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We’ve been researching the origin of the term “fictional other” for several days.
By looking at blogs that were active in the self ship community at the time, we have determined that the term “fictional other / f/o” started being heavily used by the self ship community in the summer of 2017, specifically between June and August. During that time there is a transition in posts from “imagine your fave” to “imagine your F/O”.
After sharing that information, a friend sent us a link to a blog that mentioned the term “fictional other” all the way back in 2015, years before it seems to have gained use in the self ship community.
That link was to one of our own blogs, which was, to say the least, extremely surprising.
Specifically, the link was to our fictionkin advice and discourse blog @fromfiction
Here’s the context.
From the context, some things are clear.
First, this is obviously the first time that Toko (😼🔪) who ran the blog at the time, had ever heard the term “Fictional Other” as he didn’t seem to know what to make of it or how to contextualize it.
Second of all, the asker refers to “fictional other” as a coping mechanism, and within the same breath as “copingkin”, so it very possible that “fictional other” actually started in the alterhuman community.
So that’s fascinating!
If anyone in the alterhuman community back in 2015 era has any more information on this, or remembers or has links to relevant info and who might have coined the term, please let us know!
Discussion ¬