finally like.. set this blog up so i can post my alterhuman nonsense w/o outting myself on main. I’m not closeted technically, but I’m a very private person and its no-one’s business so. disconnected sideblog time
below the cut are labels i used to use but have recently felt too stifling and rigid. you can read them if you want but it's not a full or even partisl picture of my being.
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lots of alterhuman identities but I will mostly discuss the following
grouped together items are tied to each other
I also have multiple paratypes which I find important enough to mention here, however they are rather faint and mainly involve animalistic instincts and so I may not discuss them much.
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.
Being an adult therian/otherkin is so wild cause wtf do you mean an elf is assembling burgers, A moth is working a 30+ hour work week, A dragon is trying to rent an apartment, A rat is paying students loans, A god is trying to get piercings and tattoos, A demon graduated college, a cow is responsible for a pet, a doll is trying to maintain savings and a crow is looking for new jobs?? Ts is so funny
there are 2 things i know for absolute certain about my alterhumanity, or i guess, i prefer to say 'being' both as in my existence and species classification ? whatever it's complicated. there are only 2 things i know for sure
I am not meant to be here; I want to go home.
I am supposed to be able to fly.
My entire life i have had vivid dreams about being able to fly, Peter Pan style like I'm swimming in water. The way I fly is the same every time, i instinctively know what to do and how to do it. The yearning I get when I think of flying is so strong that it's nauseating and choking, makes me feel like i need to vomit or scream. Not being able to fly for me feels like a part of my soul has been ripped out of my body and is so deeply wrong that it's almost morally repugnant. I don't know how to explain it better than that. Its like someone chopped my body in half and then told me it's always been like this. Why does my body remember how to fly? Not 'know', REMEMBER. Sometimes I still do this little hop and foot wiggle that I always use to launch myself (in dreams), and the feeling of my weight dragging me down is worse than any gender dysphoria I've ever felt. Sometimes I question whether I'm alterhuman at all, but the urge to fly always brings me back to alterhumanity, because I am supposed to be able to fly. I don't know what I am, but without it, I am trapped.
the longer i spend with my.. nonhumanity, other-than-humanity, the less sense it makes to me and the more frustrated i am.
i think that, like my gender, my alterhuman identity cannot be neatly tied down into a few labels, and that has always been distressing as someone who wants to find community. but splitting myself up into little boxes like 'unicornheart, separate from my absol theriotype, separate from my archetrope' just... doesn't work for me. I don't know what I am, just what I'm NOT. my alterhumanity has always been defined by a sense of otherness and wrongness, not by my 'type and a face I can recognize in books and movies, but by knowledge that I am not where i am supposed to be or WHAT i am supposed to be. I know that fae are my everything. I know that I am not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be 'home', a home that is very 'faeryland' shaped, but I mostly just know that i am not right as I am.
It feels like I'm the teen protagonist of a fantasy novel, but my adventure never came, so i just grew up, never knowing why i felt so painfully out of place in ways that brain chemistry and diagnoses can't explain. I'm always going to be longing for something more, and crying in my bed at 3 am because that something more will never happen. I mostly just feel out of place, when everyone in therian and otherkin communities knows who they are and I've been bouncing off of vague notions for going on 6 years now. No matter how hard I try to understand myself, or the methods I use, I always hit a wall. It seems like so much of alterhuman communities surroundeds around being SURE, and i am NOT sure.
But i think i need to be okay with that, because fae aren't ONE thing, and if they are what mean so much to me i might have to be okay with accepting that I don't know what i am beyond guesses. i am a creature for who the words 'creature' or 'being' do not do justice, i am everything from your myths and starry spun legends, but I am also a scared insecure human who wishes to be the myths. I'm both. That's okay. Even if it feels like it isn't.
I know you miss home, but try to remember everything this world has to offer - take it from a god who's been on this planet since the beginning. We've got thunderstorms, city lights, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You can listen to Nirvana, eat sushi, kiss your loved ones, and read comic books. Explore the forests. Lay out on the beach and get some sun. Get lost in the urban jungle. Earth is a beautiful and terrible place - I don't want you to miss out.
Filling a lexical gap: dysphoria & euphoria in alterhumans
Dysphoria and euphoria are a defining facet of alterhumanity for many people, but the current prevailing terms, species dysphoria and species euphoria, are highly limited in scope and carry the implication that any alterhuman-related feelings of this kind worth naming are caused by identifying as a nonhuman living thing. This terminology fails to acknowledge dysphoria and euphoria experienced by human-identifying alterhumans and those with non-"identify as" identities, and can feel alienating for those who identify as something nonhuman that would not typically be considered a "species", such as an object or concept. It also does not provide any lexical framework to describe the wide range of alterhumanity-derived dysphoric and euphoric experiences often discussed in the community.
People in all alterhuman demographics deserve to have a way to distinguish their experiences from "typical" types of dysphoria and euphoria experienced by orthohumans (non-alterhumans), so I am proposing a new set of terms:
Alterdysphoria: Feelings of unease, wrongness, dissatisfaction, or alienation that stem from one's alterhuman identity.
Altereuphoria: Feelings of joy, comfort, catharsis, or affirmation that stem from one's alterhuman identity.
A dash may be added after the prefix (e.g. "alter-euphoria") for ease of legibility/pronunciation if desired.
EDIT 11/26: I've changed these to my original inclination of just using "alter", which I initially didn't use because I was worried it would be misconstrued as dysphoria/euphoria experienced by alters, but after thinking it over I don't see that really being an issue given how well-used the word alterhuman is. It's a much more intuitive option than using "onto" but if people prefer that I will change it back!
Alterdysphoria and altereuphoria are umbrella terms that include species dysphoria and euphoria as well as dysphoria and euphoria due to being otherhuman, concept- or objectkin, otherhearted, fictionfolk, plural, or any other type of alterhuman.
Common types of alterdysphoria or altereuphoria someone may experience are:
Physical, related to one's current physical body
Ability, related to things one can or cannot do in their current body and/or environment
Mental, related to one's emotions, interests, or thought processes
Sensory, related to one's sensory experiences (or lack thereof)
Gender, related to one's internal or perceived gender
Cultural, related to one's cultural environment
Social, related to social interactions/relationships with others
Perceptual, related to how one is perceived by others
Environmental, related to one's physical surroundings
Reality, related to the contents, history, physical laws, etc. of one's current subjective or objective reality
Examples of each of these types is under the cut at the bottom of the post. When discussing these experiences in contexts where it is clear someone is referring to alterhuman-derived feelings, the "alter" can be dropped for brevity (e.g. reality dysphoria, perceptual euphoria). The distinction is for clarity of communication only. For example, a person who experiences height dysphoria due to their alterhuman identity could choose to distinguish it from transgender height dysphoria by using the phrase "height alterdysphoria".
Differentiating alterhuman-related feelings from other origins of dysphoria and euphoria does not denote a hierarchy or binary between alterhuman and non-alterhuman experiences. Many alterhumans have dysphoria or euphoria with unknown or mixed origins, and those experiences can absolutely be considered partially or entirely alterdysphoria or altereuphoria if doing so feels helpful. Any alterhuman who feels these terms are useful to them can use them in any relevant context.
Some examples of alterdysphoria not objectively covered by the "species dysphoria" term are:
Physical or gender dysphoria experienced by anyone due to a human kintype
Dysphoria experienced by those with nonliving kintypes due to being in a living body
Dysphoria experienced by those with non-corporeal kintypes due to being in a physical body
Social or cultural alienation experienced by those with a connection to other worlds, time periods, or societies
Disconnect or distress experienced by anyone with a hearthome due to their current surroundings
Disconnect or alienation experienced by those with a connection to a world/time period/etc with different flora, fauna, landscapes, or physical laws from present-day Earth
Disconnect or distress experienced by otherhearted people when others discuss/treat their hearttype in a dismissive or disrespectful way
Physical, age, or gender dysphoria experienced by system members while fronting in their host body
Disconnect or distress experienced by system members when they are presumed to be another alter/facet/etc
Alienation or distress experienced by plural systems when they are presumed to be a singlet
Disconnect or distress experienced by fictionkin/fictives when their personality or age is perceived differently from their identity
Disconnect or distress experienced by canon divergent fictionkin/fictives when interacting with their source or fandom
Distress or discomfort experienced by fictionkin/fictives when seeing or interacting with doubles
Disconnect experienced by anyone with exomemories/exotrauma (events that were not experienced by their current physical body)
Disconnect or distress experienced by endels when someone or something "reality checks" them
Alienation experienced by mediums or spirit workers due to having a different subjective reality from others
Any kind of alterhumanity-derived dysphoria experienced by nonhumans that feels unrelated to their species
Alienation or distress experienced by any alterhuman when they are presumed to be orthohuman
Some examples of altereuphoria not objectively covered by the "species euphoria" term are:
Affirmation experienced by anyone when dressing up or depicting themselves as their human kintype
Euphoria experienced by objectkin and conceptkin when engaging with their kintype
Joy or comfort experienced by someone with a hearthome upon visiting or looking at that place or somewhere similar
Joy or affirmation experienced by archetropes from doing activities that align with their identity
Comfort experienced by fictionfolk when engaging with their source media or fandom
Joy experienced by an otherhearted person when engaging with their hearttype
Affirmation experienced by a fronting member of a system when being referred to with their own name and pronouns (instead of the ones typically used for their host body)
Joy or comfort experienced by an otherlinker when shifting as their linktype
Any kind of alterhumanity-derived euphoria experienced by nonhumans that feels unrelated to their species
Euphoria experienced by any alterhuman upon having their identity affirmed by others
This is by no means an exhaustive list, alterdysphoria/altereuphoria is an inclusive concept and there is theoretically no limit to the types of situations these terms can cover.
I hope that this terminology can provide a clearer, more inclusive framework for identifying and discussing these kinds of experiences!
EDIT: Since I've been asked, if you are alterhuman you automatically have permission to use these terms wherever you want and don't need to credit me! My intention for this concept/terminology is that it should be community-owned and accessible, the only reason to link me to it would be to use this post to explain what it means :)
Example of dysphoria/euphoria types below:
Example identity: Unicorn otherkin
Physical alterdysphoria: Lack of hooves
Physical altereuphoria: Wearing a tail
Mental alterdysphoria: Enjoying the taste of meat despite being an herbivore
Mental altereuphoria: Being introverted feels emotionally similar to being a solitary creature
Ability alterdysphoria: Unable to channel magical energies
Ability altereuphoria: Running & jumping
Sensory alterdysphoria: Inability to hear very quiet sounds
Sensory altereuphoria: Wearing hard-soled shoes to mimic the click of hooves
Gender alterdysphoria: Unicorn genders are not recognized by human society
Gender altereuphoria: Using unicorn-related neopronouns
Cultural alterdysphoria: Unicorns are protectors of the earth, but many humans are disrespectful of nature
Cultural altereuphoria: Joining a local climate activism group
Social alterdysphoria: Unicorns socialize like equines, so typical human socialization feels unintuitive
Social altereuphoria: Talking to equine therians and orthohuman equestrians, and interacting with horses
Perceptual alterdysphoria: Presumed to be entirely human by others
Perceptual altereuphoria: Consistently wearing unicorn accessories in order be be associated with unicorns by others
Environmental alterdysphoria: A city is nothing like a forest, living there feels alien
Environmental altereuphoria: Buying houseplants
Reality alterdysphoria: This world contains no unicorns or other magical creatures
Reality altereuphoria: Playing an immersive fantasy video game
I'm not sure about the clinical lycanthrope symbol. It's the upside down y / greek l. I just don't know if that's a symbol beings used by clinical lycanthropes.
I'm also not sure if the ink and quill symbol is the fictionkin or fictionfolk symbol.
Alt text / symbol explanation:
18 stickers that say "Here Forever". The symbols on each sticker are :
Would you love me if I was a worm?
Oh, it’s cliché, yet…
Small, slimy, disgusting
In more than just body
Would you love me still if
I were gone, and all you had were
Remains to try to resurrect?
Would you love me if I were a human?
If I were changed, to just a shell of me, just
On the inside as much as skin deep, just
Something like all the others
If you watched my fall into
Exactly the thing that justifies misanthropy
Would you love me if you watched what was left lose me?
Would you love me if I were a wolf?
If exactly everything I am were on full display
Obvious, difficult, conspicuous, as sharp as I am soft
If it were clear to everyone how out of place I am
A child of Fenrir, the thing the gods themselves would lock away
If you saw me, and how I could swallow the sun
Would you love all of me, whole and complete?
Would you love me if I were a wyrm- a dragon?
If I were in the fullness of all that I could be?
Paradox, chaos, magnificence, glory at its best
Impossible to control, eater and maker of universes
Brightest light and darkest shadow, shining gold
All that Lovecraft feared and hoped for.
Would you love me, if I were as great as you should be too?