The Rec Center #361
Hi all! This week we've got articles about Danny DeVito fans and dystopian food, a rad vintage LOTR vehicle, multifandom pining fanfic, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“Dystopian Dining” by Christine Baumgarthuber at The Austerity Kitchen
A fascinating piece on the food of dystopian literature. “A satisfying meal stirs dystopian diners to rebellion, if it is not itself already a rebellious act.”
“No, That Wasn’t Danny DeVito You Just Saw at a Party in Bushwick” by Megan Paetzhold at Curbed
“There are no bad ideas if you’re willing to commit hard enough.” Dispatches from “Night of a Thousand DeVitos.”
https://twitter.com/S_Insley_H/status/1597677933816340480
older stuff
“How Indiana Jones’s Fedora Became an Artifact With a Life of Its Own” by Jake Kring-Schreifels at The Ringer
“Soon after the 1981 premiere of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ Indy’s hat—with its pinched box crown, diagonal crease, and asymmetrical brim—spurred a fan base within a fan base, filled with pseudoarchaeologists set on uncovering the accessory’s true origins.”
tumblr & beyond
a truly gorgeous LOTR chevy from the 1970s.
it's time to romanticize flamewars, apparently?
this is only permissible for those poor lads in the mcu
a seasonal take on the true subtext of star trek TOS.
For fans of Dracula Daily (or serialized old books generally), a few email read-along projects that have just launched or are starting soon:
- Wives Weekly (Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters)
- Whale Weekly (Herman Melville’s Moby Dick)
- A Dickens December (Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol)
https://twitter.com/myelessar/status/1597977778758221826
fanfiction
This week we have one of our most frequently submitted tropes: pining. Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“The Universe Needs More You” by AttilaTheHun. 87K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: BTS; Ship: J-Hope/RM
Recced by: Lawn
Backstory: Namjoon pines (and pines and pines) after his friend Hoseok and thinks he can handle it—at least until lovely sunshine personified Hoseok becomes his new roommate, upending his life and his sanity.
Rec: I can’t say enough about the characterization here, but everyone in this fic stands alone so well that even without knowing BTS, this is completely digestible and lovable. The friendship is as wonderful as the romance, so if you love a group dynamic, check this out. It’s a warm, perfectly written friends-turned-more, a slow burn with so much depth, delightful turns of phrase, and an ending that is so absolutely worth the wait.
Content warnings: N/A
“you’re in my blood like holy wine” by magneticwave. 73K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV); Ship: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Recced by: Alana
Backstory: Regency AU. Sansa is determined to marry off wild, reckless Arya during Arya’s first Season, but she herself has never accepted a proposal due to a dark experience years ago. When Petyr Baelish determines to force her into accepting his offer, she must use all her long-built-up social credit to refuse him, including accepting help from cousin Jon, back from war.
Rec: This is a gold-standard Regency AU. It’s so entertaining to watch Sansa dance the social tightrope and manipulate those around her until Jon’s presence sends an earthquake through her tightly controlled life. All the dialogue and historical details are fantastic and the world is so well drawn that it’s one of those fics I can reread again and again.
Content warnings: Reference to past abuse
“the queen of spades” by magneticwave. 22K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: James Bond; Ship: Bond/Q
Recced by: zelda
Backstory: While Q is buried under the stress of a secret ops organization (and also like... performance reviews and family drama), a surprising friendship (and obviously more) with the illusive veteran of the MI6 strikes up after a chance encounter at a family event.
Rec: Despite having only a tangential knowledge of the Bond franchise via gifs and general pop culture, the barrier to entry on this fic is thin and its characterization so delightfully well done that no knowledge of the source material is needed. Def a comfort read for me now!
Content warnings: N/A
“Her Boy and the Bard” by FadedSepia. 4.2K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: The Witcher (Netflix); Ship: Geralt/Jaskier
Recced by: Swords&Spindles
Backstory: Geralt and Jaskier are being their usual pining, block-headed selves, told from Roach the horse’s p-o-v.
Rec: It’s sweet and clever and totally committed to the narrator, who, again, is the horse. She is obviously the most intelligent person in the room, and both deeply annoyed and fondly exasperated by the humans’ romantic incompetence.
Content warnings: N/A
“Longing” by phnelt. 11K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Imperial Radch - Anne Leckie (Ancillary Justice, etc); Ships: Breq/Seivarden, Breq/Mercy of Kalr
Recced by: Severnaya
Backstory: The Imperial Radch series is a fantastic sci-fi series about AI and colonialism set in a society that only uses one pronoun (she). At the end of the series, Mercy of Kalr (a sentient space ship), Breq (used to be a ship), and Seivarden (a soldier who was frozen in the ice like Captain America) start a romantic relationship.
Rec: Longing is full of great world-building and pining. Each member of the trio represents part of what the other has lost which makes for some delicious angst for everyone but it ends in a happy place. Quote: “When they curled up against each other, it was the closest I could get to being able to hold my captain.”
Content warnings: N/A
“The word is help.” by spqr. 9K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Star Wars; Ship: Luke Skywalker/Din Djarin
Recced by: emily neal
Backstory: This ship sails on ten seconds of eye contact and shared custody of a frog toddler, and the creativity authors have for them is fantastic. The idea here is that Din gets called by Luke’s students when Luke fails to come back in time, and after rescuing him Din sticks around for a while.
Rec: Luke grapples with what he wants his new Jedi Order to be, his Force ghosts all have their own opinions of what he should do with his knight in shining armor, and of course: Baby Yoda. Is it still a Daddy Kink if you don’t know that’s what you’re saying?
Content warnings: N/A
https://twitter.com/jestingtime/status/1597971076025581571
FINAL THOUGHT
This week my podcast, Fansplaining, put out a super-long pair of episodes on disability and fandom: Part 1 and Part 2. They feature 19 disabled guest contributors, many of whom talk about disabled characters in fic, so it seemed like a good opportunity to put out a call for recs: we’d like to do a list (or more than one!) of fics that center disabled characters. I’d especially love to get recs from folks who see their own experiences reflected in a given story. So please use our submission form and make sure to appropriately label via the themes & tropes field so I know to look out for it. — Elizabeth