a difference in rps and fps posts

[lobelia321]

cathexys is sadly away on holidays because it is she who opined that there wasn't really that much of a difference between rps and fps.

Well, there certainly is a difference between your typical rps-post and your typical fps-post.

Take two recent posts: one from rps (football) and one from fps (Stargate Atlantis).



A recent rps post (football) (extract)

Henry Is Love

So I wanted to nominate Thierry Henry as slashiest player of the WC, and ended up with so many pictures I thought I might as well do a whole post.


There follow around 28 droolpics.

Sample comments on this post (extracts):
Icon!Love :D Thanks for the picspam. Henry is so under-rated as a slut! Gorgeous. Totally seconded *g*

Gotta love Henry!!! Hun I always enjoy your picspams and all the captions - rofl!- and the trivia you add just rule. That's it, I am marrying Freddie.


A recent fps post (SGA) (extract)
Nuts and Bolts 7/12, Writing Rodney McKay
Discussion spoiler level: season 9 finale of sg-1, season 2 finale of sga.

Have you written him in a story? What do you enjoy about writing him? What are the challenges?

What characteristics do you see as defining Rodney? David Hewlett has what I see as very distinctive voice inflections: how do you go about capturing that voice?

Have you ever written Rodney in a setting where he’s acting in his role as a scientist? If so, do you have tips for writing science-babble that sounds authentic? (I admit, as a non-scientist I tend to go the avoidance route..the sort of thing where he might start a sentence but then trail off as he gets absorbed into his own thoughts.)

For those non-Canadian writers, if you’re writing a story wherein Rodney’s reflecting on his childhood or going back home to visit, how do you go about researching details?

As a reader, what qualities do you look for in a good Rodney characterization? Do you have any stories to recommend?


Sample comments on this post (extracts):
I wouldn't exactly say that Rodney's a difficult character to write, but he's a character that I think takes more deliberation than most because at first glance he's a little contradictory. I agree with the above that if taken too far in either direction he becomes either a buffoon or a canonized martyr.

I have a little more tolerance for a broader range of takes on Rodney than some of the others, though martyr!Rodney gets the backbutton faster than about anything. [...] In terms of writing, I think Rodney is one who absolutely works better from his own POV. I think in a lot of important ways, Rodney's a much better man than he gives himself credit for, and that's easier to convey if you get his own thoughts on himself. He's not instinctively good with people (though I think he often stumbles on to the truth without realizing it through sheer effort), so if you're going to show him having any particular level of insight into people, I really need to see how he gets from point A to point B. Usually, especially if he's being written from John's POV, I find him borderline psychic without seeing that struggle.

You're right that Rodney is not unkind, but like most scientists, social niceties are not seen as important and may never have been learned. (My theory, based on Russian women scientists I've met, is that Siberia cured him of most of his overt chauvanism.) He's not good with people, but he's also not stupid. It's often a matter of how important it is to him to care what anyone else thinks, IMO, and he'd place less relevance on wha they felt.
Yeah, I identify with the guy a lot.



OK, I was possibly slightly unbalanced in the choosing: one of these posts is to a general slash comm, the other is to a specific writing-slash comm. However, the point is that in football fandom there isn't even such a thing as a writing comm.

Also, I know football isn't all of rps, and SGA isn't all of fps. But they stand as representatives. :-)


What do you think are the differences, if any? Discuss.

Comments

[junalele.livejournal.com]

Discuss.
Ma'am, yes, ma'am!!! *clicks her heels together* ;)

Yes, they are slightly unbalanced but still represantative in a way, I would say.

The rps one is mostly about sex. Sex between the characters, sex you want to have with the characters. And so on. Of course, there are writers and readers of rps who are interested in characters, in how they tick but as a whole... I guess, you tend to shy away from the character itself. Because a) there is - at least for me - still that little ick!-factor about fantasizing about real persons who might not be so happy about being paired up with men, even if it's gorgeous men, and b) we don't know their charcters really which I think lobelia321 already mentioned somewhere. So why even try to figure them out when it'll only involve wifes and girlfriends. In a way this characterlessness (word monster!) gives rps more freedom than fps where there's a strict canon.
And I guess this canon and the need to fit your characters and their relationships into it forces readers and writers to think more about the characters, to analyze. Also I guess, fps people are also fans of the show, the book, the whatever itself and not only interested in the slash.

Well, that's my view on that for now.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

rps people are also fans of the show, the book, the whatever itself and not only interested in the slash.
But we are also fans of the football, are we not? Well, I am. Was. Was way before I slashed them.

Otoh, in lotrips, I was not particularly interested in the men's actual acting careers. I did watch a number of appallingly bad B-movies but this was a duty, in order to drool, not an intrinsic interest. But it is true, I think, that in fps there is more interest in the whole universe that is created. It's no accident that most fps involves fantasy scenarios where a universe is created, not realism where the universe is simply the real world as we know it. (SGA, HP, lotr) Even Due South has weird supernatural elements, does it not, as far as I understand...?

So why even try to figure them out when it'll only involve wifes and girlfriends.
Exactly! *runs ten thousand miles from Merche Romero* Especially if they are the kind of football wags. Although, hm, that could be interesting. But cruel. To write het with the Vacuous Ones.

I agree with you that the SEX in rps is so much more on the surface. In fps, the sex tends to be integrated into plots. Rps is much lower on the plot register. :-)

[junalele.livejournal.com]

Of course, we're also fans of football but there's not alternative world behind the fandom. *remembers the drunken football fans all over Berlin and reconsiders* :)

Even Due South has weird supernatural elements, does it not, as far as I understand...?
Yes, wasn't there that ghostly father of ... erh, the mounty whose name I totally forgot. *ducks*
I'm not so sure about the supernatural though because - and not that I've read it - for example Starsky & Hutch was/is a really big fps community and it's cop show.

Although, hm, that could be interesting. But cruel. To write het with the Vacuous Ones.
Please just don't! let me just ignore the wags. Please!?

[improperlydone.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that the SEX in rps is so much more on the surface. In fps, the sex tends to be integrated into plots. Rps is much lower on the plot register. :-)

I don't think this blanket statement can just be made to apply to RPS (unless you were specifically responding to your own thoughts on it). My biggest love in Lotrips was Dom/Billy and Sean/Elijah. And yes, I loved writing sex, but what I wrote about mostly was their friendship and how much they cared about one another.

It all depends on the author. Personally, I like writing more sex with my FPS and it can feel a lot more surface. (In SGA, John/Ronon -- PURE SEX, por ejemplo.) But I also write Duran Duran RPS which I have been writing since the age of 15. These guys have been together for almost 30 years and they have some deep relationships with one another. That to me is more appealing to explore.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

My blanket statements only always apply to the fandoms I know! *g* Unlike the ever-awesome cathexys who knoweth all, :-), I have only danced at a handful of weddings (as they say in German).

[thejennabides.livejournal.com]

OK, I was possibly slightly unbalanced in the choosing: one of these posts is to a general slash comm, the other is to a specific writing-slash comm. However, the point is that in football fandom there isn't even such a thing as a writing comm.

In that case, I find the topic difficult to address. If the point is that there are no writing comms for football fandom, then you're talking specifically about football and not about RPS (because as you well know, there are lots of writing comms for various RP-based fandoms; LOTR and popslash are the biggest, but certainly not the only ones).

In considering the question of differences between RPS and FPS in terms of my own interactions and responses as writer and as reader, I think I'm inclined to agree with Cathexys. They aren't identical, but I approach them in similar ways; my way in to RPS was to think of "Orlando" in the story as a character who looked and sounded and behaved like the actor (insofar as this could be determined from public appearances, interviews, and other materials that make up RPcanon), not as the actual person Orlando Bloom.

Having said that, there are lines I will cross in FPS as both reader and writer that I will not cross in RPS, e.g. death and rape. But I'm not sure I'm addressing your question anymore, so I'll stop here. *lil muskrit grin*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Muskrit!! Long time no hear!! *glomps happily*

You know, having sort of fallen back into rps after an absence of over 2 years I was just struck by the differences to fps (in my experience) and by the similarities (again, in my experience only) to my time in lotrips. The droolpics! The droolposts! The squeeing! The shameless Mary Sueing! It was all coming back. There exists a certain amount of writing meta in rps (don't I know it! you yourself were responsible for quite a bit of it in your time, if I recall rightly, *g*) but not nearly to the extent of fps (I mean, note the attention to canon in the fps post, down to spoilers for particular episodes), and I have never encountered in rps, not in SGA and not in POTC and certainly not in HP, the sheer droolage that licks across my screen in rps.

I made a post about the realness of the characters last week. It's here.

[thejennabides.livejournal.com]

I do remember a high level of attention to detail when certain new canon texts came out in Lotrips (the Rolling Stone interview that the hobbits gave is one that springs to mind; my flist was clogged up with the analysis posts on that one!) - so I'm wondering if these differences depend on the specific fandom(s) involved? Or maybe it has to do with how much canon text is available, and how "hard" it is (vs. soft/interpretive).

So that right there is probably a big difference in how fen interact with characters/fandoms and how that interaction manifests itself. I was thinking about this a little more, and I think I make the same kinds of posts in RPS fandoms that I do in FPS fandoms (fic, as writer/researcher and as reader/reviewer; and "where is the love"/"why must we hate" posts about fandoms overall or specific characters and pairings). But the "evidence" in RPS is a lot softer than in FPS, especially when you have interviews with TPTB (something impossible in RP/RL). So I see what you're saying on that.

As for the droolage, I definitely encountered more of that in Lotrips than in, say, Gundam Wing. Although I have largely stayed away from comms and lists dedicated to the most orlandish character in GW, so I cannot say what they get up to as regards screencaps and fanart. ;p

I'll definitely give your "realness of characters" post a read, as this very topic came up in GW a couple of weeks ago!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Thanks for agreeing and articulating it so eloquently :-)

Just quickly spending asecond checking my mail and LJ, lobelia, so I can't talk for long and meta a lot, but I just wanted to provide a (not so random but nevertheless not that atypical) RPS post where I used to live (i.e., I'm still not sure you and I aren't talking apples and oranges here!): http://arallara.livejournal.com/49436.html

Differences...

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

(http://pics.livejournal.com/partly_bouncy/pic/00106sf4)

The differences for me between them... hmm... I have a problem characterizing things as RPF vs. FPF because I prefer to divide them as Media FanFic (Movies, Television, Video Games, Cartoons, Musicals, some bookfic), ActorFic, BandFic, SportsFic, Pastiche, Anime. The six break downs just seem more accurate because each group has unique culture, unique history and its own demographics. Each community has its own defined fan space and how they interact in it. The rather incomplete graphic explains some of that.

BandFic seems to have emerged seperately from MediaFic. It has a long history of independence. It first probably appeared and the 1960s with the Beatles. There are certain practices of questioning sexuality that have been an inherent part of that community from the onset. That continued with the Punk Fic tradition. The material was always set in context of the larger material, taking a number of years before it had zines that were solely dedicated to fan fiction... and even then, they were still understood to be part of the greater whole. When it came on-line, it was frequently part of that larger context or found in Erotica archives. A lot of the members seem to drop in and drop out, the fan fiction not being used as a gateway to other fandoms. Canon is fluid, if fen understand what it means. Mary Sue is more likely to mean any original female character. This group has never faced, to my knowledge, any censure from the folks being written about. It doesn't have a practice of conventions but seems much more willing to print, as books, their works. Book printing has several differences from zines because those books can be bought on Amazon and the community doesn't rebel. Male membership, back in the day, was considered less problematic, less abnormal because of the context of connection to erotica, the questioning of sexuality and gender roles, the counter culture thing.

SportsFic had literary connections with a long tradition of writing fictional stories about real athletes dating back to the time of Babe Ruth. There were fanzines which included what appeared to be fan fiction back in the 1950s. It too is generally some what seperate. Its history is to a certain degree seperate. This group only seems to get censure (two cases I can think of) when sexuality is flipped on its head.

MediaFic has a lot of entrenched culture practices. They have conventions. They have terminology which generally has accepted meaning through out the community. The community's history is generally better defined. MediaFanFic seems less about challenging established cultural norms. Star Trek rarely pushed the edges of definitions and acceptance of things like race, class and gender roles. This might have to do with Media Fan Fic having connections and roots in science fiction which was rather about establishing ideals, writing utopias and utopias rarely had that problem. Too much envelope pushing can lead to ostricization. MediaFic tends to have a bit more of an adversarely relationship with the creators. Fandom entitlement issues tend to be more prominent in MediaFic communities. And that shows in the way that creators can react. MediaFic has had more creators step in and say "Please stop." than other communities. MediaFic communities also give the appearance of skewing older and more female in writing. Males occupy support roles.

ActorFic I think is more about being MediaFic than other forms because it shares a history of that (ActorFic appeared in the third? Star Trek fanzines published.) and a lot of shared terminology. The membership is more shared and the demographics give the appearance of being similar. Concepts of canon seem to carry over and fan space seems to be more shared. It gets defined by the MediaFic than by other RPF.

And those are my first thoughts on differences. Obligatory self plug of fan fiction history wiki (http://www.fanhistory.com).

Re: Differences...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Eek, diagram! *hides*

*ventures forth and peeks round corner*

I haven't come across this classification system before but it seems to me that the rps/fps divide cuts across your classifications as well.

Media FanFic (Movies, Television, Video Games, Cartoons, Musicals, some bookfic), ActorFic, BandFic, SportsFic, Pastiche, Anime.
Media would be fps. Actor, band and sports is rps. Anime is fps. Pastiche? Non lo so.

Anyway, for me it's the fps/rps difference that matters. It's the one I feel in my guts, so the sport (football) and the actor (lotrips) fandoms have, for me, something in common. The whole thing reminds me of the early days of lotrips so much!

Re: Differences...

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

I love diagrams. They make it easier for me to visualize things and fandom has many abstract concepts.

The classification system is one I use because I find it much more realistic and convienent when discussing things in the context of fan fiction history. ActorFic has more in common with TelevisionFic then it does with BandFic in terms of canon understanding, membership, history, terminology, cultural practices, etc. Those differences seem bigger and more important to me than the source material being based on fictional people or the canon source being based on real people, especially given the fluidity of some definitions of real and fiction. And it makes it much easier for me to discuss and think about that way.

Re: Differences...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

How about politician fic, then? Where does politician fic fit in? *cackles to self*

(Just because to me politician fic is the most outrageous of rpses. *g*)

Ah, you are such a structuralist, hon. :-)

Re: Differences...

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

:P Polific is hard to fit in because it lacks a coherent history, a fan base with a history, any sort of continuity over time and no observable social patterns. It also doesn't seem to have roots to any defined literary movement. That one is a hang up.

And that doesn't seem the most outrageous one to me. The fangirl RPF, writing fan fiction based on other fen, just is a bit more outrageous to me.

Structuralism is good. :)

Re: Differences...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Haha, there is fangirl rps? What a hoot. No, I still find politician rps more shocking. More subversive. Fangirls are already so subversive, nothing surprises me with them... *g*

Re: Differences...

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

Fangirl Real Person Fic (BNFF) (http://www.fandomination.net/index.cfm/mode/navigation/categoryid/2235/Misc./Fangirl%20Real%20Person%20Fic%20(BNFF)/)
slashtheslasher

Politican material I don't see as that subversive because of the nature of politics. I was discussing that in an e-mail today.

>>I remember Sean Hannity suggesting that Kerry and Edwards might
have
>>had a little something going with all the hugging. He later said it
>>was tongue-in-cheek.

http://community.livejournal.com/johnxjohn/ is a fan fiction community
dedicated to that pairing. It was one of the biggest political real
person fic communities ever. (This is my obsession.)

Anyway, I think it is easier to say that sort of thing about liberals
because it is the liberal part of the population where gender roles are
more fluid. And people in that community are more tolerant of
accepting new definitions for their own identity. This is also the
community where meterosexual was big and important. They were
basically, I feel, reflecting the nature of their base.

Conservatives do not seem to acknowledge or value the traditional
friendship of two men or two women with out injecting some element of
perversion because, I think, they see such friendships as possibly
undermining the family and a threat to those traditional definitions of
gender.

Extract from e-mail. So yeah, doesn't strike me as subversive much.