Reading All Men of Genius because after Leviathan, I needed some awesome female characters in steampunk settings and this one seemed to fit my needs -- mad scientist girl disguises herself as her twin brother in order to gain admission to an awesome school. The fact that the cover summary mentioned the headmaster's niece getting a crush on Violet-as-Ashton implied potential femslash, a rarity in steampunk outside of Lilit.
( this gets long and ranty )

Rewatching Labyrinth for the first time in years, and I never realized before just how annoying Sarah was. But once she moves past that tantrum stage, it still holds up pretty well, and left me forming theories. My headcanon is thus:

Jareth is immortal and surrounded by idiot goblins. So he's gotta do something to occupy his time. Every now and then, someone will use the right words and wish away a child. If he feels like it, he'll do as they wish, and give 'em a chance to run around the labyrinth.
It's like reality TV.

Sometimes they win the child back.
Sometimes they go back emptyhanded.
Sometimes they're lost forever in the attempt.
Sometimes they catch his fancy, and he'll play with them instead of just tossing obstacles in their way.

Sarah caught his fancy, and she was the first to make real allies in the journey, and because of that she caught his eye more than any before. She'd won when she finished the Labyrinth -- that was all the terms of the deal required -- but he didn't let it end there and hid Toby from her.

He didn't want to let it end there. So he lured her, tempted her. But she held the power, and she realized it. And on her return, she began to grow up and mature. Not to set aside her fantasy -- for she knew it to be reality -- but to take on more responsibility. Which Jareth accepted would make her better queen material, so he let her go for a time.

I like to think that she went on to date drama geeks and musicians who wrote songs about her, but was left wanting more. And one day, when Jareth finally made a shot at approaching her respectfully and without illusion, she accepted him.

I've always felt that, to one extent or another, the children who live through these fantasy worlds and then get tossed out into reality will never be quite satisfied with normal. They'll go on to do amazing, wonderful things, in a desperate attempt to reclaim a bit of that magic they left behind. Wendy's a pilot, Alice became a surrealist painter, and Dorothy went back to Oz in the books. Sarah's no different.

Cat, learn some gratitude.

You will roam and, against my advice, consume small mammals that give you parasites. These make you sick. So when you throw up on my bed at 3AM and I find myself cleaning up something that is still wriggling, I only express sympathy toward you and call the vet in the morning to find out what medication you need.

When I uncover one last tapeworm-killing pill from the last time this happened, I cheer and grab some treats to help convince you to take it. I drop it in your mouth, hold you down, and rub your throat until you swallow -- not an easy task when you are determined to drool rivers out the side of your mouth rather than swallow. Then you claw both my hands and spit out a partially-dissolved pill. Once I've applied bandages to my fingers and recovered the pill, I track you down, wrap you in a blanket, toss the pill in your mouth, and now refuse to let you up without examining the interior of your mouth every few minutes. Without fail, you have not swallowed, and the best I managed was to wait for it to dissolve to the point that you couldn't spit it out.

Even now, as I type with bandaged fingers, I only hope that enough got into you that the horrible parasites are killed.

Stop giving me the stink eye.

Our cats do not follow the standard approach of leaving us 'gifts'. They seem to think we're competent hunters on our own.

But because this does not stop THEM from hunting, it ultimately means that it takes a while before we find the remains of their kills.

Cleaning under my grandmother's bed, I uncovered six squirrel tails, three chipmunk tails, a dessicated mouse (apparently untouched) and a bunch of stray feathers.

So I decide to check out Rizzoli and Isles because I keep hearing about it here and there, mostly good things in Myka/HG areas. I start watching and it intrigues -- hey, a show that starts off with the couple established instead of going will they/won't they.

Twenty minutes in I realize that not only are they not dating but they're supposed to be totes straight BFFs.

So I finished the Hunger games; forgot to say earlier.

( Yeah, this is probably gonna get spoil-y )

Currently on Catching Fire. Wondering why I have a sudden need to read more about Bonnie and Twill.

Leviathan is not enough. People, I need reccomendations for steampunk with strong female characters -- at all, if not as the lead. I'm flexible on the genre; gaslamp fantasy is fine.

Works I am already familiar with: Leviathan, Girl Genius, The Parasol Protectorate series.
Works currently on my 'To Read' list: Clockwork Heart, Boneshaker.

To everyone who has yet to read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan trilogy:

DO SO.

It is awseome. It is a steampunk adventure featuring a crossdressing airship girl who disguises herself as a boy because she wants to fly, and there are stupid gender restrictions regarding the matter.

It begins just before the start of WWI (you can tell because of [SPOILER] and basically the whole thing is awesome. It works from the concept that Darwin developed genetic manipulation, so that he started the development of cool beasties -- the airship? Is an entire ecosystem, the basis of which is a giant hydrogen-filled whale. Each species gathers food on its own -- pollen and insects from the air, say -- and burps out hydrogen to keep the whole thing flying.

Some countries go with the Darwinist constructions, some are Clanker territory -- in Girl Genius terminology, it's Constructs vs Clanks.

The characters. The setting. The story. Hell, the fact that they can have les!yay, ho!yay and het!yay WITH THE SAME CHARACTER. So very good.

In other news, I'm rereading the Hunger Games trilogy. Stopped before finishing last time because ( Spoilers! )