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D:
The reason I haven't posted on DW for awhile is that I, basically, only have the time, energy and emotional stamina to make one substantial post/comment a day, so when I'm doing a lot of posting elsewhere, my personal journal tends to go quiet.
And for the past two weeks, instead of larking around DW talking meta and coming up with creative excuses for why meta is all I do, I've actually been *writing* and *posting* fic on a fairly steady basis with reasonable output - I've written and posted something like 12,000 words, which is more than I usually manage in a year, and I'm so astonished at this fact that I've just kind of been stepping back and trying not to do anything to jinx it.
...unfortunately it's all for the British Politics RPS kink meme, and it's all anon, so you lot don't get any benefit out of it. (Unless you're also on that meme, in which case, secret handshake!)
I'm staying anon about which of those are mine not because I'm unwilling to admit to writing politics RPS - first of all, this isn't my first go-round, and second of all, I had a birthday party right at the height of the coalition negotiations, so pretty much all my RL friends have probably figure it out anyway. But I really do think anon memes work better when most of the people on them stay anon, so, anon I am staying. (I will note that a disproportionate number of the unclaimed fills with SamCam in them are my fault, but you probably could have guessed that.)
So. British Politics RPF. What the heck, self? And as a consequence, while there are as usual wonderful and insightful meta discussions going on around here, all I really want to say is "In this RPS fandom they really do send secret messages through color-coded accessories!" and "even Michael-Freaking-Feldman ships it!while being even more couple-y than usual with Jim Packard" and "I like the Speaker!" (Warning:streaming rm audio at the second link, youtube video at the third. )
The problem with this fandom is that reality keeps outdoing the fic. I mean, the fill I was hoping to finish tonight had a line in it that I was debating taking out, because I kept thinking "The Prime Minister would never actually say anything *that slashy* on television", and then -- he did. Which is the nice sort of being outdone by canon. But the reason I'm writing a journal post instead of that fic is that we've had the bad sort of canon, too. This story centers around a character publically coming out, and tonight, one of the more likable people we're writing about just got forcibly outed in a fairly awful way. :/
And it's one thing to glee over a hypocritical homophobe being forced out, it's another thing entirely when it's someone who's repeatedly turned down opportunities for real power in order to stay true to pro-glbt principles.
(And can I just pause the rambling about RPF here to say: I am completely incapable of taking the MPs' expenses scandal seriously. Do you know how much I wish my politicians were just spending public money to split the mortgage with their boyfriend or get the moat cleaned, instead of, oh, accepting free housing at a Dominionist Christian brainwashing center that requires them to go to "counseling" sessions in which they're taught that everything they do is moral because they've been chosen by God for power? SO MUCH I WISH.)
Anyway. Now I don't think I can finish that story until the fallout about the RL outing has finished falling out. First because it'll change what happens in the story, but also because I feel weird about writing it now, writing what's essentially wish-fulfillment idcrack about the way I *wish* politicians would talk about their sexuality, when these same people are in RL dealing with the very real and very hard and painful consequences of the way people do talk about and deal with sexuality in politics and public life.
I have conflicted feelings about RPS anyway - I mean, clearly I don't have sufficiently conflicted feelings to not read and write the stuff - but I've gone from, when I first got in to fandom, saying essentially "I find it boring, but ya'll have fun" to where I am now, where something like 2/3 of the fandoms I'm currently enthusing about are essentially RPS.
What that's come down to is that I find actors and people in rock bands generally so uninteresting they actually turn me off. But then I found RPS that wasn't about actors or people in rock bands, and, well, Bob's your uncle. It doesn't help that, remember that list of 101 fic kinks I posted awhile back? Something like 20 of them show up over and over in RPF fandoms just by the nature of RPF.
There's basically, I have decided, four factors in deciding whether I'm doing a particular bit of RPF:
And for the past two weeks, instead of larking around DW talking meta and coming up with creative excuses for why meta is all I do, I've actually been *writing* and *posting* fic on a fairly steady basis with reasonable output - I've written and posted something like 12,000 words, which is more than I usually manage in a year, and I'm so astonished at this fact that I've just kind of been stepping back and trying not to do anything to jinx it.
...unfortunately it's all for the British Politics RPS kink meme, and it's all anon, so you lot don't get any benefit out of it. (Unless you're also on that meme, in which case, secret handshake!)
I'm staying anon about which of those are mine not because I'm unwilling to admit to writing politics RPS - first of all, this isn't my first go-round, and second of all, I had a birthday party right at the height of the coalition negotiations, so pretty much all my RL friends have probably figure it out anyway. But I really do think anon memes work better when most of the people on them stay anon, so, anon I am staying. (I will note that a disproportionate number of the unclaimed fills with SamCam in them are my fault, but you probably could have guessed that.)
So. British Politics RPF. What the heck, self? And as a consequence, while there are as usual wonderful and insightful meta discussions going on around here, all I really want to say is "In this RPS fandom they really do send secret messages through color-coded accessories!" and "even Michael-Freaking-Feldman ships it!
The problem with this fandom is that reality keeps outdoing the fic. I mean, the fill I was hoping to finish tonight had a line in it that I was debating taking out, because I kept thinking "The Prime Minister would never actually say anything *that slashy* on television", and then -- he did. Which is the nice sort of being outdone by canon. But the reason I'm writing a journal post instead of that fic is that we've had the bad sort of canon, too. This story centers around a character publically coming out, and tonight, one of the more likable people we're writing about just got forcibly outed in a fairly awful way. :/
And it's one thing to glee over a hypocritical homophobe being forced out, it's another thing entirely when it's someone who's repeatedly turned down opportunities for real power in order to stay true to pro-glbt principles.
(And can I just pause the rambling about RPF here to say: I am completely incapable of taking the MPs' expenses scandal seriously. Do you know how much I wish my politicians were just spending public money to split the mortgage with their boyfriend or get the moat cleaned, instead of, oh, accepting free housing at a Dominionist Christian brainwashing center that requires them to go to "counseling" sessions in which they're taught that everything they do is moral because they've been chosen by God for power? SO MUCH I WISH.)
Anyway. Now I don't think I can finish that story until the fallout about the RL outing has finished falling out. First because it'll change what happens in the story, but also because I feel weird about writing it now, writing what's essentially wish-fulfillment idcrack about the way I *wish* politicians would talk about their sexuality, when these same people are in RL dealing with the very real and very hard and painful consequences of the way people do talk about and deal with sexuality in politics and public life.
I have conflicted feelings about RPS anyway - I mean, clearly I don't have sufficiently conflicted feelings to not read and write the stuff - but I've gone from, when I first got in to fandom, saying essentially "I find it boring, but ya'll have fun" to where I am now, where something like 2/3 of the fandoms I'm currently enthusing about are essentially RPS.
What that's come down to is that I find actors and people in rock bands generally so uninteresting they actually turn me off. But then I found RPS that wasn't about actors or people in rock bands, and, well, Bob's your uncle. It doesn't help that, remember that list of 101 fic kinks I posted awhile back? Something like 20 of them show up over and over in RPF fandoms just by the nature of RPF.
There's basically, I have decided, four factors in deciding whether I'm doing a particular bit of RPF:
- First, do I find the setup and characters interesting in their own right? The thing about reality-based fandoms is that you can get away with things that are *way* more unlikely than you could get away with in fiction. As British Politics fandom is currently proving. But it's not just that - tell me that somebody pitching a TV drama series could have gotten away with a Rachel Maddow Show. Or a President Obama. Or a Robert Downey, Jr. Or, hell, even a Richard Hammond. (This is, in fact, why I often have very little interest in non-SF drama in general, too: if I want to read about interesting people doing interesting things in science or law enforcement or politics or family-raising or whatever, there's far more interesting [and generally more diversely cast] stuff going on in RL that I can turn to.) But if your RPF fandom is based on some people who are just, oh, handsome and moderately talented at what they do and generally not assholes in public, I really could care less.
- Second, do I feel like they deserve it? Basically, I don't feel comfortable writing RPF about people unless they fall in to one of a few categories: A) If the power and/or money differential between them and me is so unimaginably vast that nothing I do could possibly bring them anywhere near my own power level (like, say, the head of state of any G20 nation or CEO of any supercorporation) I really couldn't give a hoot about their right to privacy and I'll write all the porn I want. B) If they've made a career out of turning their public persona into a saleable story - if they've ever been on a reality TV show, or sold a tell-all biography, or voluntarily talked about their sex lives in a paid TV appearance, or done a deliberately sexualized photoshoot in character as themselves - well, if they think it's okay to turn their lives into a saleable story, I think it's okay to write fanfic about the parts of their lives that they've sold (this is where the British Comedy panelists come in, among other people) and C) if they're evil, and have a public platform that they use for evil purposes, I am okay with using whatever little platform I have to dilute the power of that evil, even if my little platform is slashfic (There is an issue here with the ways porn gets weaponized - see SurveyFail - but that's an issue about how the fic itself is written, and not about the RPS factor, I think.) (Also D) if they explicitly dare their fans to do it, but that one's pretty obvious.)
- Connected with 2, I don't write RPS that I would be uncomfortable about the people in question finding. This especially comes into play with people in category B, where there's some people I am willing to write tentacle porn about with nary a qualm (if, say, they're the sort of people who have made a career out of wanking on-air and making out with hand puppets) but there are some people I will happily write up to only gen, or only up to a certain rating, or will only write explicit fic if it's very clearly crack or AU, because they don't share the really intimate parts of themselves in public.
The thing is, I just kind of assume that everybody writing RPS has similar internal guidelines of some kind, and don't publish things that they feel are violating the people they're writing about. So I will quite happily *read* porny stories about people I don't feel okay *writing* porny stories about, because if the author's okay with it, I'll trust their judgement for the duration of the story. And every so often a small RPS fandom will have a paroxysm about the possiblity of their idols noticing them and it will be pointed out to me that a lot of people *do* post porn that they think is a violation and I will feel weird about it for awhile. - And finally, I can't get into an RPF pairing unless I'm at least a little bit tinhatty about it. Not all the way tinhatty, but the people who insist that of *course* the people they're writing about aren't *actually* interested in each other, or aren't *actually* gay, worry me a little. Do I believe Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are having an affair? Of course not. Do I believe Keith is in love with her, and she's glad she has zero attraction to men, because otherwise they would have flamed and burned out by now? --yes. Do I believe David Cameron and Nick Clegg were making like bunnies during the coalition negotiations? No, obviously. Do I believe they're both at least little bit bi, and are aware of, and taking advantage of, UST between them? --maybe. Do I believe Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell are dating? Nope. Do I believe Charlie secretly gets himself off thinking about David, and David occasionally finds himself wondering if it's possible? --Uh-huh. Do I think the Top Gear three are crawling in and out of each others' tents? Not at all. Do I think there's more than just a joke in it when James offhandedly says "Oh, has Jeremy finally come out?" --
This is where RL events can make things really tangled. I kind of envy the people who can say "They're just fiction with a few similar names and traits, I don't care what's happening to them in RL or what they do" because, if I care enough to write fic about them, I *do* care what's happening to them in RL. Because when something like what's happened in the British government tonight happens, it hurts, and it completely derails me from the fun side of fannishness. Maybe especially something like what happened here, where if it was a fic, I would have really, really liked the fic, but instead I just kind of want to cry. And it makes me wonder what business I would have had liking it if it were fic.
So. Anyway. That is why I am writing meta tonight instead of fic. Perhaps tomorrow I will spend my post-writing energy actually writing one of the other DW posts I am backlogged on doing! Or put in some real work on prepping the con-txt panels I'm modding! Or go take refuge on that other anon kink meme I've been haunting and write another Charlie/David kissing on panel shows fill (because there can never be too many of those!)
...or perhaps I will spend the day just obsessively following the David Laws coverage and trying not to cry. Or write fic where he is a tiny cheerful dragon teaching Boris how to fly. :)
(I feel like I should have something to say about this story other than D: and putting it in a fannish context, but my Thoughts on the ethical complications of being in a politics fandom for a country I am not in or from is another post at least as long as this one was.)
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Oh, I don't think people mind us being there! But I feel very conscious of not understanding all the nuances of the British politicians and media folks, so I stay mostly quiet. Although I rather feel like hanging out on that meme has increased my understanding of British politics more than any *actual* research would have ever done :P