State of the CW AKA Where the fuck have I been

Short story: I fell off my meds.

Which is why I hate being on medication in the first place, reguardless of how much I need it or not. Staying on medication is very, very, VERY hard for me. Especially since the problem (memory+motivation+attention span) is tied directly to the depression. And there's been stress. Lots of it. Work stress (Note: Half the shit I do at work is not and was never in my job description, and nobody else can understand it, let alone do any of it. That is not an exaggeration. That's actually part of the stress.) financial stress. Moving stress, as we have to downsize and we've been packing boxes. Oh, and I've discovered that moving and packing is yet another massive trigger.

Which I experienced off meds. Which lead to a very spectacular meltdown and several days of Not Wanting To Touch Shit. Because I had a feeling (in part due to not being on meds) that if I touched anything, it would fall apart. Whereas if I sat very still and played stupid shit on the computer, things would be okay. It's like trying to hold a bomb together with string and spit. It doesn't work.

I am still trying to get the book out. All that's left is minor editing and formatting and finishing the cover. Which is about halfway done or more.

I really, really, really do not like being sick. Especially not mentally sick, and especially not chronically sick. I want to feel better and have it be done, and I know that's never going to happen.Or if it is, it won't happen for a very, very long time.

There is no more accurate description of dealing with depression than "fighting". It's a fight. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. When it's not suicidal ideation it's just this gray meaningless fog. Or it's anxiety strong enough to immobilize. Funny, that.  I used to think of that as being something so intense you couldn't breathe. Now I understand it's just moderate, but you want it to stop so you hedge yourself in and then you just. don't. move. Because if you move, you have to feel and when you're anxious, feeling is bad.

Yes. I have an anti-anxiety drug.

In short, my lovelies: This year sucked. Hard. For a lot of people, not just me. The wheels of my wagon came off in January and have yet to get screwed back on. So many of you have been wonderful helps, I can't even begin to say how much gratitude I have for ya'll. You are one of the things that has gotten me through this year.

I'm going to reassemble my plans for things on the other side of the year, so to speak. Try to work out where to go from here. Be happy, my lovelies, and even if you can't, be well.

Stroke of Midnight 16

What's this? Has a random countdown appeared? Yes. I am committing to a date, and that means lots of energy and work and all sorts of other wonderful things. 

Taking a brief break from Elsie to work on other projects, but I figured we might as well keep LKH going.

WE WAITED FOR THE POLICE TO RETURN TO US AFTER ESCORTING their befuddled colleague away.

We have yet to have a single law enforcement officer see the body of the dead human. We are sixteen chapters into this book.

Meanwhile, we've managed to have a full blown sex scene and a lot of making out. So at least we know where the author's priorities lie.

It was almost as if the chalice didn’t want to leave me alone to solve the murders. The cup pulsed so hard that it made me gasp.

So apparently the cup is a lot like a penis. It's tumescent and it keeps getting in the way of the plot. The cup keeps sending orgasmic little thrills through Merry, and the guards who didn't see the cup are all like "WTF IS WRONG WITH HER" and the ones who did are like "NOTHING TO SEE HERE MOVE ALONG"

Meanwhile, Random Boy Toy A has eyes that are...special.

His eyes were not the three rings of color common among the sidhe, but a spiral painted in lines of color, with his pupil at the heart of the design. As a child I’d once asked him how he could see out of them, and he had smiled and replied that he did not know.

The same way you can see out of a spiral contact lens. In fact, probably better. 'cause his iris can contract and a colored contact can't. Also, I swear to god the first time I read that I went "he has heart shaped pupils" and I threw up in my mouth a little.

Everybody smells apples, and Merry brings the chalice out where everyone can see it, just as if we hadn't spent the last several chapters discussing how ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT it is to keep the goddamn thing hidden. Everybody gasps. Ivy says that they should be making Merry queen and not "playing copper" even though I think he's about three hundred years too old for that slang to come casually. The cup pulsates again. Then this happens:

“You just want to fuck her ,” Dogmaela said, and she made it sound like a dirty thing. An unusual attitude among any fey.

LKH's special brand of slut shaming. It's slutty clothes, unless the main character is wearing them, or its dating multiple men, unless the main character is dating them, and generally any kind of sex at all, unless the main character is having it. It's less double standard and more "I have no self awareness whatsoever, pass the condoms".

I looked up at his face, so carefully arrogant. “Are you saying I should take time out of solving a double homicide to have sex?”

NO. NO YOU SHOULD NOT. SOLVE THE DOUBLE HOMICIDE PLEASE IT WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING.

Everyone talks about how much they want to have sex. And whose desire to have sex is strongest. It's like a philosophical dick measuring contest. Then Amatheon and a couple of the others start down-talking Merry's mortal heritage because Prejudice Allegory, which is now incredibly squicky for me because this series is set in fucking St. Louis. So Merry gives Amatheon a hug, aaaaand we're having sex now.

I stood in the middle of a huge, barren plain. Amatheon was still pressed to my waist, his head buried against my body. I wasn’t certain that he knew anything had changed.

One of the bizzare side-effects of LKH's unwillingness to use either "penis" or "vagina" in her writing is I have no idea if this is actual sex or not. Merry becomes the stand-in for the Goddess again, and starts telling Amatheon that she (the Goddess) has never left them--even though they're making out in the middle of a barren plain, which doesn't exactly scream "Divine Blessings."

I understood then that if one tear felt so good to the land, then other body fluids would feel even better.

You have no idea how much dread this one sentence filled me with. Then it became clear that Amatheon wants to give his blood to the land, and not his semen.

...Dude. The cops are RIGHT THERE. Okay, they're upstairs, but they are here on campus, they'll be back real soon, and you are offering to let your princess take your blood. THIS IS NOT A SMART THING.

And then the Goddess tries to talk Merry into killing Amatheon.

Her voice came from my lips again. “He will not die as men die, but as the corn dies. To rise again, and feed his people.”

He's not motherfucking John Barleycorn. This is a bad idea. This is a very, very, very bad idea.

“But this is not real death. This is vision and dream.

YOU GOT THE FUCKING CUP IN A DREAM DREAMS IN THIS UNIVERSE CAN BE VERY REAL. DO NOT DO THIS THING.

“Will you leave the land barren?” the voice said, out of my mouth.

The bizzare thing about LKH's writing is she keeps having scenes like this, where the heroine knows that there's something wrong with this shit. Merry knows that human sacrifice isn't the smartest thing to do right now. Anita knows it's a bad idea to screw London/Richard/All the wereswans ever because the consent is iffy and it'll probably be a rape. But some higher power--Jean Claude, the Goddess, the MOAD--then talks the main character into it because Laurel K. Hamilton wants this to happen and screw anybody who says "UH HELLO, THERE ARE COPS UPSTAIRS."

And then the Goddess begins chewing Merry out for trying to investigate the murders instead of having sex.

Laurel, this is YOUR PLOT. Do you know what you do when you do not like your plot? THROW IT OUT AND START OVER. YOU are the writer. YOU get to make the plot be what you want it to be. Oh, and by the way? Airing out your issues over your writing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING BOOK is not a very smart thing to do. You hate plot. Great. Write porn. Admit that you like writing porn and write fucking porn. You will not die. Bolts of lightening will not rain down from heaven and incinerate you. You can be honest with yourself and your audience. It's not gonna hurt you.

But DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT promise us a murder investigation plot a la early Anita and then bitch your character out for trying to follow through with it. If I want a bait and switch I'll go to a mega church during fundraiser week.

“I do not mean Cromm Cruach’s true name, I mean these deaths. They will be reborn, Child. Why do you mourn them so? Even true death is not an ending. Others can find your murderers and clues, but there are duties that only you can perform, Meredith, only you..” “And what exactly would those duties be?” She motioned at Amatheon . “Make my land live.”

WE HAD A PLOT GODDAMN IT. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FUN. WHY ARE YOU TAKING THAT AWAY FROM US.

“He is a willing sacrifice, Meredith . There is no evil here.”

I'd draw connections with "you can't rape the willing" and how utterly fucking stupid both these statements are, but I think I'd get eviscerated.

And then the Goddess sighs happily, because it was all a dream test.

On the one hand, YAY THE POLICE PLOT IS BACK ON THE TABLE.

On the other hand

That means that all of this--the tree shit, the stuff with the cup, the conversation with Amatheon and the Goddess--is a motherfucking non-event, and LKH has, once again, wasted our time.

Meanwhile, it's time for our dose of quasi-pagan pretentiousness! Courtesy of 20+ Kindle Highlighters, here we go:

“I did not stop speaking to my people, they stopped listening to me, and after a time, they could no longer hear my voice. But I never stopped speaking to them. In dreams, or that moment between waking and sleep, there is my voice. In a song, the touch of another’s hand in theirs, I am there. I am Goddess, I am everywhere, and in everything. I cannot leave, nor can you lose me. But you can leave me, and you can turn your back on me.”

Yes, folks. Goddess doesn't leave you, you leave Goddess.

Either LKH is talking about the unnamed Wiccan Lady (which is Oathbound material and not something you can easily find, which shows how seriously Wiccans take their Oathbound shit) in which case DAMN the Wiccan Lady is an awful lot like Protestant Jesus, or she's talking about that general, quasi-Celtic-and-Greek-with-a-pinch-of-Native-Culture, all-encompassing Goddess figure that certain brands of paganism (coughfluffybunnycough) like to embrace. In which case WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. 

Even the Christian God "turns his face away", albeit from really awful bad shit. If you believe in religion than Deity is something that gets to decide shit. And your respective Gods are fully capable of deciding that you've screwed the pooch and they don't want to play anymore. In other words, this is dehumanizing Deity.  

And for the record, NO. "Goddess" is not an all-encompassing figure. Athena is not Diana is not Kali is not Pele is not the Virgin Mary. Grow up.

“Goddess,” he said. Her voice floated to us. “Yes, Child.” “Will I see you again?” Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet.” And she was gone.

I need an "Even for Dummies" book because I have forgotten how to Even. I haven't been this flabberghasted since I accidentally watched the 700 Club.

This chapter is not done yet. Why is this chapter not done yet?

He smiled, a quick flash of real humor, that made his face less perfectly handsome, but more real, more precious to my sight. “My honor was never gone, because no one can take your honor from you, not without your letting it go. I was going to say that you have given me back my honor, but I understand now.” I smiled at him. “No one can take your honor, but you can give it away.” The smile wilted around the edges. “Yes. I let fear take my honor from me.”

Ah, because we have to get even more pretension out of the way. Okay. You did it. Can we get back to the plot now?

Right. More sex.

. “I want you to ride me, to press my naked body into the dirt. I want to watch your breasts dance above me. I want to feel your body slipped over mine like a sheath to a sword.

Every time she does this I keep thinking of that (albeit problematic) scene in American Gods where the Indian goddess-figure swallows a man with her vagina. THERE IS A REASON WE HAVE THE WORD PENIS.

I put my finger on his lips and stopped him. “Let’s make the grass grow.”

It's not quite "Ride the Storm" but it'll do.

I sat up and pressed my most intimate parts against his most intimate parts, and even through all our clothes, the sensation was amazing.

What? Did you suddenly forget how a thesaurus works? Did it die? It died, didn't it. You used the poor thing so much that when you finally needed it, it had shriveled up and died. Also, am I the only one having My Immortal-esque flashbacks? "He put his thing into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time."

The chapter ends with them taking off their clothes.

On Homeschooling and Growing Up: Real School

I kept getting in trouble for skipping school.

It's funny that I'm going to open this possible series about homeschooling by talking about the one time I did go to a normal school. But it set a standard in my mind. As I grew up and gained more autonomy, the episode with real school became more and more important. It's what turned Homeschooling into my choice, into something that I owned and defended every chance I got.

In retrospect that school probably wasn't normal. I had a very small class--7th and 8th grade put together, 13 students--and the curriculum was A Beka. A Beka is primarily aimed at conservative homeschooling groups; I was very familiar with the materials. I'd been using things like them for as long as I can remember. The American History books, for example, used the same photographs and paintings on the same pages in both the 4th grade and 6th grade textbooks. The most we ever learned about Native American cultures were the evangelical attempts of David Brainerd. George Whitfield got more space than George Washington. Civil rights were a footnote; Billy Graham was a chapter.

World History did not exist.

Paddles did.

Of course, the parents had to sign a permission slip. Most of them did. This was a very tight knit community. Most of them went to the same church I did, until that church had a doctrinal falling out and split up. Most of these kids had gone to this same school from first grade on up. Most of the parents agreed that the world might end the next election if we didn't get a Republican into the White House, but they disagreed on wheither or not the End of the World would be good or bad. Clinton was still president. I overheard several adults once have a serious conversation about how he fit all the criteria for the Antichrist.

 Every morning we would gather in the gymasium--which doubled as a church sanctuary on Sundays--and sing worship songs after the Pledge of Allegiance...and the Pledge to the Christian Flag, and the Pledge to the Bible. I was familiar with all three; I'd been doing Awanas AKA Christian Girl Scouts for as long as I could remember. A different class would get to come up to the front and hold up the big, hand-lettered song lyric cards up so that everyone could read them. These were songs that most of us knew by heart. Amazing Grace. Go tell it on the Mountain. As the Deer. I thought everyone knew these songs, because everyone I knew did. Contemporary Christian music was edgy. Pop music like Madonna and N'Sync was unheard of. Literally. No one listened to it. When we were allowed to bring outside novels to school they were the Left Behind series. C.S. Lewis was risky because there were talking animals and magic in them. My class memorized the entire book of James, one chapter at a time. When it came time to learn about evolution, our science teacher gave us a big speech about how this was a state mandated course and we didn't really need to pay attention. He followed it up with a special on how Mt. St. Helens disproved the whole thing because of petrified trees.

We got tested on that.

My brother and I were enrolled there because my mother wanted to have a job. Our homelife was chaotic and financially unpredictable, and Mom's tactic for solving this was to get a job. She did this several times that I can remember. Sometimes she would try to homeschool us while working. I'd be the one taking care of my brother and supervising both his lessons and my own. Mom would grade our work when she got home. But this was difficult and stressful and more often than not I'd wind up playing dolls upstairs, or digging in the side yard with my brother, or up the nearest tree with a science fiction novel. Sometimes I'd even get my brother wrapped up in a video game, then get on my bike and take off for the library. Then, bookbag balanced on the handlebars, I'd go down to the city park, hide my bike in the bushes and walk down to the riverbank. This time around, she decided to place us in school. I was very excited. It felt like a special treat. I'd get to be with other kids. I'd have all these great new books to read. But because her job started earlier than my dad's, it became his job to get me and my brother to school.

We were never on time. NEVER. I would be outside, sitting in the car fifteen minutes before we were supposed to leave; my father would come out ten minutes after. Then the rush to my classroom, hoping and praying to God that I'd get there and the class would still be there, that this time Assembly was a few minutes late. No luck. Shove the coat and lunch box into the cubby--everybody brought their lunch, the school served no food--and race down the hall. If I was lucky and Dad were quicker I'd make it in time for the Pledge to the Christian Flag or the Pledge to the Bible. More often than not we were on the third or fourth song, and I had to make my way to my class with my head down in shame. I was so awfully, horribly late. It was my fault for not making Dad get out to the car sooner. I'd have to be better tomorrow.

After a few months, though, Dad decided to stop taking us to school.

It wasn't an every day thing. He had a job, after all. But at least once a week, on Tuesday or Wednesday, sometimes on Friday, he'd decide we didn't need to go to school that day. We'd get in the car--I'd be nerviously drumming my fingers on the armrest, worried about being late--and when we got to the highway he'd turn left instead of right and we'd start driving. We'd end up in Weatherbury, or Grandbury, or Dublin, and he'd go to garage sales while we sat in the car. When our grades began to suffer, he'd take my brother to school and keep me out, and we'd be driving, driving, driving all day until it was time to pick my brother up and take us home. We'd go to lunch. He'd tell me how special I was. He'd introduce me to all his friends. I learned to bring books with me because I knew I'd get very bored. I'd ask nicely to listen to Christian radio; more often than not, we just played Rush Limbaugh.

By this time I hated school. I hated how boring the materials were. I hated that we were allowed to use calculators during math, that I wasn't allowed to learn how to calculate square roots longhand, that we spent two weeks on "practical" math, like learning how to read electric meters and how to divide recipes, but only spent one day on pi. I hated that we traded World History--something I'd never gotten to study--for Texas Government. I hated, hated, hated the bible study period. I hated the materials we had to study in language arts. The english teacher had an obsession with Spain, so when it came time to do research reports we were each assigned a different Provence. Some of the books we had to study were good--Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Shiloh stand out as high points--but some of them were just teeth-grittingly awful. Johnny Tremaine should never be inflicted on an adult, much less a thirteen year old. Each day we had to read an assigned chapter, summerize what we'd just read, and then identify the parts of the sentences in our summery. This is a noun, this is a verb, this is an adjective. I'd been diagramming sentences since I was eight, so this was completely uninteresting. Finally, I stopped copying down the lessons altogether. I already knew this and I was sick of all of it. I just wanted to go back home to my homemade yarn dolls and the epic fantasy adventure we were having beneath my bed.

At that point, the English teacher pulled me out of class, sat me down, and gave me a long lecture on everything I was doing wrong. And the thing he focused on wasn't that I had stopped participating in the lessons, but that I was skipping school. And I sat there feeling deeply betrayed. I had not understood that Dad was pulling us out without permission from the school. I believed that a parent had every right to simply call in and say "So and so is sick today" and then just...not take us. I sat there, staring back at my teacher, and feeling like I'd just been tricked by all these adults. I'd been told my whole life the world worked a certain way. Now they were telling me it worked differently and that it was my fault I wasn't playing by the rules.

The next day, Dad wanted to keep me home again. I begged and pleaded no. I didn't explain about the talking to I'd gotten--I didn't want to get in trouble with him--so I just said that I really, really wanted to go to school that day. Please. I didn't want to skip it anymore. 

 He was very hurt. He didn't understand why I did not want to have fun with him anymore.

Now, as an adult, I understand: my brother and I existed for our parents, not for us. They saw school as warehousing kids, a place to get them out of their parent's hair for a few hours so they could go have jobs and whatnot. School was not a place for children. Education was something we got because the government said we had to do it, and because it'd be useful in some far off distant land where we'd be adults and our own people. When Dad decided that he didn't want to put his toys in the School box, he'd keep us out and spend the day amusing himself. When he didn't want to play with us, well, that's what school was for. And of course it all got dressed up in God's Will. We weren't going to evil public school--no hyperbole there, the public school system was the literal tool of Satan and my brother and I were so blessed not to be in it. No matter how bad things got at home, public school would be worse.

There is a part of me that understands how insane all of that sounds. There's another part that still thinks it is normal, that still cannot see what the problem was.

He cut down on the absenteeism, but he'd still do it. And now I'd sit in the car with high anxiety, knowing that the next day I'd be going to school and I'd probably get in trouble again. By then I wasn't allowed to go to recess anymore. I had to sit in class and do additional work to make up for the amount of school I'd skipped. I didn't care; the class had decided that they wanted to play basketball in the gym instead of going outside, and I was sick to death of basketball. I'd much rather sit in the classroom. When I finally got caught up, I still begged off. I didn't want to touch that goddamn ball ever again. I'd memorize bible verses until the class left, then sneak over to the bookcase and snag something interesting, like The Invisible Man or The Dark is Rising.

That's the only good thing I got out of that year of school: it introduced me to Susan Cooper.

When school ended, we moved. We'd been living up north near Dallas, and now we moved back south to just outside of Corpus Christi; that was when the wheels on the family bus really fell off. We went back to homeschooling. We'd learn out of old, battered college textbooks. I'd do research reports on whatever I wanted. I'd read the encyclopedia for fun. I never had to learn to spell. For maybe a year, things were stable. The one thing I knew, though, was that I did not ever want to go back to school. Mom was right--it was just a place to warehouse kids, where learning was limited by the slowest person in class, and where you were not allowed to study anything you wanted, but only what the teacher had assigned you.

After that, some years my mother would ask me if we wanted to enroll in real school or stay at home. I was always adamant. Homeschooling. Real school, I knew, would just be misery all over again.

A few weeks ago my mother and I were talking about the past, and my growing up and homeschooling, and I brought up how abysmal my lone experience with "real" school was. How I was often driven to frustrated tears in Math Class because I didn't understand, and I wanted to, and the rest of the class was just using their calculators when there was this whole wonderful thing we could have been learning about. How much I loathed reading the assigned books. And I mentioned how I got in trouble for absenteeism because Dad kept pulling us out of school.

She stared at me, amazed, because she never knew.

Stroke of Midnight chapter 15, Elsie chapter 12

So Frost makes a door into Fairie, and LKH forgets how sentences work.

It was the door to faerie, all humans go through smiling, but they don’t always come out that way.

Ah, the commas that die to provide LKH with run on sentences.

The police immediately get rolled by fairy magic even though the press didn't, so now Merry and Co. have to oil up the cops.

NO. REALLY.

“The queen gave vials of oil to the guard as a precaution in case the reporters became befuddled by the magic that is intrinsic to the sithen, but it was merely a precaution. The main hallways of the sithen have not affected humans in this way for more than fifty years.”

And of course it's Merry bringing magic back. Also, there's a random guard who is tattooed with fur all over his body.

I am sure this is absolutely necessary to the narrative.

So they grease up the cops. One at a time. In detail. There's a point where one cop asks Merry for a cross instead of whatever sigil Merry intends to use, and Merry says a cross won't work because the faeries aren't evil.

“We aren’t evil, Carmichael, just other. Contrary to popular myth, holy symbols won’t stop our magic, any more than holding up a cross would stop a blizzard from harming you.”

Yeah, but a blizzard doesn't decide to threaten your life, decieve all your senses and potentially abuse you because it would find it entertaining. Also: turning your jacket inside out apparently works better than prayer.

So now the freshly oiled cops start lusting after the fairy men because this makes totally sense. All the men show off, and it takes three pages for them to get back to the plot. Then Galen heads off on his own and Merry has a premonition, so she sends a couple of other guys off with him. Doyle headed off on his own quite a while ago. Then the magic cup appears because why not, it's not like we wanted to actually GET TO THE GODDAMN PLOT.

One of the cops is still making cow-eyes at the men, and Merry has to explain what being elf-struck is to the cops. Who have to deal with them fairly regularly. Eventually they send that person back up topside, because that's the easiest way to resolve the problem. It's also implied that this episode fucked up that woman's life forever, but that's less important than making sure we all understand, Merry's men are PRETTY.

The chapter ends with one of them making the poor bewitched girl cry.

Meanwhile, in Elsie...We finally have a chapter that isn't completely worthless. Christmas is coming up, and Horace gives Elsie extra money so she can buy Christmas presents...after instructing her to keep track of every penny she spends, because "his little girl must not be lazy". He leaves. presents are bought. He comes back. This happens:

"Well, daughter," he said, passing his hand caressingly over her curls, "papa has brought you a present; will you have it now, or shall it be kept for Christmas?" "Keep it for Christmas, papa," she answered gayly. "Christmas is almost here, and besides, I don't want to look at anything but you to-night."

And then Elsie spends most of the rest of the chapter evangelizing to her father.

You know, a funny thing about growing up in an abusive situation is how quickly we normalize the adult's behaviors. It's a survival mechanism--we are dependant on our parents. They HAVE to be perfect in our eyes because otherwise the world might fall apart. It's the logic of a child. A couple weeks ago a child from one of homeschooling's superstar families came forward with her story. One of the things she said hit very, VERY close to home:

The life of abuse isn’t full of anger, getting thrown and smacked and bruised, and being yelled at and torn down. That’s only part of it. You also feel special and needed. You don’t feel like life is hell, even if it is, because you know how to force a smile. It feels good to damage your own health and wellbeing for your abusers, because you’re told that you’re doing what is right. You fight for acceptance and admonition, because you’re always getting small tastes of it, and it’s always just out of reach.

I don't know who Cynthia Jeub is, but that paragraph right there is something I've always wanted to say. People who are abused as children are often unaware of just how deep and profound the damage really is. We internalize it and repeat it and perpetuate it because we do not want to lose something we've always seen as a foundation. We do not want to face how shaky that foundation really is.

I've got some pretty out there variations in my version of Christianity--tarot cards, new agey things. This last week I finally understood why. It's because a part of getting positive attention from my parents, especially my father, was to repeat exactly what they believed exactly the way it was taught to me. I believe I took a more-than-slightly heretical path because it took my spirituality out of a toxic framework and put it into a place where I couldn't use it in my relationships with my parents. It made it into something that was mine.

Abusive situations are never a continual, ongoing ocean of misery. They do have positive moments. If they didn't, it wouldn't be so very hard to leave. Elsie is getting positive feedback now that she's conformed perfectly to her father's wishes. She's getting presents and affection. She's also gotten the message that if she wishes these things to continue, she is not allowed to have her own thoughts. The only reason her faith has a greater stranglehold on her than her father is that her version of God is exactly the same as her version of Dad, and she doesn't want God angry at her.

When you live with abuse you live for the sake of your abuser. In the process, you forget who you are. And if you're a child, you never get to learn.

Stroke of Midnight chapter 14, Elsie chapter 11

 THE POLICE, ALL FLAVORS, STOOD IN THE DECEMBER COLD.

POLICE. ARE NOT. POPSICLES.

 Well, these guys are because Merry's kept them waiting for-fucking-ever. Oh, she blames the brass, but she's the one who had to investigate brownies going boggart and protest being wrapped in troll fur.

Merry tries to sort through the dick-measuring contest between the local boys and the feds. Apparently the Fairy reservations fall under the same rules as the Native American reservations.

...and that means it falls under fed jurisdiction.

...which is probably correct (comparison between Shiny Sparklepoo fairies and a demographic that sometimes doesn't even get running water aside) but that would mean we wouldn't have to deal with the BULLSHIT pissing contest. So somehow an overworked St. Louis crime lab is better equipped to handle an investigation than the FBI.

RIGHT.

 LKH elects to make the FBI total morons.

Marquez argued , as I’d expected him to. “You are not an officer of any kind, Princess. No offense, but this investigation needs more than just a private detective in charge of it.”

...and yet he somehow manages to score a valid point. The FBI have more resources to focus than St. Louis PD. They don't have to deal with crack-house murders. They don't have to work traffic stops. And also? Given the way cops in the St. Louis area have behaved over the last couple months? They're probably not nearly that fucking racist.

 Merry reminds Marquez that she's a goddamn princess.

He asks her if he hurt her feelings.

Merry calls the goddamn wife of the president of the goddamn United States I am not making that up I swear to fucking God.

  The First Lady chews Marquez out. He agrees to co-operate.

...I have to admit, that's kind of fucking cool.

The First Lady then gushes over Merry for a few minutes, and then we move on to the rest of the chapter.

...which ends shortly after the lead cop laughs his ass off over the feds getting shown the door by the First Lady.

I really do hate this book.


On to Elsie.

This was published as a series. The version I read originally cut out very large chunks of the next part because it concerns Elsie being happy, and there's nothing to be gained from watching Elsie being happy...at least from the POV of the IDIOTS who decided this should be given to modern children.

There is a LONG, LONG passage about how Horace doesn't really love Jesus. Now, anybody with two braincells to rub together would notice that Horace is a horrible fuck of a human being and that Jesus probably doesn't want to have much to do with him. But Elsie's big concern is that Horace isn't Saved. Her evidence that he isn't Saved? He doesn't give two shits about the Sabbath.

There are many, many theological arguements I can bring concerning that. Suffice to say that Paul addressed it (Romans 14) and the jist of that is that you have to live according to your conscience, but that God is big enough to work with you and if you need to reschedule to Wednesday, he'll be cool with that.

But that kind of flexibility is anathema to these idiots, so Elsie decides her dad isn't saved because her theological teaching doesn't allow for one single fucking mistake, EVER. Great

And thus it was with Elsie. She knew now that her father was not a Christian; that he had no real love for Jesus, none of the true fear of God before his eyes. She saw that if he permitted her to read to him from God's word, as he sometimes did, it was not that he felt any pleasure in listening, but only to please her; she had no reason to suppose he ever prayed, and though he went regularly to church, it was because he considered it proper and respectable to do so, and not that he cared to worship God, or to learn His will.

I have been on the receiving end of this attitude multiple times. I've also handed it out, but in my defense that shit stopped when I was eighteen and smart enough to know better. So we don't all worship God the same way. My way happens to involve self-created rituals and lots of cool incense. Other people use old rituals and lots of cool incense. Other people use neither of those. You know what? The Faith is bigger than having to adhere to a code of conduct. According to basic theology, that was the entire point of the Cross. It's that you DON'T have to play these stupid games anymore. It's that you're able to minister to people on your holy days because they NEED it. You're able to break out of the mold and do what you need to do for others. Not by works but by faith means that you don't need to worry about the nitty gritty legalism of your conduct, and you just need to focus on wheither or not what you do is helpful to the faith or helpful to others. You know that God's got you covered if you fuck up, so it's perfectly alright to jump off the cliff, so to speak, to catch somebody else.

"He could see no necessity for a change of heart; he did not believe in the doctrine of total depravity, not he; no indeed, he thought the world much better than many people would have us believe."

Yes. The legalistic religion of an 18th century Calvinist would go that route.

Elsie lifted her eyes timidly to the gentleman's face as she replied, "I was just thinking, sir, of what our Saviour said to Nicodemus: 'Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' 'Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.'"

1. STOP GIVING CHILDREN THE KJV1611 THEY DO NOT HAVE THE EDUCATION TO READ THE FUCKING THING.

2. The conversation between Christ and Nicodemus is really, really complicated, and it's not the kind of thing you trot out during an ANTEBELLUM SOUTH DINNER PARTY.

And of course Elsie "Saves" a random stranger at Daddy's party, but she doesn't manage to save Horace because Plot.

Elsie finally manages to go to bed, and then this happens:

Her questioner followed her with an admiring glance, then turning to her father, exclaimed warmly, "She is a remarkably intelligent child, Dinsmore! one that any father might be proud of. I was astonished at her answers."

I wish I didn't know this.

In the 1980s there was a man named Joel Steinberg. His common law wife was named Hedda Nusbaum. Depending on who you talked to they either had an intense S/m relationship OR he was an abusive shithead who abused her on a regular basis (Either case left Hedda horribly disfigured by the abuse she received.) They (Illegally)adopted a kid named Lisa. Lisa was known for being intelligant and rather un-child-like. She was that way because nobody around her was willing to tolerate a child. Lisa Steinberg existed to be an accessory and an emotional crutch for her "parents". She was never allowed to be a child.

Childhood is a very important thing for children to have. All the things that annoy us adults are actually a child practicing things that will be very necessary to adult life. Sabotaging that process by demanding that a child show "wisdom beyond their years" means that they won't learn the very basic building blocks we all need to ensure our social survival.

Elsie is a BADLY neglected child who is expected to pass up her developmental years for the pleasure of the adults around her.

Also, Lisa Steinberg? Died. She was beaten to death by her "father", and then left alone on the floor of a bathroom by her "mother".

So no. I find nothing adorable or admirable about precious Elsie Dinsmore. I see something very sad, very dangerous, and very VERY troubling.

She opened at the third chapter of John's Gospel and read it through. At the sixteenth verse, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," she paused, and asked, "Was not that a wonderful gift, papa? and wonderful love that prompted it?"

I had that verse memorized by the time I was six. With exactly that language, because the Sunday Schools, Vacation Bible Schools, homeschooling curriculum AND motherfucking private schools ALL used the KJV 1611 version of the bible.

You wanna know what this is like to Christian audiences? You really want to know? If this novel were erotica? This? This is missionary position sex. This is something that everybody could do with their eyes closed through a hole in the sheets. This is a key stop on the goddamn Roman Road. This is not new information to ANYBODY who would still be reading this series.

Don't get me wrong. I like that verse. I'd like it a lot better if I didn't see it a MINIMUM of once a day. I see it so much that it has lost ALL MEANING to me. There is a lovely, beautiful idea encapuslated in those words and I can't see it anymore because it gets shoved in my face EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. MINUTE.

The chapter ends with Elsie sobbing because Horace doesn't understand she's trying to SAVE HIS SOUL.

Editing, Free Books, and Other things

First up: Free Book. This Found Thing. Get it. Read it. Enjoy it (if possible)

Second: I'm beginning to understand why people don't talk about it when other people abuse them. You have the fear of reprisal, which sucks...and then you get the people who won't stop talking about the thing. EVER. Guys, I am not and do not want to be "That writer that RH stalked" or "That rape victim" ect ect. It's a thing that happened, but it's not my identity. And that is the part that is getting very, very exhausting.

One thing that I dislike is when a victim's story becomes a part of their aggressor's narrative. It erases the identity of the victim, while simultaneously hooking everything about their life to their abuser, forever. I strongly admire people like Malala Yusafzai and Elizabeth Smart, because they both managed to rip their stories out of their abuser's hands and make it about them, their recovery, and about building up other girls like them so that shit like that never happens again. And that's what the point of stuff like this ought to be. It shouldn't be about how terrible Person X is--that should be a part of the story, dear GOD yes, but that shouldn't be the point of the story. The point should be this is what this behavior does, this is how people survive, and this is what we need to stop. 

It's not about them, guys. It's not about the people that hurt us. It's about us, and making ourselves and our lives have value above and beyond what other people do to us. There's a line in James Alan Gardner's Vigilant, "Live in the Real and name the lies". I believe a big lie is that the people who harm us have power over us. They don't. They can hurt us, but hurting isn't power. They only get power if we surrender it.

Don't let them get away with it, by all means, but don't let them and what they've done become so much of your life that you don't have room for anything else.

Meanwhile, I am editing books. I am back on the horse, somewhat. Should be able to start talking release dates for the next part of Ivory Scars, Iron Bars very soon. Like, within the next week soon.

So be well, my lovelies. Have a great weekend.

...and, uh, buy books. Mine. If you like. :D

Free Book Day

So. In the interests of cleaning a bad taste out of everybody's mouth (and using KDP free days I've been ignoring for ages) FREE BOOK DAYS!

This Found Thing will be free from tomorrow to Sunday.

That is all.

Stroke of Midnight chapter 13, Elsie chapter 10

We finally get upstairs to the cops and start walking towards them. They're not visible yet, but there's there. We are firmly assured that they are there and that we are walking towards them.

However, we have to derail our movement towards plot so that somebody can try to kill Merry with cold feelings.

I focused on the fight to lift one foot, then the next, and struggle through drifts that the taller sidhe walked through effortlessly . It was undignified for a princess to fall on her face , but it took effort to keep from doing it. I suppose that struggling through the snow wasn’t exactly dignified either, but that I could do nothing about.

PLOT. PLOT IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL. STOP DERAILING AND GO TOWARDS PLOT.

So they find a spell that makes people cold, and it's hurting Biddy more than Merry because Biddy is half human and Merry is only a fourth human. Which makes very little sense given how much people hate Merry for being mortal, but I guess we have to give Merry somebody to rescue again.

And oh, goody, it's contageous so if they go anywhere near the police it'll start to kill them. NO. LET'S NOT DO PLOT. I DON'T SEE ANY REASON WHY WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE VERY INTERESTING PLOT WE"VE BEEN PROMISED SINCE THE BEGINNING.

So now the men fight among themselves because some of them are Cel's men. I don't care. Plot. Plot is over there. You're almost there.

Seriously. I've never read any author this allergic to following through on plot plans.

Doyle burns the spell away. It's a non-issue. He decides to chase the spell on Biddy back to whoever casts it, so him and a couple random guards decide to follow it.

Rhys makes a dumb joke comparing badges to balls. It's not that clever. The chapter ends.

Meanwhile, over in Elsie...

This is not the most fucked up chapter in the series. This is not even one of the top five most fucked up things in the series. But guys? This chapter is disturbing.

It's Sunday and Horace has friends over.  One of them looks for Elsie.

"Yes, Miss Adelaide; I was looking for little Miss Elsie. Travilla has given me so very glowing an account of her precocious musical talent, that I have conceived a great desire to hear her play and sing."

Mrs. Dinsmore, ever the shit-stirrer, decides to stir the shit.

"No, she will not," persisted Mrs. Dinsmore, in the same cold, quiet tone; "she will tell you she is wiser than her father, and that it would be a sin to obey him in this. Believe me, she will most assuredly defy your authority; so you had better take my advice and let her alone—thus sparing yourself the mortification of exhibiting before your guests your inability to govern your child."

Horace sends for her anyway.

"Thank you," he said, haughtily, "but I prefer convincing you that that inability lies wholly in your own imagination; and I am quite at a loss to understand upon what you found your opinion, as Elsie has never yet made the very slightest resistance to my authority."

He then remembers too late that Elsie doesn't like doing things on Sunday, but he thinks "Well, we were going to have that confrontation anyway." and sets himself up to make Elsie do what he tells her.

So before she even gets in the room, Elsie has been set up to fail. And yes, indeed, she says that it wouldn't be right to sing or play the song he wants on the Sabbath. He starts pushing her. The other guests start getting uncomfortable and try to laugh it off and let the kid off the hook--because, you know, they're decent human beings--and Horace ignores them. It's got nothing to do with right or wrong here. It's about Horace getting what Horace wants out of a little kid.

She begins to cry. He tells her that she's going to sit at the piano until she obeys. She accepts this. That she's going to sit there until the next day, when it'll be okay for her to play the song. That this is the way her life is. To be an obediant, good little girl, she has to submit to this.

We get several paragraphs of how torturous and horrible it is for a little kid to be made to sit on a chair for a while, and we are expected to believe that it really is that horrible. Then Edward Travilla, who is a Christian and one of the good guys, tries to suggest that she just comply and get it over with. Elsie replies.

"O Mr. Travilla!" she said, looking up at him in great surprise, "surely you know that there is no such thing as a little sin; and don't you remember about the man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath day?"

Yeah, he got stoned to death. However, in the New Testament, there's a story where Jesus and his deciples thresh wheat by hand so they can eat something, get thumped for it by the Pharasees, and Jesus thumps back. Every single thing here is completely unnecessary, this is a theological point that got resolved an incredibly long time ago, and I have no idea why Martha Finley thought it was a good idea to frame it as an issue between an eight year old and her abusive asshole of a father.

 "Never, Travilla," he answered, with stern decision. "This is the first time she has rebelled against my authority, and if I let her conquer now, she will think she is always to have her own way. No; cost what it may, I must subdue her; she will have to learn that my will is law."

And why the fuck do these people keep framing child discipline as something akin to horse breaking? Even horse trainers agree that breaking the animal's spirit is a bad move, and children are not animals. 

 Travilla tries to get Adelaide to intervene. Adelaide points out that there's nothing anybody can do about it, Horace won't change his mind.

Elsie sits there at the piano until she fucking passes out from the stress. 

 Guys, if Elsie passes out because she had to sit in a chair, there's medical issues involved. And what the fuck kind of message is this? If you have a religious conflict between yourself and your parents, the only way to resolve it is to resist until you put yourself in physical danger? How does the bible study address this chapter? At what point does a parent read this and go "Yes, let's absolutely expose our kids to this notion."

Horace is...immediately and oddly repentant.

It was some time ere consciousness returned,

 STOP. A bump on the head with extended unconsciousness is BAD.  This is an active emergancy in a time when "Doctor" means "bleed patient."

"Never mind, daughter," he said, "you have been ill; but you are better now, so don't think any more about it."

DON'T THINK ABOUT...dude. On YOUR ORDERS, she sat on a chair until she fucking fainted, hit her head, and stayed unconsious for a WHILE. This is DIRECTLY YOUR FAULT and you are telling YOUR VICTIM to forget what YOU DID.

Horace, probably realizing that he's gone too far, the way abusers usually do, takes Elsie upstairs and puts her to bed. He even lets her say her prayers first!

The next day he tells her she nearly died. Which...yeah, she nearly did. Elsie asks him if he would be so sorry.

Yeah, it's weak, but it's the first fucking time this kid has shown any fire whatsoever, and I'll take what I can get.

Horace says of course he'd be upset.

"Sorry, darling! do you not know that you are more precious to me than all my wealth, all my friends and relatives put together? Yes, I would rather part with everything else than lose this one little girl," he said, kissing her again and again.

This is what abusers do when they realize they've gone too far. They act very, very, very sorry. In part because they do know they fucked up, and in part because they don't want their victims to get away. Horace does not realize that he has actually done anything wrong. And note how he values Elsie: She's a thing to value. Not another person that he may or may not get to agree with.

And now it's time for RELIGIOUS MASTURBATION.

"Because, Mr. Travilla, the Bible says, 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha,' accursed from God. Oh! sir, think how dreadful! You cannot be saved unless you love Jesus, and believe on Him. 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' That is what God says in his word."

Look, I share these beliefs and even I agree that putting responsibility for an adult's spiritual wellbeing is a little much for a fucking eight year old. 

 This also gets very, VERY creepy in light of Elsie's relationship with Travilla later on in the series.

So Elsie sings her song now that it's not Sunday anymore, and everybody thinks she's very special. End of chapter.

Stroke of Midnight chapter 11-12, Elsie chapter 9

The smell Doyle found was blood. His sword is bleeding. His sword is bleeding because Rhys can't talk through a magical weapon, so he had to make Doyle's sword bleed until it formed words on the floor.

I have absolutely no idea, and I think hallucinogenics were involved.

Anyway, Rhys wants more people because there's a lot of cops and a lot of feds and they're having a lot of dick measuring contests because inter-office cooperation is a little much in an LKH novel.  Nobody will talk to Rhys because of the bleeding sword thing, so Doyle and Merry have to come up and sort things out.

They agree to do something about the feds. Its never very clear. And that's the end of the chapter.

Next chapter:  Merry balks at wearing a fur coat because it was made from an animal. Then she finds out it was made from a troll, which is worse. Everyone rolls their eyes. Doyle assaults her.

I'm serious.

Doyle grabbed my arm. His grip was bruising, and his face held the anger that his hand pressed against my flesh. “You are a princess of the Unseelie Court. You will rule us someday. You cannot show this much weakness, not if you expect to survive!”

Dude. Her problem is that you killed a person and are wearing its skin. I mean, this?

This is not a good thing. Merry has a chance to make these idiots be something that isn't murder-rapy.

Doyle keeps it up, too:

Doyle jerked me close to his body, and I felt the creeping line of energy as his power began to unfold. He snarled into my face, “Won’t wear the skins of our honored enemies. The police await us, our men stand in the cold, and you don’t like your coat! Such delicate sensibilities for someone who just fucked a stranger on the floor in front of us all.”

Fucking is consensual (which is unusual in LKH's worlds). Murder is not. Merry understands the difference.

Oh, but the real problem is that he is envious of Merry!

He looked up, and grabbed Frost’s arm, much as he’d grabbed mine, almost pleading. “I cannot go back to what I was here. I cannot stand at her side and watch another take her. I am not that strong, or that good.”

I...actually understand this. Not the Merry thing, but the "I cannot go back to living here" bit. Remember the cultervention back in Danse Macabre? This is another moment like that. This is a person realizing hey, this is an INCREDIBLY shitty place I'm in and I need to not ever be here again.

And of course it's getting explained away as having to do with sex. The Ring, they say, has chosen Mistral as her mate. Because she "Rode the Storm". And all the other men are being pissy. Merry points out that this is the first time she's screwed with the Ring on, and the other men calm down really fast.

Please don't decide to fuck, please don't decide to fuck, please don't--oh, hell, you're going to, aren't you.

PLOT. PLOT IS UPSTAIRS WITH THE COPS. GO TO PLOT. GO UPSTAIRS AND GO FIND PLOT.

They make out. Then they talk about how all the guards are abused. Then they talk about how much they love each other. Then more talk about abused guards. They tell Merry that her cousin Cel threatened to rape her as soon as he gets out of his cell. Where he's being tortured with unslaked sexual desire.

I hate this book.

Merry agrees to wear the damn fur. She makes a mirror appear and them disappear. It's treated as earth shatteringly important. Merry gets women added onto her guards and this is also important for some reason. FINALLY, though, they all make it out to the snow to greet the cops.












On to Elsie.

Elsie is happy. This is an unusual development in this novel. Elise is happy because Horace isn't treating her like shit. For some reason the carrige ride knocked a screw loose and he's forgotten how to abuse his daughter.

She felt grateful for all the kindness she received, and liked to visit with her papa; but her happiest days were spent at home on those rare occasions when they were free from visitors, and she could sit for hours on his knee, or by his side, talking or reading to him, or working at her embroidery, or knitting and listening while he read.

This book thinks that subtle is a kind of fruit, so we know they're gearing up for something. It's all "Elsie isn't scared of Daddy anymore, do you get it? ELSIE'S NOT SCARED OF DAD." 

It lasts for a week.

It was Sabbath afternoon

Alright. Let's stop there for a second. Elsie's two guardians--the calvinist scottish maid and Chloe--are of the "You can't do secular stuff on Sunday" variaty. It was a common-ish thread in Christianity back then, but it's not so common anymore. And remember: Nobody else in this household is devout.

This will not end well. 

It was Sabbath afternoon—the first Sabbath after their return—and Elsie was in her own room alone with the books she loved best—her Bible, hymnbook, and "Pilgrim's Progress."

I have read Pilgrim's Progress, and I repeat my earlier comments about functional illiteracy.

 She had spent a very happy hour in self-examination, reading and prayer, and was singing to herself in a low tone her favorite hymn, "I lay my sins on Jesus," while turning over the leaves of her Bible to find the story of Elijah, which she had promised to read to Chloe that afternoon, when a child's footsteps were heard coming down the hall, the handle of the door was turned hastily, and then, as it refused to yield, Enna's voice called out in a fretful, imperious tone, "Open this door, Elsie Dinsmore. I want in, I say."

And we've dragged in Enna, who is this series' special whipping post. When they want to make a point about something, they drag in Enna. No bullshit, by the time she exits the series she has severe brain damage and her daughter has been crippled because Enna made the kid wear high heels.

"I told you I wanted to come in," replied Enna, saucily, "and now you've got to tell me a story to amuse me; mamma says so, because you know I've got a cold, and she won't let me go out."

Sane response: "No"

Elsie's response:

"Well, Enna," said Elsie, patiently, "I am going to read a very beautiful story to mammy, and you are quite welcome to sit here and listen."

But Enna doesn't want a bible story, she wants a fairy tale that Elsie told Henry Carrington. Elsie refuses because it's Sunday and fairy tales aren't for Sundays. Well, Enna goes and gets her mother and father, and they both start shouting at Elsie that she has to tell the fairy-tale because Sunday isn't different from any other day.

"Do you dare to contradict me, you impertinent little hussy?" cried the old gentleman, interrupting her in the middle of her sentence; and catching her by the arm, he shook her violently; then picking her up and setting her down hard upon a chair, he said, "Now, miss, sit you there until your father comes home, then we will see what he thinks of such impertinence; and if he doesn't give you the complete whipping you deserve, I miss my guess."

So Horace, with his usual asshattry, sends the kid down to his study to wait for punishment. And Elsie panicks because she's lost his love all over again. Well, that screw is still loose because instead of beating her, he *gasp!* Listens to both sides of the story and decides whose is more likely. And he sides with Elsie!

Is...is this actual improvement? Character development? ARE THINGS FINALLY IMPROVING FOR OUR LITTLE GIRL?

 He makes her apologize to her grandfather, then takes her upstairs and "punishes" her by making her read the Bible, he lets her eat a good supper, he stands up for her against Enna...sir, who are you and what have you done with Horace?

Oh, he's still there. He tells her that her religion had better not ever get in the way of his instruction. She begs him not to ever make her do something wrong...aaaand then this happens.

"I never intend to bid you do wrong, but, on the contrary, wish you always to do right. But then, daughter, I must be the judge of what is wrong or right for you; you must remember that you are only a very little girl, and not yet capable of judging for yourself,

Yeah. That, right there, is straight out of the "Stay At Home Daughters" textbook. You cannot and should not tell your children that they can't make decisions for themselves. Elsie realizes that she's going to have to eventually choose between obeying her religion or obeying her father.

End of chapter.

Fine. FINE. Thoughts on the Requires Only That You Hate drama

Edit: 3/12/2015: I think six months of being harassed by her peers is kinda more than enough.

She apologized. It's over here.

Do I buy it? I think she is genuinely sorry that the entire internet collapsed on her head the minute she got outed. I DO doubt that that post got put up on the 15th, seeing as how I've checked her blog multiple times over the last week and I've seen her "OH COME ON MANGA THAT GOES ON FOREVER" post front and center. But whatever. There's a certain amount of panic in these situations and you make really, really, REALLY stupid decisions. Back dating a post to look like you apologized earlier than you did is a moot issue. If she did or didn't...yeah, I don't really care.

She did, however, do two really, really important things: She apologized for hurting people, and she owned that this is what she actually did. She didn't dodge the issue. Good for her.

I'm still going to be incredibly wary.

Guys, I've been in and watched abusive relationships my entire life. I've been manipulated by relatives, my mother's last two marriages were to incredibly nasty narcissists. When they get called on their shit, they always back peddle, say they're sorry you're so sensative, and butter you up for a few days or weeks so you don't leave.

And every instinct I've got? Is kind of going "Hey, this might be genuine". Because it's not "I'm sorry you're so sensative" It's "I was wrong. I did wrong things. I didn't want to admit it."

Hey, RH? Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. It really sucks. And it really sucks to get told that you've been a shit-head by the entire fucking internet.

That said...I also know how incredibly easy it is for abusive personalities to lie their way out of a jam. Because I've seen it happen over, and over, and over, and OVER IRL. It creates an intensely damaging cycle that allows the abuser to continue to abuse their victims of choice.

So if this really is a genuine apology from RH...good for you, girl. Please understand that it's gonna take the rest of us a really, REALLY long time to trust you, but that's because a lot of us have been badly hurt by you and we don't want that to happen again. If you stop being toxic--I mean, call us out on our shit. Don't stop doing that. Just...stop suggesting we die in the process--it'll happen eventually.

I also understand how you could have resorted to the language that you did; it got you approval and applause from your chosen circle, and that can be a heady and dangerous drug. I believe that's the same dynamic that keeps homophobia alive in Christian circles--it's not that we actually believe that being gay is wrong, it's that saying it keeps us in with the "in" crowd and we are terrified of losing that place in the sun. It's the driving dynamic behind most cults. It's the fuel behind most hateful rhetoric. It's not something that's easy to fight, especially when you want to belong.

The next step for you is to start. Start caring about how your words affect other people. Start thinking about how you can use your words to make a positive change in everybody. You are still in a very powerful position. I don't think you should give up your Requires Hate persona--it's too useful. But you need to make it, and your other professional persona, genuine. Start being open about your past and start talking openly about what needs to change. When we fuck up we have two alternatives. We can bury our mistakes or we can talk about them, study them, build on them, and use them to try to change the system that encouraged us to make those errors in the first place.

Hell, I'll lend you Robot Susan B. Anthony for a while.

And for the love of God stop being friends with the asshole that outed you. Talk about your toxic relationships...

Stroke of Midnight chapter 10, Elsie chapter 7-8

So after bonding with a long lost relative over wanton violence, Rhys's sword starts ringing.

Like a phone. His sword is a phone.

A HIGH, RINGING SOUND CAME. WE ALL LOOKED AROUND THE room, but there was nothing to account for the sound. It came again. It was as if the finest crystal goblet were being struck with metal, so that it made that high, ringing, bell- like tone only the best crystal makes. Rhys was unsheathing his short sword. “I left Crystall in charge outside with the police.” He held the naked blade up before his face. “You rang?”

It turns out that the cops are having--what else?--a gigantic pissing contest about who is in charge of the crime scene. Because expecting people to be professional is apparently too much fucking work.

“Everything,” Crystall said. “They seem to have no clear hierarchy. It is like a game of too many princes.”

You know, if anybody ever says that LKH likes cops, I'm going to point them at this passage. Anyhoo, Rhys heads off to talk to the cops. Not three seconds later, Merry sees something moving behind a curtain. Apparently nobody searched the kitchen for live bodies.

Merry tips Doyle off and he makes a big deal of questioning Onilwyn, while keeping his eye on the magic curtain.

I am now praying that this random person will be neither the killer nor a sudden witness that can resolve the plot with one conversation, but I ain't holding out too much hope.

Galen finds two fairies hiding in an unrelated part of the kitchen. They were hiding from Maggie.  We spend a few paragraphs sexualizing the fairies because of course we do. We waste a few more paragraphs trying to get the fairies out of the cabinet. They're scared of the guards, and the guards have to be scary because we don't know if they're the killers or not. Meanwhile there's still something hiding in the curtain under the fucking sink.

And then the guards step in front of Merry and shit happens. Let me repeat this: random characters step in front of the viewpoint character in a first person narration so that she can't see the action. It turns out to be a non-event. It's a hob named Harry, who was romantic with the murdered Fae woman and figures Onilwyn did it. Only he didn't see a thing, so it's a moot point.

It also takes about three pages for him to say "No, I didn't see anything."

They ask Onilwyn why he came down to the kitchen. Apparently he didn't want to watch Merry have sex and came down to poke around the crime scene.

That sounds perfectly sane and reasonable.

Everyone acts like he just admitted to flossing his teeth with the dead fairy's intestine. 

“You didn’t hit him hard enough, Merry,” Galen said, and my gentle knight had a decidedly ungentle look on his face.

They all figure that the dead woman, Beatrice, had a sidhe lover who was also a guard and thus risking death to sleep with her. Everyone asks who would risk death for anything less than sidhe flesh. She's also doing Harry. So it's your standard love triangle with the predictable result. Onilwyn insists he came back to investigate the crime scene because it'll earn favor with Merry and boost his chances of sleeping with her. Because it's all about Merry.

The chapter ends with Doyle wondering what stinks.

I think it's this book.

Meanwhile, over in Elsie...

Elsie is severely depressed, and hasn't gotten good grades this month. Yep, it's time for Daddie Dearest to pile it on some more.

The book also goes out of its way to make it clear that everybody hates Elsie. Mrs. Day is very satisfied that she can finally give Elsie a bad report, everyone else is relatively gleeful--it's to the point of cartoon villainy now.

He demands that Elsie explain why her studies have slumped. Elsie doesn't know, because she's fucking eight, and is so depressed she can barely function. Horace continues to scream at her.

"You don't know? Very well, then, I think you could not be very ill without knowing it, and so you seem to have no excuse at all to offer? However, I will not inflict any punishment upon you this time, as you seem to be really sorry, and have promised to do better; but beware how you let me see such a report as this, or hear such complaints of idleness again, unless you wish to be severely punished; and I warn you that unless your next copy-book presents a better appearance than this, I certainly shall punish you.

He tells her that her next set of lessons had better be done perfectly. Then he demands that she leave.

Her biggest worry is that Arthur will keep bullying her when her back is turned, to the point of making her mess up on purpose.

Adelaide writes a letter to Rose Allison, the nice Christian lady from the beginning of the book. Elsie tells Adelaide everything that's happening, hoping that she'll write to Rose. Instead, Adelaide decides to spend her afternoons in the school room so that Arthur can't do anything to Elsie.

Elsie then knits a purse for Horace and sneaks into his room to give it to him. He catches her and shouts at her. She gives him the purse. He asks her why she's so afraid of him, and she falls over sobbing and begs him to love her. He says that he does--and that if she loves him she'll stop being afraid of him.

She's afraid of you because you keep treating her like crap, you dumb shit.

Near the end of the month, Mrs. Day sabotages all of Elsie's lessons on purpose. Elsie speaks up for herself. Mrs. Day takes her up to Horace, who threatens to spank her, and then decides that she'll sit in his office all day and have only bread and water for dinner. She isn't very hungry, so Horace stands over her and demands that she eat.

When he leaves, he runs into Adelaide, who tells him that Mrs. Day is abusing his daughter. Horace insists that can't be true, and that if it is it's Elsie's fault for not speaking up in her own defense. He makes her sit in the office all day and finally sends her back to her room. End of chapter.

Next chapter, it's report day. Elsie has one bad mark, due to Mrs. Day's preformance, and an absolutely perfect copybook. Perfect handwriting, no ink blots. She's very proud, so she puts it in her desk and leaves the room.

Arthur goes in the room, figures he can get back at Elsie for the episode with his grandfather's watch, and fucks up her copybook on purpose. So when she gets sent up to Horace, he says he'll have to punish her for the bad work. She insists that she didn't do it, her book was perfect, but OF COURSE Horace doesn't believe her. He drags her out of the room, promising to punish her for the mistakes in her schoolwork AND for lying.

Lora proves that the entire family is aware of how shitty Horace is and demands that Arthur tell his brother the truth. Arthur refuses to do so. She decides to run up and tell Horace anyway, and then this happens:

She was just in time; he had a small riding whip in his hand, and Elsie stood beside him pale as death, too much frightened even to cry, and trembling so that she could scarcely stand.

Horace is about to horse whip his daughter. HORSE WHIP.

Lora points out the obvious:

1. Elsie never, ever, ever lies.
2. She saw Elsie's work the day before and she KNOWS that it's perfect
3. Arthur hates Elsie's guts and has been gunning for her ever since the watch episode.

Horace decides there might maybe be something to this and puts the whip away. Then he bullies Elsie into telling him what really happened between herself and Mrs. Day. She doesn't want to, but eventually complies.

"Elsie," he said when she had done, "if I had known all this at the time, I should not have punished you at all. Why did you not tell me, my daughter, how you have been ill treated and provoked?"

BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T TRUST YOU NUMBNUTS. And she did tell you and you did not believe her. You didn't believe her two minutes ago with her copybook, you didn't believe her with the episode with the candy, you've been needlessly cruel with no reason and not ten seconds ago you were about to HORSE WHIP HER.

Then we spend a few minutes of Horace fondling Elsie while thinking about how much she looks like his dead wife.

Elsie admits that she hopes to see her mother in heaven, and that she loves Jesus more than she loves Horace. Horace is taken aback by this. He then manipulates an incredibly half-assed accusation out of Elsie, confirming that Arthur was being a little shit and fucked with her book. He sends her to dinner and then hunts down Arthur.

And while the most obvious solution to Elsie's woes is clear

Horace just goes to talk to his brother..

"You'll get no dinner to-day, I can tell you," replied his brother. "I am going to lock you into your bedroom, and keep you there until your father comes home; and then if he doesn't give you the flogging you deserve, I will; for I intend you shall have your deserts for once in your life.

Yep. That's Horace. Violence and food deprivation. And satisfying as it is to watch Arthur get the snot beat out of him, it's no cooler to beat him than Elsie. All you do when you hit a kid is teach them that adults can hurt. It doesn't actually instil any real values in the kid.

The chapter ends with Arthur getting horse-whipped instead of Elsie.

I hate everything about this book.











 

Stroke of Midnight--chapter 9, Elsie chapter 6

So after "Riding the Storm" and getting Nicca shacked up with another woman literally named Biddy, the men go to get cleaned up.

I'm now waiting for Merry to go take a goddamned shower. I suspect it will be a long wait.

She also takes pot shots at the cops being utterly useless in the Sithen. Frankly I'd much rather read this story from the POV of the cops.

 Onilwyn is missing. This character who has not been significant before is apparently one of Cel's people, and Merry's scared he's running off to talk to Andais.

We also find out that Merry and Mistral were screwing within a very short walk of the crime scene. Classy. And this is apparently where Onilwyn went, because he's in the kitchen right next to the bodies. Somebody chases him out of it by throwing pots and pans at him.

I am cringing for those poor crime scene techs. A crime scene isn't just the area immediately around the bodies. That kitchen is a part of it, the hallway is a part of it. For all we know Merry and Mistral were fucking on top of the bloody footprint or piece of pocket lint that could have solved the case.

We also discover that fairies, who are severely allergic to iron, are using cast iron skillets to cook with.

When you cook with something, you get bits of that something in the food. Small bits, but it builds up over time. So LKH now expects us to believe that fairy royalty are eating food prepared in their only bane.

Maggy May is the brownie cook giving Onilwyn the beat-down. Galen proclaims that she's "gone bogart", and Merry figures that Onilwyn tried to attack her and this is the result. Apparently when a brownie gets pissed enough to kill, they get kicked out of the Unseelie Court and have to go join the Sluagh. So now we have to do one of LKH's patented Emotional Rescues.

These really, really bother me. Frequently, these are real issues that people have a lot of trouble dealing with, and they're reduced to window dressing so the main character can look good. It's a nasty, awful message to send to people with issues--you can't rescue yourself! You have to have Uber-super ME do it!--and it's only there because LKH cannot write plot anymore.

Merry shocks the brownie out of killing Onilwyn by calling Maggie her aunt. Somehow Maggie is related to Merry--probably fairy incest--and this gives her the power to manipulate Maggie out of her probably entirely justified rage.

 And it works! We segue into a long conversation about fairy racism and why Merry can't acknowlege Maggie as her aunt, thus completely invalidating the emotional reactions of the other characters and making it all about Merry.

We do find out, eventually, that Onilwyn kicked one of Maggie's magic dogs.

Right.

We have a promise of a plot involving a forensic investigation of murdered fairies in the ever-shifting lair of bloody psychopaths, and instead we've decided to focus on the abuse of magic dogs.

Which...turns into a flashback about Merry's childhood and how special the magic dogs are to her. So she's just taken Onilwyn's concern for her abused puppies and made it all about Merry.

Onilwyn tries to shoot magic at Maggie. Merry hits him in the face with an iron skillet.

Blood flew from around the skillet, a bright surprised scarlet spray. He collapsed to his side, moaning softly. His nose looked like a squashed tomato, and there was so much blood it was hard to tell what other damage I’d done to his face.

The still uninvestigated crime scene is right outside the kitchen door. Which means the cops are going to comb through that room in the hopes that the killer might have gone in there to wash their hands and maybe shed a couple hair samples....and we're spraying blood around like it's confetti.

And then we suddenly Don't Like Onilwyn. Why?

It's not real clear, but I think Merry is implying that he beat and/or raped her as a child.

“No,” I said, and realized that the thought of letting Onilwyn touch me was repulsive. He’d been one of my main tormentors when I was a child. I still hated Cel and some of his cronies enough to feel nothing but a sense of utter satisfaction at the ruin of Onilwyn’s face. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t heal.

That's a real big deal. And pulling it directly out of your ass to justify your main character straight up pulverizing his nose with a frying pan is not how you address the issue.

We waste a paragraph focusing on one of the magic dogs.

Maggie decides that this display of wanton violence definitely makes Merry a family member and they giggle and hug each other.

Not exaggerating.

Hugs for no reason, just because were nice, and lately I wasn’t getting enough of them.

That's the end of the chapter. Merry brains the shit out of a guy who kicked a dog, and bonds with a family member over the blood.

And she still has not taken a shower.

And now, Elsie.

When we last left our abused child heroine, she was aching for the affection of her POS father because that's what kids do.

Today, she's going to church.

When you're in an abusive household, church is not that boring place where you have to sit and not wriggle. Church is safe. Your family has to behave itself for however long they're in it, they can't be shitty to you, and you get to dress up nice, look pretty, and be around other people who are nice to you. Having things outside the home is very, very important. You don't like losing them.

Horace almost refuses to let her go because he doesn't like the look of the horses.

Offering a treat and then taking it away, or threatening to take it away before giving it, is a standard abusive tactic. It creates a feeling of uncertainty in the victim, and it promotes further compliance. If Daddy takes the treat away when you didn't do anything wrong, what is he going to do if you actually misbehave? But he decides to let her go, AND he even allows her to sit next to him!

"Elsie, change seats with me," said Enna; "I want to sit beside Brother Horace." 

"No," replied Mr. Dinsmore, laying his hand on his little daughter's shoulder, "Elsie's place is by me, and she shall sit nowhere else."

That is so. very. creepy.

And of course the horses bolt on the way back from church, thus justifying Horace's latest tactic on his daughter. And this brings about the next very, very creepy stage in this father/daughter dynamic: Elsie is responsible for her father's spirituality.

No. Kids are not responsible for anything except being kids.

Horace holds her close and good god book stop being creepy

O! even in that moment of fearful peril, when death seemed just at hand, those words, and the affectionate clasp of her father's arm, sent a thrill of intense joy to the love-famished heart of the little girl.

STOP DESCRIBING THIS SHIT LIKE IT IS A GOOD THING.

And they get rescued when a passer-by grabs the horses' bridles and stops the coach. End of crisis.

Lora was also in the carrige with her. I can't remember if she was a sibling or a friend, but she's amazed by how calm Elsie was when the horses bolted. So Elsie gets to lead her friend to Jesus!

Yes. Evangelizing to your non-believer friends as a child is greatly encouraged in evangelical circles. Which doesn't usually amount to anything because the kids most encouraged don't have any non-believer friends. But it's an insane amount of responsibility to put on a kid. Throw in that most kids are functionally illiterate at the best of times AND that the preferred bible is the KJV 1611 (apparently Satan got hold of the bible in 1612) which puts it way, way, way out of an eight-year-old's comprehension level, and you've got kids desperately parroting words they don't understand because their parents told them their best friend will suffer forever if they don't.

I was thinking of this sweet verse. 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me;' and oh, Lora! it made me so happy to think that Jesus was there with me, and that if I were killed, I should only fall asleep, to wake up again in His arms; then how could I be afraid?"

Once. Just once. I want one of these fucking wastes of paper to latch on to something that hasn't been drilled into the ground. Quoting the twenty-third psalm in a book OBVIOUSLY aimed at American Protestant Christians is like singing "Take me out to the ball game" to the New York Yankees.

Lora then guilt trips her for not thinking about how everyone else would suffer because they aren't Christians. AND IT WORKS!

"But tell me, Elsie, did you not feel afraid for the rest of us? I'm sure you must know that we are not Christians; we don't even pretend to be."

Elsie blushed and looked down. "It all passed so quickly, you know, Lora, almost in a moment," she said, "so that I only had time to think of papa and myself; and I have prayed so much for him that I felt quite sure God would spare him until he should be prepared to die. It was very selfish, I know," she added with deep humility; "but it was only for a moment, and I can't tell you how thankful I was for all our spared lives."

YOU ARE CALLING AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SELFISH FOR THINKING ABOUT HERSELF AND HER FATHER DURING A SCARY SITUATION.

This is not humility. This is the reflex of an abused child to make everything their fault. Because if everything is their fault they can change and make it stop.

Mercifully, we don't resort to the "Roman Road" AKA the set of verses that start in Romans that every student in Sunday School has to memorize. But the entire sequence is, effectively, religious masturbation. LOOK! SALVATION! IT SHOULD BE INTERESTING AND IF YOU DO NOT FIND IT SO YOU ARE A BAD BAD PERSON.

And then we go back to how Horace abuses his daughter.

"Ah! surely papa does love me," she murmured to herself over and over again; and when he met her at the table with a kind smile, and laying his hand caressingly on her head, asked in an affectionate tone, "How does my little daughter do this evening?" her cheeks flushed, and her eyes grew bright with happiness...But, after all, this occurrence produced but little change in Elsie's condition; her father treated her a little more affectionately for a day or two, and then gradually returned to his ordinary stern, cold manner; indeed, before the week was out, she was again in sad disgrace.

What causes this? Elsie finds a humming bird somebody stuck under a glass. She figures that Arthur was being a shit again and lets it go. Only to find out that Horace put it there!

SO HE EVEN ABUSES ANIMALS! WHAT A GUY!

"Come here to me this instant," he said, seating himself on the settee, from which Louise had risen on his entrance. "Come here and tell me what you mean by meddling with my affairs in this way.--"No, you never mean to be naughty, according to your own account," he said; "your badness is all accident; but nevertheless, I find you a very troublesome, mischievous child;..."Tell me what you did it for; was it pure love of mischief?...Which hand did it?"

Those last four words are enough to put terror into the heart of any kid who has ever seen a switch. You know exactly what is going to happen next. Fortunately, Horace does not spank his child's hand.

Oh no. HE TIES IT UP SO THAT SHE CAN'T USE IT ANYMORE.

"I shall tie this hand up, Elsie," he said, proceeding to do so; "those who do not use their hands aright must be deprived of the use of them. There! let me see if that will keep it out of mischief. I shall tie you up hand and foot before long, if you continue such mischievous pranks. Now go to your room, and stay there until tea-time."

 I just...I can't. I can't even. Elise runs off again wondering why she can't stop being naughty, and then this happens:

Then an earnest, importunate prayer for help to do right, and wisdom to understand how to gain her father's love, went up from the almost despairing little heart to Him whose ear is ever open unto the cry of His suffering children.

This is not a book. It's emotional torture porn. And the weird thing is that so many christian books are like this.

Horace makes her come down to dinner and tell everybody exactly why he tied her up. Then he threatens to send her to bed without supper if she doesn't stop crying. YOU JUST EMBARRASSED YOUR KID IN FRONT OF HER WHOLE FAMILY WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT HER TO DO, YOU UTTER LOATHESOME PIECE OF SHIT. And after dinner he makes her get a stool and sit down next to him. No books, no entertainment. She has to sit down and do absolutely nothing "to keep her out of trouble".

Cue the creepy shit.

"How handsome my papa is!" thought the little girl, gazing with affectionate admiration into his face. And then she sighed, and tears trembled in her eyes again. She admired her father, and loved him, "oh! so dearly," as she often whispered to herself; but would she ever meet with anything like a return of her fond affection? There was an aching void in her heart which nothing else could fill; must it always be thus? was her craving for affection never to be satisfied? "O, papa! my own papa, will you never love me?" mourned the sad little heart.

Remember, this book is being given to little girls right now. Elsie is being held up as a positive role model for girls to imitate. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO THINK THIS IS ACTUALLY A GOOD THING FOR A LITTLE GIRL TO BE THINKING.

Guests arrive. Elsie tries to get away so they won't ask her about her hand. Horace makes her sit back down. Finally, after she falls asleep sitting up, he sends her to bed.

End of chapter.