pipi Grimm

It is palpable how much fictionkind are getting left behind in the growing push for therian/otherkind acceptance. And no, I'm not really surprised by this, but it is frustrating nonetheless. The KFF trend has thoroughly drowned out our voices and made it difficult for us to find each other and build community, making effective fictionkind self-advocacy nearly impossible. At the same time, it has swallowed up the vast majority of what otherwise might have been potential allies and made them into cogs in the misinformation machine instead.

And now we are simply being left behind because, I don't know, I guess we're too hard to advocate for. And I can't even disagree on it being hard.

I do not know what to do about it. I know this post will change nothing. Making 1000 of the most eloquent and comprehensive posts ever put on the internet with full APA standard citations would change nothing. So, I guess I'm just venting.

#alterhuman #fictionkind #fictionfolk #rambling #negative

pipi Grimm @SpiderQueenPC9/15/2023, 2:49 AM

Another thing about this that has been on my mind:
the way our vocabulary has been horrifically mangled has made it extremely difficult to plainly state my identity to most people.

Like, if I say "I am Widowmakerkin", most people will assume I mean that in the KFF sense. If I say "I am Widowmaker" they will assume I mean I relate to Widowmaker (and may or may not be KFFing about it). If I say "I am Widowmakerkind", other fictionkind will be able to tell I am being sincere, but nonetheless nonkin either won't know what I'm talking about or they might assume I just made a typo... and we are back at square one.

Explaining what I am always comes with a (sometimes rather lengthy!) clearing up & debunking of misinformation, and that in itself might get me painted as humorless at best or outright vilified at worst.

It is tiring. Far more tiring even than having to explain what my semi-obscure orientation label means over and over. Because at the very least, people aren't weirdly drawn to some vapid, brutally bastardized, insincere meme culture interpretation of the word "polysexual" like they are for the word "kin".

#rambling #negative #fictionkind

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in reply to @SpiderQueenPC's post:

virtueisdead @virtueisdead9/15/2023, 3:39 AM

i actually had a long thought about this earlier today, how hard it is as a nonkin to discern... what people mean, or in what way they are identifying as a character, or for that matter even how relevant it is exactly in what way they mean it! i personally care largely because i would like to do whatever i can to make my friends feel the most comfortable and understanding and being clear with people is a large part of that, but it is difficult to feel like asking is something i should do when i know my fictionkind, fictive (im actually not sure definitionally if there is actually a reason to distinguish there besides clarity in source which obviously isnt relevant), and therian friends surely have to explain there existence several times a day. it is getting very confusing to tell exactly what people mean when they say anything relating to the word 'kin' at the moment and i know for certain i dont really have the knowledge to understand if there is truly a "wrong" way to identify with the word, i guess? this is getting kinda rambly... my main point is that i want the spaces in which i have authority (namely the homestuck revolt server) to be a place where fictives and fictionkind can feel safe and comfortable and respected but i also do not personally know enough about the subject because ive gathered theres a tremendous amount of misinformation surrounding the matter and im not really sure what is worth reading! do you have any articles/blogs/personal thoughts you believe i should look into for learning how to best accomplish this? ("this" mainly referring to learning, but i guess also to helping them feel safe and respected, haha)

pipi Grimm @SpiderQueenPC9/15/2023, 4:35 AM

it's a Homestuck server? yeah making that a fictionkind friendly space is a lost cause, sorry

jokes aside, there was actually whole panel at Othercon 2022 on how to treat people with fiction-based identities that is archived on YouTube!

beyondhumanity has an extensive resources page, and alterhumanarchive has plenty of writings about fictionkinity saved on zotero.

you mentioned blogs, and there are plenty of good ones! off the top of my head, my top recommendation is a-dragons-journal as they have both an extensive fictionkin tag and an extensive "kin for fun" tag which discusses the same problem I was going on about. there are quite a few more blogs listed on that beyondhumanity resource page so I won't go into more here.

I hope this is helpful! and thank you very much for caring about us

virtueisdead @virtueisdead9/15/2023, 4:10 PM

Thanks for the help! (Also, it is definitely worth noting that the server is rather small in userbase since Revolt as a whole is a very niche platform; that makes things a lot more manageable 😓)

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