It’s Important for Alterhumans to Police Their Communities
To preface, this isn’t a post about who can use what term - though lots of that stuff can factor into these points. I’m of mind that you can’t truly fake an experience, regardless of the explanations behind that experience and the communities you explore to find people you relate to. This is a post about safety and how looking into community history can help keep one safe.
Anyways, I know there’s this idea that older alterhumans are gatekeepers or otherwise elitist on this site - and in some cases, yea, it’s true. However, when an older alterhuman says something is dangerous, or talks about the history of these communities and how their experiences have confirmed how dangerous these things are, it’s not a bad idea to at least consider what they’re saying and why. These communities are 50 years old now and there’s been a decent amount that’s happened in those 50 years. In particular I worry for people who, if they’re being genuine about involuntary identities like otherkin/d, fictionkin/d, and therian identities, are setting themselves up for a lot of confusion and additional work figuring themselves out, and how lots of the trends on this site can attract or enable predators - a factor that lots of kids on this site seem to be completely unaware of, despite it being proven by our history.
Pendulum readings, for one, are a good example. The individual people offering these readings may not be being intentionally harmful, but:
It’s still enabling abuse of someone’s identity. Letting anyone else straight up tell you what you are is a very bad practice, easy to exploit for people looking to prey on young or vulnerable alterhumans, and needs to not be seen as acceptable in any way. Offering suggestions of useful terms, resources, and things to consider is one thing, but you’re still going to have to put in work yourself to figure yourself out.
It’s been pretty well confirmed that most of not all the answers given by pendulum blogs have been completely random in whether they’re correct or not. If you send in a few questions to any pendulum blog about things you already know the answer to, it becomes painfully apparent that these pendulums aren’t really answering anything pertaining to your questions. Which makes sense, more often then not askers are looking to someone who doesn’t know them to give them a binary yes/no answer about who they are.
Moreover, these random answers can really, truly set you up for trouble later on. Imagine finding out that the kintype the pendulum reader assured was you turned out not to be. You’ve then got to sort through everything that made you question that kintype all over again. You just can’t skip over introspection, and confirming your kintype(s) needs to come naturally to you and you only.
Anyone who claims they can physically shift, wholly or in part, into something non-human or claims they can gain physical nonhuman features such as wings
People who claim they have the ability to answer your prayers and/or harm you with mystical powers (one seems to find this a lot in the #actuallydivine tag)
Adults claiming that their multiplicity, kintype, or any other facet if their identity makes it ok for them date people much younger then them
In general anyone who claims to know you better then you, tells you how to identify, since that’s Bad Shit no matter where you go.
A couple of good posts about red flags and warning signs, and stuff to avoid:
This post by @girlrobot with an addition from @unclemurdoc about spiritual abuse and manipulation
This post by @fictionkinity, which was contributed by @makkthree, about why pendulum readings on tumblr are very ill-suited for determining kintypes
This thread about how easy it can be to mistake someone for a canonmate, etc, plus some advice how to avoid this which can also be helpful for deterring potential spiritual abusers
This thread about alterhuman and multiplicity cults, including people sharing their experiences and stories about them. These sorts of things are scarily common in these communities which is why it’s good to know the warning signs and promote safe practices in our communities.
I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but please take care of yourself and stay safe. Many of us older alterhuman folk have already gone through these things, and are very interested in keeping the younger and more vulnerable among us safe. You don’t have to treat our word as law (duh) but please, please realize that we’re usually not telling you this sort of thing for no reason.
