jean-Claude. It was the kind of thing you do when someone is touching your girlfriend too much in a bar, and Richard gave him the challenging look that went with it. It was a way of saying, Mine, stop touching it, without saying anything.

Comments

[darkestgrace.livejournal.com]

So, Anita is her obvious self-insert, and Richard was written to be her perfect husband, but the relationship fell apart as her real-life marriage did, and she can't see where people could get the idea that Richard was based on her ex? How blind is this woman?

How would Jean Claude satisfy him? I haven't read the books in a while, but I can't remember them ever really getting on. The kind of grew to tolerate each other, but that was it. I got the impression that it was more of a business relationship, where they occasionally had sex.

She hopes that Richard will find someone special? She can write that someone in! Has she forgotten that she controls this universe? And why can't he date someone who's human? Have him start dating a co-worker who works out that he's a werewolf, and approaches him to let him know that she doesn't care. Have him meet someone when he's out hiking. He could date a sibling of a new werewolf, when he's helping them adjust and letting them know how to cope. So many ways to write this. If she can't, that probably means that she doesn't actually want him to move on.

Richard is in a BDSM relationship with Asher? When did this happen? I thought Asher left.

And another skeevy quote. Why is JC the damsel in distress? Is JC now incapable of saying 'please back off, Asher'? If he isn't saying that, then Richard doesn't really have the right to decide that Asher isn't allowed to touch. Also 'it'? Stop touching it? People aren't possessions and they aren't toys.

[cryptaknight.livejournal.com]

for him it will have to a woman if it’s a new character.

WTF is she even trying to say here?

This Richard/JC stuff just seems really preposterous to me.

[bronzed.livejournal.com]

She really seems to have an astonishing lack of awareness when it comes to the fact that as the author she could so easily make Richards perfect woman appear - a cousin of a were in his group visiting from city X who had poly parents but doesnt feel its right for her. But she doesnt mind if he has his arrangement with Anita as it could give her, the new gal in town, an instant group of trusted friends. There that was easy.

I just believe she wants Richard miserable so she can play pretend my ex is miserable and my life is so much more awesome than his will ever be! whether its the truth outside her head or not.

Edit: appeat is not a word, lol typo fixed

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

That whole paragraph about Richard's love life and his "one true love" reads like she's talking about a real life person and it's CREEPY AS ALL HELL.

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

What the fuck is up with his legs in that picture? What the hell?

Q1: 'But he, like all my characters that truly come to life on the page, has grown and changed in ways I never saw coming and certainly didn’t plan'. Yeah, like all your characters he's become an unbearable asshat.

Q2: 'Highly doubtful, I’d just say no, but I’ve been wrong so much about my own character’s personal lives that I’m hedging my bet'. Okay, Richard is FICTIONAL, you need to understand that, and isn't Anita getting married to JC? Ain't no way JC is letting her go, not after all the effort he went to to bend her to his will.

Q3: Yeah, you just keep putting him with vanilla women so Anita can lord it over them and get back at all those 'haters'.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

And now for Dead Ice Blogs 2: Electric Boogaloo!

Question: Is the character of Richard Zeeman based on your ex-husband?

No, Laurell, the question was "is Richard a stand-in for your ex-husband?", the answer to which is almost certainly "yes". And if not, then certain things line up very conveniently.

But he, like all my characters that truly come to life on the page, has grown and changed in ways I never saw coming and certainly didn’t plan.

Like being turned into your personal punching bag for several books. Which was totally not planned. Not at all.

The more I tried to push the two of them together, the more they fought it

If by "them" you mean "Anita". From what I remember reading, Richard practically bent over backwards to make Anita happy, and then when things got too real (which Richard warned her about, btw), Anita ran straight to JC.

Fiction doesn’t mirror fact

And thank all the gods for that, especially if it's you're fiction.

As for you small, but vocal minority that are still urging me to kill off Jean-Claude and Micah, so that Anita can ride off into the sunset with Richard – no. Not only no, but absolutely, positively, not happening.

Wait, there are actually trufans who want that? After all the times LaLa has proudly proclaimed that after the first book she promised Anita that she would never, ever hurt anyone Anita cares about? How deluded are these people?

Question: Will Richard ever find another person to be his one and only love?

No. The answer is no. He had a chance to be with Laurel Anita, the Best and Most Perfect Woman Ever, and he blew it. Even now, he can only be her occasional lover.

I hope he does, and I have a few potential women in mind, for him it will have to a woman if it’s a new character.

Yeah, I doubt that. I'm pretty sure the only way for Richard to be happy would be to get far, far away from Anita and her little freak show. And that's not going to happen, because I don't think LKH is quite over her divorce, despite what she says.

He also keeps dating women who like pretty standard vanilla sex and that really isn’t what Richard likes.

Because everything, everything comes back to sex. And there's no experimentation, no discussion, no negotiation - if one partner isn't into what the other is, the relationship can't possibly work.

I’ve even written a short story, “Shutdown,” where he tries to have his vanilla cake but keep his bondage cupcakes.

I actually read "Shutdown", and that isn't what happens at all. IIRC, Anita, Micah, and Richard do everything they can to make that poor woman as uncomfortable as possible, then proceed to blame her and act like it's all her fault, and that she was just a horrible evil prude the whole time.

I’m not sure Richard is ever going to find someone that special, but I hope so, because I’d really like him to be happy and content with his life and himself.

No you don't. You clearly don't, otherwise he would be.

re: the Sneak Peek:

Because "love" is really all about possession, really. And your partner isn't really a person - they're just an object, and should be treated as such.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Richard left the books around the same time Edward did. There is only Podchard now. And even this replicant will never be allowed to be happy, because LKH is not over her divorce.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I think that Richard’s skin tone might be the same as my ex,

She can't remember what the biological father of her child to whom she was married for quite a long time and with whom she apparently has a cordial relationship LOOKS LIKE?

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

" Fiction doesn’t mirror fact, but we’ve both done our own version of going from the conservative “good girl” to the much happier people we are today. "

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I know I haven't read the most recent books, but Richard? Happy? Richard has NEVER been happy.

Also, Anita's "perfect husband" is first spotted hanging out naked in another man's bed.

[momentsplinter.livejournal.com]

oh god it's SO WEIRD hearing about where these books have gone since I bailed on the series. Everyone is sleeping with everyone at this point and I'm just sitting here wondering how and why it happened, lol. It doesn't make seeeeeeense.

(That or having sexless S&M relationships with each other. Seriously though, Asher and Richard doing S&M? How? Why? What is the point of this?????)