Episode 219: Tropefest Speedrun
Episode 219, “Tropefest Speedrun,” kicks off with a big announcement: as you might have guessed with Flourish a few months away from a) giving birth and b) being ordained as a priest, they are going to be leaving Fansplaining in May. Post-Flourish plans for the podcast still TBD, this episode builds off the long-running “Tropefest” series for Patrons and jets through ten fanfiction tropes and themes in an hour, including classics like time loops, identity porn, truth serum, and sex pollen.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:00:39] The full “Tropefest” list:
“Trapped Together” | “Canon-Divergent AU” | “Enemies to Lovers” | “Omegaverse” | “Found Family” | “Hurt/Comfort” | “Modern AU” | “Soulmate AU” | “Fake Relationships” | “Friends to ?” | “Arranged Marriage”
You get access to all of these (and two dozen other special episodes) at the $3/month level on Patreon or higher!
(Also please note that what you are about to hear is a “speedrun”; each one of these episodes is an hour, not six minutes, so the conversations are much more in-depth.)
[00:01:52] If you haven’t seen the extended preview of IWTV season 2, it is RIDICULOUSLY GOOD:
[00:05:51]
[00:06:28] #neverforget
[00:06:48] Elizabeth is talking about NancyBrown’s “Intersections” series, especially the first story, “Intersecting Geodesics.” (Feels a little weird to link to an AO3 version of these stories, but they are cross-posted and it is 2024, so……)
[00:10:42] Said Cherik fic is “Us” by Pangea—heed the tags and the author’s choice not to use major archive warnings. Our transcriptionist, Rachel, recommends her favorite brainwashing recovery fic, an Adventure Zone-Winter Soldier fusion called “All the Things You Prayed For” by anonymousAlchemist and marywhale.
[00:13:58] Erik isn’t even subtle about it…
[00:15:49]
(x)
[00:19:54]
[00:20:23] Please note the Wikipedia summary of Torchwood episode 1.2, which does indeed set the tone for the whole show:
The episode centres on Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) working her first case with the alien hunters Torchwood in Cardiff, when she lets loose a purple alien gas that survives on the energy of orgasms.
[00:25:56]
[00:29:56]
[00:32:53] That’s “Rhapsody in Blue” by threeturn.
[00:35:11] Elizabeth feels “Sitz!” by SlightWeasel, in which Erik gets turned into a doberman, is the platonic ideal of animal transformation fic.* SlightWeasel also wrote one of her other fics in this category, “Come By,” in which Charles is a werecorgi—and contrary to the repeated “it’s a funny trope,” this one is bittersweet and has made her cry.
Our transcriptionist, Rachel, also recommends a poignant one, “What If Nona Was Dogs,” a Locked Tomb fic by the incredibly named somarysueme. She describes it as: “soul of the earth who became Barbie who became the sweetest girl now becomes six dogs, specifically to make me weep forever.”
(*Not mentioned in this segment but remarked upon in previous episodes: being a Remus/Sirus shipper at a tender age possibly makes you see dog transformations as very romantic.)
[00:36:14] You will get no kidfic recs from Flourish or Elizabeth, but Rachel loves the trope when done well, and recs the Adventure Zone fic “Angus McDonald and the Flight of the Flying V” by anonymous_moose.
[00:41:29] The famous Girl Scout cookie fic is “The Epic Tale of John & Rodney, Two Girl Scout Cookies In Love.” Note that anthropomorfic is also a sort of pan-fandom, fanworks-oriented practice, not just a thing within individual fandoms or ships—as the Fanlore entry highlights, other great examples are personified social media platforms, or Suez Canal/Evergiven.
[00:42:40] That’s Episode 218: The Money Question 3: Books???
[00:42:53] That’s “Tea for Two Teacups” by baehj2915—sadly the link to the picture of said cups is now broken. If Elizabeth is reccing baehj2915 fic, though, she’d definitely pick “This Is Not Comedy,” a modern AU in which Erik is an ~edgy~ mutant stand-up and Charles is an A-list actor. (The set-up is from a Louis CK bit—2012 amirite—but don’t let that be a blocker, it has nothing to do with him.)
[00:45:08]
[00:46:34] For X-Files outsider POV as described, Flourish recommends “Strangers and the Strange Dead” by Kipler.
[00:52:03]
[01:07:30] Our outro music is “Arcade montage” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
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 #219, “Tropefest Speedrun!”
FK: [laughs] So as you may know, we have a series of special episodes called “Tropefest,” in which we talk about fanfiction tropes, each episode is like one trope, right? And that’s for patrons only. But, we have an announcement to make, which is why we’re doing this, and the announcement is that, as you might have known, I’m having a baby and becoming a priest. And so, I’m not going to be continuing on in the podcast.
ELM: Bye, Flourish. [laughs]
FK: Yeah, bye, Flourish. I will always be a friend of the pod!
ELM: [laughs] Oh my God!
FK: [overlapping] I’m sure, I’m sure I will be talking [laughs] at some point…
ELM: I don’t know if you get that, get that designation—
FK: Oh, really?
ELM: [overlapping] I think it’s something, something more special, like Host Emeritus or something like that.
FK: Host Emeritus, OK, that’s great, I love that. I thought you were gonna say that like, I get to be “enemy of the pod” for abandoning you or something.
ELM: Yeah… Oh my god.
FK: The point is that we’re going to be wrapping up at the end of May, because I am due in June, and it seems like a good idea [laughs] to…not try to record a podcast while you have a screaming infant? And…so, we’re only gonna have time for like, one more special episode, and—maybe two—and neither of them will be a “Tropefest”. But we still had all these “Tropefests” that we could've done.
ELM: Right. FYI, the one that we’re definitely gonna do is the House episode.
FK: Yeaaaaaah.
ELM: And if there’s time and depending on when this baby comes, possibly one for the new season of Interview With the Vampire. So…
FK: Right.
ELM: We’ll see. No promises on that one, but just, just so you know what’s maybe coming.
FK: Right, and at the other end of the episode, I’m gonna make Elizabeth talk about what she plans to do with Fansplaining, once I’m gone, but it will not, like, be disappearing off the face of this Earth, let’s be clear. [both laugh]
ELM: Yeah, that’s teasing, teasing to get you to listen to the entire thing.
FK: [laughs] Teasing!
ELM: So uh…yes. Bye, Flourish. See ya.
FK: [laughs] OK, not quite yet. We, I, there are still several episodes between now and when it is “bye, Flourish” time.
ELM: Yeah, and for the record, we have them all planned out, and we are intending to have the last one be a sort of retrospective, so…there will be some real time to say goodbye to Flourish.
FK: [laughs] OK. And also I’m not going to be dead. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. That’s true.
FK: Well I could be, I guess, you know, childbirth can go lots of ways, but you know.
ELM: [laughs, overlapping] I wasn’t gonna say it. That’s fine.
FK: [overlapping] That’s fine. [laughs]
ELM: OK. So, so yeah, stay tuned at the end, we’ll talk a little bit about what happens, especially for patrons. But for now, in the last “Tropefest” episode, which was about your favorite trope, arranged marriage.
FK: Mmm hmm.
ELM: We solicited—I don't know why, because we already knew that you were gonna be leaving the podcast [laughs]—but we did solicit, we said, “If there’s anything we missed, let us know.” I don’t know, maybe we had a…
FK: I think maybe we had a fantasy that like, maybe we would…I don’t know.
ELM: I don’t know. You never know. But like it was only a few weeks ago, so I’m not sure why. But it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. So, we said, you know, “If there’s a trope we haven’t done, let us know, what would you like to hear about,” and we got a bunch of responses, and then we thought about, like, a bunch of other things that we…you know, not just that we haven’t gotten to, but maybe didn’t think we had a full hour’s worth of opinions on.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But we certainly have…
FK: Six minutes.
ELM: …five to seven minutes of opinions on.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So. So we have ten of them, because we wanted a nice even number.
FK: Right. So it’s, it’s like speed dating tropes.
ELM: It sure is. All right. So at the end of it you can decide who gets your match or not. [FK laughs] I already know in advance which one of these, which ones get my match and which ones don’t, so.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: All right.
FK: OK.
ELM: You’re gonna be the emcee here, you tell me.
FK: All right, our first trope is: time travel and/or time loops!
ELM: This was suggested from one of our listeners. All right. Time travel, time loops, related, not the same.
FK: Right. Although they can be more or less closely related, depending on the way that the time travel is done. But yes, I agree with that.
ELM: Ehh, I don’t know, I mean I will just say this as someone who was in a Doctor Who-adjacent fandom, Torchwood, for a while, so had to, had a lot of canonical time travel.
FK: OK.
ELM: I, I guess it happened in Harry Potter, too. Time loops, to me, are very…it’s interesting how much the, kind of the shadow of Groundhog Day…
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, specifically Groundhog Day, right?
ELM: Right, which is interesting, like so in Groundhog Day, if anyone has never actually seen it, maybe, you probably have read a Groundhog Day AU, right, like… You know, Bill Murray’s character is trapped in the same day over and over again, and the—not to give anything away, because I think it’s been 100 years since that movie came out—but like, the whole point is he kind of is a shitty person in the beginning, and he gets very nihilistic in his loops for a while, and then he starts like, trying to be good. And so he breaks the loop when he has, like, one perfect day where he is…I think acting selflessly, right, that’s the whole point, it’s not just trying to be good for the sake of getting out of the loop, but actually…
FK: Right, and I feel like a lot of other time travel—the way that, the way that this was meant to be talking about time travel, I think that a lot of the kind of time travel we’re talking about here is like…for instance, the version of you from the future comes back and tells you what was gonna happen or whatever.
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah. Right. Right.
FK: And I think that that is related, because a lot of times that is sort of like, almost It’s a Wonderful Life-ish, [laughs] you know? OK, not exactly that, obviously, but like, you know what I’m saying, right? Like there’s…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: There’s one timeline, and the timeline is shitty, and then like, you find out about it and then you fix it, right? There’s a very fix-it-y thing happening in both of these, a lot of times.
ELM: Right. Whereas like, I do think if you have ever been in Doctor Who fandom, it’s hard to think about it that way, because like…he just sorta shows up places, right?
FK: [overlapping, laughs] Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Right.
ELM: [overlapping] I mean there’s like, reasons, sometimes, a distress call or whatever, but like. He sort of just gets shoved places—
FK: [overlapping] “Hey, what’s up?”
ELM: —and he’s like, “O…K…here we go,” you know, and so it’s like, I think that has actually shaped a lot of the way I feel about—I mean I love time travel, it’s one of my favorite tropes in fiction, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I really love the time travel in that world, because…
FK: Right.
ELM: Especially in Torchwood fandom, there was so much, the…I don’t know… Did you ever watch Torchwood?
FK: Yes.
ELM: OK. So—and if anyone hasn’t or doesn’t recall, Jack Harkness was meant to be a Time Agent, from the 51st century. And they don’t really explain what that means, and there’s an episode where his ex-boyfriend, played by Spike from Buffy, shows up, right, he’s also a Time Agent. And you’re like, “Uh..?” And so there’s some really great fic where you’re like, “What, what would that mean?” Right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And some of it is like, really interesting and kind of bleak worldbuilding, of the idea of like…
FK: Right.
ELM: Like one of my favorite all-time ones was Time Agents go to mass disasters and collect the bodies, and then bring them back to the 51st century, reanimate them with future medicine, and then have them populate other parts of, in the time-space continuum where there’s a population glut.
FK: Whooooa.
ELM: Isn’t that wild though?
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ELM: It’s like so, it’s so bleak, as a concept, right? But it’s also interesting. So they’re like, basically fixing bottlenecks, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: They’re like, trying to move—you know, and it’s very manipulative, and that stuff is very interesting to me, that kind of conceptual time travel and imagining if it was like, systematized like that.
FK: Yeah, yeah. There’s, there’s some of that also in, like in Star Trek, there’s an entire chunk of Star Trek that’s about the Time Wars. You know, the uh, [laughs] that’s not actually what they’re called, they’re called the…
ELM: [overlapping] You think it’s the same time—yeah, that’s, I think that’s what they’re called in Doctor Who. [laughs]
FK: I mean, but they’re basically, they’re basically wars about like, control the timeline—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —and, you know, how we invented time travel, how do you do that. But I think that, I do think that when we’re talking about fanfic tropes, a lot of times it ends up getting boiled down into the, um…you know, into the kind of fic that’s about people’s relationship.
ELM: A hundred percent.
FK: Like a very intimate fic, right? I agree with you, I’m into time travel overall, could talk about that forever, but a lot of times if we’re talking about the fic trope, we’re talking about the intimate thing. And what I like within that, mostly, is the ability to play with different characterizations, and like, knock-on effects, right?
ELM: Yeah, yeah!
FK: [overlapping] Like, both in time loops and in time travel. That, to me, is really interesting. Because isn’t that what fanfic is partially about? Is about seeing lots of different people’s interpretations of these characters, and seeing sort of the possibility space in which they exist, right?
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: And for me time travel gives you the opportunity to do that with multiple iterations.
ELM: I mean…you know, time loops certainly do, because time loops—because of the omnipresence—because the Groundhog Day, you know, arc is so…right, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: So it’s like, the same, the same events from kind of shifting levers every single day, it’s a little bit like, it’s one of those tropes that’s reflective of fanfiction as a whole, this kind of idea of, “Oh, we all know the canonical event, and so what would have to happen for this person to get out of it,” right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Which is like, there’s a pleasure in that too, to see like, “Well we know what happens, can you fix this?” You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: I don’t know. It’s interesting.
FK: All right! That’s all the time we have for time travel and time loops, [both laugh] so let’s go on to the next one.
ELM: Next!
FK: Brainwashing and/or mind control.
ELM: OK, you put this one on the list, you tell me why. It’s because you love “Manacled.”
FK: [overlapping] OK, I—All right.
ELM: I know why.
FK: I wouldn’t say that I love “Manacled,” I would say that I read “Manacled” and I had critiques of “Manacled,” and I also saw things that were interesting in it.
ELM: You read it in like, four days, so it’s like 100,000 words a day. [laughs]
FK: [overlapping] I was sick. Look, you, you know how I consume media when I’m sick, like, you know how I consumed all of House. [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] Like a vacuum. [laughs]
FK: Yeah, it’s not, it’s, it’s a sickness, and it’s not healthy, and I’m aware of that. Anyway. No, so the thing that is interesting to me about this is, spoiler alert, “Manacled” does involve, like, basically a kind of brainwashing or mental altered state, for one of the characters for a chunk of the time. And what was interesting to me about that is—and I think more broadly about brainwashing and mind control fics—is that in my experience, a lot of them involves one character has been brainwashed or mind controlled, and the other is helping them recover from it?
ELM: Right.
FK: So there is a real tension between who they were before, who they are now…
ELM: Mmm hmm, mmm hmm.
FK: …and how you go between them. And I think it’s one of the hardest things to do well in fiction in general, but fanfiction sort of gives you an advantage in doing it, because at least we have some idea of who this person was before. Right?
ELM: Sure. Yeah.
FK: So I find that interesting, because it’s a trope that, to me, fanfic is like, perfectly placed to be able to address, and I’ve read a bunch of fanfic that’s bad about this. [ELM laughs] So I’m like, this is really hard, this illustrates to me how incredibly hard it is to paint a convincing psychological picture of a character with these kinds of things going on.
ELM: There is a Cherik fic that I really love around this, it is very fucked up and sad. Do you wanna read it?
FK: Yes! Obviously I do.
ELM: I’ll put it in the show notes and I’ll send it to you.
FK: And, by the way, if people have like, great brainwashing or mind-control fic, I am up for reading it, seriously people, send it to me.
ELM: Yeah. I mean I think also this overlaps, and that one does, with like, the effects of—it’s torture, right, it’s not just the brainwashing element.
FK: Right.
ELM: It’s like, something has been damaged. And it’s interesting, this is not on the list, but—because I have mixed feelings about it too—but you know, there is a connection to amnesia fic, I think, right?
FK: Yes, I agree.
ELM: And this idea that like…maybe it’s within a ship, and with a brainwashing thing, maybe the character knows what the other character, what the brainwashed character was like before, but maybe they don’t and we are the only ones who know, right? And so there’s an irony there.
FK: Right. Yep.
ELM: So it’s like, sometimes that, and then it’s sometimes both we and the non-brainwashed or not amnesiac character knows, we share that knowledge and that kind of sadness with them, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I think there’s something really interesting about this kind of, uh…the one where the other, the character who’s not mind-altered doesn’t know what they were like before, right?
FK: Yes, I agree.
ELM: Like, that’s, that’s an interesting fanfiction-y tension, I think.
FK: I think it is too. It also raises interesting questions about sort of consent—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Especially when a person knows who they were before, but like, also in other cases…it’s one of those areas where I feel like the, the way that we talk about consent is difficult to pin down entirely. You know?
ELM: Yeah… [laughs]
FK: And I find that…that just, that’s a reality of life, right, like there is, there is a…situations are nuanced and weird. And like, [laughs] you know? So I find that interesting, because I was thinking about like, well, are these often dubcon? And I was like, I don’t know. I guess I would probably say maybe, but also maybe not. They’re in a weird relationship to some of the more sort of…dubcon-y tropes, right?
ELM: Well, I mean, I feel like it depends on the int— [laughs] Remember when I told you about that Omegaverse Cherik Overboard AU where I learned the plot of Overboard via this fic, right?
FK: [overlapping] Yes. Yes I do.
ELM: [overlapping] And he’s, he has amnesia, and Erik tells him he’s his husband or whatever. Which I guess is what happens in Overboard too, right, you know, so it’s like…is the character doing it maliciously?
FK: Right.
ELM: You know, I feel like this, within the broader world of fanfiction dubcon, there’s an element of…“Well, he didn’t really mean it,” you know? [FK laughs] “And I want the ship to get together at the end,” right?
FK: Right.
ELM: But you know, I mean there’s stories like that that kinda make you look at it and be like, “Oh, am I rooting for this guy?” You know? He lied and said they were actually married, or…
FK: Right.
ELM: I, that’s something in this story where I’ve read that, I’ve certainly read other amnesia stories where they definitely take advantage of it.
FK: Right. Yeah. And I will say that…what I will say now, this is the thing that I will say about “Manacled,” and the reason that I was thinking about this, is that it…the way that it thinks about sort of consent is very interesting. It is too long, I have many critiques of it in those regards, but the ideas within it about sort of questions of consent and mental states and so forth are genuinely interesting. So there you go, I said something nice about “Manacled.” And we’re done with brainwashing and mind control.
ELM: [overlapping] Wow! Wow, we didn’t even get to talk about how half of my ship is a telepath, [FK laughs] who literally mind-controls in sexy situations.
FK: OK but, but the next one is slightly, uh, I bet that you’ll be able to bring in telepathy for this one, [ELM laughs] this next one is truth serum—
ELM: Oh yeah.
FK: —or in vino veritas, which is different but not unrelated, overall let’s call it dubcon confessions, right, where people are like, “Here’s the truth about how I feel about you, oh no.” [laughs]
ELM: Right, so my absolute favorite version of this, which if anyone has ever had a fever, [FK laughs] you’ll know, that you’re not sitting there making cogent confessions to people.
FK: No.
ELM: If you’re saying anything at all…it’s not a romantic moment.
FK: No. Not at all.
ELM: [laughing] Every time I see a fever scene, it’s just like, “That’s not it.” You know who has real…
FK: [overlapping] “Have you, have you had a fever?” Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, real fever scenes, that’s on House, M.D. Where they’re like, sweating, and their eyes are all over the place, and they’re like, “Get a cold blanket! Get some ice!” You know? That’s what fevers are like, right? You know?
FK: Right. Right. I do.
ELM: In vino veritas…translates to…wine…
FK: [overlapping] In wine, truth!
ELM: …wine truth.
FK: In wine, there is truth. As in, you get drunk and then you tell the truth about whatever you’re actually thinking. Which, maybe. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I mean I slightly…I understand why you put these together, I do think there is obviously a difference between being hit with a truth serum and getting drunk.
FK: Although sometimes people who maybe have never been drunk think that they’re similar, but we’ll move on from that misunderstanding.
ELM: [overlapping] It’s true. And also there’s a great deal of fanfiction from people who clearly have also never been drunk, and…
FK: That’s right.
ELM: …don’t understand how drinking works. But!
FK: I recommend that if you’re going to write such a fic, that you go get drunk just once to figure it out. [ELM laughs] Be careful, but do it. You know? Like, lived experience, friends.
ELM: [laughing] I’m sorry, that made me think of, you know that thing that Nancy Pelosi said about TikTok?
FK: No.
ELM: Where she was like, “We’re gonna make it TikTok, tic-tac-toe,” [laughs] she kept saying that, and this tweet I saw was, “This is the kind of thing where you say it out loud at the bar and then you realize you are drunk.” [both laugh] And I was like, this is perfect. Perfect description.
FK: [overlapping, laughing] That’s so true. And that is, and that is extremely accurate of that moment where you realize, “Oh, that was a third martini that I just drank, uh-oh.” [both laugh]
ELM: Yeah. If anyone hasn’t been drunk before, at least for me and apparently for you, and Nancy Pelosi, there’s a moment—there’s a period where you are aware, but it kinda sneaks up on you, you're like, “...oh.”
FK: Yeah, you sort of think that you’re just like, being really cool and voluble [ELM laughs] and like, having a fun time, and then you say something…usually, like, not embarrassing in the sense of admitting a truth, but usually in the sense of like, stumbling over your words and you go, “Uh-oh, I’m drunk.” [ELM laughs] And then you have a choice before you, which is do you commit to the bit? [laughs] Or do you like, stop?
ELM: No, you commit. You keep goin’.
FK: Yeah. OK. Um…anyway, I think these are interesting, because it is sort of like…the idea of dubcon confession…yeah! It’s not really—I mean, dubcon’s a strong way of putting it. But it’s pulling something out that someone was not ready to tell them.
ELM: Yeah, well, I mean people certainly are tagging fic now, these days, that is alcohol—like, if they are drunk, and there’s sex…
FK: [overlapping] Sure. Right. Of course.
ELM: I see people tagging that dubcon all the time.
FK: Which is, depending, yeah, I mean sometimes I think that’s fair, yeah.
ELM: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s the obvious conclusion of the kind of…you know, real-world frameworks of like, if you are not sober you cannot consent, kind of—
FK: Right, yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: [overlapping] You know, that is definitely drilled into younger people. So. Sure. But you know, two adults, that both get drunk on their own terms, like…that’s pretty normal. You know?
FK: Or take truth serum, I guess. [laughs]
ELM: That’s pretty, that’s pretty normal. [FK laughs] You know, I will say, as a person who’s written a ship for a long time and one half is a telepath…
FK: Uh huh…
ELM: I’m not gonna say this, that this cluster of tropes feels very distant to me now.
FK: Mmm hmm.
ELM: But it definitely feels different.
FK: Sure.
ELM: I mean it’s not to say that no other character, including the other half of the ship can’t get drunk, or whatever, but like…it definitely takes away some of the power.
FK: Right. [laughs]
ELM: [laughing] When the other person can just see the truth the whole time, right, and obviously I’ve talked, I’ve mentioned many times about how the normal patterns of fanfiction, in particular, get kind of ruptured when one half of the ship can see the truth.
FK: Right. I mean especially because, like, so much fanfic is like…they’re pining, and they’re totally stubborn, and they’re never gonna tell each other, and as a writer you’re in a corner, and it’s like, how do we fix this?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know, we need something external to force, you know, the detente to be over.
ELM: Well, or, not even, it could be a complicating factor, too. I mean this isn’t any of the things that were listed here, but like…I remember a few very memorable fics back in the day in Harry Potter fandom, where some spell was cast, and then they had telepathy for each other. I don’t know if you had these in your ship, but…
FK: Yes.
ELM: You know, and so it’s like a kind of…maybe it’s just because…I think part of it, too, is with some of this stuff, I mean obviously the getting drunk element could happen with any ship, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: But like, [laughs] a truth serum, or a telepathy spell…it is probably more frequently showing up in fanfiction than in romance overall, because they’re all living in, these characters are living in worlds in which that’s not a bananas thing, right, a truth serum, you know what I mean?
FK: Right. Right. Right.
ELM: And so it’s interesting how fandom seems to love that kind of thing, and play with it so much, you know what I mean? Like…
FK: Right, well this is, so we’re kind of to the end of our time with this, and it, and I have a perfect segue, because…
ELM: All right.
FK: I actually just last night watched an episode of television, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, that was Picard and Dr. Crusher having a basically truth serum telepathy situation, and admitting their feelings for each other. And they don’t get together, because it’s network TV and they never can. But! That’s a great pivot to our next trope. Also a Star Trek thing. [ELM laughs] Sex pollen! [laughs]
ELM: Aren’t they all Star Trek things, when you get right down to it?
FK: [overlapping] Yeah but Star Trek does it, Star Trek mostly does it on screen, which most shows don’t. But anyway, sex pollen. Far beyond Star Trek these days. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I mean sex—all right, so sex pollen, as an overall arch—so, in the original episode of Star Trek where this happens, is it literally pollen?
FK: [overlapping] It’s literal pollen, yes.
ELM: So it’s like, coming from flowers.
FK: [overlapping] It is literally pollen. Yes, they go to a planet, and there’s like, pollen coming from flowers, and it makes everyone…I mean, they aren’t explicitly having sex because it’s, you know, the 1960s and it’s network TV, but like, yes. Everyone’s hookin’ up.
ELM: Right. This broader construction was very popular in Torchwood fandom, as you can imagine. [FK laughs] Um, it was rarely pollen though, it was like, often an alien, like a horny alien device.
FK: Sure.
ELM: Maybe even an alien—I think there was actually an episode where there was an alien who’s makin’ everyone horny, right, very classic. You know. And as I’ve obviously encountered this in fic, especially in older fic, this is one of those dubcon ones where it’s letting people do the thing that they secretly wanted to do, right?
FK: Yep. Absolutely. And there’s something important about this trope, too, that it’s being done on sort of an ensemble level, as opposed to on a like, there are just the two people and they’re forced to get it on. Right? Which is still, I mean it’s—
ELM: [overlapping] I mean that, that one happens, too.
FK: [overlapping] It does happen too, but I, I just feel like there’s a difference.
ELM: [overlapping] Aliens made them do it, Flourish.
FK: No no no, aliens—believe me, I know about aliens made them do it, as a person in X-Files fandom, [ELM laughs] let me tell you, there’s more aliens made them do it in that…
ELM: They put them in an observation room, just the two of them, and they were like…
FK: [overlapping] Exactly. Exactly. All right!
ELM: [overlapping] They then shot in some kind of, like, gas. Like, horny gas.
FK: This literally—do you know how many times I’ve read this story? [ELM laughs] But. My point being though, that I think that when I hear the term sex pollen, overall I think of it much more in sort of an ensemble cast way?
ELM: Me too.
FK: Which is interesting to me, because that’s like, I think that that is a more…it’s not that that kind of fanfiction doesn’t get written now at all, because it does. But I feel like fandom has gone so far in the two-person ship direction—maybe sometimes more than two, but like, really a ship-focused direction?
ELM: [overlapping] Ship, yeah.
FK: That there’s less, there’s less of that sort of ensemble, “Everyone hooks up with somebody else and they all have a different thing, and some of them it’s serious, and some of them it’s funny,” and you know, all that.
ELM: I think overall—and I feel like we’ve talked about this a little bit, in some past “Tropefest” episodes—sex pollen is one that I think is extremely out of fashion now. I’m not saying it doesn’t get written at all.
FK: Definitely, I agree.
ELM: Which is very interesting, because…obviously I understand why. Right? But the place that it’s coming from, historically…I don’t know, it’s not like people actually want people to be forced to have sex with each other, you know, like, under a, from a foreign substance, right? You know…?
FK: No, it’s like, it’s a comedy trope, kinda, you know?
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah, it’s a, it’s a…
FK: Comedy in the sense of like…
ELM: But it’s, like, a fantasy too, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And it is interesting… I mean obviously there’s some people writing all sorts of stuff. But it’s like, I feel like often in the, “Oh, I love to write fucked up stuff” or whatever, [FK laughs] this falls in a weird middle ground, because it’s like, when people say that I’m like, I assume you mean rape and murder. You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And deliberately so, not dubcon rape, but like, noncon.
FK: Right, yeah.
ELM: And then this kinda falls into like a, “Oh, God…” You know? And I imagine, from what I’ve seen extensively, and also IRL known from younger people, them being, like, just squicked by it. Right?
FK: Mmm hmm. Totally. Yeah, not, not seeing it as something that is potentially lighthearted, seeing it as like, [makes a repulsed noise].
ELM: Right, right. Which is interesting, because it’s like…did the desire…this was such a stalwart of old-school fandom, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Like, was that just purely about those generations of people? Including ours, right, when we were younger.
FK: Right.
ELM: And are those people less interested in this trope now? And again, you’re right, I think it’s still being written. But like…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Not, I think of it as such a cornerstone old-school trope.
FK: Yeah, totally. All right, well, I don’t think we’re gonna have an answer to that unless Toast goes and finds this out for us. [ELM laughs] But we need to move on to the next one, which is kind of related, which is talking about poly ships and OT3s. You know, I did have to correct myself moments ago, saying…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know, “Pairings! Wait, no, no, what I really mean is ships.” [laughs]
ELM: Right. So this was a suggestion from one of our listeners, which I think we both thought we should include. I wouldn’t call this a trope, I think we’re pushing it a little bit here.
FK: Yeah, I agree with that.
ELM: You know, I’m not calling a slash ship a trope, right, even though there’s like…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: …patterns of slash or whatever. But it certainly is a big element of fanfiction, so that’s why we both felt like it should be on this list.
FK: Yeah, and I think it’s become a lot more common, also, recently. And I think that there are people who are specifically out there looking for OT3s, right? Like, that’s absolutely a thing.
ELM: You just namechecked Toast, we know Toast is lookin’ for OT3s.
FK: Right, exactly! So I think that’s interesting. And kinda cool, and it makes me wonder…I have, I have written and read threesome fics, but I don’t know whether I’ve read enough of them to know if there’s like, particular themes within that. You know what I mean? Like, not, a real trope, would you say there’s that, in that.
ELM: Yeah. You know it’s interesting, makes me think of our ace conversations, our trans conversations, there’s kind of two ways at this. There’s the one of like, either it’s textually there or subtextually there and I’m kinda pulling out the threads, right?
FK: Mmm hmm.
ELM: Or the, I’m x and I wanna see [FK laughs] the characters I like doin’ x, right? You know?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: Which you see in all those things. I have been in multiple fandoms where there was either canonical threesome action, three-way relationships, or subtextual, the latter being Torchwood, where you know…
FK: Right.
ELM: Beyond the horny alien devices, right… [laughs]
FK: It’s just kinda Torchwood, they’re just all… [laughs]
ELM: Just kinda, it’s just kinda there, right? And I’ve read some really really wonderful poly fic in that fandom.
FK: Mmm hmm.
ELM: That felt like it was written from a place of experience, too, which is interesting.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But then in Black Sails, as anyone who’s seen Black Sails knows, there’s multiple canonical three-way relationships, right?
FK: [overlapping] Right.
ELM: And the configurations of…the one I like, were left ambiguous. I don’t dislike Jack and Anne and Max, but like…
FK: Right.
ELM: I like the Hamiltons and, and…James.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: [laughs] I’m talking about him like he’s my friend. Hamiltons and James, right, and so there was a lot of interesting fic that was trying to explore like, what would that look like? You know? But part of that is also, it’s written, it’s set 300 years ago, right, and so there are all of these contextual factors. And so for me, those work because it’s either in the text or it just feels like it’s subtextually there in the characterization.
FK: Right.
ELM: That, like, obviously I wanna read a bit of how it came about, you know, I’m not here to watch them just…just to be dropped in and be like, “Oh of course, the three of them are together right now.” You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Like, I need a little—but that’s how I feel about two people ships too, it’s like, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I like a little explanation about how this happened, right? [laughs]
FK: Totally. I will say that for me, I think that my preferred OT3 configuration is the “¿Por qué no los dos?” situation, where it’s like, you know, there’s two big ships, with one person…
ELM: [overlapping] Oh, you mean the, the love, the solution to the love triangle is to…connect the legs. Yeah. Sure.
FK: [overlapping] The love triangle, and the solution of the love triangle is just for all of them to get together, right? Like let’s just do that. That’s my personal favorite form of this, because a lot of times it’s like, you all are just being total idiots. [laughs] And you know. That’s charming. But yeah, I think that it is gonna be interesting over the course of, you know, the rest of our lifetimes, to see how some of this stuff…
ELM: [overlapping] Our lifetimes?
FK: Our whole lifetimes! To see how some of this stuff changes, right? As, I do think that polyamory is becoming…it’s still a small proportion of the population, a very small proportion, but it is definitely becoming more and more socially acceptable. I mean like, look, there are people in my church who are, like, studying this question about polyamory and how the church can deal with that, which I never thought I would ever hear any church ever doing.
ELM: In your, what are, what are they, what do you mean to deal with it? What do they need to be able to do? Just how to talk about it?
FK: Well, how to—how to talk about it, whether it should be something that people are like, talking about, church marriage, related to whether there’s some other kind of covenant that people could do…
ELM: Interesting.
FK: In the meantime, how you can acknowledge people who are poly in your church community and not make them feel like freaks, and like, you know, how do you do that—I mean genuinely, there’s a lot of questions with some of that stuff, right? And the fact that that conversation is even happening at all, as opposed to it just being like, “That’s something that we would never talk about or acknowledge, it’s not possible to even consider,” that to me shows that there is movement.
ELM: Sure.
FK: So I’m interested to see how that’s gonna change over time.
ELM: I mean, but also take a more historical angle, we were just referencing relationships from 300 years ago or whatever, but like…two person romantic, nuclear family, husband and wife situation is like, not an old concept, you know?
FK: [overlapping] Right! No, right.
ELM: And also not a global concept.
FK: Yep. Not at all.
ELM: And like, currently. So it’s like…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think there’s a lot of different configurations. It’s just, it is interesting to see…the poly people I know and the lives they lead in the world, and what you see reflected in fandom. And sometimes there’s a disconnect there—obviously I don’t know the author who’s writing this, but like…you know, I’m not a, I’ve never been in a poly relationship, would I know how to write that? I don’t know, I’d probably ask people for their advice, right?
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: But it is interesting to read the stuff where it does feel like it’s coming from a place of experience. Which, you know, I’m not saying that any fanfiction needs to do this, obviously you have a lot of women writing slash about men, so, it is what it is.
FK: Sure. Fine. Yeah.
ELM: You know what I mean.
FK: OK. All right. Time is up on that one, and we have to go to something that nobody has any experience of, and you cannot possibly write this out of experience. That’s our next trope, which is…body swap.
ELM: You don’t know that I don’t have experience with that.
FK: Oh, come on.
ELM: You don’t know, you don’t know. Well, there was one time when I found this device…
FK: Uh huh.
ELM: I was walking— [laughs] I’m sorry, I love body swap. This is always—
FK: Me too!
ELM: Ok good. [laughs] This has always been one of my favorites.
FK: It’s a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
ELM: Yeah, and it’s funny too, because it’s not like…there’s something about it, it’s one of my favorite fanfiction tropes. It is not something I care about—mm, that’s not true. I did enjoy it, like, the Buffy episodes, remember?
FK: Sure. Yeah.
ELM: Right? Also on the TV show, I’m assuming there’ve been Mulder and Scully body swapping, right, did they swap bodies at any point?
FK: I don’t think that they do in canon. But there’s definitely ones in fanon. [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] Oh yeah, I could see that. Um…it’s very funny on a show, like on the Buffy, those Buffy episodes…
FK: [overlapping] No, no, now, there is body swap where Mulder body swaps with a Man in Black. Not with Scully.
ELM: [overlapping] Right, but maybe they didn’t want to have to canonically confront the idea of, um…
FK: [overlapping] Of, yes, Mulder being…
ELM: [overlapping] Of sex changes.
FK: Yes. They did not. That is exactly what happened. Now, I will say that the body swap episode where Mulder swaps bodies with a Man in Black, are some of the funniest ones, and very shippy. [ELM laughs] Because the guy he body swaps with just wants to get with Scully, and Scully spends the entire time getting progressively more freaked out by this. [both laugh]
ELM: That’s really funny.
FK: But anyway.
ELM: No, I find them, they’re funny on TV when they do happen, I’m saying the Buffy one because I remember really enjoying it for this, this specific, like…acting.
FK: Yes.
ELM: Like, to watch the actors have to do it, that’s very enjoyable, right?
FK: [overlapping] Yes. Oh yeah. And there’s an incredible sex change body swap one in Star Trek, which some people loathe and I love, [ELM laughs] which is a piece of acting genius, actually. So. Yeah. The original Trek.
ELM: We’ll have to put that one in the show notes, for anyone who wants to check this out.
FK: “Turnabout Intruder.” If you have gender feelings, watch out, you’re going to be triggered. [ELM laughs] But I love it.
ELM: But yeah, I think that, you know, when I think about things that I read early on, I’m sure these ones appealed to you a lot too, the ones where people of different sexes are swapping—
FK: Yes, Yup.
ELM: —is interesting. You know, like, the genderbending angle of it, and the temporary genderbending too, like…
FK: Right, and there’s, when they’re swapping and it’s the two parts of a het ship, there’s a lot of interesting stuff that happens in there. With genderbending, and with just the sexiness of what that is.
ELM: Right, well, the sexiness of it extends to all kinds of ships, here’s what I’m gonna tell you, because…
FK: [overlapping] Yeah yeah yeah, absolutely, I’m just saying like, I think that in the het thing there’s the genderbending thing makes it particularly piquant in a certain way.
ELM: You would say that, as a…
FK: [laughing] Yeah, it is, that is clearly…
ELM: [overlapping] You, specifically would say that.
FK: [overlapping] …me specifically, something I’m into. [ELM laughs]
ELM: But yeah, obviously like, there’s the classic, you know, especially—I think the trope especially works in a pre-getting-together situation.
FK: Yes. Yes, for sure.
ELM: And it lets the, you know, the pining people, like… “Oh no, I can…should I jerk off in his body?” or whatever, you know? [laughs]
FK: [overlapping] Right, exactly. Exactly. Post-getting together, that is less of a concern. Also there’s just less mystery, like, you know…sorry to Nick, I’m sure it would be interesting to body swap with him for like, a few hours, but then I would be like, OK, we’re done.
ELM: [laughs] Sorry to Nick…
FK: Like, OK. I’m finished with this. I’m ready to go back to my own body now, bye. [laughs]
ELM: That’s so funny. I think, I mean, it’s a very, it’s a very embodied trope, right, you know, it lets you really…describe the characters, right?
FK: Yes.
ELM: Because they’re, you’re, they’re having all these firsthand observations of like, “Oh, this feels different.”
FK: [overlapping] And their experience from within, yeah.
ELM: Yeah. I mean, I…there’s an X-Men one I actually really like, where the, the ship didn’t—like, Charles and Erik didn’t swap bodies, it’s Charles and Raven. And so…[laughs] It’s mostly just, Raven is a shapeshifter, and so they’re—
FK: She’s like, “All right.” [laughs]
ELM: They’re in the background, Charles and Erik, and now Charles is a shapeshifter, and all they’re doing is just using it to do sex things, right, and she’s like…
FK: And Raven is just like, annoyed that she can’t shapeshift right now.
ELM: [overlapping, laughing] I think she’s—yeah, yeah.
FK: [overlapping] It’s just like, “I don’t care about being in a different body, that’s fine and normal for me, [ELM laughs] but this is so boring.”
ELM: Well no, it was funny, with the power situation too because it’s like, a more heightened version of losing your…your body, right, because you’re losing something bigger than that, right?
FK: Right. Yeah yeah yeah, for sure.
ELM: “I miss the ability to do x,” not just “I miss my dick” or whatever. “I miss how long my arms are.” [both laugh] I don’t know, trying to think of things people would miss.
FK: That’s a pull quote for this episode. [both laugh]
ELM: “I miss how long my arms are.” [laughs]
FK: Yeah, yeah, sure, absolutely.
ELM: No, but I, I also, I love the…I remember even when I was an early teenager, I love stories where people wake up and they’re like, “What?!” You know?
FK: Yes.
ELM: That’s so enjoyable, and it’s so fun in fanfiction, and…
FK: It is.
ELM: I don’t know, like, more fun in fanfiction to me than usually—I mean obviously there’s plenty of fun episodes like this on shows like Buffy, but like…
FK: Right, but you can’t really get to the depth that you can get in fanfiction.
ELM: Yeah! Absolutely. So…
FK: All right. OK. Onward, then. We agree that body swap is an A+ trope.
ELM: Top-tier trope.
FK: Top-tier trope! OK. And that’s one of the reasons why it might not have made a good entire-length episode, because we would’ve just spent the entire time being like, “Love it! Love it, I love it!”
ELM: Describing body parts that you could miss or suddenly have. [laughs]
FK: [laughs] Exactly. OK. All right. The next trope in our speed dating is, it’s sort of two together, right, it’s like…de-aging and animal transformation. Transforming into something that’s like…usually kinda helpless, that the other half of the ship has to take care of?
ELM: Right. OK. Uh…so we did, we did group these two together, but I have wildly divergent feelings.
FK: Because you love animal transformation, which I don’t understand at all.
ELM: What is not to love? It’s so funny.
FK: I just don’t get it. I don’t think I’ve ever read or desired to read an animal trans—well, I’ve read them, but like, I’ve never looked at an animal transformation fic and been like, “Yeah! Let’s read this.”
ELM: Flourish, I’m gonna send you two of my faves from my current ship.
FK: I think you’ve already sent me them, and they were fine, I just would never have clicked on them.
ELM: No. Yeah, but they weren’t just fine, like, the pleasure of those stories…there’s two that I really love by the same author, that involve each one of them becoming a dog. And especially the one that’s from the perspective of Erik as a dog. [FK laughs] The great pleasure of it is—
FK: It is funny.
ELM: Is, like, the dog element. Where he’s like, “Oh no, I’m a dog.” Right? He starts doing things, and he’s like, “Aw, I’m a dog.” Which I actually, from the de-aging one, I’ve never read it from the perspective of a child.
FK: Me neither, I’ve never read that. Well…
ELM: So like, there’s a—there’s a pleasure in being inside the dog’s head. Or like, it being a, being a lucid, you know, a sentient dog, right, still having that human brain in there.
FK: Right. I think that I’ve maybe read de-aging with a child’s perspective, but it was very, um… I didn’t enjoy it.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know? Because it was like, it’s really hard to write from a child’s perspective anyway.
ELM: Oh my God, don’t get started. We didn’t put kidfic on this list, but uh…I have some feelings. About it.
FK: Yeah, it’s really, that’s really hard. I mean that not in a like, “everyone sucks” way, but in a, it is genuinely challenging and I don’t think that it’s…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: It’s just hard to find something that’s like that.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: So, with de-aging I find it interesting—I mean, with animal too, because in both cases it’s like…I understand the idea of having somebody become, like, dependent on you, or having to take care of this like, kind of unruly dog, having that be a metaphor, whatever. But then it’s like, also somebody that you’re sexually attracted to? And I struggle with that a little bit. [laughs] You know?
ELM: Well, OK. In every single animal transformation fic I’ve read—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And people can correct me if I’m wrong—there’s zero sexual, it’s like, “Oh my God, you’re a dog now,” right?
FK: No no, and I think that’s true with de-aging too, usually, it’s like, “You’re a child and now…”
ELM: De-aging I always find sits in this kind of weird space, and I don’t wanna be like…you know, like “Whoa, do you know that that character was once a—are you lewding a minor?” I don’t wanna sound like a, like someone who leaves an anonymous ask on Tumblr, right, you know, like…
FK: Right.
ELM: With those exact words, right, like I saw one the other day that people have probably seen on their dash because it was going around a lot, where someone was upset because the character—they were writing about a twenty-something character, and they were like, “Yeah, but you mention that the character was once a child.” [both laugh] And it was like…
FK: No, it’s not that, it’s that it seems weird to me…I’ve never read a fic in which the character who wasn’t de-aged, like, continued to feel sexual feelings toward the child version, because that is gross. [ELM laughs] You know? Like, people aren’t writing that.
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah, I haven’t read that either.
FK: People aren’t writing that. And I don’t know why this feels different to me than…I mean, it feels adjacent, to me, to stories in which, like, one character is an adult and the other one is a child, and they are not in a sexual relationship, and then like, many years later they get together. Which, to be clear, I don’t think that that is always—I don’t think that’s always grooming, I don’t think that’s always, like, horrifying.
ELM: [laughs] As a, as a Snape/Hermione shipper in your youth, it would be very hypocritical if you were to get mad about that.
FK: No, well, you know what I mean about that, I mean like a little child.
ELM: [cackles] OK.
FK: I don’t, I don’t think that like, just because you met somebody when they were six and you were eighteen—
ELM: Oh, yeah, yeah.
FK: And then like, you know, fifteen years later you got together, I don’t see that as a problem. And in fact you may look back on it and be like, “Oh, wasn’t that funny, that you were just this weird little kid running around, and now we know each other in a totally different way?” That’s fine. And I think that that’s what de-aging is sort of trying—like, sometimes tapping into, some of those ideas. But it still feels weird to me, and I just can’t, I can’t get behind it. Not for me. For other people, fine.
ELM: No, it’s interesting, it’s…I also don’t, I mean it’s, I would like to interrogate why I find animal transformation stories so charming and fun, and de-aging ones I’m like, ugh.
FK: [laughing] I also, I also want to know this, because it doesn’t make sense to me totally.
ELM: Animals are fun, and babies—sorry, no offense, Flourish—not that fun.
FK: No, that’s OK, babies, babies are, I am 100% sure less fun than animals.
ELM: Um…yeah, you’ve, you’ve had dogs, you know.
FK: Yes. I do know. I like dogs.
ELM: Yeah, I don’t know. I often feel like de-aging is kind of an opportunity for people—some people—to write kidfic, when they don’t wanna involve the characters acquiring a child or creating one, right, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And this isn’t about kidfic, but I find so much kidfic bad. [laughing] Just like…
FK: Sure.
ELM: Just like, the most generic writing, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I don’t know what, it’s like writers who are otherwise great, the second a child is involved it’s like…I don’t know what, you know? It wouldn’t even fly on children’s television, because it just isn’t compelling, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And just the like, presence of a child is meant to be cute, whereas like…the presence of an animal is funny. Erik as a Doberman? That’s funny. You know?
FK: All right, I think you should keep interrogating this. I also, I agree with you—
ELM: [overlapping] I will never not find that funny.
FK: I agree with you, but I don’t know. OK. We should move on though, because we’re at the end of our time for this, and the next one is one I know that you’re passionate about, which is—well, maybe not passionate, but I know that you like sometimes—which is anthropomorfic.
ELM: What? I’m not passionate about this! [both laugh]
FK: Are you not at all? For some reason I thought you were passionate about anthropomorfic.
ELM: [overlapping, laughing] No!
FK: Amazing. Well OK, to me, to me, there are two kinds of anthropomorfic, and we have to be clear on whether we’re talking about them both or one of them.
ELM: [still laughing] Are you passionate about this topic?
FK: No. Well, kind of. More than I thought I was. A version—
ELM: [laughs, overlapping] All right, define anthropomorfic for us, if anyone doesn’t know what that means.
FK: OK, well that’s what I’m saying.
ELM: OK.
FK: So, so, the first version of this is a version where you have like, your ship, and they are an inanimate object and you tell the story as though they were that. So there was like, one I remember in the past with Girl Scout cookies, you were telling me about one with teacups, right, like…OK. Then the other version of anthropomorfic is when you anthropomorphize an object in the canon.
ELM: Right.
FK: So like, you anthropomorphize, I don’t know…
ELM: The TARDIS is a famous one.
FK: The TARDIS, right. Or…
ELM: Well, the show anthropomorphizes the TARDIS, also.
FK: Right, but like—right, like—there’s shows that do this, but in the fic, the story is told from the perspective of the TARDIS, right?
ELM: Right, exactly, yeah.
FK: Or, or from the perspective of Sherlock Holmes’ hat, or whatever.
ELM: Yes.
FK: So those are the sort of two different kinds of anthropomorfic that we’re talking about here.
ELM: Yeah. I mean, these, to me, feel very much like if you were to—like with a fan studies hat on, or if I was like, explaining fanfiction to people—it feels, honestly, like the antidote—I’m not super into any, I don’t hate them or dislike them like I dislike de-aging, for example—but this feels like the antidote to what we were describing last episode about everyone creating things that can be easily turned into bestselling BookTok hits.
FK: That is very true, [ELM laughs] these are not going to be turned into bestselling BookTok hits.
ELM: Right? And they’re so…they’re so fandomy, right, you know, like what if they were…what if they were teacups? Right?
FK: Right.
ELM: I was telling you about the teacup one ‘cause I read it recently, because I’m rereading someone’s back catalog, and yeah, they’re teacups. Right? And…it’s, it’s charming.
FK: Right! I got nothing against it.
ELM: Yeah, like…partly charming to imagine what the world would look like if you were a teacup, right, and like, gently flirting with another teacup. [laughs] Um…you know, or yeah, what does the character look like from the perspective of…yeah, the hat, or the chair, or the police box or whatever, right? That is so fandomy to me, and sometimes it’s… I don’t know, it does feel, in a way, kind of…I don’t wanna be too highfalutin’ but like, literary, almost? You know?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: There’s an element of intellectual exercise to it, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, I do know what you mean. I agree with you that that is one of the more… When people write anthropomorfic, either of the types, it’s a story that’s like very conscious of the fact that it is a story. You know what I mean?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: That it is an act of writing, and there’s transformation that’s happening. I do think that, like, sometimes they’re very silly, like the Girl Scout cookie one. And like, who cares? That’s still charming, right?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: That’s another thing that I think this is an antidote for, is the idea that like…you know, I think that sometimes it can be easy to get up on the sort of high horse of like…fanfiction is always important, and it’s dealing with big topics, and this and that and the other, and sometimes fanfiction is just dealing with silliness. And that’s all right.
ELM: Yeah. Yeah.
FK: We can love that.
ELM: It’s funny too, because it’s like, it makes me think of um…well, when Allegra was on recently talking about the…she was paraphrasing some quote that was like, “Oh, I just look at Harry Styles and it’s like I’m on drugs” or whatever. It does make me—if you’re like, deep in the ship mines somewhere, right, especially, like—I don’t find this as much now, but if I’m looking at older, especially on Livejournal and stuff—the things that people will be like, “That’s so them. Look at these two, these two squares.” You know? And you’re like… [laughs]
FK: [overlapping] Oh! Yes, I have had some of these where I have had an association, and let me tell you, it had absolutely nothing [ELM laughs] to do with anything. But I had that, the association was still so strong.
ELM: It’s like, the most extreme version of these ship goggles, you’re like, “Oh yeah, these two shapes,” you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I mean, I don’t know, it worked for Everything Everywhere All At Once when they were two rocks, right? So like…if you could look at two rocks…
FK: [overlapping] Oh my God…yeah, it’s true.
ELM: [overlapping] …and see two characters, then like, godspeed to you, right?
FK: Why not.
ELM: But it is funny, because it’s like, I’ve read anthropomorfic where they are two whatevers, and it has, there’s no characterization. It is just like, you’re telling me. Like, that scene in that movie, that’s very much them, right? It’s all about the dialogue.
FK: Right. Right. It is.
ELM: But like…it’s just like, you’re now expecting me to believe that these two squares are these two men, but the dialogue has, doesn’t sound like them at all, so like, what are we doing here?
FK: [laughs] Right.
ELM: Being fueled by the pure, the pure ship.
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: Like, the, the ur-ship.
FK: We have, we have split the atom, [both laugh] and in the middle of it, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, OK, OK. All right. I actually—so for the next one, I actually swapped ’em cheekily at the last minute. [ELM gasps] Because I think that this one is actually relevant to what we’ve been talking about with anthropomorfic, at least some of it.
ELM: OK.
FK: Which is, outsider POV.
ELM: Mmm hmm.
FK: We’re talking about points of view.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: We’re talking about taking different perspectives on the characters. I love an outsider POV. Let’s define what that means.
ELM: It’s someone who is…OK. Well, yeah, I mean, in the context of a ship, it’s usually someone who’s not in the ship. But I would say that like, not just in shippy stuff, it is…it is usually someone else’s gaze, looking at the character that you usually are close up to, right? Like, usually the POV character, or…right?
FK: Right.
ELM: So it doesn’t have to be like, a ran—it could be an OC.
FK: Right. My love for outsider POV comes from the X-Files fandom, because there’s a, you know, sort of long tradition of fics where you get the point of view of somebody who is involved in, or lives in the small town that Mulder and Scully are coming to?
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: And they are often exquisite, right, because in the show you’re following Mulder and Scully to the town, and this is…you know, it swaps it, instead of it being a man goes on a journey, now it’s a stranger comes to town.
ELM: Yeah. No, I mean, it’s, makes me think of, did you know the very first episode I watched of Buffy was “The Zeppo”?
FK: I do know that! [laughs]
ELM: Which, Xander’s, Xander is a main character of the show, but that is in fact kind of an outsider POV, right, because I don’t know if you remember it, but like…first of all, it’s like, his side shenanigans.
FK: Right.
ELM: So it’s like, shifting the POV to him, and then…
FK: Yup.
ELM: Every time they have to do any serious fighting the apocalypse, they’re just like, “Oh my God, I gotta get back in the battle,” and then they kind of, and he’s just like, “OK. I guess I’ll go get donuts then,” you know?
FK: Which is sort of what Xander does anyway, like it’s true, this is what Xander does, yeah.
ELM: Right? I mean, mostly he is still sorta there, but like…so it’s, I wonder if it’s like that in The X-Files, too, it turns into a little bit of a parody. Because it’s like, that one is definitely a parody, right, they’re supposed to be, “Oh, so serious, we stopped the apocalypse,” and he’s just like, “...OK. Uh…” You know?
FK: In X-Files fic it’s usually much more serious, and in fact if anything it’s usually more serious than the original show, because you’re seeing this from the perspectives of people whose lives have been like—you know, for Mulder and Scully it’s just a day in the office, but for them it’s like, “Somebody was murdered in my house.”
ELM: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, right.
FK: You know? “And this has never happened to me before, and it probably never will again, and it was,” right, so it actually usually makes it more intense. But, I will say, that often it’s pleasurable with a relationship, because it is also a stand-in for the person who is looking at the OTP, right?
ELM: [overlapping] Yes, exactly.
FK: Like, in the case of Mulder and Scully, inevitably the person like, has a perspective on that relationship which is much closer to the fan’s perspective than it is to either Mulder’s or Scully’s. Where they’re like, “Yeah, they are or should be banging.” [ELM laughs]
ELM: Right, or, I mean…the one thing that I’ve found—and it’s, “outsider” is such a broad term, right—but if you are thinking of it in terms of outside the ship?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? Like, I’ve enjoyed writing that in the past, because…because the members of my ship are two insufferable people, right? [FK laughs] But like, you know, when you’re in one of their heads, you’re like, “Oh, God, he’s so annoying, also I wanna fuck him, really into him,” right, whereas like if you are not in either of their heads, you’d be like, “These two suck. [FK laughs] Oh my God. I just gotta get—”
FK: They do!
ELM: You know? And so that’s very pleasurable, because it’s not in character for either of them to be cognizant of how much they suck. And how they are perceived by others, right?
FK: [overlapping] Right. Right.
ELM: Like, even though one’s a telepath. You know, they still, because they—
FK: Yeah, no, but, he’s a telepath, but he has the powers of, he has…
ELM: [overlapping] Boundless self-confidence, you know?
FK: [overlapping, laughing] Yeah, exactly.
ELM: Not bothered. Right, whereas like, you just wanna be able to have that kind of more…in a way that if you are in a film or a movie, the camera can kind of pull back and give you a fuller shot, whereas if you’re in prose writing… I mean, you could definitely do that. The only way you could do that is to get out of the POV of one of those characters, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And sort of pull to someone else. Doesn’t have to be a stranger, I enjoy writing this when it is just another one of the characters, not a stranger. But I have read some stranger ones that I find enjoyable as well.
FK: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Now, something that just occurs to me, and I’m just gonna drop it in here, and I don’t know that we’re gonna have much to think about, but the way that this is different from—if indeed it is just a, if it is different from—the classic Mary Sue who gets the ship together.
ELM: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.
FK: Right? And I would propose that the classic Mary Sue who gets the ship together is just a poorly-written version of one of these.
ELM: Interesting, wow, why are you being so mean to the classic Mary Sue who gets the ship together?
FK: Because I think that Mary Sue is usually a phrase used to be, like, insult somebody’s writing—which is often not that great—in a specifically gendered, nasty way—
ELM: Sure.
FK: —right, like there’s plenty of bad writing that does this that we wouldn’t call a Mary Sue. So that’s what I’m saying, like maybe it’s just…
ELM: Well, sure. I mean, wouldn’t you say that any external character that gets the ship together, especially if it’s told from their perspective, is like that?
FK: Yeah! Exactly.
ELM: Like I’ve read plenty in my current ship where like, the kids, you know, the like, all the, their charges set them up or whatever.
FK: Yup. Totally. I just had never connected the outsider POV with that in my own head before, and I’m like, “Duh!” So.
ELM: Oh, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. I mean, for sure. I guess the Mary Sue, the original character who’s doing it, is, brings in that kind of outside perspective.
FK: That’s right.
ELM: Like, “Oh, I need to make this happen, these two, my two customers, [FK laughs] at the coffee shop, because I care so much about whether my characters date, because I’m a normal barista.”
FK: Right. OK. On that note, let’s get to our final trope.
ELM: You’ll note that coffeeshop AU is not on this list, because I don’t have anything nice to say.
FK: Yeah. We, uh, we spared you all. The final trope is a slight, you know, slightly out from left field one, because—it is!
ELM: [overlapping, laughing] You’re twirling your finger around.
FK: Secret identity/identity porn, and I have to say, I don’t have much to say about this. So I wanna hear you go for it.
ELM: [overlapping] Why did you, why did you put it last? [laughs] This was one of our listener suggestions, and I know this is a beloved trope, and I find it interesting. They specifically cited, like, DC…I mean I think obviously the greatest identity porn thing of all time is obviously Clark Kent and…
FK: Yes. Yes.
ELM: I mean, maybe Bruce Wayne, and…it’s, them, both, the two of them, in their parallel storylines, right, you know?
FK: I think, I think Clark Kent more than anybody else though, really, you know? Like, Supes is, uh…there he is.
ELM: Well he’s, it’s a charming example, because of the like, the suspension of disbelief of it. The, it’s just the glasses, right?
FK: Right, right.
ELM: I personally, obviously you know I prefer Batman, just as a character, and I do like the dichotomy between Bruce Wayne and Batman, right?
FK: Sure.
ELM: It’s more fun to me than, than Clark Kent and Superman.
FK: Right.
ELM: Who are both just earnest.
FK: I think the thing for me is that I have not read very much fan—like, obviously Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, full of this stuff, which I love. But I haven’t read that much fanfic that is really diving into that, and maybe it’s just because I have not been in fandoms where the character has a secret identity, particularly.
ELM: Yeah…I mean, I have, when I read it in—so, this is especially complicated, being in a ship with a telepath, I would say. [FK laughs] I have read a fair number of these in my current ship, and generally I find they fall into the realm of…I cannot suspend my disbelief that much.
FK: Right.
ELM: Right, you know, like, you are asking me to go so far, to think that he would not be able to tell that he’s actually him, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Just watch me go with those pronouns right there. But like, it’s funny, I remember there was one Harry/Draco one that’s pretty famous, and I remember enjoying it at the time, and I mentioned it to a friend, and they were like, “I found that totally unbelievable.” And I was like, this is so funny, that people have different lines of what they want.
FK: Right…
ELM: Right, you know, I mean obviously you know I love farce.
FK: Yes.
ELM: And I love being at the opera and being told he’s put something on his face, and he’s like, “They’ll never recognize me,” and they don’t, and you’re like, “Ha ha ha.” [FK laughs] That stuff is fun, but if it feels like…just like all your correct complaints about mutual pining and miscommunication and stuff, right, if it feels so stupid it’s out of character, like really how could you not tell?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Really why do you still believe that that’s his identity and not the other thing? Then that takes me right out of it.
FK: And this is, and especially when it’s not part of the original…right? The Clark Kent thing is like, yeah, really why do you believe, but that’s part of the whole story, so. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I think if that, if that bothers you in Superman then Superman is probably not the world for you, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And I think that the converse of that, or the inverse…I haven’t taken math in a really long time. The opposite of that is, there’s people for whom that transformation is so appealing, right, and like, that frisson of tension, the dramatic irony of it, you know?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: So, I don’t know. Yeah, I think it’s interesting. But it’s like, maybe it’s because I’ve been in a ship now for years, where there is a telepath involved.
FK: Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: I think—and there’s so many stories in my fandom where they don’t acknowledge that, what that means, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And then like, they’re just being dumbasses…it just, it’s extra cheap.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so like, I think that has actually lowered my interest in this, because I’ve just seen it done in a way that’s frustrating, you know? So…
FK: [overlapping] Right, for your ship, it’s not…yeah, totally. I hear ya. Well isn’t, I mean that’s the way all, all tropes can be that way. Like when you’re in a particular ship, and it doesn’t work with that ship, or like, it’s being done badly, it can just so easily be like, “I’m, I’m worn out with this one. Not for me.”
ELM: Yeah. And I mean like, I feel like…I don’t know. It’s not just superheroes, right, it’s like, secret agents I guess, spies.
FK: Sure.
ELM: Anything undercover. Double life, too, I think is a part of identity porn, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: They’re doing something else at night or whatever. And I think there’s a real pleasure to…you know, the very classic, the Bruce Wayne-Batman configuration, the kind of…when the cover is something very frivolous.
FK: Right.
ELM: And then you know that underneath, right, “Oh, if only they knew that he’s doing so much more with his life,” right?
FK: Right.
ELM: I can’t even remember, in the Nolan movies, who played the girl? Oh, she changed!
FK: She changed. It was Maggie—it was Katie Holmes, and then it was Maggie Gyllenhall.
ELM: It was Katie Holmes, I was like, “Who was the first one?” But you know, her like, “Oh, I’m so disa—you’re so disappointing, oh, this is what you became.”
FK: Sorry to say, I thought Katie Holmes was better than Maggie Gyllenhall.
ELM: Wow. Wow.
FK: At that part.
ELM: I like how I completely erased both of them. Maggie Gyllenhall was the one that—she’s the one who dies, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: In the—spoiler. It’s been a while.
FK: Yeah. It’s been long enough! [laughs] All right.
ELM: But you know, that kind of…I think that that connects to a broader thing that fandom loves, this kind of…what’s the word, it’s not mistaken identity, but it’s like…mistaken…personality, I guess?
FK: Sure.
ELM: There’s gotta be a more elegant way to say that, right? But like, “Oh, if only…he assumes this from the surface, but if he only knew.”
FK: “Knew the real me.”
ELM: You know, like, “Oh, does he know he has a tragic past? Oh, does he know he actually is doing something…?”
FK: Right.
ELM: And so when you have a Batman situation it’s so much more…it’s so much deeper than that, even, because it’s like, “Oh, did you know actually he’s saving the world every night?”
FK: Right.
ELM: And there’s a pleasure in, oh, you know the truth about him, and like…
FK: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
ELM: And they're gonna feel bad [laughing] when they learn that they were judging this person who’s doing, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, now that you put it in those terms, I guess that also happens with Snape fic sometimes. So.
ELM: Yeah, you know, and like, “Oh, I know the truth about him…”
FK: Right, if only they actually knew.
ELM: And there’s a little bit of self-righteousness. I mean, I think it—I think that is a very much reflection of people’s personal…you know, like, that feels very much [laughing] like a projection to me.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “If you only knew that deep down, you underestimated me, you think I’m frivolous, but actually I contain these depths.”
FK: Well, that’s, I mean, that’s, I remember being a teenager, so that’s, that’s relatable in that regard. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, it’s a very id-based desire, and…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I also, and in a more negative way, I think that…I do see it used very often, because fandom is kind of unwilling to sit with moral ambivalence, or the idea that like…
FK: Yeah, that’s true.
ELM: Especially the idea that the protagonist of, the, I don’t know, the wealthy white guy protagonist of your mainstream superhero show or whatever, is still a not super-woke wealthy white guy [FK laughs] who’s really privileged?
FK: Right!
ELM: Fandom has like, so much trouble kind of looking that in the eye?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And it’s like, “Well actually he’s got a really tragic backstory too,” and it’s like, could you just accept that he’s the winner of the world? Like, the people who wrote him knew that, because they—you know what I mean?
FK: Totally.
ELM: They live in Hollywood, they know what’s going on.
FK: Yep.
ELM: So, I don’t know. It’s just funny to me.
FK: All right. Well, I think that wraps up our speed dating, actually.
ELM: We really sped… [laughs]
FK: We did, we really sped through them.
ELM: Powered through those.
FK: I feel good that we at least touched on all of them, and I enjoyed that. But now I need to grill you, because I wanna know.
ELM: Now, number 11, coffeeshop AUs. Hate it.
FK: No, we’re not talking about that. I know that you would rather talk about coffeeshop AUs than this, but what I need from you is to talk about what you’re thinking about with Fansplaining.
ELM: [overlapping] I, I don’t have an issue talking about this.
FK: [overlapping] When I am like, you know, waking up every three hours to feed an infant, what are you gonna be doing?
ELM: Wow. Good plans for you. Well, so, yes. Let’s get down to business. So, what I’m gonna say in the short term, so we’re going to have…this is our fifth-to-last episode, so we’ll have two in April, two in May; one to two special episodes, and then you can say goodbye to Flourish forever. [FK laughs] You’re never gonna hear from them again. Unless you’re in a poly relationship on the Upper West Side and you wanna go to church.
FK: [laughing] Falling off the face of the earth. [ELM laughs]
ELM: Sorry, is it OK I just doxxed your church?
FK: Uh, there are many churches on the Upper West Side, it’s fine.
ELM: [overlapping] Take you and your polycule to every church…
FK: [overlapping] Also I literally, I literally…I literally have my church listed [ELM laughs] on FlourishKlink.com. So... [laughs]
ELM: All right.
FK: I don’t think it’s doxxing.
ELM: Listen up, poly folks of the Upper West Side…
FK: I—yeah, OK. I, I don’t actually have…
ELM: [overlapping] And, and non-monogamous folks, and ace folks…unpartnered…
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah, you’ll at least know that you’re going to church with somebody who has thought about, and does not immediately run screaming from your lifestyle choices.
ELM: [laughing] You’re like, “We have not actually done anything with this, so not promising anything.”
FK: [laughing] Yes, no, I can’t promise anything, but I can say that at least I won’t look at you and go “What a freak,” you know? Anyway.
ELM: [laughing] I mean I feel like people could have gotten that from listening to you for a long time, but OK.
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, I hope so! I’m glad to hear it. Anyway, but what are you doing?
ELM: OK, so those are the episodes we have left, and then what is going to happen is…the audio portion of Fansplaining is going to pause, and I do not know how long that pause is going to be. And this is relevant specifically to our patrons, of whom there are several hundred of you, I’m going to keep the Patreon on.
And so, you are well within your right to stop pledging, but in the short term, while I’m trying to decide what to do with the podcast portion of Fansplaining, it’s gonna shift to a publication, a written publication. And with the, the free time and the freed up money, at least for the next, for the first few months after Flourish leaves, I’m gonna publish hopefully at least one piece a month. Right now we’re doing one to two pieces a year. So that’s gonna be a lot more content.
And so, that is the short term plan. And so if you are interested in supporting fandom journalism, especially if you’ve read the stuff that we’ve published, you know it’s the kind of stuff that other people aren’t willing to commission, or publish, because it’s like, very much from within fandom, then I would say please, don’t turn off your Patreon. But also if you are here pledging for, just for the audio component of this podcast, I totally understand.
FK: That said, Patreon is still gonna be, if I understand right, Patreon will still be the only way that you can get access to the special episodes and so forth, you’re not planning on changing any of that, are you?
ELM: No. Right, and so everyone who’s a patron will still get the full back catalog, obviously if anyone happens to become a new patron, they will get a tiny pin, if they pledge at that level, $5.
FK: Yep.
ELM: So that stuff is all gonna stay on in the short term, and in the medium to long term…you know, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a Patreon that doesn’t actually offer rewards?
FK: Right.
ELM: Because that’s like…there are other models for that, and maybe I switch to that, or maybe, you know, more of a membership model if Fansplaining only continues as a publication. Or, maybe there will be special—new special episodes, I don’t know what. Maybe Flourish will come back and do a special episode. It’s been spoken of.
FK: I, yeah, I, I have yet to understand exactly what it’s going to be like living in my very small apartment with a screaming baby, and recording audio, but I am definitely open to the idea if we can figure out how to do that. [laughs] So.
ELM: Babies do sleep from time to time.
FK: Yeah…eventually. But I’m trying to be very realistic. [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] No, even— Look, I gotta say, I’m not saying schedule it now, but I’m saying even when they’re super small, they do have to sleep, it’s biological. I know it.
FK: [laughs] OK. All right. All right.
ELM: I know it.
FK: They just might not sleep at the times that you want them to sleep.
ELM: No, and they do it for short spurts. You know, like a kitten.
FK: Right. I have taken care of a kitten before, and it was exhausting.
ELM: Well, it’s so funny, because they like, they’re like little maniacs, and then they literally pass out. They just drop. [laughs]
FK: That’s true. That’s right, they just drop. That’s right, they do, it’s really really cute.
ELM: [laughing] It’s funny.
FK: Kittens are actually, I think kittens might be cuter than puppies, and I’m mostly a dog person, but like, kittens are adorable.
ELM: [overlapping] Yesss, yeesssss. And it’s such a relief when they pass out.
FK: Yes, it is. OK. [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] You’re like, “Oh, God, stop scratching me. Put your little murder claws in.”
FK: [overlapping] “And now you’re done.” [laughs] Yep.
ELM: Anyway.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So yeah, that’s the situation. Still TBD. Flourish has expressed…what’s the word? Not ambivalence, you’ve basically given your blessing to the idea that there could be a new Flourish in the future.
FK: Yeah, I mean I think that if you find the right person, then I, I say go forth with my blessing. [laughs]
ELM: Great.
FK: You know?
ELM: Yeah, so that might happen. Still TBD. And so, I, you know, appreciate anyone who’s willing to keep pledging, to keep the articles coming, because I’ve been talking to a bunch of journalists, we have a few pieces in the works. One of them will come out before Flourish leaves. And I really appreciate any financial support that people are still willing to give, because as I said, there’s really—I say this as someone who has run a fandom newsletter for the last eight years, the number of places that are publishing things is diminishing.
FK: Yeah, absolutely.
ELM: So…
FK: And I think it’s also worth mentioning that…you should still spread the word about Fansplaining, because Fansplaining is continuing to make stuff, and do stuff, right? Not just for the next couple months, but also past that. So if you don’t have money to give or don’t feel like you want to, especially right now in this moment of uncertainty, please nonetheless keep in touch, tell people about Fansplaining, tell them about our huge back catalog and all of our transcripts, that really means a lot. Because like, something that’s been really important to me, like my life is changing and so I need to take a step back, but I really don’t want that to mean that Fansplaining is finished. So. You know.
ELM: That’s good, I appreciate that, Flourish.
FK: Everyone, everyone get together and make Fansplaining not be finished, OK? [both laugh]
ELM: Uh, well, and before you leave, speaking of getting in touch, I think that our penultimate episode, the way we’re planning it now, will be our last AMA with you.
FK: Yep.
ELM: So yeah, people, feel free to send in your questions. I will say that, just a little bit of a spoiler, we’re planning on making Flourish’s last episode a sort of retrospective, so we don’t necessarily need questions that are like, “Flourish, what have you learned in nine years of Fansplaining?” [FK laughs] because I’m gonna ask that question in the last episode. So…
But yeah, if anyone has any immediate questions they’ve been thinking about, it’s fansplaining at gmail.com; Fansplaining.com, there’s a form on our website; fansplaining.tumblr.com, anon is on in our ask box; or you can leave us a voicemail, 1-401-526-FANS, or you can record a voice, like a voice memo or MP3, WAV, that kind of thing. Around three minutes or less, please, and you can send that to fansplaining at gmail.
FK: Awesome. I think that wraps us up, don’t you?
ELM: How do you feel, having released the big news?
FK: About the same as I did before, because this is not news to me.
ELM: It’s true, other people do know about this, because as we’ve been scheduling guests and things it’s been like, “FYI, we gotta do this now.”
FK: Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: So…
FK: Yeah, I don’t know, I mean, obviously Fansplaining has been really important to me, and so it’s sort of the end of an era for me, but uh…I don’t know, I’m not gonna stop being in fandom, and I’m not gonna stop being friends with you, and uh…
ELM: So true.
FK: So, I don’t know, like…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I’m not having a crisis.
ELM: Yeah, I mean, well it’s funny, we can talk about this when you actually depart, but also it’s like…you’ve had…not one foot out the door, but one toe out the door since you started seminary, [laughing] so it’s kinda like…it’s kinda like movin’ the whole foot out. [laughs]
FK: [overlapping] Oh yeah, no, it’s been, we’ve known, it’s been movin’ the direction… [laughs]
ELM: Maybe two to three toes out, you know, just kinda dippin’ in…
FK: Yeah, there’s some inching that’s been happening, so.
ELM: So, all right.
FK: All right. Well, I will talk to you later, Elizabeth, for the fourth to last episode next time.
ELM: Weird. Weird.
FK: [laughs] All right. Bye.
ELM: Bye.
[Outro music]