#2021 book recs

[snek-panini]

Happy Halloween! Have a book:

This is Siren's Song by @kedreeva (Hi! I asked to bind your fic months ago, sorry it took so long XD). It's an incredible Good Omens siren AU, which needs no introduction from me but it gets one anyway. It's one of the most in-character fics I've ever read, tackles a lot of the most resonant themes of the original (love in the context of aromanticism and asexuality, human labels in the context of non-human perspective), and has incredible world-building. Later parts of the fic always make me cry but they're good tears. You'll see. When I first learned that fanbinding was a thing and started looking into how to do it, this was one of the first fics I thought of. It just took me a while to learn the skills I needed before I could do it.

More pics and process talk under the cut!

So the cover up there is black faux leather and momi paper that I bought...about two years ago? And just kept on hand till I was ready to do this project. This is the first time I've worked with it and it was fairly nice, though harder to get a nice crease into than lokta or chiyogami. It felt very fragile when I was handling it but I didn't have any issues with tearing or glue bleed-through like I thought I might. It did bleed some color when I got it damp with the glue, and it took way longer to dry than normal, but once that was done it's been fine. Which is nice because I have a lot left over, so it'll probably be making many future appearances in my binds.

Look! It's rounded! I got a backing setup recently and this is my first time using it. It was Very Hard and I am not very good at it yet. But I think it looks pretty good for a first attempt, and there was really no other way to mitigate the spine swell on this one. I used a thick paper so I've got a thick book. I also tried something new with the case, though it isn't visible. Usually I make the text block and the case separately and then attach them as the last step, but for this one I actually built the case around the text. Like, boards attached to mull/tapes (sandwiched between thinner boards, with grooves cut for them so there are no bulges), then covered with momi, then leather corners and spine, then paste down the endpaper. It's got an oxford hollow, too! The tapes and mull actually wrap around the outside of the boards instead of the inside like I've done before. Endpapers are my favorite feather chiyogami. Combined with the marbled momi they make for a very opulent look, and I had just barely enough to do this. Like, down to the millimeter. I had to trim the edges and then glue the endpapers after to be sure they were right. I'm glad they were, because I didn't have a backup plan. Handmade endbands, colors picked to match the cover. Also, last note, I got the corner bits right for the first time. Measured properly, with no weird pointy bits that come out at funny angles. Very proud.

Title page and bookmark/interior shot. Did you know that some basic fonts in MS Word look different when you use a huge font size? Because I didn't until I made this title page. That's Parchment for the title, and it only gets those swirly bits around the capital letters if you take it to 26pt or higher (I used 72 here). Now I wonder if any of the other fonts have easter eggs in them like that. The ribbon is very fancy, to go along with the rich endpaper/cover combo. I think it's pretty appropriate for a mythological golden age of piracy story, as are the text ornaments:

Chapter header image, chapter end image, and section break image. It was a very image-heavy typeset. I was originally planning to only have a header and a section break, but I couldn't decide whether I liked the ships or the book/shell/feather better, and they both suited the story so well that I just went with both. Again, opulent, but I think it fits. All the images came from rawpixel, all I did was resize them.

There was a small error in the trimming process. Comes of having to calculate so closely the exact amount you can trim off, that you have to trim off so your slightly-too-small endpapers fit. I think something got misaligned when I poked the sewing holes because only the first signature is like this. The rest of the book has a more appropriately-sized margin between the page number and the edge. I got very lucky here, and I know it, and I'm never cutting it this close (lol) again. Next time we just order another sheet of chiyogami.

And that's it! I have one author's copy and one new bind in progress right now (that's taking a while because I'm learning more new stuff for it), and then I have two Christmas gift books to do, so it might be a bit before I have another book to share.

[nonasbirthday]

a couple years ago i had zero attention span, and i hadn't properly read a book in forever. the pandemic absolutely did not help, on account of i was working long hours & also dead inside. but in early 2021 i picked up TLT and it reignited my love of reading. and over this past year i finished 22 books :')

forever grateful to the lesbian space juggalos for resurrecting the ghost of my 12-year-old self, a nerd who had to be banned from reading books while walking between classes. (she wouldn't be very impressed by my 2023 book count, but she also had zero responsibilities and limited internet access, so. who cares.)

here's to a continued love of reading for all of us in 2024, and maybe some ATN teasers!

[ram-reads]

Blue Flag was the perfect book to end the year on. The manga follows a third year high schooler named Taichi Ichinose. One day he decides to help the shy girl from his class, Futaba Kuze, even though he doesn’t like her because she reminds him of himself. That leads to him finding out she has a crush on the popular guy in school, Toma Mita, who happens to be his childhood best friend that he is no longer close with. After seeing how determined she is, Taichi agrees to help her and as he helps her he starts to fall for her. Unbeknownst to both of them though is that Toma actually has a crush on Taichi and Futaba’s best friend, Masumi Itachi, has a crush on her. I absolutely loved this story. I was invested from beginning to end. All of the characters were so lovable. Taichi was a great protagonist. He’s a little pessimistic, but I like seeing negative people become more positive. Futaba was so adorable. Her eagerness to grow and achieve her goal was inspiring. Toma was a sweetheart. Watching him try so hard to continue to be friends with Taichi, who believes they live in two different worlds, made my heart ache. He has such a good heart for a jock. Masumi was admittedly kind of a jerk, but I still ended up liking her because of how protective she is of Futaba. I hope she’s as prominent in the story as the other three. For someone who doesn’t like love triangles I’m enjoying this one so far. It helps that it’s not obnoxious and that I like all the characters. The way I would prefer it to go is Taichi ending up with Toma (that bus scene!) and Futaba ending up with Masumi (I’m a sucker for protective characters). I would love to see two queer couples be the main relationships in a shoujo manga. I’m gonna keep my expectations low though because I’m sure with Taichi already falling for Futaba they’ll end up together. Both of them are great too, so if they are endgame I won’t be too salty. The art was great. I liked how most of the character designs felt original. After reading a lot of shoujo manga it starts to seem like there are many similarities between the main characters of each, but this manga managed to avoid that. Both Futaba and Taichi were such little cuties. Futaba was often compared to a hamster and it definitely worked. I loved the height difference between them and Toma because he is a giant. I’m glad this was the last book I read in 2021 because it had everything I wanted. I want to read volume 2 right away but only if I can get my hands on a physical copy. Why am I only reading manga that my store doesn’t have volume 2 of? This is the second one this month. Why am I doing this to myself? I definitely plan on snatching it up as soon as it comes in though.

[sixofravens-reads]

Okay, it's one week until my local comic expo, which means it's time to ask that question again: anyone have any recs for comics/graphic novels/manga I should check out?

It's best if they're a few years old, as it's sometimes difficult to find brand new titles there, but let me know what you've got and I'll look it up!! I'm not super into Marvel/DC but if there's a particularly compelling storyline that doesn't require a whole lot of extra research to understand I'm willing to check it out.

Things on my list so far:

Mooncakes - this was recc'd to me a while ago and I just haven't found it yet

Eat the Rich and Know Your Station by Sarah Gailey - these are newer so idk if I'll find them but hey, might as well try

older CLAMP manga

a slew of manga from the early 2000s I've been nostalgic for (I don't really have a list, it's an If I See It I'll Know thing)

The Wicked + the Divine - read about 4 volumes of this but fell off the bandwagon, would like to get back on it now

[ivashkovadrian]

unfortunately amazon already owned bookdepository for several years anyway... idk where you are from but blackwells has been a nice option for me, they do international free shipping (in case you are not familiar with them)

Yeah I remember when Amazon bought bookdepository, I was already a customer back then 😔

Oooooh thank you so much for the rec!!! I didn’t know about Blackwells, and they do have free shipping to where I live! Thank you so much 😍😍 woohooooooooo

[moncoeurappelletonnom]

Books I Read In 2022

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Loveless by Alice Oseman

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Normal People by Sally Rooney

It All Comes Back to You by Farah Naz Rishi

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

Sula by Toni Morrison

Almost There by Farrah Rochon

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

As Good as Dead by Holly Jackson

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera

Five Survive by Holly Jackson

What Once Was Mine by Liz Braswell

Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter

You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

My favorite was The Song of Achilles. I read it in the beginning of this year and am planning to read it in the beginning of next year as well. I also loved It All Comes Back to You, The First to Die at the End, Almost There and Loveless. What Once Was Mine, Book Lovers, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series, and Where the Crawdads Sing were some that I really liked as well.

[enlilwind]

Împărăția ultimului cerb este una dintre cele mai citite cărți editate în 2021, top organizat de către Biblioteca Naţională a Republicii Moldova / National Library of Moldova. Este o realizare frumoasă pentru mine și le mulțumesc mult cititorilor care au lecturat povestea Cerbului :)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris’s “Youth Group”

NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Youth Group is Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris's new and delightful graphic novel from Firstsecond. It's a charming tale of 1990s ennui, cringe Sunday School – and demon hunting.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250789235/youthgroup

Kay is a bitter, cynical teenager who's doing her best to help her mother cope with an ugly divorce that has seen her dad check out on his former family. Mom is going back to church, and she talks Kay into coming along with her to attend the church youth group.

This is set in the 1990s, and the word "cringe" hasn't yet entered our lexicon as an adjective, but boy is the youth group cringe. The pastor is a guitar-strumming bearded dad who demonstrates how down he is with the kids by singing top 40 songs rewritten with evangelical lyrics (think Weird Al meets the 700 Club). Kay gamely struggles through a session and even makes a friend or two, and agrees to keep attending in deference to her mother's pleas.

But this is no ordinary youth group. Kay's ultra-boring suburban hometown is actually infested with demons who routinely possess the townspeople, and that baseline of demonic activity has suddenly gone critical, with a new wave of possessions. Suddenly, the possessed are everywhere – even Kay's shitty dad ends up with a demon inside of him.

That's when Kay discovers that the youth group and its corny pastor are also demon hunters par excellence. Their rec-rooms sport secret cubbies filled with holy weapons, and the words of exorcism come as readily to them as any embarrassing rewritten devotional pop song. Kay's discovery of this secret world convinces her that youth group isn't so bad after all, and soon she is initiated into its mysteries, including the existence of rival demon-hunting kids from the local synagogue, Catholic church, and Wiccan coven.

As the nature of the new demonic incursion becomes clearer, it falls on Kay and her pals to overcome these sectarian divisions over the protests of their guitar-strumming, magic-wielding leader. That takes on a special urgency when Kay learns why the demons are interested in her, personally, and a handful of other kids in town who all share a secret trait.

I confess that as someone who lived through the 1990s as a young man, there is something disorienting about experiencing the decade of my young adulthood through the kind of retro lens I associate with the 1950s or 1960s. But while the experience is disorienting, it's not unpleasant. McCurdy's artwork and Morris's snappy dialog conjure up that bygone decade in a way that is simultaneously affectionate and critical, exposing the hollowness of its performative ennui and the brave face that performance represented even as the world was being swept up in corporate gigantism.

McCurdy and Morris are really onto something here, implicitly asking us why the 1990s gave us Buffy and Sabrina (and The Coven, etc etc) – what was it about that decade in which Reaganomics and globalism consolidated the gains of the 1980s, where the climate emergency took on its undeniable urgency, where media monopolies mastered the art of commodifying counterculture faster than it could mutate into new forms?

Morris's writing really shines here. If you enjoyed Bubble, his earlier outing based on the post-apocalyptic comedy podcast of the same name, you will love this one:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/21/podcasting-as-a-visual-medium/#huntr

Morris is also half of Jordan, Jesse Go!, the long-running podcast where he and Jesse Thorn do a weekly ha-ha-only-serious goofball schtick that never fails to smuggle in really clever and insightful ideas amidst the poop jokes.

https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/jordan-jesse-go/

John Hodgman calls nostalgia a "toxic impulse." Church Group deftly avoids nostalgia's trap, managing to be a period piece without falling prey to the Happy Days pathology of ignoring the many flaws and problems of its era. And of course, it's a hoot and a blast.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/16/blight/#the-dream-of-the-nineties

[preseriesdean]

preseries dean-centric/pov fic recs

for @spnficrecfest day one: specific era 🧡

Odysseus, American by coyotesuspect sam/dean, 10.1k words, rated M, published 2010 Dean finds Peter O'Toole's recording of the Odyssey in a bin marked “Audio" in Casa Grande's only used bookstore. The place smells like cigarette smoke and old books, and it reminds him of Sam.

Multitude of Sins by Linden sam/dean, 4.4k words, rated T, outsider POV, published 2015 Every now and again, Jim Murphy would look up from his altar and find the Winchester boys at the back of his church.

We Drank a Thousand Times by glorious_spoon dean/omc, 43.2k words, rated M, published 2010 They meet in a bar fight in North Carolina when Dean is nineteen, broke, and desperate, then again when a hunt brings the Winchesters into town a few years later. Neither one of them ever puts a name to it but every once in a while, through the years, Dean finds his way back.

pack up the moon by deathdreamt sam&dean, 5.9k words, rated T, published 2021 Sam storms back out from their room, his backpack on and his duffel hanging off his shoulder and isn’t it kind of tragic that his whole life fits in two bags. He looks suddenly much younger than he is, eyes shining. John is back at his guns, whiskey at his elbow, and Dean can hardly believe how rapidly his life is cracking down the centre.

lost in yesterday by margaryes aka @christsam sam/dean, 1k words, not rated, john POV, published 2023 John hasn’t seen his youngest son in 18 months.

Inseparable by astolat sam/dean, 6.7k words, rated M, published 2008 It was just plain sense, so Dean didn't understand why something about the way Dad said quietly, "It's time you had your own bed," made him feel guilty and confused.

The Palm Oasis by @fictionallemons sam/dean, 12.3k words, rated E, published 2022, sex work John strands Dean and Sam at a middle-of-nowhere motel while he investigates possible demon omens in Arizona. The place is nothing to write home about, but at least it has a pool. Dean resolves to think of this as a vacation for him and his studious little brother, but when their money runs out sooner than expected, he considers turning tricks at a nearby truck stop so he can feed Sam. Then a creepy guy from the pool makes an offer Dean doesn’t want to take but Sam won’t allow him to refuse—and the brothers edge over a line they’ve both been wanting to cross for a long time.

Summer Blackout by nutkin sam/dean, 11.6k words, rated E, published 2012 When Dean is seventeen, they spend five months being normal.

Poughkeepsie by aeli_kindera sam&dean, 9.7k words, rated T, published 2021 “Sammy,” says Dean again, urgency cracking his voice. “We gotta — we really gotta go. I need you to — just — remember Poughkeepsie? Drop everything, no questions asked, and run? This is a — a Poughkeepsie situation. Please, man, I need you.” Sam remembers Poughkeepsie.

To Repair Broken Men by procrastin8or951 sam/dean, 3.1k words, rated T, published 2015 Dad and Sam keep fighting. Dean can't fix his family, so he fixes things around the crappy apartment they are staying in.

[f-t-e]

I started watching SUPERNATURAL in November 2020. I know, I know. My partner and I had been isolating alone since March. The timing felt right. I went though a wild amount of upheaval and trauma over the next year and SPN was there for me through it all. It was THE show at THE time and it kept me afloat when I needed it the most. Since November 2021 I've written just about 110,000 words of SPN fanfic, a number that seems unbelievable to me, and that too has been a real blessing to my creative life, no matter what haters say. (why didn't I write my own novels in that time? Because I have a hobby, Karen, and I love it.) And I've read about 500000x that much fanfic, which has been the biggest blessing of all. (ETA: oh right, if you want to read my fic, you can find my stuff here, I wrote a fic where Dean reads books. Lots of books.)

I know I'm a nobody in this fandom but I thought on this, our #DestielDay, I would submit my own humble rec list. I've curated this very deliberately: every fic here has just about 4000 hits or less (most under 3000) and all were published in 2020 or after. So, sort of a rec list for some lesser known and newer fics, something you maybe haven't stumbled on yet. Especially thank you to @jewishcharliebradbury, her rec lists gave me a place to start back in the day and I have tried to model the depth and quality they brought to their lists. I tried to link to everyone's tumblr, but if I missed one, let me know.

Most of all, thank you to everyone who has EVER created something for this fandom, from 2005 to 2023. I am so thankful and, honestly, honored to be among your number. You're not supposed to be cringe and say a show saved your life...but SUPERNATURAL saved me, it really did. See y'all when the movie/reboot drops, to quote Ryan Gosling in The Notebook: IT WASN'T OVER, IT STILL ISN'T OVER. And I'm glad.

-----

Finale Fix-It & S15 and Beyond

What The Moon Was Saying by Amiril (@runawaymarbles)

This is hands-down one of the coolest “Dean Rescues Cas from the Empty” fics I have ever read and the concept is brilliantly structured to mirror the literal and metaphorical things Dean needs to give up and let go to get free. Every scenario is very satisfying and they make sense, is there any better feeling? Dean is very open in this, but in a believable way that still has edges. And, oh, the reunion is so good. Plus all the family stuff. Just excellent, exactly what you want in a fic like this: lovely, well-written, smart, fulfilling, all the pieces clicking, the show but better.

Awake and Annoying by skycruise

I love the use and passage of time in this one, it has some real impact, and I love the way Dean gets into the Empty (so smart, fits just right) and what I REALLY love in this one is the way it lets Dean be really clear-eyed and honest about his relationship with Sam, both the strengths and the weaknesses. And the last line, very clever and moving inverse of one of fandom’s favorite things. 

Living the life you chose by allthismusic

THEEEEE post finale Sam Winchester-Outsider-POV this fandom needs. Sam is absolutely awesome in this, the most believable, loving, realistic mix of “I knew all along” and “I had no idea” versions of Sam, landing somewhere I think that’s really true and in character. It fills in and develops so many gaps and silences in what the show let Sam know in the absolute best way. Best Brother Sam is a weakness of mine and he really shines here, there for Dean in the best ways but also coming into his own, I love it so very much. (this author also has a very great 2022 Big Bang fic, hugely recommend that one too.)

your ear to the wound that whispers by EmandFandems (@lazarusemma)

Who doesn’t love a HANDPRINT FIC?!? And boy this is such a good one. It follows Dean and his thoughts on the handprint from the first touch all the way to fixing the finale and it simply buzzes with longing and desire, tenderness and rawness. It’s great insight in lot of ways into Dean’s journey. It’s short but fulfilling and oh that very perfect last line. (this author also has a lot of great Jupernatural content.)  

Somewhere Off in the Dark by magickastiel 

Another awesome fic that traces Dean’s shifting/growing feelings for Cas from when he shows up in his hotel rooms to a HEA fix it after canon. Dean, again, is handled so deftly in this one, his confusion and sorrow at all the times Cas is slipping away from him all the way through the things he won’t let himself know. He feels really true in this one, sharp and tender in the best Dean ways. Also it has an agonizingly romantic end, you love to end up there.

Pins and Feathers by theskywasblue (@buttherewasnogod)

This author has so many freaking good SPN fics, omg it was almost impossible to pick just one to include on this list. Go treat yourself with their entire list because there’s so much good stuff there! But this one, oh I am a sucker for a finale fix-it that lets Dean be this tender. While I LOVE fics where he just jumps right into Cas’s arms (and write them lol) I also feel like this is so true to Dean too: that “maybe I misunderstood, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, maybe he doesn’t still –” And on top of all that, it’s a “they go the beach” fic and it gets the details of it so right, sand in your toes and all. Tender, amazing slow-burn, real, hot, full of heart and longing and everything unspoken and just waiting. Very satisfying!

i loved you first by kalmialatifolia

A set of four short fics that create an entire world of feeling and emotion. These feel like little whispered stories told under the covers, very atmospheric. There’s one very sexy one, a haircutting one (so good) and they’re just intimate. All together a great set and did I mention they’re in the “Cas saves himself” genre which is mmmm an underrated treasure.

no other faith is light enough for this place by anonymous 

A fix-it fic that has a particularly unique and beautiful visual of both how and why Cas comes back. The mechanics behind it are fairly standard but the way this author creates the visual of it, the sheer emotion and force behind it and how it happens, it really stood out to me and stuck with me. It’s Dean being brave enough to really feel and the way that just blossoms – lovely, aching, full-tilt wonderful.

 no proof, one touch by TakeThisWaltz (@watchinghimrakeleaves)

One thing I absolutely cannot get enough of is fic where Cas is hiding out from Dean in heaven. It just hits. And the only thing better is Dean chasing him down and the WAY he does it in this fic, methodically and – well the method (sobs) it is so endearing and OBVIOUS and gives Dean a chance to shout in all the best ways. This one is just real sweet and kind of goofy and if they have to be in heaven, I want them to still be these same two dorks.

Stay by redbrickrose

This is a post S15x18 from Cas’s POV and I think it’s very true to where he would be in the moment of getting yanked out of the Empty: resigned, hesitant about what he has in front of him, still a little in shock. And then. And then. Sweet and simple and Dean gets a chance to say, say, say it. This author has a good post series AU and a lovely little spate of S15 codas, all good. And then wrote this in real-time in the week after 15x18 Despair and right before 15x19 Inherit the Earth aired (could you just sob over the possibilities?!) and then hasn’t wrote anything since and that’s a shame but, like, yeah I get it.

like a one-two punch by Muir_Wolf (@muirmarie)

Don’t you love a short fic that feels like it’s a whole novel? This goes AU after 14x20 Moriah but it is a truly delightful twist on how Chuck could’ve reacted there and it makes Dean sharp as a knife, which is one really resonant image woven through this fic. Great imagery here and so many clever solutions for the lazy plotting of S15, including simply one of my all-time favorites in any fic ever solutions to Cas’s deal (genius) and getting rid of Chuck. Brilliant like a puzzle box yet still full of so much fucking joy.

maybe i like pleasure pain by tothewillofthepeople (@kvothes)

The fact that this was written in October 2023 and is so agonizingly good fills my heart with joy and tells me Destiel will never die lol. Cas, in particular, is great in this – he’s having a hard time adjusting to being in a body and with all the fuzz of the world. I love fics where Cas struggles with coming back from the Empty and this uses a really unique approach to it: Cas facing sensory overload and not knowing how to feel but wanting it all. Lovely, hot, Dean is just right in this too.

Earlier Canon (pre S15)

Proverbs 13:12 by starlingcas (@angelcasendgame)

Many might say I am biased because Renu has beta’ed everything I have written in the SPN fandom and they can read my brain and make everything I write better. But it’s not just that. Renu has done something beautiful and delicate in this fic, which is about Dean and Cas getting trapped in a net together (forced proximity trope, yes please) and weaves a web of its own; pulling you in just as they are pulled together. This is set mostly in early S14 (before fixing the finale in the most heart-healing way) and captures that feeling so well. There’s so much that’s unsaid between them yet still conveyed and Renu absolutely nails that, along with the tender longing that was always there. This is a fic to relish.

you may tire of me (as our december sun is setting) by deludedfantasy

You know how the show just sometimes is like “uh so anyway uh then Cas…uh…left.” and it just doesn’t make one lick of sense? FINALLY FINALLY a fic where Dean says “I’ll go with you,” and then goes because he actually would do that. This is a post Tombstone fic so it is exactly where/when he WOULD go and it is tender and hesitant and aching in just all the ways it would be between the two of them at this time. It’s about needing to keep someone in sight, it’s about having another chance to say something so important, it’s slow and soft and just right for the characters in this place. I could read this one about 100 times.

the anatomy of flightless birds by cowlovely (@dollhousemary)

This fic is basically the way you feel when you get all cozy and snug underneath your favorite blanket. This is a domestic-life-in-the Bunker S9 fic where everyone behaves like they are in character and not just like they have to get Cas off screen because the writers panicked. You’ll just want to curl up in this fic and savor it the way you wrap your fingers around a hot beverage on a very cold day, there’s no better way to describe it.

virtue by JenTheSweetie

I think I’ve read this about 100 times and it still gets me everytime? It’s a five things fic about Dean and Cas hooking up and it’s all you’ve ever wished for. This is set in an amorphous S8 and it is not just agonizingly hot but also romantic and very funny. It feels really in character! Sam is hilarious, Dean is clueless but bowled over and letting himself be swept up, Cas is delighting in every second and smarter than he lets on and it ALL feels fated and lovely and sexy and just splendid. (this author only has 3 SPN fics but they are all so good and if you try sometimes, well you just might find is an absolutely brilliant deconstruction of Dean learning the differences between “needing” and “wanting.”)

Romance at the Motel 6 by shelia_amour 

This fic makes me feel like Stefon from SNL. This fic has everything: Cas and Sam pretending to be married, just the right amount of jealous Dean, Dean randomly pretending to be married to Cas, Dean realizing maybe this isn’t so fake after all, motel vibes, Cas in Dean’s clothes, Cas getting bee slippers. If you are not sold on this already, we are very different people. So good, aches just right. (set in a kind of “whenever” of canon, but I like to put it somewhere in S8.)

que sera sera by Purple_Starflower (@hauntedpearl)

The epitome of how fanfic unfolds for us all the things that COULD happen. You can’t PROVE to me Dean and Cas never snuck off to snuggle and feed Dean’s touch-starvation early in S13. I had to check when I finished because I just couldn’t believe this fic was under 4000 words because it feels so full of touch, longing, the things unspoken, and all the ways Dean was reaching, reaching, reaching. The best kind of ache, and everything by this author is lovely. 

the hard edge that you’re settling for by lesspopped (@trekkiedean)

This is some S10 Demon!Dean that made my stomach hurt and my heart ache and I absolutely loved it and I absolutely hated it and it all felt so REAL with who Demon!Dean was and could have been. There’s a TW for mildly dubious consent in this, but to me, Cas was so agonizingly true to who he was/where he was at this point in canon too. This fic is gloriously, claustrophobically intimate. I say unbearable because as a reader you know that this closeness, this intimacy, is what Dean wants/craves/deserves but can only give himself as a demon and the author does an exquisite job at getting all that across. Hurts so good! 

four of swords by sundryvillians (eurythmix) (@perenial)

Can the world ever have enough post 12x12 fic? The answer is, of course, no. Dean and Cas bake bread and in the soft space of creating something with their own hands, get so close to the words Cas said. It’s about healing and anger and making something just because you are so tired of everything breaking. If that alone isn’t enough to convince you, let me also throw in this is another one of those “possible off-screen moments in canon” that gives them something honest and tender and raw and it feels so very possible. 

Fifteen Prayers From the Faithless by koyas_cat

Short, achy, that sweet sting. A set of prayers for Cas from the beginning to the end, full of all the things Dean doesn’t let himself say outloud and just reflecting the changes in their connection over alllll the years. So good.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.

[heavenlyyshecomes]

recs directory

all my book / articles / film recs !! please check before sending an ask for recs <3 (this are mostly from 2020-22 so don't hesitate to ask for newer recs)

last updated: 13.04.2024

books

essay collections

short books for a reading slump

old wlw books

on generational trauma

social media accs for book recs women in translation MET art books on loneliness / pt. 2 lithub syllabi arthurian + atmospheric on internet culture gentle books underrated favs 2022 reads fav prose quarterly book recs summer reading list: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 monsoon reading list: 2022 yearly tbr: 2022, 2023 random fiction, pt. 2, pt. 3*, pt. 4*, pt. 5*, nonfiction yearly fav reads: 2019*, 2021 on colour theory* drive link to books*

sff recs related tags: ref: mine, ref, book recs, book log

articles

misc readings tag random recs

places to read articles related tags: readings, articles

films

short films horror films random recs fav first watches: 2022 related tags: movie log

[transmutationisms]

do you have any reading recs (books, ~scholarly articles, whatever) in the same vein as this post? (doesn't need to be a super long list, i'm content to branch off with the works cited of whatever you come up with...) as always, love your blog!! :-)

yes :3 split roughly by subtopic, bolded some favs

Evolution in England prior to (Charles) Darwin

Cooter, Roger. The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organisation of Consent in Nineteenth Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1985).

Desmond, Adrian. The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1989).

Elliott, Paul. “Erasmus Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and the Origin of the Evolutionary Worldview in British Provincial Scientific Culture, 1770–1850.” Isis 94 (1): 1–29 (2003).

Finchman, Martin. “Biology and Politics: Defining the Boundaries.” In: Lightman, Bernard (Ed.). Victorian Science in Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1997), 94–118.

Fyfe, Aileen. Steam-Powered Knowledge: William Chambers and the Business of Publishing, 1820–1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2012).

Harrison, James. “Erasmus Darwin’s View of Evolution.” Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (2): 247–64 (1971).

McNeil, Maureen. Under the Banner of Science: Erasmus Darwin and his Age. Manchester: Manchester University Press (1987).

Ospovat, Dov. “The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer’s Embryology 1828–1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen’s and William Benjamin Carpenter’s ‘Palaeontological Application of Von Baer’s Law.’” Journal of the History of Biology 9 (1): 1–28 (1976).

Rehbock, Philip F. The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-Century British Biology. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press (1983).

Richards, Robert J. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behaviour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1987).

Rupke, Nicolaas. Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2009 [ 1994]).

Secord, James. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2001).

van Wyhe, John. Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism. London: Ashgate (2004).

Winter, Alison. “The Construction of Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in the Early Life Sciences.” In: Lightman, Bernard (Ed.). Victorian Science in Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1997), 24–50.

Yeo, Richard. “Science and Intellectual Authority in Mid-Nineteenth Century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” Victorian Studies 28 (1): 5–31 (1984).

Edinburgh Lamarckians and Scottish transmutationism

Desmond, Adrian. “Robert E. Grant: The Social Predicament of a Pre-Darwinian Transmutationist.” Journal of the History of Biology 17 (2): 189–223 (1984).

Jenkins, Bill. Evolution Before Darwin. Theories of the Transmutation of Species in Edinburgh, 1804–1834. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (2019).

Secord, James. “The Edinburgh Lamarckians: Robert Jameson and Robert E. Grant.” Journal of the History of Biology 24 (1): 1–18 (1991).

Corsi, Pietro. ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians? The Authorship of Three Anonymous Papers (1826–1829)’, Journal of the History of Biology 54 (2021), pp. 345–374.

Darwin and Darwinism

Desmond, Adrian and James Moore. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company (1994).

van Wyhe, John. “Mind the Gap. Did Darwin Avoid Publishing his Theory for many years?” Notes & Records of the Royal Society 61 (2007), 177–205.

Sloan, Philip R. “Darwin, Vital Matter, and the Transformation of Species.” Journal of the History of Biology 19 (3): 369–445 (1986).

Phillip R. Sloan, “The Making of a Philosophical Naturalist.” In: Hodge, Jonathan and Gregory Radick (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2009), 17–39.

Sponsel, Alistair. Darwin’s Evolving Identity: Adventure, Ambition, and the Sin of Speculation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2018).

Young, Robert M. “Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory.” Past & Present 43 (1969): 109–45.

Young, Robert M. “Darwin’s Metaphor: Does Nature Select?” The Monist 55 (3): 442–503 (1971).

Bowler, Peter J. The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1988).

Bowler, Peter J. The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1983).

Hale, Piers J. “Rejecting the Myth of the Non-Darwinian Revolution.” Victorian Review 41 (2): 13–18 (Fall 2015).

Lightman, Bernard. “Darwin and the popularisation of evolution.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 64: 5–24 (2010).

Richards, Robert J. The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1992).

Ruse, Michael. The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1979).

Lamarck and Lamarckism

Barthélemy-Madaule, Madeleine. 1982. Lamarck, the Mythical Precursor: A Study of the Relations between Science and Ideology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Burkhardt, Richard. 1970. Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science. Journal of the History of Biology 3 (2): 275–298.

Burkhardt, Richard. 1977. The Spirit of System: Lamarck and Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Corsi, Pietro. 1988. The Age of Lamarck: Evolutionary Theories in France, 1790–1830. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Corsi, Pietro. 2005. Before Darwin: Transformist Concepts in European Natural History. Journal of the History of Biology 38 (1): 67-83.

Corsi, Pietro. 2011. The Revolutions of Evolution: Geoffroy and Lamarck, 1825–1840. Bulletin du Musée D’Anthropologie Préhistorique de Monaco 51: 113–134.

Jordanova, Ludmilla. 1984. Lamarck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Spary, Emma C. 2000. Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[ram-reads]

Plot Summary: Cinderella is Dead is a Cinderella retelling where all is not what it seems. In this universe Cinderella was a real person who married the king. Ever since then the women of the kingdom have been required to memorize Cinderella’s story and become the perfect wife like she was. They are given no rights and always have to defer to their husband. On top of this, once a girl turns sixteen she has to attend the annual ball to be chosen by a man to become his wife. They are given three chances to be chosen then after that they are forfeited to the castle. No one knows exactly what happens to people forfeited and most don’t care to find out because they fear retaliation. The main character, Sophia, is tired of being afraid and following all the rules expected of her. All she wants is to run away with the love of her life Erin to a place where they can be together because with the way the king runs his kingdom there is no room for her and others like her. The closer their first ball gets though, the more Erin makes it clear that she would rather do what is expected of her than risk it all to be with Sophia. Heartbroken and dreading her future with someone she doesn’t love, Sophia does something that most people are afraid to do: she flees the ball. With the guards hot on her heels and with nowhere to run she happens upon a girl named Constance who reveals that she is a descendent of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters. After Constance shares the truth of Cinderella’s story Sophia decides she wants to help destroy the king and all that he stands for together with Constance. Thoughts: I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again: I don’t typically enjoy books where women have no rights and are treated terribly. I would much rather read a book where women are treated as equals. It doesn’t help that the last two books I read before starting this one had similar themes of inequality. I appreciate the messaging of standing up for yourself and fighting for what is right, but even the way the messaging came across was a little too in my face. Another reason I didn’t like the plot is because it felt like the author took no risks. It was very predictable. Every time I was hoping an interesting twist would happen, it didn’t. The plot was kept simple and because of that I was bored throughout most of it. I only found myself being surprised once and that was within the last forty pages of the book. Even though I know the author has written books before this one the writing felt amateurish. The worldbuilding had so much potential but was never expanded on past the town Sophia was from. I also felt like the writing was stifled because the author had to write within the confines of the Cinderella fairy tale. I think this story would have been better if the author had just loosely based it around the fairy tale and not tried to fit every aspect of it into the book. As for the characters, they left little impression on me. Of course I wanted Sophia to win, but beyond that I had no special feelings for her. She wasn’t the brightest protagonist or even the most interesting. The only times I enjoyed her character was when she stood up for herself whenever a man tried to speak down to her or control her. I also felt nothing for Constance. She was just kind of there. She was a very bland character. The only character I kind of liked was Amina who gets introduced about halfway through the story. After she came into play the dynamic between the three of them brought more life to the story for a little while. I loved the animosity between her and Constance while on the flipside she acted like a caring grandmother to Sophia. Like my feelings for most aspects of this book, when it came to the romance between Sophia and Constance I didn’t hate it but I also didn’t much care for it. The spark between them was instantaneous and since this is a fairy tale retelling I’m a little more lenient toward instalove, but even with that being the case I still found it a little weird since Sophia had just gotten her heart broken moments before meeting Constance. They were cute I guess, but like I said I had no strong feelings toward their relationship. Overall this book did nothing for me. The plot was predictable and not my cup of tea, the worldbuilding was nonexistent, the characters were bland, and the romance wasn’t anything special. I have two other books by this author on my to-read list, but I think I’m going to put them near the bottom because this book has left me unimpressed.

[hugheses]

love your scholarship 🥸

do you know anything about their school/college days - ie if they liked school/had favourite subjects/took particular classes? if Quinn and Luke declared majors at mich?

also if they’ve ever said what they read? think I read that Jack says he likes to read (sports books maybe?) in his spare time and one in of Ellen’s interviews she talks about reading (to them?) and somewhere else about how she was super involved in their academics

The teacher in me is fascinated!

quinn was enrolled in the school of kinesiology and majoring in sports management.

in 2021 he said

If you weren’t a hockey player, what else might you be doing? — Veronica X. I don’t know, I love golf. I’d probably be golfing a lot. I’d be in school somewhere … I’d be a senior right now so I’d probably be getting my degree in the next couple of weeks. Maybe business or sport management? That’s what I was looking at at Michigan for two years.

luke's intended major was also sports management. he was taking a business management class and fumbled his part on a group project when he signed with the devils. he took a greek sports history class and talked about how he doesn't love school but he likes history here (worth listening to imo) and he also enjoyed history of college athletics. luke actually took an online college class before officially starting at umich

"I'm taking an online chemistry class to get it off my plate. I wake-up and do two hours of that and then I go and work out with [trainer] Brian Gallivan and then I skate and then just chill by the pool and hang out. It's been nice."

here's a snippet from quinn about books

Hughes has become an avid reader to expand his knowledge and make better use of downtime. He recently completed “The Boys in the Boat” historical epic that was made into a movie directed by George Clooney. “I buried it, it’s done,” Hughes proudly stated Tuesday after practice. “I finished it three weeks ago. Great book. Page turner. I’m reading ‘Moneyball’ now.” “Boys in the Boat” is a riveting and true account of how the Depression-era University of Washington junior varsity rowing team stunned the world by overcoming immense odds to capture gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Joe Rantz was a driving force for the eight-man crew. A strong rower with an unshakeable disposition sounds a lot like the driven Hughes. “I thought Joe was just a hard worker who did his job and was a quiet guy,” said Hughes. “He appreciated everything that came his way. He pretty much raised himself from the age of 10 and was a very outdoors person.”

he apparently is "reading a book almost weekly to try to improve his brain" and he also was spotted reading Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to Control the Controllables and Thrive

jack likes reading sports books as said here, specifically Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success and Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty. The Mamba Mentality: How I Play was on his reading list in high school. he also talks about books here

Craig: The other thing that (Williams) said was reading. He said you’re asking for book recs. We’re looking for book recs. We’re big readers. Jack: Yeah, you guys got any? I dunno. (I’m tired of) everything on my phone, social media, things like that — and I never went to college, so you gotta get smarter somehow. Craig: Are you a fiction guy? Are you a self-improvement guy? What do you find yourself gravitating towards? Jack: I read a lot of sports books. “Eleven Rings,” by Phil Jackson. Also, “Greenlights” by Matthew McConaughey. Those are my favorite ones I’ve read recently. It’s important. We’ve got a lot of down time on the road, so it’s good stuff.

as for ellen, she said this in the cammi & aj podcast

So for me, you do things that you enjoy or you- you teach them things that you feel like you can teach them, Right. So it's kind of a slight on me that I wasn't more worldly and wanting to take them to museums. Or maybe like I felt like I had do those things because like, ‘Oh my God, what am I teaching them?’ But you tend to do the things that you - you're trying to find activities. Jimmy was off coaching a lot, I had three young boys that were really close in age. So what do I know? What can I do to pass time and keep them active? It was kicking a soccer ball. It was throwing a ball, it was doing rollerblading, it was passing the puck, it was taking them skating. So for me, those were mommy and me activities, right? And then every once in a while I'd be like, you know, I'd be like, ‘uh, we got to do Kumon, we gotta do like - we gotta read.’ You know, academics was really important to me because I felt like I was so driven the other way that like, I didn’t want to miss out on the other. So for us, it was never this grandiose plan, and I'm sure you guys were the same way. It was more like, ‘be the best at whatever it is you're doing, work your hardest at whatever it is you're doing.’ Working the hardest didn't mean scoring the most goals. It was playing the right way, whatever it is, being a great teammate and working really, really hard and we always felt like the other would come.

other potentially interesting notes, jack was an honor roll student in 8th grade, and quinn agreed he was the best at school when they were younger, so it's funny he's the one who didn't end up going to college. ellen's brother is actually the president of denison university and they have some pretty academic cousins also.

[qcomicsy]

Hi

Can you recommend me Bat-family comics to read? Which ones do you like?

Heyyyy

I would love it!

DISCLAIMER Keep it in mind I'm a casual reader so my recs might not be the most "this is every issue they are together" or the longer ones!

Let's go!

Nightwing Annual (2021)

Dick & Jason focused

This is one of my favorites ones, it focuses both on Dick's and Jason's relationship as Nightwing and Robin and Nightwing and Redhood.

The dialogue is great, it has both it's really funny bits but also it's really wholesome ones too and it's full of heartwarming moments.

I absolutely adore the way they handled Jason's Robin and acknowledges his violent tendencies without judging him for it.

He's not portrayed as overly violent and reckless, but as a normal teenager having normal reactions given the things he had to deal in his past.

My only criticism is Jason still using that damn crowbar and how they kept drawing Jason shorter the Nightwing for some reason. I think it was to accentuate the "younger brother" feelings so I forgive the artist.

But it's pretty funny.

He looks like short king

Robin & Batman

Dick and Bruce focused

Oh this one, this one it's so good, so good that almost got me crying on main. It's really beautiful, I wasn't the happiest about how Bruce behaved in the comic but it sat in a fine line between Batdad and Bruce being a terrible father/person.

He is too hard on Robin, but it does show how he is trying.

The art is goddamn beautiful, it has this watercolor look and Dick looks adorable on it.

It also goes deep in Dick's feelings about being Robin and what the whole jig means to him, it respects Dick's relationship with Bruce but without forgetting the love and the moments he had with his biological parents.

It's just really, really beautiful a goddamn gem between the many mistakes DC made with them two over those years.

For Tim and Dick I really recomend

Batman Prodigal (1997)

Note: The whole Kightfell series is great for a Bruce, Dick and Tim read. But for the Batfam feelings you can just focus on the prodigal parts.

Dick & Tim focused

The only thing you have to know to catch up is:

1. Bane broke Bruce's back and dignity, so he couldn't still be Batman.

2. Bruce found this guy called Jean Paul to fill for him.

3. Jean Paul is really fond of punishment and violence and the good ol' catholic guilt and goes a little bit too rogue as Batman for everyone's liking.

4. Bruce takes the mantle from Jean Paul and Nightwing fills in as the new Batman.

I wouldn't call exactly brotherly, because Tim wasn't adopted yet in the timeline this was published but they have their moments.

New talent show case DC #2017

Duke and Jason focused

This is also a favorite. It's a short story (unfortunately) but every single panel is worth it.

It's basically Jason and Duke bonding moment between fighting some baddies and trying to clown each other on the way. 10/10 will always recommend.

Robin War

Jason & Duke & Tim & Damian

This one I've read recently (thanks for the asks people send to me y'all are fucking great) and it's a fucking gem!

It shows a lot their chemistry on the battlefield and how fucking insufferable they are around each other. It also shows how Duke fits as a glove in this family of misfits even before he was an "official member".

Red Hood and the Outlaws Annual (2016)

Another Dick and Jason focused!

Oh this one is a blast! It's also short but so goddamn worth it.

Basically Jason and the Outlaws take a gig in a circus to track a Russian bad guy (gotta love how comic books have unresolved beef with Russians until this day) and well it's a circus so how can you not call Dick Grayson?

It's so goddamn funny and it has no right to be, it still very close in the timeline where Dick and Jason were definitely not in good terms, so their interaction it's all so awkward it's a joy really.

We also got a flashback from Dick and younger Jason as Robin and even the flashback is goddamn hilarious, I had such a good time reading it that it's a must read!

Now If you're here for the angst and general feeling's™

I would highly recomend.

- Nightwing Year One (Dick & Bruce)

- Death in the Family (Jason & Bruce & Dick)

- Red Robin (Tim & Dick / Tim & Damian / minor Tim & Cass / Minor Bruce & Tim)

Note: They don't interact much in this run but when they do it hurts. It also can help you understand the beef between Tim and Damian better.

- DCeased (Damian & Steph / minor Damian & Jason)

Note: It's one of the many, many DC aus but this one it's 'pretty' good (it's decent). Definitely not Batfam focused but it has one one of my favorite Damian & Steph and Damian & Jason moments. It's also one of my favorites interpretations of Damian, he gets so sweet and mature over the years that passes in the comic and his reencounter with Jason rewrote my entirety brain chemistry.

Also unfortunately it's the only time we get to see Damian and Jon growing up together :')

- DC vs Vampires ( Batfam (except Duke because the author is a coward) specially Tim & Damian / Tim & Bruce / Dick & Almost everybody )

Note: Okay this one is a fucking car ride, a rollercoaster if you will. And it's ANOTHER DC au but with yeah VAMPIRES so buckle-up.

It has major Batfam moments in the beginning and one of my favorites Damian and Tim interactions ( I'm going to reblog this with photos because Tumblr is homophobic and isn't letting me add more photos in this shit >:( ). Then it goes hard on betrayal (trying not to add spoilers) and feelings so get ready for that.

I unfortunately haven't finished (casual reader remember that) but the much I've read was really, really good.

It gets very silly very quickly as anything made with vampires generally get (unfortunately they butchered a lot of characters in the process) but if you go head empty no thoughts you're going to get a lot of fun and maybe cry a little if that gets to you.

So this is it. I'm sure it has more of it, and oh I'm sure I forgot a lot of it but those are the one's I could get from the top of my head, so I hope you and all of the people who want to follow it have fun!

Also if someone has more recommendations feel free to add on the Reblogs, I'm sure I will eat it up anyway.