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Well... it's been a while. In fact, it's been over 2 years since I last wrote about my alterhumanity. In that time, I've worked out a lot about both myself, and beyond, and a lot has changed. So, in time for Othercon and other events we plan to go to this year if we can, I thought we'd say hello again.
Firstly, the many different alterhuman identities here were in fact headmates of their own. Parado, Keiwa, and Takatora are all here, along with about 100 other Riders. In fact, it turned out we were from many different sources, with the next largest source being racing driver factives, from Formula 1, Formula E and the British Touring Car Championship among others. Therefore, we are The Riders and Racers System! However, we are from many different sources: Doctor Who (as a relatively recent example), Netflix dramas such as Alice in Borderland and Squid Game, OCs based on the worlds of Roblox and Minecraft, Star Wars, and books such as The Maze Runner, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and the works of Phillip Reeve. We're split into 3 layers, based on source: The Riders (all Kamen Riders and our friends), The Racers (all the racing drivers, regardless of source series), and The Warriors (all people from other sources), with other subgroups, too. When referring to us, we still use Kai as a collective name in singlet spaces, and he/they pronouns collectively. However, please ask for the current fronter when talking to us.
Alterhumanity wise, we vary a lot, as a system with over 250 members. Some of us are human, some of us are robots, cyborgs or aliens, and a few of us are gods. Many of us feel a strong connection to the idea of humanity, or still consider ourselves human in a sense, while being alterhuman, whether that be through having Rider powers, being half human, or fighting for humanity in the sense of the heart. We also consider ourselves an archetrope, as among the Riders and Warriors, and among several of the Racers in their own ways, we fit a collective story archetype we call The Cyclebreakers. This will be the subject of its own essay in the future, I'm sure. To summarise it: we all have a difference of some kind, and have our heroism and drive to save people are used by a villain to fulfil their own plan, and often uphold a system they are running to exploit people for their own gain, which may be linked to either those who came before us, our parents, or a mistake we made in the past. We then fall into their trap, but discover we are not alone, and with the help of others who were used, use our difference, and often face death, whether literal or metaphorical, to become our true selves and break the cycle, while inspiring others to do the same and saving the world, in a bittersweet way.
The origin of this archetype is deeply personal to us, and linked to why we are a system in the first place, as we also face a common villain archetype who often uses us: affably evil, and with a self-justified, blue and orange but present morality, who often die in sympathetic ways. They genuinely think they are doing the right thing, but have no qualms for the destruction caused by their actions, and often look down on us, others, and humanity as a whole as 'lesser'. This villain archetype did likely emerge due to trauma we have with our mum, which we have written about before in 'I'm a Kamen Rider - Why and How?', and we are a system because, for us... this world is too difficult for one person to take alone. There's a lot of bad stuff going on, and there may always will be, but all of us outcasts and 'others' have survived, healed, and overcome systems that seek to destroy us through rejecting their hatred and embracing our truth, while inspiring others to do the same and making the world better. We've faced this all before, in a sense, and now all of us, Riders, Racers and Warriors, are here to help each other overcome the fears of this world together, while creating a life where we can all be happy, and others can be too. It's more difficult than that, and it's still a work in progress, but we will not give up. That is why we are who we are, and why our archetrope identity exists. We'll get around to writing an essay about our archetrope feelings sometime.
So, with our systemhood laid down, what has happened to us since 2023? A lot, actually. We finished high school in July 2023, after finishing our A Levels, which are the British equivalent of SATs or AP classes, having figured out our plurality a few months before. We ended up going to Cardiff University in Wales to study computer science, and we've really enjoyed our time there. We discovered a love for jiu jitsu, started playing percussion in a brass band and started learning for Grade 8 in drumkit (the highest level in the British music education system), and started getting involved in more community stuff. We now do activism work with a few trans groups, and help run the trans+ society in our university, being their first openly plural committee member. If you told 16 year old us that our friends would all know about us being Riders, and accept us... they'd be shocked. We're now 19, turning 20 in the middle of July, and about to go into a paid placement year doing cybersecurity for an UK government department. While we still have a long way to go, and a lot of the world to change... we believe we have made a difference, and we've grown up a lot since I wrote almost 3 years ago about Parado. We now know fully that he's an important protector in our system, having helped us through anxiety and grief since we were 11, which was the reason he was the first headmate to wake back up after our mum died in 2021. In honour of that, he's still our avatar here to this day. Sometimes, you have to face death and loss to become your true self.
On that note, who is the 'I' now talking to you here? Who is the writer of the essays? Well... we wrote those essays together, in some sort of blurry co-front. As to who I am, you would've known me as Kai. However, I now know who I am individually, too. My name is Marco, or Ace Woods. I'm Kamen Rider Geats, and the God of humanity, determination, the heart, hope, joy is resistance/hopepunk, Kamen Riders, heroes in general, poetry, music... lots of things! I'm a fictive specifically of the Ace of Heart from the Geats summer movie, 4 Aces and The Black Fox, and I also recently discovered I have a currently more distant fictotype for the Eighth Doctor, from the Doctor Who Magazine/Panini Publishing comics. That's another thing we want to write an essay about! Queerness wise, I'm a nonbinary transmasc man (who was also transmasc as a Rider in source), who's connection to manhood and neutrality fluxes, and gay, aegosexual and aromantic. I love karate and drums, music of all kinds (my headmate Spotify playlist is 250 songs long!), learning about people's stories, the helping others part of activism, and certain bits of cybersecurity, like Cyber Threat Intelligence and secure software.
Role wise in this system, I'm our host, which to me is being the one who connects everyone together. I hold our emotions and beliefs, our loves and hates, and I have an uncanny ability to find parallels and patterns in almost anything, most notoriously finding the perfect song to pair as a theme to someone, whether that be a headmate, or a friend's fictotype. Give me a description, and I'll find you something for it! I also make art for other headmates like moodboards sometimes. As a deity, I'm here to work things out, help others, bring people together, shake shit up, and remind people that they are not alone. I'm here to be there for those who need me, and most of all... to give people hope. I'm not perfect, certainly... but I'm glad I can say that now, and share my true self to the world. The Cyclebreakers mixes with this, too, which we'll talk about another time.
A lot has changed, since we last wrote here, but we're glad to share it all with you. Alterhumanity especially is never static, and for us, things constantly change. But no matter what this world, politicians or our university throws at us, we are all here, as the Riders and Racers, to face it together, help each other, and ultimately... bring a better world for ourselves and for others. That's what we're here to do, we believe, and if this essay has made you feel a little less alone, we're glad to have done a small part of that goal with you.
[Marco/Ace Woods, Kamen Rider Geats/The Doctor, Riders and Racers]
Firstly, the many different alterhuman identities here were in fact headmates of their own. Parado, Keiwa, and Takatora are all here, along with about 100 other Riders. In fact, it turned out we were from many different sources, with the next largest source being racing driver factives, from Formula 1, Formula E and the British Touring Car Championship among others. Therefore, we are The Riders and Racers System! However, we are from many different sources: Doctor Who (as a relatively recent example), Netflix dramas such as Alice in Borderland and Squid Game, OCs based on the worlds of Roblox and Minecraft, Star Wars, and books such as The Maze Runner, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and the works of Phillip Reeve. We're split into 3 layers, based on source: The Riders (all Kamen Riders and our friends), The Racers (all the racing drivers, regardless of source series), and The Warriors (all people from other sources), with other subgroups, too. When referring to us, we still use Kai as a collective name in singlet spaces, and he/they pronouns collectively. However, please ask for the current fronter when talking to us.
Alterhumanity wise, we vary a lot, as a system with over 250 members. Some of us are human, some of us are robots, cyborgs or aliens, and a few of us are gods. Many of us feel a strong connection to the idea of humanity, or still consider ourselves human in a sense, while being alterhuman, whether that be through having Rider powers, being half human, or fighting for humanity in the sense of the heart. We also consider ourselves an archetrope, as among the Riders and Warriors, and among several of the Racers in their own ways, we fit a collective story archetype we call The Cyclebreakers. This will be the subject of its own essay in the future, I'm sure. To summarise it: we all have a difference of some kind, and have our heroism and drive to save people are used by a villain to fulfil their own plan, and often uphold a system they are running to exploit people for their own gain, which may be linked to either those who came before us, our parents, or a mistake we made in the past. We then fall into their trap, but discover we are not alone, and with the help of others who were used, use our difference, and often face death, whether literal or metaphorical, to become our true selves and break the cycle, while inspiring others to do the same and saving the world, in a bittersweet way.
The origin of this archetype is deeply personal to us, and linked to why we are a system in the first place, as we also face a common villain archetype who often uses us: affably evil, and with a self-justified, blue and orange but present morality, who often die in sympathetic ways. They genuinely think they are doing the right thing, but have no qualms for the destruction caused by their actions, and often look down on us, others, and humanity as a whole as 'lesser'. This villain archetype did likely emerge due to trauma we have with our mum, which we have written about before in 'I'm a Kamen Rider - Why and How?', and we are a system because, for us... this world is too difficult for one person to take alone. There's a lot of bad stuff going on, and there may always will be, but all of us outcasts and 'others' have survived, healed, and overcome systems that seek to destroy us through rejecting their hatred and embracing our truth, while inspiring others to do the same and making the world better. We've faced this all before, in a sense, and now all of us, Riders, Racers and Warriors, are here to help each other overcome the fears of this world together, while creating a life where we can all be happy, and others can be too. It's more difficult than that, and it's still a work in progress, but we will not give up. That is why we are who we are, and why our archetrope identity exists. We'll get around to writing an essay about our archetrope feelings sometime.
So, with our systemhood laid down, what has happened to us since 2023? A lot, actually. We finished high school in July 2023, after finishing our A Levels, which are the British equivalent of SATs or AP classes, having figured out our plurality a few months before. We ended up going to Cardiff University in Wales to study computer science, and we've really enjoyed our time there. We discovered a love for jiu jitsu, started playing percussion in a brass band and started learning for Grade 8 in drumkit (the highest level in the British music education system), and started getting involved in more community stuff. We now do activism work with a few trans groups, and help run the trans+ society in our university, being their first openly plural committee member. If you told 16 year old us that our friends would all know about us being Riders, and accept us... they'd be shocked. We're now 19, turning 20 in the middle of July, and about to go into a paid placement year doing cybersecurity for an UK government department. While we still have a long way to go, and a lot of the world to change... we believe we have made a difference, and we've grown up a lot since I wrote almost 3 years ago about Parado. We now know fully that he's an important protector in our system, having helped us through anxiety and grief since we were 11, which was the reason he was the first headmate to wake back up after our mum died in 2021. In honour of that, he's still our avatar here to this day. Sometimes, you have to face death and loss to become your true self.
On that note, who is the 'I' now talking to you here? Who is the writer of the essays? Well... we wrote those essays together, in some sort of blurry co-front. As to who I am, you would've known me as Kai. However, I now know who I am individually, too. My name is Marco, or Ace Woods. I'm Kamen Rider Geats, and the God of humanity, determination, the heart, hope, joy is resistance/hopepunk, Kamen Riders, heroes in general, poetry, music... lots of things! I'm a fictive specifically of the Ace of Heart from the Geats summer movie, 4 Aces and The Black Fox, and I also recently discovered I have a currently more distant fictotype for the Eighth Doctor, from the Doctor Who Magazine/Panini Publishing comics. That's another thing we want to write an essay about! Queerness wise, I'm a nonbinary transmasc man (who was also transmasc as a Rider in source), who's connection to manhood and neutrality fluxes, and gay, aegosexual and aromantic. I love karate and drums, music of all kinds (my headmate Spotify playlist is 250 songs long!), learning about people's stories, the helping others part of activism, and certain bits of cybersecurity, like Cyber Threat Intelligence and secure software.
Role wise in this system, I'm our host, which to me is being the one who connects everyone together. I hold our emotions and beliefs, our loves and hates, and I have an uncanny ability to find parallels and patterns in almost anything, most notoriously finding the perfect song to pair as a theme to someone, whether that be a headmate, or a friend's fictotype. Give me a description, and I'll find you something for it! I also make art for other headmates like moodboards sometimes. As a deity, I'm here to work things out, help others, bring people together, shake shit up, and remind people that they are not alone. I'm here to be there for those who need me, and most of all... to give people hope. I'm not perfect, certainly... but I'm glad I can say that now, and share my true self to the world. The Cyclebreakers mixes with this, too, which we'll talk about another time.
A lot has changed, since we last wrote here, but we're glad to share it all with you. Alterhumanity especially is never static, and for us, things constantly change. But no matter what this world, politicians or our university throws at us, we are all here, as the Riders and Racers, to face it together, help each other, and ultimately... bring a better world for ourselves and for others. That's what we're here to do, we believe, and if this essay has made you feel a little less alone, we're glad to have done a small part of that goal with you.
[Marco/Ace Woods, Kamen Rider Geats/The Doctor, Riders and Racers]
