Answered Question: Reason to Read Non-Oshi Stories
i sincerely mean no offense when i ask this, but how come you read so many non-ryuseitai stories? i guess i find it interesting since most (insert character or group)P don’t do that? do you do this because you like connecting ryuseitai to other characters/groups? again i genuinely mean no offense by this, i’m just curious since i’ve noticed most enstars fans don’t like reading stories outside of their interests
Sent and answered in September 2024. tweet link of the answer
short answer: this is an interesting ask to me because the norm for me Is to read enstars stories even if not of my oshi. i don’t always do that but generally i hope to keep reading more and more stuff, especially if it’s a new story
long answer: i had an enstars burnout from 2021 to early 2023 (pre-supervillain) that demotivated me from reading stories outside of my oshis, but otherwise…! my default state is to read enstars stories, especially if they pique my interest LOL it’s what i’ve always done since i came into the fandom. i got through a pretty big chunk of ! era stories just by reading the translations available and then keeping up with released stories
THAT BEING SAID, it’s easy to lose the motivation to keep this up (happened to me with some other mobage), so there are indeed motivating factors that make me keep this up for so many years now. well, save for the burnout, but i grew back the motivation to read in 2023 because of some of the reasons i’m about to list!
on a general basis, i find enstars writing Really Fun and super fascinating to explore. usually akira’s stories pique my interest the most but i enjoy subwriter stories just as much. it just depends on my mood since akira tends to do heavy/dense stories whereas subwriters do lighthearted and fun stories
as an extension to the above, back when writer names were shown i really enjoyed analyzing the different writing styles by each writer and the charm points and downsides of each one, and the only way to do that is to read more. i’ve done it for so many years that i still can’t let go of this habit even after they’ve hidden the names
i get very curious about some characters enough to try picking up some of their stories, and i always get rewarded for doing so by coming out of the stories learning something new about them. so it keeps motivating me to do this over and over again. i also warmed up to certain characters purely because i picked up their stories, which just Feels So Nice to start caring for more parts of enstars so… an endless positive cycle with this one
sort of a different route from the above but sometimes when reading an oshi-centered story, other non-oshi characters get involved and it naturally piques my interest to learn more about them.
the burnout i had during some of the most important !! era lore drops (2021-early 2023) widened my information gap so badly that i could feel how it started to affect my understanding of my own oshis’ lore (ryuseitai, midori/chiaki). i.e. i had a very narrow-minded perspective of the storyline because i just Didn’t Know what’s going on outside of ryuseitai. so as i started closing that gap, i came to realize "OMG WOAH READING OTHER OSHI STORIES REALLY DOES HELP BUILD MY UNDERSTANDING OF RYUSEITAI EVEN MORE….!!!" which gets me motivated to read more stories
as you mentioned, one of the reasons is because it’s fun connecting ryuseitai to other stories. and in fact, ryuseitai really IS connected to quite a handful of non-ryuseitai stories! (fine’s climax atlantis is one, and even early in !! era, there were quite a handful of ryuseitai mentions in switch’s first unit story (magic lantern) of all places. fun). so now i definitely can’t help myself from picking up more and more stories
it’s fun having random trivia of characters retained in my mind because i read that one story for them years ago LOL i still remember quite a handful of stuff i learned about characters from early ! era stories. also thanks to it i can keep up with people’s conversations outside of my oshi. and when i realize i can’t keep up because i clearly haven’t read enough stories i feel kinda awkward and it sucks LMAOOO so. makes me wanna read so i’m also in the know
there are a lot of stories i saw people’s reactions to first, but only got the time to read it months or even years later. so it’s fun to get the chance to read it and then compare my own impression of the story vs the reactions i had seen.
UHHH maybe there’s more. but in short i’ve always found enstars writing fun, and it keeps pulling me back in and motivating me to pick up more and more stories!
an interesting question to be asked and i had to sit on this for a while like "omg is it really that rare!?" (GENUINELY SURPRISED BUT NOT OFFENDED) so thank you for asking!