singe
2003-07-30 06:36 am UTC (link)

But yes, it does happen. We have to face that. It could happen with anyone who RPF is written about.

It has happened. I recently had a conversation with someone on LJ who found herself unable to write Billy Boyd smut after she saw his shocked reaction to that Theban Band photo manip someone handed him. She's sticking to Pippin and other fictional characters now.

I've never written RPF, aside from a silly ficlet written for humor's sake, but just contemplating her point makes me uneasy about even that. You just never know!

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smeltings_stick
2003-07-30 06:48 am UTC (link)

I don't know anything about this kerfuffle, and I don't know any of the folks involved. But after seeing this I've been following links and ...

I make an appeal to my authority as an MA and future PhD in literary studies, one with an unofficial genius-level IQ (180), and general life-long displays of extremely high competency

And, on her "novel":

It's neo-noir and quite a bit of cyberpunk (which means the third aspect, magic, is NOT integrating well and will be the hellish thing to integrate into a finished cut), which means I've been watching too much anime. But that's okay. I'm hoping that it comes off a little bit like a feminist blend of Murakami and Stephenson with lashings of Transmetropolitan and Joss Whedon around the edges.

I don't care about RPF, but WHO THE FUCK *IS* THIS WOMAN? Her ego needs its own zip code.

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	snacky 2003-07-30 02:04 pm UTC (link)
	Actually, wasn't that jennyo responding to ginmar? I think she was stating her "credentials" up front in her argument, since Ginmar had been blasting everyone who disagreed with her as "stupid", "not getting it" "don't understand how to argue" etc. I also think it was tongue-in-cheek. But hey, YWankMV. ;-) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: smeltings_stick 2003-07-30 05:03 pm UTC (link)
	I have no idea of the context, but I think it's pretty damn hard to find a situation where a sentence like that is not proof of monstrous egoism. Eh, whatever. (Reply to this)(Parent)

A couple Virgule-related pointers in case anyone's looking --

galadriel
2003-07-30 07:10 am UTC (link)

I was looking for the original RPF thread from Virgule that you mentioned, but damned if I can find it. I do remember pinkdormouse's comments, however, probably stemming from this thread.

But anyway, ginmar's rant has made it to Virgule now, and I'm sure that'll result in the usual string of theoretical and academic-type responses very shortly here.

Also of interest, and hopefully she'll forgive me for linking to it, is hederahelix's discussion of the ethics of RPS -- it's a response to ginmar's original post and I think it brings up some rather pertinent issues regarding whether FPF and RPF are really that different from one another.

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	Re: A couple Virgule-related pointers in case anyone's looking -- (Anonymous) 2003-07-30 02:24 pm UTC (link)
	Link away. Anything I post in non-protected post I figure is fair game. hederahelix (Reply to this)(Parent)

elke_tanzer
2003-07-30 03:12 pm UTC (link)

There's been a disturbing trend of mob behavior resulting from fandom_wank, too... I'm all for the pointing and laughing, but when that turns into pointing and flaming, it's bad news. Some people have heartfelt positions on the anti-side of RP fics, or some subset of RP fics, and it's getting so that most public posts about those feelings are quickly followed by a massive barrage of people coming from fandom_wank to poke holes in the argument, snark about the feelings involved, and oversimplify the post to generate more flames in the person's private journal.

I value highly the open exchange of ideas, and I read and comment on f_w sometimes; but I see that sort of thing happening and think it's diminishing the variety and tolerance I so value in fandom.

Maybe it's the nature of LJ, but to me, making a strong position statement either pro-RP or anti-RP in a private journal is significantly different than posting such a statement in a community or on a mailing list. If people are flamed for stating their own positions in their own journals to the point of going friends-only or deleting their journals or whatever, the diversity of ideas that I value in the fan ~~community~~ ~~population~~ experience is lessened.

I do think that ginmar made some inflamatory comparisons, and jenny-o made some inflamatory responses, (though I think both of them did have some valid points, and some of their statements were mis-represented by others, and they're also both kind of flamboyant personalities) and then everyone else chimed in and the flames got toasty... However ajhalluk had some actual rational discussion going in the comments section of her post about incest and noncon issues in RPF, and because she also mentioned some Nostradamus hoax as a note about how gullible people can be, her post was listed on f_w. Stemming from that, the flames apparently started, and discussion is now over and/or locked. This isn't the first time that sort of thing has happened.

Is there no room in fandom for different opinions about the moral and ethical implications of RP fic?

I have strong feelings, and have made strong statements, and have thought a lot about content decisions for my personal site and other sites I spend time and energy on, but honestly, I'm not trying to preach or convert others to my views.

Am I just a naive idealist for thinking that friends I have on both sides (and the middle) of the RP debate can get along without trying to convert each other? I mean, surely, divisive topics like this have to have come up before (chan in TPM fandom, anyone?)... how did those debates settle out? Or did they settle at all? Perhaps the different factions set up camp far away from each other and there's little overlap?

LJ and Journalfen have made it easier for fan discussion to cross fandom boundaries, and that's an incredible thing, but it also means that a larger set of people with less in common is interacting about all of these issues. Maybe this does mean that irreconcilable differences will clash in central public forums now, whether people post to their own journals publicly or to public community discussion areas?

Lots to think about... thanks for reading me babbling. I needed a safe discussion place to talk about this, and f_w scares me this week.

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darkrose
2003-07-30 04:05 pm UTC (link)

However ajhalluk had some actual rational discussion going in the comments section of her post about incest and noncon issues in RPF, and because she also mentioned some Nostradamus hoax as a note about how gullible people can be, her post was listed on f_w. Stemming from that, the flames apparently started, and discussion is now over and/or locked. This isn't the first time that sort of thing has happened.

For the record, I didn't flame her, or ginmar, for that matter. I did post pointing out where I disagreed, but in all honesty, an awful lot of people on the net seem to think that any disagreement is a flame.

Am I just a naive idealist for thinking that friends I have on both sides (and the middle) of the RP debate can get along without trying to convert each other?

Speaking only for myself, I'm not trying to convert anyone. And I think that people have every right to post whatever the hell they want. I also have a right to respond to a public post, though, and when I feel that someone's using half-assed analogies to push people's emotional buttons rather than discussing the issue logically, I'm going to point that out in my typical blunt fashion.

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	elke_tanzer 2003-08-01 05:01 am UTC (link)
	Everyone has different communications styles, of course. And different people use analogies in different ways, and explain themselves in different levels of complexity and coherence, and some fans are really knowledgeable about classic debating styles... IDIC. (Reply to this)(Parent)

coreopsis
2003-07-30 05:16 pm UTC (link)

I mean, surely, divisive topics like this have to have come up before (chan in TPM fandom, anyone?)... how did those debates settle out? Or did they settle at all?
Well, no, debates like this never get settled in any decisive manner. People just get tired of beating their heads against a wall (whichever side they may be on) and/or distracted by a new discussion or flamewar or something shiny. Or (in the old days ;-) the list admin would shut down the thread because it was getting too emotional and out of hand. And there's the biggest difference when it comes to discussion/flamewars/whatever in LJ (or JF)--there is no authority to step in and make the combatants go back to their corners and cool off, so it's left up to the person who started it to lock or delete the post just to stop the barrage, which just gives the people on the opposite side of the issue more to complain about. It's a never ending circle of wank when the issue happens to be something that people get really emotionally involved with (RPF, chan, incest, etc), but I'm not sure what can possibly be done about it.

I wish I could have read the discussion in ajhalluk's journal but LJ never let me see it and then it was gone. :(

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elke_tanzer
2003-08-01 05:04 am UTC (link)

there is no authority to step in and make the combatants go back to their corners and cool off, so it's left up to the person who started it to lock or delete the post just to stop the barrage, which just gives the people on the opposite side of the issue more to complain about.

Yeah, middlefen trying to intervene and calm things down usually seems to make things worse.

At the same time, I've seen listmods or communitymods be real asshats about things... One of the TWOP board moderators really pissed me off a while ago, and I haven't been back there... not that I ever spent much time there anyway.

I think we're bumping up against something fundamental about human nature, not just fandom.

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Part one...

snacky
2003-07-30 06:24 pm UTC (link)

Hmmm...lots of good points.

Maybe it's the nature of LJ, but to me, making a strong position statement either pro-RP or anti-RP in a private journal is significantly different than posting such a statement in a community or on a mailing list.

Yes, but the nature of LJ guarantees that people are going to read that statement, unless you keep the the entry private. If it's a public entry, then chances are good people who both agree and disagree with you are going to read it. You can control what they say with the comments, but it's the same as putting anything out anywhere on the web - it's not private.

I do think that ginmar made some inflamatory comparisons, and jenny-o made some inflamatory responses

And neither of them kept them private or friends only. Ginmar, as far as I could see, *wanted* people to disagree with her so she could tell them how wrong they were. Check out her next entry on the subject. It's baiting, IMO. Jennyo titled her response "An open destruction of Ginmar's argument" - "open" being the key word there for me. I don't think either of them were trying to keep it as "My LJ, my opinion, and no argument."

However ajhalluk had some actual rational discussion going in the comments section of her post about incest and noncon issues in RPF, and because she also mentioned some Nostradamus hoax as a note about how gullible people can be, her post was listed on f_w.

I don't know. I read that post before it was locked/deleted, and I found it pretty wanky (and I commented on it). Maybe she had some good arguments, but it seemed poorly constructed - the Nostradamus thing really seemed like a reach to me. And again, based on what was said in the post, I didn't get the idea that ajhalluk wasn't expecting comments or people to read it - as a matter of fact, she said she knew she'd get shit for posting her opinion (paraphrase).

Is there no room in fandom for different opinions about the moral and ethical implications of RP fic?

I think so. RPF isn't my thing because it crosses certain boundaries I don't like to see crossed, and it can squick me pretty bad. I've said so in various place, including my own LJ. But I've never attacked the people who write it as moral lepers - the ones I know personally are all good people, IMO. I have people on my friends list who write RPF - I've read some of it, and I didn't burn my eyes out. It's just not for me.

But in the case of both ginmar and ajhalluk, I thought they were *attacking* people who wrote RPS with their inflammatory statements. Of course they're going to get inflammatory responses.

Am I just a naive idealist for thinking that friends I have on both sides (and the middle) of the RP debate can get along without trying to convert each other?

No. That's how I feel too. But both ginmar and ajhalluk's posts felt like conversion attempts to me: "Look how disgusting RPF is! It's like rape! Do you want to be a rapist? No? Then you'd better stop writing it!" (again, I paraphrase. *g*)

Of course people on both sides of the debate can get along. My own example: I have a group of fandom friends (we all started in the same fandom, and many have moved on since then) and when we get together in real life (which we do fairly often) we've talked about it - and one of those people writes RPF. There's been disagreement and discussion, but never any ranting, screaming arguments. No one calls her a "rapist" for writing RPF, and no one says "You better stop writing or you can't be my friend anymore." She's a good writer, IMO, and I'd be more upset if she was writing crappy FPF than good RPS. But that's me, and crap fic bothers me more than good fic in a genre I don't particularly like. *g*

how did those debates settle out? Or did they settle at all? Perhaps the different factions set up camp far away from each other and there's little overlap?

I don't have the answer to that, but I imagine the more moderate people got tired of arguing over it, just like many are tired of this RPF argument. This is the third summer that it's flared up on LJ, so I'm just thinking it's one of the annual summer hiatus flamewars now.

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Re: Part one...

elke_tanzer
2003-08-01 04:53 am UTC (link)

And again, based on what was said in the post, I didn't get the idea that ajhalluk wasn't expecting comments or people to read it - as a matter of fact, she said she knew she'd get shit for posting her opinion (paraphrase).

I've expected to get flamed for things I've said in public posts in my LJ, too... but so far, flameage has been fairly minimal. I've seen it happen to enough other people, though, that I'm usually bracing for it, even unnecessarily. I took her statement about getting shit for her post in that way.

This whole thing is like a sad game of telephone at times, isn't it?

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Part two - sorry I got so wordy!

snacky
2003-07-30 06:25 pm UTC (link)

There's been a disturbing trend of mob behavior resulting from fandom_wank, too

Really? I don't think very many people went from F_W to those people's LJs to comment, especially when you consider the amount of people who read F_W. Just the people with strong opinions on the matter, like ginmar and ajhalluk - I don't think there's a rule that says if you read about it first in f_w, you can't go and comment. We discourage trolling (see the F_W Bill of Rights), but I don't think that was what people were doing there.

And "mob behavior" is awfully close to claiming F_W is a "hivemind." Obviously for this, just as with everything, YwankMV. *g* There's been some wanks that I don't think are particularly wanky, and I've posted that. There's been some that bore me, and I ignore them. There's been things that I don't think belong there at all, and it just makes me shake my head and wonder what the OP was thinking. I mean, there's variances of opinions and behaviors in any community, but that doesn't make the whole community a bunch of assholes. F_W is easy to peg as the bad guy for its very purpose of pointing and laughing, but snarky bitches need love too. *g*

Lots to think about... thanks for reading me babbling.

Hey, you made me think too! And I hope you don't mind me babbling right back at you.

I needed a safe discussion place to talk about this, and f_w scares me this week.

I'm sorry to hear that it scares you, but I understand why. And I hope when you see things that bother you there, you post about it. Not everyone will agree with you, but it's always worth saying - and you might get a good, well-reasoned debate out of it.

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Re: Part two - sorry I got so wordy!

elke_tanzer
2003-08-01 04:58 am UTC (link)

Re: "mob behavior", I didn't know what else to call it... but that's really not the term I should have used. I do know that f_w isn't organized in any sense of the word! And if we're a hive mind, it's got schizophrenia! LOL!

I do post sometimes in the f_* communities when things bother me, but other times I think better of the idea and go write or read fanfic instead. As it is people laughed good-naturedly at me at Con*Strict for being so gung-ho about various things. Elke the Crusader apparently has developed a reputation.

:-) It's been nice babbling with you!

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	amatia 2003-07-30 10:45 pm UTC (link)
	I linked her post on F_W because I use F_W to keep track of kerfluffles, basically. And the fact that I was upset at having a website of mine linked to in the comments section by someone who neglected to mention that the stories on said website are password-protected. (Reply to this)(Parent)

meril
2003-08-01 02:56 am UTC (link)

Maybe it's the nature of LJ, but to me, making a strong position statement either pro-RP or anti-RP in a private journal is significantly different than posting such a statement in a community or on a mailing list.

But journals, unless friends-locked, aren't private. They're publically accessible by anyone.

I think there's a culture difference here. I think of myself as a fannish blogger. Not a fannish LJer (I have an LJ that I use mostly for commenting)--but a blogger. My first fannish online experiences were on Usenet, and I've been blogging since 1999. Usenet and weblog culture are a lot different. Discussions get heated. People flame each other, even though it's discouraged. It's expected that everyone will have an opinion and most of the time, someone is going to disagree.

Fannish LJ culture is a lot different, and I don't really like it. People get out of the kitchen rather than take the heat for actually daring to have an opinion, and this scares me. Apparently the opinion didn't mean much in the first place if it can't hold up to criticism.

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elke_tanzer
2003-08-01 04:50 am UTC (link)

I was on Usenet back in 93, though I wasn't fannish back then, and I know what you mean.

To me, LJs are a public space, but individual journals are kind of like someone's front porch. It's a public space, but it's their public space. Friendslocked posts are like their their living rooms. Communities and mailing lists are more like streetcorners. Or something like that.

Having different expectations about the mechanisms of fan interaction can cause all sorts of misunderstandings, even when the two people involved have very close views on most topics. And when the two (or more) people have very different views on most topics... well...

Humanity is prickly at times.

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marysia
2003-07-30 03:49 pm UTC (link)

I dunno for sure what I'd do. I guess if one of the LotR actors came straight out and said it really upset them that people wrote RPS about them I would probably not write RPS about that actor anymore. Not that I write much anyawy. This is different from my attitude to other fanfic as I have loudly decried in the past such positions as that of Anne Rice and consider it my right to play in worlds that have been created as long as I am not making money from it.

OTOH would I stop reading RPS involving that actor and would I stop fantasising about that actor? Let's assume it's Billy for the sake of argument. To the first, probably for a while at least, maybe on the forever front, to the second... I don't know if I have that kind of self-control. But it would be hard, it would suck in fact. So I guess I just hope none of them are that oversensitive, as I think it is just not that big a deal. It's just st00pid internet people and their silly fantasies after all. No more real than if they were writing about a character you played.

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mindset
2003-07-30 06:47 pm UTC (link)

In the subset of comics fandom known as Subreality (I say comics fandom, because that's where it started, but because Subreality is meta in nature, it's attracted people from and lost people to other fandoms... anyway) many of the stories involve writer-avatars. Basically, self-inserts and/or fictionalized versions of the writers of the stories. And it's very common -- in fact, *encouraged* in the round-robin stories -- to write other avatars besides oneself. It's not RPF as such, but it has a lot of the same characteristics -- well, except for the "famous people" bit. :)

The problem arose when certain real-life people looked at what their fictionalized selves were doing and got pissed off. Felt they were being mischaracterized, god-modded, what have you. A couple of fairly large kerfluffles sprang up on the subject. It got very bad regarding a few people who had never actually written any Subreality stories, but who hung out in the comics chatroom called #subcafe (or who didn't, but were just comics BNFs) and were thus considered "fair game"... and especially bad regarding some people who didn't like what Subreality had become since their day and didn't want to be mentioned anymore. Not to mention people who wrote under their real names, and did not think it would be good for prospective employers to google and find, oh, sex scenes or the like.

Eventually it settled on an opt-out list. There's only about half a dozen people on there, but anyone can join if they don't want to be written about. I'm not on the list myself, mainly because I doubt anyone wants to write about me anymore (plus Subreality has become much quieter in recent years), but I certainly sympathize with those who are. It can be extremely disturbing to have people in real-life think you're just like your fictionalized self. Not to mention, oh, going on a net hiatus (before Subreality had even started, as such) and returning six months later to find your"self" mentioned all over the web. (Note: I am not doing the "oh woe is me, the pain of my BNFdom" whine, because I'm not one, I don't think; it was just very very weird.)

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