feotakahari

There’s a lot I could dig into about the different conflations various posters made, and the ways in which they assumed particular traits existed across every single member of the groups they discussed. But for now, I want to assume a system with almost every trait they discussed. Some members are otherkin, some are fictionkin, they believe in reincarnation, they believe in parallel universes, etc. Should this system be treated differently compared to “everyday” people? And what factors do you use to judge how to treat them?

I’m all about boundaries, so I’ll bring out one specific post in that thread:

“My crazy abusive ex was part of the mpd/did and -kin community. And I used to be friends with a few people who were basically FF7 House, except with slightly different fandoms.

“Holy fuck it’s amazing how many of these people are absolute manipulative pieces of shit. I will never not consider it anything but a cult. Yeah, I met a couple who were legitimately nice people who knew they had a serious mental illness / weird coping mechanism. (Amazingly, they all stayed on the ragged fringe of the community bc admitting you have a problem and trying to fix it so you can live a normal life isn’t exactly popular in a cult.) But far too many of them were full-on Join Us or Die. And these weren’t confused teens, these were adults.

“They take young, fucked-up kids who need help and support, and instead use that confusion and isolation against them. The reason you don’t have friends and your family abuses you is bc you’re Special, you’re the fucking Moon Princess. And all you have to do to get “friends” and a community where you belong and an explanation for your fucked up head is to admit that you aren’t really you.

“And of course, it can’t just stop at pretending to be something on the internet. All of these community leaders are ‘out’, so maybe this young person feels like they should be out too. So they out themselves as some crazy shit to their family and friends and of course no one understands, which isolates them further. And because so many of that subculture are mentally ill, it give the manipulative abusers tons of easy fodder.”

Personally, I have never talked to anyone who told me I was a wolf. No one has ever told me I’m Sephiroth, or an elf, or psychically linked to hobbits on the astral plane. That’s why I can get along with otherkin and fictionkin. I don’t believe what they believe, but I probably believe tons of things they think are silly, too.

But every time I see an account of otherkin and fictionkin being absolute jackasses, it always starts with some troubled young person being told they, too, were otherkin or fictionkin. And for that matter, I’ve read about disgraced psychologists who made up DID diagnoses and then controlled their patients’ lives to “treat” them. I can’t argue that all recruiters are abusers, but at the very least, abusers like to recruit.

If I may go broader, this is the distinction I make for all sorts of things I don’t believe in. The religious fanatic doesn’t just believe God wants things from him; he believes God wants things from me, and by not doing those things, I’m going against the will of God. The conspiracy theorist believes the conspiracy controls not just the world she lives in, but the world I live in as well, and conversely, I believe the global warming denier’s continued pollution affects my world as well as his. Only from an anti-vaxxer do I not accept “Well, you can vaccinate your kids and I won’t vaccinate mine,” and that’s because I’m sickly and can’t take some vaccines.