Crushes on fictional characters

[Ekaterina]

Couldn't find a topic on that, but wanted to ask both allos and aros who experience crushes on fictional characters: how do you experience it? I'd need help to be able to determine better if the thing I experience and call crushes is that indeed. 

[lovelyleaf]

sometimes i wish that they were real because i think they're really sweet and that them and i would go well together. lately i just imagine scenarios with them until i get bored of my very limited and not creative imagination. 

[smac n cheese]

idk, I just see a fictional character and I'm like "YOU'RE JUST LIKE ME BE MY FRIEND" and I can find them cute but not in a romantic way

[Ekaterina]

Thank you for the replies! 

3 hours ago, smac n cheese said:

idk, I just see a fictional character and I'm like "YOU'RE JUST LIKE ME BE MY FRIEND" and I can find them cute but not in a romantic way

Well this I do know, but in addition to having characters I relate to and characters I find cute, there also are characters about whom I feel... this thing. 

6 hours ago, lovelyleaf said:

sometimes i wish that they were real because i think they're really sweet and that them and i would go well together. lately i just imagine scenarios with them until i get bored of my very limited and not creative imagination. 

I don't necessarily think they would go well together with me, I don't necessarily even think about it, but I do imagine all kinds of scenarios about them, not romantic per se, but just all kinds of stuff often including some brand of hurt/comfort if it's a tragic character, and just unrestrained fun if it's a fun character, and both if they're somehow both, but either way thinking about them causes a physically pleasant sensation, a stupid smile, and agitation, sometimes to the point I would avoid mentioning their name aloud because I'd have a weird emotional reaction that would give my "crush" away; and it's a thing when I'm very sensitive for potential mockery.

I also sometimes imagine in these cases portraying this character, in text game/roleplay or even on stage (I'm not a stage performer, not even an amateur one, but I often fantasize about playing as characters I like, not only the "crush" ones but other types of liked characters too, I think these are probably their own category).

Also the characters I "crush" on I do find visually pleasing even if not handsome/beautiful, I'd draw them (I draw much more characters then just them, but these I sometimes get fixated on drawing), and if the story doesn't have a set visual (being a book or opera) I'd fixate on designing and redesigning this character and be picky about it, and very picky on actors portraying them in adaptations/stagings, but also hunt all possible visualizations of them (live-acted or illustrations) I can find.

Edited March 2 by Ekaterina

[lovelyleaf]

7 hours ago, Ekaterina said:

including some brand of hurt/comfort

i don't think about it but that's nearly all of what i imagine lol. 

[Mult]

I'm neither romantic or sexual and I don't crush on characters, so I can't answer this question, but growing up I found this confusing as well.

I really could not understand why kids would get possessive over and be so interested in fictional characters. I could never understand the existence of character/person content like people drawing their personas with the characters in a romantic way or people writing fanfiction about characters where the person reading it is involved in the story and involved with a character romantically.

It was just very bizarre to me. I could understand people "shipping" characters with each other as there's a competitive aspect to that where people would get very defensive over fictional relationships, but inserting oneself into fiction wasn't something that I understood.

Now I think it's about fantasizing about a relationship for oneself. They like that character and they want a relationship, so they fantasize about themselves being in a relationship with that character.

I'm probably the one people would consider weird because I actually really enjoy characters rejecting me in videogames and I want more of that. I just really enjoy a character telling me that they just want to be my friend because personally platonic relationships are much more meaningful and important to me, so someone telling me that they don't want romance and just want to be friends is literally the best thing ever. This is most likely tied to how I hated being confessed to and still hate dealing with someone's unrequited romantic/sexual feelings for me.

The whole reason I played Undertale was because my twin was playing it and she chose the flirt option with Papyrus as a joke which resulted in an adorable set of events where he clearly didn't understand romance either but determined that he just wanted friendship. I've only seen a similar scenario in the video game Hades where you can romance Dusa as Zagreus but she also determines that she only wants to be friends and she realized that she was idolizing Zagreus rather than actually being in love with him romantically. I haven't actually been able to get to that point in the game but eventually I want to play through that scenario. So I will pursue romantic options with fictional characters in videogames to get rejected. 

So I suppose romantic interest in fictional character is like a role-play of sorts. An avenue for fantasizing about something one wants.

[Kristoph]

I'm strict aromantic and I do have fictional crushes. Three, to be more specific and that's tied, in a specific way, to me being a fictionkin. I find it difficult to explain.

Edited August 21 by Kristoph

[Guest Myrt]

I have been in love with a man who cannot show romance, no mush, lovey dovey stuff

 He swears he lives me and has some actions that he tries to show mebwith. I apologize, I'm not sure this is where I should see info, but wanted to try.

Anyone have input for me

[Random-Aroace]

Who cannot rly okay so just ducking show platonic 

[Lovebird]

I do experience crushes on fictional characters. I'm one of those OC, self-insert x Canon mfers. 

[Guest Beeeee]

On 4/19/2024 at 6:59 AM, Mult said:

I'm neither romantic or sexual and I don't crush on characters, so I can't answer this question, but growing up I found this confusing as well.

I really could not understand why kids would get possessive over and be so interested in fictional characters. I could never understand the existence of character/person content like people drawing their personas with the characters in a romantic way or people writing fanfiction about characters where the person reading it is involved in the story and involved with a character romantically.

It was just very bizarre to me. I could understand people "shipping" characters with each other as there's a competitive aspect to that where people would get very defensive over fictional relationships, but inserting oneself into fiction wasn't something that I understood.

Now I think it's about fantasizing about a relationship for oneself. They like that character and they want a relationship, so they fantasize about themselves being in a relationship with that character.

I'm probably the one people would consider weird because I actually really enjoy characters rejecting me in videogames and I want more of that. I just really enjoy a character telling me that they just want to be my friend because personally platonic relationships are much more meaningful and important to me, so someone telling me that they don't want romance and just want to be friends is literally the best thing ever. This is most likely tied to how I hated being confessed to and still hate dealing with someone's unrequited romantic/sexual feelings for me.

The whole reason I played Undertale was because my twin was playing it and she chose the flirt option with Papyrus as a joke which resulted in an adorable set of events where he clearly didn't understand romance either but determined that he just wanted friendship. I've only seen a similar scenario in the video game Hades where you can romance Dusa as Zagreus but she also determines that she only wants to be friends and she realized that she was idolizing Zagreus rather than actually being in love with him romantically. I haven't actually been able to get to that point in the game but eventually I want to play through that scenario. So I will pursue romantic options with fictional characters in videogames to get rejected. 

So I suppose romantic interest in fictional character is like a role-play of sorts. An avenue for fantasizing about something one wants.

Wow, I feel similarly... I am sort of repulsed by personally being in a relationship with the characters I ship and it's really hard because actually a lot of people do that I see online. Shipping myself with a character feels similar to how I would copy other people's crushes in the past and it made me feel paralyzed.

[Serafu]

I love crushing on fictional characters, it's almost comforting to me heh ^^; for the most part, I crush on them based on physical/aesthetic attraction, and I'd create OCs to be in partnerships with them :]

[あおくん]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:20 PM, Serafu said:

I love crushing on fictional characters, it's almost comforting to me heh ^^; for the most part, I crush on them based on physical/aesthetic attraction, and I'd create OCs to be in partnerships with them :]

i'm curious, does the ocs you create resemble you in some way personality/looks wise, or do they completely differ from you as a person? i know for me, i feel uncomfortable when the oc feels really similar to me since it almost feels like i'm shipping myself with my fictional crush, which shouldn't be a problem but i don't really like fantasizing about that. maybe this also has something to do with the fact that i'm also aegoromantic in a way

[TheSpaceArrow]

On 6/27/2024 at 7:49 PM, あおくん said:

i'm curious, does the ocs you create resemble you in some way personality/looks wise, or do they completely differ from you as a person? i know for me, i feel uncomfortable when the oc feels really similar to me since it almost feels like i'm shipping myself with my fictional crush, which shouldn't be a problem but i don't really like fantasizing about that. maybe this also has something to do with the fact that i'm also aegoromantic in a way

I'm interested to hear different perspectives on this. My own main characters tend to resemble me in both looks and personality, and my side characters tend to reflect smaller parts of my personality. A lot of my characters happen to be aspec for this reason because I find it uncomfortable shipping myself (and also because I write what I want to see in media, which is representation of aspec people of color), but I usually try to separate my characters from myself so that if they do have love interests, it isn't a problem. 

[あおくん]

9 hours ago, lekhasverse said:

I'm interested to hear different perspectives on this. My own main characters tend to resemble me in both looks and personality, and my side characters tend to reflect smaller parts of my personality. A lot of my characters happen to be aspec for this reason because I find it uncomfortable shipping myself (and also because I write what I want to see in media, which is representation of aspec people of color), but I usually try to separate my characters from myself so that if they do have love interests, it isn't a problem. 

ooh i see, that makes sense. but for me personally this one oc i made in particular is one that are supposed to complement my fictional crush. so sort of like "self shipping" or as the japanese call it, being a "yumejoshi". but in my case, it's definitely not of the romantic kind, i mostly like making them be involved in a qpr since i don't really see that done much often in media & that's the sort of content i want to see more of myself. also i think it's worth noting that yes while i may have a fictional crush, i don't really like fantasizing romantic scenarios with them in my head, so i guess that extends to the sort of story i like to create with them with the oc i had in mind. i think for this particular oc i mentioned, the only similarity we have is our aspec identity & as for their looks & personality it's something i want to be completely different from me.

Edited June 30 by あおくん
wanted to add a bit more words

[TheSpaceArrow]

14 hours ago, あおくん said:

i mostly like making them be involved in a qpr since i don't really see that done much often in media & that's the sort of content i want to see more of myself. 

Hell yeah, I'm writing a qpr as well, between my aroace main character and her best friend who's pansexual (I think, I can't recall) and aromantic. We definitely need more aroallo rep and qprs in media.

[あおくん]

On 7/1/2024 at 5:00 AM, lekhasverse said:

Hell yeah, I'm writing a qpr as well, between my aroace main character and her best friend who's pansexual (I think, I can't recall) and aromantic. We definitely need more aroallo rep and qprs in media.

yeah i definitely agree, the few pieces of media i've seen where being in a qpr was explored really well was what inspired me to make my own as well, mostly they're just really ocs that are in qprs, rather than an actual novel in of itself but i'm mostly doing it as a self indulgent thing anyway for some sense of self satisfaction so yeah

[Serafu]

On 6/28/2024 at 10:49 AM, あおくん said:

i'm curious, does the ocs you create resemble you in some way personality/looks wise, or do they completely differ from you as a person? i know for me, i feel uncomfortable when the oc feels really similar to me since it almost feels like i'm shipping myself with my fictional crush, which shouldn't be a problem but i don't really like fantasizing about that. maybe this also has something to do with the fact that i'm also aegoromantic in a way

my OCs are very different from me both looks and personality-wise, and some of them would even have different orientations or gender identities than mine :0 the only thing that's similar between me n my OCs is my affection towards the fic chara, so it's like I'm projecting my attraction for the chara thru my OC lol 

I get what you mean about feeling uncomfortable about shipping yourself directly with a fictional character, n I also feel the same way! even when I'd read [fic chara] x reader fics I never placed my own name under "Y/N" n I always made up a separate name bc the directness of having my own identity on the fic was off-putting for me ^^; OC x fic chara became such a comforting avenue since then 

[tiger_hoods12]

I used to have experiences lots of crushes on fictional characters back when I was a kid. Now I don’t or they don’t happen as often. I used to think that with my crushes, I had experienced romantic and sexual attraction. It wasn’t and I did not. I was just really attracted to them emotionally and really liked their personalities. I would notice that they were sometimes physically attractive and admire their beauty, and I think I got too caught up in the admiration and confused it for sexual attraction. Looking back, all the characters I liked, I was very emotionally into. Nowadays, I get more squishes on fictional characters and it’s rare when I get crushes on them.

[Guest]

Not crushes but squishes, and barely ever fantasy self-projections. 

For example, as a young kid, we used to have educational comic books accompanied with some plot about kids at that age group (9-12) who live normal lives of school and leisure, but they have access to cool scientist + robot/cyborg assistant characters with scifi tech such as lightspeed UFOs, teleportation, size changing and whatnot, and one of the kids is into procrastination, gaming, and fun things, prone to getting bad grades, while the other would be the studious, serious kid that likes reading and researching, pays attention and infodumps their research when asked questions by the school teachers, and also the cool scientist and their assistants, and encourages the procrastinating gamer kid to study together because knowledge is power. And I wished I lived together with them, so that I could enjoy gaming with the gamer kid, and get motivated to study by the studious kid. And also use the cool sci-fi techs in their fictional world. I even drew some drawings of those characters + a self-insert of me with them (they’re all gone, and there are numerous series that fit this description if you go looking for them).

In middle-high school, I grew out of those, and started playing gacha games and RPGs, and I would like characters for aesthetic, personality (squishes), and/or sexual attractiveness, but never really crushed on any of them.

As an adult, since a few years ago, I still play gachas and RPGs now, but not as often as I used to, and not really attached to characters as characters anymore, but more into collecting utility playstyles, skillsets/kits that I like. I still have aesthetic, personality and sexual attraction towards characters, but not as attached as younger me would be, now I mainly prioritize characters with meta kits, to control on the battlefield and after I’m done with my daily quests or other events/permanent content, I don’t open these games again until the next day. The characters can have great personality/lore, or deliberately designed to look sexually attractive, but I’d just be thinking of their personality/aesthetics/sexuality for a few hours and move on.

I didn’t bring up any TV shows, let alone celebs, as I’m just disinterested in it my whole life.

[ARINNIRA]

I have this thing with this one character where I really just want to meet them like a lot

a lot a lot a lot alot

[frutiger aro]

for an aro who's never been in love irl, i do fall in love with fictional characters (especially from video games) embarrassingly easily and often, lmao.

it's kinda hard to explain these feelings, but i guess the best way to describe it is that i feel like i actually get what romantic attraction is just because i feel like i've felt something similar toward these characters, like the typical crush "symptoms" (like my heart fluttering a little at the sight of them, the urge to grab and smooch them etc. lol). that and i like romancing these characters in RPGs and the occasional dating sim, read occasional fanfics, and so on. 

maybe it falls more under aesthetic and/or sensual attraction idk, all i know is that it's the closest thing to romantic love i've ever felt, as embarrassing as it may be to admit lmao. ain't my fault modern game graphics are so beautiful!