#the tempestverse

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[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: Brave New World, Chapter 6: Wake the Dead

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709434/chapters/49726988

The part of the story dealing with the investigation into Alice’s past was meant to fit within one chapter. It ended up being three, because woman plans and the goddess laughs. I don’t regret it, though - I think it allowed me to cover a lot of territory that may become important later. Some of it came as a complete surprise to me; I would hit this point or that in the chapter, and I would have a plan for what came next, and then suddenly some part of my mind would go “oh, no, it’s this” and, well, what could I do but write it?

The history of Alice’s childhood home after her mother was murdered and the family left was inspired somewhat by the LaLaurie Mansion, which I namechecked in the chapter (though, whoops, I got the capitalization wrong). Nicolas Cage, the actor, did in fact own the mansion for a few years, and lost it to foreclosure when he ran into financial difficulties. He ended up suing his business manager, who countersued and claimed Cage had made a number of frivolous purchases against his advice. It’s widely believed (and may be fact) that Cage takes so many film roles today because he’s still paying off his debts.

During Cage’s ownership of the house, he did put a sign up on the LaLaurie Mansion (or it’s generally believed he was the one, at least), and it’s pretty much the sign I describe outside the Brandon house. The LaLaurie Mansion has an extraordinarily dark history - look up Delphine LaLaurie if you can stomach it; we are talking about a woman whose cruelty toward the people she had enslaved was so outrageous that other slaveholders condemned her and she was hounded out of town. Her story has been embellished over the years, and distorted by pop culture (American Horror Story, for instance, featured her as a recurring character played by Kathy Bates, and added elements of Elizabeth Bathory to her story), but she was certainly an extraordinarily horrible person. The mansion that stands today is not the original, which was burned down in the 1834, but it is still said to be profoundly haunted. A financial corporation holds it today. I’m not sure who, if anyone, it’s being held for.

I felt quite strongly as I started this chapter that Alice needed some time to herself. The little part of my brain that speaks for her had made it quite clear she was emotionally exhausted and inclined to withdraw. Naturally this leaves Bella worried half out of her mind, providing me with an opportunity to show Rose and Emmett looking after her. A few readers have told me that Rosalie and Bella’s relationship - the close friendship they’ve turned into sisterhood - is one of their favorite parts of the story; I suppose this makes it obvious it’s one of mine, too. But I don’t think it’s just Rosalie who cares for Bella so deeply; it’s Emmett, too. I tend to be a serious introvert in real life, and nervous about getting too close to others, especially physically. It’s probably left me rather touch-starved. But I do think touch is important, not just between lovers but between friends and family, and physical comfort can do more than words ever could.

I keep saying Bella isn’t me, that I’m making a deliberate effort as the story grows stranger to divorce her from the self-parody she originally was, and then I keep bringing in stories from my own life. Yes, it’s true: in my second year of college, I lived in a haunted women’s dorm, and the broad strokes of the haunting are largely as I describe. I left out some of the more specific details; it probably wouldn’t be hard for you to figure out where I went to college if you really wanted, but I didn’t want to spell it out. My first night there, I did in fact have strange, restless dreams that I interpreted as the ghost trying to figure out what to make of me. I did indeed mix herbs into water as part of a ritual and choked the mixture down, and I was left in peace after that. It was quite disgusting, frankly, but it does make a good story.

The dream was one of those surprises I’d mentioned. Frankly, a lot of stuff has just returned to Bella far earlier than I had planned. More than that, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to bring any kind of religion into it, but I found Bella’s spirit calling out and something answering and, well, here we are.

My personal beliefs are quite private. I’m willing to discuss them, to a point; I am completely uninterested in converting anyone to my way of thinking, and there are some elements too sacred to me to disclose. In broad strokes, the faith Bella describes agrees with my own. I do hold as a central tenet that the divine is infinite and beyond the comprehension of our finite minds. I do believe that the names by which we call the divine, the roads we travel to reach whatever understanding we can find, lead ultimately to the same place - and yet those names, the gods we cry out to, the commandments we follow, the stories we hold close to our hearts, all have a reality of their own. I do in fact worship seven goddesses whom I view as aspects of one goddess, and the titles and roles described roughly correspond to my faith. I would not invoke them in the way Bella does. I would not see them as she sees them. And if I ever do give them names in the story, they won’t be the names I call them by.

But yes: once again I’ve gotten deeply personal. Writing this story sometimes feels like writing an operator’s manual to my soul. Perhaps I keep turning back to these personal details, despite my best efforts to separate Bella from myself, because it all comes easier when I pour my heart and soul into the work. Even if that means I must submit to the horrifying ordeal of being known.

Does Bella have access to magic again, after that dream? I don’t think so - at least, I don’t think she could do magic on her own. She can help Rosalie, and presumably other witches; she can call out to her deities in prayer, but I’ve never viewed that as inherently magical. But her perceptions have broadened, just a bit, and sensation begins to return. She can feel the things she has been numb to, and see the light and color of spellwork.

Will she remember more of her old life? Not on her own, I think. I hadn’t really intended for her to recover any memories at all, and arguably she only recovered what she did due to divine intervention. Part of my long-term purpose in expanding Alice’s visions so she could look back on the past as well of the future was a vague notion that she could use this ability to help Callie and Bella work through their lingering questions about their personal history, and I certainly have further developments in mind. But I don’t see Bella becoming entirely who she once was. That person is part of who she has become, but otherwise lost.

Then again, I suppose I’ve allowed her to find other things I would once have called lost, so perhaps I can’t really say for certain until the whole of the work is done.

I really wanted to bring Leah into the phone conversation somehow - I do want more of her in this story, and an increasing number of these first chapters are focused on the BEAR world tour, meaning we don’t get much time with the folks back home. I just couldn’t see my way clear to it. This felt like a conversation between Bella and Callie and no one else.

We’re seeing some cracks in their friendship here, as Bella begins to understand that Callie is still holding back. There are likely more disagreements to come, and both Callie and Rosalie are growing more vocal about their mutual dislike for one another, which can’t make things any easier. I think things will be all right in the end, but if you’re getting the feeling the road ahead is a rocky one, I can’t say I disagree.

Six Flags New Orleans was still open during our heroes�� visit to New Orleans. A month later, at the end of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the park, and it never reopened. Six Flags removed much of the infrastructure that once stood there (including some things that the city of New Orleans alleges they had no right to take), and though various development proposals have emerged over the years, none of them have led to the park reopening in any form. It stands abandoned, and though some urban explorers have gotten in, access is strictly forbidden.

I wanted to linger over dinner, but I couldn’t think of anything more to add, and I was eager, at long last, to get to the main event. So I wasted little time getting the gang to St. Charles Avenue, and into the old house, and then of course Luciana appears almost at once, as soon as Alice has gotten a good look at her past.

I think Alice saw more than she said directly in this chapter, and she’ll have more to say about what she saw as time goes on. It just wouldn’t all fit in this scene. Everything happened so quickly that I had to struggle to keep to what was immediately relevant. And honestly, I think we were all here for that last conversation between Alice and her mother more than anything.

Luciana is not, of course, La Llorona. That is a much older story that comes from farther south, in Mexico and Latin America. But as she is a weeping woman crying out in Spanish, some of the locals have confused the legends, and I did take some inspiration from the story of La Llorona in describing her behavior. In particular, some legends say that when La Llorona sounds distant, she is actually quite close - and so our heroes hear Luciana crying out distantly, and then, quite suddenly, she’s on top of them.

I had given some thought to Luciana speaking entirely in Spanish, at first - I had always imagined she was bilingual, but Spanish was her first language. Ultimately, I just wasn’t confident enough in my Google-augmented translation skills. I took Latin in school, not Spanish, and not much Latin at that. I can sometimes tell when things are really wrong, but I was worried it would come off as textbook Spanish, stilted and inauthentic, and things were coming so quickly and furiously that...well, it felt like it would take too long to find a fluent speaker willing to help me get the Spanish right. I hated to do it, I hate to say that - if I were preparing this for publication as an original work I would certainly take the time to get someone else’s eyes on the thing - but I’m going on vacation in about a week and a half and I really wanted to conclude this arc before dropping off the grid. All that said, if you’re interested in helping me with foreign languages or beta reading on this story in general, please do drop me a line; I’ve certainly made enough mistakes that I wouldn’t mind getting another pair of eyes on future chapters.

Alice’s family history was one of the first things I came up with for this book, along with the dream about the Volturi that opens the whole thing. Alice’s father was canonically a jeweler and pearl trader. Though I played a bit loose with canon otherwise, I decided to keep this, and had the notion that he married Alice’s mother for her family wealth and most importantly their access to jewels, pearls, and precious medals. When he suffered some reversal in fortune connected to her family, I figured - perhaps the mines drying up, or as I ended up describing, Luciana’s father dying and not leaving her what George saw as his due - he would become willing to throw her over for another woman, and more, to arrange Luciana’s death. The final details only came together as I was writing this chapter and the last.

Alice’s final conversation with her mother still feels short. To some extent, it’s meant to be. Once Luciana’s soul was fully restored, once she had some chance to find peace, I couldn’t see her lingering long upon the threshold between the living world and the next. I hope I got the important things down - above all else, that Alice now knows she had a mother who loved her, who loves her still and will be watching over her.

It’s not the end of Alice’s journey. But it is more or less the end of the gang’s time in New Orleans. Boston comes next, and then Ireland, and all the things that follow on from that. As I said, I’m going on vacation - I’m not sure whether I’ll get another chapter before I leave, and I have obligations to fulfill before the year is out. I hope, if there is a delay, that you all find this a decent stopping point.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twilight au #bellice #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #brave new world

[themiscyra1983]

Fandom Trumps Hate

I’m doing it this year! I’ve committed to a pretty serious commissioned fic! It’s a good thing I’m wordy af!

Browsing week hasn’t OFFICIALLY opened yet, but you can view my listings here: https://fth2019offerings.dreamwidth.org/73290.html

I’m offering up two separate auctions. The first is for a commissioned fic in the 10k-20k word range, in the Disney, Harry Potter, or Twilight fandoms. (I have some flexibility beyond that, but I could only pick three fandoms unless I wanted to go with “Any,” and I am not prepared for “Any”.) The second is for beta reading services on fanfic or original fic, also in the 10k-20k word range.

The commissioned fic auction is explicitly for a story separate from the stuff I’m already working on. You’re welcome to ask for a story connected to or based upon As Dreams Are Made On/The Tempestverse or Out of the Blue, but it won’t necessarily be canon (depends on how much latitude you give me and how well it fits, really), and anyway there are rules specific to FTH I need to follow.

Fandom Trumps Hate work will take priority over everything else, once the winning donations are confirmed. I’d like to at least leave myself the option of doing this again next year, which means I have to make sure I do the work in a timely fashion. I hope you’ll understand if this means going on hiatus from my other work, but I’m already dealing with a fickle muse on my self-directed projects, so the odd hiatus is nothing new.

I’m excited! I hope you’re excited too! This is for good causes near and dear to my heart! Please consider bidding on my auctions, please poke around and consider bidding on others, and best of luck all around!

#fandom trumps hate #fanfic #fanfiction

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[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: Brave New World, Chapter 5: What’s Past is Prologue

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709434/chapters/49462937

As a bit of random trivia, this is the first thing I’ve written set in New Orleans that I’ve actually released publicly. It is also, due to the way I title chapters (their filenames are just the chapter numbers; I don’t decide on a title until I’ve finished), the only thing I’ve written set in New Orleans that never, not once, not even as a working title, borne the title “House of the Rising Sun”. I can’t help it: the song and the city chase each other endlessly in my mind. I’ve been to New Orleans once, about six years after Katrina, and fell in love with the place. I haven’t managed to make it back in the eight years since. I’d quite like to return.

I keep track of the timeline in my outline for the story. It’s late July 2005 in this chapter; in a little over a month, well after BEAR have left, Katrina will hit. I hadn’t remembered until I started digging into the city’s history, trying to figure out where the plotline would fit, but I’m brushing up against it here. The gang will undoubtedly hear about it. I’m not yet sure how it will impact them, beyond general sorrow, but I’m pondering it.

(About BEAR: a reader on FFN - MooNOrchiD, if you’re reading this, hi - pointed out the acronym for Bella, Emmett, Alice and Rosalie. I’ve been using it in my notes. It’s damned convenient, and it makes me giggle.)

Anyway, the chapter title ended up being another quote from The Tempest, one I’m not using as a book title in the trilogy or extended Tempestverse. I’d considered “The Past is Never Dead,” from the Faulkner quote - “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - but when I remembered “What’s past is prologue,” and more, that it came from the play from which I borrowed the name of this AU as well as the titles of the stories within, well. It seemed a perfect match.

Once I hit last chapter’s reveal, I really couldn’t think of much reason why Alice would want to keep hanging around the site of her death and revival, and the slaughter she committed as a newborn vampire. And I was eager to get to New Orleans. So if it seems abrupt, well, it is a bit abrupt. It surprised even me. But the asylum has served its purpose, at least for the time being.

I’m trying to balance the episodes of cognitive dissonance and general weirdness Bella is experiencing against the fact that this isn’t really about her - as she herself acknowledges, and that’s why she tries to hide this latest one from Alice, though she doesn’t end up managing it. I also generally don’t want to have too many of them too close together. It’s part of a thread that will continue throughout this book, and there will be more to them in time, but this section of the story, for all that Bella is still narrating and this necessarily limits our perspective, is Alice’s first and foremost. It’s a tricky balance to strike, and I admit I’ve occasionally considered trading Bella’s perspective for someone else’s (not just in this part of the story). But that’s a narrative shift that should be used sparingly, if at all, and I would prefer to leave most of the other characters’ perspectives to These Our Actors. Besides, the very thought of writing from Alice’s perspective, with all her slipping between the present, the future, and now the past, gives me a headache.

I’ve played fast and loose with Alice’s visions of the future in the past, and more so since Bella started altering her powers - I had a reader early on tell me that wasn’t how her powers worked, and while I think Meyer’s descriptions are inconsistent, I can’t say they were entirely wrong about that. Still, in many ways, Alice’s power is one of narrative convenience, and it was inconvenient for me to have her instantly able to see everything. So I decided, and I think this is reasonable, that Alice needed time to learn to control her power to see the future (and still doesn’t have complete control, at that), and will similarly need time to learn to control her power to see the past. For now, she can follow threads, but there are shifting and vaguely defined limits that even she doesn’t fully understand. All will be revealed in time, or at least enough of a story to get along with.

I really want to make Alice and Bella’s relationship healthy, loving, and open, for all that they’re going to have their problems, same as any other couple. I hope I’m succeeding. It definitely seemed to me that she would pick up on Bella’s distress - there’s very little she fails to notice - and that she would expect honesty in their relationship, even if the truth is painful or difficult.

Bella’s relationship and history with magic is going to be a thread throughout both this book and the next, so I wanted to spend a little more time fleshing out her perspective, and with Rose being a novice witch, that afforded me the opportunity to do so. The conversation took a briefly maudlin turn that tread over a lot of territory from the previous chapter before I cut that bit and brought it to a different inclusion. The outtake will be under the cut at the end of this post.

5513 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, does not exist. The spot where it would stand is a playground. I didn’t want to associate any real homes with a fictional haunting (and of course I could hardly resist throwing a thirteen in there when the opportunity arose). But it’s in roughly the right location, I think, for a double gallery home once owned by a decently wealthy family.

Now we get to some of the larger changes. I’ve already started altering Alice’s story substantially, as I discussed in the author’s notes for the previous chapter. Here we have another significant change: in the backstory established by Stephenie Meyer, Alice’s mother was murdered, but it was ruled an accident by the authorities. Only Alice’s visions indicated it was homicide. Here, it’s widely known to be murder, but there’s a scapegoat in the form of the Axeman of New Orleans.

The Axeman is a real serial killer from the early 20th century, and while there have certainly been suspects, his true identity is still unknown, as is his motive. There are those who believe he targeted women specifically, only attacking men when they happened to be around his intended victims. Because many of the victims were Italian immigrants (many, but not all), some contemporary commentators tied him to the Mafia. The letter he allegedly wrote demanding jazz bands playing in every house that wished to go unscathed, well, I tend to agree with those who think it was a hoax, though there are wilder theories claiming it wasn’t, and he deliberately launched his spree to expand the popularity of jazz music. Whoever he was, whatever his motives, he hangs over the city of New Orleans to this day.

Was Alice’s mother Luciana actually murdered by the Axeman himself? I don’t know if I’ll end up saying either way. I don’t know if it matters, to be honest. If she was, I would say he was not necessarily tied into the Mafia, but he was a hired killer, and his reign of terror had some greater purpose. It’s just as possible the Axeman was a convenient cover story. It was a hired killer either way, and he had accomplices - the identity of the actual killer is less important here, I think, than the identity of the people who hired and helped him. We’ll learn more in the next chapter.

The last chapter was over ten thousand words, and I briefly considered letting this one be a juggernaut as well, but I hit a natural break point and it seemed better to separate things. I’m working on Chapter 6 now. I’m going on vacation in a couple weeks, and I hope to finish at least that chapter before I leave, as it’s going to mean a hiatus (and I do have another writing project I need to keep working on before the year is out, to boot). I’d really like to get out of the dark place Alice is in now, and give the poor girl the opportunity to find closure and move forward, so maybe I’ll manage to squeeze in Chapter 7 as well. We’ll see.

And now, the outtake, purely as a matter of interest.

Rosalie must have seen something in my expression, despite my best efforts, because she reached out to take my hand. “From what she says, it sounds like you taught her everything she knows. Or close to it.”

“Yeah. Well.” I cracked a small, humorless smile. “I don’t remember any of it. And I can help with theory, but...I can’t demonstrate this stuff for you, and the magic Callie practices isn’t what I’m used to.”

“The spells you talked me through seemed to work just fine the other night.”

“They did. And I’m very glad, believe me.” My smile turned a little more genuine. “I guess I’m not completely out of touch.”

“What does it feel like?” Alice asked softly, glancing between us. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“The actual spellcasting? Or…” Rose shrugged as she trailed off.

“Any of it. All of it.”

“It’s a little different for everyone, I think,” I said slowly. “There are things we have in common, but we filter the experience through our own perceptions of the world. When you cast, it’s like something moves through you. And when you’re just living in the world, then…”

“It’s music, for me,” Rose added. “I can tune it out, but it’s like there’s a radio playing down the hall. The songs and sometimes the volume change. It’s like the world is trying to tell me something, but I can’t quite figure out what. Sometimes I pick up general themes, but that’s about it.”

I nodded. “It’s never that clear. Not without effort, and - well, I certainly don’t remember divination being my strong suit. Callie says I tended to interpret magic visually, and I saw the colors of Rosalie’s spellwork, but mostly I remember these...whispers of sensation. Something that was almost visible, almost audible, almost tangible, but not quite any of those things. I perceived it all through my mind’s eye. It felt like...standing in the ocean on a hot summer day. The water is warm and your toes are curled in the sand, the seaweed fluttering against your legs. The sun warms your skin, and the sky is that perfect shade of blue, but there are clouds scudding across it, big, white, fluffy ones, the kind that come in elaborate shapes, castles and dinosaurs and starfish and whatever else you can imagine. The wind is whistling past, and you can halfway feel, halfway hear the way it whispers of the autumn and winter days to come. You can feel so keenly that you’re a part of everything around you that it’s hard to tell where your soul ends and the world begins. And losing it is...it’s not like going blind, or deaf, or losing a limb. It’s not that simple. But it’s still...it’s loss. It would be like - if you couldn’t see the future anymore, maybe.”

Alice shuddered at that, leaning against me. “God, I can’t even imagine what that would be like. Baby…”

“Yeah. It’s okay.” I turned, planting a kiss against her hairline. “I’m...fine. I don’t need magic to get by. Plenty of people do just fine without it, it’s stupid to…”

“You’re not stupid,” Rosalie interjected. “What you’re talking about - I’ve felt that for all of a day or two. I went my whole life without it, I don’t need it, but - you found a way to give me this gift and now the idea of losing it again is horrifying to me. You were used to perceiving the world in this specific, complicated way, and you lost part of that, and you’re still coming to terms with it. I’m not going to tell you to wallow in that feeling or throw yourself a little pity party, but I understand it now. Your feelings aren’t stupid. You just...can’t let them rule you.”

I shut my eyes, nodding slowly, letting out a long breath. “Still. I have a lot to be grateful for,” I replied, putting my arm around Alice’s shoulders and squeezing gently. “There was a time, long ago, when I didn’t feel the world that way, and I was fine. It’ll come back, or it won’t, and I’ll have friends and family and love and a power of my own either way. That has to be more than enough for anyone.”

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twilight au #bellice #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #brave new world

[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: These Our Actors, Chapter 2: Rosalie

I meant to start getting in the habit of posting a link back to my work on AO3 with my author’s notes for Brave New World Chapter 1, but I plum forgot, so I’m starting that practice now:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429865/chapters/46781116

As I’ve said, this was a particularly difficult installment for me to write. To understand why, you need to understand my creative process. I tend to view writing as something of a dialogue between myself and my characters, particularly my protagonist. It’s not that I’m literally speaking with them - I speak of my characters as having minds of their own, and they do to an extent, but they’re not fully realized people. It’s more of a mental back and forth. I have an idea for a story, I begin writing, and then I just get a sort of sense that, oh, no, things actually happened this way, or that character felt this and said that at a given point. The characters tell me their own story, in a sense, once I’ve set the basic framework of the story.

Sometimes a character doesn’t want to talk to me, and I get stuck, and have to find a way to move forward. That wasn’t the problem with Rosalie.

Rosalie just had too damn much to say, and was quite picky with how I said it.

Am I entirely satisfied with the end product? No. Is the part of my brain that got into Rosalie’s frame of mind, the part of my brain that IS my version of Rosalie, entirely happy? Also no! But at a certain point you have to call the work done and put it out there, and after over a year of struggle, I was ready to get the blasted thing out of my head.

Looking at the revision history, I see that I spent a lot more time actively working on it, with fewer breaks, than I did working on Brave New World Chapter 1. I did take a six-month break from September to March, and then another extended break from March until June and July. I wasn’t doing a lot of writing at all in those periods due to the major stressor I mentioned before, a troubled organization I got involved with last fall which ate up a huge amount of my energy and mental bandwidth. Only since resigning my position with that organization and taking a step back have I found myself able to write again.

I did have a fairly complete version of this installment last year, but I’d had so much trouble writing it that I felt I needed a few extra pairs of eyes on it. I’m part of a small local writers’ group that meets every other week to share and discuss our fiction. Mostly I show them my original work, but they had seen some of my fan work before, including pieces of Out of the Blue (my Little Mermaid/Wonder Woman crossover) and a Power Rangers fic I have not yet begun to publish. Only a couple of them had read Twilight and none, as far as I know, had read As Dreams Are Made On, but I felt their general feedback might help me figure out what I was still missing.

A lot, as it turned out. In the draft I submitted to the group, there were no flashbacks to Rosalie’s developing relationship with Bella. The story focused entirely on Rosalie talking about Vera, intercut with scenes of her vigil at Bella’s bedside in Denali. I made mention of Rosalie and Vera’s little blood sister ritual, but didn’t show it; and in fact the blood sister scene and the observatory scene were a single scene, when they were about ten years old, and Edward wasn’t present. (Edward was, in fact, a very late addition to the observatory scene.)

The group felt that the story might be better served with more emphasis on Rosalie’s memories, and less on what was happening in Denali. They also felt that they didn’t entirely understand the depth of Rosalie’s feelings for Bella, and would like to see how they had become close. There were other more specific criticisms and suggestions, but those were the main issues.

So I went back to the drawing board. Even though none of the These Our Actors installments are meant to stand on their own - they all depend upon As Dreams Are Made On (and will eventually depend on Brave New World) for context - I had to admit we had only seen Rosalie’s relationship with Bella from Bella’s side, and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d sold it. I wanted to get her perspective on things. As always, she had almost too much to say.

The revision that followed involved a lot of agonizing. A lot of hair-pulling. This is probably the most technically complex story I’ve written in a while. I tried to keep the order of events consistent, always shuttling between time periods in the same order - present-day, Vera flashback, Bella flashback. I wrote the flashbacks as Rosalie telling the story, and the present-day scenes as an inner monologue. I added dates and places to try and ease confusion. Edward turned up - he was originally mentioned, but not shown - and while I didn’t feel he really fit, he came off as a decent character and I’m trying to write him sympathetically so I let him stay. I found I wanted to include discussion of Rosalie’s power, something I couldn’t really fit into Brave New World right upfront, and again it didn’t really fit but I tried to make it work.

Did I succeed? I don’t know. The initial feedback I’ve gotten is that the story is still confusing in parts. But people seem to be responding well to at least one of the parts I’m proudest of, and perhaps that’s the most I can ask.

The scene in question - Rosalie visiting Vera near the end of her life - hasn’t changed much from the first draft, if at all. I wanted to bring closure to Vera’s story, beyond the night of Rosalie’s death. I found it hard to believe she would never look in on her best friend, her surrogate sister. And, well, I guess Alzheimer’s and dementia are becoming something of a theme in my work, and writing Vera as suffering dementia toward the end of her life gave Rosalie another point in common with Bella.

As this story has evolved, I have deliberately started divorcing Bella’s story from my own. When I started writing, she was a straightforward self-insert, and the only question the story asked was “what if I found myself dumped into the story, in Bella Swan’s body and role?” But as this has changed, I’ve been trying to see less of myself in Bella, to make her more of her own person. She still has some things in common with me; one of those is that my mother died, far too young, from early onset Alzheimer’s, or as near to it as to make no difference. We never got a definitive, final diagnosis, but I watched her lose her mind, go from a force of nature to a barely verbal shell, from an independent person to someone who needed full-time care, who drifted in time and place, and who ultimately lapsed into a coma and died.

It was agonizing. And among my many regrets is the fact that I didn’t get to have an exchange like the one Rosalie gets with Vera. I didn’t get to have that final moment where she recognized me, and we talked, and I got to say goodbye. I didn’t realize that I’d had my last remotely lucid conversation with her until it was already over and gone.

So it’s a little bit of bittersweet wish fulfillment, perhaps, and a road into Rosalie’s head that I didn’t have before I conceived and wrote it. I am glad that at least some people have found it moving.

On to other matters.

The story centers on two poems. “The Old Astronomer” - one of my favorites - was part of it from the beginning, and seemed like a piece that both Rosalie and Bella would find moving for their own reasons. Canonically Rosalie did study astrophysics at one point, and Bella (again, like me) has always loved the stars. “Autumn Chant” came later, but when I heard it for the first time, especially that final stanza, it seemed so very fitting, and it gave me some ideas for Rosalie’s unique qualities.

Even in the actual Twilight books, Rosalie seems to have a uniquely sharp recollection of her human life, compared to other vampires. I knew early on that I was going to give her a power, and I wanted it to be more complicated than “supernatural beauty,” so ultimately I decided to bring her supernatural charisma together with her unusually good memory and create a new power: a supernaturally resilient self-image, one that allows her to protect her memories and sense of self from outside influence, and even project her self-image onto others. She sees herself as uniquely beautiful, she was raised to believe first and foremost in her own beauty, so others still see her that way too. (Rosalie is naturally lovely, of course, but her power gives it a little extra oomph.) How will that power change as Rosalie begins to master it and Bella helps it along with her own ability? What relevance will this have to the plot? I can only say that time will tell. But it was important, I felt, to get it down. I’ll have to find some way to work the explanation into the main story as things go forward, of course.

Overall, I sincerely hope you enjoyed most of Rosalie’s story. It’s not perfect - I don’t know if I can ever make it perfect, even if I do eventually loop back around to making an author’s preferred text out of all the Tempestverse stuff - but I hope there’s more good than bad. I have much more straightforward ideas for Callie, Angela and/or Edward, and Jasper and/or Jessamine cooking on the back burner, so we’ll see who ends up getting to go next.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twilight au #bellice #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #rosalie #these our actors

[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: Brave New World, Chapter 1: The Parting of the Ways

In April 2018, the same day I posted the epilogue to As Dreams Are Made On, I wrote the first scene of Brave New World, and most of the second. And then I got stuck, for quite a long time. I lost myself in research, tried to build out my plans, tried to focus on other things for a time, particularly These Our Actors, which posed its own challenges - but I’ll cover that in my author’s notes on Rosalie’s installment. I had a difficult year for a number of reasons. For a time I wasn’t writing at all.

I see from the revision history that I only came back to Brave New World in February of this year, spent a couple days on it, and left it alone again until June. June was when I finally realized that there was one particular thing in my life that was destroying my mental health and my ability to create, and that I was carrying on with it out of a sense of obligation, but I’d help no one - least of all myself - if I wore myself down on it. So, reluctantly, I dropped the obligation that was dominating my mental landscape, I took a step back, and I allowed myself to breathe. I’m still not working at a hundred percent, but I am getting better. And over the last few days, I’ve been able to write again.

My original plan for this chapter had been to focus on the wedding of Charlie and Kate, and I threw myself into a ton of wedding research, wanting to get everything just right. I figured Carlisle would officiate, so I researched Anglican marriage services and drew heavily on what I found. I looked at venues and considered colors and organized the wedding party and stopped just short of actually planning an entire wedding. And I got through the ceremony, which felt shorter than it should be, and I was beginning to write what came after, and I was thinking about what I had planned for the reception (notably what probably would have been an even cheesier musical moment than the rendition of “The Best Is Yet To Come” from the epilogue of As Dreams Are Made On), and I realized...none of it was working from me. It was indulgent in a story which is already going to get indulgent in parts, but worse, it was dull. My protagonist didn’t have much to do aside from stand and watch and react.

I also wanted to have a family meeting scene where we got some sense of where everyone was going over the summer, what they were doing, and I had a choice between tacking it onto the end of an overstuffed and boring first chapter or onto the beginning of the second chapter, which I’d planned to set primarily in Jacksonville. So I finally looked at the ten or so pages of wedding stuff I’d already written, considered how much more I would need to get through and how little I would enjoy it, and decided it all had to go. The first chapter would focus entirely on the family meeting, a last goodbye to Forks before I started the grand road trip that would take up the first few chapters of the book. Once I’d figured that out, I finished the first chapter in a day or two. It’s still a little more talking than I’d like and a little less action, but I think it sets up the next chunk of story nicely, at least.

As for the stuff I didn’t cut: as I said, Bella’s nightmare was the very first thing I wrote. I’ve made some minor tweaks here and there, but it’s pretty close to what I originally wrote over a year ago. I wanted to show some of the psychological effect of Bella’s decision to start a fight with the Volturi, I wanted to show that Eleazar’s panicked reaction to whatever he saw had affected her, and I wanted to start things off with a sense of menace hanging over our heroes. The Cullens and their extended network of friends and family may not be in a state of outright war, but there is still danger lurking at the edges of their lives, and unresolved mysteries hiding just below the surface of things. I wanted to spin a vision of something that could yet be, and establish that “happily ever after” is still a long way away, down a dark and twisted road.

It was also just enormous fun to write.

And it was a nice segue into a domestic scene with Alice and Bella, a glimpse of their lives a few weeks on from our last visit with them. We already got such a glimpse in the epilogue of the last volume, but seeing as that chapter was focused largely on prom, I thought they deserved a little alone time.

I spent a great deal of time trying to work out the plan for the summer - where everyone would be going, what they would be doing. I actually nearly forgot to include Eleanor in those plans, up until the last minute. I’m sorry to say that, focused as Brave New World is on Bella’s perspective, we’re not going to see much of the others’ adventures in this text, but they’re certainly fodder for future installments of These Our Actors, and Bella will get updates here and there, particularly once everyone is reunited in Forks. Bella, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett will all have quite enough on their own plates, so hopefully none of you will be bored.

There will be much more of Renée - and Phil - in the next chapter, which will cover the gang’s time in Jacksonville. I confess I’ve never been to Jacksonville (I’ve really only visited Florida for the theme parks) so I’ve got a bit of research to do. “I’ve got a bit of research to do” is likely to be my recurring mantra on this story, as I’m trying to blow out the boundaries of this world, introduce vampires we never met in the Twilight novels from places that were never really touched on, and perhaps bring in stranger things besides. But that’s a way off. For now, I’m a little ways into Chapter 2 (and have even written a bit of Chapter 3), and having great fun writing Bella’s free-spirited mother. I hope you’ll love my take on her as much as I do.

And now, as a bonus, I present the raw text cut from Chapter 1 of Brave New World. I’ve held onto it for reference, in case I decide to draw on it for flashbacks or a future installment of These Our Actors, and it’s possible the details may change, but since I don’t have any plans for it now, I thought I’d share what I came up with before I changed directions. It’s under the cut. I’m afraid not all my formatting carried over into Tumblr’s interface, but you should get the gist.

(Picking up from the end of the scene with Bella and Alice in bed at the cottage.)

I’d been pretty scarce around Forks the last few weeks, since school let out - I’d completely missed late spring giving way to high summer. Officially, I had been busy helping my dad and his new bride with wedding preparations. In actuality, I’d spent most of that time dropping into comas, recovering from them, and moving on to the next. I’d had a limited window of opportunity to turn a few select vampires human, and no time to waste. Edward had been the first to volunteer - he’d told Angela the truth, and she’d eventually decided she wanted to be with him regardless, but he still wanted to lose his bloodlust for the time being, and needed a bit of a break from everyone else’s thoughts after the past few months. I had carefully packed his powers away for safekeeping, then taken his vampirism from him. At his request, we were leaving him human until he reached his long-delayed eighteenth birthday.

Rosalie, Eleanor and Emmett had decided to turn human, too, and I had requested that they stay that way until Carlisle had finished identifying effective birth control techniques for hybrids, or at least until the summer ended. Kate hadn’t become pregnant just yet - and I really didn’t want to consider just how miraculous that was - but I didn’t want to push our luck with another extremely sexual and potentially fertile couple. Or thruple, as the case seemed to be - they had become much more open in their mutual affections toward Eleanor since she and Jessamine had moved to Forks.

Jasper and his sister - now going by Mina to avoid confusion - had decided to stay vampires for the time being, as had Carlisle, Esme, Tanya and Irina, though I had made my tweaks to the new arrivals so they and the shifters would no longer find one another offensive, assuming the vampires all stuck to non-human blood. It was just as well. With a five day coma after each de-vamping exercise and a day for recovery, I’d been cutting things awfully close to the rehearsal and the wedding itself. And no matter what dad said, I still felt a little guilty about that, even if he and Kate had plenty of help from everyone else. Especially since I was in the wedding party, if not precisely in the role I’d expected. At least I wasn’t maid of honor or best man, so to speak - those particular honors had gone to Irina and to Harry Clearwater, respectively. But I was still expected to stand at the altar.

After a luxurious spell in bed, followed by a relaxed breakfast and a shower, Alice “helped” me dress in the tuxedo she’d made for me, complete with high-collared blouse, fitted waistcoat, and a navy blue bow tie and cummerbund, all of it tailored perfectly to my frame. In all honesty, it was a blatant excuse to get her hands all over me and take me in one last time before the ceremony, but I can’t say I minded. At last, she finished, tying my hair back with a navy ribbon and kissing me softly, leaving me to finish my makeup while she hurried to meet Kate, Irina and the other bridesmaids.

Once I’d finished preparing, there wasn’t much left to do but head for the Cullens’ house, where dad and the rest of his party would be waiting until the time came to head for the venue. A mixed crowd of humans, hybrids, werewolves and most importantly vampires meant we were taking no chances with an outdoor wedding, and we were probably one of the few wedding parties this summer hoping for rain, or at least overcast skies. Fortunately, we’d gotten the latter, at least long enough to get the vampires into the hall, and by the time the reception was over with, it would be well past sunset.

It didn’t take too long to walk to the main house from the love nest Alice and I had made of Pine Cottage, and I arrived to find the others gathered around a table in the den, in the middle of a game of poker. There were two other groomsmen after Harry and myself: Emmett, and dad’s Deputy Chief, Joe Miller. From the pile of chips in front of him and the enormous frat boy grin on his face, it looked like Emmett was taking the others for all they were worth.

“Hey Bella!” he called out, waving as I came in and gesturing at the empty seat beside my father. “Want us to deal you in?”

I chuckled, taking the seat but shaking my head. “Thanks, but Alice already warned me about you. Hey, dad. Please tell me you didn’t put your honeymoon fund on the line.”

I nudged him with my shoulder, and he slung his arm around me, giving me a brief hug. “Hi, kiddo. The honeymoon fund’s safe. Kate would kill me. You girls didn’t think to warn me?”

“Well, you know, I’ve been busy. Distracted. And I figured Emmett would be too much of a gentleman to take advantage of a man on his wedding day,” I added, shooting a mock glare at the ex-vampire in question.

“Your first mistake was assuming I’m any kind of gentleman,” Emmett returned, with a broad smirk. “Besides, I respect Charlie too much to just let him win.”

Dad gave him a deadpan look. “I’m touched. Really. You can respect me a little less, though.”

“Can’t do it, sir.” Emmett drew himself up, looking impossibly earnest, save for the twinkle in his eye. “Did I ever tell you you’re my hero? You’re everything I wish I could be.”

“He’s been like this for the last hour. I’m starting to think he’s just always on,” Deputy Chief Miller remarked, glancing my way. “How’s your summer been, Bella?”

“Trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg with him,” I replied, gesturing at Emmett, who chuckled. “Oh, you know, good. Busy with wedding stuff, getting ready to leave town, all that. Alice and I are heading to Jacksonville with mom and Phil after the wedding, we’ll be back in August.”

“Your, uh, girlfriend’s going on vacation with you?” he said, his eyebrows rising.

“Don’t worry, Rose and me will be chaperoning,” Emmett interjected cheerfully.

Dad cleared his throat. “More importantly, Renée and her husband will be providing adult supervision. And separate guest rooms.”

I bit my lip to hide my smile. I still didn’t really have memories of my mom - or, rather, the mom I had here and now - and I’d only recently gotten to spend any time with her, since she and Phil had come to town for the wedding. It had all been e-mail and phone calls before that. But from my memory of the books, and based on my interactions with her so far, I would not really call Renée Dwyer a responsible adult, and Phil was friendly and level-headed but not really a parent to me. That suited me fine - I didn’t really feel like an actual teenager, even now, and I didn’t need active parenting - but it was apparently important to dad to keep up the convenient fiction.

What he wasn’t saying, of course, was that Jacksonville was only part of our trip. That just about everyone except Edward was leaving Forks for the summer, and that in fact he had no honeymoon fund to worry about, because Alice had arranged everything.

“Huh. Well, uh...have fun down in Florida. Is Jacksonville anywhere near the theme parks?” Miller asked, clearly ready to change the subject.

“It’s not - not any of the big ones, anyway - but Carlisle and Esme are going to join us down in Orlando for a few days before we head back,” I lied - another little fiction, this one mainly for my mom’s sake, but we were all keeping to a consistent narrative. “So we’ll be going to Disney World, anyway. The Cullens have never been, and they’ve been nice enough to invite me along.”

The deputy chief’s eyebrows shot up, and he glanced at Emmett, the lone Cullen in the room. “Seriously? What with this house and all, I sort of figured you’d be going every year.”

“Oh, we don’t travel much once we put down roots. It’s mainly just camping trips,” Emmett said. “Can’t wait to ride Space Mountain, though.”

“Gentlemen, I think we have a hand to finish?” Harry interjected at last, a little smirk on his face. “And then maybe we can find something to do that doesn’t give Emmett a chance to shake us down.”

“We have a pool table,” Emmett suggested innocently.

“We are not falling for that twice, kid,” dad said firmly. “Joe, I think it was your bet.”

“God help me,” Miller said, shaking his head as he pushed in his chips.

*****

After the game came to its merciful conclusion, we had just enough time for a movie before it was time to head for the venue. Neither dad nor Kate had been especially invested in the idea of a church wedding, so they’d picked out a lodge in the nearby woods, and asked Carlisle to officiate. I’d only seen the venue in photos. Seeing it in person, nestled among the towering pines, decorated in fairy lights and banners of blue and silver and lavender, the whole scene accompanied by the sounds of the wind in the trees and the river flowing nearby...I was simply awestruck by everything that lay before me.

“Well then. Guess this is our cue to go around back and get in position,” Harry said, clapping my dad on the shoulder. “You ready for this, Charlie?”

I looked over at dad. He, too, seemed briefly stunned and frozen. But when Harry spoke, he started to break into a grin. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“You’ve got this, dad.” I turned to him and gave him a loose hug. “I’ll see you soon. Love you.”

“I love you, too, Bells,” he said, hugging me back and kissing the top of my head. “Go on, then, I know you’re eager to see Alice.”

“God, you make it sound like we’re codependent,” I complained, lightly, pulling back. Not that he was entirely wrong: I could definitely feel a tingle of excitement running through me as I headed inside with Emmett and the deputy chief.

The rest of the wedding party was gathered in the lodge’s tiny lobby, preparing for their grand entrance to the great room. We didn’t have a ring bearer or a flower girl - Harry had the rings - but everyone else was prepared to play their role. I wasted no time making my way to Alice’s side, slipping my arm around her waist, while Emmett followed me at a more sedate pace, chuckling softly as he joined Rosalie.

“We were never that bad,” he remarked to Rose, looking at the two of us.

“Oh, you were worse,” she returned, smirking up at him. He made a scandalized noise in response.

“Is that how we’re going to play it, Rose? ‘Cause I seem to recall a particularly insatiable little -”

“How did the wedding prep go?” I asked Alice, tuning the two of them out as I turned to kiss her cheek. “You look gorgeous.”

“Mmm, I’d hope so, after all that. It was nice to be pampered. The makeup artist was a bit of a perfectionist, but Kate got the worst of it,” she replied, looking up at me through her lush, dark eyelashes, a smile curving her red lips. Her hair framed her face in messy waves, and of course she looked amazing in her bridesmaid’s dress - lavender, strapless, accented in silver, tailored to fit the individual figures of each woman in Kate’s wedding party. “It’s possible the poor woman suffered a static shock or two.”

“I told Kate to use her powers for good,” I joked, my eyes sweeping over the room. Eleanor and Deputy Chief Miller, who’d be escorting her up the aisle, had joined Emmett and Rose, and the deputy chief seemed a little lost and perhaps slightly scandalized by the increasingly shameless flirting among the trio. And Kate, as might be expected, was sandwiched between her maid of honor, Irina, and Tanya, who’d be giving Kate away in the place of their mother.

Kate, naturally, looked absolutely incredible. Her normally straight blonde hair had been curled and bound up in an elaborate updo, and dangling silver and sapphire earrings glittered at her earlobes. A brass pendant, formed in a sort of hammer shape and decorated with elaborate, curling lines, hung from a chain about her neck. Her wedding dress was also strapless, all white and silver, the bodice clinging tightly to her figure as it swept down to the full skirts that frothed about her legs, interrupted only by a lavender sash tied about her waist. She looked radiantly happy, her joy outshining her natural hybrid glow.

Alice and I made our way over to her, and I offered a slightly hesitant one-armed hug. “You look amazing, Kate. I just wanted to wish you and dad all the best, one more time, before we get started.”

“Thank you, Bella,” she replied, returning the hug, awkwardly at first, but we both relaxed into a genuine embrace after a moment. “I’m...well I’m glad you’ve accepted all this so easily. And that your mother has been so welcoming. I wasn’t sure…”

“Please, don’t worry about it,” I told her softly, though I could feel that slight, uneasy shift in the pit of my stomach, even now. I tried to quiet it: I’d seen how happy dad and Kate were, how good they were for each other. They were the same people they’d always been, or at least dad was, but happier. Still...the mating bond hadn’t given either of them much choice. I worried about that, as I still, sometimes, worried about Alice. As fast as I’d fallen for her, I’d still been able to do so on my own terms. That was something Alice never got to do, and a chance dad and Kate would never have.

I forced a smile nonetheless as I continued, practiced enough now to make it genuine - which it was, really, mostly, despite my doubts. “Both of us just want dad to be happy. And you make him so happy - I’ve seen it, and now mom’s seen it, and she’s already remarried. She loves my dad but...they didn’t work. You two do. You just...fit.”

Maybe Kate caught something in my body language or my tone, despite all my best efforts, because she looked at me with faintly troubled eyes. But just as she was opening her mouth to say something more, we all heard the music starting in the other room, and Irina clapped her hands.

“Positions, everyone! Bridesmaids and groomsmen, go,” she announced, loud and clear. There was no more time to chat.

Alice and I were last in the procession of groomsmen and bridesmaids, and she nudged me gently as we swept into the room, murmuring softly. “You all right? You just seem…”

“I’m fine,” I whispered, through my smile, as we walked down the aisle under Carlisle’s benevolent gaze, surrounded by our family, friends and loved ones, going to meet dad and Harry at the altar. “Just getting in my own head a little.”

“Mmmm. Stop it,” she said, squeezing my arm as our moment came to part. “We’ll talk later.”

I nodded, very slightly, and we took our positions on either side of the aisle, watching Irina walk up last of all. The music changed, shifting to a classic bridal march, and everyone’s eyes were on Kate as Tanya walked her slowly and gracefully up the aisle. She was smiling brightly enough to transform her face into something even more beautiful, and broadly enough that it seemed like her face might crack in two, and I knew without looking that dad’s gaze was locked on her, his smile just as bright. Love and passion just radiated off the two of them, a palpable force filling the room from wall to wall. The room fell to a reverent hush, and for a moment I would have sworn I could hear their two hearts beating as one.

At last, the moment was broken by Carlisle’s voice, deceptively soft and yet resonant enough to fill the room. “Cherished friends, we come together today to witness the joining of Charles Geoffrey Swan and Katrina Sashova in holy matrimony, to ask for God’s blessing upon their union, to share in their joy, and to celebrate their love. For of all the gifts bestowed upon us by our Creator, love is the most precious, the most fragile, and the most important. As it is written in First Corinthians, love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“We are taught that marriage is a gift of love, for God is love. It is a gift of God in creation and a means of God’s grace, for through this holy mystery, two become as one. Marriage is given that each partner might help the other, living faithfully in need and in plenty, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy. It is given that with delight and with tenderness those so joined might know each other in love, and that through the joy of spiritual and of bodily union, they may strengthen the connection between their hearts and minds. Marriage is a grace visited not only upon those joined in matrimony but upon all their loved ones - not only upon any children that may arise from the union but also upon their beloved community.

“In marriage, those so joined belong to one another, and embark upon a new life within their community. It is not a gift to be taken lightly, carelessly, or selfishly, but reverently, responsibly, and after serious thought. This is the way of life that Charles and Katrina are now to begin. I have been privileged to know them, and privileged to witness their love for one another. I believe with all my heart that these two are meant to be one. And now I must ask: if anyone here knows of any reason why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Silence followed. I wasn’t expecting anything else, but even so, it felt like the world had let out a breath it didn’t know it had been holding. Dad and Kate beamed at one another once again.

“Very well,” Carlisle said, breaking into a warm smile of his own. “Charles and Katrina, I now invite you to join hands and to deliver your vows in the presence of God and of all assembled here. May you speak honestly and without reservation, from the bottom of your hearts.”

Dad and Kate stepped forward, closer to one another, joining hands, and for a moment dad seemed at a loss for words, until his perfect hybrid memory kicked in and he found his place once more. He cleared his throat and chuckled nervously under his breath. “I, Charles Swan, take you, Katrina Sashova, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward: for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I swear to love, cherish, and honor you each day, from now until my last day on this Earth, in God’s name and by God’s grace.”

“I, Katrina Sashova, take you, Charles Swan, to be my lawfully wedded husband,” Kate returned, her eyes shining just slightly, her face aglow with more than the usual hybrid radiance. “To have and to hold from this day forward: for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I swear to love, cherish, and honor you each day, from now until my last day on this Earth, in God’s name and by God’s grace.”

“I believe the best man has the rings?” Carlisle said, taking them gently as Harry offered them, and cradling one in each hand. “God, by your blessing, let these rings to be to Charles and Katrina be a symbol of unending love and faithfulness, to remind them of the vow and the covenant which they have made this day in your holy presence. Amen.”

With that, he handed the rings off, and I could see dad’s fingers tremble just a little, almost imperceptibly, as he slipped Kate’s ring on her finger. “With this ring, I pledge myself to you, giving you all that I am, and sharing with you all that I have.”

Kate echoed his words softly, slipping his ring onto his finger in turn, and Carlisle joined their hands together, covering them loosely with his own.

“What God has seen fit to join, let no man put asunder,” he pronounced solemnly. “And by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Charlie, you may kiss your bride.”

They were moving before he was done talking, and somehow mustered enough restraint to move slow enough for the human eye to follow, though I heard more than a little laughter at their eagerness nonetheless. Charlie swept Kate readily into his arms, tilting her back just a little as they kissed fiercely, her bouquet dropping to the ground as her hands reached up to cup his cheek.

The room broke into wild applause, with a few hoots and whistles mixed in, and my eyes caught Alice’s as we clapped. For one wild, breathless moment, I wanted to throw caution to the wind, speed to her side and take her in my arms as well, hell, maybe even tell Carlisle to marry us here and there. But just a split second later, I felt a sort of coolness rushing through me, like a cold shower inside my mind, and my gaze swept into the audience, where Jasper raised one eyebrow at me expressively and inclined his head. I gave him a sheepish grin, then looked back at Alice, who winked and blew me a kiss before turning her attention back to the matter at hand. A triumphant march played as the wedding party swept back outside for photos and drinks and all the rest while the lodge staff moved everything around again for the reception.

*****

“I’ll be honest, that was way more God than I was expecting,” Callie remarked to me, once I’d been excused from modeling duty and we had a moment alone.

I shrugged. “Dad and Kate believe in a vague something. It was enough to have a vaguely religious ceremony. Besides, Carlisle’s dad was an Anglican pastor.”

Callie downed some of her sparkling cider, her eyes narrowing at me. “Is that a ‘lingering obsession with Twilight factoid’ or an ‘I spend all my time around the Cullens’ factoid?”

“Column A, column B,” I said, with another slight shrug. “I already knew about it, but I mean, we do talk. Anyway, Carlisle’s not nearly as hardcore as his father was, but he’s religious enough and in the know, so…”

“Vaguely religious ceremony. Right. Gotta say it was probably also the shortest wedding I’ve ever been to,” Callie replied, before looking sadly at her half-full glass. “And it’s the most sober wedding I’ve been to in a while. For us, anyway.”

“Yeah, being legally underage definitely has its downside. And please, you saw that kiss - I don’t think we could’ve gotten those two to wait much longer.”

Callie snorted. “True. Hell, you and Alice probably won’t even make it past ‘dearly beloved’.”

Mom chose that moment to come up just behind Callie, her eyebrows rising at the remark, and I immediately started laughing just a little too loudly. “Ha ha! Like we’re about to get married - which we’re not - because I’m seventeen! I am still just...seventeen. And in high school. And not even thinking about getting married. Yep. Good one, Cal, mom, you remember Callie.”

Callie stared at me and shook her head slightly before turning to face my mother. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Dwyer. Did you enjoy the ceremony?”

“I did, thank you,” mom said, granting me a brief respite as she smiled warmly at Cal. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything over here.”

I shot Callie a pleading glance, and she looked in my direction just long enough to smirk at me before shaking her head. “No, not at all. I should probably go meet up with my parents. You two should catch up. See you later.”

“Of course. We’ll see you around,” mom agreed, and Callie gave a slight wave and moved off. I glared daggers at her retreating back, just for a moment, while mom watched her leave and shook her head. “I still have no idea how you get a nickname like ‘Callie’ out of a name like ‘Tara Chen’.”

“It just suits her,” I mumbled, sighing. “Long story.”

“If you say so. Now, let me look at you.” Mom turned back to me, putting her hands on my shoulders, taking me in. “I still can’t believe how big you’ve gotten, Bella. Or how...oh, what’s the word....dashing, maybe? How dashing you look in that suit.”

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twilight au #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #bellice #brave new world

[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: Brave New World, Chapter 4: Through the Darkness

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709434/chapters/48542555

Hoo boy. Where to begin.

We’re now getting at the core truth of some things I’ve been hinting at since Alice became a hybrid. I had always seen “Alice and Bella delving into Alice’s past” as a plot thread in this book, even when the “book” was still going to be a series of loosely connected vignettes I’d write when I could between the end of As Dreams Are Made On and the start of Forth The Mutinous Winds. I wasn’t originally planning to deviate too much from canon, but the more I delved into said canon, and the more I thought about it, the more I found I wanted to, for a couple reasons.

I guess this started when my heart sort of settled on Becky G as my ideal casting choice for this story’s version of Alice. (This has nothing whatsoever to do with my having a low-key crush on her since Power Rangers, I assure you, you know, like a liar.) I was thinking through what exactly that might mean and it ended up combining with one of my major issues with the Twilight series as written: it’s very white.

That’s not unrealistic for the Pacific Northwest. But it stands out when the Cullens gather their allies from around the world, and the vast majority were of white European descent to begin with. Even the vampires who are canonically not white are rendered pale by the transformation, maintaining an “olive tone” at best. (I think that’s bullshit - it was ignored for the films and I will be ignoring it as well.) And there’s a recurring issue where any characters who aren’t white...aren’t really given a great deal of consideration. Names are chosen with no apparent thought to their origin, the actual cultures involved are cast aside, and so forth. I’ve spoken before, briefly, about my discomfort with how the Quileute and Makah are portrayed - how I feel badly about going with the book’s canon when I started writing this, and how I want to do better by them in future Twilight fic. But that discomfort extends well beyond the bastardization of the local Native people, into how people of color are rendered invisible and/or not given respect or due diligence in general throughout the Twilight series.

So this is the start of a broader trend: I plan to expand on existing PoC in the books, to do what due diligence I can and try to write them more authentically. I also plan to add new PoC, particularly among the allies gathered in the course of the World Tour over the summer depicted in the opening chapters of Brave New World. And when I saw this chance to expand on Alice’s story, to change it, to add new wrinkles to the whole thing, I seized it.

The lesser motive here is that I’m trying to reinforce the idea that this world isn’t a carbon copy of Twilight. A lot of stuff went into making it, and sometimes that means the story won’t be perfectly predictable. That’s a good thing, I think, particularly in that it makes Alice’s backstory something new, something we can explore together, no matter how much Twilight lore we know.

What will it mean for Alice to be Latina, in the long run? I’m not sure yet. She has no memories of her human life. It wasn’t something that factored into her life as a vampire. I think it’s something she’s going to spend time thinking about, and exploring, and I’m going to do my best to do that respectfully. I don’t have all the answers yet, and even if I did, I would want to share them organically through the story. So...stay tuned.

On a slightly tangential note, I’m spending a lot of time in the writing of Brave New World grappling with the fact that even the kindest vampires from the books have killed human beings. Carlisle is the only one who never has. Alice’s history is painful, and she feels a deep and abiding guilt for what she did in her early days as a vampire. She probably should. I don’t believe it was her fault - newborn vampires are, with the exception of Carlisle and canon Bella, not remotely in their right minds, and Alice’s turn was particularly traumatic - but it still happened. That’s something I’ll probably continue to explore and try to work out in the story, along with grappling with the question of how and why the Cullens have good friends who continue to eat people without reservation or remorse.

Oh - and Alice gaining the power of postcognition? Something I’ve been planning for a while now. It seemed like a natural adjustment for Bella to make. Honestly, it probably should have happened sooner, but I couldn’t find a good place for it in the previous chapters.

Moving on: Rosalie is a witch now. That surprised me. Honestly, the whole ritual to protect the campsite surprised me. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt like Bull Bay would be haunted to some degree, and that was when the part of my brain that speaks for Bella insisted that the campsite be warded, one way or another. I considered a few different ways of making this happen. One: have the others help Bella with the ward, and it works because it’s pretty basic and even if she can’t do magic, anyone else theoretically can. Two: have Bella borrow power from the natural world to set up the ward. Three: just let Bella get some of her magic back. And, well, you saw four.

I rejected options two and three because I’m not ready to give Bella magic. Her inherent power is already potent, and giving her magic as well opens a can of worms I want to keep sealed for the time being. Stuff is going on with her. It will be revealed in time. In the meantime, no magic beyond the power she’s already got.

I rejected option one because it felt like “yeah, normal people with no prior magical experience can just set up a ward without building magical reserves or anything” was also opening a can of worms, I thought. I don’t think magic is restricted to those like Jessica who have a natural talent for it, but if you don’t have a natural talent, I think you have to work for it. (Even if you DO have a natural talent, I think you have to work for it, but it comes easier.) I just couldn’t see my way clear to Emmett and Rosalie being able to put up wards without natural talent and without practice.

Option four presented interesting possibilities. I could see the chain of logic that would allow Bella to extend Rosalie’s power (introduced in the Rosalie story that serves as Chapter 2 of These Our Actors) into a natural talent for magic. More, I could see how much pain it would cause Bella one of her best friends, her surrogate big sister, a talent for magic when she herself is still disconnected and can’t modify her own power the same way. Like most writers, I do occasionally find the pain and anguish of my characters to be a nummy treat. So I decided to go with that for now.

I’m a practicing witch myself, and much as I’m trying to set my vision of Bella apart from the self-insert she originally was...well, it’s true that wards were one of the first things I learned and practiced. The incantations Rosalie uses at Bella’s direction are not the incantations I use myself, though I did borrow some language. We will not speak again of the myriad tongues/mine own lungs rhyme. It served. My actual spells are a part of my personal religious practice, and I was unwilling to insert them verbatim.

(Incantations are not always half-baked rhymes, but we’ll get into those discussions as Rosalie learns and adapts to witchcraft.)

I think I have a somewhat better justification for Rosalie knowing how to pick locks, giving her canonical mechanical inclinations. But I’m probably going to refrain from giving her new talents after this.

The town of Bull Bay, Mississippi does not exist, but it’s based on a couple of towns, most notably the ghost town of Rodney, Mississippi. Rodney was abandoned because the course of the Mississippi river changed, not because of a vampire massacre, but I still drew some inspiration from it. I considered calling my town Magnolia, but of course there already is a Magnolia, Mississippi, so I went with one of the names for Magnolia grandiflora instead. The asylum similarly does not exist: there were no suitable abandoned asylums “two counties away” from Biloxi (where Alice was canonically sent), so I made one up. And I adore the Kirkbride Plan - look it up, Kirkbride buildings are awesomely creepy and evocative - so of course I made it a Kirkbride asylum.

I wanted to finish the exploration of the asylum in this chapter and start the next one in New Orleans (another choice that has a great deal to do with personal preference - New Orleans is one of my favorite cities on the planet), but it was getting very long. So Alice seeing her actual birth certificate in a vision is where we end things for now, and we’ll pick up from there in the next chapter.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope you’re all still enjoying the story now that it’s moving in unexpected directions.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twilight au #bellice #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #brave new world

[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: Brave New World, Chapter 3: Dreams and Wishes

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709434/chapters/47618575

Almost two weeks since the last chapter! I fear we’re slowing down a bit, and will be slowing down a bit more as I turn my focus to other projects and spend a little more time laying foundations for the chapters to come. I’ve said previously that I have roughly the first eight chapters of this story properly outlined, and a general sense of where the story will go after that. Well, I am now almost halfway down the path I’ve already laid for myself, and we are done with the fluff. The time has come to double-check my research, fill in the details, and make some difficult decisions. And, in the process, I had probably better lay a bit more road.

This is easily the most fluffy and self-indulgent chapter I’ve written so far. I tried not to make it sound too much like a travelogue, and I tried to hit some beats that will become important later, but even so, I let myself do the literary equivalent of drawing a hot bubble bath and sinking into the water with a generously poured glass of wine. This chapter was so self-indulgent, in fact, that I wrote part of it ahead of Chapter 2, because I was feeling down and I wanted to write something that would make me happy. What’s coming up next is a lot of work - delving into Alice’s past, meeting up with vampires, discovering new mysteries - and I just wanted to let these four have a good time for a little while. And, of course, there are plot developments, but I guess I should put the rest under a cut for the sake of anyone who hasn’t yet read the chapter.

I’ve said that I’m trying to push Bella somewhat off the self-insert mark I set when I first began writing this story. That’s still very true, but I admit I pushed more of myself into this chapter than I have in a while. Disney World is easily one of my favorite places on Earth, and despite my criticisms of the corporation itself, I am a second-generation Disney fanatic. My mother was a big fan, too - the office in my family home was once covered in Disney memorabilia - and so indulging my fandom makes me feel close to her. I suppose I’ve only become more obsessive since she died.

I do also Disney Bound as a hobby - I’ve found I really like devising and perfecting outfits inspired by my favorite characters. I started with Ariel, of course (and will be debuting the third iteration of my Ariel Disney Bound on my vacation this year), and have since added outfits inspired by Belle, Rapunzel, Maleficent, and Rey to my repertoire. I also cosplay as Ariel and plan to start cosplaying as Rapunzel next year, but Bella isn’t quite that far gone down the road of geekery yet.

And, of course, there’s the proposal, which is absolutely me indulging a fantasy. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married - I’m not even in a serious relationship right now. But I’ve definitely thought about how my perfect proposal will go, and since I have no idea if it’ll ever happen, I decided to go ahead and write it into the story. I expect I’ll be fitting some details of my dream wedding into the story when the time comes as well.

Of course, in order to write my perfect proposal, I had to grapple with the fact that there wasn’t really a set location to meet Ariel in 2005 - New Fantasyland and Ariel’s Grotto wouldn’t open for a few years yet. She appeared at various character dining experiences, of course, but that wouldn’t be quite the intimate experience I wanted. I didn’t want to deal with homophobic reactions to a public proposal - I really didn’t want to write a fully public proposal at all - and I know from my experience attending Gay Days at Disney World in 2004 that, while other guests can be assholes, the cast members (i.e. staff and performers) at Disney are usually cool. Ariel’s Grotto only admits a few people at a time, so it was perfect for my needs. It just...didn’t exist yet.

But there was nothing really preventing most of New Fantasyland from existing back then, and as I turned the idea over in my head, it occurred to me that this was another opportunity to show that the world Bella had found herself in wasn’t precisely the world she remembered. Fragments of her desires and her memories - and those of others - shaped this new world. Moreover, her cognitive dissonance over the resort being somewhat off afforded me the opportunity to show that all is not entirely well with her, not just yet.

I’ve dropped a few hints of this so far. First, there was Eleazar’s reaction when he examined her powers toward the end of As Dreams Are Made On. Then there was the dream that opened Chapter 1 of Brave New World. And now we have these little episodes when Bella runs into something that doesn’t quite seem to fit, something that nags at the half-abandoned, half-forgotten recesses of her mind. There is more to come, and this will feed into one of the major plot threads of this second book.

The Haunted Mansion is absolutely my favorite ride, and it is in fact a tradition of mine that it’s my first ride on any Disney vacation if possible, followed by a stop in Adventureland for a Dole Whip float. I wasn’t really going to write a scene there, but...well. I don’t want to say too much. Suffice to say that this world is stranger than even the Cullens realize, and this story will bring them in contact with things they never imagined. I wanted to raise the possibility. (And I did in fact live in a haunted house as a teenager. My experience wasn’t precisely as Bella describes, though I made use of the broad strokes. I’ve told the story before on other accounts - I don’t think I’ll repeat it here and now. Perhaps another time.)

The Adventurers Club was one of my favorite spots at Disney World, particularly when I returned as an adult. Sadly it closed in 2008, and has since been torn down and replaced with a restaurant - none of the old Pleasure Island is still there, really. Elements of the old Club have been woven into Disney lore across the world, and there have been reunions of the actors and inductions of new members now and then, but the Club itself is no more. Since I was doing a bunch of self-indulgent shit anyway, I figured it was a good place for our heroes to stop for a drink and celebrate the engagement.

I decided a while ago that Rosalie would be Bella’s maid of honor. This is partly for the reason she gives - she wants Callie, another experienced witch who is familiar with Bella’s own beliefs, to officiate - and partly because I think Callie and Bella’s relationship has grown somewhat strained over time. They’re still good friends and even sisters, but the simple fact of the matter is that Bella has become a wholehearted part of this world while Callie is still holding part of herself back. That’s a fundamental disagreement, and it’s hard to get over something like that. Multiple people have told me Callie is their favorite character, so don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere, and she and Bella aren’t about to break off their friendship, but it’s going to take time for them to rediscover who they are to one another. In the meantime, Bella and Rosalie have grown extremely close, finding a sisterly relationship that Rose doesn’t quite share even with Alice, so the maid of honor thing felt fairly inevitable.

If it feels like the chapter ends on a slightly ominous note, well. To some degree it does. Bella is trying to be realistic without becoming entirely pessimistic, and there are in fact dark and difficult times ahead. Next stop: Biloxi, and Alice’s past. It’s not exactly going to be another trip to the theme parks, I fear.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twlight au #bellice #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #brave new world

[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: These Our Actors, Chapter 1: Quil

I did a thing.

You will find it on AO3, FFN, and Wattpad.

This is not, of course, Brave New World. That’s still coming, after a break, though inspiration has struck and I’ve written some of the first chapter. But in a sense it is Brave New World, because it’s closer to BNW’s original purpose.

I guess I should explain. I’ve been describing Brave New World for a while as a series of vignettes covering Bella and Alice’s senior year, a way to fill time while I work on other projects and get ready for Forth The Mutinous Winds. But as I reached the end of As Dreams Are Made On, some new ideas hit, among them Eleazar’s reaction to his glimpse of Bella’s power, and I realized there was something I could do with that, and quite a lot I could do with laying the groundwork for the final volume of the trilogy. I could build a coherent narrative arc out of the last year before the war against the Volturi truly begins.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I realized, also, that I really wanted to get in the heads of some other characters. There were some other things I wanted to do that might not fit into the main narrative. There were choices I wanted characters who were not Bella to make. There were things I wanted to explain and explore, and I wanted the freedom to move throughout the story to do it.

I’ve seen writing described as arguing with an idea. I’ve heard other writers talking about characters just barging into their stories and insisting they have a place there. That is...kind of what it’s like for me, and I’ve had quite a few arguments with other writer friends about it, but there we have it. Writing, for me, is a conversation with my cast. It’s a negotiation between me and my characters. And so when I sat the cast down, so to speak, and told them what I had in mind, and asked if they had any ideas, Quil shot his hand up first and shouted “I don’t want to be Uncle Creepy.”

That fit with some other stuff I wanted to play with, so I said okay. I’d fix it.

(Rosalie got her hand up second. She’s pretty pissed Quil beat her. But I do think she gets to go next.)

It’s strange to think of these people as my characters, of course, since they are and they’re not. Naturally, Stephenie Meyer created them. But as The Tempest Trilogy has grown, the story has become less about some version of myself falling into Twilight, and more about me dropping into my own interpretation of Twilight. So I’ve sort of adopted all these wild, unruly people with Very Firm Opinions About How Things Should Go, and they’ve broken out of their original molds, and now we have a rapport. Things are going well at Tempest HQ, and I hope they’ll continue to do so.

But I digress. As usual, let me cite the shout outs for this chapter:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines returns! Bella won that bet.

“No boom today. Boom tomorrow.” “There’s always a boom tomorrow.” is a shout out to Babylon 5, one of my all-time favorite SF series and a huge influence on one of my early stabs at SF as a teenager. I doubt I will ever actually tell the story of Captain Moira Smithson and the Athena, as it’s quite derivative in many ways. Anyway, it’s specifically a shout out to Susan Ivanova, easily in my list of the top ten most badass women of science fiction, played by the delightful Claudia Christian. Remember, Ivanova is God.

I really hope you enjoyed this look at things from Quil’s perspective. Rosalie’s up next, unless she’s not, but she is not someone I want to piss off so I’ll probably follow through. After that, it’s hard to say. These vignettes will definitely be an ‘as time allows/as inspiration strikes’ kind of deal, so expect me when you see me.

#twilight #twilight fanfic #twilight fanfiction #twilight au #as dreams are made on #adamo #these our actors #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse #quil

[twilight-adamo]

I have created a TV Tropes page for the story and pushed it out of the nest like a baby bird learning to fly. Please feel free to show it some editing love, and if you feel the story deserves it, please also feel free to add it to the Fanfic Recs page for Twilight. That is a line I cannot cross, since I wrote the thing. (But I would be thrilled. Oh God. Any time someone recommends my ridiculous story I am BEYOND ECSTATIC.)

Official Word of God stuff and other commentary will be posted here as usual. I’ll likely look in on the TV Tropes page from time to time and maybe add something here and there, but in accordance with the Code of the Tropers, my work’s page is not under my exclusive control, and I respect your rights to list tropes and comment on things as you will.

#twilight #bellice #alice/bella #twilight au #twilight fanfic #twilight fanfiction #as dreams are made on #adamo #the tempest trilogy #the tempestverse

[twilight-adamo]

Author’s Notes: Brave New World, Chapter 2: The Here and Now

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709434/chapters/46906186

I rarely end up naming my chapters until I’ve finished them - this was no exception, and I ended up taking the chapter title from the last line. I considered it making “Now Was All We Had” or “Now Is All We Have” outright, but I felt that would be a bit too repetitive.

One week between new chapters! How long has it been since I last managed THAT? I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that pace up, to be quite honest with you - I had actually hoped to spend substantially more time with my Fandom Trumps Hate commission this weekend. But that story is coming together, at least, and my muse wanted to talk Twilight, so here we are.

I’m not sure this chapter gives as much of a sense of Renée as I would have liked, and honestly poor Phil gets...no dialogue and next to no time in the spotlight at all. Still, hopefully it gives you some idea of who Bella’s mom is. I’ve read quite a few fanfics that portray her as chronically irresponsible and even abusive (not necessarily in a physical sense, but from a standpoint of neglect and overburdening her daughter with responsibility). I don’t necessarily oppose that depiction, and may use it or something close to it myself in a future story, but it wasn’t what I wanted here, and I don’t think it quite aligns with canon. She is depicted as absent-minded in the books, and as something of a free spirit, but she also canonically loves Bella very much and (I was surprised to learn) actually has a degree in elementary education and has evidently worked as a teacher. Honestly, as someone who has a decent job and maintains some aspects of my life well while being absent-minded in others, I sympathize with her.

So I wanted to show that Bella has two parents who love her very much, that Renée may not be a perfect parent but she tries and she misses her daughter fiercely. I also wanted to depict her as sex-positive and realistic about what her teenage daughter and said teenage daughter’s friends would be getting up to, something I touched on somewhat when I had Renée give Bella The Talk over the phone in the last book. That positivity, and Renée’s frankness in expecting it, ended up spinning into a few very raunchy scenes that I just couldn’t bring myself to cut. My characters got a little out of control for a while there.

(No, I have no idea how Rosalie and Emmett fit into one of those airplane lavatories at all, either. I barely fit into an airplane lavatory on my lonesome. But I have faith in their ability to manage it.)

In the course of writing this chapter, I spoke with a friend who’s familiar with Jacksonville, and researched the city independently. I ended up using next to none of it, aside from the climate in late June/early July, the name of Phil’s baseball team, and the fact that there are beaches and a zoo. Ultimately I’m not here to write a travelogue, there may be enough of that in the next chapter, and I didn’t feel I knew Jacksonville well enough personally to write any details convincingly. Besides, the emphasis was always going to be more on my characters than their surroundings.

The conversation with Renée on the beach consciously echoes similar conversations with Charlie in the last book, and of course prompts Alice to ask pointed questions as to what Bella wants to do about her mother. Bella’s answer, this time, is very different, precisely because of what happened to Charlie toward the end of the last book - but the prospect of getting married young, giving Renée one last milestone to witness in Bella’s life, emerges here, and, well, you can probably guess that will be relevant down the line. The Volturi are still looming over everything, even if they’re not yet aware of Bella, even if they’ve no reason to dictate her fate here and now. With so much uncertainty and danger ahead, I think it makes a certain amount of sense that even this Bella would want to celebrate and solidify what she has before she risks losing it all.

The sketchbook Alice filled for Renée was sort of a random notion that popped up once Bella had eaten the page of Rosalie/Emmett diagrams and breezed about a surprise, but I think it’s fitting here, and again echoes a scene from the last book, when Alice sketched Bella gazing up at the stars. (Incidentally, I did in fact have to stop and research whether pencil sketches are safe to eat. I still don’t recommend you do it at home, but I found that drawing charcoal is generally safe and graphite is minimally toxic, and I figured a hybrid would find it unpleasant but suffer no ill effects. The things I do for this story.) It provided a nice, touching scene to end this chapter on, and an opportunity for Renée to embrace Alice as one of “her girls”. I’m not entirely sure where I would have ended the chapter otherwise, so while Bella may be mortified by what happened on the plane, I suppose I should be grateful.

There’s a brief mention of Renée in roller derby gear, so I should say that, yes, one of the things I was considering for this chapter - before I realized I had more than enough to fill it - was a roller derby bout in which Renée would be one of the jammers. 2005 is a little early for Jacksonville Roller Derby to exist as the organization it is now, but I figured there might still have been people scraping together bouts before it was formally launched. Renée would have skated under the name “School Daze” and her gear would have been largely black, decorated with white paint forming the repeated “chalk” line “I will not jam in class.” I wrote a little of the scene, which I’m posting under the cut as another outtake, but soon decided I wasn’t really up for writing a bout in an interesting fashion, and coming up with names and other derby folks would have been too much work for a chapter that was already done. Something else I may have to work into side material or future installments in some way, I suppose.

As I’ve said previously, I’ve written a bit of Chapter 3 already - a scene or two that I’ve been looking forward to for some time - and I can’t wait to share it. But we’ll all have to wait, as I’ve more to write both before and after that section, and I don’t know quite how long I’ll be. Beyond Chapter 3, I’ve got the story properly outlined through approximately Chapter 8, and a vague sense of what happens after that. Here’s hoping things go smooth.

And now, the outtake I promised from Chapter 2. As usual, Tumblr doesn’t do the best job of preserving my formatting, so please bear with me.

The days flew by, filled with visits to local restaurants and landmarks and plenty of quality time with mom, my girlfriend and my friends. We didn’t see much of Phil, busy as he was, though he did end up spending a little extra time with us when a couple of his games were rained out, and we finally got to take in a Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp game around the start of the holiday weekend. I’ve never been that invested in baseball, but it was easy to cheer Phil and his team on as they beat the visiting team 4-1.

And then, on Sunday, it was time for the most unexpected part of this little trip.

“I still can’t believe you do roller derby,” I said, laughing, as we walked into the massive university athletic center where the bout was to be held.

“Am I getting cool mom points for this?” she asked, grinning.

“Serious cool mom points. Like...I don’t know, a thousand points, that sounds good.”

“Hey, I’ll take it,” mom replied. “It’s not a big deal. We don’t even have an official league yet, just a couple loose teams. We’re hoping to get more organized.”

“It’s still awesome,” Alice told her.

“Yeah, definitely,” I agreed. “I guess I just didn’t see it as something my mom would be doing.”

Mom smirked. “Advantages to being a young, hot mom. Thirties, flirty and thriving, baby.”

I stopped to stare at her. “Please don’t call yourself hot again.”

“What? I am a dish.”

“You’ve got a hot mom, Bells, it’s true,” Emmett offered from behind us.

“She is pretty cute,” Alice added.

“Hey! You know what we should do? Find our seats,” I said brightly, clapping my hands once, rolling my eyes as they all chuckled, then leaning over to hug my mother. “See you after the bout.”

“Definitely. I’ll introduce you to some of the girls, they’ve been dying to meet you,” mom replied, hugging me back. “Love you, Bella.”

“Love you, too,” I murmured back, and we headed up into the bleachers spread around the indoor track. It wasn’t a bad crowd for an amateur match, though the place was hardly packed full, and it looked like there were even concessions on sale.

“What do you think my derby name would be?” Alice asked, as we settled into our seats.

“Tinker Hell,” Rosalie offered. “Might as well work the manic pixie dream girl from hell angle.”

Alice’s mouth dropped open in mock outrage. “I think Bella would tell you I’m absolutely heavenly. And I am not a manic pixie dream girl. Bells?”

“Uh...you can be kind of manic. You’re definitely a pixie. And you’re my dream girl,” I told her, with a soft smile that widened as she beamed back at me. “Plus you’re just a little too wicked to be an angel, sorry, baby.”

“Hmph. Well I forgive you because you called me your dream girl,” she allowed, pouting.

“As long as we’re playing to type, though, Rosalie, you’d be Barbie Maul,” I added, smirking when Rose turned a level look and a slowly arching eyebrow on me in return. “Hey, you started it.”

“I also didn’t ask,” she sniffed.

“Well, fine, I will,” I returned. “I was thinking Terror Dactyl, or--”

“Murdermaid,” Rosalie interjected.

Emmett snickered. “Princess Scariel.”

“Tidal Rave,” Alice offered, laughing when I pouted at her. “They took the obvious ones. You have to admit you’re a little predictable, baby.”

“I have other interests!”

My girlfriend leaned into me, wrapping her arm around mine. “Yes. But you also have a very definite brand.”

“See if any of you are on my Christmas list this year,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help a small smile regardless.

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