Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 19
December 16, 2013
THE PERILOUS CHOICE--BOOK SAMPLE!
I debated a while on what chunk to share, and I decided on this piece. Melphanie is probably one of my favorite characters in this story because of how much she hates the protagonist. She's a prickly personality to work with and I'm probably going to hang onto her for at least one more book just because damn is she fun to have around.
Editing is still pretty rough at this stage, but I wanted ya'll to know what's coming.
The lists posted every morning. Not work assignments. If work were assigned, Alys thought perhaps the former slaves would have revolted on the second day, the free-born, the third. But they were simply blank lists. Sign your name under the Miller’s sign, make your mark beneath Gerswyr Hunter’s. Now you hunt, or spin. Or build houses under Pardal Norestrain’s guidance, or try to manage the inner workings of the Keep under Bennatus. There were always very few names under that list at first, and Alys was rather tempted to put her name down, just to see how the Keep’s government was forming.
One day we will have one. Mayhap not in my life, but in my children’s lives. We will have shops, and roads. Perhaps even a school.
It excited her.
The lists filled in early. Each employer only needed so many hands, and some of those places were filled by trained workers. Apprentices, craftsmen and the like. Getting one of those positions was up to Thread, or Smith, or whoever. But you’d get their notice if you were a list man and you worked well, and there was always a crowd of people in the mornings, standing near the list board with a pen or charred stick in hand. Leythorne had to post a guard at the board simply to watch and testify who made which mark on the lists.
There were some lists that never filled up. Someone had to clean the Keep, and there was an awful lot of Keep to clean. Just because the Lord’s magic had cleansed it of the Duskin’s evil didn’t mean that the dirt of living didn’t accumulate in corners. Hunting was never-ending, and the kitchens always had scut-work.
Alys always hurried to get her name down on the lists she preferred. Most days it was hunting and the kitchens. Today, however, she had another goal.
She wanted to go on the ships.
The lists are being posted early. Not all will want to go. There is still time to get your name in. You will not need to ask his favor.
There they were, sheets of parchment with the terms written out in careful script she could just read. A woman stood beside it, explaining what the job was to those who could not read. Alys hurried forward and reached for the pen.
The woman set a gentle hand on hers. “Not until these have had their chance to understand.”
“I understand it. Long journey on untested ships, with a mad Fae and a high chance of death.” She said. “Let me sign.”
“That sounds right up your alley.” A taunting voice came from behind. Alys did not need to turn. Of course it was Melphanie.
I will not respond. Not to her baiting. Not to her at all. Melphanie was here to supervise her own list, of course. Finding women wasn’t as difficult as Alys would have liked. Many in the Harem had simply begun their services voluntarily. They knew it, and she had heard that the exchange was fair; when the Lord had opened rooms in the main keep, most of Melphanie’s women had taken them. Melphanie herself had gotten one of the few houses outside of the Keep fit to keep rats in, let alone a human, and she had decked it out with silks and furs that no one would miss. That’s where her women worked, where he herself did.
“But can you not just ask for a place? You lie in his arms. It should be easy for you.” The dark woman continued.
“Mind your tongue.” Alys said, sharper than she’d intended. “Or else I’ll mind it for you.”
The crowd rushed forward to sign. Alys cursed Melphanie again, double curse because if every man and woman there were after the Lord’s mission, she wouldn’t get a place at all, and she would have to do what Melphanie accused her of doing. But there were only three marks atop the list, two exes and a badly scrawled flower. Alys wrote her name beneath it, then quickly added her name to the lower portions of the Kitchen list and the Hunt. The Mission wouldn’t be for another week at least. She’d have to keep her old places until then.
She dropped the pen into the next waiting hand…only to see Melphanie push forward and sign her name beneath Alys’ with a flourish. She dropped the pen to the next person and stepped away, a dazed look in her eyes.
“You’re going?” Alys asked, in shock. “You?” The other woman said nothing, her face flashing from pleasure to something very like pain. Quickly, Melphanie fled and Alys followed, pushing through the bodies until she found the other woman’s arm. “Why are you going?” She said. “How can you wish to go?”
Melphanie stopped suddenly and wheeled on Alys. “Because my job is not me.” She shouted. “And this place is not me. I do not know who I am. I was not given to swords and bows and hunting. I want to know me, and that means knowing the world. Do you think I care any less for our homes because you earn your room with your bow and I earn mine on my back?”
Alys had nothing to say.
“You all think I’m less of a person, that I am weak, or weak willed, or a fool. I am trying to survive. I don’t have to struggle to learn how to do this. It’s my job, and I do it well. Now here’s another for me to try. Complain to your lover if you don’t want me. Otherwise, leave me be.” She snatched her arm from Aly’s grip and walked away.
Editing is still pretty rough at this stage, but I wanted ya'll to know what's coming.
The lists posted every morning. Not work assignments. If work were assigned, Alys thought perhaps the former slaves would have revolted on the second day, the free-born, the third. But they were simply blank lists. Sign your name under the Miller’s sign, make your mark beneath Gerswyr Hunter’s. Now you hunt, or spin. Or build houses under Pardal Norestrain’s guidance, or try to manage the inner workings of the Keep under Bennatus. There were always very few names under that list at first, and Alys was rather tempted to put her name down, just to see how the Keep’s government was forming.
One day we will have one. Mayhap not in my life, but in my children’s lives. We will have shops, and roads. Perhaps even a school.
It excited her.
The lists filled in early. Each employer only needed so many hands, and some of those places were filled by trained workers. Apprentices, craftsmen and the like. Getting one of those positions was up to Thread, or Smith, or whoever. But you’d get their notice if you were a list man and you worked well, and there was always a crowd of people in the mornings, standing near the list board with a pen or charred stick in hand. Leythorne had to post a guard at the board simply to watch and testify who made which mark on the lists.
There were some lists that never filled up. Someone had to clean the Keep, and there was an awful lot of Keep to clean. Just because the Lord’s magic had cleansed it of the Duskin’s evil didn’t mean that the dirt of living didn’t accumulate in corners. Hunting was never-ending, and the kitchens always had scut-work.
Alys always hurried to get her name down on the lists she preferred. Most days it was hunting and the kitchens. Today, however, she had another goal.
She wanted to go on the ships.
The lists are being posted early. Not all will want to go. There is still time to get your name in. You will not need to ask his favor.
There they were, sheets of parchment with the terms written out in careful script she could just read. A woman stood beside it, explaining what the job was to those who could not read. Alys hurried forward and reached for the pen.
The woman set a gentle hand on hers. “Not until these have had their chance to understand.”
“I understand it. Long journey on untested ships, with a mad Fae and a high chance of death.” She said. “Let me sign.”
“That sounds right up your alley.” A taunting voice came from behind. Alys did not need to turn. Of course it was Melphanie.
I will not respond. Not to her baiting. Not to her at all. Melphanie was here to supervise her own list, of course. Finding women wasn’t as difficult as Alys would have liked. Many in the Harem had simply begun their services voluntarily. They knew it, and she had heard that the exchange was fair; when the Lord had opened rooms in the main keep, most of Melphanie’s women had taken them. Melphanie herself had gotten one of the few houses outside of the Keep fit to keep rats in, let alone a human, and she had decked it out with silks and furs that no one would miss. That’s where her women worked, where he herself did.
“But can you not just ask for a place? You lie in his arms. It should be easy for you.” The dark woman continued.
“Mind your tongue.” Alys said, sharper than she’d intended. “Or else I’ll mind it for you.”
The crowd rushed forward to sign. Alys cursed Melphanie again, double curse because if every man and woman there were after the Lord’s mission, she wouldn’t get a place at all, and she would have to do what Melphanie accused her of doing. But there were only three marks atop the list, two exes and a badly scrawled flower. Alys wrote her name beneath it, then quickly added her name to the lower portions of the Kitchen list and the Hunt. The Mission wouldn’t be for another week at least. She’d have to keep her old places until then.
She dropped the pen into the next waiting hand…only to see Melphanie push forward and sign her name beneath Alys’ with a flourish. She dropped the pen to the next person and stepped away, a dazed look in her eyes.
“You’re going?” Alys asked, in shock. “You?” The other woman said nothing, her face flashing from pleasure to something very like pain. Quickly, Melphanie fled and Alys followed, pushing through the bodies until she found the other woman’s arm. “Why are you going?” She said. “How can you wish to go?”
Melphanie stopped suddenly and wheeled on Alys. “Because my job is not me.” She shouted. “And this place is not me. I do not know who I am. I was not given to swords and bows and hunting. I want to know me, and that means knowing the world. Do you think I care any less for our homes because you earn your room with your bow and I earn mine on my back?”
Alys had nothing to say.
“You all think I’m less of a person, that I am weak, or weak willed, or a fool. I am trying to survive. I don’t have to struggle to learn how to do this. It’s my job, and I do it well. Now here’s another for me to try. Complain to your lover if you don’t want me. Otherwise, leave me be.” She snatched her arm from Aly’s grip and walked away.
December 14, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 47-48
So now we're stuck in the Mother of all Darkness's head? And Anita is panicking? And this is somehow effecting the guys back at the ballet but Anita has no idea how?
I have no idea. Whatever potential plot we had is gone now, and I'm just scratching my head going whoza what now?
Anita yanks herself out of the vampire dream by burning herself badly on her own cross. Everyone gathers around to watch Richard slowly peel her fingers off the cross, and apparently "peel" is the right word because bits of Anita have cooked to the cross and it's very painful.
And then they send for Dr. Lillian. They do not, mind, get Anita out of the as-yet-unseen Merlin's range. Nope. They just drag up their best were-doc because who cares about putting non-combatants in the line of fire. The reason you keep your doctors and leaders away from the front lines, kids? SO THEY CAN STILL LEAD AND FIX YOU WHEN YOU GET SHOT. Losing a couple of the guys would be sad. Losing Lillian would be very bad because there's no way to get another doctor who won't report all of them to the nearest health board and/or cop.
Anita has a phobia about needles. Oh, she needs to be sheltered from the nasty needle. Oh oh oh oh please no needles.
Richard heads back to his date. Which he abandoned because his ex-girlfriend got hurt.
They're all terrible people. End of chapter.
Next chapter.
They drag Anita to the restaurant to do first aid on one of the fancy tables. Given that first aid involves yanking cooked in metal from Anita's hand? I am cringing for the staff when they get back. That's literally a has-mat job. First, because it's blood, and second, because it's shape shifter blood. Anita isn't a shifter, but she's established as a carrier and she ought to be contageous. So that blood spilling all over the floor, and the tablecloths, and the tables, plates, cups, silverware, candles, candle sticks and god knows what else could potentially pass therianthropy on to whoever has to clean that shit up. And possibly to a diner. I don't remember how long it can remain viable outside the body, if this were ever established, but if you can get aids from blood soaked day old needles (you can) at least one person ought to sweat the fact that a lycanthropy carrier is bleeding all over surfaces where non-infected people are going to eat.
There is no reason this could not have been done in a bathroom...other than because we want to have this done on a table with Nathanial straddling Anita's body and kissing her while they pull the cross out. SPECIFICALLY to stifle her screams.
Yes. Nate's job is to gag a screaming woman in severe pain by kissing her. This is supposed to be romantic.
They take a moment to establish that the tablecloths are being bundled up. No mention is made of bleach buckets, mops, rags, though Anita does wonder how they will explain the fresh blood. I wonder if they're going to bother informing the cleaning crew that the blood could probably infect them with wolf, lion, leopard or Who The Fuck Knows, It's Just Special, but that's just me being silly and worrying about the welfare of other human beings.
They start worrying about the MOAD. What about Merlin? The guy that Jean Claude was stressing over? The guy you powered up the kitties for? WHAT ABOUT
oh please tell me you're not seriously going to pretend that was just Anita enjoying the show. YOU WERE GEARING UP FOR BATTLE THERE. THIS IS WHAT YOU'VE BEEN LEADING UP TO YOU--
--they're leaving the theater. THEY. ARE LEAVING. THE THEATER. HOPE YOU DIDN'T WANT A DANCE PLOT BOYS AND GIRLS BECAUSE THAT WAS IT.
However, Lillian still thinks that the Dance Plot can be resuscitated and asks Anita to clear the morphene out of her system by...
oh fuck me gently with a buzzsaw she's summoning the goddamned munin.
ARE YOU ALLERGIC, LARUELL? IS THAT IT? ARE YOU JUST PLAIN ALLERGIC TO HAVING PLOTS NOW? IS THAT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS? WHAT THE FUCK, IT WAS RIGHT THERE. I WAS LOOKING AT IT. YOU HAD A PLOT AND THEN YOU DERAILED IT SO WE CAN WATCH RANIA TORTURE-FUCK SOMEBODY NEW.
I DONT EVEN I CAN'T THERE IS NO EVEN THERE IS NOTHING THERE IS ONLY FUCK.
So yeah, they kick Lillian out of the car, and she drops plot points to try to keep us entertained but Anita is too busy getting Jason to help her out of her glittery corset to bother. We get a run-down of Rania's history which basically boils down to "Murderer who died horribly who should be fucking dead and out of this goddamn book."
And the one person here Anita hasn't fed on, who would "Count" to Rania for some reason (I DON'T EVEN FUCKING KNOW) Is Noel. The cute little boy that Anita now dismisses as just a baby. Mercifully, they kick him out of the car because Requiem is wounded enough to "count" to Rania.
Finally Requiem locks eyes with Anita and they gaze into each other's souls and THANK YOU FUCKING GOD that is the end of the chapter.
I have no idea. Whatever potential plot we had is gone now, and I'm just scratching my head going whoza what now?
Oh, yeah, her. So why was I inside the head of the man she was about to eat? Why wasn’t I inside her body?Congrats. You managed to top yourself. THAT is as phallic as it gets.
A wolf appeared between me and it. A white wolf with a dark saddle and head. Me, my wolf. This was a dream, which meant I was unconscious. Weird.WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? One second we were on the verge of Ballroom Blitz involving toe shoes, and now we're in a prehistoric cave involving cats and ghost wolves and dreams and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.
Anita yanks herself out of the vampire dream by burning herself badly on her own cross. Everyone gathers around to watch Richard slowly peel her fingers off the cross, and apparently "peel" is the right word because bits of Anita have cooked to the cross and it's very painful.
And then they send for Dr. Lillian. They do not, mind, get Anita out of the as-yet-unseen Merlin's range. Nope. They just drag up their best were-doc because who cares about putting non-combatants in the line of fire. The reason you keep your doctors and leaders away from the front lines, kids? SO THEY CAN STILL LEAD AND FIX YOU WHEN YOU GET SHOT. Losing a couple of the guys would be sad. Losing Lillian would be very bad because there's no way to get another doctor who won't report all of them to the nearest health board and/or cop.
Anita has a phobia about needles. Oh, she needs to be sheltered from the nasty needle. Oh oh oh oh please no needles.
Richard heads back to his date. Which he abandoned because his ex-girlfriend got hurt.
They're all terrible people. End of chapter.
Next chapter.
They drag Anita to the restaurant to do first aid on one of the fancy tables. Given that first aid involves yanking cooked in metal from Anita's hand? I am cringing for the staff when they get back. That's literally a has-mat job. First, because it's blood, and second, because it's shape shifter blood. Anita isn't a shifter, but she's established as a carrier and she ought to be contageous. So that blood spilling all over the floor, and the tablecloths, and the tables, plates, cups, silverware, candles, candle sticks and god knows what else could potentially pass therianthropy on to whoever has to clean that shit up. And possibly to a diner. I don't remember how long it can remain viable outside the body, if this were ever established, but if you can get aids from blood soaked day old needles (you can) at least one person ought to sweat the fact that a lycanthropy carrier is bleeding all over surfaces where non-infected people are going to eat.
There is no reason this could not have been done in a bathroom...other than because we want to have this done on a table with Nathanial straddling Anita's body and kissing her while they pull the cross out. SPECIFICALLY to stifle her screams.
Yes. Nate's job is to gag a screaming woman in severe pain by kissing her. This is supposed to be romantic.
They take a moment to establish that the tablecloths are being bundled up. No mention is made of bleach buckets, mops, rags, though Anita does wonder how they will explain the fresh blood. I wonder if they're going to bother informing the cleaning crew that the blood could probably infect them with wolf, lion, leopard or Who The Fuck Knows, It's Just Special, but that's just me being silly and worrying about the welfare of other human beings.
They start worrying about the MOAD. What about Merlin? The guy that Jean Claude was stressing over? The guy you powered up the kitties for? WHAT ABOUT
oh please tell me you're not seriously going to pretend that was just Anita enjoying the show. YOU WERE GEARING UP FOR BATTLE THERE. THIS IS WHAT YOU'VE BEEN LEADING UP TO YOU--
--they're leaving the theater. THEY. ARE LEAVING. THE THEATER. HOPE YOU DIDN'T WANT A DANCE PLOT BOYS AND GIRLS BECAUSE THAT WAS IT.
However, Lillian still thinks that the Dance Plot can be resuscitated and asks Anita to clear the morphene out of her system by...
oh fuck me gently with a buzzsaw she's summoning the goddamned munin.
She smiled, and patted my cheek. “Once you are healed, your beasts may rise, so I will leave you with people who can take your beast, if they must.”
“I don’t understand.”
“But I think we should start with someone that Raina never touched. I knew her, you see; she always loved new conquests.”
I shook my head, gently. “Don’t understand.”And this is going to be different from the rest of the book HOW? Other than it being Rania the Friendly Sadist and not Anita the reluctant one? WE HAD A PLOT. IT WAS RIGHT THERE. WE WERE ALL LOOKING AT IT. WHY ARE WE NOT DOING THE DANCE PLOT?
ARE YOU ALLERGIC, LARUELL? IS THAT IT? ARE YOU JUST PLAIN ALLERGIC TO HAVING PLOTS NOW? IS THAT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS? WHAT THE FUCK, IT WAS RIGHT THERE. I WAS LOOKING AT IT. YOU HAD A PLOT AND THEN YOU DERAILED IT SO WE CAN WATCH RANIA TORTURE-FUCK SOMEBODY NEW.
I DONT EVEN I CAN'T THERE IS NO EVEN THERE IS NOTHING THERE IS ONLY FUCK.
So yeah, they kick Lillian out of the car, and she drops plot points to try to keep us entertained but Anita is too busy getting Jason to help her out of her glittery corset to bother. We get a run-down of Rania's history which basically boils down to "Murderer who died horribly who should be fucking dead and out of this goddamn book."And the one person here Anita hasn't fed on, who would "Count" to Rania for some reason (I DON'T EVEN FUCKING KNOW) Is Noel. The cute little boy that Anita now dismisses as just a baby. Mercifully, they kick him out of the car because Requiem is wounded enough to "count" to Rania.
Finally Requiem locks eyes with Anita and they gaze into each other's souls and THANK YOU FUCKING GOD that is the end of the chapter.
December 13, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 46
Just to put you guys into the right frame of mood, I'm going to show you what LKH only wishes she were writing about:
This is the Alonzo King "Lines" Ballet company. I know approximatly NOTHING about them, other than that they have the most AWESOME PEOPLE IN EXISTANCE in their company. I have been drooling over the photographs of thier dancers for well over a year now because LOOK AT THAT ANATOMY:
This is my favorite picture of anything ,ever. I want to be this. Exactly this.
AND IT GOES ON FOR PAGES. PAGE. AFTER PAGE. AFTER PAGE. OF HUMANS DOING INCREDIBLE THINGS WITH THEIR BODIES. It surpasses sex, IMHO. It is just awesome.
LKH's job is to convince me that the dance-piers can out-preform the Lines Ballet. They need to out amaze that picture right there.
THE BLOND FLUNG himself over our heads, and out into the air. The air was full of vampires. They had flown up and over the audience, and in that instant the vampire let them go. He released his hold on the audience and they were left gasping, shrieking. Not at the fact that their minds had been messed about with, because they didn’t know that, but at the vampires suddenly appearing above them like magic.OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO BE PAINFUL.
SERIOUSLY, LAURELL? SERIOUSLY? You want me to be impressed by a ballet company using vampire slight of hand instead of dancing? I want dancing vampires. I want vampires who can do that picture up there. I do not want David Copper-vamp trying to trick me into being awed. Ballet is a very difficult, very demanding, very very fucking gorgeous disapline. It's this:
OR BETTER YET, THIS:
NOT THIS:
YOU DO NOT GET TO USE VAMPIRE MIND-TRICKS TO GET OUT OF ACTUAL BALLET.
Oh for FUCK'S SAKE, the dance troupe's leader (NOT, mind, it's Premier danseur. You'd think with the hard on LKH has for french she could get the fucking titles in a fucking ballet troupe right) is named MERLIN. FUCKING MERLIN.
GEE> I WONDER WHO WE"RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGHT.
ALSO: THERE IS DANCING GOING ON OVER ON STAGE RIGHT. CAN WE AT LEAST LOOK AT THE DANCING? What's the ballet? Is it Swan Lake? Rite of Spring? Peter and the Wolf? GIVE ME SOMETHING TO HANG ON TO AND PROVE THAT YOU DID THREE SECONDS OF RESEARCH ON BALLET PLEASE.
Instead, we're focusing on the metaphysical sex going on between Anita, Auggie and Jean Claude, becuase who would be more interested in ballet? (ME. LAUREL. ME. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE SEX. I WANNA SEE TOE SHOES AND MEN IN TIGHTS.)
Seriously. In a universe with Jim Jones, David Koresh and Warren Jeffs, you seriously want to give a fucking vampire carte blanche to hypnotize an entire crowd? THINK ABOUT IT. Have you thought about it? THEN THE ANSWER IS NO. NO. NO YOU WOULD NOT GIVE VAMPIRES THAT KIND OF POWER. Jesus Christ, all you'd have to do is say "It is only Kool-aid" and you've got mass trageties on your hand. BESIDES. YOU WANT ME TO BELIEVE THAT THE BIBLE BELT KEEPS VAMPIRES FROM FEEDING IN PUBLIC BUT DOESN'T BOTHER WITH MASS HYPNOSIS ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.
Anyhoo, Merlin attacks Anita with birds. So nice that we got him with no warning or intro whatso ever and instead focused on forty chapters of rape. Anita repels the birds and draws on the powers of Obsidian Butterfly, the mayan vampire who pretty much served as a power-boost for Anita and fuck-all else. This causes her to drop her sheilds.
Anita swallows all of Merlin's birds with her metaphysical cave (I am going to pretend like hell that it is NOT her va-jay-jay. I advise you all to do the same) and the MOAD pokes her head in to call Anita hers, and then the chapter ends.
I'm going to go watch youtube videos of awesome dancers. You are welcome to join me.
This is the Alonzo King "Lines" Ballet company. I know approximatly NOTHING about them, other than that they have the most AWESOME PEOPLE IN EXISTANCE in their company. I have been drooling over the photographs of thier dancers for well over a year now because LOOK AT THAT ANATOMY:
This is my favorite picture of anything ,ever. I want to be this. Exactly this.AND IT GOES ON FOR PAGES. PAGE. AFTER PAGE. AFTER PAGE. OF HUMANS DOING INCREDIBLE THINGS WITH THEIR BODIES. It surpasses sex, IMHO. It is just awesome.
LKH's job is to convince me that the dance-piers can out-preform the Lines Ballet. They need to out amaze that picture right there.
THE BLOND FLUNG himself over our heads, and out into the air. The air was full of vampires. They had flown up and over the audience, and in that instant the vampire let them go. He released his hold on the audience and they were left gasping, shrieking. Not at the fact that their minds had been messed about with, because they didn’t know that, but at the vampires suddenly appearing above them like magic.OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO BE PAINFUL.
SERIOUSLY, LAURELL? SERIOUSLY? You want me to be impressed by a ballet company using vampire slight of hand instead of dancing? I want dancing vampires. I want vampires who can do that picture up there. I do not want David Copper-vamp trying to trick me into being awed. Ballet is a very difficult, very demanding, very very fucking gorgeous disapline. It's this:
OR BETTER YET, THIS:
NOT THIS:
YOU DO NOT GET TO USE VAMPIRE MIND-TRICKS TO GET OUT OF ACTUAL BALLET.
The vampires danced on the air, at least a dozen of them. They defied gravity, and made it look effortless. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I was too scared.Describe the dance. Please. Please. I am begging you. DESCRIBE THE FUCKING DANCE. Give us wrists and ankles at first position, or the weightless lifts of a pas de deux, or at least one fucking grande jete to get our blood flowing. PLEASE. GIVE US ONE FUCKING REAL BALLET MOVEMENT. I AM BEGGING YOU.
Other vampires flew low over the crowd, and they blew kisses at other women and other men. There were three or four women among them. It was sort of the reverse of most ballet companies, where there seemed to be more women than men....you're turning ballet into fucking gender politics.
Oh for FUCK'S SAKE, the dance troupe's leader (NOT, mind, it's Premier danseur. You'd think with the hard on LKH has for french she could get the fucking titles in a fucking ballet troupe right) is named MERLIN. FUCKING MERLIN.GEE> I WONDER WHO WE"RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGHT.
ALSO: THERE IS DANCING GOING ON OVER ON STAGE RIGHT. CAN WE AT LEAST LOOK AT THE DANCING? What's the ballet? Is it Swan Lake? Rite of Spring? Peter and the Wolf? GIVE ME SOMETHING TO HANG ON TO AND PROVE THAT YOU DID THREE SECONDS OF RESEARCH ON BALLET PLEASE.
Instead, we're focusing on the metaphysical sex going on between Anita, Auggie and Jean Claude, becuase who would be more interested in ballet? (ME. LAUREL. ME. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE SEX. I WANNA SEE TOE SHOES AND MEN IN TIGHTS.)
Vampires are allowed group hypnotism, because group mind tricks aren’t permanent.WHO IN THEIR MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT MIND WOULD LET THAT FLY?
Seriously. In a universe with Jim Jones, David Koresh and Warren Jeffs, you seriously want to give a fucking vampire carte blanche to hypnotize an entire crowd? THINK ABOUT IT. Have you thought about it? THEN THE ANSWER IS NO. NO. NO YOU WOULD NOT GIVE VAMPIRES THAT KIND OF POWER. Jesus Christ, all you'd have to do is say "It is only Kool-aid" and you've got mass trageties on your hand. BESIDES. YOU WANT ME TO BELIEVE THAT THE BIBLE BELT KEEPS VAMPIRES FROM FEEDING IN PUBLIC BUT DOESN'T BOTHER WITH MASS HYPNOSIS ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.
Anyhoo, Merlin attacks Anita with birds. So nice that we got him with no warning or intro whatso ever and instead focused on forty chapters of rape. Anita repels the birds and draws on the powers of Obsidian Butterfly, the mayan vampire who pretty much served as a power-boost for Anita and fuck-all else. This causes her to drop her sheilds.
It felt as if my body were a cave, a fleshy, soft cave, and the birds that I had heard and felt poured inside me, as if they’d found a home....that is the most disgusting metaphore ever written by a human. CAN YOU GET MORE PHALLIC THAN THAT?
Anita swallows all of Merlin's birds with her metaphysical cave (I am going to pretend like hell that it is NOT her va-jay-jay. I advise you all to do the same) and the MOAD pokes her head in to call Anita hers, and then the chapter ends.
I'm going to go watch youtube videos of awesome dancers. You are welcome to join me.
December 12, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 45
On the one hand, we finally get to open a chapter with something other than non-con and sex politics!
On the other hand: It's about clothes. Specifically, Anita complaining about the multi-inch stiletto heels with the open toes and the straps.
It's time to come clean about something, folks: I love shoes. I LOVE shoes. Specifically decently high heels with a specific curve in the heel structure, straps around the ankles, and toes that are the perfect balance between blunt and pointed. My go-to work shoes right now are a pair of insanely comfortable half boots with inch-and-a-quarter heels. I can run in those babies. They rock. But those heels aren't just an inch and a quarter high. That's also their width. They are incredibly stable and most of my shoes...erm...aren't. I wear certain heels on special dinners (or to church) when I know that I won't be walking much while wearing them, or for the day or so after so the blisters will heal. And they're not exactly walking friendly. My favorite pair of heels? I've torqued my ankle in them doing nothing more than walking from the porch to the car on a gravel driveway.
Anita shout not be wearing massively high heels into a tense situation. Not if there's any chance at all that she'll be kicking, running, or doing athletics. Even if she can keep her balance, they'll sink into the ground and she can hurt herself that way. Even my awesome inch-highs stab into the ground like they're going Lady Macbeth on its ass. SHE SHOULD NOT BE WEARING HIGH HEELS INTO POTENTIAL COMBAT.
Also: Jean Claude raided Jareth's closet. AGAIN. Except...oh my god. OH MY GOD.
No. No no no no no no no I am sorry CLOTHING DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT.
Apparently we also went straight from "Maybe we need to dress for the party" to the party itself, because we're talking about running the press gauntlet like it's old news. Okay. Anita is *sigh* more famous than Elvis. Please continue.
This is the first chunk of description LKH has given that I find believable. I think she's probably actually been there. Given that all we found out about Philly in Micah was a graveyard and what the inside of a hotel room looked like, I'm kind of happy with this.
The Master of Hollywood is here, and is apparently the darling of the media. And yet LKH still expects us to believe that an ER nurse had never seen a vampire bite before.
Why do I get the feeling that LKH is the kind of person who thinks people like Edwards and Silvia Browne really do contact the dead? If you're running a vampire club it doesn't matter how sanitized it gets. SOMEBODY is going to buy it and call the cops. If you're purposefully trying to give them an edgy, bloody show, you'll have let the cops in on the dress rehearsal so they can feild the panicked calls from the audience.
I like this. I like every part of this, because it's a commonality. Both sides are actively working to keep their monsters at bay. Humanity has an awful, awful lot of ugliness work through. But I just can't buy it because every single leader we've seen so far has the self control and ethics of a drunk flea on a baby possum. I don't buy that any of these people can stay in hand.
The lights go down and all the vamps around Anita start quietly freaking out.
So the humans and the guards get rolled, and then the vampires start dropping, and Anita realizes that Micah is about to go and she drops something totally precious in our laps:
Come on. You know I had to.Anyhoo, Anita touches Richard with her psychic...psychicness, I guess, and then drags herself over to Claudia to shake the were-rats out of it. I have no idea what "it" is or why Anita is freaking out over entertainment-pires rolling the audience when Jean Claude does that every damn day, but whatever. Big bad enemy vamp is behind Jean Claude's dance baby, and we have to go squish him now.
Wait. Is that...
No. It can't be. Not Eighty-five percent of the way through the book.
But...you know what? I think it just might be. WE HAVE A PLOT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. THE PLOT HAS BEEN FOUND! I REPEAT! THE PLOT HAS BEEN FOUND!
Random Dance-pire jumps up to Anita's balcony. He's...uh, cute. And dressed in a ballet leotard. Kids, I took ballet for years, I've been to several, I camp on this image search frequently, so TRUST ME: That dude has left NOTHING to the imagination. There's a leotard. That doesn't matter. You can count the wrinkles around his nipples.
That's why I find this:
Pretty Dance-pire tries to roll Anita and fails, so he kisses her and touches her and she makes googly eyes at him while wondering just what they've let into their city, and there's something even bigger and nastier waiting in the wings and THAT IS HOW YOU INTRODUCE A BIG BAD POWER PEOPLE LKH HAS DONE SOMETHING RIGHT GIVE HER COOKIES and that is the end of the chapter.
So now we've got overpowered dance-pires in an auditorium full of possible (and probable) food, most of Anita's bodyguards out of commission, and Anita eyeing a hunk of hot blond in skin-tight spandex.
AREN'T YOU GLAD WE WASTED EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT OF THIS BOOK ON RAPE PORN?
On the other hand: It's about clothes. Specifically, Anita complaining about the multi-inch stiletto heels with the open toes and the straps.
It's time to come clean about something, folks: I love shoes. I LOVE shoes. Specifically decently high heels with a specific curve in the heel structure, straps around the ankles, and toes that are the perfect balance between blunt and pointed. My go-to work shoes right now are a pair of insanely comfortable half boots with inch-and-a-quarter heels. I can run in those babies. They rock. But those heels aren't just an inch and a quarter high. That's also their width. They are incredibly stable and most of my shoes...erm...aren't. I wear certain heels on special dinners (or to church) when I know that I won't be walking much while wearing them, or for the day or so after so the blisters will heal. And they're not exactly walking friendly. My favorite pair of heels? I've torqued my ankle in them doing nothing more than walking from the porch to the car on a gravel driveway.
Anita shout not be wearing massively high heels into a tense situation. Not if there's any chance at all that she'll be kicking, running, or doing athletics. Even if she can keep her balance, they'll sink into the ground and she can hurt herself that way. Even my awesome inch-highs stab into the ground like they're going Lady Macbeth on its ass. SHE SHOULD NOT BE WEARING HIGH HEELS INTO POTENTIAL COMBAT.
Also: Jean Claude raided Jareth's closet. AGAIN. Except...oh my god. OH MY GOD.
His vest fit him like a glove because it was laced up the back; a corset vest.
No. No no no no no no no I am sorry CLOTHING DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT.
Apparently we also went straight from "Maybe we need to dress for the party" to the party itself, because we're talking about running the press gauntlet like it's old news. Okay. Anita is *sigh* more famous than Elvis. Please continue.
Normally, I enjoyed the Fox Theatre. It had been built in the 1920s as a movie theatre, but no movie theatre I knew had Chinese Foo dogs with glowing eyes at the bottom of a sweep of marble staircase. The interior was lush and gilt, full of carved Hindu gods, and animals from anywhere that qualified as exotic. Normally, I loved gazing at it all. Tonight, it was shelter from the storm.
This is the first chunk of description LKH has given that I find believable. I think she's probably actually been there. Given that all we found out about Philly in Micah was a graveyard and what the inside of a hotel room looked like, I'm kind of happy with this.
The Master of Hollywood is here, and is apparently the darling of the media. And yet LKH still expects us to believe that an ER nurse had never seen a vampire bite before.
There were too many vampires in the VIP section to have dinner beforehand. It raised too many questions about what everyone would eat. Jean-Claude had avoided the problem by simply saying the restaurant was closed for that night. The management of the Fox was happy with that. Yeah, vamps were legal, but St. Louis is still part of the Bible Belt. No one was sure how people would take it if someone got pictures of vampires feasting on humans in the Fox club theatre.Yeah. It's the Bible belt's fault we don't want to see vampires eating people. Thanks again. Hey, has it been established why the blood has to be "on the hoof" so to speak? 'Cause bringing in a bunch of bagged blood and dressing it up all pretty could have avoided that...wouldn't have been as much fun for the Masters but it would have been a real good publicity photo...
I knew for a fact that some of the “naughty” impromptu scenes at Danse Macabre were very planned. The trick was to give the customers a thrill, not scare them to death, or make them run for a cop.
Why do I get the feeling that LKH is the kind of person who thinks people like Edwards and Silvia Browne really do contact the dead? If you're running a vampire club it doesn't matter how sanitized it gets. SOMEBODY is going to buy it and call the cops. If you're purposefully trying to give them an edgy, bloody show, you'll have let the cops in on the dress rehearsal so they can feild the panicked calls from the audience.
The main difference was that the police were watching for hatemongers trying to kill the monsters, and our guards knew that the other job was to make sure none of the visiting monsters got out of hand.
I like this. I like every part of this, because it's a commonality. Both sides are actively working to keep their monsters at bay. Humanity has an awful, awful lot of ugliness work through. But I just can't buy it because every single leader we've seen so far has the self control and ethics of a drunk flea on a baby possum. I don't buy that any of these people can stay in hand.
The lights go down and all the vamps around Anita start quietly freaking out.
I glanced at Damian, and his eyes were wide, a little panicked almost, then his face went peaceful, as well. I looked at Jean-Claude. He whispered, “He will try to make humans of us all.”YOU PUT VAMPIRES IN CHARGE OF ENTERTAINMENT. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK THEY WERE GOING TO DO?
So the humans and the guards get rolled, and then the vampires start dropping, and Anita realizes that Micah is about to go and she drops something totally precious in our laps:
“Power up our cats,” I whispered.
Come on. You know I had to.Anyhoo, Anita touches Richard with her psychic...psychicness, I guess, and then drags herself over to Claudia to shake the were-rats out of it. I have no idea what "it" is or why Anita is freaking out over entertainment-pires rolling the audience when Jean Claude does that every damn day, but whatever. Big bad enemy vamp is behind Jean Claude's dance baby, and we have to go squish him now.Wait. Is that...
No. It can't be. Not Eighty-five percent of the way through the book.
But...you know what? I think it just might be. WE HAVE A PLOT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. THE PLOT HAS BEEN FOUND! I REPEAT! THE PLOT HAS BEEN FOUND!
Random Dance-pire jumps up to Anita's balcony. He's...uh, cute. And dressed in a ballet leotard. Kids, I took ballet for years, I've been to several, I camp on this image search frequently, so TRUST ME: That dude has left NOTHING to the imagination. There's a leotard. That doesn't matter. You can count the wrinkles around his nipples.
That's why I find this:
His upper body was beautiful even by my standards.Fucking hilarious. I don't even know why.
Pretty Dance-pire tries to roll Anita and fails, so he kisses her and touches her and she makes googly eyes at him while wondering just what they've let into their city, and there's something even bigger and nastier waiting in the wings and THAT IS HOW YOU INTRODUCE A BIG BAD POWER PEOPLE LKH HAS DONE SOMETHING RIGHT GIVE HER COOKIES and that is the end of the chapter.
So now we've got overpowered dance-pires in an auditorium full of possible (and probable) food, most of Anita's bodyguards out of commission, and Anita eyeing a hunk of hot blond in skin-tight spandex.
AREN'T YOU GLAD WE WASTED EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT OF THIS BOOK ON RAPE PORN?
December 11, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 44
Anita tests out the other were-lion and he peggs off as a "wounded antelope" because Anita's uber-beast reads other predators as prey, I guess. She promises not to choose either Peirce or Haven and it's flippy-floppy enough for me to know she'll probably do exactly that.
I think one of the most disturbing things about this series (and there's a shit ton of disturbing to be had) is how Anita never owns responsibility for her choices. Icky as it is to say, that's part of why the sex is all non-con. As long as Anita never consiously chooses to have sex, she isn't responsible for being sexual. (Note: I am not saying for a second that the rapes don't count as rapes, or anything like that. That's just one of the componants behind why it's ALWAYS non-con.) it's even more obvious when we get out of the bedroom and start trying to do plot shit. It's not that Anita sucks at her job, or is insenstive, or a bigot, or a misogynist. Nope, boys and girls. She's just out of control. She's afflicted. It's not her fault.
Bullshit. Even if Anita were mentally ill with diminished capacity--I personally do consider people in long-term abusive situations to fit the clinical definition of mentally ill. Their thinking processes have been altered by their circumstances and they are much more likely to develop depression, PTSD, and addictive behavior as a coping mechanism. Note: I'm not saying that they stay in those situations because they are mentally ill, they are mentally ill because they're in those circumstances. You cannot breathe chlorine and not have lung damage. Abuse is toxic and damaging--she still has personal responsibility. Being abused does not give you a blank check to be abusive. You might have a diminished capacity to recognize right from wrong, but you can still recognize it and you absolutely can still back down and say no. The instant another person is involved in the abusive situation, you become responsible for how you behave towards them. Being a battered wife does not give you an excuse to beat your child. Being the spouse of an abusive partner does not give you the right to harm the person they're having an affair with. You do not have the right to continue an abusive cycle. The moment you raise your hand against someone who is not your abuser, and your abuser does not have a figurative gun to your head? You become the abuser. It's a very sketchy gray area, because the circumstances of abuse do dramatically reduce an individual's capacity to free choice, but unless there is an immediate threat against you or another individual--ie he will kill you and your children if you don't do as he says--it is never alright to perpetuate an abusive cycle.
Anita knows that Haven is not a good person. She knows that he's probably abusive (he's a motherfucking mob enforcer) and she knows that bringing him into St. Louis will destroy one of the few good were-animal groups in the city. She is attracted to him, yeah, but it's the attraction a co-dependant person has for an abuser (I am not kidding: Abuse victims, unless they have EXTREMELY good self-awareness, will pick a new abuser out of a crowded room of otherwise sane individuals. I had a friend who told me the best thing she could do when attracted to a guy was run the fuck away.) and while she's tone-deaf to her own self-needs, the fact that everyone else in the fucking universe wants Haven gone ought to be a good clue that he needs to be gone.
Auggie then reveals that one of his goals during this trip was to take over the local lion pride. And that he still wants to do that.
Anita threatens to kill Auggie's pet lion so that Auggie can't hold control of a lion pride anymore. It's almost admirable, but we're threatening to kill someone we don't know that we've never met just because Anita's feeling taken advantage of.
This goes back and forth for a few minutes, and we find out that the were-lion leader's brother, Justin, is going to be at the ballet. Great. Jason shows up bleeding, and we spend a couple pages talking about his sex life. And it's actually good, though I'd really like to know what could leave that kind of dramatic bite mark on a shoulder. Consensual sex rocks, folks.
And of course Meng Die is disgusted by this. I can't decide if it's the consensual sex part or that it was two guys doing it. Either way, it's yet another case of the author character-assassinating her own characters. WHY IS THIS NECESSARY I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
Auggie tells Anita that Justin isn't the match that Haven is because she needs someone dominant enough to dominate her, and I tried to think my way through the implications, my dear blog-readers. I really did. I tried so hard. There was the sexism and the gender politics and the fact that Anita is never dominated, ever, and that was about the time the gender/sexual bullshit turned into a Lovecraftian mobius strip and my brain dribbled out my ears. I have no fucking clue what this book is doing, why it exists, or what we're supposed to do with it. Guys, Fifty Shades of Gray has more complexity and a better plot, and that's one book I'd like to shoot just to put out of its misery.
The chapter is done. I am going to go OD on cold meds and go to bed.
I think one of the most disturbing things about this series (and there's a shit ton of disturbing to be had) is how Anita never owns responsibility for her choices. Icky as it is to say, that's part of why the sex is all non-con. As long as Anita never consiously chooses to have sex, she isn't responsible for being sexual. (Note: I am not saying for a second that the rapes don't count as rapes, or anything like that. That's just one of the componants behind why it's ALWAYS non-con.) it's even more obvious when we get out of the bedroom and start trying to do plot shit. It's not that Anita sucks at her job, or is insenstive, or a bigot, or a misogynist. Nope, boys and girls. She's just out of control. She's afflicted. It's not her fault.
Bullshit. Even if Anita were mentally ill with diminished capacity--I personally do consider people in long-term abusive situations to fit the clinical definition of mentally ill. Their thinking processes have been altered by their circumstances and they are much more likely to develop depression, PTSD, and addictive behavior as a coping mechanism. Note: I'm not saying that they stay in those situations because they are mentally ill, they are mentally ill because they're in those circumstances. You cannot breathe chlorine and not have lung damage. Abuse is toxic and damaging--she still has personal responsibility. Being abused does not give you a blank check to be abusive. You might have a diminished capacity to recognize right from wrong, but you can still recognize it and you absolutely can still back down and say no. The instant another person is involved in the abusive situation, you become responsible for how you behave towards them. Being a battered wife does not give you an excuse to beat your child. Being the spouse of an abusive partner does not give you the right to harm the person they're having an affair with. You do not have the right to continue an abusive cycle. The moment you raise your hand against someone who is not your abuser, and your abuser does not have a figurative gun to your head? You become the abuser. It's a very sketchy gray area, because the circumstances of abuse do dramatically reduce an individual's capacity to free choice, but unless there is an immediate threat against you or another individual--ie he will kill you and your children if you don't do as he says--it is never alright to perpetuate an abusive cycle.
Anita knows that Haven is not a good person. She knows that he's probably abusive (he's a motherfucking mob enforcer) and she knows that bringing him into St. Louis will destroy one of the few good were-animal groups in the city. She is attracted to him, yeah, but it's the attraction a co-dependant person has for an abuser (I am not kidding: Abuse victims, unless they have EXTREMELY good self-awareness, will pick a new abuser out of a crowded room of otherwise sane individuals. I had a friend who told me the best thing she could do when attracted to a guy was run the fuck away.) and while she's tone-deaf to her own self-needs, the fact that everyone else in the fucking universe wants Haven gone ought to be a good clue that he needs to be gone.
Auggie then reveals that one of his goals during this trip was to take over the local lion pride. And that he still wants to do that.
I came thinking I’d get my ashes hauled, and make a smash and grab on the local lions. Still might do the whole lion thing, but the rest didn’t work out like I planned.”Yeah. Letting him supervise sexerpades with Haven would be a very bad idea.
Anita threatens to kill Auggie's pet lion so that Auggie can't hold control of a lion pride anymore. It's almost admirable, but we're threatening to kill someone we don't know that we've never met just because Anita's feeling taken advantage of.
This goes back and forth for a few minutes, and we find out that the were-lion leader's brother, Justin, is going to be at the ballet. Great. Jason shows up bleeding, and we spend a couple pages talking about his sex life. And it's actually good, though I'd really like to know what could leave that kind of dramatic bite mark on a shoulder. Consensual sex rocks, folks.
And of course Meng Die is disgusted by this. I can't decide if it's the consensual sex part or that it was two guys doing it. Either way, it's yet another case of the author character-assassinating her own characters. WHY IS THIS NECESSARY I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
Auggie tells Anita that Justin isn't the match that Haven is because she needs someone dominant enough to dominate her, and I tried to think my way through the implications, my dear blog-readers. I really did. I tried so hard. There was the sexism and the gender politics and the fact that Anita is never dominated, ever, and that was about the time the gender/sexual bullshit turned into a Lovecraftian mobius strip and my brain dribbled out my ears. I have no fucking clue what this book is doing, why it exists, or what we're supposed to do with it. Guys, Fifty Shades of Gray has more complexity and a better plot, and that's one book I'd like to shoot just to put out of its misery.
The chapter is done. I am going to go OD on cold meds and go to bed.
December 10, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 43
We get several highly disturbing paragraphs of Anita manhandling Noel. It reads like a molestation that neither party enjoys, and it walks right up to rub shoulders against cannibalism.
Of course, he gets dismissed as being "just food" and not enough for the ardeur. He's first accused as being "too submissive" because "Joseph shops for bottoms", but Nate decides its because Noel is "too straightlaced" to get off on being bitten.
Given that Noel is terrified out of his mind the entire time, I don't think "prude" is the right word for that mindset. Also: Being called a prude is one of the things I know guys use on unwilling girls. They don't want sex because they're too "prudish" and nasty and bad, and now they have to prove how worthy they are by giving the guy sex. Or to apply it to here: Noel's failed to capture Anita's attention because he's too much of a prude, rather than Noel being scared out of his fucking mind and being forced into a sexual situation he does not want and should not be forced to have.
Travis, the other werelion in the running, shows up for his turn. Somehow this translates into inviting Jason in, which he teleports in to do, far as I can tell, and this in turn becomes a dominance fight between Jason and Graham supervised by Jean Claude.
I don't know. I've read it three times and I still can't figure it out.
And then Meng Die shows up. The woman who almost killed Requiem last night.
I am not making that up. This is actively painful.
Then we go back to London, who states that he can feed the ardeur every two hours without suffering any ill effects. I'd say "bullshit" but London is an addict, and that's how it works. It's rather incredible to me that LKH is only accurate when it's psychologically awful and she wants to treat it like a positive. Anita just force-fed a metaphysical alcoholic psychic booze and now she gets a big benefit, while he gets to go back to being a sex-addict. And this is supposed to be just ducky.
London says that he's "addicted immediately" which is, again, pretty accurate for being an alcoholic ) and Nate sums up everything I have to say perfectly.
End of chapter. The only problem I have with that? London isn't "at the start" of "an addiction" He's very late-stage, as in the "having to take quantities that would kill a normal person just to get a buzz" stage. He has an exceptional tolerance to his addiction of choice, which is a symptom of being in late stage addiction. He's also back to where he was before he tried to sober up. An addict doesn't go back to the beginning of their addiction when they relapse. It's always back to where they were when they sobered up. A relapse is a rocket train back to rock bottom. It is an INCREDIBLY shitty thing to break someone's sobriety by force.
And I'm done for the night.
The thought slid my face down his body, until I rested at his sternum, the upper edge of his stomach. So close now that I could not so much see the fast rise and fall of his body as feel it under my cheek. I rolled my face over, and kissed his stomach. He jerked, as if I’d bit him, and made a wonderful whimpering sound. I buried my mouth in the soft, easy flesh of his belly. I took as much of his flesh into my mouth as I could hold, and not draw blood. I bit him, hard and deep, and it took all my willpower to rise up from that flesh, and leave it whole.Like I said last night: Can we please start the chapter off with something resembling consensual sex? Please?
Of course, he gets dismissed as being "just food" and not enough for the ardeur. He's first accused as being "too submissive" because "Joseph shops for bottoms", but Nate decides its because Noel is "too straightlaced" to get off on being bitten.
Given that Noel is terrified out of his mind the entire time, I don't think "prude" is the right word for that mindset. Also: Being called a prude is one of the things I know guys use on unwilling girls. They don't want sex because they're too "prudish" and nasty and bad, and now they have to prove how worthy they are by giving the guy sex. Or to apply it to here: Noel's failed to capture Anita's attention because he's too much of a prude, rather than Noel being scared out of his fucking mind and being forced into a sexual situation he does not want and should not be forced to have.
Travis, the other werelion in the running, shows up for his turn. Somehow this translates into inviting Jason in, which he teleports in to do, far as I can tell, and this in turn becomes a dominance fight between Jason and Graham supervised by Jean Claude.
I don't know. I've read it three times and I still can't figure it out.
And then Meng Die shows up. The woman who almost killed Requiem last night.
She was one of the few women who ever made me think, delicate. She was tinier than I was, so fragile looking. Maybe that was why she almost always wore black leather, very dominatrix.The entire purpose of what happens next is just to make Anita look more desirable. She walks up to Requiem (the word "slinks" is used) and runs her hands up and down her body, insisting that Requiem would want her again. Requiem refuses her. Meng Die accuses him of refusing her because of Anita. Anita apologizes and says she didn't know Requiem was Meng's boyfriend. Jason says that Meng doesn't have boyfriends, only "people she fucks", because this is different from Anita how? So we've got slut-shaming, just like with Ronnie, to try to make Anita look wonderful and vurtuious in comparison. Meng Die then propositions every other man in the room, and they all turn her down flat because she's just too icky in comparsion for Anita.
I am not making that up. This is actively painful.
Then we go back to London, who states that he can feed the ardeur every two hours without suffering any ill effects. I'd say "bullshit" but London is an addict, and that's how it works. It's rather incredible to me that LKH is only accurate when it's psychologically awful and she wants to treat it like a positive. Anita just force-fed a metaphysical alcoholic psychic booze and now she gets a big benefit, while he gets to go back to being a sex-addict. And this is supposed to be just ducky.
London says that he's "addicted immediately" which is, again, pretty accurate for being an alcoholic ) and Nate sums up everything I have to say perfectly.
“You always look happy at the beginning of an addiction,” Nathaniel said.
“What happens later?” I asked.
“You die.”
End of chapter. The only problem I have with that? London isn't "at the start" of "an addiction" He's very late-stage, as in the "having to take quantities that would kill a normal person just to get a buzz" stage. He has an exceptional tolerance to his addiction of choice, which is a symptom of being in late stage addiction. He's also back to where he was before he tried to sober up. An addict doesn't go back to the beginning of their addiction when they relapse. It's always back to where they were when they sobered up. A relapse is a rocket train back to rock bottom. It is an INCREDIBLY shitty thing to break someone's sobriety by force.
And I'm done for the night.
Danse Macabre--chapter 42
You know, this book has slowly degraded all my standards. I began the book wanting a plot that didn't hurt ballet too badly. Then I just wanted a plot in general. Then I just wanted happy, consensual sex that didn't read like it hurt on a physical or psychological level. Then I just wanted sex that wasn't actively abusive. Now? Can we at least start a chapter without having rape? Please?
I want to blog about something other than rape and abusive behavior. I would love to have the insanity of the agents of the (NUMBERED) dread overloard being defeated by a seven-spotted ladybug. Or even Werewolves taking selfies. BUT NO. WE GET PAGE AFTER PAGE AFTER PAGE OF ABUSE, RAPE AND MIND-FUCKERY.
There is a difference between writing about sex and writing about abuse. With sex, the characters enjoy it. Anita has, in the course of this book, been assaulted by a woman, assaulted by a man, raped several dozen people at once, had an emotional breakdown (THAT WAS UNDERSTANDABLE AND A GOOD THING), had her emotions and feelings manipulated and shattered BY HER RAPIST, raped a recovering addict with the thing he is addicted to, and now we're doing rape again, and that's just the shit I remember. And the best part is, thanks to Anita being so fucking out of control the whole time, she's not in control of any of it. She's not having sex because she wants to, and neither is anyone else.
Micah keeps talking, and oh my fucking GOD it reminds me of many, many, many bad people I've read about. Jeffery Lundgren. Jim Jones. Vernon Howell (look it up.) Probably even Warren Jeffs. Once again, Anita is all but screaming I WANT OUT OF THIS BULLSHIT and the men are all gathered around, saying "But ANITA, we're all HAPPY HERE."
Shithead: If she were happy she would not be screaming right now.
And then Nathanial says "you could leave us?" and starts crying. And it's passive-agressive and pathetic, and of course Anita collapses around him and starts rocking him and throwing all her own feelings and decisions away because how dare she be so selfish as to put her own wellbeing over the thoughts and feelings of her partners. How dare she think that her sense of self is more critical than pleasing her menfolk. Oh my god, how dare she try to disentangle herself from the two men who have victimized her over and over and over and over and fucking over again. How dare she.
And then they start having a heavy petting session because "kiss and make up" is just too vanilla for this crowd.
They decide they don't want Haven, but that they need Jean Claude to break up the bond before it's completely set. Auggie decides that he'll try to help.
Yes. Let's ask the fucking MOB BOSS who ACTIVELY WANTS Anita to bond with Haven to keep Anita from bonding with Haven. I see no way whatsoever for that to go wrong.
And then we get another crash course in were-lion behavior. Which is basically of the "Let's study lions in a caged enviroment" variaty.
(On a totally unrelated side-note, I've been dealing with a slightly aggressive bunny at my work, and have ODed on bunny behavior and how to deal with biting bunnies and bunny body language and how to care for one properly and I have since decided I want were-bunnies almost more than I want were-hippos. Because folks? You do not fuck with bunnies. And they have a really complicated, yet easy-to-work with caste system that involves petting and grooming and establishing top bun that would probably be much more entertaining than the whole "Dominance/submission predator" pack behavior bullshit.)
And then we establish that new male werelions kill the infants of the females in the prides they move in on.
Look, I'll buy a lot of "Weres are different" shit, but you cannot expect me to swallow that a group of sentient creatures would willingly tolerate motherfucking infanticide. I could see a rogue lion doing that, but a group of something even part human tolerating a baby-murderer as a leader for three seconds? I can see a lot of solutions for that, starting with an anonymous phone call to the cops and ending with blood and fire and a very dead baby-killer. And if I were that female? It wouldn't happen with me alive. Not if it were my kid, not if it were anybody else's kid.
Oh, and guys? It's the female lions who wear the pants in the pride. NO FUCKING WAY WOULD THIS GO DOWN.
Anita decides to try Noel on for size, and the chapter ends with her muttering about sharks and fish and god only knows what else.
This book is still not done yet.
I BROKE THE kiss, pushed him away hard enough to make him stumble. His eyes were drowning emerald fire. “Didn’t it feel good?” he asked. I shook my head, not trusting my voice. But the moment he wasn’t touching me the panic was back. The fear, and it was worse now. I was surrounded by vampire tricks. Surrounded even inside myself, and that was one person I couldn’t run from....APPARENTLY NOT.
I shook my head. “No, because if you touch me, I’ll give up. I won’t fight. I can never win a fight when you touch me. The effect you have on my body overwhelms everything else.”Yep. Because our bodies are hardwired for survival and MICAH IS YOUR RAPIST. OF COURSE your body is going to shut down. IT WANTS TO STAY ALIVE.
I want to blog about something other than rape and abusive behavior. I would love to have the insanity of the agents of the (NUMBERED) dread overloard being defeated by a seven-spotted ladybug. Or even Werewolves taking selfies. BUT NO. WE GET PAGE AFTER PAGE AFTER PAGE OF ABUSE, RAPE AND MIND-FUCKERY.
There is a difference between writing about sex and writing about abuse. With sex, the characters enjoy it. Anita has, in the course of this book, been assaulted by a woman, assaulted by a man, raped several dozen people at once, had an emotional breakdown (THAT WAS UNDERSTANDABLE AND A GOOD THING), had her emotions and feelings manipulated and shattered BY HER RAPIST, raped a recovering addict with the thing he is addicted to, and now we're doing rape again, and that's just the shit I remember. And the best part is, thanks to Anita being so fucking out of control the whole time, she's not in control of any of it. She's not having sex because she wants to, and neither is anyone else.
Micah keeps talking, and oh my fucking GOD it reminds me of many, many, many bad people I've read about. Jeffery Lundgren. Jim Jones. Vernon Howell (look it up.) Probably even Warren Jeffs. Once again, Anita is all but screaming I WANT OUT OF THIS BULLSHIT and the men are all gathered around, saying "But ANITA, we're all HAPPY HERE."
Shithead: If she were happy she would not be screaming right now.
And then Nathanial says "you could leave us?" and starts crying. And it's passive-agressive and pathetic, and of course Anita collapses around him and starts rocking him and throwing all her own feelings and decisions away because how dare she be so selfish as to put her own wellbeing over the thoughts and feelings of her partners. How dare she think that her sense of self is more critical than pleasing her menfolk. Oh my god, how dare she try to disentangle herself from the two men who have victimized her over and over and over and over and fucking over again. How dare she.
And then they start having a heavy petting session because "kiss and make up" is just too vanilla for this crowd.
They decide they don't want Haven, but that they need Jean Claude to break up the bond before it's completely set. Auggie decides that he'll try to help.
Yes. Let's ask the fucking MOB BOSS who ACTIVELY WANTS Anita to bond with Haven to keep Anita from bonding with Haven. I see no way whatsoever for that to go wrong.
And then we get another crash course in were-lion behavior. Which is basically of the "Let's study lions in a caged enviroment" variaty.
(On a totally unrelated side-note, I've been dealing with a slightly aggressive bunny at my work, and have ODed on bunny behavior and how to deal with biting bunnies and bunny body language and how to care for one properly and I have since decided I want were-bunnies almost more than I want were-hippos. Because folks? You do not fuck with bunnies. And they have a really complicated, yet easy-to-work with caste system that involves petting and grooming and establishing top bun that would probably be much more entertaining than the whole "Dominance/submission predator" pack behavior bullshit.)
And then we establish that new male werelions kill the infants of the females in the prides they move in on.
Look, I'll buy a lot of "Weres are different" shit, but you cannot expect me to swallow that a group of sentient creatures would willingly tolerate motherfucking infanticide. I could see a rogue lion doing that, but a group of something even part human tolerating a baby-murderer as a leader for three seconds? I can see a lot of solutions for that, starting with an anonymous phone call to the cops and ending with blood and fire and a very dead baby-killer. And if I were that female? It wouldn't happen with me alive. Not if it were my kid, not if it were anybody else's kid.
Oh, and guys? It's the female lions who wear the pants in the pride. NO FUCKING WAY WOULD THIS GO DOWN.
“Your local pride has very weak females,” Auggie said, his voice still that empty master’s voice, so it could have been almost anyone talking. “Your Rex’s wife is weak, and since the females of the lions are just like the males, it’s forced him to reject a lot of strong women.”...I'm being reduced to the point where all I can say is "fuck you, Laurell."
I wanted to say, I won’t let them hurt you and your people, but I couldn’t. Not and be truthful. We had an alliance with the lions, true, but if Joseph had truly let his pride get this fucked up, and it was truly the lion’s way to take over the pride like this, then no other animal could interfere.FUCK the inter-were rules. If you are a good person, you do not let shit like infanticide happen. You're dealing with an artifically created set of rules usually constructed by abusive idiots who can't think around problematic behavior. And you should not be listening to the motherfucking MOB BOSS who has a vested interest in giving you his own lion.
Anita decides to try Noel on for size, and the chapter ends with her muttering about sharks and fish and god only knows what else.
This book is still not done yet.
December 7, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 41
Non-Book stuff: Guys I am having an incredibly shitty time right now. It has nothing to do with books or sales or internet people or anything. I literally have no idea why I feel as bad as I do right now, but it's pretty bad. It's one of those really fun emotional yo-yos where you spend half the day feeling a numb sort of fine, a quarter of the time crying, and that remaining quarter thinking some pretty scary thoughts. Last night was bad, hence the skipped review.
Like I said, I have no clue why this is happening. There's been no obvious trigger this time around, none of my usual coping mechanisms are working well, and I have no idea whatsoever how to fix it. So forgive me for being a little flaky yesterday.
So Anita and Jean Claude start discussing the ardeur, because it's not like we haven't covered that enough in this book. Jean Claude says that Anita was about to "bind Requiem" to her forever, and that the ardeur can look into someone's heart and give them their greatest desire. Because of course, that desire is sex. It's not like maybe you want, IDK, kids or a gold medal or a book contract or to not have to worry about bills, or have a dead loved one come back or something. Nope. Hearts desires are all about sex and getting more sex.
To not be raped by a total stranger in the shower?
Oh, no. According to Jean Claude Anita needed help with her leopards, and also this part:
This goes on to say that the ardeur mind-fucks both people fucking into the perfect, ideal mates for each other and this binds them together, somehow. And Micah is all like 'Hey, yeah, it's all cool" because OF COURSE IT IS.
Anita actually does sum it up the best:
Yes. Yes it is evil to warp someone's mind like that. Thank you for coming clean.
And of course the guys are like "Oh NO WE ARE PERFECTLY HAPPY" and we take the time to mention that Micah's first girlfriend dumped him because of his enormous schlong.
"I love you now" is how bad relationships survive for years. It's not constant and continual. There will be peroids, sometimes prolonged, where the victim and the abuser are nice to each other. Whatever triggers the abuse is either absent or sated, and the abuser has a real good reason to keep their victim happy--so that the next time they fuck up, the victim won't leave. I watched this happen. I had it happen to me. It is vitally important that you never, ever, ever minimize abusive behavior in a potential or current lover. Unless both of you are healthy enough to address that behavior and correct it, it will continue and it will escalate. If a relationship starts with abusive behavior, that behavior will continue.
Second point? Anita did not initiate the relationships with Micah and Nathanial. Nathanial manipulated his way from damaged submissive to bedmate over the course of several books. Micah raped Anita while leaning against the exit door. Jean Claude is further attempting to trap Anita into these relationships by stating that she did initiate them and that she asked for what Nate and Micah did to her. That being raped and manipulated were really what she wanted and that she should live with the consequences of her actions.
And that is the end of the chapter.
Like I said, I have no clue why this is happening. There's been no obvious trigger this time around, none of my usual coping mechanisms are working well, and I have no idea whatsoever how to fix it. So forgive me for being a little flaky yesterday.
So Anita and Jean Claude start discussing the ardeur, because it's not like we haven't covered that enough in this book. Jean Claude says that Anita was about to "bind Requiem" to her forever, and that the ardeur can look into someone's heart and give them their greatest desire. Because of course, that desire is sex. It's not like maybe you want, IDK, kids or a gold medal or a book contract or to not have to worry about bills, or have a dead loved one come back or something. Nope. Hearts desires are all about sex and getting more sex.
“When you first met Micah, what did you need in your life?”
To not be raped by a total stranger in the shower?
Oh, no. According to Jean Claude Anita needed help with her leopards, and also this part:
“You needed a man in your life who simply said yes, instead of arguing with you or running his own agenda. You needed someone to put your needs first.”And she got someone who raped her in the shower. Seriously. LKH is seriously saying that Anita asked for it. That the universe itself discovered that Micah was what she wanted and gave him to her, in the form of being raped in the motherfucking shower.
This goes on to say that the ardeur mind-fucks both people fucking into the perfect, ideal mates for each other and this binds them together, somehow. And Micah is all like 'Hey, yeah, it's all cool" because OF COURSE IT IS.
Anita actually does sum it up the best:
Nathaniel moved in, as if he’d hug me. I moved farther down the wall, out of reach. “But it’s all vampire powers. It’s a lie— doesn’t that ruin it for you? I trapped you. I trapped you both; it’s worse than what Auggie did to us. It’s not fake, it’s like real love. I made you both fall in love with me, that’s like evil.”
Yes. Yes it is evil to warp someone's mind like that. Thank you for coming clean.
And of course the guys are like "Oh NO WE ARE PERFECTLY HAPPY" and we take the time to mention that Micah's first girlfriend dumped him because of his enormous schlong.
He whispered the last few words against my lips. “You all love each other, isn’t that more important than how you fell in love?”No. No it isn't. Our brains are way, way too easily manipulated for "I love you now" to fly. Many women legitimately love their abusive husbands, and vice-versa, because loving an abuser is survival. If you love them, it's easier to subordinate yourself to the abuser, and subordinating in the short term migitates the abuse. Long-term, it'll just get worse (again, that's why your best option in an abusive situation is to get away from the abuser. Even if you have difficulties or barriers, remaining in the situation and placiating the son of a bitch will not change the situation. The abuse is not about you, you can't change it and you can't make it stop.) but our brains and bodies aren't wired for long-term survival. That's why how a relationship starts is just as important as how it progresses. If it starts with abuse, abuse will continue. And one again, boys and girls, Anita's relationship with Micah started with him raping her in the shower. Anita and Jean Claude started with JC forcing himself onto Anita using horrific emotional blackmail (She had to date him or else he'd kill Richard and/or anyone else she dated) until she finally broke. Nathanial consistantly and passive-agressively manipulated his way into a sexual relationship, and every other male in Anita's life is someone she has abused. She mind-fucked Damian, Requiem, London and Auggie. Admittedly Auggie helped with that one, but his people didn't, and she got them too. The ONLY character in this entire book whose sexual relationship with Anita started on a basis of mutual consent and respect is her relationship with Richard.
"I love you now" is how bad relationships survive for years. It's not constant and continual. There will be peroids, sometimes prolonged, where the victim and the abuser are nice to each other. Whatever triggers the abuse is either absent or sated, and the abuser has a real good reason to keep their victim happy--so that the next time they fuck up, the victim won't leave. I watched this happen. I had it happen to me. It is vitally important that you never, ever, ever minimize abusive behavior in a potential or current lover. Unless both of you are healthy enough to address that behavior and correct it, it will continue and it will escalate. If a relationship starts with abusive behavior, that behavior will continue.
Second point? Anita did not initiate the relationships with Micah and Nathanial. Nathanial manipulated his way from damaged submissive to bedmate over the course of several books. Micah raped Anita while leaning against the exit door. Jean Claude is further attempting to trap Anita into these relationships by stating that she did initiate them and that she asked for what Nate and Micah did to her. That being raped and manipulated were really what she wanted and that she should live with the consequences of her actions.
And that is the end of the chapter.
December 6, 2013
Free Stuff!
Hey guys, I'm doing something I haven't done for a while. Free short story over on Amazon, today and tomorrow only, so if you're new and you want to see what my writing is like, or you just haven't picked this story up yet and you'd like to, there you go.
Free books, my lovelies. :D
Free books, my lovelies. :D
December 5, 2013
Danse Macabre--chapter 40
We spend the next few pages watching Auggie complain about how he can't be a mob boss and be gay. I'd find sympathy for him if it weren't for that "mob boss" part. You want respect and the ability to do whatever you want with the dignity due every human being? Don't play in the scum-infested shark pond. You murder, rape, pillage, con, sell drugs and function as the pimp's pimp. I have absolutely no sympathy for you whatsoever. Either realize that you are scum-sucking vermin or suck it the fuck up.
Also: Whoever gave LKH a copy of The Godfather to watch? I hate you.
Jean Claude does the passive aggressive version of a sexual "neener neener neener" at Auggie.
Why is this POS a protagonist again?
Then Jean Claude offers Auggie a deal: You can come and fuck us any time you want as long as you behave, play nice, and let me get my claws in further. The guy should be Mephistopholes at this point, except that's kind of giving him too much credit. There's nothing sexy about an abusive manipulative POS.
Auggie is all panting dog at the idea of getting to shag Anita any time he wants to.
LKH then tries to write two conversations at once: One between Auggie and JC and one between Anita and were-lion Travis. This happens with no indications whatsoever and is more than a little jarring.
And then this happens:
Auggie refuses. Not because of the whole "rape a city" thing, but because it would make Jean Claude too powerful. Seriously? NOBODY is going to call bullshit on this? YOU WOULD BE RAPING A CITY.
Jean Claude tells Auggie he wants Auggie to stop manipulating HIM. Oh the irony.
Anita and Auggie share words about how much in love Anita is with Auggie and how bothered she is about the whole "Mind-fucked into falling in love" thing. I'd give her credit for FINALLY remembering this, but it's less "YOU MIND FUCKED ME" and more "gee, I don't even know you, but you made me love you so now let's go cuddle."
Also, and it bears repeating: Auggie is a mob boss. There are special places in hell for people like that.
JC then reminds everyone that there's a Ballet tonight and they need to decide if Anita is safe around the other masters. I'd say we've proven she is NOT about six times over, but that's the only plot thread LKH can keep track of, so yeah. Anita has to screw somebody else, or roll them, or do some bullshit with her sex powers, before this book can end.
Then we go back to talking about the were-lions, how Joseph's pride is more sane than all the other prides because they don't behave like "real lions" whatever that means, and how Haven is a Very Bad Idea, all caps required.
Then we go back to "If Auggie ever wants to feel the arduer again, he'd better behave."
This chapter is like watching children play ping-pong. You get three back-and-forths and then you have to go chase down the fucking conversation.
And then Anita regurgitates a textbook.
Noel goes back to begging Anita not to bond with Haven. Auggie keeps being an ass--which, in this book, is saying a lot--and the most this chapter manages to accomplish is get most of the wounded moving off to Dr. Lillian while Auggie cracks jokes about everybody here being "pussywhipped".
We are not even eighty percent of the way done yet. Send help.
Also: Whoever gave LKH a copy of The Godfather to watch? I hate you.
Jean Claude does the passive aggressive version of a sexual "neener neener neener" at Auggie.
Why is this POS a protagonist again?
Then Jean Claude offers Auggie a deal: You can come and fuck us any time you want as long as you behave, play nice, and let me get my claws in further. The guy should be Mephistopholes at this point, except that's kind of giving him too much credit. There's nothing sexy about an abusive manipulative POS.
Auggie is all panting dog at the idea of getting to shag Anita any time he wants to.
LKH then tries to write two conversations at once: One between Auggie and JC and one between Anita and were-lion Travis. This happens with no indications whatsoever and is more than a little jarring.
And then this happens:
“Perhaps we could even visit you in Chicago.” I was suddenly paying attention to their conversation. If we went to Chicago, oh, my God, the energy there would…The heroine of this novel is eagerly contemplating the psychic rape of an entire city. And NOTHING indicates this is a bad thought.
Auggie refuses. Not because of the whole "rape a city" thing, but because it would make Jean Claude too powerful. Seriously? NOBODY is going to call bullshit on this? YOU WOULD BE RAPING A CITY.
Jean Claude tells Auggie he wants Auggie to stop manipulating HIM. Oh the irony.
Anita and Auggie share words about how much in love Anita is with Auggie and how bothered she is about the whole "Mind-fucked into falling in love" thing. I'd give her credit for FINALLY remembering this, but it's less "YOU MIND FUCKED ME" and more "gee, I don't even know you, but you made me love you so now let's go cuddle."
Also, and it bears repeating: Auggie is a mob boss. There are special places in hell for people like that.
JC then reminds everyone that there's a Ballet tonight and they need to decide if Anita is safe around the other masters. I'd say we've proven she is NOT about six times over, but that's the only plot thread LKH can keep track of, so yeah. Anita has to screw somebody else, or roll them, or do some bullshit with her sex powers, before this book can end.
Then we go back to talking about the were-lions, how Joseph's pride is more sane than all the other prides because they don't behave like "real lions" whatever that means, and how Haven is a Very Bad Idea, all caps required.
Then we go back to "If Auggie ever wants to feel the arduer again, he'd better behave."
This chapter is like watching children play ping-pong. You get three back-and-forths and then you have to go chase down the fucking conversation.
And then Anita regurgitates a textbook.
“Joseph’s pride know how to be lions. They just don’t do that whole Serengeti-plains-dominance-fight at each kill,” Micah said. “That’s what it means to be a lion,” Auggie said. “Actually,” I said, “lions native to forested regions don’t do that. The fluidity of dominance, and the complicated social system, seem peculiar to the African plains region.”That voice and that language have been used nowhere in this book. That is not Anita's voice, that is not LKH's style of writing. That's academic and that does NOT belong here. I don't think LKH has the balls to plagiarize, but you cannot tell me that writing fits in with the sex and the "spilled/swallowed/poured" and the fucking=candy metaphores.
Noel goes back to begging Anita not to bond with Haven. Auggie keeps being an ass--which, in this book, is saying a lot--and the most this chapter manages to accomplish is get most of the wounded moving off to Dr. Lillian while Auggie cracks jokes about everybody here being "pussywhipped".
We are not even eighty percent of the way done yet. Send help.
