#reasoningwithvampires

[schistcity]

English is a veritable buffet of words. Don't be content to sit around eating a tub of butter.

actually really good writing advice, via reasoningwithvampires

[whenerintakesalitclass]

The Bane of my Existence, Part One

My first experience with Twilight was in the 8th grade. I tore through it in one night. I thought it was an absolutely amazing book and that the romance between Bella and Edward was beautiful. Then I got older. And realized how completely messed up Twilight is.  Seriously. It makes my brain just go "Nope! Done! I can't handle the stupidity, misogyny, and bad writing in this book. It's too much. Just can't do it. I quit." First of all, Bella as a heroine is boring, mean, and whiny. She whines about everything in the book: weather, her father, her room, the library, the classes, people being nice to her. For real. She gets pissed off, because people are nice to her and try to show her around of her first day. Mike offers to show her to her next class and he's suddenly "over helpful". Nothing is ever good enough for Bella. There's always something to complain about.  Furthermore, I believe that Edward as a hero is damaging to young girls. He's rude, mean, and abusive. He acts like a jerk when Bella starts asking completely rational questions and like there's something wrong with her. No matter what, it's Bella'a fault. Even the fact that he can't exert self-control and stay away from her is Bella's fault. And yet, he's portrayed as a perfect being and the guy every girl should aspire to attain. I can't stand this novel at all. I've literally been sitting in my room yelling at the book. 

There are two ways I get through this novel:

1) Mark Reads Twilight 

It's chapter-by-chapter reviews. Mark is absolutely hilarious and brings some very important criticism to the table. I read his review after every chapter. It gives me a break and allows me to laugh about the awful things I just read.

2) Reasoning with Vampires

This is more for the grammar and writing nerds. It basically breaks down the Twilight series by sentence or paragraph and edits the grammar. It also points out some serious flaws within the characters and the plot itself. It's wonderful and I encourage you to check it out. 

[vanesa]

If I look through the pages of my followers, you are on the very last page, which means you were among my first followers. In the beginning, I had more time and I could look at the tumblrs of people following me, and I liked the stuff you posted. At the moment, I'm only following 62 tumblrs. I'm not following you by accident and I don't have enough patience with the universe to tolerate an exploding dashboard of crap. So, I guess what I'm saying is I like what you post, and I have for awhile. <3

I actually wondered why you were still following me this whole time, so thank you very much for telling me! :) 

[neornithes]

[...]We are limited by the tips of our tongues when we speak. Our minds get clouded by anger and love, too much to drink, not enough sleep, and feeling every feeling all at once. The page is still. The page waits for you to calm down. The page holds that blurry thought while you squint at the edges, holds it until you know just how to laminate that event/emotion/entity with words and punctuation. The page can wait for hundreds of years to be read, so it’s not too much to ask that an author takes the time to write it right, instead of just right now.

Dana of Reasoning with Vampires, who is brilliant.

[operation-critique-blog]

Reasoning With Vampires: a Moment of Appreciation

In the autumn semester of 2012, I was in Professor Ryan Cordell's Literary Criticism: Technology of Text course at Northeastern University. It was a digital humanities introductory course pretending to be a literary criticism course, and I enjoyed every second of my time learning about how the Internet and literature have a closer relationship than I previously considered. The final project for this class included an essay about a particular aspect of digital humanities, and I chose to focus on critical response on the Internet. My project was titled "Twilight, Pleasure Fiction, and Criticism: A Troubling Text, a Developing Genre, and an Internet Community" and it focused on Twilight as a catalyst for critical response on the Internet. I chose this topic because I have a personal, passionate dislike for the Twilight series, and I've noticed that other people on the Internet do as well. One particular user, a girl who goes by Dana, runs a tumblr called reasoningwithvampires that is dedicated to deconstructing Stephenie Meyer's novels through intensely close readings of the texts. A great gripe amongst anti-fans of Meyer's work is how poorly-written her books are, and Dana uses direct scans of the books themselves to demonstrate this aspect:

Dana also uses sentence tree diagrams and syntactical analysis to further show the poor quality of Meyer's popular books:

Dana's discourse on the 104-and-counting pages of her tumblr could be dismissed as semantic and overly critical, but I personally agree wholeheartedly with Dana and the rationale behind reasoningwithvampires. Poor characterization, bad plotting, and a general lack of care for the use of English are major features of Meyer's texts, and as someone who has grudgingly read all of her work I take great issue with the popularity of Twilight—something deep in my prescriptivist heart riles at the butchery that is Meyer's body of work, and it raises my hackles even further to know that these books are extremely popular all over the world and spawning spinoffs that gain an equal amount of popularity (I am glaring directly at Fifty Shades of Grey here). This is my opinion, of course, and I cling to it tightly, but I was relieved and thoroughly excited when I found Dana's tumblr. reasoningwithvampires is one perfect example of tumblr being utilized as a channel for critical response and discussion. Dana takes an often-humorous and sarcastic angle in her discourse, but the facts are nonetheless evident in her posts and it's difficult to argue with her analysis because she does use direct scans of the book pages.  Dana's tumblr is also wonderfully exemplar of people using tumblr for things that they think are important:

reasoningwithvampires exists because at least one person thinks that this work is important, and the 528 notes on the above post denote that at least several others agree. Dana spends so much time with these texts that she and I both hate because she finds it important and necessary to demonstrate exactly why they are so bad and how they can affect our perception of language, and she has the ability to do so in a public space. It's not fandom so much as it is anti-fan discourse, but the critical response that Dana puts forth is important on the Internet simply because it is important to her.  This is what is so exciting to me about the Internet: it is a direct and public way of expanding upon and exploring human interest and passion. The discussion and analysis that Dana posts on reasoningwithvampires is an example of passion for language and good usage made material and public, archived and organized for easy browsing and learning. I learn something new about language, usage, grammar, or syntax every time I check out reasoningwithvampires, and that's part of what I love about tumblr: for the hundreds of thousands of image-centric scroll-through blogs, there exist corners of the site like Dana's that are great examples of passionate discourse and participation, sites where learning can take place in a casual setting. Tumblr also changes the medium in which such discussion and learning happen. Dana's posts are a mix of textual image and textual commentary, and her juxtaposition of the book pages with her colorful analysis would not be nearly as smooth or effective in another medium. It would seem that tumblr is an ideal outlet for passion like Dana's: it provides freedom of formatting that leads to creativity from users and thus to such collections of critical response on the Internet. 

[thefaeborn]

If you're like me, you're not a champion of the Twilight series. We all have our reasons, for either liking or disliking it. I'm not here to judge. Dana doesn't judge, either. What she does do is pick apart the literary prowess (or lack thereof) of the Twilight novels. If you count yourself as a "Twihard", I would recommend avoiding her blog. You won't like what you see. If, on the other hand, you get a kick out of snarky and intelligent critique of some infamous books, check her blog out. I've been sitting up most of the night, reading her archives, and I can not stop laughing.

[shit-my-friends-do]

Mrs. Vasil is fully aware of Tumblr and today, referenced reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com in conversation. 

So, she's officially all of our favorites, correct? 

NO PEER PRESSURE! I AM MY OWN PERSON! DR. LEUNG ALL THE WAY

[roguesareth]

Why Twilight vampires are not lame ( even though I hate those books)

Now, I hate Twilight as much as the next person, possibley more, however I HAVE read the books, I know why they sparkle, and while I think its stupid, it does not automatically make the wimpy.

Twilight vampires sparkle because their skin has hardened into a stone like substance ( you can actually compare this to the older vampires in Anne Rices mythology) its why when you rip one of their limbs off, they shatter.

Now, and I say this begrudgingly, Twilight vampires are actually kind of….well, fucking strong.

The only way to kill one is to rip it to pieces and burn it. And only other vampires, or maybe werewolves would have the strength to do so. If you don’t burn the pieces they will reform back into the vampire ( Kind of like with other vampires, that if you don’t sever the head, and cut up and burn the heart they can come back. But unlik those vampires, twilight vampires can not be killed by humans) a stake to the heart isn’t going to cut it with these vamps, or even severing their heads.

They are neigh impossible to kill.

And, aside from Edwards lame ass family and their emotional abuse enabling, Some of the vampires are actually pretty cool. The ones that are like, rawr I’m a motherfuckin’ vampire. ( Victoria, Laurent, James ect)

Now, the book is horribly written, ( actually badly writtenm, as proved by reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com ) and glorifies abusive relationships, and most of the characters ar fucking lame and the main vampires are just awful. But the design of the vampires themselves, how they work, is actually not that bad. If that mythos had been written by anyone else ( literally, anyone) it would have been badass.