No.5541
>>5539I'm exhausted and forgot to mention that art like that image kindof annoys me as well. It's drawn just fine the artist is talented, but who looks at a featureless character and is able to project themselves onto it?
No.5542
>>5538This isn't full on self-inserting but it annoys me when a shipper clearly lusts for one character and just uses the other as a "vessel" to act out what they want. It's pretty common and obvious when their favorite character is the bottom, they'll always tweet about wanting to fuck him, etc. and then basically reduce the top to a personalityless dildo. They clearly don't like the ship because they find the relationship/dynamic interesting, they're just there for one character so why are these type of fans even here.
And this might sound nonsensical but while they tweet about wanting to do XYZ to the bottom, even if it sounds like they're posting from the top's perspective, it really just sounds like wish fulfillment in the sense that they're projecting what they want onto bottom (because lbr most fujos are straight women and write from that perspective). It's like they're self-inserting into the top and bottom simultaneously. But regardless these types of shippers annoy me because I don't understand why you'd want anything to do with the characters personally. They tend to be the type to write the characters OOC too because they only give a shit about half of the pairing.
No.5543
>>5542I agree heavily, it makes me wonder why they cant just make an OMC or Mob character to do the work rather than mischaracterize a pre-existing character as a stand in for the supposed "ship".
I can take a couple joking quips of what the person would want to do with the bottom, but when you start reflecting these desires onto random characters, regardless if it would be in character or not, it starts getting into weird self insert territory
No.5546
>>5538I've never really 'gotten' self-inserting. One thing that initially attracted me to BL was how defined the protagonists were compared to some other genres. Ultimately, I'm here to see two characters interact, so I don't factor into the equation at all. It's actually led to me not connecting to some pieces of media where the protagonist felt too bland or too much like a vessel for the reader.
This might be hyper-specific, but it's also extremely annoying when fic writers try to change one of the characters to make that character more like themself. I've seen fics where the author just randomly adds some sort of disability to a character who did not have it in canon (like ADHD or autism or something), and it's always painfully obvious that it's a condition the author also has. Same for when the author decides to give a character a random hobby or interest that doesn't fit with the character's canonical portrayal, or some sort of insecurity that the writer invented for the character. Completely takes me out of the story.
>>5542Agreed. What's really frustrating is trying to talk about my ships with people like this. I get that everyone can like what they like, but I feel like I have nothing in common with people who do this. Like, the whole reason we're consuming the media is at complete odds. It's almost like they're treating one of the characters like a tool or device rather than another character to contribute to the dynamic.
No.5548
>>5539>Another interesting compotent of self-insert fandom is chatbots. I have a coworker who spends hours "texting" Bakugou from BnHA on Character AI, she's almost a decade younger then me so I figured it must just be a younger person thing, but so I started seeing it pop up in communities I use.I suspect the rise in character chatbots has to do with people wanting to scratch the same itch as roleplaying does but without the risk of your RP partner turning out to be a creep. Especially for younger people in fandom RPing can be dangerous cause of all the groomers out there.
>>5546>I've never really 'gotten' self-inserting. One thing that initially attracted me to BL was how defined the protagonists were compared to some other genres.Agreed. While I'm primarily a fujoshi I've sometimes consumed otome media over the years but it's always a turnoff when someone will post a steam link to a VN that has handsome men in it but then the steam page will mention that the protagonist is just customisable pronouns instead of their own character. Any romance in there is just going to be the blandest thing possible because the writers have to make it neutral enough to appeal to any player.
No.5549
>>5538I am not sure if I ever self-inserted. I can relate to some characters a lot and see myself in them, but I don't feel the need to change their past to make it identical to mine, add dumb shit like them being NEETs like me when they aren't (kinners do that) or give them a vagina. I don't need any of that to relate.
Think the closest I ever got to identify with a character was with Shinji from NGE and Tsukasa from .hack, but I wasn't sexually attracted to them so I didn't ship either.
The main issue with self-inserting is that it makes every post about a character others make incredibly personal. You don't ship a character anymore, you ship "them". Self-inserters cannot act rational because they think they ARE the character and they usually happen to be super sensitive, emotionally labile people so they overract and want a story to turn to shit to fulfill their retarded desires.
Like when an otaku wants the male characters to disappear and the MC to fuck every girl. God awful story, but he doesn't care because he believes it was all about him and his retarded urgges.
No.5556
What I hate is how self-inserters try to twist what they're doing into "it's just empathy", thats not what empathy is. Empathy is being able to understand a character without bringing yourself into it. Rewriting a characters past and personality in your brain to make it easier for yourself to understand is the opposite of being empathetic. Projection is not empathy.
No.5573
>>5556Self-inserting is the least empathetic thing you can ever do. I will die by that statement. Imagine not feeling for the character because it's not you. That's sociopathic behavior
No.5580
>>5556One of the big issues with self-inserters (that wasn't mentioned yet) is the irrational hatred towards antagonists and the annoying lack of interest in canon, worldbuilding and other characters too since self-inserters are obsessed with their alter-ego getting everything he wants.
And yes they try to justify everything rationally. Like explaining why every antagonist deserves shit, even if the precious self-insert character isn't better than them, why their pairings are right and all others wrong (so they become antis) and lots of other shit. And don't even get me started with the self-projection when they headcanon that the self-insert shares all of their viewpoints, even political ones, and fight to defend this shit.
No.5581
>>5538I don't know if I'm being schizo or if there is a legit erosion of the idea of making a character that isn't you.
I was watching some kid shows with a relative and each time there was an episode about some sort of creativity, it was centered around the protagonist.
Learning to paint, they paint themselves. Learning to write, they write a comic of themselves wearing a cape with superpowers. Constantly there was this vibe of "I'm having fun being creative because I get to write about ME!". If they meet some historical figure, it's always "wow they're just like me".
Stuff like "there isn't a superhero that looks like me, so I'll make one that does!" Now, I know as a kid some shows would do this, but I don't remember it being this bad.
No.5582
>>5557>I guess people consume media for different reasonsThis is the central problem with every issue involving media.
There are people that consume it as background noise, so it has to be easy to understand even to someone who doesn't pay attention. Others only use it as shit to calm their urges and fantasies, so they only care about a story involving MC getting the girl or being the super dude or super special princess like in isekai stuff.
Others again want an engaging story or are there for the character dynamics. Fujos usually fall into the latter two categories, often at the same time. But because of this they are inherently incompatible to self-inserters (m or f), waifu fags, switch-brain-off fags and other subtypes of audiences.
A HUGE issue with anime is that westerners don't take it seriously because it's drawn. This INCLUDES otaku. Because of this the audiences that care about story or characters are small and usually stick to live action. This is the bane of fujo and why you either share the fandom with spergs or feel lonely and are one of the five only damn westerners loving it while 99% of the rest of the fanbase are Asians that are more likely to anime seriously.
No.5583
>>5581It's not your imagination, I call it the "validation" trend and it started around the mid 10s. You also notice it for anime. Look at all the female and male otaku MCs we get. Isekai MCs. Otome fanatics and fujos in anime or the MCs of office romances. Every MC has to be the "literally me" character these days.
In the past the standard hero was someone cool like Kenshiro or He-Man, now it's otaku or insecure chosen ones for anime and overweighted kids, boys with anxiety attacks, ADHD lesbians and other stuff. Those are attempts of representing the audience, this is also where "woke" trends comes from. It has rarely genuine, it's usually just a brown US American to represent the US audience.
The plots are the same. Most cartoons I watched the last years were about validation. Every conflict was about an insecurity and ending with everybody telling MC that they are "valid" the way they are, shouldn't change. Classic stories had the opposite moral and the MC was supposed to change and grow. They expected the audience to relate regardless and we did! To me it was inspiring to see a MC improving and getting strong. Now they believe it would make them feel bad about themselves.
No.5590
>>5546>I've never really 'gotten' self-inserting. One thing that initially attracted me to BL was how defined the protagonists were compared to some other genres.I'm the same. I remember being baffled at the amount of yumes on Lolcow and those horny YA readers on booktok who unironically said they can't enjoy romance that doesn't allow self inserting because I've always found shit like that so cringe and awkward, I'd much rather read about a defined couple and their relationship as it is. A lot of straight media is based on self insertion to a degree which is probably why I was never into romance as a genre before getting into BL. And even in BL I can't get into the ship at all if the other character is too bland or obviously meant for (you) purposes, but that seems much less common than it is in most straight romances.
>>5580>One of the big issues with self-inserters (that wasn't mentioned yet) is the irrational hatred towards antagonists and the annoying lack of interest in canon, worldbuilding and other characters too since self-inserters are obsessed with their alter-ego getting everything he wants.Oh, absolutely. This is possibly my biggest gripe with them because they seem to actually hate the canon source, but obsess over this one character which is why they stick around and spit venom at anyone who actually enjoys the canon and the conflict written in it.
>>5583I would bet that this trend was started by producers who said that people will consume their product if they can relate to the characters, and the easiest way to do so is to just make every main character a self insert because you don't have to mind their writing since leaving them just vague enough people will fill in the gaps themselves.
No.5591
>>5581It's true. Speaking from american perspective, but the dogma around writing has become "write what you know". This is the advice given to anyone who goes into writing. The Express of the self is put on a pedestal as the very meaning of art itself. We also have retards who think it's morally wrong to write about a character of a different race/gender/sexuality etc. Using art to explore that which exists outside of you has been thrown to the wind.
No.5592
>>5591It doesn't help that online criticism is amplified to be louder than it has ever been. Unless you put hundreds of hours into research to get everything as right as you can in your story, people will lambast it to list all the things you got wrong and hold you accountable for it. So people just end up creating inoffensive slop about mundane things that flies under the radar just enough to make everyone leave you alone, and storytelling to explore something inaccessible to you in real life exists no more.
No.5593
>>5542This is my greatest gripe with self inserting that isn't blatant (literally me) x character.
You can just tell when someone is basically a honorary yumejo if they only care about one character specifically and the relationships they supposedly ship are just glorified "I just want X to be fucked".
The west does a lot of cuntboytisms but jp does the whole one-side genderbends too when one of the characters (usually the bottom) is just straight up a girl.
At that point you are just insert yourself being loved by the character you love the most.
No.5594
>>5580Yes!! Related to this, there's the weird aversion to anything bad happening to the characters. When you get THAT invested into seeing a character as 'you,' anything bad that happens starts to feel like a personal attack, and anything the villain does feels like it's hurting you personally.
No.5595
>>5592That's true that some people are pressured out of writing compelling stories due to insane standards, but some of write that way because it's literally what their concept of a story is. I think the worst part was finding out that most people in fact do prefer using fiction for self-indulgence and ego-stroking rather than exploration and connection. Like they look at all the rich stories and intelligent authors in the world and consciously pick slop over that. I didn't know my faith in humanity could be killed even further.
No.5597
>>5542I LOVE fanfics written in the first person from the PoV of the top/the more active part of a relationship, which is the opposite of this so I relate.
I can sometimes enjoy some degenerated mob/character porn too but I hate it when the partner gets his personality erased to be a living dick. Where is even the fun?
It's even more cryptic when they love the bottom or would love to fuck him. Especially then you should be able to relate to the top and come with good ideas of how to write him. How does he try to get the other's attention or enjoy the time together? What does he thinks the other is thinking? How horny is he and so on but combine all that with his canon personality to make it fun and explore his personality. You get the intimacy with the bottom anyway so why not exploring both of them? It's so stupid and especially bad when the top is a great character on his own.
No.5602
>>5597>Especially then you should be able to relate to the top and come with good ideas of how to write himThis is why I think they're also paradoxically self-inserting into the bottom at the same time. They themselves probably just want a blank slate of a person to simply service and attend to their needs, that's why the top never has any personality beyond being there to fuck. In a better world these people would just stick to mob pairings but you don't get much community or clout from that. I've also noticed a pattern of how many of these types are "all(bottom)" shippers aka they ship the uke with anyone. Really just shows how interchangable the top is for them. None of them "like" the pairings because the relationship is interesting, it's more like dolls they can swap out when they wanna see the uke get fucked in different ways.
No.5605
I think people fundamentally misunderstand what self insertion even means and invent some superhuman mental ability that doesn't exist for the sole purpose of shitting on other fans with different tastes. I don't mean that as in fujos, but that it's a problem across the whole of anime fandom. Guys constantly fight over which titty anime is superior and start accusing their opponents of "self inserting", and will try to erase all the personality traits and developments of a male protagonist just to say "you guys like worse media than me, an intellectual". I'm enjoying this character and want to see him with other characters, and then eight people will scream at me "STOP LIKING HIM HE HAS NO TRAITS HE'S A SELF INSERT." Maybe because you have difficulty caring for male characters as a straight man and refuse to read into the behavior and commentary given to us? Geez.
>>5541>who looks at a featureless character and is able to project themselves onto it?You're not meant to? It's not for you. If you think this mob character by an artist who draws nothing but gay porn is meant to be literally you then you're being weird.
The rest of what you talked about is all shit though. I can't stand people thinking entire AI chatlogs are "funny memes" to spam on social media when the humor is just AI not managing to sound like the character in the slightest. I genuinely have never read nor met someone who has read one of those xReader fics with the placeholders, only seen people parody them for shitposts, but I assume they're children who haven't developed standards yet. They're just excited for all eight sentences of content so they can go "omg real omg i like same thing so bad i will die (sobbing emoji) (skull emoji)".
>>5542People like this are why I'm constantly giving disclaimers that one character is my main focus that I'm biased towards, even though I'm careful to try and say a sentence on the other character for every one sentence about my favorite in the ship. I can't help my preferences but I can at least try to respect the other characters and discuss their unique dynamics with him. The way he interacts with other people is still a part of him and you lose something if you remove from it.
The more I read this thread the more I think I really don't have any experience with self inserters in fandom. This is some insane alien logic.
No.5638
>>5605>The more I read this thread the more I think I really don't have any experience with self inserters in fandomConsider yourself lucky unless you're the unaware self-inserter posting here kek
I kid. Don't shoot me No.5649
>>5605I think actual self-inserters are what people call kinners nowadays. They are very different from your typical otaku let alone fujos.
Self-inserting is different from being viewing the top/MC as blank state who only exists to fuck a character. This is how men usually watch media I think. They rarely self-insert, it's more about the MC being a tool that they want to see marrying the girl. They don't care about the dude, they want to see the girl becoming a waifu similar to how "solo"-fujos just want the character to get fucked.
Both is okay I think. The actual self-inserting is KINNING and you usually find these people on tumblr and instagram and they are often the most annoying fans you will ever meet.
No.5654
>>5605>The more I read this thread the more I think I really don't have any experience with self inserters in fandom.It may just be the type of fandom you're in. You also may have a more discerning eye when it comes to fanfiction lol. It's deeply irritating to see fic writers turn a developed character into an in-universe version of themselves, but I'm sure it's less common in fandoms that skew older or have more mature members.
No.5658
>>5654I will never forget that self-inserting Mass Effect crazy that pretended to be Sparatus (some turian ambassador of the galatic council or whatever they fuck they were called) and got her mind broken when part 2 had a scene where rumor claimed that this character had cheated on his wife.
It wasn't even relevant, it was just some funny gossip. But that person (a TIF) was so obsessed with that alien dude that she wrote novel-length fics of his farm house and uncle from the military that were just literal autobiographic details of her own life. The game character didn't have an uncle or anything and was certainly not from a farm of whatever US state that person was from obsessed over (I can't even name more than four states, take that America).
I talked to her at first since we both liked aliens but it was cringe witnessing all of that. She even forced a matriarch grandma in that was a clone of her own one and turned the game wife (that was never shown) into a tradwife and the guy into a tard that loves her unconditionally so the reveal broke her. Instead of ignoring it she turned into a broken record making the same posts stating that canon isn't canon over and over again lmao
THIS is what a self-inserter is. Her character bore no resemblances to the canon guy anymore, she literally turned him into herself including her environment (even the fucking dog)
No.5685
>>5649Self-inserting isn't synonymous with kinning, kinning is a step further into insanity from just self-insertion. Self-inserting is projecting yourself into a character and using them as a vessel for you to experience the story personally, not thinking that you're actually this character.
No.5693
Is it me or are there more yumes on twitter who are very loud about how much they hate yaoi and who keep inserting their fantasies of themselves/male character into every conversation?
No.5696
>>5685NTA but I think anon was referring to the modern use of the word kinning, not the kind that I (and presumably you) grew up hearing, which was more of the "I am Literally Nagito Komaeda- doubles DNI." Nowadays, people use it more to describe a character they project onto/relate to.
No.5728
>>5693Yeah, it's really fucking bad. They think everyone needs to know about their self-insert ship and they often invade fujo spaces too and then will act like they're oppressed when no one gives a shit rightfully. I wish they could at least shut up.
No.5730
>>5693>>5728Probably correlated to the rise of 'ironic' homophobic jokes taking over so more of these types feel safe to talk shit about BL. Probably linked to Wattpad banning porn, leading to readerfic growing on Ao3, and those Wattpad selfinsert kiddies growing old enough to post their shitty takes as well.
Or maybe I just didn't see all the homophobic yumes out in the open back then. I remember there being self-insert material in my fandom back in the early 10s but you had to go looking for it and it was on Tumblr so it was easy to stay in your bubble.
No.5732
>>5728It has to be due to a sense of possessiveness, right?? As in, yumes can't stand the idea of anyone else being with their husbando? At least, that's what I've always assumed. I don't think there should be as much bad blood between us as there is, honestly. Yeah, we have different preferences, but at the end of the day, we fujos are less of a threat and an annoyance than the men who encroach on their media and spaces and start coomer-ifying things that were supposed to be made for them. We're also not like the men who demean and mock their media and hobbies for being "stupid" or "lame." If I were a yume, I'd be a lot more pissed at those people.
No.5733
>>5732its so strange how women otaku will infight rather than argue with weeb scrotes…i dont buy the female rivalry thing and i like to think its because we all already know men are stupid so arguing with them isnt productive or even fun lol
No.5734
>>5732I mean, the feeling I get as a fujo of getting annoyed at yumesperging about how much husbando loves bobs and vagene because I OTP him hard with another dude is pretty much the same at its core as the yume gets seeing fujos talk about husbando loving someone who isn't her or a selfinsert proxy, so I won't be a hypocrite, but if I were a yume I would understand that shipping some anime dude with myself or my OC is something personal to me that only I give a shit about and I wouldn't talk about it openly. You can bond over shared porn headcanons with other yumes I guess but that's about it.
I guess the difference is that as a fujo you have your ships and your NOTPs but for yumes literally everything is a NOTP unless it involves (You) personally and revolves around (Your) vagina and it makes it impossible to engage in fandom activities normally.
No.5735
>>5733>women otaku will infightWe are all gladiators in the coliseum that is shipping.
>>5728I blame FF14 getting popular and normalizing OC/NPC shipping. It was like a Trojan horse but the horse was good art of Emet-Selch and the soldiers were Persephone YumeWoL getting her back blown out. I didn't see fuckall for OC content in EN spaces until Shadowbringers specifically.
No.5736
>>5732>>5733I think it's the result of terminally online people. If you are too online all you see is the social media content around you and that content is largely made by fujos so it might feel to them as if 99% of all things existing in the world were fujo when the mass of the content is actually proof of the exact opposite. We only produce so much because we're forced to feed ourselves and have nothing else but us and a few crippled canon stories and creators that coincidentally wrote some fantastic chemistry and characters before turning the story to shit.
No.5737
>>5733I like this thought kek.
>>5734>I mean, the feeling I get as a fujo of getting annoyed at yumesperging about how much husbando loves bobs and vagene because I OTP him hard with another dude is pretty much the same at its coreI kind of agree, and that's why I find the sense of possessiveness somewhat understandable. At the same time, I'm very much someone who CANNOT multiship; I have my pairing and that's it, but when I see someone who ships Y/Z instead of X/Y, I don't really feel upset? I just kind of ignore it and don't feel particular bitterness toward people who don't share my opinion. One of my friends got me into a show featuring her OTP, and I realized that I preferred shipping one half of that pairing with a different guy. Despite that, we manage not to fight about it because, at the end of the day, we're enjoying the same story and both obviously care about the characters in our own way. I know this isn't a realistic expectation for online interactions, but I do wish it could be more like that. There are enough men hating on us both that I think we should collectively resent them instead of each other kek.
>I guess the difference is that as a fujo you have your ships and your NOTPs but for yumes literally everything is a NOTP unless it involves (You) personally and revolves around (Your) vagina and it makes it impossible to engage in fandom activities normally.I wonder if yumes with the same husbando ever get into fights about this…
>>5736>I think it's the result of terminally online people. I think so, too. SMall sample size, but I know a couple of women in real life who read reader insert fics and/or have husbandos. As you can assume, they're very normal and reasonable people. It's probably just because it's easy to feel inundated with fujos and shipping if your only interaction with fandom is online. Fujos are very passionate, and we do talk about this stuff a lot.
No.5742
>>5737>I wonder if yumes with the same husbando ever get into fights about this…Out of curiosity I've looked at a yume twitter once that's based around giving the community questions to answer and it sounded like a bunch of them will just block someone on sight if they yume the same character.
>>5735>I blame FF14 getting popular and normalizing OC/NPC shipping. It was like a Trojan horse but the horse was good art of Emet-Selch and the soldiers were Persephone YumeWoL getting her back blown out. I didn't see fuckall for OC content in EN spaces until Shadowbringers specifically.That's an interesting perspective. I started in around the shadowbringers era and when I made my way through the MSQ and reached that expack the community I liveblogged it to at the time included an Exarch yume and Emet yume who both were gushing to me about their husbandos while I was playing the game like a BL game. I assumed OC/NPC had always been huge, especially cause in the earlier MSQ Haurchefant and Aymeric were obsessed with (You).
No.5753
>>5734>I guess the difference is that as a fujo you have your ships and your NOTPs but for yumes literally everything is a NOTP unless it involves (You) personally and revolves around (Your) vagina and it makes it impossible to engage in fandom activities normallyI don't hate or want to fight with yumes but this is my experience as well. Even beyond the shipping stuff, you have to tread carefully to make sure you don't offend someone with very specific headcanons and attachments to a particular character. They to stick to themselves and block anyone who yumes the same character most of the time. Making content just around self-inserting plus a husbando seems much more limiting when it comes to fanworks. I want to bond with other women the best way I can though. It's best if you have yume friends in a fandom you aren't in at all so you can't ever step on landmines.
No.5754
>>5742>assumed OC/NPC has always been hugeIt's a proportions thing. There were always WoL shippers (and rightfully so tbh) but ShB blew the lid off.
No.5771
>>5538It ruined fandoms and media in general, you get a good piece of media and self inserters will flood it making the entire work about validating their own fantasies. With yumes they self insert as the relatable girl who gets princess treatment, with men it’s the bland, nice-guy protagonist who somehow lands a harem.
Yumes take any female character who isn’t them and turn her into some kind joke, evil rival or irrelevant background extra. Meanwhile, guys either hate on every other male character or don’t bother including them at all.
>>5580I am in a fandom that is just yumes and their simps, so if i ship male x male bzzz delusional, but if i ship side female x male bzzz delusional too and get hate from misogynistic yumes and /a/ shittiest posters with trash tier taste in waifus.
It's cancer and I unironically have more respect for oc creators, because at least they aren't lazy expecting the author to do their job for them.
No.5772
is it more common to be a fujo or a yume? this assuming that being a hime is the rarest out of the three
No.5773
>>5772Yumes are definitely more mainstream globally. There's thousands upon thousands of romance books made for them specifically to self-insert. And it's extended to other mediums as well, like interactive fiction and whatnot.
No.5774
>>5772Being a yume is more common, but fujoshi make more content and actively engage in communities in higher numbers. Basically, yumes are more likely to be casuals. As nerd spaces are increasingly merged with the mainstream, we see yumes finding their way into dedicated fan spaces more often.
No.5777
>>5772Yumes are basically the default expectation for female fans, and a lot of it ties into female socialization. Fujos are the polar opposite.
No.5807
>>5806>drama that they have to deal withThey created 90% of the drama, also much of the fujo hate comes from them
No.6088
>>5811Yumes call fujos pedos and problematic all the time yet here we are, still live and kickin, i guess they can't take the heat like we can
No.6236
This reminds me of the time I was in a big discord for mass effect and basically everybody but five people were yumes. Now guess who made the fanart? Right, us five fujos. I think there was one mediocre yume artist but she posted like one pic every six months that nobody commented on.
The discord was awful. The type of thing where you feel like walking on eggshells all the time. I thought it was just me because I am an insensitive shit who can't lie and is too lazy to adapt to that sugary talk they had, but my fujo friend COULD do that sweet innocent talk on top of being actually empathic and she said the same thing. We eventually left.
I remember how everything could get you into cross-fire. I once casually mentioned that I didn't like Enya (as in, the music, I know zero about celebrities and don't care) and it caused an uproar because Enya is some feminist icon or something so I must me misogynist when I was actually just talking about the damn music (I also dislike the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears). I didn't even hijack the chat, I just talked about loving bardcore and someone assumed I was an Enyafan (this isn't even bardcore or medieval music) so I said "nah" and angered the wasps nest.
Anyway it was toxic and they never talked about their ships because everybody ships the husbando with someone else (themselves) so they just browsed tumblr to find posts to get angry about and once in a week they booted one of their own because they got into a fight.
One thing I noticed (this isn't about yume but mass effect tumblr yumes) was that all of them were married NEETs living in the apartment of their husbands. They always hated on men, called them shit and talked about how women don't need them and just two minutes later they mentioned how their husband bought them some overpriced nerd shit of their husbando again and cooked food for them.
It always stroke me as weird as shit so I left. They also never talked about the few good het fics and instead fawned over some AU writer that turned the feMC into a slave who gets bought off by the prince husbando (shudder). In the game it's the other way around. The feMC (PC) is the boss and the guy is her underling and comrade. Btw a bunch of them blocked me for shipping gay stuff lol
No.6297
>>6236They sound annoying but ill be honest
>just two minutes later they mentioned how their husband bought them some overpriced nerd shit of their husbando again and cooked food for them. This is pretty based
No.6320
>>6297It would be based if they didn't brag about it in a discord
No.6325
>>6236>Anyway it was toxic and they never talked about their ships because everybody ships the husbando with someone else (themselves) so they just browsed tumblr to find posts to get angry about and once in a week they booted one of their own because they got into a fight. >One thing I noticed (this isn't about yume but mass effect tumblr yumes) was that all of them were married NEETs living in the apartment of their husbands. They always hated on men, called them shit and talked about how women don't need them and just two minutes later they mentioned how their husband bought them some overpriced nerd shit of their husbando again and cooked food for them. Kek this genuinely sounds like most posters on Lolcow to a T.
No.6332
>>6297I just can't stand dishonesty in general and neither people that act like princesses so I was happy to leave that fandom behind. They have no honor IMO because they do what they pretend to hate.
They are for some reason obsessed about being independent while being simultaneously incapable of going to the grocery store so a man does it for them them and buys their food like a parent does for their toddler. I just believe that their annoying attitude stems from that exact cognitive dissonance and they project their hatred onto others, especially women with a normal lifestyle.
I have no idea where this mindset comes from so I headcanon that these people stem from some fundamentalist shithole towns or got brainwashed by their parents. None of the women I know personally were ever afraid or in need of men and most are pretty independent in general, even the ones that are married. It's like a foreign culture to me. I never met a woman who was afraid of leaving the apartment at night or was too insecure to go to the supermarket and it actually reminds of the males of my own country's altchan which is one of the cringiest places on earth and full of grown ass dudes who are too afraid to face the pizza supplier.
To me it reeks of infantilization of girls and must therefore come from the parents and environment. And they are proud of it which rubs me the wrong way and I don't want to be associated with this.
No.7096
Self-insertion has severely damaged fandom. I don't know what can be done to change the course of it. Everyone asks "What about me?" when looking at characters when you should be looking at the media and the characters for who and what they are. It's ridiculous how this has caused the deluge of tranny fics and art all in the guise of "representation"
No.7946
>>7943This just makes me think of all the "blank slate" characters people ship from video games that I've never gotten. If the character solely exists to repersent the player and has no personality of their own then even if the design is cute I can't get invested.
It's funny that people used to write x OC fics to fill their need to have the characters smooch them, but now they've dropped the facade of even pretending to have another figure their and it's just X Reader.
No.7947
>>7946Ignoring the Manga that's totally its own thing, since we have Masters the Pokemon protagonists technically have personalities now, but it's Masters, so they're still pretty bland. I like the freedom with characterization and MC-kuns are a nice fallback option for me if my favorite guy doesn't have anyone I want to pair him with. But a MC x Husbando ship is rarely going to get me super deeply invested due to that blank aspect. I regularly get attached to minor characters with barely any substance though, so cute designs really can be enough for me, as long as the other half of the ship does have substance. I can't personally wrap my head around MC x MC ships because those are a whole nothingburger, seems like the fans tend more towards selfinserting male shotafags rather than fujos.
I wonder if for me, the default designs of Pokemon MCs are something that helps me see them as their own characters compared to a game that just throws you into a character creation screen.
No.7948
>>7946>This just makes me think of all the "blank slate" characters people ship from video games that I've never gotten. If the character solely exists to repersent the player and has no personality of their own then even if the design is cute I can't get invested. This is how I feel with Atlus games in general specially Persona. Even more so when different flavors of x/MC or MC/x are the most popular ships, with very little outliers being character/character. The Persona MCs have "some" personality but most of it is entirely headcanoned by the people as a whole, when I have to basically make the MC into a whole different character, it might as well just be my OC and I'm personally not like that.
This also was worse during the FE 3H Era too with Byleth being the blandest MC ever alive that it makes Kamui look good.
Also BL for Fates fucking sucked because the male MC design wasn't even that good either No.7949
>>7948>This is how I feel with Atlus games in general specially Persona. Even more so when different flavors of x/MC or MC/x are the most popular ships, with very little outliers being character/character. I'll never not be annoyed Adachi/Souji managed to be the most popular ship for Adachi when Adachi/Doujima is prime tragic dark material. That being said I do think the anime adapation of 3 and 4 really help those protags be characters unlike the games.
>>7947>I wonder if for me, the default designs of Pokemon MCs are something that helps me see them as their own characters compared to a game that just throws you into a character creation screenThis is my theory for why Calem and beyond aren't nearly as popular fandom-wise.
No.7950
>>7949>This is my theory for why Calem and beyond aren't nearly as popular fandom-wise.I think this is part of it but there are other factors, like how shippy their rival relationship is. Red, Ethan and Hilbert were the most popular due to their rival characters. Calem didn't really get anything, then after Gen 6, they started doing much younger kid MCs again, and Gen 7 and 8's default male MCs didn't appeal to me. But Florian really took off in Gen 9 because of his classic cute shota design and the shipbait that was Arven and Kieran.
(I know that Gladion and Bede followed the classic rival formula but I'm not sure how popular they were because I haven't checked those fandoms out yet)
I think the few male MCs with any popularity have always been the outliers to be honest, they tend to get the short end of the design stick and overshadowed by the feMC.
No.7952
>>7951>assuming everyone self-inserts into the female charactersThis has always annoyed the fuck out of me, they only latch onto the cuck insult so hard because they can't divorce themselves from the fiction that they like. I've also seen himejos use it which makes no sense because it's basically an insult towards all shippers.
>not being able to consume any type of entertainment without making retarded ships should be considered a type of disorder or mental illnessYou'd think this tweet was a criticism of people fandomifying The Brothers Karamazov or some shit but it's about LaDS. It's not like being romanced by a 2D anime boy is comparatively any better than yaoi'ing them especially when people yume characters that aren't from that type of media.
No.7953
>>7951>4 of these have kpop group idol avatarsNo seriously, why is it always them EVERY time?
No.7955
>>7951It's not a cuck fetish if I didn't want the guy to be with me in the first place.
No.7956
>>7951>I know which crowd hate female characters the most for stupid reasons like getting in the way of their shipsIronic considering yumes will literally write 1001 bashing fics because the male love interest in a female oriented media has another love interest outside of the main girl character. Case in point, Lila and Chloe (and Kagami to an extent) from Miraculous Ladybug have so many character bashing fics (they call it salt fics) it’s not even funny. I’m sure a lot of them have gotten deleted over the years, but being into any of these girls more than Marinette was like trying to find a needle in a haystack if you wanted a fic that gave them a happy ending over Marinette.
No.7957
>>7946For me personally a nice character design and fun doujin concept can go a long way and I also find it interesting to see how people fill in the blanks with a silent protag. That dragon quest 11 doujin that was shared in /ot/'s gaming thread is a great example. Of course, it's not like that game is very deep to begin with so you don't have to characterise 11-kun as anything but "Virtuous hero who fell in love with one of his male companions."
No.7958
>>7957That was a cute doujin! And yes playing with stuff like video game mechanics is fun, but at the end of the day it's never as interesting as two characters with established personalities. I don't think it's voyeuristic or "cucking" or anything weird like that. People read stories for the plot, I enjoy fanfiction as an extension of canon and to do that I need to already know and love the parties involved.
No.7960
>>7951If anything I’m being nice by shipping guys in otome games since they won’t have to be forever alone if they didn’t win the me the player bowl
No.7967
>>7951This is about LaDS, isn't it? Although I guess it can apply to yumes in general and not just LaDS ones, but I think self inserting has genuinely rotten these people's brains to the point where they think that games are defined by the protagonist's(who they self insert as) gender, rather than literally any other trait. When it comes to LaDS, they believe that the fact that it has a FeMC makes it a game
for women, and that the ones asking for a male MC or shipping the guys are men who want to be represented in the game. Even though it's obvious that anyone who plays LaDS is playing it for the dateable male characters, I've seen people completely unironically say things like
if you want a male MC in LaDS you should instead play a galge, where the dateable options are (usually)… female characters. I thought it was just bait, but I've seen so many similar takes that seem to come from people who fully believe that
games for men are defined by having a male MC and nothing else, and
games for women are defined by having a female MC. Maybe the world has gone crazy.
No.7994
>>7951It doesn't even make sense semantically, being cucked would mean to watch someone you're in a relationship with or have a crush on being fucked by someone else. I'm not in love with the characters I ship, voyeurism would be a more accurate description. Also I swear these people are the ones sperging about fujos on Lolcow's fandom related threads, it's uncanny.
>>7956Kek for real though, they will endlessly chimp out about how much fujos hate women but they themselves see other female characters as direct competition and lose their minds if they have to share their husbando with either another character or another yume.
No.7995
>>7953K-pop is built on preying on lonely and mentally ill people who can imagine the idols as their girlfriends/boyfriends, of course there's an overlap with the self insertion community.
No.7996
>>7967The game has a built in period tracker anon. Pretty sure it's for women. Specifically cis women.
No.8001
>>7994>I'm not in love with the characters I ship, voyeurism would be a more accurate descriptionI think playing with dolls is even more accurate since we are not passively watching characters fuck from a distance but actively writing narratives and controlling ficitional concepts in our head. The lolcow threads confuse me, even if we have a world of eroticized men they still somehow have an issue. Antis act like ryona or dark themes in BL is the same as masturbating to videos of cartel toture. It's like if someone made two Ken dolls kiss and then kill each other, then someone else starts crying and asking how you can be okay with that. Same with the whole cuck debate, is rooting for the main couple in generic romcoms getting cucked?
No.8002
>>8001> is rooting for the main couple in generic romcoms getting cucked?According to their own words, they erase the female lead and project themselves in her place. And then they call other people misogynistic when they just treat female characters like placeholders for their own selves, the real MC of every story ever created kek.
No.8003
>>7996Oh definitely, I'm not arguing that, the yumes can honestly have that game since I don't really like the artstyle much anyway. I just find the general behaviour in the community really ridiculous and extreme at times, it's the best example of how awful (and homophobic) yumes can get.
No.8015
>>8002I've noticed that it's often those who self-insert into the most nagging and unlikeable female characters that then use feminism to guilt-trip everyone into liking them.
For example someone in a fandom I’m in literally asked people to choose between two female characters and claimed that their choice would determine their views on women. That level of unhinged self-insertion is something I just cringe at, like you have to guilt trip people in order to choose someone like you? It's so gross, no wonder these people use fictional characters to get their self esteem from
No.8022
>>8015That's a plague in the Transformer fandom too with Starscream. SS is a great character, but people relating to him are a huge red flag because it's usually women that think being a manipulative, back-stabbing bitch was cool or blame one of their mental illnesses for acting that way and equal Starscream criticism with misogyny because THEY are like him or think they were. It also requires the additional step of headcanoning him as a woman, as trans or at least as someone who is supposed to represent women which is absolutely not the case.
SS is just your classic manipulative, bitchy, evil side-kick. He's supposed to be amusing to watch or hot, not to be literally you.
No.8024
>>8022Local TF fan here who's been plaguing/lurking this board for a few months. And it's so hard not to constantly complain about it. Because it's just so irritating. And worse, it's a fandom constant. Across every media, most of my complaints stem from my favorites, which include Screamer. Linking it to self-inserting makes so much sense, because all fanfiction of him is written like he's got the headspace of a 20 year old emotionally immature college student, not someone who's exclusively happy when hurting and abusing other people.
He's just evil. Outside of Armada, he's one age rating short of being a horror antagonist, and that is specifically why he's one of my favorites. Like Cobra Commander but for some reason, he's regarded as basically a 'she'. a diva, and the target for mech preg/breeding obsession.
No.8025
>>8024Yeah it's a shame because he's a great character with so much potential for cool shit. I love the artists that draw him as unhinged bitch or do something interesting with him (we need a continuity in which he becomes an evil Prime IMO). And yeah it's an issue in every TF fandom no matter which one and regardless of whether it's comics or cartoons.
>Like Cobra Commander but for some reason, he's regarded as basically a 'she'Kek I didn't know that about CC. This feels so random to me I think many fans just call everybody they like a woman or trans. My other fandom is plagued by the same shit and the guy in question is an old conservative dude who is good at fighting and rules over people, he has nothing feminine about him but since he's engaging and fun fans like him and liking someone means they're female and uwu. Sad.
No.8026
>>8025>or do something interesting with him It's a shame TFOne is dead because I think an older SS that has to mentor Megatron for the good of the Decepticons while also having to defer to him as his master would genuinely be interesting.
No.8027
I think self insertion is the biggest reason fandom sucks now, mostly for fujoshis. The het shippers say you're misogynist because you don't self insert on the woman and you're not making content for them. People trooning male characters into women and saying that's better. And of course, the moids who are currently trying to burn down every gacha industry because they need to self insert onto a bland male mc. This means no other males present because it's gay, every waifu is for them, and absolutely no good stories because if any character doesn't kiss their mc's ass, they rage. All media needing to be escapist self insert trash is not only why a lot of canons suck now, but why fandom sucks.
No.8028
>>8026I thought the same. It's a shame that we won't get more of it (mainly for the shitty marketing, even) and that fans will probably memoryhole it because it doesn't match the weak, inexperienced Starscream headcanon.
I was already sad that IDW1 never elaborated on his past as a political figure and senator. It's a cool as shit starting point for an evil dude to be part of an evil government but we only got tidbits.
IDW2 featured a mostly decent government but his role was interesting nonetheless since there he was the corrupt, back-stabbing senator. But most fans didn't read it out of protest, either because they're angry about IDW1's cancellation or IDW1's homo pandering (the boomers and dudebros) so it didn't get the traction it deserved IMO.
Anyway I want SS as a powerful figure.
No.8029
>>8028From the lenses of a self-inserter, SS in any continuity must be flanderized and dependent on a man who wants nothing but to pamper him. And One SS was the opposite to that in every way.
He was confident, less evil and his actions felt nuanced. Like he was aware hiding out in a trash hovel was the only reason he had respect. He had everything, as long as they remained a secret, and D's beatdown went into a direction he couldn't control. The idea of him having to constantly fight for the control he lost in this one scene would have been incredible to see expanded upon- but self-insertion makes him a vehicle for girls who are into being choked/dommed or a nonsense crossover to date their giant jet bf Skyfire. It is insane to me that the episode of G1 that gave him real intelligence, history and a relationship outside of backstabbing someone just became 'tall boyfriend ship' and that was it from thereon.
One of the reasons I can't read Prime fanwork anymore is because that specific SS is the Prime candidate for "omg she's such a diva." Not helped by Frank Welker putting on his best voice ever as megs. Who wouldn't want 15 tonnes of giant jet warlord?
No.8034
>>8022>>8024As someone who was into Transformers as a kid and Starscream was my favourite reading this hurts like a bitch kek, what did they do to him
No.8040
>>8034In official media? Nothing. He only gets more evil with every new version but somehow people just ignore that for geewunner Starscream and Prime exclusively. Doesn't matter what he says, he'll always be Jetfire's boyfriend because Jetfire's a good person, and self inserters don't want to BE bad people. I've noticed this about self inserters with avatars of popular characters who are often forceful to dominant.
They want to be bratty, a mean girl, but with none of the negativity associated with being one so they claim the chatacter's just an abuse victim which excuses their actions.
Picrel just slaughtered about six people and only spared the cat because it attacked someone else that was not him. But "she" cares about her appearance so "she" is obviously just a diva.
Obviously.
No.8042
>>8040Tbf, Skybound's Starscream is a terrible example of the character NOT being an abuse victim because Megatron literally brainwashed him into becoming a murderer, dude was just some scientist until the war came along.
As a Megatron/SS shipper I find Megatron ultimately being backstabbed by the same monster he helped create very compelling, but it's a very clearcut case of a Starcream that got fucked up by Megatron specifically.
No.8043
>>8042I get what you mean, about brainwashing. Starscream, to me, reads as just needing a reason. It's in his character to be cruel, even in Shattered Glass with how he killed Blur. But regardless of how he started, there's always some justification I see made for him, which doesn't always excuse his behavior. It is his character to actively attention seek, covet greed, and push other people into the line of fire.
That specifically is why I like him. And Skybound feels like Screamer with no limits. Before the brainwashing, acting as a civilian, his actions are in line with his portrayal across media. It was an innocent act of trying to be noticed, but that spark was still there.
And, as a SS multishipper, I want to see that in any ship he's in, but it's often some form of recovery. Jetfire/SS is honestly my one TF fandom notp specifically because of the fandom.
No.8047
>>8043Other anon. And yeah Jetfire/SS is one of the ships I categorically ignore since I never see it being done without SS being full ooc. It's the most extreme case of uwufying. Like I don't condemn it or anything, it's just nothing that interest me. I want villains to keep their traits even if they're toned down in a love story.
btw we should discuss this in the TF thread, it's sad how dead it is and I feel like there is a lot to discuss lol
No.8051
I specifically dislike authors self-inserts tbh, which also end up being people’s self-inserts because readers relate to what the author feels. This is very true when it comes to Japanese authors, like one big giveaway is when the main character has a super generic design while everyone else has unique, detailed ones. Of course the author doesn’t want their personal avatar to have a standout design because it’d be harder to relate to right? It's annoying because I’m here to read a story not to watch the author’s projection wacky adventures.
No.8052
>>8051This is my main gripe with manga. Worst of all is that you can tell by the narrative by how the MC is treated by the plot and the side characters compared to everybody else. They're the only ones allowed to be savior and do the cool shit, everybody who is good loves them, everybody who is evil respects them because MC is just so fucking awesome (and I usually dislike them).
I either drop such series or stick to them because I am unlucky enough to love some of the side characters and have to bear with the endless shilling for as long as the series is running because the insecure author cannot share empathy or success with other characters, especially not other characters of the same gender as them.
It's the no. 1 reason for why most media and especially most manga are shit IMO.