gisellelx

[gisellelx]

You've said before how you think that originally Bella was only supposed to be immune to Edward as a sort of true love thing, and then Meyer retconned Bella as immune to all "mental" powers. How would you rewrite Jasper and/or Kate's powers to be entirely physical powers and so inline with that belief? Jasper shouldn't be able to affect Bella's mental emotions, and Kate's power is technically physical so Bella shouldn't be immune to that.

I still firmly believe this. In the first book, Bella is ONLY immune to Edward's power. Jasper and Alice's powers work on her, James can track her. I think SM decided when she started writing the epilogues that turned into Forever/Breaking Dawn that it would be cool if vampire!Bella were immune to all vampire powers but, whoops, she already used Jasper and Alice's pretty heavily, so she came up with this "mental power" distinction. Because in the original Forever Dawn, New Moon and Eclipse don't happen. Bella doesn't go to Volterra, so they don't know Aro and Jane don't work on her, either. They only know Edward. And that's why I think someone like Eleazar was probably needed in Forever Dawn, but with Breaking Dawn like . . . I think they could have just figured out the mental shield thing without him. There was ample evidence.

(I think Renesmee being a "shield-breaker" whose power does work on Bella might also be part of this. Maybe SM wrote Bella experiencing her gift before she decided Bella would be immune to everything. Renesmee's power is definitely mental--putting thoughts/images in someone else's mind--but Bella experiences it. So we have the explanation that she has the reverse of Edward's power [putting thoughts in people's minds] and the reverse of Bella's [can break through mental shields].)

But anyway yeah I think Kate's power should be classified as physical and Bella shouldn't be immune from it. It's described as an electrical current on her skin; that's a real thing, not an illusion. Jasper's is the opposite; it seems like it should be a mental power to me and so Bella should be immune. SM describes it as Jasper physically affecting the body and use examples like slowing down or raising a heartbeat and so that's physical, but his power works on vampires who don't have heartbeats or a circulation system.

Kate's power would have to be rewritten to be more like Jane's. It's only the illusion of a shock, she's just making you think you're feeling it. I don't know if touch would even be necessary there, but I guess Aro and Renesmee require touch too so it's fine. Not a current on her skin, but she requires touch to make you THINK you are being shocked.

Jasper's easily just becomes a mental gift. He's not messing around with heartbeats or endorphins, he's making your brain feel anxious or happy or angry and your body responds. This honestly seems more powerful to me, because bodily signals could be interpreted multiple ways. Heart racing, face red, feeling hot . . . is that anxiety? fear? anger? lust? It takes the mind element to narrow it down.

#other people's awesome meta #gifts #twilight #yep #a lot of the inconsistencies in the series #make a lot more sense #when you realize SM wrote out of order #and was required to change things posthaste #and also #that she has the tendency #to just make stuff up on the spot #because somehow she has no backstory for her own damn story #but hell #that’s why were all still here dissecting it #almost twenty years on

[gisellelx]

Smooth talker Tommy Kinard

#911 #911 abc #tommy kinard #evan buckley #this was so much fun #i didn’t know how you take your coffee #not like that #A+ writing

[gisellelx]

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me until just now that despite our fandom wondering about why the Cullen kids, who look way too old, and would be way too bored, and way too thirsty, were written to attend high school, and the general Doylist agreement that this was to make the series YA and keep a 17-year-old protagonist, this actually has a perfectly in-canon explanation.

Carlisle works nights. Twipires canonically really enjoy sex. If the kids are all in school, guess who’re always gone when he gets home? 😘

#twilight #carlisle cullen #esme cullen #plot holes #“Why do we have to go to school?” #“You get embarrassed if you’re in the house.” #”But FIVE days a week?” #“Look child. I was a virgin for two hundred seventy years…” #shitposts #though my shitposts are never really shitposts

[gisellelx]

Do you think Carlisle was still going to church even tho he was a vampire?

I've done a LOT of thinking and research about this, over the years, so apologies for the length here. I actually dropped most of my headcanon about this on the ole' sideblog not too long ago. But since I am 150% committed to the bit over there, there's no room for explaining why my reading leads to my writing that Carlisle thinks a particular way, since he presumably has no knowledge of the text.

A lot of misunderstandings about Carlisle's relationship with religion, IMO, come from trying to view him and his father through the lens of contemporary American evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christians, as we know them in the US, are a very, very recent development--they date back to roughly the Regan era, and if they claim denominational affiliation (many do not), they are typically Pentecostal, Methodist, or Baptist.

Carlisle canonically is the son of an Anglican priest. This was the 1640s-1660s, and one of his scant human memories is of the Protectorate, meaning that either his father loved Cromwell or hated Cromwell. Given that, plus the rest of what we know about his dad--that he believed in evil, and hunted demons (anachronistic btw), it seems likely that he was a Puritan. Americans are familiar with the separating Puritans as part of our country's founding mythos--the settlers who came seeking freedom to practice their religion and you know whoops just accidentally did a genocide but not before having a big meal with the Wampanoag!

But there was a second set of nonseparating Puritans who stayed in England, and tried to reform the Anglican church from within. So if we take at face value that Carlisle remembers his father as "Anglican," plus the attitudes toward evil and strong memory of Cromwell, this is likely where Carlisle landed. His church upbringing would've been heavy on the fire and brimstone in the preaching, but still based on an order of worship derived from the Catholic service, with an order of confession, weekly readings from the Old and New Testaments according to the lectionary (the modern nondenominational practice of reading whatever the heck the pastor feels like/following a newer bible reading schedule), the recitation of the Lord's Prayer and the creed, and music of psalmodys, occasional hymns, fractions and collects. Communion would've been celebrated frequently.

I suspect, that as a vampire, Carlisle still finds a great deal of solace in that worship pattern. It is one of the few things that is very little changed in his long life. I think he pops into an Episcopal church once every couple years, and when a congregation sings the oldest collects, it moves him to what otherwise would be tears because some deep part of his mind remembers the music the same way an elderly patient with dementia would.

So yes, I think he goes on occasion. I definitely meant this kind of as a shitpost when I wrote it, but it also rings true--he still takes seriously the trappings of the faith practices he grew up with. They are meaningful to him. I loved the new canon introduced in MS that he likes popping into churches when the family are out hunting because it felt very in character and also gives him a really delightful soft side.

He doesn't go often. He doesn't feel like he has to. But he still does find meaning in it all, and to him, it still matters.

#long post #meta #asks #Carlisle Cullen #mind you I HATE #the other church related new canon from MS #about the funerals #Stregoni Benefici has a lot of Carlisle in and around church #and I did my level best to make sure it was accurately depicted

[gisellelx]

Having a writing / reposting / ideating kind of day. So my Carlesme stans, your headcanons (and/or leave them in the tags and reblogs!)

#carlisle cullen #esme cullen #carlisle x esme #carlisle and esme #carlesme #headcanon #my polls

[gisellelx]

Mad hatter and King of Hearts and you tell me who you want to tell me about. :)

(from the An OC's Adventures in Canonland ask game)

Mad Hatter: How would the story be different if they weren't around?

A little corner of Edward's brain still blames Margaret Weiss for his slippery slope in 1927. She was a delicious nobody, just a girl who sat next to him in Biology. Not a singer, but some people really do smell better than others. Edward got a little... studious about Margaret's scent during a time of adolescent moral upheaval and it soon devolved into having fantasies about killing her. He very nearly did kill her on his way out of town, but fortunately Charles Evenson popped into his head and the whole thing became more heroic from that moment on. To this day, Edward thinks "If she hadn't been around, maybe those thoughts would have come and gone without incident."

They would not have. Edward needed those rebellious years, so they were going to happen no matter what.

King of Hearts: How are they most likely to die (If already dead, how did they die?)

When death came up, I immediately consulted my list of red shirt OCs. Let's talk about Sergeant Lockewood! He was in Jasper's Confederate regiment, the Texas Fifth Cavalry, and the one who accompanied him on the evacuation mission to Houston. This poor guy was never going to amount to much, but at least he was superstitious enough to take the vampire rumors seriously. Jasper laughed in his face.

Lockewood didn't get a Yankee bullet like the others, though. The cause of death is, you guessed it, Jasper. (I haven't written this one yet.)

#neat! #I love that you have red shirt OCs #though I suppose I do too #OCs #writing #asks #jessicanjpa

[gisellelx]

Hey :) For the yet-another-writing-asks list, want to do 39 and 40?

39: Wildest AU scenario you've ever written

One Day no doubt! I also have never read this AU. New Moon AUs are a dime a dozen; he comes back, he doesn't come back, he comes back later, Bella moves on with Jake, Bella moves on with an OC, Bella moves on with Carlisle...

...but let Edward die? Who lets Edward die? Now, mind you, I do read reddit and it reminds me over and over that people have tons of wild haired ideas. So I'm sure someone else has written a fic that jumps off from NM and when Edward actually succeeds, but I certainly haven't ever found it. It came out of a conversation sleepyvalentina and I were having about Bella/Carlisle fics, and the way many of them act like it would be very easy for Carlisle and Esme to just fall out of love one day in order to get the story started. And sleepyval said, "You know, marriages rarely survive the death of a child."

And we were off to the races.

Does that mean it's a Bella/Carlisle? Well...I promise I'll finish it and y'all can find out.

40: Write a 9-word Fic

Vera's Henry couldn't die. Not here. So Rose ran.

#carlisle cullen #edward cullen #twilight #asks #bella swan #AU #i want to ask one of your OC ones #but I can't think straight about your OCs #maybe I'll ask you to pick one

[gisellelx]

Yet another writing ask

Which of your fics would you keep the basic plot of but rewrite completely?

Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

How would you describe your writing style?

Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

What's your ratio for rating your works?

Your favourite ao3 tag.

How slow is a slow burn?

Thoughts on cliffhangers.

Top three favourite fic tropes.

Three tropes that are fine but overrated.

If you write in more than one language, what's the difference?

Rate your worldbuilding skills from 1 to 10.

Write and share the first sentence of a new fic. Just that.

What's your favourite plotless fic you have written?

Are one-shots really underrated?

Past or present tense? Why?

First, second, or third person?

Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

Do you work on a single project or many at the same time? How does that work for you?

Can you accurately predict how long your fics are going to be? If you can, what's your secret?

What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?

Thoughts on flashbacks/flashforwards.

Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go?

What would you describe as OOC?

Do you agree that one shouldn't start a story with a piece of dialogue?

Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

What's the hardest thing about writing?

Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't.

What was the most difficult fic for you to write (but in the end you made it)?

Do you have a word/expression that you always use in your writing?

Give your writing a compliment.

Do you write to improve? Or is that not a concern for you?

Thoughts on writing challenges/contests.

How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

Do you research before writing or while you write? Is it fun or boring for you?

"This never happened" fix-it fics or "this happened but" fix-it fics?

Wildest AU scenario you have written?

Write a 9-word fic.

#okay I came across this this morning #and I answered that ask about One Day #so I am going to sit here and work on One Day #and maybe people want to ask me questions while I work #ask games #writing

[gisellelx]

Every once in a while, I reread one of your stories and I can’t help but check your website for any updates for One Day 😇 Just curious: are you still working on it? No pressure whatsoever of course!! I love the way you portray Carlisle in that fic & am already super thankful for those first 8 or so chapters! Anyways, hope you are doing well & thanks for providing us with so many high-quality fics!

- Sannehale

Ah, this ask made my year. (Also now I realize your two blog names. Sneaky!)

Yes., yes I am. It was actually open on my laptop even as this ask came in. My prereader is asking about it too--I stopped giving her chapters because I was realizing that I got a lot of enjoyment out of sending them to her and that was filling enough void that it cut off my writing mojo. I'm thrilled though, that she can't see where it's going.

I'm stuck on chapter 16 (of likely 23-25) at the moment because a whole bunch of dominos have to fall in order to get to several reveals that are going to happen in very fast succession to move the story out of the second act. Also the second act/B story was hard because I am not a romance writer! 😆 It's not the genre I read and I'm not very good at writing it, but the middle of this story called for a romance and so there is one. Or so I hope.

I've also gone back and shored up some things that needed shoring--introduced a few of the characters who turned out to be important earlier on, and added another character in Bella's research mentor, Amy Jackson. I'm worried that I'm under-utilizing her at the moment.

This ask, though, prompted me to back out to the card view in the Scrivener project and I realize I actually did leave myself the breadcrumbs necessary to get myself out of here. Maybe I'll put my shoulder to the wheel and see what happens if I just follow the outline I laid out.

Anyway. I feel like I shouldn't end an ask without giving a little bit of some of the over 40,000 words that are written and not posted. So here's a tiny bit. This actually may not stay in, and in any event doesn't spoil anything--it's also the headcanon behind this chapter of Montage, though this scene was written years ago and my headcanon about Carlisle's name and his parents' names goes back over fifteen years now.

Of course, I knew a lot more than most people who were hunting down a relative from the 1600s. I clicked on the link for church records, and then delimited my search. If Carlisle was 367, that put him in 1644. That seemed reasonable. I filtered the results by the location, London, and then 1640 to 1650.

CULLEN, I typed. CARLISLE.

Zero hits. I frowned at my screen for a long moment and then practically slapped myself in the head. Of course there were no hits for Carlisle Cullen. Wasn’t this the very thing we’d been arguing about for months, now? I backspaced over the first name, and changed it to WILLIAM.

There were only three hits. Astonishing. I had assumed that Carlisle would have done his due diligence. He’d had hundreds of years to track this information down—why hadn’t he? William Cullen number one was in the baptismal records of St. Luke’s Catholic Church. He had been baptized in 1642. That would make him nearly the same age as Carlisle, no luck there. William Cullen number two, however, was on over seventy pages of documents—the records of St. James Aldgate, listed as parish pastor. And William Cullen number three almost caused my heart to stop.

Born 17 February 1644. Died 8 August 1667.

Twenty-three years old.

My heart, pounding, I clicked on the church register, enlarging it so that it filled my screen. The handwriting was old, faded and pixelated, but it was tidy and easy to read. Carlisle Cullen, it read, with William crammed onto the line before the first name, in the same handwriting but obviously a different pen—the lines were narrower, slanted slightly differently. Born and baptized on February 17, 1644. Father, William Cullen number 2. And mother…

My heart sped. There, in the same scrawly hand—his father’s hand, I realized, it must be—was written the words, Sarah Cullen (Crawforth).

A quick “Open in New Tab” allowed me to pull all the records from the 1600s from St. James Aldgate and in five minutes, I had a birth date of November 15, 1620. And a death date, which was of course expected, of February 17, 1644. But it was the annotation here which was breathtaking—in a different handwriting, written by the midwife? Some other member of the parish?

Died babe in arms.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and with blurry vision, on a hunch, I ran one last search. Then I printed the pages with the documents, shoved them in a folder, and headed for my car.

#carlisle cullen #writing #my fic #teasers #one day the sun will rise

[gisellelx]

I think we wanted bisexual buck to happen too much that we didn't think of the consequences because I don't think any of us is sane ever since that kiss

#911 spoilers #evan buckley #bucktommy #911 abc

[gisellelx]

#911 abc #evan buck buckley #evan buckley #911 spoilers

[gisellelx]

Me being happy that one of the firefighters on the firefighter show is finally canonically Bi despite never watching a single episode:

#911 spoilers #evan buckley

[gisellelx]

This by the way is why I do not write fic for this fandom. I write fic when I see things that need improving. I see no possible room for intervention here. It’s a perfect show 10/10 no notes.

if buddie becomes canon 911 will be the first show with banger after banger after banger after banger of main ships.

athena and bobby? unmatched. immaculate.

hen and karen? magnificent.

chimney and maddie? perfection.

buck and eddie? flawless.

#911 abc #eddie diaz #evan buckley #bobby nash #athena grant nash #hen wilson #karen wilson #chimney han #maddie buckley

[gisellelx]

You have got to stop giving me fic ideas; I’ve barely started the other one.

Look I'm JUST saying Sue Clearwater is a nurse and Carlisle Cullen is a doctor and maybe by day they work in a normal hospital and by night get roped into treating supernatural creatures with strange conditions, because who else can do it?

What's more horrifying: actual monsters and their supernatural ailments? or the American healthcare system?

#twilight #carlisle cullen #sue clearwater #panlight

[gisellelx]

I am going to have to offer a sincere apology to the people who thoughtfully follow me for Twilight content and meta because I just finished S7E4 of 9-1-1 and this is about to become an Evan Buckley blog.

#9 1 1 #evan buckley #buddie #what did I just watch #these writers are reading AO3 #tommy kinard #bi buck #911 spoilers

[gisellelx]

I ran a similar poll last year but wanted to try it again because results were skewed by a "canon is irrelevant" option and like, yes, but if we accept canon is a thing then does MS count?

#reluctantly technically #SM is astoundingly bad at writing canon fanfic #it turns out #midnight sun #twilight renaissance #but AT LEAST #it reconned the retcon of Edward killing Charles

[gisellelx]

Oh my goodness- Elizabeth Reaser looks divine! She got married!!!!! I have lots to say about one photo in particular that’s giving dreamy vibes

For some reason the link to the article isn’t working sooooooo…… I’ll post it later

#not even resharing it because it’s elizabeth #but because this is how to wedding #get married at 48 #take 4 people #go to Italy #hell yes