This Week In Fandom History

We can do this all day! This week, Emily surprises V with an episode all about her blorbo, Steve Rogers (Captain America). It's a loosey-goosey chat about their baby blorbo boy, from his origin as the creation of two Jewish men who wanted a golem to punch Hitler in the face to their own origin stories as Steve fangirls. Plus, a rundown on AO3's top ten Steve ships! Note: There were some technical issues with the recording on this episode, so there are a few places where the audio goes a bit fuzzy. It might sound better without headphones. This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Bubble, bubble, bubble pop! This week, V and Emily explore the highs of fandom and lows of the kpop trainee system as they look at one of the coolest fanworks ever made, possibly: the guerilla zine Bubble Pop! Spearheaded by one Washington D.C. kpop fan who wanted to know who the other kpop fans of her city were, Bubble Pop! was the coolest (and most fun-sounding) party of this week in fandom history. V also tells Emily a lot of things about kpop that Emily does not enjoy at all. This episode was very helpfully aided by one of our lovely patrons, ArcticEllie! Thanks, Ellie! Sources Bubble Pop! This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Beam us up! This week, Emily and V were expecting a disaster of epic proportions and bad feelings all around, but instead we got a surprisingly delightful and warm story of fandom community spirit saving a very bad situation. We both cry in this episode. It's fine. It's just Star Trek fans being great, okay?! Have you ever met a new friend at a convention? What would you do with a suitcase full of fanfiction? This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

See ya later, pala-dudes! This week, V and Emily hit a double-header in the Voltron: Legendary Defender fandom (thanks to two requesters and V's VLD primer pal, Fran!). First, V attempts to explain what the show is about and why it launched on Netflix with a built-in fandom. And then... oh, boy. You know how our ending stinger is "well-behaved fandoms rarely make history"? Well, this fandom is VERY POORLY BEHAVED and therefore, have made history. That's for sure... Not really a TW, but just be aware that this episode is heavy on discussions of purity culture, particularly with regard to shipping age gaps. This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

And I can hear them now! This week, Emily and V pre-emptively apologize for their French accents and inability to pronounce "Enjolras" as we look at the Les Mis fandom holiday of Barricade Day. While the real event was an unmitigated tragedy, and it was also an unmitigated tragedy in the book, musical, and movie adaptations, Barricade Day is a wholesome fandom holiday for Les Mis fans to gather and write, draw, sing, and hope for a happier ending for their beloved Amis de l'ABCs. We love it. This is also a very silly and loosey-goosey episode to make up for the total bummer of last week. It is not... misérable, one might say. This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

No quippy exclamation this week, because V and Emily delve into probably the worst, most shameful, most infuriating, just awful pair of people ever to be associated with fandom history: scifi authors and fucking monsters Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen. This is not a lighthearted episode in any way. Please heed the trigger warnings and take care of yourself if you choose to listen. History is not always fun and celebratory and silly Star Trek holidays. Sometimes it's going, "This horrible, ugly thing is part of our architectural foundation. Now what?" TW: CSA, rape, incest, total institutional failure to safeguard minors. Sources Marion Zimmer Bradley's Child Abuse MZB Gave Us New Perspectives, All Right Timeline of Events MZB on Fanlore Joanna Russ on Fanlore 1960s Fan History Outline, Chapter 8 Vonda N. McIntyre: Darkover Landfall Reviewed (1974) The Guardian comments section (2014) Tor.com Yanks MZB Birthday Tribute Elizabeth Waters Deposition (1997) Breendoggle on Fancyclopedia The Great Breen Boondoggle on Fancyclopedia Breendoggle Wiki Walter Breen on Fanlore This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

NET.SPACE! This week, Emily and V surf their way to the earliest days of being able to connect with other human beings in cyberspace, and also, once again bow to the king of fandoms that takes place in actual space. First, Emily explains the pure haterade that was the Die, Seven, Die! Challenge after the series finale of Star Trek: Voyager. (Also, we looked up how to pronounce "Chakotay.") Then, to give some context for this unconstrained summer hatefest of fun, we look into what, exactly, Usenet was, and why Alice was the fucking best. Did you Usenet? Were you a September nuisance? This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Don't stop believin'! This week, V and Emily go back to a very different world. A pre-Glee world. And it kind of isn't pretty. While V loved Glee at first, its legacy is... not super chill and great? Outside of a few key ships that will get their own episodes later on this year and/or early next year? So this episode is about Glee as a whole, which... listen. The songs slapped. They did. However. There are so many "howevers." Also, V had a life-paradigm-shifting experience on YouTube vis-a-vis show choir while researching this episode, so there's that. Also, you may be looking at this episode thinking, "Last week, you said the next episode would be about May the 4th." Since we are WELL past that week in fandom history, we're instead jumping ahead to get back on schedule and will be releasing the May the 4th Holiday Special on Patreon for all donors. Sources Does Glee Hate Its Women? by Robert George Dear Writers of Glee by @delladilly Glee is not progressive. by @feministglee This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Paprika! This week, Emily and V head back to 2021 -- but mostly 2022, carte blanche -- to look at the phenomenon of Dracula Daily and its explosion of popularity on Tumblr. We also head to 1992 to look at the worst movie of all time, Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring extremely beautiful people who were all in extremely different movies all at once. And then we traipse to 1897 to look at the original novel of Dracula and its extremely weird creation by a very strange l'il guy, Bram Stoker. Plus, bats! Bats everywhere! Also, Jack the Ripper! Also, you may note that this is actually a date from last week (in fandom history). And um. So is... so is the next episode. V messed up the spreadsheet a little bit and we didn't notice until we'd recorded three episodes in a row that happened on either May 3 or May 4. ...It won't happen again, probably. Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer! This week, Emily and V head West to Texas and back in time to the 1980s to visit with the most melodramatic family in television history: the Ewings. As a cultural phenomenon that helped define the decade, Dallas... has surprisingly few (surviving?) fanworks. But thanks to one teenage fan nigh twenty years after the Ewings bid South Fork adieu, Emily and V get to learn about the JR/Sue Ellen ship (and reminisce about Web 1.0 fansites). Plus... who shot JR? Sources Dallas Online Forever

Iceberg right ahead! This week, V and Emily plumb the depths of the entire world's massive Titanic fandom and its accompanying "Leomania." James Cameron's Titanic was impossible to ignore in 1998 -- from the cinema to some weird video store in Utah, from middle school dances to the Oval Office, from the pages of Vanity Fair to the wilderness of GeoCities, Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt-Bukater were inescapable. So grab your Jewel of the Sea knockoff necklace, polish off your Céline Dion CD, and rewind VHS1 of your two-tape box set. Are you ready to go back to Titanic?

What would they think? This week, Emily and V -- okay. This episode was supposed to be about the April 2000 Slate Magazine article, "Luke Skywalker Is Gay?" And it does start out that way. But thanks to Emily's personal fannish history and a tiny footnote in the article, this episode goes... somewhere else. And oh my god. Links Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at http://thisweekinfandomhistory.tumblr.com! You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

It wasn't me... it was... my evil twin brother! This week, V and Emily look at a somewhat different kind of fandom by delving into the long, long history of As The World Turns, a daytime soap opera that ran for over 50 years. ATWT made television history in 2007 when they featured the first M/M kiss, and first positively-portrayed M/M relationship, on American daytime television, but of course, Luke/Noah were not without drama. Melodrama. This star-studded episode features green-card marriages, murder attempts, doctor-blackmailing, Meg Ryan, and Spanish prisons. What more could you want from your stories? Links Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at http://thisweekinfandomhistory.tumblr.com! You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Fantastic! This week, Emily and V finally get to talk about one of their shared favorite fandoms: Doctor Who (New Who). With a focus on the emotional, oft-overlooked Ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston, they discuss the best and worst aspects of the show, how it makes them cry, and some timely (pun intended) elements brought specifically to the reboot by Eccleston, Billie Piper, and writer Russell T. Davies. Come along with us on the TARDIS, won't you? Additional Sources A Love Letter to the Aggressive Queerness of Captain Jack Harkness by Patrick Lenton What Does the New Doctor Who Offer Working-Class Whovians? by Sarah Hattfield Links Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at http://thisweekinfandomhistory.tumblr.com! You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

He's darkness! He's vengeance! This week, V and Emily look at the uniquely nerdy StarKid fandom and their superhero parody musical, HOLY MUSICAL B@MAN! (That's "B@man," not "Batman," in case Warner Brothers asks.) They look at the way StarKid musicals feel like your Tumblr dashboard, how Sean Astin will do basically anything you ask him to do apparently, and how absolutely insufferable your hosts were as high school theatre kids. (Yes, theatre, not theater. That's how insufferable.) Musical references abound! And, amazingly, we understand a joke in the show BECAUSE OF A PREVIOUS EPISODE OF TWIFH!

Do you want to know how he got these scars? This week, Emily and V take a trip to Gotham City to look back at Alan Moore's Batman magnum opus, The Killing Joke. While it garnered tons of accolades for its darkness, grittiness, violence, and portrayal of The Joker's semi-definitive backstory, The Killing Joke has also received a lot of (totally warranted) criticism for its darkness... grittiness... violence... and misogyny. The history and continued legacy of what happened to Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke is complex, dark, and hard to reconcile. Oracle was a badass character who represented a deeply underserved portion of the DC Comics audience; however, Gail Simone kind of had a point that it was metatextually misogyny keeping Babs in her chair. DC's choice(s) surrounding Barbara have no easy answers. However, your intrepid hosts do find a light in the dark-grim-grittiness of Gotham as they discover (create) its worst strip mall and the heroic citizens who brave its potholes...

There's no need to call him 'sir,' professor! This week, V and Emily really, really try very, very hard to be generous and understanding about people loving Severus Snape even though it is extremely difficult for them because he is the worst. In their personal opinions. Which are not facts, just opinions, and do not mean that you cannot love Severus Snape if you love him!!! Go ahead and love him!!! And listen to this tale of a group of women who really, REALLY loved him!!! Ahem. Do you have thoughts or feelings about Severus Snape? Were you, perhaps, astrally married to him?

No pithy exclamation this week, folks, we're jumping right into the actual episode description: This week, V and Emily are joined by Maggie @bossymarmalade, who was one of the key meta-writers during this unfortunate fandom (and wider writing world) event. "Racefail '09" is the moniker for a lengthy discussion on LiveJournal in 2009 about the role of race in fandom and the SF/F community, from heinous depictions of POC in SF/F titles to the way POC always seem to die first in fan-favorite TV shows to the lack of representation of fans of color at conventions, and more. Maggie very graciously agreed to be on TWIFH as a primary source for what it was like "on the ground" during this touchstone fandom imbroglio, and we are so grateful that she was willing to look back at this turbulent and often painful time with us. Were you a writer or follower of Racefail '09 on LJ? What do you think its legacy is in fandom today? FanHistory Wiki's Racefail Timeline Avalon's Willow's Racefail Timeline DeepaD's "I Didn't Dream of Dragons" bossymarmalade's "Sees Fire"

Badwards and cookies and unicorns, oh my! This week, V and Emily head to Forks and dive off the cliff into the world of Twihards, Twank, and one very special gazebo as they look at the first Twilight superfic and, arguably, the one with the biggest impact on the fandom: Wide Awake by angstgoddess003. Is this fic the reason that 50 Shades of Grey exists? Kind of. Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. But did V gobble up every cookie-themed chapter? Hell yeah! Learn about a Cassandra Clare-level wank with us and -- unlike the Cullen vamps -- burst into flames of rage at E.L. James' grossness. Were you a Twihard (or perhaps a Twimom)? Do you suffer from insomnia that can only be cured by the beautiful bad boy next door??

The Author would like to tell you all to suck it! This week, V and Emily scroll way, way, way back to 2021, when every single fucking page of AO3 was blighted by the tagslist on the one, the only: Sexy Times With WangXian. You know it. You hate it. And it led to archive-wide changes in tag limits and a discussion about tagging etiquette (and those terrible multifandom short-fic works that take up your whole screen. You know the ones). Were you in STWWX's direct fire?

CUT! This week, Emily and V go back in time for a retrospective of truly despicable actions and quotes by a truly despicable man, Joss Whedon, whom fandom-at-large gave far too many passes for far too long. From killing off Cordelia Chase to punish Charisma Carpenter to outright racism against Ray Fisher, Joss Whedon's career is as full of people to whom he was joyfully cruel as it is full of nerdcore heavy hitters. Can you really separate art from the artist? What is the line beyond which art just isn't worth it?

PEPPERONI! This week, V and Emily go completely off the rails as they join in on the annual Star Trek holiday of Threshold Day. This is the silliest episode we have ever done and likely will ever do. Get ready for salamanders! Polls! Crabs! Daddy issues! If you've never celebrated Threshold Day, just... get ready. With thanks to @hollie47, @vanilkaplays, @fictionalred, @forfuckssakejim, @myenterpriseisparked, @spacelizardswhopassedthreshold, @wanderingwriter87, @ohmyoverland, and Star Trek fandom as a whole. Also, the salamander babies.

Helloooooo, internet land! This week, Emily and V were treated to a primer on the OMG Check Please! fandom by listener and friend-of-the-pod korechthonia, and Emily explains the divide between the pro-Parse and anti-Parse sides of the otherwise sweet and peaceful fandom. Plus, she tells V about growing up on a boys' hockey team herself and losing a tooth on the ice! Also, inextricable from OMGCP's sweet tale of gay hockey players in love is the sad, homophobic truth of the NHL, so we had to dig into that as well. But mostly: cute hockey comic about love and pies. WERE YOU PART OF THE KENT PARSON DISCOURSE OF 2016 OR WERE YOU NORMAL? If you would like to suggest an event in fandom history and/or give us a fandom primer, get in touch on our Tumblr! You can support this podcast and also get in touch with us on Patreon.

Hey kids, you want some recs? This week, V and Emily go back to LiveJournal to explore a mainstay of 2000s-era fandom: the rec blog, The Crack Van. They discuss the problems with convergence culture, changing multifandom and multishipping norms, and the eternal question -- where are the rec blogs of today?

Oh, boy. This week, Emily and V dig into yet another cult of personality and banana-bonkers conspiracy theory within fandom: BBC Sherlock's The JohnLock Conspiracy, or TJLC. From the totally normal metas dissecting why curtains are blue on the show to totally abhorrent doxxing at a convention, this episode has everything. Gay tea. Secret BBC vaults. Un... aired... specials. Were you a BBClock fan? (Given that Johnlock is the #2 ship on AO3, some of you must be!) Did you TJLC?

Happy one year of TWIFH! To celebrate the end of our first year and to give you a huge chunk o' podcast to get through New Year's Eve, this week V and Emily are holding their breaths and taking a deep dive into the strange, insidious, bananapants crazytown world of Andrew Blake AKA Jordan Wood AKA Amy Player AKA Victoria Bitter AKA VoyagerBabe AKA strwriter AKA thanfiction and his many, many crimes in the fandomspace (and outside of the fandomspace, too). Because this story deals with many heavy topics and is incredibly long and harrowing, we have split this episode into two parts. PART I covers the first ten years of Andy thanfiction's cult of personality and Munchausen by Internet, and deals with the following sensitive topics: gaslighting, intimate partner abuse, emotional abuse, suicide attempts, fraud, mental illness, Munchausen by Internet, financial abuse, and brainwashing tactics. PART II covers the second ten years of Andy thanfiction's cult of personality and downward spiral, and deals with the following sensitive topics: gaslighting, emotional abuse, Munchausen by Internet, suicide, murder (gun violence), gendered violence, intimate partner violence, unhealthy weight loss, mental illness, disassociation, financial abuse, and fraud. Sources: Andy Blake: A Timeline by @theteablogger Abbey Stone's Wordpress blog

Happy one year of TWIFH! To celebrate the end of our first year and to give you a huge chunk o' podcast to get through New Year's Eve, this week V and Emily are holding their breaths and taking a deep dive into the strange, insidious, bananapants crazytown world of Andrew Blake AKA Jordan Wood AKA Amy Player AKA Victoria Bitter AKA VoyagerBabe AKA strwriter AKA thanfiction and his many, many crimes in the fandomspace (and outside of the fandomspace, too). Because this story deals with many heavy topics and is incredibly long and harrowing, we have split this episode into two parts. PART I covers the first ten years of Andy thanfiction's cult of personality and Munchausen by Internet, and deals with the following sensitive topics: gaslighting, intimate partner abuse, emotional abuse, suicide attempts, fraud, mental illness, Munchausen by Internet, financial abuse, and brainwashing tactics. PART II covers the second ten years of Andy thanfiction's cult of personality and downward spiral, and deals with the following sensitive topics: gaslighting, emotional abuse, Munchausen by Internet, suicide, murder (gun violence), gendered violence, intimate partner violence, unhealthy weight loss, mental illness, disassociation, financial abuse, and fraud. Sources: Andy Blake: A Timeline by @theteablogger Abbey Stone's Wordpress blog

Bonjour! This week, Emily and V look into another fandom neither of them knows much about: Miraculous Ladybug, one of Tumblr's biggest fandoms of 2023. They look into the premise and basic plot of the show, its adorable OTP love square (with only two people), and the long and much-anticipatory road to its premiere in America. Just what makes this show such fandom bait? Do you Miraculous Ladybug?

The great game is on! And by the great game, we mean the invention of modern fandom as we know it. (Although we also discuss The Great Game, which: nerds.) This week, Emily and V go further back in the fandom time machine than we've ever gone or likely ever will. The Victorian gaslamp fandom of Sherlock Holmes lost their main man this week in 1893, and in the first documented act of modern fandom, promptly lost its shit. We take a look at what it meant to be a Sherlock Holmes fan back then and what it still means today. Are you a Sherlockian? Which adaptation is your favorite?

NSFW! No, but really, this episode is extremely NSFW. And not child-safe. If you ignore that warning, it's on you. This week, V and Emily take a trip back to a contested date in fandom history: the first usage of "tongues battling for dominance." Since there's debate about the origin of that term, they decide to go whole-hog (double entendre intended) and talk about all kinds of fanfic terminology. Especially the kind used in... smut. Look at us remembering to link a source in our show notes!

Let teenage girls make bad art, GODDAMMIT! This week, Emily and V beat a familiar drum as they recount the unfortunate invention of Mary Sue: she's beautiful, she's smart, she's the best pilot in the Galaxy, and all your faves are in love with her. And so what?! Who does it really harm to let girls have a power fantasy?! God forbid women do anything. And by anything, we mean write self-insert Mary Sue fanfiction about Captain Kirk and Spock and Bones all falling in love with her. She deserves it. You deserve it. We all deserve a little treat. Have you ever been accused of writing a Mary Sue? How did it affect you?

Who the hell is Bucky? Well, this week, V and Emily just have a breezy totally chill chat about exactly that question -- who is this most wet and pathetic of scrungly little meow-meows, and why does he drive fandom so absolutely, singularly insane? What makes Bucky Barnes the most blorbo? Does the MCU know what to do with him? Will Thunderbolts make V tear her own face off?!?! Ahem. The story of Bucky Barnes is one of fannish love from beginning to... the end of the line... and for this holiday week episode, we just had a good time talking about him. Join us, won't you?

Baaa, says the Yuletide Goat! This week, Emily and V celebrate 20 years of fannish Yuletide, the biggest fic exchange there ever was for the tiniest fandoms there could ever be. V, newly freed from Yuletide Jail, chimes in with on-the-ground experience while Emily gives the stats and facts as someone who's never heard of Yuletide before now. Featured are Yuletide's greatest hits: Folgercest, Wait Wait Don't Eat Me, and Re: The Snake Portion Of Your Defense, plus Anthony Bourdain and a whole mess of oceanic fears. Do you Yuletide? What did you request this year?

Chomp! This week, V and Emily get deep into them guts of the omegaverse to take a long, hard look at where it came from, why it spread so quickly throughout fandom-at-large, and how it's been adapted differently in Western versus Eastern fandoms. With Emily as a noted omegaverse Li'l Hater and V as a noted Buzzfeed-approved omegaverse aficionado, all perspectives are represented (from Alpha to omega, one might say) on this heated journey. Do you omegaverse? What was the first fandom where you encountered it?

They attempted the impossible, and that makes them mighty! This week, Emily and V jump into the Firefly 'verse, and the Whedonverse at large, to take a look at the 2002 Firefly Immediate Assistance Campaign. They look at all of the odds stacked against Firefly by the Fox Network, and how so many of those marketing woes made the show catnip for fandom. Plus, the Jossification of scifi in the 2000s, silliness about Nathan Fillion and Jewel Staite, and why Firefly (gulp) might not hold up in 2023. Are you a Firefly fan? What are your Whedon thoughts?

What an amazing bowl of word salad! Yes, those words are all in the right order, and this week, V and Emily explain how, why, and who the culprits were in this fandom wank of epic proportions. It's got everything. Cannibal mermaids. Chinese-Pakistani sex trafficking survivors. Politician RPF writers. Lin... Manuel... Miranda. This is truly one of the fannish implosions of all time. Were you involved in Hamilton fandom? Did you read either of the fics in this tale?

Another week, another purge... this week, Emily and V take a stroll back to Yahoo! Groups for a crash course on what they were, how they worked, and why they mattered. The episode takes a surprisingly sad turn as they consider how draining it is to constantly report on purges of huge portions of fannish history and what it really means when a company axes a huge repository of people's hard work, creativity, and passion. Then of course it gets a bit silly again at the end. Join us -- group pun! -- won't you?

Not the popslash! This week, V and Emily revisit one of their favorite topics -- "let teenage girls create bad art because it deserves to exist" -- as they recall one of several big Fanfiction.net content purges. This time, it was the total destruction of the RPF section, a loss of tens of thousands of stories in one fell swoop. Yes, V talks about Dream Street again. Yes, Emily talks about Backstreet Boys. Yes, there's a list of all of the fandoms that were murdered, and it's a total time capsule to the autumn of 2002.

Live long and prosper! It's another Star Trek episode as this week, Emily and V venture into an alien cave to learn about "Shelter" by Leslie Fish and Joanne Agostino, AKA, the first Kirk/Spock slash fic. Fellas, is it gay to confess your love to your commanding officer in an alien cave and consummate your relationship with tender, tender sex? And fellas, is it problematic that Bones was also there? (Side note, apologies for the late releases of episodes this month. We're working hard to get back on track. Life happened.)

It's just a jump to the left, and a step to the ri-i-i-ght... into fandom history! This week, thanks to a timely fan suggestion from Tumblr, V and Emily delve into the surprisingly adorable and totes emosh world of Rocky Horror Picture Show fandom. With tons of recollections from in-person fans of the '70s and '80s, this OG cosplay fandom surprised and delighted us with its creative, devoted following and super fun sense of camaraderie. Have you done a midnight showing? What movie would you "Rocky Horrorize"?

TEARFULLY: We love you. STOICALLY: This week's episode is about the introduction of Castiel and the birth of Destiel (plus the 2007 WGA strike).

POW! This week, V and Emily venture to the DC side of comics fandom as they learn about "A Death in the Family" and the poll to kill off, or save, Batman's Robin at the time, Jason Todd. From the involvement of grandmothers trying to soothe weeping children who loved Robin to utterly bananas racism in the comic itself, "A Death in the Family" changed the course of Batman comics for decades and still affects stories today as Jason Todd has had a resurgence of popularity as the Red Hood (voiced, because of course he is, by one Jensen Ackles). This episode goes out to TWIFH supporter Jess, who schooled V in all things Jason Todd! Do you Batman fandom? Would you have voted to kill or save Robin?

All hail (but thoughtfully)! This week, Emily's fluffy episode praising the OTW took a slight detour as this summer revealed some very ugly spots on the underbelly of the Org we all love, support, and depend on. She and V talk through their feelings about some of the things we've all learned about the OTW that are less than utopian in an episode that is... pretty fucking heavy, actually. But we still DO LOVE AND SUPPORT THE OTW AND AO3, AND SO SHOULD YOU. There are just cracks in the foundation that *must* be patched to protect fan culture and fannish lives. NOTE: We recorded this episode in July 2023, and some of the issues mentioned may have evolved or been solved since recording. Neither of us are Volunteers with the Org, but we support Volunteers and the aims of the OTW. Please support the OTW with your dollars and use the opportunity that being a donor gives you to VOTE to help create a Board that aligns with fannish ideals and protection for Volunteers.

Welcome, true believers! This week, V and Emily take a turn towards becoming an economics podcast -- no, wait! Don't go away! It's still interesting and we get to be li'l haters! This week in fandom history, Disney bought Marvel, and V tells Emily all about the absolutely terrible shitbag dude who's been behind most of the worst MCU decisions (and it's NOT Feige!). Also the amount of money that Disney paid for Marvel is obscene. For better or worse, this is an event that shaped at least the next decade of fandom. What would you do with billions of dollars and a movie franchise you had final control over?

Live long and prosper! (Again!) This week, it's another Star Trek deep dive as Emily tells V the heartwarming, weep-inducing tale of the August Party, the first Star Trek fan con. With the cutest quotes and reminiscences in the world, and a wealth of people being NERDS to boot, this is a delightful event in fannish history and one we're glad to have gotten to learn about! Have you ever attended a fan con (as opposed to a commercial con)? Did you go to the August Party??

Protect teenage girls at all costs! This week -- because it IS still this week, we got it in under the wire! -- V and Emily return to the scorched earth battleground of One Direction fandom, but this time, the missiles were launched by the national media of Great Britain. After an offensive, heinous "documentary" about One Direction fans aired on shock-doc specialist Channel 4, even fandoms dedicated to hating 1D (like Justin Bieber fans) backed up Directioners in trying to reclaim their dignity. Yes, it's another episode where V has big feelings about letting teenage girls love stuff messily, but this time we've got QUOTES and SOURCES and DOCTORAL THESIS ABSTRACTS to back up the rage. Do you think mainstream media can ever accurately portray fandom? Have you respected the fourth wall today?

Helloooo, Chicago! This very special bonus episode was recorded LIVE at FanExpo Chicago '23 on the Creator Stage, and we're so excited to get to share it with you all! To celebrate and thank FXC for inviting us to perform, we decided to honor the Windy City and give a brief overview of a few fannish events in a fandom that owes it all to the Chi: due South. The heartwarming tale of a Canadian Mountie, a deaf wolfdog, some ghosts, and two gentlemen named Ray, due South is one of the hardiest fandoms of the '90s and boy, howdy, was its drama nutty, eh? From the Religious War of '96 to the still-ongoing Ray Wars, due South fans have seen, said, and done it all. And we salute them here, at the first episode we've gotten to record in the same room. Enjoy! (The normal episode for this week is coming soon! COVID is delaying its release, boo.)

Those aren't just stormtroopers! This week, Emily and V head back to 1997, when two guys who really loved Star Wars started a fannish endeavor that has grown to epic proportions. The illustrious 501st Legion, Vader's Fist, began as a cosplay club for stormtrooper fans and now spans the globe as an elite society of 10,000 Star Wars fans who delight in all manner of Star Wars villains as they do charity, volunteer work, and official jobs for Lucasfilm. These nerds make nerdery cool. Do you cosplay? Have you ever joined a fan society?

Bazinga! Just kidding. Not that kind of big bang (thank goodness). No, this week, Emily and V are talking about the origin of a fanfiction staple: the big bang challenge. Today, it's hard to throw a rock without hitting a fandom feverishly in the midst of a big bang. But in August 2005, the concept was new, novel-length, and named for Draco's passion for Harry. Have you ever participated in a big bang challenge? What's the longest fic you've ever written?

Elementary, my dears! This week, V and Emily visit one of the tentpoles of modern fandom: BBC Sherlock. Besides being the -lock of Superwholock, Sherlock birthed one of the biggest pairings on the internet (Sherlock/John), complete with its own far-fetched conspiracy theory, and continued on the century-old legacy of Sherlock Holmes fans being absolutely bananas for their fave detective and his nefarious foe, Moriarty. Will the breadth of Sherlock fandom best V? It's a mystery...