The Library, Circa 2012

I think this'll probably be something of a yearly thing, pics of the library since a good, true library is a living, changing entity. :)

On to the pics!

First set of shelves, the ones that cover the whole wall. If you're very observant you'll notice that in the center row a lot has changed. For one, all my LKH books are gone. I have removed that particular boil from my life. So, yay! In addition, my Stephen King books are slowly leaving. I've realized that once I read them I don't feel the need to ever read them again. So I'm giving them to SBW at work who is a huge Stephen King fan whose late husband accidentally sold her entire collection right before he passed away.

Second shelves, beside the tv. I can't tell you how strangely good it feels to see the books rearranged. They're so pretty!

Under the tv. One of my hopes is that eventually when I've gotten rid of the books that I don't want that there will be room on the shelves for all my ghost and paganism books.

First closet, DVDs. It's really hard to get a picture of all the dvd's on that first shelf. It's so long and the closet is so narrow.

Moar dvd's in the first closet. This is also the comic book closet, but I didn't take pictures of the comics boxes this time. There's nothing much to see since everything is neatly stored in its box.

Shelf to the left of my bed.

Representative sampling of the books under the bed. I've got the first 52 volumes of the original Nancy Drew books under there, some Star Trek books, some Doctor Who books, a pop-up Stephen King book and manga. The manga that goes under there are series that are complete (like Inu-Yasha) or single volumes that I've read (like Romantic Illusions). I, again, have hopes of one day getting them all back on the shelves but for the time being this is the way it is.

Bookshelf at the foot of the bed.

Second closet, more dvds.

Second closet, the rest of the dvds. :D

And the final bookshelf with a little of the non-fiction there on the first row behind the row of manga and then, you know, manga. Also, Murdock is there because I couldn't leave him out.

Manga Review: Black Sun

This is one of those manga that keeps coming up in rec lists for BDSM themed manga, but one that I had been unable to find until a friend pointed me to Akadot. So I bought it, especially since I'd been seeing how much everyone loved it for so very, very long.

Right. Well.

First off, I found the art to be uneven. Meaning, sometimes it was very pretty and other times, especially when Leonard was in his Crusader helmet I hated it. Especially his face. It became the cliche shojo face of doom.

The storyline was predictable and nothing special. Admittedly, I will happily read the trope of captive falling in love with captor all the live long day, assuming that the story is well done. And this wasn't. Heck, I can even read a mildly well done plot if the sex is really gorgeous or well done. This wasn't. And that's one of the things that people kept saying, that the sex scenes were so explicit, so 'hot'. These people have clearly not been reading the things that I have been reading if they think those scenes were a) well done or b) explicit and hot.

And there were random things that completely threw me out of the story. The slip of the author, or perhaps the translator into calling Jamal, 'Jamal-sama'. Last time I checked Muslims in, well, let's face it, any time period at all in the Middle East, didn't use the honorific 'sama'. And the freaking mitten things that they apparently use on captives hands.What the hell are those? What? That's how much they bugged me, or maybe that just shows how little the story dragged me into it.

Everyone in this story felt like a cardboard cutout. Nothing special. Nothing to draw the reader in and make us care about the characters' lives. It's unsuccessful as a story and it's unsuccessful as pwp.

The single best part of the manga was the little side story at the end with one of the other characters' pet panther.

A second volume as just been released and I will definitely not be getting it.

2 out of 5

If you're looking for a *good* manga with BDSM themes, gorgeous artwork, and a well put together and thought out storyline with fleshed out characters, allow me to point you to the Finder series. My love of which has nothing to do with the hot mob boss trope. Nope. Not one little bit.

a flaw in the plan

I get orders shipped to my work because someone is always here and I live out in BFN, with a fence/gate around the property. So my options are to either leave the gate open, thus defeating the purpose of the gate, or let the boxes sit there all day. Neither of which I like, so I have things shipped to work.

The problem comes when people have this habit of looking at my things when I unbox them. Which is normally fine, except when what I'm unboxing is yaoi manga. Like, hardcore yaoi. As in, Viewfinder. Yeah. Brush it off as you turn the cover away from them, 'oh, it's just a comic, nothing you're interested in.' Code for, 'it's gay porn. go away.'

Inu-Yasha Has Ended!

Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Okay, I'm a bit behind on my manga reading, and I somehow managed to miss the fact, when I bought it, that volume 56 was the last volume of Inu-Yasha. I've been reading this manga for *years*!

It's sort of a shonen manga, in that there's a lot of fighting and powering up, etc. But there are the shoujo aspects of the love story and the emotions.

The basic set up is that a girl from modern day Tokyo gets sucked through a well into ancient Japan. There, she meets a half-demon named Inu-Yasha. Inu-Yasha was cursed, fifty years before by the woman that he loved. Kagome winds up bringing a very powerful demonic object back with her into the ancient time, and this jewel, the Shikon jewel, sets off a series of demon wars. All of it leading up to a battle with the major villain named Naraku. It's all fairly typical shonen stuff. Fight, fight, get more power, yadda.

The thing that I love is the relationships. All of the characters are very human, even the ones that are demons. You have Inu-Yasha, who is half human but who has rejected his humanity in order to try and find a place and survive amongst the demons. But of course neither the humans nor the demons will fully accept him and so he is always alone. Kagome, a fairly normal middle school student who is thrust into a time and place she doesn't understand, trapped with a boy who hates her (Inu-Yasha). There's Miroku, a Buddhist monk who seems to only be a perv, but in reality is under a terrible curse and so lives his life as if there's no tomorrow.

Sango, a woman who comes from a demon hunting clan. She has to live with the fact that her younger brother murdered their entire family as she hunts the demon that she blames for it all.

Sesshomaru, Inu-Yasha's full demon older half-brother, who hates all humans and is driven to claim what their father left for Inu-Yasha, since as the oldest and only legitimate son, the inheritance should be his.

I'll admit that I love Sesshomaru the best. His journey, to me, is the most interesting. He goes from being a fairly one dimensional guy who's there to beat up his baby brother because daddy loved Inu-chan best to slowly finding his own heart because of a single act of kindness shown to him by a little girl who had nothing.

I'm going to miss this manga!

It also doesn't hurt that Sesshomaru-kun is a bishie.

Naruto = Awesome

I'm on a Naruto manga kick this weekend apparently.



I've already read 10 volumes and will likely catch up to what I own before the weekend is out. Which means...a trip to the bookstore so I'm all caught up with everything that's been released!

Yay vacation in a week!



Mmm...the KyuubiNaruto form is cool. It gets even better the more tails he manifests!