This song manages to be well-done and hilarious at the same time

[gogmagog]

Man, I'm always sad when classes start and suddenly my nice, quiet Iowa City from over the summer turns into crazy, beer-soaked undergraduate hell...I feel like a crotchety old man, shaking my walker and being all YOU GOSHDURNED KIDS, GET OFF OF MY LAWN.

In other news, I've been reading the leaked bit of Stephenie Meyer's Midnight Sun (a retelling of Twilight from Edward's point of view). It actually is much better than the original, mostly because it spares us Bella's narration...you just see Bella from the outside, and she suddenly seems much more palatable than when she was our viewpoint character. The fact that that's the difference, however, does highlight how really unlikeable Bella is as a character, at least when you're inside her head. (Especially given that Edward is a creepy, emo, occasionally homicidal stalker and is STILL more likeable than Bella.)

Comments

[courters28.livejournal.com]

Umm...when does this come out BECAUSE I NEED IT.

And I like Bella, except for how she is always making Charlie dinner - that really irks me. Also, she is kind of stupid in the "stupid horror movie girl" kind of way.

PS HAVE I MENTIONED I LOVE THIS SERIES KTHXBAI

(My mom likes it too, she actually has bought all the books and that's how I started reading them.)

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Dunno when it's coming out, though I can hook you up with a PDF of the first 12 chapters (so a little under 200 pages of it - basically up until right before the "sparkling in the meadow" scene). >D

I don't dislike Bella from Edward's POV - she seems a little bland to be "ZOMG SPECIALLEST GIRL EVER." But in Twilight, I really disliked her not so much for the "stupid horror heroine" thing, but just because she was so self-centered in her interactions with...well, just about anyone except Edward and her mom, and to a much lesser extent Charlie (but with Jacob, her fellow students, especially the girls, etc.).

It also doesn't help that Stephenie Meyer (who I can never think of as anything but Smeyer now, thanks to fandom_wank (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank)) is so determined to paint Bella as awesome that every guy under 30 she meets therefore either has a crush on her, wants to eat her, or both, and nearly every girl in school seems to be so threatened by her mere existence that they become total bitchy harpies...as far as Mary Sue litmus tests, that's pretty much one of the best ones.

(But then I haven't read the rest of the series, so maybe Bella improves?)

Haha, I like the series too, but mostly in a MST3K kind of way - it's either so bad it's good, or so cracktastic that it's good. I haven't read Breaking Dawn - or really anything aside from the first book and what's leaked of the Edward book - but the spoilers I've heard make me go into total WTF mode and make me want to read the rest of the series. XD

It made me a little sad that one of my students said that her favorite book was Twilight, though. :(

[courters28.livejournal.com]

It's good like The Hills is good. :) You know it SHOULDN'T be good, but at the same time you just can't quit it. You should read the rest of the series, if you get a chance, I think Bella gets less annoying - although she NEVER quits being annoying with Jacob - she gets worse. (And I totally wanted her to choose Jacob over Edward, but I think I am the only one.)

I would very much like to be hooked up with the first 12 chapters!! Where do you get these things?

I do agree that it is weird how everyone reacts so strongly to Bella - but maybe I didn't think the girls hating her was so weird since it was a small, small school and I know the dynamics in those kind of towns having grown up in some. Everyone DOES hate the pretty new girl.

I do have to admit, it is not really well written - but I read Smeyer's other book (The Host) and I thought it was a HUGE improvement and a really interesting premise, so maybe you'd appreciate that more.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! It's just like The Hills! (In fact, that makes me wonder if Brody isn't seekritly a vampire who's planning to eat Lauren one of these days. They just PRETEND to have broken up, see! And he IS uncannily pretty, though he doesn't appear to sparkle in the sunlight...AS FAR AS WE KNOW.)

Also, does that make Audrina Alice? XDDDD

I have the rest of the Twilight books in ebook format on my computer (except the new one), so I'll probably read them that way; if I continue to like the series as much as I have, I'll probably buy them, as mildly ashamed of it as I will feel. D:

I guess I understood it to a certain extent, but still, even in a small town, would EVERYONE be all "ZOMG NEW GIRL :O :O :O" at the same time? And the girl-dislike is a little more understandable, since Bella really doesn't go out of her way to make herself likeable to any of them...hell, though she remembers all the guys' names right off the bat, it takes her like three pages before she can remember the name of her one friend, whatserface, Jessica? (Which I only remember because I've been reading Midnight Sun, which makes it even MORE clear that literally pretty much everyone is thinking about nothing but Bella on her first day.)

Also I'm totally gmailing you the PDF of Midnight Sun as soon as I post this comment. However, apparently Smeyer has posted the leaked excerpt on her website, figuring that it's a little late to close the barn door, etc. (which is a surprisingly savvy reaction on her part, I think), so you can get it there too. (That might actually be better, since mine is missing a page at one point, I think, and I had to reorder a few of the pages, though I think they're all in order now.)

Edit: This (http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/602881.html) actually pretty much sums up Twilight for me, both its good points and its bad. Also it's kinda hilarious. XD

Edit 2: Okay, apparently it's too big for Gmail, so your best bet is to just visit Smeyer's site...there's a link on her top entry, which is all about her (admittedly, understandable) butthurt at the leak.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should probably also mention that Twilight fandom SCARES THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF ME. Even more so than Harry Potter, which is no mean feat.

Exhibit A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HhxxwEQDCg) (her other videos are even better for straddling that line between "oh, lol" and "uh, I'm going to back away slowly")

[courters28.livejournal.com]

I haven't been exposed to any Twilight fandom (besides seeing some pictures of people with "Team Edward" hoodies) but now I am totally freaked out. Lucky for me, the only other people I know that like the series are 40-something women (my mom and her friends).

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are SO MANY SCARY Twilight fans out there. Only Harry Potter fans are scarier; at least no one is claiming to be married to Edward on the astral plane, like the Snapewives (http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Snapes_on_an_Astral_Plane)

Edit: Er, I should qualify...while I find Smeyer fandom scarier than HP fandom, it's not that the fans are crazier, because they're not; it's that the books are worse, so anyone finding it worthy of worship automatically strikes me as even loopier. XD