#it’s a fantastic series. it’s horror. it’s history. it’s queer.

[kissmefriendly]

Don’t listen to the voice that goes “This horror show will help you fall asleep, the narrator has such a nice voice” that’s the devil talking. You will be right about to drop off when the gruesome descriptions and sound design of burnt reanimated miners on a murder spree will have you sat bolt upright with the side light on

[fahye]

book recs: feb 2024

(disclaimer: I have spent nearly three months languishing and sullen with post-COVID symptoms and have read, over dec-feb, eighty-one books. this is a ruthlessly streamlined list of recs that does not include, uh, all the rereading of sarah maclean and charlie adhara and georgette heyer books.)

AT FIRST SPITE by olivia dade - what if I moved in next to the man who ruined my engagement to his younger brother, and tried to ruin his life by playing monsterfucking audiobooks really loudly?? a heartfelt and lovely romance that also expertly sets up a great small-town setting for an ongoing series.

THE REFORMATORY by tananarive due - historical horror based on the existence of a real school for boys, clear-eyed and brutal in showing the the effect of racist systems in the 1950s american south. compelling as hell. even if you're not usually into horror, I'd recommend this: the ghost aspect is light-handed and really not as important as the horror of what humans do to other humans.

SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL by anita kelly - this is a m/m romance about walking the pacific crest trail which made me see the appeal of very long walks. a miracle! it's gentle and emotional and well put together; the characters really grabbed me.

THE BELL IN THE FOG by lev a.c. rosen - the followup to 'lavender house', and somehow even better?? a historical mystery series featuring a queer private eye in 1950s san francisco who looks into crimes against other queer people. amazing queer history! ACAB! I hope there are fifty more books in this series.

FEAST WHILE YOU CAN* by mikaella clements & onjuli datta - beautiful, greedy, terrifying small-town horror that is also a fucking fantastic, gorgeously written sapphic love story. this one IS for the horror fans. it gave me the absolute creeps but I couldn't put it down.

LADY EVE'S LAST CON* by rebecca fraimow - I described this on bsky as 'if you like Leverage, space opera, old screwball comedies, and dashing sapphics who are at all times spiritually wearing a leather jacket: this one is for you' and I stand by that. huge amounts of fun.

LONG LIVE EVIL* by sarah rees brennan - I will be screaming from here until forever about SRB's first adult fantasy book. if you like the isekai'd-into-a-villain-character setup and want it to be hilarious, genre-savvy and wildly angry and clever, you will roll around in this like a blood-stained mud puddle and then beg for more.

THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS* by melissa caruso - really clever and original fantasy about a woman on maternity leave who gets dragged into saving a cocktail party which is falling through increasingly murderous and bizarre dimensions. LISTEN, JUST GO WITH IT. it's a seriously cool adventure.

YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY* by cat sebastian - yes, it's another m/m romance about queer history in the mid 20th century, this one between a baseball player and the journalist assigned to write a story about his slump. made me care about baseball. cat is a genius.

*I read these as ARCs, they're not available yet but consider preordering or keep your eye out for them!

[dayscapism]

So JK Rowling is shit, read this instead of Harry Potter - part 1/3:

Part 2 - Middle grade/children's books

Part 3 - Young Adult (YA)

This is a list of fantasy books (and some sci-fi) for people who no longer want to support a transphobe & bigot but are still having a hard time finding something that fills the void of Harry Potter. This is a LONG list, with adult, middle grade, and YA recs, divided into 3 parts, one for each age range. Most of these books are far better than HP anyway.

You can still enjoy your merch, books or movies you already own, no one is telling you you can't like or love Harry Potter and the Wizarding World, but please consider diversifying your media so you don't wrongly assume this franchise is the best fantasy ever and nothing can top it when that is simply not true.

As a guide, these are the things I associate with Harry Potter: wizards & witches, magic school, horror elements, mythical/magical creatures, mystery, nostalgia, magical trinkets & artefacts, themes of friendship, family & love and discussions of death/death imagery. Dark forest, ghosts, gloomy aesthetic, medieval castles, cosy reading rooms, libraries, very British, Christmas & Halloween, dark forests, a relatively modern world combined with magic/alternate world, astronomy/astrology, divination. Also tropes like magic politics & bureaucracy, prophecies, the chosen + dead parents, coming of age, discussions on discrimination and outcasts (sort of), good triumphing over evil, overcoming childhood trauma, school-bullying, and also the protagonist is sort of a celebrity for reasons they can't control which others them from society.

These recommendations are based on that, but of course, each recommended book is much more than its similarities with harry potter, a world in itself. This list is NOT comprehensive.

Let's go then!

If you take anything from this post, let it be this series because it is the perfect alternative:

The Nevermoor Series by Jessica Townsend!

This really should blow up worldwide, be the new fantasy phenomenon. It honestly pains me to even put it beside or compare it to Harry Potter. It feels disrespectful to Nevermoor, but it has everything and more you want out of HP. Traumatized kid protagonist who gets whisked away into an alternate world of magic, finds out she's special, meets a wonderful magical mentor/father figure (who isn't actually awful like Dumbledore is to Harry), lots of school friendships and found family, a wonderful setting including a magic school and a magical city with all kinds of fantastical landmarks and alleyways; with magical markets dark and whimsical both. There's magical trials, witches, oracles, fantastical giant creatures, sentient magical animals, and so much more. And it has good discussions on themes of discrimination, school bullying, and mental health. If you like Coraline or The Adams Family, this is perfect for you, too. Plus, this series is written by a queer author who has shown active support to social causes like Palestine.

The series is still releasing, so if you have kids in your life they could grow up with the series as it comes out.

Books in the series:

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow

Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow

Currently waiting on Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow

Adult book recommendations under the cut:

Adult books: Great alternatives to the later HP books and for readers who don't vibe with middle grade or YA anymore.

★ Books I've read myself.

★ The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (trilogy): A dark-skinned, low-class provincial orphan enters a military academy, and must prove her value as a soldier. She discovers she has a hidden, lethal power. High fantasy, based on the Chinese wars and history of the 20th century. Has a magic school/military school setting in the first book. Discussions on the horrors of war and a person's loss of humanity under extenuating circumstances. Excellent character work.

★ Discworld by Terry Pratchett (YA/Adult, different series set in the same world). In particular, the Witches, Death, and Ricewind sub-series have similarities to HP in subject, characters, setting or themes. These books have lots of British humour and excellent commentary on social issues, and a little bit of a magical school and magic learning too.

★ T. Kingfisher books: Nettle & Bone, What Moves the Dead, Thorn Hedge, Paladin's Grace, A House With Good Bones and more. The author does mostly fairy tale retellings and horror. Great for fans of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

★ The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (standalone): You want magic? Well, this is, I think, the most magical book ever written. It's so atmospheric, whimsical, historical, and dark. It's about two magicians duelling each other, showing off their magical abilities, under the wishes of their families/mentors (Dumbledore, anyone?). The competition takes place in a magical circus that only opens at night. It's full of magic, romance, betrayal, and wonderful prose. Perfect if you like The Goblet of Fire but you would want a more quiet, aesthetic version of the tournament.

★ Dead Djinn series by P. Djeli Clark (series, mystery, novel + novellas that can be read in any order): This is about supernatural detectives in an alternate history of the city of Cairo, a city full of otherworldly creatures. There's a Ministry of Alchemy, LGBTQ+ rep, discussions of colonialism (especially committed by the British), lots of cheeky humour and cool magical artefacts or magic mixed with technology. It's also set in the 1910s, so it's great for fans of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (ongoing series): This has a highly-praised magic school setting. It's about a notorious wizard who narrates his story; his childhood, years being a feral orphan, his school years and then life as a fugitive of the law. This series is hailed as one of the best ones in fantasy right now. Great prose too.

Black Prism by Brent Weeks (series): We all know HP is not applauded for having the most coherent magic system. Well, in this book you get a really inventive magic system based on light: in this world, some people can use different colours of visible light to do magic. The people who can use all of them are called Prisms. We follow this one magician who is the current Prism, most powerful man in the world, high priest and emperor, and also a man of wit and charm. He knows Prisms never last though... Great for people who would like a book about a powerful, high-achieving magician, like say, Dumbledore.

★ Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (duology): A young librarian is convinced of the existence of the mythical city of Weep, which was cut from the rest of the world two hundred years ago. He is obsessed. No one believes him. One day an opportunity to travel to said city presents itself and all his dreams come true. But the city hides a dark past, and not all the inhabitants were always human: some were gods with blue skin. Beautifully written, whimsical at every turn but also full of complex, deep subjects.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (ongoing series): It's dark academia in Yale but if Yale had a bunch of occult secret clubs. A freshman, Alex, is the sole survivor of a multiple homicide and still searching for answers herself. She arrives at the school tasked to monitor the activities of the secret societies full of rich students. But the occult activities are more sinister and extraordinary than what she imagined.

Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna (standalone): Magic school but now the protagonist is the witch teacher instead of the students, and who comes to teach magic to three young witches. Her coworkers are all a little eccentric, and the love interest is the grumpy librarian. A wholesome, cosy fantasy romance set in alternate contemporary times. Also with the found family trope.

★ Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb (multiple series): Hobb is one of the big names of fantasy. This is a low fantasy medieval world, with dragons, assassins, animal familiars, royal courts and backstabbing politics. If you like Game of Thrones, you'll probably like this series too. These books are character-centric to Fitz, the protagonist and bastard-born to the late crown prince, and the court jester, the Fool. The first trilogy is about Fitz's apprenticeship as an assassin to the royal family, his coming-of-age discovery of multiple hidden magic abilities that connect him to his family and the world of beasts, and his journey to save his uncle and country. So basically a non-formal magical school. Hobb has some problematic LGBTQ+ representation, though; she couldn't write a good queer character if her life depended on it. She seems to have the biases of her time ingrained in her and it shows in her writing. So there's that to consider.

★ The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (trilogy): You want a series that you will be thinking about for the rest of your life?? This one. This one is it. This trilogy is about a world where every certain time, there's a worldwide cataclysmic seismic/volcanic disaster. Humanity has evolved strict tactics to survive this, but some individuals are born with the ability to affect seismic movements. These individuals are feared and are put as children into a school where they can learn to control their superhuman abilities and later be in service of the government. One of our protagonists is one of these children. It's about motherhood and community, and has LGBTQ+ with in-text trans, bisexual, and polyamory representation. It discusses subjects of technological advancement, society and discrimination.

Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (duology): This is often called "the anti-Harry Potter book". It has elements of mystery-thriller, plays with time/time loops, a magical university, post-soviet culture in Ukraine, metamorphosis, and it's very atmospheric. It's also recommended for fans of The Night Circus and The Magicians. It's best if you go into it not knowing much.

Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan (series): For fans of Charlie Weasley and Newt Scamander, set in a world where dragons are real. The protagonist and narrator is the world's preeminent dragon naturalist, who is set to bring these creatures of myth into the light of modern science. It's a coming-of-age story, about learning, and expeditions in search of magical creatures. It's more historical fiction than fantasy though.

The Chronicles of Between by L.L. Starling (ongoing series, romance, cosy, witches): The protagonist starts dreaming weird things when she accepts a position as a substitute teacher in a charmingly witchy village, and soon realizes they're not dreams, but magic. She gatecrashes a fairytale kingdom with drunken unicorns, bored dragons and sorcerers in leather pants. She accidentally performs a supposedly impossible feat and ends up tethered to this world by marriage and a title, but she forges an escape plan...

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey (standalone, mystery, urban fantasy): About a private investigator who never wanted to be magical. Not like her estranged sister, who is a magically gifted professor. But when she is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member in her sister's academy, the detective starts to lose herself in the crime and the life she could have had.

★ House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: LGBTQ+ rep, boarding school, perspective from the teachers/caretakers PoV, and feral, traumatized magical children. Edit: This book has been criticized for being anti-indigenous, in particular with the boarding school plotline being a parallel to residential schools, thus being insensitive and trivializing the history of erasure, violence, genocide and forced assimilation done by the colonizers towards the indigenous people of Canada.

The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (non-fiction): Exploration of race in popular youth & YA speculative fiction. Analyzing popular media including Harry Potter. Explores radical imagination & Afrofuturism in Black feminism, books and fan fiction to reveal new possibilities.

Disclaimer: I'm just one person/reader, I haven't checked the political or moral views of all these authors or if they're a shitty person. Anything I know or majorly problematic stuff is considered and accounted for, but it's not realistic for me to deep-check each author I ever read. But anyone is welcome to chime in if you know of something we should be aware of about these books/authors.

Always remember to check for trigger warnings (TW), especially for adult books.

Happy reading!

Supporting Sources:

https://www.aspiraldance.com/middle-grade-and-young-adult-books-to-read-instead-of-harry-potter/

https://missprint.wordpress.com/2022/09/01/back-to-magic-school-harry-potter-alternatives-booklist/

Goodreads for synopses.

[liesmyth]

do you have any book recommendations? anything like the locked tomb or just fantasy/science fiction in general? :)

Hi anon I LOVE GIVING BOOK RECS!

Unfortunately I haven’t found anything quite like TLT, but when you break it into main themes some other series come close. So, if you liked The Locked Tomb for…

Morally ambiguous lesbians and oppressive empires? Try The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. I love Baru as a character and I love and what the book does with themes of cultural assimilation and how the road to a righteous goal is paved with moral compromises until you’re not sure you’re still on the right path. Content warning for institutional homophobia, which affects the plot and the main character. It’s never gratuitous, but it’s pretty much the opposite of TLT under that point of view so heads up.

Unique worldbuilding, queer characters, distinctive sense of place in a land that was once Earth? Try The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin. This isn’t to everybody’s tastes (usually people love it or hate it) but it does some VERY cool things with scifi and deservedly won a Hugo.

Intricate worldbuilding, necromancy, gothic vibes? Try The Bone Orchard by Sara Mueller. This definitely hits the same “confused and confusing female main character who doesn’t know her own mind” vibes as HtN, which can be good or bad depending on your tastes, but the necromancy bits are fantastic.

Oppressive planetary empires and queer characters? Try A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. This too is about cultural assimilation and has a main murder mystery plot. Space opera about a young diplomat in a precarious position who is sort of sharing her mind space with someone else. Bonus: fun scifi worldbuilding based on some lesser-known historical empires.

Other SFF I read or reread in 2022

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett for worldbuilding, shady empires, female MC, urban fantasy vibes with a strong sense of place and a murder mystery thrown in for flavour.

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. YA fantasy with horror vibes that I very much enjoyed as an adult not usually keen on YA. There are scary eldritch gods, toxic relationships with a hopeful ending, excellent fantasy worldbuilding, a really solid sense of civilization (especially the Deaf culture of the divers that is really interwoven in the setting). Sea monsters! Secrets! Street urchins! This is one of my all-time favourites.

The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik, starting with A Deadly Education; the third book came out two weeks after Nona and it gave me emotional whiplash, because (spoiler!) the angry goth girl gets to be happy in this one! YA, very vivid very fun worldbuilding, spunky teenage heroine with a cynical disposition and death powers.

Obligatory rec for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell just because it’s one of those books that make me feel like I’m a richer person for having read them. It’s an impressive alternate history fantasy, the writing is masterful, the fae villain is unsettling and inhumanly evil, the mundane villains (pettiness, spite, centuries-old institutions) provide excellent dramatic irony. Everyone is insufferable in a petty way that’s also endlessly entertaining, and the two titular characters are absolutely obsessed with each other. The prose is a pastiche and tremendously well written. My only nitpick is that there are way too many men. I get why, given the setting the premise and the characters, and I loved the book, but since this rec originated with an ask about TLT I feel like I have to clarify that the gender ratio is pretty much the polar opposite.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones if you like spunky teenage girl protagonists, poetically described gore, critique of colonialism and indigenous displacement. This is a horror thriller not a sff, sent in the contemporary US, and it’s basically a love letter to the horror movie genre + Native American folk legends. Reccing it anyway because YMMV but to to me it really hit some of the spots that HtN does. (Content warning for off-screen CSA)

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch. Speculative fiction thriller, lots of jumping between alternate timelines and wondering what exactly is going on. It’s not flawless but it’s unabashedly weird in a very fun, very unique way that I really appreciated.

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng. Unique worldbuilding, distinct narrative voices, gothic vibes, weird religious imagery. Fantasy historical fiction about cruel inhuman fae, the worldbuilding is brilliant and very vivid (and what an aesthetic it is!), the story is fucked up in a delicious way, and the prose is a delightful Brontë pastiche. Content warnings for consensual sibling incest and Christian missionaries on a mission of “civilization” through faith (it’s not portrayed in a positive way but the colonialism is definitely there).

[I only flagged content warnings that aren't canon-typical for TLT, but definitely more apply. If you need clarification on a specific book HMU]

[noveldivergence]

𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖗𝖘 𝖉𝖓𝖎 | 𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖘 𝖉𝖓𝖎 | 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖆 𝖉𝖓𝖎

𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖒𝖊

My name is Res or Reston (they/them). I'm a queer, nonbinary 30+ year old writer, artist, and crafter. While professionally, I write educational and reference materials, I also write short stories, and I am attempting my first novel in 2024!

I also do art, mostly OC portraits. I am currently in multiple drawing courses, hoping to improve my work, especially as it pertains to character design.

My degrees are in graphic design, art history, English literature, and education. I was a teacher for many years, until I was injured by a student. I went to Lipscomb and Vanderbilt Universities. I'm an avid reader and believer in continuing education and my goal this year is to take multiple free and cheap continuing education course.

I am autistic, ADHD, and have had a traumatic brain injury. I also have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, with nerve damage and osteoarthritis in my hands.

I am a cult survivor. I've been married for eleven years this year to my fantastic husband, and we have four cats!

𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖒𝖞 𝖜𝖗𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌

My fiction is horror, science fiction, and fantasy. I write adult fiction only, with adult themes involved. While there is usually no sexual content in my work, there are very dark themes, violence, and otherwise upsetting content. I completely respect if this isn't for you!

𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖐𝖘 𝖎𝖓 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖌𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖘

I'm currently working on a science fiction novel inspired heavily by my love of Star Trek and Star Gate, with fantasy elements more inspired by contemporary low fantasy such as ASOIAF. It has a South Asian sapphic lead, a lesbian deuterogonist, a gray asexual deuterogonist, and an overwhelmingly queer and otherwise diverse cast of alien and human characters.

I am also working on a Lovecraftian horror story involving the FBI and an investigative journalist diving into a series of disappearances in a small town secretly controlled by a cult to dark god from the Mythos. Also very diverse, very queer, very adult in content, including murder, gore, religious abuse and trauma, etc. Thinking about making this an audio drama, but unsure.

[diaphin93]

Racial Allegory: The Quick guide on how to write The Whites as the true victims of racism

Okay, try to keep it quick here, I got this hitpiece shown to me and it dabbles into a topic I wanted to write about for a while: Racial Allegory

To make things super short, racial allegories can make for captivating and engaging narratives concerning bigotry and can often be a good narrative tool to subvert tropes and conventions in genres such as fantasy, sci-fi and horror, to analyze relations and depictions of fictional races under the lense of bigotry and marginalization.

The issue with the whole 'genre' of racial allegory is though, that it does very little to actually adress racial injustice and White Supremacy in real life, especially in the western world, as this would require a closer and more critical look into how our history, culture and social systems are shaped to benefit white people over people of color and how even to this moment, the western quality of life is entire build upon colonialism and the continuous exploitation of the global south.

More importantly and more problematically, racial allegory as a genre is highly centered around removing people of color, or in some cases also queer people, from stories about their own oppression project them on a cast of mostly whites and cisheterosexuals. Even in cases where racial allegory is utilized in a diverse cast, it is often used to defocus stories about oppression away from the people affected by them, by inserting liberal colorblindness onto human ethnicity. The X-Men started off as an allegory for the civil rights movement, yet its original cast was comprised of white mostly middle class teenagers, lead by a an upper class white man who owns his own private school. The very premise of the series takes inspiration from the struggle of the black community for equality and instead makes it a fantastical adventure about white kids. And lets not get started with the messy origins of Magneto as a character.

And don't get me wrong. I love the X-Men. They are my favorite Superhero series ever and I absolutely adored X-Men 97. They are great and they are capable of telling good stories about opression, marginalization and resistance. Magneto is my all time favorite Marvel Character and one of my favorite characters in fiction period. And potentially they can be a good starting point to teach younger people their first lesson in concepts such as bigotry and tolerance, but we are all adults here, and I think at some point there is something wrong with grown up people to whom the X-Men are still their first point of reference when it comes to making a point about bigotry.

Because the problem with the concept of the X-Men is exactly of what the original poster brought up here: They fall apart under any closer critical evaluation, because yeah, they are actual dangerous. We wouldn't want in our real lives people who are capable of copying in every detail, up to the intimate, who can cause rapidly changing climate conditions, mess around with he earths entire magnetic fields or infiltrate and manipulate our very mind at a whim running around without any accountability and oversight. You know with what butwhatifidothis surely would agree? That we don't want people to have the means of commiting mass murder at any public location without any regulations, control and oversight. I'm talking of course about gun control here. What we also don't want surely is people being able to change the climate around us for whatever personal benefit they deem fit, to invade our privacy and gain access to our most personal information, to incorperate our image in any context on very public plattforms or be able to kill any innocent civilian without any means to stop them.

These exist in real life of course. They're giants of industry, tech companies, people who creat deepfakes and any police officer, armed redneck standing his ground or white Karen calling the guy on a black guy in a park. And this is really where such racial allegories fall flat, because minorities in real life are not those who wield this form of unchecked power against their environment, but those who get targeted by it and protest to stop it, to creat checks and balances.

X-Men ultimately is build around never thinking too deeply about the implications and just accept the premise, to engage with the fantasy of superheroes who are the underdogs fighting against oppression and for social acceptance. They live off of ignoring the bad optics of, for example, a white girl lecturing a black man about oppression. Becoming too immersed on them on the other hand, to obsessed with their initial premise, too uncritical of it, leads to some fairly bad understanding of bigotry and marginalization, to the point where one basically becomes obsessed with contextualizing those who hold power as the oppressed against the weak, impotent masses. You start at X-Men and end at The Incredibles, of which the randian subtext has already been well enoug discussed.

Going back to Fire Emblem here, away from X-Men, there is already a fairly objectivist fantasy present in the people who make Nabateans their primary racial allegory. Lets not ignore the problematic aspect, that the game doesn't really do racial allegory. It does racism, targeted at people of color, with the most violent examples being commited by the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and with Claude, a mixed race man, having already confirmed it to be the result of the churches doctrine of xenophobia. Instead of getting invested in this though, people like OP focus on the Nabateans as their primary racial allegory. A group of immortal dragons with power beyond any human, who are the offspring of an alien dragon goddess and who used to rule humanity as deities. And who are, of course, depicted as whiter than white, their differenciating traits being elvish ears and mostly light green hair which, lets be honest, would be understood analogous to blonde hair if it wasn't explicitely shown to us to be special, considering the presence of colors such as blue and pink as regular hair colors in the setting. Ignatz and Linhardt even have green hair without being ever framed as looking anything out of the ordinary, lol.

And I think it becomes fairly self-explaining here. There is something deeply randian about hyperfocussing on a race of superhuman immortals who frame themselves as superior and with the duty of leading the weaker, dumber, mundane masses as someones primary racial allegory. Because it becomes immediately muddy. Rheas entire outlook on humanity and her role in relation to it is never one of equal co-existance, it is practically her claiming the white dragons burden, as horrible as it sounds. And many of her defenders among the Edelcrit community take exactly this stance as a moral good, which is inheritly problematic. I'm talking about people such as butwhatifidothis, gascon, randomnameless and fantasyinvader, Boofire too if we want to include youtubers.

There edgy "humanity can't be trusted and is inheritly incapable of controlling itself" position is not progressive. Its deeply elitist. It is ultimately a reflection of contempt towards the common masses. It is the act of primarily immersing oneself with those who stand above those supposedly unenlightened masses and taking the position, that they are incapable of governing oneself. And the act of hyperfocussing on constructing a racial allegory around it, it also means to immerse oneself into the idea that those born with powerful are the most victimized and marginalized group in society by the inferior, who want to take away their rightful positions of leadership and power. It is also sadly one I feel like is highly encouraged by the Blue Lions route in general, by its decission to focus mostly on the way those born with crests into nobility are mistreated and envied by those without them, probably by accident encouraging those kinds of randian implications.

And as a disclaimer, I'm not saying here that one can't chose the Nabateans as ones favorite and feel deeply sympathetic and empathetic around their plight, because this is one is real real as well. They were victims of a genocide orchestrated by Agarthans in their attempt of getting vengeance against the Goddess Sothis for their own destruction, they had their blood stolen and their bodies defiled by bandits who wanted to claim their power for themselves and uplift themselves to the status of rulers. They are deeply human and their depth comes from the fact, that they deal with trauma in very flawed, very human ways. The issue comes from viewing the Nabateans as both sympathetic victims but also inheritly superior beings with Rhea being framed as justified in the oppressive systems that are the root cause of the majority of issues inside of Fodlan. Something the games text supports. Their Crimson Flower ending describes Byleth as ending the Tyranny of a Godlike being. In comparison, the Azure Moon Version speaks about crushing the Ambitions of the Empire. Rheas own S-Support has her admit her guild and be remorseful for it, the ending card speaks about her rehabilitating the church.

So in the end, yeah, hyperfocussing on racial allegory over actual depictions of racism centering people of color can be problematic, they often have messed up implications and require just accepting the premise and alot of people are really into imagining themselves to be both the superior elite but also the underdog.

[oldtvandcomics]

Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: Dread Nation series by Justina Ireland

(The two books that contain the actual Dread Nation story photographed from my Kindle)

Dread Nation is an alternate history horror series set in a world where the American Civil War has been cut short by a zombie apocalypse. Some decades later, children of color are being sent to special schools where they get some training, mostly bad than good, then sent out to the fields to fight the zombies. Two of these girls are Jane McKeene and her school rival, Katherine Deveraux. When they get unexpectedly transported to a segregated town on the Western frontier, they have only each other left to rely on.

The strength of these books is that the only fantastic element in them are the zombies. The racist atrocities committed by various white characters, as well as the system at large, can all be recognized as things that actually happened to Black people in the history of the US. 

Both main characters are disabled. Jane suffers a serious wound while fighting zombies in the second book, and Katherine has severe anxiety. They are also both queer, Jane is bisexual and Katherine is ace.

The Dread Nation book series consists out of three books: Books one and two (Dread Nation and Deathless Divide) are the actual story, while the third, Three for the Road, contains three short stories set in that world.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

[lazydogz]

favorite books?? (doubles as a book rec ask!!!)🫶

oooo yes!! I will admit I read much more nonfiction than most other types but I tried to include that and some fiction!

"It came from the closet" by Joe Vallese

a collection of essays focusing on the relationship between queer people and their love for horror, it was a fantastic read especially as someone who is queer and adores horror!

"Cultish: The language of fanaticism" by Amanda Montell

talks a lot about history of cults, how we define things as cults and what makes them so appealing (specifically the "cult" language they use)! it's definitely in testing if that's your type of thing

"The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by Emily M. Danforth

coming of age story of a queer teen dealing with living with her conservative aunt and grandma, I haven't finish it yet but I'm absolutely in love with it

"No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai

a series of notebook entrees of an man dealing with depression, it has a lot of dark themes so I 100% suggest looking into it more before diving in bc it can get pretty upsetting

"The Saturday Night Ghost Club" by Craig Davidson

very bittersweet book to me, another coming of age type one that I adored so much <3 I also loved the writers style

[historyhermann]

An Alternative to the Studio System?: Indie Animation Forges Ahead [Part 2]

continued from part 1. Split because Tumblr claimed there was an error in the post.

Otherwise, Shannon Mowatt's 16-minute animatic of Revamped, has been released in advance of the full animated pilot. It is an upcoming short queer film about four high school sophomores who deal with school life, vampires, and the supernatural world.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs, my History Hermann blog, and Wayback Machine. This was the eleventh article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on July 15, 2022.

There's the Lackadaisy film about 1920s gangster cats, based on Tracy J. Butler's webcomic. Another series, Outcasts, has cats as characters. Shou Tuzi's Tallyho! series continues to develop. It is inspired by steampunk, fantastique, and other media. Tuzi's studio, Skull Hare Studio, is also working on Arthur: The Timeless Knight.

Daniel is continuing to pursue his action adventure series, Lumeon Lands, which has begin production. These series are important to highlight when Hollywood continues to end projects and sack animators. Some have put hope in indie animation, noting it has the promise to allow creators to have "creative control" unlike working under major studios.

While there are many indie animations I could mention. [6] However, I'd like to focus on a few series in development. One of those is Sam Sawyer's SALEM, also known as Salem or S.A.L.E.M.: The Secret Archive of Legends, Enchantments, and Monsters. In May, SpectroliteAAA, the lead storyboard artist said that she could talk about it soon, but not yet. In January, Sawyer, when asked by a fan, said the same thing.

The series has been fully funded. The now-fulfilled Kickstarter defines the series as an animated story about "a cryptid with a big heart and even bigger questions, on a quest to discover their true origins".

Apart from having high-profile voice actors like Laura Bailey, Rob Paulsen, and Adam McAarthur, a tweet from the show's account confirmed Petra as asexual, Salem (who is also non-binary) as pansexual, and Oliver as gay. The series has Randy Abrams as executive producer. It is being animated with help from Surfer Jack Productions, a company said to specialize in "ingenious storytelling". The company was founded by animation industry veterans Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, Lance LeCompte, and Bernie Petterson.

There are other series in development. This includes Georden Whitman's pilot named Port by the Sea on two kids who are "sailing the seas to fix a now broken moon", Matt Acuña's fantastical adventure The Garden Age, and the Far-Fetched Show, an animated series "about a rock band of misfits" by Ashley Nichols and Dave Capdevielle.

In addition, there's a demon/vampire themed series in the process entitled Bloodgore, the psychological horror dramedy named Please Stay Tuned, the ghost-themed Ghost Hunt, a sci-fi themed SpaceAges, and many more. These are a small sampling of the indie animated series out there. [7] These persist despite the problem of distribution and funding to "make original stuff", and possible iffiness of crowdsourcing, as writer Chris Hill pointed out.

Port by the Sea's pilot will likely come out sometime later this year. The Far-Fetched Show is also moving ahead, with comics to go with the series like Wild Card. The Nichols' Patreon notes that a lyrics video for the series band, Sesemoid, is coming out later this year. This also noted they are still working on the pilot. Currently, there is wonderful fan art of the show's characters, including putting them in a Steven Universe setting, and much more.

The fact that Port by the Sea has over 1400 followers and Far-Fetched Show has over 67,600 followers, along with 406 Patreons of Nichols, proves what animator LanceArts pointed out: that the indie animation scene is "exploding with greater popularity now more than ever."

More episodes of Alpha Betas are currently in production, with recording for new episodes. Four episodes are set to be released in Fall/Winter 2022. Additionally, Lucha Vandross is fundraising for various indie animated series. This includes those inspired by 1980s Hong Kong films (Project Icarus and Project Icarus X) and a modern take on Robin Hood. The latter is about friends "robbing the rich and giving it to the poor" (Samson). [8] Animator 9Hammer is actively releasing series in Newgrounds, of all places. This includes series such as Chaotic Heart and Solace, with new episodes in production.

Others, like Warlord-of-Noodles, have ongoing series as well, which is also posted on YouTube and has a Patreon. Series like Deep States, by Molly, are on YouTube. There is the exciting 2d indie anime in development entitled Broken Beat, made by animators of prominent anime series, like Creative Theory. The series is about a protagonist, Sin, tasked with stopping the reign of the creator god, and challenged by an "endless conflict between humans and manifestors". Sin masters his form along the way.

Newgrounds is a weird place. There's a lot of terrible (and amateurish content) there, mixed with sexual content. It is more than what would YouTube would permit, and includes pornographic material. Apart from the series on hiatus by 9Hammer, Beyond the Fog, there's The Looter, and Zack and Alex. The latter, by Jayevin Abad, had its pilot posted on YouTube as well. Otherwise, there are various other series, films, and more, which have aired on the site. [9] Some shows I've noted before in this post, and elsewhere, like Ollie and Scoops, Eddsworld, Tales of Alethrion, and Satina all have pages on the site.

Apart from Newgrounds, are further series in development. This includes The Art Of Murder, produced by an Australian indie 2D animation studio named Choc Chip. It is produced by Anokhi Somaia and directed by Nirali Somaia. Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli are the series composers.

The Art of Murder is a murder mystery, musical, and pop culture parody where "sketchbook characters come to life" when the clock strikes midnight. It features voice actors like Lizzie Freeman, who also voices a character in Gods' School, Lauren Lopez, who founded a popular online musical theatre company named Team Starkid. There's also Joey Richter (part of the same theatre company), Joey Bizinger, a well-known Japanese-Australian voice actor, YouTuber, and more, and Megan Lee, a Korean-American singer-songwriter. 

There's further projects of note. This includes various series by LGBTQ creators. [10] For instance, there's an animated series such as Scrappers, Swift Spark and the Defense Five, Birdboys, and Novas. Scrappers and Birdboys are by trans women, Charlie Gultiano-Wyton and Danielle Maxine specifically. Swift Spark and the Defense Five is by a trans man, Pan. Novas is by a queer and trans artist, Jesse. Scrappers is being produced by Gultiano-Wyton's animation studio, Variation Media.

Swift Spark and the Defense Five is by artist and animator, Pan, who loves Phineas & Ferb, and is based on a comic of the same name. Birdboys is by artist and animator, Danielle, with some teasers posted on her YouTube channel. Novas is the personal project of Jesse, a SCAD student, who posted a casting call for the animation on Tik Tok. What Avara, mentioned earlier in this article, stated is relevant here: support for indie creators is necessary if you "want to see diversity in animation". Part of that is LGBTQ representation.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[rollercoasterwords]

have you watched bones and all??? i would love to see ur thoughts

(just in general tho i would love to hear you talk more abt cannibalism)

i have not! it hasn't been released where i live yet i think the only english movie showing at the theater in my city rn is the new marvel movie.

gonna be honest i was not feeling the bones and all hype bc i've mostly just been seeing pics of bloody timothee chalamet which does nothing for me lmao but after receiving this message i just watched the trailer and then went and read the plot summary and UMMMMM yeah i need to watch this now. fascinating fascinating concept omg it reminds me a LOT of the movie "raw" this looks fantastic so so so much to think about like [spoilers + rambling below]

ok the fact that some people are "born" eaters??? potential for queer analysis abound also just enamored by the concept of people or creatures or beings who are fundamentally destructive like the fact they literally NEED to eat other people to exist brings up so many questions....do they deserve to live? can they be good people? is it possible to live without harming others? honestly makes me think about the yeerks from the animorphs series lmao but also reminds me of questions brought up in one of my favorite favorite books "a history of glitter and blood" where part of the world-building is that it takes place in this city where gnomes and fairies live together but the gnomes also eat the fairies sometimes and it's just like...an accepted part of life. and of course there's "raw" where we get the same idea of a girl who was born a cannibal and has to decide whether to suppress this urge or allow it to flourish which is just SUCH an interesting concept ugh

also very interested in the gender dynamics based on the plot summary like. it sounds like we get this main character cannibal girl who essentially spends the movie running into different men and trying to figure out how to live her life through their guidance, but each man seems to represent something different....like these are just messy thoughts right now but i'm intrigued by the fact that we get her father who abandons her bc he can't deal with it right, we get the older guy who tries to present her with a new set of rules for how to live life as an eater, we get timmy who seems to be struggling to assimilate but also at certain points is sort of dragging her down a dark (and homoerotic!! the field scene?? omg) path...like the implications of that whole scene and its queerness where he cruises to find a victim and then it seems like after that they ultimately decide to try and assimilate and like...the queerness is inherently suppressed with the suppression of the cannibalism right?? like they're trying to live as a regular heterosexual couple but they CAN'T....omg also the fact that her first act of cannibalism is biting off her girl friend's finger--sorry but that is homoerotic SORRY but the cannibalism is inherently bound up with both character's queerness. and the cannibal mother trying to eat her cannibal child? mother as the source of monstrosity? it seems like the cannibalism is almost like...inextricably bound up with femininity for our main character and we get all these masculine disciplining forces throughout....also maybe this is a leap but i'm thinking about the way consumption is often gendered as a specifically feminine horror like. the fear of someone taking you into their body and consuming you....thinking about the vagina dentata and the movie "teeth" and the ways in which typically we think of penetrating someone else's body with yours as a masculine act but cannibalism inverts that because suddenly the person taking your body into themself is destroying you in the process...also the blurring of bodily borders and identity and love...that ending!!!! god so much to think about i definitely need to watch this movie now

[rockislandadultreads]

Book Recommendations: More Dark Academia 

Bunny by Mona Awad

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort - a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door - ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision. The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith

Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing - a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto. But what should have been a simple retrieval goes horrifyingly wrong when the terrifyingly angelic Ramiel attacks them, convinced that they hold the Devil's Bible. The text of the Devil's Bible is a powerful weapon in the power struggle between Heaven and Hell, so it falls to the librarians to find a book with the power to reshape the boundaries between Heaven, Hell... and Earth.

This is the first volume in the “Hell’s Library” series. Its sequels include The Archive of the Forgotten and The God of Lost Words. 

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever - but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled - or perhaps just grimly exploited - and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magical. She is perfectly happy with her life. She has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha. But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

[badassbutterfly1987]

2022 Books Review

5 stars

FNAF Ultimate Guide (Cawthon, 2021): A great summary of everything in the sprawling FNAF universe, even has a section devoted to popular fan theories.

A Natural History of Dragons (Brennan, 2013): a fictional biography about a dragon researcher. An interesting character and interesting worldbuilding.

4 stars

The Silence of the Girls (Barker, 2018): an emotionally difficult look at the Trojan War from the perspective of Briseis and other women captured as war prizes by the Greek army. It’s strongest in the first half but the second half switches to other perspectives and feels more like every other Illiad retelling. Could have done without the modern lingo and Achilles' mommy kink. 

Nightmares and Dreamscapes (King, 2013): A collection of interesting and spooky short stories. 'Popsy' was probably my favorite, like Taken but with vampires (which sounds like a fantastic action horror movie).

Breakdown (Kellerman, 2016): typical procedural mystery novel but from the perspective of a clinical psychologist.

Compulsion (Kellerman, 2008): same series as above. It's portrayal of queer characters is a bit of a mixed bag. A trans woman sex worker is portrayed with sympathy even if the language used clearly dates it, but there's also a murderous crossdresser. YMMV

Skin Game (Butcher, 2014): a good heist story, even if I took issue with some of the writing choices.

3 stars

Tulip Fever (Moggach, 1999): The first 1/3 was a frustrating read. A woman is unhappily married, falls into lust with a pretentious womanizing painter, and decide to run away together, uncaring to the harm they cause. They claim to be in love after two meetings even though the only apparent thing they see in the other is hotness. The prose and ending (with consequences) manage to save it for me.

[boombox-fuckboy]

Hi @rec-rewind, I hope you don't mind I make a post for this. I know you like Unwell, you've heard TMA, and you're listening to Archive 81 (if season 2 was more your thing). Here's 30 other horror pods for you:

Alice Isn't Dead: A truck driver travels America, telling stories of her strange encounters while looking for the wife she had thought was dead.

A Voice From Darkness: A radio help line for all your strangest and most disturbing troubles. Host Dr. Ryder takes calls, answers questions, shares strange history, and discusses ongoing supernatural problems around America.

The Blood Crow Stories: Each season is it's own horror story. S1 is tapes from a doomed cruise ship in WW2, S2 is a religious horror western, S3 is a cyberpunk with demons, and S4 is the occult and old-time movie studios.

The Deep Vault: Dead Signals' (Archive 81) other podcast, following survivors of a crumbling world in an underground bunker, complete with robots, ai, cosmic entities, etc.

Dining in the Void: Heads up for initial pacing issues and rough audio, but the issue is resolved, and I enjoy other aspects of the show enough to disregard. A group of strangers are summoned to a space station for a party, and promptly locked in with various horrors and an ominous countdown, until they can work out who the host is.

Dos: After You: A charming young hitman leaves home to travel Europe, hoping to track down, and kill, the god he fell in love with.

Down: A group of scientists and explorers are put in a submarine sent down an apparently bottomless pit in Antarctica. Nobody likes what they find down there.

Duggan Hull: After her friend/ex-girlfriend goes missing, a young woman tries to track her down and ends up in the middle of a strange and disturbing small town mystery. Fantastic piece of cosmic horror. (Not on Spotify)

Hello From The Hallowoods: A powerful entity visits your nightmares bearing stories of the people, in varying states of human and alive, who inhabit the Hallowoods, through horrors and joys, and as their lives begin to meet. Super queer.

Hi Nay: Supernatural horror following a young woman named Mari, who's babaylan (shaman) family background draws her into helping people with various horrific supernatural problems around Toronto. Formatted as phone calls to her mother telling her what's happened.

The Hotel: About a supernatural hotel that kills people, and the weird staff that make it happen.

How I Died: Work recordings of a forensic pathologist who can see ghosts, when he moves to a new town and encounters a strange sequence of murders.

I am in Eskew: Personal accounts from a man living in something that very much wants to be a city, and an investigator who was, in her words, hired to kill a ghost. Creatively horrific stories with a gentle voice and ambient rain. Rougher audio initially but not uncomfortably so.

Janus Descending: A xenopalentologist and a xenoarcheologist investigate the abandoned ruins of an ancient alien civilisation and find more than they bargained for. Listen to the supercut for this one. Really clever use of a strange format: you hear her recordings first to last, and his last to first, and it's all the more heartbreaking for it.

The Lost Cat Podcast: A man befriends strange entities, loses bits of himself and drinks an awful lot of wine while looking for his cat. Unique and fun writing that's stuck with me, yet just the right hint of cliché to make it satisfying in the moment, too. Soft and cosmic horror. (Not on Spotify)

Mabel: Series of voicemails from an elderly woman's caretaker, to her unresponding grandaughter. Horror/mystery with a slow slide into poetic lesbian fae body horror.

Maps of the Lost: An audio guide book to the strange people, places, and happenings of Britan. Lovely soothing voice, more supernatural or new weird but horror enough for this list.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity and Mortality: You're led through a museum of strange artifacts by a sweet audio tour guide AI, who will tell you the story behind each one. More new weird but there's plenty horror in there too.

Old Gods of Appalachia: Tales from the 1800s and 1900s of an alternate Appalachia inhabited by witches, old gods, and entities beyond understanding. With the air of being told stories around a campfire, these tales are connected by individuals or places, seperate but not detached. Any character is disposable, but none are treated with less respect than they deserve.

The Petrol Station: Strange and unsettling stories from a young woman working at a 24 hour petrol station in a very remote british town. Only 5 episodes, but I am hoping for more.

Red Valley: British cryogenic conspiracy comedy horror with some truely gorey sfx at times. Not my sense of humor personally, but it is enjoyable regardless and well made.

SAYER: Several sophisticated AI bully you into completing an array of both mundane and horrible tasks.

SCP: Find Us Alive: First, you don't need to know anything about SCP to enjoy this. A research team gets trapped in an underground research facility when the complex collapses and the building is dragged into a pocket dimension. The tear it was designed to study begins creating tiny copies of itself, generating strange entities the team needs to deal with. Oh, and the entire situation physically resets every 30 days. And yet, this is genuinely also an office comedy.

The Sheridan Tapes: In 2018, famous horror writer Anna Sheridan went missing leaving behind a collection of strange tapes. Listen along as a young detective with his own strange past tries to work out what happened to her. Cosmic horror.

The Silt Verses: In a modern world where gods are both commercialised and banned, two followers of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage. Great worldbuilding and tasty body horror. Same creators as Eskew (further up this list)

Station Blue: Isolation horror following a maintenance man who sets up an antarctic research base ahead of the main crew. Based on the creator's experiences with her own untreated mental illness but also there's some cosmic fuckery and light body horror.

Video Palace: Guy (and his wife when she has time) hosts a personal investigation into a collection of video tapes generally considered an urban legend, after he finds one and begins sleep talking.

The White Vault: A repair group sent to a research base near Svalbard gets trapped inside as an unending snowstorm rages, decides to take a nosy at the tunnels under the base, and find some disturbing things. Fantastic audio and a fun cast of accents and languages.

VAST Horizon: An agronomist travelling to a new world wakes from cryo to find the ship empty, off-course, and damaged. With the guidence of a malfunctioning AI, she tries to work out what happened and how to stop the situation aboard from getting worse.

WOE.BEGONE: A man's curiousity gets the better of him as he begins to play an alternate reality game of a different kind. The challenges are brutal and disturbing, but for the prize on offer, it might just be worth it. Single most endearing asshole lead I've encountered, very funny, very gay, and the music slaps.

Hopefully at least one appeals.

[heretherebedork]

Hi, I’m gonna ask something annoying. I’m new to BL, and I love scifi/fantasy/paranormal stuff. Are there any BL that HAVE those elements, even lightly? That vampire gifset made me feel and want things…

Sadly... not really. There's a few on the paranormal front! But sci fi and fantasy... eh, if you go into historical and bromance, you can find a few from China but there's really not a lot in that field. I'm going to include a lot of Chinese censored romances on this list just to give you choices.

Sci-fi has... very, very little.

SciFi:

Customized Companion (lots of cheating, semi-scifi)

Love From Outta Space (just a little commercial but it's OffGun and one's an alien!)

Fantasy, if you want historical, you can go for a variety of bromances out of China that are not BL because BL is illegal in China but come as close as they can... And a few real BLs as well.

Fantasy:

Bite Fight (chinese BL, vampires, weird ending, on Gaga)

Guardian (Chinese censored romance, modern fantasy cop drama, one of my favorite things ever, tries to pretend to be scifi and claim they're aliens but it's just fantasy)

Mermaid's Jade (Chinese movie, weird ending, mermaid! sort of! But definitely fantasy)

The Untamed (very traditional Chinese historical fantasy stuff, either you love it or hate it, censored romance)

Word of Honor (Chinese censored romance, very barely censored, very enjoyable, very much a martial arts with a hint of fantasy)

The Yin-Yang Master (more fantasy than just martial arts, chinese bromance but edging towards censored romance)

Youths In the Breeze (a collection of censored romance from China, little miniseries with two of the three having fantastical elements)

Color Rush/Color Rush 2 (Korea does fantasy BL! A+)

My Esports Genius Brother (Chinese semi-censored fantasy that's similar to Color Rush.)

The Cupid Coach (... bad Thai BL pulp fantasy, probably nearly impossible to find)

The Four Vampires (Korean queer vampires)

Tinted With You (Timeslip Korean BL with reincarnation hinted at the end)

Supernatural/paranormal is definitely the most populated because there have been several ghost romances from different countries.

Until We Meet Again (reincarnation, warnings for suicide, very highly recommended)

He's Coming To Me (ghost romance, fantastic, happy ending, highly recommended)

Hidden Love (A ghost story comedy that teeters on awful but has an amazing backstory for the two ghosts that is worth the suffering)

Something in my Room (Ghost romance, painful ending, bury your gays warning)

Cherry Magic (mostly an office romance but Adachi does spend the majority of the series with mind-reading powers)

Ghost Boyfriend (ghost romance, Chinese, sad ending)

History 1: Obsessed (reincarnating in your own life, fairly high heat, lots of questionable choices but I love this one.)

History 1: My Hero (possessing a body, happy-for-the-gays ending, very mediocre)

Sweet Curse (Korean BL, ghosts summoning/haunting? Strongberry!)

Y-Destiny (Just a few episodes, one with a ghost and one with a timeslip)

He She It (mostly horror? ghosts and haunting, unhappy ending)

Dear Doctor I'm Coming For Soul (currently airing romance between a doctor and a soul reaper that he can see)

Cupid's Last Wish (body switch, finished airing in Thailand but currently airing internationally)

@absolutebl has a much better organized list with more detail than this somewhere as well! Theirs also doesn't have bromances.

[dreamsclock]

just curious :D

what’s your favorite book/s?

HI thank u for the q :D i used to be a massive reader and i still hold a lot of those books close to my heart and they still inspire me a lot SO !! without further ado here are some of my favourites under the cut :))

if we were villains / m.l. rio

amazing dark academia murder-mystery book <33 the characters are all assholes but still somehow v likeable, they’re all so self destructive, the moments they slip into quoting shakespeare are sooooo good and give so much double meaning to their characters/words, and it’s about theatre kids covering for one of their best friend’s murder. what’s not to enjoy about that :D

vicious / vengeful duology // v.e. schwab

my favourite book series ever :)) i actually have a dsmp au based off it !! two college scientists who uncover people can develop abilities after near death experiences and the absolute horrors that accompany them after they find this out. SO good, the (homoerotic) tension between victor and eli is so good and they’re both sympathetic but Huge Assholes,, and victor is canonically ace !! the side characters are so brilliant and i just love v.e. schwab so much, everything they write us incredible ^_^

the hunger games trilogy // suzanne collins

old series that most people have read but if you haven’t, i 100% recommend it. it’s a very gritty depiction of dystopia and revolution and although it’s YA, it doesn’t understate the cruelty of government or the horror of kids fighting to the death. this series stuck with me for literally almost a decade lol, that’s how i know it’s good.

six of crows duology // leigh bardugo

incredible show stopping amazing fantastic etc. the series is essentially about a group of Unlikely Allies who are tasked with an impossible mission for a ridiculous amount of money, but find challenges/love/found family/betrayal etc along the way. haven’t read the second book but ive heard it’s just as good as the first, and the characters are so loveable. anything by leigh is a good shout !!! i love her work !!

the cemetery boys // aiden thomas

SUCH a fun book and the only one ft. an Explicitly Trans character (the protagonist)!! i haven’t finished it yet but would 100% recommend, all the characters are so full of life (No Pun Intended) and the queer/poc rep is >>>. if you like ghosts, found family, teenagers getting up to no good TM and a (hopefully) happy ending, Read This Immediately Or You’re Transphobic /j

HONORABLE MENTIONS

the secret history // donna tartt

the picture of dorian gray // oscar wilde

the fever king // victoria lee

ninth house // leigh bardugo (!!!)

the revenger’s tragedy // thomas middleton

[peachscribe]

peach’s summer book list

i had a lot of fun compiling the list of books i read during the 20-21 winter, so i decided i would do a summer one as well! i still have a lot of books i own but haven’t read, so im definitely not lacking in material

if you didn’t see my winter list, how my book list works is basically like this: i read a book that i own but have not previously read, write a short summary immediately after finishing the book, write down my thoughts on the book, and then provide a rating for the book. i also might include background info on why i read this particular book/feelings about the author, but that depends on the book. that’s how each entry works

without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

okay so i absolutely adore another book by andrew smith (written after grasshopper jungle) called the alex crow. it’s one of my favorite books of all time, so naturally i wanted to see if grasshopper jungle would make me feel similarly. just like the alex crow, grasshopper jungle’s plot is. so fucking weird. it stars austin szerba, a teenage polish kid who lives in ealing, iowa, and is often sexually confused regarding his girlfriend shann and his best friend robby. and in ealing, iowa, austin and robby accidentally and unknowingly unleash an unstoppable army of huge six-foot-tall praying mantis bugs that only want to do two things: fuck and eat. and i just have to say: andrew smith’s got an absolutely dynamo writing style. alex crow is similar, where it’s a book about kind of everything all at once, framed in a moment centering around teenage boys. it’s fantastic, and it’s more than a little gross, and i love it. this book made me feel so many things, and i thought austin was such an amazing narrator and main character to identify with. this book has it all: shitty teenage boy humor, fucked up science experiments, and poetic imagery that will make you want to cry. and explicit lgbt characters.

412/10 andrew smith what do you put in your water i just want to know

2. Burn by Patrick Ness

patrick ness has written a plethora of some of my favorite books (such as a monster calls, the chaos walking trilogy, and the rest of us just live here) so when i saw this one in the store i knew it would be a great one. burn is an alternate history fantasy that takes place in 1957 frome, washington, during the height of the cold war, and it begins with a girl named sarah and her father hiring a dragon to help out on their farm. but there’s not just dragons, farm living, and cold war tensions; there’s also a really shitty small town cop, a cult of dragon worshippers and their deadly teenage assassin, a pair of fbi agents, and a prophecy that sarah’s newly hired dragon claims she’s a part of. i think eoin colfer’s highfire was on my winter list, which also featured a story that included dragons and shitty cops, so when i first began burn i thought it was funny to have two books that had both things. you know, if you had a nickel etc etc. but that’s really where the similarities end because burn is entirely it’s own monster (dragon). burn is entirely invested in its world, and its fascinating. not only that, i had no clue where the book would take me next. there were so many surprises and amazing twists that honestly just blew me away. this book also includes beautifully written complicated discussions on family, race, and love - it features interracial and queer romances as the two most prominent romance plots which was such a nice surprise from a book i wasn’t expecting to have that kind of representation. this book is witty, fast-paced, and a very heartening read - i absolutely adored it.

9/10 dragons and becoming motivated by the power of love and friendship are so fucking cool

3. As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

i hate this book! as meat loves salt is a historical fiction novel which takes place in seventeenth century england, which is going through a grisly civil war. the protagonist, jacob cullen, is a servant for a wealthy household and is engaged to another servant in the house. but due to certain events that are almost entirely jacob’s fault, he flees the house and is separated from his wife. from there, he joins the royal army and meets a kind soldier, ferris, and the two become fast friends. jacob and ferris’s relationship begins to bridge past friendly, and jacob struggles with his homoerotic feelings as well as the growing obsession and violence inside him. also, they try to start a colony. listen, i don’t know how to describe the book because so much happens, but it basically just follows jacob and all the terrible decisions he makes because he is, truly, a terrible person. ferris is kind and good, and jacob is scum of the earth. he sucks so bad. the entire time i was reading this book (which took absolutely so long), all i wanted was for jacob to just get his ass handed to him. i wanted to see him suffer. and it’s not like i just personally don’t like him - i believe the book purposefully depicts him as unsympathetic even though he is the narrator. i did enjoy the very in depth and accurate portrayal of what life would’ve been like in seventeenth century england, and i think it was interesting to read a character that is just the absolute worst person you’ve ever encountered and see him try and justify his actions, so if you enjoy that kind of thorough writing, then this book would be perfect for you. however, i did not see that bitch ass motherfucker jacob cullen suffer enough. i’d kill him with my bare hands.

2/10 diversity win! the worst man on earth is mlm!

4. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

i know ive had a friend tell me how great one of schwab’s other book series is, but truthfully i bought this book because the cover is sick as hell and it was on a table in the store that advertised for buy two get one free, i think. something like that. anyway, this savage song takes place in a future in which monsters, for whatever reason, suddenly became real and out for blood in a mysterious event nicknamed the phenomenon. august flynn is one of these monsters, but he takes no pride in that fact and only wants to feel human. kate harker is the daughter of a ruthless man and is trying her hardest to be ruthless, too, but deep down she knows it’s just an act. their city, verity, stands divided, and kate and august stand on either side - but when august is sent on a mission to befriend kate in the hopes of stopping an all out war, the lines begin to blur. this book rules. august and kate are such interesting and dynamic characters, and the narrative is familiar while still being capable of twisting the story around and taking the feet out from under you in really compelling ways. this savage song is part of the monsters of verity duology, and i can’t wait to dive into how the story continues and finishes.

11/10 sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover

4a. Our Dark Duet by Victorian Schwab

this is the sequel and finale for this savage song and i’d figure i’d update everyone: fantastic ending, beautiful, showstopping, painful.

12/10 loved it and will definitely be keeping an eye out for schwab’s other books

5. White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

oh boy. okay. white is for witching is about a house, and it is about the women who have lived inside of it. when her mother dies abroad, miranda silver begins to act strangely, and there’s nothing her father or her twin brother seem to be able to do about it. she develops an eating disorder and begins to hear voices in the silver family house, converted to a bed and breakfast by miranda’s dad; and she begins to lose herself in the house and the persistent presence of her family legacy. white is for witching switches perspective dizzingly and disorientingly between miranda, her twin eliot, miranda’s friend from school named ore, and the house itself. this story is a horror story as much as it as a tragedy as much as it is a romance as much as it is a bunch of other things. oyeyemi brings race, sexuality, nationality, and family into this story and forces you not to look away. this book is poetry.

(like i mentioned briefly, this book heavily deals with topics of race and closely follows miranda’s eating disorder. read responsibly, and take care of yourselves)

15/10 this book consumed me and i think i’ll have to read it another 10 more times to feel it properly

6. These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

okay. okay. strap in for a ride. these violent delights is a romeo and juliet style story, taking place in glittering 1920’s shanghai. the city stands divided - not only between the foreign powers encroaching on chinese land, but also between the scarlet gang and the white flowers, who are at the height of a generations-long blood feud. juliette cai, heir to the scarlets, has recently returned from four years abroad and is determined to prove herself ruthless enough to lead. roma montagov, heir to the white flowers, is standing strenuously on his place as next in line due to a slip up four years prior and is desperate to keep hold of his title. and in the midst of juliette and roma’s burning history with each other threatening to combust, an unnatural monster lurks in the waters of shanghai, loosing a madness on scarlets and white flowers alike. this book has it all - scorned ex lovers, political intrigue, deadly monsters, and all set on a glamorous backdrop of the roaring twenties. i absolutely was enraptured by this book and the way it plays around the story of romeo and juliet so well that it easily became it’s own monster, but with the punches and embraces of something classically shakespearan. gong does just an absolutely breathtaking job of fitting this fantastical story amid the larger world of shanghai and the real life historical events that had shaken the city to its core. completely immersive and outstandingly heart racing.

17/10 i was chewing on my fingernails for the last thirty pages and will continue to do so until the sequel is released (our violent ends, 16 nov 21)

7. The Antiques by Kris D’Agostino

you ever heard of the american dysfunctional family story? this is most definitely that. at the same time george westfall’s cancer takes a turn for the worse, a hurricane hits the east coast, and suddenly all at once the issues of his health, the hurricane, and all three of his children’s achingly dysfunctional adult lives are crashing into each other. reunited by george’s death, the westfall siblings have to face their grief, each other, and the problems in their own lives they attempted to put on hold while planning their father’s memorial. this is a nice story about grief and loss and love and somehow finding the humor amidst it all.

(this book does include a depiction of an autistic child who does experience several pretty bad meltdowns due to ignorant people around him not understanding how to cater to his needs. im not an authority on what depictions are or are not harmful, but i do believe this depiction is ultimately loving and well-intended.)

7/10 it made me laugh and cry and was generally one of those books that somehow hit you close to home

8. Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill

fierce fairytales is a poetry anthology that reimagines classic fairytales from a modern, feminist viewpoint, acknowledging that the line between hero and villain, monster and damsel, are not as clear cut as the classics try to make you believe. this book also includes illustrations done by the author herself, which i think is really cool. my personal favorite story reimagining was the story of peter pan and captain hook, called ‘boy lost’ which looked at how peter and hook’s relationship began and rotted. all in all, i think this collection of stories had a lot of important things to say and said them in frank, easy to understand poetry and prose.

7/10 beautiful message and pretty prose, but at times a little cliche

and that’s all from the summer! my fall semester starts tomorrow, and overall i feel very good about all the reading i did this summer. i even read four other books not on this list for work! so i definitely feel like i made the most out of my time, and im really glad i was able to read so many stories that made me feel a variety of different things

thanks so much for reading this list, and let me know if you read or have read any of these books and tell me what you think of them!

happy reading<3