Friday, March 22, 2013

Cerulian Sins chapter 7

So we meet Musette, who is indeed blond...and pretty, and tiny, and who is HEAVILY implied to be a pedophile due to her pomme de sang having no fang marks on her neck.

Musette also has a male companion, and...uh...

His skin was as dark as skin that hadn’t seen much sun in centuries could be. I was betting he tanned with very little effort. He just hadn’t had much opportunity to catch any rays. His eyes were an odd blue green, aqua, like the waters of the Caribbean. They were startling in his dark face and should have added warmth and beauty. But they were cold. He should have been handsome, but he wasn’t, the sour expression on his face stole all that.
In the case of the first bolded thing...YEAH. No. I do not think white ethnic backgrounds work that way.

In the case of the second...commas have died for this book. Whole flocks of them. Weep. Weep for the commas.

Everybody sits down. LKH makes sure we know who is graceful and who isn't, and that later is basically Anita. Musette and Jean Claude talk in French long enough for Musette's willingness to offend Anita to be established, and then she starts speaking in "heavily accented"English.

THANK GOD LKH is not a phonetic accent writer. I'd probably have a conniption if she were.

She starts poking Damian with a short stick, AKA questioning him about his old mistress. Abuse is heavily implied, of course, and Anita finally tells Musette to knock it off. Musette then turns on Anita. Because, you know, this is all about Anita.

 Jean Claude formally introduces Anita as his servant.

Musette reminds him of Juliana, the woman that he and Asher were both head over heels for, and then Musette calls both Anita and Juliana "common" and "peasant stock" and Anita is all like "Can't be offended. That's my family, right there." Okay, I now hate Musette because she's rude and I like Anita a little bit. That's pretty good writing there.

Next paragraph?

“Why would you be proud of that?” “Because everything we’ve gotten, we’ve made with our two hands, the sweat of our brows, that kind of thing. We’ve had to work for everything we have. No one has ever given us anything.”

Way to shoot yourself in the foot, hon. We got it the first time. You don't need to feed it to us with a spoon here.

Musette doesn't get it, and finally dismisses it as being unimportant because she can't understand.

Does a phantom blond piss in LKH's cheerios every morning? I'm just curious. The last villian I read who was this ham fisted was Nicolae Carpathia and he was the fucking Antichrist.

And then Musette reveals that she has brought Jean Claude a present. It's a painting of Asher and Jean Claude cosplaying as Cupid and Psyche back when Asher wasn't all scarred up. She then gives Asher a painting of himself freshly scarred and ugly, because this kind of emotional penny ante shit is exactly what an evil vampire would do.

And in all of this emotional sadism, who becomes the most upset? Anita. How does Anita react to watching two people she cares about be reminded of the worst moment of their lives?

OF COURSE SHE DOES.

And naturally, that's the end of the chapter.





4 comments:

  1. What's funny is that in Flirt she claims she doesn't faint. She actually faints a LOT. I think maybe even once a book.

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  2. "Because everything we’ve gotten, we’ve made with our two hands, the sweat of our brows, that kind of thing. We’ve had to work for everything we have. No one has ever given us anything.”"
    Oh the irony of a white person saying that.
    Wait, I'm forgetting about her Mexican hair, my bad.
    Also, I don't really get why Anita faints here. Is it because she has to see the scars that she insists totally don't bother her at all, and she barely even notices anymore?

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  3. The Phantom Blonde is my new favourite superhero. Evildoers repent, or your cornflakes will be widdled in!

    "His skin was as dark as skin that hadn’t seen much sun in centuries could be. I was betting he tanned with very little effort. He just hadn’t had much opportunity to catch any rays."

    So is he light-skinned or dark? I get from later on that he's kinda sorta darkish, I seriously can't tell from these lines. Skin that hasn't seen much sun in centuries can't be very dark unless the character is African and has a certain basleine of melatonin. And I'm white but tan easily without burning. This is bad writing, an ambigious description that comes out of not wanting to outright say "Dark enough to be exotic, but not too dark."

    And of course Anita faints. This is a scene that focuses on someone else's trauma. How else can she be the centre of attention if she doesn't faint? This supposedly spontaneous I-couldn't-help-myself attention grabbing behaviour reminds me of my cousin. He has a personality disorder.

    LKH, it is a bad thing when the author-proclaimed hero displays symptoms of a personality disorder.

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    Replies
    1. She's described characters as being "dark yet light" and "like chocolate ivory" too and I still have no clue what in the hell that means. Lightskinned black person is my best guess.

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