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ljwritesI am such a disorganized and forgetful person, I can pretty much guarantee that anything I entrust to memory will disappear down a very deep hole. This is why I organize my fanfic and other online reads into a folder on my bookmark bar, which currently looks like this:
I'm following three ATLA fanfic authors with an interest in profiling them, and they probably know who they are from the way I pester them with reviews from time to time. When I've read a chapter or short story I delete it from the queue and bookmark another chapter or story from the same archive, which puts it at the bottom of the queue. I've just read and reviewed a story by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yukinoomoni so the next story by her I plan to read will cycle back to the top after I've read everything else currently on the list. And just because I've already profiled someone doesn't mean they can escape my tender mercies, since I stalk follow them through whatever e-mail alerts the archive site provides.
I've also started readingdracomaleficium's stories to try and broaden my fandom horizons. I've seen her around amanda91's LJ and she left me a nice review on Two Realizations. The writing is very good and it's interesting to see the sexual sides of the kids. I'm not comfortable with some of the conventions of the slash genre, though. I imagine it's common enough for captivity to lead to a sexual encounter between the perpetrator and victim, but in real life such incidents go by an ugly name.
I have an ambivalent relationship with slash. I kind of feel like I should like it since it's supposed to be porn for chicks and I don't want to be closed-minded. A couple of stories featuring attraction between male canon characters did seriously rock my world--Amanda's Between the Storms and Stingmon's The Madness of Dawn. On the other hand Storms is a story about emotional connection and loss, not about sexual titillation even though the sex is very much present. And Madness, which arguably features the most coercive situation imaginable, is raw and powerful precisely because it delves deep into the disturbing ramifications of a relationship based on deception. The moment a story shies away from honestly exploring the situation it presents, I find myself disengaging. So maybe it's not so much slash I have an issue with but rather truth in storytelling.
On to writing, the most recent humongous update of Shadow has yet to be reviewed, but I did get a couple of PMs. One was an author asking to use some of my ideas about the political situation in wartime Fire Nation, to which I said sure. Ideas don't cost anything anyway, the real work is in developing the ideas into a working story. I read the beginning of her story, which was way better than I expected a Zuko/OC story to be. It's called The Spirit Within, if anyone is curious.
One thing that I did notice was that the main character, born of a Fire Nation father and a Water Tribe mother, has red hair and this is the subject of some speculation and staring. Normally dwelling on hair color, eye color etc. is enough to make me run screaming for the hills, but thankfully only a few paragraphs were expended on the subject and the rest is actually interesting stuff such as familial and political conflict.
I find myself dwelling on the red hair for some reason, though. I imagine the offspring of a mixed marriage with a Water Tribe woman would be fairly dark-skinned, but there's no mention of skin color yet. This seems par the course with stories that use unusual hair or eye color as character markers. Something like golden hair or purple eyes might be considered a mark of being special, but I have yet to see a story where unusually dark hair or skin fulfills the same function. Why would they, in a world where even Ursula goddamned Le Guin had to fight not to have cover art whitewashed? I guess there is a flip side to this in the Evil Albino trope, and I'm a bit guilty of this myself in the very pale Rang Han in Shadow. I even have a redhead, though he's another villain.
The second PM was about the characterization of Zuko as a strong and capable character, a thread I've noticed in some of the Shadow reviews. These reviewers expressed pleasure that I portray Zuko as morally grounded and strong, not whiny or angsty. In fact these reviewers don't seem to like canon Zuko a whole lot, which I found surprising because Shadow is a gazillion-word fanfic about Zuko. It seems I've unexpectedly tapped into a niche taste for "strong and independent Zuko," and I feel sort of bad because these reviewers are likely to be disappointed when the ending dovetails into canon. At least I hope the transition from the idealistic prince of "The Storm" flashback to the angry exile we know and love/hate will be believable.
Strength in a character like Zuko is a complicated subject. If one defines strength and capability as a suave, cool demeanor and coming out on top every time, then Zuko is pathetically weak. That conception of strength pretty much describes Azula for most of the show, but it certainly doesn't fit Zuko. If, on the other hand, strength means resilience and determination, the ability to bound back and grow from both adversity and mistakes, then Zuko is one of the strongest characters to come along in years.
Sure he tends to flail around when he's trying to be someone he's not, which is for most of the show prior to "The Day of Black Sun." But what morally centered person doesn't get flustered when they're living a lie? To quote Viktor Frankl: "An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior." If anything it shows how completely sane Zuko is to grieve, rage, and stumble in the situations he's in. Azula might fit the popular image of strength and Zuko might fall far short of it, but look at which one of them makes it through the war with an intact mind.
Another fascinating thing about strength and weakness in characters: The best weakness is often the flip side of the character's greatest strength. That's the tension at the heart of Shadow, the contrast between Zuko in Books 1 and 2 and pre-canon Zuko. I hope to exploit that contradiction for the ending of the story, and maybe even fill in the background of his controversial choice in "The Crossroads of Destiny."
Heh, it's hard to conclude such a rambly post. I'm just glad to have a bit of leisure time to enjoy both reading and writing fanfic. I'm planning to end, or at least finish the first draft of, Shadow of the Dragon King this summer and profile at least one more author, probablyloopy777 whose archive I've gotten farthest on. Yay summer, and yay fanfic!
I'm following three ATLA fanfic authors with an interest in profiling them, and they probably know who they are from the way I pester them with reviews from time to time. When I've read a chapter or short story I delete it from the queue and bookmark another chapter or story from the same archive, which puts it at the bottom of the queue. I've just read and reviewed a story by
yukinoomoni so the next story by her I plan to read will cycle back to the top after I've read everything else currently on the list. And just because I've already profiled someone doesn't mean they can escape my tender mercies, since I I've also started reading
dracomaleficium's stories to try and broaden my fandom horizons. I've seen her around amanda91's LJ and she left me a nice review on Two Realizations. The writing is very good and it's interesting to see the sexual sides of the kids. I'm not comfortable with some of the conventions of the slash genre, though. I imagine it's common enough for captivity to lead to a sexual encounter between the perpetrator and victim, but in real life such incidents go by an ugly name.I have an ambivalent relationship with slash. I kind of feel like I should like it since it's supposed to be porn for chicks and I don't want to be closed-minded. A couple of stories featuring attraction between male canon characters did seriously rock my world--Amanda's Between the Storms and Stingmon's The Madness of Dawn. On the other hand Storms is a story about emotional connection and loss, not about sexual titillation even though the sex is very much present. And Madness, which arguably features the most coercive situation imaginable, is raw and powerful precisely because it delves deep into the disturbing ramifications of a relationship based on deception. The moment a story shies away from honestly exploring the situation it presents, I find myself disengaging. So maybe it's not so much slash I have an issue with but rather truth in storytelling.
On to writing, the most recent humongous update of Shadow has yet to be reviewed, but I did get a couple of PMs. One was an author asking to use some of my ideas about the political situation in wartime Fire Nation, to which I said sure. Ideas don't cost anything anyway, the real work is in developing the ideas into a working story. I read the beginning of her story, which was way better than I expected a Zuko/OC story to be. It's called The Spirit Within, if anyone is curious.
One thing that I did notice was that the main character, born of a Fire Nation father and a Water Tribe mother, has red hair and this is the subject of some speculation and staring. Normally dwelling on hair color, eye color etc. is enough to make me run screaming for the hills, but thankfully only a few paragraphs were expended on the subject and the rest is actually interesting stuff such as familial and political conflict.
I find myself dwelling on the red hair for some reason, though. I imagine the offspring of a mixed marriage with a Water Tribe woman would be fairly dark-skinned, but there's no mention of skin color yet. This seems par the course with stories that use unusual hair or eye color as character markers. Something like golden hair or purple eyes might be considered a mark of being special, but I have yet to see a story where unusually dark hair or skin fulfills the same function. Why would they, in a world where even Ursula goddamned Le Guin had to fight not to have cover art whitewashed? I guess there is a flip side to this in the Evil Albino trope, and I'm a bit guilty of this myself in the very pale Rang Han in Shadow. I even have a redhead, though he's another villain.
The second PM was about the characterization of Zuko as a strong and capable character, a thread I've noticed in some of the Shadow reviews. These reviewers expressed pleasure that I portray Zuko as morally grounded and strong, not whiny or angsty. In fact these reviewers don't seem to like canon Zuko a whole lot, which I found surprising because Shadow is a gazillion-word fanfic about Zuko. It seems I've unexpectedly tapped into a niche taste for "strong and independent Zuko," and I feel sort of bad because these reviewers are likely to be disappointed when the ending dovetails into canon. At least I hope the transition from the idealistic prince of "The Storm" flashback to the angry exile we know and love/hate will be believable.
Strength in a character like Zuko is a complicated subject. If one defines strength and capability as a suave, cool demeanor and coming out on top every time, then Zuko is pathetically weak. That conception of strength pretty much describes Azula for most of the show, but it certainly doesn't fit Zuko. If, on the other hand, strength means resilience and determination, the ability to bound back and grow from both adversity and mistakes, then Zuko is one of the strongest characters to come along in years.
Sure he tends to flail around when he's trying to be someone he's not, which is for most of the show prior to "The Day of Black Sun." But what morally centered person doesn't get flustered when they're living a lie? To quote Viktor Frankl: "An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior." If anything it shows how completely sane Zuko is to grieve, rage, and stumble in the situations he's in. Azula might fit the popular image of strength and Zuko might fall far short of it, but look at which one of them makes it through the war with an intact mind.
Another fascinating thing about strength and weakness in characters: The best weakness is often the flip side of the character's greatest strength. That's the tension at the heart of Shadow, the contrast between Zuko in Books 1 and 2 and pre-canon Zuko. I hope to exploit that contradiction for the ending of the story, and maybe even fill in the background of his controversial choice in "The Crossroads of Destiny."
Heh, it's hard to conclude such a rambly post. I'm just glad to have a bit of leisure time to enjoy both reading and writing fanfic. I'm planning to end, or at least finish the first draft of, Shadow of the Dragon King this summer and profile at least one more author, probably
loopy777 whose archive I've gotten farthest on. Yay summer, and yay fanfic!
