Newsflesh talk remains by far the best way to get me to comment promptly. *g*
Shaun is so difficult in this book! I love him to pieces now, but it took me a while to get there (and longer to admit it, which I finally managed to do thanks to a Veronica Mars rewatch). He's such a wreck, and Deadline is really not subtle about the fact that he's being an abusive asshole and knows it. I always wish we'd gotten more of his relationship with Dave--we get more detail about Shaun injuring Alaric that time, but there are more indications of Shaun roughing Dave up more than once, and they're both obviously conscious of the abusive element in that relationship.
I absolutely hate that Shaun goes through that phase, but I also have a lot of feelings about the fact that his team stays--which I can only say because it's obviously a deliberate choice they're all making, and not a situation they're trapped in. If it felt at all coercive or inescapable, it would be so much worse; as it is, I feel like they're consciously choosing to stay there out of love for both him and George, and because they know they're literally all he's got (and because they all have each other's backs). It's a messy, awful choice they've each/all made, but it feels very real to me.
Jumping way ahead: as I imagine you know, I have a LOT of feelings about the Georgia/Shaun relationship, most of which I won't try to talk about until you've read Blackout.
I know the relationship bothers or squicks some people, and fine, I get that. I really do! But it drives me up the wall a little when people say she lied in the first book (although not as much as it does when people claim/believe that the sexual aspect of the relationship diminishes or invalidates the rest of it; someday I'll post about my feelings on that).
For starters, even if someone wants to take that stance, she LITERALLY SAYS in Feed that Shaun's the only thing that matters more to her than the truth. But beyond that, how much does she spell out about any of her emotional relationships? (I always think of things like Shaun saying in Deadline that Buffy was one of the only people who could always make Georgia smile. George herself never says anything remotely like that! And Feed doesn't have much indication at all that she and Becks had any significant relationship, but there are things Becks says in Deadline that pretty clearly indicate they did.)
When Mark Oshiro was reading through the series, someone mentioned a friend having had the "Georgia was lying!" reaction...and then that friend went and started rereading Feed, and apparently got only a few chapters in before being like "...never mind. It's really obvious."
(The text in this icon is my single favorite example of Georgia referring to that part of their relationship in Feed. *g* And there's that scene at the farm after the outbreak where she's watching Shaun work, and as someone else said at Mark Reads, "I've looked at guys that way, and it is NOT a sisterly kind of look." [paraphrased] She's awfully blatant about checking him out.)
And without saying anything about Blackout, a thing I really appreciate about their relationship is that it's clearly rooted in an unhealthy, fucked-up beginning (comments about their parents: redacted for now), but at the same time, it's a genuinely good relationship--they love and trust and respect and support each other completely, and it's fully consensual and equal. It's bad that neither of them were ever in the emotional position to have that with anyone else, but what they have is more solid and committed than many people ever find with anyone.
This is getting really long, so I'll stop there. ^^;
For anyone passing by, here be Deadline spoilers!
Shaun is so difficult in this book! I love him to pieces now, but it took me a while to get there (and longer to admit it, which I finally managed to do thanks to a Veronica Mars rewatch). He's such a wreck, and Deadline is really not subtle about the fact that he's being an abusive asshole and knows it. I always wish we'd gotten more of his relationship with Dave--we get more detail about Shaun injuring Alaric that time, but there are more indications of Shaun roughing Dave up more than once, and they're both obviously conscious of the abusive element in that relationship.
I absolutely hate that Shaun goes through that phase, but I also have a lot of feelings about the fact that his team stays--which I can only say because it's obviously a deliberate choice they're all making, and not a situation they're trapped in. If it felt at all coercive or inescapable, it would be so much worse; as it is, I feel like they're consciously choosing to stay there out of love for both him and George, and because they know they're literally all he's got (and because they all have each other's backs). It's a messy, awful choice they've each/all made, but it feels very real to me.
Jumping way ahead: as I imagine you know, I have a LOT of feelings about the Georgia/Shaun relationship, most of which I won't try to talk about until you've read Blackout.
I know the relationship bothers or squicks some people, and fine, I get that. I really do! But it drives me up the wall a little when people say she lied in the first book (although not as much as it does when people claim/believe that the sexual aspect of the relationship diminishes or invalidates the rest of it; someday I'll post about my feelings on that).
For starters, even if someone wants to take that stance, she LITERALLY SAYS in Feed that Shaun's the only thing that matters more to her than the truth. But beyond that, how much does she spell out about any of her emotional relationships? (I always think of things like Shaun saying in Deadline that Buffy was one of the only people who could always make Georgia smile. George herself never says anything remotely like that! And Feed doesn't have much indication at all that she and Becks had any significant relationship, but there are things Becks says in Deadline that pretty clearly indicate they did.)
When Mark Oshiro was reading through the series, someone mentioned a friend having had the "Georgia was lying!" reaction...and then that friend went and started rereading Feed, and apparently got only a few chapters in before being like "...never mind. It's really obvious."
(The text in this icon is my single favorite example of Georgia referring to that part of their relationship in Feed. *g* And there's that scene at the farm after the outbreak where she's watching Shaun work, and as someone else said at Mark Reads, "I've looked at guys that way, and it is NOT a sisterly kind of look." [paraphrased] She's awfully blatant about checking him out.)
And without saying anything about Blackout, a thing I really appreciate about their relationship is that it's clearly rooted in an unhealthy, fucked-up beginning (comments about their parents: redacted for now), but at the same time, it's a genuinely good relationship--they love and trust and respect and support each other completely, and it's fully consensual and equal. It's bad that neither of them were ever in the emotional position to have that with anyone else, but what they have is more solid and committed than many people ever find with anyone.
This is getting really long, so I'll stop there. ^^;