Callum:

it's been three years to the day since i realized i was Galvatron, so i wanted to talk about how i've changed and what i've learned.

fictive or fictionkin?

i'm the host of a system, and it's been a trial figuring out what i am in that context. i recently concluded that i'm the result of two headmates integrating in the year 2019; i both am and am not the old host, the headmate with whom he integrated, and someone completely unexpected all at the same time. i think it makes a lot of sense i would latch onto Galvatron, for that reason.

last night i was thinking about it and decided that the distinction between fictive and fictionkin doesn't matter to me. i still ID as fictionkin if pressed, but i think at this point i would also be included under the fictive label if i wanted to be. i resisted it because i was cagey about saying our system was hosted by two Galvatron fictives, and saying i was fictionkin was somehow enough distance for me to be ok with who i was. but, like, my brain went on to split four more Galvatron fictives, so what's that stubborn prideful self-consciousness even worth at this point?

but it doesn't matter to me anymore, because i decided being is the important part.

shifts

i used to have a lot of body shifts. i still do, but i only really feel the attachment port for my cannon--it's a spot on my right forearm that feels odd. i used to also feel my iron sight (that thing on my back) and like i was covered in armor. those don't happen as much, and i think it's because i've become so comfortable with who i am. i don't have moments where i feel like a human and moments where i feel like a Transformer, separately, as their own things--i feel like both at the same time, always.

i still have mental type shifts. sometimes i feel like i should be able to drink gasoline (i never would!) and want dark chocolate (as Galvatron, i liked dark chocolate for the higher iron content--iron tasted sweet to us, so it was sweeter than other chocolates) but this isn't present all the time. other things that make me "think more" like Galvatron include looking at the moon, because our moon looks sort of like Chaar, and any time i'm allowed to be physical and destructive, like tearing up cardboard or something. writing things like this also put me in that mindset.

memories

my rate of memory discovery has also slowed down a lot. i still get them every now and again, but i'm worse at recording them and i think i've already remembered all the really big, really important stuff, so it's mostly random bits that come up now. a rundown on some of that big stuff, in roughly chronological order:

-i had a baby named Riot. if you've read the Marvel comics, you might be familiar with budding. if you haven't, budding is a kind of asexual reproduction Transformers can do. Riot was everything to me, i learned how to be a better person for him and i would have fought planets for him. every time i listen to Moonbeam by Lord Huron i think of him.

-after the Hate Plague and Optimus's return, he and i became allies. i felt indebted to him for saving my son, who was only a toddler when the Plague happened. i remember asking Optimus to stay a bit after he cured everybody, and leading him to the ruins of our city where i introduced him to Riot. i think that's when he began to realize i wasn't Megatron, and he would talk to me afterward, sometimes about Megatron, sometimes about our worlds and how to move forward as a more unified people.

-i wasn't Cybertronian. i thought i was, at first, but due to a certain incident it was discovered that a lot of my codebase was Lithone in origin. the majority of my code was Cybertronian, since i was made from a Cybertronian body, but so much of me was Lithone, Straxxian, and Unicronian that, after learning this, i no longer identified as Cybertronian. it was a big blow to me emotionally. my whole life i had sought a sense of belonging; i believed i was entitled to Cybertron, not only because of being Megatron's successor but because it was my rightful home. learning this made me think that i had no home. i was depressed and angry for a while (when am i not angry?) but eventually decided if i didn't have a home, i would make a home--i started calling myself Galvatron of Chaar.

-Cyclonus had a child as well, named Furor. i loved her and she and Riot were good friends. she hated everything, but Cyclonus could calm her down usually.

-the Quintessons attacked and destroyed everything we had built on Chaar. we evacuated to Cybertron, but i didn't stay there, because i wanted revenge. i ended up getting captured and executed! oops!

i should note here that i'm not strictly spiritual in a "past life, souls, etc." sense. i say i'm psychological, but that doesn't always feel like it encompasses my experiences either. a friend of mine once told me to think of it not as a supernatural phenomenon, but an unexplained scientific phenomenon, and that helps. i guess under that definition, i wouldn't literally be Galvatron, in the sense that i have a soul that has reincarnated. sometimes when i want to think about it that way, i think of it as this: there was a person named Galvatron who lived in a different reality than me, and when he died he stopped existing, just as we all stop existing when we die. his memories and feelings left an impact on the universe, an impact that reached me. i'm not literally Galvatron's soul reincarnated into a human body, but merely the caretaker of his memories, feelings, and who he used to be--a gravekeeper of sorts. but i don't know, i don't think about this very often either.

closing notes

awakening to my identity was hugely important for me, and it keeps being important to me as i grow older and wiser. i've met a lot of great people thanks to this community, and i would have never had that opportunity if i didn't open my mind to fictionkinity. i used to be anti-fictionkin, years ago when i (or the old host, i guess) had just awakened to being a therian. nowadays, i'm not sure how much of my therian self survived the integration. the process of integration can really screw with your sense of self, and while i still have some feelings, i'm not sure if i'm actually still a therian. it's weird and hard to explain.

since systems tend to be fluid and shifting, since the nature of people is that we live and die and change, i can't say that this won't someday happen with my Transformer identity. if i integrate with somebody else, either by choice or just because, i don't know what exactly will happen to the memories and feelings to which i'm so attached. i can't imagine not being Galvatron, but if it does happen, i'll keep on living, as myself-and-not-myself. and surely, one day i'll die, and won't be anything anymore.

but for right now, i am Galvatron, and Galvatron can be whatever he wants!