Crossing Many Rainbows

swanblood:

Just a short (probably not complete) list of arguments, false statements and just ignorant/insulting misbeliefs that the community is tired of answering. We have answered them many times before, there have been a lot of good answers from thoughtful people, and if you say these things like you are coming up with some new reason that we have not thought of, why we should not identify the way we do… we already have thought about this. Most of us have identified this way for many years, for some of us it is decades, and, believe me, we have heard all this before and thought about it.

So, please, if you want to convince us away from our identities (but, why would you do that?), or you want to make an angry post about how “otherkin obviously have not thought of this thing, that I, genius, have just thought of!”, please try to do something different than any of this. Otherwise, you are just showing your ignorance. And no one wants to see that.

• Otherkin want everyone to believe some particular metaphysical thing about their selves.
• All otherkin believe that otherkin is a metaphysical experience, so it should be considered a religion and not an identity.
• Otherkin think they are physically the animals/creatures they say they are.
• You don’t know what it feels like to be that kind of creature, because you’re not one! (Circular argument.)
• You can’t be something non-human, because… because… you can’t! Argh! (Argument from brain explosion.)
• You can’t be something that isn’t real!
• Otherkin just want to feel special.
• Otherkin are a group of white, straight, kids who have no problems and no oppressions, so they have to make one up.
• Otherkin are all fat! (…yes… people do say this… it’s not even an argument… I don’t understand…)
• Otherkin are just roleplayers.
• Otherkin are crazy and need to see psychologists. (Ignoring the people who keep saying, over and over, that we have.)
• Otherkin are people who just feel “different” from the rest of the world, and so they decide that they are something not human, instead of realising that everyone feels different sometimes.
• Otherkin are a group of people who are not satisfied with the modern world and want to get back to nature.
• Otherkin are a group of people who have not grown up from playing silly childhood fantasy games.
• Otherkin are trying to escape from the real world using their identities.
• Otherkin always identify as powerful or “cool” animals.
• Otherkin isn’t a valid identity because no one has written any scientific papers about it.

I mean… a lot of these were answered in Baxil’s Draconity FAQ, which was last updated in 1999. I was 5 years old in 1999! These arguments are literally older than my teeth! Can you try a little harder, please?

Tsu, you are one of my favourites.  This is great, and everyone should take a look at it.  If you come up with an argument that isn’t on this list, by all means, ask away.  Don’t be an asshole about it, but ask away.  Then we can answer it, then we can add it to the list.

But seriously, it gets tiresome when this same shit gets brought up over and over and over again.  Either you’re taking a five-second glance at the tag and deciding you know everything, or you’re reading the shit we’re saying and acting like either we haven’t answered well enough for YOUR satisfaction or you’re flat-out ignoring us. Regardless of the circumstance, it either makes you look like you’re not trying to be informed, or it makes you look like an asshat.

Come on.  Step it up.  If you wanna try and convince us we’re wrong (we’re not, but okay, whatever floats your boat), you’re gonna have to do better than that.

xstealthyx:

Wondering how many more of us it’ll take for us to be considered oppressed, for it to not just be an ‘isolated incident’ anymore.

Not everyone has a Tumblr. Not everyone can share their stories when the stories hurt too much. Not everyone wants to share their stories when they KNOW they’ll be laughed at and called a crazy and a freak and a liar. Not everyone was lucky enough for it to just be an ATTEMPTED murder.

Tumblr’s attitude towards otherkin is TOXIC. Do you honestly think somebody is going to get up there and bare their soul and all these memories that trigger the hell out of them, that they wouldn’t share with anybody, to a group of people who are going to say they’re a validation-seeking idiot with a ridiculous identity WITHOUT FAIL? Do you think everybody wants people telling them to kill themselves because they’ve gone through shit before? Do you really, truly think someone wants to relive their worst memories for an audience who thinks it’s hilarious?

For every story you see on Tumblr-assume it’s not the only. Because it’s NOT the only, it’s never the only. Assume many, many hidden victims for every one who shares their story.

See what we’ve already told you-then see what we haven’t told you. See the blogger who won’t admit ze’s an otherkin and that’s why ze was targeted, lest everyone think ze’s making up hir story of being a rape survivor. See the person who didn’t survive the murder attempt, and whose killer was never convicted of the hate crime ze committed, because otherkin aren’t even seen as deserving of it. See the person who’s treated as target practice by non-‘kin, but wouldn’t dare to share hir story, because ze knows ze’d be treated even worse for it. See the person who was bullied to death for being an otherkin. See the person who thinks they’re the only otherkin around, the only person crazy enough to think like them, and thus deserving of the shit ze gets, because ze’s a freak.

Look at the stories you don’t hear and look me in the eye and tell me it’s an isolated incident.

(via xstealthyx-deactivated20120704)

scar-lip:

Please, if you are capable of reading an account of rape, take a moment to read this, or at least pass it on. The author has asked that it be signal boosted. (also, please keep the trigger warning in for people who need it)

vyashari:

This is my first post, and it will be difficult to write.

I’ve been reading the otherkin tag for a while and hearing a lot of things about how the worst things that otherkin have been through are being harassed on the internet. I wish that were true, but it isn’t.

I’m fae. I’ve known this for a long time, long before I even started using the internet. But that’s not what this post is about.

I have always been very shy and did not tell anyone about my identity for a very long time, until I was 13. I had just started high school (I skipped third grade) and met a boy in my English class. I’ll call him Ryan. He was very kind to me and we became friends. He truly was my first close friend. After a few months of friendship, I opened up to him and told him that I was fae. Ryan, in turn, told me that he was a therian and completely accepted my identity. I was absolutely thrilled. Here was the first true friend I had ever had, and not only did he accept me, but he understood me.

A bit later he invited me over to his house, which I had been to before. When I got there, however, there were three other men there, quite a bit older than I was. One was a junior at our school and two of them looked older and I think they might have been in their 20’s. I didn’t really know who they were, but I figured since I was with Ryan it would be okay, since he said I was his best friend and the only person he could talk to about being otherkin.

So we sat down and after a while one of the men said “So you’re the fairy, huh?” I was confused and hurt that Ryan had told these strangers about me. I didn’t know what to say, and they laughed and I became a bit scared. The way they looked at me frightened me, so I stood up and told Ryan that I should probably go. I tried to leave, but one of them grabbed me before I could leave the room and said “Let’s see how good the fairy fucks.”

I struggled and tried to escape, but they were too strong. They gang-raped me. All of them, including Ryan. They laughed and jeered at me and called me retarded and delusional for being so stupid to think that I was fae. One of them, while he was raping me, hissed “Am I crushing your wings right now, you fairy whore?”

They stopped abusing me for a while, and I curled up in a corner. They started mocking me. It turned out that once Ryan heard that I was fae, he found it hilarious and told these “friends” of his. They thought maybe they could “teach me a lesson” about not being stupid and “delusional” by abusing me. So Ryan lured me into trusting him by pretending to be otherkin. After a while they started abusing me again and did things that I don’t want to describe because I can’t.

When they finally let me go I could barely walk. They refused to drive me back to my house because “Aren’t you a fairy? Can’t you just fly home?”

I’m not writing this as a sob story. I’m writing this to show people that we’re not just “harassed on the internet”. I was raped because I’m otherkin.

I was raped because I’m otherkin.

I don’t know if anyone will read this, but I wanted to write it anyway, even if no one reads this. If you do, thank you for listening.

(via void-symphony)