Defictionalization: Difference between revisions

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* Lovecraft: it's quite easy to obtain Miskatonic University attire. Go Cephalopods! The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has some very impressive reproductions of [https://web.archive.org/web/20141217085118/http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=33176 assorted] [http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=32771 blasphemous] [https://web.archive.org/web/20150310063928/http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=45 idols], [https://web.archive.org/web/20140812021733/http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=32831 pages from the Necronomicon], and [https://web.archive.org/web/20130722224808/http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=50 Professor Angell's Box], a very expensive, detailed and exhaustively complete copy of the box of documents and props from ''The Call of Cthulhu''.

** The Necronomicon is listed in the Ohio University Library card catalog. [[L. Sprague de Camp]], fantasy author and linguist, acted as Abdul Alhazred's "translator".

** Naturally, many book publishers have been inspired by Lovecraft's work to create and mass-market "real" versions of the Necronomicon. Some seem loyal to the source, like ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Necronomicon Simon Necrominon]'', others are more about [[Homage]] to the source. There's even [[Lovecraft Lite| a ''pop-up book'' version.]] [http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/Necronomicon%20Pillow%20-%20Large.jpg No, really.]

** Naturally, many book publishers have been inspired by Lovecraft's work to create and mass-market "real" versions of the Necronomicon. Some seem loyal to the source, like ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Necronomicon Simon Necrominon]'', others are more about [[Homage]] to the source. There's even [[Lovecraft Lite| a ''pop-up book'' version.]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20170712142543/http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/Necronomicon%20Pillow%20-%20Large.jpg No, really.]

* ''The Book of Counted Sorrows'' by [[Dean Koontz]].

* In [[Michael Chabon]]'s novel ''[[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay]],'' the protagonists create a comic book series called ''The Escapist.'' Then a 6-issue miniseries came out, printing various comic book stories from ''The Escapist,'' from the '40s through the present, with explanatory articles by real important figures in the comic book world, about the series' various publishers, and its place in the changing trends and values in the history of comics.

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** Laser enthusiast Trekkies have put [http://hackaday.com/2010/01/15/phaser-to-laser-mod-puts-out-465mw/ burning laser diodes into toy phasers].

** The creator of "[[wikipedia:Watson (artificial intelligence software)|Watson]]", an AI that is able to parse natural language, compares it to LCARS, the computer on Star Trek, in its ability to answer casually worded questions. This ability led it to trounce, by a 3-to-1 margin, both Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter at Jeopardy.

** The official ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]] Technical Manual'' contained the assertion that thanks to the fluidity of the LCARS interface, a crewmember could theoretically fly the entire ship from a PADD (the little touchscreen gadgets everyone carried around) while walking down a corridor. [http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/10/6829360-iphones-head-for-final-frontier There are now iPhones being customized for use on the International Space Station which include navigation software]; theoretically astronauts could navigate the station through space with their iPhones.

** The official ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]] Technical Manual'' contained the assertion that thanks to the fluidity of the LCARS interface, a crewmember could theoretically fly the entire ship from a PADD (the little touchscreen gadgets everyone carried around) while walking down a corridor. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120511222823/http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/10/6829360-iphones-head-for-final-frontier There are now iPhones being customized for use on the International Space Station which include navigation software]; theoretically astronauts could navigate the station through space with their iPhones.

*** And if they trade in the iPhones for iPads, Playbooks, Galaxy Tab, or some other tablet, they've now got a perfect real-life example of a PADD, right down to the size.

** The camera-friendly bridge design of the series inspired the bridge design of the US littoral combat ship (and potentially future designs) due to allowing easy communication between officers.

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* A good half of the products in the ''[[Megatokyo]]'' store were actually items worn by the characters in the comic. Piro comments in the first ''Megatokyo'' book how no one was really sure what Largo's "cool thing" purchase was. Dom comments "When we do, it'll be on our online store in less than two weeks. God bless America."

* ''[[Achewood]]'' has two short stories "written" by character Nice Pete, as well as six issues of Roast Beef's 'zine and greeting cards (from [http://achewood.com/index.php?date=04242008 this] storyline) in the shop. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140102014807/http://phoneballs.com/ Phoneballs] exist now, though they seem to have been created independently of the ''Achewood'' strips.

* The creators of ''[[Erfworld]]'' created a website for [http://www.hamstard.com/ Hamstard], which was Parson Gotti's [[So Bad It's Good]] ([[Stylistic Suck|deliberately in its real world incarnation]]) webcomic before he got plotted into Erfworld. It's actually been up since before the comic that shows it was posted—hasn't been updated since then either. Presumably it'll get some fresh content when (if) he makes it back to the "real world".

* The creators of ''[[Erfworld]]'' created a website for [https://web.archive.org/web/20131028233635/http://www.hamstard.com/ Hamstard], which was Parson Gotti's [[So Bad It's Good]] ([[Stylistic Suck|deliberately in its real world incarnation]]) webcomic before he got plotted into Erfworld. It's actually been up since before the comic that shows it was posted—hasn't been updated since then either. Presumably it'll get some fresh content when (if) he makes it back to the "real world".

* ''[[xkcd]]'':

** After a joke about [[Rule 34]], the author (and some, ahem, artistically-minded fans) went on to create a tongue-in-cheek site of guitar-in-shower porn. Oh, yes, and when a gag hinged upon stupid Youtube comments being read back to the authors, ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Youtube responded by adding an audio preview]]''. [[That Other Wiki]] has an impressively large list of life imitating ''xkcd''.

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* The online store [http://www.thinkgeek.com/ ThinkGeek] lists [http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/ fake products on April Fool's day] that are intended to be obviously something that couldn't exist in real life, but sometimes they're just so plausible, that they have to give into fan demand and make them real. The [http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/hats-ties/9352/ 8-bit Tie], [https://web.archive.org/web/20100105205353/http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/98ab/ the Grow Your Own 1-Up Mushroom kit] (although not as literally as the original product was described, and no longer on the site) and [http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/bb2e/ the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag] are examples of this.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180804023121/http://powerthirst.ca/ Powerthirst] is now real, as well.

* There is a guild called [[The Guild|The Knights of Good]] on pretty much any MMORPG that has guilds. There is also a website for [http://finnsmulders.com Finn Smulders].

* There is a guild called [[The Guild|The Knights of Good]] on pretty much any MMORPG that has guilds. There is also a website for [https://web.archive.org/web/20140104090304/http://finnsmulders.com/ Finn Smulders].

* The real-life [https://web.archive.org/web/20120509140642/http://www.lollershop.com/products/classic-loldongs-tshirt "LOLDONGS" t-shirt] and [http://dudebro.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page "Dudebro 2" PC game] were each inspired by in-jokes on message boards.

* [http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html Gmail Motion], a 2011 [[April Fools' Day]] joke by Google about a hand-gesture interface to Gmail, inspired researchers at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies to make a [http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/faast/ real prototype] of such an interface [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfso7_i9Ko8 using a Kinect sensor].