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La Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, France - 2010

30 Day Fictionkind Challenge

Day 10: Link to/tag your favorite fictionkin Tumblr.

Aside from my own? Unfortunately, I don't have one. I'm fairly new to the community on an overall level and haven't found many others.

Day 11: Have you ever met other fictionkin? In real life or online?

I have spoken well with at least one other person who openly experiences kin the way I do, but haven't had more interaction than that. I would love to meet someone who is fictionkin in real life, just to have that bonding moment.

I have, however, seen a few other blogs made by those who also kin this character. None appear to be active, and I'm not sure if I could even find them again at this rate, but I do strongly recall them for the impact they left on me. I was at least a little embarrassed by who I'd found myself feeling drawn towards, and seeing others interacting with that same draw made me feel at least a bit more at ease.

I would love to be able to meet more.

I was able to do it! I told my friends and it was taken very well. I was still very nervous and wasn't able to look at them when I spoke, but it was taken with grace and immediately applied. I've been able to tell others as well, and am feeling quite good hearing it from others in my life.

What has surprised me is that it seems to be becoming the name I prefer to hear. It wasn't my intention, and I do still use the name I'd previously gone by, but I'm beginning to like this secondary name a bit more and have been preferring to use it instead. I applied for a job within the past 2 weeks and I used this name in my application; I would love nothing more than to have it on a nametag for regular use, to be recognized under this name.

It's surprising to me how this became such a large part of my life, and how my interactions tangle me a bit more each time I look. I'd even joked about him being cold blooded and unable to regulate body temperature, as well as needing to supplement salt due to his butterfly characteristics, and now I'm currently staring down what is definitely a POTS diagnosis, having both of those traits myself. My acceptance does make me wish to look to see how it interacts with myself, especially in terms of identity and confirmation of such. I don't see it as a bad thing at all, quite the opposite really. I think this is shaping up as something truly quite wonderful through which I may get to fully understand myself a bit better. I never really had a chance to do so before this point in time.

It almost feels as though the two of us became more similar as time went on, though I do swear to myself that I never consciously adopted his behaviors or mannerisms. It was the discovery that his arc mimicked the trauma I went through to an almost absurd degree, it's in the ways he thinks and acts and interacts with the world and others that made me very easily believe that he was neurodivergent because it hit so close to my own personal experiences, it was how I found myself having had the same sort of hobbies - I myself have a violin (though I haven't played recently, and will have to wait out an elbow injury before I can try again) and have always been an avid reader. I explored my own perception of gender through him, seeing him as a very feminine man whose femininity is never made the subject of jokes and is taken seriously, showing me a very rare glimpse of a man who looked just like myself. I felt comfortable in slightly more formal clothing, it felt like it helped to reinforce my feelings regarding my gender, though I can't say for sure whether that was before or after I developed such a strong attachment to him.

I recently got my first tattoo, near my left shoulder, and it's his wings. The artist told me she had actually been watching the series and had just gotten to his debut the night prior, leaving me to wonder whether or not she would think of me at least once as she watched, remembering that I wanted to carry him with me. It's almost completely healed and I'm very pleased with how it's come out, in spite of how dark and blotted it looked when I'd first gotten it. I'd like to get a few more, a few insects and a few awareness ribbons for my various health conditions, but he is present as my first and currently my one and only.

He represents my foray into identity, into coping, into understanding what it is that I want and am, what I want from life and what I desire most to give back. In times when the dissociative feelings kick in strongly, it feels as though there is another person with me, and that the grief I carry belongs to him rather than myself. It distances me from everything I've been carrying, and the feeling of another being present with me when I need it most is a feeling I'm afraid to conceptually lose in recovery, but I feel that I'll still carry him in less fully visible ways. In dress, in name. His, and mine.

I suppose it's not wholly correct to say that I've only been doing this for around a year; I've definitely experience kinning before, with a specific event around five or six years ago sticking out in my memory, I just didn't know the words or anything beyond what jokes I'd seen people make. Of course, I was too afraid of how I'd be perceived if I identified with it, so I'd kept it silent. This time, I'd like to change that.

**SPOILERS FOR THE BARBIE MOVIE**

I saw the barbie movie yesterday and found almost every feeling I have regarding humanity to be challenged. I struggle greatly with reconciling with my own humanity, especially with the isolation I feel from it due to some personal characteristics, as well as due to a lot of negative experiences growing up, ranging from abusive family to a host of adults who did nothing to help me as I moved through that exact abuse, as I moved through chronic health issues, through my undiagnosed autism, consistently struggling to fit in amongst those who seemed to reject me consistently. All of those feelings became very neatly tied together with my kintype, a nonhuman misanthrope.

This movie ran completely counter to my own held beliefs.

To see the negatives depicted, in barbie experiencing misogyny for the first time, in the discussions of how hard it is to be a woman, balanced in barbie's choice to be human, the imagery of her struggling to do things as simple as drink and her isolation from humanity itself, juxtaposed next to her finding a sense of beauty in it all, in her ultimately choosing to be human because all of the joy and wonders and experience is worth the pain and the risks. That ultimately, the love of the experience is worth it.

It's something I never imagined to see depicted on screen, and it's something that made me actively sob when I got home. The idea of this experience being worth it instead of being something akin to a punishment never crossed my mind, and I'm being left with a lot to consider. It feels almost overwhelming, I simply don't know where to start..

Otherkin Ask Meme

1. What are your kintypes?

2. What are your strongest kintypes?

3. How long have you known you were otherkin?

4. What reminds you of home?

5. Have you ever drawn or written about your kinself?

6 Are you “out” as otherkin in real life?

7. Do you have any kinfriends? Are they the same kintype or different?

8. Do you have a favourite otherkin blogger? who?

9. What was your first kintype?

10. What was your most recent kintype?

11. Do you eat or drink food that reminds you of your kintype(s) would eat?

12. Do you dress like your kintype(s)?

13. Give a fact about your kintype

14. Is there media that reminds you of your kintype? (ie dogkin and Lady and the Tramp)

15. Is there mythology about your kintype? Do you have a favourite story?

16. What are some challenges that you face with being otherkin?

17. What is some advice you would share with someone who has recently Awakened?

18. Do you ever doubt your kintype?

19. Have you identified with a kintype in the past that you no longer have kinfeels with?

20. Do you hold memories with past-lives?

I might actually have to wait a few days before anything here actually shows up in the tags since this is a new blog whoops

30 Day Fictionkind Challenge

Day 14: What are shifts like?

There isn't a way to say it that doesn't sound poetic. They're difficult to describe in all actuality, and I've noticed how the feelings have changed as time has gone on. Allow me to use a vehicle analogy. The first shifts felt as though the wheel was being taken from me while I controlled the gas and brakes, but now it feels as if I am still in full control, only taking driving directions from a close and trusted friend.

A shift feels like moonlight scattering across a landscape, like incense or candle smoke permeating a room, like rose petals and love notes. Wholly unique, yet simultaneously ubiquitous.

I've settled, I will actually be using that for a talk tag

Been thinking about my tag system and am likely going to use some emojis! I'll move a few more posts over here before I solidify it, but I do have a plan!

I'm finding a lot of moments of melancholy accompanying the shifts, looking up at the moon in the night sky as I've done so many times before