The Sparkle Awards!

So, girls, The Sparkle Awards (which are in their second round now) have just started taking nominations! My fic, Hands on Me, was nominated last go around and it was such an honor, even if I didn't win. People always say that, but it really is true. :)

So, anyway - I want you all to go nominate your favorite wolf/imprint fic! Jake is so under-appreciated and when he is recognized, it's only in correlation with Bella. What's that? I mean, he's a character too! Not to mention all our other awesome wolves and their lovely ladies!

So go and nominate - wolf-fic deserves more recognition. And once the nominating round is over - vote! Don't worry, I'll post a reminder!

You can nominate your favorites here:

The Sparkle Awards

And I almost forgot to mention - our very own A&I rec, Charlotte Webber, has been nominated for Best Author! Her lovely fic, Life Sucks and Then You Die, has also been nominated for Most Original Plot - so make sure you stop by once voting gets going to show a wolf-girl some love!

Friday's 'Review This' Rec of the Week: Enough With This Gravity Moving Already! by yay4shanghai

This Friday's 'Review This' rec of the week (actually arriving on a Friday this time) is . . .

Enough With This Gravity Moving Already! by yay4shanghai

Yes, I know, it's way overdue, and yes, I know I'm horrible for waiting so long, but it's here now and all can be forgiven. I hope. *laughs nervously*

So we all know yay4shanghai is like Wolf-girl royalty, for her mountains of awesome wolf-fic and the entirely original universe she's created, with tons of awesome OCs and background information and not to mention severalspin-offs. So, yeah - she's delved into new areas of wolf-fic with a never-too-serious, laid back style that is awesome for our favorite pack. Not to mention kick-ass plots to match.

Although she's got several different things going on right now, all of them pretty awesome, I'm here to talk about one of her more . . . classic fics.

Enough With This Gravity Moving Already! is probably one of the cutest, funniest, sweetest Quil/Claire fics I've ever read. Of course, there's drama (what's good fic without it?) but it's not overbearing - it's hilariously funny.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a sucker for the baby imprints. Jake/Nessie and Quil/Claire have my hearts first and foremost and this fic is definitely worthy of all the fanatics like me!

Her Quil and Claire are more unique than most I've read. They Xtreme Sand Castle build - come on, where have you read that before?

yay4shanghai's plot's are all pretty awesome and her characters unique - her writing rocks pretty hard too. She has tons of other fic that I'll probably end up recc'ing sooner rather than later, so you should probably so check them out too.

This really seems to be turning into more of an author review. Oh, well. Enough With This Gravity Moving Already! is funny and insightful, a great, realistic look inside a teenager girls' head with all the imprint-y/wolfy stuff thrown in for extra fun.

So go read it, don't forget to review, and don't forget to comment here. I mean, um . . . please?

\*/

Here's all the info:

Enough With This Gravity Moving Already! by yay4shanghai

If you ask me to describe Quil in one word, it'd be "Sexy-Quileute-Warrior-Man". I know it's not actually one word, so if you're being picky I guess I'd say unattainable. I'm Claire: utterly average teen in love with Quil Ateara, mystical-sex-god!

Where you can find it all:

Enough With This Gravity Moving Already! (Rated T, but can read a little higher at times - contains a lemon, but with a warning)

yay4shanghai's Profile

Calling all wolf girls!

I'm in need of your one-shots, your novel-length, you chaptered series - all surrounding our lovely imprints and alphas! I don't have that unreasonable of terms, but I just need a little help finding some more rec-worthy stuff. I want to start back up with One-Shot Wednesdays, but I've gotta find some good one-shots!

All I want is some well-written, in-character, wolf/imprint fic. Any genre, any length.

You can respond here or PM me on FF.n - I'm not sure if you know, but my penname is independenceindividuality. You can also contact me through my twitter, if you want: writeitaway.

I'm also particularly interested in the other imprint couples besides Jake/Nessie and Quil/Claire - J/N is my forte and my passion but I've got to represent the other couples too. I'm just having a hard time finding the fics.

Oh, and one last, very important requirement: the fic must be completed or updated regularly. I will not rec abandoned fics, no matter how amazing they are. I think it's entirely too mean to get people hooked on something that won't be completed.

But besides that - let me know your favorites! :D

Friday's 'Review This' Rec of the Week (coming to you on a Saturday): A Wolves Moon by Tinkerbella C

I'm here - late, but here - with the latest Friday rec of the week! Delivered on a Saturday, of course. It is:

A Wolves Moon by Tinkerbella C

I've been meaning to rec this fic for awhile now but the author had gone on vacation and took a break from updating so I didn't want to get people hooked on it before they could start getting regular fixes.

I can honestly say that this fic is different from any J/N fic I've ever read. I'll give you the premise in a few sentences:

Jake has been missing for a year. No one knows where he is or if he's even alive - all doubt he'll ever come back . . . except Nessie, of course. When he does return, he's not the Jake we all know and love. He's feral, not even able to phase back into human. He doesn't remember who he is or why he's here - just a certain attachment to a copper-haired girl.

The author, Tinkerbella C, harbors some serious talent for description of certain - ahem - aspects and it's obvious as her writing improves as the story progresses. That's always the sign of a good writer, in my book.

Jake eventually is able to phase back - after a long process - but he still doesn't remember much and he still has nightmares. He's dark, traumatized, and still slightly feral - but still completely Jake.

There are complications that keep our imprint and alpha apart, like always, but not what you generally expect from Jacob/Nessie fics and a recent development in the last few chapters has got me wondering what's going on. In the good way.

Tinkerbella C's Jake is extremely animalistic, even when he's gained back most of his human roots, making his . . . lust extremely hard to deny. A wolf wouldn't, after all.

And let me tell you, Tinkerbella C writes this . . . very well. Another interesting twist she has is making Nessie's body work more . . . animalistically as well, in certain ways.

I could gush for pages but I'm going to stop now and go ahead and get this out to you since it's already a day late - I know, I'm horrible. But don't take it out on A Wolves Moon, because really, it's awesome - you've gotta check it out.

At press time (that makes this little blog sound so much more important than it is!), A Wolves Moon stands at a very recently updated 28 chapters, so pace yourself and you might have a few more by the time you get through it. I, unfortunately, did not do this and devoured it all the night I found it.

Whatever you do, however you pace yourself, fast or slow, make sure you review each chapter. She deserves it.

\*/

Here's all the info:

A Wolves Moon by Tinkerbella C

Nessie is struggling to deal with her changing feelings for Jake when he disappears. Returning a year later, he has gone feral and has forgotten his links to his pack, the Cullens, and Nessie. Can she help him remember who is he or has he changed forever?

Where you can find it all:

A Wolves Moon (Rated M and reads about that)

Tinkerbella C's Profile

Apologies all-around!

So sorry, you guys! I know I was supposed to update today, but things just didn't work out. Tomorrow's my birthday, but I don't have anything planned, so I'll do my best to get it to you tomorrow! I know I suck, but today sucked pretty bad too, so please understand.

Please don't hate me, y'all. :D

Alphas and Imprints' Official Banner/Pic/Thing!

Okay, girls, so I was contemplating the idea of making some kind of banner or icon for Alphas and Imprints. I was all excited about it until reality caught up with me and I realized I have absolutely no talent at anything even related to icon-making.

So. I decided I'd go on the net, find some generic pic with a wolf on it and try (try being the operative word here) to do something with it. Well, I googled 'girl and wolf' and this is the first pic that came up.

I'm calling it fate.

I don't think if I'd spent hours describing to an artist how I wanted it to look, it could have come out like this. It was on tinypic, which I'm not familiar with, but I searched for who posted it and was unable to find out and their terms of service said that when you post to the site you relinquish all ownership and it becomes permissible for anyone to download and edit it. Or that's what I understood anyway - feel free to take a look and correct me if I'm wrong.

Now - I'll go ahead and state it: this isn't mine, I do not own it. I didn't draw it, I didn't edit it, I didn't contribute to it; I did a google search, found it, and fell in love.

Tell me if you agree. Until further notice, this is the official Alphas and Imprints banner - if anybody knows how to write on it, that's be awesome. Please also feel free to inform me if I'm doing something illegal and I'll take it down immediately. I don't want to steal.

I'm gonna go drool over the perfectness of it some more!

- Nadia

Friday's 'Review This' Rec of the Week: Quil's Resolve by Roses in May

This week, Alphas and Imprints' Friday 'review this' rec will be:

Quil's Resolve by Roses in May

I've recc'd Roses in May before. her first story in this lovely Quil-saga (Quil's Guilt), in my one-and-only One-shot Wednesday so far. Yes, I've gotten lazy.

Quil's Resolve really is the perfect follow-up to the one-shot it proceeds. As I think I've mentioned, Roses in May's writing is hilarious and sweet. Her pack-interaction is gold.

I have to admit I did get annoyed with Quil in this one - back and forth, back and forth - he does a lot of unneeded worrying. He has, I think, entirely too many mental blocks set up and the things he's making mountains of are really little more than molehills if he'd stop and think for a few seconds.

I like Roses in May's Claire, even though she does annoy me at times too. But that's because she is a teenager and Roses in May writes her like one. And well, to be frank, teenagers can be annoying. I would know, I am one.

Claire worries about what her friends think and thinks homecoming is the most important thing ever, but in the center of it all resides her love for Quil. It's why she pushes so hard, why she keeps scratching as his resolve. She could have gotten herself a little highschool boyfriend to paw around with but she doesn't, she wants Quil. And I think that's admirable.

Also, although I understand where Quil's coming from, he comes off a bit hypocritical. Quil admits to having had a, um . . . physical relationship with a bartender when Claire was younger. He eventually stopped because of the guilt he started to feel, but he doesn't seem to understand why it upsets Claire so much.

I think Claire, although she comes off as impatient, is actually quite the opposite because she gets it up to the ears. With the "I love you, I want you, I want to be with you, but not right now - just wait a year" - I mean, it'd drive any self-respecting girl crazy!

I'm not trying to list reasons you shouldn't read the story - not at all. It's brilliant - the characters are flawed and real. They say stupid things and sometimes they're hypocritical and sometimes they're selfish but they keep coming back for more because I guess their love just doesn't let them give up.

Throughout the entire thing, I just kept begging them to sit down and have a logical, honest conversation. I guess that can teach us a real life lesson, huh?

Besides, the occasional laspes in Quil's resolve (not the title) are fun to read.

To sum up, Quil's Resolve is sweet, funny, slighting frustrating, and an all-around great read. And it's complete.

Not to mention there's some Seth/imprint action with a very original OC. You won't expect it until it happens. So go get surprised and come back and tell me what you think.

Poor Quil. Poor Claire. They'll work it out eventually.

\*/

Here's all the info:

Quil's Resolve by Roses in May

Sequel to Quil's Guilt. As Quil's resolve begins to falter, he pushes Claire away. Can he overcome his fears, or will his hesitation tear them apart?

Where you can find it all:

Quil's Resolve (Rated T, but comes off as a definite light M, heavier at times)

Quil's Guilt (One-shot that precedes Quil's Resolve - you can also find the review for it somewhere around here!)

Roses in May's Profile