Fanhand

My Little Pony Major Aracana Tarot Cards by SouthParkTaoist

0 The Fool – Derpy Hooves

While most believe I chose Derpy as the Fool for the association of being foolish or silly, in traditional tarot symbolism the Fool represents the first step or start of a journey. As the current MLP fandom started with Derpy’s image on 4chan, I see no better representation for start of both this fandom and this tarot deck than our friend Derpy Hooves.

1 The Magician – Trixie

In traditional symbolism this card represents energy, creativity, and self-confidence, trying to gain control of the elements that make up this world. This is the first numbered card and coincidentally was the first card drawn. Trixie’s self-confidence and potential is represented in this card.

2 The High Priestess – Twilight Sparkle

This card represents an understanding that comes through personal experience, the main theme of the show and represents Twilight’s growth throughout the series.

3 The Empress – Princess Celestia

The Empress card in traditional tarot portrays a motherly figure which represents fertility, birth, and nurturing. Princess Celestia, acts as the mentor and mother to the characters of the show as well as uniting the three pony races together (Earth Pony, Pegasus, and Unicorn). As this is the third card, it represents the three pony races united under Celestia and the previous 3 Generations of My Little Pony that gave birth to the current incarnation of the franchise.  

4 The Emperor – Lauren Faust

The Emperor card represents creating order and stability. Coincidentally the number four represents foundations and building as well, think of the four Classical Elements, four DNA bases, four directions, and four corners of the house that forms the base. Lauren Faust, who took the MLP franchise from chaos and ruin, rebuilt and gave a new structure to the show. This adds to the numerology if one notes that Faust’s reboot is known as Generation 4.

5 The Hierophant – Cheerilee

This card in traditional tarot represents knowledge, and typically portrays a teacher or figure of authority and education. Cheerilee in the show is the school teacher to all the little ponies.

6 The Lovers – Princess Cadence and Shining Armor

The Lovers represents joining and coming together. Also the decisions that come with such unions. Princess Cadence and Shining Armor represent this card.

7 The Chariot – Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Applebloom

This card represent seeking adventure or triumph of will in difficult circumstance. The three younger fillies of the show all are currently trying to find their purpose and Cutie Mark.

8 The Justice – Applejack

The Justice card represents responsibility, rational thought, clear vision, and consequence of actions at hand. Applejack represents the element of Honesty in the show and out of all the characters is most focused with her work and profession, providing for her family, and thinking in a rational manner. However sometimes hard work and logical thought doesn’t always led to the expected outcome as Applejack found out in Last Round Up.

9 The Hermit – Zecora

This card represents isolating oneself to be free from distractions and determination to find own truth. Zecora in the show lives in isolation away from Ponyville in the mysterious Everfree forest. Despite isolation from society, she is wiser and has more worldly experience than most other ponies.

10 Wheel of Fortune – Doctor Hooves

This card represents random change at hand. Doctor Hooves is a fan name character who was named for his similar appearance to the 10th Doctor from Doctor Who. Thus the 10th Doctor for card 10. The TARDIS in Doctor Who takes the Doctor to random times and places, always offering adventure. Coincidentally the Doctor is the title of ancient Taoist shamans and are represented by the Chinese character for ten, thus perfect for the 10th card of this deck.  

11 The Strength/Lust – Rainbow Dash

The Strength card, also called the Lust in certain decks, discipline, control the situation, and elevating one higher, as well as the pride and ego that comes with these traits. Rainbow Dash is one of the best flyers in the show and worked hard to get to that point, show knows she is the best however this occasionally leads to her boastful nature. Yet when she needs to gain control of the situation she can fly higher and faster than any other pegasus.

12 The Hanged Man – Pinkie Pie

While the Hanged Man might bring negative images to mind, in traditional tarot symbolism this card represents letting go, willingly surrendering, inner harmony, and a new point of view. All represents the carefree, happy, forth wall breaking Pinkie Pie, who does not worry about the expected or norm and just enjoys her own life doing what she wants; even if this may break the laws of gravity a few times.

13 The Death – Queen

The title of this card is grim but it simple means the transformation needed to created change, for the better or worst. The changeling leader, Queen Chrysalis, is the perfect representation of change and transformation. Her transforming ability could have brought negative change, Equestria being control by changelings, however it brought positive change, the renewal of love and marriage of Princess Cadence and Shining Armor. Originally Nightmare Moon was planned for this card, again another character who represents change.

14 Temperance/Art – Rarity

The Temperance card is also called the Art card, it represents artistic talent, creativity, professionalism, and passion for one’s work and career. The talented Rarity represents this card, not only does is she a successful dress maker, she is good and loves what she creates.

15 The Devil – Discord

The Devil represents probability and random occurrence. Choice and action, chaos, and certain actions that may not have an equal outcome. This discord associated with this card is perfectly represented by the god of chaos Discord. The Devil card, like Discord, is not necessarily evil, but is random and with random probability one will never know if the outcome is good or bad.

16 The Tower – Everfree Castle

The lighting struck tower is considered the most negative card in the tarot deck. It represents an unexpected event which ushers sudden change. In our current world, the struck tower even has more negative connotations. However change can be for the better or worst. The scary tower in the Everfree Castle was the home of Nightmare Moon and was a place of clear danger to the Mane Six however this is where they realized the magic of friendship and allowed for the rebirth of the Elements of Harmony.

17 The Star – Princess Twilight Sparkle

The single small star surrounded by an endless black sky represents the small glimmer of hope in the darkest of times. This card represents guidance as much as hope. The newly crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle will represent the guidance and hope for a new era of the MLP show and franchise. In the new Season 4 premier she helped guide Equestria when Princess Celestia and Luna went missing.

18 The Moon – Princess Luna

Stumbling around in darkness the Moon card represents confusion, lack of clarity, trapped, flux, and lost. Princess Luna, who raises the Moon, was lost for 1000 years when she was trapped in the form of Nightmare Moon. Even as she returned to her normal form she still is trying to understand this current world and her place in this new Equestria.

19 The Sun – Princess Celestia

The Sun card represents clarity that joy brings. Princess Celestia, who raises the Sun, gives guidance and clarity to Twilight and the other ponies whenever they are confused. Happiness, friendship, and joy are the lessons she teaches.

20 Judgement – Fluttershy

Winter Wrap Up! Time to wake up all the little hibernating animals. This card represents hearing a call and awakening. The gentle Fluttershy, the caretaker of animals, is the one who helps wake up the animals during Winter Wrap Up from their long hibernation.

21 The World – Spike

The Game of Thrones fanart book, “A Collab of Ice and Fire”, is available for preorder! Storenvy or Etsy. It’s only $5 for over 100 original drawings!

This fan collaboration project is the result of hard work from many artists around the world, who have come together to celebrate their love and admiration for George RR Martin’s colourful and vast characters of Westeros.

THE SHERLOCK INTERNATIONAL PROJECT

What is The Sherlock International Project?

The Sherlock International Project is a project aimed to bring the fandom together by getting everyone involved in games, competitions and events.

What is the main plan of this project?

The original idea was to organize one big huge fandom meet-up in every country on the same day. I then decided it would be better to also use this theme to host games and competitions to keep us all entertained until season 4 airs (whenever that may be)

When will the main event be?

The international meet-up will be held in August 2015

Why August 2015?

August seemed like the best month to organize the event, as a large part of this fandom is still in school/college and in August they will be on summer break. It is also near the end of break, which gives them all a great happy day before a new school year.

It will be held in 2015 and not 2014, for several reasons:

more time to let more people know about the event

more time for people to get any money they may need for travel/ to their event

if anyone wishes to cosplay, they will have time to buy/make their costumes if necessary 

it will also give me enough time to organize all of the information I will need to send out

Where will these events be?

Each country will have at least 1 meet-up (larger countries such as Russia and America will have several, as traveling will be harder) The locations will be determined by votes. The city with the most votes will be the city that hosts the meet-up

How do we vote for the location?

In a few days, I will post an e-mail address, to which you can send the name of your country and the city you wish the event to be held in. I will organize these into folders, and the most popular wins. Unfortunately, I will not be organising any events for countries that have less than 10 e-mails, as I can not guarantee all of these people will attend, and I may just be wasting my time doing so.

How long will we have to send in the e-mails?

You will have until December 2014 to send in your votes and in January, I will announce the winning locations and the official date and times for the meet-ups

When will the games and competitions start?

The first games should hopefully be organised in a couple of weeks

Please help spread the word about the project by reblogging this post and telling your friends and followers

[Description: Screen captures illustrating the following steps for using the Archive of Our Own’s Tumblr share feature.]

Hey, did you know there’s an easy way to share AO3 works and bookmarks on Tumblr?

Copying and pasting the URL into a link post is easy, sure, but AO3 has a built-in way to share not just the link, but all of the important work information (e.g. the rating and the relationships), and it only takes a few clicks.

Locate and select the Share link on the work you want to share. It’s at the top of the work, with the Bookmark, Download, and other links.

A modal window will open on top of the work. Within it, locate and select the Tumblr link. (If there isn’t a Tumblr link, that means the work’s owner has disabled this option, and you’ll have to settle for sharing the regular way.)

A mini Tumblr post form will open, already filled in with the work URL, title, author, tags, and summary. If you want to post it to your blog right away and without tags, select Create Post.

But if you want to add tags or put the post in your queue, select Advanced instead. You can add a comma-separated list of tags or set other posting options here, and then click Create Post when you’re done.

Admire the beauty of your lovely link post! And check your Dash, you know, as long as you’re here…

[Banner from Syfy.com featuring Warehouse 13 logo and main characters Pete Lattimer and Myka Bering, above a picture from a recent episode featuring Warehouse 13 agents Pete Lattimer, Steve Jinks, Claudia Donovan and Myka Bering.]

First up for our April Showers celebration is Warehouse 13, a television show about government agents protecting a secret warehouse of artifacts with strange and, sometimes, dangerous powers. Each week the Warehouse 13 agents, Pete Lattimer and Myka Bering, joined by a young hacker, Claudia Donovan, and former warehouse agent, Artie Nielson, face dangers from both the artifacts and those trying to use the artifacts for their own purposes.

Warehouse 13 began airing in 2009 on the American SyFy network, and was created in part by Jane Espenson, who built her fanbase on other popular shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica. The fifth and final season of Warehouse 13 will finish with six episodes beginning in two weeks on April 14th.

Help us celebrate the Warehouse 13 fandom this month by posting fanworks old and new at AO3 or by telling your personal stories on Fanlore! You can also share your Warehouse 13 works and recs with other fans on our April Showers collection.

The open access fan studies journal Transformative Works and Cultures has released another issue! The issue’s seven articles, two Symposium pieces, roundtable, and three book reviews all relate to topics such as fan labor, gift culture, community, and work (official announcement). All articles:

Editorial

Fandom and/as labor by Mel Stanfill and Megan Condis

Praxis

Fifty shades of fan labor: Exploitation and Fifty Shades of Grey by Bethan Jones The media festival volunteer: Connecting online and on-ground fan labor by Robert Moses Peaslee, Jessica El-Khoury, and Ashley Liles

Chuck versus the ratings: Savvy fans and “save our show” campaigns by Christina Savage

Modding a free and open source software video game: “Play testing is hard work” by Giacomo Poderi, David James Hakken

Sherlockology and Galactica.tv: Fan sites as gifts or exploited labor? by Bertha Chin

Promoting fan labor and “all things Web”: A case study of Tosh.0 by Rose Helens-Hart

The cultural economics of performance space: Negotiating fan, labor, and marketing practice in Glee’s transmedia geography by Matthias Stork

Symposium

Fan work: Labor, worth, and participation in fandom’s gift economy by Tisha Turk

Better Badges: Image as virus by Joly MacFie Interview

Veronica Mars Kickstarter and crowd funding Bertha Chin, Bethan Jones, Myles McNutt, and Luke Pebler

Review

Digital labor: The Internet as playground and factory (edited by Trebor Scholz) by Stephanie Anne Brown

Cognitive capitalism, education, and digital labor (edited by Michael A. Peters and Ergin Bulut) by Simone D. Becque Gaga feminism: Sex, gender, and the end of normal (J. Jack Halberstam) by Anne Kustritz

Here’s the thing.

I read a lot of scripts.  A lot.  From professionals to aspiring writers to complete newbies.  Features and pilots.  Specs and treatments.

And 8 times out of 10 the fan fic that I’ve read over the last, oh, 15 years is leagues better than this stuff.  It’s more inspired.  It’s more compelling.  It’s genre bending and creative and heartfelt.  It’s well-paced and intense and funny and sexy and meaningful.  It’s smart and thoughtful and good.  It’s novel-quality.  Better than, sometimes.

Rare is the script I don’t want to put down, but how often have we stayed up until 3am to get to the last chapter of a 100k fic? And it’s not even a fan fic author’s day job.  This is what they do on the side.  In their spare time.  For free.

So my point is, fan fic authors, you’re good.  You’re good writers and great storytellers.  I know it doesn’t always feel like it, especially if you’re one of the authors who’s not a BNF and doesn’t get the notes/hits that a few do.  And  because some people still view fic as “not real writing.” You guys know the shit that gets made into movies.  You’re better than that.  So be better than that.  If writing is what you think want to do, then just know you’re already doing it.   You’ve already started.

Over the past weekend, Laura and I had the fortunate opportunity to attend AWP in Seattle. After listening to numerous panels and talking to other journals that were there, we decided to change up Fanhand. Instead of closing at the end of July, we will be open for submissions through December.

We want to make a “Best of the Year” journal to publish in December of every year. So send us your riveting transformative works, whether it be fan fiction, fan art, gif sets, or cosplay. We want to archive what you guys can do!

“jk I just went to that tumblr and saw there has been a post! I love what you’re doing but you guys need to up your visibility ^^””Hey Cha, thanks for asking. Unfortunately, at the end of last semester we took a lot of hard hits. We used to be working with a crew of five, and now we have a crew of two — and one of gals we lost was our design person :/ The two that are left (myself and one other) are not, per say, particularly rich with free time. We’re both students taking 16+ credits and I have to work two jobs to stay afloat. In March we’re going to be doing some web upgrades and a bit of housekeeping, and really clarify and tighten up policies and things.I’m happy we both agree on what needs to be done — visibility! Yes! I completely agree. We /did/ have one girl on to help us be the marketing editor, but she’s travelling abroad in England, and that’s really screwed with communication. Plus, she’s actually out experiencing the world outside of a computer (you know, doing things….), so who can blame her?However, not all the news is bad. We’re currently in the process of writing a $3000+ grant for Fanhand that will serve a couple of purposes:1) Hiring the ad-club here at WSU to generate a marketing platform and strategy that can be easily implemented and renewed. (aka as much as I’d like to think that I can advertise, sometimes it’s better to leave it to the professionals)2) Paying for a real domain.3) Acquiring and integrating submissions programming to the Fanhand site — we eventually want to keep this all in-house. Submit, peruse, and view acceptance/rejectance all on the Fanhand site. 4) Printing costs for the next edition5) General overhead costs we aren’t expecting6) If we budget right, and depending on how much money they give us, we’re hoping to go to comic-con and not only hand out free copies/swag/etc, but recruit potential editors. REALLY get our name out there.We feel like we’ve got a pretty good chance for this grant, because even though it’s transformative media focused, we’ve got a couple of Uni faculty on our side that are really pushing the administration to approve this grant.

If we don’t get it? Well, we’ve been working on a few things for a kickstarter. We actually went to AWP in Seattle to get our shit together and learn how to run this thing. We learned A LOT and you can expect a lot of positive changes in the near future.