#faolan tag

[jaghatai-khock]

Thinking about Faolan having cute bat features. Big fluffy ears. Chest and neck fluff. Big wings. Lil tail.

[libraryleopard]

thinking fondly of a blorbo from my own brain tonight…

[shadowfae]

Also, because the thought won't leave me alone: I literally study literature and part of that includes literature's impact on reality. We discussed this phenomenon not that long ago in a high-level English class I'm taking, and my classmates and I unanimously agreed that implying liking something in fiction condones it happening in reality is reductive and leads to some dangerous literary censoring. I've written papers on this exact topic before. Wtf is this anon's deal? -Faolan

That too, yeah. Academic sources such as yourself know it’s asinine, but what’s actual academic sources to a [checks notes] thirteen year old on tumblr talking about NSFW stuff that they’re legally not allowed to read and are using fraud to do so?

[shadowfae]

Hi anon, Faolan here. Not only am I aware that Pale writes this stuff, I actively encouraged it. I'm almost always the first comment on his fics. If you're sending this ask because you're someone who knows me, please block me on every platform because I don't want to be associated with you in any way, shape or form. If you don't know me and are just using me as a prop for your puritanical bullshit, go step on a lego. You don't know me, or my relationship. Cheers! -Faolan

/rolls eyes/ Like fuck, do they really think that despite the fact I sing your praises whenever given half a chance, I somehow don’t trust you with my AO3, which you have the login for and a shared pseud, or either of my tumblr blogs, which you have provably read like the morning paper each and every day for the past forever since you deleted your own tumblr??? (Like seriously, y’all don’t know how unhinged I am on kingofthewilds. I will go to bat over shipcourse about as harsh as I do against kin-for-fun, except I’m twice as rude because I’m here to make people feel bad, not because I think it might change someone’s opinion. I get mean on main over shipcourse, it’s kinda hard to miss.)

I don’t hide this shit. Assuming you didn’t know either a) is just them thinking I’m a liar despite the fact I’ve made it clear I hate liars, or b) assuming you can’t read. Which is a terrible accusation in of itself, considering you’re a senior English major in college going for your master’s later this year.

But hey at least I made sure Goni wasn’t super mean to people. >O>

[shadowfae]

The thing that really grinds my gears about the zoophile thing (and pedophilia/abuse accusations as well tbh) is that now I’m genuinely never sure if the person being cancelled did something seriously fucked up, or if they just drew/wrote/admitted to being into a ~problematic~ thing. It irks me so much that these words that used to have some goddamn weight are being delegitimized by the Purity Police. -Faolan

Yeeeeeep. It’s especially fucked up because what you do isn’t so important as what you say. You can be the world’s biggest hypocrite, and so long as you say zoos / pedos / etc are bad and occasionally help a witchhunt for some random sap with kinks they express in fiction only, you can do some horrific shit and get away with it.

The terms are meaningless now to actually keep folks safe, and then people wonder why I get so irritated when people don’t use words for their actual definition. I don’t care what people find attractive. I may think your kink is gross, but that’s kink tomato, not a legal problem that should have someone jailed. Hurting people and/or animals? That is different and should be treated that way.

[shadowfae]

Honestly, the advice you just gave in that reblog is the exact thing I wish someone had sent to me when I first started questioning. As you know, I kinda fell in with a wishkin crowd early on in my introspection process who prioritized putting a name to something at any cost over making sure that name actually did apply. Introspection can be a long and arduous process, but giving it the time it’s due is worth the struggle. -Faolan

As an addendum to my previous ask: I do understand the impulse to want to name your experiences because having a name for it always feels like a huge step in the right direction. But putting a name to something before you’ve necessarily explored it from every angle can lead to confirmation bias and filling in the gaps based on what seems “logical” for a particular kintype. I guess I’m just really wary of getting outside input on questioning because I know how badly it can go wrong. -Faolan

Pretty well, yeah - everyone wants to be sure and have a name for stuff, but the name means nothing if you don’t know what’s behind it. Our terminology is largely shorthand, and I think people forget that. It helps to do most of it yourself, and when you’re really not sure, bounce ideas off of folks without really getting a soundboard in.

[shadowfae]

It /sounds/ like an anti or wishkin (probably both lmao) being all salty because someone pointed out that they’re wrong and their bullshit hurts people??? Idk what prompted it, but somebody really wants to be the victim I guess. :p -Faolan

Honestly, now that I’m more awake and they were all “hurr durr you hurt children for wanting to relate to characters” when my stance has literally always been “I don’t care what you do so long as you don’t fucking steal our terminology for something that isn’t it”, wishkin sounds about right. :p

But yeah, definitely anti, because they think I actually care about nebulous, conceptual children. “Think of the children!” at this point should probably just be argued with “well then the children can suffer I guess” because they never mean actual children who can’t defend themselves, because those children should not be online at all; they mean teenagers who are suddenly very upset that nobody’s pulling the strings for them. Teenagers can figure it out on their own, like every other person has. It’s easier than it’s ever been to do that. They can deal, I don’t get paid to be their father and if I did, I’d still do a shit job.

/shrug/ That’s my best guess, anyway. It’s not like they’re very smart.

[shadowfae]

Chiming in with my two cents, but I think maybe the reason so many ‘linkers who only know the term “kin” cling to it is because there’s definitely a stigma with changing labels or admitting you were wrong about how you initially labeled yourself. It’s absolutely possible to get attached to a certain label just because you’ve used it for a long time, and then keep using it whether or not it actually fits your experiences solely because it’s familiar.(1/2)

(2/2) I can sympathize with this to a degree because often, letting go of one long-held label means that you have to pick up another that you’re not ready to come to terms with- or even admit that you don’t know what label fits your experiences. I’m really glad this dialogue about ‘linking has been happening, and I hope it helps some people find the word that best describes what they’re experiencing- especially if that word isn’t “kin”. -Faolan

The funniest thing is, on the first read, what immediately popped into my head was me figuring out I was actually male.

I spent probably two years as a demigirl, and three or more as simply nonbinary. And during the latter part, I had Hiyama Kiyoteru as a copinglink, because my sexuality was hitting me full in the face. (I had previously identified as biromantic ace, because I had some form of attraction and it wasn’t sexual, but it didn’t feel romantic either but I didn’t know what romance felt like, so it had to be that, and was now abruptly realizing that it was the precursor to an adult’s actual sex drive.)

Because the way to cope with that budding sexuality and sex drive was to figure out how to handle it safely, and the strangest part of it was that I never, ever wanted to be the bottom in any way, in every fantasy I wanted full control over every single action that happened. Part of that was ‘oh fuck this is new I don’t like it what do I do’ like every other teenager.

The rest of it was me awkwardly stumbling through realizing I was male. And being Kiyoteru helped that, because he had a band and we all know that’s just code for a harem of boys for different dynamics of relationships. So being Kiyoteru and having that link seriously helped me understand my gender and my sexuality, and come to terms with it. I was a boy as Kiyoteru, until I was finally ready to accept that I was just a boy in general.

Being Kiyoteru helped with a lot of other things - /gestures to Pale as a sort of ‘I’m Pale but an AU Pale where nothing bad happens and everything is fine’/ - but like... I never would’ve really figured out what I was without that, or at least, it woud’ve been a lot harder.

Having a copinglink was probably the best way to go about that. And you’re noting that dropping kin and picking up another label is difficult because it’s home and now you’ve got to move, and I kid you not, I literally was like “Yeah make a copinglink to help you bridge the gap there”.

Yeah. That’s my theory. Make a copinglink to help you deal with being a copinglinker.

So now that I’ve made that clear, I actually think it’d work. Make another copinglink! Experiment with your identity! Use a completely harmless, completely voluntary and for fun identity to experiment with how you feel, so when you do it for realsies to help with a different issue (for lack of a better term, having your identity thrown into disarray is a nightmare of an issue), you have the experience and now you’re actually on familiar territory, instead of just suffering the entire time and not knowing how to deal with it.

Though, now that I think about it, being Yukari as a ‘link did seriously help since that was the first thing I did when the word was invented. I didn’t know I could experiment with my identity like that, because I’d spent so long eschewing anything that wasn’t a kintype or a hearttype. I absolutely went “Yeah you’re not kin or hearted and you’re for fun and that makes you fake”. Obviously, I’ve learned better, that it’s the words that are the issue, not the experiences.

But once I could experiment that way, loosen up a bit and figure things out entirely at my own pace by quite literally debugging my identity, shoving random variables in until I got what stuck? It absolutely helped. Being Yukari helped me with highschool, because I could completely rearrange how I thought for a little while, knowing it wasn’t permanent, knowing that I could do it without fear of future consequences and what if I can’t let it go, because it was never meant to be a permanent, static fix to any problem, and it was exactly as versatile as I needed it to be, and I didn’t have to worry about contradicting myself as I grew and changed.

Copinglinks are incredibly useful. They were the landing pad I used when I needed to make a big jump. We cannot, and should not, shame them for that. So I mean... If people aren’t sure about their identity, or don’t want to deal with the fact that they’re a linker and not ‘kin...

Yeah, make a(nother) copinglink to help you deal with being a copinglinker. I can’t really think of how it wouldn’t work, so I think it’s an actual solution?