Meet Camila! She is a 24-year-old fanfiction author and fandom member from Brazil.
How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since I was 14, but in Portuguese – my mother tongue. I started to write in English in 2015, but only started to post online in 2016, thanks to Shadowhunters.
How did you get involved in the Shadowhunters fandom?
One of my closest friends is a huge fan of the books and she knew I liked YA novels. She also knew I would hate [The Mortal Instruments ] books with a burning passion, so she tricked me into reading [The Infernal Devices ] by gifting me the three books and writing things in random pages. I read all three in a week and fell in love with Magnus Bane.
That was right when the show had started, but I was traveling. I suffered through the first three TMI books and was determined to never again touch anything rune-related [again], but then I came back home and binged five episodes of Shadowhunters. I haven’t stopped since.
What is the appeal of fanfiction to you?
I’ve been involved with fanfiction since middle-school, which adds around to about 10 years now. For someone whose dream is to be a professional writer, fanfiction is the best writing school I’ve ever had. There are no boundaries regarding theme, structure, or readability. I can just write whatever I want, however I want, which means I get to experiment and perfect my writing every time.
And then, I get an immediate response from the people reading it. Just as I put work and time into my stories, someone on the other side of the screen gives me unbiased feedback because they are also experts on the subject. If a character is OOC, if a screw up a storyline, they’ll know. You don’t get this kind of dedicated coaching from anywhere else.
What character or aspect of the Shadowhunters world makes you want to write?
I tend to write alternative universes, which is not to say that I don’t like the canon universe; I love it. But what really attracts me are the character dynamics. I write Malec most of all, but my goal is to never reduce a story just to the romantic aspect. It’s a driving force, but so are the other relationships these two characters have. Magnus and his chosen family of the Downworlders, with both good and bad people in it. Alec and his siblings, his shields and swords that help him navigate the Shadow World. I think Shadowhunters has a number of interesting dynamics that are worth exploring in all kinds of scenarios.
What emotion do you most like to write and why?
It isn’t a single emotion exactly, but I love to write defined character arcs. So, anything that has a character going through an inner journey from one point to another is my jam. I don’t have a favorite genre either. As long as it feels organic to the character arc, I’ll love writing it.
What is your favorite fanfiction trope?
Friends with benefits, for sure. There’s something about a relationship blossoming after the characters became friends and had sex that appeals to me. If I had to guess, I would say it’s all about the intimacy of this trope.
What ships do you ship, and why do you love them so much?
Well, from Shadowhunters, I ship Malec exclusively. Aside from them, almost everything (that doesn’t involve incest, erasure, or abuse) goes. Perks of being a multi-shipper: the more beautiful people on the screen that hook up, the better.
What has been the best part of your fandom experience so far?
The fact that I’ve made real-life friends from all of this lovely mess. Friends that I talk to every day and that I’ve met in real life as well. Second best part is that writing for this fandom gave me the confidence I lacked to pursue a Masters in Creative Writing in English. I’m pretty excited about that.
What’s your favorite scene you’ve ever written?
It’s the last scene from a fic called ‘Trust Me.’ I set up to subvert a trope I hate – Person A sleeps with Person B to screw with Person C – and I was pretty happy with the result. The last scene is based on the saying ‘People say trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.’ I wanted to show that ‘forever,’ in this case, is not unattainable. Breaking someone’s trust isn’t a death sentence and if you work hard, you can make it up to them. I think the final scene of that fic passed that message pretty well.
Share with us an out-of-context line from one of your fics.
“Chairman, meet your future dad, Alexander.”
Like what you see? You can read Ketz’s fanfiction on Archive of Our Own, or follow her on Twitter and Tumblr.
