Posts in Fannish Endings
OTW Fannews: Celebrations of All Kinds
The Chicago Tribune reviewed the play Badfic Love. “Here’s what works: all of the fanfic scenes with Connor Konz as Harry and Jake Szczepaniak as a delightfully dumb Draco. You root for these crazy kids, despite the (intentionally) terrible dialogue they’re saddled with. It’s legitimately funny stuff, mostly thanks to Szczepaniak, who gets the most out every slyly stupid line he’s given…The story’s creator is winningly played by Cristiana Barbatelli as a confident upstart who can’t fully hide her insecurities. The pair meet under false pretenses and fall for each other, and this is where playwright Pasen folds in some noted jabs at the stale, unrealistic conventions of romantic comedy.”
OTW Fannews: Coming Together
Bustle‘s Emma Lord focused on the successful protest of a fanfiction ’comedy’ act at WonderCon as part of discussing misconceptions about fanfic writers that she’s tired of. “WonderCon recently had to pull Chris Gore’s ‘Fan Fic Theater’ panel, in which he was going to read out loud actual fan fiction and make fun of it for sport. Like many fellow authors, I took to Twitter to question what the panel was for, and within thirty seconds of my incredibly civil tweet asking what was up, I’d been blocked by Chris Gore himself…It didn’t take long for the convention to cancel the whole thing, because duh, WonderCon, you can’t make fun of the very audience for your event and expect them to not get defensive about it.”
OTW Fannews: Awards Season
Various sites discussed the Wicked Young Writers’ Award first annual fanfiction category, “created by teen entertainment website sugarscape.com to celebrate the growing popularity of fan fiction amongst young people.” The contest was “established in 2010…to recognise excellence in writing, encourage creativity and develop writing talent in young people between 5-25 years of age from all backgrounds and areas of the UK & Ireland.”
OTW Fannews: Personal Connections
NPR profiled the legacy of Elvis fan, Paul MacLeod. His tribute to Elvis’s home, dubbed Graceland 2, has become his town’s biggest visitor draw. “In 1990, he opened his house to visitors to show off his enormous hoard of Elvis memorabilia. But it soon became clear that the real attraction was MacLeod. YouTube videos give an idea why: MacLeod guided visitors through his house like a deranged carnival barker. He never stopped talking…MacLeod’s devotion to ‘the king’ drove away his second wife and alienated his son. But it also transformed him from mere fan into what Elvis scholar Vernon Chadwick calls an outsider artist.”
OTW Fannews: Wherefore fandom?
Kristin Bezio wrote at The Learned Fangirl about responses to a post on Anita Sarkeesian, and defended critical fandom. “This commenter clearly has no concept of how popular culture reflects and shapes society, and I’m fairly certain I’m not going to be able to convince him (presumably) that it does, since he appears to be one of those people who doesn’t realize that his opinions about the universe have been constructed by his life-long exposure to media (including games) and society. Clearly his opinions were plopped into his brain by Truth Itself.”