#complex dynamics

[housedragonmadness]

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[bardic-tales]

Hi, Bardic! :) I hope you’re doing well. I come to you seeking a bit of advice. 

The TLDR; question is: How do you deal with feeling like you don’t really fit in the selfship community? 

To elaborate: I often feel as if I don’t quite have a place in the selfship community. :( This is for a few reasons. One reason is some of that my F/Os are … unconventional, and do not fit a lot of the more fluffy imagine posts you see. There’s nothing wrong with these posts, ofc, but it is hard to find imagines and positivity posts that fit more complex selfship dynamics. 

Another reason is that the selfship space often feels quite focused on fandom purity culture. This makes me anxious and makes me feel like I’m walking on eggshells a bit, for fear of making someone mad. I grew up Mormon, and purity culture in that context was pretty harmful for me personally, so feeling like I’m thrown back into that kind of culture in a more secular space is uncomfortable and makes me feel unwanted. I do my best to block and curate, yet the general culture of the community makes me feel like an outsider.

@lupinedreaming / @eclipse-selfships

Hello, @eclipse-selfships! Tagged your self-ship blog in this answer since this is about selfshipping. Thank you so much for reaching out and trusting me with this.

I am doing well. Much better than I was a few days ago, but I want a break from 2026 and the drama it's seems to be bringing me. lol. I’m so glad you reached out. Honestly, I hear you so loudly on this. Feeling like an outsider in a space that is supposed to be your creative sanctuary is exhausting, especially when you’re carrying the weight of a past shaped by purity culture. It’s a lot to untangle, but I want you to know right off the bat that you aren’t doing anything wrong by having complex, unconventional bonds.

I’ve been in this world for a long time, even before self-shipping even had that name, and I’ve definitely felt that disconnect. My own list of partners is almost exclusively villains and complicated figures. My primary bond is with 🔥⚔, and I don't see him as the hero of the story. I see him as the post-Nibelheim Incident Sephiroth. He is a planetary destroyer. He is a force of nature that has done terrible things, and I don't try to fix that or soften him into something he isn't just to fit a certain aesthetic. He may have thrown off his 'chains' of canon, but he will still use that destructive energy to protect me. So, I need imagines that fit his intensity and his actual personality. And I think you feel the same for your F/Os.

When you grow up in a high-control environment like you did, or even just in a space where goodness is narrowly defined, it’s natural to feel like you’re walking on eggshells. That feeling of being watched or judged doesn’t just disappear because you’ve moved into a secular community. But here is how I handle it, and how I hope you can find some peace too.

Embrace the Unconventional

The selfship community can sometimes feel like a sea of fluff, and while that’s lovely for some, it doesn't always resonate when your partner is someone who is unconventional. When the standard imagine posts don't fit, I’ve found that I have to create my own space.

I use imagines as a way to feel closer to 🔥⚔, even though he is a facet of my own lived experience. If the popular posts about baking cookies together don't work for a dynamic between me and one of my unconventional F/Os, I focus on the intensity and the unique understanding that exists between us.

You don’t have to force your F/Os into boxes they don't belong in. There is a deep, resonant beauty in the darker, more complex dynamics that purity culture doesn't have the range to understand.

Curate your Peace

You mentioned blocking and curating, and I want to encourage you to be even more aggressive with it. In my spaces, I have very strict boundaries. I don’t share, and I don't tolerate people who bring that judgmental energy into my circle.

If a community feels like it’s demanding you perform a certain kind of wholesomeness to be valid, then that community isn't serving you and you are serving the community. Your relationship with your F/Os is yours alone. It doesn't belong to the fandom, and it certainly doesn't belong to people who want to police how you find comfort or inspiration. Your bond with your F/Os are unique.

I used to do a Self-Ship series here but stopped since I was updating my original / fanfic work. I am looking to bring that back and will concentrate on imagines that fit the darker side.

Reframe the Outsider Status

I’ve always felt a bit like an outlier because I don't view these bonds through the same self-shipping lens as everyone else. For me, it’s a soul-deep, protective brotherhood with some, characters who give me comfort with others, characters I know would stop stuff that happened to me with extreme measures, and a divine, world-ending partnership with 🔥⚔.

Instead of looking at your unconventional tastes as a reason you don't fit in, try to see them as your superpower. You have the ability to see the humanity—or the compelling lack thereof—in characters that others are too afraid to touch. That takes a level of emotional maturity and self-awareness that purity culture simply can't handle.

Building Your Inner Circle (Speaking on Purity Culture)

Since the broader community can feel a bit like a minefield, I’ve found that the real magic happens when you stop trying to fit into the big groups and start cultivating a smaller, private circle of like-minded self-shippers or even fandom participants.

Look for the people who are doing technical character meta or long-form worldbuilding. In my experience, folks who are interested in the "why" of a villain’s actions—the trauma or the psychological breakdown—are usually much more open to unconventional ships. They value complexity over "purity."

You don’t need a thousand followers to feel validated. I have a small group of mutuals—people I trust deeply—who understand that my bond with Sephiroth is about depth and resonance, not about making him soft, and for those mutuals I trust completely, I know that they make their version of him soft as a form of healing. When you have even two or three people who get it, the noise of the rest of the community fades away.

I have found the vibe check to be very important. I find that my DNI actually attracted the right people for me. When you're unapologetic about loving villains and complex figures, you'll attract others who have been hiding and feeling the exact same way.

Most of all, you have a place here.

I want to leave you with a standing invitation. If the broader community feels too loud or too judgmental, you are always welcome to just vibe with me and my own circle of mutuals and friends.

The community I’ve been fostering recently is a beautiful, eclectic mix of people who don't fit the standard mold. We have writeblr folks, the self-ship community, and people who just deeply love the canon. It’s a space where people who love soft boys and yanderes coexist without friction. We have members who are part of systems, people who identify as fictokin, and those of us who have soulbonds.

It is a space built on mutual respect and shared complexity. I trust these people with my heart and my work because we all understand what it’s like to carry bonds that the rest of the world might find unconventional. We don't do purity culture here. We do authenticity.

So, if you ever feel like you’re walking on eggshells elsewhere, know that you can breathe easy with us. You don't have to explain yourself or sanitize your F/Os to fit in. You can just be. We’re all just here to support each other’s narratives, bonds, and find comfort in the characters who speak to us, no matter how dark or destructive they might be.

[flickeringart]

Thoughts on War and Separation

War has and seem to continue to be a reality that we’re prone to experience in this life, on a microcosmic level and on a macrocosmic level. The cause of war, if one is to listen to the many spiritual teachers out there, is separation. Separation is by definition, a sense of being separate from something.

What I find difficult to accept about this claim that ”separation is the source of war” is that separation is actually the psychological process that enables a person to detangle the self from the bounds and ties that inhibits life. It’s the process of withdrawing energetic support, of detaching, of surviving. Separation is necessary for life to flourish. It would be more accurate to state that "separation is the cause of life... and death".

Most people would agree that the root of war is hate and fear - of wanting to establish dominance and power. The instinct of wanting to be in control of our own lives is present in all of us, there’s no individual that isn’t concerned with survival of something. When pushed enough, most people will pick up arms (metaphorically or literally) to protect themselves or "what they stand for". They will do what they can to destroy the threat to their own lives and their own ideals. This is only natural, yet it stems from a sense of separation or at least a feeling that it’s necessary to separate. In general, people dislike individuals who don’t react to threat or don’t perceive threat in the same way as they do. Pacifists become enemies to the people who feel the need to be protected. ”It’s everyone’s duty to fight evil”. Of course, it isn’t, and evil is subjective, but people can be pressured into conforming.

What a bunch of hypocrites we all are.

We’re blind to our own psyches.

We demonize our perpetrators because we want to feel separate from them. This is typically considered healthy. Everyone’s against war because of all the unnecessary suffering and pain that comes with it. We have to be because we don't want to live in a world of chaos. And if we're not for the good? We are, by definition, for evil. Being ”against” something is to separate from it, but so is being "for" something. People are encouraged to separate. To identity with the villain would be taboo and trigger antagonism in people who’ve been victimized. ”And how dare we trigger their fear and rage when they've been unjustly abused”.

There’s something else about the statement that ”separation is the cause of war” that's too simplistic. Identifying with someone doesn’t make it so that there’s automatic benevolence extended toward that person. Sometimes the opposite is true. People can destroy the things they love the most because they don’t perceive them as separate. Healthy symbiosis and toxic enmeshment are not easily distinguishable. ”I want what you want and you want what I want” is ideal, yet it's a rare scenario to find, even between two people, and oftentimes the reality of the situation is that one party is feeling powerful and the other is feeling powerless. Perhaps the roles switch occasionally. Regardless, there’s a war going on, if ever so subtle.

It's also often the case that people hate themselves so much as to want to undermine anything or anyone that resembles or seeks to identify with themselves. We've all encountered individuals who're appalled and terrified of people being optimistic and appreciative of them. Their identities are based on self-hate and self-rejection because they see evil in themselves. This is a quite complex psychological phenomenon that can stem from a lot of different things. It seems destructive, but the motivation is that of preserving goodness, of preserving life - if not of the the body, then of the spirit, if not of the ideal, then of the feelings.

Separation is the cause of war, but also of peace. Separation is a fact of existence and is impossible to avoid.

[skloomdumpster]

btw i stand by my reasoning, episode 3 is the best episode of season 1 and i can prove it

[noosphe-re]

Three-dimensional slices through the (four-dimensional) Julia set of a function on the quaternions (via Wikipedia)

[lovesharder]

in a desperate need of mini verses

[ontonix]

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:D !