Fansplaining

Our latest is live! 💖 Tabby Kibugi writes about the thriving GL scene in Thailand—and how the industry's prioritization of fan service around pairings might be limiting the shows themselves:

But if fan service helped build Thai GL into the thriving industry it is today, can the genre realistically move beyond it without undermining the very system that made its success possible? Or is the future of Thai GL less about choosing between fan service and good storytelling, and more about finding a way for both to coexist? 

We've been live for a month, and what a whirlwind it's been! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's supported the project so far. We genuinely could not get off the ground without this early support.

Since we launched, we've published some incredible writing:

Our launch post, explaining what Fansplaining: The Publication is all about.

Fansplaining editor @lincodega on the elements of The Pitt that make it ripe for fanfiction (as well as what journalists can't stop getting wrong about the Pitt fandom).

@morgan-leigh on Three Bags Full (first titled Glenkill in its original German), the beloved mystery novel that was the source for The Sheep Detectives film.

Soila Kenya on non-native English speakers reading and writing fanfiction in English, the language that has the most global "linguistic capital" in fandom.

@annejamison on the Good Omens series finale as a metatextual commentary about fandom and fanfiction—and one that gave the characters back to the fans.

@elizabethminkel on depictions of tech on television, and how we read these characters in light of our shifting feelings about real-life tech.

We've got so much more in the works, including:

Thai GL fandom

Conlang enthusiasts

Fandom stats as fanworks

Covering Game of Thrones

Negative comments vs bots on AO3

Homestuck's fanworks

Gay pirates

And, of course, @hellotailor recapping The Vampire Lestat over the next two months! ✨

If you like what we’ve been doing, please become a subscriber!

Subscriptions start at $7 a month/$70 a year. We also have a significant discount for students, educators, un/underemployed folks, etc. Email [email protected] and we'll be happy to share the code.

In 2026, the real-life Silicon Valley failure narrative is essentially dead. Tech titans are done with humble, even faux-humble; they live in a state of “post-greatness,” if you will. If it felt like they’d won back in 2014, in 2026, it feels like more of a trouncing, and yet somehow, they’re mad about it: the industry’s enormous, world-controlling success has calcified into something bitter and reactionary. The insularity of Silicon Valley’s elite has revealed that a remarkably thin-skinned group of people control a good portion of our lives. Tech titans used to proudly tout their ability to get back up after being thoroughly knocked down; now, the slightest hint of critique prompts a full-blown billionaire tantrum. 

In our latest, @elizabethminkel writes about depictions of tech on TV—especially around themes of failure—and how these shows read in the current climate, when Silicon Valley has decided they are done failing.

Click through to read the piece or listen to an audio version! ✨

Our latest is live! @elizabethminkel writes about depictions of tech + failure on TV—especially Halt and Catch Fire, Silicon Valley, and new AMC drama The Audacity—and how fictional tech reads in amid current attitudes about real-life tech:

Perhaps it’s our ambivalent relationships with the devices in our pockets, or the LLMs that feel like they’re being thrust into every corner of our lives from on high. Or perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve suffered through watching these tech titans publicly crash out over the past few years—while they continue to toss around words like “trillionaire.” How do we take pleasure in individual setbacks when the whole system feels rotten to the core? Can a show about tech actually succeed in Silicon Valley’s post-failure age?

Click through to read or listen to an audio version! 💖

That’s all baked in, and even the most heartfelt expressions of respect and gratitude for fan creativity on the part of the pros cannot budge that underlying reality. Rightsholders who celebrate the prerogative of fans to believe and create what they want while asserting not only ownership but their special relationship to canonicity inevitably come off as flexing. But in my view, the Good Omens finale lands differently.

As a reminder: if you're a paying supporter, there are discount codes to thank you for helping us through the transition. Those will expire when we shut Patreon, which will happen in early June, so please use them now!

With canon now a sprawling fanfic multiverse, there’s plenty to choose from. I hope that fandom, asking with Aziraphale, “Why give us Crowley only to take him away?” will make use of the many pens and blank books the series holds out and keep writing. Maybe the dropped threads of Good Omens’ hastily downsized third season will serve their fanfic purpose and inspire some new stories—in whatever universe the authors most like.

In our latest, @annejamison writes about the Good Omens series finale, and how the show's metatextual conclusion comments on transformative fandom—and gives these characters back to the fans.