lierdumoa | Yet Another Fandom Rant (Reply)

Below you will find an essay. It is an in depth look at QaF RPS -- an assessment of the fandom and the attitudes of it's writers, it's audience, and it's critics. This essay is highly opinionated. There is much conjecture and speculation. Interested? Then please, read on.

On the Genre of QaF RPS

It seems that a lot of people in the QaF fandom who have written RPS have faced a certain level of discrimination. They've been flamed. Badly. And as a result they've partially gone into hiding. I've only heard of this. I haven't seen the flames in action -- only their aftermath.

So a lot of the RPS is friends locked. People are afraid of being flamed. People are afraid of legal repercussions. The way I hear it (from

queenofalostart) -- it used to be more like this with LOTRips, but the fandom grew out of that phase. And I really do think it's a phase. RPS starts out as very controvercial, but after a while, the idea begins to appeal to more people, and people stop putting up a fuss over it. It stops being a big deal.

So the way I hear it, a lot of people don't like RPS, but are accepting of it because they have friends who like it/write it. Some people, apparently, hate it enough to spew vitriol at anyone who dares to write it. I doubt there are that many people who think this way, but apparently there are enough around to scare writers into hiding their work behind friends locked posts.

Now, the whole idea of protecting myself from flames is extremely abhorrent to me. I know I'm not one to talk. I've never been flamed. I don't know how damaging flames can be to one's disposition. But I really don't like the idea of portraying myself as the member of some injured minority group. Fuck that shit. If anyone dared to attack me on the basis that RPS is EVOL, I have a number of friends who I know would immediately rise to my defense.

Perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps RPS-ers in this fandom haven't had anyone to defend them. Perhaps they don't believe RPS is something worthy of defending. Perhaps they just think of it as one of their more bizarre kinks. The truth is, despite what people seem to think, it's not any more 'out there' than slash. Ask anyone in the real world if they think it's weirder to write about romances between actors or to turn all the characters in a TV show gay, and they'd probably find the second option stranger than the first. So you combine the two. Big fucking deal.

Really, that's the attitude I seem to be gleaning off people. RPS as a guilty pleasure. I guess on some level, people like to think they're being weird and kinky and rebellious. They like to think that they're doing something 'bad' and so they make RPS into a guilty pleasure when it doesn't really have to be. Well, I disagree with this whole attitude. I write RPS, and I don't feel guilty in the least.

And all this talk of 'the special hell' that we're all supposedly going to? Well, I went to the HP fandom and read Snape/Firebolt pr0n. I went to the AtS fandom and read Spike/Puppet!Angel pr0n. I've written two posts over the past month on kink in fandom, one joking (see here) and one serious (see here), and RPS is one of the more insignificant and mainstream of the kinks. Honestly, this whole guilt complex just makes me scoff.

I mean, really. Those QaF RPS-ers. They think their hell is sooooo special.

Now for me, writing RPS is as close as a fanfiction writer can get to writing original fiction without actually writing original fiction. We know very little about the actors. We borrow their faces and their occupations and what little we've learned from them in interviews and basically use these tidbits to create original characters. Every time I read a Gale/Randy fic, the characters are different. They have different quirks and habits. They think differently and speak differently. They're never considered OOC because really, there is no solid canon for these people's personalities. We create personalities for them. RPS allows me to be creative in ways that regular fanfiction doesn't. Of course, I don't think it's *better* than regular fanfiction, but I can appreciate the differences.

So basically, I'm not going to run and hide with my RPS. If I get flamed, then I must be a lot more popular than I first assumed. Because we all know that flamers don't attack nobodys. They only attack people who have at least a fair number of fans.

Now as to the legal ramifications, are they really that big a deal? I mean, would actors really sue? It's not like we're writing RPS trying to convince people that what we write is real. Everyone who reads RPS knows that it's fiction. No one would claim that we've committed libel. And if someone did, well then that's what disclaimers are for. As for the actors -- I can't remember where I saw this quote, but it's worth repeating: "The hottest girl in high school knows all the boys masturbate thinking about her." RPS shouldn't be all that outrageous to actors. Honestly, why would they go to the trouble of suing us? It's not like we have money. As long as we don't freak them out at DVD signings by handing them printed copies of RPS pr0n, I don't think actors will particularly care what we do on the internet in our private time.

I think I've said all I have to say. I feel better.

My next post will be a recap of the last episode of The OC. Mad squeeage ahead.