Sometimes I think about those few years we were all getting into fictionkin and the experiences we all have in common, and I have to say I feel like we all would've come out of it healthier if we didn't sell fictionkin as this deep, spiritual thing.

Like, I cannot believe so many of us had the exact experience of joining a Discord server with a bunch of fellow kinnies from the same canon, bonding with them and regarding them as family too quickly, and then having drama with them 2-3 months later, down to a T.

The drama wasn't always even "kin drama"; most of the time it was actually the reality of clashing personalities, power dynamics, mental illness, people's emotions etc. overriding this supposed spiritual bond we were supposed to have with each other.

We all assumed that supposedly being from the same alternate universe or whatever was enough of a reason for us to be close, and when it didn't work out, there was blood. I can say for me, my own insecurities started to creep in when I felt I wasn't being included enough...

...and it was like "hey, aren't I one of you?" So when some other stuff started going on between the people in the server I was in, that stuff + my emotions snowballed into some pretty ugly drama. And no matter how dumb it all really was, not everyone came out of it okay.

But I realized, very recently, that if we didn't have this assumption of some deep, spiritual bond because of fictionkin, would anything have snowballed at all? Would I have given a shit about these people? Would YOU have given a shit about the fellow kinnies you had beef with?

The answer: probably not. Like imagine if fictionkin wasn't so dramatized as this spiritual thing and we just called it what it was: strongly identifying with a character. So say I, someone that relates to Knuckles the Echidna saw someone that relates to Silver the Hedgehog.

I'd just observe Silver as I would any other person like "oh it's cool they also identify w/ a Sonic character but I don't like their personality" and move on w/ my life.
Like, the way we framed fictionkin back in 2015-2017 allowed us to get way too out of control when it came...

..to interacting with each other. Yes, kin drama was a real problem. We really did get angry at other people for "doubling". It was ridiculous. Would it have happened if we didn't frame fictionkin the way we did? Of course not.

And back to the whole "trusting each other too quickly" thing, I don't like to say "we're all guilty" because usually the person that says that is responsible for most of the harm done. BUT I do think in this common experience, we all had something we could've handled better.

In my case, it was my emotions and communicating better.

I can only guess why kin stuff got us all to be so unhinged in the way we acted toward people and, well, this thread is it.

We all could've been smarter about it.