No no no. Fictive is specific character. Fictionkin is fictional species. Omg.
I have never heard these terms used this way before. Is there anyone who also uses them this way?
When we on livejournal started to use the term ‘fictionkin’ as a replacement for ‘otakukin’ it was to mean anyone from a fictional universe, specific character or not. I acknowledge the meaning may have drifted a bit, but I have never heard it used in such a way as to disinclude people who were specific characters.
I know a couple years ago the terms were used here on tumblr that way. It was how I originally learned it. Although fictionkin was also just used as an umbrella term, alongside words like ‘mediakin’. So it never really excluded people who were specific characters.
But lately there’s been a shift to fictive being seen as fairly plurality-exclusive. From my understanding, a lot of the thinking there is that fictives generally appear with knowledge of who they are, which happens almost exclusively with system members. Fictionkin, on the other hand, don’t show up/aren’t born with that knowledge. So according to that, in my system, me and Dylan are fictionkin since we didn’t show up knowing we were the characters we are, while Bro and Garry are fictives because they appeared with knowledge of their “source” (although they may not have known it was a fictional universe here). And we like to use the distinction because it tends to lead to pretty different experiences in our system.
I’ve also seen it argued that ‘fictive’ originated in the multiplicity community, but I don’t have enough knowledge on that to speak much on it.
-Axel
Interesting thoughts. I’m pretty certain too that fictive originated in the multiplicity scene, basically when the soulbonders started flowing in and mixing withe the community.
