(no subject)

[skygiants]

Things accomplished today:

1. Handed in finished creative writing project, with cover letter and everything, five minutes before deadline. Yay!

2. Had obligatory panic attack because I couldn't remember where to turn in seminar essay. Not unexpected!

3. Handed in finished seminar essay two hours before deadline. Was first one there, which explains panic attack, resolved when second person there came to hand in her essay. Yay!

4. Painted tea mug at Color Me Mine, because we have nothing to do at work until January and thus it was decreed that we would take today to go paint things and each acquire our own personal tea mug. With money from the keep-workers-happy budget. Because my job and boss are awesome. GREAT YAY!

Therefore, basking in the glow, I join the herd. Unpopular Fandom Opinions meme!

The rules:
01. Post this on your journal.
02. Your friends will comment with some of your fandoms or some general topic about fandom.
03. In a new post (or in comments) respond back with one or two of your unpopular opinions for that fandom or topic.

Caveat: I don't actually know a lot of what's unpopular. Um. So I put a popular opinion by accident, oops?

Comments

[shati.livejournal.com]

Ummm. Hmm. Either BtVS or VM, whichever you choose.

[skygiants]

Hmmm.

I have not seen all of Buffy, but I know more about Buffy fandom. (I think.) So:

- I like Dawn. (You know that already, but.) I like that she is believably little-sister-y and I like her relationship with the Scoobies, because, dude, they were all Dawns once. And so are we.

- I miss Buffy's dad. He should reappear! Somehow! In a way that makes it clear he is still existent and did not get eaten by Europe.

- I like Buffy okay, but she is nowhere near my favorite character. I think I find the show more interesting when it is about the ordinary folks coping with this strangeness in their lives and in their friend (or about Giles being Giles) and not about Buffy being emo about her powers. She has every right to be emo, I just find it less interesting.

- I don't hate Spike, even in 6 and 7, when he is being wacky. And I really do enjoy his relationships with Joyce and Dawn. (Joyce, especially. They make me laugh.) I was even okay with him having a crush on Buffy. I just . . . really wish he wasn't OMG In Love With Her.

- Clem makes me happy. There is not enough Clemfic out there!

- There are some Season 6 episodes I confess I really love. Notably, these are the really cheesy ones - the memory-loss episode with Anya/Giles (HAH) and the one with Buffy working retail in the Magic Shop. Mostly I'm just easily amused.

- I actually really like most of the Potentials. The really tall geeky one whose name I'm blanking on especially. Kennedy is sort of an exception to this; she leaves me eh. But I do not think that is an unpopular opinion, so.

- I liked Xander and Anya, and I was sad when they broke up.

- I secretly do not think the First Slayer mythology makes any sense.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is a Fionavar fandom outside six people on my friendslist.

That said, have you got any Fionavar opinions?

[skygiants]

*giggles* We totally count as a Fionavar fandom! Um. Lessee. I will give you the opinions I do not think a lot of us share:

- I do not, sadly, much care for Jen. I get why she does what she does, but . . . in her very decision not to use Darien, she's totally using him. That in itself is enough to leave me a little cold.

- I am usually not much of a non-canon 'shipper, and I really like platonic relationships and respect them, etc. That being said, I secretly 'ship Aileron/Kim. Shhhhh.

- Speaking of friendships and platonic relationships, Dave and Kevin's dynamic is one of the most interesting in the series for me - possibly because it's the one that has the slowest and most natural development, friend-wise. This could also have to do with my strong and irrational Dave!love, of course.

- I love Paul and Jaelle, both. I also love Paul/Jaelle together. That being said, the concept of Jaelle as the man-hating virgin priestess who Leaves It All for True Happiness once she's known the Love of a Good Man makes me more than a little uncomfortable (as does the fact that it's okay for Leila to replace her because Leila's already lost her True Love, come to that). It would make me even more uncomfortable if Paul was not such a broken little ball of inner neediness himself, but as it is I can make it work for me.

- Along the same lines, I wish Sharra, whom I love, did more than wait around places for Diar after their scene in the Temple.

- I bawl for the lios for the obvious reasons. All the same, I find Brendel kind of uninteresting. I find Leyse entertaining, but in large part because she is a giant Sue. *pats her*

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

In her very decision not to use Darien, she's totally using him.

I came to that conclusion in my last reread the other day. I mean, "He's my Wild Hunt." How is that not using Darien?

Now, here's where we part ways: I like Jen because she uses Darien. She's brave and cold and willing to do what she must for her own plans and for the worlds. She's always marked by her other life, and she behaves like that other would.

There's nothing wrong with Aileron/Kim. If a few things had happened differently in the organization of the books, it could have been canon.

I like Dave-Kevin, but I'm not in love with either of them or with their friendship. As you probably know, I think Kevin is an incoherent collection of entirely incompatible backstory pieces and plot elements. Dave makes more sense to me, but there's nothing about him that enthralls me.

I hate Leila. Hate her hate her hate her. Sue.

Also, I may be even more bored by the lios alfar than you are. I don't care for Brendel, Leyse is bland even for an Elaine figure, and I can't say that I've ever desired to bawl on account of the lios. I actually write the whole race off as signs that GGK hadn't waited to get over his Tolkien fanfic urge before writing the Fionavar Tapestry.

[skygiants]

*grins* oh, I understand that, totally. I think part of the problem for me is that she's not necessarily admitting that, but making the stand that her position is entirely unselfish. I mean, she makes Kim feel horrible and like she's done something wrong for assuming that Jen might actually care about Darien for himself. Which is really not an unreasonable assumption. *dry* Darien comes to the charitable conclusion that Jen trusts him; I do not.

Yeah. *giggles* I know your feelings about Kevin. To be fair, though, GGK is not great on backstory for any of the five- either he sticks it in to be convenient, or he completely ignores it. (Bitter? Not at all!)

Yeah. Leila is totally a Sue. *cheerful* But the fact that she becomes High Priestess bothers me not so much of that as because of the pattern that is established: it's okay to be High Priestess when you don't have a man! Otherwise, totally go for the sex.

There is really only one moment when I bawl for the lios. - and, okay, I don't mind Ra-Tenniel. But yeah, the rest of them are really incredibly bland. Brendel has no character! At all!

. . . but I'm not so much a fan of the Tolkein elves either, so.

[vivien]

Phantom of the Opera!

[skygiants]

Oooh, a lot of my opinions here are fandomically (is that even a word?) unpopular. Let's see:

- I get Erik as Tormented Romantic Hero, but alas, he's also a stalker and a murderer. As Jez put it in her answer to the same meme, he can be redeemed, but these are, uh, important issues to be addressed. Nor have I ever had any desire to run away with him to a tropical paradise.

- Raoul really entertains me. I have no more desire to elope with him than I do with Erik; in my mind, having either of them take a romantic interest in you is probably a good cue to leave the country, 'cause they both get kind of intensely creepy about it. But he's so oblivious! I am fond of him, in the way where I want to ruffle his hair and tell him to get a life.

- I love Philippe de Chagny. He doesn't even appear in the musical, and he's a teeny-tiny character in the book, and I love him regardless. He's the only moderately sensible character in a completely ridiculously operatic story, and he runs off to save Raoul like a good older brother should. It's not his fault that he gets eaten by an improbable plot device offscreen.

- It is my firm opinion that Phantom of the Opera is eminently mockable. It is meant to be mockable. It is, at least in part, a giant sendup of operatic traditions, and that's one of the reasons why I love it. I like the movie because it gets this! It totally doesn't take itself too seriously.

- I. Uh. I don't actually love Sarah Brightman's voice. As far as just singing goes, I prefer Emmy Rossum.

- Carlotta/Piangi is so cute! Diva love!

[genarti]

Tolkien. :)

[skygiants]

Hee. Are there any unpopular opinions in Tolkein fandom? I feel like it's so huge at least someone else must espouse all of them. Okay:

- I firmly believe that Sam could have carried the Ring to Mordor as well as Frodo, if not better. If hobbits are less affected, Sam is much more an . . . epitome of hobbitude than Frodo is. Frodo thinks too much, and is therefore more susceptible. It makes more thematic sense for Frodo to carry the Ring, and it would have been sadder for Sam to become the near-wraith that Frodo does; all the same, in practical terms, Sam would have been a better choice.

- I'm pretty sure this one is unpopular - as I said to Rym, I tend to find the Tolkein elves, in general, pretty dull. I'm not talking about specific characters - I'm fond of Galadriel, and Legolas is a sweetheart. Just, in general, a race of Really Pretty People who are Eternally Cooler Than You While Emoing Sadly About Their Tragic Past Sorrows and Eventual Departure doesn't really do it for me.

- And it annoys me that in most Dwarf-Elf conflicts, the authorial voice tends to be (if I remember right - it's been a while) on the side of the elves.

- Along similar lines, though this one I'm pretty sure is not unpopular, Eowyn is ten times cooler than Arwen. At least.

- I do not, actually, think that any of the Fellowship are pining away for love of any of the others.

- If I 'ship any non-explicitly-canonical pairing, it's Gimli/Galadriel. (Don't make faces. She could do worse. And it's half-canon anyways.)

- I LOVE Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. With a fiery, crochety-old-lady passion. Not just because of the umbrella, but because she represents the cool things that can be done with extremely minor, apparently antagonistic characters!

. . . mostly because of the umbrella, though.