Canon in RPS

As far as the canon (and whether one should feel obligated to researching it) in RPS discussion going on, I don't feel it's in keeping with the spirit of fanfiction (unless labeled AU or AR) to pick and choose the bits of canon convenient to what one is writing. These people lead real lives, where real things happen, which involve real people, that mean certain conditions. Why bother using their names if you're not going to stick with their story? RPS is the cliched double-edged sword because there's so much canon - which means you have it to get hold of and analyze for personas to emerge, but which also means that there exist facts you can't contradict and boundaries you can't cross if you want people to accept your characters as comparable facsimiles of their living counterparts. Yes, there are questions they can't answer, things they can't admit to, lies they have to tell for image or legal purposes. Personally, I see the stuff between the lines as all pretty common sense (demographic appeal, privacy issues, etc.) and fairly possible to deduce (body language, suprasegmentals, etc.)

On that same note, if a fic is not labeled AU, it should be plausibly (which is to whatever extent based on individual perception, yes, so I think I really mean idealistically) extrapolated. Just because they're *probably* not sleeping with each other, doesn't mean we can throw everything else to the wind, too. I should hope no one believes their stories actually happened, but the scenarios should (ideally) be plausible enough (independently of personal interpretation, i.e. considering timeline, the nature of the existant relationship between the people involved, etc.) to qualify as reasonable extrapolation.

But that's just me. I like the reality aspect of RPS fanfiction - I am also a canon whore. I didn't dare touch any of these boys until I'd read, seen, heard, experienced a very fair amount of media concerning them. Timelines and interviews and projects and interests, and we're not talking preteen magazine fact sheets from before they came back from Germany. What author wouldn't want to do right by the characters they portray, whoever they happen to be, fictional or otherwise?

But then there are those who say fiction is fiction and there's just different flavors of that and no need to get stuck in the details if it makes the story better, and that's perfectly justifiable as well. People read fanfiction for a lot of reasons, and if a certain pairing is your thing then to hell with circumstances.

*gets off soapbox*

Day Six and there's already an emerging theme.

I'm going to have to ration my irrational affinity for Joey/Lance, I realize. Joey just brings out everything I love about Lance - the snark, the smiles, the kind of comfortable you can only be with someone who not only knows next to everything about you and loves you unconditionally, but who also makes you feel like none of it matters. Not your own insecurities, perceived shortcomings, or what the world thinks of you. I never truly understood the OTP concept until those two. Irregardless of the kind, Lance loves Joey beyond all measure, and that's not artistic license I'm claiming. As early as Orlando, Germany, all throughout the early!Sync timeline Lance can be seen in various phases of touching Joey - an arm here, a brush of knees underneath the table there, rarely ever apart in photo shoots and plenty of candid stuff to endear them to you irrevocably and forever. Today they've been known to party together, attend a No Doubt concert a thousand miles away from either of them on the single night Joey had off during the run of Rent, and talk about each other in fond tones when the interviewers ask. What they have together is uniquely beautiful.

Sometimes though, sometimes, Joey can be the foil, the weak chink within Lance simply because Lance loves him too much, and there's just no doing everything right. Double dose because the sequel brings it home.

Frisbee by Julad

"When it happens, you won't be alone," Lance told him, steady eyes looking straight into his, salty fingers brushing his lips, brimming over into the last of his empty senses. "I promise."

and its sequel, The End of the Beginning by Julad

It had been sweet once, he would tell himself, fist crammed into his mouth, trying to overcome Lance's pleas not to interfere. It had been cute, and funny, and sometimes really fucking sexy, he was sure of it. The only times he could really remember the good parts was after, if Joey was still awake, because they clung to one another and sobbed like they'd once giggled.

I love speculative fic that attempts to look at the end of the group and beyond, how that would come about and what kind of lives the boys would lead, who would be with whom. I do not subscribe to Julad's version of the future - her Lance, however, is everything he would be if such a situation did arise. Not because of the end of the group, but because of Joey, and the one he made to him is the promise he'd keep above all because he wouldn't know how to break it. Couldn't even, I imagine.

Y'all, I'm fairly healthy but there's only so much my little heart can take in a single evening!

Those pictures? You know, the new ones of Orlando then JC?

I may have actually gasped and forgotten to breathe again for about ten seconds each time. Visceral reactions are nice. And those two boys manage to do it to me with the slightest smile.

I've always likened them a little within their respective fandoms. The most striking to me is their improbable embodiment of sunshine. I swear, besides being sweetness, these boys radiate their own inner glow somehow, their easy smiles warm and sunny the way your upturned face feels on clear days at the beach. They're kind, passionate, devoted to the people they love, and enjoying living their dream. They're both such happy kids - but more than that, they've managed to keep an innocence beneath their industry savvy. They seem optimistic, like they still believe in the magic and good that's possible with what they do. And then, there's also the dead sexiness, all un-self-conscious sensuality. Enchanting, really.

( Song Meme, because I *know* that's what you're really clamoring for after all that. ;) )