Danny Walker🐾🦌

if i need to yap about andrew I can :]

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deeer

Otherkin, at its basis, means someone who identifies as nonhuman, partially or wholly. This can manifest in a lot of ways, but the one thing we all have in common, the thing that's core to what otherkinity is, is that we are nonhuman - to say I am dragonkin is synonymous with saying I am a dragon. The thing you identify as is called your kintype (ie, I am dragonkin, I have a dragon kintype). Common experiences include:

species dysphoria (significant discomfort and distress caused by one's species)

species euphoria (joy, comfort, and a sense of rightness from being seen as/referred to as the correct species)

shifts of various kinds (shift in general being a term for some aspect of oneself becoming closer to that of one's kintype). The most commonly talked about types of shifts are phantom shifts/supernumerary phantom limbs (feeling a body part that's not physically present, typically matching up with your kintype's body plan) and mental shifts (thought process/mental state becoming more like your kintype's), but there are many others

instincts and urges that don't match up with typical human behavior

a partially or completely nonhuman self-image - that is, seeing oneself as nonhuman, or more abstractly one's ideal self being nonhuman

seeing others of your kintype species feeling deeply right and familiar; many otherkin end up surrounding themselves with paraphernalia associated with their kintype because it's comforting to them (don't - don't look at all the dragons on my shelves. it's fine)

A side note: while you will sometimes see people talking about "kinning" as something they "do for fun" that's just relating to a character or whatever super hard, this is not actually otherkinity and stems from misinformation. The whole "kinning for fun" phenomenon (often abbreviated as KFF within the community) stems from people fundamentally misunderstanding what 'kin means and then twisting our language to mean something it has never meant, and often then turning around and telling us we're "taking it too seriously" when we try to correct them. The word otherkin(d) is over thirty years old and has always meant identifying as nonhuman.

The same is essentially all true of the word therian (short for therianthrope) as well, but therians are specifically animals/animalistic creatures while otherkin covers anything nonhuman, including sapient peoples, plants, objects, and even concepts. The two communities arose separately but have heavily overlapped in the last couple of decades, so the difference between them is pretty nuanced and not really the topic of a 101 post; suffice to say that there are some cultural differences and shifts (haha) in focus between the two communities.