Writing prompt
If your source material continued, changed significantly, or was rebooted — has that happened? And if so, what did it mean for your identity?
This has happened for me before, the first media made about my life as Alucard was a manga started in 1997 named Hellsing. Later on an anime adaptation with the same name got released in 2001-2002. Then there was an alternative anime made and released through several years named Hellsing: Ultimate.
Most of the core events in the manga and Hellsing: Ultimate are similar, the 2001 anime is rather bare-bones. It hasn't meant anything for my identity directly. As all of these media are simply a retelling of my original life, not different than if someone would make a movie about my current life. The actor that plays me would just be an actor, and the events that took place would be an interpretation of the truth. If it would've been animated then then the animation would've been drawn by a person who translated my likeness to art.
The difference in the adaptations or alternative media that show my life are not different enough for me to feel like it changed how I felt about myself. I can imagine that maybe if a newer anime or manga would change a drastic detail about me I would either have the reaction of "wow, I never know that about myself because I didn't remember it, but now I do" if I feel like things really did go that way or "yeah.. it didn't happen that way" if I remember it differently. The media made about me is not a "source", my source is the real, physical life that I lived.
7 comments
This is something I can relate to. For me, the "source" is the life lived, and what is termed the source would be the franchise, more to the point. For me, each iteration of the franchise (which isn't that many, you could count it on one hand) presents a new piece to the puzzle, to varying degrees. Some more than others. However, there will be a new one coming...this week, actually. And another one in 2027 or 2028. Whatever happens, happens. What I find intriguing is mapping these parallels and synchronicities which have been occuring from before I even encountered said media. When I did, it was a very dissociating experience, like watching your nightmares become a cartoon you can watch on tv.
I am happy to hear from someone who can relate to this! As I mostly read about people who see the franchise or media as "real" in the way where someone will analyze an actors facial expression with the question "why did I blink like that?" or can't accept that the actor is a living person in this world who knows nothing of how actually real the person is that he played a role for. Same goes for animated media, people don't like to acknowledge that it was created by hand by a person who might've made 10 different concept sketches of a scene; all of which vary in accuracy to the real events.
I also don't have more words to describe the surreal feeling of watching the media/franchise for the first time besides how you did; a nightmare you and everyone else around you can watch, pause and play whenever they wish. I lived my life with only strong feelings, emotions and some faint memories of my past life until I came across the media which I was shown in. Like a dream you forget the moment when you wake up, but if someone were to replay the dream for you on a screen you suddenly remember all of it.
Indeed, I found I could never relate to those who saw their "source" material as absolutely literal. For me, I've always seen it as a sort of funhouse mirror reflection. Then there are connections and intersections within fictional media itself. For example, my "source" fiction inspired a videogame character, which I hold enough strong associations with that I could technically claim fictionkin associations with that character itself. In fact, one of my system members had remembered being depicted in that source as the best friend of that character quite a long time ago. We both remembered these things independently of each other, and if we were to put our thoughts and memories together and wrote a sci-fi book about it, there would still be enough differences for it to stand as its own thing.
I'm not sure if what I wrote made sense, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, we never see these fictions as absolutely literal, but there are still enough attributes to see the resemblance, however warped it may be.
I look forward to reading your future posts.
It makes sense, I think I know what you are saying! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, it is very interesting. I also understand what you mean by saying that you don't internally see yourself as an animated character, I share that feeling. Although I do not have a very good inner eye, at least not for faces (I, for example, wouldn't be able to describe the face of my current body beyond the basics even if I tried) I do know that my memory of myself is with much more detail than a drawn up-2d version of myself that is show in the media about me. I am curious about your past lives and if you ever want to converse further through messages then I would be happy to.
Feel free to keep in touch. You can DM me on Discord at @queersatzcaterach (my system-mate came up with that name, it is a shared account), alternately if you go to "The Outer Reach" I have a beacon there with my contact info.
I will be sure to reach out then! I had no idea about The Outer Reach, that is a cool feature to this site :0
Another sidenote is that I don't picture myself as an animated character. I never have. I also don't see myself as in any way resembling the actor that played the live-action version of my character. There are many other avenues of connecting, however. I will say that some versions of my character look "closer" to how I see myself internally. It helps having a brain that is wired very visually; we have a strong "inner eye" and can see things, either internally or astrally, with a very strong hyperreal quality. I understand that not everyone has this ability, but I cannot see myself as literally being an anime character, for example.
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