Welcome to my selfshipping corner!

This part of my site is essentially a secret second site, dedicated to my interest in selfshipping. I've been making OC x Canon content essentially for as long as I've been an artist and writer, and in 2018-ish, I found the selfshipping community on Tumblr. I've always had crushes on fictional characters, and my primary way of interacting with media and fandom is via selfshipping-- it's just what comes naturally to me.

Woah, woah, woah! What is Selfshipping?

Selfshipping (alternatively written as Self-shipping or self shipping) is essentially the act of shipping either yourself, or a self-insert/oc with a fictional character. That character is then commonly referred to as that person's F/O, or Fictional Other. Despite the name, though, a relationship with an F/O need not be romantic. Many people have platonic and familial F/Os, where they envision themselves as friends or family with the character respectively. There is a lot of overlap with the selfshipping community and both the waifuism and the fictosexual/fictoromantic community. Though I consider myself a part of neither, I wholeheartedly support them as well!

Why make a whole section of your site dedicated to this?

To put it simply: because I wanted to. As for a more detailed answer: it just felt necessary. Selfshipping is a HUGE part of my life. It's how I interact with media, how I enjoy characters, and how I cope and self-soothe with life. Finding the selfship community online was like truly finding my home online for the first time. I didn't feel so alone anymore, and I could finally make friends who understood how I felt about characters, and who had the same interest as me. Most of my friends now are other selfshippers, and all my friends know that it's something I do. Nearly all my art and writing is focused on it as well.

I'd been selfshipping for a long, long time before I knew any kind of term for it. I remember drawings and writing from when I was ten or even younger of X-Men ocs who dated Nightcrawler (my first ever F/O, who I still adore). When I was 11-13, I'd roleplay on Quotev where I'd play both myself and my rp partner's favorite character and they'd do the same. For whatever reason, it's just always been something I was extremely into and passionate about. I honestly find it hard to fully fixate on any media if I don't fall for a character in it, even if I adore it. I've probably fallen in love with over a hundred different fictional characters at this point. Most of these characters fall into dormancy in my brain after a certain point-- but for many of them, if I consume their media again, I'll fall right back in love.

Where can we learn about your selfships, Gabe?

My F/O list has all the F/Os I consider relevant enough to list, but know it is far from all my F/Os, and even farther from all the characters I've ever F/O'd at any point. My goal is to have a page for each F/O, where you can learn a bit about them and about our relationship. Additionally, I plan to include a section on each F/Os page of all the artwork and writing they feature in.

My Self Insert list, likewise, is a list of all the OCs I use for self insert purposes for each F/O on my list. My goal is for each insert to have a page about them as well, where you can learn of their basic information, their backstories, personalities, etc.

I also have a selfship tumblr you can follow and interact with me on. The username is transmimir.

Other musings on Selfshipping and the Community

Fair warning that most of the following talk has little to do with explaining selfshipping to outsiders, and is rather my thoughts on different aspects of selfshipping and the community. Feel free to ignore this if you aren't interested in my musings.

Another community closely linked with the selfshipping community is the Fictosexual community, though personally I wouldn't call myself fictosexual. I don't fall for fictional characters exclusively, and I don't see any of my selfships as equal to an irl relationship-- though there's a handful of characters who come close. I know a large part of the selfship community do see their F/Os as their real life partners, though, and I support them in their truth. Unfortunately, this does lead to a lot of the conflict within the selfship community.

Many selfshippers are uncomfortable sharing their F/Os with other shippers (I actually love sharing my F/Os lol). There's always drama in the community regarding villain F/Os or F/Os who are "problematic", as well as media that's considered too problematic to have an F/O from, and especially over adult selfshippers who ship with characters who are minors in their source material, and whether it's okay to then age up the character or age down an insert to ship with them.

The selfshipping community, especially on tumblr, is largely populated with anti-shippers. I can see why this is the case, considering for so many their fictional others are their partners in real life. As someone who doesn't believe in anti ideals (I don't label myself as anything, really, though if I were to be called anything I'd prefer to be called pro-fiction), I find it all rather exhausting at this point lmfao.

Personally, I couldn't give less than a shit about what actions a character has done, or what their age is. I have a LOT of villainous and awful F/Os, and I don't believe in woobifying any of them. I have F/Os who are canonically absuive, so I write stories about abusive relationships between them and my OC. The idea that this means I endorse abuse, manipulation, murder, etc irl just because I enjoy the themes in fiction is just so utterly laughable to me. Quite frankly, I'd be disgusted by many of my F/Os if they were real life people. The fact that they aren't is the whole reason I find them attractive at all in the first place. Additionally, my OCs/self inserts aren't me, nor do they represent what I believe, do, or want in real life. I cannot fathom why so many people believe that, because I enjoy these problematic elements in fiction and in fictional others specifically, then that must mean I endorse it irl or im trying to "romanticize" or "fetishize" it.

The topic of shippers with underage F/Os in particular is a muddier topic on it's own, but as a whole, I don't care. I personally have a handful of characters who are minors in their canon, who I've loved since before I became an adult. My love for those characters didn't just magically disappear the minute I turned 18. I still enjoy them, and I don't see a problem with people in the same position as me. For some, like Kurt in X-Men: Evolution (I F/O any and all versions of him, after all), I just love them and don't engage in creating OCs to interact with them. For others, like Equius in Homestuck, I see them as having grown with me instead, and see them in my head as an adult.

For people who are adults and ship with characters who are minors in canon, and started after adulthood, I still don't particularly care about it. I know not all selfshippers see their F/Os as analygous to a real life relationship, nor would actually date or be into their F/Os if they were real. Fictional characters are not real people, and it isn't a crime to think a fictional character who's written to be a minor is cute. The only way I'd be truly uncomfortable is if the character was live-action, and actually played by a minor, because then that'd really be pedophilia. I have my own thoughts on paraphilias as whole, but that's irrelevant to the topic of this part of the site.

If you disagree with me and dislike me for it, or think I'm a "dirty proshitter", I genuinely do not care. I was a strong anti-shipper from the ages of about 15 to 18, and I was strongly against adults shipping with minor characters, or shipping with characters who were abusers or problematic in ways other than being a villain who's a murderer or something. Once my general shipping beliefs started to change, my stances on selfshipping discourse changed too, though of course my dissonance with both topics were intertwined.

Selfshipping and it's related communities: fictosexuality, waifuism, reader-insert fiction, OC x Canon (which isn't always F/O related, though it is for me), and even less romance oriented communities like soulbonding, tulpamancy-- hell, even snapewives and other modern pop-culture religions, are all topics that interest me greatly. Even if I'm not a part of them, or for some, don't believe in the religious or spiritual aspects of them, I hold respect for and see validity in all of them. Cringe Culture has forced so many of these communities to feel ashamed of their interests or beliefs, and made a lot of the internet view them as silly, embarrassing, or things or mockery; which is quite frankly a shame. I'd love to research all of it in detail, and ultimately I dream of even writing academic-level research essays on them and their histories.

The age of cringe culture and shaming people for completely harmless hobbies, interests, or having uncommon religious or spiritual beliefs is OVER. The age of hedonistic, shameless enjoyment of these interests and beliefs is NOW.

Go, make a self insert. Make a selfship OC. Kiss the fictional character you love. Make the whole world view the thing that you love, and weep at the fact that it cannot crush you over it. Embrace cringe, and may you never feel fear of being unabashedly yourself ever again.