laceblade

• What are you currently reading?
Nothing.

• What did you recently finish reading?
Young Avengers #5: And so the first arc comes to an end, & everyone is a team & they're going off in a spaceship (?!). I don't really care where they're going or what they're doing, so I guess that means I should take it off my pull list, lol.
I might follow up later, when it's at the library or something.
I REALLY could have used a trigger warning for Billy's pages, too, jfc.

Avengers: The Enemy Within #1: This is the beginning of the Captain Marvel crossover event. This was okay, mostly like reading another of Captain Marvel, with special appearances by Spider Woman & Thor.
Carol coping with a chronic illness is what makes her character compelling to me.

The Last of Us #2: Still really digging this. I love Faith's art. Starting to dread the end of this prequel mini-arc, because the storyline will continue in a PS3 video game and I don't have a PS3 ^^;;;

Angel & Faith #22, What You Want, Not What You Need part 2 - So, the entire season has been leading up to this. ( spoilers )
As the apocalypse is nigh (again) & everyone prepares, I find myself really attached to this group of people. I hope there's more after this season ends, whether in a continuation of Angel & Faith or back with the main Buffy title.

X-Men #1 - This is the new series that Brian Wood is writing, which caused a stir a few months ago when the cover just showed six women. ONLY WOMEN HOW CAN IT BE?! Anyway, my familiarity with the X-Men universe is pretty minimal. I saw the X-Men movies maybe once each, like a decade ago? (or whenever they came out lol)
This issue includes Rogue, Storm, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde & some other people, but I don't really know who any of them are.
THAT SAID, I love the art, I'm interested in the story, & I think I'll be sticking around for a while.

Lifelode by Jo Walton - I really liked this. I wish I was in a better headspace & able to say more about it.
It's the first time I've finished a novel in a while. And just...yeah. I love Taveth.
Still a little uncomfortable with the concept of a "lifelode," but overall I really loved it.

• What do you think you’ll read next?
idk.

• What are you currently reading?
Nada. I finished IBTTRY (described below) on my bus ride home from work.

• What did you recently finish reading?
Hawkeye #8 &9: Still a knockout series.

Young Avengers #3: I think I'm going to remove this from my pull-list. It's fine, but it's definitely not good enough/entertaining enough for me to be buying it in single-issue format.

I've Been Trying to Reach You by thememoriesfire - This is the 25-chapter AU fic I've been reading for some time now. After getting pregnant & having her baby, Quinn Fabray becomes a "loser," & transfers to Carmel High School. Rachel Berry is co-captain of Vocal Adrenaline there, & also the most popular girl in school.
Quinn starts a band with Sam, Puck, Santana, and Blaine. Everyone from the show is in this fic, even Holly Holiday and Shelby and etc. Obviously, due to the AU-ness of the fic, people's personalities & defining features are changed.
I remain impressed by how well thememoriesfire can handle so many characters, so many issues PER character, how her plots are complicated & her endings are EARNED, & there are still moments of humor throughout.
As with wintercreek, it's really nice to read a fic by an author who is clearly just as in love with music as her characters are.
This is a fic I'll come back to reread over and over and over again, just like Eyes Closed to Fingers Crossed & Assured of Certain Certainties.
The plot-twist in chapter 22 was totally unexpected for me, even though it was foreshadowed a lot.
I just...OMG. Even if you're not familiar with Glee canon, I know that a lot of people in the same boat who love her stuff.
I'll be thinking about this for days. I know that her outline for the planned sequel is available on the tumfslove dropbox, so I'll probably be reading that all evening.
I've put it on my list of recommended Glee fic in the Faberry section, which is a pretty short list! Believable Faberry is hard to find, imo.

• What do you think you’ll read next?
I'm still feeling rebellious about book club obligations, so I'll likely be reading more comics & fanfiction, although maybe some shorter fics because longer ones like IBTTRY can be a little emotionally draining, ^^;;

• What are you currently reading?
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. I picked up a used copy of this Friday evening, while feeling pretty angsty. I think I'm about 60 pages in or so. Henry VIII is currently perving on Mary (Boleyn).
I'm enjoying the scheming family dynamic that's happening among Mary & her siblings: George and Anne.
This book is hella long, & between book clubs & etc., I expect it'll take me a while to get through it.

Assured of Certain Certainties by thememoriesfire This was abandoned, which is why it's now only available at the tumfslove tumblr. This is a Finn & Quinn body-swap fic, which treats the issue very seriously. It essentially functions as an exhaustive character study of both Quinn Fabray and Finn Hudson. It is one of my favorite fics of all time, written by my hands-down favorite author. Although it wasn't finished, there are over 200,000 words.
I think I probably started rereading this seeking some comfort, also to partly get me in the mood to work on my own fic.
If there were some sort of Tiptree Award for fanworks, I would have nominated this.
This, along with Eyes Closed to Fingers Crossed, & These Strange Steps, are my favorite fics, all by thememoriesfire. Even if you're unfamiliar with Glee, you could definitely follow the story.

Perhaps this is narcissistic, but I've been rereading my own fic, A Song is a Weapon. (I just posted chapter 2 online this past weekend.) I haven't written much (possibly anything?!) since December, it's just sort of been shelved. But putting chapter 2 online made me feel lots of good feelings. Pride probably being #1.
So now I'd like to reread chapter 3, & then reread what I have for chapter 4 & sew it together and finish my first draft of chapter 4. And move on to chapter 5.
This story is really important to me, and the validation of having other people read it too is just indescribable..
It also fills me with great purpose to comment more often on fics that I like. I'm pretty good about doing it! But I'm sure there are some that have touched me, on which I've never commented, :/

Avengers: The Children's Crusade by Heinberg & Cheung. It took me a while to find this in the library's database because I assumed it would be under Young Avengers. (I'M TAGGING IT THAT WAY IN MY POST B T W.)
I'm not very far yet, maybe like 1/6 of the way in? But I'm really loving this so far. The pacing is good, & I really enjoy the character dynamics. I care more about Billy than I ever have before, & his relationship with Teddie.

As mentioned on Twitter, I'm a little concerned that I most identify with Tommy, who's a sociopath ("I don't have feelings. And I don't hold hands").

I REALLY appreciate that when characters from other series titles have cameos here, they are ACTUALLY ANNOUNCED. Dude in a red cape appears, and there's text that says, MAGNETO! And I can think, Oh, that's that dude from the X-Men movies, okay I know what's up now. Same with Ms. Marvel, etc. I mean. I recognize Spider-Man and Iron Man, but I appreciate it when the writer/artist recognize that their readers may not have read EVER SERIES EVER.
ALSO APPRECIATED: Billy putting everyone in outfits from The Sound of Music. Billy, I'm starting to get you, man.

I don't appreciate the way every woman is drawn as BOOBS! but this just seems to be a Thing That Happens in US superhero comics.
I still find it lolarious whenever there's an entire page of like, everyone fighting. Because instead of looking like an actual fight scene, it's like a freeze frame of everyone on the same page, open-mouthed, raising a hand or a weapon. IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE AN ACTUAL FIGHT AT ALL?!
I never thought I'd find the fight scenes in the first 30 volumes of Bleach/Naruto superior to other things, is I guess what I'm saying.

Anyway. I'm kind of enjoying my time with this. I expect I'll have a lot of thoughts once I've read it all.

These characters finally feel real to me. I still think that I like the Runaways kids more. I really like the Runaways' utter rejection of adulthood/the authority of established superheros, like Captain America/etc. Contrasting that, the Young Avengers seem to clash with the "old guard" pretty frequently, but they always feel guilty & bad about it.
Whereas Runaways would be like, "YOUR OUTFIT'S STUPID AND WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?! NO." Bahahahahahaaaa.


• What did you recently finish reading?
Anna Karenina parts 3 & 4, by Leo Tolstoy.
Part 3 got pretty bogged down & I was all, "I AM REALLY TIRED OF YOUR SHIT, LEVIN."
Very annoyed with his, "We can't EDUCATE the peasants BECAUSE THEN THEY'LL WANT THINGS!"
Also annoyed with his like, falling hard for facades (working with peasants! Kitty! Agrarian lifestyle! Blah!) ONLY TO REALIZE THAT THINGS ARE WAY MORE COMPLICATED/UNSEEMLY. Like, omg we get it.
Kitty is still my fave.

After the slowness of part 3, the action-packed part 4 was pretty welcome. I don't really understand how this book will keep going, but there's still half of the book left?!
I think I said a lot of the things I wanted to say about this in book club, & now can't remember my shit.
I know that Tolstoy originally made Anna a much less sympathetic character than she is in the published version of the book, but part of me kind of wonders whether he included SO MUCH about Levin & class politics & etc. so that he as a male author would be treated more seriously than if it was "just" about ~a woman and her feelings.

Part 4 made me more sympathetic toward Vronsky than I ever had been previously.

PS: If there are any additional suicide attempts in this book, can someone please tell me??


• What do you think you’ll read next?
I need to move on with Anna Karenina: parts 5 & 6. Otherwise, finishing all the stuff listed up in the "What are you reading right now?" section, & some library books.

• What are you currently reading?
Anna Karenina - Currently trying to make it through part 2 before Sunday, which should be easy (I'm in the middle of part 2 right now).
It's really easy to dive into this book, which I enjoy. Some of my friends have mentioned having to reread pages or passages b/c it's so dry, but I haven't had that issue at all, perhaps because the translation I picked up (most recent English one) is better, after all. It did win some awards & stuff.
I like Anna and Kitty and Levin. Kitty seems to be depressed now, :[
I love reading about the stupid men in this book, bahaha, like Anna's husband who only forms his opinions based on other people's opinions!

Related, I've recently learned that the book club I'm joining to discuss this book has actually been meeting for months, to discuss other books! Now I feel like I've invited myself/etc., but people assure me that's not true, so we'll see how Sunday goes.


• What did you recently finish reading?
Mara #2 - Not much really happened in this issue, & what did happen was weird overlord narration, not dialogue. There were lots of ads at the end & it made me grumpy. I want to know what happens to Mara! Hopefully the next issue will be more interesting.

Spike: A Dark Place #5 - I'm just glad this is over. #5 wasn't any better than the rest of them. Here's a note to myself: SELL THESE, free up space!

Civil War: Runaways/Young Avengers - (This is just the first volume; Secret Invasion will be next.) I've read this before, but it was when I didn't know anything about the Young Avengers. Umm, it's definitely more interesting this time around, although on the whole it's not great. Mostly, this just gives me lots of Runaways feelings :( I've read the Runaways since they first started coming out, and I love those kids. ALSO their outfits are better, their dialogue is better, & they're much funnier than the Young Avengers. Now I just want to reread Runaways, lol.

Geisha, a Life by Mineko Iwasaki - I ended up really, really loving this. It was hard to put down. Iwasaki's look back at being a maiko & geiko was full of historical detail, and SO INTERESTING OMG. She did spend some time detailing how clueless the women who grow up in this life are. In her twenties, Iwasaki decided she wanted to live in her own apartment so far (while still entertaining clients), so she got one. She didn't even know that vacuum cleaners needed to be plugged in order to work. Stuff like that. The women are entirely dependent on the people who care for them/their house.
Her interaction with Queen Elizabeth II was amusing (she flirted with Prince Philip b/c Elizabeth wouldn't eat their awesome food); her interaction with Prince Charles appalling (he signed her fan with his name without asking her - ruining it so that she couldn't use it at her next appointments that evening).
Toward the end, Iwasaki's decision to retire at age 29 to try & shock the whole cultural society into reform came as a shock to me the reader. She had mentioned in the book that she'd petitioned for girls to be able to stay in school longer (through high school), but I wish she'd spent a little more time discussing how she came to her decision, the reactions of all the other people in the book, etc.
I felt frustrated that it ended like a Victorian novel - she gets married & oop! Story's over! I really wanted to know what else happened in her life - I hadn't realized I'd become so attached, bahaha.
Anyway, I highly recommend this, although: warnings for attempted rape & suicide.


• What do you think you’ll read next?
More Young Avengers comics - Civil War crossover stuff, Dark Reign, and Children's Crusade (now that I figured out that it's NOT a Young Avengers title - just regular Avengers - and that's why it wasn't coming up in my searches in the library database lol).

I've still got a pile of stuff in my library basket, including Wolf Hall, which just came yesterday. I had hoped I'd have a couple months before receiving that one, but in our library, whichever branch a book gets returned at, the next person in line at that branch gets the book, even if there are ten people before them in line. If they're at other branches, then too bad! So I guess the 50-some other people with this book on hold don't go to my library -_-
Anyway, I'd kind of hoped to be done with Anna Karenina before picking this monstrosity up. At least AK, I'm reading in smaller chunks, I guess.

Also need to read a book lent to me by a co-worker and beer_marmalade's February book, Moon Called.

I'm feeling a significant lack of manga in my life right now, so I might return to Gokinjo Monogotari.

The other day I ran into heyfoureyes and we were talking about how doing this reading meme has made us realize how much we actually read week-to-week.
Sometimes when I'm focusing on single-issue comics or fanfiction, it doesn't seem like much has happened (at least not according to my Goodreads profile), so I'm just...really liking this meme.
I love seeing what other people are up to, too!

• What are you currently reading?
Young Avengers Presents - Thanks to everyone who commented telling me the order of the YA comics, I've been able to continue, still getting everything from the library thus far! (Yay, my city's library!) I really appreciated having this volume of character development one-shots, because it's helping me be able to tell everyone apart! Previously, I knew Cassie and Kate, & Patriot, but everyone else's real identities/Avengers identity kind of blurred together, so I'm glad I did track this down to read it.
Hulkling's civilian name of Teddy Altman throws me every time, because there was a doctor on Grey's Anatomy for a few seasons with the same name.
Hulkling's interaction with Captain Marvel is the first time I've ever read/seen the male (aka: original) Captain Marvel in comics form. Carol Danvers seems way cooler.
I really dislike the way the women are drawn in this series, sometimes. In certain panels, the detail around Kate Bishop's nipples (when she is fully clothed) makes me feel like I'm looking at pornography.

• What did you recently finish reading?
Captain Marvel, #8 & #9: I'd been really bored by the most recent storyline & was actually ready to drop this title, but I'd already bought #9 and I read it AND IT WAS SO GOOD. The art style changed again in this issue, but it grew on me. This issue is about Carol Danvers's personal life, but then she also fights some dinosaurs in the middle of the issue.
I <3 her relationships with everyone. I really hope that Wendy Kawasaki sticks around.
I had bought the first issue of Captain Marvel hanging out with the cast of the Avengers movie in "Avengers Assemble #9," but it didn't do much for me because SHE didn't do much. It also read like fanfic?! idk. I don't care A LOT about Iron Man/Thor/Hulk/Captain America/etc.
Anyway, her interactions with Tony Stark in this issue were fine to me, because it was ABOUT HER.
I'm also really interested to see how [spoiler from the end of the issue] plays out.
So. Well played, writers. I was about to drop this title, but based on issue #9, I'll be sticking with it. Maybe this is how mass superhero titles always are? They kind of groove all over the place to hang on to all kinds of readers? idk.

I am used to manga & indie US comics. I'm still waffling on whether superhero comics are for me, as-they-are-released.


Saga #9: Lying Cat is the best character, y/y? And seriously, BKV answering letters at the end of each issue is basically the best thing ever. I love the lack of advertisements. Still love the storytelling & the art.
Randoms aside, this was another solid issue & I don't have much else to say about it.


Here We Cross, a collection of queer & gender fluid poetry.
The collection was put out by Stone Telling, "a speculative poetry quarterly dedicated to showcasing multi-perspective work of literary quality."
They put their stuff online for free - here's a link to their most current issue, from August.

My book club beer_marmalade decided to read this for January because most of us had never read sf/f poetry before. I have a tendency to dislike most poetry. This volume didn't really do much for me. The few standouts were The Changeling's Lament by Shira Lipkin, Hair by Hel Gurney, & The Gabriel Hound by Samantha Henderson.
From our discussion, I have a few poets written down, as recommended by jesse_the_k & Sofia. Although poetry isn't generally my thing, Sofia and I mostly liked the same poems from this volume, so maybe her recs will do me good!


• What do you think you’ll read next?
Anna Karenina - I didn't get a hold of it until yesterday due to various library mishaps, but I need to try & get through part I by Sunday for this impromptu book club I'm joining!
I'm sure I'll be looking at some other stuff too, but this will be my primary focus for most of the week.

Once I finish YA Presents, I hope to read more of it. The new Young Avengers #1 drops today too, so I'll be swinging by the comic bookstore after work to pick it up.

I've gotten a lot of stuff at the library - Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas, a bunch of acid reflux cookbooks, and that stack of books I'd already accrued in the last month or so.

You know, I always start these entries thinking, "Oh, I didn't read much this week."

• What are you currently reading?
I wanted to bring something new with me on the bus, so I grabbed the comfort of strangers by Ian McEwan, which I impulse-bought Sunday evening at Half-Price Books while I was feeling a little angsty. I read Atonement about a year ago and I really like McEwan's prose. I've been reading a lot of comics, fanfics, and meh-ish sci-fi lately, so it's really nice to read something with such carefully crafted sentences.

Still reading Ai Yazawa's Gokinjo Monogatari (have finished volume 3). I'm glad that the series is focusing on some characters other than the main couple without diminishing their presence. I remember Kare Kano annoying me when it went off to do that, but probably because I found the other characters (and the main characters, after volume 1) so damn boring.

• What did you recently finish reading?
Willow #2, a small arc that's part of Buffy, season 9. Still more pleased with this than the Spike spin-off. Season 9's been interesting to me all along, but it seems now that the threads are all in place, and the writers are starting to pull them. The revelation at the end of the issue was interesting, and I'm excited to see what happens in the next issue of pretty much all these titles.

Mara #1, a new comic series written by Brian Wood, drawings by Ming Doyle. Randomly picked this one up off the shelf having heard nothing about it, although I've read/liked Brian Wood for a while. The cover art was pretty striking.
The protagonist is a volleyball player is a war-torn Earth!future, and I like this enough that I asked my comics guy to add it to my pull list.

Young Avengers, volume 1: Sidekicks by Allan Heinberg/etc. I liked this quite a bit. Find myself wholly uninterested in the dude!characters, but Cassie seems awesome, as does Kate Bishop. I'm slowly starting to get a feel for the Marvel universe - previously, I'd only really been familiar with Runaways. I'm excited to reread the Civil War crossover with Runaways - the first time I read it, I didn't care about any of the Young Avengers, haha.
Basically this story does just what the title would you to believe! Kid versions of Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and Ant-Man, whoever the eff that is.

The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker by Roger Ebert. This is absolutely what I don't need from a cookbook. Nothing was useful to me, although maybe to someone more confident in the kitchen.
In discussing "how to make" soups in a rice cooker, he'd say something like, "Gather the ingredients for a soup. Toss them in the pot. Add about enough water. Turn it on." Incredibly frustrating. I think the only tip I walked away with was the tip to cook hot breakfast cereal in it, which I promptly did the next morning.

Struck by Lightning by Chris Colfer - I ended up liking this more than Land of Stories, which I think I discussed last time.
I'm still hoping the movie will be better than the book. I would have expected the journal of Carson Phillips (protagonist) to be way more guarded and cynical, given the way his character interacts with everyone else.
In spite of [spoiler], I am happy with the message of this book, which is basically: all kinds of shit can happen to make your life go out of control, but having goals and working toward them as hard as you can every single day = the point of life, even if your goals are never achieved.
That said, if Chris hadn't written it, I likely wouldn't have read it.

This week I discovered a new fic author. Her Quinn is especially perfect.

you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter by sing_song_sung - This is an AU fic. It is based on the novel The Likeness by Tana French. It's a WIP that seems to have been abandoned, but I'm glad it exists. Santana POV, Pezberry, + Puck and Kurt, and then Jesse St. James, Finn, Mike, and Quinn.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

girl, put your records on by sing_song_sung - In which Santana needs a song and Rachel is the one to sing it.
I don't usually care for the Brittana pairing (or other canon pairings), so I think what I like about this one is the Pezberry friendship.

sky of the sky of a tree called life by sing_song_sung - Post-3x02. Quinn wanted to call her daughter Caroline.

and these mistakes you make (you'll just make them again) by sing_song_sung - Quinn and Puck sing the songs of their summer.

look for the girl with the broken smile by sing_song_sung - Quinn's history rewritten, because she's vulnerable enough without a past that was obviously conceived in the writing of Born This Way.

you'll see a side of love you've never known by sing_song_sung - Mike/Quinn, season 1.

Also:
Puck/Rachel oral by astano, basically pure smut.

get you into trouble and take all the blame by smc_27, basically just a St. Puckleberry threesome OMGGGGG.

BTW, my masterlist of Glee fic recs can still be found here & is updated regularly.

• What do you think you'll read next?
Ugh, I'd really like to finish some of the books I've started-but-not-finished, so I don't want to add new things!

Recently put on hold at the library: Wolf Hall, Into the Woods (so I can read The Likeness and figure out where that fic was going to go!), Geisha, a Life - put on hold after reading about how Memoirs of a Geisha is a huge mess of cultural appropriation :[

My book club's reading Here We Cross for January, so I should get my hands on that. It's a collection of sf/f queer poetry. Since I normally hate poetry, this might be hilarious.