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.

Current Music: No Church in the Wild - JAY-Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean
Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/649674.html

• What are you currently reading?
Batwoman #15

Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez - I'm still feeling really moody about books & reading. Grabbed this out of my bedroom because it's short. I haven't yet read a Márquez novel, just some short stories. I can't even remember whether the stories I read were in Spanish or English translations.

• What did you recently finish reading?
Young Avengers #4 - so I wanted to stop reading this, but a new issue came out before I could tell my comics guy, so I bought it & read it. AND THEN IT ENDS ON A CLIFFHANGER?! LOKI WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! So I guess I'll at least be buying the next one.
Kate feels like a totally different character in this series than she does in Hawkeye. While she originated in Young Avengers, I think I like her more in Hawkeye ^^;

Hawkeye #10 - this might be my least favorite so far? Stylistically interesting, the narrative did not budge forward at all.

this is not (a love song) by

thememoriesfire - one-shot I hadn't read yet. Faberry with Quinn as a serial killer. Haunting, painful, yet still believable in its own way. Mind the tags.

Captain Marvel #12 - Still digging this. I think I'm going to be sad when they switch artists from Filipe Andrade. The current style is just...really grand. I should find some Captain Marvel icons. Before the next in the Captain Marvel line, there's going to be a crossover event called "The Enemy Within." I'm excited to see Carol interact with other Avengers (especially after seeing the Iron Man 3 movie). I'm hoping it'll be more interesting than her appearance in Avengers Assemble, which didn't do much for me (and I dropped after about two issues).

Mara #4 - There's a really epic story going on here, but unfortunately I don't really feel emotionally connected to the protagonist. At all.

Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) Rurouni Kenshi: Restoration - This was okay. It's like a retelling of the original Kenshin manga?? idk why they're redoing it, but the art is pretty great. For those unfamiliar, Rurouni Kenshin is the story about an assassin from the Bakumatsu who was fucking epic during the rebellion at the end of Japan's Edo period, getting rid of the emperor & taking shit over. However, Kenshin felt remorseful for having killed so many people, & at the start of the manga uses a reversed sword so that he can't kill anyone. His guilt/journey is appealing to me, & maybe I should read more some day? When I read it the first time, the endless battles with people never changing/etc. bugged me. Which is what bugs me about most shounen. Still, the manga is sort of a huge anti-war message, & I should probably read it.
Anyway, there doesn't seem much point in reading a retelling when I haven't read the original!

FCBD Dragonball: Harmless, but pointless, which is how I feel about all of Dragonball.

Buffy season 9 #21: "The Core" part one. We're finally in the final arc of the season! And shit is intense. ( spoilers ) There are lots of moments that I like in this, down to Andrew's Akira poster hanging on the wall.

FCBD: Mouse Guard offering - I don't buy single issues of Mouse Guard, but I do like reading the graphic novel versions when they come in at the library. Anyway, this was fine but mostly forgettable.

Glee fic, The Loneliest Number by

lazarus_girl - Set between 4.16 and 4.18. Restless and struggling to adjust to life as a single girl in New York, Santana finds an unlikely ally in Rachel. (NSFW)

Batwoman #7-11 (To Drown the World) - I've been neglecting Batwoman comics for a year, so my goal was to catch up & decide whether to keep buying or drop it. I just find this all pretty dull? idk. I like Batwoman as a character, & really liked her intro-book. But I'm just bored by this. -_-

Batwoman #12-14 (World's Finest I: Blood Tides) - This is a crossover with the new Wonder Woman series. The layouts & etc. got way more interesting in this arc, what I'd expect from Batwoman.
Batwoman's dealing with Medusa in her city, so that's why she gets Wonder Woman to team up with her. Wonder Woman's inner narrations are almost lyrical, and the way the two of them interact with & respect one another is pretty nice to read.

Lullabye for the New World Order: just gonna get my feet wet (until i drown) (aka: part 2) was posted on Sunday, by

synecdochic and this is just...OMG FIC OF MY ID. AU where Tifa meets up with Tseng prior to the start of the game, & he gets Tifa and Rufus to talk and just OMG.
In this part, they go off to Nibelheim & find the things one would expect them to find in Nibelheim and just OMG. The Nibelheim flasbacks/etc. are my favorite parts of the game, so just seeing another set of things happen there is so great, so meaningful to me.
And OMG THESE CHARACTERS. It's

synecdochic and

traxits who have gotten me to care about the Turks & Rufus & Reeve AND NOW I CARE SO MUCH?!
But Tifa especially, my favorite character of all time, and she is just SO FUCKING COMPETENT in this fic, I love it so much.
I'll be reading & rereading this forever, I'm sure. A fantastic addition. I'm so looking forward to where this story goes, and I don't care how long it takes to get there, because in the meantime I can pour over this forever.
As this all takes place before the game begins, I think people could read it without FF7 knowledge.
I'm also seriously happy to be involved in group plays of FF7 with people in town. I did that one summer in middle school & it was like, the best summer of my life. I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH I WANT TO SHARE IT WITH EVERYBODY OMFG.

• What do you think you’ll read next?
Well, WisCon is in a week and a half so mostly I'm thinking about a billion emails that don't actually require action on my part.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/640368.html

Lots of comics!reading. Prompted by: Borders going-out-of-business sales, living 2 blocks from a comics shop, multiple bad pain days.

I don't really do heavy synopses; sorry if that's what you're looking for.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse - 4-volume manga series by Mingming. An AU!Evangelion in which everyone attends school, and fights in a virtual reality world with guns.
The art style was mediocre, but it was emotionally satisfying in that the kids - Kaworu, Rei, Shinji, Asuka, etc. all stand up for each other in a way they never do in the actual Evangelion series. I found the plot mostly nonsensical.

I'm not upset that I read it, but I don't think I'll be keeping it. Anybody want it? I'll send it to you for the cost of shipping.

Codename Sailor V by Naoko Takeuchi, volume 1 of 2. The titular Sailor V character is Sailor Venus, one of Sailor Moon's friends/fellow fighters in the Sailor Moon series. Sailor V was a pre-cursor to the Sailor Moon saga, and I enjoyed reading it (I've been wanting to for a long time!). Minako is ready to kick some ass right from the beginning in a way that takes a few issues before Usagi feels the same way in the sister series.
This was fun to read in a cracktastic way - there isn't much in the way of "deep, meaningful plot." Still, it was a fun ride, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Sailor Moon, vol. 1 also by Naoko Takeuchi, a U.S. reprint by Kodansha. I'm one of the rare people who has all 18 volumes of Tokyopop's initial print of Sailor Moon. The original printing was pretty small (shorter, thinner than the average manga book), and the glue job was actually the worst I've ever seen in manga.

This re-release by Kodansha used the art touch-ups from the Japanese reprint. So a lot of the art looks cleaner, more in proportion, etc. If you're interested in side-by-side comparisons with the original, you can check that out here. Some of the changes I like, but one thing I liked about the original was when characters "go faceless," or their features - eyes, nose, etc. - disappear in moments of high drama, when characters are attacking or shouting or etc. So, while I'm really really glad about the re-print, I'll be saving my old tomes even though they're falling apart.

I won't recap the plot/premise because most of you know it (and if you don't, you can read such a review here.)

Buffy, Season 9 - Only one issue so far, but it looks like it's going to be a better ride than Season 8 was (this will have fewer characters, much less EPIC of a plot, etc). I like reading these a lot; the comedic timing of the show still transfers, and I like re-visiting these characters.

Angel & Faith - It's hard to talk about this much without giving away massive, massive spoilers for the end of Buffy Season 8, so let's just say that based on first issue, I like this even more than Buffy season 9. It's Angel and Faith, captured perfectly in comics form, doing what I like watching them do best - struggle with redemption for the terrible things they've done.
This takes place on the same timeline as Buffy Season 9.

Batwoman - with DC revamping 52 of its titles, I figured I'd jump on board with a few of them. For Batwoman, I read the Batwoman: Elegy compilation, and have now read the first issue of the new series. I'd say this is worth reading for the art style alone: it's gorgeous. As bonus points, Batwoman herself is a lesbian, which is much-appreciated in the sausagefest wasteland that is Most of DC's Other Titles. I've heard this team had a hard time sticking to a schedule during Elegy, so I hope that they can keep it up.
Either way, I highly recommend checking out Batwoman: Elegy, which tells her backstory. Our library has multiple copies.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - A decent first issue, imo. I like the art style, there are heaps of nostalgia for me, as I owned lots of TMNT action figures in my youth and enjoyed the gritty 80s movies (or was it early 90s??). They're putting a few twists on things: April O'Neill is a lab researcher instead of a reporter, Raphael seems estranged from his fellow turtles in the present although we don't know why, etc.
As a warning, there is a page of domestic violence in the first issue, although I don't think it will be a continuing storyline.

Next week I intend to check out Wonder Woman and the new Ultimate Spiderman.
I have piles of manga to read, too. I left Borders more than once carrying armfuls, ^^;