[Chatter] Updates and such

[monsterqueers]

Aaaaaaa this took forever to happen. Life got in the way and such but lots of updates:

Website updates:

• RSS feed has been enabled on the website! Now you can get notifications as we update!
• Document  "Should I Tell My Friends/Doctors/Parents/etc about being Plural?" posted
• Essay An Open Letter To The Rest Of The Inclusive Plural Community posted
• Essay Xeno As In Nonhuman - Gender Essay posted
• Fawn's Werecard posted
• Added a bunch more sites and reorganized the essays and papers pages a bit

General updates:

• Currently playing SMTV, that will be the next thing for the plural media blog its just slow going because Actually Playing it and not watching a cutscene movie and running x_x  Its VERY fun though. Good vibes.
• Still working on a driving license hhhh
• Maybe this time is the trick and will be more active here.

Fandom Updates:

• Uuuuuh nothing much really? Dont remember lol.

Comments

[lb_lee]

I mean, I suspect many of those muse gags really were the writers dealing with soulbonding feelings. The best way to make something less scary is to make silly jokes about it, right?

God, that's so horrible. I feel like having an intense big fandom of you would be the WORST. Talk about a head trip! Especially if it's like movie fandom, which seem short-lived but INTENSE. It seems like that could be really rough on a fictive, but if people have ever discussed it outside of, "ugh my fandom sucks," I haven't seen it, and it's not really something we could write about, since we've only had one instance of a fan faving two headmates before they came back, and said fan has been polite about it.

[monsterqueers]

You know, it probably really was. Its a shame its gone out completely out of fashion because that seemed like it was helping people ease their toes into accepting and interacting with their headmates.


Im the headmate that was mentioned before re:Divorcing The Source, and yeah my source's fandom was relatively big (its died down since) and Intense Fandom is part of why I changed my name to be unlike my source name. People expect you to act like the canon character or be 1:1 canon compliant if they are familiar with fictives and in the fandom and. Well im really not. Having my source name be my public use name gave people the expectation that I would behave like the character or be some level of canon compliant to the newest material or *like* the most recent material and want to talk about it with them, even other fictives would assume that.


It really ought to be discussed more- the ways a source can be awkward or uncomfortable or harmful to interact with as a fictive and what solutions/coping mechanisms/etc are available for that. We suppose its probably something that makes a fictive feel less 'valid' in their existence- to not enjoy their source anymore, or to not be up-to-date on the content, and that discourages people from discussing that sort of thing.
A 'what to do when your source is hurting you' essay is for sure going on our to-write list at this point. We have really seen one 'the source is giving me panic attacks what do I do?' post too many where we are the only people saying 'maybe stop watching your source and interacting with the fandom at large if you can' and that being some kind of revelation so its time for us to pull out the keyboards.

[lb_lee]

People expect you to act like the canon character or be 1:1 canon compliant if they are familiar with fictives and in the fandom

That sounds horrible! What the hell happens if, I dunno, a sequel comes out years later? Are you expected to just... instantaneously update yourself accordingly? What if, for whatever reason, you CAN'T get the sequel (or plain don't want to)? Is there a grace period where it's okay, because the book is sold out or something, but if you aren't updated by X time, you're doomed? Are there rules if it's a self-owned work coming out regularly vs. a franchise owned by some giant conglomerate that constantly changes the creative team?

This sounds like it would very easily become a source of anguish and awfulness for everybody.

We have really seen one 'the source is giving me panic attacks what do I do?' post too many where we are the only people saying 'maybe stop watching your source and interacting with the fandom at large if you can' and that being some kind of revelation so its time for us to pull out the keyboards.

I mean, that you are saying this makes me sad, because oh god, this seems like such a source of totally preventable existential agony, but on the other hand, that does sound like a super useful resource that we'd love to see, even if it isn't something we ourself deal with.

(Also, wow am I even happier that all our fictives are like twenty years older and thus the fiction is all a long time ago for them.)

[monsterqueers]

According to some places, yeah you are supposed to care about sequels/new material and be compliant to them about as soon as things drop! To others they take having traits change/be gained to match new material as a sign of 'faking'. Youd think people would have realized by now both options are terrible, but nope! Its not everywhere, but its enough places that it gets exhausting.

Fictives are treated pretty poorly basically everywhere honestly, *including* in fictive specific spaces and arent really given tools to manage the Existential Situation they find themselves in.

Yeah, it makes US sad too! Its truly preventable, and its wild no one has made anything for this already- weve looked around enough times hoping we didnt have to put out yet another resource/advice document because no one else has done it, but it looks like its necessary lol. It will be awhile before we finish it obviously, but its coming.

[lb_lee]

Wow, that sounds... really, really awful, and you're not making us feel any worse about dropping off that side of the plural planet, even though most of our plural friends have fictive members. I'm really sorry y'all've had to put up with that.

Fictives are treated pretty poorly basically everywhere honestly

IT'S TRUUUUUUUUE. D:<

its wild no one has made anything for this already

I know, right? Maybe we'll talk more about insourced stuff, even though it's out of style these days...

[monsterqueers]

Yeah, its very much a good thing to stay out of it. We appreciate the sympathy very much. Only reason we havent washed our hands of the mess is that we still want to put out resources into the cesspool in hopes that it helps someone and keep abreast about what is generally going on. As it is, we dont join new closed plural communities for a reason unless they have been Heavily vouched for by someone we know.


Any talking on experiences is valuable!

[lb_lee]

Yeah, I feel lucky that I was able to pull out and sorta become my own thing. I did join fictionkind, but it moves so fast and has so many young people that I'm like an old lurky fogey who mostly doesn't talk because I feel like I have to learn the community norms first.

[monsterqueers]

Yeah, we joined that too. Its nice and all but theres quite a lot of activity so we tend to filter them off our reading page so its not so overwhelming and just check in periodically instead. We keep forgetting to post there as a result of making it out of sight out of mind, though and mostly just lurk.