#othekrin

MC Who was Cain’s demon!

Either shitposting angel brexit meme making with a deadpan undertone of I’m never going home and I’m fine with that but that’s a lie <\p>

Welp, I have decided to make my first ‘actual’ post. I have a friend in real life (and on here) that follows this blog, and he wanted to know about what an ‘otherkin’ is. Therefore, I am going to try to explain what an otherkin is in my personal opinion. 

*Please note that this is how I PERSONALLY view myself, the following terms, and the community. They are not exact definitions as everyone has different experiences and opinions about what things actually mean.*

PART 1: TYPES

OTHERKIN:

The otherkin community consists of a group of people that identify as something that is not human. I have seen the term ‘otherkin’ used as an umbrella term for ALL of the other ‘kin’ terms, and for therians. However, someone who is otherkin is generally someone that identifies as something not of this world, such as a mythological creature (dragons, cyclops, etc). Other terms derived from this include spacekin, which are people who identify as something that lives in space or is from space, and fictionkin, which are people who identify as a character or species from a show, movie, book, etc. There may be other terms that I have not seen, but this is the general idea.

THERIANS:

The therian (short for therianthropy) community is pretty much the same thing as the otherkin community, except they generally identify as a creature of this world. This can include animals and insects and whatnot.  Also, please note that some therians add the ‘kin’ suffix to their creature type instead of simply calling themselves therians. An example is ‘wolfkin,’ instead of saying wolf therian. This is simply a matter of preference.

OTHERS:

Besides otherkin and therians, there are some other rarer identities. I guess, generally, these people are more ‘otherkin’ than ‘therian,’ but I am not 100% sure. Either way, these are called plantkin, objectkin, etc (not sure if there are others?). These identities, along with fictionkin, are usually pretty controversial within the community, but I consider them 100% real, as long as they are not trolls.

PART 2: IDENTITY

When we say that we ‘identify’ as something other than human, we mean that we ‘feel’ or ‘connect’ with something else. It absolutely DOES NOT mean that we believe we are physically not human! We are perfectly aware that we are human. However, we believe we are something else on the inside. The reason why we believe this can vary from person to person, however. I will list some of the reasons that I have seen.

REINCARNATION AND PREVIOUS LIVES:

 A lot of otherkin/therians believe in reincarnation, and that they were a different creature in a previous life. The result is that they still ‘feel’ who/what they were before.

THE MULTIVERSE THEORY:

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of otherkin/therians who believe in the multiverse theory. This means that they believe that their type exists in a different universe, or something along those lines (any otherkin/therians who believe in this, please let me know more about this belief!). I honestly have not researched this very much, so I am not sure how this works. You can easily find a large amount of information about this, however, if you Google it!

MISPLACED SOULS AND MULTIPLE SOULS:

Some otherkin/therians believe that they were given the wrong soul, while others believe that they may have more than one soul in their body.

MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL THEORIES:

The last thing that I will list here is mental health and mental theories. Many otherkin/therians who are not very spiritual believe in something in this category. Some, like myself, believe that we are otherkin/therians due to our mental health (such as having identity problems, social problems with other humans, or developing a way to cut off the real world due to depression or anxiety). Others believe that they may just be convincing themselves unconsciously (I also partially believe this) that they are another creature due to the extreme want to truly be that creature. Also, some believe that they may have bonded with another creature so strongly at a certain point in their life that they have mentally become that creature.

PART 3: WHAT MAKES US FEEL THIS WAY?

A lot of things that otherkin/therians do and feel lead us to believe that we are something other than human. The main thing that all otherkin/therians have in common is that they feel or connect with another creature/being. However, besides the feeling and the connecting and whatnot, many of us have these things called ‘shifts.’ Not all otherkin/therians can shift, and some can only do one kind of shift, while other can do multiple or all types of shifts. I will list a few shifting types (but not all of them) here.

MENTAL SHIFTING:

When a therian/otherkin has a mental shift, they ‘mentally’ become their creature. This means that they will probably start behaving like their creature, by doing things such as making animal noises, moving like their creature, consuming similar things that their creature would normally eat, and reacting to different stimuli like their creature would.

PHANTOM SHIFTING:

When a therian/otherkin has a phantom shift, they legitimately feel their creature limbs, which are those that a human does not have. This is basically when you imagine that you have a muzzle, tail, animal ears, wings, claws, extended teeth, etc, so strongly that it actually feels like they are REALLY there. A therian/otherkin will sometimes reach for these limbs on accident, only for their hand to go straight through thin air because the limbs aren’t truly in existence.

DREAM SHIFTING:

A dream shift is exactly what it sounds like. This is when a therian/otherkin has a dream that they are their creature/being.

PHYSICALLY SHIFTING:

This is NOT real. If someone claims that they can physically turn into another creature/being, then they are simply bullshitting you. Very few therians/otherkin claim that they can physically shift, and the few that do claim it are either trolls or majorly confused.

CONCLUSION AND CREDIT:

This is all I am going to write about this topic today, since I am exhausted and whatnot. The point of this, however, is that otherkin and therians have valid reasoning for who they are and for what they do. And also, I hope that this helped my friend and many others understand more about our community.

ANDDDD I want to say that I am aware that I may have written a bit sloppily and whatever, but this isn’t meant to be some amazing guide or anything. I just wanted to decently explain this stuff. So don’t bother me about basic writing mistakes.

ANNNNNNNNDDDDDD a lot of my information came from the Therian Guide.

http://www.therian-guide.com/index.php/1-home.html

I UNDERSTAND THAT SOME PEOPLE MAY DISAGREE WITH THEIR INFORMATION. However, this is where I learned most of this information and this is where I went to discover more about who I am. So don’t bother bitching about how their information is inaccurate, because it is accurate to a lot of people and their beliefs.

Hey anon. Sorry it’s taken me a while to get to this.

Otherkin are people whom identify as nonhuman. Some people derive their identify from spiritual beliefs while others believe the cause lies somewhere in their psychology/neurology. Sometimes the identity can also be caused by trauma or mental illness. (Although it wasn’t asked about, I want to mention that therians are folks who identify as animal species that have lived or currently live on this planet.)

A kintype is the creature an otherkin identifies as. I am a polytherian so I use the term theriotype instead, and my theriotypes are the American badger, hoary bat, and blacktailed jackrabbit. A dragonkin has a dragon kintype. A polykin, like a polytherian, has multiple kintypes.

You'd be a polykin unless you experience all of them at one and intertwined. If that was the case, you'd be a hybridkin.

Anon, kintype does not dictate one's diet. One's kintype can cause cravings but it doesn't cause one to full scale change their diet nor invalidate your identity if your diet doesn't match up with your kintype's. I am a carnist and a jackrabbit therian. Sure, I can get cravings to nibble on leafy looking greens but I am not a vegetarian because of my identity. You aren't wrong for not being a vegetarian like an elf "should" be. Honestly, I'm sure their are elves in some tales that do eat meat. That doens't make you one of those sorts of elves just because you are a carnist. Remember that you are human in addition to being an elf. You are still you. Your identity is not invalidated by your diet.