This kind of insight is why, from a rationality perspective I love the twist in this story. This is so good at showing the causal density of real human systems and the disasters that can come from falsely concluding that you have a causally correct theory about why you won when you win and why you failed when you fail.
She stopped writing journal entries, supposedly because she has perfect memory; but the main benefit of that was consolidating and analyzing thoughts, not preserving them.
How could she have been sure of this? Where would she have needed to direct her rational faculties to pull this hypothesis up out of all the other hypotheses about what went wrong?
It seems plausible that what Bella needed might have been some specific insight applied at or before a specific chapter, but the menu of things it might have helped to adjust is enormous and any particular fix might have had its own negative side effects that we aren't seeing in the story because they weren't applied.
For example, one of my own personal heuristics is that I should generally delay any action that has "epistemically irreversible" consequences until I am either (1) forced into the action by external circumstances and the need to "make a bet for survival one way or the other" or (2) I have identified post-change mechanisms that will allow the new situation/framework to identify its own flaws and dismantle itself if it isn't actually for the best.
Based on this pet theory and post hoc rationalization about Bella, I might argue that the place where Bella went wrong was in becoming a vampire and accepting apparently permanent modifications to her mind despite not being forced into it by a true emergency or verifying that the post-modification state passes the "self critiquing reversibility" test.
As Vaniver pointed out in the previous comment thread, now she appears to be trapped in a Punisher comic book that's almost certain to have an unhappy ending rather than living in a romance novel. Instead of living for pointless revenge she could have still been flirting with a dangerously hot boy who will magically be a good husband when the relationship is magically made permanent.
Of course, in a rationalist universe where magical thinking runs into implacable reality even the romance novel may have been a bad outcome for luminous!Bella. Romance novels have to stop when they stop, because otherwise the end of the story arc would be about a woman married to a mobster or a sociopathic nobleman or a pirate or (ahem) a vampire, and that is totally not what traditional romance novels are about.
Based on this pet theory and post hoc rationalization about Bella, I might argue that the place where Bella went wrong was in becoming a vampire and accepting apparently permanent modifications to her mind despite not being forced into it by a true emergency or verifying that the post-modification state passes the "self critiquing reversibility" test.
Possibly, but keep in mind she has evidence that this irreversible transition would make her better at improving. Not wanting to become superior because that might make you overconfident is a pret...
This is Part 2 of the discussion of Alicorn's Twilight fanfic Luminosity.
LATE BREAKING EDIT: Part 3 exists now, so new comment threads should be started there rather than here.
In the vein of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion threads this is the place to discuss anything relating to Alicorn's Twilight fanfic Luminosity. The fanfic is also archived on Alicorn's own website.
Here is Part 1 of the discussion. Previous discussion is hidden so deeply within the first Methods of Rationality thread that it's difficult to find even if you already know it exists.
Similar to how Eliezer's fanfic popularizes material from his sequences Alicorn is using the insights from her Luminosity sequence.
The fic is really really good but there is a twist part way through that makes the fic even more worth reading than it already was, but that makes it hard to talk about because to even ask if someone is twist-aware with any specific hints is difficult. The twist is in the latter half of the story. If you are certainly not post-twist and want to save the surprise, then you should stop reading here and fall back to Part 1 discussion or to the fic itself.
If you think you're pretty sure you are post-twist and are safe to read the rest of this, try reading this rot13'ed hint and see if what you've read matches this high level description of the twist...
Rqjneq unf qvfpbirerq gur frperg gung Vfnoryyn jnf xrrcvat sebz uvz "sbe uvf bja tbbq" bhg bs srne bs Neb ernqvat Rqjneq'f zvaq. Va gur nsgrezngu, fbzrguvat unf punatrq nobhg gurve eryngvbafuvc gung znl unir pnhfrq lbh gb pel sbe n juvyr, naq juvpu znlor urycf gb rzbgvbanyyl qevir ubzr gur pbzovarq zrffntr bs YJ'f negvpyrf nobhg "fbzrguvat gb cebgrpg" naq "ernfba nf n zrzrgvp vzzhar qvfbeqre" naq gur jnl gurl pna fvzhygnarbhfyl nccyl gb crbcyr jub unir abguvat zber va gur jbeyq guna fbzr fvatyr crefba jub gurl ybir.
If the answer to the hint is obvious, then just to be sure that there is not a double illusion of transparency at work, here is the cutoff point spelled out explicitly:
Gur phgbss cbvag sbe cbfgvat urer vf gung lbh unir ernq hc gb puncgre svsgl svir (va gur snasvpgvba irefvba) be puncgre gjragl rvtug ba Nyvpbea'f jrofvgr jurer Rqjneq jnf cebonoyl vapvarengrq, Vfnoryyn fheivirf na nggrzcgrq vapvarengvba, naq fur unf gb ortha gb jbex bhg jung gb qb jvgu gur jerpxntr bs gur erfg bs ure "rgreany" yvsr.