#I'm struggling to decide whether I prefer to view their relationship as siblings or as lovers

[batsinnappies]

Hello nexo knights fandom, here's some Claytro

[teamvoltronkin]

Hi I'm a girl who, for forever has been so hooked on lance, I relate to him so much I feel like I am him and put myself in all his scenarios and always daydream in one specific au. I've never believed in kin but now I'm interested AN do feel guilty because I'm sure it's just a psychological response to a desirable character and a vivid imagination but I feel guilty and weird and please help??

Hey there! This is going to be a long answer, and will involve some of my personal story, so I’ll drop this under a read more.

As a warning in general this will also include some of my personal feelings on being fictionkin: I state these as applying to me and me alone, I do not mean these as an umbrella for all kin folks. So please don’t take offense or feel that I am trying to dictate your experiences!

Anon, your experience sounds very much like my first experience with fictionkin. I deeply identified with the character Angel from the Borderlands series. I couldn’t understand my own fascination at all: I love innumerable characters, of course, but this felt different. It was a love and a feeling of being hooked that I could not put down. I tried roleplaying her, and ended up roleplaying a totally deviant AU (that I loved to bits) but didn’t really find that my love of Angel was related to wanting to RP her.

One day, out of nowhere, my mind said, ‘yeah so what if you’re fictionkin’. I knew what kin was but not too much: I have a close friend who I knew to have a few kintypes, and Tumblr gave me a cursory familiarity with it, but nothing else. I never had many thoughts one way or another on any type of kin, I was and am very content with letting people do what makes them happy. I didn’t know anything deep about fictionkin, so I investigated a little. At first I was uncertain but in time I kind of fell into it, and gradually I identified and discovered several other characters I am kin with.

Here’s my view on myself and being fictionkin: I have a strange and somewhat unidentifiable view on what kin is to me. I generally view my memories as a ‘past life’, wherein I lived and eventually stopped existing and I became someone else. However, being aware of that means I am also still those people, sort of. It’s a combination of a past life and a concurrent view.

Nothing, to me, can prove or disprove whether I am or was these characters. A lot of my memories began as AUs I read or imagined that I couldn’t let go of: IE, I roleplayed an Angel who was a transboy, and who survived the events of the games, and then I ended up knowing they were memories. I liked imagining the protagonists of Pokemon Sun and Moon as siblings, then, what do you know I’m kin with Sun and shit, I had a twin named Moon.

I can’t ‘prove’ any of this. But the second I started calling myself fictionkin, I became happier. I have struggled with nearly all of my kintypes, for various reasons. Some for longing I feel in related to memory, angst and sadness from those lives. Eventually I wondered if I was being stupid and I didn’t really have this many kintypes, I was just attention-seeking or wanted something. But I have slowly come to accept who I am and my kinypes, and each time, it has made me happy. Letting go of my apprehension and fear in regards to the topic has brought me more joy in the long run.

Even Allura was hard for me to come to terms with! I started Voltron and didn’t seriously entertain the idea of being kin, but as things went on, the idea of me being kin with her was fucking with me deeply. This was my first instances of feeling I had ‘too many kintypes’ - I resisted the idea, decided I just like her, tried to say I had to keep thinking and how would I know? When I finished season one, I was utterly destroyed with fear about what happened to Lance, Shiro, Pidge, Hunk and Keith, and that ended up making me come to the conclusion about me being Allura. And while I was still worried, before season 2 could help provide any memories, accepting that was a relief to me. Trying to deny it or separate myself from it was just causing undue stress.

Every time I have discovered a new kintype, it has been a relief and a comfort. I let my kin experience just exist nowadays: if I feel kin-related longing, I come back to my kin blog and vent and find comfort. Otherwise, I rather accept it as a facet of myself. Am I using this concept to cope? I mean, these memories and lives and things do help me cope in general. Are they ONLY coping or are they real? No clue, my friend, but the fact is, they make me happy.

The point I’m trying to make, anon: throughout my experience as fictionkin, I have wondered whether I just really like this characters, wish I was them, and have a wildly overactive imagination. Really, that could be it. But saying ‘I am fictionkin, I am these people’ and joining the kin community has been everything, made me happy, given me some great new friends, and provided me a place to vent about the deep relationship I feel to these characters.

So I entirely understand the guilt part - I’ve been experiencing it on and off for a long time. Psychology is entirely strange, and I am acceptant of the fact that strange psychological reactions might be why I say I am fictionkin! But don’t let this keep hurting you: if you let go of the ‘weirdness’ of kin, does saying you are fictionkin and saying you are Lance make you happier? Then do so!

I hope this made some sense, and that it might have helped you! When kin is new to you, it’s hard to get over the hurdle of this being new and strange and something you’ve never heard about, especially when it is often ridiculed.

If you want to talk more or hear more of my thoughts about identifying as / being kin, feel free to message me! (I’d prefer if you want to hear more of my views that you come off anon, simply cause I know my views on myself can be controversial. But I understand if you’re shy! My main kin blog is @fictionsking , if you’d like to talk there.)

And another general disclaimer for people who read this: I’m not here to say that being kin is fake or that it’s just ‘coping’ or something ‘weird psychologically’. That is not my point: my views on kin being ‘provable’ are applicable to me and I’m not trying to invalidate anyone! I don’t know if my own experiences are “real” but that doesn’t mean your’s are not, this is all me, people.

Best of luck to you, anon, and I’m here if you wanna talk more!

Mod Amelie