TWIFH Zine
We didn’t start the TWIFH Zine (our newsletter) until September 2026, so unfortunately the majority of our back catalog episodes do not have accompanying features (yet?). We will update their episode pages and their pages here when, and if, they get back-written expanded material. All episode pages feature the original show notes, including sources cited.
The Wrong Fandom Had a Real-Life Kobayashi Maru Situation
Down and... safe? This week, V and Emily are joined by fandom scholar Lena Barkin (The Fanthropologist) to discuss an event that should, really, be as notorious in fanfiction culture as the Anne Rice debacle or Cassandra Clare kerfuffle: the Blake's 7 Slash Wars. This seismic, terrible fanwank is technically still ongoing, but hit its heyday forty years ago as the cast and crew of Blake's 7 hit back at fans -- like, specific, named fans -- who dared to write Blake/Avon slash. This supersized episode looks at the dangers of parasocial relationships, why fandom and media celebs should never cross the streams, and the nature of slash in the landscape of the 1980s. Lena brings an important POV as someone who is actively in Blake's 7 fandom today -- and is a slasher.
Brutus Was Totally Just As Cute As Caesar!
She doesn't even go here! This week, V and Emily are joined by a friend who, indeed, does not normally go here, but we're glad she did for this episode: Allegra Ponti from STAN Podcast. She is here to join our cafeteria clique as we discuss the 2004 movie phenomenon Mean Girls, and how the worldwide fandom for this movie a) destroyed Lindsay Lohan, and b) shaped our own high school experiences to varying degrees. (While we didn't have time to get into it in the episode, the Broadway musical and 2024 film musical are also big fandoms in their own right! Toxic femslashers rise!) We discuss the differences between American and British school culture, the 2000s cultural exports of the United States, and the continual cycle of Hollywood child sacrifices. Plus, another installment of V's teachers not knowing how to handle a very lesbian, very fannish child!
Have You Ever Seen Such A Jossing?
PHIL LESTER, YOU’RE A GENIUS! This week’s episode is a little different. This week, Emily and V finally release an episode that has been sitting in our vault for over a year — not because it wasn’t good, but because the universe pulled off one of the most chaotic, timeline‑breaking acts of accidental fandom trolling we’ve ever witnessed.
Carry On, Fandom’s Wayward Sons
Hunters, get your salt! This week, V and Emily are joined by friend-of-the-pod Heidi Tandy, who calls in from San Diego Comic-Con 2026 to discuss the fandom that spells SDCC for her, and thousands of others in the fannish community: Supernatural. The premiere of the show on the WB (progenitor of The CW) in 2005 changed fandom permanently, in more ways than could possibly be discussed in one hour. But SPN also changed fandom for Heidi, personally, in ways big and small, and we’re delighted to hear all about them from the room where it happened. We dish about LiveJournal’s early rush to create communities, the prevalence of Wincest fanfiction, and how Supernatural’s relationship to its fans evolved over its long run. Supernatural, like the other S-named fandoms before it (Star Trek, Star Wars, and Sherlock Holmes, natch) is a Fandom Of All Time. How many seasons have you watched?
Xena Fandom? Alts and Ubers and Vids, Oh My!
Aiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiiii! This week, Emily and V head back to the mid‑90s — the era of dial‑up internet and aggressively pointy shoulderpads — to revisit the rise of Xena: Warrior Princess. It’s hard to overstate how much this show reshaped the fandom landscape: a morally complicated heroine, a narrative built on redemption… and a relationship between two women that sparked decades of essays, fanfic, fanvids, and lovingly chaotic forum debates. The Xenites weren’t just early adopters of online fandom. They were architects of it. Come wander the hills of ancient Greece (New Zealand) with us as we look at how one warrior princess carved out a space that still echoes today.
Walt Whitman’s Super Gay Love of Music Makes Us Cry This Week
Never enough! This week, V and Emily travel back to TWIFH’s oldest historical event thus far: opera singer Jenny Lind’s landmark 1850 tour in the United States and its accompanying “Lindmania.” Did you know that the fangirls of 1850 were Just Like Us? They sobbed, they squeed, they schemed to meet their faves, and they spent way, WAY too much on concert tickets. The quotes from antebellum Lind fans reacting to hearing secular music for the first time give us the chills. Come wait outside the stage doors with us for a glimpse at the Swedish Nightingale.