#fictohearted

The dream I talked about last day has a bit of element of exomemories in there. How much? I do not know.

Other moments where I have exomemories are from vision. This was me doing a group guided mediation, and I sort of fell asleep, but then.

Thunder booming, flashing, the storm raging. The sky is dark, and the ocean is wailing. Peeking through the clouds, a sliver of form, a white dragon darting in and out of the storm clouds.

I don’t actually know if it was indeed my kardiatype, but there is a inkling of it being true, so I’d like to think so. And based on that, I do think they have a storm based power. Just like your typical generic east asian dragon. (You can see I have a lot of gripe of my kardiatype being seen as Haku)

You can say the rest of the thing I figured or theorized are based off of the exomemories, I would call some of them noemata, even if a bit wobbly. Because how am I sure my kardiatype was a prince of the ocean? To be honest, I’m not certain either. Sometimes there are just things we don’t or can’t know about our identitype, and that’s okay, their significance and for the identification ones, our self identifications, do not diminish just because we end up having created element within. After all, the phrase “to make memories” is not just a metaphor. You are “living, doing, creating, experiencing.”[1]

Talk about created memories vs exomemories. I also had a flash of vision with my hearttype that confused me to no end, because while it is a possible headcanon of mine, my mind was no where near thinking of a headcanon to even get there.

Laughter. A kid with bright blond hair running towards a village, a house. A pair of eldery couple came out to greet the young child.

I know that’s not Konoha. And I know that kid is me/not-me/Naruto.

It’s really interesting how I can remember it so clearly, compare to my dream memories that are faded at the edge, blurry. I think that’s why I see that as a exomemories. There’s too much other sensation, the sight clear, the sound loud, and maybe scent? You also see I had momentary confusion between the self pronoun there. That was the spark for me to ponder if it may be a kardiatype that was later disregarded, as while important to me, my Naruto hearttype wasn’t a foundational building block of who I am. I also don’t know if Kurama was with that Naruto. But here is where noemata comes in.

I have a lot, and a lot of noemata. Things I just know in my gut. Maybe for my fictomere they are influenced by the source material as well as fandom interpretation. But still. Headcanon and imagined story in my head had this ethereal feeling, like they are not all there, much more pliable, but also more distant from me.

My Naruto hearttype has a Kurama with him. And has a far strong tie to Uzushio. I don’t know if Uzushio was around, maybe that’s why that little bit of exomemory, that Naruto wasn’t in any place recognizable. It look like a random village, all wood hut. Maybe those are Uzushio people.

I think that is true.

A lot of the times, noemata just pops out of nowhere. Or sometimes, I ask questions, and something within me will answer. And I will know. It is why when I assist others in self discovery, I will ask questions, and the “no”’s and “maybe”’s are just as valuable as “yes”’s.

Sometimes you don’t even have to ask questions, something external will trigger and you had that lightbulb turning on moment. Like how I realized that three-tailed kitsune is specific is my Naruto hearttype’s paratype, and how my Aurelion Sol is the 5th concept version that people dub the “unbounded” form. Or that my kardiatype’s guarded village was one that was in ancient Japan, not one of the well known period people likes to talk about.

My own style of self discovery is very lax, “follow the flow” style, however. I got a lot of noemata jumpscare this way.

Like how out of the thousands of pokemon, it was Mew that resonated with me and become a archetrope, instead of say, dragonite or ditto.

Like I somehow figured out I’m not neccessary flying so much that I’m floating. Like how Mew does. Or that I don’t breath any elemental attack. Or the various detail discovery with each and every one of my forms, how the aquatic form have far more different physics than many of my other forms (shark head, sonar receptive ears, quill feather on back though that’s more from phantom shift than pure noemata, turtle flipper though that’s more a empathy moment from playing Ark Survive Evolved and seeing how the magmasaur’s hind leg moves), how I’m just certain that the dream dragon kintype is a present thing, current life thing.

It gets harder and harder to tell if some noemata are purely random, or maybe born from the churning of internal contemplation that always accompanied the discussion on alterhumanity within the community. Like when I figure that I do not eat physical substance, or how I know I as a dragon is a spirit, sort of like youkai and kami, sort of a energy being, sort of a pokemon like creature, a rpg monster.

Regardless of exomemories, noemata that are from random chances or from deliberately triggered knowledge, or created memories or personal “canon”, these are all the breadcrumbs of one’s alterhumanity, all important, all precious.

[1] You’re Here to Make Moments, Not Memories

23.) Have you ever considered fictionlinking? If you already have, what made you decide to do it? (In this case, what made y’all collectively ‘link Aurelion Sol?)

So in an alterhuman server, we'd met a Shyvana and a Smolder. They were talking about League of Legends. I played it before, and I still wish I could go back and play it one day. But anyway, they were talking, and because Smolder was a recent release at that time, there are more dragons now, like, an actual playable champion. Within the game setting, you usually need 5 for a team, but in the smaller map, you can have 3, so I contemplated the logistics of a three-dragon team to make up the full set. I lament the fact that I'm not another dragon from LoL, but wouldn't that be fun and funny to make a full dragon team if I were to link Aurelion Sol?

Except, you don't really joke about stuff like that. Or maybe I don't.

I'm never too interested in linking identify-as identity, which can make the linking process trickier, harder to pin down feelings, or ways to maintain the link. (I couldn't clearly articulate the why yet; it's an essay-worthy side topic for sure. Perhaps due to me already dealing more than enough with my one kintype with my shapeshifterness and varied draconity that comes with more discovery as I go, or I just prefer to explore the other sort of alterhumanity, in defiance or fascination? Perhaps a bit of both and more.) I had the linktype in the back of my head for a while, but it didn't really go anywhere. Then come April Fool, following the same jokey vibe, I (half-)jokingly set up a proxy.

A little side note before I go on, during that time, we were sorting out our plurality and general median business, but it's all extra fuzzy at that time.

Setting that proxy up was like what we were missing. After a whole day, we feel like something is settling with our identity, or multiple identities. You see, we I'd use pluralkit proxy to help anchor our my form (cause just Ryuu/I shapeshift, the others don't. Median shenanigans, I tell you, can't switch the self pronoun around easily at times), and apparently it has that same affect on helping link a identity.

I should do that for our digimon (also another vaguetype) linktype.

I probably could have finished the answer in that first paragraph. Yet I feel that, to truly answer the "why you link", you need to answer the "why you continue to maintain said link". Figuring that out helps the linking process in my honest opinion.

Because the anchor is only one of the steps. Did I mention it settled multiple aspects of our identities? Remember me mentioning that we were figuring out our plurality and were having trouble? Turns out, it's like a key clicks into place (HA! The amount of alterhuman pun I just used in that sentence). Having an identity together actually helps distinguish us--Akumu is more pronounced, with a stronger individualization. We are like a reverse hydra. Having Akumu helps in other aspects as well. Aurelion Sol is a purple dragon, I'm orange, but Akumu is purple. You see where I'm going with this? This linktype was never a single dragon thing; it's a teamwork effort between the two of us. Also, quoiluntariness makes everything extra funky on what's the cause or the effect.

There are other personal symbolisms we also tied in and tossed into the soup/salad that is the vaguelinktype. Opportunist linkers that we are. In the end, the identity sort of grew beyond us, brought us closer together as a Constellation (which I did not even realize until this moment how perfect the whole thing is). Truly, we started linking this as a "I want to be part of this" sun, silly thing to "I want to put all these things I realize are precious to me together, and along the way, I realize I can do these together with we."

The fun of quoiluntary linking, did you find something new, or did you find the right trigger that awakened something within you? Because these days, we are very much a starry dream dragon.

As a footnote, since I did mention it. When Nova (@nova-dracomon) was first making the Fictionfolk Webring, there was a temporary draft showcasing the digivice (featuring Hortense as her Dracomon X self) as the webring icon, I jokingly said that maybe I should link a digimon. Mind you, Digimon is a source that's dear to me prior to this, and probably with others talking about it more in servers, renewing my interest, one thing led to another, it's yet another case of "probably don't joke about linking stuff because it might just happen". It's not a stable identity yet, but I'm trying to document the process as much as I can to hopefully write something more coherent on it. Oh, this time it's going to be a linktype the whole Contellation (trio of us) will be linking together :D

26.) Have you ever questioned being fictionhearted? If you already are, what started your questioning into that connection?

So, I had to dig around my own activities and guesstimate a bit on the timeline. I really suck at this kind of pondering. I'm always quite amazed when people can pinpoint when or how their questioning process starts or the moment of awakening. I don't remember that y'all!

When I go into a fandom that sticks to me, if it has a lot of transformative potential, I will dive deeper, and if I enjoy the fanfics? Boom, hyperfixation. Down the rabbit hole of exploring the fandom proper I go.

I'm not really sure which came first. Like so many of my identitype, egg-or-chicken is a neverending question that has no answer whatsoever. Maybe the questioning spark the fandom interest, or swimming in the fandom ocean spark that curious pondering. Maybe it's because Naruto is the orange ninja, maybe it's because of Kurama and Naruto's relationship dynamic in fanfics, or maybe it's all the found family or team-as-family and the whole bunch of fix-it feel-good fic. Regardless, there's an inkling of something alterhuman going on there with Uzumaki Naruto and all that surrounds him.

Like taking a stick to a piece of unknown object, I poked at it. I don't remember if this is my second or third alterhuman identity that I questioned, since you can argue that my kardiatype only got separated from me cleanly after the term was coined, though you can also say that it's been in the back of my head since forever. And maybe all my friends being some form of fictionfolk helped push that curiosity, and learning about all types of alterhumanity beyond otherkinity may or may not have added to the wonder, further pushing me to question, "Maybe I can have this too?"

It was for a while with me questioning between synpath vs hearttype due to it being very specific single character (or potentially a whole clan), since some distinguish synpath as for a specific character, and hearttype being applied more for a whole species, or in this case, a clan. I ultimately decided that it is a hearttype.

28.) Have you ever questioned being a fictionbased archetrope? If you already are, what's your archetropal identity? (In this case, what’s it like having Mew as a pararchetrope?)

Good thing the pondering was still fresh XD

A while ago, some discussion was happening within a Pokémon alterhuman server. It led me to contemplate how I'm not a Pokémon, but I feel like I can be considered one. It's hard to tell if that was why I say Mew is a paratype-archetrope, or if my having that feeling is after I declare Mew an archetrope, and me picking Mew specifically is because of the paratype feelings. You gotta love paratype shenanigans /genuine

Why Mew?

I, as a dream dragon, am not an animal sort of dragon. I would take on the label of monster, not because of me seeing myself as monstrous, but more the property of what I am as a creature is a spiritual sort of critter, like a RPG monster. Or, more of a Pocket Monster. Once upon a time, I tried linking Dragonite as a hearttype, because physically, it looks the closest to me, orange and chonky and deceptively speedy. Remembering me saying that you should ask the question of "why do you continue linking the thing"? I didn't have much solid reason or elements to help me maintain the Dragonite heartlink, and it ends up fading away. It's a surface-level, aesthetic sort of connection; it won't last long, and it didn't.

Tell you a secret, I kind of dislike the color pink, a lot. If it's associated with me, I will try to shake it off like it's some sort of nasty substance. Largely because of gender, you gotta love society and their idea of gender associations /sarcastic

And what a great irony. Dream is often tied to the color pink, my first and only flight in Flight Rising is Arcane (pink), and my pearlescent eyes are freaking literally rose-tinted! Also, I happened to enjoy P!nk's music quite a lot. To continue that irony, I don't feel an archetrope feeling towards shiny Mew, but the regular Mew. I can't even say why, it just is. Don't you (in general for anyone) dare assign/diagnose some sort of alterhuman thing going on between pink and me, I will bite.

I digress.

Mew, to me, is all these tropes and archetypes.

Mystical side character

Little l legendary/mythical

Divine being

Secret unlock character

Mischivious folklore entity

Powerful support side character that's not final boss level

But adding in the element of fictional source, everything becomes a extra layer or complicated. Perhaps it can be like looking at a mirror that sometimes can have uncanny valley effect because you yourself is canon divergent to the point that nothing displayed in canon makes sense. At other times, maybe it is like looking at a doppleganger. I don't quite know, I do not have fictionkind identity myself.

Even with my fictomere, however, I do still get a bit of that warped mirror effect. To be fair though, I am the warped side myself. My Naruto fictoheartype is a AU that diverges from even before canon, our linked vaguetype Aurelion Sol was a short of same species as the canon character, but never even interacted with the canon setting, and the Flammie vaguetype flicker, honestly no idea, it's a flicker!

Because of these facts, I don't feel very connected with my fictomere's sources. To be fair, I never invest as much into lore of a game world or delve deep enough into manga that I would look into the light novel series, and well, the Mana series I'd played maybe one or couple. Overall, by myself, I'm not very connected to the sources. Well, besides Pokemon perhaps. But Mew is a para-archetrope.