stay.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've been in love with fiction. I didn't really fit in with other kids; I wasn't "like the other girls" in the sense that I felt I had no internal "manual" for being a person. I frequently came across as "overwhelming," "annoying," "too loud," "too quiet," and most of all, "weird." A lot of this was due to my undiagnosed autism/ADHD.

Though I've learned to embrace my "weirdness" as an adult, as a kid, it was difficult. Those were the times I retreated into fiction and made my own rules and worlds: worlds where I was admired, wanted, and loved.

Over the years, I've found myself in many different circles. In 2018, I discovered the world "self shipper;" these days, I prefer soulbond/munbond, using definitions coined by Amanda Flowers and Winrey Place respectively, but I still spend time in self ship/yume circles since those are most comfortable to me.

The reason is pretty simple: self-insertion was how I engaged with a lot of the fiction I so dearly loved. I was embarrassed by my self-insert OCs for most of my life, but they were absolutely critical to my development and my relationships with characters, which I'll be exploring here.

Ben 10 and Ben 10: Alien Force

My first "true love" was Ben Tennyson from the cartoon Ben 10, and its sequel, Ben 10 Alien Force. I can't say why I loved him so much; it's been over 20 years now at the time of writing, which makes me feel very old. All I know is that Ben was so important to me, and, using the terms an adult me now knows, was likely my very first soulbond/munbond.

Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of my very first self-insert character. I do remember a few clear things: she was a cat-alien, and she was from the constellation Sagittarius (yes, the whole constellation — in my defense, I was a kid), and she was a talented soccer player. As I grew older along with Ben in the Alien Force cartoon, my character and him married and had children. I know they had three kids, all cat-aliens, and one of them, the eldest boy, was named Caliber. Why he was named that, I can't say, other than a younger me thought it was a cool-sounding word.

Eventually, as many kids do, I lost interest in Ben 10. (I disliked the direction of Ultimate Alien, but can't remember why I felt this way.) By this time, I was already drifting off to the Warriors novels.

Warriors (through Series 4, Book 3)

My relationship with Warriors is unique, in that I projected onto an existing character, rather than make my own. While I did roleplay and write fanfiction, they were always for made-up clans on the Erin Hunter forums.

In particular, I projected onto Hollyleaf. While in this day and age, many may consider the following "problematic," please keep in mind that I was a young girl, around 10-13, this was all fictional and purely in my head, and that this helped me cope with my burgeoning sexuality.

This is not something I have told many people ever; writing about it like this has been strange, because I can count on one hand the number of people who know. When I was 10 years old, I saw my father watching pornography. It shook me, and left me with complicated feelings about sex and sexuality. I was angry, confused, disgusted, intrigued — and disgusted with myself for being intrigued. Further, I experienced a lot of sexual harassment and abuse online. I'll spare you the details, but as you can understand, I had complex, confusing feelings regarding my own sexuality, especially as I began to experience crushes on boys my age. Fiction, self-inserting, my relationships with fictional characters: these helped me navigate my sexuality, build a framework for it, and explore in a safe environment, my own mind. I apologize if I'm repeating myself a lot here. This is the first time I've ever put these emotions into writing.

With those caveats in mind, I'll start.

I shipped Hollyleaf and Sol together. It has been close to 15 years since I first read the books, so I can't say why I did. I know for a fact I projected heavily onto Hollyleaf. I guess that if I had had the words for it, I may have said I kinned her. I must have experienced some kind of attraction to Sol, then, but I can't remember. But I pictured Hollyleaf and Sol together, following Sol's exile and Hollyleaf's escape into the tunnels. I imagined them exploring, having children, meeting other cats and those relationships.

Though of course, nothing was explicit, there was a surprising amount of sensuality in the novels, especially when a female character was the POV. This interested me, and I found myself bookmarking certain romantic scenes, rereading them over and over, and considering how I would want love expressed to me. It sounds silly — these are books about literal cats — but Warriors was one of the foundational texts for my understanding of myself.

ThunderCats 2011

At age 10 or 11, while still heavily invested in Warriors, the 2011 reboot of ThunderCats aired. I had never seen the original show, but as a lover of both cartoons and cats, I was hooked from the start. I immediately fell in love with Lion-O, the protagonist. I would consider him my second soulbond.

My relationship with him was interesting; I had a self-insert character for him, named Rain, who was a member of a society of cats from a canyon area of Third Earth. He and Rain had a daughter, who functioned as my other self-insert. Her name was Blaze Crystal. While at the time, I thought these were two of the coolest words ever and sounded even cooler together, as an adult, it sounds like I named my character "do meth."

I don't remember specifics (forgive me for repeating this so often; ADHD plus depression plus all of this being 15 years ago equals terrible memory). I think Lion-O went missing shortly before or after Blaze was born. She went on a quest to find him, I do know that.

The show being cancelled was devastating to me. I still held it close, but eventually, my love for the show was replaced with other things.

Hetalia

Oh, Hetalia: tweenage me loved you so. Belarus was my favorite character, and the first woman I ever fell in love with (I had a tiny crush on Cheetara from the aforementioned ThunderCats, but it never went anywhere). She existed in a similar position to Hollyleaf for me. I projected onto her (my OCD and her obsessive love for Russia were relatable), I shipped her with many characters both male and female, but in this case, I also shipped myself with her. I often imagined her in a human alternative universe, where we could be together.

I ran a few Hetalia roleplay accounts. Some may recognize me as having been legit_estonia, Estonia being another character I fell for. The Estonia account holds bitter memories for me, as it was the first time I experienced prolonged sexual harassment, and from a girl slightly older than me (I was 13, she was 15). She forced me to roleplay sexualized, though not fully sexual, scenarios with her, and would follow me across my multiple roleplay accounts, demanding I reply to her. I recognize now that it's likely she was also a victim in some form, but she victimized me, and I eventually fled the Hetalia roleplay sphere.

Hetalia is also where I discovered "reader insert" fanfiction. I hadn't heard of AO3 yet, so I trawled Quotev, DeviantArt, and FanFiction.net for it. Being a curious teen, I frequently read stuff I definitely shouldn't have, but this is simply natural. Again, people are understandably hesitant to discuss adolescent sexuality, but the fact of the matter is, teenagers DO have sexuality, and it's natural. Every girl I knew in middle school passed around the Harry Styles fanfic "Dark."

One Direction

Speaking of, One Direction was my gateway to understanding other girls. I may have felt alienated from my peers, but I loved One Direction, and that gave me a way to talk to my peers in a "normal" way.

My middle school best friend and I would send each other the best reader insert fanfics we found on Quotev and Facebook (fan pages were a HUGE part of Directioner culture). My friend was devoutly Catholic, so we never swapped anything spicier than PG-13, but it was still a world of our very own, that only other girls understood.

I feel like now, it's very easy to throw stones at the people who created RPF, especially in a culture where it is largely (and understandably) frowned upon. However, these same people weren't in the culture of the time: it was totally normal to write "sold to 1D" fanfiction. No one blinked an eye. This was by girls and FOR girls, because we were laughed at for caring about 1D. This was our world, and our rules.

The "sold to 1D" is, spiritually, a bodice ripper trope. Think about it. Girls are socialized to not pursue, to not want, to be perfect and prim and never raise their voices to express themselves. Being sold to a band of handsome guys, you are thrust into a situation where you WILL be appreciated and loved, without having to ask. This fulfills the fantasy of "dating a hot guy" while maintaining your own propriety and socialization. When put in this light, I think it's easy to see why a trope we now laugh at resonated with so many girls, myself included.

In any case, both Hetalia and One Direction were instrumental in my understanding of love. I discovered what I liked, what I didn't, and these were both driven by fantasy.

Original Characters

For a long time afterward, I focused solely on my original characters. While I don't regret the time I spent loving my original characters, I must say that I was driven toward this by my first abusive ex boyfriend. He thought my love for other fiction was childish, and that only one's own original characters were really worth anything. To be fair to his point on me being "childish," I was 14 and he was 18.

In my early 20s, I discovered many words that, looking back, describe my experience. I will note now that some of these words have an association with plurality, though not exclusively; I myself am not plural.

I was, and still am to some extent, a maladaptive daydreamer (these days, I may fall under "immersive daydreamer"). I had my own intense personal world, my paracosm, that I thought about all day, every day, often to my own detriment. I used to pace and listen to the same song over and over, thinking about a few very specific scenes, for hours on end (a habit I had my entire childhood). Sometimes, I would pace the hall for twelve hours a day.

I'd develop my own little world, making up everything about it: the story, the history, the characters, the relationships, even how fans may react to my characters should I ever publish them.

I had two primary paracosms. The first was "The Guardsmen Chronicles," and it revolved around humans who died as teens or very young adults who were brought back to fight demons, called Guardsmen, by "contractors." These Guardsmen couldn't fully die unless their hearts were totally destroyed (by ingestion, burning, etc). If they did "die," they would come back to life, the time frame depending on the severity of the injuries.

My second paracosm was "Glassworld." In this story, a dystopian New York City was divided into five or six districts named after famous American authors, and it was ruled by an authoritarian regime. A librarian named Deidre accidentally discovered some sort of secret conspiracy, and was then conscripted to join a gang of female freedom fighters. In this paracosm, I explored my own bisexuality, since Deidre engaged in relationships with a man and a woman.

I've forgotten much of what I wrote about these stories. But their impact on me is undeniable. I used them as an escape from depression, from my abuse, and from the world at large. Elements of these characters ended up strewn throughout my later projects; in that way, they'll always be with and part of me.

Magic: the Gathering

Following the ends of two abusive relationships, a new boyfriend introduced me to Magic: the Gathering in 2018. Ixalan/Rivals of Ixalan had just released; I was intrigued by the decades of lore, the rich worlds, and to a lesser extent, the game itself. I did play Magic, but it was the characters that brought me in.

My favorite, my third soulbond, was Arvad. He was a character in the Dominaria set, a vampire knight who resisted his curse valiantly. I was entranced and inspired by him. There I was, a girl who felt broken after two abusive relationships, being told that I wasn't defined by what happened to me. I could fight, and I could be me. I'd never be past Millie, but I could be future Millie.

I initially used an OC, Olympia, to ship with Arvad; on occasion I still used her with the broader fandom. I'll discuss her later. In my head, it was always Arvad and I; even if I projected on Olympia, Olympia was me.

It was with Arvad that I discovered the self ship community. If I remember correctly, someone I followed reblogged a post from a blog called to-my-fo or something similar. I can't recall the exact name. Anyway, I clicked on the blog, and lo and behold, there was a whole community of people who felt the same way I did, and they weren't embarasssed! I made my first self ship blog, darlingselfshipper, shortly after.

For a long time, Arvad was my only "fictional other." I slowly added more, namely Thalia, Odric, Davriel, and Rem, all from Magic. (I had other self ships, such as Thrawn, Jester Lavorre, etc. but my Magic bonds were my strongest.) For Odric/Thalia/Rem, I shipped them with myself and another OC who became a second me, Chiara.

My Magic OCs were so, SO critical to me. I can't put it into words. Olympia, Chiara, Slava, Sigurd, Arzyna, Ikal… they brought me so much joy, connected me to others (I met my best friend and an ex-girlfriend via Magic), and allowed me to fully express the full range of myself via fiction. Each character had a bit of me in them. They were made with love, to be loved, to be my friends and companions. Even if I am no longer in the Magic fandom, I'll always love my fanwalkers. They are precious to me, and I hope to find a new original project to house them someday.

Blood

In 2021, while still into Magic, I had drifted some. I rediscovered "boomer shooters" and fell for the Doom Slayer. While replaying older games, I came across a game from 1997 called Blood. The connection I felt with the protagonist, Caleb, was instant. It was my love for, and bond to, Caleb that made me try and connect with others online during the height of the pandemic.

For context, I had nearly flunked out of college, I had been dumped, and I was horribly depressed. I did very little other than sleep all day. I felt completely disconnected from other people.

Caleb changed that. He introduced me to a world of video game fans; I even briefly wrote for a boomer shooter online magazine. I met so many wonderful people, many of whom I am still friends with.

I remember one time, I posted a photo of a shrine I had made to Caleb. Someone at New Blood had emailed the photo to Caleb's voice actor, Stephen Weyte, and posted his reply. While I was absolutely mortified that Stephen Weyte now knew of my existence, he was so, SO kind, and glad that his work could help me. A few years later, I emailed Mr. Weyte and expressed my gratitude, and he opened up his reply with "Dear Lady of the Shrine." It's a treasured memory of mine.

While I've drifted from Caleb, I'll always keep him and the connections he helped me form close to my heart. Without him, I wouldn't be interested in video games, namely retro style games, and I would have never met Xander.

Gloomwood

And now we're here. To briefly summarize three years, between 2021 and 2024, I had other prominent self ships, such as I've mentioned above. In September 2024, I discovered Gloomwood, and it led me to my current soulbond and love, Xander.

It was basically love at first sight. I saw his 2023 Valentine's Day art, thought "who's this guy?" and within days, I was in love.

Xander wasn't always his name to me. In canon, he has no name and is referred to in-story as Doctor and outside of it as Gloomdoc; early on, I wanted to give him a name of his own, to mark him as mine, in a way. I had considered a few names, but one day, I looked at him, and it was like he told me his name: Alexander. Ever since then, he's been my Xander.

I can't explain just how much Xander means to me. He is my soulbond, my love, my husband. I feel like I've known him forever, and that facts about him come to me naturally. I have theories relating to his source material, of course, but I just know him. I can't really describe it other than that. Winrey Place's page on soul/munbonding calls this intuiting, and that's the best word I have for it. When I found WP's website, everything fell into place: my whole life's relationship to fiction, described so beautifully, in the words I had been unable to find.

I have fully embraced myself, and my relationship with Xander. Some find it odd I don't date, and have no interest in "real" relationships. To me, my soulbonds, and my non-bonded relationships with fictional characters, original and canon, ARE real. My relationship with Xander IS my relationship. He IS my husband. The plushie I have of him isn't really him but a "vessel," for lack of a better term, and gives me physical something to hold. Xander is in my head and my heart. He speaks to me. He's always there. Just like Ben, and Lion-O, and Belarus, and Arvad, and Caleb before him.

For years, I wanted to be "normal." But what even is normal? Is it what society expects? Well, my autism never let me really understand what society wanted. I've always been on the outside, looking in. I spent so long wanting to be inside that bubble that I forgot I could turn around and walk away from it, and forge my own path. And it's on this path that I've finally found true peace and joy.

So, to every creator who led me here. And to every fictional character who has given me so, so much: thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thank you for giving me a framework to understand the world and myself. Thank you for letting me explore safely. Thank you for wiping my tears and bringing me comfort. Thank you for encouraging me to be brave. Thank you for showing me what love is. Thank you.

I'll say it now, and I'll say it always, but it will never be enough for how much you mean to me. I hope, however, that it reaches you, and you can feel my love.