The Rec Center #501
Hello all! This week we have articles about an international Pokémon championship, the O.G. 1960s Star Trek renewal campaign, and IWTV finding success with niche, passionate audiences. Also some amazing LOTR fanart, multifandom fic recs, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“The Game Is Played With Great Feeling” by Joseph Earl Thomas at Virginia Quarterly Review
A wonderful essay set at the North American International Pokémon Championship exploring Black nerd and gaming culture. “And so we play Pokémon, through the refusals of most everything else.”
“Meet the Fans Who Saved the Original ‘Star Trek’ From Cancelation, Not Once, But Twice” by Ed Gross at Yahoo Entertainment
A retrospective on the game-changing renewal campaign for Star Trek’s Original Series in the 1960s.
“AMC’s The Vampire Lestat Proves Prestige Can Be Niche And Loyal” by Braedon Montgomery at Forbes
As season 2 of IWTV aired, there was a huge amount of anxiety about whether the show had a large enough audience to stay on the air. (See Elizabeth’s reporting on the subject from then.) This piece digs into how “large enough” isn’t the metric by which AMC is succeeding currently—and how fans are rewarding the network for investing in relatively specific programming.
fandom announcements be like: kinktober event happening!!!! here are our guidelines rule 1) no kinks
— Crowe (@notthelasttime.bsky.social) August 7, 2025 at 7:18 PM
older stuff
“The RPF Question” by Sacha Judd at Fansplaining
On the history of real person fiction: “We’ve seen a full life-cycle in the acceptance of RPF, from something that was once seen as a completely taboo behavior to widespread tolerance and back again.”
tumblr & beyond
Lord of the Rings fanart by entnoot
Pa Kent gives Clark the sex talk.
“wait but I thought you could change from alpha to omega?”
“I’m finished with P.G. Wodehouse and I’m ready for R Rated Wodehouse now”
Some interesting meta on the extremely dark subtextual worldbuilding of Inception.
“ALL kinktober submissions must include:”
fanfiction
We’ve got a grab-bag of fic this week! Thanks to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“A Full-Body Workout” by Persiflager. 8K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: 9-1-1; Ship: Evan “Buck” Buckley/Tommy Kinard
Recced by: stars-inthe-sky
Backstory: 9-1-1 is a network procedural drama about first responders (mostly firefighters) in contemporary Los Angeles. Buck, one of the younger members of the main station “family,” speedruns his bisexual awakening after meeting helicopter pilot Tommy, who’s friendly with many of his coworkers.
Rec: Such a fun post-season 7 slice of life, nicely balancing some quality smut with other relationship elements. I also love how this story incorporates Eddie as a mutual friend, making him both welcome and a not-awkward third wheel.
Content warnings: N/A
“Homophony in Oriental Silver-Work and Applications for Non-Logographic Scripts: A Case Study in English, Using Kreyòl, French, Gaelige, and Scots Gaelic” by 用玉绍缭之(mercuryandglass). 5K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Babel - R. F. Kuang; Ship: Gen
Recced by: myrmidryad
Backstory: A paper published post-book by Ilse Dejima, Victoire Desgraves, and Cathy O’Nell on silver-work match-pairs using their respective languages.
Rec: It helps to have just read or reread Babel to understand this, because it really does read just like an academic paper, but it’s both fascinating and really well done.
Content warnings: N/A
“The Golden Means” by CJ_R. 100K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: 薬屋のひとりごと - 日向夏 | Kusuriya no Hitorigoto | The Apothecary Diaries - Hyuuga Natsu; Ship: Jinshi/Maomao
Recced by: Dori
Backstory: A courtier reveals Jinshi’s true heritage to the broader court in an attempt at a power grab; things go sideways after that.
Rec: Believable happy ending with character development and satisfying resolution. You can get lost in this if you’re impatient for the characters to figure things out already.
Content warnings: Limited violence, sex
“Over the Rainbow” by Distractivate. 19K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Alexis Hall - London Calling (Boyfriend Material/Husband Material); Ship: Luc/Oliver
Recced by: Kitty Climpson
Backstory: After their failed wedding attempt, Oliver deals with the aftermath and other events of Husband Material, and he and Luc settle into non-married life.
Rec: I recently finished “Husband Material” and liked it a lot, but was left feeling like I’d missed a step going downstairs by the very abrupt ending. This fic is the perfect antidote to that, a lovely post-canon exploration that gives the story time to breathe. It does a great job at the characters’ voices, introduces some wonderful OCs, and it’s nice to hear things from Oliver’s perspective.
Content warnings: Grief, shitty parents, identity struggles
“Stars on the Water” by liketolaugh. 116K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan; Ship: Gen
Recced by: BlackSkyFan15
Backstory: Percy Jackson gets the therapy he desperately needs.
Rec: I love how the story explores the consequences of Percy living with the Great Prophecy over his head for years and then surviving his 16th birthday.
Content warnings: Suicidal thoughts, past child abuse
“Time and Salt Water” by Sour_Idealist. 24K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age (Video Games); Ship: Isabela/Merrill
Recced by: breathedout
Backstory: DA2 follows a motley group of adventurers—including elven blood mage Merrill and human pirate captain Isabela—through seven years of trials and tribulations in the down-at-heel port town of Kirkwall. This story moves back and forth between the timeframe of the game itself and ten years after it ends, when Isabela returns to Kirkwall after a long absence.
Rec: There are so many things to love about this fic: the superb, funny character voices of the leads and the entire ensemble cast; the way the author handles the weight of time’s passage and the experience of returning to a place one once knew well; the delicate treatment of sex within a friendship where one person is in love and the other person isn’t (yet), but where the friendship remains precious and valued to both parties. Overall a beautiful and poignant exploration of the ways that both Merrill and Isabela grow over the course of the game and after it; and the role of their relationship in facilitating that growth.
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence, alcohol use
Freakier Friday? Terrible title. The same thing happened to them once before, which makes this Friday inherently less freaky than the first one
— Amy Schneider (@jeopardamy.bsky.social) August 4, 2025 at 6:57 PM
FINAL THOUGHT
Your semi-regular call for recs! First up, we have a few summertime recs kicking around from last year, and I’d love to run a list or two of those this month. If you have a favorite that evokes a summery feeling (beaches?? heat waves?? baseball??) please send them our way.
Second, as we continue to trod through what will surely be many more weeks of miserable heat here, I’m thinking desperately about fall. So! For back to school time, it would be great to run fics set in education settings—college AUs, professor AUs, canons set in schools of all sorts—but I’d especially love to see stuff that has a really strong sense of place. Send us your fics written by people who are clearly describing their alma mater! Or by professors writing thinly veiled versions of their academic rivalries. :-D
And finally! Speaking of “writing your job,” we’d love those sort of “special knowledge” AUs more generally. Niche jobs, intimate depictions of some world most of us never see, etc etc. All three of these requests can go to our one-off submission form; please use the themes/tropes field to let me know what you’re submitting for. <3 — Elizabeth