huh

[unamaga]

Yesterday schneestern wrote this sweet, sweet little ficlet called Suddenly Though, which is about John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, and kissing. I think you should read it.

On top of being absolutely darling, it brings up an interesting question. There was a big to-do over at torchwood_fic about whether or not they should allow RPS - understandably, I guess, since they are a community for the fictional characters, but reading through the comments got me thinking. I know a lot of you have been on sort of the same track as me for a while, coming from Supernatural fandom over to Stargate Atlantis or veering on into Bandom, so you've been pretty well exposed.

What about the rest of you? Where exactly do you stand on RPS and when it's "appropriate"?

Comments

[aurora]

re: RPS: I don't have anything against it, but I rarely read it. (Also, like non-RPS stories, it has to be well written before I even consider giving it a chance. /fic snob :D)

[unamaga.livejournal.com]

well written is VERY important! *nod*

[gaffsie.livejournal.com]

Personally, I have no trouble with RPS. The fact that I got into Fry/Laurie RPS through House might have something to do with that. ;)

As long as it's posted in the appropriate comms, I don't see the harm of it. *shrugs* But I understand that it can be jarring to some people.

[verav.livejournal.com]

As long as people realize that the RPS is fiction not fact I don't really have any problems with it.

Personally I like RPS, can't even begin to tell you how many Vigorli and J2 stories I've read but when people start to see everything the actors do as "evidence" then I start to get uncomfortable about the whole thing.

But it's nice to imagine so thank you for pointing me towards the John/Gareth! :D

[unamaga.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, tinhattery! True tinhattery frightens me in a big way. :c

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

While I personally do not read a lot of RPS (I prefer a made up sci-fi/fantasy setting for my fic, and I can't do it if the actors are happily married and worse, have kids; it's a thing, apparently) I have no problem with it.

Then again, I still remember when RPS was a huuuuge to-do over in buffyverse. So I think I might be biased.

[unamaga.livejournal.com]

Was it huge? Man, how did I miss that??

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

There was a fairly spiraling wank that ended up with the creation of the handbasket AU because anyone participating was clearly going to hell in a handbasket.

Now, that was some awesome fic, for a while. Everybody played a character and it was like a standard RPG except for the little bit of RPS worked in. It may've been in just my corner of fandom it was big in, though -- the spander-y, angelesly end.

[incidental-fire.livejournal.com]

Ah! I'd heard mentions of the Buffy "handbasket AU" (possibly in your LJ, actually) and always wondered what on earth it was about. Learn something new every day. :)

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

I was uncomfortable with RPS at first (the first few months I discovered online fandom, back in the day), then plunged feet first into LOTRPS and wrote about, oh... call it 200? RPS stories starring Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, so I think we can take it as read that I'm okay with it now. :-)

[grammarwoman]

I enjoy RPS/RPF quite a bit, as long as it has some little inkling of being based in the real world. Bonus points if it incorporates those bits of the RP involved that I as a fan can "verify" as being likely or having actually happened. (Things like extrapolations of David Hewlett's Twitters, or after hours parties at conventions.)

If that made any sense...

[drkquail.livejournal.com]

I think I’m going to be in the minority, but I assume you want an honest answer.

I don’t read RPS. It’s a BIG squick for me that I can’t explain. I understand that there are fans that are more fans of the actor/actress/singer/whatever than the characters they portray, and RPS allows them to indulge in that. I understand that it is fiction, and not meant to be taken as fact in any way. But…it still hits my bad buttons.

I have read exactly one RPS, which I couldn’t finish because I felt I was crossing a line. With fiction based slash, I am comfortable borrowing characters and putting them in situations that are sexy or painful or frightening or tragic, because they’re not real. I can happily get into their minds and mess them up or comfort them or, I don’t know, make them do a funny jig. They’re fictional. They and their entire world only exist in the canon text and media, and then in our minds and in the stories we (the fans) tell each other.

But there is a real John Barrowman, a real Jensen Ackles, a real Joe Flanigan. With real families and real lives and real hobbies…that I do not want to know about. I don’t even want to fantasize about it. And that is, I think, the big distinction that makes RPS such a personal turn-off. I don’t know these people from Adam, and I like it that way.

For me, there is a line between a celebrity’s professional and private life. When that line gets too blurred, I don’t think there are any good outcomes. For the fans, for the media, for the industry, or for the celebrities and their friends and family.

All of that said, I would never try to stop anyone from writing RPS. It is fiction, after all, and no one has the right to censor it. It is a part of fandom, and has just as much right to be here as any other genre. Where it belongs in a community is up to the Mods. If you want a community without RPS, either find one or start you own. Ditto is you want a community that welcomes it.

As long as it is clearly marked (like ALL fiction would be in a perfect world), every one should get along just peachy.

[hebrew-hernia.livejournal.com]

IDK-- I did the SPN RPS thing, although I'm kind of over it now (thanks to SGA, lolz) but SGA RPS makes me super uncomfortable-- Joe has three kids! David has Baz! There are wives/long-term girlfriends involved! That's squicky for me. I dunno, Jared and Jensen and Chad Michael Murray don't seem like real people-- at least, there's sort of an established fanon about them, which may have come from the first RPS pioneers, IDK.

I kind of feel like it's only okay when the people in question are young and vaguely obnoxious, which I am aware is totally awkward and hypocritical. So, like, I have read bandom stuff, when it's been posted by people on my flist, or when it was BANDOM GOES TO ATLANTIS (WIN WIN WIN)-- but who's the one who's married, Gerard from MCR? I wouldn't read RPS about him, because he has a wife, and that's not fair to her. Or SOMETHING.

And of course when I say it's "okay," I mean it's never actually appropriate-- it's some form of copyright infringement and plagiarism, and there's a reason that TV shows and books have those "resemblance to any persons living or deceased" clause-- but in certain cases I can overlook that because I am a sad, depraved individual.

One thing that's is that as people have been posting less RPS on my flist, and I've been reading less of it, I'm finding myself more squicked by it-- it's almost like, for me, there's a certain mental state where you can stop regarding the actors as people and start regarding them as characters (which, to a certain degree, they are, in relation to the media, some more than others, which leads to all kinds of problems-- just take a look at poor Britney) but then once I start thinking of them as people again it's hard for me to get back into it. Like, the last RPS I read was the last thing miss_begonia posted in the hustler!verse, and it was harder for me to get into than the previous parts were, because I've been thinking about them as people. The Writers' Strike probably has something to do with that, too-- it's humanizing everyone, not just J2 but also Kripke and Sera and whoever else, who have been character-ified in the past.

[dodificus.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with RPS and like most things I'll read it if it's by an author I recognise. My mind might be a twisty place but I don't usually connect Joe/David with the real people involved...because in my mind they're *not* involved. The author has taken some people that will be instantly recognisable within a familiar situation and then written an original story. You can't write an in-character RPS because YOU DON'T KNOW THEM:)

[incidental-fire.livejournal.com]

Hm, this is an interesting question. Historically, I've never been terribly interested in RPS, it just seemed like an odd concept to me. I think the first I'd heard of it was LOTRPS, and I just felt kind of baffled. It's never particularly bothered me, however, because what I saw seemed pretty clearly delineated as "this is not about the actual named individuals," and the line seemed pretty clear. I wonder if some of my not-caring is from being a pretty heavy-duty Trekkie when I was young (though I had no clue about slash!). I went to conventions and met the actors, but it was pretty clear that the personality they were presenting there was simply another mask, just like their characters. Obviously, that mask was probably closer to their actual personality, but that creation of a distinct public persona seemed to me to be a healthy way of dealing with those crazy Star Trek fans. Thus RPF, to me, is really fiction written about *those* masks, the public personas, which is closer to the actual person, but still isn't really them. Does that make sense?

The funny thing is, although I've never been into RPS before, I'm actually really enjoying it in the SGA fandom. I don't know what the difference is, though it might be that Harry Potter was the only other fandom I really read a lot of fic in, and there's very little RPS there. So the upshot is - I only started reading RPS in the past year or so, and only SGA, but it's never really bothered me that other people do.

That said, I recognize that it does squick a lot of people and I can understand why, so having separate communities specifically for RPS makes sense to me. Now if I actually *wrote* RPS (I don't write at all), I might be frustrated at not getting the audience at some of the 'mainstream' communities, but my sense is that the resulting backlash would probably not be worth the added exposure.

[schneestern.livejournal.com]

You make everything better. Thank you, darling.

[kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com]

I have read RPS in multiple fandoms. I have certain rules for my own enjoyment, but I have no problem with the concept.

[lucy-harkness.livejournal.com]

RPS, i think is just a bit of fun for fans. If the actor/actress has any kids i think is where it gets a bit funny (though i haven't read a pairing like that yet)

I read that story you have the link too, and i thoguht it was so cute! i just cant seems to get hold of any JB/GDL fics.

But, inclusion, i think RPS is okay ;P just some fun or fans and writers