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Otherkin

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14:42 / 13.03.06

Ooh yes, Headshop!

If medical technology were sufficiently advanced to offer wing grafts or whatever, would it then be reasonable to suppose that 'otherkin dysphoria (dragon)' has validity as a diagnostic entity?

Naaah, it was less of an argument I was using and more of a sloppy reductio ad absurdum. I can't imagine a situation where someone gets their fur and fangs and is then a happy and well adjusted person- much more likely to head down the obsessive surgery/modification/mortification path it seems to me, from my armchair-psychologist's position at least. As GL says the whole otherkin thing seems to glorify a problem and block it's resolution, rather than help identify and overcome it.
Hmm. I can't quite express why being trans and being otherkin are so clearly different in my head. It's akin to the difference between actual dysmorphia (I have a good friend who has it) and people worrying about their weight because they read too many magazines. I'm sure Ganesh mentioned that upthread and again I find myself cursing the impossibility of reading the thread you are responding to in one window... hang on...
I can't see how, phenomenologically, it would differ from simply being unhappy with one's body, 'not feeling right' because I'm too skinny-with-a-gut, etc. I could frame this as me being a mesomorph trapped in a pot-bellied ectomorph's body, but how would this be different from me simply being dissatisfied in my own skin
That was it. Needless pathologising or at least use of clinical language inappropriately, akin to hypochondria in a vague sense.

16:30 / 13.03.06

I see an analogy between, "as a Dark Elf, I have these problems..." and "as a sufferer of a disorder, I have these problems..."

so, while looking at, how does thinking of yourself as a dragon affect your self-image and the way you deal with others, think about how adopting a DSM IV label does the same. particularly telling, on LJ I constantly read questions where people want to shift their labels, say, do these seem like such-and-such or like such-and-such, has the shrink got it wrong, self-identity hinging on the label.

as for id_identity, if you can't figure out how you differ from the Otherkin or their similarity to you and other trans folk, forget it, it matters only what you know what you want and can go for it.

17:25 / 13.03.06

I can agree with that up to a point, Ria, in that diagnoses - particularly psychiatric diagnoses - are generally clusters of subjectively-quantified symptoms rather than properly objective, testable signs, and therefore, to some, as non-existent as a dragon. In the majority of cases, however, I don't think ICD or DSM diagnoses are quite as mythical. The whole concept of diagnosis, self-applied or otherwise, is a complex one, probably deserving of its own thread...

20:49 / 13.03.06

I did not mean to zone in on the verifiablity of the diagnoses so much as the end effect of them and the way I notice a similar pattern to use of Otherkin labels.

00:41 / 14.03.06

If used in a semi-mythologising, semi-victimising way. "I'm X, which makes me special but cur-sed, for I can never realise my heart's desire..."

Less searchable M0rd4nt

07:15 / 14.03.06

I can see a way in which diagnoses of mental health issues are used in a similar way to 'diagnoses' of Otherkin status (especially self-diagnoses). From the perspective of an observer, there's often a limited amount of difference between the internet fuckwad who defends bad behavior with cries of "But I can't help it, I've got borderline personality disorder!" and the internet fuckwad who defends bad behaviour on the grounds that "I'm a part-demon werewolf, my bestial nature made me do it!"

16:29 / 14.03.06

I notice we're all assuming all otherkin are self-deluded people wiht no actual spiritual/astral/genetic connection to some sort of animal avatar (see thread summary). What about shape-shifting magicians? Are they (or their inexistance) even being considered at this point? Or have we move beyond that already?

I remember an "esoteric" book I translated years back which featured an ancient russian spell to turn oneself into a wolf, using ritualistc prayer, wolf fur and wolfsbane.

I'm at work now, so you people will have to wait a few hours until I get home to check it out for more accurate descriptions and links (but the book also claimed that a vampire would beat a werewolf in a fight, so I wouldn't put my money in it anyway, though)

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:51 / 14.03.06

Dude, that book's a crock. Everyone knows that a werewolf could take a vampire anytime, hands down.

Again, I'd draw a distinction between magicians using various shapeshifting techniques to get their stuff done, and Otherkin. I happen to be working on a nice falcon-cloak for ritual work myself, but that won't mean I'm suddenly going to start id-ing as a falcon, or Otherkin, or anything except a human magician with a falcon-cloak.

23:47 / 14.03.06

There, I'm home now, and it's this book I was talking about. I'm not very confidant in its autenticity, but, as fiction, it makes a good reading. And there's a nice list of "evil deities" at the end (boy, did those aztecs have all sorts of death gods)

00:43 / 15.03.06

Again, I'd draw a distinction between magicians using various shapeshifting techniques to get their stuff done, and Otherkin.

Yeah, I got that part. What I meant was, can an otherkin also be a shapeshifting magician? Does being an otherkin help to learn how to shapeshift? Can shapeshifting induce "otherkinnes"? That sort of minor detail.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

06:44 / 15.03.06

can an otherkin also be a shapeshifting magician?

We-e-e-e-ll... in theory, coudn't pretty much anyone be a shapeshifting magician if ze worked at it? I don't see a lot of rigour or commitment to a regular practice in the 'Otherkin community' as it manifests on the net (the same could be said for the 'Magic and associated weird shit community', of course). This is going to limit what a person can or can't achieve magically, including shapeshifting.

I guess I could concieve of a magician who overuses a particular animal for for astral work or whatever and becomes obsessed with it, or a person who already identifies so strongly with an animal form they don't want to use any other. But that's just speculation.

*

08:49 / 15.03.06

How about a shapeshifting magician who shapeshifted into human form and got stuck?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:08 / 15.03.06

It's the opposable thumbs. You start by thinking you're in control, that you can give them up any time you like...

Again, yeah, one could speculate about a nonhuman magician who spent too much time on the astral as same, but it's probably going to remain speculation.

11:50 / 30.11.06

Otakukin

from the above link:

Otakukin-a combination of the words otaku and otherkin--was coined to specifically refer to those otherkin who are heavily influenced by, live with/in, deal with, or are otherwise intimately connected to an Anime/Manga/Live-Action/VGM or related 'dimension', 'world', or paradigm. The initial concept of a supposedly 'fictional' paradigm and/or cosmology having partial or complete basis in an alternative reality is not uncommon among otherkin.

....

I found it very interesting. to say the least, when I first met someone who claimed to be a physical incarnate of a fictional character. Interesting and daunting in that all-too-Eastern sense.

Discuss?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:10 / 30.11.06

As near as I can make out, the general Otakin philosophy can be summed up as follows:

Given that we accept, for the sake of argument

1) the possiblity of re-incarnation

2) the possiblity of alternate Universes

3) the possibility that these alternate Universes are infinate in number

and

4) the possiblity of the transmigration of souls from one Universe to another

Then we can postulate the existance of alternate Universes duplicating the mis-en-scene of any given text (with 'text' understood to include cinema, animation, computer games etc).

We can also postulate that the beings inhabiting these universes live and die much as we do; that they are ensouled, and that, as per 4) their souls may transmigrate into our own universe.

Having accepted these premises it should now be evident to the reader that CLOUED LUVS SEPHIROTH!1!!! LSO I AM THE REAL CLOUD U BITCH SCREW U UR TOO FAT 2 BE CLUOD ANYWAY I HAET U BAN MEE IM STATING MY WON GROUP CLOUD4SEPHIROTH4EVA!!!1!

A good way to alleviate that all-too-Eastern sense of philosophical indigestion is to go to one of the few Otakin comms that haven't been trolled into oblivion and watch three fourteen-year-old girls scrapping over who's the real Aeris.

12:45 / 30.11.06

Wow. That's an interesting article, and surprisingly well written. Personally I found it to support my opinion that otherkin tend to be dysfunctional wish-fulfillers, but if you accept that people can be faerie otherkin and Pernian dragons, then you have to accept people can be Dragonball's Son Goku, and (taking it a step further) *any* fictional character, cartoon or otherwise, from Dogtanian to Bully the Bullseye Bull, to a neutronium psionic dragon named Pooky I just made up in my head. I thought the stuff about Monkey transitioning from fiction to object of worship was fun, but unconvincing- I can't believe LeGuin's dragon novels are equivalent to several thousand years of retelling Monkey.

The initial concept of a supposedly 'fictional' paradigm and/or cosmology having partial or complete basis in an alternative reality is not uncommon among otherkin.
If you give otherkin credence then you have to also support otakukin surely.

Sections of the community accept as reasonable extrapolations of fact Tolkien-esque elves and fae, Pernian dragons, and other phenotypes resembling or derived from fictional sources. There are numerous theories behind the acceptance of such a concept, ranging from the creators of such fiction's unconcious 'tapping' of these alternate realities to repeated 'imprinting' on the Collective Unconcious (Dreaming, Astral Plane, et al) lending energy and therefore reality to said paradigms.

I find the theories unconvincing myself, justifications for desire.

12:52 / 30.11.06

And the all-too-Eastern exoticising thing pissed me off royally. Funny that there aren't otherkin from western animation, nobody claims to be Daffy Duck or a Clanger. I could be the reincarnation of Uncle Bulgarius, but it's not cool enough, so I think I'll claim to be able to P-shift into a Tekken fighter because, well, they're so much truer to their folklore and Heihachi Mishima is really just a disguised Genral Kuan Ti etc. etc.

13:57 / 30.11.06

Well I'm with ya but I'm finding it strangely fascinating from the perspective of the inablity to segregate imaginings from happenings. To be a bit more clear it appears to me that the stimuli of a known fictional personage and a potentially non-fictional personage on the modern psyche is returning to the cauldron of myth. Everything is made up so it is all equally valid. I find that perspective really truly fascinating and not a little troubling.

the current identity kit of culture appears to be faltering so much that some folks are patching themselves up direct from whatever thrills/uplifts them mythically and is readily to hand. I mean why study a spiritual practice and strive for understanding ancient truths when you can make it all better believing your La Blue Girl? (I'm so a potential reincarnation of a hentai character....)

I liked the ref to delusions, which in polite form might be better stated as operating systems of belief. We all have them, they get us through the night, and so good on you for finding a way to be a functional member of society, you magical being you.

I do reserve the right to kick in the crotch anyone reincarnated from Laurell K Hamilton's books however.

14:44 / 30.11.06

What about Star Trek? Farscape? Can I be a reincarnation of a stormtrooper? An ewok? I think even if it's all made up some of it is more valid, or meaningful, or 'deep' than other bits.

Otherwise, I'm the gestalt reincarnation of these stormtroopers below, but a dark jedi too and I have zero-gee sex madskillz and am immortal like Highlander;

No no wait I am teh reincarnation of this;

14:50 / 30.11.06

What I'm getting at is really this question; why is it more plausible to be a werewolf or weredragon than it is to be a wereHomerSimpson? Why are people happy to believe that they are unicorns but not Tribbles?

14:52 / 30.11.06

I think your 'respect' filter needs to be dusted off Quants.
Ok maybe not.

Dude why would she-stormtroopers have their bellies exposed?
I mean the huge boob cups in the armor make sense and all...but wtf?

When I was 10 and struggling with being a wee freak I wrote in my diary that I came from another planet. 'Course my spelling was even worse then and it really said 'came from another plant'. My older sisters gave me extra shit for that.

At a certain point many of us believed lots and lots of really strange things. I'm sure my current adult beliefs look insane to some people (a quick read of the AorA thread confirms this). We may need to consult some geek flow chart to determine where the anime otherkin are in relation to say, furries.

Crux Is This City's Protector.

14:57 / 30.11.06

> What I'm getting at is really this question; why is it more plausible to be a werewolf or
> weredragon than it is to be a wereHomerSimpson? Why are people happy to believe
> that they are unicorns but not Tribbles?

To be honest, I think that for anyone who will uncritically and concretely and non-metaphorically believe that they are a unicorn, rational criteria for belief are a total non-issue. I don't mean that only as a blanket dismissal of the culture—though I don't believe in any of the things one would need to believe in to make it possible in any sense—but simply that when it comes down to deciding what fictional entity you identify with, what is cool or aesthetically pleasing is the only thing that comes into play. Or, conversely, that the reason-founded worldview which would raise the above question is not one to which the otherkin mind is particularly sympathetic.

Crux Is This City's Protector.

15:02 / 30.11.06

As to the question of, why do people TEND to go werewolf over stormtrooper (ah, the eternal universal archetypes…), one could point to their antiquity and its correlated resonance with the human imagination. I think, then, that what's interesting about otakukin is that it would imply that for a certain subset of the human population, anime and pop culture of its ilk now occupies the role that folklore does for the majority: imaginative reference point, storehouse of archetypes, et cetera.

15:18 / 30.11.06

weredragon than it is to be a wereHomerSimpson? Why are people happy to believe that they are unicorns but not Tribbles?

From a magickal POV, it wouldn't make sense. If indeed there is an element of wish-fulfilling, then it would stand to reason that people would want to be something desirable. The fact that people don't strive to emulate Homer Simpson, is probably not such a bad thing.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:22 / 30.11.06

And the all-too-Eastern exoticising thing pissed me off royally. Funny that there aren't otherkin from western animation, nobody claims to be Daffy Duck or a Clanger.

Dude, where have you been? I'm totally Bagpuss.

I can get the "if you accept one, you should accept t'other" logic. I'm just not sure I accept one.

15:43 / 30.11.06

I'm not prepared to accept that magic is synonymous with wish fulfillment fantasy - which I think you would need to do in order to accept that the whole otherkin thing is in some way magic rather than troubled people with overactive imaginations wasting bandwidth on the internet.

For me, one of the things that characterises magic is that it is constantly and relentlessly challenging to your comfort zones. I'm not seeing much of that with Molatar and his ilk. It's more like creating a really weird comfort zone and then inhabiting it totally, and actively resisting anything that might undermine the metaphorical hole in the sand you have dug for yourself. I don't think magic lets you do that, at least not in my experience of it.

I don't really care whether somebody wants to delude themselves into believing they are a pixie. Whatever gets you through the night. But I DO care when that sort of behaviour is posited as being synonymous with the practice of magic - because it doesn't look anything like magic to me.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:53 / 30.11.06

Pretty much where I am. Electrix is quite right - that's why there are lots of elves and unicorns and very few kobolds.

There's some interesting parallel narrative here involving taste and aesthetics here. Much as one often finds writers of fanfiction who don't really understand how one constructs a narrative or expresses character, I think a lot of otherkin or otakin culture doesn't really have a sense of how to construct a tasteful, for want of a better term, identity. So, you get winged black unicorns who breathe fire. People who are also dragons who are also werewolves. Like decorating Myspace pages, they just don't know when to stop, which produces some interesting hybrids. If it weren't apparently making people unhappy, it would be fascinating and rather delightful to see the means of identity production being ripped from the tyranny of the competent.

16:05 / 30.11.06

Right. I said, from a magickal POV. I did not conclude that it was necessarily magick.

I agree this behavior is delusional and obsessive, but I understand why people would rather strive to be something that is to them desirable. That is not such a mystery. Also, if we give any credence to the child-like wish-fulling and emulation of otherkin as undeveloped attempts at a magickal process, then aspiring to be emulate something "better" than you already are, is really not so bad. However, given the delusions associated with, whether the choice is actually better, is questionable. That is another issue, though.

I believe that this process is being used as another form of escapism by some people (obv). When you can't deal with yourself, you can just be someone else. That is certainly not healthy, but in the proper place, with the proper attitude, what they are doing has a magickal premise.

16:20 / 30.11.06

being magical is not the same as doing magic. Being an entity that is capable of magic is not the same as being a magician either. Being an entity that is a catalyst for magical events is still not the same as being a magician.

Rather than making an identity based on the life now they're doing it based on reincarnation, fabulous reincarnation at that. This is quite common lot's of Abe Lincolns not a lot of scullery maids or poxy waterfront doxies.

What I also see is subculture that is trying to adjust for the dismissal of so much native folklore tradtions by reinventing them from whatever sources appeal. The dwindling of the Fairy Faith in the Celtic countries is well documented and I've spoken to people studying Slavic and other traditions who have followed the same patterns. There's a hole and we're watching it get filled in with a hodpodge of material. People need myths and powerful cosmologies to get through the night.

There's a tie in with the fictional vs. real magic here again. Separated from 'live' magic a lot of people are filling in the space with the imaginings of what it should be like. It's like inventing a lamp rather than getting out of the cave and seeing the moon.

16:20 / 30.11.06

I can get the "if you accept one, you should accept t'other" logic. I'm just not sure I accept one. stoats

That's pretty much where I'm coming from too. I'd agree with 2-headed rude boy as well, magic has a flavour most otherkin don't IMHO.

Here's a question- are there any older otherkin? I find the idea of a forty year old were-pyro-uni-dragon unlikely, it smacks of a certain time of life.

16:30 / 30.11.06

I believe that this process is being used as another form of escapism by some people (obv). When you can't deal with yourself, you can just be someone else. That is certainly not healthy, but in the proper place, with the proper attitude, what they are doing has a magickal premise.

Well to me there is a vast difference between seeking to shape shift and claiming you were a werewolf that was victimized by the Catholic Church.

Maybe it's just where I'm coming from that I see the distinction between performance art and ritual as a matter of intent, not specificly tools or actions. If your intent is to escape the difficulties of who you are by imagining a past that's not the same as deciding to cope with your situation by becoming something new.

If we for a minute accept the Otherkin process of explaining current problems/differences by sourcing a unique past how does that increase their ability to function now? Does being a weredragonpixie get you anything now besides a sense of victimhood for having been done wrong in a past life?

16:43 / 30.11.06

Way to agree with me xk.

17:11 / 30.11.06

you wanna dig into what you see as the magical premise?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:07 / 30.11.06

A case study in Otakin social dynamics, adaptivity and functionality.

"the next morning, someone had stolen my shoes..."

18:43 / 30.11.06

ugh poor thing. I've seen it happen in other subcultures it's not unique to Otherkin or even pagan flavors, it's fledgling cult leader bullshit.

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