#annerb

Follower Recs

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Hello, I'd really like to recommend this fic. It is incomplete but absolutely wonderful in its canon-divergence, with wangxian getting together in xuanwu cave which leads to greater vulnerability down the line, but in some ways also greater angst before the happy ending. - Anon

break upon your shore

by Annerb

M, WIP, 43k, Wangxian

Summary: Wei Ying’s attention has chased Lan Wangji since the first day they met—relentless, unforgiving, his eyes always looking. One day Lan Wangji can’t help but look back. Or: What if they just kissed already while they were in Xuanwu cave.

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FIC PRINTING #10: The Changeling & the Armistice Series by @annerbhp

Designed with a combination of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, printed at xpress.lulu.com. Files for both hardback and paperback versions are available here. 

Turns out that this chapter was way too long for one post, so I broke it into three parts, one for each section. Hooray! Also, because this was originally written for an audience with 1) little knowledge of fandom and 2) little knowledge of Harry Potter, I edited out the explanatory asides about fandom-specific terms, assuming that if you are reading this here, you are more familiar with either/both. 

Introduction: the multiple jobs of a fic writer

This chapter focuses on the function of the fic writer: what does the fic writer do to distinguish herself from the author of the source text (so she is not simply replicating the source text but transforming it), articulating a new interpretation of the work (so making difference that is interesting to read), while maintaining the integrity of the universe in which she writes (so not deviating so much so that her characters/premise are unrecognizable to the reader)? It’s a tricky balance to strike! 

Part 1 looks at how writers balance the source text and fannish discourse in crafting their fic. 

Part 2 looks at how writers signal the ‘writerliness’ (or, open to interpretation-ness) of their fics to their readers by using Author Notes. 

Part 3 looks at what fannish contexts are necessary to read fic, particularly knowledge of fandom tropes to make works legible. 

This section looks at the writer as function of the text, or, to quote Kristina Busse, how fic is ‘the collection of the choices made’ by the fic writer in selecting which parts of the source text she will foreground [1].

This writer function also demonstrates how fic makes source texts ‘writerly’, or ‘constructed with every reading process’, as opposed to readerly texts, which are ‘closed and only need to be interpreted by readers’, to use Roland Barthes’s concepts [2]. The source text’s ‘writerliness’ allows fic writers to simultaneously assert themselves apart from the source text author in order to establish their vision while they necessarily rely on accepted understandings and interpretations of the source text within the fan community in order for their work to be legible. In each of the works I examine—Annerb’s ‘The Changeling’ (Parts 1-3), gedsparrowhawk’s ‘Hogwarts, to welcome you home’ (Parts 1&2), and waspabi’s ‘Hermione Granger’s Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run’ (Parts 2&3)—the writer selects different elements of the source text and fandom conventions to make their work legible while holding themselves apart from the source text author. 

Part 1: the fic writer as function of text 

Busse writes that ‘the fan fiction writer is constantly engaged in creating her own individualized version of canon: she foregrounds certain facts and scenes and overlooks others; she makes some aspects of the story more central to her reading than they may be in the source text’ [3]. In practice, the writer balances transformation with obfuscation, drawing on a fannish framework while articulating her own interpretation, lest an interpretative community reject a characterization that veers too wildly from the known, accepted, and loved.

Alternative Universe fics play on the resonances of the original work such that they are recognizable to reader by adopting the structure of the original stories, replicating those events, and then twisting them slightly, inheriting the author’s intended meaning so that it contributes to the aggregation of the fannish interpretation. Writerly intent is a multi-faceted force that draws from source text, interpretive functions, and fan frameworks to produce a recognizable yet distinct work.

‘The Changeling’ by Annerb exemplifies this balance: ‘The Changeling’ retells the Harry Potter series from the perspective of Ginny Weasley, who is sorted into Slytherin House rather than Gryffindor House. Annerb plays with the reader’s knowledge of the canonical events of Harry Potter and subverts the expectations around characteristics of Slytherin members, writing redemptive arcs for many of the characters who were otherwise villainized or ignored and creating a fully realized student body. She executes on a favored fan interpretation of redeeming Slytherin members who are invested in House unity but spurned by prejudice, and she complicates the characteristics of other houses, highlighting their fallacies. Annerb centralizes an oft-discussed fanon of Harry Potter: what is the Slytherin perspective and how are they a part of the school? Ginny becomes the point of view for observing and catalyzing this transformation.

Annerb plays on the known conceptions of Ginny, refracting her strength, resilience, and humor through new circumstances of isolation from her family in a different house and commitment to an anti-hero status. She shifts Ginny’s context and writes out the personal and emotional repercussions of that change. The draw at the start of the fic, as the reader cannot know how different the story will be when they first read it, is asking ‘what if Ginny were in Slytherin?’, foregrounding the reader’s expectations of both who Ginny is and what Slytherin is, then slowly unraveling and reimagining both.

Another example, ‘Hogwarts, to welcome you home’, by gedsparrowhawk, demonstrates the tension between avowal of authorship (e.g. ‘JK Rowling wrote this’) and disavowal of authorial rights (e.g. ‘JK Rowling’s version is wrong’).

‘Hogwarts, to welcome you home’ is a Post-Series Alternative Universe that disregards the epilogue in Deathly Hallows and makes Harry Potter a professor at Hogwarts. In this, gedsparrowhawk overlooks the epilogue (which was criticized by many fans for many reasons) and centralizes Harry’s skill in teaching and his relationship with his godson, drawing on a popular fanon that rejects the notion that Harry would become an Auror. It also addresses a major criticism of the epilogue, which fails to acknowledge Harry’s post-war trauma; gedsparrowhawk rectifies that with an explanation of what Harry did immediately after the war, a confrontation with the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, and McGonagall’s own observations of Harry’s changed behavior. As such, ‘Hogwarts, to welcome you home’ offers one interpretation that does ‘not necessarily align with expected intended readings yet are shared by a sizeable number of readers’ [4]. 

In this case, the expected intended readings were written by JK Rowling in her epilogue, which pictures a peach-pie middle aged Harry in a stable relationship with his wife, Ginny, father of three children, seeing off his sons to Hogwarts with his best friends, Hermione and Ron, who are also in a happy marriage with two children. The idyllic conclusion to the series frustrated many readers, who wanted a deeper look at how the aftermath of the war affected Harry. A scroll through the comments section of ‘Hogwarts, to welcome you home’ suggests as much, with many readers commenting some iteration of ‘this is the epilogue now’. gedsparrowhawk successfully manages the tension of disavowing Rowling’s authorial rights in rewriting the epilogue and reinterpreting apparent themes in the source text.

Both Annerb and gedsparrowhawk use different perspectives (a common trope), and both make changes that resonate with popular fanons (Slytherin redemption and Professor!Harry). In these cases, the changes place both writers in opposition to the source text author, rather than in conflict with particular fannish factions; by situating their works with popular tropes, they signal their awareness of the fannish discourse and the reliability of their interpretations. 

Citations 

Busse, Framing fan fiction, p.107. 

Busse, p.25.

Busse, p.108.

[HARRY POTTER]

The Changeling

Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. 

It takes her seven years to figure out why.

By Annerb   

Mature