Otherkin: When just being a Scientologist doesn't make you look stupid enough...

Otherkin should work for the City of San Francisco. Their transpecies operation will be paid for, once there is one.

Damn! Had to read the title twice - misread it the first time as 'Elvis' :/

Edited by author 05-24-2003 04:38 PM
They also show an otherworldly Penchant for Capitalization, perhaps a Sign of a different kind of Yearning, The Yearning To Have Their Condition Recognized And Professionalized.

Edited by author 05-24-2003 06:02 PM
I'm surpised at you all. Otherkin have just as much claim to their beliefs as, say, Christian Fundamentalists, provided they don't try to hijack this discussion as they've done on K5 (http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/5/22/03514/1997/27#27).
Here in Cali, we exercise a great deal of tolerence towards others and their belief systems, be they wacko Scientologists, green space creatures from Mars, my postman, or my neighbor's dog Rex. We need to, as a race and as a species (whether it's human or Other), be if not understanding at least compassionate towards all living creatures.

That said, if one of those delusional furry freaks comes anywhere near me, I'll pump them full of Dibenzothiazepine so fast their wings'll snap back.

Hmmm . . . would you be doing these folks a favor by validating their beliefs by locking them up and demanding to know the location of their Pot o' Gold?

This reminds me a bit of a college friend's housemates. A couple and one or two semi-employed dropouts. They watched lots of anime, and were die-hard superhero RPGamers. (In fact, I think they used the system I wrote for, "V&V." I feel like such a pusher.)

At least the couple was convinced that *eventually* their mutant superpowers would manifest, and things would get better for them.

My friend moved out, so we never found out how things worked out. I suspect if they *did* turn out to be mutants, and made their way to Xavier Academy, Dr. X would take one look at them, escort them off the grounds, and direct them to the DeVry Mental Science Vocational College Extension of White Plains.

Edited by author 05-25-2003 12:01 AM
For some reason, I'm reminded of Gibson's "Gernsback Continuum". They'd end up as Apocalyptic Christians, waiting for the Rapture instead of becoming Awakened, if they hadn't been brought up on Tolkien or all those D&D sessions.

I dunno, Freud. The end is similar -- an irrational belief -- but I believe the causes are different.

My take, admittedly flawed, maybe plain blundering in the dark:

Apocalyptic Christians are driven by a bit of fear, a feeling of powerlessness, frustration with a "philistine" society, and perhaps difficulty dealing with the ambiguities of modern life.

These otherkin seem to have radical self-image problems; perhaps haven't made the leap to a mature and realistic self-identify.

Interestingly, in 50 years the fundamentalists will still be waiting for the Rapture, while the Otherkin may actually have the tools to (as pm suggests down below) change their bodies to fit their self image. This, I imagine, would REALLY honk off the fundies . . .

How to tell someone else ur otherkin is colloquially known as "coming out of the wardrobe". :-D

http://www.otherkin.net/otherkin/telling.html

"mom, dad, there's something i have to tell you..."

The character in the gernsback continuum was suffering the indigestion of futures past:- we have to continually remind ourselves that the dreams of a technological utopia is nothing new. Pagans, Gaians, Otherkin - these guys are suffering religious indigestion:- these beliefs have been constructed as a foil to the repression of the more commonly subscribed religions. They are a reaction, a denial, of people disillusioned with the faith of the masses and prepared to replace it with makeup, cloaks and fairy wings.

Discuss.

Wow, those walk-in freaks have sure come a long way!

"They are a reaction, a denial, of people disillusioned with the faith of the masses and prepared to replace it with makeup, cloaks and fairy wings."

Having dealt with a pagan/wiccan roomate, I can't say I fully agree with this. I think the problem is that while these people need the spirituality or escape from reality that traditional religion can provide, they are repelled by the half-assed responsibility that even these belief systems imply. In the non-traditional realm, magic isn't just for some omnipotent god, it works for you too. Hell, you get to be the God. In the case of my roomate, this guy had *extremely* serious issues beforehand. Traditional religion would have told him to seek help, logic would tell him to seek help....wiccans told him he was a unique and powerful being that the world was out to destroy. =/

Reading much of the wiccan/pagan stuff online led me to conclude that this is pretty much the standard model.

Wow. What utter nutters. I sometimes wonder what these loonies would do without the internet.

Publish fanzines and APAs and go to conventions, probably.

The Net just makes such strangeness accessible to the world.

I'm trying to think who to swear to.

I'm thinking I should just swear.

I WROTE part of Changeling: The Dreaming (the selkies) and a ton of Mage: The Awakening as well. Knowing the huge metaphysical gaps in both systems, I'm not freaking out at not just one or two people taking it as holy writ, but a whole internet community?

IAaahiighghgh!!!!!

I'm sorry, but I'm wanting to write a metaphysics FAQ for those wondering if they are "Otherkin."

Q. Why are you calling yourself "Otherkin" rather than "Changelings"? "Changeling" is a word with a long pedigree, not recently coined, nor invented by a roleplaying game company, or weren't you aware of this?

Q. If you feel like you are an animal, why is it always something like a cat or a wolf, as opposed to something equally folkloric but less trendy, like a salmon or a duck? Do salmon and ducks never reincarnate as humans anymore, or are they just better adjusted than all the cats and wolves?

Q. If you are really a mythological creature trapped/hiding in human form, why is it always something cool and well known like a dragon, griffin or fairy princess? Where are the bonnacons, kirkgrims and vodyanoi? You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?

Q. Since you apparently believe in reincarnation and magic, wouldn't it make more sense to just ride out this existence in human form before going back to your existence as a cat or dragon, rather than get off the ride early? What is accomplished by telling people about your Otherkinship?

I don't think I've heard of "bonnacons" before. Google fortunately
has some info. Too scatalogical I guess to be popular today.

http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/bonnacon.htm

This short piece linked to an embarrassment of riches at Kuro5hin. A veritable cornucopia of drivel under the general heading of "all beliefs are valid and must be respected." Holy moley. A close relative of mine, who had a textbook case of paranoid schizophrenia, was convinced that he was some sort of alien ("superior" being, of course) and spent hours in the bathroom under sunlamps trying to turn himself into some sort of pixie. His family found this less "valid" than otherkinophiles might wish. I don't suppose it would have made a great deal of difference had the Internet existed in 1966, but "respect" doesn't seem to me to be what's called for here.

Edited by author 11-07-2009 09:58 PM
I notice that there seems to be a great number of people who reject rationality... I wonder whether this is because of the trouble that 'science' has got us into with GM, atomics...
They just don't want to believe that thinking leads to worthwhile results, perhaps because this might tend to validate the ideas of science.