oooh, i enjoyed reading your thoughts on this topic! i feel like so much of the time people are either super against rpf or all for it in every way shape and form, and though i personally do lean more towards the "all for it" category i can't say i blame the other side for why they have the opinion that they have. hell, for the longest time i thought it was weird and swore i'd never read/write it myself (cue the clown music). here's my current views:
in my opinion, any sort of rpf is fine so long as both the writers and readers remember these core ideas
fanfiction is never going to be a real, legitimate reflection of the idol/actor/etc that you're writing about. they're celebrities. you simply don't and never will know them Like That™. fanfiction is just that. fiction
your rpf should stay on the platforms that fanfic is meant to be on—wattpad, ao3, fanfiction.net. all that jazz. unless they're explicitly okay with it (and there are celebrities out there who are all for fanfiction about them and really could care less), don't be trying to show it to them or send it to them. lee freaking minho does not need to have some 50k minchan mpreg fic shoved in his face when he opens his dms. for the love of god, please have some decorum
none of it is ever serious. shipping and fic is a natural part of any fandom, it's not going anywhere, but in the case of both fictional and rpf fandom it's never going to be real unless shown otherwise.
additionally, i'm very lax when it comes to things like shipping, even in rpf. i'll openly admit that i'm proship leaning, and maybe due to the fact that i've been reading fanfic from a very young age i'm willing to give anything a shot at least once. if the writing is good, shit i'll read it lol. don't get me wrong, there's still stuff that i won't read, but my general thought is just live and let live.
i think what makes it so easy for me is that i actually don't ship. oh don't get me wrong, i write and create plenty of shipping content, but i've never actually shipped any of the pairings i read, write, or make content for. even in fictional media. i write fanfic and explore different pairings, both romantic and platonic, because i enjoy developing that kind of stuff. i enjoy exploring different characters, people, and personalities and the relationships they can build from the media that i consume, but that doesn't mean i care for them to actually be together, or even think that they would or should be. especially if it's a morally questionable pairing. just like how someone who enjoys x!reader doesn't think that they're actually with, idk—yang jeongin or gojo satoru or hiccup haddock or something, i don't think that chan and bambam or felix and seungmin or lily and haewon or hyunjin and rui are actually bumping uglies. or that i want them to. and so long as everyone who's reading and interacting with my content knows that too, i'm chill.
