Episode 195: Fandom Life Cycles
In Episode 195, “Fandom Life Cycles,” Elizabeth and Flourish respond to a voicemail from listener Gin/myrmidryad about their appreciation of a “closed canon”—in this case, a show ending—when it comes to fanwork creation. Some fans love this relatively stable ground; others complain that with no new material on the horizon, a fandom is “dead” or close to it. They also read a response to the previous episode on whump, and talk about idfic more broadly.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:03:07] Read Maria’s article on whump, and listen to (or read the transcript of) our conversation with her on the last episode!
[00:08:14] All the times Scully saves Mulder.
[00:14:26]
[00:16:29] Not the largest sample size, but this Reddit thread confirms some people who are not Flourish say “azmer.”
[00:17:42] Our interstitial music throughout is “Bigger questions” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:20:08] That *is* all eight of our Tropefest episodes. You can check out the descriptions and show notes of each:
[00:20:42] That’s Patreon.com/Fansplaining, OR if you’d rather just donate once, you can do it via PayPal.
[00:24:22] OUR BAD: our voicemail-leaver *did* want their name used on the podcast. Apologies, Gin/myrmidryad!
[00:34:51]
[00:37:07] [x]
[00:54:55] That’s episode 167, “Our Secret Identities.”
[00:59:37]
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 #195, “Fandom Life Cycles.”
FK: A subject that I feel like…I was gonna say, is it near and dear to our hearts? I don’t know, but we have both seen [laughs] some fandom life cycles in our day.
ELM: Yeah. It’s near and dear to our hearts. Wait, sidenote. First of all, I want to address the elephant in the room before I respond to what you just said. I have a cold.
FK: [laughs] I don’t think it’s an elephant in the room. I don’t think you sound that strange.
ELM: Oh, that’s great. OK. Cool. I think that I don’t sound normal, but we’ll see. Um…OK, anyway.
FK: I mean, I don’t know. [ELM laughs] You sound normal. You sound like a person. [ELM laughs] Maybe slightly with a cold, but it’s not bad!
ELM: OK, great! That’s cool. That’s cool. All right. Thank you.
FK: I wouldn’t call it an elephant. Maybe a capybara.
ELM: Ohhhh that’s so peaceful and fun.
FK: I know.
ELM: Which is not what a cold is like. [laughs]
FK: Ha!
ELM: OK, but yeah, I do think that you and I are individually quite well-placed to talk about fandom life cycles. We’ll be responding to a voicemail that we got. Because your main fandom, even though you kind of have white-hot flashes of other fandoms, is one that’s very perpetual, kind of on a simmer at all times, right?
FK: Correct. Correct.
ELM: And mine, while literally as old as yours, the sub-fandom that I’m in from that, is one that I would say is past its prime—
FK: Sure.
ELM: —but now that I’ve been in it for, like, five, six years, and I’ve literally watched people come in and leave, and I’m like, [laughs] “Oh no.” That’s very strange to be one of the ones that’s still there and to watch, like—I don’t know, someone who was making great content for a year now become, like, I don’t know. An Ace Attorney blog, or whatever. This is just a random example. [FK laughs] Disco Elysium. I don’t know.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: The things I don’t know about, you know? And I’m like, “Where’d you go?” And then they’ve changed their URL, right? And so I wasn’t expecting to be in that position, but I now feel like I have a particular vantage point.
FK: Right.
ELM: Which I don’t think I had in other fandoms.
FK: Yeah, and we also have been in other fandoms, both of us, that have had, you know, maybe less long-running for us, or whatever, but that have had little life cycles of their own.
ELM: Sure. Yes.
FK: So I’m looking forward to getting into that. But before we do, I think we have a letter to read.
ELM: [laughs] You thought correctly.
FK: Yeah! [laughs]
ELM: OK, so—
FK: I am looking at a document that has a letter in it. [both laugh] And some part of my brain is suggesting to me that we might want to read this guy.
ELM: OK, for context, if you didn’t listen to the last episode, we had journalist Maria Temming on to talk about a long, deeply reported article that she wrote about whump and hurt/comfort and whump communities. So folks united by their interest in hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, gifs of characters in bandages, et cetera, et cetera. So highly recommend you read her article and listen to the episode, and this letter was a response to that.
FK: All right, should I read it?
ELM: Please do!
FK: All right. This is from Nellied.
“Hi Fansplaining!
“I’ve been a fan of the podcast for a few years now, so you wouldn’t believe how excited I was when I saw an episode (and an article!) on whump. Whump’s been a big part of my fandom life since the very start, so many things you said really resonated, and/or got me thinking.
“To clarify, I am a whumper, and I actually have that really classic experience you mentioned of being inexplicably drawn to whumpy media as a kid. My first memory of it must have been age nine or 10, watching Disney’s Robin Hood, where he’s about to be executed, and just being really excited by it. [both laugh] But the whump fascination didn’t end there. At school, all my fannish daydreams centered around certain characters getting tortured or otherwise hurt, and once I gained internet access and discovered whump fanfiction, that was the point of no return!
“At the same time, I felt guilty about it, and I knew almost instinctively that other people around me in real life didn’t enjoy whump in the same way and would find my daydreams weird. I kept it quiet, wondering if there was something wrong with me. Dismissive comments I found online didn’t help, and once I was old enough to wonder why I was primarily and instinctively drawn to whumping certain characters (often white men) and not others, another layer of internal guilt kicked in.
“I’m much less hung up on that nowadays. Partly because attitudes toward whump softened a bit, partly because I found new whumpees to obsess over, but also partly because I read a lot of meta around the community’s tendency toward whumping white men and gained a better appreciation of the complexities of the situation, many of which you outlined well in the episode. Either way, what became clear to me is that the whump community (myself included) loves dissecting and critiquing their own attraction to whump.
“This self-analysis is a never-ending task, partly because the reasons we like whump are different from whumper to whumper, and that’s one of my favorite things about it! What hooks me might not hook another whumper, and that creates a variety within whump, and space for you to explore the genre and find your particular fix. For me, for example, it’s definitely more about physical hurt, rather than mental hurt, though I’d argue that the two aren’t as separate as all that. My favorite fics often feature physical pain causing mental anguish, or mental anguish leading the whumpee to do something that causes them physical pain.
“Additionally, an aspect you didn’t mention but that’s crucial for me, is seeing others’ reactions to the whumpee being hurt. As an emotional hook, this is actually more important to me than the comfort side of h/c. Rather than seeing my whumpee’s friends or family or love interest patching them up and providing emotional comfort after the hurt has happened, give me them in the moment, panicking, afraid, worried, grieving, anything that shows up the bonds of love and affection that exist between the characters. For me, that’s the most powerful thing, with aftercare and recovery playing a less prominent role.
“All this has been the case since I can remember enjoying whump, and I can’t really explain why. Anecdotally, however, my sister, who grew up consuming much of the same media as me, but who got into online fandom entirely separate, did independently develop the exact same taste in whump, to the point where, once we discovered we were both in fandom, we realized we’d actually read a lot of the same fic. So perhaps there’s something about the experiences we have and media we consume growing up that shapes what we look for in fic and fandom?
“Either way, I think you did a great job unpicking a lot of this in your episode—clearly it got me thinking! Thanks for bearing with this long whumpy ramble, and thanks for such a great episode!”
And that’s from Nellied.
ELM: Thanks for such a great letter, Nellied! [both laugh]
FK: Seriously.
ELM: I am so pleased that they brought up what we didn’t talk about in the episode, the, you know, the other characters’ reaction to the incident, right? You know? The injury, the kidnapping, whatever, because for me personally, and I think that definitely less than Maria and I think less than you too, I’m less strongly identified with an interest in hurt/comfort, right?
FK: Sure, yeah.
ELM: Don’t dislike it, but it’s not like, “Oh, yeah. Top trope.” Right? Or, you know—
FK: Yeah, you’re not like, “Mmm hmmm.” [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. “Give it to me, give it to me.” But absolutely, for me, particularly, I think as a reader, but also as a writer, that’s one of my favorite elements, right?
FK: Hmm.
ELM: If I’m putting a character in peril, it’s—you know, and I’m thinking about this often in the context of a ship, but putting one character in peril puts the other member of the ship, especially if they’re a person who seems less…what’s the word? More impervious to showing vulnerability, right?
FK: Sure.
ELM: You know?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: And having that kind of be a crack in the armor and then showing that, like, facade being [FK laughs]—you know what I mean?
FK: Yes.
ELM: Yeah! I’m into that.
FK: I do know what you mean, in X-Files fanfic, this is the, uh, this is the thing where Mulder is in peril and Scully, like, turns into a wild person, ordering—[ELM laughs] everyone’s favorite thing is she orders around large, like, you know, law enforcement men and screams at them until they are totally cowed and go rescue Mulder for her. [ELM laughs] Yeah.
ELM: Yeah! See, and that’s interesting. There’s a lot of different ways that people react in these kinds of situations and that’s interesting to see in-process, right? You know?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And the idea of…that you can be causing one character possibly physical peril while causing others this emotional peril is an interesting way to think about it, I think. You know?
FK: Yeah, absolutely. And I really appreciated that they wrote in to be like, “Hey! Here’s this other thing!” Because yeah, as I was reading the letter I was like, “Yeah! Yeah! Another thing!” [laughs] You know? [both laugh] On that topic, I was so delighted by the response to this whump episode. I had people who I did not even realize were in fandom being like, “Hey, Flourish! I’m a whumper!” [laughs] And I was like, “Oh my goodness! [ELM laughs] I did not—I knew you, I did not know that you were in fandom. You’re a whumper.” [laughs]
ELM: Wait wait wait wait wait. So it’s not just that they, like, are proto-whumpers—what’s the word? It’s not like they’re just independently coming to, like—they are actually in fandom secretly. You didn’t know that. This was also how you learned they were in fandom.
FK: Yeah. I don’t know that they were secret. But we just never talked about it. You know what I mean? It was one of those things where it was not, you know—
ELM: Oh, wow.
FK: I don’t know that it was this big secret, but yeah. That was fun. And actually, something that was insightful that I think maybe also relates to some of the things that was in this letter is the idea of thinking about whump from a kink community vantage point. Which I’m sure there’s a bunch of whumpers who do. But that was another thing that sort of people were saying to me that I thought was like, “Oh yeah, that’s interesting.”
ELM: Hmm. Are you saying, like, in terms of some elements of kink being about enacting pain and then aftercare, whether it’s actual, or simulated?
FK: I mean, I think that. But also I think, you know, the way that we think about kinks and fetishes, or the way that people who take part in kinky or fetishy communities think about those things—
ELM: Mmm hmmm, mmm hmmm.
FK: You know, I mean, like, there’s a lot of stuff—the stuff about whumperflies, and about all this stuff. That actually seems quite related—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —even if it’s not, like, a directly sexual fetish or kink, it still seems like it’s connected to, like, I don’t know, why does somebody like…a foot? [laughs] Like, I don’t know! You know? That’s not—
ELM: To name a random example. [laughs]
FK: Right. Well, no, I’m just saying, like, you know. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it definitely is something that, you know—
ELM: It’s always about the feet with you, Flourish. [both laugh]
FK: I was just thinking about, you know, an obvious fetish thing, right? That other, like—
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: —people who don’t have that fetish don’t look at a foot and are like, “Aw, yeah.” You know? But if you do, then you’re like, “Yeah, that’s it.” [laughs]
ELM: No. Yeah, yeah. It was—we got a reblog and I was looking at their tags because I was fascinated, from a sneeze fetishist, right?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: You know? And so it’s like, I mean, and yeah, absolutely—
FK: They must love sickfic! [both laugh]
ELM: Yeah, exactly, and they had some nuanced distinctions about whump versus sickfic versus sneeze stuff and, like, yeah. I think it reminds me of the ASMR folks too, because—
FK: Oh, yeah.
ELM: —there are people for whom those reactions are sexual, and then there’s people for whom it is a pleasure, but it’s not one that they would identify as sexual pleasure, and I feel like we have so little room in our language and the way we talk about this stuff for there to be—you know, to just get a feeling that you like, but it’s not a sexual feeling. It’s just, like, a version of whumperflies, right?
FK: Yeah, I think that’s a really, really, really good point. That’s interesting. And I wonder—I feel like there’s probably other things that exist in, you know, writing or in life that are like that, too. And maybe we don’t categorize them the same way. It’s kind of making me think about idfic, and how idfic doesn’t necessarily have to be just about something that’s overtly romantic or sexual, but we sort of talk about it as if it is in fandom.
ELM: Mmm hmmm.
FK: For totally other reasons a little while ago, we were talking about the Wheel of Time series, and I was saying that I found it very sloggy, [ELM laughs] but that by the end I really liked some parts of it. I’m not—if you love Wheel of Time, I also have a great affection for it, to be clear. However, I would say “not succinct” is a true statement. But one of the things that I did like in it is that there’s all of these parts, especially later on, where somebody is being, like, wronged unfairly, and then they sort of get their revenge, you know? It’s like—
ELM: Mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmm.
FK: They’re being, like, looked down on or treated like a child or whatever, and then they go back—you know, the scene in Pretty Woman like, “Big mistake! Huge!” [both laugh]
ELM: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
FK: And that’s a satisfying scene anyway. But I feel like, for me, I was like, “Oh, this is an id thing. I love this.” [laughs] You know? And I wonder if—
ELM: Yeah, yeah. That’s interesting.
FK: You know, like, that could be an idfic piece. I don’t know. But we don’t ever think of it those ways.
ELM: I mean, I feel like this is the same—is the flip side of, like, as we were talking about in the last episode, your hatred of secondhand embarrassment comedy, you know what I mean?
FK: Oh God. [laughs]
ELM: This is kind of like the same sort of guttural—you know, it’s just like, it’s not a super intellectual reaction, right? You know?
FK: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
ELM: Whereas I’m watching and sitting with the “Oh no!” You know? Like, “This is fucking funny,” right? [both laugh] You know?
FK: Yeah, you love that stuff.
ELM: And just sitting with it, there’s a kind of pleasure in it.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Yeah, yeah, it’s so uncomfortable. [FK laughs] You know.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I’m rewatching Seinfeld to take a little break from Frasier, and there is a lot of, uh—
FK: [laughs] Hold on, hold on. We need to appreciate that you’re rewatching Seinfeld [ELM laughs] to take a break from Frasier. OK, we have appreciated it. Go on. [laughs]
ELM: Just as, like, my “I don’t want to focus on a drama for an hour—”
FK: Sure.
ELM: “—and I wanna watch a little TV” kind of show, you know?
FK: Yeah, yeah. I gotcha. I gotcha.
ELM: Frasier, I’ve seen Frasier so many times, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I can, like, recite it. I can do Kelsey Grammer’s intonation on lines. It’s too much. I need to give myself a little space. And yeah, like, Seinfeld is—[laughs] sets them up for embarrassment. They deserve it. It’s great. You’ll never know. [laughs]
FK: It’s interesting to me, also thinking about this, like, the way that we might think or talk about actual—because this is about taste to some extent. And it also makes me think about actual things that we like to eat, right? Like, there are things that you really dislike—
ELM: Hmm.
FK: —that I really enjoy, and thinking, you know, just, I mean foods, right? I love a fruit pie, and that is not something that you like at all.
ELM: Gross.
FK: Right? And you love strawberry flavor.
ELM: Fruit shouldn’t be hot. You don’t like strawberries? Get out. This podcast is over.
FK: I like actual strawberries all right. They’re fine. But I don’t like artificial strawberry flavor things.
ELM: Oh my God, that’s not correct.
FK: And you love artificial strawberry flavor.
ELM: Everything related to strawberries. Fake, real. The physical object. What an amazing berry it is.
FK: I mean, I like it. Don’t get me wrong—
ELM: It’s a magical item.
FK: I like actual, real—I like real strawberries. But anyway, whatever. My point being, though, that—yeah, your idea, like, fruit shouldn’t be hot, I’m like, “What?” Fruit was made to be hot. [both laugh] But, like, it literally is just taste.
ELM: All right, so what you’re saying is people’s brains are different. I think we’ve well established that here, [FK laughs] so…
FK: All right. That’s a little silly. I still think that it’s worth talking about and thinking about, because it can be really easy to get stuck in the idea of, like, “Well, obviously I love this thing, so everybody else will.” And it’s just not true.
ELM: Yeah, no, and I agree with you, and I think that the thing that we’re swirling around here with the kind of idea of talking about idfic or emotional kinks or whatever are kind of opening up the conversation more to this idea that it’s not some sort of binary between, like, intellectual fiction and, like, [FK laughs] sexy things, you know? It’s like—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: There’s a huge range of emotions involved, right? And you can have an actual physical reaction to all sorts of different scenarios, and different people will have different physical reactions.
FK: I think that’s right.
ELM: Like, I don’t feel a thing when I hear a whisper. [FK laughs] You know?
FK: You don’t get ASMR [pronounced “azmer”] feels at all?
ELM: “Azmer”? I’ve never heard anyone say it like that.
FK: Yeah, I don’t know that that’s the way you’re supposed to say it or anything, it’s just the way that I read it every single time. So I’m gonna stick with it, because I feel like I’m allowed to have my idiosyncratic way of thinking of it.
ELM: [laughing] Oh my God. Yeah, all right.
FK: If other people—if anybody else has read this as “azmer” in their head, please tell me.
ELM: No, don’t open the door to this. We don’t—you can message Flourish directly. I don’t want a bunch of emails [FK laughs] saying everyone in the ASMR world says “azmer.” I’ll take your word for it. We can fact-check this one later, so—but also, everyone’s valid.
FK: Great, thank you. My brain [ELM laughs] just happens to turn all acronyms into a silly-sounding word.
ELM: [laughs] OK, Flourish. I think we should take a break, so let’s BRB [pronounced “birb”].
FK: [laughs] OK. You know, [ELM snorts] you made that as a joke, but do you know how I read that word in my head every time? [ELM laughs] Talk to you later. TTYL [pronounced “tile”]. [laughs]
ELM: TTYL [pronounced “tittle”]!
FK: [laughs] There’s no “i”! Tile.
ELM: You gotta annunciate the two “t”s!
FK: T-tile!
ELM: All right, Flourish, come on. Tittle! Goodbye. [both laugh]
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right. We’re back, slightly less goofy.
ELM: [laughs] Yeah, right.
FK: [laughs] Uh…
ELM: I’m on DayQuil, I don’t know about you. I don’t know what your problem is.
FK: It’s just me. It’s just my natural self. This is it. [ELM laughs] Love it or leave it.
ELM: OK, [laughs] all right. Anyway, before we play our voicemail, let’s talk about money.
FK: Money. The way that we make some to make this podcast is Patreon! [both laugh] Patreon.com/Fansplaining. You’ve heard this spiel before if you’ve ever listened to the podcast before, but we’re gonna do it anyway. There are many levels that you can donate at, ranging from as little as $1 a month to a billion a month! [laughs]
ELM: Yup.
FK: And there’s lots of different levels on which you get benefits. Like, at $5 you get a really cute little enamel pin of our logo. At $3, you get access to all of our special episodes. At $10, you get all those things, plus occasionally a Tiny Zine. So think about it. If you’ve got a little space in your budget and you enjoy what we do here. It helps us do things like commission people to write articles about whump.
ELM: Yes. I will say, we’ve gotten a bunch of new patrons recently, I think because we did a new Tropefest episode and so I will advertise those again. We’ve done I think eight of them so far? And we spend an hour talking about a trope, and let me tell you, I’ve heard from listeners that one of the pleasures is that we’re not always positive about that trope, [FK laughs] so just to say—because I feel like, I don’t know. I feel like sometimes when people talk about tropes they’re like, [affects high-pitched voice] “Oh, I love it! I love it!” And like, no. If you would like to hear someone be critical of a trope, you should put $3 a month to Fansplaining. [laughs]
FK: We also love some. We also love them. We never just shit on a trope, to be clear.
ELM: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
FK: That is not what these episodes are.
ELM: No, it’s a—
FK: But we are also not purely positive—
ELM: —ideally a nuanced—
FK: —and discuss in a nuanced way.
ELM: Yes.
FK: And sometimes we disagree. Sometimes it’s a trope I’m into and you’re not, or vice versa.
ELM: Usually, it’s the former. So we just did soulmate AUs, [FK laughs] and we’ve also done…
FK: I’m makin’ a face at you.
ELM: Hurt/comfort! We did that a while back. We did trapped together, omegaverse, enemies-to-lovers, canon-divergent AU, found family, modern AU, and I think got them all but I wasn’t counting.
FK: I wasn’t either.
ELM: Apologies to anyone we missed. [FK laughs] Don’t worry about it. If any of those appeal to you, patreon.com/Fansplaining. But part of the reason I said money in the beginning of this segment is because we have another way to donate. If you don’t want to become a regular patron on a recurring basis, you can also donate directly in a one-off capacity. We have a new PayPal link that is open. We will put that in the show notes and continue to put that out there. That, in particular, we have open in the hopes that we’ll be able to commission more articles, but we don’t have extra money kicking around. So if you do, and you’d like to see more journalism, please consider using that PayPal link.
FK: Excellent. Also, if you do not have money kicking around or don’t want to give it to us, you can still support us by telling your friends about the podcast, especially our transcripts, which come out for every single episode, including the special eps, and are available and great and happen right away. You can also write in to us or send us a voicemail. Fansplaining at gmail.com or on our Tumblr ask box. That’s fansplaining.tumblr.com. On our website, fansplaining.com, there’s a little folder— like, a form. Not a folder, a form, and you can also give us a voicemail: 1-401-526-FANS.
And that leads us [ELM laughs] to the voicemail we’re about to listen to.
ELM: Well, the voicemail that we got was an attachment to an email. You can also record your own. Just try to keep it under three minutes, we ask.
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: And this one is under three minutes—
FK: Woohoo!
ELM: —and it was sent to us as a .m4a, and so I think we should play it.
FK: All right, let’s do it.
Anonymous: Hi, Flourish and Elizabeth. Long time listener, first time contacter, here. I’ve listened to all of your episodes, but my memory is pudding, so I can’t remember if you’ve ever talked about the death cycle of a fandom in detail before.
So for context, my current fandom is for a show that was just part of a certain network’s round of cancellations, and now everyone knows that the current season is going to be the last. When the news was announced, there was obviously a lot of sadness from the fandom, but my brain pivoted almost immediately to the upsides, because that’s just the sort of person I am. And also because the main way I participate in fandom is by writing fic, and personally, I prefer to write for a closed canon, where I have all of the canon info wrapped up and available, and I don’t have to worry about any canon-compliant fic I write being Jossed in the future. I see fandoms for closed, finished canons as kind of more stable. There definitely seems to be less drama, in my experience, anyway. And so I’m kind of looking forward to the next cycle in this fandom’s life, when the show actually ends after this final season.
Obviously, I understand that that isn’t everyone’s take, and I do understand the cons of a source content being over and done with, with no hope for further revival. An open canon keeps a fandom fresh, bringing in new fans every time there’s a new episode or a new movie or a new book or song or whatever. And I feel like the source of each fandom, like, whether it’s a movie or a book series, influences its closed-or-not-ness a lot. Like, can a comics-based canon like the X-Men, for example, ever be considered closed, when its comics will keep being written basically forever, and you know that there could be more screen adaptions at any point? But you do definitely have fandoms that are more dead than others after their canons have wrapped up. And I guess just because this is currently on my mind, I wondered if you had any thoughts on it? I simply love to hear people analyze the things that I’m interested in, and you both do a great job of that.
All hail fandom data analysis. Thank you both for the work that you do.
FK: All right, I feel like we should note, this person didn’t make it clear if they wanted us to use their name or not, so we’re gonna stick with calling them Anonymous. But thank you to this person. We know who you are! [ELM laughs] You’re awesome. [both laugh]
ELM: We will put in the show notes if there is a correction on that, and we can credit them. [FK laughs] But otherwise, yes. Thank you, Anon. “Anon,” quote-unquote.
FK: OK.
ELM: Wonderful voicemail. We’ve been saving it for almost a year now, so— [laughs]
FK: Oh my God, it’s been so long. [laughs]
ELM: Well, sometimes we get letters or voicemails and it’s like, “That’s an episode.”
FK: It’s true.
ELM: And it’s just a matter of time before we use it, so…
FK: That’s right. And also a good thing to say on-air, for anybody who’s like, “Are they gonna talk about this?” Yes. Yes, we will.
ELM: Yeah. You know, and we mentioned in the past a few times, but always feel free to follow up, if you think that we may have forgotten about your thing, because there is also a chance that we have it slip through the cracks. It just happens, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Messages come in in a lot of different ways.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: So go ahead, feel free to follow up, and we’ll let you know. Maybe we’ll say, “Hey, we’re holding this for a future episode.”
FK: Yeah, absolutely.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But this one, I was really, really excited to talk about, because it made me think really carefully about, like, my experiences of opened and closed fandoms. And I especially like the part about how sometimes if it’s, like, a book fandom, versus—or a movie fandom, it’s different. Like, the opening and closing of the canon at different points.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I thought that was really interesting and kind of insightful. It’s not as simple as “this canon is open and continuing or closed.” There’s also periods of, like, lying fallow, right?
ELM: Right, right. OK, so talk to me. Give me your initial thoughts here.
FK: OK, so I—the big insight that this actually inspired in me was realizing that I really prefer writing fic for closed or semi-closed canons, and that’s part of why I’m not as engaged with Star Trek fic.
ELM: Hmm.
FK: Because I cut my teeth on X-Files fandom at a time when there were, like, big chunks of—you would have, like, a very predictable cycle of the summer—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —where you wouldn’t have new stuff, and then on Harry Potter fandom, where there was also, like, “Hey, you know, you have a long wait for the next thing.” And the fandom—it’s effectively a closed canon until the next thing comes out, which—
ELM: Sure, sure.
FK: —you know things will get Jossed eventually. But there’s lots of time to dream in there. And I find it stressful, actually, [ELM laughs] when there’s too much information coming at me, you know?
ELM: Well, it’s interesting that you call those “closed canons,” because that’s just a hiatus, you know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah.
ELM: And I think those are the times when people I think are the most inspired, often, because there’s an element of—especially, I mean, you know, when I was in Sherlock fandom, it seemed like the most vibrant period was between seasons two and three—
FK: Right.
ELM: —when John thought Sherlock was dead, right? You know? And so there’s this big, giant, plot and emotional cliffhanger left—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and so there was a lot of, you know. And I feel like in between the Harry Potter books, there were those elements, too. There was a lot to process in each book, and then there were people seeking some closure. But to me, those aren’t closed at all. That’s very, very different than “this show is ending.”
FK: Right.
ELM: “This season. It’s over.”
FK: Right. But, like—I agree that it’s different, but it made me realize that there’s an element of that not—I don’t know. There are some things that feel like they’re really—like, right now with Star Trek, every week there’s a new episode in one of the Star Treks.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Right? Like, you’re just getting new information every single week. [ELM laughs] And I’ve been in other fandoms where it’s like, things are coming quickly, you know? Like, during the run, during the actual run of a show. And there are some people who really love that. They’re like, “I finished watching this episode, and I’m ready to write. And yeah, there’s another episode in a week, but I’m here right now.”
ELM: Yeah, but I still think you’re describing—I think most of the, you know, TV show fandoms that you’ve been in—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —I think have this seasonal element to it, right? You know?
FK: Sure.
ELM: And, like, I don’t know. I guess I just—I’m gonna push back at what you’re describing as closed.
FK: I don’t think I would say closed. I just that there’s a range of, like, what closure—what benefits you get from—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —closure, semi-closure, and I think this made me appreciate things about actually closed canons, of which I do have some things that I’m into, and see that actually those benefits are the things that I often like most in not-yet-closed canons. See what I mean?
ELM: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think—
FK: But you have actually—you are in an actually, like, closed thing. Or, not closed closed, but—
ELM: Well, I mean, look at the voicemail. The X-Men was given as an example of a non-closed canon, so…
FK: Yeah, but you’re into the films. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, no, and it’s interesting to me, too. You know, I wanted to talk about some of this from my personal perspective. You know, I started to talk about at the very beginning, hinted at it, but, like, not only is it weird to be in a position to still be there and to watch people come in and out of a semi-closed—you know, because, yeah. Definitely there’s people in that space who are engaging with the comics, and there are people who are writing—you know, there’s still more comics coming out constantly, and there’s certainly people who are writing comics fic that I’m mutuals with, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And they also write movie fic, and they’ll, you know, label it differently, right?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Depending on what they’re engaging with. But for the most part, for anyone who doesn’t know the X-Men film franchise, you know, most of the fic is really engaging just with First Class, [FK laughs] which came out in 2011. There have been three movies since then.
FK: [laughing] Yeah, not even with the later movies, right?
ELM: No! Maybe Days of Future Past, 2014. That was also almost 10 years ago, right? I mean, most of it—and it’s such an AU-heavy fandom that, like, is it really engaging with any of that? Or is it just, like, you know, using the iterations of these characters and doing whatever in an AU scenario, right? And so, like, especially because it’s an AU fandom, I get so annoyed. People rolling up constantly, and they’ll, like, swoop on in, and they’ll be like, “Is anyone still here? Ugh, this sucks. Sucks in 2023 to get into something that’s dead.” And it’s like, “Excuse me. Excuse me. [FK laughs] I am here writing for you right now.” You know?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: I don’t understand, right? And then they’ll, like, swan away, or, like, I’m sorry. [laughs] The other day the—this was a couple weeks ago—the creator of Check, Please! reblogged a few Cherik things—
FK: Uh huh.
ELM: And was like, “This was a good ship.” And it was like, “Was? I’m sorry. [FK laughs] Did it stop being one when you stopped caring about it?” You know? And everyone was reblogging it, like, “Yeah, it was a good ship!” And I was like, “Look, I would love it if you created content for this right now. I would really appreciate some of those lovely drawings.”
FK: It is a good ship! Uh huh.
ELM: It is and continues to be a good ship. And no offense to her, but I was just kind of like, [sighs] “Was? Why’d you have to phrase it that way?” You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: This kind of idea that there was a moment when it was real and now it’s…what? You know? So, like, these are things that I do think about. But obviously it’s not a zeitgeisty ship right now, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Compared to what it might have been in 2011 or 2014, right? You know? You know, I do get kind of annoyed with people rolling in and they’re like, “Ugh. This is dead.” And it’s like, “Oh, I’m sorry, have you read all 17,000 Cherik fics, [FK laughs] or, like, 30,000 X-Men fics?” You know, like, “Have you? Because once you have exhausted that entire body of work, then you can say, ‘Oh, I guess this fandom doesn’t have anything more to offer me, content-wise.’”
FK: Right. Yeah, it’s interesting—
ELM: But you—but you haven’t. [laughs]
FK: Yeah. It’s interesting to hear you talk about this, because I do feel like, on the subject of the X-Men—
ELM: Me rant. [laughs] This is, like, a—
FK: No no no! I love hearing you rant. On the subject of the canon never really being closed in the X-Men, I would be shocked if Cherik did not return at some point, while you are still loving Cherik, and have a new crop of people who are interested, with different takes. This has happened to me now in more than one fandom. In the X-Files and in Star Trek, having there be, like, a reboot with people having a different take on the ships that I cared about.
ELM: Yeah. Sure.
FK: And it’s weird! Like, I like it. [ELM laughs] But it’s definitely weird. It requires—let me tell you, the moment that people started rolling up and talking about The X-Files a few years back, where there was the revival, and suddenly there were these youths who were, like, having nostalgia for the ’90s that they didn’t remember because they were maybe not born, they were definitely not born, I was like, first of all, I’m turning into corpse dust. Second of all, your interpretations of these characters are so different from what mine were when it was on.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And I don’t dislike that, necessarily. But it’s weird. So there’s—
ELM: Well, OK. That’s different to me than—I thought you were gonna talk about, like, people coming into Kirk/Spock via the movies. The recent movies.
FK: Oh no, that’s the other one. That’s the other one. That is the other one.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And it’s interesting. We’ve talked about how that, like, changes. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. No, and I’ve definitely, you know—I’ve—I mean, I feel like I’ve even—because people cycle in so quickly, in and out of fandoms, I’ve watched many, many cycles of people coming in, in the five or six years I’ve been in this current fandom and coming in with, like, being from different backgrounds, different generations, different interpretations, and—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah. I also don’t super—it’s funny to be in a fandom where a huge bulk of the content was written in the Obama era. And some of it feels just, like, [both laugh] very Obama era. And I’m like, “Oh God, was this us? Just a few years ago? Were we, like, doing West Wing cosplay?” You know?
FK: Totally.
ELM: That kind of vibe, right?
FK: Totally.
ELM: But I don’t know. I mean, I honestly don’t—I have some affection for, even though I don’t read the comics, I have some affection and loyalty to comic!Magneto and comic!Professor X, right? [FK laughs] When I see them and his stupid bald head I’m like, “Oh, my guy.” You know? And I haven’t even read these, and I still feel something, right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So, like—and fundamentally, their characters are generally kept the same. That’s why they’re very good in the AUs, right? So…
FK: Totally.
ELM: I don’t know. We’ll see.
FK: Yeah, yeah. You’re right to say that there’s something different happening with, like, not just a revival, but a total reboot, has happened now twice with Kirk and Spock, right? You have the Kirk and Spock in the movies, and then you have the Kirk and Spock of the currently airing show, Strange New Worlds.
ELM: Oh, I didn’t know Kirk was in that.
FK: Oh yes, Kirk is in it. He is played by a man from The Vampire Diaries, which [ELM laughs] I did not think I would like at all, but it turns out that he’s pretty good. It’s a very different vibe than either of the two the earlier Kirks, in my opinion. But it works, in my—I was surprised that I was into it. But yeah, that’s a totally different situation. And that’s interesting, because it does almost create, like, many closed canons, right? There is, like—
ELM: Hmm.
FK: —a Shatner Kirk. And that’s one vibe. And there’s a different movie Kirk, you know? 2009, or whatever it was, movie Kirk.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: That’s a different vibe. And his chemistry with Spock is different, and the entire weight of how that works is different. And so to me, it’s like those are two separate closed canons almost, even though they are in the same multiverse, [laughs] and it’s explained, and they connect up, you know?
ELM: Right. Right right right. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that’s very similar to my fandom. And people clarify in the notes, like, “I’m pulling bits from the comics, too—”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “—or the animated series or—” You know. Whatever, whatever. And you read some stories sometimes and you’re like, “Oh, this—I can’t imagine James McAvoy in this role. [FK laughs] This is, like, clearly, this is Patrick Stewart.” Right? You know? [laughs] You were talking about one of mine, and you were like, “I can only see what’s-his-name.” With the big smile. What’s his name?
FK: Oh, um—
ELM: James Marsden.
FK: Yeah, I can only see James Marsden. It’s true.
ELM: I wrote Scott, and I was like, “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking of anyone but Big Smile.” You know? [laughs]
FK: Nope, that was definitely—it was fully James Marsden!Scott. There was no question. None at all. None.
ELM: I didn’t even do a lot of physical descriptors beyond the fact that he had a big, giant white smile, and you were like, “I got it.” [laughs]
FK: Oh no, but the vibe—it was impeccable vibes. It’s true.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: Oh, one thing that I do have to clarify, because this—I have to say this. This was in The Rec Center, and I need to clarify—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —that one of the major ways that Kirk and Spock are different is that in the original series, in the ’60s, Spock was the breedable one. And in the movie fandom—
ELM: I can’t believe—OK, here’s what happened.
FK: —Kirk is the breedable one. [laughs]
ELM: Here’s what happened. Flourish sent me this tweet that was like, you know, “The women who first saw what’s his name, William Shatner, and thought ‘that man’s breedable—’”
FK: William Shatner as breedable. [laughs]
ELM: “—or whatever, were like the first monkeys using tools,” or whatever. And then sent it to me and was like, “This is for The Rec Center.” And I was like, “Oh, OK.” And then you were like, “Though, actually, Spock was the breedable one.” And I was like, “Oh no, we can’t include this.” [laughs]
FK: Yeah, I was like—Yeah, because I was like—
ELM: Factually inaccurate!
FK: I don’t know if it said Shatner, right? But it is factually inaccurate.
ELM: Yeah, no, and then we argued about it for a while, about whether it was, like, a super basic take, like a My Immortal joke, and we had this whole long back-and-forth—
FK: And I said it wasn’t. I thought it was, like, [ELM laughs] this person just clearly understands current fandom and assumes that Kirk was always the breedable one, but he wasn’t.
ELM: And then I open up the doc to “The Rec Center” and Gav has added that tweet independently, [FK laughs] and I was like, “All right! Whatever. I don’t care. [laughs] It’s fine.”
FK: Gav, I do agree with you that it’s a really funny tweet. And I’m not saying that no one ever bred James Kirk.
ELM: All right.
FK: I’m just saying that it was mostly Spock. Anyway. Moving on.
ELM: OK, let’s get back to this voicemail a bit. I feel like our voicemail leaver’s talking about, like, really closed canons.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, like—
FK: It’s done.
ELM: The show has ended, there’s not gonna be any more. And, you know, I definitely feel like there is an element of shouting into the void with that kind of stuff, right? I don’t know. Having watched shows, like, truly end—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: You know? Where things actually end, and it’s like, “Oh, everyone left.” You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: There just wasn’t the sustained interest. Which is a shame! But I understand why there can be this momentum around, “Oh, there is gonna be a new season, so we have a reason to stick around.” And it does make me think about something that we were talking about towards the end of last year, which is one of the biggest things I’m observing right now. This kind of, like, even with just viewing and not just fanwork creation, this fear of commitment. This idea that—
FK: Right.
ELM: “I can’t even watch one season, because I don’t know if there’s gonna be two, and—”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “—I need to feel like there’s some sort of insurance to get invested, that there’s gonna be a bunch of people with me, and there’s gonna be more to see.” Right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Even if I’m not happy with it, I want more of it, right? You know?
FK: And more things to write and read and think about, right? I do get that, like, it’s disappointing if you get into a fandom and then suddenly everyone leaves and you’re like, “Hey guys! I brought the pizza and a party hat!” [both laugh] You know? But at the same time, there is a certain pleasure of having a truly closed, dead, nothing-happening-to-it fandom. And having somebody find it, freak out about how much they love it, and read your fic and be like, “I loved this!” [laughs] You know?
ELM: Sure, yeah.
FK: When somebody comes in later, there’s, like, a special joy in having that connection that I think is a more piquant joy [both laugh] than when there’s lots of people there to read it.
ELM: Right, and I think that one of the arguments that, you know, folks have for not wanting to be in the, like, white-hot center of it all, of seeing this really happening, popping off, is because that’s where the wank is, right? And that’s where—
FK: True.
ELM: —the stakes feel super high, and people are super dramatic about everything, right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And in a way that I think feels a little bit maybe not antithetical to fanfiction fandom but not helpful, you know? Do you really want a bunch of arguments going on? You’re just trying to make some works, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: You don’t have to litigate every single point, right? You know? And, like, giving things a little bit of time to stew and simmer, so you can really think about, well, “How am I going to make my argument? My read on these characters, through fiction?”
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: As opposed to, like, writing angry reaction posts at each other. You know, it does feel like something that you need a little bit of breathing room for.
FK: Yeah, definitely. There is also something that’s satisfying—I mean, when I was saying at the beginning of this, some of the pleasures of sort of being on a hiatus is, like, it is stable, right? And so when you write something like our voicemail-giver said, it’s not going to get Jossed. You’re not going to discover, like, “Oops! I read everything totally different than the writers did.” No! You can actually build a real argument about the characters that is going to stand forever, you know? [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
FK: You have that opportunity, which is satisfying.
ELM: This is interesting for me to think about, because in my current fandom, it matters so little to me what happens in the canon, [laughs] but I still care about characters feeling, like, in character. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, I—yeah.
ELM: Whereas when I think back to some other stuff that I’ve been in, it did matter to me. The idea that it could be Jossed, you know?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Are we supposed to say Jossed anymore? Are we still doing that? I don’t know.
FK: We are still doing that.
ELM: It is—it’s kind of fitting of a—for a term, something being “chucked out,” you know? Like, “Jossed!” [laughs]
FK: Yeah yeah. It is. It works. [laughs]
ELM: “Get it outta here!” [both laugh] You know? I guess partly, too, I think partly—it depends on, like, how much you’ve been given. I always think about the difference between… So much of the Harry Potter fic that I read and wrote in the 2000s was pre-series, because it was about the Marauders. Not just Remus Lupin being hurt on the full moon, [FK laughs] and Sirius tending to him, but other plot lines. I just love that. Maria and I have that connection, sort of. But [laughs] I think I’ve mentioned this before, but the stuff that was being written before the fifth book came out was a lot of speculation.
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And some of it was so fundamentally wrong.
FK: Right.
ELM: And I think you probably experienced this with Snape, too.
FK: Oh, yeah.
ELM: I remember we talked about how there were, like, big class guesses. And they were fine guesses, because she really hadn’t given any information.
FK: Yup.
ELM: But once you got their actual backgrounds, you were like, “Oh, this doesn’t seem right at all.” And it’s interesting to see how much of that feels like, “Oh, we didn’t have even enough information to really write them in-character.” You know what I mean?
FK: Right.
ELM: And that’s funny to me, because in other things that I’ve been in, I feel like I have all the information I need pretty quickly. In the X-Men, who cares what happens in the movies? I know who they are. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah. Totally.
ELM: And so I feel like it is kind of a fandom-by-fandom thing, about where the kind of idea of, like, getting Jossed matters, and what kind of fic you’re writing. If you’re writing stuff that’s a direct response to the source material, then that’s different than, you know, trying to get to the essence of the character, while putting them in interesting AU scenarios, you know what I mean?
FK: Right. Right. Not to mention that it also—yeah, I think that you’re absolutely right. I think that there’s sort of the level of getting Jossed in of, like, “Well, what’s going to happen next?” Right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: What’s going to happen next? Are Brienne and Jaime going to get together, or is one of them going to die and it’s gonna be meaningless? You know, like, OK, great. You might care about that. There’s a different thing, which is, what’s the actual truth about this character? What’s their family like? What’s their backstory like? This really matters to me, and I don’t know it yet, and I don’t want that to get mixed up. As you were saying about Snape, classic example.
ELM: Mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmm.
FK: Well put your finger right on that one. And then there’s the other thing, [laughs] which is there are some canons where they’ve already done so much retconning and weird shit—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —that no one cares anymore.
ELM: Don’t worry about it.
FK: Star Trek, classic example of this. Spock has an adoptive sister that we never heard about. Cool.
ELM: Don’t worry about it.
FK: Don’t worry about it! I’m not worried about it. I like—[ELM laughs] to be clear, I love Michael Burnham. I think she’s great. Also, I do not care what you choose to do with Spock’s backstory, because I figure that it might be with Michael, it might be without Michael, like, who knows? There were many years where Spock definitely did not have an adopted sister [ELM laughs] and then they changed their mind.
ELM: Sure.
FK: Fine. You know?
ELM: Right.
FK: And that’s, like, a different level. I’m no longer attached to anything about those characters’ backstories, particularly, because I know they could do whatever. Spock also had a weird half-brother, to be clear, before the adoptive half-sister, which they have also not mentioned. So, like—
ELM: Wow.
FK: Whatever, like, yeah. Sybok.
ELM: What’s going on with his family?
FK: Where’s Sybok? I am a Sybok truther. What happened to Sybock? Anyway.
ELM: OK, you’re just shouting syllables right now.
FK: I am now shouting syllables at you, but you see what I’m saying, right? There’s also that level of, like, how seriously am I taking this canon hanging together?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: So how much does it matter if I’m Jossed? [laughs]
ELM: Right, right. You know, and one of my favorite tropes, as you well know, which we talk about in one of our Tropefest episodes, is the canon-divergent AU.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? And it depends on how much you want to litigate, you know? Maybe you are waiting for the show to end, so you can diverge it from an earlier scene, you know what I mean?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: Or maybe you don’t even need that. You’re like, “I like the idea of these characters, and I’m gonna change something in the very beginning.”
FK: Right.
ELM: And then who cares what happens, right?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: But, like, I absolutely do remember, in some things that I’ve been in, the idea of, like—yeah, I think Harry Potter is a great example, and it’s not just because things felt out-of-character. I would look back at stuff that was written and then the new book came out, and I’d be like, “Oh God, they didn’t know anything then.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And then I’d be like, what a weird, like—when I read—you know, I would revisit a story and I’d be like, “I liked this a year ago, and now it just feels stupid and pointless in light of this new 900-page book that I just read.” You know? [FK laughs] And that’s so dumb, right? It was probably still great, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: But it was just something weird, quote-unquote “canon,” even for the most canon-agnostic fanfiction person in fandom—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —I think still always is there to some degree, you know?
FK: Yeah. Yeah, but that definitely, I think that definitely relates to what the pleasures of your reading and writing are. If what you want is something that is responding to the canon in that way, then it makes sense. Even if you're canon-agnostic in the sense of not really caring what happens next in it, you might still want to read something that’s responsive to what already happened in some way.
ELM: Yeah, yeah. I think that’s true.
FK: I think that the other thing that might be contributing, and I’m interested to hear what you think about this. I know we’re talking about Harry Potter a lot, but it is a shared fandom. We experienced it. It’s now, you know, a different thing—
ELM: One of these days, we’re gonna get an anonymous Tumblr message that’s gonna be like, “Can you stop doing that stupid disclaimer [laughs] every time you mention Harry Potter fandom?”
FK: Nope! We can’t stop, sorry. We get to pick. This is our podcast—
ELM: I just know every time I’m editing the podcast and mostly me says it, I’m like, “Someone’s gonna complain about this, but—”
FK: Elizabeth, we have both been in Harry Potter fandom longer than some of our listeners have been alive, and that means that we get to decide what we say about this.
ELM: Don’t—don’t, I don’t wanna—
FK: It’s true. Anyhow. Back to my point. Something that happened in Harry Potter fandom is the phenomenon of having those long “summers,” quote-unquote, in which a ton of new people showed up with new ideas and—
ELM: Sure.
FK: —new insights and things like that, and I do think that that’s a big difference, which is that in older fandoms, you do have new people sometimes showing up, but it’s not like—there’s not a critical mass. You know what I mean?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And I don’t know. I mean, I guess it can be really thrilling and exciting to have a bunch of new people show up. But it can also feel like the fandom’s being sort of yanked away from you in some way. You know what I mean? When people show up and they have a different point of view and a different experience, and that’s something that in more closed fandoms, where there’s fewer new people coming in, you don’t have to have. It can be the experience that you had, and you’re not worried about being swamped by—[laughs] you know?
ELM: Hmm. Yeah.
FK: Swamped by people you don’t know with different takes on this thing.
ELM: I mean, the flip side of that is you are getting an influx of new people with fresh energy, who want to write and things. You know? Whenever you see someone’s—some big famous fanfiction writer, like, a multifandom person and, you know, you see them reblogging stuff for your thing, and you’re like, “Are you coming over here? Are you coming over here?” You know? [both laugh]
FK: I do know. I do know this feeling.
ELM: Like, “You want to write one of these? Wanna write one of these for us?”
FK: Yeah. Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: So I think there’s a flip side. I do think that it’s different at scale, you know? Yeah, when you have a huge influx of people rolling up and it feels like—you know, and I definitely have obviously seen bazillions of times over the years the kind of turf war—turf, T-U-R-F. Not [laughs] T-E-R-F.
FK: Yeah, not T-E-R-F. [laughs]
ELM: Speaking of Harry Potter…You know, the turfiness of it. Say, like— [laughs] I know, it’s hard, this is aural, right? You know? The um…the soddiness, the groundiness, of it, you know?
FK: There we go. Good. Solved. [both laugh]
ELM: I was an English major. The kind of, like, “Oh, well, we were here, and this is the way we’ve done it, and these are the interpretations we’ve had.” You know? And kind of trying to get louder in your desperation to…you know. And then it starts to be a sort of—it can have a lot overlap with what we think of as more affirmational practices. This kind of, like, proving that you were there and—
FK: Right.
ELM: —you have put in the time, you know, and—so I definitely get that. Particularly at scale. You know, I think in the fandom that I’m in, it is—I mean, it’s gotten to the point for me where I’m just kind of like—this sounds bad, but I’m just kind of waiting for them to flit away again.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I feel like some of this is, you know, we’ve talked a lot over the last year or so about this kind of idea of people’s time in fandom—maybe even a couple of years—people’s time in fandom getting shorter and shorter, right?
FK: Mmm hmmm. Yeah.
ELM: And everyone really even, regardless of whether you have, like, ADHD or whatever or not, using the term “hyperfixation” [laughs] as an indicator that you’re, like, in it strongly and briefly, and then out you go again, right?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And so to me, I don’t really know what to make of that, you know? Because it’s like, “Oh, hey.” You know? Like, “Oh, cool.” Especially for fanart, it’s like, “Oh, a new piece of art? I’ll reblog that.” You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah. Love to see it. But it’s also sort of, like, I don’t know—it’s hard for me to imagine making connections with folks, because some people that I made connections with a few years ago have now just flitted away with no warning. You know, I was like, “I don’t see you anymore.” And it’s like, oh, they changed their entire URL and everything, you know what I mean?
FK: Totally. Yeah. I really don’t know what to put that down to. Whether—because, you know, some part of me wants to be like, “Oh, it’s because of this new stuff. People just don’t act like that anymore. You know, we’ve all—TikTok has shortened—has, like, messed up our brain structure, and we’re all—” You know? [laughs] That kind of thing.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But then I look at…I don’t know. There’s a large chunk of—like, I have been in Star Trek very consistently for a long time now. Maybe not in the same white-hot screaming way as I have been in every other fan—you know, in certain other fandoms, but that’s been a thing. And I’ve seen other people come into that fandom and stay, you know? And I’m sure that’s happening in other places as well. So I don’t—I mean, I agree with you that there’s something sort of zeitgeisty about that hyperfixation, but I don’t think that it’s hopeless. Like, I don’t think that that’s the only way people are enjoying things. And I do hope that there are some people who are showing up in Cherik who are gonna [laughs] stick around for you.
ELM: Yeah. But I mean, I don’t know. This is something that it’s not just my fandom. And it’s something I see for stuff that’s more recent, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And people saying, like, “Why won’t anyone stay?” And, you know, the generous read on this, I think we talked about this during the disability episodes is, you know, that is literally someone’s hyperfixation, and they give you a lot of themselves for a short period of time and then they go.
FK: Right.
ELM: And that’s just the way some people’s brains are. But I do think, you know, I’m not gonna be like, “Oh, TikTok did this,” or whatever. But I do think, if you look at 10 years ago, what you’d get on Tumblr is a lot of aggressively multifannish people. So you’d look at their bio—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —and they’d be like, “Hufflepuff! INTJ!” And then, like, 50 fandoms.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And you’d be like, “OK. I don’t know what this means. I don’t know what level of engagement you have in this.” Right? And even now you’ll see people list a bunch of fandoms, and they’ll put “primarily blank right now.” You know?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: And I always got the sense from that that folks were truly feeling omnivorous—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —when they put stuff like that. They were like, “I’ll reblog something from that, I’ll reblog something from that.” Right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I don’t know. Maybe—you know, I definitely follow people who are writing in multiple fandoms simultaneously as well.
FK: Definitely.
ELM: That feels different to me than the kind of, like, swooping in, total personality makeover. Like, “X is my whole personality now,” and it lasts for three months, and then boom! New thing. Right? You know?
FK: Yeah yeah, that’s true. Right.
ELM: And that to me feels more recent. I don’t—
FK: Huh.
ELM: I don’t feel like that’s even something I saw to that degree a few years ago.
FK: Hmm. I feel like you have more of your finger on the pulse of fandom right now than I do, so I’m gonna let you have this one, even though some part of me feels like I’m not sure about that.
ELM: Well—
FK: But I also am not on Tumblr regularly, and I don’t feel—like, I’m not as—not to say that I’m not fannish, but just I’m not as sort of widely seeing the trends.
ELM: No, but—but—
FK: So I will let you have it. [laughs]
ELM: You’re also, I mean, think about some of the things we’ve talked about in the last year. We did that episode where we talked about people’s identities. Whether they, like, change their entire thing—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —every time they get to a new fandom, or if they have this solid identity that goes from fandom to fandom.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, and that has different—yeah, that’s changed.
ELM: And I definitely feel like, on a lot of platforms—
FK: That’s right.
ELM: —you see this total overhaul, right?
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: And then, one of the things that’s been a huge topic over the last few months is people deleting their fics on the AO3, and we’ve talked about that here, too.
FK: Also true. Yeah. That’s true.
ELM: You know, and this kind of idea that if it’s not an immediate hit, that it’s disposable and it goes.
FK: Right.
ELM: And that is definitely something that I think is coming from the behavior that’s fostered by specific platforms that are newer.
FK: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think that there is this trend. But I also want to honor the fact that I see people who are behaving in lots of different ways concurrently, you know?
ELM: Absolutely. Yeah. Sure.
FK: I mean, this is like—yeah. I’m not saying that you’re not saying this. I just want to put it in here, because I think that that’s where some of my uneasiness is stemming from, is that I think that sometimes when we talk about history, whether it’s fandom history or any other kind of history, we see it as, like, “There’s this era, and then there’s that era. And they don’t overlap at all.” You know what I mean? “And people weren’t doing the same things.” But in this, there’s lots of different—
ELM: I don’t know who you’re talking to about history. I don’t think I do that.
FK: I know you don’t do that. I’m saying that there is an overall tendency for people—
ELM: I think we’re still in the long eighteenth century.
FK: [laughs] That’s a long boi. A long boi.
ELM: [laughing] It’s gonna go to 2800. [both laugh]
FK: Ahhhhh….maybe. I wonder what Star Trek’s position on this would be. Anyway! [ELM laughs] Anyway. Yeah. I think that these different ways of engaging are, like, coexisting. But you’re right. I think that there are lots of objective things that do point to this trend.
ELM: Yeah, I mean it’s just something that I’m—
FK: I’m not just giving it to you. I’m saying that you have it. Isn’t that nice?
ELM: Yes! I’ll take it. No, it’s just, it’s hard, because, I mean—and I’m gonna once again draw that parallel to people saying, “I can’t watch that show, because I think it’s gonna get canceled.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? You know? And these aren’t irrational fears. And it’s not just that it’s gonna get canceled. It’s “HBO Max will wipe it from the face of the Earth,” right?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: You know, like—
FK: Yeah, that’s real.
ELM: These are real, and these are—it’s describing not wanting to make an emotional—it’s partly a time investment, but it’s partly an emotional one, too.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Why should I set myself up for this, if you’re just gonna yank the rug out from under me? Right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so it’s the same language that I see of people coming in to my fandom and to other ones saying—
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: “Is anyone even still here? Like, why should I get invested in this? It’s dead, right?” And it’s like, obviously, I can read your words. I’m here. It’s not dead, right? But also, you know, I don’t—I’m not publishing a story a week, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So a few people can’t sustain it. But if everyone has that response, then it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Then, if everyone feels like there’s no one who wants to commit to something, not that—whatever. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s not [laughs] your job. You don’t have to, like, say, “I’m gonna sign up for three years in the Cherik mines here, and I’m gonna dig out some real gems.” No one is obligated to do that. But I also feel like there’s a self-defeating element, which is kind of depressing to watch from my, like, position—
FK: Sure.
ELM: —of being the one in the relatively stable, relatively closed canon, where we can just keep riffing and doing fun ideas, you know?
FK: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s right. Honestly, I think that our anonymous voicemailer has a really healthy attitude toward this. I don’t know. It’s easy—I mean, we’ve said this a billion times, but the only person whose behavior you can control in fandom is your own, right? So looking for the good things about the space, if you feel like you wanna be in that space, looking for the good things in it and enjoying those as best you can seems to me like a totally healthy way to approach this. Just seeing what it is, being like, “OK, this is ending. I bet a lot of people are gonna go. Can I still like it?” [laughs] You know?
ELM: Obviously, I agree with you, and I feel this way, and I get a lot of pleasure out of the act of writing and—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —if you were my only reader, which you have been for a story that—you weren't the only one, but you know what I mean? I had a lot of fun writing these stories, you know? I don’t feel particularly—
FK: And I had a lot of fun reading it! [laughs]
ELM: All right, well thank you, I appreciate that. But I think that that’s all well and good to say. I think that by people’s own admission, a lot of people are really externally motivated. And they don’t like screaming into the void, or they feel like, you know, a few dozen responses is still a void, even though any rarepair person would be like, “Wow, you guys—” What’s that meme with that blond boy, you know? Like, “You guys have a dozen stories in your feed?” You know? That kind of thing.
FK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ELM: Right? It’s all relative. No one owes anyone anything. But I think tons of people are externally motivated and—
FK: Yeah, and I’m not opposed to that. I’m just saying, if you are, then I think you have to just be like, “OK, this is ending and that’s the situation, is that when things like this end, I lose my external motivation, and so it’s time for me to recognize that I will not enjoy this and move on.” Like, there’s just—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —a real facing reality of, like, “Can I still like this without that level of foment, you know, around it?” If the answer is no, get ready to cut ties. You’re not going to turn the whole tide. You can’t control anybody else’s action. If the answer is yes, you can still enjoy it, great! You know?
ELM: Yeah. It’s true. Also, I mean, like, whatever. Easier said than done, but certainly I feel like we have both seen fan creators by the sheer force of will bring people into a space.
FK: Yes. Yup.
ELM: So just start creating and be real enthusiastic, [FK laughs] you know? And maybe….maybe.
FK: All right.
ELM: I don’t know.
FK: That is a word to the wise.
ELM: I really—I do think a lot of people could be well served to take a page out of voicemail-leaver’s book, because, yeah. Relatively closed canons are awesome. They’re just like—you’re like, “OK, I understand the parameters of our sandbox.”
FK: Yeah!
ELM: You know? Yeah, “And so let’s go wild. Let’s build some super large castles in the sand.” You know? My cool metaphor. On the beach. No, on a playground, sorry.
FK: Yeah, because it’s in a box.
ELM: I feel like they probably don’t have sandboxes anymore. I feel like they’re very unsanitary.
FK: People still have them at their houses, though, I bet.
ELM: I don’t know. I never had one. Did you?
FK: Uh…my cousins had one.
ELM: Really?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I don’t think any of my friends had a sandbox.
FK: Yeah, I knew people with sandboxes.
ELM: Hmm. Interesting.
FK: Anyway. All right. [ELM laughs] I feel like—I hope that our voicemail-leaver feels like we actually were addressing their comments sufficiently. I feel like we went a little bit all over the place, but I think it was good. We were trying to talk about lots of stages of the life cycle. I don’t know. That left me feeling like I’ve seen a lot of stuff, and I’m glad about that. [both laugh] I feel like—I feel wise. I’m not sure if I am wise, but I feel wise after talking about that.
ELM: Well, that’s great. Fake it til you make it. I would say my parting advice to people in general is to free your mind temporally, I think both from what fandoms are doing and what the canon is doing—
FK: Mmm hmmm.
ELM: —in the sense of, like, Cherik is a present tense! It always exists in our mind, you know what I mean?
FK: Sure.
ELM: In the same way that I think people can let copyright and canon and, you know, an official word kind of blot out their own perceptions of something. I think we can think about how other fans are thinking about a thing is the totality of it, right?
FK: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
ELM: Whereas, like, everything—even if your ship lost the ship war in the canon, like, the ship still exists, right?
FK: Yup.
ELM: It is a present tense.
FK: Yup.
ELM: So…
FK: That’s right.
ELM: In your heart. [laughs]
FK: Ship it in your heart.
ELM: Bella/Jacob shippers. Is that—he the one that lost?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I still haven’t read these. I haven’t seen it.
FK: Yes. He is the one who lost that particular—
ELM: Yup. That ship still exists.
FK: All right. That is the good word, [ELM laughs] my friends. [laughs] And I am gonna talk to you later. Go enjoy reading the Twilight saga.
ELM: I’m not going to. Bye, Flourish!
FK: [laughs] Bye!
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