The Sparklepire Adventures (part 4 of ?)
JACOB: Is the vampire gone now? Because it’s been too long since I judgmentally treated you like crap for not loving me for befriending vampires. It’s all their fault that I’m a werewolf.
BELLA: Were I a more assertive person, I’d point out that you have only your tribe to blame for that. Not that this book is really creepy when it comes to race or anything. Also, it was only, like, 15 pages.
JACOB: That was too long! You must be judged and lectured for daring to have formed personal ties with nonhumans!
BELLA: You are saved from having your hypocrisy pointed out by my phone ringing.
JACOB: Which I will answer and refuse to give you despite your repeated protests and I will hang up on your caller despite you pointing out that I am taking over your property in your home. And I’ll hang up without even finding out who it is, too.
BELLA: Thankfully, you are not my eternally, sparkly true love so I will actually point out what a controlling douche bag you are.
ALICE: Back! I didn’t go far. I just had to suck on a few small forest creatures to distract myself from the smell of Bella’s extra yummy blood.
JACOB: Filthy bloodsucker!
ALICE: Smelly mutt!
BELLA: Err…
ALICE: He started it.
JACOB: Nuh uh! You did by, like, living here and not hurting people. But you exist!
READER: Wait, am I actually annoyed by the anti-vampire’s anti-vampire stance? Really?
ALICE: Don’t worry, it’s a reaction to the creepy possessive controlling Nice Guy manifestation.
ROSALIE: By the way, Alice, , I kinda told our depressed, suicidal, overly dramatic brother that you had a vision of Bella jumping off a cliff.
ALICE: I feel that was a very bad move.
ROSALIE: I do feel bad about it.
EDWARD: My beautiful and eternal true love, who I knew for a few months, has died! I will now kill myself. Except that it’s actually really hard for vampires to die, so I’m going to have to find a way to get someone else to kill me. Like a super powerful vampire clan.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN LEADER: Dude, I totally like you. You should just join us.
EDWARD: Clearly, I must find a way to force you to kill me. Naturally, everything I can think of actually has the potential to force you to kill me to protect yourselves runs the risk of involving totally innocent bystanders. That is irrelevant in the face of my eternal torment.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: By the way, if you annoy us and any of your family happens to be in the country, we’ll kill them too.
ROSALIE AND EMMETT: We are possibly looking for him.
ALICE AND BELLA: We are in the country and breaking numerous laws to reach you before you do this.
EDWARD: Despite knowing that my family loves me deeply and would be utterly devastated by my death and would risk almost anything to stop me, I will not be swayed by that fact!
BELLA: Thankfully, I’m alive.
EDWARD: My one true eternal love who I cruelly dumped and abandoned and didn’t check on for months and months! I will hug you and cling to you in an utterly embarrassing way and do my best to completely control your every movement!
BELLA: My one true sparkly eternal love who abandoned me in the most devastating way possible right after being uber clingy! I will hug you and cling to you in an utterly embarrassing way and let you do your best to control my every movement!
KRISTEN STEWART AND ROBERT PATTINSON: We just read the script, and request that this be trimmed down just a teeny bit to where we aren’t too embarrassed to act this out. Also, some of this involves walking, and we’d just trip all the time.
EDWARD: My love! How could you doubt my feelings for you just because I told you I never loved you, couldn’t stand to be around you, and never wanted to see you again, stole every possession you had that hinted I even existed, and then disappeared and never contacted you again!
BELLA: Because you told me you never loved me, couldn’t stand to be around me, never wanted to see me again, stole every possession I had that hinted you existed, and then disappeared without a trace and never contacted me again!
EDWARD: You have no faith in me! None! How could you possibly use my words and actions as evidence of my feelings! I am so disappointed in your faithless yet yummy smelly self!
ROBERT PATTINSON: Please don’t make me do this scene.
KRISTEN STEWART: I have alcohol.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: Hey, we totally like this yummy smelling girl who blocks all vampire gifts because she’s Super Special. Let’s make her a vampire!
BELLA: Woot!
EDWARD: I refuse because I am determined that she will never ever be a vampire! Even though I plan to die as soon as she does and make sure my family knows it, even though I know that they will be devastated and they must live with knowing this until the time comes and I’m totally not putting the burden of my death on Bella or anything. Also, I refuse to acknowledge that this is actually all because of my selfish desire to keep her pure and human in direct opposition to her own desires for her own life.
READER: Do I actually hate his controlling ways so much that I actually root for her to be a vampire out of pure annoyance?
ALICE: There there.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: Dude, you are so melodramatic, and we thought we had that market cornered. Look, she’s food or she’s a vamp.
ALICE: We totally promise to make her a vampire. I had a vision and everything.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: Good girl. In that case, we won’t kill you all. By the way, we’re going to check on that in a bit just to be on the safe side. We may go on a bit of a killing spree if he weasels out.
JASPER AND ALICE: We are reunited and will now have an Angsty Not Touching reunion that is so awkward that it will make readers question unfailable kinks.
EDWARD: Now that we are back in the states, I will weasel out of making you a vampire despite the fact that this endangers my life, your life, the lives of my family, and the lives of all the innocent people in the vicinity because those dudes totally won’t make an example of us for deliberately doublecrossing them.
BELLA: But I want to be a vampire!
ROSALIE: Oh, Bella, I wish someone had taken that choice away from me, too.
READER: WTF, Rosalie? You were the only character besides Alice who seemed to have the potential to be interesting on your own merit!
No, seriously, someone with the context of having read the first book tell me if Rosalie was forced to be a vampire or chose to be. Because the framing of being or not being a vampire and how it relates to Bella’s desires for her life and Edward’s control make what would normally seem a fairly understandable statement be incredibly faily. Also, I’m very glad I’m reading this knowing Bella does eventually get what she wants.
I have about 15 pages of New Moon left, but I’m sure that’s just Edward weaseling out and then Jacob showing up to be alpha and judging and possessive again.
Anyway, while this is, apparently, the least Edward/Bella centric of the books, a lot of the problem with their relationship here, in terms of the plot, is that the writer and narrative are basically treating Edward and Bella like the vampire version of Romeo and Juliet (with frequent references to make sure we don’t miss it) only from the perspective of completely and unironically viewing that as a story of eternal and true love that’s unlike any other. And then that’s combined with the perspective of True Love being more important than anything else ever. As presented, it’s essentially the worst possible incarnation of “success of romantic love over all else.” Also, Edward is wuite possibly the most selfish and self-centered character I have ever encountered. Or at least, recently enough for me to remember.
And really, a lot of the things here could actually be interesting if not so, well, bad. Like, the perspective of the human who wants to become a vampire is almost always a character who will eventually turn bad, or serve as a tragic lesson, never the heroine. And it could work if Bella’s desire was based on her fear of mortality, or of weakness? But instead, it’s because she wants to be with Edward forever and ever and finds getting any older to be icky.
BELLA: Were I a more assertive person, I’d point out that you have only your tribe to blame for that. Not that this book is really creepy when it comes to race or anything. Also, it was only, like, 15 pages.
JACOB: That was too long! You must be judged and lectured for daring to have formed personal ties with nonhumans!
BELLA: You are saved from having your hypocrisy pointed out by my phone ringing.
JACOB: Which I will answer and refuse to give you despite your repeated protests and I will hang up on your caller despite you pointing out that I am taking over your property in your home. And I’ll hang up without even finding out who it is, too.
BELLA: Thankfully, you are not my eternally, sparkly true love so I will actually point out what a controlling douche bag you are.
ALICE: Back! I didn’t go far. I just had to suck on a few small forest creatures to distract myself from the smell of Bella’s extra yummy blood.
JACOB: Filthy bloodsucker!
ALICE: Smelly mutt!
BELLA: Err…
ALICE: He started it.
JACOB: Nuh uh! You did by, like, living here and not hurting people. But you exist!
READER: Wait, am I actually annoyed by the anti-vampire’s anti-vampire stance? Really?
ALICE: Don’t worry, it’s a reaction to the creepy possessive controlling Nice Guy manifestation.
ROSALIE: By the way, Alice, , I kinda told our depressed, suicidal, overly dramatic brother that you had a vision of Bella jumping off a cliff.
ALICE: I feel that was a very bad move.
ROSALIE: I do feel bad about it.
EDWARD: My beautiful and eternal true love, who I knew for a few months, has died! I will now kill myself. Except that it’s actually really hard for vampires to die, so I’m going to have to find a way to get someone else to kill me. Like a super powerful vampire clan.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN LEADER: Dude, I totally like you. You should just join us.
EDWARD: Clearly, I must find a way to force you to kill me. Naturally, everything I can think of actually has the potential to force you to kill me to protect yourselves runs the risk of involving totally innocent bystanders. That is irrelevant in the face of my eternal torment.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: By the way, if you annoy us and any of your family happens to be in the country, we’ll kill them too.
ROSALIE AND EMMETT: We are possibly looking for him.
ALICE AND BELLA: We are in the country and breaking numerous laws to reach you before you do this.
EDWARD: Despite knowing that my family loves me deeply and would be utterly devastated by my death and would risk almost anything to stop me, I will not be swayed by that fact!
BELLA: Thankfully, I’m alive.
EDWARD: My one true eternal love who I cruelly dumped and abandoned and didn’t check on for months and months! I will hug you and cling to you in an utterly embarrassing way and do my best to completely control your every movement!
BELLA: My one true sparkly eternal love who abandoned me in the most devastating way possible right after being uber clingy! I will hug you and cling to you in an utterly embarrassing way and let you do your best to control my every movement!
KRISTEN STEWART AND ROBERT PATTINSON: We just read the script, and request that this be trimmed down just a teeny bit to where we aren’t too embarrassed to act this out. Also, some of this involves walking, and we’d just trip all the time.
EDWARD: My love! How could you doubt my feelings for you just because I told you I never loved you, couldn’t stand to be around you, and never wanted to see you again, stole every possession you had that hinted I even existed, and then disappeared and never contacted you again!
BELLA: Because you told me you never loved me, couldn’t stand to be around me, never wanted to see me again, stole every possession I had that hinted you existed, and then disappeared without a trace and never contacted me again!
EDWARD: You have no faith in me! None! How could you possibly use my words and actions as evidence of my feelings! I am so disappointed in your faithless yet yummy smelly self!
ROBERT PATTINSON: Please don’t make me do this scene.
KRISTEN STEWART: I have alcohol.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: Hey, we totally like this yummy smelling girl who blocks all vampire gifts because she’s Super Special. Let’s make her a vampire!
BELLA: Woot!
EDWARD: I refuse because I am determined that she will never ever be a vampire! Even though I plan to die as soon as she does and make sure my family knows it, even though I know that they will be devastated and they must live with knowing this until the time comes and I’m totally not putting the burden of my death on Bella or anything. Also, I refuse to acknowledge that this is actually all because of my selfish desire to keep her pure and human in direct opposition to her own desires for her own life.
READER: Do I actually hate his controlling ways so much that I actually root for her to be a vampire out of pure annoyance?
ALICE: There there.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: Dude, you are so melodramatic, and we thought we had that market cornered. Look, she’s food or she’s a vamp.
ALICE: We totally promise to make her a vampire. I had a vision and everything.
SUPERPOWERFUL VAMPIRE CLAN: Good girl. In that case, we won’t kill you all. By the way, we’re going to check on that in a bit just to be on the safe side. We may go on a bit of a killing spree if he weasels out.
JASPER AND ALICE: We are reunited and will now have an Angsty Not Touching reunion that is so awkward that it will make readers question unfailable kinks.
EDWARD: Now that we are back in the states, I will weasel out of making you a vampire despite the fact that this endangers my life, your life, the lives of my family, and the lives of all the innocent people in the vicinity because those dudes totally won’t make an example of us for deliberately doublecrossing them.
BELLA: But I want to be a vampire!
ROSALIE: Oh, Bella, I wish someone had taken that choice away from me, too.
READER: WTF, Rosalie? You were the only character besides Alice who seemed to have the potential to be interesting on your own merit!
No, seriously, someone with the context of having read the first book tell me if Rosalie was forced to be a vampire or chose to be. Because the framing of being or not being a vampire and how it relates to Bella’s desires for her life and Edward’s control make what would normally seem a fairly understandable statement be incredibly faily. Also, I’m very glad I’m reading this knowing Bella does eventually get what she wants.
I have about 15 pages of New Moon left, but I’m sure that’s just Edward weaseling out and then Jacob showing up to be alpha and judging and possessive again.
Anyway, while this is, apparently, the least Edward/Bella centric of the books, a lot of the problem with their relationship here, in terms of the plot, is that the writer and narrative are basically treating Edward and Bella like the vampire version of Romeo and Juliet (with frequent references to make sure we don’t miss it) only from the perspective of completely and unironically viewing that as a story of eternal and true love that’s unlike any other. And then that’s combined with the perspective of True Love being more important than anything else ever. As presented, it’s essentially the worst possible incarnation of “success of romantic love over all else.” Also, Edward is wuite possibly the most selfish and self-centered character I have ever encountered. Or at least, recently enough for me to remember.
And really, a lot of the things here could actually be interesting if not so, well, bad. Like, the perspective of the human who wants to become a vampire is almost always a character who will eventually turn bad, or serve as a tragic lesson, never the heroine. And it could work if Bella’s desire was based on her fear of mortality, or of weakness? But instead, it’s because she wants to be with Edward forever and ever and finds getting any older to be icky.