Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Danse Macabre--chapter 20

So today I started having computer issues. It overheated and turned itself off in the middle of editing (it's coming soon, I promise) and came back up an hour later. I did what I could, shut it down, went to work, turned it back on when I got home, ate dinner and went for a walk. When I came back it was down again. I panicked, figuring that my computer could now only stay on for an hour at a time, and that meant I couldn't/shouldn't use it. Except there were things on it that I needed.

I did this fun three ring circus act of trying to get my major files over to my mother's computer, which worked, and then trying to get the tablet drivers to function so I could do my artwork. I tried every USB on her thing that I could find and got no joy whatsoever. I unplugged her printer and tried that plug. No dice. Finally, on the verge of tears, I asked her if she ever had trouble getting her printer to work, hoping that maybe she had some fun workaround for non-functional USB plugs.

She said, "Oh, well the power went off, so you might have to restart it."

I am sitting there with half my art equiptment in my lap and several important files sitting in internet limbo. "When did the power go off?"

"When you left for your walk."

Yeah. There are still computer issues but they're not that bad. Also: Communication is IMPORTANT, my lovelies.

...chapter twenty consists of Anita, Micah and Nate fucking each other. It opens with blowjobs.

Again. I have issues with blowjobs. I am going to assume that Anita Blake gives perfect, amazing head every time, and move on. I do not gaurentee that I will make it through this whole chapter.

We get a memory of Belle torturing Jean Claude by making him watch sex. We are supposed to feel sympathy for Jean Claude for how bad his life is.

There's an ongoing spork of a horrible webcomic I've been reading (The spork. Not the webcomic. NOBODY should read that webcomic. EVER. I don't really want to link to it because while the spork is AMAZING, the webcomic doesn't deserve even that much press.) The author's self-insert (as in this character's name is also his internet handle everywhere) is a serial rapist/murderer and there's an ongoing plot thread attempting to redeem the son of a bitch because he's the author's self insert. The tactic the author has chosen hasn't been repentance/redemption ("Gee, I'm a horrible rapist who rapes women. I really ought to be punished for this, I feel so sorry.") but rather a "My life is worse than yours" plot thread. Yes, he rapes and kills countless women horribly, but he was beaten by his grandmother. That has to count for something, right? How about the molestation by a schoolteacher? That's got to be a "Get out of conviction free" card right there, right? I'm getting the same feeling every time Anita brings up Jean Claude (or Micah. Or Nate's) pasts. Nate's a manipulative shit, Micah's a rapist, Jean Claude is an all out amoral monster, but they all had nasty childhoods. This justifies everything. No. No it doesn't. It might explain their behavioral patterns, but it does not excuse them. Micah being tormented by Chimera does not excuse the things that he did/has done. Nate's childhood of rape and forced prostitution does not excuse how he manipulates the people around him to get what he wants. Jean Claude's overly long history of sexual abuse at the hands of everyone ever does not excuse what he does to other people. There comes a point where we become responsible for our own behavioral patterns, and that moment is when we damage someone with those behaviors--even if that person is just ourselves. We might not bear the full responsibility, but some of it is ours and it is still our job to apologize and fix things as best we can. And if you understand that these behaviors will hurt someone before you preform them? The responsibility is fully yours. Any justifications you use--shitty childhood, victimless crime, they did it first--are just so much smoky bullshit.

He kissed that drop away, and stared down at me, as he knelt in front of me. His face was fierce and full of some wonder, as if I’d done something amazing. I hadn’t. I’d just finally decided to get out of my own way; out of everyone’s way.
I can't quite put my finger on why this bothers me, but it does. It sounds a bit too much like "It's for your own good."

...apparently it is really difficult to play with three dicks at once. Also, it takes some significant logistics to gain access to the dicks' penises.

There's a moment where Nate puts his hand on the back of Anita's head to force her further down on his penis. She panicks. Nate is all hurt that she panicked. "You let me do it before..."

When he looked at me again, he was smiling, but there was still a flinching around his eyes; a shadow of that hurt. There was only one thing that would take that hurt from his eyes, I had to prove I trusted him.
LADY. TRIGGERING A PANIC REACTION IS NOT GROUNDS FOR THE TRIGEREE TO FEEL GUILTY FOR PANICKING. ALSO: YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER EVER HAVE TO PROVE YOU TRUST SOMEONE. WHOMEVER YOU ARE TRUSTING SHOULD BE THE ONE PROVING THEIR WORTH. JESUS. FUCKING. CHRIST.

And speaking of panic reactions, I was doing really well until we got to the discussion of taste and texture, but we're there now and it's pretty much shut me down for the night (not panic, but I don't want to go down that road tonight). Quick skimming shows that the chapter ends with orgasm and a promise to recruit men until the harem can fuck Anita unconsious. Nice.

I hate this fucking book.

8 comments:

  1. UGH SORRY ABOUT THE COMPUTER SHIT THAT IS AWFUL D=

    ...is the webcomic "Jack"?

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    1. Yep. Google "Kate comics tumblr" And you'll find the spork.

      It's one of those things where the trainwreck syndrome is just that strong. I found it through an art-critique blog I read, and thought "This cannot seriously be that bad".

      YES. YES IT IS THAT BAD.

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  2. HOLY SHIT I JUST GOT THE THE "RAPE HEAVEN" PART

    although the obsession with rape and how ~edgy!~ one can be while having zero actual depth besides a trip to the creator's id makes me think maybe he andd LKH would get on

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    1. That's something that's cropped up more than once in that shit-fest: rape victims letting their rapists into their heaven so that they can know how their rapists are feeling and so their rapists can know how they're feeling. Because rape victims totally care about that shit rather than distancing themselves from the event as fast as they fucking can. Oh, and this is supposed to be a Christian comic. Not LKH style (I think she wrote herself into a corner re: Anita's faith and she knows it, and she's not willing to drag Anita through the psychological garbage a change of faith dredges up) "I'm more Christiany than thou but I really think Christianity is stupid" but die-hard Evangelical style faith...except that it has about as much to do with Christianity as alge has to do with a redwood.

      Would LKH like Jack's creator? I'd say yes, but LKH manages to keep things on a fictional basis far as I know, and Hopkins...erm...well...

      http://kate-comics.tumblr.com/post/19675480643/loveline-11-19-2001

      http://kate-comics.tumblr.com/post/19675520001/here-is-the-cut-down-portion-of-the-loveline

      http://kate-comics.tumblr.com/post/19675577319/transcript-of-katie-karmas-call-to-loveline

      Yeah. To tl/dr it, his current partner called a relationship help line with a question she never actually got to ask because as soon as she said "My boyfriend has a violent rape fetish that he's been making me role play with him, and he draws rape constantly" the hosts told her to get the fuck out of the relationship and never look back, and a couple years later he drew a motherfucking comic based on her call in which a woman is abducted by her abusive boyfriend and he dies horribly in a protracted shootout with the cops, but not before he brutalizes and terrifies the girlfriend.

      No bullshit, that's the most fucked up thing I've read about and it's not fiction.

      LKH likes preaching non-con and blurred lines style consent and how rape doesn't count if you orgasm/like the guy/know the guy/are male and the rapist is a girl, and potentially she's been imagining her ex-husband being lost and alone and confused for years, but at least she didn't take a loved one's cry for help and write a novel basically saying "Run and I'll either kill you or die horribly in a police shoot out and make you feel guilty." I wouldn't want to be involved in LKH's life AT ALL, but I've yet to hear a story that would make me worry about having her as a neighbor. I would not feel comfortable living in the same state as Hopkins. LKH is fucked up. Hopkins is actively terrifying.

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  3. Again. I have issues with blowjobs. I am going to assume that Anita Blake gives perfect, amazing head every time, and move on.

    No...no she doesn't. Her descriptions of blowjobs are as awkward and stilted as the rest of her sex scenes...and pretty much like her writing in general. Clunky, bloated, and overly-descriptive in all the wrong ways.

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    1. It's a little hard for me to read descriptions of blowjobs due to bad things that happened a few years ago--I wind up focusing more on memory than on the actual book--so that's less "this is great" and more "I can't read this, and it's not fair to spork something I've only skimmed, so we're going to assume the best and move on."

      I'll leave the blowjobs to someone with slightly thicker skin. :D

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    2. :( My apologizes for poking at a sensitive topic, I'm sorry if that was a little blunt of me.

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    3. It's not *that* sensitive, so it's alright. Me having issues shouldn't hamper somebody else. It's all cool.

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