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Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction, largely written by women, that focuses on the depiction of romantic (and often sexual) relationships between two or more male characters, who may not be engaged in relationships in the canon universe. Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF or fic) is a broadly defined term for Fiction about characters or settings This article is not about Literary canons of influential works of fiction but about the concept of a canon which defines the world of a particular fictional series While the term originally was restricted to stories in which one or more male media characters were involved in an explicit adult relationship as a primary plot element, it is currently more generally used to refer to any fan story containing a pairing between male characters. The term is also sometimes applied to fiction focusing on relationships between female characters; however, some fans distinguish femslash as a separate genre. Femslash (also known as "f/f slash" "femmeslash" and "saffic" is a Subgenre of slash Fan fiction which focuses on romantic

The name arises from the use of the slash symbol (/) in the description of the primary pairing involved in the story, as compared to the ampersand (&) conventionally used for friendship fiction. The slash ( /) is a punctuation mark It is also called a virgule, diagonal, stroke, forward slash, oblique dash, An ampersand ( &) also commonly called an " 'and' sign," is a Logogram representing the conjunction "and"

Contents

History

It is commonly believed that current day slash fanfiction originated within the Star Trek: The Original Series fan fiction fandom, with "Kirk/Spock" stories first appearing in the late 1970s generally authored by female fans of the series. Star Trek is a Science fiction Television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired from September 8, 1966 through Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc In the science fiction TV series Star Trek (1966-1969 the characters of Captain James T [1] "Slash" was originally coined as a derogatory term for such fanfiction, and for a time both "slash" and "K/S" (for "Kirk/Spock") were used interchangeably. From there, slash spread to other fandoms like Starsky and Hutch, Blake's 7 and The Professionals. Starsky and Hutch (usually written as Starsky & Hutch) is a 1970s US Television series that consisted of a 90-minute pilot Blake's 7 is a British Science fiction television series made by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC for their BBC 1 channel [2]

Later such authors as Joanna Russ studied and reviewed the phenomenon in essays and gave the genre more academic clout. Joanna Russ (born February 22, 1937, New York City) born to teachers Evarett I From there, increasing tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality and frustration with the portrayal of gay relationships in mainstream media fed a growing desire in authors to explore the subjects on their own terms using established media characters. Star Trek remained an important Slash fiction fandom, while new slash fandoms grew up other television shows, movies, and books with sci-fi or action adventure roots and two or more charismatic male characters.

Until the boom of internet in the early 1990s, slash was tucked away as a subculture in certain fandoms, published only as fan-edited non-profit fanzines (often called only "zines") priced just high enough to recoup printing costs,[2] usually sold at conventions. The 1990s collectively refers to the years between and including 1990 and 1999 Slash moved to become primarily an internet phenomenon, which opened the field to more writers and allowed the publication of a greater quantity of material. It increased the number of readers, who were now able to access the stories from their own home at a much lower cost (the price of zines vs. the price of internet connections). The number of fandoms represented increased exponentially, especially from science-fiction, fantasy, and police dramas. [2] It also increased the level of interaction -- not every fan could write fiction, but the internet made it easier for fans to comment on stories, give episode reviews, and comment on trends in slash fandom itself (meta).

Present-day slash

Slash fiction continues to follow popular media, and new stories are constantly being produced. Slash fiction readers and writers tend to adhere closely to the canonical source of their fiction, and create a fandom for that particular source. Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc However, some participants follow the slash content created by a certain fandom without being fans of the original source material itself. Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc [3] Of the diverse and often segregated slash fandoms, each fandom has its own rules of style and etiquette, and each comes with its own history, favorite stories, and authors. There is some correlation between the popularity and activity within each fandom and that of the source of the material.

Many people in recent times view slash as a hobby, both writing and reading it. It has become so popular that it has involved the coming together of certain communities, particularly on the internet, to share interests. In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Slash usually is based on a particular fictitious programme or film and many people have become famous through writing slash novels but usually remain anonymous. A celebrity is a widely-recognized or famous person who commands a high degree of public and media attention The slash communities regularly post updates on each others work, showing feedback of their work.

An ambiguous definition

An officially licensed and published Star Trek novel that contains hints of a homosexual relationship.
An officially licensed and published Star Trek novel that contains hints of a homosexual relationship.

The term slash fiction has several noted ambiguities within it.

Though not in line with the original definition, some people assert that some published works constitute slash fiction despite the fact that they are not fan-created. This is likely due to the relative void of canon homosexual relationships in source media. For example, Star Trek virtually never portrayed gay or lesbian relationships on screen outside of the mirror universe (it was done once in an episode of DS9); however, the 1985 novel Killing Time by Della van Hise included hints of a homosexual relationship, as have several subsequent works, including 2001's Section 31: Rogue by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin. Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. Andy Mangels is an American Science fiction author who in collaboration with partner Michael A Michael A Martin is an author who in collaboration with partner Andy Mangels, concluded the events of the cult-hit television series Roswell (which had Other authors' works that deal with homosexual themes or characters are sometimes described as slash fiction as well. More commonly, though, fans describe such professional fiction as "slashy", rather than actually claiming it as slash fiction.

Due to the lack of canonical homosexual relationships in source media, some have come to see slash fiction as being exclusively outside of canon. These people hold that the term 'slash fiction' only applies when the relationship being written about is not part of the source's canon, and that fan fiction about canonical same-sex relationships is hence not slash. This article is not about Literary canons of influential works of fiction but about the concept of a canon which defines the world of a particular fictional series The recent appearance of openly gay and bisexual characters on screen, such as Willow and Tara in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and Torchwood, and many of the characters in the Queer as Folk series, has added much to this discussion. Willow Rosenberg is a Fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the Television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Tara Maclay is a Fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult Television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, portrayed Fictional narratives (and works of art exist beyond their completion e Captain Jack Harkness Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Torchwood is a British science fiction Drama Television programme, created by Russell T Davies and starring John Barrowman Queer as Folk is an American and Canadian Television series co-production produced by Showtime and Temple Street Productions However, abiding by this definition leaves such stories without a convenient label, so this distinction has not been widely adopted.

More recently, some slash authors have begun to write slash fiction which contains transgender themes and transgender/transsexual or intersex characters. Transgender (trænzˈdʒɛndɚ from ( Latin) derivatives Transsexualism is a condition in which a person identifies with a physical Sex different from the one with which they were born Intersexuality is the state of a living thing of a gonochoristic species whose Sex chromosomes, Genitalia, and/or Secondary sex characteristics As a result, the exact definition of the term within this respect has often been hotly debated within various slash fandoms. The strictest definition holds that only stories about relationships between two male partners ('M/M') are 'slash fiction', which has led to the evolution of the term femslash, or femmeslash. Femslash (also known as "f/f slash" "femmeslash" and "saffic" is a Subgenre of slash Fan fiction which focuses on romantic Slash is also present in various Japanese anime or manga fandoms, but is referred to as shounen-ai or yaoi for relationships between male characters, and shoujo-ai or yuri between female characters respectively. (anime in Japanese, ˈmɑŋgə is the Japanese word for Comics (sometimes called komikku コミック and print Cartoons In their modern form manga date from shortly also known by the Wasei-eigo construction, It is unclear whether this was the first instance of this usage of the term

Due to increasing popularity and prevalence of slash on the internet in recent years, occasionally people use "slash" as a generic term for any erotic fan fiction, whether it describes heterosexual or homosexual relationships. This has sparked mild concern among writers of heterosexual fan fiction. This concern is sometimes based in moral objection to homosexuality and manifests itself as offense at the notion of being compared to homosexual subject matter. It has also caused concern for slash writers who believe that while it can be erotic, slash is not by definition so, and that defining erotic fic alone as slash takes the word away from all-ages-suitable homo-romantic fan fiction. This may cause confusion when the quite unambiguous words 'erotica', 'adult', and 'porn' already exist along with fanfiction terms such as 'lemon'. In addition, a number of journalists writing about the fan fiction phenomenon in general seem to believe that all fan fiction is slash, or at least erotic in character. [4][5] Such definitions fail to distinguish between slash, het (works focusing primarily on heterosexual relationships) and gen (works which do not include a romantic focus).

Content ratings and warnings

Slash fiction, like other fan fiction, sometimes borrows the MPAA film rating system, using the labels G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 to indicate the amount of sexual content in the story. The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U Not all slash fiction has explicit sexual content – the interaction between two characters can be as innocent as holding hands or a chaste kiss, or even contain nothing but unfulfilled yearning (stories known as UST for Unresolved Sexual Tension). As the result of trademark issues over the use of the MPAA rating system, some fandoms have created their own rating systems. A trademark or trade mark, represented by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual If a story contains themes which may offend or which some readers may find distasteful (e. g. rape, incest, BDSM, shota/underage characters, or even heterosexual sex) it is considered polite to include warnings in the story header. Incest refers to any sexual activity between closely related persons (often within the immediate family that is illegal or socially Taboo. sometimes shortened to, is a Japanese term for a Sexual complex where a person is sexually attracted towards a young and/or underage boy Some sites require all stories to be rated and have warnings attached, often by using a beta reader. A beta reader (also spelled betareader, or shortened to beta) is a person who reads a written work generally Fiction, with what has been described as "a

The term 'no lemon' is sometimes used to indicate fanfiction stories without sexual content. Anything with explicit content may be labeled 'lemon'. The terms 'lemon' and 'lime' arose from the anime/yaoi fandoms. (anime in Japanese, 'Lemon' refers to a hentai anime series, Cream Lemon. is a Japanese word that in the West is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation particularly Japanese Anime, is an H anime series with some in-depth storylines and classic (late 1970s to early 1980s style artwork 'Lime' is sometimes used to indicate that the story contains only mild sexual content, similar to a PG-13 film.

Slash fandom

 

According to polls, most of slash fandom is made up of heterosexual women with a college degree,[2] though it also includes males and lesbian women. Therefore, the majority of slash authors are women, although male authors also exist (especially in original slash). These demographics are older than the yaoi fans and, as such, they tend to be more easily disturbed about slash depicting underage sexuality. [6] This is becoming less true due to the popularity of Harry Potter slash. Harry Potter is a series of seven Fantasy novels written by British author J [7]

Terminology

Slash fiction has created and appropriated words to describe peculiarities found within the fandom.

One of these terms is squick, most often used as a warning to refer to a reader's possible negative reaction to scenes in the text (often sexual) that some might find offensive or distressing. This may include incest, BDSM, rape, MPreg (Male pregnancy), gender swaping or torture. Incest refers to any sexual activity between closely related persons (often within the immediate family that is illegal or socially Taboo. Rape, also referred to as Sexual assault, is an Assault by a person involving Sexual intercourse with or Sexual penetration of another person Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental is intentionally The term originated in the Usenet newsgroup alt.sex.bondage in 1991. A newsgroup is a Repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from many users in different locations altsexbondage was a Usenet Newsgroup that was originally created as part of the Alt [8] Squicks are often listed as a warning in the header of a fanfiction story.

Another term is One True Pairing (OTP) and its variants. Since slash is mostly commonly not written about pairings that exist in the canon of the fannish source, every fan can decide for herself who the true pairing of a show is supposed to be. OTP (and OT3/OT4 for fiction about threesomes and foursomes) can be used seriously to mean, "I only read or write stories that feature this particular pairing", or more casually, to show a preference. Popular canon sources with more than two slashable men, sometimes have Pairing Wars.

Original slash

Properly termed homoerotic fiction but very often termed "original slash", perhaps in an effort to better relate to the vast slash fanfiction audience thriving on the Internet, or perhaps because several of the authors participating in the genre priorly participated in slash fanfiction.

Homoerotic fiction is a growing and lucrative professional market within publishing circles. A few smaller presses, such as Torquere Press and PD Publishing, are dedicated to M/M and F/F titles, and several other mainstream publishers of erotica and romance have recently added "gay" sections to their print and digital catalogues.

With the advent of large online bookstores such as Fictionwise and Mobipocket, a popular niche opened up for professionally-written homoerotic stories, which are now as available and accessible to the Internet readership as slash fanfiction is. The genres of popular homoerotic fiction in epress today run the gamut from historical, science fiction/fantasy, paranormal, traditional romance, modern day westerns, horror, and many others.

There is also a substantial amount of free amateur writing available on the Internet with a similar readership to fanfiction. Many amateur authors are self-published either on the internet or through POD outlets such as Iuniverse or Lulu.

Slash controversy

For many people, slash is a controversial subject. In addition to the legal issues associated with traditional fan fiction, some people believe that it tarnishes established media characters to portray them in a way which was never illustrated canonically. [9] Slash fiction writers, however, often believe that sexual orientation and romance aren't necessarily fixed entities and that it is impossible to state conclusively that any character is straight, gay or bisexual without official word from the characters' creator(s). Sexual orientation is believed to refer to "an enduring pattern of emotional romantic and/or sexual attractions to men women or both sexes In cases where the extrapolated characters in slash fiction gain more popularity within a certain community than the original character themselves, the "fandom version"--alternative sexuality intact--may be perpetuated by slash fiction writers who may not have even watched the show and are unaware of how the show informs its characters' sexuality at all. Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc Some may accept the fandom portrayal and the original portrayal as separate and different characters while others find the incongruity unfavorable. Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc

There is vociferous debate on the canonicity of any relationship, be it homosexual or heterosexual, on various fan fiction websites. However, a certain percentage of slash writers choose their fandom because they believe it is actually likely within their chosen universe and that the original creator was unable to write about it for fear of losing popularity. For example, Angel/Spike fan fiction within the Buffyverse: in the Angel DVD commentary for "A Hole in the World", Joss Whedon, the creator of Angel said, "Spike and Angel. " Buffyverse " is a term coined by fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel to refer to the shared Fictional universe in " A Hole in the World " is episode 15 of season 5 in the television show Angel. . . they were hanging out for years and years and years. They were all kinds of deviant. Are people thinking they never. . . ? Come on, people! They're open-minded guys!" as well as Spike saying "Angel and me have never been intimate. Except that one. . . " to Illyria in the episode "Power Play. " Needless to say, this has been seen as a vindication of some fans who have been arguing this point since the characters met. Some people say they see similar evidence of such relationships in other shows such as Smallville, The O.C, Friends and House. This article is about the FOX television series For the location from which the series derives its name see Orange County California. Friends was an House, also known as House MD, is an American Medical drama, which debuted on the FOX network on November 16 2004

Occasionally, some forms of erotic fiction can prove to be particularly controversial: of note is slash involving underage characters (often termed chanslash; examples include some Harry Potter slash) or real person slash ('RPS', where people who actually exist, most often celebrities, are characters in slash stories). Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts which sexually arouse the reader whether written with that intention or not Harry Potter is a series of seven Fantasy novels written by British author J These are considered distasteful by some who otherwise find nothing objectionable about erotic fiction in general.

Chanslash

Chanslash is the controversial portrayal of underage characters in sexual situations in slash fiction. The prefix chan most likely comes from the Japanese name suffix used as a term of endearment toward children or women. Japanese, like other languages uses a broad array of Honorifics for addressing or referring to people with respect It is, perhaps, a nod towards yaoi fandoms where underage pairings are more commonplace. Owners of the intellectual property rights to characters in this type of slash are often unhappy with chanslash because of the potential legal ramifications and concern over negatively affecting the popularity of the character. Intellectual property ( IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical literary and artistic works inventions and symbols names Some studios owning the rights to slashed characters have issued cease and desist orders in the past as a result of this type of slash. A cease and desist (also called C & D) is an order or request to halt an activity or else face legal action

Some slash writers consider chanslash a separate entity from slash, and initially, there is vast and sometimes acrimonious controversy within the slash writing communities regarding the existence of chanslash. Authors are usually required to clearly mark chanslash stories with warnings of underage sex, and some slash communities forbid the posting of chanslash to their forums and groups altogether. What is considered chanslash may vary due to differing ages of consent in different jurisdictions.

Chanslash is also called "shouta" or "shota" when dealing with anime fanfiction.

Real person slash

Real person slash (RPS) involves taking the celebrity's public image and creating slash stories with them. Real person slash gained popularity with the rise of the pop music industry. [10] In particular, the popularity of boy bands in the late 1990s and early 2000s promoted the growth of RPS. RPS also encompasses other musicians, sports figures, actors, and even prominent political figures.

The legality of using a real person's name to tell a story has frequently been questioned. As a result, authors often preface their stories with lengthy disclaimers which clearly identify the story as entirely fictional. Real person slash took on a new dimension when slash fans and writers began to use blogging services to create fictional journals which purported to be owned by celebrities. A blog (a contraction of the term " Web log " is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary descriptions of These journals often include disclaimers that explain their true (fictional) nature, and that authors are participants in role-playing games where they take on the persona of a celebrity. In roleplaying, participants adopt and act out the Role of characters, or parts that may have personalities motivations and backgrounds different from

Many RPS authors have written alternate universe story-versions of the celebrities concerned. Many authors remove the facts of the celebrity's real life to the extent of behaving as though wives, children, relationships, and even current professions do not exist. Another popular alternate universe method is to remove the celebrity to another time period in history, keeping only the names and personalities of the persons involved. Other instances occur when the writer also changes facts about the characters of TV shows, movies, or books, or even the plots of shows.

In instances when even the names of the celebrities are changed, the fiction moves out of the realm of RPS and into original fiction, because the status of the celebrities in question have been demoted to mere mental avatars representing original fictional characters.

Evolution of slash

In recent years, slash fiction has moved beyond text-based literature. With the help of the internet to promote and distribute multi-media content and the growing prevalence of the slash phenomenon, new forms of slash (beyond narrative fiction) and slash analysis have begun to appear.

Slash artwork

In addition to fiction, fans also create artwork depicting media characters in same-sex relationship contexts. The visual arts are art forms that focus on the creation of works which are primarily Visual in nature such as Painting, Photography In recent years, the widespread availability of imaging software, like Adobe Photoshop, has allowed slash artists to manipulate photographs of their subjects to produce romantic or erotic images (often referred to as manips) which imply a homosexual relationship, either as static pictures or animated GIFs. When the manipulated photos depict real people instead of media characters, the creation of these images can be as contentious as RPS, and for many of the same reasons.

Prior to the widespread home adoption of computers, however, most fanart was done by hand using techniques such as pencil and ink line drawings, pointillism, and painting. Fan art or fanart is artwork that is based on a character costume item or story that was created by someone other than the artist See also Neo-Impressionism Pointillism is a style of Painting in which small distinct points of Primary colors create the impression of a wide selection Painting (pān'tīng in Art, is the practice of applying Color to a Surface (support base such as e Charcoals, gouache, watercolors, and other media were less widely used.

Hentai has an intimate connection with slash, as many slash stories are accompanied by links to hentai-style illustrations. is a Japanese word that in the West is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation particularly Japanese Anime,

Slash in academia

Slash fiction was the subject of several notable academic studies in the early 1990s, as part of the cultural studies movement within the humanities:

Most of these, as is characteristic of cultural studies, approach slash fiction from an ethnographic perspective and talk primarily about the writers of slash fiction and the communities that form around slash fiction. However, some studies (such as Cicioni's) focus on textual analysis of slash fiction itself.

Slash timeline

See also

References

  1. ^ Bacon-Smith, Camille. Femslash (also known as "f/f slash" "femmeslash" and "saffic" is a Subgenre of slash Fan fiction which focuses on romantic Real Person Fiction (RPF is a type of Fan fiction featuring Celebrities or other real people Talk Sex in science fiction/Draft. Please help to improve it! --> Sexuality in Science fiction refers to the incorporation A sexual fantasy, also called an erotic fantasy, is a deliberate fantasy or pattern of Thoughts with the goal of creating or enhancing sexual feelings "Spock Among the Women. " New York Times Sunday Book Review, November 16, 1986.
  2. ^ a b c d Kustritz, Anne (September 2003). "Slashing the Romance Narrative". The Journal of American Culture 26 (3): 371-384. doi:10.1111/1542-734X.00098. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  
  3. ^ Green, Shoshanna, Cynthia Jenkings and Henry Jenkins. "Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking: Selections From 'The Terra Nostra Underground' and 'Strange Bedfellows'. " Ed. C. Harris & A. Alexander. Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture and Identity. New Jersey: Hampton, 1998: pp. 9-38.
  4. ^ Dery, Mark. Glossary. Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyber Culture. North Carolina: Duke UP, 1994.
  5. ^ Viegener, Matias. "The Only Haircut That Makes Sense Anymore. " Queer Looks: Lesbian & Gay Experimental Media. Routledge, New York: 1993.
  6. ^ McLelland, Mark (10 2001). Local meanings in global space: a case study of women's 'Boy love' web sites in Japanese and English.
  7. ^ McLelland, Mark. The World of Yaoi: The Internet, Censorship and the Global “Boys’ Love” Fandom Australian Feminist Law Journal, 2005.
  8. ^ "squick" definition from Double-Tongued Dictionary
  9. ^ Hunter, Kendra. "Characterization Rape. " The Best of Trek 2. New York: New American Library, 1977.
  10. ^ "Slashing through the undercult", The Daily Telegraph, 2006-02-14. For "The Daily Telegraph" in Australia see The Daily Telegraph (Australia. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 842 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German Retrieved on 2007-08-24. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar 's General Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second Battle of the Bagradas River  
  11. ^ Evidence in the Media - CSI

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