The Rec Center #207
Hello all! Welcome to the final regular Rec Center of 2019. This week, amongst other things, we have the “Folgers incest ad” oral history that I personally have been waiting on for YEARS, rather than the annual “lol did u know there’s coffee commercial incest fic” piece we tend to see. We also have another batch of the super-long fic culled from your submissions last month, for everyone lucky enough to get some time off in the next week or two. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“An oral history of the Folgers incest ad” by Gabriella Paiella at GQ
An incredible piece of seasonal journalism over here, charting the history behind the infamous Folgers coffee Christmas ad, which unintentionally implies that its sibling heroes are boning. (And yes, there is most definitely a fandom angle to this one.)
“J.K. Rowling’s latest tweet seems like transphobic BS. Her fans are heartbroken.” by Aja Romano at Vox
If you weren’t online yesterday, this is a good roundup of JKR’s comment, including both context around the specific case and reaction from fans. Since it’s so recent, we’re going to keep an eye out for commentary on this over the next few weeks and we will hopefully have more to share in the new year.
“Pandering to nostalgia, The Rise of Skywalker is a huge letdown” by Gav at the Daily Dot
Here’s Gav’s initial review of the new Star Wars, avoiding all major spoilers but diving into the film’s structural issues and main character arcs. In summary: Not great, Bob!!
older stuff
“For Many, TV Tape Means Watching More and Loving It” by Doris Ettlinger at The New York Times
A delightful snapshot from 1977, as VCRs were beginning to change the way people watched movies and TV—including the couple at the start of the article, who paid $200 for a bootleg copy of Star Wars: A New Hope.
tumblr & beyond
INSPIRED Star Wars crossover here.
“yeah can i get a 60k with everything on it”
OK, is Yoda... a teen!?
Things Sherlock Holmes has canonically done.
“i’m in her google docs beta-reading her smutty christmas oneshot”
fanfiction
We ran a longfic list over Thanksgiving weekend—at the same time that AO3 was crashing due to heavy use lolol. So this week we have another batch! Everything here, like the previous list, is at least 200K words, either standalone or as a series total. Thank you, as always, to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“If They Haven’t Learned Your Name” by silentwalrus. 237K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Captain America (MCU); Ship: Steve/Bucky
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Steve, Sam, and Natasha go after Hydra post-CATWS. The Winter-Soldier-turned-Bucky-Barnes goes after Hydra too, figures out how to be a person again, and tries to decide what to do about the giant star-spangled weirdo following him around the world.
Rec: Murder-comedy about revenge and recovery. Features fantastic, nuanced characterization in both the leads and the supporting cast, making me fall in love with some unexpected characters. Spectacular podfic available by quietnight, who manages to make the already very dry humor even funnier.
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence and themes; PTSD, including flashbacks, violent outbursts, some suicidal ideation, violent intrusive thoughts; implied (non-explicit) past rape/non-con; themes of consent issues
“Talking Stick/Circle” by Little Otter (Macedon) & Peg. 349K words over 8 works, rated Mature.
Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager; Ship: eventual Janeway/Chakotay
Recced by: wilde stallyn
Backstory: Begun as a native author’s response to the canon depiction of Chakotay’s spirituality, this series diverges from Voyager canon early in season 2 to follow the alternating perspectives of Janeway and Chakotay as they try to form a command team in the face of Star Fleet/Maquis tensions, alien cultures that challenge their beliefs, and eventually finding themselves in the middle of a genocide.
Rec: There are stories that shape who you are as a person, and this is one of them for me. The character building is exquisite and the authors deal complexly with heavy topics, without stinting on hope and joy.
Content warnings: Racism, genocide, colonialism, war, religion, death of an important OC, voluntary slavery
“Truth and Measure” by Telanu. 272K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada; Ship: Miranda Priestly/Andy Sachs
Recced by: Eunice
Backstory: Andy doesn’t leave Miranda in Paris, and that opens up a whole new door and a whole slew of decisions for the young assistant. An OG novel-length fic from one of femslash’s most underrated fandoms.
Rec: Telanu is a goddess in The Devil Wears Prada fandom for a simple reason: she is a master at storytelling. She builds a world and a story around Miranda and Andy encourages them to be human and to make decisions—misguided, stupid, and yes, excellent decisions.
Content warnings: N/A
“Responsible Science” by lettered. 217K words over 5 works, rated Gen to Teen.
Fandom: MCU; Ship: gen—Bruce Banner centric
Recced by: epaulettes
Backstory: Bruce Banner is extremely reluctant to officially join the Avengers, for lots and lots of reasons, but also possibly just one. AU after The Avengers. This is a series of self-contained fics that all center around Bruce navigating the long road to acceptance (of oneself, of help, of love), while also trying to grapple with the philosophical questions (and sociopolitical realities) surrounding ethical intervention in a world with superheroes.
Rec: Basically existential angst and found family, with complicated friendships and murky ethical dilemmas and feelings bombs everywhere, written by a brilliantly deft hand (lettered is one of the best in the business). Each work has its own very cool, very thought-provoking, and very different plot, my favorite of which is Let’s Stop The Time Warp (Again)—an epic crescendo of a Groundhog’s Day fic that culminates in a work of humanitarian cooperation on the global (technically, inter-dimensional!!) scale.
Content warnings: There’s trigger-warning-worthy content in pretty much every part. A broad list: disturbingly violent thoughts, past suicide attempts, past child abuse, major depression, graphic depictions of violence and wounds, occasional depictions of misogynist and homophobic slurs and bias. Also, there’s an entire fic about two white guys staying in Africa doing foreign aid work, and the problematics of that are addressed.
“Republic of Heaven Community Radio” by ErinPtah. 568K words over 9 works, rated Gen to Mature.
Fandoms: Welcome to Night Vale fused with His Dark Materials; Ship: Cecil Palmer/Carlos the Scientist
Recced by: Remi
Backstory: Basically, the world is Lyra’s world, but about a century after her story, and across in the southwest, in a friendly desert town called Night Vale. Carlos is an Experimental Theologian (or, as younger people call them, “scientists”), and he and his team are sent to Night Vale to study a wide variety of phenomena, though mainly Carlos focuses on Dust. Very quickly, he and his team realize that there’s more to Night Vale than originally meets the eye.
Rec: It’s an absolutely FASCINATING exploration of what modern culture would be like with daemons, including anything from car travel to airports, to even what people would like their daemons to settle as when they want to grow up to be a scientist. Additionally, it’s such a perfect fusion of the two that they’re woven seamlessly together and it doesn’t feel forced in any fashion, just that the two were organically created for the other.
Content warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, character deaths, touching and/or separation of daemons, lots of heavy themes
And we have two recs for this 700K (!) fic, so as we usually do, we’ve combined them:
“Embers” by Vathara. 704K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Mandee and Serie11
Backstory: Canon divergent from the end of Book 1, Embers explores the consequences of Aang’s actions at the Northern Water Tribe, and builds upon the already great worldbuilding of ATLA to determine the possible causes of the 100 Year War.
Rec: Mandee writes: Basically the author took a look at a lighthearted children’s story and was like, what if I explored the deeper implications of the cultures you drew from, and how war works? And everything snowballed into a crazy epic (a la game of thrones with better gender politics) with a really extensive bibliography.
Serie11 writes: The dedication towards the characters and plot means that no word feels misplaced here. Vathara does an excellent job in building a believable story that captures the spirit of ATLA while putting her own twist on it.
Content warnings: Graphic depictions of war, graphic interactions with spirits
FINAL THOUGHT
Happy holidays to everyone! Next week we’ll have our annual year in review, but the week after that we’ll be back with multifandom Yuletide recs, so if you read any good ones, please let us know! — 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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