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Literature: Anita Blake

Once upon a time, there was a necromancer/animator/vampire executioner living in The Unmasqued World. She was a Chaste Hero who moved among the various vampires, werewolves, fairies, other were-animals, etc. in her world, solving crimes and kicking ass. Though she repeatedly said "I don't date vampires, I kill them" (well, vampires who are getting up to terribly bad things, anyway), she ended up blackmailed into dating one, as well as a werewolf, leading to an infamous Love Triangle. First she slept with one. Then the other. Then she took some time off to think about things.

Then came the novel Narcissus in Chains, which turned Anita a living member of Belle Morte's line. Books after this one usually require Anita to sleep with her male harem. This has led to a Broken Base, is considered Jumping the Shark, Hatedom, etc., etc.

For most of the books, the basic storyline is as follows:

Anita is at her "day job" and meets up with a shady, suspicious character that she suspects is up to no good, who tries to hire her for something. Her unscrupulous, proudly 'grey hat' boss coerces her into taking the case, while Anita threatens him and the client with either quitting or doing them grievous bodily injury. Anita speaks with her various love interests. Anita is called to a crime scene by the RPIT squad (or other law enforcement, if she's traveling) for some gruesome crime scene that will turn out to be relevant to her own case later on. At some point, she'll need to raise a zombie for something; this may involve using her own blood as a sacrifice in replacement of her preferred (chicken). Anita tries to reconcile being a Christian with being a necromancer. The plot goes on for a while longer before Anita finds out that the person who hired her in the beginning is the real Big Bad. She kills a bunch of vampires/monsters/people, overdoes her new magical ability, and wakes up in the hospital. In the later books, expect sex to be included somewhere, as Anita essentially becomes a succubus.

The spoiler tags below are sporadic. Be warned.

As Merry Gentry now has its own page, please put applicable tropes there.

Tropes found in this work:

Action Girl: there's no doubt that Anita's good at killing things.
Anime Hair: In the later books all the men have long, flowing, rippling hair described as, for example "metallic gold" or "black silk," and may be "foaming." The hair is also unusually long, ranging from mid-back to ankle-length.
Anti-Hero: Anita Type IV. Edward started out as Type V but since acquiring a family seems to be dropping into Type IV as well.
Anti-Villain: Jean-Claude, Type 1
Artistic License - Biology: It becomes an issue in some books that lycanthropes (particularly, but not only, werewolves) don't like to deal with police because police take issue with dominance fights that leave corpses. Fair enough, but the issue is that there's explicit evidence (in terms of Marmee Noir being a were-cave-lion before being turned into a vampire) that the magical virus causing lyncathropes is as old as humanity, or nearly so, and may have co-evolved with us. The issue here is that if you check The Other Wiki's article on wolves, it becomes clear that wild wolves mostly mate for life and live in nuclear families, not large polygynous packs, suggesting that this pattern didn't come from a wolf-inspired culture. Also, even those animals which DO have males fighting for dominance, ESPECIALLY those which (like humans) have an s-type breeding strategy (that is, few children with a lot of resources invested in rearing them, and a long lifespan) generally carry out those fights in ways which are less lethal (deer using their antlers to push the other back, rather than gore; cats fighting with sheathed claws). The point here is that the winner gets to breed (with that female, that time around); the loser has an incentive to live to fight again (possibly somewhere else) rather than escalating.
- Hamilton claims that women can get pregnant with hybrid wolf/human fetus due to the male partner's lycanthropy, but a human woman's body would simply reject animal sperm.
Author Appeal: Becomes more obvious as the series progresses.
Author Avatar: Anita is an avatar for Hamilton, to the point where the latter brags in her blogs that she's so "creative" she forgets that she's not Anita and confuses their two lives. She seems to think this is awesome.
Badass Normal: Edward and the RPIT squad.
Becoming the Mask: "Ted" started out as just another of Ed's aliases. Not so much anymore.
Bigger Is Better In Bed: Let's just say there are a lot of cases of this and leave it at that.
Black Bra and Panties: In "Blue Moon" they are specifically noted to be a matched set.
Broken Bird:
- Presumably Anita, with her dead mother and broken engagement, is supposed to be one of these—more obvious in later books. Others have it worse, too.
- Every were in Anita's harem has some tragic backstory or another. It's a running joke with anti-fans that Anita likes to collect broken men so she doesn't have to do the work herself.
- Cherry: She was a nurse, until she was outed as a wereleopard. A swift boot followed, as well as a major personality shift.
But Not Too Black: The most prominent African-American character, Vivian (not Vanessa), is described to resemble "coffee with enough cream to make it almost white" with "pale, blue-grey eyes."
- Jamison Clarke, an African American animator, is described as a green-eyed redhead.
- Anita herself could qualify as a Hispanic version-though her ethnicity is continually touted throughout the books, she is paler than most Caucasians and is totally ignorant of any Spanish traditions or cultural customs, the latter of which is somewhat disconcertingly implied to be a good thing (see Unfortunate Implications below). While it is worth noting she is only half Mexican while also half Anglo-Saxon, it's strange everyone generally makes a such fuss about her ethnicity and how she's so "exotic," when she isn't visibly Hispanic and has very little cultural background.
But Not Too Bi: As of Kiss The Dead, the men in Anita's harem are not bisexual, but "heteroflexible."
The Casanova: Jean-Claude, until he met Anita, who made him (mostly) monogamous and Master of the City. He still plays the part at his club, though.
Character Development:
- In Obsidian Butterfly, Edward's character gets much more attention than in previous books where Anita describes him as Batman (He swoops in, saves your ass, and then disappears). It turns out that the cold-hearted perfect killer has found himself trapped because of his alter-ego, Ted Forrester. Ted had been in a relationship with a woman named Donna: a widow with a little girl named Becca and a teenage boy named Peter. Edward had gotten so caught up in pretending to be Ted that he got engaged to the woman only to realize he was engaged to the woman. However, Anita later discovers that a small part of Edward actually wanted to be part of their family despite knowing better.
- Jason Schulyer has received considerable amounts of development. He starts out as a Handsome Lech and somewhat of a Jerk Ass but as the series continues, he matures and actually becomes a responsible, reliable friend/lover to Anita all while still being genuinely funny and charming.
Chaste Hero: Anita, until "The Killing Dance." Then after "Blue Moon" she was having sex with both Jean-Claude and Richard. After that it was no longer that way.
A Chat With Satan: Anita has a gut-checking chat with the Dark Lord in just about every book. Sometimes he's a conscienceless hitman, sometimes she's a necromancing grandma, but every time they try to hold up the mirror.
The Chessmaster: Looking through the books, it is very rare to find one that ends with Jean-Claude worse off than he started, and whenever we find out one of his goals, he achieves them. Including Anita.
Cold Sniper: Anita doesn't actually use a rifle, but alternatively broods about and revels in her ability to gun down potentially innocent people in a public setting with a completely empty mind, afterward feeling no trace of regret or pity.
Contemptible Cover:
- The early ones, in which the books were actually about murders, necromancy, supernatural politics and so on. Later, of course, the covers became a perfectly accurate forecast of their content.
- Made worse by the most recent releases that just feature a sexy, half-naked woman staring up at the reader with no indication of supernatural anything. The former books would usually have some supernatural elements on the cover—a wolf, a creepy tree, gravestones, a full moon, etc—but those went out the window as the plot turned to focus more on sex.
- Hell, some of the latest covers imply these books are novelizations of the Saw series.
Creator Provincialism: The narrative focuses on Hamilton's hometown of St. Louis, but supernatural events take place all over the world, and Anita frequently travels for her work, especially later in the series.
Dear Negative Reader: Trope Namer.
Depraved Dwarf: Can you say 'Nicky Bako?'
Deus Sex Machina: in later books it's used and abused to no end.
Double Standard: Anita can have sex with just about anyone to slake the ardeur, but none of the men can have sex with each other, only Anita. This is later changed due to Anita's sudden bisexual feelings and she enjoys watching all the guys in her harem get it on with each other while she watches and has one of them servicing her as well.
- Anita uses the ardeur to coerce men to have sex with her, and this is portrayed as acceptable. Yet when a woman tries to do the same to Anita, the woman is villanized for doing so.
Double Standard: Rape�Female on Male: Anita frequently uses the ardeur to force men to sleep with her- London's screaming and begging for her to stop did not sound like he wanted to have sex with her. Of course, every time Anita uses the ardeur to do that is always treated like a normal, consensual sexual encounter.
- It is, however, questionable if all of these encounters have Anita's consent either, as the ardeur can act as a metaphysical date rape drug on all parties involved.
Dude Looks Like a Lady: Micah, Nathaniel and Jean-Claude, among others.
The Eighties: The earlier books are set there. As of Bullet, it's modern day.
Emotion Eater: Some vampires, and Anita.
Everyone Is Bi: Seems that way sometimes. Everyone except Anita, who may or may not be in the closet (especially when you consider how much she worries about being a good Christian...). At least until Bullet where Anita embraces bisexuality as well.
Everyone Looks Sexier If French: Jean-Claude and his entourage.
Everything Is Better With Penguins: Anita's favorite—and comfort—stuffed animal is a penguin, and her "comfort shirt" has penguins on it.
Extreme Doormat: Nathaniel. Who said all weres were Badass? Not this one; he's so pathetic he can't ask for ketchup on his burger. Until he eventually gets all ballsy and dominant... because Anita likes Tuff Manly Men, and he wants to have sex with her.
The Fair Folk: Seen occasionally as background characters, but has been retconned out of the series. Presumably in Bloody Bones, the title character was some sort of magic-using trickster.
Fashion Dissonance: Most vampires dress in what has been aptly described as "Ren Faire porn" and Anita herself thinks it is still The Eighties.
Fantastic Racism: A lot of people hate vampires and weres because of what they are and their extensive magical powers, and frequently they are drummed out of their jobs in a subtle manner if they are "outed." In fact, every "normal" human pretty much is either a vampire groupie or a slobbering KKK-style racist (main characters excluded). Though they would, of course, be the loudest.
Finger in the Mail
- In Blue Moon, A vampire flunky delivers a pinky finger to Anita as notification that Richard's family has been abducted.
- In Bullet, A severed head is delivered to Anita's office at Animators Inc.
First-Person Smartass: Anita, who seems to think that inner thoughts are the best place to show what a witty badass you are. In the early books she makes fun of it herself sometimes; "If I was less secure I'd think I just wasn't funny...nah."
Fur Against Fang: Vampires and weres don't always get along so well especially as many vampires can control weres.
Gratuitous French: Jean-Claude and Asher are terribly guilty of this, as is Anita with the addition of the Ardeur.
God Save Us from the Queen: Anita is queen of all the "were" groups, including wolf, leopard, tiger and she's clearly gearing up for lion queendom. She's also the human servant for the vampire master of St. Louis, whom she commands because she has necromancy powers. Unfortunately Anita rules by sexing the various male leaders into submission, as well as rape, physical infighting, illegal threats, and cold-blooded murder if you get in wrong with her.
Good Ol' Boy: Edward plays this in one of his oft-used disguises. ...And is Becoming the Mask.
Good People Have Good Sex: Despite the series' reputation for raunchiness, the vast vast majority of the sex—at least among the protagonists—is more tame than a lot of stuff you could see on the Playboy channel. The bad guys, meanwhile, tend to have penchants for rape, snuff, pedophilia, or BDSM of a level that leaves the floor awash in blood.
Grandfather Clause: Briefly brought up when discussing Jean Claude's club. With vampires, it matters.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Everybody around Anita, and at times she herself, will admit she qualifies. It's pointed out enough to almost be a running gag that she's only comfortable when angry at somebody and the only way to coexist with her is to always let her have everything her way and try to never say anything she might be uncomfortable with (the term "mine field" has come up). The men in her life tend to consider this part of what makes her so desirable.
Handsome Lech: Jean Claude, but that's a given since he's the charming Magnificent Bastard. Jason is infamous for this trope, but Zerbrowski may count as well because according to both his description and his comic book incarnation, he's not a bad looking dude.
Hates Small Talk: Anita Blake repeatedly mentions how little she likes small talk, and how much she appreciates those characters who don't indulge in it either, like Dolph and Edward.
Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Anita is always having to assert her straight-edge iron straightness...until she's not.
Hell-Bent for Leather:
- Everybody wears leather. Lots of leather. They were leather fedoras, miniskirts, boots, trenchcoats, fetish harnesses, etc.
- Not to mention leather tuxedos and pants it makes you question if there are any cows left in the anitaverse
Hemo Erotic
Heroic BSOD: During Blue Moon, Anita and some of Richard's wolves torture a man for information, and end up in this. Jason snaps her out of it by reminding her that it doesn't matter if she becomes "one of the monsters" as long as she can protect the people she loves and that he would do the same.
Horny Devils: The ardeur forces Anita to have to feed on sex the way certain vampires do, even though technically she isn't one.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Strangely enough, Anita is spared from this. Richard is the poster boy for this trope. It starts off pretty reasonable, but then he decides to dump her a second time in Narcissus in Chains because he "doesn't want to be with someone more at home with the monsters than I am."
I Love You, Vampire Son: Has Belle Morte turned you? Congratulations.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Books are frequently named after businesses in the universe.
In Love with Your Carnage: Olaf falls for Anita after seeing her kill.
IKEA Erotica
I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Jean-Claude says essentially those exact words to Anita.
Interspecies Romance: Vampires and werecreatures and humans and harem.
Intimate Healing: Raina the werewolf can heal, usually during sex. Trouble is, Raina is a sexual sadist to the monstrous degree...
Jerk Ass: This list could go on forever. Both before and after Jumping the Shark.
Kiss of the Vampire
Knife Nut: Anita isn't exactly nutty over her knives, but she sure likes them. She usually wears two silver-and-steel-alloy knives in shoulder sheaths, even with evening gowns; in later books she adds a machete-like weapon on her back.
Lad-ette: Anita, especially earlier in the series, is a more hygienic version of this. She makes it very clear to anyone that will listen that's she's One of the Boys.
The Lancer: Edward and Ronnie seem to be Anita's human lancers. Jason seems to be her non-human one.
Lesbian/Bisexual Vampire: Belle Morte, who has lesbian vampire dream-sex with Anita. Also Mother of All Darkness.
Level Up At Intimacy 5: A rare non-video-game example. A triumvirate of a vampire, a lycanthrope, and a necromancer has much more power combined than the sum of their individual powers. But for it to work, all three have to be very fond of each other. A triumvirate doesn't have to be menage a trois (although, it implied, it often is), theoretically the triumvirs could just be very close friends.
Licensed Sexist: Anita
Life Isn't Fair:
No, life isn't fair, but I try to be.
Try harder, honey.
Like Brother and Sister: Edward and Anita, which is much appreciated seeing as she fucks every other male character around her save Zerbrowski and Dolph, but Anita feels the need to point this out repeatedly in every novel as if we don't believe her, and so it gets old after a while. Especially when you consider Edward's fiancee Donna still manages to be jealous every time they go on a mission together. Perhaps the lady doth protest too much.
Long-Running Book Series
Love Triangle to Love Dodecahedron: It started out as Richard/Anita/Jean-Claude, but is now Anita/Richard/Jean-Claude/Asher/Nathaniel/Micah/etc...
Magic Pants: Averted.
Mate or Die: Pretty much modus operandi of the ardeur. Comes in two flavors. First, the ardeur needs to be regularly fed by having sex (or absorbing someone else's arousal, which is hard and requires certain amount of experience); left without feeding, it starts to suck the lifeforce out of ardeur's holder and his/her mystical servants. Second, having sex can give a magical boost through the ardeur, and often it saves Anita's skin in a crisis.
Mindlink Mates: The default state of a vampire and his/her human servant and animal to call appears to be a menage-a-trois, meaning that the Psychic Link it constitutes is this in practice.
Monster Progenitor: The Mother of All Darkness may be this. Or she may be not the first vampire, but a creator of all now-existing vampire culture and society. It is hard to tell, and even Vampire Council members have different opinions on the subject.
Mutilation Interrogation
My Girl Is a Slut: Anita, after "Narcissus In Chains." In fact, if Anita goes for a few pages without sex, her boyfriends start chastising her and reminding her to let more guys bang her. In fact, saying no is now verboten. If she tries to insist that she doesn't want to have sex with X, Y or Z, then the guys start telling her that she's ruining their lives and must have sex with them to ensure their happiness. The whole risking-death of herself and other people may have something to do with it.
New Powers as the Plot Demands: Anita, even in early books—she was and is still growing. In the most recent novels this is handwaved as an explicit power of Anita's that allows her to duplicate supernatural powers which have been used upon her if they were used on her during the right set of circumstances. (These circumstances seem to be "when it happens in the course of a novel".)
Not If They Enjoyed It Rationalization:
- Anita's assorted rapes are considered okay because the ardeur intoxicates/overwhelms her victims. Though, not always by her.
- Anita herself. The times she actually wants to have sex with the people the ardeur forces her to have sex with could probably be counted on one hand.
Once in a Blue Moon: A novel is called Blue Moon, referring to both the astrological event and the "Blue Moon cabins".
One of the Boys: Particularly early Anita, aggressively so—so much so that it might reveal some troubling Author Avatar issues. One apt reader points out how Anita's gun is like a substitute penis. I.e, the only way she feels she can ever get respect is by having it with her at all times. She also insists that no one call her "girl" or "ma'am" and is actually happy when someone calls her a guy or a "son of a bitch." To even begin unpeeling the problems with this mentality would take years.
One-Hour Work Week: After Jumping the Shark, Anita almost never goes to work at her supposed job at Animators, Inc. In the books prior to "Narcissus in Chains," she regularly went to work and got in fights with her mostly unethical boss Burt, but after Ni C, she pretty much just shows up once in a blue moon to argue with potential clients. In true form with the trope, we're told her zombie raising skills earn her bucket loads of cash so that's why she never has any money problems.
Our Vampires Are Different:
- Vampires grow in power the longer they've been dead, up to a certain limit which is different for each vampire. If they become powerful enough they attain the status of "Master Vampire" which:
- Allows them to continue to exist (if not practically live) without being oath-bound to a master (whose power allows regular bound vampires to awaken (reanimate, really) each night).
- Gives them a handful of powers which, while unique to that particular vampire, are usually influenced by their vampiric "ancestors".
- Gives them a particular type of animal they can control, which gives them a limited degree of mind-control over were-animals of the same type.
- Allows them to make a human "servant" via supernatural bonds which gives advantages to both the vampire and the human, including immortality for the human servant (which resolves any Mayfly-December Romance issues if the servant is their lover).
- If their human servant is an animator/necromancer and they bond supernaturally to a were-animal of the type the can control (in a similar way that they bond to their human servant) then the three of them will form a "triumvirate" which can be used to generate a great deal of supernatural energy.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: There are many different kinds of werebeasts in this book. In addition to werewolves, there are wereleopards, werelions, weretigers (including blue, red and black tigers in the last book), at least three weredogs (their abilities are inherited not infection), weresnakes (at lest 2 species cobra and anaconda), swanmen (some are cursed others inherit their abilities like the weredogs), wererats, werebears, and werehyenas.
Papa Wolf: Do not mess with Edward's family. You WILL DIE.
Parent with New Paramour: Anita's father married a pretty tall blonde, who went out of her way to mention that Anita was her husband's previous (now dead) wife's daughter, presumably to explain why Anita looks like she came from an affair.
Polyamory: Kind of a moot point since half her harem would die without her LifeEnergy—and vice versa, eventually—but Anita claims to love them all.
The Pornomancer
Purple Prose: Hamilton slips into this on occasion both before and after the aforementioned shark jumping. The results are either incredibly funny (on accident) or exceedingly painful to read through.
Rapunzel Hair: Several, but most notably Nathaniel of the ankle-length hair.
Rhetorical Request Blunder: Anita angrily says she wants a woman's "head in basket." She is shocked and horrified when it is delivered. Worth noting that the punishment for the person was execution anyway, Anita just...got the head.
Scarpia Ultimatum: Anita has never had sex with the villains, but Jason once agreed to have sex with two villainous minions for the greater good.
Self-Insert Fic: The title characters of both of Hamilton's series look like idealized versions of her.
Sex Equals Love: Anita insists that she truly loves each and every man she has sex with. That is all.
Shapeshifting Lover: Again, way too many to keep straight.
Shapeshifting Squick: Due to above. Look into the anatomy of some of them.
She Who Fights Monsters: A big concern for Anita.
Slutshaming Anita is an active participant on a regular basis- she often sneers at women for wearing revealing clothing while she frequently dresses in some very Stripperiffic outfits herself.
Snuff Film: Anita investigates weres making these.
Sparing The Aces: Jean-Claude's reasoning for not turning...well, almost anyone.
Squick In-Universe:
- Anita is in love with Richard, Richard is in love with Anita...the final stumbling block before they agree to engagement is to see him shapeshift, since the effect of his inhumanity spooks her a bit. Shapeshifting is pretty gruesome, so clearly, Richard, the solution is the pin her down, change right on top of her, and then eat someone in front of her. Anita is freaked out, especially since as Richard is in her head, she can psychically feel not only his desire to eat someone, but the entire pack's desire to eat her. It leads to a breakup when she bolts, traumatized, and Jean-Claude steps in to seduce her while she's huddled in shock in a bathtub; she sleeps with him - regretting it in the morning. All because after incessantly badgering him through the entire book, Richard finally did exactly what she kept pushing him to do. Gee, why would the split possibly be blamed on her?
- In The Harlequin, Anita has to cut out the heart of a powerful human servant, but she is very weak and cannot grab it properly. Olaf helps her by thrusting his hand in the open wound, taking her hand and grabbing the heart together, and caresses her hand in the process. Anita gets the heart out and vomits immediately after.
Staking the Loved One: Anita gets asked to behead the body of a teenage girl before she rises a vampire. The request comes from the girl's parents.
Stalker with a Crush: Jean-Claude in the early books, who refused to accept "No."
Strictly Formula: Just read the description at the top of the page. The sex scenes also follow a general formula: Anita is propositioned by one or more people, but refuses on moral grounds. The arduer takes over, hair is pulled and mutual screaming orgasms are achieved.
Stripperiffic: Many characters, most notably Anita and her harem.
Stuffed In A Fridge: A rare male version - the very first love interest Anita has in the books ends up getting eviscerated (and his throat cut) by the second book. Richard's resemblance to Phillip makes her hesitant towards a relationship with Richard.
Suddenly Sexuality:
- Richard Zeeman is straight as an arrow, to the point of borderline homophobic, and originally, it was an issue that he tried to learn to deal with as he ascended in the pack. After his Character Development, he suddenly decided he was bisexual and was perfectly fine engaging in four ways as long as Anita was present to get her rocks off.
- And of course Anita herself having sex with a woman in Bullet.
Talking in Your Dreams: It's a human servant thing.
There Are No Therapists: So much of the recurring cast could use some couch time, especially Anita, who admits she's not happy if she's not pissed about something, Nathaniel, who has no real will of his own and Asher who still bears physical, mental and emotional scars from pretty much everything.
Three-Way Sex: that's practically the minimum.
Time Abyss: Mr Oliver is at least a million-years-old vampire. Anita pegs him as a Homo Erectus.
Too Many Love Interests: Let's see, there's Jean Claude, Richard, Jason, Nathaniel, Micah...
Tsundere: Anita is Type A, or should be.
The Unfair Sex: Already noted in all of the mentions of one-way monogamy, but Richard gets a special mention. Anita runs off and sleeps with Jean-Claude while she and Richard are still in a nominally normal, theoretically monogamous relationship. Later, after Anita and Richard have broken up, Richard bragging about sleeping around with other women is intended to show what a Jerk Ass he is now (even as Anita is moving into her "hump anything in sight" phase).
The Unmasqued World: While vampires officially "outed" themselves some time ago, the world clearly has a long history of the masquerade taking a hit or being thin in some areas.
Unwanted Harem: Anita's stated preference is monogamy, but the plot will not let her just pick one boyfriend. Heck, she has to sleep with everyone around her, period. Or else everyone included in the harem, Anita included, dies.
Two-Faced: Asher
Urban Fantasy
US Marshal: Anita is one, and she waves the badge every time she has half a chance.
Vampire Fiction
Vampire Monarch: Marmee Noir, Mother Of All Darkness, leader of all vampires, and head of the Vampire Council, the first (or one of the first) vampires in existence.
Vapor Wear: On occasions, Anita and Jean-Claude.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Phillip
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: most vampire masters get one kind of animal to control (with limited control over respective lycanthropes): rats, wolves, snakes... When Warrick becomes a vampire master, he gets butterflies. Subverted in that Warrick is overjoyed: he is The Atoner and considers his butterflies as a sign that God has forgiven him.
What the Hell, Hero?: Anita will occasionally get called on some of her bullshit, and she'll even, very rarely, acknowledge the validity of these criticisms. And then, by the next book, it's like the conversation never happened.
Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Anita often wonders about this trope in regard to Edward, who has shown up with derringers, tiny throwing knives, flamethrowers, homemade vampire killing bullets, etc. The question is answered initially because his legal alter ego is Ted Forrester, a bounty hunter, but Anita still maintains that Edward is just secretly Batman but with lethal force.
Wolverine Publicity: As shown in that page's image, one issue of the comic book featured Wolverine on the cover, despite the fact that the comic isn't set in the Marvel Universe.
Writer on Board
Yaoi Fangirl:
- Anita Blake since Danse Macabre, at least. Two men kissing, while having anal sex with each other, just gets her off.
  - Anita does seem to have a Selective Squick going on; she comments that she might let Asher hook up with another guy if it doesn't "freak [her] out too much."
- Belle Morte. When her men aren't having sex with her she entertains herself by having them have sex with each other.