Recent news:

I'm not dead! I have returned with a new story.

Interview with the Vampire Fan!

You've written stories for Twilight and Moonlight. Which do you like better?

I like them both equally. Basically, I'll watch or read anything with vampires in it. One of the things that I love about the vampire myth is that it's so versatile--today's authors and TV writers can use or ignore any part of the "original" (Dracula) mythos, and make up their own stuff (or not) and it's all valid. Everyone has their own interpretation, and I think that's cool. Though it does make crossovers dammed near impossible...

What else do you like to read and watch?

Read: Harry Potter (I totally called one of the unexpected deaths in DH...I hate being right sometimes), Anne Rice (kinda), Kerrelynn Sparks (yes, I read vampire romance novels. Shut up), Vampirates (which, I swear, is infinitely better than its name. Just imagine a pirate vampire...awesome, no?), Tanya Huff, Tamora Pierce, Madeleine L'Engle, Roald Dahl, other stuff. I read a lot, mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.

Watch: BtVS, Angel, Blood Ties (BT is based on Tanya Huff's books), Heroes, Dexter, Pushing Daisies, Kyle XY, Death Note, Mythbusters, The Colbert Report, Doctor Who, and Mystery Science Theater 3000

This week's new obsession: "Leverage." Modern-day Robin Hoods rip off the corrupt corporations to pay back the people who were screwed by the system. And it has Christian Kane, also known as Lindsay on "Angel."

Planning on doing fanfics for anything mentioned in #2?

I've actually got a Dexter story, and a Doctor Who story, going right now. Other than that, I don't know. I'm afraid of writing fanfiction unless I really, really know the characters, backstories, etc. I could probably do some good stuff for Angel (the series), but it could never live up to "AtS: No Limits" (which isn't on Fanfiction. Just Google it if you want to read the Virtual Season 6. It's at least as good as the show).

On another note, I'd love to try writing fanfic for "Mythbusters." Maybe I will...

Please can you do a sequel to "Twilight Condensed!"? Pretty please with a cherry on top??

BREAKING DAWN: CONDENSED now available!

I want to stalk you. Can I have personal information??

Ummm...no.

I don't mean personal like your bra size...how about age, location, real name? Anything?

Bra size: haha, no. Shoe size, however, is 6.5 wide (you have NO idea how hard it is for me to find shoes...unless you, too, have wide feet. It stinks)

Blood type: A positive (yay! I got an A+ on my blood test!). I'm a donor...incidentally, I learned something very interesting from my dad. True fact: the Red Cross and other companies that run the blood drives SELL your blood when you donate. Yeah. Oh, sure, they say they're selling it to hospitals, but you never know...

Hobbies: Procrastination (big time), watching TV, reading, knitting, doing a pocast on movies and TV with my brother

Age: old enough to be out of college. And older than I look.

Location: planet Earth (physically).

Real name: Monica (that's all I'm giving)

Haha, I bet your favorite song is "Mambo No. 5," right? "A little bit of Monica in my life..."

..winces.. Actually, I've always hated that song. I have no desire to participate in his orgy, thank you very much. I mostly listen to classic rock--everything from Simon and Garfunkel to Queen--but I also like movie soundtracks, musicals (especially Little Shop of Horrors), and the music they play on "Moonlight." When it comes to current music, my favorite bands are Barenaked Ladies and Three Doors Down and my favorite song is "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. I also like Weird Al Yankovic.

So, what's the story behind the screen name? Is "Mon Solo" like "Han Solo" from Star Wars?

Yes, although I don't know any Wookies...a friend of mine came up with "Mon Solo" and I decided to steal it for my fanfic account. If I had a lucky number, it would be 23. It's a long story, but the short version is that adding 23 to my screen names will make them more unique.

Hey, are you ever going to write Star Wars fanfic??

Probably not. I like Star Wars, but I haven't seen it enough times to write my own stories about it.

What makes a fanfiction good in your opinion?

For examples of what I find "good" please check out my favorite stories. You won't be disappointed! Favorite fanfic authors include yayme2012, Alice laughed, don'teatmy cookie, and everyone else on my favorites list. My biggest pet peeve is people who write anything out of character. I don't mind "alternate universe" stories per se, but on the Twilight section that's come to mean "a universe where werevolves and vampires don't exist." I get so sick of people sticking the Twilight names into stories that have nothing to do with the Twilight universe. In my mind, "AU" is only acceptable when you can identify the place where the storyline changed.

Didn't you write a story called "As the Vampire Turns"? Where'd it go??

Yeah, my very first attempt at writing fanfic was a sort of "Twilight as a soap opera" deal. I called it "As the Vampire Turns" after a television show mentioned in Kerrelynn Sparks' book Vamps in the City. I wrote the first chapter before realizing that I don't know enough about soap operas to make the story credible, so ATVT has gone to fanfic heaven (or possibly fanfic hell). Feel free to steal the idea.

What else are you working on?

I have not forgotten about my Dexter story, but I may end up abandoning it eventually. It's become a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. I had an idea for a Twilight story, post-BD, focusing on Bella's younger sister. That may or may not happen; I'll have to re-work some ideas to incorporate all of the crazy plot twists Stephenie came up with.

What did you think of Breaking Dawn?

BREAKING DAWN SPOILERS FOLLOW!! Note to everyone who's not a Twilight fan: Prepare to be incredibly confused.

I went to a release party! There was much excitement to be had. They had a trivia contest, and the winner got to be first in line. It started off really slowly, but then the lady who'd actually read the "Twilight" books took over, and things started looking up. I answered a qualifying question to get to The Finals (a multiple-choice about who imprinted on who...wordy, but pretty easy). Then came the Final Question: Who did Bella get the motorcycles (in New Moon) from? I was the only one who knew. This was because (A) I'd re-read the first three books the week before and (B) the name stuck with me because I had a friend in HS with the same last name. So I got the coveted "#1 wristband." My parents, who'd planned on picking me up around 1 in the morning, were probably happier than I was.

Then they had a debate-type thing, which started off as "Edward vs. Jacob" but they changed topics before Edward's rabid fangirls could swallow Team Jacob whole. Somehow (and I can't remember if this was in response to an actual question, or just off-topic) we got into a debate about whether or not the Cullens should adopt a human child. My first thought was, "Wow! Yayme, I've got a new chappie for your Bad Fanfiction story!!" Little did I know...but more on that later.

I TOTALLY CALLED WHAT BELLA'S POWER WOULD BE!! Here's what I wrote (and, yes, it's been on my profile for months): "It's easy to see that Bella's power will have something to do with her immunity. As a human, Bella is immune to CERTAIN powers--the mental ones--but not EVERYONE'S power (Alice and Jasper). Also, her dominating personality trait is her desire to save/protect people, even if it costs Bella her life.

So my idea is that vampire Bella can protect others from the mental vampire powers, but only those she's touching. For example, if Jane was about to attack Edward, and Bella grabbed his arm, Jane wouldn't be able to hurt either of them. However, Jane would still be able to torture others. I haven't worked out if Edward's power would work while Bella's protecting him from Jane." Not 100 percent correct, but I'd still say it's pretty close.

Aside from that, I had a pretty crappy track record, prediction-wise. I put the book down in shock after Bella announced she was pregnant. Literally. I never, never, NEVER would've guessed that she'd get knocked up. I spent the next fifty pages in denial, and then I was convinced the baby was evil until we were well into part 3. In my mind, I was calling her "Jasmine" (nod to "Angel" and Cordy's evil demon baby). Oh, and it took me the longest time to get used to the name "Renesmee." Even now, I think it's weird.

Yay! Jacob gets a happily-ever-after. I'm not ashamed to say that I like Jacob...I might even go so far as to contend that he'd be better for her (though Bella's certainly pretty darn happy with her life). But I do wonder, if werewolves imprint on someone who will be a good mother for more werewolf babies, why'd he imprint on a half-human, half-vampire? Are vampires and werewolves (excuse me, "shape-shifters") related??

If I'd seen a story with a summary like: "Jacob imprints on Bella and Edward's daughter, Renesmee! Alice betrays the Cullens! When the Volturi come to kill everyone, will vampire-Bella be able to save them all?" I would've posted it in yayme2012's "Bad Summaries" forum. Stephenie either reads too much fanfiction or had no idea what kind of carp the fans were churning out. It's really too bad that her big plot twist had been a cliche since March.

One worry I had in the back of my mind through pretty much the whole book was, "Is Carlisle going to die?" I guess that was mostly paranoia (a result of too much Harry Potter...Dumbledore, anyone?? I nearly gave up on HP after JKR killed him!) combined with all of the "foreshadowing" comments that everyone makes about how wonderful Carlisle is, and how they don't know how they'd go on without him. And, yes, I was worried that Bella was really dead in chapter 18. Oh, and I spent several chapters believing that Leah had imprinted on Jacob, and was trying to hide it from everyone because she was really pissed about the whole concept of imprinting.

The vampire index in the back of BD was cool. I was surprised to see that Victoria's name had the "superpower symbol" next to it. Did I completely miss her power, or did Steph never mention what it was?

What did you think of Twilight: The Movie?

I wrote a loong review on my blog (click the homepage thingy to go there!) but I have even more to say. If you haven't seen the movie, there are minor spoilers.

Favorite scene: The Cullens in the kitchen. I LOL'd at everything. Especially Rosalie crushing the salad bowl, because I can totally picture her doing that. I can totally picture that whole scene in one of the books. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie--even with everything they changed, it still seemed pretty faithful to the books. I'm normally very picky about book-to-movie adaptations (I still don't particularly like any of the HP movies) but I think the reason T:TM works is because the characters don't do things that they wouldn't do in the books. I guess nothing bugs me more than characters who are OOC, whether it's in a two-chapter fanfiction or a multi-million dollar movie franchise (the moment I turned against the HP movies was when they were trying to kill each other during the first Quidditch game. I was thinking, "Okay, in the book they would've been fouled a dozen times already! Don't they care if the kids get hurt?! This would never be in the books!).

Nitpicking: Where were the rest of the Cullens?? Seriously, Emmett and Jasper had almost NO screen time; Alice and Rose didn't do much better; even Esme and Carlisle were nearly written out (By the way, Peter Facinelli is HOT. That is all). It was definitely a conscious choice to build up the human characters more than the Cullens. It makes sense from a budget viewpoint, because it's difficult to make the vampires do everything they do in the books AND make it look halfway realistic. But I'm still upset about that.

Movie experience: Hehe, it was definitely an experience. I couldn't get to a midnight showing, but I went on Friday evening (with my fourteen-year-old brother, no less). We had trouble finding two seats together. Also, the fangirls WOULD NOT SHUT UP. Before the movie started, they were chanting "Edward, Jacob, Edward, Jacob." I shouted "Mike!" (because Mike/Mike is adorable and also because Mike's name always comes up for no apparent reason). And they screamed for Edward a lot. There was also some screaming for Jacob, and even James (okay, Cam is pretty hot too).

Favorite character: Charlie. Hehe. His line about pepper spray made me crack up. Also the scene with Charlie and Tyler in the hospital. Though I never pictured him with a John Stossel mustache.

Overall: 4/5 stars. Please vote in my poll to tell me what you thought!!