The Rec Center #33
Hello everyone! We’re back from our various activities, although I’ve managed to develop Con Crud on my day off and am railing against the universe, sob. We’ve got a new batch of fandom articles, recs and vids to share, along with a primer and fanfic for women’s soccer RPF from regular contributor Elisabeth. — Gav
new stuff
“To Ship or Not To Ship” by Flourish Klink at Fansplaining
Elizabeth’s podcast partner got in a fight with the dictionary—and the end result was a beautifully comprehensive deep dive into the words “ship” (as a verb AND noun) and “slash.”
“The X-Men Made Me Gay” by John Leavitt on The Nib
A great autobiographical comic about superheroes and sexual identity.
“Wattpad Futures Program Will Vend Video Ads Within Stories To Help Writers Monetize” by Geoff Weiss at Tubefilter
Inside Wattpad’s new monetization-for-writers program, Wattpad Futures.
“Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn is the result of ‘sexism by committee’” by Gav at the Daily Dot
How Suicide Squad’s direction, script, and cinematography conspired to bring down one of the strongest performances in the film. “Even after being beaten up, or dunked in a river, or dropped from a helicopter onto a concrete roof, Harley is never, ever allowed to be ugly. She's immune to any kind of damage that risks her attractiveness, physical or otherwise.”
old(er) stuff
Instead of an old article, this week we’re reccing an old episode of Star Trek! Episode 1x13 of the original series, “The Conscience of the King,” also known as the Tarsus IV episode.
Tarsus IV often appears as part of Kirk’s backstory in fanfic, but I’d never actually watched the original source before. But after seeing the episode last night, I strongly recommend it even if you’re totally unfamiliar with the show. (The original series isn’t sequential, so it doesn’t really matter if you drop in for a single episode.) I won’t spoil the plot, but it’s a wonderful combination of a genuinely original story about childhood trauma, and 1960s Star Trek’s rather campy tone of single-episode romances and random musical interludes.
You can find it on Netflix, along with the rest of Star Trek. And once you’ve seen it, you’ve got the backstory for a ton of Kirk fanfic! — Gav
tumblr & beyond
“Marvel artists turned Black influencers and athletes into super versions of themselves.”
Tag wrangling.
A fake Jar Jar Binks poster is being used to advertise Rogue One somewhere in Egypt.
Fanvid rec: “Tesseract,” an Interstellar vid by starlady.
women’s soccer RPF
Elisabeth is well on her way to becoming our go-to femslash correspondent. A few weeks ago she did a fantastic Wynonna Earp primer, and back in the early days of this newsletter, she did a multi-fandom sports AU fic rec list for Femslash February. She can be found on twitter and tumblr.
The past few months have seen a lot of discussion of fans overstepping boundaries, and the Olympics have highlighted these clashes in sports fandom. The women’s soccer fandom, though, offers a wonderful contrast. This is partly because the National Women’s Soccer League, the professional league in the USA, depends on grassroots advertisement and fan interaction to survive.
The NWSL has survived longer than either of its predecessors, and some argue it’s because they’ve embraced Twitter and YouTube. (NWSL player Tobin Heath was a bit of an internet sensation in 2008, and they stream all the games as well.) The league and its players—with the exception of Hope Solo—use social media well, as do fans. A great example of this is last week’s #DogsforChristen campaign, when fans sent the US’s favorite striker pictures of dogs after she missed the goal in a penalty shoot out:
I got into women’s soccer recently, even though I resisted the stereotype (of lesbians being into soccer) for a long time. When my aunt dragged me to my first game, I was amazed by the raw celebration of women. When you log into twitter during the Olympics, you see 1450793 tweets about amazing women athletes, but most of the year, we celebrate women who aren’t athletes.
Professional women’s soccer puts a strong emphasis on camaraderie and team spirit: women from opposing sides help each other throughout the games. Basically, if you’re looking for a fandom filled with unabashed feminists, a focus on wonderful women, and/or very nice queer representation, women’s soccer might be the place for you.
fanfiction
And now onto the fic recs! It helps Press’ Twitter cause that she’s a fan favorite because of her supposed relationship with beloved midfielder Tobin Heath. The two of them are Very Cute and RPF is all over that—these recs are all Tobin/Christen.
“we’ll take the world by storm (it isn’t that hard)” by krashlyntome. 31K words, rated Mature.
Aka the YouTuber AU—this fic does a really good job of playing with “canon” and adding interesting twists to it. It was also wonderfully in-character, with a lot of very cute, very gay moments.
“the jury’s out (but my choice is you)” by krashlyntome. 17K words, rated Mature.
When writing fic about Tobin Heath, it’s hard not to mention her best friend, Alex Morgan, who is famously very competitive. This fic does a good job of playing Alex off of Christen as Tobin is forced to keep her relationship a secret.
“pillowtalk” by softanticipation. 37K words, rated Mature.
This fic sticks to the “canonical timeline” and is wonderful in its slow descent into #Preath. It’s a wonderful primer on the important moments in the last year for US Women’s National Team through a shipper’s perspective, too.
“on a scale (from one to ten)” by softanticipation. 148K words, rated Mature.
A college AU that for once includes my #1 favorite soccer player, Kelley O’Hara. She’s Christen’s irl best friend, but Kelley and Christen are weirdly hard to find in fic! This one delivers and then some, giving you some wonderful Kelley x Christen x Tobin threesome to sink your teeth into.
“Fruit Basket” by iceinmyveins. 3.7K words, rated Gen.
If, like me, you are always hungry for general team interactions, this fic delivers a very cute attempt by the USWNT to figure out exactly who Tobin is dating. (Spoiler: it’s Christen.)
FINAL THOUGHT
I promise not to constantly plug my podcast and its Patreon or the special Cursed Child episode you get if you donate but AN AMAZING ARTIST MADE THE MOST ADORABLE FANART FOR IT AND I CANNOT GET OVER IT. Also please note I do not own the exact dress depicted but it is literally what my ideal dress would look like, how is this possible. — Elizabeth
Have a great fic to rec? Please share it with us! We’ll be using your one-off recs to build multi-fandom lists around themes, tropes, etc in the future.
If you liked this, please share it with your friends! https://thereccenter.substack.com/. And find us on social media: Gav (twitter/tumblr) & Elizabeth (twitter/tumblr)