TwiMusings: November 2012

In my pathetic attempt to catch up on BD2 promo, I happened upon an interview yesterday where Rob was asked, ‘What happens now? What happens after forever?’ Rob looked at the guy like he had three heads, chuckled in his self -deprecating way and said, ‘I have no idea.’ Funny pause. Smirk. Head bob. ‘Yeah, I really have no idea.’

Yeah... tried to find the link to the actual interview -
but have you SEEN the list of promo clips?
That's like a needle in a haystack.
Just enjoy this instead... You get the idea...

Rob, I’m right there with you.

What happens now?

The bright lights are all turned out. The wristbands have been cutoff… Well ok, I’m the loser who hasn’t cut hers off. That’s a proverbial umbilical cord I’m not ready to sever quite yet. Baby steps… The erotic, couture dresses and barely there pantsuit have been given back to their designers. Summit is preparing to count their millions. Rob and Kristen are off in England shopping for groceries, preparing for their life as ninjas and probably toasting that our ending, is finally their fresh start.

Rob is also probably beginning an epic experiment to see just how long he can go without shaving… I fear Mountain Man is coming…

Good Mountain Man Rob

Baaaaaad Mountain Man Rob. *cringe*

So where does that all leave us?

Is forever really our goodbye?

I managed to sit through BD2 in the Nokia last Monday night and didn’t shed too many tears. But I’ve seen it two times since returning home and managed to cry a little bit harder on each successive viewing. In part, because each time felt a little closer to an end.

And, each time, while the credits rolled through the entire Saga cast (goddamn you Bill Condon!) I couldn’t help but scroll, in my mind, through the cast of characters I’ve met during this whole journey.

I’m not talking vampires and werewolves. I’m talking about you ladies. And a few special gentlemen.

It’s like seeing a list of avi’s and handles flash by. Along with ridiculous conversations about sex hair and eye sex and sex toys. Ok yes. We’ve talked a lot of sex. But it’s also conversations about our kids troubles at school, a sick relative, a lost job, a new house, a cranky baby… and endless piles of fanfic.

The flashback scene we all knew Bill would try to kill us with, reminds us Kristen isn’t the only girl in the room who’s grown up and changed a lot these last handful of years. We’ve all changed and grown together. In ways big and small.

Wee bitty Rob and Kristen...

All grown up...

I had a shirt made to wear in Fan Camp with a back that read: ‘…because at some point this stopped being just a little story about some vampires and started being the story of us.’

I tried to explain that notion as I walked through camp with a group one night that included a ‘friend of a friend’ who was there to see what all the fuss was about. I think the sentiment of that shirt was scratching the surface with him as he walked among us, hearing all our stories, seeing us embrace one another, viewing all our tents covered in pictures that commemorated years of friendship.

“This is about way more than a cute vampire,’ I told him. “We all came to this thing for different reasons, but what we found here are little pieces of ourselves we wouldn’t have found anywhere else.”

So if it holds true this is bigger than vampires… do things change now that the cold ones have all moved on to new feeding grounds?

I certainly don’t hope for Summit to conjure up some watered down spinoff version of this whole phenom. As Kristen has said in so many interviews, it feels complete. Edward and Bella deserve that moment in the meadow. They deserve for us to leave them there. Happy. And making out like wild animals.

I’m not looking for Twilight: The Next Generation.

But the mere thought of that has me looking over my shoulder at other, older fandoms, especially the ones that have stood the test of time.

Can we be like them?

Do we want to be?

We already endure the pop culture ridicule that seems to hold hands with the word ‘Twihard’. (After I help Rob find the creator of ‘RPatz’ I’m gunning for the creator of this label, as the term makes my skin crawl whenever I hear it.) But how does our culture’s view of super fans morph even further when the object of the fan affection is something from ‘the past’?

Do we feel differently today about people who dress up like Captain Kirk on weekends than people did back when the USS Enterprise made it’s virgin voyage? (You know I’m sitting here trying to make my fingers do that split thing now right? I never got Star Trek...)

Once the DVD wrappers are torn away, and there’s truly nothing ‘new’ to be had, does the fandom hit its own twilight and everything just slowly fades to black?

I know lots of people out there are already suggesting Forever is not an ending. We will have red carpets to stalk for future projects. We have a thriving fanfiction community that will keep these characters alive (and our sex lives happy). Can we survive on that?

We are essentially like Steph’s vampires now. We’ve been living on fresh human blood for years. Feasting to the point of gluttony on The Bubble and filming leaks and movie promo tours. Now it seems we’re moving in with the Cullens. Becoming ‘vegetarians.’ We’ll have to learn to like our eyes golden and a life of never being ‘fully satisfied.’

Will we like life under Carlisle’s rules?

I don’t know. I hope so.

I returned from LA to a family that I love more than anything else. To a husband who has humored me but is really ready to have his wife back. I’m really ready to get more than 5 hours sleep a night and jump back into my life too.

But I guess the answer to the question I’ve asked over and over on this page is I don’t want to go back to being the woman I was before I met all of you. She was really boring. My life the last few years has been more vibrant. I want my life to include you all in some way. Maybe smaller than before. But in some way.

The front of that shirt I wore in camp said this: “One woman’s dream, became a few great books, that turned into a handful of movies, that created a sisterhood, that changed our lives forever.”

Me and Steph...and my shirt.
Which CafePress cockblocked
AFTER they printed & shipped it! Suckers!

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. But I am so very thankful for this ride. Thankful I jumped on when I did. Thankful my wonderful family has put up with it for as long as they have. Thankful for the changes it’s made in my everyday life and the way I view the world and the people in it so much more openly now.

When I am old and gray and sitting in a rocking chair somewhere waiting for my own life’s credits to roll by – so many of you will be included. I will look back and fondly remember endless nights spent on twitter trading Rob Porn, snot sobbing support groups reading EP, trying to stay out of jail on epic nights of Best Kisses and filming in the streets of Brazil, using the term Laters way before it was cool, huddling in dark LA parking lots at 3am, bawling the first time meeting Stephenie, taking chair dancing lessons with the DC girls in my family room, hearing catcalls and sniffles fill the Nokia when the words ‘The Twilight Saga’ finally faded off the screen…

Clearly my flashback scene will be longer than Bella’s…

Bill Condon’s brilliance flipped pages so we could see those words Stephenie chose for her own ending . ‘…We continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.’

I wish there was a way to flip forward to see what lies ahead for us…

Forever.

Whatever that means…