Frostflower and Thorn/Frostflower and Windbourne by Phyllis Ann Karr

In a world where all warriors are women and sorcerers and sorceresses lose their powers if they have sex 9a trope that does later get turned on its head quite well), the warrior Thorn finds herself pregnant and desperate to get rid of "the grub" before it interferes with her work.  Meanwhile, the sorceress Frostflower desperately craves a child, and has the ability to accelerate time on a body, allowing the length of an entire pregancy to pass in just a day.  The answer seems simple enough, but while Thorn is escorting Frostflower and the newborn, Starwind, to to the sorceri retreat Frostflower lives at, the two catch the unfortunate attention of a farmer-priest, one of the ruling class, with their unusual situation, and later separate due to a disagreement, with disastrous results.

This is an interesting world.  On the one hand, every fighter in this world is a woman, and the warriors are given the same rights and advantages over men and civilians as male warriors usually are over women and civilians, and it's indicated that sorceresses are more powerful than sorcerers.  In addition, almost every perspective is from that of a female.  (Actually it may be exclusively from various female perspectives.  There's one male character from each book who may have been the focus for a bit.)  On the other hand, the loss of sorcerous power is a much more obvious threat to women, and, in Frostflower and Thorn, at least, the people with the most social and legal power are men.  In addition, rape-public rape-and torture are not only legal practices, but accepted ones.  During one particularly harrowing section of the book, the protagonists are outraged not at the fact that certain terrible things are happening, but at who they're happening to, and they're accepted as the norm, and what's to be accepted in the situation.  It's a kind of immersion in a world that's difficult to pull off.

The tone of Frostflower and Windbourne is a bit different.  There's still acceptance, but more of a sense of it being wrong from the characters than in the world.  In addition, while priests were shown to have far more power and authority than priestesses in Frostflower and Thorn, one of the main conflicts of Frostflower and Windbourne is a power struggle between a priest and priestess.

While I have a few problems-while Thorn doesn't quite code as male, she is portrayed as giving up her femininity to be a strong warrior, and while the friendship between the women is well done, but also mostly follows the standard pattern for male "badass and aggressive warrior x thoughtful mage/scholar/priest" friendships in fantasy, and then, of course, the very sexualized-violently sexualized-approach to the rules of magic-these are all things very specific to when it came out.  (According to the copyright date, Frostflower and Thorn came out a month before I was born.)  While they're dated now (oh, you nature/noun/action-word and combination names...) I suspect they were pretty revolutionary when it first came out, or even 10-15 years ago (though, had I read them then, Frostflower and Thorn likely would have blended in with all the "A fantasy heroine must be raped or have the threat of rape harped on!" books I was tripping over then.

This probably sounds fairly critical, but I don't feel critical about the books as a whole.  While a few  (sometimes major) approaches to gender are the unfortunate norm, in most ways the books do their best to completely overturn them, with some interesting results, and it's very well characterized.  And in an odd way, I rather like that what fondness Thorn has for Starwind seems to come from the fact that Frostflower loves him, rather than having her "give up" the strictly non-maternal characterization she was given at the beginning.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to dig up info on any other novels by Karr.  (Mind you, I have the weakest googlefu known to the internets...)

Heroes: Season 1, eps 1-2

I watched the first few episodes of this some time back because of a number of recommendations and my being a comic book geek.  I was bored.  Then a coworker watched the last several episodes of the season a few weeks ago, and I half-watched them and found them to be much more interesting, so I decided to give it another chance.  I find these episodes rather unimpressive, but the perspective of having a good idea where they end up makes it more interesting.

The series is about mutants people who are learning they have special abilities in a world that hates and fears them doesn't know they exist.  Except for the ones who are hunting them down, of course.  There's a cheerleader who can heal herself from any injury, including fatal ones (s\She supposedly lives in Odessa.  I will now remind myself that I am only familiar with the parts of Odessa my 4 uncles and my cousin live in, and tell myself that nonono really, the rest might look like that-if people in NYC, DC, Seattle, Chicago, etc. can manage it, then so can I!) and drug addict who paints the future, a telepathic cop, a single mother who either has a split personality or literally has another person living inside her (actually, I don't know which it is, even having seen the end of the season) a nurse who dreams of flying, and whose brother may actually fly, and a comic book geek in Japan who can teleport and time travel.  Plus and Indian scientist whose father was killed investigating these people, and a serial killer who eats brains cuts people's brains out, but officially Does Not Exist.  (I do know his deal, actually.  At least in the first season.)  And the cheerleader's father, who is Bad News.

This is, I think, a series where the storylines characters are involved in are more interesting than the characters themselves.  While the characters are doing interesting things and interesting things are going on around them, they themselves...aren't.  The only character in these two episodes who feels like a realized, interesting character is Hiro with all his faboying.  Yet, from the end, I know what interested me the most was the story between the brothers and Claire and her father, and Niki beating her demons.  All the elements for why I liked them in the later episodes are laid out in these two episodes, but the characters themselves aren't overly interesting yet.

( cut for tangent on writing forthetrade/DVD set )

The show also suffers from Making Sure We Get It.  (Honestly, 2 episodes in and they're so devoted to Making Sure We Get It about Claire not being able to die that I'm starting to be amazed the girl lived long enough to develop her powers.)

If I had watched these two episodes again without having half-seen the end of the season, I'd call it quits.  As it is, I know the later part is worth the slow beginning.

Please put comments with spoilers for later in the season/later seasons under the spoiler code.  Everything between here and the last 6 or so episodes is a black hole for me, and I only saw and half of those episodes.

Spoiler code:  <span style="color: #333333;background-color: #333333">Spoilers here.</span>

D.Gray-Man Vol 10

Ah, yes. This volume is where we start wandering around in Endless Shounen Action territory for a bit. Though certainl nowhere near the levels of things like Naruto, Bleach, or Samurai Deeper Kyo. It also has one of my favorite little scenes.

( spoilers )

Bleach Vol 24

For being the cover character, Grimmy certainly only got a little bit of page time, didn’t he?

( spoilers )

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol 18

Those of you who were here (which is still most of you) when I binged on scans a few months back will most likely recall that this is the part where my brain ceases all ability to function and all that really comes out is “ASKDGFL AAAAANNNNGGGGSSSTTTT!!!! Most perfectest angst ever known and all other angst pales in comparison!!!”

( spoilers cause incoherent flailing )

Please use the spoiler code for anything after Vol 18.