laceblade: (Glee: Pezberry couch)
Currently Reading
The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow by Fuyumi Ono - I've been aware of the Twelve Kingdoms anime for years. Back in my semester of Anime Club as a college freshman, this was one of the three shows airing. Steph and I hated it, regularly heckling it under our breath & talking about how much we couldn't stand the protagonist & more especially one of her companions. To be fair, we did miss at least the first two episodes, I think.
I actually really love the book. Getting inside of Yoko's head makes up for a lot of what's just whining in the show.
Yoko gets transported from her high school to another world by a mysterious dude with golden hair named Keiki. They get separated pretty early on, & all she has is a sword, a demon attached to her that allows her to fight extremely well with the weapon, & a jewel that heals her.
She gets taken in by some humans a few times, but gets betrayed by them every time.
I just reached the part where she met the rat, Rakushun.

I'm looking forward to reading more of these, even though I know Tokyopop only released 4 of the volumes, & I've heard that the translation/editing for the 4th volume is abysmal. I'm assuming there are translations of these online - anyone have a link?! ;)


Completed
maybe one day a plane will bring me home by [archiveofourown.org profile] astano - The first five times Santana visits New York.

A Scheme, Starring Rachel Berry, with Music and Lyrics by Rachel Berry (and Sam Evans) by [archiveofourown.org profile] ellydash - Rachel’s running after Finn. Sam’s running after Quinn. Eventually, they realize they’re running side by side. Season 2. I read a small blurb on Tumblr recently related to writing, where the mark of good fanfiction especially is that for every line of dialogue, you can't imagine anyone else saying except for the character who's saying it. [archiveofourown.org profile] ellydash is really good at that. Every single character feels spot-on, even/especially those who don't have big parts in the story.
I want to write like that.
& of course I'd now like to read this author's entire Glee backlog.

There's so much good Glee fanfiction I haven't read yet. :*) And due to that, I fell down a rabbit hole of ellydash's backlog & also [tumblr.com profile] ratherembarrassing's Pezberry reclist.

All My Loving For Someone Who's Loving Me by [archiveofourown.org profile] ellydash - Mercedes/Brittany/Santana - A Troubletones rehearsal at Santana’s house doesn't go exactly as planned.

Make Me Feel the Same by [livejournal.com profile] gilligankane - Pezberry written after episode 1.15. "She finds out about Finn and Santana through Tina who found out from Mercedes who got it from Kurt who was talking to Brittany who mentioned it in the first place." (I THINK THIS MIGHT BE THE FIRST PEZBERRY EVER WRITTEN?!)

Apologies by [livejournal.com profile] insaneantics21 - During 2x12. Santana & Rachel apologize to one another for the shitty things they've said to each other.

i seem incapable of titling things when drunk by [livejournal.com profile] lynnearlington - spoilers for 2x18, "stop acting like you aren't hot, it's pissing me off"
bandage and the blade by [archiveofourown.org profile] ellydash - It’s so much easier, in the end, for Emma to blame everything on Will. This focuses on Emma's anxiety & struggles with OCD.
Saga #x

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson - As with The Midnight Robber, I really love the politics & the world that Hopkinson has set up - in this case a dystopian Toronto where Ti-Jeanne's grandmother's herbal skills are valued, whereas before they were a thing the family couldn't talk about. But I wish there was more about the society/etc., and that it was a longer story. Instead, it's pretty focused on Ti-Jeanne's journey. While I appreciate that she's a protagonist who made mistakes but remained sympathetic, I overall felt a little "meh" about this & rated it 3/5 stars.

Very! Very! Sweet, volumes 4-6 - Still loving this story - the clothes that Be-Ri wears (it seems rare that a heroine in manga/manhwa wears baggy clothing that's still cute/etc.?!), her developing relationship with her love interest, & just everything else.

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline - Some of the blurbs on the book describe this as being the "Omnivore's Dilemma" for the fashion industry, & that's sort of true. Cline looks into the outsourcing of the production of garments, & also the race to use as cheap of labor as possible with no thought as to either the quality of the final product nor the lives of the people working to make the clothing.
Some of the things Cline talks about are familiar: Women bragging to one another about how little money they spent on clothing; having no idea which fabrics are "good" (raises hand); etc. While I've never watched clothing "haul" videos on YouTube, I watch makeup ones semi-frequently, so I knew what she was talking about.
Some of the things she discusses are unfamiliar: While I mainly shop at places like Penney's, Gap, & Kohl's, Cline talks about buying garments that are only meant to last "3 washes" or so, & talks about throwing her clothes away. I think maybe this happens more often with stuff from Charlotte Russe or Forever 21 (none of which make clothing in my size), so I'm not sure what's up with the discrepancy. I wear clothing for years, & if something only last me 3 wears, I would be pissed.
Anyway, I gave this not that great of a grade because I found it pretty repetitive and not instructive in the end. She has a final chapter on how people should learn basic sewing techniques, buy a few higher quality items that will last longer, & familiarize themselves with their local tailors. These all seem like good ideas, but I still have no idea where to buy "good quality" clothing or how to go about recognizing "good" clothing.
I have a hard enough time finding clothing that fits me & drapes well on my body shape.
Still, I could learn how to repair ripped seams, or patch holes to make "weekend jeans," or a few things like that.
She did mention people like the blogger behind Refashionista, a woman who takes old/out-of-date clothing from resale shops & remakes them into modern/solid clothes to wear at a much cheaper price. It's a neat blog, but I'm not willing to invest that much time into it, I don't think.
As sort of a coda, I also listened to a Planet Money podcast about a family working in a clothing factory in Bangladesh.
laceblade: Fanart of Yukiko & Chie from Persona 4 (P4: Yukiko/Chie)
• What are you currently reading?
Kaze Hikaru, volume 2. I read volume 1 a while ago, & I think I totally forgot to mention it. Anyway, a shoujo romance about the Shinsengumi. The protagonist is a girl who disguises herself as a boy to avenge the deaths of her father & brother.
My previous exposure to the Shinsengumi is the anime “Peacemaker Kurogane,” which I loathed b/c I thought was horribly paced, & also hated the protagonist.
So I know the Okita Souji is a bamf. Souji is the protag’s love interest in this series.
I’m not really digging this thus far, but I have a bunch of volumes checked out, so I’ll be reading at least a bit more, unless I get too frustrated!

• What did you recently finish reading?
Kitty Goes to Washington - So, in addition to the inclusion of congressional hearings & NIH research, I also feel like I’m just settling into this series’ ‘verse.
I really appreciate that the protagonist compares lycanthropy to a non-fatal chronic illness, & when being questioned by a confrontational senator, she talks about how depression is more likely, but it’s hard to know whether the depression is caused by the illness itself or by all of the life modifications one must make to to keep living with a non-fatal chronic illness.
And uh, as a person who’s gone through some heavy depression due to hugely anxious-making life modifications that were necessitated by a non-fatal chronic illness, HELLO, OVER-IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PROTAGONIST!

Especially after the events of the first book, I really love Kitty encountering other communities of vampires/were-animals, other ways of coping with her changed life, other possibilities.

I also like that she’s referred to non-werewolves more than once as “her pack.”
This is a thought I’d first encountered in Teen Wolf, one of the things that I like about that often-heinous TV show.

Very, Very, Sweet!, volume 2 - I don’t have much to say about this volume except that I still like it. It portrays the frustrations of trying to communicate in another language quite well, imo.

Revival, volume 1 - aka, zombie comic set in Wausau, WI. This series is pretty violent, BUT I appreciate its commitment to diversity & its locale, so I’ll probably keep up with it, although I think I don’t like it well enough to buy the comics in trade.

Kokoro - This is a classic of Japanese literature, set at the end of the Meiji era. It’s pretty dark, focusing heavily on death & suicide, with insights into human nature/etc. It’s difficult to discuss without spoiling the whole thing!
Anyway, this was part of a collection of Japanese literature I won in a Con or Bust auction, so I’m excited to read more of them in the future.
laceblade: Azusa of K-On!, looking at the viewer (K-On!: Azusa)
• What are you currently reading?

Kitty Goes to Washington - WOW BOOK OF MY ID?! It's a continuation after the first Kitty book, obvs, EXCEPT NOW WITH CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS AND NIH RESEARCH AHAHAHA!!!! I cackle with glee when I read this :*)


• What did you recently finish reading?

Very! Very! Sweet, volume 1 - I bought volumes 5-8 of this manhwa back when Borders was going out of business, & they’ve sat on my shelf ever since. UNTIL NOW, when I finally figured out how to obtain books through my library’s outerlibrary loan system. I really, really enjoyed the first volume of this series, & I hope it only gets better.
Tsuyoshi is a spoiled brat from a Japanese family who’s always gotten whatever he wants. In volume one, his grandfather reveals that their rich/powerful family actually comes from a Korean ancestor who moved to Japan hundreds of years ago.
Tsuyoshi is unimpressed with this - reflecting on whether pouring a bottle of Coke into a swimming pool makes the liquid no matter water? - but his insolence gets his grandfather to spend the rest of his school years in Korea, where he’d like Tsuyoshi to meet a stubborn & badass Korean woman to be his wife.
Enter Be-Ri, the awesome girl who lives next door to Tsuyoshi’s newly built house.
Be-Ri likes to collect junk (aka: people’s garbage) & make things like cat trees or whatever else she can with it. I LOVE BE-RI AND HER GIVE-NO-FUCKS-ATTITUDE AND ALSO HER ENTIRE WARDROBE!!
Be-Ri and Tsuyoshi loathe one another upon first sight, so they clearly must be the series’ OTP!
Another wrench in this love story is that Be-Ri’s in love with the high school tenant who lives with Be-Ri & her family…& is also dating Be-Ri’s sister ;_____;
POOR BE-RI, ILU AND HOW AWESOME YOU ARE! So yeah, I'm excited to read more, even though 2-4 are going to take forever to arrive via outerlibrary loan system -_-

Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Two Cultures - This was written by Kyoko Mori. idk if other people read Shizuko’s Daughter multiple times in adolescence, but I did. I’m not sure if it’s because her YA is ubiquitous in the US, or because she taught creative writing at St. Norbert’s, which is basically in Green Bay (where I grew up).
I loved this collection of essays, which makes up the memoir. For those who don’t know her story, Mori’s mother committed suicide when Mori was 12 years old. Her dad was abusive also, so there are several trigger warnings that come with this book :/
Her writing about the differences between US Midwestern & Japanese cultures is very well-done & sometimes amusing. I should probably note that as someone who relocated to the US because she never really felt like she belonged in Japan, or could ever express herself there, Mori holds pretty negative views of Japanese culture.
She lived/grew up there, so it’s not like I can fault her perceptions, although some things seem like they could happen in any culture (choosing to hide an illness from your family members) or are actually just wrong (referring to all manga as violent pornography).
Mori’s prose makes it worth it, though. I’d kind of like to reread Shizuko’s Daughter now since it’s been a while, and track down some of her other things, too. Looking back, I know she’s always been one of my favorite writers.

some songs that aren’t about love by [archiveofourown.org profile] jan - This was a Chihayafuru fic that I think [personal profile] littlebutfierce linked me to? Short & great - perfect snapshots of the characters, & I think it really captures the mood of the show, as well.

Revival #1 - Read this because [personal profile] were_duck kept talking it up. Zombie series that’s taking place in/around Wausau, WI. If not for the local bits, I might not be as interested, but for now I am. I’ve gotten the first trade from the library since reading issue 1, but haven’t read it yet.

Trillium #2 & 3 - Just as good as the first issue, not much else to say.

Saga #14 - This was a great issue. The scene with Lying Cat & Sophie was touching. I’m always excited for more Saga!

Dawn of the Arcana, volumes 4-8 - I’m getting a little bored with this series, but not enough to stop reading? The lack of detailed backgrounds feels lazy to me, and the political intrigue that first attracted me to the book forever seems like a carrot dangled in front of me instead of something I actually get to see :/ I also really don’t care for any of the characters, so that’s a pretty big :(

Kitty and the Midnight Hour - I ended up liking this a fair amount?! Or at least enough to continue with it. Kitty is a bamf, & I’m glad she’s able to upset some of the power structures in her life. Excited to see where things go.

Of Love and Other Demons - This was something I’d started a long time ago & finally finished by plowing through the second half. I love Marquez’s prose, but the premise here (priest commissioned to exorcise a 12-year-old girl with(out) rabies but falls in love with her instead) was pretty uncomfortable. I need to read Love in the Time of Cholera & also 100 Years of Solitude.

Alphonse Mucha - collection or art by Mucha. Last year at the end of the Laura Ingalls Wilder road trip I took with my mom & my sister, we stopped at the Czech Museum in Iowa. 30 minutes before closing, we only had time for their main exhibit, which was all Mucha. LOVE. I'm 50% Czech & am woefully uninformed about this part of my cultural history. I'd love to read more about the politics & history of Czechoslovakia (which I know is now two countries, but that's how it's always been referred to in my family).


• What do you think you’ll read next?
I have now given up predicting! Likely lots of training materials/etc. as I start a new job on Monday!! Maybe something for comfort since starting new jobs always = scary.

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