The Shrieking Shack

Twilight chapter 14/Midnight Sun chapter 18

We convene a Late Recording to deliver a rowdy episode about a rowdy pair of chapters! Bella has invited Edward into her house, but what's going to happen when there's only one bed!? It turns out that they won't, naturally, but things will get incredibly weird, between Edward admitting that he has been watching Bella sleep and Charlie entering a game of Spy vs. Spy with Bella to make sure she's not sneaking out to see anyone. We discuss Edward's music taste, how the sleep-watching reveal goes down in Twilight vs. the Midnight Sun version we've been dealing with so far, the strange high-wire act between romantic tension and abstinence fantasy, and much more.

These books are so weird.

(We touch ever so briefly on the JK/Walsh news that broke right after the last episode dropped and we declared no news for the week, but if you don't want the rundown on that skip to 8:30 to get to Maximum Ride)

Twilight chapter 13/Midnight Sun chapter 17

We've had a week (knock on wood) with precious little Potter or Twilight news, so we start this week's episode with another Maximum Ride check-in as a sort of Common-Room-Lite treat! Then we're off to the meadow to discuss Confessions, which is perhaps the origin of a huge amount of the popular criticism of Twilight from the mid 2000s. This chapter is equal parts boring, baffling, and overwrought--and the Midnight Sun revisit only adds to the confusion! Luckily, we have a lot of fun discussing the Edward ripping a tree in half and running laps around Bella, an excruciatingly long and pretty offensive addiction metaphor, and some infamously clunky lines of dialogue.

(funny editor's note: the "no news bit" was literally recorded a day before some news happened)

It's a big one this week! After catching up with some updates on last week's news stories and checking in with Maximum Ride, we have four (!!!) chapters of Twilight and Midnight Sun combined to get to. Not much is happening, but there's a lot going on, not least of which is Edward's wardrobe. We've got so much Twilight content, in fact, that we have to take a little detour for our third segment and discover What Will Happen To Us In The Siren's Den--and more!

Twilight chapter 11/Midnight Sun chapters 12-13

Here we are! Safe from the heat with a late night recording, we cover the surprisingly ample amount of news from the past week and dig through a combined three (!) chapters of Vampire Content! This week, Edward and Bella have long, deep conversations about soda, Linkin Park, and much much more--all while watching movies in class and dodging shuttlecocks. We've also got our first cut content of the book to explore this week, which leads us to one of the most amazing website discoveries we've made in a hot minute.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Well, here we are. After actual years of filming delays, author controversies, and a theatrical release we didn't feel like spending money on, we've finally watched the third and hopefully final entry in the Fantastic Beasts series. Thankfully, for as predictably awful as it is, it's awful in some very unpredictable ways--and per tradition, we have an episode here for you longer than the movie itself. We discuss its bonkers ideology (weirder than the last movie, somehow!), its cute animal body count (shockingly high!) and so much more.

Twilight chapter 11/Midnight Sun chapter 12

Well, well, well! The money fandom is in shambles as two franchises race to the bottom of the box office. This week's chapters are the closest together these two books have been yet, so we have a fun time analyzing both characters' contributions to a very, very long conversation they have with each other about who loves the other more. Which one of these lovers is more persecuted? Edward and Bella are both petty, passive-aggressive, and myopic--they're honestly kind of perfect for each other. After that, we head on over to Goodreads to browse the "Twilight rip-off" section. Are the accusations fair? Do any of them sound good? Did celebs write any of them!?

Twilight chapter 10/Midnight Sun chapter 11 (Theory)

Well, the new Fantastic Beasts movie is on HBO Max now, so I guess we have to watch it... soon. This week, however, we have a strange pairing of Twilight chapters set almost entirely in a car going 80-100mph. We chat about Bella's confession, how enigmatic Edward truly is (and how Midnight Sun fiddles with that perception), vampire murder morality, driving physics, and so much more! Then, in our third segment, we discover that despite being much smaller than Harry Potter, Twilight was not free from head-scratching op-ed pieces relating it to whatever was in the news that week (in this case: calling the 2012 election!). Will you be prepared when Kraalnor, the Soultaker, comes for you?

(mild content warning: similar to last week, this book's fairly tasteless handling of assault is on the docket this episode)

Twilight & Midnight Sun joint chapter (Port Angeles)

Well, well, well! Harry Potter is back in the news thanks to a maddeningly vague line in a Wall Street Journal profile of the new Warner/Discovery media boss. Since we can't glean anything of substance from that, we dig a little deeper by examining a recently published poll comparing the franchise to other current blockbuster tent-poles. Can data save us, or are we getting five thirty-eighted? After that, we have a rip-roaring pair of chapters to discuss full of drama, suspense, hacky tropes, and mushroom ravioli. Is it getting good? Well... it's certainly getting interesting! Finally, we wrap up with a delightful interview from one of Twilight's unlikeliest stars and an incredibly cursed op-ed from 2008!

(Very mild content warning here; this chapter deploys the age-old heroine-gets-rescued-from-lecherous-goons-just-in-time-before-you-know-what scene; it's very dopey but if you'd still rather not hear us hash out the details and whatnot skip 10 minutes ahead when we start talking about Bella walking into the industrial district)

Twilight chapter 8/Midnight Sun chapter 9.

This week features Bella storming off to her room to listen to Linkin Park (really!), getting so mad at Mansfield Park she slams her book shut, and Edward using vampire telepathy to read peoples' horny thoughts--and that's the easy stuff. There's also a pair of new evil vampires that Edward is worried might attack Bella, but not that worried? Oh, and we learn, through a throwaway line, that there are Vampire Wars. All this and more on a jam-packed Shrieking Shack... I'm starting to worry that Edward might not make up his boyfriend points anytime soon.

Twilight chapter 6/Midnight Sun chapter 7

We're back with another pair of split chapters this week! Bella is off to the beach with her school friends and learns some disturbing facts about the Cullens; Edward, meanwhile, is at home with his weird family composing tunes and hunting mountain lions. We've got lots to discuss, and it's a real range: from prose and chess rules all the way to racism and cultural imperialism, and much more in between. Oh, and of course, we tally up Edward's boyfriend points. Has he improved, or is he still fouling as if the refs aren't watching? Finally, we poke around ancient Pottermore lore to compare Twilight vampires to HP vampires--and end with truly one of the most diabolical quizzes we've ever taken!