This? will not be fun.
The snake men are holding Caleb hostage. I cannot, for the life of me, remember who Caleb is or be arsed to care. Anita seems to agree with me:
I didn't much like him, but I couldn’t let the bad guys blow his head off, could I?Also, she somehow magically intuits that there is silver shot in the gun, right before the bad guy says there is silver shot in the gun. Look, it's reasonable to intuit the presence of were-killing ammo when you are dealing with weres. but don't have both characters spend a page talking about it. Jesus.
Claudia, on the other hand, gets to be bad-ass:
“The second after he dies, so do you.” Claudia said it, her voice as quiet and steady as the arm that held the gun that was pointed at the snake man’s head.And is it just me, or is that last sentence constructed like "the House that Jack Built?" This is the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that kicked the dog that worried the rat that (ect. ect. ect) Laurel, is there a reason we've regressed to nursery rhymes here?
Meanwhile, her house is being surrounded by more snakes with guns. (...werebadgers. Can we have were badgers? We've already got "SNAAAKE! A SNAAAKE! so can we have werebadgers too?) Anita shouts a warning to everybody else. So now the bad guys know that the good guys know that the bad guys are trying to surround the house.
Anita would suck at poker.
And then the guns begin to fire. And it is, for a little while, the book we came to dance with. Claudia and Anita fire at the same time, evaporating the killer snake's head. Caleb escapes. The snakes release the fucking fury and turn the kitchen into, basically, a House of the Dead shooter special.
There is a lion man. Anita takes out the lion man, Claudia gets hit by a shotgun. She's out of the game. Damn, I thought LKH would kill her for being awesomer than Anita. Can Claudia have her own book, too? No, she's not out, she just switches hands. Ambidextrous theranthrope FTW. Nathanial has also grabbed a gun. You go, dude.
And then the fight is over, Micah arrives, and things go downhill fast.
First we have the purple of his were-form description, which actually isn't that bad. This is why you save purple for special occasions. But then LKH, via Anita, has to point out that even in Wereleopard form, Micah has a huge penis.
They check the dead and break out the first aid kit for Claudia, who is all "I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry. Also, don't slip in the blood puddle, that's mine, I'm just leaving it there so the bad guys can slip in it."
Because, you know, when you're bad-ass you don't care if you bleed to death.
And then the police arrive.
I am not a fan of hiding shit from the cops, kids. So I read the words "We don't have time to hide the bodies" and I was all like fucking YES this is gonna be good. And it is...and it isn't.
Micah can, apparently, shape-shift at will and make it look pretty. Because it'd be bad for the plot if the police shot him. Because NATURALLY nobody on the force has to take a shape-shifter education class or run a gauntlet where sometimes the werewolves are snarling ugly monsters and sometimes they're in a pink dress holding a baby. (...seriously? If shapeshifting is this prevelant and EVERY. FUCKING. ANIMAL is included, shouldn't there be some kind of "how to recognize a human" class hunters have to take before they get their deer hunting license?)
And then we get the next to last sentence in the chapter:
How do you explain five bodies in your kitchen, some of which even in death didn’t look very human?You tell the truth: They broke into your home, held a gun to the head of one of your people, threatened you, surrounded you, and you turned them into swiss cheese because that is how you roll. Given that several of your people are wounded and/or dead? I think the cops will buy it.
Next chapter: LKH ruins everything.
Caleb is the guy who went to get the takeout and has been making unwanted advances on the ladies. In Flirt, by the way, Micah has ended up forcing him to be a stripper for Jean-Claude because he didn't like the money he was making as just a waiter at Guilty Pleasures and, to quote Anita, "We got tired of his bitching." Yeah, our heroes, people.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, you call the non-wolves therianthropes! It bothers me soooo much how ALL the shifters are called “lycanthropes” in this series, I too refuse to refer to them like that regardless of what canon says.
Regarding telling the police--Anita has never been very bright. Seriously, she thinks, says, and does so much really stupid stuff but it’s not presented as stupid, because LKH doesn’t seem to think that it is. Which makes me wonder about LKH.
Also, I realized just what kind of werecritter would TOTALLY have puppy piles: Rats! Rats are group animals, and they sleep/nest in piles on each other, all curled next to each other, etc., and they crawl all over one another like it’s no big thing, and groom each other as bonding and sometimes also in shows of dominance (you can tell it’s a dominance thing rather than an affectionate thing when they go overboard and “barber” another rat…meaning take the hair off his head and make him bald. I’m serious). But rats, because they are not majestic and sexy, do not get much attention in this series at all, and I am pretty sure Anita will never be in a vermin pile. Just fine by me, I don’t want her near my favorite animals.
"But then LKH, via Anita, has to point out that even in Wereleopard form, Micah has a huge penis."
ReplyDeleteAaaargh! TMI! TMI!
Anita is a frickin' sex obsessed maniac. People are dead, others are wounded, there's blood all over the place... And Anita takes some time to check out a wereleopard's cock.
"How do you explain five bodies in your kitchen, some of which even in death didn’t look very human?"
Anita doesn't need to hide anything. She's a high-profile law enforcement professional who works with a specific group of violent criminals. Some of those criminals broke into her home, and in the process of defending herself Anita shot them. Let me say it again - Anita doesn't need to hide anything. Even in Canada, Land Of Sane Gun Control Laws, an RCMP officer would not need to hide the bodies of a bunch of people who broke into her home to murder her.
"Caleb is the guy who went to get the takeout and has been making unwanted advances on the ladies. In Flirt, by the way, Micah has ended up forcing him to be a stripper for Jean-Claude because he didn't like the money he was making as just a waiter at Guilty Pleasures and, to quote Anita, "We got tired of his bitching." Yeah, our heroes, people."
Anita and her boytoys are human traffickers. Snark fails me. There isn't enough sarcasm in the world.
Yeah, lemme copy-paste you this from my spork on it. They all but say it directly, and I'm not sure what else could possibly be implied from this conversation. The context is talking about strip dance classes that the strippers at JC's businesses are being made to take, taught by Jason (a werewolf boytoy of Anit's):
Delete"The wereanimals also aren't said to be arguing about it much and Micah says that "they know that if they don't do what they're told, it will get back to the head of their animal group." Uh, maybe this isn't what he meant, but to me that sounds like they're being forced by said head to strip? And according to Jason, who says it with a smile, some guy named Caleb is "sooo not happy" that Micah "made" him stop being a waiter at GP and become a dancer instead. DUDE, WTF? I thought forcing people to strip was supposed to be what the Bad Leaders did and when Anita took over, the snuff films and pimping stopped, so shouldn't the forced stripping?! It doesn't matter that it doesn't involve sex, they're still being made to do something they don't want, and something that might personally feel very degrading to them. How is that a laughing matter?
Oh, but according to Micah he didn't make him do anything. Apparently Caleb wanted to make more money, so Micah helped him brainstorm some new jobs, and offered him a choice of jobs that would pay more (he doesn't say what the other choices were...) and Caleb thought that "stripping was the lesser evil". Okay, now I really want to know what those other choices were, because if you offered him jobs that were really terrible in some way, then it wasn't a friggin' choice at all, it was a set-up. Anita does not soothe my suspicion at all by saying that "We got tired of him bitching." Yup, this convinces me. They must have got fed up at him asking for more pay as a waiter, so they made him be a stripper, which he apparently does not like. Interesting, how in both cases he'll be working at an establishment owned by Jean-Claude, which means he'll be making money for Jean-Claude, who is closely allied, to say the least, to the Nimir-Ra and Nimir-Raj (Micah and Anita) of the leopards. Yeah, this is definitely one big disgusting scheme we're getting hints of here, I have no doubt. Seriously though, does LKH realize at all what this dialogue suggests, or does she fully intend it and thinks there's no problem with that scenario? I don't expect vampires and wereanimals in general to do things nice when they rule, given the types of leaders and hierarchies we've thus far seen in canon, but Anita is supposed to be our heroine and this particular wereleopard and vampire are supposed to be good guys. Key word, of course, is 'supposed'."
"Seriously though, does LKH realize at all what this dialogue suggests, or does she fully intend it and thinks there's no problem with that scenario?"
DeleteI've been reading interviews with LKH, plus reviews and critiques of her later books. My sense is that LKH doesn't have a lot of insight, so I'd guess it's the "doesn't realize" option.
So yeah, she doesn't realize that Anita Blake, US Marshal, is a participant in forcing people to work as strippers for her profit. AKA a horrible horrible human being.
Given that I just OD'd on documentaries on trafficking...FUCK THEM.
DeleteThe ONLY thing I'd cut Anita and Co. slack for is nagging for more money as a waiter. Federal pay law states that a waiter only needs to be paid 2.13 an hour...as long as their tips equal minimum wage. If they don't make it, the boss has to make up the difference. (the weirdest side-effect of this is, if your tips greatly exceed minimum wage most of your paycheck will get withheld for taxes. I have gotten several $0 checks in the summertime. It's a badge of success) If Caleb is complaining about money and he's a (MALE) waiter in a strip joint? Either he really sucks at waiting, or he's being kept off the floor most nights, which indicates that he really sucks at waiting. Which means he probably needs to find another job.
But you don't urge ANYBODY into the sex industry. I can see somebody going into it if you want to, but it should be "HEY, I'm gonna be a stripper!" and not "the stripper was the lesser evil"
If he's that hard up for cash Caleb could go work on a dock for a few shifts. Physically strong? Capable of enduring a gunfight after a couple allnighters? he'd do great.
And yep, everything is owned and run by Jean Claude. This guy? He is not a good guy.
What's interested is I've had a shape-shifters-as gangs and violent crimes story sitting on my harddrive for about two years. This? Is now motivation for me to finish it.
Your boss can withold your pay if the customers are generous? That is deeply fucked up.
ReplyDelete"If he's that hard up for cash Caleb could go work on a dock for a few shifts. Physically strong? Capable of enduring a gunfight after a couple allnighters? he'd do great."
But then how could we enjoy his public humiliation for annoying Anita and her boytoys?
Oh, and:
"Because NATURALLY nobody on the force has to take a shape-shifter education class or run a gauntlet where sometimes the werewolves are snarling ugly monsters and sometimes they're in a pink dress holding a baby. (...seriously? If shapeshifting is this prevelant and EVERY. FUCKING. ANIMAL is included, shouldn't there be some kind of "how to recognize a human" class hunters have to take before they get their deer hunting license?)"
Yet another big meaty serving of Worldbuilding Fail.
"Hey Joe, check out that buck."
"Forget it Sam, that's a shifter."
"How can you tell?"
"'Cause he's got a twelve-pack of Bud hanging from his antlers, you moron."
It's federal withholding taxes. Here in the states we have to pay taxes, social security and a couple other things out of each check, and tips count as taxible income (Fuck you, Texas labor laws). So when my hourly check equals the amount of taxes I owe on tips, I get a 0.00 check and Uncle Sam gets my money. My boss is still technically paying me the entire check. She just mails the hourly wage to the state of Texas, rather than to me.
DeleteAnd then they mail me a refund check in april, because government.
Tips are taxable income here too. But A) The minimum wage is the minimum wage and employers can't deduct tips from pay, and B) Reporting non-employer income is the employee's responsibility.
DeleteMost people report about a third of their actual tips. Revenue Canada knows this and doesn't care. I doubt they'd know what to do with someone who reported their full tips.
"What's interested is I've had a shape-shifters-as gangs and violent crimes story sitting on my harddrive for about two years. This? Is now motivation for me to finish it."
This is relevant to my interests.