Admin: Hey, ladies, quick reminder about the group’s rules. Remember, we’re here to help each other navigate a tricky and sometimes dangerous dating landscape, so let’s keep it civil and no screenshots or snitching.
Jane Eyre: Where to start? I started nannying for this guy Edward and, I know, never date your boss. Also he’s much older but I just feel like we have a real connection when we’re hanging out in his dark and forbidding manor, and ever since I saved him from a fire set by his crazy ex, we’ve gotten closer. Any tea?
Bella Swan: Is he like, really pale, almost to the point of sparkling?
Jane Eyre: Standard British pallor. Hideously scarred.
Blanche Ingram: Girl, run. We courted for a minute and he talked about marriage, but I guess he was trying to make someone jealous? Maybe you? And I heard she’s not his ex and he’s still married.
Jane Eyre: Yes, he is still technically married. I can see how that’s a red flag for some people but she really is crazy. Tore my veil — psycho. He did lie at first about hiding her in the attic but we’re working through it. Would appreciate any additional info.
Elizabeth Bennett: Getting a lot of mixed signals from this guy Mr. Darcy, sometimes goes by Fitzwilliam. He ignored me at a ball and I’d heard some gossip about him from another guy I was kind of talking to — if anybody knows the cousin he’s supposed to be engaged to (I am fanning myself this is so crazy), my DMs are open. I’m just confused because one minute he’s scowling at me in a drawing room, then he’s proposing but negging me really hard about my inferior birth and my family’s lack of connections at the same time. Has anybody else courted or had an understanding or even a really awkward quadrille with him?
Bella Swan: Ugh. I relate. Sometimes a guy will wince like you smell bad one minute and then love bomb you about how your blood would be delicious.
Elizabeth Bennett: That … is alarming in the extreme.
Blanche Ingram: Bella Swan girl, run.
Anastasia Steele: Blanche Ingram you don’t know her life — maybe blood or stalking or blowing through her boundaries is her love language. Or cannibalism.
Admin: Another warning to keep it clean, ladies. Blanche Ingram, this is your second warning and your kink-shaming comments have been removed.
Bella Swan: So, this is a photo of Edward Cullen, which is really dark, sorry. I don’t know if he’s seeing anybody else but I feel like he’s not being straight with me. Any red flags?
Cathy Linton: He looks tubercular. Hot.
Jane Eyre: Came here to say this. But maybe too young?
Bella Swan: I think he’s lying about his age. Also says he’s a vampire? Like is that just fear of intimacy talking?
Elizabeth Bennett: Bella Swan genuinely concerned about you. How is all this lying — or worse, actual vampirism — not a red flag?
Cathy Linton: But on the plus side, your love could last eternally.
Blanche Ingram: Bella Swan Bitch, he’s crazy. I mean, so are you, but run.
Admin: Cathy Linton and Bella Swan, we’ve received your complaints regarding hostile comments and replies but to be fair, you’re both pretty batshit.
Cathy Linton: So I grew up with this guy Heathcliff but we kind of grew apart after I was injured in a dog attack — long story, moving on — and we’ve had an on-and-off very codependent relationship. I married someone else and Heathcliff literally seduced my sister-in-law to mess with me. I know, I know. But then he’s telling me he still loves me and saying, “My soul is in the grave.” Anyway, fast forward: I’m dead and I don’t know if I should keep haunting him with eerie visions of me on the moors, or if he’s seeing someone else. Anybody talking with him?
Bella Swan: Are you dead-dead or just undead?
Blanche Ingram: Girl, run to the light.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky @jfumikocahill.bsky.social.
This article appears in Step Aside Prop. 47, Proposition 36 Has Arrived.
Lmao 🤣