Modelland: Chapter 11-13
During the course of Chapters 11-13 we finally get to Modelland. Shit gets weird. Shit gets really weird. May Apollo and the muses help us all.
Chapter 11
Maya: In chapter 11 we meet yet another Modelland Bella and she's super short and we begin hating Dylan
Ing: Yeah, I loved Dylan for all of 3 paragraphs before I was ready to hit her over the head with something blunt
Maya: Tyra has fallen into the trap of giving characters accents and then going WAY OVERBOARD
Ing: But Chapter 11 takes us to a country that likes... making candles? and it's called Canne Del Abra. GET IT, GET IT?. So clever. OH GOD, THE PUNS. THEY HURT. We meet Shiraz here, who is taken into the pouch. But not before we're treated to a lovely preview of her language:
A tall, olive-skinned teenage girl with nervous eyes rushed alongside him. “Aéï ëì æîï áùáéì ììëú, éååùåüøååî ëì æîï,” she urged.
Ing: Such awesome language-making skills. Tolkien should've taken a leaf from Tyra, obviously
Maya: IT MAKES ME WANT TO DIE. Tyra can't even be bothered to try. There's a whole article in the NY Times about the guy who created the Dothraki language in "Game of Thrones" and how it has a whole grammar structure and phrases.Tyra couldn't give a shit. LET'S THROW RANDOM VOWELS AND ACCENTS TOGETHER
Ing: And I mean, not being able to do that is fair enough, but if you can't, don't try. Just have Tookie translate it to English all the time since she knows ALL the languages (*eye roll*). And srsly, as someone whose native language includes some of those letters (the æ and the å), that is not a language that even remotely works in any shape or form. And is Tyra trying to be cute with this? Look how adorable it is with peolpe who speak different things, look at all these ridic letters, hahaha. No, not cute.
Maya: it's not like it gets any better in the next chapter. which is basically this chapter, only somewhere else.
Chapter 12
Maya In Chapter 12 it's Sans Color where everyone is OMG ALBINO BUT THAT'S A MEAN WORD
Ing: And when I didn't think it could get any worse
“It’s Colorian,” Tookie whispered, listening to the distinct rasping, gurgling, popping, and sucking sounds. To the untrained ear, the language sounded like someone swallowing a bucket of raw oysters, but to Tookie, each tiny sound was beautiful.
Ing Swallowing a bucket of raw oysters, really! This whole 'lol foreigners' thing is REALLY UNBECOMING, TYRA
Maya: Apparently they're all geniuses except they have evil LeGizzard guards who eat people's entrails. WOW TYRA, YOU SO TOLERANT
Ing: LOLOL seriously. From SansColor we get the new Bella, Piper. Who hates when people look at her
Maya: Basically, all the girls are in the fabric pouch and they're all bitches to each other except Tookie who only speaks to translate
Ing: So to recap who we have with us on this CRAZY journey now, it's Tookie who CONVENIENTLY speaks all the languages. There's Dylan who alternates between being fairly awesome and goddamn annoying because of Tyra's phonetic dialogue craze. There's Shiraz, who is a rude asshole who tells Dylan and Tookie that they're not rpetty enough to be fellow Bellas. Then there's Piper, who is an asshole when Dylan looks at her too long.
Maya: Basically, we hate everyone
Ing: May they all burn
Chapter 13
(This is where we get to Modelland. The below exchanges don't make that superclear, so I just wanted to tell you XD)
Something shot toward them through the darkness. When Tookie’s eyes adjusted, she saw a tall creature with a head shaped exactly like a human hand, with four fingers and a long thumb. The palm of the hand contained pale blue eyes, two holes for a nose, and two full lips. Below the strange hand-head was the body of a normal human.
“Hello, mesdemoiselles! Je m’appelle Guru Applaussez, ze head of ze couture department,” the creature said in a thick Très Jolie accent, smiling with its broad mouth full of perfectly straight white teeth. “I am beyond excité you have arrived early. Your lack of tardiness deserves a round of applause, oui?”
Maya: And then we get to the stunningly confusing Chapter 13 in which I legit don't know what happened. Like there was a guy with a hand for a face or something? And they thought they were going to be eaten?
Ing: That part confused the hell out of me
Maya: SO CONFUSED. Basically, the couture guy has three hands. The location of the third hand is up for debate
Ing: The girls started getting paranoid when in the pouch. They'd heard a legend that some ugly girls get sacrificed every year. We've NEVER heard of this before, so it's kinda random
Maya: And they land and their Scout who turns out to be Ci~L who is apparently the most famous model ever (read: also Tyra) and they all beg her to show off her super speshul powers
Ing: And for some reason she doesn't like being on display. Imagine that
Maya: And then all the other Bellas arrive and one of them is Zarpessa and Tyra uses up all the words for "accepted" and then makes some up because she runs out
The mosaic face abruptly sprang to life, its bulbous eyes opening. “Validated!” it yelled. A green light appeared, a striped barrier lifted, and Veekay advanced to a holding area beyond the gates.
“Franca of Cappuccina,” the next girl in line said.
“Authenticated!” the face deemed. Franca joined Veekay.
[...]
“Documented!”
A girl with toned golden thighs stepped forward. “Bibiana of Terra BossaNova.”
“Confirm-iated!” The face scrunched up, seeming to know full well that confirmiated wasn’t a word.
Ing: I'm also at all times confused about where they are. I thought they were inside at some point, but then they were queuing up to go inside? It's like... TYRA, Y U NO DESCRIBE PROPERLY. I have no frigging clue half the time. It's impossible to conjure up what things is supposed to look like. And when they ARE described, they look so weird that I can't really figure out what it's supposed to be in any case
Maya: Did no one pull her aside and be like "dude, this shit makes NO SENSE." I know she's Tyra Banks but COME ON
Ing: I read in the acknowledgements that the editor trimmed her draft down from 1,000 pages so I can't even imagine what it looked like BEFORE
Maya: OH GOD. THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
Ing: In any case, Tyra slaps us in the face with the fact that ~SOMETHING STRANGE IS GOING ON~ Ci~L is acting weird and shoe-horning them inside, past the queue. and somehow manages to do this without anyone noticing that the girls are skipping in line
Maya: It's gone from bad to worse. Oh, and apparently they're going to be tortured. No big
Ing: Yeah, the flippant use of the word 'torture' is kinda... off putting. Another thing that confuses me. I always got the impression that they picked 7Seven girls from the getgo? And now it turns out they pick like 100 and then they have to fight for the 7 spots? Why couldn't you say this from the beginning? But I mean, suspense in the book is good, but leaving us fumbling in the dark isn't a good tactic. And of course, other things are completely transparent. Also, the word BITCH suddenly shows up in Chapter 13. For some reason I was completely blindsided by that. It felt so out of place
Maya: Everything has been very PG so far. It came out of left field
Ing: Ci~L is very eeedgy. or well, Tyra's definition of edgy. She can wipe the floor with everyone in poetry slams or something
Maya: She also has a really bizarre way of speaking. She goes from formal to ridiculously informal at the drop of a hat. I don't get it
Ing: HAHAH omg, that's basically Tyra. I mean, have you seen that Kathy Griffin stand up thing about Tyra? That's basically it. Not to mention that ridiculous cheer they made out of Ci~L's name? I can't even
Maya: OMG what was that even. It made NO SENSE. IT DIDN'T EVEN RHYME
Most WTF Moment
Ing: HAHAHA. That's my WTF moment of the day negl.
“How did that cheer about Ci~L go?” Dylan asked, her eyes bright. She raised her arms overhead, fists clenched. “Give me a big C …”
“… a little I, a TILDE!” Shiraz joined in, executing the cheer-leading moves that went along with the chant. To signify the tilde, the squiggle character at the center of Ci~L’s name, the girls made a wiggly shape with the flats of their hands.
“Come on, Tookie!” Dylan said, bumping Tookie’s hip. “What’s the next line?”
Tookie bit her lip, still feeling shy. “Uh, I think it’s throw me a lanky lanky lanky long L.” She remembered the rhyme from the playground of B3.
Maya: Okay here's mine:
Dylan pursed her lips. "Ex-cuh-yuse ME! You may be all cute and little and can run faster than an exotic feline in the plains, but hold up a sec, Mis Thang, cuz MIss Modelland, or should I say the Modelland"- Dylan mocked Shiraz-"don't have girls lookin' like you up in there either! And besides, you weren't even tryin' out, honey! Me and her saw you!"
Maya: WHAT THE ACTUAL EVER LOVING FUCK IS THAT. NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT. NO ONE. I'M FROM THE (mostly) SOUTH. SERIOUSLY. WHERE DID THAT WHOLE FELINE THING COME FROM?
Ing: IKR. Dylan's accent went out the window reeeal fast
Maya: I can't even anymore. If I wasn't already committed to this I would be done. I am filled with rage.