in my life

I mean, I've had a million things I've wanted to post about and honestly it is 100% laziness and lack of self-discipline that are stopping me. The closest I've gotten was having a Wonder Woman post draft open for the past week and not doing anything about that. (It is not a brilliant post by any means. It's mostly strings of exclamation marks. but still.)

ANYWAY. I'll cut this short to make sure I actually frigging post something this time.

Important life updates: I'm unemployed! And have been for the past 3 months. It's okay. I was mostly happy to leave my job after 6 years there, I was okay financially to take a break, and while there's a vague freakout of 'what will happen in the future?' lurking in the back of my mind, I'm mostly okay about it.

Since 'between jobs' is basically one of the only opportunities I can get to travel for longer than yearly-vacation days allow, I knew I'd really regret it if I didn't take the chance to travel a bit, and okay, I'm not stretching myself quite so much as to try out new continents, I am taking the opportunity to venture further west and north in North America than I tend to do.

SO, my general plans are thus:

June 12-...20th? ish? - NYC
June 20-29(ish) - West Virginia(?) + Arkansas
June 30-July 4 - Montreal
July 5-14(ish) - Atlanta
July 15-31(ish, I know, I'm annoying) - Seattle + Vancouver/Vancouver Island

I was planning to go back home after that, but am now considering extending to Aug 6 to be able to attend the penultimate Vividcon in Chicago on Aug 4-6. I CAN'T DECIDE. Idk idk.

All of this to say: those are the general whens and where's of where I'm gonna be. I would love to know if you will be in any of those areas at any of those times - and would like to meet up if the stars align properly.

I would also love to know if you plan on going to Vividcon, just because the more I know the wiser I will be making a decision on internal flights et al (and also where to stay etc).

/THIS HAS BEEN AN UPDATE

*once more vows to self to post more often*

*no but seriously that Wonder Woman post*

Okay, so I have read basically all of the new DC comics titles that interested me, plus a couple more I was curious about. Anyway, my reactions range from a few \o/ to a couple of WTAFs, and my brain is mostly a mixture of "ahh lol what comics". So, uh. I am posting my reactions along with just under 100 scans under the cut. Don't judge me.

Background: DC Comics have been around since the 30s, expanding their stories to include more and more characters and story arcs and multiple universes in which different stories take place. Every few decades, each character gets rebooted to fit in with the times, much like we've seen recent reboots of certain characters in superhero movies, where origin stories are recreated to fit the times (Iron Man, Batman Begins, XMFC, etc).

So, this year DC Comics have decided to basically reboot everything. Not all characters are going back to zero, but all of the ongoing titles have been renumbered to start at #1 -- Detective Comics, the main Batman comic book, was the longest continuously published comic book in the US, running from its first issue in 1937 to its 881st issue last month before relaunching again at #1 a couple weeks ago.

One of the reasons DC did this was to make the stories and characters more accessible for new audiences, which I suppose might work, but as someone who loved many of the existing relationships between characters I'm a little heartbroken at some of the relationships wiped clean. Then again, reboots can be exciting! So IDK, it goes both ways.

THAT SAID, if there's one thing I can say about all of the new titles, is that the art is, in most cases, utterly gorgeous.

Note: I wrote this up a month ago but uh, it takes me time to post. I added background info where necessary so I'm pretty sure you can read this even if you never read any comics at all. So, with no further ado - choice scans from last month's:

( Action Comics (= Superman), written -- ahem -- by Grant Morrison: )

( Justice League of America )

( Batwoman )

( Batgirl )

( Birds of Prey )

( Batman )

( Batman & Robin: )

( Batwing )

( Titans Annual #1 )

( Nightwing )

( Superboy )

( Teen Titans )

( Red Hood and the Outlaws )

( Aquaman )

( Supergirl )

( Bandom interlude )

( Wonder Woman )

And there we are! COMICS. All of these are new series, so I don't know where they're going or whether I'll keep reading. But if you want recs for old comic books/storylines, info on characters or relationships, or fic recs (of which there are a lot), let me know and I will do my best to help you out :D

It makes me sad to see works on the AO3 that have, like, 30 kudos and only 1 comment. It shouldn't; everyone should leave or not leave whatever feedback they want to whenever they want to, and I'm sure authors appreciate getting kudos. I know I do, but mostly when I read a story I love I wish it had a million comments.

I saw HP last night. I've never been a fan of the movies, so just spare you my very bland reaction to the movie, and just advise that if you want to watch the movie, do yourself a favor and don't watch the 3D version -- it is totally unnecessary and just makes everything dark and green :/

I've been in a DCU mood recently. There's a guy at work I talk comics with, but I can't exactly start the conversation I want to, which is about how adorable Tim and Kon are and how amazing Close to Home is and ugh why does it not have a million sequels or something.

Israel has a new boycott law. I don't even want to go into it, it's so depressing. I just hate the current line up of the Knesset so much, and am praying (wishing) that the supreme court will rule the law unconstitutional, which, okay, is a little hard what with having no constitution, but regardless.

This past week has been so tiring, and I haven't been able to recharge with a full night of long, deep sleep yet. God, I hope that changes tonight. Sleeeeep.

Crossposted to LJ here: http://roga.livejournal.com/396643.html

FIC TROPE MEME TIME.

It's been fascinating for me to read why people like or dislike these tropes, hearing them talking about overcoming their distaste for a certain trope because an author they liked wrote it, sometimes being unable to explain it at all. I will do a very very sucky job at explaining them, but one thing I can do is rec :D Unfortunately for people who read this and care about my fandoms, anything I rec here will be something I've almost certainly recced before, so sorry about that. Stories I linked to here are roughly 90% Bandom, 5% American Idol, and 5% Other (SGA, Merlin, House, DCU idek.)

So, that meme about fic tropes and whether you like them or not:

( Spoiler: I LIKE THEM )

Oh god, looking over this, I ended up rambling so much /o\. WHO INVENTED THIS MEME AND CAN I SHOOT THEM.

Well, the half-week-long storm is over -- I wore a t-shirt again today, and I fear this will be the last rain we will see this year.

I finished Pratchett's Nation today; since my iPod is gone and my dad has reclaimed his Kindle, I read the second half of the book on my laptop Kindle reader, and that book, man. I was near tears by the end. I love the way he writes about religion and science, and it was interesting to see him do it in a world that is 99.9% like our own instead of on the Disc. I love Mau and Daphne both. And I loved the closing paragraphs; there is something so satisfying in well-written endings, which is something I forget when reading fics, where 90% of the time fics will end with a smile or a kiss or falling asleep.

Sigh, I am feeling a little pissy tonight and am trying not to take it out on anyone. Some links and assorted recs:

help_japan -- you've probably heard about this. I won't be offering anything, seeing as I still owe charity fics from over a year ago and I don't want to not follow up again, but I might try bidding one someone.

Remix 9 sign ups are open -- I love Remix, but I think I'm not going to sign up this year. Which gah, it pains me to say! But. the deadlines are not great for me, and I don't think I even qualify as a participant -- my masterlist is too full of crossovers to be of any use to remix -- so my best hope is snagging a pinch hit at some point and writing something without worrying about it for a month. It's a really fun experience though, truly. Muchly recced. And hey, if you ever want to remix any of my stories independently of Remix, or write prequels or sequels or podfics or whatever, feel free! I should add blanket permission to my masterlist at some point. *is lazy*

Recs:

Contractions and Split Infinitives by P.I.D (Tangled) -- Repunzel and Flynn, PG. Repunzel befriends a few princesses from neighboring kingdoms. Really sweet. (thanks, sabra_n!)

I'm Not a Sucker so I Don't Need a Bodyguard by musesfool (DCU/Angel) -- Cordelia, Bruce, PG. Cordelia's been in the game long enough that she can spot a secret identity from a mile away. Oh, Cordy ♥ I love her POV, and the way her moving to Gotham and meeting Bruce plays out.

We're not playing games, and we're not playing lovers by eleanor_lavish (Bandom) -- Spencer/Shane, NC-17. Brendon fucking Urie, ladies and gentlemen. Boy most likely to turn you queer, and least likely to ever fucking notice. I've loved every one of her fics that I've ever read, and this is no exception; she makes this pairing work.

New Kid Makes a Rule by sinsense (Bandom) -- Spencer/Joe, PG-13, LOLOL. This fic cracked me up so much. It takes a lot (= really good writing) to make me veer off my very singleminded Panic ships when I'm in the ~zone, and this tab was left open and unread for at least a week after sinjah recced it to me that eventually I figured fuck it, I'll never read this anyway, I'll just close the tab and she'll never know. And then I glanced at the first paragraph just to see what I was passing up on and ended up reading the entire thing and it is hilarious and adorable and a really really fun office AU.

And as promised, here is the list of Hunger Games fic recs minglingcrab sent me :D I have't read them all yet -- have hardly even begun -- but it looks like a whole lot of awesome, so here it is in her words (you will also note that she is a far superior reccer than myself): (  27Hunger Games fic recs )

Thursday evening I watched Iron Man 2, and I have four non-spoilery things to say about it: 1. Don Cheadle >>> Terrence Howard, 2. I started out not liking Scarlett Johansson's character, and then liked her a lot. 3. There is one really cool fight scene in the movie, and I would just like to remind everyone that the similar fight scene in Kick-Ass is better. 4. And most importantly, Rhodey/Pepper/Tony nao plz, kthx? (ps I'm not kidding, if you have any recs, especially post movie ones, send them over.)

Friday morning S and I ran some errands in Tel Aviv, and couldn't go to the beach as planned because of weird, inappropriate ugly weather and drizzly rain. We ended up in the Nahlat Binyamin arts and crafts market, where I bought some gifts, and we had lunch, and eventually the sun came out! Joy. The market really is a charming place, with lots of really cool craft stands. One of my favorites is a glass artist who makes colorful miniature glass statues, whose been manning this stand for 20 years at least; I remember this because as a little girl, my favorite part about going to this market was to just stand in front of his stand and watch him turn a piece of colored glass into a small animal in a few minutes. I still have a few that my parents bought me over the years.

( Glasssculpting pics )

In the afternoon we ended up driving to my parent's home, to the airport, and finally to Haifa to spend the weekend at S's. We burned a bunch of CDs for the road -- mostly songs from Supernatural, in an attempt to expand our rock education, and those are really fun to listen to while driving. Since we'd missed the beach that morning, we tried to at least catch the sunset over the ocean, so we kind of raced the sun and made it to the Gaash cliffs just in time, ten minutes before it set.

( Photos below the cut; really, really big photos, some similar to pics I've posted before. )

We continued to Haifa where we spent the next day packing up S's apartment because she is my friend who's moving to the US and it is very sad :( I looted some stuff -- I will totally go fly a kite someday, okay? -- and mostly was in charge of the packing playlist. Which was important, to block out the sound of all the crows. ( Crows! )

In the evening I met my former roommate, whose Lag BaOmer bonfire I'd invited ourselves to and she'd agreed and then said, "Okay, but my friends and I don't actually have any firewood, so giddy up." She and I ended up filling her entire car with branches, logs and twigs from the grove of trees behind S's house, so unexpected success! I'd always lived under the impression that there was no way to find any actual firewood on the day of Lag BaOmer itself because it would have been collected by other kids weeks in advance, but I guess maybe that law applies to growing up in a small town with no forests and sparse construction zones, and not necessarily to the city.

Another difference between my town and Haifa -- in my town, bonfires used to be built in either a few small lots in the town, or on the helicopter landing zone just beside it. In Haifa, they have their bonfires at the beach ♥.

( Lag BaOmer photos. Fire! Beach! Sparks! )

And that was it! Oh wait, then I stopped by at lady_nimua's just to say hi and ended up stealing her Super Special Markers to sketch a lopsided drawing of Gerard Way. But he's a little lopsided anyway, so maybe it evens out! Anyway, I took a shower and no longer smell of smoke, so all around, a successful evening.

OH WAIT. For more holiday-appropriate campfire fun, have some (mostly former) Teen Titans at a campfire:

( Titans together <3 )

PS. I was not kidding about those Rhodey/Tony/Pepper recs.

Can somebody please save me from this icon binge from hell? I spent years being perfectly content with my 6 LJ icons, I've spent at least a month with only 15/100 DW icon slots filled, and suddenly I've started looking up icons and saving them and it never stops and I will never have enough slots for what I want and I will also, to be honest, never use half of the icons I'm saving but I need to have them. Send help? Advice? A shrink?

I am now officially all caught up on Supernatural (\o/), Chuck, The Office, 30 Rock, and Grey's. Still have to catch up on the last few episodes of: The Good Wife, House, NCIS. And catch up on an entire season of Ugly Betty because it just ended and I heard the finale rocked, and I miss that show. And it is quite possible I watch too much TV and will never actually be able to catch this up (until my next exam period, of course).

At the moment, though, I am in a comics mood and I want to finally catch up on everything to do with Kon yay :D So I'm looking up which issues I need to, um. *Obtain*.

I don't even know what I'm still doing up given that the only sleep I got between yesterday morning and right now were thirty minutes of napping on the train. But it is 1Am and I've entered that next cycle of wakefulness. Maybe it's my dad's cake! My dad made magic cake, guys. It has biscuits and coffee and cream and strawberries, and the strawberries are spaced perfectly so you don't have to struggle with slicing into them when you're cutting out pieces, or like push one over to your piece instead of slicing and then feeling bad because the next person will get a slice with no strawberries at all. It is both delicious and tastefully engineered.

My dad also bought a watermelon today. More signs of summer, right? Except he didn't check the price before checking it through the counter, and only when he got home he looked at the receipt and discovered that it was fifty five shekels. That's, like, a shekel per bite. So, fail. It is very much not watermelon season yet.

Recs: I will have more once I get through more Adam crossover entries in blackdress_adam, but for now, two fics I could not stop flailing about:

Pinch Hitter by bexless (Adam Lambert/Bandom) -- Adam/Frank/Gerard, NC-17. It's hot, and it's funny, and it's ADAM AND FRANK AND GERARD, OKAY, I MEAN. EEEE. It starts with a hilarious introductory picspam of the characters and turns into 6500 words of keyboard smash, on my part.

Lacrimosa by winterlive (Adam Lambert/DC Comics) -- Adam/Tim Drake, NC-17. Oh my god, this fic. Tiiiim. Adam. This fic takes place after Kon's death, and Tim is broken, and Adam's Adam, and they grieve together and manage to find some comfort and it's got just the right blend of heart-wrenching and humor and hotness. I really recommend this fic even if you're only familiar with one of the fandoms; both of them are so thoroughly in character, it's a pleasure to read. If you come from DCU, just know that Adam's, well, a singer :-) And if you come from AI, just know that Tim Drake is Robin of "Batman and" fame, and don't worry he's not underage, and he's amazing and his best friend just died and omg my heart ♥.

Seriously, I love this fest so much.

Before I go, Eretz Nehederet hasn't exactly been brilliant satire this season, but one thing in their math tonight made me LOL:

Haven't watched this week's SGA yet - that's, like, three days! Certainly a record. I've been not studying as much as I should be, naturally, which sucks for me because the moment I get back I'm gonna have to sit on my ass 25 hours a day, and if I make stupid posts instead please shoot me.

Meanwhile, Tim drake continues to be awesome. Tim! I've finally started reading all the One Year Later storylines, and wow, was the Batman one awesome, and then it got weird, and Dick was a dick for a while, but Tim. And now I've gone back to Young Justice after having seen some scans, and aww! Tim is such a fanboy! ( Two tiny scans. )

Not to mention, marag, exactly why did you have to recommend me Blue Beetle? Why? Why? And please, someone tell me there is Tim on Atlantis fic.

Ahem, anyway. Tomorrow night I will be sleeping here, which is ten layers of awesomeness. And I will attempt not to spam my LJ with more... spam till then. You know that feeling, when everyone on your flist is in certain fandoms and then you get into a new one and suddenly you feel like you're not interesting anybody? That has happened to me a lot this year. But Dr. Horrible has gotten more people into HIMYM, and I know I'm an extreme latecomer into comics, but that there are fans on my flist, so. Not totally uninteresting.

Didn't I say I was going? Gah. Okay, Srugim is on, let's see if Nati finally grows a pair of balls.

I was going to do the secret name meme, but man, it's haaard! So, tomorrow. Or something.

In the meantime, these Batman webcomics by the_dark_cat may just be the cutest things I've ever seen. It's daddy Batman and the Robins, and eeeeee. So. Cute.