Ooooh, this takes me back to my slash writing days! If I'd known about fanfiction and slash when I was 16, I would have been writing the most godawful Legomances and Merry/Pippin slash ever. You have all been SPARED.
I wrote my first Elladan/Elrohir slash story in response to a fan challenge. Plenty of people liked it - and plenty of people didn't. In response I wrote a "why incest in fanfic?" essay, here.
The slash I would have written when I was 16, and the slash I did write in my early 30s, both came from the same place; my heart and mind and the issues I was grappling with. If I had been feeling unlovely or unloved, I might have wanted to write stories where a "non-sexy" character is seen as desirable, worthy of love and erotic transgression. One time, in correspondence with another writer, I made an offhand comment about younger prettier days, and I got back this cry of angry pain from the writer. She had never seen herself as pretty - worse, her family had reinforced this with emotional and psychological abuse. Suddenly, her own slash stories (which were NOT badfic, but had some baffling pairings) made a lot more sense. And I learned to be gentle and make no assumptions in fan correspondence.
I had some people tell me that they were disappointed with my last big fanfiction story, The Question of Pengolod, because of the lack of slash - I wanted to explore what friendship across differences meant, rather than sex - I totally agree with lindahoyland on this!
no subject
I wrote my first Elladan/Elrohir slash story in response to a fan challenge. Plenty of people liked it - and plenty of people didn't. In response I wrote a "why incest in fanfic?" essay, here.
The slash I would have written when I was 16, and the slash I did write in my early 30s, both came from the same place; my heart and mind and the issues I was grappling with. If I had been feeling unlovely or unloved, I might have wanted to write stories where a "non-sexy" character is seen as desirable, worthy of love and erotic transgression. One time, in correspondence with another writer, I made an offhand comment about younger prettier days, and I got back this cry of angry pain from the writer. She had never seen herself as pretty - worse, her family had reinforced this with emotional and psychological abuse. Suddenly, her own slash stories (which were NOT badfic, but had some baffling pairings) made a lot more sense. And I learned to be gentle and make no assumptions in fan correspondence.
I had some people tell me that they were disappointed with my last big fanfiction story, The Question of Pengolod, because of the lack of slash - I wanted to explore what friendship across differences meant, rather than sex - I totally agree with