hello! im looking to otherlink to a species from folklore, wolfwalkers, due to watching the movie about them by the same name and being really entranced by it! im also an age regressor, and part of why i want to do this is because i think it would make my little self really happy, because they/me really loved that movie!
i was wondering if you have any tips on establishing a connection when linking a species, not a fictional character?
@anon-creechur
I suggest asking yourself what it is that appeals to you about wolfwalkers and then specifically lean into these aspects to strengthen the link. Also ask yourself what it is that appeals to your little-self. What does it mean to you to be a wolfwalker? How do you fit into the species? Are there ways you can be more of a wolfwalker?
The process is similar to linking a specific character, but more broad. You have to look at the traits of a group of beings instead of an individual. Feel free to put your own spin on it to make yourself fit in better, too.
really off topic, but I just found out that there's a phylum Chordata, and I wanted to ask if that phylum was the idea for the name of your blog, or if the idea came from something else XD
It was! Chordata was Anton's old system name before he fused, back when he made this blog. Darius, Anton, and Valery used to go by shark, salmon, and eel usernames respectively, and they figured because all of those fall under the phylum Chordata, they could use that name :3
I survived my own execution and all I got was this atypical narrative identity || A vivisection of Kozuki Oden / Yamato's otherkinity
Yamato! Everyone's favorite pseudo-Straw Hat himbo. He's a popular character, and one of the best known outside of the One Piece fanbase due to what I like to call the Bridget Effect (aka being a trans character in a popular series from Japan). There's a lot of discussion about him, and there have been many analysies written on him from a queer perspective- as there should be!
But there is something distinctly lacking in discussions of Yamato, which is any meaningful alterhuman perspective on this character who is just as alterhuman as he is queer. At most, you might see someone jokingly calling him "Yamato Odenkin" or something like that, and that's about where the willingness to engage with his identity begins and ends.
So, I would like to give Yamato a long-overdue look from this angle. But first, a couple disclaimers:
1. I am fictionkin, which is a very similar experience, but I am not factkin myself. I apologize if I have missed anything because of that.
2. I'm not gonna be getting into Factkin Discourse™ here, and I kindly ask that you follow my lead in this regard. I will be approaching Yamato's identity with the same good faith I would approach any other otherkin identity.
Take a shot every time I say "freedom" in this essay if you want to get alcohol poisoning or something lmao
0. A note on the word "kin"
Our vocabulary has been widely stolen, bastardized, and watered-down, so there's a good chance you have a huge misconception about what the word "kin" actually means. So, as a brief clarification:
To be otherkin is to be your kintype. It is to identify as it, not with it. It is a part of who we are at our core, not a game we play or a little hat we wear for fun. It isn't roleplaying, or faceclaiming, or merely "relating". In the same way queerness is broadly not a choice, the same is true of otherkinity.
Alright, back to One Piece.
1. What is the point of Yamato?
Throughout One Piece, pretty much every important character explores some distinct idea related to the core theme of freedom- what it means, what pursuing it looks like, what it's worth, etc. Yamato is no exception. His character and story are about the ways in which self-actualization and freedom are intrinsically linked, and I can hardly think of a more poignant way to deliver that message than through a character like Yamato, for whom the two are truly one and the same.
Kozuki Oden led a life of freedom, being a free spirit who did as he pleased from childhood and eventually sailing the seas as a pirate alongside the freest man in the world. Oden embodied freedom as a symbol and as a person. Yamato seeks to do the same in order to embody himself, and seeks to embody himself in order to achieve freedom.
Yamato himself stresses this connection between his identity and his conception of freedom, even lamenting that Luffy is "more Oden" than him due to Luffy living a life of both material and inner freedom. Putting a pin in this interaction, by the way.
Another core One Piece theme that Yamato has his own spin on is that of inhereted will. When Yamato's identity forms, he is inhereting Oden's will to the extent that it is truly his own will. He is an extention of Oden past death; perhaps the purest distillation of this concept that is so crucial to One Piece as a whole. More on that later.
Yamato's identity is frankly a stroke of writing genius, tailor-made for the exact point that One Piece is communicating with him. If he was only a trans man, or if his kintype was something else, his story wouldn't have the same flawless cohesion and immense impact.
Additionally, the use of an identity that is on the periphery of the periphery in real life is in and of itself is a bold and good writing choice for this. While it can (and absolutely does) lose some readers, it's worth it for the poignance it lends the message. Freedom of self-determination is for everyone, One Piece says through Yamato, not only for those who are deemed "normal" and easy to understand. (Him being non-passing also contributes to this, but that's tangential to my focus here.)
2. It's all us
There's a common misconception that otherkin of all stripes- but especially fictionkin & factkin- don't truly consider ourselves to be our kintypes. We do. It's important to understand that. But there's also, somehow, another common misconception that we completely reject our current selves, or that we "should" if we want to be "valid".
The truth is that we don't, because it's all us. The lives we lived then and the lives we live now both shape us, are both part of our person. Some things are different, some things are the same, and that's okay. It doesn't make either us less us.
Yamato reflects this wonderfully. He introduces himself as both Oden and Yamato- a kind of polyonomy you'll see in a lot of real life otherkin. He wears the exact same kind of shimenawa belt as a visual tie (pun intended) to his identity, but the rest of his style is different. He says he's Oden and that he's Kaido's son, and he's caught off-gaurd when Kaido acts like there's any contradiction between the two, because the fact that there isn't is completely self-apparent to Yamato's eyes.
I would like to circle back around to that pin now. Luffy doesn't really get it, but it's a very real feeling that Yamato's expressing there. Despite knowing that we don't need to be exactly like we were before, it can still, sometimes, cause feelings of self-consciousness or even jealousy to see someone who is more similar to your other self than you currently are. This can cause problems when handled immaturely, but there's nothing wrong about the feeling itself. It's just a feeling, and Yamato handles it pretty gracefully. It's just a sad little relatable moment that really cements Yamato's conceptualization of his kintype.
3. Language
Yamato is fully disconnected from others like himself and largely disconnected from other people in general. He's had to navigate his identity on his own. The results of this are interesting and, in my opinion, pretty realistically written.
Most notably, the language Yamato uses to refer to himself is pretty wishy-washy. Some have used this as evidence that he doesn't actually see himself as Oden, and I can definitely see why it might appear that way if you aren't all that familiar with otherkin. I don't really blame anyone, but the truth is more complicated.
This kind of fluctuation between "am" and "want to be" language is actually not terribly uncommon among otherkin. Why the imprecise language? Well, honestly, it boils down to the fact that it's a whole lot easier to say, ex., "I want to be a cat" than it is to articulate the nuances of incongruence and dysphoria, or to even fully understand those nuances within yourself to begin with.
It's not universal, and certainly as you get into the academic side of the community, you're not going to see that kind of imprecision amongst them. But for many, and particularly for those who are isolated from the community, that kind of language can be the best they have.
When we look at Yamato- a man who is without guidance and without pre-existing language to lean on- it only makes sense that the way he talks about and conceptualizes himself ends up being wildly inconsistent.
4. Present day Yamato
(Note: At time of writing, the most recent chapter is 1135, i.e. part 21 of Yamato's 'surrogate pilgramage' cover story.)
In the current cover story, Yamato is using his newfound freedom to travel the Land of Wano, and in doing so is growing into himself by following in his own old footsteps. Small note, but I like that this is reflected even in little background details, such as the crowd of women we see swooning over him, much like the Oden before. (Also, same. I would be in that crowd.)
He's also healing as Oden- honoring the will he carries in a very real way. When the original Oden left to sail the seas, Wano suffered in his absence. When Yamato saw the threat that faces Wano now, he knew he couldn't repeat that mistake. I, like many others, was very disappointed that Yamato didn't join the Straw Hats on the Thousand Sunny (and I knew it was coming! I can't imagine what it must have been like at the time.) But now, I've formed an appreciation for that decision. There's a special kind of hindsight that comes with getting to see yourself from the outside as fict/factkind do, and it's incredibly healing to be able to take that and do better. I'm happy for him, because I myself know what that feels like.
5. So... is he good representation?
Overall, I would say yes. Most depictions of otherkin are either mean-spirited or undercut by themselves or both. Yamato isn't either. He is presented as weird, but in the wonderful "yes, and?" way that so many weird characters in One Piece are. This is a story that thoroughly believes that weird is good, so there's no need for it to portray Yamato as normal in order for it to treat him with respect. And best of all, in the cover stories, we see that he is thriving as he grows into that identity further, with the choices he makes to do so also making a positive impact in general as they lead to him helping others.
He's not flawless, though- his identity is played as a little bit of a joke sometimes. But not too often- certainly not enough for me to not love him to bits.
I don't know how much Oda knows about otherkin. It could genuinely be nothing; wouldn't be the first time someone "invented" us out of thin air without knowing we do actually exist. But I will say that if that is the case, then his sheer intuition for how an identity like this manifests is crazy because everything about Yamato makes sense.
Anyway, I hope you found this interesting. Thank you very much for reading.
is a Discord server welcoming alterhumans and everyone else with a strict ruleset designed to keep the space comfortable according to the mods' eyes. This is incredibly subjective, and it might be up your alley, or it might not.
As of posting this, the server is very new. Ergo there are hardly any members. You decide whether or not that influences your interest /gen
Join and have a look around if you're interested in a server where:
venting and negativity is kept to the vent channels
constant venting is discouraged
dialogues are encouraged and constant one-sided conversations are frowned on
no posting over one another is allowed, conversations need to reasonably stay on topic
no spam is allowed
no politics topics are allowed
no NSFW topics and contents are allowed
members have to be 13+, aka minors according to Discord TOS and adults are welcome
alterhumanity of all types is welcome
people are required to be very respectful of alterhumanity
there is a strict verification process for server access to filter who might not like/be fit for the space off the gate
We have channels for art sharing and touching grass, if you like the sounds of that. At its core the server is intended to be general chatting one.
Check out the Cloud Canopy community on Discord - hang out with 9 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
One of my irrational irritants within the alterhuman community is treating humans like they aren’t animals or creatures
The idea that humans aren’t animals is a uniquely human ideology & it’s not one i subscribe to; humans are animals. The separation of humans & the concept of humanity from animals has caused many many issues; more harm than good id argue
I made a post a while ago about "going outside" and i feel like i have to correct a few things
Despite getting a lot of positive replies i feel like the post overall got misunderstood. Even i forgot or wasn't able to word what i really meant with that post. Sadly only one message in that post got attention which was the "Go outside" message(?) And ironically that wasn't even what i wanted to spread
And i can't even blame anyone since it was badly written
In that post i made i was basically talking about how i feel like a lot of the Alterhuman community is being mainly experienced 'online' and that half of the stuff that happens in the online community doesn't really matter anywhere else (which is normal tho, it's the internet)
I feel like correcting what i meant with all of that
When i said "please go experience Alterhumanity outside of the internet" it wasn't just mainly for folks who are actually able to do that
But outside to me also means a diary, experiencing feelings related to being Alterhuman OUTSIDE of the internet which could be anything.
I also made that post mainly as a disclaimer to not lose yourself
It was a reminder to myself, because i know how being in Alterhuman online communities 24/7 can fuck with you
I know that only experiencing Alterhumanity online can make some feelings go numb after a while, even the positive ones.
No idea if that makes sense but when i was in spaces like that daily i wasn't able to have proper shifts anymore. Probably because it was the only thing i talked about the whole day instead of actually just feeling it
That's actually what i was trying to tell with that post and i'm kinda sad that the focus while writing it ended up being on the "go outside" part
Of course it was also a part of the post, but it wasn't meant to be the whole meaning!!
I just wanted to apologize for not getting my point across very well and misleading some of you 🥲 i'm glad that a lot of you were able to relate anyway tho
*how* do you otherlink? like um, i think i wanna be a dragon. and i think i can like, link it up, if i knew what kind of dragon i want to be, but i'm bad at choosing things. thats the part i find hard.
Have a hard time choosing what dragon to link? Link all of them 🤌 Nothing stopping you.
Otherlinking has a lot to do with focusing on a thing and imagining you as it, until this active imagining process becomes automatic. It usually helps to have a clear idea of what or who you want to link, but if you can't narrow it down then it is very much possible to link something less specific. You can link species, groups of individuals, concepts, etc.
I recommend having a read through my guide on otherlinking if you haven't already. If you have, maybe read through it again? Good luck!
Also, sorry about the late response! Life has been crazy busy for us
Hello! I'd like to ask about something. I'm fictonhearted, and my hearttype is a personified country from Countryhumans. Because they're a country, their history is the base for their backstory, and then I add my own details and personify it a bit to make it seem better.
The funny thing is that I think I may be otherlink and the 'link is most likely this personified country. Now, if I identify as this personified country, when I am looking for my own backstory, am I at the same time creating it? Thank you ^_^
-Anon Rosalyn
Hi Rosalyn! Sorry about the late reply!
Yes, by the way it sounds, you're looking for and creating your own backstory at the same time :3
Taking established facts about a character (canon information about the character, and in this case real life history that influences/is a part of them) and then building off of them to give the character more depth in your own personal way is something that a lot of linkers do, as far as I know!
I hope this answer helps you. I'm not sure what else to say except that it's really interesting to hear about your experience of being 'hearted of and 'linking someone who's a personified country! Thanks for your ask!
What do artists genuinely think of Oclinks/kins? I wanna show people my linksona and draw their oc alot but I'm afraid the artist might think I'm stealing/copying their oc.
That's a very individual question. Different artists feel differently about this. First of all, sorry for the late reply. Life has been crazy busy here.
I'll talk mainly about linking here, but the same stuff goes for being kin too.
I know there's artist who dislike having theie art tagged as kin, me, ID, etc. It's fair to assume those artists would also take issue with someone linking their OC, and just don't know about what linking is. Those artists make it easy to figure out their comfort levels because they explicitly state this in their blog description, their pinned post, the text of their art, or in the tags of their art - just, somewhere.
I'm sure there's also artists uncomfortable with it who don't publicly state so.
And I know there's artists who don't care, who don't mind, and one's who are happy about it.
I am/We are certainly part of the last group. We'd be happy to hear about someone linking one of our OCs. Well, we might be miffed a out it if someone we don't like does the linking, but that's an issue with us not liking them, and not an issue with the linking. At the end of the day we won't try to change anything about that because people we don't like are also just people, and anyone can and should be free to otherlink.
For you to upload linksona art, I'd suggest sending an anonymous ask to the artist(s), asking if they know about otherlinking and alterhumanity in general. You could add something like "I like imagining myself as your OC. Does that make you uncomfortable?" and maybe "If I upload art of a sona that is based on your OC because of this, would you mind? I won't do that if you'd rather I don't, out of comfort, copyright, or other reasons.". It might be a loaded message, because rejection about this sorta thing can hurt, but it gets all important questions out of the way and clears the air.
For you to upload a lot of art of their OC, just ask them if they're comfortable with you drawing it a lot and uploading that. They don't need to know about the linking for that.
What are linktype memories and how do they work? 🥹
Linktype memories are like any other alterhuman memories (exomemories), with the difference being that the identity that they are attached to is voluntary. Linktype memories can be willed into existence, or they can come to the 'linker on their own.
It's a bit funny how they work imo. With the nature of a linktype being a voluntary identity, one would think that the 'linker has to create all the memories too, but it's happened to me personally that I randomly remember things for linktypes after I've established enough of a "that's me" feeling with them.
And, well, generally speaking, alterhuman memories can be described as memories that go beyond your current lived life in this world as an (outwardly assumed to be) human being. I.e. a cat alterhuman (therian, 'linker, etc) may remember sleeping snuggly in a cat bed, with a feline body and all.
If you want to create linktype memories, I would suggest thinking about your linktype and what seems like logical things that have happened to you as them. For me personally, the memories that "stick" as true, often need to make sense to have happened. Often. Not always. Some stuff is so wild that it has a feeling of "You just can't make this shit up" lmao. Other times it's just funny things, which make me go "I guess this did happen". Not sure if that makes sense/helps!
Good luck with figuring things out! Apologies about the late response. Life has been very busy
Is it possible to experience a shift with a linktype and if so how do you force one?
Yes, it is very much possible! I'd say it depends on the type of shift.
For phantom shifts, I'd say practice imagining the different anatomy being there - its weight, movement, what it feels like when it touches something or is touched.
For mental shifts, do things that get you into your linktype's mindset.
I forget what this would be called, but a sort of "everything" shift? Do all that you can think of which makes you feel like your linktype.
All of this might be hard at the start but get easier with time. That's why you have to repeat all of this stuff consciously - it gets easier the more you do it, and can turn into a sort of second nature. Forcing shifts will get easier, and they might start randomly happening.
I hope this helps!
If other people have more to suggest for this, please add onto this post!
Yes, absolutely you can! It's more abstract than linking a fictional person or real animal species, etc, but it is something you can absolutely do.
If you need advice on how to do it, I'd say figure out why a song resonated with you - sound, themes, lyrics, asaociations. Align yourself with those in some way (Very individual process, hence why I'm being vague). Good luck if you try!
honestly, peoples borderline hostile requirement for you to align your experiences with the 'right' labels ("you're not kin because [xyz], that sounds like a 'link") is probably one of the reasons i will never know anything about myself. ever.
i mean. Okay i get why they do it, and im not saying to let people walk all over their terminology and rewrite history. im saying, like- some of these posts against 'KFF' and the whole like-vs-as thing only confuse me more. like i wish i could just call myself kin. i wish that i could agree wholeheartedly, but i cant, because i get this weird imposter syndrome(?) about shit like that.
im always Something Else to Somebody and at this point its like oh man god forbid im Wrong!
fictives do not have to change their name or identity or anything for your comfort actually. if my fictive buddy walter white says thats his name then thats his fucking name
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