Talk:Fan fiction

The following contradicts what I have read elsewhere:

An historical version of fanfiction, "Slash" has been around since the 1960s. Named for stories featuring two characters interacting (often sexually) as in Kirk/Spock, these stories were often passed around in feminist fanzines.

According to [1]:

Is it true the first fan fiction was gay fiction?!!? Though many people seem to have that impression, it's not correct. [Slash] stories... appeared in the late seventies.

And:

The first recognized and widely read fan fiction came into being as a result of the fan fervor over Star Trek.

As I understand this, non-slash Star Trek fanfic predates slash. The article gives the impression that slash came first. -- SJK

There was a period a few years ago when Lucasfilms went on a rampage against fan sites, sending cease and desist letters to many. In contrast, they were ecstatic with people who made professional-looking films with Star Wars characters. Someone even wrote an essay analyzing the pattern, concluding that it's because Lucas can't control fans like he can control professionals he can coopt. Or perhaps it's the class differences. We know that Lucas is an aristocratic fuck whose preference is for a dictatorship to rule the unwashed masses (hence the whole Jedi Knight shite). And we know that Lucasfilms is "protective" of its trademarks, suing people for using the name "skywalker". Can you imagine Paramount suing someone for calling themselves Captain Kirk or something?

Anyways, is it accurate that the most important source of fanfic (or slash) is based on manga? This seems extremely unlikely to me. -- Ark

In terms of volume? I don't know -- sounds to me like whoever wrote that just had more exposure to anime fanfic. Trek fic goes back to the days of the original series, so there's lots of it, even though it may not be on the Net. The author may have been thinking of doujinshi, which are Japanese fan-published comic books that often (but not always) feature sexual scenes with popular characters from anime, manga, or video games. There are heaps and heaps of doujinshi. Whether doujinshi count as "fanfic" as opposed to "fanart" is arguable, especially considering how many of 'em are low on plot! --FOo

I don't understand the example of Kirk/Spock for slash fiction. Does the article mean to assert that Kirk and Spock had a homesexual relationship going? --Ed Poor

I found the following factoids here:

an entire subgenre devoted to taking the friendship of Kirk and Spock to its ultimate expression -- by making them into lovers.
One FAQ list defines slash as "fan-written fiction that posits that characters of the same sex from a media show are sexually involved with each other."
Fan fiction about speculative romances between characters of opposite sexes is called "het," or "gen," which I guess means "general" or "generic."

The term "slash fiction" originated with Kirk/Spock (abbreviated K/S, hence "K slash S") sexual fanfic. Slash is pretty much by definition out of character -- so asserting the existence of K/S fanfic does not allege that the canonical characters James Kirk and Spock had a sexual relationship. --FOo

Thanks, FOo. I think the phrase out of character would help the slash fiction explanation. On my first (rapid) reading about K/S, I gathered the impression that homosexuality was being imputed to the characters. Now I get the idea that despite their original non-homosexual nature, someone has gone ahead and made them homosexual for their fanfic. --Ed Poor

I've removed out of character from the beginning of the article now (replacing it with "very frequently outside the canon of the source"), and mentioned it later on in explaining why some people don't like slash. While slash often does go out of character (at least in regard to the characters' sexuality), it's not the case in all fanfic (at least not these days, when we have Willow/Tara, etc.) and so the previous wording was inaccurate. And Ed, these things are a matter of degree: many slash fans consider that there are subtexts visible on screen (some recent examples I'm aware of: Buffy and Faith, Janeway and Seven of Nine, Chakotay and Paris). Some of these are reaching, but not all. --Bth