What makes you believe you're your fictotype(s)
Sunday, May 19, 2024
May 7
Every once in a while, I'll see someone saying they want to write more about being fictionkin but have no idea what to write about. It's hard to get specific without knowing the individual or their source material, but some general ideas on what to write about could be like…
- What makes you believe you're your fictotype(s)
- How being fictionkin affects your day-to-day life
- Your relationship with your source material(s), before and/or after discovering you're fictionkin
- How you feel about your source material's fandom
- If/How discovering you're fictionkin affects how you interact with other fictional works
- How you deal with doubt (from yourself or others)
- What you do to cope with homesickness/canonsickness
- What you consider shifts and what they're like, or what it's like not having shifts
- Aspects of your source materials (weird pacing? gameplay mechanics?) and how they compare to your memories/noemata
I'll also add that getting into the habit of journaling regularly can help you figure out topics to write about! Of course, journaling is first and foremost for better understanding yourself, but if you make it a habit of journaling about anything that comes to mind, you could find some entries cover topics that may be interesting or helpful for others to see.
(On that note, it can be very interesting to address how things have changed over time--whether that's your identity (or your understanding thereof) or the community. That's the benefit of both journaling (for yourself) and sharing your writing publicly (for others).)
But I think in general, there's a serious need to talk about what being fictionkin is, so anything you can think to write about and share helps.
sonic-spirit May 19
Okay, hells yeah, I'll take these as prompts! Probably one at a time, since each one is pretty big and cronchy, and I am but a simple lad.
- What makes you believe you're your fictotype(s)
OOF. This one always feels so damn big--it's so much to parse, and such a huge thing to deal with. Like, my current coping strategy is "Fuck it, I don't care, I am what I am," but how I got to that is a series of embarrassing stories that will actually be way more helpful than me just saying that the answer is fuck it. And anyway, the answer isn't just "Fuck it."
Short version: I had reason to try assuming I was Sonic the Hedgehog, and it stuck.
Long version?
I had my unicorn/alicorn Awakening starting in 4th and 5th grade--it was kicked off by a soulbond, the soulbond relationship really fucked me up cuz, hey, even unicorns can be abusive, manipulative assholes. I discovered the unicorn Otherkin community online for the first time around 7th grade or so, had a pretty rocky ride in that because the Main Dude running the unicorn sites was a bit of a manipulative, abusive shithead himself, because again, even unicorns can be abusive and manipulative. Fuck you, Emshir.
So, by the time I was a junior in college/university, I'd dipped in and out of the online Otherkin community a few times, mostly just lurking. One day when I was walking to class, I started ruminating about the phenomena of Fictionkin (though I only knew to call it Otakukin at the time, cuz hey, it was 2009). The buzz I'd picked up just poking my toes into the communities from time to time seemed to be of an "obviously these are all fakers/fakeclaimers". But I'd also seen at least one memorable thread positing that there couldn't be any unicorn Otherkin because our poor, pure, unicorn souls would be blasted to bits by the horrors of this world sooo...yeah. My personal line had been for a long time by then that if I could think of even one way for a phenomenon to be possible, I would accept that that phenomenon was indeed possible. Doesn't mean that I've never though someone was wrong, but what I think about an individual doesn't matter, it's their own experience (like yes, I've noticed you can take up a lot of space with your aura, I don't think that's necessarily because you're uber powerful).
I'd done a decent amount of soulbonding, and definitely believed in a big, wide multiverse, so yeah, I could think of at least one way for an individual to be so-and-so from Universe.
Well...that opened the floodgates, didn't it.
It wasn't instantaneous. But if it took me more than two weeks to start noticing I was feeling Sonic feels...I'd be surprised. It was complicated, though, by my having had a soulbond with a Sonic. A really important, soulbond. But hey, that didn't rule it out, right? It's a big multiverse, after all.
But hey, I couldn't be Sonic, could I? No way...! There was no way! I just really, really liked him, didn't I! And who wouldn't want to be Sonic, right!? Nah, I was willing to entertain the idea that I was somebody, but Sonic!? Not a chance!
Besides! It's not like I had gender dysphoria, or anything! Sure, I fundamentally did not understand how my girl parts worked, I'd come to the conclusion that my alicorn self was indeed male, and I was having phantom penis sensations...but that was all normal, right!?
Nah. I was definitely actually Amy Rose, and just sooo obsessed with Sonic that picturing myself as him felt right, right!? I mean, it's close, right!? Both hedgehogs. Both Mobian. Sure, I drew myself as Amy with back spines and a very different clothing style, and changing my Actual style to be as girly as possible was...new (although actually, I'd totes wear those same bright colored leggings and sheer skirts I got then now, that shit was cool). But surely I was actually just Amy Rose. Sure.
Yeah...that...did not last very long.
But...the next part I usually gloss over. Because it makes me uncomfortable. It made me feel like a faker. I've always been a spiritual 'kin. ^_^;; Honestly, I'm a little lost on what a psychological 'kin means, even. Like, there's plenty of valid ways to be 'kin, I'm just used to thinking about it this way for myself. But it'll be 15 years in July (chaos...I've known who I am for as old as I AM. Fuck that's trippy as balls), and if it's stuck this long, I have no reason to think I'm gonna wake up in a cold sweat and realize I've been wrong all this time. And that's the breaking point where I had to accept I was Sonic.
Cuz it wasn't simply that I got overwhelmed by the discrepancies, it wasn't the bad fit, it wasn't just the dreams. What really shoved me over the edge was that, as Amy, I'd always be separated from my object of obsession. -_- I needed Sonic. I couldn't go my whole life without him. So...yeah, there had been some very interesting experiences, mental shifts, memories, dreams, all the sort of things I'd like to say brought me around to this realization. But really, it was that if I didn't try to be my own Sonic, I was gonna be stuck in despair.
So like, I'll often phrase it as "I stopped resisting," or "Realized I was Sonic the whole time," and yeah. There was a lot of that that was actually there. I also had to accept I was trans, and what that would mean for me--with my life, with my family, with my body. It was a big hurdle to jump, and I leapt it all at once. And I guess that was how I needed to do it, now that I think of it. I couldn't have jumped it all for anything less than Sonic the Hedgehog.
It just also turned out that he was me.
So...yanno, I was fairly skeptical of myself at first. So I did the thing I'd advise anyone to do when feeling out their identity: Fictionkin, Otherkin, therian, trans, queer, whatever. Just try it out for a bit, and see. See if it sticks, in whole or in part. See what feels right and wrong. It can be just for you, or just for you and a few trusted friends at first. It's okay to be wrong. But the only way to know is to try.
Chaos knows, I believe this as much as I've believed anything. It's stuck for 15 fuckin' years, so I don't think I'm gonna stop anytime soon. Except it did a few times there, where I had other kintypes or past lives come to the fore, and eclipse it for a time. It just also came back.
So yeah. I could talk about phantom shifts, dreams, the way I end up acting like myself when I'm relaxed and confident, and how happy that makes me. I can talk about my weird parallel life stuff, and I absolutely should. But though those things reinforce my belief I'm Sonic the fuckin' Hedgehog, they're not, on their own, why I believe it. Not without the rest of it. Not without acknowledging I needed to try it out, first.
#fictionkin#fictionkind#otherkin#alterhuman#otherkind#therianthrope#therianthropy#therian#theriomythic#sonic otherkin#sonic fictionkin#sonic sez