#i kind of want a kstew to ship with tbh

[loveisaviolence3]

do you ship edward and bella, why or why not? now, do you prefer edward and bella or jacob and bella?

this is a cool mssg thanks anon!!! tbh i’ve experienced varying degrees of obsession w twilight since i was like 11 years old so i’ve definitely been on both teams @ some point. i remember being obsessed with edward and bella at first and then jumping on the jacob and bella train when new moon came out and i’ve got a jacob bag and a team edward hoodie so.. i’ve had the Full Twilight experience, basically. i’ve been Around. 

full disclosure: i haven’t read the books in yeaaars so this is mostly based off the movies (i actually started rereading twilight today @ the police station while i was waiting 2 pick up my work card because i am a mess and why read new books when i could roll around in all of my trashy faves.) 

i do ship edward and bella, but in a different way than i did when i was younger. 

11 year old me was so charmed by the ~romance (what i perceived as romance anyway) of it all, the very typical soulmate i’ll-can’t-live-without-you stuff. older!me understands how fucked up this relationship is and can recognize the flaws in how romanticized it was and how passively bella was written. i get that it’s unhealthy and terrible and not a happy ending anyway you look at it and ultimately couldn’t care less about them being soulmates or destined for each other or whatever. that’s boring to me. i’m over it. yawn. 

but i do care about edward and bella being mirrors of each other, each isolated and depressed and misunderstood. i love how weird they both are and how hard it is for them to connect with other people, even the people they love. each of them is so .. odd and it’s so charming to me lmao (it’s the fluorescents bella!!). loners in love!!! nerds in love!!! shakespeare hoes!! i love how utterly unprepared they are to meet someone who sees them and how neither of them know what to do about it. as annoying as it can be to read/watch, i love how ridiculously dramatic they are about the other and that they put the other on a pedestal so high it couldn’t be reached by plane let alone by ladder.

the fact that with edward comes a family full of people who love bella and would protect bella with their lives is of critical importance to me; bella has spent her entire life so isolated and then she meets the cullens!!!!! and barring rosalie, they’re all so charmed with her!!! they love and accept her instantly and i looooove ships that provide the support systems their partners desperately need, not just by providing a significant other but in sharing their familial unit with them. this family is so so fucking important to bella and for once in her life people are taking care of her instead of the other way around and it just!!! gets to me!! i love that she falls in with the group of pale sparkly loner weirdo outcasts.. because of course she does, because of course these are the people bella can relate to, and of course it means everything. 

it’s awful, it’s messy, they need serious therapy, but they love each other and in a more realistic story, it would get them killed but i love watching them be dumbos about each other. i find their infatuation with each other a lil dry, but whatever they’re good kiddos @ heart and they can be ridiculous if they want. it helps that rob and kstew have loads of chem and all of the twilight movies are very pretty and i am weak as can be (honestly my affection for edward is very much linked to the fact that i find rob to be oddly charming aesthetically). so much of it is def prompted by plain old nostalgia, too. when i was a little watching them look @ each other with googoo eyes brought me a lot of excitement and i don’t believe in pushing that feeling away just bc i’m old enough to recognize the flaws and general messiness. 

as for the second question… jacob is .. my absolute son whom i love w all of my heart and have added 2 this blog out of both love and outrage @ how dirty smeyer did him so i’d say i’m partial to jacob. i do have feelings ab edward from time to time but jake….is so good and he deserved so much better and i… love my baby soooo much. new moon is probably my favorite movie because of the first half and that is largely because of his presence in it. 

i’m inclined to ship bella/jacob more because of this, yeah, but mostly because i am so very into best friends falling in love and couples who are best friends first and foremost, who experience the kind of comfort and safety and security around each other that is specific to best friends. there’s a playfulness there that isn’t there with edward and i love how happiness is a– the– theme for their relationship, that all jake cares about is helping bella find a way to be happy again and how essential he is to her recovery. they have such a special connection and can reach each other in ways no one else can and i just oh boy. 

i love how easy it is for them to be together, how jacob is the first and arguably only human bella connects to and how much happiness he brings into her life. that, unlike with edward, she doesn’t constantly feel inferior to him and like she needs to compensate– that jake makes her feel more comfortable with herself and that the fact that he just beams love at her leaves little room for self consciousness. that he is normalcy and human goodness and light and a tether and bridge to a world bella has never felt apart of. that he quite literally keeps her warm. that he was her only safe harbor during the worst period of her life and that she would have ran away with him to keep him safe (would have done anything to keep him safe.) 

i love that they share a lot of similarities, too, both being caretakers who care for their parents, and have all of this history from their childhood. i love that charlie loves jake as if he were his own son and that the pack eagerly accepts bella into the fold and tries to protect her from the beginning and could have been as much her family as the cullens are and that bella knows in her heart would have been if they lived in a world without the magic. he!! handmade!!! her!! a bracelet!! with!! a!! wolf!! on it!!! he!!! did!!! that!!! he!! gave!! her!! a!! dreamcatcher!! to help with her nightmares!! tragedy tragedy tragedy ya know. so much sadness so much sadness. 

i hate so much about how jake was characterized new moon on because so much of it was grossly out of character, but she wouldn’t have had to change for him and it would have been as easy as breathing for them and god what a gut punch that is. what a gut punch it is that bella would have been happy in that world, and that it ultimately changes nothing because vampires and awful unhealthy abusive relationships are a thing that exist and people suck @ wanting what we need. and because i am a sucker for pain, all of this agony is a serious selling point for me. 

in summary: yeah i ship everything because i’m me (including bella with all the ladies in the series, girl is the least heterosexual girl to ever exist) and i dig the love triangles everyone hates (what a coincidence that that rhymes with why couldn’t they all date), but i do have a preference for jake/bella.