Copinglinks too personal to share?
The_Flock - 2020-02-19 06:48:58
So, Ive talked about this in a few other places, but I figured I'd throw it out here for a more formal discussion.
Has anyone else run into the problem of not really being able to talk about your copinglinks because the thing they revolve around coping with is too personal and/or heavy and/or embarrassing to feel comfortable sharing much of publicly?
Is this potentially a reason among many why copinglinkers struggles to establish an organized community and collection of narratives about what copinglinks can be like? Is this just a personal struggle anyone else has?
aepaex - 2020-02-21 14:19:50
Rabbit is like this for me, although that might partially be because of how new it is. But it's also a little too personal and a little embarrassing.
Because, rabbit's "core" is centered around a semi-metaphysical concept (luck) but also around my own possibly-influenced-by-mental-illness beliefs about luck. So being open about that side of rabbit could… I don't know exactly how to explain it… it could make people think, "Oh, maybe she's got a few screws loose, huh?"
As for what rabbit actually is, well, I just feel kind of silly about it. Which is a shame. I guess I'm worried about being judged by people outside of the fandom for the source, and by people inside of the fandom for the copinglink. Also I tend to be naturally guarded about these things. A ton of people consider themselves lucky, so it's easy enough to say that I'm also lucky and use rabbits to symbolize it.
I used to be more nervous about my alien/phils-identity, because the species is so obscure most people don't know what I'm talking about. I've gotten better about it though- I think having phils be my fursona species helps because it's easier to explain a fursona :p (I suppose I could apply the same trick to rabbit?)
People in the furry fandom (and in alterhuman spaces) are used to seeing "weird" species, and the Oban fandom is small enough for most people there to know I'm a furry, so it works out well enough.
As for community building, I can see it being an issue. If you have an identity to cope, then here's something that you're coping with, and people may not want to be open about those things. Plus, mental illness and related subjects are still stigmatized in the larger alterhuman-umbrella-space, so people may be worried about being mocked or seen as "less than". Which, correct me if I'm wrong, are already issues that copinglinkers are facing, right?
[archive note: post redacted]
Anomaly - 2020-06-01 01:47:09
Lyle [Fictional Superhuman]: For sure, especially once you get down to how for us most of our copinglinks are ocs or concepts, which if you look at them make it obvious to tell what we're trying to cope with and that's an awkward topic to bring up for us.
It's strange though, most of us are fine mentioning our trauma any anything else that we need to cope with in an offhanded way, but when it comes to identities we chose to cope with trauma most of us are reluctant to say.
Strangely too, we're fine talking about the circumstances surrounding our psychological alien kintype. It might be because with that identity we don't have any control over it if I had to guess, while knowing an identity is chosen may be more awkward.
For me personally, I have a lot of exotrauma that gets embarrassing given how taboo the concept is and how I'm a fictional character. I have two copinglinks to deal with it, a semi oc and a concept, but that's about all the detail I'm comfortable going into.