Fannish options & enthusiasms | July 2025

[brightknightie]

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

Spotlight: Volume 1 of the fantasy webcomic Aurora by Red of Overly Sarcastic Productions comes out from Andrews McMeel on July 29. New to you? A band of diverse misfits thrown together by circumstances try to save first themselves, then each other, and eventually their magic-ridden world, journeying much like a D&D party, interacting much like a superhero team, with many of the self-sacrifice, power of friendship, and metaphysical/moral themes I love. Already enjoy? Pre-orders can get an exclusive sticker sheet. Check it out.

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • fkficfest, the annual Forever Knight fanfic challenge, finished revealing its stories in June.
  • sunshine_revival, a summertime sibling of snowflake_challenge, is in progress. No commitments, no deadlines, yes friending-meme. Let's engage with each other here on DW!
  • julybreakbingopresents, a month-long bingo-prompt fanwork game, has sign-ups through July 7.
  • fallingforyoufallexchange is a fanwork exchange celebrating falling in love in fall. Nominations through July 21; sign-ups through July 31; due September 15.
  • no_true_pair, a "Mad Libs"-style challenge community, is hosting a "No True Crossover" mini-event through July (with amnesty thereafter).
  • beauty-beast-week is an open celebration of Disney's Beauty and the Beast with posting August 18-24.
  • trope_of_the_month's July theme is an amnesty (create works for any previous theme).
  • pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in exchanges. For example, fandom5k is seeking pinch hitters.
  • whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); July theme: "working together"
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: I've preordered tickets for Superman (2025) and The Fantastic Four (2025), fingers crossed for both (be good be good be good), but I also want to support original and non-genre films. I looked for what to see this holiday weekend and found... nothing? I hadn't known what The Life of Chuck might possibly be until its run ended, only that it had famous people in it, so I unfortunately missed that. I'm not into horror. The reviews of Pixar's latest are poor. Are there no dramas, historicals, comedies? Just the Nth Jurassic Park and Mission Impossible sequels? To be fair, there is a men-race-cars movie. Still. Eeek, Hollywood.