Life & Death Chapter 1

Intro

We start off with Meyer telling us how shocked she is that it’s been ten years. Yet it only feels like yesterday that you drove a nail into the coffin of vampire fiction. Don’t get me wrong, it still exists but there was something about Twilight that put the genre back to sleep for mainstream work. Now everything is about dystopian teen futures where everyone is divided into cliques.

She says her little babies have turned into teenagers and I don’t know if she’s talking about her actual children or her books. If it’s the stories, ten years isn’t long enough to turn into a teen unless you’ve got the same accelerated growth rate as the demon spawn of Bella’s. She says that, in typical her fashion, this bonus material is actually longer than Twilight. And, amazingly, even less happens in it.

Foreword

What the fuck Meyer. She says that she knows there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth because it’s not Midnight Sun. Is there really that large of a fandom who desperately needed to see Twilight from Eddie’s perspective? All I know is that whoever leaked it and destroyed her motivation is a damned hero.

Meyer says that with the anniversary coming up, she was thinking about criticism she’s gotten. Specifically how people have complained how consumed Bella is for Ed and how she’s basically just a damsel in distress. I’ve seen that too and I still maintain it’s the result of shoddy writing, not a character flaw. Meyer believe it would be the same with a “human male and female vampire”.

[…]Gender and species aside, Twilight has always been a story about the magic and obsession and frenzy of first love.

Species. Vampires aren’t a separate species. I hate how often that comes up in vampire fiction. If a human can turn into a vampire, then they’re not a separate species. You could call it an infection, a mutation, a genetic variant but they all start off as human.

Meyer says she’s basically just done a gender swap across the board for the most part. Her exception is that Charlie remains Charlie because it wasn’t common for a “transient” father to get custody of a child over a mother around when Bella was born. So superhumans who sparkle and have mutant powers are fine but a father getting custody, that’s breaking the suspension bridge of disbelief.

Also, this is the first I’ve ever heard about Charlie being unemployed and homeless ever. The way Meyer wrote it before, it was like Charlie has always been the sheriff of Forks. It’s a post that makes the keeper immortal so long as they wear the badge.

She also changed a bunch of working because the gender swapped Bella, now Beau, isn’t as “flowery” with his narration. Remember kids, men are always rough and callous and prefer diamond plating and man wipes because enforcing gender roles is serious business. Also a bunch of editing and something to do with Alice’s visions which I’m sure was stupid.

Preface

Fuck a flying football. We have our main character, presumably Beau, babbling about having never given thought to dying. He’s looking at what I assume is the gender swapped bad vampire, James, from Twilight. God forbid our protagonist get nomed by a male vampire. He can’t regret his decisions and then the “hunter” comes over to kill him.

Chapter 1

Finally we’re into the meat of the start, as it were. It’s January and Beau is whining about the heat in Arizona. Also, he’s wearing a Monty Python tshirt in case you cared. Apparently where he’s going he won’t need tshirts. I suppose that anyone who lives north of Arizona wears only furs ten months out of the year.

Mostly it’s just Beau bitching about going to live in Forks and how dreary it is. You know, because it rains a lot around Washington state. They get to the airport and he begins to panic about his mom and how he’s had to take care of her since forever. This actually makes a little more sense for Beau than it did for Bella. There’s still a bit of this mentality that men take care of the household that Beau would have grown up in so he might have felt a little responsible for his mom.

They say their goodbyes and Beau flies out of her life. There’s some discussion about how Charlie is quiet and introverted as is Beau. Also, Charlie is happy that Beau is coming out to live with him for a bit. Somehow the introversion is necessary when living with mom. We’re not told why, just that’s something they both developed from living with her. Which is weird as Charlie only lived with her for a few months, going by the way the author is talking. He finally arrives and Chaz is there in the police crusier.

“Mom’s great. It’s good to see you, too, Dad.” I wasn’t supposed to call him Charlie to his face.

I’d hope not. There are parents out there who tolerate being called their first name by their kids but that, to me, is an alien thing. Than Bella/Beau both refer to Charlie by his name, rather than dad or father, puts it in perspective how little of fucks they give for the guy.

One of my biggest problems with the setup for this series is the motive in moving. Bella/Beau live with their mom down in Arizona and have for sixteen years or so. They up and decide to move north to live with their dad almost out of the blue. If Meyer had said it was because they wanted to get to know him a little before they go off to college, I could accept it. Instead, they do it because mom got remarried and they don’t feel needed around the house.

So, Meyer is telling us that a teenager has decided on their own to say goodbye to their hometown and friends and move across country. All so they could get away from their step dad. Unless step dad is a drunk and/or abusive, I don’t buy it. I’m going to pretend that Bella/Beau actually shit their pants during choir practice and they’re fleeing the nickname “brown streak”.

Charlie tells Beau that he bought him a car which is actually a truck. Being the entitled shit he is, Beau begins to whine righteously about it. Here I was hoping that Meyer would have made out main character a lot less annoying. Though that might be seen as sexist when the male counterpart of Bella doesn’t make the audience want to scratch their eyes out with a set a knitting needles.

Beau whines about how he didn’t get to pick it and how it’s old. Then he sees it and likes it and is grateful. He drops his crap off in his room and we’re told about his second hand computer and its “modem” because this is apparently set in nineteen ninety nine. He then complains about how he’s not a cool kid and won’t be able to make this work because he’s tall and clumsy.

[…]The kid who was too quiet and too pale, who didn’t know anything about gaming or cars or baseball statistics or anything else I was supposed to be into.

Unlike the other guys, I didn’t have a ton of free time for hobbies. I had a checkbook to balance, a clogged drain to snake, and a week’s groceries to shop for.

Do you know anything about anything? He doesn’t have any “manly” hobbies, which is fine, but then he also doesn’t “game”? If you tell me he reads, Meyer, then he’d damn well better know about vampire without having to google it. But seriously, Meyer, that’s one of my biggest complaints about Bella/Beau is that they don’t have hobbies. At all. I wouldn’t care if you made Bella/Beau into competitive knitting as long as they had some character trait outside of what they feel for the vampire to define himself. Ya know, besides clumsy.

The next morning, Beau looks around the house a bit and is embarrassed by the old pictures of him that’re up. He also comes to the conclusion that Charlie never got over mom. This is probably compounded by the candid photos Charlie has all over the place with mom’s eye cut out. This all makes Beau uncomfortable so he goes to school and to the office where he meets with the receptionist who has been changed to a man.

“I’m Beau Swan,” I informed him, and saw the quick recognition in his eyes. I was expected, already the subject of gossip. The Chief’s son, the one with the unstable mom, come home at last.

“Of course,” he said. He dug through a leaning stack of papers on his desk till he found the ones he was looking for. “I have your schedule right here, Beaufort, and a map of the school.”

Beaufort? Look, Meyer, if you wanted to do the gender swap, fine. But did you have to give everyone a name with the same first letter as before? Even if that was a must in your mind, Beaufort? Ed was changed to Edythe which is still stupid but Beaufort is just balls deep in brain damage. He was born in nineteen eighty seven, a year that wasn’t big on Beauforts. If you must have kept a B-name why not Billy or Bartholomew?

And why the hell did the receptionist have to change sex? I clearly recall an older lady who thought Eddie was spank bank material. Did you have to maintain that, Meyer, because it wasn’t important in any way. There’s nothing wrong with changing the sex of characters to explore how differently they would act in situations but just changing everything on a whim adds nothing to the story. It’s almost like you weren’t interested in the gender swap so much as just revisiting Twilight again.

Finally we get off to class where Beau finds out that his English class will be covering all the books he’s read before. He check off Chaucer, Faulkner, Bronte and Shakespeare as things he’s already read. Which is weird because, just like Bella, likes only older books but nothing else. A better author might try to imply that Bella/Beau’s love of the past is what gives them some ground with Vampy. Instead it’s just “I like old shit and am pretentious about it”.

Beau meet’s Erica, a girl who’s decided that by simple virtue of having a penis that’s new to the area, she wants to jump on that. I think she’s supposed to be the analogue to Mike though if that’s the case why Meyer didn’t go with Monica or Mindy if she wanted to keep the same first initial.

Beau makes the same lame observations about Arizona versus Washington. Beau is convinced there are people following too close and eavesdropping as they go to their next class. Never mind that it’s in between class and it would be expected that people would be fill the hall as they also have other classes to get to. Sure, everyone in this town is a podunk hick who’s just fascinated by anything that’s not an inbred bloodhound.

Erica breaks off from him when they get to the cafeteria, saying she hopes to she him later. Beau, being like no boy ever, smiles in what he hopes is not encouraging. Look, Meyer, even if Beau doesn’t want to bone this random girl, which is perfectly normal, he would probably be glad to meet someone who’s friendly.

Of course now that Beau is in the cafeteria, he’s stumbled upon the Cullen’s. Let’s see, there’s the Emmett analogue who’s “super tall” and has legs that “go on forever”. A girl who looks like some actress from an “action movie” and a smaller girl. They’re all different but the same because they’re chalky pale. Which we all know is the ultimate boner fodder. People who look like dusty statues are so hot right now.

Beau asks who they are and their names are Edith, Eleanor, Jessamine, Archie and Royal Hale. For some reason Royal has a different last name. Beau says they’re attractive and someone says they’re dating and they live together. This makes Beau want to defend them for some reason. I didn’t realize the mere implication that people who lived together have sex was an attack. Especially considering that at least two of those couples have had more regular sex than Tiger Woods with a bottle of Viagra at a key party.

Beau notices their names are old fashioned like his name. Which makes me ask why? If the whole point is to blend in then why would you show up with an odd name? Why no present a fake name for school to at least try and blend in? Or is it like how they drive a car that stands out because they like being noticed, contrary to all the lip service they pay to “blending in”. Also one more of the morons has a last name of Hale, whoever is dating Royal.

Backstory about Dr Cullen and how all the kids are adopted. Beau begins staring at Edith and someone nearby says she’s hot but don’t bother. She doesn’t date anybody that they know of. Then they all leave at the same time and Beau fawns over how graceful they all are.

With the Cullen cock sucking out of the way, for the moment, Beau gets on the move to Biology. There he finds the only open seat next to Edith. More comments on how perfect she is and how her skin is unblemished by a single freckle or scar. He says the lesson is on cellular biology which he’s already familiar with but takes notes anyways. Maybe the reason Bella/Beau is so familiar with all the subjects they’re taking is that mom failed to get their transcripts completely transferred.

Baue glances over at a quiz that gets handed back and realizes he’s mentally been spelling Edith’s name wrong, it’s actually Edythe. She leaves right away and another “female voice” speaks up behind him. I know that when I heard a girls voice I always though of them as “female” rather than a girl. It’s McKayla who is the actual Mike replacement.

McKayla is a chatterbox and we learn that she has far more personality than Bella combined with Beau. She asks if she did something to Edythe because she’s never seen her act that way. They go to gym class which is a necessary detail that added so much the first time I was relieved Meyer didn’t cut that out. Where would Twilight be without a complete itinerary of the protagonist? In the toilet, that’s where.

Beau heads back to the office at the end of the day for reasons I’m still not clear on. Was there a good reason Bella/Beau had to end their first day back where they started? IS this a Family Circus comic, what did Bella/Beau do today? See the Cullens for the first time. Right next to that is a box that says had first mentally autonomous orgasm.

Edythe is there, just like Eddie, complaining about what the school receptionist can’t do. Edythe leaves almost immediately and the receptionist asks how Beau’s first day was. Beau says fine then gets in his truck and drives back home.