Changes

The early slashers had to queer the text based on subtext they thought they saw -- I don't think anyone really thinks that any [[subtext]] in [[ST:TOS]] was intended by the producers, writers or actors -- because they knew [[the powers that be]] (TPTB) were never going to do it for them. In fact that's still a common answer to the "[[why write slash]]" question -- we have to because that's the only way to get what we want.

The early slashers had to queer the text based on subtext they thought they saw -- I don't think anyone really thinks that any [[subtext]] in [[ST:TOS]] was intended by the producers, writers or actors -- because they knew [[the powers that be]] (TPTB) were never going to do it for them. In fact that's still a common answer to the "[[why write slash]]" question -- we have to because that's the only way to get what we want.

Then the winking, the conscious subtext, started. I don't really know where; my first encounter with it was with [[TNG]] -- where one of the main writers admitted that he felt [[Q]] was in love with [[Picard]] -- and it was really blatant in [[Xena]] where TPTB did everything but say "they're lesbians and they are so doing each other!" What was written in the "conscious subtext" fandoms still fell under the old definition of slash, but now slahsers had a lot more to work on.

Then the winking, the conscious subtext, started. I don't really know where; my first encounter with it was with [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|TNG]] -- where one of the main writers admitted that he felt [[Q]] was in love with [[Picard]] -- and it was really blatant in [[Xena]] where TPTB did everything but say "they're lesbians and they are so doing each other!" What was written in the "conscious subtext" fandoms still fell under the old definition of slash, but now slahsers had a lot more to work on.

And then ... things got complicated because there were suddenly [[fanfiction]] fandoms like [[QaF]] that were chock full of canonically gay characters. Is it still slash when you write [[Brian/Justin]]? By the old definition, no. But a lot of those writers (and [[Oz]] writers and [[Velvet Goldmine]] writers, etc) had written slash that was "old-definition" slash and the name stuck until now the definition of slash has become a lot more fluid.

And then ... things got complicated because there were suddenly [[fanfiction]] fandoms like [[QaF]] that were chock full of canonically gay characters. Is it still slash when you write [[Brian/Justin]]? By the old definition, no. But a lot of those writers (and [[Oz]] writers and [[Velvet Goldmine]] writers, etc) had written slash that was "old-definition" slash and the name stuck until now the definition of slash has become a lot more fluid.