fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3214 ]

[ SECRET POST #3214 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3214 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Lady Gaga, American Horror Story: Hotel]

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[Two Fat Ladies]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 009 secrets from Secret Submission Post #459.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

14, or whatever age you think you wouldn't know better by, dramatic teenage years or otherwise. If you went back but were in crazy fandom stuff, do you think you might seriously start adopting a weird identity like Otherkin, or "I was this fictional character in another dimension lifetime" or whatever?

If so, what character/animal/whatever do you think you'd be?

Anyone have any real life stories of either themselves or people they know going off the deep end into that kind of stuff?

Nah. I was such a boring teenager. My dad loved it!

Uh, probably not, but it's hard to say. If I was, it'd definitely be a wolf because that's what I thought was the coolest at that time.

(If it were now, it'd probably be a sheep, mole, or rabbit. I'm guessing kin is kinda sorta like a spirit animal/character. I've never entirely gotten it.)

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

herpymcderp - 2015-10-23 02:22 (UTC) - Expand

I was a very imaginative introvert as a young teen/preteen, and read a lot of books on New Age spirituality and religion. I sort of still identify as pagan, but only as a spiritual and not literal sense, but back then I'd really try the rituals and such to connect to otherworldly beings. I like to think I was always more or less level-headed about it, but I definitely entertained some flaky ideas. If I had heard of it, I might've considered the idea that I was the reincarnation of a cat or dragon from another dimension or something. I don't think I would've walked on all fours meowing trying to connect to my ~past life~ or whatever it is that Otherkin do, but who knows, if I had met a tumblr group of Otherkin way back then I might've just been impressed enough to take it seriously. Thank god this was back in the 90s, lol

Otherkin were around when I was in my teens, and I'm almost 30.

I can confidently say I wouldn't be one, because I wasn't.

I got involved in fursona stuff around that age, but I never thought I was an animal. I just liked the idea of using animal symbolism as shorthand for things about yourself. (I recall jokingly speculating on why humans were the only ones with totems--was there ever a badger who was really a raven on the inside?)

I would think it sounded like a fun idea but never be able to settle on an animal.

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-23 00:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-23 00:04 (UTC) - Expand

Not 14, but I might have when I was like, seven? I used to pretend I was a cat so much it worried my parents.

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-23 00:05 (UTC) - Expand

Um no. I wouldn't even label myself bi at the time because I didn't want other people to think I was looking for attention.

Might I have been? Maybe not ...?

Looking back, I was crazed, but I think I was just so sure that at some point, I would find a way into the fictional place where I *belonged*, with the characters that I loved and were with me...that being an animal was besides the point. Maybe a werewolf, mostly because it would have been useful.

My best friend was quick to slap me back into reality. Sigh. It was fun while it lasted.

If I wasn't an otherkin when I was 14 the first time why would I be one now?

Everyone's answering for Otherkin, but I'll shoot for the other one.

When I was 14, I think I was seriously attached to a certain character that I identified with that I did think we had a serious connection. I started dressing more in this character's style, adopting her personality, would walk alone and pretend I was her...

In the case of the first two, it wasn't bad for me, it helped me adapt a bit of a fashion sense (and a cute one at that), and helped me be nicer and less shy. The character was a good role model. But I was really obsessed. I don't think it was unhealthy per se because it didn't really impact my life negatively, and I kept this generally pretty quiet except when I was cosplaying the character or making a fan site (back in those days). But if someone gave me a convincing speech about how it was possible that I might exist as this character in an alternate dimension, I would've believed it on the spot. And probably gotten involved in the appropriate message boards/livejournals/whatever.

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-23 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-23 00:26 (UTC) - Expand

Re: If you were 14, would you be an Otherkin?

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-23 09:09 (UTC) - Expand

Nah. I met this guy in a chatroom who tried telling me he was a werewolf when I was about that age, and I knew he was full of crap.

(That, or teasing me and thought I was buying it, since I played along.)

That's the kind of thing I would have done at 6 or 7, but not 14. At 14, I fantasized heavilly about having all kinds of adventures, living in fictional worlds, having special powers, etc. but never literally believed I was a fictional character (my own or someone else's) or animal or mythic beast.

I did know about otherkin at that age, and some of my friends were (and still are). I kind of wanted to be one, but I didn't identify strongly enough with any other species/characters.

I don't think so. I might think about it, but I wouldn't have actually done it. Of course, at 14, I was extremely sheltered and had no idea what any of this stuff was.

I don't think so. I think we had spirit animals and fursonas when I was 14 and it fell under "fun to think and talk about but I don't believe" for me.

Nah, I love feeling immersed in fiction and I like to think I'm somewhat creative, but I was never creative enough (or motivated enough) to come up with a persona. (And it never really crossed my mind either. I couldn't have believed it, but I never considered it.)

Edited 2015-10-23 01:19 (UTC)

Eh. I desperately wanted to be someone else, almost always someone fictional, when I was 14, but my self-esteem was so low that I knew I wasn't any of the characters I wanted to be, because if I was any of them I'd have the talents and skills that made me want to be them in the first place. I also desperately wished some fictional characters and their worlds were real. But I haven't seriously wanted to be an animal since I was around 4, and drew tiger stripes all over myself.

Hm, well, I pretended I was a dog for about two years straight when I was around five but I never actually thought I was one.

I do wonder if I would have gotten into that stuff if I hadn't already been religious. Spirituality is important to me, and fiction/fantasy is important to me, and if I didn't already have religious beliefs I could see myself combining the two in some way. Though who knows if it would have been as weird as otherkin stuff or some more normal kind of new age spirituality.

Nope. Even when I was 14, nope.

No, I was the prosaic skeptical type, I would have been like: where's the scientific basis for that.

I met my first "I'm really a fictional character" weirdo when I was 13. In 1994. Otherkin/fictionkin/whatever else you want to call them aren't anything new - tumblr makes them more visible because they're collecting somewhere that's readily accessible to random gawkers, but the phenomenon predates the internet.

(As do people who really, really want to believe that stranger who talks a good game is really an angel/demon/fairy and that they could be one too. We're not getting any more gullible, just - again - more visible in our gullibility.)

No, because I was a weeb then and I'm a weeb now and desperately wanted Washu from Tenchi Muyo to be my mom back then, on the plus, it might have been her that gave me my love of mad scientist characters. I sympathized with Ken from Digimon a lot but never thought I was like him in another life or anything, he's just my top waifu.

Jesus, no.

But mostly because I remember reading about otherkin stuff when I was young and it definitely left a long time impression on me. Stuff was weird as balls. I remember reading a story where these people believed they where Zack and Aerith from FF7 and dragged their ex-roomie into it. Wish I could find that post again, but it's quite old.