A Journal of A Chimeras

For a blog run by us that is more informational about these topics (especially in regards to alterhumanity and plurality), see @liongoatsnake

:: What’s Up With This Blog? ::

Throughout this journal you will see personal perspectives and opinions from the author that uses plural pronouns: we instead of I, our instead of my, and so on. Unless stated otherwise, usage of the words “we” and other plural pronouns should not be taken to mean anyone other than those here within the House of Chimeras. This is because the author of this journal is multiple and is part of a plurality.  

 Plural referring to the phenomenon of where a single body is “more than one” rather than being alone; a singlet. Being multiple means a single body contains a marked presence of more than one distinct and separate persons; a group of individuals sharing one single body together.

 Along with this multiplicity is the added complexity that each of us is nonhuman. Us being “nonhuman” is not a statement regarding our physical body. That part of us is completely human (thus why we experience species dysphoria). Instead, this nonhumanity of ours is non-physical. It is something we just feel and know on an intrinsic and innate level.

 No amount of critical thinking over the years has been able to explain away this understanding of ourselves. We know all of this is “all in our head,” but that does not take away from the stark reality we are faced with in relation to our identities and the experiences we relate to such.

   :: ABOUT US (To Make A Long Story, Short) ::

We are a large mixed-origin nonhuman multiple system that goes by House of Chimeras. Most of us are either therians or fictionkin.

 We are an adult and were born in 1989. (As of this edit [27-October-2022] we are 33).

 We received a diagnosis of DDNOS from our 1st therapist in 2010. When the DSM-5 came out our 2nd therapist reassessed us & found we did not meet all criteria for DID or OSDD with the DSM-5 (though we once did). While every mental health professional we’ve seen since then has acknowledged our plurality, we’ve never been re-diagnosed.

 Our multiplicity is caused by several factors. In brief: we believe er were born already predisposed toward multiplicity due to neurodivergence, were born with more than one soul, had trauma that directly messed with our identity development, various negative childhood events pushed us to maladaptive daydreaming which led to the creation of tulpas/thoughtforms, & an animistic predispositions leading to spirit possession/walk-in practices. It is more complex than that, but that is the basics.

 Our system consists of a wide array of nonhumans. Most of us are nonhuman animals that exist or have existed on Earth. Others are creatures of a more mythical or fictional sort. Some are fictional characters (human or nonhuman). A few of us are plants. A handful of people are nonhuman but don’t easily fit into any other category.  

 Our overall spiritual beliefs can best be described as pagan with an undercurrent of pantheism, hard polytheism, and animism. A major part of our spiritual practice is heavily inspired by historical accounts of groups like the Benandanti. Our practice is heavily focused on local nature spirits and, to an extent, aiding the nonhuman dead.

 We collectively call ourselves queer. We label our collective as transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer. We have made several alterations to our body to appear more androgynous. Collectively our pronouns are they/them/their but individually our pronouns vary. Our collective sexuality is demiromantic (asexual to bisexual) but our individual sexualities vary.

 Our general hobbies include reading (both nonfiction and fiction), writing (essays and stories), arts related stuff (mostly drawing and crafting) participating in various outdoor activities (hiking, wild-life watching, and learning wilderness survival skills), and collecting (namely books and animal bones). We read or listen to, on average, 70 books every year.

   :: Our Website & Projects ::

The Chimeras Library - https://houseofchimeras.neocities.org/

 Our website is home to many of our completed projects. Most of which pertain to alterhumanity and plurality.

 It includes: documents that contain timelines regarding the therian community, the fictionkin community, the alterhuman community, and more; links to our past lectures; our personal essays regarding our nonhumanity and plurality, information about our system and our individual members, and much more!

   :: Our Stances ::

 This is FAR from an exhaustive list. It is merely a list of things we feel are relevant to point out regarding ourselves and anyone likely to come across our blog. This isn’t a “Do Not Interact” (DNI) so much as a laying out our stances so readers can make their own judgements on if they want to interact with or follow us.

 We do not Support / Are Against (are “Anti”) :

- gatekeeping & fakeclaiming (in the alterhuman communities, plural community, queer community, and more)

- plural exclusionists / system medicalists

- zetas/bestialists

- transmedicalists

- queerphobes (including transphobes, biphobes, and acephobes)

  We are Support / Respect (are “Pro”) :

 - all good-faith self-identification

- all systems regardless of origin (including tulpas and endogenic systems) and diagnosis status

- all good-faith self-diagnosis  

- all genders (including xenogenders)

- all transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people regardless of if they experience gender dysphoria or plan on transitioning in any form

theriomythic and fictotherian especially confuse me because i thought therianthropy specifically referred to animals and not fictional or mythical creatures and there are terms like otherkin and fictionkin etc to describe those for example.

is this just a result of communities evolving differently and independently coming up with terms to describe very similar stuff? is it just a matter of preference?

Firstly, Daski has created a great essay (or if you prefer, here is a recording of deir’s panel covering the same points) explaining how the concept of therianthropy being Earthly animals only arose within the community.

But to summarize, it’s a little bit of collum A and a little bit of collum B.

The online therian community and the otherkin community arose separately around the same time period in the early 1990s and had little, if any, interaction between them for many years.

In the therian community, people identifying as weredragons and other mythical creatures actually appeared really early on while the community was still forming. (There was even an infamous, werepontiac on AHWw.) Also, in the past, the therian community did not make a distinction between people who identified as natural Earthly animals and those who identified more as an actual werecreature, which mixed things up even more. Yes, a large majority were Earthly animals, but there were non-Earthly animals in the community as well. The early therianthropy was a lot more concerned with shifting and related experiences than what form the shifting and such took.

Over in the early otherkin community, there is some evidence there were people who identified as animals there as well alongside the non-Earthly beings and creatures. Yes, the early otherkin community appears to have been more geared towards or popular too people who were mythical but how the otherkin community defined itself wasn’t exclusive to mythical beings or creatures.

Even once the two communities started to become aware of each other, people more or less kept to whatever community they vibed with more or had discovered first.

However, in the late 2000s, people began pushing the idea that therians were strictly Earthly animal only and the discourse grew from there. The terms theriomythic and fictherian actually arose because of the rise of people trying to strictly define therians as being Earthly animals only.

Either way, in present day with both communities overlapping so significantly, label choice between therian (or theriomythic or fictherian) and otherkin comes down to personal preference and such, more or less.

That is a brief summary of it all, anyway. A lot has happened in the online communities in 30+ years.

~ Sky Singer (he/him)

Either way thank you for taking the time to read this. =]

*Asker sent this ask fixing a typo:

DIOGENES! I MEANT DIOGENES!

We did include Diogenes in our document, A Timeline of People with Alterhuman Experiences & Related Subjects, though I wouldn't go so far as to argue that he was alterhuman. The document's purpose is to showcase persons or beliefs that have existed outside the alterhuman communities that yet feel reminiscent to what we call alterhumanity day. The document this information is in is currently under a rework as we've been doing research into the methodology and ethics around looking back into history to find examples of people who seem to fit modern day labels that relate to identity. As far as Diogenes, we're also looking into more/better references that go into his life. As the document exists as of yet most of our sources come from the book, Diogenes The Cynic the War Against the World by Luis F. Narvia. The current text we have regarding Diogenes is this:

You've been around in the Alterhuman community for so long, and you're such a prevalent name as well! How did you (and other Alterhuman folk, like Page and Orion) end up being such big names in the community? And since you guys have been around for so long, do you have any advice you'd like to pass along?

Again, really sorry if this seems pushy, but curiosity killed the cat, y'know?

I hope you have a great day!

Your question isn’t overstepping at all! (So sorry for the delayed answer, offline life has been busy and seasonal depression has left our "writing energy" a bit low for now.)

To the question on how we became “big names in the community,” our system honestly has a hard time understanding it ourselves. To be fair, our system suffers from some serious chronic Imposture Syndrome and self-esteem issues from trauma from childhood echoing mean stuff said about ourselves long ago, plus we’re just overall kind of social anxious creatures, (all while simultaneously desperately wanting validation and the idea that we’re ‘liked’ by people.) Because of all that, internalizing that people like us, let alone look up to us in the community has never been something we have been able to do. We seem to be psychologically incapable of feeling about ourselves and our work half as highly as others view us and our work. We always see ourselves as just “some guys,” in our own eyes.

We just… like writing. We have a lot of special interests and one of them revolves around the history of the communities we are a part of, and we have a lot of tendencies towards hoarding links and copies of materials relevant to these communities. So out of these two things we’ve ended up becoming a community historian and archivist of sorts. Our academic background in history (and to a lesser extent anthropology and library science) certainly has helped us develop skills towards these projects of ours.

And sometimes people like what we write, I guess. We’re always just flattered and happy people like things we have made or done.

As for advice,

A lot of our advice on community engagement is echoed in  Page and Orion’s “YOU ARE NOT A MUSEUM PIECE: Putting Yourself Out There in the Alterhuman Community” 2023 Othercon panel. Our partners, @who-is-page and @frameacloud explain dozens of things there 100 times better than we ever could on that matter.

Other than that -

- Be kind; not just to others but to yourself as well. - Create stuff you want to see made in the community and things you enjoy making, first and foremost. - Every project ever, no matter how large or small, has all started out as nothing but a blank page. Try to not see it as intimidating and instead see it as a blank canvas of endless possibilities.