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Here's a roundup of stories about pros playing inside the fandom sandbox that might be of interest to fans:

• Dubbed the "world's very first (and only) Science Fiction Football Musical Comedy!" Packer Fans From Outer Space recently ran in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Geared to a hometown audience with its "songs about love, Wisconsin traditions and our historic football rivalry, including 'You Gotta Hate the Bears' and 'Winning is the Only Thing,'" it still provided insiderish/crossover/genre-hopping fannishness that lots of non-Wisconsinites could recognize.
• Not far away, Canadian Charles Ross performed a one-man show in Adrian, Michigan that was insiderish only to people who had never seen Star Wars (is there anyone left?) “It’s basically me onstage — with no costumes, sets, props or real talent — me, onstage, retelling the original, bad hair, 1970s-1980s ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, basically using my own body and my own impressions,” Ross said. His obsession with the saga came from a source many fan creators can relate to -- wanting to know what comes next. As a child he saw a double feature of the first two Star Wars films made. “But [my father] didn’t tell me that it wasn’t the end of the story. I was convinced that the sort-of lame tone left over at the end of ‘Empire Strikes Back’ was the way the story actually ended. And I was like, ‘What a bummer of a story!’"
• Sony Music decided to employ fan fiction to promote the band One Direction. They partnered with a Wattpad writer who created a five-chapter eBook about the band members "designed to coordinate with the video for the band’s single, 'What Makes You Beautiful.'" Fans then spread links to the books and video. The marketing effort is among the finalists for the GennY Award which "recognizes best practices of those who have applied new and innovative techniques to connect and communicate with youth." The winner will be announced at a conference focusing on youth marketing.
• Then there are some creators who are writing their own fanfic. One that was widely circulated was a story about Lost co-producer Damen Lindelof writing Mad Men fan fiction as fictional sci-fi writer Ken Cosgrove. Another frequently republished story was about romance novelist Diane Story writing Britney Spears RPF, made all the more notable given that she is the aunt of Britney's former husband, Kevin Federline. Story also "created a contest on her website where the winner can win an actual wedding invitation from Spears and Federline's 2004 wedding." And finally, Booktrib hosted an article on fan fiction that discussed Vampire Diaries actor Matt Davis writing fanfic on Twitter: "His crazy, sometimes smutty interpretation of the show he resides on is without a doubt the talk of the community. If the actors can write an alternate universe based on original content, why shouldn’t the fans?"

If you are a fan of Vampire Diaries, Britney Spears, Mad Men or One Direction, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about fanfic that might be of interest to fans:

• Fan fiction has been widely discussed online, but the recent discussions surrounding the highy visible success of Fifty Shades of Grey continues to take that discussion to new places with, unfortunately, new misinformation. One example is an aside in a discussion of changes in publishing that describes fan fiction as "author-approved online 'mash-ups' by fans of cult novels." Another is the suggestion in a Huffington Post interview that fan fiction has only ever been written for sci-fi and fantasy genres. Still as this "concert preview" that focuses on fan fiction written for Def Leppard demonstrates, there are certainly going to be fewer people than ever who have never heard of it.
• That visibility suggests that efforts like Social Samba's "SagaWriter" tool will become increasingly common, though also that fan fiction is going to be less about fans and more about marketing. "One day TV networks might have budgets to hire social TV teams as big as their main writing teams, but for now a show like The Walking Dead could easily make a Saga where you get to talk to your favorite character while trying to avoid getting eaten." The platform allows for interactive storytelling, but not, it would seem, fan originated stories. Explains SocialSamba CEO Aaron Williams, "Within our tool you can’t use copyrighted material. We follow the same DMCA rules that everyone else does. We see TV shows and other storytellers have interest in creating fan fiction. The WB adding Big Lebowski characters to Xtranormal, the fact that they are taking steps like this was a good thing to point to for us. It means its good for the brand. For us we see that wave coming, brands or storytellers can skin to look like their brand and embed in whatever platform they use to reach out to fans."
• Other people are being more thoughtful about the fan fiction that already exists. Wired Magazine contributor Clive Thompson posted ruminations on how fan fiction writers are creating "paracosms", using the Brontë sisters' early writing as an example, and cited evidence that "MacArthur fellows were twice as likely as 'normal' nongeniuses to have" created paracosms as children. Thompson warned though that "we have to stop denigrating it" if society is to reap the rewards of such play.
• Britain's The Guardian in the meantime suggested that authors must value fan work in today's marketplace. "[T]he success of a novel such as Fifty Shades of Grey is far less surprising to anyone who understands the dynamics of fandom than to the mainstream publishing industry...That it was fan-fiction based in Stephenie Meyer's Twilightverse is beside the point. That it was chosen by fans and made successful through their support is far more significant. Because what fans want above all else – what in fact defines the very essence of fandom – is ownership of that which we adore." What's more "The publishers that survive will be the ones that understand that their role is to amplify the signal of those artists already chosen by fandom. The writers who succeed will be the ones who are there day in and day out, as much a part of fandom as any other fan, and on first name terms with the neighbours."

If you'd like to help out people still learning about fan fiction, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about fandom under pressure that might be of interest to fans:

• In some of the latest takedown actions from the past month a fan offering free high-resolution downloads of his artwork for video game Fallout was contacted by a law firm representing the game owner Bethesda, issuing a cease and desist for his website. The artist replied in detail to the charges and has so far refused to turn his domain name over to the company, although he did remove links to the posters.
• Popular website TV Tropes removed fanfiction recommendations on their site after encountering problems with Google's Ad Sense which required them to remove "mature and adult content" from the site. Aside from the issue of advertiser control of content, however, others were upset about what it meant for their use of the site. As one poster commented "The problem, as I see it, is that the admins have destroyed countless hours of our work. I don't demand that pages be restored onto this particular server, but I do demand that the source material (pages as they existed pre-cut) be made available in some fashion, so that those who want can host it elsewhere."
• In many places, online access to content isn't affected by advertisers or corporate owners, but by governments. For example, Vietnamese authorities have recently mandated that Internet companies assist in online censorship. Among the provisions of a proposed decree, "Internet users 'are strictly prohibited' from providing fictitious personal data" which will prohibit all forms of anonymous blogging and discussion. Personal blogs will have to publicize the name and contact information of the individual responsible and will be held personally liable for all the published content on their blogs.
• On the other hand at least one sports blogger is alarmed at the possibility that team owners might put important decisions in fans' hands. "As counter-intuitive as it sounds, as much as the Sixers should care about making the fans happy, they shouldn't care about what those fans want on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a devastating losing streak. When they ask what the fans think about their roster, it isn't hip, catchy, or new-media savvy. It's insulting." Instead the blogger suggests, "continue to ask us what we think of a new lighting scheme, insist on our thoughts about a moose for a mascot, and call our home phones to ask how to make better use of '1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Sixers.' Those are the some of the best elements of a new fan-owner partnership."

If you have news of legal actions against fans or content takedowns, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories looking at transformative works that might be of interest to fans:

• In this Tumblr blog post, the issue of transformative works is addressed directly and as with many Tumblr posts, the image conveys the message. Here, the subject is Johannes Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring holding a camera as if to take a picture of her painter or the viewer. "[T]ransformative work, intratextual work, is most emphatically not a new thing, nor a creatively barren thing. It’s awesome. And this image here is delicious, because it takes that lovely painting, in which the model is mysterious, alluring, her parted lips gleaming and her eyes wide as she looks out at the viewer, objectified - and it drags it straight into the 21st century by adding the camera, making it into that recognisable MySpace pose, making her the CREATOR of the image not just the object. She is looking at herself, not at us, and this careful composition becomes an ephemeral snapshot, a fleeting moment in her day."
• University of Utah English professor Anne Jamison was profiled as a scholar of fan fiction after the course she taught on it became attached to discussions surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey. "Focusing her scholarly eye to the phenomenon was a departure from the norm for the 42-year-old professor, a native of Albany, N.Y. Yet fan fiction fed her longtime interests in female writers and genre fiction, and she’s in the process of compiling and editing articles for a scholarly anthology on the topic. 'I told everyone I knew that [fan fiction] is a global connective of housewives and professional women exchanging erotica and writing advice online,' she said. 'Everyone yawned. I thought it was very interesting.'"
• Other higher education coursework also addresses the existence of fanworks. In a recap of vidding that included citations from the OTW's Rebecca Tushnet, one student concluded "Despite the forces of money, law, technical challenges and the fans’ need to interact with the shows and characters that they love, vidding was born and continues to thrive. The fan communities and their pursuits are supported by the efforts of those, like Lessig and Tushnet, who fight for a better environment for remix culture. Over the months and years to come, I look forward to enjoying the stories and perspectives of fan culture in these kind of vids, and monitoring progress in the fight to allow them to do it."

If you make fan vids, write fan fiction or create fan art, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about the importance of fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• Singer Alexandra Burke wrote about the importance of her fans, saying she can "fully appreciate the extent that 'fandom' as some people like to call it has really taken over. I am superclose to my fans (probably too close for it to be healthy lol) but I feel like they are this extended family of mine and they do so much for me, and there's no better form of honesty than if these guys don't like something/don't like some of my music - they won't dress it up in cotton wool - they will just tell you damn straight!" What's more, "[t]he last few years I think for me have certainly changed my perception on this whole 'movement', and no doubt that of label's and management who now have whole teams dedicated to ensuring that the fanbase is looked after."
• Dr. Who fans, on the other hand, got a whole book written on their importance. SFX reviewed The Official Doctor Who Fan Club: Volume One and concluded that "[e]ven readers born many years after 1971 will probably experience a stab of nostalgia. You are transported back to more innocent times: before forum flame wars; before fandom had been commodified. This was a time when you could write to the Doctor and know there was a decent chance of getting a letter back; a time when Who fans had to make their own entertainment (one of Keith’s innovations was a 'lending library' of hand-made, one-off novellas of old stories, available to borrow one at a time). You may find yourself wondering if we weren’t better off back then."
• If the discussion at Den of Geek is any indication, the above book will likely sell well. Contemplating what fandom did for Dr. Who, they note that "the market is completely different these days. Before the show came back, Doctor Who merchandise was a relatively small but lucrative area, mainly based round adult collectors. Now it's a huge and broad market, with magazines and toys selling large numbers in supermarkets to kids." They then attempt to quantify Who fandom, speculating "When you consider that Doctor Who Magazine's 2011 circulation was 30,682 these figures are impressive, but for further context we must ask: how many hard-core Doctor Who fans are there?...If you combine the highest figure from fan-sites' Twitter followers or forum members the total is roughly 145,700. This figure does show is that, even adjusting upwards (say, doubling the figure to accommodate variables), the kind of fan who is debating how much of Destiny of the Daleks was written by Terry Nation or Douglas Adams has gone from being the near-totality of fandom to being a minority (the average UK viewing figure for the 2011 series was 7.75 million)."
• Certainly the U.S.'s SyFy network has realized the importance of fannish content to its bottom line. Their recent upfront presentation included various shows targeted at fans. Aside from creating two different shows aimed at collectors, there is a new project on cosplayers, Divas of Dress Up, and the "Untitled Mark Burnett Project...where fans of science fiction/fantasy books and movies compete to create the most flavorful and inspired dishes from the foods featured in the imaginary worlds that they love."

If you are part of Dr. Who fandom or want to share your fandom recipes, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about the changing nature of fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• Writing about the experience of moving from fan to pro, baseball blogger Joey Matschulat echoes the discussions of burnout that also recently made the rounds among television recappers, only this time discussing the revelations of fellow sports bloggers. "I still enjoy writing about this team...but my fandom won't have a snowball's chance in hell of being what it once was until the day I walk away from all of this, and it may never be the same. That's just the way it is...I welcome with open arms the next wave of young, talented, hungry writers that want to try and make a name for themselves in the ever-expanding world of online baseball scouting/sabermetric analysis...but if you're really going to commit for the long haul, be prepared to live with the unintended consequences of your decision."
• Some changes can be generational, as evidenced by the fact that kids can now go to writing camps that include fan fiction on the agenda. But changes in music fandom have been as much technological as they are due to cultural awareness. Nitsuh Abebe posted about how music fandom has gotten rewired in New York Magazine. "There are the rituals, for one thing. The youth of previous decades have fond memories of hand-labeling cassette mixes or scoping out the record shelves of party hosts; youth of today can eventually feel the same about, say, those ecstatic binges of discovery that keep you up all night listening to Korean pop. Physically handling your record collection is like wandering a neighborhood you know by heart, bumping into unexpected friends; diving into the massive catalogue of streaming music is more like being able to teleport to any city on the planet, an experience as daunting as it is freeing."
• More than one technology company has decided to target the fan market, but the real change is in how information flows through fan networks and changes the fannish experience. ESPN blogger and self-proclaimed "NBA junkie" Daniel Nowell tested the effects of social media on his game-watching by staying off Twitter for three weeks. "I’ve heard people talk about the power of Twitter as a community-builder, a way to sit and watch games with friends, but it had never occurred to me that Twitter was making the product of the games themselves more enjoyable. In fact, I’d come to think of tweeting during games as a distraction, and on the nights when I needed to do it for an assignment I treated it warily. But once I was off Twitter, I realized that what it allows members to do is experience the game all day long."
• Tallulah Habib of South Africa's IT Web wrote about what she called "the fandom disconnect" between businesses that find fans the most potent of their marketers, and the entertainment industry, which doles out mixed messages to its audience. "Take, for instance, the approach of copyright holders on YouTube. By all means, they should ask the video site to take down content that is dumped straight 'as-is' onto the free channel. That's piracy, plain and simple. But what of the fan-created content?" Arguing for the importance of fanworks, she notes the changing way that fanworks can affect the marketplace. "A music video taking a song from one artist and clips from a television show by someone else promotes both of them. For free. I personally have whole playlists of songs that I first discovered through these means. I have become interested in TV shows because I saw amazing videos about the characters. People have made money from me not because of cinemas or DVD specials or the radio, but because something I saw on YouTube took my breath away."

If you want to share how your experiences in fandom have changed, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about gendered aspects of fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• Conversations on various fan sites continue to revolve around creator reluctance to feature female characters in their work. One gamer discusses how "the fact that you have to play as a man puts [his significant other] off just enough that she’d just rather play another game", and notes that "As a white man, I can only really imagine this position of disassociation. There are few games which force you to play as a woman."
• Of course, it isn't just a lack of representation but also the way that women are treated as gamers that affects their enjoyment, something which escapes the attention of many male players. The creator of online comic The Oatmeal discovered this after he received angry responses to a panel he drew about female gamers having advantages simply for being female. "Citing surprise and ignorance about the violence female gamers face, he withdrew his argument," and made a $1,000 donation to the Women Against Abuse Foundation, explaining, "A lot of people are talking of rape threats, sexism, harassment, and a lot of other awful things. I'm a guy and I barely talk into my mic, so I’ll concede that my view of things is probably very skewed." Unfortunately, these problems exist in most fandoms in different forms, as a post by hockey blogger Karen M pointed out. "What I realized is that in the world of hockey fandom women are like [Russian hockey players]. We are a minority group that are battling everyday against the weight of oppressive and offensive stereotypes. A Canadian coasts on a few shifts and he's 'having an off night'. A Russian coasts and he’s 'lazy and not living up to his potential.' In hockey fandom misogynist insults are common and women are dumb puck bunnies until proven otherwise."
• Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress suggests that women "even outside the core fan community, will be interested in fantasy and science fiction if work in those genres have anything to say to them." "Snow White and the Huntsman is being explicitly sold not just as a story with two female leads...but as a story about the connection between beauty and power, about competition between women, and about styles of rule and command. From the outside, the women in the movie don't look like women acting like men. They appear to be women acting like women but with the force of armies and heroes available to play out the issues that they're grappling with personally."
• The Mary Sue notes that good stories appeal to all sexes, citing the success of The Legend of Korra, which has a female lead. "Some Nickelodeon executives were worried, says [Korra co-creator Bryan] Konietzko, about backing an animated action show with a female lead character. Conventional TV wisdom has it that girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won’t watch shows about girls," writes NPR's Neda Ulaby. “During test screenings, though, boys said they didn’t care that Korra was a girl. They just said she was awesome."

If you want to share your experiences in the The Legend of Korra or Avatar: The Last Airbender fandoms, or have something to say about misogny in fandom, why not write about them on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about rare fandom activities that might be of interest to fans:

• As this article at the Daily Beast points out, "The surprise revival of Tupac Shakur in hologram form at Coachella...stunned audiences--but Japan's been onto the hologram game for years." The article discusses concerts performed by fictional character Hatsune Miku. "Though her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita, Miku is literally the collective product of her legions of fans...who create her songs and videos via collaborative websites...One Miku enthusiast might compose an original song for her using Vocaloid, for example, and then upload it for others to hear. That song might then inspire illustrations, videos, or remixes from other fans...It's the perfect formula: Miku gives fans exactly the music they want without the scandals and dramatics of real-life pop stars and all their real-life flaws."
• Fans of inanimate objects are legion as well. In a live-tweeted story, The Washington Post covered the journey of the space shuttle Discovery on its way to its future museum home in Washington, DC. "To the delight of fans on the ground, the shuttle completed extra passes over the National Mall and Dulles." The article wrote about varied people stopping their day or setting aside time to try and catch sight of the shuttle's journey. "At the National Mall, cheers, whoops, and hollers erupted from the crowd, entranced by the sight of a space shuttle anchored precariously on the back of a 747. 'It's a spectacular view to see the big shuttle on the back of a 747,' said JJ Morgan, a 70-year-old Silver Spring resident...His wife, Carol, was a little less jubilant. 'I’m a little sad because I can remember when the space program first started, and I'll miss it. I'll miss following it.'"
• "Nerdcore rapper" Adam WarRock has written songs about various TV shows such as Parks and Recreation, Downton Abbey, and Justified, but it was his rap inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor at The Atlantic, that made the news. Coates is a favorite blogger of WarRock's, one who WarRock sees as "a welcome and comforting voice when it comes to speaking on race and America, specifically America's complex relationship when it comes to race in all elements of our culture and ethics." The rap, called "Ta-Nehisi,""came partly out of [WarRock's] own struggles with racial identity" growing up as an Asian American in Memphis, Tennessee. But "even though 'Ta-Nehisi' covers more serious territory, WarRock still found room in the final stanza to squeeze in one TV reference, a nod to HBO's The Wire."
• Hollywood.com turned to a museum owner to discuss Three Stooges fandom as the new Stooges film adventure opened in theaters. Said owner of the "Stoogeum" Gary Lassin, "'Half thought it was blasphemy to try and make the movie, half were eager looking forward to it. Now that people have seen it, the people looking forward to it liked it, the people who weren't looking forward to it weren't going to see or didn't like it.' Lassin hits the nail on the head: babyboomers who grew up on Stooges aren't that different than the target demographic that clamors for the latest comic book movie or installment of Twilight. They just haven't had a movie to flock to the last few decades."

If you are in a small fandom, or part of Vocaloid fandom why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 stories about women in fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• An urgent call is going out to any female fan artists in the New York City area! The PBS program Off Book did a piece on fan artists on May 2. "The fan art community is one of the most creative and active online. Taking pop culture stories and icons as its starting point, the fan community extends those characters into new adventures, unexpected relationships, bizarre remixes, and even as the source material for beautiful art. Limited only by the imagination of the artist, the fan art world is full of surprises and brilliance." Apparently it is also "limited only" by the gender of the fan artist in the show's eyes, as not a single woman appeared to speak despite some of their fan art being shown. Super-wiki owner missyjack protested the exclusion of female artists on the YouTube post, and received a request from a show representative to gather the names of fans willing to be interviewed. If you're a female fan artist in NYC who would be willing to take part and broaden this representation of fan artists, comment at her blog.
• Also infuriating to many female fans was the representation of female audience members by MovieFone with regards to the new Marvel movie release, The Avengers. More than one female fan protested the representation of women as passive audience members dragged to the film simply to please boyfriends. The Discriminating Fangirl wrote "Instead of writing an intelligent guide to the movies for people who aren’t already fans" the article included "idiotic, sexist stereotypes." She summed up the problem with "Yes, because every girl going to see The Avengers is a giggling twit who’s obsessed with being pretty, watching inane rom coms, and who never got over high school. That’s insulting both to fangirls AND to girls who dig rom coms, because it...downplays womens’ intelligence and their taste in films. If girls like it, it must be fluff." She added that "superhero genre stuff AND romance genre stuff...[are] two interests [that] are not mutually exclusive."
• By comparison the just-completed ROFLcon III, a "State of the Web Union" conference held in Cambridge, Massachussetts, had a panel on Fangirl Culture alongside other panels on internet memes and supercuts ("those densely packed, tightly edited video compilations that usually hone in on an idiosyncratic film or television trope"). The Fangirl panel "brought together several fanfic creators-slash-experts, who discussed the increasingly mainstream visibility of fanfic, as well as the bad rap it sometimes gets — despite the fact that most of us grew up daydreaming ourselves into the lives of our favorite characters." It also spawned a related online article about the origins of vidding.

If you are a female creator of fanworks, you can help correct the media assumption that there are only one or two of you out here. Why not contribute to Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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 fan activity stories that might be of interest to fans:

• Erik Kain writing for Forbes discussed game mods being created for Game of Thrones and declared, "I think that this, and really the entire modding community, is living proof that games are much more a participatory medium than most other forms of entertainment. Sure, fans write fan-fiction all the time for popular franchises like Star Wars, but there’s something more impressive about a community of gamers banding together to create a gaming experience using tools that developers of popular games have made available." While not explaining what the key differences are, Kain concludes, "With the question of a new or alternative ending still very much on many of our minds in light of the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy, many critics of the critics have posited that a game is a work of art and can’t be changed due to fan pressure; that this sets a dangerous precedent and cheapens artistic integrity. Does a mod of a game like Mount & Blade or Skyrim or Half-Life 2 threaten its artistic integrity as well? The art is being changed – and not just due to fan pressure, but by fans themselves. The modding community is taking a work of art and changing it, distorting it, and making it in some ways a new work. Their own work."
• The Mass Effect 3 fans would not be the first to get a reworked ending. As author Elle Lothlorien tells it, her readers already got her to change her second novel's ending. "'The whole shift from paper publishing to e-publishing has allowed a whole new relationship between the readers and the author, so when fans began to contact me about the ending, it was odd at first. I realized that I can take this to the next level. I rewrote Sleeping Beauty and collaborated with CreateSpace to publish the alternate ending.' Lothlorien pointed out that a traditional publishing model would have made re-publishing the book with an alternate ending nearly impossible, especially given the time delays and marketability concerns of the industry as a whole. By utilizing print-on-demand, the author was able to conceptualize the alternate book and bring it to a physical print edition in a matter of weeks."
• Of course, regardless of how popular the canon ending is or isn't, fans don't necessarily stop creating. Despite the last Harry Potter film being released, Wizard Rock is continuing on. In an interview, members of wrock band Harry and the Potters discuss the origins of their fandom and the future of their work. "'We were casual fans. We had read the books once, but we weren’t involved in online message boards discussing Snape’s sex life or anything,' [guitarist and keyboardist Paul] DeGeorge said. 'We just thought it would be a cool way to re-contextualize these stories, turning them into rock songs.'" The band continues to have enough gigs lined up to keep them busy, and they aren't alone. A recent article on the upcoming off-Broadway opening of the UK production Potted Potter notes it has been going on, in one form or another, since 2005, and name drops another recontextualization of Potter, A Very Potter Musical, starring the (now well-known) Darren Criss, which continues to add to its over 8 million views.

If you are a Harry Potter, Game of Thrones fan, if you mod video games or are a creator of fanworks, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions 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 — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. 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.