Two Birds In a Trenchcoat

Speaking as both a raven and a bird of prey, aka as the most cliche birdkin that ever lived... Bird therians, please put more thought into figuring out your theriotypes. I feel like a lot of bird therians think, “I’m a bird, I like black, so raven, I guess.” No energy spent researching Asian koels, Nias hill mynas, red-billed choughs, or honestly any other kind of bird because a favorite color isn’t an indication of your kintype. (None of my kintypes are purple, you know.)

Or sometimes it’s, “ooh, I’m a bird, and I really like hawks, so I’m a hawk!” Or even, “I’ve done the research and know I’m a raptor, so I’m a red-tailed hawk, obviously,” and there’s no consideration into other types of hawk, or eagle or falcon or even owl. And just because you’re a predatory bird doesn’t mean you’re a raptor, you know. You could be a roadrunner, or a shrike, or any of the many small birds that catch and eat bugs. Not to mention that you should consider more animals than just your favorite — even if it's "obvious," because well it's your favorite animal so there must be a ~spiritual connection~ ... My favorite animal is a squid. But as much as I wish I was a squid therian, the introspection and research led somewhere else.

So many people don’t do their research when they realize they’re a bird and jump to raven or bird of prey because those are the “cool” birds, and the result is that we see a hundred ravens and a hundred red-tailed hawks and there’s no mention of other bird species. Where are all the hoopoe therians? Where are all the albatross therians? It’s a little sad. The avian world is so diverse and all we bird therians have to show for it is corvids, hawks, and maybe an owl or columbiform here or there.

I have gone through so many species before finally understanding this kintype.

When I first came into the community, I briefly thought I was a cat. Then I realized my shifts were of a longer muzzle and a bushier tail, so I thought red fox. (No indication, of course, that the tail was particularly long.) Then my family took a trip to Arizona (and every day I wish I could go back), and I realized I had to be some sort of desert animal, as being in the Sonoran desert brought the shifts on at full force and I felt right at home. I labeled myself a swift fox, because I’m bad at geography and thought swift foxes lived in the Sonoran desert. It wasn’t until three years later that I learned it’s kit foxes and not swift foxes that live in the Sonoran desert. Swift foxes live in the Great Plains region.

So I called myself a kit fox, and I slipped into it easily. I had no inkling, not a single hint, that it was wrong. I had been a fox for four years and it felt like the most natural thing. No way I could be something else. Hm… a nocturnal desert predator with a bushy tail and long snout. What other than a fox? Right?

Around the time that I learned the shocking truth about kit vs swift foxes, I started to think I had another, aquatic kintype; I took some of the traits I felt in shifts that did not yet have an explanation: long bear-like claws (badger), hunting urge towards fish (osprey), and calling toward the ocean (osprey). I decided on Yaguarasaurus, a type of semi-aquatic early mosasaur. That didn’t click. I learned about Kutchicetus, a type of terrestrial whale ancestor, and adopted it. That didn’t click either.

It took me longer than I care to admit to even consider the combination of badger and osprey. I had long described these claws I felt as “badger-like” and never even considered once that they might be exactly that. I'll admit right now I was too caught up in the joy of having “cool” kintypes. There is a different kind of joy in knowing what you really are, though.

Osprey and badger are the two theriotypes that proved to be the most troublesome to understand and figure out. Osprey especially, because I already had a bird kintype; it’s hard to distinguish phantom shifts when both species have wings, grasping feet, short tails that help with flight, feathers, and beaks. You can probably see why it took me a while; it was hard to separate the shifts from my raven shifts. But they are different. It just takes a good understanding of bird morphology and behavior, which I have after being obsessed with birds my whole life.

For one, ospreys have differently structured wings than ravens, and they fly differently. The different types of wings feel slightly different during shifts, though you’d really have to be paying attention to notice; it mostly comes down to how the flight urge grabs me. Ravens have elliptical wings, like many other larger passerines. This lets them take off faster and perform maneuvers in the air like rolls, but requires more flapping. Ravens are surprisingly acrobatic in the sky. Ospreys on the other hand are accipitriformes and have passive soaring wings, which lets them catch columns of rising air to soar, but doesn’t let them go very fast unless they’re diving to catch a fish.

That’s the other big difference; behavior and diet. Ravens are omnivores and opportunists. They’ll eat anything they can fit in their beak, although mostly they eat carrion, bugs and small animals. They’re not ferocious hunters, though. They’re scavengers. They’re also highly socially developed. Ospreys are solitary except when they’re breeding, and they’re also predators who prey almost exclusively on fish. They hunt by diving into the water to grab their prey, which is what my hunting urges tell me to do when I’m in a shift.

There are other differences, like talon shape and strength, the osprey’s crest, vocalizations, and hard-to-notice differences in beak shape during a phantom shift, but those two are the main two.

When I figured out my osprey kintype it just made so much perfect sense. I’d always been disproportionately fascinated with ospreys; ever since first seeing a picture of one I was enthralled. I’d just never considered it for my kintype because I became convinced my bird-of-prey feelings were just wishful thinking after realizing my raven kintype, and because I thought it would have “made too much sense;” if I considered osprey for my kintype, I’d be too in love with the idea to think about it critically. I’ve now thought about it critically and realized that that’s incredibly stupid.

I recently learned about "ietsism" and it fits me nicely. It's described on Wikipedia as "an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality... a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – that "there must be something undefined beyond the mundane and that which can be known or can be proven", but on the other hand do not necessarily accept or subscribe to the established belief system, dogma or view of the nature of a deity offered by any particular religion."

This describes me perfectly; I don't believe the universe is exactly what it seems, but I don't believe any religion or common spirituality has gotten it right so far. My current stance is that if the multiverse is infinite, we don't truly understand what goes on on a quantum level or how time functions as a facet of space, and there are higher and lower dimensions we cannot see or comprehend, it's not out of the realm of possibility that things might exist or happen that we consider to be impossible. (Yikes, what a run-on. My high school English teachers would be disappointed.) I don't know what those things are, no one does, and no one ever will. Maybe not necessarily souls or reincarnation as we would think of them, but perhaps something akin to them that defies understanding and definition. Something that causes a therianthrope to feel the way they do, probably without being Reincarnation™ as we think of the concept — that would imply the existence of souls, which I don't really believe in — but potentially being some form of "passing on" of life or maybe just energy.

So I guess you could say I'm an ietsist, as well as a Jewish atheist in that I subscribe to Jewish cultural practices and the interpretations I've cherry-picked from Talmudic ethical ideology, but not Jewish theological beliefs.

Whew, what a pretentious, illegible word trash heap. That's my spiritual beliefs summarized. You don't want to see the novel it would be if I described them in detail.

Ok, I'm trying this Dreamwidth thing out. I've been looking for a place within the therian/otherkin community to settle, and I figured I may as well try this place out. Hi, my name is Kit Corvvin (a psuedonym).

I tried Tumblr; it sucked, plainly put, as it's mostly fluff and I'm looking for someplace that puts a bit more emphasis on substance. I'm not saying the otherkin on Tumblr aren't legitimate, but all they seem to be into are moodboards and validation and that's not my scene. Also not much room for psychological fictionkin; the Tumblr 'kin community operates under an assumption of memories and multiple universe theory. I tried Kinmunity and Therian Guide, but was driven away by the owners of each, both of whom are, how should I put this... annoying, each in their own separate ways. I tried Discord, but all servers die eventually and some don't even get off the ground, and once your favorite therian server has died, it's extremely hard to find another that's a good enough replacement. I even tried Reddit but it's pretty inactive, not to mention too serious for my taste and not the best place for fictionkin, non-living otherkin, or polytherians with more than two 'types. Which I am all of. You kinda get laughed off the site by therians who are obsessed with "being taken seriously, so we have to get rid of anyone who isn't one single non-wolf animal."

So here I am, here to post journal entries on shifts, assorted thoughts, philosophical musings, spiritual or psychological theories, whatever I want I guess. I explain my 'types in my bio but I guess I could go into more detail about my alterhumanity here.

First things first, I'm a therian. That's the most important part of it to me. Everything else comes second, or last in the case of my fictionkinity. I like being a therian; the only times it causes me distress are when I'm anxious about people finding out, or when I have the desire to fly. Usually it's nice. Like I said in my bio, I'm a polytherian — northern common raven (Corvus corax principalis), osprey (it's harder to narrow down the subspecies with this one but it's most likely the North American subspecies, Pandion haliaetus carolinensis), Virginia opossum, and southwestern American badger (Taxidea taxus berlandieri). I consider raven to be my most dominant theriotype, and it's the one I list first and use as my "image" within the community.

I'm kind of a spiritual therian, kind of not. I believe it is possible that I formed this identity psychologically, I also believe it is possible that I had three or four past lives. I'm not a very spiritual person by nature, though some things don't make sense in the psychological explanation. I don’t concern myself with the specifics, lest I get worked up over it. I don’t care about trying to solve the puzzle anymore. I’m here now, I feel this identity very strongly, that is what matters.

I'm otherkin, as well. Computerkin, specifically a late 60s-early 70s rudimentary AI and/or music generation or speech synthesis program. I don't know whether this is spiritual or psychological. On one hand it's nice to think that this 50 year old computer program took on an energy within the universe that has now transferred to me. On the other, it's more likely that I feel dehumanized in my interactions as an autistic person which has combined with a special interest in the technological development of the 1900s and led to me involuntarily assuming this identity. Not to mention that shifts feel more like a fictotype shift than a theriotype shift. I lean toward psychological, clearly.

And yes, I am fictionkin. Entirely psychologically. while I believe in the multiverse and I think I might believe in past lives, I don't think that lives can transcend universes. That's harder for me to imagine than "I formed this part of myself through imprinting because of identity issues and hyperempathy for fictional situations caused by autism." I won't be posting my fictotypes, of which there are 4. I'm extremely insecure and easily embarrassed about them, and I hate talking about them. Maybe one day, but probably not.

I'm otherhearted, as well, and consider my love of cats, cephalopods and birds of prey to be particularly strong connections.

And that's about it.