Authors in Fandom: An Interview with Cat Sebastian

Hey hey hey, we’re back with an Authors in Fandom interview based on MY LOVE OF SPREADSHEETS. Cat Sebastian is one of my consistent fave romance authors; she keeps an intimidating and amazing spreadsheet of her fic reading; and I’m delighted to welcome her to the blog to talk about her fanfic influences!

How did you get into reading fic? What were the first fandoms you read in, and what’s the newest one you’ve fallen for?

My first fandom was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that was back when fic was mainly shared on message boards and list serves and sometimes literally just email that got forwarded around. I don’t think even live journal was a thing in 1998. Then I mostly lapsed out of fandom except for Holmes/Watson until last year when I imprinted on Bucky Barnes like some kind of baby duck. Now I’m reading Sirius/Remus like my life depends on it.

Please tell the people about the genesis of your fic spreadsheet, which is the most epic fic spreadsheet ever. And then I would also like to know how you find fic to read!

At the beginning of 2018 I started to track my reading in general, so it made sense to log my fanfic reading alongside my profic reading. Also, when you read a couple hundred fics that involve the same characters, it helps to write a line distinguishing one from the other (“this is the one where Steve turns into a golden retriever”) that way if you ever want to reread it or recommend it, you can actually find it. Even better, I can just share the entire spreadsheet—or at least the fics that I’ve marked as favorites—with people who want it.

Also, spreadsheets in general provide the illusion of having accomplished something, which is satisfying.

I mainly find new fic via recommendations, or by reading other works by the writer of a fic I’ve enjoyed. Sometimes I’ll search by tag in AO3 and sort by kudos.

How has fic influenced your professional work? Were you already reading fic by the time you wrote The Ruin of a Rake? I ask because there’s such a terrific fic-ish line in that book.

The main thing I’ve taken away from fic is that story structure—hero’s journey, save the cat, Freytag’s pyramid, whatever—doesn’t matter much to me as a reader, and in fact might prioritize a certain kind of story that I’m not very interested in telling anyway. Compelling characters who act like humans, rising action, stakes that matter, satisfying resolution: that’s a story. Beats and pinch points and so forth can get you there, but they aren’t a goal in themselves. And for me, for what I like to read and what I like to write—which is mainly characters learning how to care for and about one another, and sometimes even care for and about themselves—it’s okay for the story to be quiet and tender rather than big and plotty. I’m not sure I’d have gotten there without some time in the fanfic trenches.

I believe I wrote Ruin during one of my Holmes/Watson periods and I’m dying to know what the fic-ish line is!

What makes you ship characters? Or more broadly, what elements in canon make you likely to want fic of the thing?

Best friends separated by time and injustice, subsequently reunited with mountains of hurt/comfort. I show up for that every time, and every time I’m genuinely shocked to discover that this dynamic hits me where I live. Bucky and Steve. Sirius and Remus. Holmes and Watson, after the hiatus. Even Crowley and Aziraphale, from a certain angle.

But the other thing that make me (and I think a large swath of fandom in general) crave fic is when canon is lacking. When canon provides a character with a really interesting backstory and complicated friendships and then completely ignores all of that in favor of, say, making a terrifying assassin decide she’s unlovable due to her infertility, this creates so much dissonance that I need fanfic to set it right. Or sometimes, when two characters have this really compelling dynamic and it’s the most interesting conflict in the entire canon, and then canon brushes it aside in favor of a really half-assed romance plot that manages to reduce women to prizes and sexy lamps while also forgetting how things like love and friendship actually work? Yeah, I’ll need some fic to smooth that over.

Have you ever read fic where you’re not familiar with the canon? What made you do it?

Many times! I follow favorite authors almost anywhere they go. I’ve never seen an episode of Supernatural, and God willing I never will, but I happily read in that fandom.

What do you love about fanfic as a medium? Are there things about the fic world that you’d like to see changed or improved?

One of my favorite things about fanfic is that it’s constantly inventing new tropes and forms. 5+1, soulmark AUs, Hogwarts AUs, etc. I love that “a character’s dick got too big so another character helps them feel okay about it” is a framework fic readers recognize in the way Renaissance audiences would have recognized the stock characters of the Commedia dell’arte. This makes me almost giddy with delight.

I also love that fanfic creates a community in which people can make things and tell stories and just do art together. It’s such a basic, human thing to do together. Since we don’t have bards reciting the Iliad to us, we have the MCU (God help us) and Stargate Atlantis and so forth to give us characters and scenarios that provide a sort of storytelling lingua franca.

Tell me some of your favorite tropes! And/or: Are there any tropes you really hate except for That One Fic that wore it best?

My favorites are hurt/comfort, angst/fluff, and literally anything genderbent. Because of basic patriarchal horseshit, canon provides a pitifully small number of women characters, and even fewer nonbinary or genderqueer characters. So when a writer decides to make, say, Draco Malfoy a girl? I will dive headfirst into that.

I tend not to actively seek out modern AUs, but I can think of a dozen I’ve really loved, all written by a handful of authors whose voices just work for me.

Are there fics or authors that influenced you, or that you frequently return to?

Katie Forsythe, candle_beck, and Speranza. They all influenced me as a baby writer, and continue to influence me now, and I never get tired of rereading their work.

Could you share some fic recs for fandom newbies?

YOU BET I CAN. Most of these don’t require much background in canon.

“From Tralfamadore, With Love” by newsbypostcard. Steve is sent 18 years into the future, and is reunited with a Bucky Barnes who has spent all those years without him. It’s heartbreaking and healing.

“Mistakes of Our Youth” by candle_beck. Holmes and Watson fall in love, then one of them moves on. Not exactly a happy ending, unless you really like sorrow? I promise my next recommendation will be light and airy!

“The Dogfather” by hollimichelle. Harry Potter is adopted by wonderful muggles, Sirius escapes from Azkaban ten years early and is Harry’s pet dog, and everybody behaves reasonably. Whenever an update to this series appears in my inbox I shriek.

“Sparklers on the Fourth of July” by what_alchemy. Bucky Barnes is a gender nonconforming woman. It contains the immortal line “kiss my stump, Rogers” and also pegging.

“20th Century Limited” by Speranza. People who have been exposed to the serum have ESP with one another, so Steve and Bucky spend their years apart creating a world together in their minds. This is another crying-based recommendation.

Cat Sebastian writes historical romance about LGBTQ+ people. She lives in a swampy part of the South but also on twitter.

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