Something a couple of us were thinking about randomly the other day: We don't really have many otherkin in our system. All our current frontrunners are humans. Yeah, we do have a couple of people who're not-human, but most of them never really come up front. We have people from different worlds, but most of them are generally garden-variety Homo sapiens (and even those who aren't obviously can't bring any unique talents or characteristics up front, so we're not sure if that matters in the long run). Not that we're bashing on otherkin or anything. The conviction of not being human is really not one that most of us have ever experienced within recent memory, so we just have no real analogues to it. What does get on our nerves is... well, someone going by the name of Corvax posted a rant online about otherkin with convictions of superiority, who referred to all non-otherkin as "mundanes" and "unawakened" and acting all condescending (while simultaneously coming up with histories about their own claimed species that were ripped right out of White Wolf RPGs). You see this kind of shit with furries, too. Obviously they aren't all like that, but there are some who go around snarking at "hyoomans" for wrecking the environment and stuff (and, I suppose, absolving THEMSELVES from doing anything about it, because humans are 'guilty' of it and they're not). What gets us is this. Now, I think everyone knows by now that I hate victimwhine multiple communities. And most people in victimwhine communities never talk about subjective reality except in the context of pink happy fluffy bunny worlds where nothing bad ever happens because it's "their safe place" that their therapist probably told them to make. And we've known several groups who were told in such communities that their worlds, even if they weren't fluffy-bunny, were all just "coping devices" or something of the sort and once you got "well" (probably meaning integrated), it would go away because you didn't "need it" any more. So there's an emphasis in more empowered communities on these worlds being valid in their own right and not being wish-fulfilment or coping devices or roleplaying or whatever. But it seems like there's a general feeling among a lot of people that this world isn't worth having to do with, that humans "suck," that everything here is bad and rotten and worthless and that humans have never produced anything worthwhile. Maybe I shouldn't care about this, but I do. I am human. So are Ruka and Tam and Shiu, and everyone else who fronts on a regular basis, and yeah, we think the species as a whole does have a long way to go, and that this world is hardly utopian and that there's a lot to be done, but we care about helping to get those changes done because we have nowhere else. Most of us don't have a 'true home' other than this Earth world to go home to. We don't have a 'true species' or a place where everyone shares our values and cares about the things that are important to us; we have to work to try to open people's minds and get the idea around that other ways of being are just as valid as yours. Sure, it's frustrating. Sure, it sometimes feels unrewarding. But the times when it is rewarding, no matter how disenfranchised we've felt from the rest of society in the past, we start to feel there's some value in having not given up on Earth and humans. We feel a responsibility to this world. If you don't want anything to do with humanity, okay, fine, I can understand that, sometimes I don't want anything to do with other humans either. But if you want to snark at humans or this world or whatever, you better be aware you're snarking at me too. And another thing. I've heard of quite a few people who were told by furries, otherkin, etc., that they must be non-human, and told this solely upon the basis that they 'didn't act like a human' or were 'too open-minded' or 'too accepting' to be human. That's like saying, "you can't be gay because you're too masculine." Or "you can't be female because you're too logical." Or "you can't be male because you're too sensitive." Or "you can't be black because you're too intelligent." You see my point here? Look, I can accept it when someone considers themselves to be spiritually or in essence something other than human, if it's a deep conviction of the heart. I can accept that, though I used to be more closed-minded about that. But that's YOUR choice, YOUR conviction. Don't go around trying to make that choice for other people because they defy some narrow stereotype of 'human' into which you've dumped all the negative qualities of the species. And one last point to make. No matter what their self-image is, the furries and otherkin and etc. of this world are, basically, in human bodies, using human brains. If humans aren't 'allowed' to be compassionate, environmentally conscious, caring about and capable of these things that you say are important to you, the human brain in your human body wouldn't be allowing for it. I highly doubt that the brains of furries are somehow 'different' from the brains of the rest of humanity, or that there's anything special or unusual about them, neurologically speaking. The fact that your brain allows for it means it's a trait of which humanity is capable. Back |