To ship real people or not to ship real people? That is the question.
Fanfiction has been a safe space for writers and readers since the dawn of time. The ability to take events – canon and otherwise – and reimagine them through your own creativity is both cathartic and addictive. You have a malleable universe at your fingertips, and all the characters, cities, and tropes are yours to change. Or not change. It really is up to you.
But when fanfiction bleeds into reality, spilling outside the realms of fictional characters, movies, and TV shows, do boundaries begin to blur?
Think about it. Made-up characters aren’t a moral dilemma. For example, you could write a fluffy Bucky Barnes x reader insert series with slow burn and a soulmate AU, and no sponge would be harmed in the making of the fic. Because Bucky (sadly) isn’t real – he can’t be uncomfortable or embarrassed, degraded or harassed. He’ll never read that smut chapter and feel the mortification of seeing the explicit tags.
But Sebastian Stan? He’s a real person, who could easily stumble across a fic rewriting his life – making him do this, making him say that. Would it make him uneasy to read a fic about himself? We’ll never know, but writing fanfiction about real people is controversial in some online communities.
It’s a grey area; on the one hand, it’s a valid example of literary self-expression, in which the writer explores situations and feelings involving a real-life celebrity or figure. Equally, a reader has ready-made content to explore a person on a new level – even if others might say it was invasive and parasocial.
Caitlyn Adams has been writing her Marvel fanfiction series since 2017, and she’s been in the fandom even longer. Even now, she still shudders when she sees actors’ names pop up in Tumblr’s search engine or in her AO3 tags.
“There’s something strange to see a real person appear in what is the world in my head,” she says.
“I want to expand on the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe], so that’s why I write the fanfiction. I’ve never thought about the actors or actresses because they have lives and personalities.
Caitlyn acknowledges the freedom fanfiction gives its followers. She’s all about anti-censorship rules, and she explicitly states that she would never shame someone’s x reader writing.
Are celebrities really looking up their ships and fanfictions? No. For a lot of fanfic sites, you now need an account even to see posts. Yet Caitlyn still argues that posting explicit, graphic written content is a red flag.
“There’s been instances in the time I’ve been in fandoms where people get parasocial,” she says.
“You can say some fics are harmless, but sometimes people take it too far, and they actually think their crush or favourite celebrity is really in love with them.
“Yes, most people don’t think that way, but in my opinion, conjuring someone else’s life in weird ways is creepy and very, very odd. The fictional fics are right there. Why not read those?”
But reader insert and celebrity fanfiction continue to be wildly popular. Its hold over writers and readers shows no sign of slowing, with thousands of fics uploaded every day. Most of them are harmless. Some of them are smutty. And the thousands who support them say it’s still valid literature.
One such reader who believes in the self-expressive power of fanfiction is Robyn Smith, 23. She started in fandoms like Dan and Phil, Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy, and My Chemical Romance when she was 12 and began reading fics about their early days.
“I was obsessed with real people in bands,” she says.
“Of course, these bands were quite old. All I was using was the stuff from ages ago, so they kind of felt like fictional people in a way. It wasn’t them currently, it was them, 20 years ago.”
Although Robyn has drifted away from fanfiction as she’s grown older, she still remembers what it was like to be a teenager reading ‘The Heart Rate of a Mouse’ – a famous P!ATD AU fic. Still, she says, it’s important to maintain a barrier between reality and fictional narratives.
“The people you’re writing about shouldn’t be aware that this is happening,” she says.
“But, in a way, I think people like that are a bit hypocritical because they have this idea that reading about real people is weird.
“They can do whatever they want with a fictional character, like smut stuff, and that’s still fucking weird.”
Robyn says she hasn’t read fanfiction in years, as it feels uncomfortable with it since she’s been with her boyfriend for four years. But she sometimes returns to reread her old favourite, and she still supports those writing it, arguing that the fics about her favourite singers and musicians saved her from some “very dark places”.
“Fanfiction with real people is a healthy way to get those feelings out, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
“People were writing it before, and they’ll write it now. It’s just how it is. It’s how the cookie crumbles.”