identity porn
We went to see the new Harry Potter movie this afternoon! Mostly for the air conditioning, because it is too hot here right now. (Yesterday was my library volunteer day, and I hung around on library wireless until 8 pm or so. Tomorrow I am planning to spend the afternoon in the city, visiting friends. Sunday, the current plan is to be knee-deep in the creek as much as possible.
...I like living in a house with no A/C. We're so much more... connected to the cycles of nature.)
Anyway, so that old tired fandom is done with now! Now we can concentrate properly on shiny new ones! Like Ranma 1/2! :D
Okay, okay, I did like the movie. It was very epic. I was extremely impressed by Helena Bonham Carter playing Emma Watson. She's fairly awesome. Why is it the only rpf fandom she ever shows up in is UK politics? And they pretty much did justice to the book, possibly even better in places -- the whole "Snape-is-a-creepy-stalker-to-Lily" thing even managed to be less than entirely repellant.
We saw it in 3D because that's how the times worked out, and eh. 3D would be really awesome if it just worked, say, 25% better, but as it is I seem to be spending as much time going "ugh why does it look wrong" as "omg awesome!" I think part of it is depth of field - I know it's just how cameras work, but somehow 3D + small depth of field just doesn't work for me. Though I have discovered that when the 3D gets too annoying, I can just take off both the 3D glasses and my regular glasses, and then it looks about normal - my eyes naturally have small depth of field, so things getting blurrier as they get farther away looks right, and my vision is just bad enough that the double-image effect is canceled out, but I can still read the expressions on faces.
...I suspect that isn't meant to be the point of the 3D trend.
***
In other news, and entirely not connected to me writing the scene where Ranma and Ryoga tell Akane about P-chan (connected rather more directly to the pseud discussions triggered by G+), I have been thinking about Identity Porn.
Particularly, I have been thinking that it needs a fanlore entry, that I could probably put together a multifandom recs post of classics in the genre, and that I have the 'roleplay' square on my kink_bingo card and nothing to put in it.
However, I know there are people reading this who share that kink, and some of you I think were even around DC fandom when the term was coined, and not just lurking the way I was, so before I started writing I wanted to ask for advice.
Does anyone know specifically when/where the term was coined? The first use I can find for it by searching is in the header material of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
petra and jamjar's How to Marry A Millionaire, but they use it as if the term would be readily understood by their audience, so that cant've been the actual first usage.
Any other stories about how & where the term has spread would be great, too. And anything about how you would define the term, or thoughts on the whys and wherefores and affinities of the kink. (Hey, you might end up cited on fanlore!
For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, except perhaps by hearing me use it: 'Identity Porn' is a narrative kink for stories which focus on people with fluid, or multiple, or secret, identities, and how those identities work. The classic example is the Clark/Lois/Superman love triangle, but it can get a lot more subtle than that, too. But it isn't just any fic where people are keeping secrets or using a secret identity: it has to approach it from a particular direction, that I have been thinking of to myself as being about "role-playing as yourself", where the various identities start escaping from the boxes the characters try to keep them in, overlapping and blending. It is generally heavy on the dramatic irony, interesting combinations of denial and self-awareness, compartmentalization taken to extremes, and grand reveals. I'd love to put together a multifandom recs post that has all the classics in the genre, and explores a lot of different ways of doing it.
I asked for identity porn recs on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kink_finders, and got some good stuff, but I thought I'd ask here about specific fandoms that I am still looking for fic in, because I know I've got people who know some of these fandoms backwards and forwards. So:
Sherlock Holmes fandom : any recommendations for fic that play up Sherlock's fun with disguises, or mysterious pasts, or Reichenbach, or Irene crossdressing, or anything like that? I am thinking about including "Thoughts Without Words" and/or the one where Watson writes porn, but I feel like I'm missing something.
Inception fandom : This fandom ought to have a ton of this, from what I've seen in passing, ...but I don't read in this fandom. Any suggestions for stuff I have to include on the recs list?
X-men / Marvelverse : I think I'm good on the Steve/Tony (Unless there's something I'm missing that wasn't recced on the kink_finders post) but is there any X-men or Spiderman or Avengers fic that's identity-porny that I just have to include?
DueSouth : I may/may not include those two fics by Speranza with the undercover goodness, but what are the fics that focuse on the Rays' undercover experiences that I really, really need to include?
Highlander : I know there's a lot of Methos fic that talks about identity (really, there's not a lot of Methos fic that doesn't), but which ones in particular would you pick out as being mostly about shifting identities and living undercover?
Barrayar : Surely someone has written Lord Auditor Vorkosigan/Lady Vorkosigan/Admiral Naismith, right? Or something? There's so very much identity porn in this canon, but none of the fic is immediately coming to mind. (Actually, I keep falling back on Ivan fic even though it's Miles and Mark and Cordelia and Gregor who specialize in this stuff.)
Man from UNCLE : MfU fans! I know there is fic out there that's identity porny! Where is it?
RPF: I know, broad category, but I don't feel like figuring out how to break it up. A lot of these say interesting things about public/private, real me/stage me, but I'm not coming up with much from memory. Where's the fic where real!Stephen roleplays as stage!Stephen for Jon? Where David Tennat and John Simm don't quite manage to get out of character? Where the closeted rock star has a crisis over real gay vs. stage gay?
I think I'm covered for DCU, Dr. Who, and Naruto (and probably for anything involving Tony Stark), but I'm sure there's other stuff I'm missing, too...
(No, this isn't just a transparent ploy to get more recs for me to read. I'm working on a fanlore entry! Honest!)
...I like living in a house with no A/C. We're so much more... connected to the cycles of nature.)
Anyway, so that old tired fandom is done with now! Now we can concentrate properly on shiny new ones! Like Ranma 1/2! :D
Okay, okay, I did like the movie. It was very epic. I was extremely impressed by Helena Bonham Carter playing Emma Watson. She's fairly awesome. Why is it the only rpf fandom she ever shows up in is UK politics? And they pretty much did justice to the book, possibly even better in places -- the whole "Snape-is-a-creepy-stalker-to-Lily" thing even managed to be less than entirely repellant.
We saw it in 3D because that's how the times worked out, and eh. 3D would be really awesome if it just worked, say, 25% better, but as it is I seem to be spending as much time going "ugh why does it look wrong" as "omg awesome!" I think part of it is depth of field - I know it's just how cameras work, but somehow 3D + small depth of field just doesn't work for me. Though I have discovered that when the 3D gets too annoying, I can just take off both the 3D glasses and my regular glasses, and then it looks about normal - my eyes naturally have small depth of field, so things getting blurrier as they get farther away looks right, and my vision is just bad enough that the double-image effect is canceled out, but I can still read the expressions on faces.
...I suspect that isn't meant to be the point of the 3D trend.
***
In other news, and entirely not connected to me writing the scene where Ranma and Ryoga tell Akane about P-chan (connected rather more directly to the pseud discussions triggered by G+), I have been thinking about Identity Porn.
Particularly, I have been thinking that it needs a fanlore entry, that I could probably put together a multifandom recs post of classics in the genre, and that I have the 'roleplay' square on my kink_bingo card and nothing to put in it.
However, I know there are people reading this who share that kink, and some of you I think were even around DC fandom when the term was coined, and not just lurking the way I was, so before I started writing I wanted to ask for advice.
Does anyone know specifically when/where the term was coined? The first use I can find for it by searching is in the header material of
petra and jamjar's How to Marry A Millionaire, but they use it as if the term would be readily understood by their audience, so that cant've been the actual first usage.Any other stories about how & where the term has spread would be great, too. And anything about how you would define the term, or thoughts on the whys and wherefores and affinities of the kink. (Hey, you might end up cited on fanlore!
For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, except perhaps by hearing me use it: 'Identity Porn' is a narrative kink for stories which focus on people with fluid, or multiple, or secret, identities, and how those identities work. The classic example is the Clark/Lois/Superman love triangle, but it can get a lot more subtle than that, too. But it isn't just any fic where people are keeping secrets or using a secret identity: it has to approach it from a particular direction, that I have been thinking of to myself as being about "role-playing as yourself", where the various identities start escaping from the boxes the characters try to keep them in, overlapping and blending. It is generally heavy on the dramatic irony, interesting combinations of denial and self-awareness, compartmentalization taken to extremes, and grand reveals. I'd love to put together a multifandom recs post that has all the classics in the genre, and explores a lot of different ways of doing it.
I asked for identity porn recs on
kink_finders, and got some good stuff, but I thought I'd ask here about specific fandoms that I am still looking for fic in, because I know I've got people who know some of these fandoms backwards and forwards. So:Sherlock Holmes fandom : any recommendations for fic that play up Sherlock's fun with disguises, or mysterious pasts, or Reichenbach, or Irene crossdressing, or anything like that? I am thinking about including "Thoughts Without Words" and/or the one where Watson writes porn, but I feel like I'm missing something.
Inception fandom : This fandom ought to have a ton of this, from what I've seen in passing, ...but I don't read in this fandom. Any suggestions for stuff I have to include on the recs list?
X-men / Marvelverse : I think I'm good on the Steve/Tony (Unless there's something I'm missing that wasn't recced on the kink_finders post) but is there any X-men or Spiderman or Avengers fic that's identity-porny that I just have to include?
DueSouth : I may/may not include those two fics by Speranza with the undercover goodness, but what are the fics that focuse on the Rays' undercover experiences that I really, really need to include?
Highlander : I know there's a lot of Methos fic that talks about identity (really, there's not a lot of Methos fic that doesn't), but which ones in particular would you pick out as being mostly about shifting identities and living undercover?
Barrayar : Surely someone has written Lord Auditor Vorkosigan/Lady Vorkosigan/Admiral Naismith, right? Or something? There's so very much identity porn in this canon, but none of the fic is immediately coming to mind. (Actually, I keep falling back on Ivan fic even though it's Miles and Mark and Cordelia and Gregor who specialize in this stuff.)
Man from UNCLE : MfU fans! I know there is fic out there that's identity porny! Where is it?
RPF: I know, broad category, but I don't feel like figuring out how to break it up. A lot of these say interesting things about public/private, real me/stage me, but I'm not coming up with much from memory. Where's the fic where real!Stephen roleplays as stage!Stephen for Jon? Where David Tennat and John Simm don't quite manage to get out of character? Where the closeted rock star has a crisis over real gay vs. stage gay?
I think I'm covered for DCU, Dr. Who, and Naruto (and probably for anything involving Tony Stark), but I'm sure there's other stuff I'm missing, too...
(No, this isn't just a transparent ploy to get more recs for me to read. I'm working on a fanlore entry! Honest!)
no subject
"Distance in the Afterlife" - Gerard comes out while MCR is on tour, the media recontextualizes the "stage gay" with Frank and assumes Frank and Gerard are a couple and Frank starts telling everyone that they *are* dating, much to Gerard's confusion/frustration.
"So, So Fucked" This is pretty much the Fall Out Boy version of that story, except Pete's only *pretending* to come out to cover for an awkward misunderstanding. Of course, he subsequently realizes that he's just very very oblivious. . .
"Spencer Smith Saved My Gay Cred and All I Got Was This Sparkly T-shirt" - Pete questions Panic's "gay cred" and Spencer kisses Brendan to end the argument. The problem is that Brendan didn't know that Spencer was bi. (This is more obliquely identity porn, but I think it counts.)
"More Than He Can Say" - Frank kisses Gerard onstage and then Gerard kisses Frank offstage. This one has an interesting internal monolog from Frank about making his kiss look like "stage gay" even though it's real.
no subject