oceana

I am terribly terribly bored. Browsed through friends page and found that _bettina_ did something I had planned to do for a while (but I always forgot do to it, since I forget my own head if nobody reminds me).

Here is

Some of you will laugh when they read that I've started reading slash only two years ago (almost three), but hey, everybody has to start one day, right?
So, where do begin?
Let's start early. Really early. Elementary-School-early.
I was a big fan of: Remington Steele, Simon & Simon, Riptide, The Fall Guy, Magnum and of course, the A-Team. Huge A-Team fan. The "Let's go outside and play A-Team" kind of fan. Believe it or not, I even wrote A-Team fanfic back then, even though I had never heard the term fanfic, and I didn't speak one word of English ack then. I was 9 or 10, and if I had o summarize the stories I wrote back then, it would be something like this:

"The A-Team meets two girls (Yes, I wasn't the only Mary-Sue, I shared with my best friend), they discover that they are long lost relatives, they get into trouble, girls get them out"

or

"The A-Team meets two girls who are living on the streets, they sort of become part of the team (I never really wanted to be part of the team, I liked my independency), they get into trouble, the girls get them out."

Looking back, it was probably a good thing that I didn't know about fanfic! :-)
I still have those stories, and it amazes me how detailed I wrote, how carefully I imagined every scene before I wrote it down as precise as I could. Where did I find the time to write that much?

Anyway, I got a little older, I didn't watch TV anymore ( for almost ten years I hardly ever watched TV, with the exception if Due South and X-Files). Music was the most important thing in my life, and I wrote more fanfic, this time of the "Mary Sue meets Axl Rose"- variety. Fortunately, I still didn't know about fanfic or the internet.

Right, I won't bother you anymore with this, let's get to the good part: how did I become obsessed with slash?

That's easy:
In May 2001, I was alone at home for about five weeks. I didn't have a car, I had almost nothing to do at University, very few courses, and I had to take care of the dog, so I couldn't go out a lot. I was stuck at home. I got bored. I watched TV and stumbled across a show called "Angel". Angel Season 4. The crossover episode towards the end of the season. I thought it was good enough entertainment to watch it again next week. I got curious about this Buffy girl. Found out that Buffy was also a show, and that they showed it just before Angel. I got even more curious. What was up with Buffy and Angel? How did Angel end up in his own show? What's with this Spike guy?
I searched for some episode guides on the net, I stumbled over the term fanfiction, decided to check it out, clicked the link and was sent to....

...fanfiction.net.
Imagine that. Me, a total newbie, and the BtVS section of ff.net. My world came crashing down, and I was lost. Buffy/Spike! People were writing about this! All the lovely things they didn't show on TV! Heaven! Ambrosia for the gods! Hallelujah!
But even in these early days, my euphoria didn't last very long. Most of the fics were horrible. Worse Mary-Sues then I had written as a child. Recs pages were found, and only a week after I had first discovered fanfic, I read my first slash story.
Not that I wanted to, no!
I found sites that had slash warnings, fics that warned about slashy content, but I had no idea what slash was, and I skipped them without thinking about it. Fanfiction was new and exciting enough for me, I didn't need anything else to distract me.
But I was a Spike fan, and when you are a Spike fan, it is only a matter of time until someone sends you to read Jessica Walker's fic. And the particular fic that I was sent to was "To Take you In". So maybe there were slash warnings, maybe it said "S/A, beware", but I didn't know what that meant.
The fic is about Spike coming to LA after he first got chipped. Angel takes him in, feeds him, fights with him, and then this happens:
Which is why, in the split second before air can become breath and breath can become word, he stops my mouth with his own.
And I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten that it was... that it was this... oh... God.
And I'm not perfectly happy. I'm not perfectly happy as his lips press against mine, insistent, self-assured, as if they had been crafted for the express purpose of meeting mine in this ancient communion, claiming my mouth as if it were his God-given right. I'm not perfectly happy as his tongue, exquisite, skilled, slips past my teeth and begins to carress as if he were trying to memorize me from the inside out.

EXCUSE ME??? Did I just read this?
::goes back and reads the sentence again::
Yes, I just read that. They are kissing. Two men. Kissing. Men.
::brain goes blank::
::thinks about it::
::pictures it::
::brain goes on overload::

Need I say more?
I never touched a Spuffy story again after that (at least not for while).
It isn't that "To take you in" doesn't build up to that kiss, doesn't give you warnings. There are many signs hinting at a relationship between Angel and Spike, and I have no idea how I could ignore all of them, but I did.
Honestly, I can't say if I had read it the story had I known what to expect. I had never thought about slash before. Never thought about the possibility of two men, two TV characters, two guy I found attractive having sex not with a woman, but with each other.
I got addicted instantly.
Slash seems to satisfy the Mary-Sue in me: I wanted the guys to have sex, and to be in love, but I'm jealous of every woman that got near them. So in my phantasies, I mary-sued me into the show. Problem was that I could never decide which guy I wanted. Slash was the ideal solution: let them have each other: no silly Mary-Sue, no other women, no trouble deciding which guy to fantasize about: problem solved.
(But since this is already getting longer than I planned, I won't bore you with an essay abot why I read slash)

For a while (almost a year), I only read BtVS/Angel fiction. I was on some mailing lists, participated in some discussion, wrote and published a story that is still out there on the net (and I'm NEVER telling you which on it is, or the name I used to publish it!!!), and could not understand how people could betray their fandom by reading in *shock* more than one!

Until I got bored. It was the time of Buffy Season 5, Spike/Angel shippers were getting rare, everyone was hooked on Spuffy, and even though I read other slash pairings (I don't think there is any BtVS slash pairing I haven't read), I decided to take a look at other things.
I remembered that show I once liked, with the Mountie and the wolf, and that cute Italian, Ray Vecchio.

Due South
I had stopped watching Due South when the new Ray appeared, because I missed "Burning down the house" and had therefore no explanation for the disappearance of "my" Ray, and since changing actors without any explanation is the dumbest thing that can happen on TV, I didn't watch it anymore.
When I searched for Due South fiction, I realized my mistake.
How could I NOT have watched CKR? Because that guy, that new Ray, who had a very good excuse to be on the show, was so clearly in love with Fraser! And I missed it!
I abandoned BtVS/Angel to make up for that mistake, and henceforth dedicated my life to the rapid consumption of every piece of RK/BF slash I could find. And I mean every.
At least for the next three months, which was when I remembered another show I had once watched and liked.

The X-Files.
I had seen way more X-files episodes then Due South, because I used to watch X-files regularly with a friend, whereas I watched Due South only when I stumbled across it by accident.
Plus, the video box sets were really cheap on Ebay, and really, who doesn't have time to watch seven seasons of X-files a year before graduation?
Mulder/Krycek was the obvious choice.
I didn't stay long, because even though the X-files seem to be a huge fandom, and there is some excellent XF slash, there isn't as much as one might think.
And I was getting curious about all the Harry Potter fics that were popping up all over the net.

Harry Potter?
How can you write slash about a children's book? I just had to take a closer look...
Of course, the first pairing I came across was Harry/Snape. And it was so obvious! Of course, Harry and Snape are made for each other! I should have seen that before!
Now, I still read Harry Potter fic, and I am still obsessed with the books, but as I mentioned before:
HP fandom is a scary place.
My advice:
Try to stay as far away as you can. Run in, snatch the fic, run out, read. Come back for more (you really can't avoid that once you start)
But it is definitely not the fandom in which I want the better part of my time, which is why I still read Due South and X-files. Three fandoms at once, you'd think I couldn't possibly have time to start another one, but I did:

The Sentinel
I started reading TS mainly because I found recs on so many recs pages, and authors that I liked in other fandoms had written TS, and Jim seemed to have blue eyes worth taking a look at (or into)
So what if I had never seen the show? Who says you have to? I realized I liked the fic. That there was lots of it. That I probably would have to watch the show sooner or later. That it couldn't be bought on ebay and had apparently never been released on DVD or VHS. That I had a problem.
Fortunately, I found someone who made me copies of all the episodes (*loves other obsessive collectors*), so I could watch and read and watch and read and then watch some more. Jim! Blair! Jim/Blair! Don't you want to just move into the loft and watch them all day? They are so lovable!
I fell hard.
Then I fell even harder.
Because I discovered Stargate.

Stargate
was also the fault off reading too many recs, and also off reading too much TS fiction. Not only are there quite a few SG/TS crossovers, and I'm a sucker for crossovers, there are also quite a few good authors who have written in the two fandoms.
When you read TS, Stargate is almost unavoidable.
I haven't "stayed" in a fandom as long as I stayed in Stargate since I left BtVS/Angel. Almost a year now. I don't plan on leaving any time soon. There are days when I don't read or watch anything that has to do with Stargate, but I don't think I went a week without since I first watched the show.
My one true love. (*sniff*I'm getting emotional.)

At the moment, CSI is the biggest distraction from Stargate, but even Gil, Nick and Warrick don't manage to lure me away from my daily dose of Jack/Daniel. And there isn't much CSI fiction anyway.

Since life would be pretty boring with only 6 fandoms, I sometimes travel to other unknown regions:
I have read fic in Highlander, N'Sync, Andromeda, LotR, A Knight's Tale, Beverly Hills, Space AAB and probably some other fandoms.
I plan to read a lot more Highlander slash. And a lot more Andromeda, if someone writes something decent.
And I want to read Hornblower, Oz, maybe some Invisible Man, more LotR... oh, the possibilities!
And when I look at this list, I really don't understand why I was bored when I started this post.
I could have read fanfic instead.
Well, maybe some of you made it to the end and found my little fandom history entertaining.
And maybe some of you want to tell me about yours, because I'm curious how other people started.
You can find me at some Fanfic Archive where I am trying to catch up with my reading!