The Rec Center #243
Hello everyone! This week we’re very excited to run our first guest explainer in quite a while: Orangistae on the CW show Legends of Tomorrow! We’ve also got Gav’s (vital) RBatz coverage, some beautiful Nutcracker fanart, and a multifandom grab bag fic rec list. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“Plague Comforts: Dungeons & Dragons Is the Real World Now” by Will Peischel at Mother Jones
“It isn’t the leap into unbounded fantasy that appeals; it’s the lines, the structure, the finitude (with a sort of community working within them).”
“In celebration of Batman’s eyeliner” by Gav at the Daily Dot
Batman’s eyeliner is finally (finally!) visible in the trailer for the new movie starring Robert Pattinson, a minor detail that says a surprising amount about a) Hollywood ideas of masculinity, and b) fandom’s obsession with canon continuity and “realism.”
“TikTok users are obsessed with ‘Criminal Minds’” by Tracy Brown at the LA Times
This article is over-egging it slightly by saying this phenomenon “may change TV fandom forever” (it will not), but it’s nice to see some coverage of the sudden surge in popularity for an extremely unexpected gen-Z cult favorite. Teens on TikTok just love Criminal Minds! What can we say!
older stuff
“The Ever-Mutating Life of Tumblr Dot Com” by Allegra Rosenberg at Fansplaining
“There’s a fundamental question of what the ‘death’ of a platform even means, and whether the ever-looming ‘decline’ of Tumblr is simply a misinterpretation of what might eventually become a new and different phase of its existence.”
tumblr & beyond
Nutcracker fanart by Janaina
All the outfits of Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way
A stunning Wolverine fancasting emerges from left field.
“Drake? ... where’s the avatar ?”
“pov: I’m your stepmom and you’re the main character of every One Direction fan fiction from 2012”
the sheer agony of restraining your LOTR knowledge.
explainer: legends of tomorrow
Orangistae is a long-time superhero media fan who lives in Australia and can (still) be found on tumblr.
Reader, do you like (a) superheroes, (b) queer characters, and/or (c) fun? If so, please consider watching DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, a show about a group of time-traveling misfits who blunder through history, protecting and occasionally breaking the timeline. Like a superhero spin on Doctor Who, Legends offers plenty of stylish period costumes, famous historical figures and timey-wimey shenanigans, plus a big dollop of chaotic energy that has led to some gloriously bonkers scenarios like the time the team enlisted JRR Tolkien to help find a vial of Christ’s blood, or this fight scene from the recent S5 finale.
The team is made up of a bunch of endearingly messy outcasts and screw-ups whose powers range from ‘has a fancy gun’ to ‘technically a god’. They have a strong found family dynamic that’s maintained even as individual characters come and go, and, refreshingly, their platonic relationships are given just as much weight as romantic ones.
As I mentioned, Legends has a lot of great queer rep, particularly from S3 onwards, and as of S5, almost half of the main characters are some shade of LGBT+. These include the team’s leader, Captain Sara Lance, a badass former assassin; her girlfriend Ava Sharpe, a straight-laced Time Agent; Charlie, a shapeshifting punk; and warlock/disaster bisexual John Constantine. They’re all perfectly comfortable in their identities, and while the show occasionally acknowledges the discrimination faced by queer people/POCs/women in various time periods, it’s often happy to handwave it and let the characters go about their adventures without getting bogged down in angst for the sake of historical accuracy, which, as you may have gathered, is not something that Legends particularly cares about.
If this all sounds good and you’re thinking of checking it out, one important thing to be aware of is that you should NOT start from S1; the show hadn’t yet figured out what it wanted to be at that point, and the result is wildly uneven if not outright bad. S2 is when Legends first started hitting its stride, but each season is largely self-contained, so you can really jump in anywhere without much difficulty (just skip the annual crossover episodes).
Legends airs on the CW in the U.S., and you can watch it on Netflix and various other streaming services around the world. It’s a terrific, underrated show that brings me joy like nothing else on TV, and I hope it does for you too.
fanfiction
A multifandom grab bag this week; thank you very much to all our reccers! — Elizabeth
“The Sugarcane Drive” by ellen_fremedom. 4.3K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: The Effluent Engine (N.K. Jemisin); Ship: Eugenie/Jessaline
Recced by: Chestnut_filly
Backstory: “The Effluent Engine” is a short story by N.K. Jemisin that envisions Haiti as an emerging steampunk power in the early-mid 19th century. Jessaline is a dashing Haitian spy looking for a scientist who can turn the byproducts of rum into dirigible fuel, and finds her scientist in the form of Eugenie, amateur chemist and scion of a notable New Orleans Creole family. Together they fight imperialism!
Rec: This fic feels like a brief window into the progression of events post-canon, and does a wonderful job introducing new elements and character development while making them feel connected to the original story. It’s very skillful. There’s also an excellent scene of derring-do towards the end.
Content warnings: Period-appropriate references to imperialism, slavery, and racism
“simply wicked to a tee” by misandrywitch. 3K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Check Please!; Ship: Shitty/Lardo
Recced by: Kelly
Backstory: A missing scene fic taking place between comics 3.9 and 3.11, in which Shitty spends the night and then has to sneak out a window in the rain.
Rec: It completely nails Shitty and Lardo’s voices and the tenor of their relationship in the comic, plus it dovetails perfectly into the comic itself.
Content warnings: N/A
“Time After Time” by thedevilchicken. 4.1K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Men in Black (specifically MIB3); Ship: Agent Jay/Agent Kay
Recced by: queer-mac
Backstory: MIB3 is all about Jay going back in time to save Kay, and make sure the ArcNet is installed and the world is safe. In this story, after returning to the present, in his dreams Jay finds himself returning to visit past!Kay. A lot.
Rec: MIB3 is lovely and melancholy and basically just about how much Jay and Kay love one another. This fic continues and deepens that story in such a satisfying way, complete with absolutely flawless characterizations.
Content warnings: N/A
“Of the Devil’s Party” by mermaiddrunk. 53K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Elementary; Ship: Jamie Moriarty/Joan Watson
Recced by: Blythe
Backstory: Elementary is yet another Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but it’s set in New York, Watson is a woman, and she’s Sherlock’s sober companion. Moriarty is also a woman, and she’s fascinated by Joan.
Rec: I think this author has put a lot of thought into what it would be like to fall for an amoral criminal mastermind, when you’re someone who generally tries to be a good person. Also, the general mood of the piece is fantastic.
Content warnings: Torture, murder, etc.
“Care and Feeding of Your Janet” by Samalander. 1.2K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: The Good Place; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Penna Nomen
Backstory: The Good Place is a comedy about the afterlife, where Janets are sentient AI assigned to neighborhoods. There are Good Janets (for the Good Place) and Bad Janets (for the Bad Place) and they occasionally need to be rebooted.
Rec: It’s a parody of user guides. People might actually read user guides if they were all this fun.
Content warnings: N/A
“Scenes from a revolution” by Deputychairman. 29K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy; Ship: Finn/Poe
Recced by: Clever Manka
Backstory: Post-TLJ. The few survivors of the Resistance spark a rebellion against the First Order on a resource-crucial planet.
Rec: Twenty-eight thousand words of anti-capitalist sentiment, wrapped up in a Stormpilot first time story. Deputy’s tag says it all: “maybe the invisible hand of the market was the real enemy all along.” I revisit this fic when I need to feel better about the possibility of change in our own world.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
That’s all, folks! Have a good weekend! — 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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