To All the Other Guys: Stop Fucking with RPS

Meta
Title:	To All the Other Guys: Stop Fucking with RPS
Creator:	Nancy Spungeon
Date(s):	August 2001
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Popslash, RPS
Topic:
External Links:	online here; WebCite
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To All the Other Guys: Stop Fucking with RPS is an essay posted to Citizens Against Bad Slash by Nancy Spungeon.

It has the summary: "Nancy Spungeon is mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore."

Excerpts

I got this email last night from a rather well-known boy band slash writer who got this link (and this one) from another writer. This was the link to an X-Files and etc. slasher's weblog, a writer by the name of Thete* . This person goes on to rip RPS a new asshole by making the usual broad generalizations about boy bands: they're all "shallow prostitutes," untalented, and have no future. In the entry above it she speaks of how RPS isn't illegal now but just might be soon, and how RPS writers are "stupidly insensitive" to barge in on a real person's love life like that....I can't begin to figure out what's so wrong or immoral or despicable about RPS to most other slash writers. Apparently Thete is so disgusted by pop music in general that she decides to go off on a tangent that implies that since boy bands suck so badly, then RPS must suck too. Jesus. It really would have been nice to see her actually deliver some real reasons why RPS disgusts her so much, but maybe I missed them through all the bullshit in that blog. She goes on to list some of her favorite musicians that she'd like to see slashed, which were mostly "depressed" whiny goth kids, and after seeing a list that included Switchblade Symphony and Tori Amos, I think I understand why she's so fucking angry in the first place. Put on some Enya and smile, goddamnit.

RPS is no worse than "regular" slash, and here's why. First off, they're both pretty dorky. Don't agree? Let's think about it: what kind of person sits behind a computer saying, "Wouldn't it be awesome if Mulder and Krycek did it in a corn field while a big ol' alien ship takes off?" or "I'd love to see Lance and Justin get kidnapped and taken to upstate New York where they do it in an attic all the time." A dork. A big fucking dork. I've embraced my dorkiness, and you should too.

RPS requires just as much creativity as an X-Files or Xena slash story, I promise you. Of course there's not the issue of aliens or Ancient Greece to contend with, but trust me when I say that it IS kind of difficult to write a fight scene including five guys and pug on a tour bus.

Many slashers argue about the moral implications of RPS, and personally I don't think anything's wrong with it. You assume that Home Box Office doesn't mind the idea of Tobias Beecher and Leo Glen fucking on the lethal injection bed, but Justin Timberlake is somewhere crying in a shower and wanting to sue because he just read himself giving Chris Kirkpatrick a blowjob? Give me a break, people. Really. And Justin Timberlake can't sue for his thoughts being violated, but HBO could wipe the floor with an Oz slasher in court.