Thinking back to the dinosaur days, when fic was only available through paper zines mimeographed off -- not even copy machines back then, kids -- there were very, very, *very* few venues for sharing your fic outside your closest friends who lived near you. If you were lucky (and 'rich), you could go to one of a handful of zine conventions or the mainstream literary cons (where you indeed needed to know the secret handshake, not only as a slasher, but just as someone interested in media zines at all -- zines were more common for "literary" work, with mainly reviews, commentaries and essays about particular authors or bodies of work and next to no fan fiction, although back in the day Katherine Kurtz, for instance, did allow fanfic of her world/characters, but she also vetted what got printed in her Deryni Chronicles -- I know, I know... who?); gaming wasn't big yet, nor was Anime. For most media fic fans, you got your fix through adzines: basically brief listings of all zines that were coming in print within the next couple of months, the adzine mailed out monthly or so, to whomever paid for an annual subscription. And because no one had any money then either, you had to be very deliberate in choosing, so the more details/'warnings', the better. 'Warnings' gave buyers the opportunity to decide what to buy -- or what not to buy -- of something pretty much otherwise went sight unseen until you bought it.
There weren't enough opportunities to have slash only events and mailings (though, yes, there were 'NO Slash allowed' distinctions), and most zine editors exercised their editorial control and wanted only particular types of stories for a particular zine or their whole line -- romance, action/adventure, wallow (old term for angst and/or hurtcomfort, slash). Basically, everyone had to play in the same, very small pool, so they wanted to know who and what was safe for their own comfort levels -- and who were the perverts (my kink is okay, yours is icky). Certainly some people used any type of classification to be exclusionary, while others used them as guidelines to seek out their favorite flavors. The divide between slashers and everyone else was very wide but, truthfully, kept that way by *both sides*. Certainly most of the slashers in my acquaintance were no happier to mingle with non slashers in person or in print, as in the reverse.
There weren't enough opportunities to have slash only events and mailings (though, yes, there were 'NO Slash allowed' distinctions), and most zine editors exercised their editorial control and wanted only particular types of stories for a particular zine or their whole line -- romance, action/adventure, wallow (old term for angst and/or hurtcomfort, slash). Basically, everyone had to play in the same, very small pool, so they wanted to know who and what was safe for their own comfort levels -- and who were the perverts (my kink is okay, yours is icky). Certainly some people used any type of classification to be exclusionary, while others used them as guidelines to seek out their favorite flavors. The divide between slashers and everyone else was very wide but, truthfully, kept that way by *both sides*. Certainly most of the slashers in my acquaintance were no happier to mingle with non slashers in person or in print, as in the reverse.
Reply
Leave a comment