Episode 222: Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 19
Flourish’s final “Ask Fansplaining Anything” episode follows the format of the previous 18 (!!), with a new batch of (thoughtful as ever!) listener letters and voicemails. Topics discussed include people bringing a prior adaptation’s fandom baggage to a new version, writing RPF about people who aren’t actually famous at all, the tropification of fanfiction, and whether multiple versions of a character can feel true simultaneously.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license. Our episode cover this week is a photograph of the mailbox of Washington state’s Mailbox Peak, taken by Michael Cline and shared under a CC BY 2.0 license.
[00:01:42] Our most recent Ask Fansplaining Anything, which was our first episode of 2024.
[00:07:41]
[00:22:41]
[00:22:47] FYI Larry was still in the top 100 in last year’s AO3 ship stats. (#69…..nice)
[00:23:06] Can confirm: “Manacled” does not use the MCD archive warning, but the second additional tag is “Harry Potter Dies.”
[00:26:27] We read the first letter from “AI Anon” in our last AMA; they sent in a follow-up which we replied to in Episode 215, “The Broken Contract.”
[00:29:05] The New York Times brought a suit against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement late last year; a few months before that, a bunch of high-profile writers (including Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult, and George R. R. Martin) sued OpenAI, also for copyright infringement.
[00:30:04] That’s OpenAI’s CTO, Mira Murati, and you can watch her comical facial expressions for yourself.
[00:31:18] “Generative AI is a hammer and no one knows what is and isn’t a nail” by Colin Fraser.
[00:32:24] Some of the recent “our AI system is secretly just humans” news:
Amazon is now denying they use workers in India to monitor transactions in “Just Walk Out” stores, but like……
An example of a fast-food chain that relies on humans to monitor its AI systems (Elizabeth can’t find the specific article she saw on social media).
Here’s a broader piece on this problem.
And in “not even bothering to hide it” category: “NYC Chicken Shop Replaces Cashier With Woman in Philippines On Zoom.” (We highly recommend this last source, 404 Media, if you want to stay up-to-date on, as Flourish put it, “the shitty AI-ification of our universe.” And they’re worker-owned!)
[00:33:51] Our interstitial music throughout is “Try anything once” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:35:10] We have now finished our special episode on….
It’ll be out later this week for Patrons at $3 a month and up! A pledge at that level also gets you access to 32 other special episodes—and the IWTV S2 one we’ll be recording in a few weeks! That’s https://patreon.com/fansplaining.
[00:36:44] If you’re interested in making a one-off donation to support fandom journalism (and future iterations of the podcast), that link is here. And please don’t hesitate to get in touch—fansplaining at gmail—if you have something to sponsor.
[00:41:02] That’s “The Judgment Of Magneto” by Asher Elbein—HIGHLY recommended.
[00:53:40] The tags in question were in Episode 218: “The Money Question 3: Books???”
[00:54:19] We discussed the results of our “Fic and the Source Material” survey in Episode 145, and also wrote up some analysis with data visualizations. Note that roughly a third of respondents said they read fic when they didn’t know the source material—but that of course includes things like, say, following a favorite author to their new fandom, not just people who are reading via trope/description alone.
[00:58:41] We’ve touched on the flattening effect of global, English-speaking fandom a lot over the years, but we’re specifically referencing Episode 199: “Reflecting Reality” and the listener responses to that conversation, which we read in Episode 201: “Artificial Fandom Intelligence 2: Rise of the Grifters.”
[00:59:26]
[01:07:58] That’s our last “Tropefest” episode: “Arranged Marriage.”
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 #222, “Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 19.”
FK: Part—final, for me, anyway.
ELM: You never know.
FK: Well, I guess.
ELM: Imagine if aside from special episodes because you, like, saw a movie and we want to talk about it, you were like, “I really want to do another AMA.” [laughs]
FK: I am having a hard time imagining this universe, but maybe? [laughs] Anyway, anyway!
ELM: I do think it’s not one of the more likely reasons that you would come back for an episode, but you never know. [FK laughs] We do love AMAs. I think you’ve enjoyed these—lo, these 18 previous ones.
FK: I have enjoyed them, and I have enjoyed them especially when I get a voicemail!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And we have one, so I’m excited about that. OK, all right, we should get into our letters.
ELM: OK, let’s get started.
FK: OK, so the first little chunk of them are sort of about fandom etiquette and norms, and then there’s a second little chunk, which is about things that people write fic about. So that’s how they’re ordered, all right?
ELM: OK, OK.
FK: Just so everyone knows. OK. The first one, this is from Nellied.
“Hi Fansplaining!
“Long time listener here, but only second-time writer-in, but I wanted to write, as I was struck by the ideas in your recent “Ask Fansplaining Anything” episode about online etiquette and when it might just be wiser not to contribute to an online discussion. I also appreciated when you talked about just DMing your takes to somebody. Consider this email my way of taking you up on that advice!”
[laughs] DMing your takes is different than writing in to thing where it’s going to be published on the internet. Helpful tip! We’re still excited that you wrote in. [ELM laughs] So, back to the letter.
“You see, I’ve recently got into a fairly new podcast with a very small fandom. This podcast has the same premise as a well known TV show adapted from the same source material, and a lot of fans at the start were excited to see the podcast, quote ‘doing it right where TV Show did it wrong’ with regards to shipping, but also quite a few other elements of the show. There was lots of thoughtful appreciation and fannish glee at this point—the dream!
“Sadly, there was quickly a lot of negative posts about a specific female character, most of them not even engaging with her properly as a character in this iteration of the story, but just complaining about the mere possibility that she might have a romance with one of the male leads, the tone very much being ‘I hope they don’t queerbait again like the TV show did.’
“These posts got a lot of reactions, both supportive and angry, and now it seems that every single post is about this character, either hating on her or complaining about how people are hating on her. It’s got to the stage where I wouldn’t want to make a post about how great she is—though she is!—because it would be taken as a position in a ship war that I have literally no stakes or interest in.
“I feel like in a larger fandom you could more easily find like-minded people and just post about whatever you wanted, but the small size of this fandom means everyone sees every post, and I just don’t want to get dragged into it, so I’m basically bottling up my thoughts and feelings for now. If things start feeling less toxic, I’ll probably post them then. Heck, they’ll probably be better thoughts, once they’ve had some time to brew, and in the meantime, I can try and get my IRL friends into the show and hope their takes are better. It’s just frustrating that I need to do that—especially when most of the issues are linked to people’s experiences with a completely different TV show!
“Anyway, thanks for giving me a place to formulate my thoughts about [insert name of fandom here] and the patterns that I’m seeing emerge there. I guess if you have any advice for dealing with Discourse—ugh—in a smaller fandom that none of your IRL friends are in, I’d love to hear it.
“Thanks again, Nellied.”
ELM: I’m sorry, Nellied. [laughs]
FK: Yeah. That sucks.
ELM: Also, not to be too teasy, but Nellied did mention in a “don’t read on the air” parenthetical what the original, what the two are, and…mmm mmm.
FK: Oh no! [laughs]
ELM: I understand why this is happening.
FK: Oh no, oh no, oh no! I mean—
ELM: Just imagine a well-known fandom with very toxic dynamics that would be very eager to whip out queerbaiting accusations.
FK: Yeah, no, I get it. I don’t—I mean—[sighs] [ELM laughs] This is just such a dynamic, right? I feel it. I know it. I don’t know that I have any recommendations on it beyond, wow that sucks. [laughs]
ELM: OK, well, a few things come to mind. So obviously, the dream, the best thing you can do here, is incept your friends into this fandom and just make it about—just do it with them, right?
FK: Yeah, although, you know, possibly you were also hoping to find new friends through it, but yeah. That’s the best possible realistic outcome—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —in this situation, right? It is possible. You can incept somebody into a fandom, you know more about Star Trek than—I mean, you’re not in the fandom, but you can talk with me about Star Trek things.
ELM: You did not incept me into that fandom, I’m sorry.
FK: No, but you’re able to talk about it with me, and I’m able to talk about X-Men things with you, more than you talk about Star Trek with me, I will say. [laughs]
ELM: Look, you’ve actively chosen to read X-Men fic without my prompting. You did that even before I got in this fandom. I’ve never chosen to read a Star Trek fic.
FK: Yeah, that’s true.
ELM: Sorry.
FK: Anyway, point being, it is possible.
ELM: Well, I mean, for the new friends point, I think if you do start posting about it, and maybe not, like, a discourse post, like, “God, why is everyone doing—” I mean, OK, I do think that you can find allies by being like, “Hey, why so much misogyny?” You know? You will find other people who are like, “Yes. I see it too. I’m mad.” And I think that on the flip side, I mean, you run a bit of a risk because maybe [laughs] you end up befriending people who also are being misogynistic, right? You could be super positive and try to attract your flies with honey [sighs] rather than—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —accurate vinegar. But, you know, I think that by speaking up, you probably will make some connections, but honestly, I personally have not found that to be worth it in the past. I’ve talked about how discourse gets onto my feed and I’m like, “I gotta do some unfollowing, because this is ruining it right now.” Right? You know?
FK: Yup.
ELM: And that’s not to say I—obviously, I pay a lot of attention to capital-D Discourse, [laughs] you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I don’t need just a barrage of negativity, a lot of which is not about identity politics—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and is actually just people complaining because they don’t like some writing decision, you know?
FK: Yeah, totally. Totally.
ELM: The other thing that does strike me, and I doubt you’ve seen any of this, because you are my most turtlelike friend. So Black Sails has come to Netflix. Perhaps you’ve heard.
FK: Oh ho! I hadn’t heard.
ELM: [laughs] Yes, just as the pirates of Black Sails would say: Oh ho! [FK laughs] It’s been very interesting. So there’s been, you know, obviously a lot of people who couldn’t see it before because a lot of people have Netflix. A lot more than—
FK: Right.
ELM: —subscribe to…Starz?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I don’t even know how—I don’t remember how I watched it in the first place. I own them now on iTunes. But, you know, it’s a much bigger audience, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And a lot of people are like, “Oh, I always meant to give that a try. It’s on Netflix now, sure.” And that has brought some interesting takes.
FK: Ha!
ELM: But the reason this connects back to Nellied is, there’s been some takes going around that are like, “Is that show even gay? I hear it’s just a huge queerbait.” And it’s like— [laughs]
FK: Uhhh… [laughs]
ELM: And there was a Tumblr post a few months ago, where someone was like, “I watched the whole first season, and does it actually get gay?” And it’s like, I’m gonna need you to explain to me why the, like, two lesbians naked, having—
FK: Are, yeah.
ELM: Or two queer women, rather, having sex in the first episode doesn’t count for you, but OK.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So I do think there’s an element of that going on. But my armchair theory here, and I’m testing this out right now, is that a lot of people—I mean, a little bit spoilers for Black Sails. I think it’s been long enough, I think this is not—it’s fine, whatever—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —is, there was a huge contingent that shipped Flint and Silver.
FK: Right.
ELM: And as the show was wrapping up in the fourth season, like, while it was on the air, were pretty convinced it was gonna happen.
FK: Right.
ELM: Quote-unquote “gonna happen.” Obviously, they have a very deep homoromantic, fucked-up dynamic, right? You know? [laughs]
FK: Right. [laughs]
ELM: Something’s happening.
FK: Yes.
ELM: And I think—but they thought that they were gonna kiss on screen, and then they didn’t, and they were like, “This show queerbaited me.” And it’s like, well—
FK: Right.
ELM: And I brought this up in the past as, like, that was an example of, “queerbaiting” now feels meaningless to me, because this is an extremely queer show where half the characters are queer.
FK: Right.
ELM: They’re in queer relationships, et cetera.
FK: They’re—it’s very—yeah.
ELM: It’s not in question.
FK: Right.
ELM: It’s just because your ship didn’t happen, that you’re framing this show as a queerbaiting show. That’s part of my theory about why this is kind of swirled in the ether now, right?
FK: Mmm hmm.
ELM: So looking at Nellied’s letter, I start to think, you know, we talk a lot about patterns repeating, right? And people bringing kind of the frames from other fandoms onto things.
FK: Hmm.
ELM: And it’s like, as time progresses, and people have more and more weird baggage and, you know, actual baggage from shows that actually did them wrong, you know, and rumors, right? You know, this kind of collective conversation and assumptions about things. It seems really hard. Obviously, you’re always approaching a new piece of art with the context of every other piece of art you’ve ever seen in your life.
FK: Right.
ELM: Right? But there’s something about the communal fandom… How can a new—yeah, sure, a new indie adaptation of something that used to be a big juggernaut fandom? Of course that’s gonna loom over everything that they do, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: It’s impossible to move past that.
FK: Yeah. I agree, I agree. And I feel like we’ve seen this in the past, too. Not in the same categories, but when I think back to people who had been in fandom in the ’80s and then when I first got into fandom in the ’90s and 2000s, they were like, they had all these ideas about how things worked, [ELM laughs] and sometimes I was like, “That’s not how they work.” But it was because that was how things worked when they got into fandom, right?
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: And they were bringing all of that history with them, so…
ELM: Right, and those were relatively small numbers of people, compared to the number of people who would be in a juggernaut fandom 10 years ago, right?
FK: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
ELM: You know? So it’s now a huge scale thing, too, right?
FK: Right, right.
ELM: So, yeah.
FK: Well, Nellied, sorry that we don’t have any better advice for you, but we feel you. Good luck.
ELM: And FYI, Black Sails, lots of queer characters doing queer things.
FK: [laughs] OK, great. [ELM laughs] We have now been informed. Elizabeth, read me the next one.
ELM: All right, you got it. This is from Anon. So they write:
“Please help me, Flourish and Elizabeth. I am at the precipice of a brand new RPF fandom and may be about to fall in. I know we’ve all repeated the same RPF conversations, like, a thousand times, but I think my angle on it is different enough to make it worthwhile.
“Sometimes a ship takes a hold of you when you’re least expecting it. I am currently watching a year-long YouTube vlog series, and a slash ship has emerged from the guy group who the series is about. These two men have incredible chemistry, and I would very much like to smush their faces together in story form and not just in the depths of my mind.
“Like many people, I have mixed feelings about RPF. In short, I find it perfectly fine when it’s about celebrities or famous people. I find that kind of status elevates and distances them from me as a reader/writer enough to be comfortable that I’m not invading their lives too much or crossing moral lines by actively shipping them. In other words, the status of being famous/well known gives the object a somewhat separate persona that fans can then project their fannish feelings towards. But it becomes murkier the less known the objects of the fannish feelings are.
“The problem is: no one has written about this particular ship yet as far as I can tell. Nor about this growing Youtube channel. The content and fandom seems to be mostly het-cis-male oriented, and even though I know I’m not the only one who has noticed this forementioned *incredible slashy chemistry*, [FK laughs] no one is making transformative fanworks about them. Also—[laughs] asterisk—also, the pair is not the main star/character/talent of the videos, but part of a hired crew of sorts.
“I am very conflicted of being the first one to write shippy fanfiction about any real person, especially in this kind of blokey fandom, and I’m even considering masking my story by projecting these feelings and their personas onto some other characters in some entirely unrelated fandom. This hypothetical feels like a cop out, though, and frankly a rather insincere and unsatisfying way to express my true fannish feelings. Unfortunately, I can’t ignore that there’s also a real risk of someone sending my story to them for some cheap laughs.
“I’d like to hear your thoughts on the morals and/or responsibility of being the first and possibly only person to write about real people who aren’t yet very famous and may not even wish to be. Should I just take the hit and jumpstart this thing? And when are people famous enough that it’s okay to write shippy RPF about them?
“PS, My normie partner thinks consent is generally needed for RPF, so obviously he’s been no help at all. [both laugh]
“Yours and wallowing in fresh fannish feels, Anon.”
FK: All right, first I’m gonna say, your normie partner is useless, you’re right. Sorry, normie partner.
ELM: Get him out of here.
FK: Get him outta here. Second, I am going to say, search your heart, I think that you already know what the answer to this is, because I’m not saying don’t write fic about these people. I’m saying, don’t post the fic. Because you’re already explaining all the reasons why posting is not gonna bring anything good, right? Posting is going to put it in this bunch of cishet-men fandom, they’re not gonna get it. Maybe, like, one person will get it, but you could probably find them by, like, if they’ve already mentioned the shippy-ness, DM them, right? [laughs] You can make a friend that way.
But the cishet men are just not gonna get it, and they’re gonna, like, send it to the people and they’re gonna feel bad and it’s gonna be weird, and no. None of this is good, right? Don’t go there. But you could write it for yourself! And I actually think that the masking thing is maybe not totally bad. I don’t know. What’s your take on this, Elizabeth, because I just—I mean, I get it, Anon. But I think you know the answer. [laughs]
ELM: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, I guess my first question is, like, yeah, what is posting it for? You know, I mean, (a) great letter, a lot of sympathy for Anon here.
FK: Oh, for sure. [laughs]
ELM: Other people have noticed the aforementioned slashy vibes, or whatever. Who are these people? Are they potential readers of this fic, right, and no one else has wanted to write something about it? Unless those people exist, I don’t see who the posting of it is for, and I guess, yeah. I certainly agree with you, there’s two things here. One is, you know, I’ve written fic that I have not posted, and you certainly, I mean, you’ve written fic that you’ve not posted, you’ve thought about fics and, like, maybe started to write them and just got it out of your system.
FK: Oh yeah, absolutely. Sometimes all that you need is to, like, get it on paper and then you’re like, “OK, that’s fine.”
ELM: Yeah, I would actually honestly start there. If you really need to look this thing right in the eye and you need to use their names, Bob and Joe, and you need to describe them lovingly and give all the exact context—I’m assuming that’s their names. No, they’re probably, like, Gen Z. I don’t know, what are their names like? Like, Tanner or something? What are the kids named? I have no idea.
FK: Jayden and Tanner.
ELM: Jayden— [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, Janner, is what I call them. Right? You know, if you needed it to be extremely about them and extremely specific, yeah, write it down, see how you feel after that, because that may solve it, right?
FK: Yeah. For sure.
ELM: And it certainly doesn’t seem like it’s worth the extreme angst of, like, posting it for potentially almost no one to read.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Except the people that you don’t want to read it, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know? It doesn’t necessarily seem worth the risk. You know, I think to the question of when is a person, like, famous enough? I mean, I think this is a great example. We’ve seen so many times in the past where it’s like, you know, I’m thinking about, like, hockey fandom, but in particular women’s hockey fandom—
FK: Right.
ELM: —I know there was a big dustup maybe a decade ago, maybe a little longer, right? You know? And it was like, there were too few degrees of separation between some of the people involved in the fic side.
FK: Right. [laughs] Yes.
ELM: You know? And, you know, I’m thinking also of, like, political commentators, like the Pod Save America stuff and all of that.
FK: Right.
ELM: You know, and it’s like, you have people’s girlfriends kind of involved in stuff, or you know, and it’s just like, I don’t know. If it’s that close, if there’s any conceivable—it’s like, you know, Kevin Bacon’s not reading your stories, right? I don’t know what—I just thought of a famous person. That’s a strange choice, but—
FK: Eh.
ELM: He is famously famous, you know?
FK: Yeah, he is famously famous.
ELM: That is kind of his whole thing. [laughs]
FK: That is—yeah.
ELM: You know, the odds of an A-list celebrity—I mean, even then, you know, you have a big thing going on in the hockey fandom, not necessarily with RPF, but with people, like, thirst-posting about hockey players, right? This whole thing that’s been going on recently, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And you have some of the spouses coming in—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and getting mad at them, right?
FK: Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: So it’s like—and those guys ostensibly are at a higher level.
FK: Very famous, yeah yeah.
ELM: Is a hockey player very famous? Some of them are, I guess.
FK: Yeah, I mean, Wayne Gretzky, I guess, [laughs] you know, maybe the one.
ELM: Thanks, Dad. That’s a really relevant reference. [laughs]
FK: Yeah, well, that’s the point that I was sort of making, is that there’s, like, you know, one that a non-hockey person might think of and…yeah.
ELM: Mario Lemieux. [both laugh]
FK: I have no idea who he is.
ELM: Just naming famous hockey players in the past. Bobby Orr. [laughs]
FK: I have maybe heard these—anyway. No, I mean, I do think there’s a line, but that’s also something very subjective to individuals, right? Because it is true that, like, you know, when people post Supernatural RPF, it’s not like those guys weren’t potentially able to find it, if they felt like it, and sometimes did, you know? You know, there’s different people who have different tolerance levels, but it seems really, really clear that this Nonnie has found their tolerance level, [ELM laughs] and they’re feeling conflicted about it. But that’s your tolerance level. You just gotta accept it.
ELM: I will say, as a final note, you know, I have certainly taken my fannish feelings for something and channeled them into a different fandom, and I don’t think that’s a cop out at all. I actually think that’s kind of a lot of how we make art, right? You know? So I obviously have said 100,000 times I love Halt and Catch Fire, and when I first watched it, I channeled all the feelings I felt from the last season into an X-Men story.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I think that was a better vehicle for those feelings, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Than me trying to write fanfiction about the events of that season.
FK: Right.
ELM: I think that it was as emotionally resonant, and I’m the only one who can see those connections, right?
FK: [laughs] It’s—
ELM: Because deep inside of me— [both laugh] And I’m not expecting anyone to be like, “Did you watch the last season of Halt and Catch Fire and really feel a lot about this?” You know? But that’s what taking art in is, and I don’t think that’s a cop out at all. So I think you could very easily—
FK: Right, it’s not—you can do it in ways that are not rubbing the serial numbers off and just having it be surfacey. You can be inspired.
ELM: Honestly, in this particular instance, you could write a novel about—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —two YouTube guys and change their names, you don’t even have to change that many details and just channel all your feelings in there. You could sell it. People would say it’s, like, you know, of the moment.
FK: Yeah, it’s true. OK, all right, all right. [ELM laughs] It’s time for the next one. Thank you, Nonnie. Great letter. Also didn’t solve your problem, but we believe in you.
ELM: [laughs] Good luck.
FK: All right, all right. This next one is from MCD wimp, which I believe means “Major Character Death” wimp.
ELM: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.
FK: OK. “Hi, Fansplaining. I just listened to your latest Q&A episode, which also made me reflect on “major character death” tagging in-depth for the first time in nearly 20 years in fandom! It was such an interesting discussion, also because I couldn’t relate to much of it.
“I have nearly always been in RPF fandoms, currently BTS. As the world likely knows, there are seven members in the group—and, as a fic writer and reader in this fandom, I would expect MCD to be tagged if any of the members got booted off, even if they were but a minor side character in the fic itself, be it canon or AU.
“My reasoning is that in the canon, which is our real world, all seven members hold equal weight as ‘major’ characters. The fandom revolves around them. If I started reading a fic about the blossoming love of Jimin and Yoongi for, say, my beloved Namjoon to tragically meet his end halfway through, and the fic hadn’t been tagged MCD, I’d be dismayed and upset! Because he is a major character for the fandom, even if he doesn’t have a big role in a fic about a ship that doesn’t involve him and in which he’s not a POV character. I’d frankly be shocked if any fic writer in this space decided to k-word, as the kids say, one of the members and didn’t consider it MCD.
“So, in sum, does the concept of a major character differ between fandoms based on the canon and also impact the tagging subculture? How much does the source material influence how quote-unquote ‘minor’ and quote-unquote ‘major’ characters are perceived and conceptualized within a fandom space?
“Stirring the pot with love, MCD wimp.”
ELM: Thank you very much, MCD wimp. I wish everyone ended their letters “stirring the pot with love.” [both laugh]
FK: It’s so good. And this—but this brought up a bunch of stuff, too, right? And I think there’s multiple levels on which it’s functioning.
ELM: OK, quickly let’s take a step back. So MCD wimp is replying to a previous—I think it was a letter we got about MCD. Right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think it might have been a letter in our last AMA.
FK: Yup.
ELM: And we were talking about, like, different norms around when you would use the tag, right? And in both of our experiences, pretty exclusively, I would say, you know, it’s used usually when either a member of the ship or, you know, a POV character dies.
FK: Right.
ELM: You wouldn’t use it if, like, the bad guy dies.
FK: Right.
ELM: And you probably wouldn’t even use it if maybe a major character in the canon but not a major focus in your story dies, right?
FK: Yeah, that would be a margin case, right?
ELM: Right.
FK: Where it could go either way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t show up.
ELM: Right, and you would still probably [laughs] put in the tags “character death,” you know? Or “minor character death,” or something.
FK: Right.
ELM: Or sometimes people straight-up say who dies, you know? Like, “bad guy dies.” You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And you’re like, “OK.” Right? So you know there’s a death in there.
FK: Right.
ELM: But major is the question, right? Like, who’s major here?
FK: Right, and I do think that there are two things happening here. Number one, I think that there’s more sensitivity around death in stories where deaths are not a part of the canon story.
ELM: Mmm hmm.
FK: So, like, in Game of Thrones, I don’t see fics being tagged “character death” [laughs] because somebody dies. [ELM laughs] Right? You know what I mean? In Game of Thrones, people die all the time.
ELM: Off they go! Yeah.
FK: Right? Off they go! It’s like tagging it “canon-typical violence.” You’re like, “Yup.”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: “That’s basically all the violence.” Whereas, in a boyband fandom, where boybands are not—that’s not part of fandom is, like, actual living boyband members dying very often.
ELM: Meeting their tragic ends. [laughs]
FK: And if it is, it’s actually sad.
ELM: Yeah, that would be sad.
FK: It would be very sad. So I think that there’s more sensitivity, and people tag more in situations like that, for death.
ELM: Hmmm.
FK: And I also think that, you know, this made me reflect on, like, yeah, if I was reading a One Direction fic and any of the 1D guys died—
ELM: Niall.
FK: —yeah, probably Niall. Also, this is now a dated reference, because 1D is in the past at this point, but—
ELM: I bet there’s still writing One Direction fic now.
FK: Living in my heart. But yeah, I would expect to see that tagged, and I wouldn’t expect that, like, you know, even in a Harry Potter fic, maybe if Harry dies I would expect it, but not Ron! [ELM laughs] If Ron’s not in the story, I don’t care, you know? [laughs] So…
ELM: Even then, you know, if—I mean, well, you read “Manacled.” Harry’s dead, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Do they—it’s not labeled “major character death,” right? It’s like—
FK: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
ELM: You know? I’m guessing. I haven’t looked at the tags extensively, but—
FK: Yeah, I don’t think it is.
ELM: You know, if someone dies off-screen or whatever, you could say that. Like, that’s the setup, right? You know?
FK: Right, if somebody dies off-screen, you might not—yeah.
ELM: Yeah, I also—I mean, this whole thing has made me really reflect on the purpose of the “major character death” warning, because it’s kind of, like, all right, what are the other major warnings, right? There’s violence.
FK: Yup.
ELM: Graphic depictions of violence. What’s the fourth? Underage.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Underage, and then there’s non-con, right? Which is rape.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: With those other three, if any instance of that exists in the story, like, it doesn’t have to be the main ship is underage. If, you know, if it’s Harry and Hermione and then Ron starts dating a, you know, much older [laughs] person. I don’t know what this example is. [laughing] Not realistic. Sorry. If it’s Harry and Ron, and then Hermione starts dating Snape in the background, right? [laughs]
FK: There we go. Thank you. [laughs] Now we’re back in the world of possibility.
ELM: And they’re all, like, teenagers, right? And they’re all, you know, young teenagers or whatever.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: [laughs] “Back in the world of possibility.” You never know what Ron could do out there. You don’t know what he does on his summer hols.
FK: Anyway, anyway, anyway!
ELM: [laughs] Then, you know, I would expect underage to go in there, because it really feels like a true content warning. Like, it’s a trigger warning.
FK: Right.
ELM: You know, like, there’s an underage relationship in this story. It doesn’t necessarily mean—or rape. There’s a depiction of rape in this story, or a significant reference to it, right? You know? And I don’t think that would be limited to the main ship or to a member of the ship or the POV character.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But major character death, it just feels like “death” is a better warning. Like, “someone dies in here.” You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: But because it’s called “major character death,” and because of the kind of norms that exist in a lot of fandoms around its use, it then takes on a very loaded meaning, where it’s kind of like, yeah, “one half of the ship is gonna die,” right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And it doesn’t feel like a useful content warning in the sense of “there’s a death in here.”
FK: Right.
ELM: I mean, that being said, like, look at, you know, the BTS fandom as described by MCD wimp, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: It means something different for the people in that fandom, right?
FK: Exactly.
ELM: But I do think for, in my own, or probably a lot of the ones you’ve been in, it is kind of—then makes it sort of weird, right? It’s like…
FK: Right. But I think this also—I mean, I don’t know how much the graphic depictions of violence—I would be interested to see how much the “graphic depictions of violence” warning is useful to people.
ELM: Yeah, I’m curious about that.
FK: This is maybe something that—this is a question. We should, you know, do some survey about that.
ELM: You wanna get Toast to—
FK: We’re never gonna do that.
ELM: —look at all “graphic depictions of violence” tags and… You know, yeah, I mean, the context matters too. That one I find very confusing, because it’s like, I don’t actually know what that means, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I mean, it’s obviously your self-discretion, right? But canon-typical violence is very useful, because then you can say—
FK: Yeah, you know what’s in canon. So you’re like, “OK.” [laughs]
ELM: Is it a little more cartoonish?
FK: Right.
ELM: Is it the kind of show where people are getting beheaded on screen?
FK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
ELM: You know? And obviously, you probably need more descriptors, if there is gore, if there is—
FK: Right. Yeah.
ELM: —that there are specific acts, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So I don’t know. It’s interesting.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Interesting, ah…differing norms.
FK: Yup. All right, well, thank you very, very much MCD wimp. The pot has been stirred.
ELM: Lovingly.
FK: [laughs] Will you read the next one?
ELM: Yes I will. All right, this one is also in response to another letter-writer-inner.
“Dear Fansplaining,
“I’ve found the letters from AI Anon and your discussions of them really interesting, and I wanted to add my tuppence to the conversation. I think one problem we are having in this space is that while generative AI use of artistic work is a bit like plagiarism, it isn’t really that much like plagiarism. And, at the same time, while it is a bit like being inspired by the work of another creative, it really isn’t that much like being inspired by the work of another creative. Both of these are bad analogies so don’t really help in figuring out how to respond to the phenomenon legally, culturally, or personally.
“If I make the somewhat large assumption that we, as a culture, want to reward human creativity (both artistic and technical) then we need to find a way to balance the interests of creators of artistic works and creators of generative AI. I don’t know much about legal systems, but I imagine we will ultimately end up with some kind of extension to intellectual property laws, which allows artists to specify under what conditions their work can be used to train generative AI.
“So tempted to sign this is AlsoAI Anon. Louise. [laughs] Also purplecat and annariel because I am rubbish at pseudonymity.”
FK: [laughs] Well, thank you very much for this, Louise, purplecat, annariel, also AI Anon. [both laugh] I mean, I totally agree with this. It isn’t wrong to compare it to plagiarism, but it isn’t like plagiarism in so many important ways. It isn’t wrong to say it’s like inspiration, but it isn’t like that. That’s totally spot on. And it’s one of the things that I’ve found most frustrating about some of the conversations around this, particularly the, you know, knee-jerk “all AI is plagiarism, all AI is stealing.” I don’t love the shitty AI-ification of our universe. But I also think that those are just really defensive and they’re ways to avoid thinking about what’s actually going on, [laughs] which is—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —much more complicated than just, you know, “my stuff was directly stolen and plagiarized.” I’m not saying that it’s moral or good, but it’s different. It’s not that simple.
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I think if you are an author—I mean, it’s really tricky with fanfiction, because obviously, we all kind of got ripped off there, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I do think they did scrape the entirety of the AO3, some of these folks.
FK: Oh, they definitely did. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I think if you are an author whose book has been discovered in the corpuses that they’ve used, right, you know, I think you are well within your rights to say, “This is intellectual property theft,” because it literally is.
FK: Right. But that’s different to plagiarism.
ELM: Yes, I mean, and yeah, and I think you have a legal—I mean, there are legal cases going on, right? The New York Times is suing OpenAI, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: The Authors Guild is doing a big kind of class action suit with a bunch of really famous writers. You know, and they know. Like, the people who are making these LLMs are deeply aware of what they did, and I think they thought that no one was gonna care, and that shows how frankly stupid they are, right? [FK laughs] Did you see that video with—when they introduced Sora, the video one, a few months ago, and I think—I don’t know—she’s an executive at OpenAI. She’s, like, a really skinny lady, with a skinny face. She’s got, like, long, blonde hair.
FK: I don’t remember this at all. I did not see it.
ELM: Anyway, it was a big interview with her. I think it was with The Wall Street Journal, and they were like, [laughs] the question was basically like, “Did you just yank this all off YouTube? Did you scrape YouTube to build this?” Because it’s video, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And the look on her face was just, like, “Mmmmmmm…” [both laugh] It was like, everyone knows what you did.
FK: “Mmmmaaaaybe…” [both laugh]
ELM: [laughing] And I don’t know why you thought that Google wasn’t gonna care, you know, that you just—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —just ripped off their entire thing, right? You know? Your actual rival in this space, so there is that. But I absolutely agree with you that I think there’s been this tendency from people who don’t like the look of what’s going on, to kind of just say, you know, to smack those, like, “it’s plagiarism, it’s plagiarism, a theft machine, blah blah blah.” And I don’t think that’s actually useful. There are truly useful critiques, right?
FK: Yes. There are.
ELM: For example, none of these tools actually work, [FK laughs] and they—I mean, it’s kind of funny. So AI Anon initially wrote in a few months ago, and I really feel like the public conversation has changed since then.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: In a way that I find much better and more substantive.
FK: Right.
ELM: There are so many examples where it’s like, you know, there’s a piece I sent you the other day, where it’s like, “Generative AI is a hammer and no one can tell what a nail looks like,” right? You know? It’s an interesting piece. I’ll put it in the show notes. But it’s like, yeah. It’s like, suddenly you have a hammer and you’re just like, whacking it at things, and it’s like, [FK laughs] “OK…” You know?
FK: Yeah, and also it really doesn’t work, too. There’s all of these AI applications where, like, the Amazon grab-and-go stores, I walk by it pretty regularly—
ELM: There’s one by you?
FK: No no no. I go to a doctor’s office near the one that was the original one.
ELM: Oh, I didn’t even know we had one. OK.
FK: Oh yeah, we had one. And I walked by it all the time, and it was really funny when it came out that it turns out it’s not actually AI doing anything. It’s just, like, people [ELM laughs] in I think India and, you know, they’re just watching the cameras and saying what’s in the basket and, like, [laughs] OK.
ELM: Absolutely insane. No, there was the story that came out that some fast food chain was trying it with the ordering, and they said that a human needed to monitor the transactions 100% of the time.
FK: Right.
ELM: And it’s like, well, at that point, I don’t know what you’re doing here, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I mean, yeah, and they’re doing it in countries where they can pay people pennies, you know…
FK: Yeah, I mean, that’s why they’re doing it.
ELM: Yeah, that’s literally why they’re doing it.
FK: There’s—I mean, actually, there’s a restaurant near me that does this, except with the mask totally off. They have somebody, I think in the Philippines—
ELM: I saw this!
FK: —who they have on a video screen. Yeah.
ELM: It’s, like, the chicken place? Where it’s like—yeah.
FK: Yeah. Yup.
ELM: Where it’s—and this is—I mean, that’s not even pretending. That’s like, “We would like to pay this person a tiny fraction of a wage, instead of paying—”
FK: I mean, whatever. At least they’re being honest. [ELM laughs] I respect that more than I respect Amazon.
ELM: But she’s, like, on a video conference with the customer.
FK: Yes. That’s right.
ELM: It’s like, “This is deranged.”
FK: Yeah, it is.
ELM: That can’t be legal.
FK: I don’t know! [ELM laughs] All right—
ELM: So, anyway, for fandom, you know, I just think that I haven’t seen a massive shift in attitude towards these tools. Recently, I saw someone say, “These stories—” They posted a link to a couple of stories in a big fandom and said, “These are definitely generated by ChatGPT, and that sucks,” right? I looked at them and they—I mean, I know how ChatGPT formulates prose now, and I would say yes, 100%, they were, right?
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: And they weren’t good. They were very boring and generic and, you know, the sentences were all grammatically correct, but I couldn’t imagine choosing to read that, and the person had orphaned them and apologized, apparently. And so it’s like, I don’t think we’re seeing some massive shift in fandom attitudes the way some predicted a year ago.
FK: I agree. Completely.
ELM: So that’s interesting to see. But, that being said, I’m still seeing a lot of conversation about it, “I can’t wait for this to just go away.” And I don’t know what to say, because it’s clearly not going away.
FK: Agreed. [sighs] Well, thank you, Louise.
ELM: [laughs] And all the other names you have. [laughs]
FK: And all the other names you have. Let’s take a break, and then we’ll come back and do the rest of the letters.
ELM: K.
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, we’re back, and before we get into the letters, a little bit of business from Elizabeth talking about how the podcast is in fact continuing—well, not the podcast, but Fansplaining is in fact continuing.
ELM: The brand.
FK: The brand! Oh man, this sounds horrible now.
ELM: It is a brand.
FK: It’s not horrible. [ELM laughs] It is a brand.
ELM: Brands rule everything around us, and the Fansplaining brand is strong, I would say.
FK: Great. But I’m glad that [laughs] the Fansplaining brand will continue. You’re gonna—you’re transitioning into publishing more articles, and that’s gonna be incredible, which is why people should continue to support Fansplaining.
ELM: I thought I was talking about this.
FK: I’m trying to prompt you to talk about it, and you’re just making jokes about brands!
ELM: Shut your piehole. I’m talking about it now. [laughs] [FK makes lip-zipping noise] All right, so, yes. Fansplaining, this is the penultimate normal episode. We will have one more special episode in between the two on House, M.D. We have that on the calendar. We are gonna record. I am mainlining the final stretch, making me cry. Made me cry the first time, making me cry the second time. patreon.com/Fansplaining. Since we’ve announced that you’re leaving, we have gotten new patrons, which I found very heartening. Maybe they’re doing that because you’re going.
FK: Oh, thanks for that!
ELM: [laughs] What, you thought this was all gonna be sunshine and roses, and me laying tributes at your feet?
FK: No, I’ve met you.
ELM: For nine years of collaboration?
FK: I’ve met you.
ELM: Wow.
FK: I knew this is not true. [both laugh]
ELM: So we have those three episodes coming out. Depending on Flourish’s child’s status, we may put out an Interview with the Vampire season 2 episode at some point before the baby emerges.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Which would probably come out after your last final episode. TBD.
FK: Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.
ELM: Entirely dependent on this being.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And then after that, your patronage goes to support what is already shaping up to be a really great round of articles. I’ve gotten so many pitches, and more good pitches than I could possibly say yes to with the amount of money that we bring in. So every little bit helps, if you are interested in commissioning—these are stories that I don’t think folks could pitch anywhere else, because—or place anywhere. They could pitch them anywhere. But [laughs] place anywhere else.
FK: Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: [laughing] You could pitch wherever you want. Because they’re really, you know, in-depth, thoughtful fandom stories.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so yeah. And similarly, I would say, we have a one-off donation link via PayPal. If you don’t do PayPal, please just write us at fansplaining at gmail.com, and we can figure out some other method. If you had, like, a chunk of money, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: OK, there’s this guy on WNYC, whenever they do the pledge drive, he’s, like, one of the afternoon hosts, and he always goes for broke, and he’s always like, “Maybe you could donate $10,000. Maybe you have it in your means.” Because everyone’s like, “Oh, just $5 a month, or whatever, every little bit counts.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And he’s like, “It’s New York City.”
FK: If it’s New York City… [laughs]
ELM: “I bet someone listening [laughs] can donate $10,000 a month to us.” And it’s like, you know what, there definitely is someone who’s listening who can, and maybe his shamelessness will entice them.
FK: Will inspire them, yeah.
ELM: So I’m gonna channel him and say, not $10,000. Whatever, sure, if you have $10,000, hit me up, right? I could commission a bazillion articles. But if you had a couple hundred dollars to spare, you know, we’re paying $250 for an article, which is not as much as I want to pay, but still enough that I can only afford to do one or two articles a month at the current rate. A donation of one commissions an entire article, right?
FK: Yup.
ELM: Or, if you have something to sponsor, absolutely we’d be up for, like, a sponsorship, you know? Have a big ad of your choosing right in the middle of a post to say, “This is brought to you by this. Check them out.” You know? Et cetera.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So something, I think, relevant to this audience, probably.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: [laughs] Not just totally random.
FK: Probably not a random thing. It will not be sponsored by, I don’t know, Viagra.
ELM: Raytheon.
FK: Raytheon. OK.
ELM: So all that’s to say, one thing I will say too is, you know, Flourish and I have been talking about it and, you don’t want to make any promises, but I do think it seems like you’re up for doing future special episodes, you know, right? Depending on—
FK: Yeah, we’ll see how it goes. Yeah. But yeah, I’m not falling off the face of the Earth. I’m not dying, [laughs] you know?
ELM: So, you know, and there’s a, you know, there’s a strong chance that Fansplaining continues as a podcast relatively soon, because, you know, I have heard from some folks who are saying, “I don’t want to continue, I’m here for the podcast in particular.” But, you know, if you keep pledging, you will get more content. I guarantee it.
FK: [laughs] OK.
ELM: In addition to that back catalog that will still be there. So again, patreon.com/Fansplaining.
FK: Great. All right, should we get back into that mailbag?
ELM: Let’s do it!
FK: All right, this next one is the [sing-songy] voicemail! So can we listen?
ELM: Yeah.
Voicemail: Hi, Flourish and Elizabeth. I first want to say thank you so much for so many years of Fansplaining. I am definitely in denial that it’s going to be different now, but I’m excited for Flourish to meet their baby and start their new chapter.
My question is to hear your thoughts on if you think multiple reads on the same character in fanon can both or all be quote “accurate” and “in character.” And do you have any characters that you see this happen with, where the paths or characterization for the character diverges, but both fanon versions have a basis in the source material and could possibly have a lot of in-character elements to them?
For the character I’m thinking of, I personally always say that his bravado is actually a mask for his insecurities, and I make him the more vulnerable half of the ship or make him face demons. Another read on this character could easily be as a classic bad boy who then courts the girl-next-door or the shy academic type. So I would love to hear your thoughts on if you have any characters like this, where multiple fanon reads tend to happen, and where both could possibly be in-character.
Also, this podcast has meant so much to me over the years, so thank you so much again.
FK: Yes! [ELM laughs] The answer to this is yes. The answer is yes. There can definitely be multiple reasonable interpretations of a character, and absolutely yes. There can also be wrong ones, right? [laughs] There are—
ELM: There are infinite wrong ones.
FK: There are infinite wrong ones, but there can definitely be at least two right ones. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, you know, it also makes me think about—so the first thing it makes me think about, you read it, I know, because you sent it to me. Multiple people sent it to me, and I was so pleased. That big piece in Defector last week on Magneto, right?
FK: Oh yeah.
ELM: We’ll put it in the show notes. Definitely worth a read. Defector in general is a great publication. We mentioned them on Kayti’s episode. They’re the granddaddy of the worker-funded publications—or, sorry, worker-run publications, rather. You know, this was about when Magneto was introduced as an arch villain in the original X-Men comics in the ’60s. He didn’t have a lot of clear motivations, right? [laughs] He’s just kind of going around blowing stuff up—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and they were like, “We gotta stop him!” Right? And then when Chris Claremont took over the run in the ’80s, he gave him a Holocaust survivor backstory, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And pretty clearly grounded in the geopolitics.
FK: Yes.
ELM: You know, there’s bits set in Israel. And as time went on and different people took over, they kind of 180’d on him. Not 180’d but, you know, a degree [laughs] of change, right, about—
FK: There was a lot of change, yeah.
ELM: Yeah, and also, the article kind of tracks that alongside seeing, you know, Jewish feeling—Judeopessimism, global Jewish sentiment, zionism, feelings about the Holocaust, feelings about Israel, and stuff like that, and Magneto as a Jew. And so it’s super interesting. And so when you look at that—and that’s just the comics, and I’m in the movie fandom, so it’s, like, obviously they’re connected, but it’s not really, and it’s, like, so many different versions and you can have a new guy come in and be like, “No, that’s not why he’s doing that at all, and actually, he’s really like this.” And you’re like—
FK: Right. OK. [laughs]
ELM: “OK, I guess that’s what we’re doing now.” And so when you think about fandom, then you’re at another level, and it’s like, you know, I’m in the fandom where there’s been comics for 70 years, or whatever, and all these movies, and everyone is picking and choosing of what they want to interpret it as. And then there’s some people who I think are looking at the same exact things as me and reading them in ways that I find totally bananas, [laughs] you know?
FK: Yeah, absolutely.
ELM: And so are we all right at once? Eh… [laughs]
FK: Right. [laughs] Well, and that’s about there being very, very different versions of a character over time, and I think that that happens in any long-running anything, right? I mean, it’s very, very marked in comics, usually, because it’s different, you know, it’s different writers and they take over.
ELM: I mean, isn’t Spider-Man kind of always the same?
FK: No.
ELM: Really? Has he changed a lot?
FK: Yeah, there’s different versions of Spider-Man, for sure.
ELM: Well, I know that. I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
FK: No, but I mean, there are super different vibes of Spider-Man in different eras, yeah.
ELM: That’s so interesting. Everyone always talks about Spider-Man in such a, like, “He is this way.” I mean, maybe that speaks to this, right?
FK: Compared to other comics, he is. But if you actually, like, I definitely have my favorite Spider-Men [ELM laughs] eras, you know? Because there’s different feelings. Anyway, no, but even in a long-running TV show, like in House or in The X-Files for sure—
ELM: No, name a character in House that you feel the characterization dramatically changes.
FK: Maybe not that dramatically, but I feel like Cuddy could be. You could have different takes on Cuddy and her relationship to people, for sure, at different points in that series.
ELM: Mmm…all right, well, I don’t want to get too much into House right now, because we’re gonna have a whole episode about it, but I actually—
FK: You disagree. You think that it’s very coherent.
ELM: No, I mean, I think that she acts very differently, but I think that it’s in a very believable way, right? Her life changes, she makes different priorities and choices.
FK: I think that’s true, but I also think that that’s the case actually, like, in The X-Files, right? In most long-running shows, whether it’s believable or whether it’s not believable, which depends, but it’s a long show, and so at different points, people are acting in different ways because they have different experiences.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And so when you write fanfic, then what part of that show are you thinking about as being the core of that character, right?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: Like, there’s a lot of it. So is it—yeah, is it the Cuddy that we first meet? Or is it the Cuddy much later on, you know what I mean? I don’t know, you know?
ELM: No offense to her. I wouldn’t write Cuddy fanfiction.
FK: I know. I’m just using an example, because I didn’t want to go, like, super X-Files, [ELM laughs] which is not a fandom that you’re in. Yeah, no, I mean, whatever. With Scully I also feel like, you know, there’s definitely two major interpretations of her. In one, she’s a super normie and happens to be dragged into this, you know, dark world, and in the other, she’s a hypercompetent, ice-cold lady who has always been like this, and the normie stuff was just, like, what she sort of had to do.
ELM: An ice-cold lady, huh?
FK: Yeah, so…
ELM: You can say stone-cold bitch if you want. [FK laughs] I think that’s feminist.
FK: [laughs] Yeah, in a feminist way. In a feminist way, absolutely.
ELM: Yeah. Yeah.
FK: But, you know, and obviously, you know, if you go too far on either of these, I find it to be out of character.
ELM: Mmm.
FK: But there’s a really wide range within it that I’m like, “Yeah, I believe that that could be Scully’s, like, deepest inner self, actually.”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: She could be anywhere in there, right? So—and then, that doesn’t even get into the issue of short canons, because when you have a short canon, there’s not very much, and you have to read into it, right? You get something that’s, like, one movie.
ELM: Right.
FK: And you’re like, “OK. There could be lots of stuff behind this facial expression.”
ELM: Tom Hardy slouching. [FK laughs] It’s like, “We gotta invent whole worlds, here.”
FK: Right, you know? I mean, truly, though. [ELM laughs] And just because everybody in fanon decides that they like one doesn’t mean that another one is any less authenticated by the canon, so…
ELM: Yeah. I mean, it even makes me think of, you know, I’ve written canon-divergent AU, and part of that is to say, “Well, if you change the, you know, if you change the circumstances and the pressures on these characters—”
FK: Right.
ELM: “—how do they change?” Right? And right now I’m writing a canon story, and it’s very funny to think about, like, oh, [laughs] nothing changed, and so it can’t be this way, it can’t be that way, and you think about, like, oh, sitting those two versions of the same character on top of each other, in this case, in fact, Magneto, right? You know? And they both feel very true, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: But part of it is, I feel like I’ve done my—I’ve shown my work, right? You know?
FK: Right. Right, for sure.
ELM: When fans get upset, when people say that the fanfiction is OOC or when they say that about canon, like a new season of a show, and it feels like the character is acting totally—I mean, we’ve talked about this at length, right, what that even means, and sometimes it’s just “I don’t like that,” right? “I don’t—”
FK: Right. Right.
ELM: [laughs] But I think a lot of the time in fanfiction, when it’s OOC, it is an absolute, like, non-work-showing experience, right? There’s a post that I’ve seen multiple times recently, and it frustrates me, where it says, like, “Well, every AU is—an AU is always gonna be a little OOC, because it shouldn’t be exactly what it’s like in the canon. They’re in a different world now.” And it’s like, no! That’s not out of character, the point is they should still—obviously, Cuddy’s life experiences, the way House treats her, her baby, et cetera, I’m just naming things that happened to Cuddy, you know, it all shapes— [laughs]
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —the way that she comes out, right? I don’t necessarily read her as making any wild swings.
FK: No, I agree, I agree.
ELM: You know, it’s not like we look at Cuddy season 1 and she’s frozen in time—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and then everything that happened since then that doesn’t exactly align, we’re like, “Out of character!”
FK: Right. Yeah.
ELM: Right? You know? And fanfiction shouldn’t be like that either.
FK: Hopefully!
ELM: Yeah, right? You know? Like, “Oh, she did exactly this thing, so she’s gotta do exactly that same thing again.”
FK: Right.
ELM: I, you know, because even canon-based fanfiction, like fanfiction that’s heavily set in the canon, is really closely hewing to the canon, we’re not looking for one-to-one retellings. We’re not looking to read the script, you know?
FK: Right.
ELM: With descriptions of the actors or whatever, right?
FK: Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: You know? So…
FK: Right. Exactly.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Yes! The answer is yes.
ELM: Great voicemail.
FK: Thank you.
ELM: Lovely voicemail to get for our final AMA.
FK: OK. Next one. Shall I read it?
ELM: Sure.
FK: OK. “Hi, Flourish and Elizabeth!
“My name is Min, and I’ve been listening to the Fansplaining podcast a lot recently during my morning commute. My question today is a little bit vague, but I hope it makes sense. Right now, I’m mostly in sports RPF circles and one discussion that’s been going around a fair bit is about how sports RPF particularly has kind of shifted away from exploring the murky waters of athlete relationships and how real-life events might affect them, and instead towards more formulaic and easily defined stories that don’t take into account these social and cultural machinations.
“I think this goes for a lot of RPF specifically, but maybe also for fictional fandoms, in that much of the fanfic zeitgeist is geared around putting your blorbos in situations instead of thinking about what makes your blorbos narratively compelling in those situations, or the real-life/canon culture that they’re steeped in and how it changes their worldview. It just made me think, when we put these celebrities or notable figures in other universes, how much is it really about them working at a coffee shop? Or is it just a guy in a coffee shop now?
“I’m bringing this up because I think it fits into a wider discussion about how tropes are structuring fandom and the kind of fic that gets popular because it’s easy to find and to categorize both as a reader and a writer. If you think, oh I’m going to write an office au, then the mere premise of them being office workers often does more of the heavy lifting than any consideration about how that change in setting would also influence their characterization and dynamic. Going back to the example of sports RPF, if you’re reading a story about bedsharing, the premise itself just being ‘these two athletes shared a bed’ is easier to understand as a reader, sure, but also less grounded in these specific athletes and how sports culture and its associations of intimacy have shaped the emotional fallout.
“Not to say that fics that are about putting characters in situations aren’t worthwhile, or that I’m trying to gatekeep the fun of playing in a trope sandbox, but I’m wondering if this is part of some larger trend about tropiness defining rather than fitting into fanfiction culture and how that differs across fandoms and platforms. I’m especially considering the advent of this in published books as well, where some blurbs now are wont to tell you more about how the novel would be tagged on AO3 than any emotional or character-based crux it may have.
“Thanks for reading! I love the podcast and hope you’re doing well. Best, Min.”
ELM: Thank you very much, Min. This is a great letter, and also, just as I think about this topic, it kind of bums me out. [laughs]
FK: Yeah, absolutely it bums me out. [ELM laughs] I think that there’s two things going on here, and one of them is, sort of…I have no problem with, like, loving a trope and just wanting to read more of that trope and kind of not—caring more about the trope than anything else that’s going on in there, right? When something’s really hitting your id, it’s like, “Oh yeah. Bedsharing!” You know? “That hits my id. I just want more bedsharing.”
But I don’t think that that’s necessarily conducive to valuing the kinds of fanfiction qua fanfiction that I value the most, right? What I like about fanfiction is that it’s working with an existing story and characters or real people who you have particular ideas about and it’s an interplay between that and whatever situation they’re being put in, the trope. It has to be reflective back into the canon and teach me something and, you know, go back and forth in between those things. And if I’m just reading for bedsharing, then I don’t care about any of that, right?
And again, that’s fine on an emotional level, but it takes away something that I like in fic, and that makes me sad, when there’s lots of that happening, and I’m like, “Oh, well, where’s the good fics?” [laughs] You know?
ELM: [laughs] Well, it’s interesting, not to get too, like, reflective, “Oh, these last 10 years” or whatever, but I feel like right when we started the podcast was when we started to see more and more talk about this, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Like, “Have you noticed this is kind of starting to happen?” Right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And it’s happened, right? It’s gone now. I think we could see the tide kind of settling in, and you know, I think as we’ve discussed many times, a lot of this in fanfiction is due to the AO3’s tagging system, right?
FK: Mmm hmm.
ELM: And the ability to search across trope.
FK: Which is funny, because I wanted that so bad when it came out, and now I’m like, “Oh, maybe some of the knock-on effects I don’t like.” [laughs]
ELM: Oh my God, you know what, I was—did I talk about this on the podcast or was I describing it to someone else? There was this LiveJournal that I—probably my favorite LiveJournal ever, and I’m sure you had these in your ships and fandoms, but you would, like, leave a comment and be like, “Does anyone know of any blank stories,” right? “Any Remus/Sirius bedsharing stories?” Right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And then there’d be, like, people very helpfully trying to put in the comments—
FK: Oh yes.
ELM: But then the person who was running this particular one, or the people, had a robust tagging system within the LiveJournal.
FK: Oh yeah.
ELM: And I was just like—
FK: Yes.
ELM: “This is life-changing. I can read—”
FK: Yes! I remember this period!
ELM: “—four stories [laughs] about this one thing.”
FK: Exactly! And I mean, and what you could search for shaped what you did search for, right? Like, within X-Files fanfic, I read a lot of profiler stories, because I liked them, and it was something that people consistently tagged for.
ELM: Mmm. Yeah, yeah.
FK: Right? And so I still really associate that as a genre of story, [laughs] you know, which is not a genre—it’s not a thing in other—you know?
ELM: No.
FK: It’s not a thing.
ELM: I’ve never read a profiler—actually, I think I have read a profiler story.
FK: No, you probably have, because it is a sort of genre of story, but that was one of the few things—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —that people really tagged for, because it was something Mulder did, and so whenever Mulder showed up doing that. And so I read tons of it, right? And then the idea that I could do that for anything was incredible. But now, it’s like, no. [both laugh] I regret it.
ELM: No, you know, and also it would be like, someone would be like, “Does anyone know of any Remus/Sirius whatever, bedsharing stories” or whatever, and then I would click on the post, and there would be zero replies.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Or it’d be like, “I feel like I remember a story once.” And you’d just be like—
FK: Uh huh.
ELM: [gasps] Imagine—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? So it’s like, yeah, it’s funny to think about now.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I mean, how novel that was, and how helpful, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: But how completely some of these structures have overtaken huge parts of fandom, and it makes me also think about in our “Manacled” discussion, you know, we were reading the tags of that person talking about the anglophone world doesn’t have a really good original webnovel platform—
FK: Right.
ELM: —the way they do in China, for example, and specifically China.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? And this kind of idea that there’s people who are coming to fanfiction from outside fandom with no particular interest in the connections back to the source material, looking to read certain types of stories.
FK: Right.
ELM: And nothing against them, you know? They want to read an interesting story, right? But that then incentivizes you to write for them and not—
FK: Right.
ELM: —for the people who are interested in the source material.
FK: Right.
ELM: But I don’t know. We’ve also done, you know, we did a survey about the source material, and, like, lots and lots of people who consider themselves very fannish and care about “fanfiction qua fanfiction,” to quote you—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —not to use an expression I would ever say myself, [laughs] because you’re so fancy—you know, who I think think of themselves as perfectly fanfiction-y—
FK: Right.
ELM: Who give stories a whirl without ever knowing the source material.
FK: I’ve done it a couple of times, when people were really raving about a story to me, sure, you know? So…
ELM: Right. So all that’s to say, yes, Min.
FK: [laughs] I feel like a lot of our answers to these letters are yes, but it’s true.
ELM: Yeah, I don’t see any of that going back in the box, and I’m not particularly happy about it, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah, and again, I’m not—I certain read and write within certain tropes. I enjoy—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —certain story structures. It’s fun to play with them, right? It’s fun to know what you can then push against.
FK: Yup. Yeah.
ELM: But I think that the more and more the fanfiction world expands, the more and more this is gonna happen, and the structures we have right now are designed to encourage it.
FK: Right.
ELM: If we were in a world like the LiveJournal world, it would force people to make rec lists, and I don’t think it would just be lists where they share a bed, right?
FK: Yeah. Agreed. All right, well, onward?
ELM: Yeah, and upward.
FK: All right. Thank you very much for this letter. Min, we’re living in the same world. [ELM laughs] All right, read me the next one. Read me the next one, Elizabeth.
ELM: All right. This is from Neil.
“Hi, Flourish and Elizabeth!
“I’m a fairly new listener, currently enthusiastically working my way back through your episodes, and I might have a topic I’d like your input on. This might be a contentious one.
“So for a few years now I’ve been in the most excellent little fandom—well, mid-sized fandom. A Korean drama whose fandom on Tumblr might be made up of mostly Westerners, but has multiple Koreans and Korean-Americans regularly chiming in on the conversation, giving cultural context or pointing out puns which have gotten lost in the translation in the English sub. The biggest drama so far was somebody getting laughed at for having the Korean characters in their fic inexplicably only eat Chinese food.
“Which brings me to the fact that fandoms like this—unfortunately—are outliers. Because in most cases, the anglophone part of the fandom reigns supreme, to the exclusion of everything else. For example, I’ve been in the MDZS/The Untamed fandom since before the latter came out, and it was a pity to see that the lively cultural dialogue with many Chinese and Diaspora fans that happened early on got drowned out by Western fans, and often quite tone-deaf ones. To the point that these days, there are only few Chinese fans remaining, which often keep to themselves, and the material is all but exclusively interpreted through a Western lens, losing much of its nuance.
“And this Americanization can be seen everywhere! How many Les Mis fics have I read that were inexplicably set in the U.S.! So many! And do you know how many Witcher AUs I´ve found that were actually set in Poland? You probably guessed it: none. It is astonishing how often material is just transplanted into the U.S. or read through an American lens without any effort going into interpreting it in its own cultural context! Sometimes Britain too, but those are the biggest offenders. And these things become more and more visible with Hollywood slowly losing its monopoly on entertainment. East Asian and Southeast Asian media is on the rise.
“I am not American. Neither am I British. I’ve never been in an anglophone country in my life. Every fanfic that I write comes with hours of research be it about Korean funerary practices or about American public transport. And I know there are plenty of people, including those from America and Great Britain, who do put in the effort of researching the cultures they depict in fic and do try to do them some justice. They’re just not the only ones, and on the days where someone is being particularly tone-deaf again, it is easy to overlook/dismiss these good apples in a fit of frustration.
“So, from the other side, what are your experiences with international fandoms? Have you ever been involved in a non-Western fandom? Or just non-anglophone fandom? What are your standards for intercultural research? Or for something completely different: have you ever stumbled on fic set in the U.S. that was clearly written by someone who’d never been?
“All the kindest to the both of you, keep it up with the awesome podcast.”
OK, can I speak German here? Let’s see. “Kindest regards und Liebe Grüße, Neil.”
FK: Thank you, Neil!
ELM: Apologies for my German. I tried. [laughs]
FK: I feel like it was probably OK.
ELM: Cool.
FK: Because I’m an authority on this issue. [laughs]
ELM: Yes…Klink. [laughs]
FK: Yeah! Right? The last name obviously means that I know things. Neil, thank you very much for this. The one thing that I will say right off the top is, I hope you keep working your way through the podcast, because we’ve talked about a bunch of this stuff in a few different episodes before, and I think we’ll link places that we’ve talked about it. I will also say right off the top, yes, [laughs] we have both stumbled across fic set in the United States that was clearly written by somebody who had never been or, more specifically, even by someone in the U.S. who has never been to New York City. [laughs]
ELM: Don’t get me started.
FK: The United States is a large place and it is, you know, very, very clear sometimes when people live in one place and are writing about another, and you’re just like, “No.”
ELM: It’s not even living in one place. It is—so many stories are set in New York City. There’s so many movies and so many television shows you could watch—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —that do get it right, because they’re made by people [laughs] who live in New York City, right?
FK: Right, right.
ELM: They’re made by Hollywood people.
FK: Go watch The Devil’s Advocate. It’s all shot on location.
ELM: Thank you, you’re—I’m so glad I got to introduce you to that extraordinary New York City movie.
FK: Oh, the greatest film ever made? The Devil’s Advocate? Yeah.
ELM: I love that you fully embraced it with the same level of love I—
FK: It was made for me. [both laugh] Anyway.
ELM: But you know, there’s so many basic things that it’s just like, “Oh my God, come on. Have you watched a movie set in New York City?”
FK: Right.
ELM: That’s fine. But so we had a bunch of discussions about this in multiple episodes with a bunch of different people’s perspectives from different parts of the world, and yeah, and so I assume Neil has reached those now, if they’re working backwards. One thing that came up in those discussions that I think is relevant here—and this isn’t meant to give Americans or British people a pass—is we had a really memorable letter, I believe it was from a Brazilian person, who was—
FK: Yeah, it was from a Brazilian person.
ELM: Yeah. Who was talking about how a lot of the current romance novels, or contemporary fiction kind of stuff, were getting set in a generic U.S.-like place, [FK laughs] but Nowhere, U.S.A., right? You know? And how strange that was. I mean, it’s strange for me to just think about it, right? You know? The kind of—
FK: Like a never-never land that’s sort of non-anywhere.
ELM: And that’s the place that a lot of fanfiction is set as well, right? And I think that it’s pretty notable. I mean, these are Brazilian publishers, maybe Brazilian authors, writing these books set in those places, right? I do think what we encounter, because fandom is so global now, but because English remains this kind of lingua franca for a lot of fandom—obviously, tons of people are working in other languages, but it is kind of, you know, we have Neil who’s never been to an anglophone country.
FK: Right.
ELM: You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: Who is participating in English-speaking fandom. I think you have people from other parts of the world writing for a lot of readers who are from other parts of the world, setting fic in a generic U.S. setting because that’s what people are doing? [FK laughs] And it feels a little self-perpetuating, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so fanfiction winds up set in these nowhere places where it’s just, like, a weird little backdrop. It’s just like in the office AU or in the university AU. It’s so rare that I read one where I’m like, “I really understand what kind of college this is. I understand the vibes.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? You know?
FK: Right, right.
ELM: Instead, it’s just, like, generic dorm, generic class, you know? Whereas, like, I don’t know. I went to two different higher ed institutions. They had extraordinarily different vibes, you know? [laughs]
FK: Oh, completely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
ELM: Right? And I’ve written a couple stories set at colleges and universities, and I was modeling them on specific ones, and people were like, “I can really tell exactly—I can get the vibe exactly,” and I’m like, “Yes, I’m literally describing [FK laughs] how I walked from the dorm to the town.” [laughs] You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: It’s meant to be rooted, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Whereas I think that, I don’t know. And maybe in a—as we talked about in those episodes, and as we got feedback from other folks from different backgrounds, it does seem like maybe there is not anxiety, but maybe a worry that if you were to set it in your own country, people would find it unrelatable?
FK: Yeah, or weird or too specific.
ELM: Right, right. And so it’s like, yeah, it’s very rare that you read one set in the United States that feels too specific. [laughs] You’re like—
FK: Yeah, for sure.
ELM: “I literally have no—what’s the climate?” You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I couldn’t tell you, you know?
FK: Right. Yeah, I mean, the other thing I will note is that I don’t believe either of us have ever been in a non-Western fandom or maybe even non-anglophone fandom, which at least for me doesn’t have to do with not enjoying non-anglophone and non-Western things, but actually I think it probably does to some extent have to do with my fear of, like, doing the research to write— [laughs]
ELM: Really?
FK: —you know, such a thing.
ELM: Interesting.
FK: Yeah! And also just not feeling like I have a deep enough understanding necessarily of the culture, right?
ELM: Hmm.
FK: When I—like, I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan, comparatively speaking and I think that it would be so presumptuous, you know, for me to try and [laughs] do that.
ELM: Hmm.
FK: I don’t feel prepared for that, you know? And same with other places that I’ve spent a lot of time in, even. I don’t feel comfortable writing that. And for me, a lot of fandom is writing and getting into it in those ways, right? So I could see being in a music fandom much more easily, and a lot of my friends who are in non-Western fandoms have gotten in through music fandom that way, too.
ELM: Hmm.
FK: So I don’t know, you know? Maybe someday? But I can’t answer, like, what my standards would be for that, because I’ve never been brave enough to, [laughs] you know, actually go there.
ELM: Flourish, you say this, but you’ve also never lived in a galaxy far, far away.
FK: Yeah, but that’s fine, I can make that up.
ELM: A long time ago? Is that what the—it’s a long—
FK: A long time ago.
ELM: It’s a long time ago. Yeah.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right, I mean, and that is true, right? I think the point about the rise of, you know, live-action East Asian, Southeast Asian media, absolutely. You know, American-made pop cultural products are still very large, right? And I think that’s also partly why this looms over this conversation, right? And, I mean, a lot of those, too, project a sort of generic—you know, they are movies that are made to be shown to everyone in the world.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And that kind of makes them sort of flat and—
FK: Right. [laughs]
ELM: You know, people modeling their dialogue after that or whatever, if they’re non-native speakers, like, the dialogue is not meant to be particularly beautiful. It’s meant to be—
FK: Right.
ELM: And not just to be able to play in whatever country, but to play on 15,000 screens in every American movie theater.
FK: Right.
ELM: You know what I mean? So it’s like, I don’t know. That kind of space that we’re all sort of swimming in.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I think it adds to it.
FK: Agreed. Well, thank you very much, Neil. You’re not wrong.
ELM: [laughs] Yeah, and I hope—
FK: As we’ve said to everybody else. [laughs]
ELM: I hope that you’ve gotten to the episodes that we’re talking about. We will put them in the show notes.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But hopefully that provides some additional perspectives, because, yeah. We are just two Americans. [sighs]
FK: Yup.
ELM: Two New Yorkers, [FK laughs] where let me tell you, you don’t just find—
FK: Are you letting me call myself a New Yorker now?
ELM: Oh…
FK: I’ve only lived in this city for, like, 10 years. This is a great moment for me.
ELM: [laughs] Is this the moment that you get—well, OK, Flourish—
FK: This is the moment!
ELM: Flourish, you know what they say, and I think you’ve experienced this, because you live in Manhattan.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But you get to call yourself a New Yorker when you walk by a location and you say, “Oh, God, remember when that used to be blank?”
FK: Yes. That has definitely happened. [both laugh] COVID made it—actually, for me, the moment that I became a New Yorker was, did I tell you about this? The other day, I was, like, walking down, like, I was crossing the street and a car, like, nearly ran into me, and I did not break my stride and I turned to him and I yelled, “I’m fucking walking here!” [laughs] And I was like—
ELM: Did you have your priest collar on?
FK: Thank God no, [laughs] because I was like—
ELM: No, that would have been even better. Pregnant priest, slapping the hood of the car—
FK: Anyway, that was the moment where I was like, “I am of New York. The car has no fear for me. I stare it down. [laughs] I yell at it.”
ELM: See, this particular thing is very, like, you know, I grew up a few hours north of here, but because my mother is from Queens, this is genetically within me, right?
FK: Oh yes, I know it is. I’ve observed you on the street [ELM laughs] being like this many times. [laughs]
ELM: We’re giving the finger left and right, [FK laughs] you know? I love to do disap—I, like, shake my head at people if they’re blocking the crosswalk, or whatever.
FK: Oh yeah. Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: Mmm mmm. Mmm mmm.
FK: All right. Great. Glad to—[laughs]
ELM: Yeah, no, just talk to—if you’re setting your story in New York City, don’t have them easily finding parking.
FK: Ha!
ELM: In fact, they probably wouldn’t be driving.
FK: Remember alternate-side street sweeping is a major issue if they own a car, and just drop it in there. [laughs]
ELM: This is the thing. This is the thing. I don’t think that needs to be in there. Like, that’s too much detail. See, this is finding the right level of detail, right?
FK: But if they own—if they’re gonna own a car, and that’s gonna be part of their personality? That they own the car? They’re gonna talk to you about that. Everyone I know with a car, it’s, like, the only thing they fucking talk about.
ELM: Here’s how you get it in your story. If your character has a car, it’s not that they’re like, “He couldn’t find parking, because of alternate side.” Right? That’s gonna sound cheesy and—
FK: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: —not a lived-in detail. Instead, you should set a scene—
FK: Right.
ELM: —where he’s sitting in the car, waiting for the time to elapse—
FK: Yes! [laughs] Yes.
ELM: —so that he can be one of the first people to move his car.
FK: Yes, that’s right.
ELM: That’s the detail.
FK: That’s right. And he’s on the phone with somebody and, like, it’s causing tension, [laughs] because, yeah. Everybody I know does phone calls with people while they’re doing this, and it’s the most annoying thing in the world.
ELM: Like when I wrote a story set in Hollywood, and you were like, “He’s gotta take meetings while he’s driving.”
FK: Yes, that’s right!
ELM: [laughing] And I was like, “I don’t know if I can get that in there.”
FK: [laughs] No, he’s just rolling calls, right? You know? Anyway. All right. OK, we should do the last—we only have one more letter, so let’s read it.
“Hi, Elizabeth and Flourish.
“Just finished listening to the lovely, as always, “Arranged Marriage” “Tropefest” special episode. I loved your breakdown of the trope, especially with its connections to historical periods, and thought I’d add one other suggestion of why I, and I think others, also enjoy arranged marriage fics.
“Given that, as you say, most of these stories end with a relationship that’s become romantic and loving, I think a big component of the enjoyment is that they give readers the fantasy of having a successful romantic relationship come into your life without having to wade through the ghosts and duds and blahs and work of dating.
“Especially in an era of dating apps, though I imagine the fantasy extends earlier, there’s something inherently appealing about ‘all of a sudden’ finding yourself in a satisfying sexual or romantic relationship that is, in a sense, delivered into your life. Even if, yes, the characters have to work toward knowing each other—and presumably, in these stories, falling in love—they still have the work of the initial setup taken care of for them. And even if that’s for unsexy reasons of political alliance or family money or lines of succession, the match has been made.
“It makes me wonder about whether the arranged marriage trope has also gone up and down in popularity through times and places in some correlation with expectations around dating and marriage and romance.
“Love your discussions, as always. Fandom Fan.”
ELM: Thank you very much, Fandom Fan. So this was about our last special episode in the “Tropefest” series. Flourish’s favorite trope.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: [laughs] It’s interesting. As we brought up in the last episode, you know, there’s a large number of people in certain parts of the world today who still have arranged marriages, so this is somewhat culturally specific, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: But we also brought up that it’s historically specific, you know, to—I think the cultural context stuff is, if two characters were arranged to be married in a story in, you know, the 19th century or earlier, right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Would read extremely differently—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and maybe not be really a trope, but more like a fact of life.
FK: Right. [laughs]
ELM: But I do wonder, you know, you are much more knowledgeable about this than me. I’m somewhat repeating back to you what I’ve gotten from you over the years. [FK laughs] But, you know, you’ve talked about romance scholarship from the ’70s and ’80s, and you know, I wonder then if arranged marriage was emotionally resonant for those, you know, those female readers who were in marriages maybe that were a little more prescribed to start, you know?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: I think that historically, you know, in the mid-century, you were more often set up. You were more often kind of just “all right,” because it was more standard to be married, right? So you’d be like, “Well, he’s there.”
FK: Yeah, there was just, like, a smaller pool of people potentially, too, right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You’re living in some town and, you know, you kind of know the people you went to high school with, and you’re probably going to marry one of them, you know? So…
ELM: Right. And so it’s a fantasy that, like, a true love would blossom from within that situation where you’re kind of forced together, which is kind of the opposite of what Fandom Fan is describing as happening now.
FK: Yeah, I think that that’s really true, and that’s one of the things that does come up in that scholarship a bunch, is the idea that the enjoyment of, like, one of the theses is that the enjoyment of those novels, those romance novels, whether it is about an arranged marriage or a marriage of convenience or whatever, you know, whatever it is, is the idea that you’re sort of learning about—maybe “learning” is a strong word, but you’re seeing modeled the idea of, you know, things are not perfect, and then you come to understand the other person better, and they come to understand you better, and over time, you work on it, and maybe it is a fantasy that, like, you work on it and it gets better, but it’s also sort of real, in some ways, right? Like having any relationship, you’re going to discover things about the other person where you’re like, “That’s just totally shitty,” [laughs] and then you’re gonna have to [ELM laughs] figure it out over time, right? That’s the nature of being in a relationship. And so there was a lot of emphasis on that as, like, almost being about strategies to operate within—
ELM: Mmm.
FK: “Well, you have to be married, so how are you gonna cast this in the most positive light and move forward in the best ways.” And I don’t think that that is the appeal anymore.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I think that Fandom Fan is—I mean, it’s the appeal I’m sure to some extent. But I think, Fandom Fan, you’re really right.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I have literally thanked God multiple times, in prayer, [ELM laughs] that I am not on dating apps right now, because it seems like the pit. [laughs]
ELM: Is that what, during church, when they’re like, “Think of somber thoughts,” or whatever, you’re thinking, “Glad I didn’t have to get on those apps.” [laughs]
FK: Every once in a while, I’m like, “Thanksgiving for my wonderful partner and, uh, thank you for saving me from, you know, Tinder, which I have never been on, because I got married before Tinder existed. I don’t want to be there, and I am so grateful I don’t have to do it.” [both laugh]
ELM: I mean, that being said though, I think there are a lot of romance readers, and I do wonder if this is part of why romance blew up during the pandemic, that are kind of trapped in marriages, right? You know?
FK: Oh, I think that’s absolutely also true. I think both things can be true.
ELM: Yeah, and the fantasy within that trope, and I think a lot of romance tropes, het romance tropes, is the fantasy that the man is gonna try too, you know? [laughs]
FK: Do anything. Yeah.
ELM: Yeah, but you know, yeah. Try—you know, like, they both kind of need to come around, right? You know, they both need—
FK: Right.
ELM: —to try to make an emotional connection within this.
FK: But he’s gonna try also at some point. [both laugh] Surely.
ELM: Yes.
FK: He will try, right? [both laugh] Yeah.
ELM: Yeah. So I feel like that it’s a mix of that today.
FK: I think that’s right. Thank you, Fandom Fan.
ELM: As a reminder, all those Patreon special episodes [FK laughs] are available, $3 a month. [laughs]
FK: Well, that’s the bottom of our mailbag. So…
ELM: All right.
FK: I’m feeling good about this. I am a little teary-eyed for my last AMA.
ELM: Oh my goodness, Flourish, what are you gonna do in the final episode?
FK: I’m probably actually gonna cry. Pregnancy hormones.
ELM: Uh huh. Pregnancy, yeah right. You care.
FK: And just being a softie. [ELM laughs] You know, a general softie.
ELM: All right, well, I will see you again when we talk about House, which makes me cry for a different reason.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And then to talk about you. This is your life.
FK: [laughs] All right, talk to you later, Elizabeth.
ELM: Bye, Flourish.
[Outro music]