The Rec Center #487
Hello everyone! This week we have coverage of the newest Worldcon controversy, the historical papal conclave fandom, and a piece from me on fanfiction and generative AI. Plus complimentary fanworks: some lovely Doctor Who fanart, and a multifandom list of time loop and time travel fic recs. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“Seattle Worldcon Issues Statement on LLM Use to Support Participant Selection” by Vanessa Armstrong at Reactor
Another Worldcon, another controversy—this time about genAI use in the panelist-vetting process. With folks outside the U.S. already considering not attending due to everything that’s been happening at the borders in recent weeks, this revelation has understandably prompted even more talk of people backing out.
“The original ‘Conclave’? How commercial engravings grew global interest in papal succession” by Louis Jebb at The Art Newspaper
“Downloads of the 2024 film have surged since the death of Pope Francis—but in the 16th and 17th century, it was etchings that drove public fascination with the historic process.”
“Where the Wild Stories Are” by Elizabeth at Ellipsus
Elizabeth wrote a guest blog post for Ellipsus*, the very fandom-friendly collaborative writing tool. On generative AI and fanfiction, with a focus on using tools like ChatGPT to produce fic. “If you outsource the act of being a fan to AI, what does that leave you?”
*While this piece is editorially independent, not sponsored content, I want to offer a totally unsponsored plug here: if you’re looking to get off Gdocs, especially as Google shoves AI features into every corner of the product, you should definitely check out Ellipsus! They even have an export-to-AO3 feature. :-) — Elizabeth
I feel like if you encounter a vampire and they aren’t rich that improves your odds substantially. Bro is immortal but couldn’t figure out how to get compound interest to work in his favor, he’s not exactly a mastermind. Keep your wits about you and you’re probably fine.
— William B. Fuckley (@opinionhaver.bsky.social) 2025-04-12T20:39:48.380Z
older stuff
“Man’s Best Friend In Space” by Nicole Donawho at Contingent Magazine
“What we get from Star Trek is a question about the role of animals in our future.” On the animals of Star Trek and their real-life counterparts aboard vessels throughout history.
tumblr & beyond
Doctor Who fanart by bandaalarga
The Tumblr experience: “that’s my friend. from gif.”
An amazing database of vintage LGBTQ+ sci-fi books.
“reblog if you’re into wild russian steppes yaoi”
every time star wars introduces another miraculously surviving jedi, remember this post.
fanfiction
We’ve got time travel fic this week! Altered timelines, time loops, and more. Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“To Say Nothing of the Kitten” by lalalalalawhy. 2.4K words, rated Gen.
Fandom: Oxford Time Travel series by Connie Willis (slight crossover with Two Monks Inventing Things from The Toast!); Ship: Gen-ish, slight Ned Henry/Verity Kindle and their kitten, Penwiper
Recced by: glorious_clio
Backstory: If you’ve read Connie Willis’ time travel novels, you know the devil is in the details—and now there’s a kitten, messing around in the timeline.
Rec: lalalalalawhy gets the tone of To Say Nothing of the Dog EXACTLY RIGHT. Even if you’ve never read that book, I still think you’ll find this charming because IT IS THE MOST CHARMING! Penwiper the kitten is traveling through time!
Content warnings: N/A
“Time Won’t Fly” by theheartischill, yourtinseltinkerbell. 112K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: The Magicians (TV); Ship: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Recced by: jenevolves
Backstory: Canon divergent AU, with Julia attending Brakebills (yay avoiding the sexual assault storyline!) and our characters going to war with the Beast’s armies in Fillory. Depressed Q decides that dying in battle would be okay, and gets stuck in a time loop instead.
Rec: An excellent use of my favorite trope, time loops, with the added bonus of a love story where the questionable consent that comes with a day resetting is thoughtfully handled. The beautiful artwork/graphics are the cherry on top!
Content warnings: Suicide, depression, suicide ideation, canon-typical violence
“as lions” by qin_ling. 58K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Top Gun; Ship: Tom “Iceman” Kazansky/Pete “Maverick” Mitchell
Recced by: Orangistae
Backstory: Maverick gets shot down saving Rooster and wakes up over thirty years earlier in the cockpit of an inverted F-14; Goose is alive and Ice is a complete stranger, and Maverick needs to make sure that only one of those things changes.
Rec: The interaction between middle-aged Maverick’s memories, beliefs and personality, and the new(/old) reality that he finds himself in is really interesting, and I appreciate how complicated his feelings about it are. His relationship with Ice develops very differently from the original while remaining true to these versions of the characters, and Goose and Carole are absolutely charming.
Content warnings: Panic attacks
“Sasuke’s No Good Very Bad Teammates” by GwendolynStacy. 74K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Naruto; Ship: Gen, Sakura & Sasuke & Naruto
Recced by: ahbuggrit
Backstory: Unknown to each other, Sakura and Naruto time-travel back to their genin days, before the chunin exams, before Sasuke defected, even before their first real mission. More knowledgeable and experienced, they set out to prevent Sasuke from defecting, and fixing other upcoming calamities.
Rec: Lots of jokes that fans will get that many of the characters won’t, cuz it hasn’t happened yet. Feel good, friendship fic. Plus genderfluid!Naruto.
Content warnings: Usual magic ninja antics, fighting, the odd death, a lil necromancy
“Tis Past, and So Am I” by glassessay. 27K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: The Terror (TV 2018); Ship: Francis Crozier/James Fitzjames
Recced by: Maleann
Backstory: Season 1 of The Terror is the fictionalized story of the last years of the Franklin Expedition, where two ships and their crew of 129 men were lost in the search for the Northwest Passage (Fictionalized because the information on what actually happened is sparse, and because there’s a big monster). The fic follows James Fitzjames, Commander of the Expedition, and his desperate attempts to save his doomed crew as he keeps dying and being brought back in time.
Rec: I came to this story not because of the show, or the historical events it’s based on, but because I absolutely adore time loop stories. And rarely have I read a time loop story that is so imaginative, just so full of brilliant ideas and twists on the initial trope that I’m frankly lacking superlatives to describe it. It’s that good, and it pushed me to seek out the show.
Content warnings: Violence (typical of the show)
“The Desert Storm” by Blue_Sunshine. 1.1 million words over 24 works, rated Gen and Teen.
Fandom: Star Wars; Ship: Gen
Recced by: SordidCrayons
Backstory: A handful of years after Mustafar, Ben gets sent back in time thanks to a mysterious Tatooine sandstorm. He immediately goes about freeing Shmi and baby Anakin, taking his 13-year-old self on as a padawan, and trying to bring some much needed reform to the Jedi Order (with a lot of help from his friends).
Rec: This is an Obi-Wan time travel prequel fix-it fic that hits all the best tropes in subversive ways and yet never positions Obi-Wan as the sole hero of the story. It is a slow-burn meditation on trauma, legacies, and the interconnected systems that structure our lives whether we are aware of them or not. Come for the character development, stay for the worldbuilding (...or vice versa).
Content warnings: Canon-typical violence
just saw a fic tagged with “canon compliant” followed by “in that you can’t prove this didn’t happen.” that’s the spirit.
— 🝤 unfortunate mage ◐ (@putrefactions.bsky.social) 2025-05-02T06:03:37.981Z
FINAL THOUGHT
This week, two long-established internet culture sites laid off the bulk of their staff: Polygon (whose coverage we often featured on The Rec Center) and The Daily Dot (my former workplace, which laid me off alongside the rest of its culture section in 2023).
In the current media climate this kind of mass layoff sadly isn’t a rare occurrence. But as I said on Bluesky last night, it’s still grim to witness the continuing dissolution of culture journalism. Along with the intrinsic rewards of old-school arts criticism, our society desperately needs more expert coverage of online communities and trends. This was actually the original purpose of The Daily Dot—a site that launched the careers of many brilliant politics and tech reporters, but is now clearly on its last legs.
I got my start at The Daily Dot, publishing fandom news before “fandom news” was really a thing. Our coverage explored transformative fan culture, politicized backlash campaigns like Gamergate, and a vast array of communities born on platforms like Tumblr and TikTok. Often we were the only place covering these topics from an informed perspective—and thanks to recent contractions in the media landscape, those stories are now going untold. Likewise, Polygon was a crucial outlet for games journalism, exposing industry scandals and publishing insightful commentary. It truly sucks that this kind of material remains undervalued by the guys at the top of the economic food chain.
Journalism is in a very bad place right now, and the best advice we can give is to support independent media, whether that involves giving a few bucks to a writer/editor’s Patreon (here’s mine and here’s Elizabeth’s!), or subscribing to worker-owned platforms. A few smaller outlets like 404 Media are doing well with this subscription model, but the truth is that there’s no current replacement for the fan culture coverage we used to see at Polygon and (historically) The Daily Dot. — Gav