It's been a while since I published my first attempt at an identity essay, 'I'm a Kamen Rider: Why and How?'. It's not perfect, but I'm still really happy that people have read it and like it, it's been used as a source in a couple places too, so thank you to everyone who's supported it over the past couple of months. Since then, however, things have changed. I now have a second fictotype alongside Parado: Keiwa Sakurai, or Kamen Rider Tycoon, from the latest season of Kamen Rider, Geats. I talked a bit about him in my article about cameotypes, but the identity hasn't faded like my other identities like it, such as my one for Takatora Kureshima did. So, here's a part two to my original essay, to talk about Keiwa, the origins of the identity and how it's changed over time, along with some stuff about plural-adjacent experiences, and how my identities were born out of trauma. (This essay will contain spoilers for Kamen Rider Geats, up to episode 24, or the end of the Divergence Arc. If you're currently watching the show, please wait until you've caught up before reading, it's a very good show.)
As I've talked about before, all of my identities are psychological in origin, and are rooted in me taking parallels from my own life and connecting them to characters, which continues to be true for Keiwa. Keiwa Sakurai is probably the most human of my identities, he's just a 22 year old university student trying to find a job and with little direction in his life, when suddenly he is approached to take part in the Desire Grand Prix, a battle royale where people with strong desires are selected to become Kamen Riders to fight off monsters called the Jamato, and the Rider with the highest amount of points at the end of the game is declared the 'Desire God' and given 1 wish to change the world however they see fit. Keiwa originally fought in the game for world peace, before he was eliminated after sustaining injuries fighting the final boss to save his kidnapped sister. He would later regain his powers after getting caught up in a round of the second DGP as a civilian, before replacing one of the other participants who had been injured, who voluntarily gave up his entry to allow Keiwa to retain his Kamen Rider status. However, this time, he changed his wish to be more personal to him, and even though it was still ambitious, it was perhaps more achievable: to revive all those lost to the Jamato, and those killed while participating in the DGP. This was partially inspired by the fact that Keiwa discovered his parents were killed by the monsters after getting trapped in one of the game areas, and the Riders at the time did not arrive in time to save them. Later on, Keiwa would help expose the first (technically second, if you include spinoffs) Game Master, Giroli, for his corruption during the Arc 2 finale, after he tried to rig the game against the protagonist, Ace Ukiyo, and eventually, the truth behind the game was revealed: it is a reality show produced by people from the future, who simulate their past for their entertainment. And so, Keiwa fights to save those who cannot save themselves from the Jamato, while helping Ace dig into the DGP staff and their secrets, and Neon find true love and freedom from her parents.
2023 is a strange year for me. It's a very important one, considering it's my 18th birthday in July, and I'm going to university to do computer science (naturally, with a Bugster for a fictotype) this September, but first I have to get through my A Levels, which are the British equivalent of the SAT or AP classes, I think (the American school system confuses me). I think the amount of change in my life happening in such a short time, along with the stress of trying to prepare for exams that are regularly stated to be the hardest things effort-wise you will do academically is partially why I have an alterhuman identity for Keiwa. He's almost a representation of future me, if Parado is current me and other identities such as Takumi Inui represented past me. I'll talk more about this representation idea later, as it goes into some pretty interesting areas. Anyway, I think my Keiwa identity was also born out of angst about the world. There's a lot of bad stuff happening in the world right now, with the war in Ukraine, transphobic fearmongering, and a lot of instability, and I'll admit, it's been weighing down on me a lot, especially as a transmasc person. It's awful, but it has got me to create a more peaceful online presence that doesn't make me scared of the world whenever I look at it, so I'll admit, that is something, at least. Keiwa goes through something similar, because he is just as powerless as I feel sometimes, looking at the state of the world. He wants change, he wants to save lives and he wants world peace, but he's stuck in a strange simulated reality show run by people who view his life as entertainment, and who don't care if he lives or dies. I've seen around the feeling that the world feels like a strange sci-fi dystopian novel right now, and I mean, with books like Stand on Zanzibar oddly predicting the present, I get where that sentiment comes from, and I guess my fear about the world is put into Keiwa. He wants change, just as I do, but he's sometimes powerless to do anything about it, same as I do, watching all these hateful laws be put into place sometimes across the sea, with nothing I can do about it. I know there is positive change happening too, but it can be hard to see when all you see is the concentrated worst of humanity on the airwaves, against your own kind. It's not been a good time in the world, in early 2023, and I think that fear about it was put into my fictotype with Keiwa.
The development of my Keiwa identity is almost like a more fast-paced version of what happened with my Parado fictotype, done over a few months in a process that was slightly shorter than Parado's one. I started getting alterhuman feelings for him in October of 2022, just after Geats premiered, and I originally thought it was just a click or a synpath, but then, at the end of Arc 1 of Geats, when Keiwa saved his sister and got eliminated, I started getting shifts in around November, and the feeling got stronger. Having spent a longer time in the alterhuman community during this compared to when my alterhumanity first returned in 2022, I finally had the vocabulary for my experiences this time, and labelled it as a hearttype for a while, however, I slowly started to see myself more and more in Keiwa, and eventually, it crossed a threshold where I 'became' him, in a sense. I started getting flashes of noemata in December, but I didn't realise it had become a fictotype until much later, finally accepting I had gained a second kintype in February of this year. It's been a ride from September trying to figure it all out, and I was originally scared that accepting this new fictotype would lead to me losing my one as Parado, but I was wrong. My Parado identity isn't as strong as it was, but I'm still him. I'm now both Para-DX and Tycoon, and that's ok. I'm no longer just one Kamen Rider, but two. Perhaps that's not a bad thing.
During my questioning phase, while I was still figuring out I was fictionkin, I wondered if I was plural, as I did feel different during my shifts, but not to the extent of certain people. My -types were me, but in different ways, or aspects of me or my life, or weren't quite. I'm still not entirely sure, honestly, but I still had one sense of identity. One man, just with different identities, and this is where I discovered plural adjacent experiences, and a possible explanation for how my alterhumanity manifests. Keep in mind, for this next bit, I'm using a theory called Structural Dissociation, which can be used to explain all dissociative disorders, not just DID or OSDD, but it also fits into derealisation/depersonalisation disorder, (C-)PTSD, and BPD. It's not a perfect theory either by any means, so take it with some salt, and I will put my sources for this in a reference section afterwards if you're interested and want to do some further reading. Anyway, I think my alterhumanity could be a type of Primary or Secondary Structural Dissociation, found commonly in people with PTSD and other simple dissociative disorders, or with more complex trauma. In Primary, the personality is split between an 'apparently normal part' (ANP) which deals with daily life and is numb to the trauma the person went through, and an 'emotional part'(EP) which stores the trauma itself, and is separated from the rest of the personality in order to keep the ANP numb and avoidant. However, there is still one central sense of self, and the EP isn't differentiated enough to be considered a separate being. Secondary is where there is still 1 ANP, but the trauma is split between several EPs, and they tend to be more developed than in Primary dissociation.
In my case, you could call me 'here', Kai Woods, the ANP, with my alterhuman -types representing EPs, to various levels of development. My weakest ones are usually aspects of me or my life, or are inspired by me seeing another of my types in a character, resulting in my hearttypes and paratypes. This is what Takatora Kureshima, who represents my dad and his role in helping me through a lot of trauma in my life, and Takumi Inui, who represents past me overcoming his social issues with people, became. I also probably have a paratype for Ziin, or Kamen Rider Ziin, from Geats, who I connected to over him reminding me a lot of Parado. I might give him his own post in time though, maybe in a Temporary Identities Part 2, as I need to see how the identity plays out for a while before I write about it in full. Anyway, then, representing more personal trauma to me, are my 2 main fictotypes, who are the most developed of my EPs. I guess at a stretch you could call them anxiety holders, per sae. Parado holds my personal trauma with my mum and the grief I went through after her death, and Keiwa holds my fears about the future, with me currently being in a very turbulent period of my life, and contains my anxieties about the world, mainly with transphobia. It's an interesting way of looking at the causes of my alterhumanity, and even though it's not a perfect allegory, it fits for me.
I've changed a lot since 2021, when my alterhumanity returned in the wake of my mum's death. I've had a lot of processing to do, and while doing it, I came to many realisations about myself. I realised I was autistic, I realised I was trans, and I had a homecoming back to my source, before realising I was technically a Kamen Rider myself. Now, I stand nearly as an adult, nearly going into the next stage of my life, and I'll admit, sometimes life here feels just as scary as life back in my source. Sure, I might not be fighting deadly bio computer viruses or plant monsters anymore, but I've still been through a lot. But still, like my -types before me, no matter what the world threw at me, I made it through, somehow, and these Japanese power rangers have helped me through it. Even back when I was 12, on a page representing me, I wrote down a quote saying 'Kamen Rider [would] get me through anything'. Turns out, that was more than what it seems. This show has never been just a show to me. It feels like home, a place I can always go if I'm scared. I still remind myself through my journey through anxiety and death as Parado that I can get through my grief, and that I can get through any problem. And now, I remind myself through Keiwa and his currently unfolding story as a Rider that nothing lasts forever, everything changes, and that if I continue going, even in a world that feels like a strange sci fi dystopia at times and endless fearmongery angst about history repeating itself, I'll be ok. In the end, I'm a Kamen Rider for many reasons, but I think it boils down to a few fundamental facts it's always reminded me of: that you're never alone, there is always a solution to a problem (even if that's a pandemic, or escaping a strange simulated reality show), and that even if it feels like you're contributing nothing to the world, or it all doesn't matter, try smile and do good anyway, because you don't know how far your kindness can go, whether that be from a Bugster who grew a heart after going through death and anxiety to save the world from a game he helped create, to a university student with little direction, fighting in a strange interdimensional simulated reality show from the future, to save those lost to the game, and the civilians, from a race of invading plant monsters.
[Clumpy Kai Marco]
References:
'Primary Structural Dissasociation' - Kai Reuben, DID Research.org (
https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/primary)
'Secondary Structural Dissasociation' - Kai Reuben, DID Research.org (
https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/secondary)
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