Entry tags:

authors, books that should be burned, can't escape the screencaps, creator wank, fan rage, fandom: twilight, i see stupid people, illegality, internet lawyers, lawyerism, mary sues, omgwtf, religion, spoilers- noooo! you bitch! you bitch!!!, think of the fictional children, wanking inside the house, whut, writers are often pompous douches

Epilogue Wank, Twilight Style
Mucho gracias to the folks over on wank_report. AND A SPOILER WARNING WITH EXTRA SPARKLES FOR TWILIGHT FANS. I suggest Twilight fans who actually care that much about being spoiled avoid this post like the plague.

With the upcoming release of Breaking Dawn, the final installment of the Twilight series that has fans breaking out in hives for its August 2nd release, possible spoilers have begun to be leaked all over the net (which also concerns an epilogue- is anyone else getting deja vu or is it just me?). Not only that, but Stephenie Meyer was unable to contain her bursting excitement and has leaked a very, very special spoiler. CUE SHIPPING WANK FROM STAGE RIGHT! Some people are pleased. Others are not pleased, not only with Meyer but the tone of the article.

ETA2: The Yahoo!Answers thread was deleted, but I was able to cap the first page of comments from the tab I had opened. [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11]

ETA: Fixed the tag on the last link. Sorry, folks.
ETA3: A support request was entered by someone claiming to be from a law firm, claiming to represent the publishing group with a pretty much standard letter that has been going around like a strain of herpes to people leaking the book or even discussing spoilers (julian_black explains exactly why here). I don't think intellectual property laws work that way.

July 28, 2008

BY E-MAIL:

Re: BREAKING DAWN by Stephenie Meyer (the “Intellectual Property”) –
Unauthorized Posting

Dear Site Administrator:

I am authorized to act on behalf of the author, Stephenie Meyer, the owner of copyright in the Intellectual Property, and Hachette Book Group USA, Inc., the exclusive US publisher of the Intellectual Property (collectively, the "IP Owner"). I have a good faith belief that the individual who posted the material on the site listed below may have had unauthorized access, directly or indirectly, to the Intellectual Property which has not yet been published and is embargoed until August 2, 2008. Accordingly, we hereby request that you please remove and/or disable access to the materials located on your website at:

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1170411.html#cutid1

http://www.journalfen.net/community/wank_report/518.html?page=42comments

Sincerely,

s/RR

Other posts concerning the leaks can be found here and a twilight_news (thanks to hooloovoo_too). Possible confirmation of some of the spoilers has also sparked more wank over here.

There's some more fun over at ontd (the macros start on page 2). The OP itself only concerns the movie, but that doesn't stop people from wanking over the spoilers.

ETA4: system is love.

As previously pointed out, no material from this author was posted on our site; the breaking of the embargo on this book did not take place on this site. I will not prevent our users from discussing what had been posted elsewhere or from posting links to other sites where the information was originally disclosed.

Besides which, is the fact that we did not enter into an embargo agreement regarding this book.

I'm sympathetic to your client's plight and to the possible economic repercussions of someone having leaked contents of your client's material before it was supposed to have been available.

However, I am not pleased by the drive-by intimidation tactic intended to make us believe we had any sort of legal obligation to remove specific posts and content from our site. The request was obviously ill-informed, as well, since the only content on this site relating to your client's book is discussion of elements of the book that were posted elsewhere. Our site does not have the most flattering discussion with regard to your client's material, but such is the way with opinions, and I will not interfere with my users' rights to express them.

And there's now been blurry confirmation on spoilers (thanks to miraba).

ETA5: Ok, guys, lay off the Mormons or I'm going to have to ask you to get out of the pool. I really, really, REALLY hate to quote mcity but plz no Mormon bashing. Let's have some class.

ETA6: SMeyer allegedly wrote a parody version of Breaking Dawn according to this EW article (thanks to greenconverses).

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

julian_black
2008-08-04 06:03 am UTC (link)

There's a discussion at Amazon.com about how disgruntled Twilight fans should let the publisher and SMeyer know how dissatisfied they are by returning their unwanted copies of BD, instead of burning them or giving them away. It's full of tasty, tasty wank, but there is also anecdata provided by a couple of people who returned their books:

Just got back from Borders, where they took back my book with no problem. Got into a discussion with the cashier about how I was the 15th(!!!) person to bring my book back today. Seems like many customers felt that SM was not true to her characters and her self created Twilight world, and are calling foul.

And:

I returned mine to borders as well, and there was quite a stack of them in the return pile.

There are several other people on that thread who are returning their books in the next day or two, and a couple of Twihards who are accusing the book-returners of thievery--how dare they return a book just because ~~it failed to live up to the publisher's hype and the author's promise that they would be happy with it~~ they didn't like it?! Plus, an admonition to remember that SMeyer reads the Amazon boards, and is no doubt a sad panda at seeing her book being trashed so thoroughly. WON'T YOU THINK OF STEPHENIE MEYER?

Fun times....

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cleolinda 2008-08-04 06:07 am UTC (link)
	You know, if the LA Times was willing to give actual space to the EW cover controversy, I can't imagine they'd let this slide... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

julian_black
2008-08-04 06:21 am UTC (link)

It's going to be really interesting to see how many copies of BD get returned. Given the level of dissatisfaction I've seen from fans, and the fact that bookstores are already getting heavy returns, this could be a huge deal.

I almost never saw books returned for being lousy while I worked in bookstores. Maybe twice. That one Borders already had 15 returns is mind-boggling to me.

So if the whole "Don't burn it, return it" thing catches on as some sort of spontaneous consumer protest, I can definitely see a major newspaper picking up the story.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

cleolinda
2008-08-04 06:31 am UTC (link)

Yeah, I'm just... stunned. I'm not sure why or what about, exactly. It's just... I don't know that I've seen a fandom about-face this sudden and this thorough ever. Even the Deathly Hallows complainers didn't return their books (although I'm sure they're kicking themselves now for not thinking of it first). And I don't know that there's a precedent for it in publishing, this many people actually demanding their money back.

Oh, by the way, check resell sites like half.com. I've already seen a dozen copies up for sale there. And I read a borrowed copy for my recap, so I'm actually getting my very own... from someone who doesn't want hers now.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

julian_black
2008-08-04 07:10 am UTC (link)

I remember seeing a few angry HP fans announce that they were returning their copies of DH, and even HBP. But nothing like this. This is just...I've never seen a fandom, especially a book fandom, react so strongly to a bad book.

The only thing remotely comparable that I can recall when Anne Rice declared war on fanfiction and destroyed her own fandom. But even then I don't recall people returning her books en masse. Even when the horrid Memnoch the Devil came out very few disgruntled readers went so far as to return it.

Then again, Internet fandom has changed so much since then.

There are lots of pirated copies of BD available for download right now, in just about every format. And I've seen people comment that if it really is as shitty as they've heard, they don't want SMeyer getting so much as a dime of their money for it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

cleolinda
2008-08-04 08:03 am UTC (link)

I've never seen a fandom so united in a backlash, either. I mean, she wrote the biggest wish-fulfillment book of all time, and not only did they hate it, they ALL hated it. I had exactly one person comment in favor of the book on my recap, and it was to the tune of, "I don't know why people are so angry. It's not my favorite, but it was pretty good." I mean, that's all she could muster. No sockpuppets, no ad hominem attacks, no insults, no nothing.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	foresthouse 2008-08-04 08:33 am UTC (link)
	No sockpuppets, no ad hominem attacks, no insults, no nothing. And THAT is saying something. (Reply to this)(Parent)

deludedvision
2008-08-04 08:46 am UTC (link)

Jumping in!

On one of the communities in LJLand (I can't recall which now, which I find desperately sad, because it was beautiful), someone posted stats about threads on IMDB boards and posts on LJ, basically showing that posts designated for people who hated the book had over 100 comments, whereas those for people who liked the book had few.

Likewise, people have been posting their reactions to the book to sortofbeautiful, and though I haven't read many, I have yet to see more than one positive reaction. And on this post with the positive reaction? Nearly everyone who commented disagreed.

If you aren't on LJ, you've missed out. There was some drama between some immature J/B fans and some immature E/B fans the other day, but other than that? It's like everyone's been holding hands and singing.

It's amazing. Because then you have to look at what people who hated it think specifically. So much of what's been deemed "acceptable" about the book is generally agreed upon, as well as other things. I don't know how SM did it, but the fandom's turned upside down.

It'll be interesting to see if it lasts.