Lycanthrope

“AWOOOOOOO”

My true oldest kin, as this one goes back forever. I already made a whole shrine about why weird girls tend to identify with wolves, and I’d be making a mistake not to include my “species” here. I’m simply a werewolf, for both trauma and neurodivergence reasons. I’ve always seen myself as a wolf for comfort reasons as a child and wanted to learn everything I could about the species, and. 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 and dealt with my pain, and almost always through identifying myself with the wolf, sometimes felines or equines (albeit not as strongly and usually connected to my fictional kintypes), and most of all, werewolves specifically. I don't tend to enjoy most depictions of werewolves in media, I prefer their instincts realistically wolfish, like a scared wild animal, and their anatomy fairly accurate to real wolves, but with the ability to walk bipedally like a bear. That's just what resonates with me and how I feel. Regardless, I’ve been a lycanthrope for as long as I can remember and it's the kin I'm by far the most serious about, in an "I am literally a werewolf" way. I was bitten early, and I bleed for the moon alone.

Kin Memories and Sensations:

-I sometimes stim with animalistic noises like growls, whines and yelps, pant when stressed or exhausted, and I like running digitigrade when my heels hurt from standing too long. I’m pretty decent at it too! It feels more natural than running regularly sometimes.
-I hesitate to call it a phantom limb but I can sort of force a tail sensation at times, like I can make myself believe that it is there in a sensory way
-I feel odd around new moons, the lack of bright moonlight makes me feel off-center when I’m out at night. Full moons, however, feel as natural as the day.
-And, of course, dreams. Plenty of dreams about transforming into a beast painfully, and often in response to cruelty or discomfort.

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 fictionkin and the character 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 and abuse, 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 became more independent, discovering who I really wanted to be as a person for my own sake, and as a character she’s very close to my heart for this reason. It's hard to explain why I latched so hard onto her, but she really is Just Like Me For Real!!! By far the most “me irl” character. My default response to processing something is seeing myself in Shanoa-the-character experiencing the same thing.

Kin Memories and Sensations:

-I have a lot of Shanoa memories through dreams and little visual snatches of recollection.
-I’ve had rather vivid dreams accompanied with senses of touch and temperature that stayed with me when I woke up, like the feeling of Laura’s hair against my fingers, or speaking to Albus on a cold day outside of Ecclesia’s main building (though regretfully I forgot what he was telling me when I woke up...). And even a pretty scary dream about Barlowe, which I much later adapted into a scene in Futility as I needed a dream sequence. My visual memories here tend towards photorealism, too.
-I also have strong memories of frequenting Ruvas Forest after the events of Order of Ecclesia with strong visual images in my mind. I also have very detailed maps in my head of certain buildings and areas that aren't shown in that much detail in-game. In, like, an “I was there” way.
-I also remember the taste of certain in-game dishes extremely vividly! Especially Killer Fish BBQ...
-Certain moments and things that happen in my “headcanons” just... feel like actual canon or like things that objectively happened to me in a way I can't explain, in a way that I usually don't experience, even with other fictionkin-types of mine.
-Being called Shanoa just makes me feel really right in a way most other online aliases haven't. So it's literally my name now.

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” when she was turned into a human woman. It’s hard for me to explain why I identify with her and her story so strongly, but I tend to read The Last Unicorn as a bit of a gendered tale, too, and I enjoy horse and unicorn imagery as a sort of reclaimed childlike girlishness, as you can probably definitely maybe tell. It's powerful imagery that she’s a unicorn that comes not to innocent virginal maidens, but the older, world weary Molly. Regardless, The Last Unicorn is a story that I find more of myself in each time I revisit it, and I believe the Unicorn deserves a spot on the kinlist just for that.

Kin Memories and Sensations:

-Not a whole lot in specific, just kind of a vibes thing so far. I have some horse-like stims at times, though, like snorting and pacing.

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 gravitate towards “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. Anyway, everyone else in the world is wrong about him except for me (JOKING, JOKING. Or am I)

Kin Memories and Sensations:

-Mostly just images and flashes of the forest and ShadowClan’s territory as I remember it, usually photorealistic. I hope you like pine trees.
-I’m not usually super canon-divergent, my sense of my kinself usually builds outward from what is already established canonically, but I do remember being closer with Bristlefrost than is depicted in the books before her passing. We were kin, after all.
-Most sensory things kind of blur together with my more general “I am a non-human creature” kin feelings especially when I feel myself leaning more feline.

N Harmonia (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 autism, and really coming to terms with how systemically messed up the world was and how I felt at odds with my own humanity, and the way growing up in polarized online spaces gave me a really black and white view of the world (which OCD did not help at all). It really does 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 and learning to have a more measured view on life. He’ll always hold a place on my kinlist.

Kin Memories and Sensations:

-Surprisingly, not many! I have some visual flashes of in-game locations and stuff but other than that, not that much.

Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks)

“You don't even know me. There are things about me- even Donna doesn't know me. Your Laura disappeared. It's just me now.”

A very recent addition to the list, as I only recently watched Twin Peaks (...and Fire Walk With Me, and read the Secret Diary), and thought to myself, “oh god, she's just like me fr!”, especially after watching Fire Walk With Me, which honestly gave me a lot of strength to finally talk about some heavy stuff with the people I love most. I don't want to get too deep into it but... just like me fr fr. (Before you ask, yes, I am doing okay.)

Kin Memories and Sensations:

-None yet, which is... probably a good thing, lol