Good morning, I hope you are well! Today we are doing something a little different -- but I am sure you will love it! Today we are joined by the one and only Mopstyle, author of the UMAZING Jasper/Bella fic A priori!! As well as Into Strangers (Jasper/Bella) and a whole host of well written and provocative fics, including some canon AND a very original Edward, Emmett slash fic (A hell all our own) which is a must read.
Mopstyle kindly offered to write a short introduction in to her passion for Jasper's character and has given some amazing reccomendations and her insight into our favourite Cowboy. We hope you enjoy!
In fact, I really reccomend checking them out!
Mopstyle kindly offered to write a short introduction in to her passion for Jasper's character and has given some amazing reccomendations and her insight into our favourite Cowboy. We hope you enjoy!
Thank you Mopstyle, we all loved this!
Each of which holds a special place in our hearts... yeah, our hearts.
When I received the request to be a Darlin' for a Day I was, needless to say, ecstatic. Then I panicked. What would I rec? What would I write about? Would I sound like a complete and utter moron in front of my peers?
Eh, probably.
I'm no Jasper expert. I try to be, pretend to be sometimes (I can type a good game), but there's no foolin' you girls. Sure, I write a damn sexy good Jasper (I've been told) and fraternize with a few other Jasper hoors who are much more talented and prolific than I am, but to think that I can come all up in here and rec some damn sexy good Jasper to the Darlin's would be crookeder than a barrel of fish hooks. I'm just not that experienced.
I'm going to try, though. As I'll be the first to admit, I don't read that many Jasper-centric fics. The one's I do tend to be Belsper, categorically non canon (Chris <3), and/or terribly angsty ( Elle and LaVie <3). But damn if there aren't some INCREDIBLE Jasper/Edward, Jalice, and Jasper threesome fics out there. I dove. I did and, seriously, Jasper is out IN FORCE, but it's not all good.
Here's the thing. RANGE is what makes Jasper an amazing thing to write and read, but so many Jasper's fall into one category. Even if the pairing ends up non canon, you can bet ten to one that its a post New Moon, AU, J/B, where Edward leaves and Jasper, for some reason, stays. I'm not saying that all Jasper centric fics are some formulaic reflection of the one before, but come on. A lot are. And sometimes, well, sometimes it feels coerced.
So what makes a Jasper stand out? To me, it's a subtle float. He can't be all emotion all the time. He also can't NOT be. He has to own and accept himself, what he's experienced, and who he affects. Oh, and make it pleasurable as well as torturous, please? For you know as well as I that with Jasper, there is no pleasure without a little bit of pain.
Aw, damn. Did it get hot in here?
Mix it up. Reach a little further into your hearts and minds and find a place where he can grow. Trust. He will. If there is one thing that we all recognize it's that Jasper has the most stable foundation, the most interesting history, and the most tantalizing possibilities of ALL the Twilight characters. It's staggering, really, just what this one man is capable of. (Okay, maybe that's just my opinion.)
I don't think a writer, if they took any other Twilight character and really delved into their history—their life—could create the rich, complex, mired individual we have all, in the Twi-fic community, written Jasper to be. I doubt Stephanie Meyer even knows Jasper as well as some of us do.
I did a little research, well, as much research as an afternoon on twitter could procure—okay fine it was a twitter poll—and I found opinions ranging from enlightening ( “...honest, friendly, quiet, altruistic, sarcastic, rebellious, trustworthy; independent.” “His joys and his pain shape him...” “...you are drawn to him and want to know more...) to kinda fucking scary ( “(J)aspers a problem solver. Strategic. His solution in twilight? Kill her. Simple.” * wink *), so I figured this had to be a direct correlation from fic, right? Maybe.
Maybe not.
What they all had in common was an intense adoration of the motley mosaic that makes up our favorite man of war.
OfTheDamned writes in “Copperhead”, a unique, hot, thought provoking E/J slash one shot:
“As their new Major, I knew I should be sharing their campfires, reminding them of successes and plucking the sinuous threads of insecurity out of their minds and hearts. The Colonel was a damn fool to put me in charge of such a raggedy bunch. He could praise my charisma and strategies until the mares had new foals, but I still wouldn't know any better how to deal with the worries and aggression of so many displaced men. Boys, really. Their anxieties weighed on me. Whether they were dreading the battle or braggin' with the last vestiges of their own bravado, the stink of their desperation choked me like the smell of burnt flesh itself.
There were basically two kinds of men in my regiment. The first kind was only good for rabble-rousing. Those blowhards lived to put bullets and pig stickers into Yanks, and would tell you as much every chance they got. The other kind were just scared bummers: scared to die, scared to live, scared that when they got home their sweethearts would have left 'em for some other young feller back home. They cowered and hated this war, much as I did, but shot at everything that moved and only feared for their own hides. None of them understood how I hated to stick another man with a bayonet. The sheer horror in their eyes and the death rattle that reverberated from their throats and through my mind haunted me for days after.”
Um, I don't know about you, but I get totally fucking sucked in there. It's natural, innate and sincere. The writing is just mind blowing and you can really feel his urge to do right by his men and himself. He wants to help and win and send them all home safely.
The stupendous, amazing Pastiche Pen NAILS canon Jasper in her four chapter, “Cowboys Have Fangs, Too”. Yes, I said canon, and canon in pairing, too, but bear with me. I would not lead you astray. It's funny, wonderfully written and floats with a buoyancy most fics only dream of achieving.
Chapter one:
“If there had ever been two rainbow-peace sign-waving Pollyanna-ish vampires, their names were Carlisle and Edward, as far as Jasper was concerned. Their monkish view of the world was fine. It was clean and neat—but it only worked if someone stood up and defended it. Having a family instead of a coven was a privilege to Jasper—something to be earned—but he wasn't going to be a fool about it.
The modern idea that "violence solves nothing" was a farce... “
“He wouldn't let weakness ruin the family. Alice wanted this family, and if Jasper were honest with himself, it was what he wanted, too. Therefore, he would defend it.
It was unfortunate, but the girl would have to die.”
Serious? This OWNS. Not only does Pastiche Pen manage to seamlessly blend canon with her alternate point of view, she takes a cue from Midnight Sun as well, bringing us Jasper's take on the “family meeting” about Bella, just after that first biology class.
“Jasper was lost to his thoughts when Edward's voice called him back to the room. "Jasper," Edward called.
Jasper looked up, gazed at Edward and felt his reproach.
"She won't pay for my mistake. I won't allow that," Edward insisted.
Jasper sent circling flows of calm at him. Edward was being emotional when he should be logical, smart. Jasper countered, "She benefits from it, then? She should have died today, Edward. I would only set that right."
"I will not allow it."”
I know that most of the Darlin's don't care for the traditional, canon Jasper/Alice pairing, but Pastiche Pen doesn't put the false pressure and blanket of force on it that other authors do. She also doesn't make a caricature out of Alice. Imagine that? Alice as a deep, emotional, loving creature and NOT A CRAZY SHOEADDICT? Shut up.
Chapter two:
“... with Alice it was always different. There was never any hint of expectation, of control. Her aura was simply... happy, playful. It was loving.
She loved him.
He'd felt that, the moment he met her, as pure as anything. Like air. Just as clear.
It was absurd, and yet it drew him in like nothing he had ever known—because Alice didn't care about the macabre lacquer of his past, just like she didn't care about the scars that marked a webbed geography about his flesh, or the fact that the way forward for him seemed to be a loop back to where he was the day before, as if he was twisted in a web of his own making. Alice was about potential. The road ahead, wide and bright.”
Sigh. I know. I was shocked, too. Elle can back me up on this, I believe?
Chapter four, upon Alice's investigation of the knowledge James had of her past (in the book series). Alice is distraught. Having withdrawn, perhaps remembering, perhaps not:
“At his entrance, she stiffened—even though she must have heard him coming.
She looked so small.
He drew to her side. He knelt at her feet.
She looked down at him. She was wearing one of the moth-eaten, white gowns. The straps on the arms drooped on the floor. A red stamp with the number 90-893 marked the cuff.
"Alice…"
She just stared back at him.
"This is not you."
Her eyes lowered and then she closed them.
Jasper wanted to grab her and shake her. To make her see sense, but instead he—Jasper grabbed the stamped cuff. He ripped it.
Alice gasped. It was the first bit of emotion. Disbelief.
Then he picked up the straps along the arms of the jacket, and one-by-one he ripped them off. Then he grabbed the sleeves. He ripped those off too. He stuck his nail through the base of the gown—he ripped off a foot and a half of the skirt's length. Then he picked up one of the straps. He looped it around her waist. He tied a bow.
Then he looked up at her again.
Her eyes were huge and bright, and her emotions—whatever had been held in—Alice made a noise that sounded in her lungs, as if half-gurgled. Then both of her thin hands clasped Jasper's face. Another strange sound—like whatever was inside her was fighting for the surface.
"Alice," he encouraged.
She trembled, and then she fell forward, falling into his arms with something between sobs and hysteric laughs and an eye roll—and he held her, letting her shift among every emotion, taking it in and making it his own.
At some point, she stopped. She pressed her forehead against his. She said, "You made me a dress—out of..."
"You can make anything out of your past."
"I know but still, I—"
"No, Alice. Anything. That's what you taught me. Even if it isn't easy."”
THIS is love. This is soulmates. This is Jasper.
Now, there is one trait in all Jasper's that I think we love more than in any other character. It can be subtle, just barely bobbing under the surface or it can be brutal, charging at you like a Great White, ready for one thing and one thing only. Whether it's secret or not, canon paired or wildly out of bounds, that dead sexy shark is Darksper.
Darksper in any form is usually welcomed with open arms and a bare neck, but as you all are aware it can also go terribly, terribly wrong. Murder was the case that they gave him... and the law is not always swift and just. Sometimes he kills simply to kill, sometimes he is an animal refusing to live against his nature.
More than that, though, Jasper ends up the scapegoat. Ooooh. I said it. Yeah, it happens. You've read it and you all have your own arguments to counter. I do, too. Jasper has probably killed more humans/vamps/wolves/cops/
e.e.shalu writes “You Know What You Are” on her blogger. It's hot, dark, and you can almost forget it ends up canon pairing.
“This "vegetarian" lifestyle, as they jokingly referred to it, required a level of control I did not have, although I tried. For my new family, something I had not had since I died. I struggled and slipped. And after five or six years, my mistakes and missteps were too much. My would-be father figure asked me to leave, for fear of endangering their human façade.
Rejection... stirred a fury within me so intense, I was barely of sound mind for a violent torrent of years. I couldn't tell you how many human lives had been devoured in my wake. When I slowed, I plunged to the depths where I now resided. I took solace in them. The cover of night allowed the myth to become truth. I never slept, filling my nights instead of my days. Humans seemed to like that. The myths were true. Vampires were nocturnal creatures of sin and malevolence.
And so they offered themselves to us—those who overcame their blissful incognizance—as pets, "donors," playthings. Never equals. Honestly, it disgusted me, but at the same time, I felt superior and I used their submission. Their own self-worth was leagues below my own, and with what value I felt of myself long gone, that was saying something.”
*shakes * Wow. Here we have the scapegoat Jasper, but he's not going to take it anymore. They kicked him out and now, he's found his own way.
“"Are you offering yourself to me?" The trepidation I'd sensed flared slightly at my question, but it wasn't visually obvious. One of the benefits of a gift I possessed. Being an empath was a condemnation, but also a blessing.
She filled her lungs and emptied them before responding with a resolute but quiet "Yes."
"How?"
Her skin flushed, and a sweet scent of rust and salt brushed the air. "I offer my blood and my body."
I smirked wider. She was beautiful. Even in the badly lit lounge of the Cellar, my sharpened eyesight absorbed her chocolate eyes, porcelain pink skin and delicate curves. Her lips were full and tinted with a deep rose blush, her heart-shaped face framed by a short black bob. My desire stirred, but I quickly smothered it.
"And your soul on a silver platter?"”
He seems to be the nightmare, the worst enemy. Yet we somehow still fucking fall in love with him. There are so many pieces, layers, and emotions to him that it should be IMPOSSIBLE to write a Jasper that is flat, has no redeeming quality, or isn't sexy, but shit happens and there are many fics, as I mentioned up there, that paint him in but a few shades of gray.
Thankfully this is changing. He's helping the genre, the fandom, Twilight, evolve with his characterization. He is irreplaceable as a Cullen/Whitlock/Hale and we are managing to further impact this fandom with his colorful, lovable, fallible, vicious presence. Thank fucking god for that.
June 6, 2010 at 9:24 AM
Love it, BB. You truly hit the nail on it's head! Even the more erotic fics can delve into expanding Jasper's characterization and it could sate us all! That is something that is priceless to me!
xoxo
June 6, 2010 at 10:55 AM
I love you. and I adore how you classified my characterization as 'kinda fucking scary.' This was so cool.
June 6, 2010 at 12:58 PM
It was you guys who made it win. Thanks for letting me play for a day. This is a blast!
June 6, 2010 at 1:43 PM
Nice job Mops! You highlighted things that made me think about even more aspects of my 'other' favorite vampire. xo
June 9, 2010 at 4:06 PM
thanks for the rec, lady! :) the story is also posted on my FFn, btw (penname "shalu"). plus my first and multi-chap A/J fic...among others. :P just getting started posting on blogger.
but also thanks for reminding me i haven't yet read pastiche's "Cowboys..." :)
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