Happy Monday! I hope you all had a good, minimally annoying St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s a new week now and time to celebrate the soon-to-come release of The Weight of the Stars, or, as I call it, LESBIANS IN SPACE, by K. Ancrum. To celebrate the occasion, I asked her to stop by ye olde blog and talk about some of her fanfic influences — and wouldn’t you goddamn know it, she wrote her damn thesis on fandoms! What a world.
How did you get into fandom?
Like so many before me, I was sucked into fandom via Star Trek. I used to watch TOS a bunch with my dad when I was 10 and even though I didn’t really know the concept of shipping yet, I shipped Spock/McCoy. One day I was looking for pictures of them and I found a link to a website where this woman had posted a fan fiction contest for Spock/McCoy and I was just sucked right in. I was so enamored with all of these cool and serious women writing these stories and fostering an environment of support and community with each other. I learned–very early on–about the history of fandom by reading about these people who had put together zines and painstakingly mailed them to each other, or gathered stories and presented them in mailing groups. I know a lot of people my age have only the vaguest understanding of how incredible modern fandom was at its birth, but I’ve been aware of it from the beginning and it has absolutely shadowed my perspective on the respectability of fan fiction and the incredible beauty and importance of fandom culture.
Oh my GOD tell me about your undergraduate thesis!
I actually had to upload it online to send to a professor which means that my undergrad these is available to be read! Please be kind though, I wrote this like….. 6 years ago and I promise my academic writing is better: It was called “Fan Fiction: Reevaluation and Practical Application.” I presented it at my university’s global symposium and it was extremely well received.
It was basically a quick evaluation of fandom culture’s value and impact on traditional media as a relationship of communication between art and the consumers of that art. It additionally focused on its reputation and how I felt that it was unjustly disparaged and incredibly underused as a media analysis tool. Also, because the presentation was for a crowd of serious academics, I discussed its potential use as a teaching tool–specifically creative writing and reading comprehension.
What are some of the fandoms you read in?
Whooo boy. I am a hardcore multi fandom, multishipper. Right now I’m reading a lot of The Man from UNCLE, Almost Human, Venom, and Game of Thrones. In the past I used to be really into Merlin, Elementary, Supernatural, Vikings, Les Miserables, Star Trek, Mad Max, Pacific Rim, Captain America, Thor, Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, Atlantis, The Magnificent Seven, Star Wars, and Teen Wolf. Growing up, I was very into anime fan fiction, but I’ve cooled down from that significantly.
How has reading fanfic influenced your writing? And if you’re willing to, can you name some fics or authors in particular that have influenced you or that you frequently return to?
Reading fan fic has made me significantly better at eroticization of the mundane–which was a major facet of my first book The Wicker King. Taking romantic scenes and giving them the kind of sexual tension that other writers would have used sex to fill, but instead I use things like, brushing hair, or giving a tattoo, or just watching the other person. Fan fiction, particularly mature fan fiction, is pure wish fulfillment, pure shamelessness written in the dark for your friends. So, using it to learn what really makes people’s hearts race has served me very well.
I think that the most prolific fan fic author, and one of my absolute favorites is the incredibly famous Astolat. She has written in almost every fandom I’ve ever been in and she’s very skilled at what she does. She was one of the first fan fic writers I recognized at 15 and she’s still writing and now I’m in my late 20s. I definitely consider her a celebrity and would absolutely be weak-kneed if we met.
What tropes/AO3 tags are your catnip?
I’m not really attracted to specific tags, but I like seeing reversals of power structures. So, I like reading about whoever is the most dominant character getting in touch with their vulnerability. I tend to go on AO3 and do: Arrange by kudos> Completed Only> – Major Character Death, – Unrequited Love, -Whump, – Modern AU. I also really enjoy M/F/M poly pairings because there is less likelihood of the author writing really bad things about the F in order to cement the M/M ship. Other than that, I’m open for anything!
Do you have any recs for fanfic newbies?
My favorite fic of all time is a Captain America/Bucky fic called Into That Good Night and its an Interstellar AU. I’ve talked about it on twitter a couple of times, but I cannot overstate how incredible it is. I think that the best fan fics don’t require you to have that much information about the source material to really be impacted by them and this is absolutely one of them. This re-imagination of interstellar is so stunning that it genuinely enhanced my enjoyment of the movie itself.
The other fan fic I’m just endlessly impressed by is this Steve/Loki Groundhog Day AU called In The Realm of Ungrateful Cockroaches. Now, one of my ABSOLUTE favorite things is crack-pairings that are written by authors who are so good, so talented, that they force you to ship a weird pairing even though at the beginning of the story you couldn’t even vaguely imagine them together. This Is That Fic. I don’t give a hoot and a holler about Loki/Steve, but by the end of this, I was sobbing.
My final rec is another long one, but this time the fandom is Les Miserables. This is another really famous fan fic called Paris Burning. It features an incredible AU where every city on earth has a human form that lives forever. I can’t get into too much detail but Grantaire is secretly Paris and Enjolras is in love with him and this story will change your life.
What’s a fic you’ve read recently that you absolutely loved?
The Eagle fandom is constantly popping up for me when I’m craving historical fiction so I recently fell in love with this sweet story about werewolves called From The Depths of His Heart. I’m not super into werewolves as a mythological creature and I definitely don’t seek it out as an AU. However, I do know (from being an english major lmao) that British werewolves are historically different from other werewolves insomuch as they are considered to be bearers of good luck, tenderness and goodwill. The author of this did an amazing job of positioning the Roman occupation aspects of the story in contrast with the British historical culture and the whole thing was so incredibly tender.
Fandom and fanfiction are showing up more and more as plot points in professional fiction. Have you read any books that felt like a super accurate representation of fandom as you’ve experienced it?
I tend to try not to read books about fandom unless they are academic in nature or non-fiction. Not because I’m snobby, but just because most professional fiction about fandom tends to be contemporary. And even though I write contemporary, I tend towards reading fantasy, science fiction and middle grade adventure novels, if I’m not just reading fan fiction itself.
Share some AO3 tags for your new YA novel, The Weight of Our Stars!
While I Heavily Doubt Anyone Will Write Fic About It (but would die of joy if someone did), if TWotS was a fan fic the tag format would look like this:
The Weight of the Stars
Fandom: Interstellar
Rating: Teen
F/F
Angst & Fluff, Bullying, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Poverty, Found Families, Original Characters, First Time, Big Muscle Girls!, Gay Panic, Tsundere