Spotlight by Pemberly Rose
Hmm, how do I begin with Solar? *taps chin* I met her through the illustrious Lunar Siren and through Solar reading my work (insert honored blush here). It wasn’t long before Solar and I started talking through twitter, and then conversing on Gchat.
The absolute best part about her is her intelligence. She is scarily smart and crazily well informed. I feel better about the world when I talk to her, knowing that there’s at least some smart people out there. She’s a multimedia designer and she’s actually taught me how to use Photoshop merely by pointing me in the right direction.
A while back, when a certain wonderful Brit Actor whose name rhymes with Mobert Schmattinson was photographed jumping off a dock into the ocean in South America, we were giggling over the possibilities of this picture and I prophesized that it was going to be the next internet meme. To compile and showcase the multitude of Jumping Rob’s, Solar developed the fuckyeahjumpingrob tumblr and made a template so even those techtarded people like me could make their own memes. What resulted was an Internet phenomenon! Neither Solar nor I claim to have originated the meme just in case you were wondering. She simply created a place to showcase the art and hilarity that definitely came along! And I’m so glad she did!
You can find Solar on Twitter as @Solareclipses, Tumblr, FicTumblr, Fanfiction.net, Twilighted, FormSpring, and Last.fm. She also betas for Project Team Beta, is involved with TwiNetwork, and hangs around at ADF.
I’d been putting off reading her fic. I wanted to wait until it was completed. But I didn’t.
My personal favorite of her work is not the popular Sins of the Piano Man (SotPM) but the short five shot Arcana. Oddly, I had read it a week or so before we received our categories and lists of nominations. So I was rather surprised (maybe I shouldn’t have been) when I saw Arcana in the In Name Only category. Now I’m an extremely fair person and I’ll admit I was a little worried about putting a Judge’s fic into the nominations, but I had extreme faith in my fellow judges and the administrators of these awards and that really put any anxiety I had at ease. So I filed Arcana aside and made sure I read through each and every one of the fics (as I did with all the categories I had) in the category with a fine-toothed comb. All but six of them weren’t able to meet the criteria for the category. I wasn’t surprised when Arcana was one of the six.
Knowing Solar has really given me a lot of insight into her writing. She’s concise yet visually provocative with her word choice and structure of her stories. For example, she’s one of those people who needs to be published and on the NY Times Best Seller list. Sins of the Piano Man tells the tale of a vigilante who secretly strives to be loved, to be good, and ultimately for salvation from the life he has as a vampire. This story isn’t the typical E/B story. This isn’t any different to how she actually is as a person. Conversing with her I’ve learned that she has a knack for the darkest humor (think like a female Quentin Tarantino) and the most eclectic taste in music I have ever encountered.
I was extremely excited when I signed on to be a judge with the OCs and saw that Solar was also a judge. I knew, just knew, that these awards would be probably the most fair and ethical in the fandom. Solar has more integrity and a sharper moral compass than anyone I know. As the judging process went on, Solar and I found ourselves discussing fics within our separate categories (seeing as we’d been paired up with others and given different categories). We talked about what makes a good OC, what’s strong writing and what isn’t.
I feel as if everyone involved really cared about these awards and making them the best they could possibly be. Solar is definitely someone I look to in the fandom for everything from friendship, advice, tech tutorials and just random silliness. I can honestly say she’s become one of my closest friends within the twi-fandom and I’m really honored to call her that.
Stories
• Sins of the Piano Man: Twilight AU. A reclusive vampire's bittersweet swan songs for the victims he regrets draw in a young woman struggling with her father's illness. As fate brings them together, Edward's dark past threatens to tear them apart. ExB.
o Twilighted Thread
o Praise for Sins of the Piano Man:
Uggy's recommendation on Twilight Enablers
Smexy4smarties' review on Twi Network
Redsock's review on Twi-Fic Promotions
• Arcana: Pre-Twilight Volturi, canon AU. 2nd place femslash judges vote, In the Closet Contest. Together for centuries, Sulpicia longs for a deeper relationship with Didyme, the woman who also happens to be her mate's sibling...
o Praise for Arcana:
Tiffaninichole's recommendation on The LUSTorium
• Sins of the Piano Man Outtakes: Outtakes from the saga AU fic, Sins of the Piano Man. Will feature extras from Bella and Edward's POVs, as well as bits and pieces from other characters.
• A Mad Dash: Twilight, Midnight Sun AU one-shot. The bloodlust strips Edward Cullen of all his humanity. Vampires just love to play with their food. OOC, obviously.
• Lovers in Disguise: New Moon AU. A year after Edward left, Bella begins a journey to make herself worthy of his affection, leading her straight into the lion's bloodstained den. Multiple POV, but primarily Bella and Edward's.
• God's Will Be Done: Pre-Twilight one-shot, canon. A look into the mind of Carlisle's father during the height of his war against the supernatural. Is the price for eradicating evil too high, or shall God's will always be done, no matter the cost?
• Dancing on Daddy's Shoes: Post-BD one-shot, canon. With the help of her father, Renesmee deals with the awkwardness of growing up too fast. Submission for the "I Love/Hate Nessie" Valentine's Day contest.
Excerpt of SotPM Chapter 14
"Actually, Edward," he said, his tone losing all dreaminess as he turned decidedly academic, "it seems to me that most vampires find human mates, not vampire mates. This usually drives us to turn them. There are exceptions to this, of course, but I believe it to be our form of reproduction, the way our species continues itself, despite our inability to breed in the more traditional sense."
He went on, going into great detail about what he'd observed in our kind over the centuries—he'd apparently been turned in the 1600s and knew a thing or two. Normally, I'd find the discussion interesting, but I wasn't listening now, despite my nods and words of encouragement, such as "oh, really, is that so?"
Part of my brain catalogued every word he said, but my attention was elsewhere.
I'd known he was right as soon as he'd said it. I was mated to Bella, and the tragedy of that was palpable. While she might not come stamped with an expiration date, she certainly had one, just as her dying father did. I could never change her, subject her to this eternity of burning hunger… Could I?
Surely not.
Should I even want to, I was apparently now in the one place I readily knew I couldn't bite a human, unless I wanted to break treaties and wrestle with oversized canines who apparently could make quick work of me. To top it all off, the werewolves had a personal history with Bella, in particular. Wonderful. At least that made the decision simple, and yet, at the same time, it was upsetting to have the choice stolen from me before I'd had time to consider it.
Not that there was much to consider. I could never tell Bella the truth of what I was, let alone change her. I'd always been selfish, giving into pleasure when I shouldn't—a sinner at heart. I was selfish now, interfering with Bella's life when I knew our relationship couldn't last. I loved her, though—deeply—and that could perhaps make me less selfish than usual. I wouldn't subject her to this existence. I was late in making selfless decisions, but I would do for Bella as Carlisle had done for me. I would leave her human.
She deserved better than I could give, and one day, I'd have to step aside as a better man took my place.
Awards
Sins of the Piano Man
Original Character Award Nomination
Arcana – In Name Only
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