Represent

This is what I remember from the first m/m fan fic I ever read:

It was Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan (my very first OPT!) and they had just gotten back from a mission. Obi-Wan was still a Padawan. Maybe one of them was hurt? I can’t remember that much, but I do remember that Qui-Gon came to check on Obi and they ended up having sweet, hurt/comfort sex and that the whole thing was very loving and gentle. Recently I was searching through AO3 and Master-Apprentice archives, trying to find it, but alas, it’s lost for the ages.

But you know, that fic had a huge impact on me. This must have been in 1999. I was in high school, struggling with my identity, struggling with the weight of all my unknowns. I knew I was different. Very different. Scary different, not cute, eccentric different. I knew that I had to keep it quiet, just like when in 7th grade I’d been caught googling (except it wasn’t Google then. It was, like, Excite, or something) ‘homosexuality in ancient Greece’ to lie and say that it was for a history project. Not that I was just desperately trying to find any shred of evidence that anyone at all thought that what I was feeling was normal.

I’m a voracious reader, and books saved me. My parents, educators both, encouraged me to read, anything and everything and through books I found shadows of the sameness I was looking for.

Patricia Nell Waren’s ‘Frontrunner’, its sequels and her novel ‘Fancy Dancer’.

Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.

Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat.

Poppy Z. Brite’s novels and short stories.

 

Storm Constantine’s incredible Wraeththu books.

And fan fiction. God, I thank you for fan fiction.

Because when I discovered that little Star Wars fan fic, back in 1999 when I was a lonely teenager, suddenly I didn’t have to desperately scour the racks at our local library and  bookstore, in the dark days before Amazon. Suddenly there was a feast before me, so much I could never read it all.

So simply, with no question, fan fiction told me that there were others like me. So many others. That what I felt was normal. 

That yes, Xena and Gabrielle obviously were meant to be together.

That Xander had way more chemistry with Spike than he ever did with Anya.

That Duncan McLeod and Richie had some serious sexual tension.

Fan fiction lead to original m/m slash fiction, which lead to m/m romance which lead me to … here. Fan fiction gave me permission to write what was in my heart. It told me that I wasn’t perverted or disgusting or sexually confused. Or, if I was, there were a lot bunch of people just like me.

Fan fiction saved my life.

Because what would I have done? Keep searching for shadows, straining for any glimpse of myself in mainstream media, in books I bought in secret two towns over? Where was I in all of that?

But there I was in fan fiction, given freely and without judgment. In shared joy even, no matter how strange or kinky.

It matters so much, whose stories we choose to tell.