Crossovers that were NEVER MEANT TO BE, take #128
Right. So. Um. You know those cracked little ideas that leap out and bite you when you’re trying you damnedest to work on something else? Well, the latest example to get to me was a Twilight parody. And say what you like about Twilight, if it was put upon this green earth for any just and holy reason, it was to be parodied.
A summary for the uninitiated (should there be any left at this point who have managed to avoid all that mania)
Twilight is about a teenage girl called Bella who falls madly and deeply in love with a beautiful sparkly vampire called Edward. Bella has no interests that aren't Edward and next to no personality, and claims to be humble and ordinary while secretly bitching about how laaaaaame everyone else is inside her head all the time. Edward is a beautiful sparkly vampire (this part gets reiterated a lot) who has a sparkly vampire family, and has been saving his virginity for over a century for just the right girl and who shows his devotion by doing things like sneaking into her room at night and watching her sleep or removing the engine from her car to prevent her going to visit a male friend. She likes him because he's pretty, he likes her because she's the only person who's mind he can't read, and that's about the limit of their chemistry and, indeed, most of the plot of the whole four book series. The remainder is made up of a lot of angsting about how he is a moooonster who can never give her babies and she should stay away from him only not because he can't live without her, a lot of arguing about whether they should make Bella a vampire before or after they married and where having sex should fit into the schedule, some kind of sub-plot about a werewolf who was added to the series primarily to pad it out by also falling inexplicably in love with Bella, and appearances by a few token evil vampire villains who really aren't that important because telling us about them would detract from the space available to wax eloquent about how beautiful Edward is. And he really does sparkle like a glistening, scintillating diamond - that's why vampires can't ever go out in the sunlight! Nor is that factoid even the beginning of the WTF the series has to offer. Twilight means never having to say you're kidding.
Nevertheless, to talk to any of the obsessive teenagers (or equally obsessive adult mothers), it's the greatest romance story ever told, exceeding Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, etc etc. Twilight has apparently succeeded by tapping into a terrifying part of the teenage female psyche and harnessing its power for the forces of evil. Opinions from the more educated are divided over whether it's a work of unforgivable drivel which has single-handedly set feminism back twenty years or just a harmless guilty pleasure. The most truly amazing thing about it is that anyone thinks the result is remotely original. If it is indeed in any way different from the mountains of bad vampire romance out there already, it can only be because few authors have ever before gotten away with publishing a sexual-fantasy-without-sex that was quite that blatant.
The only reason I have paid any serious attention to it at all is that in its growing infamy, Twilight has vaulted past even So Bad It's Good and landed in So Bad It's Awesome by developing a dedicated second fanbase of lolfans who are into the series for no other reason than for the joy of making fun of it. They've produced a motherload of reviews, parodies and regular reports about the crazy antics of the movie actors, author and fans; varying in tone from the outraged to the unbelieving to the merely amused. If you think this should get old quickly, then you haven't yet grasped just how much there is to make fun of. I have not the slightest interest in ever touching a single one of the books, but I have gotten more enjoyment out of laughing along with this than anything I've seen in a very long time. Twilight has become my first anti-fandom ever.
(Actually, if you really are new to all this, go read cleolinda's wiki and recaps - she is far more witty and entertaining about it than I could ever hope to be, and some of this stuff does need to be seen to be believed.)
The danger of getting involved in this sort of thing is that you wind up running into things like people discussing how the infamous “Do I dazzle you?” scene would have made for infinitely more awesome if it had gone down between not Bella and Edward, but Rose and Doctor Who. The reason this is dangerous is because it will lead to you spending the next morning, when you were trying so very hard to work on all that other stuff on the WIP list, fighting off a chunk of your brain that keeps going “Hey, forget the Doctor, you know who else is all shiny and dazzles the people who work for him all the time?” At this point you are doomed and might as well admit it.
The Cast
Girl!Sol (image)
Mainly distinguished from Regular!Sol by the presence of boobs and being actually human, all other differences quickly become much harder to spot. Unlike Bella, she really was declared an unpopular freak at her new school by the time she was done beating a couple of people up, if not even earlier thanks to her habit of sneering at her classmates - something she does openly rather than limiting herself to all Bella's non-verbalised bitchiness. As compared to the real Bella being all ENGLISH IS SO LAME HERE BECAUSE I READ THOSE BOOKS ALREADY, girl!Sol is the one who gets bored stupid in science because she can already do advanced physics in her head, and probably winds up breeding radioactive lizards in a tank in the back of the class or something. Her early impression of Ky as a pretentious little snot does not do anything to curb a swiftly growing desire to screw him six ways from Sunday. Most people meeting girl!Sol would probably presume she's a particularly butch dyke, but even if there is any truth to this, she considers Ky such a total girl that it wouldn't matter.
Sparklepire!Ky (image)
Was made a vampire over a hundred years ago and still hasn't gotten over the angst of it. Being forced to go through high school over and over again for the duration probably hasn't helped so much there. Converted to Catholicism in attempt to atone for past sins (whether actual or imagined) and always wears at least one visible cross somewhere in what is mostly his way of saying "Who, me? I couldn't possibly be a vampire!" Has attempted to master being dark, brooding and intimidating, but was always too naturally polite to get the hang of either of the first two. The last only comes through during the occasional moment of spontaneous heroism, and consequently wins him more fans than it loses him, much to his chagrin confusion. He has kept his virginity all this time through what he will claim is a combination of his old-fashioned Upstanding Moral Virtues and justified fear of injuring his partner with his Vampire Strength, but the truth is mostly just that women intimidate him a whole lot. Considering what he can hear them thinking when they're around him in nine cases out of ten, this is not entirely unjustified. A lot of his fascination with Sol begins with the reverse-psychology effect of her being the only girl (and very nearly the only person) who hasn't fallen deeply and obviously in love with him at first sight. In short, he has no idea what he’s about to get himself into.
Extract 1: The Dazzling
Ky: ...I dazzle people?
Sol: You hadn't noticed? Why the hell did you think you get your own way all the time?
Ky: I thought it was my good manners and reasoned debating skills!
Sol: *facepalm*
Ky: Do I dazzle you?
Sol: <.< .....nooooo.
Extract 2: The Meadow
Ky: I am a monster! You must stay far away from me for your own good!
Sol: Sooo, the sparkles, do they go allll the way down?
Ky: What!?
Sol: Do you sparkle everywhere?
Ky: Um. Ah. That's not really...
Sol: Let's find out, shall we? *rrrrrrrip*
Extract 3: It’s not stalking, it’s love!
Sol: I can see you lurking in the bushes over there. You fail at stalking so hard it's pathetic.
Ky: I just wanted to challenge you to a fight! Wait, I mean I was just worried about the threat you pose to public safety! WAIT I MEAN I was just worried about your safety! I had the best of intentions!
Sol: Suuuuure you did.
Extract 4: What Women Want
Ky: You fascinate me because unlike everyone else in the world I have no idea what you are thinking!
Sol: >D Come by my room tonight and I'll show you what I'm thinking.
Ky: WHAT!? That would be unforgivably inappropriate!
Sol: That's the idea, pretty boy.
Extract 5: The Scene That Would Inevitably Happen A Whole Lot Sooner In This Version
Ky: No, we cannot! What if I lose control of myself and hurt you? I could tear you apart with my bare hands! *angst angst angst*
Sol: Hey, I can top if you're that worried about how you're going to perform.
Ky: o_o But I’m serious! You could risk terrible injury!
Sol: We could always tie you down.
Ky: O_O I-I-I can break through rope!
Sol: How about experimental ultra strong carbon-fibres? *drags some out from under the bed*
Ky: ...halp.
Yes, that's all I've got. Look, it's probably for the best. But this would be already at least a million times better than Twilight could ever dream of being, Y/Y?
A summary for the uninitiated (should there be any left at this point who have managed to avoid all that mania)
Twilight is about a teenage girl called Bella who falls madly and deeply in love with a beautiful sparkly vampire called Edward. Bella has no interests that aren't Edward and next to no personality, and claims to be humble and ordinary while secretly bitching about how laaaaaame everyone else is inside her head all the time. Edward is a beautiful sparkly vampire (this part gets reiterated a lot) who has a sparkly vampire family, and has been saving his virginity for over a century for just the right girl and who shows his devotion by doing things like sneaking into her room at night and watching her sleep or removing the engine from her car to prevent her going to visit a male friend. She likes him because he's pretty, he likes her because she's the only person who's mind he can't read, and that's about the limit of their chemistry and, indeed, most of the plot of the whole four book series. The remainder is made up of a lot of angsting about how he is a moooonster who can never give her babies and she should stay away from him only not because he can't live without her, a lot of arguing about whether they should make Bella a vampire before or after they married and where having sex should fit into the schedule, some kind of sub-plot about a werewolf who was added to the series primarily to pad it out by also falling inexplicably in love with Bella, and appearances by a few token evil vampire villains who really aren't that important because telling us about them would detract from the space available to wax eloquent about how beautiful Edward is. And he really does sparkle like a glistening, scintillating diamond - that's why vampires can't ever go out in the sunlight! Nor is that factoid even the beginning of the WTF the series has to offer. Twilight means never having to say you're kidding.
Nevertheless, to talk to any of the obsessive teenagers (or equally obsessive adult mothers), it's the greatest romance story ever told, exceeding Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, etc etc. Twilight has apparently succeeded by tapping into a terrifying part of the teenage female psyche and harnessing its power for the forces of evil. Opinions from the more educated are divided over whether it's a work of unforgivable drivel which has single-handedly set feminism back twenty years or just a harmless guilty pleasure. The most truly amazing thing about it is that anyone thinks the result is remotely original. If it is indeed in any way different from the mountains of bad vampire romance out there already, it can only be because few authors have ever before gotten away with publishing a sexual-fantasy-without-sex that was quite that blatant.
The only reason I have paid any serious attention to it at all is that in its growing infamy, Twilight has vaulted past even So Bad It's Good and landed in So Bad It's Awesome by developing a dedicated second fanbase of lolfans who are into the series for no other reason than for the joy of making fun of it. They've produced a motherload of reviews, parodies and regular reports about the crazy antics of the movie actors, author and fans; varying in tone from the outraged to the unbelieving to the merely amused. If you think this should get old quickly, then you haven't yet grasped just how much there is to make fun of. I have not the slightest interest in ever touching a single one of the books, but I have gotten more enjoyment out of laughing along with this than anything I've seen in a very long time. Twilight has become my first anti-fandom ever.
(Actually, if you really are new to all this, go read cleolinda's wiki and recaps - she is far more witty and entertaining about it than I could ever hope to be, and some of this stuff does need to be seen to be believed.)
The danger of getting involved in this sort of thing is that you wind up running into things like people discussing how the infamous “Do I dazzle you?” scene would have made for infinitely more awesome if it had gone down between not Bella and Edward, but Rose and Doctor Who. The reason this is dangerous is because it will lead to you spending the next morning, when you were trying so very hard to work on all that other stuff on the WIP list, fighting off a chunk of your brain that keeps going “Hey, forget the Doctor, you know who else is all shiny and dazzles the people who work for him all the time?” At this point you are doomed and might as well admit it.
The Cast
Girl!Sol (image)
Mainly distinguished from Regular!Sol by the presence of boobs and being actually human, all other differences quickly become much harder to spot. Unlike Bella, she really was declared an unpopular freak at her new school by the time she was done beating a couple of people up, if not even earlier thanks to her habit of sneering at her classmates - something she does openly rather than limiting herself to all Bella's non-verbalised bitchiness. As compared to the real Bella being all ENGLISH IS SO LAME HERE BECAUSE I READ THOSE BOOKS ALREADY, girl!Sol is the one who gets bored stupid in science because she can already do advanced physics in her head, and probably winds up breeding radioactive lizards in a tank in the back of the class or something. Her early impression of Ky as a pretentious little snot does not do anything to curb a swiftly growing desire to screw him six ways from Sunday. Most people meeting girl!Sol would probably presume she's a particularly butch dyke, but even if there is any truth to this, she considers Ky such a total girl that it wouldn't matter.
Sparklepire!Ky (image)
Was made a vampire over a hundred years ago and still hasn't gotten over the angst of it. Being forced to go through high school over and over again for the duration probably hasn't helped so much there. Converted to Catholicism in attempt to atone for past sins (whether actual or imagined) and always wears at least one visible cross somewhere in what is mostly his way of saying "Who, me? I couldn't possibly be a vampire!" Has attempted to master being dark, brooding and intimidating, but was always too naturally polite to get the hang of either of the first two. The last only comes through during the occasional moment of spontaneous heroism, and consequently wins him more fans than it loses him, much to his chagrin confusion. He has kept his virginity all this time through what he will claim is a combination of his old-fashioned Upstanding Moral Virtues and justified fear of injuring his partner with his Vampire Strength, but the truth is mostly just that women intimidate him a whole lot. Considering what he can hear them thinking when they're around him in nine cases out of ten, this is not entirely unjustified. A lot of his fascination with Sol begins with the reverse-psychology effect of her being the only girl (and very nearly the only person) who hasn't fallen deeply and obviously in love with him at first sight. In short, he has no idea what he’s about to get himself into.
Extract 1: The Dazzling
Ky: ...I dazzle people?
Sol: You hadn't noticed? Why the hell did you think you get your own way all the time?
Ky: I thought it was my good manners and reasoned debating skills!
Sol: *facepalm*
Ky: Do I dazzle you?
Sol: <.< .....nooooo.
Extract 2: The Meadow
Ky: I am a monster! You must stay far away from me for your own good!
Sol: Sooo, the sparkles, do they go allll the way down?
Ky: What!?
Sol: Do you sparkle everywhere?
Ky: Um. Ah. That's not really...
Sol: Let's find out, shall we? *rrrrrrrip*
Extract 3: It’s not stalking, it’s love!
Sol: I can see you lurking in the bushes over there. You fail at stalking so hard it's pathetic.
Ky: I just wanted to challenge you to a fight! Wait, I mean I was just worried about the threat you pose to public safety! WAIT I MEAN I was just worried about your safety! I had the best of intentions!
Sol: Suuuuure you did.
Extract 4: What Women Want
Ky: You fascinate me because unlike everyone else in the world I have no idea what you are thinking!
Sol: >D Come by my room tonight and I'll show you what I'm thinking.
Ky: WHAT!? That would be unforgivably inappropriate!
Sol: That's the idea, pretty boy.
Extract 5: The Scene That Would Inevitably Happen A Whole Lot Sooner In This Version
Ky: No, we cannot! What if I lose control of myself and hurt you? I could tear you apart with my bare hands! *angst angst angst*
Sol: Hey, I can top if you're that worried about how you're going to perform.
Ky: o_o But I’m serious! You could risk terrible injury!
Sol: We could always tie you down.
Ky: O_O I-I-I can break through rope!
Sol: How about experimental ultra strong carbon-fibres? *drags some out from under the bed*
Ky: ...halp.
Yes, that's all I've got. Look, it's probably for the best. But this would be already at least a million times better than Twilight could ever dream of being, Y/Y?