Same warnings as before (rape references, some more consensual sexuality that stops shy of actual sex). There’s also a brief mention of self-harm at the very end of the chapter.
Recap: Tiaa went to the beach party, which was boring, but she did meet a few creatively-named goth girls who think she’s cool, so now she at least has friends. Also she and Edward almost had sex but didn’t because it was only chapter 4.
AN - can i have some reveiws pls
Here you go!
Chapter 5 - the talent contest
It was a week later and I felt like I was slowly dying inside.
Relatable, but why?
My life had crumbled into pieces and I was alone in the horrible darkness of my mind.
At least it’s nice and empty in there. Plenty of room to stretch out.
the four chearleaders had folowed me a round school and been mean to me for the last week making fun of my clothes and my purple streaked blond hair and saying i was too slim and that i had boobs like a pron star.
Okay, fine, I’m going to comment on the cheerleader thing. Look… Bella being a cheerleader makes negative sense. Her main character flaw (according to Meyer, anyway) is being so clumsy she trips over flat surfaces. She doesn’t possess the coordination necessary for anything physically demanding. Also, she’s explicitly described as being nothing like a cheerleader in the first Twilight book, if memory serves.
It relay upset me. and also uncle larry had taken my clothed off and rapped me loads of times last week and even though dave and marie were back home now every time they went out to different places they left me with him and he hit me and made me sleep with was so horrible I wanted to die every time it happened.
Don’t know why this is presented as a secondary concern to being picked on by cheerleaders.
Is there a reason Tiaa can’t tell anyone about what’s going on with Uncle Larry? Like, I can think of a lot of potential reasons why she might not be able to seek help here, but we aren’t given any reason, so it’s a mystery. Also, is she at risk of becoming pregnant, or contracting an STI, or is she being hurt badly enough to require medical attention? This guy is pretty violent and persistent, but her encounters with him are barely described at this point, so we don’t really know what’s been going down.
Which is probably a blessing.
Edward Culen stared at me whenever he saw me at school but i just anchored him and pretended he wasnt there i was so embaresed about watt had hapenned and I hated him for the way he made me feel and the fact that he was a cheater and an ass.
Yeah, he’s like that.
I would probably have ended my life that week if it hadnt been for my lovley new freinds abbigaille rochelle and tyfanni, who were all totally cool and helped me fight off the evil chearleaders - i hadnt told my freinds aboit uncle larry and ewdard but it was nice to have some peopel who liked me anyways.
Hold up a second. There are four cheerleaders. Counting Tiaa, there are four goth girls. So why is this portrayed as some sort of unequal battle? Both groups are the same size, and I assume Tiaa’s group has an edge because she’s a Mary Sue and the Sue always has an edge, so… why haven’t they sent the cheerleaders packing yet?
I wasn’t really picked on in high school, but I was picked on lots in middle school, and it was always about numbers. I didn’t have any good friends to back me up, so I was an easy target. If it was just one kid going after me I could hold my own just fine, but when I got ganged up on there was a problem. Having a few losers hurl insults at you when you have your own crew of losers to back you up isn’t inherently a bullying problem because there’s (most likely) no power imbalance. It’s just kids being rude to each other. It’s certainly not on par with, let alone worse than, being raped by an adult man when you’re sixteen.
I sat in the cafeteira with them at lunch
“hey tiana are you doing the talent contest tonite?” rochelle asked me
Oh boy.
“no way im not good enough!” i said shyly
“omfg are you kidding! yor a AMAZIN singer your the best iv'e ever heard, no joke!” shouted Abigail
So I only vaguely remember the talent show, but I’m pretty sure what happens is that Tiaa does compete, and she wins, and Edward loses his mind over it or something. I seem to remember an encounter in Edward’s car after the talent show, too, but we’ll get to that when we get to that.
“thank you but your just being nice, im’ not THAT good an even if i was i wouldn’t perform. I mean i hardly want to contract more attension to myself than i already have, the whole school is all ready talking about me saying watt a freak i am. I just wanna be an average person”
“come on tiaa you HAVE to do it!” tyffanie said, “jessica and bella and the chearleaders win every time with there dumb dance routine it is so annoying, they arent even talented someone needs to teach them a lesson hun!"
"I dunno maybe” I pimpled mutely but I had no intension of actually doin it.
I feel like I’m watching a made-for-TV teen movie on Disney Channel, except this one has a lot of rape in it and also the love interest is a vampire. And the protagonist pimples mutely, whatever that means.
Later on me and my freinds sat in the crowd and wached the contest. The chearleaders did there dance ruotine and they werent that awesome, they were just wearing slutty cloths so all the guys could stare at them and cause they were popular no one was allowed to say they sucked.
On the bright side, at least Tiaa’s competition is bad so she doesn’t have to be unrealistically amazing in order to win here. On the not-so-bright side, we all know Tiaa is going to be unrealistically amazing anyway and that Bella and her friends are being made to look bad in order to ultimately break up Edward and Bella’s relationship.
At the end bella ran into edwards arms and I felt flames of jelusy burning up inside me. they kissed for a long time and although he looked at me the whole time i still wanted to cry and scream.
I would too if a guy I didn’t know that well stared at me the entire time he was making out with his girlfriend. Fuckin’ weird.
The principal caked up on the stage and said
Hang on. He caked up?
“and now for our final act…atlantiana rebeckah loren!” everyone looked at me and I was shocked
“omfg who put my fringing name down for this!” I screamed
“who knows girl just get up there !” abbie pushed me towards the stage and I went up there.
Edward put her name down for it, right? I mean, I’m guessing from context that it wasn’t one of her friends who did, even though they all encouraged her to perform. If it was Edward, though, what did he reckon she’d do? Her friends at least have heard her sing, but as far as Edward knows Tiaa’s only talent is… looking pretty, I guess.
I sang total eclipse of the heart (punkrock verson so it wasnt sappy and lame or anythin!0 and everyone watched me. I was embarased at first but everyone semed to be enjoying themselves (exept the chearleaders who looked totally mad!LOL) so I sang louder and louder and my voice soared higher than ever was like magic.
Or something.
I was waering a purple lacy top cut low enough that you could see my bra and a black skirt and purple fishnets and spiky black heels.
I mean, sure, but you just criticized the cheerleaders for dressing in revealing clothes a few paragraphs ago.
the song finished and everyone looked happy and clangled at me and i went blushing to sit on my friends
They clangled? You went to sit on your friends?
“remind me to kill wichever one of you beeches put my name down for this!-” i said but i was smiling
“LOL” shouted rochelle “it wasnt us you no!”
Yep, it was Ewdard.
"and the winner is…ATLANTIANA REBECKAH LOREN! ” the principal screamed extatically.
Is the principal okay?
I went back up onto the stage and shock his hand and everyone appladed me and screamed my name except for jessica and bella who looked like they were about to kill me, lmfao.
What about the other two cheerleaders? Were they converted to Team Tiaa by all this?
My eyes strayed to where edward stood gazing baldly at me. I all most fainted right then at the sight of him looking so hawt and gorgeous. I dnt think anyone else had noticed but he had a MASSIVE erection it was so hawt and sexoy.
Both of you need to calm down.
I saw bella and jessica storming out of the room angry that i had won, and I smiled.
For real, what happened to the other two cheerleaders?
Later on i walked home happily, then a car purred up beside me. It was ewdard!
“get in the car i’ll drive thee home sweet lady” he said in his beautiful old fashioned speech. I did as he told me without knowing were quiet for a minite
“you were awesome tonight, you have a stunning voice like silk and satin in the moonlight. You looked beyond beautiful up on that stage, like an old painting in a church. i wanted to charge right at u and kiss thine lips right there"
I know the author is trolling, but I love the idea that this is what teenage girls find hot — a dude who talks in anachronistic Ye Olde English and gets boners from watching you sing. Because that’s normal.
Actually, I did read a fic once that seemed to be intended as serious erotica, and one character switched into Ye Olde English as soon as the sexy stuff began. And by “sexy stuff” I mean torturing and murdering a Yu-Gi-Oh character. No accounting for taste, I guess.
he still had a huge erection and i wanted to touch it so badly but i didnt.
He’s driving, so probably best to leave that alone.
"i think BELLA might have had somethin to say about that!” i snapped “where is she neway?”
“at home sulking cause she lost the contest and had a total hissy fit and cryed for hours because thee was better than her in the contest”
At least someone is in character.
“how mature” I said sacastically. At that moment edward pulled his car to the side of the road and looked me in the touched my hand and I slapped him hard in the face
Seems a tad hypocritical when you were considering going for the dick-grab a minute ago.
‘YOU WILL NEVER TOUCHE ME AGAIN U SICKO!“ I wailed and kept hitting him in the face and chest "last week I fuckin BEGGED u to sex on me and you turned me down! I have never been so humilated in all my frickin LIFE! Watt the hell is wong with u? One mimite your all over me and the next its like i dnt even exist! dnt fuckin touch me. EVERR!”
All of this would be a perfectly reasonable gripe except that Tiaa acts the exact same way. I’ll cut them both a little slack — Tiaa for being sexually abused, Edward for internal conflict over whether or not to leave his girlfriend — but, come on, pot calling the kettle black.
“its complecated tiaa my lady. Im sorry i hurt thine feelings. Its just i cant resist thee, but i cant be with thy either. I never ment to drag thou into this mess, its not thee fault i totally ruin everything. Im so SO SORRY. IM DESPISABLE!”
Can’t argue with that. Mostly because “despisable” is not a word.
“its me or her "i said bluntly
"i cant make that choice tiaa - he wept
And I take it polyamory is off the table, because it always is.
"you are going to have to!”
“first thee have to tell me who thou relay are!” he said “who were thy parents?what are thee?”
“my mom dies when I was bored, I never new my father. Thats it.” i said
“we BOTH no thats not the full story. Your a vampire, like me”
Though I’m glad that this fic at least avoids the cliché of having the Sue figure out that Edward’s a vampire way in advance, it seems odd that she’s given basically no thought to the possibility that he’s inhuman after he’s claimed to be a vampire multiple times.
-omfg i’m NOT a frickin vampire! I think id have noticed u total dipshit"
I’d think she’d have noticed too, but she seems incapable of noticing anything’s weird about Edward. The Ye Olde English doesn’t strike her as unusual? His looks aren’t odd? What about the change-color eyes? Mind reading? Really, dude isn’t very good at keeping up the human illusion, which is probably why he and his family typically keep their distance from humans. But there I go talking about canon.
“you don’t drink human blood”- he asked
“i dont drink any blood u asshole. Is this ur idea of a joke, cos no ones laughing!” i got out of the car and ran away feeling insulted.i didnt want to see that stupid hawt jerk ever again! I went home. But i couldnt get rid of the memory of his sharp erection and deadly cold body.
Oh yeah, and the temperature thing. I know some people run cold — I’m one of them — but we’re not talking 97 degrees instead of 98; dude is probably room temperature all the time, since he’s essentially dead. Tiaa doesn’t think that’s weird and inhuman?
i cut myself and went to sleep in tears.
Like a reel goff.