MagiStream

JurroRath wrote:

Cassowary wrote:I feel like a lot of this is just ascribing typically "animalistic" behaviors down to due to being some sort of otherkin when really most people do feel such or similar urges, they just don't act upon them because it's socially looked down upon/"weird" Sure, I like to chase squirrels, but that doesn't mean I'm a dog.

I think most Otherkin have accepted the idea that we're all just crazy and making things up. But for a lot of us, there's parts we can't really explain other than that we're not quite human. Are we crazy? Probably. Should we locked away never to return? Some of us I'm sure, though most lead fairly normal lives outside of a few details that most people would just pass off if told, but that seem glaring to that 'kin- I recall one walk with my aunt and cousin, we walked 2 miles to get to where my aunt worked, and my wingbases starting to get sore, so I said, almost in passing 'My back hurts where I think wings would be'- I don't quite know why I said it either, everyone was quiet and I wanted something to break the silence- and my aunt responded with something along the lines of 'I don't want wings where I'm hurting' and then the subject dropped. But the entire trip, I could still feel them aching, though by the end of it, my entire body was aching, so I mostly just passed it off as nothing by that point. Realistically, we're probably just people with a strong affinity for whatever we believe ourselves to be. I doubt there's any 'kin who deny that possibility. We try to keep realistic, but as I said, there's just some parts that feel a little too non-human. It's all up to interpretation.

Yeah, wasn't saying you guys should be locked up or anything, just stating my non-otherkin view on this whole thing.

I identify with reptiles and dinosaurs, I have done since I was really small; I used to stalk instead of walk, hiss and screech when annoyed, bite and snap, had lie in the sun for ages before I could get going, and tip my head to one side when I was curious or thinking. Sometimes I flicked my tongue out like a snake when I wanted to 'smell' something. The ones I identify most with are crocodiles, Velociraptors and Baryonyx- I find those are the ones that come into my head the easiest when I'm not actively thinking "This is me, human", though the last one is the most... special to me, you could say.

I started to think I am/used to/am connected to Baryonyx a while ago. Even if I've lost a few of the habits I had when I was younger, I have picked up a few more- like I found that I really love fish, especially sushi. I'd eat it all the time if I could, and sometimes I randomly think of it and drool. And Baryonyx was a fish-eating dinosaur.

I have been heavily involved with all sorts of spiritual and self-identity groups and otherkin are the youngest and definitely the most "out there" in what they claim. I think I am pretty crazy myself too though so no worries.

If you are not otherkin, do you believe the possibility exists? Why or why not?
It depends. I have a hard time with the mythological kin like faeries, dragons and such. I too feel a great affinity for fantasy elves to the point of being called a snobby high elf(altmer) by my nerd-friends but ever having been one...nope.
There is something to be said for the multi-verse theory though but I just cannot help but frown when I read some of the claims these people make. It looks to me more like "I want to be special" than something they happen to have. Wait for a new fantasy or sci-fi movie and they just so happen to remember being *insert critter/being/alien/whatever*.
Archetypes would make much more sense to me as in they call themselves fae simply because the term comes closest to describe something indescribable(which IMO could possibly be memories from the in-between state AKA life after death before reincarnating again though this is extremely rare) but when I hear people talking about remembering having wings or even little demon horns I just...no sorry, with all due respect I cannot take this seriously.

Therians and such I can relate to much better and I am much more inclined to believe their claims. In my religion people have separate soul parts and stories of shifts from human to animal and back so IMO it could be perfectly possible that these storiess are based on real-life experiences (not the physical transformations though mind).
These people also existed long before the term otherkin came forward and seeing all the shamanic traditions it is pretty clear this has been around for as longs as mankind exists, which again is not surprising to me.

How do YOU define otherkin?
I do not like the term "other"; they are very much human but for some reason they are still way too much attracted to their erstwhile animal incarnations(sorry but I'm leaving the mythological out of this). I think that instead of indulging solely on their animal sides to the exclusion of their humanity, they need to fuse the two together into one coherent whole as best as possible. That's just my wacky theory though.

Have you ever encountered someone who identified as otherkin? What were your impressions?
I encounter a lot of them as I still move within another so-called self-identity community and they pop up there once in a while. Most of them, I'm sorry to say, seem like people they should send to a shrink right away. There are a few who seem reasonable enough though.
You see this in every social group though, it isn't specifically an otherkin problem.


My two cents. No disrespect intended towards anyone but I've written this completely from my point of view. It will be interesting to watch this topic and see what comes up.

edit - just spotted this

1anioh wrote:The most annoying one was an energy vampire. (That's kinda otherkin-ish right?)

Different community, vampires are very much human and do not claim to be something else. Some do claim to be otherkin also (and some folks are nuts and claim to be immortal and all that) but vampirism is merely a word chosen to define "a human being who must take in blood and/or energy to keep healthy". Think of that whatever you like but call a vampire otherkin and well...let's just say that doesn't go down too well.

If you identify as otherkin, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

To be honest all I have to go on is some fleeting dreams, vague feelings and an overall sense of just feeling that even if I had a normal human body, I still wouldn't be in the right sort of body.

Does it tie in with your religious or metaphysical beliefs? If so, how? If not, why?

I am not religious. My feelings were there even when I was a very little kid. But when I came across some online Otherkin communities I guess it helped to accentuate my feelings.

If you identify as otherkin, what kind of otherkin are you?

Dragon, mostly. If anyone has ever played "Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter" it feels as if the dragons Chetyre or Odjn seem to most closely represent what my dragon form/s were. I know it sounds cheesy but that is what it seems.
I often, especially as a kid, felt frustrated by my lack of wings, tail, teeth and even the ability to use fire (or something like it)

I had lots of dreams when I was younger of flying, I could feel the pressure of the wind under my arm/wings. The fire (or whatever) streaming from my jaws or my teeth gripping onto my prey (fish and deer mostly, it seemed).

Furthermore I never got the impression that dragons were much like what mythology presented and in fact I felt a bit put off when movies constantly portrayed them as slobbering, murderous beasts.

Do you display any of those traits in the course of normal interactions with the rest of the world? If so, how do people react? If not, do you wish you could/would?

I really don't know. I am awkward in that I really have a hard time having a conversation with others; small talk is almost painful.
While I have empathy for others I have a difficult time understanding how people operate on all levels. I get along well enough because I have to but..I don't know, I just always felt odd, I know I am in a human body and as such my behavior and emotions are influenced by biology but at the same time I just feel like I am constantly putting on a act..like there is no real "me".

It seems as if some people "sense" something "odd" about me but not that odd.

I sometimes wonder if otherkin aren't 'other' for various reasons starting from birth.

As I mentioned, I am coyote/cougar. When I went home for the holidays, my Ma told me an amusing story. When my teeth came in, the first to come in were the canines (top and bottom). I was about a year or so old when an elderly woman approached the grocery cart and exclaimed about what I cute child I was. She reached out to touch me...and I grinned, showing those fangs, and then promptly buried them in her hand.

I've never heard of anyone else having their canines come in first unless they were otherkin of some type. Have you?

I've never heard of canine coming in first on anybody.

My upper canines came in over top of all my other teeth because my mouth is basically too small for them all. My dentist pulled out my top cuspids, and we thought I would need braces to straighten them out afterwards, but my canines moved right down into those slots perfectly, no braces needed.

I do know people with rather pronounced canine teeth, and aware of otherkin/ therian and don't believe they are either in any way, shape or form.

I had my canines come in first too and I used to be quite a biter.... I even bit my teacher once. We were hiding in a dark closet for giggles (we were like 5 years or something and it was a dare as most are afraid of the dark at that age) and my teacher suddenly opened it and I was so startled by the flash of light I sprung forward and bit her so hard she bled for a couple of minutes. I got into so much trouble that I stopped biting but I still have err...urges to bite people. Consensual though, I am a sane(ish) adult human being now and know what is and isn't okay.

The points on my canines were filed away by the dentist as I continuously bit my lip. I still have an overbite because of the space they took up though you couldn't tell nowadays as my other disease has pretty much taken my tooth problems an extra step further. My lower lip still has thick "lines" (scars) where they used to meet my canines if I ate or smiled.

And I'm not Otherkin nor would I ever describe myself as such.

Fascinating! It never even occurred to me that there was a word for this, let alone a good portion of people who identified with it.

I sort of have mixed feelings about whether or not I'd identify as Otherkin.
This is the part where you witness a large monologue about myself.
Yay for you!

In younger years, I would've leapt at this thread and rejoiced at finally finding people who understood.
I was a seriously nature-orientated child. My channel of choice was Animal Planet, we had many pets, my father was a bit of a tree-hugger and I was an avid reader of wildlife reference books.
I DESPISED humanity, to the extreme. I really firmly believed I should've been a cat. I sought out animal company first and my own second.
I walked on tiptoes always. I vocalised like a cat. I ate like an animal and lapped at water. I climbed trees and rolled in the sun. And it just felt right, it was the way to do things.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and I bit and licked people. I became very renowned for it!
I really can't emphasise enough how firmly I believed I wasn't human. I'm sure I even felt I had a tail. I moved (and still do move) my ears in situations where a cat would normally do dagger ears. Obviously human ears don't give quite the same effect, but it's that same muscle movement of flattening your ears to your head.
I always felt an affinity for my canine teeth, and now that I have no top front incisors, they truly look like fangs!
I travel easiest in bare feet - one of my most enjoyable experiences was leaping through a forest like a wild animal. I'm an unfit person, but traveling like that I could've run for miles.
Adrenaline rushes felt like a wild animal was unleashed in me, and I'd run for the hills and climb and jump.
I thought I had super-human night vision.
A vivid dream also convinced me that I was able to breathe underwater... (turns out I can't).

Then I struck teen-hood, and tried to find other explanations for why I never managed to fit in.
So I decided I must've been born the wrong gender, and explored my sexuality.
I also explored Wiccan religion.
During this time I also had some, what I perceived as being, divine signs. Though they could well have just been wishful thinking during a tough chapter in life.

Several bad years later, and I'd just written off those feelings as having been an extreme form of escapism/denial.
I still practice spiritual empathy for all living things. I still don't feel right in my body. I still feel like I should be able to run a lot faster than I can, and I still get powerful instinctual feelings, like there is something wild bubbling just below the surface.
And I still get weird comments that there is 'something about me' - one maori artisan declared that I had powerful mana, and told me to pick whichever green stone amulet felt right for me to have for free..A very valuable gift that I've never forgotten. And my ex-girlfriend told me I had an "amazing golden aura".
I suppose the most unusual thing is that this kind of spirituality seems to run quite strongly in my family - though I didn't recognise that until a year or two ago.

Anyway, I'd like to believe it. I really, really would. But now I've grown into a thick-skinned skeptic and I don't have the heart to believe in anything that I don't know to be true.
And honestly, I'm happy with being a bit inexplicably weird and wild.
Besides which, I'd never before even heard of someone who identified as Otherkin, so I just thought I was mad

I think many people are a bit wild inside, with powerful animalistic urges and habits.
It's just that many more have long since abandoned nature and instinct.
Though I do agree that some of the experiences discussed here do seem especially extraordinary!
Magistream has already been a voyage of discovery, the people here are fantastic!

I'll stop adding things now... Sorry for the novel!

WOW, What an amazing subject! Ok lets see... first the questions...

Do I identify as otherkin?

No, I personally do not identify as otherkin. Honestly, I had not heard of the term before this thread although I am familiar with 'Furries'.

If you are not otherkin, do you believe the possibility exists? Why or why not?

Now this is the loaded question. Personally I am very open minded and have a strong spiritual sense so on that sort of level I do believe that some people may be more in touch with that aspect of themselves.

How do YOU define otherkin?

I don't feel as I am informed enough to define them as anything beyond what the name implies. The feel that they are more in tune to or are related (kin) to another (other) form of being than just that of a human and that that 'other' part makes up a large enough part to assist in defining who they are as a being.

Have you ever encountered someone who identified as otherkin? What were your impressions?

Having not heard of this outside of the 'furries' realm I do not have an impression ... I've not even met a furry

I do however have thoughts on the matter.
All throughout my life I have been a curious creature (we always have blamed it on me being a Leo... curious cat and all ); however, it wasn't so much as the what which was the big question to me but the why? I may not understand or agree with what you want me to but if I can understand why it is important to you that I do then quite often I can find peace with that and I am satisfied. I realize that I may not be making much sense but bare with me...

I was raised in the Presbyterian church and as a 'holiday' Catholic... basically I was condemed to hell but had my 'fire' insurance Growing up I was always wondering why I was supposed to do the things the way they wanted things done and the basic answer of 'because that is what God wants /says' never cut it for me. I started looking at the native american culture in my early teenage years and found great comfort with their beliefs. While believing that I was to do something because some God (which I could not see, hear, touch) said I should bothered me and did not make sense being told that it was my responsibility to take care of the earth because I am part of the earth was something I could understand... besides didn't the bible tell me that God created us from sand and water anyway? The belief that I was part of every living thing around me including that of animals was eye opening and I mean one of the defining moments of my life type of eye opening . I was not more important than brother dog nor the sister spirit of the stream rather; I was just another form of it as it was a different form of me. I started my long walk away from 'organized relegion' then... I just didn't realize it.
Fast forward about 10 years, no longer the young doe eyed teenager but a early 20's single mother of 2 trying to figure out what importance relegion was going to play in my young childrens lives. I knew that I did not want to put them in a christian church and tell them to blindly follow because they were told to but being in the DEEP south there weren't really a lot of options out there. I started doing my studies in libraries and over time moved to the internet. I was already familiar with the thought of reincarnation and believed that it made sense to me, I knew people who had beliefs and understandings of things which they would not have known unless they were someone else before who had been there and been through some of those situations. The thought that people were sometimes reincarnated as animals either as luck of the draw or some form of lesson /punishment didn't really matter to me because it was the fact that the soul was not limited to a body which mattered to me and that even the smallest of creatures could have a soul.

I struggled over that for quite some time until it one day occured to me while I was in nursing school that we are all energy and energy is how we measure life. We do not consider someone as dead until their body lacks that energy and then we consider it as their soul is gone so what if the soul is just energy? Where would that energy go? Well all around us seemed to be the only answer to me. NOW I know it seems I am rambling here but bear with me as I am about to tie it all together...
So if we are all energy and our soul is a part of that energy and we do not simply poof and go out like a light bulb then it would seem to me that just as with phantom pains and nerve memory why wouldn't we have a soul memory? What if those feelings are just the fact that you are further developed along the spiritual line and you have more memories than I do? What if you are simply more in tune with your own souls energy? Also, now that we have electricity (energy) and things which run on energy /electricity - i.e. machines; why could you not have a memory of that of a machine? People believe in posessions and poltergeists where other people, animals and yes even objects /machines can be posessed so what would be posessing it but someones soul or their energy? One of the biggest problems I had with the 'one life soul' was if what made us so special was our soul than would it not make sense that it continues on? How many of us have know those OLD souls? My daughter is one... she is SO much older than I am on SO many levels, she always has been. My son who is my oldest is a newer soul, he reminds me of a 3 year old so very often. He does not 'get' it... it doesn't make sense... the world is just not fair. Personally even though I am in my 40's and have fibromyalgia and MS, while I live daily in pain, inside I feel like an older teenager... my soul is that of a 16 - 18 year old it seems. Also even in the bible it made statement that there were a limited number of souls so if that is the case either the last soul is born and then that is it we die off as a species or they have to be reborn or recycled in some way. If my energy or soul is just as important as that of brother hourse and sister tree then why would I not be able to fit my soul into one of their bodies? If I am but electrical energy then why could I not be part of that of a machine?

So in the end I believe that it very well could be possible. Yes I have thought of having been an animal before and to me a unicorn very well could have been real and just an early evolutionary slant of a hourse or a goat? How many civilizations have had spirit guides? Most of them are animals... maybe there is a reason for that? We as a human society have spent several decades trying to seperate ourselves from the animals, placing ourselves above them as masters... seperating ourselves from 'animal instincts'. When someone does something terrible we say they acted as an animal. What do we call someone who we consider to be without emotions? A robot.
Maybe we are just now starting the pendellum swing back toward acknowledgement of our connections? Maybe we are already starting to see something more than we thought there could be? Maybe we are just now starting to open our eyes? Maybe some of us are just not brave enough to admit they feel those phantom soul pains and acknowledge there may be more to us that just that which we see?

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If you identify as otherkin, how did you arrive at that conclusion? Does it tie in with your religious or metaphysical beliefs? If so, how? If not, why?
I don't, so N/A.

If you identify as otherkin, what kind of otherkin are you? Do you display any of those traits in the course of normal interactions with the rest of the world? If so, how do people react? If not, do you wish you could/would?

Oh god questions about my identity help

Well, I'm not otherkin, which is to say I don't identify as one; but I do feel/display animalistic characteristics at times. Looking at passing cars or the lights of my house at night as foreign and frightening things; imagining myself as possessing wings (or more rarely, other animalistic characteristics) to the point where I try to accomodate the appendages I haven't got, though that's more of an idle fantasy (and usually this is in the form of wing-arms, rather than angelic-style wings, and it manifests as holding my hands weirdly crooked); biting things on reflex; using bird-noises for casual expression; walking digitigrade/on tiptoe as a matter of course. I also do this with smaller food items. Because it's fun. I very much prefer to walk barefoot (or in socks, when it's cold, though I spent one winter walking barefoot in the snow; I stopped when I decided that, hardcore or no, frostbite was bad).

I also figured out how to move my ears deliberately, and use this as a form of expression, though it's obviously not terribly visible--I think the eyebrow effect is more noticeable than the actual ear movement, heh.

I don't regard this as evidence of any 'other' nature, though. I'm just weird: I really like birds (more broadly, animals in general), and I grew up relatively socially isolated, so I never really picked up on the common definition of 'normal', and not caring to emulate my peers... It's just things I do. I also take pleasure in thought experiments, deliberately twisting my perspective to that of something alien to myself, so some of this is cognitive habits that I've picked up.

People think it's weird; I get some funny looks, but I think most of the people I know have gotten used to it by now. /shrug

If you are not otherkin, do you believe the possibility exists? Why or why not?
Well, of course the possibility exists; there are otherkin in this thread, so clearly it exists as a psychological phenomenon.
I don't believe it's a biological phenomenon, simply because I don't believe in souls, so I don't see how an animal 'consciousness' could come to inhabit a human body; by virtue of manifesting inside a human brain, it would be human. But clearly humans can display and feel animalistic things, although perhaps that's more of a case of animals displaying or feeling human things with which we identify. I'm generally not keen on there being a massive mystical cognitive divide between humans and nonhumans, preferring to imagine it as a sort of great big mass of wibbly-wobbly, brainy-neurotransmittery... stuff.

For both:

How do YOU define otherkin?
I would say an otherkin is someone who identifies as someone or -thing outside their own species.

Have you ever encountered someone who identified as otherkin? What were your impressions?
Never IRL, though I do know a guy who's known as Squirrel... I believe that's just a joke about his general energetic nature, though. He's never mentioned otherkin, though I suppose he might not; I don't know him terribly well. Him, I quite like.
As to internet encounters with otherkin... well, what's any subculture like? You have your perfectly nice and friendly people, you have your benign but off-putting crazies, you have your genuinely alarming individuals, you have your somewhere-in-the-middles, you have your jerk-for-entirely-unrelated-reasons, you have your activists, you have your casuals... Anything and everything. /shrug