Hello all! This week we have articles about the leaked Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, Elder Scrolls lore, and AI-generated romance cartoons. Also some cool Nancy comic fanart, and fanfic recs on the theme of reality TV AUs! — Gav

new stuff

“The Last Airbender Leaked Online. Some Fans Say Paramount Deserves the Fallout” by Miles Klee at WIRED
There was a firestorm this week after the new ATLA movie—which isn’t due out for months—was leaked. This piece lays out what happened, and speaks to one of the leakers.

“Who Cares About the Lore?” by Duncan Fyfe at Remap
“A story is true, or not, to its lore.” A fascinating (very) long read about the concept of lore in the Elder Scrolls: the conflicting stances about its necessity among the creators, and resulting clashes with (unsurprisingly lore-brained) fans.

“Dear Harlequin: Nobody Asked For Your Weird, New AI Video “Microdramas”” by Maris Kreizman at Literary Hub
Romance publisher Harlequin recently announced the launch of an AI-generated video project, using animated “microdramas” as a promotional tool. Is this remotely beneficial to either romance novelists or their readership? Signs point to no.

It’s profoundly ignorant to suggest that the Pope should be fighting crime on behalf of the Catholic Church. Anyone who was remotely familiar with Roman Catholicism would know that that’s what Daredevil is for

— pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” (@pixelatedboat.bsky.social) April 12, 2026 at 10:37 PM

older stuff

“The Mod That Makes The Sims 4 Sexy” by Nicole Carpenter at Aftermath
“Wicked Whims is nearly a decade old, and it’s created a community around the way it opens up The Sims 4 for self expression—and kink.”

tumblr & beyond

Nancy fanart by Chloe Brailsford

Tim Curry responds to the suggestion that he’s an IRL muppet.

Ask Pedro

“the actual main difference between data and spock is...”

some beautiful fanart of the Artemis II mission!

fanfiction

I requested, you delivered: we got more “reality TV” AUs than we could fit in a single list, so here’s a first batch of them, with another to come at a later date. Thanks to everyone who sent in a rec! — Elizabeth

“Down the Isle” by loversinfiniteness. 134K words, rated Teen.
Fandoms: Jane Austen novels; Ships: Emma/Knightly, Elizabeth/Darcy, Anne/Wentworth, Edmund/Mary, Edmund/Fanny, Jane Austen/Tom Lefroy
Recced by: cx
Backstory: Each of the main pairings comes from Jane Austen romance novels, specifically Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park, but with these characters all going on what is very clearly a Love Island esque reality dating show, which is itself being watched by Jane Austen and her best friend and roommate, Tom Lefroy.
Rec: This is incisive, funny, and genuinely just delightful. Translating regency romance into the hyper specific world of reality dating tv is a genius move, as it allows for a modern AU to maintain the focus and priority on who’s talking to whom, and what that might mean that is so crucial to regency propriety. Each couple is perfectly translated into a more modern telling of how their story might work, and their intra-novel friendships are truly heart-warming!
Content warnings: N/A

“The Catch” by TracksDifferent. 138K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS; Ship: Kim Seokjin/Everyone
Recced by: honeyedsea
Backstory: Tired of an empty house and fake friends, Kim Seokjin joins a gay bachelor-style reality TV show in an attempt to find the cure for his loneliness. But once there, he encounters more than a few complications on the road to love. Readers do not need to be familiar with BTS to read this story.
Rec: I really like how this fic exposes the machinations that take place behind the scenes on a reality TV show and how it uses them to further the plot and emotional arcs. I think it also does a good job at keeping the reader guessing on the final ship until the very end, even while making all the ships easy to root for.
Content warnings: Mentions of previous substance use and rehab, mentions of parental death

“Shoulder to Shoulder, Hand to Hand” by cornelius. 58K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Supernatural; Ship: Dean/Castiel
Recced by: theirprofoundbond
Backstory: An AU in which Dean is a professional dancer on a competitive dancing reality TV show, and he’s paired with contestant Castiel, a former fighter pilot.
Rec: When I first encountered this fic, the concept seemed like quite a stretch, and I was skeptical. But this fic was wildly entertaining and just plain fun—like watching a season of competitive reality TV unfold!
Content warnings: Mentions of homophobia

“Expect the Unexpected” by bri_ness. 80K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: SKAM (Norway); Ship: Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen
Recced by: macarmua
Backstory: Isak and Even were the main couple for SKAM Norway season 3. This is an AU that can be read completely fandom blind.
Rec: As someone not into reality TV, this fic was really fun and engaging, had me questioning everyone’s motives and felt very well thought out. If you like this you should also read the author’s Survivor fic!
Content warnings: Canon bipolar disorder

“every rose has its thorn (and its eye on future franchise opportunities)” by angel_deux. 5.6K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Game of Thrones; Ship: Brienne of Tarth/Jaime Lannister
Recced by: buddieboos
Backstory: Jaime is outwardly perpetually single but also extremely eligible, which leads to him being wrangled into joining a dating reality TV show. While all the participants try to steal his attention away from Brienne (who provides moral support behind the scenes As A Friend), Margaery figures out a winning strategy.
Rec: The characterisation here is so good, and the conversations between Jaime and Brienne show so clearly where their heads are while they’re also scared and don’t want to give away too much about their feelings to each other (where they’re even aware of those feelings in the first place).
Content warnings: N/A

“Captain vs. Captain” by deliciousblizzardshark. 65K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Heated Rivalry; Ship: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Recced by: Gav
Backstory: Canon AU where Shane and Ilya get together at a different point in their careers, while participating in an ESPN reality series about their rivalry.
Rec: The framing device here is so fun: plausible enough to work in a canon-adjacent timeline, while giving Shane and Ilya a chance to go on what essentially amounts to a series of on-camera dates.
Content warnings: N/A

I am never forgetting at the first anime con I ever went to in like 2007, there was someone selling a print of Light and L from Death Note naked and dramatically reaching toward each other across a flower and the artist put a big sticky note on it that said "NOT YAOI - SYMBOLISM"

— Atelier Alyssa ⭐💫 (@alyossan.art) April 8, 2026 at 4:44 PM

FINAL THOUGHT

If you’ve tried to submit a rec via our form recently, you may have noticed a few new items at the top of the info section. To summarize: we were notified by Jotform that we were approaching their free monthly limit and would need to pay, which we don’t want to do (we already run this newsletter at a loss paying Buttondown hosting fees every month). This could have been a particularly active month—I put out a big call for recs last week, which I might avoid doing in the future—and with a more normal volume going forward, we can stay on Jotform. Still…we’re looking into alternatives. (We switched from Google years back when our submissions got massively spammed multiple times—like, tens of thousands of spam entries—but maybe they’ve sorted out some of those security issues…)

Please keep sending in recs via the form! But if you’re unable to submit, this is probably why, and in that case, you can send them directly to elizabethandgav at gmail. Please include all our regular components: backstory, rec, content warnings. Which brings me to the second note! Not to put a single (anonymous) person on blast because we’ve received literally hundreds like these over the years, but among our many submissions this month, we had a large batch of entries that were simply titles, links, and copy/pasted summaries from the stories. No rec, no contact info to follow up. Readers of the newsletter know: we need the rec! It’s The REC Center haha. If you’re submitting, please fill out all the fields; the rec doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just why you like the story and think others should read it. But the rec itself is kind of the point! :-D — Elizabeth