#RPF discourse

[padiduys]

You can always sexualize your favorite millionaire athlete, it's always morally acceptable.

[thelambliesdown1974]

Do Fujos Dream of Erotic Sheep? | 2024

[suronnnn]

hug

[valyrfia]

oh when I heard the word lestappen my first thought was, that one blog on tumblr is gonna have strong opinions and be angry about this, lmao

and you’d be correct. i DO have strong opinions and i AM a teensy bit angry about this. it’s not haha or funny that a guy in this charity event (and thus i assume within max’s circle) knows what lestappen is enough to be making jokes about it. this is what always happens when rpf doesn’t stay within designated spaces. this is what happens when people talk about it in ANY FORM on other platforms. i don’t care whether it’s an instagram comment going “omg lestappen 🥰” or people on twitter trying to get some sort of moral high ground by going “guys people ACTUALLY ship lestappen and there’s fic fic? ew!”. just please. stay quiet. do not talk about it for clicks it SHOULDN’T be that hard.

[fandom-hoarder]

The notes in that rpf poll are literally making me sick. Oh, you're a "reformed real person shipper"? Oh you were only a silly teen? STFU. Like actually, grow up more. There's nothing wrong with RPF. Movies are often RPF, because people will write it with certain actors in mind. Historical fiction is RPF. SNL is RPF. Some centuries-old plays are RPF!

The only problem would be if it's being sent to the celebrity unsolicited, or people are harassing the real people to be in a real relationship. But that's not a normal part of writing RPF! Thats a PARASOCIAL problem; a HARRASSMENT problem; not a writing problem. That's more like what antis do to "out" people, or what people who can't tell fiction from reality do.

Genuinely hope all the people judging RPF purely on existing grow out of their ridiculousness. You don't have to like reading it. But judging a FRIEND because they start WRITING it??? What the actual fuck y'all.

[the-bisexual-bitch]

Okay, hot(ish) take but like. rpf (real person fanfiction), especially rpf about people who are currently alive, kinda like. Brings the fiction into reality? Like, if I found out that someone was making fanfiction shipping me with anyone? Describing me doing sexual or romantic acts, in depth? I'd feel incredibly violated. There are like, two scenarios where I would be okay with it, and both of them would require my consent.

And I believe that celebrities deserve a level of privacy. I think it's okay to ship a character that's played by a celebrity- I think one of the better examples is Dream, specifically the character in Dream SMP (I'm not a dream fan, so like, I'm not super knowledgable about that series, soz). I support anyone who chooses to ship Dream, the character with any other character. Shipping Dream, the man, with another person, though? 😬

The exceptions are:

Selfshipping: Shipping yourself with a character

People who have explicitly stated they are okay with it

People who are currently dead

Satire, especially political satire

That said, I'd never bother someone about rpf, just not interact/not talk to someone about the topic, but like. thoughts? arguments?

What's the general consensus about this, especially in the proship community?

[vro0m]

All internet gods protect us from a similar situation to what's happening in the hockey fandom right now. I hope you're paying attention and learning boundaries from that.

[upset-to-dead]

MFs be like "RPF is degenerate, anyone in regular society would stone you to death for shipping two real people" as if Love Island The Bachelor The Bachelorette Love is Blind Perfect Match Too Hot To Handle Married at First Sight 90 Day Fiance Fboy Island MILF Manor Love on the Spectrum and a million more TV shows centered around "shipping real people" didn't already exist.

Society loves RPF.

[b0gdasha]

🩷 OPTION 1: people can openly ship whoever they want to and write RPF about anyone, no matter of shipped ones age, relativeness, relationships or consent

🩷 OPTION 2: people can openly ship whoever they want to and write RPF about anyone with no consent asked, as long as shipped ones are not underaged, relatives or in abusive relationships

🩷 OPTION 3: people can ship whoever they want to and write RPF about anyone, no matter of shipped ones age, relativeness, relationships or consent, as long as this ship has little to no publicity and content is only posted privately

🩷 OPTION 4: people can ship and write RPF only with those who have consented to being shipped before

🩷 OPTION 5: people shouldn't ship real people and write RPF

I personally have really mixed thoughts about this so... Yeah I wanted to ask what do you think

I'd also like to know what exactly you think either in the comments or reblogs if you're okay with sharing this

[kiwisandpearls]

honestly rpf of real minors is such a slippery slope for me. I know that (in a vacuum) rpf in general shouldn’t be subjected to censorship but as I said in a previous reply; just because you could doesn’t mean you should.

sure I don’t think rpf should be outright illegal but also should you really be making that fanfic centered around a real life child actor/star/celebrity? Especially if the fanfic is (for example, not pointing fingers) sexual?

like idk. I know that censorship is a dangerous tool that shouldn’t be played with, give them an inch and they’ll go a mile. But also…idk. I just get mixed feelings about it whenever it comes to rpf of minors. Like at that point maybe you should just replace them with an oc or some fictional character.

[httpsdolliedotdovee]

reminder that liking/writing rpf and being antiship makes no fucking sense.

[crazyladywiththeboots]

the luigi mangione fandom having rpf discourse is actually the perfect thing to end 2024

[ayyyyysexual]

Well I think ao3 should fix how it tags mcyt fics so it's EASIER to find rpf. If you ask me.

[valyrfia]

I get your concern but ignoring it is the best solution, there's no need to panic at the second your ears hear the word lestappen coming from them. First of all lestappen is not gonna have a "fallout" because they're not friends to begin with so what fallout exactly can they have lol, they already knew the existence of the word lestappen because it's been there for years, and the RBR account for sure makes use of it. And also, didn't Max received an MTV couple award with Checo a few months ago and the sky remained the same? Cant get weirder than that. Or it can idk, I feel like an scenario where any ship name remains in only one single space it's not only impossible, but it's never going to happen, in an ideal word sure, it would be just a dirty secret that no one knows about but stressing out about it it's gonna only be bad for y'all.. But also, if his friend made that comment and pisses Max off very much, or makes him feel weird I'm sure he's gonna be like "don't ever do that again" or something. For what I've seen everyone had your reaction in the chat so I'm sure they got the message that it's a forbidden word

These two back to back in my inbox are first of all. A LITTLE funny.

Secondly, to the first anon, it’s hardly Max and Charles I really worry about, it’s how people can forget themselves when they think that rpf is suddenly “mainstream”. It’s usually a tiny tiny majority who ruin it for the rest of us but do forgive those of us who were around for great rpf fallouts for being a little paranoid. Second anon, you and I are of the same opinion. RPF is fun when it’s contained but when people start to bring explicit RPF content to more public platforms (and ironically, it’s usually content that’s the original author has published on a closed platform, ie. tumblr or ao3). Class A disaster is the jumpy paranoid side of both of us talking but I unfortunately agree.

Also I think it’s good to remind everyone generally. RPF is a weird thing, it’s inherently weird. These are not fictional characters, we’re superimposing our narratives on top of real people’s lives while they’re still around to see it. We all love it and partake in it, but it’s not something that would constitute casual conversation or would be talked about walking down the street. RPF is super fun but be aware it cannot function like a normal fictional ship because these are not fictional characters.

Chestappen vs. Lestappen is a weird one because Chestappen can be waved off as a joke a lot easier (teammates = marriage) and also I get the feeling that it is generally a lot more of a joke. Unfortunately when I see Lestappen stuff not on here or ao3 it seems a lot less jokey. People also seem comfier discussing fic (?!) on tiktok and twitter with Lestappen, which to me IS a cardinal sin. I think a lot of people misunderstand me when I say don’t talk about RPF outside of designated spaces, I’m not saying the shipname is a dirty word that must NEVER be used, or that those who make fun edits on tiktok are evil and should die. I simply mean, people need to not be letting on that there’s anything deeper to the ship aside from a joke. I’ve seen a lot of people scoffing at me and people who have adopted a similar hard stance as me and all I have to say is: humour us because we’ve probably got very good reasons to be wary.

[shrimpmandan]

I think at this point anyone who calls themselves a proshipper but is like, staunchly aggressively no-matter-what anti-RPF is either deluding themselves or thinks that the concept of "real people being reimagined as fictional characters" hasn't existed for decades at this point.

Everyone was fucking raving about Hamilton and Clone High barely a few years ago. A lot of extremely famous, influential movies are based off of real people, such as The Wolf of Wall Street. Every single fucking cartoon you've seen that references a real life historical figure like Cleopatra or Napoleon is technically doing RPF to some degree. THE MAGIC FUCKING TREEHOUSE IS RPF.

All this is ignoring how much we WORSHIP AO3, but-- but but, the founder of AO3 very much supports RPF. And by supports I mean they actively WRITE RPF. Tons of American Idol stuff that's all obscenely popular!

Now of course, there's gonna be some people who have a kneejerk rebuttal about how it's "different" with historical figures, that it doesn't matter because they're all dead, or that movies and books are different from fanfiction that may or may not be sexual. Except all of those arguments make absolutely zero sense when you think about them for more than two seconds.

Shouldn't the subjects being dead make it... more disrespectful, on a base level? You could made a valid case that with historical figures, nobody is left alive to mourn them. In comparison, people who have died relatively recently still have loved ones alive to mourn their deaths, and who would very likely be negatively mentally impacted by stumbling across an RPF fic. Understandably so--

but wasn't our whole argument that other people's feelings are their own to deal with, and not our responsibility?

You can make a similar case for serial killers, too. The victims of Jeffrey Dahmer still have friends and family that are alive. I would imagine they wouldn't want to see posts sexualizing or glorifying him-- but I doubt they're seeking out anything related to him /at all/, frankly. And then we're back to point one about how all that matters is that shit is consistently tagged and that people simply don't read what they don't like.

In my opinion, the sole, sound argument against RPF would be sexual RPF of minors. Even if no contact or even grooming is happening: that is still sexual content of a living minor. That is CSEM. That is a completely valid thing to be against. I honestly fail to see why sexual drawings of real minors are illegal, but not writings. Still, writings and drawings do not involve the same amount of /direct/ abuse as 'regular' CSEM and CSA, but making the argument of psychological harm is fair, especially when this is a case of a child being directly sexualized against their will.

But then we're still back to square one.

Don't like don't read.

Honestly, I'm neutral on RPF. I'm against anything that involves a sexualized depiction of a real child, and I'm generally not super interested in or comfortable with reading fics about real people, but it's also not a topic I can just disassociate myself from and say that it's somehow disconnected from proshipping. It isn't. Proship communities are built off of the backs of RPF shippers, like it or not. And honestly, I couldn't care less so long as the shipper in question is still respectful of the privacy of the subject(s) they're writing about. The version of the person they're writing is fundamentally not real, and that's a weird thing to wrap your head around. One could even argue my own reasons for singling out child sexual RPF is hypocritical or contradictory, and I wouldn't disagree. I think having mixed feelings on the subject is understandable. But being completely, over-archingly against it due to knee-jerk discomfort? It just seems a bit silly to me.

[thealogie]

The conspiracy theorizing that DT and MS are unhappy with their wives is so ridiculous Thea help. I only just found out about it. I have been very good and didnt hateread beyond seeing one little thing but seeing those conspiracies always kills me because I HAVE been slightly obsessed with Larry tinhats for a while now and the thing that gets me, every time, is how celebrity conspiracy shippers use the same exact language when talking about entirely different groups. It's the same exact phrases and ideas and misconceptions about how entertainment works, over and over. Because the conspiracy theorist mindset is the same! It's all the exact lines about PR relationships, and hinting via social media to seed things, and 'we know celebrities are never photographed unless they call the paparazzi on purpose', and blindly trusting anonymous 'tips' from 'experts'... The one post I saw implied maybe DAVID submitted the blind island about playing happy families at Disneyland, because he's fed up or whatever. I promise you he did not do that. It's SO crazy to see people saying openly that it's 'known' that Georgia babytrapped him. sobbing emoji (from computer). I know it's best to ignore it as much as possible I just genuinely hadn't seen these takes until now and I'm flabberghasted. Also the idea that Georgia is overemphasizing how much she and her husband fuck because they actually don't and she's overcompensating.... Hello internet strangers you do not have secret insight, actually. They are not sending you messages. You are not in their bedroom. If she says they're fucking that's the best evidence you can possibly have, internet stranger. That is her husband?? And good for her, also. Anyway sorry I just needed to scream

It’s interesting how no celebrity in the short history of coming out has ever come out or gone public with a relationship by entering a long relationship with someone else and “seeding things” through social media in a way that is only being picked up by a dozen people on tumblr. And I’ve hired the best PR people in LA to give advice to my clients, many of whom are famous and if one of them tried to charge my client money for giving them baffling incomprehensible advice like that they’d get fired on the spot.