Fansplaining

The Success of Heated Rivalry Should Not Be a Surprise — Fansplaining Romancelandia understands why the show is a hit. Why is it so hard for Hollywood to get the message?

"This should really be a wakeup call for studio executives who believe that love stories can’t succeed on their own," @gavia.bsky.social writes. "If Jacob Tierney can strike gold by adapting a tried-and-tested romantic formula, then other showrunners can surely do the same."

A lot of really good analysis here as to why TV historically hasn't made shows like #HeatedRivaly. For Reasons (most of them dumb! frustrating!), TV continues to leave money on the table (aside from Hallmark etc). Not ideal! I hope the success of HR changes this however +

Femslash fans! We* need you!

(*In case you're unfamiliar, The Rec Center is a weekly newsletter of fandom articles, fanart, and fic recs run by @elizabethminkel.bsky.social and @gavia.bsky.social. It has nothing to do with Fansplaining other than being made by our editor + frequent contributor. 😅)

The Success of Heated Rivalry Should Not Be a Surprise — Fansplaining Romancelandia understands why the show is a hit. Why is it so hard for Hollywood to get the message?

"People really, really want to watch characters fall in love and get a happy ending, and it shouldn’t be so hard to make that happen."

In our latest, @gavia.bsky.social writes about Heated Rivalry as a romance adaptation—and why many TV execs remain frustratingly averse to the genre:

That's why fandom journalism from a fannish perspective is so important! Hopefully readers will support the Fansplaining relaunch in a couple of months! 🙏

There have been *a lot* of bad HR pieces over the past few weeks, so hopefully this will be an antidote to some of them! @gavia.bsky.social digs into the industry forces keeping the romance genre off the small screen here in the U.S., feat. bonus commentary from @readingtheend.bsky.social! 💕

Here it is: My thoughts on Heated Rivalry's fantastic adaptation of romance genre storytelling - and why this is such a bizarrely rare phenomenon on TV.

The Success of Heated Rivalry Should Not Be a Surprise — Fansplaining Romancelandia understands why the show is a hit. Why is it so hard for Hollywood to get the message?

"The real question here isn’t why Heated Rivalry is a hit—it’s why this kind of romance series is so rare in the first place."

The great @gavia.bsky.social returns to Fansplaining with an incisive piece on Heated Rivalry, romance publishing, and the TV industry. Read or listen to an audio version:

i've been thinking about this very topic for weeks, aaand indeed have a piece coming soon at @fansplaining.bsky.social to this effect. will Heated Rivalry finally persuade the tv industry to acknowledge the popularity of pure genre romance!!!

We imagine there are a lot of folks in our orbit who will be interested in Mothership! (Congrats on the launch! 🎉)

🥰 yes! Still trying to figure out the pricing tiers and who gets access what where, but those should come over as well.

Sad! Aja just got shadowbanned from the Fansplaining Slack 🥲

Thanks SO much to everyone who's excited about our next chapter, and especially folks who supported us on Patreon/Ko-Fi yesterday!! Every $ helps us commission more work for our launch & beyond. 🙏🏼

(If *you'd* like to support us, click through! You can also leave your email to get relaunch updates.)

Thanks so much! And absolutely—when we have a dedicated pitch address we'll be sharing that, and I'd be very interested to hear your ideas!!

definitely let us know when you're back to writing!

I am *so* excited and eager to be assisting the brilliant @elizabethminkel.bsky.social with the Fansplaining relaunch! Send us your pitches! Your manifestos! Your passionate long-smoldering angle on a fandom or fandom cultural practice or a specific fan or all the fans! Send all the things!

SO EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS TODAY!!

I really do believe the mainstream media's interest in fan culture was temporary; today's outlets seem to care so little about culture writing, period. I can't wait to publish all the talented folks out there (especially adding criticism to our remit!). 💕

Absolutely! (also 🥲) When we have a specific pitch email set up we'll be sharing that out!!

yes please, absolutely!!! I want to sort out a proper email address just for pitches to make it easier for a multi-person team, and I'll share that out when we've got it. (We're planning to have a full writer transparency section on the site, modeled after Rascal and newer pubs.)

Be sure to sign up via the form on the article above for updates about our relaunch! And if anyone is interested in investing in the project on a larger scale (beyond becoming a subscriber), *please* get in touch. fansplaining at gmail dot com! 😘

A decade ago, the mainstream media got curious about fan culture—but as any culture journalist trying to place pitches today could tell you, those days are clearly over now. We don't have to settle for 100,000 bad articles spitballing about "why women like M/M romance." So we're doing it ourselves!

I've (@elizabethminkel.bsky.social) been working with the immensely talented @lincodega.com & @bookshop.bsky.social to map out Fansplaining 2.0. There are SO many talented writers out there, and we want to publish them. We *know* there's an appetite for smart, thoughtful writing about fan culture.

Fansplaining’s Next Chapter — Fansplaining We’re relaunching as a weekly publication featuring reporting, analysis, criticism, personal essays, and much more—all by, for, and about fandom.

🎉 THE BIG NEWS IS HERE 🎉

This spring, Fansplaining will relaunch as a full weekly publication, featuring reporting, analysis, criticism, personal essays, and much more, all under our longtime strapline: “By, for, and about fandom.”

Check out our full announcement (in written and audio form):

😭 we'd love to, THANK YOU

We've got a very exciting announcement coming tomorrow....

(Patrons who listened to our recent special episode know what's happening. 😉)

Okay it's officially time for the MANY terrible recent takes on fandom to stop. There are literally decades of academic work and reams of fandom journalism by ppl like me and @gavia.bsky.social and @fansplaining.bsky.social that are intended to save you from embarrassing yourselves to this degree!

this was the only thing I had to say about that article (and when I say "nothing against the rest of the piece," to be clear, I meant, "this is where I stopped reading" so I honestly couldn't comment on the rest lol)

It was a DELIGHT to record a Fansplaining episode again!!!

Production still from Wake Up Dead Man featuring Father Jud and Benoit Blanc walking in the church yard.

You guessed right! In one final treat before the end of the year, real live priest @fatherflourish.bsky.social returns to Fansplaining to discuss the latest Knives Out installment, WAKE UP DEAD MAN. 🙌🏼

Patrons at $3 and up get access to audio + a full transcript: www.fansplaining.com/episodes/spe...

ahahaha I am teasing of course. Flourish is just back for a single special episode! (though there haven't been any other episodes since the podcast went on hiatus—we've been longform articles only since!)