Bloggers Wanted: The gift of fanfic

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Goku and Superman walk into a bar…

Fan fiction. These two words, hair-raising to the average individual, nonetheless apply to a variety of things that do appeal to a large audience. Between the oddity of the Frasierverse, to these confusing Minecraft books for kids, to the rule 34 stuff you probably checked in secret once or twice, there’s fan-created content for everyone. And, of course, there’s the variety of tasteful and… less tasteful stories you can find on the web that immediately jump to mind as well.

Obama chuckled. “You mean the Chaos Emeralds?”

— Fanfiction_txt (@fanfiction_txt) April 30, 2013

On this month of festivities associated or not with religions responsible or not for the massacre of the populace in an attempt to suppress paganism, I figured the timing was just right to celebrate the fan-produced content we enjoy. No matter in which category it falls.

Video game fan content, in particular, has continuously impressed me over the years. From humble flash animations on Newgrounds all the way to Christian Whitehead and other fan game developers being hired by SEGA to work on an actual Sonic the Hedgehog game, there have been so many moments that made me go “Whoa, this is awesome.”

My personal favorite experience with fan-made content has been with the Ace Attorney series. Beyond the great lengths fans have gone to translate Ace Attorney Investigations 2, there’s just a wealth of very enjoyable standalone fan stories to be found. Fan games like Turnabout Substitution may not look as pretty as the real Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, but also don’t ask me to watch a shitty CGI concert multiple times in a row either! And what about Ace Attorney Online, the chat room that allows you to make your own cases… which always end up completely ridiculous? I love that so much!

In any case, this month’s Bloggers Wanted is a celebration of all things unofficial. It’s an opportunity to write in the Community Blog section about that fan game you love, or that Shrek x SpongeBob crossover webcomic you swear you hate (but secretly read every morning before work). All you have to do is write your story in the Cblogs and format the title as “The gift of fanfic: [your blog title here].”

And hey, if you want to write your own fan fiction, that’s also fine by me.