Obsessions

Chance Meetings (Chansu Miitingutsu)

| mlatimerridley

Latimer: Today myself and Ridley journeyed to Asakusa. A very nice part of Tokyo that contains the jaw-dropping Asakusa-jinja. The main gateway to the temple contains a massive red lantern at its centre. This is often used as a meeting place in shoujo manga for the main boy and girl’s date. (Ridley: I love how this looks like it’s about to be a post about the temple, which perhaps more people would be interested in than our crazy ramblings but…it’s not going to be! So…go see the temple, it’s lovely…now on to our madness..)

The temple site was packed with tourists and also school tours (lots of middle and elementary school kids… we assumed).

As me and Ridley stood poised on the great Temple’s porch (R: We sound impressive, it was more like we lulled over the banister as we were starting to flag against the hot sun. There was a nice breeze on the high porch so we didn’t want to move…) We began to muse over what the school kids ‘stories’ might be. We’ve been doing this a lot on our trip. We will often wonder, what is the life story of any number of random individuals; the gaijin (foreigner) in the suit alone on the train; the old Japanese couple walking hand in hand through the park… and now, the school kids.

I should backtrack and explain that Asian dramas are loved by both myself and Ridley, it doesn’t matter if it’s Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese. We’ve watched them all. (R: Great stories, well woven but really sometimes the endings are poorly wrapped up…we like to think we could end some of them better!) They tend to follow a similar pattern and so, we started to think about our own drama, and we began randomly picking out the school kids below as our characters…

We focused on one group of three girls and four boys.

One girl wore a backpack with the American flag as the pattern; she became ‘Stars and Stripes’.

The one with all the power (when she asked for a picture, all the boys leapt to attention) became, ‘The Main Girl’ and Stars and Stripes, we decided would be her best friend. They were all in Middle School together.

Of the four boys, one stood out; he had a grey backpack (Grey), all the other boys flocked around him, we decided he was the boy that loved The Girl, her best boy-friend. The good guy.

Then we noticed another, separate group of boys. There was one that stood out, a young man in a hat (a sort of black 1930’s hat). Very dapper. He was going to be the bad boy. We named him Hat. Ridley watched him intently; “He’ll be the leader of the gang, the one that will lead the fight out of the subway” (to those that don’t follow Asian dramas, there always seems to be fighting involved and it usually involves the main men, and more often than not, the bad guy is in some form of a gang. I don’t know where this factors into Asian society, it just seems to be a staple in drama-land).

So, we decided that Hat and The Girl had had a ‘chance meeting’ during their school trip to the temple. But they’d also been having ‘chance meetings’ their whole lives (they don’t realise it, but they met first in preschool, when they fought over a red crayon. Since this time, The Girl has referred to this arrogant boy as Aka-baka (red-idiot)).

The title of our drama, then became ‘Chansu Miitingutsu’ (the Japanese pronouncation of Chance Meetings). This is my attempt at the katakana of the title:

                                                 チャンツ   ミ–チングツ

As the school kids started to leave, we fast-forwarded a few years; they were now in High School. Of the Middle school group, only The Girl and her friends, Grey and Stars and Stripes, went to the same school. But…. who ends up in her class? Just Hat (Aka-baka). 

— Another Chansu Miitingutsu!

(Ridley: It’s the only way really, how else are they meant to get together? But Grey will put up a good fight, as he will be able to have The Girl’s best friend, Stars and Stripes, fighting in his corner! Those two probably ended up in the same class, as is the way of things. Oh yeah, we’re writing this, so…they did! And I bet Stars and Stripes likes Grey…oh the plot thickens!)

The school kids soon left the Temple, led off by their guides and sensei. However, for us, the notion of our drama continued throughout the day. As we passed a pachinko arcade (Ridley: Gambling parlours with tiny, metal balls- the noise from them is horrific!), we saw a girl dressed in a ridiculous costume outside, pleading for people to come in (handing out flyers, in a sky blue robe wearing a curly pink wig). Ridley nodded, “That’s the job The Girl gets in High School”.

“And Hat frequents the pachinko dens,” I added.

— Chansu Miitingutsu!

By the end of the day we’d ended up in Ginza, in a Vampire Café (more on that later! Very random I know) being served by a surly young man dressed as a Goth (I’m not sure I’d say vampire, maybe a Goth gone mental). We rounded off our drama for the day by deciding that Hat worked as a vampire in the vampire café.

As we sit, winding down in our hotel room, writing this, we’ve worked out the following:

Yamapi will play Hat

Ikuta Toma will play Grey

This will also fulfil our dream of having these two men work together in a drama!

Inoue Mao will play The Girl

Horikita Maki will play Stars and Stripes

Our drama theme song will be PonPonPon by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (because it’s a mental music video, and we are sure that that girl is following us all over Tokyo at the moment… she is EVERYWHERE!). (Ridley: PonPon woman has given me a headache. This song has been caught in my head all day! It’s quite catchy…)

‘People watching’ is a major source of all drama goodness! Stay tuned for our release date, once everyone signs on, we’ll let you know! (Ridley: We expect these really well known Asian actors to work for free by the by, so it may take some time and lots of persuading before our drama can be made! haha…)

Sleep vs. Book: the cost of addiction

| mlatimerridley

Latimer: Two nights in a row I’ve been up until 1.30am. And that’s not good when you have to get up at 7am!

I ended up watching episode 2 of Game of Thrones on Tuesday night. It was pretty crap actually- too much talking and gratuitous sex. My flatmate (Orbie) made a very good point about the sex, “why is it never the ones we want to see naked?”

“Fair point,” I said. “Like Robb Stark.”

Orbie nodded, “And Jon Snow- the hottest things in the show.”

Silently, I nodded, this is true, but then I chirped up, “And Jaime Lannister?”

She didn’t reply. Is it just me? I’m going to wait for Ridley to shoot me down on that (I don’t expect her to, but the heart of a woman is a fickle thing. We find beauty in strange places at times and expect others to loudly declare they are sisters in arms with us, when in actuality they look at us with scorn and reproach! But then in turn, we’ll do the same thing when they come forward and admit their guilty pleasure!).

Anyway, so we watched Game of Thrones.

Then, I headed to bed to finish reading Book 2 of the Hunger Games (it wasn’t my intention initially to finish it, but that’s what happened- like a crack addict I OD’d on reading). I stumbled, bleary-eyed to the bathroom at 1am (1 chapter left at this point). As I passed Orbie’s room, the light was on (this was weird). “Hmm,” I thought. Then shrugged, stumbling back to my room to finish gobbling down Book 2.

I woke up the next morning in a hazy half-dream state. I thought I was in the games for a minute, in some weird trippy after-effects of late-night reading. I shook my head and struggled off to make my breakfast. It was a while before Orbie materialised, clawing her way out of her room like a drunk, doped-up koala. She stood blinking in the kitchen, “I’m so tired!” she moaned. “My eyes are burning! I can’t keep them open!”

I nodded, munching my toast. “Hmm, I know what you mean I was up last night reading.” Pause. “What time did you go to bed at?”

“2am!” she cried, using her fingers to hold her eyes open.

“What were you doing?” I inquired. My mind connecting the dots… I wondered….

“Reading.”

“What?” I pressed.

“Hunger Games Book 2!” she said with a sheepish smile, as if I would shoot her down.

“I knew it! Me too,” I squealed.

I told her I’d been up the previous night too. She asked if I had the one’s with the crap, horrible, garish covers (yes).

She scowled, “Those covers make it look like you are reading a kids book about aliens.”

I told her about how Ridley and I had gone to the bookshop after the movie (I’ll set the scene: movie ends, Ridley turns, a knowing smile on her face; “bookshop” she asks, but it’s not really a question. I squeal like a child on too much sugar “YEEY!”- she knows me too well).

Orbie levelled a knowing look at me, “I told you, you would like it” (she had seen the film the previous week and told me, “you’d like it; it’s very good”).

I sigh, “Yeah, yeah, you and Ridley!”

Then, Orbie and I stumbled off our separate ways to work.

I’m saving Book 3 for the weekend. I have it under lock and key. I have to, I need sleep!

My name is Latimer and I’ve been Hunger Games free since 1.30am on Wednesday.

When did your love of books begin?

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: I was feeling nostalgic this week. I was trying to think back on where my love of books began. I’ve always been encouraged to read. In my earliest memories, I was read to by my parents, a lot of it was Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkin) and Enid Blyton (Famous Five and The Secret Seven!)

Then after them I also had Teddy Ruxpin. 

He was my favourite toy. You slotted a tape into his back and you could read along with him. His little mouth and eyes would move as he spoke. For some reason, the story I remember most is the journey to the centre of the earth. I was enraptured as noises emerged from him as we ‘travelled’ downwards and we began our adventure. If I ever had children, I’d definitely buy one for them. I’d probably end up like the woman in this video (where supposedly they released Teddy R again in 2006? Hadn’t heard about that!)

I might mention here that some of my childhood was spent in America, so not a lot of my friends can relate to my Teddy Ruxpin experiences, never mind my Puffalump, Cabbage Patch kids, playdough (marla here, its harder to work with and the colours are darker) and books about Clifford the Big Red Dog. (Though I did love Bosco as much as every other Irish child did. Latimer can tell us about her early memories at some point, we can see how much we differ in our early years! We’ve had these conversations before, it always ends up descending into sweet discussions. Where I had buggals, twinkies and chewing gum with fake tattoos wrapped around them, she had penny sweets, macaroon bars, fruit salads, Kimberley and Mikado biscuits, Taytos-mind I ended up having all of these too-eventually!)

Anyway, slipping back on to this particular memory lane and away from the food one, I progressed onto reading books by Tom McCaughren such as ‘Run Swift Run Free’, ‘Run to Earth’, ‘Run with the Wind’. These were stories all about foxes and their lives in the woods (Hop-along and Old Sage Brush) One of the best Christmas presents I ever got as a child was an autographed book of ‘Run to the Wild Wood’. These books were a definite follow on from Beatrix Potter’s tales! And watching The Animals of Farthing Woods! They were all set in Ireland. I think I did start reading Irish authors after that, though not by any particular design or need to be patriotic. The primary school I attended was fantastic for bringing in authors to speak with us, who of course were Irish, there weren’t many writers from other countries touring around after all!

I got a few more books autographed after that, including Gordon Snell (Maeve Binchey’s husband) and  Marita Conlon McKenna  (Under the Hawthorn Tree-was her first book in a trilogy about the Great Irish famine and the survival of three children). I read her books when I was around 12 years old or so. They were great. I was lucky enough to meet Marita not long afterwards due to one of these school visits, I had a little stack of books for her to sign. She was absolutely lovely, even laughed when
she saw me coming. In the final autograph she has ‘Another bookworm, lots of luck!’ It was then my desire to become an author really crystallised, to have people read my work and love it like we loved her books. We’d always written short stories in English class and I’d started to write numerous ‘novels’ at home. I’d always enjoyed it.

This wish to become an author, to earn my living doing something I love, has been with me ever since.

There were numerous other fantastic authors that caught my interest as a young teen including Mark O’Sullivan (‘Melody for Nora’-about a girl living during the civil war in
Ireland), Siobhan Parkinson (‘Amelia’-also during the same time of civil unrest), Gerard Whelan (‘Out of Nowhere’-a boy wakes up with no memory in a monastery and all life outside its stone walls has disappeared) and Orla Melling (‘The Druid’s tune’-wouldn’t you want a gorgeous Celtic war chieftain falling in love with you? and ‘The Hunter’s Moon’-how about the High King of Fairie after you? Yes please!).

From then on, I was sucked into the massive world of Point fiction, Point horror, Point Romance for many a year. It was through Point that I discovered
Philip Pullman as well. I could go on and on about what else I’ve read or would like to but I’ve limited myself to just discussing my childhood, otherwise you might get bored (more so than you are already perhaps!).

 

 

These days, I have tried to honed my skills at finding the best fantasy stories with great plots interwoven with an exciting love story. It’s why I love the Young Adult genre, it often has this, along with there being numerous options within it and they’re imaginative!

 

 

So I just leave you with a question or two, when did your desire to become a writer spark? And what books do you remember as a child? 

(Instantly, does anyone else have this version of Twilight? I bought it long before Stephenie Meyer had written any sequels and I remember thinking if she wrote any more books they’d probably be quite good! This version was before the black covers! It’s kind of a strange picture really.)

Harry Potter and my childhood.

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: Like many people in their mid-twenties, I grew up with Harry Potter. For 12 years, as each book and film was produced, I was there ready and waiting! It was a sad and jubilant moment when the last film was finally released.

Why do I chat about this now? Because J.K Rowling has returned! She’s announced she has a new adult novel coming out. With so many children, who were her original fans, now fully grown up, I’m in little doubt that this new book will do well. Beyond well. I know already I’ll buy it, even if it was about dirty dishwater I’d still get it. I know it’ll be interesting, though I haven’t a clue what it’s about or even what it looks like (don’t judge a book by its cover unfortunately is a saying ignored by me, not deliberately, it’s just what happens. The more interesting/striking the cover, the more likely it is I will pick it up and ultimately buy it) As it is with J.K’s new book there are only rumours that it could be a crime novel.

I was trying to imagine yesterday what the pressure being heaped upon her must feel like. There are some enormous, ridiculous expectations that she has to live up to. I just wonder how you can sit down in front of your laptop and just type, knowing that’s all there, that it won’t go away. Surely it’s given some sleepless nights. At some point though, I think you’d have to just say, ‘feck it, I’ll write for me’ and just go for it. It’s what she did for her other books before this and it seemed to work!

Of course, some of her biggest fans want this to be another HP phenomenon. I say some fans, because there are those of us who wish we could tell her we just expect a good entertaining read, her books don’t need to change the world every time. Her critics, of course, want it to be a flop, for her to fail, so they can say I told you so. But we’ll all just ignore them.

Either way, she’s a fantastic writer, her words enthral you, even listening to her Harvard commencement speech was amazing. 

So…I can’t wait!! 🙂

After hearing this news, I also started to remember where it all began, I believe we each have our own stories to how we ‘discovered’ Harry Potter in the first place. 

My start with reading the series was far from auspicious. I was thirteen, still in primary school when Harry made his first appearance. A younger sister of a friend ran up brandishing the Philosopher’s Stone in my face, insisting it was ‘the best book she’d ever read’. I turned it over to read the blurb and saw ‘boy is rescued by an owl’. All I thought was ‘no thanks, I don’t want to read a kiddies book about giant owls.’

Even to this day I still shake my head in despair.

It wasn’t until a few months later, during the summer time, that I came across the book again. My parents brought home a treat for both my brother and I.

My mother who always worried that he wasn’t reading enough (no fear of that with me!) bought him Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. For me she brought back a tape with the song ‘Kiss me’ by Sixpence None the Richer on it. (I loved it. To this day when I hear that song, these memories still come flooding back to me.)

My brother ignored the book. It took me two days before I was bored enough to go hunting for it. I had finished all of my own books and wanted something else to read. I found Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone abandoned on the floor in my brother’s bedroom. (on the floor!!) I settled down into the living room, legs dangling over the armrest with a cup of tea. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. It was a child’s book after all…little did I know!

I flew through it.

I bought the second book that same day. I cajoled my father into giving me a lift into town where I used my allowance money. My parents cautioned me to ‘make it last’ and not to read it too fast.

I didn’t listen.

I finished the Chamber of Secrets also within hours.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had just been published that summer. I had no more money left, I remember painstakingly counting out the exact change in copper coins, penny by penny, to be able to buy it.

I had to wait a day this time. It was excruciating.

The next morning, along with an indulgent fatherly smile, another lift was provided. When I got into town, I remember it was almost deserted. I can’t remember why, it was possibly only due to the horrific weather. The day was dark grey, overcast, it had been raining heavily all morning.

When I arrived at the bookshop, the lights were glaring, harsh on the eyes compared to outside and the yellow wooden floor was so bright.

I paused just inside. It was also very quiet, a fan whirled gently just above the door. I felt a small cool waft of air along my arms. The shop was empty. A single sales assistance stood behind the till, watching me. In my wet shoes I squeaked my way straight across to the stand where the book was on display. I twirled around, clutching it to my chest and I stuck out my fist, it was full of pennies. I dropped them into the girl’s joined hands with a muttered apology.

I almost ran from the shop. When I got home, it was read as quickly as the last ones.

Then I had to wait for a year. Reading and rereading the Prisoner of Azkaban. Twiddling my thumbs like a loon. It was agony waiting for Book 4. The night before it was published, I couldn’t sleep. I was listening to the radio, they were reporting on the hundreds of people that turned up for the Harry Potter midnight party in Eason’s in Dublin. I remember thinking the people that were up there were so lucky to have  gotten the book already. (little did I know, my own local bookshop opened with a party that night too!) 

It was after the 4th book came out, that it really felt like the rest of the world sat up and took notice. It was popular and then some. The parties, events, they all just got bigger as time went on, then the movies happened.

Soon everyone else loved Harry Potter too.

It was my first ever experience of wanting a book now. I couldn’t get my hands on the next sequels fast enough.

I darted around the house, telling anyone that would listen to me how fantastic the books were. I suddenly understood why that little girl had run up to me all those months ago, waving the book around. Every single one of my friends got the same treatment from me, I introduced them to Harry Potter (I didn’t know Latimer at the time, so she didn’t benefit from my uncontrolled enthusiasm! It was probably just as well, I think together our Harry Potter obsessions would have reached scary supernova levels!)

I still marvel at the fact there are children alive now today that never had that anticipation, that will never have gotten a chance to go to those parties. I can only hope one day there will be a new series that can capture people’s imagination and interests like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books did. That those children can have the fun we did. Perhaps her new books will do it again? We shall see!

For now though, for those of you that were lucky enough to have them, tell me about your Harry Potter discovery stories! You too Latimer, when did you flick open that first page of the Philosopher’s Stone and join the HP world?

Urban Fantasy

| mlatimerridley

Latimer: It’s hard to be average and ‘normal’.

It’s sort of boring. Scratch that, it is boring. However, I’m not the sort who’s always unhappy about that fact. Because to be fair, life ain’t so bad; when all’s said and done and you’re healthy and content, the fact that there aren’t any monsters or mystical stuff outside your door doesn’t really matter, it’s more annoying that there isn’t than depressing.

But that doesn’t stop the mind from wondering what it would be like if there was a world beneath the everyday one. I’m talking vampires and werewolves and all that stuff that humanity has always had a morbid fascination with.

We might consider ourselves in this day and age enlightened and above the flights of fancy of yesteryear, but that’s not really the case. We do still think about magic and monsters. Hell, there’s still religion isn’t there- angels and demons? So, we dream there’s a divine overseeing force watching over us, because it’s what we want to believe. If that force takes the form of God or vampires and fairies, what’s the real difference?

I like thinking about the ‘world beneath ours’… I don’t believe it’s there, but the imagining is half the fun for me. I like to picture what it would be like to turn the corner and see the unseen- to be told the great secret and be let into the mysterious world beyond this world.

And I think there’s lots of people like that. And that’s why we have Urban Fantasy on the up and up lately. Well, it’s only recently I’ve come across the term ‘Urban Fantasy’ or UF to describe a genre of books- though possibly we are more likely to see it described as ‘paranormal romance’… hmm, I don’t like to hang around the bookshelves in shops that describe it in this way! Bad marketing people; it sort of cheapens the stories to be classified in this way!

Urban Fantasy has peaked my interest lately.

I guess though, it’s not a lie to say it’s Twilight’s doing that True Blood and co. are on our screens and that the bookshelves are now awash with UF.

 It’s like there’s a special guideline authors of UF must follow; a girl, not special, finds out she’s special, meets vampire, meets werewolf and them comes the secret supernatural community wherein she meets fairies, demons, angels etc!

Sounds like I have a problem with this? Ah-ha, no, I don’t. This is the bedrock of UF.

It’s just I’m never fulfilled by it. It seems the idea is more perfect that what people deliver. Some worlds have been good (I really enjoyed the Chloe Saunders books Kelley Armstrong wrote)

But I find myself still looking for that good one… TV show or book I don’t mind.

So, where did I start with Urban Fantasy? Well, many years ago with Buffy and Angel. That was probably the start-proper for most people. I adored Buffy and Angel. But even they failed to deliver a good ending, leaving fans idling on what might have been but never was.

Then came Supernatural…

Now this is a funny one; it’s two brothers for a start, with a mixed up relationship with their missing father… and for me, I like mixed up relationships with families in books, but there was no ‘love’ in this, no women…. and I thought- that’s not really what I want; I need a relationship damn it! And I let Supernatural go.

Never watched it when it started…. BUT years later I came back to it and I was blown away!

It is the best. Better than Buffy or Angel at their height. I love Sam and Dean (gorgeous of course but as characters as well). I love sharp-talking Bobby and the Impala (yeah, even the car becomes a character in it’s own right). 

The whole show is witty, cool, charming, depressing, moving- everything you want! Even the soundtrack is cool, with classical rock songs in every episode. It has demons, ghosts and gods and all sorts of things that go bump in the night. But mostly it has this great brother-relationship between Sam and Dean. Even the way the show is shot makes it look cold and gritty. There never seems to be any bright colours. It’s always blues and greys.

I love this show. And I find that every time a ‘woman’ comes into the boy’s life I want her out of it! I think to myself ‘this isn’t for girls! This is just the boys! Get out woman!’ It’s funny how you don’t need the relationship in this one, just the Urban Fantasy.

Supernatural is by far the best.

That said my interest in True Blood was peaked when it came out. And whoooh, what a disappointment that was!

Basically it descends pretty fast into gratuitous sex-scenes and there’s hardly a thing to like about anyone anymore.

Eric Northman is most certainly the only reason I watch it.

Alexander Skarsgård is a beautiful man. But…. well, maybe he is actually a good actor, but in True Blood I find his accent (whatever he’s putting on because I know he’s Swedish, but the accent must be American via the moon via Sweden) weird and off-putting and his acting unbelievable. 

Still he is beautiful and I know the character is bad and devilish and yummy so I overlook the portrayal.

Bill is an utter joke, his acting is bad and the character is just so ‘blaaah’.

Sookie is annoying (though Anna Pacquin can act).

Vinnie from Home and Away plays Jason Stackhouse- he has changed from his ‘Summer Bay’ days; my word has he!

He looks great and sounds completely American. In fact I didn’t even know him at first; very unlike me. I notice the ex-Home and Away crowd popping up here and there on American TV shows. Anyway, Vinnie is amazing in True Blood. He’s a great actor and actually I like the Jason character (at least his sex scenes serve a purpose illustrating his feckless character)- but it’s not like he can hold the show on his own, it’d be too much of a struggle to make up for everyone else!  

True Blood is a funny one. I don’t like it, but I still watch it. I don’t know why. I keep up-to-date with it- but I fast-forward through ALOT of it. I think it’s probably loss of Supernatural. Which won’t be back until September.

Has True Blood just caught the people looking for a summer boredom-UF fix? In me, I think it has.

This brings me onto another UF book series turned TV. I’m late to these. I know. It’s not that I don’t know they’re there, it’s just I keep them on the periphery until they do something to peak my interest.

Here enter the Vampire Diaries…. and what lured me in? Isn’t it always a bad-boy… Damon Salvatore!

So… I got the general idea of it- two vampire brothers fighting over the human girl with a mysterious family history- nuff-said, I’m in!

And so, I settled down and munched my way through the 1st series.

And I really enjoyed it. I’m not saying it’s obsession worthy, it’s not without its flaws, but I’d easily overlook the small hic-ups, because it reminds me of early season-Buffy (the last seasons were just a joke). The strange town protecting itself against the vampire threat that none of the average folk know about- only the overseeing forces…

The vampires are old school, blood suckers as well. Monsters, the way they should be (mostly). There’s gore and a certain amount of the viewer feeling being a vampire is not a good thing. A nice touch here is that the Salvatore brothers have enchanted rings that mean they can go out in the daylight. It gives an added joy to see the daytime with the vampires as opposed to having to leave them to the night.

It’s set in an American town called ‘Mystic Falls’ (what a name, nice) and it’s very picturesque… because of Supernatural and shows where people live or pass through (regularly) these, woodland/town/village places in America, I’m left thinking ‘is this what it’s like in the ‘country’ in America?’ and ‘I want to see it’. There’s something nice and quaint about the town that’s getting harassed by monsters. I like it.

A lot of problems come from a bad leading lady. Elena is mouthy, but she’s not stupid and she works things out pretty quickly all by herself. So, yeah she’s a good enough character. They’re never perfect. Could I say there’s one I love- no, not really, but I can name plenty I dislike (Sookie, Anita Blake, Cassandra Palmer, Elena the werewolf from Kelley Armstrong’s books and Bella Swan).

So if I don’t hate, I like well-enough- I like Elena.

Her friends have secrets, her family is hiding things. Her town has known misfortune of the vampiric sort before… hmm, interesting right?

So let’s look at our leading men shall we? I’m wondering why is Damon so much more handsome than Stefan?

Is this a sign (haha). She’ll end up with him by the end (not because he’s better looking though- if Elena/or we, meet him first she’ll end up with him- factoid (it’s an unspoken rule)- did she meet him first in the books I wonder? I’ll never read them, so I’ll just go by the TV show)… mark my words… Damon is the troubled soul, he needs her more.

The actor that plays him has amazing eyes (stunning is the word! Unnatural!)… I won’t get into that though, it cheapens the musing to harp on about the man (he’s lovely… mmmm…. yummers).

As a character, Damon is as bad as they come (bad as in evil… well, he DOES kill people, many and without a second thought). He’s conflicted and caught up in his past. But his character evolves and the actor that plays him does a fine job at playing a cocky bastard. Damon reminds me of Dean from Supernatural (and I adore Dean). They have the same sort of rock-devil-may-care attitude. And younger brother complexs I guess.

Okay, The Vampire Diaries isn’t perfect. But it’s comes worlds closer to it than the likes of True Blood. I’m looking forward to the next series basically. It was enjoyable. Young and fresh and yeah the backdrop is a lot ‘nicer’ than that of True Blood.

It’s taking some time for the good Urban Fantasy to rise above the rest of the crap. But maybe it’s a case of getting back to basics… get back to ground roots early-Buffy-style.

Why do we have to be subjected to the porn without plot? Come on, people. It’s nice to have a bit (don’t get me wrong), but too much really leaves a bad after taste in the psyche!