Noun: "(fandom slang, uncountable) a subgenre of slash fiction in which a homosexual relationship between two characters has not yet developed or is only implied"[edit]
2001, Kelly Simca Boyd, "'One Index Finger On The Mouse Scroll And The Other On My Clit': Slash Writers' Views On Pornography, Censorship, Feminism and Risk", thesis submitted to Simon Fraser University, page 156:
A pre-slash zine written by J. Aumerle in the Starsky and Hutch universe. Published in 1981. It was the first slashy story published after the threats to expose slash to the producers and actors in Starsky and Hutch.
2008, Gemma Corin, "From 'Ambiguously Gay Duos' To Homosexual Superheroes: The Implications For Media Fandom Practices", thesis submitted to the University of Waikato, page 53:
The piece of work was a short pre-slash story around Hulkling and Wiccan from The Young Avengers, it was posted under the alias Confidenceiskey on 18 October, 2007.
2010, Sharon Hayes & Matthew Ball, "Queering Cyberspace: Fan Fiction Communities as Spaces for Expressing and Exploring Sexuality", in Queering Paradigms (ed. Burkhard Scherer), page 222:
Where the relationship is chaste or where romantic involvement is barely implied, it is called "pre-slash," hinting towards a future romantic relationship.
2012, Catherine Coker, "The Angry! Textual! Poacher! Is Angry!: Fan Works As Political Statements", in Fan Culture: Theory/Practice (ed. Katherine Larsen), page 95:
The first, a lengthy Kirk/Spock pre-slash story “The Immovable Object,” appeared in the zine The Other Side of Paradise, no. 2.
2014, Lucie Cupalová, "Slash Factor: Characteristics and Varieties of Slash Fan Fiction", thesis submitted to Charles University, page 38:
Some pre-slash fan fiction does not develop into slash at all; other stories make it clear that slash may be a possible development in the future but they do not elaborate on it; yet other stories, or better series of stories, include pre-slash chapters or pre-slash stories (which function as one-shot stories and work on their own), but the following stories in the series are already slash.
2014, Leetel D. S. Weinbaum, "The Trans* in Transformative Works: Non-Dichotomous Gender in Fan fiction", thesis submitted to Tel Aviv University, page 17:
However, a lot of stories leave this eroticism undefined. When called upon to label their stories as romantic or not, sexual or not, as is customary in the field, many label them as 'erotic if you squint', 'pre-slash', 'depends on the way you read it'.
2016, Olivia Riley, "Queerness and Emotion in Fanfiction", thesis submitted to the University of Minnesota, page 11:
Was the relationship “pre-slash” (i.e. before the characters actually get together, but usually involving pining and supposedly unrequited desire/love) or explicit?
2018, Proud Arunrangsiwed, Nititorn Ounpipat, & Krisana Cheachainart, "Women and Yaoi Fan Creative Work", Executive Journal (Bangkok University), Volume 38, Number 2, July - December 2018, page 61:
Pre-Slash could be considered as another marketing strategy without making the mainstream media to be homo-erotic theme.
Noun: "(fandom slang, countable) an individual work of this subgenre"[edit]
1999 May 9, mecu...@alumni.princeton.edu, “NEW2ASC: Freedom Is Standing in the Light (TOS, PG) 1/3”, in alt.startrek.creative[1] (Usenet):
"Freedom is Standing in the Light" was first published in 1980 in SUN AND SHADOW, a zine dedicated to the "hurt/comfort" theme in the Kirk/Spock relationship, a theme that was very popular among "relationship" fans in the pre-slash era.