The Rec Center #38
Hello! This week we’re doing a bit of a ~crossover~ with my podcast, Fansplaining, because Gav was our most recent guest. My co-host Flourish grilled us on fic recs—how we think about the fic we read and talk about—and I think we managed to say some interesting stuff beyond “¯\_(ツ)_/¯ share good things???” So this week’s Rec Center is a bit of a follow-up: aside from our regular fandomy articles and Tumblr stuff, Gav and I talk about our favorite tropes (to counter my negativity fest in the episode lol) and we put together a multi-fandom list featuring one of fandom’s favorite tropes, the fake relationship AU. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“This Is How Star Trek Invented Fandom” by Molly McArdle at GQ
All hail this massive deep dive into the Star Trek Las Vegas 50th Anniversary Convention, and into Star Trek’s origins as the ur-fandom of the modern media landscape.
“Marvel’s Civil War II Is Another Damn Mess” by Evan Narcisse at iO9
If you haven’t been following Marvel’s Civil War II crossover event, this conversation between two fans is a useful explainer for why CWII looks... pretty damn bad.
“Wikipedia and participatory culture: Why fans edit” by Paul Thomas at Transformative Works and Cultures
A little acafandom for the weekend: from the OTW’s open-access journal, a symposium on fans’ contributions to wikis.
old(er) stuff
“The Art of Fanfic Critique: who and what it is for” by Flamingo, archived at Fanlore
On our crossover Fansplaining episode the conversation inevitably turned to the anti-critique party line that’s grown over the years in our corner of transformative fandom. So I was very interested to see a quote from this 2001 essay in praise of that era’s critique culture cross my dash. Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the history of fanfiction communities and norms! — Elizabeth
tumblr & beyond
“She-Hulk” by pREtend-Animator
Star Wars rarepairs fic fest!
Miike Snow made another music video with the director and lead actors of ‘Genghis Khan’! If you don’t know why that’s awesome, plz read this.
The wildly popular queer college hockey webcomic “Check, Please!” just launched a Kickstarter for its second print volume! There’s a strong possibility it’s going to reach a quarter of a million dollars, which is a) bonkers, and b) hopefully a hint to mainstream comics publishers that there’s an audience for this stuff. For previous “Check, Please!” ~content, here’s our fic rec list from earlier in the year, Gav’s interview with the creator Ngozi Ukazu, and a link to Ngozi’s Q&A on Tumblr today.
fanfiction
In the lead-up to this fanfic reccing episode, we asked our listeners to name their favorite and least favorite tropes. The clear winner? Fake relationship AUs. (Check out the full results!) So we thought we’d do a little multi-fandom selection of them this week, with guest contributions from a few friends and via our rec submissions form. If you love a good ‘married for a case’ fic, please don’t hesitate to send some recs our way—since this seems to be so popular, we’ll be sure to run another of these soon. — Elizabeth
“Woke Up Married” by Celli. 17K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: American Idol, Season 7; Ship: David Cook/David Archuleta
Recced by: Aja
Backstory: This was the Idol season in which bartender-turned-rocker David Cook faced off against babyfaced Mormon David Archuleta. Their awkward chemistry and obvious affection onstage spawned a brief but fun spate of slash fic.
Rec: As fluffy and fun as a warm fuzzy blanket, this fic is one of my top 5 favorite fics of all time. It’s just what it says on the tin: a hitherto uninvolved David and Archie wake up married after an ill-advised night in Vegas. Their subsequent attempt to pass off their non-relationship as a real marriage yields endless amounts of fake relationship cliches, angsty misunderstandings, and true love. It’s perfect.
“A Wicked Game” by Tierfal. 60K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist; Ship: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Recced by: Kate
Backstory: Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime about teenagers dealing with science-magic gone wrong—Edward is the titular Fullmetal Alchemist, and Roy Mustang is the Flame Alchemist and his superior officer.
Rec: Possibly my favourite fake relationship fic, this modern AU takes Roy and Ed as socially isolated scientists who try to take advantage of a free holiday offer and accidentally get invested in each other’s lives.
“a sequence you never learned” by annataylor. 65K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Star Trek reboot movies; Ship: Kirk/Spock
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: Spock’s home planet was destroyed, leaving the Vulcan population almost wiped out. A miserable start to a heartwarming story!
Rec: Kirk and Spock end up co-parenting a Vulcan orphan and have to get fake-married!
“Hands” by Diaphenia. 13K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Brooklyn Nine Nine; Ship: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Recced by: Sulagna
Backstory: Jake and Amy are both detectives in the police force in Brooklyn. Jake likes to tease Amy, Amy's obsessed with organization.
Rec: They go undercover as a couple to a couples’ counseling conference (!) to find the culprit behind a series of murders in Brooklyn. Told from Amy's point of the view, probably because she is more hesitant about the romance with Jake than he is. It’s really funny, the murder mystery is really creepy/surprising, and the slow burn is effective: sweet, fun, and no dragging.
“The Norwood Love Builders” by flawedamythyst. 48K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: BBC Sherlock; Ship: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Recced by: Elizabeth
Backstory: Flawedamythyst has written a number of fantastic stories that work with the original canon more closely than your average Sherlock fic. This one plays with “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,” and is full of those sorts of fun little canonical references that drew a lot of long-time Holmes fans to BBC Sherlock.
Rec: Thus proving that even within tropes there are additional tropes, this is ALSO a story about going undercover at a couples’ counseling retreat to solve a murder. It’s rare to find a really satisfying casefic that’s also really satisfying emotionally—probably because it’s, like, really hard to hit those notes equally—but this one fits the bill!
“step out into the sun” by plutos. 71K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Ship: Finn/Poe
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: Finn joined the Resistance after The Force Awakens, but he’s having some problems settling in.
Rec: Everyone in the Resistance thinks Finn and Poe are already dating, so they just... go along with it? Except they’re both SECRETLY PINING for each other at the same time. A classic.
FINAL THOUGHT
So this week I guested on Elizabeth and Flourish's fandom podcast! We chatted about our ~philosophy of fanfic reccing~ for a while, among other topics. Spinning off our discussion of how tropes influence our enjoyment of fanfic, we figured we’d share a few of our fave tropes this week. — Gav
Gav: DAEMONS! I love AUs inspired by Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” books, which is why I’m cowriting a loooong Hannibal daemon AU with my friend nakamasmile at the moment.
I read a really wide range of tropey fics so it’s hard to select which subgenres really stand out, but I’m especially fond of the Captain America trope of Steve Rogers being unexpectedly progressive and radical about social justice politics. Probably the most specific thing I like to read is Smallville Clark/Lex futurefic where Lex is president (or running for president), despite only having seen like 5 episodes of Smallville, and not being in the fandom.
Elizabeth: In case you haven’t listened to the episode, I rattled off a looooooong list of tropes I dislike, which is telling, because obviously I like all sorts of fic, but it’s very easy to call to mind things I hate (*cough* high school and college AUs *cough* coffeeshop AUs *cough* I could keep coughing all day someone stop me) than articulate things I love.
But I do love a lot of things! Like Gav, my trope preferences tend to be fandom-specific rather than pan-fandom. When I was reading Harry/Draco back in Ye Olden Times (circa 2001), I loved stories where they were forced to work around things like spells getting their hands stuck together, or allowing them to hear each other’s thoughts. Now that I am a grown-up, I have this weird desire to only read about them as grown-ups, dealing with grown-up problems, which isn’t a trope at all, just a preference, but those kind of wacky spell mishaps feel like a remnant of an earlier age.
When I was in Torchwood fandom, I LOVED a really tight time travel plot. When I was in Sherlock fandom, I LOVED a really well-structured casefic. These feel cut from the same cloth to me—taking what the shows did and using the Magic of Fanfiction™ to make them emotionally richer. In both these cases, I loved seeing the protagonists’ vulnerability—canonically, Captain Jack Harkness is all sex and bluster, and Sherlock is all cold rationality (especially s1 & 2!), and fanfic that slooooowly chips away at that is my jam. Also not a trope, lol.
But Remus/Sirius, my forever pairing, feels like all trope to me, or maybe, just all one big network of fanon references. I love R/S with class tensions, with a lack of equal focus on the other (they hurt but they are SO GOOD AND REAL), with struggles with substance abuse and mental illness (it’s all subtextually there in canon, and I’ve valued so many stories over the years that have grappled with this stuff, for my own sake), with pining (I like pining in all things, there’s a trope), and with extraordinary amounts of miscommunication. Sadness, remember? I love sadness.
We’ll leave you with the original art we commissioned for this episode, by Maia Kobabe. This watercolor version was an alternate (we went with a flatter, more digital version) and it is GORGEOUS:
As always, we’re soliciting one-off recs! If there’s a story you love, please fill out this form. We’ve built up a good stock so far, so our first themed list culled from here is on its way!
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)