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ninthfeather · 5 years

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I went exploring in MangaPlus and found some pretty neat stuff

Shueisha has released a free manga-reading site/app called MangaPlus. It simul-publishes chapters and generally gives people outside of Japan more access to manga. It’s designed to combat pirating and personally, I’m willing to wait for a day after the pirate sites for better scans with better translations from an official source.

One of the big advantages of MangaPlus is that it also gives the world access to super-new, internet-only SJ manga--the kind of stuff that doesn’t get translated officially until later in its run and sometimes never even gets popular outside of Japan at all. Some of it...frankly isn’t good enough to sell very well in print and may well get cancelled. But other things are worth sharing and trying to hype up with other English speakers! So, having roamed the app a bit, here are my recommendations so far:

Spy x Family

Spy x Family is exactly what it says on the tin—a masterful combination of the spy fiction genre with found family tropes—and yet so much more. Tatsuya Endo’s manga about a spy and a contract killer agreeing to get fake-married and co-parent a psychic child has a premise bursting with potential, and it delivers. It’s listed as an action/comedy, and so far it’s delivered on both counts, balancing a deliciously absurd premise with well-rendered fight scenes. The characters are extremely likable, the dialogue is hilarious, and the comedy is seasoned with a few excellent, well-rendered moments of drama. The art is pretty excellent too—there’s been one or two panels with minor issues, but the facial expressions and use of shading more than make up for them. Really, the problem with this manga is that it’s really hard to express how wonderful it is without spoiling nearly all the good bits. So just trust me, ok? This thing deserves years of serialization, a U.S. print release, and an anime, at the very least.

Heart Gear

This is the newest offering from Takaki Tsuyoshi (known for Black Torch, a very excellent but very cancelled shounen action series that was seriously popular in some circles). Heart Gear is post-apocalyptic sci-fi about a girl who lives surrounded by droids, some friendly and some literally out of control. Takaki’s art is always beautiful, even if the girls really don’t need to be sexualized like they are, but the plot is still taking shape. The characters are endearing, if perhaps not as developed as they could be. I will say that I look forward to seeing Ru get angry or frustrated at some point. Mostly, I’m still here because there’s been seriously interesting hints of worldbuilding regarding the nature of droid consciousness. Regardless, it’s worth checking out for the post-apocalyptic landscapes and intricate robots rendered in delicate, sketchy ink.

The Sign of Abyss

Drawn by Takamura Maya, this manga is set in an intricate fantasy world. The main character, a prince whose magic destroyed an entire city when he was a child, spends his days researching a way to restore the city, until he finds his life disrupted by a magic-user with rare abilities who broke into his house. The worldbuilding is fantastic, the series just keeps throwing ethical questions at you, and the magic system is splendidly inventive. The art is reminiscent of classic shoujo manga—the clean yet flowing lines (and the soft inking on color pages) really made me think of Takemiya Keiko, but the eyes and faces have a lot in common with other artists influenced by the Year 24 Group/Magnificent Forty-Niners who were working later on, even into the early 90s. It does unfortunately take some of its cues on attitudes toward gender from manga of those eras, defaulting to the shoujo trope of “princely” women rather than actually dealing with questions about gender identity. Still, it’s gorgeous, the plot is engaging, and the characters are extremely likable.

Two extra reasons to like this series: the main female character’s name is Meme (pronounced Meh-meh, but still), and the artist has an easy-to-find pixiv frull of bonus sketches.

Bonus: Dr. Stone

This is a bonus because it’s not available in full on MangaPlus—you’ve gotta buy the Shounen Jump app if you want to read something other than the first 3 chapters and the 3 most recent chapters. If you don’t want to or can’t, that’s fine, the anime’s coming out soon. If you’d like to board the hype train early, this is your invitation, because I’m 80% sure that after the first few episodes of the anime, Tumblr will be flooded in reaction gifs of the main character. Dr. Stone is another post-apocalyptic series, written by Inagaki Riichiro and drawn by Boichi (best known in the West for Sun-Ken Rock). What sets it apart is that it’s basically about one man’s quest to rebuild society from scratch by convincing everyone around him (and the reader) that science is basically a bunch of elaborate, stacked fetchquests interspersed with occasional skill-grinding. The fun part is that it works. To, like, a ridiculous degree. It’s like reading the comic version of MacGyver but Senkuu is much weirder and proud of that fact. At the same time, though, there’s a nice central conflict between him and a character who’s got very specific ideas about who should and shouldn’t get to survive the apocalypse. In the end, the fact that Senkuu’s eccentricity is founded on an honest love of discovery and a firm belief that science is meant to help people is what carries the narrative. The art is lovely, though frankly Boichi didn’t have to draw the women like that and he must know it. I will warn you that it takes a few chapters to find its footing, but if you can get through those chapters, you won’t regret reading it.

#mangaplus #manga recommendation #dr. stone #spy x family #heart gear #yoru no kagi #manga #please read these and join me in enjoying them!!

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greyias · 5 years

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FIC: Swipe Left

Title: Swipe Left Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Gen Rating: T Author’s Notes: For @rinskiroo, who needed a fic written incorporating a very, erm, special dating profile I shared over on Discord. Pieces of said profile were adapted to fit the universe. Also, a very special thanks goes to @aearyn for helping me come up with some amazing HoloNet dating apps.

If there was one thing Theron needed to learn, it was to find a way to prevent Jonas from pulling him into operations at the last minute. It always seemed to end up with him in the most awkward situations. The details of the missions always seemed sketchy, and tonight that had somehow landed him in a candlelit restaurant with an, admittedly attractive, Hrakian making googly eyes at him from across the table on a blind date.

He kept eyeing the man, trying to figure out exactly what nefarious plot the seemingly innocuous person had gotten wrapped up into. They certainly didn’t look like someone who ran with the Crimson Horde, one of the more minor gangs that was making a power play. Looks could be deceiving though — for now he’d have to keep playing his part.

“So, Theron,” the Hrakian said, golden eyes raking over him and flashing in appreciation, “I have to say, your profile pictures don’t do you justice.”

“My profile—?”

“Just go with it,” Jonas’s voice sounded over the audio feed in his implants, cutting Theron off before the confusion could be heard in his voice. “You don’t want to arouse any suspicion.”

Normally, Theron would find a chance to get on his sub-vocal mic and throw a snarky reply back at the man on the other end of the surveillance feed, but the table was too small, and the room too quiet, for him to disguise the noise. He briefly wished for just enough relative privacy so he could make a rude gesture at the holo-cam watching from the far end of the room, or at least glare, but that would definitely count as suspicious. So with little recourse, Theron fixed a wide smile in place and kept his cover.

“Well, Therzee—”

“It’s pronounced Thazia.”

“Sorry,” Theron said quickly, hoping that the flush didn’t show in his cheeks.

This was not exactly showing off his suave nature—but then again, he really wasn’t big on grand seductions. He preferred ops with a lot more explosions and adrenaline. But this was a Jonas Balkar op, so of course it had to be complicated. And he’d really needed more than thirty seconds to try and glean important details like his target’s name from a note hastily scribbled on flimsi.

“No, it’s okay, it’s a common mistake.” Thazia reached across the table, gently resting his hand on Theron’s. “But I’d be happy to help you with your pronunciation later.”

He was going to kill Jonas when this was all said and done—but until he had free clearance to murder his partner, Theron would have to make do funneling his annoyance into an even wider grin. “Later? But we haven’t even ordered appetizers yet.”

Thazia returned the smile, almost coyly. “You surprise me.”

“Yeah?” Theron smirked, and took a sip from the glass of whiskey he’d ordered.

“I mean, that’s what I get for making assumptions,” Thazia said. “Everyone moves at their own pace, even aspiring holoporn stars.”

The whiskey spewed across the table as Theron choked. He didn’t even bother trying to maintain his cool, suave image as he tried to process that statement. “What?”

That got a frown. “Your… you told me the nerdiest you’ve ever been was the one time when you wore glasses for a geeky school library themed adult film.”

“I told you that?” he asked hoarsely.

“You contacted me,” Thazia said. “That was your icebreaker message.”

“Hard to imagine anyone would use that as an opening line for a romantic match,” Theron ground out, although the statement was clearly meant for the person he could now hear laughing on the other end of the surveillance feed.

“I just assumed you were trying to impress me with your sexual prowess,” Thazia shrugged. “I’ll be honest I almost swiped left when I got that message, but I just… really needed to know about the goat.”

“The goat?” Theron meant to snarl. It sounded more like a squeak to his ears though.

“And you said you would only explain it in person. That the whole story was too risqué for the StarDate app.”

“Could you excuse me for a moment,” Theron’s voice was almost dangerously calm as he pulled a datapad from his pocket, “I need to check on something.”

Without any preamble, he quickly connected to the HoloNet and pulled up StarDate, the cheesiest and most notorious dating site in the galaxy. His fingers flew across the keypad, eyes furiously scanning the screen, until he found what he was looking for.

“Balkar,” he growled, completely dropping the ruse, “did you make a fake dating profile for me?”

“Hey, it’s only fake if the information isn’t real,” Jonas replied back cooly.

“I am not a porn star! Aspiring or otherwise!”

“Really? Could have fooled me with the amount of times you wind up naked on missions.”

“There were extenuating circumstances! You know what, I’m not going over this again--also that’s not my favorite book!”

“I took a shot in the dark. Sometimes you swing and you miss.”

“And what the hell is ‘Jedi Camp’?”

“All of your training as a kid.” Jonas said a little too innocently. “Is that not what it’s called?”

“I’m going to kill you!”

“Who are you talking to?” asked the very confused Hrakian.

Theron ignored him. He had much more important questions to get answers to, such as, “Why is there a picture of me spitting out a drink?”

“It shows character!” Jonas insisted.

“No it doesn’t—it shows saliva!”

“Well, I just wanted to give your potential suitors a preview of what they were getting in for!”

“I—I do not drool!”

“Really? Because I thought I heard—”

“You’ve heard nothing!” Theron insisted and then shot a look back at his date who was very slowly backing his chair away from the table. “Where are you going?”

“Um,” Thazia looked around nervously, “not to holo a friend to come rescue me from my mad date?”

Stars, the poor man look absolutely terrified, and not in the cornered animal way most of the perps he’d busted did. No, he just looked like a nice, normal person whose date had started ranting out loud to an invisible person.

“Balkar,” Theron growled, “did you lie about a mission to set me up on a blind date? Like an actual date with a real person and making me think they’re a dangerous gangster?”

“Of course not, do you think I’m a monster?” Jonas said. “I just thought you two might hit it off. Him with his insatiable curiosity about goats, you with your—”

“We are not talking about the goat right now!”

“Also your target is the guy two tables to the left—the Crimson Horde’s actual accountant. Oh, and I think he’s figured out you’re with the SIS since you started screaming at invisible people. You should probably do something before he gets away.”

Damn it.

He was going to have a long conversation with his partner after all of this over—probably with his fists—but for now… for now he had a job to do. With a quick apology to poor Thazia, Theron leapt over the table and gave chase to the gangster.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“But, Theron,” Jonas pretended to sound wounded, “you’re a shoe-in for a promotion after single-handedly bringing in the key to infiltrating and dismantling Crimson Horde.”

“I don’t want a promotion,” Theron paused long enough to glare at his partner. “What I want is to get my face off of the HoloNet so I can just do my job in peace. A job that, may I remind you, requires anonymity.”

“You act like managing a digital footprint is a difficult thing in this modern galaxy.”

“You’re changing the subject,” he muttered petulantly.

“Which is?”

“Why you didn’t just sign yourself up—isn’t seducing people on the taxpayer’s dime your thing? You could have gone to that restaurant just as easily as me.”

“Ferr knows my face, so I couldn’t exactly sidle up to him. Besides, you work too much.”

“Well someone has to!”

“You need to get out more. Go on a date. Have a good time.”

“That wasn’t a date. I was working!”

“And who’s fault is that?”

“Yours!” He snapped. “I don’t have time to clean up your messes.”

“Why, do you have plans?”

Theron felt the barest rush of heat to his cheeks, but it was just visible enough for the other man to catch.

“You do! Wait—don’t tell me it’s an actual date. With a real person.”

“It might be. What of it?”

Jonas sniffled and pretended to wipe away a tear. “I’m so proud. My little boy is growing up.”

“I am not your little—can you help me with this? If I’m late, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be the last straw for Thazia.”

“Is that your little goat-infatuated admirer from earlier?”

“Yes. I felt like someone owed him an apology after that whole mess of a dinner.”

“That’s adorable, you asked him out for real. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Theron snarled in frustration as he continued to scroll through the literally hundreds of potential matches on StarDate as he failed to navigate the app’s poor user interface, accidentally swiping left on a profile he wasn’t even trying to look at.

“What the hell Balkar? How do I deactivate this thing?”

“You’re the slicer,” Jonas shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Newscaster: ...In stranger news, there are reports that the popular dating service, StarDate, has gone offline after all of its servers suffered a catastrophic failure over the weekend. Both competitors, LoveForce and HoloConnection, were contacted but had no comment at this time.

Newscaster: Back to our continuing coverage, the Republic Military again deny rumors about a strike on Dromund Kaas, even as more reports emerge regarding the disappearance of the Sith Emperor…

“Shan, has anyone ever explained to you the definition of ‘overkill’?”

“Bite me, Balkar.”

#swtor fanfiction #crackfic #theron shan #jonas balkar #brotp: theron shan & jonas balkar #brotp: spyboys #image heavy #i have no excuse for this #other than someone told me to do it #swtor #fanfic #greyfic

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houseofvans · 5 years

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SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | INTERVIEW WITH PEARL C. HSIUNG

LA based multimedia artist Pearl C. Hsiung explores the relationships between humans and nature through her various paintings, sculptures, videos and installations. In a collaboration with the Borrego Boys & Girls Club as well as members of the public, Pearl recently created a site-specific sculpture using wood, plexiglass and non-recyclable plastic waste. She’s also unveiling a large-scale tile mosaic commission in 2022 at the new 2nd/Hope St Metro station in downtown, LA. We’re excited to find out more about Pearl’s artwork, collaborations, and what she’s got coming up for the rest of the year.

Take the Leap!

Photographs courtesy of the artist.

Could you introduce yourself to everybody? Hi I’m Pearl C Hsiung, I live and work in Los Angeles. ‘Hsiung’ is pronounced ‘shung’ and means the animal bear in Chinese. I have a pet mini-Rex named Rambo who lives free- range in my apartment.

How would you describe the art you create? How would you describe your particular technique? I’d say that my practice uses the landscape as a starting point for thinking through our connection to it and towards the idea that we are inseparable from the matter around us. If all matter in the universe combusted out of the same material then our current, subjective reality, where we behave as if we’re defined apart from everything around us, is an illusion.

In past painting, video and installation works this is performed through metamorphosing, flowing and eruptive forms bursting out of their geological, biological, technological, and cultural skins. In works like Full Gorge (2017) and Original Face (2018), I was thinking about the interconnection of all that is natural, human, more-than-human and artificial through an experience of immersive presence in material space.

For me, these free-standing paintings point to a certain moment of presence, not unlike the moment I experience sometimes after reading certain zen kõans or Daoist phrases; it is an instant moment, a moment of clarity where I understand it all. But it is fleeting, it is a momentary experience that precedes, challenges or completely eludes language. Maybe this is not unlike a moment experienced when in nature, during sex or laughter (during both?), plugged into VR or while coding.

What are your favorite things to paint? What should folks take away from your works? I enjoy painting on canvas, paper, MDF, wood… Actually I hope people bring to my works. I encourage the exchange that I make the work and viewers bring their perceptions and interpretations.

What’s a typical day in the studio for you like? And what are you currently working on in the studio? My studio schedule is fluid depending on the season. It also depends on how much I’m teaching, I may only get one full day and a couple half days a week for the studio, other times I’m 5-6 days a week. Time spent in the studio varies a lot and can include research, reading, sketching, painting, writing, building, cleaning, organizing, accounting, correspondence, grant proposals, teaching applications, pacing, prepping for big work/big actions, paint experiments, materials tests, staring, repotting plants…

I’m starting on new work for a show at Visitor Welcome Center in Koreatown in November 2019.

When you’re working on and developing a new painting or piece, how does it begin - take us from sketchbook, to color choices, to finished painting? New work is always a continuation of themes and ideas from previous works and research. The form changes as the focus shifts on those ideas or approaches. The decisions on everything from composition, structure, color palette and presentation are informed by this new focus as well as the new context of making that work. Personal, experiential, studio environment, cultural influences, topical events all seep into that. The sketchbook is full of garbage, I let it sit there to compost and sometimes it sprouts a new bud…

What tools will someone always find you using at your studio? What are your preferred materials? Tools have changed through the years. More recently you’ll see squeegees and plastic paint guides (that I use like a squeegee) rather than brushes for the paintings. Consistently, I use white paper and tape as painting tools. The computer, the internet and books are always studio necessities for research and admin tools. I use paints and inks that comes tubes, tubs, tins, buckets, bottles, spray cans, jars, sets on canvas, cold-pressed paper, MDF, cardboard. I’ve been experimenting with painting on non-recyclable plastic I’ve tried to make into it’s own substrate but it’s not yet working out.

How do you unplug yourself so to speak? What do you do to center or re-focus yourself if you find yourself stressed out about deadlines, art shows, and the sort? When the stress piles up it helps if I do yoga first thing in the morning in my living room, but the best way to deal with the stress is to work through it. When I feel overwhelmed by anxiety relating to projects, teaching, or deadlines, it usually helps me to become more prepared, using research, preparation and experimentation to deal with the parts that can be addressed. For short term refocusing, I step outside and stare at things: the sky, the plants outside of my studio, the birds on the telephone lines, the clouds. Or I’ll take a walk around the block, change my daily routine like driving a different route, take the bus, walk through the grocery or thrift store before getting to work.

For longer term re-centering, if I can, I leave town or just go stare at the ocean. Staring is like open-eyed meditation for me, I try to empty out my thoughts, blank out and spend unscheduled time. Sleep well and spending time with family and friends are also priceless rechargers.

You recently worked with AIR Talks: Candlewood Arts Festival collaborated with folks you met at the Borrego Boys & Girls Club? Tells us about the festival, the project and about the various workshops you helped conduct? Why was this event so important to you? This was the inaugural Candlewood Arts Festival, a temporary public art event in the town of Borrego Springs located in the Anza Borrego State Park. Tanya Aguiniga, Devon Tsuno, Kor Newkirk, Mario Ybarra Jr and I created different site- and community-specific sculptures and happenings during the last weekend of March 2019. Most of our works were located out in Galleta Meadows, an open, outdoor lot amidst the expansive desert landscape.

For my sculpture Holocene Screen, I collaborated with youth from the Borrego Boys & Girls Club as well as members of the public during a workshop at the Borrego Art Institute to create a sculpture using wood, plexiglass and non-recyclable plastic waste that considered the simultaneity of nature, human and artificial as a landscape within a landscape.

As part of the Holocene Screen workshop process, the students had to brainstorm words that fell into three categories: nature, human and artificial. Then they were asked to write a short story, poem or single sentence using one word from each category which they painted onto a plexiglass window in the sculpture. It was interesting to learn how easy it was for them to identify elements from nature and human, yet struggle with artificial.

We had discussions about what artificial is and what items from their everyday lives fall under that definition. Their next step was to visualize and compose a singular picture or narrative that threaded all three. I think that was a good example of how easily we can grasp, and even romanticize and/or idealize the relationship between nature and human, and the difficulty or resistance to imagining the artificial in our aesthetic compositions or picture of reality.

My intention, for both workshop participants and myself, was to place these three elements in one view, one image in order to de-emphasize the space between natural and unnatural. What does that look like and where does that lead us to.

What do you enjoy about collaborations? What would be your dream collaboration? The best aspect of collaboration is giving up control and the sharing of ideas and labor. Working in the studio is so solitary that it can be a great relief to open up to working with someone else or others.

Earlier this year you also showed works and visited with the Paramo Galeria in Guadalajara! Tell us a bit about the overall experience and exhibition. I had paintings included in New Suns, a group exhibition curated by Kris Kuramitsu at Paramó, it was the first time I’ve been to Guadalajara. It was thrilling to be showing with such a strong group of artists, Sherin Guirguis, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Nasim Hantehzadeh and Gabriella Sánchez among them. I went for the opening back in December and also spoke on a panel with Sherin, Kenyatta and Kris at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, which I learned is the largest book fair of the Americas and the second largest in the world.

Another first was speaking to an audience while being translated sentence by sentence. We had a really furtive conversation though regarding the themes that our practices share.

Something else that was new for me, was having an experience that someone might call…spirit related. Ghost or undead related? I told you about it later and you also had a ghostly experience the same weekend but in Big Bear?

All I will say is that it was a disturbance by very young thing that was too visceral to be a dream.

You’ve worked in various mediums from murals to sculpture to painting to video / animation. Is there a medium you’ve yet to try that you want to get into? I like an answer that Gertrude Stein gave during an interview from 1935. It regards the forms that writing takes, i.e. the novel, the autobiography etc, so I’m taking it out of context a bit, but the interviewer asks her “What has passion got to do with choosing an art form?” She answers “Everything. There is nothing else that determines form.” So I think I’ve let form, or choice of medium come from the initial impulses of the work I end up making. Maybe there is a VR piece or mural in bronze in my future….

What’s the most challenging aspect of what you do? How do you overcome these obstacles? What keeps you going? Financial sustainability. Keeping the studio open while also preserving time to work in it. I live off a financial collage composed of hustling - teaching, selling work, artist lectures, panel discussions, grants, commissions - but the stress of keeping it together has taken years off my life!

Share with us some artists you’re really excited about as of late. York Chang,The Signal and The Noiseat Vincent Price Art Museum, April-July 2019. What I like about York Chang’s works in this show is that he uses information, text, images and sound to magnify the chaotic and disorienting feeling that comes with checking your phone, radio or tv for news or information. Facts and truths are just atoms floating around in a giant cosmos of distorted narratives, info, and transmissions, you cannot locate the signal or its source amidst the noise. The show’s installation makes you feel swallowed up in this, it’s enveloping yetliberating to be lost in, setting you up to enjoy the weird connections that York makes.

Carolina Caycedo’s Apariciones / Apparitions, a video exhibited at the Huntington Library last summer (you can see it on view at the Vincent Price Art Museum this summer, June 15 - December 21, 2019.) This video is gorgeous and powerful. Female, black, brown and queer dancers twirl, flounce, throb and glide throughout the colonial-style and asian gardens and libraries of the Huntington. Sometimes they are totally fluid bodies in motion and at others times quite still and making spellbinding eye-contact with the viewer. You are watching a conjuring of the bodies and spirits of those whose representations and histories are missing throughout the art, books and histories archived in the Huntington’s collections.

Christina Quarles But I Woke Jus’ Tha Same at Regen Projects, April-May 2019. I suggest people see her paintings in person, they are really engaging. They are figurative, figures coupling, moving into and through each other, embracing beyond recognition by the brain and into recognition by the flesh. Materially they are gymnastic, virtuosic but not stuffy and make me want to paint. York Chang, The Signal and The Noise at Vincent Price Art Museum, April-July 2019. What I like about York Chang’s works in this show is that he uses information, text, images and sound to magnify the chaotic and disorienting feeling that comes with checking your phone, radio or tv for news or information. Facts and truths are just atoms floating around in a giant cosmos of distorted narratives, info, and transmissions, you cannot locate the signal or its source amidst the noise.

Dynasty Handbag (Jibz Cameron) is a performance, video artist who lives in LA right now. She’s the sharpest, funniest, slipperiest, grotesque-adjacent comic performer in the universe. When you see her live, she reads the room, the crowd and herself so spontaneously that you’re always on a mood-swinging rollercoaster. She’s so distortedly vulnerable, proud and charming that you’re not only laugh-crying with and at her, but you’re mostly dying over how culture makes us schizo and insane. She hosts a monthly queer performance night called Weirdo Night here at Zebulon.

What are your favorite Vans? SK8-His that are all solid black w/ black soles.

What do you have coming up that you can share with us? I’ve got a show opening in November 2019 at Visitor Welcome Center in Koreatown, LA and a large-scale tile mosaic commission at the new 2nd/Hope St Metro station in downtown LA, opening in 2022!!

FOLLOW PEARL | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Vans Girls #Sketchy Behaviors #Pearl Hsiung #painting #installation #recycling #borengo springs #interview

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