welcome to a post about how yumeship and selfship are not a one to one in history or culture: and why many using yumeship to mean "just the japanese word for selfship" have watered down in origin.
hello anyone reading this post. we are a japanese system here to bring up the use of yumeship in western groups. we see many in liomogai using it hence why we are making a post on this blog. but this applies to anyone outside of liomogai as well. warning that we have dyslexia and schizophrenia which may affect wording but we're trying to be helpful and easy to understand :]. this post is being written by a blurred front + multiple alters to explain the we/us use. we also want to clarify this is not us gatekeeping non japanese people from using yumeship. it is fully fine to do so! this post is not trying to make everyone stop altogether.
let's have an easy start to this. yume in japanese means dream. it's rooted in the concepts of dreams and imagination. i'll assume, or at least hope all who use yumeship know this. anyway yumeship and other yume(x) words are from dream novel culture that originated in the 1990s and early 2000s. do you who use yumeship know what a dream novel is? in simple terms it does indeed dive into and mean fanfiction, but a specific type. it's a culture using self inserts and selfshipping yes, but specifically to a much stronger emotional level. it was made to strengthen self projection. "becoming the main character and entering the original work like a dream". there is notable history leaning into delusions actually, which we've never seen any western people really.. mention. it's an interesting side to the history but obviously isn't the entire reason for being yumeship; just a side of the culture. yumeship also, especially back then, was always self inserting in as the protagonist and having everything and everyone revolve around you. not as a side or background character. our first question for others is; how common in western self shipping is that definition / situation what you mean by selfshipping? if not, how come yumeship is being used?
onto the next part of the words. there's a different vibe when saying "I self ship with x" vs "I dream of / imagine being with x". obviously the yumeship community has broadened and grown, but that's always been the root of the word. it's something we are confused on when we see some people using yumeship instead of selfship, especially those who are uncomfortable with people implying the relationship is not real or imagination. using it when imagination & dreams are the origin of the literal word. so that is our second question; if you are someone who is uncomfortable with that yet uses yumeship, why? what makes it feel fitting? did you know the above information when deciding it fit?
we also want to touch on other words part of the culture:
yumejoshi meaning dreaming girl. nowadays we see many call it the feminine word for people who yumeship, to be more inclusive we assume which is good! but we do want people to know it originally is labeled as "female-aligned individuals / women", since joshi translates to young woman / girl and female. for anyone who doesn't wish to be called either.
yumedanshi meaning dreaming boy. same as the above where nowadays we see many call it the masculine word for people who yumeship. but it originally is labeled as "male aligned individuals / men", since danshi translates to young man / boy and male. for anyone who doesn't wish to be called either.
we think there should be inclusive words for feminine people who are not women or female, same with masculine people who are not men or male. we think the terms can be made more broad, but don't want any to mistranslate the words. there are two options we know of :]! yumejin or yumebito meaning dreaming person, both options use person rather than a strict gender. unfortunately we rarely if ever see those mentioned much western wise.
another thing involving those. we seen some people say that yumejoshi and yumedanshi are the long versions of yume in general. which isn't accurate as explained above. due to this we often see people say "i'm a yume", "i'm a sharing/nonsharing yume". when you translate the full phrase into japanese it's just saying "i'm a dream", "i'm a sharing/nonsharing dream" it sounds more confusing when actually translating it does it not? we will add in that saying "yumes" at least does make sense, dreamers is a word that is used in dream novels. but that being said, our third question; if you call yourself a yume, do you also call yourself a dream? if not how come? if the answer is along the lines of "people know what i mean by yume", english wise, likely, if they know what yumeship is at least. but we need to consider the actual language it's from. why is it seen as normal to randomly insert a japanese word into an english sentence. (we are not referring to actual bilingual conversations that naturally do so.) why is it often if not only japanese that gets words picked to use?
we are unsure how to properly make an ending note for this. but we hope it was able to give people some free information and history to enjoy, alongside causing others to consider if yumeship actually fits them or not - ❔️
