Weeeell -- the full and thorough inference to be taken is that Person A can say anything she pleases, but that Person B has just as much right to yell at Person A for that pleasing. And for Person A to yell back.

Yep. I agree completely. I think it's part of the risk you take when participating in something like fandom.

"Take what you want, and pay for it" is a philosophy that, in practice, ends up with only the most abrasive and thick-skinned people willing to participate.

That's not what I'm advocating, though, if I understand you correctly. I'm just saying, in my little rulebook, that:
a) everyone has the right to do whatever the hell they want, including me
b) doing whatever you want, depending on what "whatever" is, comes with certain ramifications that you have to accept, which may include someone yelling at you, someone sending you a C&D, or someone showing your fic to a random and startled actor

I also have a conditional c), which is that people shouldn't be hypocrites, but that's more of a personal thing about not using sockpuppets (shrift excepted) and not condemning someone else for something I do.

Dana, shrift is an amazingly good sockpuppet of yours. My congratulations on the care you've taken in creating her.

runs away quickly from those missiles flying my way

they're tiny missiles

I do sort of get where you're at with the above, and generally speaking, I would have agreed with you 4 years ago. I saw instances of real people fic in the XF fandom, e.g., and did feel free to yell at the people who wrote it. I don't really feel so free to yell any more, because I've been reduced to a minority and it's tiresome to listen to (and produce) the same old yelling on a regular basis.

But it's still pretty galling to find that you can't eat any of the birthday cake because it's made with something to which you're violently allergic. Not something that the birthday cake baker did on purpose, necessarily, and it's just one of those things I'll have to live with, but it's still pretty galling.

Yeah. Not to mention all the wonderful bakers who don't bake the kind of cake you like any more.

Someone left my cake out in the rain.

But it's still pretty galling to find that you can't eat any of the birthday cake because it's made with something to which you're violently allergic. Not something that the birthday cake baker did on purpose, necessarily, and it's just one of those things I'll have to live with, but it's still pretty galling.

Welcome to my (literal) world.

This is all well and good, and (especially as I, too, have been affected by the This is Not My Beautiful Cake syndrome) I do sympathize.

However, it solves nothing to, rather than no longer shopping at that bakery, scream about how the baker is an abusive murdering scumbag who frosts a cake of dead babies with dog poo, which is the tone I keep running across in the wilds of fandom, and the one that will make me desire to throw flames with a side of whup-ass.

Nutty, I know what you mean about getting wonky about people. One of the fic friends I've stayed in touch with is here locally and while I think she's a marvelous writer I have to be careful not to talk about RPF with her because she does it and I don't and I don't want to argue about it...

I felt sort of guilty, the first time I took someone off my LJ friends list. (It's a whole thing, with the interpersonal politics, and the thing.) But that someone was getting into the real people fic phenomenon right there on my friends page and I couldn't bear to be around it. I haven't corresponded with her for a while now, because LJ was the one way in which we used to still intersect.

This is all well and good, and (especially as I, too, have been affected by the This is Not My Beautiful Cake syndrome) I do sympathize.

I just want to make it clear that, since there are Buffistas here whom I know and respect writing RPF, I sometimes lament that they're writing stuff That Is Not My Beautiful Cake, I would never want to come off as an abusive psycho to any of them.

Your Cake Is Not My Cake. You Are Welcome to Think My Cake Has Crack in It.

Our Cakes May Coexist Peacefully, Provided That Neither of Us Forces the Other to Eat It, Too.

Now I'm tempted to write a Sports Night story based entirely on Casey's cake obsession. Bother.

Now I'm tempted to write a Sports Night story based entirely on Casey's cake obsession. Bother.

See? Good can come of all of this.

And, to make it clear, 99% of RPS peeps are likely to be squicked by my RPS of choice.

Mmm... Henry...