Evolution of Dog: A Beastpup Timeline
* Click HERE for the PDF version with images!
2012 (Early Findings)
We start with Gina, a plain brown (on some occasions black I believe) wolf persona meant to be a loose reflection of the self as a wolf. There's a possibility this character existed in mid-late 2011, but I don't have artwork to confirm that.While not on Gina, it is also worth noting that this is the first example of feeling drawn to the "brown with black points" pattern. I remember applying it to at least 3 different characters.
2013 (Identity Exploration)
This year is where we start to see two similar but still separate representations: Alex and Alyn (pronounced: AL-ee-Alex was the direct representation of myself as my kintype (or theriotype, as at that time I identified as just therian rather than therian and otherkin). Alex is depicted as a brown wolf with black points, often wearing a collar with the theta-delta symbol as a tag.
Alyn is a sort of "catch-all-self insert" that I would use to represent myself in old Quizilla WWFFYs/WWYFFs. The name Alyn is a blend between Alex, one of my preferred names, and Y/N (fandom-speak for "your name", IE: a self insert). This character ranges from anthro (humanoid) to feral (animal-shaped) depending on the story, but always has brown fur with a lighter brown underbelly and red eyes. It's also worth noting that Alyn is one of the two names I'm still referred to in the system.
2016-2017 (The Golden Year)
This is a big jump from 2013, but things were mostly the same for a while. We're going to focus on two depictions in this time period: my wolf kintype (unnamed) and Mono.I'm not using a name for my wolf kintype since at that point there wasn't really any separation being done artistically. This is also around the period of time that I found out that brown wolves with black points were real! In a sense at least, as black-phase wolves, so I was finally able to depict myself more accurately. The earliest depiction I can find to align with this is my "X of Swords" personal tarot card, which was drawn in 2017. That wasn't the year I discovered the coloration was real though; I would date that about 1 to 2 years earlier.
Next up is a wolf pup OC named Mono. Late November 2015 is when I played "undertale"—and yes, we are finally getting close to today! We're at the mid-point folks, this section will be a bit longer than the others since there's so much connected to Beastpup.
By the time January rolled around I had created Mono, who was originally made for the underfell AU. Continuing the design that's been relatively static over the years: Mono is a brown wolf pup with black points. They also wore a red shirt and black jacket with a neck ruffle, with how they obtained it being "a spare that shrunk in the wash".
One of the most notable aspects is the lore, which I'll list as brief bullet-points for the sake of this timeline:
- Normal wolf pup falls into the Underground
- Stray animals that fall are usually studied or experimented on (moreso the former if DOA)
- Was the first successful subject of soul splicing and merged with two other monsters: a dragon and a raptor-like one
- When exposed to excessive amounts of magic, would take on physical attributes of the merged monster (labeled: soul-charged). Would grow spikes, sprout feathers, paws-to-hands, etc.
Soul-charged Mono is important to focus on because that is more-or-less Beastpup's design. The design is originally based on a blend of my kintypes: wolf, dragon, and dromaeosaurus. The lore shares a lot of similarities too, which I will cover in the final section.
2018-2019 (The Fursuit Era)
These years are when I started to get into fursuit making, since I really wanted to go to a local fur con and I considered fursuits to be a good way to allow others to see me as I see myself. But if I wanted to make a fursuit then I needed a design, and what better design to use then the OC I already had based on all of my kintypes. I drew a more "finalized" design and named that draft "beast_pup" (The first acknowledgement! Wow!).Although drafting as early as 2018, the full costume wouldn't be complete until 2020, just in time for the last furry convention before the pandemic.
During this era, Beastpup was less of a character and reached "kinsona" territory (so "just me in art form"). The design was just a collection of all 3 of my kintypes mashed together, as a way to equally represent all of them at once.
There was even still a small callback to the undertale era. The "mane", which black-phase wolves have, was exaggerated as a homage to the neck ruffle of Mono's jacket.
Late 2020-Present (How TF Did We Get Here?)
A few years into Beastpup's (shortened to Pup in the system) existence, and the connection to undertale never really left. While my interest mellowed out for a while, in winter of 2020 I started to feel an ever-growing connection to the world that wouldn't go away. I had to take time and think "ok, what's going on". This is around the time that I occasionally mentioned that I was questioning a 4th kintype, and also refined Beastpup's appearance a bit more.In addition to the connection, I was starting to get bits of noema that were similar to Mono's lore but not...quite. These bits were:
- Normal wolf pup falls into the Underground (same as it was)
- Stray animals that fall are usually studied or experimented on (again, same, but in this case more ethically)
- Was the first successful subject of soul splicing. The difference being that in Mono's universe soul splicing was to be weaponized. In Beastpup's universe, it was prototyped as a last-resort way to possibly revive (but not resurrect) someone.
- Rather than "soul charged" (which in this universe doesn't exist), the changes in appearance happened gradually over several weeks and were permanent.
- Most notably this all takes place in the past, so a majority of characters present in the game aren't around
I (unsuccessfully) tried to explore this with meditation and OBEs like I had done with my other kintypes, but in the process I also gained a headmate from that universe that I could talk to and get a clearer picture of things.