The Rec Center #147
Happy kinda-sorta Halloween, everyone! We have a moderately spooky theme for you this week: A primer and rec list for the videogame/book series The Witcher, written by guest reccer Madison. Plus, we have a celebration of The Hunger Games anniversary, some insight into Tolkien’s sense of humor, and more. — Gav
new stuff
“Katniss Everdeen is My Hero” by Sabaa Tahir at the New York Times
A celebration of Katniss’s cultural impact, on the tenth anniversary of the Hunger Games.
“Abducted by The X-Files: all the places fandom can take you” by Sophie Charara at Den of Geek
A *very* relatable tale for anyone who’s found themselves in some seriously far-flung rabbit holes after falling into a fandom.
older stuff
PSA: This is a little morbid, but we recently discovered that AO3 has a fannish Next of Kin policy, a useful feature succinctly explained in this Tumblr thread.
tumblr & beyond
The Witcher fanart by Nora Potwara
Jason Mendoza: “He’s got the the face of a Greek god and the problem solving ability of one too”
“enemies to lovers, fabric store AU, 40k words”
captain walton making a vlog after hearing frankenstein’s backstory
An underrated highlight of the LOTR books: Tolkien using contrasts between ~high and ~low modes of speech as a punchline.
fanfiction + explainer: the witcher
Madison spends her days researching dead people as a postgrad student in history and her evenings attempting to think non-serious thoughts about fictional people. She is madisonmaximus on tumblr though she mostly just lurks these days.
The Witcher is a Polish fantasy book series, videogame series, and soon-to-be Netflix TV series. The books, by Andrzej Sapkowski, are a combination of short stories and novels about a witcher—a professional monster hunter—called Geralt of Rivia, his friends, his sometimes-lover and sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg, and his adopted daughter Ciri. The games are action RPGs that pick up after the end of the books, at which point Geralt has lost his memory and spends the first two games piecing his own history back together.
“La Chanson de Geralt de Riv” by gereru
The third game, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt (TW3), involves Geralt searching for Ciri as she flees the king of the Wild Hunt, who wants to use her unique magical abilities for his nefarious plans. If you’re curious, this animated cutscene from the start of the game does a fairly good job introducing the general situation, if not the characters. TW3 won numerous awards upon its release in 2015, and is so good it continues to outsell many new games. The world is super immersive and the games are known for the extent to which they incorporate choice and consequences into the storytelling, so each situation has multiple outcomes and the numerous endings reward replaying.
The universe (a canonical multiverse) is in a lot of ways the typical fantasy Europe setting, but there is a wonderful humor to its deconstructed fairy tale rules (think of a grim Diana Wynne Jones or Gail Carson Levine) as well as some seriously great monsters. The series has issues with race (everyone is white) and gender politics (lotta naked women) and has been pretty hit-or-miss in regards to queer representation, but I find that I can read or play with a critical eye and still find the whole thing really cool. This trailer will give you an idea of what I mean:
So who is the titular witcher? Geralt of Rivia is a witcher from the School of the Wolf. Raised at their fortress more or less from birth. Geralt’s body took so well to the mutations young witchers undergo during the Trial of the Grasses that they decided to give him extra, which bleached all the pigment from his body and gave him his luscious white hair. Pretends he’s emotionless because that’s what people expect of witchers but he cares so much. Like many millenials, he’s constantly short on money and his best friend is a poet. Unlike many millenials, that best friend is an extremely famous poet whose best-known work is all about Geralt, which Geralt hates. Originally made up the “of Rivia” bit of his name so he would seem more ~relatable but in an ironic twist of fate ended up knighted by Queen Meve of Rivia. No control over his libido. Once accidentally ordered a genie to “go fuck yourself.” Has a bathtub scene so iconic they made an collectable statue out of it.
You may have seen this tumblr post about Geralt even if you know nothing about the game. I, for one, think about it all the goddamn time.
fanfiction
These are horny games and the fanfic is equally horny, which makes it a bit funny that an asexual is doing this rec list. These fics are all compliant-ish with game canon…... to the degree that one can be compliant when canon itself is so flexible. I’ve tried to make a note of heavy spoiler content, but I am forewarning everyone that these fics will spoil plot points from the books and games.
“All That’s Mine I Carry With Me” by a_sparrows_fall. 28K words, rated Explicit.
Ship: Geralt/Regis OR Geralt/Yennefer
Backstory: If you have the “Blood & Wine” expansion for the game, Geralt eventually ends up in the frankly hilarious duchy of Toussaint where he teams up with an old compatriot, the barber-surgeon (and vampire) Regis, to resolve a series of murders. This fic is set after one of the possible endings to that story which results in Regis having to flee Toussaint. Spoilers for the books, TW3, and Blood & Wine.
Rec: I love the way this fic incorporates the element of choice that characterizes the games. At the end of the first chapter, the reader gets to decide whether they want Geralt to run off with Regis or to revive his relationship with Yennefer, which he thought was over for good.
Content warnings: N/A
“Heart of the Matter” by ValmureEd. 2K words, rated teen.
Ship: Gen
Backstory: “What makes a monster monstrous?” is a running theme in Witcher media. This fic tries to get to, ahem, the heart of the matter. Spoilers for the books and Blood & Wine.
Rec: Witcher fandom does not have a lot of gen fic, which is a shame. The author wrote this fic as a kind of “welcome to the fandom” for a friend of theirs, so it should be easy for new readers.
Content warnings: N/A
“Young Wolves” by dreadelion. 8K words, rated Mature.
Ship: Geralt/Eskel
Backstory: Illustrated snippets of Geralt’s childhood friendship with his fellow witcher Eskel and development of a romantic relationship in later chapters. No spoilers.
Rec: Geralt’s physical transformation in his youth via witcher mutations and his status as perpetual outsider opens the character up to a wealth of queer narratives and interpretations. In this one, Geralt and many of his fellow witchers are trans. It’s wonderful and the illustrations are so charming.
Content warning: Mild homophobia
“Sweetness” by WaywardLass. 22K words, rated Mature.
Ship: Geralt/Yennefer
Backstory: A case fic set after the games with Geralt and Yennefer together in a committed relationship. Their relationship is really a side dish to the delicious mystery, however. No spoilers.
Rec: Yennefer is Geralt’s primary romantic partner in the books, but while they love each other they are not always kind to one another. For that reason it’s fun to read something sweet (literally) involving the two of them. Also: Curses! Lesbians! Baked goods!
Content warning: N/A
“Misethere” by astolat. 46K, rated Explicit.
Ship: Geralt/Emhyr var Emreis
Backstory: This fic picks up from the game ending that (spoiler!) puts Ciri on Nilfgaard’s throne. Geralt only showed up to see Ciri settled, but events conspire to keep him in court…. Spoilers for TW3.
Rec: The Witcher fandom might not have a huge quantity of fanfiction, but it does have a whole set of stories from astolat, who, if you’re unfamiliar, is a Big Deal as fic writers go. I wanted to rec this one because I love Geralt and Ciri’s relationship and this story has more of it than I usually find in fic. Also astolat’s Emhyr is way more interesting than his canon compatriot.
Content warnings: Violence, explicit sexual content, consent issues stemming from both magic and trickery
“Champion” by softestpunk. 24K words, rated Explicit.
Ship: Geralt/Emhyr var Emreis
Backstory: Ahem. Forced proximity. Bed sharing. Hurt/comfort. Enemies-to-friends-to-lovers. I doubt I need to say more.
Rec: I enjoy everything softestpunk writes for the fandom, but this story seemed the most accessible to new readers.
Content warning: Violence
FINAL THOUGHT
Allowing me the occasional sappiness about The Rec Center’s readers, I just want to thank Madison and others who have done guest lists and explainers recently—if this list was just stuff that Gav & I read...well actually, Gav has a really diverse range of interests, but I would only provide you with X-Men: First Class fanfiction and pictures of James Flint’s angry beautiful face.
I’ve been reporting on the AO3 recently—brace yourselves, discourse-oriented article coming next week!—and one thing that’s come up in multiple conversations is how there’s a lot less fic reccing these days than there was a decade ago. Archives are great for storing and good for discoverability, but they’re not curations—that’s something that we have to do ourselves.
As I remind you with some regularity, we are always up for more explainers and guest fic lists, and as I remind you with probably even more frequency, sometimes we need to be nudged email-wise, so if you’re waiting for a response from us and still want to write something, please let us know. I also want to put out another call for ship manifestos—we had a few a while back, but we always want more. <3 — Elizabeth
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)