A discussion on RPS

[hils]

I've just had a rather interesting discussion with lexalicious70 and I thought I'd open it up here.

First of all a history of me and RPS. Those of you who have been on my flist for a few years will know that RPS used to be a major squick of mine that I would avoid at all costs. I got into it thanks to a combination of jacqui_hw telling me that Kate Bosworth broke up with Orlando Bloom because he was spending too much time with Sean Bean (I never found out if this was true but it amused me) and caz sending me some Bloom/Bean fic to read. This was back in the days when LotR was big.

I had my eyes half closed as I read my first RPS fic but damn me if I didn't like it. I read a few more under semi-protest and after that I was hooked (and made the transition to Bean/Viggo which was my primary OTP for quite a while)

Since then I've had no problems reading or writing it.

Today Lexi said she was surprised she'd never come across and James Marsters/Michael Rosenbaum RPS. I, correct me if I'm wrong, said that James fans weren't really into the whole RPS thing. I speculated it's because James is so accessible to his fans that people see him as a real person rather than a character. Certainly that was what always used to put me off RPS. These are real people.

The thing with LotR is that a lot of the actors were aware of the fic being written about them and even encouraged it. Maybe that's why I had less of a problem with it. I think a lot of Bandom is the same.

But I would never write RPS involving James, mostly because I've met him so many times it would be weird. Like writing about one of my friends or something (I'm not saying James is my friend but he's lost a lot of that objectivity and idealism. I've seen him in bad moods and upset, one of my friends wound up sat next to him on a plane and he was an asshole to her and apologised later)

So, what do you think? Does meeting an actor affect whether you would write RPS about them? Does it depend on whether they mind or not? I'm just curious.

I've never met anyone I've written RPS about so I can't say whether meeting Tom, Michael, Bean or Viggo would affect that. Maybe I'll find out in September if Michael doesn't cancel the con.

Comments

[touchstoneaf.livejournal.com]

after i met Michael, i couldn't read any RPS about him for a couple of months. It seemed weird, cuz as you said, it made him 'real' to me, you know, not just another 'character'.

i will reread old faves on occasion, now i can keep that 'character' separate in my head from the 'real Michael' i met. But i wouldn't write it.

I'm not into writing about real people, actually. I was surprised i enjoyed reading about them at all; but it takes a really good story to get me to do it.

so i feel ya.

[elandrialore.livejournal.com]

Meeting Michael didn't put me off RPS, but for some reason meeting Joe and David from SGA made me think about it really hard. Less because I was now weirded out that they were 'real people' and more because I was like, "Well crap, they're so amazing, how in the hell am I supposed to write them now?!" Not that Michael wasn't amazing, but I was able to spend more time with Joe and David so I got to see more of their amazingness from a closer perspective.

[http://users.livejournal.com/woman_of_/]

I have never written James RPS, but I read it. The problem being that it ends up as Spike rather than James that put me off.

I like Jared/Jensen RPS, but that might be because I do not see wincest. While with James, I do not see him in a relationship with a man, but can see Spike!

[pepperjackcandy.livejournal.com]

As a non-real-person-ficcer, I think I'd only feel comfortable partaking in RPF of any flavor, slash, het or gen, if the real person in question explicitly said that ze didn't mind.

[lovinspike247.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I'm so having this problem at the moment. But with bands instead of actors. The more time I spent with the bands outside of the gigs, the more uncomfortable I was with reading fic about them. A few times I was sitting there thinking, "I'm drinking with someone I read porn about. Fuck".

Thing is, even when reading fic about them, I still saw those in the fic as characters. We as fans know nothing about their personal lives or how they act around their friends and family, so really, I was reading fic about "Gabe Saporta". And when I met the bands in the past couple of weeks, I still kept that divide. Kind of. Like, we had a rule where LJ was not mentioned at all. Fandom and RL? Non-mixy things. RL = Gabe, fandom = "Gabe".

The fact that all the bands I read fic about have talked about fanfic does help a lot. Pete Wentz makes references to it all the time, usually without being prompted. I know for a fact that Cobra Starship have read fanfic about themselves because not only have they talked about it in interviews (Alex Suarez doesn't care, he just wants to top!), but Vicky-T commented on someone's fic. The fic in question was femslash that including Vicky-T in the pairing. And hell, according to Frank Iero, Gerard Way used to write Planet Of The Apes fic! There are loads of other examples out there, and, for the most part, they've been positive (My Chemical Romance just want fans to stop with the incest).

So yeah, it's awkward, but the bands mostly don't care. So I'm kind of happy to keep reading fic, though there are still issues.

(I'm sorry if this makes no sense at all. I'm really ill at the moment, and even though I have to be up in six hours, I can't sleep.)

[tasabian.livejournal.com]

I love this quote from James about working with Michael:

Michael's got his own thing. I think that Michael's thing and my thing might be kind of similar, which might be why we got along so well. There's a dirty, dangerous prankster down in there, and there's secrets down in there, and you get that naughty fun kind of thing
With these kinds of quotes, who needs RPS? "Naughty fun", indeed!

[ryo-girl.livejournal.com]

I've never had a real big problem with RPS, but there have been times I've been hesitant.

I remember not wanting to get into Jensen/Jared, for the exact reasons you were talking about - I felt like I knew the boys, and reading or writing fic about them made me uncomfortable.

But it got easier once I was able to kind of form this idea of who Jensen was, and realize that, no matter how many interviews I've read or cons I've seen or whatever, I don't know Jensen or Jared. The Jensen and Jared in fiction are just that - fiction. I don't have a problem anymore.

The one that does confuse me is - I absolutely will not read John Barrowman RPS. And there aren't many who write it. I can't quite figure out WHY I refuse to read or write it, but I will not. I mean, the guy's openly gay, married. That might be it - it's easy to read RPS when you know one of the fundamental parts of the fic - the fact that the two in it are gay - isn't true at all.

But to take someone who IS gay, and to then write about them, it feels more like a massive crossing of a line. And, in JB's case, any fiction that's not of him and his husband paints him as a cheater, which he isn't, so that automatically makes it OOC.

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

This is sort of connected to your subject in way--many many *many* years ago, my sis and I went to a con (i don't remember which one) to see Tom Baker, who at that time was just wrapping up his tenure as Doctor Who. He was wonderful with everyone, kind ot his audience, and super nice to all the fans, just seemed pleased as punch to be there. My sis, who'd always liked Tom's Doctor in an offhand sort of way, fell violently in love with him, the real person, and it ruined the character of the Doctor for her. She said she couldn't watch the show anymore because she hated this imposter wearing the love of her life's face. Soooooooo...I'm guessing RPS would have pissed her off something bad. I guess the point is I think that meeting the actor might make you dislike the thought of intruding on their personal lives even in a fictional way.

[drusplace.livejournal.com]

As someone already mentioned, most James RPS fic that I've seen seems to take the character of "Spike" and renames him James. So I really never read much. I'd rather just read the actual Spike fics.

[x-pixel-x.livejournal.com]

One of my first fandoms was Sentinel, where anything even remotely approaching RPS was NOT COOL. TS is where I 'grew up' as a ficcer, and it was a NO NO. One of my good friends in the fandom left because she was into Popslash and couldn't handle how it was frowned upon. So thats my background.
I still don't feel entirely comfortable with it. I've read a bit of Johnny (Depp)/Orlando and like maybe 2 J2 fics, and didn't mind, but it was easy for me to see all of the above as characters more than real people (mostly because I'm not heavily involved in either fandom.) I can not however, read fic involving Torchwood actors, I tried, and I just couldn't. I don't know what it is, I mean I read wincest, dark, kinky, an mpreg here or there, whatever, I have pretty broad taste, but can't handle TW RPF. I've never tried (or really seen to be honest) RPF involving SV actors.
Its probably got something to do with how I've never been the sort to keep up with the actors much. I do however make an effort to follow Gareth David -Lloyd and John Barrowman a bit more than is normal for me. Maybe that has more to do with why I can't read the RPF, I feel like I know them a bit more as people. I can't imagine meeting an actor and then reading RPF about them and being able to keep it all straight in my head.

[lexalicious70.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for that!!! *Loves James Marsters even more now*

And oh yes. There's a wealth of treasure in Our Boy. Secrets indeed . . .

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I would never be involved with RPS, reading or writing, so knowing an actor wouldn't make a difference. As far as I'm concerned they're all real people and it's crossing a line.

[lexalicious70.livejournal.com]

I really didn't get into writing RPS until I heard Michael host "Loveline" last year.

And then I understood that even if he knew, he probably wouldn't mind. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

There was a lot more Michael Rosenbaum / Tom Welling RPS in the early days of Smallville now it is primarily written if they are entangled with Jared / Jensen RPS which I do not read. Michael/Tom are the only RPS pairing of interest to me. I have and do still view RPS as fiction and as characters no different than the Clex fiction I read. The situations written about in RPS are not apt to become reality.

I have met Michael and Tom in more than fan capacity as well as Jared and Jensen. It has colored how I read Smallville fiction or RPS related to them but I approach it as entertainment and not as truth about either man.

Michael and Tom are aware fan fiction and RPS are being written about them. Michael doesn't mind and Tom tends to ignore its existence.

[yavannauk.livejournal.com]

Meeting actors has, in the past, killed my ability to write FPS about them, let alone RPS. I just got to a point where it felt like crossing a line even writing their characters together. And this despite the fact that they were pretty touchy feely together in RL (though just as friends) and both happily played up the slashy aspects of their characters' on screen relationship.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm glad it's not just me :)

[hils.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting. I never thought about it from that perspective before

Thanks for commenting

[hobbituk.livejournal.com]

I don't like RPS fic. I would be completely mortified if I read fic about me whatever the plot, and I don't see that the career choice another person made should mean that it's open season for fantasies to be written and published on the internet about them. The characters they play? Fictional. Already made up. So yeah, fine. But about them as people? No. They are entitled to a private life. Bad enough that fans stalk them whenever they go out!

Also, most of the RPS fic I have seen insists on making everyone gay. Nothing wrong with being gay, I have several friends who are gay. Funnily enough, when we have talked about this subject, they have said they would be majorly squicked if, for example, they found they were featured in a fic with heavy het sex scenes because that wasn't true and who they were.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Oh, so there is James RPS out there? I've never come across it before.

I agree that I don't see James in a relationship with another man but I don't think I'd write him with his female co-stars either

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that can make a big difference

[hils.livejournal.com]

Aww!

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Spending a lot of time with someone would definitely put me off reading and writing fic about them, even if they don't mind

[hils.livejournal.com]

LOL! How awesome!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Do you think you'd stop reading Jared/Jensen if yoy ever met either of them at a convention or something? I'm just curious

And I didn't even know people wrote JB fic. Yeah, I think I would steer clear of it too, for the reasons you listed

[hils.livejournal.com]

James was the first actor I ever met and for a while I found it hard to write Spike fic afterwards because it felt weird

I got over it though ;)

[hils.livejournal.com]

Exactly! LOL!