jlh | Thank goodness, not in my playground (Reply)

One of the peculiarities of writing Ryan/Simon is that Simon, in all his grouchy, hairy, pushing-fifty ridiculousness, scares away the fangirls. It's a downside because it means the audience for Rymon is limited. This might seem odd from the outside—Ryan and Simon are back every season after all, and their interaction is the most overtly flirtatious on the show, so overt that it's the source of jokes on other shows. But your average teen doesn't want to read about Simon, his reflexive obnoxiousness, and his chest hair, when they can read about the latest singer, who is younger and more marketed to them in the first place. So Rymon fandom is small, the little engine that just keeps on going, but never gets all that large.

But the upside of this is that the whole "but do you really think they're doing it? are you a TRUE BELIEVER?" conversation also doesn't happen. I hate this question myself because first of all, it literally does not matter at all; you can write a story about people that you don't think are fucking in real life. It is called fiction after all. But the larger reason I hate this question is that the only answer possible is: I don't know. Because we don't know. Even if I were buddies with them I wouldn't know. One of the things I learned from my long friendship with BFF C____ is that no one knows what is going on inside a relationship except the two people having it. This might be why we gossip so much, because we don't know.

RPF speculation is like FPF ship wars, really. There's nothing actually good about it, it generally leads to wank, and what happens if you're right? Do you get a fabulous new car? A dinette set? No? Then what is the point?

So thank you,