Fictionkin and Personal identity

Being Fictionkin is not a substitute for having an identity

I’ve been deleting a lot of asks and messages from anons and kin-hate blogs lately, that have been saying a lot of nasty things about me. That I’m (in their words) ‘insane’ or ‘retarded’  for believing that I’m kin.

One particular accusation comes up again and again is that my kinselves are a substitute for my own identity.  I’ve been told I must have ‘no real personality’ and ‘no life’ and rely on ‘roleplaying’ my kinself as a ‘crutch’ to ‘pretend to have an identity’.

That’s not what I’m doing, and that’s not what being fictionkin is. I think it is a very fundamental misunderstanding about what being fictionkin, or kin in general is.

Being fictionkin is not substituting a character’s persona in place of your own. Fictionkin already have identities, personalities, and lives. Being fictionkin  is an element of that total identity, not a mask that is worn over it. It is a part of who you are.

Having a kintype or a kinself is a lot like having been five. The personality you had when you were five influences who you are now. You still have some of the same hopes and dreams you have when you were five. You have your five year old self’s memories. Your five year old self is forever a part of you- maybe even a part of you that still comes forward sometimes. But its not everything you are.

Being fictionkin is not everything you are. Your kinself, the part of you that aches for people you’ve lost, a world that you’ve never set your own feet on, is not your whole self, no matter how important it is (and it can be very important).

Our lives here are important too. We’re fictionkin. We’re people with lives, and dreams, and friends. With sexual and gender identities that sometimes match those our our kinselves, and sometimes don’t. We’re people who go to school, and people who have jobs, and people who share our hobbies with the world.

Let me be clear, I am not condemning anyone who does use a character or characters to support or replace their own personality. As far as I’m concerned that’s a perfectly fine, perfectly valid thing to do. That’s fiction-hearted or copinglink. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about being fictionkin.

Being fictionkin is a big, sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrible part of us, that influences us every day of our lives. But its not the only thing that influences us. I think people need to know that.