The Rec Center #197
Hello everyone! This week we have a surprising amount of audio fandom coverage (well, two things, but still), some delightful Star Wars fanart, and multi-fandom epistolary recs. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“Twitch Stars Are Becoming More Like Regular Celebrities, For Better Or Worse” by Nathan Grayson at Kotaku
An interesting report from this year’s TwitchCon—centered around the gamer streaming platform Twitch—and the fuzzy nature of parasocial relationships between Twitch stars and their fans.
“Ms. Marvel: The Jersey City Superhero Who Made Good” by Danny Lewis at WNYC
Local news for the win! A charming story from New York Comic-Con centering on Kamala Khan and some of her local fans—especially people of South Asian descent who live in New Jersey, just like Ms. Marvel.
“Bart Simpson Mania” by Willa Paskin at the Decoder Ring podcast
Decoder Ring is a great little documentary podcast that “cracks cultural mysteries,” and the latest episode is about the early years of Simpsons fandom. It’s hard to imagine now, but back in the late 80s/early 90s, Bart Simpson was at the heart of a high-profile culture war in American entertainment, with conservative commentators arguing that he was a bad influence on kids.
older stuff
“I Wasn’t a Fan of BTS. And Then I Was.” by Lenika Cruz at The Atlantic
“I’ve learned, though, that being a fan of BTS means becoming intimately familiar with the many prejudices and hierarchies of taste that casually belittle the thing you love—and then deciding that none of it has any real power over you.”
tumblr & beyond
Star Wars fanart by McKenna Jean Harris
“Farscape feels like a BDSM AU fic for a more respectable sci fi show that doesn’t exist”
This Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse cosplay... exquisite.
Ratatouille AU fanart for... The Terror??
Untitled Goose Game fanwork of the week.
fanfiction
Last week’s big call for recs yielded A LOT of results, thank you to everyone who sent stuff in. We’ll start this week with a multi-fandom epistolary list, likely the first of several, given how many submissions we got! — Elizabeth
“Thirty-Five Owls” by Letterblade. 11K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Recced by: musicalmskitty
Backstory: Possibly the most iconic Grindeldore fic ever, written in 2008. It features a series of letters (owls) between Dumbledore and Grindelwald from the 1950s through to the Harry Potter years.
Rec: This is a heart-wrenching exploration of the complex relationship between the two men, before any of the new canon information came in from the Fantastic Beasts franchise and its periphery media.
Content warning: Major character death
“New York City Administrative Code §16-123” by burglebezzlement. 1.5K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Ghostbusters 2016; Ship: Gen
Recced by: penna.nomen
Backstory: Told entirely as a series of emails, the story is about the city attempting to fine the team for not clearing snow from their sidewalks, and the team insisting they shouldn’t be fined.
Rec: It’s a fun, quick read, showing off a capability I didn’t know AO3 had for formatting text as emails. It features the type of sarcastic humor I love.
Content warnings: N/A
“And Never Been Kissed” by thehoyden. 160K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Hockey RPF; Ship: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Recced by: addiemay
Backstory: Everything I know about ice hockey comes from reading Check Please! and I haven’t the faintest idea who/how these real people are, but I love fandom’s version of these sweet, dedicated, emotionally dense boys so much. Just picture them as Jack and Tater from Check Please! and you’re good to go!
Rec: This is the longest, sweetest, slowest burn penpals to friends to lovers. Thinking about the friendship in this story regularly overwhelms me, these two growing up and into their intense lives and responsibilities while always having each other to lean on is so warm and pure.
Content warnings: N/A
“sent ✓” by pornographicpenguin. 35K words + loads of pictures, rated Explicit.
Fandom: BTS; Ship: Kim Namjoon | RM/Park Jimin
Recced by: Julie
Backstory: An A/B/O AU where K-Pop group BTS members are normal people with twitter accounts, who gets into discussions about fandom and shipping with a dash of misunderstanding.
Rec: I love this story because of its unique discussion of queerness and gender in an alpha/beta/omega ’verse using fandom discussions as a launching point. It’s also just one of the best namjoon/jimin fics I’ve read.
Content warning: Gender dysphoria
“Galactic Response Time” by SassySnowperson (DramaticEntrance). 5.1K words, rated Gen.
Fandoms: Captain Marvel; MCU; Ship: Gen (Carol Danvers & Nick Fury)
Recced by: GlassesOfJustice
Backstory: All the OTHER times Nick Fury texted Carol Danvers.
Rec: I don’t read a ton of gen but I was pretty obsessed with this movie and this fic is pure gold. It made me want to read more gen fic, and really I could read Carol & Fury buddy cop scenarios for many hundreds of thousands of words.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
Have a great weekend, folks! — 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.
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