Fanlore

This week’s featured article is The Red Means I Love You, a My Hero Academia fan song written by Madds Buckley. Its subject is antagonist Toga Himiko, who expresses her love for others by drinking their blood. Listeners outside the fandom thought differently, though, assuming it was actually about period sex.

The song has accumulated almost 12 million views on YouTube since its upload in 2021. It’s inspired many derivative works including covers and AMVs.

Want to learn more about The Red Means I Love You? Come visit us on Fanlore!

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For Fandom in Color we're looking back on last summer's surprise viral hit KPop Demon Hunters!

KPop Demon Hunters is about a K-Pop girl group that also fights demons. This film sparked quite a bit of meta and discourse about its connection to K-Pop and its sugarcoating of idol culture. It also sparked a lot of fandom creativity, from fanart, fic, vids, crafts like crochet, and more! It also provided fans with a nice selection of relationship options to choose from.

Are Rumi, Zoey, and Mira your girls? Or are you still haunted by the aquarium date that never was? Come visit the Fanlore page!

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For Fandom in Color we're spotlighting Lando Calrissian!

Lando was a divisive character in early Star Wars fandom. Some fans speculated that this was because of his betrayal of Han in The Empire Strikes Back, but others thought it was because of his race, pointing out that Lando is normally the type of "hunk" that fandom would go for, but he was largely excluded from fanworks. As time went on more fans seemed to try and buck this trend and incorporated Lando in more of their fanworks.

Curious to learn more? Or just want to see some fun vintage zine art of Lando? Head over to his Fanlore page!

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This week’s Featured Article is a The Greatest, a multifandom vid by bironic focused on characters of color in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

It was created for the 2017 Fandom Trumps Hate auction, and premiered at 2018 Wiscon. Bironic used clips from 75 live-action media sources and it took them fifteen months to complete.

Learn more and find a link to The Greatest on Fanlore!

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Hi! We'd like to help answer your question; could you tell us more about what you're looking for?

Returning for 2026, Fanlore will be having monthly editing challenges! Each month you can earn a whirling new badge for completing the suggested editing task.

July’s editing challenge is to create or expand a page related to a canonical character of color.

​Find out more and claim your badge on the help page!

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Today's Ship Sunday is Lúcio/D.Va, also known as Bunnyribbit, from Overwatch fandom.

Lúcio and D.Va are both playable characters in Overwatch. Lúcio is a famous musician and D.Va was a well-known streamer before being conscripted into the army. They don't have much in the way of canon interaction, but game dialogue suggests that they know and admire each other.

Fanartists love to draw them with frog and bunny motifs—because D.Va had a bunny as her screen icon and Lúcio wore a shirt with a frog logo on it—and in their 1950s inspired game skins. Fanwriters love to write them in fluffy, cozy stories where they look after each other.

Is this your ship? Come over to Fanlore and help us expand their page by adding your favorite tropes for this pair.

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This Fandom in Color, we’re spotlighting Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation! He serves as chief engineer of the USS Enterprise-D for most of the series, and was created in honor of a fan with multiple sclerosis, who had the same surname.

Geordi’s relationship with Data is one common trope in his fanworks, often taking the form of a romantic pairing. Another such trope is disability fic, as Geordi is blind and wears a VISOR which allows him to see.

Geordi’s Fanlore page needs expansion—we hope you’ll come visit to add more!

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Welcome to Fanlore’s annual celebration of Fandom in Color! Throughout the month of July, we’ll be spotlighting favorite characters of color, and highlighting pairings, events, discussions, and more.

Both characters and fans of color are often overlooked in fandom spaces, and we’re trying to expand their presence on Fanlore. We work on this year-round, but in July we ask specifically for your help by sharing and editing the pages we highlight this month and adding new ones that are not yet documented on Fanlore.

Fanlore should be inclusive of all aspects of fandom and all participants in it. We hope you enjoy what we share this month, and we welcome you to join us in documenting even more.

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This week's Featured Article is Crack Van!

Active from 2003 to 2014, Crack Van was a multifandom fanfiction and vid rec community on LiveJournal that became, for a generation of fans, the first stop when exploring a new fandom. At its peak, it was one of the most organised and wide-ranging rec communities the internet had ever seen, with nearly 25,000 recs over ten years.

The community worked by recruiting volunteers from individual fandoms to "drive the van" for a month at a time, posting regular recommendations and writing fandom primers: overviews designed to help total newcomers understand the source material, the characters, the ships, and where to find the good stuff.

Crack Van closed permanently in January 2014, signalling a broader shift in fandom culture, as Tumblr, AO3, and Twitter had changed how fans discovered fanworks and connected with each other, making the curated, collaborative structure of Crack Van feel like a different era entirely. Many fans mourned it as the end of something irreplaceable.

Crack Van also inspired a wave of fandom-specific rec communities in its image, like Crack Impala for Supernatural.

Curious about the community that helped hundreds of thousands of fans find their footing in new fandoms? Head over to Fanlore to learn more!

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What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales? The premise of the book Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, a M/M new adult romance that follows Henry and Alex as they gradually go from being enemies to lovers.

As the British prince and the son of the first female American President, they communicate mainly through letters and subsequently fall in love.

Though it has never been confirmed, the book sparked rumors that it might have originally been a fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off since many aspects of it were strongly reminiscent with its use of tropes and its writing style.

With a live adaptation released in 2023 and the sequel officially in the works, we could use your help to expand the Fanlore page of this growing fandom.

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This week’s Featured Article covers the legendary brain child of vidder hath5712, a 2012 fanmade fake trailer video titled “the lonely assassins trailer” that depicts the super team up of SuperWhoLock's extraterrestrial Time Lord from Dr. Who, the ghoul fighting trio from Supernatural, and the crime fighting duo from Sherlock to take on the terrifying Weeping Angels from the Dr. Who TV series. At the height of the SuperWhoLock's fame on Tumblr, this video was shared extensively across the site and praised for its use of music and editing to create a realistic and terrifying crossover event.

The vidder combined the strengths of the SuperWhoLock teams. The opening is the Tenth Doctor almost calling out to the world about the dangers of the Weeping Angels, with the iconic warning to not even blink. Flashing shots of Sherlock and John from Sherlock show them searching out answers along with images of Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, and Bobby Singer from Supernatural in their element hunting. All of our iconic characters in transitioning shots that lead up to the horrifying encounter with the Weeping Angels as they get closer and closer to the viewer. The use of the song “Judge and Jury” by Automachine creating a tense and building momentum up until the end, truly calling back to the horror aspect of many of these shows that the commenters agree on.

Ready to feel that spark of fear of the early days of SuperWhoLock or even just looking for a bit of nostalgia? Read more on the Fanlore page for this lovely work and take a peek for yourself – if you dare.

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To the underworld we go! This week’s Ship Sunday is Hades/Persephone!

One of the most enduring het ships in Greek mythology fandom, Hades/Persephone has inspired countless reinterpretations across books, musicals, comics, fanfiction, fanart, and modern adaptations like Lore Olympus and Hadestown.

Fans are drawn to the pairing’s tropes of death and rebirth, light and darkness, pomegranates, devotion, transformation, and complicated power dynamics. Some interpret Persephone’s story as one of agency and personal growth, while others critically examine the mythology’s roots in abduction narratives and patriarchal traditions. The tension between those readings has made the ship a lasting source of fannish discussion and reinterpretation.

From fanvids and zines to dramatic retellings and modern AUs, Hades/Persephone continues to evolve alongside fandom itself.

Curious? Head over to Fanlore to explore the ship’s history, symbolism, fanworks, and fandom conversations!

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