Making Fictivity Ordinary
Oct. 24th, 2022 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeInspired by a conversation with monsterqueers.
Even though we came to plurality by way of soulbonding (that is, artists who talked to their characters), over the years, we got into the habit of downplaying our own fictivity.
Part of this was that local norms changed, and "fictive" grew increasingly defined by what in the soulbonding days was called being "outsourced"--that is, your headmate wasn't "your" intellectual property, but someone else's (Disney, JK Rowling, Shakespeare, etc.), which comes with its own set of stigmas and difficulties. Under the new rules, we no longer counted. Another reason was that fictives plain don't get treated well. Besides, for a decade the only fictive we had was Mac, who said two lines, offscreen, and then died. We were still writing and selling that stuff, but we thought that time of our plural life was done.
We were older. People changed. Our mind had closed, or so we thought.
Then in 2014, Mori came back. In 2015, Biff came back. In 2020, Rawlin and Bob and Grey came back. Most of these people, we hadn't even recalled that they were headmates! Our roster is roughly half fictive now, with characters ranging in importance from "nobody" to "major protagonist."
This has caused us some, shall we call it, professional difficulties. Writing about people who don't exist is different from writing about people who do. We have an ethical code that we follow for friends, relatives, and other people, and those rules do not change when the person involved lives in our head. A lot of stories had to get locked, changed, deleted, or revamped to mesh with our ethical guidelines. A lot of awkward conversations had to be had.
Mac got off lucky. His two-lines-and-die was only shared with people after he had joined us, and he had input on his fictional portrayal. Indeed, how Rogan handled his death scene gave him the closure that helped bring them together.
Rawlin, thank god, was deleted from the drafts and is never mentioned anywhere online before his return. He gets a chapter in Madgic, out of necessity, and he didn't get any input on that, because it's not worth the risk of going near him to talk about it.
Biff wasn't near so lucky. He'd been deep stealth all his life, and the moment he got here, he had to deal with the realization that total strangers on the Internet knew he was trans.
Bob and Grey had to deal with the news that they had porn written about them.
And Mori, well. Mori's had to deal with books being written about a happy future that she never got to have, with people she never got to say goodbye to.
We've had to accept that the writing project that created all of them (or was inspired BY them, the distinction is blurry) cannot be treated like any of our other fiction projects. At this point, it very well may be that Infinity Smashed will only ever be self-published ebooks and a few dozen paperbacks, made for our own satisfaction. There is no way in hell we could ever traditionally publish it now, even if we were all okay with it. We're far too emotionally involved, and have far too many motivations besides "what makes the story good."
Maybe that doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. Nobody remembers Mac as Mr. Two-Lines-And-Die; people remember him as Mr. Hubby-With-Pretty-Hair, and he says he's happier that way. We make comics about our life and experiences, and each title deals with a different thread of the tapestry, so maybe Infinity Smashed will become just another thread with a fictional gloss, the equivalent of our Popol Vuh or Iliad, which everyone knows is not to be taken at face value.
Maybe it doesn't have to be some shameful secret. Maybe we can be open about it, the way we're open with a bunch of other plural stuff.
There are a few local stores who sell our stuff, and one in particular we're on good terms with. When Rogan dropped in to sell some new titles, the employee stated that she'd read Found Wanting, AKA the Bob and Grey book. She was no fool; she asked if they were headmates, and Rogan admitted that yes, they were.
And you know what? It was fine. We had a conversation about it, the way we would other ordinary things. It got to be ordinary.
Maybe it's time for us to work at MAKING it ordinary.
monsterqueers.Even though we came to plurality by way of soulbonding (that is, artists who talked to their characters), over the years, we got into the habit of downplaying our own fictivity.
Part of this was that local norms changed, and "fictive" grew increasingly defined by what in the soulbonding days was called being "outsourced"--that is, your headmate wasn't "your" intellectual property, but someone else's (Disney, JK Rowling, Shakespeare, etc.), which comes with its own set of stigmas and difficulties. Under the new rules, we no longer counted. Another reason was that fictives plain don't get treated well. Besides, for a decade the only fictive we had was Mac, who said two lines, offscreen, and then died. We were still writing and selling that stuff, but we thought that time of our plural life was done.
We were older. People changed. Our mind had closed, or so we thought.
Then in 2014, Mori came back. In 2015, Biff came back. In 2020, Rawlin and Bob and Grey came back. Most of these people, we hadn't even recalled that they were headmates! Our roster is roughly half fictive now, with characters ranging in importance from "nobody" to "major protagonist."
This has caused us some, shall we call it, professional difficulties. Writing about people who don't exist is different from writing about people who do. We have an ethical code that we follow for friends, relatives, and other people, and those rules do not change when the person involved lives in our head. A lot of stories had to get locked, changed, deleted, or revamped to mesh with our ethical guidelines. A lot of awkward conversations had to be had.
Mac got off lucky. His two-lines-and-die was only shared with people after he had joined us, and he had input on his fictional portrayal. Indeed, how Rogan handled his death scene gave him the closure that helped bring them together.
Rawlin, thank god, was deleted from the drafts and is never mentioned anywhere online before his return. He gets a chapter in Madgic, out of necessity, and he didn't get any input on that, because it's not worth the risk of going near him to talk about it.
Biff wasn't near so lucky. He'd been deep stealth all his life, and the moment he got here, he had to deal with the realization that total strangers on the Internet knew he was trans.
Bob and Grey had to deal with the news that they had porn written about them.
And Mori, well. Mori's had to deal with books being written about a happy future that she never got to have, with people she never got to say goodbye to.
We've had to accept that the writing project that created all of them (or was inspired BY them, the distinction is blurry) cannot be treated like any of our other fiction projects. At this point, it very well may be that Infinity Smashed will only ever be self-published ebooks and a few dozen paperbacks, made for our own satisfaction. There is no way in hell we could ever traditionally publish it now, even if we were all okay with it. We're far too emotionally involved, and have far too many motivations besides "what makes the story good."
Maybe that doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. Nobody remembers Mac as Mr. Two-Lines-And-Die; people remember him as Mr. Hubby-With-Pretty-Hair, and he says he's happier that way. We make comics about our life and experiences, and each title deals with a different thread of the tapestry, so maybe Infinity Smashed will become just another thread with a fictional gloss, the equivalent of our Popol Vuh or Iliad, which everyone knows is not to be taken at face value.
Maybe it doesn't have to be some shameful secret. Maybe we can be open about it, the way we're open with a bunch of other plural stuff.
There are a few local stores who sell our stuff, and one in particular we're on good terms with. When Rogan dropped in to sell some new titles, the employee stated that she'd read Found Wanting, AKA the Bob and Grey book. She was no fool; she asked if they were headmates, and Rogan admitted that yes, they were.
And you know what? It was fine. We had a conversation about it, the way we would other ordinary things. It got to be ordinary.
Maybe it's time for us to work at MAKING it ordinary.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 02:24 am (UTC)I'd been wondering that. I'd been reading your fiction for some years, and it occurred to me that this would be really complicated for everyone involved. I write fiction, and I avoid writing characters who are recognizable versions of people I know precisely because of the ethical concerns. Having characters you wrote emerge or return as headmates seemed like it would be extremely complicated.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 04:49 pm (UTC)All I can say is, thank god our mental doors seem to have closed in 2006, and we've had nobody new since then. So at least we can write more recent stuff without worrying that, say, Reverend Alpert is going to appear and go, "wait, you wrote WHAT about me?"
no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 03:36 am (UTC)Although, the complicated ethics of this actually do affect how we write fanfiction; to be honest, we have at least one person from every source (not really the right wording, but you know) that we want to write in. We have to get permission for what we can share, and what we can't, and it all ends up being much more personal than just fanfiction even if it's billed that way.
Granted, some of us do actively want to write about things that have happened to us as a form of therapy. As far as anyone on Ao3 is concerned, it's just fiction, and we can have the weight of keeping things to ourselves lifted off our shoulders in a way that feels halfway anonymous.
-Hythlodaeus
no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 05:06 am (UTC)I like to see my characters as friends and sometimes form a bond with them where we converse or they can "visit". They never deviate to become different (something tulpas often attest to when from a source), but I do learn more about them. We lurk in the tulpa community, so that's why I brought it up a lot in this, haha.
Also, I do have a question, if it's okay (if not feel free to ignore!). Do you guys have any information about soulbonding from the "artist talking to character" part? We knew about soulbonding in the spiritual sense from tumblr posts and old websites, but could rarely find any information or community from the other side of the spectrum, aside one older website that talked about it. I'm not sure if there's anything more to that side of the community, but it can't help asking.
Thank you for sharing you& experiences in fictivity!
no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 05:45 pm (UTC)Kurai's stuff:
* List of soulbonders (might have links to jump off from): https://web.archive.org/web/20001207213700/http://kurai.com:80/sb/list.html
* Main SB page: https://web.archive.org/web/20010606173230/http://kurai.com/sb/main.html
* Soulbonder Essays (can't vouch for quality or relevance): https://web.archive.org/web/20020628193305/http://kurai.com/sb/essay.html
Musesong's post about it: https://musesong.insanejournal.com/1968.html
List of communities and users who list "soulbonding" as an interest:
* InsaneJournal: https://www.insanejournal.com/interests.bml?int=soulbonding
* Livejournal: https://www.livejournal.com/blogs/en/soulbonding
* Deadjournal: https://www.deadjournal.com/interests.bml?int=soulbonding
It's badly gutted, due to being locked down in 2008 and deleted in 2018 but you might find something useful in the archives of the LiveJournal soulbonding community: https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/http://community.livejournal.com/soulbonding
Seiryuu's stuff:
* https://web.archive.org/web/20060519141130/http://www.seiryuu.org/~raincrystal/soulbonding/ (This post links to the Bronte Sisters, Edith Warton, and so on interacting with their characters)
* Links: https://web.archive.org/web/20060519141130/http://www.seiryuu.org/~raincrystal/soulbonding/
Ecthros's pages about it:
* Home page: https://web.archive.org/web/20030604055052/http://echthros.net/others.php
* How I Soulbond: https://web.archive.org/web/20030606131027/http://echthros.net/others.php?page=how
A bunch of the old stuff I have is from Eclective, which can definitely range into the spiritual:
* The archive of their old Child of Mana soulbonding pages: https://web.archive.org/web/20010625232812/http://childofmana.tripod.com/sd3main.htm
* Their old SB FAQ isn't linked on that index, so the direct link is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20011226155411/http://childofmana.tripod.com/soulbondingfaq.htm
* Their What Soulbonding Is Not (ableism warning): https://web.archive.org/web/20011226155411/http://childofmana.tripod.com/soulbonding_what-it-isnt.htm
* Soulbonding Spirituality: https://web.archive.org/web/20011226154359/http://childofmana.tripod.com/soulbonding_spirituality.htm
* Do You Believe In Soulbonding at First Sight?: https://web.archive.org/web/20020222234924/http://childofmana.tripod.com/sbafs2.htm
* Multiplicity, Midcontinuum, and Soulbonding: https://web.archive.org/web/20020918063730/http://childofmana.tripod.com/multiplemidcont-intro.htm
* Archive of their later 2003 SB site, may have a lot of the same, but also possibly new stuff: https://web.archive.org/web/20050112192159/http://www.yonicmafia.com/soulbond/
* Archive of their even later 2004 SB site, same caveats: https://web.archive.org/web/20040503180101/http://soulbonding.tripod.com:80/soulbonding_glossary.htm
Haven't read it, but Laura Gilkey's The Trinity might be relevant: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/735472/1/The-Trinity
Since the term "soulbonding" wasn't coined until the '90s, it's a different thing if you're looking specifically for the phenomenon of people talking to their characters (and not necessarily having an identity or community for it). I could dig around for that, but most of what I'd have would be media ABOUT that phenomenon (the movie "Stranger than Fiction," for instance).
no subject
Date: 2022-10-26 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 10:41 am (UTC)--Janusz
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Date: 2022-10-25 08:26 pm (UTC)"We've had to accept that the writing project that created all of them (or was inspired BY them, the distinction is blurry) cannot be treated like any of our other fiction projects."
Yeah we made several iterations of a fictional species with a world attached before we cracked the plural egg and post-learning about us being plural we stopped planning to ever really release it as a story proper as that story/world as far as we can tell seems to have been inspired by that headmate instead of the other way around and contains A Lot of Personal Details. Maybe one day we can scrub it clean of all that enough that we can do something with it while still minding the comfort of that headmate, but yeah we simply cant treat it like any of the other bits of fiction we are working on here and there.
It would be closer to whatever vtubers and youtubers who have personas are doing than it would be to any other kind of fiction- and looking at it like that might help find the balance between the fiction and the personal truth and the ethics of it all.
And then theres me- who is a fictive of a canon outsourced character. We abandoned my source's fandom (and the source) for A Lot of reasons, but every now and then I entertain notions of writing a in-depth fic about my memories as a form of therapy someday. It likely wouldnt be something the fandom would enjoy though, and would be far too personal to want to have too much attention on it.
In terms of plural folks who have wrote about their headmates from less a autobiography standpoint and more of a fiction one, The Sunspot Chronicles by The Inmara Ktletaccete Fenumera (found here https://sunspot.world/) is the only one that comes to mind.
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Date: 2022-10-26 03:44 pm (UTC)That said, have y'all read it? If so, would you be interested in sibmitting it to
no subject
Date: 2022-10-27 12:40 am (UTC)We are chewing our way through the second story right now, and there is so much left!
If you want us to wait till weve finished the whole series/anthology so its not multiple posts, just let us know and we will resubmit when we have done that
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Date: 2022-10-27 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-28 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 05:36 pm (UTC)Mori
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Date: 2022-10-30 12:09 am (UTC)Just submitted two songs by a plural artist.
We have more media recs, but most of them arent by plural folks and we dont wanna swamp yall.
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Date: 2022-10-30 03:13 pm (UTC)Also, a plural creator isn't required! I thought that was important, since many plural creators cannot afford to be outed, and also because many people who have what we might consider pluralish experiences may not see them the same way and be hurt at being miscategorized.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-27 12:56 am (UTC)Wherever I sit on the plural spectrum is soupy and ambiguous at best, and likely to never really be properly resolved (and I'm okay with that). But the odd discomfort you speak of here is familiar. The closest things we've got to actual headmates come from fictional endeavors. It's the strangest, saddest feeling to have parts miss people who never existed.
There's an extra angle there on it being roleplay-based -- whatever worlds that are being missed were shared to begin with, and cannot be returned to or revised on our own. At least I know that stuff's never getting published for a wider audience, small blessings!
no subject
Date: 2022-10-28 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 07:02 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think we were on the same forum post once where someone asked a question (forget what) directed toward fictives, a few people in both our groups responded, and people responded back with confusion and... almost annoyance that the "wrong" people were answering a question directed at fictives, if I remember correctly? Because the experiences are just SO different that the same things don't apply? Which is a bit weird to me, since being in the same system/brain as the person who made up The Thing has an effect, yeah, but not much of one; they still lived within a different place and set of rules for a good while, and even people from outside are subject to in-brain setting generation for details not in canon (ie, how many shows will tell you what a cheap and easy dinner with local crops growing up would be for Character in Magic Fantasy Setting vs them personally remembering what they usually used to eat?). Like on that note, I may have made up the basic setting/story Rose is from, but after getting toward the front he had to tell me "where are all the pickled foods do people not pickle things here" and that he had never seen or heard of a cow in his life (goats and sheep where he's from), things I hadn't come up with at all, but I get the impression people think being insourced makes the person basically the author's puppet? Maybe that's how they get stuck on the supposed vast difference?? Because you just don't UNDERSTAND what being a fictive from a different world is like, they can't control ANYTHING like YOU can, person I assume can snap your fingers and change whatever you want like it's a silly daydream!
ANYWAY, got stuck on a random minor detail.
Yeah, different in-system peoples comfort level definitely informs what I can do with their visible writing. ("I" because, as you might guess from the novel length comments, I specifically am the articulate-in-text writing person, as of yet no one else has been interested in doing fiction.) Rose and Orange Blossom are from the same fictional setting that I began writing when I was like thirteen years old, and I was never that interested in showing people in the first place because it was more about me discovering things about the characters by writing them than about making "a novel". (Insert hindsight laughter about what was actually going on with learning about my ~unusually autonomous~ characters.) Once they were actually here though, any chances of showing most people went entirely out the window, because they have embarrassing emotionally messy pasts that they absolutely don't want to be used for the entertainment of people they don't know. They're both kind of private. So obviously I'm not just going to ignore that and start going on about my FUN STORY I AM WRITING IT'S GONNA BE GOOD GUYS the way I might have when I was like fourteen. The people that might see some of it have to get permission from them first, not me.
Meanwhile, on the opposite end, uh... people who got here a few years ago who never assigned themselves flower names (you know who)... are characters from an extremely popular franchise and fandom, and ironically because of that are perfectly fine with the extremely personal what-happened-to-them-specifically writing I'm helping get together (see: articulate and better at writing fiction* (*pseudo-fiction??) than them haha) being put up, because it disappears anonymously into the sea of fanfic and no one would realize looking at it that they're reading about real people, or ever meet them personally even if someone did figure it out. They may bail a bit from the front if anyone wants to talk the merits of (extremely upsetting thing) or (normal fact of life for them) as a cool writing decision just because of the awkwardness, but the anonymity makes it much less weird than it could be otherwise.
Meanwhile AGAIN, the final category of fictive is Heather, who is from a well-known game... but not a named character in any way; he's technically in the slot of the player character in the kind of game where you make your own, so his entire childhood, name, everything, has no named counterpart, but almost everyone and everything he ever saw for a few year period of his life DOES. This is extremely weird for him. He was also instrumental in cracking open the system suppression, because "I" kept getting possessed by him journaling out the trauma of actually going through a horrible "adventure". And I hate writing in first person and had no idea why "I" kept doing that. So do I have what I could pass off as some really cool dark stories told in first person? Yeah. Can I actually SHOW anyone my real life partner's extremely personal journaling about the shittiest time of his life? Nope! He even finds it cringe-inducing and awkward to see all the fan interpretations of people he did know, since it's all uncanny valley slightly different interpretations of them that almost feel like accidentally mocking the dead (lots of dead people by the way! Don't go on "adventures" kids!), there's no way he'd consent to putting himself up for public interpretation too.
Long overly personal tldr to say, yeah, the politics of "I wrote about you and whoops you're here now what do we do" can get really weird and individual, but I feel like "NEVER EVER DO IT YOU AWFUL PEOPLE BEING A FICTIVE IS THE WORST WE ARE NOT FICTIONAL AND YOU MUST RESPECT US" is the beginning and end of the conversation I've seen. And while yeah, I agree that if the actual person in question just wants to veto public consumption then that should be that, I think some balance of who can look and under what circumstances and what details should be fudged for the public version should be normal conversations to have about it? But I think a lot of people feel like any budging away from "never write about us because we are REAL and that is DISRESPECTFUL" is ceding ground to the idea that they aren't real, and no one wants to budge an inch on that while most people think they don't exist in the first place. Respectability politics again.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-07 03:58 am (UTC)Meanwhile, Mac is like, "Yeah, let's just not talk about my old life, I'm Himbo Hubby of Hairlandia now," not because he had any huge lurking trauma or anything, just because it was a long time ago and he prefers the person he is now, and the life he has! Dude really would just rather be remembered as a big ol' himbo.
Biff will probably eventually have to do a big go-over, but honestly, I think he's just so mortified by it that he's just choosing to pretend none of it exists, ha. Which, you know. He's allowed if that's what he wants, I just don't think that'll work well forever. Eventually, dude's going to have to deal with it.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-04 03:27 am (UTC)I hope you don't have to take Infinity Smashed off the internet forever, because I really like it. And it really speaks to me with that inexplicable way it seems like my own story.
Elemarth (which is both my internet handle and a name of the character I mentioned)
no subject
Date: 2022-12-04 04:49 pm (UTC)Right now, we're in a period of reassessing what we're okay with putting up for free on the Internet. We hope we can continue publicly with IS at some point, but right now we are not steady enough.
We are glad to hear from someone who enjoys it, though! If you have a DW account, you're welcome to request access to the locked archive, or we can email you a big filedump.