Have you ever felt different than the rest of society? Not because of the color of your skin, your sexual orientation, or your third nipple that spits acid -- because of something deeper. Something that makes you feel like you were born in the wrong body.
I know I feel that way all the time. Maybe I'm just a little depressed -- or maybe I'm an elf. An elf trapped as a human!
Don't laugh -- there are many people who think the way I do. They're called otherkin, and they believe that they are, in spirit, mythological creatures. Elves whose souls have travelled countless millennia, ancient dragons that have been reincarnated as humans, World of Warcraft characters who have been sucked into the real world like in Weird Science -- otherkin are all this and more, and I intended to become one of them. Read on to witness my journey through the world of otherkin, as I learned about either a mystical group of eldritch creatures, or a bunch of middle-aged sex offenders and confused teenagers.
The Basics
Otherkin are one of the oldest Internet subcultures, with a history going back to a 1990 Usenet mailing list. Before we were using the Internet to read world news and exchange goods and services, we were using it to swap self-insertion Lord of the Rings fanfiction stories that people believed were real. Hurray for technology!
These people predate cnn.com.
Those who identity as elves are the most common type of otherkin, but if there's a fantasy creature and a pseudoscientific explanation for how a person could be one, then somebody on the Internet has laid claim to it. Time-travelling dwarves, ancient descendants of unicorns, an eternally reborn weresquirrel, you name it. The otherkin community is extremely inclusive.
That welcoming attitude is one of the reasons the otherkin community is as popular as it is -- nobody's going to judge or question if you claim to have the soul of a million year old dragon. Otherkin will roll out the red carpet for just about anyone... except furries. Yes, even the hippy elves think furries are weird and undesirable. See, they aren't so different from us after all!
Good call, elves.
So if you haven't fled in disgust you're probably wondering what rational basis the otherkin have for their beliefs. Well, it's very complicated, but I'll sum it up as eloquently as I can: they totally feel it, man.
To be clear, very few otherkin claim to be biologically different from humans -- they bleed like us, get sick like us, and suffer from premature ejaculation like, uh ... a friend of mine. It's the mental side of things where they say they're different, and since they're pretending to be elves on the Internet, they may have a case. Possibly a case of schizophrenia.
Reincarnation is by far the most popular explanation for their condition. That's not surprising -- it's relatively simple, it has a long religious history, and it's completely impossible for skeptics to disprove. But we let the Dalai Lama get away with that argument, so why not these guys?
He even looks a bit like a gnome.
As evidence of their reincarnation, otherkin often cite the phantom limb effect -- in the same way that someone who loses an arm still "feels" its presence, they claim to "feel" long lost tails, wings, horns, footlong orc penises, etc. Some even argue that physical conditions, like back problems, are caused from the strain of thinking that they're supporting wings, although if you mention that to your doctor his diagnosis will probably be "a case of the serious crazies." And, as the insane otherkin web comic below explains, other people will sometimes "avoid" limbs that aren't there. That's right, buddy, it's the phantom wings that are making people steer clear of you. You just keep telling yourself that.
There are other, creepier arguments as well, such as otherkin having different instincts from regular folk that mimic the traits of their species. For example, an elf might spend a lot of time outdoors, while a dragon might spend a lot of time committing arson. And some otherkin are even sexually attracted to nonhumans. But wait, that means ... oh. Oh Shakespeare.
As you look at this picture, someone out there who thinks they're a unicorn is masturbating to it.
And all that's just one explanation. There are many others: trans-species (believing you were born in the wrong body, like The Crying Game but with goblins), genetics (a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather scored with an elf), walk-ins (some ancient soul was just chilling out in the void until it one day decided to get all up in some human flesh) and even wannabes (people who really, really want to be an otherkin, but deep down know that they aren't, which is somehow even sadder than people who are genuinely convinced).
The list goes on and on, with each theory supported by plenty of pseudoscience and baffling anecdotal evidence, but you get the idea: there are people out there who think they're elves, and they're not going to let trivial things like "logic," "science" or "sanity" get in their way. And it was time for me to join them.
Please continue to Part 2: Finding my Inner Elf!
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