The Rec Center #223
Hello! This week we’ve got a rec list of canon-divergent AU fanfic, some Animal Crossing fanart (inevitable!), an article about that recently-viral “which fictional character are you?” quiz, and more!
AND ALSO... some very cool news! The Rec Center was shortlisted for a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine! We’re super excited and proud to be listed among such illustrious finalists, and look forward to... doing whatever it is that Worldcon organizes for its online-only awards ceremony this year. Thank you so much to everyone who nominated us! — Gav
lockdown stuff
If you have any fandom-oriented lockdown items to share—virtual cons, fests, other kinds of digital gatherings, etc etc—please email us at elizabethandgav at gmail dot com!
WisCon is going virtual this year! If you haven’t seen, organizers are looking for “people in the WisCon community who have expertise in online events,” especially re: accessibility and inclusivity. More details here!
YoI fans & admirers of the New York City Health Department’s now-legendary “safe sex during the pandemic” guidance: Yuri!!! on Ice Selfcest Etc. Fest 2020 starts soon. Note that it’s an 18+ event, though works don’t *have* to be NSFW.
new stuff
“Bestselling Author Seanan McGuire Discusses Fandom and Fanfiction” by Sean Z at Geekdad
“The first time one of my fandoms was listed as an option for Yuletide, I literally cried. I’m not exaggerating. I literally sat down and cried because I had changed the world in a way that I was never sure I was going to be able to.”
“Dear Television vs The Psychometric Personality Quiz” by Phillip Maciak, Sarah Mesle, Jane Hu, and Jorge Cotte at the LA Review of Books
Perhaps you took the Very Bad Character Test this past week (are you orange or are you purple??). The LARB’s writers perfectly capture why it was so bad—and their indignation or confusion over their results is totally hilarious.
older stuff
“The Friends Who All Cosplay the Same Character” by Julie Beck at The Atlantic
“You see a lot of cliques in the cosplay community ... But what’s been nice about our friendship is that there’s never any competition.”
tumblr & beyond
Animal Crossing fanart by Ariel Ries
Hozier, patron saint of fanfic titles.
“Animal crossing players are like, “i HATE bill wibbly”...”
“Shout out to everyone doing the hard yet necessary work of posting about fictional characters kissing online.”
Do any of the different LOTR characters understand each other’s cultural naming traditions? That’s a big ol’ no.
Drama in the Road to el Dorado Facebook meme community!
fanfiction
Canon-divergent AUs are one of my favorite things in all of fanfiction, so after talking about them on Fansplaining’s most recent special episode, I suggested we do a list of them here. (Of course, then I was unable to even reread fic at this particular moment, luckily Gav came to the rescue with lots of recs.) If you want more canon divergence, we did another list a few years back. Thank you so much to all of our guest reccers. — Elizabeth
“Eclipse” by Mijan. 287K words, rated Teen .
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Recced by: Emma
Backstory: This is a canon-divergent AU where Draco kidnaps Harry for Voldemort after his father is sent to Azkaban. Draco soon realises though that life as a Death Eater isn’t what he thought it would be and so he helps Harry escape.
Rec: This fic’s plot is absolutely fantastic! It’s also very in character and it’s the best take on Draco’s redemption that I’ve ever read.
Content warnings: N/A
“Trade” by SassySnowperson. 6K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Star Wars; Ship: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun are Luke Skywalker’s aunt and uncle (and adoptive parents), a pair of characters with a surprisingly small footprint in Star Wars canon. This fic takes place in the gap between the prequels and original trilogy, when Obi-Wan Kenobi traveled to Tatooine to deliver the infant Luke, and never left.
Rec: A charming fic with witty & grounded characterization for the main three characters, two of whom barely had personalities in the original canon. Some lovely details about Tatooine culture, too. An ideal tone for such a rare ship!
Content warnings: N/A
“Pride” by Astolat. 23K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Game of Thrones; Ship: Jaime Lannister/Cersei Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Recced by: Flourish
Backstory: Instead of going alone on foot to deliver Jaime Lannister to King’s Landing, Brienne of Tarth went by boat with a party of rescuers to steal Sansa away...which changes the course of the war, and everything else. Jaime and his sister Cersei are now the Starks’ prisoners, and Brienne is their jailer.
Rec: Most Jaime/Brienne stories diverge from canon much later, after they’ve come to trust each other, and present Brienne and Cersei as moral opposites which Jaime must choose between. This story makes Jaime and Brienne strangers, insinuates Cersei into their relationship from the start, and creates a much more complex and grey interaction between the three of them that still feels very in-character.
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence, sexual assault, and coercion
“tame” by rikke. 12K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: MDZS/The Untamed; Ship: Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: I won’t attempt to summarize the intricacies of MDZS canon here, but this fic diverges from canon after the Xuanwu Cave incident, when the two heroes battled a giant magical tortoise.
Rec: There are plenty of obvious places to begin a canon-divergent AU for MDZS, but I love the specificity of rikke’s idea here: After defeating the xuanwu, Wei Wuxian picks up a xuanwu egg (!), and he and Lan Wangji end up raising a monster tortoise together. Not only is this a very funny twist on the old “adopting a cute animal together” romcom trope, but it also changes the course of the war with the Wen Clan.
Content warnings: N/A
“A Little Disguised, or a Little Mistaken” by Page161of180. 18K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: The Magicians; Ships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Brian/Nigel
Recced by: Raizel
Backstory: Look, the show had time to show us a touch of the constructed personas for all of our questers except Eliot and Q, and who else was dying to see the English professor and the bastard son of a British lord fall in love?
Rec: Page knows exactly what I wanted from this under-explored period of canon, gives us that traditional "Eliot is a dumbass about his feelings/relationships in every iteration", the force of that queliot ~love~ bridging all impossible hardships, and a lot of awesome Jane Austen thoughts.
Content warnings: alcoholism, substance abuse
“the dogfather” by hollimichele. 48K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; gen.
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: One of the many HP AUs where Harry is adopted by someone else instead of the Dursleys. In this case it’s a muggle couple who give Harry a normal, happy childhood—with Sirius as his not-so-secret protector, disguised as Padfoot.
Rec: While it’s relatively long, this fic is less plotty than a lot of HP AUs on similar lines, dipping in and out of Harry’s childhood. A generally lighthearted and well-observed fix-it fic where Sirius isn’t in Azkaban, and Harry goes to Hogwarts after a rather different upbringing.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
Last week we rounded out the newsletter with calls for donations to The Learned Fangirl’s Freelance Emergency Fund. Now small grant applications are open for any culture writers who have not been paid or lost work because of the pandemic—especially folks from marginalized groups. And if you’re in a position to give—perhaps you have a steady salary!—they’re still taking donations. — Elizabeth
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)