from last week's fannish5 :

Who are your 5 favorite non-humanoid characters?

1.) Jarvis, Iron Man.

2.) Peachblossom, Protector of the Small series.

3.) Bob, The Dresden Files

4.) Hobbes, Calvin & Hobbes.

5.) Sonic Screwdriver (totally a character and you know it).

As most of you are aware, I stopped reading the Naruto manga a while ago (my friday morning are SO much more enjoyable now).

But I'm still pissed at Kishimoto for something.

And that's for ruining female characters with traditionally female strengths for me.

And also girl on girl fights.

I wish I was kidding.

I find out that Harry Dresden's apprentice, Molly, is a sensitive and better at mental magic (as in, she's god and your brain is clay) and I twitch. In a series with Karrin Murphy (poster girl for Badass Normal), Elaine (almost Harry's equal at raw power, better at delicate work, blew the side off a building because she was pissed), FREAKING LARA WRAITH, badass Warden Captain Luccio, and Susan who started as a scrappy reporter and took a level in badass to dhampir.

One secondary female who's a sensitive and I have to run through the above list to make sure Butcher's on the right side of how what I like to call 'The Black Lagoon Line'.

Fiona gets into a fight with some bitchy conwoman and instead of enjoying two girls in bikinis punching each other in the face, I have to mentally tabulate every badass thing Fiona has done (disarming a mugger and hitting him with his own gun, driving off two carload of killers with Molotov cocktails she made in under two minutes, blowing up a car, blowing up a car, blowing up a car, blowing up a truck, tasering a guy, basically tasering herself to drop another guy, knocking someone out with a snow globe, disarming an armed forger with her shoe) before I can relax and enjoy the fight scene that at this point, is over.

God only knows what my reaction to Katara would be at this point.

In summation: Fuck you, Kishimoto.

*randomly, I read a short-story by Jim Butcher on-line and I'm so disappointed that Murphy's first encounter with the supernatural involved Harry. So very disappointed.

Usually, I have a good canon-sense. Regardless of personal preference, I usually know what where the author is headed with regards to the romance. With The Dresden Files, I'm on the fence. So I'm throwing the questions to you, flist.

Poll #1466178
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

In The Dresden Files The Final Girl Is...

Harry Is

Dead Beat is just about my least favorite Dresden Files and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. All I know is that after ( spoilers for all published Dresden books )

When I went to pick up the Immortals Trilogy for the next leg of my 2009 Tamora Pierce Reread, I saw First Test. Kel's books are one of the few of Pierce's that I haven't reread (actually, I wasn't impressed the first time I read them) so I read The Protector of the Small Quartet and loved it. Seriously, I think this safe to say that Kel and Alanna are my favorite characters.

( more )
I've also reread the first six Dresden Files novels, and had some thoughts.

( spoilers )

Okay, so you know the show The Dresden Files? And how it was Made Of Fail from the opening scene when Harry was having casual sex with a random waitress? And then to add insult to injury Murphy was brunette? (If you don't, count yourself lucky.)

Anyway, I have been trying to do fantasy casting since I was a couple books into my reread. I'm actually pretty damn stumped, so I'm throwing the question to you, dear flist:

Give me your ideal casting for The Dresden Files.

That said, I do know who should play two of the characters.
( Read more... )

Okay, so on his forums, Jim Butcher let us know the first sentence of the next Dresden book (aka the one he hasn't written yet), which was ( HELLA SPOILERS )

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

Read this:

-If you like villains.

-you like smart, hilarious villains.

-for all the soul missing from Watchmen.

-iff you ever thought to yourself, 'hey, Superman's kind of a dick.'

-Mad science!

-hot cyborg girls with good character arcs!

Along For The Ride - Sarah Dessen

( spoilers )

Turn Coat - Jim Butcher

( Spoilers )

If Jim Butcher continues to do what he's done to Amara's characterization in the first two pages of her first appearance, ( Read more... )

(Only at page 35 of Princeps' Fury. No spoilers, please.)

So, I read until my eyes ached at the library, trolling through literary journals to try and find some a couple short stories to write about for the anthology that I need to put together for my into to fiction class.

I got zip.

Okay, I got one, under 500 word piece that I don't like very much, but aside from that? Nothing.

Does anyone know some online magazines with actually good fiction? Bonus points if it's cyber- or steam- punk that I can pass off as lit.

Also, at dinner, I got talking with mzminola , which got me to finally post the thinky-thoughts I've been having about the Codex Alera specifically, and a lot of other series' in general.

First, the Codex:
( Spoilers For The Codex Alera )
Which brings us to the characters I like to call 'quadruple threat' characters.
( Spoilers for Avatar, the Weather Warden Series, Codex Alera, Star Wars, & Harry Potter )

So renegadekitsune?

You know your ship?

Well, after "Small Favors" I totally ship it too. Specifically after That Scene. You know the one. Of course, as soon as I realized the UST was deliberate on Butcher's part I wanted to smack my head against a wall.

pzb, you need to read this book fast so we can discuss.
( Spoilers For  )
I feel really bad for focusing on the romance, but I honestly don't have much to say about the other factors - I love the characters, the plot is always pretty solid, dialogue is screamingly funny. Really, the romance is the only thing to debate, especially since I have no idea how the plot threads that go from book to book are going to tie together. Oh, okay, here's something unrelated to romance
( more spoilers! )

pzb, I forgot to ask last time we were talking about "White Night," the second to latest Dresden book: what is your opinion on fanservice girl - I mean Molly. I liked her in earlier books, but at this point I'm really wondering what purpose she serves, and I don't think the whole 'magic isn't the solution' emphasis they need to take with her really illuminates anything about Harry or Harry's problems, especially when she choose not to know everything that's happening with the White Court. Harry has gotten into trouble before by withholding information, and Molly just seemed to give him an excuse to do that more.

At this point I'm pretty sure I'm shipping Murphy/Kincaid. It's so much less aggravating.

Also, my mother suggested that Murphy/Harry may have been something that the publishes wanted but Butcher didn't - what are your thoughts?

(And by the way, this post is open to comment from all who have an opinion, not just the always fabulous pzb.)

First, I just read accidentally read a spoiler for the newest Dresden book that made my freaking night. (And now I'm trying to remember if casually thought that, hey, wouldn't if be cool if... about it, or if it just makes so much sense that I'm imagining that I thought about it before Butcher wrote it. Either way, win. And kitsune, about your favorite character... not often do I pause in my reading to go, "damn. That boy is really hot" but I totally did "White Night".)

Secondly, has anyone noticed how there are songs that seem to come out during the summer? Like the radio never plays them and suddenly they're getting the play "Santa Baby" does in December? I'm thinking of "Dani California" and "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" both of which I have heard three times in two days and could cheerfully go many, many months without hearing once.

Thirdly, is it canon or just oft-repeated fanon that Winry's earrings come from Ed's automail? (And I so need to catch up with that manga.)

Fourth, in the second season of Naruto, doesn't Sakura end up one or two ninja levels above him and Sasuke? Do we know anything about where/how she passed those tests? (Since I'm assuming there was a while where both Sasuke and Naruto outranked her.)

Fifth, in Avatar
( Spoilers For Boiling Rock )