Have you never clung to the back of a teenage vampire as he runs through the trees? Then you have not loved.
Now for the first undulating climax of Bella and Danger Cullen’s epic love story. I bring you Chapter 8: Port Angeles, or, Rapists Are Everywhere!
We rejoin our heroine shortly after she has made one of the toughest decision in her whole life: to love.
She’s on the way to Port Angeles with Jess and Angela to go shopping. Along the way, we learn that Bella never had a boyfriend in Phoenix. Why? Her friends ask, since Bella has made it clear that Phoenix is better in every way than Forks.
“Because no one ever asked me,” says Bella. Because thought Bella may be embarassingly inexperienced at wuv, (like me!) she is totally willing to take matters into her own hands by Not Asking Anyone on a date Ever. Because if boys don’t ask you out, you’re probably ugly.
Oh Bella, despite your charming shyness and inexperience, you are still desired by many boys – even though they are dirty/repulsive/blue-collar Forks boys. I am also inexperienced and never take the initiative, but clearly this only entitles me to more male attention than if I was a) nice to people or b) took responsibility for any of my actions. Hooray!
Also, since Bella is cruelly pale, slim and clumsy, she doesn’t fit the ‘girlie’ profile. I can also relate to that, Bella! I also, am not 6” with long legs and blonde hair! Thank you for representing me and all the other grrlz out there! Also, it is totally appropriate for you to disdain impractical cookie cutter girliness. Bella is her own woman. She doesn’t need high heels and semi-formal dances. As long as she humours those inbred Forks girls while they’re trying on dresses and stupid, strappy heels, she can seem as though she cares about them and isn’t thinking about a) how shallow they are b) how fitting in is for LOSERS or c) Edward *squee!*.
After the horribly long time in the dress store where Bella selflessly complimented both Jess and Angela “generously” and returned the dress rejects to the rack, she decides rationally to split with the other girls and go to a bookstore that she doesn’t know how to find in a town that she doesn’t know at dusk. Bella is so independent. She doesn’t need to do girlie things like stay in groups. She’s a real woman. I admire her.
Bella ends up “meandering” through the streets, but because she’s so preoccupied with thoughts of Danger, she doesn’t realize that she’s lost until it is…dun dun…TOO LATE. Bella, adorably unable to a) carry and cellphone or compass and b) have any sense of direction whatsoever, is suddenly alone. Suddenly, SO SUDDENLY, there are faceless, undescriptive empty streets everywhere, full of plot holes and clichés that beckon to her.
How has this happened? Oh Bella! Like a normal girl, you made a few (may be 20) wrong turns and now you’re in the projects. Gasp! What is the fear of every young, beautiful only slightly pretty white girl?
Random guys: *menacing laughter*
Bella: Oh, woe, for I am so lost. How shall I escape from this orchestrated situation that is not my fault?
Random guys: We’re wearing flannel
Bella: Surely, you don’t want to have…sexual relations with me, like every other guy in this book?
Random guys: Of course we do.
Bella: I’m so scared and helpless! *lighting crashes*
Random dudes: Hey, look at that, complete and utter darkness has fallen.
Bella: *sob*
Random dudes: Didn’t you know, stranger rape is the only way that rape happens. Rape is all about the sex.
Bella: If only I was less attractive!
Random dudes: And surely you also know that there’s only two breeds of men in the world: Men who Rape You and men that Save You. We are the former. Prepare to become a repressed sexual cliché, little girl!
Bella: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Edward: Here I come to save the day! *accompanied by a thunderous round of Ride of the Valkyrie*
Bella: Oh Edward!
Edward: Come with me if you want to live
Bella: Oh, yes, Edward, yes! Yes yes yes, oh YES! RIGHT THERE< EDWARD!
Edward: The name is Cullen. Danger Cullen.
Bella: How did you know where to find me, Danger?
Edward: Don’t talk about this now. I must fight manly territorial urges. NURGH NURGH NURGH
Bella: Oh Edward!
Edward: Please, use your feminine ways to calm me.
Bella: Since I am not a boring, cookie cutter Mary Sue, I don’t know how to be a stupid, comforting girly girl. I will make awkward conversation instead.
Edward: Oh Bella, you’re so different from all the other girls
Bella: Oh Edward! You’re so different from all the other boys!
Edward: WUV
Bella: WUV
To be continued!
nice nice..
God! Is there a Mary Sue handbook or something?
Yes. Twilight may or may not be the Golden Tome of Mary Sue. This thing was on the New York Times bestseller list! It was a New York Times Editor’s Choice! It was A Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year. It was also an Amazon “Best Book of the Decade…so far” book.
What the. Fuck? Not sure if secretly all of these organizations sat down with Stephanie Meyer and worked out secret share deals in her Twilight Empire or whatever, or maybe all the radical feminists were right and it is ALL a part of a massive conspiracy by the Powermad Patriarchy (mwa ha ha, get the girls while they’re young and fresh!) or just…I don’t know, they sat down and decided that Shitty Teen Vampire Fantasy needed to be popular right now? There is no excuse for any one of those organizations to give Twilight a passing grade. There is NOTHING good about it.
Just…you know for a few chapters there I was thinking, okay, maybe I was being too hard on it the first time I read it…then this damn Port Angeles chapter comes along and I can barely contain my rage at everything that either Mary Sue or Jerry Stu or whatever have to say.
Stephanie Meyer had an adolescent mormon fantasy and wrote an entire book on it. And the new York Times put it on their Editor’s Choice and a billion girls fell in love with a angsty, controlling, protective Jerry Stu. Dear God, this is the world we live in.
Dear god, this is hilarious. The absolute wishy-washy ness of this series is exactly why I turned back to the Lecter books for mental entertainment.
lol Shockingly I suspect that the morals in those books are still slightly better than those in Twilight, despite you know, the killing and/or eating of people.
And on that note, Wow, did Thomas Harris EVER bomb it hard with Hannibal Rising. In my opinion, anyway. The whacked dreamy completely ambiguous ending for Hannibal annoyed me when I first read it, but upon later reading I decided that it was ridiculously awesome and utterly against the grain of the genre.
What, Hannibal sucking expensive wine from Clarice Starling’s bounteous tit? The mind can barely comprehend.
“come with me if you want to live”!!!
milk just came out of my nose.