Fictoromanticism and Being Fictionfolk:
by Tigris
Published: 30/04/2023
Last Updated: 09/07/2023
Something I've been thinking more about as of late is my relationship with and feelings about romance and my sexuality and also, more recently, how that connects with my alterhumanity. Especially my fictionkinity. Due to having a largely fictional sense of self, I've always felt very close to fiction and have seen fictional worlds as, not real, but something I can or have directly interact(ed) with and which I often imagine myself in, as if I lived there and were innately familiar with it from that experience. This has definitely influenced my view of fictional characters in particular.
For large portions of my life I have considered myself at least adjacent to the self-shipping, fictosexual, and/or waifuist communities, communities based around having a dedicated relationship with a fictional character, having participated in all on and off in different ways and just generally connecting with the sentiment of love taking many forms and devoted relationships not having to fit particular moulds.
A short explanation of the above would be that these communities and labels are for individuals who experience attraction to and/or a close bond with a fictional character, the most common being a romantic relationship. These relationships tend to be strengthened through imagining interactions, creating art, writing stories, or simply picturing the character accompanying you in your daily life. Many interact with the character as either themselves or through an original self-insert character made to fit more neatly into the fictional universe. Some individuals are attracted to fictional characters along with real people, and so have relationships with characters in-between or alongside real-life relationships, and others experience no attraction to real-life people and are fully and solely dedicated to their relationships with fictional characters. There are varying views on the 'correct' way to love a character, with some groups looking down on those with multiple fictional partners, 3D (real-life) partners, or those who don't take it 'seriously enough', but the only thing that truly matters is experiencing a genuine sense of love of any kind towards a fictional character.
I believe it was 2017 when I joined the waifuism community and truly embraced my love for fictional characters for the first time. After a year or two solely interacting within the waifuism community, I broke off and began looking into the selfshipping community as I preferred the more laid-back attitude that didn't feel so much like a pissing contest for who loves a certain popular attractive anime girl the most. Although, I still retained a similar level of dedication to waifuists. Over the years, I've considered myself to be in romantic relationships, marriages, sibling relationships, friendships, and parent/child relationships with a large variety of characters from hyperfixations, interests, or fictotype/synpath sources. These have tended to be in conjunction with real-life versions of the relationships, and haven't replaced those, though imagined relationships with fictional characters have certainly aided me in times where I struggled to maintain or seek out those real-life connections for mental health reasons.
As time has gone by I have receded from the main communities and explored my relationships much more privately. This is due to a mix of not connecting with the community aspect very much, generally just preferring to do and process things alone, struggling with a sense of shame over my attraction, and also wanting to avoid unwanted attention from cringe blogs/subreddits/forums. I also have my personal qualms with the waifuism community that contributed to this, though that's not fully relevant here.
Onto the main point of the essay. I have figured out that the most effective and healthy way for me to approach romantic relationships is through my fictotypes: I experience very little genuine, long-lasting, romantic attraction towards other people or characters irrelevant to kintypes, but I do still have a strong desire to be in love and in a relationship. Faking it for other people when my crush on them runs dry is, unsurprisingly, extremely unethical, and the guilt I felt when I tried a 'normal' relationship out to "see if it's different this time" always made it so I lost out rather than gain any benefits or fulfil anything. I've given myself many, many, labels over the years but the one that seems to cover all bases at the moment is fictoromantic allosexual. I have no qualms with having sex or other forms of physical intimacy with others and I experience an average level of sexual attraction, mainly only towards women, but there's a mental line drawn in the sand when I feel a relationship is going on for too long or is too based in romance. I dislike feeling chained down, trapped, or under control, or having to spend too much time with another when I'd rather spend it alone, and I can suddenly lose interest in partners like a switch being flipped in my mind for no discernible reason, which makes close relationships difficult for me to emotionally handle and unfair on the other person.
The only long-term relationships I've been wholly and completely comfortable with is me, envisioned as a kintype, and that kintype's partner. This is something I haven't actually seen discussed often, if at all, within the fictionkind or fictosexual communities. I'm actually extremely interested in if others do consider themselves still in a romantic relationship with a kintype's partner, or non-romantic relationship with another important character, in a similar fashion to me. It's an odd and pretty unique experience: for all intents and purposes the kintype is a self-insert, but that insert is still a canon character. I don't particularly 'ship' the couple at hand in a fandom way, and oftentimes I privately disagree with fandom members wholeheartedly 'shipping' us and dislike the idea of being known as 'that (x) shipper'. I just simply see these characters together as a relationship that involved me and happened in my life as them and one I still feel connected with. I feel as if a fan of the games in question would not be able to fully grasp the complexities of the relationship and the moments between us that were not seen in canon material and are likely to misrepresent it as wholly positive or wholly negative, or generally just fandomise it. To me, our relationship had messy and bad moments as do many other relationships in real life, rather than was just a poorly written or disagreeable relationship in a storyline put up for out-of-context public scrutiny: we were perfect together in our own fucked up way that many people will not understand or glean from the brief views of it given. My personal works depicting me and my partner together tend to stay private mainly for this reason.
My kintypes aren't spiritual so I don't see these as literal past-life relationships that I wish to stay loyal to through the next (though I certainly don't like to see them as false), I'd say my feelings "persisting" and my relationship still manifesting in my current life is probably more like my fictotypes and my identity as them act as a convenient buffer of sorts between me and comfortably being in a relationship. I can safely interact with the idea of a devoted long-term relationship in the security of something personal and completely under my control, through the persona of a part of my self I see as more Me than my physical form in reality. I can give myself something nice to latch onto to get me through the day, even if I recognise the characters are no longer real and no longer have a tangible presence in my life.
For me as Vergil, that character is the unnamed + basically unrevealed character who's the mother of Nero. We met when I was a young adult and had a short romantic relationship before we went our separate ways and I never saw her again. I don't entirely consider us still together as I feel like it's inaccurate to call her my girlfriend because of this, but I still consider us bonded in a much stronger way than just missing what we had. I frequently reminisce and imagine her still with me, just without a firm label on the relationship we have now. This is a pretty difficult 'selfshipping' experience because there is very little content other than what I personally remember and the art I've created just for my own viewing. Perhaps if she were an easier character to get hold of canon content and information for (there is none), I would feel differently about having a 'stronger' relationship with her in this life.
For me as Raiden, the character is Rosemary. The first years of our relationship undeniably weren't the best, half because of my instability and emotional distance and half because of the nature of our meeting and first two years of our relationship that becomes a big plot point later in the game, but we married later on, settled down (sort of), communicated needs and issues more effectively, and we found a bit of peace all things considered. It's because of this effort that I'm able to happily still see her as my wife now with minimal guilt. It's much easier to find fan and canon content of Rose since she features somewhat heavily in two games but given that neither are very feelgood and her main role as a character was to draw attention to the dysfunction in our relationship, the dysfunction of my character, and throw a curveball in the last leg of the debut game, I tend to rely on my own brain to give me those better moments to focus on.
Rose is the character I consider my 'actual' partner in a fictoromantic sense, she's my wife and my significant other. She is the constant, while my mate as Vergil is a character that crops up in my fantasies now and then as a passing longing and a "would things be different if we were still together", like an ex on good terms I suppose. I don't see my relationship with Rose as strictly monogamous like many in the waifuist community do, so looking back on memories of another life or having feelings for another character doesn't strike me as cheating or something of the sort, but I will say I don't plan on dating any other character on the same level of commitment as I do with Rose out of respect and just being fully content this way.
I feel dedicated to both as if I am still the kintype in question and our relationship just carried on into a different world; it still feels real to me in the way that the former is a past lover I mated with and thought of fondly later in life and the latter is my wife of many years. It's just more distant now, given I will never see them again in person, and I don't wish to meet somebody who identifies as them in this life. Though, physical distance was already an issue I was very conscious of and somewhat used to at the time: I sort of see my current life as similar to working away in another country far from Rose again, just without my semi-regular phone calls or other communications home.
I'm not sure how to describe my daily life with them other than this: both of these characters take up a lot of space in my brain, I always fall asleep thinking of them, I now own physical merch of Rose that I treat as an extension or manifestation of her in place of an imagined presence, I think of them with me throughout the day, and I reminisce fondly of when we were physically together. Pretty much every scenario and fantasy I come up with features Rose instead of some nebulous other woman. I sincerely refer to Rose as my wife in my mind, though I struggle to do so publicly (literally or over the internet) or among friends because of the shame I feel around having a fictional significant other, especially one that is not the most popular character in the series by a long shot... This unpopularity works in my favour in the way that I will likely never see another person who's married to her in the way I am and feel any sort of jealousy, but also at my disadvantage in adding to my self-consciousness and having to be exposed to the many, many, fandom hot takes and exaggerated, honestly borderline misogynistic, hate rants about her. I do pretend I don't take the fandom's poor opinion of her to heart, but admittedly I then go and seethe over the posts in her Tumblr tag. Sometimes I hope I'll eventually pluck up the courage to talk to others in the fandom and I'll make a friend who won't make me feel so frightened and ashamed about showing any sign of loving her even separate from seeing her as my partner.
Despite the drawbacks and the difficulties with cringe culture and being physically away from my significant other(s), I'm glad to finally come to this conclusion and embrace it just a little more seriously. I don't need to force myself into 'real' relationships to find happiness and normality. I already find true happiness in my kintype-related past relationships, and it's a big step to write about them publicly. I view this as a healthy outlet for me and not a negative influence on my ability to form IRL relationships. I would be on the aromantic spectrum and have difficulties with romantic commitment and attraction regardless of fictional partners. I don't think I'll ever return to a point where I can be open enough to make a dedicated blog or contribute regularly to the fictosexual communities, although I do wish I could gain that confidence and openness back someday, but this essay is as good a first step as any. I will always have a high level of respect for those openly in a relationship with a fictional character regardless of my direct involvement in the various relevant communities, and I hope anyone reading this knows I'm forever cheering them on and if they are unsure about being open about their attraction, take this as a sign to start writing something or create a blog dedicated to your partner(s) and your feelings for them.
As a little endnote. I started writing this in mid-April so it seemed very fitting and more special to just wait until the 30th to edit and publish it, so: Happy 16th anniversary :-] I know I just wrote over two thousand words about how I date a fictional character but getting really sappy about anything here still feels weird hahah.