i love your metas! I just discovered them today and have spent all afternoon reading them. I have two part ask, if that's okay. Firstly, do you think a sensible version of bella could survive if she recognised early on that keeping on Edward's good side was her only survival option? and secondly, on the flip side, just how unhinged do you think bella could be before edward rejected her?
Ooh, both interesting questions, anon. Let's do this.
Sane Bella and the Yandere Simulator
Last time, on The Carnivorous Muffin's ridiculous blog, we covered what would happen to a sensible Bella who realizes the Cullens are not fluffy bunnies she should take home.
The long and short, Edward eats her.
Edward's romantic interest in Bella, the thing that has him fighting his own baser nature to keep her alive, is dependent on a few things.
One of those is Bella's interest in turn.
In time, if Bella truly was not interested in him, he would eat her. Alice tells us there's only two paths for Bella: death or vampire. Leaving her and walking away is never a true option for Edward.
So, Sane Bella loses Yandere Simulator because she doesn't realize the key aspect of Yandere Simulator: You Never Say No to Yandere.
However, you point out something interesting here, that this is a sensible Bella.
Sensible people do not immediately think they're playing Yandere Simulator. You don't run across people like Edward often, there aren't many of him, and while there are red flags early in Twilight Edward did a pretty good job of making them not particularly visible.
By the time we hit Eclipse he's pretty much thrown pretending to be nice and sane out the window. Luckily for Bella, that doesn't appear to bother her as much as it should.
Bella thinking "if I don't play along with this inhuman whack job he'll eat me", is paranoid lunacy. It is not the first conclusion a reasonable person would jump to.
That it happens to be the right conclusion is irrelevant.
But alright, I'll play ball.
Paranoid Bella and the Yandere Simulator
Bella is utterly paranoid and wearing her tin foil hat when she enters Forks. She remembers Biology very well and when Edward comes back and pretends to be nice she gives him a strained smile and thinks, "This motherfucker will eat me the moment my back is turned."
Bella considers travelling back to Florida, but that would be leading Edward to her mother, more it would be very easy to find Bella if he truly wished to.
Florida isn't an option.
Bella tries to keep her distance from Edward, hard when he sits next to her in Biology, but he seems willing to ignore her. Bella calms down a little, maybe this will work out.
Bella is nearly crushed by a van, desperately pretends she definitely did not see Edward fold that van like a pretzel. Nope, no siree Bob, Bella is concussed! She then stays awake all night in terror and OH GOD HE'S CLIMBING THROUGH HER WINDOW! HE'S GOING TO EAT HER IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT! HE KNOWS THAT SHE KNOWS!
Bella pretends to sleep, horrified, and Edward stays there all night. Staring.
(Edward, meanwhile, is realizing he's in love.)
Bella enters school a nervous wreck, waiting for that fateful Biology class and... Edward is studiously ignoring her. He doesn't even say hello.
Bella would be relieved, except he keeps sneaking into her bedroom at night, staring. Bella gets no sleep for weeks.
Then the blood testing happens and suddenly Edward is talking to her. He tells her they shouldn't be friends and he doesn't want to be friends, GREAT, EDWARD, THAT'S GREAT. But then it's very clear that he's after something, and Bella's spidey senses are tingling.
Edward doesn't want to be friends.
Oh, oh shit.
Suddenly, Edward sneaking into her room at night takes on a whole, new, sinister twist. First he'll rape her, then he'll eat her (or who knows, maybe vice versa, Bella certainly doesn't want to find out).
Bella is driven home by Edward (he insists) and enters the house to wheeze into a paper bag.
She thinks over her options.
Edward can crush cars, Bella trips over asphalt. Even if she wasn't Bella, there's no way she could outfight him even if she wanted to.
Edward was very concerned when he suspected that she knew, he likely still suspects and Bella's not a very good liar. Bella doesn't want to find out what happens to her if Edward realizes she really does know.
Edward appears to have a romantic interest in her. Does Bella really have the option of saying no?
Bella, still wheezing in her bag, comes to what seems like an inevitable decision. She must humor Edward at all costs. For the sake of her family, of her own life, she must play into his romantic overtures. Bella can't act but now, her life depends on it.
Well, Bella still can't act, but luckily for her Edward doesn't care.
Edward just thinks Bella's very jumpy, a little nervous and shy, and just plain weird (given he thinks Bella's just plain weird in canon this is not too far from normal events).
So Bella gets to live in terror for things like the meadow, where Edward talks about how easy it would be to eat her, how he contemplated murdering Biology in cold blood to eat her in the most efficient manner, how he loathed her for daring to smell delicious, how Alice warned him there was a good chance of him eating Bella in the meadow today, all while pressing his cheek against her hammering heartbeat.
"AH HA HA HA HA, EDWARD, YOU'RE SO CHARMING."
Edward invites Bella to the house. These creepy, man eating, people all meet her with smiles. Edward has composed her a lullaby. One of them, Alice, tells Bella they're going to be best friends.
"AH HA HA HA HA, EDWARD YOUR FAMILY IS SO NICE."
In other words, somehow, all of Twilight still happens because Bella is terrified of saying no.
At least, until Volterra. Given Bella's being hunted by Victoria, even had Bella not gone cliff diving eventually Alice would see her eaten and then black out as the wolves chased off Victoria instead.
Bella spends New Moon having a great time. Mostly. The Cullens are finally gone, she's free, she spends weeks on edge thinking they might come back.
Just when she starts to relax, fucking Laurent shows up and learns Victoria's trying to kill her. Because of Edward, because of course, it's always about Edward. WHY ARE VAMPIRES ALWAYS TRYING TO KILL HER?!
Regardless, Alice shows up and goes, "Bella, my god, you're alive!" And Bella dies inside. Alice Cullen is back. Oh no.
Bella pretends she's thrilled to see her. Alice, her best friend, her favorite demon. Hurray. Alice fills Bella in on the New Moon scoop, Bella pretends to be very invested. Then Alice gets the vision.
Edward has decided to commit suicide via the Volturi.
Bella has no problem with this, unfortunately, she realizes that Alice clearly has a problem with this. Alice fully expects Bella to run off to Italy to save Fucking Edward.
Once again, Bella isn't sure she's allowed to say no.
Bella runs to Italy, finds herself saving Edward's life, and then she's brought before the Volturi where she might very well be executed because Edward Cullen happened to involve her in this mess.
BELLA NEVER WANTED TO BE HERE.
Bella snaps. She's crying, she just can't take it anymore, and she finally loses her shit at Edward. SHE NEVER LOVED HIM! HE IS SCARY AND WON'T LEAVE HER ALONE! IF THEY'RE GOING TO KILL HER JUST DO IT NOW BECAUSE SHE CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE.
Aro watches Bella's mental breakdown in utter amazement. Naturally, while Marcus suspected something was funky with those two, Aro did not see this coming from Edward's perspective.
Aro offers Bella her out, it is unfortunately death or vampire, but vampire is very much an option and Aro will offer Bella sanctuary in the Volturi.
Bella takes that offer and runs with it.
Edward is devastated and blindsided.
Somehow, neither he nor Alice saw this one coming.
But to answer your question: Paranoid Bella survives Yandere Simulator By Defecting to the Volturi
How Unhinged Does Bella Have to Be For Edward to Dump Her?
He won't.
Remember, Edward in canon thinks there's something legitimately wrong with Bella. She doesn't think like normal people, she always makes the least rational choice, and he can't hear her thoughts.
Edward doesn't think Bella's gifted just that she's... different. (Bella, hilariously, immediately picks up that Edward's calling her a freak. Edward backtracks hard on that one.)
Bella's decisions also become increasingly ridiculous as the series goes on.
She stabs herself in the middle of a battle, she insists on having sex with him while human, she consorts with shapeshifters (to Edward this is lunacy), she picked up motorcycle riding, she threw herself off a cliff, she ran from his sweet protection to the reservation, she believes he doesn't love her, and she doesn't want to get married.
I imagine Edward thinks there isn't anywhere left for Bella to go. She's left the planet, unhinged is her middle name.
But none of that matters.
I already linked the Edward/Bella post I always link near the top so I'll just recap. For Edward, it's all about the blood, the silence, and the projection.
An unhinged Bella is still a delicious and silent Bella. He can still pretend she's Carlisle.
Even if Bella became addicted to cocaine, and ruined that sweet scent, it wouldn't tarnish her memory. He'd nurse her back to health, then eat her so she never relapses.
That's the trouble with Edward/Bella, it's not about Bella, not at all. You could replace her with sweet smelling cardboard and Edward would not notice a difference.
