laceblade

• What are you currently reading?
Cold Magic by Kate Elliott. I read this back in September or so & loved it. We're reading it for beer_marmalade, & I wanted to reread to better remember & to be a better participant ^_^
The beginning part, with Cat & Bee just living life & going to school? I'd read that forever.


• What did you recently finish reading?
Batwoman #16-20 - Meh. They're setting up a new arc & idgaf what's happening, so I dropped Batwoman from my pull-list.
I'd be willing to read it in trade, when it comes in at the library.
It's hard to tell whether it's my own apathy or the comics themselves that's at fault. EITHER WAY, goodbye Batwoman.

Wild Ones volume 5 - I keep wanting to read manga & going with this one because I have it from the library but UGH. The once-per-volume shots of Sachie looking like a total badass aren't worth all of her agency being erased by Rakuto.
This volume's low-point was when another dude asked Rakuto why he didn't just tell Sachie he loved her, & he said, "If I did that, I wouldn't be able to stop."
Stop what, you wonder? Repeating over & over that he loves her? Or is that a creepy overtone of rape threat?
The answer's revealed a couple pages later when the words are repeated as he stumbles on Sachie lying asleep on a futon at the end of a chapter. That's the cliffhanger - WILL HE ABLE TO STOP HIMSELF?
Fuckin' gross.
AND YET. Volumes 6-8 were already in my library basket & I just want to see what happens, so. I'll likely continue.

Unsounded, volume 1 by Ashley Cope
Ashley Cope used to go by "GlassShard" on the Internet. I've been following her work basically since I started hanging out online - I loved her FF7 fanart & fic.
Unsounded is a webcomic; I bought the first physical volume from her Kickstarter. I'd been following this online, but because the chapters are sort of written to be read all at once, it was hard for me to read this when it updated (every M, W, F) & I fell off. This volume collected chapters 1-3, and I'm hoping I'll keep going with chapters 4 & on, & get all caught up :D
This is a fantasy series. The protagonists are Sette, a young thief with a tail who swears more than me, and her magic-casting friend Duane. Sette refers to him as her "attack zombie," and makes fun of him for having such a boring name.
Cope is one of the rare webcomic artists who's also a really strong writer. Her time management is professional, too. Her hiatuses last exactly as long as she says they're going to, which is much appreciated in the world of webcomics, where people sometimes disappear for years.
Unsounded is free online, for everyone. You should totally do it.


• What do you think you’ll read next?
In a fit of angst some point this week, I went through my Goodreads list from the past couple years & made a list of the manga series I'd stop reading. Even though I'd stopped reading some of them b/c I found them boring, I checked out the next volumes in various series (Bride's Story [love it], Cross Game, Soul Eater, rest of Wild Ones, Saturn Apartments, Shugo Chara!) & a couple novels (Parable of the Talents, Summer Prince). So. Expect some mass-reading of manga, I guess.