the online persona and the virtual identity crisis

i have an internet persona.

popularly known as a "sona", it's a character that represents you online (or anywhere really but i'm gonna focus on my case)

i'm a goblin. or a half-goblin. or a video-game character made real. or a shapeshifter.

i guess never writing down my lore makes it a little conflicting. the retcon should come at some point.

for most people, that is who i am. i have a silly little character and when people see my name written on the screen that's the image they think about.

to contribute with it, i'm a streamer, a vtuber.

people get to see that thing moving when I do and speaking when I do and it was crafted to feel like me and represent myself.

but what happens when i look at my own screen and don't recognize what i see?

this character of mine is a lot older than any ideas of online existence or streaming. i created her somewhere around 2013 and she has been my most important companion, my most important self-insert vehicle, my escape valve.

she, however, didn't exist outside of my thoughts and personal files until i decided i needed a form for vtubing.

she was the obvious choice, a character i knew as well as one could and that had emotional significance for me.

becoming her didn't go as well as i planned. the lines bewteen character and person became blurry very fast and i couldn't form a story that didn't have too much of me.

it made sense back then but i outgrew the persona i put up.

picture this: a little magical creature that is green and lives in the middle of a forest, takes care of a garden and brews potions.

sounds like the dream but

who the heck am I kidding?

i live in the middle of this giant metropolitan area, to begin with. i'm more and more interested about the functioning of the internet and technologies in general, i scream for others to make a website because of the state of social media. i read terms of service for fun. i work with video editing and general graphic design stuff. i love computers. my biggest passion is movies and cinema.

i'm digital, i'm virtual and i sure as hell can't survive in the woods.

there's a giant discrepancy between the things people expect and imagine when they see me and who i really am and the things i talk about.

i don't want people to get the wrong impression, i want to feel represented by my sona.

i don't recognize what i see anymore

(and being so physically different from the small green creature doesn't help)

but what happens when i also don't recognize the thing in the mirror?

for the past years, being recognized as my online-self made me feel alive again.

people call me by my preferred name and see what i created for them to see. i felt real in this virtual realm in a way i didn't for a long time. i felt... happy? even?

as someone who is trans in some sort of way, my self and my body have always been extremely disconnected and my mind has existed as this etheral idea without a shape to define itself. i'm living in a house that does not belong to me.

then i've built this virtual home that patched most cracks in my spirit and it felt great.

i didn't have to overthink my flesh suit as much because i had always something to come back to, until that was also gone.

who would say imaginary structures would break if the one imagining them is also broken.

existing online has started to feel just like existing in the reality dimension, a façade. put the mask up and dance, keep creating your silly little show.

it's too late to change what i look like now, i made it my whole identity! if i change it, will I still be myself?

i... i don't even know what i would change myself to, how can i be something other than what i already am?

it's the exact same thought from my mirror, but this one comes from something i made the fuck up.

great. i've created a problem that didn't have to exist.

losing your identity twice feels weird.

at this point i'm wondering if i'm lost or if i just never made into the right path to begin with.

something something cosmic chicken.

my sona and myself are so tangled together now that i can't separate one from the other.

the thought of fragmenting myself into a different thing feels necessary. desperate. the only way to keep going.

no- the thought of becoming a single entity with myself. feels oddly satisfying and comforting, breeding an entire new (and yet the same old) thing.

(this is such a serious topic and somehow my brain wants to write selfcest. shush. for once.)

i need to feel real again.

despite the sad tone this entire text had so far, i gotta say that the reason why those thoughts exist are on the more bright side of things.

it's very recent that i have decided it's worth existing. therefore it is also worth figuring out who i am.

for most of my life i didn't feel the need to occupy more space than a ghost would and that is no longer true. i am so real and i have a personality worth caring for, a mind worthy of getting a proper house.

i want to look in the mirror and feel like i can work with this flesh prison. i want to look in the screen and feel as one with the shapes and colours staring back at me.

there's no need to play pretend. there's no need to hide who i am.

so i'm rebuilding my home. i'm seeking the sweet communion between my online existence and my flesh reality. (there's two wolves inside of me, they're both gay and making out right now, hopefully) and i'm ready to become myself.

that being said, parts of the thing you've known as "broto" for the past years might have to be sacrificed to the virtual altar. and i'm hoping those who know me today aren't so tied to this idea of me that they aren't able to accept the thing i was supposed to be and the thing i'm destined to become, even tho i don't know what that is just yet.

the lore shall be rewritten. the shape shall be shifted. and the broto shall remain growing.

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also it still feels weird to be posting this when my rambles never leave my journal but welp hi thanks for reading so far

i hope your day is nice, you deserve to love yourself