Anti-Spork: The Darkest Hour and Twilight - Chapter 1 Part 1 (Section A)
I rambled too much. I have to do the first PART of the first chapter in multiple sections. I've checked and my anti-sporking is actually longer than the goddamned chapter, which makes me glad that I didn't call it a re-cap. Anyways, I'm going to start sporking soon over on das_sporking, it's an absolutely faschinating community filled with some of the most brilliant sporking I have ever seen. I mean, it's brilliant. It was the place that inspired me to spork in the first place. So, please go over and have a look!
On another note, I have a few fanfics stockpiled in my documents. I know I've posted one fanfic on here before, but what do you guys think? Should I put those up here as well?
Actually, I don't think I should call them fanfics, as they involved a cast full of original characters. I was just using the setting of another fandom...I don't really work with other people's characters. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
Okay, I've ranted enough. Let's get on with the anti-sporking:
Disclaimer: The Darkest Hour is written by Mrs. Hyde, with some input from Das_Mervin, and can be found here: http://das-mervin.livejournal.com/177618.html. I do not own the story and do not claim credit for it. The awful fanfic of The Darkest Hour, named Twilight, is written by Stephenie Meyer, and can be found in your average garbage bin. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this sporking. This is a project undertaken solely for the purpose of entertainment (and oh my, is it entertaining).
Fandom: The Darkest Hour/anti-Twilight
Summary: A conflicted teenager, thrown into unfamiliar circumstances, tries to deal with his new life and abilities, but finds it increasingly hard to do so. As everyone he knows and loves starts moving away from he, he starts to crack.
Rating of Fic: The Darkest Hour is rated R for sexual themes, language, and violence. Twilight is rated R for Rage-Inducing.
Warning for Spork: There is a bit of mild profanity and a lot of vitriol directed at the godawful fanfic that is Twilight, and some discussion of sexual themes.
Anti-Sporkers: Me.
In this…well, month’s anti-sporking, we start the fic proper. I’ll try to cover part one of chapter one today and keep my rambling to a minimum, but you know how things went last time…I still may have to do this in two parts.
This part is almost entirely devoted to setting up Mrs. Hyde’s Edward as a character. Although she declares that this chapter is a deconstruction of Twilight’s Edward, pulling down the canon aspects of his character because they are unrealistic both logically and psychologically, I personally feel that, in the process, almost all of Hyde!Edward’s personality and nature is set up.
In this part, we get to know all of his worries, anxieties, goals, past, fears, beliefs…everything that makes a person who they are. This is quite important, because The Darkest Hour is, in the end, a character study. Though there are antagonists, in a way, the most important battle in this fic is against Edward himself. The conflict comes about because he is who he is, and it is resolved the way it is because of who he is. By setting him up early, Mrs. Hyde allows us to get a good idea of the character and get used to him. By the time the conflict comes into play (in the next part), we would hopefully be able to see him as his own character, instead of being blinded by our presumptions about the canon Edward.
It also allows us to sympathise with the main character. We know him, therefore we relate to him, and relation to a character is central in any kind of story. Because we sympathise, we feel for him, and it is the ultimate goal of any writer to be able to incite the readers to react emotionally to their writing.
Although this part is short, Edward is already developed and rounded into a very layered and complex character. I really don’t think I need to compare this to what Meyer did with her characters.
Basically, I like to think of it this way: Mrs. Hyde is like the anti-Meyer. Where Meyer ruins any character she tries to develop, Mrs. Hyde can take any ruined character and make them into your favourite characters in all literature.
Anyways, let’s start:
A comparative study: The Darkest Hour by Mrs. Hyde and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer:
Carlisle and Esme are having sex.
No, wait! Don’t go! It’s not as bad as it sounds! I swear it’s not!
The depiction is quite mild, since we’re seeing the sex scene through Edward’s point of view, who is seeing it because…well, he’s a mind-reader.
The sex scene here immediately adds a dose of realism to the Twilight universe. You see, married couples tend to have sex. In fact, unmarried couples tend to have sex. That’s what people who have been in a relationship for years tend to do.
Due to Meyer’s delicate sensibilities, sex with your partner is very looked down upon in canon. All of the couples touted as having ‘true love’ engage in nothing more than staring into each other’s eyes. Alice and Jasper, Esme and Carlisle, Kim and that-wolf-whose-name-I-can’t-remember-because-he-isn’t-important-to-the-plot…their love is acknowledged because it’s nice and chaste. The only couple who regularly engage in sex, Rosalie and Emmett, are degraded and their relationship is seen as shallow. But that’s not how it works in real life. Sure, romance and sex are very different concepts, but the fact remains that chasteness is not the be-all and end-all of relationships. People who love each other tend to have sex, like it or not. And yet Meyer absolutely refuses to acknowledge the fact. It’s unclear whether this is a deliberate choice or just subconscious Mormon bias, but the fact remains that it is illogical and unrealistic.
The sex scene here, as well as fish-slapping Meyer, serves another very important purpose: showing us the first downside of mind-reading. Sure, canon!Edward bitches constantly about how annoying his power is, but we never see any of the downsides he mentions in action. And, in fact, it seems that Meyer thinks mind-reading has no downsides apart from mild annoyance. In canon, the ability to read minds has been nothing but an advantage to Edward. We never see it frustrate him, we never see how it negatively affects his life. It’s just a very convenient power that lets Meyer asspull solutions to her sorry excuses for plots. In fact, canon!Edward cannot live without his power.
Hyde!Edward will give up the ability in a heartbeat, and he has a reason to do so. He’s not just bitching about nothing. We are given numerous examples of why mind-reading as a power majorly sucks, and this is the first one, right at the beginning of the chapter: whenever people around him are having sex, he can’t help but, well, listen in. And it’s really awkward in this case, because the people that are having sex are his parents.
Imagine being forced to witness every time you parents have sex, whether you like it or not. Yeah, sucks, doesn’t it?
But it’s even better than that.
You see, Meyer seems to think that people think in monologues. That people literally think the exactly same way we talk. But we don’t. Humans think in concepts, ideas, images, memories, smells, sounds…thinking is not linear, it jumps around and warps in on itself and is general mind-screw to any outsider.
The ability to only read surface thoughts is rather useless because surface thoughts will not be very comprehensible to anyone reading it. I have a rather hyperactive mind, and I regularly think about three or four topics at once, jumping from one to the next, drawing connections that only I can draw, because they are based on my past. I also think in Chinese.
To be a true mind-reader, a degree of empathy is necessary, because so much of our thought process depends on feelings and emotions.
So, not only can Edward hear every thought going through his parents’ heads as they screw each other…he feels it as well.
So, imagine that not only do you have to witness your parents have sex, but you are forced to join in against your will. Yeah, majorly sucks.
Majorly, majorly sucks.
And that is kind of the point.
Whenever you give a character a power or advantage, you have to name a price. You have to give them a disadvantage at the same time, to balance the power. In other words, you can’t hand everything to your character on a silver platter. If in doubt , always make things harder for your characters. Conflict, watching character have to overcome difficulties, after all, is much more satisfying than watching characters indulge in luxuries that they didn’t have to work for. And any prize you give to the characters will be much more rewarding if they had to work hard for it first.
Basically, if a character wants something, then you make a point of never giving it to them unless they have soundly earned it. That is one of the most basic rules of writing.
Mrs. Hyde also takes a bit of her characterisation from Growing Up Cullen, a comedic view of what must happen in the Cullen household. Her Edward is very uptight and prudish. Granted, I doubt anyone would be turned on by their parents having sex, but even in the twenties, a time which he would be alive for even if he had not become a vampire, he still gives a distinct impressive of having come from another time: a time with much more rigid morals - something Meyer has never accomplished in four and a half books, might I mention.
Also, this is an entirely personal reaction, but this little fact made me relate to Hyde!Edward a lot more. I’m a very…uh…prudish person. I understand exactly how Edward feels. Less than three paragraphs in, I’m already relating to him and sympathising with him - also something I have never done in…well, one and a half books of Meyer’s hand.
So, having realised exactly what Esme and Carlisle are doing, Edward resolutely tries to ignore the copulating couple, trying to focus on his book: the Great Gatsby. ‘Fitzgerald, yes, that was what he was thinking about, that - the man had a way with words, without a doubt, and he could see the dissolution festering beneath the wild flamboyance of this mad decade, and Edward was reading, yes, and he was beyond anything else that was going on in this house.’
In one scene at the very start of her fic, Mrs. Hyde shows her skill not only with characterisation, but prose as well. Her prose have a distinct voice, a rambling way of speaking, with frequent interjections, that characterises exactly how panicked and deep in denial Edward is, as well as how tense and nervous the situation makes him. The run on sentence shows us exactly the way he is mentally scrambling after realising exactly what’s going on above his head, and the short phrases, separated by an abundance of commas, show us how urgently he is trying to distract himself.
Here, also, Mrs. Hyde shows us that Edward is a reader without outright telling us. For one thing, Edward actually reads in his spare time, something we have never seen him or Bella do in canon, despite how passionate they are as book-lovers and how desperately Meyer is beating us over the head with the fact that EDWARD AND BELLA ARE OMG SO INTELLIGENT AND SO SUPERIOR TO ALL OF YOU, LOL. Secondly, he is not reading in order to brag. The only time we have seen Bella read is when she literally has nothing else to do, and the way she reads clearly shows that she is not an avid reader at all, contrary to Meyer’s claims. She does not appreciate or even understand the underlying messages and morals in the books. She never comments on Austen’s masterful prose. In fact, all she could focus on, when presented with a brilliant novel, is EDWARD. Here, in a single sentence, Mrs. Hyde shows us that Edward knows Fitzgerald had lovely prose, and that he understood exactly the sort of social commentary Fitzgerald was making.
I…uh…I’m embarrassed to say, but I’ve never actually read the Great Gatsby. I’ve read a few excerpts of it for an English class, but we have a tendency to focus on English literature in Australia. So…I can’t really comment on how accurate his interpretation of the message of the book is…
Anyways, moving on…Mrs. Hyde here draws a very distinct reaction between vampirism and sex. Edward’s body is aroused by force, because he shares sensations with Esme and Carlisle (yes, both of them), and as he gets aroused, ‘He ground his teeth together against his fangs as he felt them try to extend…’ We’ll see this point repeated throughout the book: hunger equals lust and fangs equal penises.
Like I said in my commentary of the author’s notes, Mrs. Hyde does not pull punches. If vampirism is going to be connected to sex (as it has been for the past few centuries), then you might as well go all the way. You cannot effectively neuter your vampires, and then try to connect vampirism to sex (as Meyer did).
Oh, and yes, Mrs. Hyde’s vampires have fangs.
Vampires are predators. Predators are built to kill. Fangs allow them to extract blood more efficiently and quickly. Without fangs, a vampire will have to gnaw an opening in the skin and lick blood up. In the process, a large amount of blood will inevitably be spilled and wasted. Furthermore, in order for ‘venom’ to be injected by gnawing (as in the case of Komodo Dragons), the creatures needs to secrete an abundance of it, meaning that fangless vampires will drool a lot.
What’s even more important is the motive for which Meyer did not give her vampires fangs, despite how sensible it would be: because they don’t look nice.
Despite writing a story about vampires, Meyer has done everything she possibly can to disassociate the creatures she has created from traditional vampires. She has done everything she possibly can to make sure that her creation will not be connected to corpses or murderers. In fact, what she has written is not a race of vampires. It’s a race of gods. She spent 70% of every novel harping on and on about how vampires are perfect, glorious, superior, desirable…to have any kind of physical reminder that they are animals, predators, will be contrary to her goals: creating the ultimate lust object. So she castrated them.
Well, no matter how hard she tries, the fact remains that vampires eat people. Even the beloved Cullens each have a body count of hundreds under their name (except maybe Carlisle, but what he did was even more despicable), and none of them care. Vampire ARE monsters. There’s no going around the issue. MEYER’S vampires are monsters. The fangs here not only strengthen a metaphor, but remove the glamour Twilight has put on vampires, treating them as exactly what they are.
What is also interesting here is the way thoughts, surface thoughts, are portrayed:
‘(Okay, so that’s fifty bucks, good - I can get down there to the pig, Johnny’s there, he’s gotta be there, and he’ll give me some for that, he’s gotta - I’ll pay him all that and let him have me in my ass, he loves that, he’s gotta give me a hit of the smack for that - if he’s still there - what time is it? He has to be there, he can’t have left already, dammit, I gotta hurry - for Christ’s sake, kid, will you just get your rocks off and get out of here!)'
‘(oh so slick and wet yes you want I want touch me touch you)’
Here’s a comparison of how they are portrayed in Midnight Sun:
‘Of course, she’s already crushing on Cullen.’
‘Fat lot of good it will do her. She’s really not even pretty. I don’t know why Eric is staring so much…or Mike.’
‘…wonder what music she likes…maybe I could mention that new CD.’
People do not think in perfect, grammatically correct, complete sentences. People do not think sentences, full stop. People think in concepts and feelings, jumping between topics and threads of thought.
Technically, the long quote is from the next part, but it exemplifies the way people think so well that I had to quote it here. But I think you can see for yourself how the rambling, run-on, slightly incoherent sentence filled with topic jumps and interjections and half-finished thoughts represent what goes through someone’s head a lot better than the pristine, complete sentences of Midnight Sun. That is how people think. At least, as close as prose can get to the way people think.
Anyways, back on topic. Edward is getting more desperate by the second to distract himself. He’s thoughts get frustrated and broken, taking on a bitter note. ‘…he was helpless against the sudden, desperate arousal that had seized him, that seized him every time, no matter how many times he told himself not to, how wrong it all was, how often he swore that he wasn’t going to hear it, that he was stronger than this, that he could get through it.’
We see here that Edward is actually blaming himself for his reactions. This is something Meyer tries to portray in Twilight as well, how Edward thinks of himself as unworthy and have low self-esteem, except she fails, because she can’t write characters that aren’t assholes. Here, Mrs. Hyde shows us that Edward genuinely thinks this is his fault. That he is too weak, instead of Carlisle and Esme being too inconsiderate. That he should be able to control his erection, something that is involuntary in most animals. He blames himself for things that are unrelated to him - we have another facet of his character.
This subtle self-loathing is another pressure that drove him to the breaking point - this constant belief that he is not good enough.
And now, we are presented with a disadvantage of being a vampire - beings described as all but perfect in Twilight - the sensitive senses thing really sucks. He could hear Carlisle and Esme (physically, that is) going at it, ‘every moan and encouragement, and even the whispers of skin against skin.’ Hands up who would like to hears sound like these coming from their parents.
…
I thought so.
Oh, and here’s a disadvantage of un-aging, too - the ultimate goal of the protagonist of Twilight and acquirement of which is treated as the ultimate accomplishment of the protagonist’s life. Edward is seventeen. He is a teenager, in his most sensitive stage of life forever. His hormones are still raging and will be raging forever. Though he is mentally disgusted by Carlisle and Esme’s activity, he is in the body of a teenager. He is going to get aroused whether he likes it or not, even without his empathy.
This dichotomy between mind and body becomes increasingly obvious through this chapter, and the frustrations of having to deal with a child’s body for the rest of eternity, even though he has the mind of an adult, is yet another factor that drove him away from Carlisle.
Whenever Mrs. Hyde introduces a character trait and conflict, it is followed up on. It becomes a constant presence in the fic. Every character trait is there for a reason (basically, the opposite of the Barbie Syndrome). Think about Bella’s ‘clumsiness’, now (what is supposed to be her character flaw). Remember her tripping and falling when she’s running to Edward in the Vatican? Remember her tripping and falling when she’s running away from Alice and Jasper in the first book? Remember it EVER coming up when it wasn’t convenient? That character trait was introduced, but it was only acknowledged when Meyer felt like it. It pops into the book every now and then as a OMG SO HILARIOUS running gag and is ignored when it would actually cause the protagonist (Sue) any discomfort.
Anyways, one of the hardest things for Edward is probably the fact that he shares sensations with Carlisle and Esme. Both of them. In other words, he is forced to know what it feels like to be penetrated in an organ that he does not have by his FATHER.
Hands up any male who wants to know how that feels.
…
I thought so.
Even though we are less than a page into the story, Edward is already being set up as the exactly opposite of what he was in canon. Here, he is the ultimate Butt Monkey, which is a much more amusing character type to read about than Gary Stus. I also have a soft spot for Butt Monkeys, so I guess that’s why I like this fic so much…This also appeals to people who are here not for the reconstruction and just to watch the Twilight Bash. Having Edward suffer satisfies both camps, since suffering is amusing and builds character. Shrewd, Mrs. Hyde.
Edward finally cannot take it anymore (and I have ranted for over three thousand words), and runs. He goes hopping from rooftop to rooftop for four miles, which is kind of awesome. I mean, it’s feels a bit…blurgh after reading Naruto, but, you know, if I had super jumping or something, that would be the way I would travel too. His jumping is actually described as ‘straddle-legged gait’ And you cannot imagine how glad I am to see a Twilight vampire who is not always graceful under any circumstances (well, they’re not exactly Twilight vampires anymore, are they?).
It really don’t make sense for all vampires to automatically be graceful. Grace has to do with coordination. Even if transforming into a vampire automatically enhances your brain so that your coordination improves, the fact remains that your body would have drastically changed during the transformation. It would have become heavier, your limbs are hard and your flesh inflexible, and it seems that the transformation also alters your body shape to be that of the most desirable. Basically, your brain would have to move something around that it never had experience with. For the first few years, at least, you would be stumbling everywhere, because your brain still has no idea how long your legs are.
Really old vampire may have practiced to become graceful, but new borns will NOT be.
Go Forward to: Chapter 1 Part 1, Section B
Go Back to: Author's Notes
On another note, I have a few fanfics stockpiled in my documents. I know I've posted one fanfic on here before, but what do you guys think? Should I put those up here as well?
Actually, I don't think I should call them fanfics, as they involved a cast full of original characters. I was just using the setting of another fandom...I don't really work with other people's characters. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
Okay, I've ranted enough. Let's get on with the anti-sporking:
Disclaimer: The Darkest Hour is written by Mrs. Hyde, with some input from Das_Mervin, and can be found here: http://das-mervin.livejournal.com/177618.html. I do not own the story and do not claim credit for it. The awful fanfic of The Darkest Hour, named Twilight, is written by Stephenie Meyer, and can be found in your average garbage bin. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this sporking. This is a project undertaken solely for the purpose of entertainment (and oh my, is it entertaining).
Fandom: The Darkest Hour/anti-Twilight
Summary: A conflicted teenager, thrown into unfamiliar circumstances, tries to deal with his new life and abilities, but finds it increasingly hard to do so. As everyone he knows and loves starts moving away from he, he starts to crack.
Rating of Fic: The Darkest Hour is rated R for sexual themes, language, and violence. Twilight is rated R for Rage-Inducing.
Warning for Spork: There is a bit of mild profanity and a lot of vitriol directed at the godawful fanfic that is Twilight, and some discussion of sexual themes.
Anti-Sporkers: Me.
In this…well, month’s anti-sporking, we start the fic proper. I’ll try to cover part one of chapter one today and keep my rambling to a minimum, but you know how things went last time…I still may have to do this in two parts.
This part is almost entirely devoted to setting up Mrs. Hyde’s Edward as a character. Although she declares that this chapter is a deconstruction of Twilight’s Edward, pulling down the canon aspects of his character because they are unrealistic both logically and psychologically, I personally feel that, in the process, almost all of Hyde!Edward’s personality and nature is set up.
In this part, we get to know all of his worries, anxieties, goals, past, fears, beliefs…everything that makes a person who they are. This is quite important, because The Darkest Hour is, in the end, a character study. Though there are antagonists, in a way, the most important battle in this fic is against Edward himself. The conflict comes about because he is who he is, and it is resolved the way it is because of who he is. By setting him up early, Mrs. Hyde allows us to get a good idea of the character and get used to him. By the time the conflict comes into play (in the next part), we would hopefully be able to see him as his own character, instead of being blinded by our presumptions about the canon Edward.
It also allows us to sympathise with the main character. We know him, therefore we relate to him, and relation to a character is central in any kind of story. Because we sympathise, we feel for him, and it is the ultimate goal of any writer to be able to incite the readers to react emotionally to their writing.
Although this part is short, Edward is already developed and rounded into a very layered and complex character. I really don’t think I need to compare this to what Meyer did with her characters.
Basically, I like to think of it this way: Mrs. Hyde is like the anti-Meyer. Where Meyer ruins any character she tries to develop, Mrs. Hyde can take any ruined character and make them into your favourite characters in all literature.
Anyways, let’s start:
A comparative study: The Darkest Hour by Mrs. Hyde and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer:
Carlisle and Esme are having sex.
No, wait! Don’t go! It’s not as bad as it sounds! I swear it’s not!
The depiction is quite mild, since we’re seeing the sex scene through Edward’s point of view, who is seeing it because…well, he’s a mind-reader.
The sex scene here immediately adds a dose of realism to the Twilight universe. You see, married couples tend to have sex. In fact, unmarried couples tend to have sex. That’s what people who have been in a relationship for years tend to do.
Due to Meyer’s delicate sensibilities, sex with your partner is very looked down upon in canon. All of the couples touted as having ‘true love’ engage in nothing more than staring into each other’s eyes. Alice and Jasper, Esme and Carlisle, Kim and that-wolf-whose-name-I-can’t-remember-because-he-isn’t-important-to-the-plot…their love is acknowledged because it’s nice and chaste. The only couple who regularly engage in sex, Rosalie and Emmett, are degraded and their relationship is seen as shallow. But that’s not how it works in real life. Sure, romance and sex are very different concepts, but the fact remains that chasteness is not the be-all and end-all of relationships. People who love each other tend to have sex, like it or not. And yet Meyer absolutely refuses to acknowledge the fact. It’s unclear whether this is a deliberate choice or just subconscious Mormon bias, but the fact remains that it is illogical and unrealistic.
The sex scene here, as well as fish-slapping Meyer, serves another very important purpose: showing us the first downside of mind-reading. Sure, canon!Edward bitches constantly about how annoying his power is, but we never see any of the downsides he mentions in action. And, in fact, it seems that Meyer thinks mind-reading has no downsides apart from mild annoyance. In canon, the ability to read minds has been nothing but an advantage to Edward. We never see it frustrate him, we never see how it negatively affects his life. It’s just a very convenient power that lets Meyer asspull solutions to her sorry excuses for plots. In fact, canon!Edward cannot live without his power.
Hyde!Edward will give up the ability in a heartbeat, and he has a reason to do so. He’s not just bitching about nothing. We are given numerous examples of why mind-reading as a power majorly sucks, and this is the first one, right at the beginning of the chapter: whenever people around him are having sex, he can’t help but, well, listen in. And it’s really awkward in this case, because the people that are having sex are his parents.
Imagine being forced to witness every time you parents have sex, whether you like it or not. Yeah, sucks, doesn’t it?
But it’s even better than that.
You see, Meyer seems to think that people think in monologues. That people literally think the exactly same way we talk. But we don’t. Humans think in concepts, ideas, images, memories, smells, sounds…thinking is not linear, it jumps around and warps in on itself and is general mind-screw to any outsider.
The ability to only read surface thoughts is rather useless because surface thoughts will not be very comprehensible to anyone reading it. I have a rather hyperactive mind, and I regularly think about three or four topics at once, jumping from one to the next, drawing connections that only I can draw, because they are based on my past. I also think in Chinese.
To be a true mind-reader, a degree of empathy is necessary, because so much of our thought process depends on feelings and emotions.
So, not only can Edward hear every thought going through his parents’ heads as they screw each other…he feels it as well.
So, imagine that not only do you have to witness your parents have sex, but you are forced to join in against your will. Yeah, majorly sucks.
Majorly, majorly sucks.
And that is kind of the point.
Whenever you give a character a power or advantage, you have to name a price. You have to give them a disadvantage at the same time, to balance the power. In other words, you can’t hand everything to your character on a silver platter. If in doubt , always make things harder for your characters. Conflict, watching character have to overcome difficulties, after all, is much more satisfying than watching characters indulge in luxuries that they didn’t have to work for. And any prize you give to the characters will be much more rewarding if they had to work hard for it first.
Basically, if a character wants something, then you make a point of never giving it to them unless they have soundly earned it. That is one of the most basic rules of writing.
Mrs. Hyde also takes a bit of her characterisation from Growing Up Cullen, a comedic view of what must happen in the Cullen household. Her Edward is very uptight and prudish. Granted, I doubt anyone would be turned on by their parents having sex, but even in the twenties, a time which he would be alive for even if he had not become a vampire, he still gives a distinct impressive of having come from another time: a time with much more rigid morals - something Meyer has never accomplished in four and a half books, might I mention.
Also, this is an entirely personal reaction, but this little fact made me relate to Hyde!Edward a lot more. I’m a very…uh…prudish person. I understand exactly how Edward feels. Less than three paragraphs in, I’m already relating to him and sympathising with him - also something I have never done in…well, one and a half books of Meyer’s hand.
So, having realised exactly what Esme and Carlisle are doing, Edward resolutely tries to ignore the copulating couple, trying to focus on his book: the Great Gatsby. ‘Fitzgerald, yes, that was what he was thinking about, that - the man had a way with words, without a doubt, and he could see the dissolution festering beneath the wild flamboyance of this mad decade, and Edward was reading, yes, and he was beyond anything else that was going on in this house.’
In one scene at the very start of her fic, Mrs. Hyde shows her skill not only with characterisation, but prose as well. Her prose have a distinct voice, a rambling way of speaking, with frequent interjections, that characterises exactly how panicked and deep in denial Edward is, as well as how tense and nervous the situation makes him. The run on sentence shows us exactly the way he is mentally scrambling after realising exactly what’s going on above his head, and the short phrases, separated by an abundance of commas, show us how urgently he is trying to distract himself.
Here, also, Mrs. Hyde shows us that Edward is a reader without outright telling us. For one thing, Edward actually reads in his spare time, something we have never seen him or Bella do in canon, despite how passionate they are as book-lovers and how desperately Meyer is beating us over the head with the fact that EDWARD AND BELLA ARE OMG SO INTELLIGENT AND SO SUPERIOR TO ALL OF YOU, LOL. Secondly, he is not reading in order to brag. The only time we have seen Bella read is when she literally has nothing else to do, and the way she reads clearly shows that she is not an avid reader at all, contrary to Meyer’s claims. She does not appreciate or even understand the underlying messages and morals in the books. She never comments on Austen’s masterful prose. In fact, all she could focus on, when presented with a brilliant novel, is EDWARD. Here, in a single sentence, Mrs. Hyde shows us that Edward knows Fitzgerald had lovely prose, and that he understood exactly the sort of social commentary Fitzgerald was making.
I…uh…I’m embarrassed to say, but I’ve never actually read the Great Gatsby. I’ve read a few excerpts of it for an English class, but we have a tendency to focus on English literature in Australia. So…I can’t really comment on how accurate his interpretation of the message of the book is…
Anyways, moving on…Mrs. Hyde here draws a very distinct reaction between vampirism and sex. Edward’s body is aroused by force, because he shares sensations with Esme and Carlisle (yes, both of them), and as he gets aroused, ‘He ground his teeth together against his fangs as he felt them try to extend…’ We’ll see this point repeated throughout the book: hunger equals lust and fangs equal penises.
Like I said in my commentary of the author’s notes, Mrs. Hyde does not pull punches. If vampirism is going to be connected to sex (as it has been for the past few centuries), then you might as well go all the way. You cannot effectively neuter your vampires, and then try to connect vampirism to sex (as Meyer did).
Oh, and yes, Mrs. Hyde’s vampires have fangs.
Vampires are predators. Predators are built to kill. Fangs allow them to extract blood more efficiently and quickly. Without fangs, a vampire will have to gnaw an opening in the skin and lick blood up. In the process, a large amount of blood will inevitably be spilled and wasted. Furthermore, in order for ‘venom’ to be injected by gnawing (as in the case of Komodo Dragons), the creatures needs to secrete an abundance of it, meaning that fangless vampires will drool a lot.
What’s even more important is the motive for which Meyer did not give her vampires fangs, despite how sensible it would be: because they don’t look nice.
Despite writing a story about vampires, Meyer has done everything she possibly can to disassociate the creatures she has created from traditional vampires. She has done everything she possibly can to make sure that her creation will not be connected to corpses or murderers. In fact, what she has written is not a race of vampires. It’s a race of gods. She spent 70% of every novel harping on and on about how vampires are perfect, glorious, superior, desirable…to have any kind of physical reminder that they are animals, predators, will be contrary to her goals: creating the ultimate lust object. So she castrated them.
Well, no matter how hard she tries, the fact remains that vampires eat people. Even the beloved Cullens each have a body count of hundreds under their name (except maybe Carlisle, but what he did was even more despicable), and none of them care. Vampire ARE monsters. There’s no going around the issue. MEYER’S vampires are monsters. The fangs here not only strengthen a metaphor, but remove the glamour Twilight has put on vampires, treating them as exactly what they are.
What is also interesting here is the way thoughts, surface thoughts, are portrayed:
‘(Okay, so that’s fifty bucks, good - I can get down there to the pig, Johnny’s there, he’s gotta be there, and he’ll give me some for that, he’s gotta - I’ll pay him all that and let him have me in my ass, he loves that, he’s gotta give me a hit of the smack for that - if he’s still there - what time is it? He has to be there, he can’t have left already, dammit, I gotta hurry - for Christ’s sake, kid, will you just get your rocks off and get out of here!)'
‘(oh so slick and wet yes you want I want touch me touch you)’
Here’s a comparison of how they are portrayed in Midnight Sun:
‘Of course, she’s already crushing on Cullen.’
‘Fat lot of good it will do her. She’s really not even pretty. I don’t know why Eric is staring so much…or Mike.’
‘…wonder what music she likes…maybe I could mention that new CD.’
People do not think in perfect, grammatically correct, complete sentences. People do not think sentences, full stop. People think in concepts and feelings, jumping between topics and threads of thought.
Technically, the long quote is from the next part, but it exemplifies the way people think so well that I had to quote it here. But I think you can see for yourself how the rambling, run-on, slightly incoherent sentence filled with topic jumps and interjections and half-finished thoughts represent what goes through someone’s head a lot better than the pristine, complete sentences of Midnight Sun. That is how people think. At least, as close as prose can get to the way people think.
Anyways, back on topic. Edward is getting more desperate by the second to distract himself. He’s thoughts get frustrated and broken, taking on a bitter note. ‘…he was helpless against the sudden, desperate arousal that had seized him, that seized him every time, no matter how many times he told himself not to, how wrong it all was, how often he swore that he wasn’t going to hear it, that he was stronger than this, that he could get through it.’
We see here that Edward is actually blaming himself for his reactions. This is something Meyer tries to portray in Twilight as well, how Edward thinks of himself as unworthy and have low self-esteem, except she fails, because she can’t write characters that aren’t assholes. Here, Mrs. Hyde shows us that Edward genuinely thinks this is his fault. That he is too weak, instead of Carlisle and Esme being too inconsiderate. That he should be able to control his erection, something that is involuntary in most animals. He blames himself for things that are unrelated to him - we have another facet of his character.
This subtle self-loathing is another pressure that drove him to the breaking point - this constant belief that he is not good enough.
And now, we are presented with a disadvantage of being a vampire - beings described as all but perfect in Twilight - the sensitive senses thing really sucks. He could hear Carlisle and Esme (physically, that is) going at it, ‘every moan and encouragement, and even the whispers of skin against skin.’ Hands up who would like to hears sound like these coming from their parents.
…
I thought so.
Oh, and here’s a disadvantage of un-aging, too - the ultimate goal of the protagonist of Twilight and acquirement of which is treated as the ultimate accomplishment of the protagonist’s life. Edward is seventeen. He is a teenager, in his most sensitive stage of life forever. His hormones are still raging and will be raging forever. Though he is mentally disgusted by Carlisle and Esme’s activity, he is in the body of a teenager. He is going to get aroused whether he likes it or not, even without his empathy.
This dichotomy between mind and body becomes increasingly obvious through this chapter, and the frustrations of having to deal with a child’s body for the rest of eternity, even though he has the mind of an adult, is yet another factor that drove him away from Carlisle.
Whenever Mrs. Hyde introduces a character trait and conflict, it is followed up on. It becomes a constant presence in the fic. Every character trait is there for a reason (basically, the opposite of the Barbie Syndrome). Think about Bella’s ‘clumsiness’, now (what is supposed to be her character flaw). Remember her tripping and falling when she’s running to Edward in the Vatican? Remember her tripping and falling when she’s running away from Alice and Jasper in the first book? Remember it EVER coming up when it wasn’t convenient? That character trait was introduced, but it was only acknowledged when Meyer felt like it. It pops into the book every now and then as a OMG SO HILARIOUS running gag and is ignored when it would actually cause the protagonist (Sue) any discomfort.
Anyways, one of the hardest things for Edward is probably the fact that he shares sensations with Carlisle and Esme. Both of them. In other words, he is forced to know what it feels like to be penetrated in an organ that he does not have by his FATHER.
Hands up any male who wants to know how that feels.
…
I thought so.
Even though we are less than a page into the story, Edward is already being set up as the exactly opposite of what he was in canon. Here, he is the ultimate Butt Monkey, which is a much more amusing character type to read about than Gary Stus. I also have a soft spot for Butt Monkeys, so I guess that’s why I like this fic so much…This also appeals to people who are here not for the reconstruction and just to watch the Twilight Bash. Having Edward suffer satisfies both camps, since suffering is amusing and builds character. Shrewd, Mrs. Hyde.
Edward finally cannot take it anymore (and I have ranted for over three thousand words), and runs. He goes hopping from rooftop to rooftop for four miles, which is kind of awesome. I mean, it’s feels a bit…blurgh after reading Naruto, but, you know, if I had super jumping or something, that would be the way I would travel too. His jumping is actually described as ‘straddle-legged gait’ And you cannot imagine how glad I am to see a Twilight vampire who is not always graceful under any circumstances (well, they’re not exactly Twilight vampires anymore, are they?).
It really don’t make sense for all vampires to automatically be graceful. Grace has to do with coordination. Even if transforming into a vampire automatically enhances your brain so that your coordination improves, the fact remains that your body would have drastically changed during the transformation. It would have become heavier, your limbs are hard and your flesh inflexible, and it seems that the transformation also alters your body shape to be that of the most desirable. Basically, your brain would have to move something around that it never had experience with. For the first few years, at least, you would be stumbling everywhere, because your brain still has no idea how long your legs are.
Really old vampire may have practiced to become graceful, but new borns will NOT be.
Go Forward to: Chapter 1 Part 1, Section B
Go Back to: Author's Notes