(another) one of @bardkin's sideblogs about more of his fictionkinity; specially about being an imagithrope! whilst this aspect ended up being a flicker, Varic here is still an extremely important part of my imagithropy.
this blog contains aesthetic posts, noemata, memories, and various writings about what it's like to be my own player character.
🎴 content warning! within noemata & memory posts, there will sometimes be talk of violence, abuse, trauma, necromancy, undeath, & lesser magical possession. all content will be tagged accordingly. 🎴
some noemata about my instinct / familiar, as well as the cultural aspects of instincts!
within my circle, each firbolg has something similar to the norse heatherny concept of the Fylgja. we call it our "Instinct."
one's Instinct is represented by the animal(s) it best relates to; if your nature is to protect, your Instinct might be that of a bear, for example! it can be multi-faceted, and not limited to "just" one animal. someone's Instinct can have many different forms, or only a few, but is always referred to in the singular.
an individual's Instinct is kind of treated as a separate force, but also not. it's you, but it's also what drives you, if that makes sense. it's also not always self-recognized. more often than not, others around you will reveal a face of your Instinct, assigning an animal to certain qualities. there is no "one true" face that your Instinct takes, however, as all are you.
some choose to manifest their Instinct as a physical familiar through some source of magic; the origin of said magic matters very little. this is an extremely personal choice, as well as something that is not done lightly. making your Instinct physical is a permanent act.
when this is done, your Instinct is fully treated as a new and separate entity; even when not physically summoned. the Instinct gains an identity of their own, as well as two names: a nickname to address them by in everyday life, and a true name that holds power over them, as well as over you. the Instinct chooses the true name.
firbolgs don't usually put stock in names; our culture and language doesn't require them. but this aspect is part of our fey and giant ancestry. it's not something we can put to the wayside, as it's at the core of us.
my Instinct was physically manifested when i made my warlock pact. this was... slightly against my will, as i didn't feel ready to take such a irreversible step - especially in that moment.
but i don't regret it, even if it wasn't my call to bring her into the physical. i don't know how to describe how important Zev has been to me, within my canon & narrative. she's been viewed as "(just) a familiar" by others, but i'll always know she means a lot more than that.
Zev can take the form of a raven & of a badger, though she's most often a raven. her coloration for either form is... extremely unique, to say the least! most physical Instincts i've met or interacted with had more natural appearances (though that's possibly because they were summoned via druidic magic), with any "fantastical" markings or hues being applied with paint, dye, or ink. even her eyes are unusual, being one solid, almost glowing, color.
she only takes on the forms of a raven or badger. before she became physical, i knew my Instinct was of several forms, not limited to just the raven and badger. i've been assigned unicorn & deer-like qualities by my fellow knights, for example, but Zev has never taken on either of those shapes. badger and raven are but two of my faces, and yet, she prefers them above all. this is not a judgemental observation; i just don't think i ever figured out why she prefers those forms.
Zev doesn't talk verbally, but i can glean what she's thinking or feeling through, well... instinct. both in the typically & cultural definition of.
i can see through her eyes, hear through her ears, and feel through her senses, at will. metatextually, this functions like the "find familiar" spell in D&D.
As an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.
Here’s a reminder to take a break from alterhuman social media every once in a while. You can easily get influenced by others even without intending to, potentially questioning your identity. Your ‘type is fine the way it is, and you shouldn’t have to change anything for anyone!
heroforge is a blessing & a half; at long last, i (mostly) have a visual for my proper face !! featuring my instinct (familiar), Zev :3
granted, there's a few aspects that are limited by the software (precise ear shape/texture, exact nose, eyebrow texture), but this is as close as i'll get with heroforge~
@who-is-page and @frameacloud's panel at Othercon has gotten me thinking about writing essays about my own alterhuman experience... I was thinking maybe I should write something about why I write fiction, and how that relates to my own identity. But thinking about that made me realize that one of the reasons I write is because I identify as a fictional self-insert character that I created when I was a hatchling in make-believe games. Like, that's the way I view myself - not as a generic blue dragon, but as that specific character. Additionally, given that many of those games were based loosely in books I've read, it means that my identity is based in fiction as well. Though I don't identify as him, my name is even based on a fictional character's!
I've never really thought about calling myself fictionkin before now. When I joined the otherkin community initially, I had some bad reactions to talking about my identity in that way. And then some more bad reactions. My identity as a dragon is involuntary; I couldn't change it if I tried (and I have), and it isn't something I intentionally made into an identity. It's a bit of why I never really got why everyone insisted strongly on the distinction between otherkin and otherlinkers. Though I'm not opposed to the idea, I don't feel like my fictional identity was made by me channeling a past life either, which felt like it was the acceptable explanation for this back in 2016. Otherwise, creating a kintype wasn't "allowed."
For a while, I felt like I separated my identity into a dragon otherkin aspect, where I was just "a dragon", and had character me on the side as a fun thing - what I considered my "kinsona". But I think this is a false dichotomy. The two aren't really separable; who I am as a dragon was created through books and play. It wasn't really until @aestherians's posts in early 2021 - five years after I found the otherkin community - that I felt that the community had finally decided that the definitional line between kintype and linktype, voluntary and involuntary, didn't have to be such a strict line after all. (I'd been arguing that "involuntary identity" shouldn't be a part of the definition of otherkin for four years by that point, so yes, I'm still both smug and salty.)
So, though I didn't expect this to lead to me coining a new term when I started out writing out this post, I've decided to do it. I'm not sure if anyone except me is going to use it, but I think creating it as a concept gives it both a bit of legitimacy and permanence. I hope it will be of use to someone else, and if anyone else shares a similar experience, I welcome them to talk about it in more detail - at some point now, I think I definitely should describe mine.
Imagithrope - An alterhuman whose identity was created and/or formed, wholly or partially, through some form of imaginative play. This can include fantasy play, roleplay (tabletop, text, live action, etc), fanfiction, writing, art, and more.
so, i'm a little... embarrassed, about this fictomere. primarily due to internalized cringe-culture that i Still need to pulverize into the dirt, because i'm afraid i'm faking or that this isn't a "valid" kintype.
but i've been Varic ever since the first campaign he was in ended. that was way before i'd ever heard of fictionkind, let alone otherkind or even therians. so i didn't have the words to apply the stuff i was feeling & experiencing.
information about Varic tended to just come to the surface in a way unlike any other character i'd made for ttrpgs. even in the early stages of character creation, i had a really solid grasp on who he is, his motives & goals, etc. in-game, making decisions & even role playing felt... natural.
not in a way that i was projecting my personality onto this character, but in a way that i understood what was driving him & why.
that first campaign didn't go on for very long, and the second "campaign" he was in was only a single session before it fizzled out due to schedule stuff. on top of that, due to just how homebrewed a bunch of his key features are, i haven't been able to use him in any of the newer games i've been involved in. (they've been run very by-the-book & by a new dm.)
but something about Varic made me keep coming back to him, even when i didn't have any active games going on or couldn't include him. i've been fiddling with his concept for over a year at this point, and after i accepted the possibility that he could be a kintype, things are at long last starting to piece together in a way that feels right.
thus far from what i've been able to gather, the main point of difference between this fictomere & my others is that i... kind of don't have a set canon. maybe it's the nature of having a tabletop game as a source, but my "story" feels flexible. some aspects are immutable - my home, family, and class/pact. there's some "set-piece" moments that i know of, because i'd pre-planned for them to happen at some point in-game (such as my very first encounter with a necromancer, in which my party sees me get genuinely angry for the very first time), but other than that, everything beyond is a fog.
and i think i welcome that. it's kind of exciting! it's a significant difference from my other fictomeres, where their whole story is laid out and mostly known to me. and part of me thinks it'll continue to be that way, because of my source being a ttrpg system. might change, but i'll never know until i can get another game going.
i'm still a bit nervous about being public with this fictomere, but also incredibly fascinated. i'm excited to see how these experiences evolve!
