what makes the hottest fan fiction/slash fiction?

For the record, I *love* fan fiction. I am a completely (un)ashamed addict. I think it's absolutely great, it's Porn For Girls. Whoever says women don't have an objectifying, pornographic sex drive just needs to read some of the fan fict out there. Despite a few male writers, it's still mainly an overwhelmingly female-written and female-read genre.

I'm not crazy about TV or movie based fan fict, because, well, I don't get that engaged in film. *MY* absolute addiction is Pop Star Fan Fiction. And my god, is there some great stuff out there. I mean, yes, there is a lot of Hanson/N'Sync/whatever stuff written by teenage girls with crushes, but not even all of that is completely bad. But these days, every pop star from The Beatles to Bobby G is fair game.

I used to host a site for "Pop Music Fan Fiction" called Entertain Me! which I have sadly lost control over, in one of those freaking nazi web host takeover problems (I'm sure that Freaky Trigger readers can relate). This site got 70,000 hits before the counter went down!

I started, like most girls my age, with Duran Duran fan fict- this genre, especially, leads itself to "Slash" especially between John Taylor and Nick Rhodes. This phenomenon is even documented in the hilariously funny Moldy Peaches song "Duran2 Boyfriend". Oldest and best site out there is The Lovely Blue Planet of There.

As I got older, and my tastes changed, I started lusting after indie pop stars, but grew ashamed of my habits, as I didn't know any other girls who still indulged, and most boys my age were screaming indie fanboys who, despite their overwhelmingly homoerotic love of their idols, HATED even the vague whisper of sexuality to permeate the girls' fandom, as that smacked of teenybopperism, and our Duran Duran pasts. My uber-work, the "Book of Ride" was kept in secret, and basically featured my heroine sleeping her way through the entire Creation Records roster, then the early Britpop scene. Hysterical slash scenes ensued between members of the JAMC, then Ride, then Suede and so on. (This is the real, true reason why I often refer to members of Spacemen3 as "My Dead Husband" and "The Prophet Jason Pierce". It's a reference to an early story branch.)

Little did I know, OTHER PEOPLE WERE DOING THIS TOO!!! Best evidence of this type of fan fiction is kept on Primal Scream Fan Fiction.

Finally, I'd like to hestitatingly reccomend my own former site, Entertain Me!. Warning: this site is an absolute *mess* and there are millions of dead links. I apologise, as I no longer have any control over it whatever. If you want the filth, head straight for the "Naughty Zone" for slash and serious porn. No one is safe- Blur (who threatened to raise such a legal stink that we had to change their name to "Slur" in the really naughty ones... a tradition which was extended to *all* bands in some of the stories, with hysterical results), Duran Duran, Sloan, the Dandy Warhols, Radiohead... (Sorry, Ally, I begged for Manics fiction, and never got any!)

For the record, NO, I did NOT write it ALL. At its peak, I had a team of about half a dozen people working on various story lines. It's fairly obvious to figure out which of the main stories listed on the front page I had a hand in, tho. ;-) (The Deep Field and its various sequels/prequels was actually based on a great deal of my experiences being in indie and semi-pro bands back in NYC. If you read it quite carefully, it works on many levels- characters are not just the pop stars they're clothed as, but also snide commentaries on NY Scenester types that I knew back in the day. I've had both pop stars *and* the ex-boyfriends the characters were actually based on being *very* irate with me for some of the character assasinations...)

Anyways, there is some examples. I've written scads and scads on the actual sociological and gender/sexual commentary *behind* fan fiction, some of it published, some of it on the web. I (or rather, my site) have even been featured in Rolling Stone and on Radio1, back in the day, though not mentioned by name, thank GOD.

Will get into this subject more and deeper later, but I've got to shower and run to get to the Spitz to help Paul set up Strange Fruit. Now get off the internet and come down and see Life Without Buildings and Rock of Travolta tonight.

I suppose I shouldn't be suprised that there's a dalziel & pascoe slash site (note to non-UK posters - Brit middlebrow, but highly enjoyable detective series) as that did always strike me as being more than little homoerotic in the first place.

As for that PRML SCRM site....Oh. My. God. I suppose I was somewhat disappointed not to see a, er, "prison scenario", featuring eg BBBY GLSSP and, say, alex from blur, but there y'go hehehe

I have to ask this...is there a fan/slash site featuring ILM regular momus? There has to be, surely?

x0x0 (trying hard not to imagine motorhead slash lit)

The New Bill?

NoPHC?

But my home computer is old and feeble, And I have not checked very far into any of these sites, I'm afraid.

Closest we ever got to that was prison bitch style scenario involving Damon and Graham from Blur, which we were ASKED TO REMOVE from the site. Sigh.

I always thought a Joan Jett/Chrissie Hynde one would be hysterical in a clonefuck kinda way.

Norman: he'll probably send me 'kill! kill!' rays with his good eye, but ILM's answer to Dangermouse probably doesn't have any FF about him. Female fans can generally go straight to the man himself, thus obviating need to write imaginary scenarios. However, I could always put Dennis Cooper on the case...

Kate: you did see the bobby/jim one flagged on ILM?

Suzy, I knew the woman who *writes* the Bobby/Jim fan fiction on that Primal Scream site.

Dangermouse has Frisk signed by its (very mild-mannered) author using my red lipstick, the only implement to hand at the time. He'd probably be more excited to read it than any of us would be.

Will see what I can do.

I wonder sometimes whether he's just doing it for shock value, Because He Can, and all that- or if he is a genuinely creepy individual exorcising his demons in public.

Dennis Cooper is SO not creepy or weird, he's mild-mannered and in so many ways has never left art college. He was fanzine boy for 10 years before anyone would publish his work. I don't know if you've read early books like Closer, but he started out writing about teenagers who were fixated on yr. McCullouchs almost as a subplot and for a lot of people, to have their post-punk lust-objects speculated over in Real Books and their peer groups portrayed was something of a revelation. He's also a guy who knows his de Sade, etc. and has an interesting, relevant biography which complements the stuff he writes (it's not that autobiographical).

The Blur-worrying tendency developed late and is influenced by slash I'm sure (and until he, erm, filled out, D really thought Alex was a hottie) but that isn't all of it, only part. It does annoy me that the subjects take it so personally and sue. They don't understand that one function of their celebrity or image is as an influence for other people to interpret or pose like they're playing dolls, just as another group will come along and borrow a riff as another kind of influence.

The thing with a lot of slash is that even though it's transgressive in terms of subject and appropriation of characters it still mostly reads like Mills and Boon, with clichéd, euphemistic terms for genitalia and climax all over the place. I like that it's grassroots, but my inner publisher tells me most of the writers aren't capable of much more than these quick scenes now. In another ten years, maybe we'll see a slash to novelist crossover.

I guess that's what makes him so creepy to me. It's like this perpetual case of not growing up, being stuck at the phase of indie fan boy art school student. Maybe he is writing about his peer group, maybe he is documenting a certain lifestyle of empty post-punk LA. He just... this is going to sound very homophobic, and really it's not, but I just wonder how it takes a gay male to legitimise and "make proper art out of" something that was a folk art of women for ages. Something about that tickles my inner feminist wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it.

I like that it's grassroots, but my inner publisher tells me most of the writers aren't capable of much more than these quick scenes now. In another ten years, maybe we'll see a slash to novelist crossover.

Suzy, it's already happened. Many established writers in sci fi, I'm thinking specifically of Tannith Lee, though I know there are others, got their start writing fan fiction.

Just in the stable of the dozen writers I had writing for my site, at least two have been already been published, one just in underground literature levels, but the other makes a (bare) living out of her full-on commercial publishing deal.

Most of fan fiction is pretty shit, but then again, if you spent your entire life at the Dublin Castle, you'd think all music was shit.

I don't think your comment was at all homophobic and I do know what you mean about who's allowed to have legitimacy in the eyes of the critics and media, believe me. But in identifying him as an arrested development case (I did too, but I see nothing wrong with being that), aren't you forgetting what it feels like to have your own interests/art derided as childish? And they're almost exactly the same, ;).

Publishers are not the most pro-active people in the whole world. But apart from the few people you mention, has anyone you know tried to go to a publisher or literary agent and gotten laughed off? Or does the whole circus kind of intimidate them because that's what they think would happen? I think it's useless to complain that a club won't have you unless you've got the rejection slip in your hands.

A lot of publishers and agents like slash A LOT, when it's good, but they are very intimidated by the legal side, finding it unworkable on that basis. Nothing will happen to change that until a publisher can see huge lucrative potential in a slash script, then s/he will move mountains to make it happen. Even though it's the author who takes the risk of legal action along with the shit royalty rate, publishers are loath to get in there because of the pseudopolitical issues around fucking off famous people. I know it sucks, but it's not going to be like that forever.

''Star Trek: Voyager f/f is often v.hilarious and clever (somewhere I've got a 7of9/Janeaway/B'wanna S&M threesome story which is also about the difficulties of cultural communication and the loneliness of command (I mean, besides spanking...)''

OK I wanna find this! help meeee!!!!

Star Wars: Phantom Menace (aka Episode One) has a lot of lovely slash -- it was a lot better for that than as an actual film. Best and most central place to find it is here: http://www.masterapprentice.org/

My big slash love right now is Highlander. Not so much being written now as their once was (leave it to me to get into something ages after it peaks) but some fantastic stuff.

I'm not particularly fond of "real people slash" (i.e. about bands, actors, etc) but the big surge in that lately has been all about the cast of the recent Lord of the Rings movies.

and in the case of having fan fiction based on real people, there is something about it that makes some people uncomfortable. maybe it's projecting the idea that someone you don't know could make graphic sexual stories about you. i think most girls and women have been the unconsenting subject of someone else's sexual fantasy and it hasn't exactly been flattering. on one hand, you could say these people are in the public domain and the stories deal more with archetypal created personas than real people, but they still are people (who are usually high-strung, over-sensitive, and with lawyers on retainer). in general these kind of stories seem to become more about the author and subject and are harder for some readers to relate to. it's hard to pin down. but it's sorta like how reading about a couple getting it on can be erotic, but hearing your neighbor go into detail about how her and her boyfriend get it on kinda just creeps you out. it seems it would just be more effective to create new names and amalgam characters that are a little less specific. but maybe that would lose the fan fiction cult status and make it much harder to find it's appropriate audience. but i think todd haynes did a pretty good job of this kind of thing with velvet goldmine.

This is SOOO wrong-headed that it just about makes me spit. And this is the assumption about fan fiction that makes me angry and more upset than any of the rest of the "it is sad and/or creepy and/or only for 12 year old girls with emotional problems" type criticism.

Have you ever actually read any fan fiction? Have you ever actually read any "real" fiction?

For a start, I know a lot of writers. (I'm not saying that as a namedroppy boast, I just seem to know quite a few of them.) If you read a book, not knowing anything about the person that wrote it, it looks like this stunning work of imagination and creativity - because you think that the characters are made up from scratch. And then you meet the writer, and their various mates, and you start to view "Fiction" in a very different way - my god, this character is you, this character is yer girlfriend mixed with a bit of your mum, this is your sister, etc. etc. etc. I'm not saying that this is BAD - making the characterisations believable and breathing life into them is a skill. But "real" authors use the same shortcuts - you're just not aware of them because you don't know the people they're borrowing the personalities of.

And for a second... if FF writers use no work or imagination of their own, and just borrow established characters, then why, when you read a variety of FF by different authors - are the same characters all so DIFFERENT? You'd be surprised at the variation of interpretations. If you say "they're all the same" then you clearly just haven't read a wide enough variety. FF says more about the state of mind of its author than it ever says about the rock stars or TV characters it's based on. The mark of skill in a FF writer is not how close they get their character to "the Canon" but how well they read as believable human beings.

The only argument of yours that I'm even willing to entertain is the "eeuuww" factor. It's one thing to read sexual thoughts about an abstract character - but when it's someone that you feel that you know - or at least know their "personna" - then it can have that "eeuw" factor. Especially if it's a person you never saw in a sexual light.

I thought this was exactly the point that Lolita was making. The readers already know the characters in the case of FF so the author *does* get a bit of a free lunch as far as character development goes. I don't see this being intrinsically bad btw, just thought it was worth pointing out.

What I like is how the characters grow and develop. Some slash is huge - spans decades and decades. The Cordelia and Angel and Buffy that exist in my head are so different to the characters on the telly now due the the humungous amount of fan-fic I have read. I like the fan-fic better than the shows actually.

I agree that real-people slash is a bit creepy but then how real is the public persona (and even appearance) of many famous people?

I know a number of very good writers, though, who take pride in their work, make sure they've had the input of at least one editor, a great deal of attention to plot, etc. Quite a bit of it is a lot better than most fiction you'd pick up in a bookstore.

Of course, many of them do go on to write original fiction.

Lolita, I think you can look at it from the other direction as well. Working with "readymade characters" means imposing limitations upon yourself - you have to conform to a pre-existing characterisation and world, to remain within the bounds of the original text. With a readership who already know the characters, the writer has to ensure that whatever they do doesn't wildly deviate from accepted canon characterisation, because they may well be shot down for it. It's, in my opinion, easier to make your own characters than work with someone else's: your own characters can change in whatever way you like and it will still be 'right', but there needs to be a lot more character development for a pre-existing character to start behaving contrary to type.

I really should asterisk some of those out.

The difference between FF and "regular" fiction is that regular fiction already has an established editorial system to weed out the crap. Put the average 12 year old girl's fan fiction up against your neighbour who's been trying to write the Great American Novel for the past ten years, and see which is more crap.

With FF, it requires more effort on the part of the reader to pick out the good stuff; you don't have Faber & Faber to do it for you.

Working with "readymade characters" means imposing limitations upon yourself - you have to conform to a pre-existing characterisation and world, to remain within the bounds of the original text.

This is actually sometimes *harder* than writing "original" characters. You don't know the pain of being edited until you've faced a circle of rabid fans going "That's not the way that *MY* John Taylor/Graham Coxon/Whoever would act!"

It's much more like writing a soap opera than anything else, I would imagine. If you write something "out of character" my god, will people complain.

WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BE MALE!

MORE ILX SLASH PLZ

<a href=http://rule34.paheal.net/post/list/Venture_Brothers/1>;UGH</a>

NSFW, but on this thread I would imagine that goes without saying.

<i>MORE ILX SLASH PLZ</i>

Has there ever been any ILX slash fiction?

http://www.cracked.com/article_16554_indy-lord-voldemort-fanfictions-5-strangest-love-matches.html

Remembering to bend with my knees, I stooped down, and scooped Paul into my arms, murmering soothing phrases to him as he cried into my chest.

In answer to the original question, I discovered accidentally, and somewhat against my will that yes, there actually *exists* Momus-slash out there. EEEEEUUUUUW.

In fact, funnily enough, it was a Momus / Franz Ferdinand slash that was rumoured to have caused the demise of one of the best FF communities on LiveJournal... heh heh heh.

It's really weird, there's, like, a whole nother generation of girls doing it now, swapping it in new and exciting ways that we never dreamed of, over a decade ago.

It's really quite weird, these days, reading slash about musicians I have actually had to interact with IRL in the indie scene, it does require a kind of layering of "This is not the X I know, this is a character" but still...

Just one of the myriad ways in which technology has made the world soooo much better.

Dom P, your Lennon-Macartney thing was really great.

http://i.imgur.com/MMhyD.jpg

monetized

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1823219&highlight=

Benedict Cumberbatch, the latest fan fiction writer:

http://cumberbum.tumblr.com/post/101257721361/benedict-cumberbatch-talks-sex-sherlock

Yes, I said writer of fan fiction.

https://www.wattpad.com/89317086-bad-boys-a-billie-joe-armstrong-fan-fiction-sugar

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Band%20of%20Brothers/works

Band of Brothers erotic fan fiction

for the record i did not see this bump before threatening to post bloomberg/biden ship fic to the bloomberg thread

i feel seen