Candylic is a gender identity that describes someone whose gender identity fluctuates in a specific way: it starts at a "base" gender(s), which can be any genders in any kind of gender identity, but from that base identity it feels like it burns out. Because it's considered as fluctuating in intensity, candylic is an identity under the genderflux umbrella. Candylic people feel that the "burning out" of their gender is related to the concept of candles burning out or getting dimmer. Candylic people might experience this "burnout" process any amount of times over the course of their lives, and it may or may not happen at a different pace each time depending on the person.
Candylic is different than terms like erasgender because they link the loss of gender to trauma or as a different concept, but candylic people feel specifically that their gender starts as intense and burns out. Candylic is not a xenogender related to candles, and should not be confused with any xenogenders related to light or candles. The term for a xenogender related to candles is ljusgender. An important thing to note about candylic people is that they do not have to burn out into an agender, genderless, gendervoid, or genderfree identity, though they can. Candylic people may experience their "burnout" in various ways-
- They start as completely one gender and burn out into a lesser intense version of that gender each time (for example, a candylic girl might burn out from a full girl to a libragirl each time they burn out)
- They start out as partially one gender and burn out to an even less intense form of that demigender (for example, a candylic demiboy might burn out from demiboy to libraboy)
- They burn out from multiple genders, either simultaneously, separately, or randomly (for example, someone who is candylic and who burns out from girl and non-binary)
- They burn out to different levels of intensity each time, but they still feel a consistent pattern of their gender burning out (for example, a candylic demigirl who sometimes burns out to libragirl, sometimes agender, and sometimes gendervoid)
- They burn out from one gender identity to a lesser intense gender identity, and when their gender "comes back", it may be a different gender, from which they again burn out.
Essentially, someone who experiences gender burnout once or more in their lifetimes, and especially those who feel they consistently experience burnout, can identify with candylic, and that covers a wide potential range of burnout experiences. Gender burnout feels like one's gender is slowly burning away over any amount of time, but that doesn't mean that candylic people experience an actual burning feeling during their burnout process, but instead a conceptual experience of "burning out".
Variant Identities
Variant terms on candylic to describe varying experiences with gender burnout are demicandylic, fluxicandylic, candylifluid, and candylifluix. Any of those terms can be added to individual genders to describe an individual's experience (for example, a demicandylic juxera person or a candylifluix demiboy).
Demicandylic
People who are demicandylic will experience burnout in part of their gender identity, but not all of it, so one might feel that they're always a demiboy and the other part of their gender identity consistently burns out from non-binary to gendervoid.
Fluxicandylic
Fluxicandylic describes any candylic person who either
- Has a base gender that fluctuates in intensity; or
- Burns out to fluctuating intensities of their gender every time; or
- Both of those 2 things.
Candylifluid
Candylifluid people experience genderfluidity in their base genders, so one who is candylifluid may burn out from maxigirl to gendervoid, and when their gender "returns", or "burns back" it is a different gender than before.
Candylifluix
Candylifluix is a label for candylic people whose experiences are both candylifluid and fluxicandylic at the same time.
History
The term candylic was coined by FANDOM user Rainbowraven96 (now Reign of the queerios) on February 6, 2021, and its variant terms were coined by the same user 2 days later. The word combines two words: candle and idyllic, because gender burnout can be experienced as actually quite a peaceful and natural process despite its name.
Flag
The candylic pride flag was designed by Rainbowraven96 (now Reign of the queerios) on February 8, 2021. The fluctuation from red through orange, yellow, blue, and then black hues represents the peaceful and natural burnout of one's gender identity from high intensity to low or no intensity (the blue and black), and the candle represents the concept of gender burnout and how it feels to candylic individuals.
Notes
Three terms coined by snowymogai on Tumblr may be confused with candylic- gendercandle, genderwax, and genderwick, all of which describe a gender "melting away", but candylic is a much more inclusive term for variant experiences because gendercandle describes when someone's gender is different every time it comes back, whereas candylic just describes any person who experiences repeated gender burnout, whether their gender is fluid or not, and it also includes more flux and fluid identities, so candylic and gendercandle (aka genderwick or genderwax) may seem like the same term, but candylic is a more inclusive term.