Kin Sanctuary

“Mister I think there’s a ghost in here..”

Deanie weenie ain’t taking shit from the shnarky poltergeist in the way-too-cold library.

If you like my art (why), I’m trying to train myself to not post non-kin/PLR/AP things here and instead elsewhere.

So, my art-specific account is InTechnicolourr and it’d be kinda neat if you checked it out (kinda small right now, I know.)

Because I know a lot of you (including kin) don’t quite get this kintype. Well, you’re in luck, because a literal ghost is going to help you out.* How is it possible to identify with something dead, and potentially human? Simple. Not all spirits have trouble moving on. So naturally, the energy would travel directly into another life. Hence, here you are. But as you would imagine, some energy gets trapped for one reason or another.

How does it happen? Well, right as your dying, you’ve got a window of time, where your brain is still flickering; still able to process thoughts. What your last thoughts are, conscious or not, depend on if you move on. If you have regrets, you’ve got the biggest chance there is to get trapped. Your energy suddenly feels tethered, because your lasts thoughts were the need to make things right, where they weren’t. It could be as big as “I killed people and I’m sorry,” or as little as “oh shit I owed him money”, and your energy could be trapped. Yep. Chances are a couple of your past lives got caught as a ghost.

Another possibility is unfortunately brutal and memorable murder or suicide. Unnatural death bothers the energy, because it feels unfinished. Once again, back on unfinished business. But with murder, it’s confusion, revenge even. “How dare they?” Or, “why did they do it?” Now, spirits aren’t trapped here forever. They can be a ghost for hundreds of years, yes, but they can always move on. It’s never too late. Anyway, it is true that the longer a spirit stays, its personality changes.

Take me, for example. I’m one of the better examples because I’m not vengeful and no birdie killed me. I am not out to hurt anybirdie, I did what I did for my own and everybirdie else’s sake. But I do know (benefit of being stuck between multiple canons) I have grown cold. I do not smile, I do not laugh, I treat my own friends like they’re disposable. I don’t mean it, it’s not my intention, but I can’t really connect with human emotion anymore, I’m just energy, unable to regenerate.

Sometimes it’s worse. That’s where those shitty movies come in and exaggerate and try and make you afraid of something you shouldn’t be. Ghosts can’t kill you, ghosts aren’t the typical “gEEEETTT OOUUUTTT” monsters you’re used to.

“Well that’s all fine and dandy Grey, but what’s that got to do with ghostkin?”

Ghostkin are those who remember being a ghost for a long time. No matter the life, being a ghost for so long really resonated with them. It made their way of life adjust, and now they are suddenly back in a physical body, trying to readjust to something they had forgotten how to do.

I personally experience it to be very… Hazy. It’s sad, it’s dead, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful. Sometimes I forget people in my canon I remember in the AU where I’m alive and still know them. Sometimes I forget things I really should remember. The feelig of “dead” is hard to explain. A lot of birds describe being ghostkin as “dissociative”, which is why some believe they’re mistaking a kintype for a mental illness.

Ghosts aren’t as black and white as people portray them. It isn’t evil-doom-spirit or some guy’s grandfather who loved cheese. Ghosts are echoes, as you may have heard them be referred as. Echoes of an energy force that was once there, but is no longer. The energy remains, but whatever harboured it isn’t. The energy is trapped for one reason or another, and cannot latch onto a new force to hold it.

Commonly, this is translated into ghosts holding onto something. This is true! What isn’t true, is how aggressive they’re usually portrayed. This can be the case, but it’s not as common.

So, what causes a ghost? Usually, as you’d expect, it’s something tethering them to their former life. It can be big or small. Perhaps they loved their childhood home and couldn’t let go of it, or perhaps they were murdered. Murder is the most common form of “ghosting”. Revenge can be, but it isn’t usually. I’m kind of sick of seeing horror stories about ghosts of murderers who are just running around killing innocents. Um, no.

But as you’ve probably found, when you pass to another life, your previous lives grow faint. You forget everything. Tedious, because you have to find it all again! This is part of why ghosts occur; because they don’t want to forget. They don’t want to leave just yet.

The dead do forget ( © Will). They become honed down to the point of forgetting almost everything about the life they’re holding onto, except that one thing they held on for. This can cause trouble, depending on what that cause was. It could be honed down to you are the best, no one can beat you, resulting in a ghost standing on a mountain fighting anyone that came up there and always winning, which is fairly harmless. It could be honed down to the necessity to keep your kids safe and make sure there are no witnesses, resulting in death of innocent security guards, police men, and almost a bunch of shitty teenagers, which is definitely Not harmless.

This takes time, of course. Years and years of being dead and forgetting. A ghost dead for five years might just be a dickmunch and hit you with a book every so often. The older the ghost, the less it remembers and has the ability to remember. (I don’t care how many times you say “Sparky, it’s me! John!” sorry John, your dog isn’t going to remember you after 56 years of being dead.)

That’s where the whole “kill everyone rahhh this is my house rahhhh” came in to play. People got the gist of it, but missed out on the details. Now let’s discuss something everyone forgets. Ghosts usually don’t look like they did in life. They might resemble what they looked like, but it will be distorted in some way, shape, or form.

Take Will for example. He resembled what he looked like in life a lot (ok, if you take the fucking fursuit off). He was human, wore his uniform, etc. His ghost (which is considered a poltergeist because it has the ability to manipulate things) didn’t come out of Springtrap often, but he could and would. Here’s a vague idea.

Imagine a man. Now imagine you broke every bone in his body. He tries to walk, anyway. All his limbs are slack, and his jaw is slack too. his head is crooked to the side. His rib cage is crushed. He can’t quite walk, can he? Oh, but he’s trying to. He lurches forward, sways to the sides, uses the wall sometimes… it’s not a pretty sight. Now imagine he’s dripping blood from places unknown. His eyes and nose and mouth are the only obvious ones, but everywhere else is dripping too. His eyes and mouth are black and hollow, but can work as a flashlight to see you, so don’t meet him in the dark. Yeesh, Will.

Most ghosts don’t appear as scary unless they mean to be. Will’s energy registered he needed to be frightening to scare and intimidate anyone who wasn’t one of his kids. So he became what he needed. A dog, who was a kind and gentle soul in life, would appear smaller, softer edges, and a gentler appearance. Not necessarily a dog, but whatever the energy had been like, produced in a “physical” form.

Most ghosts don’t want to hurt anyone. Most just latch onto their cause, and stick to it. Yeah, it could be bad, people could get hurt, but usually it’s something simple and harmless to everyone else. As you might have guessed, a ghost isn’t a healthy thing.

It’s something holding onto something that will never come back. Obviously, you can’t blame ghosts. It’s a fairly logical thing, especially for humans. Hence why there are so many ghosts that take place after a human life. But looking at it, you can see there’s really no point. This is why passing ghosts “to the other side” is a good thing! Their energy is calmed, and they can go to the next life and forget everything, as intended.