Rite of Passage

[trinityofone]

There comes a time in every young fangirl's life when, should she still reside amongst the chalk-dust lecture halls and book-dust libraries of academia, she must pick up the mantle and write an academic paper about slash. And for me, brothers and sisters (mostly sisters), that time has come.

Basically what happened was this: my popular literature class had a guest lecturer, Prof. McCarthy. She was giving a talk on Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite Corpse (which, embarrassingly, I still have not been able to find), and in doing so, she talked about serial killers in both history and literature, and provided us with some great quotes. (One of my favorites, Paul Anthony Woods on Norman Bates: "He registers in our hearts as one of the most loveable sickos of pop culture.") Then she showed us selected postings from the Yahoo!Group JeffreyDahmerClub. If you click on the link, which I do NOT recommend, you'll see some of what she showed us: people (mostly women) talking about how much they love Jeffrey Dahmer, how they feel he was just misunderstood, how hot he is--all very serious and earnest. I was, needless to say, disturbed by this. Especially because one of the first thoughts that entered my mind was: "Jesus, these people must've been on Yahoo!Groups talking about their love for a serial killer at the exact same time I, fresh-faced and 17, was there posting about my love for Spike."

...At which point I would like to take a time out and say: Fuck you, David Fury.

But ANYWAY...just then Prof. McCarthy said something about how both serial killers and their fans exhibit an "obsessive and insatiable" need for more, more, more. And then she brought up slash.

Slash readers and writers--the term was of course defined for the giggling audience, with the inevitable Kirk/Spock example and an increase in giggling--exhibit, said McCarthy, the same need for more of their chosen type of media: more story, more sexual tension, more sex. Brite, not a slash fan, has bemoaned the fact that while "real" writers will work hard to "create real, complex, multidimensional characters with lives that need no 'improvement' by the peanut gallery, all some readers really want is for [the characters] to fall into a huge rutting jizz-drenched scrum" (Fan Nine from Outer Space). Prof. McCarthy didn't specifically disagree with Brite; mostly she just drew the obvious connections between sex and violence, making, IMO, rather too big a deal about the possible violent connotations of the word "slash." I really wasn't quite sure what she was trying to say, actually; but more than that, I was disturbed that my mind had made the leap from Jeffrey Dahmer fandom to our fandom first, and without being prompted.

After the lecture, there was a question and answer period. I debated whether I should say anything--I didn't want to "out" myself to a room full of strangers, and I wasn't sure how to neutrally phrase a question, or even what I wanted to ask. Finally, I raised my hand and mumbled something about how, while I definitely saw the connection between obsessive-compulsive, insatiable behaviour and slash fandom, didn't Prof. McCarthy think it might have less to do with violence, and more to do with (here I stumbled, wanting to say--I think--love) romance novels? You know, the type little old ladies check out from the library, the type with Fabio on the cover? Prof. McCarthy conceded that this might be so. Class dismissed.

I left unsatisfied. I thought about just going home and writing a bitchy, dismissive post about how we are NOT like that. Yet I was still bothered by the fact that my brain had made the connection first. And what are we, if not obsessive and insatiable? What does that make us--serial readers? Serial writers? Why do we do what we do?

So I went to Dr. Jones' office hours and outed myself as a slasher.

The meeting began less than promisingly, as he greeted me by saying, "Aren't you the student that asked the question about Fabio?" I admitted that I was, and that yes, I am from Berkeley, and that yes (feeling quite the stereotype), I would like to talk more about the gay porn, please.

Dr. Jones said he was "fascinated by this phenomenon known as 'slash.'" I said I was quite an expert, but that the lecture that morning had made me think about why we did it--why I did it. One of our class' essay titles is "Write an essay on why you think formulaic writing is so popular"--could I, I inquired, write an essay about slash?

His response was enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic. Did I mention that I rather adore him? I do, I do.

Anyway, he introduced me to Prof. Silver, whom he called "the university's resident slash expert." Unfortunately, this is not an actual tenured position--too bad, 'cause nice as Prof. Silver was, I could totally have beaten her out for it. She really didn't know much about internet fandom at all, but she gave me a great book--Constance Penley's NASA/TREK, which I highly recommend, despite the fact that it's old and thus deals mostly with 'zines--and even better, a lot of encouragement. In return, I gave her links to some classic fandom stuff--she'd never heard of the Very Secret Diaries! *gasp*--and, when pressed, some of my own stories. (Yikes!) When I come out, I come out hard--bringing the clothes, the hangers, and the dust bunnies with me.

So now--

The short version: I now have just over a weak to write a paper about Why We Slash. I think I can pull together the more academic, sociological sources, but for the rest, I need your help. I want this paper to be different from other writings about slash and fandom: I'm not going to distance myself; rather, I'm going to get permission to write in the first person and include myself in the analysis. I don't want to be yet another judgmental outsider looking in (or down) on "this phenomenon known as slash"; I'm a part of it, I'm not going to deny it, and that gives me a unique perspective.

But I need other people's perspectives--other people's insights--too. So, fellow fandom folks: if you could take the time to answer the following questions, I would be deeply appreciative.

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

If you want to provide info about age, gender, sexual preference, when you entered fandom or how long you've been in it, it would be interesting and useful, but obviously, I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. With that in mind, anyone who'd prefer to take this out of a public forum can also e-mail me at kaufmaa@tcd.ie . You can also comment anonymously, though I'd appreciate it if you could provide me with some sort of alias in case I choose to quote you.

With that in mind: unless you tell me otherwise, any quotes I pull will be attributed to your LJ username (minus the LJ distinction, of course.) So if I were quoting myself, I might say: "'I'm in it for the porn, baby!' said one writer, trinityofone. 'Porn, porn, porn--that's what the internet is for!'"* If you'd prefer to be quoted under a different name, just tell me what it is. But don't get too panicky: this paper will most likely be seen by no one other than Dr. Jones, Prof. McCarthy, Prof. Silver, and myself. And we're all very discreet. ;-)

Finally, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. Which is to say: the red light is on, I have multiple varieties of condoms (some are flavored!), but right now I'm all by my lonesome, so I need you to pimp, pimp, pimp. Also, if anyone knows of any communities where I might be able to rustle up some participants, that'd be fab.

So in conclusion: let me know if you have any questions, and thanks in advance!

*Actually, I read slash for the articles. 'The' is a good one; so's 'a.' ...And after that display of dorkery, we're all going to pretend this footnote doesn't exist.

Comments

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

No, this is fantastic. Thank you so much!

[riani1.livejournal.com]

Feel free to quote if you like. I'm female, 44, married to my Hubby for twenty years, got started in the fanfic thing back with Star Wars when I saw how damned hot Han Solo was.

1a) Some stories leave you wanting to know more. I've been wallowing (there's no better word) in Harry Potter fic recently, and I recently mused on how many fic-possible levels there are. There's the whole wizarding world, of course, but there are also collections of characters to explore: the Founders, the teachers and their histories, the Marauders and the parents of current students, and the current students. All their stories intertwine, all their backgrounds are relevant. The current war with Voldemort involves more than just the kids. One starts mulling the possibilities and wants to see what talented writers can make of things.

b&c) I suppose I don't make much of a difference between shipper fic and slash fic. In my world, "slash" just means a relationship between people not explicitly paired in the canon of the show. Basic shipper fic lets you play mix and match with the personalities of the characters, seeing how they play off each other. I personally prefer m/m stories because we don't get to see many such stories in the current world. It's not so much "hotties getting sweaty"--really explicit stuff gets boring for me, it all just becomes choreography after a while--but the emotional relationship. Men in our world don't get to express feelings that often. I'd be very happy if there were more stories about strong men falling for equally strong women and vice versa. Until then, I really enjoy watching two strong guys get to the point where they can let down their guards. Tough guys with authentic feelings are very watchable.

2. I'm not sure I understand the question. I will read good writing even if the relationships don't go one step beyond what was expressed in canon. However, if the writing isn't good (interesting plot, engaging characterization), I won't read stories about my favorite pairings. It's not enough to "see" Spike and Xander snuggled together if the writer hasn't given me a plausible reason to be together or if they're unrecognizable characters in familiar masks.

3. I've never tried to articulate the difference between writing and reading. I've done a lot of writing, primarily in the Buffy/Angel verse. I write because I don't want to lose the stories in my head. I love playing "What if" with the characters and seeing where they lead, especially when they surprise me. I've gotten fairly hooked on sharing the stories and seeing people enjoy them, but the writing happens because there are things in my head that I need to clear out to make room for more stories. It's the story, first and foremost, in reading and writing, who did what, and why. When I read, I want to believe in what I'm reading, be pulled in and care what happens.

4. I wondered if there were other people out there interested in what I was interested in. Primarily I was looking for an audience for my writing, to see if it sucked or not. I'm not widely active in fandom activities, just keeping passing track of what's going on. I stay for the people. I've never met any of the folks in the three-dimensional world, but I've sent and received wonderful notes and gifts. Internet friends can be just as real and loving as meatspace friends.

5. I honestly believe that you have to be a better writer to pull off slash. There are tremendously talented writers who do only gen or canon relationship fics, but on the whole you need more ambition to start pairing off people in new combinations.

Maybe it's because strong characters are appealing, and most of the strong characters you see are men. Yes, there are exceptions, but having to point out the Buffys and Zoes etc. makes the fact that they're exceptions more noticeable. Men don't have to explain why they're off having adventures, and adventures are fun.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! There's tons of excellent stuff in your response--I really appreciate it!

[randomeliza.livejournal.com]

Okay, wow. How incredibly interesting! I fully believe that someday this particular area of interest will move from being this thing that people are a bit reluctant to share their interest in to just another hobby, like building model airplanes or painting very small portraits of one's pet on a grain of rice - kind of geeky, not something most people are interested in, but not frowned-upon. And people writing academic papers that acknowledge it as a legitimate, non-Jeffrey-Dahmer-fannish interest, will help it along faster. I definitely want to read what you come up with - I hope you'll post the paper when you're done?

As for the questions... I'd like to have a think about them and get back to you. It seems worth actually taking time to do. (I'm totally not going to use this to procrastinate in doing translation for Latin. Not at all. *whistles innocently*)

Oh, and... *waves hi* I've friended you because I love what you write, and now I'm finding it comes with all sorts of cool bonuses. Like an academic look at slash, for instance.

[randomeliza.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've decided to quit doing Latin in favour of your survey. I'm 20, female, pretty much hetero. I've been in fandom since... has it been since 2002? Holy god. Since 2002. And now to the survey:

1. (a) Fanfiction in general I got into for two reasons: first for the value as a means of escape, like any other sort of fiction; and second because when I stumbled across it I realised quickly that a lot of the fanfic was better-written and more fun to read than the TV show itself. People can write whatever they want in fanfic, without having to worry about a budget or whether the audience will watch it.

(b) Fanfic with romance is the next natural step up from gen fanfic. I honestly enjoy well-written romance of just about any pairing, although I have to like the characters to be able to enjoy it. When I first started reading it, it was mostly because there was a pairing on the TV show Alias that I really loved, but that the show’s writers just completely overlooked. There were so many wonderful possibilities with this pairing, and it seemed like the only people who saw it were the fanfic writers. Like genfic, it’s a means of gaining some control over characters that you care about.

(c) Slash for me is pretty much the same as het, even if most people would find that odd. The same thing that drives me to read het pairings I care about – the desire to see two characters that have chemistry actually act on that chemistry – drives me to read slash. It’s just that it’s… not heterosexual. And of course there’s the fact that a lot of shows I love are really lacking in strong female characters. This wasn’t the case with Alias, but in some fandoms there’s maybe one or two female characters at all, let alone well-written, likeable female characters. Being willing to accept slash opens up a lot of possibilities for really cool stories. Then there’s the added bonus that there are so many really, really, really good writers who are into slash pairings. With het pairings you often have to sort through a lot of crap to get to really well-done stuff. This can be the case with slash as well, but not usually. And last, there’s the porn. Come on, you didn’t think I wasn’t going to mention it? When it’s well-written, it’s absolutely gorgeous, and as a straight female I have no problems admitting that I find the idea of two guys together incredibly sexy. Of course I’d enjoy reading about it.

2. (a) I’m not sure that they differ from each other that much, at least not for me. I just like reading well-written stories. Admittedly, at the moment I’m reading more slash than het, but it varies any given month.

(b) Slash varies from the source material more than het, in general (obviously), so I guess I’m able to view slash as even more separate from canon than I am het. Slash, in most cases, is about as escapist as you can possibly get. It’s not going to happen in canon, nobody expects it to, so there’s rarely angst about it not happening the way there might be with a het pairing. In the Harry Potter fandom, for instance, I don’t think anyone expects there to be a scene in book seven where Harry and Draco are duelling and then suddenly snogging frantically on the ground. Whereas with some het pairings, there can be a lot of resentment towards the writers of the show or the book for not seeing it the way the person backing a particular pairing sees it.

(c) I’m not under the delusion that men in real life are as (a) repressed as they are sometimes portrayed in slash, or (b) having nearly as much gay sex as they are portrayed as having. (Of course, there are more gay men in the town where I live percentage-wise than just about anywhere else I’ve ever been, so who knows – maybe I’m just not aware of it.) Things don’t happen in real life the way they do in slash – but then again, things don’t happen in real life the way they do in het, either. That’s why they’re both called fiction. However, if two guys started making out in front of me, don’t think I wouldn’t enjoy watching. It’s just not terribly realistic for me to expect it.

[violin-road.livejournal.com]

I am actually going to answer your questions at ... some point that is not now, but first I am going to babble at you some more about Poppy Z Brite and serial killers, because that's pretty much what I do with my time.

First of all, seriously, £5.59 on amazon.co.uk. Cheaper used, even! It's absolutely worth it; you'll either be absolutely in love with it or so horrified you're delighted (my reaction depends mostly on the day). I mean, seriously, any book that's someone going "Well, what if Jeffrey Dahmer (except from New Orleans, and fabulously wealthy, and a drug addict, because Poppy's characters are nothing if not distinct from each other) and Dennis Nilsen fell in love?" can't be all bad. Also, angry gay rantings, and more bizarre expression of Poppy's yellow fever! (No seriously, the one time I read a short story of hers and the gay Thai kid was listening to the Cure? I actually started laughing it was so clear this kid would be dead in ten pages.) And ... now I'm really regretting not bringing it back with me when I went home this past weekend, woe.

Also, for the record — and Certain Friends of mine and I have, in fact, discussed this at length — Jeffrey Dahmer? As serial killers go? Totally hot. I mean let's be honest here: Dahmer (http://www.tornadohills.com/dahmer/renamed2/dahmer811.gif). Gacy (http://www.prairieghosts.com/gacy.gif). Fish (http://killer.radom.net/~sermord/images/mordercy_FishAlbert1.jpg). Take yer pick.

... Okay, that particular descent into perversion over. Can I just mention the fact — and I'm sure I've mentioned this before; I've told evadne_ about seventeen times, and I'm pretty sure she's the one who told me — that after Poppy decried slash, she published this (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2846260311/ref=ed_oe_p/102-2647160-1958518?%5Fencoding=UTF8) (that version not available, actually; if you want it you'd have to shell out for the hardback. Just linking so you can see the cover art! Which is ... not the hardback's cover art at all ;)). It's kind of blatantly awful, and really blatantly fanfiction, and ... I really want to hate her for it, but I just can't bring myself to. Also, on that note, I don't suppose this guest lecturer of yours actually gave you a source for the Poppy-decrying-slash thing? Because I know of it, but only heresay.

But at any rate, I think the link between serial killing and slash writing is ... tenuous, at absolute best. Yes, there's an insatiable desire for more more more, but so there is with alcoholics, so there is with fashionistas, so there is with wine conniseurs and people who watch seveteen TV shows a week and the Grateful Dead fans who are currently getting angry because the band shut down a bootleg site. So there is with the fact that I have actually handed my wallet to other people before heading into the Sanrio store. So there is with the fact that I own NSYNC lip gloss.

That someone would, in a professional, academic capacity, draw parallels between desire — and the creative expression thereof, no less — and murder ... I see where she was coming from, but that strikes me as absolutely wrong, especially talking to an (essentially) uninformed audience.

I mean, I can take that with a grain of salt — I've been reading (and occasionally writing) slash for ten years; I've curled up with serial killer stories when I'm feeling mopey; I've read a fuckload of Poppy Z Brite. I'd probably have been cracking the fuck up during that lecture.

But a group of students who had to have slash defined for them, then being told it's just like serial killing? That is 100% Not Kosher.

Also, she obviously knew nothing about X-Files fandom (or most, really, but that one sticks out in particular) if she thought this sort of thing was exclusive to those of us who like The Gay Sex; let me tell you, man, the 'shippers were at least as scary as the slashers.

So basically um: grr, argh. And good luck on your paper! And yes, I will pimp this out for you. :)

[randomeliza.livejournal.com]

Also, she obviously knew nothing about X-Files fandom (or most, really, but that one sticks out in particular) if she thought this sort of thing was exclusive to those of us who like The Gay Sex; let me tell you, man, the 'shippers were at least as scary as the slashers.

Not just the X-Files fandom, yo. In the Alias fandom (back when the show was actually good *sigh*) the shippers were a hell of a lot scarier than the slashers. Mainly because there were maybe a dozen slashers and kajillions of shippers who were either twelve years old or acted like it, but I think this is the case in a lot of fandoms as well. Harry Potter, for instance. (Although anyone who's lurked on discussion of fandom - for lack of a better word - politics in the HP fandom could probably argue that...)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

23, female, bisexual in committed lesbian relationship (i met my partner, a slash writer, through fandom); in slash fandom since january 2001, or about five years. i prefer to be quoted as "cimorene" rather than "cimorene111".

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

a) for me fanfiction in general is about improving my experience of the source material--whether by simply providing more of it when there wasn't enough (as, for example, the genfic "virtual seasons" of popular tv shows), by dealing with the same stuff only with better writing, or by explaining away logical inconsistencies in canon. here i would like to refer you to mirabile_dictu's essay, "why read? why write?" (http://www.livejournal.com/users/mirabile_dictu/39313.html?#cutid1) allow me to quote her directly a bit:

And for a long time I would have told you that I read (and wrote!) RPS because I wanted more of them. [...]

Having seen Serenity, though, I realize that's not entirely true. Yes, I wanted more LOTR, but what I really wanted was better. I realize that, at heart, I'm a tinhat and a tinkilt and a tin-everything. I read and write LOTR RPS because those silly men didn't pair up in real life.

b) the quote above is a nice segue/answer to the second item too. people want to see romantic resolutions they don't get in canon--whether that romance is actually canonical in some way or completely imaginary.

c) slash fic is much like het shipper fic in that respect--they can both deliver romance, smut, etc. what does slash offer that het doesn't, in my view? it: (1) allows and indeed forces you to indentify with a male protagonist. (2) is all about gayness (and if you're queer yourself, you may just enjoy hanging out with queer things and queer people--having your existence and your group membership externally affirmed, as it were)(of course many slashers are straight women, so that doesn't apply to them, but i think the percentage of bis seems to be on the rise). (3) is one of the few remaining reliable and efficient ways to introduce a big barrier of taboo and element of the forbidden into a romance.

those are the inherent properties of any m/m.

i want to also speak more concretely. my mother's an addict of paperback romance novels, harlequins (not the kind with fabio on the cover, but the contemporaries and regencies), and i was to an extent raised on those. i'm a romance addict, and in my opinion romance, sensuality and erotica have reached a higher evolution in [the good parts of] slash than they have in any mainstream literature. i know i'm not alone here; i've discussed it before with makesmewannadie, for example. the slash community has been a fertile environment for research and development in the field of romance for decades now, and that has paid off. once you've become accustomed to the quality of witty, well-written, subtle and sophisticated romance and erotica that slash has to offer, you will be spoiled for harlequins, and for commercially published erotica too--both of which are on a level, quality-wise, with mediocre to truly bad slash. (of course there is still loads of bad slash that's worse than anything ever published, because internet publication is free; and the bad probably vastly outnumbers the good.)

continued... i apologise for the length, but i figure you can skim and cut it all if you want, so.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

a) fic that isn't romantically focused is vastly different from fic that is. all the genres of literature exist in fanfiction too, and what you get from a romance is very different from what you get from a mystery-adventure or a comedy.

b) sometimes you get a lot of the same things from fiction as from source material. some fan writers are inspired by and devoted to canon, trying to reproduce the tone and mood and overall feel, the genre, the characterisation, the theme--even within the context of slash or shipper fic, although obviously in those two cases the canon can be slightly modified. then there are writers who aren't overly concerned with their source material at all, or who even dislike it and prefer to write according to fanon. obviously they produce very different kinds of stories, and it's possible to enjoy both, but in different ways. if you like a show and a story does an excellent job of reproducing its qualities, you will probably like the story. for fanon-based stories the pull would be something different: perhaps you like one element of the show or one idea but don't like it so much as a whole, and a fanon-based story takes the parts you like and replaces the parts you dislike with something more congenial.

c) certainly the average life doesn't include nearly as much smut and romance as slash fandom does. neither do most of the other things you could be reading as an escape.

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

for me, the process of writing a piece of fanfiction revolves around two things: canon, and me. there's canon, which i constantly refer to and think about, and then there's the stuff i'm making up--according to an inner plan, a personal wish of my own, but which i'm constantly trying to merge seamlessly with canon. writing a slash romance is about bridging the gap between where the characters are in canon (usually not even apparently gay, sometimes apparently straight; sometimes not even sharing a very close relationship with each other), and where you want to put them at the end of the story (usually in a sexual or romantic relationship of some kind). you can't just fill that gap in with whatever you want; it's about making your filler blend seamlessly across, like a gradient. in that way, your relationship with canon is very... involved, possibly dynamic and very messy, while you're working.

when i'm reading fic, on the other hand, there's the story i'm reading, there's the canon i'm comparing it to, there's me, and there's the fandom as a whole, the body of all the other literature i've read about that show, or that pairing; or all the other stories i've read with that plot, regardless of fandom. i compare the story to canon, to my own personal preferences for slash, to all the other stories that i've read.

so in a way, i'd say reading takes my thoughts further away from canon. of course, there are other ways they're different--reading is easier, more passive (though not completely passive). it rarely gives you the same high of accomplishment that writing can, but on the other hand, if you've ever felt the horrible lack of a story and eventually had to write it for yourself, you know that that is never a complete substitute to getting to read it written by someone else.

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

when i first stumbled into slash, with just one erotic forbidden gay romance story, i found it incredibly compelling. i read it over and over again, but i had no idea why i was so compelled. that feeling and that curiosity led me to seek out other slash to read, and as i got more used to it the initial shock wore off, but i still find it exciting in a way. (which segues nicely to #5.)

[fairestcat]

1- a) I get a combination of two things out of fic, I think: More time with characters I love and a different perspective on those characters. Canon is never going to explore everything about a character and their life. There just isn't enough time or plot to do more than hint at some things and all types of characters are more interesting if you don't know every little thing about them, but this does leave an opening for fanfic. What I love most about fic though is the chance to tell stories the original source would never tell, often this manifests itself as offscreen/page stories dealing with the emotional fallout of canon events. And yes, often there is sex, but in the best fic the sex is part of or an outgrowth of the emotional fallout, not just there because it's hot. But there are other kinds of stories canon will never tell too, stories that are significantly lighter or darker than the original material, AUs where one little thing is different or AUs where everything is different but the characters are the same, pastiches and crossovers and fusions; I'm fascinated by the myriad of what ifs that every good story leaves behind and fanfic is a way to explore those. b) I actually wrote a post a few days ago on what I get out of romantic fic that I don't get out of most mainstream romantic fiction, which you can find here and are welcome to quote. c) I'm queer and yes, for me, much of the appeal of slash -- both m/m and f/f -- is finding myself and people like me in the media I love. But more than that it's about finding/seeing queer characters and queer relationships and seeing them get away with it. Many of the slash pairings I'm really drawn to are in historical fandoms or fandoms where there's a distinct barrier to the characters being easily open about their sexuality. Especially when it comes to historical slash the draw is very simple and very real; I want to read about the ones who got away with it.

2- I do get different things from different fandoms. There are some fandoms where I'm really focused on the slash or the romantic fic above all else and there are other fandoms where I read almost exclusively gen. But in all fandoms I'm looking for something more than or different from what the source material gives me. For example, in Hornblower, one of my primary fandoms, I am mostly uninterested in the kind of long gen adventure stories that make up one segment of the fandom. I don't want more stories just like the source material, I want stories that give me something more, that explore the subtext that's practically leaping off the page or screen, or ignore the subtext but nevertheless take a different perspective on the characters or the world then the original authors/creators did.

4) my primary reason for entering fandom was the desire for more, more stories, more time with the characters, etc. But what's made me stay is the community. I love that fandom is a community of people who aren't satisfied with being passive consumers and instead want to be active participants in the stories we love. We discuss, we debate, we analyze and explore and we bounce ideas and concepts off of each other and we sustain and encourage each other.

5) I think fandom in general and slash fandom in particular are such a phenomenon because of the community. There is clearly something about the stories slash tells that appeals to a lot of people and fandom lets those people come together and realize that they are not alone in their interest.

I am 25, bisexual, unmarried but dating two women at the moment, and I entered fandom when I was 19 and first really got on the internet. My first fandom was fairly exclusively het, but I now read slash/het/poly and gen pretty much equally, depending on what's prevalent in the fandoms I'm obsessed with at the moment. And you can quote me as FairestCat or Cat M.

Also, massive kudos for not just going home and writing a bitchy post but actually entering the conversation, this sounds like it'll be a very interesting paper.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Thanks for responding to this, and especially for linking to that post on mainstream romantic fiction: I was looking for something like that, about what fanfic gives us that chicklit or Harlequins don't. (I was going to say "can't," but there's actually no reason why they shouldn't be able to, is there?)

Also, massive kudos for not just going home and writing a bitchy post but actually entering the conversation, this sounds like it'll be a very interesting paper.

Thanks, I'm still mildly impressed with myself that I was able to do it. I hope the paper turns out to be interesting; I'm really cursing the fact that I don't have way more time and a far greater word limit. ;-)

[gwendolyn-post.livejournal.com]

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

a) I don't really read a lot of gen: when I do, I read it in much the same way (for the same reasons) as I'd read the source or any other original fiction. Characterisation, plot, ideas, language. If I'm really engaged by the canon, I like to read gen that 1) plugs in gaps, deals with aspects of the story or its universe that don't really get much (enough) treatment in canon, and 2) plays with the basic assumptions or 'rules' of canon in cool ways. minnow1212 is one of the people whose gen writing I frequently read and come back to. I'd say that her SGA fic 'Falter' is gen of type 1); her Odyssey fic 'Ordinary' is gen of type 2). I love stories, generally, that play with/draw on/question myths and archetypes ... Wide Sargasso Sea, the poems in Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife, some Borges stories. And I love stumbling across stories in fandom that give me the same pleasure as that type of pro-fic. But it isn't why I come to fanfic; I'm here for the slash.

b) romantic 'shipper fic regardless of gender? Well, again, I don't read much het and when I do, it's very similar to my reading outside fandom. If the writer is doing interesting things with characterisation, plot, ideas and language, I'll read and enjoy it. Like gen, though, it isn't really what I come to fanfic for. The difference between this and gen is that it's more difficult for me to enjoy, because I have a number of squicks and things that just annoy me (particularly re the characterisation of female characters) when it comes to romance/romance novels of the het kind. That goes for both original writing and fanfic.

c) Slash of the m/m kind is what I come to fanfic for: in that it's what gives me something recognisably different to anything I get from my reading outside fandom. I still look for the same things - plot, characterisation, language - as I do in other writing, but slash also has something else, this extra charge I don't find anywhere else. I'm not very sure what that is though, exactly. I just find the m/m dynamic as written by slash writers fascinating. It's not necessarily directly about porn - fic in which the characters don't even kiss can still gives me same 'hit' as other, more graphic slash fic. But it's definitely fantasy-reading - it pushes the same buttons as fantasy - and definitely romantic/erotic in some sense. I think different types of slash are romantic in very different senses though, depending on the dynamic between the characters. e.g. the "best friends with snark" dynamic of McKay/Sheppard is totally different to the "epic star-crossed" one of Clark/Lex, or the "smouldering enemies" one of Snape/Harry...I get something different, therefore, from each of those different pairings (written in those ways). And the broader slash categories like hurt/comfort, slavefic, crackfic etc hit different buttons too.

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

I think I've answered a) and b) above, pretty much. c) I think slash, at least, is in one sense at one further remove from "real life" than fiction in general. I think fiction generally does reflect life but in a stylised, patterned form that is an interesting and valuable comment-back on 'life' but is also a kind of escape from it. And slash as fantasy is both more stylised and less tied-down to reflecting reality - firstly because of its very nature as fantasy-writing, but also because the "reality" it connects to and reflects is itself fictional (canon). Which is a really cool effect. Uh. Apart from which, I think slash writing - because unmediated, I guess, by the whole commercial publishing industry - is much less 'polite' and censored, offers a much rawer picture of people's views on the experience of relationships and sex than you'd get in the mainstream. Which makes it actually closer to reality, in some sense, than professional fiction.

[gwendolyn-post.livejournal.com]

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

Doesn't apply, I'm not a writer only a reader.

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

I stumbled into slash via BtVS gen fanfic: I found slash hugely satisfying so I stuck around. I'm not really sure to what extent I can say I'm in fandom though. I mostly lurk. But apart from the slash, I also find fandom as a social phenomenon - even just lurking on the peripheries of it - hugely affirming. That sense of not being a freak. :)

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

Er. Not sure. I haven't been here long enough to have any answers, even provisional ones, to that.

I wonder if the 'how to write a sex scene' list resonant8 is writing at the moment might be relevant to your paper. Because to me, at least, it reads like a deconstruction of Everything I Want From Slash.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Righty right. I'm a 28-year old woman who has been reading (and writing very little) for ten years. Also I have studied media studies and it kinda shown in the answers ;)

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

a) What tv-series etc. are the best fanfic material? Those that are not told fully. Most of them offer a whole world with deep characters and such, but the trick is to never tell all, to never "show-and-tell" every emotion pictured (like is done for example, in soaps) The producers offer the tip of the iceberg and it's up to fans to complete it. The whole point is that since every wiever fills the story with things with the most personal meaning to them, the completed stories are always more meaningful and personally revarding than what the producers could ever offer to the general public.

b) I believe that fan fics allows the readers to experience love, hate, sorrow, angst etc. in a safe, controlled environment. So it's either learning experience or just for borrowing more emotions for othervice prety dull life. I think that most of the fanfic readers and writers are emotion junkies, who can't handle the monotonious life. Experiencing emotions is, in the end, a bodily function (laughing, crying, feeling that pressure in your chest..) and body doesn't know if the emotions is "real" or "pretended". Experiencing emotions through reading fan fiction is not any less valuable than experiencing anyt other emotions.

c) men are prettier than women, and I like more being the omnipotent observer in my fantasy than actually fantasizing being one participant in the fantasy.

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

I can't answer that.

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

Heh. If I read a story where characters are OOC, I can blame the writer, but if I'm writing myself...It's a great agony to try t write as good as possible. Reading means instant gratification, writing means telling the story for yourself over and over again, wallowing in it even before you write the first word down.

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

I read fanfiction and slash years before I even noticed any kind of fandoms. I was a lonely reader reading other individual people's web pages. I enterd fandom only because I liked the original source. Years later I found different fandoms, the greatesr one being popslash. Popslash is a great fandom not only because it gathers both fan fic fans and "regular" pop fans skilfully together.

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

- In vestern countries there is no "legal" homosexual pop culture offered to young adults as there is in Japan.

- As women has been objectified for centuries, just in the latest century there has been women objectifying men outside marginal groups.

- Slash is putting in writing what has been unofficially hinted the last fifty years. What so you think that all those buddy movies were really about? Those men loved eachother more than any prop blondie any day.

- Classic hollywood cinema has made the woman to either helpless who that has to be rescued or the evil one. Slash is a manifestation of women refusing to identify with either of them but choosing to identify with an active character instead.

- There is no good female characters to work with.

- Slash can feel safer, you can seemingly remove yourself away from the fantasy, so it's not really yours. (for example, it's safer for a female to read about male rape and "try out" the feeling that follow it than to fantasize/imagine about her own victimisation.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Thanks for responding to this. Your answer to 1b? Oh yeah, very true. For me, anyway. *g*

Also, your icon cracked me up.

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Background: Who is this Grey Bard person?

I'm a 22 year old lesbian with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. I'm looking for a career in publishing, specifically comic books or genre literature. I enjoy writing, both original and fic. I'm panfictional - I read and write het, gen and slash, although I have yet to write anything stronger than a light "R" rating. I don't belong to any one particular fandom, instead hopping between them like a magpie in search of shiny things. I'm a voracious reader of fiction and nonfiction, but I particularly like science fiction, comic books, fantasy and history. Feel free to talk about my fic and myself in relation to them if you need a case study.

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic;

A) When I fall in love with a fictional universe and/or a set of characters, I'm eager to see more of them. Not only in ways that are extremely similar to the source material, but also in ways that look at and speculate upon the source material in different ways. Indeed, I'm the sort of person who says "Hey, is Star Wars really King Arthur if Mordred was the good one?". Fan fiction is an extension of my enjoyment in watching and talking about source material.

Another thing I like about fan fiction is that it allows *me* to play in preexisting universes and possibly with preexisting characters, creating something new and personally amusing. I don't think this is that strange - any storyteller can make a new Brer Rabbit or Coyote story any time he likes, and any number of famous authors have been unable to resist the lure of writing their own stories about Sherlock Holmes. Why should I be any different?

Okay, I'll be honest. There's another reason I love fic. Where else could I get a continuous flow of hundreds of cool and fascinating stories a day, based on premises and characters I already care about, for free? Reading fic is instant gratification. Jonesing for a new episode of a series on hiatus? Read some fic. Can't find any books around the house that strike your fancy, but feel like something to read? Read some fic.

There's a fourth and sort of after the fact reason why I love fic - the sense of community. You start to get to know and talk to other writers, hear them talk about writing and life and so on, and it's nice. This feeling of community between writers and readers made becoming a better writer less intimidating for me, because I could see that the really good fic writers weren't any different or more lofty than myself. Also, I could see their early works, when they weren't any better than myself, sparking the thought "Hey, if they got better, I can too!". Fic writing and fic reading isn't about worry and fear of some future editor or market, about how it will sell and can you afford to do the sequel. It's a much more direct thing wherein writers post, readers read, and everyone talks about it. Fic is pure enjoyment.

(Continued)

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

Okay, given that I'm not sure which slash (using the "same sex love or sex" definition) counts as shipper and which doesn't, I'll answer b and c together, and then talk about the specific good parts of slash separate.

People love each other, and they do so in a great variety of ways. Television and romance novels rarely depict this with any degree of complexity. The fact of the matter is that romantic happy endings, even for characters who really seem to belong together, are often written sort of one size fits all. But one size does not fit all.

Unfortunately, viewers and readers often know the alternatives for the romantic relationships they watch are either and endless loop of thwarted desire, or third rate high school style dreadful melodramatic romance. It's hard to decide which is worse! While movies and mainstream and genre novels tend to handle romance fairly well, episodic television is terrible at it more often than not. In really good romantic and relationship fic however, fic readers and writers can find satisfying interesting stories wherein everyone stays in character, plot is had, and yet romantic relationships are also explored.

Also, often characters who do seem as if they would have wonderful romantic chemistry never become involved in source material, and are likely never to do so. This is perfectly fine - life is too short to date everyone, but it does leave the door open to speculation and "what if?". Why not enjoy a hundred different what ifs! After all, fic in no way changes the canonical source material.

Also, yes. People in the real world have sex. People on television, if it isn't HBO, have blown curtains or little "uff" noises under the covers. That's fine. I prefer it off screen and on page. (More on this later.) Fic lets us play with what we don't see on screen. Everything we don't see on screen. Who wouldn't find that hot?

(Continued)

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

Mmmmm... Tasty tasty slash. So very many reasons to love it. Again, I am using the "same sex love or sex" definition of slash.

For one thing, I'm gay. Therefore, it isn't surprising that same sex interaction and love is inherently interesting to me. Straight love and sex isn't unappealing - there just isn't any lack of it out there. Slash is wonderful stuff when I really just want to read something a little gay (or bi). Nonstop heterosexuality in fiction just gets cloying after a while. Hooray, nature wants you to have babies! Good for you. Now, where can I get a bite of slash around here?

Despite the name, slash isn't a particularly violent sort of fan fiction. Gen fic actually tends to be a little more violent, because of a higher percentage of action driven plots and a higher percentage of hurt comfort. If you want to show characters sharing an emotionally bonding experience, and romance and/or sex are options, suddenly characters suffering a grievous wound and being fed soup are less ubiquitous.

Sometimes, intentionally or unintentionally, characters in source material set off gaydar. Simon Tam of "Firefly", for example, does not appear to be a straight man given his actions, reactions, and behavior. I would like to read him as straight, because then his relationship with a woman in "Serenity" would be a happy ending. However, he simply doesn't read, to me, as straight, no matter how much I would want it to be the case for his case. Instead, he seems to be a lonely man trying to make the best of a bad lot. Is it any wonder I would prefer to read fiction where he is in a relationship that seems more believably happy and satisfying for the character? Some characters simply do not appear to me to be straight.

Sometimes, while on their own, characters might be easily assumed to be straight, they do not react to other specific characters in a seemingly straight fashion. You look at a relationship between two characters and say "There is no straight reading of that scene". Even if the characters are primarily interested in the opposite sex, there appears to be a strong romantic or sexual tension between the two characters which, once seen, a viewer might find impossible to ignore. If the particular characters or chemistry interests you, you might want to read or write about it, even if it is never further explored in the source material.

Often, you can read a character or a relationship either way. They could be straight. It could be platonic. Indeed, in the source material, it is almost certainly intended that way. That interpretation is cool and often slashers like myself enjoy gen and het fics based on that interpretation. At the same time, however, there is an appealing and alternate slashy reading because the characters or the relationships are sufficiently ambiguous to at least allow for theoretical future same sex attraction or romance. Sure, the straight interpretation is more likely, but the gay one is also fun and there's no reason not to enjoy playing with it.

(Part C Continues)

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

(Part C continued)

I'm a human being, I like the pleasures of the flesh. Why shouldn't I? I like flirting, I like watching beautiful women dance, and I like reading really hot fiction.

Hard core live action pornography isn't my thing. I don't really feel comfortable watching real, nonfictional people (for so actors are) actually having sex for my amusement. It smacks of prostitution and exploitation. In fiction, however, no one is being exploited. There are no real bodies behind the fictional characters, no real people who have to pretend to enjoy sex-for-hire in order for you to enjoy observing the characters.

Fan fiction has some of the best erotica around. If you buy professionally written erotica, it often comes off as silly or a little cold because there isn't much time for the writer to let you get to know the characters before they get down to the sex. You just aren't as emotionally invested in the characters. If you buy romance novels or regular novels with sex scenes, usually the heat is rather turned down in order to give them more mass marketability. In fan fiction, however, you already know the characters, and you're already emotionally invested in them, taking care of two of the biggest hurdles without any effort on the author's part. As long as the writer can keep the voices and actions sufficiently in character that you can recognize them as the fictional people you have come to like, everything is automatically five times hotter than it would be with no name sexbot characters.

Even though I'm a gay woman, I do find reading about any combination of genders interesting and attractive if it is done well. Thus, I quite enjoy het fic as well as slash of both the f/f and m/m varieties, although it is true that I am more likely to enjoy slash fiction than het fiction. The sex in slash fiction, like the relationships in slash fiction, is more likely to be appealing because writers are less likely to fall into a rut of the expected and the preconceived. Reading missionary het thump, thump, thump the end is just not terribly exciting. Slash makes it a little harder for writers to fall into that trap.

(continued)

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

a) from each other; b) from the source material

I've sort of already covered this.

c) from real life?

In real life, I've been a less than total romantic success. Given the fact that I'm gay and haven't exactly had the time or resources to specifically go chasing romance, I don't feel too bad about this. I don't think I'll be a slash nun, deprived of all romance in the real and physical world - I just haven't lucked out on my various attempts and haven't gone seriously hunting. If I had a steady girlfriend tomorrow, I wouldn't stop reading slash. I'd just have someone to burn off all the energy from reading it with! The kind of strong and loyal romantic love that I find most emotionally appealing in fiction is the kind I want in person, but finding it in person wouldn't make it less appealing fictionally.

In real life, at this time, I don't necessarily always live the thrilling adventure. It can be rather exhilarating to drop into the writing-place and choreograph a fictional spy's heroic exploits! Reading adventure in fic gives the same pleasure as watching it in source material, although sometimes extremely good fic can be even more exciting given that there are no ratings, no network and anything can happen. Writing adventure in fic is more visceral than reading it, and gives you a real feeling of being there. I love it.

In real life, I do have the kind of friends and family that fortunate fictional characters have. I do know that kind of love, and I do know that kind of interaction. Seeing characters share that happiness just makes me glad for them and gives me a warm and happy feeling.

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

Reading is easy, writing is hard, but writing is satisfying in a way reading is not. Not only does it put your thoughts into a real and tangible fictional form, playing to your very specific thoughts and desires, it also gives you a feeling of a job well done. Knowing you wrote something that you enjoy going back and reading feels great. Knowing you wrote something that other people get a kick out of doesn't hurt either!

(continued)

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

I entered fandom because I was looking for information on my then current obsession, Highlander. I stumbled upon fic and was immediately hooked. I ended up reading slash because, well, it was good. I like fic, I like reading it and writing it, and I like my fellow fans. Why wouldn't I stay?

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

I don't know all the reasons that every individual ficcer gets involved in fandom, or slash fandom. I do know that I'm almost certainly not alone in my reasons for loving it. Why slash? Why not.

END

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

There were so many points in reading this thoughtful, articulate response that I very nearly jumped up and shouted "HELL YES." My mental margin is filled with exclamation marks; thank you so much for this!

[lay-of-luthien.livejournal.com]

Ok, wow. This sounds interesting. I'll try to help. I'm a 20 yo female. I'm pretty much bi but lean more towards lesbian. Strangely enough, I read mostly m/m fics. Learned about fandom during Buffy season 4.

1. I'm pretty shy and so I've only been on a couple dates. Never even been kissed. I guess I'm living a bit vicariously through fic. With M/M fic, maybe because it's not something I'll experience so its fascinating. Or possibly it's: 1 male pretty<2 males hot.

2. This question was hard. It doesn't provide anything in the real life. I'm still in the closet. I guess I derive from it what I derive from any other story. I'm entertained, I make a connection with the characters, and get hot porn.

3. Doesn't apply.

4. It's a bit like a club. It's gives a bit of belonging, a bit of entertainment, and lots of hot porn.

5. Based on current situations, it seems that homosexuality is still seen as some seedy problem that needs to be fixed. It's a little bit of a fuck you to those who call me or what I like depraved.

Hmm. Reading back it seems I'm not very insightful. Sorry. I hope it still helps.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

No, this is great--thank you! Would you prefer to be quoted as lay_of_luthien with the underscores, or with capitals, or something else altogether?

[0nlymemories.livejournal.com]

Biographical information: 19, Female, Slasher of six and a half years, genderqueer.

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

a) The satisfaction of expanding or reexamining points of canon.

b) That sweet thrill you get when people are in love, seeing them discover it and then each other.

c) For me it's a viceral sort of thrill, because in a lot of ways it feels more natural to me to see myself in the part of a male character than it does for a female character. And also, I readily admit that for me it's alot about the aesthetics, too. Slash is pretty. In a really viceral way.

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

a) For me, genfic is all about expanding on the original source material, about plot twists and action. Shipperfic and specifically slash are about the characters themselves, about their interactions and feelings.

b) Generally speaking, genfic expands on the source material, and shipper fic takes the source material in places it wouldn't necessarily go (Harry/Draco), or expands on things that are only hinted at in the source... Like Spike/Angel.

c) In real life I don't get to fall in love with lovely people, nor get to go and solve mysteries, or save the world. Nor do I get to inhabit the bodies of very pretty boys. More's the pity.

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

Reading is more disconnected, much like reading published fiction. There have only been a few stories that really reached up and grabbed me and didn't let me go until it was over... About the same number as have happened in published work.

Writing is more viceral, and I really get in touch with and identify with my characters. It's sometimes really, really hard, but I live for the really satisfying conclusion, the perfect tie up.

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

I came here for the pretty, in my early teens. Slash was my sex ed and my way of getting in touch with myself, and I stayed for the companionship, and my continued identification with the characters. In fic I can be what I really want to be, I can experience all the highs and lows of love and loss, without ever having to expose my own heart to trauma. I have also made some of my best friends in the fandom, and I wouldn't lose them for the world.

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

Because I think it taps into something viceral in the human psyche (especially but not exclusively the female psyche) that wants to explore and experience the things that you see appearing time and again in fic. Something that craves something simple and pure and intimate. Something really beautiful and reassuring about humanity, even if it isn't real.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Nor do I get to inhabit the bodies of very pretty boys. More's the pity.

So very, very true. *g*

Thanks so much for your response. I think you really hit the core of it with that last paragraph, there.

[lostakasha.livejournal.com]

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic;

The characters are established, recognizable, and dependable. So it’s convenient. Comforting, too, because the characters you love are available to be put in a nearly endless variety of situations that no outside agency (network, publisher) can take away from you. Plus, you can read or write the scenes you wished for that never could have been done ‘legitimately’ for any number of reasons (character licensing/legalities, taste, etc.).

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ:

I get the same things from gen, slash and romantic fan fiction that I do from reading fiction off the shelf: character identification, a good story, sometimes a good erotic story that satisfies my particular proclivities or ‘kinks’ and all with characters I’ve come to really enjoy and appreciate.

The fanfic I enjoy writing differs from the source in that it clarifies the original story arc (canon), picks up a dangling plot point that never got fully developed or developed at all, and tracks back to the original creator’s development of the characters. I think I’m somewhat different from a lot of fanfic writers in this respect, because it’s about doing justice to the established ‘realities,’ creating great reads with true voices, and not creating realities to suit my particular desires.

The fanfic I read has to be lyrical, well conceived, and imaginative, no matter what it is. Slash? Makes zero difference.

3. Do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare?

When I write, I have complete control. When I read, I give it over completely. Same as real life.

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

See #1.

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are? For writers, there’s a sense of sexual freedom in writing your fantasies and putting them out there for all to see, especially if it’s in an appreciative community that celebrates erotic storytelling. It’s fun to take the bodies of men or women that you find attractive and put them in sexual situations for the enjoyment of an audience who are there by mutual consent, who enjoy your work, and who accept you.

As a reader, I enjoy M/M because it turns me on; actually any of it, M/F, F/F, when it is written with imagination and flair and keeps true to the essential characterizations, does the same.

For the record, I'm a bisexual woman with a female partner. As an adult, I've been in two fandoms for a total of three non-consecutive years. I met my partner of 11 years in the first fandom -- we bonded over Quantum Leap and have been together ever since. Hope this he You might be interested in a post I did in my LJ called 'Fandom Made Me Gay'. It's in mny memories. Good luck. Hope this helps.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your really excellent response, and for linking me to your Fandom Made Me Gay post. Especially for that, actually, because I found it wonderfully bittersweet and romantic, in a way that RL rarely is. So yeah, thanks for sharing that with me. And go RL!

Also, I noticed from your userinfo that your name's written as Lost Akasha--would you prefer to be quoted like that, as opposed to the LJ smush?

[violin-road.livejournal.com]

Jori Widen; nineteen; female; Kinsey three or four; single and looking (hi!); second-year college student in Advertising and Journalism at Columbia College Chicago; voracious reader and occasional writer; has been in fandom for far, far too long.


1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic;
It encourages me to new serial-killing heights! No, seriously though, it really is a lot about more more more for me: my first forays into fandom were in anime, where I really couldn't afford to buy all the fansubs I wanted — and, er, my mother didn't want me ordering things off the internet anyway. So many fabulous stories out there, so many amazing characters! And absolutely nothing (that I'd found, anyway) along the lines of TWoP (http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com) today, to give me the details and keep me entertained. And so: Fanfiction! Taught me everything I know. These were the days before the terms "canon" and "fanon" (for me, at least; they may have been used in Western fandoms at the time), and let's really not talk about the shows I'd write fic for based off only having read a bunch of fic. No really. Let's not.

Now it's a lot of similar situations: I can't watch TV (my physical television is shite, and the school network dislikes pirating, apparently), but I can read Everwood fic! There is no way in bloody hell I could afford every Batbook on the market, much less actually keep up with the entire U, but I can still read about Batman bein' broody!

As to genfic, I'm kind of weird about it: I proclaim (loudly, and often) that the world needs more of it, and then am generally ambivilant toward it when it comes my way: unless, of course, it's 'ship fic that I've decided ought to be gen. More than once I've been happily reading wacky misadventures and then, suddenly, blowjobs! Out of nowhere! Which, honestly, I don't think is any lack on the author's part — I'm sure ze set it up quite well, I'm just so used to looking at everything with my slash googles on that I'm occasionally surprised when there is, in fact, slash. But yes, I definitely just preread a piece of ficbyzee's that basically degraded into me yelling "John can want validation and love without wanting Rodney's penis!" So basically I'm just never happy.

Also, I think it's largely related to the fact that I am a big whore for characterization, and actually skipped past the battle bits reading Lord of the Rings. Something being exclusively plot just doesn't do it for me, which is why I'm all "meh" over most genfic — the surprise slash, on the other hand, was about people to begin with, so it had me hooked. The second/third part of jamjar and petronelle's How to marry a millionaire (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/tag/millionaire) is thus deeply, deeply pleasing to me, because it combines police procedural with hot porn and deep exploration of character's identities. Best of all worlds!

[violin-road.livejournal.com]

b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants;
... Porn, basically.

No, um. I swear, I'm not entirely gratuitous. Deep thoughts! There are, occasionally, canon pairings I will read fic for: I could probably read about Summer and Seth for about seventeen years, provided what I'm reading is (at least marginally; I'll admit I'm easy) well-written and in-character, because they are fabulous and wonderful and have amazing interaction (and, um, are both ridiculously hot). And er, I'm still watching s2 and don't expect to see s3 until it comes out on DVD, so take that as you will.

But generally, what does 'ship fic do? Gives you pairings you'd never see in the canon! Excellent, excellent. Likelihood of Weir and Zelenka actually hooking up on the show? Well, er, I'm several episodes behind there too, so possibly more likely than I think, but you get the gist! Are they adorable and do I have great desire to squoosh them together? Yes, yes I do. Would I happily read about them, from G to NC-17? Yes, yes I would. Would they probably completely fuck it up if they did it on the show? Most likely! And so: fanfiction!

and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?
Honestly, slash is long habit for me at this point. I know it's a secret shame for a lot of people, but seriously, I've explained Weasleycest to my father, and I'm actually pretty sure I had Mormon Danny (who was tiny and adorable and very, very religious and strangely disinclined to marry me even when I generously offered to actually give birth to his children instead of adopting) character-beta a piece of H/D I wrote with the actual smoochies taken out, but all the flirting and innuendo left in.

Asking me "what do you get out of slash?" is kind of like "what do you get out of books?" (And yet, I could answer "what do you get out of 'ship fic?" Interesting, interesting.) Fabulous writing (let's be honest: helenish jotting off ideas for fic in her journal is overwhelmingly better written than most romance novels — and I love romance novels)! Pairings You'd Never Get In Canon ... to the maxxx!!!

And er, well, yes: porn. Porn, porn, porn, glorious porn. I'm pretty much a pornography addict, I'll admit it, but I can usually just smile cute and call it "erotica" and no one suggests I seek treatment. With bonus of the fact (and I honestly just realized this; yay introspection!) that there are no girls involved, so I don't have to work out my horrible issues with my own sexuality!


2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?
Um, not sure! I will get back to you later on this! Or, let's be honest, probably not; I have the memory of a goldfish.

[daera23.livejournal.com]

take a look at sullensiren's unwritten rules of fandom

http://www.livejournal.com/users/sullensiren/15592.html

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I posted about this once in my LJ so I shall cut and paste a bit. Before that, though, I am Katherine (use either name, drop the underscores on Minxy if you prefer) 28, female, single and straight.
~~~
I have a thought on my fandoms and whether I'll read fanfic in them.

My first obsession was Star Trek. I probably would have read fanfic, had I known about it, but Trekkers as a group intimidated, and I was a pre and teenager, which means that the person I was bears very little resemblance to the person I am, and therefore we shall dismiss any teenager fandoms as not relevant. Besides, I was a rabid shipper.

Anyway, my primary fanfic fandom is SG-1. Not quite as into Atlantis because I haven't had the time to get invested in a new show. Watch QAF, but again with the lack of time haven't made it all the way through the series and therefore not so much with the fanfic.

So then there are the secondary fandoms: Alias and Firefly and Harry Potter. Have read a smattering of fics in each, but am getting more interested in the Firefly now. I'll also read some crossovers or fics in fandoms I am not invested in, like Andromeda or Farscape, where I have a basic understanding of the characters, behaviors and premise, or the Magnificent 7, where I know nothing except there are 7 guys and the slash is rampant and sometimes delphia2000 points out teh p0rn.

So here's my feeling, based on something I read in a meta somewhere: Stargate as a series underwhelms it's fans. Commentaries will frequently hold comments about what they've gotten away with or canon they themselves can't rationalize... they are getting by. But they have this premise, omg, that's so wonderful. And they have characters with fantastic personalities and relationships and actors behind them.

At this point I lump RDA in with the writers and producers in having a great premise and not so much with the living up to potential, but see? I love Jack. In fanfic. On screen I find him wanting, and not in the good slashy sense. The man's been phoning it in for years.

Alias and Firefly and Harry Potter? With the exception of the HP films, none of them underestimate their fans. Most throw in more information than you can possibly process and have such pride in what they're doing that the entertainment is genuinely intellectual, and I would laugh if anyone said that about SG-1 at this point.

But Firefly is no longer the weekly crack it could have been had Fox not cancelled it. We get incredible and satisfying films (plural, we hope) but long wastelands in between. So I begin to read fanfic, not because I think we fans can do it better, but just because we have to fill the void somehow. But Alias and HP I do not feel drawn to the fics, though I will read them if they come highly enough recommended or I adore the author's other work. I've been trained to wait for hiatus to be over, or to double or to deal with Jennifer Garner's busy film shooting schedule. Or wait years between books with a movie or two involving adorable little moppets running about in robes. I'm prepared, I'm okay with the agreement.

Stargate sometimes hits the homerun with a show once or twice a season, but you really never know on a week to week basis. Plus, with the aforementioned lack of time, I tend to watch them when I happen to stumble across a rerun, then for an hour I fall in, then I tumble out on the otherside, already having moved on in my brain to whatever else I should have done in that hour (or 44 minutes or whatever) and sometimes grateful for the brain candy that can be so easily dismissed until you need a little romance or love or angst or action or humor, and then you find a fic that fits the bill in that moment.

I think. I think that's why my fandoms sort themselves as they do. Someone must do right by Sam and Daniel and Jack and Teal'c and Mitchell and Janet, and I'm not so in love with canon that I think the show's official writers have any right to claiming emminent domain. Fanon is not canon, but Gods, sometimes I wish...

And that is my story, and my ode to the beauteous writers of SG-1. How I love thee. How I love thy stories. How I sometimes wish the Bridge Studio people would hire you full time...
~~~~

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

New stuff, not pasted from my LJ:

Now, why do I slash? I don't object to ship, and will sometimes ship a het couple, but on Stargate, I feel very strongly that 'ship between the lead male and lead female, which is the cliche pair, weakens both of them. They are strong people as friends and coworkers. There are barriers in place in their characters and their careers that they would and can and have and should value a LOT more than an illconcieved UST. Slash, on the other hand, at it's best does not weaken either character, instead actually intensifying a friendship with an openmindedness and love that builds from a natural connection between the characters. To have two men, already friends, connect on an emotional or sexual level implies a depth of feeling that I don't, frankly, expect from a lot of men toward anyone. It also emphasizes love, affection, trust, respect, companionship, touch, laughter and commitment, because it is less acceptable and therefore a risk to those characters, and these are qualities I think are very important to women. I wouldn't believe it as much if the risk, coming out to a friend, coming onto them when they could get angry, risking centure from many directions, weren't real for me. And I want to believe that these guys aren't saying it just because they think it's what a woman wants to hear. Plus, it will always come back to the idea that if one hot guy is good, two hot guys are better.

[miera-c.livejournal.com]

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

1a) Fanfiction, I think, comes from an impulse a lot older than mass media. I have a feeling every imaginative person in the history of human civilization has heard the stories of their society and imagined her/himself engaged with them. I think most people start off that way – imagining extensions to their favorite stories. (I'm guessing that part of the disdain for the Mary Sue phenomenon stems from it being the mark of a newbie – a writer who is so early on the road it's blindingly obvious, but that's another issue.) The impulse to insert yourself into the fictional world stems from a desire to inhabit that world more. Reality, for most people for most of history, has been boring as hell at best and sucked beyond description at the worst. The realm of the fantastic (not dwarves and hobbits fantastic but the opposite of Enlightenment style reason) draws us away from the mundane/miserable parts of life. We want to spend more time there, and some of us who have strong creative impulses want to flesh out the fictional worlds. What happens in the spaces between what we actually read or see? A large portion of fanfiction fills in those gaps, expanding the fictional world and giving us more time in it.

1b) Love is all there is. Almost every story in existence comes down to some kind of love. There's a powerful instinctive desire in human beings to pair people off. There's a whole theoretical knot involved in why this is, but it remains true. Single people want to embrace the fiction that love does find everyone. People with partners want to pair off everyone else in the world (to share the misery in some cases). I think the parallel to romance novels is particularly apt, at least in terms of why some kinds of formulaic storytelling are so popular.

1c) I've thought about this many times because I've seen the argument over and over about why people write slash and what the reasons are for it, etc. Fans are probably the most self-reflexively analytical group in the world outside academics. For me it's just an extension of the desire to pair people up. I see chemistry between two people, I want to explore it.


2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

2a) I only derive one basic thing from all of them, which could crudely be called escape or plain entertainment, though I like to conceive of it as more than what most academics write off as being an empty vessel seeking only to devour without discrimination. The myth of the passive audience is considered utterly ridiculous by almost everyone I know who is an avid consumer of media but bafflingly enough persists in academic circles – promoted, I suspect, by the ignorant "high culture" critics who automatically turn up their noses at anything so pedestrian as popular television.

2b) Fan fiction or art fills in what we don't get from the source material. While a large portion of this jumps into the "never would actually happen in the source" realm (like much 'shipping content) some of it, mostly gen stories, doesn't. My favorite pieces of fanfiction are ones that go into the gaps that have to be left in most tv shows because the shows are about action, and the only character insight you get is through action. In fanfiction we can speculate about the interstitial moments that flesh out the fictional worlds.

2c) Real life is generally more complicated, and more dull, than fiction, except on the rare occasions when my life has become so insane if I wrote it as fiction, no one would believe it.

[miera-c.livejournal.com]

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

3. Writing fic makes me more critical of what I read, because trying to write the characters and be true to what I think I know about them means I've devoted some time and thought to them. When I encounter a story that not only doesn't match what I think but also isn't convincingly laid out (even if it's not my "take" on a character, if it's believable I'm usually willing to go with it), I can't read.

I enjoy the writing because I get to play in the 'verse, whatever it may be. On a personal scale, writing fanfiction has taught me that despite spending a good decade thinking I couldn't write prose very well that I was misguided to give up on any form of creative writing entirely. Obviously the feedback when you write a story that becomes popular with people is quite the adrenaline rush, but since I am myself an academic in the last year of a PhD program, with little time for writing original works, it's been an invaluable source of the rush of creating something (copyright issues aside).

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

I was educated as to what slash meant while I was active in the Buffy fandom, but despite taunting newbies who were raving about Buffy/Angel by saying "But we all know Angel loves Xander!" I didn't get heavily involved in a slash-dominant fan group until Star Trek: Enterprise. I was watching the show and thinking "OK, two of these guys are completely obsessed with each other" and being used to talking to other people about my tv observations, I sought out a Yahoo! Group for Enterprise slash.

The Buffy fan group I was in was extremely close-knit, fractious but bonded together against outsiders, and altered the course of my life. My personal development as well as my career were both deeply impacted by the social network I developed through that group; most of my closest friends are from that community. Since getting involved with Enterprise, and now the Stargates and Veronica Mars, I'm starting to realize fandom is in fact a fairly small world, as I see the same names popping up all over. It's an interesting feeling of connection to a loose network. It also provides a badly needed social outlet for so many people – many more than I think the mass media or even scholars are aware of. Yes it's a social outlet constructed around a cultural form and a practice, but despite what a large segment of academia thinks, that doesn't render it automatically invalid or less important to some of the participants. These people are my friends. It's that simple.

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

I don't generally like it when slash is treated as something separate from the fanfiction and indeed the broader experience of fans/media consumers. I think it's all part of the same phenomenon. Slash gets the attention because especially in our current climate it's still considered transgressive because supposedly amateur writers take heterosexually presented male characters and alter their behavior to be nonnormative. And when you boil all that cultural studies twaddle down it sounds remarkably like rebellion against oppressive norms, or just simple rebellion against the everyday. There are all kinds of theories about women having power over men and male characters they never get to have otherwise, about the transgressiveness being a rush/a turn on, about the lack of power dynamics between male characters making slash unlike writing het stories, and on and on. Really I think it's just part and parcel of closely reading a text, seeing chemistry between two characters and wanting to explore that and to hell if their both men.

If you want to provide info about age, gender, sexual preference, when you entered fandom or how long you've been in it

[kalpurna.livejournal.com]

The satisfaction which I get out of reading gen fic or het fic has such a different quality than the satisfaction I get from slash that I have trouble thinking of them as the same thing. In gen fic, there's the possiblilty of doing things which aren't possible on TV or in canon – either for narrative reasons, or because of monetary considerations – and that appeals to me as a writer. But on the other hand, I don't find non-slash fanfiction to be very different from ordinary fiction. Gen is nice, but it ultimately doesn't give me anything that a good short story wouldn't do. There is one exception to this, though; I do think that fanfic has a unique capacity to have the character development and rich background of a novel or series, with the elegant focused quality of a short story. It's a kind of literary shorthand, in some ways, and in many ways it reminds me of classical literature. By using established characters, we can evoke responses and associations and reference that add layers to our writing.

Slash fiction, on the other hand, gets to me like nothing else in this world. It's not only the porn, although - and I do think this is an important point - the porn is part of it. The emotional connection, the *love* (or hate) between two characters, is completely undiluted in slash. In romance novels or het, there are prescribed gender roles and tropes that are easily recognizable, and we're expected to identify ourselves with the heroine. It's basically safe. In slash, though, nothing is safe. There's nothing to hide behind, sexually, and in terms of identity. Everything is stripped away except the characters and their interaction, and what is left is something which inspires *love*. Slash is a deeply tender genre in its treatment of the human race. It claims that when emotional, psychological, and disconnective barriers are removed, the core human being that remains is a desirable object. Slash fiction is a repudiation of being alone.

The elevated emotional connectivity which characterizes most slash fanfiction is also evident in the world of slash fandom. As a monosexual, closeted community, women are free to express their sexuality and intellect without much fear of censorship or censure. Slash, so far, is a hobby, not a profession, and it allows one to be incredibly self-indulgent as an author. We write what we like, and read what we like, and none of us is the only one. And you know what? Slash writers are pretty fucking cool. Some of the most interesting commentary and most brilliant writing I've read has come from fan authors.

(OMG I have to cut this into two parts because it is so freaking long.)

[kalpurna.livejournal.com]

(part deux)

Perhaps one reason I find slash such an easy thing to love is that all of my experience as a female reader and thinker has trained me to identify with male protagonists. If a woman loves reading, and wants to enjoy more than .2 percent of what has been written in the past three millennia, she must to some degree suspend her gender as a factor in her understanding. In my experience, gender has a lot less to do with the human experience than some might believe, and so I've rarely had trouble empathizing with men as characters and as authors. This is especially true of fiction written before 1850 or so, because women at that point were so thoroughly off the radar that they don't tend to be huge actors in books written by men (i.e. pretty much all of them). I can insert myself into a slash story emotionally and mentally without needing a literal physical representative. (Hi there, Mary Sue!) I find it easier to enjoy a story that is clearly about two other beings than a story that is intended to be about me and some Prince Charming, and I think part of this is exposure to the long tradition of literary "otherness" applied to women.

So if I were going to defend slash to a man, I would probably bring up classics, and ekphrastic literature, and the cultural significance of a participatory folk mythology, and the transgressive nature of male/male relationships, and all of these would be perfectly true and valid points. But when it comes down to it, I think you were absolutely right in your reflex. We're not obsessed, except in the sense that one can be obsessed with finding meaning and value in one's life. Slash isn't about violence, and it's not about psychosocial issues, and it's not about kink. Those are peripheral. Slash is about love.

(This massive and pretentious comment brought to you by Emma Kalpurna. OMG sorry it is so long.)

P.S. Are you going to post the essay when you're finished? Because I, for one, would totally love to read it...

[beathen.livejournal.com]

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

a) I enjoy reading stories based on characters that I already know. I don't have to read through pages and pages of character development to really get to the "meat" of the story. It's a jump into the deep end with both feet idea, but without the foundering of wondering who exactly the characters are and/or why they act a certain way.

b) It's like reading a standard romance novel, but much shorter (most of the time). There are all these wonderful characters and the romantic fanfic answers the question "what if?" and "how would these characters come together if they were to be romantically involved?"

c) Sometimes I read the m/m slash because of the power dynamic between two characters, but mostly for the porn. I am a straight woman so the idea of two guys going at it seems kinky, fun and slightly forbidden.

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

a) The three points above are, for me, really rolled into one large sphere in fanfiction. Sure, certain points can be tweaked (i.e. reading a m/f story is okay versus m/m) but the complete package is what makes the fiction enjoyable.

b) The source material provides a basis for the character or persona. Fanfiction can just use a certain aspect of the character and take it down a different "path" in order to achieve a certain result (i.e. romantic, sadistic, depressed, etc.), or the writer can use the physical descriptions already set by the source and completely change the normal reactions one might expect.

c) Fanfiction can differ from real life but also be very faithful. Some stories are so exaggerated and wild, that it's hard to believe that it would actually happen, whereas some stories really deal with issues that a real life person might encounter in a similar situation.

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

I have written a few fanfiction stories and what I get out of it is power to control the characters and enjoyment of creating a work that others might find interesting. In reading many stories in my fandom (Harry Potter) I see all these different scenarios - actions & reactions - and I start thinking about the "what if?" question. Sure, it takes a little work to get the story on paper, but when it's done my mind can rest. Reading is different in that you have to accept what the other person wrote as far as characterizations and reactions. Reading is definately easier, but both reading and writing are enjoyable.

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

It was just by happenstance that I got involved in slash fandom. For some reason, I was poking around livejournal one day and came upon a users journal that had a slash story. I read it and I was just floored. I had not actually known before then that there existed a world of fanfiction writers and that they were writing m/m romantic stories. (I felt a little lost at first, too, because of all the abbreviations that people used.) After I discovered this, it seemed like my whole world opened up a bit. It was something that I really became interested in after that, and I really enjoy it which is why I stay. But I also stay because I get to know some of the authors of the fanfiction and it's a friendship network and it's nice to be involved with a group of people who understand me through my work and don't judge me because of it.

[beathen.livejournal.com]

(continuation from post above)

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

As I mentioned above for me, it is kinky, fun, and seems slightly forbidden, which draws people in. It's one thing to watch a porn movie where nothing is left to the imagination, and it's another to read a story where everything is left up to the reader. Also, up until recently, society as a whole only really acknowledges a m/f pairing as acceptable. As things change, though, with real life people accepted the m/m lifestyle as normal or as the opponents fight it harder, the slash fanfiction phenomena was a natural evolution of literature. (No, it's not for everyone, but I find it very enjoyable.)

age: 25
gender: female
sexual preference: straight
when you entered fandom: around June 2005

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

I just turned 21, I'm female last time I checked, I was brought up in Britain, and I've been in fandom since I was 12. :)

1. What do you get out of a) fanfiction in general and/or genfic; b) romantic, 'shipper fic, regardless of the genders and sexualities of the participants; and c) slash fic, especially m/m slash?

Fanfic in general is all about getting more of the canon I love. I'm a total whore that way; when I like something, I want more. :) That's usually specifically about the characters, but I like more universe, too. There are other things too - like escapism, fun, community, nerdiness (fandom is the best way to meet fellow geeks ever). They're all great, and mostly about finding fun in a world I tend to think sucks a lot. But if I didn't have the love of the source material then I'd probably re-read favourite books. (Actually, that reminds me of another reason - it's cheap. Free, even. And given the amount I tend to read, that saves me a lot.)

The shippy aspect is also part of the "more canon" thing - I don't tend to read any fanfic where I find the idea of the pairing to be completely impossible. I'm prepared to be convinced of a pairing that's more in the blurry grey area, but if I just can't see any way that the canon we don't see could include the pairing and stay the same universe that I love, then I'm very unlikely to read it. This is also partly why I like slash fic, since the slash is consistent with and reinforces my queer reading of the source material, which is pretty important to me as both somebody who just happens to mostly find stories involving queer themes interesting and as a queer girl.

2. How does what you derive from all of these things differ a) from each other; b) from the source material; and c) from real life?

In het, gen and slash fic, I really love stories. It doesn't actually have to be all that much action-y plot in order for me to consider it a "story", but I want to see things happening in the universe I came to read about. I want dyanamism, change, I want a sense that there's something being said here. The something said is more likely to be about my favourite topics of identity issues and self-discovery and stuff when it's slash, though. I also love that it's something that builds communities, that talking about fic with people is such a good way of making more geeky friends. :)

From the source material... the things I get out of it are really very similar. And so's real life, actually, in that those are all things I want from my real life as well. Um. Possibly I've just been a fannish geek for way too long, but I can't really seperate "real life" and "fannish life" like that, and I don't particularly want to. Some of my fannish friends are also "real life friends" and vice-versa. (I don't like the term "real life" as opposed to the internet, incidentally - it's all my life, as far as I'm concerned, just that the rules for some bits are different than for other bits.)

3. If you're a writer as well as a reader, do you derive a different sort of experience from writing than from reading? How do the two compare? (If you're a vidder or artist, please feel free to talk about that, too.)

The writing bit is definitely different - I write because there's words and ideas in my head that haven't quite been expressed elsewhere as I'd want them to be. It's less about the fannish-community aspect, in that respect, although it does also let me think more about the characters and ideas I love, and it still lets me think about story and the cool things that can be said in these universes we play with.

(And I tend to think that fanfic can say some things much better than "original" fic can, that it's a type of And I should probably mention here also that I don't think that there's a strict dividing line between the two: I see it as more a continuum, with more or less all created written work being somewhere in the middle. I think even the most generic fanfic still has something original, if only the arrangement of the letters, and the most original work still has or references in some way something recognisable from elsewhere because otherwise we wouldn't understand it.)

wow, I beat the comment limits

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

4. What were your primary reasons for entering fandom--specifically slash fandom? What are your reasons for staying?

I entered fandom almost accidentally - I got encouraged to be geeky about the X-Files by a fan who I really liked, wondered if anybody had written anything about it on this new-fangled Internet thing, and... wow, they had! And some of it was really good! (I was very excitable at twelve. Um, not so different, there, then, heh.)

And then I found slash (though it wasn't X-files; at that point it was still all Shippers vs. NoRoMos in X-Files fandom, and any slash was hiding where I never found it), and suddenly there were a whole lot more people that saw the same things I did both in the world and in the canon, and who seemed to be geeky in lots of the same ways I was. So, in short, I stayed for the community. (And the procrastination help, but the idea of that being mentioned in an essay amuses me a lot. Hee.)

5. Why do you think slash fandom and slash fiction are the phenomena that they are?

In short? Because it's fun, and relatively cheap. There aren't many things that are both. Also, I think that once a community has begun - once a few people have got together and gone "omg. dude. how gay is that? awesome!", then it kind of becomes self-perpetuating: those people will drag in friends and encourage other people and generally make a community for themselves that other people want to join. And then there's even more people getting their friends in, and so on and so forth until we get creators like Joss Whedon who kept making slash-fandom shout-outs.