My Fan Fiction Cherry

[emmagrant01]

I've seen this meme going around in the last week and meant to do it, but now I have no idea where I saw it. At any rate, it went something like this:

What was the first piece of slash fan fiction you ever read? How did you react to it?

I actually wrote a lot of fanfic as a kid, and I didn't know other people did it. I thought it was just me! As an adult, I started a lot of Star Wars EU fics (mostly Luke/Mara) that never went anywhere, but I was compelled to write them, just as I felt compelled to write Misty of Chincoteague when I was 8 and Duran Duran fanfic when I was 13. During a particularly difficult month in college, I became obsessed with the Clan of the Cave Bear series and wrote some fic for that as well.



In May of 2002, I had just defended my dissertation and was literally drifting, needing something to occupy my mind. The afternoon of my defense, my husband took me to see Attack of the Clones, and the Star Wars fanfic bug bit me again. I hated it, because going through fanfic phases had always been negative for me. I turned inside myself when I did it and felt very alone, even depressed. I really had no idea fandom was out there.

So one day about a week later, hovering between a newly discovered QAF obsession and Star Wars, I was was at a bookstore looking for something to keep me sane -- some SW book I hadn't yet read maybe. I picked up a copy of the SW Insider and flipped through it, and in one of the letters in the back, someone mentioned something about fan fiction on the internet. I was stunned! Other people did that? And then they shared it with each other? Really??

I went straight home and googled "Star Wars fan fiction". And Oh. My. God. How had I not known about this? It was amazing! There were so many archives, so many stories, and I didn't know where to begin. I read through some Luke/Mara stuff with great delight, thrilled that other people's stuff was as porny as mine. It felt like a whole world had been opened up, one with tons of possibilities. I no longer had to wait around for the next book to come out! I could read all this other amazing stuff -- and it was much more interesting, besides.

And I kept seeing this term in the headers: slash. Usually in the context of "no slash", as if it were a bad thing. I was intrigued, so I googled "Star Wars slash fan fiction", and one of the first things on the list was the Master-Apprentice archive.

And I think my jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe it! People wrote that? Of course, I had just spent a week watching the first season of QAF, and had come to the conclusion that boys having sex was something I liked to think about. So I scanned some titles and picked something almost at random.

I don't remember the title or the author, but the fic was about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon going to some planet to visit Obi-Wan's parents. Obi-Wan wanted to tell them he and Qui were getting married, and they were horribly homophobic and reacted badly. Obi left their house, distraught, and found Qui waiting for him back in their hotel room.

And this is what I remember: Qui was kneeling on the floor, completely naked except for some sort of kinky leather strappy thing, and on a towel next to him were a butt plug, a tube of lube, a riding crop, and a cock ring.

And dude, I closed that window faster than you can imagine. I blushed, even though I was by myself. I got up and walked around the room a few times, thinking, "What the fuck?" I didn't know what to think! But I wasn't ready to give up. I went back through the archive and read some other, tamer fics, working my way up to (what I then considered, heh) the kinky stuff. And a week later, I started writing The Moonflower Festival.

I have to say that it's wonderful to be here now, three years on, because my own fannishness is no longer a source of pain for me. It's something I will never again feel alone in, and I am so, so thankful for that. :-)

Feel free to add your own story in comments, if you like!



And on an unrelated note:
*hugs* to abbycadabra and gmth, for a variety of reasons. ;-)

Comments

[lunicanca.livejournal.com]

Hee, that's such a cute first-time-slash story. :D Am terribly amused that you wrote fanfiction before you knew other people did -- and even at eight years old! Do you still have some of your old stuff?

I'm very impressed that even though your first slash fic was utterly scandalous, you were not put off from the genre entirely. :D

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yes, I still have some of it, and it's terrible! Though I might post an excerpt from the book I wrote when I was nine one of these days. It's kind of ute, really. :-P

And no -- I wasn't pt off. *grins* I knew I needed to ease into it, though.

[brushfire2437.livejournal.com]

i'm answering this here. "The Playing Field" and "Rematch" bc i was referred to it by my first gf. damn, it was hot. i got hooked.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

What fandom?

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that meme... It got me remembering... ^-^

Ah, yes, the good old days.
I was one of the writers who wrote before they knew there was such a thing as a fandom, too... ^_~

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I can't believe I spent so much of my life not knowing about it.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Isn't it funny? Considering what I've written since... :-P

[nimroddess.livejournal.com]

I've known for years that boys having sex is something I like to think about. But porn videos are too explicit and mechanical - I like the petting and I like the emotional aspect of an actual relationship. About a year and a half ago, I discovered, to my delight, that much the same way that a woman is sexier with her underthings on because it leaves more to the imagination, *reading* about boys having sex would do it for me quite nicely :) I was reluctant to begin reading the HP books in the first place, and I entered the fandom the same way. Someone linked Cinnamon's "Beautiful World" in a (non-HP) lj community I was watching in response to someone complaining that slash fic always focused on sex too much. My interest must have been piqued because I bookmarked the link. But it was another 6-8 monthes before I actually read any of it. I don't actually remember my motivation - probably just bored and curious, finally ready to see what all the hype was about. The first story I actually read was Cinnamon's "Unbecoming," a Ron/Draco story. I liked that it was post-Hogwarts and I wasn't ready to jump on the H/D wagon yet. (Always the rebellious one.) I was absolutely enthralled! I stayed up all night reading the entire story in one go. I couldn't stop reading. I loved the UST at first and the actual sex didn't seem graphic to me at all, just sexy. I also fell in love with fandom-Draco that night. I've always had a bad-guy-fetish, but this guy was snarky and such a sarcastic bastard, just how I like 'em :) After that, I read "Beneath You," and H/D also by Cinnamon, and balled my eyes out over the whole thing. That's when I knew I was hooked. For a while, I thought it was just a phase and I'd read a few stories, get it out of my system, and then get bored with it and move on. So far though, still hooked :)

eek!

[nimroddess.livejournal.com]

that was really long! sorry!

[anotherslashfan.livejournal.com]

The first slash fic I read was actually a so-called yaoi-fic. It featured two manga characters (do you happen to know of zetsuai/bronze). It was five pages long, the featured people were half-brothers, and it was non-con + mindfuck.

And today I wonder why I have so many kinks?

The funniest thing, though, is the fact that I printed out the story and took it with me on a two weeks' holiday with my parents... It really saved me from boredom then (I nearly knew it by heart at the end of the holidays). Oh yeah, I guess it must have been the summer of 2000. And maybe it wasn't the first fanfic, but it's the first I remember.

I knew you were great, but.....

[myviciousvixen.livejournal.com]

.... You so totally rock. I wrote Duran Duran Stories, all through 9th grade! My friends and I wrote the dreaded Real Person Slash about Styx even younger, and I continued writing it, about every hot famous guy you can think of. My first trip through organized fandom was over the Sentinel, which was, IMHO the slashiest show on TV till QAF. I then got heavily into Velvet Goldmine, and wrote a story that was actually posted.... somewhere. As far as HP fiction, that was a no-brainer, as I like younger (thought always legal!!!) men, and slash. Not to mention the fact that the books are awesome.

And so are you!

Re: I knew you were great, but.....

[glasshouses.livejournal.com]

OMG Styx! I was a lot older than 9, but I fanficced them in my head, mostly h/c senarios where they'd fall into each other's arms. I had no idea why; I didn't even really know what gay WAS.

I remember being incredibly disappointed when I found out how short Tommy Shaw really is :-)

[snailfin.livejournal.com]

Aw, thats so sweet, even now, when i read a sex scene like that, i blush like mad and feel as though my ears are on fire.


The first slash fic i read I cant even remember...but surprisingly though, I'm pretty sure that your LMH was one of the first slashy fics, and definitely the first slash novel-length fic i read.

At first, it was too heavy for me, all the sex and such but ohh i decided to brave through it and boy, was it worth it.

[dramaphile.livejournal.com]

I think my first slash fic was probably an X Files threesome fic called Troika, where Krycek is in a bdsm relationship with Scully and Mulder and and he starts out with just Scully while Mulder watches and then eventually he becomes Mulder's bitch and it was incredibly hot and wrong and I was completely fascinated by the idea of two hot characters going at it like that.

I only read a few of those, and all of the PWP variety, and didn't read anything with plot until I hit the Harry potter Fandom last November. I remember my first fic was a pwp off of restrictedsection.org where Draco and Harry polyjuice into each other and have sex in front of a mirror and I was completely hooked. After that, I started reading things with actual plot and fell even more in love with the idea of slash. :D

[doublehelix20.livejournal.com]

OMG I don't know you but that was totally almost the first slash story I read! Definitely the first with actual sex.

[gyutto.livejournal.com]

I couldn't believe it! People wrote that?
hehe, that was pretty much my first reaction too.

I came into slash fanfic in 1998 at the tender age of 14. I had just gotten hooked on my first anime, Gundam Wing. So I went to the public library (no internet at my house) and clicked around, and one thing led to another...I vividly remember sitting in the library with my pulse in my throat because I felt so wrong about reading slash, and constantly looking over my shoulder. Not that that didn't stop me from finding fic anywhere I could get to a computer--at the library, my aunt's house, the house of the kid I babysat--I also quickly becamse adept at erasing my internet history and turning off AutoComplete.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

You. Blushing at butt plugs and cock rings. Can it be? Our dear Emma, who once wrote a scene of T'nell sucking a citrus fruit out of Xan's ass, was ever once such an innocent as to blush at butt plugs?

Roll. On. The. Floor. Laughing. My. Ass. Off!!!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Actually, that was Xan sucking fruit out of T'nell's ass. ;-) Did I really write that? Holy shit.

[yodels.livejournal.com]

I found fanfic through an article in Time or Newsweek before GoF or OoTP was due out and I Googled it and ended up on HPFF. I found a story that had a "contains slash m/m pairings" warning, but really they should call those enticements, not warnings. The stories there are quite tame, but one of the authors had an LJ link, and then of course the floodgates were opened and I haven't stopped reading. I blame the media for my addiction.

Is it alright if I friend you? I've just started an account and need some friends. *bats eyes prettily*

[hlglne.livejournal.com]

Wowie. The first slash i read was printed novels, I'm not sure if James Joyce or that other Brit from England,or was it Henry Miller Tropic of something? or Kerouac? so I knew it was a good thing, and my radar found it and loved it "implied" in all sorts of things, including "Frodo me dear, me dear" in Tolkien...it seemed pure, somehow, which is paradoxical when you're thinking about hygeine. Then Monty Python happened, and glam, and gay power, and when the time came for me to make fic it just had to be slash! To write the wrongs of lopsided canon everywhere!

It still boggles me that there is not more femslash in fanfiction, at least in the fandoms i began in, seeing as we are largely females.

[eireinn.livejournal.com]

The very first slashy thing I read was one of the "Random Slashy Interlude" chapters of BagEnders (A LOTR fic where the Fellowship share a house in modern-day London...very funny) It was really, really quite tame compared to what I read now. Ahem. Just some snuggling (not the stubble!) and vague hobbit cuddling.

And then awhile later I was reading...something...HP fic anyway, where Hermione was in love with both Draco and Harry (I think...) and it had an alternate chapter where Harry and Draco get drunk and snog in the snow and I was like "Hey...this is interesting"

So I stumbled upon Skyehawke's HP section and its lovely H/D goodness. And THEN earlier this year I got around to getting a LJ and discovered this lovely HP fandom that exists here.

[yodels.livejournal.com]

There's something about the phrase "vague hobbit cuddling" that makes me laugh and laugh. I've not read any LOTR fanfic, but I might have to now.

[glasshouses.livejournal.com]

It's complicated, but to spare the details, the first slash story I read was NC-17 - the passing of the midiclorians from master to apprentice. Obi-Wan sucked off Qui-Gon in the council chambers while everyone watched, and Q/O suddenly realized they loved each other.

I was surfing at work and I too closed that window fast, and stayed away for a week or more.

Now a blow job seems so tame :-)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I just knew you would be able to tell me what that first fic I read was...

What a premise for a fic, though. Only in that fandom! ;-)

It's not a terribly exciting story.

[sciencegeek.livejournal.com]

I don't remember my first slash fic I read. I had heard about HP fanfiction and made my way to FF.net (in retrospect a poor starting place). Anyway, when searching for...I don't remember the pairing, but it was supposed to be Hermione, and someone I accidentally had one of the characters as Harry in the drag-down box thingie. And poof! Slash. Not so great slash, but slash. It intrigued me a bit, and I went on a search for better slash. At some point soon after I found devon_may's fic somewhere, I think Aff.net? and friended her LJ, and found out that someone said that her story was similar to LMH, so I googled that and then read it, and I've stayed in HP slash ever since. Right around the time I first read LMH I was directed to PSA, which was amazing for finding well written slash.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

*hugs* to you. :-)

[malicemadden.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the first fic i read. I think i started with Band-slash and then progressed to the HP fandom a while after. Damn, that was so long ago!

[spirit-rider16.livejournal.com]

Ah...I found slash at about the same time I found regular fic. I had just reread all of the HP books (because I was bored and I am a dork :P ), and I still wanted more. So, innocent little me (*snerk*) went on the computer, typed in harry potter stories, or something similar to that, and suddenly a whole new world opened up before my eyes. And one of the first fics I found was labeled as slash. I, being the innocent person I was, had no idea what that meant. So...I read it. I can't remember what the story was called, but it involved Draco being brought in to protect Harry, who was a profesional Quidditch player, from DEs and other assorted danger. They ended up being kidnapped and held in Voldemort's dungeons. Seeing as there was no hope left, they ended up realizing that they found each other very attractive, sex happened, etc. Some how they were freed and lived happily ever after. Looking back now, I realize it wasn't a particularly good fic, but it certainly got my attention. I felt...odd that I liked the idea of Harry and Draco together. But I was intrigued. I searched out other H/D fics, gradually realizing just how widespread the HP fandom was. I eventually found Schnoogle, and, suffice it to say, my life hasn't been the same! I can't believe I never knew about fanfic. It still boggles my mind even now.

The most embarrassing thing is probably that it took me forever to realize what slash actually meant! *headdesk*

[hagaren22.livejournal.com]

The first slash fic I ever read was...yours, actually. Left My Heart, about a month ago.

Oh god. It was heaven. I can't count the number of fics I've read since then. The first thing I do Wednesdays is check out the new STG chapter!

ARG, you have effectively made me completely addicted to fanfiction!!!

Not that it's necessarily a bad thing... ; )

[awaywithpixie.livejournal.com]

Dude, you wrote Duran Duran fanfic?????

*Loves you even more!*

Makes icon of her picture of Simon kissing Nick on stage a few years ago! Anything to mark that occasion. Of course, I bet you didn't write DD slash? Even I can't go there.

Squee!!!!!

[luahoana.livejournal.com]

When I first read Harry Potter - which is not that long ago at all, in spring 2003 when I should have been working on important papers for school - I wondered what would happen to Ron and Hermione, and how other people thought about them.
So I googled, of course. And found some stories about them, and then found a rather explicit Harry/Hermione fic and my first thought was: "But these are children's books!!". My second was "so what?" ... and read at random first, and mostly Harry/Snape (so yes, even though I don't read it anymore I can see why other people do) - probably because that was what I found. Can't remember which ones, though.

The first H/D fic I read was by Auror Borealis - I can't find the link - and by the end of 2003 (a few months before you started LMH) I hardly read anything else O:)

[snowqueenofhoth.livejournal.com]

First fic I ever read was the Draco Trilogy, because a friend recommended it. As soon as I was finished with what was posted at that point, I needed to read more. And of course, no one can read that without thinking that Draco and Harry need to be together forever and ever and ever and ever... *l* I don't remember how I found it, but the very next fic I read was Irresistible Poison, by Rhysenn. And I was hooked. :)

[vintage-moon.livejournal.com]

meep! i had exactly the same experience...i was so horribly disappointed to find out later that not all fanfiction is so well crafted. (don't worry emma, yours is right up there with the good stuff)

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

*points to icon*

I was horribly depressed after a real-life/online breakup of a group of friends who weren't really friends after all. Started searching out Ewan things, as something to hold onto; watched Moulin Rouge obsessively. Found a message board and read and posted - found a reference to Provocateur. After that, I read Alex's SW stuff, and here I am. :)

[kazumi.livejournal.com]

Wow. My experience has been so different than yours! I discovered fanfiction when I first started using the internet heavily. I was about 11 or 12. Now I'm in college and I love it as much as ever. :)
I don't remember ever being really embarrassed, but I definitely eased myself into the explicit stuff.