In Which I Suffer Through New Moon: Chapter 7 -- Repetition · 3:15pm Mar 16th, 2018
Bella drives out to the Cullens’ house, trying to get a glimpse of it. Actually, she’s wanting to hear Edward’s voice again, hoping deja vu will trigger it, but she doesn’t want to admit it. Think that’s unhealthy? So does Bella:
I didn’t want to admit the strongest motivation. Because it was mentally unsound.
She admits it’s mentally unsound and does it anyway. CM + 1
The house is still there, but it looks lifeless only brings up bad memories. Bella quickly runs away and heads back to Jacob.
I felt hideously empty, and I wanted to see Jacob. Maybe I was developing a new kind of sickness, another addiction, like the numbness before. I didn’t care. I pushed my truck as fast as it would go as I barreled toward my fix.
I’m extending the Clinginess Meter to include clinging on to Jacob. CM + 1
The bikes are coming along nicely. Bella tells Jacob she likes spending time with him, but she’s getting behind on her homework and he probably is too, so she proposes that he comes to her house once or twice a week so they can still be together while catching up. At this point, she still likes him as a friend, but she misses some of his not-so-subtle flirting (which had appeared before but I hadn’t mentioned).
The next day, Mike proposes that she go to a movie with him on Friday. For some reason, even though his style of flirting is a bit more subtle than Jacob’s, she notices, and says she has a study session planned for that night.
He walked me to my car, less exuberant than before. It reminded me so clearly of my first months in Forks. I’d come full circle, and now everything felt like an echo — an empty echo, devoid of the interest it used to have.
I know she doesn’t mention Edward, but since Edward’s the reason everything’s devoid of interest, CM + 1.
A few more days pass, with Bella and Jacob alternately doing homework together and working on the motorcycles, until Jacob calls her up to say that they’re done, running and everything. She drives over and they pack up the motorcycles in her truck to take them out in the country to ride. Along the way, they pass by the beach and see some guys going cliff diving from a hundred feet up. Once she gets used to it and sees how reckless it is, Bella declares that she wants to go cliff diving. Jacob tentatively agrees to take her, but from a lower cliff, one that he uses. You know, if all of this wasn’t about breaking her promise to Edward, I could get used to adrenaline-junkie Bella. They keep driving, and Jacob says that, even if she wants to go cliff diving, she shouldn’t get involved with those guys. They’re like a gang, obsessed with tribe pride and calling themselves “protectors”, led by Sam Uley. The strangest bit is how the tribal council puts up with, almost always looking the other way. It also creeps Jacob out with the attention Sam pays to him, like Jacob’s going to join the group soon; he’s never been paid any attention, even though Billy’s the unofficial leader of what’s supposed to be a council of equals and his great-grandfather was also an unofficial chief
Side moment here. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve probably guessed that Sam and his “gang” are a pack of werewolves, the council puts up with them because they’re protecting their tribe, and Jacob’s going to be the next one to join the pack because it’s in his bloodline. So why don’t they tell Jacob about this and ask him to keep it a secret from non-Quileutes? It’d explain so much to him. Maybe not solve all the problems, but go a long way for that. And if there’s a good reason, Meyer doesn’t give it.
The main reason Jacob dislikes the group is because he thinks they’re getting to Embry. A while back, Embry suddenly vanished for a week — no one could find him at school or at his home — and when a came back, he looked scared, but wouldn’t tell anyone. Then, out of nowhere, Embry started hanging out with Sam’s gang. This reminds Jacob of a similar incident that happened earlier with another guy, which ended with Sam basically controlling him. Between Embry’s strange silence and the way Sam’s looking at him, Jacob’s scared. He tried to talk to his father, but Billy simply said he’d explain later. Bella, in a rare moment of decency, says she’ll tell Charlie, and if it gets really bad, he can come and live with them. She even gives him a hug after pulling over.
It was strange for me, being this close — emotionally rather than physically, though the physical was strange for me, too (bad parenthetical aside is bad and too long to be an aside) — to another human being. It wasn’t my usual style. I didn’t normally relate to people so easily, on such a basic level.
Not human beings.
FORESHADOWING.
Jacob jokes that he should freak out more often and they unload the bikes to test them out. End chapter.
Clinginess Meter: 25 x 2
Wait, wait, wait, no one told Jacob he's a werewolf waiting to happen? Why? This isn't something you spring on people. Not if you want to keep them sane!
That said, it is kind of funny how Bella gravitates towards the paranormal. If she had a less insufferable personality, I'd kind of want to see a series where she kept accidentally stumbling on the paranormal lurking just beneath the surface.
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Short version: no. No one in the Quileutes is told about the latent lycanthropy genes lurking inside them. There's no real reason beyond "keep it a secret".
That other series sounds amusing. And if it's a comedic series, Bella falls in love with each new monster she finds. So as it goes on and the level of paranormality being discovered keeps escalating...
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Actually, the “masquerade” trope isn’t really needed here at all. At least, not for the wolves as far as I can tell. Vampires, fine. Most of them actually do feed on humans with the Cullens just being oddballs, and there’s those vamp nobles whose name I don’t recall who enforce it. The werewolves, though? I don’t think we ever see any other packs, so I’m forced to assume that they all behave in a similar way. Just regular people who can turn into giant wolves with superstrength while retaining their intelligence. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of animalistic feeding frenzy or anything, their instincts seem to be mostly pretty low-key. And if this bit is true:
then it’s not even infectious. It’s hereditary. I could actually see this particular variety of werewolf benefiting a lot from coming out into the open.
Is it wrong to want to unleash Sam and Dean Winchester on this series?
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The logical evolution of the occult harem anime: Decentralization. Now everyone can be the protagonist!
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Not in the slightest. And thanks to "Live Free or Twihard", it's almost official!