Taken by the Sky

Hola, hallo, ciao! I’m alive. I’m not really sure as to how to start this post, so I guess I’ll start with this:

Last year was probably the worst year of my life and throughout it I was the most depressed I’ve ever been for a number of reasons such as my grandpop passing away, ~friendship~ problems, and, well, trust issues. But I’m completely better now, time heals all wounds I suppose.

Anyway, this post being my first for 2016 (wot), I’m starting fresh!!! With a new (work in progress) layout and all, I’ve been totally ready to grab this year by the balls and manifest all the possible good vibes there are.

So, this has been me saying hi and saying that I’ve got loads of time on my hands as of the moment, which means I have an excuse to post more, yay!

Quiver is about a lot of things, but basically: Ollie is back from the dead (completely vaporized from a bomb, he pretty much saved tons of people), and kinda has amnesia. [Also: Mia Dearden and a short cameo from Dream and fight...scenes? panels? whatever? with Aquaman and Batman, yeaayuuhh!]

Now, how is he alive when he’s supposed to have no body? That would be a spoiler, so I’m not answering that. (Further reading: The Final Night, 1996.)

So! This being the first graphic novel I’ve ever read and I honestly don’t know if I even understood it back when I was like what, 6??? But !!!!! IT’S SO GOOD!!!!!! I love the script, and the art is so cute omg it’s so simple and idk I find it so different from all the other comics I read, so i really enjoyed it!!! Plus I’ll admit, since I’ve been watching CW’s The Flash I decided that I might as well watch Arrow (which I gave up on when it first came out because the acting is terrible, still kinda is but the story gets really good from the end of the second season so you gotta steel through it)...so, yeah. I’ve been geeking out. (Also, this is why I love Green Arrow and Canary so much!!! But uGh Canary in Arrow is so...uGh)

Anyway!

no...these have nothing to do with Ollie coming back from the dead...whoops ;-)

From Quiver #01

Download here for the .cbr file, and this extension for chrome to read.

(Sorry, some of the pages have glitches and it’s annoying as hell :/ blame the guy who uploaded this, not me :c)

Oh, right: and remember: it’s always easier to read via phone/tablet! But the chrome extension works too.

That was a fib, obviously.

The first comic book I remember reading is some vintage Wonder Woman comic I found lying around, with a yellow background and her fighting some creature. To be honest while watching Justice League Unlimited she was never my favourite, I prefered Hawkgirl. I did have this Wonder Woman shirt I loved to deah though! Buuuuut for what it’s worth, who can deny that Diana’s a total badass?

Now, the first graphic novel I’ve ever read is a Green Arrow one where he dies, and I don’t remember the title of it anymore but after much digging on the interwebz i’ve found that it might be Quiver...I’ll let you know next week ;-)

Meanwhile, the first graphic novel my dad got me is Teen Titans: Who is Donna Troy? and since then, I’ve been enamoured with Donna who was once Wondergirl because she was raised by the Amazons as well, but she became her own eventually. If I’ve got it right, she’s only been reintroduced in the New 52 in Convergence? I haven’t read Convergence yet as I’m waiting for it to finish (if it ever will, I’ll find out), so yeah. That’s it!

MEANWHILE. I wasn’t able to post this on time because I’ve been sleeping in (what’s new), but I haven’t had time to myself because I’ve been playing roadie for my dad...though I’m not sure ‘playing’ is the right word to use, since I’m being paid for it ;-)

Jason Todd is Red Hood. Jason used to be a Robin but the Joker ends up killing him and Bats doesn’t forgive himself for that. Then lo and behold, after a dip into the Lazarus pit care of Talia al Ghul, he is aliiiiiive. Anyway.

Basically he’s still a good guy but a vigilante, thus Outlaws. He’s not afraid to get blood on his hands...which goes against what Bats taught him. But it’s more effective, if you ask me. Anyway. Jason is a cool guy and he’s really cute too omg

Arsenal is Roy Harper, who was once Speedy, who was pretty much Green Arrow’s Robin. To be honest I’m not sure why Roy left Oliver or vice versa, but I know booze and trust issues are involved.

Theeeeen we have Starfire, (warrior) princess Koriand’r of Tamaran who was sold into slavery by her sister, Komand’r...I know, right? You (like me) may know her as Nightwing/Dick Grayson-as-Robin’s girl...but y’know, reboot after Crisis and all..and yeah, she’s with Arsenal now. Kinda.

Personally I like it from #19 onwards (I’m not quite sure where it ends anymore), it involves the League of Assassins and the guys who trained Jason, the All-Caste who are pretty much the opposite of the League, being that they’re monks and all. Warrior monks. How rad is that?

I actually don’t know why I like this so much! I think it’s because they’re all badasses, they’re funny. and c’mon, I find Kori to be such a feminist icon. I think it’s also because I reeeeally find Jason’s story so interesting: he was a Robin who was killed by the Joker and brought back to life by Talia al freaking Ghul. If that isn’t enough to get you interested, I dunno man. Or, y’know, the eye-candy for both genders isn’t too bad either.  

From Red Hood and the Outlaws 001

Stuff to read!

Red Hood’s backstory:

Red Hood and the Outlaws #0

Annuals (One-shots, separate from the arcs so it’s kind of like a preview for the titles!):

Red Hood and the Outlaws Annual #1, and #2

annnd, just for the sake of it...

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1, #2, and #3

Tip: if you wanna continue, just change the numbers accordingly at the end of the links! ;-) 

Let me know if you like RHatO as much as I do over at my ask! (If you wanna, but please doooo!) Also, I have them downloaded if you don’t wanna read ‘em online, so ask me via my ask too if you want me to send ‘em to you! It’s much easier in my opinion :-)

I actually gave Arrow a shot. Over the past week I’ve been binge-watching it and have finally caught up to date! Thank X’Hal that the storyline makes up for the bad acting...which The Flash makes up for. (As I type I’m at Season 3 Episode 06, and I am enjoying it and geeking out. As I should be.)

I’m reading Crisis on Infinite Earths which I believe is the mother of all crazy arcs in the DC Universe. I’m not even halfway through it, but yes...it is.

I saw Gab, my dad’s drummer tito Brian’s little brother who is my age last Saturday at Checkpoint’s opening...and I found out that he geeks out on the DCU too, and is a major Batfam enthusiast. I’M SO GLAD I FOUND SOMEONE ELSE THAT ISN’T MY DAD. With that, I also realized how much of a bro I am...the comic books and football just increases it. sigh.

Gab told me about the 2010 film Batman: Under the Red Hood and I find it ridiculous that I haven’t heard of it ‘til then, because as I am so far gone in the DCU..I’m even further with Red Hood. (Since I have no idea what to put for this week’s CBW, I think I’ll just go with that.)

I recently rediscovered how much I love rock music and how it will always be a part of me. Yeaaaahh. (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Jeff Buckley.....heeeyyy.)

Alright, let’s say The Endless are guardians of key aspects in life: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction (who bailed on his realm and responsibilities), Despair, Desire, and Delirium (who was once Delight) (I love that, don’t you?). The Sandman is Dream who is obviously the main character in the entire series. He is also very attractive. And Neil Gaiman said that Tom Hiddleston would be a perfect Dream, and I COULDN’T. AGREE. MORE. Anyway.

Clockwise starting from the hot girl in black on the left: Death, Destiny, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Delirium, Despair.

In this arc, Delirium misses Destruction so she approaches Desire and Despair saying that she wants to find him and they all disagree. She then asks Dream who needs to take his mind off of something, so he agrees. That’s pretty much it. 

Death and Delirium enter our realm, so we find them on road trips and tracking down Destruction’s friends. Personally I find the clashing personalities of Delirium and Dream so amusing, Delirium is so weird and childish and cute while Dream is pretty much deadpan all the time. 

From Sandman 41 and 42 (Brief Lives 1 and 2)

Download here for the .cbr file, and this extension for chrome to read

(either that, or go download a .cbr/.cbz reader on your phone or tablet or whatever)

Now I’ll leave you with some gifs, I didn’t realize how much fun they are to make until now!!! I think I’m gonna do this more often. (I know they’re tiny but now I’ve got Tumblr’s gif restrictions down and I’ll make them slightly larger next time)

Ah, the ever photogenic Alabang.

In order we went to Bag of Beans, Gourmet Farms, The Flower Farm, some marketplace, and Breakfast at Antonio’s.

White girl aesthetic, heh.

While waiting for the rest of mom’s teammates she took these photos of me. Not bad, mom.

Anyway.

(Man am I in love with my kaleidoscope lens)

Alright, so I love plants/flowers I mean they provide us oxygen AND look so good while doing so I do this thing on my instagram called “plant lyf” (which I probably should tag already) and yeah!!! The photos are like the one above, my face through/beside/in front of plants/flowers, da workz.

heh.

 LOOK!!!! TINY!!!! PINEAPPLES!!!!!

Swiftly moving on, sorry.

For the record I only picked up the flowers already fallen/uprooted

Oh, right: the attempt at the Stevie Nicks twirl, of course.

Alright, dinner at Breakfast at Antonio’s was. so. good. I have this massive thing for chorizo y dios mío, eso chorizo es muy diabólico. The amount of flavour (and oil) in there is insane. I got the Chorizo Roesti (which is a potato pancake), the chorizo was served over the roesti along with some mushrooms and bell peppers, plus over-easy eggs and Swiss cheese to top the bad boy off, aaaand a slice of toast on the side. This crap photo doesn’t do it justice.

Plus I had their Sumiyaki coffee afterwards and o...m....g...it was so...gooood. I had it black (as I always do), and it’s possibly the best coffee I’ve ever had. It’s dark. I love dark coffee, let’s leave it at that. (I suck omg, I’m so sorry)

Picking up from where we left off in Batman 007, the first issue of Night of the Owls starts with Nightwing 007 in which the only key point for the arc is Bruce telling Dick that his great-grandfather is a Talon, and Dick being all bitchy that Bruce isn’t telling him everything then tells him anyway that he was supposed to be a Talon too, sound familiar? (Yeah, that was in Batman 007.)

Again with me summarizing the arc but not giving away too much! The Court of Owls are going to “take back Gotham” and are moving to do so by killing all the influential people in Gotham, Bruce included. Basically the Talons have crashed Wayne manor and Alfred sends a distress call to the rest of the Batfamily along with all the people on the Talons’ hitlist. Fun.

But really, it’s a great arc and the writers really started the new 52 strongly. 

From Batman 008.

The arc spans over:

Nightwing 007

Batman 007

Batman 008

Red Hood and the Outlaws 008

Batwing 009

Nightwing 008

Batman and Robin 009 

Batgirl 009

Batman 009

Red Hood and the Outlaws 009

Nightwing 009

Batman Detective Comics 009

Batman The Dark Night 009

Birds of Prey 009

Batman Annual 001

Catwoman 009

I know it’s kinda long but comics are really easy to read so it shouldn’t take you so long v ^__^ v

Enjoy, guys! Next week I’ll try and see what I can do with Vertigo’s The Sandman because I want you guys to fall in love with The Endless as I have, haha!

Okay, generally, Batman/Bruce is Gotham’s protector, yeah? He knows every street, alley, building...y’know, the works. When a human dartboard (right?) case surfaces, the knives used have an owl insignia on them and Commish Gordon thinks of an old folktale that may be related and is rather creepy, it goes:

“Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them, or they'll send the Talon for your head.”

Yikes. Oh and to add to that, on the scene of the crime there was a hidden note on a wall saying “Bruce Wayne will DIE Tomorrow”. Sweet. (This by the way, is because Wayne Enterprises are gonna rebuild the ruined parts of Gotham or something)

Anyway! I don’t wanna give away too much, so I’m gonna go ahead and show you some pages from the arc, and my God Capullo is an amazing artist.

And of course, the beautifully coloured page I used as my base photo for the banner, in full colour.

From Batman 001, 002, and 004.

Links to read! The arc spans over Batman 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, and 007.

note: Some of the fight scene pages/panels may be disturbing, so yeah, just a heads up.

Comics have once again taken over my life, well, DC to be more specific...duh. Good ol’ Superhero/villain stuff mainly because of the TV shows Constantine, Gotham, and The Flash (which are really good, give ‘em a go!) and Vertigo (which is under DC still, HAH.)’s The Sandman, and I am incredibly in love with him; The Sandman, Morpheus, that is. (Plus I hear Neil Gaiman wants Tom Hiddleston to bring him to life, GOOD GOD.)

Currently I’m going back and forth reading my comics, Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Great Books of the Western World’s compilation of Freud’s work. I’m sooooo happy that we have so many of the latter at home c/o my aunt who works for the UN Library, I suppose they didn’t need ‘em anymore because the books are older than me, I reckon. They’re in great shape though.

Music-wise I’m obsessed with Billy Idol in general, Twin Shadow’s Forget, and both of Kindness’ albums and man, Adam Bainbridge is as much of babe as his music is good.

I finally got ‘round to having the first roll of film I shot with my Minolta SR-T 202 Rhaegal and I am sooooo pleased that I’ve been generally using it right, I’ll post ‘em soon along wiiiith...

Photos from when I shot myself a few nights ago, I’m blonde agaaaaain. I played around with the editing a bit, and I’ll leave you with a bit of a teaser. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 6TH

The mumza and I went down south to hopefully catch my two cousins' first fashion show together (I really am the black sheep, they're like 3 and 8) at Rustan's Alabang Town Center but as we entered the parking lot, we got a text from Mama (my grandma) that it had already ended, lovely.

We ended up going around ATC + eating at California Pizza Kitchen, as you can see. OH ALSO, I ENDED UP GETTING:

1.) The most gorgeous pair of Supergas, finally!!!! I've been wanting a pair for sooooo long, and these are perfect. I mean most of my wardrobe is black, white, and grey, so why not add a little contrast?

ANDANDANDANDAND

!!!!! Miss Peregrine's is my mom's though, and mine is obviously...

Again, !!!!

Mine and Fitzie's first novel! (By that I mean novel of his, of course.) I read Flappers and Philosophers and fell completely in love with Scott (yeah man, we're close) afterwards. He writes with such charm and clarity, and with what I've read of This Side of Paradise so far I've noticed that he uses the word "exquisite" a lot, and that's exactly how I'd put his writing. (His life was also incredibly wonderful and tragic at the same time. He's my favourite writer along with Salinger and Murakami, ugh.)

Then of course, we drove back up north.

MONDAY, APRIL 7TH (in squares!)

I thought yesterday was a good day. I had lunch (at 4 PM, yes) and made myself English Breakfast and Wild Raspberry Hibiscus iced tea, and proceeded reading This Side of Paradise the rest of the afternoon.

I decided I wanted some cookies, so I made some. (Go Rian, making things happen for yourself!) Oatmeal, dark chocolate chip, and maple syrup. Oh, yeah.

Aaaanndd, I found my My Little Pony mini-collection again. I felt six/seven and invincible. I swear I had more though, and I had Sunny Daze who was THE/my babe, but somehow my cousin Paige managed to coax me into giving her to her :////

Oh, and I finished watching Coven (!!!) yesterday, and was extremely bored at around 3 AM, so I ended up shooting myself.

I don't understand my hair colour anymore, man.

and as for today,

TUESDAY, APRIL 8TH

Nothing particularly tremendous happened today...except for this.

ADIDAS X OPENING CEREMONY BABIES. HELL. YES.

I feel so streetwear/trill for having these, I've always wanted something Opening Ceremony and when I saw this perfect, perfect pair on sale (!!!) on Urban Outfitters (dude, like $100 off!!!), I had to have it.