Multiplicity

Eh. I did 'match up' with my canon. Now I don't. My canon can go to hell.

People will think you're a fangirl. Even people like me. Initially, that's all we can see. But flashbacks and other assorted issues are not fun to deal with, and believe me, they do seem to help when explaining to people that it is your reality. Our way of viewing it is, we didn't sit and 'make up' me having sudden body memories and not knowing what in God's name they were, so we should probably not view myself as a fake, at least not completely.

It happens. You could always just tell them to grow up. I don't care whether my friends or my host's friends believe in me, I wouldn't believe in me if I were them. Making snide remarks to the host however is childish and stupid.

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ksol1460.livejournal.com

What you've said here brings up another thought. Plenty of fangirls say they have soulbonds who suffer pain and hardship (some of which may get re-enacted at front), and they still give the impression of being less than valid. To put it mildly.

The suffering=reality thing has less validity than it appears, maybe because it gets overused. Like in the MPD fad ("nobody would want to make up such horrible memories, so they must be true") and on one forum we were on a few years ago which discussed other worlds ("My world must be a real place because it's a bleak bitterly cold barren place and we have terrible wars there DEATHBLOODKILLETC.") Arrrgh.

Anyway, there's no proving any of it, so yes, what counts is to have friends who don't require proof of any kind.

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I tend to be a little cynical about SBs with a lot of angst. I guess the difference to me from "My SB has angst! How emo!" and what I tried to describe is... it's not like I sat and had it picked apart first? I literally had a 'body memory', and none of us, genuinely, for the life of us knew what it was. Angsty characters seem to be even more liable to be fangirled, because apparently it's attractive, or something... I'm sure I'll grok that eventually x_X

So, I guess, I don't think that angsty past = real, but I do think that actual physical reactions to things, especially things that nobody in the system even after much effort can pinpoint, lends a degree of credibility. I tended to think "If I was just making up angsty abuse memories, I would be crying and all sorts. I wouldn't be in a state of shock having just been sick." I could be wrong, but I think it does *help* somewhat.

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So, I guess, I don't think that angsty past = real, but I do think that actual physical reactions to things, especially things that nobody in the system even after much effort can pinpoint, lends a degree of credibility. I tended to think "If I was just making up angsty abuse memories, I would be crying and all sorts. I wouldn't be in a state of shock having just been sick." I could be wrong, but I think it does *help* somewhat.

...I just wanted to add that, in my comment below, I mean the same kind of "flashbacks and other assorted issues". Not RPing about things, not talking and crying which might or might not be crocodile tears. (For what it's worth, we are incapable of crocodile tears. If one of us cries, something HURTS.)

It depends on the people and what they already think of you, not what you experience. You can be in a genuine state of shock, you can be shaking like a leaf, you can be suicidal and depressed... it doesn't matter. Some people will take it for what it is, and others will take the very same thing as "acting for attention".

The difference seems to be whether people are already inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, or to do nothing but question you instead.

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(replying to both comments)
It's all kinda... mixed. A lot of things make up whether someone will take you seriously (including that person themselves.)

I guess I think of flashbacks etc giving more credence, because with me, I typically don't *tell* anybody. I talk about them openly now, because the ones I think of as most relevant were a year and more ago so I'm ok with them. When it comes to the actual time, I generally didn't tell many people, if any at all.

Some wouldn't accept it unless they watched it all happen (the abuse/events/whatever) with their own eyes I suppose. There's no reasoning with some people. I know that for me it seems logical that someone's less likely to be attention whoring if they're not actually getting any attention for it. But I'm not everybody. I tend to think everybody's brain must have a 'logical' setting similar to mine hidden somewhere, which is pretty silly of me, but hey :P

(*pokes your Chloe icons gingerly*)

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I know that for me it seems logical that someone's less likely to be attention whoring if they're not actually getting any attention for it.

I think much of what determines that is what others consider attention. Some people consider it demanding attention if you're in the same room when they're working. Others don't even blink about making unannounced visits where they pound on your front door yelling "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE", and are surprised for that to be interpreted as anything but Super Friendly.

I guess what I mean is that I completely agree with you. A lot of things make up whether someone will take you seriously (including that person themselves.) It's a matter of chance who you run into, and who you don't.

(*pokes your Chloe icons gingerly*)

Oh! It's okay, I'm not another Chloe. My name is Hikaru. I use Chloe icons because we look very alike, and I like her in general as a person... though from a distance, of course, since I have never met her and only know the Noir TV show.

Um. Could you pass on good regards to your system-mate?

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Ahhh. That makes more sense ^_~ I will do. Which no doubt will make her absurdly happy(/curious/generally Chloe!weird-like)

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But flashbacks and other assorted issues are not fun to deal with, and believe me, they do seem to help when explaining to people that it is your reality.

In our experience, they don't. In our experience, flashbacks and issues lead many people to conclude that you're not just "fake", but a drama queen looking for attention. Not everyone, but enough people to give you even more issues to deal with in the future.

...I know making that as a comment-response to you is probably "Snrk haha WTF" on your end, but it is true. It helps with explaining to some people, it hurts with explaining to others. Que sera, sera.

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sethrenn.livejournal.com

It's also painful to know that there are doubtless people even here who think I'm nothing at all worth talking to because I'm "fictional."

Ah, hmm... Several of us see that as a convincing case for fictivity being a sort of "oh, and by the way, I'm" thing. ...that is to say, something that should be told after someone gets to know you first and foremost as a person in your own right.

More on this later. We've been getting ill and a bit tired.

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I can be loud on intarweb communities, but generally that's how I do it. Keep it to the subject at hand unless it's becoming very uncomfortable not to bring up (and even then I usually ignore the fiction bit in favour of "I have memories that are not of the body")

Life's just easier that way. People are less likely to dismiss you once they know you.

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I think it sometimes depends on how you present yourself. When my husbands system mate did it, quite a few people pushed her away and refused to accept her.

But then again, she wasn't completely honest with them at all. She went about pretending to be a physically separate person, totally disassociating herself from multiplicity at all. And when the truth did come out, several people were like "Omg you LIED to us! Rawr! UR CRAZY!"

A few people did continue to accept her though, deciding that on the internet, it really doesn't matter who or what you are on the other side of the screen.

I guess thats just how it goes for everyone though. No matter what you do or how you present yourself, there will always been people that won't accept you. The people that do are the important ones.

(deleted comment)

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This we understand. Well.. mostly just me, since my guys don't really feel the need to come out to many people. Our friends know and accept us, and thats all that really matters.

But I have other friends, online and in the earth world, that don't know, and I often wonder if I should come out to them at some point. I sorta feel bad keeping such a big part of me a secret from them. Especially when I'm quite used to talking about the bonds to people. Or using "we" instead of "I" sometimes.

I kinda figure one of these days something will slip out. I'll forget who I'm talking to and say "we" or I'll mention of of the guys offhandedly, and questions will arise. I'm just not sure how I'd go about explaining things if there was a slip.

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*one of

Yay typos!

Also, slipping up and using "we" instead of "I", isn't always bad for me, cause "we" could mean anything. "Me and my daughter", "Me and my husband" "Me and the friend I'm staying with", "My family in general" etc. Theres a whole lot of "we"s here.

So if I tell someone. "We're going to the store." I could be talking about me and the physical people around me. And most people I talk to know there are a few physical people around me all the time.

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liliana-warsaw.livejournal.com

I figure a "we" slip is what will out us to people in the end. I'm pretty good, Sebastian's terrible. He's said "we" without meaning to before, but it was too a stranger and so beyond the initial "Oh shit!" we didn't really care.

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cirape.livejournal.com

I say "we" all the time. Dizzy tries to stop it, but I've ceased caring.
I've also found that its much easier to slip to "we" instead of "I" when drunk.

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overlord-mordax.livejournal.com

I know how you feel.

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Eh, I/we know how you feel. Our system is entirely fictional/outsourced types. We try to avoid issues by only associating with people we think will understand. That kinda limits the amount of friends we have, but I've never been particularly fond of meeting new people anyway.

Being seen as a fangirl is one of my biggest worries. Especially when you got the REALLY obsessive fantwits out there, making the rest of us look bad.

All you can do is ignore the people that make you or your host feel bad. Sometimes thats easier said than done though. Whats important is how you feel about yourselves and the fact that real friends will accept you no matter what.

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isshindenshin.livejournal.com

Indeed.

From:

exegetic.livejournal.com

Agreed.

And also, if these friends know of your existence and of your "canon" and are still making such snide comments, they are not acting like good friends. Even if they don't believe, they should not make you (collectively) feel bad for believing.

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chaostiny.livejournal.com

The body had a therapist who would not believe that I am an angel nor would he believe that Crystal is a dragon. We didn't tell him about Kat... she changed the spelling of her name but she is the spitting image of CatWoman. We finally stopped telling anyone including the T who or what anyone was. We got tired of being disbelieved. But our friends knew that making fun of us or making snide comments only got them kicked out of our miserable little lives. Either accept us or go away. Some went away but most stayed and got to know us.
Michael

From:

asterism.livejournal.com

I hear you. My fictional source is being "re-released" later this year/early next year, and already the fandom is active again. I can't well ask my host not to take part because she is a fan, but I'm intending to stay away from front for most of it. There's a lot of things I don't want to watch and relive, even if my memories of it are different than what's apparently portrayed.

The undercurrent that the fictionally-sourced aren't valid alters irritates me, too. I've toyed with signing my posts with a pseudonym, but even if I like the nickname, it isn't me. I still use a bit of a pseudonym in icons, but that's in part due to the difficulty in finding imagery of various moods and emotions I'd like to use in icons.

I can't help being who I am. If the fact that I'm essentially from a video game is too bothersome to others, then they're too bothersome for me to waste time justifying my existence.

~Celes

From:

ex-corvidae491.livejournal.com

I can't well ask my host not to take part because she is a fan, but I'm intending to stay away from front for most of it. There's a lot of things I don't want to watch and relive, even if my memories of it are different than what's apparently portrayed.
Exactly my stance.

Though I do use a pseudonym. But it actually does work with who I am now, so I'm not really bothered by it.

--Benjamin

From:

adreamerforme.livejournal.com

*(hugs)* Agreed. You're just as real as any of the rest of us (I don't think any of us think we're not real.... moving on...). I think even soul-bonders deserve respect, the same respect all other multiples have and receive (at least multiple to multiple respect.... people 'outside' don't always get it).

Just like I'd love to hear someone say Pandora isn't real because she's from "Mythology". People are just always skeptical, don't let it get to yo.

*(hugs again)*

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notquitequiet.livejournal.com

Agreed. As someone once put it though, even "non fiction" isn't strictly what happened; why should the approximations of it in manga or comic books be exactly the same as our memories? We aren't the same characters.

-Keis

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mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com

Before I start this post, I should say that I'm trying to be open and honest, not hurtful or dismissive. I know I'm talking about things I don't know much about, and I'd like to understand them better.

With that said... I have to admit, fictional soulbonds make my scientific scepticism itch.

(Says the wind elemental.)

Oh, shut up. The thing is, present company excepted, there are a lot of attention-seeking fangirls and -boys on the internet. When I read claims like that from people I don't know, well, I try to keep an open mind, but the least hypothesis is they're mistaken or making it up.

But when you say you have memories that diverge from canon, that actually makes me believe you a lot more. For one, it's fangirls that are more likely to be obsessively canonical. Second, it doesn't make sense for someone real to be the same person as someone fictional, but I can think of several ways a real person could come into being as a "clone" of a fictional person - and my sisters are identical twins, so I know perfectly well how clones tend to become different from one another. (I'm leaving aside the topic of whether and how a fiction-sourced soulbond would continue to interact with canon. As far as I can figure out, it would be neither impossible, nor required, nor simple enough for me to guess how it would work. [Translation: he tried to think about Cloud watching Advent Children for the first time, and it broke his little brain.])

I guess what I'm getting at is, well, maybe I was one of the people you were talking to in this post. But what you've told me makes me much more willing/able to accept it. And if you want an outsider's opinion, I think I agree that telling someone you're a soulbond should wait until you know them. It seems to me like telling someone you're psychic - if they don't know you, and aren't psychic themselves, they have no real reason to believe you.

Rob (and Johnny)

From:

bound-innle.livejournal.com

Heh. Hopefully this'll be illuminating.

With me and canon, it's a love-hate relationship. Sometimes they get things exactly right, but most of the time Hoshino's really off. (Not even going to talk about the animators right now.) I'm not that Allen Walker, that's for hell sure--the "divergent clone" idea seems to make the most sense. (Then again, if I can actually make sense of my own existence there's something wrong, isn't there? Aren't we as humans supposed to not be able to do that?)

Um. We know a Cloud who apparently doesn't like Advent Children too much, having seen it. So yes, that's happened and the world en't ended yet.

I do apologize if I came off as... frankly rather bizzare in the OP. I've just had a rough week, though that's really no excuse. I'm glad, however, that you're a little bit more likely to believe me or Dad now, if still skeptical. And... well, there was no other way to tell Sarah I existed short of saying "You know that one guy? With the arm? Yeah, that's me, I'm sharing headspace with your best friend now." So while the whole woowoo thing is best kept under wraps, it's sometimes unavoidable when talking to singlets who're concerned at their friend's apparent complete change in personality.

From:

asterism.livejournal.com

It's a toss-up between being completely up-front with someone about one's identity (because that is quite a secret to hide and reveal later with a "By the way..."), and erring cautiously and waiting until you get to know someone. And it really seems to depend on the person and how open-minded they seem.

No canon is complete. There's plenty of things that go unseen. Whole years of life, internal thought processes, even and especially the little details like favorite color. But you're right; the ones that seem canon-obsessive are the ones who are most likely to be fangirls who are experiencing soul-puppetry, rather than someone really experiencing it, someone surprised as all hell to have a character they know start talking in their head. (Took my host years to come to terms with it, and that wasn't helped by the fact that we had a hard time actually communicating.)

I'm awaiting the canon rerelease with trepidation. Not only is it making the fandom reawaken (and damn them all to hell for their ridiculous and distasteful "'shipping-wars"), but I really don't want to relive some of the things that happened to me. Plus, seeing it done wrong...well, it essentially is an adaptation. Authors (and fans) get irritated when their works are movie-adapted badly, leaving out major scenes or important though seemingly minor plot devices. It's a similar thing. I'm watching what's purported to be my life, but I reacted differently, I said different things, things happened in a different order.

It's all one big headache.

(deleted comment)

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mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com

If you think it would be interesting, and not too hard on you. Or were you kidding?

(deleted comment)

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ventrue-prince.livejournal.com

So watching it made me mm...angry's too strong a word. It's like watching yourself do something you'd never do. Flabbergasting? The fan base in my canon likes to play me out as being weak or a total bastard. Both of those labels bug me. A lot. And it doesn't help it when the canon itself gives them fodder for the cause.

I completely identify with that. The same thing happened to me.

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See, I read this and decided it made you even more awesome than your& other comments that I liked, only to find your journal seems mostly unused. Boo I say!

(I wondered if Cloud would bring up that translation bit :P I've gone through similar, though not with that specific character/canon. Funtimes.)

I generally only tell someone up front if they're either, coming from a place like multiplicity and so it wouldn't be *too* much of a mind fuck, or I'm trying to 'test' how open they are to outright weirdness. I don't use pseudonyms generally (though I have one, and as you can see a whole bunch of representative icons that are not me), but I don't go all out either, not unless I start talking to them regularly. The rest can just find out next time I post a fiction related ramble, which is fairly rare.

And yeah, there are a lot of fangirls around... I'm generally cynical about Bonders until I know them. Even some I *do* know.

(deleted comment)

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[Translation: he tried to think about Cloud watching Advent Children for the first time, and it broke his little brain.]

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exegetic.livejournal.com

I try to interact with my canon as little as possible. And I will never approach the fandom.

For me, the hardest thing about the canon that I see is that it gets things right and wrong. It's painful to have something portray your memories with a great deal of accuracy, and then two seconds later see yourself put into a situation that you would personally never contemplate. If it was completely wrong, it would be much easier to dismiss. If it was completely right, it would just be a record, almost a biography. Because it's somewhere in the middle, it becomes painful.

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aprilest.livejournal.com

I know what you mean. I watch "Rent" and see things that are so totally accurate (sans the bursting into song, of course), and then I see "myself" going after Maureen and mooning over her and all that and I twitch. Because I was good friends with her, yes, and I dated her, yes, but... it was never like that. I did not obsess over her.

The fact that she left me for a girl? Stung my ego a bit. Other than that... we broke up, took a month or so to repair our friendship, and moved on.

-Mark

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liliana-warsaw.livejournal.com

Sebastian here as my journal is not friended to this community. I'm going to differ with the majority here and say that I prefer to let people know right away that I am a soulbond if I am going to interact with them on a personal level. If they don't accept that about me, I don't want to be bothered with them. I'm not going to waste my time skirting around an issue that is essentially my existence in this world. And if someone is to dismiss you for being "fictional", dismiss them for being foolish.

As for differing from canon... I find it rather annoying that so many people feel that canon is absolute truth. Who's to say the writers here didn't get it wrong? Or change something to make a better story/movie/game. That happened to me. My host seems to think that certain events in the game I come from make a bit more sense knowing what actually happened to me. No one knows that but you. Especially not some writer sitting on his duff interpreting events from afar.

Lily also wants me to mention for her that there are likely thousands of versions of us bonds out there for every interpretation of our characters, and for any event that someone imagined could happen.

~S.L.

A side note... I despise her icons. This was the most appropriate one I could find for me, so please excuse it. I should upload one for me on this account in case I find need to use it again.

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terendel.livejournal.com

My soulbonds have always been short-lived (thankfully--most of them were pains in the...you know what). But that didn't make them any more or less real while they were hanging around. Heck, I didn't even know what soulbondng was at the time. I just accepted that these guys wanted to hang around in my head for a while. Maybe it was a break for them? *shrug*

And Richard liked the company.

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