Hello everyone! Greetings from a week in which I have experienced great fandom highs (attending the Lestat concert!!!) and lows (learning about the death of Anthony Stewart Head this afternoon—Rupert Giles was basically the center of my adolescent fandom life).

We’ve got articles related to both of these things, along with a remembrance of Maria Lucas, coverage of a scandal in the Lego world, and Fansplaining’s latest on the Thai GL genre. Plus Avatar: The Last Airbender fanart and a guest list of Devil Wears Prada fic from longtime Mirandy (and other F/F ships!) admirer Aja Romano. — Elizabeth

new stuff

“The Woman Who Saved “Star Wars”: Marcia Lucas (1945-2026)” by Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com
Film editor Marcia Lucas is often credited as a crucial creative force in the original Star Wars trilogy. Following her death last week, this obituary pays tribute to her influential Hollywood career, detailing some eye-opening specifics of how she transformed George Lucas’s vision for Star Wars.

“The Limits of Fan Service in Thailand’s Vibrant GL Genre” by Tabby Kibugi at Fansplaining
The Thai Girls Love industry is just a few years old, but it’s already locked into a pattern of fan service: centering shows around popular pairings of actresses and teasing a real-life relationship between them. This deeply reported piece digs into the genre, with quotes from a range of fans about how they value seeing WLW relationships centered, but feel the fan service comes at the expense of good storytelling.

“I Must Attempt to Explain the LEGO Scandal Rocking YouTube, Entire State of Utah” by Jason Koebler at 404 Media
Look, we can’t summarize this one any better than the title does. “The drama is buried in dozens of YouTube videos—many of which are hours long—police reports, local news reports, police body camera footage (!), cease and desist letters, hostage-style vertical video statements, and more.”

“Lestat Comes (Un)Alive” by Rebecca Alter at Vulture
This past Tuesday, The Vampire Lestat premiere at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan was followed by a concert from Lestat himself. Elizabeth can confirm: this piece captures the event perfectly, from the range of fans in and outside the venue to the (incredible!!) performance itself.

"fair weather fan" yeah it's nice to do things when they're fun???

— Jaya Saxena (@jayasaxena.com) June 2, 2026 at 12:16 PM

older stuff

“A heartwarming story about Buffy’s Anthony Stewart Head going out of his way for a young trans fan” by Reiss Smith at Pink News
In light of the news about Anthony Stewart Head, this 2019 piece about his deep kindness and support for a young trans fan is rightly spreading around again. RIP to an actor who meant so much to so many of us. 💔

tumblr & beyond

Avatar: The Last Airbender fanart by maybemacdc

Kelly ReiKart, the Mario Kart game inspired by... the works of celebrated indie filmmaker Kelly Reichart...?

“im afraid, mother, it is you who has been sold to one direction”

Lestat corrects the record.

yeah, this one’s gonna need a full docuseries to unpack.

Problematic Blorbo

fanfiction

Aja has spent mumblemumble decades in fandom, more if you count their early forays slashing characters and writing fic before they knew what slash and fic were. Find them on AO3 as Aja or Bluesky as @bookshop, or check out their intermittent newsletter about Wang Yibo.

Hi, Rec Center! Many of you may have watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 and thought, ‘That’s a nice movie about the collapse of journalism and the limits of lean-in feminism,’ but, oh, friends, it was so much more. In between all the fancy art and wince-inducing media cameos, you were witnessing the revival of one of the great femslash fandoms, thanks to the electric dynamic between Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), her one-time harried assistant turned veteran journalist Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway)—Mirandy to the blessed initiated—and Emily Blunt’s “iconic” Emily Charlton. (My friend and OG Mirandy shipper Flourish elaborates on all this in Fansplaining’s recent special podcast episode on DWP2!)

DWP peaked when LiveJournal was still the dominant fic platform, and many DWP fics never got ported over to AO3, so it’s long overdue for a renaissance. The fandom revolves around Andy/Miranda, a duo made sizzling both by their age and experience gap—Hathaway was 23 and Streep was 57 when they made the first film together in 2006—and by the huge power differential: La Priestly, architect and empress of Vogue stand-in Runway, and fashion-blind novice Andy as the clueless but clever new girl. Their ability to see through each other’s veneer stands in sharp contrast to the glossy, image-first fashion world in which they move—but let’s be real, we also love this fandom for the fashion, for the love letters to New York and Paris (and now Milan), and the found family ensemble.

Most of all, we love this fandom for the chemistry. Mirandy was baby’s first femslash ship for many of us, and it paved the way for other great ‘stiletto-wearing girlboss/hapless naif’ ships like Swanqueen and Supercorps. It may well be hotter than all of them. — Aja

“The X Ingredient” by Telanu. 24K words, rated Explicit.
Ship: Miranda Priestly/Andy Sachs
Backstory: Being Miranda’s assistant comes with a major catch: from the fic summary, they “have a time-honored, very secret tradition of giving her oral sex whenever she asks for it. But when Andy Sachs takes up the mantle, Miranda gets more than she ever anticipated.”
Rec: Completely unhinged. Contains the undefeated line, “You are not a person. You are a tongue.” A fic so hot it melted all my objections to workplace harassment. Works as a standalone, but La Telanu published versions of several of her fics, including a full novel version of this one, as Roslyn Sinclair. Also see this 2008 time-capsule multi-media sequel by Susan L. Carr.
Content warnings: Adultery (Miranda is canonically married but that never matters); egregious pre-#MeToo-era workplace sexual harassment (but everyone is very into it)

“What a Million Girls Would Kill For” by Woldy. 3K words, rated Teen.
Ship: Emily Charlton/OFC (but mostly gen)
Backstory: Summary: “The cliché is that lesbians are a fashion disaster, so Emily decides the cliché has to go.” Emily coming out to herself and the world.
Rec: A short, sharp character study of Emily navigating both her identity and her career. This is a mainly gen look at Emily with all her barbed wit and determination, and it makes a great precursor to the sequel film.
Content warnings: Homophobia, minor issues around body image & diet

“Making History (One Saturday at a Time)” by TheLastGoodName. 25K words, rated Gen.
Ship: Miranda/Andy
Backstory: Miranda thinks she and Andy are bonding over college football. Andy thinks she’s getting hopelessly cockblocked.
Rec: This fic was the first and still one of the only times I’ve encountered women in fic doing sports fandom together. That premise makes an intriguingly wholesome Mirandy dynamic while also serving the most in-character version of Miranda Priestly. Of course she would have opinions on SEC management and team uniform colors. (Go, Vols.)
Content warnings: N/A

“Strictly Professional” by enidgiselle. 56K words, rated Gen.
Ship: Miranda/Andy
Backstory: Miranda’s hold over Runway is floundering. The solution, somehow, requires fake-dating Andy Sachs.
Rec: One of the DWP fandom’s staple tropes involves post-canon fics set years into the future where Andy has forged her own high-powered career and she’s finally on fairly equal footing with Miranda. Combine that with ye olde fake-dating premise, tabloids, and social media, and you get a classic, unexpectedly sweet Mirandy romance.
Content warnings: N/A

“Sachston in a Romcom” by LondonIsACat. 88K words over 12 works, rated Teen.
Ship: Andy Sachs/Emily Charlton
Backstory: The author takes our heroes through a number of rom-com tropes in a series of hilarious, sweet fics starting near the end of the first film and following Andy’s departure from Runway. Unfortunately, Emily still has to Deal With Her.
Rec: Since the sequel dropped, the DWP fandom has been happily flooded with new fics, and Andy/Emily—or Sachston, as the kids are calling it—is the definite breakout ship. This wry, fun series makes a delightful entry point into their characters and their dynamic as they grapple with the unthinkable horror of falling in love.
Content warnings: N/A

“She Likes a Prizefight” series by Telanu. 26K words over 3 works, rated Explicit. Ship: Miranda/Andy
Backstory: Set shortly after the first film. After leaving Runway, Andy becomes Miranda’s dirty little secret.
Rec: The simmering resentment between Miranda and Andy following the first film only makes their mutual attraction that much more irresistible. Miranda continues to sink her hooks into Andy, but their non-stop flirting, the dirty talk, the various incarnations of deliciously hot sex, all counterbalance the complications of their relationship. I love how messy and adult Telanu allows them both to be. And how much hot sex they get to have. Have I mentioned the hot sex? Allow me to mention the hot sex. Content warnings: Canon-typical power imbalance

Brother this pornographic fanart fails to capture the spirit of the character

— It's Luke! Over Here Now! (@ssjspeedracer.bsky.social) May 27, 2026 at 3:42 PM

FINAL THOUGHT

That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you on the other side of the Vampire Lestat season premiere! — Gav