The Rec Center #63
Happy Friday! This week we have plenty of cool stuff for you, including a webcomic celebrating Harry/Draco fandom, an examination of Garfield the cat’s gender identity, some Dana Scully fanart, and a rec list of fanfic starring asexual characters. — Gav
new stuff
“Don’t Like, Don’t Read” by e jackson on Medium
An autobiographical webcomic about growing up with Harry/Draco fanfic as a queer teen.
“‘We Made It For The Fans, Not The Critics’ Is A False Construct” by Danny Bowes at Film School Rejects
There’s been a lot of good commentary about this asinine defense that creators trot out when their stuff gets panned (Iron Fist is only the most recent offender), and this piece does a great job breaking down the various reasons why it’s a bad (and wrong) idea.
“Garfield The Cat Is Not Non-Binary (But Apparently We Thought He Was)” by Elle Collins at Comics Alliance
A brief history of the absurd Wikipedia battle over Garfield’s gender.
“Popular YouTuber JonTron Has Some Batshit Crazy Thoughts on Immigration He’d Like to Share” by Bryan Menegus at Gizmodo
This is a quick primer about the moment where everyone began to realize that the popular videogame vlogger Jontron is, uh, kind of a neo-Nazi. On the bright side, his subreddit quickly developed from being a clusterfuck into having a pretty reasonable debate about how certain internet communities become incubators for racist politics.
“Can we please talk about Iron Fist’s sexy assassin character?” by Gav at the Daily Dot
Iron Fist is out today, so we can FINALLY talk about spoilers. This piece analyses a truly bizarre supporting character, whose sexy costume and role feel wildly incongruous to the show’s otherwise bland aesthetic.
older stuff
“Everyone’s a Furry 2k16” by spacetwinks
HIGHLY recommended: “Analyzing reaction—or lack of reaction—to furry art over the decades and intermittently about a personal history and experience within the furry community, and connections throughout.”
tumblr & beyond
“90’s grunge Dana Scully” by Lisa Sterle
The Ghost in the Shell viral marketing campaign fucked up bigtime, and it’s hilarious.
This Supergirl/Lena Luthor webcomic by foleypdx is ESSENTIAL.
Toastystats: Asexual and Aromantic Fanworks On AO3: Parts One and Two
Fandom stats wizard destinationtoast responded to Elizabeth’s casual request (“you know, whenever you’re free or need a fun fic stats question”) for analysis of ace- and aro-tagged works on AO3 by immediately whipping up these charts and graphs. :-D
fanfiction
After our Fansplaining conversation (our being Flourish Klink and me, despite how confusing Gav and I make it with our partnership here and podcast partnerships with other people) with Riverdale writer Britta Lundin, I talked a bit about reading ace fic at the end of the show. A listener then left me an ask wondering if I had any ace rec lists (I did not; ironically, I’m bad at keeping my own rec lists) so I asked Gav if we could try to put together an asexuality and aromantic spectrum list for the next newsletter. We had a few stories already in our reader submissions queue (thanks, readers!) and we added a few of our own. I, predictably, only recced HP stories. :-D If you read ace fic and have recs of your own, please send them in for future lists! — Elizabeth
“Kore” by oneiriad. 5.6K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Greek myths; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: The myth of Hades and Persephone.
Rec: The other Gods and Goddesses are keen for Persephone to marry and settle down. She isn’t quite so interested in the idea. (This fic is quite lighthearted and silly, playing with modern ideas of the Greek gods rather than using a more old-school or fairytale style of storytelling.)
Content warnings: N/A
“this is a love i cannot undo (eyes open, i burn in hell)” by Dialux. 60K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: The Hobbit; Ship: Kili/Tauriel
Recced by: Eolas
Backstory: Kiliel is a ship that one sees pretty often, but it isn’t often as well-explored as in this story. The entirety of the story is actually about the intricacies of relationships in a completely foreign culture.
Rec: I like intricacies of relationships and delicate treatment of everyone, from the ostensible antagonist to the failures of the protagonist.
Content warnings: Abuse (emotional), unhealthy coping mechanisms, mild gore/violence, long-lasting trauma and revenge sprees
“There Isn’t a Word for What We’ve Got” by mutuisanimis. 7.3K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Recced by: Elizabeth
Backstory: A classic R/S Hogwarts-era story—the negotiations of friendship and intimacy between these four boys could be a summary I write for, like, most of them. This one’s intimacy negotiations feature an asexual and aromantic Sirius, feeling his way through a not-quite-a-friendship-but-not-quite-boyfriends relationship with Remus.
Rec: I’ve read 100,000 MWPP stories and I’ll take any and all interpretations of Sirius, but I love him most on this end of the romantic and sexuality spectrum. Plus I love a lot of the details and small moments.
Content warnings: N/A
“The Experiment” by Missy_Pixels. 8K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Archie Comics; Ship: Jughead/Ethel Muggs, Jughead/Kevin Keller
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: In Archie Comics, Jughead has a long history of being uninterested in girls or dating. In the recent reboot comics, he’s canonically asexual and aromantic.*
Rec: Written in the style of classic Archie comics, this cute fic involves Jughead grudgingly agreeing to go on a date with a boy and a girl, in the spirit of teen experimentation. So many classic hijinks! Very in-character for all involved.
Content warnings: N/A
“Until There's a Word For It” by Chash. 5.3K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: The 100; Ship: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Recced by: Calyx
Backstory: The writers room is pretty (in)famous for its “the future has no labels” approach to sexuality. This story ties that into the post-nuclear apocalypse premise of the show.
Rec: This explores in-depth what the history of sexuality and labels can mean to someone. Clarke’s exploration/discovery of how the Ark and the Ground understand sexuality is beautifully written and very powerful.
Content warnings: N/A
“The Fall of the Veils” by lettered. 60K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
Recced by: Elizabeth
Backstory: Shortly after the conclusion of the Second Voldemort War the veils that render magical spaces invisible to Muggles begin to fall. Muggles panic, wizards fight back, and pretty soon they’re fighting an all-out war. The action of the story alternates between this period and five years later, during the uneasy truce between magical and nonmagical people. Oh, and after a “half kiss” from a Dementor, Harry is able to sense peoples’ emotions, and lightly manipulate them (thus invoking my favorite Harry theme ever, “I am a very good person and will not abuse this power I am given but wait what if—”)
Rec: OK, like, it’s the laziest thing in the world to rec a lettered fic—they are legit the greatest in my book—but I remembered they had an epic featuring an ace Draco, so here you go. :-) I will add that if somehow you missed me gushing about “The Pure and Simple Truth” last year, or if you’ve never read it, one thing I love about it (amongst many) is while it’s a story of growing emotional intimacy between H & D, it’s not explicitly romantic or sexual and leaves you space to read it a variety of ways.
Content warnings: it’s partly set during a war, so everything that accompanies that (mentions of terrorism, minor character death, violence)
* Gav also recommends the current run of Jughead from Archie Comics, it’s about 13 issues long so far.
FINAL THOUGHT
We have a fairly specific fic request and hopefully fans of HP, Steven Universe, and Girl Meets World can help us out! A reader is looking for pre-teen-friendly recs that don’t have explicit sex or violence (romance and kissing is fine) in the following ships:
HP: Hermione/Draco
Steven Universe: Lapidot
Girl Meets World: Lucas/Maya
Some of you have already recced stuff in these fandoms/ships before, so if you can think of any stories that are tween-appropriate, please send them our way! You can email us or use our trusty submission form. Also: if any readers have suggestions for good ways to find tween-friendly fic aside from good filtering on AO3, please send them our way so we can pass them along!
FINAL FINAL THOUGHT
We’re eligible for a Hugo Award in the Fanzine category! (And Gav is eligible as a Fan Writer.) Please consider us when completing your Hugo nomination ballots, which are due in before 7am UTC on Saturday, March 18. You can find an extensive spreadsheet of eligible works and creators here.
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