Fannish options & enthusiasms | August 2025

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

Spotlight: I feel that both Superman (2025) and Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) are good movies and strongly recommend them to general audiences looking for a pleasant time at the cinema this summer. I have literary and fannish critiques of the execution of each (of course I do), yet I feel bad about critiquing at all. I so want them both to succeed! And I so wanted them both to be not just good, or very good, but indeed knock-my-socks-off great, and I don't love how the release proximity invites ranking... but that would have been present, anyway, as each has just about the same "job" not just as an IP entry but in its writers' and director's choices. ( Very light spoilers )

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • fan_writers is a community for discussion, reflection, and tools for writers, with emphasis on writing fanfic but not excluding writing original fic (or non-fic).
  • dreams_mayhem is a competitive creative challenge with weekly games for points.
  • seasons_of_fandom is the landcomm formerly known as lands_of_magic, relaunched to reflect that they are panfandom, not fantasy-exclusive.
  • ficinabox is a somewhat complex exchange, with a 10K+ words minimum that may or may not be spread, via swaps, across multiple works and/or multiple fandoms and recipients. Nominations through August 12; sign-ups through August 31; due October 19.
  • fffc is a low-pressure challenge community for creating something small-ish each week (like a drabble or haiku or equivalent in another medium). Prompts post on Fridays.
  • fic_promptly is a comment-fic community.
  • trope_of_the_month's August theme is "omegaverse."
  • pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in exchanges. For example, caseficexchange is seeking pinch hitters.
  • whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); August theme: "marriage of convenience"
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: Did you know that Marvel Comics released a "prequel" comic (single issue) to the Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) movie? The first print run sold out; I'm waiting for a copy from the second. It's not just any old prelude to the events of the movie, but covers the same ground as some of the cut footage. Specifically, it sets up ( mild spoiler )