(Note: I did not write all of this, some of it was collected from rants I found on the INTERNET and concise arguments on forums. I edited it and grammar-a-fied it. I did not ask permission for these rants. However, some stuff is minse. Yes I do realise now that Twilight fans will hate me for bashing twilight, and anti-twilighters will hate me for stealing some of their work. That's okay. If I stop posting it's because one group or another has tracked me down and killed me... Enjoy!)

HOLES (oh how they burn).

One would think that a bestseller would have a well rounded plot, and actually contain something other than pathetic angsty "romantic" drivel. WRONG.

There are so many things that aren't properly explained and so much that is just not needed.

Like:

Why does Bella have "Special powers" (Being able to stop Eddy boy from being able to read her mind) despite being a so-called ordinary human? (Oh wait thats right, she's Stephannie's author insertion. So shes "special")

If Meyer's Vampires are completely invincible in every way to human ability, why don't they just take over the world, or at least try to get on an equal footing. Someone told me once it was because they don't think like humans. Ok, fair go.

But James strikes me as the kind of character who would like to take over the world. Out there their would be more like him, they would gang up and then take over the world. But no, they don't. Why all the smoke and mirrors? Just take over the world, you morons! Meyer has pointed out several times in her books that humans are idiots, so you would be doing us all a favor. Seriously, that would be an interesting plot, Bella and Ed's "I love you he most!" "No, I love you the most!" is not an interesting plot.

No ifs or buts. I found Twilight boring.

Why is it that Bella is a junior when she meets Edward, but in September of the same year, she's 18? Did Bella fail a grade, or what? I'm not surprised at all, the ditz.

Why is it that Alice can't see what goes on in La Push, or, "werewolf territory" but Edward can read the werewolves thoughts? (Oh wait, I forgot. Meyers sexist, thats why.)

I always thought that in your book, you got one thing that your readers would believe without explanation. For Harry Potter, it was the fact that magic existed in the world. For Meyer, it should have been the fact that vampires and other mythical creatures existed in her world. But the fact is, an author only gets ONE. Twilight has so many of those in the book, the most irksome one being that Bella and Edward are in "true love".

You know what Meyer? I don't believe you.

I want to see proof. I want to see interesting relationship build-up, Bella and Edward gradually becoming fond of each other, not just instant "love". That doesn't happen. Even if love at first sight does happen, the two people still learn new things about each other as they spend more time together.

WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE *sparkle* THING?

What on earth does that do for vampires? Is it an asset? No, vampires just treat it like it's a liability. Of course, Meyer just needed an explanation as to why vampires could not venture out into sunlight. And, as she told us in an interview, she likes to write about "pretty things"... No, just no.

When you think about it from a logical point of view, it makes even less sense. Okay, lets gett into this in a suitibly nerdy way:

Meyer says about the vampires' sparkle motion power that "their skin hardens into a diamond-like substance (only harder). This material has prism-like qualities. The sun does not damage the skin regardless of the reflecting."

…The problem with being "harder" than a diamond is that diamonds aren't, you know, flexible. Now while it'd be an interesting idea (and alternate solution to the vampires-don't-go-out-in-sunlight aspect of vampire lore) if they suddenly turned to stone in the sunlight, Meyer doesn't do that. Their skin is just diamond-like. How do they move? It should be impossible.

About body heat: We learn from the approximately 234250907811 times that Bella says it that Edward is cold and hard and pale and icy, even when they're in bed together.

My question is this: how does Edward's body NOT absorb Bella's body heat? It's not as though his body can't react to other forms of energy, so why does Bella's delectable 98.6º flesh have no impact on him whatsoever? If you hold a rock in your hand, the rock eventually warms up. If you sleep next to a corpse, you'll wake up to the fact that the parts of the corpse that your body has touched are in fact warm.

Not that I'd know from experience or anything... Um, off track. Anyway, as I was saying:

It's not as though Edward's body is generating 'cold', since 'cold' doesn't exist in scientific terms. In theory, since Edward isn't keeping ice cubes in his pants (we don't think), he should always be room temperature, which means that to a human's touch, he should feel slightly cool. In hot weather, he'd feel warmer. But seriously—perpetual iciness makes no sense at all.

And then, you have to wonder why Bella's father is a policeman who doesn't notice Edward stalking his daughter.

Sorry to be crude, but Edwards over 100 years old and still a virgin. He was frozen at 17 – That's pathetic! If he's stuck at that age, I have to wonder if he still has a sex drive or not. Yes he was brought up in a different time when no one touched girls for fear of getting cooties... But over a 100 years?

He tells Bella that he's never had feelings like this before (gag). Seriously? I mean really?

Frozen at 17 and he's never been turned on by a girl before? That's either a lie so he can make a Bella puddle or he is truthfully gay.

Well I suppose its excusable now... Being dead must obviously must make it that little bit harder to get it up. I mean having no blood flow and all would really damper your drive, and by damper I mean re-kill it.

Now, I love fantasy. I am completely willing to suspend disbelief about fantastical elements. For example – in Buffy, the vampires should probably not be able to have sex. But they do, and because the topic is never addressed and because it's well-written, follows-its-own-logic fantasy, I don't have a problem with it.

But when an author specifically incorporates science into her fantastical story AND GETS IT WRONG (or at least is monumentally stupid about it), that's when I have a problem. Stephenie Meyer is WAY guilty of this.

Quote: My reasoning was, why should the sun burn them? That seemed like a very mystical kind of thing, and my vampires are more science than magic to me (whereas my werewolves are more magic than science).

There you have it, fangirls. That's why we're allowed to criticize Meyer for her bad science.

1. Edward's sperm.... Or, why Edward should be infertile. There are a variety of problems here, so let's go through each of them.

a. "Edward is frozen! His sperm survived!"

Edward has been a vampire for several, several decades. If unused, sperm survive inside the testes for a few days, let's say between 3-7 days. Outside the body, they survive a few hours. Inside the female, they can survive up to three days. Additionally, sperm require a specific temperature to survive; specifically, around 96 degrees. That is why the testes draw up closer to the abdomen for warmth when males are cold ("shrinkage" when swimming, for example) and why they "drop," or extend away from the abdomen, in a hot shower (as the body heats up).

Remember what happens when humans turn into vampires? Their body dies. Their body stops generating heat. All conventional wisdom, therefore, says that Eddie's sperm ought to have died within a few hours of his human death. And although Meyer describes Edward as "icy" and "frozen in time," he isn't actually frozen. He's a corpse. So, the argument that Edward's vampiness preserves his sperm (which, by the way, he didn't ejaculate that sperm for over 100 years...yeah, okay).

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that Edward did have some viable sperm. The, the question is: why was Nessie half vampire. Since vampires don't age or grow or produce body fluids other than venom (...more on that later), Edward's sperm could only have been human. Why was Nessie not fully human, then?

b. The chromosomes changed! Like in, um, the rest of us body!"

Ah, Meyer's "chromosome" explanation. Haha, good one. More on that later.

But for now, let's make this explanation a simple one. The difference (and why mammals can maek_babiez) between body ("somatic") cells and gametes (ovum, sperm) is that body cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (=46) and gametes have only 23 chromosomes, period. Further, the ovum's 23 pairs match up to the sperm's 23 pairs. When they fuse, they create a zygote with--wait for it, now--23 pairs of chromosomes, just like somatic cells! Thus, gametes are called haploid cells because they have half the number of chromosomes as somatic cells (diploid cells).

So what does all that basic biology talk matter? Well, here's the thing, in plain speech. Those gametes went through a delicate and complex process (meiosis) to arrive in their current form. There's no way that a vampiric "virus" or whatever could transform them into a viable vamp_sperm without totally fucking them up because they aren't the same as somatic cells. Even if this vamp_virus could somehow alter the genetic code of somatic cells (thereby turning each of Eddy's cells (and therefore, sets of DNA) into vamp cells, that same process would not work for a haploid cell without irreparably damaging it and rendering it useless in terms of babymakin.'

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that somehow Edward's sperm was viable, with its vampire-ness intact (25 singular chromosomes...eyeroll). Meyer says that Nessie was born with 24 chromosomes (presumably 24 chromosome pairs). This does not make sense.

I've seen Twilighters use the mule/ninny defense, saying that horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62 and since some mules has 63, it "works" for vamp/humans and therefore dhampirs as well. Besides the fact that mules getting 63 is a total crapshoot, here are some reasons it doesn't.

Humans have 23 very specific chromosomes. Vampires (and for the sake of the discussion, let's assume that this is possible) have 25 very specific chromosomes.

Human 23 match with the vampire's first 23 (assuming they are the vampire's original human chromosomes). Human gamete has 0 left over, Vampire gamete has 2 left over.

Now, presumably, it's those 2 extra chromosomes which give the vampire its vampire traits.

What are those vampire traits?

Well, vampires are humans' predators. They hunt, kill, and gain sustenance from humans. This is NOT the same as the donkey/horse relationship, two animals which are very, very similar genetically - i.e., four-legged mammals, hoofed, living, herbivores, part of the equidae family and the equus genus.

Saying that a human and vampire can cross-breed is like making the argument that tigers and antelopes can cross-breed. One predates upon the other. They have extreme genetic differences. Humans are living, omnivores, mammals, members of the hominidae family and homo class. Vampires are dead, sanguinivorous, asexual, and since while they're possibly a member of the hominidae family, they sure as hell don't qualify for the homo genus (also, because they're not real and based on fantasy, but then again that's the point of this whole discussion - the absurdity that Meyer tried to explain vampires scientifically). Not only that, but they are humans' natural predator (strength, speed, DaZzLe!).

Long story short?

THEY DON'T MATCH UP TO HUMANS.

Besides that, even if those two left over chromosomes somehow joined up with each other, it'd probably result in some really fucked-up congenital defects (...they arguably did, but whatevs). They would not result in a perfect little creature like Nessie.

What about Nessie?

Unless Edward's sperm doubles as Miracle-Gro, Nessie ought to grow very slowly.

She should also require a more balanced diet, seeing as blood is actually very poor nutritiously and her body wouldn't get the required nutrients and fuel to sustain her metabolism and SuPEr!growth.

This is also the reason that Bella's gallon of blood as her tasty pregnancy supplement is completely baseless. Blood has very low nutritional value as well as being bad for humans if they ingest too much of it. If anything, Bella ought to have become very sick and starved to death if all she was doing was drinking blood. There's a reason vampire bats have to ingest ridiculous amounts of blood in order to survive.. It's because blood sucks as a food source.

If she does grow fast, then chances are her extra chromosome or two would really fuck that process up (...like, say, Down's syndrome, aka trisomy 21 [an extra chromosome! Why does that sound familiar?], which causes developmental problems in the brain as well as some physical oddities, like smaller, almond-shaped eyes, protruding tongue, shorter limbs, etc.).

c. "Yeah, but Edward doesn't have sperm! He has venom!"

Meyer has said (and I'm paraphrasing), "there are a lot of things that venom does."

Well, that's true. One of those things is that it gets into the bloodstream, it starts vamping a person. Given the fact that Edward banged (ha. ha. ironic?) Bella hard enough to leave bruises and the fact that she was a virgin... Chances are good that his venom_sperm should have come into contact with torn hymen or, once ejaculated into her uterus, should have been absorbed into the bloodstream. Meaning, Bella would very quickly have experienced a burning sensation inside her body and I really don't want to imagine Edward sucking that venom out in an effort to de-vampify her.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that the venom somehow passed through her vagina, uterus, and into her fallopian tube where it reached the mature ovum.

There's this thing about sperm that makes it special. I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of it, but there's a complex hormonal response within the egg and within the sperm that make it possible for the sperm (about 0.05 millimeters long) to penetrate and fertilize the egg (visible to the human eye). Not only that, but it's human sperm which are capable of going through this process.

But, let's say that venom could do the job, too. Now, as far as I know, there aren't any human elements to venom (especially as it's apparently lethal to humans). So, if somehow the venom got to the egg, there are a few scenarios that would play out:

The venom's acidic (or basic, dunno which) nature would go Wicked-Witch-of-the-West style on the egg, destroying it completely (considering the egg is pretty fragile, and if venom can dissolve a contact lens in a few hours, then it would definitely fuck up an egg).

If the venom didn't destroy the egg, then it would make the egg all vampire (remember, no human element)... and the egg would not mature at all. It would die, and then become a "frozen in time," dead egg.

It would not turn the egg into a super-special super-speed growth demon spawn.

So. There you have it. Why Edward's sperm should exist, why venom doesn't work, and why Nessie's only possible origin is magic.

d. "But it's fantasy!"

This is one case where that argument works, kind of. Meyer was an idiot to try an explain her vampires via science. It's a cardinal rule of fantasy that if your explanation won't work, find one that does. You know what explanation works for vampires? Magic. Call them supernatural; that's what they are. Using science as a bizarre crutch for your fantasy only ruins your continuity and your world's logic and it brings down the writing to the level where I have rendered her plot completely unworkable by the application of basic biology. The reason this is a problem is because it is yet another symptom of Meyer's complete fail when it comes to basic writing technique and theory.

And whilst we are being crude (Well, while I'm being crude), why the hell can Eddy Boy stand to be near Bella during her "Special Time of the Month"? I don't care what Smeyer (hehe Smeyer, sounds like Smelly Meyer) says, her flimsy excuses are void. It's blood, and it smells like blood whether its dead or not.

HE SHOULD BE TRYING TO EAT HER!!!

Another thing that bothers me, why isn't Edward on hot on Bella's trail since those brief moments in the cafeteria. Maybe that Edward only caught Bella's scent once she was in his biology classroom at the same time as him, But this is inconsistent. If her scent was truly that strong to him, he would have smelled her the first time he saw her. Especially since James was able to smell her while she was standing so far away from her in the clearing. What is Edward, Nasally Impaired?

In the beginning of Twilight Smeyer goes on about how she, oh wait whoops I mean "Bella", hates Forks and her supposed painful memories that are associated with the place, and yet she never explains what it is about the place that she hates. Yes it's cold, yes it rains, yes it's-god forbid- green, but there's never anything apart from that. If there was no deeper meaning behind her hate of Forks, then I think she needed to be a little less dramatic about it. Yes, she's a teenager, and teenagers complain a lot. But do we really need to read it for 300 pages?

And why, why are The Volturi never properly explained? I mean come on. You'd think the royalty of the vampire world would at least be explained. Twilight just has page after page of magic and wonder, with no explanations to back anything up. All the explanations Meyer gives about The Volturi are so vague. It's like we're all just supposed to go, "Okay. That's nice. Now, more about Edward and Bella making out!!!!!"

I think not. That is probably the second big reason I dislike the series, the first being how it depicts a lustful and abusive relationship as being healthy.

No research, no consistency and no explanation. You just can not believe that the story could be true.

I mean a really good fantasy story should be one that even if you can't believe it is true in our universe, you could believe it to be true in another universe. Twilight fails on both accounts.

And maybe some (well, apparently a lot of) people don't see this crazy thing called a plot a necessity in a book they're reading, but I do.

Twilight's plot completely revolves around Edward and Bella's "love". And I'm aware that there are some other things going on in the books but evens the minor events are some how related to Edward and Bella and their omgsocutee romance. The attempt Mrs. Meyer makes at explaining the history of vampires and "why this, and why that" is falls extremely short of satisfying, to me, anyway.

There are so many gaping plot holes in her story, if it were a food, it would be swiss cheese.