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Ever since I can remember, I have been self-shipping with fictional characters and daydreaming about them. I didn't really think of it much until I read online that other people did the same thing.

My self-shipping journey always goes like this:

1. I watch/read/play something.

2. I find a character I like. Sometimes I will like someone immediately because of their design or personality, other times it'll take me a while to get an interest in someone.

3. I start creating a self insert OC in my head, developing their backstory and their romance with the character I like. Usually I'll like multiple characters so I'll make alternate timelines so that the OC can romance them all!

4. I will become absolutely obsessed with whatever source material the character is from. It'll be all I think about all day, and literally the first thing on my mind when I wake up. I develop the OC's story in my head. Sometimes when I am watching/reading/playing the source material, I'll daydream along with it and then occasionally pause it to make up more plot details. Sometimes if the plot gets really good, I won't be able to sleep because I keep thinking about it. I often search for reader insert fanfictions based on whatever character I'm into at that moment. Most of them I don't even read properly, I just glance over them to get ideas for daydreams.

5. I gain an interest in something else and repeat the whole cycle again. Usually I return to old self-inserts, this can be triggered just by seeing an image of the source material again, or if I decide to watch/read/play it once more. My interests can change quite quickly. When I like something new I have to know everything about it, and I'll try to get through all of the source material as quickly as I can. Nowadays I tend to focus on multiple interests, so I don't get through things as quickly anymore.



Some people just self-ship with one character, but I have had so many over the years. Some I have only briefly shipped with, others have stuck for a while. Often I will also make up parents and siblings for my OC, but I don't focus on them too much because it embarrasses me more. Sometimes the family members will be other fictional characters, or they'll just be made up.

But why am I writing about this here? I just thought it would be nice to have up here in case someone else does the same thing. A lot of people think self-shipping is weird and cringeworthy, but I don't think they really understand it. We all self-ship for different reasons, and it gives us lots of enjoyment. There is some self-shipping content on Neocities, but if you want to find more of it, I recommend you visit Tumblr. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of that site, but it's nice to see all the self-shippers on there to know I'm not alone.

I don't know what else to write here.