Seduced by Moonlight--chapter 7

SO.

The first, shitty, piece of news is that I get to go to a medical clinic tomorrow morning. The short version is that I have had allergies for months. Two weeks ago the congestion kicked off a nasty little cough, and now that nasty little cough is a fucking nasty big cough that dragged its buddies Fatigue and Shortness of Breath along for the party. I do not have a fever, and until today did not even feel sick. Today, though, I had difficulty tracking part of my afternoon (in my defense, I'm training for a summer job and that means No We Do Not Rest, Thank You) and finally had two fellow employess, followed by my new boss, telling me that I had to go home. So instead of getting to play with small children, small animals, and other wonderful things at Awesome Job, I get to go sit in a clinic so a doctor can give me cough medicine with codine and an industrial strength expectorant in it.

That's the bad news. The good news!

One: The next Exiles book is going very, very VERY well. I really love this story, I am amazed at what wandered into it when I wasn't looking, and I am really looking forward to getting to share.

Two: I'm going to be giving away two hard copies of the Starbleached Omnibus very soon, via Goodreads. Links will be posted as soon as the thing is approved.

Three: I have found the coolest toy ever. I've been trying to find a decent 2d animation program that was, basically, exactly this for a very long time. And not only do I have it, the thing is free and it is FUCKING COOL. How cool? Well, I mashed out a very, VERY fast-and-dirty doll, cut it into little bitty pieces, and spent two hours figuring out how to animate things. This is what I got:

I made this. I MADE this.

Yeah, it's not the smoothest thing in the universe, but I have BIG PLANS for his, now that I know it's this freaking easy. :D

So. How's Merry doing?

Doyle and Rhys show up with their guns out, wondering what all the big deal is. Galen says "Magic gone bad" and they accept that this somehow means nobody is trying to kill Merry.

I think these two idiots would run into a bombing and decide it's no big deal if someone mutters, "Fertilizer...gone bad."

I just lay on the bed and watched them, because trying to sit up had hurt my chest. It felt as if I’d swallowed something down the wrong way. Something very big and very solid, so that I ached all around my ribs. Other than that I didn’t feel bad.

Merry. Honey. These are symptoms of heart attacks in women. GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

Merry asks Doyle why nobody will touch her. Doyle says it's because everybody who has touched her in the last ten minutes has turned into/back into a god.

Merry says what is probably the most unintensionally hilarious line in the book so far:

“I don’t buy that I brought on anyone’s godhead,” I said.

How. How. HOW. HOW CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING THAT PHALLIC WITH A STRAIGHT FACE.

Nicca knees on the bed. We find out that his lustrious brown-like-dirt-not-people hair is down to his knees.

...LKH really needs to get this hair fetish under control because FUCK.

Hey, we've gone this entire chapter without bashing somebody female. Let's fix that.

The T-shirt was silk, a gift from Maeve. She’d given all the men silk tees in varying colors to complement their skin tone. She’d given me a shopping spree at her favorite stores, on the theory that as a woman I’d be happier picking out my own clothes, and the men would rather have the choices made for them. She was half right. Though everyone had taken the gifts, they then traded the colors around among themselves until everyone was happy.

That is a great big pile of suck. The upside to it, though, is I get to imagine Jolly Green Giant Galen nabbing the neon purple shirt intended for somebody else. But seriously, is "She gave us presents and we liked them" so FUCKING HARD TO WRITE? The intended implication here is that Maeve is a clueless twit. The actual implication is that Merry and CO. are all insensitive idiots who can't even manage kindergarten level "Aunt Mable's Ugly Sweater" politeness.

Also: either Maeve got those scrunchy t-shirts that are one-size fits all, or Kitto was stuck with whatever he got. But given that this is the same author who thinks that a EE breasted woman and a broad shouldered man could share the same wardrobe just because they're the same basic height, I don't know why I'm surprised.

We try to explain the god-penis powers. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Oh, I get the basics alright: They killed the Nameless and the magic went everywhere, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in-world. If killing the Nameless gave everybody powers, why isn't power returning to the Fae who weren't present? If only those present get powers, why is Maeve suddenly going Super Sayan Hyper Goddess? If it's simply returning those powers taken to their rightful owners, using Merry as a vessel, then how the fuck did Frost get his upgrade? And why choose MERRY as a vessel?

So anyway, the guys are worried that Merry will explode with power whenever someone touches her and give them back their Godhead...is losing your godhead like being circumsized? I'm serious. Is godhead like...foreskin or something? Are there little magic vices and calipers that they used?--so they need someone who already has their godhead back to touch Merry and make sure she won't, and since Frost freezes things and Rhys kills them, that means the very best thing they can do right now is have Maeve and Merry make out.

I shook my head . Sitting by Maeve Reed, the epitome of Seelie beauty, I didn’t feel beautiful. Something must have shown on my face because Maeve touched my chin, raised me to meet her eyes. “You are beautiful, Merry, and having once been a goddess of beauty, I should know.”

Ugh.

Yeah, there's this thing that is especially rampant in Christian circles, but is pretty much everywhere, where insecurity and thinking you're ugly are both praiseworthy traits. It's humility. Problem with that is, unless it's false humility, it's self-sabotage and highly, HIGHLY unhealthy. And it's the fantasy of every little girl who knows goddamn well that they are pretty, and that they are effectively mutilating their own psyche for the sake of some unknown standard of behavior, that someone will come along and tell them how fucked up their thinking is, and give them the licence to be pretty. Which in turn leaves them wide fucking open for any abuser with a smile to wander over and take advantage of this institutionalized vulnerability.

There's a pop-song reviewer (...yes, this is a thing) called Todd in the Shadows who did an AMAZINGLY good breakdown of why I'm-beautiful-but-I-don't-really-think-so is a really, really unhealthy, shitty and dangerous attitude for a young woman to have (it's the One Direction song halfway through the video) so I'll leave you with that and then move on.

Oh, and Laurel? Fuck you for encouraging that attitude. You are allowed to have confidence in your own looks and talents. Please do so, and grow the fuck up already.

“Why do you think our men have been stealing human women away for centuries? Because they’re ugly?”

...BECAUSE THEY ARE RAPING PSYCHOPATHS WHO WOULD GLADLY FUCK A PANDA IF THEY THOUGHT IT WOULD CAUSE PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE. Looks do not trigger or justify rape. LOOKS DO NOT TRIGGER OR JUSTIFY RAPE. Being raped says nothing about you whatsoever. A rapist views their victims as Kleenex. End of story. They probably kidnap human women because they are there.

Her hands curved over my bare skin, as if the bathing suit wasn’t there. She held me in her arms, and I went willingly, my own hands sliding up the warm skin of her bare arms. It seemed wrong that she wore so many clothes. We needed to touch more skin than this. I realized that I was sensing Maeve’s skin-hunger. Her need for sidhe flesh to cover her own. I remembered the hunger all too well, and it had only been satisfied for me four months back. So long, so lonely. I couldn’t tell if it was my feelings or hers, and I knew that that was part of her magic. To project her needs and make them my own.

...Yes. Because forcing your needs and desires on another person is absolutely okay.

No. No it isn't. You are responsible for your needs, I am responsible for mine. Making my needs become your needs is called "Codependancy" and it is a very bad fucking thing.

Her breasts were pointed with large round nipples that seemed to shine as if they’d been carved of some thick, red jewel.

That makes no sense and you need to stop describing breasts.

That and the mind-rape aside, the lesbian makeout scene between Maeve and Merry reads as largely consensual. That said...having magic be a major part of orgasm is kind of...meh. I mean, it's not like I'm ever gonna get to feel that, so why find it exciting?

When I could hear again, it was her frantic breathing and ragged laugh that came first. Then it was Rhys’s voice: “I don’t know whether to applaud or cry.” 

“Cry,” Galen said, “because we missed the entire show.”

Dude. DUDE. You were sitting RIGHT THERE.

 Merry and Maeve's orgasm makes an apple tree sprout in the middle of Maeve's house.

Merry is the kind of houseguest you want to shoot before the weekend is over. How the fuck are you going to fix the foundation damage?

The chapter ends with Merry drifting off to sleep while Doyle carries her upstairs.