Fannish options & enthusiasms: April 2024

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

Highlight
Our 15^th annual fkficfest is in progress! No sign-ups. Pick from the elected prompts. Post stories by May 25. Get the details.

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • saturdaymorningex is an exchange for cartoons and other animated fandoms. Nominations through April 12; sign-ups through May 3; due June 14.
  • a-different-stroke is a multilingual gift exchange, matching on non-English language and fandom. Sign-ups through April 11; matches April 18; due May 30.
  • latetreatbonanza is an event to motivate finishing old gifts. Sign-ups through and due on June 23.
  • bitesizedfandomsex is an exchange for fandoms whose canons can be experienced in ≤8 hours. Signups through April 8; assignments April 12; due May 25.
  • domaystic is a prompt challenge for the "domestic" trope. Runs May 1-31.
  • whatif_au's April challenge is an AU bingo.
  • trope_of_the_month's April theme is "bonding over trauma."
  • allbingo's April theme is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (not necessarily the IP!).
  • pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in fannish exchanges. Pick up a pinch-hit to help out an event!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); April theme: "competence"
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)

Some April Fools Day fun that I enjoyed

• NYT Connections: The New York Times "Connections" word game replaced its usual words with emojis for April Fools Day. I found the gentle switcheroo completely unexpected and cheerfully delightful. Nice one, NYT Puzzles team!
• Pokémon GO: This mobile game (website) has a history of mild April Fools Day pranks, my favorite of which is still the year they switched all the current Pokédex sprites for vintage Gameboy Color sprites. This year, they rigged the game so that all Nice and Great throws registered as Excellent throws, and they put the rare, notorious, five-in-a-row Spinda research task into most Pokéstops. Generous! But then there was the spice: They gave a timed research task for twenty-five such excellent throws in a row. I could not do it, and felt perfectly well pranked for even trying. Twenty-five in a row...
• ScreenCrush: This YouTube channel made the prank video, "Why MADAME WEB Is the BEST MARVEL Movie of All Time and Saved the MCU!" They got me to laugh pretty hard. Some of it is in-jokes for their own channel; some is parody of this genre of YouTube videos in general; and of course most is mocking the relentless product placement, studio notes, Sony-is-not-MCU, and general poor craftsmanship of this sad movie.

Note: My monthly FK recap ("Recently:FK") is now general fannishness ("Recently:Enthusiasms").