First of all, I’m actually almost certain that Carlisle pays taxes. That’s just such a Carlisle thing to do. He probably does them all himself late at night sitting in his study wearing a pair of glasses he doesn’t need. “Our dad is weird,” Emmett says. Rosalie rolls her eyes, “he’s not our dad.”
THAT SAID, yes, it’s totally ridiculous that Twilight takes place in high school. I think the concept itself would have been 100% more entertaining if Bella had been a a junior transfer student from a southwest community college to University of Washington in Seattle, commuting every day from Forks, where she finds out the weird dude from her college chem lab lives too (I’ve commuted 40+ minutes to school, it’s doable).
Not only is this more believable, but it would also be a lot more entertaining and potentially funny for Bella to just slowly realize she has at least one class a week with each of these weird-ass pale kids from her hometown.
Edward’s in chem with her. She accidentally sits down next to Rosalie in calc before she recognizes the resemblance. Emmet’s an overwhelmingly enthusiastic Fitness Management major who starts sitting next to her in Western Civ after he notices her talking to Edward. “Are you pre-med? You seem like you might be pre-med. My dad’s a doctor!”
Alice tries desperately to help her in a wheel-tossing class Bella had to take as an art elective after she put off choosing an art elective until it was the only one left. She asks herself daily why she didn’t take Art History. Jasper is there too. He doesn’t look like he’d be into pottery, but it seems like he’s into anything Alice is into (I still argue it’s literally impossible that he functions in public at all, but we’ll roll with it anyway).
Make Esme a professor at the school, too. Adorable. She’s that Mom Professor everyone loves and and respects (and also sort of fears). She always excuses absences as long as you send an email.
Instead of collecting graduation caps and gowns, they collect degrees.
Imagine Emmet bringing up the time he was almost a doctor, but having to actually be around the patients ended it. Carlisle says “I warned you the entire time you were in undergrad.”
After a few weeks of plot devices similar to the actual book (near-death parking lot experiences, etc.), Bella runs into Esme at the grocery store in Forks (I actually love that they buy groceries) and realizes my god, these people live here?
It would also make more sense that Bella were moving back in with her dad despite hating the Pacific Northwest so intensely. None of that sort of quirky “minor league baseball” stuff. She absolutely Would Not live in a dorm with some random roommate, so going to school where she could live with her dad was about all that made sense. The in-state tuition to a great university was just an added bonus.
It would also make the romance more enjoyable. NOW, a lot of people complain that a 100+ year old would have no reason to be interested in a high schooler in the original series, but I believe it’s very implied that all of the Vampires aren’t just physically frozen at their age, but they’re mentally and emotionally stuck forever as well.
Which is, you know, horrible. That’s why some of them are so damn angsty and emotionally volatile. That’s why Bella insists that Edward turn her sooner than later. Bruh, if you wait until she’s 25, she’s going to out-grow your maturity-level.
STILL, I think a romance between 21-23 year olds would have been better, by a little bit.
It would also make a lot more sense for them to be in college because of the way they function. They wouldn’t all be eating (or not eating) together in the only cafeteria as the entire student-body tried to pretend to not stare.
Less people would notice their eerie resemblance, their coordinated absences, and their overall weirdness, which would make more apparent Bella’s alleged super-strong powers of observation when she started putting things together.
Instead of there randomly being a sudden spike in criminals in that little town, Edward could dramatically rescue Bella’s naive ass from a party her human friends dragged her to.
I could go on, but this is eventually going to become and entire College Au rewrite of Twilight in excruciating detail. So I’ll stop.
