affably

There's been an influx of douchebaggery in fandom lately. Is it because hiatus is over?

I blame Twitter. Its powers for good keep being thwarted by people who want to use it for evil. And no, I am not going to watch that video because a) it feeds into a person using other people in order to be internet famous and b) I don't want to watch something where they're angry and upset and frustrated with the people worship at the altar of celebrity and force them to have to deal with insanity and attention-seeking and aofigheruivcjvn. And now with the spamming of things we don't talk about to celebrities and just. Why the fuck are people on the internet so petty and awful?

God dammit, thisbrain I need some happy vids asap because I'm starting to turn green and about to hulk the fuck out.

So I was watching Aladdin and since I now queerify every story I enjoy as recast with CW actors, I caught myself thinking that this would be easy to write as a J2. Jared could be Aladdin, poor but good-hearted and running around being a riff-raff, and Chad Michael Murray could be his-only-friend Abu (what!), Jensen could be Jas- no, Sandy could be Jasmine, and Jensen could be a ridiculously pretty Genie (bonus points for begrudging shirtlessness) trying to get them together, and —

And then I stopped. Because wait, has someone written this story? Have I read it? Is Tyler my bad dream or am I Tyler's?

I feel like this has to exist. Somehow.

RPF AUs basically do what Hollywood does when it pairs up famous people in movies to attract audiences: cast familiar famous faces and personalities into new roles and see what entertaining combinations come out.

What is Mr. and Mrs. Smith but an RPF story on the screen? Who wants to see Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have sexual chemistry while being secret agents that are trying to kill each other but are actually married? A lot of people, actually. The big draw of the film is not, in fact, that they are secret agents but that it's Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie being secret agents. Their star image submerges the characters, and that's why they are using the stars.

That's what RPS AUs are all about. Because whether we admit it to ourselves or not, celebrities in our culture are characters, and characters that we want to see in different situations but still essentially be themselves. That's why we have actors that are just playing a certain character which we call "themselves" — like Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson — that completely overwhelm our image of them as less than larger-than-life people.

At least in RPS stories the writers are not confusing the actors with their on-screen characters. I have yet to see "Dean" confused as "Jensen", or vice versa beyond maybe some minor acknowledged character bleed characteristics. And while some of the stories that happen are kind of horrifying that they exist that I would like to bleach from my brain or smite from the interwebs, the fact of the matter is celebrities are a constructed fiction. Sorry guys. I know you just wanted to act and maybe do something more fun than just being a pretty teen heartthrob.

Celebrities are almost always trying to either reshape or maintain their star image, but their star image is always a performance as much as "we" try to penetrate their inner lives. That's why reality shows about Paris Hilton's life exists, why there are gossip columns, why the news reports stories of them having children. In any case, RPS is well aware that it is fiction, and is not trying attempting to malign or damage anyone in the process except maybe Chad Michael Murray. Okay, I kid. But even beyond the "lol porn" aspect it is a fascinating phenomenon and evolution of the image of celebrity: if you have any doubt, look at Misha Collins' Twitter, where he LARPs as himself.

In pandarus's RPS AU story Starstruck, she writes in the author's note:

I'm pretty sure that I'm not really doing RPS 'properly', but I don't care. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm appropriating the names and physiognomies of the people in question, this is very much NOT about actual Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Katie Cassidy or anyone else. This is me playing at writing a big gay version of 'Notting Hill', and casting various actors in various roles in my movie. But they're clearly not playing themselves.

Oddly enough, this is exactly what it's all about.

On the whole though, I wish it were a more private enterprise, because these people fandom writes about are adored (well, as characters of their own lives), but I wish that they weren't made uncomfortable so often by their fans, especially in public. I have my doubts that I could enjoy a convention. Fandom is scary.

In conclusion,

I'm working on this theory that there is only a certain amount of crack you can look at before your brain collapses like a flan in a cupboard. It's kind of a crack saturation point, if you will.

I think I've hit it:


I KIND OF LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Dear Self,

Why, oh why, are you reading this High School Musical 2 J2 AU? Isn't it bad enough that you're mentally photoshopping Jared Padalecki's head onto Amanda Bynes's body/facial expressions without also photoshopping it onto Sharpay Evans' dance moves? Even though he is fantastic at spontaneous dancing...

No! No. You shall not sway me. I cannot deal with you.

No love,
Self.

P.S. Seriously, enough with the AUs. They're like fucking kiddie crack to you.

P.P.S. No matter how awesome it would be, you are also not allowed to read any stories where Chris Kane is Irvine and Misha Collins is Selphie from FFVIII. BECAUSE IT IS WRONG. Even though they're not dating thank God.

ETA: "..." said Jensen.

FML, and fuck you, Internet. God I love you.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JENSEN ACKLES BY THE COWARD JARED PADALECKI

IS THIS WRITTEN AND IF IT'S NOT WHY THE FUCK NOT.

I MEAN JUST LOOK AT THE TITLE HOW IS THAT NOT COMPLETE WIN.

I am currently downloading the real one so I can figure out how much it needs to be modified (i.e. how gay it is). If it's anything like 3:10 to Yuma (WHICH ALSO NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN OKAY) shit son, I don't have to do no work at all.

There should be a kind of movie modification scale where 0 is Some Kind of Wonderful and 10 is... whatever is the most difficult movie to J2ify. BUT I CAN'T THINK OF ONE. It definitely would never be one from the 80s. Definitely not the movie Bolt, which as mentioned elsewhere I had Chad Michael Murray turned into an obese hamster pretty much immediately.