bizarreaizen . June 4, 2024 . Arhived Link
does anyone else feel like they can't see themselves identifying with the identity they currently identify with in the future? like i can't see myself being an adult therian or an adult who uses neopronouns and not that i want to "change" but it's probably because i was pushed to think that these things are childish stuff and i will grow out of it. /srs

autistic-therian . June 9, 2024
If this helps normalize it as non-childish, I honestly, genuinely can’t wait to be a grizzled old man with neopronouns. I’ll be that dog in the corner store with graying fur around my muzzle, if I walk with a limp I’ll still wag my tail.

I can’t wait to be running experiments and studies after I get my degree, and think of myself as three raccoons in a lab coat.

I’m so excited to be that cool older sibling figure for so many people out there who want to know that it’s not always a phase, that we can grow up and take up space in the world and expect to be taken as seriously as any other adult.

Even if sometimes it feels like play, that’s okay. That’s something nobody should be expected to grow out of.

Friend, you are so cool for leaning into your identity, even if it’s hard due to how you’ve been treated or viewed by others.

Many younger people are leaders when it comes to making their identity known, and I believe it’s because y’all have more guts.

I respect the hell out of you, folks like you make me proud to be in this community and hopeful for the future.

gone-fish-mode . June 10, 2024 . Arhived Link
let me preface this by saying that i am 20. i am, by every sense of the word, a baby. but when it comes to the otherkin / therian community, at least here on tumblr, i tend to run a bit older (although i do now a good few 30+ alter/nonhumans).

but i know adults with neo pronouns. i know therians going into grad school who have jobs. i know really queer college drop outs who use micro labels and wear their flags.

sometimes things feel a bit childish. sometimes its because you're still, in the grand scheme of things, a child. and as you get older, they don't stay childish. they tend to mature with you. to ferment alongside you.

i have always struggled with applying my current labels onto myself in the future. but after dealing with this for, eight, almost nine years, i've realized that i'll never really change. i may talk about things differently or have a different name for something, but it's not because i've "grown out of it," it's because getting older has simply given me a new perspective on things. new ideas and more experiences.

i don't think i'll ever "grow out" of my identity. but ask me in five years to describe the hows and whys and i will have a different answer than i did yesterday. so of course i cant picture myself in the future with the same sense of self i have today.

let time do its thing. go with it. you can understand how you feel tomorrow when you get to tomorrow.

talon-dragonbeast . June 12, 2024 . Arhived Link
i havent seen this experience talked about much in the nonhuman community, so i thought i could share mine.

i wasnt actually dragonkin as a child, or at least i dont think so. its not that i didnt realise it either, or that i didnt know being human wasnt the only option there was; i was completely, 100% human. well, maybe not 100%– i'd say more like 90%. you see, i was human as a child; that i can be sure of. but i think the possibility of becoming nonhuman, the potential for nonhumanity was always there. im not sure if its because of atypical brain structure, autism/neurodivergency, or just personality– nature vs nurture, and all that.

the thing is, i was human. and now im not. so what happened?

well, i... don't know exactly. but i have a theory.

my brain always had that potential nonhumanity, yes, but if child me hadn't loved animals as much as i did, if i hadn't stayed in the library at recess every day, if i hadn't found a book on dragons and absorbed myself in what would become a long-term special interest, if i had more friends in school... the list goes on. basically, if things had been a little different, i might not even be nonhuman today. i would still be me, of course, but a different me. a human me.

so why am i sharing this? i always read about other critters' experiences with their nonhumanity, and ive noticed that a very common experience is being born nonhuman. on the other claw, there are critters that were human before, but then experienced something that made them become nonhuman. this is not to invalidate any of them, of course! but i had never heard of any experience that was between those two. and i realised that if i wanted to read experiences like mine, i had to write mine first! so, please, share yours! id love to read what you write, even if it's just a few sentences.

Dogculture . June 18, 2024 . Arhived Link
The recent wave of being loud and proud about being queer is amazing but alterhumans really gotta be careful about carrying that attitude over. There really are not enough of us in this world to protect each other. Making more people aware of us makes them more able to identify us which puts everyone in more danger. The tips we used to subtly display therianthropy in my youth are now useless because our signals have been displayed all over mainstream social media. I feel so scared for all these kids who pressured to ‘come out’ as a kin or plural, and those who participate in the community in ways they think are low-key until their mother comes across a revealing tiktok.

Keeping your privacy is not lying or cowardly, it is keeping yourself safe. If you’re alterhuman and dependent on people you don’t 100% know will accept that— don’t let them know. Being therian does not require gear, being plural does not require alters to outwardly present as different people. You lived however much of your life did without creating proof of your differences, you can wait out the rest until you’re free. The difference between alterhumanity and queerness is with queer folks (though most of this is still relevant) you’re (still temporarily) losing out on a huge part of life by hiding it. There are few benefits to gain by telling your family/school that can’t be gained by using a less risky label (furry, cosplayer, just really into ___). I’m not saying keep everything a secret from everyone forever, just weigh the risks and know that withholding information about your identity that could harm you isn’t the same as being dishonest. Stay safe!

otherkinpolls . June 26, 2024 . 270 votes . Arhived Link
i. i deeply long to be my hearttype - 5.9%
ii. i feel like i should’ve been my hearttype, but i’m not - 7.4%
iii. i feel like i could’ve been my hearttype, but i’m not- 7.4%
vi. i have a deep admiration for my hearttype - 3.7%
v. i have deep compassion for my hearttype - 2.6%
vi. my hearttype is my ideal self - 3%
vii. i want to be [hearttype]-themed - 1.5%
viii. my hearttype feels like family/i want them to be my family - 18.9%
ix. multiple of these/different answers for different hearttypes/etc. - 26.3%
x. other - 4.1%
xi. see results - 19.3%

poll was inspired by this ask game by user froghearted- check it out too!

otherkinpolls . July 19, 2024 . 191 votes . Arhived Link
i. yes, they are supportive - 27.2%
ii. yes, they are indifferent/neutral - 5.8%
iii. yes, they are not supportive - 1%
iv. yes, other/i don't know their opinion - 2.1%
v. no, but they are supportive of alterhumanity in general - 1.6%
vi. no, but they are indifferent/neutral of alterhumanity in general - 2.1%
vii. no, but they are not supportive of alterhumanity in general - 2.1%
viii. no, other/i don't know their opinion - 9.9%
ix. i have multiple partners and multiple of these apply - 1.6%
x. other - 8.9%
xi. see results - 37.7%

if you currently do not have a partner but have in past or want to also include past partners in your answer feel free

wirsindkrieg . July 23, 2024 . Archived Link
The topic of nonhuman personhood came up in a conversation earlier, which led to me scrolling through the notes on the essay/rant I wrote on the topic at the end of last year [link]. While scrolling through, I saw multiple people express the view that if someone doesn't want to be referred to as a "person", that should be respected.

I would like to kindly but firmly disagree with that view.

Personhood is not a personal identity, and it should not be approached the same way that one approaches identity labels like sexuality, gender, or even species identity. Personhood is a social and legal category, which carries with it significant implications about how (and if) one is treated as a member of society.

Whether it is intended or not, a declaration like "I am not a person" is declaring that one does not see themselves as a being deserving of basic rights and safety. It is saying that they do not see themselves as deserving of dignity and basic respect as a thinking being.

The declaration that an individual (or more often, a specific group) does not have personhood has been used as the justification for all manner of atrocities, up to and including genocide. And I want to be very clear that I am not exaggerating that point. The removal of personhood is a key element of fascist ideology, and is not something to be done casually, even to oneself.

If someone tells me that they use a specific identity label, or set of pronouns, or even choose to not identify as human, I can respect that, and I will do my best to embrace their decision. On the other hand, if someone tells me that they are not a person, I consider that cause for alarm.

The important difference is that personhood is not a personal identity. It is the state of being recognized as worthy of basic dignity, rights, and respect. To deny one's personhood is to deny that you deserve basic rights like freedom from harm, the ability to own property, and the ability to make decisions about your own life and body. I would hope that it's abundantly clear why denying oneself those basic rights is a bad thing.

"Person" is not an identity. It is a fundamental trait that cannot and should not be removed from anyone, even voluntarily. The denial of one's personhood is, at best, incredibly misguided, and at worst incredibly dangerous.

So if you're someone who wants to not be called a "person", I implore you to examine why you feel that way in depth, and consider if the problem isn't being called a person, but the societal assumption that person = human. And if the problem is that societal assumption, the solution isn't to deny your personhood; it's to join the large number of people pushing for society to accept that not every person is human.

monkey-papermoon-deactivated202 . July 29, 2024 . Arhived Link
I'm genuinely happy now that i've accepted that i'm alterhuman/otherkin - but how do I stop feeling "less valid" for being such and not therian. The only thing that can describe what I feel is best described in a fantastical creature, but because it's fantastical, I feel like it's not valid/ i'm "making it up". Any tips to get out of this mindset? It kinda sucks :(

gone-fish-mode . July 29, 2024
there is such a massive group of us who aren't therians. They're the most popular and well known at this point ( to those not in the alter / nonhuman community ) but that doesn't have much of anything to do with validity or the very real emotions tied to otherkin identity.

Alterhuman communities like therian, otherkin, nonhuman, voidpunk, and everything else all spawn from a disconnect from humanity in some way, shape or form. They all follow roughly the same idea, we just use different words to point out the usually small differences between us.

I have no real way to feel "more valid" about being otherkin and not therian, all I can tell you is that respect for us isn't earned by using the coolest label, no one here will think less of you for it. You're here to find as much comfort in your skin as you can, and that means using labels that are comfortable!

I will also add that "theriomythic" is totally a thing. If you haven't heard of it, I would suggest checking it out! I actually consider myself theriomythic, but don't really talk about it much, ha! At it's most basic definition, it's for therians who are mythical creatures ;]

Read about it here: 1 2 3 4 5

(these are all off the first page of google but should be good starting points to get the general vibe)

otherkinpolls . August 1, 2024 . 157 votes . Archived Link
i. yes, it's how i perceive my kintype - 4.5%
ii. i'm somewhat connected with it - 36.3%
iii. i'm neutral on it - 13.4%
iv. i'm somewhat disconnected with it - 10.8%
v. i'm strongly disconnected with it - 12.1%
vi. it fluctuates/nuance/other (explain in rbs) - 14%
vii. see results - 8.9%

submitter said:
-if you have multiple kintypes, choose one
-what you consider how humanity perceives can be as nuanced as you want, but some simple examples include foxes being sly, bunnies cute and gentle

gone-fish-mode . August 8, 2024 . Archived Link
i've spoken a lot about myself as a gillman throughout my life, but not really about my general nonhuman feelings. i haven't always been a gillman, in fact one of my most prominent phantom shifts are wings. I don't talk about them at all, but they're there!

Back when i was much younger, 6-7 i think, i was something of a werewolf (convinced multiple friends I was one) and a dragon, with very strong bird influences. i had this obsession with flying. i still have it for sure, but it just doesn't mean the same as it did back then. i think its interesting, its a relic of a past time!

i am very much of the opinion that types can and will change throughout life, and that they should. i once considered my wings to be very important. they're still there, i still love them, but now i take more comfort in my fins. at one point, being a bird or a dragon or a werewolf felt like freedom to me. but these days, being a gillman is as comfortable as it gets!

i dont know. we change as we grow and we prioritize different things. i think its ok to say that you have moved on from a 'type. i don't think you have to be the same species forever to be nonhuman. i was nonhuman before i thought myself a dragon, and i will be nonhuman after i grow out of my gillman 'type.

its normal! change is good.

saltywatercrocodile . September 17, 2024 . Archived Link
I see a lot of minors in the community who seem very...comfortable, I guess, with sharing personal information and photos on here and other sites, and I just wanted to speak my piece about it.

Something I remembered from another post that I wanna steal because I love the wording: before you share something on the internet, think what could someone who wanted to hurt me do with this information? Not trying to be condescending, I'm an adult and I think that exact sentence in my head before I post/comment/DM anything related to myself.

Just saw a post where a well-meaning therian minor linked their Youtube channel, which has videos of them irl (wearing a mask, but still) doing quads outside and at an indoor non-chain business with the name/logo of the building clearly visible.

I cannot emphasize how much I was taught to be extremely careful about posting any irl images as a kid/teen, as people can infer your location from very minor details, MUCH LESS VIDEOS OF MY WHOLE BODY IN AN EASILY GOOGLE-ABLE LOCATION. What happens if someone with malicious intent sees that video, which is public on youtube? What will you do when someone attempts to blackmail or doxx you? Not only would this would-be criminal know where you are, they can also see how old you are and exactly what you look like. Terrifying.

(I understand we're in a culture of many people posting videos of themselves online, but (in my opinion) it's just not safe to be uploading public content that's advertising "Hi I'm bodily a child/teenager and this is what I look like and this is close to where I live and I'm also a therian who's probably hiding this account from my parents")

This individual is essentially just trusting that no one on the entirety of Youtube will just google the name of the indoor facility (along with any other location-identifying posts they may make) and either threaten them via doxxing or just straight up threaten their life/safety.

I knew someone in school who got too comfortable in an in-game chat, and was lulled into a false friendship and tricked into mentioning his address. Then he was threatened and told to send them money or they would physically find him. Thankfully he felt safe enough to tell his parents, who knew how to stop the situation. I know a lot of us aren't out to our family, and I dread to think what would have happened if the boy I knew hadn't felt safe enough to explain the situation to his parents.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TLDR; before you post personal info/photos, think of the absolute worst evil that someone could do to you with that information. I know it's a bummer, but doxxing/blackmail happens more than you think, and even if your posts only seem to get low notes/likes/whatever, they can theoretically be seen by ANYONE, including people who want to hurt you.

(also I don't mean to call out or harass anyone, I'm not trying to be mean, I just wanted to use an example bc it's what inspired me to make this post and also I wanted to outline why real behaviours I'm seeing can be dangerous, rather than just making up hypotheticals)

xz0mb1tchx-deactivated20241029 . August 16, 2024 . Archived Link
okay, so someone educate me, if you can, but i’ve identified as a therian for 5 years now, and i still don’t understand how being a physical therian is okay?? like genuinely believing your body is an animal if you are human. i don’t get it??

physical therianopy is stemmed from delusion, from what i can understand. why is it normalized to feed into that? i don’t support irls bc i don’t feed into delusions, so why should it be different from a physical otherkin/therian/alterhuman??/genq

(i am genuinely not trying to be rude it just makes no sense to me as of rn 😭)

abyssalwerewolf . August 16, 2024
[warning: this may contain reality checking and unreality]

Hi! :)

thank you to being open minded and trying to educate yourself on this topic - I can honestly understand why physically identifying nonhumans can be confusing, because it seems so blatantly obvious that we all obviously have human bodies. right?

In advance, let me apologize for the incoming wall of text, but it seems like you might look for a more detailed explanation on this topic, so I'll try to provide just that!

first off, physically identifying nonhumans can be split into three categories (of course there can be overlapping happening, etc, but generally speaking)

1) clinical zoanthropes, aka. those who actually believe they can physically turn into an animal and/or have nonhuman DNA, organs and such. this is caused by delusions.

2) those who use physical nonhumanity for as a comfort for themselves, but are not any less serious about it. this can be due to following the logic of "I am a dog therian and this is my body, therefore it is physically the body of a dog" without literally meaning they have the DNA or such of a dog. from what I've seen, this is more like a... philosophical approach.

3) this category is sort of similar to the second one, but still different. I fall under this category, so let me explain it by using myself as an example: I am a werewolf and physically identify as one. I am aware I can not shift into my werewolf-form and I know that if someone would check my DNA for any reason, there would be no indicator for me to be anything but human. a werewolf in it's human form is not a human tho, it is still a werewolf - making me a physical werewolf. So the approach is more literal and less philosophical than category 2, but does not fall under the term "delusional", because nothing I believe clashes with the shared reality of all people.

edit: I just remembred there is a fourth category, which we also fall under: headmates/alters in a system might physically identify rather as the form they take inside than the body. this is true for all of us - while we at the same time also identify as the body, we all see our inner forms as our physical forms, too. my inner form is my werewolf form btw, which solidifies my physical identity. means, for example Autumn Trees is a friesian horse and physically identifies as a horse, because that's his inner body and... it makes sense to identify as your body, doesn't it? ;)

So, as you can see, by far not all physical nonhumans are experiencing delusions about this and therefore there is absolutely no harm in supporting and accepting them.

but what about the clinical zoanthropes?

for this part, I want to preface it with saying I am not experiencing any delusions myself, nor am I a professional on this topic. all I say is based on what I know from professionals and delusional people alike on how to treat people with delusions. So take this with a grain of salt.

I agree with you, actively feeding into delusions is unhealthy and can do massive harm. but there is a middle ground between feeding into delusions and reality checking (which are both harmful). if someone tells you they physically can shapeshift into an animal, you will be able to see that you can not see it when they're supposedly shifted and no other person can, so you know "ah okay, they are experiencing a delusion". what you should do is focus more on the emotions they experience, than the actual subject of their delusion. are they extremely stressed because they are scared of being hurt by, say, the government or werewolf-hunters or whatever? try to make them feel safe, sit with them through their faer, ask what would help them to make their home feel more secure. this way, you are neither telling them "oh yes, they are out to get you, you are in danger" (= feeding into the delusion) nor making them feel like their emotions are not valid and stupid (= reality checking). do you get the general approach?

aside from the above, delusions are - as you probably know - unshakable beliefs anyway, they are facts to the people experiencing them, so no matter how you approach it, a clinical zoanthrope will 100% believe they can physically shapeshift anyway - depending on how you approach them they might just be more or less stressed about it.

it is completely in your rights to not want to interact with anyone of course, if physical nonhumans of any kind make you uncomfortable, nobody is forcing you to interact with them. but we are part of the alterhuman community and we're not hurting anyone :)

if you still have questions, don't hesitate to ask please!

(/info, /npa for the whole text)

vulpenthefox . August 16, 2024
To add on to this: If OP is a therian, I don't really think that we have the right to be exclusionary on this. I am not a physical therian, but I also understand that I am not in a position as an alterhumanto say that "X experience is not valid." That may notr be how you intended your post to come off, and I'm giving OP the benefit of the doubt, but it does read that way.

Also @talks-with-the-void great job summerizing! I feel like I understand it better now too!

Hi I'm a physical nonhuman who falls into the first category. So since we're mentioned I thought I might add how I feel about it. I'm also a therian for context, and have been in the community for about 8 years.

postwave . August 16, 2024
Reality checking, delusion and all that aside. The way I see it is that it's not a matter of whether or not it's "okay." I really think that not wanting to feed into delusion comes from a good place, of genuinely wanting to be an ally to psychotic people and help people, so I'm going to approach this like that's your priority, OP, and try to help you attain it :> I'm gonna break this down into points

1. You cannot stop a delusional person from experiencing their delusion by refusing to feed into it. All that will do is make them feel gaslit or not want to trust you, because yeah, like the first commenter said, it is like a fact to them. I only started experiencing delusions relatively recently and I'm actually not as educated on this as I could be (even through personal experience) so for talk of reality checking I want to @lycaotic because she knows a lot about the psychological side of this

2. I can double bookkeep very well more often than I can't. Not everybody can do this. Most people who experience delusions actually probably can't. It's one of the hallmark traits of a delusion. Not everybody even considers it a delusion in the first place. Some people just are, and the response to them should be the same as the response to people who publicly claim psychosis, if the only difference is the diagnosis. These people are fully alienated by a community that "doesn't support" their existence because it might be harmful.

3. It is not about whether it's real, whether it's OK, whether it can be proven, whether it's real; this is our experience of the world, this is our reality. We can't change that easily and most of us can't change that at all, even if we get put on medications, which a lot of us don't want to. It's othering to claim we don't deserve access to the alterhuman community (or that we only do if we pretend to be non-physical therians, which isn't fair to us!) because of a disability we may or may not have. We're already a demographic of people unlikely to have in-person connections and support and it is more dangerous to gatekeep us from online spaces out of worry of hurting us by feeding delusion than it is to simply tolerate sharing them. They're our spaces too. We're not even a fad. We've always been here. It's good that alterhuman spaces are becoming more aware and accepting of psychotic people so that we feel safe discussing this and seeking resources.

4. Here's the most important thing though. It's not about whether it's OK because to an outsider, none of this is. If you've ever wanted a society that's chill with alterhumans (I have to assume everybody has at least at some point??) then in-fighting is not the way. A lot of regular therians might disagree with you that they "are human" at all you know, even if they don't see it as a physical thing. If two people say they are animals but one says they're a non-physical past life therian and the other says they have nonhuman DNA... that is the same picture to someone who hates us. Less focus on who's better optics for ableists and fascists please. More focus on how we can support each other and be a stronger community for it.

Anyway. Thank you for actually taking the time to ask sincerely and seek responses and not just lash out.

paracosmic-gt . August 16, 2024
Not to OP but:

Just...be nice to people. Even if you don't understand someone's identity, even if you're scared of their identity because of what has been taught to you, even if you think "oh they are clearly XYZ" just be nice to them. Don't exclude them, don't call them fucking dangerous. Why does the community make it our business to need to "support" or I guess "deny" or "DNI" people based on their (usually harmless) subjective experience of life.

Delusion is not inherently dangerous!! We had to unlearn that. This is what every ounce of media, movies, and now tiktok, will try and tell you. Don't believe it.

aestherians . June 22, 2023 . Archived Link
Word count: ~1450
Estimated reading time: 10-12 minutes

1. Introduction
Language is a funny thing, huh?

In June 2018 I erroneously coined the word “cameotype” — English is my 2nd language and I’ve picked up a lot of words by just noting in which contexts they’re used and then never looking them up in the dictionary. Usually this works, sometimes it doesn’t. I thought a cameo meant an addition, something secondary, or something along those lines. When people discussed cameo-shifts, I knew they were discussing brief, temporary shifts, but it was only after coming up with this word that I realized what “cameo” actually means: A minor role.

That’s absolutely not the meaning I was going for when I made up the word “cameotype,” and I backtracked as soon as I realized my mistake. But I still needed a word to cover that concept I’d originally intended for “cameotype” to cover — to quote my original post: “You know those characters, animals, and so on that make you feel all shifty but aren’t technically kintypes or [hearttypes], yet are still important enough to your therian/’kin experience that you feel like mentioning them somehow?”

In March 2019 I finally shared a follow-up post where I suggested a few alternatives: Paratype (from para-/beside), fratertype/fratype (from frater-/sibling), and sintype (from sin-/together), all of which better describe the concept I was going for. My Anglophonic readers helpfully pointed out that the latter two words sound weird in English, and “paratype” ended up being the most popular word.

And then I never made another follow-up post.

2. An Ill-Defined Definition
I’m not sure why I never wrote a concise definition but in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t. It allowed for 4 years of input and discussion of the term and its scope. Originally, I wanted it to be very broad, covering “anything that doesn’t fit neatly into the established [alterhuman] categories but is still important to your nonhuman identity,” and I thank the gods that that didn’t become the go-to definition. It’s too poorly defined to be useful, and the broadness I was going for is already covered by synpath and vaguetype.

It did, however, end up with a not-much-better definition in Kiera’s Alterhuman Dictionary: “A character, animal, or mythical creature that is not a kin/therio/fictotype or a hearttype, but somehow feels important to your established identity. Some examples of how it may manifest include: inducing shifts of one or more of your established ‘types, showing up as a cameo shift that somehow feels related to your established ‘type, or feeling similar to a hearttype because they remind you of your kintype in some significant way.”

I never got around to asking Kiera to change that definition.

3. Covering all bases
Like I said, I’m glad I ended up waiting so long to write this essay, even if it wasn’t intentional. It allowed me to see a lot of perspectives that I wouldn’t even have considered on my own.

First of all, how do you know if something’s a paratype or something else? After all, it’s possible to have two kintypes that are extremely similar, like two species from the same genus, or two characters who fit the same archetype. If they feel obviously connected, how do you determine if one of them is a paratype or something else?
The annoying answer is that you don’t — not really. Alterhumanity isn’t a hard science, we can’t run calculations to determine which identity facets fit into which categories. All our jargon should be opt-in, not something you feel forced to use because you fit a dictionary definition.
If your kintype is a labradoodle and you later learn that goldendoodles exist, and you feel like you’re a goldendoodle concurrently with your labradoodle kintype, you can choose to call the goldendoodle a paratype, a kintype, both, or neither.
“Paratype” is an opt-in category (no one is forced to use it) and it’s not an exclusive category (if something’s a paratype that doesn’t mean it can’t simultaneously be another kind of ‘type too).

The only requirement for something to be a paratype is that it has an associated identity. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s always an offshoot of something else. I was a bit wishy-washy about this at first since I was more attached to the “it feels like a hearttype/kintype/something else, but it’s not” part of the concept than the “it feels that way because it’s connected to your preestablished identity” part. But no, no matter how a paratype presents itself, or what the experience of it is, it’s defined by its origin: If your paratype-like feelings don’t exist because of another identity facet, it’s not a paratype.

Paratypes are not defined by their origins in the same way that some folks try to define kintypes - whether a paratype is psychological, spiritual, or something else is irrelevant. A paratype can be a quirk of the brain just as well as it can be a past life. As long as the paratype/your connection to the paratype is an offshoot/extension of a preestablished identity, it counts.

The example I’ve used most often to get the idea across is that I am a bison, and because I’m a bison it’s only natural that I feel a connection to domestic bulls. This connection does feel like a hearttype. Unrelated, I am also unicornhearted. The difference comes down to whether I can separate my otherhearted feelings from other parts of my identity. If I can (like with unicorns), I call it a hearttype. If I can’t (like with bulls) it’s a paratype. It’s definitely splitting hairs, but the distinction is valuable to me.

I did get a question once, asking if a paratype had to be an offshoot of an alterhuman identity, or if it could be connected to a gender identity or a disability. I had not considered that possibility, but I gave it a tentative yes. Especially in light of Mord’s “Alterhumanity is Queer” essay, queerness and alterhumanity is not something I want to split hairs about. If you feel connected to dogs because of your gender, or cats because of your disability, and you want to refer to those connections as paratypes, I’m not gonna stop you. More power to you!

It's also worth noting that throughout this essay I have been using animals as examples, but “paratype” is by no means limited to therianthropic/animalhearted identities. Plantfolk, fictionfolk, objectkin, conceptkin, and factualkin can all use it if they want, and the term can be used for any identity category, from kintypes and hearttypes to headmates and past lives to constels and linktypes. It can even be used for paratypes - in theory, a paratype can have a paratype can have a paratype, ad infinitum. Personally, I’m spiderhearted and as a result I feel strongly connected to other arachnids, including ticks, and as I feel connected to ticks, I feel connected to other ectoparasites, like mosquitoes and lice.

A paratype can have any kind of connection to your preestablished ‘type. I use the bison <-> bull example often because it’s an easy way to explain the concept, but other examples may include a lion therian whose paratype is gazelles, a reptile with a sun paratype, a rabbit with a hawk paratype, a robot with a glitch paratype, a mushroom with a tree paratype, a werewolf with a silver paratype, and I could go on. Even something like a lost love from another life or an entire universe could be categorized as a paratype if you wish to do so.

You can also get noemata from a paratype, or only have one specific version of a species/object/character be your paratype. A paratype can be as vague as it can be specific - it can be every single type of dragon ever, or it can be a specific interpretation of a specific dragon species from a specific book. Essentially, you can have any kind of alterhuman experience be classified as a “paratype” as long as it meets the “offshoot/extension of a preestablished identity” criterion - which led to the excellent essay “How a hearttype gave birth to a parallel life of a paratype - a view on the connection between spiritual and psychological roots for otherkinity” which I implore you to read - but not before you’ve finished the final section:

4. A definition - finally!
paratype, plural paratypes (noun)
From para- (prefix): beside, alongside, related to; and type (noun): a particular kind, class, or group

1. (biology) a specimen of a type series other than the holotype
2. (biology) the environmental component of a phenotype
3. (alterhuman community slang) an identity facet that only exists in relation to a preestablished identity

Anonymous Ask . October 20, 2024 . Archived Link
on this post: https://www.tumblr.com/a-dragons-journal/764325609818161152/not-everyone-experiencing-a-delusion-recognizes

i before have truly believed i am physically an animal, or can transform into one. I’m not diagnosed or anything, but I’m 99% sure that experience was a delusion. I did not know that at the time.

I can guarantee if i had been told ‘no, you aren’t’ I would have become extremely upset, and believed myself even more. i never told anyone, so it’s fine.

but if i had posted it online, would that have made me a p-shifter? i would not have said I am having a delusion because i fully believed it.

is the issue with p-shifters their predatory behaviour or the fact they claim to be able to physically shift (I apologise if you’ve already answered this, my brain can’t read well atm /gen)

a-dragons-journal . October 20, 2024
It's kind of both. The predatory behavior is the biggest issue, but the "making physical claims they refuse to provide evidence for" plays directly into that both in the typical "this is a cult" sense that we usually think of with p-shifters and in the "you are posting extremely triggering content for people who experience delusions and refusing to tag it with unreality (because, of course, to do so would be to acknowledge that it's not objective, shared Reality, but instead your personal reality)" sense that babydog talked about more extensively on this earlier post.

But again: if you make physical claims about capital-R shared Reality, you have to be able to provide evidence for those claims; otherwise anyone can say anything and nobody can ever ask for proof. I'm not trying to demand that you (general you) "admit it's not real," because I know it is real for you, regardless of whether it's tangible to me. Acknowledging that it's not shared Reality is not saying your experiences aren't real. I know a lot of people treat it that way, and that's not fair to people experiencing delusions - but the answer is not "insist that it is objective, shared Reality actually and then get mad when people get prickly about that." It can't be. That sounds great in theory, but doesn't work in practice.

It's complicated, it's messy, sometimes it's gray. I'm probably going to care a hell of a lot more about a p-shifter who's actively trying to set up a "pack" or claiming they can teach people to p-shift than I am about one who seems to be minding their own business. But even when they seem to be minding their own business, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" holds true when you're making claims that should be verifiable.

And if you're choosing to use the word p-shifter, you're choosing to associate yourself with that history regardless of why you're using the word, so yeah, I'm going to bare my fangs at you first and ask questions later, sorry.

talon-dragonbeast . October 19, 2024 . Archived Link
today i want to talk about my hearthome, the coniferous forest, and how i lived there as a dragon. ill be using the words "memory", "remember", and the past tense a lot as an aid, despite me not having a past life. this is because they are noemata, things that never really happened but which i know to be true and are as important as any past life memory. this gets pretty long, so lets begin already.

[a gif of a setting sun peaking through a snowy coniferous forest]

i dont know how or when I found my forest. i was not born there, and although i know there mustve been other dragons somewhere, none ever visited my forest. if i had to guess, im pretty sure i was born among other dragons, but left them once i reached adulthood. im a pretty solitary dragon, as ive talked about before on this blog, and i have a pretty strong protective instinct. so once i left my fellow dragons, its no wonder i would choose a territory of my own that i could defend from others. and ive always preferred colder climates, so the coniferous forest was perfect for me.

my forest was not huge, but not too small either. it took several hours to walk from one corner to another, so i spent all my day patrolling it. my den was located right in the center, in a cave with a hidden entrance where i had my nest made of moss and my hoard of found objects and shiny things. the cave was tall but small, not uncomfortably so (i could stretch out comfortably without ever touching the walls), but just enough so that it made me feel cooped up and safe. right outside my den was a river that led to the mountains surrounding the forest, and marked the end of my territory. the mountains were a vantage point from which I could see any approaching enemies, so they greatly aided in my territory's defense.

[a gif of light rain falling into a puddle or stream near the forest floor]

the weather was not great, but for me it was just perfect. a dense fog in the morning that blocked the first rays of sunshine, the air always humid and heavy on the tongue, so cold it stinged the back of your mouth and made breathing difficult. light rain fell almost constantly from the gray skies, turning to snow in winter and thunderstorm in spring. the ground was always slightly damp, covered with brown pine needles and green moss, the soil underneath so dark it was almost black. the trees were tall and intimidating, all coniferous with a rich mix of pine, larch, spruce and fir, silent guardians much as I was. sometimes, the rain would stop and turn the forest into a nearly dreamlike place, with the sky a blue so intense it hurt the eyes, the sun shining with a strange energy that seemed to cool instead of warm. on those days, the air seemed to stand still, everything becoming so quiet you could almost hear the silence, as if the whole forest was holding its breath.

[a gif of birds flying over foggy forest treetops]

there were animals in my forest, of course. deer and fish and mice and elk and, most importantly, crows. i held a close relationship with the local murder that was similar to the symbiotic relationship between wolves and crows in the wild. they helped me locate prey, informed me of intruders and accompanied me on my patrols, and in return i gave them part of the kill, protected their nests and helped them with any trouble they might get into (you wouldnt believe the kinds of shenanigans the little buggers would manage to find themselves in!). i was at the top of the food chain, and was in charge of maintaining the balance of the ecosystem. i helped the forest, and the forest helped me.

[a gif of two crows sitting on a branch]

there isnt really a conclusion to this. today im feeling a bit nostalgic, probably because the weather is getting colder and colder and it reminds me of home. my forest, the home of my heart, to which i can never return. writing this has made me feel a bit better, but the pain is still there. the truth is, i still miss it terribly. i miss my den, how safe it made me feel. i miss the crows, my murder, my only companions. i miss feeling the ground beneath my claws, the crunching of pine needles and the soft cold dirt underneath. i miss the emotion of the hunt, the long naps under the sun, the stargazing of an infinite night sky.

but what i miss the most i think, is the feeling of belonging. of being part of the ecosystem, not detached from but actively participating in it. in this human life, its too easy to forget i am an animal too; humans seem so keen to separate themselves from the natural world that they have forgotten that they are part of it like any other living being. i guess what i really miss is simply being able to leave my mark somewhere. feeling that i am doing something. feeling important, needed. but again, dont we all?

gazing-at-my-stage . October 22, 2024 . Archived Link
Do other/copinglinkers experience shifts to their linktypes? Do y'all make your own shifts happen voluntarily or is it involuntary like many kin shifts are?

gone-fish-mode . October 22, 2024
Yes and no, for me.

Originally, before I was 'kin, I would force shifts. I was pretty young, young enough to regularly play pretend and no one care about it, which is how I really developed shifts and phantom sensations.

Eventually, these just became second nature and my body would go into "fish mode" (hence my URL) automatically when I was bored or restless or stressed or content or sensory seeking or any other myriad of emotions. I forced shifts so much to cope and for comfort that I did them without thinking.

I lived with these for years before actively deciding to use the term otherkin to describe myself and my relationship with this part of myself.

I don't consider myself an otherlinker/copinglinker these day for reasons that aren't relevant here, but the origins are roughly the same-actively choosing to identify or be something parallel to human (even if I didn't do it with the intent on being 'kin of any kind), so I feel OK answering this question :p

tl;dr, yes. In my experience, you can voluntarily make shifts and phantom limbs happen, and they can also become involuntary.

who-is-page . November 6, 2024 . Archived Link
Author: Page
Type: Essay
Words: 1,229
Summary: Page's personal experience as an adult canine psychopomp, and how it applies to the dearth of older otherkin in general alterhuman community spaces. Answering the question of: where are all the older otherkin? And why do people always seem to eventually leave?
Author's Note: The term "greymuzzle" is used within the scope of this essay's title to reference older otherkin who have been active in alterhuman spaces for extended periods of time (a nod to the word's original definition within furry spaces), and is not referring to greymuzzle's most frequent definition in alterhuman groups as a community-given term denoting an individual with noteworthy activity and contribution.

[Part of the Sol System’s Alterhuman Writing Project for 2024. If you don’t want to see these posts, block the tag #inkedclaws]

When I was a young otherkin, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, I found it difficult to conceptualize why there was such a dearth of older community members, especially those 30 and above. I could understand the theoretics behind the disparity, of course— social media platforms, as we all know, tend to skew towards younger audiences due to generational differences in technological proficiency/preference. Established adults with working lives and families don’t necessarily have the same amount of free-time that young adults or teenagers do, either. But even with all that taken into account, it seemed like the number of otherkin aged 13-21 in comparison to the number of otherkin aged 30+ was less a gradual decline and more an unfathomable chasm of difference. The community had been around for decades at that point, with plenty of ghost town groups and abandoned forums to demonstrate that fact… and unless the Veil was secretly age-restricted, those people hadn’t up and disappeared into thin air. So where were people going? And, more importantly, why?

It was a question I’d never been able to answer in a way that felt satisfactory as a teenager and later as a young adult. But now, feeling the call of the void myself, I finally do have an answer and an understanding that I never could have achieved five or ten years ago: why the fuck would I be online when I could be playing video games or having sex with my hot partners instead?

It’s a crude and simplistic way to put it, but just hear me out. As an established adult, I have access to funds, stability, and freedom that I never had as a teenager or even as a young adult who still felt at the mercy of an uncaring universe’s slightest whims. My support systems in high school and college suffered from the same sort of financial and social precariousness that come with the territory of navigating the world as a young adult, but my support systems now are made up of other established adults; while I’ll never say that everything is always perfect for all of us, it’s much easier to get on your feet and stay on your feet when your arms are linked with people who are more firmly rooted in one way or another. I have access to a type of freedom that I could never have imagined as a teenager, because it was literally outside of the range of what was possible for me and my peers.

And more than just that freedom is the fact that I, as an adult, have a family! “Having a family” has, in my experience, some shitty, heteronormative connotations. As a teen, I always took it at face value as juggling bills, kids, white picket fence, other boring responsibilities that eat up your time, etc. But as an adult, now I know that having a family can be anything you make of it, and I make it extremely, obnoxiously queer. In my case, it’s living with people who understand me on a deep, foundational level, and who love me not in spite of who I am but because of who (and what) I am. It’s not passively being around those people; it’s actively, enthusiastically spending time with them because it’s fun and because I love them too and because they’re my people and I picked them and they picked me. As a kid, I’d never consciously recognized the difference between people you’re passively around because you have to be versus people you intentionally choose to be around and who intentionally choose you right back. In part, this is because as a kid you often don’t get the option to make that choice, while as an adult you have more control over your environment. Too often online environments feel like the former, rather than the latter, even if being within them is, technically, a choice. But here, now, I have people in my household who will go out of their way to intersect their daily lives with mine and ask, “You wanna walk to the park?” “You wanna grab a coffee?” or “You HAVE to see this YouTube essay I’m watching and no I don’t care that it’s 4 hours long on a topic you know nothing about, just trust me!!!!!” and that’s such a radically different and wonderful experience.

As an adult, I live with a group of people who make being alive more fun than I could have ever imagined. I have the ability to make my own fun in ways I couldn’t as a kid, for a variety of reasons. I don’t have to feel like an anxious purse chihuahua 24/7, agonizing over my existence and every possible thing that is liable to go wrong if I frivolously spend money on so much of the thought of a hot coffee. And I finally, finally understand why older otherkin disappear off the face of the Earth. It’s because being an adult nonhuman-identifying person is amazing in a way almost no one ever talks about: the euphoric experience of being known and loved, and of knowing and loving yourself.

There are so many exciting and wonderful things I could be doing in the meatspace with people I have actively chosen to spend my life with, and who fully accept and understand me as someone who’s queer, plural, and nonhuman. There’s so many enriching ways I could be engaging with my hobbies, the environment around me, and my local community. With this all in mind, why the fuck would I ever be in public online spaces where people try to argue with me about whether or not I exist, or if my experiences are real, or if I’m using the right and latest lingo to describe my experiences? Why would I subject myself to that when I could just roll my eyes, close the laptop, and go be a beloved canine psychopomp in the comfort of my werehouse instead?

That’s the crux of it. As adults with families and support networks, we have the option to not subject ourselves to the morifying ordeal of being known by asshole strangers online if we don’t want to. We can stick to just our families and our friend groups, and we will still have people around us who understand and who acknowledge and interact with our alterhumanity. The alterhuman community isn’t the only or even most important place for being our authentic selves; rather, it takes a backseat in the day-to-day life. It’s still something that’s fulfilling and worthwhile to engage with, but only on our own terms (terms that are quickly becoming incompatible with the ways Internet culture is evolving). But more often than not, there’s just more fun things to do.

In some ways, it’s kind of a relief to have had this epiphany. People haven’t vanished from alterhuman community spaces because they collectively ‘grew out of it’ like some anti-otherkin insist, or because the various generations of otherkin are so extraordinarily different from one another as to be oil-and-water. People vanish from online alterhuman spaces because offline life as an adult alterhuman is awesome. As an archivist it’s frustrating, but as a nonhuman, I find it a specific type of happiness that’s worth celebrating in its existence and prevalence. It’s an assurance that life only gets better as you get older: isn’t that grand?

integral-canine . September 17, 2024 . Archived Link Not Finished
I've been interested in the "why" of non-human identity for years and years. It's something that's bugged me because I'm a skeptic. I decidedly don't believe in spirits and the like, and I wasn't satisfied with leaving it as just an identity either.

There had to be a reason why I see myself as an animal. So, I've been picking it apart for a while. I haven't just left it as an identity. I've looked at what I remember happening when I started identifying as animal. I've looked at when I "feel" like an animal and what's going on when that's happening. It's taken me a while, but I've come to a pretty solid conclusion. It's not a particularly fun thing to think about, but it stands up to the most scrutiny.

My nonhuman identity is fundamentally a product of my imagination. It's pretend. There is no physical part of my body, no fully involuntary thought process that makes this happen. I am imagining it. My shifts, when I do experience them, are not actual dog's thoughts, but my human brain's approximation of what those might be. (Maybe the same can be said about werewolves? They're not real in the first place, so that might not really matter.)

It's something I've integrated into my personality and my self-image I think because I've used my imaginary animal self for too long. It went from something I did when I played as a little kid, to something that I used to make sense of why I felt so isolated from other kids in middle school. I wasn't a teenage girl because I was secretly an animal. I found community in people who were also secretly animals.

As I found friends in-person and got to a place where I could pick apart my animal identity, I realized, or I am realizing that it's kept a similar function. Now, those "animalistic feelings" are something I retreat into when I'm too stressed or too depressed for one reason or another. It's a coping mechanism. I'm not sure if it has a fully positive or fully negative effect on me, but that's absolutely what it is.

I imagine myself as a dog or as a werewolf to protect myself mentally from my depression and my social isolation. I've done this to the point that it's part of who I am and how I see myself now. That's why. That's why I identify as a therian/otherkin, and I think that's worth thinking about. As much as it's part of who I am, it's worth picking apart and seeing what the whole dog and werewolf thing is all about.

Anonymous ask . December 8, 2024 . Archived Link Not Finished
Regarding the whole idea of the use of "therian" for those who aren't an earthen animal, a lot are saying this is because the word was originally defined to include more species than that, but language isn't stagnant, especially when it comes to social words in modern day. Words change meaning as the general collective uses them differently, such as the word "gay" changing from meaning "happy" to meaning "homosexual". Why are alterhuman terms not allowed to change, especially when recently, and even now on other platforms, a lot of the community seems to agree on the earthen animal definition and both created new labels specifically for those displaced as well as new umbrella terms for everyone?

a-dragons-journal . December 8, 2024
In principle I agree with the fact that language shifts over time and that is, to some degree, normal and to be expected and embraced - but we also have to be careful about "language changes" being used to excuse the language being changed to exclude people who used to be included. Language does shift, but that doesn't mean we can't criticize those shifts when they're doing harm. When language is starting to shift in such a way that people who've been using a term for years are now being told that they're not allowed to anymore, I think that's a bad shift that we should discourage, personally.

(And that's exactly what's happening - for a while, the community consensus was to define therian that way (I did it myself for a few years); now it's shifting back.)

There's also the fact of why the shift to exclude non-earthen-animal therians happened: namely, the therian community has a history of trying to push out mythical and fictional animals specifically because they're often seen as "less valid" or harder to defend against antikin, or because the earthen-animal therians doing the pushing themselves don't think it's possible to be a mythical creature and don't want to be associated with "those fakers". That's a pretty shitty reason to be changing the meaning of a word to exclude people who historically have always been included.

So yes, language does shift, you are correct. But when it's words for a group of people, that shift carries more weight than most other types of word. It's not about alterhuman terms never being allowed to change ever so much as it's about asking why that shift is happening, who it's actually helping (if anyone), and who it might be harming - and thus whether it should be encouraged or discouraged.

But that's just my two cents' worth, so. (More details on this can be found in Dispelling the Earthen Animal Myth, though if you're bringing this debate into my inbox I'm guessing you're probably familiar with that essay - I'll link it anyway just in case you haven't seen it, since it's a good resource.)

wewillbeseen-butnotheard . December 8, 2024
i think this is a weird thing to say. but i’m more that just curious and it’s something else that i want to get out.

how do you (we?) tell that it isn’t just some “fetish”? maybe it’s not something everyone would have to think about, and i’m obviously afraid of going to far into that subject

genuinely and actually. how? i see a little talk about this sort of thing but what i’m talking about feels totally different somehow. (i’m not necessarily talking about “being treated like an animal“) i don’t get it and i’m sorry that this is a very strange inquisition. that’s all

court-kossai . December 8, 2024
well , think maybe more important thing to ask would be :

why is anything " just fetish " to start with ? fetish can be just as much means of expression and identity as anything else , even if live right now in world that try to shame and discourage this , treat sexuality as just meaningless sin .

certainly not to say that there is nothing about fetishes or expressions of fetishes to criticise , or that all expression is appropriate in all circumstances , but sometimes these do intertwine with identity . nothing is actually inherently wrong about that , whether pleasure bring identity or identity bring pleasure .

of course , know is not just that easy to really shake off expectations and cruelties of others . but people who dismiss identity of others as " just fetish " never have best interests at heart anyway . think about how many trans people hear those accusations , and how many bigots use that to try and shutter away from world .

and yes , some of those trans people probably did explore gender through kink and sexuality first . but is that reason to invalidate and disrespect , to treat as sex pests even when expression is family friendly , squeaky clean and clear ?

( of course not to say hate for nonhuman identities is equally systemic and violent , but there is some parallel in perception of bigots . both might as well be equally impossible , things to regard with disgust and shutter away . )

sometimes nonhumanity start as fetish exploration , but bloom into identity which go beyond sexuality .
sometimes identity did not start with sexual aspects , but gradually evolve , especially as one grow into experience .
sometimes so twine together , there is no point in ask where each start and end .
and sometimes there just never was any sexuality to start with , but feel need to question and prove against society - society which might not accept anyways , unfortunately .

and none of these is bad , really . know did not really answer original question , but , hope maybe this could help in some way - and sorry if not .

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