#[ we can plot more! or set this in eclipse or breaking dawn! ]

[aworldofyou]

“   i’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.  ” Bella & Wan @swanfcrged​ / random ic thing.

         She knew something was up, and it was clear that she was getting desperate for answers. And now this Bella Swan was going to the last resort to poke at the out of towner. Part of him wondered why, but the other part of him figured it was because he was neither bound by the pack, the treaty, or by the rules of her personal leeches. A failed attempt to step around her on his way to his truck had him halting and fixing her with a look. John ponders on telling the girl before he huffs. “Y’know..” He starts, “You don’t smell as great as Jacob says you do-” Cue, the resume to step around her again.

[fuckmeyer]

something i've been thinking about a lot (besides how unhinged i am for picking apart the Twilight saga again) is the ineffective use of words in Eclipse.

take a look at this honking nugget of text

don't me wrong. i appreciate that it 1) illustrates Bella doing normal stuff, 2) gives us an intimate peek into her personality (stubbornly arranging fridge magnets? questioning one's neurodivergency? cool!), 3) throws in a bit of Bella-style humor, 4) talks about magnets, & 5) gives us a metaphor, however redundant

what i dislike is:

the redundant metaphor. look, i'm a sucker for metaphors (however redundant), but at this point we're a few chapters into Eclipse. Bella's narration and concrete examples tell us Jacob & Edward cannot coexist. the metaphor is as redundant as my mentioning my love of metaphors, redundant or otherwise.

the technicality of the writing. i.e., the hulking parenthetical between the em dashes. "round black utilitarian pieces that were my favorites bec—" that alone takes FORTY-TWO WORDS. nearly 20% of a 226-word metaphor for Jacob & Edward describes fucking magnets. i love magnets too, but damn, girl. stop

the emptiness of the text. 226 words, who cares, right? fluff is part of the saga's charm. yes. but! it's now book 3. we're knee deep in a thematic discussion about humanity & juggling several sideplots. for every 226 words we spend watching Bella push magnets together, we have 226 fewer words to spend developing relationships with Bella's vamp fam or her wolfpack pals. that's 226 words we won't spend fleshing out plots, tying up conflict from New Moon, or setting up Breaking Dawn. are the 226 words useless? no. but do we not already have a sense of the conflict & what's at stake here? can't we be fluffy and economical?

if this was a one-time deal, i would say yes, bring on the fucking magnets (& metaphors). but superfluous text is not an anomaly

this ends chapter 11. instead of hooking the reader to turn the page, Bella tells us which words we're meant to notice, her reaction, then dismisses said reaction.

the broader issue: despite the cool lil rabbit holes to explore in Eclipse, Bella insists on holding our hand for all of them. explaining (& dismissing?) every observation limits our scope & makes the book unsatisfying. Bella can (should!) notice lil details, but making readers draw their own conclusions gives them the freedom to explore the book in new ways & gives Bella the freedom to show us more story

but this worsens as the book continues. don't even get me started on the ~4,250 words smeyer takes to appropriate the history of a real tribe. it is meant to add lore to shapeshifting & give Bella an idea for saving Edward later on in the novel. in doing so it perpetuates racist tropes & stereotypes about certain American tribes.

point is, these words add up. the fluff becomes cloying for how much remains unresolved. it gives us too few opportunities to explore & draw our own conclusions. the overall message becomes muddled because there's too much nothing being said. anything of importance that is being said is repeated over & over.

this ineffective use of writing makes me feel like we're desperately clinging to the "normal yet ✨️supernatural✨️" vibes of Twilight while refusing to acknowledge that this series has become bigger than a simple "girl meets vampire, love ensues" pseudo-fairytale.

that is (one of) my problem(s) with Eclipse.

[therealvinelle]

If at the end of New moon one of the trio (Edward, Bella, Alice) had been forced to stay in the volterra, who do you think would make the best/worst guard, both as an asset to the volturi and as a new colleague/comrade/friend to the rest of the guard?

Oooh good question anon.

Alright, so dismissing the fact that Aro is a very generous friend who wouldn’t steal Carlisle’s children in the first place, let’s do this.

 Scenario one: Alice gets an offer she can’t refuse

Alice would quickly be found to be useless. She can only watch so many things at once, and it really only works when it’s someone she knows well. When it comes to strangers, she’s grasping at smoke. She fails to see what James is planning, even as she knows exactly what he wants, and her brain is exploding in Eclipse when Edward has her watching four things at once. She can also be blocked with relative ease.

Alice’s gift is great for the stock market and knowing when biology class is going to do blood testing. These are things Aro has no need for.

What Aro needs, is all the things Alice’s gift is bad at.

Aro would want to know where a crime will occur next, who would commit it, and whether anyone was plotting against him. Starting with predicting crimes - just what would Alice look for? She doesn’t have a crime detection setting. She’d have to watch every single vampire in the world, which Eclipse proved she can’t do, and even then she’d only catch useless flashes Aro couldn’t really use for anything. And if anyone was plotting against Aro, not only would Alice have to know about it beforehand so she’d know to be watching them in the first place, but they would also be able to block her.

If Aro didn’t have Renata, a slot would be opened as Alice could be a great bodyguard. However, he has Renata, who is better at protecting than Alice, so again no dice.

Alice would hover awkwardly, have a lot of headaches, make Aro scream into a pillow in frustration, and soon enough Carlisle comes to pick her up.

Scenario two: Edward gets an offer he can’t refuse

If Alice is useless, then Edward is a nuisance.

Aro blows Edward out of the water. There’s no question of that, he simply does. Aro can’t be blocked, Edward can. Aro gets the full context of every given thought, Edward doesn’t. Edward’s sole advantage over Aro is that he doesn’t require physical contact. Maybe in the early days that would have made a difference to Aro, but now? Aro is leader of the world, he wields Jane and Alec, if he wants to touch your hand he is damn well going to touch your hand.

To say nothing of the fact that Marcus exists, and gives Aro all the remote intelligence on his enemies’ strengths and weaknesses he could ever want.

Edward would contribute nothing to the Volturi, he’d only drive everybody crazy as he kept bothering reading everybody’s minds. Carlisle would have to pick him up by the end of the month, if not sooner.

Scenario three: Bella gets an offer she can’t refuse

First of, New Moon Bella would enjoy the Volturi so much, oh my god. They’re vampires, but more, they’re vampires who have been in the same spot for thousands of years. Guess who just found herself a vampire family who’ll never leave!

I’m only half joking, because I really do think that the stability and community of the Volturi would be very good for Bella. She’d have to get over Edward, which would be rough, but she’d get there, I have every faith in her.

When it comes to her gift, the Volturi don’t need a shield right now, but there are two big reasons why Aro would want her. Reason number one, if Aro has her this means others don’t. As we see in Breaking Dawn Bella could become a huge problem for the Volturi, so he can’t really risk her falling into the hands of revolutionaries. Reason number two, nothing lasts forever, but Aro intends to make his reign in Volterra as close to eternal as possible. And while Jane and Alec are very nice, vampire gifts are strange, unpredictable, and wonderful things. If Aro sits long enough on the throne, the day will inevitably come when a vampire with the power to destroy the Volturi comes. Aro remembers very well what he did to the Romanian army using Jane and Alec, one day that may be him. A vampire like Bella, who neutralizes the enemy’s gifts, may secure him the victory when that day comes.

Bella would be Aro’s trump card. Carlisle is not asked to come pick her up, although he is invited to come visit.

[bellaslilpapercut]

Oh boy New Moon! I've got some Thoughts a brewin' babey:

1. Smeyer: you do not need to remind your audience what happened last book, they aren't stupid. Imagine if SC started catching fire with ANOTHER explanation of what the hunger games are and that's the vibe of the first chapters of new moon. We remember james, we know what vampires are, we know that Bella is white, stop reminding us!

2. Bella has the worst self esteem of all time. Every bad thing that has happened to her since the Van Incident has been Edward's fault but she still blames herself and idk if this is Intentional Insecurity or if smeyer is protecting edward's "character" or both but gdamn it's depressing.

3. The reason I said Jasper was Inconsistently Written jumped out at me again. Smeyer dedicated a whole paragraph to pointing out how terrible jasper is at the diet or whatever but in the guide, smeyer tells us jasper actively tried to starve himself in the past because of how difficult his gift made feeding. He was one of only two Cullens to show bella empathy, he smelled her blood before, why does he attack her? The weakness of this decision is pointed out in the exposition: if it really were likely that Jasper would attack Bella, she wouldn't have needed a superfluous paragraph dedicated to telling us how bad he is at self control. If the story had convinced us of that beforehand, we would have believed the attack without the addendum.

4. The party is my least favorite part of the whole series and I will die on this hill: edward should have attacked bella. Bella should have tripped into something glass and edward should have lost it because he tasted her blood before and couldn't help himself. That way: edwards self loathing makes sense and he's forced to recon with his superiority complex from the ending chapters of twilight AND bella's self blame makes sense. A vamp who was able to starve himself before he even heard of the cullens should not have lost it around someone he spent days in close quarters with, building rapport and friendship. Edward got too high and mighty after he fed from Bella in Twilight, that should have had real consequence.

5. The writing is getting a little better as we near Edward leaving. "Better" isn't a good word actually but it's getting closer to the prose in twilight (which was flowery and annoying but at least it didn't constantly feel like being spoonfed exposition every paragraph). Hm wrote this blurb while I was still on chapter 3 and the vibe of being spoonfed reminders has not really dissipated lmfao.

We remember Sam Uley, smeyer, you introduced him four chapters ago. Just quick question: did anyone proofread this?? I think it's fair to say: when she isn't reminding us of things that we remember the prose is more similar to twilight. A little annoying but interesting enough to forgive the errors (or at least move past them easily enough lol).

6. I'm on chapter 8 now (I'm gonna break this up into three parts so I don't forget stuff like I did during the twilight reread) and there's a very heavy Vibe that smeyer is setting Jake up to be a parallel for twilight-era Bella. This line here is a pretty clear parallel for Bella telling Edward not to hold his breath in Twilight when he tells her she might get tired of him.

7. This line here "almost happy in a shallow kind of way" really jumped out. What Bella's narration says about Jacob versus her conversations with him (and her one paragraph about his happiness being effortlessly contagious) are at odds. It doesn't read like shallow happiness when she's with Jake. However, Smeyer is also a bad writer, she thinks the story she's telling us is literally what the narration says and not what the action shows and I think she realizes this in Eclipse (but obviously I'm not there yet so I can't say for sure).

8. I really can't get over the drop in writing quality. I know that she had already mostly finished Forever Dawn by the time Twilight was published (or was halfway done, I think her website said she had over 300 pages of forever dawn complete when she found out Twilight was getting published). I think the writing quality really reveals that she was not prepared to write New Moon. It's sloppier than Twilight in a way I'm not able to articulate (by that I mean I personally have a more intuitive than technical understanding of grammar and syntax so I don't have the language to break down the differences). Twilight itself is ripe with technical errors and plot errors and awkward exposition so it's not an overt drop in quality but I think it very much reads like a rushed writing job. She was committed to forever dawn, her publishers wanted New Moon, it shows.

9. I think New Moon was when I first started physically editing my copies of the saga lol. Even reading it now I'm so tempted to open up a word document and cut half of the useless shit out and fix all the grammatical mistakes. I can't even talk shit because I am also a comma-abuser but I hoped an editor would at least catch the errors before publishing. Guess not! Brevity is very clearly not meyers strong suit and this would have been a much stronger sequel if she had been able to reign herself in a bit. New Moon isn't supposed to be as narration heavy as twilight, there's already more action in the first seven chapters than the there was in the first 19 of twilight but she always delivers exposition via awkward dialogue or Bella's narration. Again, we already got a lot of the exposition in twilight, we know how vampires work et cetera. You can show us how bella feels instead of making her tell us and the story would run a lot more smoothly.

10. I'll end on a nice note! Little treat!

This is my favorite part of the book so far. I whited-out the useless dialogue tag because the line reads better without it ( line originally ends with "I emphasized" but she could have been brief and just ended the dialogue with an exclamation point for the same effect). The dialogue is natural and shows the J/B relationship that lives in my head way better than anything else I've seen on the page at this point. Like, I literally love this line more than any dialogue that preceded it (including twilight) lol.

[gisellelx]

Do u have any thoughts on the Romanians?

Tumblr is very interested in the Romanians, I think! I find it fascinating. I don’t have very many thoughts on the Romanians because they are so tangential to the overall story that they almost don’t warrant thinking about. They seem very much like an afterthought to me. One of the cardinal rules of writing, ascribed in turn to almost every famous 20th century author you can imagine (well, the white male ones, at any rate) is “kill your darlings.” Meaning, when you’re drafting a piece, especially a long piece like a novel, you are going to have so many more interesting ideas than you can fit in the work, but many of them will turn out to not make sense for the narrative or not further the narrative. I think the Romanians were a darling that SM couldn’t stand to kill.  It’s clear that SM was really interested in the worldbuilding aspect of Twilight, even as she lacked the writing dexterity to pull off the world she was imagining. Her editors reined her in to write New Moon and Eclipse, and I have little doubt they were heavily involved with the plots therein--that they said, “Okay, what if Bella has another love interest” and “Okay, what if there’s a big showdown?” (Also Eclipse was so clearly meant to be the end of a trilogy, but that’s a story for another day.) So she created the Volturi, who are stand-ins for one of the higher orders of the Mormon church, the First Presidency, which is made up of the President and two counselors.  SM clearly, at one point, decided to have an idea that the Volturi had enemies. Maybe she thought it would lead to some narrative tension; I don’t know. But it doesn’t work with the story as written--the story as set up is designed for the Cullens to triumph; Forever Dawn was always meant to give Bella and Edward an uncomplicated HEA, and the thing that the Romanians do is present the idea that there is a force out there who could defeat the Volturi, or at least, who could, if they were actually able to marshall the 16 vampires who come to the Cullens’ aid. 

So from the perspective of future conflict, they’re great. But they offer next to nothing to the story of Breaking Dawn and to the arc of the Twilight saga more generally. It is hinted that there is some disagreement about who should run vampiredom. But ultimately, everyone agrees that the person who does run vampiredom is Aro. The Cullens don’t “win” the battle in BD, they just convince Aro they’re not a threat. So Vladmir and Stefan serve no purpose, from a narrative standpoint. They are darlings who should’ve been killed.  But ngl, “We do not care what you did Carlisle,” absolutely terrible, stereotypical, racist accent aside, is one of my all time favorite lines and the only reason I ever rewatch BD II. It is just such pure characterization of both the Romanians and Carlisle--that Carlisle is losing his mind trying to convince everyone that nothing is wrong, and the Romanians are spoiling for a fight, and in fact were probably just waiting on Saint Carlisle to do something to give Aro an excuse to take him out, and there's just so much good sentiment wrapped up in those eight words.

[shreddedleopard]

Suns, Moons and Songs.

My favourite. The soundtrack is littered with songs that allude to Historia and Levi’s part in the plot. I’ll just bring up some of the major ones.

Okay, first biggie - Zero Eclipse. 

This song is purposefully vague in a lot of places, in that a lot of the lyrics could fit to Ymir, and I believe the sentiment is genuine. Ymir was a huge part of Historia’s life before she left. However, there are a lot of similarities between her and Levi, which is handy for Yams. Same for the bond Erwin and Levi shared. Clever, clever.

The first verses could work for either on the whole, but the lines about jealousy and blades doubling and the use of kid absolutely reminds me of Ymir when she joins the survey corps with Historia.

When we get to the bridge, the first lines about never hearing the person sigh of ecstasy likely suggests that Ymir wanted to get to that point with Historia but they never did. And of course the chorus very much reflects Ymir’s speech to Historia about living a life she can be proud of, and not doing silly suicidal things to be the hero, like she did with Daz.

Okay our next verse is where it gets very interesting!

Every single line fits Levi perfectly. Seeing the fallen? It’s that image at Shiganshina of Erwin surrounded by their fallen comrades. Still we have that question, what will Levi do with those sacrifices? A recurring theme, but now we should have a pretty good idea of the answer. 

Next we have a direct reference to the Beast Titan - which conveniently also links perfectly to Historia’s childhood bullies - both threw stones to ‘make us go away.’ 

‘It was only the face of anger, and kindness, it lit my way’ - well this has soo many connotations. So firstly, Historia and the bullies. Because Frieda taught her to be a good, kind girl, Historia understands that the bullies were only acting out of anger, and kindness is the answer here. Hmm ... who else right about now in the story could do with realising anger and revenge won’t solve anything - but working together might, even if you’ve been pelted by stones at the hands of this person? It’s Levi and Zeke. And Historia’s influence on Levi - the idea of kindness lighting his way - will mean he makes the right decision. It’s also worth noting very briefly here, because I will explore this more later, that in the manga, we have that removed scene of Levi behaving aggressively towards Historia, although she later puts this aside. Originally, Isayama also wanted to parallel Levi with Historia’s childhood bullies, but he changed his mind for the anime. We’ll look at this more when we check out an interesting interview by Yams.

‘Ain’t no picnic to be abandoned’ - again, such a simple line, so many meanings. Historia and Levi’s childhood parallels are uncanny, and both were abandoned by parental figures in their youth which we see in Uprising had lasting impacts on them. So much so, they work together to open an orphanage, saving children from within the walls and even the underground.

‘It led us here, we had to share the pain.’ I mean, I’ve said this so many times, but how could they not end up bonding over all this!? But wait, there’s more. Shiganshina happens, and Levi looses Erwin. Historia has not so long ago lost Ymir, and we see how upset she is when she receives her letter. Remember that scene though where Levi arrives and she wipes away her tears? Yep. They were both abandoned again in a sense, and so, it only serves to push them closer together. They mourn for what have been pretty much their other halves since the start of the series, and they do it together. Yams is screaming at us to read between the lines for these two, while he drops just enough surface hints to keep the trail warm, so to speak. 

Okay the next lyrics ‘Now you are a part of me, I will defend and honour thee’ ... what do they remind you of? I get knight protecting Queen vibes. And this literally used to be the role of the Ackermans according to Kenny's grandpa - the sword and shield to the crown. Levi is virtually back in that role for Historia, and we come full circle after the years of persecution. 

NEXT. ‘Did you think that you could die a hero?’ Kenny tells Levi everyone is drunk on a dream in order to keep moving forwards. He asks Levi, what are you? A hero? Everyone expects Levi to go out fighting, taking out Zeke and finally fulfilling his vow to Erwin. But that's not the message of this story. We need to break the cycle of revenge and hate, remember? Kruger said so himself - love someone within the walls, it's the only way to stop this cursed history. Levi won’t choose revenge. He’ll give up on his dream to go out like a hero, because now he has something to return home to. 

‘Our awakening means less than zero.’ And just in case you were wondering, it’s not because of any Acker-bond crap. It’s the real deal; just like Zeke told Eren in chapter 130. Being an Ackerman has nothing to do with either Levi or Mikasa’s feelings towards their respective loves. 

Let’s look at that chorus again, while I start to blush in the corner. ‘You’re trembling, we share a kiss, our worlds eclipse.’ Heck, I never knew SNK could be so ... ahem, yeah. It gets raunchier further on, by the way. But besides the obvious suggestion of passion here, we have the symbolism from the song’s title - the eclipse. What happens during an eclipse? Well, depends what sort to be fair heh, but for a solar eclipse, we have the moon moving in front of the sun, blocking it’s light. And we see the Dark Side of the Moon. Wait!? Isn’t that literally the title of Levi's character song ...? Oh, shit. We’ll check out those lyrics later. Historia is often associated with dawn light, which of course means the sun. The eclipse here is her pregnancy. The two solar bodies appear to become one. Not to mention the literal shape of her stomach! We had those lyrics about ‘letting our worlds collide’ earlier too. Not just referring to the pregnancy, but their supposedly different ideologies around violence/revenge and love/kindness/forgiveness. 

Now for the best bits. 

‘Black sugar, keep it, up til the dawn.’ Told you it gets better. Black sugar is apparently something very addictive. So Levi and Historia are engaged in something very addictive here, keeping them up until the dawn ...? Ah. Yes. Makes sense, considering her current condition. 

And then my very favourite line, that hit me right in the gut when I first listened to this. Because the words sounded very familiar, but not for Historia. 

‘Make a promise that I cannot regret.’ Levi’s whole theme is not regretting the choices that you make. It’s repeated over and over. He makes a promise to Erwin in his vow, but he comes to terms with the fact that fulfilling this is no longer what he really wants - we’ve just seen that realisation in 136 when he talks about how he’s never bungled one of Erwin’s orders, but yet his last one ... He knows attempting to keep that promise will mean he likely won’t ‘get back out alive,’ so instead, he will make Historia a promise that he can’t regret, because he just can’t ‘learn how to let you go.’ I’M NOT CRYING - YOU ARE. Do you remember the two letters - from Petra and Ymir - about marriage? I think we know what Levi is going to dedicate his heart to in the end. Note also the, ‘as long as I can see you, but in secret.’ That just gives us that final confirmation that the relationship alluded to here in Zero Eclipse is one that has been hidden from us - this fits neither Historia/Ymir or Levi/Erwin, although there are elements of both of these in the song. 

Okay, here's the lyrics to Levi’s song. I’m not going to rip it apart like I did with Zero Eclipse, because a) I think a lot of it is self explanatory, and b) the next chapter comes out soon and like, I’d love to have got through everything I want to say before then. So some quick (ish, knowing me) notes:

Okay so this second set of lyrics is the one I want to draw attention to - cleverly nestled in the middle of the song. We’re going to ‘someday’ see the dark side of the moon ‘revealed’. Yeah, when there is an eclipse. This is the only time you see the dark side of the moon. Literally. So we’ll see Levi’s other side when he finds Historia, and they create this eclipse - this child. His true nature will be revealed, and he will not choose violence or revenge. 

‘Persuasion by memories of pain an essential lesson.’ Okay, I can’t really go hugely into this without the Akatsuki no Requiem video, which we’ll look at in a bit. Because then things will mind-bogglingly make sense. If you’ve already seen it and know the theory behind it, then you’ll get what I mean. But essentially, our ending for Levi is going to be bittersweet, because while he ends up with a family of his own finally, he is also plagued with regret and sorrow for what came to pass before, and the huge role he played in it.

‘Just being without regrets, is my own decision.’ Such a simple line, so many powerful meanings. Levi will make the ultimate choice with no regrets in his promise to Historia, and their child. He cannot regret either of them. But he has to make that decision, and we know it will be difficult, because it will mean failing to execute Erwin’s last order. It will probably look likely that he will make the wrong choice up until the very last moment. This again too links in with the ackertalk between Zeke and Eren. Levi is confirming that his decision to be with Historia does not stem from duty or something in his genes. It’s the real deal.

More Fun Song Facts.

Here's the lyrics for Before Lights Out:

Freedom! Freedom! Forgive Me! Retake Maria! Victorious, triumphant! All of my kingdom For your return I will let it burn! I will let it burn! Dear departed I’ll cry for you in a dream Now I must rise to be queen Be worthy Be worthy

The song that is a different version of APETITAN - the soundtrack to Zeke’s Beast’s first appearance. Before Lights Out plays when Erwin leads the suicide charge towards Zeke, after Levi makes his vow to ‘take down the beast titan.’ He watches Erwin and the scouts charge to their deaths and whispers, ‘I’m sorry.’ 

Because he’s never going to fulfil that vow, is he? And we know why when we read the lyrics of the song.

HOLY MOTHER OF FORESHADOWING I have chills.

Ahhhhh I need to talk about Akatsuki no Requiem I guess. This one definitely needs it’s own post.

You still with me? I have drunk a lot of coffee at this point.

[kitsbookshelf]

The Twilight Saga: a detailed review of why I can’t stand them and love them in (almost) equal measure

Before I start this borderline scathing review, I just want to let you know that it's full of spoilers, so if you haven't read the books, look away now. This is your only warning.

Now that that's out of the way... I can't stand the Twilight saga. Twelve-year-old me is cringing at my hatred for it, and Twilight fans are waiting to set me on fire, but it's true. I think they're poorly written, and there are soooo many parts of every book that just...missed the mark, at least for me. Let's start at the beginning, with the first book: Twilight.

Bella, our darling main character, moves in with her dad, Charlie (let's take a moment to appreciate perhaps the only normal, mentally stable person in this entire saga), in the rainy small town of Forks, Washington.

Bella is quite a bland character, but that just makes her easier to project yourself onto when you're reading the book if that's how you immerse yourself. For me, I found her obsessive and definitely not emotionally stable, and it did honestly feel like reading the diary of a manic and very unstable 17-year-old. On one hand, that's good--I'm reading from Bella's perspective, and it's written exactly how I'd expect her to write--but on the other hand, the writing feels...cheap? I completely blame my own taste in writing style for my opinion on this one, but I just couldn't enjoy the very boring storytelling happening here. It was all very 'tell-tell-tell' instead of the 'show-tell-show' way of writing I prefer.

Now here is where my adoration for this book comes in: Edward Cullen. Specifically, the interactions between him and Bella. They have conversations, and banter, and it's a fun little human-vampire-friendship that isn't awful to read (I will never never forgive the films for leaving some of the dialogue out, it's pure gold and possibly the only saving grace of this book). The characters felt like teenagers here, but it was only for the few short pages we got of them interacting without the overly-exaggerated brooding that our sweet Ed is known for.

The romance between Bella and Edward is...concerning. For me, I couldn't find a single bit of actual romance between the two of them beyond Bella's obsession with him and Edward's bloodlust and weird self-control thing he has for her. It felt really unhealthy, and I couldn't wrap my head around how people actually think there's romance there.

The whole James thing...I don't know about anyone else, but it felt really random. Yes, it added a conflict to the book, but I felt like there wasn't really any good development to make it more relevant. That all seemed to happen later with Victoria, but James didn't really feel like he fit into the story very well. I think I would have preferred it if he was gradually brought in through the book, or if there was some sort of lead up to the conflict instead of just--WHAM! Tracker dude wants to kill Bella because Edward got protective and now only the final section of the book has any action.

Twilight completely had the potential to be a good vampire-human romance novel. There was no real need for the James-Victoria storyline, even in the later books. What did they add? Only the entirety of Eclipse, but that book could be taken out completely without disrupting the story all that much.

New Moon feels like a completely different book, and I actually really liked it. The writing style still got on my nerves and made it more difficult for me to enjoy the book, but the content was so much better.

Bella's spiral in New Moon really added something to her character. Instead of another book of her constant Edward-Cullen-is-the-most-beautiful-man-to-ever-exist inner monologue, we got a whole book of her.

Jacob Black was introduced, and he was a genuinely likable character (the one thing I will say is that his inability to take 'no' for an answer really did put me off him for a large portion of the book and the next one) who brought some more normality into the book. It didn't feel like I was reading an overly-exaggerated supernatural romance, and I enjoyed it. The banter between the two of them was so realistic, and I actually really loved how Meyer explored Bella's coping mechanisms and her dependency issues when Jacob phased and Bella was left without him again.

The conflict here was much more well-executed than in Twilight, with the Volturi having been mentioned before and now becoming established properly in the saga. They're the perfect villains, and I enjoyed reading about them much more than I enjoyed the rushed few chapters of James's story in Twilight. I loved how Meyer kept Bella awake the entire way home from Italy. You really got to see the sort of wild relief that she felt when getting Edward back, and I think it was well-written and made me feel like there was slightly more going on here than the forced romance in Twilight.

I really do feel like the subject of them being mates should have come up a lot sooner. Maybe some questions on how a human could be a vampire's mate, or exploring the complications of it, because then maybe Bella's obsession would have been far more understandable earlier in the saga, and it might have felt more 'organic' than the relationship I read until Bella became a newborn later on.

And now we reach Eclipse... Eclipse, Eclipse, Eclipse... I hate it. There isn't a single part of this book that I can honestly say I enjoyed. I felt like it could have been taken out completely, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the story.

The whole book felt like a filler, purely there to resolve the issue of Victoria before moving on to Bella's pregnancy and vampirism in Breaking Dawn. It didn't feel like any part of it was important, or really memorable.

Victoria's whole storyline could have been erased without destroying the saga. The only interesting thing about the whole conflict with her was that she managed to orchestrate it without Alice seeing her, and that was the one thing that kept the book rolling on instead of it being a handful of chapters of the newborns being defeated.

The one thing that this book set up was the truce between the werewolves and the vampires, and I definitely think that could have been done in another way if James and Victoria had never existed (if you can't already tell, I really don't see the point to James and Victoria, and they don't add anything to the books except for a tiny, irrelevant bit of drama).I enjoyed how Meyer wrote the love triangle, and how she made Bella love them both. It felt, to me, more realistic that Bella would feel something for Jacob after everything we read in New Moon and how much she cared about him.

Beyond those things, though, this book really did feel completely useless to me, and I couldn't wait to stop reading it and get back to something that felt like it had a decent plot.

Okay, last one (I commend you for surviving this far). Breaking Dawn.

I...didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I think it's a good conclusion to the saga, and I like how the characters all got a happy ending, but I can't say I think it's amazing or even close.

Bella becoming a mother felt strange and disjointed to the rest of the books--she'd never said she wanted to have a baby, and had even stated that she didn't mind not having a child if it meant being a vampire with Edward. Then suddenly she's pregnant and will let herself die to give birth to the baby? It doesn't fit with what we've read of her character up to this point, and it irked me.

And the baby name...Renesme... Can we take a second to appreciate how stupid that sounds? There were so many other options--honestly, I'd have taken literally any other option--and Bella chose to mash their mothers' names together in the worst possible way. Renesme. Ugh.

Don't even get me started on Jacob imprinting on a baby. The whole thing of imprinting makes perfect sense, but why, why, why did he have to imprint on a baby? A half-vampire baby? Surely his wolf-y instincts would be telling him to get away from her, not throw him right into her tiny little arms and have him fall in love with her. I don't get it, it creeps me out, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

As for everything else... I think it was good, it just sort of felt flat to me. All of the good parts seemed to happen intermittently through the book, scattered between barely tolerable sections and parts that, in my opinion, were shoddy. It made for a difficult book to get through, but the conclusion to the saga was almost worth the trouble.

[darklingichor]

Blogging Twilight Viper Edition, By Dan Bergstein

Yes, I have read this before, but it was in blog form and this has new stuff in it. Yes, my goal was to finish my new Valdemar book in the first days of my vacation. Blame the Fourth of July. Yes, I will explain that.

But first!

I discovered Blogging Twilight by complete accident when I was living in Montana for 10 months in 2010/2011. 8 of those months had snow on the ground. That is not hyperbole. It started snowing in November and didn't stop until June... JUNE! There were some benefits.

I discovered that there are spikes that you can buy that fit over your shoes so you don't fall down and break your face on spring ice.

The west coast knows nothing of snow, an inch of snow on the ground? Classes are canceled as the roads are now bobsled tracks because we must protect the salmon population.

In Montana? A foot of snow on top of three feet of snow that has frozen solid, wind chill is below zero, class starts at 6pm on a January night. It's as dark as a blackhole's ass. Get yourself inside, the lecture is not going to wait for you, besides you're in the path of the guy in running shorts navigating by campas streetlights. It's cool, he has shoe spikes, and antifreeze for blood, apparently.

Neither situation makes a damn bit of sense, but there you are.

Also, considering that I experienced snow in June, and it was 105 degrees when I fled Missoula in August, I feel I got to experience weather whiplash. Which I'm sure will come in handy some day.

Anyway, after my semester ended in May, I split my time between trying to find a place to live in Oregon and playing on the internet.

One of my favorite landing spots was SparkNotes, because it had goofy quizzes.

And what did I see? A guy blogging every chapter of every Twilight book! Now, I've mentioned before that I liked Twilight and New Moon for the bad movies of books that they are, and that Eclipse fell out of my brain and Breaking Dawn was boring and bonkers. I needed a laugh at that point, so I dove in! I really enjoyed reading this blog. In fact I would periodically revisit it.

That brings me to July 4th 2021. Assholes in my neighborhood are setting off fireworks, in the road, right outside my apartment,in the middle of a drought, in defiance of the county ban trying to stop the fucknut population from burning down the state... Again.

My dog, Biff, is losing his shit even after two CBD treats. He can have three but he's so flipped out that he won't eat another one.

I need noise, but the Wifi is out so I pick up my mom's Breaking Dawn DVD. She likes the movies because they are mindless.

My reasoning is that I can sleep though it, but it should provide enough noise to drown out the fireworks enough for Biff to settle down. It works, and I start to wonder about that Blogging Twilight thing I read years ago. It had been a while... Google help a girl out.

And what do I find? The whole thing, plus blogs about the Gender Swapped Twilight and the movies, are in a Kindle book!

Hell yeah, I bought it! And I just spent the first three days of my vacation reading it.

It's just as much fun as I remember. Dan Bergstein has a wonderfully random sense of humor and mixes it with very good points about the awfulness of the books and their plots.

I honestly can't look at or read anything to do with Twilight without thinking about warewolves with jetpacks and imagining Emmett Cullen as an action hero and that's thanks to this blog.

I'd never read his blogs about the movies or Life and Death so those were a great bonus for me. I remember reading Life and Death last year and thinking it was better than Twilight, so the Bergstein and I disagree there. Of course, I also remember saying last year that I thought it was better because it had a more satisfying ending than the original series. I stick by that. If what happened to Beau in Life and Death, happened to Bella in Twilight, it would have been a B movie book that at least had an ending, unlike the series which reminded me of when a song is fading out. There's not an ending, the substance of the song just keeps getting thinner and thinner until it's just gone.

The book is hilarious and even though Bergstein gets frustrated and creeped out (as I think a lot of people did) he writes about it with just my brand of humor. Scarcastic, random and well thought out which sounds like a contradiction, but I think good random humor is like the random button on an mp3 player. There's structure, it's just structured to where it seems unstructured.

Honestly, if you want a laugh, read this book!

[negativereader]

Everything Wrong With Twilight: Forever Dawn

When writing, one of the most important things that a person must do is plan out what is going to happen. Of course, for many writers, these plans are sometimes forced to change. 

For instance, in Harry Potter, Rowling originally had the entire ending chapter written out, so that she knew where the seven books were going to be heading. However, somewhere around between the fourth and fifth books, Rowling realized that she’d written an epic plot hole, which caused much of the fifth book to be writing around it, and during the final books, everything had to change from plans.

Gravity Falls originally had the Cipher wheel as nothing more than a sort of decorative thing, but when Alex Hirsh saw the work, effort, and thought that people were going to in order to decode the thing, he eventually integrated it into the finale, even if it didn’t change anything in the end.

Lord of the Rings went through so many changes that the original plot ideas are almost unrecognizable. It’s one of the reasons that when people say that Jackson was building off of some notes on the Hobbit that Tolkien had been writing out for a rewrite, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they would have found their way into the rewrite, if there ever was one.

Plans change. That’s something that all writers have to understand. When you force a story to follow your original vision, you have major, major, problems.

And that was something that Meyer ended up doing.

Forever Dawn and its legacy 

Background

I’ve mentioned this a few times, but for those who don’t want to go back and go over everything I’ve written, Forever Dawn was the original book long epilogue for Twilight. The story was much like Breaking Dawn, almost spookily so. The differences were things like Laurence staying ‘good’ and helping Cullens, the werewolves playing next to no real part other that minor cutouts, and Victoria being the one who ran off on the Volturi to squeal on the Cullens for having eating a baby and making a vampire kid

There was an imprint, however some things, such as the love triangle, weren’t there.

This was something that Meyer had written intending on writing it only for herself, but then, as she started making money, and things started going well, she decided to keep going.

And so New Moon was born, and after it Eclipse. Now, both of these, while boring, do act like sequels. They advance the story and characterization. Kind of. You got more on the minor characters and the werewolves that Meyer had planned from the start but didn’t admit to, were also fleshed out. You got more on the world, such as the Volturi, and the fact that Meyer was making her newborn vampires the most dangerous.

She gave us more tension, relatively speaking, in the relationship between Bella and Edward, first with his going off to sulk and later when there was the run around with Bella not wanting to get married (but wanting to be a vampire).

The characterization of other characters was even advanced. Rosalie went from a thin Scary Sue who had been ‘created’ for Edward and rejected into one of the most tragic characters in the entire series, and Leah, who ironically is the only character with a real character arc, was also introduced as a means to show the reader the all consuming nature of imprinting (it’s romantic, honest).

Now, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good by a long shot, and I’ve spent a lot of time talking about why it wasn’t good, but it was fulfilling the basic needs of storytelling to build off of itself and lead the reader in the general direction of the plot.

Then came Breaking Dawn.

Epilogue

Meyer had Forever Dawn on her computer from the start of the series. Now, in some ways, planning backward is a good thing. A lot of authors usually plot out both the beginning and the end of the book, or even a series, so that you can tell where things are going to go from there. It can really help you to better know where you’re going and what you’re doing, and for someone like Meyer, who tends to just sort of go and not worry too much about where her story goes, it probably is the reason she had a coherent story to begin with.

It’s important to understand that Forever Dawn was an epilogue. It was just a sort of ending to tell you what happens after the main story ended. There wasn’t a real firm plot to Forever Dawn because, regardless of it being well over the size of a normal book, it was still an epilogue. It was meant to tell what happened to the characters after the main story. It’s not an actual story, and in many ways, that’s part of the thing’s problem.

The plot, such as it was, was little more than saying that after the main story of Twilight, Bella and Edward quickly got married, Bella get pregnant, Jacob imprinted, the Volturi got involved but were convinced not to do anything, and everyone lived happily ever after.

There was no resolution to the thing involving the Volturi because there didn’t need to be. The main story was done. You don’t introduce and resolve major conflict in your epilogue. The story was told, this was just the shameless fantasy that Meyer wanted to have about how perfect life would be if she had managed to bag a vampire. In many ways, the greatest problem with Forever Dawn is perfectly simple: it was completely wish fulfillment.

Meyer, being Meyer, never really realized, or maybe never cared, that since she, in her own words, realized that she wasn’t ready to stop telling the story of Edward and Bella, that she was going to need to change things around.

The Problem

What ended up happening was that rather than using Forever Dawn as a sort of basic idea of what was going to happen, she forced the series into Forever Dawn. And it showed. While I have major issues with Eclipse, both it and New Moon at least attempted to drive the story and characterization forwards. The characters did move on from their first incarnations as well, but the strange thing is that once Breaking Dawn hits, everything is back to book one. You could actually cut out the second two books, and very little would have been lost. While the Volturi were established, the hints of Jane’s own secret agenda that would be resolved in the final book never came up again, the characterization, such as it was, of the Cullens also essentially was forced back into book one. And kind of characterization of the human characters was completely gone.

Everything had to happen like in Forever Dawn. And that made a lot of weirdness.

For instance, any actual threat that the Volturi were to anyone who wasn’t Bella and the Cullens was forgotten because in the original epilogue, they’d only been here as a threat to Edward and Bella. There were ineffective villains because they couldn’t be anything but ineffective villains. They were meant to be, essentially, another James, a random bad guy who showed up at the end, and rather than Edward saving her, she saved him and everyone else.

They were there to show Bella’s final, amazing transformation into a vampire. She was superman, just like she’d said in the first book. Meyer was showing a reversal of Edward and Bella. It’s one of the reasons that she really wasn’t interested in a fight. It wasn’t necessary. The whole thing had been there for Bella, and no other reason.

The werewolves are the characters where Meyer’s forcing everything into the mold of Forever Dawn shows the most. Jacob of the other Quileutes were basically nobodies in the first book. Jacob existed to spout some exposition and return to non-existence. Later, when Meyer realized that the werewolves were necessary for her ‘clever’ ending, Jacob imprinted on Bella’s kid, and since the pack wouldn’t hurt an imprint or their family, they had to help.

However, by the time that the actual series is written, Meyer’s werewolves are actually a second set of characters. Issues such as Leah’s problems with imprinting, and Sam’s leadership are introduced, and Bella is actually developed slightly. Maybe not well, but Bella in Eclipse is not the same person as Bella in Twilight.

It’s only natural. Characters change, and that’s a good thing.

Then, Meyer reached the final book, and she already had a plan. Oh, she knew that she was going to have to change things, but she had her plan and she was going to stick to it. The problem was, much like her very premise, Meyer tried to force the other two books into her original vision, not really worrying if Forever Dawn had been nothing more than an epilogue.

The other two books had become nothing more than fluff. They only had two reasons that they even existed anymore. One, so that Meyer could keep writing about them, and to make some loose ends and resolve them before the actual end, all characterization, other potential plot threads, and everything else was forgotten, so that Meyer’s original vision could come true.

The Effect

In the past, Meyer’s wish-fulfillment had worked out just fine. Her fans had rallied behind her. In reality, she had no reason to think that this wouldn’t be more of the same. And it shows. All of her interviews right before the book comes out are her usual, bubbly, ‘lol I’m so crazy’ stuff that you usually see from writers.

The problem was that Meyer’s lack of understanding of her audience and the fact that she was trying to force the story into the original vision was a bad combination. One that essentially broke down her entire writing career.

What Meyer didn’t understand was that the fans weren’t there for Bella. Most of them didn’t even like her all that much. They were there for Edward, or they were there for Jacob. Edward became little more than a footnote in Bella’s perfect life, and Jacob feel in life with a newborn baby. Neither team was thrilled by this.

Breaking Dawn broke the fandom. There’s no other way to say this. Twilight’s fandom was powering on happily, completely ignoring its critics until this book came out. I’m not sure how many people remember this, but it was glorious. There were youtube videos of angry fans burning the books, some girl finally saying rather than burning the books, they should return them.

But, what was most important was the posts on posts of fans saying that this book ‘didn’t feel like their characters’. They were right. It wasn’t. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I like Meyer’s characters. I don’t. I think almost all of them are two dimensional cutouts, but at the same time, the fans were completely right. Those characters were different. They had suddenly been yanked back to how they’d been in the first book, and for some characters, that was pretty flat.

For characters like the werewolves, who’d had no personality, they faded away more and more after Jacob imprinted on Renesmee. We’re told what happens, but they’re not really important anymore. They were just background in the original and they are that now.

The Cullens and Bella even mostly dropped what character development that they’d had, and were right back to the way they were.

In most respects, it was as if the former two books hadn’t really happened, and, yes, the fans noticed. And that, as well as Meyer’s own reaction, essentially ended Meyer’s career.

This was the book where Meyer’s original mistake, that of focusing her entire book on only one real vision, really bit her, and probably the only one. The reason was simple: while people were perfectly happy to have Meyer’s wish fulfillment mesh with their wish fulfillment, Breaking Dawn mostly ended up erasing Meyer’s own characterization and continuity in the name of remaining true to her own vision.

Fixing It

Let your story grow. Things change, things grow, you grow. Sometimes the story that you started out telling isn’t the story that you end up telling. You’ve changed, and that’s a good thing.

Meyer needed to let her story grow too.

Twilight and Forever Dawn were stories that were written at a specific time, and with a specific mindset, but in a series where two more books had been written, a lot needed to be changed. As hard as it is, sometimes, things move past the visions you originally had for them. Characters change, the plot alters. Even things that authors loved aren’t necessarily things that you can put into a final draft. That is one of the places that the phrase “kill your darlings” comes from.

Meyer had created two more books, and with those books, characters had changed, subplots had formed, and the expectations of the audience had altered.

Maybe they would have been ok with Breaking Dawn if that book had been right after Twilight. Maybe. But as it was, Meyer tried to force her series back into its original vision, and unlike before, when her obsession with her dream was ignored by readers, who were projecting bits of themselves and their ideas of themselves unto the characters, this was something that no one could make better.

As it was, Meyer, and all writers who find that their original vision is becoming less and less like something that is possible, that’s ok. You change, stories change, and one part of writing is, unfortunately moving past the first ideas that come to you. Often first ideas aren’t very good. Fault in Our Stars might be pretentious clap trap in my opinion but Green at least had the understanding that the ending where Hazel and the Crabby Dutchman band together and kill a drug lord for…reasons without repercussions in memory of Augustus was stupid. There are several writers who ended up changing an ending that they liked better because they knew that the revised one suited the story better.

It’s hard to revise, and it’s hard to let the story grow past that idealistic first stage, but it’s something that needs to be done.

Final Thoughts

Meyer took her initial vision very seriously, and in the end, while she managed to avoid it for longer than I thought possible, she eventually suffered for it. The reason was a combination of the fan’s own expectations, Meyer’s refusal to allow her story to grow beyond her original vision, a lack of understanding of what her fan base even wanted, and a story that was formatted like an epilogue, with little lasting conflict (be it Bella actually struggling or even the main confrontation at the end), too much happening in the background, and a sudden jerk of character development backwards.

In some regards, it’s a little sad to watch the very thing that Meyer thought was so important to her books, staying true to her original vision, end up as the thing that essentially destroyed her own work.

However, she claimed that she loved her characters, and regardless of saying that this was their true personalities, she should have considered if they’d really do the same things after the plot had happened. Would Bella, who didn’t really like the idea of marriage because it was too big of a step for her, (regardless of becoming immortal, but whatever) really suddenly want to have a child at eighteen? Would she really be willing to potentially die for that child? That answer should have been no.

If Meyer wants to really come back from the problems of the Twilight Saga, what she needs is not to write a gender bender, but to consider if her original vision really is something that CAN be published well and move from there. It will take time, it will take humility, and it does take sacrifice, but, at least as I see it, forcing a story to do something that makes no sense is worse.

[anxiety-trademark]

The week in review:

Raw 11/23 NXT 11/25 NXT UK 11/26 Smackdown 11/27

Raw:

Such a hollow promo by Lana tbh. “I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up.” ??? You were the sole survivor by proxy, it’s not like you did anything. Like good for you, but come on now.

I mean sure, hand out a title shot to fucking Lana, not like anyone else in the entire company cares about that belt. God I miss Becky.

“You may go home Raw women’s champion” HAHAHAHAHAAHHA sure.

“Nikki Cross blames herself for what Alexa Bliss has become,” she should, she straight up threw her hissy fit cuz she didn’t win the title, and then she bailed.

Now don’t get me wrong, I get that Alexa has been... possessed, if you will, by Fiend... but I’m not seeing any signs of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to her and Bray. Aren’t they both trapped by Fiend in lore? Bray seems to genuinely care about Alexa. Am I off the mark here??

Oh my god this moment of silence for the fucking frog, I--

Topped with them laughing about his death, oooookay. I’m left speechless once again.

Commentators come back with, “Is Alexa Bliss too far gone...” LMFAO bye.

See I love this bullying Lana storyline cuz Nia and Shayna have no real reason to despise her 1/8th as much as they do. It simply boils down to ‘fuck Lana’ and like your typical high school bullies, they seethe when their victim succeeds at anything. It’s old school, believable, and doesn’t cross any lines that would upset parents or sponsors.

Also don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that this title match is just a vehicle to advance the feud while involving Asuka, I simply wish the creation of the title match itself had been a bit more interesting. Lana’s dialogue ahead of it with both Sarah and Asuka just fell flat for me.

Omfg Asuka threw water on Nia and Shayna, bahahahah I can’t breathe. That might be the highlight of her entire reign, holy shit.

Negative points for her being floored by one punch though.

Well at least the segment ends with both Asuka and Lana standing, that’s not the worst.

Not much to say about this match, it’s really just Nia and Shayna bullying Lana lol.

I’ll give them this, there is absolutely nothing about neither Nia nor Shayna that is even remotely likeable. They play mean really well, and not ‘annoying yet funny’ mean like Bayley, just straight mean.

It’s not that I hate this submission ‘hold’ by Shayna, where she steps on the back of their neck while pulling a leg back, but I’m curious why she switched legs lmao. Awkward.

What a knee strike by Shayna to Asuka, whew that looked nasty.

Lmfao Nia took herself out by charging into the announce desk. I cannot. What a bump. Comedic bump, but a bump. Points.

Haha Shayna ate a rollup. A happy ending indeed. Lana sold that ending well, but it was a weird choice to have her and Asuka on the opposite ends of the ramp.

It’s been like 2 years and I’m still shocked Alexa never turned on Nikki.

This video is kind of just skipping over Nikki throwing her tantrum huh? Alexa played backseat cheerleader just to watch Nikki lose against Bayley 16 times and what did she get in return? Disrespect. Tsk.

Great package though. Points.

Nikki is so inconsistent. Internal conflict is valid, but she��s standing here claiming Alexa gave up on their friendship. First of all, this was initially instigated by Nikki. Second of all, she did nothing but trash Alexa’s boyfriend(?) when Alexa was nothing but kind to her after Nikki was a douche. She was confused so she gave Alexa an ultimatum, and now she’s pissy cuz Alexa chose him. This is toxic, I honestly have no sympathy for Nikki.

“I’m going to beat the Fiend out of Alexa Bliss” that’s... that’s not how this works... alright well you’re a shitty friend so, anyway.

Alexa slaps the back of Nikki’s hands and claims she won. I fucking can’t, she’s such a treat.

Lol Alexa’s just laughing at her.

My first introduction to Alexa was her as a master manipulator. Not a damn thing has changed.

Alexa has lost her god damn mind rofl.

*Bonus* online exclusive: victim Nikki, everyone. Why wasn’t this on Raw? Jesus they fill Raw with so many garbage replays while meaningful interviews to fill plot holes are put online. Dumb.

Lacey’s really running around calling Peyton “PeyPey” good lord.

I mean she’s right, Peyton was the weakest link. Just saying.

“10 sizes too big” shot at Uncle Melted Cheese.

I fucking love how Lacey pronounces “opportun-tit-ies” lmao. I thought it was an accident at first but honestly it’s great.

They have zero chemistry in the ring but at least they’re fun outside of it.

Highlight: I know I say Alexa every single week but shrug it’s Alexa

---

NXT:

Alright Ember’s theme is wearing on me. She just has awesome theme songs.

Indi is really pretty and I love how she does her hair.

All nxt heels are the same; cowardly run from fights, slow methodical wrestling in the ring, recruiting muscle optional. It’s tired. At least be a good promo. Dakota is a good promo. She’s buyable. Actually where’s Dakota, I wanna see Dakota wrestle. No more Candice.

Holy shit that fall away slam onto Candice. Fucking THREW her ass across the ring. Whew everyone wave bye to Candice.

The setup to that step up senton by Candice was way too obvious.

Candice is too whiny.

Ah just as I’m beginning to get bored, Dakota comes out. It’s like nxt knows me.

Haha KO correcting Vic being a bad commentator.

See Candice isn’t even a bad wrestler, her style as heel just fucking blows.

Peeped that call by Ember.

Such a stupid setup to have Indi push Candice out of the way to take an Eclipse herself. It’s not like jumping in front of a bus. There was time. Whatever. I hate Candice matches 9 times out of 10 so there’s that lol.

...so is Toni a heel yet??? I’m guessing they’re going for “badass loner babyface-leaning tweener” for Ember, but Toni is not a tweener. She could’ve been, alas she is not.

Haha Toni is funny. Good, let her be heel. Maybe she’ll show some personality.

Alright but hear me out, what if we had a War Games team without Candice???

You did say we’d see a whole new side of you, Toni. Been waiting to see it though.

Wait back up, didn’t Toni attack Candice after their match recently?? Okay anyway.

“Rhea Ripley/Io Shirai? Doesn’t get any bigger than that.” True Rhea, now move up to the main roster plz.

Oh man Io’s basement dropkick fucking nailed Rhea in the face lol, oof.

“Where do I go from here?” TO THE MAIN ROSTER.

I don’t hate the tank and I don’t hate the idea of wearing a helmet, but those horns are super pointless.

Shotzi “pyromaniac” Blackheart. Stealing one of Alexa’s gimmicks.

It’s gonna be Shotzi, Io, Rhea and Ember, right? Who else would it be??

Rhea says she’s there to stay. Ma’am I stg if I have to wait til after wm to see you on the MR...

Me: super invested in Rhea cutting a fantastic promo and seeing how far she’s progressed as a well-rounded talent; Candice: “lol fuck you”

I hate Candice. I will fill this review with vitriol for Candice, I don’t care.

How... how did Io “steal” any victories from Candice? What help did she have? Is it drugs? Is Candice on drugs?? Candice you haven’t even held the title, shut the fuck up. Also all of y’all can sit down cuz only one woman on that entire brand has had a singles match at wm.

Oh shit they laid Io out. That’s a yikes.

In kf, the only threat to Rhea on that entire team is Toni.

I mean sure 4 people was way too much for Rhea to handle, but man they let her look pretty fucking good. The way she immediately slid out to give Raquel the high boot was smart as hell.

Dakota looks good. She gets style points.

Soooo Xia gets acting points, but what in the fuck is going on with her and Boa’s story...

Why do I have to see or hear Candice again? Jesus lord.

There’s someone else masked? *sigh* I don’t care, goodbye.

Highlight: Rhea’s promo that Candice ruined

---

NXT UK:

I enjoy watching neither of these women wrestle, but at least Jinny’s persona is appealing and she has solid character work. She’s easy to dislike, so she gets heel-potential points.

Did they say Isla’s mentor is Nikki Cross? That’s... interesting...

So is this match gonna be interrupted by Piper? Probably not.

“This is an aggressive Isla Dawn,” well hey, maybe she actually started working on her stamina.

Jinny is vicious lmao.

Probably Isla’s best showing tbh.

I hate it when people jump off the top turnbuckle and then break into a slow, clunky roll, just to stand up and act as if their knee is tweaked. It’s so messy to me. Be smoother or don’t aimlessly jump off the turnbuckle.

Whole lotta yelling in the match.

Really don’t give a shit about a future Jinny/Piper match but okay.

Highlight: Jinny comes off as a vicious bitch, so that’s nice

---

Smackdown:

Oh snap Bianca’s graphic has some real potential.

Ayyyeeee it’s Captain Bayley. We starting our Bianca/Bayley feud?

oof Nattie straight outsmarted Bianca as the vet, there. Bianca friggin speared that ringpost.

“I think I did the world a favor, we got to see Bianca Belair shine,” she’s not wrong, Bianca was absolutely my mvp from SvS. In hindsight speaking from current day, Bayley really set up Bianca to be the upcoming star of this division, starting with SvS.

Oh snap did Bianca just call Nattie a bitch? How dare she, that’s Nattie’s only patented insult!

“You don’t want to get counted out again,” lmfao Bayley’s so annoying.

pppffffftttt Bayley inadvertently getting her ass whooped tonight.

Yeah somehow this is all Cole’s fault lol.

No, stop, no more “them” promos. Bayley cut this promo literally a year prior, we don’t need to hear it from Carmella, too. Besides, she was never necessarily a fan favorite that the crowd gradually turned against like Bayley was. It’s different.

WHAT SHOTS ARE YOU CALLING?? Is this about Reggie? Has he even appeared on screen yet?

Lmao Sasha beating her ass. Good for her. Looking good while she does it, too. Sasha in shiny silver... whew.

The wwe shop ad with the Riott Squad was worth a mention. They entertain me and they deserve tag titles. Not sure why wwe is still dragging their feet, but commit to them already, damn it.

Highlight: Bianca/Bayley seeds being planted

---

*Smackdown shined the brightest this week. Short, simple, straight to the point. Left me wanting to throw on next week’s episode, which no other show accomplished.

[therealvinelle]

What if the entire human cast were turned into vampires? (those who stay human throughout the saga)

Well, the first question we must ask ourselves, is who’s turning them? Who would do such a thing?

It’s a very stupid thing to do, after all, and a surefire way to earn yourself a visit from the Volturi.

Now, who in the post-Breaking Dawn world would want to turn all the humans near the Cullens into vampires, ensuring another confrontation between the Cullens and the Volturi?

Answer is, drumroll-

The Romanians.

As of Breaking Dawn, the Volturi are extremely vulnerable. Jane, Alec, even Chelsea have all been neutered. Renata is Schrödinger’s shield. She might work, might not. The more time they’re given to regroup after this, however, the worse news for their would-be usurpers.

Now is the time for a rebellion, but there’s no rebellion without Bella. Bella, unfortunately, is in a coven led by ultimate pacifist Carlisle, and Carlisle isn’t going to greenlight storming Volterra with an army. It’s time to get creative.

This could go many places, but the path of a biting spree in Forks and La Push is certainly one of them.

So, Vladimir and Stefan bite the entire human cast, and open Pandora’s box.

One of the first things to happen, I think, is that Billy, Quil senior, Emily, Kim, and Rachel are killed, maybe even before their transformations can complete. They would not want to live as vampires, to them vampirism is a fate worse than death. A mercy killing before they can hurt anybody would be the only way out.

As for the rest...

This would break the secret.

In this globalized age of internet, viral videos, and live TV, several hundred people all falling mysteriously ill with the same inexplicable symptoms, screaming and begging for death for days, slowly turning into something else as baffled doctors watch, before becoming massacring demons that tear the hospitals they’re in to pieces within minutes and proceed into the streets, killing everything in sight-

Aro hasn’t had a headache like this since ever.

This doesn’t even have to do with the Cullens anymore, though they’ll have to testify that they had nothing to do with this. Caius will be out for blood, though, any blood, and his ire will fall upon them.

This, of course, is the part the Romanians did it all for, because everyone knows that the Volturi are corrupt and would execute them regardless of guilt, so the Cullens will have to bring a new set of witnesses to this confrontation. And this time, of course, the Volturi are showing up to get massacred. Stefan and Vladimir high five each other.

And this time the odds are entirely in their favor.

In Breaking Dawn, standing by the Cullens was a suicide mission. No one knew Bella would be able to pull off what she did, none of the arrivals even knew she even had a gift when they agreed to come. Carlisle gathered only his bravest and most devoted friends.

In this scenario, now that everyone knows Bella’s gift neuters the Volturi, every single vampire who’s ever wanted the Volturi gone are going to want to be there. From random nomads to Maria with her newborns, everyone who’s anybody is going to want to be there, and they’re likely already squabbling over who gets to be top dog as soon as Aro’s a pile ashes.

And Aro can’t avoid this.

He can’t barricade himself in Volterra because there are hundreds of newborns loose in Washington. If he does nothing this will mean that the Volturi rule is officially void. They can’t enforce their law anymore, they may be alive down there in Italy but the era of the Volturi is over in all the ways that count.

If he goes to Washington, he can’t avoid the Cullens for the same reason as above. If he doesn’t collect their testimony to ascertain their innocence it’ll mean they’re now above the law, which in turn means that the Volturi don’t have the strength to punish them.

He has to go to Washington, and he has to deal with the Cullens.

Now, Carlisle may think the best of everyone, but even he would know the plot of the movie 300 when he sees it. The Romanians showed up at his doorstep, they totally didn’t create all those vampires wink, oh and here are eighty thug vampires who are already drawing straws on who gets to kill which Volturi.

More, what happened in Forks and La Push is only a taste of what’s to come.

Not only are the Volturi needed to help stop this madness, but if they should fall then what happened in Forks and La Push will only be a blip on the radar against the chaos that will be unleashed. It’ll be a genocide of the human species.

And Carlisle will have a culpability in that. The reason why this mass vampire creation tragedy is happened in the first place is precisely to see the Cullens go to war against the Volturi.

Last problem, it would be a massacre of the Volturi. Carlisle is a pacifist who cherishes life, even if it there would be no repercussions to the Volturi falling, forty-something vampires would still be killed.

I think at this point it would be unconscionable for Carlisle to allow this confrontation to happen. Question is, how to prevent it?

I have no doubt that the Romanians would be filling Bella’s head with conspiracy theories and what have you, for starters, explaining how her family will never be safe while Aro lives. It would be effective, even if Bella is told by Carlisle what this means for humans she’s not necessarily going to internalize just how bad that would be. Bella also has the problem that she romanticizes her love for Edward, to the point where she i Eclipse would let his family die if it meant she could keep him. Letting civilization fall to protect her lover would be acceptable to Bella.

More, the Cullens like humans well enough, but they’re not altruistic.

Likely, they would be convinced by the Romanians and the other vampires there that this was a fight for liberty, the human population would be fine, this is really no worse than Heidi fishing 40 people a week, we’re just more honest about it! The Cullens would want to be convinced, because the Volturi are scary and have proven evil in the past. If they’re not overthrowing them, they’re not just agreeing to live in danger, they’re agreeing to be slaughtered. It’s been established, to them, that Aro’s just itching for an excuse to kill them.

Carlisle can make his plea that they fuck off to Isle Esme while he alone stays behind to testify to Aro, so there’s no Bella at the confrontation. They’d refuse both because there’d be nothing stopping Aro from killing their allies and then coming after them when they’re alone, and because there’d be a real chance they were leaving Carlisle to his death.

Besides, with Bella’s gift they can hold the Volturi hostage, act nice or she’ll let these 80 vampires kill them. Nevermind that the vampires would just attack the Volturi anyway, and Bella couldn’t not shield them.

Bella and the rest of the Cullens aren’t going to go along with Carlisle.

Now, if Carlisle were Aro, the hard but effective solution here would be the Didyme route. Kill Bella, one life to spare the many.

Carlisle is not Aro.

What options does he have, then?

He could sneak away to intercept the Volturi, speak with Aro, hope to in some way initiate talks. It’d be a desperate, futile gamble, one where even if he gets Aro to listen it still won’t make their army-shaped problem go away, because Bella will never believe it if Aro says “we’re friends now! No quarrel! I’m definitely not going to kill you at first leisure if you let your army go.”

It’s an empty lead.

I think, given everything, Carlisle would swallow down the bitter taste of irony, call up his old friends whom he can still rely on, such as the Irish and the Amazonians, and ask very nicely if they would - sigh - like to witness that the newest Cullen-Volturi encounter goes over peacefully. The shapeshifters should be on board as well, after what happened to their loved ones and the countless other innocent humans killed or turned, they’ll never forgive the Romanians and not Bella for standing with them either.

So Aro shows up, and there’s Bella and the Romanians with an army of thugs, and there to the side is Carlisle with his tiny squad of witnesses. Who, should a fight break out, will try to defend the Volturi and get themselves killed in the crosshairs.

There’s a long silence.

Everyone is giving Carlisle their most exasperated eyerolls, his own squad included. Carlisle wishes he was rolling his eyes too, but the situation is a bit too serious for that. He just stands there feeling very uncomfortable.

Quite damningly for Bella, if she now allows the fight to happen that means the shapeshifters will be killed. None of the Cullens are particularly keen on the fight now that Carlisle’s likely to die.

Frankly, I think this would be an unbearably awkward encounter where absolutely nobody acknowledges aloud the reason why they’re there, or what was supposed to happen, and act as if it’s a normal trial, for the several first few minutes.

The Romanians know this is it, this is their chance, so right about the time where Aro is saying “How excellent that we’ve established the Cullens didn’t do it! Who, then, could the culprits possibly be?” they launch their attack.

All, at this point, depends on Bella’s reaction. If she keeps up her shield, then a glorious battle occurs, and most if not all Volturi die, the Carlisle squad are also goners, and most if not all of the Romanians’ army die as well.

The thing is, to win the Romanians don’t have to win - they just have to make the Volturi lose. So, even if they’re wiped out, if they can take out the key members of the Volturi then the Volturi will still have lost.

And this is where Aro’s planning enters into the equation.

Would he bring his key players to what was certain to be a slaughter? Would he even come himself?

Is it not perhaps wiser to send the twins, who in a fight without their gifts would be the first and easiest to be killed, to a secret location? Hope that, should the Volturi fall, then they can at least hope to take Bella down with them so that Jane and Alec will be able to keep the world from succumbing to a fiery hellpit?

And Jane and Alec couldn’t do this alone. They’re kids, for one thing. More, there are no men like Aro. His gift and personality both have been how he kept the vampire world under control for over a thousand years. It is a romantic notion to go down with your ship, burn with your empire, but it’s an impractical one. And Aro is nothing if not practical.

If he doesn’t show up to the trial it’ll just be sending his Volturi to be slaughtered, and as I explained above, not going at all isn’t an option either.

I think the twins would be safely whisked away to some faraway place, while Aro arrives with plans for an effective escape for himself and the core members, and as many vampires Chelsea was able to get to redshirt themselves.

This, in turn, means that even if Bella doesn’t use her gift, it’ll still be a slaughter. Alec and Jane aren’t there.

In the scenario where Bella doesn’t use her gift, this forces the Cullens to fight alongside the Carlisle squad and the Volturi. The odds are not so uneven as they originally were. Could be Aro still escapes, or given the tipped balances he could try and luck it out, to increase the odds of his side winning.

There are many outcomes this battle could have, but the Volturi would not escape unscathed from this. No coven would, the fighting would only end when there was only the victor remaining.

I, personally, like the outcome where Carlisle and Aro both survive, and find themselves living with a new world order. The secret is out, the Volturi are a shadow of what they once were, and the Cullens can never live as humans again. The two form a tentative alliance (because at no point has anything been cleared up between them) to keep this new world from descending into interspecies war.

Edward, now a Volturi, wonders where it all went wrong.

(There’s also the outcome where Renesmée joins her grandpa’s squad as a teen rebellion thing, and since no one wants to harm her the fight is cancelled. 

Aro repeats his ramble about nukes and missiles, the vampire community needs him to smooth things over and have Chelsea make all world leaders adore vampires or it’s over for all of them. Carlisle supplies in that poorly scripted random member of the audience says exactly what the magician needs him to way, “Yes absolutely the humans have weapons that can take us out!”

It’s awkward for everybody.)

[haplesshuman]

Breaking Dawn, Book 2 Part 1

In which nobody knows what they’re deailing with.

Let me tell you a little story.

In 2015, I had to do a university project on Boys’ Adventure Stories as a group presentation. As the only girl in the group, I got to look at the books from  a feminist point of view. I also had to guess which books in the library were boys’ adventure stories, took a pile out (of which sadly only three have stuck in mind - Northern Lights, the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Stormbreaker, the first of the Alex Rider books, and Artemis Fowl, the first book in the series of the same name), and sadly never got to read those books. Shame. It didn’t help that I had to read Gold of the Gods, the very book that inspired this very blog.

Anyway, after looking random stuff up on TV Tropes, I decided to put that wrong right, and am now looking up the books I failed to read two years ago. I don’t think any of them will end up on Too Long; Didn’t Read. I’ve finally read the first Artemis Fowl book, and no, it’s not going on this blog.  Expect it to be referred to, though.

I would far sooner be reading that than Breaking Dawn. What you’re about to see is from the Book of Suck. I’d have hoped it to be one nice long part, but I’m afraid you’re going to be mistaken. I never finished book 2 whilst I still had Breaking Dawn. I ran out of patience at chapter... Oh, who cares? You do. Wait a second. Even the Book of Suck won’t tell me what chapter I stopped at.

I lost patience at the end of Chapter 12. Goody. That means I’ve got another... 27 chapters to go before I can wash my hands of this stuff. Well, shit.

Buckle up, kids.

And after that long intro, let’s kick this one off.

1. Preface. ‘Whiny crap’, I said. It’s mercifully short.

2. Italics for the wolf mind meld. Oh no. I took the decision to speed read those bits, and it seems nothing of value made it out of the actual page. Apart from Jacob being called out for being a horible person

3. Let’s meet Rachel Black! Yeah, Jacob’s sister has not appeared once in the story, and of course she makes her debut now. No, I know nothing about her.  I asked, ‘WHY THE HELL HAVE WE NOT SEEN RACHEL BLACK BEFORE?’ She’s not really plot-relevant, and sadly nor is she here. She just exists to be the girlfriend via imprint of some guy named Paul, so I’m just going to pretend they don’t exist from now on and just move on.

4. Reigns vs Reins. The term ‘free rein’ is spelt without a g. Whoever proofread this must have been blinded by dollar signs, that’s my only explanation for this one.

5. The Quil and Claire scene. Remember these guys from Eclipse? If you’re new to Too Long; Didn’t Read, then you’ll know that Claire is Quil’s girlfriend via imprint. She is also two, something which sent me to the Great White Telephone. I’m not sure what the point of this scene is, but Claire’s parents? Please teach Claire you can’t always get what you want, because Quil is never going to teach her.

What we do learn is that imprinting is basically mind rape. Ick.

6. Oh, the Protagonists are Horrible People. Yeah, they really are. They’re now lying to Charlie - who is blissfully aware that he is about to become a grandfather - about Bells’ pregnancy. I think he’d want to know. The story is that she’s sick - which would only DRAW A PARENT CLOSE. Jesus Christ, not only do we have protagonists who I can now no longer call heros if I ever could, but they’re STUPID AS ALL HELL.

Villain Protagonist is not a bad trope, mind you. It can work.

Here... it doesn’t work.

Also, dipping into more TV Tropes language, Did They Think Charlie Couldn’t Feel? Gaah.

9. Medical consent, people. Jacob bas even less right than Edward to force an abortian on Beells. He’s not related.

10. What has Leah done? Seriously, everyone seems to have it in for her. What did she do? Did she invent Comic Sans? She’s snarky, so no, Leah’s not letting me down in being an OK character.

11. Crazy idea. Edward comes up with one - having Jacob be a sperm donor - and because plot, it won’t work. He’s called out on this, but then it leads to the next point -

12. Jacob failing to sound his age. He does not sound like a 16-year-old. No freaking way am I buying that narration.

Again, I’m not saying this is a bad thing - if it’s justified (case in point - Artemis Fowl) . Where’s your justification, Jacob?

13. Snarky Chapter Titles. Unforunately, the snark came out wrong. The only one that vaguely amused me was Chapter 10′s title, and that’s only because it’s right - Jacob is an idiot.

14. This is pregnancy on drugs. Bella has turned into an optimist. She’s normally a really, really pessimistic whiny person. Uh, what happened? Who or what happened? (Any suggestions are to be placed in the comments)

15. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It doesn’t go like that. I can’t remember the full thing, but whatever interpretation you used, you got it wrong.

16. More rules of science are being torn up and set aflame. Why would the ultrasound not work? And also, whilst I dropped Biology 8 years ago, I’m pretty sure chromosones don’t work like that.

17. More headdesking. I don’t know a damn thing about artificial insemination, not being a farmer. It’s not really being handled well here. If Bells wants a kid and can’t really have one, couldn’t they get a vampire to be a surrogate (Not Rosalie, though)

18. That fight will never happen. Nuff said.

19. Everyone also hates Rosalie. Is it because she’s blonde? If so, someone needs to get over themselves.

20. The narration. I’ll get this elephant in the room out of the way - this narration is worse than Bella’s. Yeah, I know, can’t be unsaid.

21. In-laws. Doc, Bells is your daughter-in-law. This means she is family. Got that? Yes? Good.

22. Exposition that must break medical rules. Doc Cullen is now telling Jacob a whole pile of stuff that, as a friend of the expectant mother, shouldn’t really be finding out from him. Patient confidentiality, just saying.

23. Robbing a bank. Robbing a blood bank. Whilst, you know, there could be a blood shortage and people could be dying due to lack of suitable blood. Do I even have to say how wrong this is?

I’ll be back next week, if not with another part read, the long awaited Why I Won’t Review entry for The Host. In the meantime, I think I shall cheer myself up with something funny.

POSTSCRIPT: Remember my review of The Princess Diaries: A Royal Disaster? Well, I expleained the plot to my mum - who said it didn’t make sense at all. Looking at the plot again, yeah, sense is something it’s lacking. Thanks, Mum.