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beansideI had an awesome bit of meta about the nature of RPS, and how it relates to the real people who it is about. Then, I spent ten minutes oogling Jeff's crotch in sweats, and forgot most of it.
But, because I know you all areso sick of this you could puke just burning to know my thoughts on it...
So, as I've said before, I started out writing fiction in the pro wrestling fandom. Unless you wanted to write that the Undertaker was really the living dead, and that the Brood were really vampires, you kinda had to be writing an odd mix of FPS/RPS. And honestly, some of them straddled the line perfectly--what if one of them was a vampire?
But generally, people wrote a it as RPS. And it was fine. Most of the wrestlers knew about it, and didn't care. More than once, we all tuned in Monday night to find that we'd contributed story lines or dialog. It was a running joke in the fandom.
Wrestling taught me the basic rules of RPS, though. When I wrote Shawn Michaels, I wasn't writing about the man who goes home to his family and eats dinner and takes out the trash. I wrote about HBK, the Showstoppa, and what he chose to show his fans in public and in interviews or what not. It was every bit as AU as anything I've written. If I actually got to know a wrestler personally, I generally had to take them off my list of people to write about. Because then, I knew what they were like, and what they did when they went home to their family. And that would have been an invasion of privacy to me.
Then, I moved on to the Metallica fandom. Still, I was writing about the bits the group shared with their fans. I tended to simply pretend the wives didn't exist. First, it made it easier to get the boys together. Second, I didn't feel comfortable writing about women whose only clame to fame was who they'd married.
On the other hand, in popslash, you had Justin and Britney. Fair game, because both are public figures, with accompanying public personnas. Also, at the very least, NSync was well aware of fandom, and thought it was awesome/funny that people wrote RPS about them.
And here I am in SPN RPS. Still writing public persona. Still not writing any non-actress/public figure girlfriend. Still having a blast.
I love the guys. I love their work. I would love to meet them someday. But I thoroughly enjoy bending them in half and getting their brains fucked out in my fic.
Would that impact how I reacted to them in person? Hell no. I would still be polite, and recognize that if they chose to interact with me, it was at their forbearance. I think it boils down to the fact that you're either an insane stalker, or you know how to behave in society. What you write has little to no bearing on that.
But, because I know you all are
So, as I've said before, I started out writing fiction in the pro wrestling fandom. Unless you wanted to write that the Undertaker was really the living dead, and that the Brood were really vampires, you kinda had to be writing an odd mix of FPS/RPS. And honestly, some of them straddled the line perfectly--what if one of them was a vampire?
But generally, people wrote a it as RPS. And it was fine. Most of the wrestlers knew about it, and didn't care. More than once, we all tuned in Monday night to find that we'd contributed story lines or dialog. It was a running joke in the fandom.
Wrestling taught me the basic rules of RPS, though. When I wrote Shawn Michaels, I wasn't writing about the man who goes home to his family and eats dinner and takes out the trash. I wrote about HBK, the Showstoppa, and what he chose to show his fans in public and in interviews or what not. It was every bit as AU as anything I've written. If I actually got to know a wrestler personally, I generally had to take them off my list of people to write about. Because then, I knew what they were like, and what they did when they went home to their family. And that would have been an invasion of privacy to me.
Then, I moved on to the Metallica fandom. Still, I was writing about the bits the group shared with their fans. I tended to simply pretend the wives didn't exist. First, it made it easier to get the boys together. Second, I didn't feel comfortable writing about women whose only clame to fame was who they'd married.
On the other hand, in popslash, you had Justin and Britney. Fair game, because both are public figures, with accompanying public personnas. Also, at the very least, NSync was well aware of fandom, and thought it was awesome/funny that people wrote RPS about them.
And here I am in SPN RPS. Still writing public persona. Still not writing any non-actress/public figure girlfriend. Still having a blast.
I love the guys. I love their work. I would love to meet them someday. But I thoroughly enjoy bending them in half and getting their brains fucked out in my fic.
Would that impact how I reacted to them in person? Hell no. I would still be polite, and recognize that if they chose to interact with me, it was at their forbearance. I think it boils down to the fact that you're either an insane stalker, or you know how to behave in society. What you write has little to no bearing on that.
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Date: 2007-12-06 04:54 pm (UTC)Yes! Yes, exactly!
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Date: 2007-12-06 04:58 pm (UTC)I do feel more comfortable with RPS that is either straight up AU, or else is only concerned with the public character of the actors. I don't mind seeing stuff on set, because that's pretty much what we get in the DVD extras. But getting concerned with Sandy and Jared's relationship does make me feel more uncomfortable. Even though Sandy is also an actress, her actress persona is separate from her relationship, I think.
But mostly, yay to knowing how to act in society. And the understanding that you're meeting the guy who works his backside off 15 hours a day to bring you a great TV show, not the guy who you imagine bent in half over the sofa getting his backside worked over. *g*
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Date: 2007-12-06 05:03 pm (UTC)Yes, yes! A thousand times YES!
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Date: 2007-12-06 05:06 pm (UTC)One would hope that fandom would have some common sense, but it's really not surprising that they don't. Disappointing & frustrating to be sure, but not at all surprising.
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Date: 2007-12-06 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 05:19 pm (UTC)It just seems that lately a lot of things are getting blown wayyyy out of proportion. It seems like every other day there is more wankage being reported. And more anger and upset feelings.
I just wish that we could start being nicer to one another again. That we could remember that we're all here for the squee and the silliness and the escape from all of the crap in our day to day lives.
I knew that there was a good reason for me to just stick to posting my attempts at art and my fic snippets when I can.
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Date: 2007-12-06 05:37 pm (UTC)And also? Knowing how to act in society - totally key. I never understood how someone could meet someone and completely not realize - hey, that's a person. Would I want some people running up, screaming, interrupting my family dinner or what have you, and staking claim over your person simply because of my job? Huh. No. But you know...*shrugs* Respect and coherent thought is something that's apparently lacking somewhat. (Not that I wouldn't be completely starstruck *g*)
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Date: 2007-12-06 06:12 pm (UTC)Some people may have problems with this, but RPS is not to blame for their inability to distinguish fantasy from reality.
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Date: 2007-12-06 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 08:08 pm (UTC)And I happen to think, just because you watch a show, it doesn't give you any rights to the actors themselves. It always seems so odd to me that people try to get all this private, personal information from one of the boys when they first meet, because, like I said before, you don't know them, you've just met, and you wouldn't ask someone you've just met those kinds of things. People have no respect for personal boundaries, and I feel bad that the boys have to put up with it.
For the most part, people are very polite and good about respecting boundaries, but you do have one or two crackpots who just need to take a step back and join the rest of us, back in the real world.
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Date: 2007-12-06 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 09:01 pm (UTC)But I will never get over you getting into Fandom though WRESTLING. God, I love that. \o/
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Date: 2007-12-06 09:39 pm (UTC)This was well said. Now I"m off to ponder the things Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia get up to.
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Date: 2007-12-07 03:28 am (UTC)And I wish I had something more substantial to say.
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Date: 2007-12-07 03:51 am (UTC)here from metafandom's del.icio.us
Date: 2007-12-07 06:12 pm (UTC)How many different ways can one say "word"? Because, in a word...WORD.
And hee, I started out in wrestling fic, too. At the time I was fairly young and far more interest in teh hot sexx0rz than anything else, but looking back it's a fairly nuanced fandom when it comes to the difference between FPF and RPF.
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Date: 2007-12-07 07:52 pm (UTC)WORD.
I realized recently that I do have a line (at least at the moment *facepalm*) about writing about people I have INTERACTED with in RL, which, for example, doesn't include going to Paley and sitting in an audience of hundreds. But since that number is almost nil, it hasn't really come up either; it was just a dilemma that I thought about and came to a decision regarding.
But like anything else, it comes down to the fact that I KNOW I am not REALLY writing about what these people do in their personal lives. I don't know them, I don't know about them and when it comes down to it, I'm writing fictional stories with fictional characters that happen to have the same name and physical appearance as real people.
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Date: 2007-12-08 04:36 am (UTC)Hear, hear.
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Date: 2007-12-08 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 06:01 am (UTC)be seeing you!
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Date: 2007-12-08 06:02 am (UTC)here from metafandom
Date: 2007-12-08 08:11 am (UTC)That's the funniest and truest thing thing I've read all day.
here via metafandom
Date: 2007-12-08 10:06 am (UTC)Like everyone else, I agree wholeheartedly!
It also seems to me that the crazy stalker types are more likely *not* to be fic writers - because fic writers tend to be able to remember that we made it up. Although perhaps it's just that I don't read fic written by crazy stalker types...
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Date: 2007-12-08 10:41 am (UTC)Wordy McWord.
(I got into RPS through the LotR cast, and there was some serious crazy going on in that corner- particularly, the Domlijah. Tinhats and conspiracy and people giving the actors porny manips abound. It gave us all a seriously bad name, but the vast majority of us were just... constantly facepalming.)
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Date: 2007-12-13 11:46 am (UTC)Pesti