The Rec Center #150
Welcome to all of our new subscribers! You’ve arrived just in time for REC CENTER #150!! This week we have series recs, part one of approximately nine billion after you all inundated us with your favorite multi-part works. :-) Plus possibly more Detective Pikachu and sexy Grinch content than one newsletter needs, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Also! Thank you very much to Gav for taking the lead this week—I’ve spent the past two days at Wheaton College with my podcast partner, Flourish, talking about fandom and the creative arts. (Thanks again to everyone at Wheaton—especially any students who subscribe to the newsletter!) (We also spent those two days staying in a treehouse on a goat farm, AMA) — Elizabeth
new stuff
“ConCrit in Comments Only: What Writing Fanfiction Taught Me as an Editor” by Diana M. Pho at Uncanny Magazine
“Writing skills don’t always have to come from an MFA or out of how-to books.” A Tor Books editor talks about the skills she built writing and reading fanfiction.
“L.A. Band Threatin Faked a Fanbase To Land a European Tour No One Attended” by Vince Nielstein at Metal Sucks
This story was all over the internet this week, and for good reason. As per the headline, an obscure metal band (or rather, a single dude with a hired backing band) literally faked an entire fanbase and scammed his way into performing concerts that sold zero tickets, backed up by self-aggrandizing promotion and fake concert videos.
“Is The Grinch the new Once-ler, Tumblr’s autosexual Lorax idol?” by Petrana Radulovic at Polygon
An alarming look back at the days of Once-ler Tumblr fandom, a bizarre viral shipping phenomenon inspired by the Lorax animated movie.
“Google Axes ‘Fanfiction’ Tab That Suggested Grinch and Minions Porn” by Hudson Hondo at Gizmodo
SPEAKING OF THE GRINCH FANDOM. If you were worried about Google’s new “suggested fanfiction” tab, well, after just a few short days in action, so was Google. File under: perhaps Google should have asked literally anyone in fic fandom about this!
older stuff
“10,000 zines and counting: a library’s quest to save the history of fandom” by Adi Robertson at The Verge
“Post-internet authors have an understanding that their work will be found now. Pre-internet authors did not.”
tumblr & beyond
An inspiring tale of literary Malcolm in the Middle fanfic.
LUV this vintage Michelle Yeoh martial arts movie Carly Rae Jepsen fanvid.
Artist Stjepen Sejic has been posting Tomb Raider/Wonder Woman crossovers for the past week or so, and they’re a delight.
fanfiction
A few weeks back we put out a call for SERIES recs, and the response was overwhelming—we’ve gotten like 80 submissions so far! So….you’ll be seeing quite a few series rec lists in the coming months, as well as more amongst our other themed lists. Thanks, as always, to our guest reccers. — Elizabeth
“Kavinsquad verse” by emmaofmisthaven. 31K words over 3 works (WIP), rated Teen.
Fandom: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before; Ship: Lara Jean Song-Covey/Peter Kavinsky
Recced by: spoons
Backstory: YouTubers AU! Lara Jean has a baking channel, Peter and his friends do a lot of pranks but a lot more subscribers and after a three-second clip on one of his videos their managers decide a fake dating contract could help both their careers....
Rec: Since the movie dropped on Netflix this fandom has grown and there’s so much cute content but every update of this series fills my heart with joy. It’s still new so there’s not a lot, but the main story itself is; the author regularly posts extra snippets and every single one of them is perfect.
Content warnings: N/A
“Force Bond” series by KittandChips. 713K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Star Wars - Original Trilogy; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Amalthia
Backstory: Darth Vader raises Luke after Owen and Beru are killed.
Rec: The character voices were spot on, I laughed out loud more than once, and I loved seeing Vader and Luke learning how to live together as father and son. It was also interesting seeing Vader juggle his duties to the Empire while raising Luke.
Content warnings: N/A
“꿈, 희망, 전진, 전진” by fitzgarbage. 126K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: BTS; Ships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Namjoon | Rap Monster/Kim Seokjin | Jin
Recced by: justanxietythings
Backstory: A high school/college AU series spanning multiple years and POVs.
Rec: Stunningly beautiful character development, slow burn romance, relationships that feel like real relationships between people you know.
Content warnings: N/A
“A Few Years Later” series by Sixthlight. 83K words across 11 works, rated Gen to Explicit but mostly Teen.
Fandom: Rivers of London; Ship: Peter Grant/Thomas Nightingale
Recced by: epaulettes
Backstory: In the series, Nightingale, an old-school magician and by-the-book cop, had been keeping the magical unit of London’s police force afloat by himself for many years before finally taking on an apprentice, Peter, a young biracial cop who has big ideas about community engagement in the paranormal demi-monde. In this fic, it’s been about a decade and Peter’s graduated to full-wizard, the unit’s managed to acquire a few more apprentices, and Peter and Nightingale do a rather stupid, wonderful thing and fall in love.
Rec: The unique thing about this series is that the author couldn’t make up their mind about how the pairing actually gets together, and so instead gave us three possibilities for that sparking off point and then a number of fics set in and around the aftermath. Every single one of these fics is a gem, from the fumbling romance, to the heartily confused but mostly supportive outsider POVs, to the wry little background notes on what the unit’s got going on, ten years down the line, with Peter in a position of relative power (Lord help them all).
Content warning: N/A
“The Mountains Are The Same” by bonehandledknife (ladywinter) and Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune). 232K words across 50 works, rated Gen to Explicit.
Fandom: Mad Max; Ships: Furious/War Boy Crew, Furiosa/Max
Recced by: Summerfly
Backstory: A series of stories beginning with Imperator Furiosa becoming the driver of the War Rig and continuing through the rebuilding of the Citadel after Joe’s death.
Rec: This whole Relationship between Furiosa and Ace and the rest of the boys. I could read a million words about this world building.
Content warnings: Implied past rape, references to past torture
“Chosen and Defined Verse” by language_escapes. 350K words across 28 stories (the author had plans to continue but I think it’s abandoned), rated Teen with a few Mature interludes.
Fandom: St. Trinian’s films; Ships: Multiship femslash + gen
Recced by: lnich
Backstory: The St. Trinian’s films are girl-power romps about students with criminal tendencies saving their school—a haven for bad girls—from the evil patriarchy that’s trying to shut it down. The “Chosen and Defined” verse jumps off from that premise by a) building up the girls’ relationships at school to show its importance as a community, and b) extending the story after graduation where the girls fight the government, discrimination, and anyone who tries to hurt a St. Trinian’s girl.
Rec: The St. Trinian’s movies are light fun (I recommend the 2009 film for David Tennant playing over the top evil) and that’s great! But then language_escapes has added a truly impressive layer of depth and nuance and the characters become so much more. If you’ve ever wondered how worldbuilding fic works for a non-SFF canon, this is it!
Content warnings: Some of the stories reference characters dealing with domestic abuse or religious/racial discrimination
“Leo Inter Serpentes” series by Aeternum. 746K words across 6 volumes, rated Teen to Explicit.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Gen (in early volumes); Harry/Draco (in later volumes)
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: A retelling of the Harry Potter books where Harry gets sorted into Slytherin and befriends Draco and Hermione but not Ron. Snape (who has softer characterization here than in the books) becomes his mentor.
Rec: A long but tremendously readable retelling of the HP series, with a sympathetic look at how Harry’s life would have gone in Slytherin, and how he might have altered Snape and Draco’s outlook.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
150 issues! Thanks for subscribing everyone, we couldn’t do this without you! xoxo Gav
Have a favorite one-off rec? Please send it our way! We’ll use it in a future list. Other fanworks—comics, vids, zines, 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)