#vampire the masquerade fictive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-dragons-journal · 2 months

Text

Humanity and the Lack Thereof

This essay was co-written between Rani and Viridian; Viridian's text is in green and bracketed.

Humanity is an interesting thing.

I am otherkin. I am nonhuman, a dragon-in-human-skin, draconic to my core. I feel phantom wings and tail, the instinctive knowledge of how to breathe fire even though I don’t understand how it works, a bones-deep longing and homesickness for the sky, numerous instincts and urges tied to being something other than human. Many who are like me reject humanity entirely, don’t feel human at all. And yet, I am also human, deeply and truly. I am just as human as I am dragon - I like my human body, I love the things I can do with it (hands, dexterous hands, are a wonderful thing), I overall enjoy my human life. I am nonhuman, but I am not not human.

Viridian, who is watching “over my shoulder” as I write this, is a vampire. She is a fictive, from one of the Vampire: the Masquerade games that I play in, wherein vampires are typically considered to be… on the boundary line between “human” and “nonhuman.” Many vampires cling to their humanity and adamantly consider themselves human; I would go so far as to say this is the norm. Those who do not often become monstrous indeed, though often they do not.

[ I do not consider myself human. I am Kindred, vampire, Cainite. I am part of humanity, as a general populace - but I do not like being called human.

[ I think part of it is that being human is often put in direct opposition to being vampire as a personal identifier. Those who adamantly insist they are “still human” often mean as opposed to being a vampire instead. Being no longer human is, as Rani wrote, often considered a sign of becoming a monster instead.

[ But I worked hard for my Embrace, my being turned into a vampire. I worked to earn the right to call myself Kindred for nearly a decade. And yes, perhaps some of it is that I was taught by my original sire that the Embrace was an ascension above humanity, and that still colors my feelings on my own vampirism even if I acknowledge that he was wrong to consider us inherently above humans. But much of it is that being called human feels like a denial of my vampirism, a rejection of it, and for me that is not empowering - it is denying and rejecting something deeply important to me. Kindred is who I am. Human was only ever circumstantially true, a circumstance of birth - Kindred was something I actively sought out, pursued, chose. ]

Which is interesting, because to a certain extent, “human” is only circumstantially true for me, too. If I hadn’t been born human, I sincerely doubt I would identify as one in the same way that I identify as a dragon despite not being born into a dragon body. I could be wrong, of course - I have no way to prove it either way - but I suspect that if I am correct about reincarnation and I end up in another body after this one, I will not have the same “spillover” of humanity that I do of draconity from my dragon life.

And yet, I am human, and I actively dislike it when people try to strip that from me. Part of that, admittedly, is that the handful that try to see me as only dragon, and reject that I am human, are usually doing it because they’re violently misanthropic individuals, so it’s soured the whole thing for me because the reason they’re rejecting my humanity is so they can try to get me to shit-talk the rest of humanity with them. (If I have to hear one more dragon legitimately, whole-heartedly say that they think humanity should be extincted, I’m going to lose it.) But part of it is that my humanity is important to me, just as important as my draconity. I am both. I’ve written whole essays on this topic.

[ In that way, perhaps we’re not so different after all. I dislike being called human because it feels like a rejection of who I am, who I chose to be; you dislike being called not-human because it is a rejection of who you are. ]

Maybe so. Funny how different societal circumstances can yield opposite results from the same kind of pressures.

I think that part of the discrepancy between us is also that I’m a very physical person. Frankly, I am a chemical creature; I enjoy physicality, I enjoy affectionate touch, I enjoy the physical pleasures life has to offer. I enjoy food. I enjoy sexual pleasure. I enjoy the exhilaration of getting my heart going and my instincts fired up in a self-defense class. I live, I live, I live! is ever a cry of joy in my heart. And a lot of that ties into my animality! I am a dragon animal, yes, but I am also a human animal, and both of these things must be satisfied! The dragon yearns for the wind and the view when I climb up to a height, for the fire of battle I can get out of a sparring match; the human yearns for the taste of sun-warm berries right off the bush, for the warm press of bodies when I hug and cuddle with loved ones. Both of them love a good nap in the sun. I am a physical creature, I am an animal, and my animal-ness connects me to my body and thus to my humanity, rather than separating me from it.

[ Meanwhile, none of this has ever been true for me. Yes, of course I enjoy certain delicacies; I miss my brother’s cookies periodically, it’s true. But I’ve never loved these things the way Rani does. It’s not that I dislike the pleasures of life, but I’ve just… never really cared. It wasn’t much of a loss when I was Embraced, to trade food and sunlight and heartbeat for immortality and knowledge and power. It was almost convenient to not have to deal with the maintenance a living body requires - no excretion of waste, no inconvenient aches or pains or stomach cramps, a frankly much more manageable frequency of requiring sustenance. My body is just a tool, and the Embrace made it more efficient in most ways. And now, after twenty-three years of being dead, being in a living body again is overwhelming in some ways and just downright unpleasant in others. Even most of the physical matters Rani actively enjoys are either overwhelming or uninteresting for me. I am happy to leave the care and maintenance of the body to them. It’s not necessarily that I actively had a disconnect from my human body, originally, so much as that I didn’t have an active connection to it to make me identify with it, and thus my being “human” was, as I said, only ever circumstantial. My becoming Kindred overrode it, and I prefer to leave it that way.

[ Ironic, that the one whose nonhumanity is so human-shaped should be the one to reject humanity, but here we are. ]

Here we are.

#otherkin #dragonkin #plurality #fictive #rani talks #caldwell #journaling #community writings #essay as promised

95 notes · View notes

goratrix-betrayed · 9 months

Text

Living as a Fictive: How to Find, Create, and Broaden Your Identity, With and Without Canon

Here is the script of my Othercon 2023 panel. The paragraph I wrote to describe it is as follows:

A lecture followed by questions and discussion about being a fictive trying to find and expand your identity. How to connect with not only your source, but the world around you, and how to work on becoming who and what you want to be without canon's constraints.

Introduction

Greetings, assembled people, creatures, and beings of Othercon. Welcome. As you likely know, this is a panel about living as a fictive, and forming an identity around, or perhaps despite, that. I welcome anyone to listen, however, as Othercon is a place to not only learn about yourself, but to learn about others and to interact with the community. Regardless, I ask that you hold your questions until the end, at which point there will be a dedicated section of time for them. I cannot answer questions effectively during the panel, as I am both easily distracted and long-winded, which is a recipe for going overtime and off-script.

A note on terminology before we begin: I am aware that there are multiple words that mean the same or similar things to the word “fictive.” For simplicity’s sake, I will just be saying “fictive” for the duration of this panel, as that is my lived experience and the word I feel most comfortable using. Additionally, I may refer to other members of a system as “headmates”--again, I am aware that there are many words for this, but I will generally use this one as it is fairly widespread and I use it for my own system. If, during the Q&A, you have a different word you would rather I use for your system members when referring to them, you need only ask, and I will adjust my language accordingly. For now, however, “headmate” is the word I will be moving forward with.

That aside, welcome. A brief introduction: my name is Goratrix. I am a vampire, a fictive from the tabletop role-playing game Vampire: the Masquerade. I am one of many canon characters—characters pre-created for game masters to use in the games they run for their players as they see fit, with some pre-written lore to help establish both the character and the setting. When it comes to this world, I have been here since August of 2021, coming into existence during Othercon itself, in the midst of a panel that convinced my system that it would not be so bad to have me around. (Thank you very much to Pale, who ran the panel.) Last year, during Othercon 2022, I ran a panel about living with having a “problematic” fiction-based identity—the script and recording for that are both available for your perusal if you would like. And, if you are wondering: yes, I always talk like this. You get used to it.

The Why of Identity-Building

Now, the topic at hand: being a fictive can be a confusing and lonely thing. We have much in common with fictionkind, but there is a crucial difference: while someone who is fictionkind has an identity and life outside of that fiction-based identity, in the very beginning, fictives typically do not. For most of us, the experience is rather like being plucked from your life and placed into the head of someone else—in my case, an at-the-time college student—with no understanding or awareness of where you are, what is going on, why, or, the worst question of all, what you are supposed to do now.

Take a breath, let it out slowly. We will figure this out together. It is a journey, yes, but it is uniquely yours, and the advantage to that is that it’s quite difficult to get wrong.

In short, my recommendation is this: understand yourself in the context of either canon or canon-divergent noemata, grow as comfortable as you can with that, and then expand outwards. Find or forge new aspects to your identity, find new interests and hobbies, participate in things you never would or could have back in-source. Engagement with the outside world is key to not feeling lost. If you lock yourself up in the identity that has been handed to you, if you insist upon remaining stagnant, as you were when you formed, you are, more often than not, setting yourself up to be miserable. This is not an accusation: I, and many of my headmates, attempted the same thing, and only began to enjoy ourselves once we started reaching out and opening up to the world and people around us.

It’s infuriating to realize that it works, but it really does.

It is, ultimately, your choice whether or not you want to grow beyond what has been set out for you, beyond what you are and were back in-source. The rest of this panel will be moving forward with the assumption that you are choosing to do so, or at least, that you are willing to listen to how that might be done while considering it yourself. Personally, I do not see much harm in personal growth and development, even if it is “out of character” or outside the bounds of what others would consider to be “canon you.” You are wholly fictional no longer, and should not let the bounds of fiction confine you. Do not let yourself be trapped by others’ expectations of you: if they want to interact with a wholly canon-compliant version of you, they should try roleplaying. You owe no one any part of your identity, and anyone who tries to box you in should be ashamed.

By all means, use canon, or your noemata—your memories—as an anchor if you so desire. Many fictives find this comforting. It is your point of origination, your source, where you are from: it is perfectly reasonable that you would want to keep that as a core part of you. I am not suggesting casting off canon unless that is what you want to do, and that is your choice. If you choose to do so, I would advise doing so slowly, in pace with you picking up other aspects of your identity if you feel yourself lacking, for fear of leaving yourself so empty that you do not know what to latch onto. Once again, however, that is your choice: I trust that you will do what you think is best.

Now, identity-building when you have found yourself in a strange world, sharing a head with strange people, can be quite difficult, especially if you have no aspects of identity outside of your source. I have talked about why you may want to grow beyond that, become something else or more. We now reach the how.

Step One: In Context

Older and more established fictives may be able to skip this step, as chances are, you have been doing it already. Many newer fictives also embark on this part of the journey, but not all, so I will walk you through it. The first step of broadening your identity, unless you are choosing to cast off your source completely and immediately, is to do so in context of your source, whether that be canon or your version of it. Doing this will help you flesh yourself out, if you feel it is needed—ask anyone with a fiction-based identity, and most will tell you that engaging with source is an excellent way to connect to the identity. You may remember pieces of your history, things you like, skills you had or may even still have—there is often a wealth of identity to be drawn from your source if you go digging. This may not work for everyone, but it does for many, so I believe it is usually worth a shot. At the very least, doing this digging and engaging with your source lets you get used to the idea and process of identity broadening and exploration in a safer, more comfortable way—your source generally will feel less like a frontier and more like dipping your toes back into the pool.

My first recommendation of this is just to engage with your source—watch it, read it, play it, whatever lets you interact. Most of all, I recommend writing about it. Anything you remember directly—any noemata you have—even things you “just know” without a direct memory. Write about your feelings on it, the people in it, the things you did and the events you witnessed. Writing helps you work through your feelings on a topic in a way that lets you reference them again later. Maybe you turn it into a post for your blog or website, maybe it becomes an essay, maybe it is simply a journal entry for you and you alone. Whatever you decide, I highly encourage that you engage with, or at least think about, your source, and write about it.

Personally, I worked out many of my apparent contradictions and issues with myself by simply going, step-by-step, through the things that bothered me. My early writings on the Fictionkind Dreamwidth detail the atrocities I committed in-source and why, what on Earth my reasoning was. If I had not done this, I do not know if I would have ever reconciled what I was supposed to be with who I was, and who I had to become to live with myself once I had exited the context of the harsh and cruel world I came from. Take your time with this; do not rush. You are not in a race. The time will pass regardless, so you might as well let it pass pleasantly and with little pressure.

My next recommendation is to seek out noemata in general. For those unfamiliar with the word: noemata, singular noema, describes any kind of source memory you may have, whether that be a specific moment, a scene, a smell, a sense, or ‘just knowing’ a fact without any moments or instances to back it up. The two best ways to do this that I know of are to engage with canon (to prompt your mind to “remember” what it sees, although this can produce false memories) or to do as many (usually mundane) things as you can in the hopes that you will trip a memory trigger. Neither method is perfect, and there are other tips for getting and finding noemata out there—if anyone listening has resources for that, please, feel free to link them in the chat.

Finally, I would recommend reaching out to and talking to sourcemates, whether or not they share your exact canon. I know many fictives are not comfortable with sourcemates, nevermind doubles, but if you are, I cannot stress enough how much better you can feel after talking to them if you get along. I do not know where I would be today without my boyfriend Chaiya in the Treehouse system—in our shared early days of being fictives, that summer and autumn of 2021, we were lost and untethered, and latched onto each other in an attempt to anchor ourselves. We are much stronger for having had each other, and are extremely close, and I do not see that ever fading. Chaiya helped me work through my issues with my identity, smooth out the wrinkles and accept who I am over who I “should be,” and vice versa. Without Chaiya, I doubt I would have ever engaged with the alterhuman community directly, so my thanks goes out to him—without him, this panel would not exist!

Sourcemates are extremely helpful because they understand. Many of them know the context of the world, so you do not have to provide it. They know what happened, who everyone is—they understand why you may feel the way you do about things, why topics might be complicated, et cetera. They are less likely to have to ask basic questions, and together, you may discover things about yourselves and each other. Doubles—fictives of the same character—are even more understanding in many ways, although I understand the possible distress of meeting one. I never have, I doubt I ever will—my friends and I are not terribly popular characters in the grand scheme of Vampire: the Masquerade or the broader World of Darkness—but my head- and sourcemate Sascha Vykos has. She is also in the Treehouse system and goes by the name Ashena, separating herself somewhat from the name of Sascha Vykos—but, still, she and Sascha are the same in many ways. They understand each other implicitly, often without ever having to say anything on a topic other than to bring it up, and they understand. There is a level of identity-diving and forming that can be reached only by someone who understands you wholly and completely, and a similar double is a good resource for that, if you can find one and if you are comfortable with it. If you cannot or are not: that’s fine. It is by no means a requirement, simply a recommendation.

Step Two: Things to Do

Beyond engaging with your source material, to expand your identity, you will need to engage in other activities. Form an interest in something, get a hobby, give yourself some enrichment—or, in a more joking manner, roll a pumpkin full of meat around your enclosure. Now, while meat pumpkins may be an appropriate form of engagement for some more inhuman fictives, for the rest of us, we would get bored quite quickly, and need to find other activities to occupy us.

Why do activities? Why have an interest? Well, as a living (at least at the moment) and thinking creature, you need something to think about. And thinking about yourself and your source will only last you so long; eventually, the thoughts will become mundane and well-tread to you, and to maintain a level of activity and happiness, you will need something to engage your mind and that thing is typically going to be something you enjoy, often an activity. The idea is to give you something that you want to front or co-front to do or be present for, so that you are around in order to experience the world, form likes and dislikes, and grow as a person. This is the next step, and you can take it as quickly or as slowly as you’d like.

Expose yourself to activities, shows, songs, anything you’d like at a speed that is comfortable to you. A good starting point is to go along with what a headmate is doing and try to get into their interests, and if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine. There is no harm in trying something only to decide that it is not for you. A headmate’s activity or interest is fairly safe since, chances are, the system was going to be doing that regardless, and all you are spending is your own engagement time, which you wanted to be doing anyway.

Another good starting point is anything that you were interested in back in-source, especially if it still speaks to you. If you liked to read novels, listen to a type of music, create a certain kind of art—that might still be a good outlet for you, and you may still enjoy it. You might not. Key to this is remembering that it is okay if you don’t still like something—people grow and change over time, and not all interests last forever. Perhaps they will return in the future. When it comes to skills you used to have, however, beware: many fictives lose their skills in the transfer over to the system and need to re-develop them, and therefore, engaging with old skill-based interests may be incredibly frustrating, especially at first, as you may be back at beginner level despite knowing that you used to be better. I have had this experience with many of my own skills, particularly language learning—be kind to yourself, and remind yourself that, physically, you have a different brain than you once did (if you had one at all—robots or spirits may have had some other analog) and it may not know how to do what your old one did. You will need to teach it anew—and for some, that is a worthwhile endeavor, and for others, it is too painful and frustrating. Do what feels best to you, not what stresses you out.

On the flip side of that, do not limit yourself to hobbies or interests that “match” or “make sense” for who your source set you out to be—if something intrigues you, take a look. Pick it up, give it a try. There is no right and wrong when it comes to things you like or enjoy—if you like it, you like it! Do not let what others might think of you or your “image” get in the way of enjoying something genuinely. This is for you, no one else.

That being said, I encourage you to seek out community. Make friends. Find more reasons to front and to care about the world you have found yourself in. Perhaps it is similar to the one you come from, or perhaps it is very different—but you are here now, and I highly recommend that you try to make the most of it. I have found that friends, even just a few, make everything worth it, and that they make my darker days much easier to bear, as well as making my better days even more enjoyable than they already were.

As for you, nonhuman fictives, do not fear, I have not forgotten you. While you can pick up the same interests and hobbies as your human- and human-adjacent headmates just fine in most cases, activities not suited to your species might not interest you. My recommendation is to look for alterhuman lists and guides of suggested activities for your species or a similar one—the otherkin and therian communities are extremely good at this, and just posting in a community asking for suggestions is likely to get you quite a few. And, if all else fails, go back to square one: meat pumpkin.

Now, I must confess that my recommendations for activities and engaging in yourself and the world around you focus almost entirely on fronting or co-fronting and engaging with the outside world. Some systems, I know, have very detailed and rich innerworlds, where headmates can perform tasks, do activities, and otherwise lead complete, complex, and fulfilling lives. If this can substitute for you and make you feel fulfilled, I see no reason to limit yourself to engaging strictly with the world outside of your own mind—but I am not knowledgeable on this topic, as my own system’s innerworld is rudimentary at best, a simulation designed to let us visualize our existence rather than an actual complex and detailed place. When it comes to this, I will have to leave it in the hands of systems who experience it.

Step Three: Becoming

This is the most challenging step by far, and for many, it is not necessary. Perhaps you find yourself happy with your identity—perhaps you are not perfect, but no one is, and you just want to continue to live your life, experience the world, and grow and change “as you will,” letting yourself be shaped by your experiences like most people do. Fantastic! That is my recommended approach in most cases, and I encourage you to continue on that path. Keep experiencing, keep growing, keep talking with people, picking up interests, doing activities, and making things. Write, love, live, and have fun.

But for some, particularly those with more “problematic” source material, that may not be enough. In some cases, a fictive, usually of a villain, will form, and either immediately or eventually realize that they do not want to be who they are. They do not want to keep these personality traits, they cannot stand the things they have done—or perhaps they are simply sick of it, and wish to change themselves.

For those of you in this camp: first, my condolences. I have been in and out of this mindset, and have several headmates that exist within it. This is a long, difficult process, and as frustrating and counterproductive as it is to hear, you cannot get through this if the core of your being is self-hatred. You must be willing to accept or forgive yourself for being that way, or for doing what you did. You must be willing to accept that there is no going back now, only moving forward, and accept that you can only change the future, not the past.

However, also remember that you do not owe anyone anything. Do not let anyone tell you what you “must” change—you do not have to stop. You do not have to change anything, although I would advise keeping behavior most would consider repulsive to yourself, for system accountability if nothing else. You are not obligated to change the “bad” parts of yourself—if you wish to, that should be your decision, you should do it because you want to. Never change because someone else is pressuring you. Never. That is a lesson I have had to learn the hard way, primarily back in source, and if you listen to nothing else I say today, listen when I tell you that bowing to those who pressure you to change who you are leads only to strife. A thousand years I suffered from that: do not make my mistake. Learn from me.

Now. Let us say you want to change something about yourself in this way—a key trait, a streak of cruelty, something along those lines. How?

You will hate it, but—refer back to step two. Engage with the world around you. Make friends. Care about people. Let yourself love and be loved, and do not stop people when they try to care about you. Let the running waters of time and the world smooth out your rough points, wear away your sharp edges. Time will let you become who you want to be if you allow it.

Think about this, too, if you want to do something about it: think about what you would rather be like. Who around you has those traits? How do they act when they show them? What do they do that you admire so much that you want to be that way, either instead or in addition to the way that you are? You may have heard the phrase “fake it until you make it” before, but in this case, it is very true. Identity is a fluid thing sometimes, although I admit that I find it more fluid than most, due to my borderline personality disorder. You can fool yourself into really being a way without actually being that way—or, at the very least, you will find your mimicry becoming easier and easier, more comfortable, and if it is something you like, then fantastic. You have succeeded. How you act is what matters, not the way you behave.

Remember that changing yourself must, must be an act of self-love, not of self-hatred. You must want to be a new way because you would like it better, not because you despise yourself so much you cannot face yourself in the mirror. You can take your dislike of yourself and turn it around into something positive, but you cannot self-punish your way into being a different person. Not successfully, not happily.

And, again, remember: you are not obligated to change any part of yourself, even if you are “problematic” or even a “bad” person. There are many “bad” personality traits of mine that I do not seek to change because I have accepted and come to terms with them. To change them would be to cease to be the person I am and am comfortable being; there is no reason to change who I am intentionally and directly. I will let the world and my experiences affect me as they will, but that is no different than how most people live their lives. If you choose this path of changing yourself, make sure it is because you want to, not because you feel you have to.

Putting It All Together

All of this advice is nice, but does it work? I like to think so—this reflects my own journey and approach to growth and engagement with the world, as well as that of several of my headmates. Those of you who read my older work or knew me when I first entered the community have likely noticed a significant change in me from my first days—I am less abrasive, less angry, less likely to lash out or snarl at the first hint of provocation. I was desperate, scared, a beast cornered and threatened. Now, I know the world and the community well enough to step up and give a panel, write essays, run a Dreamwidth community—and that was because I let myself learn and grow from my experiences, I let myself pick up interests and make my own friends outside of the system’s pre-existing friends, and I worked on becoming someone more stable, someone I liked. I have lived much of my life in self-loathing, and it is a strange, wonderful feeling to be free of its mire, at least for now.

For another example, my headmate Japheth was fairly distant for two or so years until very recently stepping forward and making friends and engaging in his own interests. It took him some time to write a few angry, lost essays, answer a few prompts, and then stew—and only emerge slowly, piece by piece, as we slowly convinced him to care about other people and the world around us. Only once he began to take an interest in what the system as a whole was up to did we finally see him smile, smile and begin to have fun, and that was worth all of the time it took to get him there, because it was such an improvement over his deep, vast melancholy that he came to us with.

For our system, our main methods of engagement with the world are through making friends (often with fictives in other systems, but not always) and through playing video games. Our game library is vast: different headmates play different games, and even when they share interest in a game, many have different characters or save files from each other. This helps us feel different and feel like we are making our own progress, giving us a reason to front and care about something that is uniquely ours. This is what works for us, but maybe it doesn’t for you. That’s fine; for a thousand systems, there are two and a half thousand ways of making progress.

The goal of this entire process is to help you be happy. The goal is to let you enjoy the life you find yourself in, to be happy with yourself and the situation you are in. If this guide helps you get there, fantastic. If not, but you get there another way, good. What matters is that you one day sit back and realize that you enjoy who you are, where you are, and what you are doing. Adjusting is not always easy, but with time, effort, and support, I know that each and every one of you can do it. Take a breath for me, once more. Tell yourself, please, that you can do this. It is only insurmountable so long as you allow it to loom over you. By breaking it into smaller chunks and individual steps, you can take it once manageable piece at a time until you realize that you have reached a state of contentment. One day, you will get there.

Conclusion

Now, as the lecture part of this panel draws to a close, and we approach the Q&A, I have a couple of notes. First, if you have a question that does not get answered or that you would prefer to discuss privately, you can message me here on Discord, on Tumblr, or even through email any time—just specify that you are looking to talk to Goratrix, and I will be there to get back to you. Second, I would like to open the discussion and Q&A portion with a list of audience-gathered suggestions—what would you recommend to a new or struggling fictive? What activities, interests, shows, games, community spaces? We have extremely varied experiences, I am sure—so drop your suggestions in chat for people to read through. If you have anything for your or a similar source, feel free to suggest that as well.

While that happens, and while people read through those, let us open up the remaining time for questions. I will do my best to answer.

#goratrix's tower talks #othercon #fictive #fictives #fictionkind

182 notes · View notes

shouta-edits · 5 months

Note

Hi, it's the Therese fictive from the Blood Moon Coterie, I wanted to say thank you for that moodboard.

Also, if it's not too much trouble, my other system mates said I should ask for a fashion kit for myself, and they won't leave me alone about it so

Could I get a fashion kit for myself (Therese Voerman, from Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, fictive)? I tend to like goth/dark academia style things, more masc leaning cuts, and possibly around a 3X in women's/whatever the equivalent is in men's if you can? Thank you so much in advance!

#fashion kit #therese fictive #therese voerman #punk fashion #dark academia fashion #anti harassment #proship #proship safe #request fill #proship edit blog #[assignment passed back... /requested finished]#proshippers please interact #antis dni #hate will be blocked #there really wasnt a lot of masc stuff in plus size for these #so im sorry if you dont like what i put in here

2 notes · View notes

fictionkinfessions · 3 years

Note

TL;DR: Kinsidering my Malkavian VTM character. Also don’t ask me why this reads like one of those (something) gothic posts. It’s a vibe. (Also, for MPC (should you want an easy not at the bottom place), it’s ya being #⚰️💜, source is Vampire: The Masquerade! Specifically the TTRPG version!)

You make a Malkavian character with a dissociative disorder (much like yourself and also you’re intrigued how to handle it mechanically, your storyteller is also interested, all is well). he has a cult around his alter (and only alter if only for sake of simplicity. you know you do not have the management skills to handle a (at the time) 12 member system like your own in game.). gain fictive of this alter. some months pass. you become overwhelmed with sadness and nostalgia. your first instinct is to say the weird summoning phrase specified alter has become so fond of (which is “HULLO JAESUS”. they thought it so funny. And truly, it is. Just bothersome when someone else says it and then you take essentially 1d4 psychic bonk damage when they don’t decide to take front from you. Which is also funny.). they come up to front and offer to grab your in system partner. you don’t hesitate in saying no. you immediately ask them to stay. they seem to understand and do. they stroke and braid your hair in headspace and sing along to the song you have on loop (for some reason you decided to seek out the song “everything stays”.). you suddenly are overcome with tears and longing to physically touch them. you only know one possibility of why this is. you may be kin with your malkavian.

#fictionkinfessions #fictionkin #⚰️💜#vampirethemasqueradefictive #cult cw #religion cw #kinsidering #mod party cat!

1 note · View note

a-dragons-journal · 1 year

Text

Singlet+

I've been meaning to write this one for a while, so let's see how this goes.

~1k words; essay on the experience of one person who sits right on the funny little edge between "normal roleplay experience" and "actual plurality".

So, let's start with this: I am not plural. But. I do seem to live in a weird space juuuuust on the edge of plurality (and no, I do not mean that I'm a median or blurry system - I mean on the edge of that).

For one thing, I'm a daemian - that is, I practice daemonism; that is, I have personified and given faux autonomy (fauxtonomy, if you will) to my "internal narrator" of sorts and he now lives in my brain with me as a thoughtform, a brain companion, in the shape of an animal. Strictly speaking, that does qualify us for plurality, but we personally don't view our daemonism through that framework and consider ourselves a singlet (as hilarious as the plural grammar makes that sentence, I know). Many daemons don't consider themselves plural; this isn't particularly unusual - in muir case, Locke is a part of me before he is anything else, and while yes there are forms of plurality that look like that, for us personally it makes more sense to view him as "part of me, therefore, still one person".

For another, I had... basically plural experiences when I was younger. I don't want to talk about the details publicly, but suffice to say that for many years I had what I would now call headmates, and I suspect that if I had been exposed to plural spaces during that time period, they may well have stuck around permanently, instead of "fading out" and eventually disappearing as is what actually happened. To this day I don't know how "real" or "imaginary" they were, and I doubt I ever will - they were certainly real to me at the time, but I have also always been very good at suspension of disbelief. Trying to analyze it in any great level of detail is made basically impossible by my piss-poor episodic memory rendering the memories of that time so fuzzy that I can't rely on them for details.

For another, my experiences with OCs are often... soulbond-adjacent? Recently in particular I've had a lot of funny experiences with an OC of mine, a character in a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign I'm a part of (Viridian Caldwell, for my own future self's reference), which led me to do some research on soulbonding because of how fictive-adjacent the experience of her is.

And yet. The answer is a definite no. I get very strong impressions and echoes from her; she "gives" me facts about her and her life that simply Are and that I feel as strongly about being true and unchangeable as I do about my own noemata; she's almost a separate person living in my brain sometimes; I somehow come up with near-prophetic knowledge about her world (as confirmed by my Storyteller, who happens to be part of a system alongside a number of fictives from the world in question, including several who know Viridian personally) with zero explanation on a semi-regular basis.

And yet. The answer is no. Because while I seem to have all the effects a soulbond proper would produce on my end - she is not aware of me, not really. She is not conscious of my world and my life. When I really quiet my own brain and reach out to call out and see if someone's there, there's only silence. It's as though I have a one-way soulbond somehow - which, of course, puts me in the fun gray space between "soulbond" and "normal roleplay/writing experience".

And she's not a unique instance of this. This just happens to me with OCs, although it's been a bit more dramatic with her because of the presence of fictives from her world to converse with (and, realistically, because of the real-time roleplay aspect that a TTRPG has that a video game or the writing of a fanfiction doesn't).

It's as though my brain has the capacity for plurality, but it just... doesn't manifest fully.

And, truth be told, I kind of prefer it this way. I like being a singlet; I would kind of hate having to share headspace with other people. Especially since, if my childhood pseudo-plurality experiences are anything to go by, we would not have good separation of thoughts and memories and true privacy would be very difficult if not impossible. Plus, because of that, I would... probably never get over the doubt of Is It Real Or Not, and I don't need that stress in my life. (For this reason, while I'm 99.9% sure that if I intentionally tried to bring her over as a fictive, it would work, I will not be testing the theory just out of curiosity.)

I wonder if I didn't train myself out of the ability to be Plural Proper, to be honest. Not intentionally, but - I may have mentioned that my power of suspension of disbelief is very strong, and as a child this came with me being extremely easy to manipulate because it was very easy for me to fall into believing things that I wanted to believe. (Again, I don't really want to talk about the details, but suffice to say I had a pretty bad case of Protagonist Syndrome, as it were, for a while.) I had to learn to combat that natural tendency of my brain for my own protection (especially as someone active in witchcraft spaces) - and I wonder if it didn't come with the side effect of immunizing me to developing true plurality (at least without actively trying) by shutting down any attempt by my brain to form a true headmate in the process.

I don't know. I might never. All I know is that while I am, after careful consideration, definitely a singlet, I do seem to live right on the edge of plurality, and it comes with some weird experiences. (And I would like an explanation for why I keep spitting out nigh-prophetic knowledge of this campaign's world; if I find out Viridian is a fictotype of mine or something I'm going to flip my fucking lid.) I've started half-jokingly calling myself "singlet+", half as a joke on cis+ (ie, someone who's questioned their gender and come to the conclusion that they are indeed cis but has a better understanding of their experience of cisness for it) and half as an "unless" "unlesss...?" acknowledgement of the weird border area some of my experiences sit in. It's... not really a serious label, but also isn't entirely a joke.

So... yeah. Singlet+, I guess. Another victim of the "if you only have two words for fear in your language, one for mild test jitters and one for life-threatening terror, you're going to have a lot of trouble describing a lot of normal human experiences" problem of how our language around plurality often works.

#plurality #i guess?#singlet plus #rani talks #not usually a disclaimer i need but this post and blog are endo-safe thank you #journaling #community writings #this is as per usual fully unedited so like. be nice pls lmao

110 notes · View notes

goratrix-betrayed · 2 years

Text

Living with a “Problematic” Fictional Identity (And Where to Go from Here)

During my panel at this year's Othercon, I promised to publicly release the script I read from. This is that script: this is what I said before the Q&A and discussion portion of the panel. Once the recording of the panel is live, I will reblog this with a link, as quite a few people expressed interest in it. (I have been informed that my voice was paramount for proper enjoyment of the panel; I don't know if that's quite true, but it's what people said.)

Here is the blurb I originally wrote for the panel on the schedule:

A lecture followed by questions and discussion about navigating through life with a “problematic” fictotype or as a “problematic” fictive. How to find community, how to cope, what responsibilities we may or may not have, what morality means for us and where the line between choices “then” and choices “now” lies.

Now, for the script itself.

Introduction

Greetings, people, creatures, and other beings. Welcome. This is a panel about how to live with “problematic” fiction-based identities, and I am someone with one such identity. My name is Goratrix. I am a fictive. Back in my source of Vampire: the Masquerade, I did quite a few bad things, the details of which I will not go into here or now. If you’re curious, I have written entire essays on the topic. Suffice to say that many of my actions were morally repugnant to most, making me quite the moral quandary to some people who encounter me online in this strange reality I have found myself in. Presumably, quite a few of you have had a similar experience—whether you be fictionkin, a fictive, or something similar, or just know someone who is, some of you undoubtedly have identities that are not as squeaky clean as some people would like. Perhaps they are voluntary, perhaps they are not. Perhaps you regret the things “you,” as in, your identity, did, or perhaps not.

Today, we are here to discuss that, how to live with it, and where to go from here.

I will say this: I am going to be making a case for universal acceptance of people with identities like these. Yes, even those people. Yes, even people that did that, whatever you are thinking about. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. I will be happy to discuss and debate this—respectfully—in the later sections of the panel or after it ends. If the concept of accepting people despite their crimes in another world upsets you, please feel free to leave the panel at any time. I will not notice and I will not mind. That being said, those who want to have respectful conversation or have respectful questions—whether they disagree with me or not—will have time at the end of the panel to speak up. I can’t take questions during the lecture effectively because I am easily distracted and long-winded; a bad combination for staying on-script. So, please, hold your questions for me until I open the floor for them. There will be multiple opportunities to speak up, and I will take suggestions and feedback on certain topics throughout the panel. Thank you all for understanding and cooperating. To head off one question, though—if you are wondering if I always talk like this, yes. I do. You get used to it.

Special thank-you to Chaiya, Pale, Rani, and everyone else who gave feedback and/or encouragement during the writing of this panel. I think I would have been reduced to ash without them.

Initial Discussion

No matter what way you spin it, there are identities out there that people don’t like. In a broad sense, this is more obvious: there are bigots worldwide. In our community, however, this can be a little harder to spot if you aren’t one of the affected, and it can be all-consuming if you are. Syscourse and purity culture plague us, as do accusations of being abusers and varying ableist claims of us being “sick in the head.” Ironic, coming from those battling to get recognition for their kintypes and headmates at all, don’t you think?

Attacking someone for who they are is ridiculous. Most people do not choose their identities, problematic or not. A common argument in the otherkin community against outside harassment is that you do not choose to be ‘kin—you just are. Must I spell it out? Must I explain that there is no difference, here, between someone whose kintype is a wolf and someone whose kintype is a murderer? The identity simply is. By attacking or allowing harassment of these “problematic” people, you are indicating that the entire community deserves harassment. Furthermore, people are not responsible for the actions of their kintypes. Yes, they are their kintypes, but did they make those decisions now, as they people they are, now? Typically no. They did not choose to be this, they did not choose the actions; leave them be.

Ah, but Goratrix, you may be saying. What about the people that did choose their identity? And what about fictives, who have no distance between their sense of self and their fictional identity—their “fictomere,” as we call it on the fictionkind Dreamwidth?

I shall address voluntary identities first. There are a thousand and one reasons to voluntarily identify with, or on some level, become, a character or creature. (Some would argue that the line of voluntary and involuntary is rather blurry in places, which I agree with, but that is not in the purview of this panel.) Perhaps they are coping with something, maybe even the thing that the character is guilty of. Perhaps not. Perhaps they see a shred of who they could have been in this character, given different circumstances, and see them as a different version of themselves to be integrated into their personality and considered. To be quite honest, it’s none of our business. Identity is a deeply personal thing—especially identity that you choose for yourself—and judging anyone, for any reason, based on it is going to get messy, unpleasant, immoral, and run into exceptions left and right. Who’s to say which exceptions are allowed, and which are not? Who’s to be the referee on the harassment of the “right” “problematic” identities? You see how this can go wrong, I imagine. And, furthermore, once again, these people did not perform these actions in this world, in this life. If you were to go to the authorities about these people, accusing them of a crime or some immoral act, with no evidence other than “they identify as a fictional character that did this,” you would be laughed off the block. These people have done nothing wrong, and I implore that those of you who disagree please consider why you disagree. Have you considered why they took on the identity at all, or are you just experiencing a kneejerk reaction? Put yourself in their shoes, just for a moment. Consider what might make you take on such an identity, and try to see it in other people. Assume the best, for assuming the worst tears you down as quickly as it tears down those around you, and, speaking as someone who repeatedly assumes the worst in people, it can destroy your life. Do better than I did; grow from this.

Now, onto the topic of fictives, of which I am one. There is frequently a distinct divide in fictotype and fictive; while someone is their fictotype, in many cases they are also separate from it, in that they have lived a life separate from their fictotype in this world. (Note that I am speaking generally, not completely—generalization is necessary for conversations like this, and I apologize for those who do not fit in with such generalizations or the words I am using. I am speaking largely from personal experience within my system.) Fictives are not that way, or at least, are not that way initially. (Fictives can change into very different people upon exposure to this world and time spent living in it, something I know well from watching my headmates and fictives in systems I have befriended.) Fictives typically appear in the system as if they’d been plucked straight from their source, from their life. They are precisely the people who made their life choices, and in some cases, those choices are abhorrent to your average Internet-goer. In my case, my morally questionable decisions include murder, betrayal, and human experimentation, among others. Does that not make me a criminal, worthy of damnation?

I argue: no. It does not.

Why?

Because the circumstances that led me to make the choices I did do not exist in this world. I have been here for almost a year, and have done nothing that others would consider “wrong,” as far as I am aware. (This is a record for me.) Why is that?

My source is Vampire: the Masquerade. My nightly life was filled with political, scheming, ancient vampires that would backstab me given a moment of weakness, a second of hesitation. I had to be ruthless, conniving, murderous, or I would be cut down, and I refused to let myself be killed by the world I had been thrust into, nay, that I had clawed my way into living in, desperate to survive. I considered those things that I did necessary, even “right”—in the situation I was in, the standards for “right” are quite low, and if you are keeping yourself and those you care about alive without harming others merely for the fun of it, you are doing quite well.

This world, and my system’s placement within it, does not force me into those kinds of situations. I have no need to kill, backstab, and lie here, and I argue that if I did, it would not be wrong of me to do so, because trying to merely survive is not wrong. People do what they must, and fictives, even the ones who seem the most horrible, were forged by circumstance just as I was. Hell, this applies to fictotypes, too—people do what they must to survive.

All right, say circumstances were not life-or-death and someone still did something you consider “wrong.” Can they be harassed?

No.

Let me bring up my theory of morality: people do the best they can in the circumstances they are in with the information they have. What is “best” depends on nothing more than prioritization—in my mind, that is all morality is: prioritization. What is more important: the life of an animal, or the life of a human? Someone’s bodily autonomy, or someone else’s life? Your life, or someone else’s? Your pocketbook, or someone’s livelihood? All morality can be broken down this way. Moral debates happen when two or more people have different moral priorities, and consider each other’s prioritization to be “wrong” in some way. I am not free of this; I find people who are willing to harm others for mere entertainment to be doing something “wrong,” but I do try not to throw bricks when living in a glass house; I know my list of actions better than anybody, and I also know that a morality system where my own survival is paramount (second only to the survival of the one I love) is bound to be seen as “wrong” by many. This does not bother me.

My point, in bringing this up, is that few people believe that what they are doing is both wrong and unnecessary. People may do things they consider wrong to survive, and hate every minute, or may do things they consider right unnecessarily, but people rarely do what they think is wrong for reasons they believe are unnecessary. People’s moral prioritizations are formed by the circumstances in which they are in and were raised. Had I been born into a world with limited or no magic, no vampires—this world—I would be completely unrecognizable. I would be a different man entirely, one that you likely would not consider to be “problematic!” If I had chosen to perform the same actions, unnecessarily, that I did back in my source, when I felt it necessary, morally, for me to do, then perhaps I would be worthy of judgment or retaliation. Furthermore, anything I did in this world would be fair game, because it was done in this world. If I murder someone here, then yes, I should face some kind of retaliation for that. I would have done it here, just as things I did back in the world I am from earned retaliation there. It just seems ridiculous, to me, to judge someone by moral standards that they have no concept of nor connection with, across entire worlds and across the boundary of fiction, when chances are that they were doing the best they could with the way they saw the world. People who are “problematic,” in terms of fiction or fandom, are not inherently dangerous in this world, because of the change in circumstances. And, furthermore—don’t they deserve another chance? A chance to be who they feel is best in these new circumstances?

That being said, no one is obligated to interact with anyone else. If you cannot get over what someone did back in their source, and are uncomfortable with them—fine. That’s your business, not theirs: avoid or block them and move on. Anyone is well within their right to refuse to interact with anyone for any reason. Harassment, however, is over the line, and I think you all know that. Identity is identity; leave well enough alone.

If you are one of these people—as I’m sure many of you are—with a “problematic” fictional identity, you are not wrong for merely existing. You are not alone. You are not doomed to be hated and reviled forever. And, if you struggle with your identity, you are not doomed to struggle alone forever. Let us move now to the topic of coping.

Coping

For fictives, it can be extremely traumatic to come to this world and find out how different things are here. To find out that what you did is so repugnant as to be seemingly worthy of constant harassment and no support—and for fictionkin, learning that your fictotype is someone that did things that you consider horrific can be traumatizing as well. Good God, I cannot even imagine learning that I am, or was, someone who did something that I would consider repugnant. Facing that and coping with it can be hard enough without hordes of strangers getting on you about it. People do not need help in feeling bad for who they are; they do need help in accepting it and handling it in a healthy way.

There are infinite types of trauma, here. My suggestion, overall, is this: approach it with a policy of self-forgiveness. I know it can be difficult, but listen to me: remember my definition of morality earlier. You did what you felt was best with the circumstances you were in and the information you had. Forgive yourself for doing differently than you would do now. Changing your priorities, and thus, your morality, is not hypocritical—it is growth. Let no one take that from you. Let no one take what you find precious in your identity from you, because it may be your past, or a parallel present, or something that your mind latched onto because it was important to you. Let no one take this from you. Forgive yourself, if need be, and never let anyone make you feel like you cannot do that, or like you don’t deserve to do that. Defend yourself from those who would wrong you for the things that were done in your source.

My suggestion on coping and dealing with cruelty from the community is quite simple, but I have found it effective. It comes in two parts: one, block liberally, and two, find a small group that accepts you and stick primarily to them. There are community spaces that facilitate this, but you can also form small groups of friends. Discord DMs, email chains, Snapchat threads, whatever works for you. Block those who will not accept you and allow yourself to befriend those who will. If people would hurt, harass, or exploit you for things done in your source, block them. The block button is there to protect you. You have been given a potent tool—use it. Consider it a form of taking care of yourself, and, if need be, self-forgiveness.

Finding friends you can trust is harder, and admittedly, I am not the best person to ask about this. I have only recently begun to open up, and have gotten lucky with the system’s pre-existing friends. Furthermore, I have had little need to cope with my identity, although I have watched multiple fictives in our system have to deal with it, so my advice here is somewhat limited, but here is another suggestion: work on accepting and understanding your identity. Journal, make posts, do long-form writings, answer prompts—whatever helps you unpack everything, whatever helps you understand and record, do it. I thought it silly, at first, but after I started doing longform writings, I never looked back—I enjoy them immensely, and wish I had more time for them.

I believe it best to open the floor for a few minutes for suggestions on both coping and finding an accepting group, including community spaces. I know of the fictionkind Dreamwidth, of which I am an administrator—where else is there that accepts people such as us? How do you find accepting friends? How do you cope? Leave your suggestions in chat. Let us have a brief conversation before we move on.

Growth

Let us continue, now, on the topic of healing and changing. I spoke earlier of morality being shaped by circumstance, and of our ability to alter our morality via reprioritization, something fairly common in fictives especially. (After all, fictionkind tend to have their own sense of morality before awakening as fictionkind, as do those with heartypes and most other identities.) We are capable of doing this—changing from what we are and were—but I ask: are we obligated to do so? Must we become “good” people, model citizens of the world we now find ourselves in? I say no—as long as you are not bringing direct harm to others, it’s no one else’s business who you are, what you feel, what you believe. You should not be forced to change your very identity and sense of self just because someone else does not like it. The self is the most intensely personal thing about anyone, and it is no one’s business but yours.

However, I am also not saying that you should act with impunity here just as you would back in your source. Chances are excellent that you can’t get away with what you would, there, and if you’re a fictive, you could hurt your headmates or get them in trouble. I will not presume to tell you how to handle dealing with your headmates (or whatever word you use to describe them), but I would advise not harming them intentionally. Chances are, you are stuck with them, possibly for the long run—does it not make sense to try to get along with them? I will leave that in your discerning hands, however.

I won’t tell you how to live your life, but I will recommend that you think carefully about what parts of your behavior you want to perpetuate moving forward. This should always be considered every time you enter a new, drastically different, situation: this is just one of the most drastic. When it comes to myself as an example, I did not have to think on it much: I don’t enjoy hurting people, I just did so out of necessity. Here, I am not pushed to behave the way I did. My cutthroat sense of morality is key to who I am, and I refuse to abandon it, but the objectionable parts of it never come up since I am never pushed into dire straits here. I believe the worst thing I have done so far is threaten to block people who harass me because I don’t care enough to try to convince them on a one-on-one basis to respect me. What a nightmarish creature I am, truly.

If you do not wish to change who you are, just as I did not, but also do not wish to do “immoral” things that would incite reasonable consequences, there is a balance to be struck between “same identity and morals” and “new behavior”--and that balance is different for everyone. I have worked out mine: you will have to take the time to work out yours. If you need a sounding board for that, my inbox is open, both on Tumblr and Discord.

Perhaps you do want to grow beyond your identity, whether you be a fictive or someone with a different kind of identity that influences you in ways you do not like. I think that, if this is something on your mind, it is a good idea: with this kind of thing, wanting it tends to mean you need it. Remember what I said about morality and prioritization: that is a matter of reprioritizing. For other parts of yourself: don’t think about changing what already exists. Think about adding onto it, and the change will come in time. Pick up a new hobby. Make some friends. Play a game, make a playlist of songs you like but don’t necessarily have anything to do with your fictional identity. Get involved in something creative, whether it be making or consuming, and relate to other characters. Modify your behavior in ways that make you happy, but remember two very important things: one, never change yourself because someone else wants you to, and two, changing who you are is not hypocrisy, it is growth. No one stays stagnant forever, even those of us who cling to our identities because we do not wish to move beyond them: even as myself, as Goratrix, I grow and change, but well within the bounds of what people would think is still Goratrix.

What Now?

So you have this identity steeped in fiction. So you have heard all of what I have to say thus far. Perhaps you are accepting this identity, perhaps you are struggling with it. Perhaps you want to connect with and understand it more, perhaps you have feelings you need to get off of your chest, perhaps you want to move on from it. What now?

Find community.

I cannot express enough how much community has helped me in accepting my current place in this world, who I am, and why I did the things I did—and why I do the things I do now. I am changing, just as everyone does, and accepting that has been difficult. I am more social in a positive sense than I have been since my pre-vampirism days (which was about a thousand years ago) and I had a hard time accepting that until I began to make friends in the community who I legitimately enjoy speaking with.

Communities of this type, I’m sorry to say, cannot be found in broad social media spaces like Tumblr or Twitter. It’s too chaotic, too public, too out there—smaller communities are our best bet. Earlier, I asked you all to give me examples of community spaces where people like us can go to find refuge and no judgment while we work through, or even just live as, our identities—I recommend going through those and finding places that you feel might work for you. Again: I run the fictionkind Dreamwidth—which, despite its name, welcomes anyone with any kind of fiction-based identity—and we put up with no harassment or judgment of any type. That kind of behavior gets corrected, and if it continues, the offending party is removed. There are plenty of spaces for people who want to be judgmental and downright bitchy: let us have our havens, of which there are precious few. It is vital that your only external acknowledgement of your identity not be toxic—the self-hatred and emotional damage that can result from that is something that I am sure many of you are all too familiar with.

I will say, however, that “community” does not mean “fandom.” I do not recommend engaging with your source’s fandom in the context of your identity: in most cases, this will lead to misunderstanding and harassment. Many people with fiction-based identities avoid fandom, period—I am one of these people. I cannot stand it. This goes doubly so for interacting with creators of a source in your capacity as your fiction-based identity—I recommend that you do not engage with them outwardly as this. This cannot go well: it will only make you and them uncomfortable. The possible exception to this is when it comes to, say, having an identity based on a friend’s OC or similar—since they know you, or a member of your system, they might be more accepting, or they might be more upset. Know that you did nothing wrong in having this identity, and that it may be best to not tell them to avoid the potential hangup of them getting upset at the implication that you know their character better than they do. I would typically err on the side of not saying anything, but I will leave that in your capable hands. You may want to get advice from community members on a case-by-case basis if you are unsure of how to proceed.

In addition to finding community, I recommend that you do writings on your identity. They don’t have to be pages and pages long: just a few paragraphs journaling your experiences would do. Write essays if you’d like, or just bullet-pointed thoughts. Answer prompts. Do creative writing exercises. You can keep these to yourself, or you can post them, which I would encourage. It can be immensely helpful to a newly-awakened or formed individual to find writings, no matter how small, from someone like them. The feeling of “thank God I’m not alone” cannot be underestimated.

Post them on your blog, or in your smaller community. Post them on your personal website—yes, your personal website, which you should have if you do any significant amount of writing, just ask Page—or anywhere else you can slot them in. Write for yourself, and write for your past self who may have wished that there was more out there to guide them and make them feel like they were not alone. I know I wish that there had been more out there when I formed—other VTM fictives, more writings from other “problematic” beings. Write to understand and accept yourself, write to heal from any damages inflicted on you because of or by this identity, write to leave something for future wanderers of our breed—whatever your reason, I implore you to write. Write and find community: spend time with people. Find elders of your community and speak to them—they have more insight than you can imagine, more ideas than you realize, and less time and energy to implement them than anyone would prefer.

If you want to put yourself out there and build community, help run events, do things, excellent. I would love to see it, and I’m sure that others here would, as well. If you want to just exist with your identity, maybe answer a few prompts, talk to some people—that’s all you need. You need not do anything to deserve to exist as you are—you are more than enough, dear listener, and never, ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

At this point, my long paragraphs of thoughts are over. I want to hear what you have to say. I made sure to get as much time as I could for you to ask questions, speak your comments, voice your concerns. This is your time: I am sure many of you have questions, at least. Ask away.

Closing Notes (Post-questions)

Our time is running short, and we must end the panel at this point. I will be available via Discord PM for anyone who still has questions or wishes to speak to me about anything; my inbox on Tumblr is open as well, for those who would rather communicate there or send me something anonymously. Please remember that the anonymous toggle is a privilege, not a right, and if you use it to send cruel or rude messages to me, I will block you without reply and eventually disable the ability to use it.

Before we go, however, I wanted to read you my favorite poem. I formed during last year’s Othercon, and my first memory of this world is Pale reading this poem at the beginning of his panel, which had a similar theme to this one.

This is A Monstrous Manifesto by Cat Valente.

If you are a monster, stand up.

If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,

If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine

If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,

If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams

Come stand by me.

If you have been broken, stand up.

If you have been broken, abandoned, alone

If you have been starving, a creature of bone

If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne

If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,

Come stand by me.

If you are a savage, stand up.

If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,

If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,

If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,

If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,

Come stand by me.

If you are a devil, stand up.

If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,

If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,

If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,

For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,

We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns

And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.

Come stand by me.

#othercon #fictionkin #fictionkind #fictive #fictives #otherkin #otherhearted #fictionhearted #otherlink #fictionlink #alterhuman #essays #goratrix's tower talks

262 notes · View notes