Narcissus in Chains Chapter Thirty Two

Dottie's post is here 

You know, one thing I do like about the AB books is that LKH shows Anita doing things like brushing her teeth. That doesn't come up often in fiction so it's refreshing to see Anita think about these little things. That said, it's immediately marred by the fact that Anita continually rejects or forgets about food.

They angst about the fact that Dr. Lillian put an I.V. in Gregory, for this surely means he is in critical condition even though I.V.s of various fluids are standard for any number of medical things, many of them non emergent. We must take a few sentences to talk about Nate's ridiculously long hair and how he's "so comfortable" with it. Gregory is apparently out there talking about Raina, because wow, the rape ghost traumatized him! Who could have possibly foreseen this outcome???

There is a truly gag worthy section where Nathaniel plants his tongue firmly between Anita's butt cheeks. Not literally, because if it were literal we might have something approaching real erotica and that's not allowed in a LKH book.

More nauseating twaddle about how Anita protects the leopards out of the goodness of her heart, and she's such a saint, and Nathaniel feels the need to underscore this by kneeling in front of her like she's an angel shouting fear not at him. Nate also confirms that Raina ate his penis on tape.

"He was so much a victim, so much anyone's meat."

Have I mentioned that the way Anita talks about abuse survivors is really gross? Because it is. She can't just say that Nate is a vulnerable person or susceptible to mistreatment. She has to speak of him like he's a fragile object to be passed around from person to person, and she's afraid that eventually too tight a grip will shatter her pretty little flower vase.

Then, Anita gives me a line that, were it another character saying it, would inspire actual empathy in me:

"What do you say while someone whispers horrors in your ear, their most intimate, nightmarish secrets?  You sit and you listen. And you give them the only thing you can--the silence and the safety to talk and be heard." 

HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME, LKH? It's like there's a little part of you that's still struggling to comprehend human emotion and every once in awhile it fights free of the black mire that is your narcissism. It's like these passages are that little part screaming for help. Remember the bit in The Exorcist where the words help me show up on Reagen's abdomen? That's what this is. But then we're right back to your mother sucks cocks in hell, Karras.

Anita and Nate have a real bonding moment where Nate tells her not to get all guilty about her supposed exploitation of him. I like this because she's basically using what Nate told her as a reason to feel like a user, omg.

Nathaniel wants to be Anita's pomme de sang and because Anita is a judgmental jerk she refuses him just because she has her head up her own ass and conflates submission with victimhood. DESPITE supposedly realizing before this that she's been doing exactly that, and how wrong it is, here we are back at square one.

Anita says the most mind boggling sentence: "But in some ways feeding off Nathaniel because he was the only one that would let me, was almost worse."

I am forced to conclude that Anita conflates consent with weakness. She hates consent. Remember way back when in the start of this travesty of a novel where she doesn't like the idea that Asher might want to top Narcissus? She thinks sex is wrong if a person wants to do it. It makes them dirty. It makes them perverts. Wanting to engage in sex, especially kinky sex, means you are damaged goods.

Richard shows up and we're meant to take this as a momentous event, because the chapter ends there.

Narcissus in Chains Chapter Thirty One

Holy shit, I am only a couple pages in to this chapter and there's already so much wrong with it I almost don't even know where to start.

First of all, Lillian informs Anita that Gregory's chances of surviving with his hearing intact are now worse than they were before Anita decided to inexplicably heal him by calling the rape ghost. Not only that, but Gregory is in shock. Not only THAT, but the fucking doctor has left a person going in to shock on the back porch. 

Dr. Lillian, now officially the worst doctor in the world, is pissed off. Anita asks why and Lillian tells her that she was the physician on call when Raina bit Gregory's dick off, and had to see the damage first hand. Anita immediately reasserts her position as Mary Sue self insert by telling Lillian that no, her experience through the munin is worse, because "it's like...it's like a live action movie, but with me in the movie." So Anita is removed from it then? Watching herself? Because that's what the word movie implies. Which wouldn't be nearly as horrible as having to patch up Gregory's horribly mutilated body?

This whole book, Anita has been pushing Richard to do exactly the kind of ridiculous brutal shit Raina was a fan of. She wanted Jacob tortured and put in the oubliette exactly as Gregory had been. She shot Elizabeth point blank in the chest, and wants to murder Jacob solely for disagreeing with her. So I have zero empathy for Anita's stupid little freak out. It makes her seem naive and selfish, not to mention it seems like she's conveniently forgotten the particulars of what Raina and Marcus did. She's a disgusting hypocrite that can't live with her own choices, a shallow, vapid walking personality disorder that wants to pawn off the dirty work she loves so much on to everyone around her. Underneath her bravado, she is weak and pathetic.

Once again, can I just point out that this whole clusterfuck is now once again all about Anita? Gregory is just an object, a plot device that dances to LKH's tune whenever she needs him to pop up and inject some fake drama.

Nathaniel gives her a cup of coffee, which she manages to burn herself on. No wonder everyone is worried she'll make a shit leader. This woman can't even handle a cup without hurting herself, let alone be the queen to two pards.

Cherry points out that Anita almost called Nathaniel's beast during that tame, puerile bullshit about her biting him all over. She suggests Anita try that next. Am I losing my mind? Why didn't they try that first???

Oh, Merle loves her now because she risked herself for Gregory's well being. No she fucking did not. Calling Raina doesn't risk Anita's well being, but Gregory's. Anita is not a victim in this scenario and, DESPITE WHAT MICAH DID TO HER BEING A TEXTBOOK RAPE, has not experienced an in canon sexual assault. Ugh, that hurts to type.

Merle abandons me to get in the Anita asshole polishing line.

Richard has the ability to call beasts, so they suggest having him come over to show Anita how. What the fuck is happening here? Why didn't they do this in the first place? Raina should be an absolute last resort. And frankly--maybe I just think this because I am already disabled--I'd rather be deaf than have the ghost of my torturer-rapist molest me again. Was it really all worth it? Make Gregory relive something so horrible? Drive him right in to a full case of shock? Christ, I don't know. It's like anti vaxxers who would rather have a dead kid than an autistic one.

Nathaniel makes a completely obvious statement about Richard wanting to help because Richard is guilty over what his wolves did to Gregory. No fucking shit. But apparently Nathaniel is so dumb and broken and--ew!--submissive, this is an amazing insight out of his mouth. Anita realizes that she conflates inferiority and submission, which yes she totally does, which yes is totally vile and inaccurate. She considers maybe not thinking like that anymore, but rest assured no real character development will occur.

Narcissus in Chains Chapter Thirty

Anita calls Raina. I don't think I can really overstate how fucking stupid this is. It has the kernel of a good idea at its center, but the execution fails so hard as to become outright offensive.

To make this work Raina's ghost would have to offer something much more impressive and unique than healing in order to justify her continued presence. Anita could also struggle against her influence more than she does, with Raina representing her sociopathic tendencies with her desire to retain and protect her sense of empathy in opposition to that. But in actuality, Raina is just...there, even when by all rights she shouldn't be (like for example being called in to a situation where several of her victims happen to be hanging out). Being able to heal isn't even a special skill in the ABverse, not really.

No one has consulted Gregory about whether he'd like the rape ghost to heal him, so all he knows is that Anita is suddenly molesting him. She continues to do this, even though she doesn't want to and neither does Gregory, or at least that's how I interpret the fact that his eyes are glazed over.

Does no one in this god forsaken universe know sign language?

Incredulous tiger is incredulous.

Gregory's dick is a weird shape which for some reason makes Anita regain control for a moment, she's so shocked. Um, okay. Somehow he's "almost hooked" at the end. What? I can't envision this penis. It is a hard penis though, which Anita seems to interpret as consent.

Sexual arousal in and of itself is not consent. Orgasms aren't consent either. Nope. It's not like if you have an orgasm in the middle of the rape, the sex is suddenly consensual.

Anita gets a memory from Raina of being fucked doggy style. Whoever is doing the fucking had "found that spot in a woman's body" which makes Raina want to come. It's a G spot! Just say it!

Oh the guy doing the fucking in the memory was Gregory, who apparently gives women crazy orgasms because he has a hooked dick.

I think my brain cells are flinging themselves to their deaths as I read this. I feel like less of a person for wasting my time with this drivel.

Raina gives Anita a memory of biting Gregory's dick off, which was apparently her favorite thing. Gregory freaks out, because Raina suddenly has the convenient ability to "share the horror." So all we've accomplished by calling the rape ghost is traumatizing a guy who just lived through three days of her torture methods. Well shit, Anita, I could have told you that.

She can "...taste blood and thicker things." I HATE THIS STUPID AUTHOR INDULGENCE. Yes, more than spill and spilling. More than everything being described as "heat." I even hate it more than I hate big hands slapping Anita around all the time. It means nothing. It is not mysterious, it is not scary, it is not even a good gross out.

Anita pukes. Merle goes over to her and holds her. He never met or had sex with Raina so Raina can't do anything to him. Anita starts screaming over what she saw and has to be carried inside.

So basically, when other people don't want to do horrid things they're big fucking babies, but when Anita is disturbed the world must stop and everyone must comfort her. Got it.

NiC post later this evening

I am going to try and work on my own stuff first. Usually I do an Anita chapter first thing to get it out of the way, but they're so exhausting that it's tough to hammer away at the ms afterwards. Check back this evening.

Narcissus in Chains Chapter Twenty Nine

Read Dottie's here

Everyone goes out to the back porch so Gregory doesn't get shapeshifter goo all over Anita's carpet. The carpet in her house, you sickos.

Stephen, Gregory's brother, is here. Stephen is a werewolf who is also conveniently a submissive. Surely LKH knows that wolves only engage in rigid dominance hierarchies in captivity, right?

Anita once again assures us that Gregory isn't nude for sexual reasons. Want to buy a cucumber? I promise I haven't used it for sexual purposes! What, you don't? It's a nice cucumber! Hey!

Vivian begs Anita to try calling Gregory's beast before they resort to drugs. Anita is apparently so scary that Vivian tries to placate her by crawling around on the floor.

"She was displaying the leopard version of submissive behavior, and I hated it. Hating her feeling the need, like I was some ogre that needed placating, but I let her do it." 

If you claim to hate something yet never make the slightest effort to choose another path, I am not going to believe you. Plus, literally two sentences later she talks about how Micah's pard ought to be afraid of her at the start.

Merle is the only person I give a damn about and Caleb is still a creep.

Just an aside:

Two things that are true about me:

1) I have endured a lot of sexism in my life and

2). I am reading another book right now that has the same problem these books do in that the female main characters seem to do nothing but attract shallow, vapid male cardboard cutouts that comment on their tits and try to pick them up.

Maybe three things, because the other thing that occurs to me is

3). that most (individual circumstances vary) of my cis female or trans friends (of all identities) have also experienced patriarchal sexism. I tell you this because even knowing these things to be true, even having experienced sexism first hand, even knowing that it is common as fuck. I still find the sheer amount of sexist males in these books to be flat out ridiculous.

The protagonist in the other book encounters no less than three men trying to get in her space and hit on her despite all the signs that she is not interested in like a twenty four period. Anita always has shallow assholes like Jason and Caleb orbiting her. It's too much. These men have a single personality trait, and it is sexist creep. That is not how you accurately portray sexism. Sure, cat calls on the street are a kind of sexism, but it's the least subtle and, in some ways, the easiest to shake off. What's really hard is when people you love and respect also happen to have sexist attitudes, deeply ingrained ones, that they can't or won't work on despite hurting you with them repeatedly. It goes much deeper than Caleb making hrr hrr comments and looking for ways to show his dick.

It's also really fucking insulting to dudes--yes even cis dudes, even with their privileges--to constantly insist that they're all just sexism dispensers with no other personality traits. I used to know a woman who had a cut out of Antonio Banderas in her bedroom. The men in NiC have about as much depth as that, except they have little speech bubbles pasted to their lips that say things like HEY BABY NICE TITS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

To no one's surprise LKH hates women so much that it has grown all out of proportion and started to encompass men, too. There is some truly fascinating social science shit going down here. I've said before that I could do a breakdown of these novels for academic credit, and that is only becoming more true as I keep reading.

Claudia and Igor are here, and even their most innocuous gestures are deconstructed according to Anita's narrow gender expectations. My god, I almost find this world triggering, it's so crushingly oppressive when it comes to gender and what each gender (and by that I of course mean binary genders, because Narcissus aside that's all Anita believes in) may and may not do. I almost think I need to add obsessive compulsive personality disorder to Anita's diagnosis, because this is starting to sound like a compulsion to sort and order people regardless of whether they wish to be sorted.

Oh my GOD she's going to call Raina again. To heal a torture victim. A victim of the exact same methods Raina used to use. Remember all that shit with the oubliette and the chains and the drugs? Raina's doing, at least originally. Jacob was just borrowing her methods. SO OBVIOUSLY THE RIGHT THING TO DO, WHEN ALL YOUR LEOPARDS ARE LOOKING TO YOU TO FIX THIS, IS TO CALL THE GHOST OF A GODDAMN RAPIST TORTURER TO HELP YOU.

Pictured above, LKH.

The others point out that Raina only works if Anita is all hot and bothered, and she doesn't want to fuck Gregory ergo the fuck magic won't work. So, not only is she going to call the rape ghost who devised the methods that traumatized Gregory, she will call the rape ghost knowing full well that the rape ghost will want to rape Gregory as payment.

Anita feels "slutty" for requiring sexual attraction to heal, because women are either sluts or saints in the ABverse. Oh, or so old as to be a non-entity.

Anita compares Gregory to a child (!) and reminds us that Gregory is technically a rapist. Again no, his alpha was a rapist and raped Gregory by forcing Gregory to take part in sexual assaults. The text even tells us that because Gregory is not a dominant, he is incapable of refusing the requests of an alpha shifter.

Anita again claims to hate how subservient the leopards are, despite never doing a single goddamn thing to empower any of them. Forcing Nate to get a driver's license is not empowering him, by the way.

Why is it that Anita can't muster up any lust for Gregory?

"I think of him more like a child, no offense."

Didn't stop you when it came to sucking Nate's cock like it was the last candy cane in the mall's Christmas display, but whatever.

So NOW they're talking about how it's a bad fucking idea to call Raina in to this situation AFTER Anita already tried and failed once. You are all idiots.

Claudia's height is extra special impressive because she's a woman. Even things that would sound bland out of someone else's mouth sound offensive because it is Anita saying them. 

Well fuck me, they're still going to call Raina anyway. Oh and LKH? Don't think I didn't notice how conveniently, Micah isn't here to help her do this instead. Good effort at creating some actual tension, but when your only other option is solve the fucking puzzle cube and call the torturer rapist into the same space as the victim, well, that's the wrong kind of tension.

Caleb snarks and Anita finally does a single thing I am completely, one hundred percent behind:

"If you're not going to be helpful, stand over to the side and shut the fuck up." 

Anita starts to strip because reasons. Caleb makes ANOTHER sexist bullshit comment. Oh my god I just can't even with the straw sexists. I don't understand why LKH so clearly loathes women and conventional femininity, but also feels the need to populate her world with straw sexists and straw bigots that constantly comment on Anita's body and sex life. It is a six car pile up of gender theory. No survivors.

Merle informs Anita that she isn't his Nimir-Ra. Love ya, babe. Please don't give in to the rape beams later.

Oh god. You guys. Anita can't get in the mood for Gregory so Stephen, Gregory's beloved twin, suggests she call Raina then get Raina in "the mood." Anita even warns him about what Raina's idea of sex is like and he gives her the go ahead anyway!

1). RAINA INVENTED THE OUBLIETTE DRUGS SILVER CHAINS TORTURE METHOD

2). RAINA'S MATE MADE THE SILVER EAR PLUGS

3). RAINA IS A SADISTIC TORTURE-MURDERER, RAPIST, AND SNUFF FILM PRODUCER

4). THEY ARE GOING TO CALL HER IN TO THE SAME SPACE AS GREGORY, VICTIMIZED BY HER TORTURE METHODS, SO SHE CAN RAPE HIM UNTIL HE'S BETTER.

Narcissus in Chains Chapter Twenty Eight

Epilepsy warning on some of the gifs in this post. Dottie's is here

Gregory is in the bath with a bunch of other leopards, but Anita hurries to assure us that it isn't sexual.

WE ABSOLUTELY DO NOT FUCK THE PRODUCE! Want to buy a cantaloupe?

Here's something I've been thinking about since I read it yesterday:

"My old two-seater table just hadn't been roomy enough for all the wereleopards to have bagels and cream cheese at the same time." 

That's not the what the fuck part in and of itself. Actually, I think that's a pretty neat image. But then she goes on to say:

"There still wasn't enough room at the table for everyone to sit and drink coffee, but it was closer."

This reads as though the type of food and drink being consumed somehow influences the size of the table. So the wereleopards can all fit if they happen to be eating bagels, but if they have cups of coffee the table shrinks and they can't all sit there?

Dr. Lillian is here and I suppose I'm meant to assume she's white because it's never mentioned otherwise. It's worth fighting against the notion that white is the default and therefore can go unmentioned. Just give me a little skin or complexion note the way you'd most certainly do if she were a person of color. Or, if it's not something that your character would comment on, don't comment on anyone's race. 

Dr. Lillian is a safe female in the Anitaverse because she's over sixty and therefore can't fight Anita for sexual dominance. You know, some people have sex well in to their eighties and nineties. But those people don't have bizarre anime hair and multi-colored eyes and tight gym bodies, so LKH will continue ignoring the depth and breadth of human existence because it doesn't get her rocks off.

Dr. Lillian informs us that Gregory was drugged, because shifters require an adrenaline rush to change form and the drugs kept him from working himself up enough. This is fairly interesting but also once again showcases how Anita is dumb as a post. This is book ten and the woman supposedly has degrees in preternatural biology, yet here's Dr. Lilliann giving her the lecture from day one of the intro to were beasts class.

Dr. Lillian tells Anita that by the time the drugs in Gregory's system have worn off and he can shift again, he might be permanently deaf thanks to the damage to his eardrums. However, if Anita is really Nimir-Ra, she could possibly call his beast and force him to shift earlier. She agrees and Dr. Lillian says:

"So you think you will be Nimir-Ra in truth come the full moon?"

This is a book set in modern day St. Louis, yet inexplicably the characters swan around emoting like they're in a bad Shakespeare play. Dr. Lillian isn't even a poncy vampire or an ancient Fae or something. She's just a...I think she's a wererat. Yet for some reason, she's three steps away from thee and thouing all over the place.

Baby tiger asks why.

Indeed, Lillian is a wererat. Anita notes that all the wererats seem to love Rafael. He has yet to show he's a murderous dick, so I'm extra confused about why Richard is such a big fucking baby for loving democracy. It's possible to fuck up whatever political system you believe in, but it doesn't always mean the system itself is totally without merit. So if Rafael isn't a psychopath who murders all his enemies, yet is also regarded as a good leader by his rats, does Anita have a leg to stand on?

Micah can't call beasts, only flesh, and Gregory's injuries are too severe. Hang on, what? He healed Anita after Anita almost died, when she'd been bitten and stabbed and god knows what else by a bunch of weresnakes. How are Gregory's injuries worse? Silver was used so maybe that's it, but still. It just doesn't wash for me considering what Micah has already accomplished.

Dr. Lillian has another option, which involves giving Gregory a dangerous drug cocktail that has an outside chance of killing him. Gregory wants to do it but Lillian also feels like she should ask Anita, considering that as Nimir-Ra Anita is essentially his legal guardian as far as shapeshifter law is concerned. Anita doesn't like this for some bullshit reason even though she's been beating Richard about the head and shoulders with the notion that her brutal leadership is right and good, PLUS we had to slog through all the wanking about how her leopards are the bestest family evah because of her. 

It's heavily implied that Anita only cares about Richard's politics because if he dies, she and J.C. have a good chance of dying too. Lillian informs her that ideals are worth sacrificing for. Anita says:

"Maybe but I'm not a hundred percent sure I've ever held an ideal close enough to trade the people I love for it. Ideals can die, but they don't breathe, they don't bleed, they don't cry."

But the people impacted by those ideals often do all of those things. Ideals aren't just fancy ideas. They muster armies, or disband them. They rescue the helpless, or crush them in to the earth. They inspire individuals to give their best, or their worst. Ideals can make a person enlist in the army, plant a food forest, volunteer at a shelter, commit genocide, save people from extermination, create underground railroads, refuse people basic rights...I could go on and on. Ideals and inspirational quotes aren't the same thing, and I'm not convinced Anita realizes this. Ideals can't be neatly printed on a fridge magnet so you can smile every morning when you get the orange juice. 

This is also a fundamental difference between me and Anita. There are absolutely ideals worth dying for and sometimes, in order to act with integrity, you put yourself on the line even though there's nothing for you to personally gain. You do it because you believe that it's the right thing to do, and damn the consequences you might have to live with. Even if you are facing certain death, what you do leaves a spiritual mark on the world that remains after you're gone. 

Many LGBT activists believed this and died so the generations after them could live with a sense of autonomy and safety. Women, people of color, every oppressed group gave lives because they so strongly believed (and often still do believe) that one day, the oppression could end forever. 

And one more thing. If you go against your ideals to rescue someone you love, you've diminished yourself and them. I don't mean holding on to some abstract naive notion of heroism here, but there's got to be a limit. I'll stop there because I really want to talk about something she does in a later book that would perfectly illustrate this point, but we'll just have to wait until I get to it. 

Lillian points out that religion is an abstract ideal and Anita argues with her that it isn't because she's seen God's power first hand. (Her religion is very 'stract." What a dumb saying). She believes that the power she is accessing is God, but she doesn't know that. For her, it's God. It feels like God, it behaves the way she imagines God should, but she doesn't have the capacity to judge whether she's contacting the literal Abrahamic deity or not. She's a mortal and thus incapable of comprehending the whole of the divine. 

Plus, religions are founded on ideals. The members of that religion may not always live up to those ideals, but just about every organized religion ever created has for example the Golden Rule, which can best be summed up as "don't be a dick." Beyond that, each religion also has a list of ideal characteristics the adherent should work to attain. 

Lastly, faith itself is an abstract. It has no measurable, concrete form for scientists to measure. It isn't rational. It isn't something, as Lillian points out, that you can "hold in your hand." I have faith (though I'm not a Christian) and I don't even know why. It's just there, the same way my glands produce adrenaline or the way I breathe in and out without having to think about it. 

Anita is a judgmental dick about her Wiccan friends, the friends who have been kind enough to train her and put up with her for the last six months. She says she finds the fact that they're not monotheistic Christians to be a failing of the Church and not of them personally. How magnanimous. You know, it's possible to be a monotheist and also acknowledge that polytheism has worth. Like I said I am not a Christian, but I do believe in Christianity. I think all of that stuff is true, for them. Why can't Anita do the same from the other side? 

Lillian points out that Christian witches exist. Points for Lillian! Anita claims that they're all zealots. 

Yeah, no. Christian witches are in a really bad spot. Average Christians tend to think they're heretics if not outright evil ("Do not suffer a witch to live." Yes I know this passage doesn't literally mean that but plenty of people don't) and witches as in Wiccans think they represent all the abusive aspects of Abrahamic faiths and shun them. So I have no idea why all of the Christian witches Anita has met deserve the title zealot. All the Christian witches I know are incredibly laid back.

Her and Lillian both talk about how they hate zealots, which is just so rich considering Anita is basically a zealot. 

zeal·ot

ˈzelət/

noun

1. a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.

Yeah, so there's that. 

Guys. I got up to go to the bathroom and I found a Chick Tract.

Well, even divine providence hates Anita Blake.

Anita gives the go ahead to use the drugs on Gregory and prays for like a fraction of a second. She's a terrible Christian. It's like her supposed latina status or how hard it is to be a woman, things she only trots out when it furthers her bullshit emotional manipulation, stuff that is ignored at all other times, that never impact her in any way otherwise. 

Micah turns up. He says that Violet, their version of Nathaniel, is in danger and they need to go rescue her. Anita gains a new power because she can now see his beast around him like a hot wavy thing that is hot and wavy.

For some dumbass reason Micah decides to leave his main bodyguard, Merle, behind. 

Lillian comes back in and says some vomit inducing shit about Anita following her heart, because Anita is a Disney princess and all of her friends are singing animals who sew clothes for her and bring her little cakes.

Anita breaks in to a rousing rendition of I Believe In Miracles and merciful Jesus, the chapter ends.

taking a day off

Father's Day is a bummer for me and I am going to go out and do something fun instead of reading Anita Blake.