Hey everyone! So, I’ve been seeing a lot of comments lately calling me out for “hating Bella” or straight-up calling her a “bitch,” and I feel like I need to clear the air before this spirals into some kind of Twilight civil war. First off, I don’t hate Bella. Like, at all. I’m not secretly burning pictures of her in a fire pit or making “Bella’s the worst” playlists on Spotify. I respect her character and what she brought to the Twilight saga—awkward stares, stuttering, and all.
BUT I can also acknowledge that Bella has… let’s call it “Pick Me Energy.” Like, you cannot tell me that if someone in her life was getting more attention than her, she wouldn’t suddenly develop this weird competitive streak. Not because she’s evil or anything, but because she’s Bella. It’s just who she is! And honestly, can you blame her?
So when I wrote this alternate universe (AU), I decided to crank that part of Bella’s personality up a little—not to hate on her, but to explore her in a new light. Enter Heath: Bella’s brother, a character who (gasp!) gets a little more attention than her. Naturally, Bella doesn’t handle it super well.
Look, I know in the original Twilight movies, Bella’s personality works for the story they’re telling. She’s introverted, she’s moody, she’s relatable to anyone who’s ever written bad poetry about a crush in high school (we’ve all been there). But in my AU? I wanted to dig deeper. I wanted to see what would happen if Bella had to share the spotlight. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t love it.
And to be clear, this isn’t “Bella hate.” This is Bella character growth. This is giving her layers. Shrek had layers, and everyone loved him, so why can’t Bella? At the end of the day, I think it’s okay to acknowledge that she might have a few flaws (don’t we all?) without tossing her out with the sparkly vampire bathwater.
So yeah, that’s where I’m coming from. I’m just a fan of making things spicy. feel free to hate her, I don't mind its how I made her in the book.