TRANSCRIPT BY FLYING FANATIC

EFA Episode 15 - Too Cool for School

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically [sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the Earp Fiction Addiction , a fan podcast all about Wynonna Earp fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the Wynonna Earp fandom. MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb DARKWICCAN : Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to the Earp Fiction Addiction , the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction, I am your host DarkWiccan and with me is my co-host - DELAYNE : Hi, it’s Delayne! DARKWICCAN : And this week we’re getting all sorts of nostalgic for the nineties. Not because the stories are set in the nineties, but because that’s when Delayne and I were in high school. [laughter] Because this week we are dedicating the episode to our favorite High School AUs. DELAYNE : I know it’s called “Too cool for school”, but I was definitely “too school for cool”. [laughter] I will put that one out there for here. DARKWICCAN : [laughter] Well, y'know, I think that’s true for more folks than not, you know what I mean? Like, yeah there were those, of course, the stereotypical jocks, and preps, and whatnot, but I think most folks I talk to they were like, “No, I wasn’t the popular one, I was a pretty studious person”, and the thing is, is I hear that so often it feels like most people thought they weren’t the popular one, and most people thought they were pretty studious. DELAYNE : Oh, well, I was popular like Daria. Everyone knew who I was. I don’t remember any of them, but all of them, when they see my mother, ask how I’m doing. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Ah, okay. DELAYNE : So I was Queen of the Nerds, and everyone knew me, but I was still a nerd. DARKWICCAN : Were you voted any sort of – DELAYNE : No. DARKWICCAN : - hyperbole – no? I was. I was proudly voted Most Eccentric of my senior class. DARKWICCAN : I’ll buy that, yeah. DELAYNE : Yeah. That was – I mean, it was one of those things were like the drama kids all, y'know, like that was our torch that we carried every year. At least one of the drama kids, ‘cause, y'know, it was a male and a female, one of the drama kids would get Most Eccentric. So I was very, very proud to have continued to carry that banner my senior year. I was also elected secretary of my senior class, and that was weird because I wasn’t running. DELAYNE : [laughter] Ah. DARKWICCAN : So, yeah. The thing is I couldn’t even take part in the student government because I was in theater, and theater clashed with the student government period, so I literally attended three student government meetings, and then I was just like, “I have rehearsal, you guys, I can’t do both of these things” and they never replaced me. So I’m in the senior yearbook with the student body government as the senior class secretary, hanging out like, “Yep, apparently this is my title”. DELAYNE : Nice. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah. I went to a performing arts high school, so I think that also sort of explains a lot of it. But, anyway, so you were in the high school band, though, weren’t you, Delayne? DELAYNE : Yes, I was a pep band director pretty much all for years, I was the drum major my senior year, and I was also the band librarian. DARKWICCAN : Kinky. DELAYNE : [laughter] I had my own room, like I spent my lunch hours in the band room, in my own room. DARKWICCAN : You had your own office, or was it just like… a room? DELAYNE : It was a small room with filing cabinets full of – DARKWICCAN : Okay. DELAYNE : - sheet music. But there of course was a table, and somehow we acquired some seats from the back of a van, we had some van seats, so it was quite popular hang out spot. DARKWICCAN : Yeah. DELAYNE : Well, the music tech had its own room next to my library and that’s, y'know, where all the amps and electronic equipment was stored, so. DARKWICCAN : Ah. DELAYNE : But they didn’t hang out in there. DARKWICCAN : No, no, they hung out in the library with the cool librarian, pep band leader gal. Ah, so anyway, so that’s a little bit about us and our high school days. Shall we dive into the stories that we are here to discuss? DELAYNE : I believe we should, yeah. DARKWICCAN : Alright, and this week I’m gonna kick things off, so stand aside. [laughter] You get to kick things off a lot, this time it’s my turn. DELAYNE : [laughter] Have at it. DARKWICCAN : So, y'know, there’s this common saying that high school is hell, and it’s essentially true. I think, y'know very few of us look back on high school and go “yeah, I want to do that again”. [laughter] There are elements I might not, wouldn’t mind doing again, but none of them have to do with anything involving grades. So the first story of our show today is my first pick, and it’s called ‘It's Not Hell, It's Purgatory’ by FloingMachines. And this is a typical high school fic. We’ve got Waverly and Nicole as high school students, I believe Wynonna is a year ahead, I believe that in this instance Nicole is a year ahead of Waverly, I think it’s a junior/senior type situation – DELAYNE : That’s what my notes say, yeah. DARKWICCAN : Yeah. And in this one Nicole has moved to town, has moved to Purgatory, am I right about that? DELAYNE : Yes. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, okay. Like, am I remembering the wrong story? DELAYNE : I’ll give you a hint: all of them start with Nicole moving to Purgatory. DARKWICCAN : Oh, good, okay, yeah, alright, good, alright. So, yeah, that’s one thing you run into, y'know, when you’re dealing with a common trope, is there are elements that you’re gonna bump up against each other as being a bit, y'know, repetitive. But as long as each writer is tackling them in their own way, it’s always very fresh. So the thing that I really liked about this is, first of all, it’s got some problems, and that’s not what I like about it. [laughter] But let me, I will explain why I’m able to get past this issues, and get to why this story kind of grabbed my attention and held onto it. So it’s got, there are quite a few grammatical and usage errors, which normally for me would be like “No!” y'know? “I can’t”. But it’s clearly written by a teenager, I’m pretty sure a teenager is writing this, and it’s very clear in the language, and the formula of the writing. But that’s what I like about it. This is an authentic take on what it’s like to be a teenager, and how everything is very high stakes, even the smallest things seem to be high stakes, and misunderstandings happen constantly, and things that really shouldn’t be a big deal are blown out of proportion, and, y'know, everything is really intense. The feelings are strong, and that’s what I really like about it is it is a real, genuine, as I said, authentic representation of high school relationships. Whether it’s a friend relationship, or a romantic relationship, it really captures that level of intensity that truly only exists in your teens. DELAYNE : Okay, so, that, I’m glad to hear you say that, because as I was reading it, as well, that was my impression, is that the person writing this, was very near high school themselves. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah. If not in high school, had just graduated, maybe only a year or two out, yeah. And the writing is good enough that I’m able to forgive the occasional grammar and usage error that pops up. Or maybe a little more than occasional, but, [laughter] again, and what’s nice is as you read, especially once you get up into the double-digit chapters, as you get closer to, y'know, the high teens and nearing the chapters twenty and above, that they’re improving, their writing is improving. It’s getting clearer, they may be working with a beta reader, they may not, but it feels like they’ve got some guidance going on in the background that has really cleaned up their writing, and improved it. Y'know, errors still exist here and there, but the way that they’re describing things, and communicating the information, and conveying feeling has gotten a lot more, what’s the word I’m looking for, it’s gotten a lot more… clear and… DELAYNE : Concise? No. DARKWICCAN : Eh, no, not really concise. I mean, yes, but no. DELAYNE : [laughter] I’m terrible with words, which is funny because I’ve taken Latin and English Word Origins, but, yeah. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : But whatever the word I’m looking for, y'know, it’s just you really see that they’re improving as a writer, and because they were doing a good job of keeping my attention from the beginning anyway, the fact that the writing just improves over time is just a bonus. DELAYNE : There is one thing that had to sort of suspend disbelief. Is that – DARKWICCAN : Sure. DELAYNE : - the tiny town of Purgatory has a Starbucks and a McDonald’s. I just – [laughter] ‘Cause the tiny town I grew up in only just recently has a Starbucks and a McDonald’s. DARKWICCAN : [laughter] Well, y'know, why not. And the thing is Starbucks are popping up everywhere now, they’re like acne, they just appear. And, I mean, McDonald’s has been that way for ages, y'know, I mean, I don’t have the same degree of experience of growing up in a small town that you do, I moved around quite a lot, but in the small towns or the townships near where I was living at any time – DELAYNE : That was like the only thing – DARKWICCAN : Yeah. DELAYNE : - that was there – DARKWICCAN : Was a McDonald’s. DELAYNE : - was a McDonald’s. DARKWICCAN : Yes, like, so I can totally believe that, y'know, Purgatory would have – DELAYNE : That’s true. DARKWICCAN : - one McDonald’s, and one – DELAYNE : Okay. DARKWICCAN : - very small café, Starbucks. DELAYNE : You’re right, I’ll concede that, I got stuck into my own, y'know, growing up scenario. DARKWICCAN : Yeah. But, yeah, so this piece is unfinished, and it’s currently at chapter twenty-two. The most recent update was November – DELAYNE : November. DARKWICCAN : - of last year, 2017, so it’s been a minute, but it does seem like they tend to space out their chapter postings pretty substantially, ‘cause they’re constantly apologizing about the delay between chapters. But, honestly, I’m up to chapter twenty-two and it’s a relatively quick read, even given the number of chapters, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, I don’t feel like I’ve been left in a place where I’m like, “ugh, c’mon”, y'know? They didn’t really leave on a cliffhanger, and so it’s, I think just as it is, up to chapter twenty-two, it definitely needs to be completed, but it’s not like if you – you don’t go into it and end up on the other end with it unfinished going, “Oh, c’mon!” y'know, so. DELAYNE : [laughter] There is a bit of a, kind of a darker story line, some violence, I don’t know if it’s, I don’t remember looking at the tags… DARKWICCAN : Champ is an idiot and does a stupid, dangerous thing. DELAYNE : Right? DARKWICCAN : That puts Nicole and Waverly in danger. But the interesting thing about it is in this story Champ’s dad is a police officer for the Purgatory Sheriff’s Department, so, and he’s actually kind of in a high level position – DELAYNE : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : - so Champ – DELAYNE : Except – DARKWICCAN : - screwing up, and – DELAYNE : Uh, it’s – DARKWICCAN : Yeah. DELAYNE : It’s said that “he is Nicole’s father’s boss”, so it makes it sound like, it doesn’t say he’s the Sheriff, but it makes it sound like he’s possibly the Sheriff. DARKWICCAN : Maybe he’s like the under Sheriff, or something. DELAYNE : Maybe. DARKWICCAN : Y'know? Yeah. But that’s something that I also like, the fact that Nicole’s dad is a cop, and perhaps that is something that something that is going to inspire Nicole to pursue law enforcement as well. But, yeah, it’s just, it’s a good story, it does, again, because it’s written by a teenager, or someone who was very recently a teenager, there are some scenarios where you’re just like, “This is, god they’re blowing this out of proportion”, but when you realize that it’s because they’re behaving the way actual teenagers behave, it gives it that element of like, “But I get it”, y'know? DELAYNE : Right? DARKWICCAN : But, yeah. DELAYNE : Yeah, these, I felt a little older reading these High School AUs, like, oh, it’s been so long. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : So, yeah, let’s talk about the one’s that you chose, Delayne. DELAYNE : Let’s talk about ‘Too Young to Be So Scared’ by JNS. DARKWICCAN : Oh, that’s a good one. DELAYNE : And in this one we have Nicole moving to Purgatory, but this Nicole is a very, very different Nicole than we are used to seeing. Definitely different from how she is in canon. DARKWICCAN : Oh, yeah, absolutely. DELAYNE : So this Nicole has been bullied, and has left her former – her mother has taken her from, I assume, the city – has left the city, taken her out of school, and moved her to this new town because she was bullied, and some other – DARKWICCAN : Are you trying to tip-toe around – DELAYNE : Yeah, I was - DARKWICCAN : - the major – DELAYNE : - should I just say it? I don’t know. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I think well, this Nicole is an incredibly anxious and very mildly paranoid, and she’s got a lot of psychological trauma. DELAYNE : Yeah. And so it starts out, Nicole isn’t moved into Waverly’s class until a little bit, maybe a couple of weeks, it’s not specific. So when she starts out the school year she starts in like a lower level English class, and then gets moved to Waverly’s class, and that’s how they meet, is Waverly, being a star pupil, is like, “here, you can look over my notes, I’ll get you caught up”, so. I mean, within the first scene, when they’re going over notes and Waverly’s trying to catch her up, they’re in the library. This is one of my favorite things, is like, “wait a minute, I recognize that name”, and of course Waverly’s instinct is, “oh well, you’ve heard about my sister”. ‘Cause I have older siblings and there is, when people know about your older siblings they can make a lot assumptions about you. So Waverly assumed Nicole had already heard about the Earp name, about Wynonna, but it turns out Nicole has already checked out quite a few books from the library, and Waverly’s name is already signed out on a lot of them, so. DARKWICCAN : Yeah. DELAYNE : Or “W. Earp”. DARKWICCAN : Mhm, mhm. DELAYNE : So they bond over nerdy stuff. DARKWICCAN : Which is really sweet, and Nicole, in this story, is very, very sweet, and you do really feel, you can feel her anxiety and her nervous energy really coming off the page. JNS does a very, very good job of capturing that sort of always present baseline anxiety that exists for her, and it does come from the fact that she was bullied at her old school, that’s part of the reason that events occur that led to her mother pulling her out of that school and relocating to entirely different town. One thing that JNS does really well is she captures those moments where it tips over that baseline anxiety and starts to fall into the realm of panic attack. So, again, like Delayne was saying, the fic that I was talking about, ‘It's Not Hell, It's Purgatory’, the same here with ‘Too Young to Be So Scared’, it’s a bit of a darker sort of storyline. But it’s really, really nice to see how the two girls gravitate towards each other, and really support each other, and help each other, because not only does Waverly help Nicole, Nicole really helps Waverly too. DELAYNE : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : So it’s not a situation of one person being a burden, or thoroughly dependent on the support of the other person, it’s very much an equal partnership. Which is awesome, considering that in a lot of stories like this it always seems like there’s the one hero character who is there to support and carry through the damaged character, y'know. So it’s really nice here that that’s not case. DELAYNE : Yes, JNS definitely writes the anxiety very well. And as a person who has anxiety, that did make this a little more difficult for me to read, but I do like how Nicole also starts to work towards a better place, and not just because of – well, also because of Waverly, but she actually goes and gets help, and that’s super important. I can’t imagine if I read fanfic in high school, and if I had these sorts of high school AUs to read when I was in high school, like, it would have just changed everything, y'know? DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah, you would have been like, “Wait a minute, I’m not alone, I’m not the only one dealing with this stuff?” DELAYNE : Right? DARKWICCAN : So that is also a –yeah, it’s in progress. DELAYNE : Yes. Update was just a couple days ago. Chapter Eleven. DARKWICCAN : Mhm, yeah, and it looks like they’re planning on wrapping it up in thirteen chapters, so they’re two chapters away from competition, so possibly by the time this episode airs, it’ll be complete. DELAYNE : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : But do mind the tags, there are some warnings for potential triggers, as Delayne said, if you are a person who does deal with anxiety this might hit a little close to home, but I think maybe for some it could be cathartic, maybe for others it’s a trigger, so – DELAYNE : Right. DARKWICCAN : - proceed with caution. Alright. So swing back over to me, my second pick for today is a piece called ‘Sick Lullabies’ by aprilsnowstorms. And once again, we have a scenario where Nicole has moved to town. [laughter] In this situation, they are in the same grade level. What I like about this is one of the tags for this story is “Nicole longboards because she’s gay”. That just really cracked me up. [laughter] So, Nicole moves to town, and she’s checking out Purgatory High School, and this is the day before she’s due to start, and she’s sort of wondering ‘round the grounds and she sees a weathered and old flier from the previous school year, either for a pep rally, or for try-outs for the basketball team, or cheerleading, or something, and she sees this sort of faded image of the Head Cheerleader, who we know is Waverly Earp, but she doesn’t know that. And the next day she shows up to the school for her first day and immediately runs into, or rather, is run into by, Wynonna and Doc, who are both seniors in this story. Nicole is a junior, and Waverly’s a junior, and we find out very quickly that Wynonna and Doc are a couple, and they are total stoners. DELAYNE : [laughter] ‘Cause they’re like making out on her locker – DARKWICCAN : Yes. DELAYNE : - and she’s like, “Uh, can I get in there?” [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Which leads to a funny little misunderstanding, if I recall correctly. DELAYNE : Yes. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : But Wynonna immediately takes to Nicole, and even though she’s a senior and won’t have any classes with her, she says, “y'know, let me introduce you to my younger sister Waverly, she’s in your year, and she can show you around, she’s really great like that.” And sure enough, she takes Nicole down to the gymnasium, where the basketball team is practicing, and Nicole has her eye on joining the basketball team, because she was a star player at her former school, and in the process of seeing the sort of bo-hunks in the form of Bobo and Champ, who are star players on the Purgatory team, sort of getting in a fight with each other because they’re stupid, [laughter] she sees Waverly come in to try to break that fight up, and of course immediately it’s like, “actual ray of sunshine, Waverly Earp”. And so one thing I really, really enjoyed about this story, I know I’m always saying “the one thing I enjoyed” but it’s true, there’s always one thing that really stands out for me. So, for this story, it was all of the internal sort of slaps on the wrist that Nicole gives herself about just being too gay to function, y'know? [laughter] DELAYNE : There’s a lot of gay panic. DARKWICCAN : There’s a lot of gay panic, yeah, and it’s really, really, it’s very funny. But, y'know, this piece is also unfinished, it is, it hasn’t had an updated since, gosh – DELAYNE : October. DARKWICCAN : - October of last year. And so I’m starting to worry that maybe this author isn’t coming back, I’m really hoping I’m wrong about that, but I do have to be honest - DELAYNE : It just has so much great potential, that I – DARKWICCAN : It really does. It really, really does. They’re only three chapters in, but in three chapters it’s almost twenty thousand words, to give you an idea of just how much they’re putting into each of these chapters. And it’s so good, it’s so well-written, and again, they’re just getting started, I was, when I put this on the list I really thought that it was the beginning of a steamroll, y'know, I thought that they were really going to be posting really regularly and that at this point we’d be much further along, or even the story would be done. So, y'know, I do say with fair warning, this is an unfinished fic, they are only three chapters in, they’re really just getting going, don’t know if they’re coming back, really hope they are. There’s not much more I can say except that it’s very likely that whoever requested the fantastic Skater!Haught Wayhaught fan artwork from Diana Benitez, where Waverly is sort of nervously standing on Nicole’s skateboard and balancing by pressing her hands onto Nicole’s shoulders, it’s very possible that this artwork was inspired by this piece, by this fanfic. Not necessarily that Diana Benitez was reading this fanfic and was inspired, but rather a reader of this fanfic commissioned the work from, or requested the work from Diana Benitez. I’m going to post a link to this image because it’s just, it’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect and yeah, oh god, man, please come back, please come back aprilsnowstorms, and please, please, please, I know we never put pressure on authors, this is really just me asking as a fan of this piece – DELAYNE : You’re just sort of putting it out into the universe, ‘cause it’s – DARKWICCAN : Exactly. DELAYNE : -not you’re emailing, or – DARKWICCAN : Right, right. DELAYNE : - commenting – DARKWICCAN : Exactly. DELAYNE : - saying “do it, give it to us now”. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, no, no, nothing like that. I’m just putting the good word out into the universe, and maybe, maybe, she’ll be able to come back and keep the story going. ‘Cause it’s just so good, it’s got such a great start. But that’s enough for me on this one, because there’s not really much more to say. DELAYNE : Well, I do have a few notes in that this one is a little different from the others in that Nicole’s parents are together in there, ‘cause – DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that’s right, that’s right, ‘cause in the others there tends to be a divorce thing going on. DELAYNE : Yeah, and it’s weird in ‘It's Not Hell, It's Purgatory’ they just talk about her dad, so that’s one not specific as to both of her parents are there, but this one like clearly states her loving parents are like, just decided to up and move, so. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah, that’s true, I think this is the only one where we have a double parent household for Nicole. But, yeah, in ‘It's Not Hell, It's Purgatory’, my first pick, it’s definitely a single father situation. DELAYNE : Okay, I guess I didn’t pick up on that. I was looking for it, and I’m, y'know, generally oblivious of things, so I’m not surprised I missed that. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Okay. So why don’t we move along to your next pick, Delayne? DELAYNE : [laughter] Alright, my next pick just posted the final chapter like, what was it? Yesterday? DARKWICCAN : Yeah. This is complete. It’s the only complete of the four of our choices today. DELAYNE : I had to scribble out my notes, I had nineteen out of twenty, I’m like, oh, nope, now it’s twenty out of twenty. It’s called "The Things Life Throws at Us" by BootsnCatz and TheGAYnerd. DARKWICCAN : [sings] BootsnCatznBootsnCatznBootsnCatznBootsnCatz. DELAYNE : So this one after Nicole’s parents divorce, partly because Nicole’s father is a dick. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Oh, my god, I want to punch her dad in the face. DELAYNE : Her family moves to Purgatory her senior year and Nicole was a popular jock at her old school - DARKWICCAN : Basketball, of course. DELAYNE : - basketball, of course – and she gets super cocky with her student guide, who was being a nerd, and Nicole brazenly hits on all of the girls in front of this student guide, who, of course, is Waverly. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Mhm. DELAYNE : I love when it’s revealed that Waverly is in fact a cheerleader and Nicole’s brain just goes “whoop”. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that was pretty fricking sweet. DELAYNE : But in this one Nicole has siblings and… DARKWICCAN : So, coming from her old school she had to leave her girlfriend behind, and her girlfriend at her old school was Shae – DELAYNE : Who was a head cheerleader as well. DARKWICCAN : - yeah, also the head cheerleader, and so y'know she came from this situation where she was kinda, y'know, the top dog, so now she’s in Purgatory and she is nobody, essentially. So I found it really interesting that she just dove right into flirting with girls. DELAYNE : Right? DARKWICCAN : Because for all she, y'know, this could be a true redneck town where people don’t cotton to that, y'know, and so that was quite daring of her to just be like, “I’m gonna hit on anything in two legs and skirt”, y'know? That was pretty – DELAYNE : This Nicole kinda reminds me of what I’ve heard about my wife in high school. [laughter] And she was out in a town that the graduating class of hers was twelve, so surprisingly no one seemed to care, and I know she had a girlfriend, but it was just like, yeah, so it’s believable to me ‘cause I happen to know someone. DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Not, I guess, y'know, I have to think about “this day and age” as opposed to, y'know, living in Alabama in the nineties. [laughter] It’s one of those things where it was known, everybody knew, but I wasn’t like vocally out. DELAYNE : Right. DARKWICCAN : You know what I mean. So, everybody knew, and I did have my fair share of fun, but I certainly didn’t have a girlfriend and, y'know, like I mention in a previous episode, I had a fake boyfriend, y'know. So, and again, that wasn’t anyone’s benefit except the true redneck, but anyway, anyway, anyhoo. So what about this story really stood out for you, Delayne, ‘The Things Life Throws At Us’? DELAYNE : This is one at random. It’s not like the main thing that stood out, but I just feel the need to make a comment about the bumper sticker on the truck, that I believe it’s Wynonna’s truck. It says “Ass, gas, or grass, no one rides for free”. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Nice. DELAYNE : And it’s – DARKWICCAN : That’s a very Wynonna bumper sticker, that’s definitely not a Nicole bumper sticker. DELAYNE : It’s funny because at work someone has that sticker. [laughter] I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it walking through the parking lot. I didn’t even know this sticker still existed, but it’s like a sort of new, updated version. It has little like pictures, even, and I’m like, oh, my god. DARKWICCAN : So here’s what stood out for me from this story. First of all we’ve got an “enemies to lovers” situation happening with Nicole and Waverly. Also we’ve got a Waverly who is at least internally out to herself. She is, y'know, she knows that she’s interested in girls, she knows that she’s probably at least, y'know, bi, if not fully gay, and so we don’t have that element in the coming of age story of a self-discovery, it’s like, “No, I know who I am”. It’s just more of a, “I know, I’ve come to terms with it”, it’s more of just a “now I have to do something with this information”, and “am I ready to do that”. So I thought that was really interesting, and I also liked getting to know Nicole. Because we get to Nicole kind of as Waverly gets to know Nicole, and, y'know, she goes from this very brash, flirtatious – DELAYNE : A bit of a stereotype. DARKWICCAN : She, yeah, she goes from the stereotype to being the Nicole that we know, but it’s a process. And it was really enjoyable to watch that, or read – well, yeah, read about it, but really it feels like watching it happen. DELAYNE : What stood out to me is actually siblings, so not just Nicole siblings, which is an interesting take, but also how it portrays Wynonna, that is a very unique way to – I mean, it’s not unexpected, but it’s still sort of like surprising, I guess. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, Wynonna’s got a bit of a dark storyline. DELAYNE : She’s dealing with some shit. DARKWICCAN : And she’s dealing some shit, so. DELAYNE : [laughter] Ah, right, literally. DARKWICCAN : Literally. So, yeah, she is definitely making some bad decisions and it takes the influence of both Nicole and Waverly to – and also Nicole’s sister – to kind of get her back on track. So I thought that was an interesting choice, too, of really having her be a bit of hot mess. But not the hot mess that we know from the show, a hot mess but in a different way, and for different reasons. DELAYNE : Yes. DARKWICCAN : So I love this story, so much. It is so good, I’ve actually said on the Twitter feed that this is the contemporary High School AU, and I should, and I am underlining contemporary here because I am not pulling in, I don’t consider the 80s Mixtape AU to be contemporary, because it’s the 80s. So that’s in the past, this is a contemporary story, so I think that this really is the contemporary High School AU to rival the others, for sure. And I would love to pick the brains of – DELAYNE : Braaaiins. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : - the two authors who came up with it. [laughter] Yes, brains. DELAYNE : I just – the way you said that, I couldn’t help myself. DARKWICCAN : So luckily we can do that. DELAYNE : Yay! DARKWICCAN : Because yeah, we talked to Bootzcatz and TheGAYnerd, and they have agreed to come on the show for the second segment today and chat with us about this story. So I’m very excited to get to that, but before we can of course we have to introduce our reverse sponsor. If you’re just joining us for the first time, or you are unfamiliar with the concept of a reverse sponsor, what that means is that instead of somebody paying us to promote their stuff, we are instead, out of the goodness of our hearts, providing free advertising for Earp related things. So in this instance we’re going to promote another podcast. But just a little one. DELAYNE : This weeek’s reverse sponsor is 10 Minutes in Purgatory. ADVERTISEMENT MUSIC : Thrash Pack by Darren Korb MJ : 10 Minutes in Purgatory is the bite-sized fan podcast that provides re-caps and reviews for every episode of Wynonna Earp in just ten minutes or less. Hosts Jennifer Nine and Jennifer Earp provide insightful commentary and surprisingly comprehensive coverage of each episode's events, despite the limited time-frame. If you need to get caught up on a season of Wynonna Earp , but don't have time for a re- watch, 10 Minutes in Purgatory is the perfect solution to get all the info you need, fast. 10 Minutes in Purgatory : Give them 10 minutes, and they'll give you the Earp. ADVERTISMENT ENDS MUSIC : Song of Feathers (Emily's Theme) by Erik Barone DARKWICCAN : And welcome back everybody to the Earp Fiction Addiction , the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host, DarkWiccan, and with me is my co-host: DELAYNE : Delayne! DARKWICCAN : And we are super excited today to have not just one, but two amazing authors joining us for toddy’s interview segment. The inimitable BootznCatz, and the amazing IamTheGAYnerd, but today will shall call them Boots and Fi. Welcome to the show you two. BOOTS : Hello, thank you. FI : Hello. Thank you for having us. DARKWICCAN : And we are thrilled to have you, thank you for coming on. BOOTS : Of course. FI : It’s okay, I kind of badgered Boots into this, so it’s fine. BOOTS : It’s true. She practically begged me, it’s fine. DARKWICCAN : Well we appreciate the badgering, absolutely. FI : I wouldn’t quite say begged. BOOTS : It was pretty close to it. FI : Just lots of pleases. DARKWICCAN : Aw, that’s adorable. FI : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : So, basically, just a general sort of “oh, please, please, please, please, please, don’t make me do this alone” kind of situation? FI : Don’t make – pretty much, yeah that’s pretty much the exact words. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Oh, nice, okay, great. That psychic’s certificate from Miss Cleo’s school has come in handy. [laughter] So I’m gonna ask you the question that we ask everybody: how did you both get into writing fanfiction? Fi, we’ll start with you. FI : I actually started with Andromeda fic that I wrote last year, and it was terrible. And then kind of left, because it was just, it was bad. And watched Wynonna Earp , and kind of had an idea in my head that started out on a theory that I’ve got on Waverly’s heritage, actually, and felt, “do you know what? Let’s give it a go” and there you go. It was birthed. That was how it started. DARKWICCAN : And what was that fic? FI : ‘Crimson Nights’, which I haven’t finished. DARKWICCAN : Okay. [laughter] And Bootz, what about you? BOOTS : Well, it all began when… no, no, I was, I think I started with Lizzie McGuire fanfiction, when I was like eleven. DELAYNE : Oh, that’s awesome. BOOTS : It was so embarrassing, I started off reading it, it was like the AOL chatboards, that was like “look at this” and I was “ooo, what is this, this un-new thing that’s happening on the internet AOL kids’ chats”. And I like discovered there was a whole website for it, and it just kinda snowballed from there, really horribly. But it’s great, it’s great. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I would say definitely not horribly, Boots, you’re probably one of the most prolific authors of fanfiction currently – FI : Can I just say, “Hah! I told you so” at this point, I’m just gonna say that right now. [laughter] This is an argument we have quite frequently. DARKWICCAN : So today we’re talking specifically about your fic that you’re collaborated on, called ‘The Things Life Throws At Us’, which is a contemporary high school alternative universe story. I have personally called it the contemporary high school universe story that is the standard by which all others should be set. FI : Thank you. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, absolutely. So, and it’s a collaborative work, which is great. DELAYNE : Yeah, yeah, being that you both have your author’s name on it, what made you two decide to write this together? FI : It kind of stemmed from a conversation we were having. I think I was watching a film and I went on a bit of a rant about how there was never a girl meets girl fic – not fic, film – and you never get, y'know, the girl meets the girl and they fall in love, it’s always a girl meets guy, and all this sort of thing. So I went on a bit of a tangent about that, which Boots then joined me on, and it kind of burst from there really. I just had an idea in my head of, well, what if we did this with Wayhaught, that would be pretty cool, and I don’t know if you will have seen it, but my idea for Nicole actually came from Nathan, from One Tree Hill? And that sort of dynamic between Nathan and Haley, that’s how it all started in my head which is kind of where it snowballed from, so. DARKWICCAN : So, Fi, it was your idea to start with, and then you brought Boots on board to come and play? FI : Well, this was like, I would say both of us, but I kind of came up with I suppose the initial sparking point of “why don’t we write a fic”, like that was like my idea to kind of like join on the fic together. Whereas at developed from a conversation between me and Boots. So I’d say both of us, but I kind of was like, “let’s write it down and show the world”, so. DARKWICCAN : Gotcha. Very cool. Yeah, one thing I really like about this story that you’ve come up with together is that you have a lot of different tropes at play. Not just the high school AU, but other kind of popular tropey-ness that is coming into play, but you put your own twist on it. My favorite one is that you have Nicole and Waverly start off on the wrong foot with each other, and between the two of you, whose idea was it to tackle this from an Enemies to Lovers angle? FI : Like I said before, obviously it came – in my head it came from Nathan and Haley, and obviously they didn’t start off on the right foot, but I kind of wanted to add some more angst to it, because me and Boots love the angst. So it was maybe, y'know, they literally hate each other, like can’t stand the sight of each other, and kind of worked from there because we kind of felt it made more of an interesting story. Because obviously – and it’s nothing against any other fics, but obviously a lot of the other fics it’s kind of they meet and there’s this instant attraction and it develops from there, and it’s usually a friendship and things like that. But we wanted to kind of do something a little bit different, and thought, “hmm, let’s make them hate each other”, so. [laughter] DELAYNE : It is an effective trope, I definitely enjoyed - FI : Yeah. DELAYNE : And Nicole’s, I mentioned in the first part of the show, Nicole’s character reminds me a little bit of what I’ve heard about my wife in high school, so I enjoyed that part. [laughter] Now, now, there’s a character that you have written, and that would be Wynonna. You have made some daring choices, particularly Wynonna being a drug dealer, so I’m curious were you influenced by the series and the comic book canon, was it just a matter of, y'know, extrapolating Wynonna’s not so great decision making, but more to an extreme? FI : Boots, that’s back to you. BOOTS : I guess, for me, I think, since we don’t know a whole lot about her background growing up and all that stuff, this could very well be close to canon, something that she would do, just because she does seem like the type that would do something really stupid if she thought her only option, or something that, y'know, would help her get to her goal that she going for, even if it wasn’t the best decision. So I think that, I just, in my head, it just felt like something that like, hey, maybe a younger version of her would do this, y'know. And what would that look like. FI : And we wanted it to kind of be away, didn’t we, from somewhere. We didn’t want her to have gone travelling, we wanted to like, we were talking about being in a psych ward, or being in prison, sort of thing. So we were like, didn’t know which way we were going, and then Boots came up with this idea, and just kind of rolled with it. DARKWICCAN : Well, I think it absolutely added a certain degree of depth to Wynonna that we haven’t seen as far as in her backstory. I mean, Wynonna’s clearly a very deep character, we know that from the show, and the series, and she definitely has a lot of, y'know, dark history, so I think that this was a bold and interesting choice for you guys, so yeah, I thought it was really interesting, I liked it a lot. FI : Thank you. BOOTS : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : So, speaking of the television series, juxtaposed to it, your Waverly has internally self- identified as being queer. So was this element put in place to avoid dealing with the standard coming to terms with your sexuality part of the story, or was there a different reasoning behind the choice? FI : I know Boots has got her own answer for this as well, but for me it was kind of I’ve read so many times the whole story of Waverly being this “oh I’ve met this girl, I think I like her more than a friend”, and kind of come to terms with it that way. Whereas I thought it would be interesting to see it maybe from the other point of view of “well, I’m bisexual, or gay” however she identified, and her main concern was actually the people around her and what they think. Kind of coming at it from a different angle, that she’d accepted herself, but she was struggling with how other people accept her. BOOTS : Just for me, personally, the whole like coming out thing, and I’m sure a lot of people can identify, we’ve done it, we’ve been there, we do it all the time, it sucks. It’s not fun, I don’t feel the need to write about it all the time, or the need to re-hash that in myself all the time. It’s obviously a reality for, y'know, a ton of people, but sometimes it’s nice to just have a story where it’s there, and it’s accepted, and it’s okay, for once. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, totally, totally, totally agree with you, absolutely, yeah. DELAYNE : If I had come to terms a little bit earlier I probably would have been in the same position as Waverly, y'know, so I get it. [laughter] But I want to bring it back to Wynonna, and – DARKWICCAN : Wynonna was Delayne’s favorite in this story, you guys, if you can’t tell. [laughter] FI : She was pretty cool, I did like her too. I have my own favorite, but we’ll get onto her. I have a feeling. [laughter] DELAYNE : You have a feeling maybe it’s this question? But having Wynonna enter into a relationship with Nicole’s older sister, was that something you had in mind from the beginning, or did it come out as you were going along? BOOTS : It – we definitely did not plan it. We planned it where she, y'know, like, the whole like flirting, and fun, flirty friends, whatever – FI : Domestic Nicole. BOOTS : - but then, y'know, but then other people started being like, “hey, like, are they going to get together?” like, “blah, blah, blah, blah”, and we were like, “you know what? They’re really cute”. FI : Yeah. BOOTS : Because we wrote them super cute, and I hate it, and I hate it because I love it so much. [laughter] And so we were like, “let’s just – are we gonna do it? Yeah, let’s do it”. So we did it. And we forced them to get together. They kinda did it to themselves, really. FI : Yeah, I was gonna say, it was about that first chapter where you kind of introduced Wynonna into the bedroom, and JC’s sat there, and she’s like, “oh, who’s this?”. ‘Cause that started out a kind of a bit of thing where it’s like, ‘oh, I’m going to mess with Nicole a little bit”, but then the way Boots wrote it there was like definitely some attraction there, kind of a bit more in depth, and I noticed when I obviously read through the chapter before it got posted, and I was just kind of like, “I like this. I don’t know why, but I like this a lot, it’s very cute”. And it kind of went from there. It was so cute, the way you wrote them in that chapter was just, I was like, “Oh, my god, I love them”. [laughter] DELAYNE : And I also like how Waverly and Nicole definitely have different views about the relationship. [laughter] FI : Yeah, they – BOOTS : Y'know, it’s – FI : Sorry, you go, Boots. BOOTS : Oh, no, I was just gonna say, I think it’s the worst thing that has ever happened to Nicole. [laughter] FI : Yeah, yeah. She hates it, like, she’s like, “get off my sister, what’s happening?” But I think for her, as well, like because of how we wrote it, she, Nicole’s never had to kind of she JC doing all the dating and things like that, because that’s not how, well, it’s like Boots, because you kind of came up with the idea for JC, and you should tell everybody how you picture her, ‘cause she’s very adorable, and cute, and I want to take her home and look after her forever. BOOTS : I mean, I don’t know, just in my head she’s like this super nerdy girl, like she wasn’t like unattractive or anything, obviously she’s hot, but, y'know, she in elementary school she like sat on the bench and like read a book, and hung out with the teacher instead of like playing with the other kids. And that’s just kind of how her life, like, her life was always kind of like, “it’ll be better when I’m older, so I don’t have to worry about this stuff now”. So she was just like focused on school, and reading, and like that kind of stuff, and so she was like uber nerd, but like the stereotypical like hot nerd, I guess. FI : Like take the glasses off, and it all changes. But she was – BOOTS : Once the glasses are off, she’s a smoke show. FI : But, yeah. And obviously Nicole’s not used to that, because she’s never seen her dating, things like that, because like JC saw the bigger picture of “well, in my future I’ll have time for all that stuff when I’m older” so. But, I think that’s why she possibly hates it so much. DARKWICCAN : So, so, in your mind, Boots, was – it sounds like JC was mostly your creation – was, in your mind, was she always tracking toward like being gay or bisexual, or was that just something that came out of the flirtation between her character and Wynonna? BOOTS : Yeah, I never intended her to be, to skew that way in any way. I mean, if anything, I always intended her to be kind of just like asexual, I’m here for my sister. DARKWICCAN : Mhm. BOOTS : I guess the moral of the story is I’m incapable of writing two attractive people talking to each other without them falling in lover. [laughter] I think that’s really what we’re getting at, here. DARKWICCAN : Oh, my god, oh, man. BOOTS : You’re hot, you’re hot, get together DARKWICCAN : Well, well – well speaking of their, about JC and Wynonna’s relationship, were you using their relationship as sort of a foil to Waverly and Nicole’s? What dynamics were you trying, or hoping, to showcase in what makes both relationships either work or not work? FI : You take this one, Boots. BOOTS : So, both Wynonna and JC are very self-conscious, in their own ways. Kind of Wynonna in the way that like, “I’m not good enough, I’m a fuck up, blah, blah, blah”, typical her, and then JC in the sense that, y'know, “I’m just a nerd, blah, blah”, y'know, kind of thing, like, “no one likes me”. And so I think that they both internalize those a lot, they don’t talk about them because they just see them as a truth instead of an insecurity, and so they both are thinking these things about each other, like, “oh, well, she doesn’t like me ‘cause I’m not good enough”, and “oh she doesn’t like me ‘cause I’m just an uber nerd” when really, y'know, they’re just self-sabotaging themselves. And I think that’s the difference between them, and Nicole and Waverly, because with them, they do obviously they have their insecurities, but for the most part they have their – they’re secure enough to talk to each other about these kind of things. Whereas the other two are not, like their whole lives they’ve just kind of been very internal with it, and not talked about it with anyone. DELAYNE : Definitely self-fulfilling prophecies. BOOTS : Yeah, exactly. FI : I mean, in terms of events, they were the ones that were helping Waverly and Nicole like sort their shit out, sort of thing, but can’t seem to see it with themselves. BOOTS : Like they’re great with other people. FI : Yeah, can’t see it with themselves, so, it’s kind of… I can’t think how to word this. DELAYNE : That seems appropriate and true to life. FI : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that’s one thing about the Wynonna and JC relationship, it seems very, very real, and very authentic, y'know, they’re having genuine issues that would absolutely come up when you have these two different personality types in a relationship together, and like you say, not communicating. I think you set up JC and Wynonna to be a post child type situation for what not to do when you’re in a relationship. Don’t clam up, don’t keep things to yourself, you actually need to air things out, and talk them out. FI : Yeah, definitely. I think everyone’s done that at some point, I know I have, so. DELAYNE : Well, I would not know what that is like at all, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. [laughter] FI : No. It sounds like it. DELAYNE : So another thing that’s interesting to me is when we have Shae in a fic, y'know, ‘cause on the show Emily made it clear that it was important that Nicole’s ex was not, y'know, some caricature, and y'know, she’s a real person, not a bad person, but trying to do the right thing. So it’s interesting in your story how you made Shae superficial and manipulating, so I’m curious, the process behind that. FI : Do you want me to take this one? BOOTS : Yeah, you can start. FI : Okay. BOOTS : If I have anything to add. FI : Basically that was kind of me, sort of my fault. [laughter] Don’t hate me! I kind of had this idea of, when we were talking about the story and where we wanted to go with it, I had this idea of kind of having something that would possibly tempt Nicole to want to go back to the life she was living in L.A. before she moved to Purgatory, and something that would kind of hold significance for her to want to do that, after she’s like met Waverly, and is starting to fall for her, and things like that. And obviously Shae would be the kind of prime example of this, ‘cause obviously she was with her for a long time, and loved her in some weird way, and it was just, we knew we wanted to bring Shae back, and I just wanted her represent this old Nicole. So she was then in a position where she was torn between her new life in Purgatory, and her old life in L.A. And I kind of wanted, in my head I wanted her to make a conscious decision of, “okay, who am I going to choose”, maybe without realizing it until later on, but I wanted to kind of go, “wow, my new life in Purgatory with Waverly is kind of where I’m going”. And I wanted to have like a bit of an internal struggle because we kind of have points in our life where we have that, where it’s like, well, it would be easier and comfier to kind of stay where I am, rather than do the daring and put a foot in future and the unknown. So I just wanted to bring that to them and unfortunately Shae was who I decided to use as part of that. BOOTS : Yeah, I guess, I mean, I would like to preface this by saying in all my other fics I’m very careful with Shae, and any other potential love interests that come into Nicole’s life, as far as not making them a villain. Because I don’t like the whole like, pit girls against girls for girls, kind of thing. But in this, I mean, look at the beginning, look at Nicole in the beginning, she’s kind of an asshole too. I think it’s just a matter of people are really different in high school than they are in real life. And I think that - DARKWICCAN : Yeah, and plus being from L.A., y'know. [laughter] BOOTS : Yeah, exactly, I say, I’m from L.A. FI : L.A. people, impossible. DARKWICCAN : I’m from Burbank, so, yeah. [laughter] BOOTS : I’m in West Hollywood, I’m right there. Anyway. So, yeah, it’s just a lot of, I think that, y'know, maybe the Shae in canon could have been a bitch, back in the day. It’s possible. So, we’ll just go with that. FI : Don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, Boots, but she might make an appearance again, and it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s gonna be a bitch in the future… DELAYNE : We have a hint of what’s to come. DARKWICCAN : Is there a sequel happening? ‘Cause I thought you guys wrapped this story up? FI : We did but we have – BOOTS : Well, there’s the sequel, where Nicole gets back with Shae. [laughter] FI : Yeah, she dumps Waverly and leaves. DARKWICCAN : Don’t joke like that, you’re gonna have people jumping on you - FI : I know. DARKWICCAN : - claws out, man. BOOTS : It’s twenty years in future, they have three kids together. [laughter] DELAYNE : You really wanting that mail to come in, those messages coming at you. DARKWICCAN : No, I think Boots is flexing her Emily Andras troll muscles. [laughter] FI : And she has good ones, trust me. BOOTS : When you learn from the best. DARKWICCAN : So, can I ask how your collaboration works, is it that you take turns writing chapters, are you hashing out the outline for each section together, how do you approach your collaboration? FI : Boots, you can go, ‘cause you came up with the idea of how we were gonna do this, ‘cause I was all very new to it. BOOTS : Well, we started out with yeah, an outline, we basically just hashed out the outline for entire thing before we started, y'know. The end was a little vaguer, like we had basic points we wanted to get to, and where we wanted to end, but as far as like the big stuff in middle, it kind of formed later. So yeah, we just wrote the huge outline together, and then we go back and forth, and switch between writing the chapters, and then, you know, we’ll bounce ideas off each other, like, “bleh, I don’t get this, help me”, and then we’ll, “eh, do this”, y'know, typical – FI : Well, a lot of the time I’ll be like, “I’m stuck with this, and in my own head, help me get out what I need to get out –“ BOOTS : Yeah. FI : - so we kind of just talk and it’d kind of come from there. And I don’t know how this worked, how it started, but me and Boots both kind of, when we were writing a chapter, we just kind of go with the flow, and an idea would come out and be like, “oh, well, I’ve put this in, I hope that’s okay” and then, obviously, because we beta each other chapters before it got posted and everything. So a lot of things in there kind of just went with the flow of the chapter, as well, like we had the main points of where we wanted to go, but anything in between – BOOTS : Yeah. FI : - we were both just kind of like, yeah, just go with where your mind takes you sort of thing. DELAYNE : Was there any elements that took either of you by surprise, from the previous chapter posting? BOOTS : I feel like there has to be at least one thing. FI : Yeah. BOOTS : That we were like “whoops, sorry about this”. [laughter] FI : Yeah, that did kind of happen. BOOTS : There you go. FI : The thing for me, like, that I did to you I think, was with Nicole’s dad. BOOTS : Yeah. FI : I was like, “oh, I’ve just thrown him in there ‘cause I needed something to happened, we hadn’t in our outline, I was like, “I need some sort of catalyst” and I was like “I know who it can”. ‘Cause we hadn’t really visited him - DARKWICCAN : Right. FI : - much, we kind of introduced him and then kind of left it there, so I supposed that was some sort of closure for Nicole as well, maybe. DARKWICCAN : Yeah, Nicole’s dad. What a bastard. What a – FI : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : - grade A - FI : Yeah. He was an asshole. DARKWICCAN : - like, yeah, you guys didn’t really have a villain for the piece, for the most part, it was just sort of day-to-day living, and growing together in relationships, and things like that. Growing together, growing apart, going through the school year. So there wasn’t really a true villain, but if you were to have had a villain, I think Nicole’s dad really would have qualified. FI : Yeah, he took the number one spot, for sure. DARKWICCAN : Oh, absolutely. [laughter] BOOTS : He’s kinda the worst. FI : Yeah. DELAYNE : He officially gets the title of “The Worst”. FI : He does, yeah, definitely. And I’m going to blame Boots on this, ‘cause like, we like to create angst, and she created a monster in me, ‘cause I was like, “I don’t know, maybe we should be nice, and make it pretty”, and she was like, “No! Torture them! Give the all the emotions!” [laughter] BOOTS : I wouldn’t say that those are the specific words. [laughter] FI : “Give them all the emotions” maybe not, the torture one was maybe me. [laughter] BOOTS : I think that was – yeah, that was reading the subtext in my words, I think. FI : Yeah. Making my own words. DARKWICCAN : Okay, well, this has been an adventurous, adventurous interview, this had been a ton of fun, getting you guys sat down and to chat with you about this terrific, terrific, terrific, terrific, amazing, contemporary high school fic, ‘The Things Life Throws At Us’. Guys, if you can’t tell, I’m a huge fan. [laughter] FI : I hadn’t noticed, no. DARKWICCAN : No, not really? I’ve been trying to be cool about it, y'know, trying to kind of keep it on the DL. [laughter] But it’s all, it’s yeah, I get super excited chatting with authors who like, it’s one of my favorites, so. [laughter] FI : Thank you. DELAYNE : You’re literally bouncing up and down right now. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : But anyway, anyway, anyway, we’ve kept you long enough, I think. You know, at least one of you has a golf tournament to get to, or something, so. [laughter] BOOTS : I mean, it’s Dinah Shore, it’s close enough. [laughter] DARKWICCAN : Exactly. BOOTS : Same difference. DELAYNE : It’s supposed to be a golf tournament. DARKWICCAN : It’s supposed – yes. BOOTS : Is that what’s happening? Is that a thing that actually happens? [laughter] DARKWICCAN : It used to be. BOOTS : I’m sure there’s golf tournaments somewhere. DARKWICCAN : But at any rate, so, but before we let you go to go golf, or not golf, I have one final question. And this question is just for Fi, it’s just for Fi, because Boots, you get to hold off on answering this for a while. But I hope you’re ready, Fi, I hope you did your research, ‘cause I think you know what’s coming if you listen to the show. And it’s our final question, the question that we ask all of our authors at the end. And that is: you’re stranded on a desert island, and can have only one fanfic to read. What is it? FI : Ah! Well, it’s actually ah… what, no, I’m gonna do it. It’s actually ‘Wishin’ and Hopin’’ by BootznCatz. [laughter] BOOTS : Ugh. FI : And she’s sighing, I can feel the looks of disapproval. [laughter] And I did run this past her, because she was like, “Oh, no, ‘cause I’m not that great”, but I dunno I just like, I love it so much, I can’t even, ‘cause the different kind of perspective from Nicole, and I’m sorry Boots, I’m sorry. It’s just kind of like her internal struggle, like it tackles stuff about mental health, the big details like she goes into with it, it’s like I’m watching a film right in front of me, and it’s, ugh. People are probably gonna be like “what, how can you do this” but in a way it kind of runs parallel with the 80s AU for me as well. But I think it just clinches it, because there’s just something, I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something about this story that just dragged me in, and obviously I get to beta it as well, so maybe that might have a little bit to do with it. But it’s just such a good story, and it’s had me gripped from literally the first day when Mal was kind of like “oh, I’ve got this idea, so let’s go for it, and see how it goes”. And I was like, “yep, right, fine, I’ll read a chapter”, and I just instantly fell in love with it, so. DARKWICCAN : I can completely agree with you. FI : Yeah. DARKWICCAN : I can absolutely completely agree with you, and tell you that is an excellent choice. ‘Wishin’ and Hopin’’ has held my absolute attention from the first line. FI : Definitely. And there’s just something in every chapter, its… ugh. I can’t, I can’t put it into words. BOOTS : I know we were saying that Nicole’s dad is The Worst, but I think Fi is The Worst right now, so. [laughter] FI : Thank you, love you too. [laughter] It’s fine, you can yell at me later, so. BOOTS : That’s true. DARKWICCAN : Well, as always we will be providing a link to ‘Wishin’ and Hopin’’ in our show notes as your selected desert island fic, so thank you for sharing that with us. Okay, well thank you both so much for coming on the show, it has been fantastic chatting with you. Boots, have a fantastic time at Dinah Shore, Fi, have a fantastic time - FI : Having an evening with my cat. DARKWICCAN : - with your cat. And can’t wait to see what comes next! FI : Thank you, thank you very much – BOOTS : Thanks, guys. FI : - thanks for having us. It has been fun. And I’ve fangirled just a little bit, just a tiny little bit. I kept it cool. MUSIC : Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan DARKWICCAN : And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction . Thanks for joining us. Huge thanks to Bootsncatz and Fi (aka, theGAYnerd) for coming on in our second segment to discuss their story 'The Things Life Throws at Us'. Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro and to MJ for this week's reverse sponsor spot. Background music for the episode was: A Proper Story and Thrash Pack by Darren Korb; Song of Feathers (Emily's Theme) by Erik Barone; and Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan. If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com. And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction . Until then, READ MORE FIC!