Hey! Well, I’m rather excited to be here, that’s no lie. I was a little nervous at first, I mean, what am I reading that hasn’t already been rec’d all over the place already? And, then there is the fact that I don’t do half the reading that some of us do. And I’ve got some specific (funny?) tastes, certain things that really float my boat which I let inform my reading choices a lot. There are few things that I leap on as soon as they appear in my inbox, but here's my highlights.
~v~
If you know me at all, you know that I have a big old girl-boner for canon Edward/Carlisle. Yes, that's right, I said canon. Because, come on, three years, just the two of them, all alone in the world? You really think they never... Well, I do :D It's the reason I first started looking for twific. Le Sigh. I never found it. Well, close to a year later, and it's appeared, and god, am I happy about it :D
Aberration by shoefreak37 is spanking new (figure of speech, no actual spanking in this fic), only three chapters so far, but I've read Shoe's stuff before (understatement, I'm big on fangirling over her Tracking Redemption), and I know that this is my dream come true.
The guests are arriving, the decorations hung; the tables are set. The overpowering scent of freesia fills Edward's already addled head, and he stares at himself in the mirror, trying to decipher where he belongs in the bedlam that is his wedding day – his and Bella's wedding day.
Yep, it is so firmly in canon that this is how it begins. Or ends. In the prologue, Edward is about to marry Bella, and yet it is apparent that he has some...issues.
"Turn it on," Edward requests, giving Jasper a quick upturn of his lips. Jasper has made a promise not to manipulate any emotions today, but Edward has realized he will need his brother's gift if he is to make it through with any semblance of normality.
"Sure," Jasper replies. "What flavor? You want...confidence?" Edward feels himself bolstered within seconds, but shakes his head. "Calm?" The feelings radiating off his brother change, and Edward feels lethargic. He shakes his head again. "Love?" Love would make sense. Love should be what Edward wants to feel on his wedding day, but he grows uneasy as the emotion intensifies, radiating and undulating from Jasper. Edward shakes his head another time. Jasper furrows his brow, confused.
"Can you make me content?" Edward asks, sliding his arms into his jacket.
After the prologue, we go back in time to Carlisle in Chicago, 1918, and we all know what happens then. I've read a few 'Carlisle changes Edward' fics, but nothing like this before. Shoe takes canon and and while remaining faithful to it, does things that we would never see in the source material. She writes in character, too, which I think is why I love her vampslash so much. So often slash is OOC merely for the reason that it isn't strictly canon. She remains as close as possible to the prescribed history of the Twilight Saga that we know, wonders whether twivamp hair can be cut or not, (among other more entertaining ponderings) and it makes me happy because I get a more realistic experience, a more believable story.
Something I wish I could get printed and shove on my bookshelf right alongside the rest of the stuff on my 'shrine to Twilight'. I'm a sad little monkey ;) Shoe's making my sad little slashy vampire dreams come true, and I'll be hanging out for each and every update.
~v~
I keep saying that I don’t ‘do’ femmeslash. Well, as I write this, it is the second time in just a few weeks that I have publicly proved myself wrong.
Hale no, Hale yes by tjbaby isn’t your typical femmeslash though. The main pairing is Alice and Rosalie, of course, but there are also traditional m/m slash elements, along with just a little bit of het. It's just a really entertaining story, narrated by my favourite Alice ever, and peppered liberally with pop culture references that make this geek squee and bounce with...well, geeker joy.
My eyes watered furiously, blurring my vision as I flailed around trying to find the tissues. Dabbing at my eyes, I peered into the mirror. Oh hell, one red eye. I'm going Terminator to my date. I glared at the eyeliner lying innocently on my dresser.
"I see you. Don't think you can come off all innocent on me, eyeballer." Cautiously I poked it with my finger, watching it suspiciously as it rolled over. Holding it up, I examined it carefully. "I'm warning you now, mister, I can break you in half with these teeny tiny little hands so don't you go getting all Mr. Pointy on me. I'm no vampire. Got it?"
Beneath the funny, it's a story about discovering possibilities and thinking outside the sphere of what you thought you knew about yourself.
Alice is excited, because Jasper Hale, the blond hottie she's been playing hard to get with for a while, has asked her out on a date. But when Alice gets there, to find two other people at their table that she did not expect, she almost completely forgets about Jasper, instead being unable to take her eyes from his beautiful sister, Rosalie.
Alice gets drunk, makes a right dick of herself (this is one of my favourite aspects of this fic, her propensity for foot-in-mouth-disease that makes her very relatable. Well, at least to me), and ends up getting snogged in the car park (parking lot, right? I figure I can get away with a kiwism in a rec) by a blonde goddess.
I jumped as Jasper touched my arm, brushing it with his as he reached for the salad dressing. He looked at me, a silent question in those eyes and fleetingly I wondered how it was I thought they were beautiful. They paled in comparison to Rosalie's.
Oh God.
The abrupt scraping of my chair drew all eyes towards me. "I'm sorry...um, I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve," I stammered as I stood up.
Shit. I just quoted Bilbo's speech. They are going to think I'm the worst type of Hobbit ever.
And then there is Jasper. While we are hearing the tale from Alice's point of view, it's still easy to see that he is going through some of the very same things she is in coming to terms with his sexuality not being quite what he thought it was. And watching Edward and Jasper through Alice's eyes seems very normal for a m/m slash lover of the female persuasion...
Holy fuck! I took a deep breath as spots appeared before my eyes. "Breathe, Alice, breathe," I told myself as I avidly watched these two gorgeous men before me. A million questions ran through my head as I stared at the sight before me. Was Jasper gay? Bi? Het? Surprised?
And the way Alice and Jasper both react to their confusion throws a definite het aspect into the mix.
Hefting my bag onto my shoulder, I grabbed the pile of papers I left on the table. "Yeah well, the last blonde I had objected to my tongue in her mouth last night. And before you say she'll get over it, I led the way to hell with "You don't kiss like your brother and you don't have a peen." So yeah, fucked if I'm going to get any, any time soon. The males just stick their cocks in you and scream some guy's name as they pound the fuck out of you, and the girl ones, well they just scream at you. And not in the throes of passion either."
Fun times! I could go on for hours, because almost every paragraph in this fic has something quotable, but I'll stop there, only suggesting that you go read it yourself ;)
~v~
And quickly, before they start playing that music that tells me to STFU and get off the goddamn stage, I must mention Betrayal by stitchcat. This is an Alistair (remember the British vampire dude who hid out upstairs in Breaking Dawn and then buggered off before the Volturi arrived?) fic, and I'd never read an Alistair fic before, but I had to read it, because not only is it just a little bit slashy, but it also 'solves' one of the most sinister and compelling mysteries in modern history. A lovely dark vampfic that is faithful to canon and historic fact.
In the autumn of 1888 I was living in London. I realized that this was the perfect place to conduct my experiments. The poverty and constantly fluctuating population assured me that the whores would not be missed, and that murder was so common the likelihood of discovery was small. I was wrong.
Squeeeee! Oops, there goes that geeker joy again. My obsessions are many and varied ;)
Thank you, Naelany, for asking me to do this, it was a lot of fun, and I do like talking about the stuff I like to read :D
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