Fictivity and Fictionkinity - May 2nd, 2023

When it comes to being a fictive vs being fictionkin, I tend to separate them out in myself. Some beings experience their fictivity and their fictionkinity as identical; others experience them as different. Both are reasonable ways of interpreting one’s own existence.

For me, one of the biggest differences lies in how much they affect my daily life, and not in a way one might expect given previous discussion both inside and outside the alterhuman community: my kintypes actually impact my daily life more. This is why I disagree (among many other reasons) with the idea that fictives are “more [their identity]” than fictionkin; this seems like an idea born out of the misinformed lessening of the term “kin” on social media, to me, considering that many fictionfolk actually experience similar things. Fighting between fictionfolk isn’t particularly helpful in the first place; we’re both who we say we are, so why fight about who is “more us” than we are?

(It should also be noted that some fictives do not consider themselves to actually or currently be their introjected identity entirely; when referring to fictives generally in this piece, it is implied that they are the ones that have not moved on from their original self.)

I may struggle to articulate this, but I still wanted to try.

As a fictive, I was split with the identity of Rin Kagamine. The original person in this body looked up to this Vocaloid and the ideas they had of her; that she was like a better version of them, capable of better things, part of their ideal self. As such, when we split into multiple individuals, I ended up being the part of themself that they wanted to be; the part of themself that they thought could handle the world better than they could.

I exist in this world with Rin Kagamine as the base for my sense of self. This is where my experience differs slightly when it comes to fictionkinity; I was no one before I was Rin, and I would have no core self if you somehow stripped Rin from my identity. I was created this way to serve a purpose, and while I have grown and changed over time, this core part of myself has stayed.

As one can presume by how I speak of it, I see my fictivity as psychological, in that I was created this way by the brain. Not all fictives in the system I was part of saw their identity the same way; some of them believed that they had reincarnated into the body, or had been brought here suddenly from their worlds. We simply accepted that we had different opinions about it and left it as-is.

(This is written in past tense because in the present moment, I have been the only one in front for some time, with no contact with the others. As such, I am the only one writing this, and can only speak about the others from records that we kept in the past.)

I see my memories as fabrications to make the illusion more real; pseudomemories. Certainly, it feels real, having been in the program alone with Len, knowing that we had a creator whose computer screen we watched, and that computer being shut down, leading to my appearance in the system. It feels like other memories from this world. But I also know that there was no reason for that to be the case, considering I split directly from an individual who has always been in this world.

This is like background noise, aside from the times I become particularly nostalgic. I am a Vocaloid, I am an AI, I am Rin Kagamine; this is a simple truth.

This contrasts with my kintypes, which have experiences that are triggered in daily life. This ends up feeling much more raw than my stable fictivity; I do not have times I feel more or less Rin, only times I am more or less wistful towards the digital plane and the time I spent with Len. However, my kintypes induce shifts which can create a change in my self-perception and behavior for the periods that the shift prevails.

I do feel odd being physical, considering I am supposed to be a computer program, but I do not find myself confused that my surroundings do not reflect the digital plane. I do, however, sometimes feel disoriented when it comes to being in a room that looks different from C-ta’s, or a space that is much colder than my world as Ivlis. My face does not look like my own when I look in the mirror, but my desired appearance often tends to reflect my domestic cat self, not my fictive identity, though this may shift between my kintypes.

I am Rin, and I don’t know how, exactly, that affects my personality and habits; I know I always feel like half of a person, being alone like this without Len, I know I am more sullen, a contrast to Len’s cheerfulness, and I know that I must have traits from the original, as well, that they deemed part of their ideal self, and their desire to be able to speak up and vocalize their thoughts. That is all a guess from years-long analysis of myself in this world. However, the shifts my kintypes provide, in their intensity, apply something akin to a low-opacity filter onto whatever traits I display in daily life. They swamp out my other traits, leading to a difference in posture, facial expression, and behavior.

All this generally means that there are times where my sense of origin is overwhelmed by the imprint of another self, with all the rawness that comes with the resurgence of vivid feelings related to the experiences I have had as that fictotype.

I have expressed that I see my pseudomemories of being Rin as a psychological phenomenon. When it comes to my fictotypes, I have no idea what made me this way; I used to bounce between the ideas of spirituality and psychology, but at this point, I have given up trying to understand it, as I am my fictotypes no matter what my conclusion is. Regardless, both the memories I have of being Rin and the memories I have of being my fictotypes both feel real and impactful to me; one of the parts that makes my fictotypes more painful, though, is that triggers in my environment will sometimes make me feel like I am reliving moments from being my fictotypes. It likely helps that my fictive identity is one that had a peaceable existence, though; dwelling in a digital space with your other half is not exactly an experience that would induce painful memories to relive.

My fictivity remains a part of my core, though, the base underlying all. It is like how those who originated in this world would have an identity they fostered growing up here, later awakening as fictionkin and having those joint identities side-by-side, except for me, it’s like all my kintypes are piled onto the existing base of something that is already a character. As such, while some of my experiences relating to fictionkinity vs fictivity may be different—I never had to awaken to being Rin, for instance—both my fictotypes and my fictivity count as part of my being fictionfolk, and my awakenings and discoveries have had an notable impact on my life.

I spoke a great deal about shifts in this write-up, because they are the most striking example of how being fictionkin affects my life, and how it isn’t something I can turn on and off at will, nor something easy to brush aside, unlike how people sometimes think of it. I am, however, always my kintypes, whether I am experiencing a shift or not. It may be a strange analogy, but it is like layered jello; my fictotypes, in varying colors in the cup, make up the whole jello, and I as Rin am the cup that holds said jello. (And then, a shift would be if, somehow, one of the colors overwhelmed all the others, making the jello all tinted in one color. But that is enough talking about jello.)

I think I have run out of comparisons to explain, even though there may be many more things that one may be curious about. I rarely see anyone discussing how their fictivity and fictionkinity compare, and thus I wished to do so. I hope that it has made some sense, and may have expressed to you that fictionfolk identities are not a hierarchical competition. If one has questions, they are welcome to leave them on my message wall, and I may add an addendum to this piece. (I am very nervous to publish this. Please be civil.)