(Anita Blake Series) "Shutdown" Sporking

[guardians_song]

This story was discussed on lkh_lashouts here. lliira sporked it here. I am sporking it because I can add something new - namely, a line-by-line sporking. Since it's already been beaten to tar, I also have the luxury of inserting CAPSLOCK reactions rather than dissecting it in detail if I so desire. ...And this thing merits CAPSLOCK, believe me.

Disclaimer: You could not pay me to take credit for this. Laurell K. Hamilton produced this, and by gad, she can HAVE it.
Everything Warning: It's an Anita Blake story.

First, we note that the cover art is... apparently a black-and-white photograph of two crossed wine glasses and a flogger on a patterned sheet, with cheap MS Paint lettering on top of the photograph. I know it's MS Paint because I've created exactly the same "effect", if you can call it that, on LJ icons.

This does not bode well for Laurell K. Hamilton's career. We are in the land of self-publishing.

Indeed, the copyright page doesn't list any PUBLISHER, just the author herself. I... think we are actually in the land of self-publishing, oh dear.

Acknowledgements
To my husband, Jonathon, who helped me do emergency editing so we could get
this out to all of you.
"Emergency", in the same sense as "emergency amputation"?
To Jess, for title suggestions and helping flip the cover - Alexander
was a wussie!
I remarked upon this at the time, but they needed help to FLIP THE COVER? A basic MS Paint operation?
I know Hamilton-&-friends are technophobic, but that's pushing it a little far.
Missy for helping with the continuity so that this short story
fit in with the overall novel arc. My agent, Merrilee Heitfetz, who jumped into
this idea with all the cautious enthusiasm I rely on her for,
Let me guess, that translated to "Um... Laurell, what an interesting idea, but... are you sure about this?
and her assistant Sarah,
who is beginning to learn how fast we can move when nothing is in our way.
You mean, "with only minimal editing"/
And, for all of you impacted financially by the government shutdown, this one’s
for you. I can’t make our “leaders” behave themselves,
(LKH) Shockingly, in real life, Anita can't make everyone fall down at her feet with her ubersex powers, horrific personality, and oversized phallic symbols. I know, I'm as baffled as you are.
but I can give you a brand new Anita Blake short story for free,
- a price finally befitting the current quality of the series -
while you wait for your paycheck to start
coming again. Think of this story as my attempt to hug you all!

I'd like to note at this point that I would view this much more positively if the story was... rather less spiteful.
As is, it's a bit like announcing that you don't expect anyone to pay for your spiteful Mary-Sue badfic. It's nice and all, but most people would take that for granted...


Have you ever had to have lunch with your lover’s fiancé?
Nitpick - since Mrs. Hamilton loves to use French terms, she should have bothered to learn that "fiancé" is the male form. We must then conclude:
A) Richard Zeeman, the "lover" in question, has gotten spectacularly less homophobic;
B) Research is for mundanes.
It was a first for me, too. There
were four of us at lunch, but only one of us was new to half the table.
(Anita) We'd installed half of it last week, and Richard had been away on travel.

More seriously, we are now seeing what Mrs. Hamilton looks like with a TRUE minimum of editing. Take great pity on her editors, folks. It appears that they really have been ensuring minimum readability.
Dr. Ellen Radborne
was about my height, 5' 3" with thick shoulder length brunette hair that I might have
thought was black, but my hair was black, so I knew hers was really just dark brown.
Why do you need black hair to know whether hair was black or not?!
(Answer for those not in the know:
Because Laurell K. Hamilton has the weirdest complex about black hair and white skin being the rarest thing in the world, despite it actually being COMMON. So Anita is super-cool for having it.

You may be curious as to what Mrs. Hamilton looked like when she was younger. Guess.)
Her
eyes were brown, like mine, though again mine were a little darker.
-_- And, Anita, we are supposed to care why...?
She had a pale summer
tan, to my nearly white skin, but then my skin never tanned, it just burned, and then
went back to being pale.
In all of this, there is something creepy and vaguely racist about Anita's obsession over the whiteness of her skin.

I will leave that for wiser people to comment upon.
She was curvy, maybe not as curvy through the chest as me, but
no man who liked breasts would complain that she lacked.
Considering that Anita has "triple-E" (!) breasts, I think it's rather hard to be as curvy as her. And considering that hentai characters would be recommending breast-reduction surgery for her at this point, that's not a good thing.

Clarification: Anita is 110 pounds. She is 5'3". She is very athletic. Her cup size is EEE.

Not 'she has an EEE cup size and middle-weight build', but 'she has a weight that would be congruent with a middle-weight build if she had average muscle definition and a 'normal' range of cup size, but has a good deal of muscle weight and large cup size on top of whatever the rest of her body looks like'.

I make fun of Anita's cup size because the numbers do not add up. Not because I see anything wrong with EEE cup size. (And I would also appreciate it if Mrs. Hamilton had said "H-cup" rather than talking about "EEE", which is going to lead the readers into imagining something rather wilder than she intends. At least for American readers, the system is more usually A/B/C/D/E/F/G-etc. than double-or-triple letters. I did have "EEE" calibrated to "Anita cannot cross her arms over her breasts", which is the more usual description. Apparently it is rather smaller than this, and I appreciate a reader's clarification.)

I am sorry for giving offense.
She was in shape, though not
as fit as I, but then I doubt she needed to hit the weights and cardio as hard for her job as
I did for mine.
Why do we care?

Because it always must be established that Anita is the sexiest woman in the room. This is a particularly BAD instance thereof, but still nothing unusual.

(And also that she is the strongest, toughest, and grimdarkest woman in the room. Who will promptly swoon into a strong man's arms once anything difficult comes up.)

{snip Anita kvetching about having to *gasp* eat without talking about "anything serious"}
I hadn’t had to endure this much small talk in years. We’d learned a lot
about each other, but unless we were looking to date, I didn’t see the point.
...
...
...
In the text, folks - Anita doesn't care about knowing anything whatsoever about anyone she isn't screwing dating.
WOW.
We're not even a page in, and already the story is sporking itself.

She taught college level biology, and continued to do research field work in the
summers. She reminded me of the last two serious girlfriends he’s had. He certainly had
a type, as if only the names changed for his short, dark haired women.
-_-

But I suppose that makes sense, if you pay no attention to anyone you aren't dating. Personalities don't matter. Quirks don't matter. Individuality doesn't matter. Just templates and physical appearance.

(Alternatively, this one sentence sums up most of the problems with these books. "Only the names changed" is exactly how most people feel about Mrs. Hamilton's characters, heroes and villains alike.

THAT IS A VERY BAD THING, MRS. HAMILTON.)
He’d sleep with
a variety, but for serious dating it was always women like us.
Sheesh, what is this only-Anita's-type-is-worthy-and-Anita-is-the-greatest-of-her-type rot?! I mean, damn. Lady has issues.
She liked camping, bird
watching, hiking, caving, climbing, and all sorts of outdoor stuff. I had, at one time, enjoyed
all of that, but my job as a U. S. Marshal for the preternatural branch didn’t leave
me much room for hobbies.
(Anita) Because MINE is a life that is GRIM and DARK and WET and TIGHT! Occasionally TIGHT and WET, for variety!

My gym time was more serious, because my life could depend on how fast I could
run, how hard I could hit, and just how tough I could be.
Or, more honestly, how many Deus Ex Machinas the author felt like pulling out of her... gym socks... that day.
Dr. Radborne probably didn’t
have to worry about any of that. It meant I could have out arm wrestled her, but she probably
had a more reasonable work schedule.
Of course, "biology" includes "troll conservation efforts" in Anitaverse, so her job very well COULD include life-threatening situations... but nah, let's go with posturing over how hard a life Anita has.

We sat across from each other smiling, but her eyes were a little uncertain, and I
was trying very hard not to make my eyes look empty.
*spittake* The lights are on, but nobody's home! XD
Most women took eyes that were
too neutral as unfriendly.
Considering that Anita's "neutral" is apparently 'self-pleasuring over How Much Better I Am Than You'? Good grief, how could anyone ever take that as unfriendly?
Men understood that sometimes you didn’t want to smile,
I've been spared this, but anecdotal men are MUCH more likely to tell women to smile than the other way around.
but
you weren’t mad either,
No, you can be hostile, catty, sneering, arrogant, or a hundred other Typical Anita Emotions.
while women expect other women to be pleasant, and if you’re
not they think you don’t like them.
That's entirely correct in this instance. Anita doesn't like Ellen, because she doesn't want to date her. Apparently Anita only cares about interaction if she wants to date someone, after all.

Heaven knows how she deals with fast-food joints.

"Would you like fries with that?"
"Are you saying you want to date me?"
"?!!!?"
There are so many reasons that most of my friends
are men.
Because nobody's your friend who you don't want to date, ACCORDING TO WHAT YOU SAID A FEW PARAGRAPHS AGO, and you're straight with a token girlfriend for the edginess very mildly bisexual with a strong preference towards angsty pretty boys with social rejection issues and enormous wangs men. It stands to reason that most of the people you're dating will be men.

Alternatively, it's because you're a raging misogynist who has an utter hatred of all women not named "Anita" who don't spend all their time licking your boots, whereas you'll cut men slack for the sake of angst and troubled pasts.

The only saving grace to this Saturday lunch fiasco was that we weren’t alone,
though in some ways that also made it more awkward. I was still happy to have a hand
to hold on my side of the table while she hung on the arm of her fiancé across the table
from us.
Ooh, how tough. Anita holds hands, whereas this other woman hangs on her lover's arm! How weak and -

Oh, wait, Anita will be practically crawling all over her boytoy while the other woman just tries to get a straight story out of her later in the fic? Uh, never mind! Forget past history, comrade!

The us was Micah Callahan,
Micah's wang is now so large it requires him to use the plural.

In case you don't know about Micah Callahan, he's regarded to be the avatar of Mrs. Hamilton's husband, is Anita's #1 bootlicker, and has a widely derided 'angsty backstory' that earned him the nickname 'The Penis Nobody Could Love'.
who was the same height as the good doctor and me.
He's also short, which is constantly emphasized, because Mrs. Hamilton ALSO has a massive complex about height.
He was the only man I’d ever dated who matched my height.
And this matters... WHY...?
Micah was wearing a forest
green t-shirt that was actually made of silk, which always seemed wrong for a t-shirt, but
since it also made it petably soft
The word is "pettable", so the adverb would be "pettably".

I bring this up because my brain keeps trying to translate this as "petaly", and I get weird images involving rose petals.
and looked fabulous on him I didn’t complain.
'MICAH WAS WEARING A FOREST GREEN SILK T-SHIRT.'

Good gad, this woman thinks she doesn't need editing?
It made
the rim of green around his irises more vibrant, and the circle of yellow on the outside of
them more gold, so that his eyes were even more beautiful set in the delicate triangle of
his darkHYPHEN!skinned face.
Mrs. Hamilton also has a hair and eye fetish. This is moderate. In other contexts, she goes on for pargraphs describing eyes and/or hair alone.

In retrospect, the warning sign should have been when, back in Burnt Offerings, Anita's comment on a hideously scarred vampire was basically 'I'm a hair and eye girl, I don't mind'.
He still had his summer tan that he got every year from jogging in
nothing but shorts, so he was dark
'It's just that he jogs a lot, guys! D-don't get any idea that he's ethnic!'

I wouldn't point this out if Mrs. Hamilton didn't have a peculiar obsession with noting the whiteness of Anita's skin and an equally... interesting... tendency to have Anita only shag white men. And to call anything that isn't 100% white "exotic". And if, for heaven's sake, the ONE time she tried to include a positively-portrayed black female character hadn't ended up with that character talking about "white girl booty" and having ALL FOUR MALES IN HER FAMILY be football jocks.

For feck's sake, that's as out of touch as writing the only white character in a story as literally taken from the lyrics of Weird Al Yankovic's White And Nerdy. Except worse, obviously, due to all the... unfortunate implications...

Did I mention that when said character was bitten by a werewolf, Anita swooped in to a family gathering and acted as her ever-so-knowledgeable White Savior?

Yeah, less said the better...

and his eyes were jewel-like in the almost feminine
beauty of his face.
*morosely* She also has a real fetish for pretty boys. I say "fetish" because she has a rabid insistence on how they're SO PRETTY, PRETTIER THAN A GIRL ALMOST, BUT NOT GIRLY, ONLY ALMOST FEMININE, THEY'RE SO MANLY IN THEIR GIRLY BEAUTY, MANLY I TELL YOU, MANLY

...Lady has issues.
The shirt also fit every curve of his upper body, showing just how much
muscle was under there. He had broad shoulders for his size, and a nice chest that went
down to a waist so slender we could share some of our jeans,
Eh heh heh. See, Mrs. Hamilton caught flack for saying that Anita and Micah could share clothes, which had abruptly stopped making any sort of sense when she added that Anita had a cup size of EEE. Unless... well, I suppose there is SOME possible explanation for that, but that sort of gynecomastia is beyond normal and well into "massive tumor" territory.

Eh heh heh. See, Mrs. Hamilton caught flack for saying that Anita and Micah could share clothes, which seemed a bit out of proportion since Micah, after all, can cross his arms over his chest. Or at least she hasn't gotten around to claiming that Micah's pecs are that large YET.

And I do think a shirt fitted for a woman with an H-cup would look a bit out of proportion on a man, but this is getting off-topic. ...I bring the figure issues up in the first place because Mrs. Hamilton is so determined to let us know the fine details of Anita's figure. I ordinarily do not care about a character's build, figure, or specific cup size. If the author insists on quoting exaggerated figures, I find it relevant.

Regardless, the issue with the JEANS is that Anita supposedly has a posterior that cannot be classified as "white girl booty"* (WHAT DOES THAT EVEN FRICKIN' MEAN**), so... HOW is Micah suited to her jeans, again? Unless his posterior is as oversized as his genitals...

*And THAT is relevant because Anita's posterior is advertised to be impossible or implausible to appear on a Caucasian woman of her build. As I said, I don't know what that frickin' means, but that is what a character in Hit List claimed. If Micah is sharing these jeans, he, too, does not have "white girl booty". Now, I've seen a fair number of pictures of "bubble butts" (don't ask), so I know men are not cursed to have eternally flat posteriors, but that was white boy booty. We must conclude that Anita's bottom is significantly larger than that. Therefore, so is Micah's.

Again, I wouldn't be paying attention if Mrs. Hamilton wasn't pushing all of this as the physical ideal. I almost wish that she had artistic abilities just so she could draw clear pictures for the readers of how she sees the characters, because, all snark aside, I am getting very confused.

**Potentially NSFW - please explain to your workplace, if you open it anyway, that it's part of a classic work of art by Peter Paul Rubens, and so doesn't at all count as two naked chicks... and besides, one's leg is turning into a tentacle, so it REALLY doesn't count unless you're into that sort of thing.
but in too many clothes he
just looked delicate, because he fought for every ounce of muscle he got in the gym, or on
the track,
Remind me, how does a broad-shouldered man look "delicate"? Particularly with MORE clothes padding him out?

I think Mrs. Hamilton has been reading too many yaoi fanfics. Either that, or she should be writing some. It would help her blow off some steam.
which was not true for the man sitting beside Dr. Ellen Radborne.

Richard Zeeman was 6' 1" and had always muscled easily, and it showed in his
broad shoulders, impressive chest, and the swell of his arms against his own cotton
t-shirt, which was also forest green.
WHAT A COINKYDINK.

Let me introduce Richard Zeeman! He's a werewolf, sadist, and wangstbucket aplenty. He's widely held to be the avatar of Mrs. Hamilton's ex-husband, in that his character's portrayal took a nosedive from "honest and moral, if conflicted, fellow" to "self-loathing, whiny buzzkill" around the time of the divorce... coincidentally, that was around the time Micah the Perfect Wonderdong arrived on the scene.

Unfortunately for her intentions of making the readers hate Richard, anything that harshes Anita's buzz tends to be a GOOD thing, given her fondness for sociopathy, abuse of power, and rape, so he instead became a beacon for anti-fans. (Some anti-fans disliked him anyway, but not for the reasons Mrs. Hamilton MEANT them to dislike him.) Unfortunately for the anti-fans, even Richard calling Anita out got boring after several books of him wandering in, throwing an emotional fit about LOOK AT YOUR LIFE LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES, and then retreating after he got bashed like a pinata.

Ah, yes, and he was also deemed "homophobic" for not wanting to have sex with men. Cannot make this shit up...

But, a few books ago, she finally decided to have him just do a U-turn on all of that and confess that he was really a repressed bisexual sadist who just needed some therapy so he could promptly engage in a BDSM foursome with Anita and two male vampires. Yaaaa.... ay.

Since then, he's been just another boring sycophant, with the occasional edge of wangst. Alas. And it won't change here...
It hadn’t occurred to me to coordinate what the boys
were wearing.
Yeah, right. It just SOMEHOWTM happened that way.

E.L. James thinks her readers are goldfish. Mrs. Hamilton would never think so lowly of goldfish.
Dr. Ellen had asked Richard to ask what I was wearing, so that I’d had to
think about it ahead of time more than I normally would for a Saturday. I’d told her jeans
and a t-shirt with boots, because it was fall. I was wearing skinny black jeans tucked into
some really nice boots, and a silk t-shirt that matched Micah’s except for color -- mine
was red, which matched my lipstick, and brought out the flame pattern in my boots.
I cannot comment on this outfit, as I have no fashion sense whatsoever. I... think that looks all right. (And I only bring THAT up because Mrs. Hamilton has a horrible history of coming up with gadawful outfits and declaring them THE VERY HEIGHT OF FASHION, TOTALLY.)
The
boots were fun, and I figured I’d need some fun for the lunch.
...Huh?
I'm not even going to try to parse this...
I’d been right, but Ellen
had worn more ordinary blue jeans tucked into dressy brown cowboy boots, and a button
up dress shirt in a blue that complimented the jeans more than her skin tone,
OH HEAVENS! This woman knows how to coordinate colors! Burn the witch! BURN HER!

...Seriously, color-coordination is ordinarily considered to be a GOOD thing. If Mrs. Hamilton doesn't think so, this explains a tremendous amount about some of her... weirder outfits. (But I don't think anything could really salvage the leather tuxedo.)
or at least,
that was my opinion, which I kept to myself.
Uh.

We know it's your opinion, because you're THE ONE STATING IT. We know you kept it to yourself, because YOU DIDN'T SAY IT OUT LOUD.

EDITOR! Help! Clean-up on Aisle Wet&Tight!
But it was unfortunate that the men were
wearing nearly identical t-shirts, and that they both had their summer tans and looked
fabulous in them.
Abtholutely fabulouth, darlingth!

More seriously... they looked fabulous in their summer tans? I... you don't look fabulous in a summer tan. You don't peel it off, fold it, and put it on a chair for later. You can look fabulous with a summer tan, but...

Sometimes you honestly have to wonder if Mrs. Hamilton is an ESL student. But the ESL students have better grammar.
Micah looked better in his, but it was the eyes. Richard’s eyes were a
deep, even, milk chocolate brown, lovely eyes, but they couldn’t compete with Micah’s
leopard eyes.
*morosely* Count yourself lucky that we didn't get a paragraph waxing poetic about chartruse eyes.

(Yes, Micah has leopard eyes, because he was forced to stay in wereleopard form too long by a super-evil villain yadda yadda yadda on with the story. I mean, with the description infodump. Do you realize this took up almost all of a page in the PDF?)
They were both wearing jeans, Micah in black, Richard in blue, so again we
each coordinated with our other half. Micah was wearing black cordovan leather designer
shoes
SWEET GAD, IF THIS WAS ANY MORE FANFICTION-LIKE, SHE'D BE TYPING "(A/N: Find the links to the clothes Micah's wearing on my profile! LOL!) EVERY FEW SENTENCES.

SERIOUSLY. VISUAL PEOPLE OR NOT, WHY. DO. WE. CARE?

...Sorry, Mrs. Weasley. *hands back the CAPSLOCK*

If Cori Falls and Mrs. Hamilton ever collaborated on a story, it would be nothing but descriptions of people's hair, eyes, and clothing and recipes for French toast. That's all I'll say.
so that with my threeHYPHEN!inch heels
Unless she seriously meant to claim that Anita had three "inch heels".
I was actually taller than he was, but he never
cared, he was secure in all sorts of ways.
So why even bring it up?

I'm not going to do a tally for that. If I did, I'd just write "this entire oneshot is a tally" and quit.
Richard was wearing brown hiking boots, which
was one of his favorite types of shoes on the weekends.
Will to live... fading...

Richard’s hair fell in foaming waves of brown with golden highlights, and in strong
enough sunlight I knew that there were threads of coppery red in it, so that saying he had
brown hair never did it justice.
I take back what I said about "count yourself lucky".

And yes, she does compulsively talk about "foaming waves of brown" when it comes to his hair. Please be dignified and don't make any comparisons to something you might find clogging the pluming - that's my job.
Micah’s hair was curly, not wavy, and he normally wore it
back in a pony tail, or a braid of some kind, but since this lunch was supposed to help Dr.
Ellen understand that I had other yummy men in my life so I didn’t need to steal Richard
from her,
THAT'S NEVER STOPPED YOU BEFORE.
Micah had left the hair unbound around his shoulders so that it trailed deep
brown chestnut curls
Nitpick: If you say 'chestnut', do you really need to say 'deep brown' as well?
to mid-back. My hair was the same length, and I realized, weirdly,
that both Richard’s and Dr. Ellen’s hair was just past their shoulders. They say that after
awhile couples begin to look alike.
Did I mention that, when Richard got a haircut about a dozen books ago (I think), Anita deemed it a form of self-injury?

I really don't think I can overstate her hair fetish. If she ever gets old and succumbs to dementia, she won't be a crazy cat lady, she'll be a crazy hair lady - she'll just curl up with wigs made from her boytoys' hair and murmur soothing words to them, petting them and stroking them fondly.

You're welcome for that image.

She gave Richard’s arm a little extra squeeze where her arm was snaked through
his, and then sat up more evenly in her own chair. “Well, this is more awkward than I
thought it would be,” she said.
You need to understand - some scenes in prior books have implied that Anita's obsessive thoughts over people's looks aren't just setting-the-scene infodumps, but instead are taking place in real time.

So poor Ellen has been sitting across the table from an "empty-eyed" woman staring unblinkingly at her clothes, then at Richard, then at Micah, then at herself, and back to Ellen again for goodness knows how long, all in an increasingly uncomfortable silence.

"Awkward" is probably a very diplomatic way of putting it.

(These stories often make a good deal of sense. Just not in the way Mrs. Hamilton intends.)

“It’s about as awkward as I thought it would be,” I said.

Micah squeezed my hand under the table, a silent bid for me to play nice.
Anita is thirty.

A grown woman has to be diplomatically told to behave like an adult.

This is not strange at all.
I smiled
harder, and did my best to push it up into my eyes.
Oh, good, now it's an empty-eyed woman wearing a hideous caricature of a smile.

Between this and Anita's bizarre proportions (5'3" height, very athletic, and can't-cross-arms-over-breasts, yet weighing only 110 pounds), my mental image of her is getting unnerving indeed.

Between this and Anita's bizarre proportions (normal-to-underweight for her height, yet packing triple-E breasts, a large posterior, and a goodly amount of muscle mass), I think she's beginning to become a Silent Hill monster.


EDIT:    As Lliira summed it up in the comments:

The large cup size isn't really the issue, even though that cup size doesn't exist in the U.S. to my knowledge -- it's that Anita has a body that is impossible. She's said that she's unable to cross her arms over her breasts. She also says that she finds t-shirts to be more supportive than bras. Further, she's supposed to be very muscular. And weigh only 110 pounds. There is just no way a 5'3 woman can have gargantuan breasts, be very muscular, and weigh 110 pounds. (Though her having tiny T-rex arms would both make her breasts less impossibly huge and lop off a good portion of her weight, but I doubt that's LKH's intention.)

Anita's breast size is, in fact, bizarre. Not because of the cup size, but because she cannot cross her arms over her breasts and they are apparently filled with air.

That was my point about "bizarre proportions". I have edited to make it a little more clear as to what I was trying to indicate. The original text is left in the post as white text directly below the edited paragraph.

I do not find Anita's proportions bizarre because of her cup size. I find them bizarre because of all the aforementioned factors combined. I am also thankful to the reader who commented that EEE=H, because that does make the image saner (even if the can't-cross-arms-over-breasts description, combined with Anita's other proportions, catapults it right back into 'completely implausible and somewhat unnerving' territory).

I apologize to anyone hurt or offended by the original version.

“I’m sorry, I did force this on all of us,” she said, and she looked genuinely uncomfortable.
D'YOU THINK?

I sighed. “I’m sorry, Ellen, I just meant that Miss Manners doesn’t cover this, and
I don’t know what to say either.”
Behaving civil would be a good place to start.

{snip repetition} [Richard] wasn’t an ex-lover, but a current lover, and Ellen knew that,
so socially awkward didn’t even begin to cover today’s little event.

I tried to take a sip of the coffee in front of me, but the smell alone made me put
it back down. Weird, but it just smelled bitter. Micah hadn’t touched his either; maybe
it wasn’t just me.
Whatever her usual editor gets paid, it isn't enough. It just isn't enough.
Richard and Ellen had both ordered different kinds of hot tea, though
they weren’t drinking either. I think we’d all ordered simply to have an excuse to stay at
the table longer without the waiter bitching.
I can imagine Anita's putting Ellen off her feed...

Micah said, “You wanted some reassurance.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at him and looking relieved, then her glance went back to
me, “though I’m not sure I’m going to end up reassured.”

I knew with that small eye flick that I looked too good, had dressed too well, and
What?!
What?!
What?!

Seriously, the narcissism is overwhelming here. Of course a sign of discomfort means Ur Jest 2 Hawt 4 Teh Haterz. Not 'this lady is creeping me the heck out' or, to be nicer, 'I just don't like her'?
she had done that girl thing where you compare yourself to the ex,
...because only GIRLS compare themselves to the ex?
and she didn’t feel like
she was winning.
Either that, or she's thinking 'This table isn't large enough for my tea kettle and her bosom'.

Either that, or she's thinking 'Is the entirety of this story's narration going to consist of this wanker bragging about how much cooler she is than me? Are you kidding me? This is NOT what I signed up for at Central Casting...'
This was so not my problem; I hadn’t asked for the lunch, I’d told her
what I was wearing. It wasn’t like I’d shown up in a designer outfit after telling her I was
wearing jeans. It wasn’t my fault that I dressed my jeans up more than she did.
...I'd like to say 'I just can't believe this', but that's a vacuous comment.

Anita, stop the passive-aggressive narcissism. Just say "not my problem" if you MEAN that, and stop bragging. You already TOLD us about your jeans. Just... sheesh.

You obviously care, since you rambled on about it. So you're getting all pissy because... what? Because she thinks you look better than her? And if she'd thought you'd looked worse, you would have gone nuclear - not that you'd ever think that, because a socially paranoid person could have as easily have thought that she thought your outfit was much worse than hers. You really aren't happy with any result, are you?

Just... jeez. The average Suefic on fanfiction.net is less petty and spiteful than this. And I am including the bashfics in that number.

I looked at Richard across the table, and hoped he could read my expression, because
I was fighting not to get angry.
Because she looked at you funny? LITERALLY, because she looked at you funny?
Micah started rubbing his thumb over the back of
my hand where he held it on my thigh. He leaned in and laid a gentle kiss on my cheek. It
made me let out the breath I’d been holding and try to ease the tension in my shoulders.
Over someone LOOKING funny at her?

Good gad. I fear for any retail worker who's having a bad day when they bump into Anita.

"That will be twenty-three dollars and-"
"I KNOW YOU'RE JUST ENVIOUS OF MY LOOKS! It's not my fault I'm totally wearing my silk shirt better than your T-shirt! I didn't ask for this! I'm just here to pick up a new set of socks! I don't care about you unless I want to date you! Do you know I'm a vampire hunter? Look at my many scars! See, I know what all these little eye-flicks mean -"
"Security? Security!"

Richard hugged Ellen to him. “Ellen, honey, you can see that Anita and Micah are
a couple. What more do you want to be reassured?”

“Honestly?” she asked.

“That would be nice,” I said.

Micah whispered, “Easy.”
He's talking to her like a bratty kid or a vicious pet.

This is just getting creepy.

Ellen gave me a not entirely friendly look and said, “For you not to sit there looking
fabulously beautiful and making me feel like an ugly duckling to your swan.”
WHO TALKS LIKE THIS?!

"Honestly", who talks like this?

No one talks in this sort of purple prose. No one.

I can't even see anyone in the average Sue-filled bashfic talking like this. Have you no shame, Mrs. Hamilton? Okay, forget shame. Have you no sense of good writing? Okay, forget good writing. Have you no experience with speaking to human beings?

“I don’t know what to say to that,” I said, and looked first at Micah and then at
Richard for a clue, a hint, something.
Strong, independent woman! Needing men to tell her what to say and think!

Richard turned that handsome face to her, and said, “You’re beautiful, Ellen, you
know that.”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty, but I’m not . . .” she waved vaguely in my direction,
“. . . this.”
(Ellen) I haven't seen anything like that since I watched bad hentai for laughs!
(Richard) I have never tried to fuck... a box.
(Ellen) THEN OUR LIFE TOGETHER IS A LIE

I sighed and looked at Micah for some help. He spoke out loud what I was thinking,
“She won’t believe you.”

“What won’t I believe?” Ellen asked.

“Go ahead,” he said, and moved his hand to my thigh, which was sometimes more
calming for both of us than hand holding.
(Micah) That's not my hand. >:D

(More seriously, she's a - you know, screw this. I've said that Anita is thirty. I've said that this is ludicrously clingy, immature, and generally disturbing. We have twenty pages more of this to go. Just... assume I'm saying this.)
He kept his other arm across my shoulders.

“I’m not prettier than you are,” I said.

She gave me a look of utter scorn. “From one woman to another, don’t bullshit
me.”
(Ellen) You're the self-insert. Of course you're prettier.
(Anita) Aaaaah, but as a Sue, I can never admit it. I must always be modest as an angel.
(Ellen) Your proportions have begun to resemble something out of Celebrian. Forget "modest".
(Anita) Don't look at me - blame the author.

“Ellen, she’s not lying,” Richard said.

“How can you say that?” she demanded, and moved away from his hand.
Well, Ellen's already more independent than Anita! Anyone want to read Ellen Radborne: Sue Hunter?

“How honest do you want me to be?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Micah said.
Micah, no one gives a damn about your opinion. You are not Ellen Radborne.THE QUESTION WAS ADDRESSED TO HER. Lay off, you creep.

“Not brutal,” Richard said.
Same goes for you, Richard.

“Honest,” she said.

“With the right makeup and a blue that had more jewel tones you’d look every bit
as good as I do.”
Conveniently, there's no way for the reader to tell, because this is PROSE! For all I damn know, Anita's the one with a dead fashion sense! This is just vacuous blithering!

“Oh, thanks, are you going to offer to take me shopping next to give me makeup
lessons?” Her voice was thick with scorn.
And Ellen speaks for the readers. Gooooo, Ellen!

“God no, but the friends who gave me lessons taught me not to be afraid of color
Ellen is wearing a blue shirt, blue jeans, and brown boots.
You are wearing a red shirt, black jeans, and black-and-red boots.
SHE'S wearing more color than you are, imbecile.
and bright red lipstick, because it looked good on me and on them. You dress like I did
a couple of years ago, more subdued, but your coloring is close enough to mine that you
need more color, that’s all.”
SHE'S. NOT. YOU.

Lay off.

(It's been brought up that Ellen is a stand-in for old!Anita, what with being more conservative, having hobbies, and all the stuff Anita now scorns. This is interesting. It may also *cough* be why everyone thinks she's the more likeable one here...)

“A different shirt and lipstick isn’t going to make me exotic like you.”

I blinked at her. “I’m not exotic.”
...There's nothing more exotic than a Caucasian woman with black hair, all right.

Screw this. This is incredibly creepy.

And I know she's saying "exotic" because Anita is half-German, half-Hispanic, which manifests in the aforementioned pasty skin and black hair. ...Seriously, that's all. Nothing about facial features or anything else. Just BLACK HAIR MEANS YER ETHNIC.

...I'm half-Caucasian (some German/English/Scottish mix, let's just go with "mongrel"), half-Japanese. I... don't... get this fetish Suethors have for mixed-ethnicity-makes-you-SPECIAL-and-EDGY. I... just don't. And Mrs. Hamilton's particular variety is just... creepy. I don't have a better word. It's completely fetishized and weeabooish, and yet she doesn't treat the actual Hispanics in her stories very well. It's... really a matter of favored characters looking exotic, but not ethnic.

Back in the day, Richard's tan skin and high cheekbones came from Native American ancestry - but not that it showed in any other way, mind, just that it made him not look whitebread. But he was otherwise generic Caucasian. Again - exotic, but not ethnic.

So... freaking... creepy. Slice-off-your-skin-and-wear-it-as-a-suit creepy.

“False modesty is just irritating to the rest of us, Anita. You say you’re not exotic
and not beautiful, and if you believe that than I have to be ugly in comparison.”
Why, yes. Yes, you are in her eyes. Always lesser than her, always inferior because you are Not Anita Blake. And because she is Not Looking To Date You.

“Anita has trouble seeing herself as beautiful,” Micah said.

“No, I don’t owe her that story,” I said.
OH GOOD WE'LL BE SPARED HER COUNTLESS TALES OF WOE -

Ellen looked at Micah, and then at me. I glared at her. I was about to be done being
friendly.

“How do we make the point without it?” Micah asked, and that was him all over,
OH SCREW YOU MICAH
AND NOT IN THE GOOD WAY
he had his eye on the goal, which was to make her feel reassured. He was more goal-oriented
even than I was,
So he has a goal other than "lord it over other people"? Good for him.

(Also, Micah's sleazy. I can't put my finger on it, but he's sleazy.

Perhaps it's the entire 'girlfriend with the emotional intelligence of a mentally-troubled six-year-old' thing?)
but for him and for the fact that our little social group was actually
working better than it ever had, I’d try. God help me, but I’d try.
He was more goal-oriented... BUT? That last part of the sentence doesn't contrast with the first part. Actually, it has nothing to do with the first part.

Someone PLEASE send refreshments to her editor whenever she sends her newest book in for evaluation! I know they won't be doing more than the most basic copy-edits, but they've EARNED it!

“When I first started dating Richard I thought he was too handsome to like me. He
was the kind of guy that made me feel awkward in high school, and that I just assumed
would never look at me twice.”

She looked at Richard and smiled, it was a good smile. “He is amazing.”

“Yes, he is, and it made me uncomfortable at first that he paid so much attention
to me.”
Uh, that isn't good, that sounds like a warning si-

“Why?” she asked.

“He’s too handsome,” I said.
*FACEPALM*

“You can never be too handsome,” she said smiling up at him. He smiled back. We
were making progress.

“Richard was the beginning of me understanding that I was attractive, because if
beautiful men kept wanting to date me logic dictated that I had to be attractive enough
to make them want to date me.” I sighed, even to me that sounded convoluted like I was
torturing the logic rather than making a point.
...The logic isn't TORTURED - it doesn't EXIST.

Unless you sincerely believe that attractive people can only want to date attractive people in some form of screwed-up instinctive aesthetic eugenics.

Which I wouldn't put past Anita, actually.

Never mind.

“Every woman knows how attractive she is, it’s ingrained into us as little girls.”
IN WHAT UNIVERSE?

“Not if one of the people raising you tells you that you’re not pretty as a little girl,
and not if your father remarries someone that spends your childhood telling people, ‘No,
she’s not mine, from his first marriage. Her mother was Mexican.’” I did my best imitation
of my stepmother, Judith.
Anita - fuck it. I and many people I know on LJ alone have had MUCH worse things than "you're not pretty" said to us by "one of the people raising [us]". If that's the WORST thing you can think of hearing during your childhood years, you have an absolutely fucking privileged childhood, and I will not pretend otherwise for the sake of politeness.

Yeah, yeah, I know, don't play Oppression Olympics. But Anita's about to go for the gold simply on the grounds that Grandma told her she wasn't pretty, and of all the fucking ludicrous things.

“Your stepmother said that?” Ellen asked.

“Constantly.”

“Didn’t your father stop her?”

“She never said it in front of him. It was actually my stepsister, Andria, who told
my father when we were twelve. She and I didn’t get along that much, but apparently she
was embarrassed that her mother was so . . . whatever, but it left me feeling too short, too
dark, too not tall, blond COMMA! and Nordic like everyone else in the family.”
Anita's complex about hating tall blondes is ridiculous. It's so ridiculous that it's driven some snarkers to conclude that perhaps she wasn't at all isolated as a child except by her own grudges.

And "dark" my posterior. If dark hair and pasty skin is "dark", then I'm darkity-dark enough to get me m' own gawthic Mary-Sue series, I am.

And Anita's height is apparently within one standard deviation of the mean American female, from what other snarkers have said, so I'd like her to just dye her hair and get shoes with lifts at this point. The way she talks about her height, you'd think she was David Miscaviage.

(Though there is a similarity in personality, come to think of it...)

“Didn’t you see your mother part of the time?”

“She died when I was eight, and when I was younger I looked like she’d cloned
herself except for father’s skin tone. Can’t tan worth a damn. Maybe that’s why my stepmother
was so hateful, because I was a constant reminder of my father’s first love. Hell,
I don’t know. One of the things you learn in therapy is that you can work on your own
issues, and on healing the damage that was done to you, but you can’t fathom why the
people that hurt you did what they did. That’s on their head, in their heart.”
*TWITCH*

...Okay, apologies for the tangent. But one of the things that really sets me off is an attitude of smug, twee, holier-than-thou deliberate ignorance. We cannot fathom the minds of the heathens, dear children. Heaven forbid we withdraw our heads from our impacted rectums. We must simply proudly wallow in our ignorance.

People, many of them victims of maltreatment, have devoted an enormous amount of effort to understanding the psychology of abusers. That's part of why so much information has gotten into circulation about narcissists, psychopaths, and the generally callous and cruel. That's why discussion about the cycle of abuse appears in most anti-Twilight meta. That's why ex-cult blogs garner an enormous amount of interest from both the never-ins and the escapees. These things matter, and many know it.

I do not understand what people who proudly refuse to understand these things get out of that pride. I can guess from observation. A strange sort of magical thinking that holds that understanding how the cruel think will spread that corruption to them, and that sanctity can therefore only be preserved through ignorance. A narcissistic belief that THEY, of all people on the earth, have a mystic ability to avoid ever having to Deal With Such People. (Because, of course, psychopaths and con men always announce their presence with a troupe of white elephants and dancing girls. It's part of the entire 'deception and subterfuge' gimmick!) A childish conviction that, if they simply Don't-Understand hard enough, that part of the world won't exist for them.

...I can guess, and I want to understand (so that I can devise a method to reason with them, if nothing else) - but it doesn't make sense to me.

I... fricking... care about learning about these things. I do not fucking want to get ripped off. I do not want to get exploited. I do not want to someday be helplessly at the mercy of a psychopath. And it enrages me that people will remain not only ignorant, but deliberately ignorant, and not only deliberately, but deliberately and proudly ignorant.

Ellen looked at me. “What an awful thing to do to a child. I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t tell you for sympathy,
YOU HARP ON IT EVERY OTHER BOOK. At least.

As I said, Mrs. Hamilton evidently feels that comparing her readers to goldfish would insult goldfish.
I told you to try and explain that I have trouble
seeing myself. Micah is beautiful and he loves me, Richard did love me and he’s gorgeous,
and I have other men in my life who are just as amazing, so, like I said, logic dictates that
if beautiful people keep wanting to date me, then I can’t be ugly.”
...You know, on the one hand, this makes Mrs. Hamilton's obsession with having her self-insert screw an endless stream of pretty boys immensely sad. That end of that line is a cry of anguish, because you can hear the desperate echo of but deep down, I don't believe that's really true.

On the other hand, the logic is still batshit insane, and she should really take a break from writing out her fantasies and go have soul-searching talks with some friends. Or see a therapist, if that works for her. Because writing it out is obviously not working, and the more of her emotional state she reveals, the more it becomes evident that it's painfully unhealthy.

“But you still don’t feel beautiful,” she said softly.

“Sometimes,” I said.

She nodded. “So you mean it, that you think we’re both pretty, because you don’t
believe you’re beautiful?”
(Anita) But I'm prettier than YOU! And don't you forget it!

“Something like that.”

She took in some air, let it out slow, and said, “I’m sorry that I got upset and made
you feel like you had to share that story.”
Now, here's an instance that's probably part of why people wonder if this story is based on a real event.

See, Anita (and Mrs. Hamilton) clearly interpret that one way - that Ellen is sorry that she made Anita feel that way. The way the line is phrased actually makes it sound like Ellen is sorry (as are the readers) that she made Anita feel like she had to share that story. As in "Oh, gad, I'm so fucking sorry I asked". The measured breath does not go with Anita's obvious interpretation.

The terrifying implication to the "real-life" interpretation is that Anita's, ahem, counterpart also launches into infodumps on her neuroses and her not-so-angsty past on the drop of a dime. Which is unfortunately believable. Ohhh, dear.

I shrugged, because, me too.
Oh, the commanity.

Richard said, “Thank you.” He looked way too sympathetic. I didn’t want sympathy
from him right now.
Anita dear, you think he's feeling sorry for YOU?

Micah kissed me, gently so he wouldn’t be wearing too much of my red lipstick. It
made me smile to see the line of red on his lips.

“The go-faster-stripe,” he said, softly.

“The what?” Ellen asked.

“The go-faster-stripe,” I said, “it’s what Nathaniel named the line of lipstick when
I kiss them.”
I... I don't even... Never mind. I'm with Ellen. WTH?

“Nathaniel is your other . . .” she seemed lost for words.
(Mrs. Hamilton's husband) Self-insert! :D

“Boyfriend works,” I said. I didn’t add that it was the phrase I used for vanilla
friends who didn’t understand our alternative lifestyle and didn’t really want to.

“So, Micah is your . . .?” again she paused for help with the right word.
...Other boyfriend. Come on, is that so hard?

It's when Anita starts getting into Harem Slave #15 that I'd think Ellen would start getting confused.

“It’s okay, Ellen,” Micah said, “vocabulary for polyamory is hard, even for us.”
(Micah) Vocabulary for most things is hard for us! Do you think Anita knows any words for penis?
(Ellen) ...Surely she does?
(Micah) He put his long, thick body into my mouth, and thrust his body down my throat... His body curved against the front of his body... His body throbbed and pulsed in my hand...
(Ellen) O_O

“I know that polyamory means loving more people, but beyond that I don’t really
understand it,” she said.

“If I’m at a social event where we don’t know most of the people, then I introduce
Micah and Nathaniel as my boyfriends, anything else just seems to confuse people. If
we’re someplace where they understand what poly is, or at least it’s not straight vanilla,
Oh, please. This from the woman whose ideas of edgy sex are:
1) Oral sex;
2) Missionary sex (but VIGOROUS);
3) Missionary sex with light bondage;
4) Oral sex and missionary sex at the same time;
5) Oral sex and missionary sex at the same time - with bondage!
Eesh, you wanna talk about vanilla? The average porny fanfic outdoes that by a mile. Mostly because it knows at least one synonym for "PENIS".
then Micah is my significant other, and Nathaniel is our Third.”

“What does third mean?”
Unicorn.

“It usually means your live-in third partner,” Micah said.

“How do you introduce Nathaniel and Anita?” She asked Micah.

“My girlfriend and our boyfriend,
...Not "our girlfriend and our boyfriend"?

Something's funny here...
or Significant other and our Third, depending
on the event.”

“Then how would you introduce Richard?” she asked.
(Micah) Designated punching bag. :D

Micah and I looked at each other. He gave me a long look, letting me know this
was my ball to hit. Great. “Micah has no relationship with Richard, really. Richard is
never going to take me to a vanilla social event as his girlfriend, so that’s not an issue.
Because no one cares about anyone unless they're dating.

Ye gads...
At
a more poly- or kink-friendly event, if we felt compelled to say anything, I guess, I’d say
he’s my Top.”

Ellen turned to Richard. “How would you introduce Anita?”
(Richard) The millstone around my neck.

“As my bottom, or submissive.”

I shook my head. “I’m not your submissive, I’ll agree to the term bottom, but I’m
not submissive to anyone.”

Richard fought not to frown and almost succeeded. “I could argue that you are to
other people, but fine.”

Ellen was watching us closely. “Okay, why did you say one thing and Anita the
other? What’s the difference between bottom and submissive?”
...A bottom bottoms and a submissive submits. Those two aren't the same act. How hard is tha-

“To me,” I said, trying not to frown at Richard, “bottom is someone who just submits,
or wants to be dominated, in the bedroom, or dungeon, but outside of that they are
dominant and in control.”
...What does THAT have to do with bottoming?! Has Mrs. Hamilton ever heard of "topping from the bottom"?

“That’s not a complete answer, Anita. Some people who are very dominant in every
other part of their life are submissive in the dungeon and bedroom, and are still okay
with the term, and say they have a dominant.”
Well, that's a mature ans-

“I’m not, because I may like to be physically dominated, but no one dominates
me by will, or force of personality. To me a submissive is more than just physically dominated,
it’s about giving up your will to someone else and letting them control you more
completely,” I said.
OH GOOD, ANITA, I'M SO GLAD THAT YOU KNOW WHAT BEING A SUBMISSIVE IS BETTER THAN EVERY SINGLE OTHER SUBMISSIVE IN THE WORLD

Seriously, what the fuck. Look, from the tone she's obviously bragging that NO ONE REALLY DOMINATES HER, RAWR. And that she feels the need to brag about that shows that she doesn't truly grasp the roleplay nature of it, that she DOES think inside the bedroom reflects on outside the bedroom, and that she views submission as inferior to domination.

Considering that the ardeur is a giant magical rape fetish that gives Anita all the power-ups ever, this isn't terribly surprising, but it's wince-inducing to see it propagated as THE TRUTH FOR REALSIES regarding real life instead of just in her bizarre personal fantasies in which everything is waved away with A Wizard Did It.

“I think what you let Asher do with you is submissive,” Richard said.

“I disagree and since I’m the one getting tied up, it’s my call.”

“I don’t understand how either of you can let a vampire touch you, but Asher is
submissive to Richard, so how can he also be dominant, or top, to Anita? If the two of you
can’t even agree then how am I ever going to understand this?” Ellen asked.
Well, it's very simple in Anitaverse. All harem males are dominant to Anita, including Nathaniel, except that Nathaniel is supposedly everyone's bitch, and Asher is also everyone's bitch but he occasionally dominates Anita and/or Nathaniel... not that we'll ever see the latter combo on-screen.

This is also how it plays out in the in-universe-real-life power dynamics, so pardon me for rolling my eyes at the claim this is only the way it works in the bedroom. Yeah, right.. If you count "the bedroom" as the entirety of these books, which is rather harsh. It hasn't been QUITE that bad since Micah.

I didn’t know what to say to her remark about vampires, so I let it go.

“It is confusing,” Micah said, with a smile and an attempt to ease her discomfort.
He was ignoring the vampire remark, too. We’d take the maze one twist at a time, I guess.
I've never found the zombie weremosquitoes sexy either, but whatever...

Common Anitaverse technique: portray ANYONE who disagrees with you as a filthy racist sexist pig, so that the readers are obliged to bash them as well.

Strangely enough, Scientology uses this tactic, too. (Go down to the bottom of the page.)

(It would also be more effective if Anitaverse vampires didn't think every time was Mindrape O'Clock. I'm not even kidding.)

I was uncomfortable, too, but if it was “make this work or give up Richard” as
a part of our social group I’d muscle through it. Richard had worked his therapy hard
to come to a place where he could admit what made him happy, all of what made him
happy, and try to find a way to incorporate all of it into his life. He’d found the woman
he wanted to have the white picket fence marriage with, but he wanted to keep the black
metal spike gate, too.
Can we GET any more fourteen-year-old stuck-up goth?
I wasn’t sure you could have a white picket fence with a Gothic gate,
Apparently we can!
but hey, it wasn’t my life. I was only a small part of Richard’s life, as he was a small part
of mine now.
If only that were true.

“And I am totally lost that Richard says that Asher is his submissive, but he’s also
Anita’s top, and Richard is her top, too. Richard says that Asher is his submissive, but
Anita is only a bottom. How can you have more than one of each?”
So here we have the Ignorant Vanilla Person, who...

Well, actually, screw that, Anita's already taken up the Let Me Educate You role. As such, any attempt to make us feel negatively towards Ellen for not knowing better really falls through, because Anita's obviously happy to inform her just so long as she gets to lord it over her.

“May I?” Micah asked.

Richard and I both said, “Yes.”

Micah smiled at Ellen.
Creep.
“First, Asher and Anita are both switches, which means
- Mrs. Hamilton likes to beat the readers with them -
they switch between top and bottom, but it’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid.
Asher gives up almost all control to Richard in the dungeon/bedroom. He wants to be
dominated in every way.
(Richard) And now, you little slut, I'll read the Anita Blake novels to you aloud. Every last one of them. In all their mis-punctuated, rambling, unedited glory. To the very last word. You want that? You want that, don't you, you sniveling little bitch?
(Asher) *sobbing* Oh! Oh, mon dieu, master, no!
(Richard) You know the safeword if you want to quit.
Anita just wants Richard to dominate her physically with his
superior strength, so she thinks of it as just bottoming.”

“But Richard says that she lets Asher do a great deal more than just use his strength.
Asher . . . well, he . . .” she seemed acutely embarrassed.

“He ties me up and does nefarious things to me,” I said.

Ellen nodded. “Yes, that.” She actually blushed.

Since I used to blush at the drop of a hat, I sympathized. “I maintain that it isn’t
what a person enjoys in the bedroom, or dungeon, that makes them submissive, but the
mindset that goes with it.”
Jeez, she REALLY has a grudge against ANYTHING that might make her precious self seem ~*submissive*~, doesn't she?

(AU!male!Anita) I ain't one of them queers! I just really like dick in my ass!

...Nah, totally inaccurate. She'd have to say "dick".

“You go as far into sub mindset as Asher does sometimes,” Richard said.

“What’s sub mindset?” she asked.
It's SUBSPACE. SUBSPACE.

I suddenly despaired of ever explaining this enough to her. It was like explaining
color to the blind: they accept that there is such a thing as color, but they have no basis
for understanding it as a reality. Either you enjoyed being tied up, or you didn’t, and if
you didn’t you were just never going to understand it.
...
...
...
Right. Because I don't find being tied up at all appealing, I can NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT ANYONE ELSE MIGHT EVER LIKE ABOUT IT. EVER. Which is why I'm completely unable to read any essay on BDSM, any discussion on submission, or any BDSM dynamic in fiction from the sub's point of view whatsoever! As far as I'm concerned, it's just all "fnord fnord fnord"!

(And good job equating "sub" with "being tied up", Anita. Way to generalize ALL of BDSM as bondage. I guess the other three letters are just there for the ride.)

...This isn't helping what I said earlier about proud and deliberate ignorance. Except now Anita's preaching it from the OTHER side of the understanding divide, which is even more bizarre and repulsive. Only WE understand, fellow believers! The pagans can never bridge this gap! Which is why we must purge them all, of course.

(Seriously, ragging on Ellen for her ignorance is even worse if she REALLY believes that Only The Initiated Can Understand. Ellen SHOULDN'T understand, according to her own cracked psychology. So why is she getting demeaned for it? She's only obeying the laws of Anitaverse reality.)

Micah stroked my thigh with his free hand as if he’d felt some of my frustration.
She's not a cat. She doesn't need to be petted to keep from hissing at anyone. Stop it.
“I don’t honestly understand that personally, myself,” he said, “but I’ve seen Anita do it.
Her eyes, face, body language changes. It’s as if some tension leaves her that she holds
onto in every other part of her life, except in the bedroom, or the dungeon.”
I'd like to agree to that, but she's just as much of a grudge-holding Mary-Sue in the bedroom as anywhere else - as seen in Bullet. So I call BULLSHIT!

“Richard told me it’s not a real dungeon.”

We actually did have access to a real dungeon at the Circus of the Damned, but I
couldn’t make myself use it for fun.
WHY WOULD YOU?
I’d seen friends chained in the place for real torture
when evil vampires had been in charge of things. I knew that Richard had taken Asher to
it for fun and games, but at my request Nathaniel would not go with Asher to play without
me. I still had nightmares about a friend dying chained to one of the walls, and Nathaniel
in there for anything was just too close to that memory.
Ahem.
"The Circus of the Damned actually had a real dungeon, but I
couldn’t make myself use it for fun. Not after what I'd seen there."
See? Editors, they are good things!

Micah smiled, softly. “It’s just a term for the bondage side of things that go beyond
just rough sex.” We’d all agreed not to cloud the issue with mentioning we did have a real
dungeon.
...You know, Richard probably already explained that. Stop creepily smiling at her like she's a small child.

She winced, I think at the term “rough sex.”
How do you know it wasn't at "bondage"? Or Micah's creepy smile? Or - never mind.
Again, it wasn’t a good sign. How vanilla
was Dr. Ellen Radborne? The thought of Richard married to someone who thought
just saying the phrase “rough sex” was embarrassing, or bad in some way, made me sad
for him.
Uh, because vanilla is a permanent state? That's why you TOTALLY have stayed the same virginal prude you were at the beginning of this series - right, Anita?
(She's stayed a prude, but that's a different matter.)
I knew that Richard was capable of enjoying gentler lovemaking, but he was so
well-endowed that there was an element of roughness in most of his sex.
I
WHAT
NEVER MIND
THE SAFEWORD IS "EARTH LOGIC"
How could you
enjoy sex with him if you didn’t like it a little rough?
WELL-ENDOWED MEN MUST HAVE ROUGH SEX
I KNOW THIS BECAUSE OF MY LEARNINGS
IF YOU'RE IN A LAURELL K. HAMILTON NOVEL, THAT IS
Or maybe, how would Richard be
able to enjoy it if she didn’t like a little rough?
ALSO ALL GOOD SEX INVOLVES HEAVY POUNDING WITH DICK
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NON-PENETRATIVE SEX
It just seemed sad. Why was he doing this
to himself?
IS EVERYTHING ABOUT SEX IN THESE -
NEVER MIND
ANSWERED MY OWN QUESTION

Some of what I was thinking must have shown because Richard looked at me. I
stared into that handsome face with those high, perfect cheekbones, and male model
face, and thought, he should have been able to have almost anyone he wanted, why Ellen?
...Because of course EVERYONE he might want will be lulled by a handsome face alone?!

...Well, if he's really into Anita-like women, I suppose that's true. Also, he needs GENUINE therapy, because a pervasive pattern of going in for shallow, vicious sexual predators isn't, contrary to Mrs. Hamilton might believe, a good thing.

And there's no mention of whether Ellen has any redeeming values aside from looking like Anita, which isn't surprising, seeing as how ANITA HAS NO INTEREST IN ANYONE SHE ISN'T PLANNING TO SCREW
I'M SORRY
THE STORY STARTED SPORKING ITSELF AT THAT POINT AND I WILL NOT PRETEND OTHERWISE

“Ellen is willing to try and let me keep you, Asher, and Jean-Claude in my life,
Anita. That’s a lot.”
Oh, her redeeming value is that she tolerates Anita and her hangers-on.

Literally.

Nothing else.

He doesn't defend Ellen, doesn't speak to her good points, doesn't put his foot down about loving this woman and not caring what Anita thinks of her - He just insists that, well, she's willing to allow Anita and her merry group of vamps to keep fucking her husband-to-be in a completely one-sided open relationship.

If Mrs. Hamilton's writing became any more shallow, it would pop up and become concave.

I nodded. “Yes, yes it is.” I sounded tired even to me as I said it.
So she's behaving like a sullen brat, even though ELLEN is the one accomodating HER.

Forget the rough sex. If I were in Ellen's situation, I'd be having second thoughts about this not because of Richard's sexual habits, but because he apparently hangs around a condescending, smirking creep and a hostile, sulky six-year-old-in-a-porn-star's-body and sees nothing wrong with any of this. If she judges people by the company they keep, many, many alarms should be going off in her head by now. 'Is he a secret Scientologist' is possibly one of them.

And now I have to scrub the image of David-Miscavige!Micah and Tom-Cruise!Anita out of my head. I'll tell you how that goes.

Micah hugged me, placing his face next to mine. I cuddled into the warmth of the
skin on skin contact; sometimes even touching through clothes wasn’t enough. My hands
found his and one hand slid up his arm until we were half-hugging.
THE SCRUBBING DIDN'T WORK FAST ENOUGH
DIDN'T NEED MISCAVIGE/CRUISE SNUGGLING IN MY HEAD, KTHX

More seriously, not only is Anita behaving like a sullen brat, but... she needs hugs and cuddles... WHY? *goes back up to check*

...All Anita's internal rambling aside, because Ellen WINCED. Possibly at the words "rough sex".

...Feck, doing a surface reading is just not enough to pick up the derangement here. The sporkers really are right about how batshit this series turns the moment one pulls the scenario out of Anita-vision. No wonder Mrs. Hamilton refuses to write the series from the point of view of anyone other than Anita. Even she must be subconsciously aware of how bizarre this seems to anyone who doesn't have Anita's flimsy internal justifications running through their heads at all times.

“Richard explained that excessive touching in public is a sign of stress, or need for
reassurance between lycanthropes.
Yes, all therianthropes have an obsession with constant contact with other people. That's not sarcasm - that's actually part of the worldbuilding.

This is another Thoroughly Creepy Thing. See, it's quite evident that Mrs. Hamilton is also a rather touchy-feely person, because she also stuffed this worldbuilding component into the sidhe in her Merry Gentry series. And also because she can never shut up about it in the Anita Blake series, but that's a different matter.

Now, it's just obnoxious with the sidhe. But the therianthropes were not born that way. Therianthropy makes them that way.

She also has an obvious fetish for the domination-by-brute-strength and sex-obsession (especially violent-sex obsession) that also come as part and parcel of her version of therianthropy - and yes, with the sidhe too. But again, it's innate for the sidhe.

For the Anita Blake series, Mrs. Hamilton set up an entire condition devoted to forcibly converting people to the worldviews and impulses that make her feel all warm and pleasant inside.

Fuck, that is creepy
What happened just now to stress you, Anita?”
(Anita) HERESY. HERESY AGAINST MY FETISHES.

I opened my eyes where I was cuddled in against the warmth and pulse of Micah’s
neck. I looked at her, and it might not have been an entirely friendly look, because her
eyes widened just a bit.
Ellen, there is a clearly unstable woman with super-strength sitting right across the table from you. I think now is around the time to get out the therianthrope-grade mace.
I switched the look higher to Richard,
I know that "higher" refers to Richard being taller.

But that can be read as just such a Freudian slip on so many levels.
and said, “What do you
want me to say, Richard?”
...I don't think I even have the energy to make a "strong, independent woman" joke at this point.

I have read trashy wangst-fic woobies with more initiative, emotional stability, and backbone than this. I think the only way to sum it up is that Anita is a pornographic Azathoth at this point. Micah and all the other harem members play a constant lulling tune of sycophancy, lest she ever fully awaken and engulf all creation within her yawning black Suemaw.

Alternatively, Mrs. Hamilton yanks her head out of fantasyland and gets a life independent of spilling all her most warped and personal fantasies on the page and demanding that people pay for the privilege of seeing them, and Micah and the rest poof out of existence. Admittedly that would be more appropriate for the REAL reason Azathoth must be kept asleep, but that's getting a tad too meta.

“Ellen, honey,” he said, her hand in his, “that’s not excessive public display of affection
for Anita and Micah.”

Ellen turned and looked up at him, eyes wide. “You’re teasing me.”
(Ellen) Because I WINCED? What does she do when someone actually says something unpleasant to her? Jump on Micah and start humping him on the dining table?
(Richard) *morosely* You only think that's a joke, Ellen. You only think that.

Richard shook his head and looked down at her at the same time,
Again - Freudian slip, much?
so that his hair
fell forward and hid most of his face from me.
Mrs. Hamilton also has an obsession with this mental image. Particularly with the prettiest and angstiest of Anita's men.

At this point, I hate to speculate about the inner workings of an author's mind, but I have to wonder if Mrs. Hamilton, as a young adolescent, had a sexual awakening focused on a slightly different character than those played by David Bowie, Harrison Ford, and other such conventionally-handsome actors:



Ellen stared up at him for a few seconds and then turned back to us with an almost
horrified look on her face. I had no idea what we’d done to earn that look.
*flatly* You don't, do you?

Micah sat up a little straighter, doing more of a standard arm across the shoulders
half-hug with the other hand just holding mine on the table top. I sat up straighter, too,
though part of me wanted to do something even more up close and personal just so Ellen
would have a real reason for looking shocked,
I said "six-year-old-in-a-porn-star's-body".

I retract that. That was an insult to six-year-olds. How about "three-year-old"?
but I wasn’t a child,
COULD HAVE FOOLED ME.
and this was Richard’s
problem, not mine.
Anita, if the lady is offended by your behavior, it is either her problem or yours. She is not Richard's proper-

*long pause*

...Every time I think I've understood the depths of Anita's psychology, she hits a new low.
As one of our newer vampires, who was originally Polish, would say,
“Nie Moj Cyrk, Nie Moje Malpy - Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Anita, dearie, has it occurred to you who those "monkeys" would be?

You know, what with you and all your boytoys having taken up residence in the Circus of the Damned and all?

Of course, the fact that he was still my lover, and still with Jean-Claude, and Asher,
Oh, the commanity.
meant that in a way he was still a part of our circus and he, at least was still our
monkey,
Anita, "monkey" is not a compliment. If you think it's not an insult, then the Polish vampire is pulling one over on you because you are literally too dim to be insulted.

This series has gone beyond self-parody and is beginning to parody parodies.
but Ellen wasn’t.
After all, Anita isn't dating her!

...Everything really is about ownership with this woman. And sex. Particularly sexual ownership.
That would be one thing if anyone in this arrangement had AGREED to this bargain. As is? Absolutely nobody has - including Anita herself. She didn't ask for the ardeur, she didn't like it, and she wanted to get it "under control" right up until the point where it ate Mrs. Hamilton's her brain.

Look, Mrs. Hamilton, it's one thing to write out your noncon sex-slave fantasies, but could you at least label them as such?

I seriously want to do Houseplants of Anita at this point. Goodness knows this is beginning to sound like a Gor novel with "therapy" tacked on the side.
Unfortunately, one thing I’d learned about being poly is that
just because you’re not having sex with someone doesn’t mean they can’t screw it all up;
I - bzuh - WTH?

Wait, Anita already knew this. The parents of her college boyfriend screwed up THAT relationship, so it should be obvious that -

...Ohhhhhh gad, now I'm just waiting for the reveal that they were screwing him in some incestuous gwimdawkedy-dawk bashfest retcon. Oh gad, I can see it in these books.

SOMEBODY please pass the brain bleach.
everyone’s lover can affect the emotional side of things
This... was a revelation to you?! People's lovers can affect their emotions? WHAT A TWEEST!
and Ellen had all the ear marks of
being a pain in everyone’s emotional poly ass.
Earmarks. It's one word.

But now I have the image of Anita inspecting Ellen's ears like a wildlife researcher checking an tagged animal for its identifiers, and I really need stronger brain Brillo-Pads. I'll share, guys, just pass me some! D:

I decided to go for truth. I didn’t know what else to do;
*sarcastically* Why, Anita? Are you out of lifelines? Is the host banning you from asking any more male audiene members?
besides our lives were
working and that was too important to fuck with by not being honest.
Not that it's ever stopped her before.
“What did we do just now that bothered you, Ellen?” I asked.

Micah hugged me a little harder, as if in warning.
She's - nominally - a grown woman, and can make her own - awful - decisions. Lay off, you creep.

I glanced at him. “We can’t avoid upsetting her if we don’t know what upset her in
the first place.”
Oh, but Anita, I thought that you "can't fathom" why anyone in your past does what they did. You must instead shove your head up a certain orifice so far that fluttering your eyelashes gives you a pap smear. Heavens, is this the start of Anita actually trying to understand others?

(HA! Don't press your luck!)
I looked at Ellen, and tried to look helpful, questioning, waiting.
(Ellen) Waiter, does this restaurant provide free mace?
She glanced at Richard.

“Anita has a point, if we don’t know what makes you anxious we can’t avoid it.”
(Ellen) Everything about this situation.
(Old!Richard) And don't I know it.
(New!Richard) HATURZ 2 THE LEFT

She looked from one to the other of us. “I . . . I . . . it was just so . . . intimate.
That's an extremely diplomatic way of putting it.
Holding
hands, kissing, hugging, sitting close, and rubbing your faces against each other’s
necks and faces.
All over a few winces and funny looks.

Seriously, not even my Romance Sims used to be THAT absurd in The Sims 2. And I literally had them trying to hop in bed on the first date.

...Actually, that explains everything. Anita is a Romance Sim on overdrive. She never has to eat, excrete, or bathe because her sex life is keeping her in constant Dream Date territory, which keeps filling up her Needs to the point that she doesn't need ~mundane~ things like that. Her so-called "superpowers" are Aspiration Rewards. She also apparently has ACR turned on, so that, every time Mrs. Hamilton goes away from the computer to get a snack, she finds Anita shagging a new Townie.

The boytoys' looks are explained by Mrs. Hamilton using custom default replacements. All her chosen hair meshes come down to the shoulders at minimum and continue down to the ankles in really extreme cases. And she probably has some weird hack in action so that Anita's exclusively attracted to vampires and werewolves and the Townie population is stuffed to the brim with the same.

Anita's sole fears, being a Romance Sim, are exclusive commitment and pregnancy, which is why Danse Macabre is so incoherent - her pregnancy scare sent her into Aspiration Failure, and the entirety of the book after the initial discussion with Ronnie is one big hallucination while the Sim-shrink waves his hand in front of her face and tries to wake her up. Haven joined the boytoy collection for entirely unrelated reasons, and Augustine visited during the breakdown, taking care to step around the insane necromancer lying on the floor and flubbing her lips in the corner, and had a perfectly lovely chat with his old friend Jean-Claude. Thea and the rest of the siren subplot never happened, which is why it never got resolved - whenever Anita's Aspiration levels get into the red and she starts muttering about "Sampson", Micah and the rest hastily distract her with Teh Sexxy in order to jack them back up into the green. 

This can only be confirmed if, when Anita is taken hostage and isolated from all sycophant contact for 24 hours, she begins to hallucinate a man in a giant patchy bunny suit chattering to her, telling her how wonderful she is, and eventually screwing her.

Note: If Anita actually does meet and shag a wererabbit at her direst moment in the next book, I will both say that I called it and go off by myself for a while to decide whether I should laugh or cry.

The way your hand keeps disappearing underneath the table and I can
see your hand moving, Anita.”
No matter how low one THINKS Anita goes, she can always get worse, eh?

“I’m petting his thigh, Ellen, that’s all.
Oh, just petting his thigh! That's not AT ALL sexual! All right then!

In retrospect, I really should have done a But That Would Be Insulting To Goldfish count. Oh well. Better luck with the next Anita Blake spork.
My hand may be close to his groin, but I
would never do that sitting in public
...The horrible thing about that choice of words is that it implies she might be all right doing it while STANDING in public.

Mrs. Hamilton, if you won't accept editing for the sake of your readers, will you at least accept it for your own sake? Because there are a frightening number of near-Freudian-slips that seem to ordinarily get caught by the meager copyediting you do receive.

As I've said, this has gone beyond sporking itself and is bordering on sporking sporks of itself. 'You think YOU can come up with comedic exaggerations of this series's foibles? Ahahahaha, you poor little fools, I'll show you exaggerations...'
and especially not in a situation where I’m trying
to help convince you that this is all somehow normal and okay.
Well, that didn't stop you from behaving like an abnormal and disturbed little brat.
That would be rude and
stupid.
IT SPORKS ITSELF
IT REALLY DOES SPORK ITSELF
IF I LEFT RANDOM LINES UNBOLDED YOU WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TELL WHAT WAS ORIGINAL TEXT AND WHAT WAS SPORK
MRS. HAMILTON, YOU'LL PUT ME OUT OF A HOBBY
I’m trying not to be the first,
You're failing.
and I’m not the second if I can avoid it.”
You can't.

She blushed. “I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.” She stood up.

Richard caught her hand. “Ellen, please.”

“No, Richard, she’s deliberately trying to make me feel stupid
I SAID, YOU'LL PUT ME OUT OF A HOBBY
and rude,
MRS. HAMILTON, WHEN PEOPLE SAY THEY USE CHARACTERS IN SPORKINGS, THEY MEAN THEY WRITE THE LINES THEMSELVES
THEY DON'T JUST POINT TO LINES AND MOTION AT THEM FRANTICALLY
THE BARREL-DWELLER FISH ARE SHOOTING THEMSELVES

...Okay, CAPSLOCK off for a minute. Ellen is completely right, and she's endured far longer than any reasonably person should have had to endure. The readers' sympathy is probably entirely with her at this point - goodness knows, it has no reason to be with Micah and Anita.

Mrs. Hamilton, U R DOIN WRITIN RONG.
and just . . . I can’t do this.”

“For the love of God, Ellen, if you don’t tell us what upset you we can’t fix it,” I said.
She told you. You sneered at her and, as she said, deliberately tried "to make [her] feel stupid and rude" for answering. Isn't that sort of behavior in a Signs of Abuse checklist? You know, the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't questioning procedures and guilt trips? It's just sheer good fortune that Ellen recognized it while she could still get out.

She shook her head. “I thought I could do this, Richard, I really did. I thought
(Ellen) - I would be talking to reasonable and well-mannered adults -
meeting Anita and seeing her with someone else she loved would make me feel more
secure about it all,
ELLEN is the one with insecurity issues?

WHO has been crawling all over her boyfriend for this entire short?

Forget insulting goldfish-as-fish! Mrs. Hamilton apparently regards her readers as dumber than Goldfish CRACKERS!
but it doesn’t. It just doesn’t help at all.”
(Ellen) My insecurity is gone. My sense of danger is telling me "Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

“Ellen, please sit back down and talk to us,” Richard said. He still had her hand in
his.

She pulled on his hand for a moment and then, as she stared down at him, her face
softened. Looking at how yummy he was always made it hard for me to be mad at him,
Okay, to be fair, maybe Mrs. Hamilton doesn't see anything wrong with regarding her readers as less than goldfish. Her sainted protagonist, greater than all other living creatures on this blue earth, apparently is roughly equivalent to a goldfish, so it only stands to reason that comparing her readers to goldfish would be insulting to the glorious creatures that are goldfish.
too, or had once. Being in love with someone gives them a lot of extra clout.
Being in love = finding someone "yummy".

This brings a whole new dimension to the Cookie Monster.
She finally let
him ease her back into her chair.

She looked at us; her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, but her voice was calm
when it came. “I thought I could do this, but I don’t think I can.
(Ellen) There isn't enough alcohol in the world for this. And I'm not being flippant.
I love you, and you are
everything I want, all I want, Richard.
(Ellen) Happiness is, after all, a warm gun.
(Richard) Wait, how am I a warm -
(Ellen) *pulls handgun out from beneath table* I'm doing this fictional universe a favor...
I was willing to believe that you needed rougher
things in the bedroom than I was comfortable with, so I thought I could accept you needed
someone for that and for bondage,
So what was that about 'Ew, vanilla' earlier, Anita? Right - you jumped to conclusions so you could rag on somebody who was doing her best to understand you and so you had an excuse to climb all over your boyfriend.

Was Mrs. Hamilton high on NyQuil or something when she was writing this? This sort of internal inconsistency usually doesn't mean good things about the author's mental state.
but now I see her and you have to stop lying to me,
Richard. It’s not needing to be rough, or needing bondage, it’s just her.
(Ellen) Author's self-insert and all.
You want to keep
her in your bed, and that’s that.”
You know, I'm sorry, I don't see how I'm supposed to be arguing with this. This is exactly the truth. Richard wants to keep Anita The Irresistible in his bed. If he wanted a kinky girlfriend, meeting up and socializing with people who get along with your kinks is why there IS a kinkster community. If he wanted a kinky therianthrope girlfriend, I'm SURE there's a therian kinkster community. After all, it's essentially mandatory-by-the-universe's-rules that most therianthropes ARE into dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism. (Regardless of their prior tastes. *shudder* Thank heavens she didn't houserule that they're all sekritly bisecksual, but I wouldn't put it past her now...) Heck, it's a big world - I'm sure there's a kinky therianthrope pale-skinned brunette out there who wouldn't be averse to going out with him.

And, considering that Anita is a psychopathic rapist, I'm SURE said hypothetical lady is preferable to what he has now.

So it really is all about Anita. Story sporks itself.
The first hard tear started down her cheek.
As opposed to what? A soft tear?

Micah hugged me tighter,
ANITA'S NOT THE ONE WHO'S CRYING, IMBECILE!
and said, “Trust me, Ellen, it is rough sex that they do
together.
That's... not what she was talking about when she said that, dumbfuck.
Rougher than anything I enjoy. I accept that Anita needs some things in the
bedroom that I just do not want to do.”
Considering that you raped her the first time you met her, that's hard to believe.

(Seriously. That happened. Mrs. Hamilton changed the scene between the hardback and paperback versions because it was too blatantly rape, and it STILL is nonconsensual in the final version. Apparently "soulmate" romanticized rape isn't just for bad FANfic.)

[Also, all the talk of ~needing~ things in the bedroom annoys me. You WANT it. But, of course, it's impossible to want something unless you NEEEEED it in these books.
Including sex.
Which is probably why the ardeur is pure fuck-or-die noncon.
And why Anita refuses to eat unless it's basically shoved down her throat.
And...
You know, let's stop pursuing this line of thought - it's just getting uncomfortable.]

She stared at him and again there was that soft horror on her face. “You’ve watched
. . .”
He's done a lot more than "watched", lady. That shower scene wasn't "watch[ing]".

“No,” he said, very firmly, “but I’ve seen the marks on her body afterwards. Anita
and Richard are not a couple in the way that you and Richard are, Ellen.
She never claimed otherwise, you bizarre lunatic.

...Seriously, does the AUTHOR have the reading comprehension of a goldfish?
He loves you, is
in love with you, just like I’m in love with Anita.”
Considering how Richard behaves at the end of this, and how Richard's consistently taken the other woman's side throughout this whole story and treated Ellen like a mark he's trying to pull a hustle upon, that's very telling.

My, my, this story is just chock-full of pseudo-Freudian-slips, isn't it?

“Marks,” Ellen said softly, “what kind of marks?”
(Richard) The kind that signify she's queen of half a dozen therian groups, the first necromancer in a thousand years, the specialest of the special vampire hunters, an irresistible fuck-machine a la Celebrian...
(Ellen) Stop being facetious!
(Richard) You think I'm being facetious?!

Micah looked at Richard. “I don’t think that’s my question to answer.”
WHY CAN'T ANITA ANSWER HER OWN QUESTIONS?!

Richard hugged her close and said, “Bruises sometimes.”
You know, holding an increasingly-anxious, totally-naive-about-BDSM person close while telling them you frequently beat someone up for kicks (even if it's totally pre-arranged, loving) and consensual, is not going to help their jitters. AT ALL.

She looked stricken. “You beat her?”

“No,” he and I said together.

“I would never let anyone beat me, Ellen,” I said.
Yes, domestic abuse victims LET their abusers beat them.

...
&yuoing yhru gsveisjn
(...that should have been "*typing thru facepalm*", but, as you can see, it didn't quite work...)

“Then I don’t understand,” she said looking from one to the other of us.

I looked at Richard, because I got bruised from struggling pitting my strength
against his.
Mother of non-sequiturs!

Does "because" mean what Mrs. Hamilton THINKS it means?
I didn’t fight as hard as I could, and neither did he. We didn’t want to really
hurt each other, but we liked seeing how far we could push it sometimes in our little rape
fantasies.
Funny, I thought those were the entirety of these books. *cheap shot*

(In all seriousness, lliira basically knocked it out of the park by commenting "I don't know if a rape fantasy can have rape fantasies".)
But there was no way I was saying the phrase, “rape fantasy,” to Ellen. That
either came from Richard, or no one;
WHY? Aren't you half of them?! The one time she SHOULD explain something, and she doesn't!
besides, honestly, it still embarrassed me a little. It
seemed so anti-feminist to enjoy being overpowered in the bedroom,
...And your raging misogyny isn't anti-feminist?

Let me translate. Anita thinks it makes her less of a Strong Female Character to enjoy being overpowered in the bedroom, because she blatantly regards all submissives as lESSER bEINGS who exist to be coddled by dominants and look pretty and traumatized.

And typing the end of that sentence is making me slightly ill.
but under the right
circumstances, with the right people COMMA! I loved it.
Yes, that's true of... all sex. Unless you're one of those rare people who can enjoy sex with any living adult* or under any circumstances**. Uh...
(Earth Logic) Earth Logic to Anita? Earth Logic to Anita? I know we're bitterly divorced, but can I at least come over for a visit?
(Anita) STFU HATURZ

*And I do mean "any". Including the current leader of North Korea, someone who will only have sex while wearing a dragon fursuit, ex-Pope Benedict, Hillary Clinton, Kirstie Alley, and Yoko Ono.
**And I do mean "any". Including having sex with all of the aforementioned people while suspended by a rope from a helicopter above a volcano. Simultaneously. While yodeling "Take Me Home, Country Roads".
I was tired of pretending about the things
that made me happy in my life; I’d decided I’d rather just be happy.
Is THAT why the writing quality has hit new lows?

“I would never allow Richard to abuse me, or any man for that matter,” she said.
That's apparently what everyone says BEFORE they get abused.

“I am not an abuse victim, Ellen.
And that's what a lot of abuse victims say, unfortunately.
I’m not a victim at all.
Again...
I own my sexuality in every
sense,
YOU WON'T EVEN SAY "PENIS"
LADY, YOU PROTEST TOO MUCH
and I top some of the men in my life. It’s not just me on the receiving end of the
rough.”

“You abuse some of the men?”
All of them, actually. But that's a different story.

“It’s not abuse.” I was getting pissed and trying not to be.
It is, actually. Domming isn't abuse, but Anita abuses absolutely everyone with whom she comes into contact. I think Mrs. Hamilton is trying to rebut the oft-leveled charges of Anita being an abuser... and completely misses the point. As usual.

“You hurt each other. How is that not abuse?” she asked.
Gee, let's think up some possible answers! Because it's safe, sane, and consensual? Because everyone involved enjoys it more than they're harmed by it, and are all strong-willed, independent adults who can and will say no if they wish to withdraw their consent? Because -

“This is my sexuality; it’s what makes me happy.
...Yeah, purveyors of child porn can say exactly the same thing.
*headdesk*
(Seriously, she doesn't address the charge that SHE'S the abuser at all. ...One can hope it's because of a simple oversight, and not because Mrs. Hamilton considers the charge irrelevant.)
You saying that it’s abuse is insulting;
it would be like me saying that your idea of sex is boring.”
...Being abusive is on the exact same level as being boring.

...

...

...This line made me flip out when the "e-special" initially came out. That hasn't changed.

And it sums up so much of Anita's narcissism, really. By being "vanilla" and thus uninteresting, Ellen is abusing Anita with her very existence. Same for anyone who isn't edgy enough for Anita's tastes. Same for any harem member who doesn't kneel before Zod Anita Blake. Same for...

...

...Okay, I admit it. I lack words for the horror of a character who considers boring her as a deliberate and malicious act of abuse and acts accordingly.

I'm tired tonight, so I might have come up with words if I had the energy, but alas, can't be bothered. As it is, though...

Marvelous eldritch horror you've got there, Mrs. Hamilton! What do you mean, she's your heroine?

“How do you know what kind of sex I enjoy?” She looked at Richard.

“I didn’t say anything about our sex life to anyone,” he said.

“I’m assuming some things
Try "assuming EVERYTHING"...
from your reaction, Ellen, that’s all. I hope I’m wrong
for your sake and Richard’s.”
Oh fucking wow.

Way to police other people's sex lives, Miss Free and Liberated. ...Wow.

I'm actually speechless.

“Wrong about what?” she asked.
Goldfish alert!

“Your idea of sex.”
Her IDEA of sex? What, like you're a virgin unless you've had it The Anita Way?

...feel... unclean...

She squirmed in her seat, and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “It’s none of your
business.”
SHE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
This is fucking creepy and frankly sexual harassment. I am halfway expecting Anita to say "Now sit down there in that chair right there and let me show you how it's done". 

And Mrs. Hamilton thinks readers will SYMPATHIZE with Anita for this?

Good gad. What is wrong with the woman?

That was it for me. “You sit there and demand that we tell you intimate things
about our sex life, our relationships,
She demanded NOTHING OF THE SORT.

"“Nathaniel is your other . . .” she seemed lost for words.
“Boyfriend works,” I said. [...]
“So, Micah is your . . .?” again she paused for help with the right word."

She asked for CLARIFICATION. YOU, RICHARD, AND MICAH then started spouting off about kink-friendly events and getting into catfights over what "bottom" meant. You went WAY TMI on her for the questions she later asked SOLELY FOR CLARIFICATION, and she didn't end up getting antsy until you and Micah started wriggling against each other like earthworms in a bait bucket. There were no "demands" WHATSOEVER.

Please show me the version of events Anita's experiencing, because it sure isn't the one on the page.
but you share nothing.
YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING AN APPEAL TO HER. She owes you nothing.

And you wouldn't have "share[d]" half so much if you hadn't gone into LET ME EDUCATE YOU PAGAN mode, so I feel no. Fucking. Sympathy. For. You. Whatsoever.
You get all embarrassed, why
can’t we be embarrassed, too?”
BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO SHAME ABOUT ANYTHING BUT CONSENSUAL SEX AND SAYING THE WORD "PENIS".

Also, she is embarrassed by the TMI. You are the one gleefully shoveling the TMI at her. Please stop thinking I'm dumber than Goldfish Crackers, Mrs. Hamilton. As a reader, I don't appreciate it one bit.

She looked startled. “I just thought . . .”

“Thought what, that because we like kinky sex we can’t be embarrassed?”
No, the infodumping of your childhood angst went MUCH further towards indicating that you were a TMI machine than your fondness for vigorous missionary position sex, Anita.

She glanced at Richard, then back at me. “I guess I assumed that if you were this
open it didn’t bother you to talk about it.”
A correct assumption, in this case.

“It doesn’t bother me to talk to my sweeties, but to someone who I’ve just met and
who is judging every word I say, yeah, it bothers me.”
Ahahahaha! Because Anita isn't judging every word ELLEN says?!  And every off-kilter blink she makes?!

Can I leave now? It's sporking itself, and I should really leave it in private while it, uh, "self-abuses".

No?

Darn.

“I’m not judging you,” she said.

“Aren’t you?”
This is really a case of the pot calling the ficus black.

Micah hugged me a little harder. “It’s okay,” he said.
SHE'S NOT A CHILD, EVEN IF SHE ACTS LIKE ONE. SHE'S A GROWN WOMAN OF THIRTY. LAY. OFF.

“No,” I said, “it’s not.” I looked at Richard. We had a moment of looking deep into
each other’s brown eyes,
*facepalming* I don't care. I don't care. I really don't care. Who cares about brown eyes, WHO? Please stop masturbating about how everything relates back to you, Anita, and just shut up.
but it wasn’t a love look, it was a soul-searching one.
(Richard) The HELL are you trying to pull?
The look
you give someone that you know well, or did at one time, as you’re wondering what the
hell they’re doing to their lives.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dear Mrs. Hamilton, you wrote that look as going both ways. As such, Richard is briefly the proxy for every last one of the remaining readers. That is a beautiful quote. It should be framed for future snark.
"[Richard and I] had a moment of looking deep into each other’s brown eyes, [...] The look
you give someone that you know well, or did at one time, as you’re wondering what the
hell they’re doing to their lives. "

Richard had finally worked through his issues so it was
nice to have him in our lives again, and part of me wondered if Ellen was his new way of
denying himself.
The fuck?
It was a nice way of setting himself up to withdraw from the bondage
and the rough sex without admitting that he was conflicted.
This entire meeting is ABOUT him still being able to continue with the bondage and rough sex DESPITE his relationship with Ellen.

...Mrs. Hamilton, have you literally forgotten the PREMISE of this piece?

...Really?

...Okay, call me a concern troll for this. But I get abruptly worried for an author if they seem to be unable to retain the premise for a story through a several-page oneshot. Far as I'm concerned, that's... a sign of a severe mental disturbance, whether mostly psychological or mostly biochemical.

I can mock a piece by an author in full possession of their mental faculties to my heart's content, but even I get guilty over snarking someone who... isn't all there.
...Seriously, I'd think twice about this if she wasn't merrily equating boredom with abuse, mixed-race people with EXOTIKNEZ, rape with love, and all the rest of Anita Blake Content...
He wouldn’t be conflicted,
he’d be giving it all up so he could be married and have that white picket fence dream.
Was it possible to lie to yourself so well that you didn’t realize you were doing it? Hell,
yes. I’d done it myself for years.
As lliira pointed out, Mrs. Hamilton is married.
She is into BDSM.
Here she portrays BDSM and marriage as mutually incompatible.
And she characterizes thinking otherwise as "l[ying] to yourself so well that you didn't realize you were doing it".
Reading this is making me feel very awkward now.

“There,” she said, “that look, how can I not feel threatened when the two of you
have such a strong connection?”
Yes, Ellen, it IS impossible to hold the affections of a male character under the spell of a Sue. Sorry.

“We weren’t looking lovingly into each other’s eyes, trust me on that,” I said and
cuddled in against Micah. I just wanted to leave. I was so done with this conversation.
You were acting like this at the very start.

And you're a surly little brat who has made life unpleasant from Ellen from the very start of this story and whines if she so much as glances funny at you.

Congratulations, Mrs. Hamilton, I want to reach through the screen and slap a fictional character. That takes doing. Pity she's your heroine.

“Then what did that look mean?”

I shook my head.

Richard answered, “Anita is wondering why I want someone who is so uncomfortable
with so much of my life, right?”
WHY DO MEN HAVE TO ANSWER FOR HER
IS SHE GOING TO HOLD HER BREATH UNTIL SHE TURNS BLUE
WHAT THE FUCK

“Yes,” I said and looked at them both.

“It’s just sex, not his whole life,” she said.
Sorry, ever since Richard joined the Harem for real, he's just Angsty Bishie Dildo #212. Sex and slobbering over Anita ARE his whole life, now. You know, just like the heartwarming ending of 1984.

I gave Richard very direct eye contact, and raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” she asked, “What is that look you’re giving each other?”

“If you believe that sex isn’t that important to you, that’s your choice, but . . .” I
stopped without finishing the sentence.
If she BELIEVES? What if it is? What if she said "if you believe that sex [IS] that important to you, that's your choice, but..."? You'd soil your diaper like the toddler you are and throw a screaming shitfit.

And congratulations on the passive-aggressiveness. It sure reflects well on you to not even finish your sentences.

At this point, I'm fucking wondering if all Anita's grandmother ever said was "Pretty is as pretty does" and Anita constructed a huge persecution fantasy over that alone. And I HATE dismissing emotional trauma as 'It's all in your head', but ALL THE EVIDENCE POINTS TOWARDS ANITA HEARING INSULTS AND SEEING SLIGHTS WHERE THERE ARE NONE, and I am bound to actually pay attention to the text.

Unlike the actual AUTHOR.

“But what?” she asked.

I looked at Richard.

“Just say it, Anita,” he said.
IT'S LIKE TRYING TO GET A BRAT TO SAY "PLEASE" AND "THANK YOU"
IS SHE GOING TO THROW A TOY ON THE GROUND AND START WAILING UNTIL SHE'S RED IN THE FACE NEXT

I sighed, Micah squeezed my hand.
*insert obscenities here*
“But if you believe that sex isn’t important to
Richard . . . that would be a mistake and not true.”
'And it's also STUPID and WRONG, you meanie-head!'

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Richard took her hand in his, and gazed into her eyes. “I love you, I want to spend
my life with you and have children with you. I want to go to PTA meetings and Boy Scout
meetings, and do all of it with you.”
WHAT
DOES MRS. HAMILTON THINK "VANILLA" PEOPLE TALK LIKE THIS
DOES MRS. HAMILTON THINK ANY PEOPLE TALK LIKE THIS
"I WANT TO GO TO PTA MEETINGS AND BOY SCOUT MEETINGS, AND DO ALL OF IT WITH YOU"
THIS IS DIALOGUE OUT OF A PARODY OF HOW SHE PORTRAYS "VANILLA" PEOPLE
DID SHE ACCIDENTALLY UPLOAD AN APRIL FOOL'S SPECIAL RATHER THAN THE INTENDED SHUTDOWN AND JUST NOT HAVE THE GUTS TO ADMIT IT
"I WANT TO GO TO PTA MEETINGS AND BOY SCOUT MEETINGS, AND DO ALL OF IT WITH YOU"
THIS IS WANGSTOS: THE HANDS OF FUCK
WITHOUT ANY ACTUAL FUCK
OR WANGS, FOR THAT MATTER
IT'S BATTLEFUCK BLAKE
WE HAVE HIT THE ABSOLUTE NADIR OF THE ANITA BLAKE SERIES
AND AFTER MICAH, INCUBUS DREAMS, NARCISSUS IN CHAINS, AFFLICTION, DANSE MACABRE, BULLET, AND... OH, FUCK IT, ESSENTIALLY ALL OF THE ANITA BLAKE NOVELS AFTER NARCISSUS IN CHAINS... THAT IS A REAL ACCOMPLISHMENT
IT IS A WORMHOLE OF BADFIC
IT WASN'T ENOUGH TO BE A BLACK HOLE
IT HAS TO RIP OPEN THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE IN ANOTHER SPOT SO IT CAN LOOP BACK ON ITSELF IN A NEVER-ENDING OUROBOROS OF BADFIC
THIS IS THE NAVELFUCKING OF DIALOGUE

She wrapped her smaller hands around his. “Oh, Richard, I want that too, so
much.”
NO, ELLEN
RUN AWAY
RUN AWAY FAST
IN NO DIMENSION IS THIS WHAT ANYONE WOULD CONSIDER ROMANTIC DIALOGUE

“But to have all that with you, and be happy, I need certain things that you don’t
want to do.”
...Yes. She knew that at the START. The readers remember. Why don't the characters? Or the author?

As I said, I worry for Mrs. Hamilton's mental health.

For other reasons than she thought someone could say Richard's line up there with a straight face, I mean.

“Why is it wrong that I don’t want you to tie me up and hurt me?”

“It’s not wrong,” he said, “but it’s also not wrong that I want and need to do that
with someone.”

“I don’t understand that,” she said.

“I know you don’t, honey, but can you accept that it’s true for me?”

“You’re asking me to let you have sex with Anita and then come home to me as if
it’s all normal.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”
...Yes. That was the entire point of arranging this appointment - so she could feel more secure about WHAT SHE ALREADY KNEW AND TO WHICH SHE WAS POSSIBLY WILLING TO AGREE.

I feel like I'm sporking something written as therapy for a dementia-ward patient. I'm not saying that to be cruel. I'm just astonished Mrs. Hamilton can't remember the basic premise of her own damn oneshot.

Now, if she said that Anita was a horrible, surly bitch and THAT was why she was having second thoughts about Richard continuing a relationship with her, that would be one thing. But no, it's as though she's shocked, shocked that Richard will keep shtupping her when...

"“Ellen is willing to try and let me keep you, Asher, and Jean-Claude in my life,
Anita. That’s a lot.”"

...that was MIDWAY THROUGH the story. So it's not as though she only forgot the beginning - she also, apparently, forgot the middle, the beginning, the sides, and... probably her own middle name at this rate. What DOES the "K." stand for, again?

WTH? WTH? WTH?!
“You selfish bastard,” she said, and she was crying again. She took her hands out
of his and this time he let her do it.
LET her? Wow, that's not creepy at all.
She stood up and gave him a look of rage and disgust
that must have been like a knife through his heart.
And how SHE'S feeling doesn't matter at all, I assume.

After all, she's boring and Anita doesn't want to date her.

I can't believe that reasoning is actually accurate in-story.
“Are you honestly saying, that if I
don’t say yes to all this perverted sex that you won’t marry me?”
(Richard) Those punctuation marks wanted it, the sluts! Spreading themselves all over sentences like they belonged there!

More seriously, what a coinkydink that Ellen turns into a strawman right now. I suppose even Mrs. Hamilton couldn't write her way into having Anita have the high ground against this poor woman without bashing her to the skies.

The tables near us were beginning to notice the show, and trying to act as if they
hadn’t heard that oh, so, provocative sentence.
...Mrs. Hamilton, you don't understand punctuation, you don't understand word meanings, and you don't understand how to write a plot, as this meandering mess made abundantly clear.

I may feel sorry for Ellen, but I feel far more sorry for your editor.

We had Richard’s face in profile.
...Random detail is random?
He swallowed hard enough that we heard it, and
then he said, “I’ve worked too hard to accept who I really am. Ellen, I can’t go back to
hiding. I can’t go back to lying to myself.”
(Richard) I'm really a woman. *throws Anita and Micah out a window and stomps out to get herself some decent clothing, a shave, and a bottle full of Excedrin*

Alternatively...

(Richard) I am... your father. *lightning flashes and thunder booms in background*
(Ellen) What?
(Richard) Makes as much sense as anything else in this mess, doesn't it?
(Ellen) Yes, but even so...

Alternatively...

(Richard) I'm really a Republican.
(Anita) *throws coffee at him* You bastard! *runs out bawling and dragging Micah by his Wonderdick*
(Ellen) ...
(Richard) *turns to her* Worked, didn't it? I should have tried that years ago.

Alternatively...

(Richard) I'm really Thanfiction.
(Ellen) *shrieks and runs out of the restaurant*
(Anita) Really?!
(Thanfiction) Though I've got to admit, you make hobbit cults look fucking mundane. HOW many animal "alters" do you have NOW, woman? And how do you keep these suckers from realizing that they COINCIDENTALLY require hot men to literally throw themselves all over you on a weekly basis?

Alternatively...

(Richard) Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
(Anita) REALLY?! FUCK ME INTO MY DRAGONQUEENNESS, LIZARDCOCK! *throws herself on him*
(Richard) Help! D:
(Ellen) *stands by, shaking her head and watching in morbid amazement* Instant karma...

...I have to go back to sporking it now? Darn.

“So you are choosing her over me,” Ellen said.

“No, I’m choosing myself,” he said.
(Richard) Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me.

She aimed that rage at me. “You must be incredible in bed for him to throw everything
away.
The amusing subtext is that it sure ain't because of Anita's personality...
I guess I can’t compete with a fur banging, blood whore.”
Due to botched hyphenation, she's addressing Anita as a blood whore and saying that she can't compete with a fur banging, whatever that is. I suppose she stood a chance against headbanging.

More seriously - Richard is a werewolf. She indicates that she had some idea of this, since he discussed lycanthrope behavior with her. We're REALLY to believe she's throwing around anti-therianthrope slurs when she was willing to MARRY ONE AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER at the start of this lunch?

If Anita drifted off into a psychotic fantasy midway through the lunch, it would explain a lot. Such as, oh, why Ellen totally did a 180 on being willing to let Anita sleep with Richard, why she did a 180 on her attitude towards therianthropes, why she went abruptly and irreversibly OOC...

Alas, that would explain too much about every dissident to ever get on Anita's bad side, so it's unlikely to be the real explanation. Alas.

("Fur-banging" is apparently a slur against those who sleep with therianthropes, and "blood-whore" is the same thing for vampire fetishists. Alas, due to Mrs. Hamilton's meager gifts at devising insults, it just sounds like something sordid involving Anthrocon and a sleazy blood bank.)

Micah pressed his arm against my shoulders, holding me in my chair, because I
had started to stand. “No,” he said.
D8

He was right, because if I stood up I wasn’t sure what I was going to do -- nothing
good.
THIS STORY IS SO FUCKED UP ON MULTIPLE LEVELS
AND THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS OUT WITHOUT BEING BLAKESPLAINED IS MICAH
WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE GIVE HIM A CONCUSSION WITH HIS OWN DONG
...In more seriousness, I despise Micah, I think he's sleazier than Edward Cullen and Bella Swan combined, and I would not be at all adverse to his having an accident with a rack of silver cutlery. Good gad, he's awful. I didn't get why people thought Micah was such a manipulative sleaze before doing this close reading, but now I think that, if anything, people understate how creepy he is.

He controls Anita like a child, offers condescending explanations for everything, and does it all with a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth smile. UGH. The slime almost oozes off the screen.

Richard stood up. “That was an ugly thing to say.”
"That was an ugly thing to say"? That's the strongest you can muster? What is this, kindergarten?

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“If she’s Jean-Claude’s blood whore, then so am I,” he said.
...Uh, you know, a DENIAL would have helped.
Implication: Anita really is a "fur-banging blood-whore". Mrs. Hamilton doesn't think the crudeness of the slurs is offensive enough to give a speech against them, and goodness knows she rambles on about everything else when a question is addressed to an authorial mouthpiece.
Freudian slips aplenty, my word.

Ellen stared at him; her face didn’t seem to know what expression it wanted to
have, as if so many thoughts were chasing around her mind that she didn’t know what to
do.
You mean, like this story doesn't know what it wants as a theme, aside from 'Anita shows that mean jealous hater'?

“You don’t have sex with him. You told me you don’t have sex with either of the
vampires.”

He leaned in and spoke low, so the other people around wouldn’t hear. Some of
the people at the nearest tables were trying not to stare; others were openly watching.
(Bystander) I didn't know breasts CAME in triple-E cup sizes!
He
bent closer to her, and said, “Just because no one sticks their dicks in each other doesn’t
mean it’s not sex.”
A) I won't believe that you mean that until you show us you believe that in the context of an actual sex scene, Mrs. Hamilton;
B) Same goes for using the word "dicks".
C) Richard is an out-and-out liar, then, since he told Ellen one thing before this lunch and now tells Ellen another.

She slapped him, hard enough for it to echo in the suddenly silent restaurant.

Everyone was looking now; it was too good a show to look away. Richard hadn’t done
anything to protect himself, he’d just let her hit him. If a man had done the same thing to
a woman someone would have been calling the police.
Oh, the commanity!

And also, if you're playing Pity The Poor Pretty Boy, Mrs. Hamilton, keep in mind that Richard is a tall, muscular man leaning in on a petite, non-athletic woman and whispering darkly in her ear. Anyone watching that will probably assume he was threatening her and that she slapped him in self-defense.

Richard stood up straighter, taking his face out of her reach. “I love you, Ellen.”
She apparently can't even REACH his face when he stands up, the height difference is so great.

Look, if a thirteen-year-old boy punched a looming, burly man in the face after the man leaned over and whispered creepily in the boy's ear - NO ONE would be saying 'Oh, but if the roles were reversed, someone would have been calling the police!' They'd be rooting for the boy to run the FUCK away, and probably calling the police in case the MAN pursued.

This has nothing to do with double standards or denying that less-physically-adept people can abuse those physically stronger than them. It has everything to do with a nearly-perfect stereotype of a bully whining that waaaaah, this time the victim hit BACK.

I mean, tell me what's out of place with the following dialogue, eh?

"He leaned in and spoke low, so the other people around wouldn’t hear. Some of
the people [standing on the nearby sidewalk] were trying not to stare; others were openly watching. He
bent closer to her, and said, “Hand over the wallet, bitch, or I'll blow your fucking brains out.”"

Know what I'm saying?

“I hate you, Richard Zeeman, I hate you for making me love you, and for this . . .”
she gestured at me and Micah, though I think we were just representative of the problem.
No, you two ARE problems. Richard is also a problem. Get over yourself, Anita.

{snip; Ellen runs out with her hands over her face, desperately sobbing}
Richard didn’t turn around. He didn’t see her on the sidewalk. He didn’t see her look in
through the windows at him. Ellen had expected him to follow her. I think she’d seen
running out as an escalation, but not an end, and if he’d gone after her, she’d have been
right.
Oh, fucking shut up about how the woman who ran out after twenty pages of mistreatment was calculating it as an "escalation".
The look on her face as she realized he wasn’t going to follow was one of raw pain.
Yes, she now knows Richard really does value fucking two vampires and a psychopath over that happy life he swore he wanted with her.
The two vampires he apparently told her he WASN'T fucking, mind.
That is a pretty big betrayal to take in all at once.

Micah touched my arm, which made me look at him. He looked at me and I knew
the look. I was supposed to do something.
CAN SHE DO NOTHING BY HERSELF
DID JON ADD THIS IN DURING 'EDITING' OR SOMETHING
IT'S FUCKING CREEPY
AND ALSO SHE USED "LOOK" OR A VARIATION THEREOF 3 TIMES IN 19 WORDS
WILL "LOOK" BE THE NEW "SPILL"? TUNE IN NEXT TIME ON "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS ISN'T A TROLLFIC" ADVENTURES!

I said, “Richard, if you don’t follow her . . .”

“It’s over,” Richard said.
It's over?! Thank heavens! FINALLY! Never has ~25 pages of badfic looked so LONG!

“Yes,” I said.

“I know,” Richard said.

I looked at his very straight, very still back, and then turned to the window. Ellen
was looking at him, as if willing him to turn around, but he didn’t. She walked out of
sight, fresh tears streaming down her face. Richard didn’t follow her.
How very soap-opera-like. Took that from a TV series or something, Mrs. Hamilton?

THE END

Any analysis will wait until later. That was... unexpectedly bad. I mean, I knew it was bad just from reading it, but a close reading just exposed countless layers of awfulness and... awfulness, that's all I can really say about it. "Creepiness" doesn't do it justice. Well, the sheer amount of CAPSLOCK during the spork probably made that abundantly clear.

Anyway, I hope readers enjoy!