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That would be Nebuchadnezzar's Dream by @therealvinelle

Caveats: The Thing About Surnames

While "Cullen" doesn't rank amongst Johnson, Smith, Anderson, etc. the most common surnames you'll run into in America--the thing about the United States is that there are a lot of repeat surnames, even ones that are less 'common' or were butchered due to immigration.

While I've never personally run into anyone with the surname Cullen, I also would not at all assume two groups of people are related. Even if they're in the same town, especially if they're separated by several decades.

That would feel like a very bold assumption.

You're also not going to have anyone obsessively looking through the town charter to find this coincidence. Possible, but even if they do, again, no reason to believe these are the same people even if there's an exact name match for Dr. Carlisle Cullen.

If the Cullens are pressed, they can write it off easily with a shrug of "maybe a distant cousin or something, but I've never heard of them" and there would be no reason to press.

And for what it's worth we're told the Cullens (excluding Rosalie and Carlisle) do switch names and background stories with moves. This is especially true when there were different groups of people in the family where you had Edward posing as Carlisle's brother, then Esme's brother, and now his son since there's too many young people hanging around that it's that or saying "yes, we are a communist commune, why do you ask?"

We don't know if they had the same names in Forks or not, though Carlisle and Rosalie certainly would have.

The Actual Problem with Forks

Comparing 1930 to 2005 there are absolutely people who could still be alive from that time period who, while young at the time the Cullens arrived, might remember the Cullens as they would have been just as big/perhaps even a bigger deal/strange thing back then.

We don't seem to see it among the people of Forks... but Lapush knows exactly who these fuckers are. We don't see reference to anyone who was actually alive at the time, but the story's been passed down and Billy's generation is close enough to the source that they take it very very seriously and he knows exactly who Carlisle Cullen is when he calls Billy up and dies of terror.

Are we putting them in a death cage and telling them to duke it out? WHO SHALL BE VICTOR, CULLENS?! RANK YOURSELVES!

MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!

But anyway, honestly, my boring answer is they're actually fairly egalitarian all things considered. Yes, Carlisle seems to have the final say (or at least gives that impression) but they do discuss large decisions before making them and they routinely have votes that do seem to be very democratic. They care about how many people say yes and no.

And each time we see it they do abide by that.

Now, it's a little murky because while Bella won the vote to be turned by a landslide she also got Carlisle to say yes and Alice: both of whom also said "I will turn you even if everyone else disagrees", Carlisle being the ideal biter in fact and the one she'd probably go to anyway (save for the fact that Bella really wanted it to be Edward). But, regardless, Team Edward was heavily outnumbered that day... which is why he smashed a TV.

The "What do we do after the van?" vote is also a bit murky as you had Jasper and Rosalie voting "STAY AND KILL THE GIRL" which was not really an option on the table, and it sort of turned into a giant mess that was solved by Alice pulling a That's So Raven where she dramatically stops the meeting to have a vision then say "it's all cool, Edward's in love" which stopped Jasper who had completely planned to go and kill Bella anyway. But, Team "Let's Not Murder Children" did technically win the vote that day.

Basically, point being, everyone really does get a say and we never see one character always getting their way and another not. Rosalie tends to get the short end, but the things she voices also mostly revolve around attempting to make choices on Bella's behalf which gets... complicated.

And yes, they have their family structure and all that, but it has never stopped any one of those characters from saying "I will do what I want" and then doing it.

Alice will absolutely go behind everyone's backs for the sake of the future. She does it all the time.

Edward, as well, consistently says "well, your suggestions are stupid anyway" and does what he wants. That's basically the entire series.

Jasper makes no pretense that he'll do whatever he thinks he has to, he absolutely was going to kill that teenage girl in cold blood for having been saved by a van.

Alphard's not a raving pureblood fanatic or a violent idiotic lunatic, he''s a calm, rational guy. So when his biases and prejudices rear up it's easy for them to go over your head until you give it a closer look and do a double take.

Like, he doesn't hate muggleborns. He doesn't want them dead. He just thinks they're not all that special compared to purebloods, (aside from a few notable exceptions) and they would be better off it they just stayed in the muggle world.

He also has a massive blind spot when it comes to his family, especially his nieces. Those girls can do no wrong in his eyes. It's their husbands that are the problem.

Alphard is not evil, but it can be easy to give his views a pass because he's not frothing at the mouth with hate when he says them.

The Man Who Would Be King by me and @therealvinelle

Glad you appreciate him and his awful (yet dangerously subtle) opinions! Alphard is either a hit or a miss with our readers and it's always interesting to see where he lands for people.

Look, @therealvinelle, high praise for our characters!

Leech in the Rain

Space Oddity (chapters with Renesmee were... reluctantly... posted to tumblr...)

I'll point out up front that @therealvinelle wrote Bleach on the Brain solo, I was just the humble beta. The others, though, are all joint works.

And thank you! That's really great to hear as we take a wildly different stance than I know a lot of fics do.

All in total?

Then since August 2023 @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin and I have produced unpublished fanfiction coming to a total of 2261189 words.

I mean, we probably know the answer but I'm just curious about your thoughs :)

You know, not sure I've answered.

Bella in Canon

The thing about Edward in Twilight is that Bella unwittingly uses their relationship for a sense of validation. Bella has no idea why Edward would ever love a lowly creature like her, but through Edward's love her life has some meaning.

Edward is so special, wonderful, and unbelievably extraordinary that merely by being in a relationship with him Bella's life becomes special and extraordinary as well. And, if he turns her, she too will be special and extraordinary in her own right.

Basically, one of the massive appeals of Edward was that he was so beyond the scope of normal. He's faster and stronger than any creature, he's hauntingly beautiful, he has a perfect memory, he has special mind reading powers, and he's obsessively interested in her.

A normal guy in a normal relationship isn't going to have any of those things. He may be good looking, but he's not a god. He may be athletic, but that just makes him a jock (which Edward is very much not, he gets the package of nerdy intellectual bro plus super athletic hot), and he's not going to spend his every second thinking about her, crawling into her room to be together, telling her that he can't live without her he would literally die right now, etc.

And yeah, that's a markedly better relationship--

But Bella's not in a good place for a normal relationship. Right now she's in a headspace where she needs someone to need her unconditionally, or else she'll shatter.

Such as when Edward said "I tire of you" and dumped her, and Bella spiraled into severe and near lethal depression that lasted for six months up until he admitted "I was lying".

The thing is that even when Jacob becomes a love interest, he's only on the table for very similar reasons! There's not only the fact that he's good looking and supernatural which lends him athleticism without being too jocky, but there's the fact that after becoming a werewolf and his entire life falls apart he makes it his life's mission to get together with Bella/stop her from becoming a vampire. She's the only thing in his life that has remained marginally normal, and so he throws everything he has into the relationship and just as before, Bella uses Jacob's friendship/interest in her to validate herself. Jacob's positive regard for her and presence in her life is the sole thing that keeps her going until Edward returns.

So, basically, Bella at seventeen, in Forks right that second, is only interested in a guy who is obsessively interested in her to the detriment of their own (and ultimately her) well-being and who is in some way special.

It's very understandable, Bella's self-esteem is below ground-level and never really improves, and she has no friends who would otherwise form a social/support network (which is partly her doing but for understandable reasons).

But to get out of this mindset, Bella needs some self-reflection and maybe a bit of growing up/getting away from Renee and heading to an environment newer than high school.

Bella Outside Canon?

Yes, probably.

Bella would undoubtedly have changed as things went on. She'd meet new people, attend university, and maybe she'd gain more confidence in herself and no longer need someone to make her the center of everything/someone she can label as 'special'.

But I don't see why not if she meets the right person at the right time. Yes, she's very attracted to the supernatural/specialness--but there are ways us ordinary folks can be special too and maybe she'd just outgrow that with enough time.

There's a lot of things that seem great when you're seventeen and a few years later you say, "Edward did what?"

Mike Newton Specifically/The Thing About Mike

No.

On every level.

The thing about Mike is he becomes the stand-in "normie" for Edward and Bella for some fucking reason but he's not actually the average human being. He is a person in his own right, he is not "representative of humanity", and Bella dislikes him as a person.

At first Bella just finds Mike a little annoying/overeager.

Okay, he wants to carry her books to all her classes, a bit much and he's drawing attention to her, but she guesses that's nice of him. Glad people find her popular for some reason, reasons she can't explain to herself.

Bella gets into her flirtatious on again off again relationship with Edward (in which he ignores her until he stops ignoring her and she's very intrigued) and Mike... is annoying about it. He hovers over her table, like the annoying coworker/classmate who just won't fucking leave your desk, and keeps talking, and talking, and thinks you're totally into him because you're too polite to somehow end the conversation.

"Wow, Mike, wow, everything you say is fascinating, wow--um, class is starting by the way"

Meanwhile, Bella's made aware that Jessica (who at the time is a friend) has feelings for Mike and is hoping he'll ask her to the dance. It's not official yet, but to Bella it seems like a pretty done deal in "oh, okay, that'll be really nice for them".

Then fucking Mike blows it by asking Bella.

Bella tells him she's not going, he pushes... annoyingly, she tells him that she's seriously not going. Is she sure she's not going? She then tells him, "hey, if you haven't noticed, which is hard because it's obvious, you should invite Jessica who would be thrilled to go with you."

Mike's reaction isn't "ew", to be fair, but there's a moment of being very taken aback (which is fair, he wasn't considering Jessica at all before that point) that Bella watches and thinks (in much kinder words in the prose) "this douche".

And then Bella has to pretend/make herself happy that Jessica's thrilled to be going to the dance with fucking Mike, and has no idea that she was his second choice.

And while Jessica starts dating Mike officially... Bella is haunted by the very clear evidence that Mike is still very horny for her specifically and would drop Jessica in a heartbeat to go out with Bella, Jessica who is Bella's friend. And Edward of course confirms all of this.

Add into this that somehow Mike is just around at stupid times in Bella's life when she doesn't want him there (such as interrupting the amazing time Bella had getting sick from blood fumes while Edward carries her to the nurse's office) and Bella just finds him... annoying.

She wants to think he's a nice guy, normal, but annoying, so deeply annoying.

And why can't he have a fucking nice relationship with Jessica?!

Mike was never an option for Bella, ever.

It's just that Edward fixates on the idea and can't let it go.

Edward also finds Mike deeply annoying and a typical normie, he's the epitome of slack-jawed teenage human youth where there's not many thoughts in his head except "wow, maybe I could date the hot girl". It's just that he's very persistent and interested in dating Bella.

And to Edward, who thinks Bella will figure out any second that he's a monster and dating him is a bad idea... he finds Mike to be a real and credible threat.

He needs constant validation that Bella won't leave him for the Mikes of the world (the humans) or Mike specifically who is right there. And when he imagines Bella in an ordinary human relationship, there's Mike in his mind holding her hand as they go to the hospital.

Add in the fact that Edward can't read Bella's mind, something he very much relies on... and his uncertainty is greater than it otherwise would be because he can't reassure himself that she's not into Mike.

He has to bring him up, casually, every so often just to hear Bella ask, "What the fuck? No. I am not into Mike, stop bringing this up, Edward".

So Edward can relax for a little bit about it.

From Bella's perspective, it's very much a "why are we always bringing up Mike??? out of all people??? consistently???"

Defending Mike a Little

Oh, thank you, look @therealvinelle, praise.

So, I purged my ffnet account for a number of reasons, primarily being I didn't want it scraped and feeding the Chat GPT beast.

So, if you see any links directing you to ffnet, yeah, those are gone.

HOWEVER, I painstakingly moved every single fic I wrote to Ao3. So, it's all there, but you do need an Ao3 account to view them. Provided you are logged in, however, all you have to do is search here.

To my knowledge, nothing is missing, even fics I deeply, deeply, regret and were written when I was terribly young.

Bella would feel incredibly insecure but there's a few answers she can land on.

A)

If this is human Edward then he marries someone from his human past and doesn't know about mates any more than most humans do. Bella doesn't fit into this time and world, which she'd view in a very romantic light, and maybe she can swoon over Edward and they can curse that they were never meant to be but there's not much helping it and she's glad that if Edward had gotten his way and had a human life he would have had a happy family.

B)

Different universe, different Edward. Maybe there is no Bella Swan in this universe, maybe for whatever reason this Edward just happens to be mates with new person. It does make sense in that if Bella and Edward are made for each other, Bella can't be this Edward's soulmate. Could be they're just different enough that it threw everything out of whack.

C)

Edward is tragically with someone not his mate a la Victoria and James/Victoria and Riley. This does happen and maybe Edward doesn't know his real mate is out there and so settled into a relationship hoping he'd be happy. This is extra tragic as if Edward did meet this world's Bella Swan, the love of his life, the only solution would be either despair where they never get together or uh homewrecking.

Thank you!

I don't really love the classification system that's used in Twilight, as it reminds the nerd in me of how unsupervised k-means AI classification will work: it looks at the data points and says "Okay, these are different enough from the rest and similar enough to each other that they're probably related. Alright alright, this cluster must be blue."

You also, when doing this type of classification, want to tell the computer how many categories it's looking for, which depends on the size of the data set, and the type.

It's not a perfect analogy to what Eleazar is doing, but he reminds me more of a k-means cluster than he does Charles von Linné, who was a brilliant biologist who invented the modern system of naming and categorizing organisms that we use today.

He looks at the gifted vampire he is presented, compares it to other gifts he has known, and assigns a similar category if he finds one that's similar. This, famously, leads to such differences as psychic and physical gifts (which to me is such a "Are you a computer trying your best with unlabelled classification? Are you having a hard time?" thing to which the computer would sadly admit "yes :(") where what's assigned a physical gift and what's assigned a psychic gift seems so incredibly arbitrary and contradictory that I can only assume somebody got ahead of themselves with "A and B are similar. B and C are similar. A, B, and C must be the same category!" and now they have a problem.

As an example: Aro and Edward are similar. They both read your mind. They have clear differences, however, as Aro requires physical touch to do so and Edward requires doesn't, while Aro is able to read all the thoughts you've ever had while Edward can read every mind within the area. You can classify them as mind readers, sure. Now you have a category describing "vampire who can read minds".

Demetri, according to Edward himself, is also similar to Edward. They both sense a person's mind, without need of touch. However, Demetri senses location, Edward doesn't, and Edward senses thoughts, Demetri doesn't. Edward is limited by geographical distance, Demetri is limited by one degree of Kevin Bacon. But if we want to classify them, then mind sensing might be the best way to do so. Both can stand in a room and, without moving a muscle, have a sense of every mind around them and they will gain information others can't.

Aro and Demetri, however, have very little in common. Their common denominator is that it "has to do with the mind".

Now for added difficulty: how do we classify Renesmee? She can by touching people convey her thoughts. This seems to be something she needs to block rather than choose to show, as people can touch her to see her thoughts when she's unconscious.

Is she then in the same category as Aro and Edward, or we create a parent category for "something to do with mind reading" and Aro and Edward are a shared subcategory for reading the minds of others well Renesmee is in sharing her mind, or is Edward off on his own with non-tactile mind-reading while Aro and Renesmee get a shared subcategory for tactile mind-reading-related? Does Demetri belong higher up in the tree, at the "mind sensing" junction before the others split off into the "something to do with mind reading" subtree?

The reason why I ask these questions, is to illustrate how meaningless it all is. There are so few gifted vampires in Twilight that we don't have enough data points to start looking for meaningful classification or similarities. Aro, Demetri, Edward, and Renesmee are all unique, with gifts unique to them. God knows that if my theory that Renesmee's real gift is to make people not want to hurt her, then she's suddenly in the same camp as Renata, who makes people forget what they were doing when they try.

Except Renata's gift is to disorient people when they get physically close, Renesmee's is to make them not want to hurt her in the first place. If we classify them together, then I don't think Renata can be classified as a shield anymore. The impenetrable space around her would only be a materialization of her gift, which is to dissuade attackers from entering that space.

Which brings me to the next point: the so-called psychic vs. physical gift division.

It depends entirely on how you classify these gifts. What makes Jasper and Alice's gifts physical? Jasper can manipulate and sense emotions, how is that different from Alec, Jane, Kate, and Zafrina manipulating your sense reseptors? Alice can see things which may happen, how is that physical if Edward seeing thoughts and Zafrina creating elaborate illusions isn't?

Benjamin, surely, must be physical. Except his gift is the only one of its kind in canon, no similarities to anyone else, which means he proves that vampire gifts can truly be anything and there's no point in trying to classify them in relation to one another when the population is so small and the unknown potential for gifts so vast.

I think I have argued here in favor of tags, or attributes: you identify something a gift can do, and you don't try to draw similarities, for yonder lies nothing but subjective opinion.

Renesmee can be similar to Aro for "shares thoughts by touch", to Jane by "imparts illusions on one individual at a time", potentially to Renata for "dissuades attackers", and is canonically compared to her father's gift. It depends entirely on how you interpret and want to classify their gifts. And sure, you can do that, no one is stopping you from classifying in any way you want, but the trouble is that you now have a system that's extremely vulnerable to expansion and changes to entries.

There's also the matter of usefulness - the tracker category, which encompasses all vampires who are good at finding others, is a useful one. Some vampires will be able to use their gift, whatever it is, to find you, others won't. I respect that category. I also respect calling Aro and Edward mind readers, it's what they are.

What I don't respect is wanting to categorize every gifted vampire, nor attempting larger classification and to cluster them. The similarities are just that, similarities.

First, someone asking Carlisle how he managed to overcome bloodlust and become a doctor, and the answer is of course "don't ask me how I did it, I just did it, it was hard."

I know there was a bit I was convinced it was slytherin as that’s how he knew the slytherin’s prefects name and was in a place to be caught by said slytherin prefect, figuring the prejudice was a response to being expelled before getting fully attached to it (he’s one of the good ones! He swears!). But the prejudice and Dumbledore liking him (the sad state of the series) would probably indicate otherwise.

If, whenever you answer, it’s simply to point out you don’t much care for the houses enough to arbitrarily pick one then fair enough.

I believe canonically, Hagrid's a Gryffindor, I think we learn this in Chamber of Secrets when Tom Riddle is telling Harry all of Hagrid's dirty secrets and how it was totally Hagrid who opened the Chamber totally. He refers to him as "a Gryffindor third year" and some other choice words.

@therealvinelle and I always go with this and put him in Gryffindor. We didn't see any reason he shouldn't have been placed there given his personality/who he aspires to be/his hatred of Slytherins in canon without going "I had a traumatic past, Harry, in which I was a Slytherin"

(And yes, this means one of Hagrid's roommates must have tried to nark on him to the Slytherin prefect several times for several different creatures, probably not getting anywhere with Dumbledore who was head of Gryffindor or for some reason any of the Gryffindor prefects who probably then went to Dumbledore.