Fansplaining

In episode 23, Flourish and Elizabeth take on the fourth wall—not the metaphorical wall between the audience and the actors on a stage, but the one erected BY fans to separate them (and their fanworks) from creators. After a crash course on the history of the fannish fourth wall, they discuss famous fan/creator clashes, from the Phelps twins confronted with Weasleycest to Benedict Cumberbatch writing het fanfic about Sherlock. And they consider whether any creator can cross the fourth wall successfully—and whether, in the age of social media, there's any way the fourth wall *won't* get broken.

In the second and final installment of our "Race and Fandom" episodes, fans of color continue to speak about their experiences in fandom. Elizabeth and Flourish interview Jeffrey Lyles and Zina, then hear clips from Roz, Traci-Anne, and zvi LikesTV. Topics covered include being Black and Jewish, Star Wars weddings, cosplaying characters of color, and why kink is never divorced from the real world.

In this episode, Flourish and Elizabeth follow up on the last episode's questions about the impact of racism in the Star Wars fandom—and how it's a microcosm of fandom at large. They interview Rukmini Pande and Clio, and they hear clips from Holly Quinn, Shadowkeeper, and PJ Punla. Topics covered include the historical presence of fans of color, space nazis, femslash and its discontents, and the Filipino perspective on the whiteness of media.

In Episode 21, "Trash Ships and Fandom IRL," Flourish and Elizabeth split the episode between two different topics. First they talk to Fansplaining regular DestinationToast about her recent Star Wars shipping statistical analysis (during which Flourish declares herself Captain Of The Garbage Scow). Then they talk to Alexa Donne of Leviosa about the task of running a fan convention, including the importance of accountants, market realities, and how much the Harry Potter community loves to drink.

In Episode 20, "Inside Baseball," Elizabeth and Flourish talk to Cecilia Tan, who took her partner to a Yankees game in 1999 and ended up with the first baseball fan blog online—and eventually, a professional baseball writing career. Cecilia talks about her many fannish hats, from her erotic romance press to Harry Potter fanfic to the Menudo newsletter she mailed to hundreds of fangirls to nearly fainting in the presence of Derek Jeter. Plus Elizabeth and Flourish grapple over whether it's possible to culturally appropriate fandom.

In Episode 19, "Cataloging Fandom," Elizabeth and Flourish talk to Ludi Price, a librarian and PhD student in information science whose research focuses on how fans collect, tag, share, and otherwise interact with information (e.g., fanart, fanfic, fanvids, facts about their fandoms, etc.). Then they read and discuss two listener comments. Topics covered include crowdsourcing, Jeremy Bentham, why Amazon.com's search and tagging system sucks so much, yaoi/yuri and shounen ai/shoujo ai, and ageism in fandom. Ludi adds: "I just thought of an addendum I'd like to add to this episode if that's OK. Just if there are any listeners out there who'd like to explore fandom through Library & Information Science, we'd be really interested to discuss it with you at the library school where I do my research. That's City LIS, which you can find on Twitter using our hashtag #CityLIS, or you can go to our blog which is at, I think it's at blogs.city.ac.uk/citylis. We're all, especially my supervisor Liv Robinson who's really into this stuff, we'd love to hear from anyone who's interested in weird or unusual kinds of documentation such as how you'd record live performance or an installation piece in a museum or whatever, or for example video game experiences. I'm also interested in the information behavior of people like comics collectors, artists, fanfic writers. So if you're intrigued, come and check us out at City LIS, and we'll be more than happy to discuss all your ideas, thoughts, opinions, whatever. Thanks!" You can reach Ludi at @ludi-ling on Tumblr​, @ludiprice on Twitter, at https://blogs.city.ac.uk/ludiprice/, or as ludi-price on DeviantArt.