So… there’s been a lot that’s happened in the last few weeks. Things that on their own could be a blog post, or an entire goddamn series. But… right now, I kinda want to talk about something fun. Complicated (and I’m not sure if I quite do all the feelings, words, and thoughts I have justice), but fun.

I’ve had an experience over the past few weeks that I could best describe as “the deepest identity swap I’ve ever been involved in.” It’s made me think through a lot of things - who I am, what I like about profile play and form swaps, and what happens when you swap identities with someone, only to find… yourself at the end of it.

Form swaps and identity play are things that I’ve always had a lot of fun with. I’ve enjoyed the thought of turning folks into clones of myself, and have done so repeatedly and happily. Likewise, I’ve also enjoyed being turned into my friends - imagining how it’d feel like to be them, to have their body and interests, respond to their name…

Profile play is just an extension of that. It’s going so far even as to claim the name of who you’ve been turned into, see their icon and name where yours would be, post and have that be next to your posts… It adds a level of intensity to it, and it’s one I’ve found to be my guilty pleasure. It’s also… one that’s a bit difficult, since people typically don’t like it when their friend suddenly and without warning changes their entire profile to be someone they might not recognize - hence, the guilty part of guilty pleasure.

While it’s been a while since I’ve been able to go really in-depth into profile play, I’ve had a rare opportunity to indulge lately, though, and. gods, that’s been an experience.

The Predictable Outcome of Gathering A Bunch of TF Horny Furries on a Single Akkoma Instance, Owned By a TF Horny Furry Who Likes Profile Play and Understands Programming Well Enough to Mod It#

So… Cohost closed down recently. The news kinda hit me like a truck. It’s news I told myself was coming - it was kinda inevitable, their financials were never great - but I was still depressed the night I learned about it. While it wasn’t a perfect site, by any means, it was the only site a lot of folks felt comfortable on, and for myself, it was my “middle ground” - somewhere that felt public enough that I could feel seen, but not so seen that I was in danger. My fediverse account was far too locked down for that, and I do not feel safe on Bluesky.

As the closure came closer and closer, I heard talk of a project being started - something called the Website League, that was to try to be its own sort of separate fediverse that did things differently to try and replicate the design philosophies of Cohost. I was curious enough to give it a look… and within a few days, I had decided to myself that this is a project I wanted to succeed, or at least do as much as I could do to help, using what I knew about the fediverse to assist where I could.

To that end, I ultimately did two things. First, I decided I would try to lower the difficulty of setting up your own instance by offering support and writing guides on how to do it. One problem with the fediverse is that nodes tend to be run by people privileged enough to both be able to afford hosting space and techy enough to know how to run it - I wanted to at least try and lower that barrier a little. The second thing I did was decide to spin up my own multi-user instance.

I knew the sensible option would be to create a general furry instance - something that can attract a broad number of people, but still feel like I belong there. But… transformation’s been something that’s been a core part of me since I was a little kid, and was also what my wider multi-user fediverse instances were themed around while I was still trying to do that. So… I went with a furry transformation-themed instance for my Website League node - pleasetf.me.

Tenna Gets To The Actual Point of This Section Instead of Multiple Paragraphs of Preamble#

Okay, okay, I get it, I get it! I’m trying my best, okay? We’re pretty much there.

Fast forward a few weeks, I got everything set up, and things started in earnest. Folks started joining, and while there was still much to be done with respect to making it feel less like another Twitter and more like Cohost, I, admittedly, wanted to give my instance a bit more… charm relevant to its name.

At first, this manifested itself in simply changing the placeholder text when you’re about to write a post - although, I wanted to do something a little extra, and so I made it suggest various forms you might turn into, in the form of “Just turned into ___”. I put down plenty of possibilities, from simple (raccoon, fox, wolf) to the more esoteric (the server this instance is running on, the concept of transformation, the person below me).

Of course, since I’m someone who loves clone TF and swap TF, one option just so happens to be “Just turned into Tenna (oh god do I have to manage the node now).” This just so happened to be something that was rolled by a critter I had seen a lot, but never really felt bold enough to approach (since I thought they were too cool and I’d be bothering them) - KaydeArcane.

A bunch of teasing later, there was yet another new feature added - the ability to lock people into their current avatar and display name. It was at first used exclusively for it… and then shortly after, it got used on me, too.

As of writing this blog post, there are five folks who are locked into forms on Please TF Me. Two of those are me and KaydeArcane still.

What are we currently turned into, you might ask?

A gray and orange inflatable goat stares at itself in the mirror, blushing a little.

...Each other.

Meeting Someone You Think is Really Cool, Teasing Them Into Becoming Your Sona, Being Teased Into Becoming Their Sona, And Then Endlessly Teasing Each Other Into Staying Like This Potentially Indefinitely#

Do you like the titles? I've been thinking about writing an isekai.

...Jokes aside. I did kinda describe a lot of what happened right on the tin, but... there's more to it than that, of course.

(Note: From here on out, I will be referring to myself as Kayde and KaydeArcane as Tenna. You... probably should've expected me to do something like this, given the title of this blog post and the fact I changed fonts to the one they use on their blog halfway through. Oh - and if you're reading this on RSS, I changed the fonts a few paragraphs ago, thought you should know. 8P)

I think, perhaps the most unique thing about this whole situation is just... how similar we are. We're not, like, the exact same critter, but we're similar enough that it's interesting, it's like the universe is teasing us a little. The details aren't something I'd want to go through on a public blog post, but... in some ways it's absolutely hilarious, and in other ways it makes us feel for each other.

And... it makes a form swap very intriguing. Kayde and Tenna, as characters, don't really look too alike at all, and yet... swapping forms felt more like stepping into another reflection of myself than I expected. It showed when Tenna informed me that I was doing a really good job at being Kayde, despite the fact I, to be honest, had not really known how to be Kayde.

When I step into another form in a form swap, whether it be clone TF or swap TF, I generally try to mimic the personality and identity of the person I'm becoming as much as possible. That tends to be tough when you've only known the critter in question parasocially, however, so I didn't really... change all that much, and I assume the same was the case for Tenna. And yet... we both just... fit well into our roles - and, in some ways, supposedly better than our own performances as our own characters. It's the kind of thing that makes a pair of TF-horny critters even blushier considering the implications of this.

The Intimacy of Form Swaps#

I like to interrogate my interest in kinks and fetishes from the perspective of “what does it say about me as a person?” To some extent, the curtains are simply blue - I just think they're neat. And yet... often, I feel like it says something deeper about me. Granted, a lot of this is me just throwing stuff at the mental wall of my mind and seeing what sticks, but sometimes it makes a fair bit of sense to me, at least.

I consider what it means to swap forms with someone else, especially someone else who is similar to me in thoughts, feelings, and reactions. I also consider all the past ones I've done - all the times I've turned someone into Tenna, or all the times someone has turned me into them - sometimes even to the point they leave a little bit of a long-lasting change, like sockpaws from a former partner and current close friend of mine, or a scarf from a certain friend I intend to draw Tenna with one day.

For someone else to take on my form is for them to, in a way, say that I am desirable enough that they wish they were me. Likewise, for me to take on someone else's form is to do much of the same towards them. For two critters to swap forms is for them to profess almost a sort of love for each other. This doesn't necessarily have to be anything deep - it can be pure infatuation - but there's something about two critters mutually considering each other so desirable that they wish they could swap bodies with them. Fellas, is it gay if you swap bodies with each other? You literally wanna get in another man's body.

It's something that... has to be taken with balance, though. As I pondered over it, I considered just how much my self-esteem may have been playing into my own desires. It would make sense, after all, for a critter who does not like itself to want to completely abandon who it is in favor of someone else. It bothered me even more when I considered that those same sort of thoughts might've been something bouncing around in Tenna's head, too.

It's the kinda thing that made me realize... the deepest I'd personally want to go is to a point where, at most, my default may change - but Tenna is still a part of who I am. And, Tenna shared much the same opinion with itself and Kayde. I've seen a reflection of myself I did not expect becoming Kayde - and yet, that does not stop Tenna from still being a reflection of myself, too. They both reflect a part of me, like both do for Tenna as well.

...there's something funny about saying that, though. I do tend to find a part of myself and meaning in who I am in changing into someone else's form, but rarely do I find it by just being myself - usually it's exploring all the changes, physical and mental, that come with it, understanding what makes me me and what makes them them. In this case, though, I found a little bit more about myself by just growing into my new body. And... I have to say - this exception sure feels cozy.

Some thoughts?#

So what now? Well... I'm still Kayde, and Tenna's still Tenna, as of the writing of this blog post. 8P As far as Tenna goes... I'm gonna call it KaydeArcane for this next paragraph:

Until further notice, KaydeArcane has my full (nontransferrable) permission to use Tenna in any works it wishes - commercial or otherwise, as long as it still has an interest in being Tenna in some way itself, said works are not being sold on a cryptocurrency blockchain, and it is not using Tenna in an attempt to impersonate me (the critter who created Tenna.)1 It would feel pretty awful of me to separate it from its own identity, after all!~

As for myself... it's given me similar (although, not as formally worded) permissions with Kayde, something which I've felt honored to be given. It's something I'm going to try and use responsibly, and have a lot of fun with all the while. I don't know how long I'll be like this, but. I'll enjoy it while I am.

One might say I'm entering my goat arc.2

Edit (22 Oct 2024): Tenna's released its own blog about its experiences with this - and I think it has some really good insights of its own about just what this all means to the both of us! I strongly recommend checking its blog post out (and the rest of its blog, too, it's extremely cool and well-made!): Kaydes Study - Site Updates, Personal Events, and TF-Based Identity Things (18+)

[1] I have strong doubts that the latter two cases would happen, or that they'd want to transfer these rights somehow, but wanted to dot my I's and cross my T's, all that fun stuff.

[2] You see, it's funny because I realized “GoatArc” would be a good username for myself in this period, especially if I go into this in the long term, because, it's my goat arc, and also, Kayde is a sort of modifier species known as arcanian, which, one might shorten to “arc” - it's a double meaning! (...I thought it was funny, at least x3)