Tumblr just allowed me the pleasure of viewing the "radexclus" coining post. Minding the ableism of the blogger calling therians and fictionkin "delusional", it's anti-xenogender, anti-radinclus, and the coiner claims the only valid genders are "boy/girl/non-binary" and that being multigender isn't real.
Alterpathy: The practice of identifying, categorizing, and identifying with fictional and imagined illnesses due to a disconnect between your external and internal understanding of yourself - while also not intending to appropriate, romanticize, or cause harm to a minority group.
identifying, categorizing, and identifying with: making flags, coining terms, and posting about your experience. alterpathic conditions can also be divided into a couple of categories, which are detailed later in the post.
disconnect between your external and internal understanding of yourself: for some reason, even though you're aware that this isn't how conditions that affect the body work, you experience a reoccurring condition that is serious to you. this can be because of atypical dysphoria, delusions, alternate beliefs, delusions, or anything else similar.
appropriation, romanticism, causing harm: this doesn't mean that actions you take are automatically excused of harm, but it's a silent agreement and nodding between yourself and others that you're not trying to come from a place of ableism/bigotry.
ignoring/excusing bigotry: examples of ignoring/excusing bigotry would be implying that someone can "coin" a real mental illness/other condition in the same way you can coin a gender, implying you can "transition" into a congenital condition with subliminal videos or otherwise, and anything else that goes against science's understanding of illness and neurodivergence. there's nuance to this, of course, because the psychology field isn't an absolutely perfect field that can do no wrong. it's up to the person coining/the person identifying to look at the situation and act accordingly. this part is like a sort of disclaimer. someone using alterpathic terms is nodding and saying "yes, i know, i know, just let me talk about my experiences and have a space to feel accepted."
examples of situations that might bring you to identify this way:
being a fictive/kin/introject/etc of a character who had a disease or type of injury that was invented for their media, like zombie diseases, cyberbrain sclerosis, the cutie pox, hanahaki disease, etc, and feeling affected by it in any way
experiencing something in your system's headspace that's like a reoccurring illness
feeling like you are afflicted with a condition that's not known to affect human bodies, only animal ones, due to atypical dysphoria, delusions, alterhumanity, or any other situation
having limbs like wings, tails, horns, etc in your headspace with some kind of damage to them that causes you phantom discomfort
feeling anxiety/frustration because you're experiencing something on a metaphysical level which you know your physical body isn't experiencing, but it's still very serious to you and possibly even hurting your quality of life
grammar:
alterpathy: 1) the practice of naming/making flags/categorizing these, "here's my mogai blog and here's my alterpathy blog"; 2) this kind of condition. "my depression and my alterpathy make it hard for me," "i might have an alterpathy but i'm not sure"
alterpathic: descriptor that describes these conditions. "it's alterpathic," "how to cope with alterpathic..."
inspiration and some context on why we're coining this
this was largely inspired by the r*dqueer term of x*nomalady, because after the system looked into it, we did see a lot of cases of people who were genuinely experiencing something serious, but didn't seem to think that there was any space other than the rqc that would be accepting of someone identifying with a disease that technically didn't exist. these cases were mixed in with genuinely ableist people who displayed the behaviors i listed above in "ignoring/excusing bigotry," which feels wrong to me, and i think that people who aren't intending to harm anyone deserve their own terminology and space.
crossover
there is some crossover with dissodic, desirdae, intusui, ethix +etc good faith terms related to feeling like you have, internally have, desire, or identify with something you technically don't, and i think that's fine. you can identify with an alterpathic term and the equivalent of it in another term umbrella (that is not r*dqueer, MUD, or x*nomalady), that's fine. do whatever fits best to describe your experiences. just please respect that this was not conceptualized as falling under MUD and you're all good.
so, is this just x*nomalady but Good?
not exactly, i don't want this to be thought of as a 1-to-1 anti rq equivalent, because again, some x*nomalady people are just coining """disorders""" for fun because they think you can do that in the same way you would a gender. this is both an identity/experience, and a silent agreement to be critical of what you're putting out into the world. this is also not focused on "coining" new conditions unless that's really necessary. (not necessary = making up a new illness for funsies. necessary = putting a name to a reoccuring condition you've been experiencing in headspace, etc.)
in the same way that terms like dissomei and intusui aren't 1-to-1 r*dqueer terms but Good and are separate term umbrellas that have their own nuances and notes, this is a good-faith alternative for people genuinely experiencing this kind of thing.
can i coin my own?
yes, this is open to everyone to coin! here's the svg and here's a psd.
TDLR: considering yourself to have a condition that's not possible in reality because of some internal identity, but not in a fashion where you ignore/excuse bigotry.
can i post this term on…
wiki/term definition sites: yes, and you don't have to ask, but i would like to be informed. here's the hd flag
pinterest/other social medias: i previously said no but i guess it's ok if you link directly to the coining post. showing a clear link is the part that really matters to me so please do that.
since i have to add this apparently: no, you may not categorize this under xenomalady or MUD, do not put this on any archives for either of those. respect this boundary.
subtypes:
when a different self began working on this, he set out two subtypes of alterpathic condition. unlike something like the age ratings in nichelink, these are absolutely optional, and you don't have to include these in your term definition if you don't want to/don't find it useful. but i think that if you're like me and like lots of details, these could be appealing, so i will include what he wrote:
Fiction-based. This is aimed at conditions that are established some way in a work of fiction/media, such as:Hanahaki Disease Slender Sickness Radiation Sickness (as seen in the Fallout series, not the IRL version)
Environment-Based. Specific conditions that you can recognize are happening because of things already in your environment, like trauma, alterhuman labels, existing neurodivergent symptoms and so on. As an example, I'll mention the specific thing one of the alters in my system has that inspired me to make this subtype. He is a fictive of an angel character, but from my perspective it is vary obvious that his wings don't work and cause him muscle cramps in our headspace as a metaphor for an injury we had when were a child that gave us severe muscle cramps and required extremely painful and traumatizing physical therapy. That's something that was in our environment, so I'd call it environment-based. Subtypes are an optional category though, and you might not be able to decide/understand if yours fits into one or both, and that's fine. Also, I acknowledge that just two subtypes might not be enough to cover all the bases, and also there are probably tons of conditions that fall into both or inbetween, and that's fine. I want to "cross that bridge as we come to it", and let people who identify with this tell me their thoughts about what other words need to be coined.
flag inspiration rambles
this flag went through a lot of design phases. it was originally much more inspired by the general disability flag, because we imagined that most of the appeal would be to people who are actually disabled (mentally ill people, etc). the final flag became more inspired by existing terms for people who experience a disconnect between themself and their conditions. i saw many examples of shades of purple and pink, scalloped stripes/rounded shapes, and specifically these flags were the biggest inspirations:
dissocogni and dissophysi by @/acetrappolaswife (deactivated)
desirsick/desirill by @shrubmogai
other stuff
this is not a recoin, but an update to the original coining to specify further that real life conditions that affect animals but not human bodies are covered under this term.
"would (thing) fit this?" ask, there's tons of room for discussion and nuance.
we really liked the idea of this term creating a community of beings who can come together to discuss what ails them and figure out how to relieve it. i welcome discord servers/communities and stuff like that.
Please tell me your opinions on MUD/MUE/MUS. Whether you're anti, critical, neu, pro, or use them yourself. I want to form my own opinions but it's hard to find arguments for either side.
Cringestance (or Cringequeer if you prefer): A blankstance label that is mostly vague and described as "cringe culture is dead" and "everyone should be free to do what they want" but also "ped*philia, inc*st, zo*philia, r*pe, and racism aren't 'cringe' they're extremely harmful and can't be excused if everyone is to be happy."
Things someone who's cringestance will support:
Wanting to be happy being weird
Reclaim and enjoy things seen as "cringy," such as children's cartoons, fursonas/furry OCs, rainbows, sparkles, emo/scene fashion, kandi, etc
Call out racism and abuse in their communities when it occurs
Paraphiles, seeing paraphilias as a morally neutral concept and only having an issue if someone chooses to do an action that hurts someone
"Weird" identities like MOGAI, LIOM, multispec gays and lesbians, contradictory labels and multigenders
Researched self diagnosis
Non traumagenic plurality
Fictionkin and all other alterhuman labels
Fictospecs and self-shippers
Age regression, chronosians, pet and object regression
Dissomei, desirdae, xenonatured and similar terms
Alterpathy
Things this stance doesn't support:
Radqueers and xenosatanists
Cultural appropriation
Disorder faking on purpose
Sexual assault, ped*philia, gr*oming (that includes "MMP" and "MIK") z*ophilia, inc*st
MUDs
Anything not specified, this term has no stance on and is up to the individual. Emoji code for this if you would like one is 🥳🌈 or 🎉🌈
Tagging: @blankqueer and I think the flag template was by @neopronouns
╰┈➤˗ˏˋThis is a flag for people with intense and extreme mood swings and aggressive emotional unstability (as in, when too much unstable, they have delusions (or intrusive thoughts or on impulse hurt themselves or others) of hurting themself or others).
As a flag for Reclaimation of the japanese archetype Yangire (ヤンギレ), who is originally used for characters who, when triggered, tries to kill everyone related to their trauma and/or trigger.
This is for anyone who identifies as an Yangire!
This is a flag and term only for pwBPD and people with Bipolarity. Fuck off TransIDs, TransBPDs, TransBADs/TransBipolars, TransYangires, and TransYandegires.
Self Indulgent
Inspired by @acetrappolaswife reclaiming yandere and yandegire
