Samurai Deeper Kyo: Hotaru is a space cadet. To be nice about it.

To compensate for the deep, deep pit of angst in the last SDK post, I bring you Hotaru and his spacey-ness.  Because Hotaru is love.  And a woobie who's father spent the first 15 years or so of his life sending assassins after him until his half brother learned about him and asked dad to let him deal with Hotaru, then did the "protect from the shadows" bit.  The spacey is 95% defense mechanism.

Also?  Almost anything you need to explain Akira and Hotaru can been summed up by this:  their puberty and later teen years(respectively) were spent with a battlenuts perv as their idol, their chief example of feminine companionship was a guy who wanted to marry said(VERY straight) idol, and their only other adult supervision is the world's biggest softie who's ALSO a battle crazed nut.  They're allowed to be a touch...off(and no wonder they can't decide whether to pour everything out to Yuya or kill her...on the one hand, she's probably the first normal girl they've spent more than five minutes with.  On the other hand, she gives Kyo warm fuzzy feelings, and they don't like that.  Because their goal in life is to be the strongest ever and to achieve that by killing Kyo.  The other can be second best.  Unless the other kills Kyo first, in which case one will have to kill the other to still be the best.  It's their own special brand of love.)

Anyway, 4 pages(raws with translations) or Hotaru and his own, special little world.  And Shinrei trying(and failing) to deal with the Hotaru-verse.

( Read more... )

Samurai Deeper Kyo: Hotaru is a space cadet. To be nice about it.

To compensate for the deep, deep pit of angst in the last SDK post, I bring you Hotaru and his spacey-ness.  Because Hotaru is love.  And a woobie who's father spent the first 15 years or so of his life sending assassins after him until his half brother learned about him and asked dad to let him deal with Hotaru, then did the "protect from the shadows" bit.  The spacey is 95% defense mechanism.

Also?  Almost anything you need to explain Akira and Hotaru can been summed up by this:  their puberty and later teen years(respectively) were spent with a battlenuts perv as their idol, their chief example of feminine companionship was a guy who wanted to marry said(VERY straight) idol, and their only other adult supervision is the world's biggest softie who's ALSO a battle crazed nut.  They're allowed to be a touch...off(and no wonder they can't decide whether to pour everything out to Yuya or kill her...on the one hand, she's probably the first normal girl they've spent more than five minutes with.  On the other hand, she gives Kyo warm fuzzy feelings, and they don't like that.  Because their goal in life is to be the strongest ever and to achieve that by killing Kyo.  The other can be second best.  Unless the other kills Kyo first, in which case one will have to kill the other to still be the best.  It's their own special brand of love.)

Anyway, 4 pages(raws with translations) or Hotaru and his own, special little world.  And Shinrei trying(and failing) to deal with the Hotaru-verse.

( Read more... )

reading update

(42) Raven’s Strike by Patricia Briggs -Sequel to Raven's Shadow, and a good one.  Also one of the few  books that actually has the cover depicted a scene straight out of the book.  I liked this duology quite a bit(click on the Patricia Briggs tag...comments about the first book also apply here) and wouldn't mind more books in the seies.

(43) Bleach Vol 17 by Tite Kubo-it's things like this that make it hard for me to like Byakuya at times...making my Renji all bloody like that...of course, he looks good bloody...this is the volume that made my Renji love go off the charts when I was reading the scanslations a while back.  I mean willing to go through that to protect a friend who you KNOW is probably going to hit your for it later, against the guy you're always trying to match but know you never can?  LOVE!  Oh yeah, other characters I like were around and having fights to, but I am blionded to all that is not Renji in this volume.

(44) The Assassin’s Touch by Laura Joh Rowland-Still a good series, but Matsudaira is no Yanagisawa, and I don't think the altering in the storyline breathed as much life into the series as it was expected to.

(45) Moonshine by Rob Thurman-This series is like Supernatural, only with Supernatural as the light and fluffy version.  It's about Cal and Nico Leandros, half brothers of greek and gypsy descent, and in Cal's case, monsters who spawned most of the scary mythological legends out there.  When Cal was 15, his father's people showed up, killed their mother and took Cal off with them.  Cal showed up in the same place 2 days later, 2 years older and completely insane and convinced they were coming after him.  (He's gotten his sanity back for the most part) Nico packed up his brother, took off, and learned every martial art known to man(as Cal puts it, his trenchcoat isn't a fashion statement, it's a weapons repository for all the sharp pointy things Nico likes to carry around.  Cal prefers guns...the monsters don't get in clawing range that way and he doesn't get his clothes ruined by the blood splatters)  Anyway, to say the least, what with already having been Cal's  mother and father since he was 4(mom wasn't exactly a model parent, to be nice about it) and then that, Nico is a touch over protective.  To the point where if he has to, he WILL wipe out entire races to protect his brother(wise races do not test his determination to do this)  Unlike Supernatural, though, it also has strong OTPs for both guys...Nico has Promise, and vampiress who is possibly the only "person" capable of being his match when it comes to fighting, and Cal has George, a seeress who he's convinced will shatter if she ever finds out what he is(stupid Cal) and he thinks the whole "if I stay away she'll be safe" thing actually works(hey Cal, she gets in trouble when you AREN'T there...stick close and the baddies will be too scared of you to try anything, trust me...)  Unfortunately for Cal, seers make for great stalkers, and having your brother be a shipper doesn't help any(both brothers are shippers...they want their brother to have warm fuzzies)  Anyway, awesome series.

( I bring you covers, just because )

And an excerpt: You say tomato, I say murderous death incarnate.

(46) Vagabond Vol 24 by Takehiko Inoue-Musashi and Kojiro should not be being cute together, they're going to try to kill each other soon.  Other than that, mostly leading up to the Musashi/Denshichiro fight.  Vagabond is one of the best manga titles being put out, but it needs to be read in alottments longer than 200 pages.

I'm currently about 150 pages into George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones and so far so good.

reading update

(42) Raven’s Strike by Patricia Briggs -Sequel to Raven's Shadow, and a good one.  Also one of the few  books that actually has the cover depicted a scene straight out of the book.  I liked this duology quite a bit(click on the Patricia Briggs tag...comments about the first book also apply here) and wouldn't mind more books in the seies.

(43) Bleach Vol 17 by Tite Kubo-it's things like this that make it hard for me to like Byakuya at times...making my Renji all bloody like that...of course, he looks good bloody...this is the volume that made my Renji love go off the charts when I was reading the scanslations a while back.  I mean willing to go through that to protect a friend who you KNOW is probably going to hit your for it later, against the guy you're always trying to match but know you never can?  LOVE!  Oh yeah, other characters I like were around and having fights to, but I am blionded to all that is not Renji in this volume.

(44) The Assassin’s Touch by Laura Joh Rowland-Still a good series, but Matsudaira is no Yanagisawa, and I don't think the altering in the storyline breathed as much life into the series as it was expected to.

(45) Moonshine by Rob Thurman-This series is like Supernatural, only with Supernatural as the light and fluffy version.  It's about Cal and Nico Leandros, half brothers of greek and gypsy descent, and in Cal's case, monsters who spawned most of the scary mythological legends out there.  When Cal was 15, his father's people showed up, killed their mother and took Cal off with them.  Cal showed up in the same place 2 days later, 2 years older and completely insane and convinced they were coming after him.  (He's gotten his sanity back for the most part) Nico packed up his brother, took off, and learned every martial art known to man(as Cal puts it, his trenchcoat isn't a fashion statement, it's a weapons repository for all the sharp pointy things Nico likes to carry around.  Cal prefers guns...the monsters don't get in clawing range that way and he doesn't get his clothes ruined by the blood splatters)  Anyway, to say the least, what with already having been Cal's  mother and father since he was 4(mom wasn't exactly a model parent, to be nice about it) and then that, Nico is a touch over protective.  To the point where if he has to, he WILL wipe out entire races to protect his brother(wise races do not test his determination to do this)  Unlike Supernatural, though, it also has strong OTPs for both guys...Nico has Promise, and vampiress who is possibly the only "person" capable of being his match when it comes to fighting, and Cal has George, a seeress who he's convinced will shatter if she ever finds out what he is(stupid Cal) and he thinks the whole "if I stay away she'll be safe" thing actually works(hey Cal, she gets in trouble when you AREN'T there...stick close and the baddies will be too scared of you to try anything, trust me...)  Unfortunately for Cal, seers make for great stalkers, and having your brother be a shipper doesn't help any(both brothers are shippers...they want their brother to have warm fuzzies)  Anyway, awesome series.

( I bring you covers, just because )

And an excerpt: You say tomato, I say murderous death incarnate.

(46) Vagabond Vol 24 by Takehiko Inoue-Musashi and Kojiro should not be being cute together, they're going to try to kill each other soon.  Other than that, mostly leading up to the Musashi/Denshichiro fight.  Vagabond is one of the best manga titles being put out, but it needs to be read in alottments longer than 200 pages.

I'm currently about 150 pages into George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones and so far so good.