July 22, 2022

The Rec Center #342

This week we have articles about fandom bot campaigns and the sport formerly known as Quidditch, along with some cool fanart for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and a rec list for fandom AUs! — Gav

new stuff

“Quidditch is now quadball, distancing game from J.K. Rowling, league says” by Adela Suliman at the Washington Post
In the nearly two decades since IRL quidditch began, its players’ relationships to the source material have varied a great deal. This week, the International Quidditch Association officially changed the name, putting space between the sport and JKR’s politics—as well as Warner Bros.’ trademark.

“Fandoms Can Do Bad All by Themselves” by Gita Jackson at Vice
“Having both been the object of the [Zack] Snyder fandom’s ire and a critic they feel ‘gets it,’ I feel very sure that even if the Snyder-related hashtags began with bots, the pro-Snyder movement has been sustained with human beings.”

“Marvel’s Movie Math: Comic Creators Claim It’s ‘Bait and Switch’ On Payments” by Aaron Couch at The Hollywood Reporter
A grim look at how Marvel is drastically underpaying the original creators of characters in the MCU.

older stuff

“You’re Gonna Love This Franchise” by Elizabeth at Fansplaining
In honor of Elizabeth’s return to San Diego Comic-Con, a deep dive from a few years ago about the way the entertainment industry frames corporate fandom, at the convention and beyond.

tumblr & beyond

Everything Everywhere All At Once fanart by oxomo

“was watching a scene from singin in the rain on youtube and...”

those three magic words everyone wants to hear. “baffy is canon.”

ok great badge idea

pour one out for the non-Supernatural fans

“we need more names for men in stories”

fanfiction

A few weeks back we asked for your favorite fandom AUs—where the characters participate in fandom in some way—and we got a TON of submissions. This is the first batch, and we’ll run another next week. Thanks to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth

“Failing Skywards” by Asymptotical, fencesit. 10K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Scum Villain; Ship: Shang Qinghua/Shen Yuan
Recced by: Shadaras
Backstory: Shang Qinghua (username “Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky”) is the author of a very popular webnovel. Shen Yuan (username “Peerless Cucumber”) is said webnovel’s most faithful fan (even when he seems to hate it). When they start modding a fanwork exchange for this webnovel together, things go... well, great for them, but poorly for literally everyone else involved.
Rec: This fic is written by two exchange mods, with great attention to detail about how exchanges can work (and fail!), and it shows. It’s also hilarious to read the main characters bickering and bantering and slowly falling in love with each other while making a giant mess of the exchange.
Content warnings: N/A

“The Fandom Job: A Wank Report” by lady_ragnell. 1.2K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Leverage; Ship: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Recced by: BookishDi
Backstory: A fandomwank report AU of the Three Days of Hunter Job, where the leverage OT3 takes down a fandom plagiarist.
Rec: This is a really fun AU setup of how Team Leverage might operate in fandom, written like an old school fandomwank report.
Content warnings: N/A

“fandom’s favorite twink” by dexdefyingstunts. 6.4K words (WIP but the current chapters stand alone), rated Explicit.
Fandom: Batman; Ships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Tim Drake/Dick Grayson, Tim Drake/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake/Roy Harper, Tim Drake/Damian Wayne
Recced by: JasmineDragon
Backstory: The Batman characters in their civilian identities overhear RPF about their superhero identities. For the prompt: “There’s plenty of attractive heroes out there, but as a rule of thumb, they tend to land on the larger side of the size scale, in pretty much every way. It probably shouldn’t be as much of a surprise, then, when they all find out that Red Robin is insanely popular in the fandom, for one very specific reason—he’s their favorite twink. That also means they can ship him with basically anyone.”
Rec: We as the audience also get to overhear the fannish speculation of a group of friends that sound a lot like fannish people I know irl.
Content warnings: N/A

“Mutual” by Chash. 6K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: The 100; Ship: Bellamy/Clarke
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Bellamy and Clarke are a popular friends to lovers ship in this fandom. In this AU, Clarke is an A-List actress on a hit fantasy show, and she rebels against her micro-managed life by secretly getting a Tumblr, where she then meets Bellamy, since he’s in the fandom for her show, and he thinks she’s another fan as they interact.
Rec: This is a really fun meta take on characters from the show who are in their own fandom, and the extra layer of meta where Clarke is herself an actress in her OWN fictional fandom who is rebelling by getting a tumblr is just like....fandom inception. It’s very cute and fun.
Content warnings: N/A

“Adventures in Fiction by thanku4urIove. 9.1K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Seventeen; Ship: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Recced by: pezzax
Backstory: Seungkwan finds fanfiction, gets into reading it, and then starts to blur the lines between reality and fiction—getting angry at Vernon for things that fictional Vernon did in a story. When the other members find out about it, they all start reading fan fiction and it becomes a favorite pastime of theirs.
Rec: This story is really cute and fluffy, and manages to truly capture that chaotic energy that Seventeen expresses so well on their Going Seventeen shows. It’s ridiculous, and so are they, and that’s one reason that we love them so much.
Content warnings: N/A

“the theory of narrative causality” by falling_voices. 7 parts + epilogue (no word count due to coding and screenshots, but longish), rated NC-17.
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (BBC); Ship: Sherlock/John
Recced by: Julie
Backstory: Sherlock Holmes fandom AU where Sherlock is a BNF opinionated fanartist and John is a fic writer and they’re paired up in the Sherlock Holmes Big Bang.
Rec: Genius incorporation of LJ layouts and scrollable chat windows while telling a great—and extremely meta—story about, among other things, fandom itself. Years since I read it but I’ll never forget how cool an experience it was.
Content warnings: N/A

“Until We Meet Again” by PeppyBismilk. 128K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Yuri on Ice; Ship: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Recced by: rainbowninja
Backstory: In general, “Yuri on Ice” has great fandom-y fics, because the main character, Yuuri, is canonically a huge figure skating fan (and specifically a fan of Victor’s). But in this AU, Victor is NOT a skater—he’s an actor who starred in a skating TV show that got cancelled years ago but still has a very dedicated fanbase, which includes Yuuri, naturally!
Rec: This is such a fun Cinderella-style story that reimagines the way each character inspires the other, even in this AU setting. The fandom for Victor’s TV show is also HIGHLY relatable to anyone who’s ever stayed committed to a beloved fandom long after it was cancelled.
Content warnings: N/A

And we got two recs for this fic!

“Pairing Pendragon/Merlin” by anonymous. 25K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: BBC Merlin; Ship: Arthur/Merlin
Recced by: mariusperkins and asofterbutch
Backstory: asofterbutch writes: Merlin was a campy BBC teens show based on the legends of King Arthur and Merlin. In this modern AU, Arthur is a popular fic writer and Merlin is his beta reader.
Rec: mariusperkins writes: It’s a fun modern au that really nails the core characterisation while also fitting them into modern times, with a fun twist on the usual merlin-specific tropes (in that it’s Arthur with a secret identity instead of the other way around). Some references to how fandom interacts might feel a bit dated to some, but as someone who was there for that era it holds such nostalgia for me (chat logs! Livejournal!)
asofterbutch writes: This multimedia fic is a wonderful time capsule of all the best parts of fandom in the LiveJournal era. It’s a real love letter to fandom, with a sweet love story at the centre of it. There’s also a fantastic podfic version complete with sound effects recorded by lunchee.
Content warnings: N/A

FINAL THOUGHT

A reminder if you’re at SDCC! Tomorrow (Saturday, July 23rd) please come to Fansplaining’s panel and/or meetup afterwards:

You can read the full description of our panel + list of guests here, and a reminder that the Marriott’s bar is wholly outdoors. Hope to see some of you there! :-)) — Elizabeth