11-19-25
Dog therian and opossum mascot? what *are* you?
short answer: Delphi is my fursona, and my internet persona, and my name! I’m a dog that likes dressing as an opossum, a creature of love and whimsy :3
long answer: there's parts to it!
part one: fursona
Delphi as my fursona came around long before I started exploring my therian side.
I had come up with it (no art or reference) sometime in 2022. Delphi was a name I
picked for it derived from its species didelphidis virginiana, as well as a
reference to the Temple of Delphi, where my two biggest patrons are worshipped.
It was going to have a much more classical design when I first thought of it,
referencing Lord Apollo and Lord Dionysus, but that changed over time.
It wasn't until 2024 I commissioned Jolly to come up with a design for it, and she
did a wonderful job!! Delphi as my fursona has entire lore and is different from my online identity, although I would say the personalities influence each other.
part two: Delphi as an internet persona
Delphi was a name I started using as an Internet alias around the same time,
and built a kind of persona for myself. Hiding behind my fursona and ‘being a creature’
(I had already had non-human feelings just could not pinpoint them yet) allowed me to
express parts of myself I wouldn't have without anonymity. Delphi was someone I could
step into who had no expectations, no opinions about them, because it wasn't real,
when I logged off it ceased to exist. I was more confident and felt freer to indulge
in myself and what I liked. There's irony in needing a bigger mask to fully unmask lol.
Spending more time in pup and therian spaces, I was able to realize that my non-human
feelings were coming from a canine perspective. I thought of coming up with a separate
name because Delphi is so attached to ‘opossum’, but nothing really fit. I think it
was around here that Delphi split in two, my fursona, and persona
part three: Delphi as a real life person( yet to be confirmed?)
At the end of 2024 I had finally split from my ex, 3 years of disassociation
and emotional weardown had left me lost, desperately craving some sense of
identity. A familiar mask called to me, why don’t we try Delphi, irl?
I tried it in dating but most defaulted to my ‘real’ name once they found it
out, and I was still too anxious to try it in social endeavors at first.
Reluctantly, I have to give credit where credit is due to the one who
encouraged me, may my love never find you again but thank you Lucky.
The club was the first place I introduced myself as Delphi in person,
and hearing it back to me, to my face, it really cemented this is *my* name. I haven't really gone back to my old name socially since.
part four additional comments
For several reasons I still choose to use both, I appreciate the difference
between my ‘normal’ name and Delphi, there's a distinction between those parts
of my life. Delphi is innately tied to my queerness and kink, an identity of its
own. The horror I would experience hearing my family use the same name dommes have
barked at me would send me into space.
Although Delphi is the same name I use with drunk strangers on a weeknight,
if you know me in person and I ask you to use Delphi, it's special, a certain
kind of intimacy. As much as this name has fostered a facet of myself that
emboldens me, there is a rawness exposing it to those I hold close. There is a
difference between the anonymous ramblings into the digital void to a potential
audience of maybe 3, and baring that to the ones that hold my heart in place.
Delphi, in all its forms, is who I want to be, even if I only get slices of it right now.
