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brightknightie) wrote2024-03-02 09:27 am
Fannish options & enthusiasms: March 2024
Here are some recent fannish things I've happened to see and would like to share:
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fkficfest is on for 2024! It's choosing its challenge-style prompt pool via single-eliminations brackets, with sequential polls. No sign-ups. Nominate prompts by March 7. Post stories by May 25. Get the details.
Ficathons, fests & communities
- Create & engage
- lozworld is a new, all-purpose (discussion + fic) The Legend of Zelda community.
- insert_title_here is a new challenge game for writing a story of any length, type, and fandom for 1 of 3 titles (submitted by other players) sent by the mod. Sign-ups close March 3 (7am Pacific).
- unsent_letters_exchange is an epistolary fic exchange. Sign-ups through March 9. Stories due April 27.
- bethefirst is an annual challenge to write for a fandom with zero fanfic in the usual places. Stories due April 20.
- resurrectfeeling is hosting a Babylon 5 promptfest through May 31. Get the details.
- marchmetamatterschallenge encourages preserving old and creating new fandom meta (essays, timelines, FAQs, etc.).
- story_works is running a "Year of the Dragon" challenge through March 31.
- whatif_au's March challenge is "immortal AU."
- trope_of_the_month's March theme is "pregnancy & parenthood."
- allbingo's March theme is "crafting."
- pinchhits is a forum for recruiting pinch-hits in fannish exchanges.
- Enjoy & share
- fancake is a themed fanfic recs comm. March theme: "no canon required."
- recthething is a general fanwork recs comm with open reccing.
- fanart_recs is a general fanart recs comm with signed-up and open recs.
- het_reccers is a m/f fanfic recs comm with open reccing.
- gensplosion is a gen fanfic recs comm with open reccing.
Some shows I missed the first time around (and am watching now)
- Babylon 5 (1993-1998)
Where I lived at the time, B5 aired opposite DS9. Having grown up on Trek, of course I chose DS9. Over the years, many people have told me that B5 had extraordinary storytelling (and continuity before continuity was cool). Last fall, a friend loaned me some DVDs. I'm about halfway through season one.
While the sets and (especially) the special effects are now almost painfully dated -- excessively more than DS9's, frankly -- I don't have any trouble suspending disbelief as for a stage production. I'm finding the themes really, startlingly relevant to today's questions and conflicts. (A subplot in the premiere hit like the proverbial ton of bricks when I watched it shortly after October 7.) The writing and acting are usually quite good. I'm told that it only gets better as it continues. I'll keep watching -- likely slowly, unless my friend requests the DVDs back soon -- with high hopes.
- Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002)
I don't remember having much awareness of E:FC while it was on the air, beyond that Lisa Howard (HL's Anne) and Lisa Ryder (FK's Tracy) had roles in it. It slipped past me almost entirely unnoticed as, I imagined, probably some sort of inferior proto-Trek. Malinaldarose suggested it in '20; I watched the premiere while sick; I've since been watching the series on and off whenever it's been available for streaming on YouTube Premium (I love YouTube Premium; no commercials on YouTube (!!!) + ample B-tier older shows and movies).
I came to really enjoy E:FC's first season, engaging with the human characters -- especially the lead; I do love hard-pressed, conflicted, good guys with tragic losses -- and the slow uncovering of the mysterious hidden agenda of the Taelons, but then...! The first season crashed into the second and exploded. This is the most extreme retooling of a series I have ever seen that I can recall. Any genre, any medium, anything. They didn't just suddenly kill off and replace the lead with a very different character in an exceedingly improbable way, they changed the whole tone, mood, and direction (and maybe premise). I'm now somewhere in the second season, slowly pressing on, but... I must admit that the show may not be for me anymore, unless a new or restored element emerges.
- Daredevil (2015-2018)
I've never had Netflix. And I rarely watch R-rated or "mature" media (the last R-rated movie I saw was Logan (2017)). Hesitant about the "mature" content, I started watching Daredevil, now on Disney+, only after Echo ended, and am now one episode from the end of the first season.
Through fannish osmosis, I knew of some of the especially violent scenes, and have been firmly closing my eyes on much of the explicit violence. My ears convey plenty! I don't like having the camera on the violence.
I do like pretty much everything else. The writing and acting are both usually top-notch. The stakes, micro and macro, are excellently rendered and maintained. The friendships, loneliness, learning to trust and depend, routing emotions, consequences, hopes... it's all excellent. Matt's self-scrutinies are right up my alley. (They do need more actual clients, though -- at least mentioned, if not shown. Gotta pay the rent somehow.)
Note: I converted my monthly FK recap ("Recently:FK") into general fannish engagement ("Recently:Enthusiasms").
no subject
Earth Final Conflict was one I was aware of, and have some fannish osmosis of, but never was into.
And I have not been willing to pay the Mouse, so my experience with the shows are mostly by gif and synopses. DD was never a property I was engrossed by, so I haven't put much effort into finding the synopses.
(ECHO! That one, I did put effort into finding the recaps and meta. Because I was so overjoyed by them hiring an actress that fit the character.)
Echo
I knew going into the series that Alaqua Cox is deaf, like the character. I didn't know until after the series that Cox also uses a leg/foot prosthesis! I imagined that was special effects.
For the first several episodes, I was very enthusiastic and intrigued by the Echo series, which seemed very much to be doing something new and going somewhere interesting. But it rather collapsed for me in the final two episodes, falling back into a reflection of a reflection of the same old thing. I heard that their budget got slashed at the last minute during filming, so I imagine there was some very severe rewriting in very little time.