#the bit with me becoming a vampire to save my life? felt very twilight-y. the josephine vision?

[isaacathom]

ooh, also, i had a fun dream last night

essentially, me and a group of friends are dealing with vampires, and are going to need to infiltrate a big party being held by a fuck ton of them. the plan we come up with is to impersonate a family who have been invited, which involves a bunch of strange stuff.

notably, i am playing the role of a woman called Josephine Brumont, wife of the other older vampire (played by a guy in our group that i have 0 romantic interest in), and who is a belgian expat (wallonia specifically, i suppose). this is something of a problem, as i am definitely not belgian, and my french is abysmal. but im the only person in the group who can possibly play josephine, so josephine i am.

we arrive just on the stroke of 10, having had an ordeal to get there in our disguises. and now that we're there, we find out what the party is really about - solving some murder than occured recently. the host had invited everyone who was a suspect, plus the +1s and so on that would make this seem normal. uhoh!!!

we're each one by one interrogated by the host. I manage to bumble my way through my interrogation, explaining my 'improved english' to the work of my dear and patient husband, and having the answers to questions bc we were quite possibly actually involved in the murder. unclear.

i'm then asked a question that i, isaac, would have no way of knowing, but josephine would know in a heartbeat. my "husband" is like 'oh shit oh fuck'. but lo! i have a lil psychic vision, and im able to explain exactly what josephine was doing at a given time. im released from talking.

that question was meant as a trap, and because i passed, they dont give a shit about me anymore. but some other guy isnt buying it. something up with me. when the lights briefly go out, he attacks me. surprising him considerably, im able to fight him off, flinging the knife he attacked me with away towards the table of refreshments, and berating him for daring to lay a hand on me in such a fashion. he gets dragged off. the vibes suggest he may have been the actual killer, but its not important.

however, i didnt fight him off that well. he stabbed him in the back, in a spot that gets hidden by my long hair (a wig?) and my shawl.

the dream at this point has what i call a 'remix' moment, where it happens close enough to being awake that i can choose to redo it. in the first version, i go up to my "husband" and inform him of The Injury, and beg him to actually turn me into a vampire so i dont die from it. there an argument, which doesnt get the chance to resolve, but i assume involves the fact we're in public and turning me now would reveal that i was human initially. problematic, yknow.

in the second version, i completely hide the injury from everyone, including from my friends, because i know vampires dont bleed. if i reveal that im bleeding, well. so i hide it, get by on adrenaline for a while. for some reason or another, our group get found out (NOT because of me, as far as i can tell) and we are forced to flee to the fancy car we drove here, and we speed off into the night.

its in the backseat of the car, with the member of my group that i'm closest to, that they found out about the successful stabbing.

in my musings later, i decided part of the reason they didnt realise i was actually injured (other than ~exceptional acting~) was that when i threw away my assailants dagger, it hit the punch bowl full of blood on the refreshments table, so that when anyone spots the bloody dagger, they assume its from the spilt bunch, not from Me, Josephine Brumont, 100% Real Vampire.

the later musings also had my friend in the backseat turning me into a vampire when it became unavoidably clear that we were not going to make it to a hospital in time for me to not actually bleed the fuck out, making it the only way to save ya bois life ✌ booyeah

[neirawrites]

I was a Twihard in high school. Then I was a Twilight hater. In  2018, I decided to reread the first book, to see for myself on which side I belonged. I wrote my thoughts as I read, in multiple parts, but on my main blog, so I thought I might share them on my writeblr too, because I kinda had fun with it. 

Enjoy my many, many notes

Pages 0-50

I’m actually kinda into it. Yeah, there are a many issues every article on editing tells you to fix (filter words, -ing verbs and things like that), but i feel it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there.

Bella isn’t that bad of a protagonist. Nothing too spectacular, but she’s fine. She is depressed, self sacrificing and hides her feelings, but also a lot more self aware than i though she would be(like when she notices mike, my son, likes her). She’s a typical teenage girl, the introverted type, way into reading. there’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t know why i remember Edward being a draco in leather pants,but he’s also fine for now. mysterious and handsome and a bit weird. The first real conversation they have, he’s polite and nice and charming. I expected him to be a dick for like 150 pages at least.

Pages 50-100

I’m still really into it.

Yeah,Edward kinda ghosts her/gaslights her after the whole van incident, but with the benefit of hindsight,i kinda get it. It’s a wonder he didn’t pick up his entire family and moved to Alaska again. I also get her mood during that time and I've been there so i feel ya,Bella,it’s not your fault.

And yeah, Bella gets invited to the dance by three different guys and it’s all kinds of fan fic-y, but the fact she turns them down furthers my belief she’s wake up married to Edward in like a few years and realize she would rather be with Rosalie (a solid choice, might i add).

Edward’s really pushy, especially when it comes to the scene after she faints. like, let her go, you jerk, she can drive herself, but he’s more weird than he’s a jerk and i think that was intentional.

A big surprise was the line “what if i’m not the hero, what if i’m the bad guy?” which isn’t this super cheesy, extra dramatic sentence but a jokey joke told with a laugh. actually, that whole conversation in the cafeteria where she tries to guess what he is is gold and don’t try to tell me otherwise.

I’m reading her interests in him as less of a romantic thing, and more of frustration at his behavior,like she would still be fascinated by him if he wasn’t so hot because he’s just so weird (but being hot is definitely a plus).

Plot? What plot?

Still, while the flaws are there, i’m still enjoying it very much.

Pages 100-150

Is Stephanie Meyer into anime? Cuz she wrote a harem light novel,that’s what she did and that’s how i’ll read it from now on and have more fun doing it. (Might make a post elaborating on this further).

All this to say that we got to Jacob. Not gonna lie, I kinda forgot about him.  He seems like a nice kid and i’m glad Bella has some positive interaction. Team jacoj 4 life (jk,man,i was team jasper in high school which is in retrospect very weird of me). I know he becomes a friend-zoned dudebro later, but for now, he’s fine.

Meyer, lady, you’re winning me over as a half hearted defender of your work, but why are the girls so bitchy? Yeah,i know, bitchy girls exist in real life, especially in high schools,but girls are our friends and we need more positive female on female interactions. Just my personal preference, I guess.

Things are getting interesting. Bella’s dreaming weird dreams (just fyi, not a big fan of dream scenes in general), she’s googling like crazy  and we’re going to Port Angeles.

I never felt she has any sort of affection for Angela or Jessica who seem really nice and have done nothing wrong. Like loosen up Bella, give them a chance. I know, depression makes you into a bitch sometimes, but it would warm me up to her character if she was a little more affectionate with people around her.

That whole scene where she almost gets at best beaten up and mugged and at worst raped and killed is… not my favorite part of the whole thing. I get what Meyer needed to do, to have her be saved by Edward, but there must have been a better way to go about it. What do I know? I’m the queen of forced plot contrivances. I do like their conversation at the restaurant (again, why do we hate the female waitress, Steph?). I don’t know why, I expected Edward to be mad at Bella for what happened to her and he seems genuinely concerned and his anger feels… human. Some of his actions, however, do not.

He stalked her which is weird and creepy and I hate it. Don’t stalk people, Edward. most of us don’t like it. you’re lucky Bella’s a weirdo.

150-200

I kinda love how ok she’s with the whole vampire thing. she’s just “well, this kid i barely know told me a scary story, so i guess the guy from school is a vampire. it be like that sometimes.” my first assumption would be it’s all an elaborate prank to make fun of me (i have some deep seeded trust issues origins of which remain unknown). and he’s waaay to quick to confirm her suspicions. I think there’s an explanation in the part of midnight sun that got leaked, but that was like a century ago.

I would criticize her for being ride or die with Edward so fast, falling in love with him so quickly, but i exchanged like 5 sentences with a cute girl last night and a part of is ready to propose based on the artiness of her instagam, so who the eff am i to judge?

and i get why he’s fascinated with her. she’s the only one he can’t read.

why? i don’t think that question ever gets a good enough answer, but it’s a fictional story about a girl falling in love with a sparky vampire. i’m not here for complex science or detailed explanations.

he seems waaay too protective of her. She’s a big girl, Ed, she can take care of herself. It’s actually kinda annoying. i dislike how he treats like a child a lot of the time. he seems pretty condescending. also, if he broke her car, i’m taking back everything nice i said about him.

ok, let me finally address bella’s biggest character flaw, her clumsiness. i mean, i get why she has it but Meyer goes a bit too hard on it. i’m clumsy, i really am, full of bruises, always bumping into things, but Bella can’t walk 20 meters without tripping. i guess i’m just glad she becomes a vampire in the book four, otherwise the book five would have been about her struggles when she’s diagnosed with a stage four inoperable brain tumor that’s been mesing with her sense of balance and the whole things turns into a weird version of the fault in our starts.

if i were writing it i would focus on her trust issues and being unable to form real bonds with other people as her main flaw, maybe even use it to try and justify the whole thing with the mind Edward can’t read. Like, she’s too different in a way that makes her unable to connect even on a basic level, like that one Blue whale that sings at a different frequency than all the others. Idk,i write pulpy sci fi. but it’s easy to be a general after the battle.

we got to the two infamous lines:

how are you? 17. how long have you been 17?  is another line that’s more jokey than i though it would be, but also the most realistic piece of dialogue in this book. i would so ask the same thing.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, this paragraph has been memed to death. Second, there was a part of me-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that would know every word of it till the day i died. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in like with it.

200-300

Not gonna lie, the whole part where he goes around asking her questions he is legitimately interested in knowing the answers to is at the same time my kinkiest fantasy and my deepest fear. like, yaaas, daddy, get to know me on the personal level and don’t be turn off by the fact i’m a tabula rasa.

We got to the infamous meadow scene and Bella is sooo horny on main for that vampire stake it’s actually kinda funny. She gets so effing into it she faints. I fucking love this girl. Go get that adonis dick, Bella, you deserve it.

I don’t mind vampires sparkle.i mean,it’s lame and fanfic-y but in Bosnia we have the lampires so vampires are creatures with a high dose of plasticity. i don’t know why that was like the worst thing anyone has ever done to the vampires. They are kinda too strong and could use a real weakness tho.  

So the lion fell in love with the lamb is kind of another joke. Also, this is the skin of a killer is sadly just in the movie.

I do have the feeling he likes the project that he sees in Bella more than the real girl,but ok. Also stop nagging her. He watches her sleep. What a creep. I don’t know why, but the fact that he’s a vampire who doesn’t have to sleep makes it kinda less creepy for me. I don’t know why.

But “if i could dream at all i would be about you,” is the kind of ultracheese i can get behind. they are both such teenagers and i kinda looooove it.

Also non of the boys were her type is such a lesbian excuse. I feel ya Bella, i feel ya. I hope you discover your gayness after the end of breaking dawn.

We meet the cullens and every single one of them has a backstory like 528 times more interesting than Edward. i need novels about them, all of them ffs. it would be so cool. but, one of my favorite oc’s Errien Lark gets like 30 lines in the whole book so i can only be as harsh on Meyer as on myself (which is to say a lot. neither of us deserve these characters, honestly)

This book would have been more interesting if Bella fell in love in any other cullen. Like, Bella and Alice, Bella and jasper (Bella and Jasper and Alice. Sorry, i’m into solving love triangles with ot3s).Bella and Rosalie, Calilise, Esme, even Emmett, who i remember  as mike of the vampires, but it’s been a decade.

300 pages in and plot is yet to happen, but it’s ok. we have the vampire baseball next.

the last part.

get your hot takes! hot takes right here

I kinda like billy. He seems like a nice guy. Also billy/charlie as my new otp.

“The beautiful one,the godlike one.” Bella, you are such a teen.

The less fucks she has about him being an all powerful ancient creature of the night who can murder her in a heartbeat, the funnier it is. She is just soo casual about it. Comedy gold, i tell ya. i mean, this is actually part of the narrative, Edward comments on it, meyer knows what she wrote.

Ed,maybe is you stopped saying she smells good, you would be better at not thinking about her as food. Mind over matter. Just a thought. Maybe i misjudged his virgin ass. Maybe ed the incel actually fell in love with her. Or at least what he thinks is love since they’ve been dating for like two days (look who’s talking?the girl who reads any sign of affection as a statement of love and then gets disappointed).

“Emmett could never be compared to a gazelle”. That’s sexist steph. Emmett, honey, you are as gracious as you want to be.

Also a big yaaaas on the whole concept of vampire baseball. we needed more of it.

Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot!

We have encountered plot. Only 320 pages in. three bad vampires came into town.

Story time: when i was in high school, all like 20 of us in out class were really, really into twilight (dudes included). we quoted it all the time but the height of comedy happened when someone brought their friend from another school to out class and someone else was like “you brought a snack” and a meme was born to be quoted endlessly for months. it was actually kinda fun. and probably very annoying for anyone who wasn’t into twilight.

Also, any development? Backstory? Motivations other than for the hell of it for out boi James and his ginger girlfriend? come on, it wouldn’t even be that hard. Also, some foreshadowing? There was like one line before. This is a legitimate criticism. it’s kinda shitty writing and a wasted opportunity.

Edward is being a dick again. I get he’s scared but her dad could die. Or maybe they’ll trun him into a vampire too (charlie/Edward? Think about it). But they all call him out on it which is nice. Bella’s plan isn’t bad, but “let me go charlie” is the straight up coldest thing i have read in a long time. it’s supposed to be, this isn’t criticism, just stating the obvious. But she showed like an inclining of love for her dad who has been nothing but nice all this time. Yeeey, she’s not a robot.

“It was the best idea. Of course it was mine” . Yaas, queen, you’re not that much of a doormat;  take that credit.

i would do something to foreshadow the ballet studio thing in the first half of the book. at least, have Bella or Charlie looking at pictures from her recital, just to intricate it to the plot a bit more.

Ok, now i remember why i was team jasper. He is so effing nice. And he would be awesome for my depression. Neira/Alice/jasper, i ship it.

i’m kinda digging the explanations of how vampires work and the whole venom thing. They are still op af and need to be nerfed, but i wanna be one.

Of course, he used the mom. She’s like the only person bella actually cares about. She falls for it. i would probably fall too, but i’m dumb.

the fact that james hunted Alice is a nice and a very much needed twist. it did catch me of guard. i would be more mad he’s a bad guy monologing, but i can only introduce stones to my own glass houses.

Bella’s now more into the idea of being a vampire than into Edward and i’m living for it. she’s going to use him for his venom and a baby and run off with rosalie.

“and how many times did she fall our of a window?” (yes, that is a Sherlock reference in the year 2018 of our lord. maybe i should do that for my next project. should i wait a few more years?)

her mom is not worried enough, honestly. my mom would be freaking out. but my mom has anxiety issues, so idk… (i couldn’t get her smooth hairless legs, or her blue eyes but i got that gene. thanks, i guess) .

“And i have a couple of girlfriends” now that’s a novel i want to read but i guess i’ll have to write the lesbian twilight myself.

“I want to be superman too”. yeeees, finally, kristen steward in the role of superman casting of the century. you would all watch it and love it, and you know it.

Charlie doesn’t deserve this shit. when will he retire with his husband billy in their cabin where they can fish all day.

“Do you want me to bolt the door so you can massacre the unsuspecting townsfolk?“ Are we sure she hasn’t been a vampire from day one?

Jacob is a sweetie (for now) just putting that out there.

Edward is kinda being unreasonable. being a vampire in your universe isn’t that bad.

Aaaaw, and that’s a wrap.

i actually kinda digged it. it’s nothing special, but i read these last 150 pages in one sitting. my main issues are writing oriented. very little foreshadowing, many filter words and things like that, but i guess if you aren’t that into writing, you might not even notice more of that.

it’s not the death of literature, it’s not the worst love story ever told. it’s just a silly and mostly harmless wish fulfillment novel.

edward can be a controlling and condescending prick but he gets called out on it very often. it’s not like meyer is completely oblivious to what she’s writing. and even tho he’s 100, i guess they are all mostly stuck mentally at the age when they were turned. or at least that’s how it seems to me. bella is kind of a bitch to everyone who’s not a vampire and she’s never called out on it, there’s a glimpse of change in the epilogue, but i don’t think meyer really considered it a character flaw. which is a shame, as it could have made for an interesting character. all the vampires have stories i would rather read about, as i said before, but what can ya do? that’s what’s fanfics are for.

i may write more of cohesive thought on it when it settles in my brain, but first, i need to watch the movie. i have a hypothesis i need to test.

but i don’t regret doing this. it was kinda fun and now i’m no longer ashamed of my twihard phrase. i could have done worse, as far as teen phases go.

Someone should like write a fanfic, but Edward is not a vampire, but a rich guy. And he’s into some hard core spanky business. And they should take all the problematic elements and just crank them up to 11. And add a looot of sex. I bet they could make millions.

Tho, honestly, how can you read twilight and not make bella the kinky dom? you fundamentally misunderstood the story. for shame

[empathetic-cowboy]

I honestly want to read all of your answer for those asks. 1-40? Or those you like the most c:

UHM HONESTLY THIS IS MY FAVOURITE ASK EVER !!!!! 

Because I don’t have time to answer all 40, I’m going to give you TEN randomly picked questions from the list and answer below ~! 

(thank you random number picker!!!!) 

AND BE WARNED – THIS WILL PROBABLY GET LENGTHY. 

40. Do you think the movies did the books justice?

Yes and no. I will stand forever and die on the Catherine-Hardwicke-Did-It-Best hill. Above them all, I’d say that Catherine captured the essence of the books the most accurately. Maybe it’s the blue filter, I don’t know, but she got that creepy/sad/romantic Forks vibe that drew me into the series in the first place. She really got the perfect balance of romance, action, fantasy, high school, the whole thing. So yeah, I think she did a great job with the books. Chris Weitz did alright with New Moon – I love the brownish, jacob-y vibe, I think they adapted the script well and did a fan-fucking-tastic job on the soundtrack too, so that one would be my second favourite book-to-movie. The other two? Eh. I think they lost something that the books had. Eclipse WAS my favourite when it first came out but watching them now, I feel like the last three movies are just missing something wonderful that the first two movies and the first three books (sorry bd) had. 

28. How would you personally rewrite Twilight?

For those of you who haven’t seen it, I have a bit up on my personal twilight rewrite idea up here! It’s a little bare bones in terms of what I’d do with breaking dawn, but I can elaborate on that here! 

Going with the rest of my switch-new-moon-and-eclipse-au, I’d have Bella changed and conflicted starting in BD. I think it would be SUPER interesting to have the main conflict be something to do with the volturi and the shape shifters. Maybe the clan and the pack finally join forces bc Bella is changed but still loves her Jake, but out in the world shapeshifters are showing up dead at the volturi’s hand or something ??????? and they need to band together to save the wolves and Jake before the volturi eliminate the species altogether.

Could be interesting, IDK. There’s a lot less renesmess and an opportunity still for Jake to meet Benjamin so I’m all for it. 

37. What’s your perspective on Twilight now compared to when you first read it?

I think about this all the fucking time.When I first read Twilight, it was just before the first movie came out in 2008. I was almost twelve years old, and dumber than most twelve year olds, lbr. I didn’t see any issues in the book. I thought it was novel (pun intended), and romantic, and Hell, come Breaking Dawn I was even all aboard the Nessie train. I was SM brainwashed, kind of. I trusted our author. Coming back to Twilight in 2019 was a literal fucking shock to the system. I watched the movies for the first time in like five years, and was utterly shocked by the ample fucking problematic shit I noticed in every fucking scene. What hurt the most? Realizing my favourite character was the worst fucking show of racist propaganda in the entire goddamn series. I got angry when I watched the series again for the first time. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I felt ashamed, honestly. I felt bad looking at the piece of media, and seeing how twisted and disgusting and wrong so many parts of it were. But then I went online. I knew Twilight was becoming a thing again, and I didnt understand how such problematic media worked in this day in age, so I was curious to see what the discourse was like. Guys, I’m so fucking glad I did. There’s something so nice about being able to clearly see and discuss issues in this saga, while still appreciating that it digs into your nostalgia and has the opportunity to be so much bigger and better than SM ever intended. I love signing on here and seeing someone discuss our HCs – seeing how people take these characters and stretch and shift and mold them to embody what the world looks like today. I love coming here to read about favourites portrayed as characters of colour, or how said characters could be portrayed as trans,  or nb, or gay, or how this character could be better shown as A, B, C – you catch my drift. It’s not just that, either. It’s not just the changes that I appreciate, either.

There’s something about acknowledging the things that can’t be changed within the original text – starting conversations about the treatment of native characters, discussing the portrayal of females presenting characters, working through SM’s religious biases – that not only helps me appreciate what this text should have been / can be now, but seriously, has helped me learn a lot along the way. I’m a very faulty white girl. Coming here and learning new perspectives from people who are impacted by specific biases / choices made in this series has been one of the most eye opening experiences I’ve had online. And that’s another thing – I’ve never once been criticized for still having so much to learn, un-learn, or understand from a different perspective. The people in this fandom (so far – I feel very lucky) have been more than open in discussing their criticisms, concerns, and understandings in a way that makes me feel welcome, and encouraged to learn/understand more. It’s a super inclusive fandom –  freakin’ rare to see – but it’s also the kind of fandom that isn’t afraid to see its own faults – that’s even more rare. We’re all aware of our fandom’s problems, and we aren’t afraid to talk about them, or acknowledge the fact that SM’s beliefs aren’t a reflection of US. It’s special. It’s amazing. It’s why I’ve stuck around for almost a year now. 

3. Fave headcanon brotps?

Oh, dude. Seth / Edward Jake / Emmett Emmett / Paul Charlie / Billy Bella / Emmett Rose / Leah Carlisle / Sam Alice / Jake 

30. Which characters do you wish had their own spinoffs?

Oof. I think it would be SUPER interesting to have a whole spin-off series just on the wolves, actually! Not one in particular, but I think the whole world of shapeshifters could and SHOULD be explored more deeply!!!!!In terms of specific characters: Alice (duh), Carlisle (take me back to the 1800s or some shit show me his life in the volturi!!!!!), Leah Clearwater (she’d be my wolf-pack-spin-off main character). 

15. Top 5 fave vampires?

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER: 

Alice, Jasper, Esme, Emmett, Rose.Yeah, they’re all Cullens. Suck my Olympic-sized dick. 

9. Astrology sign headcanons for the Cullens?

YEEEEEEEES. I am very stuck in my opinions for these, and I’m not sure why. It’s pointless, but I care VERY DEEPLY. Carlisle: Capricorn Esme: Pisces Edward: Gemini / Cancer cusp is perfect for this S.O.B.Bella: VirgoRosalie: ScorpioEmmett: Sagittarius Alice: Aries Jasper: Taurus (but I go back and forth on Jasper daily so ask me again tomorrow) 

13. Hogwarts house sorting headcanons for the wolf pack?

I’ve never considered this before, so this is first-instinct. Sam: Slytherin Paul: SlytherinEmbry: Gryffindor Quil: GryffindorJake: Gryffinpuff?? the man is brave, but he’s loyal to a GD fault. I think that might just be the wolfy traits comin’ through though. Leah: RavenclawSeth: Hufflepuff(just doin’ these guys to keep it simple) 

20. Pick a character you wish deserved a better fate (that wasn’t death).

Bree. Fucking. Tanner. 

Any chance I get to write something, I add in a redemptive arc for Bree Tanner because I can’t for the life of me understand out of all the characters why fucking SM decided to kill the one that DEFINITELY deserved a fucking soft and perfect life. 

Fuck you SM, Bree is alive and well. 

1. Fave wlw ships?

!!! YAY !!! Leah / Angela Bella / Rosalie Carmen / Esme AND THEN JUST BECAUSE I CAN: Edythe / Bella Jessamine  / Alice Carmine / Esme Julie / Leah Julie / Bella