Speaker 1: The most embarrassing thing is like I'm like the like,
Speaker 1: oh what are the fan big terms? And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: is there all just part of my normal book?
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh no, she's sheen am me?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: May not my name? Yo? No?
Speaker 5: What is your child?
Speaker 1: I am a cook?
Speaker 4: Shook yo? What's going down before? Like round.
Speaker 3: Virgins?
Speaker 4: Okay, we are on summer vaka. Look, I know we
Speaker 4: take a lot of vacations. Taurus Taurus Moon. We are
Speaker 4: on Fire Island again, So we will not have a
Speaker 4: little chit chat for this episode, and instead we'll get
Speaker 4: right to a lovely little conversation with Ashley Reese about
Speaker 4: something we've been wanting to talk about since the beginning
Speaker 4: of this podcast. Fan Fiction definitely one of our more
Speaker 4: in depth episodes. If you want to know more about
Speaker 4: the world of fan fiction.
Speaker 3: If you want to know more about fan fiction, just
Speaker 3: follow me on Twitter.
Speaker 4: Just follow Rose on Twitter. Ashley Reese is an amazing writer,
Speaker 4: ar bitter of fan fiction content, and one of my
Speaker 4: favorite people on the internet.
Speaker 3: Honestly mine too. Honestly, we could have talked to Ashley
Speaker 3: or I mean I personally could have talked to ashe
Speaker 3: for like five hours about fan fiction. We definitely need
Speaker 3: to have her back at some point to talk about
Speaker 3: it more. And of course, like fan fiction is something
Speaker 3: we've talked about so much on this podcast, and I'll
Speaker 3: never stop talking about it. And I learned so much
Speaker 3: more about you, honestly, and I will never release my
Speaker 3: AO three handle to the world, so you can die
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. Never And you should become
Speaker 3: a patron at Patreon dot com slash like a Virgin
Speaker 3: for exclusive bonus content now including weekly recaps of and
Speaker 3: just like that. So become a patron.
Speaker 4: Yeah, become a Matreon and the Patreon theatreon at Patreon
Speaker 4: dot com slash like a Virgin.
Speaker 3: So last night I was at a screening of the
Speaker 3: New Dungeons and Dragons movie, which was very fun, but
Speaker 3: there's a scene in which reggae Jean Page's character is
Speaker 3: introduced and he's like this very gallant warrior and he
Speaker 3: has some very spicy chemistry with Chris Pine. And immediately
Speaker 3: as I was watching it as like, Okay, in two
Speaker 3: weeks when this movie comes out, I can already see
Speaker 3: the AO three tab cropping up. I'm sure people have
Speaker 3: already written fan fictions just based on the trailer, and
Speaker 3: that's at least how I see culture now, Like that
Speaker 3: is what my like rawded fan fiction ass brain has
Speaker 3: been trained to do. It's just like as I ship
Speaker 3: exactly like what literally like, is there a vibe I'm
Speaker 3: always looking for? Is there a vibe? Rosie?
Speaker 4: You're never looking You're always just like there's a vibe,
Speaker 4: but they're always is a vibe?
Speaker 6: It's true?
Speaker 1: I feel like again, when you have like fanfic rot brain,
Speaker 1: like you described, I think everything either becomes a potential
Speaker 1: pairing either that people love or that you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: people arenna like though the girls are gonna hate this one,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna see like, oh, I bet like these
Speaker 1: two obscure characters who maybe interact with you. Other ones
Speaker 1: have at least like one like or two fixed on
Speaker 1: a three you.
Speaker 3: Know, yes, can you tell us your fan fiction origin story?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I definitely remember finding fan fiction back when
Speaker 1: I was maybe in like sixth grade, seventh grade. This
Speaker 1: would have been in the very early two thousands. This
Speaker 1: was when you can find fan fiction on good old
Speaker 1: fanfiction dot net or yeah, or or.
Speaker 6: Like random like angel fire pages.
Speaker 3: Angel fire websites, yep, it's it's when the when the
Speaker 3: fan fiction verse was not as centralized.
Speaker 6: Hmm exactly.
Speaker 1: So you know, I remember reading random, like really random
Speaker 1: fan fiction, like I remember brooding like powerpunk girls fan fiction.
Speaker 3: Ooh wait what kind of fan fiction? What what entailed?
Speaker 1: They're teenagers and they're in high school, and I'm like, wow.
Speaker 3: They fucked like sometimes although I will say, you know
Speaker 3: you know me, so you know that I'm a dirty girl.
Speaker 3: But let's put it out there. Not all fan fiction
Speaker 3: is sexy or like smug, right, just like percent not
Speaker 3: just I would say maybe like sixty percent and forty
Speaker 3: percent is more you know, tender, or it's.
Speaker 1: Like you know, like a like a PG thirteen movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's like people weren't like.
Speaker 4: You know it you're touching over the clothes or yeah
Speaker 4: or black yeah, black, like a nice coffee shop au
Speaker 4: and you know you might get a kiss and then
Speaker 4: like and then they went into the bedroom and they
Speaker 4: did this stuff.
Speaker 3: They don't even say they did the stuff. It's just
Speaker 3: all implied.
Speaker 4: I was like trying to find whether it like like
Speaker 4: a seventh grade euphemism for like having sex, Like what
Speaker 4: would I say, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You either have that or it's just like yeah, and
Speaker 1: then he like spit on his hand and it's like
Speaker 1: these are how like I guess when you're thirteen, you're like,
Speaker 1: this is how like anal sex works?
Speaker 4: So did fan fiction inform either of yours sexual proclivities
Speaker 4: are just like what you thought sex was? Is there
Speaker 4: anything that you can recall where you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this fan fiction kind of showed me something about showed
Speaker 4: me a version of sex that's just actually totally crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely there's definitely a version of sex
Speaker 1: that's totally crazy.
Speaker 6: So, like, just to preface, like my.
Speaker 1: Main kind of like fandom, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: uh changer and stuff, the fanom I know the most
Speaker 1: about is Harry Potter, So like Harry Potter fan fiction
Speaker 1: that I would come across just a wide variety in which,
Speaker 1: like even as a teenager, like I was a total prude.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything until like I was like in
Speaker 1: my twenties, but like even then I would read some
Speaker 1: of it and I would just kind of be like,
Speaker 1: is that how that body part works? And I'm just
Speaker 1: like how I'm like, but if his legs were there,
Speaker 1: then like I would be very skeptical of what I
Speaker 1: was reading, probably because I mean, I think it's quite frankly,
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who were reading, who were
Speaker 1: writing this were also my age and had very limited experience,
Speaker 1: so it was kind of it's kind of blind leading
Speaker 1: the blind.
Speaker 3: And that is something I still realize to this day,
Speaker 3: is that sometimes I'll be reading fan fiction and realize, oh,
Speaker 3: the person who's writing this has never had sex. And
Speaker 3: sometimes they'll even tag it, like I see the tag
Speaker 3: a lot on AO three smut written by an asexual Vergin,
Speaker 3: and that I just passed right on.
Speaker 1: Just like all right, well, you know, it's really funny
Speaker 1: because you know, we talked about AO three a lot.
Speaker 6: But I think before AO three even became.
Speaker 1: Like the kind of what is now the main hub
Speaker 1: that people kind of go to for fan fiction, or
Speaker 1: like the least the kind of better one than fan
Speaker 1: fiction don Net. I also was a live journal girly,
Speaker 1: so I had I read a lot of fan fiction
Speaker 1: on live journal, and a lot of that was like
Speaker 1: all over the place.
Speaker 6: Some of us really good, some of it.
Speaker 1: Was not great, but like people really creative, people had
Speaker 1: interesting takes on sex, and like it was just an
Speaker 1: interesting community to be a part of. And it was
Speaker 1: kind of a thing where and I don't know, I
Speaker 1: guess is where it gets controversial, where it was kind
Speaker 1: of did that even if you stumbled upon something either
Speaker 1: a pairing that was like hmm, why are like Fred
Speaker 1: and George like fucking like yeah, it was so like
Speaker 1: you have read it, like literally like look.
Speaker 3: And we've all been in the House of the Dragon
Speaker 3: trenches in the past year.
Speaker 1: I cannot say that I have never read something that
Speaker 1: that's like hmm, but like, you know, there was kind
Speaker 1: of this philosophy we're just kind of like you scroll on,
Speaker 1: yeah you.
Speaker 3: Uh, don't yuck. Anybody's young.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of like, you know, unless it
Speaker 1: was something like really egregious like I will never and
Speaker 1: I'm really aging myself here, I will never forget this
Speaker 1: controversy that I stumbled upon in like two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven in this like smut community where they guess there
Speaker 1: were prompts every month or week about like kind of
Speaker 1: like a theme that people can use for like I
Speaker 1: don't know, different pairings, especially like rare pairings, maybe like
Speaker 1: a kinky thing about meme.
Speaker 4: The kink meme was like you are you are my sister? Okay?
Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe we're talking about the same thing. But
Speaker 1: one of the themes one one day was misagenation.
Speaker 4: Oh we're talking about different ones.
Speaker 3: Wait, no, what is I don't know what that is?
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: So basically it's like interracial like relationships, yeah, to racial sex.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was like sixteen at the time,
Speaker 1: and I saw people like they were like, whoa, why
Speaker 1: is this considered? Like it was like a whole drama.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of an interesting introduction because I
Speaker 1: think that in especially in the mid two thousands, mid
Speaker 1: to late I think that fantom wasn't quite as politicized
Speaker 1: or wasn't kind of used as like a political positioning.
Speaker 4: And as it kind of is now.
Speaker 1: So that was one of my earliest experiences with people
Speaker 1: kind of having like serious pushback against like something in
Speaker 1: fandom or.
Speaker 6: Something in thick And it.
Speaker 1: Was really interesting to see the people who were like,
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with this, and people were like,
Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me? So that was like the
Speaker 1: one time where like the first time rather than where
Speaker 1: don't yuck someone's young, was kind of like, what, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe it's time to maybe it's made me we need
Speaker 1: to yuck this a little bit for the but for
Speaker 1: the most part, if it's like a pairing that was
Speaker 1: like I don't know, Snape and Hermione, but not for me,
Speaker 1: But if someone wanted to write it, I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of like, okay, like whatever.
Speaker 6: Pretty sure.
Speaker 4: Like if I have read fan fiction in my like
Speaker 4: kind of late high school early college years, it was
Speaker 4: definitely Harry Potter fan fic. I was a Tumblr girly.
Speaker 4: You said stumbled Upon, and I immediately thought of stumble Upon.
Speaker 4: Do you remember stumbled Upon? That's like in the same
Speaker 4: era of Internet. And honestly, when you were talking about
Speaker 4: like angel fire and stuff, deviant art immediately came into
Speaker 4: my mind.
Speaker 3: And art I just had.
Speaker 4: Asol is it still alive?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Still there's still making work like the same as it was,
Speaker 4: I mean two thousand and seven. That was just you know,
Speaker 4: the renaissance, yeah, of fan art, but like deviate Art
Speaker 4: was like very prevalent on like my Tumblr timeline, as
Speaker 4: was you know, excerpts from like, you know, Harry Potter fanfic,
Speaker 4: and I definitely I'm pretty gosh doing sure. I remember
Speaker 4: reading something like gay and Harry Potter it's probably whatever
Speaker 4: the most popular ship is.
Speaker 3: Although now Jerry has like been like it's it's not
Speaker 3: been Eclipse but wolf Stars. Oh second, and we'll say okay,
Speaker 3: So to this day, Harry Potter is is the number
Speaker 3: one fan fiction ever on AO three, if that's how
Speaker 3: you measure, and I guess that is how we do measure,
Speaker 3: because it because it is the most used platform for
Speaker 3: reading fan fiction, and Harry Potter only, Like I I
Speaker 3: watched a TikTok recently we were talking about this of
Speaker 3: someone who compiles all the stats from AO three, and
Speaker 3: Harry Potter only grows exponentially every year there's more and
Speaker 3: more fan fiction written. I've been reading Harry Potter fan
Speaker 3: fiction since I was in middle school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, same, I mean I was since I was
Speaker 1: like fourteen, And I think that what's really interesting.
Speaker 6: Is now, like the the.
Speaker 1: Girlies new and old, if they're uploading fac at least
Speaker 1: that's what I see, is like they'll always have like
Speaker 1: an author's note that's like fuck JK Rowling support trans
Speaker 1: writes and it's just yeah.
Speaker 6: And which is like great.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's a good reminder that kind
Speaker 1: of like at least for a very long time. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, the fans have kind of like taken this
Speaker 1: ip is like their own, Like it's kind of like
Speaker 1: at this point unless you're like, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: feel like really giving a fuck about what about like JK.
Speaker 1: Rowlings like Paulic is really like really like putting a
Speaker 1: lot of stock into it and like thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is canon. This is like oh she's so right,
Speaker 1: is very like basic like the like the actual like
Speaker 1: crazy insane fans are like, uh no, like fuck her,
Speaker 1: she's awful, she's a.
Speaker 6: Bigot and this doesn't belong to her name. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, like these books ended like over a decade ago,
Speaker 1: Like why would I care if she says to like
Speaker 1: wizards poop poop their pants until like plummet.
Speaker 3: I don't know, right, But on the flip side of that,
Speaker 3: like I do appreciate that, and listen, I still engage
Speaker 3: with Harry Potter stuff, even though I mean, I think
Speaker 3: it's my right as a trans person to be like
Speaker 3: I it doesn't matter. I could do whatever I want
Speaker 3: to do. But people who take it like the extra
Speaker 3: step further and who are like Daniel Radcliffe wrote Harry
Speaker 3: Potter and are like this is our world now. It's like,
Speaker 3: I think you can say fuck jk Rowling without making
Speaker 3: like some sort of like self righteous political statement about
Speaker 3: your need to still be consuming and spreading this ip
Speaker 3: that like basically, I mean fantom like is a tool
Speaker 3: to keep people like entrench and IP and like to
Speaker 3: keep them purchasing it and like propping up the person
Speaker 3: who profits off of it. So like, I I think
Speaker 3: people do get a bit self righteous about it, and
Speaker 3: you can. I think it's fine to say, look, I
Speaker 3: know the person who created this is problematic and that
Speaker 3: like I'm doing something that's like uh whatever by still
Speaker 3: like feeding into it, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
Speaker 4: Also, news flash, like anything created in the nineties and
Speaker 4: early as is probably problematic in some way, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean.
Speaker 6: I mean, people don't talk about Stephanie Meyer no more.
Speaker 3: Well that's because she's not on Twitter very wisely.
Speaker 6: Exactly, like but if she was, like, oh.
Speaker 3: Boy, yeah, I don't. I don't need to know what
Speaker 3: she thinks about trans people because I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 3: already do. So wait, I don't.
Speaker 4: Before we get into Twilight, I have to know, Like
Speaker 4: favorite chips from the Harry Potter fanfic of it all,
Speaker 4: like do you is there?
Speaker 3: I know, wait, what's the I guess what yours are?
Speaker 3: I have a feeling you're a dremiine girl.
Speaker 6: I'm not, but you wait, you know what?
Speaker 1: Okay, let me let me rephrase that Jermione actually was
Speaker 1: my like intro to Harry Potter, like actually read or
Speaker 1: stumbled upon Draco Hermione fan fiction before I read the books.
Speaker 1: I actually started reading the books like a little bit
Speaker 1: later than someone who's my age. I was like fourteen
Speaker 1: when I started reading those books. But like I read
Speaker 1: Draco Haranni fan fiction before I read the books, and
Speaker 1: I basically.
Speaker 6: I mean so I based it all.
Speaker 1: I'm just like reading, like watching the first three movies,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, she punched him, so I know
Speaker 1: that there was something going on here. But like, you know,
Speaker 1: so I guess if I can summarize my like fan
Speaker 1: fiction pairing or pairing journey, I was into Dermione for like.
Speaker 6: A hot second.
Speaker 1: Then I got really into like Harry Hermione, which now
Speaker 1: it like really makes me cringe because that like if
Speaker 1: anything is like incess that feels like.
Speaker 4: That is yeah, yeah, it's not right. No, And they
Speaker 4: teased it in the seventh the seventh movie, I was like,
Speaker 4: what are you the movies.
Speaker 1: No, the movies really teased it, but like the books
Speaker 1: didn't at all.
Speaker 6: But like the thing that was fun that kind of
Speaker 6: made me kind.
Speaker 1: Of thought of it was when the fifth when the
Speaker 1: sixth book came out, and like it was pretty much
Speaker 1: solidified that it was like Harry Jenny on Hermione.
Speaker 6: I was in a really bad.
Speaker 1: But I remember being on a forum of Harry Hermione
Speaker 1: shippers and they were so infuriated by that and by
Speaker 1: some j Carrolling interview after where she was pretty much
Speaker 1: making fun of like people.
Speaker 6: Who shipped that that they rewrote.
Speaker 1: There were these people who rewrote the sixth book to
Speaker 1: be a hairy Hermione.
Speaker 6: Compliant and I was like, I don't. I'm like, I
Speaker 6: don't know.
Speaker 4: Even at like fourteen, I'm like, this is a little
Speaker 4: too much for me.
Speaker 3: There was the war between oh yeah the ships, yeahs
Speaker 3: Dark Days, so after that and oh god, we'll.
Speaker 1: Get to it, yeah, just to just and so basically
Speaker 1: after I was like, oh, these bites are a little
Speaker 1: too crazy for me. I really into Marauder Era, which
Speaker 1: is basically like you know, Harry's parents. Right, So now
Speaker 1: I'm kind of basic, like I like a lot of
Speaker 1: like I don't know, read like James the Lee stuff,
Speaker 1: but like I'm really picky about it. But my main thing,
Speaker 1: my main thing is like dysfunctional snape lily like friendly
Speaker 1: like like I don't but I do. I don't ship
Speaker 1: them in in an end game way. I ship them,
Speaker 1: and I don't even ship okay, ship well, I don't
Speaker 1: ship them. I appreciate how fucked up I think their
Speaker 1: friendship was, and it was like a very one size
Speaker 1: kind of Oh yeah, it's like an unrequited shit.
Speaker 6: Oh you're like in.
Speaker 1: Like a weird like gorilla war in the seventies. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: give me that ship you.
Speaker 4: So do you find yourself drawn to like the unrequited
Speaker 4: love stories in general? Is that? Like because I personally
Speaker 4: like there's certain love stories and certain relationship stories that
Speaker 4: I like, I'll be I'll kind of like want to
Speaker 4: like want to engage in, and some I'm like that's
Speaker 4: too easy, year, that's too like basic or whatever, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm into it, but I also just
Speaker 1: kind of like I like a good like opposites attract
Speaker 1: kind of story and realizing so and that kind of
Speaker 1: hits all my those like spots for me, and then
Speaker 1: you just add like a seventies backdrop and you just
Speaker 1: kind of like so you just like add a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff to a but like you know, so that's
Speaker 1: been my main thing since I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen, So since like the no, I've written fan.
Speaker 4: Fiction, Okay, tell us about that. I mean, don't share, no,
Speaker 4: It's like I.
Speaker 1: Mean, no, no, no, I can, look, I can. Like
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny because I at this point, like
Speaker 1: I'll talk about fantom stuff like on Twitter and stuff,
Speaker 1: but like the only people who I really talk about,
Speaker 1: like get into the weeds of like the really nerdy
Speaker 1: shit are people who I talk to like on Discord
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 6: At this point. Okay, so I've someone really wanted to
Speaker 6: find me.
Speaker 1: They could, but like, yeah, I've I was writing fan
Speaker 1: fiction and I was in high school and then into
Speaker 1: college and it's look, I still get kudos in my
Speaker 1: like inbox right now and then from air three or
Speaker 1: like a comment.
Speaker 4: You both I love like a little yeah, did you
Speaker 4: have a like a most popular one?
Speaker 3: Did you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I have like a couple of popular ones. They're
Speaker 1: all like Lily Evans centric or like a Snape centric.
Speaker 6: But Lily is my main, like my main bitch.
Speaker 3: What about her? What is it?
Speaker 1: I know that she's like a super minor character. I
Speaker 1: mean she's fucking dead dead, and like we only see
Speaker 1: her a little bit, and we mostly see her in
Speaker 1: the seventh book and like you know, flashback ship. I
Speaker 1: I'm curious about her because she Okay, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let my like nerd fot so why So the reason
Speaker 1: I'm really into Lily is because she was a muggle
Speaker 1: borne witch in like during this time when like there's
Speaker 1: pretty much like a war brewing.
Speaker 6: She you know, when you.
Speaker 1: Like kind of look in like the context clues, she
Speaker 1: and Snape both grew up in like, you know, working
Speaker 1: class kind of industrial town. You can probably assume that
Speaker 1: it's in like northern England or whatever, so like obviously
Speaker 1: there's interesting like class implications there, and like she basically
Speaker 1: just thrown into this school where you know, there's just
Speaker 1: i don't know, like baby fascists being like Brewing, and
Speaker 1: her best friend is pretty much becoming radicalized by wizard Hitler.
Speaker 6: By like literally by like friend.
Speaker 1: So basically you found out that Snape was look I
Speaker 1: kind of thought that he had a thing for like
Speaker 1: a few books before, so I was so validated when it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just I was like, I think Snape loves Lily,
Speaker 1: and then we were like, Okay, weirdo read fiction always.
Speaker 1: I can't even talk about The Deathly Hollows Part two,
Speaker 1: Like that's a whole other thing that just like traumatizes me.
Speaker 1: I think it's so bad, but like always, but basically
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated about the fact, like you know, Snape's is
Speaker 1: like weirdo, poor kid obsessed with like who was like
Speaker 1: identity issues because he's is like his mom is a witch,
Speaker 1: his dad is a muggle, I.
Speaker 3: Mean giving a little non binary maybe, like I mean.
Speaker 1: Like definitely at least, like I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: like identity issue shit obviously, like any like his he
Speaker 1: grew up in like an abusive household. Basically, like Lily
Speaker 1: is this kind of like more kind of very very
Speaker 1: suret like sure of herself, very confident kind of she.
Speaker 1: I just I think it's a kind of an opposite trapping.
Speaker 1: You're like this weirdo kid and this kind of like bubbly,
Speaker 1: like at least like happier, kind of confident, like girl
Speaker 1: who's not afraid to tell someone is to like shut
Speaker 1: the fuck up or like or not even to tell
Speaker 1: him that, like, oh, I think your like beliefs are bad.
Speaker 1: I don't like who you're hanging out with because you're
Speaker 1: hanging out with fucking teen fascists and he just makes
Speaker 1: excuses for it. So I think that like the dysfunction
Speaker 1: of this person who's literally like a marginalized woman in
Speaker 1: this like society, trying to maintain this friendship with this
Speaker 1: person who kind of introduced her to like the Wizarding
Speaker 1: World the first place, is like really sad and interesting,
Speaker 1: and then it collapses when he like calls her a
Speaker 1: mud blood in front of everyone, and she's like, yo,
Speaker 1: I've been making excuses for you for so fucking long
Speaker 1: and then you do me like this and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, like I don't mean and it's.
Speaker 6: Like, babe, you're about to be a fascist.
Speaker 1: I don't really give a fuck, So like I really
Speaker 1: do think that, like just the drama of that and
Speaker 1: like ya da da yeah, Like he ends up actually
Speaker 1: kind of being the reason why she gets murdered in
Speaker 1: the first place because of the whole problem cla like
Speaker 1: literally just like very and I think that as I
Speaker 1: got older, when you kind of see the signs of
Speaker 1: like I just think it's interesting to think about like
Speaker 1: radicalization in that way, and like what it must be
Speaker 1: like to be a marginalized person trying to in like
Speaker 1: a teenager trying to save your friend from what you
Speaker 1: clearly see is him going down that path.
Speaker 4: I'm literally enraptured, Like that is like a version of
Speaker 4: that story that I've actually never thought of, like perspectively,
Speaker 4: because honestly, Lily and James were really boring characters.
Speaker 1: I mean, so then basically she's but then she's apparently
Speaker 1: a huge bish of people. She's like you are, like, oh,
Speaker 1: but the shitn't ended up like being with like snapes bully.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I'm sorry, but like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I can believe that people can grow. But also I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Lisa wasn't a fucking fascist like privileged, so James.
Speaker 6: Was like rich posh kid, wow, pure blood.
Speaker 3: Ever existed in Like no, thank god. This is all
Speaker 3: based on like maybe like two paragraphs of text throughout.
Speaker 1: The like it's literally, Like this is like the like
Speaker 1: the deep like contextual like literally though, like I mean
Speaker 1: he's described as like because we see all through Harry's eyes,
Speaker 1: and Harry grew up like in a really fucked up
Speaker 1: situation with you know, he grew up with Lily's sister
Speaker 1: being like pretty just neglectful towards him. But I remember
Speaker 1: him just seeing his dad as A told him describing
Speaker 1: he was, like I think he described him being like
Speaker 1: very well cared for in a way that Snape clearly wasn't,
Speaker 1: so like you have this like rich kid, but I
Speaker 1: mean James was an asshole, but he also you know,
Speaker 1: made sure that like his like werewolf friend was like
Speaker 1: taken care of and like protected and things like that,
Speaker 1: so like while Snape was trying to out him.
Speaker 6: So that's a whole other thing. I don't know.
Speaker 3: And apparently, according to today's shippers, he was in love
Speaker 3: with his best friend little brother. O.
Speaker 6: God, don't even get into the jugular.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, what's that? So I did? I actually
Speaker 3: did explain this to you a couple episodes ago when
Speaker 3: we did an episode on Hunger Games. Because like, the
Speaker 3: most popular Harry Potter story right now is a Hunger
Speaker 3: games a Jagulous Hunger Games AU. Do you know about
Speaker 3: chriss regularly, I've heard of it, It's I don't remember,
Speaker 3: don't ever try. I was a bored one weekend and
Speaker 3: read like thirty chapters of it and I'll never get
Speaker 3: that time back. But Jgulous is Harry Potter's dad and
Speaker 3: Serious Black's younger brother, who was a death eater, who
Speaker 3: literally is never like.
Speaker 1: Lines except for like being like Baltimore in like a
Speaker 1: letter like Baltimore.
Speaker 4: I know you're like secret, I.
Speaker 1: Stole the horse cracks like and like first and I
Speaker 1: just can I just say two things on regulation really
Speaker 1: quickly is like as a sentence about really quickly. First
Speaker 1: of all, I mean like I look, I I clearly
Speaker 1: I was like snape girly, I'm and I'm not like,
Speaker 1: oh this character is bad or this, so you can't
Speaker 1: be interested in them, Like I don't agree with that
Speaker 1: at all. I don't believe in like giving like I
Speaker 1: don't know just doing like morality politics with like fictional
Speaker 1: characters like that, and like you can find bad even
Speaker 1: like fictional fascist interesting and like want to play around
Speaker 1: with them in a fan fic.
Speaker 3: I mean there is so much Harry Voldemort fans.
Speaker 1: That's a whole other Yeah, but my whole thing is
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, I do, but I do, But I
Speaker 1: do think that if you're going to play around with that,
Speaker 1: you have to kind of meet the character where they
Speaker 1: where they're at, so and if you're not, you're just
Speaker 1: doing something that's oc like out of character.
Speaker 6: So from what we know about.
Speaker 1: Regulars, he's serious as younger brother, obviously rich, privileged whatever
Speaker 1: crazy family had like a Voldemore like death either mood
Speaker 1: board in his bedroom, was on the quidditch team, joined
Speaker 1: the Death Eaters again, like became a fucking fascist, died
Speaker 1: trying to I guess because you found out that like
Speaker 1: voldem was trying to be immortal and wasn't I don't know,
Speaker 1: just doing some like cute fashion stuff. But also the
Speaker 1: only reason you even did that shit in the first
Speaker 1: place was because Baltimore, like what kidnapped his like his
Speaker 1: self is like so basically his like house slave. It
Speaker 1: was like literally like he's like, I you know, he's like,
Speaker 1: I accept fashion, but I draw the line at you
Speaker 1: stealing my house slave. So I'm just like, if we're
Speaker 1: going to put these characters. At least, let's meet them
Speaker 1: where they're at. So I'm like, and if you're not,
Speaker 1: then this is just just make them.
Speaker 6: Oh see, it's just.
Speaker 3: So un fun, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like like sometimes you know, like you have to
Speaker 4: like give into the narrative.
Speaker 3: That's like the point of narrative is that.
Speaker 4: Characters have to be like evil, right, and evil begets
Speaker 4: like narrative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when people listen. I have read some fan
Speaker 3: fiction that I don't usually love like a canon compliant moment,
Speaker 3: because like it's very the endings are very sad. I
Speaker 3: did read fiction in which you know the yes, it
Speaker 3: follows the story, so like you might be reading something
Speaker 3: that is Marauder's era, but like you're reading it knowing
Speaker 3: that they're all going to die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lily and James have their Harry, which is you
Speaker 1: know who I think is an oops baby, and then
Speaker 1: they are like we're in this underground group trying to
Speaker 1: fight the bad people.
Speaker 6: Then they fucking get killed.
Speaker 3: So it's like, baby, I've read some really compelling can
Speaker 3: Like I've read all the Young Dudes, you know, and
Speaker 3: people like that. I think there's some fan fiction out
Speaker 3: there that is truly better than a lot of published
Speaker 3: books that I've read. Yes, And they can look at
Speaker 3: these characters who are very flawed and like really make
Speaker 3: you sympathize with them and empathize with them even though
Speaker 3: you know they're like bad people. They make bad choices,
Speaker 3: and I think that's the mark of a good writer.
Speaker 3: And then sometimes people just like want to have their
Speaker 3: cake and eat them too and want to ignore that
Speaker 3: they are like writing smut or like fluff about fascists
Speaker 3: and like not deal with any of the implications of that.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that, you know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get two in the weeds with this, But I
Speaker 1: got into like some beef online with people who were
Speaker 1: like Regulus Blacks like baby girl, Like.
Speaker 3: I'm just like or like this happened because of TikTok
Speaker 3: the way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3: Look and like like the tiktokification of fan fiction. I
Speaker 3: love being on the outside.
Speaker 1: It's a lot and I think that and that's definitely
Speaker 1: why these some of these pairings have just like grown
Speaker 1: and like, actually, it's funny because after I got into
Speaker 1: like I don't know, drama with a bunch of like
Speaker 1: jegulous or jagulous adjacent like Marauder era Twitter people who
Speaker 1: again have like random like death theaters and they're like
Speaker 1: who are like only mentioned by name and are just
Speaker 1: like he's my baby girl. It's like all we know
Speaker 1: is that he was a death theater. How's your baby
Speaker 1: unless you're completely transforming their character.
Speaker 6: To be something there and they're not, but like.
Speaker 1: Girl, literally, like someone is like Evan Rosier is my baby, girl,
Speaker 1: Like we only know that he was a death theater
Speaker 1: and got killed. Like how like they're just trying to
Speaker 1: but it's because they it's because someone came up with
Speaker 1: a fan cast on TikTok and made an aesthetic video
Speaker 1: of like and they're like the matter like with like
Speaker 1: we a weird filter on it, and then people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's a baby girl. Yeah, girl, And it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because people reached out to me
Speaker 1: after like kind of recently, after that whole drama, and
Speaker 1: they were like, oh my god. By the way, I
Speaker 1: think that we're partially responsible for jagulas becoming popular on TikTok,
Speaker 1: but we were actually just shit posting them. People thought
Speaker 1: we were taking it seriously and I'm just like yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, we have a lot of regrets,
Speaker 1: but it's it's really fasting to see how Again, I'm
Speaker 1: someone who got really into fan fiction in the mid
Speaker 1: two thousands, it's fascinating to see the ways in which
Speaker 1: approaches of fan fiction have changed.
Speaker 3: I saw you talking about something recently that I wanted
Speaker 3: to get into, which is like the like commodification of
Speaker 3: fan fiction, like on these online spaces, and like the
Speaker 3: way in which fan fiction is like free labor that
Speaker 3: people do, like for the joy of creating art and
Speaker 3: sharing it with their community, and now it has been
Speaker 3: sort of like there, it has become a commodity and
Speaker 3: people are like marketing it on TikTok and like it's
Speaker 3: really crazy to me as someone who has read not
Speaker 3: like fan fiction is longer than Anna Karenina that people
Speaker 3: wrote with like the alias like June Bugs six Jo
Speaker 3: and we'll never will never like take credit for it
Speaker 3: or make any money off of it. And now I'm
Speaker 3: seeing people who are like like pouring their fan fiction
Speaker 3: out for you know, likes and kudos and comments and stuff,
Speaker 3: and like holding stories hostage for comments, and it just
Speaker 3: feels so weird to me.
Speaker 6: It's very icky.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that because like I'm I'm very I'm not
Speaker 1: really on TikTok a lot, but I I'm sent so
Speaker 1: many different videos and stuff like that, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's okay here, here's what I'll say. Promoting your fan
Speaker 1: fiction stuff is not like a new thing. People did
Speaker 1: it on live journal, people did on forums, poll did
Speaker 1: those kind of things. But I think that when you
Speaker 1: bring in the way that TikTok like just exists as
Speaker 1: like to like you know, to bring in ad dollars
Speaker 1: and stuff like that for people to potentially get enough
Speaker 1: followers and get enough whatever to like make money off
Speaker 1: their videos, I think that's when it gets into like
Speaker 1: kind of territory. And I do think that, like I've
Speaker 1: read somewhere that people were talking about put like publishing
Speaker 1: their stats, like the stats of their fanfic.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, it was never like it.
Speaker 6: I did never remember it being like.
Speaker 1: That, or like being like, oh, this has this many kudos,
Speaker 1: this has this many like you know page I I'm
Speaker 1: just like, that's not what it's about.
Speaker 3: Publishing it in a video with their real face it right, Oh.
Speaker 4: That's a whole other thing.
Speaker 6: I'm just like, with your government name attached.
Speaker 4: He's like, Okay, so I don't know a lot I
Speaker 4: want I want to like, I don't know a ton
Speaker 4: about just like the democracy slash diplomacy of like kudos
Speaker 4: and all this different stuff. Is it Is it a
Speaker 4: meritocracy or are like do people kind of rally and
Speaker 4: campaign to get certain attention?
Speaker 3: I think you used to be the first. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: used to be the former, and now it has become
Speaker 3: the latter because there's this phenomenon now of fan fiction recommendations,
Speaker 3: which you know, back in the day, you found fan
Speaker 3: fiction by searching for the pairing you liked, and then
Speaker 3: in the AO three days, you know, you would then
Speaker 3: go and filter by what stories had the most kudos
Speaker 3: or the most comments or whatever and find essentially like
Speaker 3: the most popular or most read stories in whatever fandom
Speaker 3: and pairing you were looking for. And now there has
Speaker 3: become this whole system of people recommending fan fictions again
Speaker 3: with their government name and government phase and tiktoks and
Speaker 3: like almost like a cult of personality around certain writers
Speaker 3: and people who are like, I'll read anything this person rights,
Speaker 3: and you know, I it's like I get it, because
Speaker 3: now I think fan fiction has been really destigmatized over
Speaker 3: the past decade, and that's not a bad thing. I
Speaker 3: think it's a good thing. But it's still feels weird
Speaker 3: to me as someone who grew up with this being
Speaker 3: an activity that you did in secret.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like it's kind of I kind of am
Speaker 1: of two minds about it too, Like I I'm not
Speaker 1: embarrassed by the fact that, like, when it comes down
Speaker 1: to I'm not embarrassed by the fact that fan fiction
Speaker 1: is like it's just like a hobby, like any other hobby,
Speaker 1: but I do I was kind of Raisin's air where
Speaker 1: it was kind of this hobby that you talk about
Speaker 1: with like some random internet friend from like Tennessee that
Speaker 1: you like met on like I don't know, Tumbler, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's just like the tiktokification, the algorithmification of
Speaker 1: everything and fandom is like kind of strange to me.
Speaker 1: And I also think that you get to a situation
Speaker 1: in which you know there are always big name fans.
Speaker 1: We call it B and f's. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: big name fans are alsose people who are very popular.
Speaker 3: Like Cassandra Clair, who we mentioned earlier, who is so
Speaker 3: Cassandra Claire was a prolific Harry Potter fan fiction writer
Speaker 3: who like in a sort of proto E. L. James
Speaker 3: Fifty Shades of Gray Move five, held off the serial
Speaker 3: numbers as the parlance is, and turned her Draco fan
Speaker 3: fiction into this book series, The Mortal Instruments, right, Instruments? Yeah,
Speaker 3: And isn't that also a TV show? It got turned
Speaker 3: into a TV show and a movie and it is
Speaker 3: based on not even Draco, hermione fan fiction literally just
Speaker 3: Draco fan fiction or wait was it Draco Jinny?
Speaker 1: There was like some there was some pairing and it
Speaker 1: I yeah, there's some incessionist things going on. Also, she
Speaker 1: was under a lot of controversy because of like plagiarism
Speaker 1: claims and stuff like that. So that's what the thing,
Speaker 1: like the old heads are like, remember when this plagiarist
Speaker 1: got like a book deal based on the fan fiction
Speaker 1: that she did a lot of plagiarism, Like that's kind
Speaker 1: of like the main thing.
Speaker 4: How do you identify plagiarism in something that's like adapt
Speaker 4: Is it like like literal sentences?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, like I remember, if I remember correctly, I
Speaker 1: remember people like being like this is from Buffy from
Speaker 1: like this book or and like that's like literal of plagiarism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm down to give people the benefit of
Speaker 3: the doubt of like especially in fan fiction where like
Speaker 3: this isn't something you're profiting off of. I know that
Speaker 3: certain things like and and listen, there is so much
Speaker 3: there is a let there is a fan fiction language
Speaker 3: that exists. People use the same phrases I talk I have.
Speaker 3: I have talked about this a lot, Like there's some
Speaker 3: things that I really need people to stop saying, Like
Speaker 3: if I see one more fan fiction where they talk
Speaker 3: about licking into each other's mouths, which is the way
Speaker 3: that people describe kissing, and it's like licking each will
Speaker 3: I will say ninety nine point seven percent of fanfic
Speaker 3: I read has that exact phrase and.
Speaker 4: Shutter relevant topic ship. Phoebe has conceded to us, and
Speaker 4: the notes said she handed that she is also an
Speaker 4: avid reader of like gay erotic fan fiction. Question and
Speaker 4: I think she wants to know about either Well, okay,
Speaker 4: she asked about crossovers. If you guys like crazy crazy
Speaker 4: like IP crossovers, but also like I'm I'm just curious
Speaker 4: about like gay erotic fanfic that sticks out to you
Speaker 4: or you feel like you'd have something to say.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I do think this is more my era
Speaker 3: because I feel like you're more of a of a
Speaker 3: hat chipper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Know, I'm just like Okay. So with crossovers so a
Speaker 3: big thing back in my day. So I started out
Speaker 3: in fan fiction in Buffy fan fiction. That was my
Speaker 3: first fandom. And Buffy was a really popular universe to
Speaker 3: crossover with. And there used to be the site called
Speaker 3: Twisting the hell Mouth and it was it was specifically
Speaker 3: and this is again like when fan fiction was less
Speaker 3: centralized and there were all these different platforms. This was
Speaker 3: a website where people wrote Buffy crossover fan fiction with
Speaker 3: all these other things. So I did a lot of that.
Speaker 3: I would read like Buffy when she died got sent
Speaker 3: to Narnia and like or like Buffy gets turned into
Speaker 3: a vampire by Edward Cullen and like ship like that,
Speaker 3: or like Willow. There's this one fan fiction that I
Speaker 3: read where in season six and Buffy, after Willow tries
Speaker 3: to destroy the world, she gets deaged and she and
Speaker 3: Buffy go to Hogwarts for summer school. Wait what what? What?
Speaker 6: Howse were they in?
Speaker 3: They were both in gryffindor even though Willow it turns out,
Speaker 3: is Tom Riddle's niece or something, and Willow is paired
Speaker 3: with Harry and Buffy's paired with Draco, which was more
Speaker 3: a teenage wething because I get like, like you, I
Speaker 3: started off in the trenches and then I like made
Speaker 3: the switch to slash pick and I read slash pic
Speaker 3: almost exclusively, and slash pick is gay. Yeah, they just
Speaker 3: call it slash yeah.
Speaker 6: Slash And then like I remember, fem slash would be like.
Speaker 4: Wait, what Just can you rattle off a few other
Speaker 4: fanfic terms? You said, you know, fire off that.
Speaker 3: Okay, numbers, file off the serial numbers.
Speaker 4: Which is you've described in a previous episode.
Speaker 3: But that filing off the serial numbers is when you
Speaker 3: write a fan fiction and then you decide to publish
Speaker 3: it as an original work, so you change all the
Speaker 3: names to original names, like change all the characteristics that
Speaker 3: would you know, pronounce it as from the fandom that
Speaker 3: you're writing and so that it can seem like an
Speaker 3: original work.
Speaker 1: Okay, other terms, let me think, because like there's AO three,
Speaker 1: which is archive of our own that I think was
Speaker 1: created like in the early twenty tens. That's kind of
Speaker 1: like a place where like we're not fanfiction dot net,
Speaker 1: which is always I don't know, under threat of like collapsing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now they have ads, like there are ads
Speaker 3: in the middle of the text of story on fan fiction.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and so there's that like pad. Oh what pad?
Speaker 1: That's another another thing you need to blame for like
Speaker 1: a lot of like the girl leides kind of all
Speaker 1: of a sudden being like I really care about stats
Speaker 1: and stuff. It's like that you don't write fick for
Speaker 1: the stats and like the popularity and getting more like followers.
Speaker 1: You write it because you're a weird little freak who
Speaker 1: has an idea in your head and need to get
Speaker 1: it out. And you can share it with your other
Speaker 1: little freaky friends and just move on, you know, and
Speaker 1: have fun.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: It has also become a thing that I heard I
Speaker 3: saw recently in a TikTok is that people want to
Speaker 3: People are really invested in their specific ship having the
Speaker 3: most stories and a certain fandom, and will basically like
Speaker 3: create shell fix on AO three to get the numbers up.
Speaker 3: It's crazy, what so that their ship has the most fixed?
Speaker 4: How had I wait?
Speaker 6: Wait, can I say something? About that really quickly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, maybe I'm like galaxy braining here.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe this has just immediately made me think of,
Speaker 1: you know, stand communities or like stand Twitter or anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: How like all like the way that people pretty much
Speaker 4: prove that.
Speaker 1: The person they stand is the most it's like the
Speaker 1: most worthy of praise reevers by looking at stats of
Speaker 1: like their billboard, like billboard this billboard that, or like
Speaker 1: they sold like they outsold this, and it's just like.
Speaker 4: Who are they like out selling to whom?
Speaker 3: Stuff?
Speaker 6: It's like who cares about that? But that's kind of a.
Speaker 1: It's like literally like the stantification of like using like
Speaker 1: stats as like here's why this pairings, like looking.
Speaker 3: At number at the numbers, and it's like growing up
Speaker 3: when it doesn't when it doesn't matter, because like that's
Speaker 3: the thing as as a community, as a people. The
Speaker 3: whole reason about fan fiction is like not literally not
Speaker 3: caring about the official word of the author of whatever,
Speaker 3: Like we shouldn't be caring about you.
Speaker 1: You're just doing it to have fun and on that
Speaker 1: kind of on that, I've met a friend recently who
Speaker 1: was like kind of cagey about like her like fantas stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know what her main fandom is what The Terror?
Speaker 1: You know that TV show The Terror, like it was
Speaker 1: like the AMC show based on I think maybe based
Speaker 1: on the book, I'm not sure, but it has like
Speaker 1: Richard Harris in it is that his name, Richard Harris.
Speaker 1: He's the guy who played Lane in mad Men? Right, anyway,
Speaker 1: this random obscure AMC or FX show with a teeny
Speaker 1: tiny fandom, Like teeny tiny. She's like, yeah, I'm into
Speaker 1: like The Terror. It's just like a few of us were, like,
Speaker 1: you know, in our late twenties and thirties, just like
Speaker 1: running our fick and like that's the kind of spirit.
Speaker 6: I like, yeah, about how many numbers there are?
Speaker 1: You just like you and a few other people are like,
Speaker 1: I'm writing about this random TV show about a boat
Speaker 1: that's stuck, got stuck in the like Northern Atlantic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like ghost shit started happening. That's what the show
Speaker 1: is about. And I'm like I respect that more than
Speaker 1: like the numbers.
Speaker 3: Don't lie, Like, yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, So we do
Speaker 3: have some other fan fiction terms here, So fannin is
Speaker 3: a big one. So fannin is like essentially the canon
Speaker 3: that has been created and decided on among a fandom
Speaker 3: community that they essentially like prefer over the official lines.
Speaker 3: That would be like the Draco and leather pants of
Speaker 3: it all, like what people who it's this term of
Speaker 3: like people who decided that Draco instead of being this
Speaker 3: sort of like simpering like fascist and training, is actually
Speaker 3: this like Daredevil bad Boy okay. And then Fannin would
Speaker 3: also be like you know, or like.
Speaker 1: We're like Remiss is gay actually and series is also
Speaker 1: gay and they are gay for each other, yes, which.
Speaker 3: Is essentially like it's almost cannon at this point, even
Speaker 3: no matter what jk Rowling says. And then there's au
Speaker 3: alternate universe. That's where you see a lot of like
Speaker 3: coffee shop au barista au. People love barista fan fiction
Speaker 3: because I think most people who write fan fiction are.
Speaker 4: It's like I don't know, you'll have this or they
Speaker 4: work out of a coffee shop.
Speaker 6: No, it's like it'll literally be like.
Speaker 3: Like Tom Riddle is a barista and he comes in
Speaker 3: a lot and they fall in love. Like that's there
Speaker 3: are literally thousands like.
Speaker 6: Or like they're in high school, like you know, the
Speaker 6: kind of.
Speaker 3: Fun I saw a term that's a jost Okay, So
Speaker 3: this is a Buffy term and I've heard it before,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know what it was. Okay, a term
Speaker 3: that refers to a fan fic made incompatible with Cannon
Speaker 3: by later changes to Cannon postating the authorship of the fiction.
Speaker 3: So it's like, okay, so if you were so if
Speaker 3: you're writing something about like, you know, when when Angel
Speaker 3: turns evil in season two, and then a couple seasons later,
Speaker 3: like they like kind of change the rules about how
Speaker 3: he loses his soul, like you're fick has been jost
Speaker 3: That's nice. I see.
Speaker 4: I kind of like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then there's mary Sue, which is an old school term,
Speaker 3: old school term, and there's literally a whole website called
Speaker 3: Marry Sue kind of school of thought around mary Sue.
Speaker 3: So Mary Sue is a self insert character. Bellisoan is
Speaker 3: a Mary Sue. I mean, Mary Sue is also kind
Speaker 3: of like misogynist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has a very misogynistic kind of like origins.
Speaker 1: I think it's basically like, oh, this like perfect female
Speaker 1: character who can do no wrong. Then it ended up
Speaker 1: being kind of attributed not just to like self inserts
Speaker 1: and things like that, but just to kind of like
Speaker 1: female characters that people just didn't like and we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're too beloved, They're fucking Mary Sue.
Speaker 6: Like it's kind of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like that goes way back. That's like a
Speaker 1: two thousands.
Speaker 4: Well we've talked about this before, but like Belliswan really
Speaker 4: is one of those characters that's like kind of nondescriptive,
Speaker 4: so you can kind of canvass anything on her.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that one of the things
Speaker 1: that was like part of the appeal of her was
Speaker 1: just like, oh.
Speaker 4: She's just this like average girl who likes books.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like I don't know, it's like it's
Speaker 1: like the ending of that like thing where it's just
Speaker 1: like the like sort the bimbo and then goes to
Speaker 1: like the woman who like picks up a book.
Speaker 6: It's like that, like the person the and is.
Speaker 3: Bellaswah kind of in reverse. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, maybe the khaki skirt hello, and it's you know, yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't know. You know, I feel like ORBS should
Speaker 6: be a fan fiction.
Speaker 3: It should.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: It is most people will describe with someone's eyes as
Speaker 3: being ORBS.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why why I feel like I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I remember way back when like My Immortal was like
Speaker 1: I like classic ship post fanfic, and we.
Speaker 3: Have talked about My Immortal on the podcast before, so
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to go into it again.
Speaker 3: But everyone knows it is the most legendary fan fiction
Speaker 3: of all time. What's the best fan I've ever read? Oh,
Speaker 3: that's hard or something recently.
Speaker 1: That you read that you okay, Well, like a recent
Speaker 1: thing that I'm really into, and I'm like I kind
Speaker 1: of like force herself to befriend this the writer who
Speaker 1: writes this, it's this series called The Last Enemy.
Speaker 6: It's this like Marauder era fanfic.
Speaker 1: It does like multiple points of view, mostly like Lily
Speaker 1: and James from like their fifth year and she plans
Speaker 1: to doing it until.
Speaker 4: They you know, get got.
Speaker 6: In like nineteen eighty one, and basically like it's just
Speaker 6: like kind of it.
Speaker 1: I like it because it kind of actually like emphasizes
Speaker 1: like the stakes, Like you I can't read a fic
Speaker 1: from like that's like Marauder era that isn't like actually
Speaker 1: talking about like terrorism or like fascism or like what
Speaker 1: happens when people are like when young people are rare
Speaker 1: Collies and I think that. I guess, especially just over
Speaker 1: the last like ten fifteen years of like seeing of
Speaker 1: like seeing youth radicalization like up closely on the internet.
Speaker 6: I think I'm especially interested in that me too. So
Speaker 6: are they like that one?
Speaker 3: What's something nasty you've read recently?
Speaker 6: Nasty?
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't think of nasty, but I can think
Speaker 1: of one that like fucked my head.
Speaker 6: I've read.
Speaker 1: So I was like last summer my friends were like
Speaker 1: dreary girlies but also read like other like Draco shit,
Speaker 1: or like, you need to read this germiine bit called Manicold.
Speaker 1: Not I fucking read it, No, like three hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy thousand words.
Speaker 3: I was really fucking like, wait's okay, we're gonna offline
Speaker 3: about this, Okay, one hundred seventy thousand Yeah, not that long?
Speaker 1: Wait, And I read it and I was just like
Speaker 1: I afterwards, I felt like like it was just so
Speaker 1: bleak Harry Potter meets the handmaid Tale. Like no, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like a Germie Handmaid's Tale, a situation, but
Speaker 1: it also has all these different twists.
Speaker 3: But it was good.
Speaker 1: I I I thought, there are lots of elements I'm
Speaker 1: not like I'm not gonna say, oh, this was ship.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was, It was very interesting, but it fucked my head.
Speaker 1: It was the most bleak ship I've like run a
Speaker 1: long time, and I will never read it again. I
Speaker 1: don't need to because I'm still like haunted by the end.
Speaker 6: But I don't know, like nasty, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't remember if I talked about this during
Speaker 3: our Harry Potter episode, but I did. This was a
Speaker 3: long time ago, like this was definitely on fanfiction dot net,
Speaker 3: but I did read a serious once that was about
Speaker 3: every chapter was a different character had to tension with
Speaker 3: Professor McGonagall, and she bucked all of them. And I
Speaker 3: think I think she sucked Hermione as a cat.
Speaker 4: So wait a minute, is like a book McGonagall or
Speaker 4: is it Maggie Smith? You know, I didn't because that's
Speaker 4: I actually.
Speaker 3: Think it might have been before the movies came out
Speaker 3: or like no, no, no, it would have been like
Speaker 3: maybe after the first two movies.
Speaker 6: So it might have been Maggie.
Speaker 1: One thing that I really wanted to emphasize that I
Speaker 1: think is interesting about how fanfic has like changed in
Speaker 1: some like really interesting ways in some ways that I'm
Speaker 1: like is like now I feel like for better or
Speaker 1: for worse, people like really kind of think of like
Speaker 1: who they their pairings are, like who they are in
Speaker 1: a way, it's it represents their politics and things like.
Speaker 3: That, like crow shippers and antiot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but like yeah, for sure. But also it's just
Speaker 6: kind of interesting to see the way.
Speaker 1: For example, especially in Harry Potter, the way that people
Speaker 1: have responded to, like perhaps like the lack of diversity
Speaker 1: in the series is to be like, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make James Potter like South Asian and it's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: that's fine, Like do what you want, like it's fanfic,
Speaker 1: you like have them be eaten in dosas, Like that's
Speaker 1: all good to me. But then I do think that
Speaker 1: sometimes people kind of to like ease the guilt of
Speaker 1: reading like the Turf's books and like kind of playing
Speaker 1: with the Turf's characters. They're like, I am going to
Speaker 1: make every single person in this like they put them
Speaker 1: in like the like like marginalized person like machine.
Speaker 4: Where like wheelchair Yeah it looks like a college and missions.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like look, I'm just like okay, like
Speaker 1: you know, like half the characters are like are you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like basically like a Benetton catalog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's people who are on the spectrum. There's people who
Speaker 1: are like trans, like Remus is like a trans woman,
Speaker 1: and it's like that's it's it's like simultaneously like really
Speaker 1: like kind of fun and interesting to see people like,
Speaker 1: especially this newer generation kind of being like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make like Remaslubin a trans woman like fuck off.
Speaker 1: But I do think some people don't do it in
Speaker 1: a kind of like I do this to see myself
Speaker 1: kind of way. I think they kind of do it
Speaker 1: into like here's how fucking progressive I am. Here's and
Speaker 1: I'm doing like and I'm just like I want you
Speaker 1: to do it because you want to see yourself or
Speaker 1: want to see like a more like diverse world, not
Speaker 1: because you're trying to like get like points on like
Speaker 1: look at how like many marginalized identities I put in
Speaker 1: this like fucking fan fiction.
Speaker 4: I completely agree because it to me, it's like especially
Speaker 4: well you can just with something like that the intention
Speaker 4: you can kind of smell yeah you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I feel like it can really, when you have
Speaker 4: so many different kind of marginalized stories you to me,
Speaker 4: it's like you're diluting all of them, honestly, especially if
Speaker 4: you don't come from any of those intersections, or you'll
Speaker 4: only come from one. It's like it's so much more
Speaker 4: impactful to take a story and and hone in on
Speaker 4: it and be like, this is the one that I
Speaker 4: want to tell and it's you know, outside of canon,
Speaker 4: and this is why.
Speaker 1: And instead you get someone like the person on Twitter
Speaker 1: who is like Regulus black is not white, and I
Speaker 1: was like, he's one hundred percent cracker baby, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know what to what to.
Speaker 4: Tell you about? All right, And with that.
Speaker 3: Slide into our dms at Like a Virgin for twenty
Speaker 3: sixty nine and let us know, have you ever read
Speaker 3: maya Mortal? What is your OTP? We want to know.
Speaker 3: Next week we will be back with a brand new episode.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, you can become a patron at Patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash like a Virgin for weekly bonus episodes
Speaker 3: and now weekly and just like that recaps. You can
Speaker 3: also buy our merch at Like a Virgin four twenty
Speaker 3: sixty nine dot com and follow us at Like a
Speaker 3: Virgin for twenty sixty nine on Instagram. You can also
Speaker 3: follow me anywhere you want at Rose Doom.
Speaker 4: You and you can follow me at Prince Kushco anywhere
Speaker 4: you like.
Speaker 3: Like a Virgin is an iHeartRadio production our producers Phoebe Unter,
Speaker 3: with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etor see ya
Speaker 3: wouldn't want to.
Speaker 2: Be a High Virgins. You're about to hear an excerpt
Speaker 2: from this week's Patreon episode, which is a conversation between
Speaker 2: Fran Rose and Like a Virgin Hall of Famer Honey
Speaker 2: Pluton on their first time ever watching Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear the entire conversation, which
Speaker 2: I think you do, you can go become one of
Speaker 2: our pay pigs at patreon dot com slash Like a
Speaker 2: Virgin to hear this and all our weekly bonus content.
Speaker 2: Love you bye.
Speaker 3: So we heard a little Birdie told us, and by
Speaker 3: little Birdie I mean one of the eagles that rescued
Speaker 3: the Hobbits, that you watched the Ring all of.
Speaker 7: That, every last one in your post post op, because
Speaker 7: I was like, when am I going to have twelve
Speaker 7: hours to devote to this? Like Mecca, and I just
Speaker 7: have so many people in my life that I love
Speaker 7: who are like Lord of the Rings, ride or Dies,
Speaker 7: read all the books, watch all the movies, watch them
Speaker 7: every year. And I'm not really like a fantasy guy,
Speaker 7: but I just I just love watching anything that means
Speaker 7: a lot to someone else, especially if I can watch
Speaker 7: it with them. So me and my bestie September shout out.
Speaker 7: We watch all the Lord of the Rings, and I
Speaker 7: feel like I watched them in the most ideal state
Speaker 7: where I'm like kind of very high on opioids, so
Speaker 7: I'm already like twelve feet away from my body and
Speaker 7: my television and like having to crank the sound on
Speaker 7: my TV to like one hundred because Okay, then I
Speaker 7: realized I've never really taken pain pills before that. That's why,
Speaker 7: you know, when like when you're growing up, Jeopardy would
Speaker 7: turn to Wheel of Fortune, and then Wheel of Fortune
Speaker 7: would always be like way louder because they're all on
Speaker 7: vicot in.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, and they're all like.
Speaker 5: Muffled love makes everything so quiet, like and you can't poop.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: I have a very traumatic and.
Speaker 5: What happened, well, I'm long, long story short.
Speaker 7: My girlfriend literally had to like crack a ship out
Speaker 7: of my ass, and I was recovering from surgery because
Speaker 7: I was so constant. No, you have to laugh, but
Speaker 7: I have my biggest fear in life is being constipated.
Speaker 7: I don't know why, like melvis trauma. So I was like,
Speaker 7: I had her bring home like a thirty two ounce
Speaker 7: Dunk in Donuts cookie butter cold, and it's actually a
Speaker 7: prescriptive laxative that you should literally have like a doctor's
Speaker 7: note in order to have that didn't do it. But
Speaker 7: then I was taking laxatives and suppositors at the same time.
Speaker 3: They were meeting in the middle.
Speaker 7: Literally like magnets, so that I couldn't do it. But
Speaker 7: then I was an excruciating cramp and like pushing and
Speaker 7: literally hearing like the d MT horn and like seeing fractals.
Speaker 7: I was like fully hallucinating, and then I was like, age,
Speaker 7: it stuck, and then she has to crack it out
Speaker 7: of my ass. I tell the story onstage sometimes and
Speaker 7: I'm like, that is actually the marker of true love,
Speaker 7: where it's like will this will your partner crack the ass?
Speaker 5: We crack your ass, and not in the way it's
Speaker 5: normally one.
Speaker 4: Genuinely.
Speaker 7: It's the Lord of the Rings. So I feel like
Speaker 7: you can't watch it without a guide. It's really confusing.
Speaker 7: You kind of need someone who you need a Gandalf
Speaker 7: who's like studied the Loure. And I think the first
Speaker 7: one is my favorite.
Speaker 3: The first one is the best.
Speaker 7: I love the first one because there's more liv Tyler,
Speaker 7: there's more Cape Blanchette, And I was kind of confused
Speaker 7: watching it the whole time, but like because it's kind
Speaker 7: of like where I can't watch Game of Throw because
Speaker 7: there's too many characters where it's like I watch Real
Speaker 7: Housewives and I need to because it shows.
Speaker 6: The name every time.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, I'm like I need to be I'm too
Speaker 7: brain damage, Like I need to be reminded like who
Speaker 7: this woman is. But I think that I'm never going
Speaker 7: to be like a full stand because I wouldn't watch
Speaker 7: it independently. But I liked Okay, I love the Hobbits,
Speaker 7: Frodo Rocks, who's the other one?
Speaker 4: Trans mask and Sam Sam gay guys guys gay trans
Speaker 4: maskline individuals.
Speaker 3: Mary and Pippen were giving what they're also gay, they're
Speaker 3: also gay?
Speaker 5: Who are those the other two that follow them around?
Speaker 7: It's like they're just trying to find the afters, like
Speaker 7: that's all they they're doing. They're literally trying to go
Speaker 7: to but the only one of them is on the list,
Speaker 7: and they're trying to like figure out a way to
Speaker 7: get to.
Speaker 4: So if the Fellowship of the Ring is like a
Speaker 4: kind of a kind of queer group of friends. Yes,
Speaker 4: I have we said already that Gandolf is trans question mark,
Speaker 4: probably because you shall not no.
Speaker 6: No, you shall have I love Gandalf.
Speaker 3: Is like a toxic gig guy who's saying to the
Speaker 3: ball rog who is a trans woman you shall not know?
Speaker 7: Absolutely like Gandolf, I just like really really loved him,
Speaker 7: loved his vibe where it's just like he comes and
Speaker 7: he goes as he pleases.
Speaker 3: He like a wizard, is never late.
Speaker 7: Absolutely he has all this information where it's like to me,
Speaker 7: actually Gandolf is like the ancient scribe that now like
Speaker 7: lives in New Orleans.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, and like does and does
Speaker 4: reading lesbian is a.
Speaker 7: Lesbian like Gandolf is kind of les I don't want
Speaker 7: that to be true, but I love who's Biggel Mortensen.
Speaker 4: Gorn so sexy, so sexy air Gorn. That makes sense
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 6: He's brave.
Speaker 5: It's like I just want to like follow his whole arc.
Speaker 3: But then with the second and third.
Speaker 7: Movies, I was actually just like fully confused. I didn't
Speaker 7: know what was going on anymore.
Speaker 3: It's you do need a guide. There's some visual companions. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's lotr wiki. Yes, did you watch the extended versions
Speaker 3: or no? I do not recommend. I have done the
Speaker 3: extended versions, but I prefer the theatrical cuts.
Speaker 4: And then why do you both love it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: Why do you both love it?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 4: It's I think it's a nostalgic upbringing thing. Like it's
Speaker 4: definitely tied to like a part of like you know,
Speaker 4: my my my life, where I was just like just
Speaker 4: really learned how to love something in like the world
Speaker 4: building of it. Like Rose and I are true nerds,
Speaker 4: and very much so fantasy nerds, and I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, as a storyteller, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: they have like their own languages and like there's this
Speaker 4: book with all their like different kinds of armor and
Speaker 4: their histories or whatever. And I think that for me
Speaker 4: it was like the yeah, the depth of like the storytelling.
Speaker 4: But like in hindsight, Like I mean, I don't think
Speaker 4: the extended versions are even like watchable like us unless
Speaker 4: you're like a super diversion, right, And.
Speaker 7: There's Galam him is a fucking cross dresser like that
Speaker 7: is Gollum. Like Gollum is like the foul c d
Speaker 7: who like goes up to all the dolls just to
Speaker 7: be like obnoxious and creepy and you just like cannot
Speaker 7: get rid of it, but then you also kind of.
Speaker 5: Like pity it.
Speaker 3: But is also kind of like the like the hasidic
Speaker 3: man who would hang outside of this and.
Speaker 7: That exactly where Gollum is also like the chaser with
Speaker 7: no game, also just kind of an who's like an
Speaker 7: egg sissy who like goes home to his like nasty apartment.
Speaker 5: Like roaches and like one light bulb hanging from us.
Speaker 3: Everything everything is.
Speaker 5: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Everything is like you could crack one of his sheep
Speaker 3: on his cat, but he's never had a cat.
Speaker 5: And then and then when he when he's alone, he
Speaker 5: just puts on like goodbye horses.
Speaker 7: It's there like Buffalo Bill, you know what I mean,
Speaker 7: like puts on his stockings, yes, puts on his stockings
Speaker 7: and his like Revlon Rouge and like tucks his dick
Speaker 7: and dances in the fucking mirror.
Speaker 5: But it's just like get a life, like get a
Speaker 5: fucking life.