What's the difference between constelic and link / kin?
Otherkind, for me, is something that is persistent. I’ve always been my kintypes, and I always will. The identities themselves are inherent to me as much as my like, gender identity and orientation are. No distinction between the “them” and “myself,” they are one in the same and always have been, always will be.
Link [from what I know, I’m not super knowledgeable on it] is something you actively create and maintain[?] as an identity, I think? It’s chosen alterhumanity- that’s the main thing I know about it.
I think the big thing with constelic for me is that I consider myself to always be constelic, ie, someone who adopts different identities throughout my life, even when I don’t have any literal stels. THAT part is inherent to me, but the identities are not. They tend to come and go, and wax and wane in intensity. Sometimes they burn bright and disappear kind of like a flicker, other times they stay for a long time and then fizzle out. Even funnier is when they come back, too. It’s something ever-changing and evolving for me. It couldn’t be kin, because it’s not always consistent, my stels were not there when I was born, I came cross them and unconsciously adopted them. They’re still super important to me [constels can in fact but just as important and feel just as much like “me” as my kintypes do!] but I’m also aware it’s possible- likely, in fact- that they’ll eventually fade away [but maybe come back later! who knows]. They can’t be link either, because I am not maintaining them and I did not choose them, it was something that simply happened to me without my input or necessarily even knowledge, at first.
All that being said, I intentionally made constelic to be really broad. My experience is just one of many, even as the creator. The big things I would say differentiates them is that stels are not typically permanent or inherent [like otherkin is often described as], and they are often not chosen like a link, either. Constelic for me is a state of being that I’ve always been, but the stels come as a result of that, rather than having stels being the sole reason why I’m constelic.
It’s hard to explain, admittedly. But alas, too late, I’m gonna try to explain how it is for me.
… Imagine most people are a river. You, meanwhile, were born a river with a small net across its entire width. Unlike most people, when the stream’s currents go down the bank, sometimes little rocks and minerals get caught up in your net. You keep them there, you grow attached to them, maybe some more than others. Some are big, some are small. Some might grow or shrink in size from sedimentation. Some eventually get unstuck and wash away, some very slowly degrade until they are gone, maybe some particularly large ones stay forever, or a very, very long time. Maybe some of them somehow find their way back to the net. You haven’t always had the rocks, but you’ve always had- and been- a river with a net.