The Rec Center #357
Hi all! This week we have articles about Jewish Taylor Swift fans and multiverses, Sandman fanart, and a grab-bag of multifandom fic. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“Observant Jewish Swifties are pissed about the Eras tour dates” by Olivia Craighead at Gawker
“Every date on the Eras Tour, save for one in Arlington, Texas, falls on either a Friday or Saturday night. This means that nearly every show falls on Shabbat, a day of rest on which observant Jewish people cannot, for example, drive to a concert.”
“Is the Multiverse Where Originality Goes to Die?” by Stephanie Burt at The New Yorker
“Is the rise of the multiverse the death of originality? Did our culture take the wrong forking path? Or has the multiverse unlocked a kind of storytelling—familiar but flexible, entrancing but evolving—that we genuinely need?”
“Andor analysis posts” by Gav at the Daily Dot
Gav has been writing extensively about Andor over the past few weeks, mostly focusing on the show’s political themes along with analysis of individual episodes/characters. Here’s a masterlist of her coverage! (And if you’re not watching Andor yet—it’s SO good!!)
all a sports team has to do to endear itself to me is to have Two Little Guys Who Are Friends. it can be the most uninteresting team to watch in the world but if it has Two Little Guys and they Are Friends then I’m in.
— graph enjoyer (@lowerbodyinjury) October 23, 2022
older stuff
“The Future of Film Talk Is on Letterboxd” by Scott Tobias at The Ringer
“As the pandemic and expansion of streaming changes how and when we see a movie, one unassuming social media site is positioned as a haven for the film-crit community.”
tumblr & beyond
Sandman fanart by joneevarts
big fan of shakespeare villains who step onto the stage and immediately announce “I am here and I am evil.”
we have some constructive criticism for your constructive criticism.
honestly at this point “orbs” are a cultural treasure.
that is not ““slow burn.””
“I think it is so, so important that the vampire household all wear jammies in their coffins.”
fanfiction
Just an unthemed grab-bag of fic this week! Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“the shape of true things” by newsbypostcard. 24K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: The Magnus Archives; Ship: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Recced by: Jenny Hamilton
Backstory: The Magnus Archives is a horror fiction podcast set in an archive that keeps track of eldritch monsters and their wicked ways. Archivist Jonathan Sims and archive assistant Martin Blackwood are the canonical endgame pairing (sp...oilers I guess?), and Jon is canonically ace.
Rec: Martin and Jon end up in a literal cabin in the woods at the end of S4, which led predictably to a cabinfic-splosion in the hiatus between seasons. This is my favorite of the genre, a very tender and careful story about navigating feelings and sexuality and self-worth.
Content warnings: N/A
“SN 1572” by Prufrockslove. 100K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: X-Files; Ships: Mulder/Scully, Scully/Skinner, Mulder/Scully/Skinner, Skinner/Sharon Skinner
Recced by: fernybranca
Backstory: A story set post-alien-colonization: Scully and Skinner have survived in a bunker; Mulder, suffering from psychic abilities thanks to his experiences on the X-Files, left the bunker early in the colonization process to try to mentally speak with the aliens, and has been rumored to have gone over to their side ever since. Now, Scully may be close to tracking him down, but her relationship with Skinner (the powerful boss-man in this Mad Max-ish world) is a complicating factor.
Rec: One of prufrockslove’s great strengths as a writer is the ability to simultaneously write big action-adventure set pieces and also characters whose emotional lives are absolutely central to the action. Here, they use psychic abilities as a powerful metaphor for grief and memory. It’s astonishingly effective; the story is heartbreaking.
Content warnings: Main character death; rape (not shown explicitly); dubcon (shown very explicitly); canon-typical violence, but also mass murder by aliens
“they say I’ll get hurt if I’m not like ice” by duckgirlie. 2.5K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: The Untamed/Módào Zǔshī; Ship: f/f Meng Yao/Nie Mingjue
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Modern-day cisswap of one of the more tempestuous relationships in the untamed.
Rec: It does an excellent job of hinting at so much complicated backstory in such a short fic, and it’s incredibly hot at the same time.
Content warnings: N/A
“J’adore Venise” by Miranda_Glass. 100K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Call Me By Your Name; Ship: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Recced by: Mariana
Backstory: It’s 1990, and after leaving the US for good, Oliver finds himself in Venice, where he reconnects with Elio after 7 years apart. On the way of them being happy together are meddling friends and a Venetian mystery!
Rec: I think the author does a brilliant job with the characterisation. They put these fictional characters in the real world, make them interact with real people, and thus the mystery is all the more exciting.
Content warnings: References to self-harm, mental health issues
“the song that i’d always sing” by idrilka. 8K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Romance is a Bonus Book; Ship: Kang Dan-I/Cha Eun Ho
Recced by: Natalia
Backstory: Romance is a Bonus Book is a K-Drama in which Dan-I, a publicist in her thirties who’s returning to the job market after years of being a stay-at-home mom, pretends she has less education in order to get an assistant job at a book company.
Rec: This drama is one of those soft one where its main focus seems to be on gently exploring the different characters and the state of the book industry. Idrilka made a great job replicating that tone in their fic, lovingly exploring the main characters relationship after the series, as it goes from lifelong friends to new partners.
Content warnings: N/A
“from me to you, with love ” by inkedinserendipity. 1.4K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: The Adventure Zone: Balance arc; Ship: Gen
Recced by: seralica
Backstory: The Adventure Zone is a DND podcast by the McElroy family; this story is set in their first arc (the Balance arc) after the end. It centres on one of the player characters, Magnus; his friendship with Kravitz, aka the Grim Reaper; and love through letters.
Rec: Every sentence in this story is deliberate and filled with meaning (there’s little callbacks throughout the whole Balance arc). And the exploration of love and meaning and life is really beautiful.
Content warnings: Canonical major character death
I hate fanfiction so much because you’ll read the single most moving, soul-affirming work of your entire life and it’ll be written by like Wattpad user LightYagamisSweatRag73
— Roseanne Roasting on an Open Fire A. Brown 🎄⛄ (@rosiesrambles) October 13, 2022
FINAL THOUGHT
PSA: Twitter is currently on shaky ground due to Elon Musk’s takeover, so now is a good time to take precautions for a) staying in touch with friends on other platforms, and b) archiving things like threadfics and fanart on more reliable sites like AO3. Here are some methods to save Twitter threads as PDFs or on third-party platforms. — Gav