wedrifid comments on Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) discussion thread - Less Wrong

12 Post author: FAWS 25 August 2010 08:49AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 31 August 2010 12:46:05PM *  5 points [-]

Thanks for the explanation. Compared to some other fictional realities I have investigated Twilight seems relatively harder to find practical descriptions of.

It's never outright stated whether the Volturi's weird skin and eyes actually confer physical disadvantages, and I haven't decided how to cash it out in Luminosity yet. Some even older vampires who ruled before the Volturi did, in book 4, consider it a sign of complacency or something, and say that they used to have the same traits but they've since been reversed with their deposition.

Now that is fascinating. I saw some reference to the two Romanian vampires who survived when the Volturi overthrew them and it got me curious. If the Romanians actually had the cataracts and weird skin but lost in due to improved behavioural patterns or perhaps with the change in status, well, that is the sort of thing that makes me tempted to go ahead and read the Twilight books myself to pick up hints.

But I suspect I would find Twilight unbearable now, having just absorbed 31 chapters of Luminosity. I love the Luminosity characters and it would be infuriating to have them revert to fools.

Comment author: Alicorn 31 August 2010 12:53:31PM 12 points [-]

But I suspect I would find Twilight unbearable now, having just absorbed 31 chapters of Luminosity. I love the Luminosity characters and it would be infuriating to have them revert to fools.

I hope that in writing Luminosity I haven't discouraged anyone from reading Twilight. They are flawed books, it's true. But the biggest flaw is misplaced emphasis, I think. They have the resources, embedded in the text, to be truly fantastic; as it is they're mostly just easy and pleasant reads, because Meyer pays attention to the weaker parts of her characterization and world. It is my guess that if you've read Luminosity, it will encourage you to read the canon books the way I first read them, automatically sifting through the content to get the good parts and mentally apologizing for the bad parts.

luminous!Bella doesn't bear the same relationship to canon!Bella that rational!Harry bears to canon!Harry. canon!Harry could not have become rational!Harry - MoR couldn't be a single point of departure fic. Too much else is in the mix. Whereas canon!Bella, making a handful of different choices when she was nine or ten or eleven, could have become luminous!Bella, and changed everything. (All the other characters are the same, changed only insofar as my copying is imperfect and insofar as they react to a different Bella.)

If you like, think of canon Twilight as slightly inferior, thematically different fanfiction of Luminosity :P

Comment author: wedrifid 31 August 2010 12:55:18PM 5 points [-]

If you like, think of canon Twilight as slightly inferior, thematically different fanfiction of Luminosity :P

I like that framing. I may just do that. :)