Personal and Political Boundaries

[peppermintyrose]

Aw man, I wish teenage boys didn't eat so damn much. I spend half of my free time either shopping for them, or preparing something to eat. It would be nice if I could starve them to death, but I've put in so much work already to quit now, and they complain a lot. Hence why their squeaky wheel gets the grease. Still no print book, although happily,

Comments

[thyradane]

Yay! Thank you for the (soon-to-be) review ;-)

And thank you for these posts. I truly love it when you take bits and pieces and turn them around for us to look at. I learn a lot and I love seeing things in new shades. Your posts also make me like the books even more (which is sorely needed because I just read something CH wrote on her discussion forum and I didn`t like that all that much - it shouldn`t influence how I look at the books but I can feel that it does and that annoys me. Your posts are a kick in the other direction). So I hope you`ll keep on doing that for ... the next 200 years, perhaps (I have this nice little contract for you to sign here :-D).

I really wonder how safe Sookie is now. You`ve shown here that she`s safer than she`s been in a long time but I am looking forward to the coda to see more of Sookie`s future. I don`t *need* for CH to tell me that Sookie is safe and will live a long and prosperous life but it would still be nice to know :-D

[peppermintyrose]

It's coming! :D

Oh, was that her remark about how she doesn't like fanfic? She once likened it to wearing someone else's underpants. :D I'm pretty sure she means that she doesn't like reading it or writing it herself - but she doesn't have animosity to the writers of it. Considering the sledging that happens in fanfic, she's pretty cool about it all. Much like True Blood - let them do their own things with her characters - live and let live.

I'm not signing no damn contract! I don't need any cluviel dor out clause - I'm more stubborn than Eric on the whole autonomy thing. :D

I think she's relatively safe - as safe as she can be. I think the important part now is that it's all up to her. So she can participate if she wants, and none of the supes have the wherewithal to really force it. And now who wants a more neat ending, huh? :D

[thyradane]

And there it came :-D

[peppermintyrose]

And now two more! :D

[thyradane]

YAY! ;-D

[thyradane]

Minor correction - you 'each have to visit the other' for the conjugal part of the contract, so that's sex twice a year ;)

[peppermintyrose]

You're a sly one! Now you're trying to persuade me with international trips! :D

[peppermintyrose]

Having Martin in her life did bring her a wealth of experience though. That's the key. If she'd settled down immediately with Robin, maybe she would have wondered about doing something more exciting with her life. Both Eric and Martin drove a lot of the adventure in the women's lives, and gave them something to think about. It would seem incredibly contrived if we had to hear about Sookie thinking about the potential murder of someone, *instead* of the actual murder of Debbie Pelt.

I don't think that it's moralistic. It's extremely unlikely that a guy like that would not die. I think it shows a contrast that it wasn't actually the work that he engaged in - thinking that a small town and ordinary people are *not* dangerous is what did Martin in. And according to what I read, CH wanted to kill Martin off earlier, but her editor persuaded her otherwiseNope. Not even once a decade. I know you're being a Norwegian siren over there, and batting your eyelashes at me, but it's not going to happen

[thyradane]

Oh, I didn`t see that this was a reply to my post

[peppermintyrose]

Well, we all need to sow our wild oats with some guy/s. Even if he's not perfect, he's a good experience to have, so that we know what we do and don't like. And I think knowing that you can survive tragedy is a good thing

[thyradane]

I think the wild oats sowing is a fairly boring romance trope but I was fine with Sookie sowing oats with both Bill and Quinn and even Eric if he hadn`t meant so much to her for so many books. And yes, it`s a good thing to know you can survive a tragedy but I would have wanted it to come earlier in the series so we could see that she survived it over time and not just as an afterthought

[peppermintyrose]

Maybe it's different for erotica, but there's a definite strain of puritanical stuff in most books. And I have seen Sookie *already* called names for moving from Eric onto Sam. So I think this sort of thing is worth doing over and over until it starts to sink in that women own their own bodies

[thyradane]

Oh there is. And even in erotica. You wouldn`t believe the number of women in erotica who "stumble" over BDSM clubs, for instance (and you would think there were BDSM clubs on every corner in every city in the world, going by these books). Or who say "this is my first ONS". Yeah right! Men will fuck around, of course, and they are the ones sowing oats - and then hooking up with the pristine and virginal ones - after calling the non-virginal ones all kinds of names. I SO love it when I find romances that go against this but they are rare. Very rare

[peppermintyrose]

No, I mean it's *expected* in erotica. But you can't tell me that "Black Dagger Brotherhood" is founded on the idea of women sowing their wild oats - and more importantly *actually enjoying it*. Nor Twilight. Nor Nighthuntress. I can't say I read that much romance, but while most women are not virgins, they usually only have *one* serious interest - which means that they might as well *be* virgins

[thyradane]

I don`t think there are any (American) books where women are sowing their wild oats. Not as obviously as men do in that kind of books. But male romance heroes are doing a lot of sowing until they meet the heroine. I am not a big fan of that trope

[peppermintyrose]

That's the thing, I think. And while that trend is ongoing, I think it's important for some writers like CH not to have one heroine with one man