Shelf Love

Alchemised: Capitalizing Fanfic

Short Description

Fangirl Jeanne, fanfic elder, is back to revisit the fan fiction formerly known as “Manacled,” now traditionally published as “Alchemised” by SenLinYu. Three years after our initial discussion about Manacled in episodes 116 and 117, we delve into the transformation of this Harry Potter/”Dramione” (aka Draco-Hermione) + Handmaid’s Tale fanfic into a commercially-published romantasy novel. What happens to subtext when you remove the context of the text? What are the ethics of profiting from fanfic? What’s the harm in supporting derivative works of a prolific anti-Trans activist?

File off those serial numbers and sit back and relax an absolute descent into madness as we try to figure out what the heck went on here.

Tags

romantasy, romance novel discussion

Show Notes

Fangirl Jeanne, fanfic elder, is back to revisit the fan fiction formerly known as “Manacled,” now traditionally published as “Alchemised” by SenLinYu. Three years after our initial discussion about Manacled in episodes 116 and 117, we delve into the transformation of this Harry Potter/”Dramione” (aka Draco-Hermione) + Handmaid’s Tale fanfic into a commercially-published romantasy novel. What happens to subtext when you remove the context of the text? What are the ethics of profiting from fanfic? What’s the harm in supporting derivative works of a prolific anti-Trans activist?

File off those serial numbers and sit back and relax an absolute descent into madness as we try to figure out what the heck went on here.

To counteract some of the harm of discussing this book, Jeanne suggests supporting trans charities such as the Good Law Project and the Trevor Project.

Jeanne also recommends several books by trans authors or featuring trans characters:

Andrea recommended:

Guest: Fangirl Jeanne

Website | BlueSky | Threads

 

Topics:

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Andrea Martucci: Hello and welcome to Shelf Love, a podcast about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape desire. I'm your host, Andrea Martucci, and on this episode, I am once again joined by Fangirl Jeanne to discuss the fan fiction formerly known as Manacled but now known as Alchemised by the author SenLinYu.

Jeanne thanks for joining me three plus years after our first conversation about Manacled to revisit this. There's some interesting developments to talk about.

Fangirl Jeanne: Yes, thank you for inviting me back because I've been in the process of dealing with this new incarnation of this fanfic that we had such a wonderful conversation about. And so I was so excited to revisit that conversation three years later in a whole different world.

Andrea Martucci: a whole new world, a terrible, and not fantastic place to be.

You [00:01:00] joined me in April 2022 for Antagonist April.

Fangirl Jeanne: Love that.

Andrea Martucci: It was so good. That was you. We started the month with two episodes about Manacled. The first one was called Killing Them Swiftly with His Wand. That was episode 116, I believe.

And then Because I Love her, I Had to Killer, which was episode 117. We spent three hours-ish, if not longer, talking about this fan fiction called Manacled. And in the time since then, what's happened?

Fangirl Jeanne: Well, the beginning of it was already happening, which was part of why we ended up talking about it, was that Manacled, because of lockdown and the explosion of people using TikTok, including people who like books and fandom, there was a reinvigoration of the Harry Potter fandom and specifically Draco and Hermione shippers who were writing new fanfic and creating new fan art.[00:02:00]

And that explosion led to a lot of really notable pieces of fan art or fanfic gaining popularity outside of the Harry Potter fandom and fanfic and fandom context altogether where people were introduced to Manacled in particular, but several other fanfics, as a book, even though they understood that it was Harry Potter Fanfic, they were reading it like a book. A lot of BookTok was engaging with it like a book to the point that a side mini industry of people binding fanfic and selling it as books online, and it's still going even though it's nebulously, is fairly not legal.

But yeah so it became such a big phenomenon and as what was already happening with book Talk because of the lockdown publishing, was finding a lot of independently published books that were getting [00:03:00] a lot of traction on TikTok. Manacled and these other Harry Potter fanfics, were swept up in that as well, where publishing's like, look, there's a huge audience for this and it's enough of an audience that they're willing to spend hundreds of dollars on hand bound versions of a fanfic. We probably could make a buck out of this.

And so you have several notable Draco Hermione fanfics specifically that were optioned and given publishing deals to be scrubbed of their connections to Harry Potter and published as original- and I say that air quotes "original" novels because, even beyond like things like 50 Shades of Grey and and the After series -- 50 Shades obviously was Twilight fanfic. After was a Harry Styles fanfic where if you were on the internet and you're in pop culture circles, you know, it's a fanfic.

And now with 50 Shades you can't say that without people immediately being like, well, that's a Twilight fanfic. It [00:04:00] was one of those open secrets, but it wasn't really mentioned as much in like marketing opposed to these novels where it is very much being marketing even to the point that I think it was Edelweiss had like a little info graphic thing to help librarians and booksellers know how to talk about Draco, Hermione, fanfic, and then specifically cited several of these books visually, but they even had a visual thing of what is Dramione? What is Harry Potter Fanfic? Why do people like Hermione and why do people like these things?

Andrea Martucci: so actually a lot of authors like you mentioned 50 Shades of Grey. Christina Lauren got their start as doing essentially, I don't know if it was actually Twilight fanfic, or was it 50 Shades of Grey Fanfic?

Fangirl Jeanne: No. Okay.

As a historian of the Twilight fandom, I can tell you that actually Beautiful Bastard, [00:05:00] which was the published version was a kind of rewritten ish version of the Office, which was a simultaneously publishing at the same time as Masters of the Universe, which was what 50 Shades of Grey was.

And so you have to imagine like these are chapter by chapters being posted and it's all happening within the same ecosystem where people who are reading and like these authors who are writing this, they're all talking and they're all intermingling on social media as well as in the fandom in comments.

And so you could say that they were both maybe influencing each other, but they were both pulling from a very similar ethos of the time, which was I won't go into it, but I will just say it was a recession. There are a lot of women that were laid off and a lot of women who had previously not ever engaged with romance and sexuality in general, and were given a space of being at home with their kids [00:06:00] and finding other women on the internet and being able to use the vehicle of a YA sexually repressed, vampire novel to talk about sex

Andrea Martucci: People are weird, man,

Fangirl Jeanne: right, right. Because I could argue that both like 50 Shades of Grey and the Beautiful Bastard Series and whatnot, that they're as much fanfics of the movie Pretty Woman as they are fanfics of Twilight. There's so much being negotiated there, especially when it comes to like economics, women's freedom and autonomy while also getting economic security and finding a sense of self amongst all that that's being traversed in a lot of those Twilight fanfics.

Andrea Martucci: And yeah, so we had that era where it happened. Right. And there's this phrase filing off the serial numbers. I will say, when I read Beautiful Bastard as an independently published but like published novel, like I didn't [00:07:00] read it as fanfic. I had no idea it was fanfic. It did not read to me as fanfic.

Whereas today we have authors like Ali Hazelwood, who is very clearly writing Reylo fanfic, and now we have this crop of Dramione fanfic books that, as you were saying, the graphics are very clearly leaning into a look, right? It is clear what the reference is.

Fangirl Jeanne: Absolutely. Ali Hazelwood, her and Julie Soto have really boiled to the top of the Reylo published fanfic, where they've been able to find career longevity after. But there was a time there when we had maybe a year and a half where there were all these contemporary and maybe like some paranormal fantasy romances that all had Adam Driver on the covers, and it was really weird.

Andrea Martucci: Just very quick side note, I don't [00:08:00] get the Adam Driver thing. It just doesn't even make sense to me. And that is all I'm gonna say about that. I literally just don't get it. Okay. And I'm a straight woman. So I just don't get it. Okay.

Fangirl Jeanne: No judgment, no judgment.

Andrea Martucci: So here we find ourselves in a situation where the first time we talked about Manacled, we started with a very clear disclaimer about JK Rowling and the Harry Potter universe and about contextualizing the conversation, both with the problematics of the author as TERF and bigot and the problems of Harry Potter, the text, and then what does that mean when you're creating a fanfic universe or whatever in this world, right? We spent a lot of time talking about that, but a lot of, even the way we talked about it last time was contingent on the product we were talking about not being a commercial product.

So let's redo the disclaimers this time. But now we have [00:09:00] some complicating factors because now we're not talking about something that is free and not being commercialized. We're talking about something where profit is being made by not just the author and for-profit companies, but potentially also other people.

Fangirl Jeanne: Yeah. And this is an ongoing debate as I know you've seen on Threads and I see a little bit of it on TikTok as well. But there's a lot of people who are trying to debate it, some of them in good faith, some of them in not, about how, how could we say that this book, Alchemised by SenLinYu, is it all connected or related to JK Rowling and Harry Potter?

Or even say that by talking about it on social media platforms or on a podcast could somehow support or prop up Harry Potter and them thereby benefiting JK Rowling. And I think it is a fair thing to say.

A wonderful, and I believe is a [00:10:00] mutual of yours and mine, Princess Weekes, said that if we don't talk about this, then the only voices that get heard are the ones that are uncritical and are sycophantic. And she didn't say sycophantic. I'm saying sycophantic because unless we do this and engage with it, then only positive things happen and we don't reckon with the power of the platforms that we have. And I see this as somebody who has very small, very tiny platform on all of the social medias.

But I still reckon with the fact that when I talk about something, people who may not be familiar with it, may get curious, may go out and look for information about it and it, I feel it's disingenuous to say that someone who's going to buy Alchemised that likely is at a Barnes and Noble table that says Dramione Fanfic, there's any number of ways outside of even the marketing material that we're seeing on the internet that somebody who's [00:11:00] walking in off the streets will encounter something that will inform them that it's connected to Harry Potter. And those people, if they're not in that moment being told yes, but also Harry Potter is financially benefiting a bigot who is funding the loss of trans rights and great harm to trans people. And that is not included in those conversations and it's not unless we're gonna talk about it.

You're seeing it all over the place. I see it a lot on threads, of where people are like, do I need to read all the Harry Potter books before I read Alchemised? I'm gonna go read these.

And this was already a thing that was being reckoned with on TikTok in the Harry Potter fandom, where we're seeing as these fanfic were getting people excited and interested, they were going out and buying Harry Potter merch. It's not as much of a big trend on TikTok now, but for a while there it was a trend on TikTok for people to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and to flirt with the [00:12:00] Death Eater actors and to get their pictures taken with them because of the association with the hot Draco Malfoy death eater persona, which like when we talked about Manacled, that there's ways that fanfic can engage with not only the source material, but also the fandom association . Like the, why should I find this dude attractive when he's literally a mass murdering bigot?

And like that, that is what is being engaged within that narrative. But if you take it out of context, then it's just, ooh, it's a hot guy with a mask and a wand, and I'm gonna go pose with him and put pictures of me or videos of me and him on there, and I'm going to pose with my Draco Malfoy Funko Pop, and I'm going to buy a bunch of Harry Potter merch and all these things.

Not because I like Harry Potter, but it's because I like this fanfic. And so the fandom is still currently reckoning with that, like, is there even a way to wrestle that [00:13:00] product away from the grips of that author.

And I think death of the Author only really fully works when the author is actually dead. Especially in this capitalistic society. On social media, everything you do when you talk about it, you're promoting it. And I think my way that I came to it, so happy that you gave me this opportunity to talk about it, is that the only way that we can really address it is to address the impact and to say when you do this, it keeps that IP in the zeitgeist.

We can't live outside of what has happened. There's no way for us to know that if 50 Shades of Grey didn't happen, we wouldn't have these multiple Twilight renaissances that are happening right now and have been happening over the years. So much so that, just recently Stephanie Meyers was in Forks doing a little press conference there.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Fangirl Jeanne: At this point [00:14:00] we're what, 20

Andrea Martucci: something years ago and I think even, I don't know, it was a while ago. We live in a time where authors are part of the product and you see this all the time just in quote unquote regular, regular romance where authors have to commoditize their personality as part of what they're selling. There's this trend where authors will post like a first person like "this happened to me" and then you get to the end of it, it's not just a confessional story, it's them embodying the primary character of their book or whatever.

I think increasingly author personas are part of the product. Like you said, even if the author's dead right, it is impossible to separate it and make a nice shiny clean line separating like only good people are profiting from this or something.

We are gonna talk about the decision to talk about this. And, we also wanna make sure that we are focusing on people who [00:15:00] are not bigots.

But I guess, I re-watched The Good Place recently and part of the whole plot of The Good Place is realizing that in our modern world, it is impossible to live a life that is completely devoid of ethical problems, right?

You cannot buy a banana at the supermarket without that being the accumulation of like every choice made in the supply chain of that banana: how it got to the store and like our economy, and how did you make the money to buy that banana? And what are the, conditions under which the person at the grocery store is checking you out or you're checking yourself out.

Like you cannot take a step in this world without making choices. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. That doesn't mean that we wanna completely throw up our hands and say, oh, I guess there's like absolutely nothing we can do.

But this is all extremely complicated and you can have a pretty clear [00:16:00] take on JK Rowling for example, and it can still be complicated where you draw the line on this idea of is what I'm doing supporting this author or is this a get outta jail free card?

Like I got a Harry Potter book at the thrift store: no money went into JK Rowling's pocket because I bought it at the thrift store, the money went to local thrift shop.

Right. But even then it's not a clear cut, did money transactionally very directly go into this author's pocket when I did this? It is much more complicated and I think that's what this conversation's about because is JK Rowling actually getting a paycheck directly if you buy Alchemised by SenLinYu? Likely not. Unless there is some back deal that we don't know about where this was licensed.

Right. Probably not, but then what is the spillover of keeping this cultural product relevant? Continuing to talk about it, continuing to consume it, not even getting [00:17:00] into the problematics of the text itself, cause we have to draw the line somewhere. Literally just thinking about like the economics of purchasing an object or consuming an object. It is very complicated.

Fangirl Jeanne: Right. And I can understand too of like how, even just opening up that idea of what are the ethics of buying a banana, when everything is harmful, like every potential thing that you do is harmful, then there is a point where you go, well, does it matter? And I'm gonna quote like paraphrase a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, which was produced by a problematic creator, Joss Whedon and is Angel.

And in it the idea is discovering that there is no reward within the, the world of that story, he discovers that there is no real redemption. He's not gonna ever like, clean himself of all the bad things he did and his way to deal with that was like, if nothing matters, then [00:18:00] everything you do matters.

And so for me is like if you look and every choice has a harmful thing, then every choice, every active thing you do should be done with a purpose, right? Because it has that weight no matter what it is. And so rather than like, "I can't do this because" it's more, "I am doing this because. "

And I think especially if we talk about the way that we deal with social media, if we understood the gravity of the platforms that a lot of us have. Like, instead of, well "now you're saying I can't talk about books on the internet?"

No, I'm saying think about that you're talking to 8,000 people about a book and you're gonna not think that at least maybe one of them might go buy these books or might go to amusement park if you're talking about it? see, that's the like, flip that moment of powerlessness back into empowerment of that this means that everything that you [00:19:00] choose to put your voice behind should matter.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: And that's what we're doing. And if you want to still talk about it, then find a way for the way that you talk about it to make an impact. And so that's my thing of for many of the arguments of like, SenLinYu, Alchemised is different because it's a trans author.

Only one trans person is very definitively profiting off of that book. And it's the author. There's nothing about anything being donated to trans charities. I don't see any larger trans community benefit uh, for this book.

Really? So instead of like creating all these excuses of like, well, it's not directly going to JK.... Well, okay, then what are you doing? Since now you know that there is harm happening, what are you going to do to try to counteract that harm? So it's less of there is not an ethical way to consume, but there is ethical ways to actively engage with what you're consuming in a more [00:20:00] thoughtful way.

Andrea Martucci: Mitigate the harm or,

Fangirl Jeanne: or acknowledge the harm. I mean, That feels like that's like almost the first speed bump that we hit with these kind of conversations. Like talking about Twilight. Stephanie Meyers is a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. She's a member in good standing and that term very specifically means that she's tithing at least 10% of her income to the church.

The church that is now actively pursuing and supporting legislation to allow them and anybody associated with them to discriminate against trans people. To say nothing of the church's long history in conversion therapy.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: So, Yep. Right. There's no way that we can say that talking about Twilight is not somehow benefiting her. So when we talk about Twilight, we have to keep going. Yes. And she's Mormon and she is supporting actively the church [00:21:00] that is going after trans people. And we can't detach that from Twilight. Much like we can't detach the fact that she used a real. Indigenous tribe in the books, misrepresented them to the point that they have to actively create counter media to counteract all the stereotypes and misinformation in those books.

And all of this while they're actually losing their tribal land because of climate change. So even reading, young adult not sexually repressed vampire books is not clean of, all kinds of implied harm, so

Andrea Martucci: Okay, so what, so we have acknowledged, we have acknowledged we're gonna continue to acknowledge. What is another part of our harm reduction mitigation plan here?

Fangirl Jeanne: Well, the suggestion I made was to highlight two trans charities. I actually have a list of them, but I'll go with two for right now and then I can give you more if you wanna put them in the show notes. But the main two ones are the Good [00:22:00] Law Project and you can literally just type this in to Google and it'll bring up their websites and of course the Trevor Project.

The Good Law Project I believe primarily functions in the UK and I think it's really important whenever we're talking about specifically JK Rowling and Harry Potter, the direct impact she's having on the trans community is in the UK. It is eroding the rights of trans people and endangering the lives of trans youth in the UK.

And so I think it's important we talk about charities and groups that are actively fighting against that, where it's at. Yeah. And then Trevor Project, we all know Trevor Project and you know,

Andrea Martucci: we, but what if somebody doesn't know the Trevor Project? Say more.

Fangirl Jeanne: Yeah. No, that's true. That's true. And that's the thing is if you want to talk, that's great--

you talk about Alchemised and let's then also talk about trans charity. Let's talk about trans rights. If you really cared about supporting the trans author of this book, then why aren't you talking about trans rights that are actively under threat in the UK and America where people are literally [00:23:00] fleeing the country right now.

And also as well I wanted to give some suggestions for alternate reading choices by trans authors or featuring trans characters.

The main ones I think would be comparable titles are Reforged by Seth Haddon, which is like a medieval fantasy. Two soldiers falling in love type situation. And, and that's a trans author. Also famously Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. Really Aiden Thomas anything is great. He primarily writes in YA, but all of his stuff is great.

If you're looking for dark fiction, Hell followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White is a post-apocalyptic and the apocalypse was wrought by religious fanatics in America. And you have this character who is literally being infected by this demonic, like mutation stuff. And is part of a group of resistance fighters that [00:24:00] are all queer people, queer kids, basically, who are fighting these religious fanatics. It's really gory and goopy. I recommend it for fans of The Last of Us and, Walking Dead, but wants to see queer kids and a trans character in the lead.

And, trans body horror is like just, it feels so oddly gender affirming in that so much about the people's fear around trans people has to do with, the same fears that body horror is dealing with of like the violation of self by changing the body in some way.

And so often those narratives in which like, body snatchers, changelings, things like that are talking about this fear that a lot of people have about if my body changes, am I still who I was? Because I define myself by my body. I define my gender by my body. And those kind of ideas that trans people uproot and that a lot of what the fear and bigotry that we face is coming from [00:25:00] that, essential fear that is really less instinctive and more cultural.

And then the last one I wanted to do for the romance fans, A Lady for the Duke by Alexis Hall, which is one of my favorite regency romances, but also one of my favorite featuring a trans character in the lead. For those who are looking for more steamy, sexual stuff that doesn't have sexual assault in it.

So

Andrea Martucci: Woo hoo! Do know who I saw live? TJ Alexander. Uh, And I think his latest book is it a Gentleman's Gentleman?

Fangirl Jeanne: yes, I think I just saw like a recommendation for that.

Andrea Martucci: I saw him live and that was great. Emerson alum. Woo woo. Go Lions. So I have not read it yet. I got it signed and everything. But yes, there are books you can actually purchase to support trans authors and trans stories that do not have the problems that we're, the [00:26:00] trans harm that we are talking about is primarily associated with the author of Harry Potter.

There's like so many layers to this, because Manacled the fanfic, in my memory it was problematizing a lot of the bigotry in Harry Potter.

I don't recall there being anything necessarily problematizing or harmful to trans people in the narrative, but it's like the problems are so weird and complicated. Right? Where it's, it's not just about what is in the text, it's about modes of production

Fangirl Jeanne: It's capitalism, right? That's the thing is and like part of what I felt comfortable with discussing Manacled, the fanfic, and the things happening in Manacled, the fanfic, was that it was a fan fiction. And in the way that I define fan fiction is that it's a [00:27:00] piece of art that's in conversation with another piece of art and it's free and anybody can make it.

And if it doesn't qualify for one of those three things, it's not fan fiction. So like Wicked isn't fan fiction, even though it is a piece of art that's in conversation with two other pieces of art. Because that conversation, talking about how do you define the difference between derivative art and fan fiction?

This is a debate going on in TikTok fandom circles is like, should you treat fanfic like you would a book in like reviewing it and criticizing it? And some say you can't criticize it, some say you can. My thing is yes, but you have to recognize that when you are reading fan fiction, you are watching somebody else have a conversation with another person.

You're not part of that conversation because that's what that art is. So Manacled was SenLinYu having a conversation with the Harry Potter franchise and the way that it handled things like systemic [00:28:00] bigotry, war, genocide. All of these ideas and criticizing it in a lot of ways of how it didn't handle it very well, and also like how fundamentally flawed the good guy's side was.

And so I can't necessarily criticize how that person has that conversation other than saying well, I don't think I would do it this way, or I think that you could have done, but it's my opinion. Also there is an assumption of platform too. A fanfiction doesn't necessarily have the platform that a commercial product does.

Andrea Martucci: Because of distribution, right? It's, like theoretically fanfiction that's on the internet can reach anybody with a device that connects to the internet theoretically, right? But. Visibility is the issue. It's about the power of something being in a store shelf or (Jeanne says: and the systemic power.)

on a homepage when you go on amazon.com or what gets talked about on Good Morning America, or, [00:29:00] yeah it's about systemic power.

It's about cultural capital. Right. And I think that there is this distinction too, when you pay for something, like, do you ever read an ebook review online and it's like a book and somebody's like, I didn't receive it on time. And you realize or do you know what I mean? Like it arrived damaged. It's a product, it's a thing. It's a physical object that somebody purchased and they can review any part of that experience, not just the text itself.

And I think about this as a podcaster, right? My podcast is free. Nothing I create as a podcaster or as a Substacker either, nothing is pay walled. Everything I create is for free. If you wanna throw me some money, thanks. I appreciate it, but like I'm not ever gonna make you like pay to access it. What I think is interesting, what is, when I think about what are the ethics of reviewing a podcast versus what are the ethics of reviewing a book.

Now, to me, a book is a product. I purchased a book. I have a certain level of [00:30:00] expectation because I purchased this thing, right? It's not just about my time spent reading the book. It's also about I spent money on this with a certain expectation. Go ahead and criticize my podcast all you want, if you want to. However, at a certain point, if you continue to listen to my podcast after you've decided you don't like it, that's kind of a you choice. Like, it's not like you spent money and you're like, I wanna get my money's worth. Do you know what I mean? Like, like, do you know what I mean? Where it's free. It's free. What do you want? I owe you nothing.

Fangirl Jeanne: That's the same way that I operate is that I'm like, you can partake of all the stuff that I do and and if you want to like, send me money as a tip and whatnot for all the rambling that I do on the internet, but the end of the day, like your opinion of what I do is your business and not mine.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. Right. Like you can say whatever you want, but you are not my customer.

Do you know what I mean? And so, fundamentally the dynamics change when SenLinYu published Manacled as [00:31:00] Fanfic on AO3, what did they get out of the success of that? The gratification of people reading it and enjoying it, engaging with people in the comments, the popularity.

There was no commercial profit at that point. There was no monetization value. The people who were reading it were not customers. They were people who had opinions, appreciated it, shared it, fans, et cetera.

Now, SenLinYu has packaged the text. We'll talk about any changes that were made to the text, but took something that was created for a platform that is explicitly not monetized, a for legal reasons, because they're using IP that they do not have the rights to. But because of that, it is a place where there are very different expectations for what the stories can do and how you engage with it and the potential harm. As soon as you get a book deal, not only you are getting paid for [00:32:00] that, but then you're changing the text to be a, not illegal from IP concerns, but b, packaged to be a consumable product, which now is subject to the forces of the market.

What can the market stand? What can we say, what can we not say? Now, all of a sudden, I'm sorry, there is a layer of censorship and nothing is pure in terms of like creation, but like, ooh, all of a sudden

Fangirl Jeanne: Well, the, it's inviting anybody who has the money to engage with it to the conversation. Right. Not just from the whole, you know, a consumer product. All consumers have a right to have an opinion about a product they spent money on. But from a larger standpoint, there is the factor of the systemic platform.

'Cause that's the thing is like, there's the idea of publishing it and opening it up to a larger audience that way, like if they chose to indie, publish it. But then to [00:33:00] have a traditionally publishing house with the power in reach of distribution, advertising, the marketing, all of that. Having one of the biggest booths at book fairs and I think at New York Comic-Con displaying giant posters of the book like that is a platform that is not only just reaching an audience, but it's also got a sense of what is it

Andrea Martucci: Is it cultural capital. Prestige?

Fangirl Jeanne: It's got in institutional prestige behind it, because this isn't just somebody self-publishing a book. This is published by a big name publisher that is pushing it out. These are people who are perceived within our culture in the wider culture to be discerning, to have a sense of like, this book made the cut. Even though these are the same people putting out crappy, influencer throw away biographies and coffee table books of [00:34:00] AI art or whatever.

But the cultural association is that this is prestigious because it's traditionally published and there's a weight behind that and a reach that that has that does not come with fanfiction. Also what comes with that is the scrutiny of the wider literary, critical, and social criticism.

Because it's one thing for one person to use like the plot device of a forced breeding program of enslaved prisoners of war in a fan fiction, that it was really using it as a plot device to like explore autonomy and personhood and things of that nature and war and, and all that, and trauma and taking it out of that context of being a fan fiction into being a published novel. And that's coming out in a time when fascism is on the rise and when you

Andrea Martucci: there's there's, uh, camps with detained [00:35:00] people. Many of, well, you could say all of them, but some of them very obviously unlawfully detained. And do we know what's going on? There's probably abuses going on there, every single time, how many years later, we always find out.

Fangirl Jeanne: Right, like it is naive to think that women or anyone, regardless of their gender being taken and losing their autonomy 100% that there isn't violations and abuses happening.

Andrea Martucci: Like imprisonment is quite literally intentionally trying to break down your sense of autonomy and punish you, right? You are punished and humiliated and everything about it seeks to dehumanize you and take away your personhood, right?

Fangirl Jeanne: Re Yeah. And when we are in the real world, especially when we're [00:36:00] talking about a piece of media that is a commercial piece of media, it is not being consumed in a vacuum. So we know we've got where we're going at right now in America, in this country. We know that the trends of like the alt-right, the cottage core trad wife to alt-right pipeline, where we have a lot of that happening.

And then we take this story where we have an immigrant woman who is taken as a prisoner of war and put into a prison, denied of her autonomy, deeply traumatized and tortured, who is then taken out and put into a forced breeding program where she is held and abused and tortured by a soldier of a fascist regime

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: who is, actively abusing her. And then, come to find out in the story they were in love before this all happened.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: He's actually a really good guy, [00:37:00] even though he killed a lot of people and absolutely was actually killed a lot of people and was complicit in the oppression and enslavement of a lot of people like her.

Andrea Martucci: Oh, okay. Wait, I feel like I missed something there

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh, okay. No, no, no.

Andrea Martucci: you said an immigrant woman. So wait a second. Are we talking about the changes?

Fangirl Jeanne: Yeah, we are talking about the changes and how they completely -- okay, so here's the thing. Even if we kept a lot of the same things that were in Manacled and moved it over, there would be really uncomfortable implications of reading it within the current political context, right?

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: Even if we just looked at Draco, because so much about Draco in that is that like he's really sad about his mom dying so he became a Hitler youth. Like,

It's

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. He's like, so Hitler youth coded, like there is just something about blonde hair on a man. Like I'm I, I'm sorry.

Fangirl Jeanne: Okay, we're gonna dive into this. But [00:38:00] I will say this, the funniest shit is that before the war and before he started killing, he was a brunette, he had black hair, but like the magic turned his hair white. Um, Right. I'm like why is this even here? There's so many fucking weird things in here.

The changes that were made that I'm like, the fuck?

Okay, so lemme just give you my quick review of like, the book as a book.

Andrea Martucci: Spoiler alert - in no way, shape, or form, will this be quick.

Fangirl Jeanne: So my review of Alchemised is that it's being marketed as a Romantasy, even though a lot of people are saying, oh no, no, it's a dark fantasy.

No, it's a Romantasy because the primary focus of the story is the relationship between the two main characters, the man and the woman who end up falling in love, and living happily ever after they have a happily ever after. And the main focus of the story is the romance and the fantasy is really the set dressing and the things that hang up the plot around their [00:39:00] relationship.

Andrea Martucci: The excuse to do things that are like, well, no, not in real life, but in a fantasy, like it's, do you know what I mean?

Fangirl Jeanne: Like, not a kink shame, but totally. No, absolutely. That's the thing that's part of the joy of fanfic and why it's notorious for being super smutty and porn without a plot is because it gives you the freedom to be like, well,

Andrea Martucci: it was the love potion that made me do it. Ooh,

Fangirl Jeanne: it was the soul mark that made us fall in love with our enemy.

Right?

Andrea Martucci: he's my faded mate. I have to love him.

Fangirl Jeanne: Right. And that's a thing. It's okay. I'm going back to the days of Star Trek fandom and sex spores. It is a thing. There's an alien flower that pops spores. It actually, it's in Star Trek that makes them horny and they have to have sex. Right? This is tale as old as time.

Andrea Martucci: Oh my God. There are, I collect vintage romance, including vintage erotica. And when I tell you, oh my God, this stuff like. Hustler had this big sci-fi kick in the [00:40:00] seventies

Fangirl Jeanne: Dude.

Andrea Martucci: and their, their like weird Hustler erotica was wolf men and aliens, and it's like lots of like sex spores and dystopian, and I just find it so interesting.

Fangirl Jeanne: The thing is though, that was reflecting what was actually happening in sci-fi and fantasy in that era. So there's like a whole book series, Marian Zimmer Bradley, I'm not remembering the name of the series, but the whole premise of the series is it's like a medieval ish fantasy world where there's people who have these gems in their skulls and they're able to do psychic powers because of them. And like every season, there's a special plant that blooms and makes -it's sex spores 100%. And the first person who had this gem thing mated with this other species that are basically like, the high grays of alien looking, but in this fantasy world.

And they create these psychic people who are, magical in this medieval world. And of course, like a [00:41:00] big plot twist partway through the series is that they, discover the spaceship in which these humans came to the alien planet, hit the sex spores, created these things, and then remade this whole, medieval fantasy world.

Anyway, but yeah, sex spores. It was in Star Trek. It was a big thing in the sixties and the seventies. It's all it's all drug, it's all drugs.

That's

Andrea Martucci: I bet if you go back to medieval tapestries, there's sex spores. Oh, that, that unicorn in a cage? Sex spores.

Fangirl Jeanne: Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights. There's people getting it on with insects. There's people like pooping themselves through demons like. People have been kinky and weird since people could people.

So my, my review of Alchemised is that it is a, it's a romantasy set in a dark fantasy world of war and oppression [00:42:00] that is really just focused on putting two people through the worst things possible, mostly done to each other, and then proving that love is able to get them through it by the end.

Andrea Martucci: So like Manacled, the fan fiction was interesting because it was in conversation with Harry Potter and a Handmaid's Tale. Okay. So when they had magic, when they had a forced breeding program or whatever, you understood the reference, right?

It's like they have magic, whatever. Now in the process of filing off the serial numbers, now all of a sudden we have to come up with, well, okay, it can't be magic. Or like, I have to change the context of this, right? The conversation made sense. At least it made sense why we were having this conversation.

And then it lifts and shifts it, and it's over here, and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now you're making choices. And why?

Fangirl Jeanne: I came to the end of the process after [00:43:00] reading through the book and thinking of it as in comparison of what changed from Manacled to Alchemised, for me. A Lion's share what made Manacled so captivating and such an interesting narrative to experience, but also like the experience that we saw with our three hours of podcast talking about and afterwards, was that so much of what it was doing that was amazing hinged on it being a Harry Potter fanfic because it was in conversation, not just with the text, not just with the story or the characters, but it was a critique of how mealy mouthed and weakly depicted a conversation in a children's story was when it came to bigotry with systemic oppression and war and warfare and how in many ways we fail if we leave the conversation at the end [00:44:00] of that book series and we don't come back and address all the ways that they got there because the end of that book series was setting it up for another cycle of war and strife, 'cause it didn't address any of the problems that caused Voldemort in the first place.

And, Cursed Child does not really engage with that very well.

Andrea Martucci: Back in the day, I read all the original books. I haven't read or engaged with anything past that. So I don't even know anything that happens in like the continued universe building past the original series, but like, yeah, Manacled was in conversation with Harry Potter.

And what you have described about the changes made to Alchemised ...

Fangirl Jeanne: and that's only just a little bit

Andrea Martucci: and that's just Oh, I'm sure. I am sure. And it's interesting 'cause I feel like now this conversation is in conversation with the last episode about the changes to Lisa Kleypas's Wallflower series. Okay, as soon as you start making changes, first of all, when you know what the original was, it's like what?

And [00:45:00] then second of all, it's like as soon as you start making changes, I feel like you should have just started writing a new book.

Fangirl Jeanne: Uh, absolutely. Like I kept having to stop myself from taking notes on how it could have been done better or like it would've been more concise. One of the things that struck me, 'cause I, I told you I re-listened to our episodes about Manacled and one of the things that you said in the very beginning was, this is really three stories in one.

And the thing that kept hitting me as I was reading Alchemised as just like trying to remind myself, this is not Manacled, this is a separate thing, was that if I had read this not knowing that it was re-skinned fanfic, I would've been like, well this is a great outline for a three book series.

And there's so many points, especially like plot points and revelations that happen with characters that I'm like, I know, even without knowing the association with Manacled, I know that this moment should be [00:46:00] so impactful.

And if we had a whole other book to get to know these characters, it would have the gravity it deserves, but it doesn't because it's being shoved into a thousand pages and it's not reckoning with the fact that it's lost a huge amount of world building and character relationship building that starts at the beginning of that fanfic because it's Harry Potter and it's because these particular characters.

I'll give you a quick overview of. the magic system and of the setting.

So this story starts in Palladia, which is a city state that is run through a theocracy. So it's a government built on religion. And the religion that we're (long sigh) we're told

Andrea Martucci: That was like the weariest sigh

Fangirl Jeanne: I, I wanna

Andrea Martucci: I felt the weight of the world on your shoulders

Fangirl Jeanne: I wanted to send you the screenshots of [00:47:00] my copy of this, where I was like highlighting all of the lore drops, or I call them lore dumps that happened in the text. 'cause it literally would go from her, like " Helena," that's her name in the book, "is sitting on the window sill and she's messing with her manacles."

And then it goes into a whole thing about, well, " Lamythria is an element that helps create alchemy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And in the text by Karyth, it talks about how Soul, the creator, made the different.. But as far as she knows, Lamythia shouldn't be blocking her senses. And she goes back to," and it's what the fuck just happened?

Andrea Martucci: You know when, okay, so when I haven't read Alchemised, but the title Alchemised, I was like, oh, you took something that had no commercial value and then you turned it into gold with commercial value. Is the meta, is that I'm sorry, is that like a big [00:48:00] old wink?

Fangirl Jeanne: I'm making the broiest bro face right But that, yeah I, I assume

Andrea Martucci: they think they're being subtle?

Fangirl Jeanne: Okay. I think that that definitely was a little like tongue in cheek because the magic system here is based on a religious doctrine that tells about how there was like this great essentially their God - Soul, who they also associate with the sun

Andrea Martucci: gold.

Is the theology capitalism?

Fangirl Jeanne: Yes and no. It's like really poorly pantomime of capitalism. It's so bad. Okay. Sorry.

Andrea Martucci: oh my God. And I'm sorry because you're literally just trying to explain this

Fangirl Jeanne: No, no.

Andrea Martucci: and

Fangirl Jeanne: You're going through the same thing I went through. I swear I've gotta put these videos up on my Patreon for free so that you can see my 13 part reading vlog, 10 minutes each, of me just spewing my process as I was going through the process of, what am I reading? [00:49:00] And I have it like locked on TikTok, so it's only mutuals can see it.

But I'm like, if somebody knows what my Patreon is, then they deserve to see me have a mental breakdown while I'm reading this.

But so the doctrine is that Soul is their great God. And he through this alchemy created mankind. And then through great tribulations that happened of something, it's very weird in the way that it's written, that all these terrible things happened.

But through these magical processes and disasters of Soul helping people discover alchemy and resonance, and in this world, magic is resonance, but it's not a one for one of the magic that we knew as resonance. And the best way that I can describe resonance for you is have you seen Avatar, the Last Airbender

Andrea Martucci: I don't think so. No.

Fangirl Jeanne: where the, they do like water bending, air bending.

Andrea Martucci: I saw Water World. What's it called? Oh my God. It's not called Water World.

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh my

Andrea Martucci: That's a Kevin Costner [00:50:00] movie.

Fangirl Jeanne: With the little bald kid with the blue arrow on his head who rides around on a flying yak.

Andrea Martucci: nah,

Fangirl Jeanne: seen Avatar. The last

Andrea Martucci: I don't, is

Fangirl Jeanne: my God. It's animated.

There is a live action version on Netflix too, but really if you're gonna watch it, watch the animated one. Anyway, in Avatar Last Airbender, their magic system is based on elements and the ability for different people to manipulate fire, water, earth, air, those things. Right. That is essentially what's being riffed on here, which is the idea that resonance, they have resonance with inert elements like iron.

Andrea Martucci: Commodities you mean?

Fangirl Jeanne: Yes. Commodities

Andrea Martucci: Like the raw materials of the earth that can be exploited for profit?

Fangirl Jeanne: Right. And only certain people, you can only attune to certain elements like certain metals and metallurgy, alchemy. There's all these terms thrown around and I'm too autistic for magic systems like this, because I'm like, that's not what that [00:51:00] means, but that's okay.

So anyway, and

Andrea Martucci: It's not okay, but we'll move on

Fangirl Jeanne: not okay. All of this comes from this particular element called Lamythia, or Lamythium, which is an element that can be mined out of the earth. And it is a magical element. It is a magical fucking woo ah thing that's created for this series 'cause it doesn't really exist. But the idea, the concept of it is this element it can be used to enhance resonance again, is someone's ability to feel

elements and manipulate them.

Andrea Martucci: It's like privilege.

Fangirl Jeanne: Wait, wait, wait, wait. It gets worse. Lemme get further into it. People who have resonance can't really interact with Lamythia in its raw form, so they can't be used to mine it. So of course they have to import foreign labor of non resonant people to mine this element along with gold and [00:52:00] all iron and all these other things right. But exposure to lathia can cause the next generation to have resonance power. So you only have one generation of labor out of your immigrant population. So they keep having to bring people in to mine this, and other valuable minerals.

Andrea Martucci: So natural born citizens,

Fangirl Jeanne: Okay.

Andrea Martucci: or, I'm sorry, naturalized what do we call them?

Fangirl Jeanne: well. That doesn't actually work in this country. So in this country, under this theocracy,

Andrea Martucci: Lamythia or whatever?

Fangirl Jeanne: Lamythia is the element. Palladia is the country.

Andrea Martucci: Okay. Did ChatGPT come up with these names?

Fangirl Jeanne: Sweet fucking Christ. Well, it was used to make the cover of the book, so

Andrea Martucci: That is so lazy.

Fangirl Jeanne: It's so lazy.

Andrea Martucci: I'm not even mad. I'm just disappointed.

Fangirl Jeanne: on so many levels. So many levels. That's the other thing is as I explain to you this magic system, [00:53:00] you need to understand if I could send you the screenshots, much of what I'm telling you is literally four to five paragraphs all happening in chapter 10. It is not really seeded throughout the story

Andrea Martucci: Info dumps suck anyways, but not until chapter 10?

Fangirl Jeanne: Chapter 10

Andrea Martucci: I mean, that's just puzzling.

Fangirl Jeanne: to learn the primary Right? There's so many things in references, even in the first chapter in which people are using things like resonance, a resonance screen. All these things are being mentioned and referenced in the opening scene, and it makes no fucking sense 'cause I don't know what anything means. I'm like I know in my brain that these are all placeholders for magical shit from the fanfic, but I'm like, if I was an editor, I would be like, a reader's not gonna know what any of this shit means. And having the evil nurse character just constantly shout information of like, did you do this to [00:54:00] your brain? Did you change your memories? Well, what do you know about the war? Do you remember? Like, and it's so much like, here, tell me all the stuff, info dump to me about what happened and where we are in time right now in this opening chapter, so I don't have to actually do any actual writing of this story. Holy shit. Oh my God. And that was the first chapter.

Anyway, so you know, you have this immigrant population that had this magical ability. But in this government, in this country, city state, only people who are certified can be alchemists. And alchemists are people who actually use their resonance to affect metals and do things. So like, make coins, make, equipment, machinery.

Here's the other thing that's fucking hilarious is as I'm reading through. It takes me, I can't even remember. It may have been 20% in that I'm thinking that we're in like a medieval ish type of world. And then there's a mention of her being in a lift and I'm like, well, a lift,

Andrea Martucci: wait. So like you're not even sure if they have indoor plumbing [00:55:00] and all of a sudden there's elevators.

Fangirl Jeanne: Yeah. And then there's a car, out of nowhere, there's a motor car. I'm like, wait a minute. What? What the fuck? Wait a minute. Okay. But they don't have cell phones, they don't have telephones. I don't think. I don't know. They do have a toilet. There is a toilet because you know the scene in which he vomits? He vomits in a toilet and she hears him flush the toilet. I'm like, there's indoor plumbing.

Andrea Martucci: Wait, okay, so if you are white and you have a social security number, you can have resonance. Okay.

Fangirl Jeanne: Well, no, you can. You can have resonance and not be a citizen. You can't make a job if you are not certified by the school that certifies alchemists and train them, then any use of the magical ability that you got, 'cause your parents were indentured servants

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: the fucking mines. If you use it, then you are a criminal.

Andrea Martucci: And ICE is gonna pick you up and it doesn't matter if you [00:56:00] have a birth certificate.

Fangirl Jeanne: this is the government under the good guys. This is what I need you to understand. (Andrea: WHAT?!) This is the good guy government. Yes. This is the world that Helena was fighting to save.

Andrea Martucci: Jeanne? This is the bad place.

Fangirl Jeanne: This was the world and government that her best friend, who's the whole reason she joined this Luke

Andrea Martucci: Harry.

Fangirl Jeanne: who is he's essentially like the leader. His family are the scions of Soul. They're golds, they have pyromancey because for some fucking reason, even though this is dealing with metals, suddenly there is also pyromancy, but it's only for particular bloodline. It's the ability to use fire, to manipulate fire.

Andrea Martucci: Oh, oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Jeanne I know that you have so many notes on this. My head's -, I don't understand any of these choices --. Like how does SenLinYu, who wrote I thought a very interesting and nuanced [00:57:00] text, how do you go from that to like literally the most transparent, banal, flawed metaphor?

Fangirl Jeanne: You are given six figure contract that says you have to deliver it under a certain timeline with I'm assuming a couple of editors to help you scrub the fanfic and try to make this dog show work.

So here's the thing. Even the way that I'm describing to you is literally the way that the doctrine is shoved into the text. I'm like, that is a note. That is a note that somebody created because this system has the potential to be really fascinating because it still follows a lot of the plot points from the Fanfic was just her waking up post-war, her being taken prisoner, trying to remember what happened and having shredded memories of the war and trying to piece together what happened -if it was just her up into the point that she [00:58:00] remembers and if,

Andrea Martucci: So book one from the Fanfic,

Fangirl Jeanne: right and like in this book, that memory moment, the unlocking where she suddenly hears a couple of lines of dialogue from him and then it goes right into the flashbacks, right.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: I'm like, in my brain, my little editor brain's like, no, no, no. All you do is you have that moment where the pregnancy unlocks her memories and you get to see shreds of the scenes, the actual scenes of her interacting with her friends and with him and give this peek into what's gonna happen in book two and then end at book one.

Boom. There you go. People are gonna automatically pick up book two because they need to know, like especially if she remembers that they love each other. Right. And then that's the end of the book.

And here's the thing: obviously the publisher didn't have the confidence in this to put the right amount of planning and support and time it would've been to do this the right way or at least more successfully than [00:59:00] what this is executed, because this is really doing a really sloppy, it's not even a one for one. It's a very sloppy system that had the potential to be really interesting, especially if you filled out that first book with flashbacks of her school years.

Andrea Martucci: Wait, wait, wait. Is this a three? Is this a trilogy?

Fangirl Jeanne: No, no, no. This is all three of those stories in one book in a thousand pages,

it's the whole fanfic

Andrea Martucci: if you took the 360,000 words of Manacled and put it into like paper pages, how many pages would that be? Is that a thousand pages or is that more like, is. Is it relatively shorter?

Fangirl Jeanne: I think it's relatively shorter. It's a hard back. Yeah. It's a monster.

Here's the thing. So it's a thousand pages. Emily Rath's first book in her hockey series is 600 or 500 or 600 pages, right?

Andrea Martucci: Mm. I don't know

Fangirl Jeanne: So

Andrea Martucci: These all sound like too many pages to me

Fangirl Jeanne: it is too many pages. This is also [01:00:00] the problem of taking a serialized story and making it into one whole cohesive book is you have these problems of you're not drib and drabbing out the story.

Although, again, it is saying something that my solution to a lot of these problems would've been to add more to these in the sense of adding flashbacks so that we knew who she was. Okay. Anyway, let me get back on the thing. So anyway Helena, the lead of our story, she is first generation immigrant.

Her father was a healer. Her mother I believe had resonance and died giving birth to her.

Andrea Martucci: If she's a first generation immigrant, her parents.

Fangirl Jeanne: Her parents immigrated and then she was born there and she has resonance. Am I

Andrea Martucci: Okay.

Fangirl Jeanne: They're just considered foreigners. I believe her mom had resonance or may have been exposed in the mines. Honestly, it doesn't matter because her parents get about as much attention as Hermione's does in anything about her mye.

Andrea Martucci: Oh, okay. It's like, they're [01:01:00] dentists!

Fangirl Jeanne: So like exactly, her dad was a healer. And we get random bits of wisdom that she remembers from her healer dad.

That he was a doctor from a different country, from like a southeastern island.

Andrea Martucci: but so essentially being a Muggle born wizard is now being replaced by the idea of immigrants, but like being the child of immigrants who has somewhat more access to something but is still discriminated against as a result of their origins?

Fangirl Jeanne: Not just that, but she's also an affirmative action benefit recipient because she was sponsored, essentially given a scholarship by one of the native born, wealthy families to go to the school. And that's how she met Luke. The look on your face is Priceless.

Andrea Martucci: and this is the good place?

Fangirl Jeanne: This is the good place.

Andrea Martucci: Jeanne, I'm so sorry. I just like, I don't even, I don't even care about all of this [01:02:00] because it literally just makes me mad that these are all solvable problems. Everything, everything you're talking about, it's a solvable problem.

But it like reminds me of, as soon as you are trying to cram something that existed into a different package, it is gonna go wrong.

They were talking about doing a movie. The Christina Lauren book Roomies. They were like, okay, so this was originally written with an Irish immigrant and then they do like a fake marriage so that he could get a green card.

Right? And then they were like, okay, we're gonna turn this into a movie. And we option the rights, except because in today's climate it makes more sense for the immigrant to be, and then by the way, I remember the wording of it was super problematic 'cause they were like a Mexican immigrant or something like that.

It was like implied brown person, but they didn't actually say it, and it revealed that they just think Mexican people are people of color, period. No, I'm sorry. It wasn't Mexican. It was Latino. Anyways, it was so weird, [01:03:00] and I don't think they actually ever made this movie.

I think it got shelved, but it was the kind of thing where I was just like, okay, you are trying to adapt this and make it quote unquote relevant, and it actually just makes it so much more problematic.

Fangirl Jeanne: And that's a beautiful example of like even if this wasn't related to a bigot who is funding discrimination. Even if it wasn't that it is creating and not even purposefully problematizing it, it is creating a mess of like trying to like create, well, here's a new thing, here's a new thing.

It's like another tentacle and another tentacle, another story beat that I'm now trying to shove into a thousand pages with a bunch of other things that are really important and it gets so messy and so frustratingly poorly executed because it's being shoved in that there's so many moments that again, I'm like: this should be really impactful. But because like half of the [01:04:00] references wouldn't make sense unless I had knowledge, I know that this should matter because this kid is supposed to be the chosen one. I know that it should be really sad that her friendship's falling apart in these flashbacks, but since I never got to see the friendship that

was actually there.

Andrea Martucci: we haven't established the friendship. There's no text for the subtext.

Fangirl Jeanne: No. Mm-hmm. So what we know of Helena, her mother died giving birth to her because she has a very specific kind of resonance. 'Cause there's the mineral, like the metallurgy, resonance type things. But then there's another kind of resonance, usually a secondary kind of resonance

Andrea Martucci: if you're like a model, right? Like you can get like citizenship because you have a specialized skill.

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is bad. This is the bad kind of magic. This is the bad kind of magic. So there's a secondary resonance that can come about. Some people's resonance they're able to shape metal into little things. And those would be your [01:05:00] factory workers.

So you have like your, your people who are working in the mines, then their kids can get factory jobs, like a slightly more skilled job of like making things, but only if they were able to train at the school to get certification to work in these industries and to do things to make the cars and the toilets that happen to exist in this world.

But again, they can't advance much further.

And before I get further with Helena, since we're talking about the metallurgy stuff and elements, let's talk about Kane Farrin. This is the male main character of the story, and Kane Farrin comes from the Farrin family who are originators in this city state.

Kane Farrin.

Andrea Martucci: Kane Farrin. Okay, so his parents came over on the Mayflower.

Fangirl Jeanne: Yes, he is very old bloodline, but, but, but, but since their resonant metal is iron and most of their wealth comes [01:06:00] from steel and things like that, they can never really rise any higher than they are because they're lowly Iron

Andrea Martucci: As opposed to gold. Is their last name gold, the family that controls the gold?

Fangirl Jeanne: No. Oh, fuck. Now I completely forgot what luke's name is. Luke's not only a gold, he's not only a gold pyromancer, but he's from the, main religious royal house that's descended from literal God Soul.

Andrea Martucci: I don't Jeanne. Jeanne. I hate this

Fangirl Jeanne: No, and here's the thing is like these things, these particular affinities for elements seem to both travel through bloodlines, so eugenics is still a thing in this world, but it's real much like it was in Harry Potter. It's like eugenics but yeah, it actually does work. The magic eugenics. But also they have squibbs, they have people who are born without resonance and it's really disgraceful if one of these big founding families has a kid that's not resonant.

Andrea Martucci: Wait, I'm so sorry. I have to interrupt [01:07:00] you. This is the houses, right? Like the iron is Slytherin and then like gold is Gryffindor,

Fangirl Jeanne: but it's even more divisive than that, man. It's like there are coppers, people who might be resonant with like a mixed type of metal. I, again, my metallurgy is not that great, so I don't know. (Andrea: MIXED METAL?!)

There's an impression that like they and, and because that, here's

Andrea Martucci: I love that you get close to the mic like this - and you're like, and because- I love it, I Please continue.

Fangirl Jeanne: Well see the thing is about gold is because it is the purest element. Therefore, golds are the purest and holiest of users.

Andrea Martucci: Gold is too soft to be made into anything by itself. You have to mix it with something for it to be usable.

Fangirl Jeanne: This is why I am too autistic for these magic systems.

Andrea Martucci: Jeanne, I literally just threw my chapstick. I can't, I cannot. I am [01:08:00] ADHDing where I'm like fidgeting with like my chapstick here. I can't,

Fangirl Jeanne: Okay? Okay. Okay, let's get back on. I'm gonna get us back on task. I'm gonna get us back on task. So anyway, we're talking about Kane Farrin, his mother also. She didn't die, but she almost died giving birth to him. And the same reason is true for both him and Helena is because

Andrea Martucci: Maternal healthcare, ch uh, in the country. What is their maternal mortality rate in Palladia?

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh my God.

Andrea Martucci: No, I'm sorry. Tell me, I'm

Telling me, tell me,

Fangirl Jeanne: crying.

Andrea Martucci: Why do they die?

Fangirl Jeanne: Crying.

Andrea Martucci: Is it because doctors don't wash their hands?

Fangirl Jeanne: Okay. Helena's mother died. His mother almost died. And the reasoning air quotes is that because "they're both very powerful vivimancers," and this is the secondary form of resonance wherein how you feel out elements and are able to manipulate [01:09:00] them for vivimancers that works on bodies and under this religion that is considered a corruption, bad thing because vivimancers can become (dun dun dun!!!) necromancers because, manipulating the body, they can manipulate dead bodies and bring them back as what they call necrothals, which are basically fucking zombies.

Andrea Martucci: A lot of the things you're saying, I'm like, hold on. I just read a book that had very similar elements to this, like with. Do you know which book I'm talking about?

Fangirl Jeanne: I think I do. Please tell me.

Andrea Martucci: Well, hold on. Now I have to remember what it is. Hold on. Because as you're saying it, I'm like, what is in the water?

It's Rachel Gillig, the Shepherd King, One Dark Window.

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh, I have not read that one. I was thinking that you might be talking about Gideon, the Ninth and lock tomb series, which is

Andrea Martucci: no, no, but okay. No, but it's like this whole like [01:10:00] divergent

Fangirl Jeanne: It is important that you cite One Dark Window because that is a foundational romantasy. It is one of those when, yeah, people talk about romantasy, they cite One Dark Window. And I say that as TikTok BookTokkers will talk about One Dark Window as like, being a foundational, Romantasy.

Andrea Martucci: But you just said foundational, wasn't it published in like 2022?

Fangirl Jeanne: Exactly. My point about romantasy, whatever people try to say it is, it is a marketing term and it's very specific. It's about romance novels that are very focused on the primary couples who are usually a man and a woman, although there's some sapphic romantasies and that the construction of the world around them and the fantasy all of it exists really is just pieces of string going from one plot point to another plot point to essentially, especially these dark ones, it's just to put the characters through the ringers so that they trauma [01:11:00] bond into a romantic relationship.

Andrea Martucci: But it's also not too dissimilar to Divergent

Fangirl Jeanne: Yeah, no, exactly. That's why these are dystopians. That's the thing. Romantasy, a lot of what's being sold is romantasy. This is why a lot of YA authors are now putting out romantasy novels is it's just fucking YA with sex in a fantasy setting. And that is all And I'm not saying that disparaging, there's a lot of great novels under that.

It's fine. But marketing wise, this is the publishing industry going, ooh, let's take this bit and that bit and smoosh 'em together and then we can market this real easy. Look, we already got authors in our, in our stables who have done this before with YA. We just have to help them, write in some sex scenes and plug and play.

We don't even have to work that hard because shit like Fourth Wing and these other books that are aren't working that hard on the world building and fantasy elements either.

This is my thing with this, is if a publisher really wanted to make a good product out of Manacled, they could [01:12:00] have.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah,

Fangirl Jeanne: they didn't. And this shows that they didn't care about it because the primary thing that's executed really well in Alchemised is what was already there in Manacled, which was the novelty of the fact that it starts out where you're presented with a bad guy and a victim, and then it turns out they were in love with each other all along and she just didn't remember.

Andrea Martucci: It's just limited perspective or I don't wanna say unreliable narrator, but there's something wrong with the narrator's perception of reality that

Fangirl Jeanne: It's the amnesia trope, that's all this is. And that's the novelty. That's the thing is Manacled was so much more than that. But what Alchemised is really hinging on, and why I think it's selling well with a lot of readers is that it is the sunk cost fallacy. 'cause you're going through a thousand fucking pages.

Why would you have done that if it wasn't worth it.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

"I paid $40 for this. I'm gonna fucking read it, [01:13:00] man. And also, I loved Manacled. I have to read it and I have to see..." well, and I think that's my problem is like, who is this for? Who is this book for? Because if you've read Manacled, this is only going to suffer by comparison.

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh, it's terrible. Honestly, if you get through the first 45% of this, I think, yeah, it's about the 45% mark is when it starts into where it's almost word for word Manacled. And there's very little difference

Andrea Martucci: And they were like, JK Rowling's lawyers have stopped reading at this point.

Fangirl Jeanne: well, again, the magic system, the magic things are just not even, they're all incidental uses of magic.

And even like the controversial bits of the way the world has changed is the vivimancy is a bad thing.

Andrea Martucci: I understand there's so much more that changed and this is like, somebody with ADHD and autism walks into a bar and like, can never leave. I look, we could literally talk about this for 8 million years.

[01:14:00] But we have to stop.

We have to put a bow on it. And I think the bow we have to put on this is every single fucking choice sounds like it sucks. And I would love for you to regale me with all of the changes, but like every single thing you say to me, my eyes are rolling so far back into my head.

I don't even, it's not even interesting.

Fangirl Jeanne: let me sum up the parts that make it really, really upsetting for me is

When we meet Helena, all we know are snippets of her life during the war. We never see her friendship with Luke, aside from when it's falling apart during the war. We never see her relationship with her father because he passed away. The only women that she ever interacts with are either adversaries, competition, or a body with a name like somebody she interacts with for one or two scenes who she is either known from school or knew. Yeah. And then they're dead,

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: possibly in the [01:15:00] exact same scene. And then those are the only women. So if I was to look at Alchemised as selling it to somebody as it's like Fantasy Handmaid's Tale, Harry Potter, whatever. Right. It doesn't even do the Handmaid's Tale well, because there is no community of women. And that's the thing with the fanfic. I was like, okay, it's really just riffing off the idea of forced birthing and breeding programs. It's not talking about how that creates communities among women, which I think is what the Handmaid's Tale really tried to tell, was the story of women within this oppressive system.

That's not what Alchemised does. She has nobody else really, other than Kane. And so until we find out that they had an established relationship beforehand, we are literally watching, honestly, it's a Nazi romance. That's plain and simple. That's how it [01:16:00] plays out until she remembers. It's a Nazi romance.

Much of how he behaves is very obviously, like there is so much about the way that he's behaving in the first part of the book that is so softened from the fanfic that the only reason they're enemies to lovers is because of the circumstances.

But his behavior to her is either cold or like very obviously concerned, but trying to pretend like he doesn't care. Like it's very obvious. And remember we get a kiss. He's drunk and very obviously in love with her and like, you're gonna ruin me. And all the, and all of these lines that are so terrible when they're out of the fanfic like that, you're like a daisy in a graveyard or some shit.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Fangirl Jeanne: If you think about just like the context of here is a woman who is a victim, who does not have any support system, does not have any community with anybody. She's held prisoner. The only real relationship she has [01:17:00] before she regains her memories is with her captor.

Andrea Martucci: And he's not that bad. Really? (sarcasm!)

Fangirl Jeanne: He protects her from his wife who tries to kill her. And he saves her from another guy who tries to rape her. And even though he does rape her later, he feels really bad about it. And he throws up. Yeah. So right, this is the thing. But it's all better because she gets her memories back and they were in love the whole time.

This is the thing about the Hitler youth thing, is that when you get down to it, Kane, the only reason he's in this is that his mother was being held prisoner and tortured and he had to kill the God King Helios in order to save his mother. And then after he did it and was initiated into this necromancy circle, when she saw what was done to him, because apparently it's really painful and shit, whatever, and scarred him, she had a heart attack and died.

And I'm like in the context of right [01:18:00] now, like when we have dudes, they're committing mass murder because they're super lonely and nobody loves them. And then we have a story where a mass murderer only cares about the one girl and he only sexually assaults her because the society that he is a instrumental ruling figure in made him do it.

Andrea Martucci: And erased her memory or caused her to not have a memory.

Fangirl Jeanne: In this post, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we are given a scene where after she's regained her memory and she's pregnant, where he tells her that he can get a doctor and she can get an abortion, basically. It's very, he says it very delicately. And it is again, one of those things where she's seeing the fact that he's pretending to not care about it, but he does care.

And so she chooses to keep the baby, because of course, again, this is a fictional fucking narrative, there's editorial choices that were made that at that [01:19:00] point in the narrative, she thinks she's gonna have to leave him behind to escape. And so the only way she can hold onto a piece of him is to keep this baby that was conceived through sexual assault of both of them technically.

And that, that's a good and wholesome choice. And that it's a matter of love. And I'm like, in this context, this is one of the most irresponsible ways to depict a choice, 'cause it's not a choice. And you should have just taken that shit the fuck out and not even had him offer the option of her getting the abortion because the fuck? Sorry.

Oh, oh, oh. And let me mention the reason she even says, I want, I wanna be able to tell our child about who you were. You know that so that somebody can love you other than me. This is what I'm saying.

Andrea Martucci: I Hate it.

I hate it. I hate it Okay. I hate all of this.

Fangirl Jeanne: The sexual assault scenes. The first one is like very short. It's a [01:20:00] sentence. So much so I had to go back and reread it. 'cause I was like, did he actually do it? Oh, he did. Okay, well fuck. And then the second one is word for word from the fanfic and is dealt with very well. That's the one where she's given the aphrodisiac, so she orgasms and it feels disgusting and gross. And I'm like, okay, well that's handled okay. And she does use the word rape later on.

Andrea Martucci: Here's my question.

I am actually very on board with books that are entertaining and they have fucked up characters and like they do weird shit, but it is cathartic in a way, and it's either like joyful or it's like it is engaging with the thing in a way that the reader is like, I don't feel like this is excusing this. No matter what happens, the takeaway is like, that was dramatic, that was interesting, blah, blah, blah. I don't know what it is but the way that you have described this sounds like apologia.

Fangirl Jeanne: Oh yeah, no, big time all over the place.

Andrea Martucci: It's not like he was a bad man and he needed to [01:21:00] stop being a bad man and love me and protect. It's, no, actually, it's not that bad.

Fangirl Jeanne: Right and here's the thing is when you get down to it, his character and his character motivations begins the war because he is trying to save his mother because he's only ever been loved by his mother. His father only really loved his mother. And then when she dies, he flippantly asks for her.

Here's the other thing, they never knew each other in school. He only knew her name from the roles because they were both like honor students. He just flippantly gives her a name as somebody that he wants to essentially be his sex slave. And then basically, if I was a psychologist, I would say he just basically displaced all of his attachment issues he had with his mother onto her.

Now this story gives us a magical reason as to why it intensifies, but basically you just have like a Nazi Hitler youth boy who only cares about you and murders everybody and helps in the war only until it helps you. But when he thinks you [01:22:00] dies, he kills off everybody that you cared about.

But it's okay because they were all actually pieces of shit, religious fanatics anyway, so it's not that bad.

The way that this world is constructed, it really is, everybody was bad on both sides. And it's actually a good thing that this war happened because it broke down the system so that it could be rebuilt as a democracy instead of a theocracy.

It is fucking a nightmare on paper. And let me tell you the, the most fucking egregious part of this, is that Helena's mother dies because she is resonant, but specifically because she's a vivimancer and there's the propaganda in the religion because it's an impurity, it's a corruption, that the reason it's given that she died is because she was a vivimancer.

And because Helena is a vivimancer and that that is like an original sin, it's a sin of pollution. And so in this culture, anybody who's born with vivimancy is channeled into being healers as a way to repent for the sin [01:23:00] of being a vivimancer. And of course it's considered a corruption and all that because you could become a necromancer and that you're always just suspicious.

Like people suspect that you would just be like those necromancers. So not only is she an immigrant, but she's believed to be potentially violent. And the fact that while she's not given explicitly the race of a woman of color, all the hair shit is still there. Her family comes from a island in the Southeast, and while this is a-- right, but people in Palladia have blonde hair and blue eyes and stuff like that.

So I'm like, she's racialized. She is racialized.

I have to get this out because it it, destroys me. Is that because they're channeled into healing because she has vivimancy, right? She's told that she's sinful and she has to do this as a way to cleanse herself,

Andrea Martucci: (pretend cough) Eve. Okay.

Fangirl Jeanne: Helena is not Hermione in Manacled. [01:24:00] She's not a brilliant witch, the brightest witch of her age, making a concerted choice that she would be better used by her friends in the war as a healer. Remember in Manacled, that's a really big part of her deciding, knowing that she is creating a division between her and her friends because it's for the best 'cause she needs to be a healer and they need to focus on the war.

So Helena is a deeply shame filled and guilt-ridden character. Who both follows the rule of this theocracy while not necessarily believing in it and who does all of this for the friendship of a boy, a very rich, powerful boy that basically treats her like shit and everybody in the organization treats her like shit for the most part. They sell her off as a sex worker to a dude who just picked her name because he remembered her from honor roll. And so she is so fucking passive through the whole story. You remember how [01:25:00] passive Hermione is in the beginning? That's Helena, that's the character. She doesn't get any more assertive in the book because she's just a traumatized victim of this society.

And the only thing to be carried out of this is that both these two people, even though one of them was a literal magical Nazi that mass murdered people, is they're both victims of a war of oppressive powers and greed. Because also there's this 11th hour twist in the story that turns out that Soul had a necromancer brother and he's been hopping bodies for generations.

And so the big bad Voldemort grand necromancer was this original bad evil necromancer who like fucking didn't matter for shit. But it also helped her understand that this whole religious theocracy was based on a fucking lie and isn't true. And that there's nothing bad about any of this. so terrible. And I assume part of [01:26:00] this was an editing choice to save for time and to make these things work. But also I can't help but wonder if part of the idea was making a racially coded female character more passive, is to make her more consumable for a wider audience that's gonna see her fall in love with her oppressor and forgive him, and how that can't be taken out of the context of the moment we are fucking living in right now.

And the fact, like all of this aside, the fact, the choice to make her a fucking immigrant and essentially put her with, at this point, a magical ICE agent like that can't be taken outta context. So even if we did not care about trans people,

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Fangirl Jeanne: that's that. There you go. That's why it's a Shelf hate.

Andrea Martucci: This isn't even like a, oh my God. It's so good. And I wish I didn't like it. It's so bad. There's no reason to.

Fangirl Jeanne: It is amazing to me that people who like Manacled like it, but at the same time [01:27:00] I'm like, oh, people liked Manacled because it was a hot, bad dude and they probably had a crush on Tom Felton. I don't know. I don't know because like, what I liked about Manacled was not this, and it shredded everything.

Like, I couldn't even get into minute things of like, all the house selves are zombies in this world, so they don't have any character.

Andrea Martucci: that's like a slight to house el

Fangirl Jeanne: The, oh, right. And that's another thing that people argue about, well, it's okay that it's using forced birthing programs and sexual assault because it's a commentary.

And I'm like, commentary is not criticism. It's just replication. You're just gonna show me the thing. You're not making any kind of statement on it other than well, if you love the ICE agent that kidnaps you and fucking rapes you, maybe it turns out you were in love all along.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. Will he looks good without a shirt on okay.

Fangirl Jeanne: Okay.

Andrea Martucci: So Jeanne I know you have to go. I have two questions. Number one, is it a Shelf Love or a Shelf Hate?

Fangirl Jeanne: [01:28:00] It's a Shelf fucking hate. Oh my God.

Andrea Martucci: Okay.

Nobody should read this book. Second question. Jeanne where can people find you online and more of your descent into madness.

Fangirl Jeanne: To madness.

Andrea Martucci: after reading this book?

Fangirl Jeanne: You can find me on Blue Sky and Threads and TikTok, under FangirlJeanne

Andrea Martucci: Hey, thanks for spending time with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate or review on your favorite podcast app or tell a friend. Check out Shelflovepodcast.com for transcripts and other resources. If you want regular written updates from Shelf Love, you can increasingly find me over at Substack.

Read occasional updates and short essays about romance at shelflovepodcast.Substack.com. Thank you to Shelf Love's $20 a month Patreon supporters: Gail, Copper Dog Books, and Frederick Smith. Have a great day. [01:29:00]

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Guests

Alice Murphy, Alyssa Cole, Amanda Allen, Amanda Cinelli, Amanda Diehl, Andrea Martucci, Andrew Piper, Angela Toscano, Arielle Zibrak, Ash Dylan, Becky, Bree, Bree Hill, Candice Ransom, Carter Sherman, Charish Reid, Christina Fattore, Coltan Scrivner, Copper Dog Books, Dani Lacey, Danielle Knafo, Denise Williams, Diana Filar, Dr. Margo Hendricks, EE Ottoman, Emma, Emma Barry, Eric Selinger, Erin Leafe, Esme Brett, Fangirl Jeanne, Felicia Grossman, Funmi B., Hannah Hearts Romance, Helena Greer, Hsu Ming Teo, Huike Wen, Jack Harbon, Jayashree Kamble, Jennifer Crusie, Jess, Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, Jhen, Jodi McAlister, Jodie Slaughter, Joe Martucci, John Jacobson, Julie Moody-Freeman, Karelia Stetz-Waters, Kassi, Kate Clayborn, Katee Robert, Katherine Grant, Katrina Jackson, Kelly Reynolds, Kennedy Ryan, Kianna Alexander, Kini Allen, Kit Rocha, Laura J. Mayo, Leigh Kramer, Lucy Hargrave, Lucy Score, Lynell, Margarita Guillory, Margo Hendricks, Maria DeBlassie, Megan Erickson, Mia Sosa, Nicola Welsh Burke, Nicole Falls, Norma Perez-Hernandez, Penny Reid, Philippa Borland, Rebecca Romney, Rebekah Weatherspoon, Reformed Rakes, Renee Dahlia, Rosie Danan, Ruby Lang, Sandra Kitt, Sarah Rutherford, Sarah Skilton, Scarlett Peckham, Semilore Sobande, Sionna Fox, Sri Savita, Steve Ammidown, Suzanne Jefferies, Talia Hibbert, Tamara Lush, Tasha L. Harrison, Tehyah Carver, The Swoonies, Tif Marcelo, Tina Benigno, Whoa!mance, Whoamance, fangirl jeanne

Tags

antagonist april, audience reception, baudrillard, book discussion, book recommendations, business of books, cannibalism, category romance, contemporary romance, crossover podcast, dystopian romance, fairy tales, fandom, fanfiction, film discussion, genre discussions, historical romance, horror and romance, joyful hag book club, joyful problematization, joyful problematizing, original scholarship, paranormal romance, pop culture in the classroom, problematic favorite trope, quarantine romance book club, queer romance, romance discourse, romance in pop culture, romance myths, romance novel discussion, romance novelist representations, romance novels, romance scholarship, romantasy, scholarly, scifi and fantasy romance, teaching popular culture, tell me about, tv show discussion, video available, young adult