Look, there’s nothing wrong with fan fiction. As this recent essay on Newsies fandom goes to show, penning elaborate (and steamy scenarios) for the fictional characters with whom you identify can be a healthy way to hone one’s writing skills and explore nascent sexuality.
Many of us have wished for the death of Scrappy-Doo—an obnoxious, unfortunate add to the classic Scooby-Doo line of cartoons—many times. It’s hard to decides what was worse: His motto of “Puppy power”? His tendency to put up his dukes? Or the way he constantly messed up the plans of “Unca Scoob” and his pals as they…
As the world burns, so does our innocence. It isn’t hard for the casual internet user to find bizarre perversions of entertainment that was created for children, whether it be through a creepily fetishistic Frozen blog or any number of bootleg Disney video games. But there’s another side to this culture of fandom, one…
In the days after Trump’s election, the majority of Americans who opposed him were looking for something, anything, to feel comfort. And so it was nice to see that picture of Hillary Clinton, seemingly fine, hanging out in the woods in upstate New York—to see that after all of the indignity of the campaign, and after…
Fan fiction is as pervasive as it is disreputable. Literary critics dismiss it out of hand as derivative tripe. Some professional writers feel that it violates the sanctity of their work. Lawyers may see it as an actionable breach of copyright and let loose the cease and desist notices. And yet, the tide of…
These are dark days for Trekkers. Not only have beleaguered devotees of the iconic sci-fi franchise been forced to endure a Star Trek Beyond trailer that even Simon Pegg admits doesn’t look a thing like Star Trek in recent weeks, now CBS, the network that launched the franchise in 1966, is suing the makers of a…
Legos are a versatile medium for fans to use to recreate trailers for hotly anticipated films or re-enact entire scenes from movies. For accomplished and talented stop-motion artists, it also allows for wholly original (well, while working with existing intellectual properties) works of fan fiction that can show off…
Fan fiction can be a weird thing. Authors can use it to create scenes that never happened, like a particularly raunchy Mulder/Scully roll in the hay, or just use characters from an existing product—Twilight, let’s say—to create something totally new, a la 50 Shades Of Grey.
