From: HILLEMANN 
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 12:26:56 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Introductions

Hi Everyone,

As one of the newer members I thought I'd go ahead and introduce 
myself.  My name's Beth and I've been reading S/H for almost a 
year now.  If you had told me a year ago that I'd be reading and 
enjoying slash I wouldn't have believed it.  I received a list of 
zines from someone on the net (via private email) and she had put 
a "/" next to the majority of them.  I didn't know what it meant, 
but it didn't matter since by then I was desperate for S&H 
stories.  Fortunately the first zine I received was one that 
introduced the concept in a, ummm, gentle and natural way.  Some 
of the zines that I've read since then would have definitely 
turned me away from slash (though I can enjoy them now).  I tend 
to believe that a slash relationship for S&H is perfectly 
possible, without being at all inevitable.

Guess that's it for now.  

Beth


From - Sun Jul 12 04:07:59 1998
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 13:30:05 -0500
From: hillema
Subject: [VP] Re-introduction, Slash Conversion and Confession


Hello,

Emerging from one of the garret rooms up here in the attic 
(lovely view) to reintroduce myself. Oh my, where did all these 
other tenants come from? (Astonished look.)  I'm from the early 
batch, when this building was first opened up for new neighbors. 
We seem to have grown; I *thought* I had heard some odd noises 
(with a bemused look toward the basement stairs).

I'm one of those partner-fanatics, like many of the rest of you. 
It began with a little known show called "Maya" when I was about 
7 years old, and has continued straight on through "Sentinel". 
"Starsky and Hutch", though, was mainly responsible for 
introducing me to fandom  a bit over four years ago. One of our 
neighbors--Suz, I'm pretty sure-- offered on a Usenet newsgroup 
to send a list of S&H zines to any who were interested. I begged 
her for it, and it duly arrived--with all these funny / marks 
next to a majority of the titles. I ordered them all, blindly.

Fortunately, the first to arrive was HEART AND SOUL #1, which is 
a very good zine to be introduced to slash with. Some people have 
described discovering slash as coming out of a thick forest into 
a bright and sunny meadow. For me it was more like an earthquake-
-forever changing the landscape around me. I didn't have any 
problem with the sex per se (although some of the details 
squicked me, I'll admit, the first time I read them. Ahem.)  But 
one of the things I loved about S&H was that they showed how love 
is bigger than cliched romantic relationships.  I was afraid of 
losing that uniqueness that drew me so powerfully to them.

Silly fear, yeah, but there it was. But as Barb (Hi Barb!) 
mentioned in her intro, slash writers tend to delve deeper into 
the relationship--and I was hooked on the relationship. So I 
bought all the slash zines I could find (along with gen), and 
decided that slash was kind of an AU S&H, and I'd read it but not 
write it.  I wrote two gen stories (under my real name), then 
surrendered, and since then everything's been slash (under the 
name PFL). Ah, well. Conversion is fun!

Now comes the confession part. Although I will always have a deep 
and abiding friendship with S&H, my heart has been stolen by two 
charming lads in London named Bodie and Doyle. If immigration 
laws weren't so strict, I'd joyfully be in the round of rotating 
CI5 flats. Fortunately for me, the tenants of VP are an 
understanding lot, and they allow me my little garret room--even 
read drafts of Pros stories, some of them!--as long as I 
occasionally deliver a "proper" S&H story. (Yes, Linda, there 
*is* one coming your way. Soon. Just let me rescue poor Bodie 
first.)

I'm content to live at VP (it's very educational, the things one 
sees and hears around here...), pine for England, and vacation in 
Cascade (even if that is a bit stressful at the moment; he'd 
*better* be alive).  

Now, excuse me, but I really must see what they're *doing* down 
there....

Beth (the writer, not the wonderful songvid maker)
