The Rec Center #79
Hello! We just got a big batch of new followers: welcome, everyone! :-) This week we’ve got articles on K-pop, old VHS rental fandom, and That Football Article Everyone Is Sharing that you really, really need to click on if you haven’t yet. Plus Black Sails fanart (quick shout-out to everyone who is now watching through the sheer force of our enthusiasm) and a multi-fandom rec list from our readers of hurt/comfort fic. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“What football will look like in the future” by Jon Bois at SBNation
This is a piece of Homestuck-esque transmedia storytelling inspired by American football fandom (kind of?), although you don’t need to be a football fan to appreciate it. (Gav doesn’t even know how football works, and she still found it interesting.) It’s hard to explain beyond that, but we recommend checking it out ASAP. New instalments will be posted each day for the next week or so.
“Inside the extreme Facebook fandom for old rental VHS tapes” by Amelia Tait at the New Statesman
Amelia does wonderful deep dives into various online subcultures and fandoms, and this piece, profiling fans of old VHS rental tapes from places like Blockbuster, is no exception.
“From Banana Crates to Hashtags: A Brief History of TV Fan Campaigns” by Sarah Sharpe at TV Insider
From Star Trek letter-writing campaigns to coordinated hashtags of today, a brief history of the way fans try to save their favorite TV shows from cancellation.
“BTS and the Shunning of Asian Pop Stars in America” by Martin Tsai at Paste
“The K-pop record-breakers can’t get a foothold in the U.S. Do they even want to?”
older stuff
“Johnlocked: Sherlock, Slash Fiction And The Shaming Of Female Fans” by Bethan Jones at New Left Project
“Portrayals of female fans in the media and elsewhere have always erred towards the sensational, drawing on women’s sexuality—whether too much or too little—and our apparent inability to differentiate between reality and fiction.”
tumblr & beyond
Beautiful Black Sails fanart by riisinaakka
4th of July Captain America comic by potofsoup.
Twin Peaks fandom vs. David Lynch
“Harry Potter and the neural network fanfiction.”
Tumblr user lewisandquark trained a neural network to spit out auto-generated HP fanfic. The results are...almost coherent??
fanfiction
Hurt/comfort: a perennial fanfic favorite that can range from relatively mild...well, hurt and comfort, I guess? to characters processing pain, trauma, and grief (often with the help of another character(s)). These fics were tagged in our guest submissions as “h/c” or “trauma recovery.” As we always urge when it comes to harder topics in fic, please heed the content warnings. And thanks, as always, to our guest reccers. — Elizabeth
“Blacksmith’s Son and the Guess-maker” by kvhottie. 20K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Haikyuu!!; Ship: Kageyama/Hinata
Recced by: CheiChei
Backstory: In 1920’s Japan, small percentage of the population is born with mysterious, magical tattoos. Kageyama, a noble, and Hinata, the blacksmith’s son were both bear those tattoos, have a destined meeting, and fall in love while solving the mystery of Hinata’s past.
Rec: It’s one of the most interesting soulmate AUs I’ve ever read. It has mystery solving, an intricate portrayal of the time period (the author seems to have done their research), and a very rich story that develops the love between the characters magnificently.
Content warnings: N/A
“Across the Spark Gap” by agatestones. 4.9K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Suits (TV); Ship: Gen (Harvey/Mike if you squint)
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Suits is not even my Thing, but I’m a sucker for any fic that can suck you into a fandom that you are familiar with but that you would otherwise have never given a second glance. This is that fic.
Rec: Just an extremely well-written short fic about something out of the norm happening in the office that illuminates both character and interpersonal relationships. The language and dialogue is lovely, the kind of stuff that’s always a joy to read. Author’s other fics are also great, but I have a particular soft spot for this one.
Content warnings: N/A
“Not Myself” by Princess Alexandria. 381K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: X-Men (comics); Ship: OFC/Emma Frost
Recced by: queersintherain
Backstory: Christy Taylor, a woman with a mysterious past, has somehow taken over the life of a different version of herself, and is trying to stay under the radar. All of that changes when she takes in a mutant teen and, eventually, issues with the anti-mutant group in the area escalate to the point the X-Men step in. And then the story really starts.
Rec: Inspired by the Fansplaining episode and article about Mary Sues [ed note: yay, thank you!!], here is a wonderful older story about an original female character who is nuanced, well-developed, and really fits with the X-Men universe. No spoilers, but similar past experiences make the ship work really well. This story also has an awesome sequel (send me an ask for content warnings if you want, there are lots) and Christy Taylor features in various other stories by this author.
Content warnings: (reluctant, not-explicit) cannibalism, mutant-phobia, near-death experiences, violence, past minor character death, cheating (not in main ship), underage sex
“freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” by Synecdochic. 19K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis; Ship: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Recced by: starwire
Backstory: In Stargate Atlantis, they take an alien portal to another galaxy, start fights with the locals, and are a ragtag bunch of soldiers and scientists. Most fics revolve around slacker cool kid Major Sheppard and the irritable and hypochondriac Dr McKay.
Rec: What if the expedition came home and Rodney had to start a new life back on earth? It explores how his experiences made him different and the sadness he brings with him. Beautifully written.
Content warnings: Character death
“I guess I’ll know when I get there” by Eisoj5. 52K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Star Wars: Rogue One; Ships: Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Recced by: SainaTsukino
Backstory: Rogue One ends on a bummer (ish) ending, which is why most fics in fandom contain the ‘everybody lives—nobody dies’ tag (the mark of the broken). This fic is one of the really good ones that explore what might have happened if they all a) all survived and b) met the OT cast. Bodhi/Luke is a small ship that emerged soon after the movie came out and has a tiny but devoted fandom, most of which exist because of this one fic.
Rec: This is basically the best written Bodhi Rook in fandom rn, I’m not kidding. Basically the story is set after Scarif, everyone has survived, but Bodhi has a lot of shit and issues to get through inside his mind but also in the rebellion because some people don't trust an imperial defector. And then there is Luke Skywalker, who is a literal ray of sunshine and who thinks Bodhi is a hero. It’s great.
Content warnings: uuuuh look Bodhi is messed up okay, ptsd, mention of canonical torture, grief/mourning, panic attacks, canon-typical violence
“all they had to lend” by Gogollescent. 2.3K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: The Silmarillion; Ship: Eärendil/Elwing
Recced by: Chestnut_filly
Backstory: The Silmarillion is the sprawling semi-mythical backstory for the Lord of the Rings. After an Age of devastating wars, Elwing and Eärendil fled Middle Earth to plead their case, receiving aid all-unexpected. Here they face the beginning of the end, one way or another.
Rec: I have reread this story probably ten times and every single time I get something new out of it. It’s an incredible look at pain, recovery, and the return of hope after thinking it all but lost. It’s also written like if Virginia Woolf had turned her pen to Tolkien fic.
Content warnings: war, recovery from trauma
Bonus Black Sails rec from Elizabeth ⚓⚓⚓
OK, nontraditional rec here, but I can’t even talk about the backstory or the ship or the characters involved without spoiling the ending of Black Sails. (DO NOT CLICK IF YOU ARE STILL WATCHING, I KNOW, IT’S HARD, RESIST, YOU WILL THANK ME LATER!!) I wanted to rec it weeks ago, but I decided to wait until Gav and I had gotten a few more people watching the show. In the interim, several other people submitted it (apologies to “anon” and to pamphilia—thank you!! Please send in more Black Sails fics asap, though also I may just run your recs so we can rec this verse again and again lol), so it comes highly recommended.
So! If you’ve finished the show and want to read some fic, start with “Unaccomodated Man” (27K words, rated Teen, please read allll the content warnings) and then two more within the verse, “The Peaceable Kingdom” (6K words, rated Gen) and “Congress” (12K words, rated Explicit). kvikindi is incredibly talented, and I love many things about these stories, not least that they seem to be doing very deliberate things with narrative structure and style. Also if you’ve finished the series and are after the sort of fic that digs in deep into the painful act of processing it all, these stories definitely fall within that realm.
(Also if you’ve finished the show and read them and want to chat, message me! As you may recall from our Black Sails edition of The Rec Center, I want to talk about All The Things asap. Alternately, you can tweet about Black Sails with our hashtag, #BlackSailsRC, which some people are already using! It could be a good way to find other people who are watching right now…)
FINAL THOUGHT
Thanks to everyone who has offered to write a fandom primer or rec list! If we’ve been in contact already, please don’t hesitate to send over your primer and/or shoot us an email. Also, if anyone wants to write a post about Overwatch, let us know! There are so many Overwatch fans out there, but Elizabeth & I know nothing about videogames. — Gav
Have a favorite one-off rec? Please send it our way! We’ll use it in a future list. Other fanworks—comics, vids, etc—are strongly encouraged as well.
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)