AdminRec: Them Cotton-Pickin' Twilight Folk

fuzzytomato
One Day Out West
AU Human Rated T
14 Chapters, 53, 915 Words
05/30/2009 - WIP
[ FFN ] [ Forum ]

AH/AU Set in the American West circa 1880. Bella moves to Forks and unwittingly becomes a pawn in the intense and often explosive rivalry between the infamous Cullens and their neighbors the Blacks. canon pairings.

moon.witche's

My first thought when I saw this in an author’s favourite’s list was: Twilight the Western.....? Seriously?



I had to click. Even if it was just for the lulz.



But it wasn't silly. In fact for the first eleven chapters I sat on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, desperate to know what exactly had happened in Edward's past to turn him into the shy, silent, brooding, (hot?) cowboy that cowered away from living his life.



The story starts off with Charlie, the Sherriff of a small frontier town called Forks (surprise!), waiting for his teenage daughter to arrive on the coach. Across the street, a tussle breaks out between the Cullens and the Blacks. People are thrown through windows, punches are landed, guns are drawn, and threats are exchanged. And the beginning of the mystery behind silent, brooding Edward Cullen is introduced.



From there the story takes off into what is one of the most touching and genuine romances between Edward and Bella I’ve read.

What I found most pleasantly surprising about this story was how well the parallels with the canon worked. Parallels are hard enough to work into a modern AH story without being cliché and over done. Bella’s slow obsession with Edward, and with discovering what happened in his past is possibly the best AH parallel I’ve read. I’m continually surprised that how much the early chapters feel like the early chapters of the book without feeling awkward or completely plagiarised. Also, there was no Volvo.



The author has also done a very good job of not falling into the stock character traps. At least, not completely. Rosalie is one of my favourite characters in this. She is brash, a little rude, violent and intimidating. But, upon seeing the change in Edward that is brought about by Bella, she does what she can to encourage them in her own, abrupt way. I also enjoy James. He has this small part, in the background, and everything about him seems to shout, “Bystander!” This has me convinced that he is completely evil and somehow responsible for...



Well, I don’t want to ruin anything.



What I can say is that sometime in the past there was an altercation involving Edward, Jacob, and James. The results of this altercation caused friends to become enemies, and two families to become so volatile towards one another that the entire town is affected. Upon Bella’s arrival to town, she attempts to form friendships with both families, but quickly realizes this isn’t possible.



Jake in this story is something of an enigma. It would be very easy to cast him, and the rest of the Black family, as the villains but I somehow can’t quite bring myself to do it. And I like that even more. I’m naturally disposed to think of Jake as the one at fault but fuzzytomato makes it difficult in this one. I truly sympathesize with how things must look from his point of view, and cannot say that I wouldn’t also hate Edward were I him.



And, as stated earlier, I really want it all to be James’ fault somehow.



I can’t say much about Edward as I don’t want to ruin anything. When we first see him he is weighed down with guilt, a sad broken young man who is scared to open himself up to living, clinging desperately to a piece of his past that is impossible to forget.



The one thing I couldn’t take seriously in this story, which truly brought me the laughs I had originally thought it would be full of, was anytime Carlisle was referred to as Pa by one of his children. Especially Alice. Made me giggle every time. But other than that, everything that I thought would be campy or ridiculous was actually engaging and original yet intelligently reminiscent of Twilight.

So, everyone get your pink leather chaps, I know you've been waiting for an excuse, and let One Day Out West, carry you off into the sunset, preferably with guns a blazin'.

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moon.witche has found writing a rec so very different than podcasting one and hopes she lives up to the standards that came before her. Probably not. moon.witche also finds it very strange to refer to herself in the third person. heh.