How do you feel about your source?

•I’m not fictionkin, however I want to ask, how do you feel about your source material? Do you like the world that you come from, or did you find that it was hard to live on your world? If your source is different than what is portrayed to the masses on earth, how do you feel about how it’s told? Was your home peaceful or more dystopian in nature?....

I lived during a time in The Dragon Prince where peace/unity was becoming the standard. Elves were living in the Human Kingdoms and humans were making homesteads in Xadia, and dragons flew freely over the split continent. I myself lived in a human village where some elves also called home. Many memories are still fuzzy but that's pretty much what I remember.

Ah I posted this without really answering the question. There were things I liked, like how I was able to have a found family despite past tragedy. And there were things I didn't like, like um...humans were still a little skittish around dragons, especially big ones. So growing up I started becoming nervous that the people I lived with would stop trusting me, and I think they eventually did (it's still VERY unclear to me as to why).

Its a lot to get into considering my source material is presented with so many intricacies that still yet vary from one to another, and as such to the life I lived. My relationship to my source material is one of parallels. There is a lot that brings back thoughts and memories to me, but also one I recognize as not exactly correct. The Transformers as a television show, as movies, as comics, all revolve around the thing that I am and about the people I once knew, and conflicts I once faced, but they are only a reflection of this. What is shown I can only describe as a fraction of the things I've seen, and a rudimentary one at that. My source is as any other, storytelling, mixed perspectives, and not the solid truth of it.

I don't see my experience as entirely different from otherkin, despite this. The fact that something so resembling of who I was and the world I come from was unmistakable in a media is the only reason I'm rather considered fictionkin. I don't rely on my source or any cannon. I've felt the things I feel, seen what I've been through, before and without needing a source's explanation. I've predicted things before they happened, saw through so many things that only someone who lived through it would, and its shocking even to myself at times. I know that even now if I never discovered the Transformers, if it was never made into a fictional franchise in this world, I would still identify myself as Cybertronian.

The world I come from and how it is depicted in media is not far off from what it was really like. A dystopian civilization that once realized, people like me who were seen as nothing, rose up to enact justice on. Now where things differ can vary on perspective. The source will pin out Decepticons to be "evil" to be the "bad guys", fighting to overtake the "honorable" and "rgood guy" Autobots. Some of the comics will touch on this, particularly in IDW's Megatron Origins that we did not rise up to start a war, we rose up for equality. Decepticons were not "bad guys" we were people put down for our caste(status decided by ones alt-mode or forced occupation). On cybertron we could not work towards being something we wanted, it was decided for us upon coming online. If you were born with a heavy equipment alt mode you were put into construction or mining energon. If you were born with a sports car alt mode you were put into luxury racing. You could not decide for yourself, so the preferred models were given higher status, better living, and rights to places and things that the lower caste were not. Like myself, a flyer, was seen as a low caste. There was prejudice against those who shared my alt mode type, which is shone in the earlier comics too. Another thing was wether you were "forged"(which was natural creation form our planet or its moons) or if you were "constructed cold"(created synthetically to serve a purpose). If you were cold constructed you were immedietly viewed as nobody, as scum even. Crime rates were directed at us for what we were rather than the fact we were put into lives of servitude and poverty. Forged mechs were the "superiors" to us. Forged mechs usually had blue optics, or even rarer colors like yellow, orange, or green. Cold Constructed mechs had red optics. This was to make us easier to discriminate against. If your familiar with the Transformers you'll notice: most Autobots have blue optics(eyes) and most Decepticons have red.

There's so many more details to get into, that's not even the half of it before the war. It is important to know that us cold constructed mechs(and some lower caste forged mechs) were being worked to our deaths while higher caste forged mechs were living in the lap of luxury due to us being forced into the difficult occupations. At the end of it all, when you were either seen as useless or unable to continue there were 2 things that usually happened to you. Outcome 1: You were told by your superiors that you could finally retire. Sounds great? They don't tell you that retirement means being smelted down into metallic goo however. Everything that was once you being recycled. Outcome 2: You don't make it to outcome 1. You are either killed or die before this, while others who are in your same situation cannibalize you for parts. There was not way out for us, that only exit being the one we all take at the end. Death.

Police brutality was a very similar thing on Cybertron to what you see here on Earth. The symbol of the police on Cybertron? That lovely red autobot logo you see on the supposed "good guys". Now, the police on cybertron as far as I know in comparison to Earth police: far worse. Imagine being seen as a criminal for something outside your control, you did nothing wrong, and one of the things they do for your obtainment is put a chip in your head. Not just any chip, one that at any moment whoever is holding the trigger can set it off. A microchip lodged into your cerebral cortex that when triggered explodes. Instant death. Now having one of these isn't for the sheer ability to kill you, but another object of control. Not only are you subject to this, but they will use it to get you to rat out others, people who are your friend, your loved ones. They use you as a weapon against your own people. This is all covered up though with everything else they do behind the publics vision. Each senator has a cop in their pocket. When they want something for politcal gain, they can sick them on you and no one will know you ever existed. Your records will be erased deleted. I still haven't even touched on the institute.. where they rewire your mind. We call these "doctors" who specialize in altering brains and stripping mechs of information mnemosurgeons. Out of everything I've talked about, this would be the worst fate of all. To be taken against your will strapped down as someone painfully strips you of who you are and replaces it with something else. Even worse still, there is empurata. Empurata is usually following the brain alteration with removing your head and hands, replacing them with a single optic head with no mouth or facial features, and your hands with claws. I'm not even done there when it comes to explaining these horrors..

I'm sure this is enough to give you an idea about my world.

-Azaphaer

My source material is the anime/manga series Fullmetal Alchemist. I identify with the Brotherhood series a lot more than most of the 2003 version. But the powers of Alchemy are often blown way out of proportion (even without the Philosopher's Stone sometimes.)

How do I feel about it? It's the dictionary definition of a mixed bag. I love it and I hate it. It's exciting, uplifting, terrifying and depressing. It's the best anime ever and an ordeal.

It's a world that I wouldn't want to go back to. I have a suspicion that a lot has happened to it since. I have vague memories of a more recent life, where it was ravaged by some catastrophe. Probably the result of Alchemy, like the Ishval massacre. Alchemy is dangerous, it does horrible things to people. I think this world is better off without it.

But I wish society and technology were more alike to one another. Sometimes it seems like this world is infected with a disease. Especially compared to it’s equivalent in this world’s timezone. There’s hardly a hint of racism in Amestris in FMA. The State Military officers show clear remorse at fighting and killing Ishvalans. Meanwhile, this world went through two world wars, the Holocaust, slavery, Civil Rights, et cetera.

In the 2003 version, Christianity is mentioned as a religion that died out centuries ago. The world histories are the same up to a certain point, where Alchemy was discovered and became successful. So perhaps the calendar year is distorted by a different history with a different sense of time.

It’s supposed to be set in the 1910s, but I’ve a strong suspicion it’s not. The calendar years are different. It could be ten or twenty years later compared to this world. Because it resembles the 1930s or 40s more closely. Amestris was so far ahead of here, in many ways.

Post by - Queen Celestia

Since this could very easily get long or confusing if multiple answer at once I will be the only one replying to this right now. I do not want us to make multiple posts for each fictionkind who wants to answer in case that breaks some rules. Either way I will start if just because my identity and my fictionkind identity have odd crosses and I feel most comfortable putting myself out there.

My kintype is Princess Sterling a pony that is only from the toy line for the franchise My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There is almost nothing on her except the stuff on the back of the boxes you buy her figure so her 'canon' is very limited beyond just knowing what the source itself is. Though there is so little I do have so much inherent knowledge of how things worked around her, what her job was, what she was princess of, how a lot of people interacted with her. I wish there was more canon even if it didn't match if just because it meant I had more of my kintype out there beyond two or three figures. I don't mind I happen to be stuck with a kintype only from a toy line but I do get jealous of others who get to see their kintypes move or speak. I do see I have a benefit having so little it means there is less pressure to 'fit canon' that others may experience but I do not find that trouble much of an annoyance. That is other people's downfall in their thinking not my problem.

My source material for my kintype's toy line is also my own source material as a walk-in. My identity is one of the main side characters of the source itself. This does make a very awkward boundary. Especially since my kintype's timeline, so to speak, seems to be closer to show canon. While my personal timeline is very, very, oh so quite different. For one my source counterpart is Princess Celestia while I gained the title of Queen.

Aside:

My source counterpart was a hero at all times. I was a villain for a time. It is very conflicting between the two and keeping the two straight. Sometimes I do find myself talking about something and realizing half way through 'oh wait, forgive me. That was the events for the 'other' identity'.

I would say in both cases, both timelines I find nothing ill or terrible of the world I came from and I would say it is much easier to live in that world than this one. Even when I was trapped in the moon, the world is a lot more set for success for many people. It over all always felt more joined, unified, and not wanting to let someone get left behind so everyone has an opportunity to have a decent life. Sure one has to be kind for it, but is kindness really that much of a payment to having friends, food, shelter, and good livelihood in general? I do not think so even during my villain time.

Though that paragraph shows just how hard it is to fully just talk about one timeline and not both together. They both mix sometimes being at the end of it all, they are both my identities and so similar it feels hard not to compare and contrast the two. My life from my kintype's existence as I know it.