Fannish options & enthusiasms | March 2026

[brightknightie]

Here are some recent fannish things I've happened to see and would like to share!

Spotlight: As a gift, I received a "Collectible Crime Classics" copy of The Benson Murder Case (1926) by S.S. Van Dine. I'd never heard of the author and barely of his detective, Philo Vance, though they'd apparently been tremendously popular and influential in their day (12 novels, dozens of radio serials and movies). So I settled in to enjoy the first in this "classic" series... and soon discovered why I was not familiar and why no one is remaking these today.

The elevator pitch might well have been: "What if Lord Peter Wimsey, but American, and a jerk who despises his fellow humans?" The fawning first-person Watson of the piece -- who has no life and no personality outside his devotion to the detective, Vance, to the point where he doesn't even appear in the movie versions -- spends an entire chapter describing Vance right down to the dimensions of his skull before starting the actual story. Consider this notation of the detective's skull measurements foreshadowing. While the author and his Vance are both exceedingly clever with the tools of their time, and this is indeed a truly exceptional locked-room mystery... the author and the detective are both eugenicist believers in ethnic/racial differentiation and destiny, and, further, believers that one's glands/hormones control one's personality and choices, and that these are inherited and there is no true free will except for superior men like them. The detective basically unwinds the entire plot with a glance at the crime scene plus glances at the external physical characteristics of the suspects, though he keeps this to himself and slowly walks through plebeian clues like weapons and timing for the benefit of the police and District Attorney and us, the audience, who lack his genius at knowing people's insides from their outsides.

I wouldn't normally have peeked into Wikipedia about the author or the book before finishing a whodunnit. But. Just a few chapters in, I had to check. Was I seeing what I thought I was seeing? Yep. The author, real name Willard Huntington Wright, was a frustrated fine-art critic who considered himself unfairly unappreciated. He despised popular culture. He took up writing mysteries when he was out of work and in dire poverty after an illness. Despite his fantastic fiction-writing success, he hated mysteries and he hated his fans and he supported -- you see this coming, right? you caught the date? -- the rise of the Nazis. He died before he got to see where his beliefs led.

The Vance mysteries went out of fashion with WWII and never revived. I finished the one I'd been given. I doubt I'll read any others, unless one is specifically relevant to something else I'm interested in, perhaps something a later author reacted against. As cited in Wikipedia, Ogden Nash wrote "Philo Vance / Needs a kick in the pance" and Raymond Chandler referred to Vance as "the most asinine character in detective fiction." Also, "William Powell did not enjoy playing Philo Vance, finding the role devoid of the complexity of a truly human character."

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • marchmetamatterschallenge is in progress. Locate, preserve, and create fannish meta (essays, timelines, concordances, maps, etc.).
  • bethefirst, the annual challenge to write the first story in a fandom, is open for both sign-ups and submissions through 4/20.
  • worldbuildex, an exchange focused on worldbuilding, has nominations through 3/08, sign-ups through 3/21, due 5/16.
  • rehome-your-fic ("Shelter for Abandoned Fics") is a project to "re-home" abandoned WIPs from an author who will never finish them to one who will. You can surrender a fic or foster a surrendered fic.
  • 40daysofdrabbles is posting daily winter/spring-themed prompts through Easter.
  • retrowrimay is a month-long challenge to write tropes, tags, and formats that have fallen out of style.
  • unsent_letters_exchange, the epistolary exchange (need not literally be letters, much less unsent), has sign-ups through 3/07, due 4/25.
  • domaystic is the annual May-long promptfest for domestic stories.
  • fkficfest, the annual Forever Knight event, is on for '26, with a summer due date to be announced.
  • pokepodproject, the event to create a fic+podfic for every pokémon, is holding an "Unown" mini round. Sign-ups close 3/08; stories due 3/17.
  • allbingo's March theme is "crafting."
  • trope_of_the_month's March theme is "mirror universe."
  • pinchhits is a community for posting needed fills for exchanges. For example, traumaticexperiences and au5k are currently seeking pinch hitters.
  • whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); March theme: "siblings"
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: Nintendo is suing the US government for full tariff refunds plus interest. The Switch 2 console premiered last year; shipping and stocking worldwide were affected as Nintendo raced to get units into the US for launch day before the tariffs took effect (not to mention Nintendo's profits being affected all along). As reported in TechCrunch, IGN, Polygon, etc.