The Rec Center #318
Hello and welcome to the first week of this year’s Femslash February! Along with multifandom f/f recs, we have articles about Boba Fett and Miyazaki, some adorable DS9 fanart, a cool Expanse fanvid, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“How fandom sent Boba Fett from minor character to leading man” by Luke Winkie at Vox
“Fandom works in mysterious ways, and sometimes a cult can coalesce around the tertiaries, the hangers-on, or the half-digested carcasses left for dead in the desert.” After reading this history of Boba Fett’s rise to popularity via the power of headcanon, you may find yourself doubly puzzled by the creative direction of his Disney+ show.
“Hayao Miyazaki’s Characters Help Me Grieve My Chronic Illness” by Lorraine Boissoneault at Catapult
“‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ and ‘The Legend of Korra’ are about protagonists living with magic and fighting for the fate of the world. To me, they’re also metaphors for dynamic disability.”
https://twitter.com/bf_crane/status/1486544096101498885
older stuff
“The Ever-Mutating Life of Tumblr Dot Com” by Allegra Rosenberg at Fansplaining
“Reports of the platform’s death have been greatly exaggerated.” Written two years ago, the dynamics described in this piece have only grown stronger.
tumblr & beyond
Garak/Bashir illustration by hingabee, for the fanfic “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)”
A wonderful Expanse fanvid about Camina Drummer.
Locked Tomb fanart in the style of a 1960s/70s kids’ cartoon.
“you misunderstand. blorbo from your shows is flat and cringe. blorbo from my shows is full of fascinating depth.”
“Only Mutants in the Building”
tumblr will never die because you still get posts like this from users with names like “aaronburrsexdungeon”
The Threatening Music Notation twitter account finds itself going viral in a very specific niche.
fanfiction
Femslash February 2022 has begun! We’ll start off this week with a multi-fandom list (thanks to everyone who sent in a rec!!) and we’re still soliciting more f/f, so please keep sending your favorites our way. (Yes, as I say every year, this is part of my sneaky plan to get more f/f in our overall fic bank for post-February 😅.) — Elizabeth
“you’re not very good at issuing orders, but so very good at following them” by onlybylaura. 2.5K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: The Locked Tomb Trilogy; Ship: Judith Deuteros/Coronabeth Tridentarius
Recced by: Sofia
Backstory: The Locked Tomb is a trilogy about lesbian necromancers in space with swords. Judith is an uptight soldier, Coronabeth is a (hot) spoiled princess.
Rec: Judith/Coronabeth is a rare-ish pair in the fandom, but their pre-canon shared history is explored in such a fun, sexy way in this fic! Uptight soldier, spoiled princess, lavish parties and power dynamics, what’s not to love?
Content warnings:
“Your Mouth Is Poison, Your Mouth Is Wine” by ClydeThistles. 38K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: The Witcher - All Media Types; Ship: Margarita Laux-Antille/Tissaia de Vries
Recced by: Expatgirl
Backstory: Based on the canon premise that Rita and Tissaia author academic works together. Follows their relationship over the years with each chapter related to a poison in the compendium they write. NB: NOT teacher/student.
Rec: I beta read this for this year’s Witcher Big Bang and it floored me. Fits perfectly in canon and gave me major Tipping the Velvet vibes.
Content warnings: Canonical character death, minor drug use
“I Want To Be More Than A Friend/You Found Me When I Thought I Was Dying” by Negativespeedforce. 3.8K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Star Wars, Thrawn: Ascendancy; Ship: Ar’alani/Wutroow
Recced by: darasuummanda
Backstory: Ar’alani’s 30th birthday is approaching and she has yet to find her soulmate. If she doesn’t before her 31st birthday, Hanahaki’s Disease will kill her.
Rec: The worldbuilding is so beautiful and there’s so much tension, longing, and mutual pining.
Content warnings: Temporary character death
“Please Don’t Ask Me To Spend The Night” by torakowalski. 4.5K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Inception; Ship: (F/F) Arthur/Eames
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Little to no canon knowledge needed here. Eames and Arthur are criminals who bicker and flirt through the entire movie. Arthur is typically portrayed in fandom as uptight and Eames as charming. This story takes place right after the movie ends.
Rec: Both Eames and Arthur are genderswapped in this story, and it works incredibly well and still feels very much like them. The sex is hot and the ending sweet.
Content warnings: N/A
“the only place worth being” by overnights. 17K words, Not Rated (est. Teen).
Fandom: Young Avengers; Ship: Kate Bishop/America Chavez
Recced by: jules
Backstory: Kate and America are members of the queer teenage hero group the Young Avengers. Kate is having a sexuality crisis and America is a superhuman badass lesbian who can travel between dimensions.
Rec: This story gets all the characters exactly right. Kate gets to discover her sexuality in her own time as she goes through the mundane struggles of everyday superhero life and just life as a young adult, and everyone gives her that time.
Content warnings: N/A
https://twitter.com/coolranchzaku/status/1389624772649181188
FINAL THOUGHT
It’s that time of year again: the charity fanworks auction Fandom Trumps Hate is back, and creator sign-ups are open through the end of next weekend! If you’ve been a Rec Center reader for a while, you’re probably tired of me explaining how this sort of thing works lol, but tl;dr creators offer their services—writing fic, drawing art, crafting, betaing, to name a few—and folks “bid” on them, promising to donate the amount of bid to one of a handful of nonprofits in exchange for the creator making them a fanwork/performing a fanwork-related service. I’d encourage folks who want to participate to check out the sorts of things you can do as a creator—it’s far more expansive than just writing/drawing fanworks! — Elizabeth