T.01.15 The Cullens

In Which We Meet The Wahmpires

Edward stays the night, but since he's a 100year old wahmpire who loves/is addicted to Bella but can't have sex with her it's not creepy or ridiculous at all. Yeah, I'm dropping that now, but just in case anyone didn't get it.

Dad/Charlie is gone and they have the house to themselves. There's a brief mention of his having disabled Bella's truck so she wouldn't sneak out, which is extremely frustrating because it proves that SM is capable of a nice, subtle touches of characterization so long as it doesn't involve wahmpires or Bella the eternal damsel in distress. We move to more nuzzling and expressing love in simplistic and addictive terms and naturally, they have breakfast.

Well, Bella does and Edward watches like he's never seen such a thing before. SM, meanwhile, dishes out a meal of statuary terms:

• Statue of Adonnis
• Stone shoulder
• Marble brow puckered

So what we have is a neutered, perfectly sculpted statue who can save Bella from all the problems of the universe and fill the reader in on events beyond her field of view. He also has plenty of teen/wahmpire angst to share with the readers and with all the dangers of a real, sexual relationship converted into physical dangers to make him a bad boy. Gotta keep the adrenaline flowing, after all. Going to actually let this go now. Very difficult. Very difficult. Warm safe place. Happy thoughts.

Edward is taking Bella to meet the family, which I'll predict will go well. We also get a to smell Edward's breath, which raises the wahmpire breathing question to pile atop our body odor mystery. We already know Edward uses smell, so there's some kind of breathing going on. We also get "breath coming more quickly", so he has some involuntary breathing. I'm curious how a diet of only animal blood becomes a nice scent. He must use a special toothpaste.

On the way out the door Edward kisses Bella and she literally faints. SM wants this to be some super-romantic effect of their unbound love being expressed, but it sure ain't working. At worst it's comedic. At best it sounds like a serious medical problem. Medical problems are rarely romantic. Maybe Edward took some first responder courses in this last century. Well, hopefully late in the last century, what with modern medicine and all.

Wahmpire manor is nice. Jokes about the decor are well done and amusing. SM has her description hat back on and things run smoothly until we meet the Cleavers... er Cullens. Mom (Esme) is Snow White, Dad (Carlisle) is Dr. Hottie. Pixie sort-of-sister Alice arrives in a swirl and kisses Bella on the cheek. "You smell nice" says the spider to the fly. But we know these are fairy-tale predators, only eating bambie and not the main cast. More statues to look at that can't really hurt you.

And Edward plays the piano. Of course he does. I guess he's had time to learn, so I was about to forgive this little cliche when he reveals he's written a song for Bella. He plays it as a background to the ongoing conversation, which involves Mom & Dad vanishing into the woodwork. Ed is now free to go down the list of family members and where they fall on the rainbow of love/hate:

• Esme & Carlisle love her
• Alice likes her but harbors some secret (she can see the FUTURE)
• Emmett is somewhat neutral/perplexed by it.
• Jasper is acting vampirish instead of wahmpirish
• Rosalie no like. 

So that's out in the open and we know who be worried about coming by and being mean and maybe dazzling Bella. They certainly won't be physical threats. We also learn some visiting vampires are on the way.  Which is actually interesting! Sadly that's all we learn. So, that seems like it would come into play... might have been nice to get a bit of detail. Maybe warn the townfolk. Get Bella out of harm's way. Or we could just mosey upstairs.

So that over we move on to the ginormous cross in the hall which serves as a spark to discuss Carlisle in the next chapter. He's 300 years old and was a son of a vicar and a vampire hunter. Sure, sure. Of course he was.

SumUp B-
Per my rules, stuff from previous chapters doesn't get scored so the breakfast scene boils down to some iffy conversation and the kiss of fainting. The house & contents get the small paintbrush of details rather than the giant roller of dumb cliche, so things go well. The siblings are (again) a spectrum of good to bad simplistic adjectives and emotions,, which is annoying. Yet somehow this chapter comes off with a passable score. There's less moping, very little fake-sex-caressing and no sparkling or wahmpire idiocy.