WW's Fic Rec Friday

Happy Friday you guys! I, for one, could not be more relieved that this week is now drawing to a close. Before I get started on my recs, I have a few newsworthy items I'd like to call out.

First, a few of my Sisters and I will be attending Comic Con in a couple weeks! We could not be more excited to see Rob - I mean, the New Moon panel, but what put me into overdrive was the announcement yesterday that there will also be a Twilight Fanfiction panel held on Saturday the 25th! The panel is hosted by some of the fandom's most respected and effing awesome authors: AngstGoddess003, tby789, Manyafandom, Ninapolitan, psymom, amercnxidiot, bella c'ella luna, bethaboo, and lolashoes. I am positively giddy with anticipation.

On a related note, we are still accepting donations to help AngstGoddess003 with her Comic Con costs. She is going regardless, but as the TLYDF's blog funds don't extend to travel costs, she, like the rest of the authors, is funding the trip on her own. She's flying clear across the country to make it here to impart some fuckawesome fanfiction knowledge on us, so if you're able, help her and the blog out!



Secondly... I got the opportunity to write a guest review on the Perv Pack's Smut Shack for Confessions of a Nanny written by the absolutely lovely Melissa228. I was so flattered and excited to be asked! It just goes to show you that shameless stalking on the internets does pay off sometimes.

Ok, enough babbling... on with the recs!

PLEASE NOTE: SOME OF THE CONTENT RECOMMENDED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR OUR UNDERAGE READERS. FICS RATED 'M' ARE INTENDED FOR THOSE OVER THE AGE OF 18. PLEASE USE DISCRETION WHEN CLICKING ANY OF THE BELOW LINKS.




Let Your Light Shine / A Life Extraordinary by Lolashoes
RATED: M for mature themes, language and sexual situations
::Ff.net:: ::Twilighted:: ::Twilighted Forum::

Summary: My version of the honeymoon after Bella joined Edward in the water - this is what we all wanted to read! Edward opens up and let's go of his fears. Lots of B/E LEMONS and fun couple banter. M RATED - some pretty graphic language and scenes.

Let Your Light Shine is a FANTASTIC take on the Breaking Dawn (failgasm of a) honeymoon. It is a HEAPING dose of lemony goodness; so hot and steamy that at times I needed to walk away from my computer and take a breather, but even through all the dirty sex and consuming passion, the love shines through. She writes their connection amazingly well, and, in my opinion, better than Stephanie Meyer. Bella and Edward actually *gasp* communicate with one another about their wants and needs - and not only sexually. They talk about what she wants to do with the rest of her life and even - SHOCK - about her change, and how she would like it to happen. And the way Lola writes this change is nothing short of amazing; poignant and passionate and everything it should have been in Breaking Dawn. I had tears in my eyes, and this cold hearted SOB is not a crier.

A Life Extraordinary is the sequel to Let Your Light Shine, detailing Bella's life with the Cullens after she is changed. I don't want to give away any of the details and spoil it for you, but the power Lola has constructed for Bella is fantastic; original and interesting. There are so many facets to it, and I am amazed at her ability to weave it into the storyline gracefully, making nothing obvious or cliched. The relationship between Bella and Edward is intense (probably a gross understatement there) and passionate, yet never loses the tenderness and love that can sometimes fall by the wayside when the heat gets turned up.

Lola just completed A Life Extraordinary - on a cliffie! - and promises to have its sequel out in the fall. I am already out of mind with anticipation, and I only just started reading these last Friday. However, she has promised us outtakes of LYLS and ALE to tide us over while we wait. Thank god.

Your homework for this week is to read these and report back to me. Extraordinary is truly an understatement when it comes to this fic.

Help Send AngstGoddess003 to Comic-Con

Are you going to be at Comic-Con in San Diego in July? Do you read FanFiction and worship the ground that Wide Awake author AngstGoddess003 walks on? Would you like to know that she's also at Comic-Con and you might actually get a chance to meet her?

AG has been asked to cover the New Moon panel as an admin for the TLYDF blog. However, she lives across the country and we would like to help get her out to SoCal. She'll obviously have airfare, transportation costs and room and board expenses, so I'll be accepting donations to help offset those.

If you'd like to help me in this endeavor, please send any amount ($1, $5, $20, ??) using PayPal to the email address 1cali4me@gmail[dot]com (be sure to put a "." in place of [dot]). I'll be accepting donations up until July 22nd, so I can present her with the full amount collected at Comic-Con the next day. We'd love any amount you can provide and I'm sure when she hears about this she'll be very grateful for your support.

Let's show her how incredible our readers are and thank her for being such an amazing friend to The Twilight Sisterhood.

TLYDF: Exploring the Jasper Factor

Not long ago, our good friend AngstGoddess003 turned to the Twilight Sisterhood for a little research assistance. We're always glad to help when we can, so I was thrilled to see the results of that with her excellent essay for TLYDF called Exploring the Jasper Factor.

AG delves into the concept of Jasper being the next truly "acceptable" star of fanfiction's future. There are literally thousands of fics about Edward and Bella and recently there has been a surge of next generation fics with Jasper taking the reigns.

She breaks down the different variations of Jasper that we're seeing such as Vampsper, Texsper, Darksper and, one that scares me a bit, Edsper. AG explores what it is about these characterizations, in addition to others, that are so appealing to the readers and what the thought process is behind them from the authors themselves.

Beyond that, AG enlisted the help of the Twilight Sisterhood and others with some questions which I presented to those on our forum. First, she wanted to know if we imagine actor Jackson Rathbone, who played Jasper Hale in the movie adaptation of Twilight, when we read/write Twilight fanfiction. If not, she was curious who we do picture in that role. Then she wanted to know our opinions on which we thought was the cooler power, Edward's ability to read minds or Jasper's power of empathetic manipulation.

Here is the Jacksper breakdown and some of our contributions. I know who these "random" readers are. Can you find your input here?:

Jasper is Jackson : 11
Jasper is Jackson, with physical alterations : 5
Jasper is not Jackson : 3
Jasper is Joe Anderson : 1
Jasper is Tatum Channing : 1

Random Reader comment from The Twilight Sisterhood: As for the powers... I think they are both incredibly intrusive; you're either invaded by their thoughts or their emotions. I think I’d have to go with the thoughts, because it is the lesser of the two. I think Edward learned to ignore and tune out the chatter all around him, but they never said anything about jasper being able to ignore emotional surges around him. I’m a very empathetic person, and I know how hard it is not to succumb to the emotions of others when they're running high. I imagine most of the time he's not even sure how he himself feels, he is so inundated with the thoughts around him.

Random Reader comment from The Twilight Sisterhood: The "cooler" power is relative... I think the mindreading thing is cool, but not sure I'd want to live like that the rest of MY life or live with someone else who had that power...so I'd have to choose empathetic manipulation, although I'm a moody bitch, so I'd have to choose C - none of the above...if I had a choice, I'd choose seeing the future like Alice...she has the ability to change the future based on her visions! Way coolest power!

This is such a fun, insightful piece that you must check it out and show AG some love. She did a great job dissecting all of the aspects of The Jasper Factor.

The Lazy, Yet Discerning Ficster

Welcome Readers!!!

Bienvenue! Willkommen! Benvenuto! Multumesc! Huan Ying! Karibu! That would be a great big WELCOME to our vast and diverse reader pool!

Although we are a very young Twilight blog, we are so pleased to see our readership expanding daily with visitors from over 35 countries with the top 4 represented below. We are jazzed to see that what we're doing here is reaching so many people all over the world.

Whether you found us through a search engine with some crazy request like:

"how did twilight get nominated for an mtv award" - The Fandom United!
"when nikki reed meet jackson moose" - March 31st
"where can you find wide awake by amanda bell" - You can't! But, here's her Interview with the author.
"who is bobby longs manager" - That would be Phil Taylor
"what sam bradley says about robert pattinson" - He cooks great beans?
"what is a snuggy party" - A little slice of heaven
"how to meet robert pattinson in person in las vegas" - I promise this wasn't my own personal search, but I'd still love to know the answer to that one myself. *grins*

Maybe you found us linked through another blog site, or were sent our link from a totally awesome friend, but no matter how...we welcome you with open arms, thank you for checking in and invite you to come back over and over again.

Here's how some of the traffic stacks up during different time periods throughout the day. You'll notice the first map has pretty good coverage over both US coasts including Canada & a light spattering in other countries. The next shows a much heavier concentration over in the UK, France & Germany. The third shows that we've added some readers in Africa and Saudi Arabia while the Canadians have nodded off to sleep or something.We like to think that the return visitors in British Columbia are the cast keeping tabs on us here at the Sisterhood. That or possibly Sam Bradley after getting a Google alert on his name. We'd love to have you all stop in, stay awhile, make yourselves at home and feel free to comment or contact me directly. Oh, and...Rob, just so you know, we have Hot Pockets! ;o)Thanks, again, we love each and every one of you! Come back soon...ya hear?

AngstGoddess003 "Rocks Our Socks" with 'Wide Awake'

Okay, so I have to admit that just like with the Twilight bandwagon, I was a little late to jump on the one for Wide Awake. It followed the same pattern of constantly hearing friends and people in my groups praising the story and me being skeptical about how good it could really be. My Bad!

I started by reading my friend, Amanda's, exclusive interview with the author for the Examiner. Then my girls here at The Twilight Sisterhood hopped on, grabbed my hand while I dragged behind for a bit, but I finally got my footing and never looked back! Thanks ladies for feeding my addictions, I love you!

So, now I'm fully engrossed in Wide Awake which is a new take on the Edward & Bella love affair. Although, not all of the characters are present, they are all human which is a surprisingly refreshing touch. As much as I love the perfect Edward Cullen of the Twilight Saga, I think I love WA's "Dark Edward" even more. The characters are flawed and fragile, with real human emotions and reactions to situations...Take THAT, Stanley!

AG does an excellent job of bringing them all to life so perfectly with her vivid descriptions and details. Robert Pattinson mentioned in his interview for April's GQ magazine that he really enjoyed reading the fanfic and was pleasantly surprised by the talent out there. I'm not sure that all of the actors would enjoy how their new characters are portrayed here vs. Twilight, but I tend to think that Rob would really like this one.

So, Rob, if you're reading this (LOL!), be sure to check out AG's Wide Awake next time you need a good read, you'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll fan yourself when it gets steamy. Visit her site http://angstgoddess003.livejournal.com/ and scroll down to where it says Wide Awake on the left. Each chapter is numbered and named after a cookie (Scooby Snacks had me laughing so hard I was crying!).

WARNING: The material is strictly for Mature Audiences for sex, drugs, and profanity that would shock a sailor!

P.S. We love you, AG, and are all anxiously anticipating the next chapter...but you already knew that!