Reason 4,678 That Awesome And Hot Girl Is Not Dead

[redbrunja]

One day I will not ramble about Avatar. Today is not that day.

(All the reasons boil down to 'because I won't allow it' - I think Mike and Bryan could show me her bloody corpse and I'd go, 'we have necromancers in this world, right? Also, my mother never even considered the idea that Suki was dead, which I take as a good sign.)

But I had a point. It hit me recently, that Azula has all those Dai Lai under her sway - Dai Lai who are quite practiced at brainwashing. What if the reason Suki doesn't mention Sokka anymore is because she doesn't remember him?

You could have a totally awesome meeting where Sokka is like, "Suki! Thank god you're alright!" and Suki's like, "Back off. Who the hell do you think you are?"

Which leads to much angst and sorrow.

(And since I'm in the middle of writing 'what I think happened to Suki' we're sure to find out this Friday, before I have a chance to finish my fic. At this point, I don't know whether to hope I find out what happened to her this week, or hope I don't.)

Now, to segue to smut instead, before I actually watched Avatar, I floated the idea that this might be a show I could write girl-on-girl for, with all the great female characters running around.

So, I was reading this fic that had Toph in a lesbian relationship, which made SO much sense to me (and then I worried I believed that because she's nontraditionally feminine and if that said bad things about me and my social constructed paradigms about sexuality) and then I saw a really cute pic of Katara and Toph kissing and you know, that would be a very interesting relationship.

(This is a tangent: I was talking to mother about this, as we paired up the people in Avatar the way they should be - needless to say, Zuko is going to get a damn fine Fire Lady, and Toph is going to be queen and/or get Haru. Or a lesbian relationship. Anyway, the point is... *tries to remember point* Okay, I've got it. So, we're talking about Toph and lesbianism, and my mother mentions, that when she first say Toph she thought Toph was going to be "a rival for Katara."

Me: "I don't know if they'd do that. You know, have an actual lesbian relationship on a children's cartoon. But it would be pretty awesome if they did."

Mom: "I meant a rival for Katara regarding Aang."

Me: "Oh.")

However, what I actually want to talk about was Azula. Now, smilaraaq has written/mentioned that if anyone in Avatar wants to top, it would be Azula, which is just blatantly true. HOWEVER, I often find that having the obviously dominant character in a couple top can be... predictable, you know? So then I thought, who would be topping Azula? Well, it obviously wouldn't be Mei, because topping Azula would take effort and, you know, having a pulse, but Ty Li? Can't you just imagine her using her circus freak acrobatics and pressure points to have her way with Miss Thing?

Randomly: you know how on a molecular level glass is a liquid? I wonder if Katara could do fun things with glass, or if that would more be Toph's milieu because glass comes from sand.

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, *good* slash/yuri writers don't do that sort of silliness, just like good het writers don't resort to the most cheesy bad-romance-novel sort of relentless gender stereotyping. But Sturgeon's Law and all that, there are far too many crap writers out there, in all categories...including published ones. *sigh* (At least fic, even if it sucks, doesn't come with the extra insult-to-injury sting of "I wasted MONEY on this tripe?")

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's one of those things that is a total hallmark of the not-good writer.

One reason that I usually buy books I've already read is that I want to know I'm spending money on something I'll reread. And speaking of romance... have you read any Jennifer Crusie? She is, hands down, the best romance novelist writing - her books are hilarious (in the supposed to be way) and so romantic.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I hear you on that; also the shelfspace situation here is so ridiculous I'm trying to make more of an effort to clear out books that aren't serious re-readers or reference material. (After moving last year and being confronted in back-breaking detail just HOW MANY DAMN BOOKS I've acquired over the years, and then trying to find space for them without enough shelving...oy. Bookmooch has helped a bit, although I wind up picking up as many books as I give away...but still, new stuff to read is better than old stuff that's just gathering dust and taking up precious space.

I don't know Crusie; really I've only recently begun to dabble my toes very hesitantly into the field, partly due to discussion/reviews from online friends who are serious romance readers with little patience for the more annoying/sexist sort of tropes. So far I've read a little bit of Laura Kinsale (some seriously cracky plots, but none of them have been keepers so far except the Victorian historical with ninjas in Hawai'i...); Marjorie M. Liu (paranormals, I like that they read more like SF/fantasy with a bit heavier of an emotional angle than a really stereotypical sort of Romance Novel, lots of plot and she gets points from me for having a seriously multicultural cast, biracial characters and/or interracial relationships that aren't presented as a big angsty deal, etc.); and Gena Showalter (absolutely dreadful, but in a so-bad-it's-hysterically-funny sort of way; got pointed to that by a friend who works at Harlequin and it was full of much-needed laughs.) The one that first got me started peeking hesitantly in the field was Diana Gabaldon, of course, and I have yet to find anything that quite beats Outlander on that front, not even her later books. (Still need to pick up the latest one, now that I think of it...)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I would suggest Crusie. I need to make a rec post for her latest, which has been the first up to par one she wrote since 'Bet Me' which was her last solo book.

Her last three have been collaborations, one with 2 other romance writers who were decent and horrific, respectively. So far she's co-written two books with a hardcore military thriller writer, and on the last book, Agnes & The Hitman he learned how to write romance, and the result is fabulous.

To give you a taste: when was the last time you read a mainstream romance where the first time the hero and heroine have sex, she's so furious at her ex-fiancee that she wants to kill him (and she's a character who you wouldn't be surprised if she did), and since murder leads to jail she's having angry, violent sex with the hero, and he ends up taking her from behind to keep life and limb intact. (Just to clarify, both of them are enjoying this a hellalot.)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Heh, sounds amusing...any particular titles I should wishlist first?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Well, there's "Agnes & the Hitman," as I mentioned above...

"Faking It" and "Manhunting" are ones I reread often (Manhunting is one of her earlier ones, and it show a bit.)

However, in general, Crusie is a remarkably awesome author. I'd suggest swinging by Amazon and seeing which summeries spark your interest and going with that.