One for Sorrow

I have felt so buried lately! We're doing a special thing at work that leads to twice as much work as usual, plus I just moved, which always seems to include more things to do than you expect. Just last night I finally dropped off my old cable boxes at Time Warner (after 3 attempts at appointments to get it hooked up, one of which was just about learning that they couldn't), but got caught in a freak rainshower that lasted from the time I left the cab to the moment I arrived three at the office drenched, with the bag I had the cable box and modem in in pieces. Blech. You know it's bad when the guy at the counter just laughs at you.

Anyway, now I'm finally (hopefully) settled. And I have had a chance to read at least one excellent book that I have wanted to say something about. ( Zuko's Story! The Last Airbender Prequel--spoilers for ATLA, of course, even though it's a prequel )

Oh my god, this meme ate my entire weekend almost! It's hard! Which I should have known. But I think I finally finished. I'm going to post it before I change my mind on everything.

(  Top Five Favorite (Not Fanfic) Authors )

( Top Five Self-Indulgent-But-Undeniably-Appealing Fanfic Tropes )

( Top Five Characters You Ended Up Loving More Than You Thought You Would At First )

( Top 5 websites )

( Top 5 books )

( Top 5 Moments of Glee )

( Top 5 Fanfics, The Ones You Read Again And Again )

( Top 5 Actors )

( Top 5 Songs You Associate With Anything Fannish )

( Top 5 Cities You’ve Ever Visited )

( Top Five Missing Moments/Scenes/Episodes )

( Top Five Horror Stories, Can Be Movies, Books, Etc. )

( Top Five Favorite Endings To Books )

( Top 5 Villain Archetypes )

( Top Five Ideas Or Themes You Find Yourself Concerned With When Interacting With Fannish Works )

( Top 5 favorite fictional characters, answer in picture form (either pictures of them, or pictures of something that represents what you like about them; whatever. Pictures!). )

( Five best episode endings )

( Top 5 Batman stories, Top 5 Robin stories? )

( Top five successful adaptations of books to films. )

( Top 5 fictional worlds )

( Top 5 Fictional Friendships )

( Five Top Fannish Meta Pet Peeves )

( Topo five things about Dick Grayson/Robin )

In response to a secret there's been a lot of discussion about Mai today on fandomsecrets,. The OP doesn't like Mai because they can't get over her…( I'll just cut here because there will be spoilers. )

I have not updated for a while! I think I've been too embroiled in reading and participating in discussions about the Avatar situation. For those who don't know Avatar:The Last Airbender is a fabulous anime-inspired animated show from Nickelodeon set in a world based on various Asian and Inuit cultures. EW just announced tentative casting for four of the leads, and of the three we've seen pictures of their all--you guessed it--white. (Odds don’t look good on number four, but we don’t know yet.)

There have been a lot of great posts about this, particularly in response to arguments that this kind of casting is fine since it's not really Asia, or in anime style makes everyone look white, or it's just fantasy, or that's the way Hollywood works, or it's just a movie so caring about it makes you a shallow liberal, or these kids were obviously just the best actors in the world for it, or there's not enough non-white actors to do it...suffice to say, I disagree with these arguments and urge anybody who wants to to check out aang_aint_white and consider writing a letter of protest if you feel strongly enough. No, the letters might not have any effect on the actual movie, but letting people know we would have liked the movie to not be cast all-white will have more effect than doing nothing, right? That's how these things change.

Which is what it made me think about how things change. Right before this news came out I happened to see Tropic Thunder, which of course features Robert Downey Jr. playing an actor playing a character using blackface. Next to the actual black man played by actual black man Brandon T. Jackson, Downey's character comes across as flat and unrealistic. His black character, that is--when he's playing the Australian white guy underneath he's more like a human being. It's not that Osirus (the black character) doesn't have emotions, it's that the stereotype laid on top of them is so flat and shallow it doesn’t let them come through. ( Which brings me to Charlie Chan. )

Since the finale, I've found myself making a list of little things in the Avatar narrative that I appreciate because I like them or don't see them enough. ( In no particular order. )

Iow, yay Avatar! I feel like I should have done this as a Ghastly Crumb Tinies thing somehow...Uh-oh. I shouldn't have said that. Now I'm compelled to do it. I must change the mood to dorky now.

( The Avatar Alphabet )

Okay, today's the last day before the last Avatar--wah! So I'm watching Ember Island Players, of course, and since this is a reflective ep before the last movie, let's reflect.

( Reflection within... )

So yeah, I'm going to write about Avatar again--and again I feel like I'm just stating the obvious but nothing excites me more than a story that just stuff really really well so I'm satisfied!

( Mild spoilers through BR )

I have been away and now I'm back. I just found out that M. Night Shyamalan is going to direct the movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender (though now it's just The Last Airbender because of James Cameron).

That's weird, isn't it? Apparently he's writing the script, too. Now I just keep wondering what the twist will be:

Aang's really been dead all this time and doesn't realize it.

The Fire Nation is really the modern world.

Sokka is the Fire Lord and he started the war to find his equal.

All this time, it's the elements who have really been bending them!