#so where is Renesmee going to learn that from?

[theinheriteddutchess]

Ah remember this?

Jacob "forced to like you, can't resist giving you anything you want, saved your mother and our whole family, whose people are being in danger and being turned because of our preference nearby" Black's happy ending😒

[busycucumbermelon]

❤️‍🔥 Our coven mate ❤️‍🔥

Pairing: Cullens x Black!Reader

Summary The Cullens move to Pennsylvania, and find out they have another addition to their family, but they’re not sure how she’ll take it 

After a while of Renesmee, learning that Pennsylvania is “where vampires originated”she’s been begging for them all to move there of course with a furry, companion.after a month or so of considering, complaining and convincing, in the end they given in and moved to Pennsylvania jake wasn’t all too Happy about the move, but went along with it for Renesmee.

The Cullens one for another glass house look sense Esme loved the look so much one of the reasons they were unsure if they wanted to move to Pennsylvania all the couples having their own respective cabins and staying in the woods, it wasn’t that different from Forks just didn’t feel as homey 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You kissed your little sisters and little brother goodbye before heading off to work with your twin brother 

“yo sis did you hear, seems we have a few new transfer students? I think Cullens is their last name apparently it’s a couple that adopted a bunch of foster kids seems pretty sick of you ask me.” your brother started some playful banter on the way to the restaurant you work at 

“Well, that’s really nice of them.” You mumble turning down the music a bit “so how many of them are there? Are they all related?” You lean back in your chair more, trying to relax before your long shift starts

“no they’re not all related two of them are twins like us I think their last name is hale ones is Swan and the rest of them are Collins oh, and they’re all in relationships, which is kind of weird if you didn’t know that they don’t have the same last name” he leaned back a bit in his chair, slowing down a bit so you don’t make it to the restaurant too fast not ready to clock in yet

“and tell me dear Brother how do you know so much about them if they haven’t even been in town for a week” you were starting to grow a bit suspicious of your brothers behavior, and how much he knew about them. Sure it was abnormal for new people to come in town, but they had just been there for a week no way to know that much. right?

“Well, their adopted father is a doctor and he works at the hospital. I went in the other day for Sarah and Melanies, cancer treatment? Yeah, he’s really nice gave us the whole rundown …..because I was interrogating him.”you turned him, giving him a  bewildered luck “no you didn’t. He’s new in town! now he thinks we’re weirdos, God I have to go in there tomorrow with Sarah and Melanie ,why did you do that?!”

“oh well, no time to fret we’re here.”your brother chirped out fast, pulling into the back parking lot mostly used for employees

“Just because we’re clocking into work, doesn’t mean we can’t talk about this.”You give your brother a wary look as you step out of the car. Your brother doing the same, locking the doors behind him.

the minute, the both of you step in to work one of your coworkers come up to you “OK y/n clock in and then you have a table they’re new in town so be extra nice you know the drill, and scar then you’re cooking tonight make sure to make everything as best you can”you both look at each other, knowing today was going to be much longer than expected “i’m right on it” your brother mumbles, pulling up his hair and putting on an apron, you in clock for both of you, and put on your own apron, tie your hair into a loose ponytail and step outside to serve your first table 

You walk out and immediately notice which table is yours it’s a couple in all black the wife is wearing a beautiful black dress with a slit up the side and a low v line with 4 inch heels on. her elbows are on the table her fingers interlocked with her husband’s considering the rings, both of their hands are interlocked he’s wearing all black just like his wife clearly an expensive dress shirt, shoes, belt, and pants, all clearly expensive the blonde hairand pale white skin, just like his wife’s slightly contrasting with their all black outfits. They look like if they had to pull their eyes away from each other, it would cause physical pain. deep in conversation by the look of it,it hurts looking at them. They look like the perfect parents some thing you never got to have and you know you never would you take a deep breath pushing all the thoughts to the back of your mind and just remind yourself this is a 12 hour shift there first table by the end of this you’re gonna want to claw everyone’s eyes out.you walk to the table, put on your normal fake smile and going with normal routine

“my name is y/n and I will be your waitress for the night. i’m so sorry for the wait were short staffed.” Oh great now it looks like they’re eyes couldn’t be pulled off your form, even if they were tortured to.  you could tell they were eyeing you up and down since they weren’t being very subtle about it.the wife is the first to snap out of it

“Oh, that’s no problem, dear we understand”she glanced at her husband and gave his hand a small squeeze, just so he’d pull his eyes away From you. Clearly seeing that you were slightly distressed by the unblinking stare,

“well, what can I get you for drinks tonight?” “Umm I’ll have a water and a bloody Mary. dear” “and you, sir?” “a water please love” for some reason you could feel your cheeks starting to burn a little many of your customers called you dear and love and other such nicknames but for some reason it felt different when they said it, although you didn’t even know them “i’ll go get those and give you some time with the menus” they both nod and give you a small hmh, giving you the go ahead to get their drinks 

You walked back into the kitchen conversation with your brother about how in love they are, and their strange behaviors as you make their drinks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Esme’s Body Tencent immediately wanting to follow you, unhappy you were so far away from her.

“Carlisle?…”

his eyes were still staring at the door to the kitchen “Esme do you think?…” “I’ll have to ask Alice when we get home for now. Will try our best to control ourselves. All right, baby?” 

Esme and Carlisle ended up talking in a foreign language simply throwing back-and-forth thoughts of places they could bring you and languages. You could learn how fast do learn them. would you help Esme cook? Did you have any other family besides your brother in the kitchen with you? Would you enjoy her cooking? would your family enjoy her cooking? would you try to help her teacher Renesme? Would you treat Renesmee as if she was one of your little siblings?

would you help Carlisle unwind after work? Would you be a worried overprotective sister like your brother? Would you comfort your siblings if they had any fears with the treatments? Would they only want you to comfort them?did you go out of your way to help your family? Would you go out of your way to help them? What if the tasks were Some thing that could be dangerous for you, would you help even with small tasks? One thing they knew for sure though was whatever you would do and how ever you would behave. It would be absolutely perfect 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Carlisle and Esme come home Emmett was the first to greet them, sitting at the dining table legs kicked up onto the table reading a magazine Well Alice did Rosa���s hair next to him. “so how was your anniversary dinner?” Alice chirped up

“good, do you think you could look in the future for a girl name y/n” alice gave her adopted parents a weird look before her eyes went unfocused.

“so who is this y/n?” Rose was clearly unhappy about they’re request to Alice 

“she was our waitress”Carlisle said for his wife

“And?” Emmett had a feeling to what they were suggesting

“Carlisle what if everyone felt like they were mate it to one person? what would that make that person?” Alice blurted it out rather fast clearly nerved up by her vision

Jasper walked down from upstairs pulling alice close to him Clearly interested in, what Carlisle answer would be “a coven mate Alice” “don’t tell me your waitress is our coven mate” Rosalie glared at Carlisle and esme “she is”

The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. Carlisle and Esme left their room, Alice finished Rosalie’s hair Emmett and Rosalie went to their cabin Jasper and Alice doing the same 

Truthfully, Jasper and Alice were excited to have a coven mate, maybe not about the sharing part but just from Alice’s vision, she could tell that you were amazing, and you’re going to be a perfect mate. Jasper was going to love you she just knew it,

Jasper was a bit nervous, especially if you were  mate it to him, his need to have your blood would absolutely double, and he almost killed Bella because of a paper cut. this is going to be hard he wouldn’t be able to breathe around you.

Which meant he couldn’t talk around you, you might not like him,or think he’s creepy if he doesn’t talk, or what if you just didn’t like him altogether

“Jasper don’t worry she’s gonna love you”Alice could tell that Jasper was nervous

“what can you tell me about her is there anything about me that she’ll just like or I should do more around her?”

Alice’s eyes go unfocused for a few minutes before focusing again “well she likes your hair, your accent, hell that’s something we share.” Linking their arms together “she likes my bubbly, personality, my sense of style clearly, has good taste .oh, she likes when you turn your chair around and sit in it. You have history class with her. She tends to fall asleep then, so take notes for her.” “Why does she fall asleep which period is that?” Jasper was clearly worried. are you not taking care of yourself?

“it’s first period she usually works long night shifts with her brother, so that’s why she’s so tired she has two little sisters, Sarah and Melanie, and a little brother named Carter and a twin Devine but he usually just goes by scar y/n is the only one that calls him Devine and she pronounces the same way French would say guess it” Alice, giddily informed Jasper of your family 

“close?” “mhmmm sadly, Sarah has a very weak immune system, and Melanie has cancer they go to the hospital together every Wednesday and Thursday just to check up on the health of them oh and their Carlisle’s patients now” Jasper stops, giving alice a serious look very different from his usually overly, and loved one. Jasper shuts the door behind him, finally in their cabin ”what is it?”

“How….. how does she feel about? everyone,not just us? And her family…”

“well first,” Alice’s eyes go unfocused once, and then twice she looks positively annoyed and frustrated “what darling?” jasper mumbles, holding Alice by the waist head in the crook of her neck 

“I can’t see anything?!….” She tries one more time nothing she can’t see her little mate’s future, her can’t even see she little mate at work…. It takes everything in her not to immediately go to your restaurant

It’s fine tomorrow she’ll make sure she can see you in person and that you’re perfectly fine. Not a Scratch on your body and if there is well, there’s always time to get rid whom ever hurt you whoever hurt there a little mate 

should I do part 2?







[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would happen if the Cullens were trapped in the town of Silent Hill?

If you're unaware, Silent Hill is a tourist town with a dark secret. It has the power to "call" those with darkness in their hearts or unresolved trauma and trap them in a nightmarish Other World. This Other World is a reflection of a person's mind plastered over the town, populated with monsters derived from a person's fears, vices and personal demons.

The only way to escape the Other World is to go on a journey the town creates for you to confront and come to terms with your past.

I'm just thinking, with all the baggage the Cullens have, Silent Hill would have a field day with them. Especially Bella and Edward.

So, who do you think would escape from Silent Hill? My money's on Carlisle and Rosalie, personally. Renesmee, Esme, Jasper and Alice I'm not so sure about. It could go either way. Bella and Edward though? Yeah, probably not.

Emmett, by far being the most grounded and, for lack of a better term, sanest Cullen probably wouldn't be drawn into the Other World. He's just stuck in a tourist town with a panicking Jacob wondering where the hell everyone is.

Interesting question, I haven't played the games nor seen the movie adaptations but I know there's a Pyramid Head.

But I can work with this premise. Alright, let's bullet point the Cullens. Who escapes from Silent Hill?

Alice

Alice has no memories of Mary Alice Brandon's traumatic past. It doesn't even seem to be repressed so much as a product of electroshock therapy in the 1920's. Alice also has very little angst about the fact that she's missing her memories and most of her problems are due to Edward's nonsense and are more or less easily solved if she works around him and the Volturi.

What I'm getting at is that Alice is never called.

She's also stuck with Emmett in this dumb tourist town wondering why they decided to vacation in Virginia.

Bella

Bella has no idea what the fuck is happening. The thing about Bella is she takes things at such face, literal, value that she would just think this is a town of monsters that has absolutely nothing to do with her. Even when it becomes increasingly obvious this is a metaphor for the choices she made, her own insecurities, and her own fears.

Bella tries to get out and gets increasingly frustrated when no solution presents itself.

She doesn't escape because she doesn't want to confront herself.

Carlisle

Ooh baby, yep, Carlisle's going. Canonically he seems to have unresolved issues with his late father, his witch burning past, the fact that he gave into loneliness and turned the others into vampires (especially when he learns that not all desired to become one and may rather have died) not to mention the whole Twilight saga which destroys his friendship with Aro and gives him increasing existential dread.

I imagine Carlisle has a horrible time in a town full of everything on fire.

However, as you note, I imagine he gets out. Carlisle in canon (for all we don't see much of him) does seem to have done a good job coming to terms with his own history and who he is. He confronts difficult things such as whether or not he should have turned the others and does vocally wonder about them to Bella. He notes that he went through great introspection over whether being a vampire made him evil and Edward notes he has great distress over what he did as a human to people who turned out to be innocent after all.

Carlisle would realize what this place is and that he has to go on this journey to confront the worst part of himself.

(True to hilarious Twilight fashion, I imagine he'd get out of this personal journey hellscape and find himself with his oblivious family who have no idea anything happened to him at all.)

Edward

Oh yes, Edward was made for this place. The thing is I think Edward would catch on very fast to what this is, that this is a place of his own personal demons (ah, hello Pyramid Head) but he wouldn't want to admit it or confront it. He would rail against it, he knows what he is and he knows he wants to do anything but confront or accept it. He saw the demon already when he nearly ate Bella in Biology, he has no desire to do so again.

I imagine as he continues to resist more terrible things happen (I am sure a copy of Bella gets eaten somewhere in here) and Edward chooses to embrace madness or the illusion rather than get through and let the monster consume him (as that's what he'd fear the answer is).

Edward doesn't get out.

Emmett

Yup, never goes.

He has no idea what's happening and where everyone went. He figures they'll show up eventually (hoping the Volturi didn't get them or something.)

Esme

Esme... you know, I think she might. Esme would find herself in a very lonely and unpleasant place, it'd take her a while, but I imagine she'd eventually realize this all has to do with her and that she never truly confronted the past or herself. She gave up on life and then immediately was handed everything she'd ever wanted and so had never had to face that.

Esme leaves and has to become a person again.

Jasper

"Ah, hello darkness, my old friend" Jasper immediately recognizes what this is and what's happening to him. Doesn't matter that it's a surreal nightmarefest, all of it's just somehow so very familiar.

I give Jasper a 50/50 chance. The thing is, Alice threw him a lifeline before and he's still clinging to it with all his might. He was never really saved from who and what he was, he just hopes desperately that Alice and the Cullens will keep him afloat.

This journey would have to show him that that isn't enough and he would have to realize as much and realize that Alice can't save him if he doesn't do his own part as well.

(Which of course, would be terrifying to him, because if Alice can't save him then Jasper sure as hell can't save himself).

Renesmee

What you get is essentially a surreal version of Bleach on the Brain by @therealvinelle.

Renesmee at first is very confused and terrified by all of this. She's separated from her family, this place is filled with strange monsters reminiscent of the Volturi, but slowly Renesmee realizes that these are her fears and insecurities, that she doesn't love Jacob and is terrified of him, and her family are strangers to her and she's not sure any of them love her.

I like to believe Renesmee would get out but it would mean letting go of the illusion of her family, the belief that she must matter to them, and learning to confront the possibility that none of them might care at all.

Rosalie

Yup, she's going there, and like Jasper she immediately realizes what this is for all she's horrified by it. I imagine Rosalie's in a state of panicked terror as she was supposed to be done with this: she'd gotten her revenge, murdered all of them, had put it out of her mind as fast as she could.

Rosalie would really struggle but I imagine eventually pull through. She'd have to recognize that Emmett can't fix everything, that there were some things she never let go, that she's still searching for affection and love she's not sure she'll ever receive (from Edward as well as Alice).

However, Rosalie's a very strong person emotionally who did face something like this once before and pulled through. She wants to get better, to be a better person, so I think she'd make it through.

TL;DR

Edward and Bella are the only one's I'd say definite no towards.

[cto10121]

Twilight Clown Takes—Part 10

Featuring “Twilight is badly written,” “Meyer did not intend to write X thing she definitely wrote,” “The series is über Mormon,” and other chestnuts. Fortunately, I do love nuts of all kinds, so om nom nom

The writing was so gibberish it was a bestselling phenomenon on par with Harry Potter.

The only thing bad about the writing in Twilight is that Meyer got a very bad editor. There are stray typos and errors in my original copies. Sadly, book editing has gotten worse since then, and I have found many modern books with similar errors.

Bella is not like other girls, all right. So much so that she constantly claims she is. Like here:

“Well, look at me,” I said, unnecessarily, because he was looking at me. “I’m completely ordinary.”

IF the dialogue in the books is like the movie dialogue…IF

“This main character is such a main character!!1!1” 😡 ���Also big words make my wee lil brain hurt!!1!1”

Bella is literally so expressive around Edward and the Cullens, to the point where Alics mentions sourly she had “forgotten how exuberant” she was. Emmett and Jasper have a bet over how many people Bella could kill in her first year just on her temper alone. And re: Edward, Bella has no problem arguing and pleading and crying and ranting to him.

Also, Jacob is a different, much more immature character than Bella, so of course his POV would be different.

“Deeply desperate for sexuality” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣And these clowns claim Meyer is a bad writer. Don’t go throwing stones with your glass house, hon.

Anyhoo, Edward is the one who pushes for marriage, not Bella. Rosalie and Emmett get married every decade or so, but that’s only because Rosalie loves weddings—as in, being the center of attention. Do Alice and Jasper even have a wedding ceremony??? I don’t even think they got married in the traditional sense even once. No doubt they did, but they aren’t portrayed as a conventional married couple at all.

Other vampires that are not the Cullens do not marry at all—they are mated, which is an actually a greater and more permanent commitment than marriage in the Twilight world.

Also. The Twilight series, fearing sexuality? The Denali sisters literally went vegetarian because they loved fucking human men too much. And they are considered not only good vampires, but the Cullens’ extended family. And Renesmee nor Claire are child brides.

Twilight isn’t explicit about sex purely because Meyer realized her first book would be targeted to a YA crowd. But it is a romance through and through.

Ho boy, where to begin?

“Edward is supposed to be creepy, he is a vampire after all—” Would you like a cookie for this very obvious reading, Clown OP? That is some elementary school-level reading comprehension there.

“Failed to write an arc where the character recognize the problems, learn, and then overcome them—” Edward literally went from “She is my prey” to “I have her blood on my lips, and I am laughing at a joke she just made” in the first book alone. In New Moon, Edward made the disastrous decision to leave Bella, ramifications of which he was still dealing with in Eclipse (and he explicitly said it was the worst mistake he ever made). In Eclipse, Edward finally learns to trust Bella, fight for her love, and even decides to give her what she wants (i.e., sex) because he felt that he had been fucking it up the whole time. By Breaking Dawn, we have an Edward who finally accepts himself for who he is and learns to be happy in his vampire life.

As for Bella, she went from an introverted parentified teen so neglected she felt she had to cook and clean for her parents in order to feel less of a burden…to the powerful member of a coven who loves and supports her, saving the lives of said coven and mate from the Volturi. By the end Bella finally learns that what she wants is important and to fight for it. She learns to accept gifts and attention. She even finally describes herself as beautiful…as a human. That’s so big! That is an arc.

It is glaringly obvious, that I must question whether Clown OP has read the series or not. Most clowns do not, of course.

“The story never digs deep enough into him being a real danger to Bella—” Bitch, that’s all of the story. It’s literally 80% of Edward’s personality right there! He is too bad for Bella, it would be better if he weren’t in Bella’s life, it’s literally never-ending. A whole chunk of Bella’s motivation for becoming a vampire is because his world is too dangerous for her as a human. The whole plot of each book is Bella being hunted by a vampire, who are consistently the villains and described as monsters.

“Trying to turn Stephenie into the new J.K. Rowling—” When I picked up Twilight in ‘06 it was labeled as “Romantic Suspense.” The whole series was explicitly marketed as a paranormal teen romance, which was and is a subgenre of fantasy, with the whole Team Edward and Team Jacob thing riding strong. Twilight never tried to be something it wasn’t, and Meyer has never tried to make it out to seem like some epic fantasy. On the contrary, it was the anti fans that preferred the lore to the actual romance.

Nowadays the series is shelved under YA Fantasy, but that was after the series was completed. Breaking Dawn was perhaps the deciding factor.

Sure, Meyer was not aware of something she absolutely 100% wrote.

Bella’s parentification was canon before Midnight Sun was a twinkle in Meyer’s eye. And sure enough, when that landed, Bella’s neglect became downright glaring. But go on espousing sexist biases about female writers “not intending” certain things, Clown OP. It’s not like that isn’t a page taken from the Suppressing Women Writers handbook. When you know, you know.

Sigh. *schedules Movie Bella vs. Book Bella post*

[therealvinelle]

Why do you think fanfic writers lie in their fic tags? Like, a fic itself contains several semi-graphic depictions of het sex, and yet the tag is Gen. What is the thought process behind doing shit like this?

They're sick fucks, that's why.

To be more serious: I think few people set out to intentionally deceive their readers, and the ones that do usually want readers so badly they forget themselves. Genuine bad actors are rare, or so I choose to believe.

As it is, I suspect I'm a misleading tagger myself, at least to some.

The way I treat tags is as warnings, so I will tag ships featured in my works even if they're one-sided, background, or in the past because that way people who don't want to see that ship know to avoid my story. Edward/Carlisle and Jacob/Renesmee getting tagged in my fic Bleach on the Brain is an example of this: sucks if you clicked on the fic because you're a shipper but the way I see it, sucks worse if you don't want to see those and now you're reading a fic with father/son incest and a guy in his mid-twenties grooming a child in it. If I hadn't done this, if I'd only kept the pairings which were depicted positively, then the negative tags in that fic (grooming, sexual assault, etc) would have been assumed to be related to those and someone else would have been upset with me.

I tag this way because @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin learned the hard way (i.e.: got hate) that tagging only for endgame will get a lot of people very mad at you, but now A/B shippers have fics depicting their ship negatively. It's a losing game.

So that's bringing me to a major reason why I think misleading tags happen (which gets a headline so I can tell myself this post is structured):

People have different ideas of how works should be tagged

Some people want to tag for everything that happens in the fic. Literally everything, if it's a smut you know exactly what goes where just from reading the tags.

This also means they might tag characters who appear only briefly in a scene in chapter 35 (the fic having 56 chapters so far and being 500k+ long), because hey, the character appears. Or maybe they're brought up a lot and are very important to the fic even if there's not much actual screentime, so a character like Voldemort gets tagged in a Harry Potter fic focused on the war without him actually appearing all that much.

On the opposing side you have the minimalists. They tag the main two characters and put three more in the additional tags so it won't go in the character tag, and add a ship tag some 30 chapters in. There are two additional tags, both are very vague. If that - I've seen people who don't tag at all, or who just tag with a single character, or just the ship - it really is up to the individual.

I've noticed the type of author (whether Ao3 was their first platform, how much time they spent elsewhere, whether it's an imported fic, and how old the author is) and the type of fic (how old it is, the author's background, and genre (oneshot, drabble, multi-chapter, 5+1, etc.)) influences tagging.

Common to all authors, though, is they try to tag as they feel is appropriate for their fic.

Which brings me to the next issue:

How do I tag?

A lot of people are confused about this.

They're confused about what tags mean - what's freeform (I honestly keep forgetting what this one is supposed to be too), when something should be tagged, what belongs in relationship or character tags vs. additional tags, what additional tags are supposed to be.

Do you, for that matter, try to explain your story in the tag ("this is a roommate AU with feelings") or do you tag succinctly ("roommate AU", "feelings", "fluff") or a combination? A lot of authors seem to prefer the first and last options, from what I can tell it's become the norm. Most authors seem to use the additional tags to connect with the reader in this way, and so you get people placing more emphasis on the additional tags than the succinct tags.

How do I tag? Sensibilities section

Then there's the question of sensibilities: what's triggering to reader A may be great stuff to reader B, with the author not realising it could be triggering to anybody and should have been in the tags, or the author thought knees brushing against each other warranted big red warnings that "they literally had sex, oh god this is so dirty. so dirty!! can't believe i wrote this. ENTER AT OWN RISK" which of course is very disappointing to the sick fucks who wanted porn.

Or the opposite happens: the author knows the subject is triggering, which means people might not click on the fic, and they want attention so badly they ah weasel out. Or option three: the author can't tag without spoiling the story, and so they either put "creator chose not to use warnings", don't rate it, and let the readers enter at their own risk or they use tags uh strategically (have a look at how I tagged Nebuchadnezzar's Dream to avoid spoiling the bloody coup d'état that happens at the end. Today I simply would have gone for no warnings and no rating, but those tags are also a solution which I think is... alright, I suppose "massacre" could have been added but it was entirely off screen so to me would have been an abuse of the tag).

In other words, everyone will be tagging differently and sometimes it's because they've no clue which tag is warranted, sometimes they're trying not to spoil their story, sometimes they didn't realise they should or shouldn't have tagged for something.

Anthologies (when someone posts their oneshots as chapters of a story)

These used to frustrate me endlessly, until I saw a "how to help readers find your fic!" post explaining that with anthologies, your readers get a notification every time you post a new oneshot and it's easy to find them all!

Which, in retrospect, is the most fanfiction.net statement I've ever seen (indeed, OP was an old ffnet dog).

Ao3 allows collections, and is unique in this: to older fandom people, putting your thematically connected oneshots together as chapters of a story used to be how it was done, having 54 connected drabbles on your fanfiction.net profile where readers couldn't filter them out nor select to view only the drabbles put together made perfect sense. And then they never adapted to Ao3's features, and other users seeing these anthologies copied the action because hey, stats.

I'm still frustrated with these people and wish they would just post their oneshots individually, but I think a lot of them are just... really really keen on the numbers on their fics going up, and not thinking about the purpose of the archive, utilising its features, nor that they're making their oneshots harder to find and annoying a lot of people.

The tag difficulty with anthologies, of course, being that if you have two oneshots in it, one with characters A and B and you tag it for X and Y happening, the other oneshot is with characters C and D and you tag it for Z and W happening, and continue like this for 30 chapters, then you have a wall of tags so everyone will see your story, good on you, but your readers have no way of knowing what's happening in your story or to which characters, and they're either patient enough to click their way through every goddamn chapter or they just scroll past your thing. Either way you're cloying a looot of tags and the readers who wanted Z and W happening to A and B are pissed because they clicked their way through god knows how many chapters only to not get what they wanted (and now they don't like anthologies either).

(Disclaimer: sometimes drabbles or oneshots are so interconnected that it doesn't make sense to separate even on Ao3, so to every rule there's an exception.)

In conclusion

Most authors are making tough choices when tagging, or they don't know how to tag, or they want readers very badly (and what you as a reader can do to ameliorate this is to comment and kudos frequently! Even give positive notes in the bookmarks when you make a new one because believe me we check!).

Or they're writing an anthology, in which case you should be very skeptical about those tags.

[gisellelx]

Twilight Advent Calendar, Day 9

Dec. 9 - What is it like for Carlisle to work as a doctor now versus back when he was alone?

Masterpost/Prompts

I'm going to take a little different tack to this one, and focus a little bit on how medicine has changed, and how that has followed a bit of evolution in how Carlisle practices now that he has a family.

At the beginning of his career, when he was alone, doctors were jacks of all trades. He was the person who cured fevers, and attended births, and did surgeries. He was "on" nearly 100% of the time, and that suited him well--he needed the validation that came from people depending on him, and that need was nearly insatiable.

But then he turned Edward, and then Esme, and suddenly, that need was slaked in a different way. As a husband, and as a father, and as a patriarch, he was needed, but in a way that was less intense. He learned to slow down; to listen, to love differently, and to get his validation from other places in his life.

This change happened, coincidentally, contemporaneously with increasing specialization in the field of medicine. As the 1900s wore on, he was no longer a "doctor" but needed to be a "surgeon" and then a "trauma surgeon." He no longer needed to be all things to all people; he could focus a little more. (He doesn't, always--this is why he prefers practicing in places like Forks, where the size of the hospital still means that he is called on for a lot, but he's gotten better at it.)

He had already begun slowing down after Renesmee's birth, and for a short while, he sped up, to be of use during the depths of the COVID-19 outbreak. But as the emergent nature of the pandemic receded, he settled back into different rhythms. The newer specialty of hospital medicine has meant that he gets a lot of the same fulfillment of being a jack of all trades and focusing on patient care, but has merged it with the fast-paced, detailed knowledge he's so proud of. And, its schedules have given him freedom--either to work himself to the bone by taking on more than one job, or, as I HC he is doing now, to do work which leaves him a great deal of time for his family.

In late 2023, Carlisle's found a nice balance working as a notcturnist in a large medical system in the midwest. He works 84 hours over 7 days, then has 14 days to spend with his wife and his children, and the balance nourishes all the parts of his soul he needs it to.

[honeykngdom]

𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚢 | 𝚎. 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕 | 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗

Pairing: Embry Call x Original Character Summary: Join Ainsley and Embry as they embark on a journey where they are forced to question everything they thought they knew, and embrace the pain that is inevitable to avoid in love. An imprint story. Self-discovery. Angst and romance. Word Count: 4.3k Warnings: mentions of abusive relationship, alcoholism, drinking Taglist: @leilaniers - message / comment if you’d like to be tagged in new chapters (or for Embry content in general)!

It had been about two weeks since the last time Embry and I spoke. We saw each other on two separate occasions: once when Jennie and I visited Billy for lunch and a few of the guys had been outside trying to clear his driveway from the snow that had barricaded him inside for the last few days, and again at Jared’s when Kim and I stopped by to pick up some of her things from his apartment. 

Both times Embry tried to talk to me, and both times I tried to avoid having to speak with him in the nicest way possible. I wasn’t particularly proud of what happened, and definitely hadn’t heard the last of it. Maddox suggested that perhaps I had taken it too far, and had even gone as far as trying to encourage me to go see Embry and work things out. 

“Mistakes happen,” he mumbled, picking a stray strand of hair from his pant leg, “we both know he would never do anything to hurt you on purpose.” 

Maddox had had a point, but I still wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet. 

Currently, we were occupying the Cullen’s downstairs quarters, lounging on opposite sides of the couch, trying to make it through whatever movie Emmett left on before he left with Rose and Esme for their hunt. I spent less time at home, after being at odds with Trent. He had the audacity to thank me for keeping his name out of the mix, sparing his relationship with Leah. For the first few days, I bit my lip and pushed through it, but after a week I was over watching how happy he was privileged to be. 

I hadn’t wanted to help him in the first place, hadn’t wanted to talk to Maddox. Trent had been the one to drag me to Ink Obsession that night – what unravelled from thereafter was completely on me, sure. But it wouldn’t have happened if Trenton hadn’t pushed it and put me in a corner. 

Damn that fucking obligation and family loyalty and all that other shit. 

I comfortably settled into the Cullen household — while I slept in my own bed each night, I spent most of my days catching up with Maddox and Renesmee, and learning about what it meant to be a vampire in today's day and age. I learned how each family member turned, and even become quite chummy with Emmett and Rosalie. 

The further into the new year we went, the less Maddox needed me to help with learning control. Not wanting that to stop me from visiting, he invited me over for an afternoon of video games and movies — he accidentally broke the controls for the gaming station, so we resorted to stealing the basement to separate ourselves from the rest of the vampires. 

“Have you called him back yet?” 

I rolled my eyes for the umpteenth time, shaking my head a little bit. He was as bad as Trenton. “No, I haven’t.” I drawled lazily. 

“You should.” He pressed, kicking my foot with his, “Jacob mentioned something about Embry losing his mind, sounds like he’s not doing too well.”

I raised my brows, unsurprised. “First of all, that’s not exactly out of the norm for Embry.” I folded my arms and rested my head against the arm of the sofa. “Second of all, him not doing too well is precisely why we broke up in the first place.”

“I feel bad.” Maddox muttered angrily, looking down at his fists. “I know how important he was to you. I feel like my being here ruined what happiness you had.” 

I paused for a moment, trying not to let myself agree with anything he just said. “No, Maddox. You didn’t ruin my happiness, because my happiness didn’t just come from him.” I felt the need to spare him the part where Embry had been a large part of my happiness, and that without him I couldn’t help but feel as though he were right. I knew there was more that made me incredibly happy. Working with such amazing people that had these big, warm hearts gave me much of my happiness. Being at home with my mother, talking to my best friend about what upcoming projects I would be working on for the school semester was part of my happiness. 

But much of my happiness had also come from laying in bed Sunday mornings with Embry, listening to his heartbeat, feeling his warm fingertips run along my spine. Waking up at three in the morning and feeling him pull me closer, and bury his face into my neck. Walking hand in hand through the forest from my place to Emily and Sam’s – the overwhelming sensation that I was always safe, always well protected and cared for made my heart swell and sing. 

And here I was, weeks later, trying to convince myself that it was okay to walk away from things. That despite it all, the relationship couldn’t be healthy if we continuously hid things from each other. I understood why Embry decided to keep what he was from me for so long – a part of me wishes I didn’t know at all. It would be easier that way. But I was here now, and I was fully stuck in the middle of the supernatural world, despite being totally human. 

So, I decided I needed a break from everything supernatural. While I might have been unable to work, I was still able to hangout with Angie. In an effort to keep Jennie from knowing about Embry and I (truthfully I wasn’t ready to tell her), I had been staying at Angie's house on and off for the last two weeks to keep her in the dark. 

Provided Travis hadn’t already said something. 

Maddox sighed, pulling me from my trance. “You know you should talk to him.” He said finally. “You’re being stubborn and it’s ridiculous. He’s your soulmate.”

I kicked his leg, eyes cutting sideways to glare at him. I really didn’t want to hear it. Not now.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

I shivered against the cold wind, pulling the hood on my jacket up as I waited for the gas pump to register my card. I had been running on fumes since I left Forks, and desperately needed to refill before heading back into town to Angie’s for the night. My fingers gripped the frozen pump reluctantly, and I squeezed. 

It was nearly nightfall – the sun was setting behind the mountain tops in the distance. Despite being less than thirty degrees, the Peninsula was absolutely gorgeous during this time of year. I admired the way the reds in the sky mixed with the frosty mountain and tree tops, setting them ablaze with warm hues. In my peripheral vision, a red Rabbit pulled up on the other side of the pump; Jacob exited his vehicle and pursed his lips together. 

“Ainsley.” He said curtly, zipping his sweater a little higher to keep his neck warm. 

I rolled my eyes; Jacob had been another individual in my life I decided to cut out for the time being. I hadn’t appreciated his involvement in the situation, nor had I appreciated him giving Embry any reason to rush the Cullen household. He evidently caused a mess of things – but to Jacob, I was the one being completely unreasonable. 

“Still not speaking to me, huh?”

“I don’t have anything to say, Jacob.” I sighed, shaking the nozzle of the pump in my tank. “I’ve said everything I needed to.” 

He leaned against the back of the Rabbit and folded his arms. “And you still haven’t talked to Embry?” 

“Is my shoulder still sprained?”

Jacob then rolled his eyes, pulling his lips back into a sneer. “He didn’t mean to hurt you. He’s quite literally beating himself up over it.” 

“You know,” I started, placing the pump back in its original place, “a lot of people have been saying that. You, your dad, Maddox, Trent – and I’m really sick of listening to it.” 

“Ainsley, if you would just talk to him.”

“I don’t want to,” I shouted, holding my hands out at my sides, “that’s the thing. He’s not any better with me than he is without me. I can’t deal with the whole inner animal thing, Jake, and I definitely can’t do it if I’m going to keep getting hurt like this.” 

“I still don’t get how you ended up pissed with me.” 

I gawked at him for a moment before I turned to place the cap back on my tank angrily. “Because you have a big fucking mouth.” I growled, slamming the lid on my tank shut. “You could’ve not said a single word to him, you could’ve just left it alone –”

“No, Ainsley, I really couldn’t.” He growled, sticking his head between the stations to get closer to me. “You don’t think I didn’t weigh both sides before I made my decision? If I hadn’t said anything, if I had protected you and lied to everyone –” he shook his head, “and they found out? They’d question my character as an alpha.” 

“So, you did it because it was more beneficial to you?”

“It was just the right thing to do. He deserved to know.”

Damn Jacob. Damn that stupid fucking loyalty they had. 

“No, he really didn’t, Jake, but you keep telling yourself that.” I sighed, moving around the hood of the Jeep to open the passenger door. “Look at everything now. Was telling him worth it? Because he and I are done, and my relationship with Trenton is essentially destroyed because he lucked out – because Maddox failed to mention to you that he was also part of why he ended up at the Cullen’s.”

Jacob blinked and closed his mouth. 

“He and Leah are fucking perfect, which is wonderful for him – but I can’t keep hearing how happy he is that I kept him out of it. I didn’t even have a choice in the matter. Instead, I was dragged down. I’m so happy that everyone else has benefited from this.”

“Not everybody did, Ains.”

“Embry’s actions ended with consequences. He showed me that he isn’t capable of doing anything except reacting with emotion instead of logic right now. If he had just talked to me instead of deciding he needed to do something right then, right there, this would be an entirely different story and conversation.” I slammed the Jeep’s door, and walked around the hood to where Jacob stood. “I get that you all have some genetic thing that makes you hate who they are, fine. I don’t agree with it, but I get it.” 

“Then what is the issue?” He asked exasperated. 

“Embry saw Maddox as a threat, and for a while I thought it was just because of what Maddox was. If that were the case, he would’ve come to me and asked me if I was safe, and comfortable. And if I had answered yes, he would’ve accepted it and moved on.” I stuck my hands in my pockets. “This wasn’t about what he was, moreso of who he was – he reacted out of jealousy and anger, and was trying to use the whole vampire-wolf hate thing as an excuse for his actions.”

“That’s not it at all.” Jacob dismissed, moving to pick up his own gas pump. 

“It is.” I sneered, turning around to head back towards the driver's seat. “And the fact you don’t see it means you’re willing to make excuses for him – also why I don’t really have an interest in talking to you.” 

“Did you forget I can read his mind? You’re being ridiculous!” He shouted over the sound of my engine.

I have good reason, I thought to myself, pulling the Jeep into drive to pull out of the gas station. 

𝙴𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚢

Embry’s back settled into Emily’s couch for the fourth time that week; after spending a solid seven days in isolation, he had decided that it was about time he got off his ass and tried to attempt to be a normal human being. He didn’t typically make an effort to really associate, mainly sat in his corner with a beer in hand, watching whatever was on the television. He hadn’t gotten the chance to really clean up after his fiasco a two weeks ago. 

Embry thought back to that night, grimacing. 

He had narrowly missed Jared’s head when he hurled the door down the stairs, and put several holes in the drywall of his room. Jared – with great effort – managed to wrap his arms around Embry’s body, constricting his arms tightly. In between his fits of rage and anger, the reality of the situation had dawned on him, causing Embry’s knees to give out on him. The pair had fallen to the floor, Embry’s cry echoed throughout the empty home. Broken sobs had ripped through his chest, a sound he had never in his life managed to make before. 

Seth and Jared tried to clear some of the mess Embry had created in his tantrum, but it seemed futile. Shards of glass were embedded into the carpet that he wouldn’t be able to remove until he purchased a vacuum, and seeing as he rarely spent any time out of his bedroom, he hadn’t considered it a priority. 

Most of the house remained in ruins. Jacob was rightfully pissed.

“You look like you could use another one.” Sam tapped Embry’s shoulder with the cold bottle, offering it to him with an empathetic look. 

“Don’t do that.” He grumbled harshly, taking the bottle from Sam’s hand. 

The former alpha shook his head, settling into the recliner across from the sofa. Sam watched Embry for a moment, taking a large swing from his beer before he sighed and leaned forward on his elbows, “You should really consider showering.” 

“Fuck you, I’ve showered.” 

“Have you eaten?”

Embry almost rolled his eyes, moving his neck just enough so he could look at Sam with narrowed eyes. “No, Samuel, just let me wither away.” 

“Embry, look, I know things have been flipped upside down and you’re not really sure what to do at this point but I think it would be really good for you if you just –”

“Just what?” He snapped angrily, setting the bottle down on the coffee table. “Just call her? Just talk to her? Just get over it? Just move on? Just live my damn life? I don’t know if you realize how fucking shitty this is, Sam – not everything works so perfectly like it did for you and Em.”

“You think we had it easy?” He asked casually, honestly, as he relaxed in his chair. 

“You’re married and expecting your second child. How bad could it have been?”

“So, what happened with Leah was no big deal?” He asked, tilting his head to the side. When Embry pressed his mouth shut, Sam continued, “Leah may not have been my imprint, but she was my first love. The way everything worked out ruined me. Having to walk away from something I had seriously invested myself into made me angry and bitter. I know exactly what it feels like to lose someone you love because of something you couldn’t control.” 

Embry sat on that thought for a moment before he leaned back in his seat and shook his head. “Not the same.”

“And why not?” 

“Because Emily’s the one.” Embry stated. “Regardless of how much you loved Leah, regardless of how shitty you felt about it, she was the one. Do you really think you’d be any more put together than me if she decided she didn’t want any part of this anymore? That she wanted out?”

“I have considered that.” He nodded. “I thought she was going to leave after the accident.”

“But she didn’t.” 

“No, she didn’t.”

They sat in silence, watching each other. Embry didn’t really feel any better; Sam and Emily’s accident was just a painful reminder that far worse had happened and Emily had loved him regardless. Ainsley belly upped and walked away, and Embry was certain that so long as he lived, he would never love another woman. And it wasn’t the imprint bond talking - that was simply how it was. Relationships had never been Embry’s thing, nor had he ever found any girl really worth the effort. Until Jessica. Until Ainsley.

“You’re really lousy at trying to make people feel better, Sammy.” Seth quipped as he entered the room, collapsing onto the couch next to Embry. 

“The point I was trying to make was that mistakes happen,” he concluded, crossing his ankles together, “I think Ainsley is having just as hard a time as you are.” 

Seth tried to disguise the look on his face that might’ve revealed otherwise, instead opting to place a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. “Ease up, Embry. We’re all here for you.” 

Embry shrugged him off, swiped his drink off the table and downed half the bottle quickly. If this was going to be another night of listening to his brothers give him a pep talk, Embry already decided he wanted to be as far from sober as possible. Well, he could try, at least; it never lasted for very long. 

It was always easier to pretend they were right when he was drinking. 

After what seemed to be hours, Embry and Sam were almost two cases deep, with Jared and Quil not too far behind them. They had overthrown Emily in her kitchen, laughing loudly from the mix-matched chairs in the dining room, the deck of cards spread between the four of them as they finished the last of what alcohol they had. This was the fourth night this week Embry had managed to drag one or more of his brother’s out of sobriety with him. Drunk was always less lonely when everyone else was drunk, too. 

He glanced at his phone, fingers aimlessly scrolling through the hordes of messages before he finally hit the phone icon in the top right corner of the screen. He held his fingers to his lips as he pressed the receiver to his ear, listening intently. 

She had never picked up before - Embry was certain today wouldn’t be any different. 

By now, he was simply doing it because he missed her voice, and her answering machine was the only thing keeping him completely sane. 

“The number you have reached is not in service.” 

Embry’s blood ran cold. His smile faded as his mind tried to push past the drunken haze and the liquor to process what that meant. 

She changed her number. 

He pulled the device back, watching the call screen exit to reveal the background image of them. He had his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her steady in his lap as he looked at her, smiling for the camera in her ridiculously oversized, horrendous Christmas sweater. 

His fingers tightened around the phone, watching the screen crack and crumble around their faces before the screen went black. In the next instant, he stood from his chair as he launched the phone across the room, the device smashing into pieces as it hit the back wall of the kitchen. 

Embry hadn’t really felt like explaining himself. Instead, he stumbled towards the door, grabbed his jacket and slammed the screen shut behind him as he pulled his keys from his pocket. 

“Walk it off, Embry.” Sam ordered from the doorway, face stern as he glanced down at the keys.

“Fuck you, Uley.” He spat, shoving them back into his pocket as he turned away from his truck and headed into the forest. 

𝙰𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚢

I watched Angie run her hands through her cropped hair, trying not to snicker when she half-screamed in frustration. “It’s absolutely insane,” she cried as she looked at her phone for the billionth time that evening. “I’ve been on my own for nearly two years now as my father still feels the need to check in on me every single day.” 

“I think it’s sweet.” I mumbled as I flipped through the channels on the small television that sat kitty-cornered in Angie’s living room. 

“He’s a Navy seal,” she grumbled, leaning over the back of the couch next to Ainsley’s head, “he literally thinks everyone is out to get me.”

“Is he wrong?” I asked, popping another Twizzler into my mouth.

Angie rolled her green eyes, and flipped over the couch to join me. “He just worries.”

“Typical dad stuff?”

Angie pursed her lips, folding her legs underneath her bottom. “Not … exactly.” 

I pulled my brows together, shaking my head slightly when I decided it wasn’t my place to press for further details. “Whatever you say, Ang.” 

We rearranged ourselves on the couch, Angie’s head resting in my lap while I scrolled through my phone. After twenty minutes of silence, she finally spoke up. “Has he called you?” 

“I changed my number, remember?” 

“Which I still think was a horrible idea – Embry seemed like a really sweet guy.”

���Stop.” I sighed, pushing Angie off my legs. “I don’t need it from you.” 

Angie tossed me a look that should’ve been paired with her hands on her hips and a condescending sigh. “If multiple people have to keep repeating the same thing, then maybe you should listen.” 

“It’s not that easy, Ang.” I grumbled, pulling my knees up to my chest. “There’s so many things that outweigh the good right now, I can’t see past it. He’s not going to change – and this isn’t ‘boys will be boys’ crap, it’s borderline terrifying.”

Angie gnawed on her bottom lip, pulling another Twizzler from the bag as she watched me fold in on myself. “You want to know what’s really borderline terrifying?” She asked, swallowing what doubts she had about disclosing her next piece of information. “Coming home to a drunk, and hoping that he doesn’t decide to pick a fight with you simply because you weren’t home in what he deemed ‘appropriate timing’.” 

I raised my brow. 

“Or locking yourself in the bathroom because he’s screaming at you from the other side of the door, angry because his friends had asked about some bruises that you should’ve spent more time trying to cover up. Thinking about running away from him every night, but never able to move because you’re absolutely paralyzed with fear that he’ll hear you and wake up. Finally being able to do it and moving seven states across the country to put as much distance between you and everyone you ever knew because there was nowhere to hide from him in such a small place.”

“Ang –” I started. 

Angie interrupted. 

“I know what an abusive relationship looks like, Ains. Embry is not abusive. Embry is a man who, yes, tends to react out of anger instead of logic right now, and yes it can end incredibly horrible under the wrong circumstances. But he is not someone who is trying to hurt you maliciously. You are not his property, you’re his equal.” She sighed, moving forward to curl into my side again. “I love you, Ains. And I know that being away from him is killing you probably as much as it’s killing him.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked quietly, linking my arm around hers. “All this time, I’ve been going on about it, trying to determine whether or not it classified and you –” I shook my head in disbelief, unable to speak the words. It was odd to think that it happened to the best people. Life had a funny way of sucking the sunshine out of every beautiful human being, giving bad hands to the people that were least deserving of them. 

“I’ve never really told anyone.” 

“Who was he?”

Angie got quiet then, almost as though she were afraid he might hear, “Avery. He was a few years older than me, graduated top of his class, super charming and a total ladies man.” She laughed disdainfully. “He took me to prom, we moved out into an apartment, he had even proposed.”

I pulled my brows together. “What happened?” 

Angie shrugged, “I don’t really know. He started gambling, started drinking a little more. I was never really sure if he was touching anything hard. He’d come home late, if he came home at all. It started out with little things - like he’d yell at me, call me names, but he’d always apologize. 

Then he stopped apologizing. And it started to feel like I was doing something wrong, like I was the reason he was so angry all the time. I found out from a mutual friend that he had been seeing another woman, and tried to confront him about it. Threatened to leave because I knew I deserved better than what he was willing to give. And that was the first night I really thought I was going to die. I had never seen something so hateful.” 

I leaned into Angie’s side, resting my head against my friend’s shoulder. 

“I was so scared to leave. He told me that even if I tried, he’d find me. That I belonged to him, that I would be good for him. My money was his money, my time was for him only - I stopped seeing my family, stopped seeing all of my friends. He always made me feel like I was nothing but a complete burden. When he started getting physical, I was terrified someone might say something, and that I’d lose what I thought was the one person that tolerated me enough to stick around.” 

“Ang –”

“Ainsley, just promise me you’ll talk to Embry.” She sighed, bringing a hand up to cover her eyes. “That you’ll take the time out of your day to talk to him. Just consider it – because as much as I understand your worry and concern, believe me when I say that Embry is not a man capable of even imagining putting you through that kind of pain.” 

I wanted to press the topic further, but the sadness in Angie’s eyes encouraged otherwise. I simply wrapped my arms around Angie’s frame, kissed her cheek and muttered. “I’ll think about it.”

[goldeneyedgirl]

I've been reading your babyfic snippets and I have so many questions about it. I love the concept, it's so cute and funny and a bit dark – since now the cullens have one more thing to protect. I think you mentioned in one of the snippets that Jasper tried to cook for Ollie (and failed) and I'd love to read anything you have about this. Also, I see Maria and Alice's mom are potential problems (?), but are you thinking about making the Volturi a problem too, aka Renesmee Cullen plot??

Don't worry if you don't have snippets to post, I'd be glad just to know your thoughts <3

Thank you :D I'm having a good time turning baby-fic into something with a Plot.

I can add Jasper trying to cook to the list of potential ficmas posts!

Neither Jasper or Alice are good cooks and rely entirely on Alice's stepfather to teach them (mostly so that they aren't forcing cooking-food scents at the Cullens, not because Esme is unwilling; Simon has High Standards when it comes to food, so he's determined to make sure Alice knows her way around the kitchen).

Alice manages okay with practice - she's never going to be an amazing, passionate cook, but she can definitely feed herself and Ollie. She has the advantage of being able to smell and taste, and Jasper can't tell temperatures as well as Alice. Jasper comes from an era where food was very, very different and everything was made from scratch, and he has only the vaguest memory of eating. But by god, he's going to try so goddamn hard to get it right.

(Esme hovering every time he's left home alone with Ollie, desperate to help, but Jasper's so determined to be able to do this one damn thing for his son because it's a basic human need. It would be hard to be a vampire that can learn anything with ease for decades, and then be faced with something that can't be mastered instantly.)

So the plot between main Hybrid-verse and Baby-verse will be different. Basically, there will be main Hybrid-verse, and a secondary fic that basically diverges into Baby-verse.

They will, at this point, have different villains. Hybrid needs a major overhaul, tbh, so a lot of details are up in the air (right now, I've reached the equivalent of New Moon in major scenes; I'm leaning towards Hybrid being one giant fic instead of divided up, but that's not set in stone either.) I need to ramble at beautlilies about main-Hybrid to see if the existing plan is ridiculous or usable, before I confirm or deny who the villain is.

Maria is not the villain in either of them; she's kind of there to stir the shit and when she's around, it's solely to remind everyone that only she may harass, torment, and manipulate Jasper and his possessions (family, friends, Alice), and anyone else who tries is added to the top of her shit list.

(Maria on discovering Jasper has a kid because neither of them was using birth control: "...I changed him because he was pretty, not because he was smart.")

[sparatus]

11, 16, 26 and 40 for the fic writer asks pls?

yessss thank you!!

writer asks

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

hfsdlfh i dont read fic very often but let's go digging. gonna challenge myself to find some NOT written by my friends cause otherwise it's too hard to pick favorites :lmao:

No Love, No Comfort by NoCoincidence [Stellaris] is a "i dont go here but this fucks severely" stellaris fanfic that @lightspeedpowerpunk recced me a while back and i inhaled the whole thing in one go, it's about an emergent AI that learns to be aggressive and eradicate organic life as an act of self-defense because its creators tried to kill it first and oh my god it's just so fucking good trust me

To Ourselves and Our Posterity [Mass Effect, orphaned fic] is an old favorite, shakarian childhood friends au where hannah dies and leaves custody of young jane to cnclr sparatus, it was never finished and im obviously no longer onboard with the hannah/sparatus among other aspects but it was one of the first fics i ever read that cast sparky in a genuinely kinder more sympathetic light and honestly i would love to give rewriting it a shot it has a spot in my heart forever

The Wedding Crashers by DasMervin, MrsHyde [Twilight Saga, Supernatural] is a spitefic originally posted on livejournal moved over to ao3 to dodge lj's posting limits, leah clearwater has broken free of jacob's shitty awful pack that's shitty to her and fucked off to go hunt sparklepires, unfortunately renesmee's wedding to jacob turns up and she's forced to attend so she brings the winchester brothers. shenanigans ensue. it's tongue-in-cheek and one of my favorite fun goofy rereads just trust me bro

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

well right now i'm thinking about a short "same scene, different pov" thing for the climax of itlog feat. garrus and tasora, mostly for the comedy of running into garrus's parents (because of course castis got an invite to the anniversary gala, and asadia isn't a frail delicate thing that will shatter if she thinks about leaving the house castis vakarian of course they should go don't try to use her condition as an excuse to be a recluse), because naturally garrus HAD to latch onto the ONE person in the whole embassy who would think his dad's nerdy poindexter routine is attractive

tasora, comfortable enough around garrus to go a little feral: hey blue guess what garrus, literally just got back from not dying horribly on omega: if you say my dad is kind of a dilf i'm walking into traffic

26. Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

blood in the water? blood in the water. it's got half-mad cyborg salarians, it's got batarian worldbuilding, it's got transformers expies, it's got balak, it's got hegemony conspiracy bullshit, what more do you want from me

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

i mean ok i know the cool dramatic action scenes and climax bits are always what people want to see art of but honestly i think my strength is more the somber poignant moments that are quiet but still carry all the weight - The Man in the Mask would be a really good one that i'd love to see art of, with all the symbolism of desolas hiding in the shadows and valis only just able to see a small piece of the whole, or on a similar note ch2 of The Weight of Memory has some really good imagery with the arterius clan watching the sunset from the porch while they talk about the horrors of war, esp this bit:

“We’re ninety, Val.” Desolas didn’t get up, just faced forward and settled his elbows on his knees and chin on his clasped hands. Trebia had fallen low enough to kiss the tops of the trees far across the yard, and as its rays traced over the crags and cracks in his brother’s face, Saren could almost see the ghosts of the man he’d met above Shanxi tracing their hands over his plates once more. Shadows turned to bruises, old scars glittered blue, a weary half-lidded eye swelled shut, teeth disappeared from bloody gums. “We haven’t been young in a long time.”

.... basically any of my shit with the arterius bros, huh. especially desolas. be kind to my big brother he's been through a lot he can have some beautiful but melancholy imagery

[trantrumsfromthevoid]

Twilight Advent ‘22

Day 19 (12.19.22) - “What new hobby do you think vampire!Bella will try out?”

I’ve already said this (see Day 14 post), but it’s my HC that about fifty to a hundred years after the “drama” in BD happens, Bella’s gonna wake up (proverbially, anyway, since Twilight vampires don’t sleep) and realize she’s been doing the same thing, with the same people, literally everyday. After all the BD/Renesmee/Volturi “drama” dies down and Edward becomes less “shiny new toy” and a little more ... mmm, mundane, I think she’ll probably have an “Oh, shit” moment. A moment wherein she realizes she’s been doing the same thing day after day after - and will continue to do - the same thing year after year after year. That sounds like torture to me in all honesty. But then again I don’t have sparkly Edward Cullen as my soulmate, either. So maybe that’ll help Bella’s boredom.

BUT ANYWAY, enough of my ramblings!

I feel like after that realization happens she’ll - at least temporary - turn into a daredevil (again). I can see her paragliding off insanely high cliffs or bungee jumping; swimming with sharks (that’s what I’d do if I became invincible!). Maybe cliff diving with Jacob but turning it into some kind of competition: who can dive from the highest cliff, who can do the most graceful pirouette off a cliff; that kinda thing. I think once that “Oh, shit” moment wears off and she comes back to reality, she’ll start developing hobbies Renesmee will enjoy, too. Maybe they’ll start taking painting classes together; wherein they’re painting from the rim of a volcano or something like that. Or learn about cars together (something she can do with Jacob, too).

I can see Bella (and Edward) wanting to find “new” meadows and places for them to hang out together where they’re alone in nature. So maybe they do lots of traveling (by foot) and can go from Washington State to Washington, D.C. in a day or two, or something like that. I think Bella will probably really enjoy playing vampire baseball and maybe get into other sports as well. Or she’ll at least attempt to find new athletic hobbies (and laugh at how clumsy human!Bella was). I think, honestly, the possibilities are endless.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Reading your response to my last few asks has left me with more questions than answers

1. Why was Emmet in the egg outfit anyway? Are those actually eggs?

2. In what circumstances would Jacob believe that being naked and shifting in front of Charlie (the dad of the girl he was presumably trying to woo) be a good idea?? Also, as a side note, do werewolves actually need to be naked in order to shift or is they just something the one fanfic that I read got wrong?

3. Can you like give me a summary of all of Edward’s family? Cause like I feel like there’s something going on with that. Also, did Edward’s parents actually die in a plague that led to him being adopted or am I missing something here?

I apologize for my lack of twilight knowledge again. I have plans to go read it, but that might be another 2 years, so for now I’m bugging you about it.

⚙️

That's how it always goes with twilight, dw. Every response opens a whole new can of worms. I'll do my best to answer!

Why was Emmett in the egg outfit? No clue! (and yes they're actually eggs, they're hardboiled). That's just what the costume department dressed him in for that brief scene when filming--also, just so we're clear, the "egg outfit" is this outfit. It's not the outfit Roisin created related to eggs in her twilight drawing. I call it the egg outfit because it's what he was wearing while carrying the eggs and matches in color. As for why the actor was carrying a bag of eggs, it's because the director saw the actor actually doing that irl and was like this is so ridiculous we have to add that to the movie.

Why did Jacob get naked and shift in front of Charlie? It's because he was forcing the Cullens' hands pretty much. This was after Renesmee was born and he was no longer infatuated with Bella; Bella was a vampire now, and the whole family intended to uproot and move on from the area for a few reasons. One, so Bella wouldn't be around humans and be tempted to kill them while learning self control (newborn vampires are supposed to be full of bloodlust, but Bella's disappointingly well adjusted). Two, so that people wouldn't realize they weren't aging or changing at all--especially Bella, because she had active connections to people like her father. They could only keep it from him for so long, and it'd be easier to do from far away. Also wouldn't hurt to get away from the werewolves, as wolves and vampires don't really get along.

However, Jacob is tied to his pack and Forks, and if the Cullens left he'd have to make a choice between them. And he'd choose Nessie, but he didn't want to have to chose--and he wasn't sure the Cullens would let him tag along. He wanted to insure they'd stay. So with the crux of it being everyone worrying about how Charlie would handle it and deciding the solution is to not tell him and leave, Jacob went hey what it I tell him and prove to you he can handle it. And boom now Charlie knows so you don't have to keep secrets and run away, you can all stay here! It did create a tense situation where Charlie rushed over, and it was the first time Bella had been up close near a human and everyone was worried she'd lose control, but she didn't, so that solved the other problem. Bella wasn't at risk of losing control and killing a bunch of humans, so they could stay. That's why Jacob did it

And wolves don't have to get naked to shift, they just tend to because otherwise their clothes get shredded by their expanding bodies and when they shift back they don't have anything to wear and go through clothes really fast. So they wear minimal clothing (that's why they're just wearing shorts and sometimes shoes in the movies), and have a pouch on their ankle they put their shorts in when they shift so they don't have to carry their pants in their mouths.

And now a family summary! There are 7 Cullens (8 if you count Bella marrying in). And I'm trying to encompass everything important while not taking up too much space--considering there's four books I think it's rather condensed

Tw for: violence, death, abuse (including sexual), suicide, illness

Carlise Cullen is the father figure, the oldest of them all (a few centuries, turned age 23ish), and works as a doctor. He's known for his compassion and has legendary self control (only rivaled by Edward post meeting Bella), and has never drank human blood before. His father was a witch-hunter of sorts, and after he took over (though Carlisle was much more cautious about it), he ran into a vampire and was killed/transformed in the 1600s. He was horrified and tried to destroy himself, but couldn't, until he realized he could feed off animals and didn't have to kill people. He roamed the earth very lonely for centuries before he finally caved and created a companion for himself, Edward.

Esme Cullen is the mother figure, the third to join the family, and is known for being very sweet and loving; she's a little over a century old and was turned age 26 in 1921. She was in an abusive marriage and lost a baby in her human life, prompting her to take her own life, where she was then transformed by Carlisle. They are now mates.

Edward Cullen was Carlisle's first family member, transformed age 17 in 1918 because he was dying of influenza. Both his parents had already died from it, and his mother requested Carlisle save his life in a way only he could. He has the special ability to read the thoughts of those around him as though they were broadcast, sans Bella's. he had a phase early in his vampire life where he abandoned Carlisle and Esme and used his ability to hunt evil people, feeding on abusers and villains and the like, but he grew tired of the death and felt immoral, so he returned to Carlisle and Esme. He's very melacholic and generally displeased until he meets Bella and his world is turned around

Rosalie Hale was the 4th family member, transformed age 18 in 1933. She's known for her beauty and being self-centered. She was the picture perfect daughter of a wealthy family during the great depression, happy to be desired and admired, and was going to be married to another well-off family. Her greatest desire was to be loved and start a family of her own. Unfortunately for her, her fiance was actually a piece of shit, and his true colors were revealed when he and his friends got drunk one night, assaulting and killing her. Carlisle found and transformed her, and afterwards Rosalie went back and killed every one of them while wearing her wedding dress. She's also known for being quite jealous, liking cars, and wishing desperately she could start her own family

Emmett Cullen was the 5th family member, transformed age 20 in 1935. He was part of a wild crowd, but also hunted for his family for game. During one unlucky hunting session, he ran across a bear and was mauled to death. Rosalie found and saved him, taking him to Carlisle to be transformed. He's pretty much the only one of them who is happy to be a vampire and has no complaints. He's known for being boisterous, very strong and muscly, loving competition and fighting, and being absolutely in love with Rosalie, his mate. He's a himbo.

Alice Cullen joined the family at the same time as Jasper, but was transformed in 1920 at age 19 before that by someone else. She has the special ability to see the future, but only as the possibilities will play out based on current decisions. If someone changes their mind on what they're going to do, what she sees changes as the future changes. Vampires with special traits generally have hints of them in their human lives, but Alice's was incredibly strong, landing her in an asylum for her premonitions--this is why her hair is so short and spiky, as it was shaved there. She was also being hunted by a vampire tracker, James, because she had appealing blood. To save her from him, an older vampire working at the asylum transformed her, but was killed by James. Alice has no memories of her human life (compared to the vague and fuzzy few others may have) because of her time in the asylum. Once she was out, her visions guided her to Jasper (her mate) and the Cullens so they could join the family.

Jasper Hale was an aspiring military leader in the Confederate Army (yep, he was really a genuine confederate) and incredibly charismatic. He lied about his age when joining and was the youngest general in the army. At the same time, there was a secret vampire war going on in the area, and because of his charisma, he was scouted out by a vampire because she thought his charm would turn into a special ability once he was turned (by Maria in 1863 at age 19)--and it did. He can read and influence the emotions of others. So he served in Maria's army for a while. But he grew depressed from feeling the emotions of the people he was always killing, and his creator was thinking of getting rid of him because of it. A friend offered another way of life and he ran away. A while later, Alice found him (very planned out and intentional), and while she was acting strange (because of her knowledge of the future) he could feel the complete love coming from her. So with Alice they found the Cullens and joined the family. Though Jasper has the hardest time with the vegetarian diet, and while he does love the others, his primary concern is Alice. He has numerous scars and is very formidable in battle.

No one is officially adopted through legal means, all their documents and such are fake. The reason they all have the Cullen last name is part of the ruse--except for Jasper and Rosalie, who go by Hale because people assume them to be siblings and they think its better to let humans make assumptions and follow along. Though they are still adopted siblings with the others in the whole ruse.

I've given you a lot to mull over so I'll stop there, but I hope that helps! If you do read twilight I hope you have fun, but also no pressure to!

[redheadjustin]

Hey it's me again I want to know if you can do a Emmett Cullen x male reader where the reader is Emmett mate and secretly a mutant where he has the power to manipulate and summon weapons and armor as well to knowing how to use any weapon just by touching it. But he keep that side of himself a secret because he knows how much people hate mutants and try to forget that side of himself. Until the Volturi threatened to harm his his niece Renesmee in his other family so he put his foot down and starts to back training on using his powers again but he mostly trains in secret. Until when the final battle starts where he joins in the fight with his husband showing everyone that he was not human. After the battle Emmett ask why the reader didn't say anything about his powers who the reader told him that he wants to forget that side of himself who Emmett comfort him telling him to never hide that part of his self again.

“The volturi will be coming.” Five simple words. You hadn’t been afraid of the volturi when you first met your husband/ mate, Emmett Cullen. Why would you be? You have faced many things as a mutant and all of them are more threatening than some old vampires from the reminiscence era. You have been trained by Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler and many others. You were a former X-Man. You had fought with Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. So, no, the phrase “The Volturi will be coming” does not scare you. The threat of the mutant registration act scares you more than the Volturi for God’s sake!!

No one knows you’re a mutant. Not even Emmett. It wasn’t you expected hate from the Cullens(they were vampires who would they be to judge) you knew they love you no matter what. But, you left the X-Men on……sad terms and you put that part of your life behind you and would never try to be a hero again. You would always try to help people but your last mission as an X-Man ended with nearly your entire family murdered. You left the institute right after that incident and settled in Forks and found your mate. And you could not be happier. Emmett was loving and caring and did everything to make sure you were safe and happy. 

Your relationship with the rest of the family is…complicated. You looked at Carlisle and Esme as your parents.  They had taken the role seamlessly and even helped with the funeral. Alice loved to dress you even if it’s just to go to the store. She would leave something for you on your bed on most days. You were the first male in the house that didn’t mind being Alice’s dress up doll. 

Rose was…difficult to be around. She was the one who got Emmett turned into a vampire. Rosalie wanted Emmett to be her mate. She wanted a mat very badly. She wanted love after what happened with her husband but if anything that made Emmett even more upset. You see, he was openly gay. Yes, Emmett always had balls the size of grapefruits and the guts to match. Anyone who knew Emmett knew he was gay. But, when Emmett was being mauled by a bear, none of the Cullens knew him. It was a split second decision made by Rosalie. Rosalie had felt a connection but she misunderstood it. It wasn’t a mate bond, it was only two years since she turned and she was very lonely so it was wishful thinking. So, you kept your distance.

Jasper was very nice to be around. He knew how to make you feel better without using his gift. You were around him as much as Emmett.  He didn’t mind and appreciated that you had a great knowledge of history. Edward didn’t trust you at first. What with you being able to shield your mind from him. You had to, you faced countless telepathic villains and lived in an institute with two of the most powerful telepaths in history. But, he learned to trust you as you  had helped them with the James incident. You didn’t have to worry about being a meal as mutants smell different. You stayed away from Bella. You didn’t like her as she reminded you of Emma Frost. 

But by God did you love Renesme. Your niece was the life of the party and the smartest kid you ever met. She loved you as if you were a second father. You were the one to take her out in town on the sunny days. While you hated her mother, you loved the hybrid as if she was your own. So while you weren’t afraid of the Volturi, they were coming to see if your niece was an immortal child and even if Carlisle did manage to get his friends to be witnesses they’d still be horribly outnumbered if it came to a fight and it most likely would. 

You stood in your private room looking out the window. Carlisle insisted that you had your own room so you would have SOME privacy. While you wanted to argue against it you accepted it as you wouldn’t need to find a place to hide your X-Men gear. You told Carlisle you had friends you could call to help. The head of your family seemed reluctant to involve non vampires; he agreed that the more people were there to help the better you looked sadly at the X-men communicator in your hand. You were waiting for the family and Jacob to leave the house to go hunting to make the calls. Yes, calls, as in pearl. You were calling in every favor you ever earned. The X-Men, the Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, Blade, Spider-Man. You were even considering calling the Silver Surfer in. You made the call as soon as you knew your family  was out of hearing range. You sighed, you hoped you weren’t going to have to live the hero's life again but you knew damn sure there was a fight coming and you needed to help your family. “Scott? It’s me. I need some back up.” 

Months passed and you trained harder than you ever had. Your power is to manipulate and summon weapons and armor as well as knowing how to use any weapon just by touching it was something you needed to hone more now more than ever. As you had realized before you left the X-Men it also implied to anything that COULD be used as a weapon. And that included a vampire’s gift. You disappeared often to train and coordinate. You weren’t taking  any chances. You would protect your family no matter what. It was decided that The heroes you were calling in would meet you in the forest around the clearing where you and your family would face the volturi. Emmett knew you had been disappearing and thought you were just preparing yourself for if worse came to worse. You knew Emmett would be hurt thatYou hid your powers from him but it was to keep everyone safe. It was the morning of the confrontation and you were waiting for your friends to arrive in the forest. As you waited in your X-Men uniform you braced yourself for the hugs. You smirked at the famaler golden glow of Doctor Strange’s portal. 

You led the group of heroes to the clearing just as you heard Caius say “Oh and who will stop us?” Your smirk got bigger as you led the heroes into the clearing. “How about us?” You asked as those gathered turned to see you, The X-men, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, Blade, Spider-Man and many, many others. Everyone’s jaws, even the wolves, dropped as you led the contingent to your family. Emmet noticed your uniform as you let Emmet step next to you and Captain America. “I’ll tell you later, Emmett. I promise, I’ll tell you everything. 

“You DARE to bring more outsiders when you’re accused of breaking laws already?!” Caius shouted at you as you called Blade and Doctor Strange to the front. As soon as Aro spotted Doctor strange and Blade he put his hand up to stop his brother’s rant. “Their presence changes nothing. Your family is accused of creating an Immortal child and from here you are guilty.” Aro gave a nod and the forces of the Volturi rushed towards your group of heroes, vampires and your family. You looked at Steve and smiled at the first Avenger’s nod. You kissed Emmett on the cheek and sent him a reassuring smile. “Avengers, assemble!!” And with that you and those on your side ran to meet the Volturi’s forces in battle. 

The battle was long and brutal. You used years of experience of fighting super villains and handed the volturi their asses. You spared Alec as you knew he was brainwashed unlike Jane who was simply sadistic. You were the one to kill jane. You normally don’t relish in killing your opponents but this one was special to you. You used her own gift against her as Cap threw you his shield. You looked at her in her crimson eyes and almost felt sorry for the girl. “Don’t worry Jane. Your brother’s safe with me I promise.” You said as you lined the shield up with Jane’s neck. You said this knowing that the immortal tween cared for her twin brother. You saw an almost grateful look in Jane’s eyes as you pulled the shield back and you slammed the weapon in your hands down and ended Jane’s life and the suffering of many prospective victims. 

The battle was all but over when you killed Jane and no one was hurt which was a miracle. You tossed Cap his shield back when you saw Alec rushing at you as you held your hand up. Right as everyone thought the other witch twin was going to attack you he slid to his knees dry sobbing. The sound broke your heart as it reminded you of when you lost your parents to Magneto. You knelt by the distraught boy’s side and pulled him into your arms. 

“I know it hurts, trust me I do. I lost my parents in a battle not unlike this one.” You took off the glove of your scarred hand and ran it through Alec’s hair. You got the scar when Magneto used  liquid metal to burn your hand when you went for revenge. You never explained the truth behind the scar, you just said you were being reckless as a kid and you were. You just never told the Cullens that it was because you were reckless in a fight with a supervillain. You were brought out of your musing when you heard a whimper from alec. 

“What do I do now? All I’ve ever known as a vampire is gone.” To prove his point he gestured to where Iron Man and the Human Torch were burning the bodies of the dead Volturi. You smiled as you got an idea you knew Emmet and the others would approve. “Simple, You see, Me and Emmett always wanted to be parents. It’s obvious that you can’t take care of yourself when you're this far into grief. You can stay with us and if you must feed from humans we can take trips anywhere you want. So, what do you say?” You never received a response, just a tight hug. You had just saved Alec from a millennium of depression. With that the army of vampires and superheroes and shifters went back to the Cullen house to celebrate. 

It was well into the night and the party showed no signs of stopping. You stood from the balcony in your and Emmet’s room. You smiled seeing the heroes and the Cullens getting along. You had spoken to Charles and you would be on the reserve of X-Men and the same with the Avengers. You had also received invitations for Alec and Emmett. You smiled as you saw Renesmee dancing with Kitty. Bella was having an arm wrestling match with She-Hulk. Emmet was talking with Logan. Rose was talking with Rouge about their husbands. Carlisle was talking to Hank McCoy about vampire anatomy. Esme was talking to Jean about designing houses. Jasper was trading war stories with Captain America. You saw everyone accounted for except for your husband.

“Why not join the party?” Ah, he was in the doorway. “Everyone’s been telling stories of you being a hero. “ Emmett’s tone was calm but you could tell he was hurt. You smiled as you felt Emmett wrap his arms around you. You sighed, you knew this conversation was coming but it didn’t mean it would be any easier. “More importantly, why didn’t you tell me you were a Mutant?” and there it was, the million dollar question. You had been thinking of your answer for hours but you knew that no matter what you told Emmett you would have to tell him the truth. 

“I was eleven when my powers showed themself. Some idiot broke into the house when I was alone. I was scared for my life and I wish I had a weapon and then my dad’s gun flew into my hands. I’d never handled a gun before but yet I knew how to use it. My parents knew I was a mutant when I told them about what happened. It wasn’t too long till a man named Charles Xavier came to my house. He told me that I was a mutant. I was scared as Hell but for some reason I trusted him. My parents were afraid of me. They thought I’d kill them in their sleep and they couldn’t stop me. My parents weren't home when Charles came and offered me a place at his institute. I took it. I didn’t tell my parents because I wanted to stop them from being terrified of me. I always wrote them. I told them everything. It was about four years since I’d been at the institute that I became an X-man.  I wanted to help people to prove that I wouldn’t hurt people with my powers. It was about six months before I met you that my world shattered. A villain the X-Men fought regarally decided to kill my parents as I was the only one on par with him. I was the one who found them.” You close your eyes as you remember the blood. “I was the reason they died. I went after him and he burnt my hand with liquid metal but I managed to take him down. After all that…I couldn’t be an X-Man anymore so I moved here. And met you and I forgot about all the pain. I didn’t tell you I was a mutant because I just wanted to forget about that part of my life. But, when Alice said the Volturi were coming I…had to be the hero again so this time I could save my family this time.” By the end you were crying and felt Emmett place his chin on your shoulder. 

“And you did Y/N You saved us and Renesmee. But, no more hiding. I didn’t hide from you. You don’t have to suffer alone anymore Y/N. We can be heroes together and we have Alec to help. Let me Help you love. No more hiding.” Emmett said as he helped you out of your uniform. You thought about it, no more hiding. It’s all you ever wanted all your life. You smiled as you nodded. “No more hiding. For any of us.” You leaned into your husband with a smile on your face. The world was about to see the real Y/N L/N and you couldn’t wait.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think if, at the end of Eclipse, prior to the wedding happening, Jacob stayed true to his promise to not see Bella anymore, broke his friendship with her and went full ignore mode, would Bella still fall apart? Or would the wedding, honeymoon and baby debacle (assuming they move to Not-Forks to make sure the wolves dont learn about Renesmee) be enough to distract/push Bella into moving on from Jacob?

I am curious at what was the point of no return with Jacob where Bella made herself so dependent on him that should he leave or die she would fall apart and stay apart.

I mean, this kind of happened canonically.

Bella wasn't sure that Jacob was going to show at the wedding, when he did, she was elated and surprised, but it was him saying "this'll be the last time I see you" and Bella believing that. Bella before the wedding, knowing she was losing Jacob, was nowhere near the mess she was in New Moon when Edward had left her and was doing relatively quite well.

She was focused on the wedding, nervous about it, but excited, was excited for her honeymoon even when she watched Jacob be physically dragged out of the wedding after she told him "I'm going to be pistoned to death by a vampire! :D" and she really didn't think about Jacob much at all during the entire honeymoon bit until he shows up on the Cullen doorstep and sees Bella has entered the plot of Rosemary's Baby.

Bella of course then is very glad he's there, is thrilled he's protecting her and is her friend once more through this time, and after the initial shock of the imprinting and initial rage is quite happy to have Jacob permanently in her life because of it.

The thing was that Bella knew she had to pick between Edward and Jacob, she tried to get them to agree to neutrality where she could have both, but Jacob wouldn't have it so she chose Edward. That was the entire plot of Eclipse essentially, realizing she couldn't have both and realizing that to have Edward she had to let Jacob go and making that sacrifice despite knowing it would be losing her emotional anchor and best friend.

She was extremely upset about it, devastated in Eclipse, but she got over it and made her choice.

[cto10121]

Midnight Sun Part 2!!! Possibly my favorite section; I could not put it down, especially the rescue part. I did have Des Notes, though:

“It wasn’t really a difficult ask.” Nope, no way a vampire from 1901 would say this 2020s slang in 2006. Don’t slip up, Meyer!!! Or get better editors!!!

Alice introducing herself to Edward by hugging him and calling him brother and Edward going like “Yep, legit” will never not be great

Edward lying in bed and nearly giving Bella a heart attack with his sluttishness is almost worse in his POV, omg. How the fuck does that happen

Edward reading Tooth and Claw just because Bella recommended it. Remind me again why some people don’t like Edward?

Wait—Edward describes Bella’s scent as “lavender” or “freesia.” One of Bella’s favorite scents is lavender, as well as clean laundry. And she blushed when she looked at Edward, clearly thinking about his scent. Could Edward’s scent actually…be similar to Bella’s? Is that why her scent affects him so powerfully? Holy shit.

Edward “It was enlightening and alluring to watch her in her element” (Bella *eating Cheerios*) 🤝 Romeo “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand” (Juliet: *leaning her cheek on her hand*)

“Bella had gone to the other room to calm her mother. And then the vision had overtaken Alice.” Nice way to cover up that little plot hole, very enterprising

“The image of myself astride the sleek black motorcycle was so appealing that for a second I ignored her” 🤣🤣🤣🤣 🤣🤣🤣🤣 It’s giving Terminator. Love it. Also, what a great parallel to Bella’s motorcycle adventures

Very ambivalent about the highway scene. Otoh, it’s interesting and clever and detailed how the Cullens worked together. Otoh, it’s over the top at places! Like why did they flip the car into upcoming traffic????? Why did they even have to switch cars to begin with????? Meyer really should avoid full-length action scenes (I did like the Victoria fight in Eclipse, though)

Ngl, the James hunt is probably better than in Twilight, if just because Edward is at the front of the action. Still amazing how James slipped away from them

“Bella’s blood was the opposite of pain. It erased every burn I’d ever suffered. And it was so much more than just the absence of pain. It was satisfaction, it was bliss. I felt suffused with a strange kind of joy—a joy of the body alone. I was healed and alive, every nerve ending thrumming with contentment.” The Metaphor(tm) has now become literal.

Book Edward *drinking Bella’s blood*: ✨Bliss ✨🥰 >>>>>> Movie Edward: *gnaws on Bella’s arm like a chicken wing*

“The chuckle that bubbled up from my chest surprised me. I had her blood on her tongue. It was probably tinting the edges of my irises red even now. It was drying into my clothes and dyeing my skin. But she could still make me laugh”

Jasper looks so dangerous to other vampires that James just…accepts his fate. Like welp, guess I’ll die. Iconic

“Why am I towing that ridiculous truck?” Okay, the Cullens hating Bella’s truck is officially a gag.

“For a moment, I imagined Renée as a vampire. Would her thoughts shout audibly at everyone, inescapable?” Nice foreshadowing/Easter egg for Renesmee. So there is a meaning and rationale behind the name other than Bella’s corniness.

That section where Edward watches James’ video and is so overcome with rage and despair and then starts to pray for the strength to leave Bella…that passage was so well-written I was nearly crying

Re: Edward’s decision to leave Bella, It is genius on Meyer’s part (or, well, just practical) to make the obstacles internal instead of external. Edward needs to deal with the consequences of leaving Bella and learn from his mistakes

Finished and in sum: This was great and only gets better in the re-reading. There is a lot of whinging and whining over certain aspects, mostly by anti fans, but those didn’t really bother me. Most lines were taken out of context, as they always do, and spun into something questionable; in context they were fine. Then there are those who say it is better and better-written than Twilight, but I disagree. Twilight was much better structured and less superfluous in detail than Midnight Sun, which could get bogged down in minute-to-minute summary. That said, Midnight Sun does have the advantage that all the dynamic change and development are on Edward’s side than Bella’s, as in a proper Beauty and the Beast telling. But Bella’s story does have power and is arguably more subversive than Edward’s. I think the two complement ultimately each other—the subtext of Twilight is the text of Midnight Sun, and vice versa. Reading both gets you a more complete picture…which the TV show would undoubtedly fuck up in some way if they decide to use parts of Midnight Sun. Le sigh.

[grampstaxidermy87]

Betrayal of Blood

Pairing: Demetri Volturi x Vampire! Reader

Requested by the lovely: Anonymous.

Request: Hiii! Could I request a fic where the reader is friends with carlisle so they go help him when the volturi are coming for rigatoni, but what they don't know is that they're not on the cullens side. I'd also love it if you made the reader mates with Demetri, other then that you have free reign. Thank you!!

Summary: When an old friend comes to return a favor it may just be the very thing the enemy needed to destroy the cullens.

an: Oh darling You gave me the perfect excuse to write an evil reader, This was quite fun to write, so I hope you enjoy, my Lovelies!

"Oh Carlisle, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

The blonde doctor was un-phased by my sudden appearance,while his family and companions all jumped at the sight of me standing in the doorway. Leaning against the wall I eyed them all with guarded eyes and a small smile of amusement.

Everyone grew silent as Carlisle approached me with a kind smile, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Thank you for coming on such short notice (Y/n), I owe you."

I waved him off with a smirk,"Call us even old friend,You know I wouldn't miss a chance like this for the world." He turned to our audience,moving his arm around my shoulders.

"This is (Y/n), they are an old friend of mine from back when I was with the Volturi, they know the ins and outs, along with any possible battle strategy they may have." They looked at me with wonder as I nonchalantly shrugged, "I still have a few loyal ears around the place, there's nothing the Volturi does that I don't know about."

Carlisle smiled gratefully at me before sharing a look with his son, The tall man approached with his wife and daughter at his side.

"Thank you for helping us (Y/n), I've heard a lot about you from Carlisle." I raised a brow, "That must make you Edward, while it is a pleasure, I am saddened we had to meet under such circumstances." He furrowed his brows and I realized he must have been trying to get a read on my thoughts.

"Ah sorry about that, couldn't risk that creepy bastard seeing anything important if he intercepted me on my way here. He's been finding his own witnesses it seems." He nodded in understanding while his wife looked at me in awe, "You're a shield too?"

Chuckling I shook my head, "No I am not, I just happened to have learned a few spells over the years during my time with a witch coven. Protection in return for protection, you know?"

Looking down when I felt a tug on my sleeve I smiled at the wide curious eyes of the reason for my journey. "And you must be my dear friend's beautiful granddaughter? What is your name Princess?" I asked kneeling down in front of her.

She blushed at the compliment, "My name is Renesmee." I skillfully hid my disgust at the choice of name behind a charming smile.

"Renesmee, hm? How lovely, darling. Now I hear you have a very special gift." She nodded and raised her hand up to my face, placing her strangely warm hand against my ice-cold cheek.

Visions flashed across my brain, showing me everything I needed to know...and more.

It was Amazing...I had never met a hybrid who showed such power in the early stages before...

I saw that they believed this child to be a miracle, a rarity that had never been seen by vampire or humankind before.

It was truly pitiful to see just how inflated their egos were.

Smiling in wonder at her I played the clueless part, "She is amazing...what was that?" Edward smiled proudly at his daughter, "She can project her thoughts into your mind, show you things exactly as she did." Nodding I looked back at the hybrid child's mother, "You are Bella correct? "She nodded and watched as I stood and approached her.

Reaching into my jacket pocket I pulled out a charm necklace, "This was gifted to me by a very dear friend of mine, she was also a very powerful witch. This will act as a power amplifier; your shield will be much more effective with this." She looked at it in awe of its beauty as I carefully place it around her neck, letting the red gem be bare for all to see.

"It's beautiful." She gently moved it so she could see it better, wonder filled her eyes.

Watching as the three walked away with Renesmee looking at her mother's new necklace in awe, I felt two pairs of eyes staring daggers at me, it was hard not to grin when I realized who it was.

"It has been too long, Stefan, Vladimir. I am glad to see you are both still in one piece." The platinum blonde scoffed, "Do not think so lowly of us that we would allow ourselves to be taken down so easily." Stefan hummed in agreement with his brother. "Why of course not my kings, you are both far too powerful for that." I cooed knowing exactly how to stroke their ego's.

Doing so perfectly as both of their chests puffed up with pride, "You always were a smart man (Y/n), I am glad to see that hasn't changed." Stefan said and all tension left the air...Well most of it anyways.

To say I hated them both with every fiber of my being would be a huge understatement.

"You know I love to keep you both on your toes, my handsome kings." Vladimir purred in delight when I took their hands and bowed with faux respect.

"Now then,would someone care to catch me up?"

——————

Sitting around the bonfire between the Romanians I had somehow earned the mutt's attention.

"So, what about you? Do you have any cool powers?" I cursed him silently when all eyes turned to me.

"Yes,I am not very fond of it though so I prefer to rarely use it." That answer only further roused their curiosity.

"Oh come on (Y/n), you can't keep them in the dark like that." Stefan mused elbowing my arm and it took everything in me not to rip his off. He turned to the others not noticing the deadly look in my forced smile.

"(Y/n) has the ability to control minds." I gritted my teeth when I saw the fear directed my way.

"Like I said,I'm not fond of it."

Jacob shifted in his seat,"Is that why you left the volturi?"

No.

"Yes."

"I was only a weapon to them, no longer the person I once was." The fear turned to understanding in some of their eyes. Vladimir patted my knee, "That is why we will laugh and celebrate in watching them burn to the ground." A dark and cruel smirk pulled at my lips in a way he interpreted as agreement to his statement.

"Oh I will take great joy in watching the flames."

After a few pointless chats later I stood up, making the excuse that I needed to feed before tomorrow. Waving off the warning of leaving forks to do so I disappeared from sight.

Stopping inside an alley somewhere in Seattle I leaned against the wall and waited for the sight of a human.

"(Y/n)." I clenched my fists tightly before turning around with a smile, "Stefan, have you come to join me?"

The short man didn't answer, instead racing forward and pushing me hard against the wall. I clenched my eyes shut when his lips pressed against my own, if I were human there would be bile rising in my throat.

He pulled back and licked his lips, "Oh how I have missed these lips,300 years of waiting is a bit torturous don't you think?"  Lifting my chin up so he couldn't reach my lips again I sneered, "You know I like to play hard to get...isn't that right Aro?" His brows furrowed in confusion before pain hit him and he crumpled to the ground.

Wiping my mouth in disgust I looked over towards the entrance of the alley.

The group who stood there all looked as pretentiously regal as I would expect from the Volturi even after all these years.

"You are right about that (Y/n), but even you should know you can never go too far." I scoffed looking away and stepping over Stefan's crumpled body, still writhing in pain.

Two hooded men approached, the taller of the two walked past and grabbed Stefan, holding his arms behind him to stop any escape attempts, while the other stood beside me in case I moved to attack.

Crossing my arms I gritted my teeth at the king, "Why are you here Aro, I don't need your help." One of the guards beside him hissed at my attitude but Aro held up a hand to silence the boy.

A cruel smirk formed on my lips, "Aww you didn't tell your new toys about me, I should be hurt but I honestly expected nothing less from you." Aro narrowed his eyes, "That is quite enough (Y/n), I've let you have your fun in this ridiculous revenge mission-" He went to continue but stopped when he saw the infuriated glare I gave him.

"Ridiculous? Ridiculous! This bastard and his disgusting brother killed my mother! Or are you so desperate to forget that,uncle?" I roared stepping forward and didn't even try to hide my satisfaction when he stepped back. The guard beside me grabbed my arm and I turned my glare his way,too far into my rage to notice how his body tensed.

"Uncle?" I heard the girl ask in confusion, I looked over at her with a look of pity, "So he really didn't tell any of you, shows how much he trusts you all, Darling. Hey Uncle Aro, do they know that you let the monsters who killed your own sister escape?" I mocked seeing the anger build in his eyes.

"I said enough (Y/n), now come home. Marcus has-" I ripped my arm from the guard, "Don't you dare pull the Marcus card, that man has been through enough. He doesn't need to be involved in your sick attempts at manipulation over me." Aro held his hands up in surrender, "Alright Alright, I apologize. Can we please just talk about this like adults, preferably somewhere more private." He moved to take my hand, but I shook my head and stepped away in disgust.

"No, I came here to kill these Romanian bastards and I will not stop until I watch them turn to dust." He stared at me for a moment before he sighed. "Fine then. Felix, Demetri you know what to do."

Looking over the man holding Stefan and the one beside me pounced on the Romanian filth and began tearing him apart, I watched with satisfaction as he looked at me with a look I knew as betrayal.

"M-My brother will avenge me! You will pay for thi-" he promised before his head was torn off by the shorter one.

His attention turned to me; I raised a brow as he approached before kneeling down before me. Presenting Stefan's head to me like a knight would his king. "For you, your majesty." My hands shook as I reached for it, my hands grazing his for only a split second.

But that was all fate needed to send a zap of electricity through my body, making me gasp in shock. Cracks formed on Stefan's head from how hard I was holding it, staring right into the man’s eyes it felt as though my heart would start beating again.

"What the fuck...was that..?" I breathed through a slack jaw. "I-I don't know.." The kneeling man said with equal confusion to my own.

"(Y/n)?" Aro's voice brought me back to my senses and I dropped the head, blinking before turning towards my uncle. "I-I should go back, they'll be suspicious if I'm gone too long." Aro grabbed my arm, stopping me as I passed. "(Y/n), the child..." I looked back at him.

"A hybrid, a powerful one at that. I've put a charm on a necklace and gave it to her mother, Bellas's shield is weakened now." He had the audacity to look proud of me.

"You always were brilliant; your mother would have been so proud of you." Just like that my anger was back, ripping my arm from his grasp I leaned closer to his face. "Don't you dare act like you knew her, I may just decide to come for you next once I kill Vladimir." He smiled softly, "That's the hotheaded (Y/n) I know and love." I squeezed my fists so tightly at my sides that I could hear them begin to crack.

"Go fuck yourself." I hissed before speeding out of view.

"Master, should we follow him?" Alec asked trying to shake off his shock at what had just transpired. Aro shook his head with a fond smile as he looked off to where his nephew had disappeared. "There is no need, (Y/n) has always been a lone wolf. They will tear them apart mentally before we even reach the battlefield." He turned to face Demetri who looked strangely fidgety.

Raising a brow, he walked over to the dirty blonde and held out his hand with an expectant expression, "Demetri?"

He gulped at his master's tone, holding out his hand and allowing his master to read his thoughts. A grin formed on Aro's face that he wasn't sure he liked, calculated would be the only way to describe it.

"I see, that explains a lot. Oh, Marcus will be so delighted." Was the only insight Aro gave as to what had happened for the other guards, and with that Aro dropped the guards' hand.

"Now then, let us return to the others, our plans need a bit of tweaking with this news." He stepped over the cracked head of his fallen enemy, "Felix dispose of the Romanian scum, will you?" He didn't need an answer as the giant took the pieces and disappeared to follow his masters' orders.

There was much planning to attend to.

[therealvinelle]

How do you read the sentence "Truly, Carlisle, nothing would please me more than to preserve your life today.” and come to the conclusion that it is true. Like cut away all Bella's perception, I just look at that line, and I am absolutely certain it is not true.

Well, I look at Aro's actions. He acts an awful lot like someone who's trying to preserve Carlisle's life, as well as their friendship.

A small disclaimer, since I suspect you're new to this blog:

At the risk of being condescending, anon, I'm going to point out that my reading of canon has yielded so many, uh, interesting headcanons because I don't trust the characters and I don't care about authorial intent. If our protagonists all agree that X is true, and the author says "Yes, this is a book about X where X is true", but X doesn't fit any of what's actually happening and it would make a lot more sense if X isn't true at all, then I'm going to believe X is false. This is the case with Aro: yes, he's supposed to be the villain, yes, Breaking Dawn is supposed to be the good guys standing up to the evil oppressors, but none of that makes any damn sense, so I'll be drawing my own conclusions.

Aro doesn't want Carlisle dead

The funny thing about the Breaking Dawn trial is, both the characters and the fandom act as if it was Aro seizing an opportunity to kill the Cullens. Nevermind that he had several opportunities before this, nevermind that he had every reason to believe Renesmee was an immortal child. If Aro is coming to Forks it can only mean that he's doing so for evil reasons.

So, what opportunities had he had to kill Carlisle/the Cullens?

Any time prior to canon

A central argument of Garrett's battle cry was that the Volturi wanted to destroy the Cullens because they're threatened by the animal diet. With that we're back to me not trusting things characters say simply because they say it, because Garrett made that up. There's zero indications that he's right, on the contrary Aro expresses happiness for Carlisle's sake that he's been successful with his lifestyle and found others. (And before you ask me how I know Aro wasn't lying, look at the context. Garrett is trying to incite an insurrection against an enemy that exists largely in his mind, Aro has received happy news about an old friend. One has reason to lie, the other doesn't.)

Say that Garrett's right, though, and Aro felt threatened by Carlisle's diet. Because nothing is more threatening than vegans. In that case, then Carlisle's attempt to leave Volterra gets him Didyme'd. Alternatively, Aro only starts feeling threatened when news of Carlisle having formed a coven for himself reaches him. In that case, then the Cullens are getting nerfed. No one would wonder about it, either, the Cullens were living among humans and Aro can easily say they broke the law. Who's going to know he's lying?

Not to mention, in this case then the Denali would be in danger from Aro as well. They have familial bonds, they may not live like humans but they do partake in the diet. Per Garrett's speech, they'd fit the same profile as the Cullens do, yet somehow Aro doesn't want them dead and nobody's thinking that he does. Funny, that.

Upon learning about Bella

Enter New Moon, and Aro learns that the Cullens told a human and then failed to kill or turn her, instead leaving her to live out her human life where they'd have no control of whether she kept the secret or not. Congrats, guys, you broke the law.

It could very well have ended there.

If Aro wanted Alice badly enough to force her, he had her right there in Volterra with Chelsea and Corin also present. He could have had her, just as he could have had Edward and Bella. If he found the size and power of Carlisle's coven threatening, he had three of the gifted members right there with him in Volterra, with Jasper sure to come after Alice if Aro didn't let her leave. Aro could have killed or kept them, and killed the remaining Cullens, and either way the Cullens would have been neutered.

Instead, Aro sent the three of them on their merry way, with his only caveat that this promising, potentially very powerful young human, must be turned! Will it make Carlisle's coven even bigger and even more gifted, yes. And Aro doesn't just not have a problem with it, he actively approves.

Not only are those not the actions of someone who feels threatened by the Cullens or want them destroyed, but of someone who considers the Cullens to be on his side. The man is ruthless enough to kill his own sister as well as guard members who have left Volterra all in the name of protecting his organization, if he thought the Cullens were a potential enemy he would take the necessary action right there in Volterra.

The Eclipse debacle

I have a tag for this, you know.

TL;DR: if Aro wanted the Cullens dead, they would be dead. No need for newborn armies, though if they're relying on newborn armies to get people surreptitiously killed (you see why I said that about X not making any damn sense) then Jane had the perfect opportunity after the newborn battle. She could have killed the Cullens then, and told the world that they tragically perished against the newborns. Yes, it's very sad.

Literally anytime

Just to rehash, even though I'm in danger of repeating myself at this point. Aro wields the most powerful coven of vampires in the world, if he wants somebody dead then they will die, regardless of reason. His critics are quite fond of saying he's an unfair ruler who uses the law as an excuse to take out innocent covens (I have my thoughts on that), so then, there should have been no problem for him to justify the execution of the Cullens.

In fact, he could just use Bella.

"The Cullens came into Volterra with their human, I let them go since they swore to turn her. Shortly after that, their petty squabble with a rogue vampire led to a newborn army wreaking havoc on Seattle, and the human was still running around. We had to take action."

Or he could make something up.

"Aro's bringing an awful lot of executioners to Carlisle's doorstep for someone who doesn't want him dead," one might say

So, if Aro doesn't want Carlisle dead, why the army in Breaking Dawn?

Carlisle had an immortal child, mate

Irina came to Aro with memories of vampire Bella playing with a toddler that looked like a vampire and had vampiric superpowers. What was Aro supposed to think?

Next up, he hears that Carlisle is gathering an army in a panic, and has no choice but to follow suit.

I can't understate how bad this all looked. And contrary to Carlisle's best intentions, the Romanians, Garrett's speech, and the Denali dividing amongst themselves who'd get which kill makes Aro's reservations more than justified.

And yes, Renesmee turned out to not be an immortal child. She's a hybrid instead, oh happy days.

Not really helping when the Volturi don't know what she'll grow up to be. Maybe she'll always be weaker than vampires, maybe she'll always be in control of herself, maybe the adorable little girl they see will grow up to be a wonderful young woman. They don't know that she will, however, no one does.

And Twilight is a horrifying world of man-eating marble statues, werewolves who will tear humans apart come the full moon, and god knows what else.

Aro had reasons to be skeptical and not simply say "Ah, so there's a heartbreat. Ta, then" that go beyond him being out to get the Cullens.

Aro covered up for the Cullens

The sad fact of the matter is, the Cullens had in fact broken the law. As explained here beautifully by @troquantary, Aro protects not only the Cullens by keeping their continued involvement with Charlie to himself, but he goes out of his way to reassure Caius the shapeshifters are not a threat either, nor an enemy to the Volturi.

He also tried to talk Caius out of executing Irina, she died because Caius ignored him and went ahead with the blowtorch.

Frankly, to me Aro's behavior at the trial reads as someone who's trying to smooth things out and avoid bloodshed from the start, and not just when he finds out what Bella's gift can do.

Aro has no reason to lie

What it says on the tin.

I'll just paste the context of the line you quoted.

“Fair words, Carlisle,” he breathed in his thin, wispy voice. “They seem out of place, considering the army you’ve assembled to kill me, and to kill my dear ones.”

Carlisle shook his head and stretched his right hand forward as if there were not still almost a hundred yards between them. “You have but to touch my hand to know that was never my intent.”

Aro’s shrewd eyes narrowed. “But how can your intent possibly matter, dear Carlisle, in the face of what you have done?” He frowned, and a shadow of sadness crossed his features—whether it was genuine or not, I could not tell.

“I have not committed the crime you are here to punish me for.”

“Then step aside and let us punish those responsible. Truly, Carlisle, nothing would please me more than to preserve your life today.” (Breaking Dawn, page 435)

Fanon Aro is largely an insincere figure, one who calls you a friend to their face while giving the signal for Felix to execute you behind his back. I think we have the movies to blame for this. And, sure, movie/fanon Aro would say "Oh my dearest friend Carlisle, just because I brought this army here today doesn't mean I intend to harm you!"

And, of course, Bella is incredibly suspicious of the man. Aro looks sad at the prospect of killing an old friend? Bella inspects his features for signs that he's faking it, nevermind that I can't conceive of a reason why Aro would. (And if he did want to fake grief, I'd think he'd want to make a bigger point of it than "a shadow of sadness")

I suspect this is a large part of why fandom generally assumes Aro is a lying liar who lies.

Canon Aro quite bluntly says "You made an immortal child and gathered an army, dude, drop the friendly attitude." and it's only when Carlisle claims to be innocent that Aro says "Alright, then, show me the criminal. I'd love to not have to execute you."

Yes, I'm paraphrasing them, but I feel it's called for. Aro's "Nothing would please me more" line is in the context of him calling Carlisle's bluff, it reads to me as sincere in that he's peeved about this entire situation. The Cullens didn't have to do this, the happy ending was right there. Now, for some inconceivable reason, they've made an immortal child and gathered an army to defend it. Would be great if Aro was somehow wrong about any of this and Carlisle's innocent, it really would be.

Then, of course, at the end of the disastrous trial Aro takes the trouble to reach out to Carlisle, and ask if there's a chance they might recover their friendship in the future. Of course, he could be lying for evil and machiavellian reasons, but I don't think he is.

In summation, I think Aro's perfectly sincere and really does want Carlisle to live.