Otherkin and Roleplaying

I really don't know if there's another topic on this or not. Feel free to lock this up if there is.

So, don't kill me for it, but I've been, as of lately, doing the unthinkable: on Gaia, and other sites, I've been roleplaying as my kintype.

Yep. A demon named Simim. As close to my kintype as I can roleplay, most of the time. That's not to say I don't occasionally embellish my character with loads of emotional depth and magical abilities, but still.

There's a major pro and con here. There are other little ones, of course, but these are the big ones:

Pro: I can separate my fact and fiction MUCH easier. Roleplaying as a demon has allowed me to express stuff that isn't true: what I wish my memories were made of, instead of what they really are. It really helps sort things out: if I type out a scenario where I'm in the middle of a void filled with say, zombies, and I'm killing them off, I know it's not real. That's a little over the top, but still. Also, by typing out things I make up in my mind, I get them out of my mind and onto a medium, kinda "relieving the tension" in my mind. So I stop thinking about them so much, and therefore they don't get mixed into memories and become some sort of pseudo-real fantasy-memory.

Con: Anybody who I meet, kin-wise, who knows about me rp'ng as a demon will probably not take me seriously. I only just recently started roleplaying as my kintype(like, a few weeks), and I've had the belief I am Otherkin for years now. That probably won't hold against someone I've newly met. >.<;;

Me: but I've believed this for years now.
Them: SURRREEE you have...
Me: ;; oookay. fine. whatever.



Okay, so you know the drill: discuss.

Have you ever roleplayed as anything similar/identical to your kintype?
Did it help you out?
Did it hinder your reputation in any kin community?
Do you do so now, was it a temporary thing, etc?

I didn't really notice that you were doing that...

Anyways- yeah, I've roleplayed as my kin-type, but more often than not on sites that are all about roleplaying. Here, if I roleplay as anything (with some notable exceptions), it's my mind, which I've managed to drag along with me from life to life.

Deros Wrote:I didn't really notice that you were doing that...

Anyways- yeah, I've roleplayed as my kin-type, but more often than not on sites that are all about roleplaying. Here, if I roleplay as anything (with some notable exceptions), it's my mind, which I've managed to drag along with me from life to life.

Not on here. On other forums. Like Gaia online, etc. Anything I've said on here has been as close to fact as I can ever be sure of.

My "con" referred to, say, if I knew someone who was Otherkin from say, here, and they added me as a friend on Gaia and went, "omg, Simim is a roleplayer!!! NO WAI THEY BE FULL OF FLUFF."

Imma go and edit that right now so it can't be misconstrued.

Oh, yes. Though with a twist. At the time I hadn't fully embraced my draconic identity. It was there but it wasn't acknowledged in full. So when I'd play D and D and the Council of Wyrms box set came out I was UBER happy about it. Nothing felt more right than me role-playing a dragon. It was my little excuse to be myself without anyone noticing. Yet still, it took me a few years to really let it bubble up to the surface of conscious thought and say, "I am a dragon." It's like...knowing you're black but you have white paint over you. After years of looking at the white...the knowledge of being black starts to slip into the background and you carry on like you're white though you know you're not. Then one day the paint no longer matters, your blackness comes into sharp focus and you realize...it's just white paint.

Even as a child, playing He-Man...I had to play Granamyr (thus my name in token of that memory) because it felt right. And when there was no dragon option I always had to be the non-human character. Grudgingly I'd play human beings. Yes, part of that was escapism (I had a rough childhood) but too, upon looking back I can see my draconic nature wanting to be known.

But I totally see the same draw back that you mentioned. Everyone in my family would think I convinced myself of this because of Dungeons and Dragons and love of fantasy things over "real" things growing up. Only my sis knows of my identity, no other family members because only she has known me from age 5 on and she remembers how playing non-humans was always more to me than role-playing...it was self-expression and she saw that.

simim23 Wrote:...
So, don't kill me for it, but I've been, as of lately, doing the unthinkable: on Gaia, and other sites, I've been roleplaying as my kintype.
...

Well as much as I hate roleplaying, RPGs and can see myself running for political office on the platform of making LARPing punishable with the death penalty - I know it is useful for *some* otherkin. Others just get so damn lost in fantasy world they can't separate fact from fiction.

I know one close friend of mine who is an avid RPGer uses it to basically vent the tendencies of her/our kintype. She often takes on personas of previous existences for her roleplaying. I can't blame her and I think her reasoning is sound (oversimplified: fake violence is much better than real violence). I just find it weird though how out of touch she is (relatively speaking) with energy work, but how in tune she is with the culture and some of the history of our kintype. Perhaps some of that roleplaying dug up memories at some point. Heck, all I know is if I need some lessons on honor, use of physical or metaphysical weaponry or how to put someone in a world of pain, I go to her.

So for some people, it can be a good thing. However, it's not good for everyone.

simim23 Wrote:Have you ever roleplayed as anything similar/identical to your kintype?

Yes, sort of. I created a RPG, though right now it's offline. Really, I know the rough outlines of what I am, but I can't seem to put a defining name to it that wouldn't get confused with other such things. So, sometimes I roleplay unexplored parts of that in an impromptu setting, which helps clear the fluff simply because if it is fluff, I get bored with it. My preference in fiction just seems to be wired more towards the plausible gray areas than all out fantasy, so somehow it seems to work.

Though in all honesty, I'm not sure how well I believe in fixed kintypes anymore. There's so many factors that could influence a soul.

simim23 Wrote:Did it help you out?

About to the extent of acting as a centrifuge for ideas and concepts. Though indirectly clearing one's head does stimulate the onslaught of more information.

simim23 Wrote:Did it hinder your reputation in any kin community?

Not that I'm aware of. I don't really talk about my roleplaying endeavors, or much of my kinside for that matter.

simim23 Wrote:Do you do so now, was it a temporary thing, etc?

I do so whenever I feel like it, and still do, but I'm not as active with it as I was years ago.

Have you ever roleplayed as anything similar/identical to your kintype?

I haven't specifically roleplayed as my kintype, but I have a very old RP character who is close. Her name is Kayako (my namesake) and in her canon storyline she is an animalistic demon with the power to shapeshift. She's been around since I was about 10. Once of my earliest characters who's managed to not get killed off horribly as the result of my boredom.

Did it help you out?

In a way, it did. It was through playing her that I first started to realize there was something going on with me. You know how when they interview children who have been the victims or crimes, sometimes they have them speak through a doll? That's kind of how she was for me. She drew out all of the pent-up emotions I had. And when I played her, her actions were things I'd do if I were in her shoes and not in-character moves. It was when I realized that I was basically projecting a part of myself into the game that I started getting hints. She really sped up the learning process.

Did it hinder your reputation in any kin community?

Honestly, I don't think so. I think that the only time my reputation was ever hindered, it was by my own silliness when I first became involved. It had nothing to do with roleplaying and everything to do with lack of social experience.

Do you do so now, was it a temporary thing, etc?

I still like roleplays, and I still use character-Kayako from time to time. It's mostly more human variations of her nowadays, though, and I have several other characters more separate from myself that I've taken a liking to. The canon Kayako does still have a special game reserved for her, though, because sometimes I still need her as an outlet.

Have you ever roleplayed as anything similar/identical to your kintype?
Yeah. I used to RP a grey (silver) and black dragon by the name of Jasenna Duskflame back when I was on Neopets (haha, yes, I hear you laughing), which was before I really knew of the term 'otherkin', let alone thought of myself as being a dragon in spirit/past life. However, that dragon character was more intelligent and human-like than my actual kin-type, and had the ever popular magic abilities and fire-breathing and whatnot that I actually didn't have. Because everyone knows that if it doesn't have magic or fire-breath, it's not a dragon.

Did it help you out?
I suppose it did... not really sure. Although I roleplayed my 'self' less and less the more I learned about my kinness. It was nice to be able to express myself, but it felt like I was... I dunno. Belittling myself by playing it, I guess. The furthest extent of my 'rp'ing would be using the asterisks to denote actions while talking to someone, and even that tends to not be much. I think since I saw how the kin communities looked down upon roleplaying also made me start veering away from doing it myself anymore, just because anyone I saw who said that they liked roleplaying, period, got themselves yelled at by others in the community. Or at least sternly warned not to do it there, which is understandable, though just because they like it doesn't mean they do it all the time.

Did it hinder your reputation in any kin community?
I'm not aware of having a reputation in the kin community. X3 But I don't think so, no. I rarely talk about it except when topics like this come up and I'm feeling sociable enough to contribute. No one in the kin community knew me when I roleplayed, so there's that, too.

Do you do so now, was it a temporary thing, etc?
It was a temporary thing, probably back in 2000/2001. I've gotten so out of it, though, that I can't even roleplay characters I make for it specifically on roleplaying forums, no matter how much I want to join in. And, no, I've never played D&D, and probably won't for my sheer inability to roleplay, not to mention poor social skills and no one to play with anyway.

I'm a roleplayer, and fairly hardcore at that (mostly tabletop or PnP though), but I've always sought to play characters that were unlike me in as many ways as possible.

So, no, I've never played my kintype (as if I know what it is =/).

Oh dear, the dreaded admission I must fess up to:
Yeah, I’ve role-played my kintype. On multiple occasions, to boot.

I didn’t exactly help me out. If anything, it gave me a release for it. At the time there weren’t too many people around who I could talk about this stuff with and playing it out was one way to express it to my friends without going into an explanation about something I had no idea how to even explain to myself.

I duno how much it will effect my reputations in the community. I’d like to imagine that this sort of thing only should impact it if an individual were role-playing their kintype on an otherkin board that wasn’t meant for such things. Or if they began incorporating the character they created from pure fiction into their supposed past life memories and descriptions (oh those wacky-fudgeable lines)

I still role play with my friends, but not as anything close to my kintype. Mainly cause it wouldn’t work in the party and I enjoy role playing as something I’m not. More challenging and fun that way.