#btw im.. sorry about the constant anons u still get that never seem to read ur request rules and stuff 😭😭

[spaceyflowers]

*kíths u ơn the forehead*

💖💓💘💕💕

[woahjo]

hi! you can totally ignore this if you don't want to reply for whatever reason, but i still wanted to ask since i'm curious on other peoples perspective

i've never been one to self-ship (or at least not directly, like i def had some fics written with self insertion without realizing or made up scenarios in my head but never really put the label on it)

And I thought on why I did not want that label of self-ship put on my fav characters and myself, and ig my conclusion is that it just hurts me to put it in a way? like for me its a constant remind that they're fictional, which honestly hurts more than just doing a selfinserted fic and that's it, because once i finish the fic it's just another piece of media, nothing more to me, and i detach

but if i try to push myself to do something cute for self-shipping since everyone seems so content with it, i can't find myself doing the same because of what i just said, like even calling my favs f/o makes me feel a bit like shit lol. and tbh i think most people would disagree with me since what i see 99% of the time is people using selfshipping as a pastime or use it to cope but how do you manage to not hurt yourself when you remember it's only fictional? because i want to achieve that as well without getting myself hurt in the process.

so sorry for this being so long btw, i wanted to explain myself as best as i could

hi anon!!!

i understand you completely!! i think the bottom line of it is that if you don't like it, then don't do it, ya know? i don't mean that in the like "get out of here!!" sense, i mean it more so in the like.. if thinking inside of what the "box" might be for self-shipping, why not try thinking outside of it?

i know for me, i don't actually imagine my selfships to be "real" in any way. yes, my selfships are with me, but it's a version of me that more closely aligns with a story im writing about their relationship. i've noticed a lot of people have decently set lore with their selfships, but that personally doesn't work for me, so i tend to think in a more abstract way when it comes to lore. broad strokes, ya know?

im not sure if this makes sense, but my "selfships" often feel more like reading a book or watching a tv show with a pairing i really like than they do myself. the version of me that they're with is a character and i enjoy thinking about how that version of me might be paired with them, but they're never a full reflection of me. that's the sort of selfshipping that makes me happy. yeah sure, i don't really get to take part in the "what's your selfship lore!!!" conversations as in depth as i might want to, but that's just not part of what makes selfshipping enjoyable to me.

if i thought about my selfships as real, life sized human beings, i would also get SO sad they're not real, so i tend to imagine them as like... living in rooms in my head rather than something i can imagine in front of me. idk if that's how everyone thinks about their selfships, but that's how i do it!!! i carry the scenarios around in my pocket like bugs in a handheld terrarium.

as an aside,,, when it comes to writing, my reader is almost never a self insert. they have bits and pieces of me, but they're not a reflection of how my selfships tend to go. they are their own characters, just without a name or physical description. and it's purely for a similar reason. i'm not a novel protagonist. i don't have that sort of personality and sometimes it can bum me out to try and fit myself into a box that i think other people might enjoy (because that's not the real me).. so i don't! same goes for my selfships

anyway, all of this to say that if the box doesn't fit, out grow it. the nice thing about selfshipping is that there is no right way to do it and if thinking about it in the traditional way trips u up because it makes u sad that they're not real, switch up how you think about it :))