Can the Harry Potter fandom carry on while ignoring J.K. Rowling?

Harry Potter is truly the fandom that lived. Hogwarts Legacy, the latest big-budget entry in the 26-year-old franchise, grossed over $1 billion as of May, selling 15 million copies — despite a number of outlets declining to cover it, citing Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling’s history of making transphobic statements....

Anime helped make Teen Titans one of the 2000s’ most important shows

Nowadays, Teen Titans’ rise can feel a bit inevitable. After all, it came on the heels of anime access in the U.S. moving from VHS tapes at your local comic or video stores to the mainstream. The Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday Anime block introduced an entire generation to masterpieces like Akira,...

World of Warcraft’s most notorious bug inspired this cursed piece of modern art

It looks like something out of an eldritch fantasy horror, perhaps a Diablo game: a modestly sized chest covered in sharp, bony extrusions, gnarled ligaments, and twisted veins, all rendered in a pale, ghostly, fleshlike color. It’s repulsively organic, but also has an occult, ceremonial air. In fact, this cursed...

Darth Vader, the problematic fanzine fave of 1977

When Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, fans had no idea it would be a trilogy, let alone remain a household name 45 years later. But they knew they had seen something special, and they wanted more. So they created their own extended universe. Fan zines with art, fiction, and...

Baldur’s Gate 3 fans have created their own ad-free wiki

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a massively detailed game, and players of all kinds are bound to want to look something about it up at some point. Whether they’re searching for weapon stats or class builds, or trying to make their Astarion x Reader fanfic as accurate as possible, they’re probably...

FF14 glamour hunters: the sneakerheads who kill God in the name of fashion

I assumed Final Fantasy 14 glamour hunters — the players who devote hundreds of hours to collecting pieces of gear and in-game wardrobe pieces in Square Enix’s MMORPG — were an unapproachable group of players. From the outside, they seem capable of clearing any and all raids, no matter the...

If video games taught real-life skills like in Gran Turismo and TMNT: Mutant Mayhem…

Gran Turismo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem have one big thing in common that certainly wasn’t planned: Both movies suggest that playing a lot of racing games will make you an awesome real-world driver. In TMNT, extensive experience with Forza Horizon prepares mutant shut-in Donatello to drive a...

Why teens are suddenly obsessed with chess

Chess has always been a part of Henry Lien’s life. He’s played it since he was 5 years old or so, his tiny hands just big enough to hold the pieces. He grew up in a part of the Bay Area, Marin, which is known for producing a few excellent...