~*~ The 2024 Favorites of FanFic Festival ~*~ Nominations Begin May 12!

Hello, JCF FanFic! ​

Another year and another round of wonderful stories later, Festival season is here again. Welcome one and all, to the Jedi Council Forums’ seventh annual Favorites of FanFic Festival! If you were here last year, most of this year’s rules will look pretty familiar. There have been a few changes, so we recommend reading through carefully.

Your Festival hosts this year are: @amidalachick and @ViariSkywalker. Feel free to write to us with questions or comments about what you see here! The maker of the nifty artwork you see is the very talented @Raissa Baiard.

A big thank you to the mods (@devilinthedetails, @Findswoman, and @Mira_Jade, as well as @A Chorus of Disapproval ) for all their help putting this together, and to all the participants of these fanfic forums. We look forward to seeing you at this celebration!

@amidalachick, @Raissa Baiard, and @ViariSkywalker


How the Festival Works

Below you will find a list of all the categories included in the Favorites of FanFic Festival. Starting Monday, May 12, we will post one group of categories every Monday. You can then either post the stories that were your favorites for the given categories that week, or if you’d like to remain anonymous, you may PM us (@TheGoldenGrogu) with your story nominations and we will post a batch of them at the end of the week. The next week we will post the next group of categories, and so on until we reach the end. We will then create a master index of the 2024 Favorites of FanFic, which will remain stickied at the top of Resource for the rest of 2025.


The Rules

1. No submitting your own stories. Any funny business with socks will result in a ban.
   
   
2. Stories must have been STARTED or UPDATED at least once between January 1st, 2024 (PST) and December 31st, 2024 (PST).
   
   
3. You may submit (up to) TWO STAR WARS stories per category and TWO NON-STAR WARS stories per applicable category. Most categories work for both SWFF and NSWFF, but there are a few dedicated to their respective subforums (in the Character and Author categories).
   
   
4. When you post for the categories, please post the category, the story title, author, and a link to the story. If it’s NSWFF, please include the fandom as well. You may post two stories under each category heading.
   
   
5. Make-ups are allowed throughout the festival. We will have a make-up week at the end of the festival (Week 6), but you may post make-ups any week until the Festival ends. For the sake of keeping things relatively manageable, we ask that you try to post your make-ups as soon as possible after the week that you missed. If you need to make-up several weeks, please consider waiting until Week 6, at the end of the festival.
   
   
6. If you know in advance that you are not going to have time to post your favorites, you are more than welcome to PM us with your selections in advance, and we will be happy to post them with the PM submissions for the appropriate week.
   
   
7. If you see a mistake in someone else's submitted stories – be it your own story or someone else's – please just let it go unless you strongly feel it's an attempt to circumvent the rules (e.g. you know for a fact it's a sock). We'll take care of any clear mistakes (e.g. blatantly wrong category, story not eligible) when we make the master list.

Tips for finding eligible stories

• If you are looking at the boards sorted by "last message" (which is the default), stories posted or updated in 2024 go back as far as page 19 as of May 7. For NSWFF, stories posted or updated in 2024 go back to around page 5.
• If you click on "start date" that is at the top of the story boards (in the list that says "Title, Start Date, Replies, Views, Last Message") it will sort the stories by newest start date to oldest. Stories posted in 2024 go back to around page 11 as of May 7. For NSWFF, stories posted in 2024 go back to around page 4

One Last Note!

Feel free to write your own short festival-going skits with yourselves and/or characters (canon and OC both welcome), ask questions, socialize, and generally enjoy the celebration right here in this thread! Try to keep posts to a reasonable size, and be considerate of one another as always.


Past Favorites of FanFic Festivals
2023 Festival Thread | 2023 Favorites Index
2022 Festival Thread | 2022 Favorites Index
2021 Festival Thread | 2021 Favorites Index
2020 Festival Thread
2019 Festival Thread | 2019 Favorites Index
2018 Festival Thread | 2018 Favorites Index
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2024 Favorites of FanFic Festival
Categories & Schedule​

Week 1: Style & Length (May 12-18)
Week 2: Characters & Relationships (May 19-25)
Week 3: Genre & Canonicity (May 26-June 1)
Week 4: Fun Categories That Don’t Have a Catchy Group Name (June 2-8)
Week 5: Reviewer & Author (June 9-15)
Week 6: Make-up Week (June 16-22)


The Categories

Week 1: Style & Length

Favorite One-shot – A shorter story posted to the boards as a single entry (as a guideline, less than 5,000 words). This includes, but is not limited to, individual drabbles, poems, flash-fics, song-fics and vignettes.

Favorite Short Story – A medium-length story that may or may not be broken up into multiple parts, but can still generally be read in one sitting (as a guideline, between 5,000 and 15,000 words).

Favorite Epic – A longer story, typically broken up into multiple parts, that generally takes more than one sitting to read (as a guideline, more than 15,000 words).

Favorite Part of a Series – A story that was posted or updated in 2024 but that also was part of a larger body of a continual storyline (other parts of the story can be posted before 2024).

Favorite WIP – A story that was started or continued, but not completed, in 2024, and which may have been overlooked in favor of complete stories. (Note that a story may still be eligible for above categories if not completed as well, but this is specifically for ongoing stories). Must be a WIP as of May 12, 2025.


Week 2: Characters & Relationships

Favorite Interpretation of a Movie Character – The best/most faithful/most relevant portrayal in fanfic of any character that appears, however briefly, in any of the 11 SW movies (TPM, AotC, RotS, ANH, TESB, RotJ, TFA, TLJ, TRoS, Rogue One, and Solo).

Favorite Interpretation of an EU Character or Game Character – The best/most faithful/most relevant portrayal in fanfic of any character that appears only in Expanded Universe material (New Canon or Legends, including the TV series) or any SW board or video game, or an RPG character. No movie characters are eligible under this category, however brief their appearance in the movies.

Favorite NSWFF Canon Character – The best/most faithful/most relevant portrayal in fanfic of any character that appears, however briefly, in their respective media.

Favorite Original Character – Your favorite portrayal of a character created by a fanfic author.

Favorite Villain – A character that you love to hate, hate to love – or better yet, both! An antagonist character who just has that extra something.

Most Wholesome Character – The character that you want to hug and feed cookies to. This can be a traditional epic hero or the star of a much smaller-scale fluff story, but they are a perfect cinnamon roll too good for this world/Galaxy and just seeing them "on screen" in the story brings you joy.

Favorite Established Relationship – Any relationship (familial, friendship, romantic, rivalry, etc) between two Canon or Legends characters that is established or strongly implied in New Canon or Legends material.

Favorite Original Relationship – Any relationship (familial, friendship, romantic, rivalry, etc) between OCs or between an established (from either New Canon or Legends) character and an OC. This also includes a relationship between two established characters that does not appear or is not strongly implied in Canon or Legends.


Week 3: Genre & Canonicity

Favorite Humor – A story which is comedic in nature by virtue of its characters, situations or dialogue, and whose intention is to provoke a reaction that may range from chuckles to ROFLs.

Favorite Drama – A story that centers around a conflict that is neither physical nor romantic in nature. It may include the protagonist(s) addressing serious issues that impact them on a personal level, or it may be broader issues like a political-drama.

Favorite Angst – A story dealing with sad or tragic topics meant to evoke melancholy emotions in its readers.

Favorite Fluff – A story with little to no conflict or antagonistic intent, usually written to give the readers “warm fuzzy feelings” in their hearts.

Favorite Romance – A story that centers around the protagonist discovering, exploring and/or developing a strong romantic emotional bond with another character.

Favorite Action/Adventure – A story in which the characters overcome challenges by means of fast-paced, usually physical, adventurous activity.

Favorite Genfic – A story where non-romantic, non-sexual relationships are central to the plot and there is little if any romance featured. For example, stories where a friendship, sibling relationship, mentorship, bitter lifelong enmity, etc., is the main focus would all count. Any romantic pairings featured are not the focus of the major characters’ development throughout the story and anything that happens on screen between said pairings is G-rated.

Favorite World-Building – A story that adds to and/or explores some aspect of the world/universe it is set in with more depth than canon ever had the chance to explain. For example, a Star Wars story that fleshes out an existing planet, culture, or technology – or that introduces a new one in detail.

Favorite Continuity Compliant – A story that does not diverge from or contradict the established storyline (New Canon or Legends) in which it is written. Stories that aren’t blatantly AU and aren’t defined as AU by the author in the opening post or the title bar can be assumed to be canon-compliant. (Note: this is the category that used to be called ‘Best Canon’ in previous years.)

Favorite Alternate Universe – A story that diverges from or contradicts the established storyline (New Canon or Legends) in which it is written. This is usually, but not always, indicated by the author in the opening post or the title bar.


Week 4: Fun Categories That Don’t Have a Catchy Group Name

*Special note for the three Favorite Moment/Scene categories and Choose-Your-Own-Fave*
These categories typically involve moments or details that might be considered spoilers by their respective authors. To keep from spoiling the surprises for your fellow readers, please put your description of the moment itself in spoiler-quotes after the story and author, like this but with the spaces before and after both instances of the word "spoiler" removed:

Story by Author
[ spoiler ]Your description of that amazing-yet-spoilery favorite moment [/ spoiler ]

So that you end up with:
Story by Author

Spoiler

Your description of that amazing-yet-spoilery favorite moment

Story You Just Can't Stop Thinking About – A story that really stuck with you. Something so memorable that it needs no re-reading to bring back the impressions you had when first reading it.

Unclassifiable Classic – A story that really doesn’t fit anywhere else, but that you think should have a moment of glory.

Crushed That Challenge – The most enjoyable, unexpected, and/or creative response to a challenge. The challenge itself can be from a previous year, as long as the response story itself was posted/updated in 2024.

Head-Canon Accepted! – Part of a story that is now part of the personal Star Wars (or NSWFF) universe in your mind. This can be a detail or storyline that is neither confirmed nor denied by official canon, or it can be an alternate universe “fix-it” that you prefer to what happened in canon. (Any canon – Disney, Legends, and all the plot holes in between.) Either way, a fact or event in a fic that is now canon in your heart.

Favorite Title – It's the title that first caught your eye. You saw it and thought "I want to read that fic!" It's like a great cover on a book that draws you in!

Favorite Line in a Fic – A sentence or two that were just perfectly phrased.

Favorite Headsplode Moment – A moment that really and truly surprised you! To keep these moments a surprise for readers who haven't read them yet, please put your description of the moment itself in spoiler-quotes after the story and author.

Favorite Action Scene – The action scene that you enjoyed the most: space battles, sparring matches, duels to the death, food fights – the works! The scene does not have to be from an adventure-focused story so long as the scene itself meets the requirements. If your favorite action moment contains spoilers, please put your description of the moment itself in spoiler-quotes after the story and author.

Favorite “Finally” Moment – The moment between characters that you have been waiting for through the whole story. This can be romantic, fluffy, sad, humorous, or otherwise, but you were waiting for it and it was delivered with all the trimmings. So we don't break the suspense for first-time readers, please put your description of the moment itself in spoiler-quotes after the story and author.

Choose-Your-Own Fave - A story that you want to recognize as your very favorite of a category that you don't see listed here. For example, Favorite Lightsaber Duel, Favorite Animal Character, or Favorite Story Featuring a SW Holiday. As with the other categories, you can pick two stories for SW and two for NSWFF. You can keep these all as one Choose-Your-Own category (for example, four stories for Best Crackfic) or come up with a different one for each nomination. It's entirely up to you; just keep it TOS-friendly. And if you feature a quote or other potential spoiler from the story in your response, please keep it under spoilers as you would for the Headsplode Moment and similar categories -- thanks!


Week 5: Reviewer & Author

*choose up to 2 in all categories unless otherwise specified*

*Though it isn’t at all required, you are welcome to add a short note about why you nominated each author, reviewer, and/or resource contributor! (Yes, we're including authors this year!)


Favorite Reviewers (choose up to 4) – Your favorite reviewers who leave the most thoughtful/in depth reviews on stories in any era of the Star Wars FanFic forums and/or in the Non-Star Wars FanFic sub-forum.

Favorite Contributor to Resource – A poster whose additions to the Fan Fiction Writing and Resource forum you would like to recognize for the year 2024. This includes posters who add their feedback and ideas to ongoing threads, as well as those who run challenges/indexes/discussion groups, etc.; anyone whose contributions to the forum help make it a more inspiring place! Anyone who posted in Resource during 2024 can be nominated.

Favorite Author in Before – The author whose work in Before (either Canon or Legends) consistently demonstrates a high degree of skill and creativity in their creation of memorable characters and settings, original plots, interesting themes, and overall depiction of the GFFA.

Favorite Author in Saga – The author whose work in the PT and/or OT and/or ST (either Canon or Legends) consistently demonstrates a high degree of skill and creativity in their creation of memorable characters and settings, original plots, interesting themes, and overall depiction of the GFFA.

Favorite Author in Beyond – The author whose work in Beyond (either Canon or Legends) consistently demonstrates a high degree of skill and creativity in their creation of memorable characters and settings, original plots, interesting themes, and overall depiction of the GFFA.

Favorite Author in NSWFF – The author whose work in Non-Star Wars FanFic consistently demonstrates a high degree of skill and creativity in their creation of memorable characters and settings, original plots, interesting themes, and overall depiction of their chosen fandom(s).

Favorite New Author – Your favorite author who posted their first story on the boards within the eligibility dates. This category is not era-specific.

Most Versatile Author – The author whose work, in your opinion, tackles the widest range of aspects of writing fanfic (e.g. multiple eras, multiple genres, multiple writing techniques, etc.) This category is not era-specific.

Favorite Story YOU Wrote – This is an exception to the rules. For this category, tell us YOUR favorite story that YOU wrote! To be eligible to submit in this category, you must have submitted at least one story or author nomination for one of the previous categories.


Week 6: Make-ups

If you missed nominating at some point, you can post make-ups for those categories at this time.


*Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to these announcements, rules, and categories through working on the Festival in years past!
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YAY IT'S FAVES TIME! Love the Grogu theme. Blue milk cookies and kudos to @ViariSkywalker and @amidalachick , and to @Raissa Baiard for providing that adorable art.