#otherkin problems

[wanderingcritter]

My daily schedule according to anti-kin mfs

3am: get up to aggressively bark and howl at the moon for 2 hours, waking all of my neighbors up in the process

6am: make myself a well rounded breakfast consisting exclusively of raw deer meat

6:30am: scream and cry for half an hour because my mom is forcing me to go to school and wolves CLEARLY do not go to school. my life is hell

7am: throw all of my deodorant in the trash because it blocks my natural 💫 𝓅𝒽ℯ𝓇ℯ𝓂ℴ𝓃ℯ𝓈💫

8am: arrive at school wearing my fav buttplug tail and galaxy wolf shirt

8:30am: have a vague memory of having graduated high school already, but that cant be true because no therian is older than 16 so here i am

9am: yell at my classmates for calling me a human and tell them that they're being therianphobic, and that im going to cancel them on twitter and make sure they never get jobs

9:30am: enter psychosis

10am: angrily email the school board for the 8th time this week because they won't put litter boxes in the bathrooms for me which is therianphobic oppression

10:30am: sit alone in a corner and growl/hiss at any humans who get too close to me

11am: enter psychosis

12pm: single handedly regress the trans rights movement by 10 years

1:30pm: refuse to sit in a chair for class and instead perch up on a desk. teacher threatens to kick me out, tragically i am forced to comply

2:30pm: cast a spell on one of my religious classmates as i leave school using my evil devil anti-human anti-christian magic

3pm: more raw deer meat omnomnomnom

5pm: enter psychosis

5:30pm: burn a picture of charles darwin in my trashcan because i hate all of that therianphonic science and biology nonsense. you can't tell me what to do CHARLES

6pm: enter psychosis

7pm: enter psychosis

8pm: i curl up in my nest of roadkill bones and sheets that haven't been washed in 3 months and gently fall asleep <3

[wolfislost]

Life as a Disabled Alterhuman

Let's talk about being alterhuman without being able bodied.

If you've never met me before, i'm a werewolf. I use the label of psychological otherkin, but nowdays I mostly just say alterhuman.

A lot of individuals in the community can relate to wanting to spend time in their natural ecosystem or habitat. Some of them don't live in a country where that habitat even exists.

Conceptually, I'm lucky. I'm surrounded by nature reserves that are an hour away at most. Some are much closer.

Every part of me wants to be out there, in the trees and bushes and soil, every week. I'm sure some of us ARE out there every week based on some of the responses I've gotten on my posts.

I can't be.

I'm chronically ill. Partly from birth, partly acquired later in life. My mobility is limited by my threshold for suffering. The more I move, the more i'll have to pay for it later. And those debts don't have an upper limit.

I would love to prioritise letting my animal out more, being in nature more, travelling more. Hell- even running. But not only would doing that wreck me over and over again, it would make it impossible for me to meet the demands and responsibilities of my human life.

As a werewolf, there's an internal pull towards more feral behaviour and imagery. But my chronic illness requires constant upkeep, constant maintenance. My wellbeing depends on frequent visits to professionals.

I've always dreamed of running off to a cabin in the woods. I'm sure many of you have. But it's patently impossible for someone like me, who relies so heavily on human healthcare to survive.

The truth is I wouldn't be able to function without humans to look after me. And I have responsibilities that come before my desires for freedom.

None of this stuff makes me any less of an alterhuman. Makes me any less of a werewolf. All of these smaller restrictions do add up to a certain kind of distance from the "ideal alterhuman" perhaps. But my identity has always been, and will always be, an internal thing for me.

I'm not a werewolf IN SPITE of being disabled.

I'm a werewolf who IS ALSO disabled.

[bumbl3beetle]

THE LACK OF PRIMATES IN THIS COMMUNITY IS INSANE

"Oh I'm a cockroach!" +5 "Oh I'm a jellyfish!" +10 "Oh I'm MOTHERFUCKING DINOSAUR" +10

"I'm a mythical animal that's never existed until me" +10

BUT NO PRIMATES??????

NO MONKEYS??? NO APES??????? WHERE'S MY TROOP AT????

THE BIGGEST THERIAN GAME ON ROBLOX HAS NO PRIMATE ANYTHING

YOU HAVE A SEAL BUT NO PRIMATE??????

this is insane

I'm pissy I don't have a troop I'm srry

[aspenonpawzzz]

HI

This is my introduction

my mewtual(s) in crime:

@justalexisfine

@imhereandqueersuckas (aka @goingtohellwithyou, that stupid fucker/silly/aff lost his password)

‼️‼️‼️I LIKE PINAPPLE ON PIZZA‼️‼️‼️

#c.ai shenanigans for c.ai posts lol

READ AND COMMENT IN MY FANFIC IM BEGGING!!!!

system side blog: @canis-constellation

fictive/fictionkin blog: @phantom-w0lfbane

Writers blog: @yourlocalangstdealer

term hoard/ label coining blog: @aspens-hoard

A-spec mafia: @aspec-warriors

(update: https://www.tumblr.com/aspenonpawzzz/757548899213918208/update?source=share)

Theme song: Throne, or Turn off the lights (panic! At the disco)

(Edit: forgot to mention, I have Tricotillamania!)

Plural Fluid!! (Coined term by me)

[mercyluvsyouuu]

Hello friends, does anyone have anything I could do to possibly help with... idk what to call it, species dysphoria?? Like, I'm robotkin, right, and recently, I've been feeling very down in the dumps because I don't have the machine-like qualities I want myself to have :( and obviously there's not much I can do since... well, I can't just replace my skin with metal or turn into fucking genos from opm right😭 so does anyone (preferably other robotkins) know any subte changes to my appearance that could somehow soothe what I'm feeling? I was thinking like, piercings or more metal jewelry or something, but I'd like to hear any ideas !!!

[wolfislost]

This is something i'm planning on doing in like, 5 to 10 years when I can afford to prioritise it. There are a ton of different options, so I'd have to talk to my dentist about which is least likely to cause problems later.

I'd probably get crowns or something, since filing teeth has a tendency to end badly. Supposedly it destroys the enamel and makes em hurt like hell after a while.

But yeah, having fangs would be a transformative experience. Finely able to look more like myslef, not to mention being able to run my tongue over them.

I use the halloween ones right now, but they low key suck because you can't eat or sleep with them in.

The urge to get permafangs is going craaazy rn. The species euphoria I would get would be so good 😩 I’ve always wanted them but I just *know* my friends and even gf would be like 😟 Especially my parents but like womp womp I don’t live with them anymore so

Might do it anyway 👀 They’ll get over it 👀

[mewos-laptop]

Dude I need ppl to get real normal abt mental-illness born alterhumanity real fast

"Oh well alterhumanity is smth you're born w/ and there's all these rules !!!" No lmao

There are literally no rules, and I NEED ppl to stop spreading that false info online lmaoooo

Literally if you feel like an animal (nonhuman) in any way shape or form, then literally use the label.

Ppl irl will try their best to understand, and literally no one outside of the internet cares abt sum1's identity as much as you think they will.

Tbh just live true to yourself, and dude, shoutout to my alterhumans who are non-human in whatever way because of their neurodivergency/mental illness. I see y'all, and I love y'all.

[archive-professional-jaywalker]

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.

[the-prettiest-corpse]

Beings keep forgetting what alterhumanity is about (from what I've seen) in and outside the community so here's a reminder

Under a cut because it's long

Alterhumanity is about being partially non-human

Alterhumanity is about being fully non-human

Alterhumanity is about being human but with a connection to non-human things/being non-human

Alterhumanity is not a cookie cutter design and each one is different. And not just species wise

Alterhumanity is not about wearing/owning/making gear of any kind

Alterhumanity is about accepting 'delusional' or 'crazy' alterhumans

Alterhumanity is about community and being brought together

Alterhumanity is about love and compassion

Alterhumanity is about creativity

Alterhumanity is not about quadrobics

Alterhumanity is about acceptance

Alterhumanity is not something all need to be proud or open about

Alterhumanity is about accepting 'weird' species

[wolfislost]

Hey!

I actually ran into this issue as well while thinking aboug ways of identifying myself.

I did some research pertaining to the seven pointed star and what I found was that it was a rather prolific symbol around the world.

It makes it kinda unhelpful as an insignia or identifier, because it could refer to any number of groups.

I considered doing what you said and simply making a symbol, but I really don't have the skill set for that. Not to mention it wouldn't work unless a significant number of people actually started using it.

In the end I actually just gave up on my idea of having a way to idetify myself to fellow otherkin in public.

I really like your idea of the symbol having to do with connection, and I think it fits with how I see my own identity personally.

I think we need a more specific and recognizable symbol for the otherkin community. Seven pointed stars are already used by lots of other communities and have a ton of different meanings. Even the fairy star specifically is not mainly used by the otherkin community. If I search for the meaning of a seven pointed star or the fairy star specifically, the otherkin community is never mentioned. If I see someone in public with a fairy star, I have no way of knowing if they are otherkin or if they are using it for some other spirituality or meaning, or even if they just like the look of a seven pointed star.

I like the fairy star symbol, I even made a necklace for myself with the fairy star layered over my soul, but it just isn't useful in the way that it could and should be.

My suggestion is to combine the fairy star with another symbol to make it more specific. Customize it a bit to make a new otherkin star, instead of just using that preexisting symbol.

I don't know much about symbolism so I don't know of any specific symbols that would work well for this, but I think something representing connection, maybe a connection between worlds or something, would be good. Even as a mostly psychological fiction kin, i feel my identity is very much due to a connection with that other world and that other life, and I think that is a common theme with this community. I don't know if that represents the otherkin community overall though, so I would really love to get suggestions from you all! I will keep trying to think of possible combinations and hopefully soon I will be making another post with rough drafts but getting ideas from other people would help a lot.

[wanderingcritter]

Therianthropy is really a unique type of existential and body horror quite honestly.

Perpetually stuck longing for experiences and abilities your body is physically incapable of providing you, fighting against a form that feels utterly foreign and disfigured compared to how your mind attempts to interpret it. An animal shoved inside a vessel and society it was never meant to even have knowledge of, with no obtainable means of escape.

The horror of always appearing to those around you as something almost alien to yourself, of your own tendons and bones barring you from grasps at freedom, of being something you are not.

[wolfislost]

Touching Base

TL;DR: I'm trying to get back in touch with my kin side.

I've been neglecting my kin side pretty heavily lately. I know this might seem a little strange, given that I made a post not that long ago about how my experience of being alterhuman is a lot more balanced nowadays. In the grand scheme of things however, i'm still a fledgling here. I've been a part of the community for a little under three years. Joining the community more or less coincided with beginning to properly explore this part of myself. All of this is to say, i'm still very early in this journey. As to be expected, I'm still making mistakes and figuring out how to live happily as an alterhuman.

I've been wrapped up in human stress, for a while now. To some extent, it's my own fault. I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to spend every waking moment possible being productive. This is made even worse given the fact that i'm disabled, and thus have additional struggles on top of that pressure. Even when relaxing or talking to friends, I find some way to sneak work in somehow.

To be clear, this is not a good thing. I'm not romanticising the grind or whatever. The grind sucks. I'm throwing myself into this thing that I hate, because it's the best path I have to my goals right now. Still wouldn't wish it on anyone.

You might see where this is going already. I've been working constantly on tasks that require my human side to perform, or they fall apart. I'm doing them constantly, unless I'm sleeping or otherwise incapacitated. That's not an environment where being a werewolf is really possible. I HAVE to maintain my human state, or sacrifice productivity.

So I've found myself completely distanced from something that's a really important part of who I am. It isn't just work, I don't really have any opportunities to be myself in my social life right now either.

So yesterday I ran into the woods.

Technically it wasn't as spontaneous as that, but I did go to the woods. And I stayed there. I'm not sure how many hours it was, but it was enough to start realising something.

I'm badly out of touch.

Alone in the woods, surrounded by small mammals and fresh air. I should have been the most shifty I've been in a while. But it was only a faint echo. I had to consciously make myself let go and loosen up. Even then, it was limited. Restricted. I struggled to fully lose myself and be free.

It's clear that I've seriously hindred my ability to feel and express myself freely. To just exist as a werewolf in three dimensional space. It's frustrating and disheartening but it's also my own fault. I pushed too hard for too long, and i'm paying the price.

I don't intend to just leave things here though.

For now at least, I plan on going back to the woods. Once every two weeks at least. I want to make time spent in nature a more frequent part of my routine. It'll help get my stress levels to a manageable level. With time, it should also let me get back in touch with what I've lost.

If there's a lesson in all this, I suppose it's not to take my urges and general kin side for granted. It can be trouble, it can be uncomfortable. But it's also important. And at times fun. It's part of who I am.

[bumbl3beetle]

I often compare being a therian to being transgender. Tons of transgender people feel they were born in the wrong body, and they were meant to be something different.

For me, it's the same with being a therian. I feel like I'm in the wrong body, and I'm meant to be my theriotype. I'm not a human, I'm an orangutan.

[dinocanid]

Please, for the love of everything, istg, stop equating alterhuman and nonhuman; they're not synonymous whatsoever. In that same vein, human fictionkin are not the edge of the community. Alterhumanity is not only identify-as labels.

Doing this only contributes to the erasure of entire sections of the community.

[undercover-werewolf-kid]

I'll reblog this w the finished (digital) drawing later

[cripple-kin]

I think

"You need to let new people learn and grow and make as many mistakes as they do because they'll never actually find themselves or be comfortable with a community like ours if we don't lend a helping paw"

And

"older members of the community have a right to be angry at younger members when they shame, water down, or overall push out certain things and people of the community who/which are harmless"

Are ideas that coexist