My own oddities

I shouldn't have sounded so strict about the concept of otakukin without talking about my own oddities first. I'm still trying to be a little open minded about otakukin/fictionkin, but it's going to take a lot of explaining for me to fully understand it.

As for myself, I don't feel 100% human. At times I feel and react to situations in a canine manner. Let me really get into it.

When I was about 11 or so (I don't really remember how old I was. I just remember I was going into the 6th grade), I had the strangest experience ever. I was getting stressed over some work my mom made me do so I didn't forget things I had learned in the previous school year. Math is my weakest subject and I was struggling greatly on something I was working on. All of a sudden, I started growling and "clawing" at the pages. I didn't know why I was acting this way. All I knew was that it felt natural and I couldn't stop. I was well aware of what I was doing...I just couldn't stop acting that way. The whole situation scared me. I'd never felt like that before.

The experience scared me so much that I started thinking something was wrong with me. Even afterwards I still had these non-human feelings. I started looking up information on werewolves because at that age, that was the only thing I could think of to look up. I didn't know if I was being possessed or if I was going insane. The thought would come into my head though that I felt that I either should have been born as a dog or that my soul was that of a dog placed in a human body.

After doing some more searching I came across the term "lycanthropy" which is a mental disorder in which a person literally believes that they turn into a wolf. Of course I was thinking at this point that I had a mild form of this. That is until I came across the artist Goldenwolf. Now she does not believe she is a Therian, but at that time, she did and she had a lot of good information up there about therianthropy. I'm so happy I came across her site, not only because she's a wonderful artist, but because I saw that there were other people out there who felt like I did...like I do. I saw that people felt that they are wolves, horses, dogs, cats, even some that fell like insects.

But even though I felt like I was a therian, I did not fully take on the title of "therian" until about a year ago. I was still very uncertain of whether or not to call myself a therian. I felt the "mental shifts" and sometimes "phantom shifts" that other therians spoke of. I've had instances where I react to a situation on "instinct". For instance, there was one time where my brother and I were fighting and my thoughts just changed. I don't fully know how to explain it. I started acting instinctually. I was growling and trying to bite him (but I did my best to restrain myself from doing so). I've had moments where I find myself getting lost in wonderful scents and wanting to track them. Moments where I've just had to act out on my canine urges at night because I was so restless because of them. Moments where I have to fight back what feels natural to me because of the situations I'm in.

Lately I've been contemplating whether or not I want to call myself a therian. I've even been contemplating if I really am a therian. I'm looking into the idea of animal totems. Possibly my canine feelings are a result of a a dog totem trying to grab my attention. Either way, I just know that these canine feelings aren't a phase.

So why would I be so hard on the idea of otakukin/fictionkin, elf-kin, fairy-kin, etc.? For the fact that I'm a skeptic. I'm not closing my mind to the ideas, but if the ideas can be explained well enough I'll keep my mind open to anything. Therianthropy was an easy idea for me to grasp onto because from a very young age I believed in reincarnation even though it's not something taught in the Christian church. Plus I have a great love and respect for animals and feel more compassion for non-human animals than I do for humans at times.

But the main thing for me is that I've never claimed to not be human or not be the person that I am. That doesn't mean that I'm dismissing my canine side. It just means that I'm saying that here and now, I am this human girl who happens to have canine urges and tendencies. It's only when a person says "I am *insert something here*" that I really get skeptical of the idea.

Otakukin?

I'm open to the idea of otherkin seeing as I'm questioning whether or not I would classify myself as one (a therianthrope to be more specific). Whether I would label myself as such...I'm not sure. Even that is a little hard to swallow. Yes I believe in reincarnation, so the concept of therianthropy makes sense to me. Having a non-human soul placed into a human body via the process of reincarnation...it can make some sense. But fairies, dragons, elves, etc. are a little harder for me to believe. If you were to believe that there are different dimensions and that these creatures could exist, then that is possible as well. To each his own right?

But otakukin?

For people not familiar with the term "otaku" it is interpreted among anime fans to mean a person who loves/is obsessed with anime. It holds a different and more negative connotation in Japan. Otakukin are people who believe that their soul is that of an anime character. Now I thrive on being an open minded person and I took the time to look up information on otakukin and to lurk around message boards that cater to otakukin, but this is such a farfetched idea for me to grasp.

Anime characters are created by people. They can be based off of people they know (as in the case of Chihiro from Spirited Away). They can be inspired by animals (IE: Some pokemon). They can be based off of elements. They can be based off of historical figures. They can be based off of deities. Or they can be created from thin air. The thing is that they are created. To say that they could exist in other dimensions is to claim that these artists hold psychic powers to pick up on the energies of the universe and mystically created these characters.

So what happens if someone were to claim that their soul was that of Chihiro? Chihiro is based off of a real person...so by that logic you'd be claiming that you were this girl. Or what if someone were to claim they were someone from Romeo x Juliet? Say the playwright, William (who I take to be William Shakespeare). He was a real person. Let's get real farfetched. The goddess Amaterasu from Okami. Yes that's a game but I don't see any difference in the situation. To claim to be a deity is pure insanity.

Let's take this a step further. Why does being 'otakukin' have to only apply to anime characters. Let's expand it to all created characters. Say someone saw my character Sombra and read her description. They could then claim "Hey, I think I am this character". But the problem with that is I created Sombra as a representation of me. So by claiming they are Sombra, they're claiming they're me. My personality is no different than Sombra's (save the fact she's a little more confident than me). Who's to say that an animator didn't create a character to represent themselves then there's these people out there claiming that they're a fictional character.

Now if the issue is that otakukin find themselves relating to a character a lot, that's different. There are characters that I've found I relate to quite a bit. So much so that I could really empathize with the character. However I would never claim to be a fictional character. Even though I feel that I could be a dog therian (though I'm not really taking on the therian label anymore), I would never claim to be a dog. I am not a dog. I'm a human who feels and acts in a canine manner. Whether it's because I'm otherkin or because I have an animal totem trying to get my attention is unknown. It could even be because I have some sort of mild mental disorder for all I care. All I know is that I'm not going to claim to be something that I'm physically not.

If anyone can explain the idea of being a fictional character to me in a way that doesn't sound outlandish, I will definitely open my mind to the concept. But coming in and shouting at the top of your lungs that you are Pikachu or you are Goku and telling me to accept it isn't going to fly with me.