As we’re headed into my 20th year as a member of the fictionkin community, and maintainer of the From Fiction site/blog, I’m going to be trying to be more active here again.
In systems, can certain alters have kins while the rest don't? Adding on to that question, can those kins be shared? (I hope that makes sense)
Hey pal, great question!
Being a member of a plural system who is also fictionkin is definitely a thing that happens. (It’s an experience I’m personally familiar with.)
It is very much possible for some members of a system to be fictionkin, and some to not be.
Individual system members can have multiple kintypes like everyone else.
As to whether or not several members of a plural system can share one kintype, that depends on your personal metaphysical or psychological experience as to why that would be the case.
For example, two system members might share the same kintype if they were sharing a body/if they were system members during that kintype’s lifetime.
Or two system members might share the same kintype if they were different incarnations of the same character, who have now ended up sharing one body together.
Or two system members might share the same kintype if they were one person as that character, and due to some other circumstance have split into two separate people.
It’s definitely possible in some systems but how and why it would happen is down to your individual system’s experiences.
Anyone else deal with sort of.. Anti-phantom limbs? Or anything vaguely similar?
I specifically as a headmate am missing a whole arm. My physical body, however, is absolutely not missing an arm. I don’t use it as much as the rest of my system by default either, I am personally better adapted myself to using a singular arm and my legs/mouth to do daily life things. It’s a little funny, I find my systemmates getting confused as to why I’m doing things in convoluted ways because they just… forget I’ve gotten used to having one less limb. That’s all fine and able to be handled, but I also can’t seem to “connect” to the new arm right? I can move it, I can feel it fine, but when I front, that arm hurts or feels very uncomfortable. It feels heavy and stiff and just.. wrong.
I’d love to enjoy the fact that I have all my limbs intact here. I sure learned to live without it but it’s nice to have it back anyway! But my brain seems to be wired to still be used to having nothing there. It’s almost like I’ve been getting phantom limb pain… in a limb that is actually literally there.
A few others in my system get similar things on a smaller scale–birds who have no external ears feeling like our body doesn’t have any, or feeling physical discomfort in our human-bodied ears. People who feel like our number of fingers is wrong so they tend to use them as “groups”. I’m the first with such a big difference in recent memory, though. I’m just wondering how common it is.
A number of singlets experience this too, actually, completely independently of the alterhuman communities.
Feeling like a limb or other body part is wrong/is not part of your body map is one of the experiences I’ve seen described by those with BIID, sometimes also called xenomelia or transability (a term unrelated to the more recent transID community, coined no later than 2005). The transabled community in particular is made up of those who describe feeling such pain, discomfort, or “wrongness” in the body part that they genuinely do seek to have it removed.
There are a number of theories about why this occurs, sadly not all of them charitable. The idea of a person wanting to amputate a healthy limb horrifies people, and so BIID tends to be seen by medical professionals as a mental disorder, though there’s evidence for neurological causes. But especially in singlets, who can’t find any explanation for why their body map is wrong and can’t switch to escape it, it sometimes causes such deep distress that the person would rather seek amputation than live with the chronic discomfort.
So yes, that’s a thing that is out there, though I wouldn’t call it common. I don’t think I’ve seen it much in the alterhuman community, but it might just be that no one is talking about it?
One of my arms I’ve lost repeatedly through several lifetimes and when I’m in a heavy shift, sometimes it’s weird that it’s still there.
I’d say it’s an experience I have as often as any other phantom sensation, but it’s not one I’ve discussed frequently.
once again gracing the alterhuman community with this reminder; calling phantom appendages ‘phantom limbs’ is outdated & taking unrelated terminology from amputees !
There is more than one category of phantoms, namely Supernumerary Phantom Limbs (and other phantom sensations) which is what phantom shifts are referring to and is also a scientifically recognized phenomenon. Phantom sensations also commonly occur for transgender people. It is by no means an exclusive phenomenon and can have multiple causes outside of losing a body part and can manifest in ways outside of phantom limb (or organ) pain. It is also recognized that phantom sensations can even be induced, IE: the very famous Rubber Hand Illusion experiments.
Do we really have to dredge up this argument every 5 years
Also the biggest survey in the alterhuman community (with over 1200 responses) found that alterhuman phantom experiences mirror transgender, amputee, and organ loss/removal phantom experiences in obstacle shunning and similar facets. People in the community who have more commonly understood human phantom experiences also didn’t typically find the use of the phantom medical language offensive or inaccurate by alterhumans, and several people said they found their experiences of human and non-human phantoms identical. See here for the lecture related to it, and you can direct further questions to @frameacloud who was the dragon behind the survey.
Hey, I've been out of the wider online 'kin community for a while, the last time was probably back in OS which i've really been missing lately. Do you have any recommendations for more serious, spiritual focused, adult 'kin and plurality Discords or spaces? I'm slowly trying to dip my toes back into having an online presence, and I'm hoping that seeing other folks having real discussions about their experiences will help me put myself back out there.
Oof, I feel you, anon! I get this question all the time and outside of the small, very rarely active one that I run (which I’d be happy to invite you to) I honestly don’t know the answer.
I don’t know where the cool kins hang out anymore V_V
“otakukin” icons made by me for myself and various livejournal community members circa 2006-2007. At the time, we were under fire from a bunch of trolls who were trying to assert that our beliefs were a violation of copyright.
If you use these, it would be polite to attribute them to me.
I have a suggestion.
Hey, I recognize that you are a gimmick blog but you need to understand that otakukin/fictionkin already ARE their kintype. There is no ‘transforming’ into the character because that character already is you. That’s literally what being fictionkin is.
hi sinister 👋 i know absolutely nothing about fictionkin stuff at all and every time i try to read about it i just end up with more specific questions. but i feel like y'all know a lot and you're pretty good at explaining things so i thought i'd try asking y'all the most important questions i have.
does it count as fictionkin if it's your own original character who is your self-insert? like, my character is his own character who has quite a few differences from me but i use him as a fictional shell of sorts, so he technically still is me. and part of his deal is that he knows he's a fictional version of the real me. but a lot of the time i feel more like him than like myself, if that makes sense? i'll act or think or talk like him, or see my physical self as him in my head. but like i said, he technically already is me, so would this even count? or am i just thinking too hard about it? i mean, i do have a tendency to over-analyze any labels i think i could apply to myself, so i could very well just be reading too far into it. it'd be nice if i could get your thoughts on this. 😔
Hey anon! Thanks for pulling up to my inbox, I love talking about kin questions (and I hope you won’t mind me reblogging this to my kin specific blog.)
There are a couple of different parts to this question!
First of all “can you be fictionkin of an OC?”
The answer to that is without question, yes. There are lots of fictionkin out there who have a kintype that is an OC. Those of us who are spiritual fictionkin tend to believe that these “OCs” are created out of/due to our memories of our past lives, where (in the case of the OC being from an existent media) we were ‘left out’ of the canon of this universe, for whatever reason.
“i use him as a fictional shell of sorts”
Alright, second part of the question! If this is a sort of 'avatar’ that you project yourself on, rather than a full identity that is indistinguishable from your own 'self’, the experience you’re having might best be called something other than “fictionkin”. Check out this list of mine of some different words for different types of connections to a fictional character, and see if one of them fits for your experience better than “fictionkin”.
Basically, yes, you can be fictionkin of an OC, and yes, if he “is” you, if you speak and act “as” him, and he isn’t a separate entity from yourself, then yes, the label fictionkin very well could suit the experience you’re having!
As a side note, if your OC is not from an existing piece of media that you created a new character for, but is a character for an original setting/story all your own, “otherkin” might actually be a closer term (if you wanted to use it!).
sorry if this is kind of rambley i am very nervous & you're one of the few fictionkin i know on this site off the top of my head & i need advice... :')
i've recently awakened to a new kintype & for a multitude of reasons it has become very important to me/my identity, & with it has brought a lot of kin dysphoria, partially in relation to names.
my kintype is non-white & has an ethnic name & i am very white with a very basic white american name and i'm like. i've talked to a kin friend about it & he's told me that so long as i make it clear i am white (which i do/am) & that i'm not trying to like, legally change my name (i am not), then it's fine to go by my kintype's name, especially since i would only really be going by it in kin spaces. however i am still really fearful, like is it ok?
realistically i am acknowledging my fear may be coming from a place of OCD lol but still. would it be racist if i asked fellow kin to refer to me by my kintypes name??? if it would be then i am obviously willing to ignore my dysphoria about it. i am just deeply scared of doing something wrong, when it's not my intent to be hurtful!!!!
so sorry for this mess of an ask. i hope you & your partner are having a good friday ^^ ❤️❤️ tysm if you answer btw 😢
What does someone mean when they say “I kin that character?”
Types and attributes of connections to fictional characters
The verb form of kin (to kin, kinning, etc) has become popular as a colloquial and nonspecific word that people sometimes use to describe a variety of different types of connections they may have to fiction characters.
Because “kin” has become such a casual, nonspecific verb that can refer to many different things, it can be hard to tell just what kind of actual connection a person who says “I kin that character” means that they have. Therefore, it’s best not to make an assumption about what type of connection to a character someone means when they say that they “kin” them.
Below is a list of more detailed and specific terminology for types of connections to fictional characters that a person might be casually referring to when they say that they “kin” a character.
“fictionkins don’t ACTUALLY identify as fictional characters! you’re delusional if you do!”
the fuck do you think the definition of fictionkin is?
Its also abelist and mean to IRLs by calling it delusional
fun fact: IRL started in the fictionkin community
also? god forbid you’re delusional and THATS WHY you identify with a character? people need to leave us tf alone. alterhuman identification is no ones business, even IF it’s caused by delusion.
Fictionkin has always meant “believes you are a specific fictional character/the incarnation of a specific fictional character”.
Many of us believe this due to spiritual reasons. Some of us believe this due to psychological reasons. For plenty, it’s both.
But no matter what the reason fictionkin means “believes you are a fictional character”.
Anything else is not fictionkin, it’s some other related experience.
Curious what those other experiences might be? here’s a list!
Y'all we uh, remember when we got accused of "stealing people's work" for being FICTIVES, from someone who is/was ostensibly a fucking trandationalist sysmed (someone who believes all systems are traumagenic and system menbers all inherently have "reasons" and "roles" to forming) lmao the fictionfolk hate is SO STRONG at least one person on this earth has made it come back full circle
Because
We also made shitty edits of a t-shirt with the sunset fictive flag on it going "copyright violation" and "even Disney can't take these fuckers down" at some point iwrc
Time truly is a flat circle as they say.
The people who level the “you’re stealing” accusation at fictionfolk really don’t understand what they’re talking about on a single level.
These arguments come up again and again, simply because people are stupid in the same ways over and over.
“otakukin” icons made by me for myself and various livejournal community members circa 2006-2007. At the time, we were under fire from a bunch of trolls who were trying to assert that our beliefs were a violation of copyright.
If you use these, it would be polite to attribute them to me.
Otakukin was in fact the original term for the community before “fictionkin” was coined!
The change happened on the livejournal community, where we discussed that the term “Otakukin” had negative (and overly specific) connotations that we wanted to avoid, ie, referring only to japanese media among other things.
So after some community discussion we (the group at the time) coined and started using fictionkin instead.
