(2024-07-20 15:27)Lupus Ferox Wrote:  Can someone tell me what an alterhuman is exactly? Wouldn't it be better to narrow this down to the nonhuman community? I heard reports by some therians who favor the word nonhuman over the other one, alterhuman. It's just a small discrepancy I would like to stress just this once, so I hope you don't mind. Otherwise, posting this was more than okay.

I just need clarification on what an alterhuman is exactly. As for the rest, I consider this post to be quite brave for a young user.

Alterhuman is a catchall umbrella term for non-human (human in the traditional singlet way) identities in the same way LGBTQIA2+ is for sexualities. Some like it some feel it is too broad and lacks meaning. i think its merits can be better discussed elsewhere though.

(2024-07-22 3:20)CatBark Wrote:  Tiktok is on everyone's phone, and all the young furries are seeing kids running around in animal masks and tails and they've probably never seen anything like it. These kids on tiktok are very 'aesthetic' and they treat quads and gear as their identity.. that's not what therianthropy is!!! So now you have a lot of misinformed "therian" showing other impressionable kids what therianthropy is (isn't) but there's little to no education about them, to the point where therianthropy becomes nothing more than an aesthetic.

It's really damaging to the community! I had my therian awakening about five years ago now, I didn't discover therianthropy through TikTok or YouTube. I heard someone talking about this new term they found used to describe furries (therian) and I did my own research into what therianthropy was. That was before the mess on tiktok started. If I had my awakening back then I would have been led astray and probably wouldn't have discovered the true meaning to the word 'Therian,' I would have fallen for the cat mask nature girl aesthetic and grew out of it.

I'm tired of all the cat masks, and I know if makes a lot of people happy. But to be the new face of therianthropy is not good!! When someone who doesn't know what they are does their own research, I don't want them to see some girls wearing masks. It really doesn't help the 'Therians are furries who took it too far' idea.. Sorry if this offends anyone.

Do what you want, be who you are, dress how you like. But please remember to educate people properly! There's so much misinformation it's unreal. There's so many people who think therianthropy is a hobby

Sorry, vent over
~Fernweh

This! Absolutely this! I’m tired of the cat masks and quads. We need a face of therianthropy that *actually* represents therianthropy, not that.

Tiktok is on everyone's phone, and all the young furries are seeing kids running around in animal masks and tails and they've probably never seen anything like it. These kids on tiktok are very 'aesthetic' and they treat quads and gear as their identity.. that's not what therianthropy is!!! So now you have a lot of misinformed "therian" showing other impressionable kids what therianthropy is (isn't) but there's little to no education about them, to the point where therianthropy becomes nothing more than an aesthetic.

It's really damaging to the community! I had my therian awakening about five years ago now, I didn't discover therianthropy through TikTok or YouTube. I heard someone talking about this new term they found used to describe furries (therian) and I did my own research into what therianthropy was. That was before the mess on tiktok started. If I had my awakening back then I would have been led astray and probably wouldn't have discovered the true meaning to the word 'Therian,' I would have fallen for the cat mask nature girl aesthetic and grew out of it.

I'm tired of all the cat masks, and I know if makes a lot of people happy. But to be the new face of therianthropy is not good!! When someone who doesn't know what they are does their own research, I don't want them to see some girls wearing masks. It really doesn't help the 'Therians are furries who took it too far' idea.. Sorry if this offends anyone.

Do what you want, be who you are, dress how you like. But please remember to educate people properly! There's so much misinformation it's unreal. There's so many people who think therianthropy is a hobby

Sorry, vent over
~Fernweh

Research to me is probably something different..

I didn't actively research anything at the beginning to figure out what I was.. I knew that I was significantly different from everyone I had ever met and that I wasn't exactly what they were seeing me as..but I didn't know what that was exactly, and I didn't give it much thought until I saw a form that looked just like me in a book and then I knew that somehow that's what I was, and things began to make sense for the first time.

After that I began reading about mythologies from various cultures to try to find explanations for my experiences, and to see if there were historical mentions of people like me. That evolved into focusing on Eastern Mythology and Philosophy which I later took coursework in college for. I also studied Psychology, Physiology, Physics, and various other fields between my work and university studies as I got older. These are useful when it comes to reality-testing and weeding out mundane yet not commonly known aspects of human development and the world around us.

I've tried to avoid researching too much into animal behavior for the reasons others have mentioned..I needed to know that my behavior was genuine and self-originating. Most of us discover ourselves relatively young, and the mind is highly suggestible at that point, so if you search for something hard enough you'll likely find a way to see it in yourself(even adults can do this..). Things that are real will still be there when you don't look for them, and you'll probably be forced to recognize them eventually because they won't go away. They will also likely have a significant impact on your daily life in some way (some good, some bad).

Tldr: You don't need to use the Force, Luke..just your patience.

Research for me is looking inside myself, first. I thought I was a wolf at first because of how much I loved them. But When I found I was a therian, I took a step back from finding my 'type' and tried to learn myself first.

I did a lot of looking internally and journaled to keep track of my habits and behaviours and traits. This research can affect finding your type! After I had a good understanding of myself, I tried to apply it to other animals. Shifts (if you experience them) can sometimes be enough to narrow down your type, like for my I had very canine/doglike phantom and mental shifts. But lots of canine act similar.

So that's when I do some external research, I'm looking at dog breeds and suddenly I find the Shiloh Shepherd, a dog breed I didn't know existed. I found they and I share a lot within personality, vocals, and phantom shifting. Even my mental self image looked exactly like one.

In short research doesn't have to mean looking at animals and their behaviors, watching doccumentaries, reading about them, etc. It can be useful, but only if you know yourself first. Don't let outside sources make you relate to animals just because you found a new one you think is cool and unique.

Best of luck,
~Fernweh

So happy I see others who actually agree with me! I’m glad I found this post.

I don’t really have much to add, since you guys pretty much said all the points I wanted to say, but another thing I wanted to add was the theriotype edits and animations of past life memories. I know it’s not that prominent in the community, but I still see it and it bothers me. The most common thing seems to be being run over by a car. I get that for some species, but there was one that I saw where it was a serval that got run over by a car. First off, that is extremely rare to happen, since servals don’t even hang near cars ever at all really, and second off, it’s highly unlikely for a serval to be run over by a Honda suv.. especially out in the savanna…

Anyways, I completely got off track there. What I was trying to say was that the theriotype edits pretty much do the same damage that wearing gear and doing quads does to the community, even if it’s not seen as much. There have been quite a few people who lie about what their theriotype is just to make those edits so they can “look cooler”. There’s also been a lot of people lying to themselves about what experiences they’ve actually been feeling, just so they can fit the animal they wanted to be but know that they’re not. I’ve done the same thing for a while… and I’ve noticed it with a lot of people.

And finally, there has been people who immediately contemplate “wait what if that’s my fiction kintype” whenever they see some character they like after watching a movie/show or something because they could relate to them. But my thought on it is how do you know you’re still gonna relate to that character like, 10-20 years from now? You may relate to them now, but that’s probably because you’re younger + characters are purposefully created to be relatable to their audience. However, I do believe it depends on why you relate to that character. If it’s mainly because you just like them or because “they’re just me-core!!!” then I’ll become skeptical..

Well that was a lot more than I thought I was gonna add. And I did get off course for some parts, but hopefully I got my point across. And without being rude.

(2024-07-20 15:27)Lupus Ferox Wrote:  Can someone tell me what an alterhuman is exactly? Wouldn't it be better to narrow this down to the nonhuman community? I heard reports by some therians who favor the word nonhuman over the other one, alterhuman. It's just a small discrepancy I would like to stress just this once, so I hope you don't mind. Otherwise, posting this was more than okay.

I just need clarification on what an alterhuman is exactly. As for the rest, I consider this post to be quite brave for a young user.

It's an umbrella term that was meant to include therians, otherkin, and a bunch of other things that don't fall under them under one term. To my knowledge it was coined by Alt+h (which I think is: https://www.alt-h.net/ it has a definition on their page). I don't really use the term for myself since it would group me with experiences that don't have anything to do with me and I don't really want to be referred to as "human", but I've seen it used a lot recently. It's not really specific to nonhumans.

(2024-07-20 21:09)WanderingForests Wrote:  

(2024-07-20 19:20)ArisazuTheRodent Wrote:  

(2024-07-20 5:15)WanderingForests Wrote:  I see getting hit by cars or getting shot by hunters. I saw one where a bear got hit by a car. A bear?? I'm pretty sure that would do more damage to the car than the bear. If you're gonna lie, at least be smart about it.

I actually have heard of bears being run over by cars, and even though it seems impossible, it does happen.

The reason why I was pointing out the serval one is because it is pretty much flat out impossible to drive out in the savanna with a car like that, especially in the areas where servals live. There’s a reason why there are cars specifically made for driving in the savanna.

Also, you are actually correct about the hit damaging the car more than the bear, but even though they don’t look nearly as bad as the car, they can still die from the impact.

yeah, it could happen, but it is less likely that a 600 pound grizzly bear would die from a car. Not saying it's impossible, just less likely than something like a fox or a cat.

True. I can agree with that.

(2024-07-20 19:20)ArisazuTheRodent Wrote:  

(2024-07-20 5:15)WanderingForests Wrote:  I see getting hit by cars or getting shot by hunters. I saw one where a bear got hit by a car. A bear?? I'm pretty sure that would do more damage to the car than the bear. If you're gonna lie, at least be smart about it.

I actually have heard of bears being run over by cars, and even though it seems impossible, it does happen.

The reason why I was pointing out the serval one is because it is pretty much flat out impossible to drive out in the savanna with a car like that, especially in the areas where servals live. There’s a reason why there are cars specifically made for driving in the savanna.

Also, you are actually correct about the hit damaging the car more than the bear, but even though they don’t look nearly as bad as the car, they can still die from the impact.

yeah, it could happen, but it is less likely that a 600 pound grizzly bear would die from a car. Not saying it's impossible, just less likely than something like a fox or a cat.

(2024-07-20 5:15)WanderingForests Wrote:  I see getting hit by cars or getting shot by hunters. I saw one where a bear got hit by a car. A bear?? I'm pretty sure that would do more damage to the car than the bear. If you're gonna lie, at least be smart about it.

I actually have heard of bears being run over by cars, and even though it seems impossible, it does happen.

The reason why I was pointing out the serval one is because it is pretty much flat out impossible to drive out in the savanna with a car like that, especially in the areas where servals live. There’s a reason why there are cars specifically made for driving in the savanna.

Also, you are actually correct about the hit damaging the car more than the bear, but even though they don’t look nearly as bad as the car, they can still die from the impact.