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Yesterday, I clicked on an SU Herald link titled "Slash vs. Same-sex Pairings." The link can be found at http://su-herald.livejournal.com for Monday, August 15, 2011.

I am a relative newcomer to fandom in general, and to slash in particular. So I was a little surprised about the negativity being expressed regarding slash, although having subsequently poked around, it seems to be pretty common. I responded to the post, but without the benefit of having considered these issues for more than very briefly. So....

...I'd be very interested in hearing people's thoughts about this, if you'd care to share them.

Also, I'd be really interested in hearing what got people into slash in the first place, and why people are drawn to it. I've been thinking about this quite a bit, since I've discovered this interest later rather than sooner in my own life. I know how I got here, and I know some of the reasons it appeals to me, but in a kind of jumbled and incoherent way.

Hope to hear from you!

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I’ll not comment on the post you mentioned. Like you, I followed the link from the

su_herald out of curiosity, but to be honest, I decided not to engage.

As for how I got into slash in the first place… I discovered fanfic back in around 2002 at the same time as I discovered Buffy by watching Once More With Feeling. It was love at first sight, and I wanted more. Then I discovered the Television Without Pity boards on Buffy, and there was a fanfic board. It piqued my curiosity because I had no idea what fanfic was. But I found out!

I remember reading a lot of Xander/Willow at the Unfit for Society site, and it suited my taste because at the same time as I was watching the second half of S6 on TV, I was watching borrowed DVD’s of S1 and S2, and Xander/Willow fic seemed logical. But then on the same site I came across a post Lovers’ Walk Xander/Oz story, Finding the Why, by Pete Meillinger. It shocked me, not because of any homophobia, but because the concept of ‘slash’ fic hadn’t occurred to me, and because the premise of the fic took a real left hand turn from canon and made me look at the characters in a whole new way. But once my brain got around the idea, I realised I really wanted to read more. That’s when I found Jane Davitt’s classic Predatory Acts and the sequel Preying on My Mind and I was well and truly hooked.

Why was I hooked? Well, the obvious answer is that they were hot. Oh boy were they hot. But on further analysis, I realised that they’d opened my brain up to the fact that in fanfic you can take the text, the subtext, the whisper of a possibility, or even a complete left hand turn somewhere near Pluto, and as long as the characterisation feels right and the story is well written and constructed, then really there was no limit to what you can do. Up until that realisation, I’d been reading more or less canon pairings, or gen, so that realisation was pretty revelationary.

I love Spike/Xander because it made sense to me that two boys who’d love to be alpha, but in canon weren’t, however much they tried, could come together very logically. And depending on the author, the story and your mood, either could be alpha, or neither of them – it’s all good.

Giles/Xander has grown on me over the years. I have a preference for post Chosen stories, purely because it gets around the icky teacher/pupil underage thing, but there are some great school years based fic in which they get together because it makes sense within the plot that they do. That’s the main thing for me. I love a good PWP when I’m in the mood, but to really sell me the characters, the plot is the thing (as a certain other writer once said!)

So yeah, why do I love slash –because it makes me review canon from another perspective and fall in love with the characters all over again, because it reminds me that these characters have layers, because it made me start writing again after not doing so for over 20 years – oh yeah, and because it’s kind of hot! *g*

I also read het and gen as the mood takes me, but from the day I read that first Xander/Oz fic, slash will always be where I make my fanfic home.

Sorry, I've realised I wrote an essay and have taken up all this room! There are probably lots of other reasons for being drawn to slash that my muddled head can't express right now, so apologies for the general incoherence of the reply! :)

Good heavens! What is this *aadler*-person thinking about what fanfictions should be?!
The word *fiction* says it clearly - it's about your fantasy and imagination, about what you think the characters would do and how they could act. It don't have to be always cannon. It also could be a different story line - and that's what we call *AU*. Or in case of same sex relationships it is *slash*. No matter, if the characters were gay in cannon or not!
Slash could be as good as any other good written fanfiction. Could be drama, could be romance, could be horror - all kind of things.
If you don't like it, don't read it! The writers always give the warnings above the stories.
I am for example don't like *Death*-fictions, were one or more of the main characters die, so I don't read it!

A lot of script writers from tv shows also take a look into the fandoms and the fanfictions there to see what the fans would like to see on the shows from them. Wouldn't be a surprise if some ideas first were in fandoms befor they got on the screen. LOL

In 1996 the show of *Buffy* started on tv. And almost exactly on the same time also an other good show called *The Sentinel* was aired. But I choosed Buffy to watch.

I came to fanfictions in 2003 when there was a re-run from the show *The Sentinel* with Richard Burgi (some will know him from the show *Desperate Housewifes*). He was playing an ex-ranger and now beeing a detective in a big city (They filmed in Vancouver, but it was an american show.). He got a new *partner* and worked and lived with him together. These guys were so different but they matched so perfectly together, it was so close too a lovestory between them. But sadly they canceled the show after only three years.
So I searched for more information about the show, the characters and the actors in the web and found a fanpage from a german girl.
She had done a lot work in creating a good working fandom of her own. I had a lot to read about the show and there were a lot of fanfictions on her page from german writers. All genres and of curse there was slash too. It was so logical that people wrote abut them as a couple if you would *read the subtext* in the show. And the stories were really good written. Most of them were *Case*-stories were they investigated murder or other crimes. But the relationship between them was also a matter of the plot.

After a while I had read a lot of fictions and tried to write a story by myself. Sure, I was afraid it would come out as a disaster, but the other girls were really nice to me and one did the beta for me. - She became my best friend. :-)
Sadly the page wasn't updated since 2008. Mishale had to much to do in real life and so the page counts more as an archive nowadays. But it is still online.
If you like to take a look into it:
http://www.mishale.net/sentinel/

Back in these days there were not so much german writers and so I searched for more fanfictions in englisch. First it was difficult for me to read and understand all of it. But the more I read the more I trained my englisch too and after a while I couldn't tell if I had read a story in german or in englisch if someone asked me about it. LOL

Almost all of my fanfictions are in german (also do translations englisch / german) and most of them are slash, humor or sugar sweet romance. LOL But one or two are sad stories. So I always give warnings above. :-)

Hope it answered your question how I came to slash-fictions. :-)

On the page of WWOMB (Wonderful World Of Make Believe) you could find a lot of all genres in fanfiction to a lot of shows. Here is the link to it:
http://internetdump.com/users/daltonavon/

Yes I also wrote a few things in other fandoms like BtVS, SG1, SGA, Torchwood, SPN and a few x-overs. Most of them are short ones or WIP (Work In Process).
But I also wrote a few things in englisch for challenges on *whedonland*.
http://whedonland.livejournal.com/
You have to be a member of one of the four teams to work on challenges. I am in TEAM ANGEL (The Fang-Gang LOL).
But you can find them also in my LJ and the translation too.
http://starkat75.livejournal.com/
Or you take a look on my FF-list on the german fanfiction page:
http://fanfic-de.livejournal.com/tag/autor%3A%20starkat%201-100
There are a lot of fandoms too.
Some of my Icons are made by myself or they are pictures from Second Life of the virtual world there or from my avatars. It is fun to creat a picture by yourself. I like drawing (like the one in my Icon above), but sometimes I am not in the moode or I am to lazy to do it. :-)

Ooops! Almost forgot to tell you about my two songvids I made about TORCHWOOD. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Cupida75?feature=mhee
Hope you can watch them because in germany youtube is not allowed to show them because of this GEMA thing. :-(

I thought this question was really interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I accidentally wrote you a little bit of an essay on it. I was going to just post it here, but I got a message from LJ informing me that I had exceeded my character limit by... about 4000. Whoops.

If you're interested, I stuck it here instead.

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