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Language English The return of The X-Files prompted a number of media sites to reminisce about changes in fandom since the original series. Flavorwire wrote about the tools and companions of old. "The AOL-hosted Cabin X site is still ... [More] available via the Wayback Machine, in all its late-millennium glory. Hand-coded HTML tables. Lovingly crafted Photoshop collages of Mulder and Scully (along with B’Elanna Torres and Tom Paris of Star Trek: Voyager). A 'dreambook.' Links to a chat room and a message board, and to the other sites in a 'webring' of Cabin X members’ pages, all of which were hosted on AOL or Geocities or Angelfire...I decided to track down the people who were a part of my little corner of the fandom universe – and see if I could recapture some of that teenage feeling.” At New Statesman the focus was on Pokemon's 20th anniversary. "This was the start of a pop culture phenomenon that hasn’t quite been emulated to the same level of success since. Think about how much this colourful world had infiltrated our world at its peak: games on numerous platforms, a TV series, trading cards, multiple (successful) cinematic films and the plethora of branded merchandise. The only thing that comes close as a modern equivalent is Minecraft, the digital block-building game." Geek and Sundry instead wrote about some of the modern ur-fandoms such as Blake's 7 and Man from U.N.C.L.E. "[H]ow did fandoms function in the early days of the internet? How did they function before online communication? I decided to ask someone who knew all about this stuff because she’s lived it: My mom. Yep, my lavender-haired mom. The O.G. geek. She’s been going to conventions and knitting 4th Doctor scarves long before I ever knew what a tribble was. She’s the reason why I started going conventions. And if I hadn’t been raised by a geeky mom, I wouldn’t be a writer at Geek & Sundry." Redbull.com wrote about fans remaking and remastering old games. "Some of these have found favour with the original creators – Half Life studio Value nurtured the fan-made remake Black Mesa and even published it – but a higher proportion sadly fall by the wayside. Super Mario 64 HD and Resident Evil 2 HD are two recent examples which have been forced to close due to legal pressure from the IP holders." The site highlights some fanworks they consider the best to try. What fandoms do you know of that are enjoying renewed fan activity? Write about their old and new days 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 Fannews post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: Entertainment IndustriesNews MediaFandomsComicsTelevisionMessage: News of NoteProject: Transformative Works and Cultures [Less]

Language English From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express ... [More] each author's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly. Today's post is a Q&A with University of Minnesota undergraduate Olivia Riley. Olivia's thesis on Archive of Our Own and the Gift Culture of Fanfiction caught our attention. As she created a video for 2015's International Fanworks Day, we ask her about looking at fanworks through an academic perspective. How did you first get into fandom and fanworks? I’ve been a lifelong fangirl. I grew up watching Star Trek (the original series, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and later Enterprise when that came on) with my parents, who introduced me to the shows that would be my first fandom. We always had shelves of Star Trek novels in our basement, and when I was in elementary school, I started writing stories about going on adventures with all the fictional characters I loved. So I was writing fanfic before I even realized what that was! However, it was truly Doctor Who and Sherlock that brought me into modern, Internet fandom as we know it now. My love for those shows inspired me to find out if other people also adored them, and lo and behold! There existed huge, magical communities of fans who’d loved these characters since before I was born! I discovered blogs, and social media pages, and fan videos, and fanfiction and fell in love. What made you think about writing your thesis on a fandom topic? A summer ago, I discovered rather accidentally and then subsequently devoured the wonderful book Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls by Katherine Larsen and Lynn Zubernis, and that was my first real introduction to the academic study of fandom. I was totally captivated by the idea that other people had spent time investigating and working to understand fandom, and that maybe I could do that too! So, when I embarked on my research project, there was no question that it was going to be about something fannish. Then came the more difficult matter of deciding what angle I wanted to come at the topic from – communications, cultural studies, gender studies; a quantitative analysis or fic or a qualitative analysis of community; did I want to focus on vids or art or fic, etc. I ended up choosing to focus on fic, through the lens of the gift culture, mainly because it was an aspect of fan culture that I’d been peripherally aware of for years, but hadn’t known there was a name for. What was the most difficult part of it to do? Staying on task! It’s pretty hard to focus on writing a scholarly analysis of the structure of AO3 when, for that purpose, you have a really intriguing Daredevil Cops & Robbers AU open. Also, it was sometimes hard to remember that my own personal fan experience was not everyone else’s fan experience, and I had to keep a very open mind and look out for ways of interacting with fans and fanworks that I hadn’t known about before. To do that, I dove into the (rich and insightful) world of the scholarly study of fanworks and fandom, and determined that some of the most important aspects of fandom and fanfic in particular are gender, community, and the gift economy. I then argued that AO3’s form and function reflects and incorporates these key values of media fandom, from the site’s inception to the technical specificities of its realization. However, getting to the point where I had this nice, neat, thesis involved a lot of digging into literature and wandering around the Internet, and it was a bit of a struggle trying to figure out what exactly it was that I really wanted to talk about. Did your perspective on fanworks change as you worked on your thesis? It did. I realize now that what I really fell in love with wasn’t just the fanworks, but the love that their creators put into them. I’d often fan-girled in isolation, or only with a few people that I’d met in real life, but this project really opened my eyes to the expansive and amazing communities that blossom around every imaginable aspect of fandom. I saw how these incredible fans put their blood, sweat, and tears into their works and share them freely and with great love to their fellow fans, often in opposition to and despite the machinations of male, capitalist, power structures. (To my great pleasure, the more research I did, the more the feminist tilt of fan creation became apparent!) So, before I began my project I thought fanworks were really cool, but by the time I’d finished, I had a whole new level of respect for fanworks and their talented creators. What do fanworks mean to you today? To me, fanworks mean love, community, and freedom. They represent social ties and caring between friends and fellow fans, and they’re a tangible representation of these relationships. And they also mean freedom and revolution to me, because they represent a female tradition of creativity that has grown and thrived and created its own space separate from male-dominated capitalism. Fanworks are beautiful and magical and I could gush about them for hours...and in fact, did gush about them for months on end in the form of writing a ninety page paper! What would you tell others about International Fanworks Day? Participate! Don’t be scared to put yourself out there - the celebration of fans and their love is what this day’s all about. And participation doesn’t just mean going out and writing and posting your own fic – it can mean reblogging someone’s fanart on Tumblr, liking their fanvid on YouTube, or leaving comments on their fanfic on AO3. It’s pretty amazing that the Day exists, and being part of it can be a truly rewarding experience. News topic tags: AcademiaStudiesFannish HistoriesMessage: Event [Less]

Language English Fandom in 2015 was more "out" than ever before, with increasingly insightful takes on it that questioned common assumptions and sought to educate the public (and not just through academia.) Some of the developments had to ... [More] do with changes in the media itself, and some due to an understanding of its rewards to both the media, as well as everyday efforts. Hypable noted how fans were likely to spend the year-end holidays. "The fact is, everyone has their own traditions, and if you’re a part of a fandom, these traditions could (and probably do) relate to your passion. If you’re looking for ideas on how to add some flare to your celebrations this holiday, here are some ideas from six different fandoms!" For some people, as in The Burlington County Times the real celebration was discovering a new fannishness. "[W]hen 'Star Wars Episode VII' was announced, my sister almost cried with immense anticipation. I, on the other hand, wasn’t exceptionally fazed, but in the spirit of sisterhood, I agreed to attend a showing two days after the movie’s release. I hadn’t minded the original six films that I had been emphatically encouraged to watch as a child, and I knew that Laura would appreciate someone to whom she could fangirl. I had no idea that I would leave that theater shaking and screaming with joy over what is now my favorite movie. Somehow, I had been involuntarily indoctrinated into the 'Star Wars' cult, and I regret nothing." While some fannish meetings turned pretty permanent other fannish developments were personal revelations. "One of the awesome things about burlesque is that even when mainstream media usually only shows a limited ideal of women’s bodies, burlesque embraces all bodies. Big or small, tall or short, fit or not so fit. I’ve found the whole thing to be a very body positive experience. When I perform, I don’t care if people see my cellulite. And you know what? They don’t care either. They care that I’m performing as The Joker, or Edward Elric, or a post-apocalyptic road warrior. They care that I’m funny. They care that I’m showing them a great time. When everyone is having a great time being geeky, that’s all that really matters." What did you see as the major changes in how fandoms were represented in 2015? 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 Fannews post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: MoviesFannish PracticesFanfictionFannish CommunitiesMessage: News of Note [Less]

Language English From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express ... [More] each author's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly. Today's post is by former lawyer and a published novelist, earlgreytea68, who started writing fic with a couple of friends around eight years ago, saying, “Sure, I guess I’ll give this a try!” That was, to measure it the way a writer does, a few million words ago. EGT has written babyfic in “Doctor Who,” “Sherlock,” and “Inception,” but she writes other sorts of fic, too. You can find it all on AO3 and hang out with her on Tumblr. Sometimes I meet people—professional writers, even—who have no idea what a fanwork is, and this always gives me pause. My world is so immersed in fan creativity; my most-visited websites are Tumblr and Twitter and LJ (I’m old) and my bookmarks are all fics I need to get around to reading and I use AO3 so much that I literally broke my log-in account (a saga for another day, but shout-out to the awesome tech support who helped me through it!). I wonder what a life without fanworks is like. I wonder how a writer learns to write without fanfiction, because I learned everything I know about writing from fic, honestly. Thank you to every writer who’s inspired me and every reader who’s left me a comment, because you’ve all been the best creative writing course in the universe. But from the outside, I guess, it all looks weird. Once I had to explain coffee shop AUs to someone, and I said, “You take the characters and you put them in a coffee shop, so they’re, like, baristas and regular customers and maybe bakers and stuff.” They blinked at me and said, “And that’s a whole story?” And I was like, “That is TONS of stories and THEY ARE THE BEST.” But I guess, in the abstract, never having read a coffee shop AU, it might sound weird. Then again, I have become more and more convinced that it’s only weird to people because I put it in the fanfiction context, and, for some reason, people assume there’s something different about fan creativity than about “regular” creativity. Which is such an odd premise. I say “coffee shop AU,” and people cock their heads at me. But I say, “I’m working on a story where the main character works in a coffee shop and falls in love with a regular customer who’s always ordering pumpkin spice lattes,” and people say, “Awww!” I say, “I think I’m going to write a story about a person having to raise a baby who is also their clone,” and people say, “Yeah, sci-fi is in right now, huh?” I say, “I’m writing a story about Sherlock Holmes having to raise his own clone,” and people raise their eyebrows and are like, “That’s kind of crazy.” So this may be a weird thing to say on International Fanworks Day, but on this day what I want us to celebrate is the fact that fanworks are just like every other form of creativity, in that they are valid and important and interesting and fun and if you are engaging in them, you should never feel like you should be ashamed of it, that you should “stop playing around” and start “getting serious” or doing “real creativity” or whatever terms you want to attach to it. Because fanworks are absolutely one hundred percent real. In fact, fanworks are, in many ways, more real than the vast majority of “real” creativity, because the reach of fanworks is tremendous, and the influence of every fanwork, in the great ongoing dialogue that is fandom, is undeniable. Even the smallest of ripples contributes to the larger conversation. No fanwork is an island, and that makes every fanwork vitally important, in a way that “real” creativity seems to purposely stand apart from. In fact, I might be biased but if you can’t say it on International Fanworks Day, when can you say it? So: Fanworks differ from every other form of creativity mainly in the fact that they are a higher percentage of amazing. Fanworks are so routinely derided and dismissed, so routinely mocked and belittled, that everyone engaged in fan creativity is that extra dose of amazing for forging forward with that. Every act of creation is an act of bravery; it takes great courage to step into the world with something you made. And fan creators do it in a world that has already decided that your creation is worth less because it has “fan” in front of it. We make astonishing, impressive creations and, so frequently, we say nothing about them to most of the people we know. I sold a novel for publication and I told everyone I knew. I have written fics for years—fics I adore, am proud of, cherish, who have introduced me to delightful people who make every day better and have pulled me through tough times -— and I don’t talk about it. And it’s so weird, because it’s something to celebrate. We should understand it as such. So, on International Fanworks Day, I want all of you to celebrate YOU. Don’t feel bad or guilty or pointless; feel every one of your pieces of creativity is the amazing achievement that it is. Drawing and painting is, frankly, nothing short of witchcraft. Crafting a fanvid is a joyful magic. All of the other creations blossoming out there -— stuffed bunnies and brilliant pieces of clothing and excellent graphics and transporting fanmixes and moving songs and all the rest of it, gloriously too numerous for me to list -—are an embarrassment of riches. And all of you writers out there (which happens to be my creative medium): writing is hard, writing a story even harder. When you step back and look at what you’ve accomplished, don’t call it a fanwork. Call it what it is: a piece of art. Know, all of you, that no matter what it is you’re doing, you are bringing great glee to many nameless people who you will never meet but who will smile at your work, who will make a note of how much they loved it, who will discuss it with their friends. That, after all, is what artists do. And that is what you are: an artist. I wanted, my whole life, to be a writer. I worked very hard at it and I succeeded in publishing a book and it was absolutely amazing and if that is your dream, I encourage you to go for it. But I want to share with you the lesson I ultimately took away from that experience: I worked very hard to be a writer, only to realize that I had been a writer all along. Happy International Fanworks Day, guys. Keep all that creativity coming. News topic tags: FandomsBooksFanfictionFannish CommunitiesFannish HistoriesMessage: Announcement [Less]

Language English New York magazine took the opportunity to point out what the release of a new Star Wars film really means and included some early numbers from AO3. "[I]f you have even passing knowledge of the internet you won't be surprised ... [More] to hear that hundreds of authors and illustrators in the fan-fiction community are already hard at work asking tough questions, like, 'Yo, what if these two (or three) characters kissed?' But in a Star Wars universe with at least four major new roles, the key question is: Who are we most excited to read about boning?" Birth Movies Death was stuck on the idea that we're in a remix culture where official and unofficial fanworks all co-exist. "The most interesting fanfic is the kind where the fan takes a property they love and says 'I don’t see myself in here, so I’m putting myself in it.' I don’t mean that in general Mary Sue terms, but social progress terms - making characters queer, introducing characters of color, bringing in characters of other backgrounds...when Lucasfilm finally hires a filmmaker who isn’t just a white guy who grew up on Star Wars is when we’ll truly be entering a truly new phase of the saga." The Mary Sue considered the relative importance of fanon vs. canon. "This all seems to be part of a larger conversation that I’ve seen happening lately, across fandoms in genre fiction everywhere: how much should canon matter? How much should creators’ opinions matter? Can our own passion for what we believe the canon should be overpower what the 'truth' of the source material is? And does the 'truth' really matter, at that point? Can fandom bring about Death of the Author so effectively that we make our own 'truth'? Even referring to the canon as 'truth' here makes me squirm, because it suggests that fan-fiction and fan-art and fan interpretations are somehow false and therefore wrong … which they may be, according to the source material, but they feel true and so valid and so life-affirming to fans." Meanwhile Upvoted discussed the continuity of fandom across generations. "An immigrant from Vietnam, Greenleaf’s electrician dad developed a love for science-fiction in America watching TV shows like Star Trek and Johnny Quest. Then he saw Star Wars in the theaters when it came out in 1977. 'Definitely seeing Star Wars was a big thing for him, but I think he kept it to himself'" Now, however, it's all in the open. "'Once he saw me bringing a lot of costumes home and making them, he got interested...He’d ask me, ‘Can I try it on? Can I wear it?’ I’ve taken him to a lot of character events and introduced him to a lot of people, and he’s really gotten into it.'” Make sure fanworks and events surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens don't get forgotten! 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 Fannews post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: MoviesFannish PracticesFannish CommunitiesFannish HistoriesRace, Ethnicity, and NationalityMessage: News of Note [Less]

Language English The OTW Board of Directors has approved changes to the Archive of Our Own’s Terms of Service and Frequently Asked Questions. Proposed additions in bold; bracketed to be deleted. This post marks the start of a two-week public ... [More] comment period. Your comments and questions will be reviewed in order to evaluate whether further changes need to be made. Thank you for your assistance. III. Archive Privacy Policy … E. What we will do: 1. We may collect personally identifying information when you register for a user account with the Archive, visit any of the Archive sites, or use any of the Archive services. We may use third-party services to store, process, or transmit data, or perform other technical functions related to operating the site. These services may include spam detectors, backup services, icon hosting, and e-mail services. We endeavor to use only services with comprehensive privacy policies but cannot guarantee their performance. We or the services we use may store or process your personally identifying information in data centers which may be located in the United States or other countries. 2. We will use your e-mail address internally, and if you make it public on the site, anyone can access it and use it for any purpose. We may occasionally send e-mails to you from the Archive. We reserve the right to send you notice of complaints or violations [or suspensions] of the Terms of Service, as well as to reply to any e-mail message you send to the Archive. 3. We may retain: a. the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail; b. user-specific information about what pages users access or visit; c. the IP address of each visitor to our sites; d. any information that a person sends to OTW or Archive e-mail addresses (i.e., any e-mail to an administrator or other official address). …. V. Assorted Policies A. Collections, Challenges, and Exchanges Archive users may create collections and encourage other users to submit fanworks to those collections. The collection maintainer can set any constraints they want on the collection, including rules about anonymous works (see A.4 below) but must otherwise follow the content policy (e.g., if the collection content is explicit, it should be marked as “explicit” or “choose not to rate”). The collection maintainer may be able to ask users for suggestions for new fanworks (“prompts”), collect prompts, match participants with prompts (including contacting them via the contact information provided to the Archive or to the collection maintainer), and show the prompts on the Archive, following the general rules governing works on the Archive. Where collection rules allow, prompts may be anonymous or limited-visibility, as detailed in A.4 and A.5 below. A challenge maintainer can communicate with challenge participants. The challenge maintainer may have access to participants’ email addresses for this purpose. FAQ: Assorted Specialized Policies Collections What do you mean by "collections"? Collections are groups of works collected together under one heading. Collections can be fic or art fests, exchanges, 'big bangs' matching artists, authors, and/or podficcers, or other types of creative challenges, as well as simple collections of fanworks chosen by the collection maintainer. Learn more about collections. What information can the collection/challenge maintainer see about participants? The maintainer can see prompts as well as the username and email address that participants use to sign up, in case the maintainer needs to communicate with participants. What's the point of having separate rules for collections/challenges? The rules are basically the same as for everything else on the Archive. This just allows another way to group fanworks by areas of interest. There is one important special rule: if the collection maintainer says in the rules that submissions are final, then you can't withdraw your contribution from the collection, though you can always orphan it. We put this rule in place to allow gift exchanges. Ordinarily, removing a fanwork from the Archive is sad, but it's up to you. But when you've added a fanwork as a gift, and possibly received a fanwork as a gift in return, we think it's fair to say that the other participants should continue to enjoy the benefit of your contribution. In those cases, orphaning allows you to sever your connection with the fanwork while not removing it from the collection. This policy was based on prior experience with the Yuletide Rare Fandoms gift exchange. I think my fanwork would be perfect for a collection, but the maintainer won't add it to the collection! Unless there's an independent violation of the Content Policy, we won't intervene in collection decisions, even if they are arbitrary, biased, or wrong. You may want to add tags to your fanwork that will be of interest to people who are fans of relevant collections. How can I start a collection? Please consult our Tutorials. Please note that participants may provide information to the maintainer for purposes of participating in a collection or challenge. Any use of this information other than to manage the collection or challenge is a violation of our Terms of Service and can result in the termination of the maintainer's account. Other Changes Can orphaning be reversed? Usually not. [If you orphan a work inadvertently, or wish to rewrite it and repost under your name, and you can verify your identity as the author in a way we consider reliable enough, we may be able to reverse the orphaning. But orphaning may be irreversible in some cases,] Orphaning is irreversible in most cases, so please use this option carefully. What if what I want to post isn’t similar to one of the examples listed in the Terms of Service FAQ? In general, you can post any non-ephemeral, transformative content that is fannish in nature. If you have doubts about any particular examples and you don’t want to risk posting it, you can always contact our [Support] Abuse team to ask, using the [Support] Abuse form. Message: AnnouncementProject: Archive of Our Own [Less]

Language English From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express ... [More] each author's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly. Lisa Nicholas wears many hats: pro author, freelance web designer, crazy cat lady. When she’s not doing all of that, she fangirls as roane and roane72: recently Marvel and Star Wars (again, still, and always), but she’s also been active in the Sherlock and Doctor Who fandoms. At one point she’d hoped she’d be over her lifetime crush on Mark Hamill, but has now just given in and accepted it. Fandom changed my life. That is the absolute, literal truth. I have been a geek since I was five years old, when I saw Star Wars at a drive-in theater in 1977. The movie turned me into a lifelong fan of pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy. In my teenage years, there were bands, of course. Growing up in the 80s meant I had a wealth of bands to adore and I hung their posters on my bedroom wall. So I’ve always been a passionate fan of things, but I tended to give transformative fandom a wide berth. I didn’t understand fanfic—never mind that the very first story I wrote, at the age of 11, was Mary Sue self-insert fanfic about the band Journey. (It was 1983, cut me some slack here.) After that story, I kept writing. I spent several years in my late 20s trying to get published. I managed to sell a couple of short stories and wrote a couple of (terrible) novels. And I was a horrible, horrible snob about fanfic. I mean, awful. I did not understand the idea of writing something you could never sell, and why on earth would you write something that deviated so far from what the creators intended? Every argument you’ve heard against fanfic, I made it. Fanfic writers were “wasting their time”, slash was weird, etc. Thanks to a variety of personal crises (primarily dealing with my mother’s long bout with cancer), I stopped writing. Believe me when I tell you, the world was not poorer for lack of my mediocre science fiction and fantasy. But when my life settled down, I found that I missed writing. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get back into it. Then, in 2011, I found Tumblr. I’d just finished watching season one of Sherlock on Netflix, and season two was a few months away. I was delighted at the sheer imagination of other fans and got caught up in the excitement. I ended up watching season two live, and got sucked into the fandom. And—out of curiosity—I started reading fanfic. One of the very first things I read was aboundantlyqueer’s infamous John/Sherlock fic: Two Two One Bravo Baker. I have, only half-jokingly, referred to this as my “road to Damascus” moment. Talk about transformative! I stayed up nearly all night reading, slept for a few hours, then grabbed my Kindle and finished reading it before I got out of bed. I suddenly got it. I got fanfic, I got slash, and oh hell I definitely got John/Sherlock. I started writing my own fic. Gen at first, because I had never written anything explicit before, but it didn’t take me long to move on to explicit slash. After ten years of not writing and missing it desperately, I was writing. And more than that, I was getting feedback. Enthusiastic, lovely, encouraging feedback. Writing as a career looked like a possibility again. Even more so when one of the fans who got in touch with me to compliment my fic turned out to be a literary agent. (I think I hyperventilated for the rest of the day. In my old writing life, I’d never gotten to the agent-hunting stage.) She told me if I ever had any original fiction I wanted to show her, she’d love to see it. That lit a fire under my ass. Within a year, I sent her a romance novel, and she agreed to represent me. Less than six months after that, she’d sold two of my books to Penguin. The Farther I Fall and As Lost As I Get both came out in 2015. I also started self-publishing under a variety of pennames. A few months before Farther came out, I was laid off from my web development job. It seemed like a sign. I started my own business, doing freelance web development part-time and writing the rest of the time. Without fandom, I probably wouldn’t have started writing again. I wouldn’t have found the world’s best agent. Without her, I wouldn’t have gotten published. And I wouldn’t be working for myself. That’s a hell of a lot of change, and it all started thanks to fandom. My life is on a path I never thought possible, but always wanted. I’ve since moved on to other fandoms, but nothing will likely have a greater effect on me than that glorious hiatus between season two and season three of Sherlock. So in celebration of International Fanworks Day, I’d like to say thanks. Thanks to all the fic writers and artists and podficcers and gif makers and knitters and podcasters and—everything else we create out of love. You reminded me what it is to love the act of creation and now? Now I feel sorry for the fans like I used to be, who don’t get fanworks in all their messy, imaginative glory. They’re missing out. News topic tags: BooksFanfictionFannish HistoriesMessage: Spotlight [Less]

Language English From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express ... [More] each author's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly. Lisa Nicholas wears many hats: pro author, freelance web designer, crazy cat lady. When she’s not doing all of that, she fangirls as roane and roane72: recently Marvel and Star Wars (again, still, and always), but she’s also been active in the Sherlock and Doctor Who fandoms. At one point she’d hoped she’d be over her lifetime crush on Mark Hamill, but has now just given in and accepted it. Fandom changed my life. That is the absolute, literal truth. I have been a geek since I was five years old, when I saw Star Wars at a drive-in theater in 1977. The movie turned me into a lifelong fan of pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy. In my teenage years, there were bands, of course. Growing up in the 80s meant I had a wealth of bands to adore and I hung their posters on my bedroom wall. So I’ve always been a passionate fan of things, but I tended to give transformative fandom a wide berth. I didn’t understand fanfic—never mind that the very first story I wrote, at the age of 11, was Mary Sue self-insert fanfic about the band Journey. (It was 1983, cut me some slack here.) After that story, I kept writing. I spent several years in my late 20s trying to get published. I managed to sell a couple of short stories and wrote a couple of (terrible) novels. And I was a horrible, horrible snob about fanfic. I mean, awful. I did not understand the idea of writing something you could never sell, and why on earth would you write something that deviated so far from what the creators intended? Every argument you’ve heard against fanfic, I made it. Fanfic writers were “wasting their time”, slash was weird, etc. Thanks to a variety of personal crises (primarily dealing with my mother’s long bout with cancer), I stopped writing. Believe me when I tell you, the world was not poorer for lack of my mediocre science fiction and fantasy. But when my life settled down, I found that I missed writing. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get back into it. Then, in 2011, I found Tumblr. I’d just finished watching season one of Sherlock on Netflix, and season two was a few months away. I was delighted at the sheer imagination of other fans and got caught up in the excitement. I ended up watching season two live, and got sucked into the fandom. And—out of curiosity—I started reading fanfic. One of the very first things I read was abundantlyqueer’s infamous John/Sherlock fic: Two Two One Bravo Baker. I have, only half-jokingly, referred to this as my “road to Damascus” moment. Talk about transformative! I stayed up nearly all night reading, slept for a few hours, then grabbed my Kindle and finished reading it before I got out of bed. I suddenly got it. I got fanfic, I got slash, and oh hell I definitely got John/Sherlock. I started writing my own fic. Gen at first, because I had never written anything explicit before, but it didn’t take me long to move on to explicit slash. After ten years of not writing and missing it desperately, I was writing. And more than that, I was getting feedback. Enthusiastic, lovely, encouraging feedback. Writing as a career looked like a possibility again. Even more so when one of the fans who got in touch with me to compliment my fic turned out to be a literary agent. (I think I hyperventilated for the rest of the day. In my old writing life, I’d never gotten to the agent-hunting stage.) She told me if I ever had any original fiction I wanted to show her, she’d love to see it. That lit a fire under my ass. Within a year, I sent her a romance novel, and she agreed to represent me. Less than six months after that, she’d sold two of my books to Penguin. The Farther I Fall and As Lost As I Get both came out in 2015. I also started self-publishing under a variety of pennames. A few months before Farther came out, I was laid off from my web development job. It seemed like a sign. I started my own business, doing freelance web development part-time and writing the rest of the time. Without fandom, I probably wouldn’t have started writing again. I wouldn’t have found the world’s best agent. Without her, I wouldn’t have gotten published. And I wouldn’t be working for myself. That’s a hell of a lot of change, and it all started thanks to fandom. My life is on a path I never thought possible, but always wanted. I’ve since moved on to other fandoms, but nothing will likely have a greater effect on me than that glorious hiatus between season two and season three of Sherlock. So in celebration of International Fanworks Day, I’d like to say thanks. Thanks to all the fic writers and artists and podficcers and gif makers and knitters and podcasters and—everything else we create out of love. You reminded me what it is to love the act of creation and now? Now I feel sorry for the fans like I used to be, who don’t get fanworks in all their messy, imaginative glory. They’re missing out. News topic tags: BooksFanfictionFannish HistoriesMessage: Spotlight [Less]

Language English Bahasa Indonesia • Deutsch • English • español • français • italiano • magyar • Nederlands • polski • português brasileiro • Русский • svenska • The Prydonian, a Doctor Who fanfiction archive, and its subsite Human Nature, a ... [More] Doctor Who RPF fanfiction archive, are being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3). In this post: A bit of background explanation What this means for creators who have work on The Prydonian or Human Nature And what to do if you still have questions Background explanation The Prydonian, a Doctor Who Fanfiction archive for fanworks focusing on the relationship between the Doctor and the Master, was created by Versaphile in 2008. A Doctor Who RPF subsite, Human Nature, was added in 2009. Open Doors will be working with Versaphile to import The Prydonian and Human Nature into two separate, searchable collections with their own identities. Eventually the links going to the old site will re-direct to the collections on AO3 so the works can continue to be found with their old URLs. We will begin importing works from The Prydonian and Human Nature to the AO3 collection in January 2016. What does this mean for creators who have work on The Prydonian and/or Human Nature? This is the part where we ask for your help! 1. If you already have an AO3 account and have posted your The Prydonian and/or Human Nature works there, please contact Open Doors with your The Prydonian and/or Human Nature pseud(s) and e-mail address(es), so that we won’t import your works. (Please include "The Prydonian" and/or "Human Nature" in the subject heading.) For instructions on mass-adding works to the new The Prydonian collection or the new Human Nature collection please see the Open Doors website. 2. If you don’t already have an AO3 account but would like one to import your works yourself, please contact Open Doors with your The Prydonian and/or Human Nature pseud(s), and the preferred e-mail address to send the AO3 invite to. (Please include "The Prydonian" and/or "Human Nature" in the subject heading.) For instructions on importing works and adding them to the new The Prydonian collection or the new Human Nature collection, please see the Open Doors website. 3. If you don’t already have an AO3 account but would like one, as well as assistance importing your works, please contact Open Doors with your The Prydonian and/or Human Nature pseud(s), and the preferred e-mail address to send the AO3 invite to. (Please include "The Prydonian" and/or "Human Nature" in the subject heading.) Once your account is set up, let us know your AO3 name, and we can transfer your works to you once imported. 4. If you would NOT like your works moved, please contact Open Doors with your The Prydonian and/or Human Nature pseud(s) and e-mail address(es) so that we will not add them. (Please include "The Prydonian" and/or "Human Nature" in the subject heading.) If you would not mind your works being preserved but do not want your name attached to them any longer, please let us know that too--we can orphan your works instead of leaving them behind to be deleted. All works archived on a creator’s behalf will be attributed with the creator’s name in the byline or the summary of the work. As we import works, we will e-mail notifications to the address associated with the work. When all works have been accounted for, the Open Doors committee will set up the URL redirects, and we will permanently close down the site. All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your The Prydonian and/or Human Nature account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's fantastic; if not, we will work with Versaphile to confirm your claims.) If you still have questions... If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ page, contact the Open Doors committee, or leave a comment on this post and we'll respond as soon as we can. We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Prydonian and Human Nature on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips. We're excited to be able to help preserve both The Prydonian and Human Nature! - The Open Doors team News topic tags: TelevisionFanfictionMessage: AnnouncementProject: Open Doors [Less]

Language English The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting! We're excited to announce the opening of applications for: Support Staff - closing 27 January 2016 UTC Translation Volunteers - closing 27 January 2016 UTC We have ... [More] included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available. All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist volunteers -(at)- transformativeworks -(dot)- org in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us. If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ. Support Staff The Support team is responsible for handling the feedback and requests for assistance we receive from users of the Archive. We answer users’ questions, help to resolve problems they’re experiencing, and pass on information to and from coders, testers, tag wranglers and other teams involved with the Archive. Applications are due 27 January 2016 Translation Volunteer Translators and translation betas help make the OTW and its projects accessible to a wider international audience. We work on translating all sorts of content throughout the OTW and its projects: site pages, news posts, AO3 FAQs, AO3 Support tickets, and any inquiry that reaches a committee or volunteer group in languages they can’t translate themselves. Most of our work consists of translations from English to another language, though we also need to do the reverse on some occasions. If you are fluent in one language (or more!) other than English, if you enjoy working collaboratively, if you like having flexible deadlines, if you’re passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help it reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you! We really need volunteers who speak Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Danish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Kiswahili, Korean, Norwegian, Slovenian, Turkish and Vietnamese—but help with other languages would be much appreciated. (Please note that our Brazilian Portuguese, German, Indonesian, Italian, Polish and Spanish teams are not accepting new members at this time.) Applicants may be asked to translate and correct short text samples as part of the selection process. More information can be found on the Translation Committee page. Applications are due 27 January 2016 Apply at the volunteering page! News topic tags: Support CommitteeTranslation CommitteeVolunteers & RecruitingMessage: Volunteering [Less]