Me Tarzan, You Jane

Disney’s Tarzan is their thirty-seventh animated feature film and the last film of the Disney Renaissance. It is based on the novel Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Borroughs. It was a box office success, opening at a #1 spot which hadn’t been seen since Pocahontas, and it was also more successful than its predecessors Hercules and Mulan. That’s not surprising because its budget was $150 million, which makes it the second most expensive Disney animated feature film ever made, second only to Tangled which was released in 2010 to a budget of $260 million.

Once again, this post is somewhat difficult to write, because Jane isn’t the focus of this film. She’s not even considered a traditional Disney Princess by any stretch of the imagination, and her character is a rather accurate portrayal of a 19th century woman – from her completely overbearing costume to her sensibilities. So do I find her interesting?

Of course. but I’ll explain why at the end.

Jane is first introduced wearing way too much clothing for a trip into the West African jungle. Her curiosity overcomes her and she is separated from her father and guide, before being chased by a pack of baboons. Tarzan comes to her rescue, as any 19th century distressed damsel can expect.

I didn't exactly find Jane boring, but she's not as interesting as her contemporaries.

The two then bond, because Tarzan’s never seen another human before, and Jane’s never seen a half-naked man before. Presumably. She’s excited to share the ape-man with her father in the name of progressing science. Against the gorilla leader’s wishes, Tarzan returns to Jane’s encampment over and over, so that Jane can teach him English and educate him in other matters. They fall in love.

"See Jane run. Run Jane, run." Jane not running. JANE NOT RUNNING! RAWR!

The time comes when Jane has to leave Africa for England. She’s completely torn between her love for Tarzan and her need to be among civilisation. Tarzan thinks if he leads Jane to the gorillas, she’ll stay with him. You can educate a man on all matters of the world except the heart, apparently. After siding with the humans when the alpha male finds out about Tarzan’s betrayal, he decides to leave Africa to be with Jane in England.

But the genteel English zoologists have been betrayed by their guide, Clayton. He wants to trap the gorillas and sell them for 300 pound a head in England. Jane is captured and the allies are locked up. They escape with the help of Tarzan’s elephant friend. Rushing to save the gorillas, Jane bravely fights alongside the men, even though she totally didn’t have to because what use are women in the 19th century besides to look pretty and be useless? Jane personally saves a number of the gorillas. Yay!

The thing that sucks about Jane is that she’s in the process of leaving Tarzan behind as the new leader of the gorillas, even though she’s totally bonded with him through adventures and life-threatening situations. She even goes so far as to actually leave the beach on a little rowboat. I mean, like, what? Jane! Do you love this man? Why do you have to leave? STUPID GIRL. And the only reason she jumps overboard to go back to Tarzan and live as his jungle wife is because her daddy tells her to. Come on, Jane! No wonder you’re not a Disney Princess, you even put Snow White to shame!

Well, except for the fact that you’re the one to kiss Tarzan. But he doesn’t even know what kissing is, so that doesn’t get you bonus points!

NaNoWriMo 2011 and changing the blog schedule

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It’s held every November and the aim is to write a 50K words novel is 30 days. My first attempt was last year, where I wrote The Edge of Darkness. This year I’m going to do Tina Storm’s first full-length novel, which as yet doesn’t have a title. In fact, I can’t even settle on one. You’ll have to help me out closer to November to help me think of a title so I can make a banner and mock book cover.

I spent this weekend planning and outlining the novel. It’s a young adult urban fantasy about Tina and her family of hereditary demon hunters that have to infiltrate a witch’s coven that is reportedly using blood magic for personal gain and to hurt innocent bystanders.

The plot totally kicks ass. I get excited just reading the outline. I’m really looking forward to writing Tina’s first full-length novel.

In celebration of this momentous event, I’m going to release a Tina Storm short story every Friday in October. That means the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th. There are five stories all up, but I’ll only be releasing four. However, they will be completely free and available exclusively on Smashwords for the month of October. Come November when I start writing the novel, I’ll take them down and release the five short stories plus four bonus urban fantasies for sale on Smashwords and Kindle in one collection. I’m not looking to do a paperback version of the short story collection because it’s only small and I doubt it would be worth my time.

So here’s the schedule for the next couple of months on the blog:

October-wise we’re wrapping up the weekly Disney Dissection. It’s sad, I know, but we’re literally running out of Disney heroines to talk about. Foreign Cover Friday will still be in effect and Mondays will be whatever I feel like posting.
November will be devoted to whatever rambling I get out writing my NaNo novel. I will attempt to blog daily but considering I mostly write at night time it might be sporadic hours after I’ve done my word count for the day.
Then in December, I want to tackle the 30 Day Disney Challenge (with a few tweaks of my own because I’ve never been to Disneyland or World or whatever). I know there are 31 days in December but do you really want me to post something on Christmas Day?
Come January I will start looking at representations of female characters in Pixar films, because Disney owns Pixar. Sounds good to me. Currently there’s 12 Pixar films.
If I don’t have a complete meltdown during that time because my fiancée and I are hoping to move to Australia ASAP, everything will be peachy!

Of course through all this I’ll be writing and publishing a few new e-books.

Thanks for sticking around!

The Innocence Saga Does My Little Pony

I’m participating in this totally cute Custom My Little Pony contest hosted by Rebecca Enzor. The winner will receive their very own custom My Little Pony!

Yeah, I don’t care that I’m 25. I wrote a My Little Pony fanfiction ten years ago and it was one of the first longer-than-short-stories I’d ever actually finished. Looking back, it is still horrifically bad, (it’s tucked away in my ‘Never to see the light of day’ folder) but authors need to get all the bad writing out of their system before they write good stuff. Think of it as training.

Now, because I’m international I can’t actually enter the contest but I have been thinking about Pony-fying some characters from my young adult high fantasy series The Innocence Saga (currently consisting of Dadewalker, Darkwalker, and Book 3 whose title is currently a secret). I’ve chosen not to pony-fy Max from my published novel The Edge of Darkness simply because she’s a cyborg and therefore half machine. Anyway, doing Dadewalker characters is totally fun because there are six different Fae races with their own colouring and cultures!

Check the rule out here. This will be a blog hop and the winner will be announced by voting. Once again I remind you I am not actually entering the contest, but I would still totally love some comments.

Banshee

This is a representation of a banshee. Our heroine, Innocence, is actually a mix of all six races, but because banshees have genetic dominance over all the other races, she looks like a banshee. Banshees are tall, graceful, beautiful snow-white skin-and-haired amazon warriors/sirens, and they are almost always women (boys are extremely rare and only one has ever lived to manhood: Innocence’s father, Maggrig). Their element is ice and they usually reside in the Southern Wastes. They are shunned because they are soul stealers, although some banshees have managed to become ‘civilised’ and live and work in the cities as law enforcers and general security. I gave her a sharp unicorn horn because I believe they would use it in fighting.

Gnome

This is a representation of a gnome, and earth is their element. Gnomes are dark-skinned, dark-haired and live hidden away in the mountains because of their secondary power, alchemy. Hundreds of years ago, when the Tor humans invaded from the north, they tried to take by force the gnome stronghold Nasri Uan, which was made entirely of gold. The gnomes turned their home to stone, sank the land bridge so the humans couldn’t call for reinforcements, and buried themselves deep underground. They are extremely timid and rare creatures and barely ever come aboveground. The last known recorded sighting was Innocence’s great-grandfather.

Nymph

This is a representation of a nymph. Nymphs are tall and completely golden from their hair to their skin, and use plant extracts to decorate their bodies and curly hair. Nymphs have an affinity with life itself and are the healers of the world, with the ability to encourage plant growth. Highly sought after by humans, they are often taken as slave-healers for the Tor war effort. Their souls are linked with a special tree that mirrors their longevity: if the tree dies, so does the nymph. This means that most nymphs live in forests. This nymph here is looking for a flower.

Salamander

This is a representation of a salamander, the super-powered fire-enhanced western desert race. Their skin and hair are red and they are the complete opposite of the banshees society-wise. While banshees value women, salamanders value strength and therefore the only people who can be tribe War Chief are men. There is one exception: a female War Chief whose role is hereditary due to an ancient civil war. As you can see our salamander is shorter and stockier than the other ponies. He has Sokka’s wolf’s tail and Katara’s hair loopies in tribute to Avatar: The Last Airbender. He also has antlers because I believe in pony form the men would fight for dominance much like stags would.

Sylph

This is a representation of a sylph. Sylphs have an affinity for air and can astral project, so I’ve given her wings because in a way, she can fly. This is actually a representation of Innocence’s grandmother, Verity, who is a full-blood sylph. She’s got grey in her hair and I tried to make her look a little older. Sylphs each have a totem, and animal-shaped guide, guardian, and companion because the ancient tradition of a sylph is that they are mortal but soulless. I took it one step further and gave them their own soul, but in a separate body. Innocence has a totem: his name is Tagodan and his favourite form to take is the fox. Sylphs are nomads and therefore roam all over the country.

Undine

This is a representation of an undine, the water-loving clairvoyants. Undines can predict the future using pure undine-channelled water. They are very paled-skinned with blue-black hair. Their society elects their leaders per coven: one male and one female. There are twelve covens, each residing close to an Ivory Tower (actually made of white quartz) on the east coast where the most powerful undines store their prophecies in vials of magical water. In Dadewalker, the human invaders the Alida destroy the two most southern towers, therefore destroying Innocence’s prophecy before she has a chance to view it. This undine representation has a unicorn horn because they can see the future.

So there we have it. Six unique races. Six unique My Little Ponies. What do you think, peeps? Now ladies and gentlefolk, indulge me for just a moment. I’m experimenting with PollDaddy and I’d love to know your opinion. Which pony is your favourite? Please expand upon your answer in the comments below.

Remember to visit Rebecca Enzor’s blog and hop around the other entries!

The Spunkiest Of All: Hercules’ Megara

Disney’s Hercules is a 1997 film bastardising Hercules’ famous trials and adding conflict by changing pretty much everything Hercules ever did and was. Can you tell I’m jaded? For a start, Heracles is his Greek name, and as the other characters in the film are called by their Greek names (Zeus, Hades, Hera, Hephaestus, Hermes etc) he shouldn’t be called by his Roman name Hercules. And he was a bit of a ladies’ man man whore with over 20 recorded wives/mothers of his many, many children, and “uncountable” male lovers. His mother was a mortal, Alcmene, not Hera, although he was named after her (Hera’s glory). In fact, Hera tried to kill Alcmene because she was jealous she was not Hercules’ mother. It was Zeus that turned the mortal Heracles semi-immortal by placing the infant at Hera’s breast and allowing him to drink while she was asleep. That’s kind of like rape, right? And Hercules was only granted godhood when he was poisoned and commit suicide. His wife (at the time), Deianeira, commit suicide after she realised she’d been tricked into poisoning him. But this is all to grim and dark for a Disney movie, right?

Now that I’ve got all of that out of the way, let’s talk about the safe, happy Disney version. Where Hercules is born to Zeus and Hera on Mount Olympus and turned mostly-mortal by his scheming uncle Hade’s sidekicks. Megara (Meg to her friends – if she had any) isn’t introduced until well into the film, where Hercules rushes to her rescue thinking she is at the mercy of a giant centaur river god.

She's also drawn in a highly sexualised way with perky breasts, tiny waist and broad hips that sway seductively ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Well, she is a damsel and she is in distress, but she assures Hercules, or “Wonderboy” as she nicknames him, that she can look after herself. And boy, can she! Meg is one of the wittiest female leads Disney ever produced. Not only that, but they make no secret she’s not a virgin – she did, after all, sell her soul to Hades to save her lover, who then promptly ran off with some hussy *shakes fist*.

She tough, right? She could totally take Hunk-ules. I mean... Hercules.

Now she’s Hades slave, and he’ll take full advantage of her and her womanly wiles. After Hercules rescues her he makes his way to Thebes to become a hero (so he can gain his immortality and go back Mount Olympus – if only it was that easy). This is where Meg steps in. She’s indentured to Hades and must play her part in his little play-act to help destroy Hercules.

I love Hercules' expression. "Men think 'No' means 'Yes' and 'Get lost' means 'Take me, I'm yours.' That still happens today.

Of course, the film is about Hercules, not Meg. So all we see is how much she hates and disrespects her undead master until she’s of use to him again – seducing Hercules to find out what his weakness is. Turns out his weakness is Meg herself, and Hades realises this before anyone else. He uses Meg as leverage to get Hercules to give up his power even though she tries valiantly to stop him. Now that Hercules is powerless Hades can start his plan to rule Mount Olympus by freeing the Titans Zeus buried eons ago. Meg stands by helplessly as Hercules is beaten up by the cyclops.

She doesn't even realise the effect she has on him. She just thinks he's normally tongue-tied, nervous and clumsy.

However, Meg redeems herself. She saves mortal Hercules from being crushed by a falling column and is crushed by it herself. This break Hades’ deal: Hercules made him agree that if Meg got hurt, the deal was off. Hercules flies off to Mount Olympus to save the day while Meg dies. Yeah. Great going, kid. But all is not lost. Hercules is convinced he can save her by retrieving her soul from the Underworld. The price is himself, though: the act of saving Meg will kill him.

That's right: MEG DIES. How many other Disney heroines can claim they went that far for a man? Eh? Snow White was just sleeping!

Unless in the process he proves himself a true hero and therefore becomes immortal. He saves the girl, saves the day, and throws Hades to his ungrateful children (much like Scar and the hyenas in The Lion King or the asylum owner and his girls in Sweeney Todd). Hercules and Meg are taken to Mount Olympus where Hercules is invited to live. But Meg is mortal, and cannot live there. So Hercules decides to give up his immortality and live with Meg on Earth. Awww, how sweet!

Foreign Cover Friday: Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

Foreign Cover Friday is a weekly meme hosted by The Reading Fever, where foreign covers of the books we know and love are spotlighted and discussed. To join, either pick your favourite foreign cover, or pick many foreign covers, and start discussing!

This week I’ve had a look at the books I’ve read recently and settled on Richelle Mead’s Bloodlines, the first in a spin-off series from her totally awesome Vampire Academy. As Bloodlines is fairly new, there aren’t a whole lot of different covers just yet, so I’ll post the ones we’ve got.

Sydney is an alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of human and vampires. They protect vampire secrets – and human lives. When Sydney is torn from her bed in the middle of the night, at first she thinks she’s still being punished for her complicated alliance with dhampir Rose Hathaway. But what unfolds is far worse. Jill Dragomir – the sister of Moroi Queen Lissa Dragomir – is in mortal danger, and the Moroi must send her into hiding. To avoid a civil war, Sydney is called upon to act as Jill’s guardian and protector, posing as her roommate in the last place anyone would think to look for vampire royalty – a human boarding school in Palm Springs, California. But instead of finding safety at Amberwood Prep, Sydney discovers the drama is only just beginning…

This is the US paperback version, and it’s also the Australian. It’s OK. Sydney’s not terribly pretty but no one ever said she was, and even though we can only see half of Adrian’s face I don’t think he’s that good looking either (for the record, I’m neither Team Adrian nor Team Dimitri: I’m Team Eddie. That dhampir ROCKS!). The focus is on Sydney’s golden lily tattoo, which is mostly obscured by her hair. It’s a well-put-together cover, but it just doesn’t scream ‘Display me!’ to me.

This is supposedly the UK paperback version, but I got the top one, so don’t ask me. I’m glad I got the top one. I don’t like this one. I like the text with the thorns and the white background (a nice change from the normally darker paranormal YA books) but I don’t like the dagger in the heart and the cheesy rose with the purple paper… what exactly is it trying to say? Just no.

This is the Bulgarian version. I guess Bulgaria got their foreign rights sorted before anyone else, because I don’t see different covers for any other country. I like this one. Sydney’s got gorgeous brown eyes, the lily is much more visible, and she’s not hiding anything by looking directly at us. I like how her photo is cut off by the golden vines and the white peeks out underneath. Just about the only thing I don’t like is how her shoulders are naked and it gives the impression the model might be nude off-screen. It’s pretty. It’s not exactly genre-specific, though. But that’s OK, because it’s still a nice cover.

Translation: Blood Ties.

Believe it or not, that’s all we’ve got! I want to get back to reading my major influx of books I received this week. Reviews are going up on Goodreads.

What are your thoughts?

Which covers do you like? Which do you hate?

Check back at The Reading Fever for her Foreign Cover Friday!