The Rec Center #271
Hello all! This week we have multifandom fic recs for the soulmate trope (a surprisingly varied list!), some Neopets coverage, an article about fanfic bookbinding, some cute Falcon/Winter Soldier fanart, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“Making Fanfiction Beautiful Enough for a Bookshelf” by Julia Alexander at The Verge
A reported feature on the rise of fanfic bookbinding, from the creative choices different bookbinders make to the legal grey area around selling books to recoup production costs.
“Neopets is reckoning with black market pet trading” by Nicole Carpenter at Polygon
“There’s always been places where you can go and purchase a UC pet and have it discreetly transferred to your account. What you do with it, that’s up to you. Everybody knows that this exists. There’s a joke on the Pound Chat that anything can be compromised.”
“Badda-Bing Badda-Bang: Fandom Discourse In the 24th Century” by Crystal Sparrow at Startrek.com
A look back at a classic 1990s Star Trek episode, where the characters debate the ethics of a holodeck program that erases the racist elements of human history, preceding modern arguments over “problematic faves.”
“The Fic and the Source Material” by Flourish Klink and Elizabeth at Fansplaining
If you took the recent Fansplaining mini-survey about reading fic without knowing the source material, you might be interested in the results! This is a write-up with visualizations for every question, but you can also listen to a discussion of the results on the most recent episode.
older stuff
“How a Small-Town Canadian Museum Became a Shrine to Justin Bieber” by Alison Fishburn at The Outline
“Justin Bieber’s grandparents didn’t know what to do with their famous grandchild’s old stuff, but the Stratford Perth Museum did.”
tumblr & beyond
Captain America & Winter Soldier fanart by muffinshark
TikTok: If John Mulaney did standup in The Sims.
“I love the idea of Spock being super queer, highly expressive and very emotional from a Vulcan view point.”
Viggo Mortensen and Karl Urban visiting Japan in 2003 and going super hard into buying Gundam"
Star Trek fans are like, “this says a lot about society”...
Fanart: Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli solve a murder mystery in a giant mansion.
fanfiction
This week sees the return of the ever-popular soulmate/soulbond/soulmark trope! If you want more of these, we ran a soulmate AU list just about a year ago (only year-ish anniversary I am acknowledging rn!!). Thank you very much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“Coming Together” by orphan_account. 6K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Star Wars; Ship: Poe Dameron/Finn
Recced by: Julia
Backstory: The first words your soulmate speaks to you are on your arm; in the case of Finn and Poe, those first words are familiar to us from The Force Awakens. They carry a different weight when the characters have known them their entire lives.
Rec: This fic frames something so familiar to a fan—the first dialogue exchange between two characters from early on in the movie—as an essential part of a character’s backstory and life choices. It’s a tightly written, brilliant story.
Content warnings: N/A
“You’ve Got Two Hands” by NervousAsexual. 2K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Singin’ in the Rain; Ship: Don Lockwood/Kathy Selden/Cosmo Brown
Recced by: Britt
Backstory: Singin’ in the Rain is a musical from the 50s with big poly vibes between the main couple and their BFF Cosmo.
Rec: Singin’ in the Rain is great. Soulmate tropes are great. Poly relationships and aro/ace rep is great!
Content warnings: N/A
“The Family You Choose” by TunaFishChris. 36K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender; Ship: Gen
Recced by: sallylockharts
Backstory: This fic takes the canon friendship between Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Suki and Zuko, and turns it into a six-way soulmate bond. It follows Zuko from childhood through to the end of the show, as he realises who the people are who have been the faceless, ghostly presence of support he has felt his whole life.
Rec: This is a very original take on the soulmate trope, where there is no limit on how many soulmates you can have, and where the bond can be platonic or romantic. I also love the way it manifests: once you meet your soulmate and bond to them, you go back through their life and see all the moments they needed you, and you are able to help them through time, by a hand on their shoulder when they need support, or a hug when they are cold.
Content warnings: Short attempted rape scene, canon-typical references to Ozai being a terrible father
“An Ever-Fixed Mark” by arysteia. 7K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: The Fast and the Furious; Ships: Brian O’Conner/Dominic Toretto, Brian O’Conner/Mia Toretto
Recced by: Rebecca
Backstory: In The Fast and the Furious, undercover officer Brian O’Conner falls in love with the community and the family he’s been sent to investigate, and eventually gives up his career to protect them. He’s canonically in love with his suspect’s younger sister, Mia, but there’s also a lot of (probably unintentional) subtext that says he’s actually in love with the suspect himself, Dom.
Rec: This story is a really beautiful exploration of how you can have more than one soulmate, while also deftly handling the “dating both siblings” problem that a lot of F&F fic runs into. There’s also just something extra delicious about a soulmark story where one of the characters has introduced himself with a fake name.
Content warnings: N/A
“fire for a heart” by melk24. 20K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Hockey RPF; Ship: Mitch Marner/Dylan Strome
Recced by: Ang
Backstory: Dylan and Mitch grew up playing against each other and always hated each other until they became linemates and really good friends in the process. Classic enemies to friends.
Rec: I love this one because it's kind of the pinnacle of Ditch, to me. It takes canon and puts a fun twist on it.
Content warning: Tagged as underage because both characters are 17 at one point when they’re intimate
“Hivemind” by popliar (littlerhymes). 13K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: BTS; Ship: Jung Hoseok/Min Yoongi, OT7
Recced by: ninamonday
Backstory: This is a cyber-soulmate AU where kpop idols are artificially “soulbonded” with one another and with the audience, using the premise to explore the process of building an idol group and mediating idol personas to fans.
Rec: It’s a clever setup that makes some interesting points about BTS’s actual work, and the story captures the relationships among all the members very sweetly.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
We included the results of the Fansplaining fic + source material survey up above, but I’m mentioning it again here because it’s the inspiration for our next call for recs: if you are one of the many people who reads fic before you engage with the source/without ever engaging with the source at all, we want your recs!
This is a two-parter, so if you have a favorite fic that falls into either of these buckets, please send it to us using our handy form!
Fics you read without knowing the source + have still never consumed the source: please include “never consumed source material” in tropes/themes
Fics you read without knowing the source that led you to consume the source: please include “led me to consume source material” in tropes/themes
Sorry about the excessive use of the word “consume,” there aren’t a lot of great alternatives lolol. And as always, thank you to everyone who sends in recs—we couldn’t make this newsletter without you! <3 — 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://buttondown.email/the-rec-center. And find us on social media: Gav (twitter/tumblr) & Elizabeth (twitter/tumblr)