Fans have many ways of engaging with what they love: going to conventions, posting on dedicated message boards, writing fanfiction, hiding in the bushes outside their favorite authors’ home… Most of the time, it’s a one-way, trickle-down thing; but it happens on occasion that some salmon-like fan manages to swim upstream and lay their eggs in their source material (this metaphor went down a weird road, but we’re sticking to it).
It's a beautiful thing - fans get to feel like they're being heard and that their ideas matter and creators get some pretty nifty ideas, as well as cover all-important fan service. If only other areas of life functioned like this - we're looking at you, politics. But honestly, that stream might just be too polluted, but we can dare to dream.
Here we have collected several examples of beautiful fan-hatchlings in canon. And they managed to avoid being eaten by bears along the way.
The Force Awakens R2 was built by hobbyists.
Dr. Who used a fan-made opening.
Venom came from a fan letter.
A Guardians 2 scene was inspired by fan theories.
Sega hired game modders for Sonic The Hedgehog
A fan artist got a job on Detective Pikachu.
A teen viewer created Me-Mow.
Fans contribute to Magic: The Gathering
The Expanse thanked fans, in-show.
A five-year-old child designed an Angry Birds level.
A player handed GTA a fix.
There's fan art in Doom Eternal.
Three teens from Virginia chipped in on Tiny Toons.
A fashion-minded fan designed Supergirl's costume in the 70's.
After driving away the anti-woke crowd with his holiday gala meltdown, Schneider will try to win them back with some old-fashioned Christian entertainment