@flock-of-changes
I am not unaware of the history. These aren’t different ideas from what I came into the community with. They’re just worded differently.
The belief is that we chose to live this life in this form and be otherkin before we were born. As all souls choose the lives they live and forms they take. I don’t necessarily think that’s universally true, but that’s what they’re talking about in that quote, and it’s part of a very old religious belief about reincarnation.
The second quote refers to the truth that no one but you can define your own identity. We cannot choose what we are but we can choose the labels we use to define ourselves and how we wish to present ourselves. I believe that I am a dragon because my soul has always been such, and that I am fae because I chose to live as one of them, which shaped the nature of my soul. I also chose to live as a crow and made that part of myself. I chose to live as a cat, and a hawk, and many other things, but I choose now not to consider those kintypes because they are not as deeply intrinsic to my nature. I have identified with other kintypes based on other past lives, until I realized they did not fit as perfectly as the labels I wear now. But I did not arbitrarily choose to call myself those things because I liked them, I chose labels based on my experiences and my beliefs about my identity.
In much the same way that I cannot choose my sexuality but I can choose to describe it as “grey asexual” (as opposed to demisexual, or spending two paragraphs explaining details I don’t think anyone needs to know) because that most simply conveys to other people the things I want them to know about me.
We are what we are, and labels are optional, but we can’t take it upon ourselves to change what those labels mean whenever it suits us.
None of this is new and none of it has changed on a fundamental level. The wording evolves over time for clarity, and yes sometimes how it’s presented and the shape of the community changes a little as we come to deeper understanding of ourselves as a community. We’ve welcomed fictionkin into the community with the understanding that they’re not actually that different from elves and such, and accepted that different people explain what we are in different ways. There was a time when some otherkin rejected fictionkin and psychological otherkin. That didn’t change because we redefined otherkin, but because we understand things better now.
I will concede however that otherkin was not necessarily always the umbrella term it is now. The Silver Elves, the dragon community, and therians evolved as separate groups, and a lot of therians didn’t like the otherkin label for a while, and that has changed.
But the core nature of what we are has not changed, and being otherkin has never been a game, as some people on Tumblr would have you believe.
If you read all that and more, and you still choose to interpret that as anything other than “if you wish a place in our community, then you belong here” then you’re honestly not someone I’m wasting my energy on. Like you’re just blatantly missing the point. And don’t pull some “i was there when it was written” crap on me when you only have 3-4 years on me in the community, tops. That’s just being obnoxious and rude.
It’s a mistake to cite the Silver Elves as an example of what the otherkin community was like when it first started. The Silver Elves predate the otherkin community by about 20 years, the term otherkin was not even coined until 1990, and the beliefs of the Silver Elves have never reflected the norms of our community. They are their own, unique, spiritual group who much later found their way into the community and applied our community’s terminology to their existing spiritual beliefs. In fact, when they first found their way onto early otherkin community mailing lists such as darkfae-l, they were so far outside the community norms at that time that a lot of people found them to be fluffy and difficult to take seriously. In the nearly three decades since the term was coined, being otherkin has never referred to a purely voluntary self-identification. The questions have always been “how do I know if I am really otherkin?” or “how can I find my kintype?”, never “what is the best reason to choose to become otherkin?” or “what kintype should I choose?” If we open up the community to this new way of being otherkin, by choice, what exactly unifies the community anymore? What would someone who chooses a wolf persona (fursona?) have in common with a wolf therian who believes they have the mind or soul of a wolf? What would someone who chooses an elf persona have in common with someone who believes they have experienced past lives as an elf? What experiences would they all share, to base community around? Who would benefit from this more inclusive redefinition, and who would be harmed or pushed out of the spaces that once existed for them?
Edited to add: I saw a post the other day, which I can’t find again right now, concerning the difference between community and scene. It made a point regarding the focus of scenes being on aesthetics. Is that what we’re coming down to, as our sole remaining point of commonality? An aesthetic associated with a particular “kintype”? Elf aesthetics and dragon aesthetics and wolf aesthetics, etc? Is that what our community, or perhaps our “scene”, is coming to revolve around? And if it is, do we really want that?
More to the point, how does a youth who doesn’t understand why they don’t feel human find support if the community of people who share that experience is drowned out by people playing a game?
I was born otherkin. I have never been anything but what I am. The reason I even bother with this site is to help other people who have had similar experiences. We use the word otherkin to find each other. No one is allowed to take that away from us.
(The post on scene vs. community is either here or the post linked in that one, mine specifically addresses my thoughts on nonhuman/otherkind spaces but I don’t know which one was being mentioned specifically.)
Thank you, amxinith, it was the one linked from your post.
