#I know I butchered those last 2 defs though so feel free to step in -

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What is kin/kinning?

Ahahahaha~! I figured I’d get asked the question after reblogging that post.  :’) Well, kinning in the case of the joke I reblogged, kinda just means talking about/being somewhat openly kin on your main blog.  It’s a kin community joke, I guess.  ; P

Now, what kin itself is, is a lot more complicated to explain, and I’ll try to be concise about it, because I know I ramble a whole lot, and I don’t want to make things even more perplexing, but I have a feeling I’m going down the rabbit hole here.  :’)

***Essentially, being kin means that you are you, but also someone/something/some other essence or being.  This conviction can be spiritual in nature, it can be related to mental illness, or it can simply be a person feeling like they identify so much with a certain animal, concept, character, etc., that they are exactly that thing they identify with~!!! And they use the term kin to communicate that to other ppl~!!!

***So, to boil it down, say a person refers to themselves as doll-kin.  That means that, on a fundamental level of what that person considers their existence as, they believe they are, in addition to being themselves, also a literal doll.  Same can be said of space-kin, ghost-kin, tiger-kin; anything at all~!!!***

My Personal Conception of Kin: For me, specifically, it’s maaaaaainly kind of a spiritual (???) thing (it’s a spiritual thing for a lot of otherkin, but they may or may not share my exact spiritual beliefs).  I believe in parallel or alternate planes of existence that may have existed before, after, or at the same time as ours.  In addition to that, I believe that creative energy (that writers, artists, original creators of any sort) draw a lot of what they create from the prior existence of parallel Universes.  I think that they have the unique ability to tap into what Stephen King referred to in his novel “Lisey’s Story” as:

“...the pool where we all go down to drink, to swim, to catch a little fish from the edge of the shore; it's also the pool where some hardy souls go out in their flimsy wooden boats after the big ones. It is the pool of life, the cup of imagination, and she has an idea that different people see different versions of it, but with two things ever in common: it's always about a mile deep in the Fairy Forest, and it's always sad.  Because imagination isn't the only thing this place is about.”

A related belief is that when someone comes up with a story, they’re either telling the story of a Universe that actually exists; or, they’re creating a Universe as they make the story (in some Pagan circles, there’s a belief that if you can imagine something, it already exists somewhere, and sometimes by imagining a world, we create worlds -- this stuff is all basically preamble as to what fiction-kin is, though).  

And I know this is going to sound p wild to ppl who aren’t super spiritual, or who don’t believe in unproven/vague scientific theories, or who just have their own set of beliefs that clash will all this, and that’s okay~! I don’t feel the need to argue with anyone about whether or not kinfolk, therians, fickin, etc., exist.  It’s a set of convictions that I, and many other kinfolk, have based on our fundamental beliefs, current spiritual beliefs, and deeply-felt instincts/intuition.

Fickin (fiction kin), which is more related to the spiritual beliefs that I talked about above, is basically when someone believes that they are a fictional character that exists atm.  As an example of that, someone could say that they’re kin with Link, from Legend of Zelda, and that means that they literally are Link, and comprehend a part or a whole of their own identity as being Link. 

Some common/reasonable misconceptions about what is and isn’t related to ppl who are otherkin:

Therians are often mixed up with kinfolk, and I am not very well educated on therians, so here’s a link as to what they could be defined as, by many actual therians (some also call themselves kin, and some don’t): http://otherkin.wikia.com/wiki/Therians (I wish I had a more comprehensive link -- if anyone out there does, feel free to send it my way, and I’ll publish it for anyone who’s curious~! I just don’t feel qualified to talk about it in-depth myself~!)

Alters are also confused with kins a lot of the time.  Alters are usually more specific to people with Dissociative Identity Disorder.  Alters can be characters, animals, concepts/objects, or individual personalities.  They’re different from ppl who are kin, because these individuals exist on their own, but within one body.  This state of being used to be called multiple personality disorder, to clarify (but don’t be fooled by media depictions -- they’re really not how they’re portrayed in horror movies and other things like that).  Dissociative identity disorder is complex, and I’m also not an expert on it, so I won’t go deep into that one either.  The difference between an alter and a kin could be very loosely described as:

kin = a person themselves, who has a singular consciousness, but believes that they are in some way non-human, or essentially different from how they currently live/present themselves.alter = someone else (or multiple beings, with their own personalities, lives, and memories) living within an individual, and who sometimes operate that person’s body, or “front.”

***I thiiiiiiiiiink that’s as short an explanation as I can make it, but I gotta clarify again that being kin is viewed somewhat (or even extremely) differently by every person who is kin.  For me, it’s spiritual; for some people, it mainly means that they don’t feel like they literally are their kin, but they identify with whatever being/concept/character so strongly that they still feel they are kin; and for some people, they feel like being kin is related to specific ways of existing within a mental illness (I’m not mentioning this to say that kin ppl are mentally ill, or vice verse, I just happen to know a lot of ppl who do feel that they’re, personally, kin because of their mental illness(es)).

(About the joke I reblogged): Ppl who are kin are usually made fun of on this website (aaaaaand p much everywhere else), and a lot of us are p relaxed about that and feel comfortable with making jokes about ourselves -- I’m one of those ppl.  I feel fine with taking the piss out of myself a lot, and that’s basically what the joke I reblogged was: a variation of a meme, but this time centring the fact that a lot of ppl reasonably don’t admit to being kin on their main blog because of the negative attention it garners.

I know I said this would be short, but goodness, if I don’t have a whole lot to say about the topic.  :’) I did try to be succinct, so if a lot is missing (according to other kinfolk), pls go easy on me~! Feel free to send in your own experiences with being kin, and I’ll be happy to publish/talk about them, if y’all are interested~!

*******tl;dr: Here’s a link to someone else’s more comprehensive/direct definition and FAQ about otherkin, if you feel like reading it~