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Thoughts regarding me in relation to fictionkin have been coming to my mind for weeks or more and I’m wanting to finally get some of those thoughts down in writing.

I only started to think about this sometime after I began to consider if I might have a vampire ‘kintype and my external searching about that (both in trying to find other vampire’kin and in comparing/contrasting my vampire-aspect to different versions of vampires in myth, folkore, and fiction) led me to thinking more about how my vampire-aspect (that I simply refer to as a “blutpir”) relates to the concept of fictionkin, and not just only otherkin in general. Although I probably won’t find much purpose in using the label of “fictionkin” for myself on a regular basis, I can certainly see how blutpir could probably be considered a kind of fictionkin creature (if it actually is a ‘kintype). And to this I am accepting of that reality. Blutpir is blatantly not a vampire kind from myth or folklore—not from any of the myriad of myths/’lores across the world that I’ve come across for things labeled as “vampire” creatures (albeit, most of the ‘closer’ ones to blutpir would be the European ones, which were also the primary vampire myths that influenced the variety of fictional vampires). My vampire-aspect is strongly correlated to vampires of fiction—stories and such in different media that arose mainly in the early 19th century (at the least, in the English language) and took off from there to create a variety of specific interpretations on the fictional, or modern, ‘vampire’.

Sure, blutpir holds some similarity to aspects of some (particularly European) vampire myths, but the correlations are too few compared to the vampires of fiction media. However, unlike many people who do choose to call themselves fictionkin, I can’t point to any particular story, movie, etc. that has vampires and say that blutpir is essentially the same as those (or correlates very strongly to specifically that story’s version of vampires), canon or not. Even still, there are bits and pieces from numerous vampire fics (from what I’ve come across thus far, and that doesn’t include a lot of written material—popular or not) that do fit blutpir rather well, and yet none of them fit “quite right”. It’s sort of like how I can look at information and reconstructions of many different species of winged theropod and see numerous correlations between many of them and my erdenvogel theriotype, and yet none of them that I’ve come across yet fit “quite right” enough for me to say that they are the same species as my theriotype.

Something I remain fully aware of, though, is that maybe there already has been, or may eventually be (there probably will, in all likelihood) some fiction that fits blutpir well enough—to the point of “resonance”, per se—that I could, if I chose, to comfortably accept that the given fic-media describes the same ‘species’/creature of vampire as that of my vampire-aspect. Granted, it’s also likely that the author(s) would just refer to them as vampires anyway and not use a specific, different term (plus I already have my own term, as “blutpir”). But I do see that if ever I came across such a fiction story/medium that I could reference people to it, or to those who are already familiar with the story, in order to more ‘easily’ mention what my vampire-aspect is like (considering there are so many different versions of ‘vampires’, in fiction, myth, folklore, etc. that what a blutpir is likely isn’t what initially comes to someone’s mind if I said I’m vampire’kin). On the other hand, although I don’t have good skills in writing fiction stories and fiction world-building (if I did, I’d probably write some fiction story about vampires that are essentially the same as blutpir), I am good at writing about my own therian and otherkin experiences, and therefore I’ve been gradually writing out a variety of my thoughts and experiences on my vampire-aspect, of which when I have those public/more public I can easily refer people to them to explain what I mean by “vampire’kin” or “blutpir” in regards to myself.

Another thing I’ve realized is that for years and years I’ve been slowly, in my mind, building and refining an interpretation of vampires that I prefer—that is just the “right” version for me subjectively. Which I attributed previously to it just being my long-standing interest in vampire media and me ‘designing’ a “species” of vampires that I would hypothetically put into a story of my creation, if ever I would try to write such a story. It seems to have turned out, though, that while I may have also been doing it for those purposes, I think I was also doing it subconsciously based on what I internally felt did and did not fit into what that ‘vampire’ part of me is actually like. It’s like I’ve spent years, certainly over a decade, already doing external and internal ‘searching’ on my vampire-aspect before I even acknowledged that I have it and before I considered it might be a ‘kintype. And really, that’s a fortunate thing because I started this possible ‘kintype introspection on blutpir back in January this year with me already having a good, strong basis of what that vampire-aspect is actually like, and thus having to primarily go through introspecting and such on whether or not blutpir is a ‘kintype or is instead some non-otherkin part of me (such as some more ‘symbolic’ aspect, or a strong identification *with*–rather than *as*–a fictional vampire). Nevertheless, I’ve taken the opportunity to enjoy perusing through learning more about different kinds and versions of vampires—even if I haven’t been looking into any particular version in a lot of depth or extensively—from myth and folklore across the world, to the common and less common versions and details of fictional vampires, to “real vampires” (as in, the energy-deficient, prana or sang feeding people), vampire fictives and fictionkin, and to some extent vampire lifestylers.

To me, blutpir isn’t something I believe is a real, existent-somewhere type of creature (even if there are supposed multi-universes or parallel worlds/universes, alternate planes that it could hypothetically be on, etc.—which I don’t really ascribe to any of those, as I don’t totally rule them out, but I’m fairly apathetic in terms of my personal belief about those matters). Blutpir is a kind of vampire that is a psychological experience, identity, and belief of mine, so although it “exists” in some sense, the reality of the existence of blutpirs is limited to my own mind, my own experiences, thoughts, identity, etc. (and anyone else who may happen to experience a vampire-aspect or ‘kintype that would resonate so accurately with my own understanding of what a blutpir is). And along with that, it is a vampire that has been a ‘species’ of intentionally fictional origin and purpose in my own mind, even though I’ve never actually written, drawn, or otherwise depicted those vampires in fiction media outside of basically listing various details and information about them.

So the reality to me about this vampire-aspect of mine comes down to it being, in essence, of fiction. Therefore, if that makes it/me a kind of fictionkin, then so be it, and I don’t find it any harder to swallow that reality than the concept of therianthropy (and my own theriotypes, including a supposedly, unverified extinct animal) and the concept of non-therian otherkin. Although fictionkin is technically a rather broad category (which can include and exclude some otherkin), it’s not advisable to make blanket statements and judgments about what fictionkin are like, what they believe and identify as, and how ‘legitimate’ they may be based on only certain subsections—or especially only specific individuals—of the overall large fictionkin category.