he's not evil smeyer's just racist

25 | she/they | team bella swan is a LESBIAN | i love every character u hate and hate every character u love and that's just how it be

[danshive]

This is going to sound MEAN, but I think editing / rewriting the first chapter of Twilight could be turned into a very effective learning exercise taught in actual schools.

It’s someone’s first book, and the mistakes are all ones we could make, but it’s published and well-known. It could be useful.

Whether the mistakes are “mistakes” is subjective, but that would be part of the exercise.

It wouldn’t be about rewriting the whole thing. It would be about identifying potential problems, rewriting, adding, or removing parts to address those problems, and defending those choices.

And because it’s part of a complete, published novel, these choices could include benefit of hindsight. Missing foundations could be set, WHY BELLA MOVED could be included right away without being made up, things like that.

[hasufin]

I feel like that would be a great exercise in "How do you improve a work without fundamentally changing it?"

Because I think many people would try to improve the story in ways which make it not-Twilight. Gods know, when I was in school I'd often get criticism which amounted to "I see you have written about <topic_1>, to do this better you should have written about <topic_2>." Which isn't useful. Twilight is essentially an easy-insert romance in a modern fantasy - romantasy - setting. And a lot of people strongly dislike that entire genre. But any deviation from that makes it not-Twilight.

And I think it's important to separate "I don't like this setting/plot/character" from "I don't like this because it is poorly constructed."

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Have you ever read a book that kind of sucked but somehow managed to have an incredibly compelling character in it that you just wanted to free from the book and put somewhere better written and more interesting

bestie I read comics

[bellasdumptruckass]

“twilight vampires are so lame they sparkle in the sun🤣🤣🤣” have you considered that other vampires just burn and die

[bellasdumptruckass]

@sarcasticorgasms

this is a threat

[incorrectwolfpack]

Seth: Leah, am I ugly?

Leah: no! I’m looking at you right now and you’re the most handsome boy in the world!

Jake: am I ugly?

Leah: very much

[notkatniss]

[panlight]

Vampires in Twilight and no sleep: "I have so much more time for Activities!" or "They just have to be conscious . . . all the time? Forever? With no breaks? No Rest? One long endless 'day?'"

Discuss.

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

I feel like meditation would be a good solution for twilight vamps. Like, it's not real sleep, but it would HAVE to improve their mental health, right? Since sleep deprivation is known to cause serious health issues in humans, I always figured it was part of why twilight vampires were so Stressed all the time. They could never just... Take a break from existence.

Alternatively, it could be like in the cartoon Steven Universe, where the aliens don't naturally sleep, but they learn how to do it from humans. Can you imagine how furious Edward would be if he realized he COULD have been sleeping all this time and he just didn't know it. He finds Garrett taking a nap and he's like '???!!!' and garrett's just like 'have you just. never tried laying down with your eyes closed???'

[jasperwhitcock]

someone: wait, you like twilight?

me:

[panlight]

Midnight Sun reminded me of something else:

When the nomads show up at the baseball game, the implication is that they heard a game and wanted to play.  Which sounds like Vampire Baseball is common enough that other vampires recognize the sound of it. But it never comes up again. So is it a thing or not?? Do Twilight vampires play sports and recognize the sound and seek out other vampires to play sports with? Are there nomads who just run around the woods with like a baseball bat and football and tennis rackets on the off chance they run into other vampires playing sports? 

[dddemigirl]

Chanting Vampire sports vampire sports vampire sports—

[panlight]

She REALLY seemed to be hinting at some larger lore or vampire culture or something here and then just it’s never mentioned again. 

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

maybe part of their interest was just how WEIRD it was. like imagine you're a small squad of vampires and you hear thunder, only -- not? the sound is not quite organic, and it's definitely coming from a specific area, and there are voices? laughter?

so you go to investigate, and -- okay, that is. possibly the largest coven of vampires you have EVER seen. dangerously large. the sort of numbers that would get the Volturi on their case.

and they're all dressed in these fruity little outfits, horsing around, playing BASEBALL.

you gotta admit, that's the kind of thing that sparks your curiosity

[bellasberrycobbler]

So i just had a thought while rereading twilight, but it seems kinda weird that Bella’s mom is positioned as a neglectful mother, and all round a flaky person, and she’s a single mom+left a man. I feel like there’s another layer of mormonism+misogyny there, but maybe I’m just reading into it?

It just seemed before MS that renee was probably neurodivergent, especially because she keeps hopping from hobby to hobby and has rlly bad memory. I related a lot to renee, and i have ADHD. But the negative parts of renees character didn’t even come out until MS, and i feel like if smeyer wanted to stab single mothers she wouldve just done it in the original series? But there is just smth rlly weird about it

Idk~~~~~ need another opinion

@fuckmeyer pls help; i trust ur brain more than mine.

[fuckmeyer]

no, i agree w/ u! imo there are a few reasons why renée’s character shifts in midnight sun (MS):

1) @fckyeahitslauren knows what’s up: renée was originally positioned as “harmless harebrained mom who’s close w/ her daughter.” smeyer re-calibrates renée in MS to respond to critics & fans who picked up on renée’s awful parenting

2) MS is in edward’s pov who, besides being a pessimistic prick in general, gets a negative first impression of renée thru bella

3) bella actually has a warped view of her mom bc renée’s brain is weird (this also serves as an in-world explanation for bella’s vamp gift):

No one seemed to notice the ringing mental broadcast, yet everyone was compelled to help her [Renée]. Somehow, they were picking up on her need, and unable to ignore it. […]

This gave new dimension to what Bella’s life with her mother must have been. No wonder she had been so protective, so nurturing. No wonder she’d given up her childhood to take care of this woman. (MS, 712-714) [ugh smeyer just beat ur readers over the head w/ a stick next time u wanna make a point that loudly]

you def are catching some misogyny & i agree there’s sth there. in some ways renée is a stereotype of the single mom: irresponsible, careless, selfish, etc. but like many women in the series, bella & renée’s stories mirror each other imo for another reason:

“I’m not that girl, Edward. The one who gets married right out of high school like some small-town hick who got knocked up by her boyfriend! Do you know what people would think? Do you realize what century this is? People don’t just get married at eighteen! Not smart people, not responsible, mature people! I wasn’t going to be that girl! That’s not who I am… .” (eclipse, 159)

they have similar stories, but bella’s is the “good” story: a young virgin binds herself eternally to one soul thru a kept promise to god; marriage (aka immortality) & parenthood frees her. renée’s is the “bad” story: young girl gets swept off her feet & rushes into marriage, parenthood/marriage makes her feel trapped (instead of free), so she divorces & raises bella w/o a father present. renée’s story serves as a warning to bella. it creates tension for bella & edward. but renée’s life is cast in a negative light also in part to make bella’s situation look better.

smeyer does this a lot w/ bella & other women. bella, who represents the “good” example of xyz, is compared to “bad” examples: renée, leah, rosalie, etc. (each is different in their own respect)

i think you’re right. there’s misogyny happening on a micro scale that we see in renée’s character. imo renée’s characterization also illustrates on a macro level how some female characters are pitted against bella in order to justify bella as good (& therefore deserving of edward)

tl;dr imo renee’s character warped for several reasons in MS. but i believe the misogyny you’re seeing also plays into the broader fact that smeyer tends to cast other female characters in a negative light to make bella seem better than she is

[witchyangela]

Just to add re. The ADHD thing! Both me and my mum have ADHD and I do see a lot of us in Renee. As I grew up in with my mum, like Renee, hopping from job to job with a bunch of hobbies and side projects. But the way Smeyer went wrong is suggesting that someone who doesn’t follow a traditional career path and is more adventurous couldn’t also be a responsible care giver. Like I couldn’t imagine my mum leaving me alone for weekends while she went away or making me do the taxes for her like Smeyer has Renee do to Bella. Like that is very much abuse and smeyers suggestion that it stems from renees implied neurodivergency is kind of distressing. Of course this is all implications and not in the text, so it could all be me reading too much but also… It IS Smeyer. That being said it is very likely she is totally unaware of the implications and just thinks that any single mother would be like Renee… so hmmmm to that

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

a couple things to consider:

as someone with ADHD, depression, and anxiety, to say a neurodivergent person can’t be abusive is, in the kindest terms, disingenuous

renee is not the only single mother in the series (esme and tiffany call were both single mothers and are written as good parents)

renee was ALWAYS written as neglectful of bella. she never FORCED bella to pay the bills, do the laundry, cook their meals – she just FORGOT, and bella, being the ~*saintly*~ protagonist she is, picked up the slack without complaint.

it should also be noted that bella still loves renee and still considers her a good parent. she acknowledges that, while renee wasn’t much of a provider, she tried her best to support bella emotionally. she memorialized her in renesmee’s terrible name.

my opinion is that renee is smeyer’s attempt at a nuanced female character – an incompetent but loving parent – as well as an explanation for why bella is such a ~*mature*~ old soul type.

[witchyangela]

Sure I totally agree but like… no where in my entire post did I suggest that an neurodivergent person can’t be abusive? Like any one can be? I think you are being very kind to Smeyer to suggest that Esme and Tiffany are good single mothers when Esme was portrayed as a married housewife for the entire series and Tiffany was an extremely minor side character, who is written as a underdeveloped version of Donna from Mama Mia. I don’t personally believe that Smeyer meant Renee to be neurodivergent but she does have some traits that make her seem like she is. I think it is very likely that Smeyer didn’t really realise how she had written Renee until the fan reaction but that she did subconsciously write her as irresponsible due to her Mormon unbringing and the way it influenced her view of single parents.

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

okay i wasn’t and still am not trying to pick a fight, i’m just confused.

you didn’t say ‘a neurodivergent person can’t be abusive,’ you just said writing a neurodivergent person as abusive was ‘distressing’ and that ‘Smeyer went wrong’ by doing so. i interpreted that as a condemnation of writing abusive neurodivergent characters. i’m sorry if that wasn’t what you meant -- i didn’t mean to put words in your mouth.

when i mentioned Esme as a single mother, i was referring to her leaving her abusive husband while pregnant, which imo is framed in a positive light despite its tragic end. and while Tiffany is a background character, that doesn’t change the fact that her One Personality Trait is ‘Good Single Mom.’ also, acting as if Tiffany doesn’t count because she’s underdeveloped kind of ignores the fact that Smeyer is a shitty writer and all her characters are underdeveloped.

i guess i just misinterpreted the purpose of this whole post?

i thought the argument was ‘Smeyer made Renee a shitty parent on accident due to her Mormon influences.’

i was counterarguing that ‘Smeyer made Renee a shitty parent on purpose to explain why Bella is Like That.’

i was looking at the post as a whole, not just your @witchyangela contribution. i reblogged from you because i follow you. i spent a lot of time trying to get the tone and wording right, but was clearly unsuccessful, and for that i apologize.

[bellasberrycobbler]

So i just had a thought while rereading twilight, but it seems kinda weird that Bella’s mom is positioned as a neglectful mother, and all round a flaky person, and she’s a single mom+left a man. I feel like there’s another layer of mormonism+misogyny there, but maybe I’m just reading into it?

It just seemed before MS that renee was probably neurodivergent, especially because she keeps hopping from hobby to hobby and has rlly bad memory. I related a lot to renee, and i have ADHD. But the negative parts of renees character didn’t even come out until MS, and i feel like if smeyer wanted to stab single mothers she wouldve just done it in the original series? But there is just smth rlly weird about it

Idk~~~~~ need another opinion

@fuckmeyer pls help; i trust ur brain more than mine.

[fuckmeyer]

no, i agree w/ u! imo there are a few reasons why renée’s character shifts in midnight sun (MS):

1) @fckyeahitslauren knows what’s up: renée was originally positioned as “harmless harebrained mom who’s close w/ her daughter.” smeyer re-calibrates renée in MS to respond to critics & fans who picked up on renée’s awful parenting

2) MS is in edward’s pov who, besides being a pessimistic prick in general, gets a negative first impression of renée thru bella

3) bella actually has a warped view of her mom bc renée’s brain is weird (this also serves as an in-world explanation for bella’s vamp gift):

No one seemed to notice the ringing mental broadcast, yet everyone was compelled to help her [Renée]. Somehow, they were picking up on her need, and unable to ignore it. […]

This gave new dimension to what Bella’s life with her mother must have been. No wonder she had been so protective, so nurturing. No wonder she’d given up her childhood to take care of this woman. (MS, 712-714) [ugh smeyer just beat ur readers over the head w/ a stick next time u wanna make a point that loudly]

you def are catching some misogyny & i agree there’s sth there. in some ways renée is a stereotype of the single mom: irresponsible, careless, selfish, etc. but like many women in the series, bella & renée’s stories mirror each other imo for another reason:

“I’m not that girl, Edward. The one who gets married right out of high school like some small-town hick who got knocked up by her boyfriend! Do you know what people would think? Do you realize what century this is? People don’t just get married at eighteen! Not smart people, not responsible, mature people! I wasn’t going to be that girl! That’s not who I am… .” (eclipse, 159)

they have similar stories, but bella’s is the “good” story: a young virgin binds herself eternally to one soul thru a kept promise to god; marriage (aka immortality) & parenthood frees her. renée’s is the “bad” story: young girl gets swept off her feet & rushes into marriage, parenthood/marriage makes her feel trapped (instead of free), so she divorces & raises bella w/o a father present. renée’s story serves as a warning to bella. it creates tension for bella & edward. but renée’s life is cast in a negative light also in part to make bella’s situation look better.

smeyer does this a lot w/ bella & other women. bella, who represents the “good” example of xyz, is compared to “bad” examples: renée, leah, rosalie, etc. (each is different in their own respect)

i think you’re right. there’s misogyny happening on a micro scale that we see in renée’s character. imo renée’s characterization also illustrates on a macro level how some female characters are pitted against bella in order to justify bella as good (& therefore deserving of edward)

tl;dr imo renee’s character warped for several reasons in MS. but i believe the misogyny you’re seeing also plays into the broader fact that smeyer tends to cast other female characters in a negative light to make bella seem better than she is

[witchyangela]

Just to add re. The ADHD thing! Both me and my mum have ADHD and I do see a lot of us in Renee. As I grew up in with my mum, like Renee, hopping from job to job with a bunch of hobbies and side projects. But the way Smeyer went wrong is suggesting that someone who doesn’t follow a traditional career path and is more adventurous couldn’t also be a responsible care giver. Like I couldn’t imagine my mum leaving me alone for weekends while she went away or making me do the taxes for her like Smeyer has Renee do to Bella. Like that is very much abuse and smeyers suggestion that it stems from renees implied neurodivergency is kind of distressing. Of course this is all implications and not in the text, so it could all be me reading too much but also… It IS Smeyer. That being said it is very likely she is totally unaware of the implications and just thinks that any single mother would be like Renee… so hmmmm to that

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

a couple things to consider:

as someone with ADHD, depression, and anxiety, to say a neurodivergent person can’t be abusive is, in the kindest terms, disingenuous

renee is not the only single mother in the series (esme and tiffany call were both single mothers and are written as good parents)

renee was ALWAYS written as neglectful of bella. she never FORCED bella to pay the bills, do the laundry, cook their meals -- she just FORGOT, and bella, being the ~*saintly*~ protagonist she is, picked up the slack without complaint.

it should also be noted that bella still loves renee and still considers her a good parent. she acknowledges that, while renee wasn’t much of a provider, she tried her best to support bella emotionally. she memorialized her in renesmee’s terrible name.

my opinion is that renee is smeyer’s attempt at a nuanced female character -- an incompetent but loving parent -- as well as an explanation for why bella is such a ~*mature*~ old soul type.

[angelavweber-deactivated2021111]

new moon au in which bella immediately tells her friends about edward abandoning her in the woods and jessica and angela are immediately oh we’re gonna throw a party at their house

and every young person in forks and la push is like

they drink like its the end of the world. someone breaks the pool table. someone takes a shit on carlisle’s computer.

[finitetwilight]

twilight au where Bella goes to meet James in the ballet studio to die but instead she finds him in a tutu and pointe shoes and he just wants to perform the nutcracker for her

[crimsoncullen-deactivated202407]

he nervously asks her to record him so he can show victoria and make her proud

[finitetwilight]

" I borrowed this camera from your house I hope you don't mind ahaha do you think you could record it for me 👉👈 ... I want to surprise my gf I hope she likes it 🥺"

[crimsoncullen-deactivated202407]

[twifeordeath]

istg either edythe knows how to play piano without moving her elbows or their bench is ridiculously long. getting two people on the same bench works potentially if they’re playing together but it’s a squeeze. i’d be annoyed if someone tried to sit next to me while i was trying to play 😂

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

please make it a comically large piano. just cartoonishly oversized. I beg of u

[twilightofficial]

Wouldn't half human half vampire hybrids be like so much stronger than normal vampires? I mean the canon reasoning behind the newborns being so strong is that they still have some of their human blood still lingering and it takes a year for the venom to change every single part of their biology into a full vampire... But the hybrid would ALWAYS have their human blood and tissue strengthing and fueling the venom in their bodies as well...

[rosalielesbianhale]

pour one out for jessica stanley’s cousin who had leprosy

[rosalielesbianhale]

Renesmee, chatting to her friends at lunch: Yeah, my mom got married super young, straight out of high school, to a guy who was way too old for her. She got knocked up immediately. They kept the whole pregnancy a secret, she didn’t leave the house the entire time she was showing. My dad’s family didn’t even want to take her to the hospital to have the baby. My grandad, who was a doctor, was going to deliver me but she went into labour prematurely, like, way prematurely and they couldn’t reach him so my dad ended up having to deliver me even though he had no experience. Anyway, she died in childbirth. She was only eighteen.

Bella, from the other side of the cafeteria:

[pauladeroma]

So… why is Leah Clearwater the bitch that should just get over her ex while Jacob is the poor guy that deserves compassion?

[howulikindaraingirl]

me reading eclipse and breaking dawn

[fuckyeahilike]

In the novels Leah is the only Quileute woman who is a member of the pack - and yet not a single man shows any kind of sexist animosity towards her, no one tries to take advantage of her, she is simply a member of the team like them. 

In the reactionary world that we live in this will never stop infuriating the 4chan misogynists who simply can not stand that a woman has written a narrative that depicts what a wonderful society this would be if only there were lots more Progressive Native-Americans like the ones she writes about and a lot less white racist men. Shrug.

So they write posts like this, where they make it seem as though anyone in the novel would ever be sexist like they are and call Leah the warrior a bitch. News flash, Twilight is an anti-racist feminist book. No one in it shits on WOC.

Never believe on face value any criticisms made about novels written by women, is what I’ve learned. Withhold your judgement until you’ve read them yourself and do not be surprised if 9 times out of 10 the “criticisms” were sexist smears, designed to make you not want to read female authors.

[beehivee-deactivated20210203]

“Anti racist feminist book ”

[jacobblackdefensesquad]

#oh god I remember this gal saying twilight was feminist and atheist#I legit think she might be a troll#edit: checked her blog she’s ac just a TERF so like... explains it tbh (@witchyangela)

omg lmfaoooooo........ should have known it was terf brainrot

‘not a single man shows any kind of sexist animosity towards her, no one tries to take advantage of her, she is simply a member of the team like them’

dude what the fuck, the pack constantly belittles and dismisses her feelings and their resentment towards her is the background radiation of her time in the pack. she hates it so much that as soon as she gets the chance to leave, she jumps ship, even to protect a bunch of vampires. just because they don’t tell her to make them a sandwich or try to m0lest her doesn’t mean they are kind to her.

but what can you expect from someone who claims white patriarchy is radical feminism! get well soon sweetie :)