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Tyler’s Van Cullen

Bring me your best deeply specific to E/B’s love story names that their daughter could have been given. 

I’m talking Freesia Meadow Cullen. 

Claire Luna Cullen. 

Persephone Pomegranate Cullen. 

Lullaby Spider-Killer Cullen. 

Mushroom Ravioli Cullen.

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The name of Esme’s baby is...

Reading Life and Death, I was a bit miffed that Earnest’s human daughter who died got a name while we still didn’t know the name of Esme’s son. Today at the Stephenie Meyer Q&A at The Grove I asked the question what’s the name of Esme’s son. I expected her to name a name that begins with “G” because Earnest’s daughter was named Grace. She said the difference with Esme is that her child was not well when he was born and Esme probably had a name for him in her head, but she had to name Grace because she lived until she was two. Stephenie then opened it up to the audience to come up with a name for the baby and she would make it canon, which shocked me. As an Esme fan this is something I’ve wondered for years and now we were going to leave it open to  debate?! While I know these folks were all Twilight fans, I know there were probably not many that have been dying to know the answer to this for years or really care all that much. I said doesn’t it have to be a “G” name and she said no, which is contrary to everything about the names in Life and Death, which was aggravating. I said I saw him as also being named Edward, which, if you have read The Esme Chronicles or Ask Esme Cullen, you know that’s what I went with for her son’s name. She didn’t buy it. I had been thinking about “G” names when I read about “Grace” so I said Gabriel because he’s an angel and she said no because Gabe is her son’s name and the baby dies so she couldn’t do that or Seth or Eli. As people started yelling out names I started to become horrified and said out loud in here direction “this is important” as to say I don’t want this decided on a whim! I wanted her to stay within the realm and the rules she now established with Life and Death of the first letter being the same. Still in that mindset I said Gregory, but wasn’t heard as people yelled Jeffrey and Joseph and she quickly put it to a vote and “Joseph” won. If I wasn’t trying to play within her rules I would have offered up William, which is Esme’s brother in my head canon. Joseph is better than Jeffrey, which I just don’t see her naming her child in 1921. So Joseph Platt it is, because I refuse to think she gave the child “Evenson” as a last name. 

I’ve finished Life and Death and there’s a lot that’s disheartening about it, but I so tried to keep Stephenie on track with her own naming device today and I can’t believe we ended up with something else completely. She hadn’t ever given enough thought to it to actually already have a name. She put more thought into Earnest’s child than Esme’s and that hurts my heart a lot.   

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I still firmly believe having Rosalie be the one to find and choose to save Emmett was the wrong way to go and that Esme would have been a much better choice. I realize it was meant to be a show in terms of how well Rosalie can control herself— “she carried him over one hundred miles to Carlisle while he was bleeding” —but considering the fact that Rosalie’s self control is more or less never really mentioned again beyond what she did to Royce and his men, or for the sake of Edward making passive aggressive digs at her, that’s basically all the reason I need to ignore the choice made by Meyer. Esme, however, was never said to have any sense of real control. In fact, I believe she slipped up her fair share of times which arguably would have made her ability to somehow resist Emmett’s blood that much more impactful. Rather than having the arguably weird concept of Rosalie choosing to save Emmett because he had a “baby face” that reminded her of her friend Vera and her sweet baby boy, it could have been Esme who was reminded of her own baby whom she lost, leading to her becoming overcome with the need to save him as she was unable to save her own child before. It could have been a play on how much her desire to have a child of her own and be something more; a homemaker, a mother, a caretaker— ultimately helped her to overcome her bloodlust in order to get Emmett back to Carlisle in time so that he could be saved.

Not to mention that it is no whispered secret that Rosalie is not a fan of the vampire lifestyle. It’s very clearly stated that this is not a life she wishes to have been granted, nor is it one she wishes to see anyone else be brought into. If you really wanted to you could argue that the circumstances between Bella, in the beginning of the series when we heard this stance of Rosalie’s, and Emmett when he was found, are very different. You could argue that given that Emmett’s only choices were between death and eternal life, Rosalie would not have been so stiff about the concept but I would have to disagree. This is simply because of the fact that in Eclipse, Rosalie makes a comment to Bella along the lines of “if [any Cullens] had happy endings, we’d all be under gravestones now” which leaves me to believe that while she would have hated to see Emmett suffering, she still would not damn him to this lifestyle. This is much different from Esme who has a much lighter and joyous opinion towards vampirism as it more or less saved her and made her whole. 

TLDR: Having Esme be the one to find Emmett would have been so much more impactful to not only the story of the Cullen family but to their characters individually. Esme could have had a much more hands on stance in bringing together her found family instead of just Carlisle. She could have had a more prominent role in helping him overcome his own bloodlust and learning to adjust rather than just being a quiet background prop sitting by helpless. Rosalie and Emmett’s romantic dynamic would have been much more organic and healthy. All in all, it just would have made more sense.

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me, Batman (edward cullen), brooding in the batmobile (my dads mercedes before burying myself in a snowbank in canada) after i finally stopped the joker (myself) from trying to wreak havoc on the city of gotham (killing a classroom full of teenagers)

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no particular order: carlisle, garrett, amun, aro (following him gets the whole volturi backstory, which is what i’m interested in), and tanya (again, following her gets the denali sisters’ backstory)

basically the older you are, the more interested i am in you lol

Poll, pt 2 - Most Interesting

As a companion piece to the "most tragic" backstories poll, what are your top five Most Interesting backstories?

Who are the top 5 characters (human, shifter, or vampire) who when you read/saw/heard their backstories you were like "wait I want to read a book about THIS instead!"?

Reblog, reply, or send an ask with your answers and I'll . . . try to make sense of this Super Scientific Data later.

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in no particular order: rosalie, leah, siobhan, bree, and esme

(close runner ups: carlisle and alistair)

POLL - Most Tragic

Who are your top five Most Tragic Backstories in the Twilight series? Can be human, shapeshifter, or vampire. Can rank them in order or just give a no-particular-order list.

reply, reblog, or send an ask with your answers.

And for 'backstory' I would include anything that happened before Bella or off-screen before/during the series. So like, anything Leah/Sam/Emily related is 'backstory' because we only hear about it after the fact.

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Someone take pics art away from me

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charlie: how many kids do you have?

carlisle: emotionally, biologically, or legally?

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e & f for sure, but d sounds hilarious

How do you conceptualize the Volturi?

A) The villains

B) A coven like any other

C) A family

D) A workplace like The Office

E) A royal court full of intrigue

F) A government/court/law enforcement system

G) Other. Explain?

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i honestly think it would have been more interesting if it was a coincidence - that nobody told bella, but she just happened to come up with that in the moment.

and when she comes back, charlie reveals that to her and it’s a twist of “you’re more like your mother than you think” you know?

why does bella know the EXACT words her mom used when she broke up with her dad? like its not like she was there, or she was a baby, right? is her mom telling this story to her child frequently?? seems like awful parenting (not that we didn’t already know that renee is an awful parent haha)

Yeah I don't know about this one.

My hunch is that SM had the idea of like "oh it would be dramatic and heartbreaking if Bella used the same words Renee did!!" and then just didn't bother to think through HOW Bella would know what the exact words were.

You're right, of course, that Bella was a baby when this happened so she can't possible 'remember' it. So someone had to tell her. And the only two people who were there were Charlie and Renee. Either one of them telling their kid the details--down to the exact words--of their break-up is kind of weird.

But I doubt SM stopped her stream-of-consciousness writing for one moment to wonder "hey, how DID Bella know about this?" but if she had, she'd blame it on Renee telling Bella at some point. Sort of like Bella conveniently having a passport in New Moon because Renee and Phil had originally thought about getting married in Mexico or whatever. She comes up with ideas and then justifies them after the fact. Or doesn't. Which is fine, I'm sure a lot of authors do that, but it Twilight has such in-the-moment vibes that it kind of sweeps you along and while you're reading you're not so much like "wait. . . how would Bella know what Renee said to Charlie?" until thinking back on it after the fact.

At least that was my experience; on my initial read, for example, I totally missed that Bella meeting the Cullens at their house and playing baseball/running from James was the same day. Somehow it felt like more time had passed but no they literally met her that day and Rosalie's "why should I?" attitude makes more sense in that context. They really DON'T know her at all.

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very much this, and it’s also worth noting that rosalie is far from the only character SM does this to. really, any character that doesn’t immediately bend over backwards for bella is demonized, no matter what their background, intentions, or motivations. it’s a very immature attitude of hers, that “interfering” with bella’s “happily ever after” makes somebody villainous. but what’s weird is that this attitude seems to be reserved for female characters.

jasper wants to kill bella - nearly DOES kill bella - but he gets a pass. mike pursues bella even though she’s not interested, but he’s just written off as a pathetic teen boy who can’t take a hint. in eclipse, jacob kisses bella without her consent and threatens suicide if she does not return his affections, but that’s all water under the bridge once regurgitation hits the scene.

the only exceptions are the volturi, who are actual evil overlords who have slaughtered thousands, possibly millions.

contrast this with leah, whose entire life was ruined by the presence of the cullens, so it’s totally understandable that she isn’t exactly warm to them, or to bella who has very firmly aligned herself with them. and despite all that, she still helps them! so what if she doesn’t do it with a smile on her face? it’s already more than they deserve from her. “harpy”, my ASS.

jessica’s crime is… being a normal teenage girl? who is scared of bella’s death wish behavior? that would have freaked me out at 16 too! she has every right to distance herself from bella.

even irina! sure, she should have tried to talk to her “cousins” first about resale before going to the volturi, but she was reporting what she genuinely believed was a serious crime - one that she has a very painful history with. she certainly didn’t deserve to DIE for that!!!

typed all that out just to say SM hates women - what else is new? lmao

That line about Rose being a monster is annoying. Yeah, she's not NICE to Bella but she's not actively ruining her life ala Mean Girls or something. Even taking Jasper/Rose wanting to kill Bella into account, EDWARD WAS GOING TO KILL BELLA TOO! ESME was all right with Bella dying to protect the family! I know that it's Bella's story and maybe Rose would apologize like that, but it feels so much like Meyer using Rose as a mouthpiece to push her "Assertive Pretty Women Are Awful" agenda.

That's the thing: when you actually sit down and try to list out the times that Rosalie was actively mean to Bella there isn't. . . there just isn't much there! "What is she is to me?" is probably the absolutely meanest thing she did/said, and that was literally the first day she met her! She and Edward had been 'dating' for like, what, a few days? I know Bella and the readers are coming at this from a love story perspective of like, oh E/B are endgame they will be together for eternity but they literally JUST started dating so Rosalie really DOESN'T have any connection to this girl yet. "What is she to me?" She's just her brother's brand new girlfriend they just met THAT DAY. No one is throwing around words like "mate" or "marriage" or "let's turn her into a vampire" yet this is very new--and very dangerous, as again, it's literally the FIRST DAY the Cullens officially meet her and already they have to protect her from a deranged tracker. Rosalie's point, while I'm sure coming off as mean to Bella, isn't totally unreasonable. Again, as readers we've been with Bella this whole time, but to Rosalie she's this brand new person that suddenly she is being asked to risk her life to protect.

And the New Moon phone call wasn't malicious, either. She thought Edward would come home if he knew Bella was dead, so she told him. Again, maybe not the best idea, but not actively mean or cruel. She thought he had the right to know and she missed him. Her big crime here is underestimating how much Edward loved Bella but again . . . as readers we're deep into this love story. As Edward's sister . . .how much is Rosalie really thinking about the depths of his feelings for her? I don't know about you, but I don't spend a lot of time trying to gage the depths of MY brothers' feelings for their significant others.

And as you point out. . . Edward planned to kill her. Jasper wanted her dead. Esme was willing to let it happen if it kept the family together. Emmett would have been fine with it. If not for Alice and Carlisle's objections, Bella would be dead regardless of anything Rosalie wanted, said or did. She was never actively mean to her, she just wasn't warm or welcoming, so compared to the rest of the family she comes off as bitchy but . . . she wasn't wrong about this whole thing being dangerous to the whole family. It's um, pretty clear in the books that they all Went Through It because of Edward falling for this random girl. Sure, they had to move a few times after Rose brought Emmett home, but they didn't have to deal with a deranged tracker, or face the Volturi like 2-3 different times, or fight a newborn army to the death.

Again, I get it. From Bella/the reader's POV it's so easy to feel like "why doesn't she like me/us? She's so mean!" but stepping outside that perspective . .. she's really not that mean at all. Actual instances of Rosalie being mean are like . .. the "what is she to me?" incident in the books and a couple of glares in the movies.

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To Leah and Renesmee: what are your plans for the future?

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Ok I'm trying to sleep but I had this thought and it won't go so:

In Twilight, Edwards only, what, just over 100 right? Can you imagine being Bella, and listening to Edward angst on and on about being immortal and seeing time pass you by, but then finding out that it's only been a century???

"Bro, you're only slightly older than some people who just lived a good life, get over yourself. Carlisle is the only bitch I respect in this house"

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Its been a thousand years since I’ve done any twilight stuff but since halloween is right around the corner have a Cullen Halloween inspired by costumes from Bob’s Burgers! click for high res (feat: Handsome Grapes, a Hot Mess, the Cher-iff, Edward Scissorhands, the Dragon with a Girl Tattoo, Andre the Giant 3000, Nun of your Business, and the Sexy Nurse) Assorted Twilight Trash (14/?)

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So this was really different. I was amazing now-to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined. THE TWILIGHT SAGA (2008-2012)

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