Narcissus in Chains Chapter Thirty Nine

So, I completely spaced doing the next couple chapters on schedule. On Monday and Wednesday I go to the powerlifting gym and when I'm done I'm so tired I pretty much fall right in to bed when I get home. So, to make it up to you I'll try to get through a couple of these today.

Anita is so consumed with woe she can't even manage to have significant protagonist dreams. Is she guilty over raping Richard? Ha, you sweet summer child. She is in fact sad that Richard thinks she's too comfortable with the monsters. Which by the way is a completely fair assessment, considering she fed on his energy exactly as a vampire with the ardeur would.

Cherry licks Anita until she wakes up. Don't worry, she's not licking anywhere exciting because then LKH might have to write explicit enthusiastic sex, which is never going to happen. Plus it would get gay cooties all over Anita and god knows we can't have that. Also, gross. Once when I was but an adolescent, a person kissing me missed and licked my face instead. I still shudder at the memory, because it's horrible and awkward. But I guess if you're a wereleopard, it becomes magical and a sign of friendship. Even though Cherry is all, I am sustained by your beautiful salty tears, nom nom. Zane is here too. Who gives a fuck? Not me. He will serve no purpose whatsoever.

Anita is all, you said I was having a nightmare which must mean it's night time! OR it could be that people will say nightmare regardless of the actual time.

Anita kicks Cherry and Zane out so she can get dressed. She tells them to put clothes on too because it will make her feel better. Good lord, woman, could you be more of a body shamer?

Anita has to put on weapons to go to the fucking bathroom. She needs to get that PTSD looked at, seriously, because this kind of thing is the sign of a mental disorder not the much vaunted "practicality" that everyone cracks on about.

Anita looks in the mirror and describes herself as "a shock victim." Fuck you very much. If anyone should be in shock, it's Richard.

Wah, Richard won't be her boyfriend anymore. Wah, maybe he won't let her be bolverk (the pack's evil doer) either. Well, she's going to insist because otherwise Richard will doom the pack to "rack and ruin" because Anita is a character in a shitty King Arthur reenactment.

"I huddled my weapons around me like comfort objects."

Even she knows how lame this is. Not to mention she goes on and on and fucking ON about her weapons, yet she very rarely uses them. I mean really, how many fights has she actually been in so far? One?

The next passage proves that Anita just whines about not being beautiful for the attention it brings her:

..."I look great in black. The black-on-black look made my skin look almost translucent, like it should have glowed. I looked almost ethereal, like a wingless angel on a bad day."

Guys, Anita is so white she almost glows.

This is the whitest thing that has ever happened.

If you're feeling bad over a breakup, ladies, "the best revenge is looking good." 

Anita goes out to the kitchen, and all the leopards are there dressed like extras on the set of the Village People music video. Igor and Claudia are here too.

"Claudia had cop eyes, or bad guy eyes, the eyes of someone who doesn't let you see what's inside. I didn't mean women with eyes like that, outside of the police."

Basically, the majority of women have to be constantly put down so Anita can remain their perfect queen, better in every way than the average female idiot. Why, rather than such worthless fripperies as makeup, Anita has guns. Anita is better than you. Instead of high heels--it is to laugh!--she has, um, MORE GUNS! Anita is tougher than you. Instead of enjoying sex, she has to be coerced in to it, thus remaining pure. Anita is more virginal than you.

Also really, how many people do you meet on a daily basis that have the kind of obvious emotional compartmentalization Claudia has? I would say in my daily life I encounter and equal number of cis men and cis women, and most of them are friendly, appropriately open people who have expressive eyes and mouths. Certainly they have parts of themselves they don't show to acquaintances, but that's not particularly unusual. They don't hulk around in the shadows and make serious faces. Even the power lifters, who have to be some of the friendliest people I know despite being physically intimidating.

"If her face had been a little softer, she'd have been beautiful. But there was something in the set of her jaw, the way she held that full mouth that said, back off, no touching. It robbed her of something that would have changed everything about her."

Anita is threatened by Claudia's legitimate badassery, because maybe somewhere inside she realizes that she herself is just a jumped up little bully playing dress up.

Merle is here, inexplicably wearing a redneck tuxedo (denim pants and jacket) over a bare torso. Why are these people allergic to shirts? I own a denim jacket and I can only imagine how uncomfortable it would be against bare skin for any period of time. His armpits must be a red irritated mess.

Anita hates sitting with her back to a window or door, because she is so badass and knows the ways of the enemy so well. Apparently LKH has this problem too, but not because of a disorder like PTSD that could very well include this kind of hyper vigilance. If I recall correctly when she talked about this particular quirk, it was expressly because she'd been writing Anita for so long that she picked up the trait herself.

She admits she's being paranoid at least.

The doorbell rings and Caleb goes to answer it, since they ordered food.

Speaking of Caleb, he is in the doghouse because he tried to get handsy with Cherry and Claudia. This is ridiculous. Why do they keep this guy around, and how come no one has sat him down for a serious come to Jesus? This is not acceptable behavior. It is not cute. It is not an exasperating personality quirk. It is harassment and it makes people feel unsafe and objectified. If it were me I'd kick him out of the pack so quick and hard he'd fucking bounce.

Claudia at least made it very clear to him that his advances were unwelcome. Her eyes are cold so Anita's eyes must also grow cold. Oh my god, I am sick of hearing about her special eyes.

And I will never believe she's a badass just because LKH keeps telling me she is. So far she's been in one fight where she got her ass kicked. She healed Gregory after one horribly failed attempt, and then had to be shown what to do by someone else. Even then she succeeded based mostly on luck. Everything else has either been her being raped or raping someone else, sleeping, and healing. Plus a bunch of bullshit about who is sitting where in the kitchen and other mind numbing minutiae.

Claudia is a badass, you guys, which is so weird and wrong for a woman who is not Anita that Anita has to comment on it constantly. 

"It made me feel sexist to say that it [Claudia's coldness towards Caleb] was more unnerving coming from a woman, but it was still true."

Anita is one of those insufferable assholes who constantly says offensive bullshit, and when people get justifiably upset they counter with "I'm just so honest. People can't handle my honesty." Sorry to break it to you, cupcake, but you're really just a shitsack.

Hey here come some snake people with Caleb as their hostage. If anyone moves, they'll kill him. Please do! Wow, maybe there will be a second fight now. We're only SEVENTY THREE PERCENT DONE WITH THIS TERRIBLE BOOK.