so, if i were to say, be sort of working on an otherkin document, would a mix of crazy therian forums that have more of the crazy person trying to be noble animal flavor and batshit tumblr user style stuff be good? or should I stick to one or the other?
YetAnotherAmber, March 20, 2016, 11:47:46 am
Personally speaking as the one who will likely laugh/rage the most at an otherkin episode*, here's what I'd love to see, though I suspect it'll be kind of hard to find:
Otherkin started off as having incredibly elaborate, over-the-top backstories. At the time, the idea was "I'm a dragon!... okay so I
know what you're thinking, since I don't look like one, but let me explain!" Often this included a huge, exciting story about what happened in their past lives. In the case of fictional species, it would also include describing the world they were "from" and it always came off as a cornball fantasy novel. Then something-something-something, they'd die, something-something-something-else, they'd get reincarnated in their current form for whatever reason. Sometimes they knew why, sometimes they didn't. But now they're stuck as a human and it is hard adjusting to this crazy human world, you guys! Some of them would be super pissed at being "confined" in this way, while others would straight-up pretend to be fascinated by our weird alien culture as if they didn't grow up in it with the rest of us. A great example of the latter would be the webcomic Theri There, which cheerfully described how gosh darn WaCkY it was trying to live as a non-human in our human world. Some examples include
dealing with phantom wings and tails,
pointing with their phantom wings, and
using "mental shifts" to somehow affect real-world physics. Oh yeah, "mental shifting" is totally a thing. Since physically shifting is impossible, then might as well mentally turn into a monster, right? I love all that crap, because the idea of going out of your way to make your own home planet seem exotic and unfamiliar is just great. Other fun things include struggling to live in a world without magic vs. the otherkin who say they totally
do practice magic but humans can't see it, frequent visits to the astral plane, and communicating with otherworldly beings. That stuff is all beautiful.
I loooove the backstories of the old days too, but I really don't know if any of them still post any. The new trend is to just go the route of the multiples community and say "I'm a dragon! Nope! That's it! That's all you get! I'm
literally a dragon!!!" Sadly the current community just pulls annoying stuff like saying "I have a mental illness and I say I'm a dragon so if you say I'm not, then you hate mentally ill people!" or "this is a coping mechanism so if you say I'm not a dragon, then you hate abused people!" and so on. That's not funny so much as it is aggravating, and to me, at this point you could substitute any other group for "otherkin" in those arguments and you'd get 99% of the irritating, whiny teen bloggers you see today. This dilutes the subject matter, in my opinion. I'd recommend going for more specific subjects like Kin Food and Malatora, rather than Stupid Tumblr Identity Politics Post #40289271. If you can find a backstory worth reading to with all that, I will hug you forever.
Oh sorry, did I type too much? Musta been my kintype acting up again! You know how we energy vampire dot-eyed dragons get ^_^;;;
* imagine me with a dragon hat, a pennant that says "OTHERKIN" on it, and a big foam finger that looks like a falcon's foot 