We’re writing a book about alterhumans, and you can be part of it! For this part of the project, we want to hear from otherkin in particular. In the Otherkin Community Survey, we’re gathering data about otherkin experiences and understandings of themselves and their community. If you participate, the survey asks about your kintypes, how you personally define the word otherkin, and about your experiences. It’s about ten minutes long. This survey is open to anyone who is physically at least 18 who identifies with the label “otherkin” or other synonyms with that word. One response per physical body, please.
This survey will close March 31st, 2024. We will collect data from the survey, which we will publish online afterwards and use for research purposes. Any identifying information that participants submit will be made anonymous or removed entirely. This is part of a series of surveys for our book about alterhumans, by House of Chimeras (@liongoatsnake), Orion Scribner (@frameacloud), and Page Shepard (@who-is-page). If you’re interested in this project, please join our mailing list to get notifications of updates, additional surveys, and other events!
one of the best side effects of dyeing your hair is if you do it often enough you can destroy people’s sense of object permanence. it’s like microdosing on shapeshifting.
i’ll show up to work with a new dye job and my coworkers will literally be like i’m sorry who’s this guy. and when i’m like it’s me james? we’ve worked together for years? they’re like “yes, i suppose see it now… you do look like him… but the james i know has blue hair… what kind of devilish trickery is this…”
This thread is full of the luckiest people on the planet, I think. Also goes to show just how calm even venomous snakes are - coral snakes rarely bite unless you’re actively harassing them - and how important it is to make sure your ID as non-venomous is 1000% certain before picking up any wild snake.
Based on discussions from the Chosen Ones Support Group server, how would folks feel about “otherfolk” being used as a replacement for alterhuman and as an umbrella term?
Other coming from how many identities under the umbrella already use it as a suffix (i.e. otherkin, otherhearted, otherlink, otherhuman), and folk being based on the preexisting term fictionfolk. Folk also being a good neutral term to refer to a group without feeling inherently too human or too anti-human.
I’ve got largely the same opinions for this word that I did for other+ when it was suggested as a label– so honestly, I’m just going to copy/paste my response from NNP and do some minor edits to get my points across, because I’m still pretty low on spoons from OtherCon.
PotentiallyOutsider Unfriendly Terminology: The term “alterhuman” is much easier to parse the immediate meaning of than the term “otherfolk”, making it unfriendly to individuals who exist outside or on the fringes of community spaces– mainly because “folk” can have a bit of a wider range of meaning and interpretation than “human” can, and from first glance it seems like something that covers only the other- communities rather than being an entire umbrella term synonymous with alterhuman. This can accidentally “raise the bar” for entry in the communities, making it more difficult for people outside of them to find relevant information on it because it’s not readily apparent.
Potential Hierarchical Issues: This is an issue I’ve had with other “Other-” prefix terms that have been coined while I’ve been in the community and which aren’t solely in reference to otherkin experiences; there exists a sort of hierarchy within some spaces, where otherkin experiences are prioritized above all others. Oftentimes, places would describe the now-alterhuman community as something along the lines of “Otherkin! Plus…those other guys, I guess.” Using “Otherfolk” as an umbrella term for all alterhuman experiences runs the risk of reinforcing those ideas again, even accidentally.
Functionally Unneeded: We already have an existing and supported terminology for this umbrella of experiences. The term alterhuman is also already connected to and backed by several organizations formally–The Alterhuman Advocacy Group (Alt+H), the Freedom of Form Foundation (FFF), and I wouldn’t be surprised if FurScience ends up referencing it at some point as well–and it’s finally starting to be mentioned and studied in formal academia. It’s also been positively spoken of by news outlets, as can be seen in this Daily Dot article. This, mind you, is the progress of a good tenyears of work in getting the term out there. Moving to a wholly different label would be bringing a lot back to square one.
Potentially Confusing/Risk of Fragmentation: At the end of the day, it’s a confusing term. From first outsider glance, it sounds like a new subculture yeah, but it still sounds like it’s connected to mainly the otherkin, otherhearted, and otherlink communities. (The reason I coined the term as copinglinker, and not otherlinker as it eventually mutated to be, was this exact problem of other- becoming an overwhelming prefix with tons of finnicky complications.) There’s also the risk of fragmentation that it runs in the community: people only tend to use one word for one thing, with little variation as far as alternative spellings or synonyms go when referring to groups or experiences. This is in part due to practicality, because it’s easier to remember one thing, makes writings smoother to stick to one spelling/term consistently, and it functions much more effectively in digital and physical spaces where searching/archiving is a function (looking up one term consistently as opposed to say, three). In creating something synonymous with alterhuman, most people are likely either going to consistently stick to one or the other
Doesn’t Address the Flaws with the term Alterhuman: The term alterhuman IS flawed. It’s arguably too broad–its inclusion to roleplayers and KFFers is something that, while I do understand the logic of (the logic being that anyone can identify as alterhuman and/or have the case be argued that they would realistically fit under the alterhuman umbrella), I find troubling and frustrating when I see it in action. Its extreme broadness can toe the line between an effective way of telling someone that you have a nontraditional relationship with humanity, versus being so watered down as a term as to be functionally useless. It’s also been applied to terminology that’s very controversial and have largely negative connotations, such as starseed, changeling, and indigo child. Words which have an intensely fraught history and are largely a personal choice to embrace (or reject) shouldn’t necessarily be included as part of the “default” groupings, because it disregards the histories and politics of those terms and the ways in which they have been used for real, consistent harm. And then alterhuman’s general nature as an opt-out label, rather than an opt-in label. Otherfolk as a term doesn’t address any of these issues, and leaves them still.
Also, as the coiner of folcintera, I just don’t want my term put under there. I’ll begrudgingly accept it in the alterhuman umbrella, but I explicitly coined folcintera to exist outside of otherkin, therian, and fictionkin categorization; alterhuman feels like it evens the playing field in how terminology is viewed and connected, but Otherfolk feels like it yanks otherkin back to the forefront, and I don’t want folcintera misinterpreted as an otherkin subidentity because of that. But that’s less a broad issue with it, and more of a personal issue with it.
Basically, making otherfolk an umbrella for specifically the other- communities might not be a bad idea, but making it a replacement for the term alterhuman as a whole isn’t something I can get behind.
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