The yingification of beeps

Wake up, honey, it’s time for your biennial identity crisis.

My identity is… convoluted. I make no secret of being agender and transgender, of not identifying as human, whilst also being multiple people.

I don’t really expect anyone to understand all the nuances of this weird, weird existence I have. I write about it for those who are interested or willing to try to understand, but my only real hope is that you respect that I know my inner workings better than you do, and that this is what makes sense to me.

Mostly, I hope you respect that identifying in these ways makes me feel happy, more complete, and more content in myself.

Drumroll, please… 🥁

I guess I’m a therian now???

*sigh* What’s a therian?

Therians are folks who feel that, in some fashion, they embody a particular animal. For some, this may be a spiritual belief; for others, it’s a purely psychological self-perception. Either way, within their own consciousness, they are that animal on some deep, unquantifiable level.

The animal they embody is called their ‘theriotype.’ Like many other aspects of identity, a person generally does not choose to be a therian, nor can they choose what their theriotype is. They can only choose to embrace it or to ignore it.

This isn’t that far removed from the animist spiritual beliefs that have existed across multiple cultures throughout all of human history.

If this sounds like the furry fandom, the answer is sorta-but-not-really. Furries do not believe themselves to embody a particular animal, many just choose a particular animal to use as a form of self-representation, though even this is not a requirement.

If this sounds a lot like an otherkin, that’s because it pretty much is. Both involve the individual identifying as something other than human. They could variably be considered different sides of the same coin, or that therians are just a more specific subset of otherkins. Which it is depends very much on who you ask.

How this feeling of animalistic embodiment manifests differs across therians, but common experiences include feeling supernumerary phantom limbs, subconsciously performing behaviours that are associated with their theriotype, an affinity for being in natural habitats associated with their theriotype, and having dreams about being (or an intense longing to be) their theriotype.

So you’re some sorta animal now?

Yeah! Kinda. Sorta. I think?

Unlike plurality and being otherkin, where I can quite clearly point to a cause or thought-line for why those are what they are, therianthropy is just the closest descriptor for the kinds of thoughts and experiences I’ve been having lately.

The dreams, the subconscious behaviours, the feeling of supernumerary phantom limbs…

So what’s my theriotype? What curious critter evokes feelings so intense that I feel the need to once again adjust my sense of self and to write at such length about it?

I spent some 15 years with bat fursonas. Bats are far and away my favourite animal, and one I still have a great personal affinity for despite changing my fursona last year. Alternatively could it be a majestic lion or a wise owl?

It turns out my theriotype is a yinglet.

And what the fuck is a yinglet, you may wonder? Well… they’re sorta… fictional.

Look, you don’t get to choose your theriotype.

That probably makes it sound like I have some sort of distain for them and I don’t enjoy this revelation, but I do. I shockingly do.

Yinglets are, in many ways, the exact opposite of how I’ve chosen to present myself in the past, which makes it all the more surprising that imagining myself as one feels so damn comfortable and good and right. The ears, the tail, the hand bean things, the shelltooth. Feeling them there sends a shiver down my spine and adds warmth to my soul.

I could wax lyrical about all the bits that I enjoy about this, but I’ve already spent roughly six months doing that on every website except for this one.

Maybe I unlocked some preferences I didn’t know I had. Maybe it’s the liberation of some suppressed aspect of my self-image. I don’t know. I don’t know!

But I think I can live with not knowing. For now at least.

Loose ends

So what does this mean for being a robot-inclined, transhumanist otherkin thing? Well, that remains the case. I still get squicked by biological existence. I still loathe so much about the fleshy thing that I’m forced to inhabit on this mortal Earth. Having a theriotype doesn’t change that.

I can’t really explain how those seemingly-contradictory things gel together. Maybe that’s something for my next identity mini-crisis?

And what about my fursona, Ash? Well, Ash is staying Ash. It just so happens that Ash is a shapeshifter, so Ash can also be a yinglet whenever she wants to be. Convenient!

I don’t have any plans to permanently present as a yinglet in my online presence, but at this point I outta know better than to say ‘never’.

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