Crescendo: Chapter 10
ZeldaQueen: In which Nora is jealous and Patch is extremely creepy
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 10
ZeldaQueen: We are meant to start off this chapter thinking that Nora is extremely freaked out by that text from last night. Unfortunately, we are not. Why are we not? I shall direct you all to the sentence that we left the previous chapter off on -
"The only thing a boyfriend was good for was a shattered heart"
ZeldaQueen: This is the sentence that begins this chapter
"An hour later, I'd fixed and eaten a late snack of cream cheese frosting spread on graham crackers, tidied up the kitchen, and watched a little TV"
ZeldaQueen: This is all after she received the text message.
Now tell me, if you read those sentences, would you think that Nora was upset about anything? Stressed, perhaps. Anxious, yes. But scared? Not in the slightest. It doesn't help that she describes the "fear" she's feeling in the most dull, laundry list way possible. She drones on about how she's scared, she's considering playing Chopin to calm herself (ohhhh, look at Miss Deep and Cultured over there! *rolls eyes*), how she organizes her clothes by color so she has an excuse to stay awake longer, GOD PLEASE LET SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPEN, PLEASE!!!
So yes. It's boring and stupid and only pads out the wordcount. I shall spare you. Well, I'll just bring up this
"Then again, maybe the text was from someone who wanted to slit my throat while I slept. On an eerie night like this, nothing was too far-fetched to believe"
ZeldaQueen: "On an eerie night like this, nothing was too far-fetched to believe"? Nora? DID YOU FORGET ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO? You can't bank on the "I'm so safe in the world!" card when you have learned not long ago that the world is full of monsters that would cheerfully kill you! Jules, okay he's dead. But Dabria isn't! And yeah, spoilers, it's not her. She doesn't show up in this book. But even so, this just shows how stupid Nora is! She's already had someone try to kill her for being deeply involved in the world of fallen angels and Nephilim! WHY DOES THE IDEA OF IT HAPPENING AGAIN SEEM SO UNUSUAL???
God.
Four paragraphs in, finally the plot (or what passes for plot) moves along. Nora wakes up at three in the morning with the side of her head pounding and her right eye swollen shut with "A violent purple and red bruise flowered from my eyebrow down to my cheekbone" from Marcie having punched her. Now granted I have never been punched in the face before, but that sounds rather...extreme. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds more like Nora is suffering from some sort of infected cut than a punch to the face.
Nora wangsts about being beaten up by Marcie, pops a couple of Tylenol, and then goes back to bed. Well, that all was amazingly pointless. What was the purpose of that little interlude? To show us how Nora's face has bruised up? I don't care about that, sorry to say. I also don't care about Nora wangsting and obsessing over the memory of Marcie climbing into Patch's car, which is what she spends the next four sentences doing, before finally going back to sleep.
So apparently the entire point of that whole bit was to show that Nora is an obsessive, jealous nutcase. I think that has already become readily apparent, Fitzpatrick. If we're supposed to feel sorry for her, I certainly don't. She's a loathsome little bint who clearly is too dumb to live, considering that she has forgotten about the possibility of someone coming to kill her in favor of being jealous over Patch and Marcie. And given how predictable and Twilight-like this series is, it goes without saying that Patch and Nora will be hooking up again before the book's over. The only thing that concerned me was that apparently Nora took an ice pack into bed with her, for her eye. Did she fall asleep with that still with her? Is she going to wake up all wet and cold, from it having melted on her?
Yeah, when the fate of an ice pack is more interesting than the musings of one's protagonist, something's not being done right.
Anyway, Nora falls asleep only to wake up to the sound of the lock "rolling over" . Apparently the lock on the house is actually a dog. Either that or Fitzpatrick meant to say that Nora heard the lock click, but didn't actually write that because it would make too much sense to do so. Regardless, Nora wakes up and we get this observation
"I opened my eyes, but found my vision muddled by the same poor-quality black and white as when I’d dreamed my way into England, hundreds of years ago. I tried to blink it away and bring my normal vision back, but my world stayed the color of smoke and ice"
ZeldaQueen: Now, a sensible person would think "This is the same weird thing that happened the last time I had a lucid dream, so obviously I am dreaming now". The key word here is "sensible". Nora is not that sort of a person, and thus she won't be realizing she's dreaming for another page and a half. Yes. Really. *bangs head on wall*
Right. For whatever reason, Nora fails to realize this is a dream. She also just sort of...forgets about the fact that the world has gone black-and white. She doesn't wonder if she's had a stroke or something in her sleep, she doesn't freak out, she just doesn't do anything. I might buy this under other circumstances. After all, it's not uncommon to find something weird in a dream to be perfectly normal. However I do not buy it here because, Nora was perfectly lucid and aware she was in a dream the last time she had one like this. The only reason she isn't aware she's dreaming here is because it's a dead herring. Fitzpatrick is trying to build up suspense by having Nora go, "HEY! THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT TIME I WAS LUCID DREAMING. I'M NOT LUCID DREAMING NOW THOUGH! NOPE! SOMEONE'S COMING TO GET ME IN REAL LIFE!"
*sighs* Right, right, intruder has entered the house in jig time. Nora is apparently collected enough to rationalize that there's no way it's her mother coming home early, but not enough to wonder how someone got into the house so quickly. The last book established that she locked the door, after all. Ah well. Nora sets about looking for a weapon, but can find nothing to use but a pair of tights. Because after being attacked and nearly killed several times, not two months ago, she OBVIOUSLY didn't think to buy a can of mace or at least keep a baseball bat in her room! No! That would be LOGICAL and we can't have that, can we? THAT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE!!!
GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT!
Okay, okay I'm good. Sorry.
The intruder is coming up the stairs, Nora is at the ready with the tights, in he comes, and she jumps over and wraps them around his neck. My summary has roughly the same amount of emotion as the text, but with fewer words. Here, just have a look!
"Rolling silently out of bed, I snatched my discarded tights off the floor. I tightened them between my hands and pressed my back to the wall just inside my bedroom door, a clammy sweat beading my skin. It was so quiet I could hear myself breathe.
He stepped through the doorway, and I roped a leg of the tights around his neck, tugging back with all my strength"
ZeldaQueen: I'm wondering if Fitzpatrick thinks exclamation marks are some fabled beings, like leprechauns. I mean, seriously? Nora. Darling. YOU THINK SOMEONE'S BREAKING INTO YOUR HOUSE. SHOW SOME EMOTION!!! THIS ISN'T THAT HARD!
Whatever. The intruder comes into her room and Nora, erm, strikes with her tights. She wraps them around his neck and struggles for about a second, before she's thrown forward and sees that the intruder is none other than... *drumroll* Patch!
Oh joy. I bet you were so missing him!
Patch kicks things right off by, what else, being an asshole. He yoinks away the tights and says to Nora “Want to explain?” *scowls* Do you? Nora wasn't the one breaking into your house in the middle of the night! Though, as we'll see, that's not necessarily for lack of trying...
Nora does not point this out, but does get pissed and demand to know what he's doing there. Somehow, she also jumps to the conclusion that he sent that mysterious, vaguely threatening text message to her. Hmm, yes, makes sense. I can see Patch going for a means of communication that sounds like a psycho is coming to kill her, rather than give any sort of hint that it's supposed to be helpful.
Of course, Nora doesn't ask why he sent a message worded like it came from an overtold urban legend. Instead, she demands to know why his number came up as unlisted. He explains that he had to get a new number, specifically "[s]omething more secure". He doesn't elaborate on this, so it's left to the readers to wonder what "more secure" phone options can be obtained by someone in the body of a high school student, who had no job, no references, no family, and no life outside of pool, poker, and stalking his girlfriend. We're also left to wonder exactly how omnipotent the angels in this universe are, since apparently the creators of life, the universe, and everything can be thrown off the trial by a cell phone swap.
Nora's response to this is a thing of idiotic beauty
"I didn’t want to know. What kind of person needed all that secrecy? Who was Patch afraid would be eavesdropping on his calls? The archangels?"
ZeldaQueen: Beg your pardon for a minute, ladies and gents.
*inhales deeply*
NO FUCKING DUH IT'S THE ARCHANGELS, YOU STUPID, STUPID BINT! WHO HAS PATCH BEEN WORRIED ABOUT FOR ALL OF THIS TIME? WHO ELSE BOTHERS HIM AT ALL? HE OBVIOUSLY ISN'T BOTHERED BY PUNY HUMANS OR NEPHILIM, AND IN FACT GETS HIS ROCKS OFF ON TORTURING THEM BOTH! HE'S BEEN TELLING YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER ABOUT HOW THE ARCHANGELS ARE WATCHING EVERY MOVE HE MADE AND EVERY STEP HE TOOK AND JUDGING HIM! CAN'T YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING FROM LONGER THAN TEN SECONDS AGO? DID YOUR BRUSH WITH DEATH IN THE LAST BOOK REMOVE THE FEW BRAINS THAT YOU HAD? I'VE SEEN SPECIES OF PLANKTON THAT HAVE A LONGER MEMORY SPAN THAN YOU! FUCKING PLANKTON! WHO SAID YOU'RE A GREAT, INTELLIGENT HERIONE? YOU'RE FUCKING STUPID! GOD ALMIGHT!
*falls over* I feel somewhat better now.
On a less ranty note, why is Nora acting like getting a new phone number is the height of insane paranoia? While yes, one changing their phone number for personal safety can be a worrying (situation depending), it's hardly some unheard of precaution. Hell, Nora herself should have done it in the last book, to help stave off Patch's unwanted affections. Maybe that's why she didn't. She was too rock-stupid to realize that it was an option.
Nora brings up the very good point that Patch should have knocked or something, instead of swaggering into her house and terrifying her out of her wits. Darling, haven't you realized by now that he likes terrifying you? He's not about to change that. She doesn't tell him that breaking in and entering's a crime and that he's a bastard to do that especially after sending a creepy text message to her. Instead, she says "I thought you were someone else". This, of course, leads to a moment of komedy where Patch asks "Expecting someone else?" HA HA, IT IS TO LAUGH. Nora replies that yes, she was. For whatever reason though, she doesn't actually tell Patch that she thought some serial killer was coming after her because his text freaked her out. That would be holding him accountable for his selfish behavior. Instead, she gives Patch the stage and he comments that it's three in the morning and "Whoever you’re waiting for can’t be that exciting-you fell asleep".
This is supposed to be funny, right? I'm seriously supposed to find it hilarious that Patch not only broke into his ex-girlfriend's bedroom after sending her a text message that could be construed as threatening, he flippantly makes jokes about her being scared, right? Because I don't. I find it despicable and just more of the same horrible behavior I've come to expect from Patch. Jesus H. Christ, not even Stephenie Meyer played Edward breaking into Bella's room for laughs! Romance, yes, which raises its own set of issues, but never comedy.
In any case, Patch tells Nora that she's still asleep. Fitzpatrick sees fit to dump this load on us...
"As he said it, he looked satisfied. Maybe even reassured, as if something he’d been puzzling over had finally worked itself out"
ZeldaQueen: Mighty specific deductions for a girl as idiotic as Nora is. Speaking of which, she only just now realizes that she's dreaming. Imagine! Here the world looks EXACTLY like when she was dreaming, and it turns out that she's dreaming again. Imagine the fucking odds. Obviously she couldn't have come to this conclusion on her own, though. She needed Patch to hold her hand to that conclusion. *fumes*
Nora briefly wonders if Patch really is in her dream or if his visit is just a part of what her mind made up. Normally I'd consider this a valid thing to wonder, except for two things. The first is that she already knows that Patch can invade her mind. It should be obvious this is just another form of it. The second is why else would Patch be all smugly satisfied as he tells her that he's in her dream? He just found out he can waltz in there whenever he wants, and is doing what he does best - being a dick about it.
Which is something to think about, incidentally. Patch already can stalk Nora anywhere. He can put ideas and thoughts and sounds and images into her head. And now he can stroll into her dreams. And she has no way of stopping him.
In other words, Patch the Psychopath has apparently mastered the art of inception. Isn't that a pleasant thought?
ZeldaQueen: Sweet dreams, Nora!
Nora of course all but completely ignores the revelation that Patch can go into her fucking dreams. Instead, for God-knows-what reason, she tells him that the person she was expecting was Scott. Yes, Scott. She was apparently expecting Scott to visit at three in the God damned morning. Scott, who she has not seen since childhood and gone out with what, twice since he came back? Him? She completely forgot about him for the entire last chapter! Why would she think of him now? Well, dear readers, for exactly the same reason that Bella Swan would randomly drop whining reminders about how much she loves Jacob and wishes he were around - Fitzpatrick's pushing for a contrived love triangle. Though here, I do get the sense that it's more Nora wanting to piss Patch off. Because that sounds like such a wonderful idea! Just my own thoughts, though. Nora herself doesn't even know why she dropped Scott's name, except that "[her] mouth got in the way of [her] brain". Which is silly, because her mouth can't get in the way of something she obviously doesn't have.
Patch predictably gets pissy about this, which prompts Nora to start bitching about him getting in the car with Marcie. Again
ZeldaQueen: Patch replies by telling Nora that Marcie needed a ride. Nora informs us that she "adopted a hands-on-hips pose" (just say you put your hands on your hips, you lunatic!) and makes it clear that she doesn't believe a word of it. She then - and I'm dead serious here - tries to give him a secret test of character by asking what color Marcie's thong was.
*rubs forehead* Pardon me, but DID WE OR DID WE NOT SPEND THE LAST CHAPTER HEARING HOW MARCIE'S DRESS WAS SO SKANKILY SHORT THAT HER THONG COULD BE SEEN FROM UNDER IT AGAINST ALL REASON? IF ANYONE COULD SEE IT IF SHE SAT IMPROPERLY, HOW DOES THAT INDICATE IF PATCH WAS CHEATING OR NOT?
But no, this doesn't occur to Nora, who realizes that Patch does know the color of Marcie's thong and thus has something romantic and intimate going on with her. Myself, I just want to know why the flip Nora is so obsessed with Marcie's thong.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 45
Nora rants more about how Patch is a cheating bastard with various pieces of "evidence" to back this up. It's the same shit we've heard nine million times before, so I'll spare you. Instead, let us skip ahead to Nora yelling about the oh-so-damning detail of Patch giving his hat to Marcie. Patch excuses this by saying "She was having a bad hair day", to which Nora literally drops her jaw and wigs out, shouting "Is that what she told you? And you fell for it?"
I have to ask, why is Nora so convinced that there's a devious, underhanded reason for Marcie to lie to Patch and steal his hat? What would Marcie gain by only pretending to need it so he'd give it to her? It's his hat. It's not like she was pretending she was drowning so he'd give her the Kiss of Life. And for that matter, what does Nora mean that Patch "fell for it"? It's her fucking hair. As in, on the top of her head. He can see for himself if she's having a bad hair day or not! July and Christmas, this is STUPID.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 47
Because apparently everything Marcie does is some evil plan to catch herself a man.
And it just keeps going! Patch says that Marcie isn't as bad as Nora makes her out to be, which is what I've been suspecting from the start of the book. Nora however, gets even more hysterical, points out her black eye, and generally is furious that Patch is defending Marcie. There's some "banter" where Patch seems pretty unconcerned that his Darling Dearest has half her face swollen up, blah, blah, blah, Nora thinks he loves Marcie, I hate this book.
And then, it gets creepy
"I pointed at the door. 'Out.'
When he didn’t move, I marched within range and whipped the pillow against him. 'I said get out of my dream, you lying, traitorous-'
He wrestled the pillow out of my grasp and walked me backward until I came up against the wall, his motorcycle boots flush against my toes. I was drawing breath to finish my
sentence and call him the worst name I could think up, when Patch tugged on the waistband of my underpants and pulled me even closer. His eyes were liquid black, his breathing slow and deep. I stood that way, suspended between him and the wall, my pulse stepping up as I became more aware of his body and the masculine scent of leather and mint lingering on his skin. I felt my resistance start to ebb away"
ZeldaQueen: List!
First of all, isn't this just fan-fucking-tastic? Not only does he march on into her dreams, but he refuses to leave when she tells him to do so. How lovely. Clearly, Patch respects Nora's wishes. Clearly, he loves her so much that he's willing to give her space when she's upset. OH WAIT.
In other words, he breaks into her mind while she's asleep, he gets her riled up and angry, and then refuses to leave when she orders him out. But hey, why should he be worried? What can she do to him? When she tries to force him out, he dazzles her into submission. In a creepy fucking way that makes it sound threatening.
Tell me this doesn't sound like the next installment of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Go ahead. Try it.
Second of all, this just sums up the misogyny of those two so well. The woman is shrieking and unreasonable but still powerless, while the man is oh-so-cool and collected and lets her vent her harmless frustration. And the instant she starts trying to be dominant over him? He breaks out his sex appeal to put her back in line, so she will be too busy drooling to question him.
And while it might sound like I'm looking too much into this scene, this is how all of their interactions go! Every time they fight or confront each other about something, Nora is fidgety or shrieky or hysterical or otherwise out of control, while Patch is calm and collected and unreadable. He never actually tells her anything and never listens to her if/when she asks him to go away and leave her alone. There's a distinct sense that everything is on his terms. She is entirely powerless. She can't do anything to get him to talk or leave or listen. If he does any of those things, it's because he wants to do it. And if he gets bored? He just breaks out the smoulder and she promptly forgets everything.
Now, isn't that terrifying?
Third of all, after all the sexual harassment from this series, the last thing I want to see is Patch sticking his hand anywhere near the waistband of Nora's pants.
Fourth of all, if he doesn't have a body or the ability to feel anything, why is he showing signs of arousal (the breathing and so on)? If he can't feel anything, he can't get stimulated. What, does Fitzpatrick think that the only thing about a lack of ability to feel is that Patch is denied the sensation of Nora's lips on his? There's more to it than that!
Fifth of all, since when has mint been considered a "masculine" scent?
Finally, I must repeat - "the masculine scent of leather and mint"? Fitzpatrick, it was hilarious enough when Gethesemane used the phrase, "He smelled of the sea, rum, and pure masculinity". It's no better when you use it like that!
Hey, I somehow didn't explode! Go me!
Right. Nora responds to this all by promptly leaping into his arms and mashing lips. Yeah, all of her anger? All of her declarations that Patch was a cheating douche who hurt her so inhumanly? All the times she insisted that she was over and done with him? Out the window! Bye! Hope you weren't fooled by 'em!
Nora tells Patch to not let her regret this, whatever that's supposed to mean (how does he even have control over that?) and he replies with "You haven’t regretted me once". No, but that's because she's a moron. A normal, functioning person would regret Patch from Day 1 or, if they needed time to catch on, when he caught them in a motel. At the very least, I think they'd regret him after they nearly got killed twice because of him.
So yeah, Nora starts kissing him so passionately that she thinks her lips will bruise, which is yet another of Gethesemane's favorite cliches and thus speaks quite a lot about the quality of this story.
We get several paragraphs of them "passionately" making out, which is pretty much identical to every gratutious sexy fanservice scene in every fanfiction since the dawn of time. Really, I think this whole thing spawned from an unholy merging of Fitzpatrick knowing her fans want teh sexy and herself wanting to write about Patch and teh sexy. Yeah.
And what's Nora thinking about at this point? Why, how they can safely have g-rated sex in the Matrix her dream world! No, really. She thinks that "if Patch really was in my dream, this whole night could be our secret. The archangels couldn’t see us. Here, all their rules went up in smoke. We could do whatever we wanted, and they would never find out. No one would"
. . . Yeeeees, because angels have never been able to get into other people's dreams before! Just look at that dream Jacob had where he was fighting - OH, WAIT! Or how about that silly, insignificant moment where Joseph fell asleep and was visited by a - OOPS, NEVER MIND!
Hell, even if one argues that Fitzpatrick is only going by her own canon, how could we buy that the other angels can't somehow get into Nora's dream and find out what they're doing? Does she think that a bunch of angels who are stronger and higher up on the ladder than Patch is would be unable to do that? WHAT DOES SHE THINK PATCH IS DOING RIGHT NOW? If he can get in, why not think that other ones can?
Whatever. There's several more paragraphs of this, which are extremely boring so I'll skip them. Nora literally has her legs wrapped around Patch's waist (er...) and he glances at the bed. If the implication is that he wants to have sex with her, again I ask how is that possible? He can't feel anything, so he won't be able to get it up. Basic biology, really.
And then, Nora touches the scars on his back. Because it worked out so well the last time she did that.
Even though the scar-touching, from what I gathered, generates random memories, Nora just so happens to end up in Patchs memory of driving Marcie home after the fight at the Devil's Handbag. She's bitching about how Vee's drink was thrown all over her, and "Now I’m freezing. And I reek of cherry Coke". I, meanwhile, wonder why a girl characterized the way Marcie is supposed to be would use the phrase "I reek of". She'd say something like "I smell like".
Because Marcie is complaining about being cold, Patch offers her his jacket.
"Marcie unlocked her seat belt, got a knee up on the console, and grabbed Patch’s leather jacket off the seat beside me. When she was facing forward again, she tugged the dress up over her head and dropped it on the floor at her feet. Other than her underwear, she was completely naked"
ZeldaQueen: I - she - they - he...WHAT.
What the fuck was that? No, wait, rhetorical question. It's quite obvious what that was. That was a fine example of Fitzpatrick trying so hard to show how slutty Marcie is that it goes well into Batshit Stupid territory.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 50
Because really? Why would Marcie do that? I can't believe that the entire dress was soaked by one cup of soft drink. And no, I don't care how stupid she's supposed to be. She's already said that she's cold. Why would she take off the dress and leave herself even more exposed? Yes, we're supposed to buy that the dress doesn't cover much, but it apparently reaches her thighs at least. So apparently in her efforts to... um, woo Patch, she forgoes having anything covering her midsection and thighs and leaves herself with only a thong, bra, and garterbelt to warm herself with.
Shortly after, she does put on Patch's jacket. Okay, so now her top is nice and warm. Her nethers are still hanging out, Fitzpatrick. Or did you somehow forget she's in a thong? Do you have any clue how much skin is now exposed? If she was cold before, she's going to be freezing now. Not to mention that there's going to be a hella lotta questions when she gets out of the car. Are we to buy that her parents aren't going to notice their daughter coming in with nothing on her lower half but a thong, a garter belt, and thigh-high boots?
Marcie starts trying to get Patch to take a detour somewhere, with the clear notion of wanting to have a bit of fun
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 51
Because it wasn't already obvious enough that she's the Whoriest Whore to ever Whore around. Nope.
Patch tells her not tonight he has a headache and that he just wants to go home after dropping her off. Marcie asks if she can accompany him and he tells her that someday she might be able to, which of course gets Nora to get jealous and start mentally bitching. After all, she's the one who wanted to stalk him to his home before it became cool!
Marcie smirks about this while putting her feet on the dashboard to show off her legs...
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 52
And then starts needling him about having broken up with Nora. Patch gets all angry and tells her he doesn't want to talk about that. Marcie drops several very obvious hints that she's broken up with her boyfriend and generally is all seductive
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 53
It's horrible to read, but not in the way Fitzpatrick intended.
Patch finally gets Marcie home. In his usual dickish fashion, he pulls the car over on the side of the road and, without even bothering to turn off the engine, tells her to hop on out. Marcie asks him if he isn't going to walk her to the door, and of course we're supposed to find this so obnoxious of her. I don't. I was taught that it's standard courtesy for a guy taking a girl home. In fact, one of my teachers related to my class a story about how he refused to let his daughter go out when her date just pulled into the driveway and honked the horn, on the basis that if he really liked her, he could get off his ass and walk to the door to get her (the date ended up driving away without picking her up, apparently).
Patch being Patch, of course it never occurs to him that one would walk a girl to the door to be polite. Instead, he says he won't do it because "[Marcie's] a strong, capable girl". *glares* Yeah, Marcie arguably is the closest example of a strong, capable girl in this series. What does it say that we're supposed to think badly of her for it? And what does it say of this series, when the girl who's treated as such is a complete and utter bitch?
There's gratuitous bashing of Marcie for touching Patch's collar and "lingering longer than was appropriate", which is rich coming from Miss Grabby-Feely over here
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 54
Marcie starts talking in a "sultry and smooth" voice...
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 55
And tells Patch... well, take a look
"You know, I really admire your willpower. You keep me guessing, and I like that. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. I’m not looking for a relationship. I don’t like messy, complicated things. I don’t want hurt feelings, confusing signals, or jealousy-I just want fun. I’m looking for a good time. Think about it"
ZeldaQueen: Now, I took one look at that and immediately thought "Thank you!" After wading through so much bullshit of Nora fussing and wondering if Patch loves her and Patch not saying what he's thinking and them both dancing around and just not talking about it, it's a blessed relief to FINALLY have a character who flat-out states "Listen, this is what I'm looking for in a relationship. If you're interested, I'm good to go if you are". And quite frankly, after wading through all of Patch and Nora's angsty relationship crap, the idea of a relationship without the hurt feelings, confusing signals, and jealousy is damned appealing. If anything, Marcie sounds like she's going about this much more sensibly than Nora, who obviously is saddled with the jealousy and hurt feelings and poor communication and messy things. At least Marcie knows what she wants out of a relationship and is able to outright state it!
Which, I'm quite sure, is not what Fitzpatrick had intended. I'm sure we're supposed to think Marcie is just so horrible and shallow. I mean, look! She just wants a quick fling! She doesn't want to latch on to a guy she's not in Deep and Pure love with! How terrible! It's almost like she doesn't want to settle down with a man!
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 60
Not everyone wants the same things out of a relationship, y'know.
Patch is pretty much all stony-faced and emotionless to this. It might just be the general blandness of the writing, but I'm just picturing him sitting there, a la Sweeney Todd in the "By the Sea" number.
ZeldaQueen: Which just makes it even funnier when Marcie leans in and has a "slow, hot kiss"
ZeldaQueen: For serious? We're supposed to see this as damning evidence that Patch now is going with Marcie? Because like I said, he's just sitting there. We've seen how Patch turns on the... um, charm (roll with it). He's not doing any of that. Hell, he's not doing anything!
But no, in Nora's jealous little mind, he totally is a cheating bastard. Because he didn't actively pull away when Marcie kissed him. Never mind that he was just sitting there like a stump, giving no indication that it's enjoyable for him. He obviously has moved on to Marcie now!
*sigh* The memory ends with Marcie climbing out of the car. Patch indicates her dress, and Marcie tells him to have it cleaned and sent to her tomorrow. Because she's Evil. And apparently yes, she really was planning on walking into the house with nothing covering her lower half but a thong.
My head hurts so much.
Nora exits the memory at this point and promptly goes into the usual overblown prose she's prone to at times like these. She feels like she's been hit, she feels like she's had icy water dumped on her, next verse, same as the first. We also are informed that "[Her] lips were swollen from the roughness of his kiss, [her] heart just as inflamed", which is so melodramatic and harlequin and reminiscent of Gethesemane Butler that I want to hit myself over the head with my own laptop. But I don't, because I like my laptop too much.
Somehow, Nora is all convinced now that Patch is really in her dream, and not that she just dreamted that he got in there. Her "proof" is that touching his scars took her into the memory, but how does that make sense? Nora already knew what happened when she touched his scars. How can she know she didn't just dream the memory that came frou doing so? She's clearly been angsting about Patch cheating on her with Marcie, so how can she be so certain that the entire memory wasn't just a product of her paranoid mind unwinding?
I suspect the answer is "Because the author said so".
Patch can tell Nora's getting pissed, so he asks what she saw. Apparently yes, the memories are random. Isn't that just such a great coincidence, that Nora only gets ones relating to the story? It's almost as great as Alice's Plot-related Psychic Abilities, in Twilight! Nora informs us that "His arms bracketed my shoulders, and he tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling", which sounds very awkward and uncomfortable. Upon being confronted with the memory, Patch gives the predictably vague explanation that "It’s complicated". No. No, it isn't. All that has to be said is "Remember how I told you that the archangels are pissed at me for falling in love with you? I have to pretend that I'm with Marcie, to fool them into leaving us alone. I don't feel anything for her". Nora already knows half of that and should have guessed the other half, if she had a brain which she apparently doesn't. Why is this being spun out so much? Is Fitzpatrick really so determined to keep dragging this out to the end of the book?
(Why yes, yes she is. Feel free to bang your head on the nearest wall)
Nora calls that excuse bullshit, but not because it's idiotically vague. No, she feels that "Nothing is complicated anymore-not after everything we’ve been through". Excuse me? How do the events of the last book make their situation less complicated? If anything, it's made it more complicated, especially since Patch is a guardian angel and thus not allowed to have a relationship with a human! Why can't Nora remember that detail? It's pretty fucking important!
She then demands to know what he can get from Marcie that he can't get from her. Probably the bliss of not having to re-explain everything to Marcie. No, what Patch actually says is that he gets "Not love". Well, that certainly wasn't vague and awkwardly-worded! For the love of all things good and holy, TELL HER WHAT'S GOING ON! If not for her sake, at least do it for the sanity of the readers!!! But no, he doesn't do that. So instead, we get from Nora this
"Being with Marcie was about cheap satisfaction. Self-satisfaction. He really did see us as conquests. He was a player. Every girl was a new challenge, a short-term hookup to broaden his horizons. He found success in the art of seduction. He didn’t care about the middle or end of a story- only the beginning. And just like all the other girls, I’d made the huge mistake of falling in love with him. The moment I did, he ran. Well, he’d never have to worry about Marcie confessing her love. The only person she loved was herself."
ZeldaQueen: *tiredly* More lists
FIrst of all, yes he's a player. A player who apparently had four girlfriends over the course of several centuries. Yes, I'm aware there could have been more, but we've seen no canon evidence to support that. All we've seen is that he used to date Dabria, he tried to hook up with that one chick and got his wings tore off for it, he's with Nora, and is "seeing" Marcie (in the loosest sense of the word). Of those girls, Dabria became psychotically obsessed, his relationship with the other girl apparently didn't pan out, Nora is really in love with him (...roll with it), and Marcie openly admitted she just wants a casual relationship. There's hardly an army of broken-hearted girls over this guy. So yeah, no, a player is not what I'd call him.
Which leads to my second point. A player he may not be, but that doesn't mean Nora's assessment of him isn't wrong. He is only in things for self-satisfaction. He only does things that benefit him. And yet, Nora still wants him back! Even if we're to believe what she thinks now is true, that's a terrible realization to have about a guy! He's manipulating and using people who love him, and seems to feel no remorse over it! He has no empathy at all! AND SHE STILL WANTS HIM. Fitzpatrick, do you have any idea what you're written? Your great love story is about a delusional girl who is desperately trying to win a sociopath!
Finally, if it's such a stupid mistake to actually fall in love with the guy, why are we shitting on Marcie for not falling into that trap? The memory showed that she pretty much leveled the playing field by saying she wanted exactly the kind of relationship Nora thinks Patch goes for. I'm not giving a YOU FUCKING WHORE count because the comment's for Marcie being selfish and not sex-addicted, but it still's stupid.
And to top this all off, we know how this is going. We know that by the end, we're to buy that Patch is really a fine person who loves Nora dearly and this entire assessment of him is just wrong. Bleh.
Right. Onward.
Nora has reached her breaking point (...again) and ripps off Patch's necklace. She snaps the chain doing so, and informs us "I should have winced, but I was in too much pain to notice a little more".
ZeldaQueen: I seriously don't care.
She then demands that Patch return the ring and - oh, this is lovely - he flat-out refuses her. She asks for it again, and he tells her "quietly, but not gently" that she gave it to him and thus he isn't giving it back. She is not happy at this, and goes into Overly Dramatic Mode. Again
"He was keeping the ring because he knew how much it meant to me. He was keeping it, because despite his rise in stature to guardian angel, his soul was just as black as it had been the day I met him. And the biggest mistake I’d ever made was fooling myself into believing otherwise"
ZeldaQueen: *scratches chin* Oh lordy, there are so many things to say about this. Howzabout I start with the most obvious? This here shows just how much Patch cares about what Nora thinks about things. He knows how much the ring means to her. She told him of its sentimental value to him. And now, she's making it very obvious that she wants him to give it back and get the fuck out. And how does he respond? He coolly tells her he's not doing that.
Spoilers for the end of this thing, folks - there is a reason why he's not forking the ring over now. He's having something done to it, something which is pretentious and arrogant, but we're supposed to think is romantic. So I'm sure most fans are excusing this exchange with "It's not his fault! He doesn't have the ring, so of course he can't give it to her!" But still, look at how he's going about it. He's not trying to get her to reconsider. He's not offering any explanations. He's not telling her the God damned truth, and just saying "I don't have the ring with me now, but I'll give it to you when I get it". No. He just refuses her, doing so in the most emotionless way possible. Gee, fuckhead! I wonder why she thinks you don't actually love her!
Then, there's the second half of that quote. "His soul was just as black as it had been the day I met him"? Since when in the last book did Nora ever act like Patch was bad (and I mean in a serious way, not the playful bad-boy angle), let alone black-soul evil? All we were told was how he was just a misunderstood jerk with a heart of gold woobie who just had such a terrible time of things and would never hurt sweet Nora! So where is this coming from? And why now? She thinks he has a black soul because he won't give her a ring back, but not because he put her through a terrifying ordeal at that motel and tried to murder her?!? What is wrong with her???
Finally, this whole scenario just shows one issue that I've seen in quite a few works, particularly Twilight and its knock-offs. One character (usually the male lead) will do something dickish or nasty to another (usually the female lead), with the Suethor revealing that there was some "justification" for it. Think of the sort of thing like Edward dismantling Bella's car engine to keep her safe. The idea seems to be that it's acceptable to do something horrible if it's for the Greater Good of the other person. We are seeing the same thing here. Patch is refusing to give Nora back her ring, even though she obviously wants it back to symbolize completing their breakup. Spoilers again - when he gives it back to her, it's after they've hooked up again. So I'm sure there are those who'd defend the whole thing isn't wrong in the slightest. After all, he knew Nora would be coming back to him, since she just can't refuse him! That makes it perfectly alright that he doesn't acknowledge her insistances that they've broken up! Everyone knows that it's not like she really means it, so he might as well act like it isn't happening! He's the Man, so he gets to decide when they've broken up!
Yeah. That thought process really needs to be broken into itty-bitty pieces and stomped on. It is not alright.
Patch again refuses to give up the ring, and Nora informs us that "He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to keep the one tangible reminder I had of real love". Overblown statements like that don't make this any more passionate, y'know. It just makes Nora look melodramatic. Actually, it reminds me of King Lear, when Lear starts coming up with all sorts of colorful curses for his one daughter, because she refuses to let him drag a ridiculous number of nights around when he's staying at her castle. He goes on about how angelic and wonderful his other daughter is... and then starts cursing her out as well when she sides with her sister. Please note that Lear was old and implied to be unstable even before being banished to the moors. Nora here appears to just be unstable.
Anywho, the segment is finished as we are told that "Ignoring my request, Patch walked out" which, in my opinion, sums up their relationship to a T - she asks him for things and he ignores her wishes.
The final section has Nora waking up the next morning. She realizes the necklace she'd been wearing is gone, and can't be found in her room
"But the chain was gone.
The dream was real.
Patch had discovered a way to visit me while I slept"
ZeldaQueen: And on that extremely creepy note, we end the chapter. Stick around for our next chapter, which has Police Fail! Hooray!
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 60
Onward to: Chapter 11 (Part 1)
Return to: Chapter 9
Back to Table of Contents
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 10
ZeldaQueen: We are meant to start off this chapter thinking that Nora is extremely freaked out by that text from last night. Unfortunately, we are not. Why are we not? I shall direct you all to the sentence that we left the previous chapter off on -
"The only thing a boyfriend was good for was a shattered heart"
ZeldaQueen: This is the sentence that begins this chapter
"An hour later, I'd fixed and eaten a late snack of cream cheese frosting spread on graham crackers, tidied up the kitchen, and watched a little TV"
ZeldaQueen: This is all after she received the text message.
Now tell me, if you read those sentences, would you think that Nora was upset about anything? Stressed, perhaps. Anxious, yes. But scared? Not in the slightest. It doesn't help that she describes the "fear" she's feeling in the most dull, laundry list way possible. She drones on about how she's scared, she's considering playing Chopin to calm herself (ohhhh, look at Miss Deep and Cultured over there! *rolls eyes*), how she organizes her clothes by color so she has an excuse to stay awake longer, GOD PLEASE LET SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPEN, PLEASE!!!
So yes. It's boring and stupid and only pads out the wordcount. I shall spare you. Well, I'll just bring up this
"Then again, maybe the text was from someone who wanted to slit my throat while I slept. On an eerie night like this, nothing was too far-fetched to believe"
ZeldaQueen: "On an eerie night like this, nothing was too far-fetched to believe"? Nora? DID YOU FORGET ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO? You can't bank on the "I'm so safe in the world!" card when you have learned not long ago that the world is full of monsters that would cheerfully kill you! Jules, okay he's dead. But Dabria isn't! And yeah, spoilers, it's not her. She doesn't show up in this book. But even so, this just shows how stupid Nora is! She's already had someone try to kill her for being deeply involved in the world of fallen angels and Nephilim! WHY DOES THE IDEA OF IT HAPPENING AGAIN SEEM SO UNUSUAL???
God.
Four paragraphs in, finally the plot (or what passes for plot) moves along. Nora wakes up at three in the morning with the side of her head pounding and her right eye swollen shut with "A violent purple and red bruise flowered from my eyebrow down to my cheekbone" from Marcie having punched her. Now granted I have never been punched in the face before, but that sounds rather...extreme. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds more like Nora is suffering from some sort of infected cut than a punch to the face.
Nora wangsts about being beaten up by Marcie, pops a couple of Tylenol, and then goes back to bed. Well, that all was amazingly pointless. What was the purpose of that little interlude? To show us how Nora's face has bruised up? I don't care about that, sorry to say. I also don't care about Nora wangsting and obsessing over the memory of Marcie climbing into Patch's car, which is what she spends the next four sentences doing, before finally going back to sleep.
So apparently the entire point of that whole bit was to show that Nora is an obsessive, jealous nutcase. I think that has already become readily apparent, Fitzpatrick. If we're supposed to feel sorry for her, I certainly don't. She's a loathsome little bint who clearly is too dumb to live, considering that she has forgotten about the possibility of someone coming to kill her in favor of being jealous over Patch and Marcie. And given how predictable and Twilight-like this series is, it goes without saying that Patch and Nora will be hooking up again before the book's over. The only thing that concerned me was that apparently Nora took an ice pack into bed with her, for her eye. Did she fall asleep with that still with her? Is she going to wake up all wet and cold, from it having melted on her?
Yeah, when the fate of an ice pack is more interesting than the musings of one's protagonist, something's not being done right.
Anyway, Nora falls asleep only to wake up to the sound of the lock "rolling over" . Apparently the lock on the house is actually a dog. Either that or Fitzpatrick meant to say that Nora heard the lock click, but didn't actually write that because it would make too much sense to do so. Regardless, Nora wakes up and we get this observation
"I opened my eyes, but found my vision muddled by the same poor-quality black and white as when I’d dreamed my way into England, hundreds of years ago. I tried to blink it away and bring my normal vision back, but my world stayed the color of smoke and ice"
ZeldaQueen: Now, a sensible person would think "This is the same weird thing that happened the last time I had a lucid dream, so obviously I am dreaming now". The key word here is "sensible". Nora is not that sort of a person, and thus she won't be realizing she's dreaming for another page and a half. Yes. Really. *bangs head on wall*
Right. For whatever reason, Nora fails to realize this is a dream. She also just sort of...forgets about the fact that the world has gone black-and white. She doesn't wonder if she's had a stroke or something in her sleep, she doesn't freak out, she just doesn't do anything. I might buy this under other circumstances. After all, it's not uncommon to find something weird in a dream to be perfectly normal. However I do not buy it here because, Nora was perfectly lucid and aware she was in a dream the last time she had one like this. The only reason she isn't aware she's dreaming here is because it's a dead herring. Fitzpatrick is trying to build up suspense by having Nora go, "HEY! THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT TIME I WAS LUCID DREAMING. I'M NOT LUCID DREAMING NOW THOUGH! NOPE! SOMEONE'S COMING TO GET ME IN REAL LIFE!"
*sighs* Right, right, intruder has entered the house in jig time. Nora is apparently collected enough to rationalize that there's no way it's her mother coming home early, but not enough to wonder how someone got into the house so quickly. The last book established that she locked the door, after all. Ah well. Nora sets about looking for a weapon, but can find nothing to use but a pair of tights. Because after being attacked and nearly killed several times, not two months ago, she OBVIOUSLY didn't think to buy a can of mace or at least keep a baseball bat in her room! No! That would be LOGICAL and we can't have that, can we? THAT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE!!!
GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT!
Okay, okay I'm good. Sorry.
The intruder is coming up the stairs, Nora is at the ready with the tights, in he comes, and she jumps over and wraps them around his neck. My summary has roughly the same amount of emotion as the text, but with fewer words. Here, just have a look!
"Rolling silently out of bed, I snatched my discarded tights off the floor. I tightened them between my hands and pressed my back to the wall just inside my bedroom door, a clammy sweat beading my skin. It was so quiet I could hear myself breathe.
He stepped through the doorway, and I roped a leg of the tights around his neck, tugging back with all my strength"
ZeldaQueen: I'm wondering if Fitzpatrick thinks exclamation marks are some fabled beings, like leprechauns. I mean, seriously? Nora. Darling. YOU THINK SOMEONE'S BREAKING INTO YOUR HOUSE. SHOW SOME EMOTION!!! THIS ISN'T THAT HARD!
Whatever. The intruder comes into her room and Nora, erm, strikes with her tights. She wraps them around his neck and struggles for about a second, before she's thrown forward and sees that the intruder is none other than... *drumroll* Patch!
Oh joy. I bet you were so missing him!
Patch kicks things right off by, what else, being an asshole. He yoinks away the tights and says to Nora “Want to explain?” *scowls* Do you? Nora wasn't the one breaking into your house in the middle of the night! Though, as we'll see, that's not necessarily for lack of trying...
Nora does not point this out, but does get pissed and demand to know what he's doing there. Somehow, she also jumps to the conclusion that he sent that mysterious, vaguely threatening text message to her. Hmm, yes, makes sense. I can see Patch going for a means of communication that sounds like a psycho is coming to kill her, rather than give any sort of hint that it's supposed to be helpful.
Of course, Nora doesn't ask why he sent a message worded like it came from an overtold urban legend. Instead, she demands to know why his number came up as unlisted. He explains that he had to get a new number, specifically "[s]omething more secure". He doesn't elaborate on this, so it's left to the readers to wonder what "more secure" phone options can be obtained by someone in the body of a high school student, who had no job, no references, no family, and no life outside of pool, poker, and stalking his girlfriend. We're also left to wonder exactly how omnipotent the angels in this universe are, since apparently the creators of life, the universe, and everything can be thrown off the trial by a cell phone swap.
Nora's response to this is a thing of idiotic beauty
"I didn’t want to know. What kind of person needed all that secrecy? Who was Patch afraid would be eavesdropping on his calls? The archangels?"
ZeldaQueen: Beg your pardon for a minute, ladies and gents.
*inhales deeply*
NO FUCKING DUH IT'S THE ARCHANGELS, YOU STUPID, STUPID BINT! WHO HAS PATCH BEEN WORRIED ABOUT FOR ALL OF THIS TIME? WHO ELSE BOTHERS HIM AT ALL? HE OBVIOUSLY ISN'T BOTHERED BY PUNY HUMANS OR NEPHILIM, AND IN FACT GETS HIS ROCKS OFF ON TORTURING THEM BOTH! HE'S BEEN TELLING YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER ABOUT HOW THE ARCHANGELS ARE WATCHING EVERY MOVE HE MADE AND EVERY STEP HE TOOK AND JUDGING HIM! CAN'T YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING FROM LONGER THAN TEN SECONDS AGO? DID YOUR BRUSH WITH DEATH IN THE LAST BOOK REMOVE THE FEW BRAINS THAT YOU HAD? I'VE SEEN SPECIES OF PLANKTON THAT HAVE A LONGER MEMORY SPAN THAN YOU! FUCKING PLANKTON! WHO SAID YOU'RE A GREAT, INTELLIGENT HERIONE? YOU'RE FUCKING STUPID! GOD ALMIGHT!
*falls over* I feel somewhat better now.
On a less ranty note, why is Nora acting like getting a new phone number is the height of insane paranoia? While yes, one changing their phone number for personal safety can be a worrying (situation depending), it's hardly some unheard of precaution. Hell, Nora herself should have done it in the last book, to help stave off Patch's unwanted affections. Maybe that's why she didn't. She was too rock-stupid to realize that it was an option.
Nora brings up the very good point that Patch should have knocked or something, instead of swaggering into her house and terrifying her out of her wits. Darling, haven't you realized by now that he likes terrifying you? He's not about to change that. She doesn't tell him that breaking in and entering's a crime and that he's a bastard to do that especially after sending a creepy text message to her. Instead, she says "I thought you were someone else". This, of course, leads to a moment of komedy where Patch asks "Expecting someone else?" HA HA, IT IS TO LAUGH. Nora replies that yes, she was. For whatever reason though, she doesn't actually tell Patch that she thought some serial killer was coming after her because his text freaked her out. That would be holding him accountable for his selfish behavior. Instead, she gives Patch the stage and he comments that it's three in the morning and "Whoever you’re waiting for can’t be that exciting-you fell asleep".
This is supposed to be funny, right? I'm seriously supposed to find it hilarious that Patch not only broke into his ex-girlfriend's bedroom after sending her a text message that could be construed as threatening, he flippantly makes jokes about her being scared, right? Because I don't. I find it despicable and just more of the same horrible behavior I've come to expect from Patch. Jesus H. Christ, not even Stephenie Meyer played Edward breaking into Bella's room for laughs! Romance, yes, which raises its own set of issues, but never comedy.
In any case, Patch tells Nora that she's still asleep. Fitzpatrick sees fit to dump this load on us...
"As he said it, he looked satisfied. Maybe even reassured, as if something he’d been puzzling over had finally worked itself out"
ZeldaQueen: Mighty specific deductions for a girl as idiotic as Nora is. Speaking of which, she only just now realizes that she's dreaming. Imagine! Here the world looks EXACTLY like when she was dreaming, and it turns out that she's dreaming again. Imagine the fucking odds. Obviously she couldn't have come to this conclusion on her own, though. She needed Patch to hold her hand to that conclusion. *fumes*
Nora briefly wonders if Patch really is in her dream or if his visit is just a part of what her mind made up. Normally I'd consider this a valid thing to wonder, except for two things. The first is that she already knows that Patch can invade her mind. It should be obvious this is just another form of it. The second is why else would Patch be all smugly satisfied as he tells her that he's in her dream? He just found out he can waltz in there whenever he wants, and is doing what he does best - being a dick about it.
Which is something to think about, incidentally. Patch already can stalk Nora anywhere. He can put ideas and thoughts and sounds and images into her head. And now he can stroll into her dreams. And she has no way of stopping him.
In other words, Patch the Psychopath has apparently mastered the art of inception. Isn't that a pleasant thought?
ZeldaQueen: Sweet dreams, Nora!
Nora of course all but completely ignores the revelation that Patch can go into her fucking dreams. Instead, for God-knows-what reason, she tells him that the person she was expecting was Scott. Yes, Scott. She was apparently expecting Scott to visit at three in the God damned morning. Scott, who she has not seen since childhood and gone out with what, twice since he came back? Him? She completely forgot about him for the entire last chapter! Why would she think of him now? Well, dear readers, for exactly the same reason that Bella Swan would randomly drop whining reminders about how much she loves Jacob and wishes he were around - Fitzpatrick's pushing for a contrived love triangle. Though here, I do get the sense that it's more Nora wanting to piss Patch off. Because that sounds like such a wonderful idea! Just my own thoughts, though. Nora herself doesn't even know why she dropped Scott's name, except that "[her] mouth got in the way of [her] brain". Which is silly, because her mouth can't get in the way of something she obviously doesn't have.
Patch predictably gets pissy about this, which prompts Nora to start bitching about him getting in the car with Marcie. Again
ZeldaQueen: Patch replies by telling Nora that Marcie needed a ride. Nora informs us that she "adopted a hands-on-hips pose" (just say you put your hands on your hips, you lunatic!) and makes it clear that she doesn't believe a word of it. She then - and I'm dead serious here - tries to give him a secret test of character by asking what color Marcie's thong was.
*rubs forehead* Pardon me, but DID WE OR DID WE NOT SPEND THE LAST CHAPTER HEARING HOW MARCIE'S DRESS WAS SO SKANKILY SHORT THAT HER THONG COULD BE SEEN FROM UNDER IT AGAINST ALL REASON? IF ANYONE COULD SEE IT IF SHE SAT IMPROPERLY, HOW DOES THAT INDICATE IF PATCH WAS CHEATING OR NOT?
But no, this doesn't occur to Nora, who realizes that Patch does know the color of Marcie's thong and thus has something romantic and intimate going on with her. Myself, I just want to know why the flip Nora is so obsessed with Marcie's thong.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 45
Nora rants more about how Patch is a cheating bastard with various pieces of "evidence" to back this up. It's the same shit we've heard nine million times before, so I'll spare you. Instead, let us skip ahead to Nora yelling about the oh-so-damning detail of Patch giving his hat to Marcie. Patch excuses this by saying "She was having a bad hair day", to which Nora literally drops her jaw and wigs out, shouting "Is that what she told you? And you fell for it?"
I have to ask, why is Nora so convinced that there's a devious, underhanded reason for Marcie to lie to Patch and steal his hat? What would Marcie gain by only pretending to need it so he'd give it to her? It's his hat. It's not like she was pretending she was drowning so he'd give her the Kiss of Life. And for that matter, what does Nora mean that Patch "fell for it"? It's her fucking hair. As in, on the top of her head. He can see for himself if she's having a bad hair day or not! July and Christmas, this is STUPID.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 47
Because apparently everything Marcie does is some evil plan to catch herself a man.
And it just keeps going! Patch says that Marcie isn't as bad as Nora makes her out to be, which is what I've been suspecting from the start of the book. Nora however, gets even more hysterical, points out her black eye, and generally is furious that Patch is defending Marcie. There's some "banter" where Patch seems pretty unconcerned that his Darling Dearest has half her face swollen up, blah, blah, blah, Nora thinks he loves Marcie, I hate this book.
And then, it gets creepy
"I pointed at the door. 'Out.'
When he didn’t move, I marched within range and whipped the pillow against him. 'I said get out of my dream, you lying, traitorous-'
He wrestled the pillow out of my grasp and walked me backward until I came up against the wall, his motorcycle boots flush against my toes. I was drawing breath to finish my
sentence and call him the worst name I could think up, when Patch tugged on the waistband of my underpants and pulled me even closer. His eyes were liquid black, his breathing slow and deep. I stood that way, suspended between him and the wall, my pulse stepping up as I became more aware of his body and the masculine scent of leather and mint lingering on his skin. I felt my resistance start to ebb away"
ZeldaQueen: List!
First of all, isn't this just fan-fucking-tastic? Not only does he march on into her dreams, but he refuses to leave when she tells him to do so. How lovely. Clearly, Patch respects Nora's wishes. Clearly, he loves her so much that he's willing to give her space when she's upset. OH WAIT.
In other words, he breaks into her mind while she's asleep, he gets her riled up and angry, and then refuses to leave when she orders him out. But hey, why should he be worried? What can she do to him? When she tries to force him out, he dazzles her into submission. In a creepy fucking way that makes it sound threatening.
Tell me this doesn't sound like the next installment of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Go ahead. Try it.
Second of all, this just sums up the misogyny of those two so well. The woman is shrieking and unreasonable but still powerless, while the man is oh-so-cool and collected and lets her vent her harmless frustration. And the instant she starts trying to be dominant over him? He breaks out his sex appeal to put her back in line, so she will be too busy drooling to question him.
And while it might sound like I'm looking too much into this scene, this is how all of their interactions go! Every time they fight or confront each other about something, Nora is fidgety or shrieky or hysterical or otherwise out of control, while Patch is calm and collected and unreadable. He never actually tells her anything and never listens to her if/when she asks him to go away and leave her alone. There's a distinct sense that everything is on his terms. She is entirely powerless. She can't do anything to get him to talk or leave or listen. If he does any of those things, it's because he wants to do it. And if he gets bored? He just breaks out the smoulder and she promptly forgets everything.
Now, isn't that terrifying?
Third of all, after all the sexual harassment from this series, the last thing I want to see is Patch sticking his hand anywhere near the waistband of Nora's pants.
Fourth of all, if he doesn't have a body or the ability to feel anything, why is he showing signs of arousal (the breathing and so on)? If he can't feel anything, he can't get stimulated. What, does Fitzpatrick think that the only thing about a lack of ability to feel is that Patch is denied the sensation of Nora's lips on his? There's more to it than that!
Fifth of all, since when has mint been considered a "masculine" scent?
Finally, I must repeat - "the masculine scent of leather and mint"? Fitzpatrick, it was hilarious enough when Gethesemane used the phrase, "He smelled of the sea, rum, and pure masculinity". It's no better when you use it like that!
Hey, I somehow didn't explode! Go me!
Right. Nora responds to this all by promptly leaping into his arms and mashing lips. Yeah, all of her anger? All of her declarations that Patch was a cheating douche who hurt her so inhumanly? All the times she insisted that she was over and done with him? Out the window! Bye! Hope you weren't fooled by 'em!
Nora tells Patch to not let her regret this, whatever that's supposed to mean (how does he even have control over that?) and he replies with "You haven’t regretted me once". No, but that's because she's a moron. A normal, functioning person would regret Patch from Day 1 or, if they needed time to catch on, when he caught them in a motel. At the very least, I think they'd regret him after they nearly got killed twice because of him.
So yeah, Nora starts kissing him so passionately that she thinks her lips will bruise, which is yet another of Gethesemane's favorite cliches and thus speaks quite a lot about the quality of this story.
We get several paragraphs of them "passionately" making out, which is pretty much identical to every gratutious sexy fanservice scene in every fanfiction since the dawn of time. Really, I think this whole thing spawned from an unholy merging of Fitzpatrick knowing her fans want teh sexy and herself wanting to write about Patch and teh sexy. Yeah.
And what's Nora thinking about at this point? Why, how they can safely have g-rated sex in the Matrix her dream world! No, really. She thinks that "if Patch really was in my dream, this whole night could be our secret. The archangels couldn’t see us. Here, all their rules went up in smoke. We could do whatever we wanted, and they would never find out. No one would"
. . . Yeeeees, because angels have never been able to get into other people's dreams before! Just look at that dream Jacob had where he was fighting - OH, WAIT! Or how about that silly, insignificant moment where Joseph fell asleep and was visited by a - OOPS, NEVER MIND!
Hell, even if one argues that Fitzpatrick is only going by her own canon, how could we buy that the other angels can't somehow get into Nora's dream and find out what they're doing? Does she think that a bunch of angels who are stronger and higher up on the ladder than Patch is would be unable to do that? WHAT DOES SHE THINK PATCH IS DOING RIGHT NOW? If he can get in, why not think that other ones can?
Whatever. There's several more paragraphs of this, which are extremely boring so I'll skip them. Nora literally has her legs wrapped around Patch's waist (er...) and he glances at the bed. If the implication is that he wants to have sex with her, again I ask how is that possible? He can't feel anything, so he won't be able to get it up. Basic biology, really.
And then, Nora touches the scars on his back. Because it worked out so well the last time she did that.
Even though the scar-touching, from what I gathered, generates random memories, Nora just so happens to end up in Patchs memory of driving Marcie home after the fight at the Devil's Handbag. She's bitching about how Vee's drink was thrown all over her, and "Now I’m freezing. And I reek of cherry Coke". I, meanwhile, wonder why a girl characterized the way Marcie is supposed to be would use the phrase "I reek of". She'd say something like "I smell like".
Because Marcie is complaining about being cold, Patch offers her his jacket.
"Marcie unlocked her seat belt, got a knee up on the console, and grabbed Patch’s leather jacket off the seat beside me. When she was facing forward again, she tugged the dress up over her head and dropped it on the floor at her feet. Other than her underwear, she was completely naked"
ZeldaQueen: I - she - they - he...WHAT.
What the fuck was that? No, wait, rhetorical question. It's quite obvious what that was. That was a fine example of Fitzpatrick trying so hard to show how slutty Marcie is that it goes well into Batshit Stupid territory.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 50
Because really? Why would Marcie do that? I can't believe that the entire dress was soaked by one cup of soft drink. And no, I don't care how stupid she's supposed to be. She's already said that she's cold. Why would she take off the dress and leave herself even more exposed? Yes, we're supposed to buy that the dress doesn't cover much, but it apparently reaches her thighs at least. So apparently in her efforts to... um, woo Patch, she forgoes having anything covering her midsection and thighs and leaves herself with only a thong, bra, and garterbelt to warm herself with.
Shortly after, she does put on Patch's jacket. Okay, so now her top is nice and warm. Her nethers are still hanging out, Fitzpatrick. Or did you somehow forget she's in a thong? Do you have any clue how much skin is now exposed? If she was cold before, she's going to be freezing now. Not to mention that there's going to be a hella lotta questions when she gets out of the car. Are we to buy that her parents aren't going to notice their daughter coming in with nothing on her lower half but a thong, a garter belt, and thigh-high boots?
Marcie starts trying to get Patch to take a detour somewhere, with the clear notion of wanting to have a bit of fun
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 51
Because it wasn't already obvious enough that she's the Whoriest Whore to ever Whore around. Nope.
Patch tells her not tonight he has a headache and that he just wants to go home after dropping her off. Marcie asks if she can accompany him and he tells her that someday she might be able to, which of course gets Nora to get jealous and start mentally bitching. After all, she's the one who wanted to stalk him to his home before it became cool!
Marcie smirks about this while putting her feet on the dashboard to show off her legs...
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 52
And then starts needling him about having broken up with Nora. Patch gets all angry and tells her he doesn't want to talk about that. Marcie drops several very obvious hints that she's broken up with her boyfriend and generally is all seductive
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 53
It's horrible to read, but not in the way Fitzpatrick intended.
Patch finally gets Marcie home. In his usual dickish fashion, he pulls the car over on the side of the road and, without even bothering to turn off the engine, tells her to hop on out. Marcie asks him if he isn't going to walk her to the door, and of course we're supposed to find this so obnoxious of her. I don't. I was taught that it's standard courtesy for a guy taking a girl home. In fact, one of my teachers related to my class a story about how he refused to let his daughter go out when her date just pulled into the driveway and honked the horn, on the basis that if he really liked her, he could get off his ass and walk to the door to get her (the date ended up driving away without picking her up, apparently).
Patch being Patch, of course it never occurs to him that one would walk a girl to the door to be polite. Instead, he says he won't do it because "[Marcie's] a strong, capable girl". *glares* Yeah, Marcie arguably is the closest example of a strong, capable girl in this series. What does it say that we're supposed to think badly of her for it? And what does it say of this series, when the girl who's treated as such is a complete and utter bitch?
There's gratuitous bashing of Marcie for touching Patch's collar and "lingering longer than was appropriate", which is rich coming from Miss Grabby-Feely over here
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 54
Marcie starts talking in a "sultry and smooth" voice...
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 55
And tells Patch... well, take a look
"You know, I really admire your willpower. You keep me guessing, and I like that. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. I’m not looking for a relationship. I don’t like messy, complicated things. I don’t want hurt feelings, confusing signals, or jealousy-I just want fun. I’m looking for a good time. Think about it"
ZeldaQueen: Now, I took one look at that and immediately thought "Thank you!" After wading through so much bullshit of Nora fussing and wondering if Patch loves her and Patch not saying what he's thinking and them both dancing around and just not talking about it, it's a blessed relief to FINALLY have a character who flat-out states "Listen, this is what I'm looking for in a relationship. If you're interested, I'm good to go if you are". And quite frankly, after wading through all of Patch and Nora's angsty relationship crap, the idea of a relationship without the hurt feelings, confusing signals, and jealousy is damned appealing. If anything, Marcie sounds like she's going about this much more sensibly than Nora, who obviously is saddled with the jealousy and hurt feelings and poor communication and messy things. At least Marcie knows what she wants out of a relationship and is able to outright state it!
Which, I'm quite sure, is not what Fitzpatrick had intended. I'm sure we're supposed to think Marcie is just so horrible and shallow. I mean, look! She just wants a quick fling! She doesn't want to latch on to a guy she's not in Deep and Pure love with! How terrible! It's almost like she doesn't want to settle down with a man!
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 60
Not everyone wants the same things out of a relationship, y'know.
Patch is pretty much all stony-faced and emotionless to this. It might just be the general blandness of the writing, but I'm just picturing him sitting there, a la Sweeney Todd in the "By the Sea" number.
ZeldaQueen: Which just makes it even funnier when Marcie leans in and has a "slow, hot kiss"
ZeldaQueen: For serious? We're supposed to see this as damning evidence that Patch now is going with Marcie? Because like I said, he's just sitting there. We've seen how Patch turns on the... um, charm (roll with it). He's not doing any of that. Hell, he's not doing anything!
But no, in Nora's jealous little mind, he totally is a cheating bastard. Because he didn't actively pull away when Marcie kissed him. Never mind that he was just sitting there like a stump, giving no indication that it's enjoyable for him. He obviously has moved on to Marcie now!
*sigh* The memory ends with Marcie climbing out of the car. Patch indicates her dress, and Marcie tells him to have it cleaned and sent to her tomorrow. Because she's Evil. And apparently yes, she really was planning on walking into the house with nothing covering her lower half but a thong.
My head hurts so much.
Nora exits the memory at this point and promptly goes into the usual overblown prose she's prone to at times like these. She feels like she's been hit, she feels like she's had icy water dumped on her, next verse, same as the first. We also are informed that "[Her] lips were swollen from the roughness of his kiss, [her] heart just as inflamed", which is so melodramatic and harlequin and reminiscent of Gethesemane Butler that I want to hit myself over the head with my own laptop. But I don't, because I like my laptop too much.
Somehow, Nora is all convinced now that Patch is really in her dream, and not that she just dreamted that he got in there. Her "proof" is that touching his scars took her into the memory, but how does that make sense? Nora already knew what happened when she touched his scars. How can she know she didn't just dream the memory that came frou doing so? She's clearly been angsting about Patch cheating on her with Marcie, so how can she be so certain that the entire memory wasn't just a product of her paranoid mind unwinding?
I suspect the answer is "Because the author said so".
Patch can tell Nora's getting pissed, so he asks what she saw. Apparently yes, the memories are random. Isn't that just such a great coincidence, that Nora only gets ones relating to the story? It's almost as great as Alice's Plot-related Psychic Abilities, in Twilight! Nora informs us that "His arms bracketed my shoulders, and he tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling", which sounds very awkward and uncomfortable. Upon being confronted with the memory, Patch gives the predictably vague explanation that "It’s complicated". No. No, it isn't. All that has to be said is "Remember how I told you that the archangels are pissed at me for falling in love with you? I have to pretend that I'm with Marcie, to fool them into leaving us alone. I don't feel anything for her". Nora already knows half of that and should have guessed the other half, if she had a brain which she apparently doesn't. Why is this being spun out so much? Is Fitzpatrick really so determined to keep dragging this out to the end of the book?
(Why yes, yes she is. Feel free to bang your head on the nearest wall)
Nora calls that excuse bullshit, but not because it's idiotically vague. No, she feels that "Nothing is complicated anymore-not after everything we’ve been through". Excuse me? How do the events of the last book make their situation less complicated? If anything, it's made it more complicated, especially since Patch is a guardian angel and thus not allowed to have a relationship with a human! Why can't Nora remember that detail? It's pretty fucking important!
She then demands to know what he can get from Marcie that he can't get from her. Probably the bliss of not having to re-explain everything to Marcie. No, what Patch actually says is that he gets "Not love". Well, that certainly wasn't vague and awkwardly-worded! For the love of all things good and holy, TELL HER WHAT'S GOING ON! If not for her sake, at least do it for the sanity of the readers!!! But no, he doesn't do that. So instead, we get from Nora this
"Being with Marcie was about cheap satisfaction. Self-satisfaction. He really did see us as conquests. He was a player. Every girl was a new challenge, a short-term hookup to broaden his horizons. He found success in the art of seduction. He didn’t care about the middle or end of a story- only the beginning. And just like all the other girls, I’d made the huge mistake of falling in love with him. The moment I did, he ran. Well, he’d never have to worry about Marcie confessing her love. The only person she loved was herself."
ZeldaQueen: *tiredly* More lists
FIrst of all, yes he's a player. A player who apparently had four girlfriends over the course of several centuries. Yes, I'm aware there could have been more, but we've seen no canon evidence to support that. All we've seen is that he used to date Dabria, he tried to hook up with that one chick and got his wings tore off for it, he's with Nora, and is "seeing" Marcie (in the loosest sense of the word). Of those girls, Dabria became psychotically obsessed, his relationship with the other girl apparently didn't pan out, Nora is really in love with him (...roll with it), and Marcie openly admitted she just wants a casual relationship. There's hardly an army of broken-hearted girls over this guy. So yeah, no, a player is not what I'd call him.
Which leads to my second point. A player he may not be, but that doesn't mean Nora's assessment of him isn't wrong. He is only in things for self-satisfaction. He only does things that benefit him. And yet, Nora still wants him back! Even if we're to believe what she thinks now is true, that's a terrible realization to have about a guy! He's manipulating and using people who love him, and seems to feel no remorse over it! He has no empathy at all! AND SHE STILL WANTS HIM. Fitzpatrick, do you have any idea what you're written? Your great love story is about a delusional girl who is desperately trying to win a sociopath!
Finally, if it's such a stupid mistake to actually fall in love with the guy, why are we shitting on Marcie for not falling into that trap? The memory showed that she pretty much leveled the playing field by saying she wanted exactly the kind of relationship Nora thinks Patch goes for. I'm not giving a YOU FUCKING WHORE count because the comment's for Marcie being selfish and not sex-addicted, but it still's stupid.
And to top this all off, we know how this is going. We know that by the end, we're to buy that Patch is really a fine person who loves Nora dearly and this entire assessment of him is just wrong. Bleh.
Right. Onward.
Nora has reached her breaking point (...again) and ripps off Patch's necklace. She snaps the chain doing so, and informs us "I should have winced, but I was in too much pain to notice a little more".
ZeldaQueen: I seriously don't care.
She then demands that Patch return the ring and - oh, this is lovely - he flat-out refuses her. She asks for it again, and he tells her "quietly, but not gently" that she gave it to him and thus he isn't giving it back. She is not happy at this, and goes into Overly Dramatic Mode. Again
"He was keeping the ring because he knew how much it meant to me. He was keeping it, because despite his rise in stature to guardian angel, his soul was just as black as it had been the day I met him. And the biggest mistake I’d ever made was fooling myself into believing otherwise"
ZeldaQueen: *scratches chin* Oh lordy, there are so many things to say about this. Howzabout I start with the most obvious? This here shows just how much Patch cares about what Nora thinks about things. He knows how much the ring means to her. She told him of its sentimental value to him. And now, she's making it very obvious that she wants him to give it back and get the fuck out. And how does he respond? He coolly tells her he's not doing that.
Spoilers for the end of this thing, folks - there is a reason why he's not forking the ring over now. He's having something done to it, something which is pretentious and arrogant, but we're supposed to think is romantic. So I'm sure most fans are excusing this exchange with "It's not his fault! He doesn't have the ring, so of course he can't give it to her!" But still, look at how he's going about it. He's not trying to get her to reconsider. He's not offering any explanations. He's not telling her the God damned truth, and just saying "I don't have the ring with me now, but I'll give it to you when I get it". No. He just refuses her, doing so in the most emotionless way possible. Gee, fuckhead! I wonder why she thinks you don't actually love her!
Then, there's the second half of that quote. "His soul was just as black as it had been the day I met him"? Since when in the last book did Nora ever act like Patch was bad (and I mean in a serious way, not the playful bad-boy angle), let alone black-soul evil? All we were told was how he was just a misunderstood jerk with a heart of gold woobie who just had such a terrible time of things and would never hurt sweet Nora! So where is this coming from? And why now? She thinks he has a black soul because he won't give her a ring back, but not because he put her through a terrifying ordeal at that motel and tried to murder her?!? What is wrong with her???
Finally, this whole scenario just shows one issue that I've seen in quite a few works, particularly Twilight and its knock-offs. One character (usually the male lead) will do something dickish or nasty to another (usually the female lead), with the Suethor revealing that there was some "justification" for it. Think of the sort of thing like Edward dismantling Bella's car engine to keep her safe. The idea seems to be that it's acceptable to do something horrible if it's for the Greater Good of the other person. We are seeing the same thing here. Patch is refusing to give Nora back her ring, even though she obviously wants it back to symbolize completing their breakup. Spoilers again - when he gives it back to her, it's after they've hooked up again. So I'm sure there are those who'd defend the whole thing isn't wrong in the slightest. After all, he knew Nora would be coming back to him, since she just can't refuse him! That makes it perfectly alright that he doesn't acknowledge her insistances that they've broken up! Everyone knows that it's not like she really means it, so he might as well act like it isn't happening! He's the Man, so he gets to decide when they've broken up!
Yeah. That thought process really needs to be broken into itty-bitty pieces and stomped on. It is not alright.
Patch again refuses to give up the ring, and Nora informs us that "He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to keep the one tangible reminder I had of real love". Overblown statements like that don't make this any more passionate, y'know. It just makes Nora look melodramatic. Actually, it reminds me of King Lear, when Lear starts coming up with all sorts of colorful curses for his one daughter, because she refuses to let him drag a ridiculous number of nights around when he's staying at her castle. He goes on about how angelic and wonderful his other daughter is... and then starts cursing her out as well when she sides with her sister. Please note that Lear was old and implied to be unstable even before being banished to the moors. Nora here appears to just be unstable.
Anywho, the segment is finished as we are told that "Ignoring my request, Patch walked out" which, in my opinion, sums up their relationship to a T - she asks him for things and he ignores her wishes.
The final section has Nora waking up the next morning. She realizes the necklace she'd been wearing is gone, and can't be found in her room
"But the chain was gone.
The dream was real.
Patch had discovered a way to visit me while I slept"
ZeldaQueen: And on that extremely creepy note, we end the chapter. Stick around for our next chapter, which has Police Fail! Hooray!
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 60
Onward to: Chapter 11 (Part 1)
Return to: Chapter 9
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