KM Excerpting - 1 - 2017

Hello everyone! I'm just going to go down the Checklist Of Questions because it's easier that way, and I won't miss stuff.

Are you an otherkin or therianthrope? // Otherkin.

What are your kintypes? // It's just one, but a very specific. Non-Abrahamic chaotic-something minor deity of storms and lightning, taking the form of a dragon. Since deposed/put out of power by lack of worship, etc.

How you discovered your otherkin/therian identity? // I never felt entirely human, like, ever. I didn't have a word for this until I discovered there was otherkin, and then it clicked.

How you discovered your kintypes/theriotypes? // Far back as I can remember, I was being growly and strange, and obsessed with first dinosaurs, then dragons. This has persisted since around 6-7 years old. I briefly managed to organize a tiny worship circle, until the schools called my parents for odd behavior. After that, I slowly began to work on myself, and came to the conclusion of my exact affinities perhaps two or three years ago.

Do you experience shifts? Of what kinds? // I used to mentally shift, a whole lot, and would get in a ton of trouble for them. Apparently it scared the other kids or something. I can't tell if I have less of them now, or if I'm just more generally like my kintype so they're less noticeable, or the expression I'm allowed outside of the... Regimented earlier school has lessened the need to break-out, so to say. I'm trying to learn how to mentally shift voluntarily, because despite all the trouble it caused there was nothing I liked more than those shifts. Physically, I get a decent amount of phantom-limb stuff, which is noticeably heightened under stress. Finals suck as a result. I also have a number of dreams of being... Properly me, though a good number of them are gorey or violent.

How did you find out you were a deity of storms and lightning specifically? And how do you know the dragon isn't a separate kintype as opposed to another form you could take?
Where I live, you get these huge thunderstorms because the topography and extreme heat causes clouds to build up, and then all of a sudden come crashing down like waves. I have always been in awe of them- as a kid I always stayed up to watch the lightning and press my face against the bedroom window when it rained- and the longer I was just generally around them, the better I discovered myself noticing the changes in weather, to the point I picked up on there being a rainstorm within (x) amount of time. I'm getting better at it, though my best accuracy has been within one to two days, so it could just be the general sensing of weather changes, humidity and barometric pressures and the like, how the animals do. I do not claim to cause them (much as I would like to).

Anyway, between the weather sensitivity and the fact I always, always have to go out and stand in the rainstorms (almost compulsively, even if just for a few moments) I started to figure I had some kind of connection with rain or storms, seeing as no other weather got me so excited or happy, even the tornadoes I saw in Iowa, or dust devils, or haboobs.

As far as other things go, I have always dreamt of standing out or flying on the mountains when they are crackling with the huge black storm-clouds and screaming into the rain, barely on the edge of one of the rocky shelves, where the wind and rain drives into you and it hurts but in that way you feel you're alive. Sadly, transportation has prevented me doing that with mountains, but standing out of the car sunroof will just have to suffice for now.

As for how I figure the dragon isn't so separate, I can't quite give you as solid and defining a logical answer as to how I can give you the storm aspect. Based on all my experiences (which includes a number of berserker shifts, from when I was much younger, maybe 10-14, due to a poor early school situation), I have always felt absolutely electric when anything... Poor in my own responses happened. I have gotten into fights, and every time, my whole body felt immediately like I was a crackling cloud just waiting to explode, I was light and heavy and I could feel wings splaying and trying to menace, and claws and fangs ready to shred the one I believed to be wronging me. I understand that to possibly be a perception of my own energy changing to something combative, or how I saw adrenaline rushes, but it wasn't shaky, it was sure and focused and... Berserk without the random aspect? Like a single point of being more than a trembling haze. Like if only I could be fierce enough I could strike with more than just fists. But I have never had the electric without that phantom, draconic shift, which leads me to believe they are linked. It's a tingling all over, even through your teeth, like licking all the batteries and how it feels when lightning is ramping up, that weird hair-on-edge sensation, all focused in on a target.

A dragon might very well just be a "preferred" form, accurate for flight with storms, or something similar. I am still open to that. But even if it is the case that a dragon is simply the preferred form, I do not know of any other forms I would have, and it would not change that the physical form of what I feel myself to be takes the shape of a dragon, with an extreme alignment and adaptation to storms, especially the thunderstorm. I do try to figure out if I can separate them, but every time I try to, from one angle or another, just a storm/lightning deity or just a dragon doesn't fit the bill all the way.

(As a sidenote, I feel awkward saying deity, it's not that strong or powerful of one? Like one of those small gods, how Romans had, where it was important to be reverent but nobody remembers them now, perhaps about the strength of a middle-high level Abrahamic angel. I don't think I was born out of the natural workings of the universe, or from another god, but rather as a manifestation of what humans feel when they are scared of the storms and the lightning and what they bring, whether it's flooding or fire, but it's not inherently evil. Fearing thunder as a child, or having a house flooded, doesn't make the storm evil, sort of thing. Neither does it bringing rain for growing make it good. Neutral at best, and apathetic at worst.)

Sorry for how long it took to reply, I was trying to figure out how to word this so I wasn't sounding like "yes I can 100% accurately always do the thing" or "i am a God because Power Trip and i like to Fite". It's not that, and my sleepy self may or may not be doing a good job at changing how it sounds. Also trying to provide the counters I expect to see.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I wasn't trying to pick it apart, I was just genuinely curious, but it does make more sense now.

Do you see it as a spiritual or psychological aspect? Or maybe a mix of both?
Oh, I don't mind if you are, I welcome questions. They're an opportunity to think about yourself. Sorry if I came off as defensive... I'll probably post in the hunting grounds later~

I think it started off psychological, seeing how I was never really one to fit well with my peers in a chicken-and-egg dilemma (as I cannot personally remember if I was weird first, or outsider first) but has slowly started to become more spiritual. I never really had, well, a defined religion, and now the closest thing I have is a sort of animism- I mean, gee, if storm clouds can have aspects, don't see why stones and trees and everything aren't in their own way holy or deserving of respect, at the least. And I do take practices to align with the general attempt to respect things- I won't buy fur anymore (though I did when I was younger for it was comforting), if I order any dish with small meat in it (shrimp or clams or something) I always try to eat them all as each was a life lost to support me, along with a more general waste not want not, cruelty-free people-care products whenever available, all that stuff. However, seeing as I'm still trying to define my own spirituality, I cannot give you a more solid answer and am still trying to work the exact parameters of that out. So for now, the best I can give is "both".