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beevean · 3 years

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Sonamy Paradise – a reflection on recent and future events

[Translator’s note: this article was originally written in Spanish by @latin-dr-robotnik. Every link with an asterisk leads to a Spanish page.]

Today we’re going to delve once again in a topic that is well known but still discussed in our fandom.

Sonamy. Yeah, I know, really original, right? Well, the audience of this blog is largely attracted to this side of the Sonic franchise, and I don’t see why I should stop analyzing it. Some months ago, we discussed about the progression of Sonamy in IDW Sonic, and before that we also talked about the current situation of the dynamic and its impact on the main canon. In both articles I said very interesting things that are worth bringing up again:

The way SEGA has been recently trying to push Sonic and Amy in front view (and for the entirety of 2020, based on the articles I mentioned in the beginning) tells us the harsh truth we all have to accept sooner or later: Sonamy sells, and it sells a lot. From a strictly business point of view, the ship is so iconic and popular, with fans and detractors alike, that it would be absurd for SEGA to ignore the chance to print these two characters and get a load of money. […] Outside of the business perspective, I believe we’re facing the moment that we’ve been waiting for: it’s time they’ll establish once and for all the dynamic of these two characters, following more closely the original Japanese vision of Sonic. I said many times that, in trying to change canon, the West, especially SEGA of America, did nothing but confuse fans and generate more discussions than needed, by introducing different data and portrayals that contradict the canon established by Sonic Team.

[…] nowadays I think that SEGA has spoken loud and clear. I think canon is ready to negotiate the idea that Sonic and Amy, apart from being excellent friends who would risk their lives for each other in a heartbeat, have something else on their hands (probably the other’s hand). This won’t automatically translate into a kiss, or a complete love declaration (although Sonic X came close…), or a commitment to a formal relationship like we know them in real life. SEGA canon affirms that Amy is “Sonic’s girlfriend” and nothing more. Outside of that detail, they still pretty much function as friends interacting with a little flirting here, and a little Sonic running away there. It’s the basis of their dynamic, now enhanced by the fact that SEGA is giving us a clearer message.

SEGA and its most recent Sonamy side – more canon than ever

An interesting detail that wasn’t included in the ask and that makes me think is the possibility that all of this will feature in the games as well. This is a completely different matter for another day, but I like to think that there is the possibility that we’ll see SEGA being more interested in inserting more Sonamy in the games, even if in an indirect way like in Sonic Unleashed and its emotional support, especially if the rumors that we’re about to get a soft-reboot are true. Romance is not something Sonic games are famous for doing well… at all, but that doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea to add a little sprinkle of IDW Sonamy in the mix.

Opinion: How could Sonamy progress in IDW?

Based on these quotes, that reference the more corporative side of SEGA and the actual Sonic canon, along with the huge wave of shipping material in the recent IDW Sonic #39, my plan for today is to compile some of the opinions that friends of mine have shared (thank you for your time!). The question was simple: Do you think this recent IDW push could be part of a bigger change in direction going forward, or just blatant amounts of fanservice for the sake of it?

The council of the people

The first person to offer her opinions about this Sonamy debate is Beevean, who helped with previous projects like the music in Sonic Forces and by translating some of my articles in English. As I was the reason that she became a shipper again, I asked her a few questions, including the one above that will serve as a guideline for all the other contributions. Beevean then offered a short chronology of interactions, before giving a piece of her mind about the present and the future of the ship:

Well, I’m not sure if you ever chronicled every interaction between Sonic and Amy in the main series to see how their relationship has changed during the years? Not counting the Classic series where the only signs of Sonamy are CD’s manual and outro, from 1998 to 2005 you can see a steady flanderization from "Amy likes Sonic and teases him but they’re still good friends" to “Sonic can’t stand the sight of Amy because she’s a psycho”. Thank you for your service, Sonic X.

Then in Sonic ‘06 they barely interact because Amy is Silver’s amiga, but Amy says her prone-to-different-interpretations line “If I have to choose between the world and Sonic, I will choose Sonic”, up to you if you read it as romantic or obsessed (‘06 has a weird theme of people putting their loved ones before “the world”)

As for Unleashed, I lost count of the times I’ve linked to your emotional support post, so I will say they were trying to ship tease a little more - a ship tease that was all-but-confirmed in Black Knight, the last game written in Japan first.

Then Pontaff happened, and Sonamy took several steps back due to the cast shrinking down, including that awful Generations scene that was so unneeded and mean. This is, IIRC, the last time Amy was depicted as someone Sonic found annoying and clingy; as in Lost World Amy does say (in the English version, I should check the Japanese one) “I’m sorry I couldn’t say...” before “dying”, but aside from that, Amy’s only role is to worry for the Flickies, almost a way to distance her from her “Sonic obsessed” characterization.

And then Boom changed things, and since then Sonamy exploded and that’s how we got to IDW as it is today. Forces in the meanwhile doesn’t do much in the Sonamy department, aside from one single scene where Sonic looks mildly overwhelmed by Amy, but when put it like this it definitely looks like the Boom cartoon tried to establish a more stable dynamic between Sonic and Amy and it was so successful that the rest of the Western media tried to follow suit.

[…]

I wonder... IDW is the most faithful adaptation we ever had, even more than Sonic X, and we know that SEGA keeps a close eye on the writing and depiction of the characters (remember that panel that was changed because they didn’t want Sonic to blush?)

I seriously doubt we’ll ever get a game with nods as blatant as IDW simply because IDW is a comic so it’s focused on the story it wants to tell, while Sonic games are on average light on plot (and I suspect Forces’ failure have convinced SEGA that Sonic games should not strive to go back to a more serious tone)

However, there has been Sonamy merch recently... like, some IDW issues even had Sonadow ship tease moments, likely for fanservice reasons, but I ain’t seen t-shirts with those two :P

Beevean

You can see here that she broached a theme that was not explicitly included in the question, but was alluded to: the possible existence of a game that will capitalize on this change of direction. The elephant in the room is Sonic Unlimited, but as I keep saying, as I am writing this piece, we’re one month away from the possible 30th anniversary announcements: we have little time left to speculate, as we’re so close to discovering the truth.

I then asked the same question to Jessica, the person in charge of the petition for a series based on IDW Sonic in the past, who is still following with me the development of the comic and especially of Sonamy.

I believe they are going to hint at the fact that there’s something more than friendship going on. There won’t be any kisses, but there will be insinuations.

Jessica (jluqueju)

Jessi in particular has showed a remarkable interest for these recent interactions between Sonic and Amy: she has pointed out how hard it is for them to hide the fact that there is something more under their friendship, and how writers, Evan Stanley most of all, are trying to show more of this peculiar aspect of the dynamic of these two characters.

Now, the next opinions come from a group of friends that are even closer to me. I left my question to a team that maybe you guys know if you have actively participated in the discussion spaces of the blog. We’ll start with Mort’s* opinion. The mind behind the Sonic Caos* channel, moderator of our server and co-host of the Seaside Hill Podcast*:

I still haven’t read the last IDW issues. Now you’re hyping me up and I can’t wait to read them ASAP. But this is causing the Unlimited idea to make a lot more sense. Thing is, whatever is done with Sonamy, the theme is always fanservice. Although they tried in Unleashed to put these characters closer, this development was cut short by the poor quality of future games. It's not crazy to thing that they’re going to deepen the characters and their relationship in this new era, going as far as changing the way Amy interacts with Sonic.

Mort

I have to mention that Sonic Unlimited was a main theme of the first episode of our podcast, and it will probably be brought up again in the second episode, the 22nd of May. Our debates always tend to orbit around the same topics, but it’s interesting to see that the perspective of the previous articles, a supposed change in direction for the Sonic-Amy dynamic, ends up being mentioned or alluded to, regardless if you consider the perspective that the ship sells.

Now roll down your red carpets because the next opinion comes from our residential Sonamy expert, Yvanix Rose*. She’s a translator*, an important member of the Sonic Stage Argentina* staff, moderator of our server (she still hasn’t taken part in our podcast, maybe one day…), and someone who has contributed multiple times to the Sonamy debate on this blog, directly or indirectly in the form of threads or translations:

I don’t like closing myself to a single option or point of view, I usually just consider the possibilities and try to test the waters/define/calculate which ones are more likely to happen and which ones are not.

That said, I will try to contribute something to this conversation, but perhaps there could be mistakes, I peaced out at the end of the Zombot arc and I have not read IDW Sonic since.

Both could likely be true:

- We talked about Unlimited many times already, and since Roger left we always get to the same conclusions (I remember that before that we only laughed about that supposed leak xd)

If Unlimited ends up becoming real we’ll see some changes, the fact that the Sonamy dynamic in IDW is in a form that we already know (?) would be a way of preparing the ground for what is coming in Unlimited It makes sense to me, it will help fans getting used to it and new fans have an approach to the franchise similar to what is coming from the 30th anniversary game.

Anything else I could say was already said by Mort xd

- Fanservice. It makes a lot of sense and there’s no need to explain it. “Sonamy sells” xd (?)

The only contribution I’d like to add is that there could be another reason. Are these issues still written by Evan or has Ian returned? If they are still written by Evan or if Evan and Ian are writing together ... Maybe the "fanservice" is because of that, because Ian is not the writer or he is but he’s not alone. Could be more like a decision / suggestion from Evan and not so much something from SEGA xd

Yvanix Rose

I find interesting this position of expanding the debate beyond what I said about change of direction vs pure fanservice, and also opening the possibility that we are facing a conjunctural Sonamy moment, since these are the last issues written by Evan Stanley before she is replaced by Ian Flynn, who is coming back as the main writer starting from issue #50, mentioned as a major milestone in the latest IDW Sonic panel. In this case, the third position could be that it is just something nice that is being done without much direct order from SEGA. Of course, they are the ones who must approve each issue that comes out, but at the same time they might not be demanding “put more Sonamy here for that reason” (borrowing words from Mort), but it’s rather a proposal from Ian and/or Evan.

Other opinions that go around in our Discord server* (my other server in English isn’t as interested in this topic, but I’ll mention it to have an excuse to promote it) seem to follow a similar mentality: whether it’s arguing in favor of Sonic Unlimited, defending the fanservice, asking for a stronger and more widespread canonization, our public space for discussion seems to have taken a position in favor of the current way of presenting the Sonamy dynamic in IDW Sonic becoming the standard for all types of Sonic canon.

And finally, we have our last opinion, courtesy of Facu. Genshiro on Youtube* (he recently talked about SEGA and NFTs*), mod of our server and co-host of our Seaside Hill Podcast:

My journey through the Sonic IDW comics stopped at the end of the metal virus arc, with the Deadly Six and that beautiful Super Sonic/Silver scene. Since then, what little I have seen was because I spoiled myself or because of panels that were posted on different pages and here on Discord.

And to add my two cents, if I see a LOT of Sonamy in the franchise lately, I also think it’s fanservice, because Yvi said, and we all know that, “Sonamy sells”. But I find it curious that after the Unlimited leak, the success that it’s having and how every time it becomes more of a reality than a leak, it makes me think that it is a way to get used to what is coming, because, if Unlimited is real, it would be shocking to see Sonic and Amy together since they haven’t interacted for a long time, let alone having Amy as a playable character. Seeing that we’re getting a little more and more Sonamy each time makes me think that it may be because of Unlimited, to test the waters or simply fanservice.

I don’t think I have much more to say, as I said before, I stopped at the end of the metal virus saga with IDW, after that my relationship with Sonic IDW is based on spoilers that I see sometimes XD

Facu

Personal reflection

Going back to the quotes I started this article with, I believe I’m not too far in my analysis of the situation of Sonamy in canon. In fact, I did not expect in any circumstance to see so many hints at their closeness as we did in #39, and this made me think about some things.

Sonamy or not, we’re at a turning point. The Sonic in 2022 and 2023 will likely be different from the Sonic in 2020 and 2021. Between the comic, the movie, the TV series and the still-elusive games, a new identity for our blue hedgehog is being forged, and I don’t doubt for a second that we’re going to see it more and more this year. I’m inclined to believe that this process of resignification for Sonic will be also applied to his personal relationships (we’ll see what they’ll do with Knuckles, for example), and Amy will be at the forefront of these efforts. Between marketing and fandom reception, I believe that there is still so much yet to see, and somehow IDW Sonic could function as a testing ground if SEGA is really paying attention to what’s going on. Leaving aside Sonamy for a moment, IDW Sonic is the only medium that is currently bothering to give more context and a bigger role to the Deadly Six, trying to grant them a place that many in the fandom don’t believe they should take, after a mediocre introduction in Lost World and SEGA’s fascination to keep bringing back Zavok, like in Forces and TSR.

As I started to work on this article, SEGA’s most recent fiscal results appeared (just as I predicted on this blog): in particular they spoke with their investors about strategies employed according to the franchises they work with, depending on if they’re active or inactive/dormant. Among their strategies, they mentioned three possibilities: remaster, remake and reboot. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? This got me thinking about not only the franchises that can be revived with those three possible strategies, but it also left me pondering what SEGA intends to do with Sonic. Remaster is something we know they will do with Colors Ultimate (and that Generations and Unleashed would deserve as well); remake is something the fandom has obviously been asking for for years (SA1 and 2); and finally reboot, which sounds strange for Sonic... until we remember that the Sonic Rose/Unlimited leak claimed that it was a soft-reboot of the series.

What is my point? SEGA is aware of the strategies it has at its disposal, and among all its franchises it seems that Sonic is in the middle of everything. All the options are good for Sonic in this context, and that makes me think, makes me think more and more about this change of direction, given the possibility that what is coming in the next months will be great. Although we talk more than anything about Sonamy today, it will probably not be the only thing that is resignified for the future.

IDW Sonic #36, the panel that had Sonic blushing in its original draft.

Conclusions

I would like to use this space to thank all the people who took a moment today to participate in this article, to share their opinions and thoughts about what is happening or what could happen in the future. The Sonamy articles on my blog tend to focus only on my perspective, but I hope I have done a good job of presenting other opinions, offering the possibility to explain themselves to people with whom we always talk, people who participate in our discussion spaces, and people I feel deep respect and affection for.

We have shown these perspectives and we briefly commented on some of the details that caught my attention, but what do you guys think? Do you think that this huge Sonamy wave of the past 6 months, in and outside the comics, is a sign of a general change of direction in the representation of Sonic? Or is it simple fanservice that should not be analyzed too deeply?

As always, I invite you to participate to our Discord server*, and if you’re interested in hearing more from Facu, Mort or me, join us for the second episode of the SHP Podcast LIVE on Saturday, May 22nd. See you there!

#sonic the hedgehog #sonamy #translation #sonic idw #idw sonic #this one was fun to translate #i had to because i pushed poor latin into writing this article :P #so yeah at this point i read idw for sonic and amy's interactions oops #i hope ian doesn't go back to whatever the metal virus arc was doing #meanwhile let's all wait for the next sonic game

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oddlyunadventurous · 3 years

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BOOK REPORT 2020

I’ve always been a sparse reader but 2018 and 19 had me accelerate my reading habits to the point that I think I’ve read the most books this year that I ever had. I suppose I’ll count them all here, just to make sure!! I said something or other about the Moomin books at the end of last year’s Inkt*b*r so, this being the month of traditions, let’s make a new one by tallying up my literary “yays” and “nays” at the end of the season.

Video game text boxes don’t count, online publication articles don’t count, psych/aesthetic papers and 1000 page biosemiotic textbooks don’t count, but they have sure pursued me in my sleep during the year as well. This list is really mostly for my benefit (and no I won’t get a Goodreads account tyvm), so under the cut you’ll find a list of titles in roughly the order I read them, along with short notes. I’ve done longer reviews of these books elsewhere and I need not bore you with them here.

K. Stanislavski - An Actor Prepares (1936) I started reading this book in 2012, then dropped it because I couldn’t understand it at the time. Kostya attends acting school and gets lessons from The Director. He learns to sleep like his cat.

K. Stanislavski - Building a Character (1949) Supposed to have been published along the first one in a single volume. Kostya continues his lessons. A lot of thoughts on walking, gaits, eloquent speech, phrasing, etc. Both these books are wonderful looks into the author’s artistic life. It’s very heartfelt and down to earth, considering it’s quasi-fiction made to edutain. Very inspiring.

M. Polanyi - The Tacit Dimension (1966) A book on the origin of knowledge, the integrated performance of skills, the emergence of life and other phenomena in the universe, marginal control between levels of reality, the moral death of the communist regime caused by the unbridled lucidity of the Enlightenment, the responsibilities of science, and thoughts about open societies of the future. This is one of the two shortest books I’ve read in the list, it covers all of this under 130 pages and manages to do it well.

B. Rainov - Eros and Thanatos (1971) A communist propaganda book attacking western mass media and escapist culture. It gets no points for being correct, as the author mostly swiped the truths from french philosophers. Very variable in its intellectual prowess, almost as if it picks its arguments in order to push an agenda. Informative but also infuriating. Also expectedly homophobic.

J. Hoffmeyer - Signs of Meaning in the Universe (1997) A somewhat pop-sciency book about biosemiotics. Forgettable but also humbly written and explicative.

A. Noë - Varieties of Presence (2012) An unimpressive book about sensory perception. Noë’s theory on sensorimotor action is worth considering but the book is poorly edited and mostly spent arguing with peers.

E. Fudge - Quick Cattle & Dying Wishes (2018) A look into a registry of last wills and testaments from the period 1630 - 1650 in Essex. The book is about early modern people’s relationship to their animals and what they meant to them in life, as well as in death. Fudge’s argumentation is sharp and her style is modern. Being a scholarly book it is really overwhelming with the footnotes sometimes, but otherwise satisfying. One gets beautiful glimpses of family relationships, thoughts and feelings that people now dead for 400 years once held.

G. Márquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) The Buendia family get all their sons killed. The Banana Company sucks. People love each other. A lot happens, generally. It is a hundred years, after all. The upper class sucks.

K. Polanyi - The Great Transformation (1944) The Industrial Revolution sucked. England sucks. It reduced all its workers to subhuman wretches. Every single decision made after the empiricists made labour and land fictional commodities has been a band-aid to the essential contradiction that the market economy wants to annihilate its human host. Laissez-faire sucks. It caused WW1. Fuck everything. Fun book.

R. Coyne - Peirce of Architects (2019) Talks about architecture and the ideas of logician/father of pragmatism Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Informative about both. Brisk and not very in-depth, but to its benefit rather than its detriment.

R. Williams - Culture and Society (1958) A survey of the 18th and 19th century England, and the emergence of the concept of “culture” as defence against the horrors that the Industrial Revolution inflicted upon society. Consists of some two dozen outlines of contributors to the romanticist tradition, from Adam Smith, through Ruskin, to Orwell, their beliefs, contributions and literary works. Very eloquent and interesting.

E. Fudge - Brutal Reasoning (2006) A fantastic book about much: early modern views of the difference between a human and an animal, the Christian discourse of reason, the logical fallacies that lead to its implosion, the advantageous use of dehumanisation by imperialists in other to genocide natives, Montague and Shakespeare, and the ethical hell of animal murder that led Descartes to deem animals as machines so as to allow his buddies to perform live vivisections on dogs without feeling guilty about it (this is the real reason, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise). There is even space for an entire chapter about an intelligent horse who could tell a virgin from a whore and learned Latin at Oxford. This is my favorite book I read this year, so it gets an extra long review.

R. Williams - The Long Revolution (1961) A sequel to Culture and Society that’s worse. The start and end are brilliant but the middle sags. It contains some historical reviews of English cultural elements, like the newspaper industry, the Standard English vernacular and the realist novel of the 19th century, but honestly if the book was just about about the creative state (intro) and Marxism (outro) it would’ve been fine, if not better.

P. Klee - The Thinking Eye (1956 & 1964) Bauhaus boy in 1920s Germany! Love you Klee, xoxo. You really have to read his thoughts to understand his work imho. You can appreciate it just fine on the surface level, but his completely eccentric (though very self-consistently logical and sharp) views on art creation open a new outlook into his primitive approach.

F D.K. Ching - Architecture: Form, Space & Order (1979) A staple book for architecture students. Or so I hear. Steeped in gestalt psychology. Very good, though not necessarily stuff I don’t know already. Very nice looking pencil illustrations, Ching looks to be an accomplished technical draughtsman.

H. Wölfflin - Principles of Art History (1915) A strong contender for second place in the tier list. The book examines the transition between Classical to Baroque in Italy and Germany (and all the Germany clones, like the Netherlands). It is a systematic, precise aesthetic treatise that reveals much by conceptualizing and grouping characteristic art features in which the two styles differ, then explaining their bearing on their decorative content as well as the outlook on life that they embody. Lovely.

M. Porter - Windows of the Soul: The Art of Physiognomy in European Culture 1470-1780 (2005) A historiographical treatise about early modern views on physiognomy. The book deals mainly with the extant literature on the subject and tries to gleam what it could mean for the customs at the time - palmistry reading, occultism, persecution of the “gypsies” and the Christian scientific project of attaining meaning. Macro- and microcosms, as above so below, hermeticism, that sort of stuff. It’s an interesting read but it’s too long, the quality of writing varies greatly from chapter to chapter, and it is far too expensive. Wouldn’t recommend it.

S. C.Figueiredo - Inventing Comics: A New Translation of Rodolphe Töpffer's Reflections on Graphic Storytelling, Media Rhetorics, & Aesthetic Practice (2017) This is the shortest book I read, mainly translating Töpffer’s 1845 "Essay on Physiognomy" along with giving his biography and some other paraphernalia. It’s not worth the price for the content contained within, but Töpffer is the father of the modern comic book, so I thought I’d learn what his philosophy was. On that front, at least, very interesting! If only I knew French I’d save myself the trouble and read the original, which is now public domain.

D. Bayles - Art & Fear (1985) A useless self-help book. Not entirely bullshit but completely banal from all angles. Shouldn’t even be on this list but I did read it, so...

I. Allende - The House of the Spirits (1982) A child rapist gets a redemption arc. Well, kind of. All women are queens. Men are awful. The poor are wretches and it’s their fault. Oh no, the communists are going to take our land! Pinochet’s concentration camps sucked. Overall a better magical realism book than 100 Years of Solitude, to be honest. Very well written characters.

R. Arnheim -To the Rescue of Art: Twenty-Six Essays (1992) What it says on the tin. Wide range of subjects, from art appreciation, to schizophrenic and autistic child art, to gestalt psychology, to philosophy of science, to Picasso’s Guernica and the fate of abstract art, to reflections on the 20th century and the writer’s life in pre-nazi Germany and America. I love Arnheim, I’ve read many of his books and I’m glad I picked this one up.

R. Arnheim - Film as Art (1957) A book about cinematography, one of his earliest, actually, mostly a personal translation from an original German book he published in 1933. Somewhat outdated, but foundational. Not as informative to me but I don’t regret reading it.

G. E. Lessing - Laocoon; or, On the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766) A book by a greekaboo about a fucking dumb poem and a statue of a naked dad and his two sons getting fucked by snakes. It’s misogynistic and authoritarian in several places, and altogether awfully full of itself. 100 pages of interesting observations stretched over 400 pages of boring Greco-Roman literary discourse.

L. Tolstoy - Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (1852, 1854, 1856) One story serialized in a magazine then later collated in three separate books. Aristocrat boy grows up in pre-revolution Russia. A very, very relatable coming-of-age story. Tolstoy is a lovely writer.

F. Dostoevsky - Poor Folk (1846) An epistolary novel consisting of letters between literally Dobby from Harry Potter and his maybe-niece, whom he wants to fuck. Starts bad, gets better by the end. A bit rough and tumble for Dostoevsky’s first, so I forgive him for wasting my time a little bit. A decent character study of the middle/lower classes, at least.

L. Tolstoy - Family Happiness (1859) An amazing romance novel for the skill employed in writing it. It is very short yet delivers so much emotion. Rather simple narrative at its core, but executed with such bravado one cannot help but be impressed.

F. Dostoevsky - The Double (1846) In which the Author starts swinging. A pathetic, neurodivergent old man gets used and abused by the people around him and nobody cares. Satirical and biting, better than his first.

A. Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking (1945) I last read this when I was 6 years old so I thought I’d refresh my memory. I remember disliking the book then and I can see why. Pippi’s kind of an asshole. Still very enjoyable to read. I know it’s meant for a younger audience’s reading level yet I cannot help comparing it with Tove Jansson’s books and how much better the prose in there is. Sorry.

***

I think that about rounds them up! That’s about 30 books, give or take. For next year I’m hoping to:

Finish Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s bibliographies

Read more econ and marxist writing (low personal priority but i have to, in THIS economy *rolls eyes*)

Finish the Tintin and Moomin comics, as well as Jhonen Vasquez’s collection of edgy humor

Read more about botany and biology in general

Get started on Faulkner’s and William Golding’s bibliographies