#joong archen haunts me the same way ronen did season three when he tweeted about trending on tumblr

[doublel27]

I love all your takes on fandom, ships, queer media, so I want to ask, what do you think about writing fanfic of real people ie. Thai BL couple? I'm coming back to fandom (K-pop to Thai BL specifically) after years and I'm having this urge to write fanfic of this branded pair that I like, like an AU version of them some sort. I have always wanted to write my own romance novels so I figure this could be a way to practice writing, but when I was still in K-pop fandom on Twitter, I was constantly told that writing fanfic shipping real people is weird. Honestly the thought of writing about a ship in this K-pop group I like still weird me out (although I do ship them) and is not exciting. But I have no problem putting the Thai BL pair into the stories I have in my head. I have spent hours consuming fanfics of them on Thai novel site using Google Translate. Also, Thai fandom has this thing where instead of the actor's name, it usually would be character's name with their face attached to it, like they are acting and the fanfic is a script, which make reading them more fun, open up more possibilities and dynamics. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you and sorry for the bad English. 🙏🏻

Hi Nonnie,

Thanks for the complement and coming here with this ask. I appreciate the kind words very much.

As far as real-person fanfic (RPF)I think it gets a lot of hate from a lot of people, but also it’s super common in the world in general and not just in unpaid fanfic circles. While I don’t write RPF myself, I’ve always had friends who did and do, and I see no real problem with it. As long as you’re not tagging the real people in it, I have no problem with its existence.

A huge problem and conflation with RPF being a huge toxic problem is that it assumes that everyone writing RPF is a toxic fan (tin-hat, sasaeng, etc) who is out there demanding that those real people get together and that by writing about the possibility of them potentially being together you are removing their agency and are being creepy and forceful. The reality is that most people who read and write RPF are normal fans with normal boundaries who know it’s all fiction and all in good fun, and it’s just a few bad apples that ruin the fun because they cannot separate the person from the object that has been created and is being packaged as a commodity (which is what the personas of famous people are).

I think in Thai BL fandom there’s an added layer of ease because they’ve already adopted an RPF model of promotion to sell their pairs and shows. Now whether any of those men are actually together in real life, there is a performance of a level of intimacy they perform in front of crowds and social media. Because the imagined couple or branded couple or CP already exists as a fantasy for fans to enjoy, there’s a level of implicit buy-in from the artists that doesn’t necessarily exist in other fandom spaces. This may be why it’s easier for you to enjoy it in Thai BL fandom than in another.

But real people write and profit off of RPF all the time. Every biopic in Hollywood tells an imagined story about a real-life figure and their real life events. People win whole Oscars for their depictions of RPF!! Hamilton is an excellent example of a viral musical that is an RPF story come to life, especially the Hamilton/Angelica storyline as she was already married long before they met. Evita is another classic RPF musical that is beloved by the people. The myth of Anastasia and the beloved 1998 animated classic is a hopeful bit of RPF that has existed in some form or another since the fall of the Russian royalty (though the grand duchess receiving girls who pretended to be Anastasia is a real event so…RPF). The Crown on Netflix is RPF. I think time and distance helps people not feel it’s less weird, like if the person isn’t going to see it then maybe it’s fine.

I think RPF also gets a bad name because it’s largely what tabloids and gossip blogs have long traded on. Especially as tabloids and gossip columns trade in stories that are aggressive and accusatory and demeaning, and are meant for the personalities in question to see and are reported to be true. A lot of people conflate the two things.

My best practices for RPF run about the same as general fanfiction: keep it to fan sites like the one you’re currently reading it on (or tumblr, or AO3, or any of the many options out there), if you’re going to share it on Twitter or Instagram (which I’m old and wouldn’t because I belligerent in a healthy level of separation - the way I can’t with people just casually adding omega verse comments and retweets to pictures on public forums) don’t @ them and even be careful using hashtags because if actors want to read that they should go looking for it like the rest of us, and generally just be respectful of the artists and their life and their personal boundaries. General rule of thumb for interactions with everyone: if it’s not something they can change in 5 minutes or something wildly not okay, don’t comment on a persons actions or decisions.

And that’s about it. I hope you write what you want to write. What you’re talking about, using them almost as a dream cast for your original fiction is also barely in the RPF category. I hope you have fun. Your English was fantastic (said as a lifelong English speaker who has taught the language and am unsure how proficient any of us are with this creole of a language).

Oh and if you’re messing around in Thai BL RPF just know that Joong Archen may find whatever you write and read it. We have a deal, Joong, I know you’re out here somewhere but I would like to keep my old lady sensibilities and pretend that my fandom life is still kept relatively separate from the artists.