The Rec Center #396
Hello everyone! This week we have articles on fandom opposition to KOSA, pop fan scrapbooks, and Britney Spears conspiracy theories, some beautiful Heaven Official’s Blessing fanart, and a multifandom grab-bag of fic. Plus! Gav goes deep on the Kraken/booktok debacle. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“Fan fiction writers rally fandoms against KOSA, the bill purporting to protect kids online” by Amanda Silberling at TechCrunch
Alongside fierce opposition from digital privacy experts, the Kids Online Safety Act is spurring folks from different corners of fic fandom to express their grave concerns as well.
“‘On reflection, it’s very uncool’: readers’ scrapbooks of pop fandom” by Alfie Packham at The Guardian
Extremely charming: Guardian readers sent in photos of their youthful fandom scrapbooks, analog Tumblrs on Bruce Springsteen, Blur, and more.
“Where Is Britney Spears?” by Rebecca Jennings at Vulture
“After her conservatorship ended, some of her fandom latched on to a new theory: What if she had never been freed at all?”
older stuff
“What Fandom’s ‘Found Families’ Tell Us About Our Hunger for Community” by Anne Helen Petersen at Culture Study
An interview with fandom journalist Aja Romano on the ways the found family trope manifests in fic: “And that is the real fantasy, isn’t it? That you can subject yourself to the mortifying ordeal of being known, not just by one soulmate but by a whole group of kindred spirits, and you’ll still get to keep them all when the damage is done.”
tumblr & beyond
Heaven Official’s Blessing/TGCF fanart by maikecho
just remember, you can always be someone’s little meow meow.
“ive spent an embarrassingly long past 2 days wondering why people kept drawing fanart of crowley goodomens and a random blonde woman”
Neil Gaiman explains why the subtitles are so bad in season 2 of Good Omens. (It’s because Hollywood needs to pay its writers!!)
“Frodo’s a nepo baby when you think about it”
superman caught out by his unmistakable midwestern vibes.
fanfiction
Just a grab-bag this week! Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“And Have Their Chance of Joy” by Penguin. 1.9K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: A Room With a View; Ship: Lucy Honeychurch/George Emerson
Recced by: Chestnut_pod
Backstory: Forster’s A Room With a View is a gently satirical romance in which a young upper-middle-class woman named Lucy is pressured by the Forces of Edwardian Society into an engagement with the embodiment of aristocratic snobbery, rather than the passionate lower-middle-class existentialist George (who frankly has also always seemed to me like rather a drip, but hey. The past is a foreign country)—but then breaks free!
Rec: I appreciate this fic so much for de-drippifying George, and making one really understand what Lucy might see in him beyond Forster’s moral about class. It packs a lot of lovely description in to a short word count and made me feel warm and happy.
Content warnings: N/A
“a flashback and a film reel” by yrbeecharmer. 89K words, rated Mature.
Fandoms: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types; The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan; The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan; Ship: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Recced by: risagablog
Backstory: Will and Nico broke up right before Will went to college and haven’t really talked or spent any time with each other since. One day, Nico accidentally shows up on Wills doorstep while injured, and the two are forced to confront their past, present and potential future.
Rec: I’m in my mid twenties and just like the main characters just having a full existential crisis about everything so I find it relatable as well as really entertaining.
Content warnings: Depression, PTSD, implied/referenced self-harm, implied/referenced substance abuse
“Little Pitchers” by dionaeamuscipula. 5K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Abbott Elementary; Ship: Melissa Schemmenti/Barbara Howard
Recced by: ninamonday
Backstory: Melissa and Barbara are two long-tenured teachers on the sitcom Abbott Elementary, who have a beautifully tender and no-nonsense friendship.
Rec: This story uses a deftly done outsider POV from one of the young students at Abbott, who learns about love and marriage from watching his teachers fall in love. The glimpses of the adults’ story are perfect and this little guy is so sweet and charming.
Content warnings: N/A
“The End of Infinity” by FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. 919K words (WIP, updated frequently), rated Teen.
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe; Ship: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Recced by: kaseido
Backstory: A fix-it fic for Avengers: Endgame, with a focus on Peter Parker’s two dads, Loki and Tony, along with a slow burn Stark/Strange.
Rec: The mentoring relationships are just wonderful. Strange bears a huge burden from the millions of universes he’s seen devastated by the Snappening, and yet can— slowly—open his heart to Tony. The author updates frequently in nice bite-sized chunks, and it’s just a wonderful long ride.
Content warnings: N/A
“Shelter and Solace” by Dira Sudis. 10K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold; Ship: Aral Vorkosigan/Cordelia Naismith
Recced by: Orangistae
Backstory: Canon-divergent AU in which Cordelia never goes to Barrayar, but Aral flees to Beta Colony along with four-year-old Gregor after the murder of Emperor Serg and the breakout of civil war.
Rec: Cute fic with a great premise that highlights Aral’s softer side and Cordelia’s competence as they deal with a traumatised kid and Betan bureaucracy. It makes me wish for a whole alternate series about their lives on Beta.
Content warnings: Child trauma
“Heaven Has A Road But No One Walks It” by Silvestris. 323K words, (WIP), rated Mature.
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭| Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù; Ship: Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen/Song Lan
Recced by: Jonah
Backstory: This is a Yi City fix it fic that asks the question of ‘what if Xue Yang had managed to bring back Xiao Xingchen?’
Rec: This fic takes the premise and explores it so thoroughly—asking all the hard questions and not making this an easy time for anyone. Also it’s just very emotionally resonant.
Content warnings: Canon-typical angst, violence, and trauma
“domestic” by Ark. 33K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death; Ship: Stede Bonnet/Edward Teach
Recced by: Triedunture
Backstory: Stede Bonnet and Edward Teach, the infamous pirate Blackbeard, are pirates who fall in love.
Rec: This fic asks “what if Stede and Ed do run away together as planned at the end of season one?” and follows that thread to a beautiful conclusion. Soft, soft, soft, and oh so comforting.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
This week’s hottest fandom story was the Seattle Kraken hockey booktok drama, which was morbidly fascinating to me as a) a hockey fan, and b) someone old enough to have witnessed the dissolution of fandom’s fourth wall. Unfortunately I didn’t get to cover this at work (you snooze you lose!!) but you can read my colleague Michelle’s in-depth explainer here.
The short version is that there’s a popular subgenre of straight romance novels about fictional ice hockey players. This inspired a crossover fandom on TikTok, where booktokers started watching hockey and crushing on real players.
Some hockey teams encouraged this fandom out of a desire to attract new audiences, mostly by posting thirst trap content of their own players. This led certain players to gain obsessive booktok fanbases, which spiraled out of control until a player’s wife, Felicia Wennberg, accused fans of sexually harassing her husband Alex Wennberg.
He confirmed that he was uncomfortable with all the sexualized attention, and in the ensuing controversy, his team deleted all their booktok-bait thirst trap videos.
Meanwhile a small group of hockey booktokers kept acting out of pocket, demonizing Felicia Wennberg and visibly failing to understand why their behavior is so problematic. (You can read more about this at Polygon, including the booktok influencer figurehead of this drama. At one point Wennberg’s team the Seattle Kraken flew her in for a game, where she held up a sign reading “Krack My Back.”)
My personal take here is that there’s nothing more normal than having a celebrity crush, and discussing that crush with your friends. The problems only begin when fans fixate on conspiracy theories, invade a celebrity’s privacy, or generally forget that the target of their affection is a human being. Which is clearly what happened here.
Another crucial detail is that hockey players... aren’t really celebrities. The sport is a big deal in Canada, but only a few players are household names, and no one holds celebrity status like star players in football, soccer, tennis, etc. Someone like Alex Wennberg—a second-tier player on a mid-level US team—can basically go about his life like a private citizen. He had no reason to expect this level of targeted fandom, something that usually only happens with actors or pop stars.
Which brings me to the issue of fandom’s fourth wall, a concept that doesn’t seem to exist on hockey booktok. By contrast, hockey RPF fandom—which has been active on AO3 for over a decade—is notably intense about maintaining separation between fiction and reality. A lot of hockey fanfic is archive-locked, and the general consensus is that hockey players should be shielded from finding out about their own RPF fandoms.
Social media fundamentally changed the relationship between fans and idols, and this situation perfectly illustrates the disconnect between TikTok-generation fandom and the social norms created by older fans. Not to mention the problems caused by the Seattle Kraken’s PR people interacting so closely with this side of fandom. This entire situation could’ve been avoided if the Kraken left TikTokers alone, and vice versa. — Gav