Latest / Deep Trope Fantasy & Romance Podcast / The Fanfic to Fairy Smut Pipeline
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Deep Trope podcast, where we go deep into fantasy and romance books, one trope at a time. We're your two book besties gushing over plot, characters, Easter eggs, theories, and of course, our favorite spicy moments. I'm Rachel, Romantasy Theorist. Kate: And I'm Kate, lover of all things dark and spicy. Rachel: and we wanted to do a little intro episode before our first deep dive starts, which will be Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen. Kate: Should we give them our meet Rachel: Okay. We started the same job on what was supposed to be the same day, but I was characteristically two days late. Kate: typical Rachel. Rachel: we worked together at a marketing agency for several years before discovering our shared interest in romantasy, which came out as most dirty little secrets do after several cocktails at my wedding after party when I leaned across the table and said, you need to read this spicy little fairy book that I'm taking on my honeymoon. Kate: And that grew into happy hours and brunches where we continued to gab about romantasy and dark romance books. Rachel: And at the same time, I started a bookstagram and BookTok because I was fully obsessed with Fourth Wing and I needed to talk about it. And I started having similar conversations with friends I met online. And one day over happy hour, we had the idea that maybe we should put a mic in front of ourselves and open up that brunch invite. Kate: We were ready to be loud and proud our love of genres. So ⁓ if don't have a book bestie to yap with, we're hoping to be that for you. ⁓ And you do have a community of readers, then maybe we can just be part of that and offer another perspective on some of our favorite books. Rachel: That's right. Absolutely. So Kate, you've been a reader your whole life. What's your bookish background? Kate: So my love of reading, like many millennials, did start with Harry Potter, but it continued to grow with dystopian young adult series like Uglies, Hunger Games, Divergent, you know, all of that good stuff. I always gravitated though towards the darker stories. ⁓ often indulged in a little fan fiction ⁓ readers could explore the characters and the universes ⁓ our favorite series. beyond the established storyline and also beyond the boundaries of young adult, right? I mean, listen, we all know fan fiction gets ⁓ wild. So I enjoyed that. Who needs them, right? So I definitely enjoyed that. I loved just getting to... ⁓ Rachel: No editor, no editor, no publisher. Kate: live even intricate stories in these universes that were built so well and that I really enjoyed. So it honestly was such a wonderful welcome for me realize how big romantasy genre is. It's been here, right? It's not this a brand new thing, but it feels like it's growing so much these days. I just love that it feels like fan fiction with higher production value, know, ⁓ especially the dark romance books, and I'm just so here for it. Rachel: love that. And that's such a good way to describe it, where it's like this community for women, know, not that it's exclusive to women, but certainly it created with women in mind and and ⁓ stories that will resonate with women, which is just so refreshing, especially in the fantasy space. like you, ⁓ I was always a reader and really started my obsession with Harry Potter and the Potter Midnight Releases. I vividly remember getting my first Harry Potter book in third grade when it first came to the United States and was obsessed from there on out. And then as an adult, my next big series obsession was Outlander, which my mom handed me the first Outlander book when I was in college, 2010, as I went through the security line to board my flight to live in Scotland for six months. Kate: We love Rachel: it was... Kate: a supportive mom. ⁓ Rachel: know Bon Bon really is a real one. She's always supported my romantasy journey. ⁓ Kate: Amazing. Rachel: I really ramped up my reading in November 2024. And if you know what I mean, I really started clinging to my books for dear life. my fan fiction journey actually started in 2024. I did not read fan... No, not as a horny tween. I started with Manacled. Kate: not as a horny tween. Rachel: and I just wanted like a comfort series and TikTok knew it and kept sending me Manacled because you know it's a Harry Potter fan fiction and it was giving me that like familiar without being Harry Potter you know and being something that was meant for adults so I was deep into like Dramione and then Wolfstar which is Sirius and ⁓ Remus months before literally showed up at my door like a romantasy evangelical and handed me all three fourth wing books and said you read these now. Which is a good book bestie. Kate: This is only kind of door-to-door pressure that I'm interested in, by the way. If you want to show up at my doorstep with a new book, I will not slam the door in your face. Rachel: True. So I was officially part of the cult and then ⁓ think I did the same thing to you. Kate: You sure did. And I love you for that. Rachel: So yeah, I was the manacled fourth-wing BookTok pipeline for sure. in this we've discovered so many books that we love and so many tropes that we love ⁓ are consistent in a lot of our favorite books. So Kate, what is your favorite trope? Kate: Absolutely enemies to lovers. I just think the tension is so delicious. Just eat it up. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. And I cannot get enough of it. It's luckily one of the most prevalent tropes. So there's plenty for me to devour, but I just think that the tension is so good. Rachel: Yes, we love an enemies to lovers, love tension. And I love when that comes to life in a he trains her moment. Like when it's the enemy and he's training her or it's a surly man who's training her. I love it. It usually leads to a good girl. Kate: Yeah, that's good. Rachel: All right, let's get into what you can expect on the podcast. Kate: So we're going to be deep diving our favorite books, starting, like Rachel said, with Dire Bound in the lead up to the second book in the series, Fury Bound. We'll provide our reflections and a plot summary, as well as theories and Easter eggs. Rachel: Each episode, we'll tally up the tropes in that section of the book and play some fun games like fuck, marry, kill for some of the characters we met that episode. This podcast is meant to have the vibe of brunch with your girlfriends. So we will be getting into our favorite characters, ⁓ maybe some shadow daddies and also our favorite spicy scenes. Kate: Yes, please. So we hope that you join us that you either learn something from a new perspective ⁓ just ⁓ to experience your favorite books again through our lens. Rachel: Pull up a seat, we're happy to have you.