DO IT !!

However , there will be no pancakes for her with that unsightly behavior when this entire thing blows over. Or is waffles her weak spot ? Crumpets maybe?

The dark side has cookies. Let the sugar rush flow through you.

I say give her prunes and let her enjoy the new liberation!

No I think their tails are a sensitive, maybe even tender body part. Pulling it close is probably an instinctive reflex to protect it.

It isn't a particularly useful thing for combat, but Nea used a double-tail-slam when she was escaping with Major in her arms.

There is so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin with

I don't mind answering any questions or talking about my experiences, if you would like. Granted, the use of "wrong" is a little... unnecessarily confrontational. But I understand it. I'm very weird. But I don't shy away from it, I don't pretend to be something I'm not, and I don't hide from it or from people who don't understand it.

I don't expect you to understand, even if we talk, but I'm perfectly willing to answer as much as I can. Generally, I'm happy to just live my own life, write my stories, and exist as best I can. I don't judge humans for identifying as humans, even if I can't understand how you can feel that way.

I don't want to understand, thanks

[edited out]

Be nice to each other, or else.

How do you suppose this disorder works? Maybe your nervous system has problems with processing the human body plan both in proprioception and visually, and your subconscious mind fills the gap with hallucinations. Has it always been this way? I suppose you did not always know about Yinglets, so did this develop later in life or did you just find out it is for some reason easy to hallucinate yourself as one?

Thank you for your questions! I'll do my best to answer them, but feel free to follow up with any more, or to ask me to clarify anything I say here. (If you find the comments page cumbersome, feel free to email me at Typhin at gmail dot com.) Also, I apologize in advance for the sheer wall of text. I write lots. I wrote half a million words across three series in my first two years of the hobby.

First off, you've used the word "hallucinate" a couple times, and I feel like that's not necessarily the most accurate word to use. At no point am I ever under the belief that my physical body is anything but human. I never SEE anything but skin and fingernails, the sensations are purely a sense of "This is what my body SHOULD be, but ISN'T, and the discrepancy is causing severe discomfort and frustration and displeasure." I don't know if you were imagining something else, so I thought I'd just clarify that in case you were.

I honestly have no clue how it works. What form felt "right" has always been painfully difficult to really nail down, and it's drifted over the years. At times, some forms end up easier or harder to "channel", as in focus on the phantom limb sensation and listen to it. It's been frustrating that there is basically no medical research into this that I can find.

The closest I've found is something called "Body Image Integrity Disorder", in which the person's "body map" simply doesn't include parts of their body, such as an arm or a leg. Such a person will feel dysphoric over the presence of the "extraneous" limb, because their brain is basically constantly telling them "You don't have that arm, you're not supposed to have that arm, that's not your arm, it's wrong." That condition appears to be caused by lesions on the brain in the areas responsible, so it's entirely possible that some other physiological difference happened in mine which causes me to feel "extra" limbs. I don't know. I do know, however, that it's REALLY uncomfortable to see the medical opinions boil down to "These people are brain-damaged and therefore should be denied bodily autonomy." On one hand, I don't necessarily think amputating a limb is a great thing to do. On the other, it doesn't really define any sort of clear line on why this is bad, but other procedures aren't. The justification is generally that it would create unnecessary hardships, but that still completely ignores the very real effects of constant dysphoria. Also frustratingly, that's about the point where all documentation of BIID that I've found ends. It feels like "The same idea, but the complete opposite", so I don't really know how applicable it is to my situation.

I've felt this sort of "phantom sensation" for pretty much my whole life. I also have been more or less unable to see a human form and have any sort of instinctual "That's like me" reaction. Maybe that's from an excess of bullying and isolation, that made me feel like humans are a Them. I'd say it might have contributed, but only in a minor way, and it's also hard to tell what is cause and what is effect in that case. Was I bullied because that disconnect made it hard for me to make friends? Or did I grow disconnected because I was bullied? Who knows?

One incident that is still very vivid in my memories happened at around the age of six. I had an incredibly vivid and realistic dream, which included elements I couldn't properly comprehend at the time. I remember waking up and trying to sort through it, trying to make sense of it, and saying basically, "I was some sort of 'winged alligator' thing? In a building. And then everything was on fire and I knew somehow that I had caused it." I'm sure I had seen dragons in some form of media by then, even if I didn't properly recognize what I was dreaming that night. I don't know if that was the first time I felt such a strong connection to a nonhuman form, but I definitely felt the tail and wings around that time.

When I was younger, it didn't really seem quite as pressing. I was me, and I didn't really comprehend how different I was at the time. Any talk about it was easily brushed off as childhood imagination. Even when I tried to get the idea across to a therapist I had between 5th and 6th grade (Pro Tip: Telling a kid 'You're not allowed to attend 6th grade unless you're seeing a therapist' is not a good way to help their self-esteem! Who'd've guessed!?) that I didn't feel like I should be human, she did not understand at all. I didn't have words like 'anthropomorphic' in my vocabulary, and it was incredibly frustrating to get across the idea that, "No, I don't want paws so I can't be made to do dishes or other chores. It's not about abdicating responsibilities, it's about what feels right. They'd still be hand-like enough that I'd be able to do chores, I would still be doing chores, I would still be doing everything I'm doing as a human, I'd just have ears and a tail and paws and everything and my body wouldn't be Wrong."

About your questions about yinglets, well, you're right. They didn't exist as a concept until about ten years ago, since they're an invented species for the webcomic "Out of Placers" by Valsalia, which started in April of 2015. I'd been reading the comic since pretty shortly after it started, but I hadn't felt the connection, or the phantom sensation/proprioception/etc until September of 2022. I don't really know how it works, because this particular form didn't follow the pattern of all the forms prior to it. I guess I can't really try to explain that without getting into the history of the forms I've felt.

As I mentioned before, the sensations kept shifting, as well as being imprecise. You can't "feel" what color your hair is, for the most part, but you can picture yourself with a different color hair and "feel" that it doesn't fit you. But also, you can be in a different mood for different color hair, at different times. That's sort of the best analogy I've come up with for the imprecision. That aforementioned therapist anecdote had me trying to explain an anthro rabbit form, but the first "mostly solid" one I can remember was a dragon form as a teenager. I had been trying to nail down based on things I saw in media, picking what fit and tossing what didn't. Almost every depiction showed them as being massive, which absolutely did not fit me. Dungeons and Dragons was the first media I remember seeing them shown to have a variety in personality, and not be treated as "A big threat for the hero to kill", so of course I latched on to that, which led me towards "half-dragon", or anthro dragon. In the books, what was described hardly fit at all, but it opened up a new avenue for exploration. Getting internet access later on allowed me to find the "furry" community, which was certainly an eye-opener. With a wealth of new art and media, I was able to narrow down the feelings much more easily. I didn't make a "character", but I did portray myself as non-human online (in the context of "We all know we are physically human, none of us are claiming to be physically non-human. But that's not important right now." Again, just trying to head off possible misconceptions I've seen in the past.) as an anthro dragon. Offline, I was still feeling the tail and the wings. My brain knew what impulses to send to the nonexistent tail to make it move, and would try to send them in response to emotions. Part of my subconscious would see various surfaces and objects and think, "I bet it would feel so good to just dig my claws in and pull down, like scratching an itch inside my fingers. I wonder if this is the same urge cats get with a scratching post, it feels like it might be." while at the same time, another part is reminding me, "You don't actually have claws, you can't do that, you'll just have to keep wondering about it."

I stuck with that form until I was around 19 or so. Despite all the effort, there was still something about it that was slipping out of my grasp, so to speak. Eventually, that discontentment drove enough of a wedge that I started looking for something else that would fit better. Around that same time, I'd joined an online chat program which let you pick an animal from a list. My naive self thought, "Oh, well, obviously everyone is gonna pick dragon. I wanna stand out and be unique. I'll pick something nobody else will pick. I'll pick Fox!" Oh, how little I knew, heh. Regardless, something about the form just made it click for me, sending a rush of "YES, that's it! That matches!" to the point where I assumed the wings were an error. They'd been faint or missing for a while anyway. Looking back, I think a big part of it was the size. As I said, every depiction of dragons had them be simply massive, to an extent that was dysphoric on its own. Either way, I spent the next five years trying to refine Fox as a form.

It just couldn't be done, there were too many differences that drove that wedge in once more. The once-clear sensations had grown muddied and generic. So, one day, a friend of mine invited me to Second Life. (If you're not familiar with it, it's basically a precursor to VR Chat.) Since I was using a basic generic avatar, it was human, and so I was trying and failing to create a paper bag to put over my head. I think one of the people at the gathering felt sorry for me and/or was amused by the joke, so she gave me a copy of an avatar she was working on. She said it was so I could help her test it, and all she asked was that if anyone asked me where I got it, I'd send them her way. The avatar was a skunk, and once again I had that sudden rush of euphoria, like the form was resonating with something inside me. I adopted it immediately, and kept that as my "Main Form" for about ten years.

I don't know how long it had been faded for, but a while. Again I was unable to get anything concrete from the sensations, again I was left confused and questioning. As luck would have it, an ex of mine (mutual breakup, on good terms, we just wanted different things from the relationship is all) was asking my advice on her Second Life avatar and her form. She didn't have the same phantom sensations I did, or at least not nearly as strong, so it was more about the look and such. She had been trying to nail down a horse/fox hybrid, and was trying to determine which traits should be horse and which should be fox. Being a bit silly, I started "campaigning" for her to pick hooves for the feet. So I was going through my collection of avatars and adding hooves to each one. "Sure, mouse is cute and all, but how about mouse with hooves? Bam, instant improvement. Hmm, not doing it for you? All right, well, skunk is a classic, but how about skunk with hooves? Bam, check that out! Okay, not sold, I get it. How about rabbit? Rabbit's adorable, can't go wrong with rabbit. But how about rabbit with hoo-- ...Oh. Oh okay. This is, uh... This hits. Dang. This is me." It truly just hit me like a truck, with how strong that Resonating was. It took me some time to nail down the aspects of it (In my limited experience, the breeds I identified as the closest matches were Mini Rex rabbit and Gypsy Vanner horse. The first is known for ludicrously soft fur, the latter is a draft horse built for work and strength, and both can have coats in a "broken black" pattern which felt the most right.) but I kept that form for nearly eight years.

Throughout all this time, in the background, I was constantly trying out other forms for a day or two. Trying to evaluate how well they fit, if they had any aspects that fit extra well, and just for the sake of variety. One of the ones I kept returning to was dragon. This time, however, I'd been able to free myself of the media I had known as a teenager, and the assumptions they carried. So now, this form wasn't anthro, and also wasn't big. Around the size of a large dog or a mountain lion, with blue scales, and smooth horns that went straight back. Well, around the end of 2021, possibly due to stress, I'd been using that form for comfort while talking with my boyfriend (we're still together). I realized I'd been pretty much using it 100% of the time, and so I decided to accept the sign and switch my profile pics over yet again. Soon after, I also started taking up writing as a hobby, writing a story series featuring a dragon that was directly based on this form, and a personality based on myself. What was supposed to be a silly little short story has since bloomed into a trilogy of novels (though Book 3 is incomplete, with progress on hold due to health issues) titled "Princess Tells Her Story". I'm not good with names. The first chapter was posted on Jan 16, 2022.

A bit into this, I started kicking around ideas for another storyline, one I couldn't really do with the story I already had going. One featuring a hoofbun, since I still liked the concept. I also was thinking of it in terms of a metroidvania game, partially because there's a dreadful lack of games with a properly non-human player character, so I was also focusing on giving her abilities and equipment. What I didn't expect was for this to lead to a reconnection. It broke two "rules", in that it was "a form I used to have but faded", and "a form that resonates while I still have another form that's still resonating". Neither of those had ever happened before. It caused a bit of anguish before I came to the decision, "Well, I'm the one making the rules, aren't I? This whole thing is an attempt to categorize and explain the sensations I'm feeling. If I'm feeling two different forms, and I refuse to include that in the explanation, I'm not approaching this properly." So I then had two forms that I could essentially switch between at will. I also realized I was never going to have a team to be able to make the game, so I pivoted to writing a second story series. The vibe changed to "comic book in text form", or at least that's the feeling I try to evoke when writing it, and it got the name "Exodimensional Hoofbun Flopsy" (as it's meant to bring to mind the sort of cheesy splash screen intro one might see in some anime or manga). The first chapter of that was posted Aug 24, 2022.

In September of 2022, life events hit me hard. It was deeply unpleasant, and involved people with a tiny amount of power deciding to make my life hell simply because they could. Acting out of hate and malice, even though they gained nothing from it. Perhaps because I had been rereading the archives of OOPs once again, I found myself truly connecting to the creatures. Just like in my life, the yinglets were pretty used to any human they meet treating them like crap. Punted around by hateful giants, powerless to do anything about it. I think my exact words were, "Weeell, crap. Yeah. I'm a yinglet. That's new." It helps that physically, they share a number of traits I've often included as accurate. The tail is thick and muscular, the ears are mobile, and I find the smaller size appealing a lot of the time.

Perhaps because this one was stress-induced, I found myself actually "locked" to it, as I couldn't seem to "call" either of the other two Main Forms for a few months. And since "calling" a form is a key part of my writing process, in order to fully convey the body language and physical sensations the main character is feeling, I was actually stopped from being able to write. Eventually, I created a storyline starring a yinglet, and started to write it. I was hoping that by doing so, I could clear the jam, vent it out of my system, and move on. The first chapter was posted Dec 6, 2022, with the second on Dec 30, and then I still couldn't write in January. It did seem to at least partially work, as I was able to resume writing in February, and this time for all three series.

Since then, I've still been something of a "quantum superposition" of the forms. I only feel one at a time, but I can usually "tune the radio" to switch to another, and usually it can be done so fast and so easily that just thinking about the form at all will trigger it. Such as being called by the characters' names or otherwise having any interaction that acknowledges one of the forms.

Well, that went a lot longer than I had anticipated. It's also really late now, so I plan to lay down to rest. But please feel free to reply or email me if there's anything more I can try to clarify. I hope your day goes well. ^_^

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How do you suppose this disorder works? Maybe your nervous system has problems with processing the human body plan both in proprioception and visually, and your subconscious mind fills the gap with hallucinations. Has it always been this way? I suppose you did not always know about Yinglets, so did this develop later in life or did you just find out it is for some reason easy to hallucinate yourself as one?

You're not wrong, but I think she's been forcing herself to shut down all kinds of emotions ever since she woke up alone and imprisoned on an unknown planet. Now that she sees a target for all those emotions, the floodgates have opened.

I fear it'll be a diplomatic disaster if somebody doesn't stop Nea immediately, whether or not any humans get caught up in her attack.

*Soldier who impounded Dans Fjord truck parks it near the building, presses the lock button on the key-fob. All of the Rharr save for Gharr fall asleep.*

I very much hope any of those remote-control signals are encrypted.

Yes, cars' power locks (and also "keyless go" systems) use encrypted signals ... for certain (but nontrivial) values of "encrypted" that still allow a certain rate of thefts. In other words, prevention of replay attacks is not always included ...

Flipper Zero in Majors pocket goes "Blib".....Nea then keels over.

I remember an old Danish fellow telling me of his days in the RDAF as an electrical/radar/communications engineer when a civilian started showing up to the base with one of the early remote lock cars.

They used the base equipment to read the signal then played it back over the high powered transmitter, laughing as the guy tried several times to lock his car, only to have it unlock again.

The funny part for me is that this was during the cold war and there was probably some poor Soviet listening station picking it up and wondering what the flip it was for.

Well, depends. Any chance that a bootleg copy of Maximum Overdrive had already arrived over there ... ?

WARNING: Commanding officer activated granny mode!

"This whipper snapper killed my whole group"

I used the same thing on an earlier page with Ahshu, so nope, it's just an effect.