Z, V, N. I feel bad because I'm pretty sure I know the answers but... fandom rambles with you are the best.
Fandom rambles are the foundation of this friendship, soooooooo...yeah. :D
V - Which character do you relate to most?
So we’ve established that I’m basically the modern incarnation of Elinor Dashwood in terms of personality and general life outlook and identify with her at a level some people might consider weird if they decided to be nice about it, right? Right. For anyone who’s new and hasn’t been subjected to the full extent of my Elinor love, here we go.
Elinor Dashwood is trustworthy, stalwart, reserved, and practical. She is what a lot of people would categorize as boring. But that’s because they are blinded by Marianne’s flashiness. Elinor is the serious one. I mean, in the story you have this young woman who has lost her father and her home; but is forced into this position of responsibility within her own family because she can compartmentalize her emotions and deal with what needs to be dealt with in order for her family to stay somewhat afloat. Even when others have hurt her very deeply, she compartmentalizes that hurt and carries on because if she doesn’t, things will collapse. That level of reserve and pragmatism speaks to me. Deeply.
But I could also make an argument for Minerva McGonagall or Elsie Hughes or Sharon Raydor from season 7 of The Closer/season 1 of Major Crimes or even Miss Hardbroom from The Worst Witch. But that might be pushing it. So I’ll just leave you to draw your own conclusions. Or you can ask. I’m totally cool with that too.
N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).
I’m going to list what I want in general because I can’t think of 3 things for any specific fandom because almost everything I watch ended at least 2 years ago:
- Queer characters who don’t automatically meet a terrible fate. Please stop maiming queer characters.
- Characters of color in period dramas. Just because this is taking place in the 1910s or whatever doesn’t mean POC don’t exist.
- No love triangles thrown in to create conflict without adding anything of significance to the overall story arc. Love triangles can serve a purpose, but they’re usually just terrible. So please stop. **See also insta-love.
Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)
I could use this as my “GO READ THE REMAINS OF THE DAY RIGHT NOW” stump, but I’ve done that before. And now we’ve all had a refresher on that, I’m going talk about why you should read Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman.
First a brief overview: This book is all about an 18 year-old-girl named Kate striking out to murder the men who murdered her father over a mysterious journal that holds the map to a gold mine. In order to do this, she starts by disguising herself as a boy. On her travels, she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. Throw in lots of gunfights, family secrets, and a twist-ending that I honestly didn’t see coming and you have a pretty great book.
Basically, if you have teenage girls going on murder quests to avenge their father’s death, I’m 1500% about it. Why do you think I loved True Grit so much? Because teenage girl on a murder quest. It’s my soft spot.
Kate is a good character because of the murder quest thing and the single-mindedness that goes with it. Kate is a great character because she still had a conscience. She regrets some of the things she does over the course of the story. She sees the consequences and chooses to live with them because she knows that the Red Rose Gang [the men responsible for killing her father] will just continue to torment other people. She starts her quest because of a selfish need for vengeance. She continues it because she sees that the Red Rose Gang must be stopped and she’s willing to die trying. I AM HERE FOR THIS.
And that’s where I’ll end. Read Vengeance Road guys. Especially if you’ve read and enjoyed True Grit. Highly recommend.
