guilty over using real people

[Ana Suau]

Hello, I'm new around here, my name is Ana, I'm 23, from Spain (so excuse me if I write something in a weird way, that would mean I haven't found the way to
correctly translate from Spanish what I wanted to say, but I hope you
can get it anyway), and also incredibly socially inept and shy, which
makes the fact that I've not only found the courage to write
something for others to read, but that I'm starting a new post,
almost a miracle to me. Anyway, you can see I'm a big blah blah blah
(so I have to fight hard to be concise when I write), but I hope I'm
able to participate in a more active way in this place, given it's
special nature to me.

My question is (I've read almost all the posts and I haven't found anything specific about it, but if it has been discussed, then I apologize) those of you who use
real people in your daydreams (in my case actors, but mostly
actresses) as themselves, or as a fictional character with their
physical appearance, do you feel guilty that you're using them? I do
feel guilty for them, because I know I wouldn't like to be used in
someone's fictional world for god knows what... so I feel creepy and
disgusting (although I feel like that for almost everything all the
time, I guess I over-worry about everything a lot, and my obsessive
personality and my low self-stem don't help).

I've gotten very conscious about it lately, so I've been trying to use characters they've played in real life, but it's not the same, because if I use their
characters then I have to “play” the story in their original
scenario, with the associated secondary characters and all, but right
now that's not satisfactory to me, I prefer the “realistic” and
created by me scenario in which that actress is my long term romantic
interest... And as I'm talking about this for the fist time, I can't
help to feel weird but relieved to know that even though no one might
completely feel something similar to my case, I'm not going to be
pointed at and get strange looks (or the written version of that), it
feels great.

So, does anyone else feel guilty? Not only about using actors, but also friends or everyday people? I've never done the last, if I feel guilty about using
celebrities, to me using people around me, specially the few ones I
care about a little, is out of the question, and anyway doesn't
really appeal to me, and I would feel very weird around them, I wouldn't
be able to have two versions of them (real world and in my head).

[April West]

I feel guilty when I use someone I know, especially when it's an "angry" daydream and I'm getting revenge or something... Mostly I use actors or fictional characters, because like a lot of you have said, it weirds me out and I think they'll somehow know I'm daydreaming about them. But sometimes I get depressed if I use someone famous, because I'll end up thinking about how far fetched it is...

[debbie downer]

I used to always feel guilty about using real people as my characters, but then I realized that as long as I don't tell them, they won't know, and that made me feel better. Since most of the real people that I've used in my stories are celebrities, it also makes me feel better knowing that they're probably used to people making up stories about them, because using a celebrity in your daydream is pretty much the same as using them in a fanfiction. For some of my characters I've used people I actually know in real life, and I think the real people would be kind of freaked out if they found out, but like I said, as long as I don't tell them, they'll never know. (: The characters I use in my stories that are taken from real people, always look the same as the real person, but I usually change their personality completely, so it's not too weird.