Ask the Author: beckaandzac

[beckaandzac]

Hi, there! I'm Becka, and the lovely and talented lazy_daze asked me to be your Ask the Author for this month.

I've been writing fanfic since before I could write (Star Trek: TNG killed off my favorite character, Tasha Yar, when I was four; I needed a fix-it), but until I fell headfirst into Harry Potter fandom in 2004 I'd never really been in a fandom,

Comments

[scarletscarlet]

Hallo, another person who shifted from HP! When you got creatively-fannish about SPN, was it because you were waiting for new episodes and needed to fill in the gap, or was it more about ideas sparked by what you'd seen?

Incidentally, the summaries for these stories look amaaazing, and you have a fabulous variety, and I intend to read the crap outta the poly fics... and all the rest as well. Hee :). The trouble is choosing where to start!

What brought you around to Wincest and RPF AUs, consumption and creation both?

[beckaandzac]

Hi! So many of the coolest people I know in SPN migrated from HP, it's really fabulous. Where did you hang out in HP fandom

[scarletscarlet]

Ennh, I hung out kind of everywhere and nowhere, but mostly on Insanejournal for a couple of years after the strikethrough shenanigans. No OTP meant drifting around all over the place :). Mostly did the December fests and daily_deviant. I have been making pleased noises whenever I see someone I recognise from there, like Fanlay doing art for the SPNJ2BB, and Tryfanstone having been doing this for yonks when that was a name I associated only with HP for ages :). And old Glockgal and Lizardspots art in BBs too, actually. Nifty stuff.

And I discussed SPN a lot with the friend I first watched it with

That is awesome - it really makes a difference to be watching with someone who wants to talk about the possibilities!

there was is just more constant new canonThat's very true. Something new almost every week and then the hiatus to rewatch and digest, vs something every year or couple of years. It feels very dynamic, and the canon-up-to episode x can be so different from canon-up-to episode x+1

[__tiana__]

Your short list there has made me realize I have fics to read by you! YAY! (And boo, where have I BEEN?)

I was the same way you were when I wandered into SPN fandom. I totally did not GET RPF AUs. Now, I swoon over reading and writing them.

Okay, so questions:

1. Do you find one of the boys (Jared or Jensen, Dean or Sam) the easiest to write? The one you can most easily get inside the head of?

2. Is there any fic cliche you want to write that you haven't yet?

3. How are you so awesome? :D

[beckaandzac]

Haha, yay!! I still need to read so much of your stuff too, Ti!

Can you explain what changed about the RPF AU thing for you? Because I'm realizing I have no idea how to articulate WHY it became so appealing.

1. I was going to try and make a general statement, but I kept changing my mind WHAT it would be. It depends SO MUCH on the particular story. Like, I could not have written my boarding school story from any PoV but Jared's because Jensen was so opaque to me there, and I was sort of figuring him out as Jared was. And in general I find Sam's thought process easier to write than Dean's because he tends to be more cerebral, but sometimes I find Dean more intuitive to write for the exact same reason.

2. I would loooove to do a real period piece. Like, a World War II AU, or something set during the McCarthy era, or fic where Jared and Jensen meet at Woodstock. But I've never focused enough to do the research properly.

3. Aww, shucks. *blushes* No, you!!

[__tiana__]

We should hang out and read each other's fics! Oh god, I would be embarrassed, but it would be fun, too. :D

[beckaandzac]

OMG, we should!! I'll buy lots of wine. That will make it less embarrassing surely. :D

I think that's such a good point about the freedom of AUs and non-AU burnout. Coming in in season 2 of SPN, there was so much great non-AU stuff, but it did start to feel as though there weren't new places to take it, and in AU there are ALWAYS new places to take it. Also, YES, I read a bunch of really good AUs after I ran through all the non-AU stuff I could find back then, and I know that helped.

<33

[wutendeskind]

Was it just RPF AUs that you didn't understand or RPF in general as well? Was it anything specific that made you change your mind? What made you ship Wincest?

to talk about sexual fantasy in a way we often just don't in real life.
LOVE. This is one of the most important things about fandom to me! I don't think it's unique to this fandom, but I've been around, and I don't think I've seen sexual fantasy explored in so many different iterations anywhere else on the internet. I think, at least partially, it's the incest that removes a lot of taboo barriers for people (ymmv, of course).

[beckaandzac]

Just RPF AUs! I started reading in Hanson fandom when I was 13/14, and everything I read was either non-AU or the kind of AU that starts off non-AU (so like, everything's normal AND THEN THEY FALL INTO NARNIA or whatever), and that made sense to me because the people and the circumstances of their lives were public knowledge. But ripping the people out of real life and saying, "Well, what if they were test pilots?" just didn't make sense to me. And then I think I read enough of it that it didn't seem weird anymore. I wish I could pinpoint the moment better than that

[runedgirl]

"....nearly impossible to explain to outsiders" - that phrase struck me, because I guess that's how I like my Wincest too. And I also didn't ship it at first, and now that's most of what I read and write. Is that part of the appeal for you?

It got me thinking.....many people read/write both Wincest and J2. Do the same things that draw you to one draw you to the other? Or are there different things you find compelling about the different ships?

I might have to read a little J2 reading actually.....some of those sound too good to pass up :)

[beckaandzac]

I think that's a big part of the appeal for me, that there's so much no one except Sam and Dean could understand about Sam and Dean. And that almost claustrophobic feeling of different-ness is really compelling for me. There are actually a fair few incest pairings I ship on that no-one-else-could-understand basis. What got you into Wincest? Did you have a moment of revelation, or was it more gradual?

The things that draw me to J2 are really different from the things that draw me to Wincest because I think of J2 as this neat meeting and meshing and falling in love kind of narrative, whereas Wincest really does need to have that long-term forced intimacy to it for me. I'm not really interested in AUs where Sam and Dean aren't brothers or were raised apart for that reason. The tension isn't there for me if they meet as adults.

I hope you like them!

[deirdre_c]

__tiana__ beat me to the "How so awesome" question, so now I have to think of something else! Drat!

So, I'm wondering if you find it easier to write from Sam's or Dean's POV? Jared's or Jensen's? What tends to drive your POV choices?

Also, YAY BECKA! HOW SO AWESOME?! ;D