Nevanna's Forest of Stories

I wrote about my introduction to TMA and my first attempt at fic. <3

As I promised/threatened, you can see my fandomgiftbasket requests here. (It should be noted that I have no inherent problem with the things on my DNW list; I'm just not interested in reading about them for this event.)

I signed up for iddyiddybangbang! Participants are invited to list more than one idea in their sign-up posts, so mine references this potential Stranger Things fic and a couple of other possibilities.

I wrote a tiny ficlet for the sapphicsunshower prompt exchange and offered some prompts of my own, which you can see here. This seems like a super fun and low-pressure event, and I encourage others to join in! Prompts are open to be filled through September 30; I hope to write a lot more of them, and will post a roundup when the event wraps.

Here are five of the fannish things that I’m looking forward to right now.

1. Signups for iddyiddybangbang start tomorrow!

2. Gift posting for fandomgiftbasket is currently open and will continue through mid-September. I will link to my "basket" of fanwork requests as soon as it goes live, but you should check out the ones that are available, in case you want to create something for another fan. Also, in case you want other fans to write something for you, signups will remain open until this Sunday, July 14.

3. I am looking forward to resuming work on the Hypnotists/Magnus Archives AU that I started during NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago.

4. I’m looking forward to starting the third season of Young Justice with a fandom friend, even though I have some objections to the choices that the creators made during that season once they were no longer bound by network regulations.

5. This isn’t connected to transformative fandom, but my sisters and I share a love for Hackers, the movie about what we all thought computer technology would be like in the 1990s, and at least one of them will be coming into town to see it with me on the big screen in September. HACK THE PLANET!

I'm starting a new feature as a way of motivating myself to post more here! My first "Tuesday Top Five" is a shoutout to the social activity that has brought me joy on multiple levels almost every week for the past thirteen years. Here are my favorite shows that I discovered at my local Cartoon Night, in chronological order of when we watched them.

1. Gargoyles: Mythological creatures fight evil on the streets of New York. This was a classic that I somehow missed when it first aired, despite my age and interests aligning perfectly with what it had to offer.

2. Young Justice: The Justice League's sidekicks form their own team in of my favorite teen superhero shows, and one of my favorite superhero ensemble shows, of all time.

3. Avatar: The Last Airbender: A quest fantasy in which kids with elemental powers try to stop a war. Here's another classic that I somehow didn't see until well after it ended. (I haven't seen the live action version; I'm sure it's fine, but I'm not convinced that it was necessary.)

4. Gravity Falls: Siblings spend a summer in a small town where Spooky Stuff happens. I've become more critical of some of the humor on this show since my first viewing (of many), but it still means a whole lot to me, has generated my second highest number of fanworks on AO3, kept me and my friend company through the night of the 2016 election, and led to some incredible fandom friendships. I call it "Gravity Feels" for a reason.

5. The Owl House: Portal fantasy in which a misfit teenage girl attends a magical school that both mocks and pays homage to magical school tropes. I've only watched this one through once, but I feel like I could revisit it again and again, and get something new out of it each time.

(I feel slightly self-conscious about the realization that three out of the five are Disney projects, but most of our shows were produced by soulless corporations. That's a problem with capitalism, not with quality of the works themselves.)

This week, I wrote about my teenage obsession with Francesca Lia Block.

I signed up to write a fic for Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, which has a brilliant and fascinating premise: a boarding school for young people who have returned to Earth from adventures in alternate magical worlds and have to re-acclimate to a reality where they don’t quite fit in. The individual stories don’t always quite work for me in their execution, but the setup and a lot of the characters are compelling enough that I’ve read every book so far, some of them more than once. Of the (relatively few) fics on AO3, at least a third are crossovers, which makes a lot of sense when one considers that the series is in conversation with a pre-existing and beloved subgenre.

The smallfandomfest prompt that I chose was at least somewhat based on the seventh book, Where The Drowned Girls Go, whose setting and hook (“what if portal fantasy heroes ended up instead at a school that wanted to brainwash them and crush their dreams?”) I am predisposed to love. Actually, lb_lee, the Whitethorn Institute has a fair amount in common with the House of Resilient Children, from what I recall about that project as you explained it to me. (Now that we’re watching Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, I can safely say that it also has a lot in common with St. Olga’s.)

fancake is asking for "Trauma and Recovery" fanwork recommendations for the month of June. If you're a fellow hurt/comfort fan (as I know some of you are), go forth and promote your fave stories, fanart, vids, and anything else that has hit you in the feelings!

Jukebox June is a multifandom prompt exchange based on song lyrics.

Signups for iddyiddybangbang start on July 10. Their FAQ describes "idfic" as follows:

Fic that tickles your id! Maybe it's the fic you make up before you fall asleep. Generally speaking, idfic is that sweet spot where the answer to the question "Is this too filthy/sappy/unbelievable/just plain wrong?" is a resounding "No!”

We are not defining what content qualifies as idfic. Your story doesn't have to be porny, though it may be.

I've never participated in this event before, though I've read others' creations. Currently, although my id has made itself known in several of my current and recent fandoms, my first thought was, of course, "Could I write something for The Hypnotists?" Not only could I, I know exactly what I would write. More on that in another post, probably.

smallfandomfest is now inviting creators to claim prompts! This post outlines the rules, and also contains a link to the list of prompts (along with instructions for how to filter the spreadsheet).

I submitted prompts for all of the fandoms that I mentioned in this post, including two for XME, but the list includes a lot of other media that I know that some of you have heard of, even if I am less familiar with them. Check it out!

smallfandomfest is taking prompts through next Tuesday, the 21st! This isn't exactly what I was looking for when I asked y'all to recommend commentfic exchanges to me a couple of weeks ago, but it's close!

Here are the rules for the event, as well as their qualifications for, and complete list of, eligible fandoms. I requested a number of additions to that list, including The Hypnotists (of course), Masterminds (one of Gordon Korman's other series, which also gives us mind control and manipulative authority figures), Revolutionary Girl Utena, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Slugterra, and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. Maybe your obscure fannish interest is included, too!

(When considering a fandom's eligibility, this event - like some others that I've seen - only considers the number of works on AO3. I don't really have a problem with that, but there are some fandoms, such as X-Men: Evolution, whose Fanfiction.net numbers would tell an entirely different story.)

I shared an excerpt from a (paper) journal entry that I wrote after playing River Tam in a multifandom crossover LARP in 2008, as well as some of my feelings about both Firefly and LARPing over the years.