After a variety of interactions I've seen or taken part in over the past few days, I decided I should probably talk about this. I don't often mention it directly, but I genuinely have no issue with RPF (Real Person Fic) and frequently enjoy the content it provides.
Thread!

This is all my opinion only, I'm not asking anyone to think the same as I do, YMMV ofc.

So, some context!

I am, in fandom terms, what we used to call a BOFQ (Bitter Old Fandom Queen). I've been in fandom for two and a half decades from AOL chat rooms, usenet, eGroups (later yahoogroups), webrings, tripod, fanfiction . net, livejournal, AO3, tumblr and now twitter.

I've literally travelled the globe to meet my fandom friends – who of course became so much more than 'just' fandom friends. The friends I 'only' know online are just as important to me as friends I met for the first time in Real Life.

The best friends I've ever made I met through fandom, people I still text with daily even though we don't share fandoms anymore. Others I simply lost contact with as we drifted into different fandoms, but have fond memories of their friendship and am always glad I knew them.

It's fair to say that fandom is important to me, and has helped me through all the hardest periods of my life (of which, unfortunately, there have been many :P). The one thing I've seen screw a fandom up, again and again, is censorship.

It used to be presented as "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN????" These days we have a term for it: purity culture. People who think they're morally righteous and doing the 'right thing' because they don't approve of someone's content or fandom belief.

To be clear: I'm not saying this is true of EVERYONE who doesn't care for something in fandom, but it does apply to a great many.

I've seen huge swathes of fanfic just...gone, in an instant, never to be recovered. Entire communities deleted and lost forever. That's...horrific to me. That's our fandom history wiped out because someone didn't approve that NC-17 fics existed.

It's also worth noting that the people almost always impacted worst when someone goes on a new crusade? Usually female and usually also queer.

So, yeah, given everything that I've seen over my time in fandom, there's no way I personally could ever tell someone what they should or shouldn't be writing/drawing/vidding/enjoying, no matter how I feel about it personally.

This includes 'making fun' by calling people crazy/delulu (srsly, it's 2020 and we're still calling people crazy?) for either believing in a pairing or NOT believing in a pairing. I've seen people who hate RPF act like assholes and I've seen people who love RPF act like assholes.

All this said, I do still believe every part of fandom has a time and place. There's always that line we shouldn't cross, though of course where that line is varies for everyone.

It's my personal belief that basically ANYTHING from fandom should go nowhere near the actors/writers/etc you're stanning. This obviously includes anything to do with RPF. It's for your enjoyment only, don't force it on your favs (the things I've seen at conventions...)

I also believe we shouldn't seriously state that a RPF relationship is 100% fact (joking about it with friends is something else), because NONE of us know. We don't actually know these people we fan over – they are literally the only ones who know for sure

And, of course, with The Untamed RPF pairings in particular, things have been made much more complicated because of what happened to x z, through absolutely no fault of his own.

I can't, in good conscience say that someone shouldn't write their RPF fic of choice, whether the couple go on a lovely date and hold hands, or there's a huge gangbang with enough bodily fluids that the stains are never coming out (also, I will probably enjoy both fics).

However, given the situation in Ch*na, I do think it's probably a good idea to be cautious, sometimes? My hope is that if the content has originated from somewhere that isn't Ch*na that it won't have a negative impact on anyone, but I can't say that with 100% certainty.

As I've said, censorship is a big deal for me and I want people to write whatever they feel like writing, but I also don't want people's actual lives being affected (x z ).

I have no answers. I don't think there are any easy answers at the moment.

The one thing I'd say that we can do and is simple to do, is to curate your timeline. If you see content that you don't like on your timeline, remove it from your timeline. Block or mute people. Let people get on with that they enjoy, and get on with what you enjoy yourself.

Goodness knows, in this Year of Hell when we're all spending more time online, we need to spend it in a place we actually enjoy.

If you made it this far, ty for reading Also, if you think polyamory with open and honest communication is disgusting or wrong? Please unfollow me right now