Read on Twitter
Okay y’all weren’t STANS though. Y’all don’t remember the DRAMA over this book a decade ago.
Twilight: A Twitter Thread History
Stephenie Meyer, a white conservative Mormon in Phoenix, claims she dreamed about a teenage boy who was sparkling who was admitting to be a vampire and a teenage girl who loves her.
Stephenie Meyer, a white conservative Mormon in Phoenix, claims she dreamed about a teenage boy who was sparkling who was admitting to be a vampire and a teenage girl who loves her.
That’s all either bullshit or exactly on brand for a Mormon housewife. I really cannot decide.
Anyway she started writing “the dream” while she was pregnant and then a new mom who never got any sleep because Mormon and since those bitches can’t even drink caffeine, she...wrote a novel.
(She was horny. Been there, without the babies!)
(She was horny. Been there, without the babies!)
She titled it “Forks” and sent it to agents and it got picked up and it got published as “Twilight.” They thought it was going to be nbd. And it was nbd for a while. So Stephenie got pregnant again (lol) and wrote a book called “Forever Dawn.” It was the rest of “Twilight.”
“Forever Dawn” was a fucking disaster that was basically porn for Mormon housewives that also had pro-life values. Edward impregnated Bella, they had the hybrid child, it goes on for years as they raise this child. She claims she “gifted it to her sister” who “kept asking for it”
Then “True Blood” came along, and vampires were hot, and Little Brown capitalized on marketing Twilight, and boom baby, she had a deal for sequel and a threequel!
So she sent “Forever Dawn” to her editor and her editor was like LMFAO WHAT IS THIS TRASH. BELLA CANNOT HAVE A BABY.
So she sent “Forever Dawn” to her editor and her editor was like LMFAO WHAT IS THIS TRASH. BELLA CANNOT HAVE A BABY.
So her editor picked it apart and noticed the character Jacob Black, who was supposed to be a nobody. And she followed the trope in YA of creating a love triangle...
So Jacob would become a werewolf and compete for Bella’s love interests. After being mentioned in passing 3x lol
So Jacob would become a werewolf and compete for Bella’s love interests. After being mentioned in passing 3x lol
So somehow the only way they could pull off a love triangle scenario was to push Edward out for the sequel, “New Moon.” Questionable and controversial choice! But it began! The great and hallowed war between Team Edward and Team Jacob!
Awww fuck. Look at that merchandise sell itself! Let’s make the threequel resolve the love triangle! SELL ALL THE MERCH! “Eclipse” is released, and Bella chooses to marry Edward...after the book ends.
C’mon, Steph, you can’t leave us hanging!
C’mon, Steph, you can’t leave us hanging!
And aren’t we lucky that movie studios came a-knocking at this time? First she entertained a pitch from MTV Studios, but she described their take on “Twilight” as “secret agent vampires on jet skis.” She sold it to Summit, and it created the movie “Twilight.”
The world shook.
The world shook.
Suddenly we had three more movies and one more book!!! OH MY GOSH WHAT HAPPENS IN THE LAST BOOK? DOES SHE MARRY EDWARD? DOES HE TURN HER INTO A VAMPIRE? DOES SHE GO BACK TO JACOB? WHAT ABOUT THAT WEIRD ITALIAN VAMPIRE VATICAN SHE MADE UP THAT WAS SUSPICIOUSLY ANTI-CATHOLIC?
And this lady was making so many people so many millions of dollars, she could do whatever she wanted.
So she told her editor “Bella is going to have a baby.”
And she wrote the longest fucking multi-POV anti-abortion propaganda testimonial you have ever fucking read.
So she told her editor “Bella is going to have a baby.”
And she wrote the longest fucking multi-POV anti-abortion propaganda testimonial you have ever fucking read.
PLEASE NOTE: the woman who was scared to write about a teenage girl’s period for three whole ass books suddenly wrote a scene in which Bella is so committed to keeping her terminal pregnancy that the baby is RESCUED VIA C SECTION VIA VAMPIRE TEETH. Rippin’ through that uterus!
And her editor had ALL the questions but whatever, Stephanie Meyer just created trust funds for the editor’s children, the editor didn’t give a FUCK.
So that’s the book we got! “Breaking Dawn”! And the movies WERE NOT THAT BAD until “Breaking Dawn” which was so fucking bizarre that they handed it to Bill Condon, whose claim to fame was directing “Dreamgirls,” and oh my god the CGI baby and RPattz chewing through KStew’s uterus
And Bill Condon ruined the last redeeming factor of the movies, which were the soundtracks. So we were really getting ready to say goodbye to the franchise. Who cared anymore. The Hunger Games and Divergent were hot!
BUT—somewhere in this very long and expensive journey, probably when the first movie was released—Stephenie Meyer freaked the FUCK out on her website because SUPPOSEDLY she had been working on a manuscript from Edward’s POV. Called “Midnight Sun.”
She had this weird ass story of how it landed in the trash can of some hair salon? And it was leaked online. And she threw a fucking FIT, claiming to be violated and shit. Which, fair! I downloaded it and it was definitely her writing! It was real!
But it was all too convenient!
But it was all too convenient!
Yes, I was 15 years old and making up conspiracy theories about “Twilight.”
I predicted that she would release it when the series flamed out or when she need money...and now that we’ve reached the ten year anniversary of peak Twilight fever...her boys are headed to college!
I predicted that she would release it when the series flamed out or when she need money...and now that we’ve reached the ten year anniversary of peak Twilight fever...her boys are headed to college!
So, queue “Midnight Sun.” I wish I could pull up all the message board threads in which I predicted this under the name Sarah Cullen LMAO.
Y’all don’t know, though. Fans RALLIED for her and her “privacy.” Wanting “Midnight Sun” or not wanting “Midnight Sun” was like a litmus test for loyalty. Girls got tattoos for this dumb book that she was always going to release. People talked about killing themselves online.
Truly the Wild West of Tumblr
Also every Twilight book is inspired by a literary classic
Because Stephenie Meyer has a degree in English Literature from...you guessed it...BYU
Twilight: The biblical creation story
New Moon: Romeo & Juliet
Eclipse: Wuthering Heights
Breaking Dawn: Merchant of Venice
Because Stephenie Meyer has a degree in English Literature from...you guessed it...BYU
Twilight: The biblical creation story
New Moon: Romeo & Juliet
Eclipse: Wuthering Heights
Breaking Dawn: Merchant of Venice
It’s Pride & Prejudice for “Midnight Sun.” I know that because I downloaded that shit on my school’s computer and printed it for free in my journalism class.
There’s a whole scene where Edward wonders how he once found Bella “plain,” and in Pride and Prejudice, Darcy has a nearly identical realization, with the exact same word
ALSO THERE IS THIS WHOLE COMMUNITY OF CONSPIRACY THEORISTS that are basically a Venn Diagram of Twilight stans and Roswell stans and they have a convincing theory that Stephenie Meyer wrote “Forks” as Roswell fanfiction. I never dug into that because those are some weird fandoms
Anyway. Twilight gave us Robert Pattinson, a very talented actor who has taken very interesting roles with elite directors lately. And it gave us 50 Shades of Grey, which convinced all men that all women like to be choked, and I’ll never forgive y’all for that one.
I can also provide a crash course in how KStew pretended to be a straight woman to sell the Twilight movies and RPattz pretended to give a fuck about her and how it all fucked up their lives back when news shows had the bandwidth to interview actors. Before...we elected...that.
isn’t it ironic
This is the craziest part. The media painted him as a victim and Kristen as a sex-crazed homewrecker. When in fact he was fucking everyone in Hollywood, she was going through some identity shit, and he was the one protecting her secret from the fans? Wild https://twitter.com/realsjb/status/1257490176596639745?s=21 https://twitter.com/RealSJB/status/1257490176596639745
He did a good job supporting his coworker, though, even if he had to go into hiding for it
I feel like this was when tabloid culture died for me. Oh my god, how I DROOLED over spottings of Kristen and Rob. And staged paparazzi pics to signal that they were working on things, and then that they were over. Blah blah blah. Nothing would ever be juicier so I tuned out.
This was such a big deal that Jon Stewart had Robert Pattinson on his show to eat Ben & Jerry’s to prove to fans that he was alive. 
I miss what pop culture used to be!!!
I miss what pop culture used to be!!!
Also fandom detectives found Kristen’s finsta before we had a word for it and had proof that she was fucking women. But Robsten had to uphold the hetero illusion for the suburban moms who paid for tickets and merchandise. It was all such a strange time. https://twitter.com/realsjb/status/1257492145658789889?s=21 https://twitter.com/RealSJB/status/1257492145658789889
