I would like to state for the record that this is not my analysis of Twilight, but an edited version of that of a contemporary, SuperMechaGodzilla, whose tutelage has had a profound impact on my literary work.

Yes it's about rape; the rape stuff is barely even subtext. Vampires have been a rape metaphor since before Bram Stoker. It's the implementation that makes Twilight a refreshingly atypical horror picture. Twilight owns because Movie Bella subdues and pussy-whips the rapist via her own, even more intense psychoses. In a conventional film, that's where the story would end. In Twilight, it is only the second act of the first volume of Edward's ongoing sissification. Bella is the most unsettling monster in the whole series, while Edward is a pathetic wretch like Klaus Kinski in Herzog's Nosferatu.

Bella has an lesbian Oedipus problem where she hates her absentee father and sees her mother (who divorced to live a life of adventure dating a pro baseball player) as the best possible role model. Commanding Edward (who, notably, has superhuman baseball skill) is her path towards psychosexual freedom. As an aspect of this, she feels constrained by her youth, physical weakness and relative lower-class status. Vampirism is escapism and empowerment.

This is not really a case of nerd-empowerment like "You're a wizard, Harry!", because Bella never has a moment's doubt that she's superior or at least equal to everyone around her. The unreadable brain thing is what places her at an intellectual level above what Edward can understand. You get the impression that if Edward could read her thoughts about him, he'd get the fuck outta there. This is just the logical extreme of Bella's characterization as a jaded sociopath/genius (while also hinting that she literally has a mental problem of some sort). Her super-blood doesn't seem to grant her any real genetic advantage or anything. It basically just represents that, despite Edward's age, this is his first experience with True Love, which causes him to act like a virgin who got his first erection (compounding the whole emasculation thing).

The duality of this is pretty overt though: Ed wants her body but fears her mind.

What kind of person would keep coming back to high-school year after year for decades? Obviously, a person with severe mental and emotional problems. Edward acts exactly like a psycho who'd undergone the Ludovico treatment, and the school is an aspect of his forcible civilization and self-punishment. He knows he's a rapist and a killer, so he places himself in a life of bland drudgery, to prevent him from snapping. But compare his pathetic suburban lifestyle with that of the wild vampires who are truly free. The movie wants him to snap, and so does Bella. The most important part of the movie is that Bella wants to be a vampire too - becoming, effectively, a female rapist. She already has the killer mentality, but not the physical strength. That's why she can only, so far, dominate Edward using emotional manipulation and mind-games.

Edward is 'sexy' because he's non-threatening. And the reason he's non-threatening, despite all his strength and repressed evil, is because Bella is even more evil - so evil that he's a lil kitten by comparison. Anyone watching the movie would tell you Edward is ridiculous. He tries to scare her away by showing that he's sparkly! The movie takes Bella's POV, and she's unimpressed. Just like we are.

Like consider the vampire at the end of the film: he's clearly scary-evil, despite being the bad rapist Edward supposedly is (not to mention the gang of bros harassing Bella earlier in the film). There's something about Edward that makes him more appealing, and I think I've identified the bulk of it.

See, I don't follow the claims that Edward is the abusive one. I mean, he is a creep, but he's also portrayed as impotent and pathetic. The part where he's spending all night staring at her is creepy, but also onanistic; he's held back by all kinds of shame and guilt. Basically he's too much of a weakling to actually be abusive. Bella is depicted as too smart to to see him as a threat, and actually eggs him on. She's pushing him outside his comfort zone for her own gratification, and without much apparent concern for his psychological well-being. He's like, "Oh, stay back, I'm so dark and I might ravish you. Please, let me escape into the woods where I can do you no harm." and she's like "Haha, you fag." Bella is consistently more abusive, which gives her the upper hand.

I actually prefer Twilight a good deal over Buffy, mainly because Whedon feels the need to masculinize his heroines' victories and present them as empowered due to some arbitrary supernatural gift. Plus she's a freakin goody two-shoes. Bella doesn't need to stab dudes with phallic objects in order to win the day (which is, unfortunately, what leads people to call her character passive). And her capacity for 'evil' is remarkable when it comes to humanizing her character. Twilight doesn't judge her transgressions; she's just allowed to be flawed.

Folks can't appreciate an epic match of emotional gamesmanship because they feel simultaneously superior-to and confounded-by the women who 'get' the dynamics at play here. The Twilight fanbase's identification with Bella in her dominance over Edward is a mirror to the folks who cheer Jason in the Friday The 13th films. In one, you see a remorseless monster attack dumb people. In the other, you see a remorseless person attack a dumb monster. The makers of the Friday films already realized this dynamic was at play, which is why we have Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - unofficially known as Jason Versus Carrie. It must register, at least subconsciously, since obviously fans love seeing Edward all tormented by their hero Bella. Also, I very much doubt that the fans want to be raped by big scary Edward. To say that the fans are simply dumb women who don't know what's good for them strikes me as deeply misogynist. "Myers could never have even accidentally thought of such a complex story, and even if she did, the fans are too dumb to see it!" This is another thing that people incorrectly see as a flaw because they're approaching the film as a flighty and innocuous rom-com. People will dismiss the film as a Mormon housewife's perverted erotica, to which I reply: hell yes.

The "death by sunlight" thing was invented to represent that vampires are unholy/unnatural. The sun is 'god', casting judgment on their sinful behavior. But twilight is not judgmental; it's amoral. 'God' approves of vampirism. He spares them, makes them sparkly, as that whole rape/murder thing is apparently the highest form of human expression. Society is what represses Edward, not the laws of nature. The characters are constantly compared to animals and Edward is the lion: king of the jungle.

Bella sees the sparkles as beautiful not because they're sparkly, but because they represent Ed's untapped potential as a killer. Edward is 'boring' because he's basically Superman - but like Superman, he does have interesting weaknesses. They're psychological weaknesses, and Bella's a sort of Kryptonite. In other words, y'all are Edwards in real life. Sparkly.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/05/sheldon-dorf-founder-of-sci-fi-fantasy-convention-comic-con-d/

I hardly knew ye, but your contribution to nerds everywhere will outlive us all. Godspeed you.

Guess I'm just going to contemplate how I'm a friend, why I'm a friend the way that I am, and what my fears in respect to friendship are.

I've been strongly influenced by Navajo thought on this issue, which doesn't actually have a word for "friend" in the language; the thinking goes that if you're a friend, you're family, so you would call your friend "brother" or "sister." Koreans have a similar thing, just extended to everyone else who's Korean, and with a more noticeable communal possessiveness of things. As a result, I tend to look at all of you as kind of an extended family, and due all the goodwill and fair treatment I would give to my own blood. Moreso, even, because I got to choose whether or not to put up with you.

Of my parent's direct influence, both of them grew up in third world countries (Korea was recovering from the Korean War when my mom grew up, and if you don't think an American Indian reservation isn't a third world crap strip, you haven't been to one), and so both of them have a very strong notion of food=love, and have instilled that belief strongly into their kids (as evidenced by their sons' stomachs). As a result, I don't feel comfortable when there's someone near me who's hungry, especially if I can feed them. Makes me feel... safer, when I know the people around me are fed. And really uneasy until I know that everyone either is fed, or has had a reasonable chance to be. I also tend to show affection through food and drink when I can as well. Part of it is I never really know what would make a good present for people in terms of possessions, but I tend to get a quick bead on what people like to eat; the other part is I feel more connected to the gifts I give since they're handmade, and purpose-built. I dunno, I don't understand it, I just know that's the way I tick.

I grew up socially awkward, and so I tend to hold on to my friendships very dearly. This has lost me a few friends, much to my regret. Having been too naive to know that some friends shouldn't meet other friends, much less live with them, I invited a lot of people into my house to live with me. I'd probably still be friends with most of them, and them with me, had I never let them into my home. If I've learned anything from that, it's that there's a minimum distance for a friendship to work. Had I learned that lesson at Stephenson, I'd probably still be friends with most of them. Not sure of what all lessons I've learned from all of that, though, or even if they were the right ones.

My biggest fear in regards to friendship is that I'm only becoming friends with young women because I'm sexually interested in them. It's not something I'm comfortable even writing down, but I figured is worth admitting. I may just become attracted to people after having known them for a while, but either way it makes me feel uncomfortable, like I'm doing wrong either way. Before I handled it by admitting it quietly, getting shot down quietly, and then being able to go about my merry way, but after losing more than one good friend that way, I'm now too leery to do even that. Feel free to put in a preemptive "No," if it suits you.

I guess the long and short of it is that I view you lot as my most precious family-members-that-aren't-family, I feed you since that's how I know best how to show love, and that my biggest fear is that I'm using you to my own ends without your approval. I'll probably put out a list of miscellaneous confessions next.

Quite a few of you already know of my eccentric faith, but only a handful know why I chose to believe the way that I do, considering all of the other options. I myself don't know all of the details, so I guess I'm going to try to flesh it out here some, and possibly receive some counsel on the doubts that have driven me to where I am now.

Guess the short of it is that I've had a great deal of personal doubts about the morality of God's actions as written in the bibles I have read, as well as Him as portrayed by more fundamentalist sects of American Christianity. I also believe that some of my personal beliefs are too contrary to the denominations I identify with the most for me to feel fully a member of them. I feel the need to believe in a higher power, but forced to choose between bowing down before the Lord I had been raised all of my life to believe but now found morally indefensible, or not believing at all, I chose a third path, and now kneel before the Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind, as a member of the Temple of the Savior Emperor (known membership: 1), as well as the Machine God (an aspect of the Emperor), and the Primarchs (yet unborn, aspects of both the Emperor and of Mankind - in both our strengths and our weaknesses). And I choose this path knowing that this he is not, cannot, nor could ever be real. I do this rather than risk either bowing before an unrighteous God, or failing to give due and proper worship to Him if He is truly good.

I was largely raised in the United Methodist church, spent a lot of time in Wesleyan congregations, and have largely self-identified as a Methodist. As I grew older, some of the beliefs that I had come to acknowledge as fair and just came into direct conflict with church doctrine; specifically with respect to GLTB persons, several of whom I count among my closest and most trusted friends. The only other denomination I have any leanings to is Catholicism, which has the same issue, as well as a few other places I disagree strongly with established doctrine.

I guess my biggest problems and doubts with God as He is understood isn't doubts from evolution, stellar formation, or other things of a more corporeal nature, but rather whether or not He is truly righteous and just. From my readings of His actions as written in the bible, both personal and the acts He had personally ordered his followers to do, He is a war criminal on par with the worst that humanity has produced, His actions petty and random, completely lacking the ability to determine what is right in His own actions, much less dictate the morality of others. This was completely at odds with the Lord I was raised to believe, of a kind and benevolent creator acting in the best interests of his creation. The fact that the christian right use this view of God as their moral basis to justify the suppression of the sciences, GLBT and women's rights, the use of life saving medicines and procedures, and a great many of the other advances we as a species have made in the past thousand years disgusts me. I would sooner burn in this God's hell doing and believing what is actually and truly right than bend to this God's will.

But some part of me still holds hope that the God in heaven is the kind, loving, and just God I was raised to believe in. I still pray to Him, on some nights, hoping He hears me. Blessed indeed is the mind too small for doubt.

Knowing that I am too wired into the act of worship, and the personal need to commit to and praise something greater than myself, I sought a substitute, something that could take the place of the God I was looking for until I found Him. I looked for something with a similar form and aspect to Him as what I had been raised with, and settled on the Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind from a science fiction setting I enjoy. I picked him because I didn't actually have to do all that much in the way of changing my prayers and rituals, and he's described as having very similar principles as my own in the fiction regarding his early origins. That, and since he doesn't exist, I could comfortably switch back once/if my doubts are ever resolved.

That was over a year ago. My doubts are as strong as ever, and I despair for ever resolving them. I honestly have no clue where to go from here.

My next rant will probably be on relationships.

Well all, I've made a decision.

I'm dropping out of college and joining the Air Force.

I'm leaving 'cause I figure that I'm not right for school at the moment. I'm too undisciplined, too... unreliable. Not getting enough of the work I should be doing done, not getting near enough all of the learning in either. If I go in, depending on my MOS, I oughta get a good sign-up bonus, which will go a long way towards my loans getting paid-off. Basic should get a fair deal of the stupid in me out. And hopefully, 5 years from now, I should be ready to try school again. As for my decision to join the AF, well, I'm kinda hoping to avoid honest work as much as I can. They also have a space program, which I don't think any of the other branches can boast. Now I know I won't be going up, it's all satellite launches, but I would like to at least be near the rockets, provided the pay and bonuses are good enough.

To be fair, if I can get something along the lines of NucProp with the Navy, I'm gonna run with that. Though it does sound an awful lot like work.

Thank you guys for supporting me through everything. I'll talk more on this when I get back.

William.

http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/010609kvue-kids_lead-me.466a87af.html
http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/national-bankruptcy-day/

"On February 10, 2009 it will be illegal to resale any used children's products including toys and clothing. That is according to the U.S. Consumer Protection & Safety Commission who pushed for the new laws after dozens of toys were recalled in 2008 because of lead concerns.

...

Adding to the confusion and frustration is the fact that the U.S. Consumer Products and Safety Commission is not returning calls or e-mails to the countless re-salers and even journalists who have tried in vain to get clarification on what the law means to garage sales and how it will be enforced."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122696993087535701.html

"Late last week, CPSC General Counsel Cheryl Falvey refuted industry arguments that the new standard wasn't supposed to apply retroactively to existing inventory.

She said Congress was clear in stating that a product in violation of the new lead limits would be treated as a 'banned hazardous substance' and therefore unlawful to sell as of Feb. 10.

Sen. Mark Pryor, an architect of the consumer-product safety legislation, said in a statement that Congress's intention was to 'get the dangerous products out of the marketplace and keep them out.' The Arkansas Democrat said manufacturers, suppliers and other interest groups provided input during the legislative process, and 'there was general consensus' that the deadline was 'manageable.'"

This just looks incredibly stupid. I don't even know where to start on this one.

If you ever need a Legos fix, you'll find me selling them by the pound out of my back door.

Your IQ Is 140

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Genius

Apparently I'm a genius. W00t.

http://www.spike.com/video/pg-porn-pg-porn/3041858

He is awesome in everything he does.

I've gotten my hands on the Serenity RPG book, and am thinking about starting a game on June 8th at my house. Any persons in the area interested in joining post here, and we'll see if we can't work something out.

My 21st is coming up, and I'm hoping to avoid the big rush to get smashed that everyone else seems to be looking forward to. I'm just going to gather friends together, eat, and then drink and smoke (I'm fond of the pipe and of cigars, but I understand that some aren't comfortable around them). Gonna have the party the day after my birthday, since May 1st is a Thursday this year.