The Rec Center #52
#52!! That’s a newsletter for every week this year, since we started The Rec Center in the first days of January 2016. Next week we’ll resume our regular format (in a bit of an anniversary issue, with Yuletide recs!) but this week, we’ll both do a brief, personal “year in fandom,” looking back over the past year more as fans, rather than as fan culture journalists. It’s been a long, hard year, but hopefully fandom has brought you some joy in 2016. It certainly has for us. — Elizabeth
the year in fandom: Gav
I spent much of 2016 stroking my chin and looking at the horizon like a wise farmer checking the weather, thinking, “Hmm, the time seems just about right for a huge new fandom to arrive.” It felt like a lot of the older, once-ubiquitous fandoms had sunk into quiet routines, including ones I’m not personally involved in (Homestuck, Sherlock) and ones I used to follow (Teen Wolf). Even the MCU seems to have slowed down after a couple of underwhelming movies this year.
Then in the last couple of months, Yuri on Ice exploded out of basically nowhere. I think for a lot of people it was the ideal show at the ideal time. It’s deliciously romantic and funny and tightly written, with exactly the right kind of layered characterization and thoughtful background detail to inspire a ton of fanworks. But it’s also just super positive and uplifting, taking place in a very comforting kind of real-world AU: a queer love story in a world without overt homophobia, with an international cast of characters who support each other in their endeavours. So for the tail end of 2016, a period that constantly fed into my lifelong morbid obsession with encroaching societal collapse, I’m very thankful both for the creators of Yuri on Ice and for its fans, who are impressively creative and fun and overflowing with brilliant ideas.
Anyway, that’s how I wound up buying a jacket with a gigantic lion embossed on the back, so I can look like Yuri “Ice Tiger of Russia” Plisetsky. (It arrived today, so apparently that’s how I’m ending 2016.)
In terms of ~personal fan activity, I just realized I had... a pretty constructive year? Like, I always read a lot, but I have less time to actively participate because I expend so much energy on writing about geek culture at work. But in 2016, I collaborated on three projects I’m really proud of: This newsletter (obvs), a movie/pop-culture podcast with my friend Morgan (Overinvested Podcast, check it out!), and a 60,000-word illustrated Hannibal fanfic I cowrote with the wonderful Nakasmile.
One Way Out Of Many is a daemon AU of Hannibal season 1, inspired by Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books. (You don’t need to have read HDM to follow it, since the only AU element is the presence of daemons, i.e. animal companions for each of the main characters.) We had a lot of fun exploring the operatic melodrama of Hannibal, and hopefully some of you will enjoy the result: a novel-length gothic romance with a side order of murder and intrigue.
the year in fandom: Elizabeth
I spent a lot of last year getting ~spiritually~ reinvested in Harry Potter, the fandom I’d been deep in from 2001-2009 or so. I went to the Wizarding World at Universal Studios on the first night of Geeky Con and walked into Diagon Alley and did a full 360 of shock and joy, like I literally spun in a circle. And I went on the studio tour when I was back in England for my birthday in December…
So I suppose I had already rejoined the fandom, in the broadest sense? BUT! It wasn’t until just about this time last year, when I read a friend’s story for the R/S Games, that I fell properly back in.
I’ve written about this before, but during the years I was doing the most journalism about fanfic, 2014 and 2015, I wasn’t actually reading any. Like, at all. My retreat from the Sherlock fandom left me at a loss; even while I was still engaged with other fannish stuff there, I just couldn’t connect with the fic. But this time last year, in the very first days of 2016, I started reading HP stuff again—first Remus/Sirius, mostly old favorites but also new things, and then, towards the end of winter, I came back to Harry/Draco, my first Harry Potter ship. *A lot* had been written in the 15 years since I’d drifted away from the pairing, much of it fantastic.
It’s been a weird time to fall back in love with Harry Potter (especially when each new piece of the broader franchise frustrates you and/or is incredibly offensive). But I’ve been incredibly grateful to spend time with these characters again, and to reconnect with the fandom where I spent my formative years.
When it comes to fannish projects, I too am incredibly proud of this newsletter, as well as Fansplaining, and the Patreon we launched this year. For the fic part of my ~personal fan activity, to quote Gav, I wrote a fair bit! More than last year, at least. Like...20,000 words! But nothing is finished yet, because I am a failure. 2017, guys. Maybe. :-D
FINAL THOUGHT
Thank you for everything, Carrie.
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