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 agree, either quantitatively, or qualitatively, and I think that's where the "here is the line!", "No, here is the line!" argument becomes a stalemate. Not particularly up to rehashing it today.

Is is a taboo thing, then, these trends you all are describing? I actively avoid most of these trends, so I don't really know except the general-fandom blowback in places like this. But incest, "controlling" a real person by being his author -- they sound like the fringes of the sexual fetish/fantasy world, rather than primarily fannish. The same way that some people wrote BDSM fanfic some years back, and it was a lot more BDSM than it was actually fanfic. At the time, this was a tiny minority of fanfic writing that I knew of, and considered kind of out there, not the cool thing to do.

When people write porn where [insert name] turns into a giantess, or [insert name] turns into a cat or a robot or is wearing diapers, then we'll know definitively!

I couldn't do that, personally.(And I know that the slash makes it a bad example for me anyway, but I couldn't write one where SMG and JM rehearse and things get out of hand. Or one where Belzer "comforts" Leo after her fucknut ex calls her 500 times in one day, and she gets the restraining order. His taste in women tends to the bleah in real life, and I already feel embarrassed and like I spent too much time on this)

I don't agree, either quantitatively, or qualitatively, and I think that's where the "here is the line!", "No, here is the line!" argument becomes a stalemate.

I'm sorry, I thought I'd tried to make it clear that this is my visceral feeling, and not some law I think should be agreed with, just as I'm not interested in real-person fic but obviously do not think that's true for everybody.

I've long since given up trying to figure out the appeal. People I respect write it, and I don't know why, and it doesn't reach me in the same way as fic.

If I had any doubt about my own stance on the matter, it was erased at Escapade last year. Someone mentioned that Sean Bean is often written in lotrips as abusive, and the bottom of my stomach fell out. End of story for me.

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.

Hmm. I guess if I get constant exposure, I may become inured to actorfic, but the truth be told, I didn't really care overmuch that people were writing about Lance and JC when the popslash took off. Mainly because I didn't know who they were, what their music was like--actually, I still can't tell the boys apart. They might as well have been original fictional characters as far as I was concerned.

With the ME actors--well, I like them. I care about them, insomuch as you could care about complete strangers. I don't like the idea of fans, no matter how erudite and brilliant they may be, using names and bodies and personalities of these actors for wish-fulfillment sexual fantasy. And I can't readily separate this from the universally-despised David Duchovny/Gillian Anderson 'shippers in the old XF fandom, no matter how loudly the writers cry that this is strictly fictional. I get the impression that I am supposed to consider the whole thing subversive and cutting edge, because BNFs are writing them, the writing is decent, and because it is largely slash. Which bugs me.

Anyway.

Playing with my toys is very different from playing with me, no matter how much I love my toys.

That's where my distinction is.

I don't know a whole lot of famous people, but AFAICT only the one with fifty years in the business considers his persona his toy in a distant way.

But that's exactly where the Buffy people I respect are going. Marsters/Boreanaz slash. And, yes, it's personal, but that has always been my Do Not Cross line in fic.

Which, morally, I see as no different from Sedaris/Buckley or Sedaris/Tyson.

It's the wording that bothered me with your statement, because while it's your Do Not Cross line, you made it sound as if it was THE Do Not Cross Line.

Here's a question: IS there One True Do Not Cross Line when it comes to fiction? (Obviously "and then I stalked James Marsters and kidnapped him and tied him up in my basement in real life!" is going to qualify as a line.) Is it ever okay to say "I believe this is immoral enough that I'm going to say something about it"?

Is it ever okay to say "I believe this is immoral enough that I'm going to say something about it"?

I think so, as long as you don't go around trying to actually stop people from doing it. We're all allowed to say whatever the fuck we want, you know? I honestly don't care what people write, what people think about what I write, or what might be going on in the corners of fandom that I don't know about.

On the other hand, reporting people to ISPs, or to their workplaces? Shoving slashy photomanips into actors' faces? Harassing people in e-mail or Livejournal? That's where it stops being "I think this is immoral" and turns into "You can only write what I approve of."

IS there One True Do Not Cross Line when it comes to fiction?

Pedophilia treated as romance. I'm talking pre-pubescent kids, not 16-17 year-olds.

The RPS thing is variable to me depending on the real people in question, so for me, the ME actorfic is more like a personal line, not THE line.