A to Z Challenge: A Review

First, I want to give a bit shout-out to all those who are involved in the running of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. It’s got to take a lot of time and dedication to keep track of so many participants, making sure that non-participants are removed from the list, and ensuring that participants get the attention they deserve. Kudos!

Second, a double-huge shout-out to all my fellow participants who made it (sometimes kicking and screaming) to the end of the challenge. Some of those letters were pretty difficult, but you did it! You rock! 😀

Third, a triple-huge shout-out to all those who stopped by my blog during April and commented on my posts. I had some great conversations this month, met some cool new friends, and gained a number of new followers. I hope you all stick close by, because it’s been a blast, and I’ve been truly happy to meet you all. 🙂

The challenge has been a great deal of fun, and I got a lot of great comments on my 26 posts, so as part of this review I present a list of links to each of my posts in case anyone missed anything or is just dropping by now and would like to check a couple of them out.

Day 1: Ariel (the Little Mermaid)Day 2: Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer)
Day 3: Castiel (the Monster-Fighting Angel)
Day 4: Deadpool (the Lunatic Assassin)
Day 5: Eric Northman (the Viking Vampire)
Day 6: Freddy Krueger (the Nightmare Demon)
Day 7: Gau (the Wild Orphan)
Day 8: Han Solo (the Cocky Starpilot)
Day 9: Iron Man (the Smarmiest Avenger)
Day 10: James T. Kirk (the Star Fleet Captain)
Day 11: Kefka Palazzo (the Magitek Monster)
Day 12: Lisse (the Child of the Dystopian Future)
Day 13: Magus (the Lost Wizard)
Day 14: Neville Longbottom (the Heart of Gryffindor)
Day 15: Other-Mother (the Other World Evil)
Day 16: Peter Parker (the Spider-Man)
Day 17: Qui-Gon Jinn (the Jedi Knight)
Day 18: Ryuk (the Shinigami)
Day 19: Sherlock Holmes (the High-Functioning Sociopath)
Day 20: Tyrion Lannister (the Exceptionally Clever Imp)
Day 21: Usagi Tsukino (the Sailor Senshi)
Day 22: Victoria MacKinnon (the Lost Princess)
Day 23: Winchester Brothers (the Monster Hunters)
Day 24: Xander Harris (the Lovable Sidekick)
Day 25: Yuki Miaka (the Girl from Other World)
Day 26: Zelda (the Hyrulian Princess)

In case you somehow missed it, my theme for the challenge was “Fictional Characters”. Each one of these characters, even the ones chosen out of duress of very difficult letters, holds a special place in my heart for one reason or another. The TV shows, movies, comics, cartoons, and video games mentioned were overwhelmingly a great part of my childhood, and in some cases an incredible part of my adulthood. If you’ve got the time, check some of them out. You totally won’t be disappointed.

And finally, before I sign off, I wanted to share with you a couple of the blogs that I’ve come across during this particular challenge. I came into contact with so many awesome fellow bloggers this past month that it’s impossible to mention them all, but these are a couple of the ones I fully plan to keep tabs on even now that the challenge is over.

A Scenic Route – Kirsten is a fellow writer who blogs about her “journey into noveldom”. This month she wrote a wonderful series of posts with the theme “Backstage at the Blog”, in which she gave some wonderful tips, hints, and ideas for fellow bloggers, in addition to sharing info about her own blogging journey.

Sophie’s Thoughts and Fumbles – Sophie is a writer of many genres who uses her blog as a place to talk about reading, writing, all the topics in between, and whatever else she so desires. She is also the brains behind the mini-challenge that a few of us participated in in addition to the A to Z challenge: the Supernatural A to Z Challenge. She wrote about ghosts and ghoulies this month, and while I didn’t often comment on her posts because my WordPress reader doesn’t make it easy for me to deal with other blogging websites, I still thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the creepy creatures that she posted.

Alex Hurst – Alex is one of my favorite new people because she is fun, bubbly, and friendly, and we apparently have a great deal in common. The fantasy writer spent the month talking about different aspects of writing and being a writer. Her post “J for Jargon” cracked me up because so many of the definitions she came up with were SO TRUE.

I would love to share some more blogs, and perhaps I will in the future, but this has been such a busy month that I simply do not have the time it would take to go through all the wonderful blogs I’ve found during this challenge. However, if you’re really, truly interested in finding some great new people to follow, check out the A to Z sign-up list and just start clicking. There are literally hundreds of wonderful blogs amongst that list.

And now, with all that aside, I must say adieu, and take a much-deserved nap. Cheers everyone! ❤

A to Z Challenge Day 17: Qui-Gon Jinn (the Jedi Knight)

I chose one of my characters from (in my opinion) one of the greatest trilogies of all time. Now I choose one from one of the worst.

Okay, I’ll admit that the Star Wars prequels had their moments, and as a long-time Star Wars fan I couldn’t help but get a little bit of enjoyment out of watching them. That said, the one of the three that I was able to glean the most enjoyment out of was the first, and that was simply because of the presence of the Qui-Gon Jinn character. I’ve read complaints online from people who think that this particular character was not done well, that he makes a lot of stupid decisions in the movie and regularly sets himself and his companions up for disaster. And I’m not saying that any of that is untrue. But I, personally liked the Qui-Gon character. For one thing, I enjoyed the opportunity to study a wise, older, well-trained Jedi in the Star Wars Universe. In the original three movies we had Obi-Wan and Yoda, but the former was only around long enough to teach Luke the absolute basics and to help the younger men get through the Death Star, and the former was old, decrepit, and barely did anything other than lecture. Qui-Gon, on the other hand, was an older Jedi, a mentor, but still in his prime, still an excellent fighter with plenty to teach. I found that an interesting viewpoint, to actually see a Jedi Knight during his heyday, so to speak.

For another thing, I simply liked the feel of the character, the way that he is calm and yet stern, grandfatherly and yet able to dole out the commands. I loved the portrayal by Liam Neeson, but I also quite enjoyed the way authors Dave Wolverton and Jude Watson wrote Qui-Gon in the Jedi Apprentice series, which follows the story of a young Obi-Wan and his relationship with the Jedi Knight who became his mentor. The books are written for a bit of a younger audience, but I personally enjoyed them quite well, thank you very much, and that is in a great part due to the wonderful dynamic between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon throughout the series.

All in all, the Star Wars prequels were not a great boon to the franchise, in my opinion, and I’ve only watched them a couple of times, as opposed to the dozens of times I’ve watched the originals, but in the end I’m glad they existed just so I could be introduced to this character.