Coincidence? I think not.

This weekend, instead of working on my English project (memorizing a 10-minute scene from Crime and Punishment to perform in front of my classmates, who will undoubtedly be bored and drooling), I decided to read Twilight. Fortuitously enough--or not; it may simply be an augur of unpleased gods--guess what showed up on xkcd today? http://xkcd.com/591/

Before you all kill me (or hug me to death, depending on which of my friends you are), it was a spur-of-the-moment decision that had been haunting me for a while. Ever since catching a snippet of the movie , I've been wondering exactly what made those fangirls scream every time the dude--the dude--appeared on the screen. How could a simple novel incite those teenybopper fangirls to produce high-decible noises outside the pitch of human hearing?

No, I have not become a fangirl. Fampire. Phanpyre (that one actually looks cool. Maybe I'll adopt it for my new username somewhere). I have not randomly fallen in love with Pattinson, nor do I find Taylor Lautner any cuter than I already did. Thus, my experience proves that Twilight is not magical and does not have any subliminal messages encoded into the text, or panels of addictive scents sewn into the bindings. It is nothing more than a teen phenomenon. 

I did read the entire series--3.5 books in 2 days, and 4 in 3. I was...rather unimpressed. Meyer knows how to write, but I do wish that she had picked a different topic. The first book, as many complain about, describes to death (no pun intended) how hot Edward is. Fine. I get it. I don't really care. But I was astonished at how many ways she came up with to reiterate that fact, as there really wasn't anything repeated -- other than "the smooth flat planes of his chest." Unfortunately, that one has been brought up about 20 times. Argh. I'm chugging through the last one (still avoiding memorizing those lines--no one cares about Zametov, anyway :( ) but becoming more and more unimpressed as I continue. I find it a bit predictable--no, very predictable. Then again, at this age, I have been exposed to so many storylines and TV sitcoms that I have a horrible habit of knowing what is going to happen next, rather like a rabbit with well-tuned intuition. Or a freak with wikipedia at her fingertips. There are still some stories out there that shock me, like One Piece. 

Speaking of which, I'd like to display a bit of a conversation between me and Quail last week.

Hawk: "Epic One Piece is epic."

Hawk: "Epic Naruto is...~makes face~"

Quail: "Fail. Epic Naruto is fail."

Come on, Kishi, we know you have it in you >_>.

I never did get around to my half.com story, so I can save that for another time.