Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 74

GUEST POST: DARK PURSUIT collection

It’s finally here! Dark Pursuit is a collection of erotic romance stories about hunters and their prey and features stories by Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, Kris Norris, and Paige Prince. Even better? It’s available for a limited time for .99!

You can find Dark Pursuit at: Amazon * B&N * iBooks * Kobo * ARe

Tempted to Death by Jessica Jarman

Blurb: Months ago, Tara Wilcox ran away from Luca Castell and Oliver Gordon. She’d fallen hard for the pair of hunters and feared their growing feelings for her. But what truly terrified her was the possibility that they’d discover what she really is. That she’s the very thing they hunted.

Luca and Oliver are partners, in every sense of the word, and their lives are spent running toward danger. Falling for Tara was the biggest risk they’d ever taken, and her vanishing without a word gutted them.

But, she’s back, desperate for their help in hunting a vicious para creature. Despite the risks—to their lives and their hearts—reigniting the love they’d had is simple. But nothing is simple when, faced with an impossible choice, Tara reveals her true nature.

Now that Luca and Oliver know the truth, Tara has another choice to make—run again or trust that their love is strong enough to look beyond the monster she fears they’ll see.

Rising Blood by Bronwyn Green

Blurb: Vampire hunter, Harper Yovanoff, is not happy. Ever since her former partner vanished, she’d been content to work alone. Unfortunately, her boss doesn’t feel the same way. Harper’s been assigned a new partner—a new partner who’s an utter pain in her ass. Elliot Zielin is panty-meltingly gorgeous, but he’s also reckless, not to mention, insufferably arrogant. If he’s not careful, the vampires will be the least of his worries.

Elliot knows he should play nice with his new partner, but he can’t resist poking the bear—the tiny, angry bear who’s so freaking beautiful, she makes him ache for things he shouldn’t want. Despite the fact that Harper has a stake with his name on it, he keeps pushing.

When a powerful vampire begins actively stalking and turning hunters, Harper and Elliot are forced to work more closely together than ever in an effort to save their own. With tempers and adrenaline high, letting off a little steam goes way too far, and they both end up in a place they never expected. The threat against them increases and fighting their growing feelings for one another becomes impossible. But if they can’t stop the sire hell-bent on their destruction, all the love in the world won’t save them from becoming the very thing they hunt.

Grave Measures by Kris Norris

Blurb: Not all souls go quietly.

After the brutal murder of his girlfriend thrusts Daniel Cartwright into the world of the supernatural, he’s finally adjusted to the reality that monsters are real. And not all souls cross over on their own. He’d thought banishing her spirit would bring him peace—allow him to move on. That is until her ghost returns—angrier than ever and hell bent on finally completing her mission. She wants Daniel to join her…and she’s not taking no for an answer.

Arrynn Baker has spent the past two years watching Daniel flourish into one of Threshold’s best hunters. Decisive, highly skilled—she’s proud to be his partner. There’s just one small issue… She’s fallen for the man. Hard. While she’s not opposed to taking him as a lover, she’s not convinced he feels the same—not with the distance he seems to maintain. The emotional walls he never steps beyond. Besides, mixing business with pleasure rarely ends well.

When a grisly new killing rocks both their worlds, lines get crossed, and Daniel knows he’s got a choice to make. Either be content with one night with Arrynn, or man up and jump in. But if he wants a future with the woman of his dreams, he needs to deal with his past, once and for all. Even if the solution takes grave measures.

Next Lifetime by Paige Prince

Blurb: Born a witch, Sarah, the daughter of the town’s only judge, keeps her gift and her love of William, a lowly farmhand a closely guarded secret. Their plans for a life together come to a grisly end when Bastian, one of the world’s most feared and evil vampires, finds out about her power and decides to add another prize to his collection.

A hundred years later, William has been reborn as Lucas Dagan, the most powerful vampire hunter the Order of St. Marcellus has in its ranks. He has no memory of his past with Sarah. But, Sarah, now known as Caitlin, remembers. Worse, she’s now the very thing Lucas has sworn to exterminate from the earth. Any chance they might have had at happiness has been crushed.

But Bastian has returned with far more sinister plans. Duty and passion collide when Caitlin and Lucas are forced to fight together to save the world. But will determination and remembered love be enough? Because if Bastian has his way, there won’t be a Next Lifetime for anyone.

DOUBLE STEVE BONUS MODAY

(Aoki)

Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Midnight Sun: Grey, Saturday, May 21, 2011 or “THE BIGGEST CHAPTER EVER: PART TWO”

Well, here’s something shitty that happened. Twilight fans were waiting with rapt anticipation at the prospect that Stephenie Meyer might release Midnight Sun, the rewritten version of Twilight from Edward’s perspective, on the tenth anniversary of the original book’s publication. Instead, they got a rewritten Twilight with gender-swapped characters that they never asked for. Fans were heartbroken. Why did Meyer do this?

Well, because of E.L. James. At New York City Comic Con, Meyer told an audience of fans that she feels Midnight Sun is cursed. She’d actually started writing it again:

“What do you think was the top story on Yahoo the next morning?” she asked the crowd. “Grey.”

In other words, E.L. James stole from Meyer again. James also stole from the Twilight fans she exploited to barge her way to the top, then disparaged and distanced herself from when she got tired of their support.

“It was a literal flip the table moment for me,” Meyer reportedly said.

She deserves to flip that table. She was blatantly ripped-off by a woman whose monetary success threatens to surpass her own. E.L. James may very well make more money off Meyer’s creation than Meyer did. Meanwhile, Meyer’s fans are angry with her because she can’t commit to finishing something that very obviously causes bad feelings for her due to the situation E.L. James has caused. In 2013, Meyer said that Twilight was no longer a “happy place” for her. I wonder why?

This is bullshit. No matter what you think of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer has been repeatedly victimized by E.L. James, who’s going to smile her shitty little smile all the way to the bank. E.L. James knows what she did, but at this point she’s so successful, there’s nothing to be done. And Meyer can’t really speak out too forcefully about it because as a big name author, she has to Be Nice. I can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel to have something you care about stolen from you by someone who will never face a single consequence for it.

On that infuriating note, onto the recap.

Today’s recap is part two of a chapter that spans numerous chapters in Fifty Shades of Grey. So if you want to read this recap in tandem with the original recap, you’re going to want chapter six.

Quick shout out to Anna, who tracked down most of the pictures for the old recaps that were lost. Thanks, Anna! I’ll be updating the pictures every time I post a corresponding chapter in one of these recaps. By the time I’m finished, Darker Grey will be out and I can do the same thing with that recap.

This day in history: It would have been the fifth anniversary of the Montenegrin independence referendum.

Where we left off, Christian was about to accompany Ana home from his hotel, where he had kidnapped her while she was unconscious.

The car is waiting in one of the bays in front of the hotel; the valet is pacing impatiently. I give him an obscene tip and open the passenger door for Ana, who is quiet and introspective.

Okay, so if his female employees breathe wrong, he thinks horrible, withering thoughts about them, but a male valet can express visible impatience toward Chedward and he’s all, “Here, have an enormous tip.”

But she hasn’t run.

Even though I jumped her in the elevator.

I should say something about what happened in there–but what?

Sorry?

How was that for you?

What the hell are you doing to me?

What is it with these random line breaks?

They serve no purpose.

Except to try to create internal tension where there is none.

I guess we have to live with it.

Because she’s not going to put breaks where they’re needed, anyway.

We should be grateful for what we get.

As always, the underlines indicate italics in the text. Let’s talk about the “But she hasn’t run” part. She hasn’t run? That’s your indication that you’ve had a positive interaction with a woman? “Well, she hasn’t been creeped out or frightened enough so far that she would want to run away from me as though I were a true danger to her. This is a great sign!” That’s kind of a low bar, Chedward. It makes me wonder how many women have literally run away from you.

They get in the car and Christian turns on Delibe’s “Flower Duet”. Ana asks him what it is, and he tells her and asks if she likes it.

“Christian, it’s wonderful.”

He didn’t write it. Calm down.

It’s great that she likes this piece; it’s one of my favorites. I find myself beaming; she’s obviously excused me for the elevator outburst.

I have a feeling that Christian’s guilt here is meant to show the reader that he’s really a nice, sensitive guy who feels genuine remorse for pawing Ana in the elevator without her permission. Sorry, but it doesn’t work. A guy who was actually a nice dude wouldn’t have done that to someone he’s just met and doesn’t have a relationship with. If Mr. Jen did that to me, I’d be down with it, because we’ve been together for a long time and he knows me well enough to know that I would think it was kind of sexy, and I’m receptive to his sexual attention. Christian didn’t know that about Ana. So, that’s one problem with the whole wow, what a nice, sensitive guy he is vibe that James is trying to go for here.

Plus, he’s not really interested in whether or not she’s okay with what he did. He just wants to know that she’s not angry with him. There’s a difference between remorse for your actions and just wanting to be forgiven because you’re uncomfortable about your actions and how the consequences for them might play out. Christian is doing the latter.

“You like classical music?” she asks, as we cross the Fremont Bridge, and we fall into an easy conversation about my taste in music.

One of the things that’s super frustrating about this book is the way James will mention conversations that are meant to show Christian and Ana getting to know each other as though they’re an afterthought. It’s another case of assuming that everyone who picks up this book has obviously read the others. As shitty as the writing and character development in these books are, what little relationship development they have takes place in the conversations she’s blithely skipping over.

And now, more creepy behavior (I’m using “creepy” because a recent misogynist commenter who said he would find a story about me being raped funny hated the fact that I called a fictional man creepy. So, CREEEEEPY. CREEEEEEPY. MEN CAN BE TOTALLY CREEEPY AND I CAN THINK THIS EVEN THOUGH I’M AN UGLY WOMAN AND UNWORTHY OF MALE ATTENTION YOU AND CHRISTIAN ARE BOTH CREEEEEEEEPS). Chedward gets a call while he’s driving:

“Mr. Grey, it’s Welch here. I have the information you require.” Oh yes, details about the photographer.

“Good. E-mail it to me. Anything to add?”

“No, Sir.”

Ana is sitting right next to him while he gets an update on the background check he’s run on her friend. He’s grossly violating her privacy while she sits beside him, totally oblivious.

I press the button and the music is back. We both listen, now lost in the raw sound of Kings of Leon.

I didn’t realize Kings of Leon covered “Flower Duet.” In the original version of the story, the conversation that James has now skipped over is the one where the song switches to Kings of Leon.

Christian gets another call, this one from Andrea, about the non-disclosure agreement Christian plans to have Ana sign prior to fucking her. Ana is in the car with him, right now, again with no idea that Christian is orchestrating an elaborate plan to conquer her as she sits in the passenger seat.

It’s difficult to keep my eyes on the road. I want to stare at her. For all her maladroitness, she has a beautiful neckline, one that I’d like to kiss from the bottom of her ear right down to her shoulder.

Why would having a beautiful neck and being clumsy be mutually exclusive? Do all clumsy people have weirdly shaped necks? Did he assume she would have some kind of obvious malformation from a displaced vertebrae due to one of her repeated falls? Sometimes these sentences just don’t make any sense. It’s like saying, “Despite her hatred of broccoli, she had lovely feet.” The two don’t cancel each other out.

So here is an interesting thing that I had forgotten, which only makes the previous stuff even more creepy.

But not Craig creepy. The actual bad kind of creepy.

Christian gets another phone call, this one from Elliot:

“Hi, Christian, d’you get laid?”

Oh…smooth, dude, smooth.

“Hello, Elliot-I’m on speakerphone, and I’m not alone in the car.”

We’ll come back the “d’you get laid?” line, I promise.

Since I no longer have my original copy of Fifty Shades of Grey because fuck that book, that’s why, I couldn’t go back and re-read this scene. My early recaps aren’t super detailed, because at the time I wasn’t real sure anyone was reading them, so I didn’t spend a lot of time on them. My point being, I didn’t remember that all those phone calls Christian was receiving, the phone calls that were specifically about investigating and planning to fuck Ana were handled over the speaker phone. She listened to them, not knowing what they were about. That is just… oh my gosh, I can’t get over how awful that is.

Plus, it’s super rude to answer calls on speaker phone when someone is in the car with you. I absolutely hate it, under any circumstance, except for if the person on the other end of the line is giving the driver directions or it’s a call that’s going to concern everybody.

Back to the “d’you get laid?” part. Uh, Elliot? You knew your brother was going to pick up a drunk girl from the bar. You knew she was super drunk when they left. What you apparently don’t know is that he couldn’t have gotten laid. He could have raped her. Not the same thing as “getting laid.”

Elliot says hi over the speakerphone to Ana, and tells her he’s heard a lot about her, so we know he’s with Kate.

“I’m dropping Anastasia off now. Shall I pick you up?” I interject.

There’s no doubt Elliot will want to make a quick getaway.

We know that Elliot is a player, and it’s entirely likely that’s what Christian is talking about. He’d want to make a quick getaway because he’s a love-em-and-leave-em type. But after hearing Christian’s internal, immediate dislike of Kate, and the fact that Ana mentioned Kate by name in the conversation with Elliot, the way this is worded makes it seem like he’s saying Elliot would want to specifically get away from Kate. Which only adds to the Christian Grey charm.

“Why do you insist on calling me Anastasia?” she asks.

“Because it’s your name.”

“I prefer Ana.”

“Do you now?”

Ana is too everyday and ordinary for her. And too familiar. Those three letters have the power to wound…

He doesn’t want to say her name because he doesn’t want to get too close. In the next paragraph he thinks about how “invested” he is in Ana, and how much he wants to get to know her, and how crushing her rejection of him will be if it happens. I guess I can understand that, but…all of that is kind of secondary to being respectful and calling a person what she wants to fucking be called. Since he’s Christian Grey, his feelings matter more than Ana’s, and he’s not going to respect her request.

“Anastasia,” I say, ignoring her disapproving look. “What happened in the elevator–it won’t happen again–well, not unless it’s premeditated.”

That…is how you describe a homicide. Then again, this whole series is a homicide.

They get to her apartment, where she tells him that she liked him kissing her in the elevator. But since we’ve read the other book, we know that now that she’s told him this, he refuses to do anything physical with her until she’s jumped through his hoops. Once he has her consent, he no longer wants it without demanding further action from her.

Inside, Christian gets a chance to hate Kate some more, when she’s suspicious of the guy who took her drunk best friend to his hotel for the night:

What did she think I was going to do to the girl?

Rape her.

And what I want to say is something sarcastic about how she’s finally showing some interest in her friend, but I hold my tongue.

So, was Chedward kidnapping Ana a friendship test for Kate? Because he seems unreasonably pissed off that Kate, who was also wasted, didn’t do enough to protect her friend from his actions. I’m going to assume that assigning blame to people for his shitty actions because they didn’t do enough to stop him from said shitty actions is going to be a theme here.

Chedward addresses Kate as Miss Kavanagh:

“Christian, her name is Kate,” Elliot says with mild irritation.

“Kate,” I mutter, to be polite.

So he can stoop to using Kate’s preferred name, though it pains him, but he can’t do the same for Ana. I guess Kate isn’t extraordinary enough for him to bother with disrespecting her over the issue.

Elliot hugs Ana and of course Christian has possessive anger over that. He tells his brother they should go, and is disgusted when Elliot kisses Kate goodbye. Elliot also delivers the dreaded “Laters, baby,” line.

Ana’s reproachful eyes are on me, and for a moment I don’t know if it’s because of Elliot and Kate’s lascivious display or–

Hell! This is what she wants. To be courted and wooed.

I don’t do romance, sweetheart.

Elliot making out with Kate is lascivious, and in an earlier paragraph, “unseemly” and “uncomfortable,” but now it’s courting and wooing? Oh, wait, my bad. It’s only romance if it’s Christian and Ana, because theirs is truly a love for the ages.

Which is why he still wants to kiss her:

My thumb strays to her soft bottom lip, which I’d like to kiss again. But I can’t. Not until I have her consent.

“People think my hero doesn’t care about consent? I’ll show them! I’ll put in a line where he thinks about the word consent, while retaining all of the actions that show he doesn’t give a fuck about it!” – E.L. James, probably.

Christian reminds Ana that he’ll pick her up at eight, then he and Elliot go to the car.

“Man, I need some sleep,” Elliot says, as soon as we’re in the car. “That woman is voracious.”

You know, I’m impressed that James still managed to work in what a slut Kate is, even though she’s not in Ana’s pure, virginal head.

Elliot tries to make a joke about Christian and Ana having sex, again. You know, much in the way Emmett jokes about Edward potentially killing Bella in Midnight Sun. I don’t know why there would be such a striking parallel between the two books, I just don’t.

They repeat the earlier scene where Elliot sleeps and Christian turns up the music to try and impede him. Then we jump ahead to:

José Luis Rodriguez’s background check reveals a ticket for possession of marijuana.

Pretty sure possession was still a misdemeanor in Washington in 2011, unless there was a local Seattle law I’m not familiar with.

There is nothing in his police records for sexual harassment. Maybe last night would have been a first if I hadn’t intervened.

What José was doing wasn’t harassment, it was assault. It was also pretty much exactly the same thing Christian did to Ana in the elevator, even though she didn’t push him away. And I’m still mystified as to how drunkenly kissing a girl without consent is different or somehow worse than bodily removing a girl to a second location, undressing her while she’s unconscious, and sleeping in the bed next to her while you’re making all of those decisions sober, but whatever. All of your actions are excused by your tragic past.

And the little prick smokes weed? I hope he doesn’t smoke around Ana–and I hope she doesn’t smoke, period.

Smoking weed turns Christian Grey off? That’s all it takes, seriously?

I hope this is enough.

Most of the time, I feel personally insulted to see marijuana used as an indicator of low moral character, but here, it’s just laughable. The guy who gets a woman intoxicated to coerce her into sexual activities she doesn’t want to do, emotionally abuses her by isolating her from her family and friends, had her followed by a security team who reports everything back to him, and who is a generally snooty, unpleasant person inside his own head wants to pass judgment on people who just get stoned? Ha, okay, good luck with that, man.

Christian remotely prints copies of both the non-disclosure agreement and his Dom/sub contract (with Ana’s name and address already filled in) at his apartment.  Then Elliot comes in and is like, let’s go hiking, and Christian thinks about how childish he is. Then there’s a section break.

They’re out hiking, and there’s some internal monologue about the scent of pine and how it reminds him of running through the woods with his family while they hunted for wildlife to consume in order to quench the insatiable hunger that might make them a danger to the residents of Forks. Sorry, I meant, while they were hiking. Elliot talks to him, but all Christian can think of is Ana and if she’s going to agree to be his sub.

I picture her sleeping beside me, soft and small…and my cock twitches with expectation. I could have woken her and fucked her then–what a novelty that would have been.

I’m sure it would have been for her, too. Waking up, not knowing where she is, with a guy’s twitching cock being all like, “Hellos, baby.”

I’ll fuck her in time.

I’ll fuck her bound and with her smart mouth gagged.

After a section break, Christian is waiting for Ana outside of Clayton’s hardware. She gets out of work and Chedward sees some guy looking at her butt as she leaves. So Christian gets out of the car and holds the door open for Ana, because it’s easier than actually peeing on her to stake his claim.

Her lips curve into a shy smile as she approaches, her hair in a jaunty ponytail swinging in the evening breeze.

Yes, there’s no word an American man in his twenties uses more reliably than “jaunty.”

She’s dressed in black jeans…Jeans again.

Enjoy them while they last, Ana, because soon he’ll dictate all of your clothing choices. And food choices. Just all of your choices, in general.

In the back of the car, Chedward and Anabella hold hands:

She glances down at our joined fingers and I brush her knuckles with my thumb over and over. Her breath catches and her eyes meet mine. In them I see her longing and desire…and her sense of anticipation.

So, you’re holding her hand and gazing deeply into her eyes, and later you’re going to be pissed off because she somewhere got the idea that you were interested in her romantically. Okay.

They get to the building where the helipad is, and they have to take the elevator up. And of course, she gives him a “knowing look.” According to my Kindle’s search function, “knowing look” is used three times in the entire novel, and they’re all in this chapter, which is probably why it feels like they’re the only type of look anybody gives anybody.

As we stand inside I make a mental note to fuck her in an elevator one day.

MENTAL NOTES:

Call Ros
Buy milk
Fuck Ana in an elevator
Cancel World of Warcraft subscription

They get to the roof, where Christian doesn’t see his pilot:

But Joe, who runs the helipad in Portland, is in the small office. He salutes when I see him. He’s older than my grandpa, and what he doesn’t know about flying is not worth knowing; he flew Sikorskys in Korea for casualty evacuation, and boy, does he have some hair-raising stories.

I’m glad Christian isn’t a commercial airline pilot, if he thinks the only thing worth learning is what a dude who’s seventy-three, minimum, knows from his days flying helicopters in a war zone. “Attention all personnel! Attention all personnel!  This is your captain speaking. We’ve begun our final descent into Seattle. At this time all cabin service will be discontinued, and I’ve turned on the fasten seatbelt sign. Flight attendants, please load the outboard stretchers and cross-check for landing.” [M*A*S*H theme plays]

Holy fuck, is that Charlie Tango?

Also, let’s talk for a minute about Helicopter Joe and his military salute. First of all, why do we need to know so much information about Joe? In the original series, we never saw him again after this. I could get a line like, “He’s older than my grandpa and a Korean war vet” or something, but why do I need to know exactly what he flew on what kind of mission? Why do we need to know about his hair-raising stories? Why does any of it matter when we’ll never see this character again?

Unless, of course, telling us all that information about a barely-character, then having him saluting a civilian, is meant to impress us with the staggering amount of deference shown to said civilian. After all, if Christian Grey isn’t worthy of a salute from a man who risked his life in service to his country, then who is, right?

(For the record, I did an informal poll of current and former military in several branches and the answer to “would this guy salute a civilian” seemed split between, “he could if he wanted, I guess, but I don’t see why he’d want to” and “You never salute civilians unless they’re a head of state.”)

Christian tells Ana to get in the helicopter and not touch anything, and then he’s surprised when she doesn’t. What rational adult would get into a helicopter they were about to ride in and just start flipping toggles and shit without knowing what they’re doing?! PS. If you’re thinking, “Well, I would,” then you need to stay away from any dangerous machinery.

Crouching down beside her, I strap her into the seat harness, trying not to imagine her naked as I do it.

In his head he’s trying to convince us that he’s a perfect gentleman or something. I could have imagined her naked, but I didn’t! But all of his actions toward Ana remain the same as the first book.

Also, here’s a writing tip (for a problem I spot in my work a lot): you don’t have to specify “down” after “crouching.” You can’t “crouch up”. I do that with standing and jumping. “He stood up. He jumped up.” No shit, you can’t stand down, unless you’re Helicopter Joe when he was still in Korea.

I tighten the last strap. She’s not going anywhere.

No, that’s definitely not a borderline threatening turn of phrase.

Suppressing my excitement, I whisper, “You’re secure. No escaping.”

Neither is that.

“I like this harness,” I mutter. I want to tell her I have others, in leather, in which I’d like to see her trussed and suspended from the ceiling.

I give her a wink, she beams, and I’m dazzled.

There is a lot of detail regarding the helicopter:

Oil temperature is at 104. Good. I increase the manifold pressure to 14, the engine to 2500 rpm, and pull back on the throttle.

Nobody cares about any of that. This is not a helicopter flying manual. Although, it would probably make a better helicopter manual than the romance it fails to be.

And like the elegant bird she is…Charlie Tango rises into the air.

Has E.L. James ever seen a bird? Like, in person? Or even on a documentary? They don’t take off like helicopters. Do you know what animals do take off like helicopters? DRAGON FLIES. Which is A BETTER METAPHOR. So that’s why people USE IT.

Also, I don’t care how expensive your helicopter is, it doesn’t look elegant when it’s taking off. It looks like a drunk driver trying really hard at a roadside sobriety test.

So, they take off and they’re flying and Chedward thinks:

To me this is a comfort. Nothing can harm me here.

But whatever.

Ana asks how he knows he’s going the right way, and he thinks about how he doesn’t want to bore her talking about the instruments, but he does bore us by listing off the instruments. There more waxing egotistical about how his mastery of flight thrills him, and how awed Ana is by his skill, etc. He tells her that he’s never taken a date in his helicopter and asks her if she’s impressed, and she says she’s awed, and everyone is awed and Christian remembers his mother, Grace, saying that she was awed:

And I remember Grace, my mother, stroking my hair as I read out loud from The Once and Future King.

“Christian, that was wonderful. I’m awed, darling boy.”

I was seven and had only recently started speaking.

Only just started speaking, but can read The Once and Future King at age seven. No wonder he could just drop out of Harvard.

I’m going to skip over a bunch of stuff, because it’s boring and E.L. could have skipped over it the way she skipped over other stuff.  They’re about to land and Chedward asks Ana a question so she’ll look at him:

She does, with a huge cock-tightening grin.

I don’t even begin to know where to go with that.

In case he wasn’t already creepy enough (there I go, tossing that word around again like some hairy-legged feminazi):

She peers up at me. Trusting. Young. Sweet. Her delicious scent is almost my undoing.

Can I do this with her?

She’s an adult.

She can make her own decisions.

This is legitimately alarming. A lot of people felt that the emphasis on Ana’s child-like qualities made the first series border on glorification of pedophilia. I never really saw that angle, though the constant pigtails and mentions of how cute and small and innocent she was did gross me out, because coupled with her genuine naivety and unbelievable cluelessness it made her seem too emotionally immature to actually consent to anything Christian threw at her. But to be in Christian’s head, where he’s having to remind himself that the qualities he’s attracted to, the young, trusting, sweet qualities, are only okay since she’s an adult and not a child.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You know that, don’t you?” She needs to understand this. I want her submission, but more than that I want her consent.

If Christian had any actual concept of consent, he would realize that “I want to be your submissive” is not the same as “you now have an all-access pass to make me do whatever you want because I gave consent for this other stuff,” and he absolutely treats her that way for the rest of the book.

Christian gets her into the apartment and asks her if she wants some wine, then asks her if the one he has is okay. She’s like, yeah, I don’t know anything about wine. So then there are comments about how pale she is, and he asks her if she’s hungry, and she says his apartment is big, and she asks him if he plays the piano in his living room. Why the fuck would he have a piano if he didn’t know how to play, Ana?

“Of course you do. Is there anything you can’t do well?”

“Yes…a few things.”

Cook.

Tell jokes.

Make free and easy conversation with the woman I’m attracted to.

Be touched…

Not come off as an arrogant prick in 99% of sentences involving more than four words. Not stalk women. Not condescend to everyone around me. Treat my employees well. Lose a round of golf without having a hissy fit. Respect boundaries.

I can keep going.

Ana asks Christian why he sent her Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

“It seemed appropriate. I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase you completely like Alec d’Urberville.” My answer is truthful enough and has a certain irony to it. What I’m about to propose I suspect will be very far from her expectations.

“If there are only two choices, I’ll take the debasement,” she whispers.

Ana has read Tess of the d’Urbervilles, so she knows that Alec raped Tess. So she knows that Christian is saying he could either rape her, or expect her to be perfect and pure. But what Ana doesn’t know is that Christian is going to both hold her to impossibly high standards of virtue while sexually and emotionally abusing her throughout the rest of their relationship.

Wanna know how you can avoid this shit, if you ever want to incorporate the classics into your books? Actually understand the fucking book you’re making allusions to. In Twilight, Stephenie Meyer compares Edward and Bella to Romeo and Juliet. The parallel makes sense, because there could actually be tragic consequences resulting from a vampire and a human falling in love, and the relationship between Edward and Bella actually ends up endangering both of them at the end of the book. But Meyer actually understood the parallel she was making; James was ripping off Twilight, so she had to find some classical work to echo the inclusion of Romeo and Juliet in the source she was stealing from. For some reason, she picked a work she doesn’t seem to grasp at all.

“Anastasia, stop biting your lip, please. It’s very distracting. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she says, her teeth leaving little indentations on a bottom lip moist with wine.

This is the second time the word “moist” has been used since they arrived at the apartment. That word doesn’t bother me, but I’m including it for those of you who find it repulsive. I hope you enjoy it.

And there she is: disarming once more, surprising me at every turn. My cock concurs.

As Christian’s cock seems to be equivalent to Ana’s inner goddess, I’m thoroughly looking forward to seeing it dance the merengue.

Christian goes and gets the NDA and tells her she has to sign it because his lawyer says so:

“And if I don’t want to sign anything?”

“Then it’s Angel Clare high ideals, well, for most of the book anyway.” And I wouldn’t be able to touch you. I’ll send you home with Stephan, and I will try my very best to forget you. My anxiety mushrooms; this deal could go all to shit.

If he can’t fuck her, he’s not interested in her, despite how disarming she is and the fact that he’s never felt this way about another woman. We keep hearing over and over how unusual she is, how he’s so attracted to her, that she’s unlike anyone else, but at the end of the day, all Chedward still wants is a fuck toy. Readers of the original trilogy convinced themselves that Christian truly did love her, but couldn’t express it or even admit it to himself because of his pain. Being in his head proves the opposite: Christian is fully aware of his feelings for Ana, but he’s still only into it for the sex.

Ana signs the contract without looking at it, so Christian scolds her for that, but Ana says that she’s not going to talk about him anyway:

“Christian, what you fail to understand is that I wouldn’t talk about us to anyone anyway. Even Kate. So it’s immaterial whether I sign an agreement or not. If it means so much to you, or your lawyer, whom you obviously talk to, then fine. I’ll sign.”

Mmm, feel that totally-totally-natural-for-a-young-American-person dialogue. Satiny smooth.

“Fair point well made, Miss Steele,” I note dryly.

Ah, how I’ve missed that phrase. Although a search of the text reveals it’s only used three times in this version of the story. So savor them while you can.

And before I can begin my pitch, she asks, “Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian.”

What?

Me?

Make love?

What? Me? Make love?

And then we come to the infamous line that launched a thousand laughs of disbelief that anyone thought this was sexy in any way:

“No, Anastasia, it doesn’t. First, I don’t make love. I fuck, hard.”

She gasps. That’s made her think.

“Second, there’s a lot more paperwork to do. And third, you don’t yet know what you’re in for. You could still run from here screaming! Come, I want to show you my playroom.”

I’ll note here that there are some differences in the recaps of the original books and the text here. That’s because when I recapped the first book, I used an ebook version (I think it was .epub, specifically) of the Writer’s Coffee House edition loaned to me by someone else. I say “loaned” because she deleted it from her computer after giving it to me. So, I guess in reality she used me as her digital trashcan.

Anyway, in that pre-Vintage edition, those lines went “Firstly, secondly, thirdly,” instead of the way they’re presented right now. I’m not sure why they changed them. The -ly versions of ordinal numbers are considered by most grammarians to be the more formal format, and with Christian’s stilted way of talking it seems like they would be more fitting. So an editor dropped the ball there.

So, Ana asks Christian if he means that he wants to play Xbox, and he laughs at her and they go upstairs to the playroom.

This is it. Pay or play. Have I ever been this nervous? Realizing my desires depend on the turn of this key, I unlock the door, and in that moment I need to reassure her. “You can leave anytime. The helicopter is on standby to take you whenever you want to go; you can stay the night and go home in the morning. It’s fine, whatever you choose.”

Wait, the helicopter is on standby? With who? Christian doesn’t mention anyone being around when they land.

“Just open the damn door, Christian,” she says with a mulish expression and her arms crossed.

Ah, mulish. That really rams home how beautiful the chick you’re dating is.

(Did you see that? Mulish? Mule? Ram? Chick? No one appreciates my genius.)

This is the crossroads. I don’t want her to run. But I’ve never felt this exposed. Even in Elena’s hands…and I know it’s because she knows nothing about the lifestyle.

This is a referral problem. Elena knows plenty about the lifestyle, it’s Ana who doesn’t.

I open the door and follower her into my playroom.

My safe place.

The only place where I’m truly myself.

And that’s where I’m going to leave it.

On.

Another.

Deep.

Poetic.

Linebreak.

Palooza.

I think we only have one or two more parts of this chapter to go before we mercifully move on to another god damn day. Personally, I can’t wait to get to the part where he fucks her and she shouts like Charlie Brown getting frustrated with something.

Another book plagiarized by Laura Harner

Last night, I posted a story about Laura Harner, one of those rare authors capable of producing a high-volume of words in a short amount of time. Of course in Harner’s case, it’s not a matter of simply being prolific. Author Becky McGraw caught Harner in the act when word-for-word sections of her novel, My Kind of Trouble, appeared in Harner’s Coming Home Texas. It appears that Harner lifted McGraw’s entire novel, changing character and setting names, pronouns, and occasional phrases to disguise McGraw’s book, a M/F romance, into a M/M romance.

A commenter on my original post about Harner recognized Opal Carew’s Riding Steele in Harner’s Deuce Coop serial. Though the Deuce Coop series was pulled from most major retailers, as of this morning it was still available on All Romance eBooks. Let’s do the “compare screenshots” game. For those who aren’t able to view images, don’t worry; I’ll excerpt the appropriate text for you. I’ve got your back.

First, the description for Opal Carew’s Riding Steele:

In the arms of an outlaw, she found the freedom to live out her wildest fantasies. Don’t miss this scorching erotic romance from New York Times bestselling author Opal Carew, now available for the first time as a complete novel!

When Laurie is kidnapped by bikers, she has no idea her life is about to change forever. From the moment she meets Steele–their sinfully sexy leader–she can’t deny her fierce attraction. Even though she’s completely at his mercy, his eyes soften when he looks at her, and the other in his gang know she’s strictly hands off. But the more time she spends with Steele, the more her body insists she wants his powerful hands all over her.

Now she’s about to discover a new life on the open road…and what it means to be a part of a gang that shares everything. At first their wanton lifestyle shocks her senses–but once she’s had a taste of life on the edge, will she ever want to leave?

[underlines = italics]

Now let’s take a gander at Deuce Coop episode 1: Taken, the first in Harner’s MC serial:

For nearly five years, Deuce managed to keep his gang out of serious trouble, but a favor for a friend of a friend puts Deuce in a hell of a spot–take temporary–and unwilling–custody of a young man in a relationship that’s way over his head or leave him in the path of a near-certain death? Despite his decision to leave college-boy’s safety to chance in order to protect his gang from potential kidnapping charges, Cooper ends up cuffed to Deuce’s bed and he discovers fate has a different solution in mind.

When Cooper McElroy is kidnapped by bikers, he has no idea his life is about to change forever. From the moment he meets their sinfully sexy leader Deuce, he realizes the attraction might be more dangerous than the situation the bikers claim to have saved him from. Kept in an isolated location, Cooper discovers this is one gang that doesn’t seem to have issues with territory–it’s all share and share alike. Cooper’s only protection is Deuce’s order declaring him off limits. But the more time Cooper spends with Deuce, the more his body insists it knows what it wants–so who’s going to save him now?

Cooper’s about to discover a new life on the open road…and what it means to be part of a gang that shares almost everything. Will he continue to seek his freedom or beg the gang to take him on the ride of his life?

Gosh, that sounds familiar. Why don’t we check out the first pages? Again, I’ll excerpt text for those who can’t view the images.

Here’s a sample of Carew’s Riding Steele:

And a sample from Harner’s Deuce Coop episode 1: Taken:

Carew’s opening paragraphs:

“Is that the woman Killer’s friend wants us to kidnap?”

Steele glanced in the direction Shock was looking. Steele and his men were sitting in a pub called Big Rigg that had heavy wooden tables and a rustic atmosphere. A woman walked toward one of the high tables at the bar where a suited man and a couple were sitting. He recognized the newcomer from the pictures of Craig’s sister that Killer had shown him.

They didn’t do her justice.

Harner’s opening paragraphs:

“Is that the dude Butcher’s friend wants us to snatch?”

Deuce glanced in the direction Gunny was staring. Deuce and his men sat in an old Route 66 bar, called Big Red’s, decorated in a rustic old west theme complete with heavy wooden tables and a copper bar. A slender young man walked toward the high bar where a suited man sat with a couple–all of their gazes fixed on the young man’s approach. Deuce recognized the newcomer from the pictures of Marcy’s brother that Butcher had shown him.

They didn’t do him justice.

Carew:

Steele nodded. “That’s the one.”

Her name was Laurie and she was stunning. Long, glossy, dark brown hair that careened loosely over her shoulders, beautiful big eyes, a pert nose, and lips that begged to be kissed. And her body. Damn! Every heart-stopping curve was showcased in her short, snug, black dress. His eyes followed the long, slim line of her torso to the arc of her hips, then down the longest legs he’d ever seen. Slim and shapely, ending in glossing black stilettos studded with rhinestones. How she could walk in those heels–which had to be at least six inches high–he didn’t know, but every man in the bar must be thanking his lucky stars at the sight of her glorious swaying ass. He allowed his gaze to make a leisurely climb upward before stopping at her breasts. Round, firm, and snugly cocooned in the tight black dress.

The hint of cleavage in the deep-V neckline caused his body to tighten. His fingers itched to wrap around those glorious breasts. To feel the softness in his hands. To stroke the nipples with his thumbs.

Fuck, his cock was swelling painfully in his jeans.

Harner:

Deuce nodded. “That’s the one.”

He was spectacular, in a wanna-fuck-that-twink sort of way. Long, glossy, auburn hair snaked down his back in a thick braid, deep set eyes, a straight nose and lips that begged to be tasted. And his body. Damn!

Staring at his thin leather belt, Deuce’s gaze traced upwards, following the long, slim line of his torso to the broader shoulders. Swimmer, maybe? As he neared the table, the young man’s shoulders hunched forward, and he ducked his head down, as if shy.

His skintight, jewel-encrusted jeans highlighted every slender curve of his ass and legs. His legs looked a mile-long, ending in cowboy boots that would look fucking hot wrapped around Deuce as he pounded…

Fuck! His cock was swelling painfully in his jeans.

It’s almost impressive how much Harner was still able to plagiarize from Carew here, given the fact that the characters are of mostly different physical and clothing descriptions.

Carew:

 But this was someone’s sister. Craig, killer’s friend. And Craig wanted to protect her.

Steele knew what that felt like. Thoughts of Chrissy shattered his mood. Dead at eighteen. Pain slashed through him. No matter how much Steele had tried to protect his younger sister, had tried to steer her from hanging around with the wrong crowd, headstrong Chrissy had ignored his sage advice and done whatever the hell she’d damned well pleased. And died of a drug overdose.

Harner:

Giving himself a mental head slap, Deuce reminded himself this was someone’s brother. Butcher’s friend Marcy. And Marcy wanted him protected.

Deuce knew what that felt like–he’d once had a sister he’d wanted to keep safe. Thoughts of Susan shattered his mood. Dead before she was old enough to drink–legally. Pain slashed through him. No matter how much Deuce had tried to protect his younger sister, had tried to keep her from hanging out with the wrong crowd, headstrong Susan had done whatever the hell she’d damned well pleased. And died of a drug overdose.

Carew:

Now he’d been offered a chance to help another brother save his sister from a bad situation. He’d been fucking tempted to do exactly what Craig had drunkenly suggested when they’d partied together with Killer the night before, but Steele drew the line at kidnapping.

Raven leaned closed to Rip. “What are they talking about? Are we going to kidnap someone?” She grinned. “Is that part of Steele’s birthday celebration?”

Harner:

Now, Marcy was in a similar position, with a brother–Cooper–in over his head…and she wanted to save him from a bad situation. Deuce had been fucking tempted to take Marcy up on her drunken suggestion when they’d partied together with Butcher the night before, but he and the gang drew the line at kidnapping. Now that he’d had an eyeful of the prospective abductee, he was damned glad he’d turned the job down. This one would be trouble to keep safe, regardless of his best intentions.

Ricky leaned close to Scorpion. “What are they talking about? Are we going to kidnap someone?” He grinned. “Is this part of Deuce’s birthday blow out?”

So, obviously, yes, this is another case of Laura Harner blatantly plagiarizing, turning a M/F romance into a M/M romance. But unlike McGraw’s indie, My Kind of Trouble, Carew’s Riding Steele is traditionally published by St. Martin’s Press. While McGraw has indicated that she’s pursuing legal action against Harner, St. Martin’s has more resources at their disposal should they decide to sue Harner as well.

I hope Harner put plenty of her stolen royalties aside for legal fees.

If you’re an author of paranormal, highlander, motor cycle club, firefighter, cowboy, or SEAL romances, I strongly urge you to check what Harner still has listed on retail sites to make sure you’re not being plagiarized as well.

Don’t Do This Ever (an advice column for writers): Plagiarism Warning edition

If you’re an author of paranormal, cowboy, SEAL, firefighter, highlander or motorcycle club romances, I urge you strongly to look through the extensive backlist of one Laura Harner, an unusually prolific author of M/M (male/male) romance. So prolific, in fact, that her GoodReads author page lists seventy-five releases since 2010.

If you’re not quick with math, that averages out to 15 novels a year. Some authors do put up those numbers, but their output is considered exceptional. Harner’s output is exceptional for a wholly different reason.

Two days ago, author Becky McGraw accused Harner of plagiarism in a Facebook post:

HOLY CRAP — do people have no morals about STEALING these days? I was just notified by a reader that she started reading M/M romance recently and read a book by another author that is almost VERBATIM my book My Kind of Trouble with the exception it’s a m/m book!! I need a recommendation for a good literary attorney fast!!

McGraw provided these two photos for comparison (I’ll excerpt some text to follow for those unable to see pictures, as there’s a lot of text). The first is McGraw’s My Kind of Trouble:

 

 

And the second is Harner’s most recent release, Coming Home Texas, which has now been removed from retailers:

 

Let’s do some comparison reading, shall we? First, McGraw’s opening paragraph:

Cassie Bellamy looked up and down the lonely road that led to her daddy’s ranch. She didn’t have much choice but to walk to town. She was stranded and her cell phone was dead. If she stayed there, they’d probably find her dried up, shriveled carcass at the side of the road being picked clean by buzzards.

Now Harner’s:

“Well dammit all to hell and Goldview, Texas, anyway,” Brandon Masters whispered under his breath. Not that there was anyone around to hear him, even if he shouted to the high heavens. He looked up and down the lonely stretch of highway. So close and yet so far, with nothing but his dead cell phone to keep him company. The way he saw the situation…he could suck it up and walk to town–or, he could wait around for the carrion feeders to discover his dried up, shriveled carcass at the side of the road.

Well, it’s not exactly the same, right? maybe it’s a coincidence? Let’s look at some more:

McGraw:

The only regret she had at the moment was driving her old pickup back to town instead of her BMW convertible. That had been a stupid, sentimental decision. Bessie had taken her out of town ten years ago, and Cassie thought it fitting that it should bring her back. Since she’d gotten the call from Imelda, the closest thing to a mother that Cassie had known since her own mother died when she was ten, Cassie had been in that mode. Once she decided she needed to come back, the memories she thought she buried ten years ago would not leave her alone. Thoughts of Luke Matthews would not leave her alone.

Harner:

Other than forgetting his car charger, his other regret at the moment was driving his old pickup back to town instead of his BMW convertible. That had been a stupid, sentimental decision–Old Blue had taken his sorry ass out of town nearly a dozen years ago, and Brandon thought it fitting that she should bring him back. Of course his new Beamer came with roadside assistance, so he’d let his auto club membership expire. That had worked out well. Not.

Since he’d gotten the call from Isabella–the closest thing to a mother that he’d known since his own mom died when he was nine–Brandon seemed to be stuck on a never ending sentimental highway. Once he decided he needed to come back, the memories he thought he buried long ago wouldn’t leave him alone.

Thoughts of Joe Martinez won’t leave me alone.

McGraw:

Even reminding herself that he had played her for a fool didn’t help. Reliving the nightmare of the night she left didn’t help. Remembering her revelation that Luke and Becca had done her a favor didn’t help either.

Harner:

Reliving the humiliation of the night he left didn’t help. Neither did reminding himself that Joe and Sara Lynn had done him a favor.

McGraw:

If she had stuck around Bowie, she’d probably be knocked up and living in a trailer like half the females she went to high school with. She had been just as stupid as those girls. She had given her virginity to Luke that summer by the lake, and condoms hadn’t been on their list of priorities in the heat of the moment. Any of their moments that summer. She had just been damn lucky.

Harner:

If he had stayed around Goldview, he’d probably be selling used cars, maybe living in a trailer somewhere. Or stuck living at home on his dad’s ranch. Or dead because he’d been stupid enough to give himself to Joe that summer by the lake, and condoms hadn’t been on their list of priorities in the heat of the moment. Given what he’d learned about Joe later, Brandon had been damned lucky he hadn’t caught anything.

McGraw:

Cassie was thankful her life in Phoenix didn’t include a passel of kids or a husband. She was content with her life. She had a successful career and a business, a nice little house, and as many toys as she wanted, like her Beamer. And she didn’t have to depend on anyone else for her happiness. Cassie depended on herself, and she liked it that way.

Well, there was James, but she tried not to depend on her fiancé too much, either, even though he was her business partner, too. Depending on other people meant letting down her guard to heartache and disappointment. Cassie hadn’t been disappointed in ten years. Not since she left Bowie.

Harner:

Nowadays, Brandon was thankful for his quiet life in San Diego. He had a successful career and business, a nice house, and could afford the toys he wanted, like his Beamer and his sailboat. He didn’t have to depend on anyone else for his happiness–and he liked it that way.

Well, there was Ellis, but he tried not to depend on his fiancé, even though they were business partners, too. He’d learned the hard way, depending on other people meant letting down his guard to heartache and disappointment. Brandon hadn’t been disappointed in more than a decade…not since he’d left Goldview.

Getting a sense of why, exactly, McGraw felt she had been plagiarized?

McGraw alerted her editor, who compared the books side-by-side, and highlighted the similarities on one page:

I stopped reading and writing M/M a while go, from sheer burnout, but from what I understand, Harner has made the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. With such high visibility, why did she think she wouldn’t get caught? [EDIT: I’m sorry, it’s McGraw who’s the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Which makes this even more bizarre. Why plagiarize someone with that kind of audience?]

Because Harner writes M/M, and McGraw’s book is a straight pairing. Harner’s clever trick here was to pick a book that was not M/M, but M/F contemporary romance. As far as readers go, there isn’t a lot of overlap between the two genres; M/M readers will in general read M/M voraciously, while M/F readers won’t stray to M/M often, either. What were the chances of a reader from both genres just happening upon both the plagiarized book and the book it was plagiarized from? With seventy-five books to her credit, she’s certainly skated by for a while without getting caught.

Since McGraw’s Facebook post, Harner has pulled ten of her titles from retailers, including Coming Home Texas. This seems to indicate that other titles have been plagiarized. I urge anyone who writes in any of the genres I listed at the top of this post to review Harner’s catalog before she pulls the rest in her desperate attempt to sweep her theft under the rug.

Look. We’re all grownups. We know not to steal each other’s work. And yes, sometimes a line or two will be subconsciously lifted from another work we’ve read. That happens to everyone. But this isn’t an accidental slip of the subconscious. This is deliberate, and not coincidental.  Readers aren’t stupid, authors aren’t stupid. We know the difference between thinking a phrase is original when you’ve just forgotten that you read it before and deliberately copy/pasting someone’s entire book and changing names, pronouns, and a few words here and there–especially when you don’t make the book available on Kobo, one of the few retail platforms that runs plagiarism checks on self-published works. [EDIT: It seems Harner is published on Kobo, or at least some of “her” books are. Should have fact checked that, even though I trusted the source. My bad.]

If you plagiarize, you will get caught. And when you get caught, hopefully your career will end and we’ll never hear from you again. If you don’t want that to happen, the answer is pretty simple: don’t plagiarize, ever.

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Lowlights From The Happiest Place On Earth

Yesterday, I shared with you a few fun stories about my vacation to Disney World. But with the good comes the bad.  Now, there isn’t much that’s bad about a visit to Disney World, but the bad things? Are infuriating. Let’s review a couple:

Double, side-by-side strollers. I don’t know who invented these, but I hope they realize that they’re monsters. I don’t know whose idea it was to make these a real, rentable thing in the parks, but I hope they realize that they’re an even worse monster.

Let me just speak to the inconsiderate double-wide stroller parent directly for a minute. Look, I get it. You have many children. And it’s difficult for the little ones to walk (and the not-so-little ones–we’ll get to that later) or for you to keep track of them all. And there’s nothing wrong with double strollers, in theory. It’s just the way you drive them.

For example, when my family was waiting to watch the Boo To You parade, and you forced your double, side-by-side stroller through a walkway too jammed with spectators that even a very thin person or a small child couldn’t make their way through. The off-duty cast member I’d been chatting with about the Headless Horseman suggested an alternate route that would be less congested; you agreed that way would probably be easier, but you still rammed your stroller into my husband and rolled it over the top of the cast member’s camera bag. Why would you do that?

It was because you were using that stroller. It robbed you of your sense, humanity, and spacial reasoning. You weren’t a pedestrian anymore, you were an Army Ranger at the wheel of an armored vehicle, mowing down sand dunes like they were cul-de-sac speed bumps. You were drunk on the power that double-wide stroller gave you. May god have mercy on your soul.

Jeffrey, you’re eleven years old. Speaking of strollers, let’s talk about children in strollers who are too old for strollers. Jeffrey was one of them.

As I stood under an awning, slathering sunscreen on my vulnerable Michigan skin, a woman pushed her rented stroller up to a bench near us. Her son was grumbling about something, and they were having a tense, under-their-breath exchange as the kid unbuckled himself and climbed out. As he sullenly took a seat on the bench, the woman snapped, “Jeffrey, you’re eleven years old! Act like it!”

Before anyone jumps in to say, “You don’t know if that kid is neurotypical! You don’t know that he wasn’t disabled!” well, you’re right. I have no way of knowing which of the hundreds of children over the age of twenty-five who were riding in rented strollers sized for toddlers were disabled or neurodivergent. But I do know that it’s highly unlikely that all of them were. While I don’t know Jeffrey’s story, I’m using him as an example of the overall attitude of the parents, regardless of his personal circumstances. Everywhere we looked, children who were well past the age where a stroller should be an option were lounging in them, or walking their feet on the ground to pull themselves along in them.

Look, I get it. At the end of the day, is it any skin off my nose that Jeffrey will still be using rented strollers in theme parks when he’s twenty-six? Not really, I guess. But the number of strollers that were in the park was absurd. They hindered you literally everywhere you went. And to see a kid who’ll be old enough to drive a car in five years sitting in one, having a preteen verbal spat with his mother, only made that problem more infuriating. One less stroller in the crowd would have meant one less stroller cutting through my path without so much as an excuse me, one less stroller halting suddenly in front of me without warning, one less stroller blocking a path or a bench. So it’s hard not to begrudge seventh graders lounging around in a stroller, sassing their parents when they could be walking like the rest of us.

Speaking of kids whose names are now burned into my brain… If you’ve ever been to Disney World, you’ve probably seen the ridiculously long line for the Seven Dwarves’ Mine Train. It’s like an hour, forty-five minutes wait at best. Except during extra magic hours, when there are fewer people in the park and the line moves along faster. Because this line is absolutely torturous, near the end there are some fun activities for bored kids who are waiting. One is a casual gaming experience like you could get on your phone, where you sort gems on a huge touch screen. Another is a fountain that releases water lit in various colors when you put your hand under the sensor. The last are some really neat, spinning barrels that project an animated image on the ceiling of the mine portion of the waiting area.

These are all terrible if there’s barely any line. And the reason they are terrible are Gretchen and Baylor.

These kids appeared to be siblings in a group of cousins led by two sisters who were their moms. I gleaned most of this dynamic from their loud conversations about stuff going on “back home,” conversations that were happening while they remained oblivious to the fact that while most of their party had moved up in the line, easily by fifteen feet, two of the kids were still standing at whichever of these activities they’d been captivated by. These kids were probably about thirteen and ten, respectively, and their names were Gretchen and Baylor (guess where one or both of his parents went to college). I know their names, because inevitably, as all of us behind this part stood gnashing our teeth and waiting for the kids to just move the fuck up already, their mother would notice them lagging behind and yell, “Gretchen! Baylor! Don’t make me have to tell you again.” And of course, she would have to tell them again, because she wouldn’t watch them for longer than it took to issue that weak parental non-threat.

For added fun, imagine these names being pronounced with some kind of southern U.S. accent that made them sound like “Gritch-in” and “BAYlooore.” I swear their mothers must have been former Texas pageant queens. And they weren’t the only inattentive parents we encountered. They were everywhere, staring at their phones and ignoring their bored children in long, hot lines. On the bus one night, a kid of about ten was using the straps meant for standing passengers to swing back and forth, nearly kicking another passenger until the bus driver intervened. Only then did his father look up from his phone and mutter, “Yeah, buddy, you can’t do that.”

A fool and his money are soon using the Disney dining plan. Disney World has a reputation for being extremely expensive. Because Disney World is extremely expensive. People have to save up for a long time to be able to afford the resort and the travel costs, and once you get there, you can plan on dropping around fifty bucks per meal, even at the most  modest dining locations. Luckily, Disney provides you with a dining plan option. There are various levels of this plan, but the one I think most people go with, out of a fear of starving to death, offers two “quick service” meals, one “table service” meal, and two snacks, per person, per day. If we had chosen this option as part of our vacation package, it would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1400.00.

All told, between souvenirs for all four of us (including an outrageous amount spent on a Princess Tiana costume with all the trimmings at Castle Couture), the occasional purchase of over the counter medication or bandaids, and meals, we spent considerably less than that. As in, hundreds of dollars less.

So, if the plan is designed to save families money and make things more convenient for them, why does it seem to be more expensive? Snacks. Every time we stopped for ice cream or a bottled water, someone would be in line near us muttering about how to spend their snacks. They just weren’t using them that often, and were left with tons of these left over opportunities for ice cream or popcorn that they just didn’t want but had already paid for. Or, parents would be standing outside of a “quick serve” restaurant, lamenting the fact that they’d split meals between their two toddlers, leaving them with eight superfluous meals they’d paid for, but simply wouldn’t be able to use up.

I’m sure the dining plan is awesome for some people. I vaguely remember it being awesome when we used it in 2007. But this time, I actually felt relieved that I didn’t have to figure out how to spend money I’d already spent.

Fastpass? More like…slow…pass. Okay, that wasn’t my best work. But I stand by this: Fastpass is ridiculous.  Fastpass is a system wherein you sign up for certain times to ride popular attractions (sometimes you get a Fastpass for priority seating at the fireworks or other shows), then you show up during those times and go to the front of the line.

I won’t go into all the ways various changes to the system have made Fastpass go from an interesting concept to a total frustration, but I will say this: it’s stupid to tell a large group of people to return to one specific spot during a specific time frame in an effort to make things go faster. It just doesn’t make sense. In the mornings, before the first Fastpass windows began, lines for some things could be long, but they moved at a steady pace. Then suddenly, Fastpass people would show up. They’d be put into their own line, which would feed into the main line further ahead, allowing them to skip over huge chunks of the waiting crowd. And since they could only show up during a specific window of time, that Fastpass hour would double the standby line.

There were times that the Fastpass line had a wait time that rivaled the standby line. So what was the point? Instead of standing in a line for twenty-five minutes, you stood in this other line for twenty minutes?

I’m not a crowd control engineer. Maybe Fastpass is a way to keep people from getting in line until they feel they have the incentive to, thus thinning the crowd in the standby line during non-Fastpass hours? But that would really only work if you rode just one time (my son rode Splash Mountain four times on our last day alone). Maybe it really does work great and it’s not observable to the naked eye? But for the average person waiting in either line, it seems like a big old mess.

If you ever win the lottery, though, and you want a true Fastpass? You can hire an official Disney “guide” for between $400 and $600 bucks per hour to let you skip the lines.

So, those are some of my Disney complaints. Overall, the vacation was amazing, but you know me. I love to have something to bitch about. Now I’m going to try to resume normal operations and pretend my neck isn’t crispy from forgetting to put sunscreen on it.

Highlights From The Happiest Place On Earth

Hey everybody! I’m back from my vacation, and it’s so good to be home. I was thinking I probably wouldn’t post about my vacation, because I don’t think in general anyone is really into hearing all the details about a trip they didn’t take and which doesn’t concern them. Maybe I’m just a dick like that. But there were some things that were too cool (and too infuriating) not to share. Today, the good:

The Headless Horseman’s horse is amazing. My family and I have wanted to visit Disney World during the Halloween season for a long time, because the Magic Kingdom goes all out for it. There was generous trick-or-treating (you could visit the locations as often as you liked), awesome fireworks, a Hocus Pocus-centric stage show, and an amazing parade that’s preceded by an appearance from the Headless Horseman face character. Wait, does “face character” apply when he’s got no head?

It’s pretty cool to see a headless man riding a coal-black steed and menacing you with a jack-o-lantern, but you’ve got to figure that’s kind of a dangerous stunt. After all, the rider’s visibility has to be severely restricted in the costume, and there are tons of kids watching the parade who could dart into the street at any moment.  He rides at a pretty good clip. It just seems like a recipe for disaster, right?

At the parade, we stood beside a guy who was an off-duty Disney “cast member”, which is what they call everyone who works in the parks. The guy wouldn’t tell us specifically what his job was, which led me to believe he might have been a character and couldn’t say so in front of guests. He explained that the trick to the Horseman wasn’t the rider, but the horse itself. It’s not only trained to know the parade route (including avoiding the treacherous trolley grooves on Main Street), but also to watch for people who might blunder into its path as it races through the Magic Kingdom with its headless rider. It will stop and wait for the person to get out of the way before resuming its fearsome flight.

He’s so fast, it’s hard to snap a picture of him!

The ducks. Following on our Headless Horseman theme, there’s a waffle stand that would make Leslie Knope cry with joy just by the entrance to Liberty Square off the main hub of the park. It’s called Sleepy Hollow, and they serve waffles with Nutella, with fruit, with strawberries and whipped cream, cinnamon sugar, they have waffle sandwiches with prosciutto and arugula, it’s really a strange little place (they also make funnel cakes).

I wasn’t lying.

And the strange little place has an outdoor seating area that is besieged by ducks.

Both times we ate at the location, pairs of ducks roamed from occupied table to occupied table. They would quack until you made eye contact with them, then they would quack some more and obviously eye your waffles. Mr.Jen tossed one a piece of arugula. It wasn’t interested. It wanted waffles and funnel cakes and whatever anyone had that was baked or deep fried.

When people weren’t feeding them, a few of them gathered in the middle of the seating area and started quacking loudly. I imagine they were making an announcement. Something along the lines of “Attention humans! I’ll just take a minute of your time. We would like waffles. We are not paid employees of the park and make our wages in dropped bits of waffle. If you could find it in your heart to please, sprinkle some crumbs on the ground, we would greatly appreciate it. God bless you.”

Off-Duty Fairy Godmother. Be Our Guest is probably the coolest Disney dining experience I’ve ever had. You get to eat in the Beast’s castle, in one of three themed rooms, including the massive ballroom that mimics the movie down to every last detail. There’s even a night sky behind the windows, as well as the occasional snow flurry. When you order your food, you do it on screens in the lobby, then pick whatever table you want to sit at and a cast member shows up at your table with all your food. How? They use RF transmitters located in your wristbands (look up Disney Magic Bands. They’re a trip) or in a rose they give you when you arrive. It’s a completely cool thing.

How could you not want to eat here?

I had no idea the location was so popular, so I never made a reservation for it. I’ve since learned that people staying at the resorts should make their reservation something like 180 days in advance. We were like, bummer, maybe next time and left it out of our plans.

On the first night of our vacation, we went to Fantasmic, an elaborate water effects, fireworks, and stage show at Disney Hollywood Studios. While we waited in an enormous line for seating, an older lady started up a conversation with my six-year-old daughter. She asked her how she was enjoying the park, what she planned to do on the trip, and if she was going to eat at Be Our Guest. I said that no, sadly, we didn’t have a reservation. And she asked, “Do you want to go?”

The woman was an off-duty cast member who worked at Be Our Guest. She told us to show up as soon as we could after park open, and to tell them her name and that she’d sent us. And it was as easy as that.

Or, would have been. That night Mr.Jen checked to see if a reservation had opened up, and one had, at 8:55, five minutes before park open. But the fact that this woman decided to do us that solid was fantastic.

There’s a guy who wakes up the ducks. Remember how our restaurant reservation was before park open? They have a system where you can enter the park early, directed to the right place by cast members who make sure you’re staying on track and not using your “reservation” as an excuse to camp out in line for a popular attraction like Anna and Elsa at Princess Hall or the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or something.

So, we’re walking along this designated path, and near the castle there’s a guy with a duck call, quacking at these ducks who’re sleeping on the grass. I asked him, “Uh, are you waking up those ducks?” He nodded and smiled and said, “Yeah, we like them to be awake when the park opens and the guests are arriving.” Like it was a totally normal thing to be doing.

Seriously. There’s a guy who walks around and wakes up the ducks so they’ll be ready to receive guests.

So many employees with visible disabilities. You know what I’ve hardly ever thought about? How invisible people with visible disabilities are in the service industry.

That all changed after my week at Disney. Every day I saw people in wheelchairs, people with prosthetic limbs, people using forearm crutches, doing things like serving food or checking us in at the front gate. Things that you wouldn’t normally see a person with a visible disability doing, because frankly, employers would fear that abled guests would feel uncomfortable.

This was rad, but also kind of disheartening, because I realized I’d never seen so many visibly disabled people working in visible service positions like that before. It shouldn’t be novel to see a person with a visible disability working in hospitality, so why is it?

Now, there isn’t much that’s bad about a visit to Disney World, but the bad things? Are infuriating. I will complain about them at length in tomorrow’s post.

DOUBLE STEVE BONUS MONDAY

(Spielberg)

State Of The Trout: Vacation!

Hi there! This is just another reminder that I’m on vacation. I’ll be back next week, and better than ever!

Well, probably not. In fact, probably slightly less better because I’ll be tired. But I’ll try, damn it!

When I return, I vow there will be more The Afflicted, another chapter of Biter for my Patreon buddies, and a return to our regular recap schedule, because I don’t have to travel again until March.

So many months without travel. I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Anyway, thanks for your patience with all of my absences this year. I feel like someone should call a truancy officer or something.