ActorFic
From Fan History Wiki
Actorfic is one of the many genres of fan fiction. This particular type is a sub-branch of Real Person Fic (RPF) and it has been with traditional media based fan fiction communities almost since the traditional media based fan fiction communities have come into existence. They’ve been, until recently, very joined together.
The relationship between media fandoms dates back to at least the 1960s. Some of this material was written with the consent of the parties involved and some of it was not. The officially sanctioned material, or at least the material done with approval of the parties involved, has traditionally not caused much uproar in fandoms. On the other hand, the material not done with permission has frequently led to some rather uncomfortable situations in fandom and pushed most of this material underground until the 1990s, when Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic blew the whole thing wide open.
There are a number of examples of this Actorfic published in fanzines. From the Star Trek fan fiction community, in September of 1968, there is a story titled "Visit to a Weird Planet," featured in Spockanalia. The story was written by Jean Lorrah and Willard F. Hunt. This story was one of the earliest pieces of known Actorfic. The story sent Kirk, Spock and Bones back to the set of the filming of Star Trek. The three then meet, among others, Gene Roddenberry. This story was sent to Gene Roddenberry and was presumably published with his consent. (Langley: [1]) In June of 1970, Spockanalia featured a sequel to "Visit to a Weird Planet," titled "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited," by Ruth Berman. In this story, William Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley end up on the Enterprise. (Langley: [2]) These stories were not condemned in fandom. Later, as slash became more prevalent and Actorfic became viewed as an invasion of privacy, its acceptability in the Star Trek fandom would decline. The material became almost taboo, with few if any references to it.
In the Blake's 7 fandom during the 1980s, there was Laurie Haldeman and Jean Airey's "The Totally Imaginary Cheeseboard." This story, published in 1988, was where "Avon ended up at Scorpio Con, being mistaken (naturally) for Paul Darrow." (Langley) The story was published with the full knowledge of Paul Darrow and others involved in the story. Later in the year, there was a sequel up to this story, "The Other Side of the Coin." It was written by Ruth Berman, Jean Airey, and Laurie Haldeman. The story’s premise involved Paul Darrow finding himself on Blake's 7’s Liberator. Like the original, it too had permission from the parties portrayed in the story.
The impression given from stories told about the Blake's 7 Real Person Fic community is that it was not distinct community that would emerge in other places like Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic. There were stories that circulated. The ones that openly circulated in fandom were published were clear explorations of canon and canon issues or humor pieces. There were examples of drawerfic floating around. These pieces tended to feature sexually explicit material. Occasionally, these would enter the broader fannish consciousness when fen did things that were frowned upon, such as the case at one convention where a fan gave Paul Darrow, at a convention, a piece of sexually explicit Actorfic featuring Paul Darrow and his wife. According to sources, Darrow and his wife were not pleased to receive this material and friends of the actor had to put this material into a fannish context in order to calm him and his wife down.
The Professionals fan fiction community, during the same period as the Star Trek and Blake's 7 Actorfic material was being distributed in zines, was also producing Actorfic. Unlike the other two fandoms, it seems that this material was not being openly circulated. According to sources, this material was viewed as very taboo, partly because of the erotic nature of the stories. People writing and in possession of these stories were very quiet about it. Given this, most people in the community were unaware that this was going on.
During the early 1990s, some Starsky and Hutch fen began to quietly write and distribute RPF/RPS based on the actors from the show. This material was heavily stigmatized by most people in that fandom. (Sherrold: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fandomhistory/11988.html)
By 1993, this material began to appear on-line. A number of these early examples were archived at sites that were consisted of primarily erotic fiction, at sites like Nifty. It wasn't until 1994 that Actorfic started appearing in a traditional fannish context. "David Fantasy #1" by Julianne Lee is one the best known examples from this period. This story, posted on Usenet in 1994, featured David Duchovny in a romantic relationship with an original character named Kira.
The amount of Actorfic on-line increased during the 1990s but it remained small, isolated and feared by large parts of fandom. During 1998, attitudes were becoming more obviously hardened against Actorfic. On September 18, 1998, there was a reference to Actorfic on alt.tv.x-files.creative. It was a request for Actorfic featuring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The response to this was polite but discouraging.
Like the X-Files fandom, the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fandom had similar aversions to Actorfic. This material was discussed on Usenet during the show's first run on television and condemned. By 2002, attitudes had not changed and the few stories that circulated were clearly labeled as parody in order to avoid criticism from fellow fen.
By 1999, inspired by the movie The Pirates of Silicon Valley, more people began to be interested in Real Person Fic based on Bill Gates and others. This interest led to a mild backlash from the traditional parts of the fan fiction community which had generally stood opposed to this material anyway. They feared that this material would lead to the rest of the fan fiction community getting sued. This led to a number of archives restating their position of zero tolerance of Real Person Fic.
As the new millennium rolled, The Matt Damon/Ben Affleck community had started up. This community was headed by Joanne and Sophie Werkers on their own archive space. This community quickly became the largest Actorfic community on the Internet. Like most Actorfic communities though, it did not produce fanzines and was not influential in print and at various fannish conventions. It remained relatively isolated. Part of the reason falls on the shoulders of FanFiction.Net, the largest fan fiction archive on the Internet. While this site actively encouraged other forms of Real Person Fic, it had a standing policy against Actorfic.
While Sophie Werkers was busy with the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck community, she was also playing an important role in the general Actorfic community. During January of 2000, an influential Real Person Fic discussion was taking place on Rareslash mailing list, the list Sophie Werkers ran with Joanne. The discussion involved whether or not RPS should be allowed to be posted to the list. As the consensus leaned towards no, Sophie Werkers founded the mailing list, RS-X. This list would be a central pivot point for a lot of Actorfic activity for a few years.
The Actorfic community of 2000 would be given another boost in April of that year when the Bindlestitch mailing list was created. This Due South mailing list was Actorfic friendly for the following communities: Due South, Hard Core Logo and Last Night. (Marythefan: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fanthropology/65512.html)
In July of 2000, alt.fan.david-duchovny debated Actorfic, the ethics of it and why people felt compelled to write it. It was clear that some X-Files fans felt that this was a clear invasion of privacy and something to be discouraged.
The end of the 2001 heralded in the beginning of the Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic community. Things happened fast. Between December 19 and December 28, the tolkien_slash mailing list on Yahoo discussed the slashy subtext between the actors in the movie. (Marythefan: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fanthropology/65512.html) On December 28, LOTR_RPS was created. It was one of the first or the first Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic communities. (Marythefan: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fanthropology/65512.html) The community saw a surge of growth and interest. It explains why on May 15, 2002, slashpuppets was founded. It was one of the first, possibly the first, Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic role-playing community. (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=slashpuppets&mode=full , redpanda: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fanthropology/65512.html ) This was significant because, while role-playing was a normal component of many traditional media based fan fiction communities, it had been largely absent from Actorfic communities.
The massive expansive growth of the Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic community started to wane by December of 2003. The community had its share of problems during this period, ones that those in traditional media fandoms would point to as reasons to discourage this type of fan fiction. This included a small percentage of the community thinking that the actors involved were really together and were sending their fans who were writing Real Person Slash secret messages. It also included a fan, working as a waitress, giving Ian McKellan a sexually explicit story featuring him while Ian McKellan was eating lunch at a restaurant.
Starting around 2002, Harry Potter Actorfic started to quietly circulate in the Harry Potter community. Some of this material was inspired by the release of the movie and the cool after emanating from the Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic community. Some of it could be found on FanDomination.Net, some on mailing lists, a few in the Alan Rickman community and in some places on LiveJournal. Given the ages of some of the actors involved with the movie, this material had more of a taboo aspect and never gained the level of fannish validity that the Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic community, which is emulated, had. By 2005, this small community had almost disappeared.
Orlando Bloom was one of the major influences in pushing the Lord of the Rings real person fic into a major fannish spotlight and to make that fandom the biggest Real Person Fic community around. By 2003, he had roles in several other films, such as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Black Hawk Down. Fans of his work from the Lord of the Rings Real Person Fic began creating other Actorfic communities based on these works.
The Star Trek fan fiction community had long been intolerant of Actorfic. Most of the examples that were present in the fandom by this time were written with the consent of the actors involved or had the actors in plot lines that were fundamentally about exploring the canon universe, with the actors as a vehicle to do this. By 2004, this had begun to change. Around this time, some Star Trek: Voyager Janeway/Seven shippers had begun quietly circulating via e-mail and on message boards erotic stories featuring Kate Mulgrew/Jeri Ryan. This was a marked shift for the community, even if this material was not being embraced by the wider fandom.
Actorfic seems to have at last come out of the closet. It is openly discussed. Conversations involving have begun to be more rational, with tolerance of other positions. There exist a community more capable of defending itself. Actorfic has begun to establish independent fannish communities, tied to the movie or television show an actor was in but separate. It is no longer always something lurking just below the surface, afraid to come out lest people attack the producer and fans of that material. Where it goes from here and how these communities will continue to develop is something that will be interesting to watch.[[
