Anyhoot OvO @barley-beak - Tumblr Blog

Well, Hello there! 🌱🪶✨

The name’s Barley! (They/She)

I am Autistic and 20+! Please be aware that I am an adult before choosing to interact. If I feel uncomfortable for any reason, I will block for safety reasons.

I am a Therian, Otherkin, Otherhearted, and Fictionkin.

I am a Short Eared Owl, Black Tailed Jackrabbit, Mershark, Werewolf, and Púca.

My Hearttypes are Ravens and Selkies.

I am also Hornet from Hollow Knight.

This blog is mostly a place to document my experiences and to safely keep my Alterhuman life separate from my human life.

Feel free to pop a question in the ask box!

Stay safe!

- Barley 🌱🦉🐇🦈🌱

#pinned post #therian #otherkin #alterhuman #to be edited as the blog evolves

barley-beak

I feel like folks need to talk more about types fading. We grow up, we change, and we figure out our identity more. That doesn’t mean that what we experienced wasn’t real. That type helped us understand ourselves more and we simply no longer connect with it and that’s okay.

I recently lost my connection to Cloudjumper and no longer feel that I am him. I still love him dearly and what he represented to me as I was discovering my fiction identity will always be important.

I think with all of the younger alterhumans joining online spaces, there is a heavy want to know exactly who you are right at the start. That’s not how identity works. It takes lots of time and you’re gonna make mistakes. The internet has made it really easy for others to shame individuals who haven’t fully figured out their types or change their types. You are growing and changing so your types will change to.

Something might fit right now, but one day you may find out about a creature that represents you more so that connection to the old type fades. That doesn’t make the new type or the old type and more or less valid then the other.

Take your time. There is no rush to finding out who you are.

hearts-and-hisses

especially with something as confusing and "new" (quotes cause I'm pretty sure the experiences have been around for a while, but it recently got a word to describe it) as therianthropy, obviously one isn't gonna awaken and suddenly know everything and every word about how they feel and what/who they are!

ive only awakened around 2 years ago, autumn 2024, and 2 years is NOT feasible to have figured out everything

and in the wider scheme of identity, its ok to drop labels!! you can technically "stop being a therian," though most people mean it in a hateful way, or a hobby way, which is a whole other tin of fish that I'll talk about sometime.

(cause I think a lot of people don't see the separation between labels and experiences, in which, labels are optional, experiences are most often not. in the case of otherlinks and otherwise voluntary identities it gets a bit more complicated since that's a label AND experience that is chosen.

also I think a lot of people see "therian" as more of a hobby label cause, yk, TikTok did the thing..! and therefore it lead to a whole lot of miscommunication and misinformation within the community about definitions and such.)

but yes, at the end of the day, you can realize a label isn't for you! whether it be because it was literally not for you (as in, your experiences didn't match up with what therianthropy entails) or from it simply fading, its normal !! its normal that not every label you pick up will be held for the rest of your life

#Very great addition!#I honestly never expected this post to get a lot more attention #alterhuman #therian #otherkin #fictionkin #alterhumanity

barley-beak

Questioning some new types!

We’ll see where this leads.

barley-beak

Safe to say that one of the two new types I’m questioning is mainly just a fixation on the creature.

That happens a lot with me.

As for the other one, I had a very strong involuntary shift that took a while to snap out of so I’m going to sit with that one for longer.

barley-beak

I figured out the one type (Werewolf) is liked to my time of the month, so I only really get werewolf shifty during that time.

I figured that one out, but now I have a new one I’m questioning.

Will update.

vagabond-beast

Am I a Therian? [A Greymuzzle's Insight]

"Am I a Therian?" you ask with a quizzical expression.

"I like bathing in the sun. I hate taking baths. I'm highly active at 3am," you explain, and so you conclude, "I must be a cat therian!"

Why?

Don't humans also like sitting in warm sunlight? Don't some humans hate the sensation of baths? Aren't some humans more active at night than at day?

Aren't those normal human behaviors?

"I like to howl, bark, and growl! I like to dig in the dirt and play tug-a-war!" you shout excitedly, and so you conclude, "I must be a dog therian!"

Why?

Don't humans also like to be vocal; shouting, hollering, and yelping? Don't some humans love digging in the dirt to see what's beneath? Do you not see the kids playing tug-a-war? Aren't those normal human behaviors?

"But..." you pause and you think. You finally state, "I feel a call to Nature. I feel at home among the trees, when my bare feet touch the Earth. I feel a pain in my heart when looking at my body, like it doesn't feel right. Surely that means I'm a Therian."

Why?

Aren't there humans who feel a call to Nature? Who live by themselves in the woods? Aren't there humans who also feel like something is missing with themselves?

Aren't those normal human behaviors?

"Then how do I know if I'm a Therian?"

Why... are you asking me?

You clearly know yourself better than I do. You have already given so many reasons as to why you must be a Therian, right? So why ask me what you are?

"Cause you're a Therian, too, aren't you?" you ask.

"I am," comes the answer.

"So then tell me," you urge with impatience. "Am I a Therian?"

"I can not tell you," comes another answer. "Because I do not know. I do not know your identity. I do not know what bristles beneath your skin or echoes in your heart."

There are no set rules to define someone who is a Therian. There is no checklist to go through to determine who is a Therian. There are no guidelines to follow under to know who is a Therian.

"Are you an animal?" comes the question. "Are you, in any sense or form, an animal?"

You pause. And you think.

You already know the answer.

"I am an animal."

Then congratulations.

You're a Therian.

I feel like folks need to talk more about types fading. We grow up, we change, and we figure out our identity more. That doesn’t mean that what we experienced wasn’t real. That type helped us understand ourselves more and we simply no longer connect with it and that’s okay.

I recently lost my connection to Cloudjumper and no longer feel that I am him. I still love him dearly and what he represented to me as I was discovering my fiction identity will always be important.

I think with all of the younger alterhumans joining online spaces, there is a heavy want to know exactly who you are right at the start. That’s not how identity works. It takes lots of time and you’re gonna make mistakes. The internet has made it really easy for others to shame individuals who haven’t fully figured out their types or change their types. You are growing and changing so your types will change to.

Something might fit right now, but one day you may find out about a creature that represents you more so that connection to the old type fades. That doesn’t make the new type or the old type and more or less valid then the other.

Take your time. There is no rush to finding out who you are.

#alterhumanity #alterhuman #fictionkin #otherkin #therian #therianthropy #I only awakened as an alterhuman 3 years ago and I’m still figuring things out #This is your journey so no one else can tell you how to take it

unfamiliarsculptures

A little black goat sculpture! The black animals in this update were made by staining the clay itself black. A new process I’m really excited to know! This piece will be available Friday, May 22nd at 8pm Eastern time.

effinbirds

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

as a younger person I'd sometimes get overwhelmed with the violence of the world, not just human violence but the violence done to animals and by animals, the innate violence of being an animal. because an animal is, by definition, an organism that must consume other organisms to live. and this would lodge in my spiraling young adult mind, the tragedy that to live, to be a creature, is to cause harm. that life is sustained by consuming life.

eventually I got older (and medicated), but in the meantime spending time in woodland really helped. it comforted me to be around plantlife, which feeds not on life but on sunlight, and therefore causes no harm.

anyway now I'm reading The Hidden Life Of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (incredible book) and it turns out that was a big fat LIE. forests are violent as FUCK

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

life as a tree is fucking BRUTAL. ok no they don't actually eat each other (well, not until they've been broken down and digested by microorganisms first) but competition is FIERCE. sunlight and water are finite resources. survival rates are dismal. a tree can release a million seeds in a lifetime and have only one offspring live to maturity. some species evolved ways of stealing sunlight from trees who got there first, bidding their time as a sapling then shooting out from under older canopies to hog as as much light as possible. next-door neighbors? fuck em, let em starve.

then you get shit like epiphytes that decided to just grow on top of other plants. strangler fig vines, for instance, which decided well fuck, im just gonna cling to this tree trunk and let it do the support work. maybe entangle our roots and envelope my host completely over time. oopsie my host died? that's ok I'll just cling to its corpse for eternity

equally horrifying is the honeysuckle, which preys on young trees boa-constrictor style, squeezing the life out of saplings, which grow with permanent deformities before dying prematurely (makes for a neat walking stick though)

then you get out and proud parasites like mistletoe who are happy to attach themselves to tree canopies and suck their blood extract water and nutrients. so yeah some plants do eat each other actually. gives ya some perspective on the old christmas tradition of hunting mistletoe with guns (yes that's a thing, shooting them down out of trees like squirrels. yes, unlike squirrels they deserve it). as for the romance angle, who doesn't want to kiss a lover beneath the dying corpse of a parasitic trophy kill? sexy as heck.

in conclusion, PLANTS ARE VIOLENT AS FUCK, and that's not even getting into the eternal chemical warfare they are forced to wage against insects, fungi, microbes and other enemies.

one day soon the forests will turn on us, and when that day comes I'm cheerfully betraying humanity and skipping away to cross enemy lines 🫡

kofi

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

to those who thought this post was heading in a heartwarming direction, i do NOT apologize and i DO hope the forest and its creeping mycelium tendrils crawl their way into your nightmares