I'm temporarily entertaining the possibility that I'm wrong to dismiss people who identify as fairies or rocks or whatever and found this article interesting: http://gawker.com/5940947/from-otherkin-to-transethnicity-your-field-guide-to-the-weird-world-of-tumblr-identity-politics
QuoteLike a lot of teenagers and 20-somethings, "Eric Draven" used to keep a Tumblr. The microblogging platform has a strong community aspect, and it's easy to find people who like the same things — or are undergoing the same struggles — as you. There aren't many people undergoing the exact same struggles as Draven (a pseudonym taken from goth classic The Crow), though: unlike most teenagers and 20-somethings, Draven isn't, he claims, human. He might present as human, yes, but really he's a "fictive and otherkin who, in previous lives, has been a Deku Scrub and a dark elf." He's also "transethnic(Japanese) and andrognous [sic]."
What does this mean? An otherkin is a being born into the wrong body. Not just with the wrong parts, but as the wrong species: people who identify as otherkin believe that they are a wolves, or elves, or really any kind of being, born into a human body. (Furries, who focus on anthropomorphic animals and are known for dressing up, aren't the same thing as otherkin, many of whom don't dress up or change their appearances at all.) A fictive is like an otherkin where the true, internal identity is a fictional character — deku scrubs are tiny creatures from The Legend of Zelda series of video games. Transethnicity is this same phenomenon applied to ethnicity.
Draven, in other words, is a Japanese wood creature from The Legend of Zelda who was born into the body of a regular white kid.
The community of people who identify as otherkin is more than 30 years old (the term itself dates to 1990), but over the last decade or so, it's undergone an interesting shift, one that's put it in the spotlight and made it one of the most controversial communities on a number of online social networks — not just Tumblr, but Live Journal and the message board TV Tropes. Where the first generation of otherkin, birthed in the post-60s hippies-read-Lord of the Rings rise of nerd-dom (not coincidentally, the same psychic space that birthed phone phreaking and, in turn, computer hacking), seemed to align along the crystal-healing-Elfquest-comics axis of outsider subcultures — less about a biological or psychological identification than a kind of mystical or poetic connection — this new set of otherkin (or those claiming to be otherkin) has grafted the academic language of identity politics and social justice activism onto their experiences. In doing so, they've transformed what Nick Mamatas' 2001 Village Voice story, "Elven Like Me," saw as a kind of new-age Burning Man-style subculture into a semi-politicized identity group. (For more on the early history of otherkin here's a fascinating, extensively documented and footnoted "Otherkin Timeline".)
Being otherkin, to this group, isn't just about resisting technology or being in touch with nature (though these, and other fantasy and new age elements, still form a large part of otherkin culture) — it's about being marginalized, ignored, laughed at, and oppressed. It's like being transgender. And as this otherkin group has transformed its language and its focus, so too has its scope widened. Otherkin identities can encompass fictional characters. Or nonliving, inanimate objects. Or even multiple identities — some fictional, some animal, all of them occupying a single body. Out of this widening comes new words: cisspecies. Transethnicity. Transablism. Transfat.
The Best of Tumblr.TXT
"trans privilege is having sex reassignment surgery be a real thing, while nowhere offers 'species reassignment surgery' for otherkin" — 7/21/12
"You know what? The fact that I identify as a member of an alien species from a webcomic is the least of my problems" — 7/13/12
"this kind of gets my goat(sorry goatkin)" — 8/15/12
"if somebody does genuinely identify as a pizza, then yes, that identity is valid" — 7/4/12
"My parents don't understand that I'm not always in control of my body. A toddler and a flying dog CANNOT do work intended for an adult human" — 7/27/12
"when privileged folks feel the need to talk about their offline and local friends, there is a problem. that's bigoted against cyberculture" — 7/8/12
"[re: otherkin oppression] i would most certainly be denied a job in most if not all places, especially if i meowed" — 7/28/12
"When you limit us to only 250 posts/day you will find that you have gone too far in your autocratic methods of controlling your bloggers" — 8/10/12
Tumblr, which has a huge, passionate social justice community — thousands of people interested in feminism, gay rights, trans rights and other interrelated issues — is a natural fit for this group of otherkin. (Other, similar communities exist on LiveJournal and the TV Tropes message boards.) Like other Tumblr users who are members of marginalized groups, otherkin start their own blogs and write about their identities and the axieties and injustices of daily life (one says she was fired for being otherkin, others talk about coming out to their friends and family). They trade support and sympathy. And they fight with people who don't buy it — more often than not, people who they think should be broadly sympathetic to their goals.
"If you follow any blogs that have anything to do with leftism, feminism, etc., there's probably someone that's going to reblog someone else that feels the need to pay lip service to people who identify as inanimate objects," the guy behind Tumblr.TXT, a Twitter account dedicated to reproducing some of the site's most outlandish claims, told me over email. (He asked not to be identified by name: "I'm mocking people who belong in insane asylums and don't want to end up being tortured in a basement by people in fox costumes.")
As anyone who spent time at a liberal-arts college knows, communities oriented around openness and acceptance can have trouble figuring out exactly where the boundaries are. "The relationship between legitimate social justice activists and delusional weirdos is ever-changing and gives fascinating insights into how activist communities work," Tumblr.TXT says. There's a sharp division between the activists who believe their ethical and ideological commitments require them to accept to be open to any professed identity — and those who think that in the absence of structural oppression, cisgendered white people claiming to be gay Korean cats aren't just playing fantasy games but also undermining the strength of the movement by taking it to a bizarre conclusion.
It's an interesting argument. (For the record, I admire the balls it takes to claim that distinctions between species, or between fiction and non-, are socially-constructed in the same way gender is.) But it's also kind of a moot point. A search of the "otherkin" or "transethnicity" tags on Tumblr reveals a lot more social justice bloggers complaining about otherkin than actual otherkin. The Tumblr otherkin subculture is pretty small, and seems to be made up mostly of teenagers and 20-somethings who, if they'd never read bell hooks, would be casting spells in the woods behind the 7-11. Some of them are clearly sick or hurt in other ways: Kavita, whose legendarily long list of identity categories listed her as "human privileged for all of the following: nonhuman, non/human, otherkin, furry, cat, catkin, catperson, catbeing, cathuman, humancat, cat, ostricat, catostrich," deleted her Tumblr earlier this week and wrote "I'm not really okay, but I'm trying to get help and figure things out and be better."
And then there are the trolls. "I've seen people identifying as tubes of toothpaste or as Eva Braun, but you never know if you're looking at an elaborate troll," says Tumblr.TXT. "Tumblr user prince-koyangi, a 16-year-old Canadian white girl who identified as a Korean cat, turned out to be a troll account co-run by three people. They had me convinced it was a real person and a lot of transethnic otherkin pledged their support as the character got bombarded with anonymous messages accusing her of being a delusional racist. There really is no limit to what people are willing to accept as a valid identity and that makes it hard to determine which accounts are real."
"Eric Draven," I'm pretty sure, is real; he has a long, uniquely weird history across several different sites, and has posted pictures of himself. He's one of the Tumblr's (and TV Tropes') most notorious otherkin, and a figure of controversy even within the unbelievably tolerant otherkin community. (His entry on AnOtherWiki, the otherkin wiki, writes that he "has attracted significant negative attention to the community.") Draven claimed to be a pedophile (but said he'd never act on his attraction to young girls "unless I was warped to some anime world where lolis [Lolitas] totally had sex all the time or something"), for a while insisted that he'd fought in the Sino-Japanese war as a kobold (a kind of goblin), and apparently told people that a classmate, Stephanie, was the reincarnation of a "willing slave" he'd taken in a past life.
When I first came across Draven a few months ago, I emailed him several times in the hopes he'd answer some questions. He never responded. (Neither did many of the otherkin I asked to interview.) Last month, he took down his blog; what's left of it is mostly text snippets scattered across Tumblr in the posts of people yelling at him for being an antisocial or stupid or misogynist. Which he was. But like a lot of Tumblr users, he's also young, and silly, and stupid. When you feel like your identity, or your life projects, are under attack, it's easy lash out disproportionately. But Draven mostly just seemed like a weird kid. "I no longer believe I am a kobold or time elemental. Rather, I think I am a fictive who's lived multiple lives, and certain things from those lives were in my subconscious and gave me the ideas I previously had," he wrote in July. "I feel so silly. I am not yet entirely sure..."
A Field Guide to Otherkin on Tumblr
Otherkin
Definition: An otherkin is someone born into the wrong body. Not just slightly wrong, like a few wrong body parts, but completely wrong: into the wrong species entirely. Therians, an otherkin subgroup, for example, are wolves born into human bodies, but the scope is fairly wide; some people identify not just as non-human but non-animal, or even as inanimate objects, natural and unnatural. That being said, "[t]he mechanism for a non-human soul ending up in a human body is supposedly random," a popular, anonymously-written glossary reads, "but people always seem to end up with an animal or mythical creature heavily featured in TV shows and video games."
Quote: "I'd been awakened as a therian for almost three years and I had gotten my first job at the local superstore. [...I was exhausted and] I experienced strong feelings of fight or flight, which resulted in some vocalizations, particularly growling and snarling, and a stooped, digitigrade posture as I continued to fight with myself as best I could internally to regain my composure and finish my job (I was just too tired to fight my instincts). It really felt like my human mask was crumbling through my fingers. [...] I told [my manager] about my nonhuman identity and the basics of what shifting is [...]. She didn't really ask me any questions about it, but gave a look that I can only interpret as an 'I'm not so sure you're well' look, and then she suggested to me that maybe this job wasn't the right one for me.'" — Not Quite There
From Otherkin to Transethnicity: Your Field Guide to the Weird World of Tumblr Identity Politics
"Me in my full form. I think it turned out fairly good." [from Le Maison de Violettes]
Fictive
Type: Fictives are like otherkin, but their true identity is a fictional character, often from a series of fantasy novels or a Japanese role-playing game.
Quote: "This is a blog about what I feel and experience as a fictive singlet ('singlet' as in not a headmate; it's just me here). [...] anyone wanting my personal definition or education as to what 'fictive' means to me will only be redirected to this page. (It's a term that I dislike; 'out-sourced' is acceptable but doesn't feel right either and is less well-known. If I did choose a label, it would probably be 'mediakin'.) Whatever you want to call it, I am a person who identifies as Orihara Izaya of the light-novel/anime/manga series Durarara!! despite it being a 'work of fiction'." — Heads or Tails?
Multiple Systems
Type: "Multiple systems" is the phrase used by people who believe their body contains more than one identity — several human identities, or several otherkin identities, or a mix. Often their Tumblrs are written from several different accounts, each one representing that particular identity.
Quote: "We refer to ourselves as Raychel's Library. We all share an otherspace called The Library! My front is a cisgendered female who shares a queerplatonic bond with her soul partner, Starrkat, who is also a multiples system. My system currently includes 3 members: Raychel (my lovely front!), Tonban (an older, wise, cisgendered male merkin... We turn to him for advice all the time), Asbiorn Snorrason (a genderfluid male-bodied Norse peasant, who is sometimes possessed by Loki. Ze's typically quite mild-mannered, but occasionally the impish Trickster god comes out to play!)." — Le Maison des Violettes
Transethnicity, Transablism, Transfat
Type: Transethnic describes people whose race is "wrong" in the same way that a transgender person's biological sex is "wrong." Transablism and transfatism describe the same identity formation for ability and, uh, size.
Quote: "since a plethora of individuals have produced questions on the legitimacy of my identification (whom the majority are ironically claiming to be post-constructionists), i intend for this to give you all a better insight into my identification as a "black woman". [...] in this case, the pre-englightenment philosopher rene descartes statement 'cogito ergo sum', "i think, therefore i am", is an important contributing factor to my identification, aided with internal feelings of belonging and similarity." — Black Women Values
Demisexual
Type: Demisexuals are people who cannot feel sexual attraction to someone until they have an emotional connection with that person.
Quote: "They will likely never understand where we come from because they don't know what it's like to be demisexual. I know everyone experiences sexuality differently, but for me, I have only ever been sexually attracted to one person in my entire life. And even then, it took a hell of a long time to develop, and a LOT more than just us having a few nice conversations and sharing a couple of things in common. Does that sound normal to you? Does the fact that, no matter what ANYONE looks like, I will never be able to find them physically sexually attractive in the least?" — My Life as a Teenage Fantroll
Soulbonding
Type: In the words of Soulbonding.net, "soulbonds are souls that are not your own with whom you either share your own mind or interact with mentally in some way." In practice, soulbonds are a lot like otherkin and fictives and multiple systems with a less of a commitment — your soulbonds aren't you, they're just... souls.
Quote: "I'm perfectly sane, not possessed by any "fairy tale" beings that I know of. Perhaps you should read some of my earlier posts. First of all, I use the word "soulbond" because I don't like explaining. Second of all, my primary soulbond is Layne Staley. I trust you've heard of him. And I have evidence to back it up. [...] For about three years now, I've been a latent fan of Alice in Chains. Had "Dirt", never really listened to it much. Until about a year ago, that is. About a year ago, I was looking for something to listen to, and I saw "Dirt". Now, at the time, I knew about six Alice in Chains songs. Rooster, Angry Chair, Them Bones, Man in the Box, Down in a Hole, and What the Hell Have I. I put the CD in my player, and listened to 13 tracks of grungy goodness. I knew every song. Same thing with Unplugged. And the self-titled release. And Jar of Flies. And now Facelift. I know every song Alice in Chains has released, most of them before I'd even heard them. Not to mention the fact that I cried when I heard the news about him passing on. Of course, there is more. There's always more. The number 19 is significant to me. And I was born exactly six months, to the day, away from Layne's birthday. The only difference was the year. And how old was Layne when I was born? 19. Not to mention the fact that I've been told I sound like him, just with a deeper speaking voice. My natural singing voice is roughly the same as his. And let's not forget my favorite thing. Reality is subjective." — Gaia Online
Corrections: An earlier version of this article referred to deku scrubs as "elves" and kobolds as "fairies." In fact, deku scrubs are "essentially tree people" and kobolds are "weird little goblin things." We regret the error.
HELPFUL HINT: If someone tells you they're a merkin, it doesn't mean what you think it does.
Demisexual seems out of place in that listing.
I like that they attribute it to tumblr bloggers when it's been a thing for the last thirty years at least.
ETA: Okay. Owning my knee-jerk.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 12:48:09 AM
Demisexual seems out of place in that listing.
Yeah.
"Tumblr is home to a wide variety of seemingly mad identities. Some of these people are otters who are attracted to gravy. Some of them are fairies some days and Pokemon on others. Some are even attracted to members of the opposite sex!"
The definition used for therians in that article isn't the one I'm aware of. The break down used to be otherkin were all the souls of fantasy critters stuck in human bodies, therians were the 'real' animals souls stuck in human bodies; critters that actually exist on this planet, and furries were the human souls in human bodies who wanted to be animals.
I remember the dust-up when 2 Gryphon got wind of the notion that some therians were claiming the only real therians were the people who reincarnated or whatever as animals from the region they were in. No pandas in Canada, for instance. That was pretty funny.
The whole thing was hilariously idiotic. But I think it's pretty much the same thing as any other subculture. People just want to understand themselves or they want to have a place to belong or they just want an excuse to stop trying and to feel justified in their victimhood. Some are trying really hard to make sense of things and some are trying really hard to find an excuse not to bother.
And then there's the nutbags.
Quote from: Pæs on August 15, 2013, 11:58:44 PM
HELPFUL HINT: If someone tells you they're a merkin, it doesn't mean what you think it does.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
I only just found out about soulbonding the other day in the pics thread. The one story about a crazy housemate was extremely hilarious in a very guilty schaedenfreude train wreck kind of way. However another post showed that there was a much darker side to some of it. I hope Cain doesn't mind me quoting it here.
Quote from: Carlos Danger on August 14, 2013, 03:11:38 PM
Oh, there's even more to this story:
http://www.demon-sushi.com/warning/index2.html
Turns out "Sarah" has previous for this, as "Catherine Rain" aka "Aeris" from Final Fantasy 7
Basically it's a website warning of the abusive cultlike activities of some of those who consider themselves soulbonded along with some testimonials of some crazy stuff, like kidnapping and brainwashing type stuff. Still train wreck stuff but not in the hilarious way.
I feel kinda the same way as you, I think. On the one hand I'm extremely comfortable dismissing and mocking them but at the same time I haven't really met any or had enough time to form a cogent opinion on people like that.
My initial reaction is that it really does seem like it gets used as a cop out for responsibilities and abnormal behavior. It also strikes me as an ultimate form of escapism that won't lead to anything good.
But again, I really don't know what to think other than a gut reaction to avoid the heck out of em.
I don't know whether I love this, or...
OK, yeah I do. I definitely love this. Every time I think human beings have maxed out the stupidly privileged amazeballs levels of wackdoodlery they are capable of, they one-up it. Or sometimes three-up it. This is way better than adult babies.
I bet they could be cured, with helminth therapy.
Quote from: McGrupp on August 16, 2013, 01:23:15 AM
I feel kinda the same way as you, I think. On the one hand I'm extremely comfortable dismissing and mocking them but at the same time I haven't really met any or had enough time to form a cogent opinion on people like that.
Yeah, my immediate reaction is "Oh, ffs, you are batshit and attention seeking" and then I get momentarily concerned because I know people whose "legitimate" identity issues have been reacted to in the same way. Then I follow that up by laughing at them again.
Quote from: McGrupp on August 16, 2013, 01:23:15 AMIt also strikes me as an ultimate form of escapism that won't lead to anything good.
ANTI MAGIC. CHECK YOUR MUGGLE PRIVILEGE.
I think this is a good place to mention I suffer from Dissociative Timestream Disorder. I'm actually not the same EoC that joined this forum nearly five years ago. In fact, I'm not the same EoC that started this sentence.
I do not exist as a constant entity in the real world. Who you know, and who many of you have met, as EoC, is unmade entirely and then remade exactly a billion times a nanosecond.
It's frustrating, as a person with DTD, seeing such temporalist privilege being touted on even an enlightened a space as PD. You don't know what it's like to cease to exist an incomprehensible number of times, without even measurable evidence that it's happening.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 16, 2013, 01:26:41 AM
I don't know whether I love this, or...
OK, yeah I do. I definitely love this. Every time I think human beings have maxed out the stupidly privileged amazeballs levels of wackdoodlery they are capable of, they one-up it. Or sometimes three-up it. This is way better than adult babies.
I like that they exist. Somewhere else.
After this afternoon, I have all the fucking weird I need for the moment. :madbanana:
Quote from: Pæs on August 16, 2013, 01:34:40 AM
Quote from: McGrupp on August 16, 2013, 01:23:15 AM
I feel kinda the same way as you, I think. On the one hand I'm extremely comfortable dismissing and mocking them but at the same time I haven't really met any or had enough time to form a cogent opinion on people like that.
Yeah, my immediate reaction is "Oh, ffs, you are batshit and attention seeking" and then I get momentarily concerned because I know people whose "legitimate" identity issues have been reacted to in the same way. Then I follow that up by laughing at them again.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
I know. I can't help it. It's fascinating.
Who am I to tell someone how to identify
Quote"if somebody does genuinely identify as a pizza, then yes, that identity is valid" — 7/4/12
Wait. Dude, you are not a pizza.
Adult babies bother me a lot more than otherkin, to be honest. If you're going to waste your time and energy playing make believe I should hope the very least you can manage is time travelling hermaphrodite dragon-kin, not sitting around in your own shit because you can't stand the thought that you already had your fucking turn being a baby.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on August 16, 2013, 01:41:54 AM
Adult babies bother me a lot more than otherkin, to be honest. If you're going to waste your time and energy playing make believe I should hope the very least you can manage is time travelling hermaphrodite dragon-kin, not sitting around in your own shit because you can't stand the thought that you already had your fucking turn being a baby.
I have to agree.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on August 16, 2013, 01:41:54 AM
Adult babies bother me a lot more than otherkin, to be honest. If you're going to waste your time and energy playing make believe I should hope the very least you can manage is time travelling hermaphrodite dragon-kin, not sitting around in your own shit because you can't stand the thought that you already had your fucking turn being a baby.
I agree.
But nothing says I can't hate
everyone.
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
I tried to say this at some board or another, only I said:
"
If you aren't happy with a perfectly good human body, you would not be happy no matter what you were."
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 16, 2013, 01:54:46 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
I tried to say this at some board or another, only I said:
"If you aren't happy with a perfectly good human body, you would not be happy no matter what you were."
Yup. I've got no doubt that there's a discussion to be had about the legitimacy of these identities. It just isn't the discussion that the people who have them think it is.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 16, 2013, 01:54:46 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
I tried to say this at some board or another, only I said:
"If you aren't happy with a perfectly good human body, you would not be happy no matter what you were."
These are both true things as well.
HELP ME
I'M A MAGIC HALF-FAIRY, HALF-UNICORN
STUCK IN THE BODY
OF AN AVERAGE-LOOKING, MODERATELY INTELLIGENT HOMINID WITH DECENT FUTURE PROSPECTS, BUT THE SOMEWHAT PERPLEXING NOTION THAT THINGS COULD BE BETTER IN THE WORLD, AND THE OVERWHELMING URGE
TO DANCE
(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7bfuwOD3i1ram1fho1_400.jpg)
(http://25.media.tumblr.com/e163f9d2c38549278be2925ab9377d0a/tumblr_mf3vxqXeNw1rnwb31o1_500.jpg)
"It feels like being a cat".
Serious post when I'm not sleep deprived.
Quote from: Pæs on August 15, 2013, 11:58:44 PM
HELPFUL HINT: If someone tells you they're a merkin, it doesn't mean what you think it does.
I don't think the merkin understands what cisgendered means since the "front" is apparently a cisfemale and the two alternates are cismales, you can't have a cisfemale and a cismale in the same body, somebody has to be trans.
On one hand - do whatever the fuck thou wilt.
On the other hand - if it's getting you down, get fucking over it.
Some people seem to just need angst and will invent any excuse.
Personally I hate angst. It's a wanky, buzzkill feeling which I make a point of avoiding. People who overindulge are wanky, buzzkill people who I can't bring myself to give a flying fuck about.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 16, 2013, 01:27:57 AM
I bet they could be cured, with helminth therapy.
Well, except for the helminthkin. It might only reinforce their ideas.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:36:19 AM
I think this is a good place to mention I suffer from Dissociative Timestream Disorder. I'm actually not the same EoC that joined this forum nearly five years ago. In fact, I'm not the same EoC that started this sentence.
I do not exist as a constant entity in the real world. Who you know, and who many of you have met, as EoC, is unmade entirely and then remade exactly a billion times a nanosecond.
It's frustrating, as a person with DTD, seeing such temporalist privilege being touted on even an enlightened a space as PD. You don't know what it's like to cease to exist an incomprehensible number of times, without even measurable evidence that it's happening.
4/5, loss of one point for failure to reference quantum mechanics.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
Nail. Head.
It strikes me that their driving force is to divide themselves from humanity. Rather than the specialness originating in themselves, they want others to recognize and respect their specialness from the outside. Seems like a backwards way of doing things.
I wonder whether the otherkin phenomenon extends further back in time than just the past 30 years. Were there medieval otherkin? Paleolithic otherkin? If so, what was their role? Were they mocked or did they become their villages shaman?
Or is this just a product of children with too much time, money, and entitlement on their hands.
I think a lot of it has to do with a difference in communication as well. I've met some 'ootherkin' who really seem to be saying "I have these feelings, these likes, these dislikes... which seem more similar to a 'cat' thana a human" but somehow it comes out as "I IS A CAT SOUL". In a world where most try to define themselves with labels, I suppose its natural for the person to call themselves some absurd label rather than take the time to be more specific.
I know some pagans that have had various experiences and what they seem to be saying is "It felt like I was sucking from the earth" but it somehow comes out as "I SUCKED ENERGIES FROM THE GROUND THROUGH MY CHAKRAS".
I don't think that all of these people are just trying to get attention or consider themselves as special snowflakes. It seems to me, that in many of these cases its a confusion between perception and reality "I perceived/felt like X" becomes "X HAPPENED/I AM X". This isn't unique to outlandish claims like cat souls or energies. Its a pretty human behavior that people do all the time, maybe its just more noticeable when the belief sounds extremely absurd?
"THIS WALL IN MY BIP IS MADE OF FAIRY DUST AND UNICORN POO"
Klingons used to be the craziest thing you'd see at conventions
Then there were furries
we thought they were the craziest
now they seem totally sane by comparison
one day
mark my words
the otherkin will seem relatively normal by comparison
we are not at the bottom of the rabbit hole yet
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on August 16, 2013, 01:41:54 AM
Adult babies bother me a lot more than otherkin, to be honest. If you're going to waste your time and energy playing make believe I should hope the very least you can manage is time travelling hermaphrodite dragon-kin, not sitting around in your own shit because you can't stand the thought that you already had your fucking turn being a baby.
They seem so banal.
Quote from: Cramulus on August 16, 2013, 03:23:26 PM
Klingons used to be the craziest thing you'd see at conventions
Then there were furries
we thought they were the craziest
now they seem totally sane by comparison
one day
mark my words
the otherkin will seem relatively normal by comparison
we are not at the bottom of the rabbit hole yet
SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH!
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 16, 2013, 01:54:46 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
I tried to say this at some board or another, only I said:
"If you aren't happy with a perfectly good human body, you would not be happy no matter what you were."
Bingo.
QuoteI wonder whether the otherkin phenomenon extends further back in time than just the past 30 years. Were there medieval otherkin? Paleolithic otherkin? If so, what was their role? Were they mocked or did they become their villages shaman?
I would guess this to be a relatively recent thing. Previous eras were a little more efficient at throwing them into asylums and marginalising people who espoused such ideas. I'd think that those who could pass as "normal" or hide the worst of their excess would have probably graviated towards safe havens such as Monasteries and the like.
Further back, depending on how manipulative they were I would imagine that more than a few have ended up in Shamanesque positions. I'd suggest the evidence of that is pretty apparent when you look at the number of religions kicking around and the various beliefs they purport.
Quote from: V3X on August 16, 2013, 05:07:45 AM
HELP ME
I'M A MAGIC HALF-FAIRY, HALF-UNICORN
STUCK IN THE BODY
OF AN AVERAGE-LOOKING, MODERATELY INTELLIGENT HOMINID WITH DECENT FUTURE PROSPECTS, BUT THE SOMEWHAT PERPLEXING NOTION THAT THINGS COULD BE BETTER IN THE WORLD, AND THE OVERWHELMING URGE
TO DANCE
(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7bfuwOD3i1ram1fho1_400.jpg)
I feel like this should be an infographic.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on August 16, 2013, 10:09:15 AM
On one hand - do whatever the fuck thou wilt.
On the other hand - if it's getting you down, get fucking over it.
Some people seem to just need angst and will invent any excuse.
Personally I hate angst. It's a wanky, buzzkill feeling which I make a point of avoiding. People who overindulge are wanky, buzzkill people who I can't bring myself to give a flying fuck about.
It's basically the ultimate first-world problem.
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 16, 2013, 12:11:00 PM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 16, 2013, 01:27:57 AM
I bet they could be cured, with helminth therapy.
Well, except for the helminthkin. It might only reinforce their ideas.
:lulz: Perhaps I need a new identity, as a helminthkin.
Perhaps inside, I am really a roundworm. Nobody understands me.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 16, 2013, 03:41:15 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on August 16, 2013, 10:09:15 AM
On one hand - do whatever the fuck thou wilt.
On the other hand - if it's getting you down, get fucking over it.
Some people seem to just need angst and will invent any excuse.
Personally I hate angst. It's a wanky, buzzkill feeling which I make a point of avoiding. People who overindulge are wanky, buzzkill people who I can't bring myself to give a flying fuck about.
It's basically the ultimate first-world problem.
You know, the thought occurs that we're all going to feel terrible when the link between abuse in childhood and beliefs like these come out.
Statistically it's got to be there. I can't see this many severely damaged people all being otherwise normal. I'd guess there's other factors that spark this thinking but we just don't have a large enough sample size to determine the common denominators. I'd put money on childhood abuse being up there though. Probably mixed with large amounts of praise too. That would help along the fucked up thought patterns that seem to be exhibited. I'd guess the longer the kid is trapped in the hate/praise loop, the more lasting the effects as an adult. Some of those involved in the sub-culture seemed relatively normal and aware that this was not sane/healthy. I'd guess these to be the ones who weren't abused in some fashion at some point.
Or not. I may just be looking for ways to justify this horror and consider it may be others at fault.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 12:48:09 AM
Demisexual seems out of place in that listing.
Given "demisexual" means "doesn't get sexually attracted to people based on appearance alone", it is indeed out of place, since that applies to practically everyone.
Whereas being fictionkin because I am secretly Twilight Princess on the inside, is not.
Quote from: Junkenstein on August 16, 2013, 03:53:44 PM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 16, 2013, 03:41:15 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on August 16, 2013, 10:09:15 AM
On one hand - do whatever the fuck thou wilt.
On the other hand - if it's getting you down, get fucking over it.
Some people seem to just need angst and will invent any excuse.
Personally I hate angst. It's a wanky, buzzkill feeling which I make a point of avoiding. People who overindulge are wanky, buzzkill people who I can't bring myself to give a flying fuck about.
It's basically the ultimate first-world problem.
You know, the thought occurs that we're all going to feel terrible when the link between abuse being absolutely spoiled in childhood and beliefs like these come out.
Statistically it's got to be there. I can't see this many severely damaged people all being otherwise normal. I'd guess there's other factors that spark this thinking but we just don't have a large enough sample size to determine the common denominators. I'd put money on childhood abuse spoiling being up there though. Probably mixed with large amounts of praise too. That would help along the fucked up thought patterns that seem to be exhibited. I'd guess the longer the kid is trapped in the hatespoiling/praise loop, the more lasting the effects as an adult. Some of those involved in the sub-culture seemed relatively normal and aware that this was not sane/healthy. I'd guess these to be the ones who weren't abused spoiled in some fashion at some point.
Or not. I may just be looking for ways to justify this horror and consider it may be others at fault.
Ftfy.
Seriously though, you have a good point, and I'll do some research and see if I can find anything to back it up.
Quote from: Junkenstein on August 16, 2013, 03:53:44 PM
You know, the thought occurs that we're all going to feel terrible when the link between abuse in childhood and beliefs like these come out.
Statistically it's got to be there. I can't see this many severely damaged people all being otherwise normal. I'd guess there's other factors that spark this thinking but we just don't have a large enough sample size to determine the common denominators. I'd put money on childhood abuse being up there though. Probably mixed with large amounts of praise too. That would help along the fucked up thought patterns that seem to be exhibited. I'd guess the longer the kid is trapped in the hate/praise loop, the more lasting the effects as an adult. Some of those involved in the sub-culture seemed relatively normal and aware that this was not sane/healthy. I'd guess these to be the ones who weren't abused in some fashion at some point.
Or not. I may just be looking for ways to justify this horror and consider it may be others at fault.
I don't see the need for childhood trauma for any of this shit. I also don't see it as objectively horrifying, to me it just looks like folks with weak egos (which can be associated with some types of mental illness, like depression, eating disorders, and anxiety) who latched onto a narrative that they like better than "I'm one of 7 billion normal human beings with normal human problems." There's a strong chance that they're acting out in a way that demands sympathy because they are suffering from mild to moderate mental illnesses that they can't get a good handle on, but know that they need some kind of extra attention to get through it. It's also possible that they're whiny little first-world-problem babies. Fundamentally, though, if they're not bitching about other-secution and they're just happily living their internal life of being weird, I can't fault them for it. Crossing that line to "a toddler and a flying dog can't do human work" is where it seems like crossing the line to pathological.
I think there is also something to be said for the fact that the society we live in currently is inherently stressful and traumatizing, so we can naturally expect psychological disorders of various kinds to increase.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 16, 2013, 04:05:56 PM
Seriously though, you have a good point, and I'll do some research and see if I can find anything to back it up.
You're probably right the first time. I have a tendency to look for reasons for horror when it's usually just obvious.
QG
QuoteThere's a strong chance that they're acting out in a way that demands sympathy because they are suffering from mild to moderate mental illnesses that they can't get a good handle on, but know that they need some kind of extra attention to get through it.
That would also fit and is a lot simpler. It seems that most of these folk are in the US. Mental health care being the priority that it is for you guys would explain this to a degree too. We'll probably have to wait for a mass killing event before it's really studied in any kind of detail.
I mean, an increase in dissociative and dysphoric disorders, as well as mood disorders and OCD, seems like a pretty predictable consequence of living in a militarized surveillance society with enormous income and status disparities. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is no longer a reality for most of the US population; instead it's "trying not to become homeless".
I wanted to be a werewolf when I was a kid. It was a form of escapism, because being a kid sucks a lot of the time. I had a pretty vivid imagination, and at times I could almost feel feral and canine.
So I can see where these things start, and I can see that without having Tomorrow People experiences, it would be very easy to build a reality in one's head that doesn't match the Universe in any meaningful way.
Postscript - I never became a werewolf, but I did manage to get the body hair.
"Fuck you I'm a winged rabbit" actually doesn't seem like that unreasonable of a response by someone who is coming of age right now. Hey, kid, time for you to go be an adult in a world with no jobs, where education is out of reach for you, and the likelihood that you'll do better than your parents is LOLOLOLOL.
ENJOY YOUR BASEMENT APARTMENT WITH SIX OTHER ADULTS.
FUCK YOU I'M A DRAGON LALALALALALA
One of the central ideas in VALIS, (by Phillip K Dick) is that maybe the universe isn't actually rational. If so, going crazy might be a perfectly rational response to it.
I'm not sure that he had Deku Kin in mind when he wrote that, but food for thought
Another fun layer: it's entirely possible that for some of these folks it's a maladaptive coping mechanism for white guilt!
I have settled into a rantworthy opinion on otherkin.
To follow when I get done with all the shit I have to deal with.
Quote from: McGrupp on August 16, 2013, 03:09:17 PM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
Nail. Head.
It strikes me that their driving force is to divide themselves from humanity. Rather than the specialness originating in themselves, they want others to recognize and respect their specialness from the outside. Seems like a backwards way of doing things.
I wonder whether the otherkin phenomenon extends further back in time than just the past 30 years. Were there medieval otherkin? Paleolithic otherkin? If so, what was their role? Were they mocked or did they become their villages shaman?
Or is this just a product of children with too much time, money, and entitlement on their hands.
People with the souls of animals is a concept that has been around for a long time, not so much people with the souls of fictional characters.
The person I spoke to in NY about otherkin 'coopting' the language of transgender said 'if I was an orange I wouldnt just empathise with other oranges. I'd empathise with apples too.' iow, she was talkiga bout the validity of different groups understanding that other people can feel the same thing in different scenarios (as I understood it).
The 'toddler/flying dog' can't do human work thing is a troll or bullshit though. That's like saying as a transgendered person identifying as female, you can't get someone pregnant. Your identity doesn't make your bodies original limitations any different.
Quote from: Pergamos on August 16, 2013, 08:43:27 PM
Quote from: McGrupp on August 16, 2013, 03:09:17 PM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on August 16, 2013, 01:52:39 AM
I just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say "You poor dear! You poor dear, don't you get it? It doesn't matter if you're a D-Cell Energizer stuck in a human body! You're still not special. It does not make you special. You're just like everybody else that you hate and that you can't wait to set yourself apart from, that you so desperately wish to be recognized as anything else that you'll just make things up. Make things up, even, that have already been made up by other people! You don't have to be special. You're a bag of meat with chemicals toiling around inside of it making you think that you're a rare wheel of cheese or some shit. Don't you see how delightfully weird that is already? How the very same carbon that was the scale of a Utah raptor a few million years ago is now a hairless ape talking to other hairless apes on what amounts a light emitting box made out of information about how it doesn't feel so much like an ape as it does a firefly? DON'T YOU GET THAT?"
Nail. Head.
It strikes me that their driving force is to divide themselves from humanity. Rather than the specialness originating in themselves, they want others to recognize and respect their specialness from the outside. Seems like a backwards way of doing things.
I wonder whether the otherkin phenomenon extends further back in time than just the past 30 years. Were there medieval otherkin? Paleolithic otherkin? If so, what was their role? Were they mocked or did they become their villages shaman?
Or is this just a product of children with too much time, money, and entitlement on their hands.
People with the souls of animals is a concept that has been around for a long time, not so much people with the souls of fictional characters.
That's true. I find it interesting that my gut reaction is to assign more validity to someone stating that they have the soul of an animal than someone claiming that a FFVII character resides within them. Likewise if someone claims a bond to something from mythology versus something on television. Not that I give much validity to either of them.
It occurs to me that this really makes no sense and that both are equally strange claims to make. As though having the proper pedigree for your identity mattered.
It's like the difference between someone stating "I can do magickal things. I learned this art from an ancient sumerian tome." versus "I can do magickal things. I learned this art from the L-M volume of the Encyclopedia Brittanica." Both claims will be mocked, but one seems likely to be more widely mocked than the other. Strange.