Kinlist
...Yeah, the kin page was obligatory. It was always going to (eventually) happen. It’s short, I promise! A lot of people think of kinning- fictionkinning especially- as a bit silly, but for me it’s sort of a psychological thing. I tend to process my feelings through identifying with fictional characters, relating their experiences to my own and finding deeper understanding through them. For me, kin is a lens through which I view myself and my struggles. In a sense, the character becomes a part of me. Despite this more mundane understanding of how “kin” works, I do experience memories, which I can’t really explain. Regardless, it’s kind of fun and not all that serious, despite how serious this whole paragraph has been :P
Shanoa (Castlevania)
“I'm the only one left who can end this. Hear me, Dracula! I am the morning sun, come to vanquish this horrible night!”
My primary kin and the one I identify most strongly with- I even took on her name. Most of my kin memories are of her life, and they can be very vivid and visual, sometimes even coming with senses of texture, taste and smell. I connected with her story of manipulation, repressed memory, and struggles to relate to others very strongly from the beginning of my interest in Castlevania, though I didn’t realize why at first. I frequently turned to her narrative for cathartic self-identification as I began to uncover and process my own repressed trauma, and as a character she’s very close to my heart for this reason. We have other, more superficial similarities as well: I’m a cat lover, I’m a lesbian, I even look pretty similar to Shanoa’s in-game appearance... I don’t know. She’s just always been “me” from the moment I began looking into Castlevania.
Shadowsight (Warriors)
“You won't ever convince me again that I don't belong in the Clans. Or that no cat cares about me. They do. I have kin. I have Clanmates. I have friends. I know where I belong.”
Kinning Shadowsight was almost pre-ordained for me (even beyond my tendency to kin “manipulated by the villain” archetypes, lol). Lost Stars, the first book in which he is a POV character, came out mere days before a traumatic event in my life, so reading the book and getting re-invested in the Warriors series was a welcome distraction from my own personal torments. And a curious thing seemed to happen- as the books in the arc continued to release, Shadowsight’s understanding of his own trauma due to being used by Ashfur, seemed to evolve parallel to my own. Similar to Shanoa, I found a lot of catharsis in identifying with him as I gained that understanding.
The Unicorn (The Last Unicorn)
“I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret.”
The Last Unicorn is one of those stories that feels like it’s always been with me. I’ve watched the movie many times and have read the book twice, and I always identified strongly with the Unicorn (also known as her human pseudonym, Lady Amalthea), almost achingly so. I read her narrative as a sort of loss of innocence/coming of age, with the Unicorn eventually rejecting the role she was forced into within the “fairy tale”. It’s hard for me to explain why I identify with her so strongly, but regardless, The Last Unicorn is a story that I find more of myself in each time I revisit it, and I also tend to identify with unicorns in general, and I believe the Unicorn deserves a spot on the kinlist just for that.
N (Pokémon)
“I have to change the world for Pokémon, because they're my friends.”
My first fictionkin. Pokémon was one of the first video game series I got really really into, and Pokémon White was my first taste of it. I relate strongly to him and I latched onto him as a character around when I was diagnosed with my neurodivergencies, and really coming to terms with how systemically messed up the world was. It really did feel like the world was built on a broken formula. That’s obviously still true, of course, but part of fighting against it is learning to survive it in the meantime as well. While I don’t relate to his arc as strongly now as I used to, he’ll always hold a place on my kinlist.
Wolfkin
“AWOOOOOOO”
My true oldest kin, as this one goes back forever. I already made a whole shrine about why weird girls identify with wolves, but I’d be making a mistake not to include my “species” here. I’m simply a werewolf. I’ve always seen myself as a wolf and wanted to learn everything I could about the species. Seeing myself as non-human in some way has always been how I contextualized the ways in which I felt like an oddity among my peers (for neurodivergent reasons), and almost always through identifying myself with the wolf. I also identify strongly with cats, but I don’t feel like making another redundant entry at the moment. I’m sure you can extrapolate.
