Bulls, New Zealand Superthread

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Vlad n U 2 said:
Very much so, still excited for whatever will come next. NLOTH has proven awesome music can be produced by U2, as well as the 3 new songs + Soon. And the Crazy remix.
Click to expand...

I must admit that I'm not exactly overwhelmed by Soon, but I can see good things coming of it. Feels quite a lot like a B-side from the early NLOTH projects though, kind of something that would've fit on Linear.
 
OK, I think I better crash. Still got so much sleep to catch up on. Looking forward to reading Alison's clearly epic post of epicness in the morning ...!

:wave:
 
major_panic said:
I must admit that I'm not exactly overwhelmed by Soon, but I can see good things coming of it. Feels quite a lot like a B-side from the early NLOTH projects though, kind of something that would've fit on Linear.
Click to expand...

Like those Arabic(?) instruments in the song, they're a great touch.
 
God dammit, I was hoping to give you all nightmares. :sigh:

Oh well, to curdle your breakfasts, then...


Twliame Lowlights, Part the Fourth: Breaking Wind Dawn

First, I have to explain a couple of concepts.

Imprinting:
It was established in the 2nd book that occasionally werewolves do this imprinting thing, where they fall desperately in love with some hapless woman and nothing else matters to them but making her happy and giving her everything she wants, and because women are apparently all helpless under this level of devotion, they cave in and marry the werewolf. Although sometimes the werewolf imprints on a girl child, and in this case they become the child's most devoted and attentive protector/carer until they're old enough to marry and make strong werewolfy children with. This is an entirely involuntary process, the werewolf is just as hapless as the object of his single-minded devotion.
(This, combined with the fact that the pack's Alpha can actually compel the pack's members to obey him gives werewolves rather less in the free will department than most people. I dunno if Mrs Meyer is making a statement about life in the military, but I think it's beyond her to make even clumsy subtext like that. And I'm not touching the paedophilia issue at all.)

And no, Jacob has/does not imprint on Bella.

Twinks/Munchkins: This is a roleplaying term to describe a character who has maxed-out stats and is meant to be invincible. Or maybe the player of such a character... either way. Twinky characters tend to be strong and smart and likeable and good at everything. They are extremely annoying to everyone else except the guilty player, who probably has a severe inferiority complex and is attempting to compensate.

Right.

You know how book 3 (Eclipse) was all wangst and no action? Well, everything that didn't happen in that book is happening in this one. But not without its due portion of wangst, hence the greater page count. If you cut out all the wangst from Eclipse, you've probably got enough filmable scenes for a 90 minute Hollywood film... so I guess that explains why they're doing a Harry Potter and splitting BD (har har!) into two. *shudder*

At the start of the book, Bella is dreading her impending marriage to Mr Sparkly Vampire Edward, but quite looking forward to getting to shag him as a human before he makes good on his promise to turn her into a marble statue.

Before the wedding, we learn that Jacob is off somewhere in the wilderness, living as a wolf in order to escape from the unbearable wangst that is life within 500 miles of Bella. However, his packmates can still hear his thoughts, even at that remote distance (by the way, werewolves in the same pack can hear each other's thoughts while they're in giant wolf form). And Bella of course is overcome with guilt about how she's inadvertently driven her BFF away, etc.

So, the Sparkliest Wedding Evar In the History of Liek EVAR commences, and of course Bella is omg BEAUTIFUL and the future-telling vampire decks out the house in billions of white flowers and Bella's white dress is FABULOUS and Bella's clueless human parents just LOVE the vampire family and they even invite a couple of werewolves (in lieu of Jacob) and some vamps from out of town but everyone gets along just FAMOUSLY and Bella realises that being married isn't really so bad after all because she LOVES Edward SO MUCH and now he belongs to her and she belongs to him and it's all perfect and she's SO HAPPY and just to make the day even MORE perfect, Jacob appears out of the darkness for a surprise visit (proving my theory wrong, curse him) and she's so GLAD to see him and it's even PERFECTER and he's trying so hard not to be a grumpy judgemental werewolf and be happy for her but then someone says the wrong thing and all the wangst spills over again and Jacob nearly goes BIGARHFHO* on Edward because he finds out Bella's going to boink him before she's indestructible. And of course Jacob thinks Edward's putting his pleasure ahead of Bella's safety, not realising that Bella's libido has over-ridden Edward's psychotic caution.

(* BIGARHFHO is a term from a werewolf-related roleplaying game I was in once. It stands for "Bust Into Gauru (the huge terrifying battle-form of the werewolf) And Rip His Fucking Head Off". We did that a lot so it was simpler to make an acronym.)

But then the other werewolves drag Jacob away and Edward dances with Bella and she locks Jacob up in a box in her head so it doesn't spoil her lovely perfect sparkly wedding day.

Then they go on a honeymoon to an island that another of the vampires own off the coast of Brazil, and have kinky human/vampire secks, and it's omg the best thing EVAR (without any hint of a graphic description, of course). Edward manages to redirect his unrestrained and potentially lethal strength away from Bella and bites pillows and teak headboards instead. There is wangst of course when he sees bruises on Bella's body and swears he won't do it again until she's a vampire, but the randy minx soon changes his mind. So they're at it like rabbits for two weeks in a tropical paradise, with a native South-American-Indian maid who appears every so often and glares suspiciously at Edward cos she knows what vampires are, of course.

As previously noted, BELLA GETS PREGNANT. *wordfail*

Now, the concept that Mrs Meyer has of vampires is that their bodies are frozen in time at the moment they get vampirised – vampires have venom which travels through the body, healing and changing and sparklifying as it goes. Any wounds are healed, the body is made more beautiful and into a marble statue with boundless strength and endurance etc etc. In short, vampires are twinks of the worst kind. But to stay vaguely on topic, the point is that two vampires can't have kids because the woman vampire's body can't change to accommodate a child. But man vampires' bodies don't need to change, they can apparently impregnate human women with sperms that have been biding their time and twiddling their tails in a vampire's balls for however many hundreds of years. EW GROSS.

So, Bella goes through three months' worth of pregnancy in a week, and gets a bump, and duly freaks out. So does Edward, and so does the vampire family back home. They rush off, because one of the vamps at home is a doctor, and Edward is sure it's a horrible monster and is determined that Bella should get an abortion. I think I said this before... anyway, she feels it move and suddenly motherhood is all she wants, even though she never spared a thought for it before then.

THIS is the subtext I can give Mrs Mormon Meyer credit for: All women really want to be wifes and mothers, even if they don't know it yet. Ergo, all women should become wives and mothers in order to discover this ultimate fulfilment. :|

At some point, the concept of the immortal children was introduced, which are human toddlers who've been vampirised by vampire women with overzealous maternal instincts. They are the deepest taboo in vampire culture, because they stay toddlers forever, uncontrollable and super-powerful. It's the greatest crime a vampire can commit, to create one, and they are always hunted down and destroyed with extreme prejudice.

So of course Bella starts dreaming about shadowy vampire mafia figures coming for her and a beautiful red-eyed vampire child, and she is troubled.

So, "Book One" of this book ends with Bella dangerously pregnant with something that is growing way too fast and that no one knows what it is. (She has enlisted the aid of the most beautiful, haughty blonde vampire to help fend off the foeticidal urgings of Edward and Dr Sparkly, because all the haughty blonde ever wanted was a normal human life with a husband and a baby, of course.)

In "Book Two", we have a long-overdue and very welcome reprieve from the inside of Bella's head. We get to run around in Jacob's head, and it's a lot more sane in there. Yes, there is naturally lots of wangst, it's still the same book. But, he's much easier to put up with.

We watch most of Bella's pregnancy through Jacob's point of view, up to and including the birth.

Notable events:

* The werewolf pack wants to kill the child, right now, still in Bella. Jacob opposes this plan, and claims his ancient birthright as the rightful Alpha of the pack, with the result that he and two other werewolves split off and form their own pack, cos the current Alpha won't give up without a fight and Jacob doesn't want to fight him. Cue lots of werewolfy wangst.

* Jacob's pack undertakes to protect the Cullen's house and Bella especially, while she gets pregnanter and pregnanter and the baby gets stronger and starts breaking her ribs every time it kicks. They can't do an ultrasound or an X-ray because it seems the foetus has grown a layer of impenetrable vampire skin around the amniotic sac.

* The original pack makes peace and decides they can wait until the unholy demonspawn is outside of Bella before they try to kill it. It should be noted that Jacob is violently opposed to said demonspawn himself, but as long as Bella's life is involved, he won't harm her/it. Cos he still LOVES her.

* Edward, similarly opposed to the foetus, does a complete 180 when he's able to hear its thoughts through Bella's belly, and discovers that the baby LOVES her as well. Anything that loves Bella must be a good thing, therefore Edward becomes suddenly pro-foetus. Edward is able to explain to the baby that it's hurting Bella and to try to keep its kicking down, or at least away from vital organs.

* Bella gets very sick and thin and malnourished, and she and the baby appear to be starving, despite the food they press on her and the IV drips. It is discovered that Bella and the foetus require human blood to survive, and so they happily slurp their way through the Cullen's stock of O-negative, which they had been filching from the Red Cross and laying up in preparation for Bella's vampirification. Whereupon she feels much better, declares blood to be quite delicious, and everyone's more or less healthy again. Except baby is still doing GBH from the inside every time it twitches.

* Finally, Bella goes into labour, they have to do a C-section with no anaesthetic, and Edward has to rip the vampire-skin amniotic sac thing open with his bare teeth. Bella's ribs and pelvis and spine and whole body is broken in the process, she loses a crapload of blood, and appears to die moments after her daughter is laid in her arms. (Bella was sure it would be a boy, and was going to name it Edward Jacob, imaginatively. She had a back-up girl name prepared though, composed of an amalgamation of her mother's name (Renée) and Edward's adoptive mother's name (Esme). Thus was "Renesmee" born. :doh: And her middle name is Carlie, a mixture of Bella's dad Charlie and Edward's adoptive/biting dad, Carlisle.) Daughter gazes adoringly at her dying mother's face, and promptly bites her.

* Jacob and Edward perform frantic CPR, once Edward has jabbed a syringe full of his own venom into Bella's heart. Jacob gives up after a while, mad with grief/wangst/etc, and goes downstairs (to where the haughty blonde is having a surrogate motherhood moment with Renesmee), intent on killing the baby.

* BUT THEN HE IMPRINTS ON IT.

* ..... !!!!!!!!

And then we go back to Bella's perspective ("Book Three"). Although it's pretty clear that things are going to end up with Bella and Edward sparkling happily forever, and Jacob happily soul-mates with their daughter and freed from his unrequited love for Bella.

But there is a lot of wangst to get through before that.

Becoming a vampire is apparently a very painful process lasting about three days. Bella was full of morphine by the time Edward started CPR and biting her everywhere, so everyone hoped she would feel less pain. Nope, she was just paralysed, and copped the agony anyway. She did, however, manage to skip the year or so of uncontrollable bloodlust that makes newborn vampires incredibly dangerous and uncontrollable (since they're also much stronger than older ones).

Now, vampires are all twinky perfect characters. Bella is a twinky perfect VAMPIRE. She's stunning, she's uber-perfect, she masters all the leaping and superhuman feats instantly, she's immediately extra-graceful "even for a vampire", she doesn't kill a single human, she has freaky supernatural self-control. Therefore she is allowed to see her daughter and she and everyone else is smitten. The baby is universally adorable, and on top of that, has the power of being able to show someone images/memories by touching them.

But Bella's amazing supernatural powerz have not yet manifested, and it is theorised that her super self-control and amazing ability to not kill everyone she smells is her special magical talent. She is somewhat disappointed but just as glad to not have to worry about murdering her father.

Oh, the word "shined" makes a triumphant return, this time describing Bella's own super-sparkly skin in a glorious sunset. *stabs*

The thing is, I expected this stuff to happen at the end of the book, but there's a still a solid third of it to go. What can possibly happen next?

Oh yes, the vampire mafia. Some random other vampire spotted Renesmee at a distance (she's still growing stupidly fast and was born with a full set of teeth – luckily she's not venomous, cos she bites her indulgent protector, Jacob, all the time, and vampire venom is not good for werewolves), assumed she was a forbidden (lolz, forbitten) immortal child, and dibber-dobs on the Cullens to the Volturi/vamp mafia.

The old dudes in the mafia have this thing for collecting vampires with super extra-special magical powerz (like, for instance, Marcus's extraordinary ability to see relationships), and they've had their eyes on Edward and Alice (the future-telling one), and a few others we all suddenly meet. So, with the excuse of hunting down the immortal child that isn't really, they all head for the Cullen's place to mete out nice violent justice, and leave the interesting ones alive so they can join the mafia and be useful.

Alice sees this coming, and a Plan is enacted. The Cullens scatter and find allies and witnesses to prove that the kid is growing and wasn't vampirised as a human child, and Jacob has to put up with a steady influx of unfamiliar vampires. Because of course he never wants to leave Renesmee's side. Jacob complains that someone will need to provide an index so he can keep track of all the vamps, and lo, there is an asterisk immediately following this statement.

At the bottom of the page is another asterisk, and the words "See page 756".

On page 756, Mrs Meyer has taken pity on poor Jacob and helpfully provided AN INDEX OF VAMPIRES. Organised into covens, relationships between mated pairs detailed, and helpful asterisks identifying which ones have "quantifiable supernatural abilities".

Bella has an asterisk.

Sigh.

So, witnesses are gathered, and the child with the stupid name charms them one and all, and they all declare that they will fight with the Cullens against the mafia, if it comes to that, which everyone is sure it will. Alice has vanished for as-yet unknown reasons, making everyone fucking despair.

Bella discovers that her speshul super amazing magical power is a shield on her mind that stops Edward reading her thoughts, or other vamps' mental powers from affecting her. She struggles to learn to control this consciously and project it beyond herself, cos, you know, that might be useful when the magical vampire mafia wants to kill you.

Yadda yadda yadda.

The mafia shows up in unprecedented numbers, along with a pile of witnesses of their own, keen for bloody justice to be done. They meet in the same clearing where the good vamps beat up the army of newborns in the last book, cos it's clearly the best possible place for an immortal show-down.

Both sides are tense, poised for battle. Every vampire there is a hair's breadth from sudden, violent action, which will be the trigger for a blood- marble-bath. Bella is terrified for her daughter's life and charges Jacob to take her away at the first opportunity once everyone's busy killing each other.

There follows SIXTY PAGES of dialogue and posturing and vampires flinging magical powerz about but being stymied by Bella's shield, which she suddenly gains complete control over because she's so POWERFULLY FURIOUS. (You know, cos she's a mother and they're threatening her child. Motherhood rules, mofo!) They establish the child isn't worthy of death, and run through fifty other pretexts to try to provoke judgement or battle or whatever, but are cleverly foiled at each turn by Edward's cunning or Bella's shield or the surprise appearance of still more werewolves or the surprisinger appearance of Alice, with some other vampires and a guy who is zomg JUST LIKE RENESMEE!! Thus proving he's not a danger to vampire-kind or to their secret cos he's been living quietly in a jungle for 150 years and nobody knew he was there.

And then the mafia all go away in peace, although of course there is a hint that They'll Be Back Someday, cue the next series of Awful Books.


... You see what she did there? The unforgivable travesty??

I will admit this – on some level, I was sucked in. Mrs Meyer succeeded in building tension to a fairly high point, several times over. I was waiting for the big epic battle scene, flying fur and chunks of stone, all the wangst finally culminating in some honest-to-god action, some violence, some sort of release. Some sort of payoff for sticking with this ... this bus-wreck of a series through four increasingly long, wangsty and horrible books. I wasn't expecting sudden literary brilliance. I was just expecting SOMETHING.

And she chooses to end her 750-page book, her four-book series, WITH AN ANTI-CLIMAX.

And then she follows that with the most nauseating tripey saccharine slobberingly HAPPY denouement it has ever been my misfortune to read.

Because Everything Was All Right in the end! And now she and Edward will sparkle happily together FOREVER with their perfect half-human daughter and her devoted werewolf protector who will turn into her lover as soon as is practicable, we are to assume. Luckily for them both, she'll be an adult in seven years, and he won't age as long as he keeps turning into a wolf every so often.

Oh, and everyone calls the daughter "Nessie" for short. Bella hated this at first, but after the epic battle anti-climax, suddenly she doesn't mind any more.

The final chapter was even called "The Happily Ever After". The final sentence is:

"And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever."

"the end"


BOUNDLESS RAGE.


Smileys are wholly inadequate to the task of expressing my reaction.

I am going back to my werewolf fic and killing EVERYBODY, dammit.


There you go. Details available on request.

Just remember, I gave my sanity for this! Was it worth it??


:wave:
 
And another thing:

Incidentally, before today, I was going to say something along the lines that the very worst thing about reading Twilame - worse than the wangst, worse than the poorly-justified sleep deprivation, worse than the shame, worse than the hours of my life I'll never get back, and worse than the brain-damage - was the damage this has done to the way I hear Muse now. How long will it be before "Newborn" loses its Twilighty-connotations? How long before I stop wondering whether this song or that inspired this or that scene??

*shudder*

But after reading those last chapters... :crack:

If StephEnie Meyer doesn't go to hell for this... well, it means there isn't one, and I hearby volunteer to establish hell just for her.
 
*goes to bed, finally*

This is all your faults for being so impatient. :p

(And mine for being so detail-oriented and compulsive and verbose, yes.)
 
Oh, Alison! :lmao:

That is possibly the most glorious review of Twilame I have ever read.

Alisaura said:
I am going back to my werewolf fic and killing EVERYBODY, dammit.
Click to expand...

*can't breathe* It was totally worth what was left of your sanity. I've read a synopsis of the Twilame saga and so I knew what was coming. Your spin on it was extra magical, though. I've often wondered what would happen if fanfic ever got legitimately published. Now we all know, it's called Twilight.

You and I should collaborate on a vampire/Werewolfy story. One, to prove that any idiot can do it, even us with our Swiss cheese brains, and two, to make one that's actually worth, you know, reading.
 
FML.

The girl I am completely hopelessly crushing on is straight. :banghead: And she's my best friend. And I accidentally, yet subconsciously on purpose, patted her bum today.

If you need me, I'll be in the corner, killing myself.
 
:reject: She's still speaking to me, which is good. And I really don't think she realized what i did, nor does she think it was intentional. I'm just embarrassed of my subconscious grabby-hands.
 
Oh man, Alison, my deepest sympathy! That sounds like one of the worst things in the whole world. It was worth it, and I think you deserve some kind of prize for making it through alive! :applaud:
 
Oh my god, Alison, that was so worth it. :lmao: :lmao:

I entirely second the last two posts. I don't know how you managed to stomach that ... what troubles me is that your posts seem to have more content than the actual books themselves.
 
Slopsy said:
Oh man, Alison, my deepest sympathy! That sounds like one of the worst things in the whole world. It was worth it, and I think you deserve some kind of prize for making it through alive! :applaud:
Click to expand...

She's getting a Doctor Who Twelfth Series scarf hand-knitted by me! :D ...If I get it finished by Christmas... Good thing it's warm down there in December! :shifty:
 
Axver said:
Oh my god, Alison, that was so worth it. :lmao: :lmao:

I entirely second the last two posts. I don't know how you managed to stomach that ... what troubles me is that your posts seem to have more content than the actual books themselves.
Click to expand...

Let's just say that reading her posts were much more enjoyable and concise than actually reading Twilame.
 
I don't get why you read them, U-Wen? Are you at all masochistic?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

KhanadaRhodes
  • Sticky
Guntersville, Alabama Superthread
Replies
3
Views
2K
bono_man2002
bono_man2002
KhanadaRhodes
  • Locked
  • Sticky
St Mary’s Butts, Reading, England Superthread
35 36 37
Replies
1K
Views
54K
KhanadaRhodes
KhanadaRhodes
Axver
Gnaw Bone, Indiana Superthread
32 33 34
Replies
999
Views
27K
KhanadaRhodes
KhanadaRhodes
coolian2
  • Locked
Oteha Valley Road, Tāmaki-makau-rau, Te Ika-a-Māui Superthread
32 33 34
Replies
1K
Views
28K
Axver
Axver
coolian2
  • Locked
Kaikoura, Te Wai Pounamu, Aotearoa (Kia Kaha, Aroha to all) Superthread
32 33 34
Replies
1K
Views
27K
coolian2
coolian2

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom