#except by actual quileutes

[cto10121]

You’ve obviously never read the books, OP. Either that or this here is definitely an example of some truly deep racism at work. Let me count the ways.

1. The interpretation of the Quileutes as savages because of their werewolf phasing. It is clearly stated in the book that the werewolves’ volatility in phasing come from their inexperience and youth. Sam had trouble controlling his phasing because he was the first werewolf and had absolutely zero guidance but then became the best out of them all through time and experience. Jacob is praised for having almost natural self-control. Most of the tribe first phased at 15-16, so this ~volatility is little more than fantasy adolescence at this point.

Also, compare this to the vampiric newborns, who are explicitly shown to be equally volatile, even more violent, (they turn on each other on a dime) and utterly consumed in their bloodlust. The Cullens have great control because of their long experience. The vampires are the ones who must kill and drink blood to survive, not the Quileutes.

Also, also, the Quileutes’ ability to phase does not come from white people coming onto their land!!! They have had this ability since their people began. First they began as spirit warriors and then Taka Ati (I think) learned how to occupy the body of a wolf after his body had been killed by his traitorous brother. After that they met the Cold Ones, i.e. vampires and did battle with them. In the ‘70s the Cullens came when Ephraim Black could still phase, but then the ability seemed to have died out. Only when the Cullens return in the 2000s did the gene get triggered again. This interpretation is racist, full stop.

2. Jacob is never abusive to Bella. He violates her consent once by kissing her. He also manipulates her into kissing him. But bad behavior only does not make an abusive relationship. Usually abuse is about power and control, and Jacob for obvious reasons is never in a position to control or have power over Bella. They never even engage in a true romantic relationship; in terms of power dynamics the power, actually, is all on Bella. Jacob is overall respectful of Bella or at least very laissez-faire, especially pre-werewolf. He explicitly says that he did all of it as a last-ditch effort to save Bella from (in his view) a monstrous fate.

3. Jacob isn’t a groomer either. Breaking Dawn insists that Jacob’s feelings towards Renesmee are platonic. Imprinting is, at essence, an aromantic and mysterious phenomenon that no one in the books really knows what it is meant for. Regardless of what you and the fandom feel about the magical imprinting, if you read the books it is clear that Meyer has portrayed it as another magical aspect to her romantic universe. It does not portray Jacob or his tribe as criminal or unnatural.

And actually, Meyer’s vampires actually do have imprinting or something close to it when it comes to finding their mates, though it is not called that. But all of the Cullens find their mates at first sight when they’re vampires and the change is described as “permanent.” I think Midnight Sun does show Edward falls in love with Bella very quickly if not immediately as well—he just doesn’t know about it until later because of his arrogance and pride.

4. You can’t copyright real-life culture and societies, you idiot. Copyright aims to protect an author’s fictional ideas and words. Real-life peoples and phenomena cannot be copyrighted because no one owns these. You can own only your own artistic works and physical products (patent). So even if she could Meyer cannot give part of her royalties for her novel to the tribe. It isn’t legal and it would be utterly impossible to make legal. Which brings me to my next point:

5. Cultural appropriation is about stealing minorities’ actual artistic work and not giving credit to the original artist. In the past artists have stolen wholesale actual artistic work by minority artists and passed it off as theirs, hence the term. It’s about literal theft and artistic malpractice.

I want you to understand the stupidity of this argument, OP. If authors must share or donate their royalties if they use any culture or mythology that isn’t their culture in their writing, then literally every author alive and that has ever lived will have to pay royalties to these cultures. Rowling would have to pay royalties to Wales for using their mythology and names. Homegirl is English, not Celtic, so this would “count” as cultural appropriation. Shakespeare would also have to pay royalties to Italians for using their cities and names for his plays. And so on and so forth unto absurdity.

If you can prove that Meyer stole a Native American’s writing, work, or ideas for her fantasy series, by all means do so. But as far as we know Meyer literally came up with the names and characters herself; apart from the geography, she had nothing else from real-life La Push.

In the future, I would recommend you actually read the books and not just parrot debunked hater whinging on the Internet and nonsensical faux progressive discourse. Otherwise, you’ll come across as the like yourself.

Stupid piece of shit, Twilight literally caused so many myths & misconceptions about Native & Quileute people that the Quileute tribe had to put up an entire site dispelling the shit Stephanie Meyer caused. I literally cannot begin to explain how insanely racist Twilight is as a series with the number of bullshit that happens to not just the Native characters, but other characters of color (but Stephanie Meyer targeted Native Americans specifically). Twilight is an incredibly mediocre and poorly written series created by a fucking Mormon, go read Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or Dracula.

You mean that same Quileute people that has come out with their support for the series, talking about how the series garnered tourism, attention, and economic wealth to their reservation? The same Quileute tribe who credited Twilight for their success in moving their reservation to higher ground and even getting that northern boundary approved after 50 years of no progress?

You literally cannot explain how racist Twilight is a series for a reason, anon. Because if all of it boils down to Meyer changing their legends for a whole-ass fantasy AU, then that’s not good enough, anon. Hell, it provided a great opportunity for the Quileutes to educate tourists on their real-life legends, so it’s a win-win for them.

And of course they aren’t offended by the series’ portrayal of them either. The Quileutes have it good in these books overall: They have wolf superpowers but with none of the downsides of actual bloodlust, need to kill, or sociopathy. In fact, they are framed as protectors in the narrative and their power is deeply rooted in their communal blood ties and their positive relationship with nature. In the books the Quileute legends have them be spirit warriors who had a wolf consent to share his body with one of them. And of course all the bad guys, save a typical internecine power grab, are the pale, evil, sociopathic bloodsuckers.

And that’s not counting the fact that a Native male character—drawn complementary with the male hero—is the secondary love interest of the romantic heroine, and so strong a contender he even has passionate fans arguing for his ship to this very day. And that’s not counting the fact that the author personally loves that character, to the point where she could not bear to end the series with him not getting a love interest/happy ending.

Also, I’m literally an English major a hairsbreadth shy of becoming an actual English teacher at some point. And if you think the likes of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and freakin’ Dracula don’t have very similar themes or even their own issues even on the writing level, then I’m not the one who must read them, anon. I think a re-reading is in order.

[lilithslittleworld]

Masterlist <3 (By Fandom, character, and type)

Just a little reminder link to my character list and that requests are open!!

Twilight Saga:

Quileute Pack

Seth Clearwater:

Formal Crushing (fluff, oneshot)

Jacob Black:

New Moon if Edward had never come back (Chapters)

New To This (fluff, smut Jacob x Reader oneshot)

Cullens

Alice Cullen:

Our Little Secret (Alice x Bella smut)

Bella Swan/Cullen:

Our Little Secret (Bella x Alice smut)

Headcanons:

How Bella’s (and Alice’s) Graduation Party Actually Went (or should’ve gone): (headcanons)

Divergent Series:

Peter Hayes

All For You (smut, angst, some fluff. oneshot)

Jeanine Matthews

The Exception (fluff and angst oneshot)

Four/Tobias Eaton

Intruder (Four x reader smut, oneshot)

His Girl (Four x reader fluff, oneshot)

Character Headcanons:

How The Divergent Characters Would React To You Being Injured\In Pain (angst, fluff, headcanon)

Harry Potter Universe:

Weasleys

Fred Weasley:

Ambulo Aqua (Fred x fem reader, fluff)

Harry Potter Guys

Oliver Wood

Locker Room Tales (Oliver x gender neutral reader, fluff)

Harry Potter

The Chosen One (Harry x reader, smut)

Marauders era

Remus Lupin

What Better Way to Relax Than Sex? (Remus x fem reader, smut)

Harry Potter Headcannons

Doing It With The Harry Potter Characters Is Like (smut headcannons)

Top Gun Fandom:

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw Hanging In There Series: Part 1 Jake "Hangman" Seresin Hanging In There Series: Part 1

The Hunger Games Series

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Sorry if you've gotten this one before. What if, in twilight, humans rarely but sometimes left behind ghosts when they die? Would ghosts be a threat to the secret? How would the Volturi deal with being haunted? I guess the Cullens don't get affected unless we include ghost deer, sadly.

Thank you for the fanfics! They always manage to make me laugh like a maniac and feel existential sadness.

You're in luck! I've never gotten this one, well done.

And glad you enjoy my work!

The Thing About the Secret is it's Not About the Secret

This gets into why the law exists, but what's important to note is that western civilization's disregard of vampires and demons is a very recent thing in the Twilight universe. That was a product of the enlightenment, before that we have Carlisle full-heartedly believing in vampires. Even in present day Twilight we see the Quileute as well as the various characters from Brazil who believe in the vampire and won't be told anything otherwise.

My point being, that it actually is a 'secret' that humans are genuinely ignorant of is a mindbogglingl recent turn of events.

The secret isn't really about what mankind does or doesn't believe (though them not believing it makes it easier to keep) but a kind of safety valve of "what have the humans noticed". If the humans have noticed an unusual death rate and are starting to blame the demons: you've killed too many fucking people.

In a world where there's ghosts and have always been ghosts then they're just living in a world where there's ghosts. That's just considered a normal, if rare, phenomenon that has nothing to do with vampires or their secrets.

What About the Vampires

I imagine ghosts are just a common annoyance that they just have to deal with. They probably don't get too many, considering most of the humans they kill have no personal connection to them/no understanding of how or why they died.

Since vampires don't leave ghosts in this universe then the people who would resent and haunt the Volturi can't do it.

Even in the case of the Cullen accidents, probably the death was so sudden they wouldn't get haunted. The exception being Rosalie, potentially, who gets the horrific joys of being haunted by her rapists who she murdered in cold blood.

[littlec0ward]

Phasing - Re: Leah, Billy, Jacob

[Why Leah didn't phase when the Cullens first returned, was Billy Black ever a wolf and why Jacob phased after the Cullens left]

In the Twilight universe, some members of the Quileute Tribe can 'phase' into werewolves under a few conditions:

They must be a direct descendant of Taha Aki, the first Quileute to phase (early 13th century). These descendants "are born with twenty-four chromosomal pairs rather than the twenty-three pairs of a normal human"

"This extra chromosome will not have any effect on the carrier if he or she is not in close proximity to vampires during all or part of the critical time between the onset of puberty and the age of twenty-five. If the potential werewolf is not exposed to vampires within this window of time, transformation will never occur. It is the scent of the vampires that triggers the reaction.."

When in close proximity to vampires, it is always the youngest in each family's lineage to phase, becoming a "protector" against the vampires

If the youngest member in a given family's lineage is not between the onset of puberty and 25, they will not phase and neither will their parents/elders

(It is "based on two factors: heritage and the proximity of vampires")

The other factors worth considering are:

"One factor affecting which members of the tribe transform is the number of vampire scents in the area"

"... the pack has usually consisted of three members. With most vampires traveling alone or in pairs, there was never a need for more..."

Members with the strongest blood ties phase first. As more vampires are present, tribe members with weaker blood ties start to phase

Until 2006, only male carriers of the gene had gained the ability to transform

The Cullens first moved to Hoquiam (aprx. 100 miles from La Push) in 1936. At this point, the confirmed "protectors" are Ephraim Black, Quil Ateara II and Levi Uley. Tracing their lineages it is probable that none of them had children that had reached transformation age yet. Billy Black was not born until the late 1950's so he obviously couldn't have phased here. However, the Cullens stayed in the area until 2003 when they moved to Forks (only ~16 miles from the Quileutes in La Push). Though Ephraim Black was likely deceased by this time, his grandson Billy was well past 25 (about 50) and Jacob Black was born but was only 13, meaning neither of them could transform (cond. 2).

Let's put a pin in that to quickly talk about Jacob. It makes sense that he didn't phase in 2003 when the Cullens arrived in Forks because he was only 13. But the Cullens left Forks in September of 2005 and Jacob didn't phase until February, 2006. There were only 2 vampires present in Forks when Jacob first phased, Laurent and Victoria. The Cullen family consists of 7 vampires, so why didn't he transform while they were around? Well, the transformation had actually already started before they left. The first sign of transformation in male gene carriers is a "noticeable growth spurt". When Jacob goes to see Bella at the prom in May, 2005 she comments on how much Jacob has grown.

(Twilight, Epilogue)

So this leaves me with one question unanswered. Going back to 2003, when the Cullens moved to Forks, the only Quileute who phased was Sam Uley, who was 17 at the time. But so was Leah Clearwater. So why didn't she also phase? At this point in time, there had never been a female werewolf, but Leah did eventually become the first around March of 2006, also after the Cullens had left. We can assume that the transformation had began before they left, just like Jacob. So the question is:

Why didn't Leah phase when Sam did in 2003?

There is no definitive answer to this that I can find. The real answer is "Smeyer didn't think that far" but, in universe, it seems like female werewolves were supposed to only be possible under exceptional circumstances. Perhaps, it was supposed to be the passing of her father that triggered her transformation, but we can rule that out because, when she first phased, "She was arguing with her mother about her mood swings, and her father joined the conversation in support of her mother. Leah was so angry that her whole body started shaking, and then she exploded into a werewolf...". So if Smeyer's intended reasoning is "exceptional circumstances", she either forgot or there just isn't a real reason, at least not one that I could find.

- Edited for corrections

(Acc. to the official illustrated guide - sections "Werewolves" pg. 298+ and "Timeline" pg. 404+, Twilight and New Moon)

[neechees]

Hey! I have some questions that i would like to get an indigenous persons perspective on though I'm not sure how much I can fit in an ask. But basically it pertains to me wanting to write twilight fanfic but being vastly uncomfortable with how the Quileute are depicted, their culture & history misused, appropriated etc etc. Personally i would prefer to just like...make up a fake tribe? And do my research on what to avoid. But I want to know if that's like a big no-no, or if there's a different way you think I could go about it. Or if you know anyone who mayhaps could if you don't? I don't want to just use & rehash that Bullshit S.M. did. So yeah, thoughts/advice/etc? TIA, if you don't feel like answering no worries!

Personally, I think that's a big no-no & a lot of other Natives would also probably say the same. I think it's a rather lazy solution & cop out for writing, because people often assume "what I write & worldbuild for this group can't be racist because they don't exist and I don't have to worry about appropriating beliefs, research, or writing inaccurate information about a specific tribe because I made them up". Inventing fictional tribes & inserting them into the real world (or stories that are close to irl & our world) is super duper iffy for me, & the only time it doesn't make me feel weird is for like fantasy worlds. It kinda reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Lisa decides to write an essay on the plight of Native Americans, but instead of writing about any actual tribe & their issues, she just makes one up. & obviously people can use this in gross ways, like brushing off any criticism of possible racism as "its fictional so it doesn't matter" while also still potentially acceptinf praise for writing a fictional tribe sympathetically or even at all.

I find that people just inventing tribes doesn't even dodge being offensive anyway, because they either STILL end up writing something racist (because of lack of effort and research or failing to recognize how their worldbuilding may be offensive despite being fictional, staring at YOU GRRM writing Dothraki), or it's just weird how they COULD have represented an actual tribe & clearly spent a lot of time in research, & the effort (& resources available) might even have been easier just focusing on an actual tribe & writing THAT accurately, but they just. Didn't.

A similar thing happened irl in different medias as well, where the character Night Wolf in Mortal Kombat was originally a stereotyped character with (afaik) no specified tribe, but over the years the games decided to build upon him more & make him less offensive, such as making him specifically Lakota & having his character designs, spiritual beliefs, dialogue, motivations, and backstory reflect this. Except later they retconned this & changed his heritage to a fictional tribe called the "Matoka", even though they literally didn't need to, & they were headed in the right direction. Mortal Kombat has also established there's people and characters from OUR world or the "normal" world and not just AU Earth (like Rambo), so they literally didn't need to do this under the reasoning that Mortal Kombat already has its own fictional world and universe. I think they did this, again, so they wouldn't have to put in effort in making sure their writing of his backstory and character in the future was accurate & inoffensive to Lakota people.

The exact same thing happened with the Native characters in Red Dead Redemption 2; the Native characters in the first game are largely either enemies you have to kill, or the Noble savage that you help out, with no specified tribe(s) & a stereotyped "Indian" look. But in the sequel, they made up the fictional tribe "Wapiti" (the word itself actually being a Shawnee word), who speak the Lakota language & largely seem to be heavily Lakota coded. Some people might disagree with me on this one because the Wapiti aren't the only ones who get this treatment in rdr: for the most part the rest of the world is also like an alternate universe for the United States, with places like Saint Denis being analogous for New Orleans, Sisika penitentiary being based on Louisiana state penitentiary, and so on. But there's also mentions & incorporations of real life places & ethnicities that are the exact same too, like the island of Tahiti, Cuba, and Ireland. So if we acknowledge there's the Native Tahiti population, and Irish characters from Ireland like Sean MacGuire, then why not also just say the Wapiti are Lakota? If they wanted to make the Native characters more sympathetic & accurate to rectify the wrongs of the first game (which I think they largely did!), and they even went so far as to have their Wapiti characters speak Lakota in-game, based most of their culture and looks on the Lakota, then why not just make them Lakota?

But even if you mean well, I feel like the lore and location of Twilight is too tied up with the Quileute to just try and change it to a completely different tribe, and would be erasing them in order to just dodge potential offensiveness. The Quileute are Native to Forks, Washington & that's THEIR land, not a fictional tribe. Stephanie straight up stole the Quileute mythology as a main plot point for her characters and worldbuilding, so you'd still be using Quileute beliefs but applying it to a fictional tribe (just like with the Night Wolf & Wapiti situation) anyway. If you intend on doing a lot of research in order to try make this not offensive, I'd say it'd be even more worth the effort to just research Quileute history etc because you'd essentially be putting in the same amount of effort in anyway. Like, there's already an established tribe, why not just use it? I'd say do what Stephanie Meyer SHOULD have done and just portrayed the Quileute respectfully with research & Native sensitivity readers instead of taking what is seen as the "easy" way out.

[volterran-wine]

Would you say caius committed a genocide against cotm?

• — 𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐚 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞?

ᴅɪꜱᴄʟᴀɪᴍᴇʀ: I’ve formulated my answer according to the incomplete and left much to be desired canon that Stephenie Meyer has put out for her audience’s consumption along with an acknowledged love of the characters and desire to make them somewhat redeemable. Were I given any other variables before writing them the answer of “if Caius committed a genocide” is subject to change.

This question has been in my inbox ever since I wrote one of my prompts for October, and I fully understand why this was sent in. First I want to say that this word - ‘Genocide’ is an exceptionally serious and loaded word I do not throw around lightly. It is why I have not used it before on the blog, out of respect for people who have actually experienced this. But I do think many people sit and wonder when it comes to Caius, so I will answer to the best of my ability.

First, let us define what a Child of The Moon is.

In canon COTM are not born the way they are, it is an affliction that is passed on from COTM to a human through bites; it is my guess that their saliva is what turns a human into a COTM. I very much interpret it as almost a curse that makes a humans life unbearable as they try to navigate it. Only in wolf form are they able to have some cognisant thought, but they will also slaughter humans on instinct and eat them. The most important thing to take away is that COTM are created, not born. They do not have a community, culture or region they call home.

Now, if we look at the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary the definition for the word ‘Genocide’ is as follows; 

��The murder of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group, with the aim of destroying that nation or group”

COTM are not an ethnic group nor a nation. I would not call it a race either seeing as though anyone can become a COTM, the circumstances of ones birth is irrelevant. Stephenie Meyer has also left us with no indication that they have a culture amongst themselves except sometimes traveling in pairs. It certainly is not a religion within canon, so that does not apply either in this case. 

By this definition I cannot call what Caius did a “Genocide”, if I were to put a label on it I would use the word “Massacre”.

I will also not use this word out of respect for people today who is in fact experiencing this, or still feel the ramification of it. Like I mentioned earlier in this post; it is an exceptionally serious and loaded word with a lot of history. It is one of the ugliest sides of humanity in my opinion. I will never minimize what Caius did, what he did was cruel and beyond inhumane for centuries. But I cannot compare it to a genocide due to the ramifications of that word.

And to make something clear, The Quileute Wolves are not werewolves; they are shapeshifters. They are not part of this conflict in anyway possible. They are born as they are, not created and The Volturi nor Caius are after them.

But regardless of definition; what he did was beyond cruel, and there is no way to excuse his actions. And for what it is worth; within my worldbuilding he is haunted by what he has done.

[therealvinelle]

Could you expand what happened during the funeral in Ftlow?

I mean, it's the kind of thing where we knew all the people going in and the rough outline of how they would clash, but never actually sat down to plot it out in detail. That kind of thing happens as we write.

That being said.

Also, trigger warning for the following post as it talks about suicide.

The attendants

You have a rich cast of people who will be going to Bella's funeral for various reasons.

THE GRIEVING FATHER Charlie Swan lost his daughter to suicide because the idiot she fell in love with turned out to be a delusional psychopath and her best friend was just as bad. With her history of depression and mental health problems Charlie thought at first she was taking things much better than last time, now he knows that wasn't the case at all.

THE SUDDENLY BEREFT MOTHER When Renée Dwyer heard her daughter broke off her engagement she was initially pleased. Oh, she didn't quite see Edward Cullen eloping with Jacob and it's a shame Bella's so mad at them, but Renée is a progressive woman who accepts the gays. Bella will come around, she'll go to college, most importantly she won't be married at eighteen.

Then the suicide happened, and now Renée is beating herself up for not picking up the signs - there are always signs. She looks to Charlie, who was in a much better position to pick up on these signs, and will never quite forgive him for failing to prevent this.

THE AWKWARD STEP-FATHER Phil Dwyer liked Bella, she was a great kid, this whole thing is a shame. When he hears about how the Cullens, in particular Jasper and Carlisle (?!), crowded Bella in those final weeks, not even letting her run errands on her own, his eyebrows raise along with his creep-o-meter. Uh huh, are we sure Edward and Jacob are the only reasons Bella killed herself? Poor girl.

THE WITNESS Jessica Stanley had drifted apart from Bella, but they were still in the same social circle, you know? They weren't friends, but they were friends. And now Jessica had to witness... that.

Jessica is not okay.

THE ONE WHO COULD HAVE STOPPED IT ALL FROM HAPPENING If only Bella had dated Mike Newton instead. But, he tells himself, squaring his shoulders, he can't blame himself.

Bella wouldn't have wanted that.

THE WOULD-BE IN-LAWS With newborn Bella safely in a bunker in New England, the Cullens find it wiser to attend her funeral than not. It's the natural, human thing to do, for all that they really don't want to.

(That they have to bear the scarlet letter that is their brother having caused the suicide in the first place, and come up with a lie explaining why he didn't even show, is just a bonus.)

Which is all well and good, except Carlisle bit Bella just days earlier, and his eyes are still bright red. Now, he could do contact lenses, but his eye color has consistently been bright gold. The way color theory works, there's not a lense in the world that can turn red to bright yellow.

He wears his aviators to church and refuses to take them off. It is presumed he's been drinking.

THOSE WHO KNOW THE UGLY TRUTH Bad enough that the Cullens came to Forks, worse that they turned Bella, unforgivable that they took Jacob.

Insulting that their leader shows up with eyes that they know are red behind those aviators.

The Quileute attendants, namely Billy Black and Sue, Seth, and Leah Clearwater are there in support of Charlie, but if looks could kill the Cullens would be piles of ash.

(Apart from Leah, who at this point is too done with all of this. She doesn't have it in her to care anymore.)

THE TOWNSFOLK This entire clusterfuck is a very public event witnessed by half of Forks.

-

I was very sad we had to cut the funeral.

[xlonelysoulxx]

Being a Mermaid and Jacob’s Imprint Would Include... {2}

{gif isn’t mine}

xxxxx

You had disappeared for a whole month. You had only sent Leah a few messages after the incident, to give a sign of life and reassure the pack... which hadn’t helped matters when Jacob found out. "WHY didn't you tell me?!” “You acted like a f*cking jerk, why should I have?" The tension was so overwhelming, to the point where the other wolves must have come between them that day. Leah wanted to protect her friend, and Jacob wanted to get his imprint back. But he couldn't.

xxxxx

You hadn’t planned to come back, not so soon... this is what you had entrusted to the pretty wolf. You wanted to get some distance... away from Forks, from La Push... and from Jacob. You couldn't take it anymore. It was already hard that he treated you so coldly ‘cause he loved one another, but seeing him tear himself apart with his brothers... because of you? It was too much. It had gone way too far.

xxxxx

Grudge and worry kept growing among the wolves even when Jacob were gone, wandering god knows where near the Canadian border. Guilt and pain had kept twisting him from the inside ever since, and hearing the thoughts of his pack... especially when it came to you, had become torture. Even Jared, who had felt at fault at first, only felt annoyance now. Jacob was a ball of nerves ready to explode at any moment, while he was the one who had behaved badly in the first place. Fuck... he could have hurt you?! All because he had let himself be overcome by his emotions, emotions that he wasn’t yet ready to assume out loud.

xxxxx

The feeling of lack linked to the imprint was so strong that it sometimes prevented you from breathing, but that wasn't the worst. It was at that moment... that you realized how much you were in love with Jacob Black.

xxxxx

Even the pull of the bond wasn't as strong as the crack forged in your heart. A gash already wide open over the past few weeks (consciously or not) by the constant presence of Isabella Swan - hunted by Victoria - and now gaping as you left the Quileute... and Jacob, behind you. It was clear, the difference between these feelings - as if your heart and your guts were going in two distinct directions. How stupid you were... as if fate wasn't cruel enough like that.

xxxxx

You were quite surprised to see Alice and Jasper appear at your workplace one morning, a small neighborhood library near Port Angeles. It was brand new, no one knew about it. No one except Alice. Obviously... What were they doing there? You weren't particularly close to the Cullens, but you liked the lil’ brunette quite a bit. Did something happen? Did he... no, Leah would have warned you. Right..?

xxxxx

“He's stupidly stubborn, and guilty. But he's fine... for now.” You no longer understood anything, since when did Alice appreciate Jacob? She didn’t. But she couldn't control her visions. Time was running out. An army was approaching, Bella was once again the center of attention... and the future had darkened. The two clans who called themselves enemies had decided to unite reluctantly, to protect her - but what was your role in this story?

xxxxx

“Don't get me wrong, Alice... I don't wish Bella any harm.” You were boiling from the inside, but Bella wasn't the reason of your pain... Jacob was. You had no animosity towards the young girl, the shapeshifter was mature enough to make his own choices. It was between you and him, and yet. “But you came here for nothing.” You didn't look her in the eye anymore, busy sorting through the same books over and over in your hands. You couldn't believe she had come here just for this. She wanted you to come back to him, so he could come back to her... come back to Bella. To protect her.

xxxxx

Jasper hadn't moved from his place since their arrival, standing proudly straight behind his beloved. He could easily sense your anger, mixed with pain and incomprehension... and just like that, your eyes met his for a long second. “You should listen to her, Y/N.” You could feel a wave of appeasement sweep over you, immediately glaring at the vampire. "And you shouldn’t try to manipulate my emotions, Jasper."

xxxxx

“He won't survive it, Y/N... I saw it.” You could feel your blood running cold through your veins. What was she talking about?? Jacob was actually back in Forks, for more than a week now. But he was a freaking mess. He made sure to stay away from the pack, irritable... unpredictable, and more closed than ever. Quite the opposite of who he really was. You could feel your heart skipping a beat... Alice had glimpsed the impending confrontation, and the outcome had been fatal for the brown wolf.

xxxxx

No, no, no... it couldn't happen. It. Couldn't. The information was too much to handle as you began to hyperventilate like an idiot in the store, Jasper immediately moving to your side. You couldn't let him get killed all this because he was distracted by the whole "imprint thing”, no... you could never forgive yourself for it. You would leave your pride aside without any hesitation for him, everything for him... no matter the welcome you would receive in return.

xxxxx

The car ride was terribly quiet. The battle would take place in three days, so there was no time to waste. Your boss had been accommodating enough to give you your afternoon (he seemed to be pleased by your work, good for you) and this is where you were now... on the road back to Forks, sitting in the back of Alice's car. She had insisted on taking you there given your emotional state, and you were silently grateful for that. You could feel the anguish mounting as you approached the Quileute reserve, unconsciously wriggling in your seat.

xxxxx

“Stop the car.” The air was too thick to breathe, and you felt like you were drowning... there was only one way to fix it. You were close enough now, you could join the reserve on your own... but not right away. You quickly thanked the couple before slamming the door, taking the path to the forest under the worried gaze of the petite brunette. You ran, unable to stop before reaching the impressive cliff... not thinking twice before jumping.

xxxxx

You felt like you could finally breathe again as the icy water came in contact with your hot skin. You haven't been back to the ocean since the incident, and you had missed it - terribly. You could feel a pinch in your stomach as you rose to the surface, quickly looking up as your eyes instantly fell on the huge brown wolf that stood high on the rocks. Jacob. He was there... how?

xxxxx

You dived again after an endless exchange of glances, taking longer than necessary to reach the shore. A part of you feared your reunion, while the other was just relieved and excited to see him again. Jacob had reached the beach at an impressive speed, the shapeshifter dressed warmer than usual while a large jacket and boots complemented the usual shorts specific to all Quileutes. His heart was pounding as he observed the surface, impatiently waiting to see you reappear. Were you even going to do it..? He couldn't believe you were really there.

xxxxx

And you did. Your feet sank into the wet sand as you left the sweet comfort offered by the waves, your long hair sticking to your skin like a second skin. You were completely exposed as the cold wind whipped through your entire body, Jacob's eyes never leaving yours as he took off his jacket… wasting no time wrapping it around you. The distance between you was ridiculously thin now, the silence heavy and comfortable at the same time. There was no room for shyness here, it was Jacob. And despite everything that had happened you had full confidence in him.

xxxxx

None of you dared to speak first... almost like it's going to shatter the present moment, and bring bad memories to the surface. “I was afraid I had hurt you.” He finally confessed, almost shamefully. Start at the beginning, yeah... it was good. “I'm sorry I disappeared... I just panicked.” You answered briefly, but he cut you off almost immediately.“You don't have to feel sorry for anything, Y/N. I should. For everything.”  He really was. He wanted to tell you how sorry he was, how much he had missed you... and how much he loved you. But he didn't have the right. Not now, and maybe never. But repeating it to you, showing you how sorry he was and how much he regretted the way he had treated you... seemed like a good start. He wanted to be the best imprint for you... a friend, a protector. If you wanted him to be. He didn't want to be separated from you like that anymore. Never again.

xxxxx

You could hear the sincerity in his voice, the erratic changes in his breathing… and the heat radiating from his body which was enveloping you like a soft blanket. He meant every word. You were sure of it. And it was, indeed, a good start... yes. It was like a silent acceptance, like a secret language between the two of you... your throat tightening a bit before you wrapped your arms around him.

xxxxx

Jacob automatically tightens his embrace around you, selfishly accepting the gesture of affection you both needed so badly. He trapped your body against his, resting his chin against the top of your head as you stood on your tiptoes... inhaling his scent. There he was, alive and safe in your arms... and that was all that mattered right now. And you were going to make sure that it stays that way, no matter what.

xxxxx

But fate wasn't so lenient, you should have known that... it didn't rest only in your hands. Cruel reality exploded in your face that day, Jacob's scream echoing through the entire clearing at the same time as the sound of his ribs being broken by the newborn vampire. It all happened so fast. Leah had found herself trapped in the deadly embrace of one of them, Jacob had intervened... and now he was writhing in pain on the ground.

xxxxx

You had joined him in a few strides, stumbling alongside him as your heartbeat echoed through your ears. Carlisle stood by your side, examining the extent of the damage before the other members of the pack arrived in turn. His voice was twisted in pain as he tried to pronounce your name, squeezing your hand in his before the other wolves surrounded him to pick him up - Paul reluctantly pulling you away from your imprint. Tears filled your eyes, so much so that you hadn't even seen Bella arrive… the obvious horror on her face. How could this have happened? You thought you could change Alice's vision, you really believed you could... but you obviously failed. Literally.

[cto10121]

Twilight Fanon vs. Canon

A dozen years plus too late with Starbucks, but whatever, because I’m tired of these uncharitable Twilight-is-problematic meta that twist canon to the limits that give me great agita and that are. so. easy to refute???? By anyone who has read the books??? Well, here are some of the most egregious ones in no particular order:

“Meyer’s portrayal of the Quileutes/Leah is negative and racist!!!” Dude. They are at worst antagonists. Actually Quil and Embry and even Paul are portrayed with fun, boys-will-be-boys bonhomie in NM. Most of them are loose mirrors or foils of the Cullens (Sam-Carlisle, Leah-Rosalie, Jacob-Edward, etc.). Bella even briefly joins the Quileute crowd (she is at La Push constantly in New Moon) and even has a wistful, almost romantic vision of her and Emily waiting for the pack to return as “wolf girls.” It is understood in the text that had Edward not returned, or if Bella had not met him, she would have ended up with Jacob and thus the Quileutes—and this is framed as the normal path for Bella. As for Leah, Bella’s narrative is consistently sympathetic to her—she is the one to notice her silent tears during the legends part in Eclipse. The pack and Jacob, on the other hand, resent her because they have to deal with her unfiltered pain and rage every time they phase. But there’s no real animosity from the narrative itself. The tribe is less developed than the Cullens, but then the Cullens aren’t as developed as the leads. It be a romance, after all. As for the controversy regarding Meyer’s reworking of real-life Quileute legends as “cultural appropriation”…somehow I don’t see anyone screaming “cultural appropriation” because she reworked real-life Romanian/Slavic legends of bloodsuckers for her YA romance and calling it racist/problematic as well. But Romanians/Slavs are “white” so the century-old “appropriation” of their cultural monster doesn’t count, amirite?

“Edward is an insane weirdo!!!” Right? It’s almost as if he is a 100+ year-old vampire turned in 1912 and loosely based on tormented Victorian-era Gothic heroes like Rochester and Heathcliff (although granted “insane weirdos” could be a valid description). Also, he is in love (see “Bella is insane!!!” bulletpoint).

“Bella has no personality/the worst personality!!!” No. Here is an actually good meta as to why that’s wrong. I will also add that as the whole series is narrated from her point of view, her thoughts and desires and wishes, this take becomes downright stupid.

“Jasper was a Confederate soldier and therefore [insert Confederate/Jasper is a racist/Dixie memes]!!!” There is nothing in Jasper’s backstory that says he joined the Confederate Army because he believed in slavery and there’s nothing in the text that indicates he (still?) believes in the Cause(tm)—if he ever did to begin with. In fact, considering his empath abilities, the chances that he’d still be racist is zero. Edward himself speaks ironically/deprecatingly about his 1912 boyhood dream of fighting in WWI, and he is definitely frozen in those Edwardian attitudes! Jasper, being the most “vampire” of the Cullens, probably dismisses it all as “human” concerns. The Cullens, of course, do cling to their human pasts, but most of the regular vampires don’t show much nostalgia/hang-ups over their past life. Vampires in the Twilight universe are different and outside from humans in every possible way. Why should they give a fuck about human politics and attitudes except maybe where it directly concerns them?

“Edward hates Rosalie and Jasper and anyone not Carlisle!!!” Edward helps Rosalie get her revenge on her rapists. That’s canon. Of course they clash horribly, because they have two wildly different personalities and values, but out of all the Cullens, they act more like actual brother and sister to me. He hovers anxiously over Jasper because he is new to the coven and the whole non-human diet. Also, Edward is neurotic af.

“The Cullens are like a cult!!!” A cult that has non-cult international friends to help out in a pinch and even has ties to the non-cult (loose) governing body, which is acknowledged as very much needed to get rid of threats like the newborn army. Needless to say, the Cullens know they are the weirdos of the vampire world and are accepting of the vampire norm of drinking humans. Also, no cult would welcome back a member fallen off the wagon the way Carlisle forgives the others.

“Jacob’s character was butchered in Eclipse to try to force Bella/Edward!!!” Try New Moon. Jacob was sunny and sweet until the exact moment he turned werewolf. He becomes a bit of a macho dick from then on (except when Bella finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together and realizes he is a werewolf, then he is just relieved and happy) and of course pulls a truly dick move by telling Charlie about the motorcycles. When Edward returns, it’s a full-on dick measuring contest between him and Jacob. Eclipse is a continuation of this new, more fraught dynamic. As for the shipping wars, Jacob is so obviously set up as the Paris of this series, and anyone who has read beyond their own nose could see Bedward as endgame from a mile away. If you prefer Jacob/Bella, it’s cool (I personally don’t). But let’s keep it real and admit he was never a true option for Bella within the narrative—just a viable one with many, many conditions.

“The other humans are better/more interesting than the main characters/the Cullens!!!” No offense if you like Jessica Stanley or Mike Newton, etc., but this is going a little too far. I like how they are normal, down-to-earth high schoolers and how Meyer just yeets the whole set of stupid high school clichés and conventions out of the window, but I can’t really say they are nicer to read about than the supernatural characters or plot. They obviously just like Bella because she is new in town, not for what she is herself. They are definitely not secretly nicer than Bella’s narration has them. Which leads me to:

“Bella is insane/depressed/an unreliable narrator!!!” Friendly reminder that Bella is 17 and in love, which quite literally changes your brain chemistry. And of course even before then people have known the crazy shit people in love have done since time immemorial. Has nothing to do with “mental illness.” As for unreliability, the series is written in the first person, which is necessarily subjective, but that doesn’t mean the narration is unreliable. Otherwise we’d have to distrust literally everything, even the existence of the Cullens as vampires. Bella is in love with Edward, and that colors a lot about him, but that doesn’t mean Edward is written without flaws. He has obvious hang-ups, and that drives a lot of the conflict of the books. Also also—way to call a female character in love “crazy.” Totally not problematic or anything.

“Meyer shouldn’t have privileged the love story over the worldbuilding/the worldbuilding sucks because [insert nickpicking over worldbuilding detail here]!!!” This is definitely the effects of romance-free epic fantasy action shit for 12-year-olds the mass media has piled on for decades, but friendly reminder that Twilight is not a fantasy novel. It is not even a vampire novel. It’s a romance with some elements of mystery and fantasy. It was never meant to be an epic of worldbuilding or fantasy. The YA copycats that followed Twilight concerning vampires or some supernatural entity did not realize that, and that is why they are mostly forgotten. The film adaptation was doubly clueless, bizarrely veering into teen rom com territory. For my part, I like to think of it as Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, and Wuthering Heights mixed in a blender and poured into a high school AU-shaped bowl.

“Edward would have left Bella in a heartbeat had she become a vampire via James/the Volturi!!!” Edward does have his issues with self-loathing and his human>vampire values, but by Eclipse it is 100% clear that his priority is being with Bella. In their meadow at the end he decides to let Bella have what she wanted—sex, to turn her himself—with no conditions or strings attached. It’s Bella’s own decision to have the wedding after all that prevents this. When Bella is turned, his reaction is nervousness as to whether Bella would still like him or even recognize him as a vampire (of course she does). He states explicitly to Jacob that he learned his lesson from the whole New Moon debacle and he would never leave Bella again. He also admits that would have returned to Bella anyway by a few months.

“If you think about it, Twilight is dark and disturbing!!!” You guys have never even heard of dark/Gothic romance, the myth of Hades and Persephone, the plot synopsis of a Walmart bodice ripper, or the words “You’re fine” from a doctor. And it shows.

[aro-is-gay-af]

Slavic Names in Twilight | Meta

This post is going to be long, so if you don’t have time, I advise you to come back here later (or not come back at all, up to you).

Honestly, I have no words for Smeyer anymore. I, probably like most of us, read the books while being an adolescent. When I was 12 I didn’t see a lot of things that happened to be in the books and were:  a) misogynistic  b) sexist c) abusive d) racist and that the story itself was bound to Mormons (sick!). 

If you want to read about it a little bit more I strongly recommend this post by @stregoni-benefici​ and @carlislesscarf​ 

This post isn’t going to be about how Smeyer treated The Quileute Tribe, indigenous people, people of color or women. This post is going to be about how lazy Smeyer exactly was while creating this story and how her prejudices influenced and created false image of yet another culture. 

Why am I making such a fuss because of this? A few days ago I was reading something about Garrett on Twilight Wiki page. By sheer luck, I clicked on Kate’s character and, what I saw there, outraged me to the point where I needed a little while to calm myself. 

I was 12 when I first read the books. I never bought official twilight guide, I only used Twilight Wiki to keep myself up to date. I clicked on Kate’s character and saw that she hails from Slovakia. Forgive my utter confusion, when I remembered other sisters’ names. Tanya and Irina. Also, Kate was created by Sasha, who also created Vasilli (an immortal child), which is why she was executed in the first place. 

While the story is charming, WHY THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE SUCH NAMES?! 

To understand my rage, I need to elucidate the matter a little bit for all of you. This will be the historical part. 

According to Twilight Wiki, Sasha was changed before 1000 AD. Then, she created Tanya, and not very long after, Kate and Irina. And now. What were the historical odds while it happened? 

Before 1000 AD, Slovakia wasn’t Slovakia but Great Moravia. Great Moravia lasted about a century - the time span here is approximately circa 820 AD to 906 AD. When Great Moravia no longer existed, territory was taken by Hungarians (Magyar tribes also referred to as Hungarian clans) and the development of future Kingdom of Hungary began. Then, around 1000-1001, King Stephan was crowned as the first King of Hungary. Some elements from the former Great Moravia were acquired by The Kingdom of Hungary. 

King Stephen managed to establish eight counties within his kingdom. Around 1015 some territories of today-Slovakia were acquired by Boleslav I of Poland (later king of Poland), however, King Stephen managed to recapture the territories in 1018. Wikipedia isn’t consistent here - while on History of Slovakia we have these information, the History of Poland during the Piast dynasty says: 

From 1003 to 1004, Bolesław intervened militarily in Czech dynastic conflicts. After his forces were removed from Bohemia in 1018, Bolesław retained Moravia. 

and:

[translation here is mine as the site is in Polish] Between 1003 and 1025/1031 the lands of today's Slovakia were part of the Kingdom of Poland after being conquered by Bolesław Chrobry. The Polish-Hungarian Chronicle described that "The Polish borders stretched as far as the banks of the Danube, to the town of Ostříhomia, then to the town of Eger, and further to the river called Ciepla [Topl'a] as far as the town of Salis, and there the borders between Hungarians, Ruthenians and Poles ended". 

Than, probably around 1031 AD the territories were acquired back. King Stephen died and his kingdom fell into internal conflicts. Soon, in 1042 AD emperor Henry III mingled to acquire some lands for himself (he was the Holy Roman Emperor). Anyway, then came 1048 AD and that’s what happened: 

In 1048, King Andrew I of Hungary conceded one-third of his kingdom (Tercia pars regni) in appanage to his brother, Duke Béla. [...] During the following 60 years, the Tercia pars regni were governed separately by members of the Árpád dynasty. [...] The dukes accepted the kings' supremacy, but some of them (Béla, Géza and Álmos) rebelled against the king in order to acquire the crown and allied themselves with the rulers of the neighbouring countries (e.g., the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia).

The history of the Tercia pars regni ended in 1107, when King Coloman of Hungary occupied its territories taking advantage of the pilgrimage of Duke Álmos (his brother) to the Holy Land. Although, Duke Álmos, when returned to the kingdom, tried to reoccupy his former duchy with the military assistance of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, but he failed and was obliged to accept the status quo. 

Source for the two quotes above. 

You may ask, why on Earth did I just present to you part of history of Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. Because I want you to understand how completely ridiculous and simultaneously offending are the names of characters that Smeyer gave within this coven.

History shows us that, even though, these times weren’t exactly peaceful, there wasn’t an ongoing war. We have Hungarian tribes and the part, when some territories were acquired by a Polish king. What I mean by that, is that probably names around 1000 AD varied as to where your family lived, what was your social status, and probably were influenced by newly adopted Christianity. It is more likely that people on this lands were named with names of Hungarian origin than Russian. And I still think the majority of names were of Slavic origin, only with some local variations going on. 

Now, a little bit of common knowledge. People who descend from Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary are best buddies for life, even if they never saw each other. We have mutual respect for these countries and for ourselves, as our history brought us together multiple times (bad times and good ones). Russia IS NOT a part of this “mutual respect pact”. Mostly due to events that happened during both World Wars (i.e. Katyń Massacre), as well as other ones (Partitions of Poland, Eastern Bloc - communism). 

Most of the names used by Smeyer are of Russian (or Greek, or Hebrew) origin. Not Slavic origin. And while Russia is also the part of Slavic languages, there’s a significant distinction between West Slavic Languages (Slovakian, Czech, Polish language), East Slavic Languages (Belarusian, Russian, Ukainian) and South Slavic Languages (i.e. Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian). 

It makes difference to the point that if I go to Slovakia or Czech Republic I'm able to communicate with people in my native language (Polish) while they can answer me in their native language. Not everything is going to be the same but you're able to maintain a conversation mostly about every topic that you'd like to discuss. It isn't impossible to do so with Russian or Ukrainian but it's much harder and there are more differences, and sometimes you aren’t able to communicate this way. The same goes with i.e. Croatian or Bulgarian.

Don’t get me wrong, dear friends from Russia (if anyone from Russia will ever read this). I’m pissed off because even though Smeyer created not one, but four characters with SLOVAKIAN origin, she didn't use at least one name which fully originated in that territories (and probably was used) around 1000 AD. She went for Russian names because, sure, let's do that, there's no big difference anyway and it’s easier. To add to that, Smeyer used Russian names which are widely used NOWADAYS, not ones which were probably popular (or just used) thousand years ago. 

Now, quick briefing on very popular names from that time (c. 1000 AD) in Slovakia and Czech Republic. 

Here’s the full article on Slavic names.  

While some of these names are used today, some of them aren’t at all or are used in a different, more evolved form. 

Now, to the names of our characters. The most explainable and justified name here is Kate’s name. In Twilight Wiki we can find that her actual name was Katrina and that her preferable name now is Kate. Let’s see the origins of the name Kate. 

Full article here. 

While we can read that variations of that name in Czech are: “ Katka, Kateřina, Kačka, Káťa, Kačenka, Káča, Kačí, Kačena” and in Slovakian “Katka, Katarína” still the origins aren’t Slavic. 

Next, Irina. 

As Wikipedia says:

Irina is a feminine given name of Ancient Greek origin, commonly borne by followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is derived from Eirene (Ancient Greek: Εἰρήνη), an ancient Greek goddess, personification of peace.

Diminutive forms in Slavic languages include Ira, Irinka, Irinushka, Irisha, Irka, Irochka, Irinochka.

Here, we also don’t have Slavic origin. While it’s better than with Kate’s name because origins here seem to hugely blend, the proper origin of Irina’s name is Ancient Greek. I will never believe that a peasant girl from around 1000 AD was named Irina.

Here’s the full article. 

Next, Vasilli. 

Wikipedia doesn’t say much, except it’s a RUSSIAN NAME with Greek origin.

Full article here. 

Now, finally, we’ve two names left. First, Sasha. 

Finally, first one, which has Slavic origin. And while this name has many variations in many languages, I don’t believe that anyone in Slovakia prior to 1000 AD would name their child Sasha. This name gained popularity in 1970s, and I believe that it would be used rather as diminutive of a name in 1000 AD than a name itself. 

Full article here. 

Last, but not least, Tanya. 

Here, also, it isn’t a full name. Full name is Tatiana, and Tanya, especially in Slavic it is used as a nickname implying intimacy with the person OR used for baby talk. 

Full article here. 

What’s my point here? Even though two of these five names are partially Slavic in origin, they sound like Russian names. Not Eastern Slavic in one fucking bit. Sure, Smeyer could do a simplification and say that, yeah, girls acquired other names as centuries passed. Agreed, even strongly. 

BUT

Smeyer never said anything like this. Also, I’m under the impression that this names were meant to sound Russian. And, people, don’t get me wrong, I really hold nothing against Russians, but because of doing such thing Smeyer has perpetuated certain patterns and beliefs that have become firmly established in US culture and West culture in general by now. 

No wonder why some people never distinguish between Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic or Ukraine, or other countries from Easter Bloc. How can they, where in majority of mass media they’re taught that IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Why should they bother? 

I have many friends among Slovakian people. Slovakia is like a second home to me. I also have a few friends from Czech Republic. And before, I’ve never been bothered by this name thing because I was a child. Today I couldn’t be silent about it. 

It’s sad that another culture and fantastic history was just blended in with Russia because why not. I don’t understand why in Western movies or books all people from former Eastern Bloc need to be Russian. 

I am Polish and to me it’s just extremely sad. We (and I think I can count in here Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, but also Croatia or Serbia) have fantastic culture and very long, eventful history. People from these countries are welcoming and share great hospitality. 

I don’t know why Smeyer did something like this, but I suppose it’s just a thing she does to everyone. Rip away their culture and pretend she didn’t do it. 

I am grateful that this fandom is a lot wiser than the creator of the books. This is what I said in the beginning of this post. Smeyer could’ve gone to library and read a little about the history and the names. I mean, If she didn’t found it on the Internet, because it was 2006, I believe, so she could research it. If there was nothing on the Internet, I’m sure a library would do. 

She did a poor research or didn’t do it at all. And that’s what happened. Was it worth it? I don’t think so. 

***

Everyone, please, comment, but be kind to each other (and to me xd). I wrote what I felt. As I’ve told you already, I’m Polish and I really felt that I should write this meta/disclaimer from a point of view of a person who lives in Slavic-origined country and has many Slavic-origined friends.

I still feel triggered because of this. Reblog this so others could see and say what they think. 

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

okay, I want to hear about your thoughts on Renesmee wanting to eat Edward?? What's up with that. Also would love to hear about your opinion on this child in general. All the people in her life are hardcore projecting on her, what's the alien child's perspective on all this shit. Thanks for all the twilight meta its wild.

Thank you, glad you enjoy my rambling, strange, thoughts.

What’s Up With Renesmee Devouring Her Enemies?

So, this one’s actually a bit of headcanon on my end, not really supported by anything directly. We’re going way into left field with this.

But I do have this. Renesmee is a highly efficient predator, perhaps in a way more so than the vampire (although she is weaker and slower than vampires) and Renesmee is... not human, for whatever that means.

Everything we see of Renesmee’s early biological development, and what we see happening in Nahuel and his sisters, makes a lot of sense from a biological standpoint.

The mother is turned essentially into a hybrid incubator, such that even if she wanted to abort she likely would not be able to or would not survive it. The child grows at a rapid rate in the room and has to eat itself out, at which point it has a starter meal of the human mother. The child then grows absurdly rapidly to the point where, mentally and physically, it can survive on its own. Growth then slows and then stops when sexual maturity is reached, presumably for reproductive purposes.

Vampires cannot do a few things. They are a half-sterile race, only able to reproduce through humans and the previously male half of the human species. They also need external help to kill a fellow vampire. In other words, they have to light a fire.

Until you burn the pieces, the enemy vampire isn’t dead. Now, using fire as a tool is to date something only the human species has figured out. It is not intuitive and an odd coincidence that vampires had this prerequisite knowledge (I have thoughts on what vampirism even is and where it comes from). 

I imagine, just as Renesmee presumably has reproductive capabilities that vampires lack, she also a has a toolset that vampires lack: the ability to kill a vampire without the need for fire. 

Given that Renesmee’s able to eat human food, this implies she has a digestive that is able to break down nutrients. The reason vampires can’t eat other vampires is they lack this. Edward swallows pizza, he’s vomiting that shit back up three hours later and it’s going to be very solid and very gross. Whatever venom did to his innards, most of his vital human organs aren’t working anymore.

Given that Renesmee’s this mix of venom and who knows what kinds of fluids I believe her stomach is capable of breaking down and digesting vampire flesh. This seems to me the most obvious way to eliminate an enemy vampire when no tools are otherwise available.

Hence, instinctively, if Renesmee wants to murder Edward she will eat him.

(Also, as you can tell, the image is just horrifyingly delightful to me, and so it’s my go to response.)

As for why she would want to eat him, see here and here.

The Family and Renesmee

As you note, everyone in Renesmee’s life projects someone else onto her.

Not so much Carlisle, he just seems very bewildered and overwhelmed by everything at first, and one of the few who openly notes how not human Renesmee is and the implications of this (given the chromosome experiment, I’m sure Carlisle was expecting a squid).

Even in the early stages though we see Edward, Bella, Alice, and Rosalie as primary offenders. (I’d list Esme except Esme is... being Esme about it, so, she’s just floating through Renesmee’s life like her Cullen ghost self and not even at the point where she can project anything onto her. Besides, that’s what Edward’s for.)

Edward sees the best of both himself and Bella in Renesmee, a little intellectual who reads War and Peace at a few weeks old when she has no understanding of the concepts of War, Napoleon, Russia, or Peace. As Edward always does, he so obliviously projects onto her, that I imagine it doesn’t matter what Renesmee says or does around him and she quickly figures that out.

Bella’s left the planet. Renesmee’s this beautiful thing, that looks like Edward, that is her daughter. Bella has no idea what parenting is. She’s floating through life preparing herself to become Esme 2.0. It’s not so much that she projects onto Renesmee but that she... completely fails to connect her to reality. Renesmee is a concept to Bella. Renesmee might figure this out, but given her feelings for her mother, I imagine she’s far more conflicted about it. She probably wishes things could be different between them, and often tries to find ways to make it so, it just never works.

Alice treats Renesmee much as she treated Bella, as her little doll that she can dress in cute clothing. Beyond that, Renesmee is a nuisance who messes with Alice’s gift. Oh, Alice likes her well enough, but I don’t see them having an actual meaningful conversation or connection.

Rosalie’s probably the wort offender in the projection domain. She is absolutely projecting the ideal human child she never had onto Renesmee. When Renesmee inevitibly fails to live up to these perfect standards, which even a human child wouldn’t, I imagine Rosalie will get increasingly upset. Acknowledging Renesmee isn’t what she wanted either would probably break Rosalie, so she’s not going to do that, and instead try to get Renesmee to behave correctly. For however much she cares about Renesmee, I imagine Renesmee sours on her growing up, as she knows she will never be what Rosalie wishes she was. Grateful that Rosalie helped keep her alive, of course, but... she would also probably wonder, as fandom does, just how much Rosalie was hoping Bella would die in birth (for the record, I think this might have been an idle fantasy of Rosalie’s, but I don’t think she’d go this far.)

Then of course, there’s Jake. Woof, Jake. As I linked above, I think Renesmee will slowly become more and more disenchanted with Jake. She’ll either learn about or suspect her own gift, have no interest in having a romantic relationship with him, or learn about his checkered past with her mother. More Jake is...

Imprinting, at a very large distance, sounds nice but imagine what that means. You have this person who is utterly dependent on you, who will do whatever you want and be whatever you wish them to be. In other words, you have this codependent person you can never get rid of who is never authentic. They will never say no to you, will always do what you wish, and if you dare to tell them you want a little time to yourself they will probably combust into flames.

That’s not a good relationship for anyone: imprinter or imprintee.

Jake, in a sense, ceases to be a real person when it comes to Renesmee. Renesmee will figure that out and then... why should she live her life just to make this miserable man who once tried to murder her happy?

What Does This Do to Renesmee?

I imagine Renesmee grows up feeling very isolated.

She doesn’t really belong in the Cullens, for all that they’re the best fit she has. She certainly doesn’t belong with other imprintees in the tribe (and whatever occasional function she goes to with the Quileutes is probably a complete disaster), and she’s not human either.

I imagine her strongest relationships are Charlie Swan (who beyond the surrealness of his life I imagine takes Renesmee at very face value), Carlisle Cullen (who also seems to not project onto Renesmee and takes her at face value), and Bella (who she desperately wants a stronger relationship with but Bella’s not listening).

Well, Charlie at some point will die. He will not choose immortality. I imagine Renesmee never quite understands why he was allowed to choose death or what the purpose of the human species even is. To her, they are caterpillars who never went into the chrysalis. Given to Renesmee the Cullen diet is the norm, to her it would seem obvious that, yes, everyone in the world can turn into a vampire and if they ration animal resources correctly there’s no problem. Or, if not everyone, then certainly her grandfather need not die.

I’m sure Charlie tries to talk to Renesmee about this but given that he’s one of her few strong relationships in this world the talk of “I’m going to die some day, sorry kiddo” doesn’t go well.

So, I’m sure it takes Renesmee a very long time to recover from that blow, if, in fact, she ever really does. I’m sure a part of her will always grieve Charlie.

In time, I think she’ll leave the coven to go on a journey of self discovery. The coven will just be too damn suffocating and she needs to find out who she truly is. Now, if that’s before or after the inevitable collapse of the Volturi and destruction of human society is hard to say.

I will say that whatever the future holds for Renesmee, just like everyone else’s, it is unbearably bleak.

[apuff]

help

also DO NOT GET INTO THAT MANS CAR HES GONNA TAKE YOU TO LOCATION 2 BELLANO BELLA NO

BELLA GIRL NO DO NOT GET INT OTHAT MANS CAR

he likes classical music 😏

BE AFRAID BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID

omg edward STOP ASKING HER ABOUT MARRIAGE THATS NOT OKAY

relatable

ugh mean girl drama

i could not care less

i know they go camping to eat bears and stuff

so confused by that sun description i thought it meant the sun was up in themiddle of the night not that it had stopped being rainy

i wish meyer would just describe lanscapes instead of relationships this beach description slaps

whuh

whys bella trying to flirt with jacob i thought she liked edward?? i know edward gets the girl in the end but i like jacob more ngl

whys she trying to flirt him up is she fishing for info

DUUUDDEEEE THIS IS COLD SHE IS FISHING FOR INFO bro why does bella manipulate everyone

theyre all so nice too

THE COLD ONES..........

dude if she tells someone about the secret im gonna be so mad

ugh now theres ..SIX DIFF BOYS THAT HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN BELLA?? thats way too many

vampires a-z?? thats very strange

i suppose the quileutes story is too obscure for vampires a-z

i like this phrasing

epic phrasing

i think something supernatural is going on with bella. like. she can smell blood and edward can read the minds of everyone except her. shes gotta be like 1/64 vampire or smth

NAMEDROPPPP

very cool

MEYER PLEASE JUST WRITE ENVIRONMENTS like it seriously makes me sad how the story kinda stops being interesting the moment bella and edwards relationship is at the forefront like thats the main point of the series, that shouldnt be happening

i like jacob not just bc hes more my type but i just think the way the writing is when he's around is so much more interesting

thats so cute actually

bella is a hater

bella x mike truther

DUDE SHES SO MEAN SHES PITTING HER FRIENDS AGAINST EACH OTHER

okay this is pretty funny

i wanna read twilight just to see if its as bad as everyone says it is

[volturialice]

Bella's character is a SMeyer self insert so the name she would have picked would have been just like one of those Smeyer picked for her other characters (especially the Cullens). Elizabeth would have been perfect even without the connection to Edward's mother's name. It's a literay character to. Other examples, Eleanor, Caroline/a, and I wish Victoria and Charlotte if they hadn't already been used....

Eh. I don't see Bella as a smeyer self-insert so much as a "girl reading this" self-insert (at least, that was smeyer's intention) but stephenie kinda failed to recognize that her own experiences were not universal.

[eta: for anyone curious abut this, I should add that smeyer has gone on record saying she would never name a real child renesmee]

also, like. as someone who has researched this pretty extensively, I don't think Twilight characters' names are necessarily reflective of smeyer's personal name taste at all (except bella, whose name is what stephenie herself says she would have named a daughter.) a huge chunk of them are named after family members and people in her life—heidi, emily, seth, victoria, jacob, paul—whose names she certainly didn't choose (though I believe she did name a son after her brother seth, iirc.) and still others are names she got from historical records and stuff (many of the vampires, + all the actual quileute surnames she looked up and stole.)

so I thoroughly agree with @panlight that in a story with consistent and thoughtful characterization, bella swan's baby name taste should have leaned classic and literary rather than modern and invented.

side note, I do think renesmee's name is colored a lot by mormon influences—making up new names/naming children some weird bastardization of parents' or grandparents' names is very common in the mormon community (see: "stephenie.") she also uses a lot of christian biblical names, but this goes back to both the historical sources and the real (mormon) people she names characters after.

[6knotty6thotty6]

Death of A Genre

YouTuber Nathan Zed made a video about why the YA dystopian genre died for movies. He said it was a combination of oversaturation and most of them trying to be The Hunger Games. He said it was still peculiar since niche movies/books like Twilight are still in the public consciousness, and superhero movies are oversaturated yet are still profitable. So why were YA dystopias still a dead genre?

Hollywood always does this. Every time a movie of a particular genre makes millions (or even billions), they obsess over it and pump out as many movies as possible, thinking it’s the next big thing. Superhero movies were the exception because they already had a long-established history in mainstream media. The first superhero movie came out in 1939. Unlike superhero movies, there isn’t much room for creativity in the YA dystopian genre. If you want a superhero thriller, watch Unbreakable. Superhero horror, Brightburn. Superhero comedy, Deadpool. Superhero drama, Logan. Superhero subversion, Watchmen. YA dystopians, on the other hand, all look and feel the same while telling the same message. The government is bad, and the only one who can save the world is a ragtag group of misfits led by a teenager with one or more dead parents. That teenage is also the object of affection by two or more handsome boys. Darkest Minds had it the worst because that was probably most of those child actors' first movie. Now they’re all gonna have the movie with the record for worst opening weekend on their resumes. Another problem with YA dystopians, besides being poorly executed, is most of them have nothing to say about society. In the Hunger Games, the message was clear. The government doesn't care about poor people, and those who oppose the government can be just as apathetic about human lives. It’s a clear and unmistakable message that’s unfortunately true about the real world. Meanwhile, Divergent and The Giver say the government doesn't like individuality. That’s not true about American society at all. America is one of the most individualistic countries in the world. Divergent and The Giver would’ve made more sense if it was about Japanese society, which does value conformity. I don’t even know what Maze Runner was trying to say. The government prioritizes saving the lives of many rather than a select few? When you have a story about revolutions, you need to draw some parallels to the real world since there are plenty of examples that can enrich the story and make it more believable. I hope I don’t have to explain why revolutions are inherently political. Some people say we don’t need YA dystopian movies since we’re already living in one, but I think that’s precisely why we need them now more than ever. People, especially kids, need to learn that it’s never ok to allow the government to abuse its power.

As for why Twilight never died. Twilight is an enigma. It has the perfect balance of defenders and detractors to keep the conversation going. Not to mention, unlike YA dystopians, it actually had an impact on the real world. For example, the Native American tribe the Jacob Black belonged to is based on a real tribe called the Quileute. Thanks to Twilight, the tribe was able to gain income through tourism and win the fight to move their reservation to a land with less flooding. Also, much like superhero movies, urban fantasies and romance have existed for a long time. Twilight gets bashed for its unhealthy portrayal of romance, but it's nothing compared to normal adult romance. Plus, vampires and werewolves have always been romanticized. So it's not like it was doing anything new other than making everyone a teenager.

[byrachel]

QUIL ATEARA BROKEN PROMISE |part one

word count: 1475

summary: after (y/n) was abandoned by all three of her friends, quil tries to win his best friend back by showing her the truth 

warnings: some angst??

note: I know this was totally not what you wanted so I will make it up by making a fluffy part two and work on the other requested imagine! Thank you for being so patient!

Once Quil was in her room, she asked herself why she let him in. He cut his hair, got a tattoo and was walking around without his shirt like Sam’s gang, like he would call them. She laughed ironically as she remembered how distraught he was when Embry and Jacob had left them to join him as well. He became exactly what he hated. 

She let herself fall onto her bed, trying to comprehend what happened to the boy she used to call her best friend. Quil watched her hopelessly and decided to keep silent, not yet knowing what to tell her. He knew it wasn’t likely she would welcome him with open arms, he was lucky he let her in at all. 

As tears blurred her vision, she took the glasses resting on the bridge of nose off her face. She tried to hold up the cold-hearted act, but it only took seconds for it to break, tears burning into her skin as she silently cried. She hid her face in her hands, hoping she would wake up from the awful nightmare she was having.

With an aching heart and a pained expression on his face, Quil slowly walked up to (Y/N). He kneeled down in front of her, getting to her eye level. “I’m sorry.” Were his first words to her in months, whispering in the most apologetic tone. “I’m really sorry, (Y/N).”

“I just don’t get what happened.” She said through her sobs, pulling her hands away from her face. “Why would you do this to yourself?”

“I didn’t have a choice.” He explained meeting her red, puffy eyes. It took everything in him to not wrap his arms around her to comfort her. He hated he was the reason for the pain she was experiencing. “I wish it was different, but I can’t walk away from this.”

The sadness in her eyes shifted to anger in a split second. He chose to be with Sam and his friends over her and their friendship of over a decade. “You can’t walk away from Sam, but you can walk away from me?”

“No, (Y/N), that’s not it at all.” He sighed, regretting the way he chose to word what he was actually trying to say. He was doing more harm than good. “I know it sounds like I’m probably just making excuses, but it was for your safety.”

“That’s your explanation for disappearing for almost two months?” She furrowed her eyebrows angrily at the most cliché excuse she had ever heard, sniffling between her words. “You could’ve called and told me you just needed some space or something.”

“I should’ve called and I can’t tell you enough how much regret not doing that.” He spoke softly. “Just let me make it up to you. I’ll do anything.”

“What could make this okay, Quil?” She sniffled once again, looking down at the floor. “First Embry, then Jacob and now you. You guys are the only friends I had and you dropped me like I was nothing. Do you know how worthless that made me feel?”

By then Quil knew nothing else could fix how she felt, except the truth. He had to tell her what had not only happened to him, but the others as well. He knew that sooner or later he had to tell her, because of their bond but he didn’t want it to be this soon. He had no idea how she would react. Just telling her would make him seem crazy and that was exactly how he felt when he shifted for the first time. It was like a crazy fever dream.

“If I told you that what I’m about to show you will explain everything, will you come with me?” He asked her. 

It fell quiet between them for a moment. (Y/N) was trying to figure out what it could be, because she didn’t want to waste her time on his lies any longer. “What is it?” 

“I have to show you, otherwise you won’t believe me.” He explained. “But you need to come with me.”

“I can’t just leave right now. It’s bad enough I let you sneak in.” She dried her tears with her sleeve, sighing annoyed at his stupid idea. He knew how strict her parents were. The only reason they were allowed to be friends was because her dad always went fishing with Billy and Quil’s grandad. 

“What about tomorrow morning before school?” He suggested with a hopeful voice, because she was clearly considering it.

She bit her lip briefly, but thinking about it she knew she really had nothing to lose. It was either losing him again or him showing a legitimate reason. She had already gotten used to her life without the boys, despite being hurt it wasn’t like she couldn’t continue with her life. It was just dull without them. 

She softly shrugged her shoulders, agreeing to meet up with him. “What time?”

“Six thirty.” He smiled softly. He could feel his heart raise from excitement. This was the chance to win his best friend back. She wasn’t fond of giving second chances, but her giving him one meant there was still hope.

The following morning (Y/N) was up much earlier than usual. She was so curious to find out what Quil wanted to show her, but no logical explanation popped up into her head and it had kept her up all night. Yawns passed her lips as she put on her clothes and keeping her eyes open felt like a chore, but just like she had promised she was standing outside of her house at 6:30.

Quil was already on her front porch with a nervous smile. (Y/N) walked up to him as she closed her coat, feeling the cold morning wind stroke against her skin. She was kind of amazed how he was walking around like he couldn’t catch a pneumonia without proper clothing on, but she decided not to comment on it. 

“So what did you want to show me?” 

“Just come with me.”

She followed him into the forest, the scenery reminding her of every horror movie about teenagers camping in the woods and getting killed one by one. She could feel shivers go down her spine and suddenly regretted thinking about it, not knowing what she was getting herself into. 

Quil stopped in his tracks, turning around to her. (Y/N) was looking around her to find anything that stood out as she stopped walking herself, but didn’t see anything. “Is this the part where you kill me?” She sarcastically commented, her eyes shifting between the tall trees and greenery around her.

Quil snickered and shook his head. “No, but I need you to turn around.”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes, but wasn’t in the mood to argue, just doing what he said. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or are just gonna stay vague about it?”

Keeping her eyes on the horizon which was barely visible through the leaves, she waited patiently while listening to what Quil was doing behind her. She could hear some shifting and zipper going down, almost turning around to see what he was doing. She stopped herself, blood immediately rushing to her cheeks as she tried to cover up her actions by shifting her weight from one leg to the other. Is he undressing himself? She thought to herself. 

“Remember the legends my dad used to tell us? Some ancestors of the Quileute tribe were able to shape shift and protected their people from the cold ones?” She could hear his shorts fall to the ground, but was more focused on what he was telling her than whatever he was doing. She heard him backing up even further away from her. “They aren’t just legends, but I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I just told you so I’m going to show you.”

“Show me?” (Y/N) raised her eyebrows in confusion. 

Aggressive cracking and shifting filled her ears, making eyes widen and move further away from Quil before she quickly turned around to see what was happening. Her shaking legs were barely enough to keep her standing as she looked up into the eyes dark grey furred wolf. 

She fell back onto her back, a high pitched squeal leaving her lips as she held her arms in front of her to shield herself from the big creature towering over her. Her heart was in her throat as she was bracing herself to be eaten alive. When nothing happened she carefully lowered her arm down to see what it was doing.

He had lied down in front of her, not doing anything but breathing heavily and staring back at her. Those familiar dark brown eyes were staring back at her. 

(Y/N)’s eyes widened once again as she leaned towards him. “Quil?”

masterlist | part two | edited

tagged: requested by @midnightcoldrain

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hi! As someone who’s literary opinion I really trust, I was surprised that you’re a twilight fan? I know almost nothing except commen knowledge things about that series, and I always assumed it was actually bad/un-feminist. What is it that you like so much that others seem to miss? I’m just genuinely curious about your take on the hate it always seems to get vs. it’s actual quality. I’m not gonna judge bc animorphs is also one of those books where you see it and assume it’s bad.

In over 14 years of loving this series, I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me why I enjoy it instead of simply trying to convince me that I’m wrong to do so.  So thank you for that.

First and foremost, I love the Twilight saga because of the vivid detail in Stephenie Meyer’s writing style.  The descriptions are so lush and dense with sensory information that you can practically bite down on them as you read.  Bella and Jacob aren’t just sitting on the beach; they’re sitting on a gnarled log of driftwood, worn smooth at the top from where so many Quileute teens have sat upon it during bonfires but still uneven enough to rock on its branches when Bella suddenly stands to rage at her own mortality.  Meyer describes that log in Twilight, so tangibly and with such economy of detail, that we recognize it immediately when Bella and Jacob return to that spot in Eclipse.  I’ve always disliked the movies, because I’ve always felt that the best part of Meyer’s writing simply did not translate well to the screen.

Secondly, I love the feminism.

Okay, let’s take a quick pause to let everyone gasp and clutch their pearls over me calling Twilight a feminist work.  I will address the criticisms later.  For now, please just hear me out.

Twilight strikes me as a premier example of what Hélène Cixous means when she calls for “women’s writing,” or writing for women, about women, by women, with a strong focus on the concerns and strengths and desires of womanhood.  This is a series about building and maintaining close relationships, both romantic and platonic.  It celebrates beauty, and love, and care.  Bella moves to Forks because she recognizes that her dad is lonely while her mom is quite the opposite, torn between family priorities.  She doesn’t simply subsume her interests to those of other people, but instead actively chooses how and when and where to express her love for her birth family and her found families.  Most of the other major decisions throughout the story — Alice “adopting” Bella, Carlisle moving the family to Alaska, Jacob becoming werewolf beta, the Cullens going up against the Volturi, etc. — are motivated by care and devotion for one’s family and friends.  Even the selfish or morally ambiguous character choices are shown to be motivated by love.  Rosalie tells Edward that Bella died because she genuinely thinks it’ll help him move on.  Victoria creates an army that nearly destroys Forks because she’s avenging James.  Alice abandons Bella and the others before the final battle because if she can’t save her entire family, then she’ll settle for saving her lover before letting him die in vain.

Not only is there a striking concern with love and care, but there’s also a strong commitment to avoiding violence.  Bella’s eventual vamp-superpower proves to be preventing violence and protecting others, an awesome character decision that I’d argue gets set up as early as the first book.  She lives in a violent world — this is a YA SF story, after all — but she has the power to suppress violence and create peace, both in herself and others.  I was already sick of “power = ability to inflict damage” in YA stories well before I knew the word “patriarchy.”  Twilight was one of the first books to convey to me that power could be refusing to do harm in spite of hunger or anger, that power could be shielding ones’ family, that power could be about building enough friendships and alliances to have an army at one’s back when facing an enemy too strong to take on alone.

Closely connected to all of that love and care, I love how much Twilight is about navigating teenage girlhood.  Is it empowering, intersectional, or all-inclusive?  Hell no.  Does it still dare to suggest that a completely ordinary teenage girl could have valid concerns about the world?  Yep.  The main conflict of the story, as Stephen King so derisively explained, is about the romantic entanglements of a teenage girl, and the book therefore has no literary merit.  (To quote my dad’s response: “Bold words from the guy who inflicted Firestarter on the world.”)

There is, indeed, a lot of romance in Twilight.  There are a lot of clothes.  Alice and Rosalie especially spend a lot of time on makeup, and hair, and choosing the prettiest cars and houses.  Twilight embraces all the stereotypically “girly” concerns of adolescence, and makes no effort to apologize for or condemn them.  Bella isn’t particularly good at performing them — she likes but doesn’t excel at shopping, fiercely defends her ugly car as ugly, hobbles through prom on crutches — but she can still enjoy the feeling of being pretty in a sparkly dress while dancing with her sparkly boyfriend.  And Twilight, like Animorphs with Cassie, takes the daring step of treating that feeling as valid.

Speaking of sparkles, I love the commitment to the fantasy concept in Twilight, including the myriad mundanities that Meyer brings with that commitment.  If you have super-speed, why not use it to play extreme baseball?  If you’re a mindreader with a clairvoyant sister, why wouldn’t you two play mental chess games?  I couldn’t tell you, after seven seasons of Buffy or eight of Vampire Diaries, what Spike or Damien or Angel or Stefan does all day when not brooding or lurking in the bushes to creep on human women.  I can tell you what the Cullens get up to.  Emmett and Rosalie work on their cars, usually by holding them overhead one-handed.  Carlisle and Alice read plays, and sometimes talk the whole family into home Shakespeare productions.  Edward and Carlisle debate theology, Emmett and Jasper have dumb athletic competitions, Edward and Esme play music, Alice manipulates stock markets, the twins go shopping online, etcetera.  The Cullens feel real, feel like the vampires next door, in a way that Louis and Lestat simply do not.

To get to the elephant in the room — I just described Twilight as a feminist text! — let’s talk about the other thing the Cullens do for fun: they have sex.  Weird sex.  Kinky furniture-breaking sex.  Sex that Emmett (who would know) compares to bear-wrestling.  These books suck with regards to queer representation, but they are sex-positive.  They feature an old-school Anglican protagonist offering his daughter-in-law a medical abortion.  They treat Edward’s desire for sex only within marriage and Alice’s desire for sex outside of marriage as both being valid.  Like I said, not groundbreaking, even by the standards of 2005, but still more than most teen novels do even today.

There’s a passage from Breaking Dawn that people love to pull out of context as “everything wrong with Twilight in two paragraphs” because it describes Bella waking up the morning after sex with bruises on her arms.  That moment is shocking out of context, to be sure — but in context, it’s the end result of an in-depth consent negotiation that lasts four books.  Bella says that she’d like to become a vampire.  Edward says okay, but only if she spends a few more years living as a human and considering that choice.  Bella says okay, but only if Edward, not Carlisle, becomes the one to turn her.  Edward says they can use his venom, but that Carlisle, who’s an MD, really needs to supervise the process.  Bella doesn’t love the idea of Edward’s stepdad cockblocking what’s supposed to be an intimate moment, and so agrees only on the grounds that she gets to have sex with Edward as a human first.  Edward’s hella Catholic, so he requests that they get married first.  Bella’s super horny, so she demands that the wedding happen within six months.  Edward says that he might hurt her during sex, and Bella says that she wants a little hurt during sex.  They marry.  They bang.  During the banging, Edward makes every effort to be controlled and courteous and gentile, while Bella goes wild and crazy.  The next morning, she has bruises and he does not.  Edward apologizes, but Bella’s actually really into it.  She spends a while admiring her sexy vamp-marked self in the mirror, touches the bruises many times, and reminds us yet again that Bella Swan’s whole M.O. is being a monsterfucker.  Her kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.

To be clear, I think there are other aspects of the romance that get criticized for good reason.  Edward does not negotiate with Bella before sneaking into her room to watch her sleep, and he does make unacceptable use of their power differences when he thinks she’s in danger of being mauled by werewolves.  The text condemns Jacob’s “don’t wanna die a virgin” ploy to manipulate a kiss out of Bella, but not the wider conceit of all the male characters as possessing uncontrollable urges.  Bella’s struggles to adjust to a new town feel very feminine and realistic; her amused tolerance of Jacob’s and Mike’s sexual harassment as the price for their friendship does not.  Werewolf imprinting might be mostly platonic, but that doesn’t make it okay for Meyer to depict it as a form of soulmate bonding that happens with child characters. Those are good points, all around.  I just wish that most of them didn’t come up in the context of post-hoc rationalizations for loathing the femininity of a feminine text.

I’m not calling Twilight an unproblematic series.  I’m saying that it gets (rightly!) criticized for appropriating Quileute culture, while Buffy’s total absence of main characters of color and blatant anti-Romani racism are (wrongly!) not remarked upon. I'm saying that I’ve been told I’m a misogynist for liking Twilight but not for liking James Bond.  I’m saying that there’s a reason people tend to go “oh, that makes so much sense!” when I let them in on the fact that reactive hatred for “Twitards” started and spread on 4Chan, later home of Gamergate and incel culture.  I’m saying that Twilight depicts problematic relationship dynamics as sexy — but then so do Vampire Academy, Blue Bloods, Supernatural, Vladimir Tod, and Vampire Diaries.  All of which take the time to stop and thumb their noses at Twilight, smug in the superiority of having vampires that fly rather than vampires that sparkle, and for thoroughly condemning teenage girls for being girly while continuing to show men inflicting violence on them.

After all, as Erin May Kelly puts it: “we live in a world taught to hate everything to do with little girls.  We hate the books they read and the bands they like.  Is there anything the world makes fun of more than One Direction and Twilight?”  No one has ever called me a misogynist for liking the MCU, in spite of less than a third of its movies even managing to clear the low-low bar of the Bechdel test.  Because people are still allowed to like Harry Potter in spite of its racism, or Lord of the Rings despite its imperialism.  Because hatred for Twilight was never about its very real sexism, or the genuinely silly sparkle-vampires, until it had to justify itself as something other than hate for everything that teenage girls have ever dared openly love.

I enjoy the novels, and I enjoy the fan fiction that tries to fix some of the problems with the novels.  I appreciate the extent to which Meyer has elevated fan culture, and made an effort to acknowledge her own past mistakes.  I would love to be able to talk about my love for the series as a flawed but beautiful work of literature, but for now I’ll settle for asking that the world just let me enjoy it in peace.