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.

... Something I said in AIM a little while ago:

You know, my basic revised thought on RPS is that it' something that makes me very viscerally and intellectually uncomfortable, and I can articulate why I find it distasteful, and I'm also just not *interested* in a lot of what's being written. *Nsync? Can bite my ass. The LotR actors? Whatever. (OK, I watched a part of the WB special, and that was pretty hot, but anyway....)

But I'm glad someone's doing it. I'd be mad, on a level, if the various RPS cadres were shut down, if RPF were eradicated from the web.

I still don't like it; I won't read it; I won't write it; it feels dishonest to defend it.

But it's *interesting* that it's *being* done. And it makes me feel deliciously in a tricky position, signing up to do this LJ-slashing thing. Reason 290 to love fandom: It's a space to *do* these things, to practice these nakedly risky ventures. It's constantly testing its own limits.

Still squicks me to the nth degree when I see someone piloting Elijah Woods around as though they controlled him, as though they knew him so intimately they could be him, as though he were one of their characters. (Becuase fictional characters are *by definintion* flattened, not whole beings.)

But, on the other hand, its scariness-- its sense that there's violation being done-- In abstract, rpf is as delicious as the rush of energy that comes when you step into a fight with someone, you cross the line, you say something really horrible and then she slaps you. Adrenaline. Is the word, I think, I'm lookin gfor. Intellectual adrenaline rush.

&, Fay, I'm fascinated by how you're doing it. I'm getting around it by liking it a little from a distance; you're getting around it by the mental disconnect. And I think I can wholly appreciate the stance that, like, kate bolin takes, which is that fic is media subversion and RPF follows that perfectly. I'm very fond of that argument. But, for me, once it's sorted out intellectually in my head what categories fic and rpf and slash and all these other co-ownership acts go, then it's up to my guts to tell me where I can land comfortably and not. I can articulate what I think RPF *is*; and I'll stand by those ideas until I revise them myself. But then I draw my comfort line arbitrarily, with no intellectual reasoning why, around it; and I can't defend *that* part of it. So I'm not saying YOU SHOULDN'T WRITE RPF! EEEE! I'm saying I don't read it, or write it, and this is why; and within my setup of the world, there is definitely room for people who *do* read and write it, unashamedly, happily.

But it's *interesting* that it's *being* done. And it makes me feel deliciously in a tricky position, signing up to do this LJ-slashing thing. Reason 290 to love fandom: It's a space to *do* these things, to practice these nakedly risky ventures. It's constantly testing its own limits.

Still squicks me to the nth degree when I see someone piloting Elijah Woods around as though they controlled him, as though they knew him so intimately they could be him, as though he were one of their characters. (Becuase fictional characters are *by definintion* flattened, not whole beings.)

RL, I have much respect for you. This is what I want to say on the subject, only put better than I could.

I don't read RPF, and I try not to find out about the actors when I can, because I would find it all too easy to cross that line into writing RPF. Which is a place I don't want to go. I want to put that energy into writing original fic. I know I'm not, because I too am writing LJslash, but they, at least, are consenting to the process. For me, that's an important boundary. A fictional character can't be abused, because they aren't real, and someone who consents is a different matter to someone who you've only heard of, or seen acting out roles.

I still found that I couldn't write first person POV with a real person, even a consenting one. Even when I found I could write a sex scene, though I fear the HP characters I'm working with will both turn out to be Mary-Sues.

So that's my two cents.

Is there a line for you, RL, where the adrenaline rush won't make it interesting? Is there a genre that would make you stand up and scream DON'T WRITE THAT!!!

If so, what distances it from RPF?

Please note, I'm not saying it's wrong to write RPF. But I also don't think it's interesting in the least. Nor scary, nor delicious. It's not much different from the other categories that I just don't/can't/won't read.

RPF with volunteers? Sure. That's all good.

I know I'm not, because I too am writing LJslash, but they, at least, are consenting to the process. For me, that's an important boundary.

Ah! See, for me-- this is part of what I wrote to my slashee when she'd emailed me:

[she asked if I were studying her]

I've added you to my LJ friends. When I finish my current writing project, which, god hoping, will happen as soon as fucking possible, I'm going to go read your LJ from top to bottom, and your co-slashee's too, and then dig up every fic I possibly can by each of you.

Then I'll try to think of a plot.

But I think-- this, see, I've got several very intricate theories about fic, and fandom, and fetishization of a text, and the aggressive act of fic-writing; and, I think, to *properly* *slash* someone I ought to take the role of fan, and obsessively study what she does, instead of actually meeting her on equal, personal terms.

I'm going to fetishize your text! Ooh baby.

In other words-- I don't think I ought to talk to you very much. I've got to synthesize and internalize my own idea of your authentic voice, and take my own liberties with you; if it's actually very different from what you'd have wanted for yourself, well, it's *fic*! It's *real-person* fic. That's exactly how this works.

[...]

Like, Fay's lovely, lovely Wes/PMM story? It's fic for Wesley. But, I don't think, it's not really *PMM* fic. PMM fic should, properly, be written without her permission, by someone who doesn't know PMM on a personal level at all. Instead, it was a gift from one friend to another.

That's what I believe. So this is going to be a very interesting exercise. I have my slashee's permission, I can't help that; but I'm going to try hard not to do anything else.

I don't read RPF, and I try not to find out about the actors when I can, because I would find it all too easy to cross that line into writing RPF.

And that's another interesting thing again - because I have no urge to write RPF. None.

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

I will, however, take this opportunity, since I'm 300 posts behind in LotR and have no desire to catch up right now, to share that I learned recently that Viggo Mortenson's son (who he credits with convincing him to take the part) is also the son of punk legend Exene Cervenka. Which, as an old X fan, I found extremely cool.

Carry on.

Ah.

...other than the RPF I wrote about Ple for the LJ slash. Huh. But - not the same? Or at least, it doesn't feel the same. As RL said - that it was more like a gift for a friend, and a joke/not joke, um, more like a flight of fancy. A very, very pretentious flight of fancy and an exercise in meta. Without, I think, much tittilation. But I know you folks have a tradition of writing the Spike/Bitch slash, in the past? And it was like that. Which isn't, quite, the same as the LotR RPF, or the Puppyslash.

Or is it?

Perhaps I'm deceiving myself here. Huh.

I don't read RPF, and I try not to find out about the actors when I can, because I would find it all too easy to cross that line into writing RPF.

I do learn some things about actors, but oddly, if anything, it totally discourages me from any RPF leanings in the actor-fic direction.

The sparkley boys, they've got these characters they play on stage, with the same names as them, but they're still characters, or at least that's what it seems like. I don't want to know about them, the people. I'm sure they're lovely people, with actual thoughts and opinions. But what you see on-stage seems no more real to me than the Monkees.

Same with Political fic. I've read some Thatcher slash, I'll admit. I almost wrote some HK a moment ago.

My lines are distinct, but very personal.