Fictosexuality
| Synonyms: | ficto, fict, fictophilia |
| See also: | Selfship, Waifu, what community is right for you? Snapewives, Asexuality and Fandom |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Fictosexuality is exclusive attraction to fictional characters. Fictosexuals are called ficts or fictos; those terms are also inclusive of fictoromantics and people with "platonic F/Os" (fictional others). Fictosexuality is sometimes considered a subset of asexuality, since there is no attraction to actual people, but this is controversial and many ficts do not consider themselves ace and/or aro, however, the ace community tends to dislike this association as it would invalidate their sexuality due to the fact that it is correlated with attraction to something unreal.[citation needed] There is some overlap with the selfship community on tumblr, but they are distinct.
Fictosexuality Versus Normal Fan Response
Ficts define themselves differently than normal fans because they are not attracted to real people and also because they take their crushes on characters more seriously than most people.
(Q) Aren’t ficts just a bunch of fangirls/fanboys?(A) Nope! “Fangirling” or “crushing” on fictional characters is, and I think we can all agree on this, a very common thing in fandoms, but that’s not the case with us! Someone who is fictoromantic can develop serious and meaningful feelings for characters. Put simply, we genuinely fall in in love with them.
Side note: The aromantic part of our community may not fall in love with a character per say, but sometimes they can develop squishes (the asexual communities term for “plantonic crush”) on characters or on a particular fictional couple.
(Q) But they’re not real. How do you fall in love with someone who’s not real?
(A) Great question! Fictional characters, despite not being flesh, have personalities just like real people do. We get to know these characters inside and out, we get to know their stories, we (more often then not) know their faces, better then we even know the flesh people in our lives. There’s actually been studies done on this, and biologically speaking, our brains do in fact form bonds with fictional characters the same way we do flesh people. When one of these fictional people turn out to be someone perfect for you, it makes sense how we’d end up falling in love. I suggested googling the subject, it’s fascinating!Loveforficts FAQ[1]
Fictophilia is a romantic and/or sexual orientation which covers exclusive attraction to fictional characters in animation and movies (no, not the actors).It’s not a fetish, disorder, or solely a type of attraction, but an orientation one is born with, just as valid as any other*. It has nothing to do with lusting after those characters sexually as a fan.
- There are people who are attracted to other people and fictional characters in that way. In that case, their orientation is whatever they identify with.
I’d like to help you understand who we are and what we’re not by responding to the most common statements aimed at us. This has gotten pretty long so I put all the answers under a cut.
It’s not real! / You’re kidding, right?
No, it’s very much real. We feel genuine romantic and/or sexual attraction of the same sort that alloromantics/allosexuals experience towards people.
How can you tell if you’ve never been in love with a real person?
We can compare our romantic feelings to others’ and reach a conclusion that way. Furthermore, once you fall really hard for someone, you just know, right?
But they’re not real! How is that possible?
Oh, are they not? I’m so sorry, I totally didn’t re– yes, we know they don’t exist, you don’t have to pretend showing concern for our mental health. They have a personality. Many of them have a voice. Isn’t that enough for falling in love?
If not, you can also say you can’t have a crush on someone you’ve never interacted with. It’s essentially like being in love with a celebrity (although we don’t get why loving a celebrity is far more accepted since all the circumstances are the same, except that those characters don’t exist.)
You’re saying that because no one likes you!
It’s actually the opposite. If someone falls in love with us, we’ll have to reject them because we lack attraction. ... You’re those obsessed people who spend their days holed up in a room full of merchandise and claim to be married to fictional characters.
Again, no. That isn’t us. Many of us are capable of a healthy social life. Some may choose to get married to a character “officially”, but I am personally grossed out by that concept.
I’d never file for a marriage certificate because I’m not forcing anything on the character I love, I’m not disrespecting them, I’m respecting my own feelings, and I’m not into doing something so simple that everyone could do without a connection to them.
As a child, I created OCs to ship with the canon characters I had a crush on, but I never did so openly - only to cheer myself up because I knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t be taken seriously.
Most of us don’t claim the characters to ourselves. If so, chances are that the person is either very young or doesn’t really love them. If someone starts a fight, that’s a problem with the person, not the community.
Here, it’s important to stress the difference to fankids who keep shouting “THEY’RE MINE ALONE!!” (Guys, that’s embarrassing. No wonder no one believes us.)
Some of us forge a connection through dreams or on the spiritual plane in order to cope, but we still have ties to reality - remember that we’re constantly confronted with society’s standards wherever we go, from elementary school days on.
Even if we do collect tons of merchandise, that means we’re supporting the sales of something you enjoy, too.
Also, no real fictophiliac would present themselves in media like the otakus you see on TV. We have self-respect.
As a side note, anyone who uses the terms waifu or husbando to refer to characters unironically is most likely not fictophiliac. Being thrown into the same category as those is offensive to us with actual non-fanbased feelings for those characters. We don’t lust after them like overzealous fans, and it hurts being compared to them.excerpted from "Busted myths about fictophilia / schediaphilia" by endlesslovewitch[2]
Terms
Some terms used by the community and similar groups:
- Nijikon - 2D Complex, a Japanese term for the feeling that anime/manga/visual novel/etc characters are more beautiful or otherwise attractive than real people
- Toonophilia/Schediaphilia - attraction towards animated characters
- F/O or fictional other - a character one is in a relationship with. Shared term with the selfship community
- Flesh people - real people. Used in a similar way to "3D people" by waifuists
Archives & Resources
- Fictosexuality tag on the Ao3
Meta
- Fictional Character Crushes, essay by Cassandra Claire (2003)