"I'm sure your many talents are required somewhere."

[nevanna]

1. I found out about the Flashtrance Exchange fairly late in the game, but I still plan on signing up! In case you’d also like to participate, nominations close tomorrow (8/1) and signups close the day after that (8/2).

2. I’ve already written four ficlets (and counting) for the Sapphic Summer event, and prompted several more. Considering whether to request Hypnotists fic prompted me to consider whether any girls, you know, talk to each other in that series. I realize that characters – of any gender – don’t have to canonically talk to each other in order to be shipped, but the fact that I’m pretty sure the answer to my question is “not in any meaningful context” indicates of what kind of audience Gordon Korman was writing for (and is one of the reasons why the screen adaptation that lives in my head would be more of an ensemble piece).

Masterminds, his other series for which I’ve written fic thus far, does contain a strong female friendship as a throughline. I don’t necessarily ship those two, though I understand why someone would.

3. Speaking of gender and the GorKor Cinematic Universe: I was talking with a friend about the (regrettable) trend of Mary Sue bashing from the early to mid-2000s, and I think that it’s safe to say that the main character of The Hypnotists would probably be flagged as a Canon Sue (or Stu) if the book had been published during that time. His eyes change color, he has the Most Special Mind Powers, the FULLY GROWN ADULT VILLAIN who has been studying hypnotism for TWENTY SLUTTY SLUTTY YEARS is obsessed with him throughout the series… you get the idea. (I think that we can all agree now that Sue-bashing, although it did target male characters from time to time, was strongly tied to misogyny. If Jax had been a girl, I think the chances of her being labeled a Sue would have increased exponentially.)

4. This is mostly relevant to my Obscure Fannish Obsession of the Moment in that it was one of the fandoms I requested, but the masterlist of fandomgiftbasket requests is now available. You don’t need to have signed up to create for someone else.

5. While browsing a used bookstore with lb_lee over the weekend, I found two decades-old books about hypnotism, and although I did not end up purchasing them, I did post pictures on Tumblr.