The Social Experiment Essay

Aka a pretentious, jealous rant, hopefully funnier than it is bitter.

And it is so very, very bitter.

Apart from the obvious, fuck you Stephanie Meyer for being successful and rich and realising your dreams and bringing happiness (of some kind) and believing in love and being rich and bringing vampires past teenage girls (oh wait), there is a whole another set of problems I have with all of this. The first one is, I get it. I do. I know why people like this. And I could say horrible things here, like, because people are idiots. Because tamagochi’s were popular too. Because Meyer is actually Satan, brainwashing kids into, I dunno, something bad. But I’m not going to say things like that. I’m not going to say things like, it’s not actually a properly structured novel or that Meyer creates paper thin, idiotic characters. That would be mean and I won’t say it.

No, there are two central, linked reasons that Twilight is so popular. The first is that this book is pure, unadulterated fantasy. Edward is so perfect, resisting the most base urges of his being because of the girl he loves that he couldn’t possibly exist. And this (apart the music, fast cars, ultra dreamy ZOMGhotness, superpowers and fucking sparkling) is the main thing that attracts women to him. The fact that he is willing to sacrifice, to change for a woman. To restrain his manly impulses for love. Now I wont go into the psychology of that, because my embarrassingly amateur handling of it will leave me looking even for unintentionally misogynistic than the novel itself.

The second reason is Bella. Anyone who’s read any of the other blogs in this series will realise how much I despise her. But, really, she’s a very large part of the success of this series. The reason is that she is a blank slate, with feather light characterization and stock standard responses, allowing millions of teenage girls and Stephanie Meyer to project themselves right onto her. And I don’t mean that she’s relatable or anything like that. It’s deeper. In fact they see Bella as themselves, or as an idealized version of themselves and as such the romance between them and Edward seems even more real than the pictures they draw in purple gel pens on the backs of their math books.

Probably the most annoying part of the book though, are the parts you feel could go somewhere, but completely don’t. It’s like Meyer began to actually stumble across something interesting at then reigned it in favour of romantic pap, of which 300 pages is more than enough.  You know how I noted, in chapter 5, that Bella can smell blood and that was like a superpower (at least in a book about vampires) and that I hoped Meyer wouldn’t just fucking ignore it. She does. There’s shit like that all through the novel. The fact that Edward can’t read Bella’s mind, the revelation (in the second last chapter, just late enough to totally not affect the ‘story’.) about Alice’s past, the book just ignores it. There’s none of them going after a reason for this strange event more than Bella asking The Dreamboat about it and him replying ‘I don’t know’, probably sexily.  Hell, they could have researched it in Daddy Cullen’s library, gone after it with some other vampires on their tail, had Eds family turn up to rescue them and then solved the mystery! There! Fuck. And they still could have fallen in love, etc, etc, etc. But it would have been waaaaaayyyy more interesting, even with Bella as a main character.

Might I suggest some actual fantasy literature, things that are brilliantly written, deeply plotted and excellently charactered? Oh, wait, it is my blog, so, yes, I can do that. And I will. I can even make up words like ‘charactered.’ Hooray for blogs!

The Saga of the Exiles by Julian May

Ok. So these are actually fantasy/sci-fi, but they’re still brillant. May brings both the familiar and the unfamiliar together in a jarring clash, with some brilliantly original notions. My favourite part of these novels is that your loyalties as a reader change throughout, depending on the circumstance of the differing factions. Also has a great early twist.

• The Many-Colored Land (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).
• The Golden Torc (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982).
• The Nonborn King (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983).
• The Adversary (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984).

The Swans War Trilogy by Sean Russell

These are very well researched, having heavy basis in Welsh mythology, as well as containing some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. Also has my favourite love story in it. As well of acres of great characters.

• Vol. 1: The One Kingdom, HarperCollins, 2001
• Vol. 2: The Isle of Battle, HarperCollins, 2003
• Vol. 3: The Shadow Roads, HarperCollins, 2005

The Thomas Covenant Chronicles by Stephen Donaldson

Probably my favourite books, these are dark, excellently charactered and extremely powerful. The Central character, Thomas Convenant is probably the most intriguing character I’ve ever read about.

The First Chronicles

1.       Lord Foul’s Bane (1977)

2.       The Illearth War (1978)

3.       The Power That Preserves (1979)

The Second Chronicles

1.       The Wounded Land (1980)

2.       The One Tree (1982)

3.       White Gold Wielder (1983)

The Last Chronicles

1.       The Runes of the Earth (2004)

2.       Fatal Revenant (2007)

3.       Against All Things Ending (2011)

4.       The Last Dark (planned for 2013)

The Word and the Void Trilogy by Terry Brooks

Terry Brooks is famous for a more epic style of hard, classic fantasy, but these stories of urban, modern fantasy have always captivated me. Contains a great idea in which, invisible, malicious beings called demons provoke and cajole humans into committing unspeakable acts of evil. Quite dark, but ever powerful. (P.S Terry Brooks also did the novelisation of Hook. Who knew?)

1. Running with the Demon (1997)
2. A Knight of the Word (1998)
3. Angel Fire East (1999)

 The Obertywn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody

Books that still inspire me and the opening novels were brilliant pieces of fantasy in a hauntingly familiar world. Got a little tiring, like most of Carmody’s series’, but I might do a revisit, because I used to love these.

• Obernewtyn (1987)
• The Farseekers (1990)
• Ashling (1995)
• The Keeping Place (1998)
• The Stone Key (2008) (published as two books, Wavesong & The Stone Key, in the USA, UK & Canada)
• The Sending (forthcoming - Isobelle Carmody has revealed at the Sydney Writers’ Festival 2009 that the Sending will be launched in Feb-March 2010)

Here is my interview conducted with a real life Twilight fan, (OMG!!) presented in its (mostly) (edit: edited) original form as an I.M conversation.

Campbell says:

Ok, so, “ANONYMOUS TWILIGHT FAN #1”

Firstly, lets begin at the start, with the starting type question.

What is your favourite thing about Twilight?

Anonymous Twilight Fan #1

hmm

the chance at a belief that a guy could really be that..well.. perfect

Campbell says:

Ok, thank you, that confirms a previously held belief

And despite this, how would you, objectively, compare the quality of the writing style and junk, with your other favourite novels?

Anonymous Twilight Fan #1

the writing style is different to what I normally read, and not as good, but the story in itself makes up for the lack of depth in writing..

I think that makes sense… it does in my head

Campbell says:

Yeah it makes sense, Anonymous Twilight Fan #1

So, ANOYMOUS TWILIGHT FAN #1, how would you rate Bella as a character?

Would you say she  is a) A realistic teen

b)Dull as a Michael Bay film without any action?

c)Do not consisder her to be a character at all.

d) your own answer

Anonymous Twilight Fan #1

a and d. I can relate with her and can see how other teens relate to her, thats one of the pulls of the book i think, girls love it because bella is perfectly ordinary and her faults are laid out on the table from day one.

Campbell says:

And what would you consider are Bella’s faults ‘ANOYMOUS TWILIGHT FAN #1’?

Anonymous Twilight Fan #1

Must you keep calling me that?

Her unease with social situations, her hate of social situations, her belief of being perfectly ordinary, her anger and lack of control on it, her ‘clumsiness’, her struggle with two boys

I hate the belief that loving two people at once is wrong (NOTE: THIS IS A REFERENCE TO BOOK 2, Which I wont be reading. Long story short, Bella starts liking Jacob Black, the werewolf kid, a lot, right up till the point where Meyer realises she has to resolve it, and realizing Jacob is far cooler than Edward, but she would be murdered if Edward lost out, decides to tarnish Jacob’s reputation by having him try to rape her or something. I dunno, I kinda tuned out during the explanation.)

her self consciousness,

Campbell says:

Thanks for your time, ANOYMOUS TWILIGHT FAN #1

Anonymous Twilight Fan #1

Sure

———

Also, here’s a couple of links that mock Twilight rather mercilessly.

The first one was inspiration for this blog, while I read the second two, during.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16878_if-twilight-was-10-times-shorter-100-times-more-honest.html

http://www.cracked.com/funny-36-twilight/

http://io9.com/5096763/twilight-makes-for-the-best-fanwank-ever

And that’s it boys and girls, ladies and menfolk. It’s been a blast. Thanks to those who tuned it, props to Sinead for lending me the book and I’ll see you cats in the funny pages. CIAO!

The Social Experiment 6

Well, here we are at the end. It’s been a long, genital-shrinking journey. When we left the ‘story’ we’d actually had some smeblence of plot, beyondStephanie MeyerBella watching The Dreamboats eye’s change colour from OMGsuperhot to ZOMGNowaysGorgeous. Yes folks, Bella was being chased by a super Vampire killing machine. Called James. Could have called him something scary, like Zoltar or Dick Cheney (lol politics) but she called him James. Note, she was being chased, because like Edward, Mike, Jacob, Eric and Tyler before him, this guy couldn’t resist StephanieBella. So, his intentions are a little less honourable (i.e-he wants to eat her.) but still, couldn’t she just politely say no and have him eat one of her friends? It’s been a good method so far.

Anways, here we go. Someone better die as opposed to sitting down and talking this shit out. Also, tune in tommorrow, for a long and poorly thought out rant all about Twilight, including a list of highly abbreviated list of far better books, links to other places where Twilight is mocked and an interview with an actual Twlight fan that makes this book look well written and deep.

Chapter 21-In which the bad guy calls her pretending to be her mother.  Bella is somewhat upset.

-I like how she responds to crisis by staring at a wall and rocking back and forward for three hours. Really a strong character you’ve got there, Meyer.

-James is evilllllll. He kidnapped her mother. Probs gonna eat her.

-‘And then I carefully sealed my heart’ Actual line. As she closed a letter. Jesus.

-All the plot chapters have been really short. WTF?

Chapter 22-In which Bella tries to sacrifice herself for others but fails miserably/hilariously

-They know where the dudes gonna be! Set a trap, you’re vampires!

-Oh she’s being resourceful! And the others know what she’s doing in escaping them, so not that resourceful.

-Damn girl! Catch that cab, like an independent woman. I like how surprised the story is that she can complete minor tasks without her man.

-Also, her and Edward have been dating like, what, a week? How many times have they said ‘I Love you’. Give it some time. See where it’s going! You’re going to find out he’s way to into NSYNC for you,  Bella.

-Awww Forks is home now. Still, it’s competing against Pheonix, the sickly cousin of the American cities family.

-Hah, the bad guys doing an explaining-my-evil-plan speech! And she’s stalling for time. Not at all clichéd and overused.

-Oh, she dead! I say you, she dead!

Chapter 23-In which everything is very unsatisfying

-Because being bitten is a metaphor for sex, does that mean that James biting her is totally rape? What does The Dreamboat sucking out the vampire venom mean then? Ummmm, probably using the pill or something.

-And he saved her. Sigh.

-Sorry there isn’t more. Chapter was like 3 pages long.

Chapter 24-In which the story ends, and I hardly notice.

-After all that, it took only Jasper and Emmett to kill James. Jesus, could have done that a while ago, boys. And we didn’t get to read about the epic, violent vampire battle. Instead we focused on Daddy Vampire crying.

-How many ‘I love you’s’ now?

-Edward does something. Bella almost orgasms. Repeat.

-Her mother is also useless. Does Meyer have something against women, or was she raised in a cult? Oh wait, Mormonism.

-Oh, god she just compared her feeling at the thought that Edward might leave as more crushing than her broken bones. That is awful. Just, just awful.

-They’ve been dating, how long? A week? Two? And she wants to be a vampire? Way to make rational choices, Bella. Then again, what can we expect from such a flighty female?

-The Dreamboat just emphasised the chapter name. Fuck. I want to break something.

Epilogue-In which some shit after the main shit happens. Also prom.

-Wait, she spends all day getting dressed up by Alice. The Dreamboat turns up in a tuxedo and is like, super dreamy, OMG. And she doesn’t figure out she’s going to prom. Meant to be smart.

-This is the most idealised prom after a Hollywood acre of idealized proms. Even with her leg in a cast.

-‘He made me break my promise. I promised I wouldn’t let go of you tonight.’ I don’t think I’ve ever groaned so much at a book.

-Lol, “You’re ready now?” You silly little randy girl, boys don’t just hand over sexmetaphors like that!

-Well, at least the hot boys in Meyer’s highschool, to her. Because they were actually respecting her and junk and not totally ignoring her.

 -And we’re done! I MADE IT MOTHERFUCKERS! And only with a few thoughts of suicide.

Also, shootydeath killy guns.

A Social Experiment 5

Looks like we’re getting to the pointy end of things now. Except for the three fucking books which follow this self-indulgent piece of fanfiction. And I’ve had word from a Twilight fan that number four is idealistic even by this series horrifically idealistic standards. So, because I’m saving my good stuff for my extended rant/essay after I’ve finished, here’s my notes for Chapters 16-20.

Chapter 16-In which the chapter sounds promising because it’s about my favourite character, despite him having no more than a dozen lines so far.

-Ok, every chapter/bellaedward interaction. He does something. She almost orgasms. She does something stupid/useless/clumsy/bella. He laughs and is awesome/unrealistic.

-Ok so how do you kill these vampires? Why haven’t they conquered the planet?

-The Dreamboat used to kill bad guys? And he gave it up. Lame.

-He had such a hard time not killing her when they were kissing, but not when he’s fakeattacking her?

-Chapter title lied to me.

Chapter 17-In which Bella is a such a girl and the Vampires play baseball.

-She’s actually slightly tough when The Dreamboats not around. Watch her stand up to Mr. Old Werewolf Indian Guy.

-Daaaahaadddd! Your being like, so like, embarrassing and clichéd and poorly written.

-She’s getting lost in the woods. Like a woman.

-Couldn’t they have picked a better sport to use their superpowers in? Baseball? Dull factory.

-Oh oh other vampires! They might sparkle each other to death!

Chapter 18-In which there is a promise of brutal Vampire violence but there is a major disappointment.

-Wait, just occurred to me. Is it creepy that Dr. Carlisle Cullen turned three teenagers into vampires? Yeah. It’s creepy.

-Do muscles even count when you’re super human? What’s the point of working out?

-Ok, they haven’t started fighting yet, but it’s looking promising.

-Ok, they ran away, but it’s not gonna work. Still might be a fight. C’mon restore my faith Meyer!

-Oh wait, I never had faith in this novel. It was only a morbid fascination, the same feeling you get when watching a corpse decompose.

-Yeah, there’s more of them and they have the element of surprise (And mind reading and seeing the future) but they won’t fight the other vampires. YOU ARE VAMPIRES! KILL SOMEONE!

Chapter 19-In which the Sparkly Vampires act exactly like you’d expect vampires that sparkle to act.

-They’re still running, like pussies. Jesus, it doesn’t take much.

-Ahhh we kill a Twilight vampire by shredding the body and burning the pieces. Robert Pattison I know your weakness now, son!

-Ok, so the vampire hunting them is an unstoppable killing machine. It’s still two versus seven. And you have bait.

-Man, I like this James vampire cat. It would be nice if he killed someone. But that aint gonna happen.

Chapter 20-In which Bella sits in a room with two vampires and frets. Seriously, Twilight means I don’t tell lies.

-I wonder if Bella and Alice should make out? That’d be cool.

-Does that mean Edwards been a virgin for over a century. Awkward.

-Is this actually plot? Or will this last as the brief moment when Stephanie Meyer got bored with her romance self-fanfiction, before heading back to page after page of staring deep into eyes and Edward saying his feelings like a fucking Star Wars character.

-I’d say that this is a brief moment. Becuase these chapters with actual plot were really short, like she found actual writing really difficult to get through. ‘Story? Ohhhhhh, can’t Stephan-I mean Bella just collapse into the arms of her beloved and have everything done for her forever’.

RAWR! I like Dinosaurs.

The Social Experiment-Part 4

Chapters 11-15

Y’know what’s great? I started my insane rant about Twilight. It’s a whole heap of indignant crazy, enough to make any Conservative radio host proud. (Not that they rant about Twilight, just crazy and indignant in general).

Also, I’m behind. I know. I keep intending to catch up and then procrastinating, because I’m not really that enthused. Besides, it’s got slightly better so it’s not as much fun to mock, cos I have to work a little harder.

Had a weird moment this morning though, when I was at work and realised that I had something to read at home. And I went yay, that’s a nice warm feeling (yeah, I like books a lot-neerrrrrrrrrddddd-but you already knew that.) but then, almost at the same time I remembered what it was and felt instant disappointment.

Anyways, here’s my notes.

Chapter 11-In which they get to know one another. Like in the real sense, not the Biblical one.

-She’s having a hot flush in class.

-Now she’s mad, cos he saw her Gym. He’s stalking you, he’s already knows about that life ending flaw you have. she bad at Gyming!

-Blah, blah, blah. Why doesn’t my pen work alluva sudden? Worst day ever.

-Oh lol. He just made a joke about not being able to sleep, because vampires, like, don’t! Lol. (note; any lol’s strictly ironic.)

-Vomit. Her favourite gemstone is his eye colour.

Chapter 12-In which Bella, rather impressively, lies to pretty much everyone.

-Her dads friend is a werewolf. And an American Indian. I still have a problem with that.

-“Dreamboat; You’ve never met anyone you’ve any wanted?” “Little Miss Boring; Not in Pheonix.” Translation: Bone me.

-Even the Dreamboats writing is sexy.

-Their clothes match. Ummm what? And he would’ve planned that, cos he watches her sleep/dress.

Chapter 13-In which Mills and Boon (and associates) would have been proud. Like parents of a mutant child; glad it exists, but kinda wierded out by it.

-Sparkly vampires? Fucking hell. Where’s the rainbow unicorn?

-We get it, ok. You’re dangerous. You keep telling us.

-Wait, is there gonna be a why as to Bella being like The Dreamboats ‘finest brandy’? Oh wait, true love. Lol. (note; lols not at all ironic.)

Chapter 14-In which they actually sleep together but nothing happens because they love each other too much. Wait, what? Oh Mormonism.

-He is over 100. That is all kinds of creepy.

-Can we have more of the Vampire stuff? Please?

-The phrase is ‘stalking’ Bella. Oh wait, you don’t get restraining orders on hot guys? That’s what I’ve been doing wrong.

-‘Dad, seriously, me being alone in the house with a boy you don’t really know, is totally the least of your worries right now. You should probably get decapitating and don’t forget to salt the neck!’

-Should I have mentioned before I started this that I don’t believe in that ‘true-love-only-one-person-for-you-ever stuff? Probably should have mentioned that.

Chapter 15-In which we get some origin, which is actually interesting. Write a book about that!

-This book is so unintentionally misogynistic. At least I hope it’s unintentional. Otherwise Meyer has written a whole bunch of almost useless female characters. Oh wait, Mormonism.

-He is too perfect. This book is the fucking definition of fantasy because of it. The Dreamboat is a musician too. All he needs, is to own a herd of horses, then he’d have the chick wonder parcel.

-Aren’t actual novel’s meant to have real problems, about, y’know at least by the middle of the novel?

-Daddy Vampire’s backstory is cool. I like Dr Carlisle Cullen.

Remember sports? I like sports. Especially that.

Social Experiment 3

I’ve figured out, through all of thirty seconds of thought, why this series is so popular. I’ll give you a full explanation when I reach the end of all this.

I must say, that although I was putting off reading the next bit, because the first lot was so terrible, the next part actually picked up the pace and got mildly interesting. The characters are still paper thin and un-interesting, but at least a couple of things actually happen. Whereas before I made maybe two positive notes, you may actually need more than a single, crippled hand to count the compliments this time around! Huzzah!

Anyway’s back to my notes.

Chapter 6-In which I entertain the notion that chapter’s 1-5 suffered from Pilotitis. Also camping.

-She gets sad when he’s not there. Feminists must love this.

-She really wants Mike to bone Jess.

-Meyer does decent descriptions, I’ll give her that.

-She still mentioned the Dreamboat in that bit though. PAP FAIL!

-Hey werewolves, cool! This chapter has been the best so far.

Chapter 7-In which she starts thinking about Vampires.

-Just realised, was making the Native Americans werewolves just a teensy bit racist?

-Stop writing CD. No-one says that. Write music. Sorry nitpicking.

-Does she not know what Vampires are? Why is she interwebbing them obsessively? Watch The Lost Boys. Do it! Do it now! Taught me everything I ever needed to know, about Vampires, the Eighties and how awesome Kiefer Sutherland is.

-She spent a whole evening researching and didn’t dismiss it with, oh they can come out in daylight., No worries.

-Even when it’s a sunny day, she doesn’t think this. Ok, so they’re not there, but still the thought doesn’t cross her mind. Her boring, empty mind.

-Oh God she likes Jane Austen. You’re lucky I don’t care about your character Bella, otherwise I would have been disappointed.

Chapter 8-In which the Dreamboat rescues her again, while stalking her.

-I am a sucker for a car skid and a pithy line. ‘Get in!’ Yeah!

-Is he stalking her? Now that’s true love! Those restraining orders only prove you need me close to you, to talk you out of them!

-Stalking, staring and handing over jacket. Not weird at all, regardless of species.

-Just did a trailer line. ‘Do you trust me?’ ‘I don’t have a choice anymore’. The options writer creamed when he saw that.

Chapter 9-In which Bella realises that she loves the Dreamboat in some kind of massive twist. (SPOILER ALERT!)

-Wait, he doesn’t know why he can’t read her mind? Shouldn’t that be monstrously important? Like future of the vampire race type important?

-IT DOESN’T MATTTER IF YOU’RE NOT HUMAN I LOOOOVE YOOOUU! You’re lucky you’re impossibly attractive, Dreamboat. If yo arse were butt ugly, she’d be runnin’ for dem hills, uh huh!

-Shouldn’t she be having  a cold shower? Oh wait, Mormonism.

Chapter 10-In which, I dunno, some shit happens. Kill me if I ever write a character as dull and uninteresting as Bella.

-Wait did she just accuse Jessica of being shallow for thinking that Edward was ok, cos he was hot? Hasn’t that been most of her motivation? She’s spent half the fucking book so far talking about how hot he was!

-Go and bone in the bathroom right now. Oh wait, Mormonism. Oh and, well that’d be shit.

-Bored, bored, bored. You are so dull Bella.

(Also, sorry about not posting this earlier, cos I did finish it last night, but my internet went down last night around the same time I finished. Only just fixed it.)

Ok, I will say this. It’s not as awful as I thought it would be.

Then again, I did expect the quality to be somewhere  between My Chemical Romance fanfiction (yes it exists and in horrifying quantities) and the period when Kevin J. Anderson began phoning in Star Wars novels (Which itself began when he based a 300 page novel on a character glimpsed in the Mos Eisley Cantina for a half-frame and culminated into the equivalent of vomiting onto the page and arranging it into the shape of Stormtroopers) so, saying it’s fractionally above that, not exactly a compliment.

I’ll probably bring you a Twilight special of some of the worst lines in the novel, maybe on Sunday, because believe me, there are some shockers. It’s like Dan Brown at his worst (really the Da Vinci Code was a hunk of shit and I’m so disappointed at how popular it is. It was terrible, go back and read it again. I’ll wait.)

While they’re doing that, I took notes as I read the first five chapters. So, enjoy these out of context, split second judgements, that are completely justified.

Chapter 1. In which we are introduced to our ‘hero’, who is sad for some reason (I think it’s because she isn’t with her mom, who she doesn’t really like all that much anyway-or because Meyer thinks ‘sad’ is interesting.)

-WTF? First page they mention how shitty the weather is in Forks. I’d like to imagine the whole book is a long joke about the crappy weather in north western America. I think I might be disappointed.

-Why does she cry herself to sleep? She gets off the plane and her dad buys her a CAR. Which she then likes.

-Everyone at school likes her, no-one made fun of her and they’re all interested in her. She’s still sad.

-She just made friends with the Plastics, who she’s totally too good for. Revenge of the highschool fat girl.

-The nice, good looking blonde guy likes her too. Everyone does except for the attractive/creepy loners who don’t like ANYONE. She’s still sad.

-She’s crying again. She had an awesome enough first day at her new school to set her dancing.

Chapter 2-In which Bella talks to the total dreamboat and reveals a minor flaw.

-She sucks at sports. We have a minor flaw in character kiddies!

-Ok, Daddy vampire is the town surgeon. That’s actually really cool. (SPOILER ALERT)

-Mike and Jessica totally better bone and bone hard.

-Why is Robert Pattison talking to her? Mah heart is all a-flutter!

-Oh my god, this is a serious medical condition!

-She’s smart too. Advanced class smart. Writing tip, Meyer; sucking at sports is not an interesting character flaw, no matter how crappy you were at them in highschool.

Chapter 3-In which there’s almost a really bad car accident, but then there isn’t. There ‘mysteriously’ isn’t.

-Ok, we get it. She has below average motor skills. Not actually a huge problem.

-Whoa, he’s a fucking ninja!

-Everyone in school cares enough about her to go to the hospital to see if she’s ok. She is sooooooo embarrassed.

-Robert Pattison is surprised she won’t go blabbing her crazy story about him being a car crushing super ninja. Cos, y’know everyone wont totally believe the concussion victim.

Chapter 4-In which Bella whines about things which aren’t actually a big deal and thinks some more about the Dreamboat. In which I sense a fucking pattern.

-Now she’s setting up her totally annoying not-friends, who do nothing but pay attention to her and be nice to her and junk.

-EMO FRINGE! EMO FRINGE!! (Yeah, I actually noted that. She made her hair into an emo fringe so could watch Ed through her hair or some shit. What happened to the old newspaper with eyeholes?)

-Bella is clumsy again in this chapter. It’s a good thing she’s pretty, smart, popular, has her own car and a pretty cool dad otherwise life just wouldn’t be worth living.

-Did she just admit she wasn’t interesting? Wow. Ironic.

-Are balance problems even a thing? I mean, like apart from being really bad ones? Starting to bug me. A little.

-Lol, environmental message.

Chapter 5-In which there may have been an important plot point, but it may have been smothered in pap and died.

-ooooooo He’s dangerous.

-You’re kidding. He just said he was dangerous. Is Stephanie Meyer secretly George Lucas? Same cruddy dialogue.

-She’s afraid/sickened by blood. Is that a flaw or a plot point. Both aren’t interesting.

-oooooo he’s stroooooonnnngggg. Vomit.

-She can smell blood? Cool. That’s a fucking superpower, right there. No, I mean it. That could be useful as. Tell me that’s really important. Tell me they dont just ignore it.

-They listen to classical music. Meyer had no friends in highschool.

-She’s mad about being clumsy. He’s sooo infuriating. This is going to be a long book.

THE HOW

If I’m going to do this thing (Phew, deep breathing, courage and coffee) I am going to need a couple of things.

Firstly, I’m going to need a system; Stephanie Meyer, our ‘writer’ (Sorry, this is meant to be a an experiment, meaning I must remain impartial and scientific and …LOL! Nah, just kidding!) has kindly given us 24 chapters and an epilogue (Note-Epilogue; same depth as a prologue, only never made into a Hollywood movie (dear God thank you!)) which divides neatly into 5 chapters a day, until Saturday for me to read. No troubles for a genius (read deferred uni student/casually employed young man/boy) like me.

Unfortunately, none of the chapters have inherently hilarious names (I was hoping for at least one called ‘true love’ or ‘Mormon propaganda’ ‘Vampire junk’) so instead I will refer to them by my description, A.A Milne style.

Example-Chapter 8; In Which Robert Pattison is totally dreamy and junk. Also a vampire.

Also in order to offset the loss of manliness I am/will incur(ring) I’m planning to insert a manly kinda pic whenever something majorly chicklite is brought up. Like y’know, sports pictures or about video games that involve interactive disembowelment in full HD, or boobs, or beer. In order to be topical, I may provide further pictures of Kristen Stewart.

I embark on my fateful journey

I really wanna play Prototype. Oughta hire it.

See you later today, guys! Enjoy what’s to come!

This week I bring to you a very special project, in lieu of regular programming. Terrified yet? You should be. Because I may be doing something that will once and for all destroy the ludicrously flimsy illusion that I am a red-blooded male who enjoys the viewing of sports and is totally not one of the gays. I am making a great personal sacrifice, at once offending both my male appendage and my literary sensibilities.

However this great sacrifice is two-fold. Firstly, it allows me to mock said masculinity stripping literary abortion (lol unintentionally topical) with actual legitimacy instead of arbitrarily assigning shittyness to it on the basis that I fucking felt like it. Of course I might find it to be awesome, after which I may have to kill myself.

The second benefit is less concrete. I imagine that because of my knowledge of this…um… dealie, I may actually be able to impress a few women, or at least relate to their conversations about pretty colours and stickers. Then again, isn’t getting into something that chicks like more of a turnoff. I know I would be totally not turned on by chicks who play video games-oh wait. That’s a filthy lie. But I’m not sure it goes both ways.

But yeah, anyway. Have you figured out what I’m doing yet?

I’m going to read Twilight. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUHHHNNNN!

Worse part is there’s no pictures! (I think-maybe some of glittering ponies(WOW-That was sexist)). And none of this.

Ahhhh Kristen Stewart, everyone’s favourite pot smoking hottie.

Wish me luck folks.