The Self as Velveteen Rabbit
By Cobalt-11 of Waffleville
Read time: roughly 4-5 minutes
Summary: Cobalt-11 explains how fictotypes work for Waffleville, his experiences and those of other members (namely Wolf's), and how the term 'imagithrope' resonates with their system.
(divider credit: @/saradika-graphics)
I'm not sure when it was decided. I think maybe after our previous daily life fronter Wolf had gone dormant, after things had shifted the first time and Parker? had become the defacto main daily life fronter. Someone was wondering how to handle fictotypes-- Wolf had them most, and because we consider each other parts of a whole (but also people), did their fictotypes apply to the rest of us? What would that mean?
I remember whoever it was looking for words.
We love words, to know, to have answers, although we also believe little boxes should be opt in. I remember the word syskin, concord. I remember whoever it was tentatively saying "It's much easier for people to opt out of the fictotypes if they're blanketed over all of us than each of us individually doing introspection'. Maybe that makes us lazy, but we'd rather spend energy on other things-- there's always something going on in Waffleville, after all.
That became how we understand it.
Any kintype or fictotype or anything else becomes something everyone has. You can opt out entirely, but more typically, each of us have a different degree or connection to the 'types.
For example, I (Cobalt-11) feel most connected to the general canine kintype and (interestingly) Parker MacMillan IIIII, while the Commander and Trigger fictotypes are much weaker for me.
(Note: we do have fictional introjects, and as introjects, they are pretty seperate from the rest of this-- introjection for us is based in our DID, and understood from a clinical framework. This is just how we handle things here, though, and isn't something we apply to anyone else outside.)
Wolf experiences what they call not-memories.
They're not noemata (although that's an thing Wolf experiences too), they're very the kind of thing one might say are kin memories. Since our experience with our 'types is something we consider purely psychological, Wolf has never been sure-- are these memories, or a story? Is that wrong, to be unconsciously telling themselves a story, to be that story? For it all to be Real-- for themselves-as-the Commander and for themselves-as-Parker to be Real, important?
Recently I've been sitting around and feeling a pull, a want. 'I wish we were someone, anyone, from the Triangle Agency, kin wise.'
At first we thought this was just the result of Unknown U existing - he's an introject of a Field Agent - but the feeling remains still. Wanting is often a sign of being, too, and I can't help but wonder what it means for us.
In that vein, after I read Shiloh the Great of Rootspan's essay on imagithropy, I looked at this longing and said to myself -- if we consciously choose this, although it itself feels involuntary, if we build upon it, will it be Real? Would building out from this just be a story?
Of course it doesn't really matter if it's 'just a story'. Even if it is, we breathe life into it. The not-memories are Real, the feelings are Real, because we make them be-- and I don't think we could ever opt out of them being Real anyway.
I've seen the grief of Wolf-as-Parker over their league, their friends, and I know it is Real to them; I've seen their laments and their fears, their attempts to stop it and failing. I've seen Cobalt-7-as-Trigger's writings of his not-memories, of little things that could only come from that story of being that pilot being Real for him. This all is important to us, and so it is Real.
Even for me, in the short time I've been pondering my connection to Parker and the potential field agent kintype, it has become important. We may not share not-memories (at least that we know), so I've found a few of my own.
In my not-memories of Blaseball, I am alongside the ILB as Season 24 collapses in on itself and the Black Hole(Black Hole) yawns wide.
Then, eventually, after everyone has Fallen and games are just beginning to get going again-- it ends.
Yet I continue and the loss destroys me. There is a sense of metafictionality to after Release, a sense I knew that something was not how maybe it would have been, a sense of betrayal.
Is this just me telling myself a story about Blaseball and its sudden ending, an outlet for that grief? Is it a story about something deeper? I don't know.
It doesn't have to be either. Because to me, it is and will be still Real, still important. For us, it is all Real. I think maybe that alone is enough.
