leo. white, 23, it/he. fictionkin sideblog with occasional otherkin posts. doubles welcome. will have some reblogs, but mostly will be personal art or writing.
hello :] i'm leo bidimensionality and i am finally making a sideblog for alterhumanity! i've been aware that i'm alterhuman for almost a decade now, which is absurd, but i haven't really interacted much with the community yet, which is also absurd. i want to talk to others like me!
i'm an angel of some permutation, though that kintype doesn't come with as many memories or influences on my life these days aside from my phantom wings. the two kintypes that influence me the most are my fictotypes: leon s. kennedy from resident evil and harvey dent/two-face from dc comics.
the reason i made this sideblog is to interact with other members of the community and to post about my own experiences and thoughts. maybe art of myself as well! i might also put out an essay or two (i've been meaning to write something about the relationship between i saw the tv glow and fictionkinity, but i haven't gotten around to it yet!) i'll hopefully talk a bit more about my experiences now rather than just lurking mysteriously.
if you're interested in being friends i would love to talk to you! i follow from @transfaulkner and have been staring longingly at the community for years now haha
once i start really posting, i'll put a tag list in here, too.
Thought I'd share a drawing I did of myself, the way I remember looking. It's a little inaccurate but mostly correct - it's kind of hard to make it 100% accurate when I obviously can't look in the mirror and see it anymore. Hopefully it's interesting :]
I’m Jayfeather, a fictive of the character by the same name from the Warriors books. In those books, as well as my own memories, I was blind. This came with a lot of challenges and quite frankly ableist bullshit I had to deal with back there. Now, since my own death, I’m here. Stuffed into the body of a twoleg, sitting here with our kittypet on our bed next to me as I write this–an uncanny reminder, in a way. But this isn't about him. With all the weirdness that is being here, there’s one thing that unsettles me the most. I can see.
Our eyes are far from perfect. We need glasses, our vision is degrading over time and will continue to do so, we’re light sensitive as a result of our autism. But we can see, and we can do it well enough that I can see the individual leaves on trees, ants running along the ground if I look closely, and the faces of those we care about. You’d think this would all come as great news to me, the blind cat can finally see what grass looks like. While that’s interesting and all, it’s a very surface-level, watered down version of what I really feel about it. It’s nice to see, I guess, but it’s also so inherently wrong.
My disability came with its own struggles. I suffered greatly because of it in a lot of ways, both due to ableism in my clan and the things it prevented me from doing in life. But in the end, it’s a part of who I am, who I shaped up to be, and it dictated the path of my whole life. It’s as much a part of me as the fact I have ears, or paws, or a tendency to mouth-off at anyone who says something foolish around me. Those things can cause struggles too, those things can hurt me, just as my blindness often did. It doesn’t make any of them less healthy to accept as a part of my being. Now I’m here, and along with other traits my body once had, my blindness is also gone.
(Read more below.)
You’d expect me to miss those other things. Species dysphoria is known about, of course if you had a limb taken away you’d struggle to cope with that loss. People can understand why I’d miss my tail when I need to balance better, or my fur when I feel cold. Missing a disability, though? That’s something a lot of folks tend to be unable to wrap their heads around. People are quick to jump to assumptions of “wanting to be special”, eagerness to fake a disability, or the feeling itself being indicative of being ill in some other way (which also, mind you, tends to be brought up in ways that are pretty ableist to those conditions anyway, leave them alone). People expect those who were disabled in memories who now aren’t disabled in those ways here to feel happy, to feel “cured”, to feel like this is a new chance without the horrible terrible disabilities weighing them down. But I think it’s worth discussing as a genuine form of dysphoria one can have, related to missing an inherent part of themselves, just like any other thing normalised in the community to miss.
I don’t want to pretend to be blind here. I don’t want to make the body blind, either. Being blind, like any other disability, also doesn’t come with a magical “special person” card so it’d be ridiculous to even think of it that way (not to mention ableist). I don’t want to be blind to use it as an “excuse”. I don’t want to be blind for “fun”. All those stereotypes we’ve seen brought up when someone misses a disability they once had? They sure as hell don’t apply to every case, and assuming they do is honestly ridiculous. In my case, it’s not even because I’m delusional or have BIID–though those things also should never make the feelings less acceptable to talk about. Hell, I don’t necessarily want to be blind here, in the same way I don’t want to transform into a cat. I would not be able to live this life the same way I’ve been doing it if I suddenly was a cat again, or if I was suddenly blind again. Despite the fact I miss both those things about myself, I can also just… Live this life, even if it does hurt sometimes. A person can miss something, be dysphoric about something, or even actually want something without implying anything else about actions they’d take around that.
My blindness, in the end, is the same as any other bodily trait you’d be likely to miss from one's own exomemories. Not because it was perfect, not because it was without flaws, but because it was me, and now I no longer have it. I miss my paws, despite the fact that it’s easier to get by here with the addition of thumbs and fingers to grab things. I miss my blindness, despite the fact that it’s easier to get by here while being sighted in a body known to be sighted too. Those two things feel almost exactly the same to me, and yet, one is much more normalised to talk about than the other.
This inherent tie between disability and sense of self isn’t even unique to myself and my past life memories. It’s really similar to how we’d feel about a “cure” for our autism here, in the present, in this body. Our autism disables us, it means we will never live a “normal” neurotypical life. It’s caused us plenty of suffering, and it still does and will always do so. Yet, a “cure” for our autism is a cure for our selfhood, our being, our own identity. There is no us without what we were born with. Who would we be otherwise, if it was suddenly gone? We wouldn’t know ourselves.
This even applies to more “scary” things we have. Our schizoaffective disorder especially. We struggle with disorganised thinking and speech often, yet we make fun with it. We have plenty of injokes because of silly things we’ve said while struggling to remember a basic word. Our hallucinations may be scary, but we’ve learned to live with them and cope well. We ask them to pay rent, we laugh about it, we have jokes about them and we’re used to visions and voices buzzing around our head. With our dissociative identity disorder, we wouldn’t even be a “we” in the same way we are now if we didn’t have it. We have some tulpas, soulbonds, daemons… But a lot of our main fronters would never have existed. We wouldn’t be where we are today. We suffered to get to this point, and we still suffer, but this is us. Our head would feel empty without all of this. We’d be missing fundamental pieces, or even our own selves altogether. You cannot strip us, a disabled person, of all our disabilities, and expect us to feel whole.
You could argue, maybe, that a mental disorder is different from a physical disability. There’s a separation between body and mind, or whatever. But honestly? If you could really and truly cure most of our physical issues, there’d still be a struggle there, for the ones we’ve had most of our life. Aside from needing to pay for them (even if we wish we didn’t need them sometimes) we’d be confused to look in the mirror and see no need for our glasses. We’ve always needed them, always will, that’s a part of us, we look wrong without them. We’d also feel naked without our cane to help us walk, and our ears would strain to hear the satisfying clack of it hitting the floor in time with our steps. We’d listen for that little reminder to us that we have something to hold onto to ease our pain and help us walk at all. These things being lost could be coped with, but they’d leave a mark, just as my blindness has left on me.
Some things that we deal with are newer. Symptoms and struggles we’ve yet to learn to cope with and integrate into our daily life as parts of ourselves. Those things would be easier to let go, a lot of them we’re actively trying to fix. But for those things we know will be lifelong, and we’ve made peace with? Those things that will walk with us always, until we die? A part of ourselves would die with their “cure”. That’s the point, really. It’s a loss of something that’s shaped your life, even if it’s shaped it in more negative ways than positive. You can’t take a person's shadow, even if it’s dark, cold and gloomy, and not much more than that. It’s tied to them. There’d always be something “off”. And with my death and arrival in this body, I had mine taken.
Aside from it being a major part of my sense of self, since getting here I’ve learned that my blindness also protected me from what seeing is really like. It’s horribly overwhelming. I know being visually overstimulated can come from the autism the body has, but I think my point still stands no matter its origin. Lights are far too bright oftentimes, colours can feel like burning, and being able to see gross or horrific things just adds another sense that has to be forced to perceive them. I’m one of the folks in here that often walks around wearing our sunglasses, not because I think they look cool, but because being sighted really does hurt me physically. It’s absolutely something I still haven’t adjusted to, even being here in this body for 3 years now. I doubt I will ever adjust to these things.
Another thing I’ve learned since my arrival is that I do think my vision is actively worse than some of my headmates. This isn’t really new to us–we have multiple headmates who can’t hear, see, walk or speak as well as the general collective can. I’m still not blind for sure, but our glasses don’t work as well for me. They still do something, at the very least, but it’s noticeable that I just can’t see quite as well as the rest (aside from other headmates who struggle). Things are more blurry, I have trouble getting them to focus on anything at all, and our lazy eye even seems to drift more when I front.
Headmates with differing levels of disability (or entirely different disabilities altogether) are no new thing, I believe the concept has even been studied a little. It’s familiar to us, for sure, as stated we have plenty. I know that technically, these symptoms are “all in our head” and they don’t “mean” anything, there’s not always going to be a connection to our previous bodies in how our symptoms manifest… But, on one paw, I’m a little ticked, because if I’m going to be forced to see… at least have me do it properly, without worse vision or pain? On another paw, I’m a little upset that I didn’t end up being blind when I front. We know other folks who have similar stuff, and some little part of me is upset that I end up stuck struggling against bright lights when the brain could have just kept me blind even though it would come with its own struggles. Hell, maybe I’d be mad that my headmates can see and I still can’t, in that theoretical? And on another, this is as close as I’ll get to how I was before. Maybe my pain from being sighted would be worse if I could see properly? I know for sure if I was entirely blind in front, I’d be unable to do a lot of stuff my system does regularly here. Maybe a middleground is for the best?
In the end, I don’t see this as a cure. A cure implies I’ve had something fixed, and this is not something that needed healing. I’ve been changed, altered, or given sight, but not “cured”. A nonhuman being born into a human body is not “cured” of their paws any more than I am “cured” of my blindness. It was a part of my body and self as much as anything else, and I will stand by that. I also don’t see my feelings about it as something to be ashamed of, despite a lot of ideas we’ve seen floating around. It’s not wrong to miss a part of yourself, even if it was a disability you no longer have. I honestly think that line of thought gets too close to “disabled people can never be happy while being disabled or they’re faking/not really disabled” ideas, and I’m very happy to stay right the hell away from that ableist nonsense.
I’ll cope, I’ve done so for 3 years now, and I’ll continue doing so. I’d just like to get this out there, and maybe see a little bit more kindness about the whole concept of missing your own disabilities, maybe share some experiences with others who might not have felt okay to talk about it. Others with similar experiences might feel differently to me, they might feel cured and happy that they’re no longer disabled–this is in no way anything against those folks either, more power to them, I’m glad they’ve found joy. This is more of an account of my own experiences than it is any sort of one true way to feel about it, don’t misconstrue it as anything beyond my own emotions, gripes and experiences being offered and shared to the public.
At the very least, I’m an angry old cat with opinions who can’t for the life of him hold them in for too long. A cat who can’t front without going on a rant at least once. So… I personally won’t be going anywhere, blind or not, and my system as well as everyone else is stuck with me.
As someone who also currently has different disabilities than I had in source, your story rings very true for me. The scars that I had in my source timeline are gone now, and having complete vision in my left eye is still very jarring. I've been thinking of it in the same way as you have, the niceness but also the wrongness. I still remember exactly how it felt, and it's strange and difficult now that it's not here anymore.
I'm hopeful that with time (as someone who only claimed/discovered this kintype a little over two years ago) it becomes easier. I think that it's something that a lot of alterhumans have to deal with.
Have you noticed any things that you still do that you used to do/did in your source/timeline? I know that I've noticed that I still tilt my head a little to the left when I'm looking at things intently or things that are far away from me, like I would have in source when my left eye was weaker so that my right could compensate. It's a strange little quirk.
Being a fictive is like. What if you were famous but nobody recognized you but everyone thinks your trauma is really funny to joke about or they treat you like a little meow meow that can do no wrong (even if you did do so many things wrong and you're wracked with guilt) or they treat you like trash or a sex object but nobody wants to treat the you you like a human being and if you open up about how the battle with the evil wizard was actually pretty harrowing or you wake up thinking about the killing game you were trapped in or that you were assaulted or you had to kill someone or lots of people or that when you close your eyes you relive your death sometimes everyone treats it like a fun little joke or like you're an idiot for being affected by something that didn't happen to the body you're in now.
And you're just expected to rawdog that shit. And sometimes even you treat your own past like a funny little joke until things get too real and you have a war flashback in your bedroom despite the fact that this body has never been to war, and then you just. Have to confide in the few people that will take it seriously.
Yeah anyway we're definitely not angry about the fact that we can't talk about our own pasts in therapy how are you guys
And no, these memories are also not allegories for what happened to us as a child, and we should still be allowed to talk about things that are unrelated to the body's history if they're affecting us mentally.
Breaking in the new side blog with my first real writing post. It's a running joke between me and a friend that it was incredibly easy to lure me in to the Batman fandom by simply showing me "Two-Face" (the two-part episode of the Animated Series), but honestly, it did feel a little like fate when I kinfirmed him.
Obviously there are the sillier reasons. I've wanted to be ambidextrous since middle school, for one thing. I used to collect coins. My favorite number has been 2 for as long as I can remember. In fact, I almost went to school for law (before realizing I definitely didn't want to do that and choosing a different path instead). But one thing that I want to talk about a bit more because it's a bit more personal, and a bit more complicated among the community, is how my OCD affects my fictotype.
A short warning here: I will be talking about my own obsessions and compulsions, both in my current life and in my memories. Proceed with caution.
I've been formally diagnosed with OCD for nearly five years now, but obviously the signs were there for far longer. I have the most well-known type, contamination OCD, but one obsession-compulsion pair that plagues me to this day even after exposure therapy is evenness. My shoes always have to be exactly the same level of tightness on both feet, I felt "wrong" for hours if I stepped on a sidewalk crack with one foot and not the other, if one hand was "dirty" and the other "clean" I'd have to make them even, and I struggle to crack my knuckles on only one hand. I even worry about sleeping too much on one side, since it can make your nasal pathways uneven.
I can't explain exactly what's so uncomfortable about the unevenness. It just makes me feel ill. A sense of foreboding that I can't get rid of.
Obviously my fictotype does not explain my entire history with evenness obsessions. It's a really bad idea for me to engage in magical thinking about that, actually. However, when I started getting kin memories for Harvey Dent, one of the things I remembered most vividly was the visceral discomfort, not just of my scar, but of knowing that it wasn't even on both sides. It might sound kind of funny. After all, Two-Face's whole thing is unevenness. But both now and as Harvey, I refused to wear two different kinds of socks. All of my suits were custom, so the feeling of them wouldn't be different like it would if I spliced two suits together. Using two of every weapon wasn't just for thematic purposes - my hands would feel weird and wrong if the residue or muscle tightness afterwards was only on one side.
I've started coming to term with unevenness more now. It's comforting in some ways, which is new. Tilting my head a little to the left, like I did in my Harvey timeline to compensate for my poor vision on the left side, is both a way to push back against needing to feel even all the time and a way to feel more like myself.
In a way, being aware of this is a mirror to my life now. In my timeline, I started to recover, tried to help people again instead of just tearing Gotham to shreds like it deserved (although, of course, I always did both). Coming to terms with the unevenness of my face was a part of that. I'm still not sure whether I fully succeeded in that, and I'm not sure whether I'll be uncomfortable with uneven sensations in my body in my present life, either. Either way, it's still comforting to know that I lived through it then.
If any of you have experiences to share about how your mental health is/was affected by your kintypes I'd love to hear about them. There are other things I didn't touch on in here that I'd really be interested to talk about (maybe some other time!) and I'd be curious to see if anybody else has felt similarly, especially others with OCD.
Thank you for reading! I hope to interact more with others' writing on here as well.
