{"id":318,"date":"2025-05-26T22:01:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T22:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=318"},"modified":"2025-05-26T22:01:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T22:01:25","slug":"screw-bella-queer-intimacy-and-rewriting-the-love-triangle-in-the-twilight-fandom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=318","title":{"rendered":"\u201cScrew Bella\u201d: Queer Intimacy and Rewriting the Love Triangle in the Twilight Fandom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In the Twilight<\/em> fandom, a vibrant queer subculture has emerged by reshaping one of the series\u2019 most iconic tensions: the infamous Edward\u2013Bella\u2013Jacob love triangle. While the books and films obsess over Bella\u2019s choice between two hyper masculine love interests, many fans reimagine the central conflict entirely. Instead of framing Edward and Jacob as rivals vying for Bella\u2019s affection, queer fans explore the possibility of intimacy between the two men\u2014transforming antagonism into desire. The fan-created ship \u201cJedward\u201d reframes their connection not as one of opposition but as a site of romantic or sexual tension. Memes with phrases like \u201cScrew Bella\u201d or \u201cBella who?\u201d circulate widely online, critiquing the original dynamic by sidelining the passive, often underdeveloped female protagonist in favor of male-male intimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These transformative fan practices exemplify what Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner call counterintimacies<\/em>: the creation of queer social and emotional worlds in spaces that were never intended to hold them. Even within a franchise steeped in heteronormativity, white femininity, and abstinence politics, fans carve out alternative interpretations that reflect their own desires, identities, and experiences. Platforms like Tumblr, fanfiction archives like AO3, and meme culture provide semi-public digital arenas where these queer reinterpretations thrive and evolve. Through these practices, fans are not just rewriting fiction\u2014they\u2019re building community, finding joy, and asserting visibility in a cultural space that originally excluded them. Fanfiction becomes both an imaginative exercise and a form of critique, offering ways to dismantle or repurpose the ideological underpinnings of mainstream media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However, these queer rewritings also raise important questions. Is imagining Edward and Jacob as lovers truly subversive, or does it simply reinforce a pattern of privileging male relationships\u2014even queer ones\u2014while marginalizing the only central female character? Does it risk replicating a dynamic where women are erased or instrumentalized to further male-driven narratives? These tensions highlight the complexities of queer fandom: it can be both radically transformative and quietly complicit, depending on how and why these rewritings occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, for many queer fans, Jedward and similar reinterpretations are acts of reclamation. They offer pleasure, resistance, and connection. In a world where mainstream media often fails to represent queerness with depth or nuance, fandom becomes a powerful tool\u2014a way to write themselves in, on their own terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Twilight fandom, a vibrant queer subculture has emerged by reshaping one of the series\u2019 most iconic tensions: the infamous Edward\u2013Bella\u2013Jacob love triangle. While the books and films obsess over Bella\u2019s choice between two hyper masculine love interests, many fans reimagine the central conflict entirely. Instead of framing Edward and Jacob as rivals vying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}