Well, for me, on some level every writer's got the same right to decide what's inside Lex's head. (I know there are arguments to be made there as well - I'm less comfortable with fanfic about single-author creations, for instance - but you take my point.) There isn't a right answer. No one knows how Lex feels about lollipops, because Lex isn't real. Once you're writing about someone who you know actually exists, there *is* a right answer.

That's a good point, Katie. I seem to be following you around saying that. Real people have real feelings and thoughts and relationships. And, I'm groping around trying to articulate this, it somehow diminishes them to attribute feelings and thoughts and relationships to them, that they haven't had. It's like being misquoted on a massive scale.

Katie and Elena are speaking for me. In a non RPF way, that is.

Though, of course, my having secret relationships with them is okay.

But thank you, Fay, for sending me back to waxjism.net, where the best shit is, because I'm halfway through [link] and reeling with the hot, and the good writing, and the hot, and the hot. It's The Faculty fic-- I'm coming to it as though it was original, though, because I've got absolutely *no* idea about the premise of TF or anything.

[edited several an hour later because I realized there were random letters missing from this post]

I need some Buffyverse recs. Argh!

Too much kind-of-eh being recc'd all over the place. I would like to read something where I don't feel like doing a line beta and pointing out canon errors and characterization flaws, thank you very much.

Okay so maybe there's one little tiny place where I'd suggest to look for RPS

[link]

Because my squick settings have created elaborate justifications for the occasional dip into bb/pop, yet refuse to let me even LOOK at actor fic, no matter how many times Orlando Bloom strokes Viggo's hair or rubs Sir Ian's belly for luck.

The paragraph is delicious; but why does it have to be written about a real person? Is it less delicious if it's being written about, say, Lex? Or an original fictional character?

Well, it has to be written about a real person because, in this universe, the LotR RPS stories which I've read and enjoyed are written about real persons.

Of course it isn't less delicious if it's written about Lex. It would be infinitely preferable if all of the stories that I've read and enjoyed by Calico were written about fictional persons - as indeed the majority of them are. Yay. Rah. Go Team Non-RPF. No complaints from me. I'm not getting extra jollies from the fact that she uses real people for some of her stories. Unfortunately, however, she does use real people for some of her stories.

Yes, I wish she'd called the characters John Smith and Fred Bloggs, but she didn't.

Again, I'm more than happy to delete my RPF-mentioning posts if you'd like me to.

Fayjay, do you think your reaction to the RPF is typical? Or isn't the cachet of it being Orlando canoodling with Ian vital to most of the audience?

Because I could read it then, without the klaxons going off. I wouldn't need much in the way of established background in the fic either (not as much as one has in typical fanfic with canon for miles -- these are people I don't actually know much about, after all, compared to a Spike or a Fraser).

But why did she write about Billy and not Bloggs? How many people who like what they're reading couldn't enjoy it if it were about OCs or Lex?

Fayjay, do you think your reaction to the RPF is typical?

I honestly don't know. This is kind of why I still want to find someone who's in a similar boat, because I have issues I want to talk about regarding these stories, but I don't have any wish to go through the whole dead horse flogging RPF debate with someone who's happily lacking those issues. I respect the simplicity of the "RPF=bad" stance. It's just not where I'm at presently. (Although RPF=thoroughly impolite, yes. Certainly.) However, from what little I've seen the RPF folk seem to be straight-forwardly pro, and the non-RPF folk are straight-forwardly anti.

I don't oost after the members of the LotR cast, really. I oost after and/or crush on several of the characters, and I'm invested in the characters' interactions, but the men and women in the cast? Not so much. So for me I'm not drawn to read the stories because I want to read about (e.g)Orlando getting nekkid. (Although I may very well be in a minority of one.) Orlando is a very attractive chap and a cracking actor and I wish him well. His private life doesn't interest me. That said, in the RPF story that broke me, Calico borrows his name and appropriates various features/bits of biographical details to write a piece of blisteringly hot and really rather beautiful erotica involving half a dozen other members of of the cast - and I really liked this story. Her writing is lyrical, her exploration of character (which is not an exploration of the characters of the real people, self evidently, but is still a fascinating exploration of original fictional characters, imho) is intriguing, and she pushes my buttons with disconcerting accuracy. I think that it's hot as hell. I also think it's fascinating in terms of gender and narrative and erotica - that it begs some really interesting discussions about female sexuality and about voyeurism and blah blah blah pretentioncakes. And about whether it's a realistic portrayal of a male pov, and if not, whether that's relevant. I think her slash says more about (some) women's attitudes to sex and sexuality than it does about the Big Gay Sex, or about the people whose names are being taken in vain.

I didn't consider it to be about Orlando, or Dom, or Billy or Elijah, or Viggo - because I'm not interested in their love lives and I should be most surprised to hear that any of them were in fact engaged in acts of Big Gay Sex. I've just got this mental disconnect between person-in-story and real-person-whose-name-is-being-used. Like watching The Prince and the Pauper. Nice story. Nothing to do with the real Prince Edward or King Henry VIII, but borrows their names and trappings to make something fictional which reflects the ideas and preoccupations of the writer rather than those of the real people who are ostensibly the subject.

The whole LotR film-making process does sound fascinating, and group bondingy, and I can understand why people are so intrigued by it. And the dissonance between the delineation of the fictional characters (Girly!Frodo, with the having-to-be-saved-ness, and the sacrificial maiden vibe, and the VAST bluer than blue eyes etc etc) and the actions of the actors who played those characters - I can see how this can be a fascinating dynamic and feed into creating fiction.

But my POV may be a gazillion miles removed from that of Jo RPF-reader. I honestly don't know. It puzzles me.