Fictionkin

What fictionkin means

A fictionkin identifies as a being whose only home in the record is a work of fiction. That being may be a named character, with a history and a face, or a kind of creature that exists in one invented world and nowhere else. The short glossary entry gives the definition. This page goes further.

As with therians and otherkin, the claim is about identity and not about enthusiasm, and it is not about the body. A fictionkin does not believe they can do what the character does in the story. They say, with some care, that the character is in an important sense who they are, and that they did not decide this. A person who identifies as an animal-like species from fiction may prefer the narrower word fictherian.

A short history

The question behind fictionkin is older than the word. From the start, some otherkin described beings that owed as much to modern stories as to ancient ones, and the line between myth and fiction was never as sharp as it looked. Many of the elves described by elfkin, for instance, are open about a debt to twentieth-century novels.

The identity as such was being discussed from the early 2000s, at first under other names, before fictionkin became the usual word. It arrived during the forum years, and the welcome was mixed. Some forums made room for it. Others did not, and the arguments that followed were often sharp. In the 2010s, as community life moved to blogs and social platforms, fictionkin became far more visible, and the word reached many people who had never heard of otherkin at all.

Since 2014 fictionkin have usually been placed under the alterhuman umbrella, alongside therians, otherkin and the otherhearted. Some think of themselves as a kind of otherkin. Others keep the word separate.

Fictionkin and being a fan

Being a fan is admiration from the outside. A fan loves a story, follows it, talks about it, and may feel a strong affection for one character in particular. None of that is fictionkin identity, however intense it becomes.

Fictionkin describe something that runs the other way. The recognition comes from inside, and it tends to persist whether or not the person still enjoys the source. Many fictionkin report that they find their source awkward or painful to read, and avoid it for long stretches. Some have no interest in the wider community of fans at all. It is also not role-play. A role is taken up and put down, and fictionkin describe nothing they could put down.

A fictionkin does not usually wish to be the character, either. Wishing implies a distance. What they report is closer to recognition: reading a description and finding it already true.

The casual "I kin"

In recent years a casual way of speaking has spread widely. To say "I kin this character" usually means "I relate to this character," or "this character is very like me." It grew out of a loose reading of the older vocabulary, and the library records it under kinning.

That sense is harmless as everyday slang, and many people use it without any thought of identity. But it is not what fictionkin means, and the overlap causes friction in both directions. Fictionkin are sometimes dismissed as though they were merely saying they relate to someone. People using the slang are sometimes lectured as though they had claimed an identity. Neither is fair. A little patience, and a willingness to ask what someone means, clears up most of it.

Spiritual and psychological understandings

As with other alterhuman identities, fictionkin explain their experience in more than one way, and the community has never required agreement.

• Spiritual understandings often rest on the idea of many worlds. On this view, a story can be a glimpse of a life lived elsewhere, and its author caught sight of something real without knowing it. Some fictionkin speak of reincarnation from such a world.
• Psychological understandings hold that a character, met at the right moment, gave shape and language to something already present in the person, and that the identity grew around that shape as identities do.
• Others hold both, or neither, and are content to describe the experience without explaining it.

The page on spiritual and psychological understandings discusses these views as they apply to therians, and most of it carries over. The library does not choose among them.

When the story changes

Fictionkin face a difficulty that no therian and few otherkin share. Their source is still being written. A later installment can give the character a past that feels wrong, change the nature of their species, undo the ending that felt like home, or kill them outright. A retelling can replace the story altogether.

People respond to this in several ways, and all of them are commonly described.

• Self and source. Many conclude that the story was only ever the nearest available description, as a map is of a country. When the map is redrawn badly, the country does not move.
• A road that forks. Some, especially those with spiritual understandings, say that their own story simply went another way at a certain point, and that the later installments describe someone else.
• Revision. Some find, on reflection, that the new material fits after all, or that it shows them something they had missed.

Whatever the response, the grief can be real, and it deserves to be taken seriously by friends. Two cautions are worth keeping. A creator owes no one a particular ending, and writing to authors or actors to tell them what a character "really" is crosses a line. And a sense of self that depends entirely on what a stranger writes next is fragile, so it is wise to build a life that rests on more than one story.

Fictionkin also sometimes meet others who identify as the same character. This can be a gift or a strain. The courteous course is the one the wider community has always followed: describe your own experience, do not rule on anyone else's, and part kindly if your accounts cannot be reconciled. Impressions of a life lived in the story's world are discussed further on the page on memories and past lives.

Identity and enthusiasm

The older community's worry about fictionkin was always the same one: that it blurred the line between identity and enthusiasm, and made it easier for passing interests to be mistaken for something deeper. That worry was not foolish. Stories are made to draw readers into their characters, and very many people, especially young people, feel a strong pull toward a favorite character for a season.

Fictionkin answer that the line is exactly where it has always been. On one side is loving a story. On the other is recognizing oneself. The tests that serve therians and otherkin serve here too: is it involuntary, is it lasting, and does it shape how you feel and act beyond the hours you spend with the story? A feeling that fades when the next story comes along was probably a feeling of affinity, and there is nothing wrong with that. It may simply be a strong liking. If a person chooses to keep hold of such a figure because it helps them, the community has a word for that too, a copinglink, and it is entirely honorable.

A person who is questioning will find that the patient advice on the awakening page applies here too. Take your time. A real identity will still be there after the excitement of a new story has worn off.