There are three stages of twilight: civil, nautical, and astronomical.

Civil twilight is the period between sunset and the time at which the center of the Sun's disk is 6 degrees below the horizon. I assume it is called "civil twilight" because at the end of civil twilight it is difficult or impossible to work outside without artificial lights. You'll probably notice street lights near your home coming on at the end of civil twilight rather than right after sunset. Depending on your latitude civil twilight ends a little less than half an hour after your local sunset. (The Sun moves 15 degrees per hour along the ecliptic, but if you live at higher northern or southern latitudes the ecliptic is highly inclined.)

Nautical twilight is the period between sunset and the time at which the Sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. At 12 degrees, it becomes difficult to find the horizon, which means you can no longer use a sextant to take your bearings (important when you're trying to navigate at sea). This is a little more than 45 minutes after sunset.

Astronomical twilight as Webster says runs from sunset until the Sun is 18 degrees below the local horizon. After this point, there will be essentially no scattered sunlight contributing to airglow, meaning you'll have a truly "dark" sky (or as dark as it will get at least). At research observatories, observations usually begin in earnest after astronomical twilight, since scattered sunlight just contributes to noise in your observations. (Aside: astronomers often image the nearly uniform twilight sky to make "flat fields," to test the CCD imaging camera response as a function of position on the chip.) Astronomical twilight ends about an hour and fifteen minutes after sunset.

Same thing goes for morning twilight, just replace "sunset" with "sunrise" and run things backwards.

The most inspiring member of X-Nation 2099, part of the 2099 series published by Marvel Comics. She and the rest of her team of young mutants (Caravan, Clarion, December, Metalsmith, Nostromo, Uproar, Willow, and Wulff) gathered in Halo City, Nevada.

She projects a "sphere of influence" a few feet around her body in which the laws of reality are at her command. Considering her powers, she was understandably self-centered, until she developed deeper feelings for Metalsmith, who was almost immediately attracted to her and quickly joined X-Nation.


(The argument has been made that Twilight's powers are analogous to how decisions are made by anarchists. Those decisions that most affect a person should be made by that person. When a decision affects many people, the amount of influence each person has over the decision should be based on how much the decision would affect that person... and the rest of society, the community, is there to help make sure such decision-making guidelines are followed.)

Like many teenage girls, I had a less than healthy obsession with vampires. There's something sensual about vampire novels--I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. My fascination began with books like Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and Bram Stoker's Dracula. While I read the novels and had lots of typical daydreams of some day being "bitten," I never went so far as to role play or anything more. Eventually I moved on to other things and I thought I was over that phase in my life.

That is, until Friday, when a student let me borrow her copy of Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. I knew this book was a new favorite among my female students, which ordinarily means I'd hate the book. But, heaven help me, I judged a book by its cover. The sleek, black jacket portrays two pale arms holding the reddest of apples. If I'd turned it over and read the synopsis, a cliché wrapped in platitudes, I probably would've handed it back to her without a second thought. I didn't, though, and I couldn't be happier about that.

The story seems standard enough: new girl in a small town school notices a group of classmates that all seem different, beautiful, and sophisticated. Bella soon discovers they are vampires and falls dangerously in love with Edward, the group's leader. Yes, this book is mostly young romance, with hints of action and mystery. The author makes a strong effort to target a young teen audience, I'd say 13-16. She stays away from all the usual inappropriate topics: drugs, alcohol, sex. Bella eats balanced meals and does all her homework; no one in the book so much as curses. For all that, this book is actually very sexy.

Bella and Edward's relationship is enigmatic at first. It appears he hates her, but as the book goes on we soon find out why. The way Meyer describes the attraction and chemistry between them made my breath catch more than once. She did a masterful job of building the suspense of Bella and Edward's relationship, the climax of which is one of the most erotic kisses I've ever read about. The fact that she achieves this goal without ever lifting a shirt or mentioning genitalia is no small feat.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick and easy read. It's a terrific book for teens; although the writing itself is standard, it'll keep their attention without introducing undesirable behaviors or content that's too mature. Moreover, it's the first in The Twilight Saga, a series Meyer continues to write. Series books typically keep their fans reading, a huge plus when considering the average teen reader. I haven't picked up the second book yet, but I'm dying to know what happens. Yeah, this phase is definitely not over.

Stephenie Meyer is the proud parent of the four book Twilight Series. It starts with Twilight, goes on to New Moon and Eclipse, and finishes with Breaking Dawn. I'm going to spoil it for you. If you don't want to know what happens, skip down to below the asterisk.

Twilight proves Edward to be a vampire, living in a family of vampires. They don't do much that normal vampires do, such as kill people, burn villages and sleep upside down or at least in a coffin. No one bathes in the blood of however many virgins and they don't live in a scary castle. Instead they all drive fast cars and go to school and live like normal people. These vampires are "vegetarians", since they kill animals, not people to quench their lust for blood.

Oh, and they all have special powers, as if super strength and living forever isn't enough. Edward can hear people's thoughts, Alice can see the future and Jasper can calm people's moods. I suppose he can control them, but he's a "nice person" and doesn't want to hurt people. I'm using inverted commas because I think that a nice vampire is just silly. Like falling in love with a rapist, or something to that effect.

In Twilight we meet Bella, the new girl in town, who falls in love with the not vampire-ish vampire. Bella nearly dies because vampires acting like vampires tried to kill her and then they all live happily ever after until the next book.

In New Moon, Jacob turns out to be a werewolf. It gets explained later on that actually he's a shape-shifter, but genes and whatnot have meant that he and his tribe can turn exclusively into wolves. So no full moon need have sway over them. There's also a lot of fuss about Edward leaving Bella because it would be better for her not to have a relationship with a vampire. He tries to commit suicide when his sister's stupid ability to see the future makes him think that Bella is dead. The family and Bella rush off to Italy to save his life. Edward and Bella realize they should be together and the book ends.

Eclipse is the only one in which vampires start to actually do anything vampire-ish. A group of vampires create a massive army of vampires, which is dangerous because newborns like killing humans. Edward and Bella get engaged, Jacob, who is also in love with Bella, gets mad and they all rush off to kill the newborns. Bella doesn't die. By this point, you really want her to.

In Breaking Dawn Edward and Bella get married. Bella doesn't want to be a vampire yet, she wants to have sex first. So they have sex, she gets pregnant and about two weeks later little baby half-vampire bites (literally) her way out of mummy. And Bella doesn't die because baby's venom turns mummy into a vampire. Jacob promptly falls in love with the baby, which is not as bad as it sounds, since she grows at about a foot an hour.

They have a war of sorts, between bad vampires who wanted baby dead and the joint force of the werewolves and Edward's vampires. It was rather boring. I wasn't really paying attention once it seemed Bella would survive to the end.

The end.

*

Well, maybe not yet. I am a female teenager, the series is directed at teenagers and females in particular and so I think I am in the proper position to tell you what I thought of this book. First, I shall quote some fans from the fan page on Facebook.

From Washington DC: I just started the series and find it hard to put it down!
Somewhere else: read all the books; love itt :)
Philippines: I LOVE TWILIGHT!!

I'm sure that the punctuation speaks for itself. Those people are the sorts that read it and like it. And, for your entertainment alone, I shall add this quote, from a person in Mexico:
I think that nobody feels the way I do about him. I really truly love him. Damn it I wish he was real & mine. I wish I was Bella Swan soo bad. Ive never wanted anything like this. I wanna meet Robert Pattinson:(

Now you can compare them to me:
I do not like these books, I rarely recommend these books and consider these books to be in the same general region as Eragon: not as fantastic as everyone claims they are, but certainly good enough for thirteen year olds.

The characters in Twilight weren't amazingly well thought out. It is as though Stephanie met each of her characters, learned everything about them and then forgot that her readers had not done so. There is more character developmentation in the first three chapters of the leaked draft of Edward's version of Twilight, Midnight Sun, than there is in the entire novel Twilight. This is disappointing.

Bella is not a person you love all the way through the book. If you take the time and think about her as a human rather than a character you realize that she is a very weak person. Annoyingly weak. She's the sort of person you'd want to thump over the head and scream "that's not how the world works you idiot!". Finding that the boy you enjoy looking at is a hundred year old vampire shouldn't make you want to make out with him. Describing the scent of your blood on a first date isn't often acceptable or romantic. She has two basic instincts: love the bad, flee the worse, and even then she sometimes fails. Sometimes she talks to the worse. Even though they want her dead. Her love for Edward isn't romantic. It is simply told. She loves him. No magic, no poetry, and she as a character lacks for it.

Edward is the vampire. He couldn't really get any less vampire-ish. Or any more chivalrous. Open doors, pull out chairs, drive her to school, watch her sleeping at night, every night, and save her from bloodthirsty vampires... Whatever Bella wants he shall do. What he needs to do is get a set of balls. He's a hundred years old, a teenager and he doesn't want sex. He's never had it and doesn't want it nor get it until the fourth book. He doesn't drink blood. Resists it, totally. "Only mountain lions for me, mate." He is, however, a more desirable character than Bella, simply because he is a vampire, and so is of more interest to the reader.

Edit: Once I'd read Draft Four of Midnight Sun, the leaked copy, I learned more about Edward. In the series it seems as though the reader is told "he's in love with her, that's all, move on". In the draft, though, I got to learn about the deep, poetic, thirsty (har har) love he has for her. He needs her. That isn't apparent in the series.

Jacob is the not-really-werewolf. I don't like that you think he's a werewolf until Stephanie goes on a long reel about shape shifters and such. But I do like Jacob. He has feelings. He gets hurt and angry and sad and happy. He has a wonderful smile. He feels left out of his friends when they change before him. Rejected when Bella chooses Edward over him. He thinks about sex. He likes cars and works a little at school and runs wild. He's an actual person you can sympathize with. And he's a bloody werewolf, which is bloody fantastic, because I love werewolves.

The Other Humans are mostly teenagers and are generally interchangeable with each other. One personality, tweaked a little to change into a boy or a girl and that's it. That's okay. They're normal enough to blend into the background, but also normal enough to engage the attention of the reader for the short time they're in the spotlight.

The Other Vampires which includes mainly Edwards family but also the various evil vampires you meet along the way. The evil vampires aren't overly developed characters, but that's because they aren't major characters. You don't need to know how they take their coffee when they want to kill Bella, who is probably thinking that she can convince them she tastes bad, rather than fleeing. Edward's family is a group of non-related vampires who have been changed by Carlisle, the doctor vampire who somehow resists blood. They range in interest and character development from Alice down to Emmett or Jasper. I like Jasper. I just like the name. You barely hear of Jasper, Roseline or Emmett, and it is really only Alice and Edward who are most needed for the outcome of the series.

So do I think you should read these books? Sure, go ahead. Knock yourself out. In fact, if you have a newly-come teenager in the house who doesn't read much hand her one of these, a guy probably would rather use it for firelighting. It will get her to read, and since there is a massive fan group out there for Twilight I think you can assume she will love them. You could probably read them and be entertained. May even find that they are the sort of books you don't want to put down, though I hope you do not fall as hopelessly in love with them as others.

What I'm saying is, they are good enough to be read, don't discard them. However, they are books for young teenagers and as such are a rather weak sort of entertainment.

I have not read the book yet. FYI.

Twilight is a movie about teenagers, starring teenagers (well, some are, and some just look like they are teenagers), and is based on a novel for teenagers. That's not to say that the movie or the novel cannot be enjoyed by adults or preteens, but let's not kid ourselves about what the target audience is. It is a movie teenagers flocked to, most often on dates, a young adult romance meant to make the girls sigh - which it did - at the "I'd die for you" type of romance in the movie. And Robert Pattinson's brooding good looks. But the guys didn't mind going because Kristen Stewart is quite a dish herself.

Oh, and also because the movie is about vampires. And pretty cool vampires if I do say so myself. They can super-run, super-jump, have super speed, super strength, and have varying psychic abilities, as you might expect (Edward can read everybody's minds... except for some reason his human girlfriend's, more on them later), but the sunlight does something significantly different to them than in most vampire universes (namely Rice, Whedon). Oh and they like to play baseball. That I have definitely not seen before. But there is plenty in this movie that you have seen before, a little too much; it seems to rip right from the play books of other fantasy/sci-fi romps out there, especially Underworld with the movie's little-explored subplot involving an ancient rivalry between the local vamps and werewolves (a Native American "tribe" that has hairy origins, to speak).

Stewat plays Bella Swan, or "Miss Scoffs-A-Lot" as I like to call her (one of Stewart's acting quirks, I guess). In fact, to me, her scoffing gets quite distracting, But anyway. Bella has to move from Phoenix, where she had been living with her mom, to a small town in Washington state (or Rains-A-Ton) to live with her father when her mom decides to do some traveling with her new main squeeze. Somehow the new-kid-in-school movie conventions are avoided (endless teasing, bullies, etc.) and actually what Bella gets annoyed with are the other students' over-the-top efforts to welcome her. She learns about the Cullens, a strange family filled with foster kids with a local town doctor as the ringleader. She becomes infatuated with one of them after he saves her from getting squashed by a careening van, Edward (Pattinson - playing a guy who's been a 17-year-old "for a while"). And he subsequently becomes infatuated with her, and of course he - and the Cullens - are all blood-suckers. But "vegetarian" blood-suckers, mind you (they only hunt animals - look out, Bambi!).

Since the vamps in this universe don't catch on fire in the sun, they are able to come to school, but only on cloudy days, and in Washington that's 360 of the 365 days of the year so they're good. Bella and Edward fall hopelessly in love, she learns his and his family's secret, and it welcomed into that family, more or less, to her peril. An encounter with not-so-veggie vamps during a family baseball game puts her in the sights of an evil vampire with a hunting instinct, James, who chases her throughout most of the rest of the movie. The only way to get him off the trail is to kill him, which involves dismembering him and setting the parts on fire. It is unclear whether or not a good ol' stake through the heart will do the trick in this story.

When Bella nearly does not survive being prey, the situation arises where Edward might have to turn her to save her. While he does go for a third option that leaves her humanity intact - for now - it gives her the idea that she at some point should be turned if they are to be together forever, and she asks him to do just that at prom and he doesn't. Yes, there is always that hitch when an immortal hooks up with a mortal. The problem is, and he admits this, Edward's desire for her is actually mostly that she is quite a tasty dish - literally. He can barely keep himself from making her a meal constantly, especially when he's sucking vampire venom out of her to keep her from vamping out from a bite from James. Romeo he is not, analogies to sexual desire aside. But she loves him anyway, eternally. Sigh, what can ya do?

Oh. Make a sequel, that's what!

Overall, the movie's fine. You'll probably like it. Enjoy it for what it is: a PG-13, low-blood vampire flick that's more about raging teenage love than blood-sucking.

Twilight
Release Date: November 21, 2008
Directed By: Catherine Hardwicke
Written By: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay); Stephenie Meyer (novel)
Running Time: 122 minutes
Distributed By:Summit Entertainment
Starring: Kristen Stewart (Bella), Robert Pattinson (Edward), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen), Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen), Cam Gigandet (James)
Rating: PG-13.

Source: imdb.com

(This review contains moderate spoilers.)

Twilight is the debut novel by Stephenie Meyer. It's about someone who falls in love with a vampire.

If you want to be dazzled by purple prose, or read up on the sordid details of what vampires get up to, you'll find Twilight disappointing. If, on the other hand, you just want to read about gushy teenage love, you'll likely be pleasantly surprised by how charming it is.

The narrator, Bella, is the kind of person who just wants to please others. Naturally, such a meek character is drawn towards a more dominant individual. Meet Edward, an overprotective, stalking control freak who more often than not just plain tells her what to do. While I can sympathise with someone wanting a protective partner to look after her, it's a shame that most of the story happens to the passive narrator rather than being caused by her. Even the story's climactic decision is made by Edward rather than Bella.

Although Twilight has vampires in it, it's not a horror novel. It's a tale of forbidden love, and focuses squarely on the romance. The vampires in question are mostly the kind who don't actually eat people so much as give piggyback rides and exhibit shining examples of chivalry while looking like models. While both the romance genre and the vampire theme are well trod literary paths, Meyer combines the two in order to look at familiar mythology from a refreshingly new angle. You may just see vampires in a new light.

Inner conflict, the state of being torn between two equally compelling or repulsive actions, is a significant driving force behind many of the best stories. Someone having strong urges, but fighting them in order to save someone he loves, is a perfect example of inner conflict, and it's the main reason this story is so gripping. The other reason is the thriller style withholding of information for most of the story, subtly hinting at things in little snippets, although this would have worked better if you could have somehow read the book without knowing what it was about, which seems impossible given its popularity.

For all its oldfashioned values, Twilight has enough intrigue, inner conflict, and heartwarming, sappy romance to be fun and interesting throughout. I'd recommend it to any fan of romantic stories.

I assume that if you are a person who hasn't been living in a cave for the past decade, you probably already know about Twilight. There is a good chance that the average person today knows more about the backlash and hype surrounding the book than they do the actual book. There is quite a bit written about the possible political and social ramifications of the book, and I have heard many accusations that the book provides a very negative example for young women of what a relationship should be like. All of that, and more, is probably true. I have to admit that some of the subtext is pretty disturbing, especially the equation of sexuality with predation, and the easily inferred concept that it is men's potential for violence that makes them attractive. But to really get into all the possible ramifications of this book would take a long time, and would require quite a bit of deconstruction that would go outside of the book itself. I don't think that this book quite deserves to launch a deconstruction of the entire history of gender stereotypes.

Dealing with the book just by itself, we have a fairly routine young adult romance novel, with a vein of the supernatural. There are many young adult books with romance, the supernatural, and vampires. One of the most surprising things about Twilight for me is why this particular book has become so popular: the basic storyline has been done many times before. And Twilight doesn't do it particularly well. The basics of a novel are plot and character. The book is 500 pages long, but for the first 350 pages, it doesn't actually have a plot as such: there is no actual dramatic tension or movement, as much as there is Bella and Edward mooning over each other. In the hands of a very exceptional writer, a bare description of emotional discovery can be interesting enough. The final 150 pages has a plot of some sort, but at that point it comes across as tacked on. And, if the book is to succeed without a strong plot, but instead is to depend on characterization or description, it should be pretty good at it. Instead, we have two characters who go into rhapsodies of love, without having any explanation of what makes them appeal to each other (or to us, the reader). Bella Swan never displays any interest or insight into the world around her-- we are informed that she reads books, but her conversations and actions never display the slightest bit of intellect or initiative. Edward Cullen is interesting because he is super-powered, and refrains from using his vampiric powers to harm humans--- but he too never seems to display much insight into the world, despite having a 100 years of experience at living. The conversations they have with each other are not particularly interesting or romantic, even within the conventions of a romance novel for teenage girls. And these are the primary characters-- none of the secondary characters shows any individuality at all. Bella's father says some "concerned father" dialogue. Mike Newton says some "teenage guy with a little crush" dialogue. Bella's female friends...gossip a little. In other words, the book has little plot, little characterization, and even less connection between the two.

Of course, the shortcomings of the work as a narrative are not independent of its social implications. While it wouldn't be necessary to have Bella launch into long speeches where she dissects the world of politics, it would make her a more interesting character if she had some type of thoughts or interactions with the natural or social world around her. Instead, her existence is confined totally to her love for a supernaturally perfect man, and that is both problematic socially, and doesn't make for that entertaining of a narrative.

It was only a matter of time really, wasn't it?

Executive Summary

A clueless teenager has to choose between necrophilia and bestiality.

A bit more detail, if you don't mind?

I think it's time to get out the absinthe for this. There's no way I'm going to complete a review of this four-volume act of arboreal genocide without serious amount of alcohol flying round my bloodstream. This is It. This is the Big Kahuna. This is the second most popular shite novel of all time (after its glorified fanfic Fifty Shades of Grey.) It also was responsible for popularising utterly thousands of godawful wussified vampire novels, as well as making its creator more money than at all conceivable. Not bad for a book that started life as a Mormon's wet dream - no, seriously, by her own admission Stephenie Meyer got the idea after she had an erotic dream about parachuting onto a handsome vampire in the middle of a field.

*belt*

Fuck, that's oily. Anyhow. Our protagonist is called Bella Swan. She looks like Stephenie Meyer probably did aged 18. She moves to a gloomy town in upstate Washington called Forks. She describes her skin as "pallid," and herself as constantly clumsy and falling over her own two feet. Yet she is so beautiful, it's a curse. Holy crap. It's a ten alarm Mary Sue. As if we didn't already know. She has no real flaws, and everyone thinks she is made of all manner of awesome and suchlike. Everyone likes her. Which sits slightly at odds with her assertion that "I didn't relate well to people my age." Or indeed anyone. Yep, this is all lies. And come on. What sort of an obvious Mary Sue name is Bella Swan, or "Bells" for short. It's almost as Mary Sue-ish as, I dunno, Anastasia Steele, or Gwendolynne Price, or the other syllable-heavy sobriquets of the bad erotica that this had a hand in spawning (see Fifty Shades of Grey for details.)

Needless to say, she meets Edward Cullen in the corner of a canteen where he's being all mysterious and broody with his vampire mates. Immediately, moisties are cracked. There is much gushing over how hawt he is and similar. She's not all that bothered about him being a vampire, because in the world of Stephenie Meyer, vampires have all the benefits of being immortal, ageless, and indestructible, and none of the drawbacks, apart from the fact that they sparkle in direct sunlight.

They claim it's some sort of curse but let's be honest, being Edward Cullen is about as much of a curse as having a fifteen-inch cock that tastes like chocolate and ejaculates money. It's at best mildly inconvenient and at worst really worth having. In fact, if all vampires were like Edward Cullen people would be queuing up to be turned.

Oh, and the whole compulsion to suck peoples' blood? Nope. Animal blood works as well and Edward's okay with it because he doesn't eat people. Just animals. He tries to terrify Bella by saying to her, memorably, "This is the skin of a killer," when she sees him sparkle in direct sunlight, but let's be frank, it isn't. Much ink is also spilled describing him in minute detail, during the writing of which Meyer was obviously splittin' the kitten over her own character. There are a few other suitors that Bella Swan, whose flaw-that-isn't is that she's clumsy, but in an endearing way, not a world-breaking catastrophic way, has, but because they're all mundaines she roundly ignores them. Yeah, there's some evil glowers from the popular girls but they are brushed off because they realise what sort of special snowflake Bella is and besides, she's the one with the immortal ageless bishie-boy vampire for a better half, so PTHHH.

Then again, Edward Cullen's no prize, really, when I think about it. He's 117 years old, immortal, ageless, indestructible, has super strength, super speed, super intelligence, is stupendously rich, and still can go out in the daytime without bursting into flames. However, despite this, he is still a virgin. Now, far be it from me to perpetuate stereotypes about how a REAL MAN is not a virgin, but if someone cannot get their ashes hauled despite all these positive attributes which would all be attractive to a potential partner, it implies some pretty serious personality defects, wouldn't it? And he has those IN ABUNDANCE. He is a stalky, controlling, borderline, abusive spacewaste. For no apparent reason he breaks into Bella's room late at night just to "watch her sleep." That is not normal. That is grounds for an immediate restraining order, surely. He also won't allow Bella to do anything in case she hurts herself. There is also the creephattery that despite being 117 years old, he still hangs around in high schools trying to pull teenage girls. Unsuccessfully. This makes him a failed undead paedophile. I can't think of anything honestly more pitiful or contemptible.

*belt*

Ugh. Yes. I think it's only fair that I treat you to a sample of the endless descriptions of how utterly ungodly handsome Edward is, in Meyer's inglorious prose, which Stephen King memorably described as "not very good." And for which he was branded Just Jealous by hordes of squeeing fangirls:

"Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal."

And it continueth. Every verse end Edward is described in gushing tones. Blimey. If Meyer carries on like this then she is severe danger of going blind. Of course, thrust in between all this derp is Edward going on about how dangerous he is to her. He casually pulls a branch off a tree and throws it into another tree where it shatters just moments after that quote. Furthermore, he also says that Bella is "{his} kind of heroin" and "as if you could fight me off." He also refuses to let her chase him off even though at this stage she's stated how she's not all that interested.

GET A NON-MOLESTATION ORDER BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, GIRL.

Yet just a few pages later, she's saying things like, "I'm here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you." I honestly ponder the sanity of this person. Besides, if anyone said that in reality, and I heard, I would have to ask someone to pass the sickbags.

There's also a bit where all the vampires play baseball and because they all have super-strength and super-speed they do it on a double-sized pitch. And, of course, the sunlight doesn't hurt them but makes them all sparkle. I'm pretty sure that using one's Disciplines to assist at competitive sports is I. a violation of the Masquerade, and II. is probably considered cheating. And yes, while I am aware that this isn't classic World of Darkness, there are bits lifted from it; in particular, in the second and third and fourth volumes there's a group called the Volturi who are there to ensure that humans don't find out that vampires are real. They're based in Rome, which is allegedly some sort of swipe at the Catholic church. Yeah. I mean that's just not on. I mean, selling children, priests' sexual abuse, slavery, supporting Hitler, and condoms being murder are one thing, but the idea that they're all pathetic vampires? That's just inexcusable. But I digress. Yeah.

Then there's the obligatory werewolf that always appears in these sorts of novels. Jacob, he's called. He's also part Native American, as are all his pack. Quileute, specifically. Spot the Unfortunate Implications, people. Especially considering that Jacob and his pack are sort of the bad guys. Incidentally, in the films he was the one who was played by Taylor Lautner. He's the roidhead with the weird scrunched-up face who can't act. There's some sort of tug of love between the two of them as all this goes on. Jacob, for all his faults, is just, well, boring, quite frankly.

Now, Stephenie Meyer being a devout Mormon, believes in abstinence and as such nobody shags until they're married in the 4th book. I should single out this sequence as being one of the main sources of derp and rage in the entire series. After they are wed, they go on a honeymoon to an island off the west coast of Brazil, which, conveniently, Edward owns. Needless to say, a glance at a map will show this is physically impossible. Then there's the fact that vampire sex is a bit too vigorous for humans to handle owing to the super strength and super speed and the resultant Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex-style mauling he gives her is a bit too close to her being beaten up on the wedding night for comfort. Quite frankly she really ought to have figured considering his stalky rapey behaviour in the first three books that he was probably going to be a wife beater. But that's not it! She gets pregnant and the half-vampire foetus then eats its way out of her. And even though her life is in total danger by continuing the pregnancy, she can't have an abortion, oh no! Thankfully the whole "continuing the pregnancy is a threat to life and limb" issue is sidestepped by having Edward turn her at this stage. The resulting child, named Renesmee (a portmanteau of various secondary characters' names, and now a real life name for children in reality, who WILL be bullied at school as a result, and it WILL be Meyer's fault) grows up preternaturally quickly, and Jacob the werewolf comes out the woodwork to "imprint" on her. This is sort of the werewolf equivalent of urinating to mark his own territory, although it doesn't involve urine and is basically the equivalent of shouting "shotgun!" at a child star when commencing the Jail Bait Wait.

*shudder*

*double belt*

See, this is where Twilight bothers me on multiple levels. It is, when I think about it, an astoundingly sexist novel series. The whole glorification of stalkyness and abusiveness, and the wedding night sex scene is a bit too much like domestic violence for my liking. The idea that Bella is not, in terms of her own sexuality, a free agent if you will, but has to lay her sexuality at the approval of Edward Cullen or other male characters. The idea that Edward is somehow entitled to have Bella and his veiled threats of using his super-strength and super-speed to carry her off and rape her. The idea that Edward is entitled to act in a controlling manner towards Bella in case she hurts herself because he's Just Better. In fact, Bella's whole role in the novel is, if you will, the arm candy of Edward Cullen. She's not a person in her own right so much as a possession for Edward and she has no personality herself beyond being endearingly clumsy. Then there's the abstinence angle. The first three and a quarter novels, in which they don't shag despite being (ostensibly) teenagers and thus oozing hormones from every conceivable gland, is basically yet more fettering of sexuality. Together with the convenient sidestep of the uterus-bursting bun that Edward has put in Bella's oven and how it's a danger to the mother's live to continue the pregnancy, it comes over as propagandist as well.

At the risk of sounding like a Daily Mail reader, what sort of message is this sending to impressionable teenage girls? That if your boyfriend is being controlling, jealous, and abusive, it's because he loves you and doesn't want you to get hurt?

But then again, what do you expect from a Mormon's wank fantasy. I despair. I really do. I cannot for the life of me work out why people would possibly think this novel was a good idea. I blame Anne Rice myself for making vampires into rock stars and suchlike, so it was only a matter of time before they play baseball and are all cuddly, apart from the whole implications of domestic violence that goes under it all.

Fuck that noise.

Seriously, fuck Twilight. Fuck Meyer and fuck everyone who does not fuck her. This novel series is a massive dump of insubstantial fanfic-level prose, obvious research fails, derp, rage, and sexism. If I had a teenage daughter, I'd rather she read Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto than this.

*drains the bottle*

The best bit? That Robert Pattinson, who played Edward in the films, went on record about how the novels were a bit weird and his character was a creephat. In fact, by his own admission he just took the job so he could get some cash and have a go at shagging Kristen Stewart, and now he's succeeded at that he wants nothing more to do with it. Good for him, I say. In 20 years' time when he's grown the beard and is a serious actor I hope he disowns this pap.

(IN1325)

Twi"light` (?), n. [OE. twilight, AS. twi- (see Twice) + leoht light; hence the sense of doubtful or half light; cf. LG. twelecht, G. zwielicht. See Light.]

1.

The light perceived before the rising, and after the setting, of the sun, or when the sun is less than 18° below the horizon, occasioned by the illumination of the earth's atmosphere by the direct rays of the sun and their reflection on the earth.

2.

faint light; a dubious or uncertain medium through which anything is viewed.

As when the sun . . . from behind the moon, In dim eclipse. disastrous twilight sheds. Milton.

The twilight of probability. Locke.

 

© Webster 1913.


Twi"light`, a.

1.

Seen or done by twilight.

Milton.

2.

Imperfectly illuminated; shaded; obscure.

O'er the twilight groves and dusky caves. Pope.

 

© Webster 1913.

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