The Real and Fictional Realms



The Real and Fictional Realms:

Initially, there is no division or distinction of any sort drawn between things that are “real” and things that are “fictional.” The divide between the fictional and real comes about some time later on, as people want literal and physical escape from their own lives—and often, their own bodies—but at the same time do not want to die. A popular solution, or form of this is to become one of their creations; to become a character from a story, without the divide between the real and fictional. Keep in mind that at this point, the character is not perceived as fictional, and co-exists in the same realm as their creator and audience.

However, not all wish to become one of their story characters; they simply want to leave the world they know, or the world around them in as complete a manner as possible without dying.

The divide eventually develops as an avenue of providing people a literal escape from their own lives and bodies in all its possible forms, in order to fulfill people's desire for such a thing. In a completely new realm apart from reality, they can leave their old lives behind in total. Prior to the divide, characters, settings, and ideas from stories were thought into existence in the physical space surrounding their authors/creators, as concrete and tangible entities in the real world.

In addition, the divide between the real and fictional becomes anthropomorphized as people become aware of its existence, or come to differentiate between fiction and reality

Going back to the very beginning for a moment—when storytelling was first developed, there was no divide between the real and the fictional. And as it turns out, one culture today still lacks a division between the real and fictional realms and in addition also remember their entire history and thus know of the origin of all storytelling. This culture that continues to lack a divide between the real and the fictional is the Channelers of Liminality.

One reason they remember has something to do with the nature of their language, in that words and sentences are brought into fruition by thinking them into being to exist in as physical, tangible entities that others can experience just as vividly as the originators had thought them into being. This is a far more permanent method of communication than simple verbal speech, and since the default mode of communication is so permanent, there is no need for a separate written language.

The other, more important reason that the Channelers of Liminality are the remnants from the previous time when it was the norm to not separate between “reality” and “fiction,” as they are the ones that communicate directly with the fictional characters and between the realms in the modern day. In order to ensure maximal communication between the realms (between channelers and fictional characters, regarding fictional and real-life matters), the amount of real-fiction division or separateness would need to be as minimal as possible.

The modern-day Channelers of Liminality are the last vestiges of the lack of separation and mythopoeic worldview in general. The reason the Channelers of Liminality sprung up so easily out of nowhere in the dawn of humanity and storytelling is because mythopoeic thought and lack of division between “real” and “fiction” was so widespread then, and it was therefore much easier and the “natural” thing to do to form the Channelers of Liminality in every inhabited region without any of the people having contacted or consulted one another beforehand. The lack of separation between the allows them to communicate between the fictional and real, find people who want to escape reality and send to the fictional realm, through separation of the mind operating for normal, everyday tasks and that used specifically for channeling purposes.

Both the Channelers of Liminality and fictional world are mythopoeic in worldview, completely separate from the modal/default current real-life worldview: concrete and personifying, as opposed to abstract and impersonal. For Channelers of Liminality and fictional world, everything in existence is a 'they,' not an 'it' as people in the modern-day real world would see. An individual, sapient entity with a distinct personality of their own, not an inanimate object just like any other and devoid of any character of its own. Every event that occurs in the world is an act of will, not coincidence. Weather events choose to happen; rain chooses to fall, the drops throwing themselves onto the ground. Weather (or anything else, for that matter) never “just happens,” impersonally. There is always an element of choice or free will behind events, on the part of the non-humans. Even internal thoughts are considered separate, embodied beings acting on their own accord. It is not the person themselves imagining or thinking, with the thoughts and thinking process considered an abstract part of them. The thoughts and ideas are physical embodiments with their own personalities different from that of the person who created them. A person doesn't simply think, but is directed by the physical embodiment of thought to do so in order to get things done.

The mythopoeic worldview is carried out into the way that creating something makes it existent, alive, moving and sapient; to come up with an idea in the real world is to bring it to life in the fictional realm and from there anthropomorphize it (just like how the very act of creating the first story brought the fictional world into existence from out of the depths of human imagination). However, no one in the real world says anything to indicate this, or even just the opposite (some things have existed regardless and are not “made to exist,” there's no such thing, and some things are simply nonexistent, period, no matter what)--whereas in actuality, those “nonexistent” things need only have stories about or mentioning them to gain life and/or sapience in the world of fiction. That is, the non-real and fictional is just as actual and existent as the real world and reality; it is simply separate. The thing is, no one (aside from channelers, in private) says anything of the sort, for the sake of maintaining an appearance of normalcy. Sure, for the Channelers of Liminality, there's the need to prevent garnering suspicion by maintaining a “normal” cover, but the general real-life public disregards the notion of the fictional being existent (albeit separate from the world they know and live in) for the sake of looking normal, or socially functional. Anything else and almost no one will take them seriously.