Poll: When fan fiction meets real life, what happens?

[thefourthvine]

In America at this time of year, we get extremely used to answering invasive questions from total strangers. So I thought I'd conduct a poll that could yield potentially interesting results.

Basically, I'm curious about how you handle the interaction between your real life and your fan life; as someone who just recently invited a real-life, pre-fandom friend to view this rather fannish LJ, I find this a topic of relevance right now. And it's sure less depressing than all the political polls I've been reading.


[Poll #370787]

Comments

[semielliptical]

I answered Yes. The whole deal - the smut, the perversion, the orgies. because my husband does know that I read smut and slash, but I'm pretty sure he isn't aware of just how smutty some of it is. I don't think he would be too bothered, but I don't see the point in telling him "I just read about Ron, Harry, and Draco having sweaty underage butt-sex!"

He's generally supportive of my fannishness; for example, he hasn't read the HP books but went to see PoA with me knowing very well that this was the story of the gay werewolf's reunion with his long lost love.

RL friends - one good friend and I discovered fanfiction around the same time, and she used to write fic, including some fairly explict h/c slash. So she knows all and will even listen to me talking about new fandoms she doesn't follow!

Last year I told some RL friends about a LOTR knitting project, and to make a long story short, I think that probably led to two of them finding my LJ. They never said anything, and I don't know if that's because they were appalled or uninterested or what. I worried about it for a short time but then I decided that for the most part I didn't really care if these particular friends knew. Though eventually I might talk to them about it, because if they are appalled I guess I would like to try to explain about my fannish life.

I think the lesson there is that RL friends and family who know about "harmless" fan interests might have opportunities to connect that to an online persona. But I find it difficult and boring to both completely hide my fannishness in RL, and to remove all traces of my RL from my online activities.