StaffFicRec: Fic According to Pastiche

Krum Cake
Well, This Sucks...
Humor Angst - Rated M
9 Chapters, 36,820 Words
12/10/2008 - WIP
[ FFN ]

Peek into the intimate pages of Seth Clearwater's man-journal as he complains about life, love, and teenage shape-shifter angst. Post BD, canon-compliant, rating for language and sex humor...because Seth is a teenage boy.

Pastiche Pen

Well, This Sucks: Life According To Seth

So, sometimes you just want to laugh at the wrongness of it all. Like laugh and laugh, and giggle and fall on the floor and snort—even if it makes a really weird sound—and laugh. The laughter will not be feminine. It will not be cute. It will be fucking asinine.

Though never lame.

In "Well, This Sucks: Life According to Seth," we get to laugh this way, because yeah, Seth Clearwater does indeed laugh at the wrongness of it all—and more importantly, he WRITES about the wrongness of it all, and thus, we fortunate readers are gifted with the rare but inspiring epistolary format of Seth's "Man-journal," because as a teenage boy, calling it a "diary" would just be...

Um, yeah.

NO.

Dudes don't do that, and Seth Clearwater is a dude.

And now, you’re all like, "WTF?! Edward told Jake that Seth has the 'kindest, purest thoughts he’d ever heard,' so what's with the snarky teenage boy voice? That's not canon!"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, face the facts: Stephenie Meyer had a mommy-complex, in which she fiercely clasped onto the idea that some little boys will be the exception and never outgrow their Precious Moment innocence. No matter that they gain the bodies of twenty-five year old males with hormones to match. No matter if their dad died. No matter that their mom is making out with Charlie Swan on the couch. No matter that they already think it is really cool trying to kill evil things.

Like vampires.

In “Life Sucks” not only do we get hilarity, quirk, and plot—but the writing and storytelling is stellar, too. Krum Cake does not choose between the Seth who fought Victoria and Riley and the same kid who Edward described as having “pure thoughts,” because her Seth is both. He is unbelievably caring—pretty much to a fault—and highly self-aware of his own oddities. Now, you get an example:

May 11, 2007

Word of the Day: awkward.

Someone knocked on the door this morning, and I was expecting it to be Charlie, so I opened the door without thinking, and suddenly I was staring up into the face of Sam Uley.

“Is Leah home?” he asked.

I should have said no, but the thing is, it’s really hard to lie when you’re wearing a pair of pajama pants with cheerful frogs on them and holding a bowl of Cheerios while milk dribbles down your chin. When you look that ridiculous, you’re already so fucking transparent that lying only makes you into a bigger asshole.

“Uh…”

Krum Cake basically takes that "perfect, sweet little boy" idea and stomps on it and then makes mud cakes. Perfect little mud cakes with twig embellishments and testosterone. Seth Clearwater is complex but dumb guy-simplistic. He's a super hero but a summer school attendee. He's a fiercely loyal little brother but a wanna-be loveh. He over-thinks EVERYTHING.

Like imprinting.
Like his sister’s heartbreak.
Like weddings.
Like summer school.
Like how Lauren Mallory is annoyingly hot.

Now for those of you Cullenites out there, you still do get glances of our beloved vampires—and they’re great. Emmett is hilarious in this fic, and Seth’s perspective on the external working of the Cullen household is a unique one, to the least. There is betting. Nessie is made fun of. Seth eats all their food. Oh, and vampires still smell bad.

There’s so much I want to say about this, but really—humor is best heard first hand, so go laugh your ass off and read this fic. Also, now is the time to get on the band wagon, folks, because Krum Cake last updated like last year but has promised (as of recently) that she’s going to start updating again in early June—which is soon, so go be a dear and encourage her with your reviews and let Seth’s Man Journal give you a light-hearted break from the romantic angst.

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Pastiche Pen probably shouldn't be allowed to rec stories or write a column, much less write her own author blurb, but then Smellyia had a deranged moment of weakness and made her an admin. Hah. And now she gets to write WHATEVER SHE WANTS. Thus, no one should be surprised if nuns, gnomes, or Battlestar Galatica references come out of frackin' nowhere.

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