The Countdown To Invisobang 2024 Begins! For Those Of You Who Don't Know, Invisobang Is A Collaborative

The countdown to Invisobang 2024 begins! For those of you who don't know, Invisobang is a collaborative event for authors and artists. Over the course of several months, authors write fanfics and artists create art for those fics!

If you want to connect with other creators in the Phandom, this is the event for you!

How does it work?

Authors begin writing as soon as they sign up. Their goal is to write a fic with 5000 words minimum, although there is no maximum. Halfway through the event, they anonymously submit a profile of their fic.

Using these profiles, artists pick the fics that interest them the most and submit a claim. Mods will pair up authors and artists based on these claims.

During the second half of the event, authors finish their stories while artists make their art.

At the end of the event, participants share their work during posting week to create a big bang of content for everyone to ooh and aah at!

When is it, and how do I sign up?

Invisobang runs from February 14 to September 7. Author and artist sign-ups are staggered, while beta sign-ups are open for the first half of the event. Each role has a Google Form that will be posted when sign-ups open.

Authors: February 14–March 15

Betas: February 14–June 15

Artists: May 16–June 15

Anything else I need to know?

The event is hosted through the Invisobang Discord. Participants must have a Discord account and be willing to join.

Co-authors can sign up in teams.

Artists must be able to make visual art or music, although you can make alternative art if your author is interested.

All content must be made new for the event, which means no continuing posted wips. Sequels and prequels to existing works are allowed, as well as ideas you’ve had sitting on the back burner (as long as they haven’t been posted before)

See the Invisobang info doc for information on rules, frequently asked questions, and the event schedule. If you still have questions after that, send it to the blog, or dm a mod (@kinglazrus, @bibliophilea, @strawberrycamel, and @underforeversgrace).

I think one of the big strengths of fanfiction as a medium is that it can, on average, assume the reader has a way higher degree of familiarity with canon than like…canon can. If you’re in the Star Wars AO3 tag you probably like Star Wars enough to remember more things about it than the average Star Wars-enjoying-ten-year-old. Which makes it way easier for fanwriter a to get to the juicy stuff and really engage with the worldbuilding or minor characters without having to spell out like. Who Wedge Antilles is for everyone who forgot or never noticed him in the first place. You could write a book about Wedge in the old EU because EU readers could also be assumed to be serious fans, but you can’t make a new canon Disney+ show about him. Those cost money to make and are intended for a broader audience.

And all this means that like. A good fic writer can and often will surpass canon when it comes to like. Thematic resonance and stuff, because they can really dig into something. Star Trek 2009 gave Kirk a new, more generic tragic backstory because it couldn’t expect the average moviegoer to be familiar with Kirk’s old, way more interesting tragic backstory. (Frankly, I’m not sure jj abrams knew about TOS Kirk’s backstory) whereas I have read a LOT of well-written, interesting, deeply resonant fanfic examinations of Tarsus IV, and what it means for Kirk’s character that he’s a genocide survivor. Star Trek 2009 answers the question “why did Kirk cheat on the kobayashi maru?” With “‘cause his dad crashed a spaceship when he was a baby.” A close examination of TOS canon implies the answer is “because he lived through a real-life Kobayashi that did have a win option, but which wasn’t taken.” BUT—and this is significant—even the TOS canon movies can’t really assume knowledge of the full TOS tv show, so that implication is never examined or made explicit. Instead it’s fanfic (and maybe spin off novels? Idk I’ve only read 2 trek books, if there’s one out there that covers this that would be really cool) where we get dives into that thread, where Kirk gets a commendation for original thinking because he can look a testing board in the eye and say “I’ve seen what happens when someone is entrenched in this kind of thinking, and I cannot let it happen to me. I understand the lesson, but it’s not hypothetical anymore and it never will be. I did what I had to do.” And that’s interesting! That’s meaningful! That can’t happen in a summer blockbuster. But it can happen in fic, easily, and that’s a strength of fic, I think.

KEEP UP WITH THE WAYNES

Damn, the never-ending tags plis send help

can we talk about how Damian’s culture shock had not been addressed in any significant way ever in canon or fanon?

imagine you are 10 years old, your mother loves you dearly, you are told all your life stories of how important and legendary your father The Batman is, you are to be a strong warrior-assassin-son and you excel in your training, your mother and grandfather are proud of you until they say you have to leave.

you lose everything. your home country, language, religion, relationships. your comfort foods, smells, clothes. everything.

you're given to your father who you have been told you need to prove yourself to, you are being treated as an enemy, you have no allies, no one will explain the unwritten unspoken rules especially not your father who has decided you are a nuisance.

they tell you your past and everyone in it is evil, your home is evil, your mother and grandfather are evil. you cannot have any connection to anything or anyone familiar.

your father dies. they all still hate you. they will not let you go home.

About your last "Death before inaction" update...

I'm sorry but quality took some vacations in the middle of this

AHHHHHH

YES YOU GET IT!!

i love them 🥹

the joy in my heart is unholy. thank you, pencil. 🙏🙏