So if you want to be all "look how wild and crazy I am" incest is a logical next step

That, and also people trying to get heard over all the noise. If you're a mediocre writer (or even a good one who just hasn't built a reputation yet), it's *much* easier to get people to read your stories if you're the one person writing Fred/George than if you're Ginny/Harry shipper #397. Even if people read out of morbid curiosity, it's still attention.

Yeah, good point.

My completely-unsupported guess is that it's boundary-pushing.

That, and also people trying to get heard over all the noise.

That makes sense, I guess, given that we *are* talking about fandom. That's....kind of ooky. I don't usually care enough to give a damn about stuff that's going on in fandom, but this pings a little above my "huh, so that's the new fad. Eh....whatever." radar.

The reason you might be feeling more squicked by ME-verse actorslash than popslash, Vonnie, is that popslash has just been on your horizon longer. I know that's what's true for me-- right now, just as you said, a lot of bright, talented people I watch are bandwagoning with pleasure to ME-verse actorslash, and I'm feeling the same distanced queasiness I did around the idea of popslash before I joined LJ and friended people who happened to often mention popslashy ideas, casually and positively.

I've gotten used to it; I can get used, probably, to anything. I remember not that long ago when reading Jane St Claire's Lost Boys fic had me a shaking mess at my computer-- the stories were hot and lyrically beautiful, but they were about incest between siblings, and, Jesus, that's such a visceral and serious squick for me I was caught between aesthetic appreciation, arousal, and serious disgust.

(I still think those stories are wonderful, from an aesthetic and meta-aesthetic viewpoint-- I love art that does that to me, pulls me that way; like Patricia Smith's poem "Skinhead" which is the scary and beautifully imagistic narration of a neo-Nazi. Wonderful, and absolutely upsetting.) (And the bad-wrong intersecting with the compelling and beautiful-- that is possibly my biggest literary kink.)

But now I'm kind of used to incest as a particular method of hitting the bad-wrong. I was idly reading (I have this obsessive-completivist OCD thing; if there's a link on my friends list, I have to follow it) this ME-verse actorfic slashing NB and his brother Kelly, the other day. And this story wasn't as good as JSC's old story; but it had several things that would have made it something I enjoyed (biting and emotional revelations, ba-dump) if it hadn't been, you know, about real people. Or a slasher's conception of real people, anyway. It seems like such an *awful* thing to, essentially, accuse NB & co of doing. I was doing the same I-am-so-shaken and this-is-sexy thing as before, tho' less with the sexy (not as well-written a story) and more with the shaken (real-people incest), so I don't think I'll, you know, go back to the story again.

(I see a *lot* of people doing Fred/George. I see a lot of people who are intrigued and turned on by Angel/Connor. That, actually <perversity badge> is a 'ship of mine! although in a very different way from the people who are writing, like, Angel/Connor schmoop. Now *that* disgusts me. ... I would be willing to talk about how I see Angel/Connor as something actually very present and viable, but maybe this site isn't the place for it?)

a lot of bright, talented people I watch are bandwagoning with pleasure to ME-verse actorslash,

Yes, yes, YES. We've just moved into the wrong zone, boys and girls. There's a real James Marsters, and it's nasty to put your fantasies about his boybits on to paper or phosphor and share them.

Wait. There is Weasley twincest?

Oh yeah.

In my opinion, the Simon/River has canonical subtext to support a bad and wrong reading of it. The writers went there.

Weasley twins? Pretty much the only thing the fanfic writers have got is some study somewhere about sexuality that says male identical twins often have their first sexual experience with each other. Or something.

That being said, in the hands of a good writer...

I find myself bugged way more than I have ever been about popslash

I'm perfectly happy not knowing which one JC is except by process of elimination, and letting the popslash/lotrips/rps people play with their toys. I think there are people planning to pimp me into popslash. I don't think they understand exactly how impossible this is, and how negatively I'm going to react to it.

Besides, right now, I need another fandom like I need terminal brain cancer.

People I respect play quite happily in the RPF world. I tried, and I still can't separate the public image from the person. Doesn't work.

That kind of bothers me although right now I'm doing it, in a matter of speaking, by using Ann Coulter, public figure, ficticiously as a villainous demon. But the most personal proclivites I've touched upon have been an invented tendency to leave the water running too long and a love affair with hair care products. um, aside from the succubus thing.

I would be willing to talk about how I see Angel/Connor as something actually very present and viable, but maybe this site isn't the place for it?

I'd love to read it. I see it as well, and in much the same way as you do.

Yes, yes, YES. We've just moved into the wrong zone, boys and girls.

In your worldview, but your worldview ain't my worldview, or everyone's worldview. David Sedaris does it quite cheerfully, as, essentially, did Todd Haynes with Velvet Goldmine.

There's a real James Marsters, and it's nasty to put your fantasies about his boybits on to paper or phosphor and share them.

I'd venture to say that, for the most part, and knowing many of the writers in question, that's not what they're doing.

Yes, yes, YES. We've just moved into the wrong zone, boys and girls. There's a real James Marsters, and it's nasty to put your fantasies about his boybits on to paper or phosphor and share them.

Well, you know, people do it and it makes them happy. What I do by co-opting Joss Whedon's characters and world is almost as or as aggressive an act as what a popslasher does; I don't think I have the perspective to talk about things from a moral angle.

I do feel pretty secure in the idea that I will never be a RPF-er, because I'm just not *interested* in real people. I thought it might have been because I'm not so interested in the lives of movie stars or pop stars, but I've looked at RPF about historical or politician characters, and the same thing happens: the spark goes dead for me. I downloaded that Britney Spears "Me Against the Music" music video, in which she spends a lot of time chasing Madonna around lasciviously, and, you know, when the video ended, I wanted to know more, I wanted to see what happened next, I was intrigued by the characters and the world presented in the video. But I realized I wasn't actually interested in Britney Spears herself-- I was interested in the chick named Britney (there seemed to be a definite character) she was playing in the weird little illogical world of the video. I watched that movie, Sylvia, and I kept getting jarred out of my watching because even though I *knew* intellectually that the movie was about the poet Sylvia Plath, I kept forgetting, and thinking it was just about this unhappy poet character; every time she quoted a line of Plath's poetry, I'd get all annoyed. "Wait, who are you, taking credit for that poem! Plagiarist." Etc. My mother is writing a historical novel about Mozart's family; but I'm not interested in the people themselves, but the fascinating characters she's making them be.

This is how I seem to be wired, and it probably has to do with the imbalance of fiction and nonfiction I took in very young; it doesn't have to do with anyone else's view of things.