Fandom AU fanfic about female characters

[alias_sqbr]

I've come across a few fandom AU m/m fics where the leads are fanfic authors (most recently The Theory of Narrative Causality, which I thought was quite cleverly done) and was wondering if there were any similar stories with a fanfic writing female (or otherwise non-male) protagonist based on a fictional character, not counting Becky from Supernatural (where's it's canon(*))

It's not that I'm desperate to read such a story, though I'd give it a go, I'm just curious. I can imagine that the spectre of Mary Sue would loom particularly large with such stories, especially since a common flaw in the m/m I've seen of this type is the way fandom fawns over the main characters (leading to a "female fans squeeing about male fans squeeing about male characters" vibe that rubs me the wrong way)

Varric and Isabela from Dragon Age 2 both canonically write (or at least discuss) stories about the other characters, but I find it hard to imagine a fandom AU that would feel very in character. (EDIT: Wait, no it's not. Ok, this is fun to imagine :D)

...and now I want a modern day AU of Northanger Abbey with Catherine and Isabella as writers of terrible Mary Sue fics and Henry as the non-geeky guy they try and convert to their favourite tv show.

(*)For an example of SPN fic being deliberately meta about her, see If On a Winter’s Night a Fangirl and How Becky Totally Saved the World.

Comments

[lea_hazel]

I keep meaning to fill a prompt on captchalogue about Nepeta and the White King writing fanfic together.

[alias_sqbr]

How could I forget Nepeta? *headdesk*

[hl]

...Oh, I would totally read that NA AU. 0_0

[alias_sqbr]

Me too! I like the Dragon Age one I thought up too. Alas, I seem to only be able to write in other people's AUs, not create my own :( I guess I could draw some fanart *wishes novel length fic would just drop from my brain onto the page*

[hl]

Aww -- well, I've never written a modern, but I would be tempted for this one. :P

[havocthecat]

I think I've only ever seen it with the female characters writing m/m slash fic. Which, you know, realistic and all, but makes me yawn. Because women writing about women is also realistic, but I don't actually see it.

[alias_sqbr]

The link below has femslash about a femslash and het writer, woo!

[facetofcathy]

There was a kink_finders request for that kind of meta fic recently. The first response looks like it's a fic with Frannie from due south as a fan. Haven't clicked the link to see how it's written, so I'm not sure.

I too find most of the really popular (Pairing: Pendragon/Merlin) meta fics rub me the wrong way for just the reason you mention. In a flip to the Mary Sue fear, way back when the first J2 fic of this sort appeared, the author was accused of self inserting as Jensen Ackles and that was, I don't know, arrogant or something? It's mentioned in my comment at that post I linked.

[alias_sqbr]

Femslash about femslashers! I knew it existed :D

Yeah, Pairing: Pendragon/Merlin was particularly obnoxious in that regard.

Looking through the comments it looks like people are less annoyed about self insertion in principle and more about having Jensen Ackles allegedly act as a mouthpiece for the writer's opinions on some specific fandom drama. Which I can't comment on without having read the fic or being familiar with the drama, but it is rather meta :)

[trouble]

How Becky Totally Saved The World is one of my favourite fics.

[alias_sqbr]

I loved it when I read it and I'm not sure I'd even seen any episodes with Becky in yet :)

[aquaeri]

I was just thinking about fanfiction-writing characters on TV, and I decided that Emily Prentice from Criminal Minds was the most likely I could think of. I can't figure if Castle's daughter, Alexis, would go for it or think it was a daddy nerdiness thing.

[aquaeri]

Oh, and Garcia probably writes fanfic too, but I could really see her as a major contributor on the software side for AO3.

[alias_sqbr]

Ah, Criminal Minds, so many cool sounding characters but a premise that leads to inevitable squicks :(

[aquaeri]

Yeah, the subject matter can be hard - but it's one of the few shows that actually addresses the fact that it's hard and squicky and damaging work. Garcia particularly even asks to be spared the details at times. That might make it better or worse from your point of view, of course.

Of course, many of the scenes that suggest fannishness to me are the character bits at the beginning and ends of episodes. I wonder if one could construct a non-squicky cut-down version?

[sqbr]

One could in theory, but I've yet to run out of shows that don't require that much effort to become watchable :)