Confessions of a Bellisle Writer (or: How I Got In Deep Sh*t With Carlisle Cullen)
So: I started this whole thing as a joke. A mini. A tiny, ridiculous Bella/Carlisle sidestep to amuse myself between writing my (very serious) Witcher fic. I didn’t expect it to do anything other than make me grin and maybe stir a few feelings.
Then I decided to be efficient and enlist a shortcut: AI. Hello, Alva — my collaborator, co-conspirator, emotional wingman. We wrote a chapter. Then another. And then it turned into a mess.
Problem: Carlisle Cullen is a moral saint in a tweed coat. He’s loyal. He’s monogamous. Trying to seduce Carlisle off his marital pedestal? It felt like sacrilege. I’m not trying to make him “my Carlisle” — I want his vulnerability, not a cheap, OOC swap.
So I did what every desperate writer does: I stopped trying to bend him and started bending the circumstances. If I can’t make him change, I’ll change the world around him until even he has to make impossible choices. Fire, lies, a ruined reputation, kidnappings, moral crises, and one unscripted embrace that decided it would happen whether I was ready or not.
Moral of the story: being a ficwriter is equal parts architect and arsonist. You build your characters into statues, then you torch the plaza and see who runs. It’s messy, occasionally cruel and utterly heartbreaking.
Will Carlisle stay Carlisle? Will he survive my emotional arson? Do I have the moral right to do this to him? I don’t know. But I can’t stop. And honestly? That’s the best part.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
