Why is this here?

[kippurbird]

Chapter sixteen



We're about a quarter of the way through the book and the plot (which is non-existent) has yet to move forward. Instead we've been running around in little circles like tops.

The next topic of conversation is "Who will take care of the baby"?

Apparently you need to give up your job to take care of a baby.

"How dare you make this about some macho ego shit. Can't you see she's scared?" [Claudia] gestured in my direction. "Ulfric, if you think a baby will make her give up the police work and the execution work, or the zombie raising, you're wrong. Do you see a baby fitting into Anita's life? Are you going to quit work and stay home and play nanny, because Anita sure isn't."

We all looked at Richard. He was scowling at her.

"Well," she said, "are you? Are you willing to completely disrupt your life if it's yours?"

He scowled harder. "I don't know," he said finally.

First, having a child doesn't mean that you have to give up your entire life to raise it. Anita is not a homemaker. If anything she'd stay at home long enough until the baby was ready to be by itself. Also, if I remember correctly, Anita's job (whenever she goes) is a case by case basis. Almost like a free lancer. It's more than possible for her to get a baby sitter if she needs to run out for a case, especially with all the men she has around with her. And the idea of Richard needing to give up his own job is utterly ridiculous. Why would he even need to? All of this is to make Richard look like a selfish, uncaring bastard. After all he's not putting Anita and the baby's needs first. \~/\~/\~/\~/\~/

Micah and Nathaniel are put in a better light. Nathaniel says that "I'm already the wife, why not the mother." \~/ Because, you know, if you're submissive and domestic that automatically makes you the wife. Generally speaking, you have to be female and married to be the wife. And even if you are a wife doesn't mean that you have to be domestic. And now I'm wonder if Nathaniel really wants to be a woman. \~/ Micah says that he'd be willing to give up his job as well. Aren't they wonderful folks? \~/

Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, a tiny girl shows up. A five year old vampire named Valentina. No, a vampire that was turned when she was five. Insert long paragraph of description now:

Her dark hair curled just below her ears. She'd cut it recently, to look more modern. Her face was round,and soft,not long past being a baby. She was five, and would always be five, at least physically. She was wearing a read dress with white tights, and little white patent leather shoes. When she came to us she'd worn nothing designed after 1800. She still wouldn't wear pants or shorts, because it wasn't ladylike, but she had arrived in the twentieth century, at least in fashion. She blinked large dark eyes at us, her Face perfectly innocent. At Belle's court she had tortured people for information, for punishment, and because she enjoyed it. Jean-Claude told me that all the child vampires go mad eventually. It was why it was against their laws to bring anyone over before puberty.

\~/\~/

The thing that bothers me a lot in this description was the bit about being ladylike. I'm not really certain why a five year old would get stuck on being lady like. But it might have been more explained in previous books. Another thing that bothers me is that her clothing. Of course the other vampires seem to be clothing impaired too, so perhaps its not so unusual. \~/\~/

In any case, the plot, such as it is, grinds to a halt while Valentina is here. She makes everyone feel creepy. And then she goes over to Samuel and Sampson. Samuel gives her the kiss on the wrist, uneasy about her. Then she makes Sampson give her a kiss on the wrist and she rolls him, making him pick her up.

Jean-Claude starts to tell her to stop it, after all Sampson is their guest. Samuel, however, makes him stop saying that if Sampson can't get himself out of it, then he doesn't deserve to. \~/

"It is a version of survival of the fittest, ma petite. If Sampson is not strong enough to break free, or avoid Valentinta's tricker, then he is a little less worthy in his master's eyes. It is a way that some Masters of the City separate the weak from the strong. Those who fail these tests are often demoted, traded t other lands, or killed.

Here again, we have some more of the protocol and rules that the vampires have. The vampires seem to have two modes of operandi. One is the sophistication and better than humans and the other is a sort of primitive hierarchy system. She's trying to use the hierarchy system like a king's court system, but it comes out more like fighting dogs. \~/\~/

Thankfully, Sampson is able to snap out of it. He does it by channeling his mermaid powers. He tells her that pain is her substitute for sex because being stuck in a five year old's body doesn't make for good sex. Especially if everyone is as big as they're rumored to be. \~/

Valentina wants to someone to play with. Or at least, let her hurt them. Instead they send her to her room. Asher is asked, but Nathaniel offers.

Nathaniel and Richard have another bitch fight. Where Nathaniel states that he's willing to "to do for the woman he loves and his baby what you won't." Nathaniel appears to have grown a backbone for the baby. Or "maybe he like me, was just tired of watching Richard say he was the dominant sweetie in my life, but acting like he was my fuck buddy." \~/\~/

I believe the only reason why Richard is acting like her fuck buddy is because she won't let him act like anything else. And again, the "dominant sweetie"? What is with this hierarchy? It gets to tiring to read about over and over again. It's not normal. It's not a fight between two jealous lovers, but instead a fight to become top bitch. Everything is about who is on top and who isn't. I think she has issues about equality, I do. \~/

And finally, wasn't this chapter utterly pointless? All that happened is that vampire child shows up and is annoying and then leaves. This should be a cut chapter. Nothing necessary happened. \~/\~/

Drinks: 21

Comments

[kellicat.livejournal.com]

The purpose of this chapter was to show off Anita's awesomeness yet again and show how Horrible Richard is compared to the rest of her bishie harem.


*headdesk*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It seems like if you look like a man, instead of a pretty boy you are automatically wrong.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

What awesomeness? She hasn't been doing anything.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

She exists there for she is awesome.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

No, awesomeness is doing something unusual and useful, ideally with style. Domestic bickering is not awesome. Awesome is building an OTEC plant/algae farm/sea colony in international waters and declaring yourself sovereign. Hell, awesome would be building up the 1.1 billion in 1994 USD needed to build the thing.

[kellicat.livejournal.com]

That's the point of my comment. Anita's about as awesome as a dishrag (and that's an insult to dishrags), yet we the moronic readers are supposed to find her awesome.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

So, we've got a pedo vamp somewhere? And a little girl who's not really a little girl (gee, where have we heard that before?)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The pedo-vamp is dead. He made the little vamp about four hundred years ago. Apparently he had his own harem of "brides" and "grooms" most of which had gone nutters and had to be killed. They should have killed her too.

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

What prepous does Valentina serve? To so how creepy kid vampires are? Pffft, Helena is better at being a child vampire.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. Honestly. Helena was the one from Interview with a Vampire, yes?

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

Helena was a child vampire from the anime Hellsing. She was an assumingly ancient child vampire that got so sick of her immortal life that she held herself up in a libarary surrounded by her books and music. She plays as a short term rolemodel for the main character until her super awesome death at the hands of the main villian. (He eats her and than her heads shows up on surface of his stoumach and talks to the main character. The vilian of course beheads her to make sure she's dead.) I found her a to be a better example of a child vampire than Claudia then child vampire for IwaV, even though Claudia was the original.

When I think about a child vampire, I always think of Helena, not Claudia. I'm just sad that Kouta Hirano never let her be a manga character. I would kill to see some bad ass Helena ass whooping. I would die and go to heaven. I don't even like that anime, but Helena's still my favorite vampire character ever.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Oooooh. Ah see. Innnntresting.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

Oh, so Richard's not allowed to not know what to do but Anita is? Also, Claudia irritates the hell out of me. Notice how she's the only female character who's lasted for more than three minutes without being made into an uber-bitch because she's agrees with everything wonderful Anita says and defends her?

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

Aw, Claudia just wnats to get in Anita's pants, is all. Nothing wrong with that. You just have to what you have to do.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Claudia worships the ground that Anita walks on because she's a were. And all weres worship Anita. It's a fact of life.

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

And she wants to get into Anita's pants. That would be hot, but we know LKH will make it unsexy. Just go read the Belle Morte/Anita scene in the Harlequin.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Don't wanna. You can't make me.

[wariena.livejournal.com]

He tells her that pain is her substitute for sex because being stuck in a five year old's body doesn't make for good sex.

Because the whole world revolves around sex, of course. Or pain. Or, in Anita's case, painful sex.

Perhaps she should try substituting the sex/pain for cocoa.

[prototypical]

The explanation in an earlier book is that her mind has grown up over the centuries and would like to experience sex, but because of her little kid body, she can't do anything like a normal adult can and she turned to sadism as a way of dealing with her frustration.

I think it almost makes sense, but can't figure out what pleasure she derives from inflicting pain if she can't be physically turned on by it. I think about sadists too much....

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that does make some sense. But, surely a mini-dildo would work just as well.

(And thank you very much, LKH, for planting that image in my mind. Now I need to go scrub my brain out with a scouring pad)

[wariena.livejournal.com]

Yes, but is sex really that important? So important that if you can't have it you'd kill someone? Le sigh. LKH 'az eet on zee brain.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Or vibrators.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Hey, our minds work on the same perverted track!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Is this a good or bad thing?

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

There are some men that are willing to do a five-year-old, plus they have candy, so they must be nice. =)

(In all honesty, I don't understand why a five-year-old is thinking about sex. It takes hormones, hormones that are produced by puberty, to make those urges. LKH proves once agian she know jack shit about human anatomy. I also do not understand the whole 'adult-mind-in-a-child's-body' thing either. Once again the chemical make-up of the human mind at that age is not as complex as it would be for a ten-year-old, let alone a fourteen-year-old. Explain that without using the good old 'it's magic' arguement. Maybe her DNA was altered by Sexy-Fine molecules. Valentina's situation would be a whole lot more sense if she were say thirteen, and in the middle of puberty. The frustration of being considered a child, even though your mind and body is 'ripe' would make for a great character. And it is, because that my character! Mwahahahaha! I'm so smart. *pats self on back* =3)

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

So much for her biology degree. We learnt stuff like that when we were eleven.

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

I didn't learn that at eleven. I had to found that out for myself. They don't teach us the difference between boys and girls in school. Only sex is bad, and you should wait until you're married.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I suppose it could be reasonable to suppose that the brain continues to develop, although the rest of the body remains stagnant. Even infants are capable of some degree of pleasure (every young child discovers that it feels good to rub certain areas). So, I can see that she would have some form of sexual desires. And she would definitely understand what she'd been deprived of. Knowing that she can never have certain experiences because she can never physically develop would be very warping.

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

Read my post. It could not happen due to the hormones that that drive sexual urges come during puberty and the chemisery of a five-year-old's brain cannot possibly comprihand the concept of sex, or why people of sex. Being a vampire does not save a child from being a child and have a child's mind. The brain will not 'grow' while the body stays the same, since it takes some of the same hormones that start purberty to devulope the mind. Theoritically, becoming a vampire keeps or 'freezes' the body and it's cells at the time of the victims transfromation. Why would a five-year-old suddenly go through puberty if their body has been frozen?

The five-year-old sadist stuff is pure bullshit.

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

As always, I spel gud.

[authoressarktos.livejournal.com]

Kippur, nothing particular ever happens in this book, from what we've seen. Speaking of which, Anita hasn't been running around dealing with cases much, has she?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I believe about six hours has past since the beginning of the book, so I'm willing to give her some slack on that one. Some slack.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Wait, so we've been averaging 22.5 minutes per chapter?

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

I've seen worst pacing. Try two weeks in +100,000 K.

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen of LKH's blog, she treats taking care of her kid more like a job than... taking care of a kid. So I'm not really surprised that Anita is treating it the same way.

I'm not familiar with the chronology of the books, but I think LKH and her husband (who was the basis for Richard's character) had split up by now, which is why every available opportunity to make him look bad is taken. I wonder why she hasn't just sent him off somewhere or killed him off, to be honest.

(On a more exciting, plotful note, did you see the latest GG?)

[brightrosefox.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit wary of reading LKH's blog because I like my forehead smooth, unbruised, and not bleeding. But now I'm morbidly curious. Are there examples of how LKH treats her daughter and her own maternal role?

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since she looked, but I think you can find some stuff about it on the lhk_lashouts community.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Where is her blog? I must see this.

Probably because she harbors some lingering feelings for him. At many points she says that she still loves Richard. And can't kill him off then


(Zomigawd yes! Poor Agatha!)

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

You've asked and you will recieve.

http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

D: I just went looking at her blog to get you a link. She's got a link to the GG site up on her page. I am currently cringing and trying to assure myself that she's got a link up for the same reason that she was talking about Neil Gaiman for a while back, not because of any cross-contamination.

(I can't wait for Monday! It has to be too soon for the third part of Revenge of the Weasel Queen, doesn't it?

Oh, and it was tucked away back in 2007, but they added a new page to the arc where Gil was in the hospital. Here you go.)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

She may suck as a writer but that doesn't mean she doesn't have good taste to like Neil Gaiman and Girl Genius.


(The page was awesome. Love Gil.)

[subieko.livejournal.com]

I love how Richard is the only one who has normal human reactions. People ask him if he's ready to have his entire life turned upside down? He's not sure! Unlike Anita's harem members, who don't seem to have ANY concerns about giving up whatever lives they have for Anita. I mean...seriously. Richard is the only one I can have any sympathy for at all, because he acts like a real person.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Richard, Sampson and Samuel are my current favorites right now.

The others are just paper cut outs with no personality, beyond what Anita says they have. Which I haven't seen at all.

[mranon-y-mous.livejournal.com]

It's hard not to hate Richard. We all love him because LKH doesn't. We should open a shelter for abused and abandoned characters. Let's take in Richard, Lious, and Murtagh first.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Bunny- I love her plastic, bitchy ass for standing up to Anita. XD

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

I had a baby!vampire; she used to troll for pedophiles and then tear their throats out. Good times, good times...