What is an Otherkin?

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... it makes them a poseur.


... it also makes them a poseur.


= "Poseur"

Feeling disconnected and apart from others is just another part of the human condition.
It can be due to hormonal or chemical imbalance, or psychological or emotional issues.

"Phantom limb" syndrome is caused by the brain itself having been hardwired by experience to receive information from a part of the body.
When the body part is removed, the pathways in the brain interpret the signals from the nearest nerve endings as having come the whole distance.

Phantom limbs come from the brain's map of the body including a limb you no longer have. So it misclassifies sensations coming from somewhere else as coming from that limb.

I suspect some otherkin (as well as transsexuals) may be experiencing a similar phenomenon to phantom limbs.

Of course the spectrum exists, I never said it didn't. I was saying that those who feel they're Otherkin aren't ordinary, that there is something there and they're putting a name on it, whether it be faery, elf, dragon, vampire, or whatever. Ordinary people do not just decide that being "ordinary" is boring and decide they're really a faery and believe it with everything they have despite logic.

The way you feel about thinking of yourself as an alien reminds me a lot of the way I feel about having imaginary friends, in that there's a part of me that feels like they really exist somehow despite such an idea flying in the face of all logic. I just love my imaginary friends so much, and it feels like that love is reciprocal. I've certainly gone through ups and downs with them just like any "real" relationship. The otherkin-related concept of soulbonding/fictives fits in really well with my feelings towards the whole thing. However, like you, I'm not sure exactly how seriously I actually believe it. If hard-pressed I'd tell you that it was all an elaborate game of pretend, but there's always a part of me that believes otherwise...

This. And you described it very well--thanks.

This may (or may not) be true for me, but until I discover something "useful" I can do with it, I don't think about it too much, either. Just another (possible) label that may (or may not) be another aspect of myself as a whole....

But faeries don't really exist you know. Nor do elves, dragons (fantasy type), actual vampires (not people who simply like to drink blood or live the lifestyle). Those supernatural creatures simply do not exist. Maybe there is a planet somewhere out there that they exist on, but they do not exist on ours. If there are other planes of consciousness or existence such as heaven, hell, the afterlife, etc, then maybe they do exist there, nobody can argue either way about that because nobody has actually been there and come back.

I have nothing at all against someone wanting to live that lifestyle and be in that subculture. I know a couple of vampire chicks in Bham actually, they are really nice gals. But they know that they are not supernatural vampires with special powers or anything like that. They identify with a subculture and a fictional creature and there is absolutely no harm in what they do because it's all done among consenting adults and it's not done out of some delusion that it's real.

My best friend dated this guy who actually thought he was a vampire. A 400 year old vampire at that. He was also going to take her on a spaceship this past September because it was going to come get a certain group of people who had a chip put in them. He told her she had one, and even though he was a 400 year old vampire, he has one too. He wasn't saying he has the soul of a 400 year old vampire in the body of a 25 yo boy who still lives with his mother, he was saying that he - all of him, body and soul - was the 400 year old vampire. He talked somebody into letting them cut them once and drank their blood and threw it up all over the girl and the people watching. This happened despite the fact that he is a 400 year old vampire who I would think would have lots of blood drinking experience.

I've know quite a few people into the lifestyles and subcultures and more than a few who actually, deeply believe these things are real. There is a different. A big difference. Compare it to the SCA. People go to SCA camps for weekends and stay in character and pretend they are in the middle ages. They do it because they enjoy it and identify with that time period and the character they have created. Sometimes they carry it further into their home décor and clothes they wear and food and recreation choices when not at SCA camp. But they know they don't really live in the middle ages and aren't someone who is from the middle ages. I'm sure that somebody out there somewhere, has a delusion that they are living in the medieval period, and even though they may do some of the same things the SCA guy does, it's not the same thing. It goes from hobby to eccentricity to obsession to belief then to disorder.

I'm confused... Firstly, we don't actually have the capability to know for certain whether these fae creatures really do exist or not. We assume they don't because we have no solid proof, but it doesn't mean they don't exist, or haven't existed.
Second, what does this have to do with there being something different about people who claim to be otherkin?? I just said people can't call them ordinary.

You most certainly can call them ordinary. They are ordinary human beings in that they are just like the rest of us. Human and mortal. While they may not be ordinary where it concerns their mental health, they are still ordinary human beings. (This is not meant to include those who are in the subcultures but don't really believe it.)

Ah. Ordinary as in they aren't physically what they believe themselves to be. I was thinking ordinary as in mental status.

No, somebody who really believes they are an elf, faery, vampire, werewolf, angel or space alien, etc is far from ordinary in mental status, but not in a good way either.

There was a short story by George R.R. Martin called "the Hedge Knight", which takes place in the world of A Song of Fire and Ice (a.k.a. Game of Thrones) but several decades before the rebellion of Robert Baratheon. The bad guy in the story is a young Targaryen prince who believes that he is a dragon. Like, an actual dragon in a man's body. At some point someone says "it's too bad he isn't a Fossoway, because then he would think he is an apple." The sigil of House Fossoway is an apple hanging in a tree.