The Rec Center #148
Hi folks! This week we have historical AU fic recs, some highlights from the Fan Studies Network North America con, an article about wheelchair accessibility in sci-fi worldbuilding, and more. — Gav
new stuff
“Owning the servers: A design fiction exploring the transformation of fandom into ‘our own’” by Casey Fiesler at Transformative Works and Cultures
“How has fandom’s relationship with technology, with policy, and with each other gotten us to where we are now, and what could the future hold?”
Highlights from the first Fan Studies Network North America conference
If you weren’t lucky enough to be in Chicago last weekend for what sounded like an amazing conference, you can catch up on all the livetweets with the #FSNNA2018 hashtag, and watch all the vids featured in the vid show!
older stuff
“Staircases in Space: Why Are Places in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible?” by Ace Ratcliff at io9
“The hundreds of thousands of fictional worlds built with all those staircases are a silent but persistent signal that disabled representation isn’t just a low priority, it rarely exists at all.”
tumblr & beyond
Yuri!! on Ice Russian royal family AU art by munette
“we all know damn well jim kirk would be all over that psychic twink with a laser sword”
This Sirius Black AU headcanon is A Lot.
Some Twilight blood science.
Uh so this tom hardy/venom fanart is now officially sanctioned i guess?
fanfiction
Historical AUs! We’re just going by how they’ve been tagged, by the reccer or by the author, but these are meant to be set in a specific time, not a ~fantasy past~ (a time I recently visited at THE NEW YORK RENAISSANCE FAIRE, which seemed to span 1,000 years of human history, plus elves). Since there’s a ton of fic set in a fantasy historical setting—a good portion of the “AU — historical” tag, it seems—we’ll definitely do a list of those in the future, so please send in your favorites! Similarly, we’ll do a list of “actual old source material” once again, a follow-up on our hundredth Rec Center. Thanks so much to all guest reccers this week. — Elizabeth
“Restraint” by DarkEmeralds. 233K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Supernatural RPF; Ship: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Recced by: Flourish
Backstory: Jensen and Jared are the actors who play brothers Sam and Dean Winchester on Supernatural. They’re hot, and lots of people think they should boink, but many don’t want to write incest. So they write “J2” instead. You don’t need to know anything but what they look like to enjoy this fic, which is… pretty much just a love story between two dudes in Regency England.
Rec: This story isn’t a Regency romance in the Jane Austen-Georgette Heyer-Eloisa James lineage. It makes an attempt to depict a realistic historical male/male relationship over the course of years, and does so with style. I’m not too proud to admit I got verklempt over the last few chapters.
Content warnings: Death from old age, child and minor character death, infidelity
“Die Mauer” by peacewish. 20K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Transformers G1; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Brig
Backstory: It’s really hard to describe this story without spoilers, except that it’s about giant alien robots and also life and death in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. A young man with amnesia appears on a street in Berlin, and for some reason everyone is trying to kill him.
Rec: A fantastic quasi-AU (you’ll see what I mean) set in a time period I rarely see touched on in fanfiction. Definitely worth more than one read as you slowly realize what’s going on and why.
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence
“The Swan and The Dove” by trylonandperisphere. 56K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Orphan Black; Ship: Delphine Cormier/Cosima Niehaus
Recced by: G
Backstory: A World War II AU in which Delphine, a spy for the Allies in Nazi-occupied France, falls for a voice on the radio.
Rec: Tensely written, with good characterization and plenty of action. The romance provides some much-needed fluff amid the bleak setting and the author makes great use of neglected side characters.
Content warnings: Set during World War II, so lots of warnings for violence, torture, and anti-Semitism
“a hundred hours” by breathedout. 216K words, rated Explicit.
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes, Historical RPF; Ships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Irene Adler/OFC
Recced by: kat
Backstory: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson facing down the trauma of WWI with lies, visual art, and sex; Irene Adler doing the same. Historically accurate unhappy relationships and betrayal and forgiveness amongst the 1920s bohemian set at the “house party from hell.”
Rec: Characterization: nuanced, horrible, constant struggling towards self/other understanding. Morals: uncomfortable murky quagmire. Writing: Woolf-ian experiential meets casefic. Sex: extremely discomfiting because it’s extremely hot AND full of self-deception.
Content warnings: ALL OF THEM as tagged, but: drug use, infidelity, consent issues, PTSD
“An Assembly Such As This” by lady_ragnell. 39K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Avengers; Ships: Steve/Tony, Bruce/Loki, Jane/Thor
Recced by: Dansrusse
Backstory: This is a genderbent regency AU in which lovely lady and near-spinster Antonia Stark becomes the sponsor of young society newcomer Lucy Banner, and they go to parties and find romance in an unconventional manner.
Rec: It’s all the delights of a Regency romance, without the trappings of language that can be burdensome. It’s a fun, fanciful romp in which ladies talk over tea but still have minds and brains—genderbent Tony is still a scientist, so are Lucy and Jane, and they still find love and do all the lovely regency novel-esque things.
Content warnings: N/A
“Mapmaker” by zambla. 8.7K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Remus/Sirius
Recced by: Charlotte
Backstory: Remus is a mapmaker working for the RAF in Cairo during the second world war. he meets Sirius there. No magic, a lot of history & pain.
Rec: Extremely evocative writing of place and time and politics, searing passion and pain, the kind of bruising sad ending that hits me hard.
Content warning: war
“new classic” by dinnerdrudgery. 3K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Hockey RPF; Ship: Mitch Marner/Auston Matthews
Recced by: Lotts
Backstory: Very little background knowledge is needed for this story! It’s the second in a series but not technically a sequel.
Rec: A sweet love story about two boys jam-packed with 1950’s images, from fixing cars to sharing milkshakes. The use of 50s slang in the dialogue is particularly brilliant.
Content warnings: [Ed. note, perhaps the opposite of content warnings, Lotts writes under “tropes”: 1950’s AU, minus period-typical bigotry and oppression]
FINAL THOUGHT
Our friend Jenny has a lot of excellent suggestions for potential future rec lists, and this week she asks: “okay WHAT about a rec list of fics in serieses?” So: SERIES. We’d love recs that are recommending series as a whole, not just single works that are a part of the series. And let us know how the series works, taken as a whole! Are we going on a series of adventures? Watching slow but steady growth over time? Just catching small slices of life amongst a group of characters?
Please add “series” or something similar in the tropes field on our submissions form, and thank you, as always, to everyone who’s sent in recs and will send in recs in the future. We couldn’t do this without you. <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.
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