The new Jem and the Holograms comic is one of the greatest things that has happened to my life in a long time.  Like, I was predisposed to admire it based on the promo artwork alone, but it is cute and fun and a really lovely update to what is - let's be honest - a 30-minute toy commercial with a typically wacky '80s premise.  There's a lotta love and respect for the property from the creative team, all of whom have been avowed fans for years.  It is also one of the most diverse comics I've seen in a while - two out lesbian characters in the main cast, a transgender minor character (whose function in the story so far has zero to do with her being trans), multiple ethnicities, and perhaps most astonishing of all, diverse body types.  Bear in mind it's only on issue 4.

I love it.  So much.  If you're looking for a cute, fun, diverse, female-centric sci-fi soap opera about rock stars with awesome hair, definitely pick it up.

The forthcoming movie, on the other hand, can go jump off a cliff.  And fall onto spikes.  And then burst into flames.  FWOOSH.

Anyway, now that I've been thinking about Jem again, I want to resurrect a theory.
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My Goodreads challenge continues!  The status bar helpfully notes that I am 16 books ahead of schedule.  Hahaha, status bar, you just wait till I hit summer vay-kay and can hit my "one book per day" stride!

Since last we left...

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I woke up this morning to find that Catwoman is now canonically bisexual, and my first reaction was "What! No!" Actually, I think I said something like, "Dammit! Why must they do this to all the badass ladies?" which made me pause and consider whether or not my reaction was being influenced by my existance as a straight woman.

Nope.

Catwoman being bi pisses me off because it's cheap.  It's DC grabbing the low-hanging fruit.  After all, they've spent decades portraying Selina as a hypersexualized female object.  They made her into a former dominatrix/street prostitute in the 1980s.  Then she spent the 1990s in skintight purple spandex with zero-G bubble boobs (with and without a tail).  They did two movies where her costume occasionally looks like it's staying on only through the grace of God.  She was created as a sexy thief who could parade around in sexy outfits and sexily taunt Batman, and that's where her character development stopped.  Even the esteemed Timm & Dini couldn't rehabilitate her - she begins her run on B:TAS as a crusading animal rights activist, but ends it seducing Nightwing and stealing from homicidal cat cultists just for the lulz.

So now, instead of doing something new with Selina, like giving her a backstory with dignity, or a life with a goal beyond "steal that!", or a costume that isn't 98% T&A, DC has found a fresh way to exploit her.  Ten bucks says that within the year she'll be on a cover making out with Poison Ivy or Harley Quinn or another scantily-clad sex object, and when it's decried as fanservice, DC will be all wide-eyed and going, "But they're just exploring their relationship!  We're being relevant!"

No.  It's BS.  They don't mean it.  It's crass and dishonest and misogynistic.  It's not about diversity and representation.  If it was, if DC really wanted to make a statement about how hip they are to the times, they would have let Batwoman marry Maggie Sawyer.

Better yet: they would have made Batman bisexual.

But I don't think I can put it any better than this FB comment from a diehard Catwoman fan - who happens to be LGBT herself - which said in part:

"But I just liked the thought of Catwoman being straight. I liked the thought of her having limits or reservations about something. And I always liked the side of her that was non-committal .... the core of her character is supposed to be this independent, no-strings-attached thief who likes Batman (or whoever) when he is there and does not miss him when he's gone.  I mean she's CATwoman, right? And in this new plot she's apparently not even that."

So the first week in January I signed up for a reading challenge on Goodreads - like, I will read x books this year - and when I did, I saw people were pledging to read 20 books! 36 books! 52 books! ...as though 20 books in a year, on site dedicated to reading books, was not the saddest little goal ever.*

I pledged 100, because I do not aim low.  But it turns out, now that I am actually tracking my books, that I read waaaaay more than I thought.

I'm working on #20 and #21 at the moment.  Here's the list:
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* a quick check reveals someone has pledged to read 10 books. 10.  In a year.  Sadface.

I'm inches away from finishing the next-to-last chapter of a fic, and I'm exhausted.  This chapter is exhausting me, and it has been since I started writing it.  Word one and it was a fight.  I'm not used to struggling against my writing like this - it has not wanted to do anything that I need it to do.  And even now, as I've wrestled the first 2/3 of it into some semblance of coherency, the ending remains a tangled-up nightmare.  Probably that's because I wrote the ending before I finished the beginning, and stuck the middle in last of all... but I habitually make both ends meet in the middle, and it's not usually a problem.

I'm so, so heartily tired of writing this chapter, it has begun to sour me on the rest of the story.

I just want the chapter to magically edit and revise itself in the middle of the night.  That's not too much to ask, is it?  *pathetic face*

Out of morbid curiosity (and because they were all available at my library), I read Kiera Cass' YA Selection trilogy, which consists of The Selection, The Elite, and The One, plus some novellas.

Short summary: In the future, the dystopian monarchy ruling over the former United States re-enacts The Bachelor to pick its crown prince's bride, because why not.  Also there's a caste system and rebels and so forth.

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There was a pretty solid idea for a book in here.  Unfortunately, they made it into 3 books.

I recently finished These Broken Stars, a YA space opera (sort of) by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner.  It's set in a future (I guess) where humans have become spacefarers of no small ability, colonizing and terraforming all over the place.  Most of the book takes place on one of those terraformed planets, after the good spaceship Titanic Icarus meets its predictable fate.  There are only two survivors: young, conflicted war hero Tarver Merendson, and Lilac LaRoux, sheltered daughter of the richest guy in the galaxy.  Now they have to make their way across the uncharted surface of the planet to a location where they might be rescued.

Of course it's not nearly that simple.  Weirdness begins to happen immediately, and it turns out that the "deserted" planet is anything but.

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It doesn't have a love triangle (THANK GOD), you can tell the authors do enjoy space opera (unlike Across the Universe), and as I said, it holds strong right up until the final act, so I have hope that the inevitable sequels will be just as good, if not better.

C+, mostly for not sticking the landing.

Not sure if I've recc'd this here or not, but anyway I found myself reading it again yesterday, and remembered how much I love it.

The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope - YA historical fiction with some supernatural and mystery elements.  Through no fault of her own, Kate Sutton (a lady-in-waiting to the future Elizabeth I) draws the ire of Queen Mary.  Promptly banished from Lady Elizabeth's tiny court at Hatfield, Kate is given into the custody of Sir Geoffery Heron, the master of Elvenwood Hall, deep in the wilds of Derbyshire.  Sir Geoffery is a good man, but there's plenty of trouble brewing in the ancient Elvenwood - some of it domestic, some of it said to be the work of the Fairy Folk who live under the Hill.  And of course Kate finds herself caught in the middle of it all.

This is a well-crafted story, with beautiful atmosphere and solid characters.  Kate walks the fine line between independent and believably-16th-century, and she does it with aplomb.  (She is also, unquestionably, the hero of the story.  Even when circumstances force her into dire situations, she's never passive.)  Christopher, Randal, Master John, Alicia, the Lady - they're all splendid (and some splendidly villainous).  The historical characters are handled well in their brief appearances.  The treatment of the Fairy Folk will probably be a surprise to most folks, though it's a welcome one as far as I'm concerned.  The plot snaps right along, but never so fast that you can't soak in the details.  This is an oldie, first published in 1974, so perhaps that's why the romance is realistically developed and free of any major geometry problems.

And - bonus! - it's illustrated.

I was delighted by this year's Google Santa Tracker.  First of all, it's really way too much fun, what with all the games and cute animations and stuff.

Second of all, the list made me LOL.
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Also, merry Christmas and heri za Kwanzaa!

I got a new set of tools, to replace what I disparagingly refer to as the "pretty pretty princess tool playset" someone gave me when I bought my home.  (It's functional, but just barely, and all the tools are Barbie pink. I'm not against pink, as a rule, but effecting repairs with a dainty pink hammer is not empowering.)  I felt like a STEM role model, opening the boxes and being like, "A 30-piece socket wrench set!  OMG, I love it!!"  And my mom got me a sweet "Thirteen Notes" t-shirt from Bear McCreary's website.  Maybe I'll use my new tools to build a Cylon!

Speaking of crafting, I've knit a hat and finished two scarves so far on my vacation, and I'm working on finishing an infinity cowl that I abandoned a few months ago.  I gotta get through this yarn hoard - it's taking over my living room.

And I earned my blue belt!  That's the last of the "intermediate belts".  Next up are the advanced belts: brown, then red, senior red, and junior black.  Barring any unforeseen delays, I'll test for black in about a year and a half.  Craziness!

Oh, and -

Happy New Year!