quandaries you only get in fandom...

[ratcreature]

Like, does Draco/Dementor count as slash? gen? het? See, I'm still tagging LJ art I come across for the LJ art link list, and you can't see the Dementor's private parts in the picture in question (whatever those may be--not that I particularly want to see Dementor genitalia). I went with slash in the end, but once again these categories show their drawbacks.

On another labelling issue: What is it with SGA RPS being simply categorized as SGA on rec and fiction pages and such? A couple of times now I've looked at SGA recs and the RPS was mixed among the SGA FPS as if it was the same fandom. I commented before that for me as a strict FPS fan it's inconvenient and counterintuitive when communities just mix the two categories like that there's plenty of SW fiction on ewan_hayden, even though I realize that it is convenient for people interested in both the actors and their shows/movies to combine the too when creating a forum, but on a recs or fiction site that has separate fandom sections I find it just wrong somehow that SGA and SGA RPS are put in the same section and that then is just labelled SGA not even "SGA & SGA RPS" or something.

Am I the only one who's so anal about such labels to be bugged by this? Also, I'm wondering whether this is like a growing trend in fandom, that the RPS and FPS for a group of actors are coming to be considered as the same fandom?

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

No, you're not the only one. I don't have an issue of it appearing in the same spaces, but I want it labelled, definitely. I'm surprised how little I like actor RPS. Somehow I'm always thinking it's the character dynamic bleeding over, a thing you don't get in popslash where there is no character (or rather if there is one the source text *is* that character performed in RL). But more than that, I think, it's my marriage squick. I didn't like Joey slashed all that much, esp. after baby and marriage, and I don't want to really se JF slashed.

I'm not sure how the newsletter's handling it; I'll check. SPM newletter which has a shitload more RPS (I think it must be the RPS squick being set off by the incest squick :-) separates the two clearly.

[ratcreature]

Well to be fair on the rec and fic pages I'm thinking of the pairing was labelled, IIRC, so it's not like those weren't visibly RPS links, just mixed within SGA fiction links. But it still bugs me, because I don't consider actor/celebrity slash to be the same fandom at all, so if there's separate pages for separate fandoms I somehow want to see that difference acknowledged and it somehow grates when it's not. It bugs me in newsletters too. I mean half the time I can't even remember the actors' names, so for me RPS links in a newsletter about the *show* feel really off topic, even though I see how it's kind of a fluid thing because newsletters link to actual news about the actors too (which I'm not interested in either, but at least there I can see the direct connection to the show).

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Well, while I don't read them, I do think theyare OK in the newsletter...I know the SGA one even includes Cube/Thoughtcrimes/Boa/etc fic... B/c I sincerely doubt there'd be Boa/Thoughtcrimes xovers were it not for SGA...

So, I get yor discomfort, but I do believe thatwhen actorslash's a clear offshoot, it kind of makes sense...unless its gets as huge as lotrips ;-)

[like, I'd expect Wilby Wonderful fic in with the DS stuff, but probably not Hard Core Logo any more if that makes sense...]

[ratcreature]

See, from what you say it seems you have the theory that actorslash that's not widely popular gets just lumped together with the fictional stuff for convenience sake because interests are likely to overlap for those who like it, and for those who don't it's not much bother because the numbers are so small, and once it gets popular there'll be separate communities. And I don't think it necessarily works that way, because I suspect that LOTRips is special in that people interested in the RPS often aren't much into LOTR slash so the interest/disinterest overlap of RPS and non-RPS fans was symmetrical.

In most other cases I've seen it seems more that almost everybody into RPS for a show will also read for the fictional side, but vice versa it's not true. So you get RPS fans for whom it's convenient to treat it as one fandom (with one newsletter, mixed RPS/FPS communities etc and just a RPS warning label like you'd warn for any other thing), even if the RPS fanbase was large enough to sustain fully RPS-based communities, and non-RPS fans who'd prefer RPS-free spaces, but will in the end sort through the mixed communities to read the show-based stuff of the RPS fans.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle between you and the folks who do that. I.e., I don't read it (or rather, don't like it), but I have enough interest in the actors to read them in other roles or read news about them. But then, I think, that's always been a part of any fandom. I mean, it's old school fans who'd probably scream if you suggested RPS who run the actor fan sites, etc., right? Actors at cons have been the staple of sf/f long before RPS became even remotely acceptable...

I guess you'll have to treat the newsletters like you do anything...if there's a category you're not interested in, ignore... [The alternative would be two newsletters which seems less practical to me, even in a fandom like SPN where the RPS definitely holds its own but I doubt that there are SPN RPS fans who aren't SPN fans, so it's a subset...like icon fans or various pairing fans in other fandoms]

I *get* your general issue, but to me practicality wins out... (which doesn't mean that there isn't an issue or tht you shouldn't complsin that/if it bugs you if that makes sense)

...and yes, you're probably right that ewan/hayden or whatever the SPN boys are will stay closely connected...HP RPS did as well. lotrips *is* special! otoh, if it gets big enough to warrant own communities etc somefolks might separate it a bit more (if you only have one lonely fic you may put it in with the FPS, if it's 5 or 10, youmight make them a page of their own...)

totally OT, but i adore your RL icon!

[ratcreature]

Well, it's really more of a no-RL icon... ;)

I have to admit if I wouldn't see the names in fandom I probably wouldn't even recall the actors' names (even less than I do now that is), seeing how I usually fast-forward through the credits, so I'm probably on the extreme end of "not interested in the actors", e.g. I don't read/watch interviews with actors, I don't look for their other appearances etc.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

And I was actually wondering if your comic fannishness might be related to that. I.e., when I fall badly for a show, the actor interest kind of comes with it (for better or worse, b/c many a bad movie has been watched b/c od that :-). And it seems like that with a lot of other fans (even when they, like I clearly maintain the RL/fiction separation and really don't care about the actor qua person but do care about his/her roles etc.). Now I'm really curious how the percentages look like in actor interest...

..this calls for a poll!!! :D

[trobadora]

Here via metafandom.

Also nice quandary: How do you categorise masturbation fic? *g*

The mixing of FPS and RPS is strange, I agree - I like clear labels, and these two most certainly are not the same. Do you mind if I ask where you've seen that? Because if I saw it I absolutely didn't notice, and I't rather expect I would.

[ratcreature]

Heh, I wondered about masturbation pictures that give no indication of the fantasy object earlier. It is (thankfully) a more common motif than Dementor-sex (though there's various creature options, of course, like the classic squid tentacle sex). *g* In most masturbation fic I've seen however the kind of fantasy is described as we are inside the character's head rather than a strict outside observer, so it's less of a problem. In the end I decided to tag masturbation as neither, just like I do with pin-up pictures of characters which don't show any sexual activity but don't feel gen either, as they are sexual for the viewer.

Well the individual stories still usually have pairing labels, I meant things like this rec page for example:
http://www.a-thousand-words.org/moonshot/index.html

On that main page are fandom four sections, House, HP, SGA, and Misc Fandoms. Then when you proceed to the SGA section you'll see mostly recs for FPS, but inbetween there's a few recs with "Joe Flanigan/David Hewlett" as pairing label. So it is clearly labelled, but I expected SGA RPS in the other fandoms section, not in the SGA section.

[trobadora]

I once had to sort a masturbation story that didn't involve any fantasy partner at all. It's not gen, it's not het, it's not slash... and those were the categories available on the newsletter. I don't even recall what I did with it! But you're right; that's a rather rare case. *g*

I could see SGA RPS as a subcategory in SGA fanfic, but I'd still expect it to be separated - it's just not the same thing at all. But I guess it depends on the fandom; in SGA I've noticed that stories involving the actors' other roles, RPS, and "ordinary" SGA stories are in much closer proximity to each other than in any other fandom I've been in. But I wouldn't have thought people did away with the separation altogether! I'll have to watch out for this in the future.

[ratcreature]

It's my impression (I didn't do statistics or anything, but it feels like that to me) that there's this trend to consider actor RPS for a show or movie as something like a subsection or just another aspect of the same fandom. Still clearly labelled, like you'd label for other pairings or warnings, but in the same fandom space, like communities or newsletters. Like I said in other replies, in SGA actorslash seems rather small, but it happens also in fandoms with more of it, like in SW or SPN. And it just bothers me because for non-RPS fans like me it's essentially like what used to be fandom specific resources and spaces me now often are only sort of fandom specific in that there's the actor stuff lumped together with it, and that doesn't interest me at all. I mean, I see how it's practical for RPS fans of the actors who are into the shows, but for me, not so much, as I see it as two fandoms squished together and I'm only into one of it.

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

I always thought they were two seperate fandoms. They are treated that way in Lord of the Rings, Blake's and Star Trek. I think Highlander had terms like Twincest for stories that crossed between an actor's two shows...

Worst comes to worse, just write an article for Wikipedia clearly delineating one from another like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Real_Person_Fic and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Slash_fiction as a lot of fandom seems to hold those up as great sources.

Getting more on track, I'd be curious to know if the reasons that RPF and media fandoms are getting confused label wise is due to the growth and acceptance of RPF as a legitimate part of the greater fan fiction community. As people accept it and include it in their internalized definitions of fan fiction, they are more likely to overlap. They might not see a need to maintain what might feel like artificial boundaries that older, not with it fen are demanding?

[ratcreature]

I don't think there's actual confusion about what RPF is. Maybe that was not clear from my post, but on the sites I had in mind the individual stories or recs are still labelled with a pairing, so it's not like anyone could mistakenly land in a RPS story. What bugs me is things like that a page has separate sections for different fandoms, yet SGA RPS is not treated as a fandom separate from SGA.

I think this mixing may be convenient for people who like both actorslash and slash with the characters, and just use the same space, especially if there's really just a few "Joe Flanigan/David Hewlett" stories inmidst a lot of McShep, so that it's seen as unnecessary to have an extra section for it, and they may reason that those interested in the actors are more likely to check out SGA fiction and see the RPS than check an "other fandoms" section for odds and ends. However for me it complicates things, especially in fandoms where interest in the actors is more or less equal with interest in the fictional characters. For example when I was looking for SW Anakin/Obi-Wan slash, it never occurred to me to search for it at the ewan_hayden because from the name it clearly looked like an RPS community to me. Eventually I found a bunch of links to SW stories there and it turns out that the community is about half FPS, half RPS, and seemed one of the more popular and active places to post Anakin/Obi-Wan not just RPS.

For me that is inconvenient, I would have probably friended the comm to follow WIPs and such if it wasn't half-devoted to a fandom I'm not into. Just like I find it tedious that the Supernatural newsletter announces both SPN fic and RPS, depending on the editor of the day sometimes in separate newsletter sections sometimes just distinguished by the "Jensen/Jared" pairing label.

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about confusion as to the definition of RPF bust just that RPF is now more closely defined as fan fiction, where as in the past it was the bastard child to be stomped out, not defined as fan fiction or not seen as a legimate part of that community. Aspects of crossing over even different characters played by the same actors was considered some what taboo in places. As RPF becomes more accepted and part of the community for all of fan fiction, those other barriers between actor and show probably begin to break down and people just define them the same way...

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

Like, does Draco/Dementor counts as slash? gen? het?

I've been wondering that about John/Atlantis.

I haven't noticed that SGA RPS is being categorized solely as SGA anywhere that I frequent, but I will join you in a "yikes".

[ratcreature]

I think it might be just a convenience thing, in that there is for example much less Joe/David than McShep, so if people who are into the actors as well just put it with the SGA stuff, and might think it misleading to label the section "SGA & SGA RPS" because it's *mostly* fictional with just a bit RPS. But OTOH to me it really feels like a trend that for some in fandom the actor fic and show fic are like two sides or aspects of the same fandom. Still clearly labelled, like you'd label for other pairings or warnings, but in the same fandom space. I've seen that in several of my fandoms where actorslash is popular, like communities that are for both Ewan/Hayden and Anakin/Obi-Wan, or SPN spaces that are for Jensen/Jared as well, like the SPN newsletter that cover actorfic stories as well as SPN stories. So it's not just in fandoms where RPS is rather a small section (s it seems to be in SGA). And it just bugs me, because for me the fandoms are different, and I find it impractical and inconvenient that resources that are usually fandom specific more and more are so only "sort-of" in that they'll always cover the actor side as well.