The Rec Center #113
Greetings from Blizzard Britain! We really can’t handle snow over here. This week we’ve got time travel fic recs for you, as well as some more Black Panther coverage, and a slightly belated exploration of the beauty of Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir shipping. — Gav
new stuff
“How Black Panther Asks Us to Examine Who We Are To One Another” by Rahawa Haile at Longreads
“By sliding between the real and unreal, Black Panther frees us to imagine the possibilities—and the limitations—of an Africa that does not yet exist.”
“NOW KISS: What Virtue/Moir tells us about fandom’s love for tropes” by Kellynn Wee at The Kaya Toast
“When we ship, we are reading against the grain of staged performance.” On shipping as textual analysis, RPF, tropes, and fandom’s expectations.
“‘Titty Streamer’ Kaceytron Is Nourished By Bitter Gamer Tears” by Cecilia D’Anastasio at Kotaku
A fascinating profile of Kaceytron, a performance artist/gaming streamer who is (maybe?) gaming the system on Twitch.
older stuff
“What is fanfiction, anyway?” by Elizabeth at the New Statesman
If you’re thinking about the boundaries of fanfic and the big- and small-tent definitions...for no particular reason….
tumblr & beyond
“Japanese cosplayer Ikura recreates characters from Junji Ito’s horror manga”
“Erik Killmonger has the power of anime on his side.”
“what track would you go into if you were in starfleet?”
“not to sound like jane austen or anything but...”
fanfiction
A multifandom rec list for a couple of old favorite tropes: time travel and time loops! — Gav
“Tony Stark Meets an Extremely Unimpressed Time Traveler, or, Thomas Barrow Makes a Surprisingly Good 21st Century Butler” by Alex51324. 88K words, rated Teen.
Fandoms: Marvel Avengers, Downton Abbey; Ship: Tony Stark/Thomas Barrow
Recced by: persimmon
Backstory: Familiarity with Tony Stark is probably a given but Thomas Barrow is the bitchy, conniving, yet often misunderstood and cannonically gay footman from Downton Abbey.
Rec: Time travel? JARVIS getting his very own under butler? Less time spent describing plesiorsaur battles than the invention of plesiorsaur-themed cocktails? Tony Stark doing his utmost not to hit on the help?
Content warnings: N/A
“The North Remembers” by K_R_Closson and tasalmalin. 123K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Game of Thrones; Ship: Sansa Stark/Tyrion Lannister
Recced by: Lis
Backstory: What if Sansa had married Tyrion for real? What if she’d known what was coming and worked to build a better future for herself and the North?
Rec: I’ve always felt Sansa was criminally treated in the middle season so of Game of Thrones; this story gives her the agency she deserves.
Content warnings: Canon-level violence, dubious consent
“In His Image” by Whitmerule. 153K words, rated Mature.
Fandoms: Supernatural, Histoire de ma vie by Casanova; Ships: Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Gabriel travels to various periods in time to understand what it means to be an angel, bringing us along for the ride to explore how humans thought about faith, angels, and the soul from the medieval time to today. There’s also a plotty thing with the Winchester bros who are trying to stop the apocalypse, and lots of humor and traditional adventure/excitement there.
Rec: Not only is it impeccably researched and plotted, with a frankly unbelievably impressive depth of knowledge about the life and times of historical figures like Casanova and Margery Kempe, it’s deeply moving and thought-provoking in its exploration of religious faith and humanity. 100/10 you will cry.
Content warnings: N/A
“A How To Guide To Shinobi Life” by IncompleteSentanc (Erava). 81K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Naruto; Ship: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito
Recced by: bamfiruka
Backstory: Time travel fics are the Naruto fandom’s bread and butter, but this one does it better than most, by having our future heroes come back and fix everything themselves. Now it’s just up to the people in the past to deal with how the dust settles.
Rec: An AMAZING fic that “fixes” every problem in the original manga, in an everyone lives verse that still has an excellent plot. Set in Kakashi’s teen years, this fic is darkly funny while also dealing with the realities of shinobi life where there aren’t any problems.
Content warning: Graphic violence
“A Duel With Fate” by psocoptera. 20K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace; Ship: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Qui-Gon Jinn
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: A time loop taking place over the final days of The Phantom Menace, where Obi-Wan is forced to relive Qui-Gon’s death over and over again—and hopefully find a way to halt it.
Rec: This fic uses the timeloop/Groundhog Day trope in SUCH an interesting way, expanding beyond the typical (lovely!) romcom framework. It introduces the timeloop concept as Jedi phenomenon, where every Jedi goes through one loop at some point in their lives, as a learning exercise from the Force. Their task is to figure out the purpose of the loop, and complete it. Interspersed with sources from Jedi histories, this fic immerses you in the meditative nature of Obi-Wan’s quest to save Qui-Gon’s life— as well as being a very well-characterized love story.
Content warning: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
Elizabeth: Another week, another Terrible Opinion About Fanfiction. Yesterday LitHub published an interview with Lonely Christopher, a man who has rewritten Stephen King’s The Shining and proceeded to say this about his work:
The book is a concerted rejection of the standards of any type of literature, so in that way it is reacting to the formal elements it eschews, and interacting with readerly expectations as well as the history of the medium. I guess the reason why this isn’t “fan fiction” is because, first of all, it’s not enjoyable in the same way and then it’s vaguely academic.
For a full rundown and to skip giving the original a click, The Mary Sue had a full summary plus some reactions. As you could imagine, we thought we should really dig into this, and give his comments the full analysis they deserve. Gav, you want to start?
Gav: He’s a twat.
Elizabeth: Agreed.
Gav: Have a great weekend!
Have a favorite one-off rec? Please send it our way! We’ll use it in a future list. Other fanworks—comics, vids, etc—are strongly encouraged as well. And if you have any interest in doing an entire rec list or explainer, please get in touch! elizabethandgav at gmail dot com.
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