Slash meme...

[fajrdrako]

I got this from jfc013:

Do you still remember...

1. when you first started reading slash?

My memory isn't that far gone yet.

2. who recruited you (= turned you into a slasher)?

I don't think I'd call it 'recruitment', it was 'introduction'. Yes, the person was a friend in the local Star Trek club, a good friend whom I drifted out of touch (except for Christmas cards and the occasional dinner) with when she got into things other than fandom. She died several years ago, of diabetic complications... She had a lovely zine collection, mostly slash - thought I might like it, I enthusiastically encouraged her to lend me reading material, and the rest is history.

Though actually my first real slash epiphany was a Star Trek story in one of the professionally published anthologies, some time before that - I was just getting into the fandom. This would have been around... what, 1978? 79? The story played hard on the K/S love and it got me thinking - that's probably what made me then become a fan of the show, and to join the club. That was the point at which I realized that the men-love themes I liked so much could be applied to TV characters.

3. the first slash story you ever read? (do you still have a link?)

Link? Oh, what a tender, naive and innocent question! There were no links. That was the prehistoric age before the Net existed. There were zines. No links.

The zines would have been all from Star Trek fandom (because that's all there was then).

4. why you clicked that link or what your thoughts were while reading slash for the first time?

Something along the lines of: I've been looking for this all my life! Eureka!

5. what your first fandom and OTP was?

By default, Kirk and Spock, or K/S, as we called it. There wasn't anything else, at least not for a few years, when I started hearing about Starsky and Hutch zines... but I saw no point in reading them, since I had no idea what Starsky and Hutch even looked like. I'd certainly never seen the show. My next real slash fandom was probably X-Files and X-Men.

6. the first slash story you ever wrote? (do you still have a link?)

It would have been in the zine "Excalibur", where I had some stories and slashy poems. I never did write much K/S.

7. when you were first squicked by something, and what that was?

I don't remember anything specific. It was probably one of my usual squick triggers - bad writing, bad grammar, too much schmoopiness in the wrong characters, Mary Sues...

8. when you first noticed symptoms of withdrawal because you had no access to slash?

Through the mid-eighties I had no access to slash, and I missed it, so I wrote my own. Got online in 1990 and immediately looked up slash groups. I haven't lacked access to slash since then. If I did... I'd just write it for myself.

9. when you first listened to a song and its lyrics suddenly reminded you of fandom?

No answer. It doesn't really happen that way. I can apply song lyrics to a fandom - but it doesn't happen naturally.

10. when you came into your current most active fandom?

That was about two months ago, no stretch for even my memory. I suppose it really started that day we went to Montreal for the MonSFFA meeting at the end of May, and watched two episodes of Doctor Who....

Seems to me this meme leaves out some of the really interesting questions: favourite pairings, number of fandoms I have written in, what (if anything) differentiates a slash fandom from other fandoms. Which fandom has meant the most to me, which I have most completely left behind.

Comments

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

You ought to answer your own questions, you know, otherwise it's just teasing. ;)

I like how naive the phraser of the questions comes off. :)

My firsts in this weer online. I don't know if slash zines ever made it to this country, but they certainly didn't make it to anywhere I was. There were zines, just not ficcy ones.
I remember who introduced me to fanfic and slash, and I remember when. Alas, I have no recollection what would have been the first slash fics. I remember the first het, though. :) And yes, it was Adam.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You ought to answer your own questions, you know, otherwise it's just teasing. ;)

I'm not above teasing.

I like how naive the phraser of the questions comes off. :)

Yes, really.

I don't know if slash zines ever made it to this country,

Possibly not. Most of the ones I ever saw were either from England or the U.S., particularly the latter. It was a good decade later when I saw one from Australia. There were some Canadian zines around 1980, but as far as I know, none of them contained slash.

Good for Adam!