lallis_folly | Reading

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.

brightknightie

sunshine_revival '25 Challenge #1: "Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025."

My fannish goals for the rest of this summer include:

Participate in everywoman, the fanfic exchange starring women characters, when it comes along. I will definitely offer D&DC, TLOZ, and BSG78; others' requests will influence what else I may list.

Build a pattern of recommending something once per week on recommendation communities, and then including a wrap-up of my recs here in my own journal in my monthly "Enthusiasms" post. (Or give it its own monthly post?) Probably usually in recthething, but it could be any suitable recs community. (Is it appropriate to cross-post recs to multiple recs communities? Maybe at staggered intervals?)

Finish writing and post an odd TLOZ piece I'm thinking of as: "Three Gerudo Ficlets in the Past of Tears of the Kingdom, Before Age of Imprisonment Totally Josses Them." ( Read more... )

At the end of the year, of course I plan to participate in

hlh_shortcuts, the annual Highlander fanfic exchange.

Catching up on TV whenever, I plan to watch Andor (season two) and Ironheart (season one). I wish that they released one episode per week, not tranches of episodes! I find one-episode-per-week so inviting, and these tranches so overwhelming, that I end up putting off watching these, while I am of course wholly caught up on the current season of Grantchester. Back-watching TV, I will continue my one-episode-per-week first-time viewing of Babylon 5. (Again, if you mentally classify the special effects as meant for stage instead of screen, this show does much more than merely "hold up;" I feel that it beats the heck out of most of what we have today. Storytelling, acting, episodicness and continuity...)

I already have my pre-sale tickets for Superman (2025) and The Fantastic Four (2025), of course. (Please let me say again that folks should consider watching Thunderbolts*; it's rich and satisfying in multiple layers. I'm disheartened that so many people skipped it. It's well-made and deserves better.)

How about you...?

brightknightie

I wanted to share that Nintendo is having what I gather is a very rare sale on its online store, with many first- and third-party games discounted through July 9.

With the 30% discount on it, I went ahead and bought The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, which otherwise I would have waited on until I was ready to play it on my Switch 2. (There is no discount on either of the Wilds games, or the BotW DLCs, or of course I would have snapped them up.) I also thought about buying Stray Gods (the role-playing musical), which I've heard such amazing things about, but there are only so many hours in a day outside work, so I'm still thinking.

The last time I personally owned a console (purchased second-hand from Goodwill), my games were on cartridges (a brown bag full of them, also from Goodwill). I do understand that getting games in the Cloud is as risky as getting books or songs or movies or TV in the Cloud, that TPTB could revoke them at any time, and I'm hesitant about it, but a friend in the games industry and his wife told me that this is the way to go now for back-ups and future compatibility and the Switch 2's new sharing system. (I'm still considering getting the Wilds games on physical media, but...) So you will perhaps understand my surprise when I made my Link's Awakening purchase and realized that there was no sales tax* on it, because it is a "service" and a "license," and therefore not taxed the same way that a physical copy on a cartridge would be. I should have observed this many years ago with apps on my phone, shows on streaming, books on Kindle, and goodness knows what all, but I had gone on buying most things in physical form, and it had just never clicked, probably because all those things individually cost so little each, while a single game is expensive enough to notice (and Nintendo's check-out screen is unusually clear).

* Sales tax is set at the state and local level in the US. Your locality may differ.

brightknightie

I'm still enjoying my way through The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom! I know that some folks don't relish that its combat is mostly ranged, with mage Zelda instead of fighter Link, but I'm finding it entirely natural. They fixed the menu inconvenience with the Switch 2 upgrade; you can favorite/star echoes now, and there are more sorting pre-sets. And I've found several side scenarios that I was not at all spoiled on.

Mild spoilers for a 17-30-hour game that's been out for 9 months...

Having started with Gerudo Desert and explored it thoroughly while saving its people from the rifts and monsters, I then went to Jabul Waters and did the same. I'm afraid that I found the Zora region a little less interesting, challenging, and satisfying than the Gerudo region, which left me wondering whether I should have done them in the opposite order. The story, side quests, and follow-ups with the Zora just weren't as engaging for me, personally, as those with the Gerudo, which had more personality and pathos. For example, at this point in my gameplay, everyone in the Zora region, including in the Hylian village, is completely content as well as wrapped up, with the possible exception of the one Sea Zora who is secretly either crushing on or fangirling her chief, Kushara. Over in the Gerudo region, though, there's still one woman actively suffering from having been in a rift, and many characters expressing new hopes, dreams, fears, and projects after I fulfilled their side quests... and of course I'm still working on the Mango Rush mini-game (I know it rewards a new outfit with a stats effect). Do I smell different writers for each region? That's pretty customary, right?

After both of those, and as much side-exploration as I could manage to sweep up all the NPC situations and open up the map , of course I cleared Hyrule Castle and moved the story forward. I then did as much more free-exploring and side-questing as I could without triggering the next main story phases, and finally climbed Eldin Volcano, where I am now.

( Some loose fanfic inspirations from the game )

brightknightie

Trivia, for the record, as I'd wondered about it here before:

As you may know, Tri is the companion character in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: a floating ball of primordial golden energy, a bit bigger than a softball, with some immobile black markings that suggest a face (but may actually be characters in a language, or just stripes, spots, whatever Tri's kind has), and a tail (or ponytail) of triangles that measure out Tri's magic. While the in-dialogue evidence for Tri's gender and/or sex, if any, is scant and conflicting, one of the quest log screens uses "they/their" for Tri (Tri uses "I/my" when speaking). That's canon enough to make a call on which pronouns to use for the character, until/unless other evidence comes.

(Translation is often a lingering and fascinating issue in Zelda games. It's the whole focus of

QuestWithAaron.)

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30

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Fannish options & enthusiasms | July 2025

Sunshine Revival '25 #1

Nintendo online shop game sale through July 9

Over halfway through TLOZ:EOW

Found the canon on Tri's gender in TLOZ:EoW

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