My Alterhuman Journey
Aug. 17th, 2024 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingsoffuryHello!! For my second post, I thought I'd write an abridged timeline for my alterhuman journey! I wrote down only notable points in my journey & kintypes I still identify as now, since the others were flickers, or I didn't journal/post/blog about them at all on old accounts.
This post is... a bit long, I glimpsed a 1.5K wordcount as I was drafting this. So, the rest of the post will be visible under the cut!
Since childhood, I had been obsessed with wolves. I watched a lot of Wild Kratts when I was really young, and I suspect that my wolf-obsession might've started from the series' "Little Howler" episode?
Either way, I was really inspired to create. I started drawing so that I could depict the creature that I admired so much. I made my own xenofiction comic series about wolves. It was inspired by Warrior Cats, which I also really liked at the time. I really wish I knew where I could find those comics today.
Later on, when I was around 13, I recall having a dream where I was physically a wolf with white fur. I ran around in the deep snow around my school, then went away, deep into the woods, guided by another wolf. I don't have dreams very often, so I cherished and remembered this one for a long time.
When I would go to school, I felt phantom appendages that weren't really there. Pointed ears at the top of my head that would twitch and swivel to capture sounds. A tail that would swish as I walked. Folded, feathered wings that would impossibly clip into my backpack.
Eventually, I began searching online for what could be causing this, and I found Therian Guide. I learned about the terminology, and when I made an account, I wrote that I already suspected that I was an 'angel wolf' in my introduction. In the subsequent replies, someone introduced me to winged wolves, or pterolycus. I immediately jumped on it. That was me.
However, later in May, I went from calling a winged wolf a kintype, to calling it a copinglink. I can't understand my reasoning for this change, and I really wish I had been journaling at the time so that I could explain it.
My cycle of experiencing flickers, misinterpreting them as kintypes, and confirming them after questioning, only to deconfirm a week or two later began.
Please bear with me in this section; everything I'm about to say will tie into how I discovered I was a Zoroark.
In 2021, I identified as a fox-like creature for about a year. I thought that I was a kitsune, or sometimes I'd call myself a 'intelligent fox' instead. This was due to my impostor syndrome, because my phantom shifts only featured one tail instead of two or more. Despite this, I felt like I finally had finally found myself.
At some point, I stopped considering myself a kitsune, and started identifying as a Vastayan, a species from League of Legends. I was still a fox, just anthropomorphic instead of a quadruped. I still have art of what I believe this form looked like here. Other than that, I considered this kintype to be stable.
But in June 2022, my stable Vastayan fictotype suddenly became unstable. I shifted between feeling like a leonine Vastayan, like Rengar, to something werewolf-like, similar to Warwick multiple times a day. Eventually, it settled on being werewolf-like. You can see my art of this form here. I dubbed it a 'lycan vastaya'.
Due to this sudden change, I started looking into polymorphs again, and it felt right to describe the circumstances. I wasn't happy with it, admittedly... I wanted my identity to be stable, and I didn't want my kintype to be a creature that I felt was the exact opposite of it. However, I didn't know anything that fit better, so I stuck with the polymorph label for a while, in addition to calling myself a Vastayan.
This is a huge jump in time, but on November 4th, 2023, I made a short list of Pokemon that I'd like to be if it was possible to be one physically. Zoroark was on this list.
I had questioned quite a few Pokémon over the years, but like many of the other creatures I had questioned, they ended up being flickers. I was discouraged from being wrong so many times, but I still felt like I was somehow drawn to the Pokémon universe.
I found a bunch of similarities between me, my previous kintypes, and Zoroark:
- Zoroark has its mane in a ponytail. Ever since I was young, I've always worn my hair in a ponytail because it was more comfortable to me.
- Zoroark has red marks around its eyes, just like how my kitsune kintype did.
- Zoroark is a facultative quadruped, like my previous lycan vastaya kintype. It walks on two legs, and gets on four legs to run. This is noemata I specifically had about my lycan vastaya 'type.
- Zoroark imitates other Pokemon by using extremely realistic illusions.
- Zoroark is based on kitsune, but it is also said on Bulbapedia that it "...also resembles a werewolf, due to the fact that it is an anthropomorphic canid with a propensity for shape-shifting".
And when I discovered that line, I suddenly realized that maybe it wasn't a coincidence that I was both a kitsune and a werewolf, one right after another? All of these similarities made me realize that I am a Zoroark. And that... maybe I'm not a polymorph, but a Zoroark who got lost in my own illusions. Ever since I made that realization, it feels like everything makes so much more sense.
I was playing ARAM with my friends, a gamemode in League of Legends where you're assigned a random champion. I rerolled, and then I got Shyvana. I also got a random skin shard of her Ruined skin beforehand from a chest, so it was a perfect opportunity to try it.
By the time the game was over, I realized I loved playing this champion! I played her with an AP build, and that playstyle was so appealing to me! I was never obsessed with any other champion like I was with Shyv, and this persisted for months before I even considered that maybe this means something.
When I confirmed Zoroark, I no longer believed I was a Vastayan, and so any idea that I was from the League of Legends universe disappeared.
But when Smolder released, and I found out that someone discovered that they were him, it made me start wondering if I could be Shyvana, because I was still really obsessed with Shyvana and any new content including her. Again, no other champ (or characters in general, even) was like this for me. Any interest I had in a League of Legends champ usually faded after a week or two.
It's a bit too personal, so I can't list out every similarity, but Shyvana really fit the draconic feelings that I've noted since around 2021, when I thought I was dragonkin. In some skins, she even has a mix of fur and scales, exactly like what I had imagined my previous dragon kintype to have.
I haven't confirmed anything yet - but I still have shifts that don't fit either Zoroark or Shyvana. I still have the same feelings of a set of ears and a tail that I've had since May 2019. And so, I started questioning from the Canid family (this was determined by a history of shifts, mental and phantom that I've had) and narrowed things down all the way to a subspecies.
I've done a lot of research in the past two weeks, so now I'm giving myself time away from what I'm questioning to figure out if this is a flicker or a kintype! :D
This post is... a bit long, I glimpsed a 1.5K wordcount as I was drafting this. So, the rest of the post will be visible under the cut!
On May 18th, 2019, I began identifying as a therian
Since childhood, I had been obsessed with wolves. I watched a lot of Wild Kratts when I was really young, and I suspect that my wolf-obsession might've started from the series' "Little Howler" episode?
Either way, I was really inspired to create. I started drawing so that I could depict the creature that I admired so much. I made my own xenofiction comic series about wolves. It was inspired by Warrior Cats, which I also really liked at the time. I really wish I knew where I could find those comics today.
Later on, when I was around 13, I recall having a dream where I was physically a wolf with white fur. I ran around in the deep snow around my school, then went away, deep into the woods, guided by another wolf. I don't have dreams very often, so I cherished and remembered this one for a long time.
When I would go to school, I felt phantom appendages that weren't really there. Pointed ears at the top of my head that would twitch and swivel to capture sounds. A tail that would swish as I walked. Folded, feathered wings that would impossibly clip into my backpack.
Eventually, I began searching online for what could be causing this, and I found Therian Guide. I learned about the terminology, and when I made an account, I wrote that I already suspected that I was an 'angel wolf' in my introduction. In the subsequent replies, someone introduced me to winged wolves, or pterolycus. I immediately jumped on it. That was me.
However, later in May, I went from calling a winged wolf a kintype, to calling it a copinglink. I can't understand my reasoning for this change, and I really wish I had been journaling at the time so that I could explain it.
My cycle of experiencing flickers, misinterpreting them as kintypes, and confirming them after questioning, only to deconfirm a week or two later began.
On November 8th, 2023, I discovered that I'm a Zoroark.
Please bear with me in this section; everything I'm about to say will tie into how I discovered I was a Zoroark.
In 2021, I identified as a fox-like creature for about a year. I thought that I was a kitsune, or sometimes I'd call myself a 'intelligent fox' instead. This was due to my impostor syndrome, because my phantom shifts only featured one tail instead of two or more. Despite this, I felt like I finally had finally found myself.
At some point, I stopped considering myself a kitsune, and started identifying as a Vastayan, a species from League of Legends. I was still a fox, just anthropomorphic instead of a quadruped. I still have art of what I believe this form looked like here. Other than that, I considered this kintype to be stable.
But in June 2022, my stable Vastayan fictotype suddenly became unstable. I shifted between feeling like a leonine Vastayan, like Rengar, to something werewolf-like, similar to Warwick multiple times a day. Eventually, it settled on being werewolf-like. You can see my art of this form here. I dubbed it a 'lycan vastaya'.
Due to this sudden change, I started looking into polymorphs again, and it felt right to describe the circumstances. I wasn't happy with it, admittedly... I wanted my identity to be stable, and I didn't want my kintype to be a creature that I felt was the exact opposite of it. However, I didn't know anything that fit better, so I stuck with the polymorph label for a while, in addition to calling myself a Vastayan.
This is a huge jump in time, but on November 4th, 2023, I made a short list of Pokemon that I'd like to be if it was possible to be one physically. Zoroark was on this list.
I had questioned quite a few Pokémon over the years, but like many of the other creatures I had questioned, they ended up being flickers. I was discouraged from being wrong so many times, but I still felt like I was somehow drawn to the Pokémon universe.
I found a bunch of similarities between me, my previous kintypes, and Zoroark:
- Zoroark has its mane in a ponytail. Ever since I was young, I've always worn my hair in a ponytail because it was more comfortable to me.
- Zoroark has red marks around its eyes, just like how my kitsune kintype did.
- Zoroark is a facultative quadruped, like my previous lycan vastaya kintype. It walks on two legs, and gets on four legs to run. This is noemata I specifically had about my lycan vastaya 'type.
- Zoroark imitates other Pokemon by using extremely realistic illusions.
- Zoroark is based on kitsune, but it is also said on Bulbapedia that it "...also resembles a werewolf, due to the fact that it is an anthropomorphic canid with a propensity for shape-shifting".
And when I discovered that line, I suddenly realized that maybe it wasn't a coincidence that I was both a kitsune and a werewolf, one right after another? All of these similarities made me realize that I am a Zoroark. And that... maybe I'm not a polymorph, but a Zoroark who got lost in my own illusions. Ever since I made that realization, it feels like everything makes so much more sense.
On May 30th, 2023, I discovered Shyvana.
I was playing ARAM with my friends, a gamemode in League of Legends where you're assigned a random champion. I rerolled, and then I got Shyvana. I also got a random skin shard of her Ruined skin beforehand from a chest, so it was a perfect opportunity to try it.
By the time the game was over, I realized I loved playing this champion! I played her with an AP build, and that playstyle was so appealing to me! I was never obsessed with any other champion like I was with Shyv, and this persisted for months before I even considered that maybe this means something.
On January 12th, 2024, I discovered that I *am* Shyvana.
When I confirmed Zoroark, I no longer believed I was a Vastayan, and so any idea that I was from the League of Legends universe disappeared.
But when Smolder released, and I found out that someone discovered that they were him, it made me start wondering if I could be Shyvana, because I was still really obsessed with Shyvana and any new content including her. Again, no other champ (or characters in general, even) was like this for me. Any interest I had in a League of Legends champ usually faded after a week or two.
It's a bit too personal, so I can't list out every similarity, but Shyvana really fit the draconic feelings that I've noted since around 2021, when I thought I was dragonkin. In some skins, she even has a mix of fur and scales, exactly like what I had imagined my previous dragon kintype to have.
On August 1st, 2024, I began questioning wolves again.
I haven't confirmed anything yet - but I still have shifts that don't fit either Zoroark or Shyvana. I still have the same feelings of a set of ears and a tail that I've had since May 2019. And so, I started questioning from the Canid family (this was determined by a history of shifts, mental and phantom that I've had) and narrowed things down all the way to a subspecies.
I've done a lot of research in the past two weeks, so now I'm giving myself time away from what I'm questioning to figure out if this is a flicker or a kintype! :D
