Harmony, Chaos, RuneScape and Quoilunetary Nonhumanity
[Crossposted to National Nonhuman Park, and requested by @dzamie.]
I forgot to do this for like three days, but. I wanted to do a post on understanding past experiences and the differing perspectives people can have on the same experiences and how that can lead to radically different understandings and why there will never be a clear-cut border between alterhuman terminology, and I think I finally found a way to articulate that point. Commentary and responses welcome.
The very simplest way of explaining this concept is the following sentence: "I never said that I owed her money." Seems a simple statement, yeah? Place emphasis on one word, read it again, and then place emphasis on a different word and read it. "I never said that I owed her money," implies a flat-out denial of the concept. However, "I never said that I owed her money," is a clear 'I implied it but never said it, and you can't hold me to that'. And emphasis on other words brings the exact meaning of those emphasized words into question, and so forth.
But while that concept is universal, it's difficult to see as it stands how that applies to alterhuman experiences. So we're going to delve into the source of one of my current linktypes, RuneScape, and we're going to explain things the way a warpriest does, using the setting's available godly philosophies to explain a past experience.
The two we'll be looking at today are Serenist and Zamorakian philosophies, particularly the Elven questline, and we're choosing this because Seren's ingame dialogue includes her explaining why Zamorakianism doesn't fit the questline. I, however, say it does, so let's compare and contrast how they both fit, and why they're both valid, and why if you're determined enough you can be absolutely convinced that the other's an idiot.
Seren is the crystal goddess of light; associated heavily with integrity, harmony, prudence, wisdom, and tranquility. Simply put, she is a pacifist who believes that if two parties can meet in the middle and find harmony, the best possible result can be achieved.
This is contrasted heavily with Zamorakian philosophy. Zamorak is known best as the god of chaos, although his philosophy heavily centres strength through personal strife. He believes that almost all obstacles and challenges in life can be beaten if one just never gives up, and that through surviving those obstacles, one is made a better person. He also believes that order brings stagnation: with no reason or need to do something different, people will do what they have always done, thus, chaos is necessary for improvement and achievement.
When Seren left the elves, her main followers, scrambled to put together a leadership that might replace her. Modelling the humans, they chose a monarchy, which was undercut in short order by Clan Iorwerth. (Iorwerth is one of the two military elven clans.) Iorwerth, following a dark power, overthrew the monarchy and shut down the elven kingdom entirely, forcing every elf that wasn't trapped to flee or swear allegiance to them. They were later overthrown by the remains of the other seven clans and the player character, the kingdom was restored as a republic, and eventually Seren came back.
When asked about Zamorak's philosophy, Seren references this: ["Order only brings stagnation."] "Perhaps, but there is also imagination and community. When sharing with others, we can learn to see the world differently. Look at all my elves accomplished. It was undone for a time because of chaos. It was harmony that restored them." [Post- The Light Within dialogue.]
Note the emphasis on harmony, and how she looks down upon this. However, she does agree that the elves are stronger without her, evidenced by her refusal to lead them again after her return: "I will not leave you, not again, but I will not lead you. Let me, here and now, recognise this council as the true leadership of the elven people." [The Light Within quest dialogue.]
Zamorak ingame has never spoken about this event, it's on the other side of the continent and he doesn't much care about what Seren does so long as she stays away from him. However, speaking as my linktype, a son of Zamorak, and a warpriest of Zamorakian philosophy and religion, I feel qualified to explain what his philosophy does say about this event, and how it differs.
Zamorakian philosophy places emphasis on the chaos, and how through it, one becomes stronger. Seren says that she recognizes the clan council of the elven republic to be its true leadership. This council did not exist until after she left and left her followers to deal with the aftermath. Even so, their first attempt at fixing the situation was to create a monarchy, which was overthrown almost immediately.
Arguably, their first attempt via wisdom and harmony – modelling their new government after a human form of government that evidently worked, and by choosing their monarchs to represent them best – failed miserably. However, Iorwerth's assault forced the remaining elves to think of another solution that there was no historic precedence for. The clan leaders chose to go into hiding until someone else had overthrown Iorwerth, which didn't happen until the player character did so, over two thousand years later. Those elves who did not go fully into hiding instead created a resistance, aiming first to stop Clan Iorwerth from obtaining death magic that would have cemented its rule perhaps permanently, and then by taking it down once it was properly destabilized.
Their second attempt at a form of government, truly equal across all eight clans, is evidently better than their first attempt: it withstood the next upheaval of Seren's return and refusal to govern them again, and she gave the council her blessing. The solution they found through harmony and tranquility failed. The solution they found through chaos succeeded.
Seren places her emphasis on the fact that through the Iorwerth domination, the remaining elves worked together to find a solution. Zamorakian philosophy states that they never would have found that solution or learned to work together had their lives not been thrown into utter chaos.
Seren focuses on the harmony that is the method of survival, Zamorak focuses on the chaos that caused invention of an improved method of survival. Seren disavows chaos, disregarding that it is anything but an obstacle that needs to be overcome, refusing to see it as something worth seeking out. Zamorak disavows order, arguably incredibly similar to the Serenist ideal of harmony, and states that it only brings stagnation and is incredibly fragile and meaningless. Through this, the two philosophies are radically opposed, both disavowing what the other praises.
Compare this scenario to one more personal and recognizable to those who may read this: any scenario in which someone is put to their limits, any scenario potentially traumatizing. Serenist philosophy asks for integrity, that one stays true to oneself throughout it all, and harmony, to seek a peaceful solution. This is easily taken down by any situation in which one needs to change in order to survive, however, it also is best represented by the growth of the aftermath when it is time to rebuild. Zamorakian philosophy asks for strength, to find a way through no matter the cost, and celebration of strife, to recognize that there is a point to the pain. This is easily taken down by any sort of emotional trauma that leaves scars, however, it also is best represented by the ability to take any punches thrown and to recognize the good of recovery and what that means for the future.
Thus, in a situation of aftermath, both celebrate the growth and the strength necessary to survive, and meet up perfectly in the middle in any situation in which one is honest with themself, survives the ordeal, and recognizes that they are better than they were before.
Radically opposed, and when you tilt your head and squint, they lead to the same conclusion of a better tomorrow than yesterday was.
As my last point, the question of 'and what exactly does this have to do with gray areas of the alterhuman community?' requires an answer. Not all cases will fall under this, but here's a couple scenarios to think on. Someone who has a parallel life in another world: are they otherkin, or are they otherhearted? Someone who places emphasis on the differences between themself and their parallel life may recognize the other as their counterpart, but not quite them, too similar to be anything but family but too different to be the same person, like twins separated at birth. But someone who places emphasis on the similarities, recognizing the other as a reflection of themself, may say that they're otherkin, not so separate as to be family but too similar to be anything but the same person, if in two different situations.
Take further something psychological. Someone with executive dysfunction, an uncontrollable focus mechanism, emotional dysregulation, ostracization from their peers, and a lack of understanding of metaphors or half-truths may go to a pediatrician and be diagnosed as autistic. If they never go to that hypothetical pediatrician, but instead find themself online and hunting for answers, they may discover the otherkin community and come to the conclusion that they are Fair. Where one reads the apparent difference between themself and others as recognizing that they do not psychologically think the way others do, and thus being othered; one recognizes it as others having a gut feeling that they are simply not human, akin to an uncanny valley effect.
Lastly, consider someone who takes up believing themself to be a unicorn as a child, to deal with ostracization from their peers. Something along the lines of the last scenario. Years later, after growing up and discovering a friend group and no longer facing any ostracization, they determine that they still identify as a unicorn. They do research and understand that if they put in the effort over several decades and ego alteration, they may be capable of releasing that coping mechanism turned integral part of them, and letting it go.
Are they otherkin, or a copinglinker?
If they consider themself otherkin, then one can assume they would be disinterested in using ego alteration over a course of decades to let go. If they consider themself a copinglinker, then they may be interested, or they may not, but it would be more likely that they would at least consider the option before deciding either way. And if they do decide against it, does that make it otherkin? As the difference between the two is defined and largely accepted that otherkin is involuntary and copinglinking is, one might argue that they would still be a 'linker, as one cannot choose to be otherkin.
But are they keeping a linktype that they chose and are still choosing, or are they choosing to embrace a kintype that already exists?
I suppose which one it is depends on how you want to look at it, and where you want to place your emphasis of the experience. And no matter how someone else may look at it, the only one with final say is the one who experiences it in the first place.
Both conclusions lead to the same place, in the end: an alterhuman identity, and an experience worth exploring and talking about. No matter how one understands it, or what they ultimately decide to call it.
that makes a lot of sense! I was going through a brain loop of “if you’re deciding to do something odd - it’s voluntary - you’re literally opening yourself up to other people’s criticism and giving yourself holes to poke when you’re not sure of yourself” and rationalisating things as “no this isn’t 100% choice actually” is probably something a lot of people do regarding a lot of things (maybe why people are more likely to hold onto the decidedly non voluntary “kin” as opposed to “link” or other terms idk I’m just thought spitting now)
You’re more right than you think you are. People are scared to say it’s voluntary, because 1) if it’s voluntary they’re choosing to be weird and different and wrong and nobody likes that, and 2) if it’s voluntary they’re not valid and they’re secretly faking.
Both of those things are bullshit, but unlearning them requires unlearning a lot of things. Choosing to be things makes it, if anything, more valid. Because in the case of kintypes, you’re choosing to embrace them; and in linktypes, you’re choosing to be them. That’s powerful, because if you don’t have a choice in any of it, what good is it?
We say a lot that you don’t choose your kintypes, and that’s true. But we do choose to embrace them. A lot of furries count as otherkin, as it turns out! They do ID as their fursonas! But they’ve never heard the term ‘otherkin’ and get everything they need out of being furries instead. They are embracing their kintypes, without calling them that, and that’s perfectly fine. They’re just doing it differently.
When this community learns that voluntary =/= invalid or bad, then we’ll see a rise in people accepting that some things they labelled as kintypes are actually linktypes. This will be faster when we get prominent copinglinkers paving the way, especially ones who talk more about their linktypes than their kintypes, or better yet, nonkin linkers, because we need more of them talking about their experiences.
But it’ll come in time. This one I’ll be patient on: we’ll figure it out.
There's gotta be people who lie in the middle ground between otherkin and copinglinkers, right?
This just reminds me of the "can people choose to be trans" discourse and personally I've never found the value in trying to find a clean dividing line between people who "choose" to be trans and people who "are" trans, like obviously some people feel dysphoria much more than others and it's important to recognize that, but that doesn't mean theres some "how miserable would you be if you were forced to be cis" test that can decide who is a Valid Trans Person or not. It feels to me like it might be the same with the broader otherkin spectrum, but admittedly I don't know much about the community?
That said, the otherkin community has been really cool and like, when I go digging in early internet history I often find beautifully preserved histories and narratives from otherkin blogs about communities and sites that people frequented. And that's something I'm forever grateful for. I'm glad that there are still folks out there who pass on that history and find value in those communities.
Okay so I waited until I’d officially gotten out of bed (yes, everything I’ve done today was on my phone in bed) to answer this properly.
The thing that I’ve never much mentioned in my place of this argument - and I feel that if I’m going to, I should have a few personal essays to publish first in order to make my point clearly - is that at least for me, my kintypes and my linktypes feel so different there is absolutely no way I could mistake them for each other.
That’s why I’m not calling whatever’s going on with the Xweetok stuff a linktype, because there’s no choice there, it’s just me getting hit in the face with Xweetok animality and trying to figure out what it all means.
My kintypes are intrinsic to my personality. If you leave me alone for a bit, or put me somewhere where I feel totally, completely safe, I go so feral it’s not even funny. I growl. I hiss. My ears, tail(s), and wings do all my body language for me. I walk as digitigrade as a human is capable of. I settle into the mentality of an animal, except for when I slide into dignity and divinity, or when you hand me a piece of technology and then I’m as gruff as a pirate and humming to lyrics nobody else can hear.
My linktypes? Something happens. Panic, anger, fear, terror. I am [insert linktype here], here is what it is correct for me to do, here is what I will do, I navigate my way out of it with grace, I handle it as my linktypes would. Things hurt and I settle into their skin, if only for a little while. When their skin is hard to settle it, I simply change it. Being Kiyoteru was a way for me to understand my own sexual awakening when I’d never been safe enough to recognize my own animality, until I fused it with Luteia kinfeels into the world’s worst coping mechanism (don’t do that, kids) and did some things I’m very much not proud of.
Being Yukari was an answer to dysphoria and social ostracization that served me for quite a long time, and that I no longer need, because I am slightly more comfortable in my own skin. It was a matter of personality and aeslinking: she was a moon-girl who liked warm tea on snowy days and pretty poetry and rabbits. I never had her connection to rabbits, they’re just pets to me, but when I needed it I could pretend to be near a bunny the way she probably was bunnyhearted, and I could be a moon-girl until the sun came up for me.
My kintypes are deeper than that. Ranisson and Pale do seem a matter of personality, being as they are the closest to human, except for all the places where their experiences built them from the ground up. As Pale I was a Devil without his powers that didn’t quite know it enough to stop reaching for more power. As Ranisson, I was a girl in a war that was going to end with everyone I cared about dead, and I almost didn’t care, because we’d all be in the hivemind and I’d never be alone again.
Kiyoteru and Yukari were not that way. They were blank canvases that I could change as I needed to, for the purposes of saving me from myself. Even if they’d had actual stories, even if they were more than pretty faces and aesthetics, I would have made them do as I pleased to get me through.
From the inside, linktypes and kintypes seem so fundamentally different to me that I honestly find it hard to see a middle ground there. I’m not everyone, for some there absolutely is a middle. For some, they really can just ignore their own nonhumanity and walk away unscathed. There will always be a gray area, a fringe case or seven, a middle ground where nobody can define where it stops. And I’m not going to be the one to lay down what that middle ground is, because it is antithetical to my entire existence and experience, and it’s something I will never understand for my own.
I insist that everyone be clear about the terms that fit them to the best of their ability because I don’t like being lied to, especially after I’ve placed my trust in people to tell the truth. I don’t trust a salesman, but I’ll try any answer on StackOverflow once. You give me an answer on SO to a complex problem that fucks up my computer, I’m going to be pissed. You lie to me knowingly about your nonhuman/fictional identity in our tags, I’m going to be pissed.
If people say “this is an identity and I don’t know how voluntary it is” I go “yeah okay fair enough.” If they say they’re one or the other, I say the same. If they say they’re one and their experiences match the other, I’ll point that out. If they proceed to insult me and tell me I’m a gatekeeper, I am going to be pissed.
And then if they proceed to throw death threats in my face, I will be furious. I think I have every right to be in that case, and I have no use for those who would side with that sort of person. That’s all anyone’s been asking. Be where you are but be honest about your experiences, and we’ll find a place for you. Even if you say “I’m a linker, but I feel better in this space for otherkin, are we cool with me being here?” the answer will be yes, and then we’ll probably bring you our questions about your experiences. That’s what we do. We ask about others’ experiences and we nitpick how they work because they’re fascinating.
We preserve our history because we have to know where we come from. We have to know we’re not alone. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to read the history of the community they’re from. Now maybe it’s that I have no ties to my own heritage by blood, and those who do aren’t so interested, but if anything happened to our history I don’t know what I’d do. We need it to say no, if we’re crazy it’s not for this, that this is truly what we are, that we are not the first to have walked this path, and that those who came before us survived to tell the tale.
I am what I am. Everyone else is what they are. So long as people say that, then I have no issues with anyone about it.
I’m having issues figuring out what is voluntary and what isn’t, would it make sense to say that the initial whatever it is that makes me spark a connection isn’t entirely voluntary (semi-voluntary?) but the decision to explore/identify that connection is?
nods That’s about it! You can’t exactly just wake up one day and decide to like eating peas, or that character, or something you normally don’t care about. But it is your choice to explore, identify, and work with that.
When we say voluntary in the context of copinglinking, we actually mean something more like “If I refused to explore or identify this it would eventually go away and it wouldn’t hurt to do so”, because when you try to repress a kintype it uh. Hurts, in a very similar idea to trying to repress your gender or sexuality. You can ‘repress’ a linktype a lot easier, by giving it up, and it won’t typically hurt to do so in ways you wouldn’t expect.
Like... If you drop a linktype, then I’d expect some ‘Aw I liked that’ or ‘I miss IDing as that’ and the residual grief, but that’s because of your attachment to the linktype. If you repress a kintype, it hurts and it hurts bad and you won’t expect it. I straight up fixed this-life trauma by fixing my exotrauma, to the point I didn’t realize I’d been traumatized in this life until years after I’d fixed it and gotten over it. A linktype probably won’t do that to you unless you’ve put a serious amount of effort into it, and by the time you have, you probably know it’s a linktype and not a kintype, because that’s all experience. :p
A lot of the time I've noticed that people who insist on calling themselves kin and getting defensive when people correct them often just like the title because it makes them feel special, like they're something more than they are. I highly doubt that applies to all linkers, but it's a trend I've noticed in some particular spaces and it really sucks ahsjfdj
You are so right. People are scared of the word voluntary, like choosing it means it’s fake and not meant to be or not really real or something like that. And this is something that having more ‘linking voices would absolutely help. If people see ‘linking as that fun thing that people do to help themselves and learn and not as just being thrown out of the ‘kin community, then more people will just gravitate there instead of trying to force otherkin to be what they are.
If we really did have it go around that ‘linking isn’t scary, and it is valid, and it is a good thing, then people would be more likely to go there. Before you get an avalanche, you need to make it snow. It’s just a matter of getting things started.
Chiming in with my two cents, but I think maybe the reason so many ‘linkers who only know the term “kin” cling to it is because there’s definitely a stigma with changing labels or admitting you were wrong about how you initially labeled yourself. It’s absolutely possible to get attached to a certain label just because you’ve used it for a long time, and then keep using it whether or not it actually fits your experiences solely because it’s familiar.(1/2)
(2/2) I can sympathize with this to a degree because often, letting go of one long-held label means that you have to pick up another that you’re not ready to come to terms with- or even admit that you don’t know what label fits your experiences. I’m really glad this dialogue about ‘linking has been happening, and I hope it helps some people find the word that best describes what they’re experiencing- especially if that word isn’t “kin”. -Faolan
The funniest thing is, on the first read, what immediately popped into my head was me figuring out I was actually male.
I spent probably two years as a demigirl, and three or more as simply nonbinary. And during the latter part, I had Hiyama Kiyoteru as a copinglink, because my sexuality was hitting me full in the face. (I had previously identified as biromantic ace, because I had some form of attraction and it wasn’t sexual, but it didn’t feel romantic either but I didn’t know what romance felt like, so it had to be that, and was now abruptly realizing that it was the precursor to an adult’s actual sex drive.)
Because the way to cope with that budding sexuality and sex drive was to figure out how to handle it safely, and the strangest part of it was that I never, ever wanted to be the bottom in any way, in every fantasy I wanted full control over every single action that happened. Part of that was ‘oh fuck this is new I don’t like it what do I do’ like every other teenager.
The rest of it was me awkwardly stumbling through realizing I was male. And being Kiyoteru helped that, because he had a band and we all know that’s just code for a harem of boys for different dynamics of relationships. So being Kiyoteru and having that link seriously helped me understand my gender and my sexuality, and come to terms with it. I was a boy as Kiyoteru, until I was finally ready to accept that I was just a boy in general.
Being Kiyoteru helped with a lot of other things - /gestures to Pale as a sort of ‘I’m Pale but an AU Pale where nothing bad happens and everything is fine’/ - but like... I never would’ve really figured out what I was without that, or at least, it woud’ve been a lot harder.
Having a copinglink was probably the best way to go about that. And you’re noting that dropping kin and picking up another label is difficult because it’s home and now you’ve got to move, and I kid you not, I literally was like “Yeah make a copinglink to help you bridge the gap there”.
Yeah. That’s my theory. Make a copinglink to help you deal with being a copinglinker.
So now that I’ve made that clear, I actually think it’d work. Make another copinglink! Experiment with your identity! Use a completely harmless, completely voluntary and for fun identity to experiment with how you feel, so when you do it for realsies to help with a different issue (for lack of a better term, having your identity thrown into disarray is a nightmare of an issue), you have the experience and now you’re actually on familiar territory, instead of just suffering the entire time and not knowing how to deal with it.
Though, now that I think about it, being Yukari as a ‘link did seriously help since that was the first thing I did when the word was invented. I didn’t know I could experiment with my identity like that, because I’d spent so long eschewing anything that wasn’t a kintype or a hearttype. I absolutely went “Yeah you’re not kin or hearted and you’re for fun and that makes you fake”. Obviously, I’ve learned better, that it’s the words that are the issue, not the experiences.
But once I could experiment that way, loosen up a bit and figure things out entirely at my own pace by quite literally debugging my identity, shoving random variables in until I got what stuck? It absolutely helped. Being Yukari helped me with highschool, because I could completely rearrange how I thought for a little while, knowing it wasn’t permanent, knowing that I could do it without fear of future consequences and what if I can’t let it go, because it was never meant to be a permanent, static fix to any problem, and it was exactly as versatile as I needed it to be, and I didn’t have to worry about contradicting myself as I grew and changed.
Copinglinks are incredibly useful. They were the landing pad I used when I needed to make a big jump. We cannot, and should not, shame them for that. So I mean... If people aren’t sure about their identity, or don’t want to deal with the fact that they’re a linker and not ‘kin...
Yeah, make a(nother) copinglink to help you deal with being a copinglinker. I can’t really think of how it wouldn’t work, so I think it’s an actual solution?
Honestly, Copinglink really needs to be more known. Posts like the one you responded too, I see them quite often and it's exactly as you said. And I wonder why the first instinct of these people is "im Kin Ina different way, accept that" instead of "maybe I'm not Kin, is there a better fitting term?"
[exhausted noises of ‘I don’t know’]
Maybe it’s because we don’t talk enough about it, and ‘kin is all these people know, so they assume they must fit in somehow, and if we talked more about copinglinking outside of ‘fuck you you’re not ‘kin’ that might fix it???
Like, would it help if everyone just talked more about linking in general? Do y’all want essays on my copinglinks, past and present, and how that works out? Should we make it a Thing to be open and loud about our links as well? Would that help?
Fuck, man, I don’t know. I just know that if you’re a ‘linker, otherkin’s focus on introspection can actually be wildly damaging, because we focus so much on making sure we’re right and not faking and not off on a tangent, and the nature of ‘linking requires that you trust yourself and don’t shatter any illusions about it. And linkers saying they’re otherkin is how I get told it’s not so serious and I can’t have exotrauma and to get off my high horse when I say “This happened, this ruined my life, it took a monumental amount of effort to fix!”
A linker getting dysphoria from their links should probably fix how their link works. An otherkin getting dysphoria is going to get a shrug and a “yeah you’ll just have to suffer, sorry”.
It’s like. Fuck. It’s like that one post about how European wolves are vicious and bully farmers and NA wolves are shy and run from people, so if you’re a werewolf and you don’t know if you’re an Old World or New World strain, you get all the conflicting information on “Just go to a park and run around! :D” versus “On the full moon, lock yourself in a kennel and Do Not Leave or you Will Kill Someone.”
That’s the problem we’re having here, because people refuse to admit the two strains require a completely different approach, and insist everyone is a New World strain werewolf when uh, hello, some of us are fucking Old World strain and insisting we’re just shy uwu wolves is going to get someone majorly hurt!
... Actually that’s a better metaphor than I thought, huh.
I have feelings but I don’t know what the fix is and I feel like if we had more linker voices we’d have a better guess at a solution! Gah!
