"Kinningā is not a fictionkin term, itās a wishkin term, and as another fictionkin I donāt want it anywhere near me. This might get a little angry. Iād apologize if I were sorry.
Fictionkin are under the umbrella. I wish we were better respected, yes, and weāre not. I wish we had our own spaces that werenātĀ infiltrated and mocked twenty-four-fucking-seven. But using wishkin terms and helping them make a mockery of us is not helping.
You canāt ask for respect and use words meant to mock everyone else in the same sentence. The wordsĀ ākinningā,Ā ākinsā, ākinniesā, and all of that other nonsense is frowned upon for a reason. This is a serious subculture, and those words came directly from people making fun of us. Let me explain this, so you wonāt get lost in the shorthand.
When we say those words imply itās a choice, the full extent of what we mean sums up to:Ā āBeing fictionkind is not a fun roleplay or a joke, this is serious, we are serious, we do not appreciate people walking in and telling us we need to grow up and stop playing pretend, we do not appreciate people assuming we do it for fun, we do not appreciate people coming in and using our terms to play pretend for fun and insisting they know more about our subculture than we do. We not appreciate people using our terms and our community to start cults and abuse actual members of our community, until weāre divided and trying to make anything coherent enough for more than a clique is downright impossible.ā
This wholeĀ ākinnieā /Ā ākinningā thing is wishkin, also called tumblrkin because tumblr made it a hell of a lot worse than it was. Iāve seen kinnie cults, okay? I had a nasty run-in with one a couple of years ago, and I am dead fucking serious when I say five people almost died because of it. Five people almost died, and I was one of them. And one guy almost had his life ruined and pressed for charges. Because one megalomaniac of a person realized he could control others by weaponizing his trauma and dressing it all up in fictionkind terms and social politics until he had us all ensnared. Because he didnāt start the scary shit until I thought we were practically family, and he was very good at justifying his actions and manipulating people into believing him.
That was the kind of person he was. And heās far from the only one. I have seen so many damaging, downright terrifying cults come out of kinnies and their ilk itās not even funny. And while you can make the argument that itās the people, not the tools, Iāll tell you something.
This community - or at least, whatās left of the actualĀ fictionkind community - has sworn up and down for years that your journey of introspection and questioning is a solo fucking journey. You donāt let your canonmates dictate your experiences. You stand your ground if you get grilled. Every few months posts goĀ āround explaining what cults are, resources to help people get out of them, and the fact that everyone knows everyone and largely, actual fictionkind on tumblr tend to be in their late 20s early 30s. That shit isnāt tolerated.
Kinnies took our terms and our experiences, twisted them into a mockery, and used them for a power trip. They didnāt ask, they didnāt try to learn better, they didnāt do anything but dig their heels in and insist itās all okay. Itās not. It makes a mockery of me, it makes a mockery of everyone like me, it destroyed and is still destroying one of the few places I feel safe to exist in. And oh, I donāt get to feel safe in that anymore, because Iām constantly looking over my shoulder wondering if thisāll get taken away, too.
Kinnies took the fictionkind community and gutted it. Itās no wonder we arenāt respected as much as we used to. Kinnies made it damn well clear that we canāt be respected, because unless youāre fictionkind and been in the community a while, you canāt fucking tell a real fictionkind from a kinnie. I donāt blame them for painting us all from the same brush. I only wish that one day, all the kinnies fucking leave or we manage to drive them out, and we can go back to being respected.
Because to a point, we were. The Queen Elfās Daughters and the Silver Elves - both theriomythic, and some downright Tolkein fictionkind! - started the whole otherkin scenario as we know it. Theyāre credited for kickstarting this wonderful, wild place. Iāve spoken to members of the Silver Elves. Iāve researched them, I found them on academic websites (I have so many academic papers on my extended drives, itās not even funny), Iāve started learning how they differ from everyone else because they kind of fucked off elsewhere and I wonāt deny, for lack of a better term, I want to know what weād be like if we were never found by the greater world.
Iām sick of kinnies. Iām sick of people sayingĀ āoh Iām kinning thisā when they mean they have a passing interest in having a faceclaim. Iām sick of askingĀ āAnd how many centuries deep are your wounds, and do you still howl at the moon?ā and instead of gettingĀ āEight, and I never did, but hereās my recreation of a recipe I had six hundred years ago using ingredients I have when 95% of them were unique to my world, have a taste and Iāll tell you how we got this dish,ā I getĀ āHahaha itās not that serious, shouldnāt you be in a psych ward?ā.
I want to have proper ass discussions. I want to discuss where faceclaims are important, how roleplay actually affects your identity, how transhumanism has changed over history, how the internet has aided or failed us. I want to see where the divide of copinglinking and otherkin is, where itās important, where itās not. I want the wordsĀ āIām fictionkindā to fall from my lips without fear.
You are not helping. You are using incorrect terminology thatās most often used to mock, divide, and destroy us (and by us I mean fictionkind), and youāre telling me itās okay because... Why, exactly? Because you can ignore nuance and the fact most fictionkind fucking hate those terms because you personally think itās okay? Because youāre one person and your voice is somehow louder than the hundreds who mock us? Because Iām supposed to actually know that itās friendly fire, coming from a stranger, when youāre still stabbing me? If it walks like a duck and quacks like one, itās a fucking duck, and someone telling me itās okay to use the knives of the enemy the exact same way sounds an awful lot like an enemy themself.
Go on. Tell me again itās a term fictionkind use. Tell me again itās totally okay, because itās you. Iāll promise to at least try to pretend I believe you.