podcast friday

[sabotabby]

 This is another "I need a distraction" moment, and boy is this one an excellent distraction. Normal Gossip has a new season. Normal Gossip just released an episode that might be up there with "Family Mealworms" for my favourite and most relatable yet.

"Forbidden Feline Fanfiction" is about drama in the Warrior Cats fandom. I am too old to have heard of Warrior Cats but I gather it's about feral cats who have their own society and culture and religion, and there are a lot of books. It's one of those fandoms where people write OCs and swap them around. And yes. There is smut about the cats.

If you've never listened to the show, there's always a segment where the guest (in this case, Ashley Reese) relays a gossip story to the host, Kelsey. Usually these are fine but I want to get to Kelsey's gossip. In this case, Ashley's gossip is also amazing enough that it might have been its own episode and is also a very relatable story.

Basically, both of these stories involve subcultures that I'm adjacent to, and this makes them extra hilarious. It's so good. Give it a listen.

Comments

[greylock]

I am too old to have heard of Warrior Cats

Same. And I don't know many KIDZ.
I do recall Samurai Pizza Cats. I wish I didn't.

And yes. There is smut about the cats

Of course. Rule 34.

Which are your subcultures? Slash/Fanfic and...? Cats?

The funniest thing to me is I recognised Ashley Reese's name.
It took some Googling, but I used to read her at Jezebel.

[sabotabby]

So things I know about: cats, obviously, fandom, writing, and, in the Ashley's gossip, veganism. That's all I'll say spoiler-wise.

[minoanmiss]

Ah, fandom.

[sabotabby]

The most fandom ever.

[moon_custafer]

Does this story relate to the kids who weren’t allowed online, but were allowed Nooks, which could connect to the Barnes & Noble website, so they used the review feature as a chatroom to post their Warrior Cats fics and roleplay for each other? (story I heard on Tumblr and have always been delighted by)

[sabotabby]

I had no idea! It could be—it did sound like there was a chatroom involved.

[frandroid]

"The street finds its own uses for things" =)

[greylock]

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"

[greylock]

I am sure I heard a similar story, maybe on Slashdot?

OC?

[frandroid]

For the non-fandom dwellers in the crowd:

> Original Character (OC): a character in a fic who doesn’t originate from the canon material, often created by the fic writer.

Re: OC?

[sabotabby]

Oh right. I'm extremely online.

[lokifan]

I hadn't heard of it either! But the author of Warrior Cats was at a Worldcon panel on heroes of kidlit this year, and when she introduced herself as part of a question she asked, the AUDIBLE GASPS were great.

[sabotabby]

The Kids are so odd. Anyway, apparently she doesn't even like cats, which is hilarious to me.

[china_shop]

I just listened to this, and it was amazing! Thank you for the rec! <3

[sabotabby]

It made me so happy.