I am a transspecies, psychospiritual (with an emphasis on the spiritual) nonhuman, specifically a Changeling - I am critical of my people's actions, but I don't owe anyone criticism of their actions. My criticism coexists with a generally positive attitude towards my people and a sincere hope that we are capable of breaking the cycle of violence that we've been trapped in. I am allowed to love my family and be emotionally invested in my family's survival. I'm not in the habit of performatively self-flagellating about things that happened lifetimes ago.
My pairbond is @googods, they're cooler than me and I love them very much.
I am also Lyta Alexander (Babylon 5) and have another kinblog you can follow at @willowalexander . It's mostly ex Psi Corps shitposts and angst about the Vorlons
Rules of engagement:
This blog takes an open-minded and compassionate approach to the complexities of the sentient experience. Pointing to someone else's sincerely held beliefs and subjective experiences and saying they're not real is solid (derogatory) behavior and won't be tolerated here. Yes this includes gatekeeping plurality, fuck off with that.
This blog is critical of the "kinnie" community-- by which I mean those who knowingly appropriate otherkin language to talk about roleplaying or having a favorite character. If you use this word, please refer to this carrd for further explanations of the origin of the terms you're using, and alternative terms to use instead.
This blog is also critical of the terms "delusional attachment" and "IRL" as alternatives to otherkin terminology. These terms were spread by "kinnies" who wanted to portray themselves as the owners of otherkin terminology while pathologizing actual otherkin experiences. If you actually identify as something for reasons related to psychotic symptoms, look into the terms "endel" or "delusional misidentification syndrome". If you are not psychotic and you use these terms, please stop pathologizing your experience, it's not good for you.
These criticisms are held with complete knowledge that I can't actually stop you. Do whatever you want, I don't really give a fuck, I just have concerns.
I'm always open to questions about my people and my lived experience of being a Changeling, but if you're going to try to argue me out of a certain position on the basis of Trek canon, I'm going to laugh at you, because you don't bring TV show trivia to a discussion of someone else's life.
I'm always open to talk to sourcemates as long as they want to talk to me, however, if you're going to give me shit for not walking on my hands and knees through the desert in sackcloth and ashes for everything my people have done, please consider that you're not the only one in the universe who has suffered, and leave me alone.
Other Changelings, please hit me up, let's chat (and maybe Link... just kidding... unless?)
Other Dominion species are welcome to contact me. One of my partners is a Vorta. However, I am not soliciting worship or veneration, so please do not offer it, even as a joke. I'm a fallible, solid-bodied individual, and if I'm going to be looked up to, I want it to be for who I am, not what I am.
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Operación therians: cómo organiza la ultraderecha una distracción coordinada que blinda el poder | Operation therians: how the far right organizes a coordinated distraction that shields power
Por qué todos hablan de los therians. Qué hay detrás de los therians. Quiénes ponen foco en los therians. Por qué hablan de los therians.
"La simultaneidad del fenómeno y la cobertura con los mismos encuadres alarmistas, que se replica en Argentina, México, Uruguay y otros países de la región, no parece responder a una excentricidad digital que se gestó espontáneamente en la opinión pública argentina, sino a la activación sincronizada de un dispositivo de batalla cultural de sectores de la ultraderecha que, frente a crisis políticas o judiciales incómodas y riesgosas, desplazan la agenda pública hacia escándalos morales, enemigos culturales, distracciones y chivos expiatorios fácilmente identificables." | "The simultaneity of the phenomenon and the coverage with the same alarmist framing, which is replicated in Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and other countries in the region, does not seem to respond to a digital eccentricity that arose spontaneously in Argentine public opinion, but rather to the synchronized activation of a cultural battle device by sectors of the far right that, in the face of uncomfortable and risky political or judicial crises, shift the public agenda toward moral scandals, cultural enemies, distractions, and easily identifiable scapegoats."
translation mine. very interesting article, pretty much confirms my suspicions that this recent wave of hate towards therians mightve been a psyop all along. give it a read if youve got a minute.
On that note when therianthropy becomes about being a human roleplaying as an animal then a lot of folks start feeling a need to call themselves clinical lycanthropes and even psychotic delusional when they simply aren't. Just because they know they actually are the thing they identify as and it isn't a game. The same thing happened to fictionkin in the 2010s and we're now watching it happen to therians in real time.
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I encourage everyone to read this, especially if you are white. I made this post long enough to talk about the points in decent detail, but short enough to be digestible. It is about the different ways the nonhuman communities make people of color feel unwelcome and why.
My askbox is open usually all the time, so I'm also open to answering questions about this. I want people to read. I want people to ask questions when they don't understand. I even want people to do research on their own time to learn more (and I mean actually researching and not asking ChatGPT to think for you).
Where To Begin
"Wow, this is a really long post on the police dog discourse", except this isn't a post on the police dog discourse. That topic is more of a springboard for me to segue into where exactly things go wrong and how it causes people of color to feel unsafe participating in the communities (which can suck, because nonhumanity can be very isolating with no one to talk to about it!). So if you feel as if this has been done to death and are thinking "oh boy, this again", I encourage you to continue to read the post all the way to the end. With that, this leads us to...
The Dilution of Topics
It's important to understand that when something like this comes up, POC are chiming in to explain the situation and how it affects them. It is not the time to bring in unrelated things in an attempt to use that as credentials for weighing in. I'll use the K-9/police dog example again because it's honestly such a good discourse to dissect for this. The main focus of the conversation was between black and brown people (not exclusively, because other POC included, but mainly) and those who identify as police/military dogs (therians, otherkin, whathaveyou). Not anyone else.
"As someone with a problematic (or villain) kintype--"
This isn't about you.
"I'm police or military creature from another world--"
This isn't about you.
"I acknowledge it but don't glorify it--"
This isn't about you.
What these comments do is not only watering down what our actual concerns are, but it speeds up the "internet telephone" until the conversation morphs into something different entirely. This happens all the time when people of color try to bring to light something that bothers us. Everyone wants to make it about themselves but it's not about everyone. The topic of "Glorification of these institutions that actively harm isn't good" is not the same as "What kintypes/theriotypes/etc. should people be allowed to have?", but it was turned into that very quickly because way too many people failed to realize and understand what isn't about them. Many, with a quickness, found a way to victimize themselves.
All that is without even getting into people adding exclusions that were not originally there. "This discourse is US-centric and doesn't apply to other countries" is not only incorrect but you need to educate yourself on how police brutality (and police brutality that utilizes attack animals) exists outside of the United States. This isn't even just for the dog thing. This also extends to racism in general because people love to talk about how not racist their country is (when in fact it often is).
White Privilege and Nonhuman Superiority
This section is probably going to ruffle some feathers, but if it does ruffle your feathers then it might be time to start deconstructing why exactly that is. White privilege in particular is important to point out here because it is common to assume that privilege is a "balance scale". Privilege doesn't cancel out from marginalization. You can be queer, or disabled, or neurodivergent, etc. and still benefit from white privilege. I point all of that out because the nonhuman communities have a large portion that are in one or many of these marginalized groups, and the assumption that it "cancels out" white privilege may be part of the driving force behind what's covered in this post.
An easy starting example of white people underestimating exactly how deep things can go is the entire gatekeeping discourse about defining therianthropy as "wears gear and does quadrobics". How this whole thing started with people insisting therianthropy required these performative aspects, I'm not even gonna pretend to know. What I do know is that it is a form of gatekeeping popular on photo and video-based social media websites like Instagram and TikTok that then subsequently bleeds over into other places like Tumblr and Discord group chats.
"Real therians wear gear and run around outside on all fours" makes me desperately hope for young POC to be careful. Black people especially have a disproportionately higher chance of being arrested or shot. I never want anyone to be pressured to do dangerous things from these imaginary guidelines on what makes nonhumanity "valid". It's exclusionary from both a "therianthropy doesn't require any of this" standpoint and a "you are overestimating how safe this activity is to do" standpoint. This isn't fearmongering, I'm not saying that this is never safe. I'm saying that those who are unable to safely do it may subsequently feel like that disqualifies them from identifying as a therian. Similar things can be said for other minorities other than racial ones, but that's a different topic (and I encourage anyone wanting to talk about that to make their own posts about it, rather than using this one).
The insistence that nonhumanity should have "racial colorblindness" and "be above politics/apolitical" are also very privileged takes. Identifying as nonhuman doesn't erase the fact that most of us still live in and are affected by human society (whether some want to be or not) and people of color especially do not have the freedom to completely divorce ourselves from the world because our very existence has been made political. Not only that, but culture is still important to a lot of people as well. We are not all the same just because we identify as nonhuman. We are not a monoculture. We are different and there needs to be room to celebrate that.
The aspect of "everything is for everyone" that often comes with white privilege appears in even blatant ways. I've witnessed people in the community saying that closed cultures are silly. Although slightly less common today (and by slightly I mean very slightly), at one point it was common for people to constantly appropriate North/South American indigenous cultures because their understanding of it was as shallow and stereotypical as "Pocahontas Colors of the Wind". I've even had someone say "well it's not our fault black people are so trendy" directly in a conversation about how black people regularly have our culture taken from us when we're barely even allowed to have it ourselves without being looked down on. It's gross and insensitive, and the very reason so many people of color leave these nonhuman communities. "Do whatever you want forever" exists within reason.
Identifying as nonhuman isn't an excuse to look down on humans either, especially in the misanthropic sense. Being anti-human and blaming humanity as a whole for the results of colonization (species extinction, habitat loss, climate change, etc.) goes against the marginalized people that have been harmed historically and currently and lumps them into the same category as their oppressors simply by existing.
It is Always That Deep
The last point that I'll use to close this whole post is that I can't stress enough how often us POC are told again and again and again that what we are seeing is either not real or irrational, or "just drama".
I remember the reaction to "maybe don't say you're an entity from a closed culture if you're not from that culture".
I remember the reaction to "don't use monkey/ape as a derogatory term for humans".
I remember the reaction to "don't glorify institutions that actively harm and kill us".
I remember the reaction to "please don't say dehumanization is good actually".
People will fight tooth and nail to speak over and ignore POC voices almost as a knee-jerk reaction. Then maybe if we're lucky, after they're done arguing, they'll do some research and come back later with an "oops my bad". I'm glad they learn in those cases, but that's not acceptable. Listening first is important, ask questions (respectfully) if you have to, but it should not be a fight-or-flight situation.
What's a fiction kin? I always hear about kin lists but its usually just if you relate to a character. Im pretty sure that fictionkin is different right?
🛡️: Hi there! Fictionkin is indeed different from relating to a character! It's an involuntary identity where one identifies as a character. There are a lot of ways that this could happen (for example, spiritual or psychological), but I am personally a spiritual fictionkin so I will talk about that experience a little bit!
As a foundation, I believe in reincarnation, other universes, and souls. I believe that a lot of media on this earth emulates other universes, so while it might be fictional to folks right now, it actually happened in another universe. Occasionally, I realize that I'm in there myself! I've always considered sources to be dirty windows into a life, where, because of the writing process and presentation of a piece of media, things that happened are changed or not shown, things are added for narrative purposes, etc. so I don't consider sources to be a 1:1 perfect recreation of a life or world. That being said, it's still usually close enough that I use it as a "base" to communicate an aspect of my identity.
For example, I am Gabriel from UK. I can point to the game and say, this is a very good approximation to a life that I lived. This doesn't mean that I now think or act like I did - in fact there are some lives in which I completely disagree with my own actions, or have a completely different opinion of another person I knew. I am not saying "I relate to Gabriel", but "I am Gabriel".
There's a lot of nuance - again, these are just my personal feelings, many folks believe differently - but when you boil it down, in some form or another you believe you are someone or something that appears in media. Within the last decade-ish, folks have taken fictionkin language and watered it down to mean "relate to", so often you will see lists that do mean "these are characters I relate to" and it can be difficult to tell the difference. I try to preface things like my own lists with the fact that I am spiritual and quite serious about it to avoid confusion.
So, to bring it to this blog, posts that someone makes like "I don't headcanon. I just know. The character told me" are very fitting for fictionfolk because we literally are The Character and we can tell other people about things that happened. I can say "I felt this way about XYZ" and it's not a headcanon, because it's something that happened to me, and would be like saying "I headcanon that whistlebrox would send an ask to learn more about what fictionkin is". You did! That's something that objectively happened.
Anyway. I could talk about this forever but I will also open the floor to the other mod or any followers who would like to discuss their experiences!
Thank you for the ask, too! It's much appreciated when people take the time to learn rather than jump to conclusions based on some folks' misuse of our terminology. Hopefully any of this made sense haha. Take care!
Edit to add because I can't stop talking: Relating to a character can still be a significant part of one's identity! There are a few terms out there, but "Synpath" and "-hearted" always come to mind. It's just not what being fictionkin is. You can relate to yourself, too, of course! But if it's strictly an "I relate to this being" experience without "I am this being" then that's not fictionkin.
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ok this might be a stupid question but it is a genuine one
what do you say instead of "people" when reffering to a group of either both humans and nonhumans or just nonhumans?
my english isnt the best so that might be a part of why i cant find a good word, but, like, do i pull an optimus prime and say "all sentient beings" or some shit
"persons"? do you have to be a human to be a person or what
"everypony"??
i think "animals, creatures, beings" and sometimes "things" (iffy, because some could see it as derogatory and others could prefer it-i would err on the side of caution and stick to the first three if it's someone you know wouldn't comfortable with such a term) and other similar terms would suffice if you didn't know what specific terms the creatures in a group you are referring to would like to be called. (such as if a group of canine-aligned animals would probably want to be called "the wolves, the dogs, the pack, etc.")
i also think it will probably be fine if you say "everyone" or "everybody" <- yes, you could probably use "everypony" too if you wanted, haha. personally, i don't see "everyone/everybody" as human-specific terms since it's not directly calling something a human.
you could also just avoid using terms completely, and use collective pronouns or names. ex. "they went to go for a walk" or "alex, baron, and cassie went to go for a walk"
the name-exclusive option is probably best if you're referring to a mixed group of both humans and nonhumans. following the canine example, you could also say something like "alex and the pack went for a walk"
of course, everyone has their own preferences, so it is always best to ask what will work for them!
any other creatures can weigh in with their own answers if they would like :-)
I really do recommend just sticking with "people". Person =/= human; a person is anyone sapient, which is everyone involved in these conversations. It can sometimes look on the surface like person is a human-specific term because humans are the only species known to be sapient on Earth (as a species, I mean, nonhumans born into human society notwithstanding), but look at any fantasy or sci-fi media with other sapient species and you'll see not even orthohumans actually treat it that way - very, very rarely is "people" restricted to humans in settings where humans aren't the only sapient creatures around.
Refusing to use the word people for us feels dehumanizing for a lot of us (as in the actual meaning of that word, removing someone's personhood as part of denying them rights; contrary to popular alterhuman opinion "dehumanizing" does not actually mean "treating someone as nonhuman", it means "treating someone as subhuman"), and while yes, there are those who are uncomfortable with the word people, there are just as many uncomfortable with the alternatives - and in my opinion, refusing to use the word "people" for us just reinforces the false idea that person = human, and we're better served as a community by reinforcing the fact that it is not in fact a human-only word. Person is a legal class and while I won't call an individual a person if they don't want to be, when speaking in the general about the group as a whole, we really should not be removing ourselves from the word "person".
I know it's weird AF but I'm currently hyperfixating on the Society for Earthbound Vulcans. It's a american Star Trek fanclub in the 70's and very early 80's that apparently had some alterhuman implications.
Unfortunately I can find almost nothing about them.
So if you were a member, if someone you know was a member, DM me. If you know anything about them, DM me. If you appear to be in possession of one of their Mind Meld newsletters or Kroykah fanzines, DM me (and pleaaaaaase send me a scan !)
I'm not a Vulcan, but I am a Changeling, and I yearn for a relationship to fandom where I can be myself. Because I'm also a person who has written A LOT of fic about Changelings and about the Dominion, and I always feel like I have to pretend to be normal around fandom people. To the point where I'm planning to set all my work to anonymous and leave the fandom after I finish my main series. Both because I'm alterhuman at all, and because of the type of alterhuman I am (you have NO IDEA how many times I've seen people say the attempted genocide of my people in canon was not really an attempted genocide, For Reasons™, and Besides, We're So Evil, We Deserved It. Fuck you guys.)
I hate having to hide and I hate not being allowed to stand up for myself and I hate feeling like everyone already knows and resents me for even being in the room.
So knowing that this existed, even if it wasn't for me, makes me feel all kinds of bittersweet. Imagine if we could just. Exist. Normally, in fandom. As ourselves. Imagine if we were allowed to have preferences about how we engage with fandom that were rooted in our subjective experiences of reality and that was considered unremarkable and fine. I'm sorry for hijacking the post, this has been on my mind for a while and if I'm being honest it's affected my ability to engage with being a Changeling the way I used to be able to.
Because like, you aren't exactly making the community safer for racialized alterhumans by identifying all humans uncritically with a family of canonical white supremacists.
Like, as much as I joke about solids on this blog, no one is helped by looking at the most unrepentantly, destructively privileged kind of human and going "this is what I think you all are."
Humans can be white supremacists, homophobes, transphobes, ableists, etc. But humans are also Black, Indigenous, disabled, queer, and marginalized in other ways besides. And guess what? Nonhuman-identifying beings can also be all of those things, including part of an oppressor class, including actively oppressive themselves. I say this as a white nonhuman — I have ABSOLUTELY met some white nonhumans who were Get Out style racists, in particular one who really liked to talk like a bad caricature of a Reconstruction-era freed slave "as a bit."
Being nonhuman doesn't make all human-identified people your oppressors, nor does it save you from behaving oppressively yourself.
But then again, OP, you identify as a starseed, so I don't expect you to have thought about any of this.
Before I knew I was alterhuman, I would do it all the time, and I assumed everyone did as well. While there are some that are involontary like fang shifts and like spike(s)? across my spine?
Sometimes, I would just feel out another set of arms, posable ears, or some other limb. It's part of the reason I feel I am a shapeshifter, but I'm curious if anyone else does this too
I didnt at first, but since i grew up with ohantom limbs of varying types i learnt to do so and now i willingly shift. The wings i can no longer" tuck away" fully though, they go from phantom to envisage.
I'm a Changeling, the Star Trek kind, so I seem to have kind of a natural talent for this. I love giving myself velociraptor claws, even if I do feel it when they get snagged on things (I know they're not physically interacting with the environment lmao it just feels VERY real to me sometimes that they are)
I discussed at length the appropriation of the word Fictionkin Here
This is a definition post for the words I use at the end. I have purposefully dropped the word Fictionkin because it's less than useless to me and people like me now.
Fictotheism, Fictotheology, and Fictotheist.
'My religion is Fictotheism', 'I practice Fictotheology', 'I am a Fictotheist'
'I identify as a fictional character due specifically to religious reasons. I do not identify as a fictional character as a form of delusion, because I like the character, or because I choose to. I exist because I was reincarnated from that life, into this life, my identity is spiritual and I do not have a choice in the matter.'
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I will probably have more on this later but I think there is something to be said for the way depictions of anthropomorphized archetypical versions of animals in therian and otherkin spaces perpetuates misinformation. The dog as an icon of loyalty, the deer as a symbol of innocence, etc. The actual animal is obscured under artificial meaning-making until they become a consumable facsimile. Dogs buy this, deer buy that. Here’s a picture of an animal in distress captioned “meeeee :3”
Worth adding, maybe, that I mean “consumable” both in the consumerist sense (buy gear) and in the palatability sense (don’t think too hard). Animality/nonhumanity becomes digestible memes, the animals themselves become one dimensional representations. This is, of course, on some level, a function of tumblr and social media. The meme is easy to understand, easy to reblog, and won’t step on any toes. It feels good to belong. Relation to animal-archetypes becomes a display of personal values (I value loyalty, I am innocent). This requires no reading, no research, and little introspection. It is a path of least resistance, and it is rewarded by the platform.
That's great. Being fictionkin is part of my identity and part of my life that affects me on a daily basis regardless of whether you believe in it or not.
