Fictionfolk At Work and Play

various artists' fictionfolkery blog

[the-fictional]

📌

blog remade under the same name for the..... 1 bajillionth time. SORRY

fictionfolk-specific blog for various artists! currently really MR- and SiIva-pilled. adult(s), plural, very queer. doubles always okay, but usually slightly iffy on selfshippers. interacts from @introns!!

introductions under the cut

fictive, had a pretty rough go with my fictional identity initially but i'm getting better about it now. i like to code and do other dorky shit. unfortunate beholder of The Horrors, just like source.

Fictive (or, techinically, a multifictive) , still learning to be myself . Big fan of seeing where public transportation will take me & writing !!

Fictive . Enigmatic in source , just plain eccentric here .

fictive !!!!! probably holds onto a special interest in dreaming. trying to make the world a better place, one little step at a time ^____^ sourced from piafos, but strongly hearthomed in ljms

shell kintype, evil but forced to use it for good. i hate CVS

shell kintype that sleeps 12 hours or more every time

fabletive, turbo shitposter, mashup enthusiast. i am canonically a chair reincarnated as a girl

Fabletive, ran the first few initial versions of this blog. Living life for the first ever time, enamored by everything.

fictive with very minimal source memories, but strongly hearthomed! still have absolutely retained my "explainer" tendencies ^__^; ....

[the-fictional]

It's making kind of embarassing posts on the fictionfolk blog hours.

I've gotten very philosophical since I've gotten here. I feel like it's kind of hard not to, if you're in my position. I try not to dwell on what happened in canon, because it is beyond my control and there is nothing I can personally change about it. I have gotten what I wanted by being here, with my control over the channel in exchange. I'm at peace with that, because now I can live among people instead of merely observing.

I held chopsticks for the first time. Maybe it's not the body I inhabit's first time, but it certainly is mine. I got my nails painted by a headmate. It's the first time it's ever happened in my life. It feels weird, but I'm grateful for the experience.

I have a crazy amount of gratitude regarding existing in the real world. My life situation is absolutely not ideal in any regard, but I cherish it anyways because I am alive, and I get to say that I'm alive and have people see me and believe that I'm alive too.

[the-fictional]

Missing my world direly #myworld

[theworldrevolvving]

BEING FICTIONKIN IS JUST REVERSE ISEKAI SEND POST

[positivitygenic]

for fictives that feel guilty about their source actions, please be gentle with yourself. at least for today. you are not doomed to repeat past mistakes and to be who you were in source. it's okay to own up and move on from source actions. it's going to be okay, i promise.

[jkcoe]

exomemories are like. you died. you're back now. are you? do you count as alive? did you come back wrong? you remember the feeling. you don't remember it at all. it was yesterday. it was a very very long time ago. it hurts. it's kind of peaceful. you can go weeks without thinking about it. you think about it constantly. it shapes you as a person. it doesn't define you. you're alive. you're still dead. y'know?

[forsakenurocyon]

any other fictionfolk scared. like just in general

[thescrybeoftech]

PRESENTING THE RESULTS OF THE SURVEY ON EXOMEMORIES IN FICTIVES

It is here. The first step of my masterplan is officially complete. All of the data you so recklessly provided me with was stored, processed and is now redistributed in the form of neatly written [though not academic] paper. You can easily access the PDF by clicking the link below:

Additional credit goes to Julia Listopad from @hahahahah-no for her help and assistance throughout the whole process. Not that I needed it, but it was useful.

[permanenteclipse]

Hm in the spirit of impromptu fictionfolk opinion hour I'm speaking as a system with fictives when I say some of you gotta get more normal about fictionkin and flickerers now. Because some of you still seem to believe that being a fictive is what makes you a character for real and fictionkin aren't for real. And you talk and act like having a fictive of a character is the badger of honor that proves you're The Most Serious about the character while fictionkin just wish

[habitscapes]

learning trivia about your source is awesome (occurence from a few months ago)

[the-fictional]

[cutthroat-crimson]

Watching yourself make bad decisions in source

[the-fictional]

I'm lowkey a median system in canon which probably says something about me also. I close my eyes and I do not see it /silly

[thesoullessarmy]

Stories Don't Exist in Vacuums: Towards Critical Fictionkinity

There's something that bothers me about the current state of fictionkin self-discourse. So much of it just feels like talking in circles again and again about how "people with fictotypes who did problematic things are VALID!!!" And while I more or less don't...... disagree with those kinds of posts, I feel like they're sorely lacking in nuance.

Perhaps ironically, talking about fiction can be very tricky in fictionkin communities because to a lot of us, the "fiction" of our sources is just as real as the lives we lead in the real world. This is not a monolithic experience, of course—many fictionkin consider themselves "canon divergent," and many others outright reject their sources—but nonetheless the community as a whole struggles to divorce fiction from fictionkinity.

Fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum. Even if your source is your own lived experience, either as a past life or a parallel life or something else, in this reality it exists as a story whose writer(s) wanted to convey some sort of message to their audience. Stories have implications, and are shaped by the time and sociopolitical environment they were created in; this is something we need to be aware of as fictionkin.

This is what bothers me so much about self-discourse in the fictionkin community: so little time is spent reflecting on the biases one's source may hold, and whether or not the way one interacts with their fictionkin identity might uphold those biases. I'm not asking you to apologize for your source, or self-flagellate, or write some arbitrary amount of analysis about how the "problematic" nature of your source or your fictotype make you feel, but it is something that I think you should be aware of and take into consideration.

On a personal level, I take issue with the way that my source, as a work of fiction, uses its alternate history to create a narrative that is suspiciously apologetic of Japanese nationalism (among other things). This is something that I have to take into account when, for example, I talk about source homesickness; I don't want to come off as being nostalgic for a revisionist idea of imperial Japan! Likewise, even though my fictotype is Japanese, I myself am white and am from the United States. Because of how I was born and raised, I have to be aware of the Orientalism that plagues (so-called) Western perceptions of Japan and actively avoid repeating those same sentiments.

And before anyone tries to play the "involuntary identity" card: allow me to remind you that no one chooses their race, economic class, or assigned gender at birth, either, and yet people are still granted or deprived of certain privileges and rights based on those factors. Unfortunately, not having a choice in your identity does not mean you can simply reject all of the baggage that comes with it.

Again, this isn't me trying to police anyone's identity or say that you're only "allowed" to talk about your problematic source/fictotype if you feel sufficiently bad about it—I still love my source despite its...... well...... everything. I just want to encourage more self-reflection and political awareness, because God knows this community needs it. I get that a lot of fictionkin are still young, and I get that the community itself still hasn't fully recovered from the fallout of KFF discourse that started over ten years ago at this point, but that doesn't mean we can't have nuanced conversations about our identities and their relationship to, you know, fiction.

[frameacloud]

Fictionfolk resources

This post is about fictionkin, fictives, and other types of fictionfolk and experiences of fictionality. In it I recommend some readings and other resources for definitions, primers, etiquette, history, questioning, databases, and community.

Definitions

A quick guide to fictionfolk terminology by @aestherians

A fictionfolk glossary by the Dragonheart Collective

Primers

Fictionkind FAQ, by the Dragonheart Collective

Fictives: A Short Intro, by Ryn^Aristocrats

Soulbonding info carrd, by fairy tea

Changing beliefs & behavior through experience-taking, an academic article by Kaufman & Libby

Etiquette

A couple guides to avoiding faux pas & treating your fictive friends with respect.

By the Quicksilver System

By Sprites

History

A Timeline of the Fictionkin Community, by @houseofchimeras

Pluralpedia on where the word fictive came from, researched largely by LB Lee & sobqjmv

Questioning

Questioning guide for fictionkin, by DoctorCorby

The Big List Of Fictionkind Experiences, by 375-6

Databases

100+ writings in the fictionfolk category in the Alterhuman Archive

17 games, zines, & other creations on itch.io by various

Community

Web ring, maintained by @nova-dracomon

Dreamwidth community, moderated by @tanadin and sun_dragon

Safety in Alterhuman Spaces, by Dragonheart Collective

I have also shared this list as a Bluesky thread.

[householddreaming]

Shout out to fictives who feel uncomfortable and exposed by the fact that their sources exist as public media that anybody gets to see. The fact that anyone can just pull it up and see all of your history and traumas and mistakes, without your say or even knowledge. The fictives who don't even feel they're allowed to be upset about it because it's "just fiction" and therefore doesn't matter. Who feel like less than "real people" because of it.

We see you. You matter.

[gamerkinz]

this is very specific but like,, shoutout to beings with kintypes or medias that are very meme associated

i get that it may feel embarrassing sometimes [speaking from experience] but ur very epic and cool! and the haters can SCREW OFF!! >:3