April Showers of Fannish History

Event
Event:	April Showers of Fannish History
Participants:	Archive of Our Own, Fanlore
Date(s):	April 1–30, 2011 - 2018
Type:
Fandom:	multi-fandom
URL:	April Showers Challenge tag at AO3
	Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
	Contents 1 2011; 2 2012; 3 2013; 4 2014; 5 2015; 6 2017; 7 2018 7.1 Badges; ; 8 References;

April Showers of Fannish History (also known simply as April Showers) was an annual month-long challenge on the Archive of Our Own and Fanlore, both projects of the Organization for Transformative Works, that ran on AO3 and Fanlore between 2011 and 2015, and on Fanlore only in 2017 and 2018. After 2018, it was discontinued^[1] as the challenge was less impactful without its AO3 component, and the Fanlore Committee made the decision to focus on other events.

The challenge was first issued in 2011. For each day of the month, a different fandom was highlighted and announced via the ao3org and fanlore_news Twitter accounts and the AO3 Tumblr. Fans were encouraged to import their works related to these fandoms into AO3, and add relevant pages and stories to Fanlore.

The challenge did not take place in 2016.^[2] It returned in 2017 and 2018, but was run as a Fanlore-only challenge in both years.

For other Fanlore challenges/festivals, see the IFD Fanlore Challenge, the Fanlore Bingo Challenge, June Bloom, and Stub September.

2011

The first April Showers challenge was announced by AO3 on April 1, 2011^[3] and by Fanlore on April 5.^[4] See April Showers - The Masterlist at AO3 News. The featured fandoms for 2011 were:

Week 0-1 (April 1–9)

Week 2 (April 10–16)

Week 3 (April 17–23)

Week 4 (April 24–30)

2012

The second April Showers challenge was announced by AO3 on April 1, 2012^[5] and by Fanlore on April 4.^[6] The featured fandoms for 2012 were:

Week 1 (April 1–7)

Week 2 (April 8–14)

Fullmetal Alchemist - (on AO3)
Glee - (on AO3)
The Dresden Files - (on AO3)
Gyakuten Saiban / Ace Attorney - (on AO3)
SHINee - (on AO3)
X-Men Movieverse - (on AO3)
Avatar: The Last Airbender - (on AO3)

Week 3 (April 15–21)

NCIS - (on AO3)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians - (on AO3)
Portal - (on AO3)
Pundit RPF - (on AO3)
The Eagle - (on AO3)
Cardcaptor Sakura - (on AO3)
Farscape - (on AO3)

Week 4 (April 22–28)

Week 5 (April 29–30)

2013

The third April Showers challenge was announced at the OTW blog on April 1, 2013.^[7] The AO3 Tumblr also promoted and participated in the challenge; see the Round Up. The featured fandoms for 2013 were:

Week 1 (April 1–6)

Week 2 (April 7–13)

Week 3 (April 14–20)

Week 4 (April 21–27)

Takarazuka Revue RPF - (on AO3)
Chak De! India - (on AO3)
Tomb Raider - (on AO3)
M*A*S*H - (on AO3)
Works by Alexandre Dumas - (on AO3)
Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy - (on AO3)
Hey Arnold! - (on AO3)

Week 5 (April 28–30)

2014

The fourth April Showers challenge was announced at the OTW blog on March 31, 2014.^[8] The selected fandoms will be highlighted on the AO3 Tumblr and both the AO3 and Fanlore Twitter accounts. In addition to posting fanworks for the selected fandoms to AO3, users are also encouraged to post recs for the fandoms to the April Showers Recs (2014) collection.

Week 1 (April 1–5)

Week 2 (April 6–12)

Week 3 (April 13–19)

Week 4 (April 20–26)

Week 5 (April 27–30)

2015

The fifth April Showers challenge was announced at the OTW blog on March 31, 2015.^[9] The selected fandoms will be highlighted on the AO3 Tumblr and both the AO3 and Fanlore Twitter accounts. In addition to posting fanworks for the selected fandoms to AO3, users are also encouraged to post recs for the fandoms to the April Showers Recs (2015) collection.

Week 1 (April 1–5)

Week 2 (April 6–12)

Week 3 (April 13–19)

Week 4 (April 20–26)

Week 5 (April 27–30)

2017

Week 0-1 (April 1–8)

Week 2 (April 9–15)

Week 3 (April 16–22)

Week 4-5 (April 23–30)

2018

Rather than spotlighting one fandom per day in April, Fanlore created a list of editing tasks, one for each day of the week. Fen were invited to carry out the day's editing task on any of the spotlighted fandom pages for that week.^[10]^[11]

Daily editing tasks:

Sunday (Day 1): Add ships to your chosen fandom page
Monday (Day 2): Add some fanwork links or recs
Tuesday (Day 3): Add links to fan communities
Wednesday (Day 4): Add some links to meta or discussions
Thursday (Day 5): Add some info about common tropes for that fandom
Friday (Day 6): Add some more canon detail to the page
Saturday (Day 7): Add some information about fandom and fanon

Spotlighted fandom pages:

Week 1 (April 1–8)