The Rec Center #15
Hi, everyone! We have RAVEN CYCLE recs this week in advance of the new book in the series, courtesy of guest reccer Sunrayravine! Plus we have a great longread on Minecraft, some thoughts from Elizabeth on a new Harry Potter con, and more. — Gav
new stuff
“Learning to Appreciate My Chamber of Secrets” by Kendra James at Lenny
“Writing fanfiction meant reasoning through actions and the resulting emotions in a way my teachers never asked for, even after my supposed spouse killed our egg child.”
“What TV Networks Still Don't Understand About Fandom” by Kayti Burt at Den of Geek
On Sleepy Hollow, The 100, and the ways many of TPTB still don’t understand their fandoms.
Who speaks in movies? Men more than women, it turns out. This study has been EVERYWHERE this week, and it’s well worth checking out.
“The Minecraft Generation” by Clive Thompson in The New York Times Magazine
“It’s a world of trial and error and constant discovery, stuffed with byzantine secrets, obscure text commands and hidden recipes. And it runs completely counter to most modern computing trends.”
[One time Elizabeth spent an afternoon playing Minecraft with a seven-year-old, and she kept falling into a hole and received a HILARIOUS number of pitying looks and sighs from him. In the end, she was told to stand by a tree and slowly chop wood for an hour.]
old(er) stuff
“Fanboy” by Alexander Chee at The Morning News
“My fantasy of being a mutant was something that helped me keep going.”
leviosa con
So I am not really a con person. I mean, I was a lurker for like...15 years. But in my capacity as a fan culture journalist I’ve started to go to big commercial cons, SDCC foremost among them. And they are...fine! I am not an introvert AT ALL and they offer a lot of opportunities for weird “how the hell did I wind up here” situations, which is really important to me. But they don’t really feel...anything like fandom. They are the equivalent of me telling someone I write about fan culture and once was in Buffy fandom and them saying, “Oh I have this book about vampires you’ll love.” True story, I’m sure she meant well. But that’s not how it works.
But as of this week, I’m going to my very first fandom-specific, fan-run con, and I wanted to mention it in a ~pluggy way. Because I am EXCITED. It’s called Leviosa Con, in early July in Las Vegas, and as you can deduce, it’s a Harry Potter convention, which is really good timing for me, since...well, you’ve seen my slow descent over these past few newsletters. I’ll be on a few panels and trying not to fall over as I talk to the fic writers I am currently obsessed with. And since I know many of you are in or getting back into HP, you should consider joining me! I’m *friendly*. I met Gav IRL exactly once, and it was at a con, so maybe she can vouch for me. Maybe. — Elizabeth
tumblr and beyond
Dana Scully by strbrryseason
We can’t stop cackling at this edit of a Gandalf/Saruman scene.
Also, you need to see this very important Beyonce/Avatar: The Last Airbender fanvid.
Start here for some great commentary on The Ghost in the Shell:
fanfiction
Sunrayravine devoured the first three books in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle series over a few weeks last summer and when she ran out of canon she leapt heartfirst into AO3 in search of fic. She’s proud to be a librarian (Take that, Bembridge Scholars!) and loves stories about families of choice, romance, and good people doing good deeds. You can find her at sunrayravine.tumblr.com.
The fourth and final book in Maggie Stiefvater’s YA series The Raven Cycle is released on 26th April. The series features magic, street racing, Welsh history, prophesies and murder, and above all friendship and families of choice. I recommend this great summary if you want more detail before diving in. There’s some really great fic out there; most of it written during the long wait for the final book. The most popular pairing is Adam/Ronan, and there’s a decent amount of gen, het, multi and other slash ships too. Here are a few of my faves. — sunrayravine
“Son of the Nuclear A-Bomb” by nimmieamee. 37K words, rated Mature.
This fic explores the low-key horrifying nature of Ronan’s family. It’s intelligently written, gripping, well characterised and darkly atmospheric (watch out for the turnip patch!)
“Out for Re-henge” by momebie. 7K words, rated Gen.
Ronan teaches Blue to drive stick and they go on a road trip. The canon left me craving more Blue+Ronan friendship moments and this fic hits all the right notes. Also I really want to go to the visitor attractions in this fic.
“Six of Cups” by coyotesuspect. 4K words, rated Teen.
I can’t get enough of the women of 300 Fox Way and so I adored this backstory for Calla in which she uses her gifts to help her family. Particularly loved her friendship with Maura and the early fashion sense of 5 year old Blue.
“Time Enough, But None to Spare” by Marks. 20K words, rated Teen.
This is a clever and plotty Blue pov fic that uses elements of the existing canon to craft a surprising and satisfying conclusion to the whole story.
“with grateful arms” by turnpikedarling. 4K words, rated Teen.
There’s so much tenderness and love in this Noah-centric OT5 fic. Everyone gets a pov voice and they're all spot-on.
“Roses on Parade” by Jamesina. 9K words, rated Mature.
The one where Adam accidentally ends up in Ronan's dream. Which is the catalyst for some fantastic writing and lots of lovely character development. This is how I want to see them get together.
cool book alert!
A couple of years ago I helped launch a Kickstarter for original novels by fanfic authors and fanartists. It went really well: the first book (YA fantasy satire A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne) got great reviews from mainstream outlets, all three novels were well-received by Kickstarter backers, and now it’s time for the last two books to be released to the general public.
Juniper Lane is an atmospheric coming-of-age story with a queer female protagonist, written by Kady Morrison, who some of you may know as the fanfic author gyzym. It’s out NEXT WEEK, and you can preorder a copy now! You can find out more and read an excerpt at the publisher’s website. — Gav
FINAL THOUGHT: Another call for guest reccers
Gav: Just a reminder that we’re always looking for guest reccers! If you have a particular fandom/pairing/trope you’d like to rec, please let us know! (Although there’s no need to worry if you’re a Stucky/Captain America fan—we definitely have that covered in the weeks leading up to Civil War.)
Elizabeth: And as an aside—and as the person who monitors our correspondence (and I am THE WORST and owe a few of you responses)—we get a fair number of requests for subjects of lists, and I want to encourage everyone who as an idea for a list to think about doing it for themselves! Because, like, Gav is fearless and smart and widely-fic-read and doesn’t seem to hesitate to put together rec lists, but I was pretty nervous about putting one together the first time. As far as I can tell, our readers are really cheerful and encouraging, so there’s no better place to try this out. And we can work with you on one, too!
Gav: sob Elizabeth don’t be nervous. You do great rec lists! <3 Anyway, folks should get in touch with us if they have ~ideas. For instance, we haven’t done a Supernatural rec list yet!
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