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Woke up early this morning, and thus...EARLY FRIDAY RECCS!

All Avengers this week.

Straight On 'Til Morning by arsenicarcher: Thor and Jane have a baby, and Tony has a million issues with it, but he cowboys up anyway because he's Tony Stark goddammit. I love the exploration of how Tony is and isn't damaged by his own childhood, and the found-family nature of the story. And also I'm beginning to suspect I like kidfic more than I let on. And also how hard is it to find good Tony/Pepper? G-rated; Thor/Jane, Tony/Pepper, Clint/Coulson.

escape from new york by beardsley: So, sex pollen happens, and Steve Rogers is literally the only person in the entire city unaffected by it, until Bucky gets back from a mission. I love the way Steve and Bucky are pals in this, and also something more; it's just a fun story about what amounts to a very sexy temporary zombie apocalypse. I do want to warn that, given all of NYC gets dosed with sex pollen, it could be read as dubcon and may be unsettling for people with consent issues. Explicit; Steve/Bucky, with some other background ships.

It Started With An Idea by madness_and_smiles: How much do I love that there is more comicsverse Hawkeye being written? I LOVE IT A LOT. This entire fic is comicsverse heavy; basically, the Avengers rumor mill is running strong and nobody -- both Hawkeyes, Spider-man, Captain Marvel, Spiderwoman, Thor, Wolverine, nobody -- seems quite sure whether Steve and Tony are doing it. Or were ever doing it. Or want to be doing it. Teen and Up; Clint/Jessica (in the past), Steve/Tony, very slight Carol/Jessica.

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I haven't actually finished Pure by Andrew Miller yet, but I'm reviewing it anyway since it has to be back at the library tonight.

There was an article I read ages ago about not finishing books -- not because they're bad or boring but because you've reached a place where you simply don't need to read any more. I actually kind of feel like I've hit that place with Pure, because I can see the climax coming and while Les Mis is one of my favourite plays, I'm not that into the revolutionary era of France.

Good book though. It's not billed as magical realism, but it certainly has elements.

Some of those who lived beside the cemetery had started to find the proximity an unpleasant one. Food would not keep. Candles were extinguished as if by the pinch of unseen fingers. People descending their stairs in the morning fell into a swoon. --p. 20

( It concerns the excavation of a cemetery... )

Final Verdict: It's certainly a creepy story, where Jean-Baptiste seems to shuffle between various hells as he tries to form an identity for himself and protect his work from vandals and politicians. I had hoped for a little more meditation on the graveyard and its excavation, rather than so much political backdrop, but it's still a really engaging book.

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So I was watching a documentary about the assassination of President McKinley this evening. The BBC is doing this series on Famous Assassinations, I don't know why, but they're actually pretty interesting.

Anyway, McKinley was shot by an anarchist at some major World's Fair style exhibition or other in Buffalo, New York. But they got him to the medic's station at the fair and they got at least one bullet out, and he seemed to be doing okay.

At which point his vice-president, Theodore Roosevelt, says to himself, "He's looking okay. I think I'll fuck off to do a walking tour of the Adirondacks."

Like you do.

So in the three days he was in the damn mountains, SPOILER, McKinley gets gangrene and dies. And nobody knows how to find Roosevelt, this being pre-cellphone and pre-helicopter and in general pre-everything. Basically the president died and then they lost the President 2.0.

And Roosevelt on the second or third day comes walking out of the ADIRONIDACKS and they're all, HEY TEDDY. GUESS WHAT. While you were in the woods, you became president.

Good job, dude.