Fannish options & enthusiasms | February 2025

[brightknightie]

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

Spotlight: PBS Masterpiece
All Creatures Great and Small and Vienna Blood both rolled pleasantly through new seasons on Sunday nights on broadcast PBS (or streaming anytime on PBS Passport).

In this so-bleak January, I was extra happy to welcome back these very different historical dramas, one so cozy, wholesome, and gorgeous in c. WWII Yorkshire, the other so sharp, imperiled, and noir in pre-WWI Vienna. (I read the "James Harriot" books decades ago -- still own the first; gift from my grandma -- but I'd never heard of the "Max Liebermann" novels by Frank Tallis before their adaptation.)

Miss Scarlet and the Duke is back, too. My best friend loves it! (I enjoyed the first season, but stopped watching by the third.)

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • trope_of_the_month is asking whether folks still want monthly themes there. If you do, let the mod know!
  • halfamoon, the annual two-week fanwork fest celebrating female characters, is underway.
  • kindreadspirits is a community for fans of m/m subtext in Victorian and Edwardian horror fiction, with an emphasis on identifying/recommending eligible vintage works.
  • valentines_day is a holiday-themed gifting comm a la Fandom Trees, etc. Sign up through 2/12; gift through 3/02.
  • femgiftboxes is a female-characters gifting comm a la Fandom Trees, etc. Sign up through 2/08; gift through 4/29.
  • tv_talk recently completed a recommendations-by-genre fest. Post-fest additions are welcome.
  • marvel_drabbles is running an exchange for traditional 100-words drabbles for MCU Phases 1-3. Nominate through 2/10; sign up through 2/21; due 3/31.
  • fic_promptly is a comment-fic (prompt meme) community, re-launching after a hiatus.
  • babylon5_100 and babylon5events are both active for Babylon 5 fans.
  • pinchhitbingo is an annual year-long challenge for filling pinch hints for other events.
  • genprompt_bingo is in Round 27 of its long-running challenges, where all the prompts are gen, while fills may be anything.
  • trope_of_the_month's February theme is [not yet posted].
  • allbingo's February theme is "Valentines Fest."
  • pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in fannish exchanges. For example, fffx is currently seeking pinch hitters.
  • whenisitdue lists every event that I note here -- and many, many more -- in handy table format, with reminders.
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); February theme: "ambiguous relationships"
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: Ranking TLOZ
Ranking and re-ranking the games seems to be a fundamental custom of The Legend of Zelda players. Importantly, while everyone seems to have a "Best" ranking, most also have subsidiary rankings for every characteristic: story, music, visuals, items, puzzles, combat, dungeons, companions, etc., and folks seems encouraged to re-rank often, not only with each new game released.

So: Of the 21 mainline games, ranking solely for each story's literary merit -- and nothing else -- at this particular moment in time, in my opinion, the Top 5 are:

1. Majora's Mask
2. Link's Awakening
3. Tears of the Kingdom
4. Breath of the Wild
5. The Wind Waker

(The story I personally enjoy most at this time is Twilight Princess. Wholly different criteria!)