FanFiction and Twilight: Do we or Don’t we

Confession found on PostSecret.blogspot.com (click)

Dear Twilight,

I’ve learned a lot because of you.  I know that despite not having a real celebrity crush for 25 years of my life, it just took a book about vampires & an attractive male lead to bring out my inner teenager. I learned that people other than my geeky cousin can find friends on the Internet & that most some people aren’t weirdos. And I learned what in the world FanFiction was. That’s right- up until we started LTT & LTR I had never even heard of Fan Fiction.

I know you’ve probably been wondering why Moon or I have never discussed FFic on LTT. We’re grown-women. We say bad words & talk about naughty things- why aren’t we openly discussing how turned on we get when Jasper makes Bella feel attracted to him and then they get it on while Edward and Esme do it in the kitchen after he reads her mind and sees that him preparing a morning omelet makes her hot? Welllll…I’m kinda ashamed. And for a long time I pushed it off even thought we were getting emails with FF links sent to us on a daily basis. Then finally, after reading Breaking Dawn my 3rd time through and getting frustrated w/ SMeyer’s Fade to Black, I looked up some good ol’ Isle Esme FanFic. And man, was it good! It’s my “thing” that I do when a TwiVirgin finishes the series. I send her an e-mail with the link and a simple “You’re welcome.” No explanation. They thank me. Always.

Now words like “Wide awake,” “lemons,” “unicorn,” and “Domward” are regular parts of my vocabulary. Seriously. Oftentimes 10 times a day I’ll yell, “DOMWARD, I’m Wide Awake & I want some lemony unicorns.” No I don’t. And I’ve probably read a total of 3 FF since my initial jump into non-fade to black territory (and started and never finished countless others). I think most (not all) FanFiction is horribly written, most is incredibly cheesy, most say “unconditionally & irrevocably” way too often, and most are a waste of time. But the select few I’ve read that meet my strict “This Twilight FanFic better not suck” guidelines have been amazing. And I don’t regret reading them (even though I’m still ashamed.)

I’m not going to review the FanFic I have read- there are plenty of other sites for that. I’m not even really going to tell you what I have read cuz it’s not really important, but I am going to explore the FanFic phenomenon with the help of some amazing LTT readers.

After the jump, check out the survey I did with: Brooke, Mrs. P, Veddersgirl, Kristin, Too_Far_gone, Marta, Gozde, Vickyb, Jbell, Southfriend and Moon PLUS some special FanFic thoughts from two girls anti FanFic: janetrigs & limeslice

Rachelle Lefevre out as Victoria and we want to know WHY?

Dear Summit-

We have one question for you: WHY?

We’ve never written you a letter before, but I think it’s time to break our silence. Now that we’ve read both the personal statement from Rachelle, your Press Release sighting “scheduling conflicts,” and now the 2nd press release sighting another film, we’d like to know the REAL REASON WHY the character of Victoria was recast. With only one film left to go in Victoria’s character arc, this is one of the biggest surprise moves you could have pulled (and at the 11th hour we might add.)

Now don’t immediately write us off as some simpering fansite looking for something to write about. We know the entertainment business is a fickle and mean bitch. Deals are created, moves are made, everything’s political, believe me: we KNOW! We both have worked and continue to work in entertainment and understand stuff happens schedules conflict, contract options don’t get picked up, and there are ALWAYS two sides to every story, but that’s not what happened here. It is clear from both your statement and Rachelle’s that she was screwed. She admits a scheduling conflict that you were trying to work through it and says she would have dropped the movie Barney’s Version if she had known her role as Victoria was going to be recast. So the question remains and we want to know, WHY?

Follow the cut to see our full letter and some of our guesses as to why…

Twilight Word Vomit: A TwiVomit

Dear Twilight,

So much has been going on lately and I’m having Twilight overload in my brain and all the processing my mind is doing of the new information is coming out in the form of a major word vomit- A Twi-vomit if you will:

1.   Twilight Google

Finally!  I’ve been looking for the perfect place to learn how to have sex with vampires. My search is now over! A perfectly useless web search “powered by google” but worse than google is the answer! (I did a quick calculation and if you figure $10 for the domain registration, plus the hosting fees & all the time it took to create, I’d say this was a waste of time and a waste of a the perfect amount of money for which one could buy 3 – 3 1/2 cupcakes.)

2.   Rachelle hugs a Rob pillow

Hi. You’re gorgeous. I wish we could be friends. And secondly, that Rob pillow? That’s brilliant. I love the irony in you holding it tight. The only thing that would have been more amazing is if Rob had held it. Or no- Kristen- If they shot Kristen kissing the Rob pillow- Brilliant.

3.   Kellan- The RastifariaHobo

Dude! Moon didn’t share this piece of info with you all during her Comic-Con recap because she had “pacifico regret,” but she sent me a picture of a guy she danced with to Thriller on the dance floor of the Irish pub and later played tonsil hockey with outside of the bar*, AND IT WAS THIS GUY! Kellan dressed-up!!!!!!!! I mean.. I think. The picture she sent had a guy like this.. uh, his hair may have been longer… and he wasn’t in a thrift-store looking peacoat… and his ski cap was kinda different. Oh never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything….

4.   Stephen Moyer from True Blood calls Edward Cullen a “pussy” (and he doesn’t mean a cat)

Um. I love you Bill Compton, I do. But I love Edward Cullen more. Cuz Edward doesn’t do it with his girl after climbing naked out of a hole in the ground. Edward doesn’t sleep in the ground. Edward doesn’t sleep. And wait! The whole point of this word vomit was to talk about how LAMMMEEEE it is that people are comparing True Blood and Twilight and asking Stephen Moyer what he thinks of Edward Cullen in the first place. They are NOT the same. Twilight is NOT a vampire story. I don’t even like vampires! So Stephen, I heart you as Bill, and Rob, I heart you as Rob (oh and as Edward). End of story.

5. The new Volturi picture leaked

And I’m not posting it but have instead included this cartoon of the Volturi that looks like a Weasley twin, two Snapes & a Malfoy for your viewing pleasure (you can see the real photo here) If you want to know my real opinion on the Volturi (of course you do) I’m lovin’ it. No… I didn’t get out my copy of New Moon (because I’m going to hear Bobby Long perform tonight in Philly and I have it packed for him to sign) to check and see if they look anything like Stephenie’s descriptions because, gosh, I don’t care that much! I just want them to look scary to increase my viewing experience- AND THEY DO! Moon thinks Marcus looks like “death personified” while I think he looks a little like “Count Von Count” from Sesame Street (who scared the crap out of me when I was a child- so good job, Summit!) Moon thinks that Aro looks sooo much like Legolas’ uncle from Lord of the Rings and Alec looks like a kid in her neighborhood she wants to punch. I agreed with The Danger Magnet’s comparision of Alec and Zac Efron- Vampfron we’ll call him. And no one can deny that Caius is clearly the ghey vampire. And I’m shocked- Jane looks amazing. I thought she’d pull it off, but not that well! Great job Chris Weitz! Another thing I’m in love with you for: CountVamp, ElvenVamp, Vampfron, GayVamp and HotUnderageVamp!

6. Bryce Dallas Howard to replace Rachelle Lefevre as Victoria

Moon & I may have heard a rumor due to a facebook friend earlier yesterday that a new actress was going to play the role of “Victoria” in Twilight. We thought, “Um, that’s odd. Since Rachelle is Victoria.” But not so much. Bryce Dallas Howard is apparently taking over the role of Victoria for Eclipse.  “They” say that Rachelle has a scheduling conflict, but I’m gonna bet $5 that she’s preggers. Because nobody and I mean nobody does a Paul Giamatti movie over a Robert Pattinson movie**

Vomit over,
UnintendedChoice

*false
**sarcasm

Did Moon blow your mind over on LTR today? I bet she did

Talk about Rachelle’s possible ‘baby bump’ over on The Forum

Thanks for Lauren from Lauren’s Bite for inspiring this word vomit-style blog post x

Praying and Fasting: For a better New Moon

Dear intelligent LTT readers who know better than to love a Young Adult novel & its poorly made movie adaptation but love it anyway,

Comic Con is over. We saw the new clip. We’ve seen the new pictures. The official website is up, and so New Moon time is ON.  It’s time we start our “Fasting & Praying for a better New Moon” which is a phrase we borrowed from our friend Lula who is doing a similar concept with her Twi-pals.

You’ve heard us say it countless times- We love Stephenie Meyer & the world she created. We love Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Edward & (some of us) love Kristen as Bella, but a LOT about Twilight the movie just plain BLEW.  Buttcrack Santa? Thank you Melissa Rosenberg for writing him in because he’s my favorite character to make fun of, but really? Oh gosh, you’ve all read our blog- I don’t need to keep going- you know what we hated about the movie.

I saw Twilight 5 times in the theaters and have watched the DVD 3 times now (once with the commentary- I know! That’s nothing) and each time I watch it the more embarrassed I am that I spent over $50 at the movie theaters (plus all the money I spent on popcorn- b/c I can’t see a movie without out- seriously. Even if I just had popcorn for dinner, I’d still get popcorn in the theater)

We recently got this email from an LTT reader

Dear Melissa Rosenberg,

Twilight was a joke movie. I love Twilight and have seen it 800,000 times because (of Rob) of my love for the books, but to be honest, it’s a really terrible, second-hand embarrassing movie. The first time I watched it, I had not read the books yet, and I walked out. Of course, after I read the books I went back and watched it 3 more times in theaters. I had been contemplating whether New Moon would be just as…lame for lack of better words, or would it actually live up to it’s explosive hype? Of course, it doesn’t matter, it will still make bazillions in the box office, Twihards around the world, including myself, will watch it multiple times in theaters. But with the AMAZING trailer and all the set videos and visit reports, will the movie end up being an actual good movie that humans beyond the Twiworld would be able to enjoy? I have been pondering this question for awhile, and I had high hopes, because of new direction, a bigger budget, and Rob. But then I remembered. Yes, the director has been replaced (love the coug, but my, my was the directing terrible), and the stunts and make up will actually look professional this time around, but I’m sorry, the worst part about the movie was…THE SCRIPT. It was all your fault. Well not all, but you play a big role in why Twilight was unintentionally hilarious. The dialogue was SO incredibly cheesedick. Come on, “How you likin’ da rain grrrrrrrrl?” It’s not ‘hip’ to talk like that anymore. Nor was it ever. “Any cold…wet…thing…” Really? REALLY? You couldn’t come up with something better to respond to how ‘shez likin da rain?’ And why does Edward HAVE to show Bella he’s sparkly after she says it…OUTLOUD (that made Edward sound like a douche btw). Oh dear, MelMel, you really butchered it. See, because of you, not only do Twihards get made fun of for liking the books, but they are REALLY looked down upon for liking the movie. You should be ashamed of yourself. I really, really hope you watched Twilight yourself, realized how much you assraped the script, and wrote a less parody-like screenplay for New Moon. Stop smokin’ da herb grrrrrrl. Thanks.

Love,
me.

MelMel: At fault? Or another victim of Cathy Hardy's wacky ways?

So I have to ask. Was it the script? I think that was a huge contributing factor.  So our first prayer & first object of fasting is for “MelMel,” as the email writer called her, to step it up a notch & lay off the ‘suck’ with the New Moon script.

I think she can do it. I mean, she’s got a pretty impressive resume up on imdb. She wrote for Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman for gosh sakes! I wanted to do Sully before I even knew what ‘doing’ meant. But seriously, she’s written for The OC, which like it or love it, is a brilliantly written show, and she is currently a writer for Dexter. I’ve only seen a few episodes and they’re creepily awesome, but it’s one of Moon’s favorite shows and she agrees that the writing is very creative & well-done.

So she’s obviously experienced, although those 3 shows I mentioned (yes, I wasn’t kidding about Dr. Quinn) are all TV shows, and I understand the process is different for TV versus film. Moon argues that she thinks ‘the cougar” (aka Hardy- Catherine Hardwicke) may have had a lot to do with botching the script & added some of those cheeseball lines we all cringe to hear. Admit it- the first month or two you made excuses for those lame lines like “LA Push it’s… La Push” and “Purple’s cool” saying they were “cute” and ‘just a few high school kids playing around.” But by now, we’re over making excuses- we admit it- those lines sucked big time. Did “MelMel” write them in? Or was it Hardy’s fault?

I don’t know and I doubt we ever will.  All I know is that it’s Monday night at 9:51 pm and I just had myself a cupcake (of course), a glass of wine (fine 4 glasses), half a bag of pirate’s booty, some pasta, shrimp fried rice & an apple because my fast starts tomorrow and I’m not going to eat much from now until November.  And I’m holding my eyes opened in preparation for them being closed in a three and 1/2 month prayer that MelMel figured out a way to best write the script so that Chris Weitz can represent those empty pages with just the names of the months listed when Bella is barely surviving visually and beautifully so that not a single sound is heard in any theater across the globe on November 20 other than the sound of heart-broken, sobbing Unicorns & women.

Only 114 more days until I can eat again,
UnintendedChoice

What do you think? Did Melissa Rosenberg have a lot to do with Twilight’s issues? Are you worried about her involvement with New Moon?

Fun Fact: I drafted this post days ago, and when I went into it last night to do a final edit & schedule for today, I noticed I called the screenwriter: Melissa ROBsenberg

Moon loves Rob. And wrote him something special on LTR
The Forum loves you. Go love it back

Storytime with Moon – Comic Con in review

Dear LTT-ers

As you all know Thursday I was able to attend the 2nd coming of Jesus, aka the New Moon panel at Comic Con and I have a little (ok, it’s quite long) story to share with you! So that means it’s story time with Moon!

Sit back relax grab your poison of choice (mine’s a diet coke as the CC folks learned) and let’s get to it!

XO
Moon

Once the news came out that there would in fact be a New Moon panel and presentation at Comic Con the California LTT/LTR gals KNEW we had to be there, come hell or high water. And trust, there was a lot of hell and a lot of high water. But finally tickets were secured and plans made for several groups of Cali gals to converge on Comic Con last Thursday…

Making up part of the LA/OC group Chelsea and I headed down to San Diego Wednesday afternoon to meet up with our SD gals to plot, plan and scheme how we would make this happen. By Wednesday morning there were already reports of 100-ish Twihards in line and by the time we reached San Diego that evening a reported 500 were now in line. So we jumped in the car with VickyB and headed down to scope out our competition…

The sign pointed us towards heaven on earth

An impromptu little tent city of Twihards set up on the outside of Hall H. Since we knew there was no point in waiting in line over night at this point and in all honesty we didn’t want to (we just wanted to be in the room not in the front row), we honked and continued on in search of food and good times

Since we were going to be seeing Rob the next day we first stopped off to get some slutty outfits for our Comic Con Preparedness Kits. No Cullen crest or Team Jacob shirts for us. It was hooker lucite heels, cootchie cutter shorts and whips that we were looking for!

Let me tell you the rest of the story… after the cut!

New Moon Music we’re freaking out about

Dear Music-loving Twihards,

Moon & I are music freaks. We met at music school, we send each other mixes all the time (and by “we” I mean Moon sends me mixes). We both have music business degrees, and we have both worked in the music industry at one point in our lives.  So needless to say, music is really important to us- especially when it involves things we love, like the New Moon Soundtrack.

Add to the list of things we love about Chris Weitz, it sounds like he has kick-ass music taste.  We read that he’s confirmed Thom Yorke from Radiohead on the soundtrack as well as Bon Iver (my fav artist of 2008- please learn how to pronounce his name so I don’t get 2nd-hand embarrassed “BONE-EE-VAIR”). Moon & my friendship really blossomed in the days while we were obsessing over Adam Brody on the OC, and we can’t mention Adam Brody/Seth Cohen without mentioning Death Cab for Cutie who is rumored to have a track on the soundtrack as well.

We’re psyched.

Today, enjoy the music. Maybe you know it Or Maybe it’s new. This isn’t about the videos. You don’t even have to watch them- just push play and let the music fill your soul. This is about the amazing artists that we’re so exicted to hear in New Moon:

Bon Iver

Skinny Love

Actually watch this vid. I got goosebumps. So appropriate. Song is called Woods

This vid has a :34 sec intro- push through it. The song is called Bloodbank

Death Cab & Radiohead after the jump!

STRIPWARD Lives

Dear Twilight,

I never thought writing a blog that obsessed over a young adult novel about vampires would one day lead me into a chat room where a man would strip while me and other fans of said novel and blog whistled, cat called and virtually shoved dollar bills into his pants. To say I am thankful and not sure how anyone could top this would be downplaying it.

All names and identities will remain concealed but he will forever be known as STRIPWARD!

Shyly he introduced himself to us. We think he’s definitely Team Jacob.

Not so shy after all!

Then we moved to the interview portion of the show as we asked him questions pertaining to dumpsters, his stance on raybans and button flys and whether or not he should be wearing socks.

Somewhere, today, I’m sure Stripward is crying naked in the bathtub in the fetal position after meeting us but we love you and don’t feel wrong about something that feels so right!

Special thanks to all the ladies who shared this moment together! You know who you are and I love you!

Yes my friends it has been a remarkable week in my own personal Twilight world. Stay tuned on Monday I will bring you my Comic Con letter/review/general fangirlness!

Pour some sugar on him me!
Themoonisdown

PS He’s no StripWard but he’ll always be our RobWard… read a letter to our main man at Letters to Rob!

Chat over the weekend and order your own Stripward at The Forum!

Comic Con 2009 – Moon’s mini story

Dear Ltt-ers, Twihards, and Comic Con attendees-

It’s officially 130 in the am west coast we’ve been up since 6, we’ve seen Rob in the flesh, we died a little, we saw exclusive clips, we swooned, we thought “he’s only 17,” Kristen passed the dutchie on the left hand side and then the night ended on the highest of highs. Oh you don’t know? You must not be following us on Twitter…

So in lieu of a full recap (which I will do tomorrow) I’ll leave you with a little teaser and say how much the LTT/LTR Comic Con constituency appreciated your support, your news and your enthusiasm. We had a blast and wish we could have shared it with ALL OF YOU!

So without further adieu and before I pass out I give you…
 
A video is worth a thousand words…

Kristen talks about being Bella in New Moon

Watch out for that contact high 

The many faces of Rob in his new plaid shirt
 
Try not to die too hard at 1:00

Oh and here’s a little gift from me to you…

You got it sister! 

So friends I’m off and I will be back very soon to give you the full scoop… until then don’t miss out on what we learned about Rob during Comic Con at Letters to Rob!

XO 
Themoonisdown

Discuss it all over at the forum!

ComicCon info (as we get it)

And it’s over. Moon saw shirtless Edward. I want to die of jealousy.  I miss Moon. I miss Shirtless Edward.  UC is OUT for the evening- keep checking our Twitter as Moon is going to one of the Twilight showings & cast members are supposedly showing up!

Twicrack has some awesome coverage. Visit her for vids & pics n’ stuff

Moon just tweeted & accidentally called Rob “Ron” Love it

Moon is Twitpic-ing up a storm. See her pictures here

Hot Dog (From CullenBoysAnonymous

RobPattzNews from Twitter posted this

Moon’s first pic. SO bad. Yet SO GOOD. cuz she’s there!

(This is Chris, Rob, Ashley, Taylor, Chris)

Rumors are Rob won’t be at panel. Someone please tell me it isn’t so! (it isnt’ so! yay!)

*So far I can’t see video- but G4TV has a live blog

Panel starts at 1:45 PT: Try the following streams:

• Ustream
• G4TV
• Dread Central

One of our friends @ashleyfrag is driving down to San Diego from LA and is driving behind Nikki Reed (which makes me think Nikki isn’t on the bus w/ Christian & Rachelle and the other “Cast”) Hmm… drama with Nikki & ALL the cast?

Read the rumors on Twitter & now Moon is saying there are whispers about it in H hall, but Johnny Depp should be there soon for the Alice & Wonderland panel. Bitch. 2 hot guys. 1 day. And I’m stuck at work. FML

ET Online is showing the press conference now: ETONLINE

Vid from Comic-Con:

From the one, the only Robsessed

Moon & Friends are in H Hall- Disney panel up first. They have great seats (seriously? That wasn’t that hard, was it? No need to camp out!)

Other great pics from attendee Robert Pattinson Who

Source

Panel Streams: Time 4:45 ET/1:45 PT (rumor is that streams will be banned- we’ll see!)

• Ustream
• G4TV
• Dread Central

Press Conference OVER: And to be honest, from what I read (live feed never worked) it was kinda Lame.  And there’s only one grainy pic of Rob available. Calli tweeted this:

CalliopeBlabs for good press conference recap check out: tweets of @twisource @celebuzz @ontheredcarpet & http://bit.ly/pt6AW

Only picture I’ve seen so far:

phone pic from @twisource- they promise others!

Rumor is that t here will be no live feeds at 1:45 PT for the panel, but there have been claims of some:

• Dread Central

Don’t forget to follow Moon & her travels on Twitter!

Old News

Press conference at 9:30 PT here:  Press Conference Going on NOW! *psst.. Live feed isnt’ working for anyone  😦 Mine is going in and out (that’s what she said)

Follow @celebuzz who is live tweeting the press conference

HitFix is updating their site every few minutes too: HitFix

Pic from Press Conference (no word on Rob’s level of hottness yet- BOO) Picture

Enjoy some of the LTT/LTR crew waiting to get into H Hall:

Making my Comic Con list and checking it twice! Gonna find out if New Moon is naughty or nice!

Ready or not, here we come!

Update: Moon really IS at ComicCon and she will really live tweet it. We’ll probably do an ongoing post here too. So check back lovies!

Dear Twilight cast and Comic Con attendees-

I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with our daily letters here and over at LTR so you know I’m going to be at Comic Con today to try and see you all. I’ve heard about the craziness from last year, people camping out, people screaming, the uber embarrassing ‘boxers or briefs’ question, yea I heard it all so I’ve been trying to prepare myself for the inevitable 2nd hand embarrassment I will have to endure and many moments of 2nd guessing the decision to go. But ya know what, I wouldn’t trade it for the world! Who else will be able to say they clawed and faught their way through hordes of Pattinson pants, Princess Leia’s or knocked out a kid in a YugeeOh costume and punched his dad, Spiderman? Oh the stories I will probably be able to tell… So to prepare for this momentous occasion I’ve created my Comic Con Preparedness Kit just like Homeland Security. They would be so proud!  So here we go…

My Comic Con 2009 Kit

These are the nerds I will be punching

• Paper bag –  if I get “the vapers” or someone around me looks like they’re going to pass out, we’ll use this for hyperventilation
• Xanax – for when Rob shows up and for when he doesn’t (hit it!). Bring whole bottle to pass out to Twihards so they will STFU with the screaming for 5 seconds
• Slutty shirt – there won’t be any Cullen crests gracing these boobs
• Power Bars and Energy Gel packets – This is an all day affair and we can’t be passing out BEFORE Rob even shows up. And of course we’re going to need energy for the “after” events. Uh huh.
• Camel Pack Hydration System – See now most people would use this for water. We’re going to eskew normality and go ahead and fill this up with some Grey Goose. Trust! Doing shots in the 50th row of chairs while Peter Facinelli talks about Carlisle’s scarves will RULE
• Steel toe boots – for the aforementioned kicking of costumed nerd ass

This guy too. Don't get in between me and the Cullens

• Rollie bag containing: Wedding dress, veil, hot roller set, Ring Bearer, Aqua Net, copy of Bella’s Engagement ring, Tuxedo in size 32 long. You know, just in case
• Ear plugs – Uh duh

So are you can see folks we are ready to rock this Comic Con or punch someone out. Either way we’ll be trying our darndest to get in the middle of the action and bring you Live Tweeting, Live Blogging, pics, video, and Rob’s undying love and affection. All for you!

Lacing up my steel toes
Themoonisdown

PS Make sure you’re following us on Twitter for up to the minute reports as they happen! Oh and if you’ll be there I would love to see you! I’ll be the one in an exact replica of Bella’s wedding gown with a Camel Pack of vodka on.

Letters to Rob
The Forum