The Twilight Games

Two Bad Ass Bitches of Fiction. Well, sorta

Dear Twilight,

This past weekend I read an article in the Sunday paper about the chick who plays Katniss and the guy who plays Peeta in The Hunger Games (yes, yes, they have real, actual names, I know, Jennifer something and um, someone… sorry, I’m writing this over lunch because I have ZERO time so I’m not going to look it up) as they were here at the Mall of America causing a hullabaloo with the masses. In the article, there was this emphasis on how huge, no, HUGE The Hunger Games was and the movie already is, especially since it hasn’t even hit theaters yet.

It got me thinking… Shouldn’t Stephenie Meyers, at the very least, get some sort of credit / recognition/ nod for jump starting this series into success? I honestly don’t think that The Hunger Games would be quite the ginormous thing it is without her recommendation of the books starting right when The Hunger Games first came out.

I hear your gasps. Your “boos” your “hisses” and your “nays” (yep, we have those who go old school and still prefer to show their disagreement with nay saying).

But think about it; how did you find out about The Hunger Games? I’m guessing that the large majority of you found out about and/or read The Hunger Games because of Twilight in some way, shape or form. Right?

Katniss. Shooting Beller & Edward

Personally, I asked for The Hunger Games as a gift with the blind recommendation from Stephenie on her site (then thought I was crazy to own a book by blind recommendation after I read the coverlet… and again when I read the first few pages). Of course I did pick the book back up months later, forcing myself to give it “the old college try” (since I did already own it and all) and found, not much further into it, I was hooked. But there was probably no way, without SM’s glowing, “I couldn’t put this book down, I even brought it with me out to eat so I could keep reading”* recommendation, that I would have been sitting here, stoked about the movie (finally) coming out since I read the first book shortly after it first came out.

I am by no means saying that The Hunger Games wouldn’t have been popular. It probably would have ended up pretty big anyway. But this epic cultural phenomenon that it is before the first movie is even out? I really don’t think so. At least not yet. Without Stephenie, I think the books/movies probably would have grown like Twilight did after its first movie came about… organically.

I mean, I personally am responsible for about 20 people first hearing about The Hunger Games from me and either borrowing the book(s) from me or buying them themselves and/or for their kids. And I know that many of them have recommended them to others. All because Stephenie said she couldn’t put the book down.

So, if no one else has given Stephenie a nod for this, I will; look what you helped spawn Stephenie!

What do you think? Do you agree? Is Twilight/Stephenie responsible for you getting hooked on The Hunger Games? How about other things? Percy Jackson? Volvos? Little bottles? Jorts? Purple bedding?

TeamJacobEdward

*This is a paraphrase from memory and not a direct quote from Stephenie Meyer

I loved this letter. And thought it was QUITE TIMELY as The Hunger Games is now OUT World-wide (right? Y’all have it over across the big pond?) I didn’t read HG after reading about it on Stephenie’s website (but I remember seeing it) but it WAS through a recommendation from a friend I met right here on LTT. So Thank you, Stephenie! You owe me $11.50 if the movie sucks tonight.

After the jump, another quick Twilight-Hunger Games thought! Continue…

67 Commented

Twilight: Life Ruiner. Life Enhancer.

You'll never say spaghetti again

Dear Twilight,

I love you. No, seriously, I do. You make my life better, or at least more absurd, and that’s kind of the same thing.

With you in my life, I don’t need to make spaghetti. I can make “Italiano!” When the kids make a mess, I get to break out my best Esme Cullen voice: “Clean up this mess! *snap* Now.” And then turn away and giggle. (thanks, Esme!)

With you, when the Boring Relatives drag us to Olive Garden, I can tune out the awful food and 40 different renditions of waiters singing “Happy Birthday” by constantly scanning for Big Daddy.

Even putting on lip gloss is more fun, because Tarte makes a shade called Twilight.

What would Edward wear? (Actually probably not this since it's not sleeveless or beige)

I just bought Mr. Slut a Land’s End shirt because it was Twilight Purple.

What other cultural phenomena lets you giggle at menswear? Hunger Games? The Beatles? I don’t think so.

With you, dear Twilight, headboards are funny. Feathers are funny. BEARS are Funny.  Pathetic liquor store holiday displays of tiny plastic bottles of Jim Beam in a stocking. Hot Pockets. Meat Patties. Seat Belts (“You should put on YOUR seat belt!”).

So, Twilight, with all sincerity, thank you. Look after my heart—I’ve left it with you. Except you are with me all the time, so, you know. It works out.

Love and kisses on marble smooth lips,

MarbleNutSlut

Aww thanks MarbleNutSlut! I miss these Twilight things that haunt us everywhere– let’s see what can I add. Well, apples… Stephenie & her illustrator have ruined life for all apple lovers for forever. Not to mention life for teachers. You can’t teach youngsters when they give you an apple as a gift and all you can think of is that cafeteria scene in Twilight with Robward, his dark lipstain & the apple. You just can’t.

Oh, Leg-hitches– forget it… The other night in bed I hitched my leg around Mr. Choice’s & just lost it in giggles. And I couldn’t even tell him why. Because we all know that bringing up Twilight in bed is a big no-no. After this long I’m lucky if I can bring it up out of bed!

*BEARS. See how in my intro I said today would have been another bare Friday without MarbleNutSlut? WELL, originally I wrote “bear” instead of bare. And I’m pretty great at grammar. But… I’m just so used to writing about bears here on LTT (we really did do it ALL the time.) that I almost made that mistake. Thanks, Twilight, for taking over the bears in my life! xo, UC

Okay what do YOU have to add? Share in the comments!

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109 Commented

Glad to be a Twilight fan yet a little wistful

Hmmm this feels familiar

Dear Twilight,

I was watching the live feed of The Hunger Games premiere tonight while I worked and it made me a little sad, a little annoyed, and a lot relieved.
. 

A little sad because it’s kinda like watching the beginning of Twilight all over again, only this time I know like half the fandom already, I’ve read all the books and I’m not mispronouncing the main dude’s name in instant messages to UC. But I still feel like I’m missing out a little when I see all our other site friends posting pictures and updates from the premiere. It also makes me feel a little wistful that this fandom is just getting ramped up as Twilight is winding down. It makes me think of how we’re in the final sprint towards the finish line.
. 

Yup, more familiar...

A little annoyed because the whole thing looked like Twilight the redux from the set up at LA Live, Yahoo covering it live, fans in that camping area, the Kardashians in the “Bing Box” all the way down to the black carpet. I doubt LA Live even bothered to vacum those before they went in storage they just rolled ‘em back out and dusted off the dried tears and Krispy Kreme crumbs (say that 5 times fast). I mean Summit and Lionsgate are now merged and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but still it’s a little like, come on guys.
. 

Killing it!

That brings us to a lot relieved. I watch this and while I’m a bit sad, a lot wistful, a little annoyed I’m mostly terribly relieved! It’s been fun to watch from the sidelines without being a stake holder. Who in the Twilight fandom will jump ship to the new fandom? Who will be the Robsten of Hunger Games? Who will leak stills from the film and launch an all out fandom war? Which fansites will not be on the red carpet and which won’t? Who will write a fan fic that becomes popular and decides to publish it? Ya know what? It doesn’t matter for us but it’s a ton of fun to watch with a bucket of popcorn via Twitter and Facebook.
. 

And you know what, we have one more left here in this fandom and for that I’m SUPER excited. Now bring on the freaking trailer/sneak peek whatever it is we’re going to see from Breaking Dawn Pt 2 being Hunger Games next weekend.

So hooooonnngray!
Themoonisdown

Your thoughts? Are you feeling the same way or have you jumped head first into the HG fandom?
Image source: Down with the Capitol 

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81 Commented

The New York Post focuses on the important things in their articles about Twilight Fan Fiction

Hey Girl (whatcha’ doin’…?) You’re gonna wanna catch up on the controversy of the Twi Fan fiction being published for real and then read this New York Post article before starting this Part 1 of 3 written by a few anonymous fans:

NYP- we could've told you how hot Twi Fan Fiction makes women YEARS ago #oldnews

Dear New York Post,

So I was emailed this article today. You know the one, don’t act coy. You probably think this is about the metric crap-ton of TMI you made us all wade through to get to anything relevant, and granted, sure I now know way too much about random strangers’ sex lives, and thanks for that, really, because everyone knows you can’t possibly promote explore a work of erotic fiction without stressing again and again and again and again how absolutely horny your subjects are.

No, that wasn’t gratuitous at all.

It’s just that I’m a little confused how a journalist is capable of asking women how horny a book has made them, and capable of hearing about it at length, and capable of actually publishing it, and yet said journalist somehow has a difficult time finding out that said work of fiction originated as a fanwork.

Especially when such upstanding journalists have information such as this at their disposal:

In the fall of 2009, she was just another “obsessed” “Twilight” devotee posting BDSM-themed fan fiction online.

Well, to be fair, that’s maybe not much to go on. You have an author, E.L. James, who used to be involved in fanfiction. It’s not like you could just put that into Google and—

 Oh.

Yeah so, it probably would have been kind of smart to inform your readers that those books they’re shelling out ridiculous amounts of money for is actually the former Twilight fanfiction “Master of the Universe” and can be found online anywhere, anytime, as a pretty exact carbon copy (except the characters’ names). You could have mentioned that all this “success” should really be credited to Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight fanbase, seeing as, without us, this novel would have never been published in the first place.

But no. Apparently, this is not relevant information to your reader, and I get that, I do.

Who on earth would want to read about the exploration of any of the following topics relevant to this story?

• FanFiction and the Vanity-Publishing Industry
• Ethics and Literature
• IP Copyright Laws and How to Completely Ignore Their Existence
• Offensive Misrepresentations of BDSM Lifestyles
• Stephenie Meyer Pays Your Bills
• How the Internet Exposes Plagiarism
• One time E.L. James Kind of Wrote a Novel and Three Times She Didn’t Actually Bother

You know what we really want to read about!

• How BDSM makes women like super horny and stuff.

Excellent choice there. The only thing that made this article even more empowering to the very audience you were attempting to target was:

He’s not the only man looking to capitalize on the trilogy.

“A guy friend of mine said he wanted to form a business looking for girls who have ‘just finished the book, before they cool off,’ ” says Brod. 

So… that happened. And thanks for publishing for this, especially, as we all know by now that any journalistic exploration of Twilight and girls and girls liking Twilight and girls enjoying sex or any kink at all, just isn’t complete without a couple creepy dudes being quoted as stressing their desire to capitalize on it in the skeeviest fashion imaginable.

Instead of tackling a very controversial and significant topic, you chose to emphasize women’s sexuality, and you didn’t even do that right? I wish I were more surprised, but frankly terrible journalists made females lose faith in media long before Snow E. Queen L. Icy James Dragon discovered the secret to becoming a real writer:

Step 1. Write Edward and Bella having a lot of bad sex.
Step 2. Wait until it gets popular in the Twilight community.
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit!

The only thing worse than seeing the media fawn over what a complete success story this truthfully badly written series has become, is that you completely fail to mention the source of the popularity, and maybe in  some cases, completely sweep it under the rug. This series isn’t successful because E.L. James is an amazing writer; I think this has been established, even in your coverage. And, news flash: it isn’t even successful because it’s got a lot of sex and offensive misrepresentations of kink.

Let’s not shit ourselves here.

This series is successful because it was introduced to an existing, flourishing audience under the false pretense of a peer to peer relationship with a community devoted to Twilight, Stephenie Meyer, and Edward and Bella—definitely not because E.L. James wrote something so magnificent that all us sex-starved women can’t help ourselves.

To be continued….
Fandom Anonymous

Oh so what do YOU think?

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145 Commented

Twilight Museum coming to Forks?

Dear Forks,

I heard the news! No- not that you’ve realized no year will ever be as good as 2008, but the news that you want to create a Twilight museum! I guess you must still be looking for our phone number because you’d neverstart a museum without our suggestions for what should be in it, right? Of course not. Well, off the top of my head:

May this be in wax lest we never forget

• Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s privacy pre-2009
• That weed pipe Kristen was caught smoking on that stoop
• The notebook with the song lyrics & chords from the Cullen family after-hours jam sessions from Twilight filming
• An Olive Garden take-out container with a fork used by Big Daddy
• The bed sheets where Rob & Kristen first made out (they might cost you and arm & a leg– Cathi’s been trying for the highest bidder for years)
• Michael Oregano
• The spray can from Rob’s airbrushed abs in New Moon
• The old blackberry Moon used to take an illicit Robsten photo with
• A mock Buttcrack Santa grave site
• Taylor’s tears from the Swiftner break-up
• Evidence from an Ashley-Jackson hook up session
• Rob Pattinson’s copy of Midnight Sun that he accidentally left sitting around which went missing 4 years ago

They'll be there

But it gets better— not only are you creating a museum but you’re holding a 3 day 2012 Stephene Meyer Day event (GREAT marketing, btw… with a 3 day Stephenie Meyer DAY event, how COULD she say no!?) including a Twilight-themed festival. And the main event will be a nighttime reenactment of the wedding!!! I can see it now- a bunch of badly dressed goth kids dressed as Bella & Edward sneaking off to do it in the Forks woods. And.. omg– you’re working on securing THE Twilight Film Props collection from Collector John Henson. THERE IS A TWILIGHT FILM PROPS COLLECTOR?? As if this could get any better.

OH BUT IT CAN.

The Target demographic for the museum is…. yep- Woman, aged 30+!!!! After all our years of complaining that NO ONE, the media- the movie studios, the merch makers, gets that the most DEDICATED Twilight fans are us old folks (I mean YOU old folks, I’m holding on to my 20s for one more year thank you very much!!) YOU GET IT! The town of Forks KNOWS it! And I have to assume that’s because they notice that the only people checking into their Bed & Breakfasts are groups of giggly grown women, with the occasional sad, sad man trailing far behind.

But I have to admit. This whole time…. as I’m making fun of you & your new museum & your attempt to bring Stephenie Meyer back to your sleepy town (You did realize I was making fun of you, right?)… who am I kidding? I actually want to visit you.

I want to sit here

Yes, I want to visit your museum & add my ticket stub to my scrapbook

I want to rent a beat up red truck & drive to La push.

I want to sleep in the “Cottage” room at the local bed & breakfast. I want to eat at Bella Italia after running away from some dodgey fellas. I want the mushroom ravioli. Even though I’m sure it’s frozen 10 minutes before it’s served onto my plate.

I want to take my macbook to “The Lodge” and order a big juicy hunk of deer meat only to remember seconds later I’m a vegetarian.

I’d want to pose near Carlisle’s parking spot at the hospital & visit the police station. I’d grab the sherif & buy him a Vitamin R.

And I want to find a big ass tree and make Moon jump on my back for an epic “Spider Monkey” picture.

I AM your target demographic. And I’m coming for you.

Love,
UnintendedChoice

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Would you go to Forks to see the Twilight Museum? If not for the museum… do you still want to o to Forks? Come on! Admit it.. While totally cheesy & done a gazillion times..It would be fun…..!

You may have noticed we’re not posting as regularly. IT’S SO HARD!!! Posting when there is nothing to post about it like…. well, impossible sometimes as you’ve noticed. Don’t worry- we’re not leaving you for good. So don’t expect that announcement anytime soon. We can’t quit you quite yet. But we are going to only post when we have stuff that inspires us (no forcing it) and also some nights we’re well intentioned but real life gets in the way. We have like.. real jobs now. It’s weird. But HEY— we know YOU still have so much to say to Twilight.. so please put those thoughts down on paper & email it to us, won’t you!? XO

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131 Commented