What the Heck's an Otherkin? (original) (raw)

Sometimes I think so. But haven't you ever felt like there was someplace else you were supposed to be, or looked at something ordinary and it suddenly struck you as being strange somehow or alien? Haven't you ever looked up at the stars and thought, There's where home is? (That's known as the Yearning, by the way.)

Is it so inconceivable to wonder whether there really is other life out there than our own? And is it so inconceivable to think that maybe we were once part of it?

Besides...even if I'm crazy...it doesn't mean I'm wrong. ;)

The problem we encounter with all of this is that we get people who would like to think that they're Otherkin and therefore special. They think that if they try hard enough they can become an Elf or a Dragon. It doesn't generally work that way. Either you're Other, or you're not.

The down side to this is that those of us who really feel that we are Other have no proof of it, and no way to prove that someone *isn't* Otherkin just because they claim to be. We spend most of our lives questioning and doubting every memory that surfaces, every hint we get, every face we seem to recognize. Those whom I mentioned above tend to lose interest after a while and move on to other things. The rest of us are left perpetually wondering whether or not we're certifiable.

And then we have regular people who have the concept of Kinness forced on them when they didn't ever want it! Say, for instance, that you're a business associate in a high-power firm, you have 12 credit cards, a wonderful marriage, high esteem among your colleagues, a sparkling psych profile, and then one day on the street you find a piece of paper with Elvish scribbled on it, and you read it perfectly without a second thought. Suddenly, you're Awake. Your world as you know it has just been destroyed.

While it doesn't usually happen quite like that, I can tell you with authority that Awakening isn't all it's cracked up to be.