Episode 210: The RPF Tipping Point

On Episode 210, “The RPF Tipping Point,” Elizabeth and Flourish welcome back Grace and the Fever author Zan Romanoff to talk about her new podcast, On the Bleachers, on Taylor Swift, football player Travis Kelce, and the pop-culture firestorm their relationship (???) has sparked. Topics discussed include the backlash against the ripped-from-the-headlines romance novel Roughing the Princess, the fuzziness between RPF, biopics, celebrity profiles, and social-media narratives, and how Zan—who’s written plain old RPF in addition to meta fiction about celebrities and fans—thinks about her own work in light of these thorny boundaries.

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Show notes

[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

[00:00:46] Zan first came on the podcast in 2017, to talk about her book Grace and the Fever. You can find all of her work at her website.

[00:01:15] On the Bleachers—highly recommended!! 

[00:02:04] Our interstitial music throughout is “Making it look easy” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

[00:04:06] That’s Look.

[00:11:26]

[00:12:08]

[00:13:00] Far beyond the Times Square subway station, they literally lit up the Empire State Building for this meme. (Surely most New Yorkers had no idea why it was red and white that day, and would have guessed *literally any other reason* than ketchup and ranch lol.)

[00:18:34] Harry Styles was apparently introduced to the Packers by a friend from Wisconsin, and got a tattoo of their logo on a dare. We confirmed this via the best possible source, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shamelessly turning the Don’t Worry Darling drama from last year into a story about the Packers. We salute you.

[00:20:18] Note that there are now *9 works* for Travis/Taylor on the AO3. Compare to 378 Taylor/Harry Styles works…and sadly zero Harry/Travis works. :((

(Also note: searching by ship is hard on Wattpad because you just tag individual characters, but there are roughly 60 Travis/Taylor works there.) 

[00:20:33] Nearly 5K works now, babey!! 

[00:20:52] Roughing the Princess appears to still be up on Amazon, though Flourish—who wants to read it—was unable to download it. Also…their names are “Tova Saver” and “Talon Kendrick”??? 😂

[00:24:10] Specifically, Flourish has read all the Ali Hazlewood novels, You, Again by Kate Goldbeck and My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine, alongside many Reylo fics that have been pulled to publish but haven’t been published yet. 

[00:25:15] Ali Hazlewood’s The Love Hypothesis is perhaps the most famous example of “Oh, I see who those people are.” 

[00:27:36] 

[00:35:10] The prologue to 1989.

[00:41:37]  

[01:04:35] There are currently 213 works for Oppenheimer on the AO3, which makes it more culturally important than Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, but far less important than the Avatar franchise. 

[01:05:28] That’s our newest “Tropefest” episode on friendship in fic! 

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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 #210, “The RPF Tipping Point.”

FK: Yeah! And we are going to be responding to a question that we have received with the help of a special guest! 

ELM: [laughs] Yeah, so our guest is Zan Romanoff. You may remember her when she came on in 2017 to talk about her book Grace and the Fever, which was a, you know, RPF-like. If anyone missed that or doesn’t know about the book, it was about a fake boyband and a fan of that boyband whose life intersects with them, and it was about perception versus reality in that world. 

And so we got this letter talking about her new podcast and it seemed like a perfect reason to have her back on. So it’s called On the Bleachers. She hosts it with her friend and roommate Sarah Enni. And it is about the recent—I don’t even know if they’re in a relationship, but the recent, like, media pop culture meltdown around the fact that Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce might be dating. 

FK: Right. 

ELM: Which you may have heard about in extremely basic media coverage [FK laughs] in the month of October. 

FK: Yeah! We both listened to the podcast, and I have to say, I found it great, because I didn’t know what was going on with this, but I knew that it was important because I kept seeing people referring to it. [laughs] And now I know what’s going on with it. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah, it is super interesting, and I’m really glad that Zan wanted to come on and talk about it. So yeah, should we call her now? 

FK: Let’s do it!

[Interstitial music]

FK: All right, let’s welcome Zan back to the podcast! It’s so good to see you again, Zan! 

Zan Romanoff: Thank you, it’s very good to be back. 

ELM: All right, Zan, what have you been doing for the last six years? [FK laughs] I’m gonna pretend I haven’t seen you in person in the last three months. [ZR laughs] When did I see you? 

ZR: Yeah, summer. Whenever Comic-Con was, yeah. 

ELM: Yeah, July. July. I’m gonna pretend that we all didn’t share a room when Flourish got everyone but you sick a few years ago. 

FK: OK, I was not the source of this. 

ZR: [laughs] I mean—

ELM: It’s true. 

ZR: Pathogens were the source of it, but [laughs] you were the—

FK: OK, but there were other people—

ELM: That’s true. 

FK: —who were very sick who we also knew. I’m just saying, I was not the first one [ELM laughs] who got sick. 

ZR: Listen, I feel like if you go to a con, especially San Diego Comic-Con, you’re taking your chances with your health. [FK laughs] You’re taking your life in your hands. [ELM laughs] We all did it. And, you know, I’m not gonna make any remarks about the superiority of my immune system. [FK laughs] but I’m just gonna say, look at the evidence. 

ELM: I believe you might have done so at the time. [FK & ZR laugh]

ZR: [laughing] I’m sure I did. 

ELM: Even before I got sick, you were like, you were like, “I’m not gonna get sick.” And I was like, “Yeah, me neither.” [FK & ZR laugh] And then one of us was right, and one of us was really wrong.  

FK: Yeah, and one of you unfortunately has lingering consequences, which is why you always bring this up, and that’s fair. [FK & ZR laugh] 

ELM: I’ll never forget you just coughing in my face all night. All right, anyway, anyway, you have done a lot of things—

ZR: Yes. 

ELM: —unrelated to us in the last six years. 

ZR: Yes. 

ELM: Please tell us about them. 

ZR: Me and my superior immune system, what have we been up to? [ELM laughs] So [laughs] last time I was on Fansplaining, I was talking about my book, Grace and the Fever, which came out in 2017. Since then I have written another unpublished and another young adult novel. It’s called Look, and it’s about a queer girl who is an influencer, and sort of accidentally outs herself and her life sort of comes falling down around in her, in part as a result of the outing, in part as a result of other things, and about her sort of trying to figure out what parts of that life that she had that seemed very glamorous to other people were in fact actually good for her. So that book came out in March of 2020, famously an excellent time to release books. [laughs] Yeah, it went awesome. My book tour was so fun. [all laugh] I did it all from my bedroom. 

FK: Oh man…

ZR: You know…whatever. It’s—yeah. 

ELM: You know, if it had been, like, two weeks prior, you might have been one of the first cases of COVID, so maybe…

ZR: Yes, no—

ELM: That’s a silver lining. [laughs]

ZR: As it turned out, it was good that I—because my editor was, like, still wanted me to travel [FK gasps] up until—

ELM: Wow. 

ZR: Not like, she wasn’t pressuring me or anything. But she was just like, “I think it’ll be fine, it’s up to you, but, you know, I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

ELM: Hmm. 

ZR: And I was like, “I don’t think…you’re right.” [FK laughs] And then, like, the city of Los Angeles got shut down and I was like, “Yeah, I’m not going anywhere.” [laughs] 

FK: Oh wow. 

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: And I did—it was so early, it was so on the cusp, that there was no—people hadn’t gotten onto Zoom yet, like, there was no sort of setup for, like, virtual bookstore events or anything like that. 

FK: Right. 

ZR: And so I went on Instagram Live [laughs] in my parents’ backyard. They set up a tripod, you know, and they sat across the backyard from me and I answered questions, and it was actually, like, for that time, pretty fun. 

ELM: That seems more fun than Zoom, to be honest. Nothing about Zoom events is fun to me. 

ZR: Here’s the thing. Here’s the real thing, is that, like, because no one had really been on Zoom yet, like, there—no one was tired of Zoom events.  

FK: Right. 

ZR: And so it was, everyone had just kind of been in their house freaking out for, like, three or four days at that point. It was so early. You know, maybe a week on the outside, and so everyone was kind of like, “Oh!” I remember everyone in the comments was like, “Oh, all my friends are here! We’re talking in the comments!” There was all this excitement about being able to connect in this way. Yeah, it was probably one of the only virtual events that people were, like, [laughs] genuinely really excited about. [laughter] And then, like, the next time they had to go they were like, “This kind of sucks.” [laughs]

FK: Yeah, yeah. 

ELM: Yeah. 

FK: There was that brief, shining moment when it was, like, [gasps] “We’re having drinks [ZR laughs] on a Zoom!” [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah, Zoom dinner parties, like, “Oh! Good to see ya!” And now it’s like, “Oh my God…” 

ZR: Right? “We’re still connecting!” And then it was like, “This is a sucky way to connect.” [all laugh] So yeah, so I released that book. Other than that, just sort of doing all the other things you have to do to be a full time freelance writer, so I work as a culture writer. I write about the Kardashians a good amount. Teaching writing, writing podcast scripts, writing romance novels. We’ll talk about that a little bit later. You know, just sort of writing writing writing, is what I’ve been up to. 

ELM: And starting a new podcast yourself recently. 

ZR: And starting a new podcast myself recently! This is true. Thank you for the assist on that. 

FK: OK, but this is also part of why we’re having you on, because we got a question that related to your new podcast. 

ELM: Yeah, explain the podcast first, and then we’ll read the question, and then we’ll talk about the topic. 

ZR: Yeah. So it’s called On the Bleachers, and it’s me and my friend and roommate Sarah Enni. Sarah and I have known each other for…God, a long time now. [laughs] And, you know, like friends do, had sort of a lot of long conversations about a lot of things, and then, and so when Taylor Swift started dating Travis Kelce, we just—our worlds kind of collided. Sarah is a lifelong football fan, runs two fantasy football teams, she knows a lot about football. I know nothing about football, but I know a lot about Taylor Swift, and [laughs] perhaps too much, arguably. 

And it was just really fascinating to kind of watch these worlds that we’re so interested in, that we know so much about, like, collide with one another, and the way that, like, you know, she would tell me something that was able to illuminate, you know, I was like, “Oh, that’s why this is happening. Like, I didn’t understand that…” Whatever, you know, whatever detail about the football world. Or I was able to say to her, you know, “Oh, this is why they’re saying that. It’s a joke about a Taylor song lyric that you don’t know.” 

But also to analyze the ways in which, like, our reactions to it, the media reaction to it, anyway, we were talking about it so much that finally we were like, “You know what, we’re getting on mic. We’re starting a podcast. [all laugh] We’re giving this to the people.” Because, you know, it just felt like one of those things where it was like, we wanna have more formal conversations about this, and also we wanna hear what other people are thinking, because it’s just fascinating. So…so we started a podcast. It’s 2023, you know? If you don’t have a podcast, who are you? [FK & ELM laugh]

ELM: Well, you did get someone else thinking, one of our regular listeners and frequent commenters, or question-askers, right, this is Steve. Listeners may recognize him from past great questions. Flourish, do you wanna read it? You love reading— 

FK: Sure, I do—

ELM: —questions. [laughs] 

FK: [laughs] I love reading all sorts of things. OK. This is from Steve. 

“I had a question lined up about an ill-advised cash grab KU Romance obviously written about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, but Zan basically covered it in her new podcast! The podcast is On the Bleachers and it’s Episode 3. She shouted out Fansplaining and both of you in a very complimentary way, and I think it’s worth highlighting the conversation she had about RPF, especially with her experience with writing Grace and the Fever and in general the podcast is a really interesting examination of fandom with a specific focus. 

“I guess to make this an actual question rather than telling you to listen to your friend’s podcast, [laughter] are we hitting a tipping point with RPF and the ethics involved? It does feel like we talk about this every year or so, and this feels especially noticeable in romance, which more and more feels like a pathway for monetizing fanfiction. Reylo gave a lot of plausible deniability for people actually writing Adam Driver RPF, but if this Taylor Swift pairing gets traction, writers can't really get away with that anymore. Tessa Bailey, who is a huge romance writer, has already created TikToks highlighting the quote-unquote ‘tropes’ of this relationship that we assume to be genuine. It feels like there’s a significant difference between writing in a little silo on AO3 versus creating this content for mass consumption online.” And that’s from Steve. 

ZR: Steve, first of all, thank you for telling them to listen to my podcast. I appreciate it. [all laugh] 

ELM: So one thing I think we should start with, I think there are some listeners of Fansplaining who do not care about—I mean, everyone knows who Taylor Swift is, right? Travis Kelce, just very quickly—

ZR: Yeah yeah, do you want me to—

ELM: —football player. American—yeah, I mean, like, go ahead, do you want to talk about his—

ZR: I was gonna say, listen, I’ve—

ELM: —his stats as a tight end? [laughs] 

ZR: [laughs] Yeah, I definitely know what his stats [laughs] are.  

ELM: It’s my favorite part of the podcast. [laughs]

ZR: Right, the stats, when we just talk about the numbers? I mean, you know, as you say, Travis Kelce is an American football player. He is a tight end. What do they do? I don’t know. He plays for the Kansas City Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes. 

ELM: You don’t know? Aren’t you listening to Sarah? 

ZR: Yes! Has she explained what a tight end is? No! 

ELM: Yeah, she did! She said they’re on the offensive line, and they can receive and they can run. They kind of are a jack of all trades [ZR laughs] over on the side. And they have a sexy name, tight end. 

FK: If anybody doesn’t know this, Elizabeth actually likes football. [laughs]

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: I was gonna say, this is, yeah, you’re, I mean listen, you could take over. 

ELM: Yeah, that’s right. Here’s an important thing that you should know in advance, Zan. 

ZR: Yeah? 

ELM: Your brother and I? Simpatico. The only team that matters is the Buffalo Bills. [FK laughs] 

ZR: Oh, um, my brother is in Taipei right now at a friend’s wedding, and he sent me a photograph of himself on his layover in Japan, in the Tokyo airport, trying to watch the most recent Bills game, [laughs] which—

FK: Oh my God. 

ELM: Well…

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: He was a winner, they were a winner, I was a winner. 

ZR: Yes, it was a relief. 

FK: For once. 

ZR: It was a relief for us all. 

ELM: It’s not for once! We were in the, like, we were almost in the AFC Championships last year, what are you talking about? 

FK: Yeah, I know, but for so long…

ELM: Flourish knows jack shit about football, [ZR laughs] that’s what I’m gonna say [FK laughs] right here, right now. 

ZR: Well, I will say, even if you don’t care about football, I think the really important thing to know about Travis Kelce, right, he plays football, and he’s good at it, but also, like, he has been trying to make himself a pop cultural figure for a long time. He had a dating show called Catching Kelce that aired, I believe, in 2016. Last year, he and his brother Jason, who play on different—they both play in the NFL, but on different teams, they were both playing against each other in the Super Bowl, so that was a big media story. They have a podcast called New Heights. So, like, it’s not just like, “Oh, this guy’s, like, a hot, good football player.” He’s also a hot, good football player who is really interested in getting people to pay attention to him, which I think is not incidental to the nature of how this relationship has played out. [laughs]

FK: Ha!

ELM: Right. So they started dating each other—we’re recording this at the end of October—at the start of October, or dating each other. It’s unclear, but, like, they were rumored as an item, and the media coverage was…what’s the right word for it? [ZR laughs] Like, stupid. You know what I mean? 

FK: The moment that—yeah. The moment that I knew that this was something absolutely just bonkers was when I was walking through the Times Square subway station, and it was covered in ads for “Seemingly Ranch”—

ZR: Oh my God! [laughs] 

FK: —and I was like—

ELM: What’s that? I’ve never heard of this. 

FK: OK, so, this is—OK, so there’s, like, a photo of Taylor Swift in a box watching the game, and she’s eating something, and there was, like, was it on X that somebody was posting about this, and they described what she was eating as “seemingly ranch”? 

ZR: Yeah, someone posted a photo of Taylor with a fan, and there’s, like, a little paper plate on the table in front of her with a chicken wing and two blobs of sauce. And it was like, and this person was like, “At the Chiefs game, Taylor Swift greets a fan while eating chicken wings and—ketchup and seemingly ranch.” [laughs] And the phrase—

FK: And then literally the next day, Heinz had—

ELM: Stop. 

FK: —I’m not joking. On my commute, I was walking through the Times Square subway station, and all—like, this entire hallway was nothing but ads about Seemingly Ranch. 

ELM: How did they get that approved so quickly? 

FK: Because—I don’t know, but they—

ELM: How did they—I don’t understand. 

FK: They make a ketchup and ranch mixture, and so I think that they were just, like, “Obviously, this must be done.” 

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: All right. All right, go ahead. 

ZR: [laughs] No, I was just gonna say I feel like for better and worse, companies are now, like, aware that if you want to do memes, you have to do them at the speed of the internet, right? “Seemingly ranch” was only gonna be a 48-hour phenomenon. 

ELM: Still. Like, a physical ad campaign, that’s fast. 

ZR: No, it was fast. 

ELM: You gotta print those signs, they gotta get some guy to put those up…

FK: It was wild. I felt like I was hallucinating when I saw them. 

ELM: Yeah, but I mean, my also, my perception of this, I really like on the podcast you talking about the NFL guys trying to talk about this, which is hilarious to me. But, like, I was listening to NPR, and the stories were, like, [gasps] “All right. Here’s an expert. Explain to me: Why is Taylor Swift such a big deal? [ZR laughs] OK, now explain to me: Why is the NFL such a big deal?” [FK laughs] And it’s like, “You guys. Don’t debase yourselves this way. There’s—you—I know you have smart pop-culture people working at NPR. It doesn’t have to be like this.” But it was just, like, this—the only thing they wanted to talk about was, like, the fact that—the potential scale of it, you know what I mean?

ZR: I mean, and it is—the scale of it is enormous. Like, the tagline of On the Bleachers is “when a billion-dollar corporation met a billion-dollar person.”

ELM: Right. Right. 

ZR: You know, and I mean it is, right, in terms of, like, the sort of money and reach involved, it is a collision of two of the largest forces in American culture, right? Such that, you know, Heinz is like, [laughing] “We gotta take over the Times Square subway station.” [FK & ELM laugh] You know, like, “Here’s the one joke everyone’s gonna get!” 

ELM: Except me. [ZR laughs] 

FK: Yeah, except you, Elizabeth. How’d you miss this? 

ELM: I guarantee the vast majority of people who walked past that had no idea what they were talking about. 

FK: I’m sure. But, like, but it’s you, terminally online Elizabeth Minkel. [ZR laughs] 

ELM: I don’t—all right, I’m gonna say this, I hope no one’s offended. Zan, I hope you’re not offended. I negative care about Taylor Swift. [FK laughs] 

ZR: I’m leaving. 

ELM: I’m sorry. Can you handle—is that OK? Does that upset you? You can negative care about something I like. [laughs] 

ZR: Elizabeth, you’ve been negative caring about Harry Styles as long as I’ve known you. 

ELM: I care more about Harry Styles than Taylor Swift. [ZR gasps] 

FK: Wow…

ELM: You both—[laughs] The faces you both made!

FK: I don’t really care about Taylor Swift, and now I feel like you’ve chosen me to be a favorite. [ZR laughs] 

ELM: No, I think of both of you as Harry Styles people. Only one of you published a novel about fake Harry Styles, so…

FK: That’s true. 

ZR: [sighs] I mean, it was inspired by real—whatever. We’ll get into it.  

FK: Haha! We’ll get there. [FK & ZR laugh] 

ELM: So the podcast is great. Everyone should listen to it. I found it interesting even though I care negative about Harry Styles and, um, I don’t care about the rest—

FK: [laughing] You mean Taylor Swift? [ZR laughs] 

ELM: Sorry! [laughs] 

ZR: You care so little about her you forgot her name. [laughs]  

ELM: [laughs] It all comes out. 

FK: Can you imagine—OK, wait wait wait, I just want us to have a thought experiment for one second. Imagine if Harry Styles was dating Travis Kelce. [laughs] 

ELM: I would be so much more interested in this man. Both of them. 

ZR: Because the internet is the internet, there are of course people online—

FK: Of course.

ZR: —and it’s sort of impossible to tell how facetiously, but claiming that she’s bearding for him. That Travis Kelce is in fact gay. 

FK: Oh—

ELM: I love this. 

FK: Naturally. [laughs] 

ZR: And that Taylor Swift is forcing the heterosexual agenda onto poor, poor Travis Kelce. [FK laughs] 

ELM: And for bearding for Harry Styles as well, obviously, that’s the ship, right? You know? 

ZR: I mean, she, yeah, I mean, she’s bearded for everyone. 

ELM: Yeah, she’s covering for both of them, their secret relationship. 

ZR: Yes, and, you know, and I actually think that that makes her an ally. [FK & ELM laugh] 

ELM: What if it’s, like, queer for queer, like, you know, because the Gaylor thing’s real, and then, you know…

ZR: I mean, what if every single person in Hollywood is gay and in a secret closeted relationship that they are seeding to us via tiny little clues in their behavior? You know, I think, I think, good thought experiment, Flourish. [all laugh]

ELM: Could be, could be. 

FK: I was just—I was just thinking about the level of cultural meltdown. 

ZR: Oh. 

FK: Not—Harry Styles being not as famous as Taylor Swift, but the level of cultural meltdown potentially being greater. Anyway. 

ZR: I mean, yeah, then no, if there was—if someone at Travis Kelce’s level was, like, an out gay man— 

FK: Yeah. 

ZR: —that would be completely insane.  

ELM: That would be a melt—yeah. 

ZR: I also do have to note that Harry Styles is, like, famously a Packers fan. So it would also just be a cross—

FK: [laughs] Yes, it’s true. 

ZR: You know, cross-team issue. 

FK: [laughs] It’s so true. 

ELM: Why? He’s from England, how did this happen? 

FK: Nobody knows. Well, he’s said various things about it, but he is a big Packers—he has a tattoo. 

ZR: Yeah. [laughing] He legitimately has a Green Bay Packers tattoo.  

ELM: For the—for the Packers?

FK: He loves the Packers. 

ZR: Have you seen Harry Styles’s tattoos, though? [laughs] 

ELM: All right, I wanna—we’re gonna fact check this one later so I can figure out his origin story. That’s too strange. I’m too confused, and, uh—but it’s not a team I hate. This is important that you know, Zan. I also despise the Chiefs. 

ZR: Fair. I mean, you know. 

ELM: They’re on a list of teams I hate, and they’re—it’s, like, they’re in the top six. So, um, so yeah. So I’m rooting against everyone here. 

FK: So the fact—in other words, the fact that Elizabeth listened to and enjoyed your podcast [ZR laughs] is, like—

ELM: No, look—

FK: —just overcoming mountains. [all laugh] 

ELM: No. [laughs] All right, all right, all right. It’s a great podcast. It’s very interesting. I was saying to Flourish, I don’t spend that much time thinking about, like, straight celebrity RPF, essentially, right? Or maybe not, you know what I mean? 

ZR: Mmm hmmm.  

ELM: I’m so used to the—I mean, you get at it on the podcast, some of the RPF conversations, and the celebrity conversations, too, about the conspiracy theories and things like that, and I’m so steeped in this world of, like, “RPF is all about subtext.” [ZR laughs] And then this is such an interesting conversation, because it’s like, “Here are the giant symbols they’re playing.” You know? Like, “quarterback and cheerleader.” [FK & ZR laugh] You know? And that’s foreign to me, coming from the fandom world where everyone’s looking for, like, secret gay clues, you know what I mean? 

ZR: Yes. This reminds me, actually, sorry, I’m gonna look this up right now. I wanna see how many, if any, Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce…uh…

ELM: Fics? 

ZR: Yeah, fics there are. 

ELM: I bet not many. 

ZR: Eight works. [all laugh] All right. 

FK: Ah, well, eight works plus that—plus that—

ELM: Do you know—

FK: —you know, story that got taken down. 

ZR: Roughing the Princess by Ivy Smoak. Yeah. 

FK: Yeah, Roughing the Princess, which—

ELM: Do you know what has more cultural impact than that? 

ZR: Avatar? 

ELM: Avatar. [all laugh] Avatar. 

ZR: I listen to the podcast. [ELM laughs] 

FK: OK, OK, but but but Roughing the Princess, in case we weren’t clear, is the name of this cash grab KU romance that Steve was writing in about.

ELM: KU is Kindle Unlimited, is that correct? 

FK: Yeah. 

ZR: Yeah, so this is this woman, Ivy Smoak, is a romance author, pretty well known, and she at some point in the last month, you know, was, you know, I think everyone who has seen this romance play out who’s ever written a romance novel, or frankly read a romance novel, was like, “That’s the plot of a romance novel.” And I guarantee—

FK: Literally!

ZR: Yeah, I mean it—[laughs]

FK: There’s an entire genre. [laughs] 

ELM: In the first episode of the podcast, you’re both talking about it as fiction writers, right? And the beats, right? You know? So…

ZR: Yes. Yeah, no, and it’s—

ELM: Little did you know, [ZR laughs] two weeks later…[laughs] 

ZR: I know. Ivy Smoak was—she wasn’t even on the podcast. She wasn’t podcasting, she was at home typing. 

ELM: That’s right. That could have been you. [ELM & ZR laugh] 

ZR: You know, and it worked out so well for her. But yeah, so Ivy Smoak, you know, heard this story, and I guess people were writing to her and being like, “You gotta write, you know, a version inspired by this.” And, you know, as I have written a novel inspired by celebrities, I have written RPF in my day, I’m not opposed to that. But she, what she did was she spent apparently, like, a long weekend, like, three days, wrote, like, 100 pages, quoted pretty liberally from interviews that Taylor and Travis had done, so, like, used their actual words in the book, and then hit publish, put it on ye old Kindle Unlimited, and people were really uncomfortable with this. 

ELM: With different names, though? Or with their names? 

ZR: Different names. Tova Something. She’s named Tova. I forget, but they have the same initials. [ELM laughs] You know, it felt very, like, not just filing the serial numbers—it’s like, the serial numbers are, like, half-filed off? [laughs] You know? [FK laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. Right, right. 

ZR: And it’s—I mean, it is interesting, because, like, if you think about, if she had just published it as RPF on AO3, and Sarah says this on On the Bleachers, actually, right, it wouldn’t have been a problem, and all the quoting—when you quote from source material and you pay attention to canon, that’s a good thing. It’s a boon when you’re writing RPF.  

ELM: Right. 

FK: Yeah, I was just—this made me think about, I can’t even remember the title of it, so it can’t go in the notes, but there was a One Direction fanfic that I read years ago that was, like, so obsessive about being about the very earliest days of One Direction, so meticulously researched, everything was from, you know, everything was quoted, but it was, like, a filling-in-the-gaps and the emotions behind it kind of a thing. And I found that so satisfying. 

ELM: Interesting. 

FK: But then I also see why people are like, [laughing] “Oh, that’s so gross in this case.” And I’m like, “What is the difference?” What is the difference? Is there a difference? Maybe there’s not a difference, you know? 

ZR: I, like, [sighs] I’ve been thinking about this since we had that conversation, and then certainly since, you know, you guys talked to me about coming on here, and I haven’t come up with a really good answer. I do think, though, in part, it is about, like, it is a genre question, right? That, like, the point of RPF is to be like, “I know I’m writing about real people, and I’m imagining what might have happened.” As opposed to, like, when you’re like, “I wrote fiction—” Like, “I just wrote, you know, a romance novel.” Well, the premise is you’re fictionalizing, and she didn’t. Like, she did not in any meaningful way fictionalize this relationship. 

ELM: Mmm hmmm. But, all right, take these Reylo ones. I mean, we haven’t really talked about this much, if at all, I think, yet. But I don’t know if either of you read any of these…? 

FK: Oh yeah. Obviously. [laughs] 

ZR: I’m familiar with them, but I haven’t read them. 

ELM: So, like, there’s a spate of them. There’s a lot of them now, you know? 

FK: Yeah. Oh yeah. 

ELM: In the double digits. 

FK: Yup. 

ELM: Including some that were, like, big BookTok hits. 

FK: Oh, absolutely. 

ELM: My understanding is that it’s pull-to-publish, originally Reylo stuff to start, but now is it, like—it’s not all that, right? It’s just kind of, now it’s a trend. It’s kind of a vibe, right? 

ZR: I mean, Flourish may know more. I also, right, there’s also, like, a particular author I can think of, right, who I think did a pull to publish, but then also has written follow-ups, you know, where, like, the name Kylo Ren was never in the doc? [FK laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: But, like, the inspiration is still evidently there. [laughs] 

FK: Yeah, I mean, I do think that it’s a little bit different because most of those are, like, they are explicitly—even though some, like, often, like, the thing that’s weird about them is that, like, the cover art for a lot of these is very much, like, “Oh, I see. [ZR laughs] I see who those people are.” But the actual characters are, generally speaking, Kylo Ren and Rey, right? 

ELM: Hmmm. 

FK: They’re not—it’s not about the actors. And so to me, this is just, like, those romances—although I know some people get weirded out because, unlike previous pull-to-publish romances, these very explicitly have basically cartoon versions of the actors who play Kylo Ren and Rey. [laughs]

ELM: Right. 

FK: But, you know, right? So there’s a visual connection, but the actual text of it is not about, it’s not about Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver at all. Like, under no stretch of the imagination. I don’t think that any of them that I’ve seen have to do with Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver. It’s—

ELM: They’re not actor AUs or whatever. 

FK: Yeah, they’re not after—and, as far as I know, there’s not, like, a really big—I’m sure somebody has actor RPF for that, but, like, I’m not aware of there being a big actor RPF element for those two. I don’t know, it feels like, the thing that’s similar here is more about romance and fanfic, and this is now, like, romance authors being like, “Oh, well, if we can just take fanfic, why can’t we just do fanfic?” And it’s like, maybe the rules are different for RPF, right? 

ELM: Well, yeah, but this makes me think of, like, OK, so Diana Gabaldon famously based her male protagonist on the character from Doctor Who in the ’70s— 

FK: Mmm hmmm. 

ELM: —she had a crush on, right? 

FK: Yeah. 

ELM: You know? Or Anne Rice, like, has Lestat shouting who he looks like. What famous actor [FK laughs] she thought was hot, like, who he looks like in the book, right? You know what I mean? So, like, there’s a long history, I think, of female authors really signposting the fact that they found some either actor or character hot and, like, writing—like, face-casting, essentially, their own book, you know what I mean? So, like—

FK: Yeah. 

ELM: That’s part of why I’m kind of like, with a lot of this stuff I’m like, OK, well, if it’s not—why is this making people so uncomfortable? 

ZR: Well, right, because in this case, it’s more than face-casting, right? It’s like, right? Because it’s like, Lestat is a very different character than, you know, whatever—

ELM: Rutger Hauer.

ZR: Rutger Hauer—yeah. That guy. [laughs] 

ELM: He’d like to think he’s just like Rutger Hauer, so…[FK & ZR laugh] And then later she said Chris Hemsworth, and it was just like, “All right. We’re on a journey here.”  [FK laughs] So…it’s fine. 

ZR: Oh my God, I would love to see Chris Hemsworth play Lestat. 

ELM: Well, you could see a beautiful square-jawed Australian if you watch Interview with the Vampire, 2022. 

FK: Yeah, well-cast. 

ZR: I have watched that Interview with the Vampire, and I have enjoyed both his performance on-screen, and his performance on Tumblr gifsets on my dash every single day. [all laugh]

But I think there is a difference between, like, because also, right, we’re talking about the difference between being like, “I’m imagining your face and body, like, doing various things, some of them sexy.” Which, you know, and I understand, like, an actor feeling uncomfortable with that. You know, I’m not saying we should stop doing it. But, like, I, you know, see their point about it being not the comfiest thing. 

Versus someone saying, like, “I’m not just imagining your face and your body. I’m imagining your relationship and how you two have sex with each other and what this, like, you know, intimate and private thing in this life that has very little privacy in it is like.” You know, I understand why that feels—it’s so funny, because when I say it I’m like, “Yeah, this seems really violating.” And I can’t stress enough, like, I’ve written a lot of RPF. [all laugh] 

ELM: Yeah. Wait, but you’re talking about the—what’s her name? Smoak Queen? 

ZR: Ivy—Ivy Smoak. [laughs]  

ELM: Ivy Smoak? [FK laughs] OK. I just thought of E.L. James for a second. But you’re talking about that one. You’re not talking about the Reylo ones, which isn’t RPF. 

ZR: I’m talking about the difference between, right? 

ELM: Yeah yeah yeah. 

ZR: The Reylo and that kind of face-casting and something like Ivy Smoak. And then I do think in that case, there is something to be said for, like, the sort of—I mean, you know, the fourth wall is increasingly shattered, but, like, you know, the more private community and more sort of fandom-facing community of AO3, right? That, I don’t know. My RPF, like, I actively hope—I mean, I think a lot of—I’m like, “Please don’t—the people who it’s about, please don’t. It’s not about you. It’s really about me.” [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. Right right right. 

FK: But there’s another level of this, which I think is, you know, I mean, I don’t disagree with you, and I’m not saying that this is actually better, but there’s also a level on which male writers do not seem to feel this constraint, [ZR laughs] right? I mean, the obvious—

ELM: Female writers don’t either. Joyce Carol Oates wrote Blonde, right? 

FK: Right, exactly. I mean—

ELM: Don’t make—I understand the gender thing. We’re talking about romance, right? So, like, literary fiction writers of all genders don’t feel this. Some of the most famous—

FK: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. 

ELM: —you know, “literary RPF” is by women. 

FK: The reason I was saying male is because I was thinking of Peter Lefcourt’s Di and I, which I know I’ve brought up on the podcast before, talking about RPF, right?  

ELM: Sure. 

FK: But my point being, though, you’re right that it is not—I shouldn’t—[laughs] I shouldn’t put this on the men. 

ELM: No. 

FK: There is this difference between literary writing, some of which is…I mean, obviously it’s not all self-indulgent, but some of which is pretty self-indulgent, also, you know? And why that gets a pass, because it aspires to something, as opposed to…I don’t know. It’s hard for me to, um, it’s hard for me to sort of square this entirely, right? Because it feels to me like all of the things that we would critique, you know, Roughing the Princess for, [laughs] are things that exist—

ELM: What a name. [ZR laughs]

FK: I know, what a title. [ELM laughs] But all of those things are things—

ELM: That’s a football reference. Flourish, do you get that? [ZR laughs] 

FK: Yeah. [laughs] 

ELM: Roughing the passer? OK. Just double checking. 

FK: I—why are you—you—

ELM: [laughs] I know you like football. [FK & ZR laugh] Just thought not professional football. Don’t worry. Don’t you worry. 

FK: [laughing] Just—

ELM: I know you’re a husky, husker, corn-husking—is that what it is? 

FK: Thank you. 

ELM: I don’t—it’s a team from the—from Nebraska. [all laugh] 

ZR: You sound like me talking about football. [laughs] 

FK: Right, um—

ELM: I don’t—college football is alien to me. I know that they play the sport.

ZR: Yeah, yeah—

FK: In fairness, I don’t follow it very closely, or anything. I just find it…anyway! OK, my point being, though, that I feel like sometimes it’s—I know it’s boring to bring this up every time that we talk about this, but every time we talk about this, I think about, you know, how some people get passes, and some people don’t get passes, depending on what kind of story they’re writing. And maybe that’s appropriate and maybe it’s not. I just don’t know. I don’t know. 

ZR: I mean, two things come to mind as you say this. The first of which is just, I mean, certainly in terms of, like, Blonde, right? That Marilyn Monroe is dead, and in terms of Di and I—

ELM: Sure. 

ZR: Diana is dead. Right? And I think there is a difference—

FK: That was written—it was written before she died. 

ZR: Oh, I didn’t know that. All right, well then never mind then. [all laugh] 

FK: Yeah. [laughs] 

ELM: We could come up with, like, multiple, like, all gender examples of current—

FK: Yeah yeah, we can. Yeah. 

ELM: —biopics of alive people. I mean, whatever, there are legal things obviously involved. 

ZR: Yeah, I mean, yeah. God. Actually, [sighs] God, I just wrote a podcast episode about Pamela Anderson, which was, like, a very sticky and complicated thing to do, because a lot of what I was writing about in the episode, and it was writing about the story of her life, and a lot of what I was writing about was how violated she felt when the Pam & Tommy show came out. [laughs] 

ELM: Hmmm. 

FK: Oh…

ZR: And I was like, “Well…” It’s like, is it—you know, I don’t think—I don’t speak—I don’t get a pass just because I’m, like, talking about how violated she was by that. This is equally violating, I feel. No, you’re right, there’s all kinds of people doing all kinds of stuff like this. And I think it is…I mean, I guess this is my thing, is, like, RPF is very honest about what it’s doing, right? 

ELM: Mmm hmmm. 

ZR: And then there’s a different kind of transformative work often being done by people who are writing romance inspired by…

FK: Hmmm. 

ZR: And that what it feels like what Ivy Smoak is doing is writing RPF, and it feels like there’s supposed to be a wink-wink-nudge-nudge, you know? Like, “It doesn’t say Taylor Swift, but we all know it’s Taylor Swift!” And it’s like she’s trying to have fun with us. 

ELM: Mmm hmmm. 

ZR: And I feel like some of the backlash has been like, “This isn’t fun.” 

FK: Hmmm. 

ZR: Like, “Why are you acting like this was a funny, fun thing for you to do? It’s kind of weird.” And I feel like if you’re writing RPF, you know what you’re doing is weird. [all laugh] You’re just like, “It’s too late.” 

ELM: That’s funny. Yeah, they always say with RPF that, like, you know, and it’s annoying when people try to compare it to deepfakes or whatever, right? It’s, like, the idea of like, oh, it’s literally labeled— 

FK: Right. 

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: Or conspiracy theories within—right? You know? Within celebrity fandom, it’s like, it’s labeled, the word fiction is, like, the big F in the title, right? 

ZR: Right? No, I’m like, I write RPF specifically so that I don’t become a conspiracy theorist. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah, and so you’re like, “I know this is fiction,” right?

ZR: Yes!

ELM: But, like, you are also trying to get—I mean, you’re a very interesting person on this, to me, and I think as Steve rightly points out in the letter, and you already pointed out yourself in the podcast but, like, the distance that you talk about in that episode where you talk about writing Grace and the Fever, and you were doing it as a way to kind of interrogate your—sort of, maybe this isn’t the only reason—but, like, to interrogate your RPF feelings, or your celebrity fandom feelings about One Direction, right? 

ZR: Yeah. Oh yeah. 

ELM: I dunno, maybe you wanna, like, summarize that [ZR laughs] or maybe expand on it? You know? 

ZR: I mean, yeah, so I wrote Grace and the Fever at a time starting in, like, 2015, probably, when I was very into One Direction and very interested, I would say, in Larry Stylinson. Totally fascinated and compelled by the idea. Never, like, a true believer. You know, I’ve always been pretty agnostic on that front. I mean, at this point I don’t believe they’re still together or anything. You know what I mean? There’s, like, people who—anyway. But—

ELM: No, he’s with Travis Kelce now. [FK laughs] 

ZR: He’s—you’re right, I’m sorry. 

ELM: They can’t be together still.

ZR: He broke Louis’ heart for Travis Kelce. So tragic. [ELM & ZR laugh] And, yeah, I was reading a lot of fic, and I was talking to friends just constantly, both about the experience—yeah, about the experience of being so compelled by this idea and wanting to read the work of all these conspiracy theorists, and also sitting back and being like, “These people are conspiracy theorists and I think they’re maybe a little off the deep end here.” 

Yeah, and then thinking about the ways in which being the subject of all that speculation, like, what that would feel like for them, and what, you know, what my—what felt like harmless fun between me and my friends when you add up the harmless fun between millions and millions and millions of people, it starts to become a cultural pressure that actually does—can and does affect the lives of these celebrities. And I do actually—have you guys read the prologue to 1989 that Taylor released a couple days ago? 

ELM: You think that I would have read this? 

ZR: [laughs] Well, you— 

ELM: Me?

ZR: You might have heard about it. [sighs] 

ELM: [laughs] Tell me all about it. 

ZR: It’s relevant, because, so she released a prologue and in it she talks about the period before and during, like, when she was writing the songs on 1989 and about how there was all this really intense speculation about her love life and she couldn’t go out in public with any guy without people being like, “Oh, she’s dating him.” And then she says, “You know, so I started hanging out with my female—I decided to focus on my female friends and, like, stop dating. People couldn’t, like, sexualize that, could they? I would soon find out they could.” [FK laughs] Which has ignited a massive, massive, massive, like, Gaylor explosion that we will not go into here. 

But it was really interesting to see her talking again very explicitly, which I think celebrities haven’t that often done, about what it is like to be an object of fantasy in this way, and how it affects how you can behave in real life at a certain point, because those fantasies can intrude on people’s real relationships. 

And Louis has said this about Harry, like, he, I mean, he said it to The Sun, and Larries out of hand say everything that’s in The Sun is fake for reasons but, like, but he said, he gave the reporter a quote where he was like, “Yeah, like, knowing about Larry made it harder for us to interact, because we knew that every time we looked at each other or, like, if we God forbid hugged, people were gonna take it to mean something, and it just made it feel impossible for us to interact naturally.” 

ELM: But this makes me think of, like, OK, so what’s the—I mean, We always say this when we talk about RPFs. So, like, you’re writing a story about Harry and Louis… Whatever, you’re writing—you’re gonna be the ninth person to post a story on the AO3 [FK laughs] about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce—

ZR: I’m gonna start writing it directly after we get off this call. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah, that’s right. Hope this has been inspiring. Harry Style should be in it. Whatever you want him to do in it is up to you. 

FK: Jealous ex-boyfriend?  

ELM: Oh, wow. 

ZR: Mmm… mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmm.  

ELM: But he doesn’t get with Travis in the end, so it’s gonna—

FK: Yeah. 

ELM: You probably shouldn’t tag that with Taylor/Travis because people who ship that will be upset with you. [ZR laughs] Just put it in the tags. 

ZR: I was gonna say, I’ll figure out the tags.  

ELM: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. This is, like, an oft-repeated thing, but what is the difference between, you know, you fantasizing about that and writing a story about it, and literally all the commentary of everyone on the internet, gossip columnists, pop-culture journalists, people on NPR, [FK & ZR laugh] you know what I mean? 

ZR: I mean, first of all, [laughs] the difference is they won’t let me on NPR. [laughs]

ELM: They should have had you do it. You would have had a much deeper thing to say than the person—no offense to that person, but it was very basic coverage.

ZR: Yeah.

FK: There’s been a lot of very basic coverage about this. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: Yeah, yes. 

FK: We don’t need to single NPR out. I’m looking at the New York Times, I’m looking at—yeah. 

ZR: Oh my God. 

ELM: Yeah, you can look right at the New York Times. I’m happy for you to do that. 

ZR: Directly into the Gray Lady’s eyes. [ELM laughs] No, I mean, I’ve thought about this too for sure, right? I’m like, I don’t think if I was ever called to account in front of Harold Styles, like, [ELM laughs] if I was like, “This was really about me, and, like, you know, interrogating my feelings about my celebrity fandom and, like, imagining a world that could be,” you know, I think he would just be like, “Yeah…you know, you were still giving this conversation oxygen,” right? In a way that I’m sure would feel uncomfortable to him. 

But I think, I hope it’s different. I dont—I mean, like, when I wrote Grace, I will say, like, one of the first things I did once it became clear to me that I was really going to write the book, was I sat down, and I was like, “How is this band different than One Direction?” And they’re kind of superficial changes, right? I was like, “They’re American, they’re not British. There’s four of them, not five. They were discovered, like, on YouTube, essentially, not on a talent show like X Factor.” 

But I just, I wanted to just, like, start giving myself some parameters to be like, “I don’t have insight into or control over the lives of actual Harry, Louis, Liam, Niall, and Zayn. And if I’m gonna do the work of writing a whole book where I do have total control, like, I need to understand that this is about playing out a scenario, playing out my scenario, not theirs.” Does that make sense?

FK: But how is that—I mean, that makes sense, but it actually was something that slightly rubbed me the wrong way in the podcast, because it felt when you were describing that, I’m into that for you, but it also felt like it was, like, the corollary was, “And people who are writing RPF do not have any sense of distance,” which I don’t think is what you meant, right? 

ZR: No. 

ELM: No, yeah, because you write RPF too, right? 

ZR: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah. 

FK: [overlapping] You write RPF also, right, but I just, I’m curious about how you would pull those things apart, because I totally get what you’re saying about, like, a fictional universe—

ZR: Yeah. 

FK: —in which you are in control of everything, and not letting that bleed over into pretending that these are literally just characters that you control. But then I’m like, how is that different? You know? 

ZR: Yeah, no no no. Totally. That’s a great question. And I think that what I tried to do with Grace was be like, “I’m really interested in this situation,” right? The situation of, there is this conspiracy theory, if you deny a conspiracy theory, everyone just says the denial is part of the conspiracy, right? It’s one of the things that make a conspiracy theory so pernicious and so interesting to me. Is that they can kind of subsume anything you say about them. You know, how do you deal with that, and why might it have been, like, interest—you know, why might, like, a conspiracy theory have been allowed to flourish sort of unchecked? 

FK: Mmm hmmm. 

ZR: So I was like, I’m writing about this situation, and I need the characters in the situation to be different, because the point is not to say what’s happening with actual One Direction. The point is to talk more broadly about this thing that happens in celebrity and culture. Versus when I’m writing RPF, I am, like, you know, yeah, instead of writing a journalistic, like, essay about what I think is going on in the lives of, you know, whatever celebrities, I’m like, “I’m gonna use the guys of fiction to, like, really get in their little heads.” I mean, not at all, but pretend I am. 

ELM: This is such a tricky thing for me to parse, too, you know, in the sense of, like…I mean, like, Grace, I feel like is different than, like—I mean, I haven’t read this Ivy Smoak book either in the sense of, like, Grace feels like it’s more in the vein of a based-on that’s also meant to be a commentary about the actual, like, it makes me think of, like, Velvet Goldmine, right? You know? Where they famously, like, couldn’t get the rights to make a Bowie bio—“They.” Todd Haynes couldn’t get the rights to make a Bowie biopic or, like, the Bowie estate pushed back, so it was meant to be about just the, like, it’s a meta-commentary on that time, in addition to being a story. I mean it’s a very meta movie, right? You know what I mean? 

FK: Right, and there’s also, like, a fan—because there is a fan character in Grace and the Fever, right, it’s not—there’s no way that you can read that and think that this is, like, ripped from the headlines, because there is a character who is a fan who is dealing with the issues of conspiracy theories. 

ELM: There’s a fan character in Violet Goldmine, too, you know? 

FK: No, that’s what I mean. 

ELM: That’s Christian Bale. 

FK: That’s—that’s why I’m comparing them. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah yeah yeah. Totally. 

ZR: Yeah. 

FK: I’m saying that’s another way in which to compare them, right? And that sort of pulls the attention from, “This is a true fact, this is a true retelling of what—how I’ve psychically understood their, you know, [laughs] their—”

ZR: Right. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. 

FK: “—their thing to be.” The focus is now on the experience of the fan with this. 

ZR: Yeah, and, like, right, it’s sort of my fannish perspective is, like, warping how I see this anyway, and so in order to, like, really telegraph that, I’ve put a fan character in there, right? [FK laughs] To be like, you know, “Here’s my fannishness intruding upon the narrative. She can’t help it.” 

ELM: Yeah. I mean, I think that these are, like, I’m not saying—they’re not, like, the only examples. I’m sure if I started—we started thinking about it, we could name other ones. But they are meta-commentaries. And it’s different than, I don’t know. Just thinking about, like, and trying to think of, like, lady—actually I don’t know, I think it was made by women, but one of my favorite things on TV in the last few years is The Dropout about Elizabeth Holmes. 

ZR: Mm hmm.  

ELM: I don’t know if you watched that, Zan. I don’t think Flourish, you’ve watched it yet. 

FK: I did not see it. 

ZR: I watched an episode of it. 

ELM: Oh, and you weren’t compelled. 

ZR: I was not compelled. No, I mean, I—no, I just hated her. [laughs] I was like, “I don’t wanna—” [ELM laughs] Amanda Seyfried’s so charming, but I was like, “I don’t wanna spend time with this person. She sucks.” [laughs] 

ELM: She does suck!

ZR: Which in a way, like—I’m like, it’s a triumph, right? She does suck, like, I wasn’t wrong, and the filmmakers were right to sort of portray that, but it just wasn’t—it didn’t hit for me.  

ELM: Ooh, it gets worse and worse, too. It’s such an interesting adaptation, because also, she’s no longer the centered character from like episode three onwards, and her actions become extraordinarily opaque to all the other characters. 

ZR: Hmmm. 

ELM: Which is super interesting, and I think a really smart way for them to deal with the fact that they’re not exactly sure. Basically it’s like, TL;DR for the Elizabeth Holmes story, she and her partner, Sunny Balwani, you don’t know who was the Lady Macbeth and who was the Macbeth in that relationship, and we still don’t know, and they kind of worked around that by making their actions very, literally opaque, like, behind—

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: You see the door closing, and you see the two of them, and the door’s closing on them, and you’re like—you know? 

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: But, like, that, you know, it’s based on journalism, but it is trying to get at the heart of these characters, right? And this is, like, serious and respected and stuff, and it’s something about, like, are there people sitting there saying, “You shouldn’t have made this,” right? Or any of these biopics, right, of living people, that are interested in being internally consistent on characterization, but also ringing true. 

ZR: Mmm hmmm. 

ELM: You know what I mean?

ZR: Yeah. I—you know, on the other hand, I always am afraid that I’m like, “Well mine’s meta, so I get a pass [FK laughs] about Grace.” You know? [laughs] And, like—

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: I wanna be clear, you know, and I think, you know, I just wanna be clear that, like, I really don’t think that I have this at all figured out. I don’t think that, like, you know—yeah. I’m not like, “My book is perfect, and I’ve figured it out, and it’s so awesome.” This was an attempt to do it, and that’s all it was, was an attempt. 

FK: Well, wait, this is making me think of something, which is, I wonder whether part of the issue is just in all of the examples that you’re bringing up, Elizabeth, and when I’m thinking about the different biopics that—I mean, people do have problems with, right? I mean, like, there’s always, it seems to me, like, often—

ELM: Like Blonde? 

FK: Yeah, I mean, or, you know, I mean, even [laughs] The Crown, you know, people complaining about this and being like, “Why are you, you know, why are you—”

ELM: Because it’s wildly propagandistic? [ZR laughs]

FK: Well, no, but not for that—

ELM: To the point where I can’t watch it? 

FK: I mean, but not even for that reason, right? People being like, “Why are you, you know, dragging—” Anyway. 

ELM: A lot of people do complain about that, Flourish. 

FK: I’m not praising it. I’m just saying [laughs] that I wonder whether one of the things within this is that in most of these, you’re not supposed to—so in a romance novel, usually, you’re being invited to identify with one of the characters at least, right? And it’s a fantasy that you’re being pulled into, and it’s, like, gonna have a happy ending. In most romance novels, you’re supposed to so identify with one of the characters that you’re swept along, and it’s like you’re being romanced. And in all of these biopics that we’re discussing, that’s not what the point is, right? It’s about somebody who’s very distinct from the viewer. Is there something in that that makes it different? Is one of these—is it that it feels, like, invasive because you’re supposed to be imagining yourself as Taylor Swift having sex with this guy who is maybe her real-life boyfriend? 

ELM: Are you? Is that the point of all romance novels? 

ZR: I think—I don’t think of all romance novels. I think in this—I think people felt in this case that it was, like, that because there wasn’t much else there, you know, it was just sort of—

FK: Yeah, all is too strong, but it’s a strong—it’s a vibe. [laughs] 

ZR: Yeah, right, no, I think it is. You know, you wanna imagine your—you know, part of, like, right? You—I mean, we often, right, read or whatever to sort of experience someone else’s life, and I think in this case it felt like, in the case of Ivy Smoak, and again I haven’t read it because you can’t read it because she pulled it off, and she also just scrubbed any mention of it, which also just, like, the fact that she won’t take responsibility or acknowledge it in any way is a little mmm to me. I’m like, you know, we’ve all done stuff we regret, you just say, like, “Sorry! Shouldn’t have done that.” [ZR & FK laugh] You know, or whatever. What does it mean to her? 

ELM: You just wanna read it. You’ve got an academic interest in reading it. [all laugh] 

ZR: Actually—

FK: I also wanna read it at this point. I don’t have an academic interest. I just wanna find out what this thing is. 

ZR: Yeah, but I think it—I think that it did not feel to people like there was any, like, imaginative act or, like, transformative act, right? 

FK: Hmmm.

ZR: You know, we talk about transformative fandom, and I think that’s also the difference—

ELM: Mmm hmmm. 

ZR: —is, like, RPF that I enjoy—because I’ve also, to be clear, I’ve also read RPF that I thought was unethical or just, like, not that interesting. 

FK: Yeah. 

ZR: You know? But the RPF that I enjoy is, like, genuinely transformative, and I think that, to me, you know, without having read it, that would be my guess where she failed, was in transforming it in any meaningful way, where people were like, “You’re just—” You are kind of trying to deepfake Taylor/Travis porn. You know? 

ELM: Hmm. Mmm hmmm. 

ZR: And it’s just easier to do with words than it is with pictures. 

ELM: I mean, I think, all right, so here’s something I wanna bring up. I wanted to mention, and I think it’s relevant to everything we’ve been talking about, but there was this poll going around on Tumblr recently that caused some consternation about RPF. I don’t know, Zan, you’re on Tumblr more than Flourish. 

FK: Yeah. 

ELM: Maybe you saw this guy. 

ZR: I did. I believe I did. 

ELM: I voted in it, and the—and when I saw that thousands of people had voted and the winning option was that RPF was, like, morally—it was very muddled in its language, and it was saying, like, it was morally wrong, and, like, “Is it morally wrong?” And then it was like, “Yes, it makes me uncomfortable” [FK laughs] was, like, the kind of— 

FK: Because things that make me uncomfortable are morally wrong, and things that are morally wrong make me uncomfortable. 

ZR: Yeah, no, I think I must have seen a response to this, because I think the one I saw was, like, had more options than that. That’s really interesting, like, “Is it morally wrong?” [laughs] “Yes, it makes me uncomfortable.” I’m like— [laughs] 

ELM: Well, the—yeah. The way that I saw it was via, like, someone—like, multiple people had reblogged it and wrote long screeds that were basically like, “OK. Let’s talk about how [ZR laughs] whether it makes you comfortable or not, [FK laughs] you know, isn’t, like, a reflection of morality.” 

FK: [laughing] Yeah. Bad news, I am very comfortable with many things that I know to be morally wrong. [laughs] 

ZR: I was gonna say— [laughs] 

FK: It’s not good. [laughs] 

ZR: [laughs] Yes. 

ELM: But I thought that that distinction and that language was really striking, the kind of idea, “Oh, it makes me uncomfortable, so it’s wrong. It’s wrong.” 

FK: Yeah.

ZR: Yeah. Yes. 

ELM: Right? And I feel like so much of the way people talk about RPF or shipping celebrities or whatever, is just kind of, like, this reaction of discomfort on their part. And I mean, you brought up in the podcast the, like—you brought this up, right? You did. The, like, comment going around recently about fictional characters being violated when you write them having sex scenes or whatever. 

FK: Yeah yeah, she—yeah. 

ZR: I didn’t say it explicit—oh, yeah, you guys talked about this, [FK laughs] because—yeah. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about it constantly!

FK: No, you brought it up, Zan, on your podcast. You mentioned it. 

ELM: Your podcast!

ZR: Oh! On my pod—sorry, on the podcast. Yeah yeah, no no, I absolutely brought this up. Yes, that someone—you know, it is one of those things— [FK laughs] anyway. Someone tweeted, and I just hope to God so much that they were kidding, but that they were like, “If your fictional characters have sex at all, it’s rapey, because they can’t meaningfully consent.” And again, I’m like—

ELM: They weren’t kidding. 

ZR: —bad news, like, they can’t meaningfully consent to anything. I made them up. [ZR & FK laugh] All their agency is belong to me. 

ELM: Well, that’s rapey too. Don’t you feel like you’re controlling them and that’s creepy? 

ZR: I am playing God. 

ELM: You don’t think it’s creepy? 

ZR: I’m playing God. 

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: I mean, first of all, this is the thing people—I’m like, all writing is creepy. Like, they’re not wrong. Writing is creepy. Right? This is the Joan Didion thing is, like, you know, to be a writer is to wanna be the voice in someone’s head. You know? Yes. Absolutely, it is a fundamentally creepy thing to want to do. You’re not surprising me here. [laughs] 

FK: There’s also, like, not a small amount of, like, stuff written about this, you know? [laughs] I mean, there’s a lot of people—

ZR: Yes, right, it’s not something— [laughs] 

FK: —who are staring right at their own navel about this particular topic. [all laugh] 

ZR: Greater minds than Twitter user. 

FK: Allow me to present to you: postmodernism. [all laugh]

ZR: Yes, no, I think, yeah, all writing is somewhat controlling, right? And it, you know, no fiction—but this is the thing, right? No fictional characters, like, fictional characters that I make up out of whole cloth, let’s say, always drawing on real life but sort of with less direct inspiration, right? They have no agency, and I do think it gets more complicated, the closer you get to basing your character on a person who does have agency, right? And who—and also who could read your work, potentially, and who—or even if they don’t read it, whose life could be affected by the thing that you are writing. 

ELM: Yeah, but it’s also like, I mean, what is truth? [FK laughs] You know? When you get right down to it? No, just thinking about, like, imagine an autobiography versus a rigorous journalist writing an article about someone, right? You know? I don’t know, it’s tricky. Yeah, I think that there’s an element of, when you talk about things like, oh, like the speculation around Taylor Swift’s life is so relentless that she can’t be seen in public with a friend without them assuming, you know, anything romantic, like, that’s bad. But that’s not the result—that’s, like, every, that’s what I was saying earlier. That’s everyone constantly talking about her, you know what I mean? That’s not the result of, like, authored fiction. That’s not the result of Ivy Smoak, you know, writing her, like, bad, quick, bad book, right? You know what I mean? 

ZR: Yes. 

ELM: I don’t know. I just, I don’t understand why these lines get drawn when it comes to fiction, as opposed to literal constant conversation by everyone else. 

ZR: Yeah, I mean, I do think—

ELM: Which is very fictional. 

ZR: Yeah. I think, no, I think you’ve hit on something there, and I do think in part, right, this often happens where, like, people are sort of vaguely uncomfortable with something that’s happening in the culture, and then they find sort of one thing and they point and it, and they’re like, “It’ that thing!” [FK laughs] Right? It’s like, “Ivy Smoak writing about Taylor Swift’s sex life, that’s the bad part!” It’s like, “You don’t think that the photos, you know, the grainy video that you’re watching from inside the bar that someone took of her trying desperately to have a private moment with, like, this person she may or may not be dating, you don’t think that that is, you know, part of it?” Yeah, that it’s a very convenient thing to point at. But you know, I will say, people also, certainly celebrities, hate—I mean, everyone hates journalism. Everyone hates being written about. Like, I’ve been a journalist for, like, seven years now—

ELM: Sure. 

ZR: —and it’s continually shocking to me how often I write something that I think is totally innocuous. Like, I’m never—I don’t do hit pieces, I don’t drag people down, I’m not even an investigative journalist, right? I’m only reporting things people said to me on the record in an interview. [FK laughs] People all the time come back like, “How dare you expose me in that way?” [laughs] And I’m like—

ELM: Wow. Who’s coming back at you with this? What are you doing over there? 

ZR: No! Truly nothing, but, like, people just don’t like—being seen is very scary. [laughs] 

FK: Yeah. 

ZR: You know, and—

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: —and the fact that it’s true that people can—and people can see you and see whatever they want in a kind of uncontrollable way. This is not really an answer to your question, but I think—yeah. 

ELM: No, no, I mean, it’s all related though, you know? 

ZR: Yeah, but I think really the larger thing is that, like, and maybe more related to the first thing I said. We all imagine the inner lives of celebrities constantly. People who believe they’ve never written RPF in their life, right? Or read RPF in their life, have absolutely read, you know, all kinds of speculative stuff in magazines, like, had a little imagine to themselves about what it would be like to X, Y, Z. 

ELM: Celebrity profiles are the absolute worst, yeah. 

ZR: Yeah, celebrity profiles. Yes! They’re absolutely a form of RPF. 

ELM: What a fiction. 

ZR: Yes! But again, it’s easier to point to the fiction and be like, “That’s the problem. You’re doing it wrong.” You know, “My way is fine and normal, but that’s crossing a line.” 

FK: Yeah, so then, I guess bringing it back to the question, I guess one thing I’m wondering is—what Steve put the finger on was, are we hitting a tipping point with RPF because it is now so much more in the public eye as an explicit thing, especially with romance novels, with this kind of thing, is it the goat, right? Is RPF the thing that people are now, like, “Celebrity culture is broken.”

ZR: Oh, the sacrificial goat. 

FK: Yeah! You know, goat driven out in the wilderness.

ZR: [laughs] I thought you meant G.O.A.T like “greatest of all time.” 

ELM: Oh! That’s—I also thought that’s what you meant, and I was like, “Flourish, this took such a turn.” [ZR laughs] 

FK: No! I meant, like—I meant, like, the sacrificial goat. 

ELM: Yeah. You’re talking to a priest in training. They don’t use “goat” that way. 

FK: But is it! But is it? 

ELM: No, sacrificial lamb, right? It’s not a goat. Sorry, I confused it. 

FK: Well, no, there’s the goat with the scapegoat that has to get driven out into the wilderness. 

ZR: Yeah, the—yes, the scapegoat. 

ELM: I got that right in trivia the other day. [ZR laughs] Congrats to me. 

FK: Yeah. But this is—OK. 

ZR: Right. No no no— 

FK: G.O.A.T. or goat aside, like, is—do we think that this is really happening right now? 

ZR: That’s so interesting. I actually took it kind of the other way of just, like, that—because I think the thing—a thing that appeals to me personally, I’ll say, about RPF, is that I feel like it is weirdly, like, a little—it can be a little more rigorous in requiring you to acknowledge what you’re doing, right? Instead of sort of idly fantasizing or writing an article that pretends to have journalistic merit, you’re like, “I’m just writing fiction. I have to admit that I am fantasizing about this person’s life, and I’m actually gonna write words in a document and then put it up for other people to see.” And (a) as people—like, it felt different to me when the celebrities couldn’t know about it, or I mean, “couldn’t,” [FK & ELM laugh] but were so unlikely to know about it, and now it’s like—

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: It’s being brought to their attention all the time, and it is then affecting their behavior and then also that it’s, like, blurring lines with romance in this way that makes the consequences for writing RPF, I think are different than what they used to be. So I think in that way, like, it is changing how it feels to me to write and think about RPF. 

But I think it’s also true that, like, we live in a culture where celebrities are increasingly surveilled and where, like, we ourselves are often doing the surveilling with our little camera phones, and that’s weird. And I think a lot of people don’t have language for why that’s weird and so they’re just kind of like, “Romance novels question mark?” [FK laughs] 

ELM: Yeah, I mean, do you think it’s too much of a reach to put that beyond celebrities and say, like, we live in an increasingly, we’re all being surveilled by randos—

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: You know? The, like, this gossip, you know, people will be like, “I overheard people saying this. I’m gonna detail their entire conversation and put it on TikTok.” 

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: Right? And that’s creat—that’s a fiction, right? 

ZR: Yes! Oh, totally. Or, like, and also, we’re just surveilling each other, you know, we’re just watching each other all the time in a way that, like, is so uncomfortable. I don’t know, I just saw this TikTok, this woman, like, she was selling her house, and she had, like, surveillance cameras—security cameras, but she caught, like, the people who were buying the house making fun of her and her taste and how many dogs she owned, and then she was like, “I didn’t, you know, I answered them back, or whatever.” Just, like—but what, if you didn’t have surveillance cameras there in the first place, you never would have known. [ZR & ELM laugh] 

ELM: Not your business. Yeah, but it’s just, like, you see these people just, like, making up stories about strangers, or the people who they’re, like, investigating. They’re like, “Oh, I saw this guy on this TikTok and, like, we’re literally going to investigate his life, because I’ve created a narrative about him.” I don’t know. Obviously, celebrities are getting, I think we’ve said—

ZR: Yeah. 

ELM: —multiple times in this conversation, at that massive scale, and that’s, like, totally apples—it’s not apples and oranges, but it’s a giant orange and, like, small, it’s like clementines and, like, a grapefruit. 

ZR: No, I think you’re right.

ELM: Yeah. That’s a good metaphor. 

ZR: I think we—celebrities are treated as public property and, like, you know, it’s part of their job, you know, some of that is part of their job, and they do get some rewards for it. But it is true that increasingly we treat everyone we see like public property on TikTok and—right? Either on TikTok or in real life so that we can turn them into TikToks. And that’s really uncomfortable. It’s not a good way to go about interacting with other human beings, I don’t think. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. Just keep your inner—your thoughts when you see another person and you create a narrative for them in your head, keep it inside. 

ZR: Or write it as fiction. 

ELM: Yeah, put it in your fiction. 

ZR: Be like, “I’m gonna write actual fiction.” [laughs] You know? 

ELM: That’s what I do, too. [laughs] 

ZR: Right? Take it as inspiration. Be inspired. [laughs] But acknowledge that you’re being inspired. 

ELM: I mean, I’m gonna defend that as, that’s not creepy. That’s how fiction works. You are—

ZR: No— 

ELM: It’s why people as they grow older get better at writing fiction, because they’ve just encountered more things [FK & ZR laugh] and met more people. Yeah. 

ZR: No, I think you’re exactly right, and the important thing is that, right, is again, is that work, is that acknowledgment and the work, right, of being like, “I know that I’m taking this thing, and I’m transforming it into my story,” as opposed to, like, I don’t know. Being like, “This person belongs to me, and I just get to say what’s happening with them.” 

FK: Right. I feel like we’ve answered Steve’s question as best as we possibly can. [laughs] On that note. 

ZR: I—we’ve certainly said a lot of words [FK laughs] in the direction of Steve’s question. [laughs] 

ELM: Sure, that’s true. 

FK: Hopefully that’s really what Steve wanted, [ZR laughs] was to elicit more words. [laughs] 

ELM: I mean, I think the one thing I would love to keep an eye on, and maybe someone, one of the two of you who is much more in the romance world than me, the, like, the looking for romance tropes in real relationships—

FK: Hmmm. 

ELM: —is very interesting. 

ZR: Yes. 

ELM: And I would love to see if that’s a trend that’s continuing, because I think the tropification of everything—

ZR: Yes. 

ELM: —is happening right now, because people look for signs and patterns, as they say. 

ZR: Yes. 

FK: Yeah. 

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: Yeah, no, and that’s—right, and—yeah. Not to belabor the point, but right, that’s another way in which we act like we have control over these stories, by being like, “This is an X type of story.” It’s like, “No, this is actually a person’s real life.” [laughs] 

ELM: Yes. Yup, nope, “I read it on TV Tropes, and so it’s following an exact pattern, and I know what’s gonna happen, because I need to control everything, because I am anxious.” 

FK: Well. 

ELM: That’s humans. 

ZR: I mean—[laughs] 

ELM: That’s modern humans. That wasn’t my statement. 

FK: On that note of feeling great about humanity, [ZR & ELM laugh] Zan, thank you for coming on with us to talk about how humans kind of suck, always. This is great. 

ELM: Mmm hmmm. Yeah, it’s cool. 

FK: You don’t suck, you’re out of this category, at least momentarily. 

ELM: Yeah. 

ZR: You know, I suck as much as everyone else sucks, [FK laughs] and I feel fine about that. I honestly do. 

FK: That’s humility. 

ELM: All right, all right. 

ZR: Fully—yeah. Well—yeah. [ELM laughs] I know myself pretty well at this point. 

FK: Well, thank you for coming back. It was a long [ZR laughs] dry spell without you, and we’re glad that you—

ELM: Yeah. 

FK: —still like us enough. 

ELM: You can go back into the—go into the void now [ZR & FK laugh] that you waited in for the last six years. 

ZR: Just sort of, like, scrolling Tumblr, trying to, like, absorb information, being like, “Please! Please let me back in! I know so many weird things!”

ELM: Yeah, in, like, a big white room. [all laugh]

ZR: No, truly a pleasure. I am a regular listener, and I am thrilled to be back on the pod. 

FK: [laughing] All right. 

ELM: Well, thank you for the shout out in your podcast. 

ZR: Every time someone says anything about fandom I’m like, “Fansplaining!”

FK: Yay! 

ZR: “Them, not me. Over there. They know more.” 

ELM: Thank you, thank you, thank you. [laughs] 

FK: Well, we will see you later. Not in six years, but sooner than that. 

ZR: [laughs] Sounds good. 

ELM: Yeah, probably see you IRL in California. Soon. [laughs] 

FK: [laughs] All right. 

ZR: [laughs] All right. 

FK: Bye!

ELM: Bye!

ZR: Bye!

[Interstitial music] 

FK: All right, it is officially, like, I’m really glad we had Zan on. It has been way too long. [laughs] 

ELM: It’s officially too long? Is that what you’re saying? 

FK: Yeah. We should not do that again. We need to hang out with Zan more often. 

ELM: [laughs] Oh, not have her on, just hang out with her. [laughs] 

FK: Well, both! 

ELM: I’ve seen her recently, this is a you problem. 

FK: All right, fair enough. 

ELM: I mean, I want to see her again, don’t get me wrong. Super, super interesting. I, you know, I was really struck by how tricky it was in that conversation to talk about what the lines are and what they aren’t, you know? I do think a lot of the tension that we’re seeing right now is kind of a clash of expectations. Even within fandom, like that poll, “Oh, it makes me uncomfortable.” RPF has always been polarizing. 

FK: Yeah. 

ELM: You know, even, like, my stances on it, which we’ve talked about many times on the podcast about RPF, but, like, I don’t like reading it, you know? When I stumble upon it for the actors of the show that I’m into or the movies or whatever, I feel like—and it’s not even like, “Oh, I feel like it’s violating them.” I just don’t like it. It makes me feel like, “Ugh, I don’t want this.” You know? And I don’t—it’s nothing about, [mock-affronted] “Oh! Oh, why would they ever put my man in that situation?” You know? “He deserves—” Who cares? I truly don’t care. But something about it rubs me the wrong way on a reading level, right? 

FK: Right. 

ELM: Just, it’s not for me. But I still will always stand up for it, and so then you have all the people within fandom who—I don’t know, it’s just a huge range of reactions, and then you take that kind of intersection with romance and people who are doing the exact same thing in the way that they talk about a celebrity, but if you were to write it down in a story, they would be like, “That’s gross!” And it’s like, “Why is it OK in your viral Twitter thread but not in a book,” you know? [FK laughs] “You’re both making money from that.” You know what I mean? 

FK: Yeah, absolutely, and also just, like, how hard it is with stuff like this to sort of draw those lines around what is and isn’t OK, and sometimes it can feel like the same thing can be, I don’t know, interpreted or read in ways that are more or less comfortable, depending on sort of just the moment and, like, what the context is. It’s a really sticky question, and, you know, I say this as someone who has written RPF before, [laughs] you know, and has enjoyed quite a bit of it, and I also was thinking with Zan, why is it that I feel good about the RPF I’ve written and not good about some other RPF? [ELM laughs] What are those lines, and I couldn’t come up with something that I felt really—you know? I mean, like, I think to some extent it has to do with the affect—the affective experience of writing it. I can say, for me, writing it was definitely about the conceptions I have of these people and not about them as real humans. But no one can tell that! That’s author’s intent, you know? [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. Right. 

FK: You can’t tell that from a story. So it’s really sticky, and I was really appreciative of, I don’t think we came to any conclusions. [laughs] 

ELM: No. 

FK: But I was appreciative to have Zan on to think through it with. 

ELM: Yeah, I mean, that’s interesting too, because it’s like, I mean, I guess I was bringing up examples of The Dropout, or whatever, like, all these biopics that I love…is that an act of fandom? I mean, I’m always the one who’s like, “Those things aren’t fanfiction!” They aren’t. But I’d say they aren’t RPF either, also, because it’s also the kind of—yeah, I think there’s something thorny here going on about the affect, in terms of, like, yeah. I assume Christopher Nolan is really, really emotionally invested in the historical figure J. Robert Oppenheimer, right? And I’m sure he feels a lot of affection for him in this sort of, like, “This is a complicated figure I spent so much time with.” But is he in the Oppenheimer fandom?

FK: Can you imagine? [laughs] 

ELM: I mean, I literally can imagine it. I think there actually is an Oppenheimer fandom. 

FK: Wow. 

ELM: There’s a lot of young physicists that you could be writing slash about, Flourish. 

FK: Sure, sure. I believe that. I buy that. 

ELM: Yeah. 

FK: Yeah, no, I mean, I do—there’s something affective and, [sighs] it’s not just about the way that you feel about that figure. It’s also the way that you’re relating to other people’s feelings about the figure. I don’t know, it’s really complicated. [laughs] 

ELM: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, right? And then the way that people talk about these people that’s totally fictional when they don’t think they’re doing fiction, like on social media, you know? 

FK: Right. Right. 

ELM: Or, like, in gossiping or whatever, that kind of thing, so, yeah. Messy! 

FK: Messy. Good episode. [ELM laughs] Good episode, Elizabeth. All right. 

ELM: [laughing] If you do say so yourself. 

FK: All right, we should talk about how people can support the podcast, though. [laughs] 

ELM: All right! So that’s Patreon.com/Fansplaining. We recently released a new special “Tropefest” episode for patrons at $3 a month and up. So we’ve done now 10 “Tropefest” episodes. Huge range of tropes. You can listen to all of them plus 21, I believe, other special episodes. It’s a massive back catalog. I think we’ve said it before, but, you know, you can start on the first of the month, and you’d have a new episode every single day to listen to. I think that’s pretty fun, Month of Fansplaining. 

FK: Month of Fanpslaining! 

ELM: [laughs] There’s other tiers, you can get more stuff, you can get less stuff. You can get your name in the credits, you can get a tiny enamel pin, you can get our forthcoming Tiny Zine, in which Flourish will be drawing some beautiful fanart. I can’t wait to see it. Flourish, you need to do that now, like within the next week for me, OK? That’s your deadline. 

FK: If only you could see the face that I’m making. 

ELM: [laughs] It’s coming, don’t you worry. That’s Patreon.com/Fansplaining. 

FK: Absolutely, and if you don’t have money or don’t want to give money to us, then you can still support us by spreading the word about the podcast. Tell people about our transcripts, which come out at the same time as episodes, in case you don’t like or can’t listen to podcasts. And write in! This is how we make episodes like this one. Send your questions, your comments, your thoughts to fansplaining at gmail.com, or we have an ask box on our Tumblr that’s open, anon is on. We have a form on our website, fansplaining.com. You can also give us a phone call at 1-401-526-FANS and get your voice on this podcast. No one will pick up, you just leave a message, and we’ll getcha. So please do one or all of these things. 

ELM: We will getcha. 

FK: We’ll getcha. 

ELM: Also you can find us on social media, of course. Tumblr, Bluesky, Instagram…X. 

FK: [laughs] I like how you shamedly said “X.”

ELM: X. X, for now. For now. So you can find us in all those places. 

FK: All right. Well, like I said, Elizabeth, good episode. [ELM laughs] Talk to you soon. 

ELM: [laughing] OK, bye. [FK laughs] 

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