Ahoy, I have been swamped with life and have had no room for the horror of Twilight in my daily life. But new people around me kept bringing it up, talking about how they read all four books in a weekend and couldn’t put it down. How great it was. Meanwhile I was mentally writing their book opinions off For Ever + -100 points of coolness as a matter of principle.
And as for Twilight being a harbinger of the apocalypse, it is followed with disturbing closeness by this and its various incarnations, ALL picked up by major news sources. What. The. Fuck. I can’t even get into it right now. So I wrote about the last part of Chapter eight to make myself feel better.
This is a shoulder-arm grab of love, kids!
Continuing Twilight, Chapter Eight: Port Angeles, or Edward wants to feed you. Because that isn’t infantalizing at all.
Edward: Eat. You should be going into shock.
Bella: Oh Edward, your forcefield of Safeness protects me.
Edward: *sheds tiny, manly tear of happiness*
Bella: Just so you know, I’ve ingested three starchy, dried bread sticks. This is so relevant.
Edward: *is still preoccupied with having fulfilled his Ultimate Purpose as a Man*
Bella: For no reason, your eyes change colour with your emotions. This another great example of your characterization, along with your manly chest, pale skin, manly arms, manly muscles, and squarejawed manliness.
Edward: You could have been hurt. I just thought we should revisit that.
Bella: Oh Edward. *her bosom heaves, and because its Bella, it heaves clumsily* I have so many questions for you.
Edward: That’s fine babeh. I am prepared to provide. I am a provider.
Bella: Do you eat fish?
Edward: DON:T MAKE ME ANSWER THAT!
Bella: Why?
Edward: *Rocks in his chair. Whispers something unintelligible something about feeling violated*
Bella: You can trust me. Love is about having no boundaries. Let us become that, Edward. Let us become that amoeba.
Edward: “he seemed to be wavering, torn by some internal dilemma.” p 173
Bella: You can trust me. Edward…through my mad female skillz, I will save you from your secret, manly loneliness.
Edward: HOW DID YOU KNOW?
Bella: Like I said, Mad Female Skillz.
Edward: Wrong, I was so WRONG, Bella. *runs off into the forest* WHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYy
Bella: I don’t know why you think I’m a magnet for trouble. Being almost hit by a car and assaulted by random flannels is normal for your average Romance Female.
Edward: *still in the forest* WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYyyyyy…
Bella: I mean, the car thing, that’s totally normal. Being lost in the projects, also normal. The projects are behind city hall.
Edward: I just want to keep you alive, Bella. Because you are incapable of keeping yourself alive. *forcefeeds Bella a buttered roll*
Bella: Oh, Danger! How did you know?
Edward: I followed you from Forks. Because I wuv you. This isn’t creepy at all.
Bella: Again, instead of being creeped out in any way, I am horny. Oh Danger, say it again.
Edward: I followed you without your knowledge into Port Angeles so that I could watch you from my car. Because danger is everywhere.
Bella: I could wonder rationally “if it should bother me that he was following me; instead I felt a strange surge of pleasure” (p 174) in my nether regions.
Edward: I am unable to control my manly urges, Bella. Don’t you see, you are destined to die/ be the victim of spousal abuse/ forever?
Bella: All I want is to soothe your pain.
Edward: You don’t understand what it is to be a man, Bella. When I saw those men threatening you… *crushes the salt shaker. Bites off the tongs of a nearby fork* I was afraid if I didn’t take you to dinner, I would lose control and do something awful. Oh Bella, thank you for holding back my manly animal urges. *spits out the tong pieces*
Bella: Oh Edward…this is exactly what every female wants to hear. Hey, we’re still in this restaurant, and the waitress is still hitting on you.
Waitress: *smiles invitingly*
Bella: My urge to kill has passed. It has been replaced by smugness. I could patent the manly Edward smell emanating off this jacket.
hahaha i can’t stop laughing.
Personally, I read two twilight books and saw the series. THEY SUCK AND SO DOES THE MOVIE!!!
kristen stewart was hot, I’d thought the movie would give me hope..but it didn’t.
death to the bootsy twilight series. it’s a piece of shit!
Hear hear! I am sad for Kristin Stewart, who IS hawt, although needs to eat more, and now she will be pigeonholed as this type of romantic female forever. She will be Bella Swan forever. Alas Kristin Stewart, for you might actually have talent!
Actually, in watching the first twenty minutes of Twilight I was pretty damn annoyed at her for hesitating before EVERY WORD and looking like her kitty just died in every scene, but that might be unfair. Stephanie Meyer was probably there behind the director saying, “Less self-esteem! Much less! As if you have no reason to live! ….Yes, that’s it, great job Kristin!”
I am cracking up so hard, Cat. I am cracking up so hard and forcing snippets of this onto all the people currently online on my buddy list.
“Edward: I followed you without your knowledge into Port Angeles so that I could watch you from my car. Because danger is everywhere.”
Danger is everywhere… and so is DANGER CULLEN.
BAHAAHAHAHAAA! “And so is DANGER CULLEN” if only I could do flash animation. I would make a flash animation of that snippet. And die everyday of laughter/cultural agony.
Seriously though? Did you see the article on that 9 year old? He’s getting book deals (count em! 4!) because he sat down on his little 9 year old bottom and wrote a book about How To Talk To Girls. He is NINE. FUCKING NINE!
From The Independent: “The nuggets of wisdom from this “pint-sized pickup artist”, as some have called him, include combing your hair, cutting down on sugar (to avoid being too hyper), and knowing that while 73 per cent of girls “ditch boys”, 98 per cent of pretty girls do it. The pretty ones are “like cars that need a lot of oil”.”
Is this the era of re-establishing those tried tested and true gender norms or what? This book is on the New York Times bestseller list right next to Twilight. Clearly the New York Times is no indicator of crap or non-crap. I’m concerned as to why this concept is so novel and why it got so much coverage. I know the media likes to echo-chamber their stories, but why is a nine year old kid puppeting the social norms he’s heard from TV and his mummy and daddy so novel? Because he’s a precocious young child? Because he’s a child prodigy, as one article claimed?
No, this is an upsetting indicator of what our media, as absorbed through young people, is saying. This kid is a mouthpiece for the most basic messages our culture is transmitting. And those messages are really conservative, gender-regimed, heteronormative bullcrap. And where was our media on this? Asleep at the wheel?
Probably the only person to give a rat’s ass is Antonia Zerbasis of the TO Star and she was probably like ‘Fuck this I have bigger things to worry about like this new Afghan sharia law’.
Dude you can’t step out of line with mainstream media! Not if it involves kids. You gots to stick to the party line, obviously.
No, yeah, highly disturbed and appreciating ever more deeply the people who i can talk to who are not like ‘you’re crazy I don’t see what’s wrong here”.
applause for you.