Fansplaining

The final two recaps will remain behind our paywall for quite a while, so you'll have to be a paying subscriber for those. But! You still have time to get in on our BITEME sale, just $5 a month for your first two months, starting from whenever you sign up. (And we'll have more TVL writing later in the summer, too.) This sale ends after the finale!

Our latest is live! ✨ Maria Temming reports on the worlds of fictional constructed language (aka conglang) speakers. For fans gathering around Na'vi, Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki, or High Valyrian, it's about more than a connection to canon—it's about community.

Conlang aficionados will also note that the definition of a “useful” language depends on who you want to communicate with. Sometimes, that’s a friend with a different native language, or the people who live in a country you want to visit; other times, it’s the people in your fandom. That doesn’t just make a conlang useful. “Once it starts to have real speakers,” Mikaelon says, “in a way, it becomes a real language too.”

Our Vampire Lestat episode 6 recap is live! 🩸✨ @hellotailor breaks down the first chronological episode of the season: "Blessedly," she writes, it's essentially "an extended conversation between our two lead characters."

For most of this season, Lestat has spent every waking hour with his band and entourage (whom he keeps at arm’s length) or with Gabriella (a bottomless source of emotional exhaustion). Meanwhile, Louis has been lonely in a different way, attempting to pursue a healthy relationship with Lemuel (who mostly remains offscreen) before embroiling himself in a toxic situation with Regina. With a few months’ distance from episode 5, Louis and Lestat are now in the right headspace to spend an entire night together as companions, tacitly confirming that every other relationship in their lives is secondary. 

Our Vampire Lestat episode 6 recap is live! 🩸✨ @hellotailor breaks down the first chronological episode of the season: "Blessedly," she writes, it's essentially "an extended conversation between our two lead characters."

For most of this season, Lestat has spent every waking hour with his band and entourage (whom he keeps at arm’s length) or with Gabriella (a bottomless source of emotional exhaustion). Meanwhile, Louis has been lonely in a different way, attempting to pursue a healthy relationship with Lemuel (who mostly remains offscreen) before embroiling himself in a toxic situation with Regina. With a few months’ distance from episode 5, Louis and Lestat are now in the right headspace to spend an entire night together as companions, tacitly confirming that every other relationship in their lives is secondary. 

Eroticism, porn, and smut

Virality and popularity within fandom culture

Tabletop roleplaying games, text-based roleplaying, and OC culture

Pitches on niche projects or subjects within big fandoms and large franchises like Supernatural and Marvel 

The intersection of drag and fandom

Fandoms around “prestige” shows like Severance, Widow’s Bay, Half Man, etc.

Contemporary trend pieces (you have to have at least three examples for it to be a trend!)

Our latest is live! 🏒 Kayti Burt reports on the fallout around the recent document attempting to identify fanfiction authors using AI, and how Heated Rivalry is ground zero for fandom's broader reckoning with AI-generated text on all sides:

“Fandom Has A Hidden Generative AI Problem” gives shape to a breakdown in a basic social contract for online fandom and all online community and discourse. While fanfiction writing is  generally pseudonymous, readers have historically at least been able to rely on the assumption that a fellow human being is writing the story they are reading. With the introduction of AI, that fundamental pact between fic writer and fic reader has been fractured. Fandom is a place for people to be in community together—to bond over shared obsessions in a way that can make us feel a little less alone. Realizing someone has outsourced that connection to a machine can make us feel even more alone.

Our Vampire Lestat episode 5 recap is live! 🩸✨ @hellotailor writes about Lestat's memories of Akasha, the continuation of Louis's tangled mess with Regina, and additional fuel for the Devil's Minion fire.

Of the latter, she writes:

For this relationship to work out, Daniel has to accept Armand as he is, and I think we see hints of that already. His initial reaction to Armand’s confession was defensiveness and disgust, demanding that Armand “prove it.” But once Armand really gets into the thick of his monologue, he brings Daniel to the brink of tears. Eric Bogosian plays this as if he’s physically trying to shake off the intimacy of their shared memories, as Armand talks about watching Daniel weep after his estranged daughter’s graduation. Armand claims that his feelings for Daniel outweigh his decades-long partnership with Louis, because neither half of that marriage could have the man they wanted. He only kept Daniel at arm’s length because he was mortal, but now that they’re both vampires, they might finally come together as two lonely halves of a maker/fledgling bond.

Hard to believe we're nearing the end of the season already! This episode has so many interesting elements—Akasha, of course, and the way you can start to see Louis and Lestat's storylines coming together outside of, like, divorce-baiting shenanigans (love those too ofc).