Rapture Inside Of Me Is On The Rise

[redbrunja]

*waves*

Hey all. In case any of you were wondering, I vanished for five days to go down to Kumori Con and visit pzb. (Con report to follow, when I... want to actually write coherently, instead of just meme-ing.) I had a fabulous time, except for the train ride back (it took fourteen hours from the Amtrack station in Eugene to my house - to give you perspective, I can go from Eugene to Bellingham -which is  further away than my hometown- in eight hours HITTING TRAFFIC IN PORTLAND, TACOMA AND SEATTLE.)

So, now, last friday's fannish5fannish5:

 Name 5 characters you think are often misunderstood by fans.

1.) Katara. The people who think she's a vicious, irrational bitch are the worst, but I'm not pleased with the people who treat her like a perfect sweet healer girl who can do no wrong.

2.) Uchiha Itachi. (To be fair, I think 3/4 of the problem is caused by Kishimoto). Look, fans, I don't care how pretty he is. He killed. his. entire. family. and then emotionally tortured his little brother and oh let's not forget about when he TORTURED KAKASHI FOR FORTY-EIGHT HOURS IN KAKASHI'S HEAD.

(I'd add in Sakura, except that if I don't read fics who don't treat her better than Kishimoto does.)

3.) Inara. I think most of the people who call her boring aren't paying attention.

4.) Toph. You love her? Fine. But don't act like she's perfect and made of pure awesome. (Again, I think the creators are to blame for a lot of this.)

5.) Jareth. Is not a fluffy little elf boyfriend. He is hot like burning, though.

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I would tend to blame the endless run of Tokien imitators even more than Tolkien himself here, at least if you consider his entire mythos; go through the Silmarillion and the various unfinished stories of the First Age, and you'll find no shortage of elves who are arrogant and hubristic and oh-so-far-from-perfect. Really, a lot of the crap that goes down in LOTR, in a long-term view much of what's happening is really the final acts of patterns that were set in motion by very bad decisions made by elves centuries or millenia before...

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

*nods* Honestly, can we do away with the pseudo-Tolkienverse altogether? It's been so done to death that any "fantasy" story taking place in a world not basically European, vaguely medieval, and inhabited by gorgeous Aryan elves, covetous Scottish dwarves, tricksy English hobbits halflings, and wild-card humans is considered "edgy" and off the charts. And even the variations tend to still be on that theme.

One of these days I'm going to write a fantasy novel couched in traditional Greek mythology. Or possibly Japanese. And then we'll see who's cool, oh, yes. Bring on the naiads and yukionna, baby.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Urgh, yes, it's all those dreadful second-and-third-and-worse blurry-Xerox wannabee Tolkien clones (TERRY BROOKS I'M LOOKING AT YOU) that pretty much drove me away from fantasy for DECADES. Tolkien worked because he had an ear for language and was deeply immersed in myth and history, and was writing to feed his own obsessions rather than trying to fit a commercial formula. Unfortunately, once his books succeeded, far far too many hacks decided that all they needed to do was copy the most obvious surface elements -- bricklike multi-volume tomes with a checklist of default fantasy races and a quest plot -- without seeming to do much in the way of reading and research beyond D&D books and/or other hackneyed fantasy writers as unoriginal as themselves...grrrr.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Please do! I personally have such a soft spot for kitsunes.