The most embarrassing thing is like I'm like the like, oh what are the fan big terms? And I'm just like, is there all just part of my normal book?
I'm like, oh no, she's sheen am me?
No?
May not my name? Yo? No?
What is your child?
I am a cook?
Shook yo? What's going down before? Like round.
Virgins?
Okay, we are on summer vaka. Look, I know we take a lot of vacations. Taurus Taurus Moon. We are on Fire Island again, So we will not have a little chit chat for this episode, and instead we'll get right to a lovely little conversation with Ashley Reese about something we've been wanting to talk about since the beginning of this podcast. Fan Fiction definitely one of our more in depth episodes. If you want to know more about the world of fan fiction.
If you want to know more about fan fiction, just follow me on Twitter.
Just follow Rose on Twitter. Ashley Reese is an amazing writer, ar bitter of fan fiction content, and one of my favorite people on the internet.
Honestly mine too. Honestly, we could have talked to Ashley or I mean I personally could have talked to ashe for like five hours about fan fiction. We definitely need to have her back at some point to talk about it more. And of course, like fan fiction is something we've talked about so much on this podcast, and I'll never stop talking about it. And I learned so much more about you, honestly, and I will never release my AO three handle to the world, so you can die
trying to figure it out. Never And you should become a patron at Patreon dot com slash like a Virgin for exclusive bonus content now including weekly recaps of and just like that. So become a patron.
Yeah, become a Matreon and the Patreon theatreon at Patreon dot com slash like a Virgin.
So last night I was at a screening of the New Dungeons and Dragons movie, which was very fun, but there's a scene in which reggae Jean Page's character is introduced and he's like this very gallant warrior and he has some very spicy chemistry with Chris Pine. And immediately as I was watching it as like, Okay, in two weeks when this movie comes out, I can already see
the AO three tab cropping up. I'm sure people have already written fan fictions just based on the trailer, and that's at least how I see culture now, Like that is what my like rawded fan fiction ass brain has been trained to do. It's just like as I ship exactly like what literally like, is there a vibe I'm always looking for? Is there a vibe? Rosie?
You're never looking You're always just like there's a vibe, but they're always is a vibe?
It's true?
I feel like again, when you have like fanfic rot brain, like you described, I think everything either becomes a potential pairing either that people love or that you're like, oh, people arenna like though the girls are gonna hate this one, or you're gonna see like, oh, I bet like these two obscure characters who maybe interact with you. Other ones have at least like one like or two fixed on a three you.
Know, yes, can you tell us your fan fiction origin story?
Okay, So I definitely remember finding fan fiction back when I was maybe in like sixth grade, seventh grade. This would have been in the very early two thousands. This was when you can find fan fiction on good old fanfiction dot net or yeah, or or.
Like random like angel fire pages.
Angel fire websites, yep, it's it's when the when the fan fiction verse was not as centralized.
Hmm exactly.
So you know, I remember reading random, like really random fan fiction, like I remember brooding like powerpunk girls fan fiction.
Ooh wait what kind of fan fiction? What what entailed?
They're teenagers and they're in high school, and I'm like, wow.
They fucked like sometimes although I will say, you know you know me, so you know that I'm a dirty girl. But let's put it out there. Not all fan fiction is sexy or like smug, right, just like percent not just I would say maybe like sixty percent and forty percent is more you know, tender, or it's.
Like you know, like a like a PG thirteen movie. Yeah, you know, like it's like people weren't like.
You know it you're touching over the clothes or yeah or black yeah, black, like a nice coffee shop au and you know you might get a kiss and then like and then they went into the bedroom and they did this stuff.
They don't even say they did the stuff. It's just all implied.
I was like trying to find whether it like like a seventh grade euphemism for like having sex, Like what would I say, Yeah.
You either have that or it's just like yeah, and then he like spit on his hand and it's like these are how like I guess when you're thirteen, you're like, this is how like anal sex works?
So did fan fiction inform either of yours sexual proclivities are just like what you thought sex was? Is there anything that you can recall where you're like, oh my god, this fan fiction kind of showed me something about showed me a version of sex that's just actually totally crazy.
I mean, I definitely there's definitely a version of sex that's totally crazy.
So, like, just to preface, like my.
Main kind of like fandom, you know, when I was uh changer and stuff, the fanom I know the most about is Harry Potter, So like Harry Potter fan fiction that I would come across just a wide variety in which, like even as a teenager, like I was a total prude. I didn't do anything until like I was like in my twenties, but like even then I would read some of it and I would just kind of be like,
is that how that body part works? And I'm just like how I'm like, but if his legs were there, then like I would be very skeptical of what I was reading, probably because I mean, I think it's quite frankly, a lot of the people who were reading, who were writing this were also my age and had very limited experience, so it was kind of it's kind of blind leading the blind.
And that is something I still realize to this day, is that sometimes I'll be reading fan fiction and realize, oh, the person who's writing this has never had sex. And sometimes they'll even tag it, like I see the tag a lot on AO three smut written by an asexual Vergin, and that I just passed right on.
Just like all right, well, you know, it's really funny because you know, we talked about AO three a lot.
But I think before AO three even became.
Like the kind of what is now the main hub that people kind of go to for fan fiction, or like the least the kind of better one than fan fiction don Net. I also was a live journal girly, so I had I read a lot of fan fiction on live journal, and a lot of that was like all over the place.
Some of us really good, some of it.
Was not great, but like people really creative, people had interesting takes on sex, and like it was just an interesting community to be a part of. And it was kind of a thing where and I don't know, I guess is where it gets controversial, where it was kind of did that even if you stumbled upon something either a pairing that was like hmm, why are like Fred and George like fucking like yeah, it was so like you have read it, like literally like look.
And we've all been in the House of the Dragon trenches in the past year.
I cannot say that I have never read something that that's like hmm, but like, you know, there was kind of this philosophy we're just kind of like you scroll on, yeah you.
Uh, don't yuck. Anybody's young.
Yeah, it was kind of like, you know, unless it was something like really egregious like I will never and I'm really aging myself here, I will never forget this controversy that I stumbled upon in like two thousand and seven in this like smut community where they guess there were prompts every month or week about like kind of like a theme that people can use for like I don't know, different pairings, especially like rare pairings, maybe like a kinky thing about meme.
The kink meme was like you are you are my sister? Okay?
Okay, so maybe we're talking about the same thing. But one of the themes one one day was misagenation.
Oh we're talking about different ones.
Wait, no, what is I don't know what that is?
Okay.
So basically it's like interracial like relationships, yeah, to racial sex. And I remember I was like sixteen at the time, and I saw people like they were like, whoa, why is this considered? Like it was like a whole drama. And it was kind of an interesting introduction because I think that in especially in the mid two thousands, mid to late I think that fantom wasn't quite as politicized or wasn't kind of used as like a political positioning.
And as it kind of is now.
So that was one of my earliest experiences with people kind of having like serious pushback against like something in fandom or.
Something in thick And it.
Was really interesting to see the people who were like, I don't have a problem with this, and people were like,
are you fucking kidding me? So that was like the one time where like the first time rather than where don't yuck someone's young, was kind of like, what, maybe maybe it's time to maybe it's made me we need to yuck this a little bit for the but for the most part, if it's like a pairing that was like I don't know, Snape and Hermione, but not for me, But if someone wanted to write it, I'm just kind of like, okay, like whatever.
Pretty sure.
Like if I have read fan fiction in my like kind of late high school early college years, it was definitely Harry Potter fan fic. I was a Tumblr girly. You said stumbled Upon, and I immediately thought of stumble Upon. Do you remember stumbled Upon? That's like in the same era of Internet. And honestly, when you were talking about like angel fire and stuff, deviant art immediately came into my mind.
And art I just had.
Asol is it still alive?
Yeah?
Still there's still making work like the same as it was, I mean two thousand and seven. That was just you know, the renaissance, yeah, of fan art, but like deviate Art was like very prevalent on like my Tumblr timeline, as was you know, excerpts from like, you know, Harry Potter fanfic, and I definitely I'm pretty gosh doing sure. I remember reading something like gay and Harry Potter it's probably whatever the most popular ship is.
Although now Jerry has like been like it's it's not
been Eclipse but wolf Stars. Oh second, and we'll say okay, So to this day, Harry Potter is is the number one fan fiction ever on AO three, if that's how you measure, and I guess that is how we do measure, because it because it is the most used platform for reading fan fiction, and Harry Potter only, Like I I watched a TikTok recently we were talking about this of someone who compiles all the stats from AO three, and Harry Potter only grows exponentially every year there's more and
more fan fiction written. I've been reading Harry Potter fan fiction since I was in middle school.
Yeah, no, same, I mean I was since I was like fourteen, And I think that what's really interesting.
Is now, like the the.
Girlies new and old, if they're uploading fac at least that's what I see, is like they'll always have like an author's note that's like fuck JK Rowling support trans writes and it's just yeah.
And which is like great.
I mean, I think it's a good reminder that kind of like at least for a very long time. In my opinion, the fans have kind of like taken this ip is like their own, Like it's kind of like at this point unless you're like, I don't know, I feel like really giving a fuck about what about like JK. Rowlings like Paulic is really like really like putting a lot of stock into it and like thinking like, oh,
this is canon. This is like oh she's so right, is very like basic like the like the actual like crazy insane fans are like, uh no, like fuck her, she's awful, she's a.
Bigot and this doesn't belong to her name. Yeah.
Also, like these books ended like over a decade ago, Like why would I care if she says to like wizards poop poop their pants until like plummet.
I don't know, right, But on the flip side of that, like I do appreciate that, and listen, I still engage with Harry Potter stuff, even though I mean, I think it's my right as a trans person to be like I it doesn't matter. I could do whatever I want to do. But people who take it like the extra step further and who are like Daniel Radcliffe wrote Harry
Potter and are like this is our world now. It's like, I think you can say fuck jk Rowling without making like some sort of like self righteous political statement about your need to still be consuming and spreading this ip that like basically, I mean fantom like is a tool to keep people like entrench and IP and like to keep them purchasing it and like propping up the person who profits off of it. So like, I I think people do get a bit self righteous about it, and
you can. I think it's fine to say, look, I know the person who created this is problematic and that like I'm doing something that's like uh whatever by still like feeding into it, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
Also, news flash, like anything created in the nineties and early as is probably problematic in some way, you know what I mean.
I mean, people don't talk about Stephanie Meyer no more.
Well that's because she's not on Twitter very wisely.
Exactly, like but if she was, like, oh.
Boy, yeah, I don't. I don't need to know what she thinks about trans people because I'm pretty sure I already do. So wait, I don't.
Before we get into Twilight, I have to know, Like favorite chips from the Harry Potter fanfic of it all, like do you is there?
I know, wait, what's the I guess what yours are? I have a feeling you're a dremiine girl.
I'm not, but you wait, you know what?
Okay, let me let me rephrase that Jermione actually was my like intro to Harry Potter, like actually read or stumbled upon Draco Hermione fan fiction before I read the books. I actually started reading the books like a little bit later than someone who's my age. I was like fourteen when I started reading those books. But like I read Draco Haranni fan fiction before I read the books, and I basically.
I mean so I based it all.
I'm just like reading, like watching the first three movies, and I'm like, oh, she punched him, so I know that there was something going on here. But like, you know, so I guess if I can summarize my like fan fiction pairing or pairing journey, I was into Dermione for like.
A hot second.
Then I got really into like Harry Hermione, which now it like really makes me cringe because that like if anything is like incess that feels like.
That is yeah, yeah, it's not right. No, And they teased it in the seventh the seventh movie, I was like, what are you the movies.
No, the movies really teased it, but like the books didn't at all.
But like the thing that was fun that kind of made me kind.
Of thought of it was when the fifth when the sixth book came out, and like it was pretty much solidified that it was like Harry Jenny on Hermione.
I was in a really bad.
But I remember being on a forum of Harry Hermione shippers and they were so infuriated by that and by some j Carrolling interview after where she was pretty much making fun of like people.
Who shipped that that they rewrote.
There were these people who rewrote the sixth book to be a hairy Hermione.
Compliant and I was like, I don't. I'm like, I don't know.
Even at like fourteen, I'm like, this is a little too much for me.
There was the war between oh yeah the ships, yeahs Dark Days, so after that and oh god, we'll.
Get to it, yeah, just to just and so basically after I was like, oh, these bites are a little too crazy for me. I really into Marauder Era, which is basically like you know, Harry's parents. Right, So now I'm kind of basic, like I like a lot of like I don't know, read like James the Lee stuff, but like I'm really picky about it. But my main thing, my main thing is like dysfunctional snape lily like friendly like like I don't but I do. I don't ship
them in in an end game way. I ship them, and I don't even ship okay, ship well, I don't ship them. I appreciate how fucked up I think their friendship was, and it was like a very one size kind of Oh yeah, it's like an unrequited shit.
Oh you're like in.
Like a weird like gorilla war in the seventies. I'm like, yeah, give me that ship you.
So do you find yourself drawn to like the unrequited love stories in general? Is that? Like because I personally like there's certain love stories and certain relationship stories that I like, I'll be I'll kind of like want to like want to engage in, and some I'm like that's too easy, year, that's too like basic or whatever, you know what I mean.
Yeah, I think I'm into it, but I also just kind of like I like a good like opposites attract kind of story and realizing so and that kind of hits all my those like spots for me, and then you just add like a seventies backdrop and you just kind of like so you just like add a bunch of stuff to a but like you know, so that's been my main thing since I was like, I don't know, fifteen sixteen, So since like the no, I've written fan.
Fiction, Okay, tell us about that. I mean, don't share, no, It's like I.
Mean, no, no, no, I can, look, I can. Like it's kind of funny because I at this point, like I'll talk about fantom stuff like on Twitter and stuff, but like the only people who I really talk about, like get into the weeds of like the really nerdy shit are people who I talk to like on Discord and stuff.
At this point. Okay, so I've someone really wanted to find me.
They could, but like, yeah, I've I was writing fan fiction and I was in high school and then into college and it's look, I still get kudos in my like inbox right now and then from air three or like a comment.
You both I love like a little yeah, did you have a like a most popular one?
Did you?
Yeah? I have like a couple of popular ones. They're all like Lily Evans centric or like a Snape centric.
But Lily is my main, like my main bitch.
What about her? What is it?
I know that she's like a super minor character. I mean she's fucking dead dead, and like we only see her a little bit, and we mostly see her in the seventh book and like you know, flashback ship. I I'm curious about her because she Okay, I'm just gonna let my like nerd fot so why So the reason I'm really into Lily is because she was a muggle borne witch in like during this time when like there's pretty much like a war brewing.
She you know, when you.
Like kind of look in like the context clues, she and Snape both grew up in like, you know, working class kind of industrial town. You can probably assume that it's in like northern England or whatever, so like obviously there's interesting like class implications there, and like she basically just thrown into this school where you know, there's just i don't know, like baby fascists being like Brewing, and her best friend is pretty much becoming radicalized by wizard Hitler.
By like literally by like friend.
So basically you found out that Snape was look I kind of thought that he had a thing for like a few books before, so I was so validated when it. Yeah, I was just I was like, I think Snape loves Lily, and then we were like, Okay, weirdo read fiction always. I can't even talk about The Deathly Hollows Part two, Like that's a whole other thing that just like traumatizes me.
I think it's so bad, but like always, but basically I'm fascinated about the fact, like you know, Snape's is like weirdo, poor kid obsessed with like who was like identity issues because he's is like his mom is a witch, his dad is a muggle, I.
Mean giving a little non binary maybe, like I mean.
Like definitely at least, like I don't know, it's just like identity issue shit obviously, like any like his he grew up in like an abusive household. Basically, like Lily is this kind of like more kind of very very suret like sure of herself, very confident kind of she. I just I think it's a kind of an opposite trapping.
You're like this weirdo kid and this kind of like bubbly, like at least like happier, kind of confident, like girl who's not afraid to tell someone is to like shut the fuck up or like or not even to tell him that, like, oh, I think your like beliefs are bad. I don't like who you're hanging out with because you're hanging out with fucking teen fascists and he just makes
excuses for it. So I think that like the dysfunction of this person who's literally like a marginalized woman in this like society, trying to maintain this friendship with this person who kind of introduced her to like the Wizarding World the first place, is like really sad and interesting, and then it collapses when he like calls her a mud blood in front of everyone, and she's like, yo, I've been making excuses for you for so fucking long and then you do me like this and he's like, oh,
I'm so sorry, like I don't mean and it's.
Like, babe, you're about to be a fascist.
I don't really give a fuck, So like I really do think that, like just the drama of that and like ya da da yeah, Like he ends up actually kind of being the reason why she gets murdered in the first place because of the whole problem cla like literally just like very and I think that as I got older, when you kind of see the signs of like I just think it's interesting to think about like radicalization in that way, and like what it must be like to be a marginalized person trying to in like
a teenager trying to save your friend from what you clearly see is him going down that path.
I'm literally enraptured, Like that is like a version of that story that I've actually never thought of, like perspectively, because honestly, Lily and James were really boring characters.
I mean, so then basically she's but then she's apparently a huge bish of people. She's like you are, like, oh, but the shitn't ended up like being with like snapes bully. I'm just like, I'm sorry, but like I don't know, I can believe that people can grow. But also I'm sorry, Lisa wasn't a fucking fascist like privileged, so James.
Was like rich posh kid, wow, pure blood.
Ever existed in Like no, thank god. This is all based on like maybe like two paragraphs of text throughout.
The like it's literally, Like this is like the like the deep like contextual like literally though, like I mean he's described as like because we see all through Harry's eyes, and Harry grew up like in a really fucked up situation with you know, he grew up with Lily's sister
being like pretty just neglectful towards him. But I remember him just seeing his dad as A told him describing he was, like I think he described him being like very well cared for in a way that Snape clearly wasn't, so like you have this like rich kid, but I mean James was an asshole, but he also you know, made sure that like his like werewolf friend was like taken care of and like protected and things like that, so like while Snape was trying to out him.
So that's a whole other thing. I don't know.
And apparently, according to today's shippers, he was in love with his best friend little brother. O.
God, don't even get into the jugular.
Oh my god, what's that? So I did? I actually did explain this to you a couple episodes ago when we did an episode on Hunger Games. Because like, the most popular Harry Potter story right now is a Hunger games a Jagulous Hunger Games AU. Do you know about chriss regularly, I've heard of it, It's I don't remember, don't ever try. I was a bored one weekend and read like thirty chapters of it and I'll never get
that time back. But Jgulous is Harry Potter's dad and Serious Black's younger brother, who was a death eater, who literally is never like.
Lines except for like being like Baltimore in like a letter like Baltimore.
I know you're like secret, I.
Stole the horse cracks like and like first and I just can I just say two things on regulation really quickly is like as a sentence about really quickly. First of all, I mean like I look, I I clearly I was like snape girly, I'm and I'm not like, oh this character is bad or this, so you can't be interested in them, Like I don't agree with that
at all. I don't believe in like giving like I don't know just doing like morality politics with like fictional characters like that, and like you can find bad even like fictional fascist interesting and like want to play around with them in a fan fic.
I mean there is so much Harry Voldemort fans.
That's a whole other Yeah, but my whole thing is just like, Okay, I do, but I do, But I do think that if you're going to play around with that, you have to kind of meet the character where they where they're at, so and if you're not, you're just doing something that's oc like out of character.
So from what we know about.
Regulars, he's serious as younger brother, obviously rich, privileged whatever crazy family had like a Voldemore like death either mood board in his bedroom, was on the quidditch team, joined the Death Eaters again, like became a fucking fascist, died trying to I guess because you found out that like voldem was trying to be immortal and wasn't I don't know,
just doing some like cute fashion stuff. But also the only reason you even did that shit in the first place was because Baltimore, like what kidnapped his like his self is like so basically his like house slave. It was like literally like he's like, I you know, he's like, I accept fashion, but I draw the line at you stealing my house slave. So I'm just like, if we're going to put these characters. At least, let's meet them
where they're at. So I'm like, and if you're not, then this is just just make them.
Oh see, it's just.
So un fun, you know what I mean.
It's like like sometimes you know, like you have to like give into the narrative.
That's like the point of narrative is that.
Characters have to be like evil, right, and evil begets like narrative.
Yeah, and when people listen. I have read some fan fiction that I don't usually love like a canon compliant moment, because like it's very the endings are very sad. I did read fiction in which you know the yes, it follows the story, so like you might be reading something that is Marauder's era, but like you're reading it knowing that they're all going to die.
Yeah, Lily and James have their Harry, which is you know who I think is an oops baby, and then they are like we're in this underground group trying to fight the bad people.
Then they fucking get killed.
So it's like, baby, I've read some really compelling can Like I've read all the Young Dudes, you know, and people like that. I think there's some fan fiction out there that is truly better than a lot of published books that I've read. Yes, And they can look at these characters who are very flawed and like really make you sympathize with them and empathize with them even though you know they're like bad people. They make bad choices, and I think that's the mark of a good writer.
And then sometimes people just like want to have their cake and eat them too and want to ignore that they are like writing smut or like fluff about fascists and like not deal with any of the implications of that.
Right, And I think that, you know, I'm not going to get two in the weeds with this, But I got into like some beef online with people who were like Regulus Blacks like baby girl, Like.
I'm just like or like this happened because of TikTok the way.
Yeah, I mean.
Look and like like the tiktokification of fan fiction. I love being on the outside.
It's a lot and I think that and that's definitely why these some of these pairings have just like grown and like, actually, it's funny because after I got into like I don't know, drama with a bunch of like jegulous or jagulous adjacent like Marauder era Twitter people who again have like random like death theaters and they're like who are like only mentioned by name and are just like he's my baby girl. It's like all we know
is that he was a death theater. How's your baby unless you're completely transforming their character.
To be something there and they're not, but like.
Girl, literally, like someone is like Evan Rosier is my baby, girl, Like we only know that he was a death theater and got killed. Like how like they're just trying to but it's because they it's because someone came up with a fan cast on TikTok and made an aesthetic video of like and they're like the matter like with like we a weird filter on it, and then people were like, oh,
he's a baby girl. Yeah, girl, And it's kind of like, you know, it's funny because people reached out to me after like kind of recently, after that whole drama, and they were like, oh my god. By the way, I think that we're partially responsible for jagulas becoming popular on TikTok,
but we were actually just shit posting them. People thought we were taking it seriously and I'm just like yeah, and they're like, no, we have a lot of regrets, but it's it's really fasting to see how Again, I'm someone who got really into fan fiction in the mid two thousands, it's fascinating to see the ways in which approaches of fan fiction have changed.
I saw you talking about something recently that I wanted to get into, which is like the like commodification of fan fiction, like on these online spaces, and like the way in which fan fiction is like free labor that people do, like for the joy of creating art and sharing it with their community, and now it has been sort of like there, it has become a commodity and people are like marketing it on TikTok and like it's really crazy to me as someone who has read not
like fan fiction is longer than Anna Karenina that people wrote with like the alias like June Bugs six Jo and we'll never will never like take credit for it or make any money off of it. And now I'm seeing people who are like like pouring their fan fiction out for you know, likes and kudos and comments and stuff, and like holding stories hostage for comments, and it just feels so weird to me.
It's very icky.
I've noticed that because like I'm I'm very I'm not really on TikTok a lot, but I I'm sent so many different videos and stuff like that, or you know, it's okay here, here's what I'll say. Promoting your fan fiction stuff is not like a new thing. People did it on live journal, people did on forums, poll did
those kind of things. But I think that when you bring in the way that TikTok like just exists as like to like you know, to bring in ad dollars and stuff like that for people to potentially get enough followers and get enough whatever to like make money off their videos, I think that's when it gets into like kind of territory. And I do think that, like I've read somewhere that people were talking about put like publishing their stats, like the stats of their fanfic.
And I'm like, it was never like it.
I did never remember it being like.
That, or like being like, oh, this has this many kudos, this has this many like you know page I I'm just like, that's not what it's about.
Publishing it in a video with their real face it right, Oh.
That's a whole other thing.
I'm just like, with your government name attached.
He's like, Okay, so I don't know a lot I want I want to like, I don't know a ton about just like the democracy slash diplomacy of like kudos and all this different stuff. Is it Is it a meritocracy or are like do people kind of rally and campaign to get certain attention?
I think you used to be the first. Yeah, it used to be the former, and now it has become the latter because there's this phenomenon now of fan fiction recommendations, which you know, back in the day, you found fan fiction by searching for the pairing you liked, and then in the AO three days, you know, you would then go and filter by what stories had the most kudos or the most comments or whatever and find essentially like the most popular or most read stories in whatever fandom
and pairing you were looking for. And now there has become this whole system of people recommending fan fictions again with their government name and government phase and tiktoks and like almost like a cult of personality around certain writers and people who are like, I'll read anything this person rights, and you know, I it's like I get it, because now I think fan fiction has been really destigmatized over the past decade, and that's not a bad thing. I
think it's a good thing. But it's still feels weird to me as someone who grew up with this being an activity that you did in secret.
Yeah, and like it's kind of I kind of am of two minds about it too, Like I I'm not embarrassed by the fact that, like, when it comes down to I'm not embarrassed by the fact that fan fiction is like it's just like a hobby, like any other hobby, but I do I was kind of Raisin's air where it was kind of this hobby that you talk about with like some random internet friend from like Tennessee that you like met on like I don't know, Tumbler, I
don't know. It's just like the tiktokification, the algorithmification of everything and fandom is like kind of strange to me. And I also think that you get to a situation in which you know there are always big name fans. We call it B and f's. Back in the day, big name fans are alsose people who are very popular.
Like Cassandra Clair, who we mentioned earlier, who is so Cassandra Claire was a prolific Harry Potter fan fiction writer who like in a sort of proto E. L. James Fifty Shades of Gray Move five, held off the serial numbers as the parlance is, and turned her Draco fan fiction into this book series, The Mortal Instruments, right, Instruments? Yeah,
And isn't that also a TV show? It got turned into a TV show and a movie and it is based on not even Draco, hermione fan fiction literally just Draco fan fiction or wait was it Draco Jinny?
There was like some there was some pairing and it I yeah, there's some incessionist things going on. Also, she was under a lot of controversy because of like plagiarism claims and stuff like that. So that's what the thing, like the old heads are like, remember when this plagiarist got like a book deal based on the fan fiction that she did a lot of plagiarism, Like that's kind of like the main thing.
How do you identify plagiarism in something that's like adapt Is it like like literal sentences?
Like yeah, like I remember, if I remember correctly, I remember people like being like this is from Buffy from like this book or and like that's like literal of plagiarism.
Yeah, and I'm down to give people the benefit of the doubt of like especially in fan fiction where like this isn't something you're profiting off of. I know that certain things like and and listen, there is so much there is a let there is a fan fiction language that exists. People use the same phrases I talk I have.
I have talked about this a lot, Like there's some things that I really need people to stop saying, Like if I see one more fan fiction where they talk about licking into each other's mouths, which is the way that people describe kissing, and it's like licking each will I will say ninety nine point seven percent of fanfic I read has that exact phrase and.
Shutter relevant topic ship. Phoebe has conceded to us, and the notes said she handed that she is also an avid reader of like gay erotic fan fiction. Question and I think she wants to know about either Well, okay, she asked about crossovers. If you guys like crazy crazy like IP crossovers, but also like I'm I'm just curious about like gay erotic fanfic that sticks out to you or you feel like you'd have something to say.
Okay, So I do think this is more my era because I feel like you're more of a of a hat chipper.
Yeah, I.
Know, I'm just like Okay. So with crossovers so a big thing back in my day. So I started out in fan fiction in Buffy fan fiction. That was my first fandom. And Buffy was a really popular universe to crossover with. And there used to be the site called Twisting the hell Mouth and it was it was specifically and this is again like when fan fiction was less centralized and there were all these different platforms. This was a website where people wrote Buffy crossover fan fiction with
all these other things. So I did a lot of that. I would read like Buffy when she died got sent to Narnia and like or like Buffy gets turned into a vampire by Edward Cullen and like ship like that, or like Willow. There's this one fan fiction that I read where in season six and Buffy, after Willow tries to destroy the world, she gets deaged and she and Buffy go to Hogwarts for summer school. Wait what what? What?
Howse were they in?
They were both in gryffindor even though Willow it turns out, is Tom Riddle's niece or something, and Willow is paired with Harry and Buffy's paired with Draco, which was more a teenage wething because I get like, like you, I started off in the trenches and then I like made the switch to slash pick and I read slash pic almost exclusively, and slash pick is gay. Yeah, they just call it slash yeah.
Slash And then like I remember, fem slash would be like.
Wait, what Just can you rattle off a few other fanfic terms? You said, you know, fire off that.
Okay, numbers, file off the serial numbers.
Which is you've described in a previous episode.
But that filing off the serial numbers is when you write a fan fiction and then you decide to publish it as an original work, so you change all the names to original names, like change all the characteristics that would you know, pronounce it as from the fandom that you're writing and so that it can seem like an original work.
Okay, other terms, let me think, because like there's AO three, which is archive of our own that I think was created like in the early twenty tens. That's kind of like a place where like we're not fanfiction dot net, which is always I don't know, under threat of like collapsing.
Yeah, and now they have ads, like there are ads in the middle of the text of story on fan fiction.
Yeah, and so there's that like pad. Oh what pad?
That's another another thing you need to blame for like a lot of like the girl leides kind of all of a sudden being like I really care about stats and stuff. It's like that you don't write fick for the stats and like the popularity and getting more like followers. You write it because you're a weird little freak who has an idea in your head and need to get it out. And you can share it with your other little freaky friends and just move on, you know, and have fun.
You know.
It has also become a thing that I heard I saw recently in a TikTok is that people want to People are really invested in their specific ship having the most stories and a certain fandom, and will basically like create shell fix on AO three to get the numbers up. It's crazy, what so that their ship has the most fixed?
How had I wait?
Wait, can I say something? About that really quickly.
Yeah, Okay, maybe I'm like galaxy braining here.
You know, maybe this has just immediately made me think of, you know, stand communities or like stand Twitter or anything like that.
How like all like the way that people pretty much prove that.
The person they stand is the most it's like the most worthy of praise reevers by looking at stats of like their billboard, like billboard this billboard that, or like they sold like they outsold this, and it's just like.
Who are they like out selling to whom?
Stuff?
It's like who cares about that? But that's kind of a.
It's like literally like the stantification of like using like stats as like here's why this pairings, like looking.
At number at the numbers, and it's like growing up when it doesn't when it doesn't matter, because like that's the thing as as a community, as a people. The whole reason about fan fiction is like not literally not caring about the official word of the author of whatever, Like we shouldn't be caring about you.
You're just doing it to have fun and on that kind of on that, I've met a friend recently who was like kind of cagey about like her like fantas stuff. But you know what her main fandom is what The Terror? You know that TV show The Terror, like it was like the AMC show based on I think maybe based on the book, I'm not sure, but it has like Richard Harris in it is that his name, Richard Harris. He's the guy who played Lane in mad Men? Right, anyway, this random obscure AMC or FX show with a teeny
tiny fandom, Like teeny tiny. She's like, yeah, I'm into like The Terror. It's just like a few of us were, like, you know, in our late twenties and thirties, just like running our fick and like that's the kind of spirit.
I like, yeah, about how many numbers there are?
You just like you and a few other people are like, I'm writing about this random TV show about a boat that's stuck, got stuck in the like Northern Atlantic. Yeah, and like ghost shit started happening. That's what the show is about. And I'm like I respect that more than like the numbers.
Don't lie, Like, yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, So we do have some other fan fiction terms here, So fannin is a big one. So fannin is like essentially the canon that has been created and decided on among a fandom community that they essentially like prefer over the official lines. That would be like the Draco and leather pants of it all, like what people who it's this term of like people who decided that Draco instead of being this sort of like simpering like fascist and training, is actually
this like Daredevil bad Boy okay. And then Fannin would also be like you know, or like.
We're like Remiss is gay actually and series is also gay and they are gay for each other, yes, which.
Is essentially like it's almost cannon at this point, even no matter what jk Rowling says. And then there's au alternate universe. That's where you see a lot of like coffee shop au barista au. People love barista fan fiction because I think most people who write fan fiction are.
It's like I don't know, you'll have this or they work out of a coffee shop.
No, it's like it'll literally be like.
Like Tom Riddle is a barista and he comes in a lot and they fall in love. Like that's there are literally thousands like.
Or like they're in high school, like you know, the kind of.
Fun I saw a term that's a jost Okay, So this is a Buffy term and I've heard it before, but I didn't know what it was. Okay, a term that refers to a fan fic made incompatible with Cannon by later changes to Cannon postating the authorship of the fiction.
So it's like, okay, so if you were so if you're writing something about like, you know, when when Angel turns evil in season two, and then a couple seasons later, like they like kind of change the rules about how he loses his soul, like you're fick has been jost That's nice. I see.
I kind of like that.
Yeah.
And then there's mary Sue, which is an old school term, old school term, and there's literally a whole website called Marry Sue kind of school of thought around mary Sue. So Mary Sue is a self insert character. Bellisoan is a Mary Sue. I mean, Mary Sue is also kind of like misogynist.
Yeah, it has a very misogynistic kind of like origins. I think it's basically like, oh, this like perfect female character who can do no wrong. Then it ended up being kind of attributed not just to like self inserts and things like that, but just to kind of like female characters that people just didn't like and we're like, oh, they're too beloved, They're fucking Mary Sue.
Like it's kind of stuff like that.
Yeah, that's like that goes way back. That's like a two thousands.
Well we've talked about this before, but like Belliswan really is one of those characters that's like kind of nondescriptive, so you can kind of canvass anything on her.
You know.
Yeah, I mean I think that one of the things that was like part of the appeal of her was just like, oh.
She's just this like average girl who likes books.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just like I don't know, it's like it's like the ending of that like thing where it's just like the like sort the bimbo and then goes to like the woman who like picks up a book.
It's like that, like the person the and is.
Bellaswah kind of in reverse. Yeah.
Yeah, maybe the khaki skirt hello, and it's you know, yeah, I don't know. You know, I feel like ORBS should be a fan fiction.
It should.
It is.
It is most people will describe with someone's eyes as being ORBS.
Yeah, why why I feel like I don't know, but I remember way back when like My Immortal was like I like classic ship post fanfic, and we.
Have talked about My Immortal on the podcast before, so I don't think we need to go into it again. But everyone knows it is the most legendary fan fiction of all time. What's the best fan I've ever read? Oh, that's hard or something recently.
That you read that you okay, Well, like a recent thing that I'm really into, and I'm like I kind of like force herself to befriend this the writer who writes this, it's this series called The Last Enemy.
It's this like Marauder era fanfic.
It does like multiple points of view, mostly like Lily and James from like their fifth year and she plans to doing it until.
They you know, get got.
In like nineteen eighty one, and basically like it's just like kind of it.
I like it because it kind of actually like emphasizes like the stakes, Like you I can't read a fic from like that's like Marauder era that isn't like actually talking about like terrorism or like fascism or like what happens when people are like when young people are rare Collies and I think that. I guess, especially just over the last like ten fifteen years of like seeing of like seeing youth radicalization like up closely on the internet.
I think I'm especially interested in that me too. So are they like that one?
What's something nasty you've read recently?
Nasty?
Okay, I can't think of nasty, but I can think of one that like fucked my head.
I've read.
So I was like last summer my friends were like dreary girlies but also read like other like Draco shit, or like, you need to read this germiine bit called Manicold. Not I fucking read it, No, like three hundred and seventy thousand words.
I was really fucking like, wait's okay, we're gonna offline about this, Okay, one hundred seventy thousand Yeah, not that long?
Wait, And I read it and I was just like I afterwards, I felt like like it was just so bleak Harry Potter meets the handmaid Tale. Like no, it's yeah, and it's like a Germie Handmaid's Tale, a situation, but it also has all these different twists.
But it was good.
I I I thought, there are lots of elements I'm not like I'm not gonna say, oh, this was ship.
It was.
It was, It was very interesting, but it fucked my head. It was the most bleak ship I've like run a long time, and I will never read it again. I don't need to because I'm still like haunted by the end.
But I don't know, like nasty, I don't know.
Well, I don't remember if I talked about this during our Harry Potter episode, but I did. This was a long time ago, like this was definitely on fanfiction dot net, but I did read a serious once that was about every chapter was a different character had to tension with Professor McGonagall, and she bucked all of them. And I think I think she sucked Hermione as a cat.
So wait a minute, is like a book McGonagall or is it Maggie Smith? You know, I didn't because that's I actually.
Think it might have been before the movies came out or like no, no, no, it would have been like maybe after the first two movies.
So it might have been Maggie.
One thing that I really wanted to emphasize that I think is interesting about how fanfic has like changed in some like really interesting ways in some ways that I'm like is like now I feel like for better or for worse, people like really kind of think of like who they their pairings are, like who they are in a way, it's it represents their politics and things like.
That, like crow shippers and antiot.
Yeah, but like yeah, for sure. But also it's just kind of interesting to see the way.
For example, especially in Harry Potter, the way that people have responded to, like perhaps like the lack of diversity in the series is to be like, oh, I'm gonna make James Potter like South Asian and it's like, okay, cool, that's fine, Like do what you want, like it's fanfic, you like have them be eaten in dosas, Like that's all good to me. But then I do think that sometimes people kind of to like ease the guilt of reading like the Turf's books and like kind of playing
with the Turf's characters. They're like, I am going to make every single person in this like they put them in like the like like marginalized person like machine.
Where like wheelchair Yeah it looks like a college and missions.
Yeah, yeah exactly.
And I'm just like look, I'm just like okay, like you know, like half the characters are like are you know, I don't know, like basically like a Benetton catalog. Yeah,
there's people who are on the spectrum. There's people who are like trans, like Remus is like a trans woman, and it's like that's it's it's like simultaneously like really like kind of fun and interesting to see people like, especially this newer generation kind of being like, yeah, I'm gonna make like Remaslubin a trans woman like fuck off. But I do think some people don't do it in a kind of like I do this to see myself kind of way. I think they kind of do it
into like here's how fucking progressive I am. Here's and I'm doing like and I'm just like I want you to do it because you want to see yourself or want to see like a more like diverse world, not because you're trying to like get like points on like look at how like many marginalized identities I put in this like fucking fan fiction.
I completely agree because it to me, it's like especially well you can just with something like that the intention you can kind of smell yeah you know what I mean? Yeah, And I feel like it can really, when you have so many different kind of marginalized stories you to me, it's like you're diluting all of them, honestly, especially if you don't come from any of those intersections, or you'll
only come from one. It's like it's so much more impactful to take a story and and hone in on it and be like, this is the one that I want to tell and it's you know, outside of canon, and this is why.
And instead you get someone like the person on Twitter who is like Regulus black is not white, and I was like, he's one hundred percent cracker baby, Like I don't know what to what to.
Tell you about? All right, And with that.
Slide into our dms at Like a Virgin for twenty sixty nine and let us know, have you ever read maya Mortal? What is your OTP? We want to know. Next week we will be back with a brand new episode. In the meantime, you can become a patron at Patreon dot com slash like a Virgin for weekly bonus episodes and now weekly and just like that recaps. You can also buy our merch at Like a Virgin four twenty sixty nine dot com and follow us at Like a
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Be a High Virgins. You're about to hear an excerpt from this week's Patreon episode, which is a conversation between Fran Rose and Like a Virgin Hall of Famer Honey Pluton on their first time ever watching Lord of the Rings. And if you want to hear the entire conversation, which I think you do, you can go become one of our pay pigs at patreon dot com slash Like a Virgin to hear this and all our weekly bonus content. Love you bye.
So we heard a little Birdie told us, and by little Birdie I mean one of the eagles that rescued the Hobbits, that you watched the Ring all of.
That, every last one in your post post op, because I was like, when am I going to have twelve hours to devote to this? Like Mecca, and I just have so many people in my life that I love who are like Lord of the Rings, ride or Dies, read all the books, watch all the movies, watch them every year. And I'm not really like a fantasy guy, but I just I just love watching anything that means a lot to someone else, especially if I can watch it with them. So me and my bestie September shout out.
We watch all the Lord of the Rings, and I feel like I watched them in the most ideal state where I'm like kind of very high on opioids, so I'm already like twelve feet away from my body and my television and like having to crank the sound on my TV to like one hundred because Okay, then I
realized I've never really taken pain pills before that. That's why, you know, when like when you're growing up, Jeopardy would turn to Wheel of Fortune, and then Wheel of Fortune would always be like way louder because they're all on vicot in.
Oh my god, and they're all like.
Muffled love makes everything so quiet, like and you can't poop.
No.
I have a very traumatic and.
What happened, well, I'm long, long story short.
My girlfriend literally had to like crack a ship out of my ass, and I was recovering from surgery because I was so constant. No, you have to laugh, but I have my biggest fear in life is being constipated. I don't know why, like melvis trauma. So I was like, I had her bring home like a thirty two ounce Dunk in Donuts cookie butter cold, and it's actually a prescriptive laxative that you should literally have like a doctor's
note in order to have that didn't do it. But then I was taking laxatives and suppositors at the same time.
They were meeting in the middle.
Literally like magnets, so that I couldn't do it. But then I was an excruciating cramp and like pushing and literally hearing like the d MT horn and like seeing fractals. I was like fully hallucinating, and then I was like, age, it stuck, and then she has to crack it out of my ass. I tell the story onstage sometimes and I'm like, that is actually the marker of true love, where it's like will this will your partner crack the ass?
We crack your ass, and not in the way it's normally one.
Genuinely.
It's the Lord of the Rings. So I feel like you can't watch it without a guide. It's really confusing. You kind of need someone who you need a Gandalf who's like studied the Loure. And I think the first one is my favorite.
The first one is the best.
I love the first one because there's more liv Tyler, there's more Cape Blanchette, And I was kind of confused watching it the whole time, but like because it's kind of like where I can't watch Game of Throw because there's too many characters where it's like I watch Real Housewives and I need to because it shows.
The name every time.
Yes, yeah, I'm like I need to be I'm too brain damage, Like I need to be reminded like who this woman is. But I think that I'm never going to be like a full stand because I wouldn't watch it independently. But I liked Okay, I love the Hobbits, Frodo Rocks, who's the other one?
Trans mask and Sam Sam gay guys guys gay trans maskline individuals.
Mary and Pippen were giving what they're also gay, they're also gay?
Who are those the other two that follow them around?
It's like they're just trying to find the afters, like that's all they they're doing. They're literally trying to go to but the only one of them is on the list, and they're trying to like figure out a way to get to.
So if the Fellowship of the Ring is like a kind of a kind of queer group of friends. Yes, I have we said already that Gandolf is trans question mark, probably because you shall not no.
No, you shall have I love Gandalf.
Is like a toxic gig guy who's saying to the ball rog who is a trans woman you shall not know?
Absolutely like Gandolf, I just like really really loved him, loved his vibe where it's just like he comes and he goes as he pleases.
He like a wizard, is never late.
Absolutely he has all this information where it's like to me, actually Gandolf is like the ancient scribe that now like lives in New Orleans.
You know what I mean, and like does and does reading lesbian is a.
Lesbian like Gandolf is kind of les I don't want that to be true, but I love who's Biggel Mortensen.
Gorn so sexy, so sexy air Gorn. That makes sense to me.
He's brave.
It's like I just want to like follow his whole arc.
But then with the second and third.
Movies, I was actually just like fully confused. I didn't know what was going on anymore.
It's you do need a guide. There's some visual companions. Yeah, there's lotr wiki. Yes, did you watch the extended versions or no? I do not recommend. I have done the extended versions, but I prefer the theatrical cuts.
And then why do you both love it?
Yes?
Why do you both love it?
What is it?
It's I think it's a nostalgic upbringing thing. Like it's definitely tied to like a part of like you know, my my my life, where I was just like just really learned how to love something in like the world building of it. Like Rose and I are true nerds, and very much so fantasy nerds, and I think that, you know, as a storyteller, I was like, oh my god, they have like their own languages and like there's this book with all their like different kinds of armor and
their histories or whatever. And I think that for me it was like the yeah, the depth of like the storytelling. But like in hindsight, Like I mean, I don't think the extended versions are even like watchable like us unless you're like a super diversion, right, And.
There's Galam him is a fucking cross dresser like that is Gollum. Like Gollum is like the foul c d who like goes up to all the dolls just to be like obnoxious and creepy and you just like cannot get rid of it, but then you also kind of.
Like pity it.
But is also kind of like the like the hasidic man who would hang outside of this and.
That exactly where Gollum is also like the chaser with no game, also just kind of an who's like an egg sissy who like goes home to his like nasty apartment.
Like roaches and like one light bulb hanging from us.
Everything everything is.
Exactly.
Everything is like you could crack one of his sheep on his cat, but he's never had a cat.
And then and then when he when he's alone, he just puts on like goodbye horses.
It's there like Buffalo Bill, you know what I mean, like puts on his stockings, yes, puts on his stockings and his like Revlon Rouge and like tucks his dick and dances in the fucking mirror.
But it's just like get a life, like get a fucking life.