The Rec Center #131
Hello! If you’ve been lucky enough to have time off this week, I hope you had fun cooking food outside or chilling by a body of water or, like me, visiting the Royal Observatory’s collection of 17th- and 18th-century nautical navigational instruments in honor of James McGraw. This week we’ve got a multi-fandom fic grab bag and Gav celebrates the anniversary of an seminal fic she co-authored: “Steve Rogers at 100.” (I’m sure the word “seminal” embarrasses her a great deal, SORRY GAV.) — Elizabeth
new stuff
“A Journey Into The Dark Heart Of Celebrity Relationship Conspiracy Theories” by Zan Romanoff at BuzzFeed
“From Robsten to Larry Stylinson, these theories reveal not only how much we care about celebrities, but how desperately we want them to care about us.”
Archive of Our Own updated its search engine!
AO3 already has the best search engine most of us use on a regular basis (Seriously! Think about it!), and it just got even better. Now you can include and exclude specific tags more easily, along with filtering for things like crossovers.
“Communist K-pop fans doxxed Elon Musk” by Alex Dalbey at the Daily Dot
Incredibly, this isn’t a clickbait headline.
older stuff
In lieu of an older article this week, Zan Romanoff’s conspiracy theory + fandom piece is a good opportunity to re-up Grace and the Fever, her 2017 YA novel about a boyband fan who’s invested in a shipping conspiracy theory. Highly recommended, a+++.)
tumblr & beyond
Captain America fanart by rizurin
“my musical taste was formed solely from livejournal fanmixes” starter pack.
Hey Overwatch fandom what’s good.
If you wish you could’ve been at last weekend’s Fan Studies Network conference in Cardiff, Dr. Lori Morimoto has collected everyone’s live-tweets for each panel!
A historical headcanon for Logan meeting Captain America during WWII and then (of course) losing his memory.
fanfiction
We’ve got a few kinda specific themed lists as well as a few fandom-specific lists in the works, but this holiday week, we’ve got a classic multi-fandom grab bag. :-) — Elizabeth
“War Criminals” by Fabula Rasa. 42K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: West Wing; Ship: Leo McGarry/Lord John Marbury
Recced by: BakerStMel
Backstory: Presidential Chief of Staff Leo McGarry falls into an ill-advised relationship with prickly Ambassador John Marbury. “Turns out, Marbury always did know his name.”
Rec: Beautiful, fully-realized rare-pair relationship in a fandom I’m not even in. Drenched with hope, sorrow, and world-changing consequences. A fic I read when I need to remember why I write.
Content warnings: Violence, internal homophobia, reference to war violence.
“Tenshi Gakuen” by Harukami, thehoyden. 142K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Tenshi ni Narumon (I’m Gonna be an Angel); Ship: Raphael/Mikael
Recced by: Gryvon
Backstory: This is an old, essentially original fic universe based on two characters from Tenshi ni Narumon, with a boatload of original characters.
Rec: Tenshi ni Narumon is a great anime that never really got a proper release in North America. This series takes the cannon gay couple and builds out the setting to include characters surrounding them.
Content warnings: N/A
“once you live a good story” by pummelwhack. 13K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Marvel (Comics); Ship: Carol Danvers/Jessica Drew
Recced by: annathecrow
Backstory: Carol/Jessica is one of the bigger femslash ships in Marvel comics fandom. They’re good friends in canon, and based on some of their interactions it really isn’t hard to imagine them being more.
Rec: Poetic, well-written, and with great characterization—one of the best femslash fics I know.
Content warning: Mourning of a character who died pre-story.
“Of Five Adventures That Occurred During The Reign Of The Raven Barista.” by Lanna Michaels. 1.2K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Chestnut_filly
Backstory: JS&MN is a magical alternate history of the English Regency, in which two differently insufferable upper-class magicians restore magic to England mostly via accident and struggle with John Uskglass, the (absentee) Raven King at the heart of all English magic. Now imagine if John Uskglass poured his considerable talents into building a coffee shop.
Rec: Lanna Michaels mimics JS&MN’s delightful narrative voice brilliantly. This is a three-minute read, but you’ll be laughing hysterically through all of it. Special honors to Jonathan Strange’s irate tumblr tags.
Content warnings: N/A
“i’d still dance with you” by hawberries. 4K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Yuri On Ice; Ship: Yuri/Otabek
Recced by: Kelly
Backstory: A few years post-season one, Yuri and Otabek are at the Olympics together and Victor drops in at an inopportune time.
Rec: This started out as a goofy comic but the fic is a really lovely look at private life vs public life, and what Yuri and Otabek have been assuming each of them wants with regards to that. Also the author is an artist so it ends with fanart!
Content warnings: N/A
“Stone and Sand” by SassySnowperson. 50K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Star Wars; Ship: Luke Skywalker/Bodhi Rook
Recced by: starknjarvis27
Backstory: This is an EveryoneLives!AU that explores a relationship between beautiful desert pilots Bodhi and Luke. It’s a second chance fic, taking place after the two had a fling during the war, and follows them trying to find a way to be together long-term.
Rec: In addition to showing a beautiful, aching, pining relationship between Luke and Bodhi, the fic does an amazing job of making you fall in love with the city of Jedha. Place and history have a huge impact on the story, and it feels so grounded.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
Four years ago, some friends and I published a multimedia fanfic called “Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film.” It imagines what the Captain America movies would look like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where Steve Rogers is a real historical figure.
Our fake movies ranged from awful 1980s blockbusters to porn parodies to indie dramas, with interludes showing Steve Rogers watching them with the Avengers Fanartist Neenya created a wonderful poster for each movie:
Steve Rogers was born on the 4th of July, and this week marked his 100th birthday—the actual date of our “Steve Rogers at 100” film festival. I’m proud that the fic still holds up today, and since I only wrote about 20% of it, I hope it’s not too self-aggrandizing to rec it here. — Gav
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, explainer, or ship manifesto, please get in touch! elizabethandgav at gmail dot com.
If you liked this, please share it with your friends! https://thereccenter.substack.com/. And find us on social media: Gav (twitter/tumblr) & Elizabeth (twitter/tumblr)