The Rec Center #307

Hi folks! This week we’ve got articles about censorship and elvish lipstick, some cool Over the Garden Wall fanart, a James Bond/Q fandom primer from Chalionkat, and more! — Gav

new stuff

“Monster Girl Encyclopedia fandom wiki removed due to ‘fetish’ content” by Isaiah Colbert at Kotaku
Fandom (with a capital F), the company that owns most pop-culture wikis, is beginning to purge NSFW content. This means any fan-run wiki involving “sex, nudity and/or fetish material.” We’ve seen similar things happen on numerous platforms before (i.e. the Tumblr purge), so this is bad news for fandom-with-a-lowercase-f.

“Lord of the Rings is helping keep a 50-year-old shade of lipstick alive” by Maggie Lovitt at Polygon
Polygon’s year of LOTR anniversary coverage is shining a light on some fascinatingly obscure corners of the franchise. This week? Arwen’s lipstick, which is surging in popularity on TikTok.

“Celebrating Petra Mayer’s legacy and the joy she brought to NPR” at Pop Culture Happy Hour
If you were familiar with her work, you may have already seen the tragic news that NPR’s Petra Mayer passed away suddenly this week. This PCHH episode is a wonderful tribute to her and her work, and highlights the way she fundamentally reshaped NPR’s coverage of genre fiction and other pop culture that’s probably very relevant to Rec Center readers.

https://twitter.com/sanlanglovemail/status/1258602141654056960

older stuff

“Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, and Me” by Gabrielle Bellot at Catapult
“I’m still drawn to stories about teenage girls’ lives, real or fantastical, and a part of it is trying to glimpse a world I never fully got to walk in.”

tumblr & beyond

Over The Garden Wall fanart by PearConference

Honestly intimidated by this k-pop music video lore chart.

“somewhere right now George Jetson is being conceived.”

ok well... thanks for this Hannibal warning i guess”?

Check out Maisie Matilda’s incredible handpainted LOTR books on TikTok!

It’s a fool’s errand to try and apply logic to Riverdale canon, but also... did Archie fight in WWI?

Technically Sam and Dean Winchester became serial killers as soon as they got their hands on that demon-slaying knife.

fanfiction + explainer: 00Q

Chalionkat is a longtime fic reader who made the leap to start writing fic during the pandemic, inspired by The Untamed and Word of Honor. This rec list harks back to one of her earlier fandoms. You can find her at Chalionkat on Tumblr and AO3.

Now that the new Bond film, No Time to Die, is out, here’s a primer on Bond fic, and 00Q fic in particular. 00Q refers to James Bond and Q—the new Quartermaster, who is played by Ben Wishaw, doesn’t have a name in canon.

The quickest way to explain the 00Q ship is to watch their meet-cute in Skyfall:

Bond is older, more experienced, tired and cynical, an old-school spy. He’s better with people and with languages, and, of course, with violence. He wears suits. Q is younger (not as young as he looks here), extremely good with tech, representing the newer forms of espionage displacing Bond. He wears nerdy looking but actually extremely expensive outfits (Prada, apparently). They have matching dry humour, and both of them respect each others’ strengths.

In Spectre we see that Q will tease Bond, but will bend the rules to support him. The fandom was also delighted to find that Q has two cats, anticipated by a number of fics:

Fandom has held for a while that the character of Q is deliberately being played as gay, and possibly as in love with Bond. The new film briefly confirms the first half of this. We also get to meet the cats! In a shocking twist, they are hairless breeds. Bond is also confirmed to have been staying at Q’s flat in the film, which has given shippers great joy.

I won’t post any major spoilers for the film here, but Q gets a number of reaction spots when Bond is in peril. He is the first person after the Bond Girl who we see to react in a big scene.

Canon Bond is notorious for having sex with many beautiful women, which is often addressed in fics by presuming that agents need to be at least functionally pansexual. Q is usually portrayed as gay. Fics often interrogate Bond’s changing role in the world as he ages, echoing Craig’s portrayal of him in canon. Giving him Q as a younger, tech-savvy partner intensifies this dynamic.

The fandom is also blessed with extremely competent women, notably Judi Dench as M, and Naomi Harris as Moneypenny. Many fics also bring back the character of Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean, from Goldeneye). He maintains his backstory, but none of the events of the film.

Crossovers with other British fandoms are also common, in particular with the Sherlock TV show. The tall, slim Q, extremely clever, with dark curly hair, fits well as a third Holmes brother. — Chalionkat

“The Government Pack” by KtwoNtwo. 102K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Crossover with BBC Sherlock; Ship: Not a 00Q ship fic; Sherlock/Watson is a background ship
Backstory: This is a werewolf fic, but not A/B/O! Bond has to help Q deal with being a new werewolf while the teams investigate a supernatural mystery.
Rec: I love the world here, and the crossover, and the development of the friendship between Bond and Q.
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence; mild body horror (wolf transformation)

“Breaking and Entering” by Kryptaria and Zooeyscigar. 18K words, rated Mature.
Rec: This is very cute and clever and enjoyable, with great characterisation. Kryptaria has also written a number of other excellent fics in the fandom.
Content warnings: N/A for this fic, definitely read the tags for Kryptaria’s other fics

“Redamancy” by opalescentgold. 126K words, rated Mature.
Backstory: Soulmate fic. Agents can’t have soulmates as it’s a security risk.
Rec: I love soulmate tropes, and this one is done extremely well. Eventual happy ending.
Content warnings: Angst, canon-typical violence, temporary character death

My favourite (so far) of the fics responding to the new film. Serious warning for serious spoilers, proceed at your own risk:

“Hope Springs Eternal” by Alexix_Tenshi. 11K words, rated Teen.
Rec: Fix-it set two years later.
Content warnings: Angst with happy ending, injury recovery

https://twitter.com/dcyiyou/status/1459285267496550408

FINAL THOUGHT

Around this time last year we ran a few lists around the theme “fics you can get lost in.” With Thanksgiving coming up for U.S.-based folks (and with that long weekend historically being a time that breaks AO3 traffic records) we’d like to solicit more fics around this theme! They don’t have to be a bazillion words long—though they can be lol—just really engrossing (in your rec, tell us what was so engrossing about them!). Please use our current submission form, and include “fics you can get lost in” in the themes/tropes field. — Elizabeth