obligatorycoffee

Originally posted: August 28, 2017

Over the years, I’ve heard many an argument that otherkin, therians, and fictionkin are just overly fond of a particular animal, mythical creature, or fictional character. Sure, some non-humans are certainly very fond of their kin/therio/fictotypes, but that’s not the point. Liking a particular creature does not equate to otherkinity…in fact, it more closely aligns with other-heartedness than otherkinity.

To hopefully clear up some confusion, I’ll briefly detail why, despite my great love for house cats, I am not a cat therian.

In kindergarten, around the time I first began experiencing the first hints of otherkinity, I also discovered my fondness for house cats. I don’t know where the feeling came from, but I realized very quickly that I wanted a kitten. My mother was allergic to pets, and I realized this, but I kept asking and asking and asking for a pet cat. Finally, after months of me begging, my mother happened across a stray kitten near her office, and decided we could keep the cat for one week, and if she didn’t have an allergy attack, we’d keep it. Miraculously, my mom didn’t have an allergy attack, and we adopted the cat as our pet.

I loved this cat. She was a shorthair tuxedo cat, and despite only being 60% or so black, I named her Blacky. She was a grumpy old lady from the start, but my love for her was boundless. I brushed her, played with her, followed her around, dressed her up, and generally annoyed her. Being six years old, I copied her behaviors and pretended I was a cat too, and I occasionally even demanded that my parents fill bowls with dry cereal and put them on the floor for me so I could eat next to Blacky and get the full cat experience. I was completely obsessed. I had cat themed everything. I even went to a showing of the musical Cats, dressed up as Blacky.

As I got older, my obsession let up a little, but I was and still am in love with house cats, even though I’ve been bitten and scratched many times, and I’ve come to realize cats are really quite a destructive species, especially when it comes to birds (please keep your cats indoors, folks!). My partner is obsessed with cats the same way I am, so whenever my partner and I see cute pictures of cats, we act like complete idiots, because if there’s anything that makes me want to punch myself it’s so cute, it’s definitely a picture of a tiny fuzzy kitten. Anyway, to this day, whenever I see a friendly cat on the sidewalk, I take the time to greet it and pet it, and will sometimes even sit down with it for a few minutes, simply because I enjoy being around cats. I like and appreciate dogs, but I'm really not that interested in seeking out their attention. I might give a passing dog a hand to sniff or a nice pat, but my interest in being spending time with it really isn’t the same.

So, if I’m so obsessed with cats, why am I not a cat therian? The answer is simple: because I do not identify as a cat. I love them. I want to be around them. I want to adopt them and give them a good home. I’ve even had cameo shifts of cat ears and cat claws. But I do not feel I should be a cat on any level.

Let’s look at this from another point of view: why I identify as a dragon, even though I haven’t spent the last four paragraphs ranting about how much I love them. Since I was young, I’ve felt drawn to dragon characters and images, and I always found drawing dragons exciting and fun. I have some personal belongings with dragons on them, and I have a number of books featuring dragon characters. However, I am very, very tired of dragons. They’re absolutely everywhere. In books, in TV shows, in computer and video games…even in boardgames! Dragon art is posted so frequently online, that it’s hard to get away. But I can’t get away, because I’ve felt I should be a dragon for almost 20 years. I’m not particularly distressed that I identify as something that’s so commonly portrayed, but yet another dragon end-boss in the newest RPG or another drawing of a “cute” baby dragon generates very little excitement in my brain. Focus on mermaids for awhile or something, please.

Despite my apathy, I experience phantom and mental shifts as a dragon, I’ve picked up mannerisms I believe are draconic, and I feel very comfortable imagining myself with a dragon body. I’ve been waiting for years for a dragon VR simulator to come out so I can finally fly around (virtually) like I feel I should be able to. I can imagine myself as a cat, but there’s a certain alienness to attempting to feel like a cat that I don’t feel when I imagine myself as a dragon. It feels completely wrong, and despite having watched the way cats move and act for almost 20 years, I don’t quite understand how it should feel to be a cat. Granted, I can’t really know what a dragon moves or acts like because they don’t exist, but somehow what I experience as dragonkin is definitely dragon, and it definitely feels right. Dragon is me, I am dragon, end of story.

Originally posted: April 3, 2018

I wish theriomythic was a more popular term. I find it to be particularly useful because it bridges the therian and otherkin communities, while emphasizing that there are clearly differences between the communities, and allowing otherkin who don't really identify with the frequently metaphysical and fantastical otherkin musings to explore a more animalistic side of their identity.

I think one of the reasons I like it so much is because the term really resonates with my experience as non-human. I entered the online alterhuman community by way of personal therian websites, and I spent a few years reading primarily therian essays before moving on to draconic or general otherkin sites, and my time reading therian materials heavily influenced my views on my identity. Because of this, I feel far more at home in therian circles than I do in strictly otherkin circles, even more so if there are psychological therians present. I think one of the things that turns me off from draconic and general otherkin discussion is that so much of it is focused on past lives and world-building, and less focus is on feelings and experiences in this life as a non-human in a human body. I forget who, but someone recently put remembering past lives as a therian as "not particularly interesting", considering few groundbreaking and earth shattering things happen in the day-to-day life of a squirrel, hawk, or sea-slug, and I think as a result, even with spiritual therians, there's less focus on what was and more on what is. Considering I'm of the belief that my identity is psychologically based, hearing endless talk about past lives and soul swaps doesn't do much to get me excited, while hearing accounts of how therianthropy or otherkinity affects life as a human piques my interest far more.

There's so much crossover between communities now that therianthropy and otherkinity have started to go mainstream (certainly there's always been crossover between communities, and indeed that's where the term theriomythic originated, but this amount of crossover is far greater), and I think the communities are shifting to a more otherkin-esque outlook on identity, complete with a heavy emphasis on past life memories and magic. This is fine, but I feel this takes away a bit from the psychological members of the community and those who don't have past life memories, either because they don't remember, or that they simply weren't worth remembering.

Perhaps I'm giving theriomythic too heavy a meaning, maybe because I'm nostalgic for the days I was just discovering the therian community and reading the then earth shattering revelations and experiences written down for me by older therians, but I think it's really worth bringing it back. It hearkens to a time when interaction within the communities happened primarily on forums and was more about substance and community than aesthetic. For me, theriomythic is a term and a feeling. It cries "my species may not exist, but I too am an animal and I can bear my teeth with the best of them". It brings down the mighty dragon to a lowly beast as ordinary as a field mouse. It says "I am an animal, and no manner of myth or story-telling can change that". I am a theriomythic, an animal as ordinary as the next, except for the fact that my kind doesn't exist.

Originally posted: August 24, 2017

*Adapted from Psychological Otherkin ≠ Copinglink

From what I’ve seen in my time in the otherkin community, a majority of otherkin identify as some variation of spiritual otherkin, which is all good and spiffy, but I get the feeling psychological otherkin are left out of the conversation a bit more than we’d like, and there seems to be a decent bit of confusion over what psychological otherkin are. So, as a psychological otherkin myself, I’d like to put psychological otherkin in the spotlight.

First of all, I think it’s important to point out that psychological otherkin is not another term for copinglink. A copinglink is an identity consciously chosen as a coping mechanism for mental illness, trauma, or other stressor. Psychological otherkinity is simply a hypothesis as to why one identifies as non-human, and, just like spiritual otherkinity, is not a consciously chosen identity. Some folks attribute their otherkinity to abnormal brain wiring, the unconscious result of mental illness, imprinting on a non-human at a young age, or other psychological cause. Do we necessarily know our hypotheses are correct? Not really, since it’s hard to prove any of these hypotheses without solid scientific research, but otherkin science may be a long time off still, so I’m personally happy to say “eh, I probably just have a weird brain”, and be done with it until we have more opportunities to learn about ourselves.

I’d also like to point out that psychological otherkin ≠ mental illness, as the two are not mutually inclusive. One can be a psychological otherkin and not be mentally ill.

Anyway, I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but as a psychological otherkin, I experience my otherkinity just as any spiritual otherkin does, but with a different explanation as to why I identify the way I do. My identity isn’t and never was voluntary, nor did it manifest as a way to cope with mental illness or uncomfortable situations. I experience phantom and mental shifts, I have a mental image of what I should look like, and I have habits and preferences I attribute to my draconity. Why do I identify as psychological instead of spiritual, if our experiences are similar? Well, for one, I’m not particularly spiritual or religious and I experience a few brain-weirds that don’t fall under mental illness including a couple kinds of synesthesia and mild misophonia, so I don’t think going a step further and saying my draconity is a part of these brain-weirds is too farfetched.

Really, the only notable difference I’ve seen between myself and how many spiritual otherkin experience their otherkinity is the absence of past life memories. Because I believe my draconity stems from a psychological cause, and not reincarnation or a misplaced soul, I don’t have any past life memories, nor do I feel like I was non-human in another lifetime. I’m just me, here and now, with a strong desire to be something I’m not.

Originally posted: November 28, 2018

Even though I’ve identified as draconic for over two decades now, I still have the occasional moment where I seriously doubt my identity. My memory is generally quite good, but I remember how my identity manifested after I discovered the alterhuman community a lot better than I can remember how I felt before that point, and I occasionally get to worrying that I just had an affinity for dragons as a kid and forced an identity on myself once I discovered what otherkin and therians were.

I had the chance to go through some of my childhood belongings recently and I can’t tell you how amazing it felt to see all the drawings I did of myself as a dragon. I generally don’t worry about my identity that much as far as gender and sexuality go, so I try to tell myself my species identity isn’t that big of a deal either. Still, I’ve definitely found myself worrying about my species identity over the years and it’s so incredibly soothing to know what I’m feeling has been with me all along. It was never just a phase, and for me at least, it never really came in waves either…it was always in the background of my life, affecting how I thought, and what kind of art I made, what I bought, etc. It was there, for sure, and even if I can’t remember how I felt everyday of my childhood, seeing this stuff shows me I definitely identified as nonhuman since I was a child.

For those of you doubting, don’t worry. Even if you are doubting your identity, it means you’re thinking about it, and that’s something not everyone can say they do. If you end up being wrong, that’s fine! At least you took the time to explore yourself, and hopefully you learned a little about yourself along the way. For those of you who ultimately are alterhuman, I hope you find a moment of peace with your identity like I have, whether its finding you were alterhuman all along, confirming your kintype after so many years of searching, or whatever else it may be.