The Rec Center #213
Hi folks! This week we have some Little Women meta-fic, a piece about One Direction fandom, some INCREDIBLE fanart inspired by the Grammys, multifandom college AU fic recs, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“After Losing My Father, One Direction Helped Me Find Joy During Grief” by Maggie Soares-Horne at Catapult
“How cringey, to love something that fleeting that hard. But when I got my first tattoo, quotation marks on my collarbones, a week after my eighteenth birthday, my dad called it spiritual, almost.”
“Amy discovers Jo’s AO3 handle and drags her in the March family groupchat” by Peyton at The Niche
Art!!!!!!!!!!!!
older stuff
“Excerpts from my upcoming novel, Ready Player Two: Girl Stuff” by Nat Silverman at McSweeney’s
“I ran a proud hand over the side of my spaceship that was shaped like a Lisa Frank dolphin. I had won it in a bet with my friend Snapewife over how many Pirates of the Caribbean movies there were. Back then, she had called it the Sparkleship, but I wanted a more intellectual, literary name. So I re-named it Astolat, after my favorite fanfiction author.”
tumblr & beyond
Billy Porter, Lil Nas X & Orville Peck fanart by KnightJJ
“fucking losing it at the concept of a reverse Holmes and Watson”
never 4get how i got into m/m slash because a fic in 2001 was like “1x2 3x4 5x6x13” and i was like “hmmm i bet i’ll find out what this means eventually”
“I can think of nothing more badass than reading ILLEGAL FICTION”
The first episode of Star Trek: Picard is now available to legally stream for free on YouTube. (In the U.S.)
fanfiction
As many students, professors, staff, etc. return to campuses for the spring semester, we bring you a venerable old AU subgenre(?): multi-fandom college/university AU recs. If you really love college AUs, don’t worry, there’s more. Thank you to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“a brief introduction to basic chemistry” by nighimpossible. 16K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Critical Role; Ship: Caleb Widogast/Fjord
Recced by: BookishDi
Backstory: Caleb Widogast is struggling to finish his thesis for his demanding advisor while also TA’ing an intro to chemistry course for Professor Nott. He didn’t expect two students, Fjord and Beau, to enter his life and set off a series of life altering changes.
Rec: I read this while I was also struggling to finish a thesis with a very demanding (to the point of absurdity) advisor, so a lot of Caleb’s story really resonated with me. I also love how while the relationship between Caleb and Fjord is central, the fic also focuses on the friendships between the different characters and does a good job of translating them to the college setting.
Content warnings: emotional abuse, sugar daddy dynamics, suicidal thoughts
“Beast and the Beast” by SigilBroken. 98K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire; Backstory: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Recced by: grey-sleipnir
Backstory: Jaime is a football player in university and a complete wreck, recovering from an injury. Brienne is a hard-working swimmer who gets hired to be his “babysitter.”
Rec: Great slow-burn that perfectly captures the essence of the characters, but in a modern, university setting. It deliciously explores how they slowly start respecting each other, to eventually falling in love.
Content warnings: N/A
“Pledge” by EllaBesmirched. 124K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Attack on Titan; Ship: Levi/Erwin Smith
Recced by: JaneBuzJane
Backstory: College administration decides the best way to reform ex-gang member Levi is to have Erwin, the clean-cut head of a campus fraternity—and, ironically, Levi’s roommate—mentor him. It goes about as well as you’d expect at first, but the two of them find themselves bending in unprecedented ways as they come to respect their differences (and similarities).
Rec: The parallels drawn between the different types of families to which a person can belong twine together in a fic that resonates with nostalgia and tenderness. The juxtaposition of such different worlds as felt by Levi and Erwin struck me as deeply as it did when something similar happened to me in my first year of college!
Content warning: Derogatory language
“effeuiller la marguerite” by arriviste. 22K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Les Mis; Ship: Enjolras/Grantaire
Recced by: Brig
Backstory: Enjolras is a beautiful, stern revolutionary willing to die for his ideals. Grantaire is a pessimistic, artistic fuck-up who would die for Enjolras, but can’t bring himself to believe in ideals. Enjolras dismisses Grantaire, Grantaire makes a nuisance of himself in order to be dismissed again and again.
Rec: Militant Political Lesbians!!! Fem!Enjolras and fem!Grantaire as modern college students.
Content warnings: N/A
“the bro code (and Blaine Anderson’s guide to breaking it)” by villiageidiot. 43K words, Not Rated (est. Mature).
Fandom: Glee; Ship: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson
Recced by: Sophie
Backstory: Blaine likes Kurt, Kurt likes Blaine, but Blaine’s fraternity (and all those rules) are going to cause some problems here. Can these two work out their differences and insecurities to make it right between them, even if one of them is a frat boy?
Rec: Kurt and Blaine in this story are so in love with each other, it’s so adorable. And I love misunderstanding as a trope so throwing that in is just *chefs kiss*. Plus it’s really funny.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
The past few years, we’ve highlighted Fandom Trumps Hate, a multi-fandom fanworks auction where you can bid on fic, art, vids, crafts, labor like betaing, and more. You donate to one of a long list of charities, and in exchange, the fan creator you bid on makes the work of your choice! In the first three years they’ve raised close to $75K for charity; this year they want to break $100K.
If you want to bid in the auction, that’s coming up soon, but today is the last day for creator signups. I strongly recommend checking out everything you can put up for bidding if you’re interested in participating—beyond standard stuff like fic and art, there’s a huge influx of fan labor offers this year, people volunteering to Britpick (or YANKpick, I’m obsessed with this term), people offering personal knowledge of the place where they live, or people offering expertise in a really wild list of subjects. Signups close tonight (midnight PST) so hurry and put in your creator offers now! — Elizabeth
FINAL FINAL THOUGHT
Femslash February! Actually begins *next* week, not today as previously advertised, since it is still January. We need your recs—please send them our way. <3
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)