Things I've been involved in the design concept of, recently (i.e. wouldn't-it-be-great-if...):
- Antigravity bra: a small device which sticks to the underside of the boob - no more red marks!
- "Space trays": again with the antigravity - baking trays that hover next to you when you have no work surfaces available.
- Vampires that bake: because no one is going to suspect a baker of being a vampire, right? And, if they're like Spike, they'll like a little something to crumble into the blood, give it a bit of texture (ew). No, really - it'd be awesome! Hollywood blockbuster material.
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People who have read Twilight: does any character, at any point, tell Bella to stop being so whiny and self-absorbed? Or do they all enable her personal pity party, like Edward seems to be doing so far? I'm nearly 100 pages in, and dear god do I need someone to tell her to shut the hell up. Oh noes, her parents divorced (without any apparent acrimony, when she was a baby)! Oh noes, she has to live with her father (who loves her a lot and has bought her a car)! Oh noes, she has to leave behind, uh, no friends that even merit a name! Oh noes, she misses her mother (although not enough to remember to email her until three days after she arrives)! Oh noes, she's the new girl in school, and only makes half a dozen friends straight away, including three boys who fancy her! Oh noes, it... rains a lot!
Cry moar, emo girl.
And her reaction to seeing snow for the first time ever?
I'm reading it for my Book Group; it's not by personal choice. It's also suffering in comparison to Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, which I also just read, and which is infinitely better. I want to throw Bella to Robin McKinley's vampires, see how long she survives with them. Gah.
- Antigravity bra: a small device which sticks to the underside of the boob - no more red marks!
- "Space trays": again with the antigravity - baking trays that hover next to you when you have no work surfaces available.
- Vampires that bake: because no one is going to suspect a baker of being a vampire, right? And, if they're like Spike, they'll like a little something to crumble into the blood, give it a bit of texture (ew). No, really - it'd be awesome! Hollywood blockbuster material.
---
People who have read Twilight: does any character, at any point, tell Bella to stop being so whiny and self-absorbed? Or do they all enable her personal pity party, like Edward seems to be doing so far? I'm nearly 100 pages in, and dear god do I need someone to tell her to shut the hell up. Oh noes, her parents divorced (without any apparent acrimony, when she was a baby)! Oh noes, she has to live with her father (who loves her a lot and has bought her a car)! Oh noes, she has to leave behind, uh, no friends that even merit a name! Oh noes, she misses her mother (although not enough to remember to email her until three days after she arrives)! Oh noes, she's the new girl in school, and only makes half a dozen friends straight away, including three boys who fancy her! Oh noes, it... rains a lot!
Cry moar, emo girl.
And her reaction to seeing snow for the first time ever?
"Ew." Snow. There went my good day.
Did Stephanie Meyer make Bella the world's wettest blanket on purpose, or am I actually supposed to like her? Enquiring minds want to know. I'm reading it for my Book Group; it's not by personal choice. It's also suffering in comparison to Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, which I also just read, and which is infinitely better. I want to throw Bella to Robin McKinley's vampires, see how long she survives with them. Gah.

Comments
But no, no one ever calls Bella on her wet-blanket personality. IF ONLY. Honestly, I wouldn't re-read those books or inflict them on anyone. (I read all four, Cthulu only knows why.)
And damn, but I could use an anti-grav bra.
Ohhhhhhh, I so hope I don't end up needing to read the others. I can't stand Bella, Edward is a mere cipher based on a juvenile idea of the ideal man... I'm entirely failing to understand why Twilight is so huge, and Sunshine isn't. Or why Twilight is so huge, period.
And, yes. All it needs is for someone to invent antigravity... d'oh.
Jesus. I'd have been all over that guy when I was 14 or 15. The grown women who love him are a little harder to explain, but I'm guessing it's the same thing. Just... maybe they haven't had as much experience as many other women. Or they just like vampires, I guess.
But good lord, those books could have been written better. The last book especially... I wanted to kick Meyer, because her writing got better in some ways, and yet... so, so far away.
But the supporting characters in that book are AWESOMESAUCE. The Cullens (ALICE IS AWESOME), and the werewolves, and Charlie (Charlie rocks hard and Bella is such a bitch to him).
I want stephanie meyer to go back and write all their stories instead of the boring one she did write.
(Yes I loved twlight defriend away!)
I keep feeling sorry for Lauren, who was perfectly nice at first, and then suddenly became "fishy-eyed" and "nasal" as soon as she took a dislike to Bella. As if disliking Bella is some kind of severe character flaw.
When they market the anti-grav bra, I am so going to disgrace my mother's careful manners instruction by elbowing all the other women to be first in line to buy one.
Edited because if you substitute for the results are really irritating to read!
Edited 2010-06-09 01:49 am (UTC)
Although Twilight is (unintentionally) quite funny, too. *g*
Otherwise, it sounds as though we must have a large mutual list of beloved authors. I've always been glad that I grew up in a home surrounded by Alan Garner, Lloyd Alexander, Tove Jansson, and C.S. Lewis, rather than having to be stuck with the problems-of-growing up literature that my friends seemed to revel in when I was a kid. Tolkien was one of the obligatory and beloved family literary rites of passage. I must admit, though, that getting old enough to see the Narnia books as Christian allegory kind of sucked the fun out of them, and I haven't been able to read them since, because now I am unable to un-see that.