#RPF IS INVASIVE UNCOMFORTABLE AND EMBARRASSING

[latelyaliens]

[gaypiratebrainrot]

Man. I have SO many thoughts about the secret fic. I am utterly fascinated. I read it all last night and want to reread to get my head around it. But just initial thoughts here:

I've seen in some of your responses to questions that it is partially an exploration of your own discomfort with RPF and that the backlash is part of the art and like - bravo. Yes. I can't help but see all of the outrage on Twitter and remember that these are the same people who:

•Harass and bully Rosie Darby constantly and screenshot/post her tweets to be mocked for the people in the fandom she has blocked

•Create and pass around nasty memes of Rita Ora

•Speculate about Rita and Taika's sex lives/assume he just uses her for sex

•Openly talk about the sex acts they'd like to do to these two actors

•Incorporate details about real actors into their fictional versions constantly

•Ship Anton/Viago because they're played by the same actors as Stede/Ed

•Draw graphic porn of these actors using references of their real bodies with their real faces

•The list goes on

And I don't bring this all up to play the blame game or justify RPF (although I think the shit with Rosie and Rita is insane and so embarrassing) because in my old age - I think I deep down am not comfortable with RPF even though I have not shaken the temptation yet. I bring this all up to say that the righteous outrage seems to be coming from a lack of self-awareness and just a lot of folks who are really clinging to the idea that their version of fandom is Right and Good. I guess my point is that I think all fanfiction/fanart/fandom is somewhere on the spectrum of invasiveness and most people refuse to accept that about their own art because we're all convinced we're the good guys in the story. And it doesn't help that this fandom seems particularly hellbent on finding bad guys.

ANYWAYS

Amazing job. Totally original and fascinating. Truly. Really proud you published it and are weathering the storm. If you need to talk about anything or are having a tough time w/ the backlash, feel free to message me <3

hi!! thank you so so much for this amazing message!! i'm so delighted that people besides me are able to appreciate the bonus meta built into the backlash, it's giving me insane brain vibes lol.

i did about fifty million meta levels of analysis on my own discomfort while writing this fic and am full of thoughts. i have no desire to say that fiction about real people is good or bad because i honestly just don't think about the world that way anymore. what i can say is that fiction about real people exists, has existed probably as long as language/storytelling, and will very likely always exist.

human beings talk about each other. we tell stories about each other. gossip is probably as essential to humanity as dance or music. it is an incredibly uncomfortable reality that every single person who knows you has a version of you in their head that you have no control over. that we all exist as our own embodied experience AND as all of the ways we are perceived. one of the more challenging aspects of being a human, i'd say.

to be a celebrity, or have any kind of audience, is to increase the number of heads you exist in, and as i am presently experiencing for the first time on a small scale between the last fic and this one, this comes with all sorts of uncomfortable, messy problems.

however, the other function of this fic is as a free speech tool. let's say we decide the uncomfortable mess of real person fiction is harmful enough to ban it from being published, either on Ao3, or within our legal system. would you ban this fic and why? and if you would ban this fic, how much of what parts would i have to change before it would be allowed? who would get to choose the "correct" answer to those questions, and who would be reading the fic and deciding whether or not it fits the "correct" guidelines? do you want to give someone else the ability to make that choice for you?

people would have been more pissed off if i'd used taika's kids actual names. but what if i'd named his kids sasha and malia obama? what if i'd used the trump kids? cause if you're banning real person fiction, all three gotta go.

ultimately, i think the parts of me that are really uncomfortable with what i've written feel like i've been horribly rude and disrespectful to the people i love, and honestly, i feel like there's some truth to that. it's just one truth among many, many, many other simultaneous truths, including my belief that the wrestling i did in writing this is important and worthwhile wrestling, and i'm absolutely ecstatic to see i was able to inflict that wrestling upon so many of you <3

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

Are you a serious cockles shipper, or do you just do it for fun? No hate either way lol just wondering

okay i’m putting this under a readmore because it’s embarrassing to talk about in front of 20k people. this is my cockles manifesto:

i am, as a rule, not into rpf shipping. i have no problem with people who are, it just feels kind of weird and invasive to me so i generally avoid it.

however, i have been here since 2012, and the sheer level of unabashed shenanigans that have been beamed into my eyeballs, paired with my intuitive understanding of body language, have convinced me that misha and jensen do in fact have a private romantic/sexual relationship.

BUT i have to make it clear that i don’t mean that in a “cheating on their wives” way, but in a polyamory way - which isn’t much of a stretch, considering that we know misha and his wife are poly, and vicki literally wrote ‘the threesome’s handbook’. almost every single cockles shipper loves vicki and danneel, we are not about disrespecting or hating them whatsoever. 

now, i KNOW that saying that i believe the actors who portray my otp are in a secret relationship makes me sound insane, believe me i’m aware of that, but i’m not saying it lightly or without evidence. those of us who’ve been around a while know that it’s treated as basically an open secret in the spn fandom and among the spn cast, who very frequently make comments and allusions to them being together. jared has made SO many comments that people make posts collecting them, like this one and this one. like i said, it’s basically an open secret (like that time the show said “they’re a couple in real life”). here’s some Highly Suspicious Stuff: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14/15, 16, 17, 18, 19/20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

i mean... 

but it’s important to make clear that if either of them EVER seemed uncomfortable with us shipping them and making jokes and comments, i would absolutely stop. i respect them and i don’t ever want to make them feel creeped out or like their privacy is violated. but the thing is, they not just ‘not uncomfortable’, they very deliberately egg us on. misha loves to make ‘cockles’ puns, they happily do silly photo ops implying they’re together, and they both love to post photos of themselves together, knowing quite well how we go crazy for it. 

like the above selfie, where they posed chest to chest, and this actual ‘anniversary’ photo jensen posted, celebrating ten years of the first time he took misha out to dinner, actually tracking down the same restaurant and the same table.

or these really adorable photos of the boat trip they took with both their families:

and of course the beloved sunset photo:

every time they have a panel together (which usually only happens at the yearly roman convention known as jibcon), their antics get wilder. the first time i went “wait...” was in 2013, when they dry-humped onstage.

and by 2019, we have jensen eagerly throwing himself down on the stage (to reenact a scene between castiel and sam) so misha could get on top of him and mime choking him, and then pretty obviously getting a boner because of it (video). oh and i can’t possibly leave out the kissing (bonus gifs, and more), or the panel where jensen got drunk and opened his pants to show misha his underwear.

their body language around each other is so different from how they are around anyone else (except their wives). like, you can see how jensen and jared love each other and what good friends they are by how they play off each other and have an easy camaraderie, but as soon as jensen gets around misha, he can’t take his eyes off him. he stares, he giggles like a fool over not-that-funny jokes (we call it his unicorn laugh), he looks absolutely besotted, and they’re constantly gravitating to each other and touching each other in really intimate ways: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

honestly, there have been so many Shenanigans over the last 12 years that i can’t even remember them all, or find them all in my archives. there’s been clothes sharing/swapping, there’s jensen’s inexplicable kink for misha’s bad accents, the time misha reenacted the fake orgasm scene from when harry met sally and jensen, um, liked it (bonus), their matching bracelets and rings (and another ring), how very enthusiastic jensen is about calling misha “dmitri”, how jensen grumpily insists he can’t remember last week but jumps at the chance to tell the story of how he met misha and the first time he went to dinner with misha and misha told the server to bring them “the three least ordered dishes on the menu” (seriously, they tell the story of how they met all the time), the number of times they’ve been suspiciously late to their autograph and photo op sessions...

here’s some more adorable: 

gag reel compilation 

resume battle 

“i love you” 

best moments compilation 

really bad dancing 

gently bullying 

jensen praising misha 

jensen gushing over misha 

lowkey hand-holding 

“i’d take jensen home” 

bickering 

the time misha tried to sneak up but jensen could see him in the monitor 

knock knock 

supportive jensen 

“you drew the black penis?” 

destiel or cockles?? 

bowtie adjusting 

jensen losing his fucking mind over meeting a dog named misha 

whatever this is?? 

some sdcc shenanigans 

shenanigans 

“aloha, cowboy” 

when jensen pied misha 

“dapper as always” 

the way jensen likes being bossed around... (bonus angle)

that time jensen tried to facetime misha so he could participate in a panel 

“who said it” game 

misha gazing at jensen

stuck in the space pants together 

2011 jibcon highlights 

blowing a kiss 

jensen straddling misha on set 

that time misha accidentally (?) tweeted out a cockles post, 

jensen elbowing jared because he wants to play foosball opposite misha 

the mirroring compilation

“who doesn’t love freckles?”

jensen falls over laughing because misha is wearing socks

the infamous reverse french mistake edit

jensen asked misha to autograph his sign

that time they showed up wearing the same suit

cute whispering and giggling

jensen calling misha his ‘pebble’

“how are you?” compilation

jensen brought a shirt to give to misha

“he’s like a little puppy”/”he’s like a little teddy bear”

jensen’s accent kink reappears / and again

"jensen’s the horse”/”my kids have seen jensen having sex many times”

“so it’s like football...”

jensen reminiscing on when they met

and look, despite all that, it’s honestly not about fantasizing about two hot guys fucking, or anything sexual at all. whatever they actually are, they love each other, they make each other happy, and getting to see it makes me happy. it’s something good in the world, these two sweet idiots loving each other and letting us see the fact that they love each other. 

so, uh, i guess to answer your question, i’m serious. but i do try not to cross the line between what happens publicly and what’s private. from what’s shown in public, i draw these conclusions, because, well,

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

tiktok kids confuse me so much. Ive seen multiple people show how their inappropriate messages (which they found funny) got them blocked by brian within one day. That tiktok you just got sent? The op said they had to make another account because he already blocked them. and these are the same people who are adamantly against RPF, like they wholeheartedly shame people who write and or read slash fanfiction about the band pairings saying it’s “weird and creepy” (theyre also against serious shipping which… is nice but then theyre so radical that they view all fanfiction about the band as just pure evil sooo 🤔🤔🤔) yet they’re the same group of people who pull this kind of shit??? the fact that brian blocks them quick suggests to me that he more often than not checks his dms frequently and i just feel so bad that he has to receive these immature tasteless messages from his own fans (ahem also theyre v young like tween age and that’s just concerning)

I have no idea if I have any teenagers following me, but in case I do, let me reassure you that absolutely none of you are cool or funny for being assholes to senior citizens you don't know on social media. You're extremely embarrassing.

Now that I got that out of the way lol, honestly? I full-heartedly agree with you. It's incredible what some people will consider creepy and invasive, and then they'll turn around and celebrate, like, actually harmful human behavior lol. It's fucking trollish to make multiple accounts to send inappropriate messages to celebrities because you keep getting blocked, but fanfiction is the ultimate no-no? That's hypocrisy.

Listen, real person fanfiction is a complicated topic and I understand why people are uncomfortable with it. With that said, no one is ever going to convince me that someone writing their maylor porn on AO3, a website explicitly for fanfiction where you'd have to know what you're getting into to stumble upon it, is worse than someone actively harassing a celebrity. I think these people have absolutely no leg to stand on regarding rpf if they're bragging about being assholes in Brian. I said it before, perhaps, but I was proven wrong in my assumptions about rpf writers when I actually began to talk to more people on tumblr; I realized that they, by and large, have a much firmer grasp of reality and healthier relationship with the band than insta stans insisting Brian hates Freddie because Adam wore a crown on stage, or the ones being weirdos in his DMs. I haven't personally talked to anyone who thinks that any of the band members actually fucked, but I've seen many people earnestly believing conspiracy theories about the band or thinking this ^ trolling is okay.

It does suck for Brian. I know he's been in the business a long time, but we know how much fan interaction means to him, and it's probably upsetting to receive messages like that after awhile.

[kendalroys]

Why would it matter unless the fic was abt the actors themselves? How abt whoever wrote it stops writing rpf?

I’m assuming this about my post about not tagging actors in fanfiction related stuff:

it’s weird cause it’s invasive and actors are here to play a role. and a LOT of actors in the past have been told how uncomfortable this kind of stuff makes them. It may not be about them specifically but it’s about their characters and it’s just weird and embarrassing like it’s so simple just don’t tag actors in fic related stuff