This Week In Fandom History

Warn when appropriate! This week, Emily and V trek back to the wild, tagless world of LiveJournal in 2009, and the Great Trigger Warning Debate. When does a warning constitute a spoiler? Can you over-warn? Are people who ask for warnings just whiners? These questions have apparently been eternal and we will never see the end of them. In this instance, Panic! at the Disco and bandom were the eye of...

Draco Veritas? This week, V and Emily dig into just one of many messy threads in one of fandom's most famous wankfests: the drama of Cassandra Claire and her Harry Potter fic, The Draco Trilogy. When this fic was yanked from Fanfiction.net for allegations of plagiarism, reverberations echoed through fandom in ways that we're still feeling today -- from Fiction Alley all the way to Freeform. This i...

It's a big one, y'all! This week, V and Emily rage their way through the anniversary of Strikethrough, or a mass censorship event on LiveJournal that destroyed huge swaths of fannish history for no fucking reason. Or rather, because a Christian special-interest group that hates queer people said that things were icky and LJ caved. If you haven't heard of Strikethrough or need a refresher on why ar...

We'll be there for you! This week, Emily and V take a trip back to a very different era: the time of Must-See TV. Once upon a time, television shows were written by full-time, on-set writers' rooms (SUPPORT THE WGA STRIKE) and sitcoms were filmed before a live studio audience. And people loved them. But sitcoms have never had a huge presence in transformative works fandom, despite their immense po...

Read the fine print! This week, Emily dug deep into why exactly we need an Archive Of Our Own and tells V all about FanLib, a short-lived for-profit, idea-mining fanfiction site partnered with TPTB of several semi-fannish TV shows. The idea? Get fans to write episodes for you for no pay, then profit because the episodes are "what fans wanted to see happen." Needless to say, fandom had a lot of fee...

Alalaes ! This week, V and Emily head back to the brand-new days of the internet and Xena: Warrior Princess fandom, where fandom wank has always been fandom wank. Although Xena/Gabrielle is a femslash fandom juggernaut, we're venturing into the world of Xena/Ares shipping and the close-knit community of people who a) hated Gabrielle and b) eventually all kind of hated each other. This was a master...

Outlander, no! This week, Emily has another Big Topic as she and V try to understand the fundamentally twisted mind of Outlander author Diana Gabaldon and her spurious-yet-vicious hatred of fanfiction (and her own fans). Despite what Gabaldon -- and a weird number of writers -- believe, fictional characters do not actually have their own lives and writing fic, even badfic, about them cannot harm t...

Avengers... Assemble! This week, a COVID-ravaged V and hardier Emily discuss a fannish, and mainstream, event they know all too well: the release of "the most ambitious crossover event in history,"  Avengers: Endgame . While living in a fandom bubble can make it feel like "the audience" wants one thing, big blockbusters like Endgame remind us all too harshly that fandom is still just a bunch of we...

There was only one bed! Everyone knows it, everyone loves it, and this week, Emily and V go back to the '70s to discuss the story that birthed it: "Bunkies," starring Han/Luke. Star Wars fandom was already Star Wars fandom by 1979, and the gals delve deep into all of that mess. Were you ever deeply insulted by being called a "Luke Lover"? Have you read the best open letter of all time (to George L...

Bop bop doowop! This week, V and Emily travel back to a seminal moment in popslash and bubblegum history with the release of one of the most iconic songs of the '90s, "MMMBop" by Hanson -- and the subsequent world takeover by three blond boys from Tulsa and their legion of loyal fans. Despite, or perhaps because of, being a worldwide phenomenon, Hanson's fans suffered a fate similar to so many tee...

It's a big one this week! Emotions abound as Emily and V take a dark look into the mind of former vampire queen Anne Rice and her irrational, misinformed hatred of fanfiction.... and its very real-world consequences for thousands of her fans. This is why disclaimers exist, people. This is why fanfiction will always walk in the darkness and crumble in direct sunlight (just like a vampire). And this...

SuperWhoLock fans, get your salt/sonics/nicotine patches! This week, V and Emily travel back ten years to the end of the world, AKA the #mishapocalypse. Started as a joke and only sort of done as a joke, fans of Misha Collins (Castiel on Supernatural) completely fucking took over Tumblr for a day. But it wasn't just Supernatural fans who participated, because this was 2013: the heyday of SuperWhoL...

Good mornin'! (Good mornin'!) This week, Emily and V dive deep into Multiamory March with a look at the 2014 invention of the TriadVerse, which is like A/B/O minus the A and O. With deep and evolving lore, a fest week, and an evolution into Multiamory March itself, the TriadVerse used ships like the eternal Don/Cosmo/Kathy from Singin' in the Rain to enchant both of our intrepid cohosts. Have you...

Are you ready for some... fandom voting and bracket statistics? This week, V and Emily head back to 2009 for a cherished fandom free-for-all throwdown, Fandom March Madness. This event revealed a lot of ugly fandom traits of misogyny, White Feminism, racism, and just plain bad taste, even as it brought people from across the fandomsphere together for a week of cheering on their faves and having fu...

We're not gonna take it anymore! This week, Emily and V delve into righteous -- and rightful -- fannish anger at the constant, demoralizing, dehumanizing deaths of lesbian characters on television, and the straw that broke the fandom camel's back: the death of Lexa on The 100 . Fans turned their heartbreak and rage over yet another dead WLW into a truly amazing, awe-inspiring call to action. Do yo...

This is my design! And it's a halo of flowers 'round the head of my blorbo. This week, Emily and V take a harrowing look at the history of the flower crown meme and its biggest proponent: Hannibal fandom. From the comedic sensibilities of 'fannibals' to the whimsy, or lack thereof, of Bryan Fuller shows, this was a topic that... was scary. Tell me, Will, will V ever be able to get into bed normall...

All hail the blue hellsite! This week, V and Emily talk the timeline of fandom's transition onto Tumblr and why the heck we're all still there. From corporate takeovers that lost millions to the Very Special Episode that was November 5, 2020, Tumblr is an indelible part of fannish history because it's a platform that's lasted so long and been home to so many of us. Why? How? 

Happy Femslash February! This week, V and Emily go back ten years to the introduction of an annual fandom holiday: Femslash February. Whether you're devout or just dipping your toes into the spiritual waters of femslash celebration, this episode goes hard on preaching the gospel of all things F/F. Why should dudes get all the attention? Also, just how shameful is the filthy tangent in the middle o...

All hail Punxatawney Phil! This week, Emily and V go back to the rad 1980s and learn about a fandom they'd never considered before: Starsky & Hutch. It turns out these two slashable dudes helped to forge fandom as we know it today, and the publication of the fic "February 2nd" by Alexis Rogers is a big part of why we all love it when a blond man and a brunet man who are a sunshine one and a grumpy...

Get out your pocketbooks! This week, V and Emily go back to one of fandom's highest highs and a pretty low low as they discuss the 2010 Help_Haiti charity auction... and the infamous J2 Haiti Fic. After the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, fandom came together for one of its largest charity auctions ever, raising an unprecedented amount of money for aid on the ground. Unfortunately, nice thin...

Congrats to the proud papa! Back in 2016, One Direction's Louis Tomlinson became a father (fact) and 1D fans everywhere decided that the baby's name was Conchobar (rumor). This week, V tells Emily the story of a fandom she was actually in, and may have had an accidental hand in turning into a shitshow, as the sordid saga of Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson shipping baffles Emily to her core. When does...

Long live Strekdom and may it always prosper! This week, Emily and V are heading to the original frontier of fannish culture: Star Trek fan clubs of the 1960's. It's super emotional, and the women who created the groundwork of everything we love today deserve our utmost respect for their sheer ballsiness and bananas love of Leonard Nimoy. Join us as we learn about Vulcanalia, discuss ditto machine...

We want to believe! In the second week of January, we're heading back thirty years (woof) to ye olde Web 1.0 and the very first online X-Files fanfiction. But to our surprise, it wasn't just an X-Files fic! Join V and Emily as they get to explore a whole new-to-them fandom as they learn about cult fave Forever Knight, talk alt-net servers and e-mail lists, and read the cutest author's note in fand...

Happy New Year! It's the first week of January, and V and Emily are exploring the effects of LiveJournal's sale to SixApart Media on January 4, 2005. Fandom is an eternal wanderer, forever losing its homes on the internet. Was this sale the harbinger of things to come? How did updates to LJ's terms of use affect fandom and fanfiction? Will fandom ever find a forever-home online?