• Communities of fanfic writers took their writing group practices online decades ago. On the Media reported on a commercial copy of these spaces, dubbing it "virtual workshopping. A website from Penguin Publishing, Book Country, enables thousands of writers to exchange manuscripts and notes and self-publish their work. A few have even gotten traditional publishing deals through the site." Other than the book deals, the mechanisms sound familiar. "[I]f a writer has written something that is just awful, not very many people will comment on it or they will comment briefly and respectfully but not say very much; there's a sort of graceful fade away. And the second thing that can happen is a manuscript that might seem terrible to one reader seems fantastic to another, because they are the right audience for it. You can find sub-categories and niche audiences that you wouldn't otherwise access."
• While not commercial, Caroline Siede wrote in A.V. Club about a fandom practice that has been automated, making gifs. "Gifs have long been the bread and butter of Tumblr—the perfect way to capture every moment of Dean/Castiel sexual tension, every David Tennant eyebrow raise, and, apparently, every moment of Omar Little badassery...Either to mock these fans or to help them celebrate their beloved Wire by capturing even more moments from the show, programmer Darius Kazemi has created a robot that posts a random gif and an accompanying line of dialogue from The Wire every hour."
• At SB Nation an "experiment" in writing fanfiction to accompany a photo turned into dueling fics when "my effort at fulfilling this assignment struck my esteemed girlfriend as so gross that she would not let it stand but composed her own rival fan fiction Friday to bring the touch of urbanity to the proceedings."
• Hero Complex interviewed Eric Moro, Wikia’s director of entertainment programming and asked "Why a collaborative effort between professionals and an online fan community?" to which he replied "[O]ur various anime and manga communities draw incredibly large audiences from all over the world. So hosting a project in this space allowed us to play at a global level. Second...it’s more about the creator that’s involved than it is about the character(s). Third, comic book, movie and TV characters are all tied up in complicated rights issues/licenses. And while we’re just starting to see networks work in this space (“The Vampire Diaries” fan fiction through Amazon’s Kindle Worlds, for example), it’s still not an idea the industry has fully embraced."

What "ripped from fandom" stories have you seen? Write about them 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.

• Fantastic Memes discussed how anime fandom affects Japanese language learning. "In English, we have plenty of loan words from the Japanese language – and, particularly in the English-speaking anime fandom, these words take on different meanings and connotations from how they were originally used. It does have an effect on how anime fans (as opposed to textbook users) approach learning Japanese as a second language."
• Blogger TheBigN discussed transience in anime fandom. "[T]he incoming class of freshmen had what I’d call a sharply divided focus on how they approached anime and fan culture than what I had. While the general format of club activities stayed the same, in choosing shows, their focus was more about shows that entertained...If they didn’t get that, some people would find some other way to get their anime, as this was when fansubs became easily obtainable. And this new group expressed themselves and their fandom more openly, with more participation in some other aspects of culture (from gunpla to cosplay), as well as how they watched anime...But while it wasn’t a sea change, but[sic] the time I graduated college, it definitely felt like my “era” had passed in a way."
• Blogger Andy Piper praised the Nine Worlds convention citing how it was "an inclusive and diverse event – and that is the standout memory of my 3 days at the con. The range of tracks, fandoms and cultures on offer and on display was outstanding and I enjoyed the opportunity to mix with all kinds of folks and make new friends from across all of them." However while the event had an Indie Comics track, manga was not mentioned in the program and there was no programming that focused on anime either, whereas 6 of the 26 different tracks were focused on roleplay or gaming. The OTW was, however, featured in the Fanfiction track where OTW staffer Lucy Pearson presented Owning the Servers: OTW and AO3 in a post-'50 Shades' world.

What anime and manga fandom events do you know of? 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.

• io9 created a post on the various TV shows whose canon took a swipe at fanfiction writers. The post cites examples from ST:TNG, Futurama, Supernatural, Buffy, X-Files, Daria, and concludes with what it cites as a fanfic twist from Roseanne. "Roseanne had long been established on the series as a frustrated writer, and the entire show is revealed as her writing the story of her life. The sudden change to fantasy at the end came when her life got awful after her husband's death, and she had to make up an alternate world to cope with the trauma. This twist ending, as strange and depressing as it was, heartily endorses everything the other shows condemned. What, it asks, is so wrong with writing a fun, escapist fantasy? It doesn't have to be great art to be a pursuit that allows a person a creative outlet which sparks their imagination and gives them a lot of pleasure. So take that, Star Trek."
• Perhaps professional writers find the sheer volume of fan writing intimidating? The numbers provided by Wattpad list hundreds of thousands of stories covering everything from toys, YouTube stars, and particular celebrities as well as a few specific crossovers. An abbreviated history of fanfiction begins in 1850 and cites Jane Austen fanfiction, but then omits any other online sites that contributed to fanfic distribution by skipping straight from 1970 to Wattpad's launch in 2007. Apparently forgotten are non-commercial fandom uses of newsgroups, mailing lists, individual fandom and author archives, as well as fan use of commercial sites such as blogging platforms or Fanfiction.net.
• The Fandom Post ran a press release by corporate consortium, Anime Sols' who appear to prefer partnering with fans, at least in terms of getting content released. The post describes their efforts to connect with fans by surveying them "on which further titles anime fans would like to see streamed and crowd funded on animesols.com" where fans could prepay for DVD sets. "'User feedback is crucial for our site to grow and to provide important information about the customers directly to the Japanese animation studios. Anime Sols strives to be as transparent as possible about the process and money involved, and this is one method to get closer to the fans and their needs,' says Hiroaki Tanaka, Yomiuri TV Enterprise Project Manager."

What fan/creator interactions do you know about? 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.

• Fans and the general public are becoming less tolerant of corporate overreaches in copyright claims. A crackdown on Etsy vendors marketing Firefly-related hats caused sufficient outrage that one outlet selling the licensed hats decided to donate its profits to a Firefly charity. Yet as The Mary Sue pointed out, at least part of the anger was because now that "Fox has actually decided to license merchandise based on the ten year old television series" they're "taking shots at the smaller, unlicensed retailers that have been serving the market niche they’ve been ignoring."
• Other overreaches garnered an even larger response, prompting the enforcement-happy Disney company to change an upcoming film title. "[T]he Internet flipped out in response to the news that Disney had filed several applications to trademark the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, which is the subject of an upcoming Pixar film. The freak out-age is completely justified: Trademarking Día de los Muertos would be exploitative, appropriative, and disrespectful of Mexican culture, plus it’s just downright insane (owning trademark to a holiday? C’mon, Disney). Luckily the massive amount of criticism got Disney to back off."
• Collective action seems key. Research fellow Nicholas Theisen wrote about copyright in relation to manga and scanlations as well as examining issues surrounding fair use. "[M]edia companies quite often bully individuals and smaller companies into abdicating fair use rights simply by virtue of being able to spend more money on lawyers and on legal means of protecting one’s IP." This doesn't affect just fans but also scholars. "[I]t has become standard practice for publishers of comics scholarship to demand that authors get express written permission for each and every image to be reproduced, even though a work of scholarship is an obvious example of fair use." The problem is one that doesn't even reach litigation. "Scholars regularly lament this state of affairs, yet there is little pushback, because, at the end of the day, if you don’t get the permissions, your book doesn’t get published, and if your book doesn’t get published, the likelihood of your getting tenure plummets. The practice of publishers is likely never to change unless people at some point say “no,” at very real risk to themselves and their careers."
• The new U.S. H.R. 1892 bill would amend the DMCA to require that circumvention be in aid of copyright infringement to be unlawful. This would fix a number of issues, including the OTW's need to get an exemption for vidders every three years. U.S. fans to whom these exemptions are important might want to contact their representatives in support of the bill.

What collective action have you seen bring about a success for fans? Write about it 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.