The Rec Center #88
Welcome! This week we have Narnia recs, an answer to one of fanfic’s greatest mysteries, and a truly unique moment from Supergirl comics canon. — Gav
new stuff
“The Story Of ‘My Immortal’ Is More Wild And Heartbreaking Than You Imagined” by Alanna Bennett at Buzzfeed
Undoubtedly the biggest news story of the week: The author of My Immortal, the infamous “worst fanfic on the internet,” has finally been revealed after 10 years. She sounds very cool, and is publishing a memoir next year.
“Regeneration Sickness: On ‘Doctor Who’ and Second Chances” by Thomas Strickland at Catapult
“The core of my particular fandom is this: Every Doctor from the First to the Thirteenth regenerated in order to apply the lessons of their previous incarnation. Blame it on my upbringing, but I can’t resist finding at least a little faith in the things I love. The way I see it, regeneration walks hand in hand with redemption and reconciliation.”
older stuff
“The War Against Fandom” by Steve Silberman at Wired
It’s the 10th anniversary of the OTW (see “Final Thought” below) and while reflecting on their legal advocacy, it’s worth revisiting the legal battles between corporations and fans in the early days of the web. This piece, from 1997, offers a glimpse of the climate at the time.
tumblr & beyond
Korrasami fanart by pygmalionofcyprus
“a few notes on the past 10 years, and so on” by fizzygins: reflections on fanfiction and queer women’s art on AO3’s 10th anniversary
“Reminder: Supergirl has a horse named Comet who is in love with her. He once was turned into a man and they made out.”
Elizabeth and our friend Natasha wrote a Black Sails libretto??? [Elizabeth would like to clarify that she clearly did none of the heavy lifting here but will take the credit regardless]
“A dystopian future where the only surviving archive of information is the Ready Player One wiki.” WELCOME TO HELL.
Very Important: a photo gallery of Harry Dean Stanton at the Avengers premiere.
fanfiction
If you were an English-speaking kid who Really Loved Books, there’s a good chance you read at least some of the Narnia series. So while Narnia isn’t exactly an active fandom, it’s accumulated a bunch of fic over the years. Here are some of my faves! — Gav
“National Service” series by Burntcopper. 63K words (in short stories), Unrated.
Ship: Mostly gen; some Edmund/Bacchus
Backstory: Set after The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, this series is about Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan Pevensie as adults back home on Earth. The first few stories focus on Edmund and Percy’s military service, while the longest fic (about 53K words) is a post-WWII Torchwood crossover with Susan as the main character. You don’t really need to have seen Torchwood to follow it!
Rec: These fics have a wonderfully mid-20th century feel, showing the clash between the Pevensies’ Narnian sense of adventure, and the more straitlaced attitude of post-war England. I loved the shorter stories at the start, illustrating Edmund and Peter’s alarming confidence as seasoned warriors and kings, working alongside normal young men.
Content warnings: N/A
“No Betrayal” by MarbleGlove. 2.6K words, rated Gen.
Ship: Gen
Backstory: Skyfall crossover with Susan Pevensie as an older woman working for MI5.
Rec: Named after a short story by Neil Gaiman, “The Problem of Susan” is a popular trope in Narnia fandom: How to deal with Susan as an adult, after she was effectively abandoned by C.S. Lewis’s original narrative. A lot of fanfics insert Susan into post-war spy stories, and this is a great crossover with the Bond franchise, specifically the aftermath of Skyfall.
Content warnings: N/A
“Unquenchable Fire” by rthstewart. 3.4K words, rated Gen.
Ship: Gen
Backstory: Crossover with Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books, where the military includes an Air Force of talking dragons.
Rec: A fun and delightfully in-character crossover where the young Lucy and Eustace decide to join the Air Force’s dragon service and put their Narnian skills to work. Rthstewart is an incredibly prolific author and I didn’t have time to read/reread any of her longer works, but if you’re looking for Narnia fic you should absolutely check out her page for more, including novel-length stories and a sweet Peter/Caspian fic called “As The Waves Make Towards The Pebbl’d Shore.”
Content warnings: N/A
“Home” by grim_lupine. 2.7K words, rated Teen.
Ship: Peter/Caspian
Rec: A very satisfying alternate ending to Prince Caspian, where Aslan allows the Pevensies to remain in Narnia, and Peter falls in love with Caspian.
Content warnings: N/A
“Three for a Crossroads” by songsmith. 5K words, rated Teen.
Ship: Susan/OFC
Rec: Jill Pole (The Silver Chair) goes to live with Polly Plummer (The Magician’s Nephew), and the two of them encounter a Narnian creature in London. Meanwhile, Susan has a very different experience of the same event. I enjoyed this fic because while it does give Susan a suitably interesting life after Narnia, it isn’t wholly wish-fulfilment. Susan has found her own niche in modern life, but it isn’t necessarily something that the other Friends of Narnia would understand.
Content warnings: N/A
Plus a bonus Narnia fic from a Rec Center reader!
“No Reservations: Narnia” by Edonohana. 6K words, rated Teen.
Fandoms: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations RPF, Chronicles of Narnia; Ship: Gen Recced by: clearlykero
Backstory: In which Anthony Bourdain (chef, TV personality) and the crew of “No Reservations” (food and/or travel show) film an episode in Narnia (fantasy dimension formerly experiencing 100 years of winter, home to Talking Animals and sometimes accessible through wardrobes).
Rec: It’s... brilliant. I love Yuletide for gems like these, things you’d never expect to go together and yet fit so perfectly. Edonohana gets Bourdain's distinct voice down impeccably, and the food makes you as hungry as an actual episode would. It’s as though Narnia were just another place you could hop on a plane and visit, yet still manages to be rife with all the charm of the original books.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
This week the Organization for Transformative Works celebrated its 10th anniversary! The OTW is best known as the parent organization of AO3, though it runs several other projects, including the Fanlore wiki, the academic journal Transformative Works and Cultures, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Open Doors, which preserves old fic archives and other fanworks from the ancient web by importing them onto AO3.
Some of you might have been there for the early days of the OTW; others may have come to fandom in the past few years and have never read fic anywhere but AO3. Online fandom has changed *a lot* in the past decade (I mean, like, the web has changed a lot in the past decade), and I bet that for a large portion of our readers, AO3 has been a central part of our fandom experiences.
In the coming weeks, the OTW will be hosting live chats, publishing guest posts, and doing a variety of other celebratory things. You can find the full schedule here. — Elizabeth
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)