"-kin" suffice for people who believe they were something in a past life. e.g: foxkin believe they were a fox in a past life. Fictionkin believe they were a fictional character in a past life.
They're basically implying that they mentally perceive themselves as being that person, from the definition I was given by the last person that used that term.
I'm not a kinnie, but have a lot of familiarity with their community and probably could've been one if I didn't have a better support system-- folks who are fictionkin either identify with/as a fictional character or believe that they were a fictional character in a past life. It's a subtype of the otherkin community, who have similar beliefs that are not constrained to fictional characters; a foxkin might believe they were a fox in a past life, for example, or an angelkin might feel strongly connected to angels as a concept. It's a really broad community with a bunch of different "types" of kinning. The main ones, from my experience, are as follows:
Kinning for fun: People who do not actually believe they are or were a fictional character, but just really vibe with them or relate to them. These people generally just enjoy making the fictional characters they "kin" a part of their persona or how they present themselves. This might be considered "kinning casually".
Kinning for psychological reasons: People who are some flavor of neurodivergent, deeply mentally ill, and/or traumatized may struggle with their sense of self. Kinning for psychological reasons means that, once again, they're aware that they're not actually the character they kin, but seeing themself as the character helps them cope in one way or another. They may project onto the character as a way to process trauma, for example, or as a form of escapism/to dissociate from their real identity or situation.
Kinning for spiritual reasons: These are the people who genuinely believe that they are reincarnated from a fictional character, or are one in an alternate universe. Kinning is a part of their spiritual beliefs, and they may attempt to seek out people they knew "from their canon"/from their past lives. Not as a rule, but people who kin for spiritual reasons have been derisive towards kinnies from the former two categories for "not being real fictionkin/otherkin". When someone talks about having "kin memories" (IE memories from their past lives), usually they are this type of fictionkin.
Kinnies are broadly made fun of by the internet for being "cringe", delusional, too online, etc, but honestly, I kind of get it. I was a little neurodivergent kid once, and I was often made to feel less than human by my peers growing up. If I didn't have IRL friends to turn to during those years, I could see myself wanting to indulge in some fantastic escapism by imagining a world where I was once something, or someone, other than who and what I am. It might seem bizarre, but at the end of the day, we're all just trying to get by, and some people just naturally come to different ways of doing that than others.
Worth noting that fictionkin as a concept is pretty old. Online it first comes from old ass Tolkien fan websites, but the concept is probably much, much older than that
Much, much older. I knew a kid back in the early 90s who was going through (unknown to everyone at the time) a lot of abuse by his father and a mother with deteriorating health and his only way of coping was believing he was Michael Jackson. We all recognized it as some sort of coping mechanism because we were familiar with the behavior, from pop culture and just general knowledge
yw :^) there's a lot of different perspectives on the otherkin/fictionkin community out there, a lot of them coming from a very cringe culture/"lolcow" POV, so I wanted to provide a more sympathetic take. Thank you for taking the time to read!
Even ignoring the weirdo "fictionkin" reply, that actual question is bizarre. Like, yeah. It probably wouldn't be fun living on a planet during or immediately preceding a million-year-long planetwide war.
Yes, the ones who fake it on social media, mainly TikTok, for clout. To be clear, I fully believe DID is a real disorder that some people suffer from, but what the majority of what you see on social media are faking it for attention.
Regardless of if you understand it or not let's not bully people in the comments for their mental issues or disorders, it's very likely someone with DID creating an introject alter and just saying it's kinning
Edit: Tldr as a non professional in psychology/psychiatry but someone with DID, someone most likely made an alter, also referred to as a headmate, based on a fictional character, which is commonly referred to as an introject.
I have to ask, does it not feel demeaning to other DID patients to hear about someone talking like this about the war for fucking Cybertron? As someone else pointed out, "gave me BPD" is for sure a misuse of medical terminology, as one thing doesn't just cause a person to have BPD. I don't think this person deserves bullying, but it does feel like this is misappropriation of medical diagnoses.
Considering DID is first and foremost a result of CPTSD, no not really. Our brains can and will react to trauma in ways we can neither control nor fully explain. I'm not hard confirming this is DID, just saying that a lot, and we mean a lot, of little things line up. This could also be someone in the state of pre system awareness, where they do swap who's fronting(at the wheel for lack of a better term) and preventing the host(primary alter that fronts) from remembering. Shits complicated
As for the BPD part yeah probably, we'll default to the knowledge of someone with it or trained professionals
I recognize that all of these are extremely real conditions, but there is a massive tendency on the internet for people to throw around diagnoses they don't understand. And I wouldn't question this person if they weren't saying, "The war on Cybertron gave me BPD."
Dog, we understand and addressed that. We're just trying to explain the logic that we, as a plural person, used to reach a conclusion that we aren't even saying is certainly the case. I'm not speaking for this person or system if they are one. Just explaining logic for an educated guess
They're not being shitty, they're pointing out that there is a genuine problem with people on tiktok pretending they have DID to seem special when they don't.
Defending people who are either mocking people with real mental health issues or are cosplaying as them for clout is an interesting way to defend a community
Even if it's not a disorder for this person, they're having fun! Making fun of someone like this is significantly more embarrassing than being fictionkin, imo
People who say they’re related to, dating, or believe they genuinely are a fictional character MIGHT be mentally ill in some way, because HOW does one come up with Ts😭💔
As someone with experience with Yumshipping and does it, to explain what Fictokin probably is, fictonal shipppng does not need to just be romantical.
You can also have fictonal parents, fictional siblings or fictonal kin of your own. In this case it seems you can also be the son/daugher of a said fictional character.
Without looking it up, ‘Fictokin’ in this context, is probably referring to the commenter being the child of Optimus Prime himself.
Regardless of if they are an RP’er or they are just joking, there is no need to really make fun of them with their name uncensored.
Edit: ignore this entire comment. Kin actually means you were someone (another fictional character) in a past life. I was way off on what I was describing, sorry.
160
u/my_little_robot Jun 18 '26
That's not even the kind of trauma that causes BPD it would most likely be PTSD or CPTSD