#SM's twilight inconsistencies

[diamonds-dont-sparkle-they-shine]

Yall

If Alec and Jane were born in the 8-hundreds AD (England before it was England) I don't think their names would be Alec or Jane - nor would their deaths have been by fire...

#alec volturi #jane volturi #SM's twilight inconsistencies

[dreamories]

Twilight rant, more specifically Breaking Dawn because I cannot let go of my overthinking.

Actually I only have one question: HOW???

The movie makes it look like the vampires are like frozen , their blood and everything inside them (or at least that's what I got from the movie visuals of Bella turning)

Which I guess the oil on their skin being like that could sort of explain why they kind of sparkle...

Stefan and Dimitri said that they basically almost turned to stone bc they hadn't fed in ages

So my question is how tf did my man Edward not only get it up (maybe that's just natural state?? Idk I don't judge) but more specifically how did his 100 year old swimmers survive and move into Bella's uterus???

Am I obsessing to much over this? Yes.

Is it weird? Absolutely.

Do I want to have a serious chat with SM about it? Yes, because I don't like inconsistency which is odd bc I loved those books when I was younger.

#twilight renesmee #the twilight series #the twilight saga #twihard #twilight #twilight saga #bellward

[rivalmelty]

uhhhh y’all ever just

*gently holds protégé*

#quick little doodle #bc while i have a lot to do in art school #they’re not due til the end of the week #(famous last words) #anyways they #i just kinda scribbled the shading #so uhhh maybe one day i’ll properly color this #but for now #*gently holds protégé* #linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu twilight #lu time #oriondrewthis #shoutout to my inconsist art style #the only defining thing abt my art is my line quality #bc i love inking sm #tw blood

[panlight]

Let's say that Twilight went straight into Forever Dawn. There's no New Moon or Eclipse and nothing from those books happened. How do you think FD would have handled Jacob, Nessie, and Jacob/Nessie? What about Bella and her parents? Or did Meyer provide a draft somewhere?

There's a vague outline on her website, but we don't know much.

Basically she says the imprinting was always part of the story, which is just bananas to me because that means she knew Jacob + Bella Jr. was going to happen and still wrote New Moon and Eclipse the way she did! Like, why?! That's why I feel like Jacob got away from her in those books, that she didn't plan for it to go that way and then had to try and force the FD/BD ending when the middle books were screaming for a different resolution.

What she says on her website is that Jacob is just a casual friend of the family--NM never happened, so he and Bella never really bonded, and his feelings for her are just as lowkey crush level. So he's not around for Nessie's birth and instead imprints on her when Bella is visiting Charlie a few weeks later.

Which in itself is weird/interesting because THAT means that Charlie is still part of Bella's life and Jacob had nothing to do with it! In BD, it's Jacob phasing in front of Charlie that clues him in to the supernatural world (and Edward and Bella are mad at him about it) but in FD apparently Charlie is kept around some other way. So then it's like, why did she change it to throw Jacob under the bus like that when she had some other plan to keep him originally? Really very curious how that played out in FD. To be fair, Bella was herself planning to try and keep him in her life somehow, which makes all the "wow she's willing to give up so much" stuff fall kind of flat because no, she's not, she was trying to keep it all. Which is understandable; it would be hard to cut off ties with your parents and/or fake your own death but based on Eclipse that's kind of what we're told will have to happen (and why Life and Death is a better, imho, ending. It's SADDER, but that's what you need if the premise is "main character sacrifices humanity to be with lover forever").

And I still would have been like "eww" about imprinting on the baby, but because Jacob would have only been "that guy Bella flirted with on the beach to get info about the Cullens" and not her best friend who got her through a dark period in her life, I think I would have been less angry about it? Jacob's whole thing was to be the human option, to choose free will, to be down to earth and real. "Imprinting is just another way to have your choices taken away," "none of them belong to themselves anymore," "What's wrong with falling in love the normal way?" and then she made him imprint on a half-vampire infant and even as someone who wasn't actively Team Jacob (I'm not shippy so like legit didn't care who Bella ended up with) I was just so angry at how unfair it was to him and how narratively unsatisfying/inconsistent it was. There probably would have been less of that in FD if only because we wouldn't have known Jacob as well. Still wouldn't have liked it, though. Imprinting as Happily-Ever-After does nothing for me because it feels fake; it's like a love potion vs real love. And imprinting on children has a whole host of awful connotations no matter how innocent SM intended it to be.

#asks

[vampqueersarchive]

Because twilight is coming back let’s not forget

the author literally referred to the Quileute tribe as mutts and savages

When the director of the first film asked SM about adding some of the Cullens as POC she said “she couldn’t see it” yet made an evil vampire a POC

THERE IS LITERAL PEDOPHILIA IN THE BOOK AND MOVIE

The fandom has been known to say that they want to beat, sterilize, and kill Jacob

She made the native characters to be aggressive and scary and the “bad” people

Its promotes unhealthy obsessive, and abusive solutions and tries to get you to root for that relationship 

there was a character who was a confederate soldier and that was swept under the rug

time and time again SM proved she doesn't like POC especially black people and native people 

The weird r*pe vibes in scenes and an actual s*xual assault that happened and was handled so poorly and awfully 

THE MAIN LOVE INTEREST GOES TO KILL HIMSELF 

the treatment and dehumanization of native characters

the awful and problematic writing and the fact it’s not that good

The awful sexist and misogynistic undertones of the book 

And the fact that she pushes her pro-life, no sex before marriage Mormon views into to book and makes it seem like anything else is sinful 

the victim-blaming 

the relationship is so toxic and abusive that a character goes basically numb without it 

“I like watching you sleep” how about you don't stalk and obsessive over an underage teenager 

Dehumanizes native people

Highkey has pedophilia and tries to make you root for it

And of course, she makes an indigenous character a pedophile

Plot holes and inconsistent storylines/writing

Racism thinly veiled as activism written by a white women

And the list can go on and on 

So instead of supporting her and this god awful book and series how about you donate to the Quileute Tribe move to higher ground and if you can't just take time to learn more about how awful twilight is and listen to the truth and myth a good starting place is this post right here

Anyways don't support midnight sun and sm and if you do please block me 

#anti twilight #screaming #i am having a name crisis rn so no name

[forksofwisdom]

I have to admit that despite my indifference/annoyance towards Bella, I think her punching him was one of my favorite moments. Jake kind of deserved it for forcing a kiss, but we got to see a rare different side of Bella (that sadly didn't last for long -I haven't read Twilight in a while, so I could be wrong-).

Oh, it was definitely an iconic moment! Bella’s character is a little inconsistent when it comes to SM’s wish fulfillment - Bella has these moments where she’s a badass and stands up for herself, but I always get the feeling that SM was most eager about writing the romance, so the character development and side-plots weren’t a priority 

Note that these are just my opinion - please don’t come to my home and put my bed on fire ಥ╭╮ಥ

#SM makes it hard sometimes #nightrainn2 #ask #my thoughts #bella #jacob

[jessicanjpa]

Ooh, now I'm intrigued! Would you like to share some of your Jasper and Maria headcanons? How do you envision their relationship dynamic changing over time?

I still have those two separate headcanons about whether they were sexually involved (explained here)- basically, in my regular prequel headcanon (Tale of Years) they weren’t, and in my newer, SST headcanon they were.

In both, though, she tried (duh), but not immediately, because he was too unstable.  So in the yes-they-were-intimate headcanon, they were both incapable of really ever enjoying that intimacy- Maria, because I take her grief/vengeance trope at face value, and Jasper, because his gift was repulsed by Maria’s emotions surrounding said trope.  So their coupling was miserable anyway, didn’t happen often, and Jasper was super relieved when she cut him off after his betrayal of letting Peter run away.

Lately I’ve been more curious about Maria herself.  Like I said, I’m mean so I totally take her “vengeance is my life now” theme at face value. (also because subtlety and Maria are not acquainted and never will be)  I mean… what was she like before her mate was killed? I infer that she was “born” into the whole Southern Wars culture, but how warlike was she before she had her own personal vendetta?  I HC that she and her mate were both created by the same vampire and, being “raised” in that Southern Wars culture, both had a strong sense of filial loyalty to that creator, in a warped “military family” sense. I guess a lot would depend on whether their creator already had a vendetta going.  I assume so, since she seemed to be all about “reclaiming Monterrey” as a relatively young vampire, so again I infer there was already something going on vendetta-wise in her venomline before she was even created.  (I’m making a bunch of huge logic-jumps here, but how else would headcanon-forming be any fun?)

I also don’t know what to think about her mate.  I finally talked about her love/anger at him in my version of the Calgary incident, but like… how warlike was *he?  Would he really have wanted her to devote her existence to such a futile quest for vengeance? (Because I also HC that Maria is majorly stalling much like the Romanians are; this HC is explained more here)

The real question is: how would she feel if she finally achieved that vengeance, or if she was to learn that Lorenzo (the arch-enemy in my HC) had been killed already? I imagine a huge, burdens-rolling-away sense of relief, and it’s anyone’s guess what she would be left with.  According to SM’s rules, she’d have nothing left and be ready to die.  But there’s enough evidence to say that every vampire deals with grief differently, so… it’s possible she could return to whatever state she was in before the whole mess began.  Which could be totally indistinguishable from her current state, or the complete opposite.  What was she like, back as a human or Young Vampire In Love?  We’ll never know.  *Jasper will never know.  He asked back in the day, and quickly learned Not To Ask.  It irked him for a long time, since Maria was, for better and for worse, the most important person in his life, and he felt he couldn’t accurately deal with her without all the details.  Now that he has a new Most Important Person, he’s stopped caring. Mostly.

I generally assume that his sparing Maria’s life multiple times is mostly due to his gift, and the understanding it forces him into.  He’s been with her so long he’s felt every point of her Grief narrative, and totally understands why she’s the way she is.  And by the time he met her again in Calgary (and was given new reasons to kill her, but didn’t again), he had a mate of his own and understood even more. I think it’s up for debate whether he spares her out of spite, or out of pity, (in addition to a vestigial sense of affection/honor) but either way, by that time he was a Cullen and mercy is what Cullens are expected to do.  He was relatively new to the family at that time, and more impelled to prove that he could be what they (and more importantly, Alice) wanted him to be.  By the time Bella and Bree come around, he’s kind of over that.  Threats should be neutralized, and there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t regret sparing Maria’s life back in Calgary.  He spent most of the Saga asking himself why he didn’t “Accidentally” kill Bella back before Edward reached the point of no return, so when Bree comes around he decides not to make the same mistake a third time. (referring to my HC that he totally “helped” Carlisle and Esme suddenly be okay with Bree’s execution)

Does he miss the Maria days now? I’m sure there’s some teeth-grinding, sarcastic “at least I didn’t have to sit in a damn high school” self-talk every other day, but in general, no way.  There’s a broader feeling that he misses feeling powerful, and important, and productive, and respected/feared by his soldiers and all that… but of course in retrospect he sees how much of that was a lie all along.   Because I HC that he really did believe Maria’s lies.  Sure, he spotted the holes and inconsistencies in her storytelling (and who knows what his gift picked up in terms of outright lying) but by that time he was already so wrapped up in Maria’s blood-approval-importance-blood feedback loop that he couldn’t comprehend living any other way.  By the time he understood the pattern (that his soldier’s lives didn’t matter and neither did his) he had several years’ worth of logic built upon the foundation of the Worldwide Vamp Wars totally existing (and his having seen enough to believe it).  In retrospect he had some evidence to the contrary, and he feels stupid and angry about the whole thing (and completely mystified that his gift let him fall for it), but to his credit, as a human he was unaware of the Southern Wars raging in his backyard, and yet here they are. (I hope to sorta-soon write a 1865 one-shot that connects the Galveston chapters to the 1941 chapters, and covers his newborn self-talk.)

But aside from Maria’s creativity, how much self-talk got him around to that logical foundation in the first place?  Who knows. In Tale of Years, he’ll never figure that out himself.  His sense of honor prefers to think that he was totally fooled, so that he doesn’t have to face the possibility that he *chose to stay in that life for 78 years.  He’d much rather sacrifice his pride. In SST Aro is totally going to pluck that (largely invented) self-talk out of his memory and throw it in his face. Anything to further dismantle Jasper’s self-image and rebuild it as suits him best.  He’s a little concerned about Jasper’s gift picking up on this process, but he’s encouraged by Maria’s success, and in any case Chelsea’s been busy.  Now Jasper’s logical foundation is that Aro Is A Good Leader, and everything will follow from that point.  For now.

Sorry, I’m off track again. How has Jasper/Maria shifted over time? It’s intriguing to note that Jasper’s relationship with her was kicked off *while she, Nettie, and Lucy were technically the joint leaders.  He had to choose, very early on, which one of those leaders he was going to support.  It was a foregone conclusion that he would choose Maria, but this had long-lasting effects in their working (and/or intimate) relationship, especially once he helped her destroy the other two. Maria’s fear of betrayal never left her after that, and despite Jasper’s show of loyalty there, he’s too wrapped up in that betrayal narrative to ever be separated from it, in her mind.  But he knew how to survive, and proved his loyalty often enough to keep her satisfied  Other than his continued slide into revulsion/depression over the decades, I don’t think a whole lot changed between them from then on until Peter’s desertion.  (though I confess that’s mainly because I haven’t written anything about those intervening years.)That was when Maria officially began to turn against Jasper and perform a paranoid dissection of every word that came out of his treacherous mouth. (more on this in the final scenes of SST chapter 1)  The five years that followed were basically a slow descent into well-founded mutual suspicion, and finally deteriorated into the assassination plots.  Enter Peter at the last minute as per the usual Twilight Coincidence Magic, and all is well.

And now they’re “friends”. Which… in this universe, is a pretty broad term, so I choose to interpret it as a polite, unspoken no-kill pact that was kicked off in Calgary. It continues to this day, and let’s not even get into the weirdness of Jasper thinking about asking Maria to come “help” in Eclipse.  I assume that blackmail was going to be the larger part of that AU subplot, which is apparently a standard part of the “Friend” thing too.

As far as the future goes… I’m curious if SM was heading toward some resolution of the Jasper/Maria plotline, sometime after BD?  I’m so curious about this, and 100% open to ideas.

#sorry i tried to do a read more but it keeps not working for android phones #meta #jasper #maria #headcanon #southern wars #sst #tale of years #fanfiction #twilight #twilight sage

[panlight]

i just noticed something, in twilight when james is on the phone with bella alice and jasper are in the same hotel room with her and don't notice that it's james and not renee, but when bella wakes up in breaking dawn she describes being able to hear clear out to the highway from the cullen's house, that's gotta be smeyer bending powers for plot but it still bothers me

Right? But then later we find out that Vampire!Bella can hear distant cars driving while inside the Cullen house.

I'm sort of curious how she would have tried to retcon this in Midnight Sun, but since Edward wasn't there she didn't have to.

But I agree that it's, as you said, bending powers for the plot. Vampire hearing is pretty inconsistent, hearing what they need to, not hearing what SM doesn't want them too, etc. It's like Alice's gift that way. And this is sort of what I meant last week (?) when I said the world building mostly exists to serve E/B's story, rather than having a firm set of rules and then having E/B's story be influenced by that.

She retconned the holy heck out of that baseball field scene with James because she realized there was no way that they wouldn't have heard Bella's heart (a long time nitpick of mine!). So then she suddenly made Jasper have a facet to his ability we had never seen before or since (and is never mentioned in the other books) and added Edward . . . tapping his foot. . . to cover up the sound. But I think originally it had just not occurred to her that the vampires would hear her heart, and she was dead-set on the wind shifting and catching Bella's scent reveal instead.

Likewise she wanted this sneaky James phone call and so she couldn't have vampiric super-hearing (or Alice's gift) ruin it, so it exists as it does even if it kind of makes you go, "but wouldn't they have heard--? Wouldn't Alice have seen--?" because the E/B drama/story is more important than any vampire rules.

Though, to be fair, Twilight was the first book so you could also make the argument that she hadn't 'decided' all the rules yet, but then she should have made the Twilight rules THE rules instead of having vampiric hearing be so sensitive in later books.

#asks

[panlight]

Laurent thinks James is capable of killing the entire family and Edward is unwilling to fight James head on. His refusal, from what I remember, is specifically because James is so lethal and not because of Carlisle's reluctance to kill others. But then in the book and the film James goes down like a punk. In the film at least, Edward holds his own and then the others kill James easily. It's a huge letdown and seems really inconsistent, imho.

The whole thing doesn’t make a ton of sense because James is so hugely outnumbered. There was an interesting moment in MS, actually, where Edward even wonders if their original plan was a mistake, if going along with Carlisle not wanting to kill James/Victoria was a ‘weakness’ and I was into it, but then it doesn’t really go anywhere (it would have been interesting to bring that up during the @$&! car chase--have Carlisle be reluctant about Alice’s plan and Edward in a rare show of anger against his hero be like: we did it your way before and look what happened!).  James might lethal but there’s only one of him--two if you count Victoria but her gift makes her so non-confrontational I don’t know that he could really count on her if it came to a fight; no matter how devoted to him she is, her sixth sense for self-preservation might overrule that. Laurent sure as hell wasn’t going to fight the Cullens for them.  So that’s 2 on 7 like, no matter how badass James is, it’s not much of a problem. The ending of Twilight was always needlessly convoluted and SM tries to fix/retcon some things in MS but I don’t know that it helped any. 

There is a fun moment at the end of MS though where Emmett is in the process of killing James and feeling like an awesome badass and then Jasper  blazes in and James takes one look at him and just . . . gives up and accepts death and Emmett is like SO MAD about it. “Why did the sight of JASPER make him lose all hope and not me, the vamp who was actively killing him?!” I think part of it was Jasper was just emanating “I am going to KILL YOU” vibes and James was like “welp, okay” but Emmett didn’t know that and his pride was wounded a bit. At least this is how I remember it going down, someone correct me if I got it wrong. 

#asks

[panlight]

Do you think that Bella might have been so adamant that Edward turn her so that she wouldn't fall out of love with him, like Renee with Charlie? I know that's not what Meyer intended, but her insistence that Edward turn her RIGHT NOW has so many interesting implications. Is she afraid of being seen as a predator? Is she afraid of aging in general? Is she afraid to be as inconsistent as Renee? If she's a vampire, she can't ever leave Edward--and he can't ever leave HER.

I agree that I don’t think SM intended that, but I think you can easily read into it that way based on characterization. It’s pretty obvious SM meant E/B to be 100% fairy tale true love--you only have to read any interview with her about Edward to get that loud and clear; he’s the ultimate romantic fantasy in her mind. I don’t think she intended any nuance here. 

But it would be so easy and perfectly in character to read Bella’s desire to become a vampire and be ‘locked in’ to eternal love as a function of being a child of divorce with abandonment issues. The thing about love in real life if that it’s risky. You’re putting your heart in the hands of someone else and hoping for the best. The fantasy of Twilight love, whether it’s the always-devoted vampire couples who are unchanging and therefore can’t fall out of love with you or the imprinted werewolves who are devoted to you at the expense of their own free will, is that it’s forever, it’s constant, they will never break up with your or cheat on you, your feelings will never change, you don’t have to worry about that. You know it’s forever. And that’s tempting--to be so sure, to be so certain, to not have to worry about the future of your relationship. And I could see how that would be extra tempting to Bella, who has always felt kind of out of place, who was a child of divorce, who has never felt really cared for and protected. If Edward turns her now they will be locked into a Katy Perry Teenage Dream love forever--he’ll never leave her (again), they’ll never outgrow each other. 

But this is why them having a child is so weird. It’s like Romeo and Juliet having a kid. That’s not the point of Romeo and Juliet. Intense teenage love that gets people killed doesn’t have a lot of room for babies. 

#asks

[panlight]

submission

I wish we had more of the human Edward in Midnight Sun, instead there were little flashbacks, which I liked a lot, from the beginning of his vampire life with Carlisle and these I also caught myself wishing they would be more recurring and longer during the narrative. I understand that according to Meyer’s world building, vampires tend to remember very little of human memories, but Edward is built to mourn these losses, his sins, the eternal question “what if…? He is Hades (I’m rolling my eyes with this comparison, but it’s in the book), the god renegade by his brother (in this case his adoptive father, Carlisle) living and reigning over the dead forever, with no choice. Wouldn’t it be a rule that he was one of the most attached to his old life? That he struggled to keep the memory of his mother Elizabeth, to whom he was closest, alive in his mind? That he always took care of his properties? And this I’m just imagining: the house, the law office of his late and distant father, the cars and the furniture. The only mentions we have about her possessions during the saga are about the jewels and these are only used for Bella to live the cliché of having an old engagement ring, a family relic and nothing else. She didn’t even bother to honor her mother-in-law by putting her name on Renesmee, despite wearing her ring. In fact, it is described that Edward came from a wealthy family, it would also be normal for him to keep portraits of his relatives. He must have some picture of his human self with the family somewhere, no? Old newspapers kept that reported about the war, his ambition at the time. And diaries! It was common in those days to keep diaries, his parents certainly did. Stephenie Meyer, are you really denying me the pleasure of having this vampire boy, tortured by his monstrosity and said like mommy’s boy, reading and regretting the blurry pages of ink that his devoted mother used to write her thoughts, emotions and memories of her family life in the Edwardian era? What could she have recorded? The advances on the piano that her little prodigy made over time, her favorite toys, the games they played together, her first words, her recitals, development of reading and hobbies, her religion? By God, mainly, his religion! Where does this fervent idea of Edward’s that he is condemned to hell come from? Was religious interest born alone or was it stimulated by others when human? Was it Elizabeth who instructed him in religious terms? Did she know anything about vampires or did she think they were just scary stories? Anyway, I just wanted more of him as a character.

We only know Edward from two perspectives: the monster he believes to be and the perfection idealized by Bella, two extremes. The narrative leads us to believe that there is no more powerful love than these two teenagers feel for each other, but it also shows us, intentionally, that Isabella Swan doesn’t care to show the slightest interest in human Edward. Until the scene of the conversation with Carlisle in New Moon, a few months after the beginning of her courtship, she didn’t even know what the color of Cullen’s human eyes had been like and didn’t mention any time, if I’m remembering well, when would be his birthday. Her focus of interest is totally on her post-human life. Where are the insignificant questions, but makes us empathize with the character? I mean, Edward will always be stuck at his 17 years. His life as a human has shaped him to be what he is today. Did he have or wish to have any pets? Did he have any allergies? Did he like his tutors? Did he attend a private school, no? What was it like? The human mind is not an encyclopedia like that of vampires, so what subjects did he like and dislike? What moments of his life marked him the most? Did he always compose or did he become more confident with the passing of his vampire life? Where are the imperfections that make us human? Did he have scars, bruises? Was he an athletic boy and well disposed to sporting activities or in poor health? Was he easily ill? He was the fastest vampire. Did he like to run? What did he want to achieve with the war? Just the glory? The pride of his parents? Personal satisfaction for fighting for a cause he believed in? His mother was not so inclined to accept his life as a soldier, but what about his father? Did he encourage it? What about your friends? Did Edward have friends as a human? He is said to be the kindest and brightest of all the Cullens, but what did he do to deserve such a great distinction? Did he show more interest in the afflictions and thoughts of those around him when human? Did it qualify him as a sensitive boy? What kindnesses was he used to do? He always wanted Bella to make the most of human life, but why he didn’t care to show what he was like when vampirism destroyed everything? We could have Bella visiting Chicago, his old house. What a drama that would be! Instead we had long pages of a weird Edward who enters her room without her permission or knowledge. Stephenie can write whatever she wants, but I refuse to believe that the son of Elizabeth Masen, a woman I believe is a lady of high society who values etiquette and old habits above all, would have raised a son who did not respect the privacy of a woman, especially a beloved, because her Edward is a gentleman, after all. I don’t know, but it seems that Meyer, through Bella, is more interested in building him the basis of the epitome of perfection that vampirism has made him than he should really be as a human, with only a few more accentuated characteristics. I just want to know more about Edward before being Edward Cullen. Seven hundred and a few pages and Edward Masen rarely came to the surface of them. What do you think about that? Do you find it interesting that human memories tend to fail and disappear over time for vampires? Because forgetting what makes you what you are must be scary, it reminds a lot of Alzheimer. Or do you think it’s just an excuse to not develop their human part anymore? Because one of the most recurrent criticisms of books is that Meyer sinned in character building, Bella practically didn’t exist before arriving at Forks in Twilight (2005), many pieces of her life and tastes were missing, which she tries to patch up in Midnight Sun. I’m sorry if the text got confused to understand.

I too think it’s sad that Bella didn’t ask more questions about Edward’s human life, or really any of their humans lives. I think SM is also a bit inconsistent with how much it “fades” or not. It’s sort of implied that if you try to hold on to it, you can keep it to some degree. Rosalie, for example, has held on to her human memories so tightly. (It seems to me if vampires never forget anything, if they think about their human memories in their early days, before it fades, then they will have those memories forever, right? They might be imperfect or fuzzy but they’re there).

And I’m really curious about his religious upbringing, too. His obsession with being damned and doomed doesn’t sound like 1918 Chicago theology but something older. I suppose it could be influenced by hearing Carlisle’s thoughts, since he IS from the older, fire-and-brimstone, most-people-are-damned era, but Carlisle himself is more hopeful, hoping (foolishly perhaps) they might get some measure of credit for trying. Sometimes I think Edward would have been more coherent as a character if he came from an older time period. 1918 is not THAT long ago but SM writes him, at times, as if he were hundreds of years old. 

#submission

[panlight]

Honestly, I can't remember if this happened in the books but I think I did and I really hated it in the movies: Alice's clear dislike for the wolves. Given her personality, I can't help but feel surprised every time I see or remember her reaction to Jake like I don't care if she's a vampire and it's *in her nature* or w/e but it feels inconsistent for her to feel so opposed to the wolves. Anyway, they're shapeshifters and not actual werewolves since they're extinct, if that makes sense?

I know Carlisle and definitely Esme don't act or feel the same way so seeing Alice react in such a way is so strange and off-putting tbh. What do you think?

Yeah. 

As I mentioned in another post, the vampire/werewolf hatred is not an SM invention. It’s pretty standard in most supernatural stories that includes both vampires and werewolves. But the connotations in Twilight specifically get bad really fast because SM made all of her werewolves (well, shapeshifters) Native American.  So whenever her (mostly white) vampires are insulting or dehumanizing them they’re also insulting and dehumanizing Native Americans, a group that has a terrible and violent history of being dehumanized. 

And it just doesn’t make much sense coming from the Cullens specifically? Their whole deal is rejecting the vampire status quo! Why on earth would they reject pretty much everything else about being a vampire but hold on to the “mortal enemies” stuff with these not-even-really-werewolves? Alice wasn’t even THERE in the 1930s when they first encountered the shapeshifters, she has no history with them, no personal grudge, nothing. 

It makes complete sense to me that the shapeshifters would dislike any and all vampires. Their purpose, their mission, is to protect people from vampires. They have encountered vampires in the past (the Cold Man and the Cold Woman) and it ended in death and tragedy. They have valid reasons to dislike and distrust vampires. I’d be skeptical of the Cullens, too! Other than Carlisle they’ve all killed people. Some were accidents, some were revenge, some were just straight-up ‘I’m thirsty,’ but they’re a hefty death count there, whatever their good intentions in the present day. And then there’s them being justifiably resentful of the Cullens presence in their lives.

But the Cullens? It just comes off as so petty and gross for them to be all “ew, werewolves” especially since later we find out they aren’t even really werewolves and Edward knew that the whole time. If vampires and Children of the Moon are ancient mortal enemies then fine. They’re competing for food (humans), and Children of the Moon aren’t an ethnic group or cultural identity--like vampires, anyone can be bitten and become one. But the vampires aren’t competing with the shapeshifters, and since the Cullens aren’t killing people (anymore. . .) the shapeshifters ‘we protect humans’ stance is . . . perfectly in line with their own lifestyle and beliefs? Where’s the conflict from the Cullen side of things? There isn’t one.

#asks #tw: racism

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If Bella can block only mental powers, why do Jasper's powers work on her? He can change her physical responses, but Bella shouldn't ever FEEL differently. And Alice shouldn't see Bella MAKE choices, only the results of those choices. Like, Aro/Edward can't read her mind and Alec/Jane can't influence her mind, but Alice CAN read her choices/mind andJasper CAN influence her mind? Bella's power is so inconsistent.

My #1 Twilight conspiracy theory is that originally Bella was only supposed to be immune to Edward’s power, and it was part of their whole ~destined for each other~ thing, but then as SM wrote epilogue after epilogue that became Forever Dawn and then Breaking Dawn, she came up with the idea that Bella’s vampire power would be to block vampires powers, but oops! she already wrote Alice and Jasper’s powers working on her, so she had to kind of retcon things.  My main piece of evidence for this is the existence of Eleazar.  Originally, when New Moon and Eclipse didn’t exist, you’d kind of need someone like Eleazar to ‘prove’ Bella’s gift, because without the middle books she wouldn’t have met the Volturi and been immune to Jane and Aro. She’d only have been around Edward, Alice and Jasper, and 2 of the 3 gifts worked on her, so there would be no reason to think she was a shield of any kind and Eleazar would have to tell them.  But in Breaking Dawn the whole Eleazar thing felt pretty pointless, because it had been shown that Bella was immune to multiple gifts. These super smart vampires should have been able to figure out “oh she’s a shield” pretty easily since she had been doing it as a human, however inconsistently.  I think SM’s explanation re: Alice IS that she only sees the outcomes, not the actual choices. She can’t see what Bella decides (that decision only exists in Bella’s head) but the outcome of the decision affects the outside world, not just Bella’s inner one, so Alice can see that? But it does get kind of clunky.  And Jasper . . . I think his gift was the biggest victim of the suspected retcon and is part of why it just doesn’t make a whole ton of sense. Her explanation is that he controls emotions because he literally controls the body, it’s not an illusion, he makes you feel agitated or tense or calm based on things like releasing endorphins or raising or lowering heart rates. Which. ..okay? Weird, but okay.  But that should only work on humans? Vampires don’t have a beating heart, or a working circulatory system, so how in the heck does this physical gift work on them? And beyond that it just seems impossible to me to separate emotions from the mind and make them purely physical. You can physically have an upset stomach (again .  . probably only humans though??) and the emotions associated with it can be so different? It could be disgust; it could be the result of getting horrible news; it could be stage fright; it could be anxiety about taking an important test; it could be that you’re madly in love with someone and are about to tell them; or you could have just eaten bad seafood and have food poisoning. The mental state that goes with the physical sensations are so important when you’re tying the physical to emotions.  How does Jasper make you feel “anxious” vs just “bad seafood” if it’s only a physical thing with no mental component? Or IS there a mental component with other people, just not with Bella??  My #2 Twilight conspiracy, BTW, is that we were gonna find out in future books that the shapeshifters were descended from vampires and that’s why SM was going out of her way to show them as being similar to hybrids--same number of chromosomes, higher than normal body temp, fast growth/growth spurts, Jacob imprinting on Nessie etc. I don’t WANT this to be how SM goes about it, but there’s a deep, dark part of me that suspects it’s exactly what she had in mind. 

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Why do you think SM’s editors let her have so many inconsistencies/plot holes? I know some are hard to catch, but there were definitely some I noticed the first time I read the books, e.g. when exactly Carlisle met the Denalis, how sensitive vampires’ senses are, Jasper’s talent working on Bella but making her immune to mental powers

I think because the focus was on the romance, a lot of this internal world building stuff just kind of got lost. In Twilight, the nomads have no idea Bella’s a human until the wind shifts and they can smell her, but elsewhere in the books we hear about how vampires can hear heartbeats so like, shouldn’t it have been obvious she was human because she was the only one on the field with a beating heart? Breaking Dawn talks about “centuries of friendship” with the Denali coven, but then in the guide we find out they only met in the 1930s.  That’s not one century let alone multiple (I suppose it’s possible that Bella the narrator didn’t know how long the Cullens and Denalis had been friends, but …)Bella wanting sex as a human because she thinks as a vampire she won’t want it for a few years because of the newborn thirst when literally Esme and Emmett fell and love (not with each other, obviously) and got married as newborns???The focus was always on E/B (and later also Jacob), so this other stuff wasn’t deemed ‘important.’ I also think SM’s stream of consciousness style of writing makes it harder to catch these things, because often you find yourself kind of swept along for awhile and only later you’re like “wait … what?” when you realize something didn’t really match up with something you read earlier. 

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It always confused me how Jasper was able to control himself in breaking dawn. If one tiny drop in New Moon made him snap. Than how didn't all those packs of blood. Even with Alice's help it would seem nearly impossible for him to be so in control.

The blood thing is really, really inconsistent. It’s one of those thing that seems to be plot-driven rather than driven by any internal logic or strict rules. Bella’s bleeding out in Twilight with Emmett and Jasper nearby and it’s not an issue. But the paper cut in New Moon tempts everyone except Carlisle. And then in Breaking Dawn she’s drinking cups full of human blood and everyone’s chill with it, even though they haven’t been hunting in awhile. Of course, you can make excuses for it. That Emmett and Jasper were fighting James and so were in survival mode, and self-preservation overruled thirst.The the New Moon thing was so unexpected, and happened in the Cullens’ own home where they tend to relax because they don’t have to be on guard and worry about blood there, so none of them were ready for it. Then you could argue that Edward’s !!!!!!! emotions when HE smelt the blood could have further destabilized Jasper. And you can argue that blood from a hospital would be cold and have preservatives in it and so might not be particularly tempting to a vampire. But I think it’s mostly that the blood issue is determined by what is necessary for the plot more than anything else. SM’s story has always been very focused on relationships rather than rules and world-building, and this is a prime example of it IMO.