Cooperation & Diversity

:: 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”) :

- gatekeepers & fakeclaimers (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

When I discovered my system almost a decade ago I referenced older resources, and dabbled mostly in the DID/OSDD community. We called ourselves "multiple" at the time, because that's the only term we encountered. We dipped from tumblr for a long while and when we came back "plural" was ubiquitous, especially in the inclusive spaces we now gravitate to. I picked up using it myself because I do actually prefer it, but like... was that a sudden event (that I may have missed by being offline or in the wrong spaces) or a gradual change?

Ironically, both plural and multiple have a long history in the community, it seems. We mostly know of plural history things thanks to old websites (and web archives of old websites). We didn't really dive into the plural community until about 2010-ish, and aspects of the plural community may very well could be older than even the otherkin community even. So there is a lot of history we ourselves just don't know (or we don't have the sources to backup our thoughts, which is something we always strive for when we say/write things).

What we can say is that "plural" has existed alongside "multiple" since at least the early 2000s.

A few examples of things we have on hand include:

2007: An article titled, "Divisions in Plurality, 1.0" was written by Kerry Dawkins for the Ex Uno Plure website. In the article Kerry describes the make-up of the plural community at the time, noting there "seem to be three ‘camps’ – the MPD/DID camp, the natural multiples’ camp and the soulbonders’ camp." Throughout the article the word "system" is used for the different kinds of plurality regardless of origin, for example using the term "soulbonding systems."

Dawkins, Kerry. "Divisions in Plurality, 1.0," Ex Uno Plure, 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20150306082026/http://www.exunoplures.org/main/articles/divisions-in-plurality-1-0/ .

2004: The webpage, "Multiplicity According to the Qilora," includes the use of "plurality" both in the url and in the text of the page itself; the first question in the FAQ even starting off with "What Is Multiplicity / Plurality?" Qilora, " "Multiplicity According to the Qilora," 2004, http://web.archive.org/web/20041102054238/http://qilora.com/QILORA_POPULUS/plurality_faq.html .

2001: An instance of a webpage from Astraea's Web with the url including “plural” dates back to October 2001. This webpage contains use of both “plural” and “multiple.”

“Astraea's Web Multiplicity Resources & Controversy,” Astraea's Web, 16 October 2001, https://web.archive.org/web/20011021152719/http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/ .

The plural community's always been very spread out, nebulous, and flexible, but our longstanding vibe and perception has been that plural is the umbrella term describing practically any experience of being "more than one" whether that be DID, DDNOS/OSDD spirit possession, mediumship, tulpamancy, median systems, and more. Whereas "multiple" is more specific to experiences where a body contains more than one distinct and separate persons; a description not all of the formally mentioned things fit within.

BUT! Other people's mileage may vary. If the plural community has been consistent with one thing, its always been consistent on having different opinions and perspectives on what terms mean what (sometimes even in the same system...)

But Times New Roman can be hard on the eyes. So we're looking into san serif fonts.

- Sky Singer

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.” ~ Werner Herzog

Defining Archetropy

To start, I want to go over the words, and their meanings, associated with archetropy.

The term archetropy is used to describe the state and experience of being an archetrope. The word archetrope refers to the individual who has archetropy. Archetrope is grammatically flexible as the word can be used to refer to both the subject and the object in a sentence, so an archetrope can also refer to what archetype an archetrope identifies as/with. (Note: However, entirely personally, trying to use archetrope as both the subject and the object while thinking, writing, or talking about my experiences kind of breaks my brain for some reason. It just doesn’t flow naturally to use the word for both. So, I personally refer to the person with an archetype as an archetrope and the archetype a person identifies as just their archetype. Please be aware this isn’t the intended grammar for this label, it’s just personal choice.)

To define the term itself, an archetrope is someone who deeply identifies with and/or as an archetype, trope, or otherwise preestablished character model or role (often found in stories and other kinds of art of all kinds) on an integral level. Archetropes might describe their experiences as them being the embodiment of that archetype or trope, partially or completely. Archetropes might identify with their archetype to such an intense extent it has completely shaped the entirety of their sense of self, personality, and/or life goals. Archetropy can be voluntary or involuntary in nature, and the experience can be viewed as spiritual, psychological, and/or something else entirely.

Finally, on the chance someone isn’t fully familiar with what an archetype is, an archetype refers to a fundamental, general character type that recurs consistently enough throughout different cultures and different periods of time to be considered universal. They are types of characters that transcend time, place, and culture: The Hero, The Caregiver, The Jester, etc.

The Sea Monster Archetype

The archetype I identify as could be labeled many things: The Leviathan, The Deep Unknown, or Thalassophobia Incarnate, just to name a few. As far as I am aware it doesn’t have a distinct label. For my own sake, I refer to it as The Sea Monster.

As with all archetypes it is simultaneously very straightforward and yet multifaceted. It is the unknown creature lurking in the deep ocean. It is what lurks beneath the waves of the sea in the minds of men. The creature sailors of old feared when they marked uncharted territory on maps as “Here Be Dragons.” The fear of the deep ocean, but more specifically, the fear of what might be down there, unseen and unknown. That is the archetype I gravitate towards, the archetype I identify with and I identify as.

Since ancient times, it was common for man to look out across the sea with an almost superstitious fear. The ocean is vast and, for much of human history, mostly unknown. Even with the aid of modern technology it is still very hard to see what’s all down there. And a lot of the technology to see what we can has only existed for a blip on the timescale of human existence. That leaves centuries where very little was known. There is so much humankind doesn’t know about life under the sea, so they have filled it with their imagination instead.

What cannot be seen, only imagined, is a great deal more terrifying than what can. That is why the deep ocean is such a universal fear. Fear of the dark is common, but truly it is less the dark itself that is feared than the unknowns that could be lurking just out of sight. The same is true about the ocean. The perpetual darkness of the ocean is certainly something that stirs the imagination. Many people fear sharks, but they fear the possibility of the shark a great deal more, for example.

The Shark As A Sea Monster

Part of my identification as nonhuman is shark, specifically the frilled shark, while other shark species fall into more of an identification with or connection with (analogous with hearttypes and/or paratypes depending on species). And the shark is probably one of the most feared kinds of creatures in the sea, a fact that ties in directly with my archetype.

To quote Ndiaye Mamadou, creator of Casual Geographic on both Youtube and Tiktok, probably said it more succinctly than I could in a past Yotube video regarding sharks, “Of all the creatures that live in the ocean, why are sharks so scary to humankind? It sounds easy, it’s a prehistoric predatory steroid guppy with teeth for days. It is likely deeper than that. […] [Sharks] represent the fear of the unknown. The ocean is an endless uncaring void that could wipe you out in second with nothing you can do about it and projections one hell of a drug because that unsettling fear often gets put on the apex predators of that void.” When in the ocean, humans are not the apex predator, and this lack of control can be unsettling to people.

Further, to quote Richard Ellis’ book, Monsters of the Sea, “Perhaps of all the monsters, the giant shark is the most enduring. It incorporates virtually every element that we require of our mythological sea beasts: great size, mysterious habits, verified anthropophagous inclinations, and a history that goes back to the beginnings of recorded time.”

[end of incomplete personal essay]

[Note: I wanted to share this bit about my archetropy. I find it interesting how part of my alterhumanity is, essentially, the summation of a phobia (thalassophobia).]

Thanks very much! -L+S

Hello!

Sadly, the resources for plantkin/phytanthropes are still a bit limited, but more people are adding to it here and there over time. Which is wonderful.

I can't think of any resources specific to an overarching identification beyond species. However, a term like "cladophytanthropy" comes to mind. There is also the term "forestkin" though we can't recall any write-ups going into any details on what that experience could entail.

As for resources and community locations, in general, there is the website https://plantkin-info.org, the Tumblr blog plantkinsuggestion, and there is a Tumblr community group called Phytanthrope Community.

I hope these might help your friend. Plus maybe someone who sees this ask and response might be aware of other resources as well.