The Nerdiest Nerd To Ever Nerd

HERE: some things that make my brain go brrrr……………… and as of the year of our lord 2026 (homie still hasn’t come back yet)……. some things that make my brain brrrroken)

[panlight]

Twilight AU where Forks High is literally a Magical School and 90% of the students there are supernaturals and Bella just didn’t notice because of her laser focus on Edward. 

Angela actually IS a witch and Bella sits next to her in a class about forest magic but it doesn’t even register to Bella and it’s just like “ugh time for that weird forestry elective.” 

Bella is fascinating and interesting to all the kids BECAUSE she’s just a normal human. 

[panlight]

One day Mike shows up to school having literally been transformed (temporarily, some sort of homework-gone-wrong) into a golden retriever and Bella just … doesn’t notice. 

And suddenly the Cullen kids putting zero effort into blending in or looking human at school makes a lot more sense! They don’t have to; everyone clocked them as vampires on the first day. They’ve seen them before.

“Yeah they’re all together together but they’re only related by vampiric adoption or venom or whatever so it’s fine,” but all Bella hears is “that hot red-headed guy is SINGLE!” 

Carlisle gets to have all sorts of fun at the hospital treating normal human stuff and weird magical ailments and doesn’t have to pretend because everyone knows about the supernatural stuff in town and can just like, sniff a blood sample and diagnose the problem and everyone’s like “well, he would know.” 

[panlight]

For some reason this concept popped back into my head this morning.

[riverofempathy]

WRITE IT WRITE IT WRITE IT

[riverofempathy]

Also, I’m delighted to inform you that I plan on combining Twilight and Gilmore Girls in an AU universe where Rory doesn’t dream of going to Harvard, it’s a magical university, and Bella moves to town and is instantly attracted to the redheaded hottie with the stunning family and she obviously becomes friends with Jess so they can annotate books and share them and talk about growing up with an immature mom and a dad you don't know and moving to this weird ass town that is a combination of New England and Forks vibes because uh duh you can't have Gilmore Girls without Connecticut and you can't have Twilight without the Pacific Northwest, and this is my magical universe, I'll make it do what I want.

and idk yet maybe Stars Hollow is just Gravity Falls with extra teen drama and slightly-more-mature silliness like the Cullen family (esp Emmett) carrying Bella around like a football, unironically playing the American past time known as baseball (in vintage uniforms, no less) while blasting Muse, and Edward giggling about Bella fainting at the sight of blood in a SUPERNATURAL TOWN WITH VAMPIRES especially because she hasn’t figured it out yet (maybe the rule/magical binding is you can’t verbally tell anyone or you die, but like, if they figure it out, don’t worry about; just bite them, eat them, or keep them quiet).

also!!! since Billy Burke is already in Gilmore Girls, maybe Charlie and Lorelai date at some point… I mean he canonically takes her fishing... the ship writes itself.... Not sure if that means I'm replacing the endgame of Luke/Lorelai with Charlie/Lorelai... I haven't written it yet, don't ask me questions I don't know, Travis!

and let's not forget the dynamic duo Rory and Lane, the bookish, analyzing-every-album-under-the-sun, buys-their-mom-a-record-from-a-record-store kind of nerds who become best friends who should totally dream of running a bookshop and music shop together while they both pursue their own dreams of being a journalist and a rock star—like come on, that's magic!!!!

Maybe Mrs. Kim is like anti-magic? Rather than religious? Or both? And that’s why she doesn’t like/trust Lorelai, because she supports her witchy daughter, which is also a big reason why Lorelai ran away with baby Rory, because she showed signs of magic and she was terrified Emily and Richard would treat her horribly because SHE was treated horribly and high society treats magical people as lowbrow, but when Rory gets into Chilton and she asks them for money, they’re secretly thrilled, and it becomes more and more obvious how proud they are to have a witch in the family, and the family actually fucking heals.

[riverofempathy]

RIP Neville Longbottom and those 5 terrifying seconds in which he truly truly thought he had killed THE Harry Potter.

With a plant.

I mean, way to upstage the Dark Lord, my guy.

[luna-azzurra]

TIPS FOR WRITING GRIEF (AGAIN)!!!

⟢ ⟢ ⟢ LONG POST!!! ⟢ ⟢ ⟢

⋆˙⟡ Grief is not sad all the time and that will mess your character up more than the sadness does. There are going to be hours where your grieving character forgets. Where they're laughing at something stupid on their phone or annoyed about traffic or genuinely hungry and thinking about what they want for lunch and then it comes back and the forgetting makes it WORSE. The return of it after a moment of normal is its own specific violence. It feels like betrayal. Or it feels like proof that you're not grieving right, that you didn't love them enough to remember every second. Writers keep their grieving characters sad in every scene because it reads as respectful and consistent and it is WRONG. The grief that ambushes you in the cereal aisle is realer than the grief you perform at the funeral.

⋆˙⟡ THE STUFF!!! nobody talks about the stuff. Someone dies and suddenly there is a BODY and there are OBJECTS and both of these things require immediate logistical decisions that do not pause for your feelings. What do you do with their half-finished cup of tea. Their reading glasses on the nightstand. Their voicemails still on your phone. Their shampoo in the shower that you cannot bring yourself to use but also cannot throw away so it just. Sits there. Getting lower somehow. Did someone use it. Did you use it without noticing???? the material reality of someone's absence is brutal and specific and most grief writing floats above it in abstraction like feelings are the main event. The feelings ARE happening inside a body that is standing in a house full of objects and that matters. SO WRITE THE OBJECTS.

⋆˙⟡ Grief makes people act completely out of character and everyone around them handles that badly. Your character might get mean. Might get inappropriately funny. Might make a terrible financial decision or sleep with someone they shouldn't or stop showering or clean the entire house at 3am for the fourth time this week. Drief does not make people into better, softer, wiser versions of themselves on any reliable schedule. Sometimes it makes them into someone they don't recognize and that is terrifying on top of everything else. Snd the people around them (friends, family, whoever) they want the grief to be legible. They want it to look like grief is supposed to look so they know what to do. When it doesn't look right they get uncomfortable and then they get scarce and then your grieving character is also somehow dealing with the secondary loss of people who couldn't handle it. which is its own thing.

⋆˙⟡ Someone died and your character didn't like them very much. Or loved them and also resented them. Or is relieved and then immediately guilty about the relief. Or is grieving someone who hurt them, someone with whom things were unfinished in a way that can never be finished now, someone who they had been estranged from, someone who they were about to reconcile with, someone who they had been slowly losing for years before the actual death so the death was almost anticlimactic except that it closes the door in a way that slow losing doesn't. Grief for a complicated person is complicated. You grieve who you wished they were alongside who they actually were. You grieve the relationship you deserved and didn't get. None of this is clean. None of this resolves. Stop writing grief like the person who died was beloved and simple. MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT SIMPLE.

⋆˙⟡ The body keeps doing its thing and that's horrifying. You know what happens the week someone close to you dies? you get hungry. You get tired. You wake up at the normal time. Your body does not know. It has not been informed. It wants breakfast and it wants to stretch and at some point it is going to want things you feel like you have no right to want right now. The physical continuation of your own life in the immediate aftermath of loss is one of the stranger things a human being has to experience and almost nobody writes it. Your character needs to eat. They need to sleep. Their back hurts. They have a headache that won't quit because they've been crying and dehydrated for four days. They are a body doing body things in the middle of the worst thing that has ever happened to them and those two realities exist at the same time with no resolution.

⋆˙⟡ Anniversaries and dates are only half the ambush. the random Friday is the other half. Everyone knows about the first birthday without them. The first holiday. The one year mark. Those dates are braced for. Your character knows they're coming and steels themselves and sometimes that even works. What nobody warns you about is the random Tuesday in March that isn't any significant date at all except that something small happens: the light is a certain way, a song comes on, they see someone wearing the same jacket, and it is somehow worse than the anniversary was. Grief has terrible aim. it does not respect the calendar you've organized it into. it goes quiet for weeks and then destroys you on an unremarkable Wednesday because you drove past a gas station you used to stop at together. Write the random Tuesday. it's realer than the anniversary scene and it will devastate people who know.

⋆˙⟡ People say insane things to grieving people and the grieving person has to just stand there and take it. They're in a better place. Everything happens for a reason. i know exactly how you feel, when my dog died--and your character cannot say anything because this person means well and grief has a strange etiquette where the bereaved is somehow responsible for managing the comfort of everyone who comes to comfort them. The grieving person ends up performing okayness for the people who came to check on them. Ends up reassuring people. Ends up saying thank you for coming when what they want is for everyone to leave and also for no one to ever leave. This role reversal is so common and so rarely written and it is one of the most exhausting parts of early grief. Your character is drowning and spending energy making sure everyone else feels good about the life jacket they brought.

⋆˙⟡ The person who died keeps getting fixed in time while everyone else moves. This one is strange and i don't see it written enough. Your character ages. Changes. Has experiences. Develops opinions. And the person they lost stays exactly the same age they were, exactly the person they were, forever. Which means the gap between who your character is now and who the person was gets wider as time passes. You become someone they never knew. You have thoughts you can't tell them. You reach an age they never reached. Eventually you outlive them. You are older than they ever got to be. And the version of them in your memory is younger than you now. The relationship you carry continues to evolve even though only one of you is still here to evolve it. That is bizarre and sad and completely human and almost nobody writes it. WHY??? :///

⋆˙⟡ Sometimes grief makes people feel closer to the person they lost than they did when they were alive. This sounds counterintuitive but it is real. You finally understand them. You find the journals, the letters, the things people tell you at the funeral that you never knew. You have time to think about them with a clarity that the busy mess of being in relationship with a living person doesn't allow. You miss them in a way that is also a kind of intimacy. The relationship after death is one-sided and strange and ongoing and real. Some people feel the presence of the dead vividly for years. Some people talk to them. Some people make decisions based on what they think the person would have wanted. it's just the relationship continuing in the only form it still can. And it can be written seriously, without irony, without it being a sign that the character is unwell.

[luna-azzurra]

Real thing that changed how i write: I started asking "what does this character think is wrong with them" and separately "what is actually wrong with them." Those two things are almost never the same. She thinks she's too much. She's actually terrified of being too little. He thinks he's bad at commitment. He's actually just never met someone he trusted enough. The gap between their diagnosis of themselves and the real thing, that's your character arc right there. you don't have to explain it. just write both.

[riverofempathy]

Oooo helpful!

[itsfortheplants]

guys. I think we go too easy on edward cullen.

[midnight-sunnydale]

When does Edward Cullen Accountability Week start??? Because I am READY

[edwardskhakipants]

The problem is that I love everything that's wrong with him. Edward Cullen Accountability Week and Edward Cullen Appreciation Week are the same week.

[midnight-sunnydale]

This is absolutely true

[edwardskhakipants]

I mean I'll obviously start ... My favorite things that are wrong with Edward Cullen:

1. He's got no rizz for the entirety of Twilight. Cannot believe that Bella still likes him after All That.

2. Finds out the girl he's crushing on likes him back and his first thought is to send her to a mental hospital

3. Stalks a girl and confesses to stalking her (this charms her????)

4. Blinded by love, he makes zero good decisions in New Moon. Complete buffoonery.

5. Tortures himself and is shocked to discover that hurting himself hurts those who care about him. (this seems deeply unfair but okay...)

6. Threatens marriage at every inconvenience.

7. Does not want to fuck in honor of The Lord.

[midnight-sunnydale]

This is it, THE definitive list of all the reasons why I love Edward Cullen. Everything he's ever done wrong is also everything he's ever done right. Thank you for the delightful summary.

Also @edwardsvirtue what are you doing hiding gold in the tags??????

[riverofempathy]

I used to relate to Bella.

After reading Midnight Sun, now I relate to Edward.

[hoahoahoahoahoa]

The debate over whether Bella’s depression in New Moon was reasonable or not has always been wild to me.

First of all, I’m sorry but if I had a dream that I wanted as badly as Bella wanted hers, had it so close, and had it ripped away so suddenly (being told it’s my fault) I too would have fallen into a severe depression. That sucks. Having this otherworldly experience, having the reasonable belief you could live a fantasy of being young with your beautiful lover for eternity, only to be unceremoniously dumped back into the real world? That sucks!!!!!! Didn’t Doctor Who do a whole thing about post-adventure depression in companions?

Also, much more importantly: depression doesn’t need to be justified. It’s not always reasonable. Sometimes depression just happens for reasons that make little to no sense.

So when the protagonist of a love story falls into depression when her love interest leaves her, I think “yeah, no shit”

[edwardskhakipants]

Also, it's a common narrative in paranormal romance novels for the love interest and the main character to break up. I think the main difference between Twilight and the others is that the protagonist deals with her depression between books. Usually, a book ends in a cliffhanger where the love interests can't be together, and the next book starts with the protagonist forced out of their stupor by the return of magic in their life. With Bella, we sit in her depression for an entire book! New Moon is a sad read! But Bella is not the only female main character who falls into a depression when her dream and true love are ripped away from her. It doesn't make her weak or pathetic or whatever bullshit people want to say about her. It makes her a normal human suffering consequences in a magical world.

[riverofempathy]

ALSO

Bella says herself that she falls into a depression in *Twilight*. Her mother notices her tone shift in emails, and Bella tells her it’s just the weather.

Bella *has* to email her mother. Frequently. Or her mother will get upset. Bella had to remind her mother to pick up her dry-cleaning within the first few *days* of moving to Forks, and she had admitted within the first few *pages* that her mother was erratic, harebrained, and more of a child than a parent, but she should be fine without Bella and the bills would be paid and the car filled with gas because “she had Phil now.”

Bella had to take over the finances at age 8. She did most of the cooking. She still does most of the cooking when she moves in with her father, who she barely knows, who is barely mediocre (Book!Charlie not Movie!Charlie), a move that she makes with great dread. She calls it her self-imposed exile.

Bella was already depressed. Or on her way there. She’s had to be an adult her whole life. She doesn’t plan on getting attached to anyone while she’s in Forks. Oh yeah, and she hates Forks. She hates the rain. She struggles to *sleep* in the rain. She almost dies because the rain freezes overnight and another kid’s van loses control taking a corner too fast, and Bella was standing at the back of her truck, overcome with sudden emotion because her father got up god knows how early to put chains on her tires so she would be safe on the icy roads *and she isn’t used to being taken care of.*

And then Edward saves her.

And he saves her again.

And he saves her again.

And he loves her.

And he loves her more.

And he loves her more.

Even though he is constantly fighting the urge to kill her. He wants her blood more than he’s wanted anything in his entire life. He can’t keep away from her, and Bella. Doesn’t. Care. She trusts him.

She trusts him to take keep her safe. To take care of her. To give her everything she’s never had. Everything she wants.

And then Edward rips it all away. Not just the relationship, but his entire *family.* The photograph of him. All traces that he ever existed, which is exactly what he promised it would feel like.

It left a gaping hole in her chest. It drained her of all life and energy, and she recognized herself in the zombie of a horror film. She screamed every night about being lost in the woods that Edward **left** her in, which she kept running through to find him because she couldn’t believe he would leave her, he promised he would never leave her, he promised that he loves her, that she could be with him forever, but he broke up with her in that cold, dismissive, villainous tone that he initially, fiercely, purposefully used when he denied the truth about saving her from the van.

Of course she fell into a deep, dark depression.

She was already bound to.

[riverofempathy]

Plus there’s the James of it all. And the Port Angeles of it all.

Even if Stephenie Meyer didn’t dive into it, she wrote multiple forms of trauma into Bella’s story, and I know from personal experience the complicated journey your mental health can take with multiple forms of trauma. Especially when they collide at the same time (childhood parentification, SA, devastating breakup, etc.).

[hoahoahoahoahoa]

The debate over whether Bella’s depression in New Moon was reasonable or not has always been wild to me.

First of all, I’m sorry but if I had a dream that I wanted as badly as Bella wanted hers, had it so close, and had it ripped away so suddenly (being told it’s my fault) I too would have fallen into a severe depression. That sucks. Having this otherworldly experience, having the reasonable belief you could live a fantasy of being young with your beautiful lover for eternity, only to be unceremoniously dumped back into the real world? That sucks!!!!!! Didn’t Doctor Who do a whole thing about post-adventure depression in companions?

Also, much more importantly: depression doesn’t need to be justified. It’s not always reasonable. Sometimes depression just happens for reasons that make little to no sense.

So when the protagonist of a love story falls into depression when her love interest leaves her, I think “yeah, no shit”

[edwardskhakipants]

Also, it's a common narrative in paranormal romance novels for the love interest and the main character to break up. I think the main difference between Twilight and the others is that the protagonist deals with her depression between books. Usually, a book ends in a cliffhanger where the love interests can't be together, and the next book starts with the protagonist forced out of their stupor by the return of magic in their life. With Bella, we sit in her depression for an entire book! New Moon is a sad read! But Bella is not the only female main character who falls into a depression when her dream and true love are ripped away from her. It doesn't make her weak or pathetic or whatever bullshit people want to say about her. It makes her a normal human suffering consequences in a magical world.

[riverofempathy]

ALSO

Bella says herself that she falls into a depression in *Twilight*. Her mother notices her tone shift in emails, and Bella tells her it’s just the weather.

Bella *has* to email her mother. Frequently. Or her mother will get upset. Bella had to remind her mother to pick up her dry-cleaning within the first few *days* of moving to Forks, and she had admitted within the first few *pages* that her mother was erratic, harebrained, and more of a child than a parent, but she should be fine without Bella and the bills would be paid and the car filled with gas because “she had Phil now.”

Bella had to take over the finances at age 8. She did most of the cooking. She still does most of the cooking when she moves in with her father, who she barely knows, who is barely mediocre (Book!Charlie not Movie!Charlie), a move that she makes with great dread. She calls it her self-imposed exile.

Bella was already depressed. Or on her way there. She’s had to be an adult her whole life. She doesn’t plan on getting attached to anyone while she’s in Forks. Oh yeah, and she hates Forks. She hates the rain. She struggles to *sleep* in the rain. She almost dies because the rain freezes overnight and another kid’s van loses control taking a corner too fast, and Bella was standing at the back of her truck, overcome with sudden emotion because her father got up god knows how early to put chains on her tires so she would be safe on the icy roads *and she isn’t used to being taken care of.*

And then Edward saves her.

And he saves her again.

And he saves her again.

And he loves her.

And he loves her more.

And he loves her more.

Even though he is constantly fighting the urge to kill her. He wants her blood more than he’s wanted anything in his entire life. He can’t keep away from her, and Bella. Doesn’t. Care. She trusts him.

She trusts him to take keep her safe. To take care of her. To give her everything she’s never had. Everything she wants.

And then Edward rips it all away. Not just the relationship, but his entire *family.* The photograph of him. All traces that he ever existed, which is exactly what he promised it would feel like.

It left a gaping hole in her chest. It drained her of all life and energy, and she recognized herself in the zombie of a horror film. She screamed every night about being lost in the woods that Edward **left** her in, which she kept running through to find him because she couldn’t believe he would leave her, he promised he would never leave her, he promised that he loves her, that she could be with him forever, but he broke up with her in that cold, dismissive, villainous tone that he initially, fiercely, purposefully used when he denied the truth about saving her from the van.

Of course she fell into a deep, dark depression.

She was already bound to.

[justsomeguycore]

i actually do think i’m the most qualified person to be in charge of a twilight reboot. they should let me

[justsomeguycore]

because something i think was majorly missing from the movies is just that like. bella and edward just like each other. like yeah it’s this great epic forbidden love drama or whatever but they also are just two high school nerds who like each others nerd shit. she’s reading brontë and austen for fun, he’s listening to debussy in his car, they’re both fighting over who gets to identify mitosis stages under the microscope in bio class, like, vampire shit aside, they’re just two friendless losers who like each other

[lunastwilightblog]

I saw this comment on a YouTube Short today and YES EXACTLY

Carlisle may well have pure intentions but he’s NOT ACTING LIKE IT

[riverofempathy]

Stephenie Meyer WAS A COWARD

[partywithponies]

Daily affirmations:

At least I'm not in high school

At least I'm not a teenager

At least I'm not addicted to AI

At least I don't waste time and money on a daily 12 step skincare routine

At least I'm not American

[riverofempathy]

Goddamn you got me on the last one. Yeah, I freaking wish I wasn’t American.

[preyingforsnuff]

I'm not just a monsterfucker I also love them romantically

[riverofempathy]

[hoahoahoahoahoa]

Ngl I love that Emmett was killed by a bear and they turned out to be his favorite food, with which he insists on playing. It’s like he has sworn vengeance on all bears for eternity, knowing he’ll win every single rematch. He’s such a fun character

[riverofempathy]

HE’S SO FANTASTIC!!! He is *living life* as an undead bear-murderer with a hot, badass wife, weird brothers, and cool new sister being dressed up like a doll by his even weirder sister!

[hoahoahoahoahoa]

Part of the fun of Twilight is the process of Bella figuring out the ~mystery~ of what’s weird about Edward (besides the obvious freak traits <3). The intrigue adds to the thrill of the emotional rollercoaster. We as humans relate to Bella the human being fascinated by someone’s apparent inhumanity.

So you’d think that we’d lose any air of mystery in Midnight Sun since we’re in the vampire’s head, right? WRONG. We’re in the vampire’s head and there’s no question as to what Bella is, but ☝️ Edward is in a position that’s unique even to vampires: thanks to his telepathy, he’s out of practice in figuring out who someone is. The mundane concept of getting to know someone you just met has been made 5,000x more complicated by Edward’s nature.

Furthermore, Edward pays much more attention to the changes he goes through than Bella ever does when she’s the narrator. Bella is who she is, which includes being a human teenager. Change is to be expected. The fantastical circumstances of the story push her traits to the extreme, but she doesn’t really surprise/question herself too much. But Edward? Bella rocks his world so hard he now has to figure out Bella’s character AND deal with some serious shifts in his outlook after almost a century of being stagnant.

Twilight has a fun spooky mystery; Midnight Sun has a mystery that has been placed under a magnifying glass under the sun until it catches fire

[riverofempathy]

Both are a GREAT time.

[panlight]

I am at work and I just accidentally smashed my pinky finger between the armrest of my chair and the desk and it REALLY hurt but I work in a library so I didn't even make a sound and turned, smiling, to help a patron as my finger throbbed and bled and what I'm saying is Bella and Carlisle being quiet during their vampire transformations have nothing on me.

[boomer-mythology-destroyer]

[riverofempathy]

I love when humans—

[asneakyfox]

one of my favorite bits in lord of the rings is something the movies didn't really try to do because it's entirely internal, but sam's carrying the ring and it starts trying to do its work on him, so he's having these intrusive visions of himself marching at the head of a vast and terrible army, and he just starts laughing because, me? samwise gamgee? sam gamgee the general sam gamgee the dark lord are you for real? man i just want to go home and do some gardening. and the ring gets frustrated and it starts trying to figure out other stuff that would actually tempt sam and it's finally like, okay, but hear me out: imagine if you could have...A REALLY REALLY BIG GARDEN

[asneakyfox]

and then he's like, i don't know that sounds like a lot more work than a regular garden actually. why don't we just get on with finding mister frodo

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

forgive the version of you that didn’t know any better

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

forgive the version of yourself that knew better but did it anyway. forgive every version of yourself. we are constantly learning from our mistakes.

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

forgive the version of you that didn’t know what to do and could not have foreseen what the right choice was, if there even was one. forgive the version of you that made a choice and regretted it.

[riverofempathy]

… forgive the version of you that can’t forgive all the versions of you that you want to forgive… yet.