The Rec Center #471
Hello all! This week we have articles about a romantasy publishing conflict, Sherlock Holmes copyright, and the Hugo Awards. Also some amazing Wolf Hall fanart and the last of this year’s multifandom Yuletide fic recs! — Gav
new stuff
“Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?” by Katy Waldman at The New Yorker
Your BLEAK read of the week on the breakneck pace of romantasy, where authors writing tropey, derivative works are suing other authors for tropey, derivative works. (Yes, we have noted how miserable all this seems compared to the “all playing with the same ideas” world of fic; that’s the money bit!)
“How Sherlock Holmes Broke Copyright Law” by Alec Nevala-Lee at The Atlantic
While we’re still in the “hey did you know about the public domain!” days of January, a piece on the Conan Doyle estate’s long, thorny history with adaptations and follow-on works.
“The Hugo Awards” by Nicholas Whyte at Uncanny Magazine
An interesting look back over the history of the Hugos and the current logistics of the nominations from a past and current Hugo administrator. And speaking of 2025 Hugo nominations, guess who would love to be nominated again this year! 😉
Conclave should have been called “Think About The Messiest Bitch You Know. It’s A Cardinal, Isn’t It?”
— Rebekah Weatherspoon (@rdotspoon.bsky.social) 2025-01-10T04:43:45.750Z
older stuff
“Baldur’s Gate 3 fans have created their own ad-free wiki” by Jay Castello at Polygon
In an era where so many fan wikis have wound up hosted on (ugh) Fandom™, an increasing number are going back to the independent model. This piece from 2023 focuses on the wiki efforts of the Baldur’s Gate 3 fandom.
tumblr & beyond
Wolf Hall fanart by dxcstrange-stuff
“knock it off that’s fanfiction’s job.”
someone made a Gamechanger-inspired AO3 skin!
“if alphas in the omegaverse knew that we referred to it as the the ‘omegaverse’ and not the ‘alphaverse,’ they'd throw a fit”
ok why were they even asking this anyway tbh.
“ANNOUNCEMENT: I NO LONGER SHIP FRARNEY (Fred / Barney)”
fanfiction
Yuletide: Week 2! We’ve got another batch of niche fic for you. (Plus a truly inspired audio fanwork of a podcast that involves the politician I’m most looking forward to voting out of office in 2025!) If you missed Week 1, that’s here. Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. <3 — Elizabeth
“A to Z (of the Universe)” by Nope. 8.7K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: NASA “Visions of the Future” Posters; Ship: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Recced by: thespacebetweenworlds
Backstory: It’s a 5-minute fandom. There’s a series of posters made by NASA that show a fictional future of space travel posters. The set up for the story is a Victorian-inspired “Grand Tour”—but through the solar system, on a spaceship.
Rec: It’s epistolary. It captures a future where the main character goes on a grand tour, and slowly the story reveals a darker side of space travel and galaxy-wise injustices. It’s terrifying, sad, very much relevant to current political climates, and at the end there’s not just a spark of hope, but a declaration of hope.
Content warnings: Minor non-graphic violence, vague description of torture and injuries
“does not waver, does not change” by hkafterdark. 10K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Midnight Series: Moonlight Chicken พระจันทร์มันไก่ | Moonlight Chicken (TV); Ship: Jim Jaruek Nueangna-uam/Wen Wongsakorn
Recced by: ginnymoonbeam
Backstory: Thunapakarn Post-canon, the main pair reacts to the marriage equality laws in Thailand.
Rec: Really lovely and deeply in-character exploration of Jim adjusting to a more accepting society. It’s tender and sweet without erasing the bitterness and scars he still carries.
Content warnings: N/A
“made expressly for you” by surgicalstainless. 3.6K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: The Saint of Steel - T Kingfisher; Ship: Gen with some background Stephen/Grace and Galen/Piper
Recced by: Madanimalscientist
Backstory: The paladins of the Saint of Steel served their god faithfully....and then he died, and they were taken in by the Temple of the White Rat. Stephen is a paladin who likes to knit in his spare time, and Galen likes to spin yarn in his.
Rec: It perfectly exemplifies the flavor of the series, while also getting into the sheer chaos and escalation you get of two brothers-in-arms messing with each other via a gift war (that eventually turns into a prank war). It’s one of the funniest fics I’ve read in 2024.
Content warnings: N/A
“Troy, Still” by cheju. 8.1K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Theater Camp (2023); Ship: Troy Rubinsky/Glenn Winthrop
Recced by: Jessica
Backstory: In the movie, bro-y Troy finds himself running his mother’s theatre camp. Glenn is the shy tech director, although he harbors a hidden love for performing. The fic follows Troy’s second summer at the camp, and him realizing his feelings for Glenn.
Rec: This story was super charming. Completely emulated the earnest tone of the film, with a lot of the quirks and jokes carried over. I particularly loved the message of “there’s no one right way to be gay.”
Content warnings: N/A
“dissected truths” by lostsunsets. 14K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Apothecary Diaries (all versions); Ship: Jinshi/Maomao
Recced by: jess
Backstory: The Apothecary Diaries is about Maomao, an oddball apothecary from the redlight district who finds herself kidnapped and sold into service as an indentured servant in her country’s imperial palace, where she soon gets a reputation as an eccentric but skilled problem solver.
Rec: This fic does a brilliant job at using Maomao’s complicated family background for a canon divergence AU where she grew up as a noblewoman and childhood friend of Jinshi and is still just as inclined to get herself into trouble. It’s a lovely study of how a romantic relationship might form between her and Jinshi under very different circumstances.
Content warnings: N/A
“We are All Vipers Here” by fresne. 1.9K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Hamlet - Shakespeare; Ship: Gen, Gertrude/Claudius, Gertrude/Hamlet Sr.
Recced by: dulosis
Backstory: This is an exploration of the cult of personality at the head of Denmark, and Gertrude’s feelings about and gradations of complicity with it.
Rec: The density of banger-ass lines is greater than that of a neutron star; the worldbuild is also very cool.
Content warnings: N/A
“Between Snow Sake and Mushi (something bright started to bloom)” by Nemo_Nihilo. 3.2K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: 蟲師 | Mushishi; Ship: Adashino/Ginko (Mushishi)
Recced by: anon
Backstory: Ginko is a Mushishi, an investigator of Mushi creatures and Adashino a doctor and Mushi-related trinkets collector, as such their roads cross here and there, one of these meetings is this story.
Rec: This Yuletide fic very much is a little wintery Winter-Story, it feels like a warm rest on a cold day. I always appreciate stories about communication between characters and about unusual relationships.
Content warnings: N/A
Plus a multimedia fanwork!
“Eric Adams’ Latest Excuses [TEASER]” by Poetry. 1.1K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: If Books Could Kill (Podcast), Leverage (2008); Ship: Gen
Recced by: ppyajunebug
Backstory: If Books Could Kill is a podcast by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri where they talk about terrible bestsellers and also Peter rants about Eric Adams, the current and incredibly corrupt mayor of New York.
Rec: Honestly, at this point, it would make MORE SENSE if the Leverage group was setting Eric Adams up for more crimes. Also, they perfectly capture the tone of the podcast and the host dynamics in both the audio and written format.
Content warnings: N/A
jeeves is a criminal, which is what makes him such a great valet honestly. he has a murderous streak in him and is always ready to bash in the brains of a policeman, he LOVES to steal, he's a masterful pickpocket, he always knows which horse races are fixed, he carries ROOFIES at ALL TIMES
— Johannes T. Evans (@johannestevans.bsky.social) 2025-01-06T15:43:49.248Z
FINAL THOUGHT
As our Yuletide recs wrap up, you know what that means: Femslash February is just around the corner! For any new subscribers, we devote the whole month of February to F/F, part of my sneaky plan to get more F/F and women-centered stories into our submissions backlog. (It’s fine, you can keep sending in slash haha. There’s just, as you can guess, a LOT of it.)
Please submit your favorite F/F stories via our one-off submissions form, and be sure to mark them as F/F or, even better, “For Femslash February” in the themes/tropes field.
We’re also always open to folks writing guest lists, whether it’s about your favorite F/F ship, a multifandom F/F list, or even something a bit more about F/F fanworks on a whole (my favorite example of the latter being this two-part list by queersintherain that traced the development of F/F omegaverse). If you have any interest in writing one of these, please reply to this email or write us at elizabethandgav at gmail. — Elizabeth