fight hands up tits out

On the one hand, Edward and Bella’s reunion is sweet and cathartic (Edward being sure he’s dead and somehow in heaven because she’s there!!) and has juuuust enough angst with Bella worrying if Edward’s going to disappear anyway again but enjoying his presence while she has him. And the “blackest kind of blasphemy” speech? *chef’s kiss*

On the other hand it is SO LAME that Edward suddenly doesn’t have to worry about his bloodlust anymore around Bella. Like I get it it’s so perfectly Edward to be ~fixed~ by knowing true heartbreak but like. The guy essentially starved himself for months and then had his singer literally slam into him.

I’m not throwing this into the mix just because it looks cool (though it does, of course)… part of the reason this looks so creepy is it cancels out an avenue of nonverbal communication. The evolutionary advantage to white sclera is more accurate gaze following: humans infer where other humans are looking based on which way their head is facing + the amount of white visible (and on which side it’s visible). Having limited/no contrast between sclera/iris/pupil means that Bella is missing yet another cue from Edward. In this AU/rewrite he can’t speak once he gets a whiff of Bella, and with his eyes like this she can’t even properly place his attention. To cap it all off, she’s finally with him but she can’t properly look him in the eye.

So Bella slams into Edward in the plaza, and the smell of his singer to his starved mind makes his eyes go from black irises to fully blacked out. He’s already pale and gaunt, and now his eyes look empty.

if she chooses Edward, she gets the terrifying Breaking Dawn ending: a girl who rejected her call to grow up has hung her love & her eternity on an emotionally stunted partner who hates himself marginally less than he loves her. she's a teen mom with a kid she never wanted who perpetuates the generational trauma passed down from her parents. by keeping this child, the Cullens have set the stage for an uprising/cold war against the Volturi who are likely to take revenge in order to maintain power. Bella is living in a tenuous "dream come true" wrapped in a nightmare & doesn't realize it.

choosing Jacob is the true coming-of-age ending that rips the stitches out of a wound that never fully healed. even if we ignore the fact that she ends up with a man who sexually assaulted her (we must bear in mind Jacob's character is influenced by smeyer's racism, but it did happen), they can't have a secure romantic relationship. based on the high imprinting rate of the pack, Jacob will likely find his imprint in his lifetime & will lose himself to the imprintee. he will no longer be her Jacob. he will inevitably abandon her (whether he wants to or not), & she must reconcile with the reality that she will always be inadequate to Jacob's imprint. & say he never manages to escape the vampires? he will presumably not age for a long time, meaning the relationship Bella always feared with Edward (her being an old grandmother while he stays forever young) remains a possibility. this is the story of a girl who slaps a Band Aid on an open wound & calls herself healed while flinching every time she sees the shadow of the knife that cut her.

if she chooses neither (team therapy), her healing requires her to lose or be at least partially disconnected from everyone she cares about. Bella must spend the rest of her life shut out from one world while never fully existing in her human world ever again. she must always keep secrets. she can never go back home. even in the unlikely event that she manages to escape the Volturi, the threat of being hunted by vampires will never leave her. in addition, she must face her worst fears (aging, losing Edward) while always keeping in mind the immortal life that could have been hers, if only.

even the "healthiest" option produces scars that will never quite heal.

“Bella, socket wrench.”

“Mm, got it.”

ya lit meme | three of eight otps | twilight by stephenie meyer