Kin for Fun?

[raptordyne]

Kin for Fun?

We've seen twice now (on DW) people speaking in a hostile manner towrads kin and "kin for fun" (we've never heard this term before). The idea is apparently people saying they're kin to a character because they very much relate to them, which... we think is relatively harmless. There seems to be discourse around how it's "diluting the term" and "making the rest of (us) look like we're not serious" and even "it makes them more palatable than us," but all those arguments sound very similar to "you can't use xenopronouns because it makes other queer people look bad."

We're not taking a stance on it at the moment, since we don't have enough information, but the kind of language being used is deeply concerning. Words understandably have meaning, but much of the language of the plural community-- to our present knowledge-- is very different than it was ten years ago (with terms like "natural system" no longer or rarely in use now). We're not sure how this is different? If the language evolves, does that make it diluted? Or is there some active push against people who are plural, soulbonders, etc. that we're not aware of (and we mean a direct, malicious harm, not just kids learning new terms to help describe themselves).

Ultimately, at the moment, we're thinking that many of the "kin for fun" crowd are probably like... the kinds of genderfluid or genderqueer kids that grow up to find out they're trans? That seems to consider best with what we've seen so far. So is discouraging it (or outright being hostile) really a good idea, or appropriate?

Again, we don't know our stance yet, this is just a collection of thoughts. We'll probably crosspost this to DW, too. Open discussion but please don't be hostile or combative, we're not interested in an argument; just other views! 📚​

(CODE)

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[raptordyne]

Update: while we still don't have any strong feelings either way, and still definitely quirk a brow at exclusionist language of any sort, there does seem to be some level of reasonable discussion on the topic. There's a tumblr post by (we assume?) the person who coined the term actively revoking it, asking for people who would use "kff" to instead use "cir" (character I relate (to)). There's also notes about how damaging the tumblr "kin" community was to plural, otherhearted, soulbonders, etc. folks (which we agree wholeheartedly with, tumblr was a cess pit!). At the moment there seems to be only one person with active resources (or even just general links), and said person is someone we'd normally be quite suspicious of. They also actively denounce many of the plural resources available in favor of some small ones we've personally seen use exclusionary terms and the like. It's all very hard to wrap our head around, especially with so much history for kin/plural/soulbond/etc. having been lost to time (LJ)! 📚​

[raptordyne]

Update 2: in our research we ended up at a place that was just deeply hostile to endogenic systems so our new opinion is "my god, please let people exist without trying to tear every aspect of them apart :(" and we no longer have any real thoughts on the original KFF question x_x 📚​

[raptordyne]

Some of the links we ended up at, for archiving purposes!

https://anomaly.monster/ahresources.html (Researched further into and found this very exclusionary/had extremely worrisome terminology and vibes, BUT it does have several fantastic pieces of information!)

http://frameacloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Scribner_Timeline2p0.pdf (Otherkin timeline)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w4vGsWkiGPjYtXvTe4PyCcZsPba1kb_p/view (A timeline of Fictionkin)

https://the-other-kind.tumblr.com/tagged/plurality%20resources (general resources for plurality)

There were some references involving a tumblr user who "coined" the term KFF and a moderator of a fiction-kind/alterhuman/otherkin group talking with them, which was very civil, but we're still somewhat skeptical as a lot of exclusionary language was used. There's definitely nuance to this and we're not presently able to research it further, especially since resources for these sorts of things have been so badly damaged over the years (with forums like LJ going dark).

We saw references to Yandere Bitch Club but with no proof we don't feel comfortable linking it as a source.

Our conclusion is "my GOD, just let people exist, please?" And also that we all need to get offline for a while, if we're able.