One of the many books that I am currently in the middle of reading is Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell. Wayward Son is a sequel to Carry On, a book that is based on a fanfiction written by a character named Cathrine in one of Rowell’s other books, Fangirl. I know that was a lot to take in and I intend to spend this post unpacking that sentence as well as exploring the ways in which this work and fanfiction provide the LGBTQA+ community with representation that mainstream media refuses to give.
Fangirl centers around Cath’s first year of college and explores how her love of fandom is not only tied to her childhood but is an important aspect of her relationship with her twin sister Wren. Cath is emotionally invested in the Simon Snow universe, a series of children's books she grew up reading; throughout Fangirl the Simon Snow saga is continuously likened to Harry Potter and the similarities are so stark that even those who have only heard a quick summary of Harry Potter are able to make the connection within seconds. While the story mainly serves to depict the difficulties that go along with transitioning into adulthood, one of the subplots focuses on Cath’s role as a popular fanfiction writer within the Simon Snow fandom. The novel even includes little sections of the fanfiction she is known, Carry On, Simon, which centers around the shipping of two straight male characters from the Simon Snow books.
Fangirl was well received and its most enthusiastic readers wanted more of Simon and Baz (the characters from Cath’s fanfiction), so when Rowell announced that she would be writing a book called Carry On, lots of people were excited. Rowell essentially wrote and published the fanfiction Cath was said to have written in Fangirl. Carry On was so successful that a sequel Wayward Son was released in 2019.
It is not uncommon to see fanfiction writers ship two originally straight same-sex characters from a book or tv show they love. Upon further reflection, I think this is because so many published novels or aired tv shows lack this kind of diversity and if they do have queer characters they are normally confined to small roles that only serve to give them“diversity points”. Queerbaiting is also a problem in mainstream media; most fanfiction authors don’t just start shipping two characters without reason, normally they just tie up already tangible threads and write into existing relationships that producers are too afraid to.
I love Carry On and I think it is a great book but I wonder if there were more LGBTQA+ stories (specifically in the fantasy/urban fantasy genre) if this work would be so popular. I mean Simon v.s the Homosapien Agenda was one of the first teen movies adapted from a book that centers around a gay lead and it came out two years ago. I guess what I am saying is after our week of talking about the need for diversity in the publishing industry, this specific novel seemed like an appropriate one to write about and highlights yet another group of underrepresented voices.
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