hallowedbone:

actual gatekeeping: you (fictionkind) have exactly the same mix of experiences as the rest of us (therians/otherkind) but we think you’re a stupid concept so you don’t count

not gatekeeping: you (copinglinkers) have a completely different experience from the rest of us (therians/otherkind/fictionkind) so you don’t count under those words specifically, but you can hang out with us anyway as long as you’re respectful and use your own terminology so people don’t confuse us

jarandhel:

Since pendulum/divination blogs are getting popular again in the tumblr otherkin community, I’d like to call folks attention to this portion of an old essay on otherkin by Tiernan, the owner of the Tir Nan Oc mailing list (one of the largest otherkin mailing lists back in the day):

A true mentor learns as much as sie teaches, and uses the tools appropriately. You cannot cannot cannot tell someone else what they are – if you do, you are lying to them. Oh, you may be correct – but you are still lying to them because your intent is false. If someone had told me I was Sidhe before I Understood it from the heart out, how much would it have meant? Would I have grown? Would I have learned? No, because I wouldn’t have done the footwork to try and understand why I felt/thought/experienced the way I did. I wouldn’t have come to Understand the culture that so impressed my soul that it continues to resonate thousands of years later, above and beyond any other I lived in. From the heart out.

Excerpt from the essay From the Heart Out by Tiernan.  Key portions bolded for emphasis.

ranthimi:

Yo, can we normalize being wrong about your experiences and being open about making mistakes in this community? Pretty much everyone has been Completely Sure Something Is A Thing and then later on realized…… that they were wrong about it, in some form or another.

Someone going all-out into exploring a potential identity to see how it feels before saying whether or not they think it’s likely (or even feeling like it’s likely and diving straight into acknowledging it as A Thing) is only ever a problem if people refuse to go back on their labels and admit they made a mistake.

It’s not that uncommon to confuse a kintype for a soulbond/headmate or a hearttype or vice versa or any combination of these. Personal narratives can affect perception of identity and can cause people to internalize or externalize things like this a lot.

I thought I was Sora for years. I told so many people that I was him, it wasn’t a secret or anything. Then I realized he was actually a soulbond and we had gotten mixed up with each other (and I had some huge misunderstandings of how this stuff worked for awhile due to my ex) and it was scary to finally say “hey, so I was actually wrong about this” because of the pervasiveness of feeling like you need to know 100% about yourself before you say anything, and if you realize otherwise you were “just making it up”.

Mistakes happen. They’re normal. Thinking you’re one thing when you’re actually another thing is completely normal. You’re not betraying anyone if you realize you made a mistake. What isn’t okay and normal is refusing to acknowledge the possibility that you could be wrong about who you are. It’s scary, I know, but it’s really important.

It’s a lot better to really look at yourself and be open to change and accepting responsibility than it is to desperately cling to labels and false identities that don’t suit you. This is’t a contest, otherkind/fictionkind/therian identities don’t grant you access to some “exclusive club”, and they’re definitely not somehow more real or legitimate or better than things like otherheartedness, plurality, etc. or just being human that relates heavily to “weird” experiences.

Being yourself, without trying to force yourself into an experience you don’t fit, is more important than the labels or titles you come across. Learning to express what you really feel without fancy buzzwords or fear of backlash due to an honest admission of realizing you thought you were something else.

If everyone’s so hung up on who uses what words to describe themselves and who fits what terminology, why not focus on experiences and existences instead? Let people make mistakes. Let people know it’s okay if they’ve grown and changed and used to think some pretty stupid things. I bet you most of us thought p-shifting was possible at some point. I know I did.

So let’s kill this culture of belittling people for being wrong about themselves and making newbie (or not-so-newbie) mistakes. We were all new to this at one point. We all had mishaps and confusion. So let’s remember that, and be honest and open about it, okay?

Well put. 😮