Featured Article: Izzy Hands
ALTFor this week’s Featured Article, let’s dive into the world of pirates!
Izzy Hands is a main character in the TV show Our Flag Means Death. He’s loosely inspired by a real historical pirate, Israel Hands, who was best known as Blackbeard’s second-in-command.
Izzy is a popular but pretty divisive character in the OFMD fandom. Some fans really dislike him and see him as nothing more than an irredeemable antagonist, while others love him and find his character complex, interesting, and sympathetic.
Are you curious? Head over to Fanlore and learn more!
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Hoo boy.
Threshold Day is the anniversary of the airing of Threshold, one of the, if not THE, most batshit episodes of Star Trek Voyager, and Star Trek in its entirety. (Spoilers for Threshold below.)
In it, Lt. Tom Paris decides that, due to his enormous daddy issues, he will only be redeemed if he lives up to his potential by making it into the history books. In this case, it’s by breaking the transwarp barrier, which does not mean being trans and going into warp, a barrier which I’m sure was broken way before this, but going Warp 10 (in the new scale). Because apparently exploring basically a new section of the galaxy at the helm of the only Starfleet starship to be there is just garbage in terms of history-making, I guess.
So they find out there’s a 2% chance his personal brain will explode if he does this, and they’re going to let Harry Kim do it instead, but Tom is like, “no, Captain. You don’t understand. I have MASSIVE daddy issues. Also, you’d probably have to promote Harry if he succeeded, and nobody wants that.”
And Janeway is like, “Oh shit, I really don’t want to promote Harry. Also, I have some pretty big daddy issues of my own, so I getchu; have at it. Hope your brains stay unexploded.”
So he successfully does his thing, and he’s like, EVERYWHERE AT ONCE, MAN. He sees everything. Past, present, Harry in the shower - I mean, future - in all places at once. Which is why it’s odd that he’s so surprised when he collapses in the Mess Hall after drinking one of Neelix’s truly noxious brews. He should have known how gross it was going to be.
Anyway, the next twenty minutes or so are the EMH trying to stop Tom from turning into a weird gross scaly creature, with limited success. He stops being able to breathe oxygen. He gets super paranoid and rants a lot. He yells about pepperoni (I am not kidding). He asks for a dying kiss from Kes, which leads to a truly marvelous turn-down line: “I’m sorry, Tom. If we let down the forcefield, you’ll suffocate,” which I will now use for any unwanted come-ons. He legit DIES, then comes back to life a pretty long time later. He yells at Janeway, and then, like anyone who dares yell at Janeway would expect, his tongue literally falls out of his mouth.
Finally, he’s getting pretty close to salamander territory, when the last 15 minutes give up on making ANY sense. He busts out of Medbay, kidnaps Janeway, goes to Warp 10 again, turns them both into complete salamanders (I guess the EMH literally did nothing to help Tom, because apparently Janeway makes it through the transformation just fine without medical attention), and then HAS LIZARD BABIES with her.
Which we know, because the Voyager crew manages to find them three days later, and in that time apparently Janeway has changed over and already had the babies. Also, they were able to find a shuttle that literally could have gone anywhere in the entire universe. Chakotay then shoots the salamanders and they take them back, leaving the babies to…I don’t know, sala-meander around or something. Why is Chakotay’s first reaction to phaser the largely-sedentary salamanders? I have no idea.
Cut immediately to the EMH having been able to just roll back their DNA or something and make them entirely human again as if nothing had happened (If this were possible, why didn’t they just Warp 10 home to Earth and then fix everyone while they evolved? It sounds like it would suck, but so would being lost for 70 years). Janeway insinuates she may have initiated the salamating. (Tom should have said salami instead of pepperoni, in salamander solidarity). They laugh off something that should require about 50 years of counseling. Tom says, “cool, I think I have slightly less daddy issues now.”
YOU KNOW WHO HAS MORE DADDY ISSUES NOW? MAYBE YOUR ABANDONED SALAMANDER BABIES.
AND NONE OF THIS IS EVER MENTIONED AGAIN. OR HAS ANY IMPACT ON THE SERIES. EVER.
And so, we commemorate this weird atrocity (which actually has some nice character development and Emmy-winning makeup, but AT WHAT COST) with a day of commiseration and celebration, largely spearheaded by @captaincrusher. Join us next year…posts are already being prepared.
Happy Threshold Day to those who celebrate.
An explainer of Threshold Day for non-Trek fans. Also, check out the Star Trek: Voyager page over on Fanlore!
HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY THRESHOLD DAY LIZARDS!
these guys are 30 today!
29th January 1996- 29th January 2026!
Featured Article: Cease and Desist by Fox Against Fan Sites
ALTThis week’s Featured Article is all about the Cease and Desist by Fox Against Fan Sites. In the mid-1990s, the rise of the internet meant a surge in online fan websites. 20th Century Fox launched an aggressive legal offensive against those fan websites, targeting the use of official images, sounds, and logos from shows like The Simpsons, The X-Files, Millennium, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Fox’s campaign began in October 1995, when their legal team sent Simpsons fan Jeanette Foshee a cease and desist letter, demanding she remove hundreds of Simpsons character icons she had created and shared freely with other fans for personal use. That kicked off a string of escalating cease and desist letters, which resulted in the takedown of a Millennium fan site a year later. Not all sites were forced down by Fox, and fanfiction and fan art were not targets; however, some fans took down or abandoned their websites and fanworks out of fear of being targeted. By 1997, the verb “Foxed” had become the catchall term for being threatened with legal action for copyright infringement.
The majority of fans did not support Fox’s aggressive tactics, feeling betrayed and villianized, and when Lucasfilm began targeting Star Wars fan sites, fans began organizing in protest, creating pro-fandom banners and spearheading campaigns to protect fan websites, some of which caught mainstream media attention.
Want to further explore this pivotal moment in fandom history? Dive into the controversy on Fanlore!
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We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!
AO3 will be down for about 15 hours starting at 08:00 UTC on January 21 (what time is that for me?) while we make some improvements to searching bookmarks and series, including:
- adding the ability to search, filter, and sort bookmarks by word count
- making sure bookmark search results are correct when you use tags containing letters and numbers
- preventing series blurbs from listing tags that were only used on draft works
- preventing series blurbs from listing tags used on restricted works for guests
- updating series bookmark search so it only searches the tags on works you can access
Please follow our status page for updates.
International Fanworks Day 2026 is Coming Soon!
ALTOnly a month left until International Fanworks Day 2026! On February 15 we'll celebrate IFD 2026, and all things fandom. Find out more about this year's theme, our upcoming events, and how you can participate at https://otw-news.org/2p84duud
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Featured Article: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers
ALTThis week’s featured article is about Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, one of Marvel fandom’s most beloved ships. From their shared Brooklyn-based childhood to their tragic separation and hard-won reunions, Steve and Bucky’s bond has fueled years of intense emotional investment across the MCU.
Since Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Stucky has inspired a massive archive of fanfiction, fanart, edits, and meta exploring themes of loyalty, trauma, memory, and “I’ll follow you anywhere” devotion. Fans dissect every glance and line of dialogue, debate canon versus subtext, and reimagine their story through AUs, fix-its, and post-Endgame healing narratives.
Want to learn more about how Stucky became such a cornerstone of Marvel fandom history? Check out its Fanlore page!
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We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!
Featured Article: The Problem of Susan (topic)
ALTIn this week’s Featured Article, we’re covering The Problem of Susan, which alludes to the controversial ending for the character Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia novel series.
The first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is set in Britain during World War II and tells the story of four siblings who discover a portal in a wardrobe that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The subsequent novels continue the adventures of both the original cast and new characters in Narnia. The story is often interpreted as a Christian allegory, with Narnia representing heaven.
In the final book, “The Last Battle,” it is revealed that the second eldest sibling, Susan Pevensie, has been excluded from ever returning to Narnia because she has grown up and adopted materialistic values. Susan’s fate has remained a topic of controversy in both fannish and academic circles, with many criticizing the unjust treatment of the character.
The term The Problem of Susan was named after Neil Gaiman’s short story and has been used for analysis written on the subject, such as the essay by RJ Anderson. The term is also a common tag in the fandom on Ao3.
Do you have any thoughts to share on this topic? Add them to the Fanlore page!
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We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!
What is... a squick?
Squicks are similar to disgust. But it differs from it in that a "squick" usually refers purely to the physical sensation of disgust and repulsion. It's more or less just the reaction of the body, not a morally judgement on something.
In regards to writing and reading it means that a specific topic is not something the writer or reader is feeling comfortable with.
It is NOT the same as a trigger.
And squicks are judgement free. "I don't like this thing and I'm not going to engage with it in any way, shape or form, but you do you! Yay you!"
I don't know why we stopped using squick as much as we used to, but we need to bring it back big time.
Learn more about the term Squick on Fanlore!
the concept of britpicking fics, but for hockey. hockeypicking heated rivalry fics.
like what do you mean by "match"? what do you mean by handshake lines after regular season games? what do you mean the game ended in a tie? why are they scoring so many goals? goalie said fuck it and left?
In case you don't know what Brit-picking is, Fanlore has an article!
