Features
The Ever-Mutating Life of Tumblr Dot Com
Reports of the platform’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Archive
Criticism
The Empowered Stan
Fandom can be both identity and liberation—but how do we keep our joys from being co-opted by corporate interests?
Features
You Did the Thing
A conversation with Gretchen McCulloch about the language of fandom.
Features
Shipping Survey: Methodology and Tools
Commas, smushed ship names, and one long-suffering data professional.
Features
Shippers on Shipping
What is shipping? Our survey’s 16,513 self-identified shippers...did not agree.
Features
“You’re Gonna Love This Franchise”
Fandom, corporate media, and San Diego Comic-Con.
Criticism
The Year of Loving Things Again
On giving yourself permission.
Features
Fic, Interrupted
The unfinished history of works in progress.
Surveys
Towards a Definition of “Fanfiction”
3,564 people took our survey. Here’s what we learned.
Criticism
(Don’t) Meet Your Idols
Fantasy and reality collide in boyband YA literature.
Features
Fan Fiction vs. Fanfiction
When the dictionary doesn’t reflect the world.
Criticism
Mary Sue
From self-inserts to imagines, how young women write themselves into the narrative.