On the TV screen, a scene from Heroes, NBC's surprise hit show about ordinary people who discover they have superhuman abilities: Two men are standing in the parking lot of a motel, talking about their cross-country search for people with unusual genetic markers. A strange tension radiates from the taller man as he takes a step closer to his companion.

SYLAR: We'll find them, Mohinder. All of them. Together. The two of us. It's our destiny. I think I'm gonna call it a night.
MOHINDER: Yeah.
SYLAR: I'll catch you in the morning.
(SYLAR touches MOHINDER'S shoulder. THEY go to their separate motel rooms.)

According to a recent article in The Hollywood Reporter, network TV shows currently have a whopping total of seven regular LGBT characters, and another 13 recurring characters. Even on a show like Heroes, which has a sprawling cast and a clear commitment to diversity with its roster of characters from around the globe, queer viewers won't find themselves represented.

Unless they take matters into their own hands.

Mohinder decided he didn't care; not tonight. It was midnight ... and he reached for Sylar, all too aware of the man's heat. The other man had the decency to look surprised, but they both knew much better.

Some consumers of popular entertainment - whether it be plays, books, movies or TV shows - have long been taking matters into their own hands, writing their own stories and scenarios about other writers' characters. There are probably as many motivations for writing fan fiction as there are fan fiction writers, but one of the obvious ones is to portray things that the original creator shied away from, like sexuality.

"It's the interest of exploring different characters," explains fanfic author Ca Thibodeau, "especially something that you think is plausible for the character even though you know it would never happen on the show."

It's difficult to determine how long fan fiction has been around, but in modern times it can be traced to the Star Trek fan community. In the late 1960s fans began writing and publishing their own stories about the Star Trek characters. The term slash, slang for gay-themed stories, evolved from Kirk/Spock, the shorthand for stories that explored the romantic or sexual possibilities between Captain Kirk and his first officer, Mr. Spock. Since then, especially since the advent of the internet, fan fiction has spread to almost every corner of pop culture. A search of sites like fanfiction.net will turn up amateur stories about everyone from Scarlet O'Hara to boy bands to Spongebob Squarepants. But science fiction and fantasy still dominate the fan fiction world, with the likes of Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files and the Star Trek franchises among the most popular subjects.

No surprise then that the fantastical Heroes has inspired legions of writers and spawned every possible combination of portmanteaus for the romantic pairings. (If you like the idea of Mohinder and Sylar being boyfriends, you're into Mylar. If Peter gets it on with Claude, that's Plaude. Zach+Claire=Clach, and so on.) But it was a bit surprising to find that one of the more notable Mylar writers, who created a community on livejournal.com to gather together the frequently sexually graphic stories, is a young lesbian.

Ca Thibodeau is small and softspoken. If it weren't for the wild hair, you might not remember her. Maybe that's why she's so interested in the power of words. Thibodeau is a frosh language major at UMass Amherst, and has been writing for years.

"I grew up on sci-fi," she says. "My whole family are dorks. In middle school I just got really into fandom. My friends started live action role-playing, and all this dorky stuff. I don't remember how I was introduced to fan fiction, but it was a natural progression."

Thibodeau's generation grew up with internet access. She can't even recall her first exposure to online fan fiction - "Sailor Moon, probably" - and has to stop and think to review the internet-accelerated ebb and flow of pop culture fandom.

"I started out with all sorts of anime," she continues. "My first fiction was in the Gundam Wing fandom. I was really obsessed with that series for a long time. It was about a group of teenagers fighting a war in these big mecha armor things. I don't know why I finally started writing it, though."

But it was a logical move for someone who'd already been writing short stories for several years. There's more to fanfic than wish fulfillment or porn with plots. It's a way for writers to cut their teeth. As Thibodeau puts it, "Because the characters are preexisting, you don't have to develop their backstories as much. And it's easier to write in bursts. So you can develop your style. For me, it's all about characterization."

It was the humanity of Heroes' characters that drew Thibodeau to the show. "It's like The X-Men, but on a smaller scale. This idea that the human race could be evolving, and how would you react if you woke up and had a power. It's a very human perspective on scifi." From the first episode she was hooked, particularly enamored of the perky time-bending Hiro ("He's just incredible!") and the indestructible cheerleader Claire ("She was my favorite character...[but] she's very boring this season.")

The appeal to a young, queer science fiction fan of an a-dork-able nobody who saves the world, and a teen who feels like a freak, is obvious. So why are most of Thibodeau's Heroes stories about the unlikely Mylar pairing? She explains that it's easier to maintain a writer's detachment with those two. "I do write some femmeslash," she elaborates, "but for me that's a lot more personal. It's harder for me to write that, and to develop the characters."

Besides, there are many intriguing possibilities to explore with Sylar and Mohinder. Between the ambiguous onscreen chemistry the actors share, and the painful history the characters share, it's almost a wonder the show hasn't gone there (On the TV fan site Television Without Pity, a fan once sarcastically opined that if one of the characters were a woman, "their relationship would be canon by now.")

"I got into Heroes slash through Claire and Mohinder and their flaws," says Thibodeau. "Mohinder is so scrappy he doesn't even need a power. Sylar had to expose his Gabriel persona to fool Mohinder, which kind of brought him down a notch. The fact that their relationship was based on lies was interesting, and the irony that Mo was leading Sylar to these people that he was trying to help. It all made for an interesting mix."

Thibodeau clearly isn't the only person who thinks so. The first Mylar fic hit the net within 24 hours after the episode aired in which the pair met. Since then, hundreds of Mylar stories have been published online (along with thousands of other Heroes stories) and the Mylar LiveJournal community has attracted well over 600 members.

But fandom can be fickle, and Heroes may pay the price for ignoring its most famous catchphrase: Save the cheerleader, save the world. A month after our interview, I checked in with Thibodeau after Heroes' second season finale aired. She hadn't seen it. "I've stopped watching," she sighs, and runs through a checklist of complaints about the diminishing quality of the scripts.

"Ultimately, I was disappointed with Claire's character, which was one reason I stayed loyal for so long. After finals, I'm going to get back to work on my novel."


Visit Thibodeau - and Mohinder and Sylar - online at http://community.livejournal.com/mylar_fic.