#unfortunately the rpf i've devoted myself to is polar explorers

[incesthemes]

i was thinking about it earlier today, but do you think jared/jensen has 15k out of the 23k supernatural rpf fics because it's the people that are afraid to ship wincest projecting all of their wincest fantasies onto the other pairing?

i'm not an expert on this topic and i read j2 fic far less than i do wincest so idk how the shipping culture has shifted over time, but i feel like this largely isn't the case. i have read that in the early seasons (1-3) of supernatural, a lot of fans took to j2 because they were squicked out by the incest of samdean and didn't have another significant outlet for their shipping, but from the j2 fic and fandom i've engaged with it's significantly divorced from the wincest dynamic.

i would say that nowadays since there are other ships a fan can latch onto other than The Brothers, this probably isn't a primary motivator when choosing to rpf-ify jared and jensen. it might have occurred when options were more limited (significantly enough to be mentioned, but perhaps not as the overwhelming majority; i'm not sure), but the j2 fandom i see today appears very devoted to the actors themselves.

also—the modern fandom culture at large seems to be such that if you're uncomfortable with incest, you're probably inclined to be uncomfortable with rpf, too, since that's pretty contentious and even many otherwise open-minded shippers draw the line at rpf. i would assume people like this are more likely to discard both ships.

this is all just speculation though. i don't go deep in the j2 hole; i just think rpf is inherently funny so i cheer them on mostly from the sidelines and occasionally read fic that piques my interest. so i don't know too much about the attitudes and influences among the more dedicated shippers, sorry!