Narcissus in Chains Chapter Thirteen

Dottie's break down here 

Anita and J.C. are in the car, and Anita confesses she had "sex with" Micah. I won't crack on about how it was rape too much, because the evidence for said same is all there clear as day in LKH's own writing. I shouldn't need to convince anyone that the scene between her and Micah was non-consensual. J.C. tells her that she can't control her powers yet, and that only the help of a master vampire would have helped her stave off the need to feed.

A couple of things:

1). In no way did LKH ever truly portray Anita as the aggressor, or as the one manipulating Micah. From start to finish Micah lured her in to a trap. Over and over, he came up with a way to draw her back in to a scenario she clearly wanted no part of. Did Georgann Hawkins deserve to die because she helped Ted Bundy carry his school books? Was it just buyer's remorse when she begged him not to kill her? Because the way Micah behaved during that whole thing was so textbook, it defies argument.

2). Rape victims are often made to feel as if they are the ones who committed a crime.They enjoyed it, they asked for it, they're damaged goods and rapists can smell that. You get the idea. So the fact that Anita thinks that she is the monster in this situation convinces me of nothing.

3). J.C. IS A MASTER VAMPIRE AND SHE WAS SCREAMING AT HIM TO HELP HER, but he refused because Word of God in that scene was that he couldn't. So from one chapter to the next, LKH has already forgotten her own story and its rules.

It's an easy thing to mix up and forget details of your own worlds. I went through my current ms yesterday and it's a mess. I tend to do projects out of order, and then it's a tedious trial to make sure all the scenes match up as far as who told what when. But that's why you need an editor. I edit my own books, too. Not as professionally as I would do someone else's work--you really can't effectively edit your own stuff past a certain point--but there's certainly more than a single pass. I don't believe LKH does more than skim when she's done, maybe.

There are tons of indie authors out there working harder at editing and polishing than LKH, except LKH is fucking rich, and got rich off of doing the bare minimum.

Anyway, so J.C. is just so wonderful and enlightened because he doesn't blame her for being raped.

J.C. touches her face. Anita's face must be a greasy road map by now, the kind you have jammed in the glove box when you're on a joyless trip with people you hate, the kind that smells like Cheetoh dust and dreams deferred.

J.C. is also glad that Anita isn't pissed over acquiring the ardeur, "the fire, the burning hunger."

This idea is so cool, you guys. No, really, I love it. But there's no reason in the world to make it in to a rape justification. I don't mean to keep bringing up my stuff as if I am just so awesome and my words are teh pure goldz, but I do think I have a better grasp of these things than LKH so here we go: there's sex magic in the Twisted Tree world, but the kind the main characters acquire can't make you do things against your will. It will take away your inhibitions and bring your latent desires to the fore, but it won't make you do something you truly don't want to do.

The other day someone on Goodreads suggested that people who do sporkings must be jealous and well, that's simply not the case. It would be nice to make money like LKH, but otherwise I don't envy her in the slightest. This is one of the reasons why; I wouldn't trade my ability to empathize or think critically for any amount of cash or fame.

I only bring up my own work because that's how easy it is to make something like the ardeur orders of magnitude less problematic. Just add one little extra rule: it can't make anyone fuck you if they're dead set against doing so. Bam. The whole book just improved. 

Anita asks why J.C. didn't warn her about any of this.

J.C. basically says he thought Anita could handle it, considering how special she is. This is also manipulative victim blaming. Again the responsibility is being put on Anita, because she's so badass, and it's hardly J.C.'s fault if she couldn't live up to her potential.

A friend and I have had many conversations about how "you're so smart" often becomes the bane of non neurotypical/mentally ill people everywhere, as if being a quick study ought to enable you to reason your way right out of autism or schizophrenia or the ravages of an abusive home life. This is how the passage between Anita and J.C. reads to me. But you're so tough! Even tough people need a soft place to fall, and J.C., as Anita's main love, should be providing that place.

J.C. explains the ardeur, and how it will make Anita go out of control with lust around those she desires. Anita confesses that she is scared and J.C. promises to help. I doubt that given how he reacted during the rape, but that is so obviously forgotten already I don't know what to do. You can't critique the work as a whole, since no one is consistent and everything shifts before your very eyes. It's like wandering for too long in the desert, except the desert is bad fiction and the mirages are character development.

Nathaniel drives everyone back to the Circus of the Damned, which I assume is another one of J.C.'s bondage clubs. J.C. decides he has to shower so bad, it would be an excellent idea to sprint with vampire speed through the club. Jason turns up and Anita says she, Jason, and Nathaniel can walk down the stairs "three abreast" because none of [them] "were small people." Jason is supposed to be built, right? Not that it matters because I can't think of a single staircase outside of a shopping mall big enough to allow three people to walk side by side. I KNOW I am too focused on these details, but things that don't make sense add up until they start undermining the story.

Does anyone else notice how sometimes, Anita's speech gets all weirdly formal and stilted? Like how she described Meng Die a few chapters ago as "smaller of bone" or something to that end. Why? She sounds like a neckbeard cosplaying steampunk, at a shitty con held in someone's basement.

Jason says Anita "looks shook." Speaking of weird ways of articulating yourself, what the fuck is this? A story is like a symphony. If even a few notes are missed, the entire composition falls flat. This sort of stuff about the staircase and the weird dialogue are the missed notes in LKH's particular symphony. They seem small but in reality they take away from what she's trying to do, especially if you know what to look for.

Jason says something startlingly insightful about how he's decided that "I just don't want to be with someone who just wants me so she can brag to her friends that she slept with a shapeshifter, or got to sleep where the vampires sleep. No matter how good it feels for a few minutes, it still makes me feel like they've just come to look at one of the freaks."

Now that right there is the real meat of this world, though I also don't understand why it's not a Masquerade world if she is going to play the discrimination angle. Which brings to mind, what is the history of this world really? If shapeshifters and humans were two distinct evolutionary groups then I could see this sort of lingering bias. Or maybe humans enslaved the first shifters in order to harness their power, and once the shifters broke free there was a bloody riot. Something like that, something to justify why shapeshifters are discriminated against in a world where the bare fact that they can change shape shouldn't cause a stir.

Still, being someone's fetish doll is a very real thing. Every trans person who is out has probably experienced this. Trans women, trans men, genderqueer people. I used to explain my fledgling identity to people in support groups only to have people tell me to my face how hot that was. When I was younger I didn't realize that being seen through that lens wasn't a compliment, no matter how kindly or sincerely it was meant. I can still to this day remember when a trans guy turned up on Regretsy, only to have so many people there comment on his fuckability that he left. Another friend had his space invaded repeatedly at a con, because the guy was looking to fuck a trans guy. And we all know about how trans women often get trolled because people want to fulfill their tr**ny porn fantasies. (and these are the milder examples)

It's as if all these people see is ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED instead of hey, this person seems cool let's get to know them. Hell, anyone with anything that differs from the mainstream is going to get this sometimes. So basically, if nothing else, this bit is something I can empathize with. Anita even empathizes and tries to reassure him, which is nice, saying "you're not a freak."

Inexplicably Jason says, "look who's talking." 

Well that was shitty, Jason. Anita badgers him to explain it and he points out that all Anita does is objectify and shit on all of her supernatural friends by constantly referring to them as monsters, that she hates being different and is in general a repressed asshole.

Anita admits that she hates being different.

"Anita Blake admitting she may be wrong? Gasp!"

Even Jason, one of the most unlikeable wastes of space in these books, knows Anita is an asshole. I think they all just hang out with her and accept her because they've internalized the idea that it's the best they can do. After all, she only hurts them sometimes. This is another thing that happens in abuse, where you keep pushing the lever even though sometimes it dispenses delicious food pellets, and other times it dispenses electric shocks or even worse still, nothing. The unpredictable nature of risk and reward does something to our monkey brains and we'll push that fucking lever until we're dead.

They argue over whether Anita has a case of fatalism or whether she's just practical. Again what is with this practical shit? A practical person cares about results and action instead of abstract ideas and concepts. You might argue that Anita is the queen of the means justify the ends, but I posit that Anita would have to actually seek out and interact with the plot in order to be considered practical. Too many times, events simply happen to her.

Another interesting thing happens! I am remembering why I couldn't put this down the first time. This whole book is one big cock tease. It's as if a jeweler showed up at your house for a private showing and did the whole nine yards. He lays down an immaculate square of black velvet and brings out every precious stone with a pair of ivory handled tweezers, placing each glittering delight in front of you. He has the classics, like white diamond studs, but unusual and rare things too, like orange sapphires. You're awed, and you're itching to pull out your wallet and pay for everything. But wait! No, I'm sorry. These are only the display jewels. Then he takes out an old cigar case that still reeks of stale smoke, filled with cubic zarconia, and expects you to be as excited as you were over the precious stones.

The interesting thing is that Nathaniel and Jason argue over whether Nathaniel is excited about Anita possibly being a wereleopard. This resonates with me because I think it's natural for us to want our loved ones to participate in the things most inherent to us. I adore my fiance. We've been together for six years and he's one of the only people in this world I trust nigh completely. But sometimes, I do wish he wasn't an atheist. That's a part of myself (my polytheism) that he respects and even supports, but can't relate to. And it's a very big part. So essentially, both Nathaniel and Jason want Anita to share a huge part of their identity by becoming either a leopard or a wolf. Jason is upset because he's worried about the distance it will put between him and Anita if she shifts in to a different animal from him. Now that is some good shit.

Jason wants to know what the situation with Gregory is, which is just an excuse to recap all the crap the reader already learned. Richard is teh ebul badz because he wants to run his pack like a democracy. Except J.C. can't win either because Anita doesn't like his ruthlessness. Anita has no real politics or morals of her own because she's not a fleshed out character, so instead she just tells other people they're wrong all the time.

Jason expresses unhappiness about all of this. Anita says "don't you ever, ever question me again." 

Anita feels a lot of rage. Jason stands up to her and says that Richard is doing right by the pack. Okay Jason, I like you again. Now I know you'll fuck it up any minute, so I'm just going to savor this. Mmm.

He describes Richard thusly: "Richard may be a bleeding-heart, flag-waving, right-winger, but he's also fair..."

Wut. How do those first two things lead to the third? If anything, Richard is on the liberal side of the political spectrum in U.S. politics. He believes in voting, fair treatment for all, equal relationships. That sounds like a liberal to me.

There's a bunch of bullshit about whether Anita is the lupa and whether Jason should submit to her and will she kill Jacob and so on. I think books need talking scenes, and they need some what might be termed rest scenes. For example, eating breakfast with a friend or taking a bubble bath, whatever. Scenes that give the reader and the character a little time to breathe. Without that the tension starts to lose its power and meaning. But this? This is too much. This could all be taking place at the lupanar instead. These arguments need more tension, not less.

I need to start counting the amount of times Anita says "what's that supposed to mean?" Maybe I should set up a donation button and ask for a dollar every time. I'd be rich pretty fast, I think. Apparently once Anita declares someone her friend, "you take care of them, even if they don't want you to." 

Ignoring someone's wishes makes you a bad friend and a terrible human. Sometimes you have to push your friends in order to help them, but that's like comparing a gentle nudge to an avalanche, since it's implied that Anita usually accomplishes this so called protection through the use of high powered weaponry.

Anita doesn't want to do the pack's dirty work, i.e. killing Jacob before he can challenge and possibly eat Richard to death. Jason says that no is better at dirty work than her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Woohoo, if I were charging I'd be knee deep in latte money by now. Also, IT MEANS EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS. He's not being cryptic.

Anita is tres depressed because omg sociopath. Shut up.

Narcissus in Chains Chapter Twelve

I am sorry if I seem flippant but there's no way to get through this problematic mess without being snarky.

"Nathaniel drove because I was too shaky to concentrate."

I hear being raped impairs your cognitive functions. I hope to god he's driving her to the hospital for a rape kit. Oh who am I kidding. This is an Anita Blake book.

NO ONE HAS EXPLAINED THE SHOWER TO ME YET. Or where they were!

Anyway, I get what LKH is trying to do. She wants it to seem as though Anita was the one in the wrong in the last scene, for feeding on Micah when Micah didn't know what would happen. So essentially she tried for Anita the accidental rapist, and somehow got Micah the deliberate rapist (stranger?) instead. All the parts are out of order and the consent is all wrong. You can't have Anita refuse sex six times and make me feel that she did something wrong.

"It was as if...the air I breathed was precarious..."

Language is a fun thing and rules were meant to be broken but I am just going to say that air can never be precarious.

"I knew that no matter how bad you feel, or what horrible thing happens to you, that the world just keeps on going. That the rest of the world doesn't even realize that the monsters are eating your heart." 

Again, I'm pretty sure LKH intends all of this angst to be about Anita's acceptance that she's probably a wereleopard, but it reads like her trust is broken because of the rape she just suffered. It's like LKH can't build suspense or mystery in the normal way so she makes everything unclear instead and calls it good.

 "Nathaniel wore a ribbed tank top and silky jogging shorts. He'd tied his nearly ankle-length hair in a loose braid that curled on the seat beside his thigh. He'd found that if he let his hair fall onto the floorboard, sometimes it tangled around the pedals."

This man's hair is so long it's hazardous, yall. Here's a secret. I used to have very long hair and you know what? It's almost impossible to take care of to the level it requires if you want it to look good. Plus people think you're just a teensy bit desperate if you have crazy long hair, no matter your gender. We all know that guy who won't let his bald spot mullet go. Not a good look.

"I'd never had hair that long."

Even Nathaniel's hair must be compared against Anita's.

Anita goes on about how she demands independence from her leopards, which apparently makes her a good person and is why Nathaniel finally has a driver's license. Not everyone wants to be independent, especially a guy like Nathaniel whose greatest ambition is being someone's forever slave. Forcing someone without the skills or desire to fit a certain role, even if that role is one of traditional autonomy, is a cruelty not a kindness. If the person wishes to be independent and doesn't understand how then yes, by all means help them. But in this case what Nathaniel wants and needs is a master, and if Anita can't do that she needs to cut him loose so he can find someone who will give him the kind of relationship he requires to be happy.

Anita feels "incomplete" without her Browning, "Like I was missing a hand." I know we in the U.S. have a reputation for loving guns, but even I don't understand this. Maybe it's because I am a delicate Pacific Northwest flower, but I can count the times I've even heard the word gun in public without going in to double digits. I think LKH must realize somewhere inside her that Anita doesn't have much personality and has grafted on guns in order to compensate.

What I'd love to see is a main character who solves problems without constantly resorting to weaponry, or even magic. Magic is just a tool, after all, and that tool won't be able to fix all problems.

"...most people knew me on sight." So what was with the lame attempt at subterfuge way back in the beginning? Okay that was NiC and this is the police station (apparently) but she hasn't exactly done anything to preserve any anonymity in either area.

"Detective Clive Perry opened the door and started down the stairs. He was slender, handsome, African-American, and the most unfailingly polite person I'd ever met."

See, because he's an icky darkie you guys, but he's one of the good ones because he's on the side of the angels. He had the good sense to join law enforcement and act just so nice and polite all the time that he became good in Anita's white eyes.

He calls her Anita. BRACE YOURSELVES:

"It was probably the second time in all the years we'd known each other that he had used my first name. It was usually Ms. Blake."

HE CALLS THE WHITE WOMAN MS. UNFAILINGLY. (NO Anita is NOT mixed race. She only brings it up when she can manipulate it for her own good and LKH is constantly reassuring me about how pale and white she looks, PLUS zero cultural connection). Good ol' Clive, so polite. So subservient to white ladies. Such a good little negro.

Everyone is all zomg I thought you were dead, are you a vampire now? OMG I AM A MONSTER NOW WAAAH.

The irony is I LOVE ANGST. (Maybe too much according to some reviewers, heh) but this is melodrama, not true angst. Melodrama is terrible.

She tells everyone "The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated." GROAN.

I'm just going to say, don't do this in your books. Of course this is all a matter of opinion, but these sorts of references date your work and make it less accessible.

Everyone freaks out as though Jesus has risen and is walking through their office. Even then Anita must comment that there are only a few other women here as opposed to all the men.

"No one else showed the reservations that Clive Perry had shown on the stairs, and it made me wonder about his religious background, or his metaphysical one."
Betcha everyone else in this room is white, and therefore love Anita and haven't been infected by any nasty dark skinned doubt. Also did you know black people are more likely to be religious bigots? Oh, they're not? Someone might want to tell that to LKH. Also she's worked with this guy for years and has no idea as to his background?

Zebrowski is here and he's just a lovable scamp, what with his salt and pepper hair and mismatched clothes and general Anita love. They go back and forth about letting J.C. out of prison, since Anita is clearly alive. Uh, that's not how that works. It's great (debatable) that Anita is alive but that at best slaps J.C. with attempted murder. He's not getting out of his cell tonight, or at least he shouldn't in a world with rules based on our world. There's no proof he didn't do it other than Anita's say so, which is ridiculous. Imagine if one person's biased say so could get you out of prison.

But of course because this is Anita's show, Zebrowski agrees as long as Anita talks to Dolph, her boss (?), first. Dolph is going to give us the requisite dose of strawman 'bigotry' this book, I suspect. I suppose I'm meant to believe that only Anita experiences discrimination and it's oh so hard to be her, but it falls flat thanks to all the bigotry she dishes out. She is the queen of casual racism, which I suppose earns you a crown made of watermelons and fake eagle feathers that you wear while you cavort about in minstrel show makeup.

EVEN ZEBROWSKI TOUCHES HER FACE. The movie blindness has struck him too! I am checking behind all the curtains for Jose Saramago because this shit is ridiculous.

Dolph is huge, as in he's 6'8. I think this is here so LKH can portray him as a scary ebul manz here to be bigoted against Anita, because apparently side eyeing your employee for sleeping with the master of the city, when you're all supposed to be policing supernaturals makes you a bigot. I think LKH believes bigot means people who do not agree with Anita. Even Dolph touches her face, and wants to see the scars on her neck. All of this is deeply inappropriate in terms of boss/employee relationship boundaries.

Not only does he touch the scars on her neck, he convinces her to strip so he can see ALL the scars. This is just an excuse for Anita to take her clothes off, including hiking up her bra. It's kind of like the mysterious shower room. It just existed because LKH wanted Anita to have sex in the shower, so she conveniently provided a shower. Thing is a good story has believable explanations for things. It crafts a living world, not a series of set pieces. Your boss asking you to strip when you're both alone in his office is a loaded situation. It can't just exist for its surface meaning. It brings up too many things for the reader. This is now an emotional set piece; it's a lot of soulless parts being cynically manipulated. She starts with Need Anita To Strip, and then fits everything in around that. Ironically, she's like a bad cop who starts with a suspect then twists the evidence to fit that suspect.

Dolph is grilling her about how she healed all the damage.

I mean, really. Why is rapid healing so weird? She is an animator and ought to be able to master flesh to the point where she could heal herself. Zebrowski shows up when Anita still has her tits out, har har.

Anita seriously goes all YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD on Dolph because he doesn't like that she's dating J.C. I am not kidding. "You are not my father, Dolph."

Dolph asks her how she can "fuck a corpse." That's an offensive but fair question. Quite a few people probably have this reaction, considering what idiots we can be about things that are even slightly sexually deviant, let alone something like having sex with an animated corpse. Not to mention FOR SOME REASON he considers Anita a friend and fellow professional and is therefore horrified by her behavior.

Though I also think he's a dumbass because that is DEFINITELY not something you say to your employee, at work. 

She retaliates with: "What woman in your life is fucking the undead, Dolph?"

I know Chelsea (hi Chelsea) feels like this is completely shitty on Anita's part, and it is, but I also think it's understandable. Accuse a woman of engaging in necrophilia and she will probably be just a mite pissed off. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter. There's a way to say the kind of shit Dolph said, and what he chose was not the way. I get the impression she says this more out of shock than with intent. Still, obviously Dolph turns in to a rage monster and demands she get the fuck out of his office. She Zebrowski leave.

"...Zebrowski was a cop. That meant you didn't talk about personal stuff."

I don't find this to be true. Think about if you have a partner and you're crammed in a car together all day and night. Odds are, you talk to each other and as you build trust your talks get more and more deep. Yes, no matter your gender. I say this because LKH/Anita has this notion that male cops are all stoic, emotionally constipated alpha males. Cops are people. They have likes, dislikes, hobbies, blind spots, etc. Some are more given to sharing than others, because some people are more given to sharing than others.

Orlando King shows up. He's sexy and scarred. He's a bounty hunter, or was until he was attacked by a shapeshifter of unknown origin. Orlando likes to lecture, presumably about the dangers of wereanimals, and at the end he takes his shirt off to show the audience his scars. Anita dismisses this as "too much of circus sideshow for my taste..." Oh, that's rich.

For some reason the cops hired Orlando to help them with J.C. That makes no sense. This is a world where magic has ALWAYS been a thing. They must have cops capable of bringing a vampire in to custody, or they'd be the most useless police force in existence.

Orlando compliments Anita's scars and her looks.

Orlando gushes some more. Anita's asshole must be IMMACULATE after all this.

"I just did not understand my effect on men. I wasn't that attractive--or maybe I just couldn't see it." 

There's an article out there somewhere about how this trope is harmful. I wish I could find it but suffice to say it's just another way of promoting oppressive modesty. Also after several years of being desired by some of the most powerful and attractive men in her entire city, you'd think it would eventually start to seep in. It's another way to show how moral and pure Anita is, as if LKH doesn't want her to get too dirty from all the sex.

Oh here's Jessica Arnet, who is teh ebul pretty much solely because she fancies Nathaniel. Damn Anita, you greedy. Besides you're barely satisfying Nathaniel's most basic needs. Cut him loose and let him explore this thing.

Jessica wants to map Nathaniel's naughty territory because he's a good listener. "That's rare enough in men for it to be a bigger selling point than an attractive body." I think Anita is hanging around the wrong sort of men, then. I have the extreme good fortune to be surrounded by a veritable gaggle of honest, sweet, cis men, who are in touch with their emotions and respect other people. Surely it can't be THAT rare.

Nathaniel doesn't know he's beautiful either. People only pay him to take his clothes off, but nope, no idea he's beautiful. He only spends hours working on his body so he'll be hot on stage. Nope, totally clueless.

They get J.C. out of hock. Him and Anita hug and Zebrowski is wowed by Anita being concerned over her boyfriend.

1). Everyone in this god forsaken universe is focused in on Anita like a laser at all times
2). Anita does perfectly normal things and is praised for them
3). this is another chance to kick Richard's ass, as she dismisses all affection between them before now as merely lust
4). For a STOIC-Y MANLY MAN COP CREATURE Zebrowski is all omg he makes you feel safe, aww

The book has a few miraculous pages that aren't grindingly awful and/or boring, where Anita and Zebrowksi have some banter that references Zebrowski nearly dying in some past book. It feels like there's some real friendship there for a second. Less ego and way more editing and this book could be really good, I think.

They get J.C. out of there and drive away.

Narcissus in Chains Chapter Eleven

Dottie's break down here

Oh my god, here we go. The first time I read this book I breezed through the rape scene without a blip, I think because my subconscious was desperately trying to protect me from something unsavory and triggering. But this time all I feel is dread. On that note fair warning, I'm probably going to get detailed here so if you'd like to skip for your own well being, I wouldn't blame you in the slightest.

So everyone conveniently left in the last chapter so Anita and Micah can be alone together in the shower. They talk, and once again Micah just exists to tell Anita how competent she is, how amazing, that she's the best alpha evah despite being a human, etc.

Anita self describes as a "bloodthirsty sociopath." Ergh. I studied sociopathy (insert argument over the terms sociopathy, psychopathy, and antisocial personality disorder) for six years. I know more about serial killers than LKH ever could. Anita is not a sociopath. For her to actually meet those criteria LKH would have to be a competent writer and researcher, and I think we can all agree that particular ship has sailed.

Some of her actions are heartless and bloodthirsty, yes. Anita is in no way a complete person. But what I am getting at is that it doesn't feel like it's there on purpose. It's as if LKH only absorbs partial parts of the criticism she receives, which must be precious little versus how much is actually out there available to read. I've heard it said that she doesn't read her reviews, but that is a bunch of bullshit.

Granted, she's clearly dismissed all the negative stuff as "haters" and "jealous whiner babies" who never get laid.

Quick aside: NOT EVERYONE WANTS OR NEEDS TO GET LAID. She lives in this weird series of gender funhouse mirrors, where everything is distorted and only the very basic shapes are reflected.

Goddamn. Anyway!

Okay I am going to try and keep track of the consent or lack thereof in this scene.

1). Micah asks if he can take a shower. Anita agrees.
2) Anita tries to leave to save J.C. from jail. Micah acts like he's in pain and she comes back over to him.

FULL STOP. I assume you guys are at least passingly familiar with Ted Bundy? I am fascinated by him. I know a ton about him, his life, his victims (I make a point to learn their names and some little things about them, that's a rant for another day), and I've read nearly every book about him with the exceptions of The Only Living Witness, The Deliberate Stranger, and the Phantom Prince (out of print) I bring this up because the reason he was so successful at killing women had to do with the fact that, for the most part, he lured them away from safety. They went with him willingly, under pretense. One of his favorite pretenses was to pretend to be injured, and that he needed help carrying his items. You can guess what Micah's little ploy reminds me of, though I'm sure LKH intends his pain to be genuine. Plus he hurts because Anita bit him hard enough to draw blood in the last chapters so he is legit hurt. Still, he could deal with it himself without luring Anita back in to the shower.

Hey pretty lady, want to help me back to my car?

Anita is guilty about biting him. This is bullshit for three (?) reasons.

1.) HE IS A FUCKING SHIFTER, JUST SHIFT AND HEAL IT YOU FOOL.
2). He is manipulating Anita's guilt over acting out. Not to mention she did it because J.C. went straight to dubious consent territory and compelled her to do so, so she's just a ragdoll being tossed between J.C. and Micah at this point.
3). HE AGREED TO IT. Or am I completely misremembering the last chapter?

Oh I guess it isn't healing because Anita is technically a lycanthrope. Blah whatever.
Back to the consent list:

3). Micah suggests that together they would be a powerful force for the pard. Anita says she'd like to take it slow. Then she says, "I want to." This isn't very clear so I am not sure if she's saying yes I'd like to try being mated, or if she's saying yes I want to wait. Considering these options change the scene immensely this is a really bad time to be unclear.

Anita says "lower things." when she means ass. Tee hee lower things. I hate how puritanical she is.

4). Anita tries to leave AGAIN and he calls her back AGAIN. This time he tries to sway her with an offer of support for the lupanar where she has to go win Gregory back from the wolves. Micah is a manipulative shit. First he tries pain and guilt, now he's trying to buy her with the promise of being allies. He ought to be helping her anyway if he's such a wonderful Nimir-Raj. Gregory is a leopard and Micah has already shown that he'll help leopards from other pards, so he's just doing this to try and lure Anita back in to his clutches.

He starts washing his dick in front of her.

I would throw this fucking asshole out of my house for this (or out of wherever the fuck they are). This is a breach of consent right here in my opinion, though I can be very hardline about boundaries. This is a sign that he's going to keep on violating boundaries. This is a test, to see if Anita will put up with it.

If you end up with someone and they start out with tiny boundary violations? Get the fuck out of there immediately. And I mean shit like when you say please don't tickle me, they tickle you anyway. That sounds silly, maybe, but make no mistake: that shit is a test. They're seeing if they can break and manipulate you and your limits. It will get worse.

5). Anita again thinks to herself that she needs to leave but she doesn't verbalize any of it because that would be too consensual and clear regarding limits. The other thing with this is Micah is being a manipulative ass, but Anita isn't sharing much of anything about her inner thoughts. She said she had to go once, but that's not the same as "no, I do not want to see your dick or be in this room with you. No, I don't want to have sex or cuddle or whatever the fuck you're thinking." Personally I think Micah has received enough signals anyway, considering she told him she wanted to go slow, but I also don't like how LKH often portrays Anita as thinking things as if it's the same as speaking aloud. That's another personality disorder trait, at extremes, the feeling that other people should understand your internal rules despite you never sharing them/changing them without warning.

Micah shows off in the shower.

6). Anita again expresses her disinterest in commitment. Micah tells her he will "agree to any arrangement [she] wants." 

So far we're more or less 2 to 0 on the consent scale, in favor of Anita. She's expressed that she needs to leave. She said she isn't interested in him romantically, twice. Granted she is watching him soap his dick like a starving woman in a butcher's shop but that in no way indicates that she actually wants to take a ride on his massive skin pony, at least not at that particular second.

Let's see what happens next!

SHE TRIES TO LEAVE AGAIN AND HE CALLS HER BACK AGAIN.

Fuck, time to start a new consent list.

1). She tries to leave. She is clearly NOT INTERESTED.

I am not going to say much more than this, but my rapist pressured me for sex constantly. I said no over and over until I finally said yes just to shut him up. He'd keep me awake all night when I had to be at work at five in the morning. He was manipulative, unpredictable, and often on drugs. I was no saint in this relationship. I kept getting attached to his friends because I didn't know how to leave and wanted them to rescue me. Because I was a cheating whore I thought I deserved what he did. Yeah. So this is what that scene reminds me of.

Moving on.

He tells her it's okay to be attracted to him, because his ivory love pole is just so amazing that bitches can't help themselves.

Anita continues to awkwardly refer to Micah's body, which sometimes means penis, sometimes ass, sometimes his whole body. Trying to portray Anita's discomfort this way is weird and muddies the waters as far as what the fuck is going on. In a scene where the consent (or lack thereof) is this complex--or would be if it were written well--you have to have excellent clarity to pull it off.

Micah tells her their beasts are attracted to each other and she protests that she's not a wereanimal. Okay fine but she already HAS a beast inside her so I don't know why it's such a weird concept to her.

Now THIS is why I am obsessed with this scene. THIS is fucking interesting. As a creature with a human side and an animal side, which side does the consenting? Is one prioritized over the other? In were culture do they only think of the animal side, so if your beast is in to it you couldn't accuse someone of rape? Not that it would make it okay per se, I'm just saying that's a really compelling idea to explore. So of course it won't be explored and we'll just get a shitty rape scene instead.

Micah turns around and his tragically huge cock is erect and well, tragically huge. Anita is all omg I want me some of that thick yogurt dispenser.

2). Micah acknowledges that she can't help but look at him, "even though you don't want to." ARGH so now would be the PERFECT time to take advantage of her lizard (leopard?) brain and fuck her against the will of her higher mind, right? APPARENTLY IF YOU'RE MICAH IT IS.

Even NOW, LKH could salvage this. What if it's leopard tradition to ignore verbal consent or nonconsent and to only consider the consent of one's beast? And then he realizes after the fact that Anita doesn't know that and he has to atone for what she experiences as rape? Fucking interesting! So it won't happen. She'll just get raped and love it.

"He glided towards me like some great, slinking cat..."

Granted he's in human form, but he IS a great slinking cat, you dumbass. Analogies, you fail at them.

3). Micah comes over and touches her so he can get soap all over her, because THEN he says oh my, you'll have to come get under the water with me to get all that soap off of you.

I don't know how I didn't have a fucking heart attack the first time I read this, because Anita is 3 for 0 on the consent scale again. What really disgusts me is that the wants of her pussy are being treated as more important than the desires of her mind. She can eye Micah's bologna staff all she wants. That doesn't mean she really means yes when she's saying no. You guys are all smart enough that I don't have to rant on about patriarchy and all the bullshit that props up this idea since time immemorial. You get it.

HERE IT IS GUYS, HERE IT IS.

"No," I said, my voice strangled, but I repeated it. "No."

FULL STOP DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT THE PUSSY. There is NOTHING dubious about this. He can't even claim wereleopard culture. He couldn't in the first place because the culture isn't well developed enough to justify it, but he REALLY can't fall back on it now. That is a clear unambiguous NO.

I need no consent list at this point. All consent, dubious or otherwise, is now out the fucking window.

So what does Micah do? He gets closer and presses his dick on her. She AGAIN SAYS NO. OMG WHAT IS THIS SCENE? How could LKH have possibly defended this as anything other than rape? He commands she touch him. ANOTHER NO. What is this like six times she's said no? Oh my god. Oh my god.

"I know you want to. I can smell it..."

Again, this could be oh so very interesting. I get sick of magical creatures just being what trekkies deem "rubber forehead aliens" meaning essentially humans, usually attractive ones, with weird foreheads meant to denote their alien status. They're never really all that different from humans and any cultural conflicts tend to be resolved within the space of the episode. True alien beings should at least some of the time have practices and beliefs that are horrifying or nonsensical to humans. This could be one of those times. LKH would have to do a lot of things differently, but it could be handled well.

1). Strongly establish wereleopard culture and put an emphasis on their different cultural norms, expectations, and instincts.

2). Make Micah more beast-like and less polished, less human.

3). Make Anita less stupid and ignorant about wereleopards, considering she's THE FUCKING NIMIR-RA. Then she could at least anticipate that this might happen and she'd have more agency here than she currently does.

There's a bunch of stuff about how Micah engages in all this light petting and it makes Anita all hot and bothered. Your body responding during a sexual encounter you don't want doesn't magically make that sexual encounter consensual. In fact some people are the kind of people who can orgasm no matter what's happening, as long as certain physical things happen. It doesn't make it okay and it's still very much rape. Plus it can frequently cause complex trauma. Not only have you been raped, you have to deal with the guilt of 'liking' it, and every orgasm is now fraught with terror and shame.

This is all so gross.

Then the consent turns on a dime because suddenly she "wants it so badly." What the fuck I don't even. What is even happening here? I don't know if I am really willing to call this a yes on her part, though, since it's already been established that she's in thrall to all the magic between them. She starts to respond to him, holding him and pressing against him. Okay. Who the hell do I agree with here? Like so many things in AB I just end up finding them both terrible, though really Anita is still in my mind on the right side of consent. She's said no a million times and her tentative physical responses are not enough for me to turn this from a rape to consensual sex.

The text is really trying to convince me that Anita is in to it now and I just sort of want to puke.

She actually reaches out to J.C. for help, to save her from whatever is compelling her to do this with Micah. Oh my god I hate this. I don't know what else to say. It just makes me sad and I feel small and angry.

NOW J.C. IS MAKING HER TOUCH MICAH'S DICK.

This is our heroine. From an objective outside perspective, why does our heroine have so little agency? It's one thing if this is intended as a rape scene, but Word of God it's not. It terrifies me that LKH can write this and say it isn't a rape scene. Not only is Micah raping her, but J.C. is as well! After she asked him for help!

I wish everyone in this book would fucking die.

Oh the magic that's compelling her is the ardeur. She gets this from J.C. because he can feed off of sex. I think the ardeur is really interesting but--we all know this refrain by now--it just gets horribly fucked up. J.C. reveals that he hasn't been feeding off of sex because he knows Anita wouldn't appreciate it. J.C. is at once a disgusting example of humanity and one of the nicer people in this book, because at least he considers Anita's feelings sometimes, when he's too tired to rape her or condescend to her.

Sadly, that's more than I can say for basically everyone else.  

"Micah, stop, please stop."

I want to cry.

I sometimes want to get on twitter and yell at LKH directly. But the one time I said something her followers attacked me. She retweeted something with the word "retarded" in it and I said that wasn't cool. Apparently I am a sensitive little nancy who can't handle the real world, you guys.

"Please, Micah, I'm not on birth control."

When a woman is about to be raped and/or killed, they'll reach for anything that might make the attacker see them as human, or at least too much trouble. I'm on birth control, I have cancer, I have kids at home, I need to take care of my ailing parents, whatever. This whole scene is exactly like a woman about to be raped by a stranger, which is what it is. How can LKH think this isn't rape? How?

Micah tells her he's fixed.

"Please, Micah, please don't." 

SHE HAS SAID A CLEAR VERBAL INARGUABLE NO FOUR TIMES.

LKH should be ashamed of herself. And not for writing rape but for not handling it with the slightest bit of deftness, tact, or nuance. This is disgusting. It deserves to be fucking burned. 

Now he's biting her and she goes blank and "passive." Yeah, because she's being raped. 

I am going to get personal now. Suffice to say I've been assaulted more than once. And part of the reason I fear being visibly trans perhaps in the future is two fold:

1). I am afraid of yet more violence
2). I have spent most of my life presenting as a woman and I know the rules for how to stay relatively safe. Keep your eyes down, smile big, take up very little space, open body language, politeness. Now some of this is because I genuinely enjoy being pleasant, but my whole demeanor if I perceive any hint of threat is about deescalating in order to protect myself as much as possible and I hide within the shell of femininity I have been assigned in order to do so.

Men, trans, and genderqueer people can of course be raped and will often submit just to live through it too, but since Micah and Anita are in a cis and het situation those particular pressures are present.

That's what Anita is doing. Not that she's trans, but she's submitting in order to prevent yet more harm from coming to her and cleaving to patriarchal expectations when doing so. It's so sad.

Micah is using soap as lube. Ow ow ow. Water and soap are terrible lube choices.

He puts his dick in her and "there was a stopping point."

Well no kidding. Your vajay doesn't go on forever until it turns in to your food tube.

"I stood pinned against the wall, passive, unmoving."

There's a scene in Rome where a legionaire stops his whole army to rape a peasant girl against a tree. That's what this reminds me of. She says in her head that she doesn't want to stop but that makes no difference, because as far as Micah knows she doesn't want to do this.

She then asks him to fuck her harder. I have no idea what to make of this. He tells her no, it will hurt her because his penis is tragically huge. She's begging him for it. So basically he won't do anything she asks.

One of the issues with Twilight is that Edward is constantly policing Bella's wants and desires. If they were in an actual dom/sub relationship that would be one thing, but there's no reason for Bella to be subservient and there's certainly no reason for Edward to reject her sexual needs. Keep in mind it's not that he doesn't want to have sex, he just doesn't want to hurt her with his massive vampire peen. It takes on a creepy religious undertone when there's a power differential that hasn't been agreed upon, wherein the male controls the woman's needs and urges.

Oh I see, she's protesting because she doesn't want to feed off him. So she's about to rape him now. All of you die in a fucking fire.

Now she's screaming don't stop don't stop so she can get him to lose control. Then she'll exploit that vulnerability and feed off of him. Gross. Everyone in this is a gross rapist. It's also hard for me to have sympathy for Anita because in the following books she's just as much of a rape machine as Raina. Except she's more like a rape ghost because she gets the ability to rape entire groups of shifters from afar. Not that rape is ever okay, not even when committed against someone who is actually a rapist, but when everyone in this world is absolute scum it's hard for me to have sympathy for any of these characters.

"It felt like he filled me up as if I were a cup..."

The purpose of analogies is not to compare one bog standard uninteresting thing to another bog standard uninteresting thing just like the first. It's meant to add color and depth to your writing, hopefully by comparing two unusual but connected things. Here's some funny ones.

Anita is a screamer. This would be hilarious if the rest of the book were good. As it is it just reads like having sex with a shrieking blow up doll harpy. Her mouth is perpetually a perfect pornographic hole and her ragged wings carry her from dick to dick while she shouts and gibbers.

She says butt. Please don't have your characters say butt. Ass. Even a sheltered virgin can probably get away with saying ass. Well, unless you're Sookie Stackhouse because girl compares her breasts to puppies. She can probably say butt.

Their beasts fuck too. LKH wants it to be like this:

But it's like this:

She ends the chapter by having Anita cry and blame herself for the rape she just experienced. At least she's crying over being a rapist herself.

Now I need to cry in the shower. Seriously.