How do I convince Laurell K Hamilton that it’s okay to use “naughty” language that’s also direct?

I know I keep complaining about this for ages, but how can I refrain when the first part of Chapter 25 has Anita noting that in heels, she’s tall enough that she and Richard’s hips are pressed against each other and “the soft mound of his body lay warm and solid against [her].”

Again, that’s his dick, he’s got the beginnings of an erection, and everyone – writer and characters alike – is too old to resort to blurry vagueness around genitals that should be colliding momentarily.

She goes on to note that “his body was starting to grow firmer just from kissing” and that she was grinding gently “against that growing point of his body”. I’m just… Girl, I wrote more explicit sex scenes at a point when I couldn’t even spell foreplay properly. What goes on?

Anyway, they decide to share safewords before things get more intense. Anita’s is… safeword. Yes, it’s the word “safeword”. And Richard’s is “red”.

Which is where things get weird because Anita doesn’t… think he needs one?

“Red as in stop,” I said. He nodded, looking down at me, and it was both familiar and weird as hell to be gazing up at him naked. “You’re a top to a dominant, since when did you ever need a safeword?”

“Recently,” he said, and he was searching my face as if not sure how I’d take it.

“Are you telling me you’re a switch like I am?”

“Yes, no, I’m still figuring it all out, but you should always share safewords beforehand, don’t you think?”

In all seriousness, why wouldn’t a top or dominant need a safeword?

When I read that the first time, all I could do is scream. Safewords are things that keep everyone safe in kink play. A dominant or top can absolutely find themselves in a situation where they need to end the scene immediately. That’s not abnormal?

It just remains weird to me that in-universe, Anita and the gang are positioned as experts on kink and BDSM relationships, but then Anita says stuff like this that make me go “oh in-universe y’all are just so dangerous for the people you fuck”.

Anyway, they don’t fuck here and at this point, I have to ask: what’s with the edging? This is the… third time that there’s a set up for sex and no follow through. I’m starting to get tired. Nathaniel comes into the office and tells Anita and Richard that they need to come through to the front and touch Jean-Claude so that he can get the power boost from his triumvirate and smack down the ghost… vampire… thing trying to control him and his people.

I’ll admit to being a bit lost. Especially when some… snake thing shows up. I can’t tell if it’s the vampire or the dragon that may or may not be involved – which, by the way, is not the dragon that went missing after the events of Obsidian Butterfly.

But then there’s just… The weird dialogue does not help. For one thing, there’s a point where Anita and Richard stand there and classify the creature before them. It is boring and pointless because they don’t actually… figure out what it is?

But second?

Look at this:

“Is there a fringe on top of its head?” I asked.

“Yes,” Richard said, “and no. It’s insubstantial like smoke, and no living snake has ever had a fringe, that’s only lizards.”

“I am not a lizard,” the hissing voice said.

Richard sniffed the air almost nose to nose with the massive head. “It doesn’t smell real; it doesn’t smell like snake or lizard.”

The hissing voice came through our heads. “I am real enough to crawl into your souls and control you for the rest of eternity.”

“Rest of eternity? Isn’t that redundant?” I asked.

“Should it just be, you’ll control us for all of eternity?” Richard asked.

“No,” I said, “even that’s too much. It should be he’ll control us for eternity, because after you say that there is no more. Eternity is it.”

“Are you making fun of me?” the hissing voice asked, but the snake head never opened its mouth when it spoke; it wasn’t real enough to have to open its mouth. What the fuck was this thing?

What the fuck is this dialogue?

I once got accused of being jealous of Cassandra Clare’s writing career – which was weird because I never… said anything about her/her career – but you know who I’m jealous of and why? Hamilton. For being able to churn out muck like this and get paid. Because I can write better dialogue than this and I’m barely awake right now.

Anyway, the painfully dry and dense dialogue continues, but then Richard and Jean-Claude kiss and we get:

“Honorable men are so easily manipulated,” Deimos said.

“We can be,” Richard said, still staring into Jean-Claude’s face like he was trying to memorize him, and then he kissed him full on the mouth. It was a chaste touch of lips, but in nearly ten years of off-again, on-again it was the first time I’d ever seen them kiss. He drew back first, and Jean-Claude’s face showed the astonishment we were both feeling at our so-heterosexual Richard.

“You astonish me, mon lupe.”

“I’d rather not take one for the team, but if it happens in the heat of the moment, I promise no buyer’s remorse from me. Now release the ardeur and save us.”

First of all, Richard has fooled around with men. Doesn’t he have a whole weird thing with Asher? Or does he think it’s not queer to dominate another man? How does he manage to distance himself from what he’s done. Second of all, it’s such a waste for Hamilton to write Richard constantly no-homing up the joint. Everyone else can catch their sexualities up to modern times, even Anita has girlfriends… so why is Richard specifically still locked into 1993 even after he’s been somewhat intimate with other male characters?

The snake… vampire… dragon thing gets a name, Deimos, and also some bonus misogyny when Anita reveals, as Jean-Claude fails to call the ardeur, that Deimos doesn’t seem aware of her other name and what it means. (This is that “Anita, Edward, Bernardo, and Olaf are actually horsemen of the apocalypse” thing.)

Deimos is all like “uh you’re a tiny woman, you can’t be War” and I mean… He’s saying this after acknowledging her as The Executioner so that just seems silly to me. So of course, Anita gets the chance to metaphorically spank him, calling up her version of the ardeur from inside of her spirit with a poorly placed, “Who’s your daddy, Deimos?” that made me howl.

Chapter 26… basically officially ends the edging. I guess?

For starters, I think Richard is fucking Jean-Claude?

And if, after this, he still calls himself straight, I’m going to actually unblock Hamilton on TikTok and call her homophobic to her face. Because that’s what that would be at this point if she has Richard or Anita insist that fucking your primary male partner in a polyamorous relationship doesn’t make you queer.

Anyway, Jean-Claude is the filling in a triumvirate sandwich (which… I do love) and because Anita is so tiny, he has to fold her into a “mating press” – look it up, I won’t be doing any further description for you – so that the fuckening can happen more smoothly.

What’s wild is that this sex scene reaffirms that Richard is normally really bad at sex… Because “He normally made love like he was trying to pound his way through to the other side” is not something to uh… tell people? Like if he’s trying to reenact a hentai and plunge into your womb… He’s probably not great at the fuckening?

I also think that… he can’t fuck Jean-Claude like he’d fuck Anita because the combination of anal tissue and weird vampire biology probably means “pound his way through to the other side” would be an actual possibility for him?

Also, as I’m typing this, I’m thinking “what if Hamilton rolls up and says he was actually just playing hide the hotdog with Jean-Claude’s cheeks”. Because wouldn’t that be convenient?

The fuckening ends in a successful puppy pile and the reminder that Hamilton will never understand how eyes work:

[Jean-Claude] laughed and shook his head, long hair still hiding his face. I found that I could move my arm enough to part his curls so I could look at him. His eyes were the lightest blue I’d ever seen them, not midnight blue, but autumn skies just as the sun begins to sink. I felt what I felt most times when I looked at him: that he was too beautiful to be mine. He smiled at me, not the smile he used onstage or when he was on camera with the media, but a smile less practiced and more real and all the more precious for it.

Genuinely… why?

Anyway, Richard reveals that he’d been on a date before being called to do his duty as the third in the triumvirate and that his therapist was like “either date new people or get back with the people you were once with”. Which of course, sets Anita off because she expects him to feel entiled to plunge dick-first back into a deeper relationship with him.

But then Richard… displays character growth? He first off is like “I know the fuckening doesn’t change anything and I have to continue to work on things” but then he talks about therapy and what’s changed.

He idly stroked Jean-Claude’s arm as he spoke. “I don’t know how comfortable I’ll be with certain things, but I finally changed therapists a few months ago, because the first one was an older man and he was more homophobic than I was, and one of my major issues was that I was totally captivated by this beautiful man that I kept trying to hate, because I didn’t want to be bisexual on top of being a werewolf. It’s one of the reasons I freaked out after we were together with Asher in the bedroom that first time. It felt great and then I went home and tried to be what I thought I was supposed to be instead of what I was.”

We both just stared at him. “Wait, go back, did you just say you were bisexual?”

He nodded.

“Richard,” Jean-Claude said, “I am astonished. I . . . you have rendered me speechless.”

“Am I too late? Is there no room for me in the poly group? I’ve been horrible and I’ve vanished for months on all of you, so if it’s too late then I understand. It’s my own fault.”

Y’all… You’re seeing this right?

Richard just said he was bisexual.

He’s joined the rainbow coalition officially and he wants in with the problematic polycule.

He used his words.

I’m actually… pleased.

Like my deep dislike of Hamilton aside – this is the consistent anti fandom you’re here for, I know – do y’all understand how validating this would be for tadpole stitch? Like if I had Richard using his big bitch words and claiming bisexuality for himself back when I was in my little pond?

Ugh.

I hate to say anything positive about this series, but… That’s it for me, friends. The one positive thing.

Anyway, Chapter 27 sees the triumvirate onstage and Richard is in booty shorts which is just…wild. Unfortunately, I have a Wonho outfit in mind (hell, Wonho’s entire physique) when I picture this.

Jean-Claude uses his power to essentially push out Deimos’ power and mind-wipe the entire audience, rewriting their memories and making them want to come back soon without any memories of the terror that they’d felt less than an hour before. It’s an incredible leap in power levels and I’m assuming that’s from the fuckening kind of aligning their spiritual cores and making the marks between the triumvirate that much more solid?

Whatever it is, it’s still not enough, and we’re treated to a rare vulnerable moment for Jean-Claude as he clings to his loved ones.

I looked at him and realized that he thought he had enough power to never have to fight this hard against another vampire again. He had the power of the entire country of vampires most directly blood-oathed to him. There was a despair in him that I’d never heard this loud in my head, that no matter how powerful he became he would never be powerful enough literally, never be powerful enough to protect his power base.

We get a standing puppy pile after this, at the start of a very short chapter 28. Richard promises to earn everyone’s faith back and Nathaniel is all “uh… what do you mean? You’re not going to like… try to win us over with the power of love are you”. Only for Richard to be like “yeah no I’m not aiming for everyone in the polycule” and course correct.

Nathaniel responds by saying that’s good because he’s not into “enemies-to-lovers romances”  and I sure did briefly forget that he and Richard actually don’t like each other. It’s mutual dislike for real. Then we get some more of Nathaniel’s traumatic backstory (the best foster family he was with only gave him up because their bio kid got sick and the mom loved romance novels) which continues to Kill The Energy.

I love destroying the mood in my own fics, let me be clear.

I love disruption.

But it’s so wild to see a professional author, one with an editor, do something my ridiculous ass does for fun.

This chapter ends on an interesting, if concerning, note, by the way. They flash into Jason’s mind – remember, Jason is in New York being a ballerino with blonde and perfect distant relative J.J. – and instead of being pleased with her and with his new job, he’s… sad. Sad and needy.

We close the chapter out on the question: “What had happened to Jason’s happily-ever-after?”

For the first time in a long time, the Anitaverse has asked a question that I want answered.

Wild.

Honestly, this wasn’t the worst thing Hamilton has delivered? These four chapters weren’t abnormally painful and I do kind of want to see what happens next and whether Jason’s going to return to the fold/s. Especially because I have a strong feeling that we’re going to get some major (internalized) misogyny to explain the J.J. thing and the end of that happy ending…

Wish me luck in making it through the next round of chapters… Because I’m sure I’ll need it.