*vibin*

Bella "my Dad gave me pepper spray but I could definitely handle your twink ass without it" Swan:

The question remains:

But she also insists that Renesmee is 'smarter than most adults' and that Jacob is more child-like than her when she literally only has 3 months of life experience. I don't care how naturally 'smart' you are, you still need time to just like, be exposed to ideas and concepts. There's natural intelligence but there's also knowledge and wisdom. How can Renesmee understand Tennyson with only a few months of life experience? The poem she and Bella read is a reference to the Odyssey and about a bunch of dudes who get high off some flowers and decide to stay in a drugged haze instead of going back to their lives of toil. How on earth would a three month old have any context to understand that?

Yeah, that. The cullens talking about the wolfpack being dangerous.... Like are you serious? Edward, half your family was ready to jump attack bella over a paper cut.

You're existence caused them to change yet you keep coming back because forks is so cozy for you..

You are killers. They are protectors.

They change against their will, to hunt beings like you, to protect people, and you come there and insult teenagers.

You know they're shape shifters, but you just throw that in there, and it shouldn't matter, but it's made a big deal because Caius (was it him?) hated the children of the moon. It's disrupting the wolfpack with what they've always believed... And why can't they have their own form of werewolf? Why change it? Meyer didn't change the glittering skin, it's not important, it shouldn't be at least.

As protectors they should be more powerful, but yet all their powers get downplayed in favor of the Cullen's? This might be a movie-ism mostly, but it annoyed me to no end. (Bella is very good at this, almost dismissing someone because she has a certain view of them.)

I like the idea of unconditional love, but in reality, this thing is horrifying. People they had no interest in are suddenly the love of their lives. Not one is presented as that there was former interest.

Oh Meyer later threw in a 'Sam always liked Emily before in a friendly matter' but he was devoted to Leah. Jared did not like Kim at all. Quill had no interest in imprinting on a toddler. Neither did Jacob want to imprint on that demon baby... The one that's supposed to also be his enemy.. It makes no sense.

Come to it, the whole of we have no interest to be around each other now renewable (I tried 4 times to write Renesmee, it just keeps refusing!) Is born, what is that bullshit? Were you friends or not (in love it not?). None of the others feel drawn to their imprint before, not in this sense. Or bella being so happy with Jake around, and it was selfish (fitting for her) but also kind of a nice throwback of how close they use to be, and Meyer threw it under the bus by making him all about that baby. It instantly disappeared, an suddenly it was fate. Suddenly Jacob was only drawn to bella because of this unfertilized egg inside of her.

If that was true then quill would be drawn to Claire's parents before too. And yes Jacob should be drawn to be around Edward, and that would include having feelings for each other.

You can't change your whole lore to fit your one main character suddenly, Stephanie.

It makes everything feel dirty to me.

Rant isn't over but it's the middle of the night..I should be asleep, not getting worked up over words in a book.

🔊💯💯

this is why it was a slog when our friend group reading got through breaking dawn. The Jacob parts made it so clear that the book/Smeyer was trying so hard to get us to see the Cullen(izer)s as these "good to the core" people that were somehow just misunderstood by the aggressive, prejudiced werewolves. 🙄🙄

The wolfpack sacrificed more for the cullens and bella than ANY of them *ever* sacrificed in turn. And all the cullens gave back is more of the tribe's children being phased against their will. More child soldiers who were stripped off their normal lives and robbed of their childhood. And NOT ONE of these rich, self-absorbed, cullenizer white assholes ever acknowledged or felt even an *ounce* of guilt or regret. Because it's all to save *their* own.

But the fancy flashy lifestyle (that she never seemed to be comfortable about) was thrown upon her, and while she was a vampire she's graceful to pull it off, Alice dresses her up as a doll, this is not her choosing.

If I think of it, it would (almost) be abusive. (Older) man charms his way into a neglected young woman's life, gets her into danger and trauma bonding she mistakes for excitement and love. He starts becoming more jealous and controlling. Alienating her from contact with others. Letting him make the decisions.

When something goes wrong he abruptly abandons her making her feel like it's her fault. When she's finally ready to move on, is when he shows up again. Then the possessive issues flare up. He accuses her friends of being bad, he prevents her from visiting. Every gift she gets, as special and heartfelt as it is, he needs to better bigger more! He uses his wealth to show his love or his apology.

At the end Bella is not herself. The way she acts, the way she dresses. She didn't want to marry or have kids, but within 2 years she is. She can never leave.

In the movie and the book Bella and Edward joke about what a ridiculous mess they have left for the house cleaners and how long it will take for them to clean it up. But Edward is literally a vampire - he could clean the entire room and fix the bed in less than five minutes.

the only thing i'll give it is that at least here it's bella's house. meanwhile the cullens with their wealth and private islands and 'enough money to keep a small country afloat for a decade' thought it was cute to hire the locals for to maintain their property because they'd rather repeat high school for the 19th time and play housewife than dedicate a few days flying over to the island and cleaning it up (pretty sure they can even get it done in one day!)

lemme get my camcorder real quick

yup. owns up to it in breaking dawn.

The way she dehumanizes him and the rest of his pack/tribe is disgusting. What stuck out to me beyond that fact was that she (through Carlisle) specifically mentioned Jacob has 24 chromosome pairs. I don’t know much about genetics but I know humans usually have 23 pairs, so I looked up 24 chromosomes and came across this article which was published in 2019. It stated, “Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, while all other great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans) have 24 pairs of chromosomes.” Immediately I knew that this was not a comparison that anyone should make against anyone, especially a character that is Native because of the history of racial slurs used against them. I wasn’t sure at this point if this was something Meyer would have known at the time (because the first article was published in 2019), however, I then came across a more reputable source (PBS) which published an article in 2005 (meaning Meyer could have had access to it as Breaking Dawn was released in 2008.) This article states: “While great apes all have 48 chromosomes (24 pairs), humans have only 46 (23 pairs).” She could have reasonably known this information. This, in addition to the comments about the ‘divergence from humanity’ and ‘your species’ comment, lead me to the conclusion that

In the page before the one shown above, Carlisle reveals that vampires have 25 chromosomes:

Now I think smeyer knows jack shit about chromosomes and she didn’t do any research, not because I want to undermine @angelaweberisbi​ ‘s conclusion (because I don’t) but because an offspring occurring from parents who have 25 and 23 pairs of chromosomes would be akin to a miracle.

I think that she thinks when two parents with different chromosomal counts produce an offspring, the offspring’s chromosomal count ‘meets in the middle’ of the two. If one parent has 23 pairs and the other has 25 pairs I think smeyer thinks the hybrid offspring would have 24. 

Why do I think that? This whole scene of chromosome talk is actually foreshadowing as well as horrible racism. If Renesmee really does ‘meet her parents in the middle’ in terms of chromosome counts, that means she has 24 pairs of chromosomes- the same as The Pack. The same as Jacob.   

Smeyer spent two pages of Breaking Dawn trying to assure us that Jacob - a friggin’ teenager- and Renesmee -at the moment a literal fetus- are sexually compatible. More sexually compatible than shapeshifters and humans. They can have children and their children can have children and they’ll be the strongest children because of the matching chromosome count. Why is this important to her? Because that’s the basis of imprinting. She says in the books that imprinting is to produce the best possible offspring, ones that can pass on the strongest genetics and assure than the ‘phasing gene’ gets passed down. 

So the chromosome talk is just an excuse, foreshadowing, explanation, justification, whatever, for the upcoming imprint between Jacob and newborn Renesmee. 

And it’s several layers of messed up because she’s already sexualizing an unborn child and throwing away any pretense that imprinting is anything but inherently sexual.  

These native teens (Leah being the only one who's just *barely* not a teen at age 20) had to uproot their lives and essentially become homeless just to defend these millionaire colonizers who were the VERY REASON they became wolves in the first place, and what do these so-called ""good and misunderstood"" Cullens show for it?

An imprint that ties their pack leader to that family forever where he (and potentially his pack) essentially have *no* chance of returning to a normal life ever again, verbal abuse and slurs thrown their way by the Cullens and even Bella (who nearly kills Jacob while they do nothing! 😀 so Seth has to suffer for it! Fun!), more of the people in their tribe forced to shift due to the increased vampire presence because these colonizers who the book (Smeyer) really loves to emphasize how rich they are *somehow* CAN'T USE SAID MILLIONS OF MONEY TO MOVE ELSEWHERE WHERE IT *WON'T* AFFECT THE TRIBE and they DON'T feel bad about it let alone *acknowledge* what they've caused other than ONE (1) paragraph where bella notices this *yet she blames SAM for "allowing" it???*

...and i'm SUPPOSED to see this family of rich, colonizing, white ASSHOLES as the ""misunderstood good guys"" who deserve sympathy and that the wolves/the Quileutes were "wrong" for it?

Because Bella chooses NOT to grow up.

Matures? Comes into her own? Experiences a loss of innocence? Realizes her true potential? Your mileage may vary.

Grows up? Literally no. She's frozen in her teens forever.

Barring some bizarre tragedy, she's going to have eternal 'parents' to look after and guide and protect her. Anything that is going to kill Carlisle or Esme is probably going to take out the whole Cullen clan. Bella's never going to have to get a job or pay bills if she doesn't want to.

Yes, she literally transforms into a vampire, but she doesn't transform into an adult because she's opting in to the Cullens' whole EternaTeen family structure. She's married, but so are Alice/Jasper and Rosalie/Emmett and they still function as teens, going to high school, etc. She has a baby, but Renesmee is so advanced she basically raises herself (Bella doesn't have to teach her to talk or read or walk or anything, she just does it!), and Jacob and Rosalie are there to do the unglamorous parts of childcare anyway (feeding her blood, etc). Bella gets to be rich and never has to worry about a job or housing or money or setting off on her own and if she did try any of that and failed, Carlisle and Esme would be there to take her and Edward back in.

her feeling beautiful, powerful, and overall comfortable being herself? that's only when she became a vampire. it took vampirism for her to find any sense of worth in herself, and it's sad that the takeaway from the books is that she basically 'needed' to change and be stripped of herself just to be able to love herself*, rather than learning to love herself being what pushed her to make those changes. ~tani

*idc about any of the cope or rewording used to justify the writing; bella becoming a vampire did strip her of herself. she loves the sun? now she has to stay away/out of it, especially if she has to integrate in society. she loves the warmth? she's married to cold stone, and she becomes one herself. she faints/avoids blood? too bad, that's now the only thing she has to consume, forever.

Plus, we have to remember that people change. It's natural.

Also, in my opinion the movies are way better than the books. They are imperfect, but at the same time they are way better than the books.

Stephanie Meyer can go fuck herself btw. She is a racist white asshole who should have kept her filthy hands away from Indigenous culture.

respectfully i have to kinda disagree with it being bella's choice. She explicitly tells Jacob she "never had a choice [like Sam and Emily]" when finally admitting to Jacob she loved him too. She knew it, she wanted it all, and realized that maybe "that was why [she] was fighting against [Jacob] so hard". There were instances in the book that strongly imply becoming a vampire was more out of necessity to get out of having to age (something she fears), the "only" way to be with edward forever, and because the Volturi would have otherwise killed her for knowing about vampires. In at least two of those situations, her hands were pretty much tied. And thats not getting into how the *actual* transformation happens, ie. when she's unconscious/dying, so it's even at a situation where there virtually ISN'T a choice because the alternative is death anyway.

I'd get into it more but that's the gist of how I personally see it, so we can agree to disagree. the books did have moments of an *inkling* of natural growth or change on bella's end, but becus it's smeyer writing her protagonists, the way it happens is so jarring that vampire bella and human bella side-by-side don't feel like the same person. The transition from insecure human to cool, confident vampire...just isn't earned.

Oh, totally. You can come up with all the in-universe reasons you want, but the real reason is that she didn't want to write from the POV of a ravenous newborn with uncontrollable bloodlust. I mean even in the Bree book the newborns spend most of their time in a basement playing video games and reading. Bree is ALSO more controlled than most. SM's not in it for the vampire/blood stuff. I was legitimately let down by Bree because I was like, finally! Vampiring!! and then it was so much tamer than I had envisioned in my head.

It's just a lot easier for her to tell the stories she DOES want to tell by having her main characters not have to deal with it. She wants the romance and the relationships, the power and the beauty, not shrieking feral monsters.

...while he was in the throes of the transformation. Meaning the guy was burning in sheer agony three straight days all the while the Cullens thought that that was somehow the perfect time for him to be attentive and prepared.