Hotties Of Lit

Soooooo...

This post is all about HOT GUYS. That's right, this totally random post is the brainchild of Marni Bates and several other YA authors (including yours truly) who really just wanted an excuse to post pics of hot guys and giggle and swoon over them. And so you may giggle and swoon over them as well.

So, onward to HottiesOfLit.

WARNING: Major, uber, unapologetic geekiness ahead. You'e been warned.

Okay, so here's the thing. I'm one of those weird, geeky girls who don't really swoon over many real guys. And by that I mean living people. Barring one exception, which of course would be...


BIN BONS (aka Ben Barnes)




























My love for Ben is nothing new. I've said for a long time that if I could choose my perfect Ash, Ben would be it. I mean, look how perfect he is.

















































Yep, that is my Ash, and there's no talking me out of it. ;)


















But, other then BinBons, I really don't have any living actors or hot guys that instantly jump to mind. In fact, if you want to meet the boys who give me the most inspiration, and the ones I've swooned over, you'll have to turn away from movies and television, and look to video games and anime.

That's right. Let me introduce you to:

MY TOP SWOONIEST BOYS OF ALL TIME


Swoony boy #1
Squall Leonhart
Final Fantasy VIII























I was obsessed, OBSESSED, with Final Fantasy VIII, mostly because of this boy here. Squall Leonhart, the angsty, taciturn, brooding lone wolf and reluctant hero. His story of how he went from a hostile, closed off soldier to a leader willing to sacrifice everything for the ones he loved was one of the most inspiring stories I'd ever experienced. And of course, the love story was fantastic.


More pics of Squall. It's okay, feel free to drool over a drawing.





















































And let me include one of the best moments of FFVIII. Final Fantasy fans, I'm sure you remember this. I'm sure you squee-ed over it as much as I did. That and the ending.






Swoony boy #2
Cloud Strife
Final Fantasy VII

Yes, its another broody angsty FF boy! Seriously, though, this game is what started my obsession with Final Fantasy. From the second Cloud leaped off that train, I was hooked. And when THAT moment came (FF fans, you know the one I'm talking about, the one with a certain flower girl and a one-winged devil) I screeched in shock along with the rest of the gaming world. More on THAT swoony man later. But here is Cloud, in all his angsty glory.



























Sob along with me, now. Oh, Aerith. *sniffles* The ending of Advant Children KILLED me. Ripped my heart out and stomped on it. It was absolutely glorious.






















Cloud being a bad-ass, because he is.



















Swoony boy #3
chaos
Xenosaga

















chaos isn't the type of boy I usually go for. He's not angsty, hostile, brooding, or tormented. He's the exact opposite, actually: kind, helpful, sweet, caring. He never complains, keeps his own council, and hangs back in the shadows, giving everyone else the spotlight. But he was the most mysterious character of the entire Xenosaga series, and the secrets he carried were staggering. (Seriously, once you knew who he really was, you were like WHAT?!?) He was a stoic and could appear melencholic at times, though he never burdened anyone with his secrets and always helped whenever he could. I fell hard for his character, which is why he earns a special spot in my swoony boy list, as the only one who is not a typical bad boy.



























A tiny hint as to chaos really is.





















HOT BOYS OF ANIME

Oh, ho, you thought we were done, didn't you? Nope, my list of swoony boys doesn't just include video games. I love the boys of manga and anime, too. Here are a FEW of my favorites.


(Note: I love most of these boys because of the stories that surround them, not just because they're nice to look at. Okay, so there's that, too.)



Tamahome
Fushigi Yugi









































One of the most epic love stories in anime. (Even though the "Miaka!" "Tamahome!" got a little grating after a bit.)


















Heero Yuy
Gundam Wing


"Omae o korosu."















































Uchiha Sasuke
Naruto














































Vash the Stampede
Trigun










































Love and PEACE!


















Sesshomaru
Inuyasha

Yeah, he's a villian and a (literal) demon, but he's so much more elegant and refined then that hot headed brother of his.













































Tooya
Ayashi no Ceres























A few pics of him and Aya, because they're adorable together.
























































































And, we come to the special mention of this post. The swoony hot guy who is probably the most infamous yet sexy villian in all of gamer-dom. He's so infamous, he has popped up not only in his original game, but a movie that came after it, and several other games, as the ultimate unbeatable bad guy. And he is sexy, there is no denying it.

Of course, I'm talking about...



The infamous Sephiroth.
Final Fantasy XII, Advant Children, Kindom Hearts, other





















Sephiroth was the inspiration for the villian in The Iron King. Ever wondered what Machina looked like? Wonder no further.



Yup, Sephiroth is a bad ass and he knows it.

















So that is my incredibaly geeky post on my favorite swoony boys of video games and anime. Its not the whole list, of course, because then we would be here all week. But these are a few of my standouts, the boys and the stories who inspire me, who make me sigh and laugh and sob and write heartbreaking, tragic endings to my novels. I hoped you had as much fun reading as I had writing this, and be sure to check out some of the other participating blogs and the hashtag #HottiesofLit on twitter for more pics of swoony hot guys.

Also check back later tonight to see who won the signed Immortal Rules arc!

Until next time,

Julie

Skyrim: In Faendal's memory

Okay, so I am fully aware that this post will reveal my complete and utter geekiness. But I'm okay with that. I've made peace with my inner nerd. Also, remember that, as a writer, I tend to see everything as an unfolding story. Which will make sense in just a moment...

So, as many of you know, I'm a gamer. When not writing, I can usually be found on any one of my three consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) or on the PC with my Sims. When I have a new game, everything except writing sort of goes out the window, and I vanish from twitter for as long as it takes me to beat the game.

This season's addiction of choice is Bethesda's Skyrim.











I've done video game reviews before. You can even find some of them on this blog. This is not a review, exactly. This is more....well, I don't really know what this is. A story. Yes, that's what it is; this is the story of the life and death of a fictional AI character in a video game.

You've been warned.

Skyrim opens, as the Elder Scrolls always do, with you as a prisoner for some unknown, never-touched upon crime. In Morrowind you were a prisoner on a slave ship, in Oblivion you were stuck in the castle dungeon. In Skyrim, you have been captured with a group of rebels and taken to a fort, where you are to be executed with no trial. But, just as your head lands on the chopping block, a dragon swoops down and attacks. You escape, and after fighting your way through the fort's underground tunnels (filled with giant spiders, why are there always giant spiders?), you emerge into the huge, wide world of Skyrim.










































Your first task, assuming you don't go tromping about the world and run smack first into wolves and bandits, is to head to the sleepy little village of Riverwood and meet your fellow ex-prisoner, or ex-captor, deciding which path you decided to take earlier in the game. Riverwood is more of a stopping point where you can sell all that stuff you looted from slain enemies before moving on to the larger city of Whiterun, up the road. You can get a few "starter quests" here as well, including one that has you fetching a stolen item from a group of bandits.
















It's also where you meet an elf named Faendal.

Faendal is your first potential follower in the game (assuming you went to Riverwood first, like you were supposed to). He's a bit strange looking, and is in a messy love triangle with a handsome Nord named Sven and a woman named Camilla. Both Sven and Faendal like Camilla, and both try to get you to help them win her. As I was playing a fellow wood elf, and because Sven struck me as an ancient Nordic jock meathead, I decided to help out Faendal. Once he became my friend, he followed me to the bandit's hideout to help retrieve that stolen item, and fought bravely at my side against bandits, undead draugr, and giant spiders.


















That was our first, and only, adventure together.

I'm a lone adventuring type. Even if I have the option to let someone join me, I usually opt out. Because Skyrim's followers will unerringly stand in doorways, push you over cliffs, step on a trap trigger the moment you're in the danger zone, and so on. I had to do one quest with a brute named Farkas, or as I like to call him "sir Clanks-a-lot," because he couldn't sneak to save his life. Once, he rushed past me to get to the big bad at the end of a dungeon, just as I was lining up for a sneak shot in the doorway, and blew our cover. I shut the door on them both and went and sat in a dark corner while they duked it out. Hey, Farkas was a quest NPC; he couldn't be killed.

But I digress...

Faendal was the one follower who could hold his own. His sneak skill was better then mine, he never triggered trap plates, and he would stand back and pop baddies with his arrows instead of rushing between me and my target and getting whacked in the back of the head (cough Lydia cough). I rather liked Faendal. But because it is possible, and very likely, for followers to die trailing you about the countryside, I left him in Riverwood with the knowledge that he was living out a peaceful life with Camilla.




(Faendal. He usually has a shirt on in game, but I like this image. :D)








Then, many many hours of game time later, I returned to Riverwood for the current quest, and was attacked by an Elder dragon.

My first Elder dragon, no less. I'd been attacked by several dragons before, or I would see them soaring overhead, looking for things to accost, because that's what dragons do. I would usually be in the middle of a quest when this happened, and would hide until the dragon continued on its merry way, and I continued on mine. Hey, I wasn't being cowardly; I'd killed several of them already, as its impossible to get through an hour of Skyrim without running into one. And knowing they would continue to pop up throughout the game, I knew I wasn't missing anything by killing yet another dragon.

But this Elder dragon landed right the center of Riverwood, looking for me obviously, and attacked. It was a tough fight. Riverwood's guards and several villagers joined in as well, and together we tried to defeat this monster that had come out of nowhere. After we finally killed the beast (which went to a rather cool cutscene of me leaping onto the dragon's head and stabbing it with my sword), it collapsed, turned into a skeleton as I devoured its soul (its a dragonborn thing), and I looked around for casualties. Not too bad, for a dragon attack, anyway. A couple no-name guards had perished, no one important...

...Oh. Oh, Faendal.

There he was, lying in the grass, his bow beside him. He had perished fighting the dragon, defending his home. And, looking down at his body, I actually felt sad. Sad that this fictional character, this NPC in a video game, had died.


I couldn't leave him there in the road. In Skyrim, bodies don't disappear; he would be there every time I came back to Riverwood, and I couldn't have that. So, I took the key to his home, dragged his body to the river flowing right outside the village, and let the currant take him away. I watched his body until it disappeared downstream, then went to his home. Inside his simple cottage, I placed one of the dragon's bones I'd collected from the beast on his bed, and left feeling quite melancholic over the turn of events.

This got me thinking.

In a novel, this would be a turning point in the story. This would be the part where the reluctant hero would curse all dragonkind and vow to wipe them all out of existence. No more hiding from dragons, hoping they would pass him by. No more fighting them just for self-defense. With Faendal's death, the hero swears vengeance upon the monsters that killed his friend, and will now rush into battle wholeheartedly, in Faendal's memory.


Hey, that would make a pretty good book...

So, there was a point to this long, rambling post. And its one I've made on several occasions. Those who say video games do nothing but rot your brains are wrong. A video game is a story, just like any novel, one that is told a bit differently, but a story just the same. And if a video game can nearly move me to tears for the death of a fictional NPC, then I'd say its done a pretty good job.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Check out this post for another Skyrim character death story. It's hilarious, but it also gives me a bit of hope that I'm not the only crazy obsessed geek out there. :D

Until next time, I'll be fighting dragons.

Harlequin Teen Trio Tour

*Dusts off blog*

Apologies for the long absence. I've either been drowning in work or completely obsessed with Dragon Age II. But, now that I've beat the game, I guess I should get back to posting on my poor, abandoned blog. (Its not my fault I've been distracted. Look at what I've been dealing with.)














(Hello, Fenris. You can glare at me any day.)


ANYWAY, I thought I should also mention that I'll be in Dayton, OH this weekend for a signing with several awesome authors. This is Part One of the Harlequin Teen Trio Tour (yes, that's a mouthful), and I will be signing with Maria V. Snyder (The Study Series, Inside Out, Outside In) and Mara Purnhagen (Tagged, Past Midnight, One Hundred Candles.) Three other authors, Julia Karr (XVI), Sara Bennett Wealer (Rival), and Lisa Roecker (Liar Society) will be there as well. See below for details.

Harlequin Teen Trio Tour (Part 1)
April 1
Book Signing at Books and Company (The Greene Shopping Center on 4453 Walnut Street, Beavercreek, Ohio, 45440, 937-429-2169) from 7:00 pm. to 9:00 pm.

Harlequin Teen Trio Tour (Part 2)
April 2
Book Signing at the New and Olde Pages Bookshoppe (856 Union Blvd, Englewood, Ohio, 45322, 937-832-3022) 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Maria and Mara and I will be signing together again.


Hope you can make it! It's going to be a blast. :)

And now, I believe Dragon Age II is calling again.

Happy Dragon Age II Day!

Happy Dragon Age II Day!


Guess what I'm going to be doing tonight?

Alllllllll night?


Lol, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might remember a post I did about Dragon Age Origins, a video game with some of the best characters/voice acting/storylines I've ever seen. The characters (and there were a lot of them) were all fully fleshed out, with their own personalities and backgrounds, but there were two I kinda fell in love with.


Alistair













A knight, a warrior, and an absolute sweetheart. Got the whole chivalry thing down pat. Apparently, I'm not the only admirer.






















The "hello" version.

















The "yum" version.



And Zevran.















There's my assassin thing again. Zevran is part of the Antivan Crows, an order of feared assassins, and was sent to kill the main character, but he ends up joining the group instead.

Zevran also has quite the following, but I'm not going to post any pics. This is a family-friendly blog, after all. If you've played the game, you know what I mean.


Needless to say, I loved Dragon Age Origins. And the ending? The fabulous Ultimate Noble Sacrifice ending? Loved it! And now, FINALLY, Dragon Age II is out. Today! I have been stalking their official site for months now and I'm dying of anticipation. So if you don't see me around for a bit, its because I'll be in Ferelden again, saving the world. Also, I'm VERY intrigued by this guy.














His name is Fenris (LOVE!) and he's an elf who was a slave, killed his master, and escaped. Apparently, he has magical tattoos burned into his skin by his former master, so we'll see what those can do. He's also one of the love interests. *Huge geeky grin*

And, like Alistair and Zevran, he's already gathering admirers.





















Ooh...



So, who else is dying for Dragon Age II? Declare your geekdom proudly. :D

Game Review: Fable 3

Oh look, another rant.

Warning: SPOILERS below! Do not read if you haven't played Fable 3 yet and don't want to hear the ending.



As you all know, I'm a gamer. And the game I was most looking forward to this month was Fable 3. I really enjoyed the first two, and I thought that THIS Fable was going to surpass them all.





















Boy was I wrong.

For those who have not played the game, Fable gives you the "moral choice" option of being a good, honorable hero, or an evil, selfish, power-hungry jerk. Your appearance will change depending on the choices you make, and I usually go for the "good" option the first time around. And for the first third of the game, everything was fine--barring a few annoying Fable idiosyncrasies (broken combat system, obnoxious identical NPCs, frustrating travel system). You were the younger brother of the king, who was a real tyrant, and eventually you had to flee the palace with your butler (voiced by John Cleese) and your mentor. You then traveled around Albion, gaining support, amassing followers, promising to clean up the land when you became king, and basically start a revolution.













Oh, and along the way, you discover an ancient evil is approaching Albion, and that the kingdom is in danger of being swallowed by darkness.

Well, then the big day comes. You storm the castle with your loyal followers, dethrone your brother, and become the king, as was your destiny. Turns out, your brother was being a jerkface tyrant because that was the only way to "get ready" for the army of evil that was approaching from across the sea. So, once you become king, you have one year to raise enough gold to combat the darkness, otherwise your people will all die.


















And from there, everything went to crap.

After you become king, the game gives you 5 days or "sessions" before the darkness arrives, forcing you to start each day in court, deciding the status of the country. You have to choose whether to keep your promises (i.e rebuilding the orphanage) or be a tyrannical jerk (i.e force all the children into child labor). Remember, up until this point, I was playing the good, just character. But all those good choices resulted in a massive loss of gold, sending your treasury into the negative and bumping the "projected civilian casualties" even higher. The game wouldn't give you a break, and the "choices" you had to make were all so black-and-white. Build a school or open a brothel. Construct a sanitation factory or dump all the waste into an eco community. Protect the lake and surrounding woodlands or destroy it for mining.

Each time, I would go with the "moral" choice. At the end of the "year," I was nearly 2 million gold in the hole, and you needed 6.5 million to protect your people from the darkness. Then the evil army came, and though you beat the final boss and drove it back yourself, your kingdom was empty of people because everyone was dead.

So, moral of Fable 3? Its better to be evil than good and just. Its better to break promises and send children into slave labor and be a selfish tyrant, because only by being evil can you save your kingdom. Yeah, that's nice. Great moral lesson there, Peter Molynuex. Try again.