How can you tell whether or not you identify with or as a character/being? Personally when I ask myself whether or not I identify with or as a certain character, I canāt get a definite answer. I havenāt heard anyone else really ask these kinds of questions, or talk about it in general, but I would love to hear how others come to realize whether or not they identify with or as a character/being.
I've tried to come up with a list of potential signifiers to look for that are less "obvious" than things like memories and shifts that I'm sure you've seen discussed elsewhere already (though if you haven't, I recommend having a look into those things!) Each one is marked according to what type of identity they might be pointing to. Please note that this is not a requirements checklist! Not all fictionfolk experience every single one of these, nor do we all experience the ones we do with the same intensity or frequency. (It's also far from exhaustive. Feel free to add more in the replies/rbs.)
-It feels dysphoric/unnatural to refer to them in third person or for others to treat you and them as separate. (as)
--It feels like you're being spoken about like you're not there when someone talks to you about them. (as)
-You get euphoria from being referred to with their name, representing yourself with them online, dressing like them, etc. (as/with)
--You actively want people to associate you with them. (as/with) [more precisely, if you want the association but don't fw the idea of literally being seen as them, that points to otherheartedness, but if you do like the idea of literally being seen as them, well, you probably are them. I'm aware the difference here can be kind of hard to emotionally parse out, which is why I have left it as one single bullet point]
-You have a deep longing to have their body, their life, live in their world, etc. (as/with)
-You experience the emotions associated with their story "in first person", i.e. as your own, without any of the sense of distance/"containment" that the emotions a work of fiction instills in you would usually have to them. (as) [personally, this has been like, THE most reliable metric across my many fictotype questioning journeys. that being said, you shouldn't fully hinge your questioning on any one single metric!]
-You deeply miss the people they cared for. (as)
-They feel like "you but a little to the left". (with)
-You feel deep familial/similar attachment to them. (with)
This doesn't quite fit in with The List because it's not about the specific character you're questioning, but it should be noted that a permanent sense of homesickness / being "out of place" no matter where you are is extremely common among fictionkind. Of course, there's more reasons than fictionkinity that someone might feel that way, but I think it's worth mentioning.
reallllly feel like some of you have to start understanding people are sometimes going to make mistakes and not understand something and not know things and it's going to slot them in a perfect place for you to scoff and call them problematic and evil and they're not even going to know why.
not everyone is chronically online, or online at all. don't act like everyone who's ever enjoyed harry potter is a cartoon villain, when most of them barely know who jkr is and definitely don't know what she's done, or know what the actual symptoms of schizophrenia are, or understand what a neopronoun is. like, yeah, okay, you can get frustrated when people don't listen or when they willfully ignore you, but don't pretend everyone on earth is supposed to know already. my life advice.
my friend is a cishet white guy who's entire knowledge of schizophrenia was "yeah that's the thing people have in horror movies that make them kill people." he didn't even know hallucinations were involved. after meeting me, he googled it. like, while we were hanging out, he pulled out his phone, took two minutes to read up on it, and went "oh, so it's like autism, but scarier for you." i told him about neopronouns, and therians, and objectum, and a bunch of other chronically online bullshit, and he nodded along. later he messaged me with a couple questions, which i explained, and he thought it was all very cool. he has a snapchat and an instagram, both of which are exclusively for hunting and fishing friends, he didn't even know why the r slur wasn't okay to say. im not saying you have to educate everyone you meet on the street, but for the love of god, you need to recognize when someone's actually trying to hurt you and when someone is just not really sure what's going on.
So last month I got hit by a car and died right. Which I didn't initially realize until I watched some guy haul my body into his pickup and drive off. Which, being that it's deep in rural Michigan, I assume means my body will make some venison jerky and maybe some wall decoration, and I'll be resigned to being one of hundreds of deer ghosts floating around Saginaw, which is w/e. But then I find out the guy works at a taxidermy shop or something, and he's actually pretty good at stuffing and mounting deer carcasses, which I come to find out when I find myself face to face with my old body in the shop window. So naturally, I figure since ghosts need to possess something to interact with the living world and etc etc etc the most logical thing to do is to possess my own body, since it's basically a statue of myself. And a little surprisingly, it actually fits like a glove. Like, since it's my body, it feels like stepping right back into place. So I get out of town and back to my herd, eventually. And that's where the trouble starts coming into it, because after I get settled again, I don't know how to explain to everyone else what feels so weird. Like since I can move my body and do everything I used to do, it's functionally the same, like nothing happened. Or it SHOULD be, so I don't know how to explain how it's NOT. But it's just hard to explain it to someone who's never been hit by a truck I guess
A fun update to the ongoing Reddit meltdown: r/femalefashionadvice has, after polling their users, reopened to only accept posts about 18th century fashion.
Humans confuse me... Some of them will act like being turned into an animal is the worst thing that could happen to someone. Why?? Do you think the animal is "beneath" you to some degree? That's not very nice...
I actually get it for certain animal species! Sometimes, survival can be really tough. But for others...?
You're telling me you wouldn't change into a cat forever if given the chance? Isn't that everything you could ever want? You're fed, have a warm place to stay, you're loved, but still free...
Hi, human alterhuman here. It's species dysphoria. When I imagine myself transformed into an animal, or when I am transformed into an animal in our mindscape, I experience the exact same sort of extreme species dysphoria that nonhumans do. The human body map is fundamentally "correct" to me, I feel comfortable on two legs and with little body hair, I like interacting with the world mostly through my sense of vision, I feel a sense of connection to my species when I use tools or tell stories or cook food. As a Wastelander, I am well aware that there's nothing setting humans apart from other animals. We aren't special, we depend on everything around us, we are a part of the ecosystem. I would never consider the life of a nonhuman animal to be beneath me. It's just not... for me, and that's how most humans feel too. Here's something by @knifedog-machina that explains it better than I could:
Hey, thanks for linking my essay, Atari, I was going to do that!
To Fish, I would definitely recommend reading my essay to get a deeper explanation on what we're talking about, as humans with species dysphoria. And I want to give you an analogy in this post, one that hopefully makes sense:
Consider, for a second, that we're not talking about the human versus animal binary, but the man versus woman binary.
(If you think, hey, gender isn't a binary, that's not fair - that's a fitting part of the analogy! There's therians who are human and animal, and nonhumans who are neither!)
Since you're assuming humans as superior, let's say, [men] confuse you. Some of them will act like being [treated like a woman] is the worst thing that could happen to someone. Why? Do they think [women] are beneath them to some degree?
And to that I say - patriarchy is definitely a framework that affects people's opinion, so sometimes, yes, a man will act like womanhood is beneath him because of misogyny.
However, if you know a trans man, like me, you'll be aware that trans men don't transition because we hate all women. We don't transition because we're misogynists who can't stand being around women.
Being a man just feels good and right for me, and being seen as a woman feels wrong and dysphoric. What I want for myself is not a reflection on what I want for women, cis or trans, it just means that I would personally be miserable if I weren't seen as a man.
Does that make sense?
If we translate that back to discussing species, I feel the exact same way!
Anthropocentricism is an attitude that affects people's opinions - the idea that humanity is special in some way, exceptionally good or exceptionally evil or exceptionally important. None of these are true, since humans are just another kind of animal on this planet, but humans - and nonhumans! - can get stuck in believing that humanity is somehow special, that we aren't just another species.
So sometimes, yes, a human will think that being an animal is beneath them because they're working from an anthropocentric mindset.
However, many humans don't feel that way! I'm a human being - not because I hate all animals, not because I think humanity is special and everyone should strive to be human, but because it just feels right and correct to be a human being and have a human body.
I would feel dysphoric and panicked if I were trapped in a cat's body. You talk about the many material benefits to being a cat, but you don't talk about how wrong it would feel to be stuck in a body that doesn't feel like yours - which makes sense, since you don't see being a cat as being trapped at all.
Do you get species dysphoria from being seen as human? Well, I get species dysphoria from being seen as nonhuman. It's identical to the sort that nonhumans get, just in the other direction. This doesn't mean that I think nonhumans are bad, or I hate animals, or I think humans are better than anything else - it just means that I, personally, would feel miserable if I were treated as nonhuman.
Atari linked my species dysphoria essay up above, but I wanted you to know that I wrote another essay on a very similar topic - it's a species identity compare and contrast, between the feelings I get as a human and the feelings nonhumans get as nonhumans.
If you're confused and lost about what being a human feels like, and don't understand why someone would ever want to be human, I recommend giving it a read! I think it would really help clear things up.
I think these are important perspectives because when you get down to it, humans are just another kind of animal. "Human" is a species just like "cat"! I think it makes total sense why a human wouldn't want to be a cat, because personally, I wouldn't either. I'm not human, but I'm not a cat either, so being in the body of one wouldn't be any more freeing to me than a human one.
Here's the perspective I'm coming from though: I'm a bug, and if you proposed the idea of becoming a bug to most nonhumans, they'd probably have the same negative reaction as any human. But to me it would be preferable than the body of a cat. Most nonhumans are mammals or at least vertebrates, and there can be a blind spot in considering their species the most freeing thing one can be, but many would turn their snout up at becoming an invertebrate or a fish or amphibian with the same feeling of species dysphoria as any human would. That's also dysphoria! It helps to think about it not just as an issue of "human or animal" but actually about what species you are.
Most everyone has a species identity. It's not just not something most people think about because most humans are not aware of the alterhuman community or the idea that what they feel about being human is a species identity. But I love this post, because the comparison to trans men is actually really on pointāmost cis people don't think about gender, but I've known cis women who encountered the possibility they could be something else and came away with the conviction they love being women, and there's little better confirmation that I'm a man because I love being a man, not just because I hate being a woman. Being a human isn't uniquely, universally horrible, you're just not one and there's the proof. It's more affirming than confusing to me.
Being a therian is actually so insane cuz I'll talk about something I've experienced literally every day of my life for as long as I can remember and people will be like "hmm no that's not real"
ā¦so, I stumbled on the blog/project @we-are-other today and subsequently typed up this whole essay-thing about being otherhearted, but then I realized they werenāt taking submissions for definitions for it.
I didnāt want it to go to waste though, so hereās my take on being āhearted!
Alright! Letās talk about being otherhearted! (this turned out as an essay uh I hope itās serviceable anyway)
For one, I think āheartedness is very often under-described in the community. Beings, when suggesting it to others, tend to just describe it as āidentifying with (but not as) Somethingā. Sometimes they add the adjective of āstrongā or āstronglyā but either way I really donāt feel like thatās enough.
When Iām with my hearttype I feel with my family. Family thatās not immediate, that maybe Iāve never met, but family and with it a sense of familiarity nonetheless (and far more of a sense of it than any human extended family). It could be described as my soulās or heartās family. Itās like some higher power, when making me, sewed just a piece of it into the fabric of my heart.
The second thing, out of four Iāve decided Iād like to bring up here, is that I feel like I should haveāor very easily could haveābeen ākin of my hearttypeā¦ but Iām not. I will never be a ātrueā phytanthrope, and that almost feels wrong, not because I really am plantkin, often the identify-as experiences brought up by those who are donāt feel like me at all, but sometimes I feel so strongly about my hearttype that I swear I couldāve been one of them.
The third thing is how a hearttype is entwined with your sense of self, and how devastating it would be to it to severe that connectionāand this is where it separates from āsynpathsā, a different word for almost the same concept. I have both, and if the connection to one of my synpaths disappeared, I would be more-or-less the same. If my hearttype were to disappear, it would be a massive loss.
My fourth and final point is that it impacts me in my daily life how a kintype never could. I might be a bird, sure, but it never comes close to the sense of responsibility and empathy that comes with a hearttype. I want to get books on flowers and botany, I want to take care of a garden, I want to dry and press flowers to decorate myself and everything around me with, I want to worship Mother Nature. I am my link- and kintypes. But I want to be surrounded by my hearttype.
If it were to come down to a barebones definition, then I would say āidentifying with a nonhuman/fictional being/species in a strong, fundamental way that impacts your core sense of selfā would be the best one Iāve found.
Mildly annoyed at the trend of people... Forgetting that many of the strong experiences one can feel about alterhumanity are historically very very common in otherkin and therianthrope? This is not... Beef toward anyone, in fact this popped up bc I checked in on a non anglophone alt-h server, but god. Like speed round. As a note this is gonna be more therian linguo heavy just bc I'm very tired, a therianthrope, and mostly was in therian spaces so it's what I default to but a lot of those are applicable to otherkin n fictionkin.
"can phantom shifts feel like physically shapeshifting"
-> yeah this was an experience talked about not uncommonly on forums. A lot of therianthropes expressed the feeling of "a pelt under your skin begging to breach out" or feeling limbs push out against their skin as the phantom shift took place. Sure a lot of people also feel very mild phantom shifts. Both exist. But this experience is in fact a phantom shift experience. We called ourselves "weres" for a reason. Seems more common in people who distinctly see themselves as werecreatures, but this is not abnormal for a phantom shift, although preferably you should do a doctor check if you feel pain (also an experience ppl talked about, but it's not usually thought of as "normal" just bc. Well that's kinda bad and may hide an injury or whatever so it's better to check mundane reasons first. But painful shifts seem to exist you should just be very very certain nothing else could be causing it).
"I can't turn off being an animal / I can't stop my instincts at inconvenient times / I don't feel suited for human society"
-> this one always surprises me when it's presented as bizarre for otherkin/therians. That was like... A baseline therian experience. Yeah no a lot of us can't either. Usually the difference is that this feeling is at an all time high when in situations where you are constantly pressured to "human" correctly, socialize and have no breaks to wild it out, which corresponds a lot to The Entire Duration Of School and is therefore a more common complaint amongst teenagers than adults. It gets a bit easier as an adult sometimes if you're lucky to have opportunities that let you manage your life around instincts and such, although sometimes, well, you gotta play by societies rules to survive n it stays hard. Also a commonly reported experience. You do learn! But some people are better at hiding instincts than other, some instincts are easier to hide than other, etc.
"I have shifts I cannot control under very intense emotions"
-> "Berserker shift" is a controversial term due to a variety of reasons that span the usual "that's too weird, don't talk about that", the fact you're still responsible for what you do while shifty, or just bc it sounds kinda... Edgy, from a first glance, but it IS a term from our history and a lot of people do report the experience of going fully animalistic if freaked out enough. Sometimes alongside extremely strong phantom shifts as described in the first point! I've heard of people who had complete verbal shutdown and could neither speak nor understand speech, could not walk on two legs, reacted with growling spitting and biting, just the whole thing. I think this experience is a bit harder to find mostly because it's... Very vulnerable, usually. It tends to require less than pleasant conditions, and tends to be very vilified, so not talked about much, but very much something that is recorded.
Transhumanism, species transition and body mods overall
-> I'm not gonna talk much about this one bc I've said a lot in other posts, but there's a reason trans species and therianthropy are super intertwined and it's... Because a lot of therianthropes did historically attempt to transition or at least modify their body and surroundings to their best capacities. The idea that therianthropes, as a rule, mostly do not attempt to modify their bodies seems to me very incorrect.
"I feel a strong, almost supernatural drive toward nature / I feel in my bones I am nonhuman / I believed I could physically shift during most of my life under the right conditions"
-> This one is going to be a bit hard for me. As a result of having psychosis, I have kind of a mental block over thinking too much about it in regards to myself. It's also I think A Major way ppl seem to be confirming physical nonhumanity, so like, you do you, I'm not Telling you anything about yourself. However I do want to note that these feelings aren't particularly rare amongst nonhumans overall. A reason why so many therianthropes got in toxic groups that promised being able to go back to one's true form was... Because a lot of us are deeply convinced in some way or another that if things align juuuuust right maybe just maybe we'll have our bodies again. It's not hard to. Understand why an entire community defined by being in the wrong body would have this trait. A lot of us felt a strong drive toward nature, a feeling of being displaced amongst humans, a lot of us attempted to physically shift.
"I wish I could have my species's offsprings / I feel dysphoria over my sexual functions / I have sexual drives that align with being weird fetishes in a human society"
-> this one is more getting erased due to puritanism I think but yeah no for a lot of nonhumans it. Does not stop magically under the belt. And it's not a problem unless any theriform animal is involved. Yes even if it's kinda nasty to think about. I will however note for the first point "no theriform animal is involved" kinda still goes, please do not adopt animals, especially exotic animals, under the impression that you can parent them as a theriform animal could? It CAN be possible to raise a theriform animal in a way that would satisfy parental instincts if you're trained for it, but we're not special. We got raised by humans, we don't magically understand our species better than people trained for it. Very imprinted animals commonly make poor parents.
"I remember my past life / I communicate with my animal self spiritually / other spiritual experiences"
-> this one is such a surprise to me to see so uncommon now. Spirituality used to be a cornerstone of otherkin and therian spaces and it's kinda wild to me to see it's so rare now. So yeah no that's very much a thing. I don't think I've seen someone soul search for their "true name" in ages, when that was everywhere on old spirituality inclined forums. I can't speak much on this bc I am not a spiritual therianthrope + point about psychosis made before but I've seen parallel lives, I've seen past lives, I've seen future lives, I've seen misplaced souls, I've seen having a chat with your theriotype as a representation of your soul... Awakening seemed to have a meaning of the... Spiritual event of your soul kinda ripping to reveal your inner self for a while, a singular event in which you start remembering. Was very common on an old french forum over here. Not sure if that was as common in English ones. A lot of people's nonhumanity was not as based on shifts and instincts as on uncovering that hidden self through spiritual means, memories, and such.
Weird Shit Happens Around Me ("I can't digest things a human should digest in accordance to my species, ppl have noted my nonhuman traits as if they could see my invisible limbs, animals react weird to me, etc")
-> noooooted in the past but I think these have always been subject to doubt to be fair. Like you can find records of stuff like that quite easily, but also its very hard to prove in any way, shape or form. So that's a reason it's not in the basics of nonhumanity. But yeah historically a lot of otherkin/therianthropes have claimed Weird Shit Happens. Not rly my case so can't speak on it.
And I think I've mentioned what I had in my brain but this is just to remind ppl like... The therianthrope who wears a mask for fun and is only mildly inconvenienced by their animality is not really a representation of the community historically. Weve always been pretty fucking intense and pretty fucking weird. Chances are, if you are experiencing a very weird thing, it's not particularly a disqualifier of therianthropy or otherkin historically. Not that people might not give you shit about it! Pretty much all the points here, while not uncommon reported experiences, ARE in fact also things I've seen ppl be antagonistic about in the community. Which to be clear is stupid. But yeah it doesn't mean you're wrong, it means they don't realize the extent of our experiences.
A small essay about the difference between the pop culture Bird and being a bird.
Being a bird is probably one of the most romanced identity. Being a bird means nothing, behavior wise, scientifically. Yet, being a bird portrays something very specific into people's mind.
Being a bird is freedom. It's effortless flight, belonging to the realm of air and never wanting to touch ground again. Being a bird is adventure, migration. A good half of movies about birds are about overcoming the thrilling dangers of going over entire continents in one year, the reward of seeing an exotic haven far from the cold. Sometimes, being a bird is being a strange endearing critter, voice mimicry, stealing shiny things, cuddling up and preening one's flock. Other times, being a bird is a sharp beak and sharper claws and being the Predator from Above, undefeated in the heights.
I've seen a lot of people question birds with that idea of a bird in mind. And, clearly, it can be true. One bird I know is migratory to her very core, the pull of Africa leading her to travel, irresistible. Another deeply intertwined with the drop of gravity as it's ultimate strength, entire biology built to master it.
But I cannot relate to people who go into questioning bird from the perspective of the Pop Culture Bird Homonculus, of this chimera of all the Cool Bird Traits. It seems like a fictional character to me, without all the little details that make being a bird real. Perhaps it is because I break all of these core traits.
I do not fly well, I glide when I must, and more often I run. I much prefer the ground. I am not migratory, and one part of being a roadrunner to me is Territory, and Surviving winter. I've never had the luxury of fleeing the cold, as much as i dislike it. I do not mimic all that much, I am solitary, I hunt by running along the grass. Barely bird, in the eye of the Being a Bird rules.
Rules say, then, i should not relate to being a bird. perhaps being a roadrunner for me would be akin to coyotes. Perhaps it would be akin to cats. But no, i do in fact relate to birds.
As it turns out, there is still a strong difference, for me, between the Being A Bird non-birds imagine and the actual one. I don't fly, i glide, i struggle to get to heights. A heavy sea eagle responded, saying how they felt flight as tool, from perch to perch, to scan for prey, too costly to waste in play.
I say that i hunt on foot, that i do not relate to the dive of the kestrel or the flight of the swift. A burrowing owl answer; saying they too prefer hunting grasshoppers from their height, sometimes perching but often just lurking around the grass.
I say i am alone, i do not have a flock, and a heron responds, why should you ? You are fine on your own.
I have met flightless cormorants, I have met penguins. On the contrary, I have met falcons, I have met corvids. The shapes of birdhood shift and change, but in the end, I tend to find someone for each things, be it bird like or not. Bird is a wide ground. Bird is a simplification, so that others can understand a flawed but easy view.
I am not A Bird, by pop culture definition. Yet i am very much a bird who relates to beings extremely far from me, behaviorally. honestly there's a point of no explanation. I share phantom feathers with them and beaks, but i couldn't be further from a hummingbird. It's a strange conundrum. So close yet so far, every species that talks about it. always slivers of Me-Truth, always things i just gloss over. a bird is not an animal, its a concept. i wish people would take that in account more before diving in it.
The opinion you have on pigeons or any other "dirty street animal" or "pest" tells me EVERYTHING I need to know about you. Rats/mice, stray cats and dogs, racoons, bats, opossums, coyotes, ants, roaches, wasps, any other animal or bug I did not list. If you only care about the lives of beautiful animals I want nothing to do with you.
Yes its ok to be afraid of any of the animals here because yes they can sometimes have bad diseases or just be scary-looking to you, but even so their lives still matter and they still need to survive however they can. If you don't bother to acknowledge that- especially if its because you see them as dirty or ugly, kindly stay away from me. You're more disgusting than the so called pests you hate so much.
something that baffles me is how people can say "i'm literally xyz animal" and no one bats an eye but as soon as you slap a label on it everyone is suddenly upset and thinks you're insane
for example, two of my favourite content creators are a giraffe and a sloth. they don't identify as therians or even alterhumans in general (and i'm not gonna sit here and label them as such either), but they say they are those animals. my mother is a pixie and has always told people that she is - she even identifies physically - but she doesn't even know labels for her experience exist. nobody cares in these instances.
but if you say "i'm a wolf therian" then the world starts collapsing and you're carted off to a mental hospital (hyperbole)
Coming across statements like ātrans people die 15 years earlier than cis peopleā can be frightening and upsetting. It can make you feel hopeless.Ā
Hereās something important to remember: human brains are really bad at understanding statistics, and statistics regularly get misrepresented because of that.Ā
Thatās because we tend to understand (and represent) statistics as inevitable and individual predictions. Thatās not how it works!Ā
Statistics like that refer to an average. They do not say āeach trans person will die earlierā. They do not say āYou, the trans person reading this, will die earlyā. And they certainly do not say āAnd thereās nothing we can do about that, thatās just your fateā.Ā
Trans people, on average, have a reduced life expectancy. Thatās not some inherent biological thing. Itās because of external factors such asĀ
hate crimes, abuse and violenceĀ
medical discrimination or lack of access to healthcareĀ
poverty (due to job discrimination etc)Ā
high levels of stress (due to all the points above)Ā
These are real issues the community faces. And it is important to have the data on how that affects our lives and our health. It shows that there needs to be systematic change.Ā
But itās counterproductive if these statistics just become another factor of stress and anxiety.Ā
So letās make it clear:Ā
You are not destined to die early as a trans person. You can have a long, healthy, happy life as a trans person. Itās worth fighting for that.Ā
Protective factors matter and can counteract some of the negative factors. This includes the usual āhealthy livingā stuff (like nutrition, sleep, stress management, exercise, vaccinations, no smoking etc.) as well as social factors (positive social interactions, friendships, found family, a safety net you can fall back on). Itās important to not fall into despair and neglect these things.Ā
When you see these statistics, take a deep breath and let it spur you into action rather than steal your hope. They show that fighting for our community will literally save lives, and we can all do our part! By voting, advocating or even just by reaching out to our trans friends with a āhi, how are youā.Ā
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