"ankle bracelets and bellychains"

This is so timely! A few weeks ago I googled my name & came upon a lesbian slash "fan fiction" about, as far as I can tell, a person's local news cast starring a Laura "Kaz" Kazdan & I was reminded of the existence of fan fic. Check my Facebook for a "friend fic" if you care a lot. Aaaanyway, here we go again:

Fan fiction is part of a larger fan culture, which involves art, internet forums, and conventions. Within this subculture a whole other sub-culture of almost equal size exists. This is the slash and gay fan culture. I read "Lime Crush Has No Inherent Meaning" because the summary the author gave it was "Xander and Oz have sex on a beach for no apparent reason." It lived up to this lofty claim, and more! Putting Oz in pink lipstick and Xander in a belly chain and adding lots of cocoa butter, the author could've been writing about anybody - nothing had much to do with the source material. While some fan fiction takes off from a particular episode or scene, I've always thought fiction in general is a place for wish fulfillment. Fans form communities based on their shared interest in a character or couple (or videos or photoshop). Slash fiction such as this one was, is a light hearted way for a fan of a show to reach out to others with the same interests (Buffy, gayness, dolphins) and share their fantasies or creativity and gain acceptance.

The next fiction I read was "Xander Harris's Really Weird Jar-Jar Sex Dream" because of the title. This combined fandoms, perhaps to reach out to more people. This too was light as air and a little wacky. Slash can sometimes be very dark; my theory is that people write fic to express things they can't in their physical life. In fiction an author can anonomously explore their forbidden desires and be encouraged that there are others like them. This is probably why there is such an abundance of slash... it is a forum for some gay teens to work through their fears and desires, gain confidence, and perhaps come out in real life (or "RL" as they like to refer to it.) Of course this is all based on my own theories and has no scientific evidence, but it makes sense to me! How about you?