New story: Rosalie Gets Asked Out on a Date

Story title: Rosalie Gets Asked Out on a Date

summary: Rosalie has a new belle. A new belle who asks her out on a DATE! So exciting! Fluffic ... in the mode of phfina.

Read it, and review this one-shot with an 'update soon!' that always overjoys authoresses with your stunning display of wit, appreciation and insight.

Wait, that was sarcastic, wasn't it?

kisses

Liebst du um Schönheit by Friedrich Rückert

Liebst du um Schönheit by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)

Liebst du um Schönheit,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe die Sonne,
Sie trägt ein gold'nes Haar!

Liebst du um Jugend,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe den Frühling,
Der jung ist jedes Jahr!

Liebst du um Schätze,
O nicht mich liebe.
Liebe die Meerfrau,
Sie hat viel Perlen klar.

Liebst du um Liebe,
O ja, mich liebe!
Liebe mich immer,
Dich lieb' ich immerdar.

— phfina commentary.

Okay, here's my translation (deep breath):

If you love me for beauty, don't love me.
Love the sun, for her golden hair!

If you love me for my youth, don't love me,
Love the Spring, it's young every year.

If you love me for my money, don't love me.
Love the mermaid, she has clear pearls.

But if you love me for Love. O, yes, love me.
Love me for ever, and I'll love you forever, too.

Okay, here's my take:

God, this is so beautiful! And Mahler's setting to music? I'm crying, just listening to it (à propos de rein I just so love lieder! I'm feeling a little melty right now ... TMI? Oh, well). And the thing is this. Do you love me? Why? 'cause I'm pretty? 'cause I'm young? 'cause I'm (not) rich? (yet)

Honey, all of these things are temporal and shallow! They will pass, you know? "For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health 'til death do us part."

But do you love me because you love me? O ja, mich liebe! Lieber mich immer and I will love you forever, too.

I can't help that. Can you get that? I still love Julia; I will always love her. Yes, she gave me my heart back, but she had it for a while. So did Cate, so did Brenda, so did ... and the list goes on ... and if you love me, truly love me, so do you. You have my heart, my love: always.

So, if you love me for this or for that, guess what? I'm so going to smell that! You think you can hide anything from me, or from yourself? I know I can't hide anything from you, I'm really bad at hiding from just myself. You love me for something, I'll know. And, on top of that, then this or that that you love me for passes away. You love me because I'm weak and sad? Well, I'm strong and happy and fierce today. You love me because I'm young ... well, I'm gonna be old and wrinkled soon ... and that soon will be today before we know it. You love me cause I'm a smart little thing and write all this neat stuff? Well, guess what, I say more stupid things when I open my mouth than anybody else I know (so I tend to keep my mouth shut and be really, really shy ... unless I'm being a real b!tch). You love me because I'm pretty? How shallow is that? Every person is beautiful, but I think I'm only beautiful when I'm loving and I'm loved, and loved not because (of this or that) but loved just because.

And if you love me like that, if you love me no matter what, if you look into my soul and see me exactly as I am, and exactly as I'm not, and love me anyway, not 'because,' but 'anyway' ...

... then, in the face of that love, I am helpless but to love you back, and oh, what love! You love me regardless of the fact that I'm a b!tch or that I'm sweet. You love me regardless of the fact that I'm a proud prowling panther or a scared little mouse. You love me. Regardless. And I cannot but help to love you, and to love you as (toppy) George Sand loved Chopin (so! the fem) — she told him: "I am not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love. That is all. But I love strongly, exclusively and steadfastly" (quoted from the movie Impromptu).

You know what? I just realized something. Bella, in my stories, loves Rosalie that way. Regardless. Regardless of her external façade of cold beauty, regardless of her black soul. Regardless. And in my counter-story, Bloodbuzz Rosalie loves Bella that way. Regardless. Regardless of her fatalism, regardless of her atrocities. Regardless.

You know what 'regardless' means? It means 'blindly.' "Love is blind"? No. Love sees the other person clearly, exactly as they are, and exactly as they are not, and still loves: "strongly, exclusively, steadfastly."

I'm not asking you to love me. I'm not. But I do ask this: if you do choose to love me, love me.

Vampires and Mermaids

Steph's going to write a story about mermaids, she said some time ago. Do you know why?

I do.

It's because they are the same in her universe, and ... in mine, too.

You see, Vampires are basically sad (except Alice and Esme and Carlisle ... well, okay, so most vampires are okay, except Edward ... and Rosalie), and Mermaids are basically happy, but you know what's exactly the same between the two of them?

Neither of them cry.

They can't cry. They are physically incapable of crying, which means for Vampires, after a year or so, they don't miss it, they don't even think it or feel it. When they are are sad, they channel through stillness or anger or rage or detactment or a blink of the eyes or laughter, but they don't cry. 'Cry,' as a concept, simply doesn't exist for them. Mermaids (and I suppose Mer'men' exist) from their conception don't have 'cry' in their lexicon, in their emotional repertoire. I mean, a mermaid is basically happy anyway: they are playing or singing or swimming or dancing. They are just so happy, all the time. Air is what we breathe, but mermaids don't breathe water, they breathe happiness.

Except.

Except with they, or perhaps just one, just one little mermaid, one kära lilla sjöjungfru, becomes aware of ... something.

Something that isn't for her, that could be. She falls in love with that human above water, and the normal mermen just don't do it for her, I mean, she could be nice to them, and they, nice to her, but ...

But, something's missing from her existence, and that is her handsome human prince (because it'd be way too much for me to ask for a sweet human princess to fall in love with me ... I mean her, human princesses don't give a fig for mermaids, we're nothing but rivals for her affection to her handsome prince). And when she realizes this, she becomes sad, and this is new for her, and so confusing. She is sad: she doesn't want to sing and play.

But she doesn't cry. She doesn't know how. She doesn't even know that 'crying' exists as a possibility for her, because it doesn't. The sea is the only salt water she'll ever feel on her cheeks.

And I so want to be a mermaid ... and, okay, I admit it, even though I am so going to get a serious tongue lashing from Rosalie (and not the good kind, girls), I so want to be a vampire.

Because.

Because when it's hard to draw the next breath, because the tears are obscuring your vision and you have to type this goddam entry from the memory of where the keys are under your fingers because you can't see the screen, because you know the next breath you'll draw is a gasp and will come out as a sob ...

It's tiring, girls. It's tiring drawing that next breath, because you know the sob will make the tears spill over, and here I am, crying like a baby, and Larry (my coworker, my 'partner' at sbux) has to drive me home from work and how much leave can I take from work? 'Cry-leave'? Is there any such thing? For me, yes, too much of it, in fact.

I don't know why Larry, well, anybody puts up with me. I can't stand me: so I don't see how anybody else can.

And if I were a mermaid, or a vampire, I wouldn't cry. I'd just deal with the emotion so dispassionately: 'I am sad. I have no reason to be sad. I am now moving beyond my sadness.' But no, here I am, a weak, sad little human, who, okay, girls, who hates herself, and hates the very next breath she's drawing because the tears are falling and can I hide this from anybody? No. And isn't it about time they fired me?

Vampires don't cry. Mermaids don't cry. And I so want that. I so want to be happy because that's my natural state. I so want to be unable to cry.

Another thing common to vampires and mermaids: they don't exist.

Humans don't cry when they don't exist anymore, did you ever notice that? The only people crying at a funeral, if there are any tears shed, are the people still living.

The dead don't cry at their funerals. They don't care. They are in eternal repose.

yeah. I'm fine.

Rose

I love Rosalie.

I wish I could say that I saw the Rosalie I love from the Twibooks, but that's not true. I read the books and said, after Eclipse, ch 7, 'hm, interesting,' but that was that.

But then my bb wrote some stuff, you know? And I was like, wow. And then he wrote Beautiful. And then he wrote Reminiscence.

And I was like ...

And I was like ... that. I mean, here's a woman, so hurt, so filled with hate and spite and loathing, but she looks at this plain, not pretty, girl and she calls me beautiful. I mean she calls Bella beautiful, and she calls me beautiful in such a way that there's no arguing with it, no denying it, she makes me see that she sees me as beautiful and will not accept me seeing myself in any other way.

I mean she make Bella see this.

And then ... in Reminiscence, there she is, a shell, 300 years later. Bella's dead. Bella did what humans do: she died. But Rosalie goes on. She just goes on and on and on, loving me with her entire being, seeing me everywhere, and loving me, and having to let me go, again, every second of eternity, and the very next second, seeing me again, loving me with all her being.

I mean loving Bella.

And I'm like. I'm like: I love Rosalie. Here's a girl who is so damaged, so broken, so cold, so hard, so on fire with hate, but seeing beyond herself to care for somebody in the only way she thinks that she can, failing so miserably at it, but still caring and loving and seeing beauty despite that. Forever. Forever and ever and ever.

So, so sad! So, so Rosalie!

Rosalie, it's okay. I so want to give you a sympathy hug and tell you it's okay, even though you'd shout and rail against me and say it's not okay and it'll never be okay and ...

And how many girls feel so trapped in who they are or where they are or ... whatever? Who feel it's not okay and it'll never be okay? Hm, 'look in the mirror, 'phfina,' you're saying to me?

I so want it to be okay for Rosalie. I so want her to know she is lovable and loved.

People say Bella Swan is everywoman, and perhaps she is. People say Rosalie is an effing bitch, and perhaps she is.

How many people say Rosalie is everywoman, so hurt, but so doing the best she can, even with the whole world against her?

And it may not be okay. And it may never be okay. But here's just one little tiny thing, Rosalie, just for you, from your little tiny Bella:

I love you.

kisses, 'phfina