About Me | Liquid Sunshine

Who Am I?

My name is Eight! This is my website, it's pretty
cool. I never really know how to do these about me bits
but I will try! I like coding and drawing and writing. I
think I'm pretty articulate and one day I hope to be the best at writing words. I like video games and music and I used to be a big reader but I don't do it so much anymore, and I don't really watch a lot of TV. I am alterhuman - specifically, I am nonhuman, cloudkin (that one's important!), and fictokin. My gender is wouldn't you like to know and my pronouns are whatever you want (although I prefer they/them). I'm also aroace, and forever confused about how alloromantics do anything. And uhh yeah I don't really have anything else to say. I am cringe but I am me!

Quizzes

You are most like the Splaoon Idol Marina!

You are an avatar of the Lonely!

"'The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone, the fear of being disconnected.' It's complicated, isn't it? On the one hand, you hate the thought of being left with no one in your corner. On the other hand, though? Letting people in sounds even more exhausting. You're not great at it, either, no thanks to your general avoidant tendencies. So, you've learned to be alone. You might be introverted, or just individualistic. With a melancholic or phlegmatic outlook on your life, you stabilized your existence in the way that works for you... but those who do manage to make it through your high walls will realize too just how loyal of a friend you can really be."

You are most like the song 2012 by Will Wood!

"You genuinely don't remember whole years in your life. I'm not saying you have serious memory loss but you probably do in this context. You forget assignments, days, how to eat, and friends, but yet here you are. Jokes aside (it's probably not a joke though) you're trying to constantly find an answer to your problems and you seemingly always fail due to your repetitive nature. It really weighs on you and I'm sorry. I hope that you'll find someone that believes in you and helps you through your confusions."

You are most like Siffrin!

"The cracks in your persona are starting to show. You're trying so, so hard to hold on to what few memories you have left, but they slip right through your palms like water. You were almost as excited as Siffrin when you realized the powers looping held. You wished you could loop, too. You wished you could be hugged by your friends, too. You lived vicariously through them. You're trying to get better, you think, but wouldn't it be nice to be known and loved without having to beg someone to see you?"

You are most like Ballerina Gwen!

You are most like Jax!

You are a Big Sister Villager!

"You may come off as a little rude but in reality you actually care about your friends a lot. In projects, you're either the one who has to do all the work or make others do it for you, no in between."

You are a Total Loser!

Fictomeres and Relatable Characters

These are characters who I identify with or relate to! To be brief, if a character is my fictomere, than they are a part of my identity, similar to how someone might use a term like "bisexual" or "introvert" to name a part of their identity. Obviously it is a bit deeper and sometimes more spiritual-ish(?) then that, but that's still basically what I mean when I say "_ is my fictomere."

For a fictomere, I identify with every aspect of that character, and there is no part of them I would look at and go "well, that bit isn't me." (Other than, you know, I obviously haven't lived in the Octarian domes or fought a King trying to freeze a country in time.) Whereas for a character I just relate to, I might find one or two aspects of their personality or situation relatable, but not the rest of them. I also don't feel a strong tie to a relatable character in the same way that I do to a fictomere. Unlike fictomeres, a relatable character isn't a part of my identity - just someone I might compare myself to.

Fictomeres

Eight (Splatoon)

Eight is a character I've felt very closely tied to ever since my introduction to the Splatoon series (which was mostly Splatoon trailers on the Nintendo 3ds eShop). Looking at them feels more like looking at myself than actually looking at myself in the mirror does. They're the reason I go by "Eight," after all. Their story is all about rebirth and memory loss and self-definition. They come from a blank slate, literally climbing out of the dark to figure out who they are, still haunted by the ghosts of a life that they couldn't even remember that they used to lead. They built their own selfhood through what they survived, not what they were told to be. They lost their memories and could only view them through what was essentially a third-person perspective - they could read the memcakes, sure, but that's not the same as having those memories "back." And then, after they escaped the Deep Sea Metro, and thought they were finally, finally free, they were trapped in the false reality of the Spire of Order. Eight's story is my story, viewed through a different filter. Eight is a reflection of me, in a different shape and in a different world.

Siffrin (In Stars and Time)

Siffrin is a very special character to me, being the first character to make me realize I was fictofolk (and by extension, alterhuman). He's also the fictomere that I'm most of protective of, as they are very emotionally vulnerable with the player in the game, so only the people closest to me (queerplatonic partners, mostly) are allowed to call me "Siffrin" or "Sif." They feel like a direct parallel to me in so many ways - the way I think, the specific ways I might behave or feel in certain situations, the memory issues, those thoughts I don't speak to anyone but still echo around my head regardless. Like nothing else, Siffrin's story says, "I see you, and I'm going to hold up a mirror to you. Like nothing else, Siffrin's story knows the dark places I've been to, and says that it will get better, that I'm not alone, that I am loved and I am changing, even if it doesn't feel like it yet. Because eventually, it will.

Ena (ENA (series) and ENA Dream BBQ)

It's tough for me to explain why I relate to Ena so much, as she and her world is so often characterized by absurdity. I think what makes Ena stand out to me, though, is that she doesn't fit into that absurdity - she's seperate from it, existing in a very different sort of way. Ena has two selves which often flip-flop between a polite, formal, submissive & cooperative additude and an act of despair, assuming the negative intentions of both the people and the world and around her (the difference between them being that series Ena reacts to that despair with sorrow, while Dream BBQ Ena reacts to it with rage). Ena doesn't fit in, and it's not as simple as to say "you're just a little weird, but that's what makes you special :)" because to exist outside of the expectations of others is to not be caught in that universal rythym. Alone, alone, alone. So, in an attempt to conform to a world that seems unfathomable to her, she puts on a mask. A show. She feels as though she's forced to contend with an expected image that people want her to perform, while in reality, she finds it impossible to understand those expectations or why they'd be desirable in the first place. It should fix her, shouldn't it, wearing that mask? But the joy of the audience is not necessarily the joy of the performer, because acting is indeed an act. At the end of Power of Potluck, Ena confesses that she cannot understand to do so, she only ever ended up confused, upset, and indeed wearing a mask. Happiness is often sacrificed at the alter of conformity, and true self-love and acknowledgement is something that must be fought bitterly for.

Relatable Characters

Peter Lucas (The Magnus Archives)

Jonathan Sims (The Magnus Archives)

Jax (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Mae (Night In The Woods)

Katie Mitchell (The Mitchells vs The Machines)

Kris (Deltarune)

Zoey (KPop Demon Hunters)

Clouds

When I was a little kid, I spent a lot of time grounded, stuck in my bedroom. I used to stare out my window and look at the clouds and feel safe, at peace, home in a way I didn't really feel with my actual home. At the time, I called this feeling "normal" - the way I assumed other kids felt about their lives, the way I assumed I was supposed to feel if I, too, were capable of being normal, the way that I could only feel when looking at a cloudy sky.

Halfway through one of the worst periods of my life, I got curtains in my room, and I rarely went outside for more than a few seconds. I forgot about the clouds, and I forgot about the feeling of home, too. I only started noticing the clouds again recently. Not grounded, but not gone either. Not solid, but not nothing. Always moving and changing shape. Clouds don't have a fixed identity. They're named after patterns, not essence. Cirrus, cumulonimbus, stratus - labels for how they behave, not what they "are." Clouds are defined by everpresent motion and change, not by a static label. Changing, but not lost.

Clouds also do this thing where they hold a lot without looking heavy. They carry storms, electricity, rain, silence. From far away they seem almost decorative. They don't broadcast intensity, but it's always there, layered and compressed. Quiet, but not empty.

There's also this factor of distance. Clouds observe everything. They're a part of the world, but not entangled in it. Distant, but not absent. I tend to step back like that, too - observe first, analyze, then decide how (or if) I want to engage. I want a wide shot before I engage.

My mind always feels so -vast-, like my body's too small to contain it, and it felt right to think of myself as a cloud, and it was a good metaphor for a while until it was just... intrinsically tied to who I am. Maybe it was always tied to who I am, and I only now just recognized it. Either way, this is home.

Looking at pictures of clouds is never the same as looking at the real thing, but here are some of my favorite I've taken anyway: