The Rec Center #490
Hello all! This week we have articles about the science behind Murderbot’s cyborg brain and (unrelatedly) video game sex scenes, some cool Sinners fanart, and a grab bag of multifandom fic recs!— Gav
new stuff
“How Video Game Sex Scenes Are Made” by Nicole Carpenter at 404 Media
A fascinating deep dive into, well, how video game sex scenes are made. “Sex is a huge part of life, and it feels strange when art ignores that.”
“You Can’t Even Watch A Movie Anymore Without Seeing Some Theme Explored” at The Onion
“It’s getting so I can’t take my kid to the movies without having to cover her eyes so she isn’t exposed to the eternal struggle between good and evil or the universal need for human connection.”
“The Neuroscience of Murderbot’s Cyborg Brain” by Allison Parshall at Scientific American
A group of experts—and Murderbot fans—weigh in on the logistics of creating an artificial brain, and whether it will ever be possible to replicate human thought processes.
One thing Star Wars gets really right about life is that if you want to be successful all that matters is who your dad is and what powerful friends does he have
— Daniel Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith.com) 2025-05-17T17:00:42.550Z
older stuff
“On ‘Y/N,’ Reader-Insert Fanfiction & Writing Yourself Into the Story” by Stitch at Teen Vogue
“I get so much joy out of telling someone, hey, look—you are allowed to exist. You own your story. You have mass and power; you deserve to take up space.”
tumblr & beyond
Sinners fanart by luxfatale
A beautiful piece of lightbox papercraft art for MDZS.
In case you haven't seen them before: check out these stunning beer ads from the Chilean TV release of the original Star Wars trilogy.
love this round robin Locked Tomb fanart event.
“Yes, hello, I am here to write a heart wrenching story about relationships and mortality. My medium is Ducktales (2017)”
we’re always innovating new ways to get spoiled for major plot events, truly inspiring!
fanfiction
We’ve got a grab-bag this week! Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a rec. — Elizabeth
“A Strange Hunt” by rednightmare. 21K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Kingdom Come: Deliverance; Ships: Theresa/Bianca, Henry/Theresa, Henry/Hans Capon, Henry/Bianca, Hans Capon/Zdena
Recced by: prosodi
Backstory: Kingdom Come: Deliverance is set in medieval Bohemia, and centers on the revenge quest of Henry of Skalitz after his village is burned, and his family and friends are killed by invaders. This fic is an interconnected series of character studies for three of the game’s central characters, Theresa, Hans, and Henry, that explores childhood, loss, and growing up in spite of everything.
Rec: Featuring deliciously sensitive prose, I’m blown over by the level of thoughtful detail and real empathy in this fic. It’s a meditation on grief told through the lens of relentless love and care. If I didn’t love these characters already, this would convince me to.
Content warnings: Non-graphic rape/non-con, battlefield violence, animal death, non-graphic sexual content, suicide attempt, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, sex work
“autumn flower” by Scarlettstorm. 106K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: The Untamed / 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù; Ship: Wei Ying/Lan Zhan
Recced by: Chalionkat
Backstory: The novel and TV show are about necromancers and the fight against injustice. This is a modern AU where none of that applies, they’re just two trans girls falling in love.
Rec: Everything Scarlett writes is gorgeous! This one is a lovely exploration of coming out to yourself and to others and finding happiness.
Content warnings: The main character does not know she is trans at the beginning of the story and uses male pronouns to start with
“How To Keep A Promise To Hal Jordan” by FabulaRasa. 55K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: DCU (Comics) ; Ship: Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne
Recced by: Sychaeus
Backstory: From the DCU comics, Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern, and together they struggle to find healthy ways to deal with emotions, trauma, and saving the world/galaxy.
Rec: The premise of the fic is that Bruce Wayne has to help Hal Jordan regain memories he’s lost. It’s very angsty, features superheroes sacrificing themselves instead of having emotionally mature conversations, and is delightful. Also, Batman essentially writes fanfiction.
Content warnings: Physical trauma, torture
“Living Arrangements” by Netgirl_y2k. 3.4K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Agent Carter; Ship: Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli
Recced by: Suzalooz
Backstory: Angie ends up moving in with Peggy...to Howard Stark’s penthouse. It’s really fancy. A florist visits daily. And there’s not even one cockroach.
Rec: The characters are very well drawn for such a short fic. Angie is the long-suffering realist while Peggy is her high-achieving self. Thankfully, both of them end up on the same page eventually.
Content warnings: Minor references to character death (not the main pairing)
“Under the Midnight Sun” by Northern Sparrow. 230K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Supernatural; Ship: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Recced by: SadieWit
Backstory: Set in the Alaskan tundra, Dean likes his job as a camp manager for an NSF research site; fixing the camp trucks, troubleshooting the generators, keeping clueless undergrads and NSF bigwigs from walking into grizzly bears or getting lost in snowstorms—it’s all in a day’s work. But while heading into field season, he comes across an ornithologist who’s doing a “very long-term” study on birds or wings or something, and his world is radically changed.
Rec: Using Supernatural’s predilection for apocalypses, the author explores our real Armageddon of climate change with an exciting plot, developed characters, and a smattering of real science. It’s one of the most grounded fics I’ve ever read, with a true sense of place.
Content warnings: N/A
And a podfic collection!
“Podfuckery 2024.” Many authors, lengths, and ratings.
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death; Ship: Multiple
Recced by: anon
Backstory: A group of authors from the Our Flag Means Death fandom have all taken the same beginning and end of a story and filled them with their own stories in the middle, and a group of podficcers have each been given a story to narrate.
Rec: I haven’t listened to many podfics before, but this project is so incredibly cool! The whole premise is so fun, and the stories are really well written and beautifully narrated.
Content warnings: N/A
I feel like we give too much credit to the inherent homoeroticism of things. In many cases, it's not inherently homoerotic at all, and only becomes so through serious and dedicated effort. People work hard to make that shit homoerotic, and frankly, sometimes the circumstances are NOT helping.
— David J Prokopetz (@prokopetz.bsky.social) 2025-05-16T04:30:06.645Z
FINAL THOUGHT
A few AO3-related items to wrap up this week, in case these things haven’t crossed your feeds:
First, the latest scam: comments telling you to delete work in older and (their words) “deprecated fandoms” to free up server space. If you receive one of these comments or see one on someone else’s, here are the AO3’s official instructions.
Second, some bad (frankly obnoxious imo) actors have been scraping the Archive and distributing the dataset in recent weeks. If you’re curious to learn whether your work was affected, here’s a search tool.
The “deprecated fandoms” thing is truly depressing to me, because it could sound plausible?? Like, our devices run out of storage space all the time. Add fandom’s overwhelming recency bias these days, with people declaring fandoms “dead” a month or two post-show/film… :-/ Anyway, I’d especially suggest keeping an eye out for these comments when you’re leaving your own comments on others’ works, because not everyone will have caught the AO3’s social posts. — Elizabeth