I just wanted to see a few feathers, that's all!

That's right boys and girls, feathers lead to babies.
vampire babies.

Speaking of things leading to other things, can we get a Footloose/Twilight mash-up going here?


Also, why aren't they remaking footloose with Robert Pattinson?
We already know he can pull off the wardrobe

And its exactly the type of awkward movie he would love!

I rest my case.

Eclipse: Edward's Bed

Oh, June 30.

Eclipse Solo: Want You Bad

Oh, Edward. You ARE too nice! Just do it already.

Want You Bad
(Bella Sings)

If you could only read my mind
You would know that things between us
Ain't right
I know your arms are open wide
But you're a little on the straight side
I can't lie

Your one vice
It's you're too nice
Come around now can you see

I want you
All tattooed
I want you bad

Complete me
Mistreat me
want you to be bad bad bad bad bad
















(Ooops, wrong badass vampire)

If you could only read my mind
You would know that I've been waiting
So long
Someone almost just like you
But with attitude, I'm waiting
so come on

Get out-of-clothes time
Grow out those highlights
Come around now can't you see
















(Oh Edward. You can keep your highlights and still be badass!)

I want you
In a vinyl suit
I want you bad

Complicated
X-rated
I want you bad, bad, bad, bad, bad
Bad

Don't get me wrong
I know you're only being good
But that's what's wrong
I guess I just misunderstood

Go!

I want you
All tattooed
I want you bad

Complicated
X-rated
I want you bad

I mean it
I need it
I want you bad, bad, bad, bad, bad
Bad, really really bad

The Virgin Edward

What's the real reason Edward is so reluctant to seal the deal with Bella? And I'm not talking about making her into a vampire. I'm talking about the other deal that needs sealing.

Why won't he just get it over with? Why does it take the better part of 4 books? Saga indeed! It's quite perplexing.

Maybe he likes boys? Probably not likely, since he eventually does let Bella into his legally-married pants.

Maybe he can only do it in Portuguese? Possibly.

Maybe he is a never-nude? He might be. And that might inhibit certain things, especially if Bella is turned off by cutoff jeans.

Sidebar: Supposedly Edward was a virgin when he met Bella. And while a vampire is first and foremost interested in quenching his literal thirst, we are told that vampires also do have human instincts and urges buried down deep inside. In the book it is explained that for Edward it was Bella who made him feel human (i.e. icy and bothered) and so it naturally follows that this is the first time as a vampire he has been interested in participating in human...activities.

So the real question is, why then was Edward a virgin as a 17-year-old human?


Was Carlisle the first person to see Edward and think "I'd tap that"? Really?

Was human Edward not hot? Not likely! Take away the speed, take away the strength, take away the sparkle (DO NOT TAKE AWAY THE SPARKLE) and Edward is still one fine-looking and imminently beddable bloke. (Yes, I said beddable. Which, not coincidentally, spellcheck wants me to change to bedazzle.)


Was he impotent as a human? Maybe t'was Bella who put the bite in his bat if you know what I'm saying (you always know what I'm saying). Hmm. Not likely, for a healthy 17-year-old-boy. Well, healthy until the Spanish influenza hit.

Maybe he liked boys? Perhaps!

Maybe he lived in a non-existent Stephenie Meyerville where no one has premarital sex or drinks alcohol because they are "moral"? Likely.

Or, mayhaps he is a liar? Proven!

Oh, Edward.

What do you think made Edward keep the vampire in the coffin, so to speak?

TWSS: 4-bying

I think adding a hyphen to 4-bying might detract from its colloquial roots (as does using it in a sentence with the word "colloquial"). But enough of my linquistic musings. That is not why we are here (TWHS).

Without further ado (TWHS)

PART ONE

"For a long while conversation was impossible, because I was bouncing up and down like a jackhammer"

PART TWO

"He seemed to enjoy the ride, though, smiling hugely the whole way."

That's what she said

What We Do Know: Part XII

It's dangerous!

"I wanted a real honeymoon with Edward. And, despite the danger he feared this would put me in, he’d agreed to try." - Bella in Breaking Dawn

What We Do Know, Part VII

"Edward's very fast." -Esme

"I hope you enjoy disappointment." Edward, to Bella

The Young Adult

Edward holds Bella in safe, non threatening ways.

I feel like the publishing world is monstrously out of touch with youth. I'm not really one to judge -- when I was considered a young adult, I also was out of touch. I feel that I started middle school at age 40 and steadily regressed in age. I now have the humor of a 12 year old boy, and the giggles of a 12 year old girl (although, most 30 yr olds have my sense of humor, so maybe we should redefine our understanding of age). But I digress...

More specifically, these people are out of touch with Women. Girls, Females, Ladies. Whatever. 

Guess who else is out of touch? Stephen King. 

I am too lazy to quote anything, so read This article. 

OK, if you are as lazy as I am, you probably won't click on the link, so I will paraphrase poorly as I go. 

First off, King takes a crack at Meyer's writing style. Fine, whatever. They're in the same business, and that is his professional opinion.

 But soon after, he takes a crack at psycho-analyzing the young adult female. Apparently Twilight is so appealing to girls (my emphasis, King's oversight of the fact that Twilight appeals to the adult female as well) because the sex is presented in a non-threatening manner. 

...

Well excuuuuuse me for not jerking off to the latest Jerry Bruckheimer crime series. 

Apparently I should have checked with Mr. King -- now an expert on female sexuality -- before finding all that covertly sexual sexless sexiness... sexy. Apparently, young women are not ready to deal with all those naughty feelings that come along with being attracted to someone, and that is why we like a story to remain subtle. 

Or maybe (and I'm going out on a vibrating limb here) all that subtlety causes the feelings in the first place you moron! 

P.S. Do you know what a clitoris is? Just checking.

Perhaps the article is unfair. It is very short. Maybe they just took a few enticing samples (Rita Skeeter style) and thus morphed King's in-depth analysis of why a girl might have a hard time dealing with themes of sex and sexuality while going through puberty. Like, how women historically have been discouraged from understanding that we too, have libido. Like how women are presented with two choices. Slut or Prude. And maybe, just maybe, women enjoy subtlety, not because we are afraid of our feelings, but because it circumvents those two restrictive, derogatory terms. A sneaky way to sex.  Oh wait, that's not King talking. That's me. 

In my very first TDH post, I too wondered at Stephenie Meyer's choice to make the novels squeaky clean. I am pretty sure a lot of it had to do with publishing restrictions. The publishers probably have some sort of weird Young Adult guideline that fits the teenage market about as well as an abstinence only sex ed class. Really, the guidelines exist to make the product marketable to the parents who will be looking for acceptable reading material for their kids. That is my humble opinion.

I am convinced that Stephenie Meyer tamed the books down a bit for the young adult crowd, but the books are still riddled with complex themes.  Stephen King calls the sex in Twilight a "safe joining of love". What is so safe about having a boyfriend that refuses to sleep with you because he is afraid it might kill you? That is a heavy, dangerous theme right there. Also, having a boy watch you while you sleep without you knowing? Slightly creepy. But Edward is a character of strong moral fiber, second only to Harry Potter (Harry Potter has a cleaner track record when it comes to killing), and readers soon understand that he isn't the dark, lurking character at all (though he certainly can be dark, and he does do a lot of lurking). Not the one you think of when you see a poster of a "dame" looking over her shoulder into a dark alley... an alley that is supposed to strike fear in our hearts at the same time that it excites us. Does it bother anyone else that a message that hints toward succumbing to the thrill of a stalker is considered 'safe', yet a sex scene between two consenting adults is too 'dangerous' for young readers? What if Edward was a wrong-side-of-the-tracks teenage vampire? Would that make the stalking less appropriate?

 

In conclusion, this post has absolutely no core train of thought. Everyone is dumb. Also, the women I know who enjoy Twilight don't strike me as having trouble dealing with all those feelings. 

You know what I think? I think King is just embarrassed because Edward's icy touch makes him hot and bothered. What what!

Body Mutilation - book 4

This is what I have been thinking about lately. The explicit description of Bella's childbirth versus the lack of description of sex, which -- and this may be news -- is actually how babies are made in the first place! Why is one description more acceptable than the other? A baby slowly (though unintentionally) destroys Bella up until the actual moment of childbirth, which is a very violent event, with bones breaking, spinal chords snapping, projectile blood-vomit... oh yeah, and a C-section! This total mutilation of her body is accounted for second by second. Now flip back a few pages... to the part where both Edward and Bella claim to have the best night of their lives. Doing what? biting pillows? sitting in the ocean staring at each other? Wasn't this moment in their relationship almost as big a milestone as Bella being turned? Think about it. They had decided she would become a vampire before they decided they could have sex. So its a really BIG deal, right?

The author wrote the violent end of Bella's human life very well. If I hadn't already decided to distance myself from the storyline due to my own rather violent reaction to finding out bella was pregnant (her revelation and the chapter following it will require entirely separate entries), I probably would have been able to really get into the story and be really scared for Bella... but I digress. 

The whole series is about these two characters who have a painfully haphazard relationship. Most of the details are about how painful everything is, being apart, being together in a restricted sense, being together but risking everyone's life around them including each other's, blah de blah. The theme of restraint is arguably what makes the book so addicting in the first place. Repressed feelings and sexual tension, impossible love = page turner, right? Bella says it herself... the anticipation is sometimes more exciting than the action. But by the fourth book, we've moved into the realm of the not so subtle.  So when the author skips over the sex part and goes strait to "oops I'm a bit bruised", and the other morning-after consequences, it just doesn't seem to fit. Or maybe it does... maybe she's more about the consequences than the action. For every kiss, there are ten pages of descriptions of Edward's wild eyes and tense jaw, and oh yeah, he feels so guilty about it all that he's damned himself to an eternity of sweater vests and khaki (a failed attempt to dissuade Bella, perhaps?)

So maybe there is nothing to read into. Maybe the sex/pregnancy conundrum is just following the normal pathways of the book. Maybe these books weren't written for a women studies major to overzealously analyze. Maybe it has nothing to do with the deepset religious mores that many in the US grew up around -- pregnancy being punishment, sex being dirty, etc. Or maybe the entire series is one crazy moral lesson about the consequences of our actions? This is what happens when you trade the khaki skirt for a motorcycle helmet and start drinking caffiene! Of course I can only guess if the author meant for us to find these themes. I doubt whether Meyer was doing anything intentionally besides writing a great love story, but our subconcious rarely lets us escape such powerful cultural markers (*cough* mormonism *cough*). Which is probably why the books are so addicting in the first place. Who doesn't understand the woes of repression? 

But still... isn't the point that they stay together despite all of this because love is worth it? The happiness outweighs the pain? Shouldn't there be some accounts of intense joy for these two? Is it really so hard to describe a pleasurable experience in a non-graphic way (if that is really the issue here). A happy medium? 

Apparently snogging is ok, and attempting to seduce your vampire boyfriend is ok, and feeling frustrated is ok, and being ripped apart inside out from a demon baby is ok. But sex is something that we readers don't need to read, or shouldn't want to read, or are too young to read about. Sex is personal and private, but to my knowledge so is childbirth, especially if you're vomiting blood. And I don't think either can really be called "Adult" themes anymore. Isn't the whole point of a story to go through the person's experiences with them, to empathize (see future blog about Jacob's Chapter for more of my thoughts on this)? Weren't we all clumsily gawking with Bella, hanging on to Edward's every word, losing sleep over the anticipation of what would happen next? What did happen? 

Bella is so absorbed by pleasure that she doesn't remember anything.  The erratic memory doesn't surprise me (it is very bella). But for all the shortness of breath and heart stopping and hands gripping hair that we get with a liplock... really? Not even foreplay? I will say, the morning after descriptions were great, and if Meyer really wants to keep it a fade away from the sex type of book thats fine (maybe its difficult to put into words), but there are implicit routes she could have taken, to help the reader better understand this new dimension in the 1600 page relationship. Seriously!

I just have a hard time grasping what makes it ok for a girl to have her body torn apart, in detail, but not to feel pleasure, in detail. I mean, now we are just all going to have to imagine for ourselves what went on in that ocean! Right? Or maybe thats just me... afk.