The Rec Center #28
If you’re reading this, congrats on taking a break from catching Pokémon (or a break from the world’s unrelenting awfulness—as always, our message from last week, we’re here if you need a distraction but no worries if you don’t want to engage with fandom stuff, still stands). We’ve devoted our whole “tumblr & beyond” section to Pokémon Go, but if you (like me, SORRY POKÉ-FRIENDS, INCLUDING GAV, WHO I THINK IS INTO IT) have no interest in that, we’ve got a ton of other stuff, too: the history of zines, Hamilton fanart, my long-promised Remus/Sirius ship manifesto, and guest fic recs from Aja Romano in honor of Inceptiversary, the annual fandom celebration of the premiere of the movie Inception. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“What Is the Point of Pop Culture in a World Gone Mad?” by Vinnie Mancuso at the Observer
“What role, if any, does pop culture have in this reality we’re living in?”
“The Power Of Zines! (And The Women Making Them)” by Sara Century at The Establishment
Obviously not all zines are fannish, but they have fannish roots and continue to be radical political spaces within the fannish world.
“Fanartist creates beautiful playing cards inspired by the ‘Hamilton’ cast” by Gav at The Daily Dot
Fanartist @birdloaf created these cards as well as a hilarious Hamilton college AU series in a very different style. We love how much characterization went into both projects, from vape bro Thomas Jefferson to the symbolism behind each of the royal suits in the deck of Hamilton cards.
old(er) stuff
“Fans Go Interactive, and Popular Culture Feels the Tremors” by Ann Powers in The New York Times
A snapshot of the mainstream perceptions of fan spaces online in the year 2000—and the growing pushback from rights’ holders. “Fans, however, are starting to unite against what they consider a corporate slap in the face.”
tumblr and beyond: pokémon edition
It’s a lil terrifying to think that Pokémon Go came out a mere NINE DAYS AGO. How the world has changed since then. We’re not gonna link to any ~thinkpieces, but here’s a random selection of Cool Pokémon Shit we came across this week.
Pokémon Go autocorrect.
The Pokémon At Funerals Tumblr.
“I got caught cheating through Pokemon Go.”
“Bro, the vape guy is our pokemon professor.”
remus/sirius
So! This past weekend I (Elizabeth) was at Leviosa, a (fantastic) Harry Potter con, and after agreeing to be on a few general fanfic panels, the slash and queer lit track organizers asked if I’d lead the Remus/Sirius roundtable—a discussion, not a presentation, with other fans at the con. At first I was like, “YIKES not qualified at all no thank you,” and then I was like, “Hold on, go back, how many R/S stories have I read in the near-decade I was exclusively devoted to the ship?” I decided that I was...pretty qualified.
It’s got me thinking a lot about Remus and Sirius and Remus + Sirius, why this ship made sense and why it endured for me (I’m writing an R/S story now, 14 years after I first came to the pairing). Presuming anyone reading this knows (and cares about) Harry Potter, you all have the basics: they are half of a foursome of youthful troublemakers—bullies in some people's’ eyes, charming in others, so almost definitely both of those things; half of a group that grew to distrust each other so thoroughly that one wound up in jail, one in hiding, and two of them dead; and more than a decade later, after living parallel lives of false imprisonment and desperate poverty, the pair that find each other again, and, from Harry’s limited perspective, fall instantly side-by-side, hugging and moving in tandem and buying joint Christmas gifts.
There’s much to be said about how they work as a ship, and a potentially messy one. (If you’re in to that sort of thing—I am! TRAGEDY.) Sirius’s mercurial boldness to Remus’s survivalist passivity, the inherent class tension (many fic writers choose to read Remus as working class, a contrast further complicated by the HP blood purity rhetoric and Remus’s lycanthropy), or the fact that canonically, Sirius seems first and foremost devoted to James, which some fic writers choose to ignore while others enjoy digging the knife in deeper. But for me, some of the ship was always about their potential queerness as individuals: Remus, arguably the most explicitly queer-coded character in the book (pre-HBP, do NOT get me started), and Sirius, whose queerness I read—hungrily, as a teen—in the empty spaces of the text.
There is a Japanese phrase “mono no aware” that my friend Aja, our guest reccer this week, taught me recently: forgive me if I mangle it, but it’s basically the sadness—pathos—that touches even the happiest moments, because you have the knowledge that nothing is permanent. It’s really depressing but hey, it’s the phrase for me! This pairing is shot through with the sense that even in the fluffiest moments of joy, it will all end. It’s embedded in “Promised Eternity” and the accompanying “Ring of Endless Light Remix,” or in “Mischief Managed,” a retelling of Prisoner of Azkaban. It lingers in this bodyswapping story I love, “In Curves Not Angles.” It’s at the heart of my favorite series, “The Rising Storm,” and the fic I spent all weekend reccing, “The Winter of Discontent.” At the roundtable, I promised to make a proper rec list; I’m doing that now, and will share it here when it’s done. In the meantime, please message me if you want to talk further about tragic irony and all the wonderful fic this pairing has produced. :-)
fanfiction
Aja is a web culture reporter for Vox, and she has been in all kinds of fandoms since discovering Pride & Prejudice fanfic in 1998, most notably Harry Potter and Inception. Find her on tumblr as bookshop and twitter as @ajaromano.
Inception—Christopher Nolan’s 2010 sci-fi heist film about mind thieves and dream invaders—is superficially maybe the unlikeliest candidate for a film ever to spawn a devoted cult following in transformative fandom. Not only is it a stand-alone film with no new canon material of any kind, but its major slash OTP are two minor characters who appear onscreen together for barely 5 minutes of the film’s total 2.5-hour running time. Yet somehow, mainly due to the intriguing concept, the chemistry and fun of the film’s ensemble cast, and all the things we’re left to imagine about these characters and the world of the film, Inception has generated a continual and devoted fandom since the day it was released.
Tomorrow, Inception fandom turns 6 years old, and in honor of Inceptiversary—as we fandom faithful call the month of July—I’m reccing a few fics that, to me, illustrate the complex, vast, and perennially fascinating nature of Inception fic while also celebrating the women of the film :D. If you like unreliable narration, world travel and international espionage, total mindfucks on multiple simultaneous levels, feminist reframings of misogynistic storytelling, and sheer badass motherfuckers being unbelievably competent at highly specialized (and often indecipherable nonsensical) work, then Inception is the fandom for you. JOIN US! — Aja
“Unclaimed Luggage and Unscheduled Departures” by psocoptera. 2.1K words, rated Mature.
Ships: Arthur/Eames, Saito/Yusuf (but mostly gen)
If you believe that the ending of the film means Cobb is still trapped in a dream world, then all the characters we meet throughout are constructions of his subconscious. So what happens to them after Cobb leaves the airport in the penultimate scene of the film? This is always one of the first fics I rec because it’s such a joyous celebration of everything that’s delightfully fucked up and open-ended about this film.
“The Manor House” by Fahye. 23K words, rated Teen.
Ship: Ariadne/Arthur/Eames
When we say “worldbuilding” in Inception we mean literal world-building, as in lots and lots of fun with dream architecture and fantasy dreamscape construction. In this fabulously written fic, Ariadne, the film’s architect, explores the concept of personality-based dream architecture while training with Arthur, Eames, and Yusuf after the events of the film. I love this fic both for the dynamics between all the characters and for the love of the creative spaces and possibilities of the dreamscape that Fahye explores.
“The Daughters of Eve” by weatherfront. 5K words, rated PG-13.
Ship: Dom/Mal
There are several fics that attempt to make Mal’s canon backstory, what we see of her in the film, make sense. This fic deals with post-partum depression, the strain of childbirth, mental illness, and Mal in all her unconfinable rage and beauty and tortured strength.
“The Delphini Trials” by 8611. 2.9K words, rated Gen.
Ship: Implied background Arthur/Eames
This is a tour-de-force set in a future where Philippa is an adult and dreamshare goes public amid international political conflict and whistleblowing that amounts to revolution. Philippa’s bitterness, darkness, brilliance and resemblance to her mother in this are like a gunshot to the head.
The ‘Mal was right’ trope
One of the coolest and most important things about Inception fandom to me personally is the “Mal was right / Mal woke up” trope, which takes a core part of the movie plot—that the main character Dom Cobb (Leo’s) wife Mal killed herself because she was duped into believing she was still trapped in a dream—and stands it on his head. In this version of events, Mal was actually right, they were stuck in a dream, and she did wake up and is now somewhere up above in the ‘real’ world, awake and dealing with the consequences of their actions. This trope has given us several knockout fics set in the nebulous present or future of the film:
“i am the hero of this story (don't need to be saved)” by electrumqueen. 4.1K words, rated Gen.
Ships: Mal/Dom, pre-Arthur/Eames if you squint, and so much Mal/Arthur subtext it practically makes my skin crawl with need, sob.
This is a ‘mal-woke-up’ fic where the emphasis isn't on frantically trying to wake Cobb up, but on coping with the reality that he can't be woken up at all. Mal here is so visceral and real, and the dynamic between her and Arthur—the Cobbs’ loyal, beautiful, ruthlessly competent but deeply vulnerable point man—is one of my favorites in any fic ever.
“A dream you dream together is reality” by ladyragnell. 7.8K words, rated Teen.
Ship: Gen
In the future of a world where her mother wakes up and escapes from the dream world, her daughter, Philippa, has to grow up and move, on, too—knowing that for a very long time her mother was trapped in a dream world where she had another daughter, another Philippa, whom she thought was real. This is a fascinating glimpse at Philippa growing up and trying to compete with an invisible twin she never knew.
[you are STRONGLY encouraged to click through on those links before they vanish]
FINAL THOUGHT
If you missed it last week, we’ve set up a submission form for one-off fic recs so we can start to collect material for crowdsourced, multi-fandom lists. The link is here, and we’ll keep it at the bottom of the newsletter going forward. Thank you to all those who have already sent us links. and in honor of the the past week, we thought we’d start off with one of them. You won’t need three guesses to figure out the fandom… :-)
“Missed Signals, Lost Lines” by Cryptographic_Delurk. 73K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Pokémon. Ship: Red/Green
Recced by: nolongerwolfalice
About the fandom: Pokémon is a video game/TV series that launched 20 years ago this year (!) about collecting and battling with monsters. Slash the power of friendship. In this fic, a 10-year-old kid named Red leaves home for Pokémon adventure. BASICALLY this story takes a realistic look at the first-generation Pokémon video games—why the main character doesn't talk (selective mutism), the difference in Red’s relationship to his Pokémon vs. other people’s, and his complex relationship with Green (Gary in the anime, but the characters do have differences), his rival. Despite the ship it’s pretty gen/pre-slash.
About the fic: A wonderful fic in a fandom hard to find fic for—in case the surge in Pokémon Go means that anyone is looking for Pokémon stuff to read! Pokémon is such a fascinating topic for fic and this one gets it all right—a realistic take on the emotional/logistical implications of the games while still staying true to their spirit.
FINAL FINAL THOUGHT
Gav is at Star Wars Celebration this weekend, so check out her twitter for pics and updates!
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