i’ve been feeling some kinship towards fae and changelings for a while, but i’ve always brushed it off as just liking the stories about them, or relating to them bc i’m autistic and autistic kids (and other disabled kids) were mistaken for changelings.
now i’m wondering if it’s more than a kinship in the non-kin sense, or if i actually *am* one.
i sometimes daydream about being fae. i even have a daydream world where i’m technically not a fae, but humans occasionally mistake me for one. my sona in that world also sometimes calls themself a changeling instead of a shapeshifter, bc i just like the word and concept of being a changeling more. it makes me happy to call myself a fae and a changeling.
i get slightly annoyed (in more of an amused way) at how a lot of fae in modern stories are written to basically just be humans with wings and magic, instead of creatures with their own non-human ways of thinking. i feel like that kinda takes the fun out of it — like why would you remove the interesting stuff? (disclaimer: i know there’s alterhuman folks who are those types of fae, and that’s totally fine and awesome ofc! this is just my personal feelings. i’d rather be perceived as a more traditional fae than some modern versions.)
on that note, when i try to daydream about being fae, i feel disappointed that my thought patterns are more human-ish than fae-ish. i find myself wishing to know what it would feel like to not be able to lie, and to make sneaky deals with humans — things like that.
there are some aspects about myself that i think are fae-ish, though: for example, i cannot say most absolute statements. i usually always have to allow for exceptions (i’m doing it right now, for goodness’ sake!). for example, i can’t say “i always stay up late” even though most people — from what i’m told — would automatically assume there are exceptions to that statement. they wouldn’t think i literally always go to sleep late every single night, they’d just assume it happens most nights. but implied exceptions aren’t satisfying to me. how would someone *know* an exception is implied? if they assume there are exceptions even when hearing absolute statements, then what if a statement truly IS an absolute statement? because then they’d assume an exception for something that had no exceptions (if such a thing even exists). and if they don’t assume there are exceptions, i don’t want to say an absolute statement and cause people to think i don’t know of the exceptions. so instead i’d say something like “i pretty much always stay up late.” the “pretty much” implies that there are some nights that i go to bed early, but there’s enough nights of me staying up late that it renders the exceptions nearly insignificant.
i have a lot of mashup shifts — aka when i have a bunch of unrelated phantom limbs at the same time. as i say in my intro post, i call these cryptid shifts, but sometimes “cryptid” just doesn’t have the right vibe. both my gender and my species can be heavily influenced by whatever my brain is hyperfixating on. when i’m hyperfixating on something like welcome to night vale, which is set in modern times in our universe (kinda), both my gender and species tend to take on a more cryptidish kind of hue since cryptids are associated with this reality. but if i’m hyperfixating on something fantasy, like tangled, my gender and species takes on a more fantasy-ish hue. (urban fantasy is kind of a toss-up.) my point: when i’m being more influenced by fantasy, instead of connecting to cryptids, i feel connected to fae and changleings. they’re kinda similar — mysterious, sometimes scary, can look like many different things — they feel like the same flavor in different colors to me, if that makes sense. and to be clear, it’s not just a fun name for mashup shifts. when i feel like a cryptid, i am a cryptid. i’ve had cryptid shifts where although it has elements of my other kintypes, i didn’t really feel like those kintypes at the moment. i was a cryptid. and although i haven’t consciously thought of my fantasy flavored shifts that way in regards to fae/changelings, it feels correct.
i’m a psychological otherkin. nearly anything is a possible kintype if my brain latches onto it hard enough. all the little moments of fae could have built up throughout my life until my brain is like “that’s YOU,” even if it wouldn’t happen to other people that way. this point isn’t exactly a reason, really just context as to how my nonhuman-ness works. (i wonder, would i be fae if one instance of learning about them didn’t happen? would i be a changeling if i didn’t read the oddmire books?)
welp, now that i’ve written all that out, here’s my reasons for having imposter syndrome
i don’t actually know much about the old legends and myths about fae/changelings. i went down a rabbit hole once of reading scottish(?) legends about them, and i’ve read over the changeling wiki a few times. i think i get the general gist of them, and i tend to want to learn more about them when the opportunity arises, so i’ll likely learn more in the future. but i don’t feel like i know enough. which, i know, you don’t have to be an expert on your kintypes to know you are one. but what if i’m missing some crucial information? or i have a big misconception about them?
now here’s a rebuttal to my imposter syndrome bc i have some good arguments:
while i’m not connected to the modern versions of fae, that doesn’t mean i’m connected to the very original versions of fae. there are some things about the original myths that don’t feel like me. i am probably somewhere in-between of “ye olde myths where your secretly changeling baby turns into an old bearded man” and “sexy brooding guy with wings.” the versions of fae/changeling that feel like me could have elements that are warped or made up in my head — which, hey, that’s kinda just what being a psychological otherkin is like sometimes. brains do weird stuff. whether or not fae and changelings were ever real, they’ve lived in minds for centuries, and the stories have changed over time. being one more small, personal change in turning wheel won’t affect much.
so,, yeah. i think i’m a fae and a changeling. maybe. or maybe i’m just autistic.