Twilight Fanfiction Addiction: General Musing
For those of you who don’t know, fanfiction is a part of every fandom imaginable. To define it simply – it is fiction by the fans, for the fans of any particular fandom be it book, movie, whatever. There is N’Sync fanfic, I shit you not.
Yea, I kind of want to forget I know that it exists too.
Anyway.
Fanfiction is a dangerous, wonderful and equally horrifying and entertaining world. While I’ve thrown myself into the crapshoot that is fanfic reading in various other fandoms, I did not harbor any wish to do so with the Twilight universe.
Two words changed that. Wide. Awake.
Wide Awake is everything good about fanfiction. I can (in fact, I will) write an entire post about how awesome Wide Awake is, but for now I’ll leave it at this. Despite the cast being all human, they are absolutely in character. Wide Awake also remains the ONLY fanfiction that I’ve read that has conjured the exact same emotions I felt while originally reading Twilight – right down to being unable to STOP reading until I was done.
It was all down hill from there. Since I started reading fanfic, I haven’t been able to stop. So, a few musings.
What I Don’t Like
I tend to not like a lot of fics that include vampires. It’s difficult for me to let go of perfect canon (an absolute must if you’re going to venture into the fanfic world). Even the well written ones almost never get their powers right. It’s just not my bag, baby. But I won’t discourage you if it is yours. And believe me there are good vampire fics out there. Vampire in the Basement and If Love Could Light a Candle are both amazing and relatively in character.
I don’t like other than canon couplings. I just can’t dig it. Bella/Jasper, Edward/Rosalie, Jasper/Emmett – why? Part of what makes all of Stephenie Meyer’s characters so amazing is how they work in a couple dynamic. I’ve handled it from time to time when it leads to eventual canon coupling but it makes me feel squidgy.
Other things that make me groan: 1) Real actor fic. If I see Robert Pattinson in the character list I am totes out of there. I don’t want to see him pop up as a minor character either. 2) Edward being called Eddie or Alice being called Ali. No. Edward and Alice. This one pops up WAY too much.
What I Do Like
Lemons. Lemons are fic code for sex. I haven’t seen this in any other genre so I’m going to assume this is limited to the Twilight fanfic world. I have yet to figure out why they call them lemons. Most of the scenes definitely aren’t sour, though they might go well with tequila. But all in all, I like a well done lemon. Edward and Bella’s love was so amazingly sensual in the books. When Edward first touched her cheek in Twilight, it was as titillating as any romance ravishment. But you have to admit, the base part of you is DYING to know what a fire that hot is like in between the sheets. Or on a desk. In an elevator.
Hottest lemons ever: The Office, It’s my fourth favorite fic and it is vampire-transformation hot, ANGRY, rough sex. I guarantee you that after reading even a single chapter you will jump your significant other.
Good banter – which, incidentally, The Office has in spades. I just adore a good fic where any of the characters, but especially Edward and Bella, engage in verbal fisticuffs. See Trust in Advertising, and Mr. Horrible for great banter (off the top of my head).
Where to Start
My Top 5 Amazing Fics Everyone and Their Mother Should Read: Wide Awake, Mr. Horrible, Tropic of Virgo, The Office, Vampire In the Basement.
You can start where I started, AngstGoddess003′s FicRecs, the blog she co-sponsers, The Lazy Yes Discerning Ficster, usually has quality recs, The Eddie and Bellie Awards pick the cream of the crop in my ever humble opinion, or, last but not least, view my favorites on fanfiction.net (please note that not all of the fics I have favorited are quality fics – some of them I’m just dying of curiosity to find out how they’re going to get out of the hole they’ve painted themselves into. You have been warned.)
Posted in Fanfiction Addiction
August 10th, 2009 at 10:26 am
My God, it’s like you are me! I, too, was sucked in by Wide Awake and am both glad and sad that angstgoddess003 finished it. I agree as well on The Office, Trust in Advertising and Tropic of Virgo. Thanks for the other recs listed here that I haven’t read yet–I will add them to my list of faves immediately!
August 10th, 2009 at 10:50 am
haha! Thanks and welcome to the site. Since Wide Awake is finished (yea I was sad but glad too, how AMAZING was that last chapter?), I’ll be writing a column on it by the end of the week.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:19 am
I’ve read Mr. Horrible, The Office, Tropic of Virgo, The Vampire in the Basement and Wide Awake and they are all amazing. These authors are so amazing and what’s most intriguing is that they make abosolutely no profit. They are real authors if you ask me! I highly recommend Let Your Light Shine and A Life Extraordinary by LolaShoes, they are amazing: they pick up right at the honeymoon minus the angst, bruises and baby.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Hi Myra! Welcome to the site.
Thanks for comment.
I completely agree that fanfiction doesn’t make these stories any less “real” or valid than published authors.
I know AngstGoddess is reworking Wide Awake into a book she can publish. I know I’d buy it!
Thanks for the recs! I love recs. Hehe. I’ll check them out, though I have to say I’m a sucker for angst, and I LIKED the baby. I was not at all disappointed by Breaking Dawn!
September 4th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I stumbled across your site and, about your reference to the term ‘lemon’ and its origins?
‘Lemon’ (and its ‘sister’ term ‘Lime’) have been used for years, first in Anime and then throughout several other fandom (at least that I’ve been involved with).
Not every fandom uses the term, just like not every fandom has names for their pairings.
My theory is that it depends on who most of the writers are in a particular fandom. If there are many ‘carry over’ writers in one fandom from another fandom (as in, say, Harry Potter, where the term ‘Lemon’ and the term ‘Lime’ BOTH were used, probably due to the amount of authors in that fandom who used to write Anime fanfic, themselves) then it would stand to reason that such a term would develop a following in the new fandom (in this case: Twilight).
In other fandoms, like Supernatural or True Blood, I don’t think I’ve EVER heard the term used.
(For more info on the term here’s a quick section about its origin on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_fan_fiction_terms#Lemon_and_Lime)
And thanks for the recs! I’ve found several new stories to read!
September 4th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
YOU, Melissa, are a fricken GODSEND. You have NO idea how much it irritated me not to know where the hell that came from.
Lol, it’s like finally soothing that little itch on the back of your neck. Ahhh, feels better.
Yea, the only other fandoms I’ve been a part of where I read fanfic were the X-files, Star Wars and some Firefly. None of them ever used that term, hence why I thought it must have SOMETHING to do with Twilight.
It’s like in the X-Files, fanfic’ers would always refer to Scully as the Ice Queen – and it took me a while to track down but that term basically began in the fandom itself rather than being from the show or a comment the actors/creators had made, so I figured lemons might be something like that. Makes more sense this way though.
Although it still doesn’t explain why sex = lemons. LOL.
Thanks and welcome to the site! Hope you’re enjoying those fics as much as I do.
Check back as I plan to make this column as close to weekly as I can manage. I simply love chatting about fanfic!