I don't care about actor gossip and whether they're dating someone IRL, but I do like fiction about the dynamics of casts and bands. I've worked on sets, and it's a fun setting to explore relationships in. There's a weird camaraderie that builds up in that context where you're forced together very intimately and isolated from other people outside of the group.
A lot of RPF basically reads like original romance novels full of tropes (yay!) or like a low stakes mundane AU of canon (yay?).
For example, I find both Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson really attractive. I thought they had fantastic chemistry in Ex Machina and whenever they're at a press thing together. I don't find Hux attractive. Hux/Poe makes no sense. Nathan/Caleb would be hot but also really depressing. But I love Oscar/Domhnall because you can play with how they're feeling about playing awful people, and there's a built in plot where they worked together, didn't see each other for a while, and then worked together again. It doesn't have very much to do with the actual actors as people. I wouldn't be interested in RPF about people I know.
Re: What's the appeal of RPF?
A lot of RPF basically reads like original romance novels full of tropes (yay!) or like a low stakes mundane AU of canon (yay?).
For example, I find both Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson really attractive. I thought they had fantastic chemistry in Ex Machina and whenever they're at a press thing together. I don't find Hux attractive. Hux/Poe makes no sense. Nathan/Caleb would be hot but also really depressing. But I love Oscar/Domhnall because you can play with how they're feeling about playing awful people, and there's a built in plot where they worked together, didn't see each other for a while, and then worked together again. It doesn't have very much to do with the actual actors as people. I wouldn't be interested in RPF about people I know.