Karl Urban: Lotrips vs. STRIPS

[pslasher]

I was talking with thalialunacy  a while back about Karl's characterization being pretty different in Lotrips than it is in STRPS, and thought I might post about it in hopes that there are other Lotrips fans that want to compare notes. Because I'm really curious to know if it's just my impression, or the particular fics I was reading, or if other people think similar things.

I actually didn't read a whole lot of Karl in Lotrips - I know, gasp! I tended to read fic that concentrated on the Fellowship actors, and just read Karl every so often.  I think he kind of got lost a bit amongst all the other actors, especially the ones that had a lot more screen time than he did.  Both for me personally, and by the writers in general. He's not (usually) as outrageous as the other guys, so I don't think he caught as much attention. 

I really think these two RPS "characters" are shaded by the two characters he played and some of the photoshoots around the time each movie came out. Karl wore long hair and a scruffy beard at the time of the premieres and publicity for LotR.  It’s a darker look than for the Trek premiere and publicity, where his look was clean shaven and short hair, a lot of button-up shirts (even with the buttons undone), nice watches, ect. 

 

Bones is trained to save lives, Eomer to take them in defense of his people and home.  Even though both characters are outwardly gruff and inwardly big hearted, I think their training gives them a different sort of feel from each other.  I think the combination of “character” traits and RL appearance lead to some fundamental differences in the way Karl was written in each fandom.  Or possibly in how I perceived his characterization. 

 

What I remember most about Karl in Lotrips was that he was often dark, mysterious, sexually aggressive. He cursed casually, and was almost always on top.  In STRPS, he’s often written as funny, compassionate, a huge geek, and a gentleman, and Chris tops just as often (I mostly read Urbine right now).  Of course there is some overlap, with there being STRPS fics with an aggressive Karl, and Lotrips where he’s loving.  But for the most part, I remember Lotrips tending towards the opposite end of the spectrum from Trek. 

In Lotrips, Karl just didn’t seem to be written in as much detail as some of the other cast members.  For example, we knew all about Viggo’s boy and artistic stuff, Elijah’s love of music, Orli’s constant adrenalin junkie behavior, Dom and Billy‘s constant goofiness, and so on.  But not much about Karl.  I don’t even remember his geekiness being mentioned very much at all! Nor was his marriage mentioned, that I remember.  To be fair, IMDB says he got married in 2004, so for a lot of the early fic he wouldn’t have been married.  But he did have a child at the time of filming – if IMDB is correct.  He was sort of mysterious in Lotrips, and I think that mystery allowed me to imagine him as more dominant than he probably is.
 

Another reason for the shift in his personality is that I tended to read Karl in BDSM fics in Lotrips, whereas I tend to mostly read him in romance or angsty fics in STRPS.  That probably has a lot to do with it.  :D  However, probably the biggest difference in Lotrips and STRPS is that Karl is written so seriously in Lotrips: seriously dominant, seriously angsty, very sexual.  I don’t remember much fluff or sweet fic that centered on him, but there is a lot of fluffy, sweet and funny Trek fic.

However, that was the thing I loved about him in lotrips: his Uber Toppyness. You know, that dark and scruffy guy that looks like he might just fuck you right then and there? Yeah, that was the image I had of Karl and I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that was how I thought of him right on up to Trek, where he got shown as all these other things too. It turned my image of him on it's head, and made me rethink him totally.  Although, the idea that geeky, gentlemanly Karl might go all dominant and fuck you right then and there is equally appealing.  :D

It's been really interesting to 'get to know him better' in the last year, and I find that I really like the geeky, loveable Karl in Trek. Although, I do really enjoy Uber-Toppy Karl, and am happy to find him in STRPS. It's sort of nostalgic for me. I think this fic I'm writing is sort of an attempt to reconcile those two images of him that I have - Uber-Toppy, and gentle and funny and reserved. Because I think there is something to the uber-top; in some of those pics with Chris he looks exceptionally dominant to me.

Anyway, if you want to peek at some Lotrips fics, here are a few that really influenced my view of Karl. Unfortunately, I wasn't saving links for a lot of the time I was reading lotrips, so I don't have as many to rec as I would like.  These are the ones that stood out to me, and that I have remembered (for years in the case of Smug) and gone back to find the links.  In fact, I read Smug so early on that when I wanted to rec it and realized I didn’t have the link, I couldn’t even remember the name of the fic or the author to search for it.  Thank goodness for lotrips_finders . 

Smug by helensfic NC-17, Karl/Viggo/Sean Bean, BDSM, character roleplay

This is the first Karl fic I remember reading, and one of the very first BDSM fics I read.  I think I sort of imprinted on it!  This is how I thought of Karl for a long time, and to be honest there is something about him here that I still like, even though he‘s wildly different from Trek Karl.  He’s emotionally cool, calculating, hard, and aloof.  I liked his sense of control, even though it all goes wrong after a while.

 

 

Clueless and Possessed by broadwriting , NC-17, BDSM in the second fic
Clueless is Karl/Harry Sinclair (no bdsm, just hot sex), and Possessed is a threesome with Dominic Monaghan that portrays a very heavy and very physical (Dom gets slapped) D/s relationship with Dom submitting to Karl and Harry.  Karl's written as being loving within the context of the relationship in Possessed, but it‘s a very hard-core relationship, so he‘s in no way soft here.


La Vertu Abandonnee and it’s sequel Der Falke by sileyascribbles  and arieltachna, Karl/Sean Bean (plus Orlando/Viggo and some others), BDSM, Dub-Con (Between Karl/Sean and Sean/Elijah), Non-Con (between Orlando/Viggo)
In this one he's a German Nobleman (and it's the reason I wanted to see that video where he speaks German, Thalia). He's extremely dominant, but not as cold as Smug.  The fic is interesting because it’s an AU of pre-revolutionary French society, and written in very lush, sentimental language, language you might expect to find in a “traditional“ romance novel.  The author used his full name, Karl-Heinz, and his German heritage, and it’s the only Lotrips fic that I remember doing that.  It’s an excellent fic, but a different sort of view of him than you get in Trek.

 

In case you don't want to read all of it, *g*, here are some parts that give a good overview of his 'character.' 

 

Note, on reading back over the fic to pick out chapters, I’ve realized that the authors flirt with the Dub-Con line with Karl and Sean’s relationship.  Karl is *extremely* sexually aggressive here, and Sean does not submit easily.  The authors certainly explore the psychological aspect of Sean’s humiliation at being dominated at times.  While Sean is ultimately excited by the situation and submits, he has a lot of ’Oh my  god, what is he doing to me’ kind of thoughts.  Both Vertu and Der Falc fall firmly in the ’BDSM Fantasy’ category.  I don’t know if this would be squicky for people who are sensitive to dub-con, but I wanted to warn just in case.  For me personally they didn’t cross into dub-con, but they come damn close. 

Ch 55: Here is where Karl is introduced.  The fic goes back and forth between scenes with Viggo and Orlando, Orlando and Sean, and Sean and Karl.  Skip down to about half way through the chapter to get to Karl’s entrance.

 

Ch 57: Here is his first sexual encounter with Sean Bean.  He’s so powerful and in control, and I really dig that.  The scene continues into the next chapter.

 

Ch 61: Here is where we see Sean start to submit to Karl, though he doesn‘t truly submit in full until the end of Der Falk.  The scene again continues into the next chapter.

 

Ch 64: Here Karl and Sean talk a little more about what they want from each other, a negotiation of sorts.  I like it because Karl is equally fond of pain and pleasure.


Don't Say My Name by simons_flower 
This was the first STRPS fic I read and it instantly made me a STRPS and an Urbine fan.  There was enough dominant and mysterious Karl to make it extremely appealing to me.  I read it and was on the hunt for more.

 

 

So I’m curious to know what other fans think.  Is that how you saw him in Lotrips too, or am I only remembering the fics that played into this image of him that I liked so much?  I think I had serious D/s goggles on while reading him in Lotrips, so I don’t trust myself to say for sure that’s how he was universally portrayed.  I’d be very interested to read examples of different characterizations.  You know, for research.  ;D