The Tradëscan Codex

Sovereignty (169 words) by Alixtii
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Caspian X & Lucy Pevensie
Characters: Caspian X, Lucy Pevensie
Summary: Caspian forgets himself. Ficlet. Gen. Set during The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Natural Theology, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. "X doesn't believe in Fred, but Henrietta's not given up hope. [. . .] there is a Fred. There must be. [. . .] there's a Fred because there's love. and that's the surest sign." Meta and moving at the same time.

Sea Legs, Narnia. Just a moment, really, but it captures part of what I love about Narnia, the way the kids take on such wisdom and responsibility. Will-to-powery.

Q & A, Batman Begins. Fairly intricately rendered fic which brings in various comicsverse minor characters.

There's a metafandom-ed discussion here on the role of canon in RPF, and in the comments a lot of other thoughts about the nature of that fannish activity are discussed and considered. In particular, cathexys's point about the way in which popslash deals with identity construction of the boy band star, who is never not giving a performance--a point I've seen her make before--has gotten me thinking. Here she contrasts it with the way in which in "actorfic" (her term) we deal with people who often are not performing in the same way; when the camera turns off, they are totally unscripted and genuine, even when they are in front of fans. This is particularly true, she argues, for the "celebrities" which we fangirl (should I be using that phrase?), who objectively speaking aren't really that famous and thus aren't marketed and objectified the way an Angelina Jolie or Nicole Kidman are.

Now obviously there is a spectrum upon which this is true or not--when Joss and Nathan play around at a convention, that is a performance and not real, but at the same time there is something more honest and genuine going on (at least as I construct the author-function) than, say, when Madonna kisses Britney. And this is all on top of the theoretical point that all identity is performative, whether one is a celebrity or not. But some readers are squicked by the way which actorfic arguably is written about people who are in some way "realer" (less objectified, less performative) than popslash characters are.

Let me note here that I don't really get the squick against RPF-ing "real" people; I've femslashed wisdomeagle and she's pretty real to me, despite never having met her in person (although the fictionalized character based on her is a floating signifier, having no reality whatsoever, of course). My problem with "real" people isn't that 'shipping them is somehow wrong or immoral; in general, I just find it boring, because life by definition cannot be larger than itself.

But the RPF I read, and the RPF I've written, and the RPF I plan to write or imagine writing, and the RPF I'll never write but wished existed so I could read it--in all cases, fic about actors and writers--all of these manage to navigate these issues. If they don't, I resort to the trusty back-button. "Media fandom" (whatever that means) RPF is able to deal with issues of performance and identity just as well as any other brand.

In my experience, RPF can bring attention to its own inter/textuality in three main ways:

1. By being primarily concerned with the relationship of the characters to the production of other texts (than the fanfic in which they reside). My primary example of this sort of RPF is the Joss Whedon/Alexis Denisof stories of the ever brilliant wisdomeagle, especially Gone Hollywood. Since Joss is a writer and not an actor, the focus of any text in which he appears will always be other texts--be it his own, Buffy and Firefly, or orthers', such as Shakespeare and X-Men (which is now one of his too anyway)--and the way in which he is always caught up in these texts will draw attention to the way in which this Joss is also a character in a text.

Not all RPF about actors does this. of course (just as not all popslash is about identity, either). The major f/f RPF pairing, insofar as I can ascertain, is Idina Menzel/Kristen Chenoweth, but little of it (that I've read) focuses on Wicked at all. People are interested in femslashing these actors because they play characters with a homoerotic subtext, but their jobs as actors is simply used as a background for getting them together: they go out for drinks after a performance, and are completely capable of differentiating themselves from the characters they play. (And since I care about the characters rather than them, I stop caring and back-button.)

By the same token, a lot of the LotRips I've read (which isn't much, as I don't read much m/m) isn't primarily concerned with Lord of the Rings itself. It's concerned with the relationships between the actors who starred in those movies, often after the movies are made and with no further thought to their existence beyond the fact that a) these characters are "celebrities" (although perhaps in some cases obscurer ones) as a result of these movies, and b) they met each other while making it. These are not stories which interest me.

2. By crossing over with fictional universes. When vampires and wizards begin popping up, I don't think there is really that much doubt that what one is reading is fiction. annakovsky's crossovers between LotRips and BtVS and/or HP are my favorite example of this sort of RPF text, in particular her Critique of Pure Reason, which is Dominic Monaghan (sp?)/Xander Harris. (Of course with a title like that, I was predisposed to like it.) By mixing the "real" world and fictional universes, these sorts of crossovers serve to problematize the distinction itself.

Also, there's Life Imitates Art by fox1013, in which someone named Patrick Dempsey is a guest star on the Muppet Show, and everything that follows is just sort of natural and fits perfectly into Muppets canon (which always included a healthy dose of RPF anyway, being extremely metatextual in the way it constructed its "backstage"--it is a show about performing).

Personally, I really want to write Anna Popplewell/William Mosely/Dawn Summers.

ETA: And how did I forget wisdomeagle's Go-Round which crosses Baby Sitters' Club RPF with Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood in that BSC author Ann M. Martin meets and is flirted with by Lady Elaine Fairchild.

3. By being larger-than-life even for Hollywood. This is sort of the same mechanism as #2, only with original characters, which means that other elements of the universe need to be more self-evidently fictional. Since all RPF is fictional, by definition all of it should use the mechanisms of storytelling, but partially because part of the conceit of RPF is that we'll revealing these people's real lives, and partially because plot is sometimes suddenly sidelined, we don't as often have the actors' journeys being exactly Campbellian. But on occasion we have stories which are just so epic that their seams are showing, and then it's not so difficult to just jump into the fic and enjoy it. My favorite example is The Liberation of Katie Holmes by buffyx and missdeviant. By appropriating the tropes of the action-adventure film (there's even this this trailer) and mixing it with a quasi-cracked out premise (Tom Cruise is an alien and Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring have to save Katie) they create a fantasy which is stylized and fun even as it is ostensibly about "real" people.

Of course, these three metatextual techniques aren't mutually exclusive.

The other conclusion to draw from this thought process is that there isn't any femslash RPF that I like (not counting my own "Dear My Ideal Audience). Which saddens me, really. Recs are very much welcome (and not just femslash, but also gen and het as well, or really anything that you think is likely to fall under the above three categories).

I did it! I came up with another meme pun! Now I just need one for next time, and the time after that...

Birthdays: noelia_g (30 May); inlovewithnight (1 June); pinkdormouse (2 Junes). Happy birthday to all of you!

Am almost finished the Ender's Game fic I owe for the Apocalyptothon. Val and Petra don't seem to want to have sex, although I had to practically restrain Peter to keep him from jumping his sister. Would desperately love a beta.

Courtesy of penknife, who gakked it from neotama: The Regender. It swaps the genders of all the characters in any fic (or any website at all, for that matter). Not all that effective on my fic, as it tends to get confused with names that are also words like Dawn and Faith, and turns Darla, Dawn, and Drusilla all into Davids (creating the potential for much confusion) but is much fun nonetheless. Also it underscored for me how important role reversal and other types of gender subversion are in Buffy in general and my fic in particular: with the genders swap, much of my fic felt flatter, less original, less exciting.

( Fic Writing Meme )

( Music Movie Meme: My Music on Shuffle )

Shows how well the human mind can find patterns even in randomness, and construct a story out of anything? (Anyone read Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies lately?)

( Dr. Who Meme )

If anyone requests a commentary of my fic I will, as always, write it. May do one anyway--haven't decided yet.