I realized that I've been in the BL sphere a long time and I am now entering a new fandom (stray kids - still not going in the tags way too much x reader stuff that isn't my cup of tea at all) and I never made a post about my thoughts on RPF and how they changed etc. And since both spheres do have a pretty sizable RPF fandom I wanted to write my thoughts on a single post.
I used to be totally against it. We all seen the articles about the ruined friendships and how difficult it was for them (I am thinking about the One Direction boys and the likes). But then I entered the BL sphere and encounter Thai BL (and other spaces BL and K-Pop alike) brand of fanservice. And meet some lovely people who made look at stuff from another prespective.
So my current thoughts on the shipping of real people are the following:
Fanservice is not queerbaiting (Let's just get this out of the way) - Fanservice has been used everywhere in het shows and movies, even recently (see Bridgerton stars of the new season playful flirting in interviews and that Blond girl from Euphoria with the "romance" speculation thing for her het romance movie)
Shipping celebrities is actually nothing new. People have been doing that kind of stuff with het celebrities since we started having celebrity. I am pretty sure gossip magazine were at some point half founded by it. No one ever felt the need to make this into a weird horrid thing until people started to ship same sex people.
ANY FAN behavior that involves sending hate (or protest trucks or whatever else) to a real person celebrity or not is wrong. The reason behind the action is irrelevant, crossing that line because a real person you don't know didn't behave the way you wanted it to is wrong the why doesn't matter.
Shipping is a fan thing, don't ask about it to the celebrity during lives, don't always wonder about the ship or where the other person in the ship is. It's a fan thing, it stays in the fandom.
If the people you are shipping tell you to stop, STOP! If they say honestly we are just friends. They are just friends. Believe what they are saying. Even if that means you might fall for a lie, or whatever.
If they are queer it might not be safe for them to come out. And an acutal confirmation might ruin their carrear. Act accordingly.
Don't assume you know them, or that your opinion and vibes are what's actually true. Also the phrase don't assume other's people sexuality means don't presume any sexuality, straight included it doesn't just mean don't presume they are queer.
Don't make it your all life. There are things that are more important than shipping. I promise. If you base your full existence based on this one ship you will be miserable.
Platonic Love is still important and valid and not everything needs to be romantic.
FINALLY: My personal thoughts on whatever pair braind or ship of real people you see me mention on here is this. I love their realtionship. I like seeing men being openly affectionate and loving. Calling each other baby, and saying their relationship is important. I think it's doing great things in normalizing closensess between men and also platonic displays of affection. It would be neat if they were queer/dating (and some of them do have vibes beyond the ship thing that make me go 👀🏳️🌈❓). Because celebrities being openly queer is potentially game changing for large numbers of people. But so long as they are not assholes it's ok if they are just allies who don't behave in a toxic macho way. I don't know them, this is just for fun. If they are queer/dating great, amazing even. If they aren't 🤷♀️.
