Julad

Fan
Name:	julad
Alias(es):
Type:	fan writer, essayist, and reccer
Fandoms:	TS, DS, popslash, QAF, HP, SGA
Communities:	Temporary Insanity
Other:	Anhedonia, Ambivalent Pleasures
URL:	julad at AO3 julad at LJ
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Julad is an influential fanwriter, known particularly for her unusual pairings and occasional fannish meta analysis.

A 2001 Fannish Autobiography

Julad contributed this bio to the 101 Ways to End Up in a Canadian Shack Challenge:

Once upon a time there was a nice, sweet, innocent little Cultural Theory undergraduate who knew nothing of erotica, except that she and her friend had started writing a Black Lace novel ('you get ten grand if you're published!' I said; 'okay, to hell with feminism, let's do it,' she said) and both had written stories for the Cosmo erotic fiction competition ('five hundred bucks for five hundred words, do the math!' I said; 'let me get a calculator,' she said.) Alas, neither could settle on an appropriate pseudonym ('I can't believe Pussy Galore is already taken!' I said; 'I can't believe you think you made that up yourself,' she said) and the dream of getting paid to write smut was lost amid several dozen empty beer bottles.

Erm, where was I? Right: nice, sweet, innocent little Cultural Theory undergraduate, staring at the spitballed ceiling of stuffy lecture theatre, and lo! the lecturer draws a giant K/S on the chalkboard and begins to explain "negotiated reading". There's a word for that? I repeated, and actually paid attention in class as it was revealed that I am not the only woman in the universe who thinks men on men are shit-hot shit. This lecture was all the motivation necessary for me to activate my student internet account, and pictures of Harry Kim were reason enough for me to start watching Star Trek. The rest, as they say, is on my website.

I dazzled them in Voyager, and wowed them in The Sentinel, but then, alas, fame went to my head. I took all the trendy drugs, I hung out in all the cool chatrooms, I schmoozed with the fandom Brat Pack...but I wanted more. I dabbled in Blakes7, but I needed a sexier hit. I didBuffy with Livia, but the rush wasn't pure enough. QAF was too overwhelming, OAT was usually cut with scary Nick Lea fans, XF was good but out of vogue. Sports Night looked like the drug of my dreams, but I couldn't get an Australian supplier. Due South was my poison of choice for a too-brief moment, warm and fuzzy and hot and tingly, with psychedelic undertones, but then I cast my glazed and bloodshot eye over Puppies in a Box.

"Don't do it!" everyone said. "Bad things will happen if you take that shit." They pointed to Helen, to Wax, to their tragic spirals into boyband shame and destitution, but I couldn't be deterred. "OHMIGOD!" I cried (having picked up the teenie lingo). "They're cute! They're cuddly! They're corporate sellouts and media whores! And look at them, they are so doing it." I wandered the net in a daze, pretty colours swirling before my eyes, yi-yi-yippie-yi-yay bouncing in my head.

"This shit is fantastic!" I squealed as I rode a bouncing, sequinned rainbow into the glimmering otherworld.

Notable Writing

Fanfiction

• The Importance of Being Brian, QAF, Brian/Justin; see also: the DVD commentary. (2003)
• Night-blooming Heartsease, HP, epic Neville/Snape story, prequel to Transfigurations by Resonant. (2004)
• The Secret Life of Scientists, SGA, notable early story establishing the McKay/Zelenka pairing. (2005)
• The Pragmatist, Blake's 7, well-received character study of Jenna.
• The Good Kid, SGA, Ford/OC. (2005)
• The Freshest and the Best (Highlander)
• The Wrong End of the Story, The Sentinel, a Jim/Blair story. Discontinued by author and finished by Calico. (1998)

Meta

• "Anyone who had a heart..." is an essay about making the subtext of source material explicit in fanfiction, and the varying impulses that fans have to writing and reading sexual and emotional subtext writ large; Julad uses the phrase "cold pricklies and warm fuzzies" to describe those varying impulses.