It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

Shut the fuck up!

What did you expect me to say? Christmas? Isn't that what most of the other fanfic rec blogs are doing right now? Recommending holiday stories?

What can I tell you?



I'm not like those other bloggers.




You're not going to find me doing what everyone else does. So, if you're looking for Christmas stories from me...



Who do you think I am? Cindy Lou Who?



Since I never plan this shit, here I come to spew forth more word-vomit for your reading pleasure.



Anyway, I figure since I don't want to do Christmas I should at least give you some kind of cohesive theme...






So I'm just gonna throw some shit up there and see if it sticks, okay?



I just counted the WIPs I'm currently following and the number is THIRTY! I'm following 30 different WIPs and I know I've only recced a couple of them in the weeks since I began writing this blog.

This week my favorite WIPs, the ones I drop everything and run to read (except last week when I was reading the Storm series, yo) are Eight Days by windchymes, This is who I am by madkins, and Island Nights by Compass54.

Each of them is fairly far into the story arc. In fact, Island Nights is almost complete. So why don't I start with my review of that?

Summary: I would always remember him as a dangerously beautiful twenty-two-year-old, a sensual and affectionate lover who could put a gun to a man's head and pull the trigger. Why I couldn't forget him was no mystery. I was still in love with him.

Island Nights started out as a one-shot contest entry for the Bad Boys of Twilight contest and thank goodness the author decided to expand it. First of all, I can't even begin to tell you how much I've loved this story. From the get go. Word one had me hooked.

And it's not Edward who has me so hooked in this story. He (and everybody else) is just a supporting character. The star of this story is Bella. The story is told completely in her POV, with the exception of a one shot Compass did for a charity compilation (sorry, I don't remember which one right now).

All I can tell you is that the Bella of Island Nights is hands down the best-written Bella I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Not one chapter goes by without the character developing in some way.

The story starts with and innocent-seeming Bella and her best friend Rosalie working at an island resort, saving to travel Europe together. Bella soon finds herself infatuated and intrigued with the bronze-haired bartender who lives a life that appears to be filled with hedonism and debauchery. He feels the same way toward her but he wants to protect her from his life and pushes her away in every way he can, up to and including hurting her feelings when he makes her out to be crazy to other people right in front of her. 

Eventually the pull they feel toward each other is too much and they go on a date. It's while they're on this date that the repercussions from the choices he's made in his life come into play and they're almost killed. The people who are after Edward set the police on his illegal activities and leaves the island to escape while Bella tries to go on with her life but can't get him out of her head.

She stays on the island with Rose for a while after Edward leaves and once they save enough money for their trip through Europe they leave. In every adventure they have together, Bella still has Edward and her love for him at the back of her mind.

Edward, meanwhile, has decided he doesn't want to be a criminal any longer and he wants to have a life with Bella so he finds an occupation which will pay him the most for the least investment of time and money. He finds deep saturation diving, living in a pressurized facility deep in the ocean for 28 days at a time, to be very lucrative, however, it's still very physically demanding and risky for him.

But he needs the money to refurbish his grandfather's pub, so he can stop with the deep-diving and give Bella a crime-free life in London. Bella needs to get a work visa so she can continue to live in London.

No matter the situation, Bella learns something from each and every experience she has. You can actually see her grow as a person, in both very obvious and very subtle ways.

Island Nights is easily one of the best fics I've ever read and I encourage Compass54 to rework it and try to get it published because not only are the character development and story stellar, but the mentions of the places that Bella travels to, the descriptions Compass gives, are so good that during every chapter I find myself rushing to Google images to look at something she talks about in the chapter I happen to be reading at that moment.

So if you haven't you should really check out, Island Nights by Compass54.



Island Nights can be found here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11370259/1/Island-Nights

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Okay, y'all. To be honest, when I first started reading Eight Days by windchymes, I thought it would be a typical Edward-left-in-New-Moon-and-didn't-come-back fic. You know the type, he left but a few years later, the Cullens stumble on a broken Bella, and Edward resolves to do everything and anything he has to in order to get her to forgive him for throwing their love away.

Not this story. Edward left in New Moon and didn't come back, alright. I'm not going to tell you what the twists are, but when he and Bella meet up again eight years later, he's no longer a vampire. And Bella's changed too. She's no longer the shy 18-year-old content to just let life and other people's decisions happen to her.

She is genuinely angry with Edward for not thinking their love was worth fighting for. And I don't blame her for that anger, either. But, Edward has some revelations for Bella as to how her behavior in the past regarding him has repercussions for him in the present day, as well.

But, just the fact that Edward is no longer a vampire should be enough to make you want to read this story. RUN! Read it!

There's no banner for Eight Days, but here's a nice pic of E&B.\\

Eight Days can be found here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11885557/1/Eight-Days

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This is who I am by madkins is a fic that I've heard of others saying they won't read it because of the subject matter. I'm here to tell you that decision is wrong.

This is who I am is a compelling story. When Benjamin Swan was born, he had both male and female genitalia. The doctors advised his parents, Charlie and Renee to choose to have the baby be a girl, as she had more female chromosomes than male, but Charlie wanted a son and Renee wouldn't be able to have any more kids so Benjamin came into the world. He never knew what happened at his birth and the subsequent physical changes that were made to his body.

So, although Benjamin had boy parts and was raised as a boy, genetically (because of the fact that he had more female than male chromosomes) he was actually a girl. When Benjamin was 22 his grandma died and left him some money so he had gender reassignment surgery. When he was going through the process of starting the transition, he obtained his medical records where he was informed that it would actually have been better for him to have been raised as a girl.

After she had her surgery, Bella met Edward and they fell in love. Until Alice found out her secret and told him. Edward told her not to contact him again. His mother has blackballed her with all of the design clients they had in common and she can't find a job, so she decided to tell her story to a news magazine television show. They paid her enough money for her to leave the area so she moved to the other side of the country.

Five years later, she has made friends, adopted a little girl and has a great (if lonely) life for herself. And then she runs into Edward's sister-in-law at the zoo and everything comes crashing down around her again.

I will admit, when I first started the story (because of the prolog), I thought it was going to be something where "Bella" had a dick and wanted Edward to be on board with it, so I wasn't going to keep going. But then I kept reading and discovered a mature, well-told, wonderful story about a woman who is doing everything in her power to have love in her life and struggling with not being hurt again.

You should really jump to read this story. It's fantastic and I've never read anything like it before. This is another story where I would encourage the author to rework it for possible publication.

This is who I am has no banner picture, so here's a nice pic of Rob and Kristen from 2008.



This is who I am can be found here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11991750/1/This-is-who-I-am

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I should really start planning these bad boys better. I never know what I'm gonna do until I start writing it.



Or a plan A, even. I don't know.

I just know that when I plan something, it never really ever goes the way I thought it would.



Oh, that's right! People may actually read the deranged stuff I put down here. 

And now I am going to swallow my pride enough to do some begging.

I (and my blog and group on facebook) am up for three awards on the Twific Fandom Awards. And I'm not even the one who nominated me!

I am not too proud to beg for votes. I am up for Fic Pimp (SarcasticBimbo), Fic Pimp Site (Smut Sluts and Angst Whores), and for Grammar Nazi (SarcasticBimbo), and I would appreciate your vote. 



Because it would make me happy and everyone deserves to be happy, right?



Wow. That's pretty cold. 

Anyway, here's the link to vote. You can vote through Saturday. It would be really nice to make it past the first round. 

http://twificfandomawards.blogspot.com/p/vote.html

It's not longer Tuesday in my time zone, so I better get this blog posted. 

I'll see you next week. I hope you get you deserve for whichever holiday you choose to celebrate at this time of the year.


Merry Christmas!