Is MSR femslash?

I get this question occasionally from readers.

Is MSR femslash, or gfs? or bffs? or sisterhood?

Well, what is it?

That's what Rosalie would ask you as you read this story, wouldn't she?

That's the question you ask yourself when you look at a girl you're looking at, right? Is she The One? Is she even gay? or curious? will she like me? will I like her?

Do you know the answers to ANY of these questions before hand?

I don't think you do. Or, if you do, you're already judging her. If she has to be The One, then she can't be herself, and you've already doomed the relationship, because she can't be herself if she has to be The One for you, right?

If Lizzie HAS to be femslash with Rosalie, then all this wind-up is pointless, and they should've been in bed at chapter 2 if I was a slow writer and by the second paragraph in the first chapter if I wanted to get right to the goods, right? That's what femslash is, right? Skip the preliminaries and get right to it.

Well, that's what the usual fare of femslash is, but the really, really good pieces actually do let Bella and Rosalie get to know each other, get to cry a bit because college is hard and Bella's dad dies and Rosalie has commitment issues and a bit of a b-tch and maybe a little (too) slvtty because she's compensating for these wounds she carries in her heart that she has to be that way to receive love, even if it's fake or physical. And you learn to love these girls and when they do fall into each other's arms, it's because they love each other, not because it's femslash and that's what they're supposed to do ...

You know the story I'm talking about? Read: Mechanical Difficulties by HopelessRomantic79.

Now, my BxR story is a little different than that. Okay, it's WAY different than that, and different than most of what I've read on this site.

As you have seen.

But do you see where this is going?

Yeah, you do. Maybe. The thing is I have the whole story mapped out: all three books of it, but Lizzie and Rose are surprising me at every chapter. I had written three chapters ahead of this one (ch 66: Schadenfreude), and I had to throw all of that out, all 12k+ words because Rose just broke down and told Lizzie her name. She wasn't supposed to do that. And Lizzie wasn't supposed to take charge like this and start to arrange things. She wasn't suppose to do this until halfway into Book II.

But here they are, and they refuse to let the plot drive them, no: they are two people, two scared people wondering if this can work, and wondering what 'this' even is! One of them has no experience whatsoever in love, never had a bf, never been kissed, and dropped out of school because people are just too weird for her, so she'd rather live at home with her Pa, who is quiet and safe and predictable. The other girl was raped and murdered by five men, so her whole view of love is twisted and filled with hate: totally unromantic. She's given up on love, seeing it as a power-thing, useless to her, and she's given up on herself, seeing herself as hateful and broken: unfixable, unloveable.

Put those two together and what do you get? femslash? friendship? sisterhood?

Well, what you've gotten so far is 66 chapters of MSR with a lot of anger on Rosalie's part and a lot of tears on Lizzie's part. Both of them have a long way to go before they can ... what?

Well, they've started to heal, just a little tiny bit, they've started to hug some, they've started to open up, just a bit to each other, and ...

And, well ... it's a start. A real start. There's false starts because you try something, and whoops! that didn't work, but instead of being cool about it, Lizzie breaks down in tears and Rosalie gets furious, so there's plenty of backsliding.

But are they trying? And what are they trying for?

Rosalie was right: Lizzie is a little chicken-sh-t, and she has no idea what she wants.

But Rosalie? All you have to do is read my side story: Rose by a Lemon Tree to know that any criticism she has of Lizzie is nothing to the problems she's saddled herself with.

Rosalie knows what she wants. Just ask her. Or, actually, she says she knows what she wants, and is very sure and confident in saying exactly what she wants and how she wants it all to work out.

The thing about Rosalie is that what she says she wants, and what she really wants, may be two different things, but her own pride so blinds her to that difference that she doesn't even know nor acknowledge that there exists a difference at all. So she says she wants to keep her distance, that she would rather have Lizzie hate her than draw any closer to her, for, after all: she's a monster, twisted and evil and incapable of love.

She knows this: just ask her.

But then she gives Lizzie her name, and says she never had a sister ... that is, she never had a girl close to her. She never gave anyone else her heart. Not really. Not to Royce. She planned her future with Royce, with their perfect wedding and their perfect family with their perfectly well-behaved children, but she never gave Royce her real heart, her true love, and maybe Royce sensed this, her aloofness, her haughtiness, and maybe he felt threatened by that: his manhood was called into question, because no matter how much of a man he was(not), he was never able fully to possess 'his' Rose, never fully able to own her nor to make her scared of him and grovel like everybody else did, all this employees and sycophant friends.

Who has had Rosalie heart? Not even Vera, her friend. Because Rosalie could feel superior to her. Vera married low and moved on and left Rosalie behind, because Vera followed her heart.

And Rosalie never did.

Rosalie never gave her heart away, and Lizzie was never given the chance to.

So, can Lizzie muster up the courage to say 'I love you, Rosalie Hale'? because for sure Rosalie's not going to say that. Ever. That is: first. Rosalie can't give her heart away now. It's far too painful.

It really, really doesn't look good, does it?

But Lizzie has grown, and Rosalie, even though she won't admit it, has, too.

So, maybe ... maybe.

And that's my answer. It's not definitive, but does live give you a priori definitive answers? If it does, is that living life, or going through the motions in a limited little box of a maze and calling that life? Life is lived in the questions, isn't it? and finding your own answers to the questions you dare to ask. If someone else spoonfeeds you answers, then do those answers have any meaning? or any worth or value? That is, being given to you instead of earned.

You can be handed a person and told: you're sleeping with her tonight. And many, many girls in the world are told just that. But it's up to them to find in the person they choose the things to love, be in that person in their arms right now, or the one they go out, seek, and find. Or the one that comes to find them.

But you have to choose whom to love, and you have to choose why, right? And you have to make it work, every day.

Is MSR femslash? or friendship? or sisterhood?

Maybe.

That's up to Rosalie to let go of her pride and 'what's right' in her eyes, and up to Lizzie to let go of fear and embrace her hope.

Just as it is for you to give up your pride and fear and embrace your hope, and write your own story. That's what Lizzie and Rosalie are (tentatively) doing, and isn't it an exciting, hopeful, just so different read? And for them, living it, so, so scary, so new?

Is your life femslash, friends or sisters? Do you want to keep living the safe ho-hum life everybody else lives? Or throw your heart out there, get hurt, badly, and, maybe, just maybe, let her catch it and cradle your heart, and you, in her arms, as you cradle her?

geophf, writer of that really weird story MSR signing off; I have to get back to writing that next chapter.

Wherefore Vera

I've recent read a couple of stories about Vera, and have read (and reread, and reread) Eclipse, chapter 7 "Unhappy Ending," which is "Rosalie's" chapter, but, in a very real way, is Vera's chapter.

Because, I argue, the key to understanding everything between Rosalie and Bella in the canon, is to understand Vera.

Please allow me to explain.

First, I think we need to examine Rosalie and Emmett's relationship.

Emmett seems to fill a need, but their relationship seems to be more surface. They are "happy" with what they give to each other, but they don't probe to any depth. I would think Rosalie would need more than a strong, sexually charged, easy-going, funny man. I would think she would want somebody she could open her heart to, all the way, and really, not cry, because she can't, but scold her like Vera did, not let Rosalie get away with the stuff Emmett does (in canon), share with Rosalie her deepest sadnesses, and let Rosalie share hers with her.

I think Rosalie needs this, no? And I think she's not getting all that from Emmett. Nor from Royce (well, who she thought Royce would be), and that's why she had Vera then. A true friend, of the heart.

Now let's look at Vera, herself.

Rosalie doesn't have much good, in the canon (E, ch 7), to say about Vera. Vera married early and had a baby at 17 years of age. She married down. Far down. Sure, Rosalie and Vera are "only" middle class, struggling to climb the social ladder, but they were friends, so they were in the same social circle, and that circle?

Upper middle class. Rosalie's father worked at the bank ... during the Depression! ... Rosalie's father bought her dresses (not just an apple for dessert); Rosalie's mother introduced Rosalie around to the elite.

And Rosalie and Vera were friends. Friends of the heart. Why? What names does Rosalie mention in her life story? Emmett, Royce, ... and Vera. Not her parents' names, not her brothers' names; no: Vera's name.

Vera was Rosalie's only friend ... ever.

And Vera had ... as they said back then ... moxie.

She married a carpenter. Do you understand what this means? Her parents were in the first circles. So they told her this: "Don't marry him." And she did.

And they cut her right off. She lived at his house, on cheapside ... not at a house that her parents could provide for her.

Or they didn't cut her right off, and did offer easy living. And she told them no. "Thank you, Mother, Father, but I'm going to cleave to my man, and go where he will go, not where you tell him to go."

Either way, she chose her own path, not the path her parents "offered" to her.

And Vera was Rosalie's friend. Whom do you visit a week before your wedding? A casual acquaintance? Royce had his buddies, that he liked much more Rosalie, and Rosalie had Vera, whom she loved more than anybody in the world.

Because, as much as Rosalie belittles Vera in her story she tells in canon, Vera was the only person who put up with Rosalie, besides Emmett and Royce, but Vera went one step further, and this is implied by the canon: Vera chose her own path, and she let Rosalie choose hers, too, but she didn't let Rosalie get away with her lies.

Because Rosalie lies. All the time. She tells Royce or Emmett that everything's beautiful and pristine and happy. Worst of all, she lies to herself. She turns her nose up to everything and looks down: "I'm perfect; you're not."

She even does this to Vera. And Vera rolls her eyes and says "I'm happy for you, Rosalie, I really am. But I choose this. I choose true happiness, and this is what it is." And she shows Rosalie, not mean-spiritedly, but kindly what happiness can be.

She shows Rosalie so clearly that even Rosalie sees it, knows it for what it is, and acknowledges that Vera chose better.

I think Vera's been through enough in her life that she has the experience to share something and to know enough about Rosalie to know that there's more to her than she's letting on, and she's old enough not to allow Rosalie play her games with herself. I think maybe Rosalie needs Vera in soul-mate kind of way.

I think Rosalie needed Vera then, even though she had the perfect handsome prince in Royce, and I think Rosalie needs Vera now, even with her big teddy-bear of a perfect husband in Emmett.

Now let's look at the "relationship" of Rosalie and Bella

Woo, boy, does Rosalie want to tear Bella to pieces pretty much the first second Rosalie sees her, and why? Because Bella can have babies, but no, she's going after a vampire, for goodness sake!

Or so Rosalie says.

I would beg to differ with Rosalie's supplied argument.

We never get a physical description of Vera, but she wasn't as beautiful as Rosalie. We get a physical description of Bella, and we find out that she's not as beautiful as Rosalie.

Just like Vera.

No surprises there: Rosalie is the most beautiful person in the whole world. That's canonical.

But Bella chooses her own path, over the objections of Edward, her parents (NM, catatonia), the whole universe.

Just like Vera.

Bella forgives Rosalie her (very serious) mistakes (NM, post Vulturi) and accepted her, not holding Rosalie's faults against her.

Just like Vera.

Rosalie had a conversation with Bella. Who is the only other person in the whole world that Rosalie ever had a conversation with? Conversation, not diatribe. Emmett? No.

Vera.

Your point, geophf?

Rosalie is a hurting person. She wants to kill Bella (MS, post Phenomenon), because, I argue, Bella sees too much, even, possible will see into Rosalie's soul.

So Rosalie's hurting.

And Vera's dead.

And here's a little quiet, brown-brown girl, who forgives Rosalie, talks with her, and chooses her own path.

Rosalie wants to tear Bella to shreds, because if Rosalie dares to take that risk of opening her heart to VeraBella again, she'll just die on Rosalie ... again.

So that explains Rosalie's (very) antagonistic attitude to human Bella.

And (pre-)vampire Bella? Now that Bella has made her irrevocable choice and has stood up to everyone, just like Vera, Bella may die (and Rosalie is just so fiercely protective of VeraBella here, and of herself, possibly preparing herself for being hurt again when VeraBella dies again), but VeraBella "re"born, that is "newborn"?

Suddenly, it's a BxRose love-fest. Why?

Because now, NOW, VeraBella can be a friend of Rosalie's heart, and not go dying on her, as humans are wont to do.

Everybody says: "Rosalie wants Renesmee."

Everybody is missing the point.

Rosalie likes Renesmee. Rosalie loves Renesmee. But her babysitting and all that serves two purposes: it gives her time with the baby. And it gives VeraBella time with her husband.

Rosalie is doing this for herself. Rosalie does everything for herself. But Rosalie is being selfless, as well.

Rosalie is being selfless.

Why?

Because, I argue, when she was alive, she didn't appreciate Vera for what she was. A friend. Just that. A friend.

Rosalie has never had a friend before or since.

And Vera was there for Rosalie, in spite of and despite the fact that Rosalie is just so Rosalie.

And now here's VeraBella again. Now, finally, Rosalie can say "thank you" to her for that one thing Vera gave to Rosalie that nobody else in the world ever did. AND Rosalie can finally, finally-finally-finally, have that true friend that she can (maybe some day, centuries from now) open up a bit more than she did in Eclipse, ch 7.

You know, a relationship like Alice has with Bella. Bella's not a replacement, nor substitute, for Jasper.

A relationship like that, but, because this is Rosalie, after she gets over her vanity, it will be a relationship so much deeper than that.

Even though she doesn't know this herself, even though she's fought so fiercely against it, she'll have a relationship that she's been looking for her entire existence.

If we look at the relationship of Rosalie and Bella through the lens that Vera provides, we see that it is consistent from start to present (not "finish" because now, thankfully, it will never end). It's not baby-envy. It's not "human"-envy. It's Rosalie. Hurting Rosalie, scared; protective Rosalie, scary, and, eventually, trusting Rosalie, loving and understanding, and finally ... opening.

Just like the relationship she had with Vera, more than seventy years ago.

Endnote/Apologia

When Juliet says "Romeo, o Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" She's not saying, "Where are you Romeo?" she's saying "Why are you Romeo?" That is "Why are you my family's enemy, and not some other cute guy to make this whole liebestod thing easier for me?"