i don't know if they're really around anymore, so you might not have to worry, but they were great. A kinnie was someone who had a 'kin'. A person's kin or kin-type was a human person that they felt embodied them or that they 'were', kind of like a fursona, except with less cool art and more roleplay (except you couldn't call it roleplaying, because that would imply they weren't actually their kin). It was kind of like they were trying to go for spirit animals combined with past-lives. Some people just kind of identified with their kin, for some people it was like fucking spiritual, and for some of them it was REAL (the justification of kins having been reincarnations was fairly widely accepted, and/or that they were a genuine/healthy way to cope with mental illness.)

this person's human-sona could be a character or a real historical (or sometimes living) person, and there was an apparantly important distinction between these 'fictkins' and 'factkins'. These faction alliances were VITAL to kinnies - there was incredible drama over all this, friendships were made and ended over them . It was completely nonsensical to anyone else, but rivitting to watch. It wasn't uncommon to see callout posts where someone was slammed for like transphobia, but also being friends with someone who kins a pokemon character which is 100% cultural appropriation or w/e.

There were wars over "doubles" and "kinstealing" , ie when someone else claims that they're actually griffin mcelroy, which is problematique because they must know that you're the real griffen mcelroy and how dare they.

This post is always the one that sticks out in my mind . There's no better platform than tumblr to watch genuinely deranged bullshit go down.

(thanks for letting me finally use the deep well of completely useless knowledge i have from spending far too long on that site.)