No Supernatural

Happy Halloween and Happy Celtic New Year and Happy Samhain!  I am not posting as regularly as originally planned, life happens.  No poems are in the making.  Thoughts generated by fan fiction reading is my treat for you today.

There are some stories about what would happen to Bella and Jacob if no supernatural in their world.  A couple that I have recently read are directly in response to Jacob’s comments in Eclipse about them being just right for each other – chapter 26 Ethics, pg 598-9 paperback - and all the fans that want Bella with Jacob.  Both of these stories have Bella being killed in the school parking lot her second week in Forks.  There would have been no chance for Bella and Jacob as they wouldn’t have even met. 

These two stories figure that the accident would have happened anyway – weather would have been the same with or without supernatural.  I think that the Jacob/Bella fans are assuming that the accident would not happen, thus giving Bella and Jacob the chance to meet and fall in love. 

My thoughts are similar and different.  The accident was set up to expose Edward’s extra speed to Bella.  If there were no supernatural, Bella would not be a danger magnet, klutzy yes but not a danger magnet.  My assumption is that the accident would not have happened.  So what would life in Forks area be like with no Cullen’s, no supernatural, but still keep some points of the books? 

Bella would have gone dress shopping with friends and they would have run into car problems.  She would have gone to Seattle rather than the dance and had problems with her truck on the road.  These two incidents would prompt her to start learning about car / truck maintenance.  Her dad and then Jacob would be her instructors.  [Idea from What Drives Her by Virginia May that fits too well to ignore the likelihood of it happening.]

Similar to the books this is how Bella and Jacob would have become friends.  Jacob would have fallen for her.  Bella would not have fallen for him.  The two year difference in ages would have been one consideration.  The friendship she has with Jacob would have helped Bella come out of her shyness to some degree.  He would be a good younger friend.  She would have learned about the Indian culture and heard lots of stories about reservation life.  This would have sparked her interest in recording the stories and histories,

Leah and Sam would have stayed together and married.  Harry would have a heart attack and died.  Sue and Charlie would have gotten together.  Jacob would graduate from high school and community college and opened auto shop in the Forks area.

Bella would have stayed in Washington for college.  She would have blossomed in college.  I see her getting a degree in English with either anthropology or journalism minor.  She would have met someone in college, likely they were majoring in her minor.  They would have gone on to graduate school and / or worked on gathering stories and histories of Native Americans and published.  The intent would be to bring to general public these stories and need to help preserve these cultures – becoming something of an activist.  They would travel for awhile and settle eventually into teaching somewhere and raise a family.  Still travel and publish just not as constantly as beginning of their married life.  Perhaps Bella would become a fiction writer as well as her non-fiction Native American writings. 

In a narrow life Bella and Jacob might have ended up together.  They likely would have been happy.  Bella would have been somewhat unfulfilled, if she recognized it or not, I’m not sure.  Going to college would open Bella to more of life and she would have begun to see the male chauvinism that Jacob had in him and not accepted it.  They would remain good friends.  Jacob would find a nice girl to marry and settle down to raise family.  The Olympic peninsula would remain home for Bella and her family even if lived some place else.

That is how I imagine things would have gone if no supernatural in their lives.  

Power of Words

The Power of Words:  curse, swear, dirty, vulgar

Abby Weyr October 2011

This has been prompted by a couple of recent things.  One was the too casual use of a vulgar word on a web site that was on my list here.  The other was the inappropriate use of same vulgar word in a specific fan fiction that I had enjoyed reading up to that use.

Curse words are used far too commonly currently, especially by the younger generation.  They are called curse words for a reason.  They are no longer just expletives to express strong emotions.  They have become common adjectives.  They have become trivial to the younger generation.  People have become desensitized to their meaning.

You say to someone “Go to hell!” that is a curse.  You want them dead.  You want them to suffer in the hereafter for eternity.  Hell being a state of outer darkness and cold or burning fire, either one would include suffering for eternity.  How does that relate to having a good time?

You say to someone “Damn you!” that is a curse.  A dam stops water from flowing down a river.  Damning a person stops their eternal progression.  Even in the afterlife we have opportunity to progress.  Can you imagine keeping a 2 year old child at that age forever?  Or being a teenager forever?  It is a curse to keep anyone at any stage of life stuck at that point, to stop their progressing. 

The other three common vulgar words are not necessarily curse words per se.  Sh** and cr** describe something usually not pleasant smelling or looking.  Fu** is the worst of the bunch.  There is a violent connotation with that word making it close to rape.  How does that become an adjective?  Especially out of a 100+ year old vampire character to mean “She looks terrific” not once but twice?  How does it become a casually used word with such violence behind it?  How does it become used in context of making love or having sex in a good way?  How does it become a ‘turn on’ word to a 17year old female character when spoken by that 100+ year old vampire boy friend? 

As a society we have become insensitive to the power of these words the same as we’ve become insensitive to violent images.  This is really a sad state of affairs.  It use to be women would not use these words.  It used to be that men would not use them in mixed company at least if use them at all.  They are words to be used as expletives and hopefully rarely.  Now it doesn’t matter who, what, or when use any of them.  It use to be that using them for adjectives was thought of as an indication of lack of education.  What happened to courtesy, to civility, and to respecting the sensibilities of others?