Is it wrong to write Real Person Fanfiction? When fantasy meets reality: the uncertain ethics of fanfiction about real people

Is it wrong to write fanfiction about real living people? A couple of years ago, a user named junktom was already asking this question, sharing that they had received harsh, almost scandalized comments under a story inspired by a reality show. Some readers argued that fantasizing about celebrities was strange. Others replied that this kind of narrative should only exist if confined to dedicated spaces, properly labeled, and never shown to the people directly involved. Still others countered that a clearly fictional story is far less harmful than gossip, tabloids, or videos that construct false narratives. The debate, which emerged on Reddit but could surface in any online community, is not just about a single story, a fandom, or individual sensitivity. It reflects a broader and still very current cultural tension: what happens when fantasy stops being a mental experience and becomes a public object?

Fantasy as an anarchic force and the ethics of Fanfiction

Fantasy itself is anarchic. It follows no legal codes. As long as it remains in the mind, it is absolute freedom, a private theater where no one is involved without consent, because no one is truly involved at all. Writing, however, transforms what was once ephemeral into something lasting. A sentence is already memory. A story is already testimony. A published fanfiction is already part of cultural discourse. And when imagination enters culture, it also enters the realm of social relationships. It is no longer merely an internal experience. It becomes a shared representation. It is precisely in this transition from mind to world that the central question arises: is it ethical to turn real people into narrative material? This is not a question about fantasy itself. It is about the responsibility of representation.

What real person fiction really is (And why it exists)

Real Person Fiction, or RPF, is a story (romantic, dramatic, erotic, psychological) that uses real people as its protagonists. Singers, actors, streamers, athletes, influencers, anyone with a strong enough public presence to become imaginable. The implicit assumption is that a celebrity is already, to some extent, a narrative construction. Not in the sense of being fake, but in the sense that what the public knows is a sequence of selected representations: interviews, photographs, performances, statements, interpreted silences, repeated gestures that become signs. A public image is already an ongoing story. Fanfiction emerges in that ambiguous space where the real person and their mediated representation overlap without ever fully coinciding. Writers rarely think about “the real person,” but rather an imagined version of their public image. Yet the distance between mask and individual is never completely separable. There is no precise line where representation ends and the person begins. And it is precisely this indeterminacy that makes RPF so creatively fertile, and so ethically unsettling. For many authors, writing RPF means exploring emotions, identities, desires. Celebrities become symbolic vehicles, surfaces onto which personal experiences are projected, tools for storytelling. It is an authentically creative process. But the fact that a gesture is expressive does not mean it is without consequences.

A story much older than the Internet

Contrary to popular belief, RPF is not a digital invention. The impulse to turn real individuals into narrative material is as old as storytelling itself. Human history is filled with examples of reality reinterpreted, fictionalized, mythologized. As early as the first decades of the twentieth century, magazines such as Photoplay and Modern Screen encouraged readers to imagine secret relationships between Hollywood actors, blending facts and speculation in ways that were almost proto-fanfiction. In the 1960s and 1970s, Star Trek fanzines included early stories that transformed the actors themselves into characters, anticipating the logic of online RPF by decades. With the Internet, everything changes. Thanks to archives such as Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own, RPF fanfiction became a global phenomenon, and every celebrity, from bands like My Chemical Romance to K-pop idols, from film casts to popular streamers, could fill the digital pages of aspiring writers. The difference from the past lies not in fantasy, but in permanence. What once evaporated in diaries or fanzines now remains online, commented on, shared, indexed. It enters the real world, and with it comes ethical responsibility.

The art of shipping - The case of Heated Rivalry

A central element of RPF is shipping, the act of imagining a romantic or sexual relationship between two people. Ships can arise from a glance, an interview, or perceived on-screen chemistry. Take Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid, stars of Interview with the Vampire, who have been the subject of romantic narratives among fans, or the actors of Heated Rivalry, whose on-set interactions sparked spontaneous ships. Generally, these fictional pairings are interpretative games, forms of emotional participation, a shared language among fans. The problem arises when imagined relationships cease to be recognized as such and begin to claim reality. The line between harmless imagination and obsession is thin. It is no longer harmless when fans seek confirmation, contact friends or family members, or interpret public gestures as proof, ultimately shaping public perception to believe something that is not real. Shipping then becomes intrusion, with the risk of influencing the perceptions and emotions of people who did not ask to be protagonists in those stories.

When fiction enters real life: Larry and Phan

In the digital age, the parasocial relationship with public figures is constant. We feel as though we know them—but knowing is not owning. Writing fanfiction about real people means simulating intimacy without consent. Media visibility does not automatically authorize narrative appropriation, and turning people into story material risks violating invisible boundaries. Perhaps the most famous case is the Larry ship, which imagined a relationship between Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction. In 2017, Tomlinson explained how this imaginary narrative made their friendship distant and monitored, with serious repercussions for his then real-life partner, Eleanor Calder. Another emblematic case involves Dan Howell and Phil Lester, long at the center of the Phan ship. The alleged relationship generated years of speculation, videos, and attempts to prove a private romance, creating unbearable stress and tension. Here the ethical issue becomes tangible. It is not about the truth of the narrative, but its social force. A story shared long enough and by enough people ceases to be mere fiction and begins to produce real effects. So where is the limit?

Creativity, projection, and identity

RPF is not only a field of moral conflict. It is also an extraordinary creative laboratory. In some cases, it even produces mainstream literature. Anna Todd, for example, transformed her fanfiction about Harry Styles into a global publishing phenomenon, demonstrating how powerful erotic fanfiction can be. Yet creativity is not ethically neutral, because every published word contributes to the shared perception of an individual. As Anna Wilson, a Harvard lecturer, observes, the ethical limit becomes visible when the story is shown to the real person. Until then, it remains imaginative construction. When works directly reach their subjects or their social networks, the boundary between innocence and invasion dissolves. For this reason, those who write RPF cannot justify every work by hiding behind creative freedom. Certainly, fiction is not reality, imagination cannot be regulated, and writing is a fundamental expressive right. But narrative freedom does not exist in a vacuum. It always exists in relation to someone. The issue is not imagining, but publishing, circulating, making it permanent. The issue is that representations circulate and contribute to building social images. The ethical question is not “Can I imagine it?” but “What happens when I publish it?” Sexologist Jess O’Reilly invites us to consider the human effects: how would the subjects - and those close to them - feel reading the story? The law protects freedom of speech, but it does not erase social impact. RPF exists in a gray zone where freedom and responsibility coexist in permanent tension.

The inevitable gray area

There is no definitive answer to whether it is right or wrong to write fanfiction about real people. RPF is a liminal territory where empathy and intrusion, play and power, imagination and consequence coexist. Fantasy remains free, but when it becomes text, it enters the world and produces consequences. The real question is not whether it is right or wrong, but how aware we are of its impact. Fantasy is freedom. Representation is relationship. Every relationship implies responsibility. So what is the future of RPF? The contemporary fandom must balance creative freedom with respect for ethical boundaries. There is no need to return to past taboos, but rather to build conscious community norms, spaces that allow narrative expression without invading real lives. The magic of transformative fanfiction must coexist with the awareness that the subjects of our stories are real people. Only then can fandom remain vibrant, responsible, and morally sustainable in a hyperconnected world, where every fantasy, even the most innocent, leaves indelible traces.