• PC Mag ran several articles on minorities in fandom from a panel at New York Comic Con. "Representations of Muslims in media have improved as well. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, who created the sci-fi compilation A Mosque Among the Stars, said that in the past decade 'Muslims in comics were the quintessential other.' But this has changed with a French Batman who is an Algerian Muslim, a Green Lantern who is a Lebanese Muslim from Detroit, and other re-imagined characters."
• Such panels at major fan cons are seen as critical for raising awareness of troubling issues in fandom. "Jay Justice said, 'the media doesn’t promote us, so we have to promote ourselves.' Taking onto Tysk’s comments she pointed out that up to a certain age society seems to have no problem with children dressing up in costumes outside of their race. It’s something we often see, for instance, in elementary school Halloween celebrations. Yet at some point we start facing the 'why are you, as a non-white person, trying to portray that white character' questions. Justice asked, 'at what age are we supposed to start telling children that they can’t play certain characters?'"
• India.com announced the arrival of a new Indian superhero, Chakra on November 30. His move is the result of a partnership between Cartoon Network, Graphic India and POW! Entertainment. "'Chakra: The Invincible' was also selected as part of a handful of third-party content partners soon to be featured on Rovio Entertainment's new ToonsTV platform - one of the largest global digital platforms for kids in the world with over a billion views already since its launch."
• Disputes in media fandoms tend to lean to verbal harassment rather than physically violent extremes. But the problems generally emerge from a failure to understand the other side's concerns. This can erode formerly good relations between fans and creators, or fans and other fans. "Teen Wolf released a video of actor Dylan O’Brien asking for fans to vote for Teen Wolf in a TV Guide poll... O’Brien joked that if people didn’t vote, they’d kill off the show’s lone surviving gay character, Danny...The joke didn’t seem very funny, particularly when the survival rate for side characters in Teen Wolf is notoriously low for anyone who isn’t a straight, white man."

What troubling issues have you seen in fandoms? Write about it on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• The Hindu featured an article on writer Shreya Prabhu Jindal who discussed her start in fanfic. "Most of the audience members were eager to know how Shreya, in her early twenties, managed to write a book at such a young age. Shreya, an English teacher at Vasant Valley School, began writing when she was 13. As a young girl and a budding writer, she discovered fan fiction, and ever since, has written in that genre, relatively unknown in India. 'A lot of my writing is inspired by fan fiction. I visualise stories as scenes and there are cliff hangers in my stories.'"
• The National of the United Arab Emirates wrote about Kindle Worlds. "[P]ushed to its logical conclusions, it has potentially major implications for the way the creative industries work, and, indeed, for what we mean by 'fiction'. As fan fiction comes into the mainstream, it’s possible to envision a future in which popular novels become only the first instalment in an ecosystem of further stories. And over time, will the great distinction we maintain now between the original work and the fan fiction simply fade away? Currently, our idea of the creative process, and of 'art', is tightly wound up with the idea of a single author – this is the idea of the creative genius, given to us by the 19th-century romantics – but in this networked age, perhaps that conception of art is finally losing relevance. Instead, we may come to see art as the aggregated efforts of a number of networked people: a creation of the global brain, not a solitary author."
• Malaysia's The Star Online had two features on fanworks. One focused on online RPGs. "Nurhanani Fazlur Rahman, 19, prefers the unique collaborative effort involved in 'role-play fanfic'. And she doesn’t do her writing on forum boards like most of the others in the genre – she does it on Tumblr, as part of a community of about 30 authors from around the world. In fact, Nurhanani – or Nani, as her friends call her – has five separate Tumblr blogs, each dedicated to a character from the A Song Of Fire And Ice series."
• The other feature focused on fanfiction's evolution. "Known simply as fanfic, this genre of storytelling has actually been around for quite some time. Some even say Charlotte Brontë and her siblings pioneered it when they started writing fantasy adventures based on Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington – an actual person. In today’s world, that’s known as real-person fanfic – very popular among One Direction and Kpop fans. And in the 70s, of course, we had the Star Trek-based Spockanalia fanzine, which was basically filled with fanfic. But thanks to the Internet, e-books and tablet devices, fanfic has really started to grow like crazy in recent years, including in Malaysia."

What stories have you seen about fanworks in your country? Write about them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• Media studies professor Henry Jenkins posted a three part discussion of Chinese fan culture at his blog. He interviews Xiqing Zheng, a PhD candidate studying the topic, asking such questions as: "You suggest that Chinese fans often see themselves as belonging to an elite group. In some other parts of the world, fans are considered anything but because of the low cultural status of the materials they embrace. In what ways have Chinese Otaku sought to legitimate their interests and activities through appeals to elite cultural status?"
• NPR suggested that Netflix will change TV viewing because releasing a full season all at once will change "[t]he way we talk about what we watch, the way we share, the way reviewers critique shows, and even the ad model -- everything will have to change." The discussion focused largely on the commercial interests of ad sellers and critics. Left out of the discussion is how many fans around the world have binge watched seasons since the days of sharing shows through videotape, often cross-nationally when shows were not available in their viewing areas, and how this helped create wider communities around the shows.
• Writing at AfterEllen, Dana Piccoli discussed femslash ships in European shows. "One thing I’ve learned during my travels as a gay lady is that if there is lesbian content somewhere, lesbians will find it. If there were a show with a lesbian character being broadcast solely from the North Pole, there would be an Olivia cruise ship full of lesbians on its way there right now."
• AlJazeera's show The Stream aired an episode asking "Can online fandom make the world a better place?" Former board member Francesca Coppa was among the guests who discussed fan activism and online mobilization. Although no transcript is available, the episode has a Storify page.

What stories can you tell about fandom around the world? Post them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of fandom controversy stories that might be of interest to fans:

• Following the shootings at a Batman screening in the U.S., various commentators used the incident to express concern with fannish extremes. The conversation of two journalists in The Sacramento Press took a look at how changing factors in entertainment news has made cult project fandom closer to that of sports fandom. "[N]ow if you’re a big fan of a project for whatever reason, it’s not just about how well it’s produced, it’s about how it stacks up against other projects as measured at the box office. After all, the deep, quality dramas have their awards shows to separate out the wheat from the chaff, but the giant effect-laden comic book and action movies are rated by their fans in the box office competition – and it’s just like a sport with home teams and rivalries." This means that "[n]ow a bad review might put somebody off seeing a movie and actually hurt your favorite project in terms of long term box office performance, rankings, and subsequently its perceived success and status in the pantheon of movies. And god forbid a bad “The Dark Knight Rises” review helps “The Amazing Spider-man” or “Avengers” look like better movies as a result. Suddenly it’s personal and people care unduly what others think."
• In some cases it seems that it's Hollywood creators who don't consider what people might think. Author Cassandra Clare cared rather a lot that the film version of her Mortal Instruments series might be whitewashed. "I have gotten many letters over the years from readers who are happy that Magnus is not white, that Jem is not white, that Maia is not white, that Aline is not white. The fact is that most parts in books are for straight white folks and even more so in films. There are not that many parts for actors who are not white — even less substantive ones. Taking those things away by casting Magnus as white and talking about him as white does cause actual pain to actual people — and to what end? Why? Why send the message you only want to read about white people and only want to see white people on your screens?" A recent incident involving Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis suggests this doesn't need to be an intentional message.
• A different Teen Wolf controversy revolved around media choices of who constitutes a couple, leading site After Elton to host its own favorite slash couples contest with the caveat that they could only be fanon couples. An article on what they termed slashwink made it clear that they know their audience.

If you're a slasher, concerned about fannish extremes, or have something to say about whitewashing, share your experiences on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.