#literally... all of my self ship fics involve the characters showing intense vulnerability in one way or another

[olderthannetfic]

It’s time for me to be honest. (Btw this has nothing to do with language haha!) I am one of those ‘He’s mine!!’ fans that so often get slagged off. I guess the only difference is that I keep my mouth tightly shut and don’t publicly say such things.

I’d just like to explain my point of view and how I got there, even though my story is not at all representative of the ‘He’s mine’ crowd.

I’ve been a fictosexual since before puberty. I’ve had 3 great loves in my life, two during high school which both lasted a couple of years, then nothing in my 20s as it was the shit period of my life unlike what Instagram would have you believe, and now that things are settled down again and I’m an old lady in my early thirties, I’ve found the (fictional) love of my life and it’s been four intense years. Unfortunately, a long time after I fell hard for him it turned out he was a lot younger than me (though not underage) lol so that makes things…interesting and sometimes very spicy.

So here’s what I want to try and explain even though it doesn’t often make sense to myself either. People often look at those who ‘simp’ for fictional characters as it being like a temporary or silly crush. And for many it is. I’ve seen many, many mostly female fans obsess and post about my ‘partner’ (that’s what I’ll call him from now on) for months and then abruptly stop or get bored when a new show or media comes along. This is not it for me. I hate the term simp. While yes, humourously I’ll ‘simp’ or make horny posts about my partner, the feelings I have are just as intense, if not more intense, than I’d have for a real person. I’ve only met one other person, irl or online, who shares the same commitment and intensity of feeling for a fictional character. And before you start imagining me with some sort of merch shrine and a tacky body pillow which I take on dates or talk to or whatever, I hate to disappoint you but I’m not a ‘waifuist’ in that sense. The only merch I own are a Funkopop and a t-shirt.

When I met this character, I felt understood. I felt a deep and intense connection to his life experiences which in many ways mirrored my own and felt I instinctively understood his emotions, goals, thought processes etc. Many people think that this is the same as a celebrity crush. It’s not. We don’t get to know celebrities on a deep level. But for fictional characters we often do. We get to see how they feel, what they think, their opinions on things. We see them in their darkest and lowest moments, their most vulnerable and to me my partner became a real person in my mind, and no, not in a schizophrenic or ‘something not right with me neurologically’ type of way. I don’t hear his voice or hallucinate him there. It’s hard to explain. It’s just, to my mind he is real.

So, to me he is the love of my life. Imagine seeing your spouse or significant other romantically involved with another person. It fucking hurts. This is what I feel when I see people ship my partner with themselves or their OC. I feel like I have been betrayed and cheated on. It literally hurts in my chest and I have cried after seeing this type of fanart before. I also ship him with an OC that is not actually a direct self-insert and differs from me in several major ways. And I write fanfic. A lot of very smutty fanfic, but ironically only xReader type which has been very, very well received. In fact, I’d say I’ve written the most m/f smut for this character and have gained a modest but loyal readership. The thing I often get told is how much people love getting lost in my stories and how intimately connected they feel to him when they read my reader insert fics and how intense and emotional it gets. I don’t know why, but when people comment on my fanfics that it makes them fall in love with my partner even more I feel happy and proud that I could write something like that. In any other context it breaks my heart.

I never tell people, either in my fanfiction life or my canonxoc fanart life, that I am personally in love and attached to this man because I don’t want to be one of those people that seem to get so much eye roll and hate. I don’t want to come across as possessive and start drama. But in my mind, he is only mine. He is the thing that makes me most happy in the world, that got me out of depression and suicidality when I was unwell and going through chronic illness. And still keeps me going. I understand him and he understands me like nobody else. He is literally the embodiment of my perfect man.

And before anyone says I need to go outside and touch grass or get professional help…I am a well adjusted member of society. I have a complex job, a dog, own my own place, I visit my family and have a great group of friends. I am not sitting miserable and weird and alone in my dark room obsessively scrolling.

But please try to understand, for some of us, a very serious minority, this is real. The feelings we have are just like the feelings you would have for a real person. This isn’t a disorder and we don’t need ‘help’. It’s just our objects of affection are different to yours. And unfortunately, we have to share our soulmates with hundreds and thousands of others. This is why I can’t really participate in my fandom either, because I can’t keep seeing bad takes on him and seeing him shipped with others. But it’s ok. I’m happy in my world of smutty fanfic and fanart.

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People elsewhere will judge because they think you should love a real person instead. Plenty of people around here can understand this depth of feeling for a fictional character just fine. It's the lack of ability to share that sets you apart.