The Rec Center #81
Hello! This week both Gav and I have been traveling—she’s in Spain learning about 400 years of Spanish military history, I’m in San Diego finding everything generally hilarious, and we’re both ~spiritually curled up in balls on the floor thinking about Thomas Hamilton.
So rather than skip a week, we’re going to keep it short and simple with fic & fanart. It’s a longer list than usual, including a few relatively long fics in case you’re, say, hiding from the heat this weekend. (These all come from our submissions—thank you to our guest reccers!) We’ll be back next week with our regular mix of articles and tumblr posts, plus a few great guest explainers we have queued up (as always, let us know if you want to write one, or nudge us if we owe you a response).
And one order of business for anyone else here in San Diego finding everything generally hilarious: I’m on the Harry Potter panel on Sunday, June 23rd at 2 pm in room 6BCF Oh look, immediately afterwards is the Buffy “Once More With Feeling” singalong, so you can come listen to me talk about how problematic HP is and you won’t even have to stand up before it’ll be… “I’VE GOT A THEORY—” (Yes, I hope that you, too, now have it in your head.) :-D — Elizabeth
fanfiction & fanart
“The Pull of the Tide” by miss_aphelion. 28K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Teen Wolf; Ship: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, mostly gen
Recced by: Aiyesha
Backstory: Teen Wolf, a show ostensibly based on the Michael J. Fox movie, was, back in the summer of 2012, the sleeper fandom of the summer, with the fastest rate of “what is this” to “I’ve seen it all why are there only 9K fics in the AO3 tag” I've ever seen. This fic was posted in October of that year, right around the height of the first wave, and it’s got all the right elements of OG Teen Wolf fandom at its finest.
Rec: This fic is a good old-fashioned mystery, with noir elements out the wazoo, and a slow building tension and stress about the central “whodunnit.” It’s spooky, it's eerie, and you don't know who to trust but you know, you just know, there’s someone lurking just out of sight.
Content warnings: N/A
“Of the Devil's Party” by mermaiddrunk. 52K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Elementary; Ship: Jamie Moriarty/Joan Watson
Recced by: Astrid
Backstory: Elementary is a modern-day Sherlock set in New York. Both Moriarty and Watson are women. Set after season 2, Moriarty receives a full acquittal and begins sending letters to Joan.
Rec: The author has a really good grasp on the characters’ personalities and voices. Joan has conflicted feelings about Moriarty—she’s a criminal mastermind, but at the same time they both feel a pull towards each other. I love the courtship of Joan through letters and phone calls, and a couple chapters did make me cry.
Content warning: violence
“In Good Company” by weialala. 199K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Naruto; Ship: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Recced by: bamfiruka
Backstory: A lot of Naruto fic is centered around the timeskip between part one and two, and this one does it spectacularly. In this fic Sasuke kills Orochimaru a year early, and returns to Konoha for judgement instead of running off on his own.
Rec: I severely dislike Sasuke and SasuNaru, and yet I’m reccing a Sasuke-centric SasuNaru story—because it's easily in the top three fics I’ve ever read. The Sasuke redemption arc is handled perfectly, and the fic fleshes out the world of Naruto in a way the manga never managed.
Content warnings: N/A
“The One Where They're Stars on HGTV” (Series) by earlgreytea68. 398K words over 9 works, rated Mature.
Fandom: Inception; Ship: Arthur/Eames
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Do you guys remember when Inception came out? What it did to fandom? I do. Oh boy, DO I. Arthur/Eames is the glorious result of that, the popular ship that keeps on shipping.
Rec: This series is massive. It’s a behemoth. The star of the series is Next Big Thing, which constitutes the majority of that word count. It’s nearly 400K words of humour, fluff, and Healthy Communication in A Relationship, and it’'s so, so good.
Content warnings: N/A
Burnham, Georgiou and the 13th Doctor: Star Trek Discovery/Doctor Who fanart by llewynscat!
“King by the Roadside” by nimmieamee. 164K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: The Raven Cycle; Ship: Adam/Gansey/Blue
Recced by: Jess
Backstory: Based on the book series The Raven Cycle, this is an AU where Gansey is never stung, therefore never knowing about Glendower or the quest to find him.
Rec: Beautiful writing and it captures the characters so well. A great “what if” story for if you’re feeling empty and sad that the series has ended (aka, me).
Content warnings: Mentions of parental abuse/ graphic violence (not connected though!)
“Hang the Fool” by AlmaMeDuele. 230K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Overwatch; Ship: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Recced by: key
Backstory: Two very different characters start off at odds after joining the reformed Overwatch, slowly come to care for each other, and face their difficult pasts and shortcomings together.
Rec: This was the first fic for this ship (and this fandom) that I read, and now these two are the only thing I think about.
Content warnings: Past torture, brainwashing, injury
“Fiddlesticks” by peskywhistpaw. 8.5K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson
Recced by: Kitty August
Backstory: Pansy is Hermione’s Slytherin foil and a typical ‘mean girl’ in the HP books and this author turns that old animosity into romance brilliantly.
Rec: Pansy is fantastic, her POV adds depth to her character in a way that the best fanfiction can and the plot is fun, Hermione is also wonderful in this.
Content warnings: N/A
“blink back to let me know” by nighimpossible. 4K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Check Please!; Ship: Ransom/Holster
Recced by: tarastarr1
Backstory: Justin is a medical student in Boston and Holster is working in New York. They realize some things.
Rec: A wonderful example of the “didn't realize they’re in love” trope, I’m just a sucker for people realizing their person has been there all along.
Content warnings: N/A
“Manchester Lost” by Moczo. 100K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Good Omens; Ship: Crowley/Aziraphale
Recced by: sainatsukino
Backstory: Good Omens is a comedy about a demon and an angel who are friends and are trying to stop the end of the world.
Rec: The best damn fic I’ve ever read in this fandom. Fantastic OCs, the same tone and humour as the original book, an all around joy to read.
Content warnings: N/A
And a vid rec!
“Bloody Shirt” by unfinishedidea. 3:17, rated Mature.
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale; Ship: Gen
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast about a community radio station, set in a kind of Lovecraftian desert town. The premise for this vid is: what happened to the hosts that came before?
Rec: This vid is pretty much the definition of transformative works for me: it transforms an audio-only canon into a visual one and it transforms a whole list of disparate sources into a coherent whole. I love the way the vidder captured the Night Vale weirdness and dread.
Content warnings: Blood (like, seriously, there’s a lot); bugs; body horror; general horror (many of the clips are taken from horror movies)
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.
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