Truth Slash Fiction

Title:	Truth Slash Fiction
Creator:
Date(s):	2016
Medium:	TV pilot
Fandom:	N/A
Language:	English
External Links:	IMDB; facebook; twitter; youtube channel; seriesfest trailer
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Truth Slash Fiction is a 2016 unaired television pilot about teenage fans of a fictional boyband called "Truth". The main character joins a fan club for writing slash fanfic about the band. The boyband and its fandom were inspired by One Direction and Larry Stylinson. Many fans, including Larries, seem to have been excited about the show, but others worried about how fandom would be represented. Additionally, a Fourth Wall controversy occurred around one interview.

The pilot premiered at SeriesFest on June 23, 2016, and was shown at a few other tv and film festivals in 2016, where it generated some good press and won awards, but was not picked up for a series.

The official Facebook page describes the show as follows:

Inspired by the real and burgeoning community of straight women and girls who write gay erotic fan fiction (“slash fiction”) about the boyband One Direction, #TruthSlashFiction focuses on 16 year old Emma Jacobs (Jordyn DiNatale) as she attempts to survive the sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious indignities of adolescence, finally finding community in a writer's group of likeminded outsiders.

Fan Reactions

A number of fans on social media expressed excitement and anticipation. Some fans replied to tweets from the official twitter account indicating that they were looking forward to watching the show and hoped it would get picked up. In September the official YouTube account posted a "fanvid" that included footage fans from various countries had submitted of themselves lipsyncing to the fictional boyband's song "Baby It's You". Comments on the video included:

• "I'm a larrie and I can't be more happy to see something like this."
• "Wtf I'm literally in tears after seeing this because of the lgbt representation, I'm so glad that some people get to share their true colors, I wish I will, someday…"
• "I love this video so much!! I just can't wait to see the series! This is gonna be a huge success and I can't wait to be part of it!❤️❤️🇫🇷"

Fans, including 1D fans, commented positively on the YouTube trailer:

• "LARRY SHIPPERS UNITE!!! WE GET A TV SHOW NOW"
• "What a time to be a larrie. We literally get a TV series based on our lives. This is so exciting."
• "Never felt more connected with a series after one trailer lol. Really excited for this and thankful (as far as it seems) that people make a serie by shedding some information and positive light on (slash) fanfiction and it's readers and writers!"
• "I'm ready for this. you do not understand how ready I am for this."

Tumblr fans who learned about the show in June were a little more ambivalent:

So honestly this looks amazing and the accuracy is painful, but the one thing that bothers me in a decent chunk of scholarship/acknowledgement of the existence of our culture is the assumption that only (or at least the majority) of slash writers are straight, when (in admittedly only my personal experience) almost none of us are. I can’t off the top of my head even think of one of my friends online or irl who’s particularly invested in shipping culture who isn’t some identity of queer, so the assumption that this is only a sort of gender-flipped version of straight guys liking lesbian porn isn’t entirely accurate.

But that quibble aside I fucking love this.

this seems like some straight girl nonsense yet im still really looking forward to watching it 👀

"The Larries Found It"

Although the official truthslashfic twitter account had been created in April, and some articles about the pilot had been written in June, most fans seem to have discovered the show in September. On September 16, #truthslashfiction started trending on Twitter when Larries found it. The official twitter account noted the trending topic and the large number of new followers.

On Tumblr many fans seemed enthusiastic, but others had doubts.

This is way more than something 1D or larry related, the show it’s literally about a fangirl that writes fanfics and let me tell you something, I may not be sixteen anymore but I am still a fan of so many things and I ship so many people together and I do write fics about them (even if mine don’t have smut) and the idea of having a character so relatable is amazing.

I still get so much shit because I’m a fan of One Direction and so may other bands and all of us fanfic writers get shit for writing fics and all of us shippers get a lot of shit for shipping people together so the idea of having a show that is not shaming that but embracing it it’s unbelievable.

Anyway, if Truth Slash Fiction TV serie is done tastefully, this might be a powerful way of letting the world to know more about Larry, and make them realize that yeah, I guess Larry might be true.

the world love to troll the 1D fans, make fun of them and humiliate them...you know this isn't going to be a good thing

Hope this film portraits well and does not bring negative comments to the fandom :/

tvshows-addict, who later became disillusioned, commented,

They’re not trying to be subtle here.... They’re claiming their Larryness.... Mainly I wonder how they’re going to treat the subject of closeting in the industry and how much they’re going to get inspiration out of the real situation of Harry and Louis. How are the “fan girls” going to discuss it? CSI fandom style? If the showrunner is in the fandom, we will know right away anyway.

Sidenote, Truth be told, I wonder how they’re going to cast RBB and SBB.

As much as I’m excited to see a show about me, a fic writer, let’s not forget why we’re in the Larry fandom in the first place. Two boys in love that are very much in the closet.

So how are they going to deal with that is my main concern.

Larries and the Fourth Wall

On October 3, 2016, the blog Head Over Feels published an interview with the showrunners: From AO3 to Your TV Screen: Talking with the Creators of Truth Slash Fiction, ^{Archived version}.

In the interview, the showrunners talk about their ideas for the show and the process of making it, how One Direction and Harry Styles created a more LGBTQ+ friendly space, plus how outsider attitudes to fanfic and slash are sexist, that they want "to recontextualize fan fiction and make people realize that it’s an artistic pursuit and it’s an artistic pursuit through which people find community." The interviewer notes that fans had mixed reactions to hearing about the show ("The Larries found it"), and the showrunners say that many fans had reached out to them with concerns over whether their community would be disrespected and misrepresented:

We’ve gotten a lot of emails. And I’m relieved that through our trailer and a couple of things online, it’s coming through that we do have respect for the community and we don’t want to misrepresent them. We’ve had lots of emails like, “We just want to make sure that you’re going to be careful about this, because we’ve gotten a lot of flack.” And we are going to be careful about it.

The interviewers and showrunners then discuss specific Larry fanfics they had read, and the interviewers offer to send the showrunners more recs.

Some 1D fans criticized them for violating the fic writers' privacy.

On October 5, tumblr user tvshows-addict posted "Truth Slashfiction and the Larry Fandom: Bye bye 4th wall". The post starts by mentioning that "all your favorite fic writers/fics are mentioned" and that "They also talk about how the fandom has been treated by the media and the band handlers and how very aware of that they are and that they’re going to be careful about that." The post was later deleted, but is partly preserved through reblogs. Unfortunately, the main criticism against the showrunners was under the readmore and has been lost. bulletprooflarry reblogged it with tags:

#oh for FUCK'S sake #I'm so tired of this corner of fandom being treated like a freak show for people's entertainment #when we do the SAME FUCKING THINGS #that EVERY FANDOM IN THE HISTORY OF FANDOMS #HAS DONE BEFORE US#AND CONTINUES TO DO #and if they are as involved in fandom as they claim to actually be #they'd fucking KNOW that #and they wouldn't think it was some quirky little thing to dissect #FUCK THIS

It's important to note that Larries believe that Harry and Louis are in a romantic relationship in real life, and based on the showrunners' interviews and public statements, it's not clear if they understood this. One of Larries' objections to depictions of Larry in mass media is based on their belief that the increased scrutiny could result in outing Harry and Louis. (Post-Babygate, Larries have also argued that outing the Larry conspiracy could put Louis in legal jeopardy, because they believe he knowingly signed a birth certificate falsely attesting that he was a father.)

A Tumblr tag comment by adifferentkindofson, another Larrie:

#it makes me so uncomfortable that they’re touching this topic at all right now #when things are so polarized within the fandom #and Louis and Harry are still closeted #this fandom - and especially our part of the fandom#has been mocked and ostracized and picked on enough #I am so tired of the media throwing a spotlight on us constantly #just leave us alone #I don’t care if your intentions are good random showrunners #you’re treating us like zoo animals #observing us and then writing about us without even bothering to ASK US #or consult us about anything #seriously if they’d actually bothered to talk to us and learn more about how volatile the fandom environment is right now #I think they’d realize that right now really isn’t the best time #for a project like this #when the fandom is at war #and again … Louis and Harry aren’t out #this is such a delicate subject matter #and doing this without their consent feels so invasive #doing it without consulting US #the subject of the show! #is also INCREDIBLY INVASIVE

The official twitter account posted an update on October 6, apologizing for not realizing that they shouldn't have name-checked fanfic authors without their permission. They also said:

We really do have the utmost respect for the community and we understand that people, particularly those in the media, have portrayed the community without respect in the past... As I've said before, the show will not say that the community is all one thing: there will be queer chaacters, straight characters, male characters, female characters -- the diversity of the community is important to us to get right.

On Twitter some fans said they felt reassured, while other said that the showrunners had missed the point.

Tumblr larries argued that the showrunners hadn't understood what they were objecting to:

they should never have referenced our fandom specifically and they should have kept it about slash shipping in general.

but no, they had to get specific because they saw how big our fandom is and knew we’d be the most profitable and they are STILL not addressing our actual concerns in terms of how this fandom is a safe space for so many of us and their actions are putting that in jeopardy as well as our concerns about how this show is effectively outing louis and harry.

adifferentkindofson

Like, even if they portrayed everything perfectly (which they most likely won’t because it’s almost impossible) and even if we take aside the exposing of our small little world, the light that it’d cast over Harry and Louis and the fact that it’s all for money, they’re missing another huge point:

we. didn’t. ask. for. it.

... Stop talking about your show like it’s some kind of blessing we should be thankful for because ‘someone is finally addressing it like it should be’. Nah, son, we don’t want it to be addressed properly; we want to be left alone.There are SO MANY FANDOMS and SO MANY OF THEM ship slash. Sure, we’re one of the bigger ones, but I’m pretty sure the Supernatural, Harry Potter and Teen Wolf ones are bigger. Go talk about them. They’re not constantly berated by the media, they’re not constantly blamed for everything bad that happens in their fandom, they don’t face constant flack just for existing. They don’t have a group of antis that stalk everything they do and attack them. That threatened to doxx them, that compare them to rapists and murderers and say they’re glad their pets died and that they should kill themselves.

worshippedlove

Tumblr anti-larries thought that Larries were being hypocrites for objecting to the show on the basis that it violated their privacy:

However, no matter how many times they say “this is my blog, it’s my private thoughts” - no it isn’t. And they fucking know it isn’t and thrive on that when they think it’s important to spread Larry to as many people as possible - where is the treatise, where is the joy over the buzzfeed article, where is the idea that TMZ is “seeding” by mentioning them when they’re worried about this show that ISN’T EVEN ABOUT HARRY AND LOUIS....

They aren’t even a little bit interested in actually being discreet about anything that could out Harry and Louis. They only cared about their posts being shared when their nasty comments were exposed. And they only worry about Harry and Louis being outed when they don’t like the way someone ELSE is talking about their fucking conspiracy theories. It’s a way to convince themselves that there’s some real risk here, that it would somehow be significant for this show to talk about Larry - a way to convince themselves that all these other tinhatters and shippers (since they don’t know the difference) might be wrong, but THEY are right so obviously there’s something different and risky about the show discussing them.

lrambling

#they actively worked to get the AIMH tweet to 2 million so people would talk about it #they said the pregnancy was to build louis' profile AND GET PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT LARRY #but now people want to talk about larry and they can't control the narrative so they want to shut it down #that's all larries ever wanted - was to be the ones in control

1dragnet

Links

• Broadway World: TRUTH SLASH FICTION TV Pilot with Matt Doyle to Premiere at SeriesFest, ^{Archived version} by Tyler Peterson (Jun. 16, 2016)
• Teen Vogue: Truth Slash Fiction Is The TV Show Larry Shippers Have Been Waiting For, ^{Archived version} by De Elizabeth (September 17, 2016)
• Tumblr tags: truth slash fiction and truthslashfiction
• Twitter hashtag: TruthSlashFiction