Fictive, Fictokin, and Cloudkin

Fictive

I'm Siffrin! Simple as that! For a long time, I thought of Siffrin as my "strongest fictomere," but I've since come to realize that I'm actually an introject. I don't really have much to say about him, other than that that's me! I know who I am best when I know that I am Siffrin!

Fictokin

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 - the consequence of everything they had been through. 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.

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 this joy, and that in trying 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.

Cloudkin

"Drift aloft... in some effortless place..."

Ever since I was young, I have stared at the clouds. I've always found that they stir up this complicated feeling deep in my heart - a strange mixture of longing, solace, catharsis, awe. Home. When I was a kid, 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 I could only really feel when I stood underneath a cloudy sky.

On August 27th, 2025, I was sitting outside my school waiting for my parent to pick me up when I noticed the clouds again for the first time in a long, long time. And all of those feelings came rushing back to me. God, they're beautiful. Not grounded, not gone. Not solid, not nothing. Always moving, always changing shape. They don't have a fixed identity - cirrus, cumulonimbus, stratus - they're labeled for how they behave, not what they "are." Clouds are defined by everpresent motion and transformation. Changing, but not lost.

Clouds are also pressure systems. They hold so much, but they never look heavy. They carry storms, electricity, rain, hail. From far away they seem carefree, almost decorative. They don't broadcast intensity, but it's always there, layered and compressed. Quiet, but not empty.

They're so distant, too - observing everything. They're a part of the world, but not entangled in it. They're separate, but not so much so to not depend on the world, or for the world to not depend on them. Necessary, needed, wanted. Distant, but not absent.

My mind always feels so -vast-, like my body's just too small to contain it and everything I'm feeling, and it felt right to think of myself as a cloud, eternally drifting in the sky, in a constant process of dissolving and reforming. And it was a good metaphor for a while until eventually it was just... intrinsically tied to who I am. This is home.