Basic idea = I don’t feel like a human, instead I feel like an x. Where x is usually a mythical or fantasical creature like a unicorn or pixie or phoenix or something.
I have an internet acquaintance who is otherkin, identifies herself as a firedrake, and we were talking about existential angst, and I was telling her that I often felt disassociated from humanity - like I was on the outside watching, or that everyone else had some sort of playbook that I didn’t get. I personally attribute this to being antisocial, a loner, and my own mental/emotional disturbances, but she latched on to it and claimed *me *as an otherkin also.
I informed her that I don’t actually believe that otherkin are other than human (she knows that from before and just says I’m insufficiently spiritual) and that in addition to that, I don’t have any sort of creature or being that I *do *identify with.
She claims that isn’t necessary. I was skeptical. She informs me that I’ve always been too skeptical, and that I’m too physical and “rational” for my kin to identify itself to me, and that if I embrace the movement and give it time, one will appear. I countered that I thought the whole point of otherkin was not that you didn’t think you were human, but that you *did *think that you were a whatever. We left at a (friendly) impasse.
What says the Dope?
bonus fun question: if you were to be required to be otherkin (if that’s not your cuppa, then say it is an initiation, or an infiltration of the group for a report or study) then what do you think you would claim to be? What would you cite as physical or mental or emotional “proof” of your kintype?
I have always wondered how gender dysmorphia would manifest itself in someone who has never been exposed to another gender or alternative gender roles.
I think your acquaintance and those like her have very eccentric views. I won’t pretend I’ve never thought about reincarnation or wondered if I am actually an alien working deep undercover. But actually being serious about it? I would worry about my sanity if I started actually believing everything that my imagination gins up.
Are there otherkins who claim to be non-biological inanimate objects? Because if I had to be something other than human, I’m gonna go with sandy clay.
While difficult to disagree with, this lacks nuance.
I don’t have any particular problem with people identifying as various critters; if it helps them cope with whatever it is they’re coping with, so be it. Maybe it makes them a bit weird, but hey, like Zaphod says, I get weirder things in my breakfast cereal.
Proselytizing about it? That, I have a problem with. We may all be ready for a rubber room one way or another, but it’s not necessarily the same room. It doesn’t strike me as odd for any fairly introspective person to sometimes have feelings of alienation. You rattle around inside your own skull for a while, and it generally becomes pretty clear that it’s a strange place, and it’s easy to forget that everyone else’s skull is just as strange, one way or another. That doesn’t mean it’s because the skull is shaped wrong, though, and pushing someone to decide that it is strikes me as obnoxious. Frankly, I would guess that anyone doing so is doing it out of desire for more like-minded company to reassure them, rather than for the benefit of the person they’re pressuring. (Of course, I tend to think that about pretty much all proselytization.)
As for what…totem, I suppose?..I’d pick. I think I’d go with a cat. It would at least give me an excuse for frequent naps and ignoring people I don’t like.
I sort of thought that went without saying. I do feel obligated to mention that she’s a very sweet and generally articulate nutjob. (ETA - or what Balance said. If it floats her boat, and doesn’t hurt anyone else, eh? Everyone’s nutty on some level.)
The question was more about what I always understood the party line to be - the importance of being a defined other, rather than the importance of NOT being human. It was interesting that she made that distinction so strongly.
I dunno about inanimate objects, but I like the concept. I think I would make a very nice mug of hot tea, for instance.
I guess I just write them all off as nutjobs and figure that the premise of their whole belief system is too crazy to try to come up with rules for. It’s like asking if you can believe that some of the presidents we’ve had are lizard people or if you have to believe all of them are.
One tries to think one’s openminded, tolerant, welcoming of diversity. Then these things come up to test us.
So a bunch of us are noticeably off from the “normal” curve (and we know it) . Doesn’t make us be anything else. Though if it were to be a matter of identifying as something else, why chose something that does not exist except in the humans’ imagination? Because a cat and a mug of hot tea, those I’ve seen and touched.
Besides, everyone knows those of us who do not quite fit with this world are actually Next Stage Indigo Evolutionary Mutants.
This one actually I’ve asked, and gotten a mostly logical answer for. (logical if you’re not fighting the hypothetical, that is)
Most common/popular answer: Humans HAVE those beliefs in mythological creatures because they used to exist, and now otherkin are the descendants of those beings, living in disguise so they won’t be killed/mutilated/used for their powers. (or variations on that theme)
Next answer: Many otherkin DO identify with regular mundane animals, but that gets them lumped in with the furries, and they really don’t like being identified with crazy people like that, so they emphasize the mythological ones instead.
She is right that you would be an otherkin if you believed you were something other than human but didn’t know what. She is wrong in that she is an otherkin herself and therefore mad as a hatter.
Is it like otherkin are literally not human? Cos if you aren’t human, you must be something, even if you don’t know what that is.
Or is it they they have a spiritual affinity for something not human. I don’t see how you can have an affinity for something without knowing what it is.
I tend to assume otherkin are the latter, because I can see how someone might feel that way. But maybe your friend thinks it’s the former.
Thank you for this thought, it’s very interesting and something I’ve never considered before. I have gender dysmorphia and am gearing up to go into surgery in two weeks’ time, and as a result I’m re-examining all my feelings and beliefs around it (in a good way, I have no doubts!), and this is quite a curious idea.
I always wonder when this sort of thing comes up do people really really believe it or are they just saying they really believe it. But then I suppose its just one end of the weirdness scale which we’re all on (personally I find grown men watching other grown men chase a leather ball up and down a field for 90 minutes to be pretty damn strange but thats socially acceptable behaviour).
I sometimes daydream what the world would be like if it wasn’t as mundane and everyday as it is (usually ideas and concepts taken from books I’ve read) and where I would fit into it, but it doesn’t go any further than ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’
As for your last question, hmmm…when I was young I used to think being a dragon would be kind of neat, now I think they’re just big scaly jerks, being a Kitsune might be fun, not human but you get to pretend that you are and mess with peoples heads (and be a great big jerk about it if you want), really the best of both worlds.
Actually had a fun online debate with a friend before Halloween, she thinks vampires are just the coolest thing ever whereas I’m very much of the Blade school of thought, that they’re blood-sucking parasites.
Great, now I’m even more paranoid, not that it wouldn’t explain a few things!
That made me laugh, though there are furries out there who insist that they really do have the soul/spirit/whatever of their chosen animal. But again I wonder if they really really believe that or just say they do.
But really are otherkin/extreme furries any more weird than those ‘Freeman on the Land’ people, the latter have a very thin grip on reality as well.
Is your friend new to identifying as otherkin?
Because I don’t know any serious long term otherkin or therian people who will decide for someone else that they are otherkin/therian.
Some people see themselves as just generic “canine/angel/whatever” instead of “red wolf/alien from this or that planet”, but someone who simply feels non human in some ways but who lacks the beginning of an identification with something else, wouldn’t be seen as otherkin/therian by the majority of them, no.
(Plus the otherkins/therians I know don’t think they are not human or that it’s a spiritual thing anyway.)
Using this “logic”, if I believe that Woodrow Wilson Smith and Modesty Blaise were my real parents, that is evidence that they existed. This type of “logic” is a hundred miles wide and a quarter inch deep.
My thoughts were somewhat similar reading the op, but not quite. Ignoring the fact that “otherkin” relies on some sense of what it feels like to be an imaginary creature, the parallel that occurred to me was that the op is asking something akin to if one can be transgender if one does not believe they feel like the other gender, just that they feel disconnected from what their extant gender is. And I would posit the answer is “no.” Lack of connection with what you are (in appearance) is not the same a positive connection to some other identity, minimally it is insufficient. Being transgender requires an identification with the other gender, it requires a belief that you know what the other feels like and that that is what you feel like. Maybe that sense of disconnect without connection to anything else would get lumped under “questioning”?
As to the game bit … not much different than “what real or imaginary creature would you be?” or “what would your guardian animal be?” that many of have played at some point of our lives.
I used to answer I’d be a dolphin but today I feel more octopodish. If it has to be mythical/fictional then centaur it is. Or maybe a sentient gas cloud that functions as part of some collective inteligence that it is not even aware of.
