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Odder than Otherkin? The Underground's head explodes
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As I was googling myself, something the Underground has been known to do from time to time when he's bored and alone, we stumbled on this:
Will The World Explode?
Otherkin as of late has slowly been getting more noticed by more mainstream media, and the reactions tend to be pieces like this: http://www.examiner.com/x-1765-Underground-Community-Examiner~y2008m12d21-There s-weird-and--theres-Otherkin
When fictionkin gets introduced into the mainstream, how big will the explosion of the universe be?
Who are the Fictionkin, you ask? Fictionkin, depending on your inclination, are either the less reasonable, or more honest, subgenre of Otherkin, who believe they have the reincarnated souls of elves, vampires and unicorns. Instead of believing elves have historical precedence, the Fictionkin simply drop the pretense and believe they are incarnations of fictional characters from fictional worlds. At which point, the Underground's head did, in fact, explode.
You think I made up the bit about my head exploding? I did. Which makes it a fact.
Let me explain.
The Fictionkin are actually an offshoot of Otakukin, a group that believes they have a soulful connection to characters from anime. Yes, there are people who feel a part of them was once female androids in maid outfits. Here's how one Fictionkin journal describes this burgeoning new religion:
Perhaps the otherkin/fictionkin theory that everything we create is in some way natural in another world fulfills the goals of both humbling us, making us realize our creations aren't entirely our own, and trying to apply the big picture to the pop culture we center our lives around.
Everything we create in our imagination is a reality in some parallel universe. With infinite universes, then every possible version of reality could, therefore, exist - and would. Imagining my head exploding was not entirely my own - the fact that I came up with the image must have been tapping into another world where it did happen. Which means the Fictionkin can't really come here and complain about the fact that I portrayed them as geeks because I was actually tapping into a reality in which they are, in fact, geeks. To be fiction, it must be a fact - somewhere - because we humans couldn't possibly make something up on our own. We can only describe things, not invent them.
It reminds me of something an unnamed aid to President Bush was quoted saying in New York Times Magazine by writer Ron Suskind:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."[1]
This new religion does seem to be a perfect manifestation of our postmodern Internet age. But isn't this just a testament to the power of art?
As a writer of fiction, science fiction, and even anime dub scripts, I can tell you it is my job to create the illusion of reality, and make you believe you are "there", and that the characters you love jump off the page. You feel a connection if those characters are well rendered, or fit some version of how you see yourself, or would like to be. What you are experiencing is art, not reality.
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