Breaking Dawn Chapter 26 – Sturdy, baby.

Previously: Charlie came for a visit and Bella didn’t eat him.
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Annie: Charlie is going to leave, but pauses to remind us that Bella’s mother is useless and stupid. He suggests that they not share too much with Renee and Bella agrees ’cause her mom is faint-hearted. Charlie says he would’ve protected Bella, but she wasn’t faint-hearted. Charlie says he’ll think of something.

Catherine: Like what? Any sane person would ask A LOT of questions about this situation. Just ’cause his dumbass didn’t doesn’t mean Renee won’t.

Marines: I forgot Renee existed.

Kirsti: I think Steph forgot Renee existed too, tbh.

Annie: Charlie is going to dinner at the Clearwaters and is running late. Seth tries to get Charlie moving again, but Charlie’s hesitant because Jacob had told him that Bella was going to up and leave on him. Bella says she doesn’t want to disappear if she could avoid it, and that’s why they’re still there. Bella can’t promise that they will never leave, but says things are complicated. Charlie reminds her of their ‘need to know’ arrangement and makes Bella promise to visit if she has to leave. She tells him she will and now that he knows some stuff, she’ll be as close as he wants her to be. Charlie reaches out to Bella and she shifts the sleeping baby, holds her breath. Uh. Vampires don’t breathe, but okay… Maybe she means plugged her nose so she couldn’t smell him? She hugs her dad.

Bella whispers through her teeth (lolololol, do you even own a face?) to tell him that she loves him, and he says he loves her, too. Kodak moment. Adorable.

K: I want each and every one of you to whisper through your teeth right now. On a scale of 1 to Edward Cullen, how threatening did it seem? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Annie: Charlie touches Renesmee and says the kid really looks like Bella. She says the kid looks like Edward and OMG they are the worst at saying goodbye. Leave already. The Clearwaters are waiting.

Bella tells Charlie that Nessie has Charlie’s curls. (C: Wasn’t the plan to say that she was Edward’s niece? Like???) (M: They abandoned that quickly because of her EYES. Too telling.) Charlie is reacting again to being a grandfather and asks if he ever gets to hold her. Bella is shocked that her father would ask such a thing, and then figures Renesmee is in a deep enough sleep that she won’t wake up and eat his face. She hands the baby over to him. Charlie grunts under the weight of a baby. This guy is supposed to be a cop and he struggles under the weight of a baby?

Charlie calls the baby ‘sturdy’. We are not fat shaming a baby here, right, Stephenie?

K: All I can think is that Charlie’s expecting a newborn and then he’s handed what’s basically a toddler??

Annie: That makes sense. But you think he could use his eyes to see her and judge that she’s not going to weigh 8 pounds. Maybe?

Bella makes a face and Charlie tells Bella that sturdy is meant to be a good thing. Sturdy is not a positive description of a human. Sturdy chair? Sure. Sturdy house? Yeah. Sturdy relationship? Okay. Sturdy baby? No.

Catherine: This book is just a list of all the most horrible things in the world. If you read it aloud it summons Satan.

K: But, like, to take this book to Hell where it belongs, yeah?

Annie: I’m willing to re-read this garbage to make that happen! But only if Satan promises to take ALL of the copies and the movies, too.

Charlie tells Bella that Renesmee is the prettiest baby he’s ever seen, even prettier than Bella. Bella says Renesmee clearly has Charlie falling for her baby vamp magic. I’d like to point out that this isn’t a magic unique to their perfect hellspawn. Babies in general have a magic over their relatives. My baby niece has us all completely wrapped around her little fingers. That’s not because your kid is the greatest and the best. Sorry. It’s just the power babies have over their adult relatives.

Mari: A thing Meyer would know if we had any evidence that she liked children and/or motherhood.

Annie: Charlie asks if he can come back tomorrow, and Bella says yes. Charlie says goodbye to his granddaughter and calls her Nessie. Bella isn’t thrilled that her father has also adopted the nickname and she explains that Renesmee is a combination of Esme and Renee. No shit.

Bella asks if Charle wants to know what Nessie’s middle name is. He says sure, and Bella tells him it’s Carlie. As in, a combination of Carlisle and Charlie. (C: Oh JESUS. I blocked that out.) (M: But also, they couldn’t call this bitch Carlie like a first name? Damn.) (K: PFF, NO. That would be sensible.) Charlie’s pleased about this and thanks Bella. Bella, in a moment of very un-Bella like behaviour, thanks her father for being there for her. Charlie goes to leave again, this time looking back at all the Cullens, who were all doing fairly normal, unvampire things. Apparently there is no evidence that darkness has fallen and it’s time to “shift activities in preparation for evening” and suddenly I’m picturing Carlisle hitting a button to reveal a doorway to their vampire sex dungeon.

Catherine: Wrong terrible book, girl.

Annie: Sometimes it’s hard to tell where this book ends and that horrible one begins.

The Cullens weren’t trying as hard to act like humans, just to show Charlie they’re different. Charlie tells Bella he’ll see her tomorrow and makes things weird by telling Bella that she looks really good. Charlie leaves and Bella is super proud of herself for not eating her father, without help from all of the other vampires, like a big girl. So she must totally have a super power.

Edward comes over and hugs her from behind and he, too, creams about how awesome it is that Bella didn’t eat her father.

Emmett taunts her and she snarls at him. She can’t go full crazy on him because she’s still holding Renesmee. Emmett taunts her again and she hisses at him, and this wakes the baby. Using her magic vampire powers, Ness touches Bella to ask about Charlie. Bella assures Nessie that he’ll be back tomorrow.

Emmett is thrilled and Rosalie laughs. Edward tells Emmett it’s not smart to antagonize the strongest vampire in the house as he takes the baby from Bella and winks at her. Edward asks Bella if she remembers the favour he asked her to do once she became a vampire. At first, Bella is confused. I guess it takes more time to sort through her new roomy brain. She finally remembers and Alice both ‘trills’ and ‘peals’ in laughter. That’s clearly not possible and also two of my most hated descriptions of laughter. You’re doing great, Meyer.

Bella asks Emmett if he felt like a little bet, and challenges him to an arm wrestle, with no wager. So Bella doesn’t understand how bets work.

K: Bella doesn’t understand how ANYTHING works, to be fair.

Annie: TRUTH. 

Bella wants to arm wrestle on the table, but Alice suggests they don’t destroy Esme’s beloved antique table. They go outside to a big rock. Bella places her wager: if she wins, Emmett is no longer allowed to make jokes about her sex life, and he says that if he wins, it’s going to get worse. Gross. No thank you. (M: Is anyone in this family Not Terrible?)

Emmett makes things worse by calling Bella ‘little sister’ and also by saying he bets Bella hasn’t left one scratch on the sex house during her sexcapades with Edward, and boasts that he and Rosalie smashed a bunch of their sex houses (K: Ew). Bella wins the arm wrestle and Emmett reacts like a fragile male who’s just learned the 13th Doctor is gonna be a woman. (C: This description gives me life.)

Bella’s all into this new discovery of how strong she is and she starts experimenting with the boulder. She’s kicking and punching the rock and snickering like a crazy person. She pauses when she hears a new, little giggle.  Bella asks the weird vampire sex cult if Nessie was just laughing. Everyone is staring at the baby, ‘dumbstruck’. Are we sure that they just don’t all have resting idiot face?

Edward says yes, she was laughing. Jacob is giving attitude because of Bella’s antics and Edward asks him if he didn’t go a little wild on his first wolf run. Jake says it’ different, because sexism. Bella is married, a mom and should be behaving more like a Stepford Wife.

Renesmee is cool with her mother acting however she wants to, and Bella comes over and takes her from Edward. She gives Ness a piece of rock to play with, and when the baby can’t crush it to make sand on her own, Bella does it for her. The whole weird cult laughs and laughs and the sun comes out and turns the vampires into shimmering, sparkle vamps.

Catherine: Hey, what is the plot right now? The vampregnancy thing is over. Bella’s a vampire. What……why are we still here?

Mari: Because Meyer felt we would all be enriched, more than halfway through her FINAL book, by rock smashing.

K: WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE TREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES. 

Annie: Renesmee’s skin doesn’t sparkle, it’s more of a glow. She’s upset, but Bella reassures her young daughter by telling her that she’s the prettiest and I am so fucking mad about it. Wrong message, Bella.

Edward says he’s not sure he can agree. Bella turns to him, but is silenced by Edward’s diamond face. Cuz it’s so sparkly and white and perfect. Gag.

Jacob says Sparkle Bella is freaky, and Edward gets a sparkle boner about how Bella is an ‘amazing creature’. Gross, guys. Take it to your creepy sex house in the woods.

Bella is super surprised that she’s finally good at something. I’m not 100% certain what that is. Being a vampire, maybe? Sparkling? Punching rocks into sand?

She reflects on how she was a klutzy, plain, stupid, ugly human and now people think she’s amazing. The weird vampire cult think she’s amazing, Edward thinks she’s amazing and she agrees. She’s found her place in the world, apparently. It’s to be a vampire in this weird sex cult. Yay?

Book over now, please?

Mari: Ha.

 

Next time on Breaking Dawn: Book not over in chapter 27.