Dreams of Twilight

 I have not read one of the Twilight books, nor seen any of the movies (the wikipedia summaries don't count), but my students are right in the prime demographic and last night the publicity barrage caught up with me and I dreamed about Twilight.
            Edward the Sparkly Son of Darkness lurked around corners looking glum and jaundiced, but this time out the worm turned: the pouty heroine (me) found a glittery emo boy with unexpectedly large incisors skulking about behind her to be rather alarming and called the sheriff to ask for a restraining order.  Two blocks distance, minimum.
            The sheriff picked Edward up and read him the riot act and Edward's stock expression of disdainful ennui deepened until he looked as if he wanted to bite the entire universe in the neck.  Didn't anyone realize that he had a literary imperative to Be With Me?  He didn't think much of it either, thank you very much - what sort of immortal being would enjoy skulking around after a teenager with about as much joie-de-vivre as a melted popsicle?  But did we see HIM going against canon?
            Well, DID we?!?
            The sheriff sighed, and apologized to Edward and told him to get right back to it, and told me to go talk to the author if I thought I had a problem.

When I was in university, vampire stories meant a young woman who stood up for herself, spent most of her life on the OFFENSIVE and took no BS from nobody.  Buffy was a role model.
            Today, vampires mean getting knocked up by your high school sweetheart, who will take care of you for ever and ever and ever and you will never have to worry about a thing.  Even when he hurts you.
            He loves you so VERY much that he crawls through your window at night to watch you sleep because daylight stalking just isn't enough - he just can't BEAR to be away from you for even a little bit. 
            We all know how well that sort of co-dependency works out in the real world. Buffy would have told him to grow up - right before she pitched him off the roof.