Episode 209: Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 17
In the newest (17th!) installment of the “Ask Fansplaining Anything” series, Flourish and Elizabeth read a mix of responses to recent episodes and fresh queries. Topics discussed include communal versus solitary fandom, how the “BNF” role shifts when global fandoms rely on fan translations, asexuality and aromanticism in fic, their (EXTREMELY MIXED) experiences running surveys, and, importantly, AMC’s Interview with the Vampire.
Show notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:01:05] That’s Episode 208: “What Fans Owe Each Other.”
[00:06:53] You can (and should) read Destination Toast’s response to the episode (with more of that famed bolding and bullet pointing!!!) here.
[00:08:00] Our most recent “Tropefest” episode—on friendship in fic—is #31: “Friends to ?” Patrons at $3 a month (or more) gets access to the entire “Tropefest” series:
Plus 20 other special episodes! That’s patreon.com/fansplaining. :-)
[00:23:09] Would all of these still crack the top 10? Only you can determine that…because we will probably not be running another survey, fic tropes or otherwise. But you are welcome to re-run and modify any of ours!
[00:26:06] Our interstitial music throughout is “Evening glow” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:31:06] When we almost ended the podcast—just eight episodes in: “One True Fandom.”
[00:41:28] Our last AMA was, in fact, in April—and we did talk about BNFs then.
[00:44:48] Sam Reid said he got “tingles” watching Assad Zaman as Armand—and even though we only have one clip so far, he is obviously correct.
[00:47:51] Like Flourish, you, too, can enjoy Elizabeth’s Interview with the Vampire board:
You can also sign and make your own board! Make it public or share it with a few friends or keep it totally private! (REMINDER OF THAT DISCLOSURE: ELIZABETH WORKS FOR ABOARD, BUT ISN’T IT A GREAT TOOL FOR SAVING FANDOM STUFF???)
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish.
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #209, “Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 17.”
FK: Wow. So, the first few asks that we have are related to our recent episodes, and then we’ve got a bunch of fresh, new, shiny questions! [ELM laughs]
ELM: Yeah, or comments. Yeah, we used to have this policy, it was like, AMAs were just for fresh questions, it wasn’t like a response period, but…who cares? [both laugh] That’s my stance.
FK: We have, we have ended this policy. Now we just do it all.
ELM: I don’t know, we got a bunch of feedback, let’s read it.
FK: OK, all right. Should I read the first one?
ELM: Yeah, so the first one is in response to our last episode, which was called “What Fans Owe Each Other,” and TL;DR, we got a letter from Destination Toast—OMG, this is so recursive—in response to our interview with Dylan Marron, talking about like, is there any way to make fan discourse…better, on the internet, and we were pretty gloomy. Not least because the structures in which we spend most of our online time, not just fan online time, are fundamentally flawed.
FK: OK. So, in response to that episode, we have this ask from Kingstoken, who says:
“I listened to your newest episode ‘What Fans Owe Each Other,’ and you might not have meant it, but you both came off extremely cynical. I understand the points you were trying to make, but it seemed like you were saying ‘people can’t be changed by information, so you might as well not even try,’ and I disagree with that. Yes, posts that try to educate and build community may be ignored by the majority of fans, but for a few fans they might hit them at the right time, and give them the information and tools they need. And if those posts just help that tiny number of fans, then it is still worth making them.”
FK: That’s from Kingstoken.
ELM: Kingstoken, I really appreciate you writing in. You know, I’m a little bit, like, we said multiple times that we’re responding cynically, so I don’t, I don’t think that—it’s not news to us that that’s how it came off, because that is I think how we feel.
FK: Yeah! I, I agree, and I also think that there’s so much—I mean it’s not like anything that is being talked about here is, like, “neutral information,” either, right? It’s like saying… All the things that Toast is proposing are things that would shape fandom in particular ways, that…I mean, I agree with Toast that if a lot of these things were taken on by everybody, the world would be a better place, but I don’t think that’s neutral, you know what I mean? You’re not just, like, giving people information, necessarily. You’re actually promoting a viewpoint, and a…and a way of being online, and I just think that different people have such different ideas, even about what they’re doing online, that we’re already starting from a place that’s really hard. [laughs] You know?
ELM: Yeah, I mean, that makes me think of, you know, bringing up towards the end of that conversation last time, the dangers of toxic positivity, and…
FK: Mmm.
ELM: You’re right, information is not neutral, and the stance of “this is how we should all behave in fandom” isn’t gonna be a universal. And one person’s, you know, like, “we should all be kind” is another person’s suppression of complicated topics, you know?
Like…it’s really hard—I think one person in the reblogs of our episode had some tags that really resonated with me, saying, you know, like, “giving rules and suggestions are great”—they didn’t say it like this, I don’t know why I’m saying they wrote a whole paragraph or whatever—but the tags basically like, rules, sure, but people can get really dogmatic with them. And that’s something else I think we brought up in that episode, this kind of idea of…you set down some rules, try to say “this is what fandom is like,” “your kink is not my kink and that’s OK,” et cetera et cetera, here’s a catchy acronym…and then people absolutely treat it dogmatically, and kind of go around unleashing their inner cop, you know? [both laugh] And um…fighting with people because they’re not adhering to those rules.
And I think fandom has a lot of people who really want rules. But I think back to what you just said—it’s hard to agree on what those rules should be, because you have people from all over the world, different levels of fluency in a language, different levels of education and experience, just different values, different backgrounds. And that’s not to say that like, yeah, I do think that not being cruel to each other should be universal.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I think what that means in practice and what you would write down in a list of fan guidance would vary a lot from person to person.
FK: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I…again, I don’t want to take this too far, because I do think there are certain kinds of things that kind of are information, like, you know, the idea of interacting with something makes it spread further.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Remember that, when you see something, right? Some of these things are information on some level, and someone could use it whichever way they want, right? [laughs] So I don’t mean to say that there’s like, no piece of information that’s useful.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: About the way these platforms exist. And I also don’t wanna sound like I don’t think that people can change. [laughing] Like, I mean, I’m becoming a priest, I’m pretty invested in the idea that people can become more moral, [ELM laughs] and better people. You know? But I just think that it’s a really—that’s a complicated question, of how people do that. I just think that the only way that people really change their behaviors is through relational means. Through having relationships with people, meaning friendships or, you know, just coming to see people as humans, and living together with them. Preaching at people doesn’t really change behavior. [laughs] So…
ELM: Right, and putting up a set of rules that then people do treat like they’re the cops, you know…
FK: Right.
ELM: I think those are the two different ways that can come out, and again this comes back to scale. You know? Because if you’re in just a smaller community, you could DM, you would all know each other and you DM the person and say like, “Hey, the way you’ve been handling these situations, you’re really been making it worse,” you know, like, “why are you…Joe, why are you wheedling Sam, obviously they love Bucky [FK laughs] and the way you’re talking about Bucky is so shitty, so maybe…” and Joe could be like, “I didn’t realize, I just don’t like Bucky very much,” you know what I mean?
FK: [overlapping] Right.
ELM: But that’s, it’s so hard to translate that into some sort of like, big blanket rules, and then it’s very easy, I think, to see yourself as the enforcer of the rules.
FK: Right.
ELM: I should say that Destination Toast wrote a long response to the episode, that was great, and…
FK: Mmm hmmm!
ELM: I think clarified in it, too, that they also have mixed feelings about this topic, right? I think they took a pretty…cheerful isn’t even the right word, just pragmatic, I think, the original letter was, right?
FK: [overlapping] Yes.
ELM: And I totally get that, and they kind of further that in their response. So we should put that in the show notes, because I think people would probably like to read it.
FK: Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. And as always, cheers to Toast for being a, you know, being a mensch [laughing] and letting us riff on whatever they’re thinking about.
ELM: Bolding and bullet pointing.
FK: Yeah. OK, OK. The next set of comments that we have come from actually a special episode that we did, about friends tropes, and so we know that some people who are listening to this will not have heard that special episode, because that’s only available for Patreon supporters, but we think that even if you haven’t heard it, there’s stuff to enjoy in these responses. [both laugh] So we’re gonna read them anyway.
ELM: Um…yeah, so, you’ve heard us talk about it before, but this is part of our “Tropefest” series, we’ve done a whole bunch of special episodes on different tropes, and this particular one is about friendship tropes of all sorts. So, you know, friends to lovers, or friends with benefits, or all these ones that, like, friends lead to some sort of romantic/sexual situation, but also friendship stuff, queerplatonic relationships, and a lot of the conversation was about ship supremacy. And so I think that was what our letter writers here are responding to.
FK: Yeah, definitely. OK, will you read the first one?
ELM: Yeah, I could do that. OK, this is from Operafloozy. Excellent name, by the way.
“Thanks for covering friendship as an acceptable topic of fanfiction on its own, since it does tend to be ignored in shipping fanfic spaces. (A couple of months ago, I was talking to someone I shared a fandom with about how much great friendship potential there is between two characters, then tried to talk them into writing something for an ‘anything but the main tropes fest’—they claimed they were only interested in the main ship pairing! Despite saying how much they loved this side friendship pairing! I don’t know, the cognitive dissonance is weird.) It always struck me as interesting because the same people will reblog art depicting friendship, or comics depicting non-romantic relationships—even them playing with their pets—but not consider it fic-worthy unless there's a romantic pairing.
“I do think that people might have gotten better at respecting ace representation as valid in recent years. My fandom has a couple of ace characters in different stripes, and the way it typically plays out is that people have different ideas of what a demisexual character's romantic or sexual interest looks like, but the aroace ensemble character is often treated as a side character. There’s also plenty of different headcanons about other characters being ace in some way, and I do think that all of the other queer pairings around them help prevent the accusations of homophobia. It’s just that they’re unlikely to be the main character in the fic unless they are some shade of alloromantic. (Weirdly enough, I don’t think I’ve seen anything with any allosexual aromantic characters.)”
FK: Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting, I do think that there have been some strides in, at least people knowing [laughs] what ace characters are or could be? I don’t know that I could speak to whether they’ve had better representation in fanfic in the past few years, but I do think that people are aware of it as a thing that exists, which is probably helping?
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I think part of this—so, for context, in the episode I talk about the experience of, the fandom where I encountered the most ace fic was Sherlock, and that was 10 years ago, and in the episode, talking about how shitty a lot of it was, just in terms of like, not really—you know, like, asserting that Sherlock was ace and then not really respecting that. Or making it something that he had to get over. Obviously with demisexuality, there’s a lot of ways to write that, but essentially that also can be a way—not to “get over,” but like, kinda the point of demisexuality is it takes you, you’re not like…it takes you a long time, right, it’s like, you know, you wanna be intellectually and emotionally connected to a partner. Right? But it’s still, there’s still space in there to culminate in the classic normative fanfiction romantic and sexual relationship, right?
FK: [simultaneous] Right.
ELM: And yeah, absolutely, I’ve seen more characters written as ace in fic since then, as side characters. Like, an ensemble, and they’re just like, “And this one in the background, he’s ace!” [FK laughs] You know? And you’re like, “Cool, great…”
FK: “OK…”
ELM: Which, like, doesn’t feel…meaningful.
FK: Right.
ELM: Just as like, just slapping any sort of marginalization on any background character doesn’t feel meaningful.
FK: Yeah. I think that…it’s interesting, the thing that really struck me here was the mention of aromantic allosexual characters not being, you know, showing up in fic so much, and when they brought it up I sort of realized, hey, actually I think that that kinda makes sense to me, because as much as people do write fic that’s just porn, a lot of times that has, like, the porn that they’re writing has to do with…there’s like an implied romantic relationship that could happen, right, you know what I mean?
ELM: [overlapping] Sure. Yeah.
FK: The fic itself may consist of porn, but it’s only working for you because you know that, like, Mulder and Scully actually love each other. Or, you know, whoever it is.
ELM: [overlapping] Oh, who? What example did you randomly pick? [laughs]
FK: Mulder and Scully because they’re on my mind right now. Um…but, you know, if you, if you have a character who is aromantic but allosexual, it’s like, OK, it gets really hard I think for some people, especially when friendship fic is not valued, as we were saying, in the same way, it’s like, how do you write that? You know? How do you write—can you—are you just writing porn, and then it’s clear that this character has no feelings for the person they’re banging? Are you writing…
ELM: Well, yeah—
FK: Not no feelings, but no romantic feelings, right?
ELM: But I mean, that, but that brings—yeah, now we’re back in the ship land again.
FK: [overlapping] Right, exactly.
ELM: I would argue that you see plenty of arguably aromantic, sexual characters on television. Right?
FK: Oh, yeah, absolutely! But… [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] Whether it’s the writers are not good at [laughs] writing the romance part, or whether that’s basically like a…a sincere interpretation of the character, you know what I mean?
FK: Right.
ELM: Constantly. But it’s not…I can’t think of examples that are within a canonical relationship on screen, it’s not, you know what I mean? It’s like, this character loves having sex, and doesn’t like making emotional commitments, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So…I don’t know.
FK: Yeah. All right, should I read the next one?
ELM: Yeah. These are all around the same theme, so.
FK: All right, this next one’s from mokley:
“I never clicked on an ep so fast as the Friends Tropefest episode, and I wasn’t disappointed! Thank you for this brilliant podcast and everything you do!”
Well, you’re welcome. [ELM laughs] OK. Done with that.
“Especially when you mentioned asexuality, aromanticism, and queerplatonic relationships, I ran in circles screaming with joy. I thought I might offer some further perspective on the topic as an aroace person and a member of the ace community.
“I’ve made a ton of friends in the asexual community that I never would’ve found without gen fanfiction, and I wanted to especially encourage more people to write gen and queerplatonic fic so we can continue to find each other! Properly written aces are so rare in popular media: I personally default to fanfiction to see my own experiences and fantasies reflected. Fic is also an amazing place to experiment with unconventional relationship types that break tropes, challenge expectations, and start meaningful conversations.
“The strategy to avoiding shipper backlash is in the tags. ‘Character A & Character B’ is a vague start, but we mostly use ‘No Romance’ and ‘Queerplatonic [name of ship]’ front and center with either the Gen or Other relationship tag. Readers who are looking for shipping content are herewith warned away, while those of us actively following these tags will descend upon it with love.
“Yes, this means you’ll have significantly fewer readers, but the comments on these fics (at least in my personal experience as a reader and writer) have been in great majority wonderful and supportive.
“Thank you for making my day with every new episode, and I look forward to future topics!”
And that’s from mokley.
ELM: Thank you very much, mokley.
FK: That’s great advice actually, you know, that tagging structure is not something that would’ve occurred to me, as a person who’s not mostly in that space. But if I ever, you know, I mean I probably will write a fic that’s in those categories at some point, and now I’ll know what to use.
ELM: Yeah, that’s interesting. I mean, it’s, it’s interesting to think that there are people—I assume what mokley’s saying is there are people who are reading across fandoms looking for this content, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I feel like we…maybe aren’t super negative or judgemental about the idea of reading across trope, regardless of fandom, but we’re both like, “That’s not me!” You know? [both laugh] Like very firmly, like, “Never would I do that!” And I think it’s easy to get a little reductive about, like, the tropification of fanfiction because of it. But this is a great example. I think also, trans characters as well, a great example of how that kind of…pan-fandom, Archive-wide tagging can be really valuable for community-building, because if you think about, like…
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: On LiveJournal, the structure was always gonna be the fandom. Obviously you make friends, right, and it’s not necessarily fandom-specific, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: But like, the way you find people, you know, usually is structured around the actual fandom.
FK: Right, because you have to look for the—yeah.
ELM: Yeah, and then you’d be in it, and then you’d be surrounded by people who probably wanted the two main guys to…you know, have sex and have mpreg babies, right? You know what I mean? [FK laughs] And so, that could be extra isolating, so it’s really nice, the idea that you don’t necessarily have to be bound by this specific fandom.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: But that being said, if that’s the way you relate to fanfiction, is through a specific fandom, you still have that issue I think, you know? But it is what it is.
FK: Sure. All right, well I think the next one relates to this also pretty closely, so would you read it?
ELM: OK, it’s my turn now?
FK: It is.
ELM: All right! This is from MathClassWarfare, and they write:
“Really interesting convo! The friends-to-lovers trope is my absolute favorite, mainly for the pining (which you all touched on). I wanted to comment that I’ve used the ‘pre-slash’ tag before on very piney fic in order to warn people who are looking for 100% platonic friendship-only fics and those who do not like that ship. It might be overkill though, because I usually also tag the pining. (I also sometimes do the very controversial thing of tagging both the & and the / version of the relationship tag). The other thing I wanted to comment on is that in my fandom—within my OTP, in fact—we also have a character who a lot of people headcanon as demisexual. (This of course ties in very nicely with a friends-to-lovers story arc.) Anyway thanks for the great ep! I always enjoy hearing your perspectives. 💖”
FK: That’s a really, like, I love the idea that that’s, that people are using “pre-slash” that way. Like, I think that’s really interesting, that never would’ve occurred to me. [laughs]
ELM: Well, it occurred to me when I did the show notes for this episode, and I found out that historically, TL;DR, and I’m trying—I’m not trying to say too much of what we said in the episode, because we’d love people to pledge $3/month to listen to it, if they haven’t already—but we were talking about the “pre-slash” tag, and you know, different theories for why we think it came about, and why it’s still around, but one thing that I learned when I did the show notes is that it was specifically about this, and explicitness. Because, you know, we’re talking about an era in which there weren’t a lot of like, ratings in a standardized way. [FK makes a noise of dawning understanding] And so it could be a signal that even though it existed in the world of the ship, there wouldn’t be—it was essentially rated gen.
FK: Ahhh.
ELM: So, similar. And also like, a warning to people who were looking for explicit. You’d be like, “Not happening here!” You know?
FK: [overlapping] Yeah. Right.
ELM: But there’s something about, that’s strange to me about the “pre-” element, because there are a bazillion different ways you could write a ship that is not…that is, like, actively slashing, you know? [both laugh] But they’re not having sex on screen.
FK: [overlapping] But I guess it also depends—right, but I guess maybe that depends on what people’s definition of the time of “slash” is, right?
ELM: Sure.
FK: I think that there are some people—now that you’re saying this, I think oh, yeah, there may have been people who were only using “slash” to refer to like, they’re actually gettin’ it on. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah yeah yeah, totally, right?
FK: So, if that was the case, particularly if like, maybe there were fandoms in which that was more the usage, and then that would make sense.
ELM: Yeah. I’m very interested in this topic, you know, it’s always something that I feel like has been in the background since I started reading slash in the late 90s. I would be curious if other folks who were active in fandom in the 90s—or earlier, I don’t know when this term began, even though I did look at the Fanlore page… [both laugh]
FK: Well, Fanlore may not know.
ELM: Yeah, I would be curious if people have memories of the way that was used and the way they interpreted it at the time. And I think it’s interesting that MathClassWarfare is still using it.
FK: Yeah, definitely!
ELM: And what they mean by it. Like, you know, we were curious about what that, what it meant now. And it’s interesting to hear someone’s perspective. Also, very controversial, using the & and the / tag. [FK laughs] That’s wild, MathClassWarfare is bold.
FK: [laughing] All right. That’s the end of the comments about the special episode about friends tropes, and I guess we may as well talk about Patreon, now that you’re all really excited to listen to this episode! [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] Tempted! Yeahhh. That’s right. Yeah. So, as I said, it is our 10th “Tropefest” episode, it was Special Episode #31, so that means there are 21—did the math so well—21 other special episodes to listen to about a variety of shows, and…you know, very early on we did a special episode where we read a fic and talked about it? And we called it, like, “Fanfiction #1” or something? And we never did it again.
FK: Yeah. [ELM laughs] I remember that, we did do that. And I don’t know what we would do again, you know? [laughs]
ELM: I think that we, um…I mean, look, is it worth me reading one of your X-Files fics, with never seeing the show and just kinda guessing?
FK: [overlapping] No. I don’t think so.
ELM: [laughing] All right.
FK: I think that one of the problems about this is also that like, my tolerance for fanfic quality is much higher than yours, and I don’t trust myself to pick anything that you will like, ever. [laughs]
ELM: That’s right, it’s all coming back to me why we decided not to do this, because you were too nervous to recommend something, and we didn’t want to just do like, another slash.
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, I am very nervous to recommend something to you.
ELM: Yeah, and it was like, should we just do another one of my fandoms? Anyway!
FK: We could! [laughs]
ELM: Maybe someday, maybe someday. Yeah. Why not? So…all of that, $3/month. We’re also working on a Tiny Zine, that’s for patrons at $10/month. There’s all sorts of levels, different rewards, obviously just like, if you subscribe to any Patreon, the way it works is the higher you go, you get that and every previous level’s gift. So, $10/month gets you all those special episodes, the Tiny Zine, a pin, your name in the credits, episodes a day early, that’s so many rewards! And I will say, there is extra reason to get that Tiny Zine, because something special is going to be debuting in it. Can we say it now?
FK: [laughs] OK, go for it.
ELM: You wanna say it? It’s yours!
FK: Oh noooo, I don’t want to.
ELM: Flourish committed to drawing some fanart.
FK: Yeah, it may not be any good, of any kind.
ELM: I think it’s very charming that you’re gonna try!
FK: [laughs] We’ll see. It’s gonna be probably pretty mockable, but I did claim that I wanted to, you know, get back into drawing things, and I guess this is gonna force me to draw something. [laughs]
ELM: All right, so that’ll be coming soon, within the next few weeks hopefully.
FK: [laughs] Whenever, whenever Elizabeth sufficiently bullies me into drawing something.
ELM: You—I didn’t even have to bully you, I just wrote, “Would you draw some fanart for the Tiny Zine?” and you said, “Sure!”
FK: I know, this is one of those many cases where I don’t look before I leap, and then I’m like, “Ahhhh!” on the way down.
ELM: Well, that’s great, everyone’s trying new things today.
FK: OK. [laughs]
ELM: All right! So, that’s enough about Patreon, definitely check it out, thank you very much to everyone for your thoughts on this, this is unusual that we share folks’ thoughts about a special episode, and they were really great comments, so. I’m glad we did.
FK: Yeah, absolutely. OK, before we take a break, can I read one more question?
ELM: Yeah, you can do that.
FK: All right, this is from gelbekritzelei, and they ask:
“Do you ever intend to do a repeat of the fic preferences survey? I think it would be incredibly interesting to see what has changed between then and now.”
ELM: Well, I agree with them that it would be interesting. And the answer is…absolutely not. Sorry. [FK laughs]
FK: Uh…surveys are incredibly time-intensive, difficult, and also fairly thankless, and the good news is, that if you want to do something time-intensive, difficult, and thankless, all of the information about how we ran that survey, all the questions, everything else, is totally available to you. So if somebody else wants to re-run one of our surveys, wants to do another shot and like, fix the things they were complaining about about survey design, like… [ELM laughs] go for it! We encourage you to try and do better, because maybe you will, and that would be wonderful! And/or to just do it again. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. I wouldn’t…like, this is like… [sighs] God, talk about cynical. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. Like, if anyone wants to do it, I really support them, but I would just say, if you haven’t experienced this before, don’t do it. It’s, [FK laughs] I don’t know what it is about these surveys, but the vitriol we get from people…just, it makes me despair. [FK laughs] Like, it just makes me not ever wanna put anything onto the internet ever, and I don’t know why it’s specific to surveys, I do wonder…
FK: Yeah, because it’s not about anything else, and I don’t think it’s because our surveys are uniquely terrible. [laughs]
ELM: No, and…all right, maybe this is unfair, because you know what else happens in the surveys? Is we get so, so many comments from people saying, “This was incredibly interesting, it made me think about things that I’ve never thought about before.”
FK: [overlapping, laughing] That’s true, that’s true, you’re right.
ELM: And I’m like, holy shit, how often do we get feedback like that?
FK: We don’t, yeah.
ELM: I guess like, I guess people are like, “This was a thought-provoking episode,” but this was like, “Oh my God, you really made me interrogate myself, and I’m so grateful for the experience,” and so like…that, I love. That’s like, oh my God, what a difference! That’s so nice to hear. But it’s the other half that is just like, oh, God, you know? Like, man… [laughs]
FK: Yeah. So, anyway, we encourage other people to jump into this particular pit of voles.
ELM: [overlapping] I don’t, I don’t encourage, stop saying that! I’m saying people are, that…people are welcome to…
FK: You don’t encourage them, I think that they’re welcome to.
ELM: [overlapping] Don’t do that! I just wanna, I wanna like, I wanna make it really clear about what the experience has been like, because I just think that, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t actively advise anyone to do that.
FK: [laughs] I don’t know. I, I don’t regret having done them, and I will stand behind…you know. What we did. [ELM laughs] Yet. No.
ELM: It’s because you have the memory of a goldfish. Whereas I am a cool elephant.
FK: I don’t think that, I, I do not have the memory of a goldfish, I’m remembering, believe me. [both laugh] Anyway, OK, OK.
ELM: What’s an animal with a medium memory? [both laugh]
FK: [laughing] All of them?
ELM: [laughing] Yeah, most of them…
FK: Except for…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Goldfish and elephants. OK, all right. I am going to…chill out for a second, we’ll listen to some soothing music, and we’ll be back in a minute. [both laugh]
ELM: [laughing] OK.
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, we’re back, and normally we would talk about Patreon here, but we already talked about Patreon, so…there’s some non-Patreon business. Which is to say, if you don’t have money to give us or don’t feel like giving us money, or just don’t like Patreon, I don’t know…you can still support us by spreading the word about the podcast, especially the transcript, and by sending in comments and questions that enable us to do episodes like this one.
ELM: [After a pause] Oh, I’m, I’m gonna say where? You want me to say it?
FK: Yeah! I’m throwin’ it to you, Elizabeth.
ELM: Well, here are all the places. So, there’s fansplaining at gmail.com; there is Fansplaining.com, that’s our website, there’s a form on there; similarly, there is our Tumblr ask box, fansplaining.tumblr.com; and we also love to include people’s voices. You can call our voicemail number, we will never pick up, it’s 1-401-526-FANS, you can leave a voicemail that way, that’s probably the easiest way to do it. Or you can record yourself on your computer and send us the file, a wav or an mp3, we just ask you to keep that under three minutes, because we, uh…just because. [laughs] So…those are all the ways to send us your thoughts, and we would love to hear them. And of course you can also find us on social media, Tumblr, Bluesky, Instagram, and last and certainly least, X.com. [FK laughs]
FK: All right. I think that concludes our business, yeah?
ELM: Uh…yeah, that’s all the business for now.
FK: All right, well we’ve got some more letters to read, so… I think it might be your turn?
ELM: You took a short one. All right.
FK: I did take a—do you want me to do this one?
ELM: No, I’ll do it. Both of them are long.
FK: [overlapping] All right. Yeah.
ELM: So we’ll each take a turn. It’s worth it, these are great letters. OK, ready?
“Hi Elizabeth and Flourish!”
This is from an anonymous writer-inner.
“Hi Elizabeth and Flourish! New Fansplaining listener here. I’ve been listening to your back catalog of episodes and it’s been a fascinating ride, and really got me thinking about my own experiences as a fan and my intersections with fandom.
“I am an artist and a writer, and I’ve made fan art and written fanfiction, but only for a handful of my fannish interests—and I’m not really sure what it exactly takes to get me to engage in a property by creating my own content. I would consider myself a ‘fandom old’—a fan since Before Internet Times—except that I really haven’t interacted with fandom all that much.
“I have been a fan of various things since I was young, and I’ve accumulated a lot of passions over time (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, etc.) but I’ve very seldom felt like I was ‘part of fandom,’ per se—and except for being identified as a ‘geek’ in grade-school days, and self-identifying as being a ‘fan of’ things, it was always pretty solitary.
“Part of that is that I didn’t have access to the internet as a thing-to-find-your-community until I was in college (early 90s); the only way to find fellow passionate-about-This-Thing folks was to meet them in person at conventions, and I was too young and too far away from anything to do that.
“I definitely wrote a bit of a self-insert fic for a 70s anime I loved as a kid. And in high school, my best buddy and I made up our own original in-universe characters for Star Trek The Next Generation (which had just started airing on TV), and passed in-character paper notes (‘subspace messages’) [FK laughs] back and forth with each other, creating a narrative of our characters interacting, which I suppose is a kind of fanfiction, though I didn’t think of it that way at the time.”
FK: [delighted] Oh…
ELM: “But that was the extent of my fannish activity, because there really wasn’t anyone else around that we could be passionate about this stuff with.
“In college, I discovered the Star Trek Fan Club on campus, and went to exactly one meeting. I was too terrified to go back—one, because I didn’t feel like I was passionate ENOUGH about Star Trek to really belong, and two, because they were so desperately happy for me to be there that I was a little scared. At that point, I was content to be a fan from a distance, by myself.
“When the internet came around, with UseNet and newsgroups and such, I still felt more like I was watching things happen from the outside. Like, I was aware of strikethrough happening on LiveJournal, but wasn’t really part of any actual communities that experienced it.
“I’ve watched the rise (and in some cases wane) of a number of large franchises (The Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter, Twilight, and more recently, My Hero Academia and Marvel) where I’ve appreciated (or criticized) the source material but have felt absolutely no desire to write fic, create art, or interact with the fandom, because quite frankly the fandom communities terrify me a little.
“Long and short of it... I guess I've just been curious if others have shared that experience. I’m convinced that there are a lot of ways to engage with the stories we like, and that there is no one right way to be a True Fan. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about that.”
FK: [laughs] Thank you, nonny! Uh, you have been reading the back catalog, but it sounds like you have not listened to the episode [laughing] where we nearly ended the podcast, about arguing about this. [laughs]
ELM: Uh…Episode 8. Yeah, if you’re goin’ backwards, it’s gonna take you a long time to get to Episode 8.
FK: Yeah! Uh…no, we also…I think, I think that we have grown closer to each other’s positions to some extent on this, but we definitely don’t think there’s one way to be a True Fan. [laughs] True Fan is also such a framing. Like…what does that mean?
ELM: [overlapping] I do not…no, go back. I do not think we’ve grown closer to each other’s positions. I think—look, take your win where you have it, and I now think copyright is the only thing that matters in the entire world. [FK laughs] All right? You can, you can pat yourself on whatever part you want for that one.
FK: Uh huh.
ELM: But, I think that…I always had an expansive definition of fandom, and you came outta your narrow little circle [FK makes an uncertain noise] and realized you were a tiny circle within a much larger circle, and I always existed in that big circle.
FK: [laughs] OK. I think at least part of this had to do with what we thought we were talking about on this podcast. [ELM snorts] Because, obviously people can be fans of things and never interact with them, but there’s a question of what the scope of something is—in any case, at this point, we don’t have to re-litigate [both laugh] this point from like, eight years ago to say…
ELM: [overlapping] The last episode we ever do is just gonna be that fight all over again for like an hour, and then some crying.
FK: [overlapping] Oh my God, can you, can you imagine? [laughs]
ELM: So…it’s, it’s interesting to me, because like, there’s more there going on in this letter than just solitary lurker-ness and pre-internet stuff, you know, like, obviously.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Parts of this letter resonate with me, and other people who we’ve had on who were our age or older, who were like, “Yeah, I just did this stuff either by myself or with a friend,” you know? And yeah, “The only way I would’ve even known about that is if I had gone to a convention, and I was, you know, ten years old, that’s not realistic,” right? [FK laughs] That’s the, a thing that’s a hugely common experience of older folks. But the stuff that is different in this letter that I think is interesting is the like, when given the opportunity to then join the group, usually the narrative is like, “and then I got the internet, and I was like, oh my God, my people, and then I was in!” You know? Whereas this is like, “I went to a meeting of my people, and I was like, oh my God, no thank you, you’re a little much.” [both laugh] You know? And the repeated stuff about like, oh, these big giant intense communities freak me out, terrify me.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think it’s really interesting, and it makes me think about younger fans now, and how you may not even feel like you have a choice, because fandom, the way that it is now on the internet, is so…omnipresent, and mainstream. Like stan culture, on fast-moving social media platforms, right? It's like, that’s the way. Or we’re talking about like, a fannish mode of watching Succession or White Lotus, where it’s like, white hot fandom for six weeks, and I think it might leave less space for people like anon here, who maybe like to get into stuff, and like doing creative stuff around it, but like…don’t really wanna participate, you know what I mean? [both laugh]
FK: Yeah. I think there is also something so real about, like, I could envision that Star Trek fan group, you know what I mean? Like, there’s something very real.
ELM: That’s like a scene out of a movie, right, you know, and you’re like, “Whoops! Nevermind!” [laughs]
FK: Yeah! OK…you know? Like, not because I’m cooler than you, but just because whatever is happening is not it.
ELM: I’m not, we are not on the same vibe page, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I can just really, I can really see that and feel that, and I think that—yeah, I mean I don’t know, I don’t know what to say about it, beyond…yeah, I mean I think that you’re a fan, obviously. [laughs] You know? I mean, you love these things, you engage with them, like…sure. I guess the one thing I would say is I do think that there are certain aspects of the fan experience that obviously you, nonny, haven’t had, and that’s fine. You know? [laughs] Like, that’s OK. Not everybody has the same fan experience.
ELM: Sure! I mean, you and I haven’t had the same experiences.
FK: Yeah, we absolutely didn’t.
ELM: We still don’t!
FK: No, I mean, no two humans do.
ELM: Only one of us writes fanfiction right now. That’s a taunt, I’m taunting you into writing some fanfiction.
FK: [laughs] OK. Thank you. Thanks for that. [ELM laughs] That’s right. That’s the biggest difference. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, it’s totally, that’s the one and only difference. Yeah, I just think that…you know, narratives get created, and, I mean well, think back to the beginning of this episode, you know, lists of rules for how to be a fan or whatever, this is what it’s like, this is what fandom’s like, this is the history, et cetera et cetera.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I’m, and certainly I think that we’re probably guilty of feeding into some of these narratives, I think we always try to be like, “And there’s multiple histories! And there’s, you know, lots of different ways!” And once you finally came around, from Episode 9 onwards, you were like, “Yeah!” [laughs]
FK: Oh my God. Stop.
ELM: [laughing, overlapping] You’re like…the look on your face when I just said that…I’m kidding, Flourish. Flourish.
FK: Someday I’m gonna murder you. [laughs]
ELM: Flourish. And I think also this somewhat ties into the references in this letter, of like, you know, I’ve had the complaint for years—and this is kinda waning now, which is interesting—but like, the rise of the geek media, and this idea that…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Fandom equaled these few huge franchises.
FK: Right.
ELM: When, if you actually look at fanfiction, like Yuletide just opened up sign-ups, right, and I always like to think about that. [laughs]
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: When I hear people talk about like, these, you know, the five franchises, that is the totality of fandom, because obviously there’s a list of things I’ve never heard of [laughs] that people are willing to write fanfiction about. You know? And that’s fandom too.
FK: Right, and do every other kind of fan activity, right? Like…[laughs]
ELM: Yeah! Right, right.
FK: Yuletide is just the one that we see most, you know, and yeah. Definitely.
ELM: Yeah. So yeah, I really appreciate this letter, I’m excited to uh…to have a listener coming from this world. You know, I, as anon asks, I’d be curious if anyone else has had this experience, you know? Like…I came online and did not feel like I found my people. [laughs] You know? But I still feel a certain way about certain kinds of media, I still get obsessed, I still like characters a lot, you know, et cetera et cetera. It’s interesting.
FK: Yeah! Well, thank you very much, nonny, that was a great letter. Should I read the next one?
ELM: Yes please, you now get to read an equally long letter.
FK: All right. This one is from A Fansplaining Fan.
ELM: Yeah. Cool name.
FK: Love that. OK.
“Hi Flourish and Elizabeth,
“I was listening to episode 196 and the discussion of Big Name Fans and I thought I could add another layer to the discussion as someone whose current fandoms are predominantly focused on J-pop and K-pop. Some things are translated on the professional level, but oftentimes (and especially for older content), English-speaking fans who do not know the language have to rely on fan translations. I’ve often noticed in these communities that fans who do translations (typically with no financial incentive and, to be clear, I respect these people greatly) tend to often gain what you could call BNF status as they are an authority and sometimes the only way people can fully interface with the content.
“I’ve noticed that problems can arise because, essentially, whoever does the translations in many ways controls the narrative. Translation is more of an art than a science, and most fan translators are honest people who want to help other fans connect more fully to their shared interest.
“However, from what I can tell, there are BNFs who have used translations and other fans’ lack of knowledge to spread misinformation. I’ve even heard a rumor about one very large fan translator being a plant for an entertainment company to more or less spread company propaganda. No idea if that is true, but thought I’d posit it as something that could very well happen.
“A lot of times this information seems pretty harmless and silly, especially given that you can disprove them easily. Examples include ‘x was the first to do y’ or ‘This group did blank which was not usual at the time.’
“There are more potentially harmful examples though such as one instance that comes to mind. In order to say their idol was the first Korean artist to accomplish something, fans went and discredited another artist’s achievement by saying they aren’t Korean when the individual in question identifies themselves publicly as Korean-American. (They are Korean-American, which is by definition a US American of Korean heritage.) Stripping someone of their identity can be hurtful for so many reasons, so this was something that disturbed me greatly to see.
“To another point, these ideas take root in the fandom and, if you try to correct them, you are immediately labeled an ‘anti’ and dismissed at best, actively harassed at worst.
“In the most severe cases, I’ve seen this misinformation get reported on as fact in mainstream English news publications where it appears to me that the journalists interviewed fans, who probably unknowingly told them incorrect information. And then now it’s there, officially published, when it is misleading or flat out untrue. This then creates even more discourse as members of the wider community try to point out the inaccuracies, get attacked by the other fans, and then there just remains a lot of hostility and negativity to deal with.
“I’m not sure if I have a question per se, but I think this is an example of how BNFs can still even in the 2020s cause problems. We haven’t left the 2000s and 2010s BNF drama in some situations sadly. So, I think a lot of that culture actually remains.
“That said, a lot of fan translators are still lovely and sweet people who earnestly want to share knowledge without an underlying agenda.”
And that’s from A Fansplaining Fan.
ELM: Thank you so much, [laughing] Fansplaining Fan. Sorry, it sounds silly to say. Thank you so much, anon!
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Such an interesting letter. I’ll say off the bat, probably one that we aren’t experts, to comment on, because I think neither of us has spent time in or have worked on these transnational fandom issues much, if at all. Is that correct?
FK: Yeah, that’s right. But at the same time, like, I can definitely see how bottlenecks of information like that could create issues, you know? I mean, and probably even the way that people define different words? And, you know? It just, it seems like it can, it could easily turn into a huge amount of problems. [laughs]
ELM: Right, right. And the kind of idea of…you know, I think that a historic kinda BNF situation, which we talked about in that episode a long time ago now—it was our last AMA I believe actually, which was in the summer—you know, I think you brought it up, the idea of like, a BNF being an elevated fan, in the sense that they had some kind of access to the creators. And so then they could kind of serve as that translator, even though everyone was speaking the same language probably, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But like, it had to come through them, you know, they’d be like, “Well, I have my source on the inside, on set, and they said…” You know what I mean?
FK: [laughs] Yeah, totally.
ELM: And it’s interesting that that kind of hoarding of information, and then like, how they could choose to share it and how they would choose to frame it, could be determined less by that kind of special access, and more just by background. By, like, national, linguistic, geographical—you know what I mean? It’s interesting, because…this is how little I know about this world, you would think that—I mean I assume that there are dueling, you know, native speakers saying, “No, it’s not like that,” “No, it’s not like that,” right, but we already see so much get lost in translation even when people have great intents on the internet you know? [laughs] And so, then add in a bad actor.
FK: Right, or even like, just suspicion. Right? [laughs] You don’t even, no one even needs to be acting in a bad way for it to be…which, I understand is what they’re describing, but like, I could even imagine, even if everybody was acting with perfect intentions, this still getting really messy really quick.
ELM: Yes. Well yeah, I mean even the idea that like, oh, you are privileged to special information because you speak this, natively speak this language, I think is kinda complicated, you know? I don’t know, it’s interesting, and it seems very fraught. And I wonder too, this is the example we keep bringing up because it’s been brought up so often in the Twitter dying conversation, tying this back to our last episode about platforms, too, where is this even happening now? And, you know, if you have people doing things on TikTok, and the only point of TikTok—not the only point of TikTok—but the point of TikTok is reach. And so then people are incentivized, and so many of the music fandoms across the world, not just K-pop or J-pop, are driven by metrics and reach and doing numbers, you know? And so that, that does incentivize people to optimize their messages for whatever goal they have, you know?
FK: Yeah, definitely. Well, I’m really glad that you wrote in, anonymous Fansplaining fan, because this is definitely a category of things that we would never have known to bring up, and if other people have more insights from, you know, that end of fandom, we’re always super, super, super happy to air them.
ELM: Yes, all those supers, agree.
FK: Very interested.
ELM: Yeah. [FK laughs] Thank you.
FK: All right. Uh, we have one more message, which I find charming. [ELM laughs] Can I read it?
ELM: Why? You did the last one!
FK: Because this one I feel like is one that you’re gonna wanna respond to immediately.
ELM: All right. You wanna read it, you read it. Fine. Fine.
FK: “Hi Flourish and Elizabeth!
“I’ve been listening to—and really enjoying—Fansplaining for a while now but I just wanted to say that I'm especially loving how much YOU guys are loving the Interview with the Vampire TV show.”
ELM: [quietly] Yeahhh.
FK: “Your enthusiasm is really, really endearing. I hope it continues to feed you well and that it gives you even greater tingles! (Or was it an actor that got tingles? Either way... more tingles for everyone, hopefully!)
“Keep up the great work, Natasha”
ELM: Natasha…chef’s kiss. Just, thank you for this message. Let’s, let’s be clear, let’s get it on the record, it was Sam Reid, portrayer of Lestat, who got tingles [FK laughs] watching Assad Zaman, portrayer of Armand.
FK: And, I mean, I had tingles with the new, like, trailer that’s out.
ELM: Oh, the amuse-bouche?
FK: The amuse-bouche! [laughs] I love it.
ELM: Too much, it was too much, the two of them…Jesus Christ.
FK: Oh my God…
ELM: Also, yeah, so, they just released a three-minute clip, and…it just, it’s too, it’s like, how are you gonna handle this? I don’t know. It’s gonna be a lot.
FK: I, I—I don’t know, this is, I love that we are now—I mean, I’m glad to hear that somebody enjoys us [laughing] freaking out about this, because I feel like we deserve it. We get to do this a little bit. [both laugh] On our podcast. Now that we’re both into something at the same time, that’s airing… [still laughing]
ELM: Yeah! No, I mean, I feel like there have been a lot of times on this podcast where, especially, [laughing] especially you, no offense, there’s been a lot of like…hand-wringing and sadness about like, “I’ve lost that fannish feeling, I’ve lost that spark, will it ever come back…” [FK laughs] And then people write in and they’re like, “I also feel this way,” and it’s like, great, it’s good to like…you know, it’s good to have that perspective out in the world, because you can feel disconnected from whatever.
FK: Oh, but I’ve got the spark right now, so much. I’ve got the spaaark!
ELM: Um…yeah. That’s right.
FK: I am excited. About finding out what everybody is going to be wearing, and doing, and what hand gestures they will make. [ELM laughs] And…I, I am excited to see the new Claudia, I wanna find out what that is, I want to…
ELM: I wish I could find out what happened—what happened to the old Claudia? [laughs]
FK: [overlapping] Find out how they’ve…yeah, well, yeah.
ELM: We’ll never know.
FK: Questions. We’ll never know. But…well, someday we’ll probably, someone will write a, someone will let it slip eventually. [ELM laughs] But! Uh…I want to know how they’re altering the story, and I want to know what we’re gonna see of Lestat during all of this.
ELM: Well, I think I know more than you, because I actually use the internet.
FK: I’m just, only experiencing this via vibes. [ELM laughs] I’m like the previous letter-writer with this one! I’m just enjoying the vibes so much.
ELM: What previous letter-writer?
FK: The one who was like, “I stuck my head into the internet and then I was like, I don’t know about that.” I’m just enjoying antici……pation. [ELM laughs] So you do know more.
ELM: Um…
FK: I’m enjoying you telling me about the things that you know.
ELM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m the fan that has to do all the work, you just lap it up.
FK: That’s right! That’s right! I’m enjoying that.
ELM: Did you look at my board? Did you look at all my resources?
FK: [laughs] No.
ELM: You haven’t looked at my Interview With the Vampire board?
FK: Now you’re gonna have to put it in the show notes, for anybody to enjoy, your Interview With the Vampire board. [laughs]
ELM: Should I, should I plug, should I plug Aboard right now? Look, the company I work for… [FK laughs] I used it, and they paid me to make an Interview With the Vampire board. With a collection—
FK: That’s the dream.
ELM: —of links. [laughs] I, I feel like she’ll be fine, a friend of mine, I sent it to her and she said, “Girl, you are a freak for money and I love it.” And I was like… [both laugh]
FK: Oh, it’s the dream, you’re livin’ the dream.
ELM: Look, they, they had built a tool that I thought would be wonderful for fandom, and I was like, “I’ll make something with my actual fandom.” And so it’s got, it’s got links, it’s got fanart, it’s got articles, it’s got video interviews, it’s all nicely arranged, beautiful, many many images of Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid’s faces…
FK: OK. You’re sellin’ this.
ELM: And I’m gonna keep adding to it, as more stuff comes out. And so you’re gonna wanna keep an eye on it.
FK: So in other words, I don’t even need to talk—I don’t even need to talk to you about this, [laughs] I just look at this board that you’re making.
ELM: There’s no section for shitposts, and…uh…
FK: I do have to talk to you for shitposts.
ELM: Yes, that I will send to you directly. But yeah, you could keep an eye on my board. I’m gonna put it in the show notes. And, since we’re talking about my job, I think fans should sign up! And check out this product. If you’re looking for a place to make beautiful curations of the things that you love.
FK: It does seem like it’s the way that Pinterest ought to have worked but didn’t.
ELM: Thank you.
FK: Like, I haven’t signed up for it yet, I do actually intend to, because it does seem like it’s…
ELM: [overlapping] Do it! Do it like, today, you said this yesterday.
FK: The way that Pinterest should work but doesn’t. Which is, you know.
ELM: Yes, it is a smart and very visual bookmarking and organizing tool. And, um…it’s, like, super malleable in terms of tag structure, and there’s, like, more stuff around tagging coming soon, and I think that’s really important for fans. And you can publish it, so it’s like a…a board you create. Yeah, like imagine your Pinterest board, but with actual links, and smartness.
FK: [laughs] OK. On that note…
ELM: Yeah. I’m really good at sellin’ this.
FK: I think, having sold your company’s product, [laughs] uh…
ELM: I gave big disclaimers, I just think people should check it out.
FK: OK, cool. Well, I think that’s all, that’s all the comments that we have for today. So, I think that we’re just about done.
ELM: Yep. Thank you very much to everyone who sent in their thoughts, obviously keep ’em comin’...
FK: Yeah!
ELM: So we can do AMA #18 sometime soon.
FK: Woohoo! All right. I will talk to you later, Elizabeth.
ELM: You gonna go sign up? Aboard.com? You goin’ right now?
FK: Yes, Elizabeeeeth…
ELM: All right, I’ll look at the users, see if I see your name in there.
FK: Oh my—this is horrible. [ELM laughs] Goodbye.
ELM: Bye!
[Outro music]