... Reading fanfic, reading slash.



I remember when I found fanfiction. It was after I read Goblet of Fire and was waiting for OotP to come out. I found a story, I don't remember how, I didn't know what "fanfiction" was, so I thought it was just someone writing how they wished/dreamed/thought the books would continue; a short story inspired by the books. And so read it.

In retrospect, I realise this was a Draco/Hermione story. It was PG (from what I recall) and it was good. I was a bit confused though, because I didn't understand why Draco was being nice all of the sudden, and why Hermione wanted to hang out with him instead of Harry and Ron. I didn't know what "ships" were either! But still, I thought it was a pretty nifty idea.

Went looking for more. Did some more searching and Ta Dah! Slash. Or rather: SLASH

I read my first slash fanfiction. It was Harry/Draco, NC 17 and a PWP to boot! It was pretty much the hottest thing I had read in my life, up to then. It was. . . it was like seeing life in colours, with the celestial illumination and miracle music and all. (For a more accurate illustration of my actual reaction, see here. Yes. That was me all right.)

I was all, "Oh, this is awesome. I wonder if there's more?" (Only, you know, in CAPS LOCKS and with a crazy/obsessed glint in my eyes.)

And thank you, Internet, because, yep, it turned out there was quite a bit more out there. :D

I found websites and slash web-rings. Eventually I made my way to the yahoo groups, which is where the Harry Potter community lived; slash, femslash, het, it all happened through yahoo groups, later on I found fanfiction.net (I still remember when ffnet was cool), and after a couple of years there, it all moved to livejournal. The rest, is history.

But man, what a thrill; finding, discovering! Opening your eyes to something new, falling in love with a fandom, finding people who loved something as much I did and created all these amazing stories and art, being part of something bigger. *happy sigh*

What about you? How did you find fanfiction? How did you find Slash? Was it Harry Potter first or a different fandom?

A lot has been said about commenting, specially that people are doing it less these days, which makes me sad because it's not only fun, but I think it's important, too; to let someone know, who took time and effort to share something with the fandom, that you enjoyed their work.

Sometimes commenting doesn't come easily, but it doesn't have to be complicated either. So I wrote a list, a sort of step-by-step guide I go through when I do it.

I wrote this for fun. I admit, I don't religiously follow each and every one of these steps, but on the whole, this is how I basically go about writing a comment.

Like I said, all for fun. The lovely eidheann_writes corrected my mistakes (and seriously, isn't she the loveliest thing on the planet?), but lets not blame her for the content. That's all my fault.

So I present you:

8 ½ Fail-Safe Ways To Write A Comment (or my step by step guide to successful commenting)

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I know, I'm not re-inventing the wheel here, and some of these are pretty obvious, but I thought I'd share them anyway. :)