Here's Dottie's break down.
Back to the grind.
Anita is teh best most practicalz animatorzzz because she carries her tools in a grey Nike gym bag, as opposed to something more elaborate. Wow, I can totally relate to her now!
Anita tells us that some people raise zombies for entertainment, like at parties and stuff. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT LEGAL? This is a crapsack world in a lot of ways but it's also been established as a world with a lot of legal rules around magical creatures and people. And given how Anita's job has been portrayed, well, it emphasizes that every single zombie is someone's loved one. If an animator is out there raising random zombies for a party, there should be watchdog groups chewing his ass out from under him. Because those aren't random zombies, they're husbands and mothers, daughters and sons.
Anita was trained to use an ointment in her animating. This is really interesting! The notion of witches using ointments (usually supposedly given to them by the devil) goes back a long ways and while Anita isn't a witch it still calls forth a nice historical echo. She apparently thinks rosemary (an ingredient back when she used to use ointments still) smells like a Christmas tree though, which...it doesn't.
Of course considering Anita never fucking eats so I guess I can't expect her to know anything about herbs. It occurs to me that Anita is the perfect Victorian heroine. Back then it was thought that if you had a healthy appetite for food you had a healthy appetite for sex, which of course was unacceptable for a lady. But sadly, in 2014 I don't want to read about a woman who won't eat a damn hamburger or ride a dick (insert genitalia of choice, heh, insert) once in awhile. I want a heroine who, while she may be flawed, continues to rise above her petty nature. I want her to eventually admit that she likes sex (or doesn't, but Anita is portrayed as a sexual being) and food.
We get an attempt at world building, which is sort of like the last rattling breaths a person takes before they slip in to a coma.
It's too little too late, is what I'm saying.
Anyway so animators need blood, steel, and salt. Or that's all Anita needs anyway, since she's too special and powerful to need anything else.
Anita describes her hand as "tan" which throws me for a loop because she's supposed to be so white she's nigh translucent. Said hand is covered in little cuts, something to do with Marianne's teachings and blood debt. Marianne is a Wiccan and is teaching Anita to control her growing psychic powers. So:
1). Anita has a leopard beast inside her (heh)
2). Anita has a wolf beast waaaay down inside. (thanks for the assist, Robert Plant)
3). Anita is an animator.
4). Anita has vampire marks that give her a vast cornucopia of advantages and powers.
5). Anita is psychic.
6). Anita has the ardeur.
IT SLICES, IT DICES. IT JULIENNES, IT MAKES A PERFECT BRUINOISE. IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN'T DO?
Anyway, there's some nattering about how Marianne's Wiccan coven went batshit over Anita sacrificing animals. Points to Anita for at least trying to use her own blood instead after that, and she gives up on it for a good reason: she's too slow with her arm because the cuts hurt. In a fight that could spell disaster. Hooray one of the only logical things Anita has ever done!
Apparently Anita hasn't told Marianne this yet. Also right wing Christians hate Anita as well. Really?
1). Gun nut
2). Homophobic
3). Transphobic
4). Believes her religion and her interpretation of said religion is the only valid belief system
I mean, seems like she's doing a damn fine right wing impression to me.
There's a couple more cops here now, plus the judge in the insurance case, plus some bailiffs. Not every judge "will take zombie testimony." Well hang on, is it legal or not? Of course it might not be admissible in every case, but that's not the same thing as zombie testimony being totally invalid legally. Also what the hell, why wouldn't he? This world has always had zombies. By now you'd think people would know if they tend to be reasonably reliable or not.
The ms I am working on now has the same conceit, that magic has always been a part of the world. That is really freaking hard to write. You can't compare and contrast against a world similar to the real one, because there was never a time before people knew about fae and ghosts and vamps etc. Trying to pull it off while doing basically no planning or outlining makes for a very incoherent book.
ALSO, WHY ARE WE PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS WHEN THE WHOLE SET UP HAS BEEN ABOUT RAISING HARLAN'S ANCESTOR?
"I was glad Court T.V. hadn't gotten wind of it. It was just the kind of weird crap they liked to televise. You know--transexual's custody case, female teacher rapes thirteen-year-old boy student, pro-football player's murder trial."
This is one of those Anita sentences that boggles the mind, where I don't even know how to start deconstructing it.
1). Anita thinks all of those intensely serious issues are weird.
Maybe that's all that needs to be said.
Anita cuts her finger and draws a circle with the blood, to keep the zombie she's about to raise contained. She does the rest of the ritual and honestly, it doesn't suck.
Mrs. Bennington screams at seeing her husband rise from the grave, as well she might. Anita is dressed inappropriately for her job and flashes everyone as she goes over to feed Mr. Bennington blood, thereby finishing the ritual.
"His hands felt like cold wax with sticks inside."
That sticks inside thing is never going to be scary. Sticks is not a scary word or image.
Mr. Bennington died by accident. He was carrying a shotgun down the stairs, tripped, and shot himself. How the fuck is that possible? He shot himself with a 12 gauge in the chest, on accident? Are you serious?
Mr. and Mrs. Bennington have a sad goodbye session which actually does make my eyes sting a little. Anita finally decides that maybe she can cut Mrs. Benninngton a little slack, considering she's grieving. That didn't occur to you when you first showed up? God, I hate you.
Anita puts Mr. Bennington back in the grave. Asher turns up for some reason. Asher is a goddamn idiot for turning up in the midst of Anita doing her job, because every single person here, more or less, is packing heat and have now drawn on Asher. Oh and on Anita, because of course Anita is concerned for herself.
Comments! Comments, galore!
ReplyDeleteHaha. It's funny you mention how special Anita is in this snark. I have seriously been keeping notes on all her powers since GP. I won't go past where you are in CS so as to not post any spoilers, but as of now she:
has partial immunity against vampires, is harder to hurt (due to the first mark), can look into a vampire's eyes (first mark again), can sense the age and power of a vampire, is an animator, can act as a focus, hold two vampire marks, can raise an 100+ year old corpse (which is rare), and she holds the title of The Executioner.
In The Laughing Corpse, we find out that she can raise three zombies a night consecutively, is called a necromancer here, can animate pieces of of the dead (only other person that can is Dominga), is able to raise an entire graveyard with two human sacrifices, and all dead (including vampires) felt Anita's call when she performed said sacrifices. She is also able to call a zombie without knowing its name with a human sacrifice.
In Circus of the Damned, Anita can now raise five zombies a night (one more than all the other animators. Later, it says that Larry, Charles, and Jamison can only raise two a night). However, Anita says she could do more in one night. She has 18 vampire kills. We also find out that being a necromancer is rare in this book. She ends up getting the third mark from JC which allows them to speak mind to mind, makes her immune to poison, and heal more quickly. Another vampire also marks her during this book. He gives her the fourth mark, which negates JC's marks. Anita kills the vampire and poof! no more marks.
Now we come to The Lunatic Cafe. The only thing new is we find out she can meet a vampire's eyes even without the first mark and Anita's partial immunity to vampires is higher than all other animators.
Enter Bloody Bones. We now find out Anita can raise a 200+ year old corpse without human sacrifice. She is one of three animators that can call a zombie without a name. She can also raise, at least, ten zombies at once without human sacifice, and she can raise a vampire like a zombie during the day. We also find out that vampires can cut her using her aura. She and Larry are the only humans this has ever been done to.
After reading The Killing Dance, we are made known that Anita is the only human she knows of that is immune to a vampire's gaze and isn't a human servant. She gains the title of dominant in this book. She is also able to raise an entire graveyard during the day with the help of JC and Richard, and by the end of the book, the three of them have formed a triumvirate where Anita has three marks from JC. Oh yes, she can also escape JC's hold on her whenever if he rolls her with his eyes.
So what's new in Burnt Offerings? Well, she can now cut others from a distance by using their aura. She has also become the leopard's alpha aka Nimir-ra and gained the titles leopard lionne and Lupa (top female wolf).
So Blue Moon... She gains Damian as a vampire servant, who she is able to heal. Speaking of healing, she can also heal by using Raina's sex magic. Finally, she can run like a lycan through Richard's marks.
We now come to Obsidian Butterfly. What's in store? Ooooo....She can raise seven corpses in one night now and also create living mummies out of people.
Finally, we come to the dreck that is Narcissus in Chains (and the few chapters of CS). Well, I don't seem to be able to find the notes for anything after OB, but we know she gets a metaphysical leopard beast and becomes Bolverk and leader of the Furry Correlation or whatever the fuck it's called.
hoooooly crap. Thank you for writing all of that up. What a ridiculous array.
DeleteHa ha. Right? And to think that this is before she gets super dooper powerful.
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