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Special Episodes

Special Episode 37: The Fruitful Void

Exploring the intersections of TTRPGs, fannish roleplaying, and fanfiction.

Fansplaining

Fansplaining

— 49 min read
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Photograph of many dice in various color

In Special Episode 37, “The Fruitful Void,” Elizabeth is joined by new Fansplaining editor Lin Codega: An author of original novels and fanfiction as well as the Writers’ Room Assistant for The Vampire Lestat, Lin is also an expert in tabletop roleplaying and a co-founder of Rascal News, a publication devoted to TTRPGs. Starting with the term “the fruitful void,” which Lin invoked in their Fansplaining piece about Pitt fanfic, they explore the intersections of fanfiction, fandom text-based roleplaying, and TTRPGs, and all the ways we craft character and narrative collaboratively.

Special episodes are available on our Benefactor and Champion tiers. If you’re logged in, scroll down: audio and the episode transcript are below the show notes. If you’re not a member yet, please subscribe! ✨

Show Notes

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

[00:01:10] Lin’s website, and their books: Motheater and Pasha the Storm. [1]

  1. Fansplaining uses Bookshop.org affiliate links; if you buy these titles (or anything else) through our shop, we get a commission! ↩︎

[00:04:26] Last fall, we published an essay about fandom text-based roleplaying (and gender exploration) by Newt Albiston entitled “Alternate Universes.” Likely a subject we’ll do more on in the future! 

[00:05:36] 

Animated gif from the Eagle of Jamie Bell and Channing Tatum in the rain

This whole gifset by Tumblr user patrocles depicts A Real Vibe, but Lin would like to clarify that the scenery is great, too. :-) 

[00:08:10] “The Pitt Fandom Phenomenon” 

[00:09:12] The first mention of “the fruitful void.”

[00:10:38] Vincent Baker on the term.

[00:14:02] Rascal News!

[00:20:52]

[00:21:50] Elizabeth is thinking of Train, which is a board game. You may have heard about Train recently because the fictional game at the center of Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow had…a lot of similarities.

[00:22:29] Under Hollow Hills

[00:25:50] That’s Kriegsspiel—which people still play!

[00:28:36] Both Elizabeth and transcriptionist Maria learned about “nightmare horses” from this conversation, but please note that in the Wikipedia entry for the creature—historically known as a “mare” in Germanic and Slavic folklore—they lead with this extremely cool mare in cat form: 

Beautiful colorful drawing of a cat/demon on a sleeping person, sticking their tongue in the person's mouth.

(All cats stand directly on your chest and lick your face while you sleep, not sure how this is a “mythical” creature!!!) 

[00:41:39]

Animated gif of Drs Robby and Abbott smiling at each other.

[00:56:11] Elizabeth’s reporting on Character.AI in WIRED.

[01:01:14] Our outro music is “Making it look easy” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

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