The Fanfic Maverick: Interview With Fanfiction Writer LemmingDancer
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| The Fanfic Maverick | |
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| Episode Title: | The Fanfic Maverick: Interview With Fanfiction Writer LemmingDancer |
| Length: | 51:43 |
| Featured: | LemmingDancer, ChaosBlue |
| Date: | November 28, 2021 |
| Focus: | Discussions about the themes of assault and recovery in LemmingDancer's fic 'Forgiveness' and analysing the story relationships between Geralt, Jaskier, and the other witchers at Kaer Morhen |
| Fandom: | The Witcher |
| External Links: | Episode at The Fanfic Maverick |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Fanfic Maverick: Interview With Fanfiction Writer LemmingDancer is a podcast episode by ChaosBlue.
For others in the series, see The Fanfic Maverick.
Introduction
In this episode I interview fanfiction writer LemmingDancer about her Witcher fic 'Forgiveness.' LemmingDancer shares her early forays into fanfiction, what happened when she published her very first fic to FFN, and her introduction to The Witcher fandom. We discuss themes of assault and recovery in her fic 'Forgiveness' and analyze the story relationships between Geralt, Jaskier, and the other witchers at Kaer Morhen. LemmingDancer gives some great writing advice and shares her thoughts on why she believes fanfiction is worth writing and reading.
Links
Fanworks discussed
- Forgiveness by LemmingDancer - The main fanfic discussed during the episode
- Works by Inexplicifics and Feyet [1]
- Episode and links to fanworks and articles: 2: Interview With Fanfiction Writer LemmingDancer
- Tumblr Promotional Post
Topics Discussed
- LemmingDancer's fannish history, from first learning about fanfiction through 50 Shade of Gray to becoming part of a fannish community.
- The Witcher fandom, fanon, and character explorations.
- Writing about trauma and recovery from different perspectives and fitting into different characterisations.
Excerpts
ChaosBlue: I was hoping that you could tell us about the time that you first discovered fanfiction, if you remember how it felt and if you remember why you liked it.
LemmingDancer: Yeah, sure. Well, unfortunately, I first discovered fanfiction in the context of 50 Shades of Grey. That novel was doing rounds in the office and someone said "It's just... it's a fanfiction. Of Twilight". And I was like, "Oh, that doesn't sound great". Was not not a good intro. But then I got into this little murder mystery period peace, Australian drama, and there was only one season of it available and you know, 14 episodes is just it's not enough episodes.
ChaosBlue: That's terrible. That's like one season right?
LemmingDancer: Just one season and they were... It was an excellent show. But it wasn't enough. So, I went looking for fanfiction because I knew it existed. And I wanted more. So, I guess my first impression... At first it felt a little naughty. It felt like I was doing something clandestine.
ChaosBlue: Did you remember why it felt like that?
LemmingDancer: Well, probably because I first heard of it in the context of 50 Shades of Grey. But then I discovered this this little community around this show that was putting out really quality work that extended the canon. And you know, as soon as I started making friends, among the other authors, it became so much more than just a story.
ChaosBlue: I did want to ask you about the Witcher, specifically like why that fandom for you? What really drew you into that?LemmingDancer: I thought really hard about this question. And I think like a lot of my favourite stories — a lot of our favourite stories collectively — when your hero is the outsider, you've already you've already got me. So, the fact that the heroes in our story in The Witcher are the monsters, according to humanity, is really engaging. It doesn't flinch from portraying humanity as the monster and that's... occasionally to my more pessimistic self, that feels very true. But also just the volume of canon. There's just so much canon that it's fun to write in because I can pick and choose what parts of the characters I like from the show, book, and the game and it's it's pretty hard to go wrong. Because there's just such a volume of work out there to pull from.
ChaosBlue: I love that answer. And the fact that you point out that, you know, the main characters of The Witcher are outliers, you know, so they're kind of the underdogs of the story. That's really neat that the fandom response has been to focus on those underdog characters in such a way that I feel like that really speaks to a lot of us out there, right who identify with that outlier underdog sort of sentimentality, for sure.
LemmingDancer: Like you say, it's not to say that any of the more rosy outlooks of recovery are wrong if that's what recovery looks like, for someone. But I feel like it's important to represent the other experiences that are possible as well.ChaosBlue: That's one of my favourite things about fanfiction is that we can present many different variations of the same story and explore them all kinds of different ways. So I think that's really beautiful that we get to do that. I have talked to different authors over the years, and they all seem to have various approaches to their writing process. Can you tell us what the writing process was for this particular story?
LemmingDancer: So, there's this quote that's often attributed to Hemingway that's, "writing is just sitting down and bleeding". And that was pretty much the experience for this one. A lot of my earlier fics, I had outlines that, particularly in a murder mystery fandom, need to know where everything is where everything's links together. The process of writing 'Forgiveness' was much more organic than that. I just sat down and for every hour of the day that I wasn't working, I was either writing or thinking about writing.