Like A Girl

The video above inspired me to make this post. :)

"And when we talk about war, we talk about soldiers and female soldiers.
Because this is the way we talk, when we talk about history and use the word “soldiers” it immediately erases any women doing the fighting. Which is it comes as no surprise that the folks excavating Viking graves didn’t bother to check whether the graves they dug up were male or female. They were graves swords in them. Swords are for soldiers. Soldiers are men.
It was years before they thought to even check the actual bones of the skeletons, instead of just saying, “Sword means dude!” and realized their mistake.
Women fought too."
-Kameron Hurley "We Have Always Fought" 

Fight like Michelle Yeoh

Fight like Jeeja Yanin

Books & Tea. It Never Ends

Really, I should never go to libraries alone. I was supposed to return The Summer Prince and get two books I ordered earlier (if you live in Espoo, Helsinki, Vantaa or Kauniainen, you can order books from any of their libraries and have them delivered to your local library for free). But somehow... my legs just took me upstairs... and my eyes saw more books... and then the books just jumped into my hands, you know? They were naughtily heavy!

My husband is learning Russian. He is reading Max Frei now, humoristic Russian fantasy-mystery. It's a bit challenging for a beginner, so I got him English translation for reference.

Max Frei wrote a lot, this isn't even everything. ^^

Androgyny

Placebo – Pure Morning

“Why don't you wear skirts? You'd look so great in them!”

“Now lemme apply some make up on you, your skin is too green.”

Skunk Anansie – Weak

“I know you want a microscope but let's buy you new shoes instead?”

“Whoa, didn't think you liked such bloody movies.”

☆* Sailor Moon in my life *☆

When I was a ~10 years old girl, Sailor Moon came to Russia. It was one of the first anime shown there. I loved it from the very first episode I saw. Sailor Moon aired on weekends, and if I managed to wake up early, I could watch the same episode twice – at breakfast and lunch. I remember trying to eat soup when something tragic happened in the end of season 1, I think the soup was suddenly salty.

Quotes from The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Futuristic Brazil, bisexuality, art and death in the lush world of The Summer Prince. 

Quotes from The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

“You’re an artist,” I say. “And I don’t think anyone but me truly understands what you mean by that. Not that you paint or you sculpt or you see the world in colors. You mean that you manipulate, that you express yourself on objects and use them to express you. You mean that when you chose to be the summer king, you chose to use your own body as a canvas that no one could ignore.”

I'm an artist, after all, and I live for spectacle, for the construction of emotional states and evocation of suppressed feelings. 

She loved me enough to let me go and I loved her enough to stay.

Souvenirs from Japan (^.^)

My brother-in-law traveled to Japan and brought us many cool souvenirs. Let's have a look?

Green tea from a famous teashop.

Brushing

I drew this a few years ago trying to capture those high Scandinavian cheekbones I liked so much. But now she looks kinda Middle Eastern to me. What do you see?

Quotes from The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan

The Drowning Girl is one the weirdest books I've ever read. It's a beautifully written story about a girl who heard a siren.

India Morgan Phelps — Imp to her friends — is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth — or from something far, far stranger...
(From Goodreads.)

Was it a mermaid, a werewolf or both? Imp tells the story of her hauntings, and it might haunt you as well. Here are some quotes from the book.

Quotes from The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan

There's always a siren, singing you to shipwreck. Some of us may be more susceptible than others are, but there's always a siren.

May Reading

Here are the books I read in May. Quite many comics this time ^^

Aino Sutinen “Taksi Kurdistaniin”

Mira Grant “Feed”

Kameron Hurley “The Women of Our Occupation” (a short SFF story, I liked it a lot)

Robert Galbraith “The Cuckoo's Calling”

武内 直子 美少女戦士セーラームーン vol.1 (Naoko Takeuchi “Sailor Moon” vol.1)