Episode 157: Nichole Perkins
In Episode 157, Flourish and Elizabeth interview Nichole Perkins, host of the podcasts This Is Good For You and Thirst Aid Kit and author of her recently released memoir, Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be. Topics discussed include her history with romance novels, the importance of pleasure in her work and life, the philosophy behind Thirst Aid Kit, and Elizabeth and Nichole’s shared fandom, Frasier.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:00:51] Nichole’s memoir is Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be; you should definitely read an excerpt!
Thirst Aid Kit can also be found on Tumblr and Twitter; Nichole’s current podcast, This Is Good For You, can be found here. Nichole on Twitter: @tnwhiskeywoman.
[00:02:14] Our interstitial music, here and elsewhere, is “4th Ave. Walkup” by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:07:08]
[00:13:12]
[00:19:05] Morning Glory Milking Farm is real and it’s fabulous.
[00:33:13] Yes, of course Thirst Aid Kit covered Chris Hemsworth.
[00:35:07] There have been a variety of articles covering the way teen girl fandoms influence popular culture. One example: “Swooning, screaming, crying: how teenage girls have driven 60 years of pop music,” by Alexis Chaney.
[00:40:55] Nichole’s essay is “What ‘Chewing Gum’ and ‘Jane the Virgin’ Teach Us About Virginity.”
[00:50:35]
[00:54:00] The old-school Frasier forum can be found at https://www.frasieronline.co.uk. Elizabeth has many custom Frasier rec lists, but if she had to list her top five all-time favorites:
“The Ski Lodge” (5.14)
“Ham Radio” (4.18)
“The Matchmaker” (2.3)
“Out with Dad” (7.15)
“Room Service” (5.15)
(Yes, there are multiple Joe Keenan-authored farces here, because they are Truly Great. “The Ski Lodge” is so legendary they even did an oral history about it.)
[00:55:24] Don’t talk to Elizabeth about this Frasier reboot.
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 #157, “Nichole Perkins.”
FK: Yeah! And we’re talking to her on the occasion of the publication of her memoir.
ELM: Yes, her memoir, which is called Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be. We both read it, we thought it was great, we are very excited to talk to her. So I think that if our listeners know Nichole’s work, it’s most likely from Thirst Aid Kit, which is the podcast she co-hosted with Bim Adewunmi for years and it was about, I think it’s on hiatus now. But it was about thirst. Women’s thirst in particular, for mostly hot male celebs. “Celebs”?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: I feel like—why am I saying “celebs”?
FK: Although sometimes other non-male people as well. But yeah, like, every episode being basically about why do we thirst after this person.
ELM: Right.
FK: Let’s dissect it.
ELM: You know, it’s an extremely fannish podcast. They wrote fic, in a lot of them they wrote these drabbles about the subject of the episode and stuff like that. But also like, I think it was—it’s one of the few mainstream voices representing a certain kind of fannish perspective and discussion and it’s, you know, not to get too into it before we talk to her, but like, I always find it interesting that a lot of the time in fandom people will be very dismissive of that part, to the point where some people in fandom overindex on it and they’re like “No! Erotic things in fandom are important!” Right? You know? “Desire is important!” And absolutely it is. And often you’ll say “Oh, they don’t just have a crush on that guy, they think his work is really important. Really serious.” Right? You know? And it’s like—what if they also do have a crush on him, you know?
FK: Yeah! Is that not like, fine?
ELM: Right.
FK: Good?
ELM: Exactly.
FK: Pleasurable?
ELM: Thirst Aid Kit is on hiatus I believe, but Nichole is also the host of a podcast called This Is Good For You, and yeah, she wrote this fantastic memoir that we were excited to read.
FK: All right, well, shall we give her a call?
ELM: Let’s do it!
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, we’re back and it’s time to welcome Nichole to the podcast. Welcome, Nichole!
Nichole Perkins: Hi! [laughs] I’m so excited to be here!
ELM: [laughing] Thank you so much! We are so excited to have you. We both really enjoyed your book; it was a delight to read. I hope that our listeners get to read it too. So I want to start, as we do with all of our guests, by talking a little bit about your background. I think—I have a lot of questions about pop culture for you, and about romance, and so I know—I don’t necessarily know if growing up you considered yourself a fan at all, but just your general relationship to pop culture and to romance. I’m very interested in…
NP: Yeah, pop culture was a very important aspect of my house growing up. I grew up born in ’77, so the ’80s were very formative. ’90s of course, when I hit my teenage years, and that’s when everything kind of zooms into a different type of focus. Like, I think 5 to 12 you’re still figuring stuff out and you’re watching a lot of what your parents are watching, or if you have older siblings, what they’re watching and stuff like that, and then you get to high school or you get to 13 and it’s like, “No, this is actually what I wanna watch now. This is more my speed, I wanna pay attention to this kind of thing.”
But pop culture was always very important in my life. That’s one of the reasons that I centered my memoir around pop culture, is because I don’t really—I’m not good at remembering dates, I’m not good at remembering where I was location-wise, but I can tell you what show I was watching at that time, I can tell you the music that I was listening to, I can tell you the books that I was reading, that kind of thing, and part of that is just cause my mom—my mom is one of those people who cannot go to sleep without the television. So she had to have a good TV, which meant cable, which was really booming and popular at that time.
We always had a lot of magazines in the house, and my mom wanted to make sure we had a lot of Black magazines, so we always had Ebony and Jet and Essence and then when The Source and Vibe came out, even though that wasn’t obviously my mother’s generation or anything at all, she still wanted to be on top of that, not just for herself but for us and have that in the household so we could see the stuff that we weren’t necessarily seeing on television or in the movies.
So it’s just always been there, so I’ve loved pop culture. And I remember, I hated being a kid, I hated being a teenager, but the best part of going to school was talking about the TV shows from the night before, because obviously that was a time when you had to watch things as they aired [all laugh] and then you go to school the next day and everyone was talking about, you know, did you watch Martin, did you watch Living Single, did you watch The Cosby Show, did you watch, you know, whatever was on at the time. That was really big for us.
So it’s just always been there, and I remember having this conversation with a friend in high school and just being like, “I wish I could make a living just talking about all the shows that I like to watch and all the books that I like to read,” and now that’s kind of what I do. [laughs] So I love pop culture and I, every now and then when I’m swiping on the apps and there’s a guy who’s just like, you know, who has in his bio that he’s anti-pop-culture for whatever reason, like “I don’t own a television” or that kind of thing, I swipe left, because it’s just like: this is someone who’s a snob and has no idea what pop culture really is, because to me pop culture is another way that we get to see ourselves and see our lives reflected in a way that’s a little, I guess, more digestible for us.
ELM: So that’s interesting, even hearing, you know, as something you look forward to in school, talking about pop culture. I’m also curious about romance, because it seems like—you know, from your memoir it seems like this was an undercurrent in your life but also something very private, maybe something you felt a little bit… “Shame” is maybe too strong a word, but it seems like that was something, you talk about [how] you were reading these novels and it wouldn’t be appropriate to mention them in church, obviously, but maybe your classmates not understanding what you were reading. And I’m wondering about your experience, like how did you even get started reading romance.
NP: Well, so, when my great-grandmother passed away we got this breakfront that she had, this big cabinet thing that had some books in it and some pictures and stuff like that. And I went through the books and I found what would be the first romance novel that I would ever read, and it was called The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. [all laugh]
FK: YEAH!! A classic!! A classic!
NP: Yeah! And it intrigued me, one, because my great-grandmother couldn’t read, so I wasn’t sure where she got, you know, these books from. And there were also, you know, a bunch of Reader’s Digest books, which again is a very dated thing now. Anyway, so I read the book. I was so, I’m sure my eyes were as big as saucers as I was reading, cause this was when I was like eight, seven or eight, something like that. And then when I was in the, gosh, I think third or fourth…no! Fifth grade, fifth grade, and I had to do a book report, I chose that book.
ELM: [laughs] Wow.
FK: Oh my God!
NP: So I’m talking about this book in front of the whole class, and my teacher lets me finish, you know, explaining the book, and she takes me to the side after, like pulls me outside the classroom, and is like, “You should focus on things that are more age-appropriate. This book is too mature to you.” So she might as well have just said “keep reading these books,” because that’s what I did. [all laugh]
But that’s how it got started, and based on her reaction, I knew that these books were not something that I should have been reading, and I knew why. Because obviously there was a lot of sex in it, there is a rape, there’s sexual assaults in the book, it doesn’t paint a healthy relationship, right? Or the start of a healthy relationship.
Anyway, so there’s that, and then as I started reading more and more romance novels—and at the time I was going through a lot of historical romances, gothic romances, I looked into western for awhile but even then, even though I was a child and I wasn’t very sophisticated with these things, I still knew that the western ones weren’t for me because most of the time the western ones were a Native American man and a blonde, white woman that he’s kidnapped, and there’s this noble savage thing that was going on, and I was just so grossed out by that. So I didn’t really get into those.
But anyway, so I would read them, and again, because I’m a child, I would underline in red the sex scenes, right? [all laugh] Because I’m like “Ooh, this is spicy, this is really interesting, this is the good stuff!” And so I would underline it. And then when I got a little older, like in junior high, early high school, and I’m talking to boys a little bit on the phone, and they’re teasing me about my romance novels—cause I would have them in my bookbag all the time, you know? And I would read them during lunch or whatever. And they would tease me about them, and then I would pull out a copy and I would start reading from the underlined part, and they would be like “Oh, OK. Well, can you keep going?” [all laugh]
FK: Oh my God, what a flex! I did not have the confidence. That is amazing.
NP: But from the moment that I started reading them, or telling people that I was reading them, I was getting a lot of pushback and being teased or being told not to read them if someone saw me reading them on the bus or something, because you know, then the covers were those illustrated painted covers, right? The painted covers with the clinches and all that kind of stuff. So it was very clear what I was reading.
And I would get teased! Like, “You shouldn’t be reading that,” or like, “that’s too mature for you,” or “those books aren’t good, you should be reading more literary books,” and things like that, and I’m like, “But these books are good! They have an incredible plot and the descriptions of the scenes and the settings are quite poetic,” and I’m trying to tell this stuff, and when I got a little older in high school and I would start reading more of the suspense romances and the thrillers and stuff? I’m just like “This is a better action movie than the action movies that are out right now!” And no one would believe me, because this is something that’s for women, right? This is something that is mostly written by women, for women, giving them a false sense of what a relationship should be, of course it’s all bad.
And so it wasn’t necessarily that I was ashamed, I just did not want someone telling me that what I was doing was wrong or that what I was doing was inappropriate or that it was a sign of my intelligence. Like, “You’re a smart girl, you should be reading more than that! You should be reading something better than that!” So I got tired of that. I would keep all of my romance novels, when I got older and had my own apartment, I would keep them in my bedroom away from the living room, so no one would see. I would have all of my really good books in the living room and people could look and be like “Oh, this is a good book, this is a good book.” But you didn’t see the romances unless you were in my bedroom, and even then by the time you were in there, you weren’t looking at my bookshelves. So.
I just, I did not want the teasing, I did not want to talk about why I liked those things. But I did get to a point where I was just like, “You know what? I like romance novels. They’re actually very well-written. Just because you have this outdated idea of them, or you think that women should not be enjoying relationships—”
Because I think romance novels were in opposition of what we were seeing about relationships on television and in movies, where you just kinda wore the man down, when it comes to heterosexual relationships that we were seeing at the time, where you had to either stalk him or he had to stalk you, and then you get in these relationships and you hate each other, and you couldn’t stand each other. Or you had these few moments of bliss, domestic bliss. But everything else was nagging, trying to make ends meet, you know, all this kind of stuff on television. From the Archie Bunker show, from All in the Family to Married with Children to even, like, Everybody Loves Raymond, you know?
It’s gotten a little better now, but it’s still just this idea that once you get married you hate each other, and it’s been really interesting to see people on Twitter finally realizing that the Addams family, what made them was so odd was how much [laughs] what’s-his-name, Gomez, loved Morticia, and that’s what makes them so odd and weird, you know? That’s what makes them scary, is because here’s this man who is utterly devoted to his wife and here’s this woman who just loves the attention and loves being worshipped, but she gives as good as she gets, right? And that just, ooh, that’s freaky. [FK laughs] So I really like seeing people realizing that and that moment clicking for them. And that’s what you’re getting in romance novels, and I think it scares people.
ELM: That’s really interesting. Do you feel like, I mean, maybe—Flourish, if you jump in here, because you’re the actual romance reader amongst the two of us. But from my adjacent position as a book person and a fandom person, so I see the edges of the romance world and also YA and also SFF, right, and I’m like “I don’t know what you all are arguing about over here.” But I’m curious, it feels like the last decade there’s been a big general shift in the perception of romance. Do you feel that as a reader?
I know that people are waking—“people” being the publishing industry—is waking up to the potential for this being a broader market, and I know that’s changing the way books are published and made. But I’m wondering how it feels to you as someone who came up reading in that classic period with that kind of cover and that kind of public attitude about romance.
NP: Yeah, it’s been interesting to see, because romance—once Kathleen Woodiwiss came out, she really changed the trajectory of publishing, as more people started realizing “Oh, this is actually quite lucrative. You don’t just have to have a Jane Austen type of romance,” right? You can have sex! And women will buy it! And they want it! I think that really changed everything. But it’s taken almost 40 years or whatever, to get to that point where people are like, “This isn’t going away, and this is our moneymaker, and we should probably pay it a little bit more respect.” Or even—honestly, I don’t know if they’re necessarily paying it more respect. I think they’re finally realizing “Oh, we can make even more money from this.”
FK: Yeah.
NP: So I have seen it change, not just with the covers—with the romance novel covers changing into more of the graphic design or more of the illustrated ones, so they look more like a beach read, or they look more like women’s fiction, as opposed to romance. They’re trying to attract certain people and say, “See, romances aren’t so bad! They’re not just corny!” or whatever. And then it’s kind of misleading the romance readers who have been here for a very long time and—not all of us necessarily want to know that there is sex in the books, but it’s hard to know if there’s sex in the books wiht some of these covers, right? And so then you end up reading something that you don’t necessarily, you would not have read, and you feel tricked. At least, the romance, people who have been reading romance for a really long time.
FK: Yup. [laughs]
NP: It gets really disappointing! And then it makes you feel like you can’t trust this genre that you have been going to since you were very young. You know?
FK: Yeah.
NP: In a way it’s good that people are finally recognizing that romance is not going anywhere, it’s a legit genre, and that it deserves more attention and more respect, but it is a little disconcerting to see that it’s just, there’s a lot more trickery than I would like. It’s fine, but it’s still getting all those articles where someone’s like, “I never read a romance novel before, now I’m reading it, and it’s still terrible. Why does anybody read this?” And it’s like, you know—Shakespeare, every Shakespeare play wasn’t great! [all laugh] You know?
ELM: Should I pitch that article? I couldn’t say I’d never read a Shakespeare play, but I could pick one of the random bad ones and be like…
NP: Right? And it’s like…
ELM: “Hate this!”
NP: If you don’t read romance novels—so let’s say that you typically read, I don’t know, you typically read these epic fantasies. Right? And then you pick a romance novel that is contemporary, it’s a romcom, and you’re like “I hate it.” Well, because it’s not what you like! But there are epic romance novels, right? There are fantasy romance novels that you could pick, and they have all of the elements of what you normally like, and then you could probably make a better review or have a better idea of what romance novels are like.
Also, if you never read a romance novel and you go into—I’m telling my age here, because I don’t know if they still do this—but if you go into Best Buy and you go into, like, the dollar bin and you pull out a romance novel and you’re like “This is crap!” Well, there’s a reason it was in the dollar bin, you know? [all laugh] So if you want a good romance novel, like, pick something that is in line with what you already read, and then go from there. If this is your first time reading a romance novel, and then you can go. There’s so much out there.
I just showed my friend, there’s this book going around on Twitter, oh, what is it called? With the centaurs getting milked? Do you know what I’m talking about?
FK: WHAT?
ELM: No! [both laughing]
FK: We both missed this!
ELM: Too bad you couldn’t see our faces if you were listening to this, because we were both like, “Excuse me?”
FK: Getting…milked?
NP: There is a, I can just quickly find it here.
ELM: Please, do.
NP: There is a series… [laughs] Oh my goodness.
FK: Are we talking about like, milked as in sexually milked?
NP: Right.
FK: In a man way? Or are we talking about milked as in milked in a, sexually in a tit milking way? Or are we talking about non-sexual milking?
NP: No, it’s very sexual.
FK: Well, I guess I should have known that. [all laughing]
NP: OK. Morning Glory Milking Farm, OK?
ELM: Extraordinary.
NP: It’s called Morning Glory Milking Farm. Subtitled: A Monster Bait Romance. OK. And it’s exactly what it sounds like! Right? It’s a monsterfucking romance, OK. And this [laughs] woman she’s at the end of her rope financially, she doesn’t know what her next move is gonna be, so she sees this ad—we’ve got this job for you, come to the farm and milk centaurs. [laughs]
FK: There is on the cover a person snapping a glove on over an image of literal milk, and then a centaur in silhouette in the background. This is like, yeah.
NP: Yeah.
ELM: OK, did you bring this up as a rec?
NP: Yes.
ELM: Say yes!
NP: Yes, I did!
ELM: All right, great. And I will say, I have not finished personally reading it, but I sent this to her so that she could see like, what is possible in romance and how like—sometimes you’re not supposed to take it seriously, right? You’re not supposed to be reading this stuff like it’s Beloved by Toni Morrison. [laughter] It’s OK to just have a good time and read this out-of-this-world kind of thing.
And so that then got us talking about, this is also a subgenre in romance! Monsterfucking and fucking aliens and dinosaur erotica and all this kind of stuff. And it’s like, if you approach these books in the same way that you’re approaching AP English, well no, it’s not gonna be—I don’t know, some enjoyable thing for you or whatever you wanna call it. But if you just let go and allow yourself to read for fun, pure pleasure and not as a proof of your intelligence and not to show off to somebody else, you can enjoy anything that romance has to offer.
FK: It’s so funny—listening to you talk about this really has been reminding me of how I felt when I started reading fanfiction, because that was something that I could read that people didn’t know what I was reading, you know what I mean? Feeling that pressure to have something that’s of quote “quality,” right, that you’re supposed to be reading, that people are going to expect you to read, and then being like “but I don’t wanna read that!” You know what I mean? “I wanna read something that’s fun! Is it even OK for me to read something that’s fun?”
I feel like I hear that too from people within fanfiction, from within fan culture, sometimes having—I certainly have that tension where I’m like, “I want to read this because it’s fun and enjoyable and I don’t have to take it too seriously, but I also want it to mean something, because I’m smart and it must mean something if I’m reading this thing!” And it’s like: no, actually it’s OK. Sometimes it can just be for fun.
NP: Yeah, I think it’s very much part of this American work culture that we have, that our every moment has to be productive, it has to be edifying in some way. You’re not allowed to rest, you’re not allowed to enjoy something without first having suffered through something else. [FK laughs] But you know, what if you just want to read about milking centaurs? Go for it! Go for it!
And I mean, I’m sure you all have covered this before, but this idea of like, fanfic being something to laugh at and like, you know, when people are on these panels and someone starts reading fanfic to them in order to embarrass them, and to embarrass the author, and like—that’s really shitty for a lot of different reasons, and it’s just like, you know, someone… Maybe it’s not the best writing, but maybe they haven’t taken time to hone the craft of writing yet, but they enjoyed this property so much that it stayed with them to the point that they had to write out what they were seeing in their head. And that should be acknowledged and respected, whether or not you, you know, the craft of what they’ve done, the structure is great, whether—all that kind of stuff.
So you know, I’m not one of those people who thinks just because you did it that means it’s good, but I do think that we should honor and respect the work that goes into fanfic and not just the writing it, but also the studying of the original projects, you know? And paying attention to that and learning the characters that someone else has built, and then making, turning it into something.
FK: It’s funny because just after you finished talking about how, like, there’s this American idea that you have to work for everything, and then you’re like, “We should respect the work that goes into fanfic.” I think, I mean, I think that what you were more truly saying maybe—I don’t know, what I heard you saying before—is like: we should just be like “yeah! It gives people pleasure!” Right? Like…they’re enjoying doing it; what do you want?
NP: Yeah! I mean, pleasure’s very important to me. [laughs] Not just in a sexual way, but just, I just resent that I have to go through pain in order to earn pleasure, you know? And if I enjoy something, then I have to pay for it later, right? You know? I feel that way with like, food culture and dieting and stuff like that. If I eat this candy bar, then oh, tomorrow I’m gonna be sick with an upset stomach, or I’ve got to make sure that I work twice as hard to work it off, or whatever, that kind of stuff. And it’s just like, no! I just want to enjoy this fucking candy bar right now, right in this moment, I wanna stay present and not think about what it’s gonna do to me beyond making me feel good and I enjoy the taste of it.
So yeah, I just—you know, I do…I do want to acknowledge and honor the work that people do, always…
FK: Sure.
NP: I am not a participation trophy kind of person. You know? But I think maybe that also I used to be a teacher, so maybe that is also where that philosophy is coming from for me. And in teaching creative writing and going to creative writing workshops, where you always have to kind of be like, “Say what you like about this first. And then we can critique it and look at what can be better.” Right?
So if there’s a fanfic, you know, maybe I didn’t enjoy, I can just be like, “Well, I really can see that you loved Supernatural here, and I’m so glad that it moved you to this point, but maybe we could look at your grammar here and figure out, like, what present, what tense we need to be using.” [all laugh] “Or maybe we could figure out the logistics of this sex scene, because it seems like there are hands in places that should not be,” you know. [all laughing] You know, those kinds of things. So that’s what, I feel like those are the things that we can do when we are trying to critique fanfic or any other stuff like that. Like, yes, thank you for doing this! Now let’s get to the nitty-gritty.
I think that’s also the way that I approach sex? [laughs] Like…
ELM: “Here’s what worked, first, and now here are some critiques.”
NP: Cause I do like to give, like, little verbal comment cards, you know, after? [laughing]
ELM: Amazing.
NP: “That was really good, but maybe next time could you not say these things.” You know? Like those kinds of things. So.
ELM: “Let’s work on your grammar.”
NP: Yeah! [laughter]
ELM: That’s really funny. I mean, I also think to your point, to tie it back to romance too, like—the people on the panel shows making fun of fanfiction, it doesn’t matter. They could have pulled up literally the greatest-written story in that fandom and it wouldn’t matter, cause that’s not what…they’re making fun of the sheer act of it, and I think that’s the same with romance too. The person who is gonna write the like, “I read your shitty romance novel and your whole genre is garbage,” probably wouldn’t write anything that’s complimentary—like, they’re dismissing the whole idea of it, and they’re dismissing the kind of people who read and write it, right? Like, I think you could show them the greatest-written romance novel in the world and they would still say “But it’s a romance novel,” right? You know?
NP: Right. Yeah, because you can look at all those guys who write spy novels, and write conspiracy books, and all the—they’re writing the same book over and over, right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Yeah.
NP: And sometimes they’re self-insert, right? You know?
ELM: Oh yeah.
FK: Or read like Tom Clancy, right, like—thank you for just taking the Wikipedia page for this automatic rifle and just sharing it with me. [laughter] Thanks for that. It really…
NP: Right!
FK: …was delightful.
NP: Right! They’re doing the same thing. They have a formula in mind, and they’re writing this formula out, but maybe it’s just patriotic instead of romantic. Right? And so, but they get all the kudos, you know, no one questions their best-selling status, no one questions who’s actually writing their shit when they’re putting out five books a year. You know? Nobody does any of that with them, but suddenly with women, it’s just like, “Mm, Sandra Brown, are you really writing this?” You know? “Is this really you? Nora Roberts, is this really you writing all of these books?” Like that. You know.
So that kind of stuff, that bothers me, because there is obviously a very clear double standard that’s just so tiresome. [laughs] I’m just so tired of it, because these, they’re writing the same thing, these novels that some men write that are like 600 pages that are a self-insert of them fucking their student, you know? I, you know, like—[laughs] OK. Yes. So… [all laugh]
And there are some authors that people in Romancelandia don’t really fool with that much any more! You know? Or that they have stepped away from for a lot of different reasons. Like Laurell K. Hamilton. I loved her stuff when I first started reading it in the early 2000s, I think, or something like that.
FK: Peak Laurell K. Hamilton time.
NP: Yeah! And then she did start to get really repetitive, and then it did start to become this kind of…I don’t know if she was exploring consensual/non-consensual stuff in her real life, or like, what, because this one character…
FK: You’re like, giving it the nicest construction that you possibly can. [all laugh] You are working SO hard for that.
NP: Um…you know, I’m trying to be diplomatic! But one character, they had this thing called the Ardeur, right. And so basically like, you would be possessed and then everybody would want to have sex with you. And then once the spell was over, people would be like “What just happened? I can’t believe this!” So basically these people are having sex with you without their consent. You didn’t really consent to it, you were just overwhelmed by this stuff. And we were all supposed to find this incredible. And it’s like, if you just wanna write an orgy, write an orgy scene! Just go for it. You don’t have to make everybody, I don’t know. Have amnesia about it. It was really weird.
And when people started to complain to her, or tried to say “Hey, maybe you could check the way you describe these things, or can you look at this,” she got really defensive and really ugly with people, which is her right, you know? That’s fine. But for me, I was just like, “OK. I can’t deal with any more people having sex against their will and then suddenly falling in love with the person that had them having sex against their will.”
So it is possible to lose favor in Romancelandia, and to kind of be put on the shelf a little bit, and people walk away from you and—but we do defend what we like, a lot. We will ride to the hills, I guess, for what we care about. Which I really like. It’s basically—anybody who talks bad about romance novels, they’re gonna get rode on, some kinda way. [laughs]
ELM: So, I’m just curious—something that I feel like I read, like, throughout your memoir and in this conversation too, I feel like there’s a strong theme about your own personal desires and how unapologetic you are about them, and there’s an element of the way you read and the way that you view culture, and putting that desire, and looking at that through the—that lens of that desire. I’m wondering if that rings true to you, when you read romance novels or when you watch romantic or sexual TV and films, do you think…it seems like you’re connecting your own desires to that. Is that fair?
NP: Yeah, I would say so. Romance novels taught me that the woman’s pleasure should come first, right? Since most of the time in romance novels the man goes down on the woman first, or he’s doing something to make sure she enjoys herself first before he does. And if something happens where the sex is over too quickly, then he’s apologetic and he’s like, “Let me make sure that you enjoy yourself,” and then he comes back, you know, and like, takes care of her and is very caring and tender.
And so I would read that, and you know, once I got to start having sex in my own life, I did have that experience as well, but then there were moments where I did not, and I was like, “Well, wait a minute! You’re not doing it the way [laughing] romance novels told me!” And so then you know, as I’m watching television, and movies, I would see some of that, not often enough, though. And I think that’s where kind of filling in the holes, the cracks, of what was between what I was seeing on screen and what I was reading and that’s when I would kind of fill in the blank with like, celebrity thirst and celebrity desire and stuff.
And so in doing Thirst Aid Kit, you know, we wanted to focus on the female gaze and what it means, because these celebrities, these male celebrities that we focused on, they had to do—I mean, usually they can start off with horror. But in order to like, really get their start or rise, they have to do a romance, some kind of romcom. They have to present themselves to women as desirable. And then maybe they can become an action hero, or something like that. Or if the guy starts off as an action hero, then he has to—it has to have a strong romantic element in it.
So you know, we over here in the States, we learned about Chris Hemsworth through Thor. Obviously in Australia, he was doing soap operas. So they saw him as a desirable person there, you know, for a long time. But for us, we were first really introduced to him as Thor, but that had a romantic element in it, a little bit. It was a very weak romantic element, but [laughs] it was, you know. But we had to see him as someone who was willing to do stuff for a woman he was interested in for him to really—it wasn’t enough for him to just look like a Viking Thor thing, right? He has to also be [laughing] you know?
Because it could be… I don’t know, he had to be deemed attractive beyond just muscles. So we had to see him kiss, we have to see him be willing to save the girl and all that kind of stuff. So the female gaze is very important in order for male celebrities to get to where they’re going, or where they want to go, which is why so many of them are often closeted, you know, so many gay stars are closeted when they first come out, because if women find out that they can’t have you in their mind, then they turn away from you. Right? This is, this is not necessarily true, it’s just the logic that they have, you know, have to subscribe to.
So talking about these men on Thirst Aid Kit is about like, trying to reposition and acknowledge the power that women have in making or breaking celebrities. You know, there are a lot of articles out there about teenage girls and fandom and how they shape music celebrities’ lives. Like the Beatles and Britney Spears and, I don’t know, what’s this now? Olivia Rodrigo, is that her name? [laughter]
FK: Yeah.
ELM: We’re all elderly. We’re like, “Who is that teen?”
FK: Who is she?
NP: You know? So there are plenty of articles about that. But basically like, you have to appeal to women if you wanna do something, if you want to have any kind of cachet in Hollywood or music, while they also tell us that we’re stupid for liking these things. Right? So it’s odd.
Anyway, so I try to center my desire and what I like, because I know I’m not the only one. I know that I am not unique in this thing, you know? Some people are like, “Am I weird because I like it when he says my name?” No! No! No. You are not. [laughing] Plenty of people like it when they are acknowledged, when someone knows their name. That kind of thing.
So romance novels, Bim Adewumni, my co-host on Thirst Aid Kit, and I both love romance novels, and they shaped the language that we used to talk about desire, and so when we’re talking about these things and making these scenarios, they were always—or often using the tropes that we learned through romance novels, the one bed or the cabin in the woods or, you know, those kinds of things. Those things came directly from the romance novels that we were reading and influenced how we talked about them, how we imagined them, and the drabbles that we did. So there’s a throughline.
And also, just, romance novels give a map for a woman’s desire, a lot of times. If people stopped, I don’t know, stopped making fun of romance novels, they would very clearly see: this is what women want. These are what certain women want to experience, this is their fantasy, this is, you know—it’s all very clear laid out, if you just read it.
FK: But I feel like you took that—you took that experience of the romance novels and I think it’s really… I mean, maybe it’s silly to say something like “it’s really brave to go out and put yourself out there and be like, here are my desires,” but it is really brave, actually, and it’s really cool to me to see somebody else doing that, because I feel like for a lot of people—even people who are very engaged in thirst! You know what I mean? Even people who are really really engaged in fandom in a lot of ways, it can be really confronting to have to talk about your desire as being, like, connected to you. Like, “Yeah, I, personally, me, I have this desire. It’s not purely just fictionalized,” you know?
And I feel like for a lot of people it can be way more comfortable to be like, either—“I’ve fictionalized this, I’m reading it in a book, I’m reading it in a fanfic,” or even beyond that, right? Like, “I don’t even want to read a fanfic that has,” I don’t know, “I’m female-bodied, and I don’t even want to read a fanfic with a female body in it, because that feels like it’s really close to me and I don’t,” I mean, not to say that everybody has this feeling, but I’ve heard it from enough people that I know that at least some people do.
I think it’s really, I don’t know. It’s really interesting to me. I would love to hear, like, did you have any moments of like, “Am I really gonna be this open and transparent about my thirst?” [laughs] Or were you just like “Nope, it’s me!”
NP: I don’t think I had any…mm, sometimes I would be concerned that if I said what I liked, someone that I don’t like is gonna present it to me and then be like, “Well, you said you liked this thing,” and it’s like, “Yeah, but you know, maybe I like it in a different package.” [laughs] You know? [all laugh]
Because I’ve had that happen! You know? Where someone has been like, “This is your favorite meal! Right? I thought you liked this thing,” and it’s like, “Yeah, but you’re handing it to me on a garbage can lid. I don’t want it.” You know? Like… [all laughing] So just because I said, the context of what I want also has to be right. You know?
So there were definitely moments where I’m like, where I feel afraid to say what I want, because I don’t want someone to use it against me in some way. There’s a chapter in my book where I talk about a sexual assault that happened to me, and I didn’t know how to name it. I didn’t know what it was, and I was scared to talk about it, because I didn’t think anybody would be receptive to hearing me, a sexual person, talk about someone who did something I did not want. Because so many people think, “Well, if you’re a sexual person, that means you want it all the time.” Right? Or you’re out there doing it all the time, or you’re fuckin’ anybody, right? And that’s not the case.
I do have those moments where I’m like, “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because I don’t want someone to think they have access to me in a particular way.” But I do try to be honest and I do try to be specific, because I feel like if I am specific, maybe someone else will see that and then be specific in their desires as well, and go out and learn more about their own desires, if they’re still questioning something or if they’re unsure about something…
I just want everybody to feel good, or at least have a moment where they can feel good, you know? As somebody who has had—I’ve been dealing with Major Depressive Disorder all my life, most of it untreated, because I didn’t know what was going on and was just whatever, but I really value those moments now where I feel good, because I have those long stretches where I did not feel good and I could not understand why.
And so if I feel good because someone gave me flowers, or kissed me behind my ear, or kissed me behind my knee, I wanna hold on to that. And so I want other people to also find the thing that makes them feel good, even if it’s not sexual, and you know, I do try to acknowledge people who are asexual or demisexual or just, you know, don’t know yet. I do try to acknowledge them as well and recognize that figuring out your desire, figuring out what you like, does not necessarily mean you have to go out there and be humping everybody. [laughs] It can be a solitary adventure. You know? So I also always wanna recognize that too.
Like, I did an essay a couple of years ago on Jane the Virgin and Chewing Gum, the TV shows, which were about these women who were very religious and trying to figure out their sexuality, figure out what they liked, and figure out their desires, while also unlearning all of the sexual repression of their religion. And they did not want to be out there going to slutwalks, right? They just wanted to find like, one guy that they could experiment with. That’s perfectly fine! It’s OK to be a feminist and only want one guy, or only want one woman or only want one person, like, whatever, and still, like figure out your desire.
So I just want everybody to feel good, however that means for them, and the best way that I can do that is to feel good myself, and so other people can, you know…I don’t wanna say “mirror,” because we all have different journeys, but just see “Oh! Well, she seems to be OK, she’s doing this thing. Maybe I will also be OK if I unlearn the repression from my childhood, if I step away from the religious doctrine,” or whatever the situation may be. So that’s why I try to be bold, I try to, you know—maybe I overshare? I don’t know. But I just try my best and maybe it’s an overcorrection? I don’t know. But I just try so that other people can realize they’re not going to explode into [laughs] you know…they’re just not going to admit “oh, I like this thing” and then die, you know? [all laugh] It’s OK! Keep going! You will keep going and it’ll be really really good and you’re not betraying yourself.
I think sometimes we think that we have this one thing that is our only identity. Like, “Oh, ADHD is my life, it’s all I know, it’s all I talk about, I’ve been navigating my whole world around this thing, I can’t possibly also then figure out what I like as a sexual person, because then I’m gonna stop focusing on learning how to navigate ADHD.” You can do both of those things! [laughs] Like, you can figure out all of these parts of yourself without losing the one thing that has taken up so much time in your life. It’s OK if you like more than one thing.
ELM: So Thirst Aid Kit is over now.
NP: Yes?
ELM: You wanna…all right, well, it’s not happening now.
NP: Right. We consider it “retired.” But we are very much open to pop-up things. We would’ve normally called it a pop-up event, but obviously given the state of the world we don’t know what’s going to happen. Basically if somebody out there wants us to interview, I don’t know, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II [laughter] we will gladly do it, you know?
ELM: Sure!
NP: If anybody wants us to! Wants us to host a virtual event with I don’t know, Chris Evans again, or whoever. You know? John Cho! Yes. So if somebody out there wants us to interview him as part of, you know, the whole promo-marketing round of things, we would happily do it. It’s just a matter of people reaching out to us or, you know, maybe we should pitch people? I don’t know. But yes. So we’re retired but open to doing stuff.
ELM: Sure. So I’m wondering, with the formal show being retired though, I’m wondering if you have any—it’s been a very weird year to reflect on things, I’m sure, but reflecting on it, and also thinking about your listeners as kind of like your fans, right? And it seemed like you guys had a pretty robust relationship with your listeners, like, more than other podcasts—I’m wondering, I’m wondering if you have any reflections on that.
NP: We did not like calling our listeners “fans,” and if you ever hear me talk, when I talk about them I always just say “listeners” because I feel very uncomfortable about calling them “fans.”
ELM: You don’t have to call them “fans” now, but you know! [NP laughs] Members of the Thirst Aid Kit community.
NP: Yeah, our thirstbuckets out there! But that is just also not trying to make ourselves bigger than what we are. But we love them. We get such beautiful emails from people who are like, you know, “I’m a survivor and I wasn’t sure that I could feel desire again, but you made me feel like I could, like I could do baby steps, I could start with the celebrity that I obviously know I will never get in touch with, and never be around, and it’s OK to feel this way again, and maybe I can then learn to apply that to a situation in real life.” Those kinds of emails, which are very moving.
One that I’ll never forget is the woman who said she was listening to an episode and I was talking about how I really like men barechested in jeans and barefoot. I guess she agreed with me in a very hearty way, and so then her husband started walking around like that. [laughter] She was like, “Thank you!” So I loved that one.
In my memoir, I put thirstbuckets in my acknowledgements, because I was writing the book during the show, as I was recording, and sometimes I would have really bad moments, and then I’d get one of those emails, I’d get one of those tweets, I’d get one of those DMs, and it was like—that’s really sweet. And it kind of, I won’t necessarily say that it motivated me to get back to the memoir, but it definitely made me feel like the work that I’m putting out is reaching the people it needs to reach, and so maybe the memoir will reach the people it needs to reach.
So we always loved our fans, they were really—they were great. This woman, we did a movie night, we showed Dirty Dancing, and it was a thirsty movie night and people would come and they could, like, yell at the screen, and we would do little games, like a bingo game, you know, and give away mugs and stuff like that. And after Dirty Dancing was over, this woman came up to us with her niece, I believe, who was maybe…I would say between 10 to 13? She looked like something like that. And the woman was just like, “I’m really glad that she had a chance, this was her first time watching Dirty Dancing, and that she had a chance to watch it in a space that was so welcoming and encouraging and safe for her to watch this so that she could understand the deeper stuff that was going on, like the abortion storyline, and like, learning how to deal with men who were trash, but also deal with someone who was really good to you.” So that kind of thing. So that was really nice, and I like stuff like that.
We also did a screening of Point Break, with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, and for a lot of people it was their—most of the people there, it was their first time seeing it on the big screen. Right? And you see Keanu, beautiful. [all laugh] Oh my God, I got chills, I’m still getting chills. But to see him up on screen at like, one peak of his beauty—because I feel like he has several peaks of beauty, right?
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
NP: Cause John Wick, I think, is my favorite. But like, to see him big like that and to hear people just kind of gasping [laughs] and also, it’s a movie that, Point Break is a movie that does not get the respect it deserves for the female gaze. You know what’s going on there. So anyway. I love the fans, I love the listeners, I love everybody that came out. I miss them! I do. I really miss interacting with them, and people still send us stuff, to let me know Tom Hiddleston has done something… [FK laughs] That kind of thing. So I really appreciate that. I do miss them.
It was important to, I don’t know, stay in touch with them and also to keep like, our fingers on the pulse of what was making people thirsty, and the best way to do that is to talk and engage with people. So.
ELM: Well, I am like—that’s a beautiful answer, and I could leave it there, but I have one more thing to ask you and Flourish, you can leave the call right now.
FK: Oh no.
ELM: Cause I need to talk to you.
FK: Oh no.
ELM: I don’t know if you know, Nichole, but I have watched Frasier all the way through…
FK: Oh no.
ELM: Probably 50, 75 times.
FK: I can’t believe this is happening to me right now.
ELM: Can I mute you? Can I get you off the call Flourish? [all laughing]
FK: I’m gonna zip my mouth and throw away that key for like, the next ten minutes.
ELM: Oh, we get to talk about Frasier for ten minutes?! Oh my God!
FK: You’re gonna cut it down in post, don’t worry. [laughter]
ELM: I’m delighted to talk to another person who also watches Frasier all the way through on a regular basis. I’m in the middle of a rewatch right now.
NP: So am I.
ELM: What episode are you on, or what season?
NP: I am on…season seven. So…
ELM: Oh, I think I am too!
NP: It’s the episode where they’re about to send Daphne to the fat camp.
ELM: Oh no, then I’m on season—I’m on the season before. When Frasier first sleeps with Jean Smart. That’s where I am right now.
NP: Oh, OK, yeah.
ELM: The Lana storyline. So. I was delighted reading your essay about Niles. I love Frasier so much. Not Frasier—Frasier the character’s fine, but. [laughs] But I don’t know if we actually have any, I just wanted to acknowledge our mutual Frasier love. I don’t know if you actually want to talk about Frasier at all, but…
NP: I mean, we can! I have a Niles Funko in my office.
ELM: Stop it. Can I, is it nearby? Can you send us a picture afterwards?
NP: Yeah, yeah! I can. I got it from Barnes & Noble. I was just like, in the store and it just happened to be…
ELM: Wait, you’re telling me that the Funko corporation actually—this isn’t like a custom one; they made Frasier Funkos.
NP: Yeah!
FK: Why are you surprised by this? There’s a Funko for everything.
NP: Yeah!
ELM: I don’t know. I didn’t know that Frasier would warrant it. I’m so delighted!
NP: Yep!
ELM: It’s really good. But yeah, I’m wondering, I mean, I guess—I’m trying to ask you a serious question about Frasier right now, but… [laughs] You do rewatch it, which seems very fannish to me. Like, you know, I’m wondering…I mean, I don’t have a question about this, honestly, [laughter] unless you have something you wanna say about it.
NP: I mean, the chapter is more about Niles, but I do watch it. I think I said, cause I also talk about the TV show Bones, that Bones helped me through a really bad depressive episode. And I said that if Bones helped me through depression, then Frasier is my daily anti-depressant. Because it is, it’s so good! And I love Niles, because I think he’s very passionate, I think he is, you know, very sweet. I love how ethical he is. Also, he’s just an amazing character! He’s just so funny. David Hyde Pierce really brings this great vaudeville kind of…
ELM: Yeah!
NP: …flow to Niles, he’s so witty and sharp and also a good degree of physical comedy as well, without it becoming slapstick. He’s just, he’s just amazing. I think he’s cute. [laughs]
ELM: He is cute!
NP: You know, I know that he is not someone like, “What’s your ideal man?” No one’s gonna say “Niles Crane.” [FK laughs]
ELM: Daphne thought that in the end!
NP: In the end.
ELM: Took her awhile to see it, but you know!
NP: But that’s kind of the style that I like in real life, it’s a very skinny nerdy-looking guy that people don’t think knows anything about sex, and then you get with him, and he’s just like [purrs] you know? [all laugh] I like the little undercover freaks! So I like Niles because of that.
ELM: Amazing. I feel like Flourish hasn’t watched Frasier and this is giving such a picture of Niles that maybe…
FK: It really is.
ELM: It’s like a deep cut that I don’t know if you would get on the first viewing unless you truly were attracted to Niles.
FK: I don’t know.
ELM: We’ll have to run a little survey, experiment. Make Flourish watch it for the first time.
FK: We may never know. [ELM laughs]
NP: This is why I wish streaming services had the option to make a playlist, because first of all, I love making playlists, but I would love to make a playlist of the go-to Niles episodes.
FK: Yeah.
NP: And I would do that for you, so you could see what I’m talking about.
FK: As someone who loves The X-Files, I understand this desire of like, “I just need to make you a playlist that is just the good parts.”
NP: Yes!!
FK: With all of these seasons, you don’t need all of them! Like, you can, I have, but you don’t have to!
ELM: Well, hold on, though. You know about that like, super 2000s-era Frasier message board website? Do you ever go there?
NP: I’ve never gone there but I know about it.
ELM: OK, cause I use it—I show a lot of people Frasiers and I’ll say like, “What are you in the mood for, what character do you want.” Cause I watch it with my parents, and they were like, “We want some that feature Eddie,” and I was like—that’s a dog, Flourish.
FK: Thank you.
ELM: “I don’t know! There’s not that many Eddie-centric episodes,” but that’s fine. So like, I—but they’ll say one that’s more about Martin or whatever. And I’ve gone there and people debate and put their top ten lists of like, top ten Niles episodes or top ten…so it’s there. There’s a whole community! You could get in on it.
FK: I could, I guess.
ELM: Not you!! Nichole!!!
FK: But I’m not the one who actually would want to. [NP laughing]
ELM: Flourish, stop centering yourself!!
FK: [laughing] I was just…
ELM: Oh my God, you haven’t even seen it the first time. You’re not ready to make a top ten list!
NP: Wait, but Flourish, you’ve never seen any?
FK: I’ve never seen any.
ELM: I bet you don’t even know what it’s about. You don’t even know what job Frasier and Niles have.
FK: Uh, someone’s on radio and someone’s a psychiatrist?
ELM: Wow. They’re both psychiatrists, Flourish, you know nothing.
FK: But one of them’s on the radio, right?
NP: Yes, yes.
ELM: You know one thing. [all laughing]
NP: They’re trying to do a revival, like they’re going to bring it back, and I don’t want them to do it.
ELM: Yeah. Strong agree with you. I am not, when they announced that I posted a picture of—remember when Niles in that, like, full white outfit, with Baby, his bird on his shoulder? With the ennui with the glass of white wine? And I was like “That’s how I feel about this news.”
NP: Yes.
ELM: Just—just worn out. Yeah. It’s fine. Maybe, maybe I’ll watch it.
NP: I don’t know. I need to know like, more of what the premise is gonna be. I probably will watch maybe the first two episodes, just to say that I did, but I know that I’m not gonna enjoy it.
ELM: Yeah, that’s how I feel too. [laughs]
FK: All right.
ELM: Cool!
FK: I’m really glad that Elizabeth, you had this opportunity to be indulged by one of our guests, who actually likes Frasier, because I will never indulge you and I’m probably never gonna watch it just cause it’s gonna annoy you that I will never watch it. Um…
ELM: It doesn’t annoy me in any way; it makes me feel sad for you. [FK laughs] So…
FK: I do think that we should, if you’re gonna continue the Frasier discussion, it should probably be…
ELM: [laughs] Take it off the air.
FK: Off air.
ELM: That’s fine. Any time you wanna talk about Frasier, Nichole, I am there.
FK: Thank you so much for coming on.
NP: Thank you! This was great.
ELM: Thank you!
[interstitial music]
FK: That was a pleasure of a conversation.
ELM: Wow, did you use the word “pleasure” on purpose?
FK: I did! Thank you for noticing!!
ELM: [laughs] I mean, it would be hard to not notice after having a very long conversation about pleasure. So…primed to notice the word. [FK laughs] That was absolutely a wonderful conversation, I’m so glad Nichole could come on, and I hope people read her book! As a reminder, we’ll put it in the show notes, but it’s called Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be, it’s from Grand Central Publishing, and people should buy it or request it from your local library!
FK: Yeah, absolutely. We both really loved it, so. There we go!
ELM: Before we go, I think we need to talk about something also pleasurable?
FK: That’s a, you’re like Stretch Armstrong over here. Let’s not…you know…
ELM: I think that if people become patrons we will give them things that will bring them pleasure.
FK: Here I was going in, like, a money-pig direction in my head.
ELM: No!! No!
FK: [laughs] All right, no, but seriously, the way that we make this podcast is by your support through Patreon, patreon.com/fansplaining. And if you are able to give us money on a regular basis, we are able to give you things! Exciting things!
ELM: [laughs] Pleasurable transactions!
FK: Pleasurable transactions! [laughing]
ELM: Right, OK! So, if you are a dollar-a-month patron, you get access to one special episode that I think is quite…I’m not gonna say it again. It’s fun! If you do $2 a month, you get early access to the Podcast. $3 a month, our most popular tier, you get access to I believe 25 Special Episodes, are we up to now? A lot.
FK: I think so! A lot.
ELM: Including our series from the past year called Tropefest, which has proven to be pretty popular with folks, based on the letters that you write in that I really appreciate reading. And we recently did one on modern AUs, and we’ve also done them on enemies to lovers, trapped yogether, A/B/O, I’m trying to think of the other ones. Found family, a whole variety of tropes. And just to be clear, they are about our assessment of the tropes, they are not always the most positive.
FK: Well, we usually talk about things that we like within the trope as well as things that are annoying to us.
ELM: Right, like when it works for us and what we are…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: When it doesn’t work for us. And that seems to be something that’s resonating with our listeners. [laughs] So if you would also like to hear us have a relatively frank discussion of the things that frustrate us within certain tropes...you should sign up!
FK: And the things that we like!
ELM: Yeah yeah yeah, whatever, whatever!
FK: The two— [laughing] You and I are the two genders.
ELM: That’s right. The things that frustrate us and the things that we like. And then $5 a month you get all of that stuff plus you get an enamel pin and your name in the credits, a very cute pin, and $10 a month—our most recent Tiny Zine! A collaboration with Destination Toast. I think that is pretty pleasurable.
FK: All right, I will give you that.
ELM: Yeah!
FK: If you don’t want to or can’t donate any money, you can still support us in very good ways by spreading the word about the podcast, or by writing in. You can send us a message on our website; through Tumblr, our askbox is open and anon is on; you can send us an email at fansplaining at gmail dot com; you can message us on social media; and whenever you send us a question or a comment or something like that, it, you know, gives us grist for the mill, and we can then make more episodes and like, talk to you and you know, have conversations about the things you’re interested in.
ELM: You said that like, the most threatening way. It was like a very…
FK: Grist for the mill!!
ELM: Stop, stop, that’s not pleasurable! [laughter] It’s scary actually!
FK: I’m sorry!
ELM: It’s true. Well, OK, is that everything we need to say? End business?
FK: I think that’s the end of the business! I guess I’ll talk to you later, Elizabeth!
ELM: You will! OK, bye, Flourish!
FK: Bye!
[Outro music, thank yous and credits]