Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 23:55:50 -0500 (EST)
From: AprilValen
Subject: Re:  [VP] Re: and how did YOU get into slash?

In a message dated 1/15/99 1:11:49 PM, MrMoJoRsn:

<<Then at the very end, when Hutch is in the telephone booth and 
Starsky runs up to him and holds his arm, my gaydar goes off and 
I say to myself, no way, can they be gay? How come I didn't 
notice this as a child? I call another flight attendant friend, 
who just happens to be gay, and ask him to watch it the next 
morning. He does and calls me back and says, "Yep, they are gay 
or I'm Queen Elizabeth." >>

I loved Laura's reply to this question.  The above reminds me of 
a couple of guys I've known in Trek fandom for ages.  They are 
gay but somehow totally didn't know about K/S for years.  When 
they finally heard about it, they said they still didn't see it.  
So I showed them what we like to refer to as the "carry" photo -- 
where David is carrying Paul around in his arms, with his hand on 
Paul's... er bottom... and my friend took one look and said, "now 
*that's* gay!"

<<I found Alexis Rogers' web site and her fiction. Read "Cost of
Love" and was hooked and now totally obsessed with S/H fiction. 
Still don't read slash in other fandoms, but I can see it in the 
S&H universe.>>

That's the first slash SH I ever read too and I loved it.  Then I 
read "Who You Know, What You Know & How You Know It" and was 
totally hooked and decided I had to start writing in the 
universe.  S/H was the first slash I really *saw*, really 
believed.  I like a number of slash relationships now, but I 
don't have to have it in every relationship pair of guys I like 
together.

My non-slash Trek friends were totally shocked when they heard 
I'd 'defected' to S/H.  For awhile, I snuck around to be with 
S/Hers, feeling like I was having an extramarital affair.  But I 
got over that, and so did my friends -- I guess. <g>

<<I've told my best friend that if I ever die (hopefully not for 
a LONG time), she needs to get to my house and confiscate all my 
S/H zines and  my fiction disks, so my parents don't have a heart 
attack when they  clean out my room.<g>>>

I think all of us have an unwritten agreement that our fan 
friends will do this task for us so our innocent families don't 
see our zines and stuff.

Great post, Laura.

For me, when you suddenly can see slash -- you see it.  You can't 
help it, you can't be talked out of it, it just *works* for you.  
And reading it can become an addiction.  There is a certain kick 
to reading it, that gut feeling you get when the words and the 
characters and the emotions on the page just get to you and it's 
so *right* you just can't stand it.  You keep reading to find it 
over and over again.

And for me, writing in slash universes, it gives me the chance to 
work closely with the emotions of the characters.  When I'm 
really into a show, really in touch with the characters, I feel I 
have to take "ownership" of them, let them loose in my head to 
say and do what they will and get it all down on paper (or 
computer screen <g>).  Writing slash has a different sort of 
satisfaction than reading it does.  I need one as much as I do 
the other.

Martha


Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 12:23:34 -0500 (EST)
From: AprilValen
Subject: Re:  [VP] Being able to see slash
Cc: veniceplace@jbx.com

In a message dated 1/17/99 1:35:10 AM, flamingoslim 
wrote:

<<I loved your post, Martha.  You put this so succinctly, so 
well.  I've never *found* that moment when I could suddenly "see" 
slash, but I keep thinking sooner or later it'll happen.  Just 
not yet.>>

Thanks, Flamingo.  It just happened one day -- bang -- there it 
was. Yes, they *are*!  Like that pane of glass shattering that 
PMG talked about when he and DS met for the series.  And once you 
can see it, you suddenly understand all those people who've been 
trying to convince you all those years -- but I've been left with 
an understanding of those who like gen Relationship stories 
(that's Relationship, capital "R", i.e. about the two guys, male 
bonding stuff) and don't see slash at all.  That was me, for many 
years.  What I still don't get is the people who are so horrified 
by the fact that some of us like to read and write this stuff.

<<I've never gotten addicted to slash, either, probably because 
so much of it doesn't work for me, but S/H was the first slash I 
ever read that I believed (after years of being in Vice, and only 
really being convinced by a few stories in all that time), that I 
felt "that gut feeling" about the characters and the emotions, 
etc.  I've definitely gotten that from certain stories -- many of 
them yours!  I don't read a lot of slash, but I read all the S/H 
I can get my hands on, always hoping that each story will be the 
one to give me that feeling.  Many of them do.>>

I'm not addicted to slash in that I'll read anything at all, nor 
do I get the gut feeling about stories in just any universe.  And 
sometimes my prime fandom's stories don't do it for me, either.  
It all depends on the writing. But I remember someone on another 
list mentioning the "addictive kick of slash" and why we keep on 
looking for it in our fiction and why some people move on to 
other fandoms.  I need the writing, the emotions, the sex, the 
characters all to come together just right and then, blam... 
well, you understand.  And you've done it for me sometimes, too, 
thank you.

(didja ever think that it's a little weird that we all keep 
exchanging stories to... how shall I phrase this delicately?... 
get each other off?  Oh, no -- it's an art form, a powerful genre 
of fiction created by women, for women.  I only read this stuff 
for the intellectual reasons... <g>)

<<I remember when I was writing "If Love Is Real: Vanessa" I 
fought with that story through the whole damned thing and the 
last 10 pages nearly killed me.  But when it was done I was 
*really* happy with it.  But when I wrote "ILIR: Helen" that 
story gelled in just a short time and practically wrote itself 
and I was just as happy with it.>> 

Hey, I'm not saying it comes easily for me, either.  Some stuff 
just pours out when you hear the characters talking in your head, 
but other stuff... writing is *such* hard work sometimes.  When I 
was trying to finish Distant Shores, the last two weeks I worked 
on it I thought would kill me.  I just couldn't work out the 
conclusion, the plot part, with the bad guys who'd hurt Hutch at 
the beginning of the story.  It was like pulling teeth.  And I 
almost gave up. Really.  I can understand why Margaret Mitchell 
only wrote the one novel. It's the complex stuff that takes it 
out of you -- and the ILIR stuff is complex (and hot, very hot).  
If only I could come up with ideas for vignettes and not novellas 
all the time... 

Martha 


Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 23:05:48 -0500 (EST)
From: AprilValen
Subject: Re:  Re: [VP] and how did YOU get into slash?

In a message dated 1/18/99 1:59:09 PM, starsk wrote:

<<I think the "susceptibility" to it was always there--even 
before I knew why, I was riveted to the screen in moments of h/c, 
male bonding, etc. >>

I can really relate to what Emmie says here.  I must have always 
known, too. In fact, I remember a moment on television that 
riveted me even more than Star Trek ever had -- the first time I 
saw The Fix in 1975.  This was before I had discovered fandom, 
before I'd ever heard the term hurt/comfort -- but I knew what I 
liked -- they were hurting Hutch and Starsky was going crazy 
trying to find him.  Lest that sound a bit weird -- it wasn't the 
hurting that did it for me, it was the comfort after.  Can't have 
one without the other, in my book.  I gradually moved from 
writing h/c to slash when I got into SH fandom years later.

Martha
