Trout Nation Posts

And I tweeted it. [View the story “#BreakingJenny” on Storify]

If you follow me on twitter, or if you were awakened this morning by what sounded like the screams of a thousand beansidhe wailing for the future of original fiction and fandom in one long, desperate howl, then you’re aware that Amazon is a nest of fucking vampires who will not rest until they suck the very life out of the industry that built them. I’m speaking, of course, about the new Kindle Worlds program, a venue for fanfic writers who really don’t give a shit about the creations they’re purporting to love to exploit the fuck out of fandom and sell what in the past has always been given away for free out of integrity and a need to not get sued. You can read about the fucking travesty here at The Mary Sue, although they take a much different view of this bullshit than I do.

I was going to come here and write a scathing post about why this is shitty and why it will harm both fandom and original fiction, but you know what? I am tired of feeling like Ned Stark at King’s Landing. I’m not going to be the Hand of the King on this one. If readers and ficcers want to be Robert Baratheon and refuse to see that the boar of paid fanfiction is wearing Amazon’s Lannister colors…

Wait. Let me dial my nerd back a little.

Basically, I’m not going to rant on the subject (at least here; my twitter account is going to be bitter and terrible for A WHILE), because it has yet to do me any good other than getting a nice mad on and whipping you all up in an angry frenzy. Instead, I’m going to do something constructive that I’ve been considering for a little while.

Ever since I started recapping 50 Shades last year (Jesus, a year. A year of my fucking life) I have had requests to read people’s original fiction and fanfiction. Some of you have written to me asking if I can be as critical of your work as I am of 50, and that’s very flattering. However, everyone has gotten a no. Not because I don’t love and care about you all, dear readers, but I just don’t have the time to fulfill these requests. I write about forty-thousand words a month, excluding the 50 and Buffy recaps, so I really just don’t have time left over for stuff like beta reading or leaving the house or showering.

In my spare time (which exists in the same magical realm as dragons and unicorns and plus-sized jeans that aren’t made of stretch material that make them super fall-downish), I’m the president of a not-for-profit group that seeks to help writers at all stages of their careers. We have a mentor program, in which an author further along in their career helps someone who is either just starting out or is stuck and doesn’t know the next step or whatever, and sometimes that turns into a beta reading relationship. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before, but you can credit one of the blog regulars, Thea K, with giving me the mental push into, “Oh yeah, I could do this” land.

If so many of you are looking for beta readers… why not pair y’all up HERE?

So, this is how it’s going to work:

1. Leave a brief comment with the genre, word count (or estimated word count), and a one sentence description of your work. That’s really all that someone needs to know whether or not their project is for you. “High Fantasy, 100k, a girl embarks on a quest to avenge her father, murdered by a wizard.”
2. Leave people some way of getting ahold of you. Your twitter (if your account is unprotected), your facebook, your GoodReads account, your email address (youraddress at domain dot com, to avoid spambots) so that if someone is interested in beta reading your work, they can find you.
3. Volunteer to read someone else’s work. This will only be beneficial to everyone if everyone participates and volunteers their time. You can work it out between yourselves and set your own limits, whether you’re looking for someone to read a chapter at a time or the whole work in one piece, and what you’re willing to do in return. But you have to give something back, either to the person who volunteers or another person in the comments section.
4. Leave a follow up comment when you have a reader. This is for two reasons: one, so you don’t keep getting people offering you help when other people on the list are waiting, and so there’s a record that someone read your work, in case something… untoward goes down. Which leads us to the next and final step:
5. Don’t be a dick. Don’t plagiarize, don’t leak chapters, don’t mock people, just don’t. Don’t be a dick. I think most of us here are not dicks, so this should be a pretty easy one to follow.

The other day, I got the most delightful tweet:

I sit on the barstool beside my husband, who just looks radiant: freshly showered, his hair damp, wearing a crisp white shirt and that silver-gray tie. My favorite tie. I have fond memories of that tie.

And the picture that resulted?

Hanna stands aside, and Prescott enters my office. She’s on a mission, bristling with professional efficiency.

When other people are professional, it’s a positive thing. When Prescott does it, she’s “bristling.”

“Mrs. Grey, Leila Williams is on your proscribed list of visitors.”

“What?” I have a proscribed list?

No, Ana. Nobody is that controlling, right? Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen Jose in a while. Maybe he’s proscribed.

Take a minute to think about how really, truly scary this is. Ana is constantly surrounded by security, allegedly for her own “protection.” But now we know there are a list of people who are never allowed to come near her. Ana didn’t know about this list; for all she knows, people who love and care about her have tried to contact her, only to be turned away, and Ana would never know. Her husband is literally keeping her a prisoner.

There is a reason handcuffs are on the cover of this book, and it has nothing to do with kinky fuckery.

I frown, not understanding. “Is she dangerous?”

Hold up, Ana. She pulled a gun on you, like, three months ago. She broke into your then-boyfriend’s house to watch you sleep. I would say she’s probably not not dangerous.

We find out that the only reason Ana knows Leila is in the building is because she happened to come in when Prescott was taking a pee break.

I realize that even Prescott has to pee, and I laugh. “Oh dear.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Prescott gives me an embarrassed grin, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a chink in her armor. She has a lovely smile.

Ah, Ana. You are nothing if not predictably horrible. She has never had a single nice thing to say about Prescott up until now. Then Prescott fails at something, and Ana can compliment her. Ana can only like other women if she perceives them to be less competent than she is. Now that Prescott has made a mistake, Ana is free to think a single positive thought about her.

Ana knows that Christian is going to be informed of Leila’s presence, and she desperately- for some reason that is never made clear- wants to see Leila. The person she was terrified of all through the last book. The woman who pulled a gun on her and had to go into a mental health facility just a few months before. Time is short, because Ana knows Christian is going to send Taylor and put the whole situation on lockdown. Setting aside the fact that Leila really was a danger to Ana in the past, you are now reading a “romance” in which a woman is playing beat-the-clock in order to talk to someone her husband, the “romantic hero” has forbidden her from talking to.

Furthering our themes of “you have got to be fucking kidding me” and “absolutely none of this bullshit makes sense,” Ana has Hannah show Leila and her companion into the conference room so Prescott can frisk them. This is all going down at work. Now, I know that Ana isn’t worried about getting fired, because Christian plans on giving her the entire company, but she isn’t at all worried about looking unprofessional? Because meeting with your husbands’ ex in the conference room doesn’t exactly scream, “I’m super invested in my career and I won’t let my personal life get in the way of it.”

Hannah reminds Ana she has an appointment across town at four, and Ana tells her to cancel it. Spoiler alert, it’s another appointment for her birth control shot.

What the hell does Leila want? I don’t think she’s here to do me any harm. She didn’t in the past when she had the opportunity.

Except for when she broke in to watch you sleep and when she pulled a gun on you. But let’s face it, Ana has no clue what constitutes harm, otherwise she wouldn’t be married right now.

Christian is going to go nuts. My subconscious purses her lips, primly crosses her legs, and nods. I need to tell him that I am doing this.

I’m sure that will mitigate any damage.

Ana sends an email to Christian telling him she’s going to meet with Leila and she’ll slap her if she has to. No, really:

I’ll use my newly acquired slapping skills with my now-healed hand, should I need to.

Tee hee, she’s tough, tee hee, let’s joke about the woman who committed B&E to threaten you.

I stand, smoothing my gray pencil skirt over my hips, pinch my cheeks to give them some color, and undo the next button on my gray silk blouse.

Is she trying to fuck Leila? Because it sounds like she’s trying to fuck Leila.

Also, don’t pinch your cheeks to put color in them.

Leila looks much better. More than better- she’s very attractive. There’s a rosy bloom to her cheeks, and her brown eyes are bright, her hair clean and shiny.

Because people who are mentally ill are always visibly so, by being unattractive, ashen, and greasy haired, of course.

There’s another woman with Leila: Susi, who is another of Chedward’s ex-subs. Hannah enters and tells Ana that Christian is on the phone, and even though Hannah is just Ana’s assistant, she’s pretty insistent. Which means Hannah probably knows that if Ana doesn’t take the call, her job is on the line, because these two assholes treat people like they’re fucking disposable. Ana doesn’t take the call, and says she’ll call him back shortly.

Susi speaks. “I know this is all kinds of weird, but I wanted to meet you, too. The woman who captured Chris- “

I hold up my hand, stopping her in mid-sentence. I do not want to hear this. “Um… I get the picture,” I mutter.

“We call ourselves the sub club.” She grins at me, her eyes shining with mirth.

 So, is this a survivor’s group? Because it kind of seems like they’re there for an intervention or something.

Susi leaves so Leila and Ana can talk alone, and we find out that Leila’s nickname is apparently Lulu, which is fucking stupid because it’s exactly the same number of syllables as Leila and also, why do we need to know her nickname? Why is she even here? What is the point of this?

Susi and Christian… it’s not a thought I wish to dwell on.

But you probably will.

Prescott hands her phone to Ana. Of course, it’s Christian:

“What the fuck are you playing at?” he shouts. He’s seething.

“Don’t shout at me.”

“What do you mean, don’t shout at you?” he shouts, louder this time. “I gave specific instructions which you have completely disregarded- again. Hell, Ana, I am fucking furious.”

Ana tells Christian she’ll talk to him when he’s calmer, then hangs upon him. Let’s all keep in mind, Ana is having all of this go down at work. She’s on the phone to her husband, telling him not to shout at her, as she stands outside the conference room. How humiliating is all of this for Ana? And none of this, not Prescott, not Leila, not shouty phone calls, has anything to do with her. It would be awesome if Ana would get frustrated with this and acknowledge the fact, then come to terms with whether or not this is a life she wants. Then she and Christian could actually work on their relationship, which would be a better and more believable story than constantly running from cartoon villains.

Leila has come because she wants to apologize for breaking into Ana’s apartment and fucking up her car, and to thank her for not pressing charges. Not that Ana had any choice in the matter; Christian is so anti-police that I’m pretty sure his mom’s pimp was a crooked cop or something. Ana asks Leila if her doctor knows she’s there, and the answer is no, because what legit doctor is going to say, “Oh, you want to find the person you tried to kill like three months ago and confront her in person unsupervised? That’s a great idea, pack your bags!”

She looks suitably guilty. “I know I’ll have to deal with the fallout for this later. But I had to get some things, and I wanted to see Susi, and you, and… Mr. Grey.”

“You want to see Christian?” My stomach free-falls to the floor. That’s why she’s here.

“Leila.” I flounder, exasperated. “It’s not up to me, it’s up to Christian. You’ll need to ask him. He doesn’t need my permission. He’s a grown man… most of the time.”

She gazes at me for a fraction of a beat as if surprised by my reaction and then laughs softly, nervously twiddling the ends of her hair.

“He’s repeatedly refused all my requests to see him,” she says quietly.

Oh shit. I’m in more trouble than I thought.

Why are you in more trouble, Ana? You couldn’t possibly have known that Christian didn’t want to see her, because he never once told you that she was trying to contact him.

I’m sorry, but I’m getting to the point with these books that I feel like I’m just saying the same thing over and over again, and that same thing is always just, “Christian is a huge dick.” He’s being contacted, apparently more than once, by his ex who tried to kill Ana. And he hasn’t mentioned this to Ana! What the hell?! If Ana gets a phone call from Jose, Christian acts like she ran out and vengeance fucked thirty-five people, but his murderous exes can call him, that’s fine? I’m so tired of this book, you guys. I’m just tired of this whole thing.

Once again I’m speechless. What does she expect me to say? Surely she should be saying these things to Christian, not to me.

“And for art school. I can’t thank him enough for that.”

I knew it! Christian is funding her classes. I remain expressionless, tentatively exploring my feelings for this woman now that she’s confirmed my suspicions about Christian’s generosity.

And your suspicions that Christian’s money isn’t really your money, after all. My husband and I put our money together; it’s just easier for us than keeping track of who is going to pay what, and it works for us. Our money is our money. If one of us decided we were going to pay for someone else’s education, we’d damn sure have to tell the other spouse about our plans. If Christian truly believed that what is his is also Ana’s, he’d have told her about paying for art school for Leila with what is, according to him, Ana’s money.

To my surprise, I feel no ill will toward her.

To my surprise, too, because it’s completely out of character to the point of being entirely unbelievable. Ana dislikes all women for imagined slights; this woman has an actual connection to Christian.

It’s a revelation, and I’m glad she’s better. Now, hopefully, she can move on with her life and out of ours.

She’s not better. If she were better, she wouldn’t have shown up at Ana’s work in the hopes of seeing Christian. If she were better, she would see how unhealthy her behavior is.

Ana asks Leila if she’s missing classes, and Leila tells her that she is, but only two because she’s leaving Seattle the next day. She also mentions that Christian has two of her paintings.

What the hell! My stomach plunges into the basement once more. Are they hanging in my living room? I bridle at the thought.

That’s a weird word choice, isn’t it? In this context, she could mean she lifted her chin to express resentment, or she took offense. There has to be a clearer verb to use there.

Leila asks Ana if they can speak frankly, then she launches into her personal life, telling Ana she loved her dead boyfriend, her husband, and Christian.

This is not news to me. When she lifts her brown eyes to mine, they are wide with conflicting emotions, and the overriding one seems to be apprehension… of my reaction, perhaps? But my overwhelming response to this poor young woman is compassion.

This sudden shift in characterization makes no sense at all. So far, all we have seen of Ana is that she feels every single woman on Earth is a threat. Even when they’ve had no contact whatsoever with Christian except in very minor capacities required by their jobs. Women whose names he will never even know are out to take him from Ana, so she has to be possessive and give them hateful nicknames. But here is a woman who was not only in an intimate relationship with Chedward, but she was in love with him and willing to kill him. Ana being totally unthreatened by her makes no fucking sense whatsoever, and at this point, we’re reading about a totally different character. And she still sucks.

Mentally I run through all the classical literature I can think of that deals with unrequited love.

Given Ana’s definition of romance as it pertains to classical literature, I assume the books she’s thinking of are Mein Kampf and Frankenstein.

“I know, he’s very easy to love,” I whisper.

Her wide eyes widen further in surprise, and she smile. “Yes. He is – was.” She corrects herself quickly and blushes. Then she giggles so sweetly that I can’t help myself. I giggle, too. Yes, Christian Grey makes us giggly.

 Again- and I am loathe to point this out- a waitress even flutters her eyelashes because the air conditioning vent is on too strong and Ana is ready to blind her for the crime of gazing upon the perfection that is Christian Grey. Leila admits to being in love with Christian and it’s happy giggles slumber party times?

Ana’s characterization does a complete 180 in the middle of the last book of the series? Well, of fucking course. Because that’s just how these books roll, and you can either roll with it or get rolled over. So strap in, because Saint Ana, Our Lady of Sisterly Protection, has stepped into the role previously occupied by Ana, Hater of Blondes and Scourge of Seattle.

My subconscious rolls her eyes at me in despair and goes back to reading her dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre.

So, what this is not so subtly trying to tell us is that Leila is the crazy wife in the attic and Ana is Jane.

“You’ll get your chance to see Christian.”

“I thought I would. I know how protective he can be.” She smiles.

So this is her scheme. She’s very shrewd. Or manipulative, whispers my subconscious. “This is why you’re here to see me?”

Reluctantly, I have to acknowledge that she knows him well.

She was probably with him longer than you have been, Ana!

Leila tells Ana that Christian seemed happy with her on those occasions that Leila broke into his apartment to spy on them.

Do I want to hear this? A shudder runs through me. My scalp prickles as I recall my fear when she was the unseen shadow in our apartment.

She wasn’t unseen. You saw her. WORDS MEAN THINGS.

Christian arrives, as Leila was anticipating:

Christian’s burning gray gaze pins first me then Leila to our chairs. His demeanor is quietly determined, but I know better, and I suspect Leila does, too. The menacing cool glint in his eyes reveals the truth- he’s emanating rage, though he hides it well. 

Well, if he’s emanating it, he’s not hiding it, is he?

Could you imagine working at SIP? Some random woman just started working there, gets promoted to editor within a week, and now her husband is bursting in unannounced and causing a scene just, you know, whenever? What a stressful environment.

“You,” he says to Prescott in a soft tone. “You’re fired. Get out now.”

I blanch. Oh no- this isn’t fair.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ana, make up your damned mind. You have been lobbying for this woman’s termination for fucking ever, now she’s fired, and you don’t want her to be? Oh, wait, I’m trying to assign past Ana’s actions to St. Ana, when she’s CLEARLY not the same character.

Leila peeks up at him through long lashes,

IT’S AN EPIDEMIC, PEOPLE!

He stands, glowering at her. “Leila, if you come anywhere near my wife again, I will cut off all support. Doctors, art school, medical insurance- all of it- gone. Do you understand?”

“Christian-” I try again. But he silences me with a chilling look. Why is he being so unreasonable? My compassion for this sad woman blooms.

Because you’re viewing your own victimization as it’s happening to another person.  There’s really nothing else to say about that point. It is what it is.

Christian grills Leila about the purpose of her visit, why Susi is there, and if Susi knew about Leila’s stalking spree when it was going on.

“I had to know.” And for the first time she looks up directly at him.

“Had to know what?” he snaps.

 “That you’re okay.”

He gapes at her. “That I’m okay?” he scoffs, disbelieving.

“Yes.”

Okay, this is an example of a writer who needs to do some word economizing. This is an easy hole to fall into, because what’s happening is E.L. is writing the way people talk. A lot of writers do this, I’m sure I’ve done it before, but when you have a conversation like the one above, the reader is going to notice how repetitious it is, and they’re going to get annoyed with it. This is a place that could definitely have been trimmed. It could have looked like:

“I had to know.” And for the first time she looks up directly at him.

“Had to know what?” he snaps.

“That you’re okay.”

and then he could go on to say the next part, about being fine. Or, it could have looked like this:

“I had to know.” And for the first time she looks up directly at him. “That you’re okay.”

So many words could have been trimmed there. So, writers, don’t fall into this very easy trap. Readers don’t like to read characters repeating dialogue, even though people actually talk like that.

“I’m fine. There, question answered. Now Taylor will run you to Sea-Tac so you can go back to the East Coast. And if you take one step west of the Mississippi, it’s all gone. Understand?”

*Raises hand* No. I don’t understand. What’s gone if she crosses the Mississippi? The east coast? Will the east coast be gone? Because that’s what that says. I don’t want that to happen, so I really hope Leila stays put.

“It might not be convenient for Leila to go back now. She has plans,” I object, outraged on her behalf.

Christian glares at me. “Anastasia,” he warns, his voice icy, “this does not concern you.”

“This is the Christian Grey I know,” she says, her tone sad and wistful. Christian frowns at her, while all the breath evaporates from my lungs. I can’t breathe. Was Christian like this with her all the time? Was he like this with me, at first? I find it hard to remember.

He’s like this with you NOW, you daffy- UUUUURRRRRGGGH! This is not how you show character development for Christian Grey! Just having Ana say, “Oh, gosh, I don’t remember how abusive he is and was!” doesn’t make Christian magically not an abuser anymore or not an abuser in the past.

Christian asks when Leila’s flight leaves, and tells her he’ll send someone to Susi’s house take her to the airport. I like how he just inserts himself in other people’s plans like that. Shows he really knows how to be a dickbag.

I glare at Christian. He can’t dictate to her like this… and how does he know where Susannah lives?

There’s the Ana I remember! Weird and suspicious because Christian knows where one of his exes lives. Which is a totally normal thing to know, if you’ve been in a relationship with someone.

Leila leaves- although she says “Yes, Sir,” to Christian on her way out, which made me “What the hell?” because it kind of shows that Leila isn’t as better as she says she is.

After Leila leaves, Ana tries to preempt Christian’s anger:

“Don’t even think about being angry with me,” I hiss. “Call Claude Bastille and kick the shit out of him or go see Flynn.”

I guess this is the first time I’m noticing how obvious a name Claude Bastille is. I suppose Jacques Fromage was simply absurd.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do this.” Now his tone is accusatory.

“Do what?”

“Defy me.”

Well, it probably would have been easier for her to not defy you by seeing Leila if you had let her know she had a “proscribed” list of who is and isn’t allowed to be near her. Which, by the way, is still so fucked up that I can’t get my head around it. But this is a new and exciting area of abuse for this couple; now he gets to make rules without telling her, and emotionally punish her when she disobeys them!

The thing that’s really bothering Ana here is Christian’s attitude toward Leila. She asks him why he was so dismissive and cruel to her, and Christian’s response is pure douchebag gold:

“Anastasia,” he says, as if to a child, “you don’t understand. Leila, Susannah- all of them- they were a pleasant, diverting pastime. But that’s all. You are the center of my universe. And the last time you two were in a room together, she had you at gunpoint. I don’t want her anywhere near you.”

Okay, I get him not wanting Ana around a woman who tried to shoot her. This part, I truly understand. What I don’t get is how he feels it is in any way acceptable to refer to women, to OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, as pleasant, diverting pastimes. No, you simpleton. They are people, with feelings. GOSH I WONDER WHY LEILA WENT CRAZY AND WHY THEY HAVE A FUCKING SUPPORT GROUP TOGETHER.

Look, if there is one thing I’ve learned from romantic comedies, it’s that if your exes need to form a support group because of you, you’re doing something very wrong.

Ana points out that Leila was really, really mentally ill- no one notes that she probably still is, by the way. She’s just cured now. Keeping in mind we’re in, what, August? And she pulled the gun on Ana in June, probably? But I’m sure, I’m absolutely sure, that she’s 100% cured and this meeting with Christian and Ana won’t cause her any kind of setback.

“But you’ve just played right into her hands. She wanted to see you again, and she knew you’d come running if she came to see me.”

So, what you’re saying, Ana, is that Leila is not better at all. Because that was why she was stalking you in the first place, because she wanted to get Christian’s attention.

Christian shrugs as if he doesn’t care. “I don’t want you tainted with my old life.”

A chapter couldn’t go by without discussion of BDSM as a filthy thing only diseased perverts do, right? Ana is too good and pure to be “tainted” by his past lovers, the women who willingly engaged in and enjoyed BDSM.

Ana points out that Leila still cares about him, and his response:

“I don’t give a fuck.”

Again, I can see both sides of this. “I don’t give a fuck,” because you threatened my girlfriend with a gun, but at the same time, “I don’t give a fuck,” about a person you had a relationship with that wasn’t bad until she became mentally ill and dangerous (probably due in part to your abusive actions).

This is the Christian Grey I know. Leila’s words rattle around my head. His reaction to her was so cold, so much at odds with the man I’ve come to know and love.

The man who has a secret list of people who aren’t allowed to get near you, and you had no idea it existed or who is on it? The man who gave you so many hickeys on your honeymoon that you were embarrassed to wear a bathing suit, all because you accidentally sunbathed topless in France? The man who shamed you for your virginity and tried to get you to sign a sex contract so he could beat you in order to take out his anger at his dead mother? YEAH THIS SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE THE MAN YOU’VE COME TO KNOW AND LOVE.

“Look, Christian, I don’t think Leila and I will be swapping recipes and knitting patterns any time soon. But I didn’t think you’d be so heartless to her.”

His eyes frost. “I told you once, I don’t have a heart,” he mutters.

Ana doesn’t laugh directly in his face, which is what I would have done. But at least she sees through his bullshit and thinks that he’s being adolescent.

It’s painstakingly obvious that he cares. Why does he deny it? It’s like his feelings for his birth mother. I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all look like the crack whore. No wonder he’s so mad. I sigh and shake my head. Paging Dr. Flynn, please. How can he not see this?

He has an enormous blindspot, just like you do? Remember that whole, “This is nothing like the man I fell in love with” bullshit you tried to pull just a page ago? Also, it’s “painstakingly obvious that he cares?” As in, “It’s diligent and carefully obvious that he cares?” Yeah, that’s not the right word for that sentence.

Christian tells Ana that the discussion is over, and they’re going home, but it’s too early, Ana still has work.

“Home,” he insists.

“Christian.” My voice is weary. “I’m tired of having the same argument with you.”

He frowns as if he doesn’t understand.

“You know,” I elucidate, “I do something you don’t like, and you think of some way to get back at me. Usually involving some of your kinky fuckery, which is either mind-blowing or cruel.” I shrug, resigned. This is exhausting and confusing.

Christian seizes on “mind-blowing” and runs with it to distract Ana from the very real concern she’s brought up.

Crap! I do not want to discuss this in SIP’s meeting room. My subconscious examines her finely manicured nails with disdain. Shouldn’t have brought the subject up, then.

You’re right, subconscious. She should have just kept her mouth shut and not called Christian out on the fact that he uses sex to punish her. If she just ignored it, it would all go away. Because that’s what’s making her relationship so awesome right now.

So, because it’s worked in the past and will continue to work in the future, Christian decides to seduce Ana, running his finger over her lip and getting real close so he can talk softly in her ear.

Pursing my lips, I strive to appear unaffected by his touch. He is so artful at diverting me from anything painful, or anything he doesn’t want to address. And you let him, my subconscious pipes up unhelpfully, gazing over her copy of Jane Eyre.

I’m torn. On the one hand, her stupid subconscious has a point. Christian is doing this because he’s found this behavior affective in the past. On the other hand, I resent the implication that women should train men like they’re fucking toddlers. It’s a little too close to, “If I love him enough, he’ll change.”

Christian wants Ana to list off all the “mind-blowing” things he’s done to her, because god forbid she cease feeding his ego for even a moment. Then he tries again with the “come home” bullshit:

His lips curl in a slow carnal smile. “Come home.” His tone is seductive.

“I have work to do.”

“Home,” he says, more insistent.

We gaze at each other, molten grey into bewildered blue, testing each other, testing our boundaries and our wills I search his eyes for some understanding, trying to fathom how this man can go from raging control freak to seductive lover in one breath.

He didn’t. He’s still being a control freak, demanding that you come home and fuck him because he wants you to.

“We could stay here.” His voice is low and husky.

Oh no. No. No. No. Not in the office.

Remember in the first book, when they’re in the restaurant and he basically threatens to rape her there? And remember how everyone insisted that he’s suuuuuuch a different person in this book from the first one? He’s done this big emotional journey that turns him into a nice guy? Yeah, so basically if Ana doesn’t go home and fuck him, he’s going to try to seduce her here.

Ana says she doesn’t want to have sex in a room where his mistress has just been.

“Don’t overthink this, Ana. She’s history,” he says dismissively.

I sigh… maybe he’s right. I just want him to admit to himself that he cares for her. A chill grips my heart. Oh no. This is why it’s important to me. Suppose I do something unforgivable. Suppose I don’t conform. Will I be history, too? If he can turn like this, when he was so concerned and upset when Leila was ill… could he turn against me?

Yes. Yes he can.

“Oh, Christian, you scare me sometimes.” I grasp his head in my hands, twist my fingers into his hair, and pull his lips to mine. He stills for a moment as his arms fold around me.

How does he manage that? He’s either moving or not. He can’t do both.

“Why?”

“You could turn away from her so easily…”

He frowns. “And you think I might turn away from you, Ana? Why the hell would you think that? What’s brought this on?”

Then Ana goes, “Uh, just exactly what happened like two seconds ago, right here in this room.” And then Christian goes to the hospital because he has jerknesia.

Not really. What happens is:

“Nothing. Kiss me. Take me home,” I plead. And as his lips touch mine, I am lost.

So basically, his manipulative ploy worked again, and we’re once again being told that this is romantic. That if a woman doesn’t do exactly what a man wants, when he wants it, he can cast her aside like trash and that’s ROMANTIC.

They go home, they have sex, and she gets him to admit that he does care about Leila. Then there’s a section break, some emails that reveal it’s now three days later, and Jose senior calls Ana to tell her that Ray is in the hospital, presumably after an attempt on his own life in a desperate bid to escape this book. Hey. We needed MORE subplots in this mess, right?

Hey there everybody! I’ve got .pdf ARCs of The Boss available for reviewers. To request one, fill out this form.

I’m asking that only people who seriously want to review the book, either on their blog, or another blog they review for, or a GoodReads account, request ARCs. I’m not trying to be elitist or jerky and let some readers have something other readers don’t get, it’s just a signal boost for the book as we near the end and the release of the free ebook and the paperback version.

IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED “THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR” DO NOT GO PAST THE JUMP.


Here are my predictions. I feel all of these could be true, or just a few of them.

1. The Great Intelligence is The Doctor. First of all, Richard Grant has already played The Doctor in Scream of The Shalka. Which is going to be released on DVD in September. You know, in plenty of time for new Who. So, you know. There’s a clue. We also know that at some point, The Doctor becomes The Valeyard. And we know that when The Great Intelligence entered The Doctor’s time stream, he fractured into a million pieces… just like Clara, who experienced birth, life, and death in several time lines. So, we could have very well seen The Great Intelligence growing up as a child and dying as a man in that snowman episode, while still being an incarnation of The Doctor.

2. Clara is also The Doctor. She entered his time stream, and went to a place where only The Doctor existed. But she was there. See also, the fracturing into a million pieces thing.

3. John Hurt’s version of The Doctor is an alternate timeline Nine who got trapped in the Time War. Because how would that not be the most fucking amazing thing you’ve ever heard of?

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to rewatch “The Name of The Doctor” then a marathon of 6th Doctor episodes. And I will eat all the cereal in the world.

This is not a proper post, just link spamming, but I felt like this link might speak to a large portion of my readership and if any of you had missed it, well. I would feel terrible knowing such a horrible tragedy could have been prevented. So, here’s a link to pictures of Prince Harry looking so hot, the bottoms of your feet will tingle.

That is all.

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will forget to change this opening comment before posting. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

1. Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
2. Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
3. Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
4. Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
5. Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
6. The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
7. All the monsters look like wieners.
8. If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
9. Angel is a dick.
10. Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
11. Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
12. Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
13. Science and technology are not to be trusted.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.

Dreams in the Buffyverse are awesome. There, I said it. And with the exception of the season four finale, no episode of Buffy does dreams as awesomely as this one.

We open in The Master’s lair. Buffy is there and ready to slay, stake in hand. But when she faces The Master, it doesn’t go well:

Know what happens when a Slayer has a bad day?

Willow: “My parents don’t even bicker. Sometimes they glare. Do you know why your folks split up?”

Buffy: “I didn’t ask. They just stopped getting along. I’m sure I was a really big help, though. With all the slaying and everything. I was in so much trouble. I was a big mess.”

Willow tells Buffy that she’s sure her dad didn’t leave because of that, but it’s clear that Buffy still feels differently. Wow, what a powerful conversation guys, really. This not only clears up questions the viewer has about Buffy’s home life, but it adds another layer to Buffy’s burden of being the Slayer. She has this destiny she has been chosen to fulfill, but she believes it destroyed her parents’ marriage. In this scene, Buffy not only becomes a more realistic character, but she becomes a sympathetic figure to children of divorced parents everywhere, because face it, everyone thinks that they are somehow personally to blame for their parents’ break ups.

In a classroom, Cordelia is admiring herself in a compact mirror when a “doofus” blocks her light. Xander sticks up for Wendell the doofus by taunting Cordelia (fairly, in this case) for her belief that the world revolves around her. The bell rings, and they sit down. Willow asks why Cordelia is so “Evita-like,” a slur I repeat here only because any time I mention Juan or Eva Peron on my blog in any context whatsoever, I’m handed my ass by angry Peron fans in the comments. So, let me state here that I think Willow has Eva Peron mixed up with Patti Lupone’s portrayal of her in the classic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and the comparison is unfair.

Xander asks if there was any homework, and Buffy and Willow remind him that it was on active listening, a skill the teacher demonstrated with him the day before. Xander wasn’t actively listening, though, because the teacher had on a tight blue sweater. Xander does remember the sweater, so he feels pretty confident that he was really listening. (5)

Buffy drops her pencil, and when she looks up, baby Joseph Gordon-Levitt is there!

Willow: “I don’t like spiders, okay? Their furry bodies and their sticky webs, and what do they need all those legs for, anyway? I’ll tell you. For crawling across your face in the middle of the night. Ew! How do they not ruffle you?

Xander: “I’m sorry. I’m unruffled by spiders. Now if a bunch of Nazis crawled all over my face…

Did anybody else start singing, “What do they need all those legs for anywaaaaay? SPIDERS! SPIDERS IT MUST BE SPIDERRRRRRS!”

Just me? Okay.

Xander actually has a pretty good handle on the situation here, citing the Hellmouth as the reason he can’t get too shaken up about stuff like spiders coming out of books. He has utter faith that Buffy will slay anything that threatens them.

In the library, they find Giles acting kind of suspicious. He comes out of a back room and tells them he “got lost.” How big is the Sunnydale library? Not big. At this point in the episode, the storyline hasn’t become entirely clear to the viewer, and later we’ll be like, “Okay, so that’s what’s going on,” but in my head canon this scene has nothing to with the plot of the episode at all, and Giles was back there with Jenny Calendar losing her piercings all over the damn place. It would explain why he looks so guilty and confused when he comes out of there.

Giles tells the kids to go talk to Wendell who is at school for some reason. I am sorry, I send my kids to school with runny noses or if they’re just having a bad day. I’m like, “suck it up, you’ll have to go to work like this when you’re a grown up.” But if their textbook was full of fucking tarantulas? You know what? Take a few days off. Or like, maybe go to a different school altogether.

Cordelia berates Buffy for not knowing where history class is, and for skipping it all the time. You’re probably thinking, “Okay, since when does Cordelia care about Buffy’s academic issues?” and you’re right. Cordelia doesn’t care. Buffy goes into the class she’s never even been to, sits down to an amazingly long and brutal essay questions only test packet, and her pencil immediately breaks. She starts to sharpen it and loses time; class is almost over, and she hasn’t even started on her test.

In the hall, a student tells her friend she’s going to go take a smoke break, and she heads into the school basement. Mini-JGL says, “You shouldn’t go in there,” and I’m like, “No shit, this is Sunnydale high, the fucking last place you want to be is a dark and scary basement.” But the girl goes down there, anyway, where the meth-head cousin of Sloth from Goonies beats the shit out of her while muttering about “Lucky 19.”

Doctor Exposition Dump: “She’ll recover. She’s got a couple of shattered bones, a little internal bleeding. She got off pretty easy.”

Buffy: “Easy?”

Giles: “Have you looked up the word lately?”

Doctor Exposition Dump: “Well, the first one’s still in a coma.”

Buffy: “First what?”

Doctor Exposition Dump: “The first victim. They found him a week ago, exactly the same M.O. as the girl, only he’s in worse shape. If he doesn’t wake up soon… Somebody’s got to stop this guy.”

Okay, this is all pivotal plot information. And I get that this is before HIPPA, but come on. Even before HIPPA, a doctor wouldn’t just give all this information out to any random person. There had to be a better way for them to get this info. Maybe the could have overheard some nurses talking about how the cases were similar, or a detective could have come to speak to Laura. Instead, we get this doctor who watches too much CSI speculating on modus operandi of criminals in two cases that might be entirely unrelated, and it’s up the viewer to suspend disbelief. Look, we’re already out here accepting that there are vampires and witches and Hellmouths, so the real world details have to be right. If they’re not, we will fixate on them like an out-of-pattern tile.

Meanwhile, in the same community theatre production of Grease:

Willow and Xander are sort of idly talking about the strange goings on going on, when the mom of one of the T-Birds comes in and aggressively starts kissing on him and telling him how much she loves him. Xander observes that just because Wendell dreamed about spiders and spiders erupted out of his text book, that doesn’t mean the two incidents are related. Then he and Willow walk into a classroom and:

In the library, a newspaper has exploded:

Buffy: “What do you mean? You can read like, three languages.”

Giles: “Five, actually, on a normal day. But the words here don’t make any sense. Gibberish!”

I’m going to state for the record that “gibberish” is an underutilized word.

Why does Giles have so many newspapers. I find it difficult to believe it took more than one or two tries to realize that the problem was with him and not the papers themselves. There are like, a minimum of two hundred thousand newspapers on that table.

Buffy picks up a paper and notices Mini-JGL on the front page, wearing a Little League uniform. Well, actually she says “kiddie league” but Little League is trademarked and they can get right on your ass for that. She reads about how he was found beaten after a game. She and Giles put two and two together, that she can’t have seen this kid at school if he’s in a coma. Giles suggests that it might be an astral projection, and Buffy notices the nineteen on Mini-JGL’s uniform. Just then, a wild ALMONZO appears:

Hank Summers: “It was you.”

Buffy: “Me?”

Hank: “Having you. Raising you, seeing you every day. I mean, do you have any idea what that’s like?”

Buffy: “What?”

Hank: “Gosh, you don’t even see what’s right in front of your face, do you? Oh well, big surprise there, all you ever think about is yourself. You get in trouble. You embarrass us with all the crazy stunts you pull. Do I have to go on?”

Buffy: “No. Please don’t.”

Hank: “You’re sullen and rude, and you’re not nearly as bright as I thought you were going to be. I mean, Buffy, let’s be honest. Could you stand to live in the same house with a daughter like that?”

Buffy: “Why are you saying all of these things?”

Hank: “Because they’re true. I think that’s the least we owe one another. You know, I don’t think it’s very mature getting all blubbery when I’m just trying to be honest. Speaking of which, I don’t really get anything out of these weekends with you. So what do you say we just don’t do them anymore?”

And Buffy looks like this:

Jesus, Almonzo, why are you such a dick?

This is actually a super hard episode for me, because I was, in fact, brutally rejected by my own father. Not quite so eloquently as old Hank here, but still. It’s rough, and I suspect there is more than one person out there who identified strongly with Buffy’s horror in this moment, because they had been there. I know I said some really awful shit about David Greenwalt’s writing before, and it was all deserved, but this scene is like bottled reality, and it’s the bottled reality moments in Buffy that make it so special. You can throw vampires at an audience all day long, but the things that really scare them are torn from real life.

Buffy’s dad leaves, and Buffy catches a glimpse of Mini-JGL, but she looks away; she doesn’t want to believe that the things her father said to her aren’t true, or are a figment of her imagination. Kudos to Sarah Michelle Gellar for her acting in this scene, because you get literally everything on Buffy’s side from her facial expressions.

Willow and Xander find Giles in the library and explain Xander’s bought of sudden public nudity. While recounting the details, Willow muses aloud that the attention would be the worst part. Xander calls the experience “a total nightmare,” and Willow has a lightbulb moment.

Xander: “Um. Our dreams are coming true.”

Giles: “Dreams? That would be a musical comedy version of this. Nightmares. Our nightmares are coming true.”

HA! Careful what seeds of bad ideas you plant in Xander’s head in season one, Giles, because they will bite you in the ass when you find yourself providing lead vocals for a training montage in season six.

Giles realizes that it’s Mini-JGL who’s causing all of this, by astrally projecting out of his own nightmares and bringing everyone else’s nightmares with him.

Remember the nice thing I said about David Greenwalt’s writing? When Willow asks how Mini-JGL managed to bring everyone’s nightmares to life, this is the only response the script offers:

Giles: “Things like that are easier when you live on a Hellmouth.”

Deus Ex Hellmouth much?

“I thought I was gonna die!”

Xander: “You were a lousy clown. Your balloon animals were pathetic. Everyone can make a giraffe!”

Go Xander!

The scoobies run outside, where they find general chaos:

Giles: “Things are getting worse. In a few hours, reality will fold completely into the realm of nightmares.”

How do we know this, Giles? Baby, you know I love you. But you gotta be more specific, because you always are. I know it’s not your fault. It’s the writing. In every other episode so far, the audience  has been given detailed backstory about why things are happening, and when. To ask us, in episode ten of a twelve episode season, to just blindly accept that because Giles says stuff is bad, it is, isn’t going to fly. Especially when Giles a) can’t read the books that would lend him expertise on this crisis and b) has admitted to not really understanding what’s going on. If the story takes away his power in the mentor/exposition role, then the script can’t ask us to trust that he has the answers.

Giles thinks if they wake Mini-JGL from his coma, everything should be fine, but they can’t leave Nightmare High without looking for Buffy. They notice that across the street, things are looking a little odd…

Willow: “Excuse me. When did they put a cemetery in across the street?”

Xander: “And when did they make it night over there?”

The gang rightly assumes that Buffy should be in that cemetery. As they walk, Xander wonders aloud about whose nightmare they could be in. And then Giles spots a headstone with Buffy’s name on it.

Giles: “It’s mine. I failed… in my duty to protect you. I should have been more… cautious. Taken more time to train you. But you were so gifted. And the evil was so great. I’m sorry.”

 No worries, Giles!

Giles: “You never told me you dreamt of becoming a vampire.”

Buffy: “This isn’t a dream.”

Giles: “No. No, it’s not. But there’s a chance we can make it go away. This all comes from Billy. Now, if we can only wake him up, I believe that the nightmares will stop and reality will shift back into place, but we must do it now. I need you to hold together long enough to help us. Can you do that?”

This is enough to help Buffy regain her confidence in her skills, but she warns them that she’s getting hungry. In other words, she’s got to keep from eating her friends before getting unvamped.

This is one of my favorite Buffy/Giles scenes, because it shows how much he cares about her, and how highly he regards her, even after just a few months. He is truly in awe of her skill and her strength, and he wants her to succeed. Which for a slayer basically means not dying, but also, not giving up even when some dire shit like being turned into a vampire goes down.

As they head to the hospital, Willow asks Giles how he knows things will go back to normal, and what will happen if they don’t, and Giles tells her, as politely as possible, to shut up. It’s going to be rare in the series for Giles to be curt with Willow. In fact, it seems to only happen when he’s worried about Buffy. Because of this, I’m going to use any time Giles snaps at Willow as proof of #2 throughout the entire series.

You know what’s a shitty place to be when reality is turning to nightmares? The hospital. The place is in chaos, there appear to be zombies, and Dr. Exposition Dump’s hands have turned to deformed claws. They find Mini-JGL, still comatose, and Giles’s expert solution is to shout in the kid’s face. Luckily Mini-JGL is like, bi-locating? He’s standing beside his own comatose body when he says that it won’t work. And you know, Mini-JGL is right, without ever having to go to medical school. Shouting at people in comas rarely wakes them up. Reeeeeeally dropping the ball here, Giles. You’d think a dude with his history of head injuries would understand that.

Willow discovers that outside the window, a near Biblical invasion of wasps is plaguing Sunnydale. The ugly man appears, and that’s good, because Buffy the Vampire Vampire Slayer is spoiling for a fight to reduce her stress. She beats the ugly man unconscious, then tells Mini-JGL he has to do “the rest.” Wait, what? Is she going to make a twelve-year-old commit murder?

Nah, he just lifts the ugly man’s face off like a rubber mask on a Scooby-Doo villain. Light pours out, and everything goes back to normal. Mini-JGL wakes from his coma and reenacts the end of The Wizard of Oz, and Giles is about to go get a doctor when Mini-JGL’s kiddie league coach comes in. When the man fondly refers to Mini-JGL as “lucky 19,” Buffy reveals that Mini-JGL is awake and tells the coach that they’re on to him. They know he beat Billy in revenge for missing a catch in the game. Mini-JGL tells the coach that it wasn’t his fault they lost the game, there are eight other players on the team. When the coach tries to run, Xander and Giles stop him. Buffy congratulates Mini-JGL on his victory, but maybe she could also drop in a, “Please don’t solve all your problems by turning reality into a living hell wherein all our darkest fears come true next time, okay?”

At school, where everything is back to normal, Buffy expresses disbelief that an adult could go so psycho over baseball. She tells Xander it was heroic to grab the coach, and they’re all glad he’s in jail where he belongs. And oh, look!

Yay, momentary reprieve from inevitable parental abandonment!

Step one: write this blog post.  The post has since been deleted. But I’m still mad about it, and I still want to make a point here.

Kendall Grey feels that her art, her true passion, is urban fantasy, a genre that is apparently leagues above erotic romance in terms of merit and morality. I find this stance so patently absurd; I wrote some fairly successful urban fantasy, and no one seemed to feel those had any artistic merit. The most common question I faced from people who didn’t “get” the genre or who thought it was some worthless fad was, “Isn’t that just paranormal romance?” Because it wasn’t enough. It was genre fiction, it wasn’t smart, it wasn’t worth reading.

Sounds kind of like what people like Kendall Grey would say about erotic romance.

I became so fed up with and hurt by people and their foolish misconceptions about what was and wasn’t real writing. I loved my books. Writing them was fun, and I was proud of them. The added bonus was that I could support myself writing them. I didn’t feel like I’d sold out because I wasn’t writing literary fiction, because I was happy.

Those are the three magic ingredients to a successful writing career, by the way: Fun, Pride, and Money. In that order of importance.

Eventually, I burnt out on urban fantasy. It wasn’t as fun for me anymore, and I wasn’t excited about any of my urban fantasy ideas. So, I picked up a pen name and turned to a genre that was fun. The first book I wrote was Ravenous, a pirate-vampire-menage-a-trois. No, seriously. It was silly and fun and the prose got super purple. I had a blast. Did it make me ten thousand dollars in a week, like the book Kendall Grey only deigned to write? No. I don’t think it’s made ten thousand dollars since it came out years and years ago. But I’m still proud of it, and I still have good memories of writing it.

Next, I wrote Glass Slipper, a novella that I fell in love with from the first page. I could honestly write seven more stories just about Josephine and Julien and all the hot sex they could get up to as a married couple. You know, when you’ve been together a while and you can really let go? Yeah, they’re doing something naughty right now, I’ll bet. But I digress. I am proud of that novella, I had fun with it, and it made me a little money.

As I started out down the erotic romance path, I began to meet people who wrote in the genre, people whose paths I never really crossed before just because that’s the nature of the business. They were all warm and funny and incredibly good at karaoke. The readers? They loved their genre without reservation. And everyone involved in that community? They weren’t ashamed of what they wrote, read, and loved. Everyone was celebrating their love of reading and writing dirty books. I was writing something I really enjoyed it, I was proud of what I was doing, it wasn’t making me the most money ever but hey, the other two made up for that. I felt like a writer again.

I recently had a book, well. Fail to meet my expectations for sales. I am devastated. For the past few weeks, I have been struggling in deep depression, doubting myself, doubting my career, wondering if all my failures are a sign that I should give up, that I am a terrible writer, that I am worthless. But do you know what keeps me going? The Boss. A story I wrote because it was fun, and I was having fun writing it. And I’m proud of it. I’ve never been so proud of anything I’ve ever written before (with the exception of a eulogy, but that’s a downer and it was definitely not erotic romance because that would have been grossly inappropriate for the occasion). Is it making me money? Nah, I’m giving it away for free. Because I’m proud of it, and I want people to read this thing I did. And according to Kendall Grey? I’m doing it wrong:

“You can be noble and stick to your guns and say, ‘Screw that! I’m gonna keep writing what’s in my heart no matter what!’ Fine and groovy, as long as you accept that this guerilla mentality of badassery won’t pay your bills. More power to you for upholding your principles!”

I disagree fundamentally with anyone claiming writing anything will “pay your bills.” See, I’m pursuing what I love- erotic romance- in a market that Kendall Grey seems to be claiming will make authors heaps of money, if only they compromise themselves. Here’s a cold, hard fact: Kendall Grey made ten thousand in a week? I made ten thousand last year. Same “trashy smut” that’s all the rage these days. And you know her failed UF series? Turns out that one of the most highly anticipated books of 2013 was Dead Ever After, an urban fantasy! What a fucking concept! It’s almost as though no matter which genre an author writes in, some will succeed financially and some will fail!

I would be a liar if I said I didn’t get bitter and envious when I see other authors, you know, paying their water bills or going to the dentist since 1998 or wearing clothes that don’t have holes in them. At the end of the day, though, I’m a pretty happy person, and I consider myself a success. Because when I sit down to write, I’m not forcing myself to write something I don’t care about, or actively hate. I’m not victimizing myself by choosing to write what I write. I don’t walk away feeling cheap, dirty, or ashamed.

And another really cool thing about the path that I’m on? I’m meeting an amazing little group of weirdos just like me, but also just slightly different enough from me that we can all be interesting to each other. We can all bring something to the table.

“Once you’ve done your part to feed the reader machine, and you get paid ridiculous amounts of money for publicly shaming yourself and lowering your standards, you’ll be armed with the power to write what you want. Once you’ve built your readership, there’s a good chance many of your readers will follow you into your preferred, artsy-fartsy genre because they like you. Yes, you may have to compromise and write more sell-out books along the way to feed YOUR machine, but the beauty is that you can do BOTH and make it work.”

I can’t even get my head around a statement like this. When one of you guys draws me a flag of a fish with a severed arm in its mouth? That’s amazing. When you tell me about how your husband passed away unexpectedly and my 50 Shades posts are the only thing you can laugh at? You have no idea how much that touches and baffles me. And then I see someone encouraging other writers to “feed the reader machine.” This advice robs the struggling writer of the experience of connecting to their readers. A little over a year ago, I felt so incredibly alone and like such a failure. And now I feel like I have a success that, while unmeasurable in sales figures or dollar amounts, is truly greater than the money I was making before.

The reason Kendall Grey feels ashamed isn’t because the genre is “trashy smut.” The reason Kendall Grey feels ashamed is because she feels the erotic romance genre has no value or artistic merit, and she’s prostituting herself to it. Because she apparently believes that erotic romance authors don’t take the same amount of care and pride in their work as she did with her artistic urban fantasy. These are not problems with the genre. They’re problems of an individual.

We would all like to experience the runaway success of a 50 Shades or a Harry Potter. But if that’s why you’re in the business, you’re always going to be bitterly disappointed. There will always be a publishing company who doesn’t want you. There will always be a book you work hard on that doesn’t perform the way you want it to. And there will never be a rhyme or reason to why some books become insanely popular, while other books sell five copies. If the only way to make yourself feel better about your writing and your choices is to apologize for them and justify them with dollar figures… you’re doing something very wrong. And if a part of that involves insulting readers and writers and tarring an incredibly diverse genre with a judgmental and narrow-minded brush? Then what are you even doing writing in that genre in the first place?

Erotic romance has plenty of detractors from the outside (and some from the inside). We don’t have to be a Sunshine Sisterhood; that’s a mentality I’ve complained about, myself. But we do at least owe the genre and the readers the respect of doing the best we can, and believing in our own work.

So to everyone aspiring to cash in on 50 Shades by dashing off a dirty book on your lunch hour: If you don’t like erotic romance, then you shouldn’t feel the need to grace the genre with your artistic presence. It won’t suffer without you and the books you lower yourself to write.

I had a whole bunch of links compiled for this post, and then I went and accidentally deleted my sticky note where they were waiting. Mea culpa.

We’re saved! Just as I was working on this post, I got an email from Thea K asking for me to share these links to her rip-it-to-shreds blog fest: link the first, Link the second.

At least I coming out of the haze of allergy, pain, and seizure medications I’ve been struggling with. Sorry for the long gap between recaps, I meant to just skip one week, do a Buffy recap during the first week and a 50 Shades recap in the second one, but then I got confused and did two Buffy recaps in a row. Hoping to correct that and get back to a recap each a week. But further patience would be awesome.

Another thing I want to address is the length of the recaps. I’ve had a few comments about the recaps of 50 Shades Freed being shorter than the recaps of previous books. There’s a really simple explanation of that, and maybe I should have mentioned it before: the chapters in the book are shorter. Which, by the way, is hilarious; remember when I was recapping 50 Shades Darker and I was like, NO ONE NEEDS TO WRITE A THIRTY PAGE CHAPTER THAT IS MADNESS? Okay, so, full disclosure time? There’s a twenty-nine page chapter in The Boss.

Whoops.

Okay, so get into the recap Jenny, Jesus.

Once again, Ana begins a chapter waking up. And once again, Christian is winding around her like goddamned kudzu:

I am too warm. Christian warm. His head is on my shoulder, and he’s breathing softly on my neck while he sleeps, his legs threaded through mine, his arm around my waist. I linger on the edge of consciousness, aware that if I wake fully I’ll wake him, too, and he doesn’t sleep enough.

This paragraph opens the chapter and somehow manages to sum up everything that is wrong with their relationship. One partner is willing to lie, hot and uncomfortable, so as to not wake the other partner. One partner is unwilling to let the other partner make a single decision for herself because it makes him emotionally uncomfortable.

Juuuuuuuuuuuust sayin’.

I drank too much- boy, did I drink too much. I’m amazed Christian let me.

“I am amazed another human being allowed me to chose what substance and what quantity of that substance I would put into my own digestive system.” Gosh, everyone who told me he gets so much better was completely right, I guess.

My palm is still red from last night.

It’s nice that for once, she’s waking up with an injury given to her by someone other than her husband. It’s a refreshing change. But what was the creeper guy’s face made out of? Granite?

I smile as I remember him putting me to bed. That was sweet, real sweet, and unexpected.

So, you expected him to leave you in the car? Or at the nightclub? Or was it just that you didn’t have sex, and we’re once again heaping praise on him for behaving like a fucking human being and not a wind-up rape machine?

Christian wakes up, tells Ana that he cherishes her and he wants to take care of her, and then he flips out:

He clasps my hand and I wince. He releases me immediately, alarmed. “The punch?” he asks. His eyes frost as he scrutinizes mine, and his voice is laced with sudden anger.

“I slapped him. I didn’t punch him.”

“That fucker!”

I thought we’d dealt with this last night. 

“I can’t bear that he touched you.”

“He didn’t hurt me, he was just inappropriate. Christian, I’m okay. My hand’s a little red, that’s all. Surely you know what that’s like?” I smirk, and his expression changes to one of amused surprise.

“Why, Mrs. Grey, I am very familiar with that.” His lips twist in amusement. “I could reacquaint myself with that feeling this minute, should you so wish.”

So, remember how Christian always wants to punish Ana right after she’s done something “bad” and has caused him some worry or another? Is he saying he would spank her because some guy groped her against her will at the bar? That’s healthy. This is a healthy relationship.

“I’d fight you any day, Mrs. Grey. In fact, subduing you in bed is a fantasy of mine.”

Because he’s tired of jacking off to the many ways he’s subdued her in the rest of her life?

Ana considers the idea of fight-fucking from all angles:

What’s this about? Brawling? Fantasy? Will he hurt me? My inner goddess shakes her head- Never.

Check in with your subconscious, she usually makes more sense.

Taking a leaf from his impressive repertoire, I lean forward and kiss him, pouring clear cool water into his mouth.

So, they’re apparently back to the spitting in someone’s mouth thing? You know how much me and my OCD love that old chestnut.

Anyway, then they do this whole thing I described before, where Christian tells her to fight him, but he can’t let her win even a little bit on anything, so it’s just a scene of her struggling while he holds her still, and then:

 I seize the front of his pajamas and yank them down, freeing his erection. I grab and squeeze him. He’s hard.

No shit, dicks are hard when they’re erect? I don’t have a secret filthy Tumblr, so I had no idea.

They have sex, and I skip it, because I’m tired of reading the same shit over and over. They have amazing sex, and Ana is just relaxing and chilling out and enjoying the afterglow when, nope, can’t have that:

“You’re quiet,” I whisper and kiss his shoulder. He turns and looks at me, his expression giving nothing away. “That was fun.”

Shit, something is wrong.

“You confound me, Ana.”

“Confound you?”

He shifts so that we’re face to face. “Yes. You. Calling the shots. It’s… different.”

So, after he tells her to fight him in bed because it’s a fantasy of his, and she does fight him in bed, he now has to make a big, dramatic deal about it. He is CONFOUNDED that Ana, the woman he has groomed from day one of their relationship to be unquestioningly obedient, has done something he asked. And of course, since he’s expressed how CONFOUNDED he is, she scrambles to try and fix it, because she wants nothing but his happiness.

“You’ve never indulged this little fantasy before?” I blush as I say it. Do I really want to know any more about my husband’s colorful… um, kaleidoscopic sex life before me? My subconscious eyes me warily over her tortoiseshell half-moon specs. Do you really want to go there?

Of course not. Because there are definitely things husbands and wives should hide from each other. Emotional intimacy is waaaaaay overrated.

“No, Anastasia. You can touch me.” It’s a simple explanation that speaks volumes. Of course, the fifteen couldn’t.

 This naturally leads into a discussion of Mrs. Robinson, the ghost that haunts their sex life due to Ana’s distaste at discussing Christian’s sexual past. She asks him if he liked it when Mrs. Robinson touched him, and he tells her that he did at the time, but not anymore. Which leads Ana to think:

My lost boy.

I’m starting to get this really uncomfortable feeling that if Christian ever did get mentally healthy and he wasn’t Ana’s lost boy anymore, Ana wouldn’t really be into him. Every time they’re together in any way, she’s like, “Tell me about your tortured past (so that I can feel bad for you).” I wonder if Christian would be as appealing to her if he wasn’t a wrecked up project. After all, this is the girl who apparently thinks Thomas Hardy was writing romance.

After they make slow, tender love one more time- off the page, so I don’t have to skim over it- Ana goes down to breakfast, where there is ACTUALLY A SCENE IN THIS GODDAMNED BOOK THAT I APPRECIATED AND ENJOYED:

As the two men amble across the lawn toward the house, lost in their conversation, Christian casually bends to pick up what looks like a bamboo cane that must have been blown over or discarded in the flower bed. Pausing, Christian absentmindedly holds out the cane at arm’s length as if weighing it carefully and swipes it through the air, just once.

Oh…

This scene would be more funny and enjoyable if didn’t lead to a heart-to-heart two pages later, but I’ll take whatever meager crumb of enjoyment I can get, like a Dickensian urchin peering through a frosted window at a glowing feast of roast goose and treacle tart.

“What are you doing?” asks Kate.

“Just watching Christian.”

“You have got it bad.” She snorts.

I think it’s weird that other characters have to blatantly tell the readers how Ana feels about her husband. It’s almost as if the main characters aren’t developed enough to prove their love to the reader on their own…

“And you don’t, oh soon-to-be-sister-in-law?” I reply, grinning and trying to bury the disquieting visual of Christian wielding a cane. I am startled when Kate leaps up and hugs me.

“Sister!” she exclaims, and it’s hard not to be swept up in her joy.

This is the most effusive we’ve seen Kate about the marriage so far, and of course, it’s because she’s gaining an Ana, not marrying the love of her life or anything. I’d personally rather chew my own arm off to escape a bear trap than be legally related to Anastasia Rose Steel Grey (most unwieldy stripper name EVER).

After a break, Christian is once again waking Ana up to start a new scene, to tell her to buckle her seatbelt because they’re about to land. So, they’re on the plane. Mia is sad and reading a book, Ana peeks up at Christian “through my lashes” (I had started to miss the one, actually) and Elliot is sleeping.

 I have yet to corner Elliot and quiz him about Gia, but it’s been impossible to pry him away from Kate. Christian isn’t interested enough to ask, which is irritating, but I haven’t pressed him. We’ve been enjoying ourselves too much.

We haven’t done a list in a while, so…

1. It’s none of your business, Ana.
2. It’s none of Christian’s business and at least he knows that.
3. It’s more irritating to meddle in other people’s relationships.
4. You obviously don’t care that fucking much if your good time can’t be compromised for something you apparently think of as super important to your friend’s happiness.
5. You are terrible person.

Elliot rests his hand possessively on Kate’s knee. She looks radiant, and to think that only yesterday afternoon she was so unsure of him.

You know when you like a show or something, and you introduce someone to it, and then they start acting like they know more about it than you do? That’s how Ana is with Kate’s entire relationship with Elliot. It’s like Ana thinks she knows what’s best for Kate or what Kate is feeling just because Ana is married. Yet, Kate has the most experience with relationships, because she’s, you know, had them before. Ana’s love life is only months old, and she’s trying to speak to Kate’s uncertainty like she’s an authority or something.

At this point, the chapter begins doing its best to avoid plot and starts just filling up pages for no reason. There is a section break, then a brief scene of Ana and Christian in the car, where they talk about how fun the weekend was and how Christian was relaxed because Ana was safe. Basically, rehashing a scene we’ve already read a thousand times, in settings that are more striking than the backseat of an Audi. Then, Christian asks Ana if she’s ready to “face Gia”:

“I might want to keep you out of the way, keep you safe.” I smirk.

“Protecting me?” Christian is laughing at me.

“As ever, Mr. Grey. From all sexual predators,” I whisper.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Then there’s a section break, and they’re going to bed. We don’t even get to see this supposedly exciting, nerve-wracking meeting between Ana and Gia. Now that they’re back home, Ana is thinking about the Jack Hyde thing again:

Tomorrow we go back to reality- back to work, the paparazzi, and to Jack in custody but with the possibility that he has an accomplice. Hmm… Christian was vague about that. Does he know? And if he did know, would he tell me? I sigh. Getting information out of Christian is like pulling teeth, and we’ve had such a lovely weekend. Do I want to ruin the feel-good moment by trying to drag the information out of him?

She brought up the woman who took advantage of him in his youth on the trip, but does she want to ruin the afterglow by asking questions about the dangerous man who was clearly plotting to kidnap and rape her and who may have an accomplice still gunning for her? Nah, that’s not important, because it has to do with Ana, and Ana’s entire life revolves around Christian.

It’s been a revelation to see him out of his normal environment, outside this apartment, relaxed and happy with his family. I wonder vaguely if it’s because we’re here in this apartment with all its memories and associations that he gets wound up. Maybe we should move.

You are moving, Ana. That’s why he bought a house.

I snort. We are moving- we’re having a huge house refurbished on the coast.

Oh, I see, that wasn’t a rhetorical statement you were making, it was an excuse to talk about Gia and the scene E.L. couldn’t be arsed to write:

I chuckle as I recall Gia’s shocked expression when I told her that I’d seen her in Aspen. Turns out it was nothing but coincidence. She’d camped out at her holiday place to work solely on our plans. For one awful moment I’d thought she’d had a hand in choosing the ring, but apparently not. But I still didn’t trust Gia. I want to hear the same story from Elliot. At least she kept her distance from Christian this time.

Wouldn’t it have been cool to see the scene where Ana, with her newfound backbone, confronted Gia and asked point blank if she’d picked Kate’s ring or was still involved with Elliot? Well, too bad, because E.L. isn’t interested in that scene. She’s more interested in hanging out in Ana’s head while Ana thinks about foreshadowing:

Yet with his family around him, he is less controlling, less anxious- freer, happier. I wonder what Flynn would make of all that. Holy crap! Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe he needs his own family. I shake my head in denial- we’re too young, too new to all this. 

You should definitely have a baby to fix your abusive marriage, Ana. That’s a great idea. Men never get more possessive or weird or crazy when their wives or girlfriends get pregnant. And he definitely won’t be able to hold the baby as a hostage against you leaving him.

Christian comes to bed, and Ana has to turn the only part of this book that I’ve enjoyed into something shitty because she’s awful:

“Do you miss it?”

“Miss what?” he asks, perplexed.

“You know, the caning… and stuff,” I whisper, embarrassed.

He stares at me, his gaze impassive. Then doubt crosses his face, his where-is-she-going-with-this look.

By the way, that’s the second time that description has been used in five pages, and I still don’t have any idea what the expression looks like.

“No Anastasia, I don’t.” His voice is steady and quiet. He caresses my cheek. “Dr. Flynn said something to me when you left, something that’s stayed with me. He said I couldn’t be that way if you weren’t so inclined. It was a revelation.” He stops and frowns. “I didn’t know any other way, Ana. Now I do. It’s been educational.”

It’s a revelation to Christian that he can’t force a woman to participate in sex acts she doesn’t want to engage in.

No, really. That’s what that says.

Someone else had to tell Christian Grey that it’s not okay to force women into BDSM if they don’t find it appealing. He is an adult and he’s managed to live his life thus far without figuring that out. He had to pay someone to tell him.

This passage just furthers the anti-BDSM message in the book, the message that E.L. James denies is there. While the author runs around every media outlet clamoring to interview her, boasting about how she’s been such a boon to the BDSM lifestyle and she’s introduced women to their deepest, most secret desires, she’s written a character whose involvement in BDSM is a mental illness that had to be cured. Christian has only been involved in BDSM because he doesn’t know better. How is this in any way complimentary to the BDSM lifestyle, or people involved in it?

50 Shades fans are even worse about this. I saw a woman tweet a couple weeks ago that people can’t judge those involved in BDSM, even though she doesn’t “agree” with it. And her tone, as she argued with multiple twitter accounts, seemed to be the tone of a born again Christian trying to defend their stance on gay marriage. It was very hate the sin, love the sinner, like she was secretly rooting for all the BDSM perverts out there to find their true loves and see the light or something. That is what E.L. James has done for BDSM with these books. She’s destroyed public perception of it.

“I don’t want you to hurt me, but I like to play, Christian. You know that. If you wanted to do something…” I shrug, gazing at him.

“Something?”

“You know, with a flogger or your crop-” I stop, blushing.

Uh… excuse me. But floggers and crops HURT. They’re supposed to hurt. That’s the draw. That’s why some of us like them. I suppose there are ways you could use both of these implements without causing pain. You could use a rubber flogger to tickle someone, or a crop to… train climbing vines? But the point of being flogged or snapped with a riding crop is to hurt. I just… I can’t get my head around this. Maybe because I like pain during sex. I just can’t see the point of using those tools in a non-painful way.

There’s a section break, and some emails that begin on August 29th, wherein Ana and Christian tell each other they love each other, and he reminds her about the Shipbuilding Association dinner. Apparently, Christian builds ships now. I don’t fucking know, and it’s not really covered. Ana’s assistant comes in and tells her she’s had to move some appointments around for her (spoiler alert, one of those appointments is for her birth control shot, but Ana interrupts her before she can mention that), Roach calls and asks Ana to come to his office, and we have another section break, followed by more emails on August 30th, in which Ana and Christian vaguely hint at the fantastic sex they had following the boring boat dinner. Then Ana’s assistant comes in again and tells her she’s had to move some appointments again, and then Roach calls again pulling Ana away to a meeting. Then there is another section break and HOLY SHIT AM I IN THE MATRIX?

Seriously, the deja vu is strong with this shitty, shitty, go nowhere chapter.

Does this mean you’ll lighten up on security?

I really don’t see eye to eye with Prescott.

No, Ana, you don’t see eye to eye with your husband. Prescott is just following his orders. We’ve never seen any evidence of a personal beef between the two women, just Ana’s exasperation at being shadowed. She gives the white men on the security team leeway in this, reminding the readers over and over that they’re just doing their job. But when Prescott, a black woman, does her job, Ana takes it personally.

Christian’s response:

What’s wrong with Prescott? If you don’t like her, we’ll replace her.

Note that when Ana has complained about being followed the white men, Christian has never offered to fire them. Which is pretty funny, considering how threatening Christian considers white men who are in Ana’s presence.

I scowl at his high-handed email. Prescott isn’t that bad.

WHAT? Ana, you have done nothing but bitch about Prescott since she’s arrived in the storyline, seemingly only to be bitched at. Prescott has, until this line, just been a vehicle for Ana’s pointless exasperation. What the hell, now she’s “not that bad?” Ana responds to Christian’s email:

I was just asking (rolls eyes). And I’ll think about Prescott.

Stow that twitchy palm.

Ah, the repetition of fanfic/fanservice writing. Also, nice to see Ana talking casually about affecting someone else’s livelihood and career in the negative. She’s certainly adapted well to being a part of the 1%.

Then there is ANOTHER SECTION BREAK FOLLOWED BY MORE FUCKING EMAILS.

These emails are dated September 5th, and the subject line of the first one is “Sailing & Soaring & Spanking,” so basically there was this amazing scene where they did interesting things and we get to hear about it like this:

Husband

You sure know how to show a girl a good time.

I shall of course be expecting this kind of treatment every weekend.

And then there is an exchange about how much they love each other and how their life is beautiful and perfect and romantic. Then there is a section break and:

The following day, I gaze at the calendar on my desk. Only five days until September 10- my birthday.

The emails are dated the 5th, and Ana is looking at them the next day, which means it’s only four days until the 10th. I guess it’s a good thing she’s an editor and not a mathematician.

Hannah taps on my door.

“Come in.”

Prescott is hovering outside. Odd…

How is that odd? All we’ve been hearing about Prescott is about how closely she follows you and how much you hate it.

“Hi, Ana,” says Hannah.

LOL, that rhymes.

“There’s a Leila Williams here to see you? She says it’s personal.”

“Leila Williams? I don’t know a… ” My mouth goes dry, and Hannah’s eyes widen at my expression.

Leila? Fuck. What does she want?

OH MY GOD! IS THIS A CLIFFHANGER THAT IS ACTUALLY GRIPPING AND INTERESTING?

I can only hope that the next chapter doesn’t begin with a five page series of emails hinting at what happened when she met with Leila.

Wait, no, I hope it does. Because I don’t give a shit about this book, the characters, or what happens to them. And no one else should, either, because the author doesn’t seem interested in writing the rest of this damn book, anyway.