#RECCING

[sparkylurkdragon]

Dinosaur Sanctuary gets the Sparky Seal Of Approval.

Delightful, mostly-lighthearted, sometimes incredibly tragic little slice of life manga about a zoo. A zoo with dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters.

Also it takes potshots at 'Look At The Spectacle don't worry about being educated' type facilities, which I enjoyed.

There's a triceratops sitting in loaf form. There's an escaped velociraptor who steals a fish. There are Science Facts, both within the comic and in short articles written by the series' paleontologist consultant. There is - a graphic panel of a berserk, frightened animal getting shot in the head before she attacks the zoo's visitors, shortly after a graphic panel of her keeper's mauled body?

Like I say, mostly lighthearted, but doesn't shy away from some harsh realities of what it would be like to have such animals still living with us. But, like, also lots and lots of softer realities.

I'm enjoying it and look forward to future volumes!

[lurkdragonstuff]

It is 2023, and there is time for South Scrimshaw: Part One.

I played through tonight, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who loves speculative evolution, visual novels, aliens, nature documentaries, and/or whales. It's a visual novel about the calfhood and adolescence of an alien whale.

It's on the very low-interaction side of the visual novel scale. Most interaction is clicking to advance the story, but there are, essentially, footnotes that you can click on to learn more about the wider world and universe this little whale lives in.

The hints at what humanity is like at this is just enough to whet the appetite for more, written to an in-universe audience that doesn't bother to explain things everyone should know. Reminds me pleasantly of The Crucible of Time, in that sense. But even more tantalizing for me is the beautifully detailed speculative biology, centred of course on my favourite animal group, the cetaceans. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.

It made me cry really hard at The Usual Trigger and I had to take a breather in the middle because of that, but it was well worth it. I've listed some content warnings under the cut. Give it a try! It's free on Steam and won't take more than an hour or two!

Animal death, infant death, parental death are the death ones. The Brillo whales that star in this visual novel also have adaptations that may make folks with trypophobia very uncomfortable.

[consistentsquash]

2023 lookback!

My HP fic reading in 2023 was oldschool Snarry fics because I didn't really read outside my comfort zone. Experienced a family loss in May. My HP reading after that was pretty much just comfort fics.

My favorite HP fandom thing in 2023 is the hprecfest. Super fun! Scarlet, love you forever for this idea <3 This is incredible and I love getting to read the recs others made.

I read tons of fic in other fandoms. Les Mis, The Witcher, ASoIaF are the big ones. Got to know some new folks from those fandoms and that's been great. Super confident some of them are going to be seriously amazing writers once they get experience. The talent is already there!! :D So hyped! Read a lot of books outside my comfort zone because of the new fandoms. Also met some fandom folks in real life and it was amazing fun. I got to go to NYC to meet them which was wow.

Crossed 1000 recs! :D

Biggest lesson for me was that I have a people pleasing problem. I mean I knew that before. But reccing also highlights that problem. Sometimes I felt pressured to rec fics directly by the author/indirectly by their friends. Obviously if I am good at setting boundaries that won't be a thing. Idk maybe it was in my head but anyway I feel like I am learning to set boundaries. My 2023 goal was to rec fics I am 100% in love with + don't feel pressured to rec. I feel like I succeeded on some level. My reccing velocity definitely went down but I don't feel stressed out? Like before I felt stressed a lot because I was feeling pressured about commenting/reccing and kind of felt used sometimes? Anyway maybe it was probably just in my head but it's like that sometimes!

Another lesson for me was to trust my taste/don't apologize for it. I feel sometimes I went with what other folks recommended esp if they were writers because I trusted their taste more? Obviously this is a me problem. I was working on that a lot in 2023. My taste is definitely not perfect or anything but taste is super subjective/personal. I am getting better about not apologizing for my taste because otherwise I was always saying stuff like "this fic is not for everybody/this fic is weird" which was more about me feeling insecure about my taste than about the fic itself.

Also I feel my rec style has improved. I was having real problems with reccing more complicated fics. Getting more experience is definitely helping.

Excited for 2024 fandom!

[thisbluespirit]

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, reccing community tardis_library, over on Dreamwidth, set out to collectively rec at least one fanwork per year for all 60 years from 1963-2023 - and we made it!

If you'd love to celebrate the show and the creativity of its fandom, here's a perfect way to do so with a giant list of wonderful recs for fic, art and vids.

[things-ford-pines-missed]

Seeing the Lord of the Rings movies in theaters. I feel like he would have really enjoyed the experience

Thing Ford Missed #39: The Lord Of The Rings (in theaters)

this reminds me of a fic I read and consider one of the best gf fics ever. by the skin of your teeth, by apathetic_reverend. so. just saying

[howgaytobequeer]

A post I stuck in the queue about the Unintended Consequences of Killing Every Bug reminded me: I recently read Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire and wanted to give it a recommendation. Brookshire discusses human relationships to vertebrate animals considered "pests" in multiple areas of the world, from feral cats and pigeons to invasive pythons to elephants, and her coverage is thought-provoking and even-handed, with a variety of voices invited to speak on each human-animal conflict. (She leaves out inverts, sadly, but explains why in the introduction.)

It was a good read and I think folks who follow this blog would at least find interesting things to chew on within its pages.

[timotey]

(Source)

A chance meeting between Julien Cohen and the 10-year-old prodigy Yeonah Kim at an airport. Magic happens.

[animentality]

kicking a hornets nest.

[sparkylurkdragon]

Agreed.

I can at least point to a sincere VN to try (for those of us who enjoy VNs) that was developed outside of Japan - Raptor Boyfriend, from a Canadian developer. Embrace the fact that your potential dates are a dinosaur, a fairy, or a sasquatch and enjoy an earnest story about living as a teenager the Canadian 1990's.

...I actually need to get back to it, honestly. I really enjoyed the raptor's route.

i want art to feel EARNEST. this disgusting, near pornographic level of tongue in cheek meta humor is making me sick to my stomach. i don’t know how many more movies i can take about clever subversions and the movie winking at you to say “we know it’s a little silly, but…” where is the whimsy? why can’t we believe in the pretend you’ve created? why don’t you have enough faith in it? in my ability to believe?

[positivewlwvibes]

and if yes pls respond/put in the tags with what you’re reading and whether or not you like it i need new books for the new year <3

[sarahmackattack]

One last talent show to save the rec center

Ok everybody here's the deal.

My science education nonprofit, Skype a Scientist (you might know her, creator of the squid facts hotline and matcher of classrooms + scientists) has secured absolutely no grants to support general operations for 2025. But! We're selling advent calendars to fund our program! They absolutely rule. They can save our nonprofit asses. If we sell 5000, which I realize, is so many, we can fund our program for 2025. Then I can offer a bunch of programming for free. Running a nonprofit is a weird job.

Every day, counting down to frankly whatever you want (it's usually Christmas, but man, maybe you want to count down to Halloween, that's fine by me) scratch off the sparkly sparkly iridescence and reveal a fact about frogs! We have 24 top-notch frog facts here.

You should get one for every kid in your life, then get one for all the adults who still let themselves access joy in critters.

Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/

[sparkylurkdragon]

Just beat Dave the Diver!

It's like this game was made for me... ocean game, collecting aspects, restaurant management that spirals into farm mangement, quirky and loveable characters (including a delightfully punchable villain)... ah, it's everything I love!

The subject matter may be a turn off (you're running a sushi restaurant and there's animated blood as you hunt), but if that's something you can get by, highly recommended!

[lurkdragonstuff]

It is 2023, and there is time for Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle.

Camp Damascus tells the story of a young woman, Rose, who grew up in what appears to be any given ultra-conservative American Evangelical church. Oh, there are some quirks, like not being considered an adult until about 20-21 because of two years of intensive Bible study mixed in with the usual K-12 curriculum, and the way the church is open about using capitalism to its advantage, but it's a story that's been lived a million times in modern America.

But cracks are beginning to show. Rose, blessed or cursed with a curious, autistic mind, is faced with the happy facade of her upbringing falling apart around her as she uncovers the grisly, terrifying mystery of the church and the gay conversion camp it runs just outside of town. And it's all very personal for her, as over the course of the novel she realises she's gay.

It's told in a first-person, present tense style, which isn't always my first choice, but Tingle makes it work really well here for a lot of visceral scares. It's clear he put a lot of his signature love into this pulse-pounder. I'll admit, I found his first horror novel, Straight, more of a campy romp than genuinely scary, though it had its moments. It probably doesn't help that I've never been much of one for zombie fiction.

Camp Damascus seems to have had more thorough editing and genuinely made me have to put it down a few times in the best way. In particular, the opening chapters are filled with seething, terrifying dread for anyone who knows much about abusive churches. The rest of the novel's slow unravelling of the mystery of the camp and Rose's own past is paced wonderfully and builds to a gory, visceral, and ultimately uplifting conclusion.

Highly recommended.

[lakecountylibrary]

Just the essentials!

Music credit: "Cinema Blockbuster Trailer 7" by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/329-cinema-blockbuster-trailer-7 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license (CC BY 4.0)

[Video Description: A 26 second video. Orchestral, cinematic music plays. Text reads The library is on fire! Grab the most important things!

A librarian at her computer spins around in her chair in slow motion, a look of horror on her face. Video cuts between various librarians frantically rescuing items. Each scene is labeled with the item:

The South Shore Posters: A librarian completely obscured by a framed South Shore Line poster she is carrying backs out of a room.

The hand chair: A librarian hauls away a large red plastic chair shaped like a hand.

Patron holds: A librarian shovels patron holds off the holds shelf onto a cart.

Benny the library skeleton: A librarian princess-carrying a large skeleton dressed in an oversized t-shirt frantically looks around for an exit before dashing away

The cardigan pile: A librarian almost completely obscured by the pile of cardigans in her arms runs toward the camera.

3D printer: A librarian dashes up to a large 3D printer and attempts to lift it off the table

Cecily the giraffe: A librarian pats a life size baby giraffe statue and then grabs it by the leg and begins slowwwly scooting backward to slide it across the carpet

The library tree: A librarian grips an enormous planter out of which springs an entire tree and pulls with all her might. It doesn't move.

James Patterson books? : The librarian carrying Benny sprints into frame between shelves loaded with endless Patterson books. Record scratch. The sound of a clock ticking as he considers the books for maybe two seconds.

Text changes to "Not enough hands". The dramatic music resumes as he sprints off frame with Benny.

End card with the library logo. The words 'Not actually on fire. Everything is fine.' are typed across the screen. End description]

[thisbluespirit]

Special anniversary reccing challenge at TARDIS Library on Dreamwidth! Find out more at the community link above, but we're hoping for members to rec at least 60 recs (total between us), covering the years 1963-2023 in our choices to celebrate Doctor Who's 60th.

All welcome! If you want to post recs, you'll need a Dreamwidth account, but they're free to sign up for. If you just want to read the resulting recs, no accounts needed.

You can rec any type of fanwork, hosted on any site - but see the comm for further rules/guidelines etc.