Oh, believe me, they exist.

[azurelunatic]

Yesterday at chicken camp Twilight came up. The conversation went something like this:
[Obligatory Forks-proximity/vampire joke]
[commentary]
Me: [technical correction of Twilight-vampires' capabilities]
[discussion of reading it]
Me: "So my friend recommended I read it for the characterization and it was some good strong characterization."
Her: "WTF, all the characters are so unrealistic, almost cardboard, I mean, OMG BELLA!!! No girls are like that!!!!"
Me: "...um, actually, me at 14? I *was* Bella."
Her: "OMG I'm so sorry."

I feel more sorry for anyone who has to play shrink to a Bella, because that can't be easy.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Oh trust me. Freshman year of high school, I fell head over ass in love with some poor band geek because a (bad) friend of his tried to set me up with him, and obsessed over him for the better part of a year, and totally took leave of my senses while doing this. There are multiple forms of evidence that show that the inside of my head was exactly as inane and obnoxious and obsessed as the inside of Bella's.

Note: the inside of the head of a fourteen year old girl in love for the first serious time, when you really ought to knock her out and take her to a shrunk to manage that scary obsession she's picked up, is a really, really, really scary place.

I refuse to entertain any nonsense about Bella being any older than 14, because CLEARLY SHE IS NOT.

[azurelunatic]

I think she's almost capable of functioning, for a teenager, aside from the james_nicoll-level of clumsiness (the fellow is a legend; depth perception is involved), except when she is completely off her rocker in what passes for "love" in the insane-teenager mode and in Twilight. We just don't get to see her like that for more than a few pages because she falls for Edward straight off the bat, and most of the action is following her interactions with boys.

I am a feminist, and I'm not entirely sure if the books collectively pass the Bechdel Test. Point 1: there are more than two named women in the book. Easy pass. Point 2: they at some point are portrayed having a conversation. Easy pass. Point 3: about something that is not a man. I dunno on that point. There is talk about prom dresses when Bella and her high school crew goes shopping. I ... think maybe Alice talks to Bella about This Is Life As A Vampire? But this is a romance so, gods help us all, it's all about the menfolks.

I do get the sense that if one wasn't worried that Bella would collide with a glass shower door, shatter it, slice an arm open, and then die from gangrene, then she would have been perfectly capable of living by herself up until the point when she got stupid in love. She was living in Phoenix, ffs, and while it is not New York there is a certain amount of street crime, and you don't actually do so well if you're young and female and pretty and walking around totally oblivious to the skeeve level of where you're going. Because she made it to 17 in Phoenix without mentioning the sort of experience that you don't walk alone after (actual sexual assault, a thorough scare) she's lucky, good at listening to the little voice that says not to get off at the bus stop with that guy or not get in that car) I have to trust that she at least knows how to walk down the street and notice skeevy guys following her when she's not out of her little mind with Teenage Epic Love. Prior to her coming down with the insane, I would not have been too fussed about the idea of her living on her own -- she can drive, she can cook, she can presumably balance a checkbook.

I read the "army of boys" thing as less "oh so fucking fragile" and more "they are fucking idiots who expect women to not be able to take care of themselves". I dated a Jacob. He was a scumbag. Edward is creepy. Charlie is Bella's dad and therefore excused. Mike is also someone I've dated (actually I was engaged to someone with the Mike dynamic going on, and OH HELL NO NEVER AGAIN AND IF I SEE SOME POOR BITCH THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO SADDLE WITH A MIKE-SCENARIO I WILL START SLAPPING) and a guy in that position will try to work any angle he can think of. Bella needs more interaction with male types who are not trying to father, father-figure (Dr. Cullen), or fuck her. But that's entirely outside the paradigm of the author, since the Mormon viewpoint does not really account for male/female platonic friendships, even if one of them is like gay or something.

That's what Bella needs. She needs to be a fag-hag. She will be taken care of by an army of boys, she will mother them and cook for them and take care of them, and they will protect her from everything, including men looking to take creepy advantage of her.