The Rec Center #300
Hello and welcome to Halloween Month! We’re kicking off with the first of several paranormal-themed fic rec lists, along with articles about Dune and Ratatouille, some cool Squid Game fanart, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“I Nearly Set My House on Fire Trying to Make the Lightning Mushroom From ‘Ratatouille’” by Jaya Saxena at Eater
Do your fanworks involve you purchasing a variable transformer to recreate lightning in your own home in an attempt to mimic a rat chef? Time to step things up a notch!!
“Spice World: WIRED Traces the Dune Legacy” at Wired
In advance of the new Dune film, Wired has put together an interesting package of stories, including the novel’s connections to Burning Man and to modern warfare practices.
“A Conversation With Squid Game’s Breakout Robot-Doll Star” by E. Alex Jung at Vulture
A fictional but hilariously on-point interview with the 10-foot-tall robot girl from episode 1 of Squid Game, the Korean Netflix show that’s currently taking the internet by storm.
https://twitter.com/NelllyRose/status/1442874963719962640
older stuff
“Wizards, Warriors, and the Quest for LARP Insurance” by Eric Grundhauser at Atlas Obscura
“If you have a liability plan, you’re really covering burning down one of the cabins or the main kitchen hall/tavern.”
tumblr & beyond
Squid Game fanart by rellygc
reeling from this tumblr thread about supernatural tattoos.
Squid Game culture is already out of control... this tiktok influencer set up an IRL game of Red Light/Green Light with masks and fake armed guards.
in celebration of Venom 2, please enjoy this classic Venom post: “man-assed musclebeast mascot of San Francisco”
this description of Darth Vader... pure poetry.
full respect to the people doing the important archival work of preserving this garfield fanvid.
fanfiction
We put out a call for paranormal recs—both AUs and paranormal source material—and I can’t believe we waited until 300 issues in to ask for this, because we got SO MANY SUBMISSIONS. Enough, in fact, to run paranormal lists through the end of 2021. 😂
We will not be doing that, but we will be dedicating the entire month of October to them, starting with a general list this week and doing a few more specific lists in the coming weeks. Of course with so many submissions, there are several dozen recs we won’t be able to run this month, but we will include them in lists eventually! Thank you so much to everyone who submitted a rec. — Elizabeth
“11:58” by gimmeshellder. 4.3K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Steven Universe; Ship: Gen
Recced by: apple
Backstory: Human and paranormal horror AU in which Amethyst gets in a nearly-empty subway car and things go from bad to worse.
Rec: Incredibly vivid and funny and terrifying in the way good horror is! I’ll think of this story every time I ride the subway for the rest of my life.
Content warnings: Body horror / gore and psychological horror, but nothing graphic
“you’re a bird in the water / i’m a fish on the ground” by plonk. 9K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: MDZS, CQL; Ship: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian
Recced by: phnelt
Backstory: The world of MDZS is torn apart by war when one powerful sect tries to conquer the others. This story posits, what if that but there were also MERMAIDS with ELECTRIC POWERS.
Rec: This fic is one of the rare magical humanfucking fics, where we’re in the supernatural creatures pov learning about how strange human bodies are. Apparently they do mouth stuff? I’m a sucker for arranged marriages and horniness transcending barriers and this fic has it all.
Content warnings: N/A
“what’s real or isn’t” by brawlite. 57K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Star Wars Sequels; Ship: Hux/Kylo Ren
Recced by: SJ
Backstory: From the author’s description: Hux’s new house isn’t haunted. It isn’t.
Rec: The author so successfully created a weird, uncertain, gothic atmosphere in this fic. An incredible reading experience full of tension and mystery, and a very creative set up besides.
Content warnings: Dubious consent, descriptions of gore
“A Girl’s Guide to Open Heart Surgery” by novembersmith, swiiftly. 2.7K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Jennifer’s Body; Ship: Jennifer Check/Anita “Needy” Lesnicki
Recced by: Orangistae
Backstory: Slight AU with missing scenes from the end of the movie, in which Needy goes on a cross-country killing spree in order to bring Jennifer back.
Rec: The murder girlfriends fix-it we deserve, with cute romance between increasingly self-assured Needy and pouty undead Jennifer taking place against a backdrop of amateur surgery and dead assholes. Also has a great podfic!
Content warnings: Violence and gore, cannibalism
“blue side” by sharpa. 16K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: BTS RPF; Ship: Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga
Recced by: halotolerant
Backstory: BTS are an internationally famous Korean boyband, but you don’t need to know anything about that to enjoy this AU.
Rec: This highly original, beautifully built modern AU is in a world where some people have the power to break curses, and some others have the power to help them carry that burden (and others no powers at all). It’s a story about love and hope when life is a lot, and an OT3 relationship that’s matured and grown.
Content warnings: Injury description
“Lost & Found” (+ “Just You,” a coda) by mariana_oconnor. 102K words over both works, rated Mature.
Fandom: MCU/Marvel Comics; Ship: James “Bucky” Barnes/Clint Barton
Recced by: Veryrachael
Backstory: On the run with a big bag of stolen money, Clint decided to hide out in an apparently idyllic small town, which is perfect in every way apart from the mysteriously high number of stray dogs milling about.
Rec: The characterisation is spot on, and I love how the author folds in canon elements into this surprisingly sweet werewolf AU. I also really enjoyed Clint’s obliviousness in the face of frankly ill-concealed lycanthropy.
Content warnings: Some forced drug use, violence against wolves
“The Smallest of Things” by Rabbitprint. 5.7K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Mushi-shi; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Chestnut_pod
Backstory: Ginko is a wandering mushi-shi: a wise figure who deals with the inevitable problems of human connection to nature, in the form of the mystical creatures known as mushi. His own encounter with mushi have left him with no memory of his origins.
Rec: Part of the joy of Mushi-shi is the intense, clear-eyed engagement with nature and what it means to be a part of nature, lovely and dangerous and inevitable at once. This fic manages to catch that feeling in a truly astonishing way—beauty and danger and acceptance without fatalism.
Content warnings: Fantasy condition comparable to a terminal illness
https://twitter.com/merrittk/status/1440865736625373184
FINAL THOUGHT
#300! A milestone! While we didn’t do anything special for this issue (like we did with our AMA for #200), we thought it was worth marking the occasion. Thank you so much to all of our readers and guest contributors—I say this every time, but we really couldn’t do this without you. — Elizabeth