The Rec Center #367
Hi all! This week we have articles about D&D law, Italian yaoi fandom and Netflix culture, along with some cute Wednesday Addams fanart, another list of Yuletide recs, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“Dungeons & Dragons content creators are fighting to protect their livelihoods” by Amanda Silberling at Tech Crunch
A useful explainer on the new and controversial changes to the Open Gaming License, a licensing agreement for tabletop game creatives.
“Boys’ Love, Fandom, and Italy: A Passionate Affair” by Cami at Anime Herald
Starting in the 1990s, this essay covers the history and evolution of yaoi/BL manga fandom in Italy.
“How Much Netflix Can the World Absorb?” by Rachel Syme at The New Yorker
Amongst the chaos of streaming service news in recent months comes the big entertainment industry story of the week: a profile of Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s global head of television. Highly recommended for anyone who’s a fan of a Netflix property—or anyone wondering what the hell is going on there/in television generally.
niles: meet m3gan, my new robot with artificial intelligence
— Ben Rosen (@ben_rosen) January 10, 2023
frasier: ah, *artificial* intelligence. so she also went to yale
older stuff
“Project Fandom: Meet the fan organisers lighting up your favourite concerts” by Jenessa Williams at The Forty-Five
“For any who experienced a successful fan project in the flesh, it can be a real sign of how deeply music touches lives, how we all play a part in that special atmosphere.”
tumblr & beyond
Wednesday fanart by notholaenas
“I cannot stress this enough & cant believe it has to be said: DO NOT SHIP THE TWO POPES”
“If my name was Garfield I’d be doing shit like that on the daily”
wildly impressed by this Star Trek/Dior mashup cosplay.
what DID happen to all the pussy in Supernatural?
pizza is like sex. the ninja turtles love having it in a sewer with each other
— adam 🆗 (@burgerkrang) January 7, 2023
fanfiction
Last week we ran the first half of the Yuletide 2022 recs; this week we have the second half! Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“Correspondence from the fall” by NightsMistress. 1.3K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897); Ships: Lucy Westenra/Arthur Holmwood (implied), Mina Murray/Jonathan Harker (implied)
Recced by: Swords & Spindles
Backstory: England has turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the crew of light has apparently failed in their task, and Lucy still faithfully and sweetly writes to Mina.
Rec: Despite the rather grim setting, this letter from Lucy (fully turned vampire) is just as loving and kind as before, and the exact nature of the apocalypse that has clearly happened is only alluded to between the lines. This is a story for everyone who is unhappy about Lucy’s fate, and firmly believes that as a vampire she would still be as kind, caring and optimistic as she had been as a human.
Content warnings: Apocalypse, allusions to a pandemic
“Reset. Retry. Repeat” by ezazahaz. 4.8K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Galaxy Quest; Ship: Gen
Recced by: penna_nomen
Backstory: Galaxy Quest was about a group of actors in a sci-fi show who are contacted by aliens who think the actors are actually space explorers. Gwen—the lead woman—had a particularly painful role in the show, where she simply repeated messages to and from the computer.
Rec: Time loop stories are always fun, and this one has a fresh take. Focusing on two of the actors, it hits the perfect balance of angst and humor. It also offers a nice twist on Gwen’s original role on the show. Come for the sarcasm, stay for the engrossing puzzle as Gwen and Alex unravel what’s happening and how to escape!
Content warnings: N/A
“empty nest syndrome” by Marks. 8.3K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: ACCA 13-Territory Inspection Department; Ship: Nino/Jean
Recced by: jess
Backstory: ACCA is a surprisingly chill story about a government bureaucrat eating bread, smoking cigarettes, and accidentally getting caught up in an attempted coup thanks to family secrets he knew nothing about. This story picks up a year or so after canon with the lead grappling with even more life changes after the much younger sister he’d raised leaves for college and his best friend moves in.
Rec: Because of their unique relationship, Nino/Jean is a staple of ACCA fandom, but I especially appreciate how much this story incorporates other relationships that are important, like Jean’s relationship with his sister, into Jean and Nino’s journey from very close friends to romantic partners. It’s such a good way to explore not only the leads but also the people around them too.
Content warnings: N/A
“The Beat of a Mystic Tune” by voleuse. 1.4K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Black Magician Trilogy - Trudi Canavan; Ship: Gen
Recced by: Snowdrop
Backstory: The Black Magician Trilogy is about Sonea, recently swept out of the city in a purge of its poorest inhabitants, becoming a magician and entering the most privileged ranks to better things for people like her. This story is about three different learning experiences.
Rec: It’s a beautiful look at Sonea’s character, with warmth and hope in her learning and in her interactions, in the hard situations she faces. It hurts, and it soothes, with new things blooming.
Content warnings: N/A
“I never sleep (but with you I can get some rest)” by flowerdeluce. 2.6K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Chernobyl (2019); Ship: Valery Legasov/Boris Shcherbina
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Chernobyl is the 2019 HBO show that goes over the nuclear accident of 1986 in the USSR. Legasov and Shcherbina’s partnership and character development steals the show.
Rec: Beautifully written, capturing the feel of the characters and their despair at the situation.
Content warnings: N/A
“You Are Meant to Read This” by Lightbulbs. 1K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: This Is How You Lose The Time War; Ship: Red/Blue
Recced by: thelittlestbird
Backstory: This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, is an epistolary novella, the story of two agents on opposite sides of a struggle to control the timeline. As they hop from one alternate timestream to another, they strike up a correspondence, leaving each other hidden messages to be recovered through poetically intricate methods. Over the course of their correspondence, they slowly fall in love.
Rec: This fic is a breathtakingly original recreation of one of the pieces of Red and Blue’s correspondence—not only the lyrical language, but also the form. It uses CSS to embed layers upon layers of hidden messages, as if the two characters were actually communicating through this document.
Content warnings: N/A
me: listen it isn't "fanfiction", it's a spec script. very common thing budding writers make to show off their technical prowess
— Evil Paddington (NOT A PARODY) (@ElsieKFisher) January 9, 2023
my agent: then why is it just 60 pages of tom and greg kissing
FINAL THOUGHT
New year, new call for recs: we’re re-upping our request from last month for fics that center disabled characters. Please use our one-off submission form, and make sure to use the themes/tropes field so I can easily spot fics for this call.
And speaking of submissions, it is somehow already halfway through January?? Which means Femslash February is swiftly approaching. As always, we’re soliciting individual f/f recs (see the link to the form above) as well as volunteers to do full f/f lists (which can be centered around a single ship/fandom or multi-fandom). If you’re interested in the latter, please get in touch: elizabethandgav at gmail dot com. — Elizabeth