The Rec Center #373
Hi all! This week we’ve got articles on TÁR and rewatching habits, some cool Succession fanart, multifandom vintage femslash fic recs from guest reccer twtd, and more!
And a PSA: We’ve noticed a couple of links in this issue get flagged by gmail as suspicious, but one is a tumblr post of a cat and the other is a fic on the Internet Archive, so probably don’t sweat it. We’ll keep an eye on the issue. — Gav
new stuff
“Spirited Away to Miyazaki Land” by Sam Anderson at The New York Times Magazine
“Again I thought of Disney World, which was created at the expense of whole ecosystems—square miles denatured and paved to make way for lucrative, user-friendly worlds of plastic and metal. Ghibli Park, by contrast, is largely unchanged forest.”
“What rewatching old shows teaches us about ourselves” by Allie Volpe at Vox
An interesting conversation with marketing professor Cristel Russell on her research about rewatching, rereading, and the other ways we come back to familiar media.
“Why Cate Blanchett’s Lesbian Fandom Matters to TÁR” by Victoria Wiet at Lithub
“Perhaps Blanchett’s cult status among young queer women online could be seen as distracting from TÁR’s serious exploration of contemporary celebrity, but for me, they’re essentially linked.” [Ed. note from Gav: While I don’t agree with everything put forward in this piece—TÁR is a divisive movie!—it highlights an interesting and under-served angle on the relationship between Cate Blanchett’s public image and Lydia Tár’s power over young women.] [Ed. note from Elizabeth: I don’t endorse TÁR, period. Don’t get me started lol.]
The censoring of Roald Dahl highlights the dangers of letting ownership of an author’s work pass to their greedy children when they die. In a better system, control of the intellectual property rights would instead be given to a coalition of their most deranged fanfiction writers
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) February 19, 2023
older stuff
“Seven of Nine Was Always Queer” by S.E. Fleenor at StarTrek.com
“What I’m referencing specifically is Seven’s relationship to her body, gender, attraction, and romance. The way she relates to her body and how her body autonomy has been taken from her by both the Borg and the Federation reads like the experiences of many transgender, nonbinary, and queer folks like me.”
tumblr & beyond
Succesion fanart by rrrcade/@panofkas on Twitter.
“This free fan game is a remake/conversion of the 1978 strategy game Super Star Trek reimagined with the UI of one of my favorite games ever: Star Trek 25th Anniversary.”
Luke Skywalker is conceptually blond if not LITERALLY blond, okay?
“new SuperWhoLock just dropped”
which members of the Fellowship of the Ring can tell Merry & Pippin apart: an examination.
fanfiction
twtd is a certified fandom old who’s been floating around online fandom since 1996 and femslash fandom since 1999. She’s seen a lot of things and has only been mildly scared by the experience. You can find her on tumblr at twtd11 and on AO3 at twtd.
Picture it: it’s 1999, I’m 16, and thanks to a review of Xena: Live! that’s aired on WGN, I’ve just realized that Xena and Gabrielle are madly in love. My mind has been blown, the universe has tilted, and the only thing I know to do about it is go online and devour as much fic as I can. I mean, that’s totally a logical response, right? But Xena was just the beginning. Here’s a look back at a few of the biggest femslash fandoms of the late 90s and early 2000s. This week, I’ve got recs from Xena, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate: SG-1, ER, and Law & Order, plus a multifandom vid from 2008.
A note: as most of these fics aren’t found on AO3, there are no authorial warnings or tags. Sometimes there are ratings and sometimes there aren’t. I’ll add warnings as appropriate, but proceed with caution. — twtd
“The Kink and How to Work It” by Penumbra. 36K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Xena: Warrior Princess; Ship: Della Convington/Ghislaine du Plessis
Backstory: In Xena, there wasn’t femslash, there was altfic (short for alternative), and there weren’t AUs, there were ubers. Ubers differ from AUs in that the main characters are often thought of as descendants of Xena and Gabrielle, rather than Xena and Gabrielle themselves, though sometimes (as in this fic) with a mystical connection to their ancestors.
Rec: This fic has lived rent-free in my head for literally the last 20+ years. One of the characters is a detective and the other is a former special forces soldier and current dominatrix. When one of the characters is a dominatrix, the sex had better be hot, and it is. The characters are well drawn and as befits a Xena fic, there’s some bones get broken too.
Content warnings: According to the author: explicit, kinky sex between two women, graphic depictions of violence, drug use, and language. Full link here.
“Much a-Q About Nothing” by ellen_fremedon. 13K words, rated Gen.
Fandoms: Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: TNG; Ships: Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine, Picard/Q
Backstory: Through Star Trek Shenanigans, Picard and Data end up in the Delta Quadrent with the crew of Voyager. Q meddles, like he does, and after several misunderstandings, everything comes out all right in the end.
Rec: This fic is super funny. It gets everyone’s voices just right, particularly Q’s and Seven’s. It’s a light, enjoyable read, with great energy. There’s no high stakes drama here. Just four people figuring out that maybe someone genuinely loves them.
Content warnings: N/A
“Lost and Found” by Buttercup. 48K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Stargate: SG-1; Ship: Samantha Carter/Janet Fraiser
Backstory: Sam Carter is an astro-physicist/pilot/Air Force officer and Janiet Fraiser is an Air Force doctor. They work together in a secret facility where Sam goes off to explore the galaxy through the stargate and Janet patches everyone up when they get home. In this story, Sam and Janet are already in a relationship.
Rec: Do you like action-adventure sci-fi? Because this is the fic for you. There’s a pyramid on another planet. Janet goes into the pyramid and gets stuck there. Sam charges in to rescue her and gets stuck too. This fic reads very much like an episode of the show, and the tension in the middle is palpable.
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence, a giant insect
“The Lining” by Maven. 20K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: ER; Ship: Kerry Weaver/Kim Legaspi
Backstory: Kerry and Kim were an actual fact canon couple on a prime time show in the year 2000. As far as I can remember, that just didn’t happen on US TV (The British had Bad Girls, but that was hard to get your hands on in the US). Kerry was the stand-offish ER chief and Kim was the new psychiatrist at the hospital. Kim and Kerry sloooowly got together (a neverending case of the hiccups helped) and then half a season later, they broke up (because of homophobia).
Rec: This fic has such a great, distinctive voice. It’s funny, and sweet, and charming, but doesn’t hold back on its portrayal of the emotional aftermath of getting shot by a coworker. It’s dialogue-heavy and economical in its storytelling, so everything the author does mention means something. There are moments that make you laugh and moments that are a gut-punch.
Content warnings: The aftermath of canon-typical violence
“The Night Before” by Sharon Bowers. 10K words, rated PG-13ish.
Fandoms: Law & Order, NYPD Blue; Ship: Abbie Carmichael/Jill Kirkendall
Backstory: SVU might be the femslash juggernaut, but before Alex and Olivia, there was Abbie Carmichael. There wasn’t a great canon pairing for her, but crossovers exist for a reason. NYPD Blue was huge at the time, so let’s smush them together.
Rec: Have you ever read a fic that just gets a character? That is this fic with Abbie. It’s the first in a series, and it really understands how a queer Texas transplant in New York might feel about her life and her work. It gets into Abbie’s soul.
Content warnings: N/A
And a vid!
“I’m Your Man” by Charmax. 3:13, rated PG.
Fandom: Multi
Backstory & Rec: Created for the International Day of Femslash in 2008, this vid is about “media clichés” according to the creator. It starts out with some crossdressing and ends with a lot of kissing. It covers a lot of both textual and subtextual relationships that were big up to that point, going back to pre-Hayes Code Hollywood and ending with current ships from 2008.
Content warnings: Death, suicide, homophobia
the thing is that if you actually interacted with a hobbit they would say the words “my hole” in polite conversation or like if you were talking about someone else they would be like “his hole is over there” and you would just have to deal with that
— tar-minyatur’s court twink ✵ (@caranthirs) February 18, 2023
FINAL THOUGHT
And with that, Femslash February 2023 comes to a close! (Here at the newsletter that is…there are obviously several more days in February haha) Thank you so much to everyone who sent in recs or participated in making guest lists. <3 As a reminder, while we love banking F/F fic this month, we strongly encourage you to send in F/F all year. We’d also love more fic centering nonbinary & genderqueer characters! Please use our one-off submissions form to send us your faves. — Elizabeth