Self-Shipping

Synonyms:	yumeshipping, yumejoshi, dreamer, dreamshipping
See also:	Self-Insert, Reader-Insert, Wish Fulfillment, Waifu, Fictosexuality, What community is right for you?, Snapewives, Reality shifting
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You may be looking for Selfshipping, a shipname for the Yu-Gi-Oh! ship Hao the Supreme King/Yuuki Judai.

Self-shipping or selfshipping is to ship oneself with a canon character. Self-shippers do not all identify as fictoromantic/fictosexual, an exclusive attraction to fictional characters, but many do.

There is an active self-shipping community on Tumblr, including blogs like fuck-yeah-selfships.

Terminology

Japanese

• Dream Protagonist (夢主, yumeshu or yumenushi) - An original character who enters a relationship with a canonical character. This can range from a simple self-insert to a fully-realized OC.
• Dreaming Girl (夢女子, yumejoshi) - Mostly female or fem-aligned self-shippers. A Reddit community for yumejoshi discussion exists at r/yumejoshi.
• Dream Boy (夢男子, yumedanshi) - Male or masc-aligned self-shippers.
• Dream Person (夢人, yumejin) - A gender-neutral term developed by some western communities.
  • This term is not typically used in Japanese fandom. A more accurate pronunciation, sometimes used by other fans, is "yumehito" or "yumebito."
• Dream (夢, yume) - An umbrella term for self-shippers.
• Dreamer ("ドリーマー") - A loanword of the English "dreamer."
• Dreamer (夢者, musha)
• Real Love (リアコ, riako) - From riaru ni koi shiteru, "really in love"; originates from gyaru and idol fan spaces. It is typically used for women and denotes a person who views their relationship with their F/O the same as they would a real relationship.
  • The gender-neutral and/or male-aligned equivalent of raiko is gachikoi (ガチ恋).
• Sharing Welcome (同担歓迎, doutan kangei) - The self-shipper will happily interact with others who pursue the same character.
• No Sharing (同担拒否, doutan kyohi) - The self-shipper does not interact with others who pursue the same character, even among friends. This may apply outside of yumeship, such as if someone else is an intense fan of a character they are also an intense fan of.
• No Sharing Outside of Friends (親輪外同担拒否, shinringai doutan kyohi) - A conditional type of self-ship. This self-shipper has conditional rules for sharing among close friends, but does not wish to share outside of their own circle.
• Conditional Sharing (条件発動型同担拒否, jouken hatsudou-gata doutan kyohi) - A complex and individual type of boundary; the shipper may feel comfortable interacting with those who pursue the same character under most circumstances but then dislike it under others, they were once comfortable sharing and aren't any longer, etc.

English

• Comfort Character - Not necessarily related to self-shipping; many people in the self-ship community have comfort characters whom they do not ship themselves with.
• Conditional Sharing - Those who are comfortable with sharing under certain conditions, such as only with friends.
• Double - Someone who self-ships with the same character. The term is also used in fictive and factive spaces, as well as fictionkin and factkin spaces, to refer to those who identify as or are the same character or person.
• F/O - From "fictional other": the character one self-ships with.
• Hypersharing - Those who enjoy sharing and actively encourage it.
• Mirror-sharing - Those who are open to sharing with others who also share, but do not share with those who do not.
• Non-Sharing, Sharing NG - Those who do not want to interact with or discuss their F/O with others who share the same F/O.
• Sharing OK - Those who are comfortable with sharing their F/O with others.
• Yumeshipper - Some self-shippers refer to themselves as yumeshippers as a reference to the Japanese term.

Differences Between Selfship, Yumeship, and Yumejoshi

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Yumeship is said by some fans to be a more modern term combining yumejoshi with Western shipping. Some fans believe that the adoption of yumeshipping as a term in Western/English-speaking fandom is an example of orientalism in fandom and fails to recognize the differences between the communities.

• Let’s talk a bit about the term “yumejoshi” and its roots bc I feel like it’s a pretty interesting look into a corner of JP fandom that not a lot of people know about. by sakaimii (2020) - (archived)
• Yume on Japaniche

Common Self-Shipping Activities

Self-shippers may draw fanart of themselves with their F/O or commission others to do so. Some may write fanfiction with their F/O and a self-insert, and others may create moodboards. This is a only a sampling of how self-shippers may express their ship, as there is a huge range of expressing one's self-ship, much like there is for canon x canon ships.

Common types of posts in the self-ship community include:

• "Imagines," or sharable text posts prompting people to imagine their self-ship OTP. These often have generalized terms, sometimes avoid the use of pronouns, and can range in a spectrum of broadly relatable to specific target audiences or meant for very niche audiences.
• Ask games that prompt people to share art, imagines, headcanons, stories, or similar content of themselves (or their self-inserts) and F/Os.
• Posts saying "show me a picture of your F/O and I will relate them to __ based on how they look or what I think they're like." These can be songs, foods, date ideas, tarot cards, or anything else the OP may be interested in.

Discourse and the Selflovingly Community

At some point on Tumblr, discourse started on what was and wasn't acceptable in the world of self-shipping. Some common complaints were about adults with minor F/Os or other age gaps (such as an older teenager and younger teenager). Another issue was people with sexist or otherwise bigoted F/Os.

All of this led to the creation of the Selflovingly community. The Selflovingly community created rules against cishets posting in the tag, F/Os from canons with "racist and antisemitic roots," age gap relationships, among other things. The community was criticized for being controlling and hostile by self-shippers. However, others defended the Selflovingly community, saying they "do not agree with what the self ship community is and has become."

External links

• What is the difference between Fujoshi and Yumejoshi? (Japanese)
• "Selfship" works on AO3
• self insert handbook glossary page of a carrd