Happy Siblings Day

Throughout the year we have a ton of holidays that celebrate family; Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day, Aunt and Uncle's Day, Cousin's Day, etc etc. 

But today is a today for anybody who has that special tormentor in their life - you know who I'm talking about. It's the most interesting of familial bonds because siblings are both friends and enemies. So if you have one (or more) be sure to wish them a Happy Sibling's Day today.

Sleeping

Quote of the day

Occasionally, I just have nothing to say on my blog, and when that happens, I sometimes post a picture or recs or do a flashback (flashbacks are on hold until I get all my info back) but today I'm posting a quote. It's a favorite of mine.

Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.

-- Lawrence D. Bell

Writing Rebirth and Affliction

Trying to work on Rebirth and Affliction today, but it's going like:

MAJOR PROBLEM

So here's the deal. As of this morning my flash drive where I stored everything, including all my stories, almost all my photos, dozens of started works, a whole bunch of personal files, and hundreds of pdfs (both fanfics and real fics) has been damaged.

I don't know what I'm going to do at this point, though I think I have a back up drive somewhere that hasn't had an update in like two years or more, but at least it might get me back some of my core old info.

If I don't have that drive than I'm likely very screwed.

At this point my Original fictions are on an indefinite hiatus until I can figure this out and I'm not sure what's going to happen with most of my fanfics.

I'm sorry for how this will effect my readers.

Updates to Grammar in Stories.

I just announced this on one of my stories, but I'm putting it here as well. I'm going to be slowly going through almost all my stuff with Grammarly Premium and as chapters/one-shots/etc are fully edited by it I am going to be updating them on my posts. So some minor changes will be ahead, but for most of it most people won't notice.

There will be few exceptions of course.

To start with, anything posted on here, my blog, is rough and generally completely unedited - that includes blog exclusive stories.

The other exceptions are as follows:

And Esme's Fate was fully beta'd by qjmom on March 16th, 2010, and though there are some changes I'd like to make because it's too much work to trade out an edition on Twilighted, the story is going to remain the same on all places it's posted.

Serial Black Widow was beta'd by SunflowerFran, Any Given Day and Schrodinger's Cat were both beta'd by monica03, Never Enough  was beta'd by both Kimmydonn and pineandapple, and April Prank was beta'd by both darkgoddess09 and SueBob. As these stories were beta'd, I'm also not putting these through Grammarly Premium. They are all as is, where is, stories.

The final few are my poetry which includes Twilight Fanfic Poetry (which include three individual poems at the moment), Twilight Saga Acrostic Poems (which there are nine of), None, and He Loved Me. As they are poems, they don't follow typical grammar laws so there's no point in putting them through Grammarly.

Rebirth and Affliction Sneak Peek

Another brief teaser of Chapter 16 - Epoch:

My brow furrowed when a smell hit me which I wasn't expecting.

It wasn't necessarily because it was a wolf, so much as which wolf it was. I stepped away from the tree and turned in the direction the scent.

“Sarah? Why are you here?”

A wolf separated itself from its hiding place behind a tree before there was a silent vibration in the air I recognized immediately. I spun away instantaneously. I'd seen Jules naked more than once with the way she'd shifted between wolf and human freely around me, but Jules was sixteen where Sarah was only fourteen and I had no desire to see her naked.

I heard the shuffling of what sounded like soft cloth and smelled the scent of cotton on the air but didn't turn around.

“What gave me away?” A slightly wounded voice asked.

I snorted. “You smell carried to me but even if it hadn't, Sarah, once I'd started to pay better attention I would have recognized your heartbeat and known a wolf was nearby.”

“Seriously? My heartbeat?”

I rolled my eyes, though she couldn't see it. “You know enough about vampires by now – and me specifically – to know how astute our senses are.”

She sighed and I knew without looking that she was likely pouting.

Lemons

As things in rated M stories go, in fanfiction lemons are almost expected, but while I can write them and have in the past - I find them awkward as hell to write usually

And that awkwardness comes through when I write them. Occasionally, if I'm inspired to write it, I can be extremely eloquent, but for the most part I don't find them to be necessary.

It's why the vast majority of my rated M stories do not (and likely never will) have lemons.

There are exceptions, of course, but I prefer not to write them which is why they're scarce (unless you're reading Twin Thing which be exception uno)

Why I Like Bella

So, I've been considering writing this for awhile, as in months, but I've put it off again and again because I've wanted to do justice to this post.

I have several people who read my stories who are legitimately hater of Bella. I've had people tell me she's shallow, that the only thing she wanted was immortality, that she was too plain, etc, etc. 

I could, and actually have, argued on each point I've been given, but I'm not going to do that here. Instead, I'm just going to come out point-blank. Bella is a one-dimensional character, and I know a lot of people will disagree with me on that, but the thing is that Bella's emotions are almost never shown the Twilight Saga, her logic behind her decisions is completely missing, and anything that could have truly allowed a person to see full depth into Bella isn't there. 

But I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, I'm relatively sure it is why she is so compelling as a character. Because she is so... Well... plain. Almost anyone can find a connection to her. A lot of her logic and drive, etc is missing which allows people to reach their own conclusions about her as a character and it allows readers to read between the lines in such a way that they can imagine their own logic. 

And it's not just Bella, by the way, it is basically that way for every character in the story. 

Because of the way the saga is written, there are huge gaps where you're left having to guess for yourself as to what really happened, as to why such a thing was done in whatever way it was done, and more.

Now, I will say this, if the books were supposed to show every nuance and be completely revealed than the saga was really poorly written, but if this was exactly what Meyer actually wanted - if she wanted people to analyze and think for themselves and ultimately reach their own conclusions - than she is brilliant, possibly one of the greatest authors to ever exist. And I don't know which one it is. I'm also not sure it matters.

But, to get back to the point, it is that plainness of her that makes me want to write about her and it's also why I don't usually label my stories as ooc, because depending on how a person reads between those lines for Bella's motivations, my Bella's truly aren't ooc.

April Fools Day Recs

A few fanfic recs for April Fools Day. As always, as I'm not good at writing personalized descriptions, the summaries are directly from the stories in question. All stories in this post are on FF.net, so if any of the authors that I rec'd are for some reason upset by it and want me to remove their story then please let me know via a pm on FF.net and I'll remove it - but as it's free publicity, I don't know why someone would take issue with it.

Fortune's Fool An April Fool's Day One Shot by Jewels64 - Jasper & Alice are two immortals from Olympus who have the final task of uniting two humans in true love. Can egotistical Edward find love with Mousy Bella? What happens when Alice decides to have them switch places Freaky Friday style?

Jasper's Revenge by Miss Whoniverse - This is part of Chapter Four of the 50 THINGS AND WAYS series. Jasper is abusing his power to get revenge on Edward and Bella for their exceptional pranks on him on April Fools Day. Oneshot, read the other series first if you want to understand better. XD

In Their Place by Esme Mom Cullen - A crack fic in honor of April Fools' Day. Esme shows Bella who Carlisle only has eyes for. Edward comes face to face with Christian Grey. Bella goes toe to toe with Katniss. A "dream" of characters standing their ground and putting others in their place.

A Pack of Fools by ChrissiHR - A collection of 100-word wolf pack drabbles written for Tricky Raven's April Fools' Advanced Drabble-Writing Challenge. 7 prompts, 7 drabbles, 7 days. M, for language and subject matter. (Contains 8 drabbles because I wrote an extra!)

Pranks of Passion by Isannah - Edward has tried anything and everything for two years to get his neighbor, Bella to notice him. It's time to try something differen. A little fun for April Fool's Day! AH

Trouble by Marie Pattin - When Emmett and Edward ask Bella to participate in one of their infamous pranks, things take a turn for the worst...or better, depending on how you look at it. AH Rated M for lemon. Written for Countdown to April Fool's Day.

Prank Wars by Surviving Sheika - April Fool's Day with the Cullens? TAKE COVER! Who will survive this war? Who will emerge victorious? Certainly none of these characters. Rated T for mischief and bad ideas.

Caius, Aro, and the IPod by butchizzy1 - What happens on April fools day in the Volturi castle, should stay in the Volturi castle ; sorry, I fail at summaries badly

Fooling Edward by Belts - It's April Fool's Day at Forks High.

Avenging Edward by Belts - The people of Forks thought it was funny to prank Edward on April Fool's Day. Now, they shall suffer the consequences. Edward will stop at nothing to get his revenge. Sequel to "Fooling Edward".

April Fool's Day by DerringerMeryl87 - A simple oneshot. Bella plays a joke on Charlie and Edward. Please R&R!

And of course, my own, April Prank - An April Fools Day joke that takes place several years after Breaking Dawn. Jacob and Renesmee are now married and have been that way for right around a year. This is canon based.