I see I'm not the only one to make this crossover...

[matrixrefugee]

I *am* trying to get back to work on my Yami no Matsuei/Twhinelite crossover. Well... turns out someone has created a crazy fanvid in which they took the audio from one of the Twilight movie trailers and they fit several YnM clips to it:

Comments

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing! :D It's REALLY good and so fitting!

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Mmm! I have a love-hate thing for Twilight: I used to be adamantly anti-Twilight, but I've got to the point where I've made my peace with the whole phenomenon and I've downgraded to being "contra-Twilight" (ie. there's things about the books that I still don't like, but I'm well past the "KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!" stage and into the "it has it's interesting points, but it's not my thing" stage). I actually like some of the supporting characters in the books (Alice and Jasper especially), and while the crossover fic I'm writing started its life as the usual "X from Y introduces Edward to Mr. Pointy" fic that most antis tend to write... it sort of grew well past that into something quite balanced and even beautiful in a tragic sort of way.

Thus, when I stumbled across this vid, I just had to watch it, chuckle over it and share the find. Not sure if Edward = Tsuzuki really works for me completely, but I can definitely see the parallels!

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

I've never read Twilight, but my sister's almost done with it, and I've seen both movies (Twilight was a good movie; the problems I had with it are problems inherent in the story...New Moon was if-I-fall-asleep-please-strangle-me-so-I-won't-wake-up-in-a-world-where-this-boring-piece-of-shit-movie-exists) and know the world relatively well.

I read the crossover fic and I totally love the whole premise. :D The confrontations between Edward and Muraki was so deliciously evil; I actually felt myself getting creeped out!

I sorta took issue with the last chapter, though becauseit didn't seem like Alice and Jasper had much of a reaction to Edward's death. :\ Given they're his "siblings" I'd have expected a bigger outpouring of grief.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Mmm, that's been sticking with me as well and I've been trying to rectify that; one of the reasons I'm revising that last chapter. I think I was trying to avoid slowing down the pace, since Alice got the vision that something nasty was about to happen to Bella, but in doing so, I caused some OOCness, darn it. :: laughs:: But I appreciate the feedback! This has been a personal favorite of mine and I keep going back and repolishing bits. If there's any other rough bits that could use a little extra work, let me know!

And I have to admit, I had a little too much fun writing the Muraki/Edward exchanges. I think I started writing their scene in the woods first when I started writing the story, and then I thought to myself, "Okay, how did Eddie end up in Japan?" which lead me to introducing the blood substitute research project. Then the bit involving the report that Bella's candle in the Castle of Candles is sputtering presented itself, though even before I logicked that through, I drafted a scene with Bella spotting Tsuzuki and Hisoka on the steps to the shrine and being spooked by the sight of them, but that seemed a bit unlikely, so I set that bit aside. And then the side plot with Inari asking a favor of Oriya presented itself, so I decided to have Bella get spooked by a white fox running out of the woods. It's weird how this story has evolved and all these little things have fallen into place.

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

For the most part the story is totally aces. I like the fact that even though you hate Bella and Edward, you portray them in a way that doesn't betray that fact. It's very straitforward, and even sympathetic in parts. I very much applaud your impartiality ^.^

I was a little thrown by Tsuzuki's willingness to stake Edward just like that, though. It didn't feel like it jived with his overall personality, especially considering that he deliberately rescued Maria instead of killed her. I'm not quite sure on the logistics of vampires and souls in Twilightverse, though, and it seemed like no soul = no recourse. I was just a little confused by this.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, Twilight vamps (according to the book) are pretty much soulless beings and biologically are already dead, though an echo of their personality remains attached to their body (Carlisle Cullen has this interesting speech about it, but danged if I could actually find it in my copy -- yes, it may be hypocritical for someone who calls themself contra-Twilight, but I have copies of all four books, which I got from a used book shop in our area which donates a lot of their sales to help several local charities), and I think I was going from that angle. I've got a bit later on in the next chapter where Tsuzuki is musing over what happened and why he agreed to go into this case: he ends up rather cut up over it, knowing he was intending to do the theoretical right thing, but... *was* it the right thing?

And trust me, at first it was really hard to write Bella and Edward from a sympathetic angle, but I think it helped me grow as a writer since it obliged me to see through the eyes of two characters I don't particularly care for (Actually, there was a small part of me that felt a little bad for Edward because I threw him to Muraki :: laughs:: ). I've got a bit in the last chapter (which I need to finish!) where I actually teared up a little, which says a lot!

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

Ok, so I'm assuming it's something similar to vamps in Buffyverse? Does a creepy African demon have Soul!Edward kept in a jar? Do their souls exist in heaven or somewhere, or does a soul simply dissipate upon siring (IOW, does Edward simply not exist now that Muraki's done with him? And how can the Cullens be capable of noble decisions like "vegetarianism" (as a vegan I despise the bastardizing of the term but whatevs) if they have no soul? :\ Or does SMeyer just not bother fleshing this out?

As I said, I was very impressed with how you handled Bella and Edward :) Growth as a writer = awesome = you.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

The short answer, from what I can tell and what I have heard, is that SMeyer didn't really get into the metaphysical aspect of what happens to the soul when a person is turned in the Twi-'verse. I'm told there's a bit more world-building in Breaking Dawn, but that one's a major-league Wall Banger since the tidbits of information are buried amongst writing so bad that even some fans of the series are disappointed with it. I've tried reading it, and my Willing Suspension of Disbelief threw up its hands and walked away, making it necessary for me to put the thing down before I threw it across the room and opened daylight in the wall. It might be fantasy, yes, but having a woman become pregnant and start "showing" within a matter of hours/days because the fetus is growing so fast is just maddeningly unrealistic: Conservation of Matter and Energy would tell you that the amount of nutrients needed for the fetus to get to that size would leave the woman's body in a horrible state of malnourishment if it didn't kill her outright, unless she was eating colossal amounts of food, which she'd barely be able to absorb because the human digestive track Doesn't Work That Way -- but that's a whole other rant among many rants I have for "Broken Down" as I call it :: Laughs:: I could buy it if a preternatural being of some kind was involved, but a mere mortal woman? :: Adjusts her half-rimmed glasses in a way that covers the fact that she's actually face-palming::

My guess is, once Muraki, ah, had his way with Edward, whatever metaphysical energy that was keeping that "imprint" of Eddie-kins's personality glued to his body has since been absorbed by a certain crooked energy vampire (I've been reading up on real-world energy vampirism -- a very strange phenomenon that's only just starting to be understood -- and it is scary how close Yoko Matsushita got to the real thing). Wonder how he tasted... :: laughs::

And you aren't alone in being ticked with that misuse of the word "vegetarianism": I've cut back on eating meat, and I tried going ovolacto-vegetarian, but I found that didn't work for me health-wise. I might not be able to follow this diet as much as I'd like to, but I'm proud of those who can, and it irritates me that she had to go and misuse the word. (That and her complete failure to understand what happens when you start cutting back on the number of predatory animals in a given area: that was the main inspiration for Muraki's rant about the Cullens' feeding habits. Nice to have an antagonist who loves to monologue!)

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

So SMeyer dropped the ball. That seems to be a somewhat common phenomena :\ Right, ok, so in Akatsuki Echo!Edward is digesting inside Muraki, but where exactly is Soul!Edward, according to your world's rules?

I know others who can't do go veg "for their health", which somewhat baffles me because I went about it quite stupidly and am fit as a fiddle regardless :\ What was the issue exactly? If you don't mind sharing.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

My take on what happened to Soul!Edward is that he's either passed on into the afterlife, or he may be wandering somewhere and his case is among the cold case files in the U.S. branch of the Ministry of Hades, which tempts me to write a sequel in which Mercy and her partner Mike Roarke (who originally came to collect her soul in the first place after she and her daughter died in a horrible road accident) look into what happened to Eddie's soul... Hmmm! This could be fun.

The sad thing is that SMeyer had a lot of opportunity to write what could have been a pretty good book; instead, she let herself derail her own story by focusing too much on a rather dull pair of characters instead of building up their world a little more and shoring up the logic. One of the things I found the most unfulfilling about her books is that she didn't take the time to really build the world in which her characters live; she didn't even really stop to work out the logic of vampirism in that world, and I've even heard that she's said she'd avoided reading vampire literature or even researching vampirism much because she wanted her vampires to be different, and in doing so, she really hurt her chances at figuring out what worked and what doesn't.

When I tried cutting meat entirely out of my diet for six months, I literally had one bad cold after another and even caught the nastiest flu virus I'd ever had in my life, which left me in a virtually comatose state for a day and a half. I probably should have been supplementing my protein intake with soy products, but at that time those were really hard to find in my area (ie. a small town in New England). I've considered trying it again, but after the incident of the coma-inducing flu, I'm rather gunshy about a second attempt.

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

Sounds awesome :D If that's the case, perhaps a plot where the Shinigami have to locate the vampire's lost souls and return them to their body would be in order?

Not being careful about your vitamin intake is probably what caused it :\ About being gunshy, look at this way. Improper vegetarianism caused the flu, but continued consumption of meat raises your chances for cancer and heart disease.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Mm, I've written red meat out of my diet completely (when I tried eating it after my brief foray, I found it disagreed with me horribly. Odd.), but I will eat chicken or pork once in a while. I do love fish, though!

Ooh, this is getting exciting :: jotting notes, even though the fourth chapter Akatsuki is still being typed::; I think I remember that one of Edward's siblings -- might have been Alice -- wanted to have a family someday, but being turned had caused her to set that dream aside since Meyer-vampires are sterile (supposedly). This might be her second chance.

[luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com]

Fish... >.> After working in an aquarium you want NOTHING to do with fish again, ever.

It was Rosalie :)