Since I have seen I have not posted here for a year and a half and my last attempt at introing.. really kind of fell flat on its face. I think that I might be able to answer these questions a little better now, at least. I will do my best to not become defensive as I have most certainly become so before, to be honest, i've become downright skittish, and I hope I can 'not be defensive' this time. I will also do my best not to ramble, though I hope to give sufficiently detailed answers, and not to overuse elipsises this time. ~ Are you a therian? If yes, What is(are) your theriotype(s)? Yes, I'm a therianthrope. I call myself a faerie fox. To be specific, i'm a fox with butterfly wings and 5 tails. To those who saw me intro a year and a half ago, i have to say I am a bit nervous to come back and say that I have meditated, i have had m-shifts between then and now, and contemplated the logic or illogic in this, only to have these things simply be reasserted or reinforced. I will explain more about that later in the questions that are appropriate. I will however note that I have learned that my definition of what a faerie is, is strictly my own. It may be wrong, there may not be any such thing as faeries, and the wings and tails may have belong under another classification I simply haven't discovered yet. But from my own contemplations into the matter, they are there because i'm a faerie. I readily agree that this is a circular statement, that I am defining what a faerie is based on being one. Its also one I cannot easily resolve. I'll leave it to say that I do not know that I am a faerie for sure, because I cannot easily define what one is unless I use my own definition which may or may not be valid. I'll just leave this as 'i'm not sure'. Note: No I am not a kitsune. I have spent long enough in introspection about that obvious association to be able to rule it out. And if you talk to me for any amount of time, you'll find I know a great deal about kitsune due to my research. Why I don't believe I am a kitsune, is appropriate for another discussion. ~ What lead you to the conclusion that you are the theriotype(s) you consider yourself to be? Several events across the span of my life. I will try to make a list here and try not to ramble in the process. 1) Dreams. While I would not be foolish to ascribe everything I believe to dreams, I would have to say that I have gleaned a great deal of information from them. Some of them were not always 'foxy' in nature, but many were. Most of my theri dreams come in one of 3 forms: a) I am living the life of an animal, usually a fox, especially in the last decade. b) I am in a dream as an animal, usually a fox. I can clearly see in many of them the presence of 5 tails and the wings I speak of. What I am doing in them is as varied as any other dream. c) I am in the dream as my human form but I see my wings, the 5 tails, and vulpine ears attached to me. There is one significant dream I had back in around.. 2001 I think. Mid 2001. At first I thought this was a p-shift, then later I thought it was a lucid dream, and now I believe it was the result of me m-shifting in my sleep: I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like I had to use the bathroom. I woke up with what I could only call 'full body tingles' like what you get when your leg 'falls asleep' but across and even in my body. Everything felt heavy. I still had to pee, so I proceeded to the bathroom. Next thing I remember is being in the bathroom and looking up at the toilet seat from the ground. I remember wondering why it was above me. The next thing I remembered is being on the bathroom counter. No clue how I got up there. I looked in the mirror and saw myself. As in there was a fox staring back at me in the mirror. 5 tails, and wings I can only describe as belonging to a butterfly, but they had a pattern I never saw on any other butterfly I ever saw. I stared at myself for what seemed to be 1/2 hour. That image is pretty much well burnt into my mind. I remember feeling like the tingly was getting worse and I wanted to sleep again. The next thing I remember is being back in my bed, thinking if i was still gonna be a fox in the morning. Of course I wasn't. I have no evidence that I ever got to use the bathroom. I dont claim to think it happened physically. It just felt like it did at the time. This was, my most intense 'shifting event' I had in my life. 2) I've had m-shifts before and after this. I have a detailed description of one I had on the 31st posted in my livejournal but its friends only, and pretty long, so I will not describe it here, unless requested (which i'll put in another post). I can induce m-shifts, but I think most therians figure out how to do this to some extent. But those ones aren't anything like the ones that happen on their own, which I'll summarize: Usually a serious of events, often stressors, are a catalyst for them. Other factors might be present, like I might actually be dressed up with a set of fox ears and tail like I was for halloween .. For the first 30 seconds to a minute, I still have conscious thought.. Sometimes I give thought to whats happening to me. I feel fur on me. I can look down at myself sometimes and see it, but in a phantom sight, like someone set the alpha on these things to like 75% or something. I dont always see it. But I invariably feel it. mostly i feel the ears, the tails (and I can feel more than one back there.. I can feel them hit eachother sometimes) and I can feel wings. I'll describe those in more detail later. But i've always felt wings, in fact, previous attempts to pin down my theriotype came up with 'owl' and 'dragon' based on the fact that I could undeniably feel something coming out of my back that could move and that could move me. After about 30 seconds to 1 minute, i lose a great deal of conscious thought and control. To be specific (and it was another therianthrope that helped me to translate this to words, Falcon specifically) my brain becomes only part of the process of deciding what i'll do next, a voting member in decisions my entire body decides to make. I'll give examples if asked for them, to avoid post bloat. This lasts 5-10 minutes usually. Then it ends. 3) Sometimes I have what I call 'fox-threads' in my life. They might be some kind of lesser m-shift, where i'll be in a situation in which my mind will fire off a thought, emotion, or reaction that is decidedly non-human, and usually vulpine. Like randomly yipping at something. Sometimes at work even, where I end up trying to do a 'cat-coverup' of trying to find some other way to quickly explain it off. Sometimes i'll react to something, and my mind will react unreasonably. Like when someone is yelling at me about something I did, rather then wanting to go to my room and hide, i'll want to dig a hole under the house and hide in it. These are examples, and they're probably easy to write off. But they are members of a procession of such things across my life, and I dont see any reasonable way to write them ALL off. ~ Why do you believe you have this/these theriotypes? This is partially answered above. But something I would have answered above, I am answering here because I believe it is one of the reasons for this particular phenotype. I only remembered this recently.. I dont know how I could have forgotten this event, except maybe because the memories around it are corrupted.. Will explain more.. Other than having been able to visualize the form in the last decade and it seeming to have a more 'vulpine' form factor than any other animal I have yet encountered.. I've always had these m-shifts, and looking back on them, I could only look at them with the bias of already being a fox. But if I do my best to remember them, I can see that I did not always know I was a fox. At one time, the m-shifts were incomprehensible things that just drove me to do things, like eat an egg raw, and other such things. When I was really young, I thought I was a cat. Later I thought I was an owl ( around 13 ). Later after that, a dragon ( around 18 ).. There is a difference between knowing something exists, as in being able to associate the word fox with a picture of a fox, and realising something exists, as in knowing the attributes of something and being able to compare it with your own attributes. It took encountering a fox for me to make the connection. A random one. It was the first time I ever encountered one face to face that I can specifically remember. The memories around it aren't .. precise. Like I forgot parts of it, or possibly m-shifted in the middle of it, because I remember at that point feeling similar. Only this was different than a usual m-shift, as the fox was sitting there and it was looking at me and staring, while I was looking back. At some point there was like a flash of white light, but not one that was visible. It was like it happened in my mind, because I heard a kind of dull exploding sound in my head.. I knew the sound didnt come from outside, it was something I could tell, and besides, the fox hadn't moved. But it looked different. It looked .. brighter. From this point it becomes mind subjective, and I can't It still had all the same colors but it was brighter somehow. Maybe I was seeing its energy or something. But my attention was kept.. I remember looking at it in every detail over the course of like, a minute, or something. I wasn't counting. I had felt phantom limbs on myself before this.. But in this instance, when I felt them, there was some kind of association with the creature in front of me. I realised my tails were like fox tails. Even though I knew I had 5 tails, to me they were just 'tails'. I knew I had ears on my head. But until then they were just ears. This event turned alot of my knowledge into realization. To name a specific place, this occured at Hancock Brook Lake, in Terryville, Connecticut. At least I am pretty sure, read on. I dont know if there was some kind of spiritual link with this fox that was there. I dont know if the fox was there specifically because I would be. I dont know if it were fate, or circumstance or what. It was after this event that dreams of being an animal became fox dreams. Where m-shifts became fox m-shifts. And I am actually shocked I had to re-remember this event. Where it gets weird is that after all this happened, the fox ran off. Though it was like slow motion. I saw every detail of its movement, the flexing of muscles. The rotating motions of the ears, how they could pick up sound and focus on direction. The way the tail would move up and down while running, almost as if its tail were showing a wave representing its next movement.. It ran into some bushes that, to my memory, are in Pennsylvania. This doesnt make any sense. I dont know why this would be like this, all I know is that this must have been forgotten somehow, and.. Well I just dont know. ~ What is your "connection" to your therioside? I am what I am. I don't think I have any connection to foxes that any other foxes don't naturally share. I do believe that if I were able to physically become a fox tomorrow, I wouldn't have any issues establishing territory, hunting for my food, maybe even finding another fox to settle with and establish a family with. Ultimately, this means i'm saying that i'm connected to foxes in the same way that any fox is connected to the other ones. I do like foxes, of course. And I get kind of crazy around them. I start making fox noises at them the last the I saw them at the zoo a few years back. I like to talk to them. They bark back at me, usually. Can't honestly know what i'm saying, unless what I think I am saying is actually correct. Can't honestly know what they're saying, unless what I think they are saying is actually correct. Guess the best way to put it is I might know how to talk to foxes, but I can't ever be sure. ~ Why are you your therioside, and not something else? Again I think I've detailed this above. If I am not a fox, I would be hard pressed to figure out just what else I could be. I've visualized my form in detail, in several different forms. I don't look exactly the same, all the time. Especially in dreams. Overall dreams have been the most varied of my visualizations of myself. Sometimes I have stood anthromorphic, sometimes non-morphic, sometimes human with specific attributes. But ever since the incident above.. after that particular one, there were 3 dreams following it, and they were all fox. For the last decade whenever I have dreamed being an animal, its been a fox. Not a dragon, not a wolf, not even animals I'd like to try being, like an otter or a cat or a raccoon.. And I admit it, sometimes i'd like to be something other than a fox. To be completely honest, I did not go around as a fox at first even thought I knew I was one. When I encountered the furry fandom, I was first attracted to it because it espoused the spirituality that therianthropy does today. Back in 1995 at least. It showed me there were others that had the experiences I had, and that I wasn't alone out there. Even more, it told me that I was not 'nuts'.. or if I was, it was OK to be nuts. anyway.. I also learned that foxes had a 'stigma'. I didnt want anything to do with that stigma, so I ended up going around as a cat for around 2 years, of course, it didnt work out, or last. Even though I love cats, I'm not one. And the only way I could really have a conversation about myself was to talk about myself as a fox. It wasn't good enough for me to just continue putting 'cat' where 'fox' should be. When I announced I was a fox, I felt like I was coming out of the fox closet. :/ But i've certainly never went back. ~ Why does therianthropy feel "right"? I've known about therianthropy since SabreLion on WereNet.. and honestly the way weres acted in those days scared me somewhat. Back in those days (probably around 1999-2000) I was still quite attached to the furry fandom, in fact, its safe to say i've been raised in the furry fandom. But i've watched the spirituality of the furry fandom wane. It doesn't really matter what it has become, it matters what it has stopped being. Lets get to the point. Therianthropy feels right because i've compared the experiences of many other therianthropes and they are analogous to mine. Sometimes less so, sometimes more so, but there are always common threads. For the most part, when I talk to other therians about things that i've felt and experienced and encountered in my life, I find myself talking on common ground. This is common ground I cannot even find among furries, even those who call themselves lifestylers. Lifestyler furry has come to mean something else in the last decade. Those who had furry spirituality back in the old days, who knew what it was and what it meant to BE a cat, or a fox, or a raccoon, or a dragon even, or whatever, for it to be something that one still was when they went to work, went to sleep, living their day.. well it seems most those people call themselves therianthropes now. And.. to be honest, therianthrope sounds so much better than psychotic.. ~ Have you questioned your thoughts at all? Have you ever doubted your therianthropy? I used to doubt myself, long ago. I used to be my own harshest critic about what phenotype I was. My entire life used to be based on introspection, back in the days I was still walking around as a cat. I think this was partially because I was unwilling to accept being a fox. Like I said, I was raised in furry, and I did not think myself to be a slut of any kind, I did not consider foxes to be slutty either, but the fandom sure did. During those times, I believe I would have rather been anything other than a fox. I remained a cat all that time (at least to everyone else) because I did not want to change every week to every species I might have been contemplating. If I remember correctly, it was May 23, 1999 that I officially came out of the fox box. After that, despite seeing many other appealing species I would have like to have been, they never .. fully matched. At some point, I just accepted I was always going to be a fox from now on. I will be the first to admit it is much harder to doubt myself these days, perhaps because I have experimented so many times along the way.. with other theriotypes, only to find myself back to myself within 2 weeks. Its like, once I was sure, once I saw myself and found it, it was there. Coming onto the #therianthropy channel, and onto these forums, many years after the fact, I had found I had forgotten how I got to this point. Therefore I have not been able to properly answer these questions. I'd taken me a while to reclaim those answers, and to be honest, I probably haven't been able to completely. I am still pretty certain i'm a fox. Mostly because I feel it. Not because 'it feels right', but because I can feel it and see it and because I have to face it. I believe there is a possibility i'm wrong, but it would take a great deal of counter-evidence to go against what I have already experienced and known. As for being a faerie, I have to admit I cannot be sure. This is always in doubt, especially when I try to figure out the definition of one, which doesn't have a firm definition outside of the one in my head, created from my own self because I happen to think I am one. Its a circular argument and not based in logic. However it is a convenient banner to place the anomalous attributes I have as a fox, like the multiple tail thing, the butterfly wings. These things I can measure by their presence in both phantom sensing of them, and encountering them in m-shifts, and being able to see them when I am meditating. But they are odd for a fox to have. But I have little choice but to accept their presence. I have other attributes I put under the 'faerie' banner that I won't bring up here because they only make sense to other faerie (making the assumption, that I do due to being one, that faerie exist). The bottom line is that I could be dead flat wrong, about being a faerie. They very well may not exist and I may encounter evidence of this fact. My experiences say otherwise, especially if all the other faerie i've met also do exist. Confusing it is.. Ultimately I can't be sure i'm a fox, but it seems to be the best explanation. I cant be sure i'm a faerie, but it is the best explanation for the miscellany that I have yet found. As for being a therianthrope.. If I am not a therianthrope, then I am something else. Psychotic perhaps. I might be psychotic. It seems like the more I think about it, the more the question is reduced to 'therianthrope' or 'psychotic'. And well, i dont really like the second option. ~ Have you ever shifted, if so, what sort of shifts? Were they deep, were they triggered, how often? Please read above. I've described a few up there. Additionally i'll summarise one m-shift that fucked up my life once: At the time I was very much in love with a wolf named Silvertail. He didnt live very far away. And yes, we got together often, and slept together.. Well one day, I m-shifted during.. yeah. You get it. After I came out of it, he was totally unnerved. I never thought to give him any kind of m-shift warning. Probably because I never m-shifted during sex before. Of course, I hadn't honestly gotten much of it before, and, not to be mushy or anything, but I dont think my love or my emotions were ever that strong as at that time. He said I was romping around his bed yipping and yrrrrfing and rubbing my head against the bed and rolling around in it. He looked totally unnerved. He said he was trying to talk me down for the last 10 minutes. It actually took me about 5 minutes to connect what happened to an m-shift. I tried to explain it to him.. he said it was OK.. but he broke up with me a few weeks later. One of the reasons he gave is "I am never going to be able to understand your spiritual stuff..", of course he hooked up with another wolf within a month so I will never know if this was the real reason. While I could give you Silvertail's IM address to confirm this event, i'd hope noone would. For my part, I do vaugely remember him talking to me. But I cant for the life of me remember what he was saying.. anyway.. ~ What do you hope to gain from joining these forums? To be quite honest, I want to be around people who I can talk about therianthropy, and all the events that occur related to it, and not get more blank stares than you get asking about HTML colors in Radio Shack. It's pretty important to me to be able to find a place where I can just be me.. where I can be a fox and it's OK. I've been reading some of the threads, i'd like to respond to them. I want to discuss therianthropy, especially how it relates to ones life, because, i do actually feel clueless sometimes. Mostly I guess I just want to be here because I need to talk about these things. I dont feel there is any place else to do so. Even if I went to an otherkin forum, not nearly all the things I want to talk about are on topic or even relatable by them. Maybe some of them share an animal aspect to them, and I could relate to a few. But most of them wont know or care about the animal side of things. ~~~ I suppose this post is long enough now. I hope that, at the very least, I have fully answered the questions given, for better or worse. --Loxorion