Hth

Fan
Name:	Hth
Alias(es):	Betty Plotnick, Fionnuala Bloom
Type:	fanwriter
Fandoms:	Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, due South, Popslash, The Sentinel, Stargate Atlantis, The X-Files
Communities:	Ladyslash mailinglist
Other:	Barb and Hth's Wonderful Worlds of Slash
URL:	http://hth-the-first.livejournal.com/ http://bettyp.livejournal.com/ http://hth.dreamwidth.org/ Hth’s expired website Fierce Flawless, still available through the Wayback Machine Hth at the AO3 Hth’s Due South Archive stories Sentinel and Popslash Betty Plotnick’s stories at 852 Prospect The Darker Side of Sunnydale
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Hth, also known under the pseud Betty Plotnick in The Sentinel and popslash fandoms, has written slash fanfic in several fandoms, most recently in Stargate Atlantis, where she is a well known writer of Ronon pairings.

She also founded Ladyslash in 1999, the probably first multifandom femslash mailing list. In Hth's own words: "I got tired of hoping someone else would do it. <g>"

Regarding public linking and commenting: "The way I see it, no one has any earthly right to publish their diary online and then complain about people reading it *g*"

The X-Files

She discovered slash in the spring of 1997 through a Star Trek slash website and read a lot of Garak/Bashir and Paris/Kim. The first slash story she ever read was torch's "Too Dear For My Possessing". At about the same time she started watching The X-Files and fell madly in love with it, but she didn't notice right away that there was a slash fandom for the show. Once she did, The X-Files became her first real fandom. She describes those first couple of years in X-Files fandom as one of her favorite fan experiences, and says: "the writers I met there are still among the best in all their various subsequent fandoms -- torch, Anna S., LaT, Te, Kat Allison."

Her first piece of fanfiction was the Mulder/Krycek story The Lover.

Thank You for Not Smoking was her first f/f slash story. It was the first ScullySlash story posted on the main X-Files lists and it was posted to the ScullySlash mailing list the day it was founded (June 25, 1998). Thank You for Not Smoking is a Pretender crossover that pairs Scully with Miss Parker and it was one of the most popular femslash stories among those who wanted to read f/f in fandoms other than Xena.

due South

Regarding her participation in due South, Hth herself has this to say:

I am a veteran of the long-ago Ray Wars, wherein I valiantly defended Callum Keith Rennie's honor and hotness and said many snide things about Vecchio writers, a number of which I have since recanted. I like to think I was also part of the Healing Process (tm), in that I started writing Ray/Ray back when you could carry a lantern day and night through the streets of due South fandom and never find a single soul who would claim to be a Ray/Ray fan. To the best of my knowledge, FuzziCat wrote them first, then Barbara J. Webb, and that was about where I came in.

Fan Comments

[sprat] in 2009]: Hth's stories tend to be shorter and pack a lot of emotional punch. She's great at tilting what we know about canon just a little and then taking full advantage of what might shake out; her Ray/Ray series What It Is I See In You, for example, asks what might have happened if the Rays had met before the start of Season 3, while Fraser was on vacation in Canada. It's not even AU territory (CotW implies they're meeting for the first time, I suppose, but that's pretty easily handwaved), but man, the difference it makes. Her characterizations are insightful and deft. She makes mundane moments speak volumes.

[Cindershadow in 2005]:

While she has recently updated the second site, the Sentinel page as of last check had her fine 12-work series “Sixteen Instinctive Behaviors” (which she does intend to complete--hooray!), but not her most recent story, “Lexicon,” written for the ts_ficathons delightful “Getting a Sense of Cliches” opportunity. I have to showcase it here, because I think it is one of the most perfect short stories I have read, on every level: emotional resonance, character development, authenticity of voices, tightness of plotting, beauty and effectiveness of writing. Multiple rereadings have only reinforced this conclusion. Although it doubtless has a particular appeal for TS fans, as one of those post-TSbBS tales we can’t get enough of, I really feel it works equally well as a standalone and would be every bit as powerful for a reader who knew nothing of this fandom...

As may be evident by now, LJ makes me a little light-headed, not only because it lets me mainline fiction on a nightly basis—I’m talkin’ the good stuff, here—but because it also gives me a peek inside the Writer’s Mind. Although I’ve quite happily come to realize that Writers need Readers and therefore I can just sit back in my Reading Chair and simply enjoy while those talented people out there sweat for my pleasure, I still get a vicarious thrill out of hearing what they were thinking as they wrote and after they wrote, and maybe even why they wrote. For intriguing insights in that vein from this author, go to: http://www.livejournal.com/users/hth_the_first/9149.html. Here, she provides analysis of a number of the stories she wrote in 2004. I was particularly interested in her comments on her RPS story “Fire and Rain,” which I read and enjoyed, even though I know little about boy bands and care(d) even less, and even though it was clearly going to be . . . long. (Because initially I was just reading it as research, doncha know?) But then it turned out to be interesting and complex and involving and just sucked me in. (I’m not saying I’m a convert; I’m going to wallow in the newly discovered SGA and DS first, and RPS has never really been my "thing." But it’s a tribute when a writer can get me to read something which, if there were a checklist of descriptors, I’d be marking: no. no. no. no.) It’s also a tribute that all of the characters were equally believable; apparently some were OC, and others were RPS, but it was the depth of her characterization even more than my ignorance of this fandom which made them all feel equally alive.

As for the DS and the SGA--just let me say that I've enjoyed every single one I've read thus far. Period. Full stop. Take it from there!

So, whatever name you call her, this is an author whose work I both greatly admire and greatly enjoy.

Notable Works: Fiction

The Sentinel

• Sixteen Instinctive Behaviors -- series of Sentinel slash episode tags
• Lexicon

Stargate Atlantis

• Alpha Centauri -- series of Sheppard/McKay/Dex stories
• Fourteen Years -- Ronon Dex character study
• The Bee-Charmer -- Ronan/Teyla
• Handsome Johnny -- Aiden Ford-centric
• Thirteen O'Clock -- Rodney/Ronon
• In the Hands of Yes -- Rodney/Ronon

due South

• What It Is I See In You series -- Ray/Ray
• Happily Ever After Series -- post-CotW Fraser/RayK series
• As He's In It -- Fraser/RayK
• Sibylla ti theleis -- Vecchio/Stella
• Conjunction -- Fraser/Vecchio/Kowalski
• Ghosti -- Fraser/RayK, first published in the zine Duet

Buffyverse

• Twenty-Eight Days -- Willow/Tara femslash

Star Wars TPM

• Surrender to the Light -- Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan series

Notable Works: Meta

• Let's just call it all butter brickle! (2002)
• Goes to Motive (2002)
• It was my lucky day today on avenue A (2003)
• The Hth Field Guide to Slash & Other Associated Strange Attractors (2006)
• MY FUCKING FANDOM GIVES ME FUCKING FITS, part 34,849 (2007)