GIP and a fanfic question.

[suki_blue]

I was having a look through some of the old files on my laptop and I came across a few caps that I'd done of the first season of 21 Jumpstreet - my original obsession and the series that kicked off a Johnny Depp fixation that spanned 14 years.

And the only thing to break that obsession was ~drum roll~ you guessed it, Buffy. Or, more specifically, Spander.

So, in fond memory of a TV show long passed but much loved, I made an icon. ~points~ Totally sharable. Feel free to snag.

Now, that brings me to something else.

I wrote a heck of a lot when I was very young, but for reasons that I wont go into - because it would probably involve pages and pages of babble and the possible need for a head doctor - I stopped writing around the age of about 14. Shortly after, I discovered 21 Jumpstreet, and , as I said before, it kicked off a mammoth obsession with the show and with Johnny Depp.

Then, several years ago, I discovered The Matrix. Cue another obsession. But instead of replacing my Johnny kink ~cough~ it merely extended it. I began to fantasise about Tommy from Jumpstreet, who by this point was so much more than an undercover cop - in my head - and Neo with his dark glasses, long coat and Big Fucking Guns. Yep, in my head, I crossed them over.

I will also admit to dreaming about Johnny Depp/Will Smith, although it came nowhere near to the utter joy of Tommy/Neo. I even had T/N Sims.

And the rest is History, or if you'd like a slightly longer version: Along came Spike and Xander and within a week poor old Johnny Depp and Keanu Reeves were out on their unwanted, discarded, frankly-not-interested backsides. Two months later I was writing again.

This got me to wondering, if I'd known about fanfiction all those years ago, would I have written Jumpstreet slash? Or Matrix slash? Would I have written a really weird Jumpstreet/Matrix hybrid crossover? Or, if we go back a little further, Doctor Who slash? Or ~gulp~ Neighbours slash? (And yes, you may bitch-slap me for my Jason Donovan phase)

So, what about you? What would you have read, searched for, or written if you'd known about slashfic/fanfic a decade or more before?

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

You and I have something in common. We both stopped writing at fourteen. I started again at thirty six.

Had I known of fanfiction when I was younger, I think I would have searched for something based on classic films. And I would definitely have wanted Jeff/Johnny slash from Johnny Eager. I also would have wanted anything based on A Woman's Face where Torsten doesn't die and he Anna kill that meddling doctor!


Gabrielle

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

How weird! It must be something about the ago of 14! I started again almost two years ago, which would have made me 28.

I'm not too up on classic films, but that sounds really cool! I hadn't even thought about going back that far, era wise. I wonder how many people wrote their own version of fanfic back then.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

OMG! It's almost my two year anniversary as a fic writer, too! EEEK! The parallells are becoming rather freaky!

Actually, writing Jeff/Johnny (Johnny Eager) slash would be quite appropriate. Most people agree that when Van Heflin won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Jeff, he was the first actor portraying a gay character to do so. While, since this movie was made in the 40's, no one comes out and refers to Jeff as being gay in the film, it's pretty obvious that his devotion to Johnny (the title character) is something other than platonic. I, like you, wonder if gay viewers wrote, or at least dreamed up, fanfic of their own after seeing this movie. I'm sure they all saw what modern viewers do. And I'm pretty sure the director put it there on purpose!


Gabrielle

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Wow! This is getting freaky. Seperated at birth!!!!

Oooh, that is interesting. I need to catch this film. The viewers must have at least dreamed up some stuff in their heads, even if they didn't dare put it down on paper.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

We have way too much in common, huh!

It's a really cool gangster film, and Jeff is easily one of the most interesting characters in ANY gangster film ever....drunk, intellectual, gay...gotta love him! And Robert Taylor and Lana Turner are pretty cool, too. Plus there's lots of snappy dialogue and a really cute greyhound named Gypsy. If you get the chance, you should definitely see it.

I am quite sure that moviegoers and TV viewers have at least imagined fanfiction, if not written it down, since the invention of the flickers. Heck, there was LITERATURE-based fanfic in the 19th century! Honest to God! Thackeray hated the ending of Scott's Ivanhoe so much that he wrote and published a sequel called Rebecca and Rowena!


Gabrielle

[batmanvinnie.livejournal.com]

I'm a nerd, so yeah, totally upons the Star Trek. Of course, ten years ago, I didn't hate Tom Cruise, so maybe some Top Gun or Speed. Cuz thats what I watched when I was 14. But thinking about it, I find the T/N pairing hot.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I wonder how much Top Gun was written. It's so very interesting!!

[http://users.livejournal.com/woman_of_/]

Well through the ages! Maybe Doyle and Brodie...I think they would have made a great slash couple. The Painted Dragon, but cant think of anyone good enough for him.

The problem being I had to read slash to learn how to write it. Bit slow on the uptake. I think I would have been het at the time, and probably a Mary Sue as well.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I would have written some Het too. Although ym slashy tendancies were showing way back before I even hit teenage status!

Cool!

[writan-bur.livejournal.com]

I'd probably written A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard.

I never really wrote anything fictional until I had a creative writing class in Grade 12, and then not until I had another at uni in 2003. I was usually too busy either mentally writing (aka daydreaming) Mary Sues or reading.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah!! I think I would have written A-Team, too!! I had a major crush on Face for a long time.

And yes for the DoH, too!!

[leprechaundance.livejournal.com]

hmm, it would have probably been anime/graphic novel slash (or het, depending on if we're talking before the slash epiphany or after). And by graphic novel I pretty much just mean The Sandman series; I didn't really branch out into other graphic novels until fairly recently.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, I can totally see that. Talking of anime type stuff, I had quite a Crush on Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. And you know, it was only recently, thanks to Kitty, that I discovered Yaoi. If only we'd had that ten years ago!

What type of graphic novels do you read now?

[leprechaundance.livejournal.com]

What type of graphic novels do you read now?

I've been really into Crimson. It's a vampire epic-battle-between-good-and-evil kind of story. haha, my favorite kind XD

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Hee! Sounds like my type of thing too!

[silveramericana.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, I've never actually written fanfic, I don't have enough of an attention span, but I think I've been reading fanfiction for close to 6 years now. Wow, that means I started when I was 11. Huh. Hilariously, I started with DN Angel (anime) fanfic, that stars two guys and most of the stories I read had veiled hints to slashy-ness, not that I understood at the time :).

I've read that one of my all-time favorite Book authors, Mercedes Lackey, who is automatically put on the Best-seller's list everytime she puts out a new book, actually started with fan-fiction writing. I thought that was ironic, because she now has people writing fan-fic's about her stuff. I guess fanfic has been around for a looong time, I wonder what people put out then? Can you imagine I Love Lucy fanfics? That would so rock!

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

I wonder if perhaps you had a Slashy urge that you didn't quite recognise ;o)

I bet there were loads of fanfics for stuff like Mash and the like. I assume it must have been hard to get hold of them. Or maybe fanfic writers held little conventon thingies and handed out fanzines. You never know!

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

The first fanfic I can remember reading was original Star Trek. Jim and Spock, of course. It was in magazine form because the idea of having a computer in the living room was unheard of in those far-off days. Most companies didn't even have a mainframe, never mind PCs on every desk. That must have been when I was in my mid-teens.

Looking back, it was slash, though I'm not sure if even the writers realised that. As far as they were concerned it was probably friendship fic, but very intense. Nothing graphic but if I'd been less naive I would have realised that J/S were probably bonking one another like mad behind the scenes. *g*

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Wow! If only you'd kept it! What fun that would be to read now. So, what sort of magazines were they?

Can you imagine not having a pooter now? That would be...just awful!!!

You know, loking back, I wonder how much subliminal stuff there was out there. Hmmm...

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

My memory is a bit fuzzy about it now but I seem to remember it was a little magazine full of short stories by different people. Almost a paperback book. I haven't a clue what happened to it but it'd probably be worth a few bob now.

Nooooo. I couldn't even imagine not having a pooter now!

A friend of mine has a book about gay subtext in 19th century cowboy literature and there was a lot of subliminal stuff around. Homosexuality was illegal and they had to be very careful not to alert the 'straights' about what they were actually writing.

[shapinglight]

I did know there was such a thing as slashfic a decade or more before I ever wrote any. However, until the Buffyverse came along, I had no interest in either reading it or writing it.

It's all new to me.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

What was it about the Buffyverse that realed you in, then?

I've wondered why I got so caught up with it and I don't think it was just for the hot guys.

[shapinglight]

I think it was the vampires, to be honest. Somehow, it seemed to me you could do so much with them that you couldn't do with human characters.

To this day, I've no interest in reading slash fics in any other fandom and with some, I can't get my head round why anyone would want to write or read them.

I'm a Jossverse girl through and through.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Completely! The vampire thing!! And you have eternal love; that certainly attracts me ;o)

The only other fandom I play in really is DC, and even then I have this habbit of crossing over. Hee! But DC did grab me, in a lesser way, like Buffy did. I think it's something to do with a rich playground to fiddle about in.

[shapinglight]

Well, super-heroes - they're not exactly human either (or a lot of them aren't).

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Exactly - in both Btvs and DC anything is possible. I'm very attracted to that

[ficbitca-bear.livejournal.com]

I knew about (and laughed at the nerdy idea of) fanfic a long time ago. I say I laughed, but that's only because there is no actual record surviving of the Blakes Seven fanfic that I wrote aged 12, or (even more thankfully) the LA Law fanfic.

Blakes Seven was full of plot and Mary Sues - no 'ships back then but if I did it now, I'd probably slash Avon and Tarrant. LA Law was also just as full of Mary Sues and terrible character bashing. Grace used to die horribly in almost every story. Ummm. And it was 'shippy fic. Arnie/Roxanne. Eeek! Yes, I wrote (very vanilla and UST-y) het.

Thankfully, I have seen the light!

I have no explanation really, however, for the Michael/KITT Knight Rider at-least-R-rated slashfic that I started writing about a month ago...

I am wondering just who you would have slashed in Neighbours? I can't believe that it's 20 years old this year! That's mind boggling!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Is this lovely icon shareable? I know some B7 fans that would love to snap it up. :)

[ficbitca-bear.livejournal.com]

Seeing icons I've made being used by others always gives me a buzz, so please feel free to snag away!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Oh yay! Goodie.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

You know, I've never watched Blake Seven. Hee! And LA Law! Wouldn't it be fun if you still had the old fanfic? What a laugh to look back on it.

I'm so glad you have also seen the light! Imagine if you still wrote that and I started writing the Neighbours slash! ~cough~ I woulda slashed Scott Robinson and Henry Ramsey. How embarassing!!

Knight Rider!!! OMG!! I so need to read this!! Yes! I had a big fixation for that show. Huh. I wonder if I would have written KR fics. Hmm.

I feel so old when I look back at all these shows like KR, Neighbours, and Baywatch! I keep catching that on Sky.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Great post, Suki. I'm gonna rec it around if that's alrighty.

For me, ten years ago I'd have been 17--so I'd have been writing X-Files, Star Trek, Days of Our Lives (ducks *g*), Friends, Frasier, and possibly Family Ties 'cause me and my girlfriend Jouida used to rock out to some Michael J Fox. LOL

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Ta muchly! Go for it, my little Tiddlyflopperoonie!

They've been showing all three Matrix films over here and it just got me to thinking. I'm convinced that I would have written Matrix fic if the little lightbulb in my head had gone on. Strangely, there were no lightbulbs until I became single again. Figure that.

OMG, I am so with you on X-Files, Friends, Frasier and Family Ties. In a way I'm quite gutted that I didn't write fanfic back then. It's stupid that I didn't! I've always loved writing, but somewhere along the line my confidence went and I was convinced that if I couldn't write something perfectly then there was no point.

I blame my teacher for that.

Days of Our Lives. ~snerk~

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I know I know. But DOOL so rocked back in the day, before Marlena got possessed by the devil. LOL