laceblade

So approximately a decade after it came out, I finally played Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus.
For those unfamiliar, this is a shooting game that uses one of FF7's tertiary characters as the protagonist - Vincent's even optional, in FF7! In FF7, he has a rich but underutilized backstory that is told primarily through wordless flashbacks. Much is insinuated, but not articulated.

It's hard to beat FF7's protagonist in terms of angst, in that he looked up to his culture's war hero, left home to join the army & be like him, only to have that hero burn down his hometown, killing his mother and everyone else he ever cared about...AND THEN you find out halfway through the game that this character's memories have been fucked, and he's not even the person he thought he was.
No, Vincent beats that! By previously working for the Corporate Bad Guys and being an expert marksman, falling in love with a scientist working on biological experiments whom he's supposed to be protecting, discovering she got pregnant by an unscrupable man he loathes, and that she did it FOR SCIENCE, injects herself with JENOVA cells, gives birth to a future serial killer/wannabe-planet destroyer before tragically dying & causing Vincent to feel like he personally failed her, getting SHOT by an unscrupable man he loathes & basically brought back to life and tortured/experimented upon against his will, and literally sleeping in a coffin for the next 50 years to atone for his sins in the basement of a mansion in a town that was supposed to have burned down, until you/your party wake him up to join the fight. ALL! OF! THE! ANGST!

The fact that the guy voice-acting for Vincent Valentine is the dude who did Spike's voice in Cowboy Bebop doesn't hurt, either. For a video game, I though the voice-acting in this was pretty great.

This story focuses primarily on Vincent, but Reeve and Yuffie are pretty prominent as well. I've seen some reviews complain about this, but I'm actually really excited for a game focusing on these three. Of course, that didn't decrease my excitement when the rest of the party showed up. TIFA!! I loved seeing Cid's ship - of course he'd have a skylight that rotates images of natural life on the planet.

I'd put this off for a long time because when I initially tried playing it, I failed hardcore with the setup. It is absolutely necessary to play through the tutorial, but this was made interesting for me because you got to play Vincent-as-a-Turk, :D With the help of the tutorial, you get your bearings okay, although playing games like Star Wars Dark Forces I and II probably have helped me become accustomed to shooters. Sometimes I had to replay parts of missions what seemed like an endless number of times to finally beat them, but then I'd get rewarded with ANGST and more story, so it was okay. Also, some of the mechanics are aimed at people used to RPGs, in my opinion, in that they make it easier. At all times, you can literally use a Phoenix Down on yourself so that if you get shot/KO'ed, you're immediately resurrected. They make a few things difficult in that the number of items you can carry is severely limited, but overall the difficulty was not extreme.

I'd expected the plot to make way less sense than it did. This game was better than it had any right to be, and the twists in the story were totally unexpected [to me], and tied right into the larger Final Fantasy VII mythology. It was fun that Lucrecia still had some secrets.

I LOVE part of the scene that auto-plays when you start up the game and just let it cycle, where Vincent climbs to the top of the Sister Ray towards the end of disc 2, and finds Hojo collapsed over the computer screens/controls, and Vincent just levels his gun. GAH!!

Being able to play around in Midgar and Kalm, finding LOVELESS posters on walls when you're zooming around with your sniper scope, EXPLORING THE SEWERS BENEATH NIBELHEIM, I feel like this game was a love letter to fans, and almost like it was created specifically for me.
As I try to finally plow through some PS2 games to find which ones I actually enjoy/are worth keeping [or, to use the KonMari phrase, which "spark joy"], I'm delighted to have fallen in love with this one.

I think I've mostly seen this meme on Facebook, but others have posted it to Dreamwidth and so will I.

Matchbox 20, Yourself or Someone Like You
Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind [although Blue is now my fave of theirs]
Vertical Horizon, Everything You Want
Blink-182, Enema of the State
Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory
Green Day, Dookie
The Starting Line, Say It Like You Mean It
Fall Out Boy, Take This to Your Grave
Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill
New Found Glory, Sticks and Stones


ALSO, I might be showing my youth here, but there are a lot of singles I got a hold of through of through a friend or etc. that were super meaningful to me even if I didn't have the full album. Example, Swing Swing by the All-American Rejects, as well as songs by Dashboard Confessional, Switchfoot, Lifehouse, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, The Ataris, etc.

Soundtracks were also a massive influence on me, probably moreso than half the albums on this list. These would include Les Miz, Everworld, Spider-Man 2, A Walk to Remember, MOULIN ROUGE, etc.

jesse_the_k asked for, "A bold decision you made, and then regretted, and then walked back, and survived."

I've had a really hard time with this one, and I think that I have finally figured out why. I don't think I've ever walked back a bold/big decision that I've made.

Once I've committed to something, I'll go through hell to get that shit done.
Maybe I shouldn't? lol.

glass_icarus wrote, "Favorite female characters and why you love them? Any fandom :)"

SANTANA LOPEZ [Glee]
Not only is she half of my all-time favorite ship (Pezberry), but Santana is a sass-queen and a great singer to boot.
If you fell off the Glee wagon early (I certainly would not blame you), Santana was initially a sidekick character to Dianna Agron's white/blonde Quinn Fabray. Santana almost always appeared with Brittany, but it was usually Santana making the devastating one-liners as well as their characters' decisions. Because the show almost always presented Santana together with Brittany, they first presented a potential sexual relationship as a non-sequitur in a multi-party phone conversation - a joke that worked because of the other characters' surprised reactions.
But Naya Rivera wanted the camera on her at all times, and her background reactions in the choir room and in hallway scenes, usually hilarious as well as on-point, led her to bigger storylines, in part because she was one of the strongest actors on the show. [I'd say second only to Cory Monteith.] Her relationship with Brittany served as an opportunity to explore Santana's sexuality, and Rivera was there able to present a vulnerability that many fans latched on to.

In a show of self-centered teenagers, Santana is the one character who is always willing to GO THERE, to say what no one else will say. This was convenient for writers looking to push a plot forward, as well as viewers seeking vindication. She pointed out plot holes, hypocrisy, and uncomfortable truths. Even when the writing plummeted as the show continuously tried to take itself seriously for representing marginalized teenagers while also excorciating viewers for expecting anything but cutting comedy, Santana Lopez was reliably hilarious.

After having her vulnerability open her up, her character is also one of the few who has a clear progression on the show into self-acceptance and ability to love and care about other people. She learns how to have real, actual friends.

Many fic authors have given her the characterization and storylines that the show-runners never thought she deserved. She is my favorite character to write in A Song is a Weapon, and she's also my favorite character to read in this fandom.


Utena Tenjou [Revolutionary Girl Utena/Shoujo Kakumei Utena]
I'm not sure how accurate the translation was for the first sub I saw of this show, but when relaying the [first version of the] backstory, it said something like, "So impressed was she by him, that she decided to become a prince herself." This BLEW MY MIND. WHOA! A tiny girl gets saved by a prince AND THEREFORE DECIDES TO BECOME A PRINCE HERSELF. WHAT KIND OF AWESOME FUCKERY IS THIS.

Utena. Utena is that awesome. Her pink hair, her refusal to take sass, her tenacity in telling Anthy Himemiya that she's in a fucked up situation and no matter how many other people think it's just fine, it's really not okay.

I want to be Utena. I aspire to her chivalry.


Tifa Lockhart [Final Fantasy VII]
You spend the first half of the game knowing that Tifa's Cloud's childhood friend, but in the second half it's revealed that since before the start of the game she's been holding back the truth and waiting to see what happens because she knows Cloud ought to be dead, and she's not sure if the protag you're playing as is really him, or a clone - if her memories are real, or fake. This reveal is one of the biggest WTF moments in video game history, but it also gives Tifa some real depth that often gets glossed over in FF7 fandom.

In addition to that, she runs her own bar in the Sector 7 slums, and allows it to be the secret headquarters for a terrorist organization dedicated to taking down an environment-destroying corporation that's responsible for the death of her father as well as burning her hometown to the ground.

At the age of 15, she picked up Sephiroth's own sword and tried to get her revenge even though she had to have known there was no way she could succeed. And after that, after recovering from her wounds and re-learning her martial arts skills, she joins AVALANCHE to work on getting revenge in the long-term. She's supportive, she's brave, and at a point of high drama in the game, she chooses to stay by Cloud when he's incapacitated and take a break from saving the world. It's a selfish choice, and I kind of love her for it. She refuses to give up on Cloud's hopeless ass throughout the game. I was first drawn to Tifa because I over-identified with her for falling in love with her childhood friend, but I've stayed a devoted fan because of her complexity and strength.



If you want me to post about something some time this month, leave a comment on this post.

After following the advice of a coworker, I revoked Pokemon Go's access to my camera. Since then, the app crashes less than it had previously, and I've actually been able to catch some Pokemon. I'm one of many now hanging out at pokestop, so if you're also playing or interested, join us!

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I've written about Sparkler Monthly here before, and I wanted to plug their Kickstarter, which has 3 days and a few more thousand dollars to go. If they don't meet their goal, Year 4 won't happen :(

I've been a monthly subscriber for a couple years now. Some series are done, so you can sit and plow through, while others are still being updated periodically. I really loved the audio drama "Awake," and have been hoping for more time so that I can get caught up in "The Cat-Lover's Circumstance." They have mostly-prose stuff similar to Japanese light novels, too.

Basically, if you think visual and audio media directed at the non-male gaze is something to support, please consider donating to Sparkler. In addition to non-male artists and writers, the stories often feature LGBTQ characters as well. People of color, too! It's just really fantastic, and I would hate to see them fail.
They also operate as a distro for series published elsewhere, for example you can buy the paperback Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal through Sparkler.
They're also opening up submissions once this Kickstarter ends, so if you have some work that needs an audience, consider submitting!

Sparkler also has an explicit line called "Cherry Bomb." These include listener-focused "situational audio dramas," which I've been meaning to try. Apparently they are quite popular in Japan! Best of all, in Sparkler's, "[t]he listener isn't gendered, so anyone can identify!"

The Kickstarter itself is a great intro to their site and their content. You can still score commissions from artists in some of the tiers! There are many tiers and options to choose from in this Kickstarter. I'm really tempted to get a copy of every paperback they've published so far, and share them with my comics club. That tier is $200, though, so it takes a lot of thought. [Most tiers are way less!]

I keep reminding myself that I literally attended 0 panels this year, so writing up the con should be easy! Ahaha.

I didn't see everyone I wanted to, and didn't spend enough time with almost anyone, :( I'm sorry about that & hope everyone is understanding that I wasn't out/about as much as usual, due mostly to various chairing duties.
Some of this is due to having my own hotel room for the first time, Friday through Monday this year. When I got emotionally exhausted or sore, I could just lie down and go to sleep. It was heavenly.
I also did my best to focus on hydration. It was hot/humid outdoors most of the time, and I certainly had the a/c on & drying me out in my hotel room.

Overall, I was really struck by how many people came up to me and thanked me for chairing and/or for WisCon still being around. There were a lot of generous compliments flying around WisCon generally this year. Maybe it's an effect of not having attended any panels [lol], or because I skipped last year, but this was the warmest-feeling WisCon in my memory. Maybe it's because I keep knowing more and more people.

I attended big events, in part because I had to speak at them! [Only mundane things trololol]

Opening Ceremonies included some speeches. Katherine Cross, or Quinnae_Moon, spoke about solidarity with hotel employees, talking about how we make WisCon together with them, and that they are not our servants. She also noted that the Concourse Hotel is the only union hotel in the city of Madison, a thing I sometimes forget.
I missed some chunks of Opening Ceremonies due to having to attend to chair!things, but antarcticlust and therotund organized a varied group of people to talk about what WisCon means to them. wild_irises talked about how nobody on the concom ever says, "Wow, we did really great this year; we really landed that." Rather, it's a group of people constantly trying to improve. It was the first real moment since taking a year off the concom and then rejoining and then emergency co-chairing that I really felt, "Oh, yeah; that's why I'm doing all this."

That feeling came back x100 during the speeches given by our three Guests of Honor.

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I had to have a firm interaction with someone we had banned the previous evening, and who was demanding to know "why" we had ejected him, etc. At one point during the conversation, he stood up and I took a step back to give him space to do so. "Oh, I'm SORRY! Are you AFRAID?! Am I in your SPACE?" I smiled and told him that I wasn't afraid, but between that and his going downstairs to scream at hotel staff in the lobby made me feel pretty confident that we made the correct choice :p

On Saturday evening, I stopped in at the Vid Party a couple times. I think my favorite premiere [that I saw] was garrideb's "Control," about Marjorie Liu/Sana Takeda's comic series Monstress. I've mentioned this series in a couple of reading posts, and through this vid, you can at least appreciate Takeda's fan-fucking-tastic artwork.
I fucking love the song, & need to get the single. I'm meaner than my demons...

I got a fair number of books that I'm excited to read from the dealers' room this year, as well as a Sailor Mars scarf and a nyan-cat tiny tote that fits my iPhone 4S precisely.

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I try really hard to push back about the "generational split" narrative that many people have formed about people who recently left the concom vs. those who stayed/joined, because it's not an accurate statement.
That said, there is a fairly significant number of white people, many of whom have attended WisCon for decades, who have been complaining about feeling "unwelcome" in recent years - as WisCon works to become more welcoming to people of color, to transgender and genderqueer identifying folks, etc.
If seeing more people unlike yourself being welcomed makes YOU feel UNwelcome, then that's a you-problem. I think that in the post linked below, Mikki Kendall really hits it on the head when she notes that some people's discomfort straight up comes from experience spaces that are NOT centered on cisgender white people.

In addition to personally being called a mealy-mouthed weasel immediately pre-con, another concom member reports us having been referred to as, "gauletiers." I had to look up that word. What IS it with older white feminists and their World War II metaphors? And what the fuck is the matter with them?

But other people have already blogged about these people's discomfort:
K. Tempest Bradford's On WisCon, and Who Is Allowed to Feel Welcome

Because here’s the thing: 99% of the people I have seen or heard complaining about how WisCon isn’t comfortable for them and WisCon isn’t fun are white people. Not 100%. But 99%. It’s a bunch.

You know what else I’ve noticed about the people making these complaints? A lot of them are cisgender, a lot of them are men, a lot of them are people with privilege along multiple axes. Funny that.

And while it makes me sad at any time for folks to feel excluded, or like a space has been taken away from them, I have to say:

Where were you when this was other people feeling this way?

Where were you when people who are marginalized in nearly every other fandom space and came to WisCon thinking it would be different said they felt uncomfortable, unwelcome, threatened, unsafe?

...

If you’re uncomfortable now, but weren’t before, then think about that. Really think about it. Consider if you were making people uncomfortable before, even without thought or intention. Consider that you’re feeling left out because, in the course of our claiming a space for ourselves, we made clear to you just how much you or people like you contributed to our pain, our lack of fun, our lack of safety. Ponder the puzzle of how a con dedicated to feminism, populated by many amazing people, somehow ended up being a place where people who weren’t the right color, the right class, the right age, the right level of ability, the right gender presentation felt like they didn’t fully belong. And delve deep into the mystery of how fixing that problem is the thing that’s made you run away.

Mikki Kendall's WisCon 40 Highs, Lows, and What the Actual F*ck?

You might not like what WisCon is becoming now that the people working so hard to make it happen are different from you. You might not like knowing that their first concern isn’t the comfort of people who can’t see them as human or equals. That’s a hard road. It’s your road though, so you walk it. But don’t complain that it “feels unwelcoming” because it is becoming inclusive, and less concerned with the comfort of bigots. With the comfort of people who have been happy to not only excuse abusive behavior, but also to be abusers when it suited them. This isn’t “your” WisCon anymore? Okay. That’s fine, that’s your decision. It’s definitely ours now. We work hard for it every year. You can adapt, evolve and enjoy or you can move the hell on. We probably won’t miss you.

There are some weird, pervasive rumors on Facebook about super low registration numbers this year. I'm not sure where that came from - we had well over 900 memberships, and the GOH Speeches/Dessert Salon was packed to the gills. More to come in future WisCon blog posts/etc., I'm sure.

I don't know what my role on the concom will be this coming year, if anything. Maybe I can re-focus on SF3 Board tasks, picking up things that fell by the wayside while I was off co-chairing. For the moment, I'll continue thinking on it.

Read Pacat's Captive Prince.
Are there people who can read these books in public?! I was talking with others about how slowly I'm having to make my way through the Known Associates fic because once I hit a sexytimes scene...yeah.

MOVING ON.

I tried reading Hopkinson's Sister Mine, struggled, realized I was hating it, and stopped. IT WAS SUCH A GREAT FEELING.

Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson, the follow-up to Among the Savages. More glimpses at her domestic life. Still hilarious, but now with more kids and more pets.

Princess Jellyfish, vol. 1 by Akiko Higashimura - GUYS. GUYS. THIS BOOK. I CAN'T EVEN. Firstly, it's an omnibus, so two books in one. The protagonist, Tsukimi, lives in a house with other adult single women her age, who all have something in common: they're all borderline-agoraphobic and completely obsessed (one might say...fannish) about something, be it The Three Kingdoms, kimonos, or jellyfish. They all rely on their parents to pay for them to continue living in this place, as none of them have jobs or attend school.
On a rare trip out in public, Tsukimi ends up meeting Kuranosuke, a beautiful woman with great social skills whom she accidentally brings back to their house [a place where NO fashionable people are allowed, and ESPECIALLY NO MEN EVER!]. Eventually she's surprised to learn that Kuranosuke is actually a man her own age, who likes to dress up as a woman.
The book is hilarious, and IMO really great for fannish people.
I highly recommend making use of the glossary in the back - due to conversations surrounding Kuranosuke, I think the context of the ways certain words translate, or in some cases do not, are all very important in accepting what's going on.
The plot crosses over with politics, and by the end, the Big Conflict is that the house Tsukimi and her friends live in is going to be razed to the ground to make space for some new/modern buildings. Kuranosuke tries to rally the girls to get others to take them seriously, namely by giving them all elaborate makeovers [which they all undo as soon as they're home again].
A lot of things rely on people's perceptions of others. I'm excited to read more, and glad to have bought this sight-unseen.

The Boleyn Reckoning by Laura Andersen - aka the last in a trilogy about an RPF historical au in which Anne Boleyn gave birth to a son. HOLY SHIT AFTER EVERYTHING, this book goes and does THE MOST HORRIBLE THING IMAGINABLE to each of the four main characters, occasionally taking it back so that those things happened FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON.
Super angry by the end, in a WHAT EVEN WAS THE POINT sort of way. THEN I found out there's a sequel trilogy, focusing on Elizabeth I's daughter. I'm going to try jumping into Jean Plaidy for rescue...

Supermutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki - A collection of one-page one-shots that focus on kids with superpowers who attend a boarding school together. APPARENTLY JILLIAN TAMAKI AND I HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME SENSE OF HUMOR.

Barrayar and The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold - Barrayar was perfect and I gave it 5 stars. As for my first Miles book, HOLY SHIT IT IS SO CATHARTIC TO WALLOW IN A PROTAGONIST WITH CHRONIC PAIN/HEALTH ISSUES WOW. I joked on Twitter, asking whether it was normal to spend a Miles book going, "Miles stop; Miles no!" and everyone assured me that it was. I am looking forward to reading more, and grateful to deermews for making my reading of these books possible!

House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard - I was looking forward to this because people with good taste recommended it, and it sounded like something I'd enjoy. I got over 100 pages in, but unfortunately found it appallingly bad, like straight-up. Between this and my dislike of The Fifth Season, it makes me wonder whether I'm deficient in my appreciation of feminist fantasy! idk.

Full Moon O Sagashite, vols. 1-6 - Arina Tanemura - A girl who loves to sing has sarcoma, but the surgery necessary to curing her condition would ruin her voice. This is hands-down my favorite Tanemura so far, I think because the protagonist has SO MUCH agency, and because of the unrequited/impossible loves that are going on. These are also some of the best omake pages I've read in a manga so far, bahaha.
I have one volume to go and am semi-afraid for it to end. That said, I appreciate that Tanemura tells her stories & gets out, without rehashing the premise for 25 volumes!
In one of the omake columns, she talks about how the ultimate manga story she's always wanted to create will never be written because Ribon would never publish it & she would never leave Ribon. I appreciate this BUT ALSO I REALLY WANT THAT STORY WHAT THE FUCK WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT.

Heir to the Empire and Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn - The Force Awakens made me wistful for old Star Wars novels, so I'm trying to reread things in publication order that I haven't touched for 15-20 years. This has the added bonus of bringing these paperbacks to my apartment, and getting them out of my childhood bedroom in my parents' house, >___<
These two were way better than I remember? At least, I hadn't remember there being this much politicking going on, and <33333333. MARA JADE 4 LIFE. And I love that Lando Calrissian is involved because of course Lando is involved. You don't have a sequel to Star Wars without Lando. [*looks directly at Force Awakens*]
( Spoilers for both this 'Thrawn Trilogy,' future/already-published Star Wars expanded universe novels up through those published in the past 5 years or so, and The Force Awakens movie )

Requiem for the Rose King, vol. 1 - Aya Kanno - AKA: THE RICHARD III SHOUJO MANGA. I was alerted to the existence of this manga by a coffeeandink post. In addition to being very pretty, it's a great read after having just read Alison Weir's Wars of the Roses; however, NOTHING is done to provide the reader with context/who the hell these people are, so I could easily see this being frustrating to those unfamiliar with this chapter of English history.
THAT SAID IT IS AMAZEBALLS. She bases it heavily on Shakespeare's Richard III and Henry VI plays. The "twist" is that Richard III was born intersex, so there is some body angst happening. He is also haunted by visions of an apparition of Joan of Arc, who taunts him for not being a real warrior/etc. because of his body.
I did not expect to like the portrayal of Henry VI so much.
I loved it and the next two volumes are waiting for me to come to the bookstore and buy them. *____*

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory - the first of her novels focusing on a pre-Tudor era: the Wars of the Roses. This book focuses on Elizabeth Woodville: the wife of Edward IV, and the grandmother of Henry VIII. One thing that I like about Gregory's books is that she pushes the, "Yes, this historical character was accused of witchcraft and isn't that horrible BUT ALSO WHAT IF THERE WAS WITCHCRAFT AND WHAT WOULD PEOPLE DO WITH IT?" so we have Elizabeth affecting battle outcomes by cursing people and/or controlling the weather. I probably liked this one more than the latter Tudor books I read/anything I've read since The Constant Princess [about Catherine of Aragorn], which still has my favorite canon-compliant AU of Catherine + Arthur Tudor = OTP4LIFE.
I'm looking forward to reading the other Wars of the Roses/"Cousins' War" books in this cycle, & have already started the second one focusing on Margaret Beaufort.

lbr, if I wait to "write up" each of these shows, I'll never make this post, so here we go: Here are the shows I really enjoyed in 2015.
If you have questions about any of them, feel free to ask in the comments.

This year I really got better at deciding within 1-2 episodes if a new show was worth watching. Looking at the list below, "almost-exclusive focus on female characters in a non-creepy way" seems to be my only criterion!


Yuri Kuma Arashi (Yuri Bear Storm)
Hibike! Euphonium (Sound! Euphonium)
Shirobako
Wakakozake
Charlotte
Cardcaptor Sakura (I have like 4 episodes to go but whatever)
Encouragement of Climb s2
Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn) (2nd half aired in 2015)

MOVIES
Wolf Children
Princess Kaguya

I swear to God I've written this post twice before, but I keep drafting it in email and then somehow losing it. It's pretty upsetting. It's been a while since I've read some of these, so this might be short. I'm skipping most of hte comics I've read lately.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - I actually read this months ago and keep forgetting it due to a fluke in it not showing up in chronological order in my Goodreads list.
I like Nemisin's ideas and her politics. Unfortunately, I can't stand her prose.

/some more X-Men comics/

Half-Off Ragnarok and Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire - As suspected when I read the books narrated by Verity, I enjoy the books narrated by her brother much more. (And I'm anticipating Antimony's books EVEN MORE. WANT. SO BADLY. Also maybe Elspeth's :D) Sadly I really disliked Pocket Apocalypse/the one that took place in Australia. So many cliches, SO MUCH EXPOSITION, people just explaining things to each other in big swaths of dialog. Also unnecessary sentences ending chapters in ways that were just...too dramatic. Did her editor fall asleep? idk? It was disappointing, but I'll be coming back for more.

Court of Fives by Kate Elliott - her first YA novel! This is like Little Women set in Egypt but also The Hunger Games. BUT SO MUCH BETTER THAN HUNGER GAMES. So well-written, imagery that was genuinely creepy, so much agency, THE TWISTS, UGGGHHHH I'm ready for the next two in the trilogy and in the meantime I'm giving this to my youngest niece for Christmas.

Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda - I picked this up because the editor attends my comics club. The first issue is almost 70 pages long. IT'S SO GOOD. The story and the imagery both. The only thing I can compare it to is Ashley Cope's webcomic Unsounded. Really looking forward to more of this in the new year.

City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett - Full disclosure that I received an advance copy of this book through a Goodreads give-away.

City of Stairs was my favorite sf/f book last year, and this follow-up did not disappoint at all. I love Bennett's writing. The dialogue feels real, which is so uncommon in most fantasy.
I was worried about Mulaghesh as the POV character only because I loved Shara from the first book SO MUCH. That said, once we got going, it was very clear that this had to be Mulaghesh's story.

Both this book and its predecessor address what happens to the economies and political structures of societies when gods die and disappear, as well as the psyches of individual people.

Like City of Stairs, I plan to keep, reread, and recommend this book.

Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope - Sometimes the art was cool, but overall this was kind of terrible? idk? I'd found it in a list of recommended US superhero comics. I wouldn't have put it there myself, :p

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold - Yeah, I'm the last person on earth to read these books. HOLY SHIT THIS WAS GR9. Already reading Barrayar, which is in the same omnibus edition that I have. Cordelia 4 life.

Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov - Kasparov is a former chess champion from the USSR who now lives in New York and is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin. There's a lot of review of the last 25 years or so of history in this book, which I found extremely valuable. The dissolution of the Soviet Union happened too recently to have been covered in any great detail while I was in K-12 school, and despite one of my majors being Political Science, we never studied it there either.
Kasparov has been warning about Putin for over a decade, before he started invading sovereign nations & assassinating his political enemies. Kasparov is frank in covering the failures of recent presidents, covering all of them since Reagan. His thesis is that morality must have a place in global affairs, and that in recent years it hasn't because it's easier to just say, "The Russians need to take care of their own Russian problem." He paints the Cold War as good vs. evil, which in the past would have struck me as a simplistic reduction, but he explains how governments resisting democracy are trying to control the press/other people's voices in order to continue holding their power. Anyway. He tips towards a level of American exceptionalism that makes me uncomfortable, but it's a good, if unsettling, read.
I'm still horrified by the lack of protest over the MH17 flight being shot down by the Russians over Ukraine. What is it going to take?