Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 65

Purchased by accident? Cancel Order

On April 26th, I bought Leanna Renee Hieber’s Strangely Beautiful on my Kindle Fire. On May 2nd, I still had the option to return it. I’m not a fast reader, and honestly, I haven’t even cracked it open yet (I read it years ago, before it went out of print, and desperately needed it in my library again), but when my eyes were younger and my attention span longer, I could have easily devoured it in a few days, with room to spare to request that Amazon return my money.

Amazon will refund readers for an e-book purchase within seven days, regardless of how much content has been read. At first glance, this might seem like good customer service. I’ve certainly thought so in the past when I’ve accidentally purchased a digital duplicate copy of a paperback I already owned. Still, this is something I’ve done rarely–twice, if I remember correctly–and each time I worried that my return might affect the book’s sales ranking.

Other people, it seems, do not feel that kind of guilt. Last week, a story circulated on social media that outraged readers, writers, and book bloggers alike. An author (who appears to have removed their original post) received an email from a reader who, writer M.A. Knopp reports, wasn’t happy with the price point of the books they’d enjoyed:

Dear Ms. Author.

I really like your books. I think they are well-written and I enjoyed reading them. (So far, so good, right? Hang on.) However, I have returned them all because you priced them at $0.99 to $2.99, and that is too much to pay for them. I can’t afford to pay that much for a book, even though I liked it. In the future, can you make sure you make all your books free so I don’t have to return them?

Free e-books, which were once considered a promotional tool or a gift from authors to their loyal readers, are now an expectation. Despite the endless options for free digital reading from sites like Wattpad and An Archive Of Our Own, some readers feel that all content should be free, regardless of whether or not the author is a professional who relies on writing for their income.

“Why would you think our job is any different than your job–you know, the one you are supposed to go to so you can pay for your entertainment?” author Becky McGraw asks. “Authors work twelve to sixteen hours a day at our job to produce books for your entertainment.”

On the surface, Amazon return scams seem no different from piracy. But whereas readers who pirate ebooks seek out a particular torrent with a title already in mind, Amazon’s return policy allows unscrupulous readers to browse at their leisure and easily download the content to their devices.

Author Bianca Sommerland understands the difference between piracy and what’s happening at Amazon: “With pirates, it sucks. It’s horrible, but those people aren’t buying books. That isn’t money I would have made. They wouldn’t have given me a cent.” Since Amazon doesn’t seem interested in dealing with the issue, Sommerland says, “I almost want to raise my prices so those people worry a little more about the charges, but I won’t punish the rest of my readers for the few assholes.”

The results of an informal survey asking authors to report their April sales and returns showed numbers ranging anywhere from 1.2% in overall returns, to a whopping 40.1%. Losing 40% of a monthly income would be devastating to any household; to authors, it could mean future releases are spaced out further or cancelled altogether.

The timing of the returns is also particularly cruel. Author Stella Price reported that her return rate can be devastating during the week of a book’s release, usually the most financially profitable time for an indie author: “I might end up selling 70, but I have 20-30 returned in a day.” It’s become such a problem that it has influenced Price’s recent decision to stop publishing in the e-book market. It’s a choice that has made some of her readers unhappy, but with such a high digital return rate, she sees no other option.

That’s not to say that all returns are fraudulent. Books purchased by accident in the Kindle app can be easily returned within seconds by clicking a link on the purchase screen. Honest mistakes happen; anyone can fumble their device and hit the One-Click button. But not all mistakes are so honest.

“I had a group of at least 5 returns on each book in the Cobra series last month,” Sommerland says. “They came close together. Maybe I’m imagining things, but the way they were spaced, it seemed like the books were read, then returned as each person in this group finished the book.”

When customers return a book due to formatting errors or an egregious number of grammar offenses, Amazon sends the author a notice asking for corrections. But in the case of Sommerland’s books, “There’s no report of errors or anything that would explain this. And if you don’t like a book, you don’t get the next one, right?”

Some readers recognize the potential harm return scams can inflict on authors who make their living writing. Blogger Alisha Webber started a Change.org petition in the hopes that Amazon will take notice and change their policies. “They’re blatantly stealing from authors and Amazon is sitting on the sidelines pretending it isn’t happening,” Webber writes. “We need to prevent the return of books read past 15% along with refusing returns after a few days. We can’t allow this theft to continue.” At the time this article was written, the petition had over 7,000 signatures.

Compared to Amazon’s policies on returning downloadable software (you can’t) or streaming movies (within twenty-four hours, and only if you haven’t accessed the content), Webber’s proposal seems modest. Amazon allows generous sampling of e-books prior to purchase, allowing customers a chance to gauge not only their interest in the content, but the quality of the work. This courtesy isn’t extended to software, games, or movies, yet those items are considered a final sale after purchase or partial consumption. Amazon has the ability to track the reading progress of an individual e-book; it’s how they evaluate royalties paid to authors in their Kindle Unlimited program. If the ability to prevent fraudulent returns exists, why would Amazon allow them to continue?

As more writers are forced to change their business model or hike their prices due to abuses of the Amazon return policy, readers will feel the pinch, too. “Actors don’t act for free, painters don’t paint for free, and authors don’t write for free,” McGraw points out. “You want us to keep writing books? Stop the freaking theft!”

COVER REVEAL AND RELEASE DATE!

The original title of this post said “cover real”. It is the real cover, obviously, but more importantly, it’s a cover REVEAL.

Good Monday, everyone! I promised everyone I would have information today about Ian and Penny’s second book(s), Second Chance. Here’s the cover:

The cover for Ian’s book will look just like this. But it will say “Ian” on it.

Now, about that release date: You don’t have very long to wait at all! Second Chance will be available in e-book on May 31. I’ll have a blurb and preview post to remind you as the day approaches, don’t worry.

Now, a spoiler warning: It picks up just a few hours after First Time left off, so if you haven’t read The Baby from the Sophie Scaife books, and intend to, definitely read The Baby while you wait for Second Chance to be released.

#LegionXIII Rome Watch-Along, S02E08 “A Necessary Fiction” or “An Unnecessary Death And Demonization Of A Character”

CW: Rape (although honestly, CW: rape for the whole show from here out)

Quick rundown of the episode: Octavian sets the tone for this episode by talking to a group of Roman women about the “steely virtue” of Roman women, and how he’s going to enact laws that punish promiscuity and reward fertility, so basically he’s establishing Ye Olde Republican Party. He goes directly from this speech to meet a woman and proposition her, suggesting that divorcing her husband would be no big deal. So, virtue, infidelity, blah blah blah, he just stole a wife from her husband.

Timon and his family leave Rome, and the show, for good, with their storyline pretty much unresolved. Glad it took up so much screen time for no reason.

Jocasta is super enjoying being married to Posca, because he indulges her every whim. She can’t move without her jewelry clacking. Posca and Micenas have a plan to steal money from a bribe that Octavian is sending by way of the collegium. The guy who’s name I can never remember, who’s the “third man” in the gang is mad that Pullo is getting the job guarding the gold, and he storms off.

As predicted last week, Gaia gives Eirene the abortifacient in her tea, and she dies. Here lies Eirene, the only decent person on the entire show, murdered to cause Pullo manpain.

The shipment of bribe gold gets ambushed, and Mascius (who gets the job guarding the gold after all, since Pullo is catatonic with grief) gets seriously wounded. The gold is gone. Micenas says it’s convenient that the only person Octavian trusted suddenly couldn’t guard the gold, and Antony takes that as an accusation. Micenas thinks Posca has double crossed him with Antony.

Meanwhile, Vorenus goes to see Memio (what is up with all the M names?), who is drinking and whoring like there’s no tomorrow, but who insists he doesn’t know anything about the stolen gold. He assembles all the rival gang leaders together and tells them it’s time to overthrow Vorenus. They’re all like, you took Vorenus’s gold, stop making it our problem. And by the way, Memio totally stole the fucking gold. He uses it to buy off the other mobsters.

Pissed off about the gold the suspected double-cross, Micenas tells Octavian that his mom is still fucking Antony, and that Octavia didn’t tell him because she’s busy banging Agrippa. Octavian calls the family together and airs all their business like it’s Thanksgiving. Agrippa admits to his affair with Octavia, resulting in Octavian putting his mother and sister under permanent house arrest and banishing Antony from Rome.

Vorenus is about to have Pullo kill Mascius for betraying them and stealing the gold, when he sees one of the straw dolls the fiddly, greasy guy has been making Vorena the Elder. Vorenus confronts his daughter, who totally takes responsibility for betraying him and telling Memio about the route for the gold. And he’s like, why would you do that, and she points out all the egregious shit he did to them, like kill their mother (the kids don’t know that he didn’t), and curse them to Hades, resulting in their enslavement. He strangles her, but Pullo stops him before he can actually kill Vorena in front of the other children.

Antony is banished to Egypt. He goes to see Atia first, and promises he’ll send for her when he can.

Vorenus tells Antony he resigns from the collegium, citing personal reasons, and promises that the gold will be returned. He practically begs Antony to take him to Egypt, and Antony is like, you’re a fuck up, but I need guys on my side. Vorenus leaves his kids in Pullo’s protection, and the two men say nearly-tearful goodbyes to each other.

Meanwhile, on house arrest, Octavia is taking out her boredom on the houseplants when Atia tells her that Agrippa is in the kitchen. But Agrippa isn’t there for funsies; he tells Octavia that basically he’s choosing loyalty to her brother over her. He won’t help Octavia escape, because Octavian has the right to lock her up. In other words, this prick was happy to dance to the tune, but he’s going to make Octavia pay the piper. Octavia tells Agrippa she’s pregnant, and he’s all, “Who’s the father?” and she says it doesn’t matter because both options are shitty. She’s not wrong.

Now that everybody knows that Memio stole the gold, it’s time for a rumble on the Aventine. Pullo and Memio parlay, but Pullo apparently doesn’t know what that means, because he headputs Memio and bites his tongue out. Then he hurls an axe into greasy guy’s chest, and bam, everybody was kung fu fighting. Even Gaia, who is finally given something to do besides use her sexuality for evil.

Antony arrives in Rome, where he’s met by Cleopatra. We all pretty much know where that goes from here.

My favorite part of the episode: When Octavian Grey tells Livia that he plans to get sexual pleasure from beating her. I guess his tastes are “very singular”. He gives her about as much agency in the decision as Christian Grey gave Ana Steele, and it’s just about as romantic.

My least favorite part of the episode: Let’s talk about how fucked up Eirene’s storyline is. She starts off as a slave, gets freed by the master who raped her, he kills the man she loves, she tries to kill him, ends up marrying him instead, gets pregnant, then gets murdered by a woman who sees her as competition. The audience is supposed to go, “Okay, this is fair payback. Pullo killed the person she loved, now he’s lost the person he loves.” Which is bullshit, because Eirene doesn’t deserve to die to teach Pullo a lesson or further his characterization.

In the meantime, we’ve got Gaia, who exists only to murder Eirene. Name a single thing she’s done of importance to the plot other than poisoning Eirene. Her sole function in the story is to be the conniving, jealous female. Why? Because it has an effect on the characterization of male character.

At least Atia, Octavia, Cleopatra and Servilia were given motivations that weren’t solely wrapped up in a man’s journey. Eirene and Gaia aren’t so lucky, and that pisses me off.

Favorite costume: Jocasta’s purple dress and mauve veil:

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Since Servilia is dead, you’d think this question wouldn’t have much of an answer, but Servilia’s curse seems to be playing out, so gotta give it to Servilia this time.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet: 

You know Pullo’s depressed when he needs to be TOLD to drink something. #LegionXIII

— Gabe (@gfortin_05) April 26, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? The dress itself isn’t that exciting, but the fabric is light and has a delicate pattern, so I’m going to go with Octavia’s lavender/blue-ish dress:

Guess Jess’s head canon. Her boys have broken up, but they parted tenderly, with face touches, a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. A shipper can’t ask for much more without something becoming truly canon.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s post, as Jess is still nursing her injury from the fight she lost to an avocado, and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season two, episode nine, “No God Can Stop A Hungry Man” . Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!

State Of The Trout: “I’m not dead!” edition

Hello everybody! I’m not dead! Isn’t that great? I’ve just been super busy getting Second Chance ready for it’s big day. When is that big day? Well, I’ll tell you on Monday, when I reveal the cover and release date right here on this very blog.

Because of this, my serialized projects are back-burnered until June. If you’re a Patreon supporter, you should have gotten a message about that, and Wattpad followers of The Afflicted should also have gotten one, so this probably doesn’t come as a shock to any of you. But I’m covering my bases.

In personal news, I’m so happy to announce that D-Rock’s dog, Muggsy, who lived with us for about a year while D-Rock also lived here, has come to stay permanently. You may remember my cousin D-Rock from our brief YouTube show, Roadhouse. Nowadays she’s living in the Aleutian Islands, working as a hyperbaric welder and a boat nanny in Dutch Harbor. She recently made a very surprise visit to us. By very surprise, I mean that she didn’t call me before traveling all the way here. I was in bed and my bedroom door burst open with a shout of “Melissa!” to herald her arrival.

Anyway, Muggsy (a.k.a. Muggs, Mugzilla, Mugzoo, Tubbsy, and Tubszilla) the senior Pit Bull is our newest family member, and she looks pretty psyched to be here. I think she missed us:

Also pictured: my genetic clone.

So, hence the lack of updates: I’ve been busy writing, editing, and snuggling this cute ass dog.

Next week, I’ll return with an Apolonia recap.

#LegionXIII Rome Watch-Along, S02E07 “Death Mask” or “If You’re Going To Be Petty About It, Servilia.”

CW: Rape (although honestly, CW: rape for the whole show from here out)

This week I didn’t realize what day it was. I thought this was still Thursday, so the post is late. Mea Culpla. OMG that, works, because Rome/Latin get it?!

Quick rundown of the episode: Real super quick this week, actually. Servilia, destroyed by her son’s death and what amounts to a complete check mate between her and Atia, mounts a days-long call out/curse combo and kills herself in front of Atia’s door. Later, when Atia suggests a strategic marriage between Antony and herself, Octavian is like, this is a great idea, but he’s going to marry Octavia instead, Atia is like, damn, maybe that bitch did have the last laugh.

Octavia isn’t the only one being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Jocasta, formerly the daughter of a merchant, marries Posca, because he’s her best choice now that she’s been raped and impoverished.

On the Pullo side, he fucks up real bad. After Gaia disrespects Eirene, Pullo tries to whip her, but ends up raping her (Gaia appears to be into it and an equal aggressor, but she’s a slave, and we’ve already seen her trying to move up in the household via her sexual charm, so this isn’t like, “Hey, hot guy, wanna bang,” but “I’ve got no other choice.”) Gaia sees her chance, now that she knows Pullo would actually be into her sexually, so all she has to do is remove Eirene.  She goes to ye old abortionist and gets some herbs.

Vorena the Elder is having a full on affair with the guy who keeps giving her straw dolls, and Memmio “catches” them together. He offers to keep it secret from her father, as long as she spies on him for her. Like, Memmio, this is by far the most complicated plan anyone has ever concocted for no reason, because Vorena fucking hates her dad and would sell him out for q-tip.

Timon and his brother decide they should kill King Herrod while he’s in town, but at the last minute Timon spots Atia in the crowd and, presumably not wishing to prove to her that he is, in fact, an animal, kills his brother in an argument instead.

And that’s it, in a nutshell.

My favorite part of the episode: The way Eirene says, “She say she gonna choke me wit a stick!”

My least favorite part of the episode: Pullo and Gaia. I hate that it’s a) yet another scene of rape, as Gaia is a slave, b) an incredibly violent scene seemingly justifying itself as rough sex, and c) is uncomfortably hot despite a and b, so it makes you feel bad.

Favorite costume: I really dig the intricate nature of Jocasta’s wedding dress. Actually, from here out, Jocasta really becomes the style icon of the show. Or, at least, she rivals Antony.

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Servilia. That is probably the greatest case of getting the last word that anyone has ever seen.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet: 

I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS, TROUT!!!! #LEGIONXIII

— Bronwyn Green (@Bronwyn_Green) April 19, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? She would definitely make something with that embroidered border.

 

Guess Jess’s head canon. My assumption is that Vorenus and Pullo still sail the seas for her, even though the angst has been turned down a little in these past couple episodes.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s post, as Jess’s post is pending due to injury (she has stitches all over her hand, it’s gross), and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season two, episode eight, “A Necessary Fiction” . Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!

Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S03E04 “Beauty and the Beasts”

CW: Intimate partner violence

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone tore something in her upper arm and can’t lift a cup of coffee now. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it. 

The episode begins with a voice over of Buffy reading Call Of The Wild. The voice over fades into Willow reading the book to Oz, who is chained up in the cage in the library. Just as she thinks maybe it’s not the best idea to read books about rabbits to a caged werewolf, Xander shows up for a shift. You know, I give Xander a lot of shit, but this is actually a really good group of friends. I think you can tell if a friendship is strong based on if your friends will do basically anything for you, like, “Oh, you turn into a werewolf? No problem, man, I’ll hang out and make sure you don’t kill anybody.”

Like, okay, for example, I have this friend who will do anything for his friends. Anything. It doesn’t matter if you see him every day, or once every ten years. He is genuinely a good guy and wants to help out his friends. To test this theory, Mr. Jen once tested the theory by calling him up and saying, “Hey, I was thinking I might want to jerk off with a noose around my neck, but I’m afraid of hanging myself. Can you come spot me?” and no shit, this guy, who is absolute zero on the Kinsey Scale, goes, “Sure, when do you want to do it?” No questions asked. He was just going to come over and watch Mr. Jen jerk off–with no expectation of sexual interaction–because he’s a good friend and wanted to help out another friend in a high risk masturbation situation. Even after Mr. Jen told him it wasn’t a serious request, this friend reasserted that if it wasn’t a joke, he would gladly do this favor.  I honestly get the feeling that Xander would be like that.

Willow: “After sunrise, if he forgets where his clothes are, they’re on top of the file cabinet inside his cage. I put those towels up for privacy.”

Xander: “Oh, no worries. I can handle the Oz full monty. I mean, not handle handle, like hands to flesh. Handle.”

Okay, maybe not quite like that, then. Xander’s aggressive heterosexuality is a running punchline in the show, which is a big factor in #23. I’ve heard that Joss Whedon had originally planned for Xander to come out, but opted to make Willow a lesbian instead (I would argue that it would have been perfectly acceptable to make Willow bisexual, rather than buy into the stereotype of the woman done wrong who swears off men for all time, but whatever, we’ll deal with that next season). So that’s probably why there are so many instances of Xander telling anyone who will listen how straight he is.

Willow tells Xander that it should be an easy night, because it’s not the actual full moon yet, but she leaves a tranq gun with him, just in case. Here’s an interesting thing I noticed for the first time: when she gives Xander the gun, he kind of waves it around dangerously, pointing it at her by accident. But as late as season four he’s still retained the military knowledge he gained as a result of his Halloween costume in season two. So that’s kind of inconsistent there.

After assuring Willow that he’s going to stay up all night watching Oz, Xander climbs on the table and goes to sleep like two seconds after she’s gone. Okay, so, Xander will do things for you as a friend, but they’re going to be half-assed and probably dangerous.

Out in the cemetery, Faith and Buffy are patrolling. And the very first thing Faith says is sex related. In fact, the entire conversation they have is sex related. Because Faith. She tells Buffy that all men are animals, even Scott the nice dude from school.

Faith: “They’re all in it for the chase.”

Cut to a guy literally being chased. He’s pulled to the ground, screaming, by something off screen.

After the credits, Buffy, Oz, and Willow are walking around school. They run into Debbie, a student Oz knows, and her boyfriend, Pete.

Debbie: “Hi, Oz. Hey, you’re not doing jazz band this year?”

Oz: “Ooh, can’t take the pressure. It’s not the music that’s hard, it’s the marching.”

Buffy: “We have a marching jazz band?”

Oz: “Yeah, but, you know, since the best jazz is improvisational, we’d be going off in all directions, banging into floats. Scary.”

So, Scott is also there with them, and when Debbie says that the flowers she’s carrying are from Pete, Scott quickly informs them that he and Buffy aren’t at the flower giving stage yet. Buffy says she has to run, because she has to meet with Mr. Platt, the guidance counsellor. Debbie bemoans the fact that she has to see him, too, but it’s only because she’s failing biology. Oz did really well in biology, so he offers to give her his notes. They all disperse, and Buffy gives Scott a kiss before she goes. So, they might not be at the giving flowers stage, but they are at the kissing stage.

In the library, Giles and Xander are freaking out. When Willow and Oz come in, they definitely notice:

Giles: “Right. Yes, good to see you. No need to panic.”

Smooth, Giles. He tells them that a student was mauled to death in the night. They try to assure Oz that it probably wasn’t him, though they find that the window inside the cage is open. Why the fuck would they have not checked that pre-wolf containment? Xander tells them that Oz never left, and that he was there in the morning when he woke up. So because Xander is a Scumbag Steve instead of a Good Guy Greg, someone has died, and Oz is tortured by the thought that he was the one who did it.

I rescind my earlier assertion. Don’t trust Xander to spot you while you’re jerking off and asphyxiating yourself.

Buffy, unaware of this other shit, goes to see the school counsellor, who is a rare subversion of #22. He’s also a wonderful throwback to the days when the teachers would do a health unit on the dangers of smoking and why you should never, ever do it, but every time the teachers’ lounge door opened the immediate area smelled like a bus station ashtray. Buffy tells Mr. Platt that she doesn’t want to share or open up or be his friend, and he tells her he’s not interested in being her friend, either. He’s there to be her counsellor. They have a little chat about her mental health and why she ran away. She tells him about Angel, but obviously in very vague terms.

Buffy: “He was my first… I loved him. And then he…”

Mr. Platt: “Changed.”

Buffy: “Yeah.”

Mr. Platt: “He got mean.”

Buffy: “Yes.”

Mr. Platt: “And you didn’t stop loving him.”

Hold onto this for a second. Well, for more than a second. We’re going to talk about this as we go along.

Mr. Platt tells Buffy that yeah, love is great and all, but you can’t let it rule you. But Buffy’s outlook on that is pretty bleak. She reports to the library, to find everyone super grim and solemn.

Except for Cordelia:

Cordelia: “Oz ate someone last night.”

Xander comes to his defense by explaining  graphically that Oz doesn’t eat people, he just murders them for fun. Giles, in an unbroken three season streak of being totally exasperated with Xander, explains that Oz may have gotten out, or there might be another werewolf. Buffy says they should work together to figure everything out, and in the meantime, Faith can watch Oz. He’s pissed off at the idea of his friends entrusting his life to a Slayer they don’t even know. He tries to storm off, but Willow points out that he can’t, because it’s so close to sundown. This guy can’t catch a break.

Later that night, Buffy is patrolling the woods, and this happens:

After these messages, Angel attacks Buffy, and she manages to knock him out.

Since it’s a day ending in Y for our gang, Willow, Cordelia, and Xander are breaking into the morgue to check out the dead student’s body, which is apparently pretty gruesome. Willow goes full CSI, totally calm in the face of the gore while Xander and Cordelia freak out. The moment she’s got everything she needs, Willow hits the floor like a ton of bricks.

Instead of killing Angel, Buffy takes him back to the mansion where she killed him in the first place, and chains him up. She goes to the library, where she startles Faith and gets punched in the face  for it. Buffy says she’ll watch Oz instead, since she couldn’t sleep. Faith leaves, and Buffy starts rifling through the card catalogue. Which makes me wonder…has Giles actually organized arcane knowledge according to Dewey? And just put it all in there for the students to wander across?

The next morning, Giles comes in to find Oz, fully human and really naked, and Giles casually sips his coffee and unlocks the door. So, there’s something we need to talk about. What if a janitor came in? What if a student came in early? And they found out that their librarian–whose entire social life consists of hanging out with this group of teenagers–keeps a naked student locked in a cage? The thing is, nothing would probably happen. Because this is Sunnydale, and #8. In fact, I’m willing to bet that someone does know about the naked student locked up in the library, and they just ignore it and go on their way, secure in their comfortable delusion.

Buffy has fallen asleep–oh, so it’s okay when Buffy falls asleep on Oz watch–and when Giles picks up a book that’s fallen on the floor near her, she wakes with this dreamy little, “Hey,” and Giles says “Hello” back, and literally the way he says “hello” in this scene is what made me start to go, “Wait…I think maybe he could be into her.” Granted, I came into this head canon after I’d already seen his mantrum over Buffy’s new boyfriend in “A New Man”, but this scene was where I was like, “Wait, I kind of think this could be a ship.” If you’ve ever been involved in any sort of fandom, you know that ships have sailed on shallower waters than these. There’s a Giles/Oz ship, for Christ’s sake. I just happen to find Buffy/Giles the most obvious of all M/F ships involving Buffy, even if the paternal role Giles fills makes the ship ooky.

But I write about twenty-somethings boning fifty-somethings, so I’m hardly an impartial judge here.

So, where was I?

Giles sees that Buffy has been reading up on Acathla, and she tells him she had a dream about Angel coming back. Giles says he didn’t know Buffy could use a card index, so he absolutely fucking does have shit about demons indexed in the general card file that anybody can just use. Students have presumably been coming into the library, looking up stuff, found shit about demons, and just ignored it. #8, you guys. #8.

Buffy tells Giles that her dream seemed really, really real, and she asks Giles if there’s a chance Angel could come back. Giles doesn’t like this line of questioning. Probably because he, you know, got tortured and also his girlfriend was murdered by Angel. But Buffy wants to know what Angel would be like if he came back, and Giles doesn’t know, because there’s no record of anyone coming back from the demon dimension. He also tells her that time is different in the demon dimension, and Buffy is like, “I remember.” Because she went there when she was in L.A.. So…someone did come back from the demon dimension. Also, all those people Buffy saw who had come back. Unless we’re talking about a different dimension.

Anyhow, Giles tells Buffy that Angel would have suffered hundreds of years of torment, and that no one could survive that amount of suffering and not become a monster. Which is interesting, when you consider that Giles was recently tortured. I know I’m a huge Tony Head fangirl, but I think it’s a mark of how good his acting is, that he doesn’t just impart that information about Angel, but also keenly reminds the viewer that Giles is probably going through an internal struggle of his own in which he, too, is wondering if what happened to him has changed him. And this is really the theme of the episode, that anyone can become a monster, no matter how they appear on the outside.

Willow comes in with donuts and accidentally calls Oz a cold-blooded jelly donut. She tells Buffy that the tests on the body were inconclusive. What tests? Did Willow break into a medical lab? Some of the stuff the viewer is asked to accept is a stretch too far. Buffy is super intense about making sure it wasn’t a vampire, because she’s obviously worried that Angel is killing people.

At lunch, Buffy sits with Scott (who criticizes her food choice in the most patronizing and unnecessary to the script way possible), as well as Debbie and Pete. Buffy and Debbie have a brief conversation about their impression of Mr. Platt, with Debbie firmly on the dislike side, and Buffy on the I-kind-of-like-him-but-don’t-want-to-disagree-with-you side. Scott tells Buffy that she looks amazing, and she gets weird about it and leaves.

Pete: “Check out Scotty, liking the manic-depressive chick.”

This comment, coupled with snide comments about Scott’s mother being crazy and going to therapy, makes me call #14. Because after Pete’s comment, Scott looks like his opinion of Buffy has definitely been bruised.

Pete and Debbie go to the school basement to make out, but Debbie really doesn’t want to go down there, playfully suggesting multiple times that they should stay in one area or she has to go meet a friend. It’s only when Pete sees a nearly empty jar of glowing liquid that we realize she’s trying to hide something from him. He asks her if she drank it, and she promises she didn’t. So they both know what the glowing stuff is.

Buffy goes to Mr. Platt’s office. He’s facing the window, and she tells him not to turn around or say anything before she launches into a confession about what’s going on. She’s prepared to spill the entire story of vampires and demons and Slayers to him, but then she notices this:

I mean, we all know that the only people who have an ash like that on their cigarette is an ancient old lady sitting at a slot machine, smoking through her tracheotomy stoma. This is also a really cool visual clue that his hand has remained literally deathly still; not only did the cigarette burn all the way down and go out when it reached the filter, but the ashes never fell the way they would if you were moving it around and you didn’t have 80+ years of practice smoking.

However, this is what Mr. Platt looks like from the front:

To me, it seems like if something did that to your face, you wouldn’t remain still and just let it happen. That also doesn’t appear to be a fatal wound. Painful, yes, obviously in need of medical attention, but not something so incapacitating that you would drop dead in an instant.

In the basement, Pete interrogates Debbie as to what she was doing with the glowing stuff. She tells him she poured it out so she could help him, and he says that the stuff doesn’t make him the way he “gets”. And then he “gets” that way. He tells her that the reason he becomes violent is because of her behavior and then becomes a full on vein machine.

Pete accuses Debbie of cheating on him and punches her several times, before the vein monster thing wears off and he begs her forgiveness. He tells her that she shouldn’t make him mad, and she comforts him.

The coroner has ruled that Mr. Platt died shortly before Buffy discovered him. Since he died during the day, he couldn’t have been killed by Oz. While this is good news, Giles points out that it’s almost sundown, and Oz isn’t getting ready for the main event. He’s in the courtyard, waiting for Debbie so that he can give her the biology notes he promised. He notices Debbie’s beat up face and asks her if everything is all right. She gives him the old chestnut about being clumsy, and he asks her if she needs to talk. She laughs it all off and leaves, but Pete is watching from a distance.

In the library, the Scoobies are on the case when Oz arrives.

Giles: “Our task now is to determine what sort of killer we are dealing with. Clearly, we’re looking for a depraved, sadistic animal.”

Oz: “Present.”

Willow tells Oz that he can’t be responsible for the murders, since one of them took place during the day. Oz realizes that there’s a link between the dead student and the dead guidance counselor. And that link is Debbie. He says that Debbie and the student were in jazz band together, and they used to goof off. Of course, Faith takes this as meaning that they were screwing; there has been one scene in the episode so far where Faith is present and does not talk about sex. (#32)

Buffy mentions that Debbie didn’t like Mr. Platt, and Oz mentions Debbie’s black eye.  Willow suggests that Debbie killed Mr. Platt, but Buffy shoots that down. Whatever killed him did so without any fight from Mr. Platt. Their suspicion turns to Pete, so they rush off to find both him and Debbie.

Buffy and Willow find Debbie in the locker room, putting on makeup

Buffy: ” It’s tricky, covering a fresh shiner like that. You know what works?

Debbie: “What?

Buffy: “Don’t get hit.

That’s a good tip, Buffy. And so understanding, coming from the girl who who was regularly involved in hand-to-hand combat with her ex last season. Debbie pretends not to know what’s going on, but Buffy won’t relent. Debbie says it’s not Pete’s fault, it’s hers, for making him get so angry.  She tells Buffy and Willow that she never asked for their help, but Will points out that if Debbie waits until Pete kills her, it’ll be too late.

I’ve never cared for this scene. It’s really gross to have Buffy insinuating that Debbie has some responsibility as to whether or not Pete hits her. I realize Buffy is a teenager and therefore might not understand that “don’t get hit” isn’t a common sense thing. She also probably doesn’t understand that when someone is as dangerous as Pete, the Debbies of the world can’t just walk away without consequence. But you know who should know this? The writer and director of the episode. Whether or not it’s true to the character or gives us a look inside her inner turmoil, Buffy telling a victim of romantic partner violence that the onus is on her to not get hit reinforces the myth of victim culpability. It also perpetuates the notion that it’s simple for an abused partner to leave the abusive relationship without consequence. (#6)

We cut to Angel in the mansion, struggling against his chains, before coming back to Buffy, Willow and Debbie in the bathroom. So, a parallel is being drawn here. Good thing, too; when Debbie says she couldn’t turn Pete in, Buffy says:

Buffy: “Great. So while you two live out your grim fairytale, two people are dead.”

How many people did Angel kill while he was evil and you couldn’t bring yourself to do anything about it, Buffy? And you spent the whole time telling anyone who would listen that it wasn’t Angel’s fault, it was the demon wearing his face, that there had to be some way to change him.

Oh, shit, it’s almost exactly like Pete and Debbie’s relationship, right? It’s pretty clear, based on her earlier conversation about Angel with Mr. Platt, that this is an intentional thing. It’s Buffy who can’t see how hypocritical she’s being.

Pete goes to the library and confronts Oz, who’s already locked in the cage. Wait, how did Pete find Oz? Is it common knowledge that he hangs out locked in a cage in the library? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?!

Oz warns Pete to get away:

Oz: “I’m serious. Something’s going to happen that you probably won’t believe.”

[Pete turns into a vein monster]

Oz: “Or you might.”

Veiny Pete (that would be a weird name for an old timey prospector) rips the door off the cage and hauls Oz out. Buffy takes off to find Pete, who is tossing still-human Oz around the library like a rag doll. But the sun goes down, and Oz changes. Now it’s two monsters grappling in the library. Willow, Buffy, Debbie and Giles run in, and Giles throws Buffy the tranquilizer gun. She’s about to shoot, when Debbie, fearing for Pete, shoves her, and Buffy shoots the dart into Giles, instead.

Buffy: “Oh! sorry!”

Giles: “Oh, right. Bloody priceless.”

Giles staggers and falls over, and Buffy throws the gun to Faith, telling her to go after Oz, who is escaping. Buffy takes off after Pete, who runs into the hall and climbs through a window. Debbie has gone to the basement to wait for Pete. She tells him he has to leave Sunnydale, because Buffy knows about him. Pete accuses Debbie of telling Buffy about him, and beats her to the ground. Faith and Willow chase after Oz, but he attacks Faith and knocks the gun from her hands. Willow tries to pull Oz off Faith, and succeeds in drawing his attention away long enough that Faith can shoot him. He falls unconscious with a yelp.

When Buffy finds Pete, Debbie is already dead. As Pete beats the crap out of Buffy, who should appear but Feral Angel. He has broken free and uses his chains as a weapon against Pete, breaking his neck and killing him. Angel regains his senses and recognizes Buffy. He falls to his knees, weeping as Buffy stares tearfully at the two dead students.

The next day at school, rumors are swirling around campus about what happened to Pete and Debbie. The glowing stuff from the beginning of the episode was a concoction he’d made to enhance his toxic masculinity, thus making him more attractive to Debbie. His abusive tendencies, however, were all his own.

Cordelia: “Great. Now I’m going to be stuck with serious thoughts all day.”

Buffy sees Scott sitting off all alone, sad because his friends are dead. He says that nobody ever really knows someone, even if you really care about them. The scene cuts to Buffy watching Angel sleep on the floor of the mansion, under another voice over from Call Of The Wild, that suggests Buffy is aware that at any moment, Angel could become a monster again, and that she now sees how easily she could have wound up in Debbie’s position. That is, in the morgue.

This episode has some of my favorite Oz lines, and I have always loved seeing Giles get shot with a tranquilizer dart, because it’s like at this point in the series they’re trying to find bigger and better ways to knock him the fuck out. But this episode bothers me, too. Just last season we had “Ted,” which I thought covered the experience of intimate partner violence really well, even though the violence wasn’t directed at Joyce. She was still violently manipulated (though I still maintain that a lot of the communication issues between Joyce and Buffy existed long before Ted came on the scene) by someone who harmed her daughter. So why did this episode go off the tracks?

I would suggest that it’s Debbie’s death that causes the episode to go south overall. Debbie’s death comes moments after we hear the heroine of the show telling her that it’s her fault she’s getting hit, that she’s a broken person, and assuming a superior attitude in which it’s made clear that Buffy believes Debbie is equally culpable in her own abuse. So in the narrative structure, Debbie–who wasn’t responsible for Pete’s dabbling with dangerous substances in the first place–has been justly punished for her sins. It’s a cautionary tale: stand up for yourself, leave him, if you don’t, it’s your fault. This is wildly out of sync with how the abuse was handled in “Ted”. At not point did Joyce being in danger seem like a situation of her own making, because the script took great pains to demonstrate that Ted was able to charm everyone; the writer wanted you to know that Joyce was in no way at fault. She was deceived.

Debbie, however, doesn’t get the luxury of that benefit of the doubt. Rather than showing her as a scared girl who’s afraid to reach out for help, she’s made into the stupid girl who knows she needs help but doesn’t respect herself enough, or who foolishly still loves the boy who’s bad for her. And while I understand that this story was meant to parallel Buffy’s complicated feelings for Angel, why isn’t Debbie allowed those complicated feelings, as well as a life post-Pete? We get only the superficial portrayal of an abused partner, in which everyone knows that if it were them in the situation, they would certainly recognize what was happening and make far better choices. By creating Debbie that way and using her as a mirror for Buffy to have a good, hard look at herself, the show is telling us that Buffy was responsible for her part in Angel being evil, and that what happened to her was her fault for not being stronger. This totally contradicts everything we were told to feel for her in season two.

There was a pretty simple solution to this that could have gotten a better message across than just, “Wow, good thing Buffy realizes that her relationship with Angel wasn’t good for her or the people around her.” What if Debbie hadn’t died, and instead of the brief examination of Scott’s pain at the end of the episode, Buffy checks on her to make sure she’s okay? Buffy could then apologize to Debbie for being so harsh, and explain that it was her own experience with her abusive boyfriend that caused her to be so defensive, because she didn’t want to believe that the person she loved could also be a person capable of behaving that way. We would see Buffy grow, and the harmful message accidentally being portrayed (death is the proper punishment for victimhood) would be instantly struck down. Why couldn’t it have been that way?

Because if Buffy admits that Angel was still responsible for his actions when he was evil, she would be willingly walking back into a potentially violent relationship when she romantically reunites with him. And that would destroy the tragic love story tone the show is trying to set for us. Debbie believed Pete could change, so she stayed with him, and was punished for her foolishness. Buffy believes Angel has changed, so she gets back together with him, and theirs is a tortured love for the ages. There is definitely a parallel, but I don’t think it depicted what the writers wanted it to depict.

Another, smaller issue I had with this episode is how Faith was written. In two of the four scenes where Faith is involved, she only talks about sex. In the other two, she’s either fighting or excited about getting a chance to fight, and Faith’s attitude toward violence has already been established as sexual in nature. While I understand the point of view that there’s nothing wrong with Faith owning her sexuality, that sexuality is rarely depicted as an empowering force, but a single, defining characteristic that reinforces the bad girl trope.

#LegionXIII Rome Watch-Along S02E06 “Philippi” or “Family Appropriate Outing”

CW: Rape (although honestly, CW: rape for the whole show from here out)

Apologies for missing last week’s post. A family emergency took precedence.

Quick rundown of the episode: Meanwhile, where all the fucking losers are, Brutus is in really good spirits for someone who basically knows he’s at the end of his life. Probably because he’s like, fuck it, I’m going to die, we’re not going to beat Octavian, might as well enjoy myself.

In Gaul, Mark Antony and Octavian have agreed on a plan to murder basically anyone who’s ever looked sideways at either of them, so they can seize their money. This includes Cicero, who has to go first because he’s got the most spies. Octavian sends the list of soon-to-be dead men to Vorenus, so his mob guys can do the killing and money collecting, and just for fun, Atia tosses Jocasta’s dad onto the list. Like, literally, just for fun; she doesn’t like Jocasta, so she’s like, you know. Kill her dad (and as an added kick in the teeth, Atia later offers to take Jocasta in once her whole family is dead and she’s been raped). As an added dramatic touch, Antony says Cicero’s hands should be nailed to the senate doors, for old times sake.

At the collegium, Gaia is doing like, the one thing I don’t hate her for, being kind to Vorenus’s children. But he’s not into that; he doesn’t want Gaia giving Vorena the Elder makeup tips. There’s some tension between Gaia and Mascius (I think that’s his name), who is kind of like, her dude. She later tries to get Pullo’s attention, and it’s clear that the only way Gaia can move up in the world is by getting at least one of the important guys to want her.

Speaking of manipulating important guys, one of Vorenus’s enemies sends a real greasy looking fuck to pay attention to Vorena the Elder, for obviously nefarious purposes. He ends up giving her a little straw doll or some shit.

Vorenus tells the collegium dudes like, here, go kill these guys, and hey, use the money for whatever you want to do, but I’m going to look like Good Guy Greg and use the money to feed the poor. To take care of Cicero, Pullo rides out to Cicero’s villa, taking Eirene and Vorenus and the children all out to the country on a murder field trip. Like a gentleman, Pullo asks Cicero if he can take some peaches, before killing Cicero in what has to be the most painful way to get stabbed. Then later that night, Pullo goes and nails Cicero’s hands to the doors.

Because she hasn’t yet figured out that she’ll never be allowed happiness, Octavia and Agrippa start an affair. And the weaselish little poetry guy knows something is up. I don’t like the looks of that guy. Never have.

Timon and his brother have a confrontation in the synagogue due to some ill-defined political drama meant to show us some kind of meaningful progression in Timon’s character. Honestly? I’m more interested in why Timon became who he was when we first met him than in who he’ll become when he abruptly departs the show without any resolution.

Eirene gets pissed when she thinks Pullo is going back into the Army, and tearfully tells him that she’s “preglant.” Pullo is psyched about this news, but like… doesn’t he remember he already has a kid? And that kid is a prince?

So, it’s final showdown time between Brutus and the Octavian/Antony dynamo show. It doesn’t go well. Brutus knows he’s boned and just doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He ends up walking straight into the advancing lines, where he’s surrounded by dudes and stabbed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until we get the obvious parallel between his death and his

My favorite part of the episode: Titus Pullo, Gentleman Assassin. Although “You might not want to watch this,” is not the thing you want to hear right before you get murdered.

My least favorite part of the episode: I take issue with the fact that the only character coded as being a person of color* is a sexually aggressive manipulator. She only gets like, one nice thing to do, and that’s be kind to the children. I think this episode is the only time.

*(I say coded, as I don’t know the actress’s ethnicity, but the character has dreadlocks and a light brown complexion)

Favorite costume: Mark Antony’s Sheriff of Nottingham get-up. This entire season is just like, “What’s Antony’s new look gonna be this week?”

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Doesn’t really apply this week, as Servillia isn’t in the episode.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet: 

You think with a name like Pullo his pullout game would be better #LegionXIII

— Dylan Bimberg (@dylanbim) April 12, 2016

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? Eirene’s green dress.

Guess Jess’s head canon. I think this week was a little bit of a drought in the ho yay department, actually.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s post, as Jess’s post is pending due to injury, and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season two, episode seven, “Death Mask” . Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!

Jacquis Award

Yesterday, I got an email informing me that I’d won an award, and here’s a little graphic I could put on my website. And I was like, rock on, I won an award.

 

Legendary Women is the site that profiled me as a professional Fifty Shades of Grey hater in 2015, and this year they decided that First Time should be recognized as a good example of feminist literature. I’m absolutely delighted to be in such good company, and I’m pleased that Ian and Penny got some spotlight here. Usually Sophie and Neil get all the attention.

You can check out all the books featured here.

Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Midnight Sun: Sunday, May 22, 2011 or “I’m not sure this whole day-by-day instead of chapter numbers thing is practical PART TWO”

Because this is yet another unbearably long chapter (thirty-three pages, according my Kindle app), I’m dicing this one up. For my reading challenge, I’m reading Anne by Constance Fenimore-Woolson, and the chapters in that are also very, very long. The reason for this is that it was a serial in Harper’s Bazar, and serial installments back in the day were long-ish. Grey is not a serial, and therefore that is absofuckinglutely no need for these chapters to be this long.

I don’t know what I have against long chapters, I honestly don’t. It’s not just this particular book. And it’s not like I don’t write them, either. But as a reader, I absolutely loathe them. Maybe I like that sense of completion you get from reaching a natural stopping point. I don’t know.

In Fifty Shades Darker movie news, the internet was positively abuzz with casting announcements. Bella Heathcote came on board as Leila, and Eric Johnson as Jack Hyde. But perhaps the most exciting casting news came when it was announced that Tyler Hoechlin would portray the unforgettable character Boyce Fox. (warning: autoplay video on that link)

Wait, who?

Turns out Boyce Fox, a character that even I could not remember, is the author Ana signs to her publishing house. He’s mentioned briefly in the third book, if I remember correctly. They’re “expanding” Boyce’s role in the films, so I assume he’ll be yet another handsome man who can’t resist Ana. Okay, I know that I can’t resist Dakota Johnson, either, but this isn’t about me. This is about the fact that the last two movies are apparently being written by E.L. James’s husband, so let’s not kid ourselves. E.L. probably wants the role expanded so her onscreen avatar can be lusted after by even more hot guys.

Also, Hugh Dancy has joined the cast as Dr. Finn, since being in one show about a shitty psychiatrist wasn’t enough for him. He’s dead to me now.

With all of that out of the way, let’s recap.

This day in history: The composer, director, and serial rapist Joesph Brooks died by suicide.

 

When we left off, Chedward had just told Ana that he really enjoyed the vanilla sex they had the night before. Because what better way to compliment a woman than to act surprised that you enjoyed sex with her.

So, now he and Ana are in the bathroom together, filling up the tub and getting nekkid.

Normally, I would expect any woman I was about to bathe with to have her eyes cast down in modesty.

But not Ana.

She doesn’t drop her gaze, and her eyes glow with anticipation and curiosity. But she has her arms wrapped around herself; she’s shy.

It’s arousing.

No. It’s confusing. You’re turned on because she’s not modest, you’re turned on because she’s shy, which one is it? I mean, I get it, it’s flattering that she’s so into your glorious semi-nakedness (remember, Christian is a Never Nude for the first book and Donald Ducks it through a lot of the sex scenes). Maybe it’s just the way it’s written, though I don’t know what I would do to fix it.

Full disclosure, I’m pretty high right now.

So, he takes his t-shirt off, reminding me that, despite what the movie’s lies have told you, the first time Christian and Ana have sex, he’s straight up Pooh Bear sticking it to her honey pot. I honestly cannot think of anything I find less attractive than a man wearing nothing but a t-shirt, a full-on rager poking out beneath the hem of it. I suppose that’s why they left that bit out of the movie.

And to think she’s never bathed with a man.

I can claim another first.

I bet he’s scrapbooking all of her milestones. He probably saves the tampon from the tampon scene later and pastes it in there.

“I know that lip is delicious, I can attest to that, but will you stop biting it? Your chewing it makes me want to fuck you, and you’re sore, okay?”

“Can you stop doing this thing you’re doing unconsciously that makes you solely responsible for my behavior k thnx by”

Chedward mentions something about his iPod an water not mixing, and you know, yeah, it dates the book to have the iPod mentioned in there, but I’ve never understood that whole, “Don’t date your book by putting brand names, etc. in it.” In ten years, any mention of anything is going to be dated, because things move that fast, technologically. And in a hundred years, is it really going to matter? Do we look at Jane Austen’s books and go, “Gosh, Jane, you really dated your work with all this carriage talk”?

Immediately she hangs her head when I step back to admire her.

“Hey.” My voice is gentle and encourages her to peek up at me. “Anastasia, you’re a very beautiful woman, the whole package. Don’t hang your head like you’re ashamed. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s a real joy to stand here and look at you.”

Okay, but read that last part again, but imagine this prickhole saying it:

You can hear it, can’t you? Oh, you can’t? Just switch out “Anastasia” for “my daughter, Ivanka.”

She sits down with indecent haste and winces as her sore body hits the water.

Indecent haste? Every time I think we’ve hit the pinnacle of clumsy, weird wording, we’re forced higher yet up the summit of Mt. Word Garbage. Also, did Ana have sex, or a baby? I get that because Fifty Shades Of Grey is a rip-off of Twilight, Ana must be injured by sex in some way (as Bella was in Breaking Dawn). But how dry and unaroused was she that he tore her whole downstairs deal up that badly?

I could get into this whole thing about why women so enjoy reading depictions of first time sex as inevitably painful to the point of total genital obliteration, but I don’t have that kind of time. I don’t mind reading a depiction of first time sex in which the heroine experiences some level of discomfort. I think many people with vaginas have had at least some feeling of unpleasantness during first time intercourse, ranging from “Holy shit, ow!” to “This doesn’t hurt, but it feels fucking disgusting.” It’s not even a big deal for a heroine to be sore. But the whole, “It’s so super painful, his powerful cock just tore my entire business to pieces,” thing being not just common in a defloration scene, but expected by readers perplexes me.

She asks Edward to join her (oh my god, I legitimately forgot it was Christian, not Edward, for a minute), and he gets in the tub and starts washing her and grinding on her, etc.

I wash her arms and her underarms, then reach my first goal: her breasts.

He gets out of the bath and runs to the other room to check “breasts” off on his to-do list for the week (not really), and we get to hear more about Ana’s spectacular body, which continues to annoy me not because Christian finds Ana attractive, but because Ana doesn’t believe she is attractive, and this book takes the “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” trope to such an irritating summit that I doubt even the most seasoned sherpa could reach. We get it. Ana lights up your world like nobody else. The way that she flips her hair gets you overwhelmed. And as she smiles at the ground it’s not hard to tell she don’t know, oh oh, she don’t know she’s beautiful.

And yes, I like One Direction, but that song is as disgusting and horrifying as a trash barge capsizing and somehow Grey is even worse.

I still sing along with that fucking song when it comes on, though.

She’s aroused. My body responds in kind, growing beneath her.

He’s secretly one of those little capsules you dissolve in water and it becomes a foam dinosaur or something.

Christian sexily washes Ana’s undercarriage with a washcloth all lathered up with body wash.

She starts to pant and her hips move in synchronization with my hand.

She’s trying to get away from your hand, because you’re scrubbing soap directly into her urethra.

“Feel it baby.” I run my teeth along her earlobe. “Feel it for me.”

If you want to feel it, just squish your pee hole open and rub it hard with some soapy terrycloth.

So, he gets Ana really close to orgasm and stops, and he’s all, I have other plans for you, and then he tells her to wash him. In the process, Ana makes a new acquaintance and learns an important lesson about being a good friend.

Lifting my hips, I grab my cock. “I want you to become well-acquainted, on first-name terms, if you will, with my favorite and most cherished part of my body. I’m very attached to this.”

When I first recapped these books, we had a contest to name Chedward’s penis. The winning entry was “Buster Hymen.”  But all I can think about now is the fact that on Sex And The City, Charlotte’s weirdo Dune husband called his penis his “John Thomas” and spoke about it as though it were another person.

Her mouth drops open as she looks from my penis to my face…and back again. I can’t help my wicked grin. Her face is a picture of maidenly outrage.

Why would she be outraged?

But as she stares, her expression changes. First thoughtful, then assessing, and when her eyes meet mine, the challenge in them is clear.

I think James is trying to convey that Ana is surprised by how impressive Buster Hymen is, but that she becomes comically determined. But she chose the most sinister possible way of wording it.

Christian teaches Ana how to jack him off with body wash lube.

What is it about her inexperience that is so arousing? Is it that I’m enjoying all her firsts?

This is what I have been asking, Chedward. I bet you post “FIRST!!!!” in the comments sections of articles about horrific tragedies whenever you get the chance.

Suddenly she draws me into her mouth, sucking hard, her tongue torturing me.

I know she’s inexperienced and maidenly and virtuous and all that, but it seems like she would know enough, from common sense alone, to wash the soap off his cock before a blow job.

So, of course Ana is a natural at giving head. She has no gag reflex her first time out of the gate, she instinctively knows to cover her teeth, she’s a pro.

Except the way it’s described, he basically just uses her mouth like a vagina, then she bites him:

I thrust into her again and again, watching my cock disappear and reappear from her mouth. It’s beyond erotic. I’m so close. Suddenly she bares her teeth, gently squeezing me, and I’m undone, ejaculating into the back of her throat, crying out my pleasure.

This is yet another area of the book where the sex is so bland that it destroys the image of Christian Grey, sexual adventurer and connoisseur of all things naughty. Blow jobs require more than just an open mouth. You need tongue action. Ball fondling. Use of hands in conjunction with licking and sucking. But this insert-tab-a-into-slot-b beej is mind blowing to Christian Grey. He makes a huge deal about how great it was, then thinks:

Wait, that was so good, perhaps she has some experience after all. “Have you done that before?” I ask, and I’m not sure I want to know.

“No,” she says with obvious pride.

“Good.” I hope my relief is not too obvious. “Yet another first, Miss Steele. Well, you get an A in oral skills. Come, let’s go to bed, I owe you an orgasm.”

Christian can’t even recognized a polished, practiced oral technique, but I’m supposed to believe he’s a sexual dynamo?

They get out of the bath tub.

I hold her against me, kissing her, really kissing her.

Sorry, they got out of the bath tub, really got out of the bath tub.

Staring down into bemused eyes, I implore her. “Say yes.”

“To what?” she whispers.

“Yes to our arrangement. To being mine. Please, Ana.” And it’s the closest I’ve come to begging in a long time. I kiss her again, pouring my fervor into my kiss. When I take her hand, she looks dazed.

Dazzle her further, Grey.

He uses his tie to bind her wrists.

Gently I tug both her braids. “you look so young with these.” But they’re not going to stop me.

He tells her not to touch him, and she’s like, I won’t, but then of course she does try to touch him, and she also moves which is also not allowed, and he kisses her all over, erotic, erotic, erotic, intercourse, orgasms, etc. I’m not going to read the whole sex scene. It’s going to be the same one, over and over, for the entire book, and probably the next two books she rewrites as she waits for Stephenie Meyer to write something else she can rip off.

Oh, except for two things:

Once she’s prostrate, I lie down beside her, grab her fists, and raise them above her head.

Ana’s hands are tied in front of her. If her wrists are tied behind her back and he raised them above her head, he would probably break her shoulders, possibly her clavicles. Best case scenario, he blows every tendon her arms. So, Ana can’t be lying prostrate. Certainly that’s a one-time mistake, right?

Yet despite their missionary position sex:

Ana is still prostrate on the bed.

And there’s no mention of flipping her over or anything.

They hear that Christian’s mom has come over unexpectedly, and he tells Ana to get dressed:

“Come on, we need to get dressed–that’s if you want to meet my mother.” I smile at Ana as I pull on my jeans. She looks adorable.

“Christian–I can’t move,” she protests, but she’s grinning, too.

Never a mixed signal with this guy. I don’t want to be your boyfriend, Ana! Now come meet my mother!

Ana doesn’t want to meet his mother, though, since she doesn’t have any clean clothes and she doesn’t want to wear the we-just-banged uniform of his clothes.

“Anastasia, you could be wearing a sack and you’d look lovely. Please don’t worry. I’d like you to meet my mother. Get dressed. I’ll just go and calm her down. I’ll expect you out of that room in five minutes, otherwise I’ll come and drag you out of here myself in whatever you’re wearing. My T-shirts are in this drawer. My shirts are in the closet. Help yourself.”

Her eyes widen.

Yes. I’m serious, baby.

This is a lot like what I imagine dating a producer of Project Runway would be like. “With only the contents of this room,  you’ll put together an appropriate ‘meet the parents’ outfit. You have five minutes.”

Also, Christian is serious. If Ana isn’t dressed, he’s going to drag her out to meet his mother in whatever she has on. The threat implied here is that he’s going to drag her naked out of the room in front of his mother. What kind of fucked up mommy issues does this guy have that he’d involve his mother in his sex life?

Oh, shit. Right. My bad.

Christian goes out to see his mother talking with Taylor, and Chedward is all, “I’ll deal with her,” because romantic heroes should speak that way to their mothers who have never done anything but lavish them with gifts and praise and opportunity, but that’s neither here nor there. At least she calls him on it.

“Deal with me?” she says in rebuke. “I was shopping downtown and I thought I might pop in for coffee.” She stops. “If I’d known you weren’t alone…” She shrugs in an awkward, girlish way.

She has often stopped by for coffee and there was a woman here…she just never knew.

“What is ‘something a murderer would say’.”

Grace is surprised when Christian uses “she” pronouns to refer to Ana, because remember, everyone thinks Christian Grey is gay and it’s hilarious because obviously a glorious specimen in his virile prime like Christian Grey could never, ever, be gay in the fucked up heteronormative world of the Shadesverse. Which is the unofficial name for the series canon. I believe it’s really called Hell, because that’s where you are when you’re reading it.

So, Grace came over for coffee.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No. Thank you, darling.”

Okay, sure. Why not.

“I’ll meet your…friend and then I’ll go. I don’t want to interrupt you. I had a feeling that you’d be slaving away in your study. You work too hard, darling. I thought I might drag you away.”

What is all this hard work he does? He does literally nothing but drive around to stalk a girl and occasionally bark orders into his phone.

Christian asks Grace why she didn’t go to church.

“Carrick had to work, so we thought we’d go to an evening Mass. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ll come with us.”

They’re Catholic? Did this detail ever once come up during the first series?

Of course, Christian isn’t Catholic.

I raise an eyebrow in cynical contempt. “Mother, you know that’s not for me.”

God and I turned our backs on each other a long time ago.

This sounds like something an anti-hero would say in a comic book movie, just before he started plowing through zombies with a chainsaw.

Ana comes out and meets Grace Trevelyan-Grey, who I will continue to refer to as Chevalier Grey for the rest of the book. So, Ana has done what Christian wanted, what Christian expressly asked her to do.

“What a pleasure to meet you,” Grace says with a little too much enthusiasm for my liking.

“Dr. Trevelyan-Grey,” Ana says politely.

“Call me Grace,” she says, all at once amiable and informal.

What? Already?

So, Christian has gotten what he wanted, and now he doesn’t want it anymore. At least his spoiled brat contradictions are getting more predictable.

Ana gets a phone call, and excuses herself to take it. Christian ignores his mother while she talks to him so he can focus on eavesdropping on Ana.

Who is it?

“Look, José, now’s not a good time,” I hear her say.

That fucking photographer. What does he want?

“I left a message for Elliot, then found out he was in Portland. I haven’t seen him since last week,” Grace is saying.

Ana hangs up.

Grace continues as Ana approaches us again, “…and Elliot called to say you were around. I haven’t seen you for two weeks, darling.”

“Did he now?” I remark.

What does the photographer want?

His obsession is super scary. His mother is sitting in front of him and he’s ignoring her, so consumed by the idea of another man calling Ana–a girl he’s just met, who’s slept over one night, and who he has explicitly stated he has no intention of dating–that he can’t even bother to be polite.

Grace has to leave, and as she does:

“Of course, darling.” Grace turns her bright–and if I’m not mistaken, grateful–smile on Ana.

It’s irritating.

Again, he’s gotten what he wants, and now that he’s gotten it, he’s not happy with it.

My mother’s always thought I was gay. But as she’s always respected my boundaries, she’s never asked me.

Well, now she knows.

And again with the “I assure you, Christian Grey is not gay.”

Which, you know, we don’t need that kind of proof, do we? He expresses a sexual attraction only toward women throughout all the books. His only sexual partners have been women. Why does James feel the reader needs desperately to know that he’s straight?

Oh, homophobia. That’s right. Carry on.

You know what else Grace thinks about her son? That he’s darling. You know how I know that? Because she refers to him as “darling” three times in her very short appearance. Twice in one bit of dialogue.

Once Grace leaves, it’s time to deal with Ana’s pesky outside social life.

Ana is worrying her bottom lip, radiating anxiety…as she should be.

“So the photographer called?” I sound gruff.

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“Just to apologize, you know–for Friday.”

“I see.” Maybe he wants another shot at her. The thought is displeasing.

I feel so repetitive pointing this stuff out, because every thought in his head is like, “Ana is an object that belongs to me. Not a person. Unless that person is a child. Now I am mad at her, now she is perfect and her body is perfect, but also she’s like a child,” on a constant, gross loop.

So, Taylor comes in and tells Christian that the Darfur shipment has hit a snag. And finally we get to see Christian Grey’s job in action.

“Ros, what’s the issue?”

“Christian, hi. The report back from Darfur is not good. They can’t guarantee the safety of the shipments or road crew, and the State Department isn’t willing to sanction the relief without the NGO’s backing.”

Two things: While I know that “sanction” here is being used to mean that they condone the relief, when used in this context it’s very easy for a reader to believe that they want the State Department to impose a sanction on the relief effort. This is just a case where someone should have noticed the word choice and gone, “Wait, this can be taken a different way in this context,” but for whatever reason it slipped through the cracks. I’m only really pointing it out here to a) be pedantic and hypocritical, like I don’t make those types of mistakes all the time, and b) because it’s a really good example of why careful word choice is essential in some situations.

The other thing is, “without the NGO’s backing.” Okay. That sounds very business-ish and important, but which NGO? That acronym stands for Non-Governmental Organization. This is another word choice issue. Even though Chedward and Ros presumably know which NGO they’re both talking about, using the acronym as though it was the name of an actual organization looks like a mistake.

Fuck this.

“I’m not having either crew put at risk.” Ros knows this.

“We could try and pull in mercenaries,” she says.

“No, cancel–”

“But the cost,” she protests.

“We’ll air-drop instead.”

Okay, so…does Christian Grey run an NGO? The reason I ask is, he’s sending a relief shipment directly into a war zone, with what sounds like multiple teams of peace keepers that he directly employs. They know there’s an option to hire a company like Blackwater, and they’re going to stage an air-drop without support from an NGO and without permission from the United States.

Am I the only one who’s thinking, “Yeah, uh, for-profit corporations don’t really handle those types of projects”? It would make sense for Christian’s company to help fund a special interest NGO, give them products and stuff that would help relief efforts. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for one man to undertake a relief effort entirely on his own.

More support from the State Department would be helpful. I resolve to call Blandino to discuss this further.

My attention reverts to Miss Steele, who’s standing in my living room, regarding me warily. I need to get us back on track.

This super important business call has just happened about this super important thing, and Chedward is like, “hold on, I have to tend to my sexual garden.”

Yes. The contract. That’s the next step in our negotiation.

In my study, I gather the papers that are on my desk and stuff them into a manila envelope.

Ana’s not moved from where I left her in the living room. Perhaps she’s been thinking about the photographer…my mood takes a nosedive.

I’m just imagining Ana standing frozen in the middle of the room, unable to move and think at the same time.

Chedward gives Ana the contract and tells her to research BDSM on the internet. Which she can’t do, because:

“I don’t have a computer. I usually use the computers at school. I’ll see if I can use Kate’s laptop.”

No computer? How can a student not have a computer? Is she that broke? I hand her the envelope. “I’m sure I can, um–lend you one. Get your things, we’ll drive back to Portland and grab some lunch on the way. I need to dress.”

Christian echoes what we all thought when we read Fifty Shades of Grey. But again, here goes Christian, in the middle of a giant business crisis, stopping everything he’s doing to drive Ana back to Portland and have lunch with her on the way. He has a driver, and he could easily send her back home with said driver and handle this huge problem. But nope, Mr. Busy McBusiness Man has time to spare.

Sorry, starving people in war-torn Darfur. Chedward is horny. You’ll just have to wait.

“I’ll just make a call,” she says, her voice soft and hesitant.

“The photographer?” I snap. She looks guilty.

What the hell? I don’t like to share, Miss Steele. Remember that.” I storm out of the room before I say anything else.

Is she hung up on him?

Was she just using me to break her in?

Yes, Christian. Anastasia Steele has a thing for José, who clearly has a thing for her, and rather than hooking up with him, she decided that nay nay, she must first have sex with someone else, lest her virginity be lost to someone she cares about.

That all makes perfect sense.

I stuff the tie and two others into a messenger bag along with socks, underwear, and condoms.

What am I doing?

Deep down I know I’m going to stay at The Heathman all next week…to be near her.

Now Mr. Busy Businessman is going to leave the city where his company is headquartered so that he can spend all week in a different city just so he can have the peace of mind that he’s geographically closer to her.

The next section bogs us down with boring details about Elliot bringing back the SUV and how Taylor needs to call Audi because Christian will need the A3 sooner than he thought. Yet another example of how James tries to make Christian seem wealthy and important with the addition of these details about what the reader is meant to assume are expensive and exotic cars. The Audi A3 is a four-door hatchback that retail in the $30,000 neighborhood. I blame this mistake on the fact that Christian also drives an Audi R8, a supercar that costs almost $200,000 dollars. Maybe James assumed that the entire line was so decadently priced.

Christian also calls Barney:

“I’m working on the tablet design. The solar-cell issue is bugging me.”

Wait, isn’t this the same Barney who can get background checks on people? I spent the entire first trilogy assuming Barney was a private investigator. Now he works in tech at Grey Enterprises Holdings Incorporated NGO CPA Realty?

Chedward asks Barney if he has any laptops just sitting around, and he’s like, yeah, we just got two from Apple, so Christian asks him to set up an email for Ana. And Barney asks how she spells her name. And Christian spells it for her. And Barney tells Christian he’ll contact Andrea to set up a delivery. And Christian texts Andrea with the info to make the delivery. And we have to experience every torturous second of it.

Ana fidgets beside me as we wait for the elevator, her teeth on her plump lower lip.

It reminds me of her teeth on my cock.

“What is it, Anastasia?” I ask, as I reach out and pluck her chin. “Stop biting your lip, or I will fuck you in the elevator, and I don’t care who gets in with us,” I growl.

Yes you do. If you didn’t care who knows you’re into kinky shit, you wouldn’t have asked Ana to sign an NDA. And while we all know you go super hard in your darkity dark BDSM, public sex is still pretty fucking kinky.

“I need to talk to Kate. I’ve so many questions about sex, and you’re too involved. If you want me to do all these things, how do I know–” She stops, as if weighing her words. “I just don’t have any terms of reference.”

Not this again. We’ve been over this. I don’t want her talking to anyone. She’s signed an NDA.

See. You do care if people know about your sexual relationship with Ana. But Christian graciously consents to Ana talking about sex with Kate as long as it’s only stuff he and Ana have already done. Which is totally not what Ana just asked for. She wants advice specifically about “all these things” he wants to do to her.

“The sooner I have your submission the better, and we can stop all this.”

“Stop all what?”

“you, defying me.”

She’s defying him by wanting to share personal details of her life with someone she trusts and who can advise her about sexual experiences she hasn’t had yet. And Christian doesn’t want that. No abuser wants that, because they know that if their behavior is exposed to someone they can’t manipulate, there is a risk that the abuse might also be exposed to their victim. And this isn’t accidental, or something they do without thinking. Christian even has the explicit thought that Kate would “have his balls” if she found out his “real intentions.” He knows that Kate will stand between him and his goal of total physical, mental, and emotional control of Ana.

So far, this weekend has been unexpected. But what did I expect? I thought we’d have dinner, discuss the contract, and then what…? Perhaps fucking her was inevitable.

…Yes? Because the whole point of getting her to sign the contract was to make her a sex partner? I don’t…I just…

Christian thinks about how hot the blowey was, and how much he wants to fuck her again. But first they need to get lunch.

“Hungry?”

“Not particularly,” she responds, subdued.

This is getting old.

No shit. It got old three books ago. At least she didn’t say, “Not for food.” I’ve already got the cyanide capsule tucked into my cheek for when that happens.

Tune in next time when we’re still on the same goddamn chapter.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING ATLANTA APPEARANCE THIS WEEKEND

Hey everyone. Due to a serious medical emergency in the family, I have cancelled my appearance at The Novel Experience Event in Atlanta this weekend. If you were planning to come out and meet me either as part of the event or at the book signing on Saturday, I’m very sorry.