yes, exactly, i think you've hit the nail on its microscopic head: RPS is really all about the fanon. it's most successful, it seems to me, when we play in the negotiated space created by the community. it's the one genre that we're almost completely agreed upon - as fans - that it's not about the actual people, it's about the simulacrum. successful characterization thereof requires, imo, less specific knowledge about the real actors than it does the skill to synthesize the various subtexts of the actors' performances.
so i agree- good JM fic would totally incorporate nuances of how he played spike, because it's in the overt lie of acting that we find involuntary truth. in an interview, JM would be skillfully playing JM, but on screen, there are certain basic things that he can't obscure.
well. JM might be a bad example, because it seems like he has no capacity for obfuscation in interviews. *G* but you get my drift.
and not that i'm pressuring you to read my AU, but if you do, you'll see that i started out doing this exact thing. because i'm less aware of the fanon around tom welling and michael rosenbaum, i relied on the clever (or lame) prop of setting up their relationship as a meta commentary on their characters in smallville. as i did more research, i was able - i think - to tailor them a little better, but the basic architecture of their characters was, of necessity, built on the foundation of my first exposure to them. so it looks like a silly nod to the reality of them being actors, and their characters, in the fic, when i say that tom welling leads a double life.
next time around, if i write them again, i'll probably be able to distance them from their characters more. but there's also the thing where i enjoy the dynamic between clark kent and lex luthor (thing spike and angel x a billionty), and so i kept it and mapped it (imperfectly) onto TW/MR.
uh. and why am i writing a novel-length meta piece in your journal? eep. i'll stop now. haha, but it's just that AU RPS was a revelation , and it's still new enough for me to have all the fervor of the newly converted. *G*
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Date: 2008-04-29 04:13 pm (UTC)so i agree- good JM fic would totally incorporate nuances of how he played spike, because it's in the overt lie of acting that we find involuntary truth. in an interview, JM would be skillfully playing JM, but on screen, there are certain basic things that he can't obscure.
well. JM might be a bad example, because it seems like he has no capacity for obfuscation in interviews. *G* but you get my drift.
and not that i'm pressuring you to read my AU, but if you do, you'll see that i started out doing this exact thing. because i'm less aware of the fanon around tom welling and michael rosenbaum, i relied on the clever (or lame) prop of setting up their relationship as a meta commentary on their characters in smallville. as i did more research, i was able - i think - to tailor them a little better, but the basic architecture of their characters was, of necessity, built on the foundation of my first exposure to them. so it looks like a silly nod to the reality of them being actors, and their characters, in the fic, when i say that tom welling leads a double life.
next time around, if i write them again, i'll probably be able to distance them from their characters more. but there's also the thing where i enjoy the dynamic between clark kent and lex luthor (thing spike and angel x a billionty), and so i kept it and mapped it (imperfectly) onto TW/MR.
uh. and why am i writing a novel-length meta piece in your journal? eep. i'll stop now. haha, but it's just that AU RPS was a revelation , and it's still new enough for me to have all the fervor of the newly converted. *G*